Out of Sight, Out of Mind

While the fox and tortoise both struggled to get up, Christie arrived to check on them. Meghan took this as her chance to grab the fox by the fur of its neck. A small twang seemed to go off in Hazuki's heart, but he couldn't really identify why it happened.

"You've been stringing us along this entire time, haven't you?" Meghan demanded, just as a loud banging of metal signified the professor's freedom from his golden confines.

"You went with it, though," the fox explained, its voice flat but definitively female. "You knew that without the orbs, you'd end up draining the energy of ordinary humans. You didn't want to be alone, either, so you begged me for companions and a system you could trust in..."

"The magician system." Hazuki gasped without thinking. Luckily, nobody wanted to listen to him.

"I did it to save Will. When you cured him of his condition, I thought you were a miracle worker." The pent-up tears she'd held were rolling down her face, and even though the words were clearly meant to be angry, she drew the fox into a tight hug while her arms shook. "I keep being haunted of these visions of him being dead, and I'm sick of it because I know that's what should have happened eight years ago."

In response to her feelings, the fox shrank until it could be held in her palm. Strangely, it panicked - it could no longer control its own transformations. However, if it had lost control of its own powers, then that would mean all the things the magicians had done with their powers would fall apart too.

Suddenly, all the magicians and their formerly human anchors hit the ground, a sharp, cold knife of pain searing through their bodies simultaneously. The anchors began to morph back into their human forms, while Hazuki tried to create a forcefield using his powers, only to find it wasn't working.

The Step Up girl watched them all, her cold gaze piercing them all as her body started to become intangible and fade away. Since she had been brought to this world by the contraption operated by the professor's powers, she had no place here anymore. Similarly, the professor's banging became softer, weaker, fainter...until it disappeared entirely.

Hazuki trembled to his feet for what felt like an hour and made a grab for the palm-sized animal. "If these are all your illusions, then why not you release them?!"

"I can't. They're too permanent to change," La Luna whimpered desperately.

"Christie, did you know this?" The girl was watching the fox grow smaller and smaller, not daring to move her gaze out of shock.

Unfortunately, amongst all the hurt, she nodded, speeding up the fox's shrinking process. Why hadn't she told him? She'd been his friend! Certainly their separate agendas shouldn't have set them this far apart!

The fox kept shrinking until it was the size of Meghan's fingernail, and the agony kept increasing. By now, the formerly human anchors were completely human in both form and mind.

Not too long afterwards, the fox disappeared from the face of the earth entirely. The status quo was restored to the mundane world once more, including the fact no more superpowers existed.