She doesn't know this place, but she won't let that slow her down. Mercury focuses on the layout provided by her visor. The entire atmosphere of the place is disorienting, saturated in darkness and an unstable pulse, but whether the dark energy still present in her own body protects her, or whether secrecy does, she keeps her head. Her schematics are curiously blank in some areas - intriguing - but she keeps on a steady path towards her goal.

When a few beeps warn her of approaching life-energies, the spy secrets herself behind a pillar. Sentries come into view: blank-faced humanoid droids with black crescent moons on their foreheads - ready, she knows instinctively, to infiltrate and kill. Numerous and forceful, they'll be difficult to eliminate. And if they spot her, they'll raise an alarm. Mercury takes out a small device, a cell phone, and with a few clicks, she is costumed as one of them.

A moment later, the newcomer joins the group. It passes among them without notice and, if a very close eye were looking at the shapeless features, it seems to give a self-satisfied smirk. After all, these creatures can be dealt with in the same stroke as her larger mission. The false droid heads straight towards the very center of the castle.

At another time, the prospect of seeing the malefic black crystal reactor, the main energy and power source of this planet, might have been a source of fascination. But it is notoriously unstable. The force behind the enemy's threat.

This time, she is here to take it out.

He rises up through the stairs, his reticule levelled until his eyes readjust to the light, and sees instead masses of people... All dressed in curious regalia, reminiscent of the worlds he had explored, but in a more imitative style than cultural style he had seen in the nexii he had visited... Not to mention many of them seem to be feeding on snack foods rather than full meals they'd devour too quickly. Turning to the windows, he realizes it's a twentieth-first century Earth. No supernatural presences anywhere.

As he turns around, he realizes the cyan lines of the HUD are no longer there, and his eye level is lower. Something's off. Even as he walks, he doesn't so much hear thuds, but clicking. There is an advertisement on the wall about a “Convention” in oriental kanji, denoting the location as... Tokyo.

He puts a hand forward to lean on the wall to inspect the writing -- but the limb that moves forward is the delicate arm of a girl... and from the little he sees of the body, it's the gloved arm of a young senshi rather than the metal of the MJOLNIR.

...

He -rather, she- looks below.

"Not again."

Joan hears herself in a feminine voice.

She's already late for school. Homura runs at top speed - and of course she has a test today, which she never realized until this moment. She hasn't studied.

(It's still better than the dreams where she runs into battle, just a moment too late, just in time to see her best and only friend falling-

How many times has that happened? How many times has she relived it in nightmares?)

By the time she rushes into the school, breathless to the alarm of her classmates who are used to her calm punctuality, she wants nothing more than to sink into her seat. But then their confusion turns to laughter. Homura very, very slowly reaches up to her head...

... and runs her fingers along the headband with cat ears Madoka talked her into wearing as a costume when she spent the night. She pulls and tugs and yanks at it, but it won't come off no matter what she does. She frowns uncomfortably. Madoka, a pink-haired girl with pigtails sitting just nearby, gives her a sympathetic smile and will probably use the lunch period to tell her it's alright.

So much for the cool Homura.