It's the last few days of summer freedom before the routines of school and study resume, and you find yourself a little out of sorts. Parents are at work, siblings went to the zoo, and your friends are all off on various vacations with their families. In short, there's nothing to do - and after flipping through the stations, you come to the conclusion that there's nothing to watch, either.

With nothing else to do and your allowance burning a hole in your pocket, you decide to head down to the shopping center - maybe pick up some manga, maybe pick up a model kit, and maybe check out the new Heraldic Echo fighting game in the arcade.

Halfway to the shopping centre, taking your usual shortcut down a narrow alleyway, you're startled by a scene straight out of anime - a handful of sailor-suited girls facing off against some sort of bizarre half-person, half-demon monster, with mystical combat and flashy special effects dominating.

Though they're wearing sailor-fuku, these are obviously not their school uniforms. The blouses are tight, the skirts are short, and they have shimmering, flowing bows like butterfly wings about the waists. Their uniforms are similar, differing only in colour -- all have white short-sleeve blouses with capelets, but the accents match their skirt. The ones in red and blue could maybe be twins or sisters, with identical hairstyles - high braided pigtails in a cute, little-girl style. The girl in green looks a bit butch, taller than the rest with spikey, short hair and fingerless gloves. And the fourth girl seems, at first, to be all in white, though the light shimmering off her shows her secondary colour to be silver, with a large ribbon tied into a bow holding her hair in a high ponytail - the ribbon identical in style though smaller in size to the one at the small of her back.

Stopping to watch (and to stay out of the way), you observe them fight the 'monster.' You're still a little distant to discern the words of their battlecries, but you see fire and lightning, ice and beams of light. Their opponent fights back with seeming inhuman strength, but all too soon it is over. The 'monster' is bathed in silver light and you could almost swear that you heard orchestral music. The light intensifies, and then fades, leaving behind a well-dressed salaryman who looks confused and then disappears out of your field of view.

Following that, the girls also head down the street, leaving your sight. Thinking perhaps you stumbled across the filming of a live-action anime, you head out of the alley to investigate, assuming at first the fire and everything being holographic special effects or some other form of advanced movie magic. However, there are scorch marks, gouges in sidewalk and building walls, and even a downed telephone pole -- and absolutely no sign of a filming crew.

Faced with all that, you can only assume that it is real, and you just had a close encounter with a real, live group of magical girls. Looking down the street, you can just make out a group of four girls nearing another corner. You could probably catch up with them, but it might be safest to just continue on your way and pretend that nothing happened.