[Participant in the Royal Road Writeathon]Note: I am launching a rewrite on October 1st, 2023.

What to expect:

1. THE FIRST 60K WORDS WILL HAVE A SLOW BURN, SLICE OF LIFE EMPHASIS. I am putting disclaimers here due to rating bombs and complaints regarding high school tropes. Expect a long term pay off — please refrain from flaming based on personal tastes with respect to school tropes.2. A Dark Magical Girl story with both fantasy and hard sci-fi elements. Influenced by a background in somewhat-popular Worm fanfiction.

(Content Warning: There are some viscerally real scenes of bullying in this story. It's a subject matter that has made a few readers uncomfortable.)3. A well-meaning 'Badass Normal' MC who frequently gets himself into trouble trying to do the right things.4. Noble Dark on the noble/grim, light/dark compass.5. Frequent updates and reception to audience feedback.

Two decades ago, the world as we knew it changed forever.

Aberrations — Horrific monsters borne from shadows poured through a rift in reality over major cities, bringing death and destruction in their wake. Soon, these events began to proliferate worldwide, throwing civilization into chaos.As the days dragged on, the Earth was pushed to the precipice. Armies were massacred, and cities were razed to the ground. Relics of antiquity were burned to ash. Just when all hope seemed lost, salvation came in the most unexpected way.

Thousands of heroes emerged from beyond the rift to Earth's rescue. Magical girls who embodied human dreams and imagination poured forth and stood firm against the darkness.

When the dust settled after an arduous war, those that remained standing discovered shocking, almost uncanny similarities between the two worlds of Earth and Terra. With Earth and Terra razed and depopulated respectively, the two sides of the rift joined together in harmony to rebuild, and stave off the continued Aberration threat.As a First Year drifter at the prestigious St. Antonia's Academy on Terra, Ikki never cared much for the battles fought by these magical warriors. His main worry was that he was on scholarship as a Drifter - an immigrant from the decimated Earth. To add to his woes, he'd managed to piss off the children of one of the most powerful men in Terra within his first month.

To him, Aberrations and Chaos Events were merely natural disasters like earthquakes that couldn't be avoided or worth stressing about. He'd experienced them. He'd known the horrors in his childhood, but that was a distant nightmare for him. Magical Girls and their followers were like celebrities and the military. It was something that good to know about and appreciate, as well as educate himself on, but not something to really pay attention to.That was, until he found himself in the middle of a disaster fighting for his life.