Chapter Twenty - Magical Girls

Crossover: The Agartha Loop, by RavensDagger

***

“Yeah, but there’s just something about older women, you know, they have this...” Cassy paused mid-sentence, which was strange. She could really get going sometimes, at least when she was on a topic she cared about.

Amber looked to her blue-blonde haired friend, then looked around. It didn’t take much to figure out why Cassy was acting strangely.

They weren’t in the Academy anymore.

They might have been in Norumbega. The decor--part rustic, part modern--would fit right in with some of the shops next to the portal back to Earth. She hadn’t ever heard of a cat-themed cafe, but then she didn’t spend that much time outside of the Academy.

“Uh,” Jade said as she stepped up behind her.

All three of them--Amber, Cassy, and Jade, turned to the fourth member of their group.

Morgan, for her part, was frowning as she took in the room. “We were teleported,” she said.

“Wow,” Cassy said. “I’m so glad that you’re the first person I turned to, because I would never have guessed. It’s almost like I was not in the place I was walking to. I didn’t think I could find that out just by looking around and noticing the obvious.”

“Don’t be rude, Cassy,” Amber said. Though the statement had been a little obvious.

Morgan sidestepped around Jade and Amber and walked up in the lead. “It could be a magical pulling a trick on us.”

“Right,” Amber said. A trap, by those weird magicals that had tried to kill her a few times already. She felt herself tensing, ready to act. She wished that she was in her magical girl costume already, but she'd have to figure things out without the benefit of her costume.

“I can’t sense anything too strange,” Morgan said. “Then again, my senses are hardly the sharpest. Amber, Jade, do you feel anything?”

Amber shook her head, and Jade muttered a quiet ‘no’ next to her.

“Hey, you’re not going to ask me?” Cassy asked.

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Cassy, do you sense any differences in this place’s gravity?”

Cassy crossed her arms. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

Now they all turned to stare at Cassy, who had a distinct and powerfully smug look on. “Seriously?” Amber asked.

“Yeah, this place is lighter.”

“Lighter?” Morgan asked.

“There’s less... gravity stuff,” Cassy added.

“Could you be any less accurate?” Morgan added.

Cassy glared right back. “Look, no one knows how gravity works, alright? Just because I can mess with it doesn’t mean I get it. All the sciency books I looked into just throw big meaningless words around because sciency sorts are too cowardly to admit that they don’t have the faintest clue. But I’m telling you that the gravity here is lighter.”

“Uh, hello!”

The four members of team Svallin looked up to find a girl just a year or two older than them, with a nice apron on, and a nervous smile. “Welcome to Dreamer’s cafe, ah, are you... not from around here?”

“We’re not,” Amber confirmed.

“That happens a lot, I hope you don’t mind being, ah, brought over. We have a discount for people who have travelled here.” She gestured to the side where a sign hung on the wall. It had a chalk menu, and at the top, right next to some symbols that seemed to swim around like optical illusions, was some text in big letters. Realm Travellers Get a 20% Discount!

“What is this place?” Morgan asked.

“It’s a tea shop,” the girl said. “We get a lot of people from other worlds here. Ah, once you’re done, you should be able to go back home with no problems.”

The girls glanced at each other. Surprisingly, Jade was the first to speak up. “I’ll be honest, this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve heard of.”

“So, what do you serve here?” Cassy asked.

“Tea, cake, coffee,” the woman said.

“That sounds nice?” Amber tried. “Maybe we can just sit for a moment and look at the menus?”

“Of course!” the serving woman said. She grabbed four menus from a little rack and handed them over. “Pick any seat, and I’ll bring your things over in no time. Don’t worry about currency, we accept just about anything, really.”

The four of them moved over to a table off to the side and sat down, then they stared at the menus for a bit. “Okay, this is seriously weird, right?” Cassy asked.

“You’re asking for confirmation?” Morgan asked.

“Hey, I’ve only been doing the magic stuff for a month or so, for all I know girls end up in the magic coffee shop all the time,” Cassy shot back.

“If they do, it’s news to me,” Morgan said. “Should we call the school?”

“I checked my phone, there’s no signal,” Jade said. “Also, if gravity really is weird, we might not be on Agartha, or on Earth.”

“The Seelie, then?” Amber asked.

“You think they’ll show up?” Cassy asked. She placed her menu down, a few items already highlighted.

Amber shrugged. “We can try?” At the chorus of nods, she closed her eyes and focused. “Seelie, Seelie, Seelie,” she said.

Nothing happened for a moment.

Then there was a commotion from the back of the cafe, and a young girl’s voice called out. “Abigail! There’s a kitty cat in the kitchen! Can I eat it?”

Pots and pans banged and the girl that had given them the menus ran back into what Amber presumed was the kitchen. “Let go of that! It might be dirty.”

More banging, and the distinct sound of a mug breaking.

“Catch it!” the girl’s voice said. “It keeps slipping out of my tentacles.”

Amber and the rest of team Svallin stared wide-eyed as a disheveled Seelie burst into their part of the cafe and flew into Amber’s arms. “Protect me!” it screamed in a way that didn’t suit the Seelie’s usual calm tones at all.

The waitress and a little girl in a dress rushed into the room. “Did you see a-- oh, there it is ,” the waitress said.

“My snack!” the girl in the dress said.

Amber hugged the Seelie closer. “I’m sorry, this is, ah, our friend?”

“It will consume me, as it has consumed entire worlds,” the Seelie muttered. “It is the end of all things, the waking nightmare. Her reach is eternal through time and space. Why us, why us?” It was shivering.

“That’s my snack,” the girl said to Amber.

“Um.”

The waitress placed a hand on the smaller girl’s head. “No Dreamer, it’s their cat, though... maybe don’t let your cat into the kitchen, please?”

“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Amber promised.

“Wonderful! So, have you decided what to order yet” she asked, switching tracks in the way that only someone who had seen it all could manage.

***