Puella Magi Makayla Magica

Chapter 4 The Factory Girl

I reluctantly follow Isabella back to her place. We enter the apartment, and sits me down and a living room area with two lounge chairs surrounding a coffee table before giving me a mug with brown liquid in it.

"I'm sorry," I say with my head down. I can't even force myself to look at her.

"Don't be. I just thought..." She trails off. "Nevermind. There's some things I wanted to discuss with you anyway." I take a sip from my mug before she continues.

"Tea?" I ask. Isabella nods.

"Yeah, but I expected you to put some sugar cubes in there.

"Oh." I can feel myself go red with embarrassment. Now what do I do? Do I drink it as is, or do I go for the sugar? While my eyes dart from the bowl of sugar to the mug, Isabella takes the mug from my hands and puts two sugar cubes in it while she giggles to herself.

"Back to what I really want to know, what's it like in Canberra." I think for a moment.

"Um... I don't know. Cold, I er think." Isabella giggles again.

"I thought you were the nervous type, but I didn't think you were this nervous. This type of tea is good at helping people relax, so I serve it, especially to new people." Honestly, I can't even tell the difference. It just tastes like tea to me, but I smile and nod to be polite. "What about the witches? What are they like?"

"Um... I mean, some can be difficult to deal with, but I can usually defeat all of them. And there's never more than I can handle." Isabella nods.

"This is just my theory." She says, looking up at the ceiling. "But maybe, the witches and Canberra are weaker than the ones here.

"Maybe." I shrug. We continued to chat about other random topics until I decided it was time for me to head home. Isabella did say I could stay the night, but I didn't want to make my grandparents worry about me, so I declined.

The next day, Mia approached me in the hallway between classes.

"Sorry about yesterday." She says with her head turned away.

"N-no, it's fine." Her head turns slightly toward me.

"Really?" I nod in confirmation, and Mia sighs. "Just so you don't think that I'm a bad person, I'm going to help you train to become more powerful. But I warn you that my training regime is pretty tough."

"Oh... Ok. Thank you."

"But before that, We have to see someone after school." Mia turns her head to fully face me. "But, just so you know, this was Chloe's idea." Wait, so which is it? Is Mia trying to be nice, or is Chloe forcing us to get along?  "Meet me at the old industrial district at five this afternoon." I don't know where that is. Should I ask her? But I don't want to make her mad. But would she be more mad if I show up late? Aaand she's gone. Great, hopefully, my phone will tell me where to go.

After school ended, I make my way to the industrial district on foot. Well, I say on foot, but I'm leaping from building to building. Sure, it's more overt, but I don't know which buses to take, and besides, this way is faster. When I finally reached the old industrial district, I realised that old is an understatement. The majority of the place looks completely abandoned, save for a couple of factories closest to the city clearly still operational. Although, what did I expect? These industrial districts are in every major city in Australia. It's hard to imagine there were a bunch of factory workers in these areas since it all looks so dilapidated.

I stand on the tallest factory I could find and look out for a bus stop. I'm guessing Mia would have taken a bus to this place like a normal person.

"What are you doing there?" A voice says from behind me. The surprise almost made my heart burst. I turn around to see Mia standing with her arms crossed.