//------------------------------//
// Shy's Secret 
// Story: Puella Magi Maredoka Magica 
// by pinkamcna 
//------------------------------//

	Gilda lay in bed beside Dash, the only place she felt she belonged, when a faint silver glow got her attention. "There's a witch nearby," Kyubey remarked from her window, "it's your obligation and your duty to hunt it. Come on."

A detestable groan escaped the girl's lips as she sat up, feeling the warmth from both the blanket and Dash leave, resulting in her shivering. "Are you kidding me?" She whispered, careful to not wake up Rainbow. "It's like, three in the morning!"

"I did bring her back to life. This is the least you can do to repay that act, don't you agree?"

With a huff, Gilda crept out of bed as carefully as she could and made her way down the steps and into the hallway. She slipped on her usual brown leather jacket when she heard a sleepy call from the top of the staircase. "Gilda...?" Dash yawned, rubbing her eyes. "Where ya goin' this late?"

"Just a nightly jog, Dash, don't worry about it. I couldn't sleep." It wasn't really a lie. Was it?

After a few moments, her friend nodded and turned to head back for the bedroom. "Just be careful." If she had been fully awake, more concern and protest certainly would have taken place. Gilda silently thanked Dash's sleepy, mellow personality.

She left, shutting but not locking the door behind her. She never locked it, not since the city in which they lived got marked on the bottom of the crime list. Besides, there weren't any doors to lock out on the streets, where she had grown up and spent a good majority of her life. "So," she said to Kyubey in a relatively neutral tone of voice while walking toward nowhere in particular, "where do we go to find this witch?"

"You should know from just holding your soul gem. It's a weird connection, but it works all the same." 

Gilda nodded and transformed the necklace into its original gem form so that she was able to hold it in the palm of her hand. Immediately she could feel something- she wasn't really sure what, but it was an odd alien feeling- telling her to go to the right and down the street, and so she did. Kyubey padded alongside her silently, which she took as a sign that she had to be doing something right.

"I guess it might have helped to give you a briefing on how fighting works, at least; oh well, it can't be helped now. If you die in there, it isn't my problem, since your wish has already been fulfilled."

"Please," she scoffed, shooting him an irritated look. "You say that as if I've never fought before in my life. I can take care of myself no matter what we're up against."

The glowing of her soul gem gradually began getting stronger, and in accordance with it she began to quicken her pace. "How much farther?"

Kyubey glanced at her. "There." It padded over to the outskirts of a parking garage, where a black gem much resembling her soul gem stuck to one of the support beams. "Touch it and we'll enter the labyrinth." 

She nodded, reaching out to clasp the seed with her hand. Chills ran down her spine as she felt the world around her morphing into the 'labyrinth', Gilda still not really understanding the concept of it all. The landscape around them was a harsh blend of purples and pinks, the ground beneath her feet powdery snow. Pale green spotlights scattered the ceiling, some flickering and a few of them broken altogether. 

"This is a labyrinth," Kyubey stated, "It's what a witch creates when she is born. It's to protect her, and also so humans won't sense the strong magical power that each one possesses."

"Okay. I think I get that." Since they were in the labyrinth, she thought it best to transform. "So I just..." She held the soul gem in the palm of her right hand, closing her eyes and clasping her left hand tight around it. A silver aura encased her and she could feel her body changing. On her appeared a grey tank top that morphed into a ruffled skirt past her waist. Leather gloves that were a darker shade of grey manifested on her hands and went up her arms, and black combat boots appeared on her feet.

She opened her eyes and grinned. "This part's pretty cool, I'll admit." Kyubey nodded as she continued to speak. "Though I gotta ask... what's with all these different colors mixed like this? It's hurtin' my eyes."

"Depending on the witch, labyrinths vary greatly in the way they look and the things you'll find in them. You never know, so keep your guard up," it then added, "also, all magical girls have a specific weapon to fit them. Try summoning yours."

She didn't exactly know how, but Gilda wasn't one to ask for help. She tried to picture a weapon manifesting in her hand and a silver mace appeared. It looked a lot more heavy than it felt for her, and even though she'd never held a mace it felt strangely like she knew exactly how to use it. "Good! You can disappear and resummon your weapon at any time during battle. It uses up a bit of magic, though, so I wouldn't reccomend it."

Gilda nodded, giving the mace a few swings to reassure she could use it without screwing up. It turned out that she indeed could, and they continued on their way. The sound of clattering caught her attention and she turned to see small, crudely-built robots coming toward her. They resembled a small child that had to be no older than a preteen. She charged at them, swinging her mace and seeing them vanish in a silvery light. "Be careful not to use too much magic. Witches can sense magical girl's presences if you do."

"Right." She let her mace vanish in the hopes that she hadn't alerted the witch. The ground below began to morph in odd ways, the white snow slowly fading to a crimson red- most likely to represent blood. Gilda gulped. No way I can be afraid of some colors. And what is that smell... is it rust?

They kept going, passing several groups of robots on the way. She was running, to avoid having to fight them. If the witch didn't know she was here yet, she intended to keep it that way. After a few minutes of running and dodging, she came to a velvet purple door with a stunning blue handle. As Gilda opened the door, she couldn't help but feel that this all represented something important, but she couldn't quite figure out what that was.

She pulled open the door, a shrill scream hitting her ears the second she did. She had to close her eyes and cover her ears to avoid splitting her eardrums. "What.. the hell was that?"

"She knows we're here." Kyubey muttered behind her. "Get your weapon ready. There's no going back now."

"Yeah." Gilda summoned her weapon, the mace appearing in its usual shimmering silver light. She felt the ground below them begin to rumble and she leaped up just as a pale pink rope shot out of the ground and grabbed hold of her ankle. "Shit!" she cried as she swung her mace, cutting the rope. She fell to the blood-red snow floor below her and quickly scrambled to her feet, mace once again in hand.

In the middle of the room, a robot much like before appeared, however it was much larger. As soon as it caught Gilda's eye she charged at it, mace back and ready to swing. However, she was completely defenseless when it came to head-on attacks, and a surge of green sparked from the robot's fingers, shocking Gilda and leaving her basically paralyzed. Another rope much like before shot out from the robot's hand and constricted Gilda, rendering her unable to move. 

She squirmed, but that only seemed to make the rope binding her tighter. She heard footsteps land somewhere behind her but couldn't turn her head fully to see who or what it was. She winced and closed her eyes as she heard a gun fire, but instead of feeling pain she felt the rope vanish into thin air and her connect once again with the snowy ground.

A pale yellow ribbon surrounded her, carrying her to the side of the source of the footsteps. "Get back. I'll take care of this, so don't worry, okay?"

"How'd you get in here? Who are-" Gilda noticed a pale yellow soul gem on a wristband on the girl's arm- "-you?"

The girl glanced at her and then leaped up and twirled, a few shotguns materializing from the bottom of her dress. She landed and they seemed to levitate around the witch, but Gilda could tell it took quite a bit of concentration, and it had to use about the same amount of magic. 

A green blast of energy, bigger than the one that had been able to render Gilda defenseless, was heading toward the girl. "Watch out!"

The girl didn't even move as one of the shotguns flew in front of her and flipped on its side to completely deflect the attack. Gilda watched on, stunned at what she saw. All of the other shotguns fired, and the witch seemed completely dazed. The last one shot out a gleaming gold bullet that seemed to pierce through the witch's skull. She vanished, and so did the labyrinth around them. The girl picked up the grief seed and cleansed her gem of the magic she'd just used. She transformed back into what were her normal clothes, a yellow tank top and a slightly darker ruffled skirt. She had on matching sandals and her long pink hair was up in a bun. She had light, warm blue eyes.

"Are you okay? Here, it's got a use left." She handed Gilda the grief seed which, with her instruction, she used to cleanse her soul gem. "By the way, I'm Fluttershy, and I have a feeling you're pretty new at this."

"I'm Gilda." She transformed back as well, feeling surprisingly unscathed despite having been paralyzed earlier. "And yeah, this was my first witch hunt. I guess I'm not very good at it."

"No, no, it's fine." She offered a hand to help Gilda get back on her feet, which she gladly accepted. "I've just been doing this a while 's all. How are you, Kyubey?"

"I'm fine, Fluttershy. I didn't expect to see you here, though."


*~*~*~*~*~*


"Wait, so you were-" Twilight started, but Dash quickly growled her shut.

"I'm tellin' the story here. And you still haven't heard the most important part."