"Your friend needs help because there's a monster that feeds on emotions nearby. If you'll let me touch her, I can heal the effect."

Ariel wracks her brain for ways this could be some kind of trap. She sucks at distrusting people.

"...fine," she says. "I'm still not giving you the talking cat, but if you can heal Anna, please do."

She doesn't get too close to the talking cat - though she keeps him in her line of sight.

She taps Anna, who sways then blinks, apparently better.

"You guys should leave before the monster gets here. And that thing is called Kyubey. They like to try manipulating young girls into deals for their souls. I'd suggest just avoiding them."

"...okay, I'll bear that in mind. Thanks for your help. Come on, guys."

She heads for the exit, still carrying the Kyubey in her arms.

The hallway is now a dark route into - what looks an awful lot like a nightmare carnival with enormous rose vines growing through it.

There's things moving around them, weird distorted shadows and walking roses...

The girl in the orange dress curses and pulls out a gun from behind her shield, aiming at the moving things.

Ariel curses too, and backs up to be nearer the girl with the gun. "You got a spare pistol in there? I don't have magic powers, but I can shoot pretty well."

"Yeah. Don't shoot yet; they haven't noticed us."

She hands one over. The gun's a caliber and weight Ariel's familiar with, too.

"Normal guns don't work too well, but I've modified these. Ideally I go ahead, draw their attention and get to the center - I can tank hits better than you - and you guys stay as near the edge as you can."

“I think we can manage that.”

She looks back at Anna and Sakura. Do they look like they can manage that?

They look scared, but resolute, and Sakura nods, sharply.

“Okay. Go ahead.”

It’s not that Ariel isn’t scared. But her life is a YA novel now. She's been preparing for this her whole life.

Also, she has a gun, which helps a lot.

"I'll be back. And Kyubey's probably gonna try pushing you into a trade for power, so ignore him, okay?"

She takes off without waiting for an answer, jumping clear over a row of monsters before firing into them - definitely drawing their attention.

Ariel's gun is down by her side, because she knows basic firearm safety; Kyubey's on her other shoulder.

She keeps an eye on the closest flowers.

Some of them start coming close and seem to notice the three.

The orange girl is mowing through her section, but she's advancing farther and farther from the girls, and losing the attention of the monsters near the edge.

'If you made a contract with me, you could be safe, and fight like she does,' Kyubey says, to Ariel and Sakura.

"...Not even gonna try to deny you're after our souls?" Ariel wonders, shooting a flower in the center of its blossom.

Flower: explodes.

'That is a misleading and inaccurate summary. Your soul isn't part of the contract. I give you a wish, and in exchange you become a magical girl and fight witches like this one.'

"Not being helpless sounds nice..." Sakura says, glancing around nervously.

"Hey, guys, who are you talking to? I don't hear anything," Anna says.

"Oh, yeah, I all kinds of want to be a magical girl, but," she shoots another flower, "the one girl who seems to have taken him up on it really doesn't want us to do it, which sets off some alarm bells for me, and I want to give this whole thing way more thought than I can afford right now. At the moment, I've got sixteen bullets left, so we're safe for now; if it looks like I'm gonna run out, maybe then we talk about making some hasty life choices. Anna, we're talking to Kyubey, the little critter on my shoulder. You missed his entrance because you were... hypnotized by a witch, apparently. You can't hear him talking?"

"No! I can't see him either! Or whatever you're shooting at!" Anna says, starting to breathe a bit hard.

"This is really freaky..." Sakura mutters.

"Shit, that's unfortunate. Kyubey, how come Anna can't see the magic stuff?"

'She isn't a potential magical girl. Only potentials and magical girls can see me or any witches.'

"Okay. Apparently we can only see him because we've got magic potential. So just - sit tight, and I'll keep us safe, hopefully just with target practice but potentially by making very hasty life choices."

She shoots a couple of flowers that are getting a little too close for comfort.

Flowers continue encroaching -

And then someone in a flat white, sharply angled dress with smooth black accents arrives through a runed portal that opens near the edge. She has a bow out, and starts firing glowing arrows that each take out a number of monsters -

"The other girl went in already, right?" she shouts over.

"Yeah," Ariel calls back. "Thanks for the help, I don't have so many bullets left."