Madoka was enjoying one of the quieter periods of non-time-eternity enjoying tea and cake in her court when Sayaka walked into her throne room escorting three gentlemen. The quartet came to a brief stop a respectful distance from the throne. At Sayaka's beckoning, the leader of the trio she had escorted in spoke up.

"My goddess Madoka," he said on bent knee, "I am Lord Baal. To my left is Lord Prometheus and to my right Lord Dagon,"

Madoka acknowledged the god's introduction with an inclination of her head before speaking.

"What business do you have within my realm, noble lords?" she asked politely.

"We have come to compete for your hand in marriage," said Lord Baal plainly.

All the noise in Madoka's court ceased. All activity stopped at once. In the pregnant silence that interceded in the usual hubbub of activity within Madoka's realm, one could hear a pin drop.

Then Madoka spat out her tea in surprise.

"What?!" she exclaimed in simultaneous surprise and terror.

"Suitors," said Sayaka, trying her best to suppress her mirth, "three of them."

Madoka twitched as she tried and failed to delicately refill her cup of tea.

"Do they not know?" asked Madoka.

"They do not know," said Sayaka.

"They know not?" queried Mami.

"Know not do they," intoned Sayaka.

"Not, they know?" asked Kyouko with a grin in between stuffing her face with cake.

"Enough!" snapped Madoka.

She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration as the three confused suitors shared a puzzled glance with one another.

"Look, I'm very flattered but I'm just not interested," said Madoka tersely.

"You take issue with our power?" persisted Baal, seeming moderately offended at being looked over and found wanting, "Each one of us comes from noble traditions! Our power is unmatched! Our deeds legendary! Yet you spurn us? You should feel honoured! In the days of old a new goddess would be taken and ravaged like the little wh-"

Madoka imagined the word that Lord Baal had been about to say was most unflattering when a mild twitch in time tweaked her senses.

Too late, she thought, I really did try to turn you down politely.

When the twitch ceased, Madoka had only a precious few seconds to witness what had been wrought.

Lord Prometheus had rather been inconveniently shot in the kneecaps several dozen times, rendering him unable to stand, as well as sporting a very nasty wound across where his liver should have been. Lord Dagon found himself sporting a score of shotgun blasts to various points across his body, groin included.

Lord Baal however had fared the worst of the lot. While nothing appeared wrong at first, the face he began to make, followed by the explosion that tore him apart a mere moment later, showed that an incendiary device had been painfully lodged in a place where incendiary devices had never been intended nor designed to be lodged.

Fortunately for all the magical girls in the room, the threesome had been walled off by a ballistic screen that had not been there moments ago to contain the mess they inevitably made.

"I was going to say before you decided to go into a rant, but, well, I'm sort of taken," said Madoka to the dripping giblets of what used to be gods.

They can still hear me, she thought, It'll take some time to pull themselves back together though.

"Homura-chan," sighed Madoka, "did you really need to make that much of a mess this time?"