Eponine's prior attack had caused her to kick off of Byrea, sending herself into the air as the witch fell backwards, crashing through ice pillars. To stop herself, Eponine reached out a hammer and used the spiked end to hook onto an approaching ice bridge. After she managed to get on top of the bridge and regain her footing, she looked at the area directly above the stunned witch, noticing several unbroken ice bridges. Eponine summoned another hammer and started spinning in place again. Once she had gained enough momentum, she threw one hammer at one end of one ice bridge, and the other hammer at the end of the other ice bridge, shattering the segments where they impacted in an explosion of ice and mist. Without both sides being supported, the bridges began to fall, their opposite ends snapping as they swung downwards. Eponine watched as the two massive ice structures cascaded down in a thundering flurry, hoping that they would crush the witch and end his fight. Would it be enough?

In a fit of inhuman strength, Chloe gave a great heave and launched her opponent into the sky. She didn't see it, but she was certain that the other girl had ended up in space. When she returned to town everybody was clapping, congratulating her on being the strongest in the world. They had all baked her an enormous pie! Maybe this earth isn't as bad as I thought.

With an embarassingly loud snort, Chloe woke up from a pleasant dream. She was so exhausted that she had fallen asleep in the very park that she had gone to in her dream. Well... as intended, I suppose. Had her meeting with the other magical girl been a dream? Or had they met somewhere in the past? It was past Chloe's reckoning. She felt rested enough now, so that was mission accomplished. Waking up to a new day was always exciting. You never knew what sort of things happened in the city while you were asleep. This particular night was no exception. Maybe some new places had been bombed. There could have been a large-scale battle against a witch. Maybe somebody had died. She wasn't sure what time it was, nor did she know what time it had been when she'd fallen asleep, so it was impossible to say what might have gone on. The most boring answer was, of course, that nothing had happened.

Chloe was a lonely soul, however - well used to making her own fun. With the new agreements she had established under her belt, she would feel bad simply wrecking a portion of the city, and she was moderately concerned with being arrested yet again. She wasn't terribly hungry, and looking at her soul gem... Oh hell. The top of the egg-like structure was rimmed with grey, but the majority of the inside was a murky black. Was she in danger? She didn't feel much different than usual, but Chloe had been compared to a witch before, perhaps nothing would ever feel different in her case. Other girls had reportedly experienced emotional breakdowns before their soul gems were consumed, but maybe it would be a bit different for her. Regardless, she needed a grief seed, pronto.

It could only be the good luck of a powerful magical girl that one would present itself so conveniently before her now. And it could only be the terrible luck of a poor magical girl that such a girl would unwittingly wander through the gaze of a psychotic killer. Chloe didn't need any confirmation to know that the young girl in front of her was a relatively new magi delivering her grief seed, maybe one of her first, to the city officials, as per the tax. This wouldn't be the first time she'd stolen from the state, but last time had been just for fun. This was business. Flipping up her headphones and blasting her music as loud as it would possibly go, Chloe transformed in the blink of an eye and launched into an attack.

With a satisfying crunch, Chloe's giant right fist slammed into the girl's gut before she could react, twirling in a circle and launcing the girl into a brick wall closeby, sending stone chips and dust everywhere. As she leaped forward to continue the chase of her prey, she was instead thrown back violently. The other girl had transformed and invoked some sort of power, clearly. When she emerged from the dust, the girl was clad in shocking white, and weilding a sword and shield. How quaint... maybe this will be fun after all.

The little knight girl charged forward, shield-first, bowling Chloe over with surprising force, and pinning her against the ground. "What are you after? Is it the seed? Who are you with? Answer me!"

Chloe's answer was a wry grin, seemingly exposing all of her teeth. It must have been a disgusting sight, or else her breath smelled, because her attacker reeled back, though kept her shield pinned against Chloe on the ground. Without speaking, Chloe simply tapped her headphones, implicating that she hadn't heard a word the other girl had said, before grabbing her and tossing her roughly to the side, getting back to her feet. They were back to neutral.

Again, the white-clad girl rushed forward with her shield, but Chloe was ready this time. The same trick wouldn't work twice, and thinking it would was a rookie mistake. Instead of the impact the girl expected, she was instead grabbed by her arm. And before she could react she was forced to watch as, within a short instant, Chloe crushed the bones in her shield arm. She cried out in pain and reeled back as Chloe kept staring on with her toothy grin.

That was easy enough. Now, to get that seed before finishing with-... hold on. Chloe had, admittedly, thought that the fight was practically over. But instead of looking defeated, the knight-girl chanted a short something, and a warm white light engulfed her arm. It didn't take a rocket scientist to understand that she had been healed by magic. If it was possible, Chloe grin would have widened further. Healing was Chloe's favourite type of magic. There was a solid limit on how much pain you could inflict on a person, but a magical girl with healing magic could blast through that limit and suffer so, so much more.

This time it was Chloe's time to attack. She lunged forward, but instead of her usual plan of head-on momentum-based combat, she instead threw a fairly standard jab, shifting into what passed as a boxing stance. Her first punch was blocked by the other girl's shield. As was the second, third, and fourth. With each blocked hit, the confidence in the eyes of the white girl grew. Confidence in her perfect defense. She would be happy with her weapons, surely. Five, six, seven rapid punches were deflected by her shield. With the eighth punch, Chloe shifted her weight to her back leg and sprung forward into a large hook to the girl's chest. This hit, too, was absorbed by the shield, but that would be its last duty. On contact, the girl's shield shattered like fine china, shards of mana scattering through the area around them. The girl hadn't seen that one coming at all. Chloe, however, had anticipated this, using the same motion to grab the girl's neck, lifting her clear off of the ground.

"You're strong, girly, but you're too young for this gig. You're not sneaky enough. You're probably not even insane yet. So I'm not gonna kill you. You've got a lot to learn about being a magi, and I hope you will learn, and maybe you'll get your revenge on the evil magical girl that ruined your day. And your shitty shield, for that matter."

It was easy enough to find the seed she wanted off of the white girl's struggling body. She was flailing around with her sword, clanging uselessly off of Chloe's gigantic metal gauntlet as she slowly faded into unconsciousness. One good swipe dug deep into Chloe's searching arm, but it didn't have the strength behind it to do any permanent damage. It did cut to the bone, though, which hurt as much as any cut would and rattled its way up to her shoulder. Still, the fight was over, and the prize went to Chloe. After her single good hit and having to endure Chloe's passionless speech, the girl sank into unconsciousness. Chloe wondered what she was thinking about, but didn't waste any time throwing her useless body to the ground as it reverted back to human form.

As though it were just business as usual, Chloe walked over to the supine figure, bending down and grabbing both of the girl's ankles and stepping down hard on her knees. With a loud sound like a gunshot, both of the girl's legs bent backwards unnaturally, broken at the knees. Once she woke up, her healing power should be of use, but for now, the shock of two broken legs would keep her either unconscious or in pain long enough for Chloe to make her escape. Reverting herself back to her standard form, she held her newfound grief seed to her soul gem, watching the blackness give way to Chloe's usual dull grey. "...Not much of a change, as usual," she mused, before tossing the now-useless seed back at the girl's body. Somebody else could feed it to an incubator if they pleased. Chloe had no interest in something like that.

"Now... time for breakfast?"

Violetta winced and looked around her as the voices filled her head. Nobody around her. So it must've been telepathy. That meant a kyuubey was in there with them. Kyuubeis couldn't lie, they were famous for it. So that meant that voice she'd heard just now was really Angela, one of the Vslkyries. Reinforcements had arrived. And in the nick of time, too.

"Angela?" she said aloud. It saved time for her rather then trying to stay silent. "Remind me again who's with you right now?"
"Erica and Natale, ma'am. And the Kyuubey. "

Both decent support. Erica had a slight rebellious streak, but a certain deviousness in killing. Her whole gimmick was chains, with a sweeping set of them for weapons as well as a sweeping chainmail dress. Natalie was slightly dopey and had a real problem with reaction time, but seemed to be happy to hack anything and anyone to pieces with her pickaxes. Two of her finest. If she, Violetta was the kind of person to use royal guards, they'd be her right-handsmaidens. She liked putting them in groups with the newest recruits, like she was with Angela and-

"Wait, wait. What happened to... what's her name, the short one, with the snowboard and the shield? "
"Hilda? Erica sent her back to base to keep down the fort. Why, was that wrong?"
"No, just keeping count. Anyway, Angela, there's a factory in the forest if you look around. With a whole lot of scorchmarks around it."
"We found that already."
"Great! Angela, stay over there and keep the Kyuubey with you. We've already found the witch."
"We, ma'am?"
"Yeah, me and the robot."
"Eponine?"
"Bang on the money. Oh, and there's a third girl in here too. Some little spit with revolutionary leanings. Kill her if you find her."
"Understood, Ma'am."

Even across the alien's telepathy, she heard the little smirk in that last line. Angela was a pretty new girl with a bit of a chip on her shoulder about her pudgy figure squeezed into a rather revealing neoprene suit, but could chop familliars with her oversized scimitars with the best of them. If only she'd learn to conquer her wierd fear about buildings and heights and she'd be perfectly useful. Violetta idly swatted a snowman and kept on ordering her women around.

"Erica?" She said.
"Listenin'. "
"Get here as quickly as you can. We need the re-enforcements. Just follow the smoke trail. I'd light a beacon, but there's... pressing matters."
"Entendu."
"Vi out."

Violetta swung her flamethrower at a few more snowmen. Well, that went about as well as could be expected. Almost every side in this had been listening in to that conversation. There was no reason the Kyuubei would've blocked off communication from the robot and the traitor. You had to watch every word you thought, in case someone reported back to somebody important. Nothing she'd thought could be used to frame her.

_@Ariamis

An eyebrow rose in curious attention as Alexandra listened to Maria describe what had happened between her and Kyubey. She knew he was enigmatic, working in his own ways, yet the creature wouldn't lie. Mislead, perhaps, but he would never outright tell a falsehood. If he did then she supposed he would lose all credibility once it got out. And that couldn't do, if it was his job to contract new girls and keep the Witches suppressed.

"I see," she replied once Maria had finished. "Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I will bring it up with Dora, so you don't have to worry about it any more." She was grateful at least, though whether Maria would choose to let the matter lie was only for her to say.

With that, the meeting seemed to wrap to a close. "Well, if that is all then I believe we are done here. Caroline will escort you out." The other magical girl emerged from the corner once more, ready to lead Maria from the building, while at the same time making sure she didn't do anything inside that Alexandra might not approve of. It seemed the game turned once more.

---

_{@Stern Algorithm}

The hammers went flying as Eponine attacked once more, and they did their work beautifully, smashing right through the ice with the force of their impact and sending the bridge tumbling down upon the Witch that was beneath them. Eponine could be confident in her accuracy, if nothing else, which would be of comfort to herself as well as her liege lord.

The Witch recovered as the bridge came down, and as a result of that Eponine would be disappointed to find that Byrea had only been clipped, rather than squashed entirely. That still earned sprays of the black ichor that served as her blood, but it would not prove a finishing blow as the bridge rebuilt itself, albeit in a different manner than it had been before. And she would find a fusillade of ice headed towards her once more.

Then, as if things weren't hard enough, the battlefield itself began to shift, pillars cracking and falling as if they intended to crush her, just like she had tried to crush Byrea beneath them. And though they rebuilt afterwards in different orientations and position to keep the sphere from collapsing, it just made things that much harder.

---

_{@The book of bad juju}

As surprising as Violetta might find it when her group arrived, there wasn't actually a Kyubey amongst them, since already contracted magical girls didn't need one of the white creatures to communicate with each other, only with potential contractees. Or possibly he had vanished before they arrived, wary of being shot, stabbed, or otherwise harmed. Whichever reason, it didn't really matter in the end as her reinforcements soon arrived.

The help would be welcome as the Familiars kept coming, with the sound of combat below and the ice Violetta was standing on cracking before reforming, as a result of her efforts to keep from plunging into the sphere where the fighting was currently going on. But with the reinforcements, that wouldn't be too difficult to manage. All it would be was a matter of handling that, and then the Witch, and they could all go home.

Maria bowed deeply. "Thank you, Your Grace. By your leave, I shall resume attending to my duties." She then followed Caroline outside, and had her convoy leave the premises. While she was wary of the ill deeds done in Dora's domain, she realized the value that it posed to her: the incident would be a fine distraction for Alexandra, and even if she wouldn't have anything done with it, the mere knowledge of its existence is sure to drive her thoughts adrift and leave her vulnerable. If there was ever a time to bring the years of her kneeling and groveling to fruition, it was now.

She returned back to her elegant home, and once inside, immediately went to the basement. She brought her phone up, sent a text message to a certain number, and then called it. Maria was clear with her every word, and none of her positive disposition was in it. A certain chaotic magical girl would receive these words:

"I sent you a list of targets, along with addresses. The first is the administrative building in the business sector, followed by the ships in the harbor. You know what to do."

She ended her call, and had her phone snap back shut. She giggled a bit at first, followed by her laughing madly. This was the beginning of the end.

Eponine was sorely disappointed that the collapsing ice did not hit Byrea head on; still, a hit was a hit. Again, she had to dodge the witch's ice attacks, activating her shield every time she knew she would not be able to dodge an icicle. Eponine noticed her soul gem getting awfully dark, so at this point she had to make a gambit: keep fighting at this pace, risking the witch outlasting her and becoming a witch herself, or use the last of her magic save a tiny fraction in a powerful burst with the hope of ending this fight once and for all? As Byrea began collapsing the ice in an effort to crush Eponine as Eponine had tried to do to the witch, Eponine decided upon the latter. Summoning eight hammers, she placed them, head on the ground with the shaft pointing up, in an octagonal circle around herself, activating her hemispherical area force field. She looked up and activated 'reject' so that every object that touched the field would be sent flying away in the opposite direction and at the same speed that it impacted, which would make the inside of the ice sphere something like a cross between a grenade and a pinball machine. The world above her became a white and blue cacophony of clashing ice shards, bouncing pillars and bridges pulverizing into snow. Eponine's breathing became labored and a sickening sensation crawled through her, which she assumed was magical in nature as she normally couldn't feel such discomfort, or perhaps it was just that painful that she could actually feel it this time. She held out for as long as she could while the violent crashing continued but started to die down as the larger chunks had mostly broken into smaller pieces. When just a sliver of her magic remained, when just a tiny part of her soul gem remained unblemished, Eponine deactivated her shield and, in fact, left her magical girl form completely, returning to the clothes she was wearing before she set out on this mission and quickly crouched down and covered her head with her hands, getting into a duck-and-cover position in preparation for what remained of the ice to come crashing down on her, resigned to let whatever would happen happen, hoping beyond hope that the witch had died.

"I sent you a list of targets, along with addresses. The first is the administrative building in the business sector, followed by the ships in the harbor. You know what to do."

The text came at a convenient time, while Chloe was busy shoving food into her face at a local diner. Her hunger satisfied and her grief levels managed, she'd be fully charged for what was coming. Without a word to anybody, she silently left the building without paying for her meal. The complaints of her waitress came too late and too quietly, for she had already cranked her headphones and clambered to the roof of the diner. The rooftops here were easy to traverse, and nobody would be following her or looking for her here...

The business sector was hectic. All of the hustle and bustle of fevered workers and beurocrats milling around made sure there was noise to be heard, even through her 'phones. Lots of people around meant that this could get messy, but that was no concern of Chloe's. Even if Maria herself was caught in the destruction, it didn't matter, because she was fulfilling the terms of their agreement. The only thing that mattered in this moment was that this administrative building had to go. Building demolition was, of course, a specialty of Chloe's, as well as a favourite hobby. It was just so flashy and satisfying.

"Now... time to start."

To begin, Chloe had strolled around to the back of the building where there were no people. Any guards would have been posted at the front doors, of course. But the power box was back here. It was dangerous to touch so much electricity with her hands, so she chose this moment to transform, using her new strength to rip a large wooden post out of the ground nearby to use as a makeshift club. First she grabbed both sides of the large metal box, warping the frame and loosening it from the bolts holding it together. Once she was satisfied that it was loose enough, Chloe took up her giant club, taking a mighty swing at the bos. With a direct hit, she smashed the metal frame apart, severing connections and shorting circuits that would lead to the entire building, sending sparks everywhere. Circuits were incredibly sensitive by nature, and a disruption like this would throw the whole building into darkness and chaos, at least, where it wasn't lit by an emergency generator. Pesky things.

The front of the building would still be too dangerous, so she went through the back, tearing through bricks and drywall with a mighty swing of her gauntlets and stepping through the small hole she had created into the darkness and noise inside. Nobody was around her current position, which was good. It meant that she could begin her work without interruption. With no proper idea of where she was, she figured all girders and pillars were created equal. Buildings with good construction were surprisingly resilient, but they couldn't hold themselves up with just bricks alone, and architects trying to keep costs low meant that they wouldn't have that many more supports than were absolutely necessary in the event of a quake or something similar. Once you started ripping support beams, everything became much more spotty. And for Chloe's particular method of combat, thick steel girders might as well have been solid wooden branches. Strong, but they'd come apart when enough force is applied. For Chloe, this meant repeated strikes. Three solid punches warped the beam to a weakened state, five would break it entirely. For her first few, she broke them entirely. Structurally, this corner of the building was now completely useless.

There were armed guards waiting for her as she worked her way through the remainder of the ground floor, but they were scattered, and poorly organized. One or two men or women with guns were little threat - they could keep coming all day, but unless they grouped up, it was no use. One by one she carved a path of destruction around the building, dancing a rodeo of destruction and raining bloody knuckles on all the steel and stone she could find, an incessant clanging noise echoing through the swiftly emptying halls around her. Those who fought her, she destroyed. Those who ran she left alone. It was important to pick your battles.

After a short time, it was close to over. She walked casually back to the original hole through which she had entered, knocking out a few final beams from the outside, after which the building gave a mighty groan. With a crash, she heard the upper floors crash inward from lack of support in the middle of the structure, and the rest of the building would follow soon after. She didn't need to stick around to know that, so it was time to disappear to the harbor. Stealth was somewhat pointless now, so she took the quickest way there, the main roads. Whether or not somebody saw her was irrelevant now. If they were going to send resistance, they would know where she was. Her first job had been a stress-free success. Who knows what awaited her at the harbor?