There are now a hundred thousand Magical Girls, with carefully managed specialties. Their targets are narrowly restricted, to focus the powers they build and to avoid deadly interactions between the biology of disparate animals.

Event Twenty-Eight began an hour ago, and something big is approaching the coast. Aquatic Magical Girls swirl around it, waiting for reinforcements - it seems to be an octopus of some sort?

Alia prowls the beach, breathing deeply of the sea, tracking the paths of every creature who passed through in the last day. She has four hours and twelve minutes of freedom and she's going to enjoy every bit of it. She stretches and runs and claws up the driftwood. She listens to two birds fifty feet away, swiveling her ears independently to follow them. She lays down on the warm sand and purrs.

According to the plan, her role is bait, to draw the activated octopus into their trap, avoiding the cities north and south. But this is the biggest actual monster yet. She might yet see action.

She licks her lips.

A crackle goes through the walkie-talkie. "Agent Aila, prepare for contact. Recon planes have provided intel; our bullets likely won't do much against this. The creature is currently advancing towards your position, just as planned. The creature would likely be far more vulnerable out of the water; we're trying to slowly direct it towards the beach. Do you copy, over?"

"Alia, copy that."

The ocean bulges as the creature ascends, and it emerges. It's got tentacles alright, fifty feet long and six feet wide at the base. It also has spines and a shell like an inverted bowl, glistening green.

It drags itself onto the sand.

Alia steps back to stay clear of its reach. A normal animal that big wouldn't be able to move on land, much less lift a tentacle to attack, but it's obviously not normal, and might have additional hidden powers too.

The creature tilts until one edge of its shell touches the ground and scrapes forward, pushing a truckload of sand into a pile. It backs up and repeats, deepening the hole until it could fit Alia's entire store inside, including the machines in the back room.

The octo-turtle-urchin crouches over the hole. Something round and leathery plops out with a thud.

"Alia, the creature appears to be laying an egg... multiple eggs. Should I engage? Over."

"It's an unnecessary risk. The snipers are ready to aim for any eggs or any other soft target you might reveal, and we would much rather prioritize the urgent danger of the squid. Over."

A pilot was flying an incredibly slow-moving biplane across the sky, the spotter in the rear seat looking through the plane's many cameras to see any hint of other creatures approaching.

Nothing that big. A twenty-foot shark circles just beyond the creature's trailing tentacles. Smaller fish swarm, nipping at the aquatic Magical Girls and each other.

The creature eases off its hole, fills it in, and continues inland.

"Alia, it's either ignoring all of us or is interested in me in particular. Request permission to circle south around it to keep it in reach of the aquatics, if it follows me. Over."

The creature crushes its way through a row of beach chairs, a food stand, and several trees.

"Excellent. It seems slow enough that you'll be safe and that the aquatics can slowly whittle it away safely. Act according to your judgement. Over."

"Alia, circling south."

It keeps heading inland.

The aquatics follow it, except for a few who can't leave the water, who team up to slaughter the shark.

Good news: she's not extra tasty, since it isn't following her.

Bad news: the behavior of the creature doesn't make sense.

She's specialized on fighting cats. She's fast and agile and perceptive, but doesn't have any special attack powers. "Alia, doing flyby recon." She dashes at it from behind, between the rearmost tentacles, and scrambles under its butt(?), looking for vulnerabilities.

She could attack it - only the primary contributor to the kill has to worry about acquiring the target's features - but doesn't yet. If it doesn't know she's there, she can get more information.

It has a variety of orifices and a beak.

She dashes back out. "Alia, it looks soft underneath."

"Great news, we can rush in some grenades or similar if you want to soften it up under its weak underbelly. Or maybe attempt to use a ranged weapon to make it run closer towards the aquatics? We trust your judgement as to whether you'd be able to take it out without using the support of the aquatics. Over."

"Alia, I don't think we can get it back to the water any time soon. I can deliver a granade. Make it a big one, I don't know if I can get under it again after my first attack."

They're asking her to take a suicide mission. If she finishes off the creature after the granade weakens it, she'll be half-aquatic. The creature itself is already a mixture that might be unstable, so killing it might cost them someone, but mixing it with cat is an especially bad idea.

"We're sending in the heaviest thing we think could fit under it. It'll be heavy for you, but you should be nimble enough to make your way under and get out for the final blow. We have a medevac helicopter doing rounds in the area; they'll get you the moment you've absorbed the creature. Everyone means everyone; we'll get you the finest care we could ever give you. Good luck."

A drone, racing across the sand, carries a purse towards Alia, with a heavy bomb placed inside. It's designed to easily be able wrap itself around Alia's stomach, with a simple clip to release it and activate the timer with an adjustable delay.

"Alia. Cancel the medevac. I want to enjoy my last three hours out here, and keep fighting."

Also hey she thought she was already getting the finest care they could give.

She puts on the bomb, sets the timer for 4 seconds, and dashes in.

As it crawls forward, it snaps the tip of a tentacle through her path -

- which she dodges -

but she dodges too far and brushes against the side of a tentacle.

Ooh what's this? Food! The best kind of food, which you don't even have to eat, you just have to kill.

The tentacles on either side of Alia smash together.