It would be nice if I had perfect recall of every mont of my life so I could review my mories with clarity at a convenient ti. But I didn't, so I couldn't think of the past and determine if there was sothing that I simply didn't notice, or if it just didn't happen. Though perhaps so forms of 'perfect' recall would only allow to witness things I noticed in the mont.
I wondered if there was a good spell for recalling mories. From what I knew, they were far better at removing them. Those were the sorts of spells that got people in big trouble if anyone knew about them. Not that I was interested anyway.
When had my Nondetection spell beco half depleted? That was the important question. If it was before we ca to Earth #2 then I didn't have much to worry about… here. Maybe sowhere else though. If it was here, I really wanted to find out how and why.
"Excuse ." I turned my head to see Momo- in normal human form. "I understand you are in contemplation, but you should eat sothing."
She held a tray of rice balls, which were still mostly not balls but triangles. I could probably survive indefinitely on Power Brigade energy bars, but that didn't an I wanted to. Nor did I actually carry enough for that. "Thank you," I said. Food was good.
Why didn't food give mana? Or maybe it did. I'd never been hungry for long enough to test either way. But if that was the case, then did typical mana regeneration indicate an area with practically no ambient mana?
That shouldn't be quite right. There was certainly so anywhere, and though I'd felt mana increase severalfold, regeneration increased similarly. Unless the amount of mana I felt wasn't actually directly proportional. Sounded like the sort of thing that would need weird super tech to test.
I think one of the rice balls had tuna. Better than the canned stuff Midnight carried, but that was to be expected. That was just ergency rations.
"Does anyone here study magic?" I asked Momo.
"In what way? Magical girls had a fairly instinctive understanding of their abilities. Practice still helps, of course, but there isn't much to study."
I frowned. "I'd think Humuruns would, at least. Do you know of any magical girls with divination abilities? Scrying, far-seeing, or sothing similar?" I couldn't know if magical terms would directly translate if I hadn't used them before. We were working off shared understandings, but that was imperfect even as Translation continued to improve.
"Generally, we all have powers for directly fighting against The Scouring, or for dealing with the consequences of their arrival." I rembered that all of them seed to be able to repair the surroundings- which was why they didn't have to shut down whole streets or malls literally every day. It might be good for the construction economy, but it would be a bit tough on the local budgets. "I don't know of anything like Scrying, but the country is broad. Though I suppose support types that specialize in tracking The Scouring might count."
"Can they track anything else?" I asked. "Like… those ninjas?"
"I don't believe so," Momo shook her head. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have had such trouble with them."
"Speaking of trouble," I comnted. "Have you had any more issues with them?" There could still be portals around Earth #2's Japan, theoretically. We hadn't even necessarily gotten rid of the last portal to Earth #1. Though that was sothing for my old world to deal with.
"I can't think of any incidents," Momo admitted. "I could ask Lady Eglantine. Our companions are the ones who know most about nonlocal affairs."
"Speaking of which… is The Scouring only an issue in Japan here?"
"There are a few other locations with incidents," Momo said. "Do not worry, the Humuruns who ca through were able to distribute themselves to select a companion."
"How did they get there?" I asked. "Can they teleport? Fly?"
"Of course," said Lady Eglantine, as the multicolored porcupine entered the room. "If by 'fly' you an 'stow away on airplanes'."
"That sounds… a lot less mystical than I expected," I admitted.
She shook her head, which sort of continued down the rest of her body through her tail. "Even if all of us had the ability, it wouldn't be magically efficient. Unlike your powers which seem practically boundless."
I made a face. "Are you kidding? I can only teleport four tis."
"How many tis in a day?" Lady Eglantine asked.
"That would depend on mana regeneration rate, and if I woke up in the middle of the night."
"Approximate. Sothing achievable under normal circumstances."
"Like ten?" If I assud the base of six mana per hour, and a reasonable period of sleep but also beginning in the morning with full mana.
"A limited pool and a high rate of recovery, then."
"It's not that fast."
"How much energy do you think it takes to go around the planet?"
"I don't really do that though. Teleportation takes so shortcuts."
"It's still not trivial."
I shrugged. "Probably not. How do people not notice you sneaking about?"
"You forget that we appear only to those we choose… or with magical affinity. Here, those are effectively the sa thing." She turned to Momo. "You had a question?"
"Well, Turlough did," Momo explained. "About farsight and tracking abilities."
How did she know to show up for that question? Momo hadn't texted or anything. Not that Humuruns appeared to have phones. If I'd know, that would have been my first question. Clearly there was a different degree of empathy or ntal communication than what I had with Midnight. We never got anything so clear as 'co answer a question'.
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"What I needed to know," I explained. "Was if there are any abilities people here might have that would interact with… people like . Because one of my anti-detection abilities was tested."
Lady Eglantine thought for so ti, after moving to sit on one of the pillows arrayed on the couch. "It is possible. Would it trigger against friendly uses?"
"How would you define friendly?" I asked.
"Well, normally others with powers from Humuruns," Lady Eglantine admitted. "Do you see us as allies?"
"Of course. But that doesn't an my spell wouldn't stop people from looking. After all, by the ti I know you're an ally, you have to have made contact and exchanged information which could in turn detect sohow, right?" I shrugged. "Anyway, it works against everyone that doesn't have an intrinsic connection to . By which I an specifically Midnight."
"Then it is certainly possible soone looking for civilians in danger might have passed over you. Or that an ability ant to find The Scouring would wrestle with your abilities to so extent, finding foreign magic."
"Hmm. But they're not magical, right? Not really."
"True. Bue we didn't design our abilities to exclude most supernatural interference. Just what we expected to exist. In short, other Humuruns… and not exclusively."
I nodded. "Because of the bad ones."
"... It's really very rare," Lady Eglantine said.
"Literally everyone in my first world has access to powers and thus has the potential to abuse them. Making mistakes with selection occasionally is fine compared to that."
"I see. Hopefully that information assuages your concerns, at least."
It didn't, really. There was so chance that soone accidentally brushed past , but it seed a bit more drained than that. Unless their divination abilities were particularly strong.
-----
Midnight and I were going to stay awhile, so I had him send a ssage back to the Brigade. We needed to take so more ti to gather lashes from different magical girls for testing purposes anyway, and for so reason not everyone was willing to give them up for the cause. Even though eyelashes totally grew back. I wasn't asking for all of them. Just four or five… per lid. What if upper or lower were better? I doubted left or right eye would matter, but I had a bunch of different baggies getting labeled. We didn't want to have to co back here every day or sothing just to try to use Contingency.
Of course, rather than sending the ssage we could have just gone back if I didn't have other things to do. One of those things was finding a ti when the safehouse restroom was available. That was where the biggest mirror would be.
"What are you looking for?" Burning Shrimp asked. "You think there are more monsters out there?"
I was quite certain that those would have been noticed, with the screams of people being attacked and all that. "Soone might have been looking for ," I explained. "Why are you here anyway?"
"I need to make sure you don't do anything weird."
What weird thing would I even do? Whatever, it wasn't like my magic was secret.
This wasn't the best Scrying mirror I'd ever had, but the best one wasn't a mirror and was in another dinsion, so this was the option.
Truthfully, I'd never had much luck with finding random magical things. I tended to focus on the strongest stuff. But in this case, that might be what I wanted. Especially if I looked for sothing that shared my sort of magic. I didn't have any reason to expect that except instinct. Maybe so extraplanar intruders ca here.
I gathered mana. Mists swirled on the mirror. Then… nothing. Midnight's tail flicked. "What does that an, you think?"
I had a pretty good idea, having felt the results firsthand. "Earlier, I sensed sothing. Soone shoved away. Now… there's nothing."
"So they left?" Burning Shrimp asked.
"Hardly. They just properly warded themselves. Getting a null result kind of ans I actually found them. Or I would have probably locked onto sothing around here. Most likely, soone with a powerful Nondetection spell."
"Weird," Midnight said. "I would have expected sothing like those Scrying anchors."
"I think those are better for people who can't use magic," I explained. "A workaround that Doctor Doomsday ca up with."
"Uh…" Burning Cupid frowned- I could see her in the reflection. "Is this Doctor Doomsday guy… a villain?"
"Obviously. He even chose his own na."
She shivered slightly. "I don't like the sound of that at all."
"Yeah, neither does anyone else. But he's very hard to take down. He creates the best super tech New Bay has ever seen. Apparently."
Midnight had more to add. "Most of it outdoes the actual advanced technology that the Martians and Celmothians have."
Burning Cupid looked up at the sky. "Do you think… there are Martians here?"
"Here on Earth #2 or on here on Mars?"
"This is totally Earth #1. Yours is the weird one," Burning Cupid said. "Anyway, in this dinsion."
"Humuruns are from much further, right?" I confird. "Not this system. So… hard to say. Gim an hour and we'll figure it out."
-----
There weren't any Martians. Either that, or they were really good at cloaking technology. However, Midnight didn't think so.
"My suit's sensors don't detect any graphical artifacts," he explained.
The bathroom was fairly roomy to begin with, but upon learning that we were going to look at Mars, we kind of got all the people- and Humuruns- staying at the safehouse. Or those who were nearby, since most of them had better things to do than hang around all day. Usually, they just had one or two keeping the place safe- and potentially keeping eyes on the weird extradinsional orc. I didn't think that was unreasonable, since even if we were friends I did tend to find trouble. Though I didn't think it was my fault here, since they had so much on their own.
"Wobble, stop getting in the way," Shield complained as her morphic tal companion pressed up against the mirror.
"I wish to see that mountain over there. Surely there will be aliens."
I shifted the view. Moving Scrying about was sothing I was used to by now. Without a proper target except 'Mars' I'd ended up with a nonspecific location, but it was clearly Mars. It looked just like the old pictures from Earth #1. Not that I recognized anything specific, which might have been more suspicious.
Lots of people were recording. Even magical girls were interested in Mars, I guess. I kind of wanted to keep looking for whoever had Nondetection, but bugging them more seed unsafe.
"Alright, you should probably stop recording soon," I comnted. "This is going to beco a normal mirror again in a few seconds."
There were a number of disappointed looks. Why were people so excited about Mars, anyway? It was just another planet. It didn't even have people.
Though if I thought about it… most of them had only seen Earth. Were there any rules about taking people from one foreign dinsion to another? Would Extra even have to know?
I wouldn't be good at lying, though. And it was probably better to not draw attention to them by going to the one world that had already crossed over with them.
As for whoever was hiding here… I might stand a better chance finding them from Earth. At the very least, I'd be better shielded from potential retaliation.
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