"I'll come at them from the sky. Janet, hit them from below. Summer, get in close on the roof. We'll box them in and then shift them to the Overcity. That should remove the threat to the congregation." Halfway through that first sentence, Speedwagon's enhanced senses helped her pinpoint the speaker, and glanced around the gargoyle in their direction. That voice...! Sounded like they were going to take care of the witch problem, but what would happen when they got rid of the Quidditch team? Would they stick around?
Speedwagon set her jaw. There'd be ample time to worry about that later.
The girl whimpering on the ground was clearly a magical girl, and not one born for combat - not just because of her magic, either. But the smell of this 'detective' girl... dammit, this was getting complicated fast. Better draw her attention while it was in her general direction, buy a little more time to make sure of what she was seeing (and smelling). "Sharp as a tack you are, it's plain to see. Right about now, you're probably wondering who I am." Speedwagon finished stepping out from behind the gargoyle. She stopped a few feet from the girls, before thrusting her chest and hips as though hooked around the waist and frozen mid-pull, standing on the balls of her feet. Her right hand crossed behind her back to rest at the bottom of her left ribs, her right arm pointed down and parallel to her legs, with that hand holding her hat. Holding that pose, she continued seamlessly. "Allow me to elucidate ya! The name is R. E. O. Speedwagon!"
As naturally as the posing had come to her, she made equally sure not to put power into her words to trigger a de-transformation. This right here was headed straight for a proper dust-up, or a very one-sided one, if she wasn't careful. But otherwise, she was going to be mashing the proverbial 'style button' to hold that attention for as long as possible. Hopefully Miss Jo-star would catch up soon - she'd rather go into that fight with her at her back, if possible.
She'd left her phone on speaker in her pocket, muting the audio coming from Nina's end. She seemed like a smart girl, smart enough to realize what she was doing. "Now that I've made my introduction, it'd be polite for you to do the same. I'd hate to only think of you two as 'the detective girl taking her cats for a walk' and 'the cowering girl covered in ramen and not much else.'"
Naturally, that was the moment things went right back to hell, as a baseball defying all logic and physics sent the ramen girl up and into the arms of another magical girl.
"?! The hell?" Speedwagon decided to focus her attention on the ramen girl's abductor. The detective didn't seem like the sort who'd blame her for that other girl's actions, at least not after voicing her own surprise. Speedwagon just hoped that whoever the hell the baseball girl was, she was at least an ally of the ramen girl.
Joanna Fujo heard the sound of footsteps coming up behind her, a slow, casual pace. She turned around carefully, facing the rooftop watcher. They were wearing a mask that was smooth, white, and featureless, save for a large A that dominated that space. "Tell me. Why insist on charging into a situation you don't understand? Why leap headfirst into the jaws of uncertainty, when you can take a moment to observe, and see them for what they are before they close around you?"
Joanna had a feeling this person was talking more about themselves, rather than the attack on the cathedral. "I didn't mean to offend you by refusing your offer..."
The masked figure bowed, tapping their mask with one hand. "Call me A."
"Jo-star," she replied. Technically, a valid answer to give - while it may be possible that person's true name was A, it was far more likely to be an alias. Something about this figure radiated menace - particularly, their parlor trick with the bleeding branches reminded her an awful lot of something Speedwagon had warned her about. "I have no quarrel with you. I'm going to protect my friend, and the innocents trapped inside that building. All I ask is to pass, peacefully."
"Well, Miss Jo-star. In that case...by all means." The wall of bleeding branches receded, and A gestured with both hands towards the cathedral. "You seem surprised. Calm yourself; despite the method I used to instigate our introduction, I am not utterly uncivilized. And do not worry, I'm not going to create another when you commit to leaving. I'd see more of how you use your power."
So he noticed. And yet, he (she?) wasn't going out of their way to start a fight with her. at the very least, it seemed this A had some sense of honor. Joanna nodded deeply. "Thank you." As she stepped to the edge, she felt she might as well ask the question on her mind while they were on good terms. "If you have such powers, why not come and help?"
A was already walking back over to their refreshments. "It would be for the best if I didn't get involved. And besides, it would likely cause a panic if I were to cut loose."
Joanna thought back to those bleeding branches, and nodded to concede the point. She gathered power once more, and left the roof with another "Zoom Jump!"
Back on the roof, however, A watched her leap from rooftop to rooftop on her way to the cathedral, before turning their attention back to the chaos. "Besides," A said, when Joanna was well out of earshot. They picked up a pair of binoculars, focusing in on the shivering form of Binky. "I'm here for the 「Greatest Game.」"
Her first arrow struck, grazing Annabelle's side and cleanly cutting the girls flesh. Just a flesh wound, then. Tougher than she looked. Well, she couldn't let herself be distracted by it. She needed to clean up the mummies in the area so Amaryllis could safely deal with Annabelle. For the most part, her attacks seemed effective. Sword after sword was launched towards the mummies, impaling them upon the stadiums walls like a kebab, the abominations writhing and trying to free themselves to no avail.
The only thing that was distracting her, was Amaryllis herself.
"...good grief. That flowery language almost makes me want to shoot her instead." She smirked lightly to herself, stringing up another javelin, ready to launch a second strike on Annabelle - yet the moment the bow was fully drawn, she hesitated. Annabelle's visage was not one of a murderer. Not a cold grin. Not a smirk or some other...no, it was more of what one would have indeed expected from a child. As Amaryllis' blade cut Annabelle's arm, she could have finished the job right then and there - but she hesitated.
"...Tch." Rina lowered her bow. Soft. She was being soft, wasn't she? Yet, even if she wanted to ensure peace by killing monsters - what sort of human being would she be if she mercilessly slaughtered someone who didn't even understand what was happening? Someone ignorant of their own sins? Ignorance could be helped. Besides, it seemed like Annabelle was standing down. Subduing someone was the same as stopping the immediate problem, so she could at least afford this much.
Good thing, too. It looked like this place was becoming crowded. A magical...boy? That was new. Jumped out of the sky, into the middle of the field, a barrier around him. If another magical boy was showing up, then likely beacon wouldn't be far behind. She should leave before they show up. She didn't have much of a desire to stick around and involve herself with them, though perhaps that was short sighted. She could potentially help ask for information about the one who conducted the attack the other day. Rina lowered her bow, impaling the arrow she had made in the floor. She'd wait and watch what Amaryllis and this newcomer would do for now. Mercy, was what she chose today, and potentially maybe help this Annabelle-
Or not.
Floating...chairs? Somehow they had become unbolted from the stadium's floor. Quickly readying her bow again, Rina narrowed her eyes, not going near the edge of the roof. For that, seemed like an obvious trap. Instead, she put more distance from the edge of the roof, moving more towards the back. She had no desire to engage in a probable melee alone.
"Figures. Sympathy and mercy are something I shouldn't waste my time with. Come out! Or continue hiding. I'll just kill you from back here." Whoever or whatever was hiding, better hope they had a hard head as soon as they revealed themselves because they'd be getting a javelin to the face. She should have expected Annabelle wouldn't have acted alone. Sloppy, Rina. She needed to be better than this.
"I don't even need to do anything these days to cause a distraction!" Chloe laughed, floating above the city, idly watching the stadium in the distance. Ah, Penrose was so much more chaotically violent these days, wasn't it? So pleasing, to both her and the dragon. Well, if the Dragon was capable of even being pleased nowadays. He was already half dead anyways. Poor thing. Oh well. Ignoring the events elsewhere in the city, Chloe turned her attention back to the Hospital. Ah, this was so very easy. Able to move around without being noticed by anyone was nice! She didn't even have to cause the distractions herself this time. "Now lets see..." Taking a moment to scan the hospital, it didn't take long to find both the floor and the room that her 'new friend' was in.
"Ahhh...why do I have to be cooped up in this hospital." Aurora Mackenzie. Normal human and otherwise kind of a good-hearted ditz. Recent victim of some weird gas explosion. "ARGH I can't stand it I wanna go out and do stuff but noooo!" She pouted, folding her arms across her chest before wincing slightly. "Ow...ow...right. Injured." Aurora sighed, reaching for a fashion magazine and flipping it open. Well, at least she could still do something. She'd have to go and take Mary shopping at some point! She was already getting a bunch of fun ideas she'd like to try. "Don't worry Mary, I'll help you get a date with Cole yet! Wingman Aurora shall not let my best friend down, not even after being nearly killed, haha! Ow-laughing hurts..."
Knock knock
"Eh?" Someone was knocking on her door? Who was coming to visit her? The doctors didn't seem to mind just barging in every now and then, and the police hadn't been to see her since she woke from the explosion.
Knock knock
"...uhm..." The sound was coming...from the window? Was it bird? Aurora looked over to the window. "...GYAAA?!" A most ungirly scream erupted from her lips as she scrambled backwards, falling off the bed in the process. A girl, dressed like some sort of weird sexy cosplayer was floating outside of the building. Ah, this was a hallucination right? Had to be! She was high or something from medication, right!? Peeking over the edge of the bed, the girl floating outside seemed to notice her. She made swift motion with her hands towards the window.
"Uhm...wow how are you doing that...you want me to open it? Is that right?" Aurora pointed back to the lock on the window, to which the girl nodded happily. Well this didn't seem shady or suspect at all, nope! Aurora walked over, opening the window and looking up at the floating girl.
"Ahaha, wow, I didn't actually think you'd do it. It's no fun if you're not at least a little suspicious."
"Well, like, you're just a hallucination right? A really fashionable looking hallucination that Mary could take pointers from."
"Hallucination...?" Chloe smirked before bursting out into laughter, flying through the window and landing lightly on the floor of the room. "I can assure you, my little pretty Aurora, I am no hallucination." Chloe relaxed, lightly giggling. "Ah, the last time I did this was quite awhile ago. Question, Aurora...do you want to be a magical girl?"
"..eh?"
"You heard me."
"Magical...girl?" Aurora paused, giving Chloe a critical look as she seemed to have difficulty processing those words. "For real? Like a really real magical girl? You're kidding right? That stuff doesn't exist."
"And that, my dear, is where you're wrong." Chloe sighed, shaking her head before hopping onto the bed and taking a seat on it. "Such a grand, false...disgusting lie. Mortals can't seem to remember magical happenings. Shame, really. Such things should be open for everyone to use. If I were to tell you it wasn't a gas attack, but a terror attack by a certain sexy - if unscrupulous magical girl?"
"Uhm...you're saying a lot of weird stuff that makes my head hurt. Like, and it was a gas explosion right? A lot of people got hurt."
"Okay, ditz, I'll dumb it down for you a bit." Chloe replied a bit harshly. "Do you have anyone you want to save? Anyone you like? Someone you'd...I don't know, want to protect? Of course you do. All humans do. I can give you the power to do that, and if you help me, you can make a world where no one has to worry about such things again."
"...sorry, head just hurts more."
"Look, stupid." Chloe was losing her patience a bit. "You wanna be a hero? Change the world? I can make it so you can."
"Uhm uhm, I dunno this is all really sudden..."
"...you get to wear a pretty dress. Probably." At this, Aurora's eyes perked up.
"Ah! Y'mean like all those flowery ones in those anime and stuff?" Chloe nodded. "I'll do it!"
"Great, now hold still."
"...E-eh?" Blood. Blood filled her mouth, a sharp pain feeling like it was wrenching her chest open.
"It'll hurt only for a moment. Don't try and fight it. You might die."
Jumping from rooftop to rooftop Penny took a steadying breath as she pulled one of her lest favorite contact numbers at the moment and sent the call.
It rang once before the booming voice of Laat echoed out from her ear piece. “You Seek My Counsel?“
“You could say that My Lord” Penny replied unsurprised at the quick pick up, Laat was always watching her and what was going on around her, unsurprising considering she was near literally a walking alter to him and his goal. “I wished to ask about the accusations lain towards your name, the genocide of the Gold Dragons.”
“A Misunderstanding, Though Perhaps An Understandable One, I Did Not End The Golds But They Did Suffer The Beast and It’s Wrath. If The Survivor Who Seeks Your Death Faced It I Have Little Surprise That It Would Imagine Being The Last One Left.” Laat answered his tone conveying his lack of care for his actions “Once It Learns You Have Stolen from Its Hoard, It Will Likely Wish You Dead Regardless, They Are Vain and Greedy Creatures”
“Wait, what? When did I steal from a Dragon?” She asked nearly stumbling at that fact
"With The Acquisition Of The Earth Bastion And The Salvaging Of The Sky Bastion, Both Held the Magic Of A Gold Dragon. Likely The Very One Who Now seeks Your Demise." The god replied with the same disinterested tone of voice.
“Fantastic.” Penny ground out as she continued her track to the Beacon HQ. “Would you be capable of getting me some supplies?”
"The Funds I Send To You Will Be Required For Your Digital Equipment, But I can Restock The Tools You Lost on Your Assault Of The Castle"
"Add in an EMP if you can." Penny replied "Not going to go hunting after This dragon and his girls but I’m sure as hell going to be ready to retaliate if it comes down to it."
"You Shall Have Your Things In A Few Days Time." Laat agreed before the line went silent.
Penny spent a block or two, coming to terms with the fact that she now had a Dragon hunting her down and she was at least partly to blame for it. She knew that Amber was dead, that bit of information had filtered back to Beacon through the various channels that they had. Yet there was something that Penny was missing, she didn’t know what just a feeling she had.
Setting that thought off to the side for a bit Penny pulled up another one of her lesser liked contacts and gave them a call as well “Veronica, What can you tell me about gold dragons in Penrose that won’t add to my Debt?”
“Contrary to popular belief, I'm not constantly trying to add to your debt.” Veronica's tone was clearly agitated. “There is only a single golden dragon left, and his name is Boteg. He's hiding in Penrose somewhere, and he has a vendetta with an unknown entity. I do not know much about that, as my previous agent who was working for them was slain.”
“Don’t really care” Penny grumbled under her breath before speaking up “Well he found his target, Me apparently. Mika attempted to attack me because of it when I went to talk to her yesterday” She explained as she dropped down in to an ally way as there was no more good buildings to jump too “Can you tell me anything about who Mika hangs out with? I’d rather not get jumped without a bit of warning next time.”
There was a brief pause on Veronica's end. “She is a relatively new magical girl, and I know very little about her. But if she's working for Boteg, that makes her a person of interest. I might have more for you later, but I don't know who she could be in contact with. I would assume not too many people.”
“Well this is shaping up to be just peachy, call me if you find anything out." Penny said shaking her head at her luck "Two more questions before I have to go, anything you can tell me about the Independent and a girl by the name of Olympia? It was the only lead I got out of Mika before she tried to jump me.”
“Just some magical girl reporters. I've been reading their news articles but I haven't paid too much attention to the names. They haven't done anything to warrant my interest yet.” Veronica groaned. “I'd talk to Olympia though. But be cautious, this information came from a hostile target. But it's the only lead you have.”
"Why do you think I checked with you first?" Penny asked “Still thanks for what did have. Beacon’s on the other line so I’m going to let you go”
After hanging up with that call Penny thought about giving the independent a call as well, but opted not to. Having no idea how long that call would take, she didn’t want to have to drop it in the middle of a conversation if she made it to HQ before she got the information she was looking for. After all she was only a few minutes away by this point.
.:Opening act:.
Last night had been quite a bit of fun for Kyle, and while it he had lost many more hands then he won that had been intentional. People in good moods tended to be more talkative, so by the time he had called it a night he had made a few new friends and had gotten a better feel for this slice of Beacon.
Now it was early in the morning and he was about to get another chance to see how this group operated. Monster attacks had a way of showing people for who they were. Already transformed and ready to go Aurelio stood next to Sally and Cherry while they waited for the last member of their squad to show up.
Seraph and her Squad had already taken off to deal with the attack at the cathedral and once Penny arrived Aurelio would initiate the teleport to get them to the stadium. Unlike most of Beacon, Aurelio’s Spark functioned as an express pass for the system so he didn’t need to head to the Pads, so long as he was at one of their HQ’s he could be teleported to anywhere they had the location locked in. Plus always being able to teleport back to HQ was handy.
Turning to look around for the oddest member of Beacon Aurelio was aware he looked over at the door just as Penny came rushing through it. “Sorry about that, I live out near the industrial zone” The cyborg said as she came to a stop near the three waiting on her.
“Nonsense” Aurelio replied with a wide grin “You’re just in time”
“Cool, so what’s the plan?” She asked, not phased at all form her nonstop run to get here.
“We pop over to the stadium really quick, save everyone we can and strike out and the ruffians who are causing this ruckus while we do it” he exclaimed happily already starting the teleportation sequence as he did.
Penny just looked at Aurelio oddly for a moment before shrugging her shoulders “You leave to striking to me and I’ll leave the saving to you.” She said before turning to look at Sally “When do we leave?
“Right now” Aurelio replied as a great flash of light encompassed the four of them before snapping down to a single point of light that winked out with an audible pop.
Moments later at the stadium a large complex spell circle would appear in the center of the baseball field and with the same audible pop the four of them reappeared nearly back to back as they appeared just a few feet behind Alex.
“A bit more warning next time would be appreciated” Penny nearly yelled as she surveyed the insanity of the situation she had just dropped in too. There wasn’t much she could really pick out over the general madness that seemed to be going on everywhere but there was one person she recognized in all of this as an enemy.
The moment she was sure that it was Elroy she fired off a Gauss round at him, the cacophonous boom letting all who didn’t see know that even more people had joined in to the mess that was happening here.
At the same time that Penny was letting loose the first round of Beacon’s counter offensive Aurelio was already weaving his magic. ”Magician’s Mark!” he intoned as a simple glyph appeared on his allies, that looked like a pair of cards. These glyphs acted as an IFF for Aurelio’s magic so he wouldn’t them with any of his offensive or debilitating spells. As in a mess like this he might not have the time to aim correctly, plus it would let him monitor their status from a distance.
“Now then!” He called out as he strode towards the hordes of mummies and minions ”Let the show begin!”
The churchgoers cowered in terror as Eliza peeked inside, confused about her appearance. "Are you an angel?" The priest asked as he knelt before the altar, his hands clasped in prayer. "But you wear the robes of a heretic..." When she apologized, and told them to get to safety, many of them stood up, glancing a the door. They seemed to hesitate. "Ok! May the Lord give me strength!" One devout man shouted, and took off to a run, slamming the church doors open as he attempted to flee. The witches noticed this, of course, and one witch took off in pursuit of the man, swooping down to snatch him in her arm while the rest fought Eliza. Another witch was taken down by the barrage of light daggers, melting into goop, while half of the witches witches were frightened by the illusionary dragon, flying in an evasive circle. The remaining half were not deterred, however. "You turned Madam Mim into muddy murk, and Sibylla into surly sou-" The witch didn't manage to finish her sentence, as she was struck right through with a baseball. She looked down to see the hole, and then looked up at Eliza causing her to scrunch up her face in a comical fashion, before she fell straight down, creating a witch-shaped hole in the ground as she fell right through in cartoony fashion, clearly taken out.
As Eliza stopped to try and convince the wicked witches to flee, she saw something strange on a high building; three girls were standing around on the rooftop, seemingly busy with a big object that was transparent, but oval-shaped, like a big egg. "Hocus Pocus Maradocus!" Two of them launched spells that Eliza managed to dodge. Before she could dodge the fourth, she was distracted; a squad of Beacon girls teleported to the scene, with Alicia in the lead, followed by Summer and Janet. As a result, the fourth spell hit the winged witch, cursing her; she transformed into a winged green frog, with a tiny black hat on her head and a blonde wig to fit the hat. The witch cackled. "Aaahh-hahaaa! A warty toad you are now! Only the kiss from a virtuous man will heal this hex! Eeeheeheheee!"
Far in the distance, the group of four noticed the Beacon girls' arrival. ‘Oh crap, the lightbulbs are on the scene!’ Ronja muttered, her many legs skittering and scratching each other in disgust. Freya simply looked around silently. ‘This might be a problem if they come after us before we're done. What should we do?’ Suzette asked as she cocked her head to the side, and flapped her arms like a child mimicking a bird. ‘I'll stay and finish setting up the mirror You two distract them.’ Tullia's face looked stern as she returned back to working on it. The pair of mental manipulators grinned. ‘No problem. I'll make them so afraid, they'll need to change their, panties ehe~’ With that, the Empath approached the cathedral, while the Psychic disappeared, scuttling into the shadows. Suzette floated as she picked up wind under her large arms, whisking her to the cathedral. Then, before she could be noticed, she began spreading a wave of fear and terror through the cathedral; the churchgoers shrieked and yelled for God's mercy, and the magical girls felt a chill run down their spine, the wicked witches' cackling now sounding three times as sinister as before.
Annabelle was in a metaphorical bind, as the pain caused by the loss of her limb attested to, but she had binding of her own next on her agenda; the remaining free-roaming mummies were caught by her magic, moaning and cursing as their desiccated, undead bodies were squeezed. She noticed how her chains were pulled free of Rina's lances despite her stopping the spell, and the iron poles clanged as they hit the concrete edges of the stadium. More minions from Soth's domain were also summoned, one last wave of horrible, snarling maws and claws that moved to protect Annabelle, literally leaping in front of Amaryllis' sword. To her concern, she realized it was not of her own will but that of Soth, twisting her mind to cast the spells; it seemed the Horror desired for a more direct involvement with the battle to ensure he would win, or at the very least keep what he had collected thus far. Or, the Horror was disappointed with Annabelle losing her will to persevere, and decided to show by example what needed to be done.
In a surprising twist, a bunch of strange girls appeared, seemingly taking Annabelle's side, like bizarre guardian angels, and it seemed the Horror girl had her chance to escape. Unfortunately, the group now found themselves crossing paths with Silhouette. Having powered up from the use of a Chloe Crystal, further corrupting the dark magical girl to something more powerful, she had become unstable. Silhouette was no longer fully in control, her instinct for murder having suppressed her rational thinking. As a result, she immediately slashed with full might at the closest girl she could find in that moment with a wicked grin before she could process the action in her mind; by mere chance, the girl was Shona.
It was only then that the other Beacon squad showed up at the stadium; it was lead by Sally, with Aurelio and Penny following her. "Finally we managed to get here!" Sally puffed her cheeks, clearly looking annoyed, before her eyes widened at the sight. "It's anarchy in here We need to lay our chips on this table!" And with that Sally leapt down, and in Max Payne fashion, began spreading four-leaf-clover-shaped projectiles from her Shamrock Shooters. She destroyed Annabelle's Minions in droves, constantly hitting their weak spots or making them collide into each other in lucky streaks.
Helga grit her teeth as she struck the icy shield, blowing through it in a single swing. But, the freezing dust that afterwards scattered caught her offguard, and she used another blast of Sound magic to launch perpendicular to Victoria, landing on a nearby wall with a slowed descent by using her claws to dig into the wall. "Ugh, so a cold girl...I knew a cold girl once. Hated Batman Forever a lot. Must have been because of Schawrzenegger." Helga's teeth chattered as she spoke, the icy effect visible on her body. When Victoria charged in with her twin swords, Helga rapidly climbed up the wall, flipping up with a defensive kick to parry her blow as she hit the rooftop, diminishing the damage to a single slash. She dropped to the rooftop on one knee. "Anyway, I know your weakness!" She opened her palms, and hummed in a low voice. "Ever heard of Resonance? It's the frequency where any solid material vibrates. If it's hardy, like ice, it cracks, like this! Breaker Song!" As she shouted, she blasted a great sound wave from her palms at Victoria that resonated with all her ice, causing it to explode in spectacular fashion and knocking her down, causing her to fall down to street level.
Mika's tiger tackle sent bones flying in every direction, the spooky skeletons clearly not the most resilient of opponents as their pieces scattered. However, their true power lied in their regenerative properties, able to build themselves back up like Lego blocks with the minimum amount of magic power. However, not every skeleton returned to skeletal forms; some combined with the nearby materials such as bicycles, benches, and even each other, turning into wheel skeletons that spun around at quick speeds, or sturdy shield skeletons with wide, blocky bodies. The wheel skeletons now chased after Mika, and tackled against her sides with wheels fitted with sharp bone spikes, wounding her tiger form. As they did so, the other skeletons began forming a circle around the Beast magical girl, trying to cut off her escape. Mika had to struggle as skeletons lumbered from every direction, constantly coming back for more. But then, Mika noticed how some skeletons seemed to stop, and some even collapsed spontaneously, as if struck by an invisible foe. Who could it be, and were they her ally?
Lily looked a bit nervous as she showed up at the front of the school she had decided to attend; Penrose Technical. One of the most prestigious schools in the city, it offered great courses for various professions, while keeping to a very practical level of academic interest. She had already signed up to the school online, and simply had to check in with the principal and the student help center to get ready to attend as a transfer student. "I did promise Alex I'd make friends...But how does one make friends in the first place?" She muttered to herself. "It's been a long time since I did this...Ok, maybe the cheerleading squad? I'm now physically fit for that..." As she gauged her options, she saw a girl approach her, and quickly tucked her schoolbag before her, as if that shielded her from the comments of mean girls. "Uh, Hi!" She greeted with a trembling smile, and blushed at the compliment she was given on her appearance. "Th-thanks. I'm glad somebody noticed, heh. You also look good. I like the Japanese style of uniform a lot." Once again, she blurted out something weird, and her smile kept turning more awkward. "I-I'm Lily Hanson. I'm going to attend B6, taught by Andrew Morrison." She took her map out. "Are you also going to the gym? They're holding an introductory event there. Would you mind if I tagged along with you?"
Eliza crossed her arms as she kept an eye on the wicked witches. She couldn't help but smirk when some of them avoided the illusion in fear, yet in seeing one of the devouts from the cathedral get captured like Dorothy, a scowl took over instead. The winged witch fired a beam of light at the witch, and used one of her ribbons to catch the churchgoer. "So sorry again!" She apologized, setting him down where he wouldn't be seen by the witches.
Finally, reinforcements started to arrive. A group of beacon girls teleported to the catherdral, and began to attack the witches aswell. One of the girls managed to one-shot a witch with a baseball and bat, which impressed Eliza, and the leader, another winged light user started firing arrows from above. Then, she noticed Binky. The angelic witch was too busy trying to fight, that she didn't notice the poor girl.
Unfortunately for Eliza, she was getting distracted. So before she could fly over to Binky, one of the wicked witches' curses hit her, turning her into a frog. She flailed her arms in a comical manner, then started to fall out of the sky. "Ribbit- Why me?!" She croaked. Luckly, she was caught by possibly the youngest magical girl she's ever seen.
Being without a patron meant that Celia could work along side any magical boy or girl, wether they'd be of a horror or a deity, without the drawbacks. It's how she managed to get around, after all. Yet somehow her current partnership managed to lead her to Penrose, a hotspot for monster attacks and then some, she was told. But she didn't expect three attacks happening at once. Her temporary partner, a blue-haired magical boy, who specialized in sound, was more interested in the fight at the catherdral than the other two.
"Look at this, Lia." Elliot spoke up as the two watched the fight from afar. "Not to chaotic, not to tame, seems perfect, yeah?" He turned to look at the young girl with a small grin. Celia shrugged in reply, as she quickly shifted into her transformed state, and focused on utilizing the emotions of everyone on the battlefield.
Anger. Fear. Determination. And Focus.
"You really don't talk much do you?" Elliot grabbed the glass violin and bow from the case he was carrying. "You go on ahead and get a few shots for warm up, I'll cover for you as bet as I-" Once he looked back up, Celia was already making her way over to the witches, using her focus magic to make crystal-like platforms to hop-scotch across. "..Well." He quickly ran after her and started playing a song that seems to invoke Hope in others. His magic appeared as blue soundwaves, aiming towards the witches that were trying to avoid the...dragon? A dragon? Well that's new.
Meanwhile, Celia finally got to the level the witch fight was happening. Yep surpprisingly, there was a good witch that seemed to have arrived before anyone else, if you asked Celia. The empathic girl aimed her crossbow at a witch, and with her anger magic ignited the arrow in a pure red flame. Pulling the trigger, the arrow fired at her target, and split in three. She continued with a few others, before noticing the good witch had turned into a frog. "Uh oh." Celia quickly rushed over and caught the blonde haired frog, shielding them both with a barrier of focus magic. "You alright there, Glinda?"
"Who you callin' Glinda, Dorothy- Ribbit?" Eliza looked up at the girl with her eyes squinted. Celia thought of what to do as she hopped down back to the ground. "This is some Prince and the Frog bullsh- Ribbit!"
"Woah, a witch getting bewitched. That's a new one." Elliot joked, running up besides the empath. "The monsters said that only a kiss from a virtuous man can turn her back..." Celia turned to her teammate with a shit-eating smile. "Care to do the honors?"
"What? Nonononoooo- I'm a virtuoso, a musician. Not in any means a virtuous." He explained, before continuing to fire soundwaves at their opponents. "Well, I tried. Best you stay with us froggy. Or better yet..." Celia noticed Binky on the roof. The small girl made her way over to her and waved hello. "Greetings. Could you hold Glinda here for me?" She asked her, sitting Eliza down besides her, and using her fear magic to make it where the other two weren't notciable. Then she made her way back to Elliot, and continuted firing anger magic fueled arrows at the witches till she ran out.
"Please- Ribbit. Don't tell my boss about this." Eliza turned to look at Binky. "I dunno what Veronica would do if she saw me like this, and I don't really want to know- Ribbit."
Suddenly, the fear in the area seemed to have doubled, as a dark empath user used her magic to spread terror around the area. The one behind the witch attack maybe. Either way, Celia tried her best to keep a straight face on and stay Determined, but she herself was unsettled by the sudden change in atmosphere. "Don't let up, everyone! You have to win this! I'll go after the bird girl, just keep fighting!!" She called out to everyone else, then quickly approached Suzette, only storing focus and fear magic into herself - but mostly fear - and summoned some demon-like wraiths to attack the other empath.
Things got off to a good start, Alicia keeping an eye on Summer as she charged in to the battle. She trusted her, she was just curious to see her powers in action. She'd heard about it, but seeing it in action was a different thing entirely. Cartoon powers? How would that work? The way she took out one of the witches was a perfect demonstration, even if it wasn't quite what she had been instructed to do.
Keeping up her fire, Alicia found her effect to be more suppressive than actual, but that was the point. She just hoped that Summer was ready to kick them to the Overcity when everyone was in range. She drew closer, ethereal wings fluttering in defiance of the wind as she drew nearer the building. It was at that point that two things simultaneously happened, sudden pangs of fear and terror countered by a song of sorts. Empathic magic was nothing new, and she appreciated it even if she didn't know who was doing it.
She reciprocated, wings flaring wider and shining with a more intense light as she drew close to the cathedral. "Take heart!" she called, more to the people inside than those fighting with her. "We have fought worse, than to be terrified by a few dark magic users."
She darted to the side, dodging incoming magic before returning fire. Adjusting her aim, she fired out small bursts of like light buckshot, piercing flechettes that filled the air and were at least distracting even if they weren't lethal. But lethality wasn't the point. Anyone who strayed too far from the cathedral would find themselves a target as well, as she did her best to make sure that they stayed clustered in one place so Summer could snag them all in the Overcity Shift.
Of course she had to worry about coming along too, but she would wait until the last second before darting in range for that, to make sure no one escaped. The last thing they wanted to do was leave stragglers behind to threaten the congregation.
@BrokenPromise ‘Hah!’ The girl smiled widely as Su dodged forward and under her arm, closer to her while the clawed hand carved through bookshelves and sofas within the apartment. I reaction, the girl leapt backwards and called her hand back, though it’d be coming back from to Su’s right and not straight behind her due to the swipe having kept going. Then, before she landed, Su shot a blast of wind that tore through the floor beneath where her opponent was about to land. The coat-wearing girl had just gotten her right hand back, which had returned to its normal but still fairly oversized size, when she looked down in alarm as a hole had appeared, not able to react quite fast enough to prevent falling through. Thooouuugh…
She briefly fell through, before shooting up again after having been out of sight for but a fraction of a second, grinning and standing on her now excessively long metal legs, which had been shot down into the floor beneath and now acted as stilts.
‘What? You don’t want to hurt little old me, for some reason? I’m touched.’ So she said, before making a small wave if her left hands, palm upwards and fingers waving back towards her in a “come-here” motion.
So, something Su could potentially could have noticed. When the girl recalled her somewhat smaller right hand, it was because it had left behind a considerable amount of metal debris behind Su, splintering off while causing destruction in the room. That mass of metal now shaped into a considerable amount of sharp knife-like splinters, which the girl called to fly at high speed back towards herself, through the space which Su currently occupied. If she was in the way and didn’t do anything to act against it, she would certainly be pierced. If the parts did not hit anything they’d fly to the coat-wearing girl and slip in any available openings, by her neck, by her arms, from underneath and between the belts that held her coat together. That was more metal than the coat should logically be able to hold within it.
After that spray of metal, the girl excitedly leapt at Su, her stilt-legs molded back into her “normal” metal legs as she got into the air, now intent on simply getting into close combat and striking with the sharp ends of her huge metal hands once again.
Victoria looked curiously at the camera, and then smiled to Shion.
‘Ah, yeah, me? I’m kinda part of the fight. I was a little bored, so I wanted to try out the local selection. Just to warm me up, you know? Teh-heh. Though, I’m happy for the moment,’ Victoria smiled a bit, looking out towards where another her was currently fighting Helga.
‘Yeah, I could tell you something about the monsters. They’re someone’s. Not ours, but someone’s. Someone felt it was a brilliant idea to summon an army of skeletons around here. Who and why, I can’t tell, and I don’t really care. That’s also why I’m not fighting them. I don’t really care about what a horde of skeletons do, if they take a few lives or whatnot. Magical Girls are going to show up soon enough to take care of it. Look, there’s one,’ Victoria said, pointing towards the end of the horde heading for the park, where a tiger-beast girl was jumping into the horde… and it was reassembling itself as she tore them apart.
‘Ho-ho, looks like she might be in trouble. Maybe I should interfere JUST to possibly get an admirer,’ Victoria chuckled a little, looking off in the direction…
Victoria stared a bit oddly at Helga at the references as both of them attached themselves to the wall. They exchanged the blow, and Victoria looked fairly confident about herself. Then Helga started speaking about Victoria’s supposed weakness. She raised an eyebrow, but made ready to dodge aside or raise a barrier of ice again to take the attack… only for her ice to shatter from the sound-wave and took her off the edge of the building.
‘Tsk!’ Albeit her ice that was there at the time had shattered, Victoria could still manifest new ice under her feet and attached to the wall for balance. She rode her ice down and straight down into the horde of skeletons, knocking a considerable amount of them aside and leaving them part frozen. When the ice met the ground, Victoria easily walked off with perfect balance. Her expression was deeply annoyed.
‘… “Resonance”? What kind of stupidity is that? Stronger and faster than me AND just somehow has a spell that somehow counters my entire specialization? That’s not even my weakness! I’m not WEAK to Sound! … Screw this. Magical Girls are bullshit, and now I’m in a bad mood. I’m leaving.’
Saying so, Victoria took an immediate right into an alley, uninterested in whatever she was leaving behind, including her allies and the giant ice-sled down into a skeleton horde she had just created.
‘… Huh. I didn’t expect that…’ The Victoria next to Shion muttered, watching the above written scene, somewhat perturbed by the events concerning her double.
Though such a thought crossed her mind in some fashion as the assistants of Regina and Elroy began to cart her off and provide assistance with her escape, Annabelle felt a pang of joy leap into her heart. Her...her friends. Ah, the word felt so odd to think, but it nearly brought a smile to her face as briefly. However as she was being flown away she looked behind to what was going on. Others were arriving, prominently including some sort of group of people who began attacking the grunts. For a second, Annabelle was glad for it, though it also worried her as well. Many of the grunts who had managed to grab anything, whether it was people or attempting to gang up on a single mummy enough at a time to try to secure it for transport, were fleeing towards the dugout with the last remaining open portal in it. Albeit, a destabilized portal, flickering like static from a TV screen of yore with sparks of magic flying from parts it now as a low, creaking, groaning sound seemed to emanate from it. Such a thing could be dangerous, stable or not....especially in the latter case were it not shut down promptly enough, or correctly at that. But if left alone...well, there was perhaps not telling that could happen.
The magic of horrors could be such a tricky thing to tamper with in reality.
However, she noticed a couple of things out of the corners of her eyes, and this snapped her a bit out of the serious disillusionment she had been feeling prior. Enough to act more directly, anywho. As she saw something moving towards the knightly magical girl who had stayed behind to help protect her, Annabelle pushed her magic even more, a vertical, wall-like barrier of void arising between the charging figure to try protect Shona...even Amaryllis since the two were near each other, despite what was happening. But wait, what was that booming noise? She looked to her side to see something being fired towards the top part of the stadium...about where she'd been short from by that....oh. Wait, who were they attacking? Rina?! Elroy or Regina?!?! She gritted her teeth, focusing as best as she could to try to create a small disc of void ahead of the projectile if she could.
Hoping the two Bates siblings would be ok, not wanting to guilt of letting them die because of her, Annabelle grit her teeth at the thought. though, yet more than this the situation was finally beginning to settle in for her. Not completely, but she felt a bit more cognizant of things around her than she had been not long ago. As the emotions became more focused into a frustration, they slightly began to overpower a bit of the blur of emotions, thoughts, and fears twisting about inside of her head and gut like a knife. Just enough for her to feel a pang of hurt at being....sent in here as fodder, perhaps? Being lied to at that by her patron, and then he had toyed with her magic and weapon and overpowered her life she was a mere insect? She'd seen her boss use other minions for that before, but he'd never done something like this to her before. Ever.
An inky black orb formed in front of Annabelle, moving along with the trio as they flied toward the exit. It seemed to expand into a mirror-like shape, a flat mirror like object in front of her. Like a portal, but too small to use. At the same time, out of the dugout portal emerged some more lesser horror goons to try to cover the flight of those that had any "supplies" with them. However, something seemed....rather wrong this time, as a few seemed to collapse after getting through missing body parts or half their bodies as they bled into the dugout. Though these were ignored by those that came into and out of the portal intact enough.
'Ah, my herald. Its is good that you live, and the supply that has been brought in by now is sufficient for certain parts at least. Unfortunate what has happened otherwise, however.' the voice of Soth said as it came out of the portal, able to be heard as clearly and smoothly as a "soothing" tone in a horror's voice could perhaps be like.
"Why...did you...stop me? Why did you lie to me? You...THEY TRIED TO KILL ME!!!" Annabelle said back at the small portal that was moving along with her and the two other Beacon Buddies, at first her voice timid, tired, almost hoarse as it sounded like she had not long ago. Yet it built up, the frustration finding a focus, and erupted into a clarion shout emerging from Annabelle's mouth that cracked along with her voice and a couple tears that ran down her cheeks from her eyes now.
'Do not rage, young one, for i bear no ill will at you. You were not told the full truth of this mission, for i had other matters i had to attend to at the time. Certain...preparations alongside information gathering, as it were. Though i see this was a mistake in hindsight to allow you to go off without an understanding.
Ah, what it must be like to be such a young existence, a being coated in flesh and blood. I have always wondered what it would be like, in a sense, though such a frail vessel of the soul can also be so....foolish and hasty in its fleeting moments of clinging to life. Regardless, we are about ready to move onward with things to the next step. I have located a particularly precious resource for acquisition, and after this event it shall require more....subtle measure to acquire.
So for the time being, stay with these....'Bates' individuals with which you have affiliated yourself. You seem to be happier alongside them, and the rest of this day you shall have to indulge your own ideas and ends. I shall then call for you when you are next needed, my herald.
Until then, you need to get some rest.
And so i address you, assistant of the 'Bates' as they are named. For keeping my herald safe, and in return for taking her in for a day or so perhaps, tell your masters they shall be rewarded for it with added pay."
"Pay attention! You were busy, so that's why you never said anything to me?! I....why? What are you planning, boss? I...i wanted to help the people here....not kill them... Then those two...now they...i just wanted to do something good..."
The magical girl's voice seemed weaker again, the feeling of hoarseness cutting and tearing at the inside of her throat. She was beginning to lose the words she wanted to say, mind still swimming with thoughts and emotions and sensations making the very act of forming words and thinking of them even more draining. She felt the struggle to keep her eyes open set in, even. Her body felt...it didn't feel right at the moment regardless. Her boss had directly controlled her magic, and she'd....she'd lost an arm. Though she couldn't really feel the latter at the moment, the former had left her skin crawling. Like her personal space had been violated.
'Ah, interesting...that such a mind still retains a sense of that 'morality of humans'. Most interesting indeed. Perhaps...could it possess such things as well, potentially? If so that could be...mhmm, that would be most fascinating to experience indeed. Ah, but perhaps i get ahead of myself in the overall scheme of things.
But in other matters:
You had hopes to eventually befriend those two who wounded and harmed you, it would seem? Yet such innocence as yours this day was met with cold steel and the drawing of blood, and this is the reality of this life of yours. Even now it seems....ah, you still hope for them to live, don't you? Even though they will most likely seek to slay you where you stand after this event? Shall this naivete result in your slaying proper next time around then?'
Annabelle clamped her mouth shut before she could drawl out any of the words floating about in her mind about what he had just said. Soth....dangit, her boss wasn't wrong...was he? She wanted him to be wrong, that Amaryllis might show up again and she could talk to her over a cup of tea. That perhaps they could be friends, find a way to get along.
Yet perhaps...perhaps she was being naive, and greedy for wanting...for wanting so many friends, eh? The void-touched girl bit onto her lower lip a bit. Was it so wrong to feel the desire to connect to others? Was...was having the desires and feelings she had a bad thing to have at all?
This time she had no retort, just silence as she realized there were some things she had to think about for herself. Yet as much as she wanted to just walk away from her patron in some part within her....she knew for sure, for a great surety, this would not go well. For as calm as Soth seemed to be....she'd seen that anger. Briefly, only ever once or twice at most....it had haunted her for two years straight in her sleep after that.
Lightly shaking her head to try to help keep conscious, Annabelle looked up in the direction of where the attack fired towards the upper area of the stands had been aimed. Right now, she needed to be awake. She couldn't...she couldn't back down now that Regina and Elroy were here. She wanted to keep them safe, alive....ah. She did have something she could do. She could feel the darkness, that magic, where concentrations of it were about her....at least if only because she was tied to the element and it was "her shtick" so to say.
As her boss' voice ceased to emanate from the orb floating still in front of her, Annabelle seized control again over the orb and did her best to focus on a particular area where she felt a strong concentration of darkness magic. Near Regina, a tiny portal, the size of a modest hand mirror, would open up similar in shape to the way the orb had opened up for Annabelle when Soth had spoken to her moments ago. As Annabelle's orb changed again to that shape it had been in, she felt a small pang of relief wash over her.
If her boss could open up two small portals for comms....so could she then! Besides, she didn't care if her boss liked that or not, she was going to keep her friends safe and that was final!
"R-Regina, you...there?" the void-touched magical girl said, her voice coming clearly out of the other portal in the process as she spoke into the one floating in front of her on her end, trying to be positive in her voice despite the obvious tired pauses and rare occasional stutter as her body has shivers run down its spine, "Stay safe...and...t-thank you. He....we...c-can go on the town tonight...eh? Just the two of us, ok? I k-know a place.....ahh...i-i feel colder than i was b-before...."
She was getting...dizzier and dizzier too. In reality, this entire time her remaining bit of the top part and shoulder of her right arm was raggedly cut and bleeding out from where it had been severed from the rest. It wasn't impossible that this would have an effect on her even as a magical girl, with Divina potentially getting this blood on herself in the process of things due to holding up that part of her as they floated on. Albeit, she could feel what was almost like tiny threads of magic around the wounded area....maybe her boss attempting to stitch her up? Or was it just a phantom feeling, a vain hope that things would be better and that he wasn't using her just like another tool.
Hah.
But she wouldn't die from blood loss. Not here, not now.
Nina Kujo and Alice Honorsby
Ah, that Speedwagon girl had picked up, at least. Albeit, things didn't seem too well at the cathedral, when the call kept going but Speedwagon didn't seem to be talking to her anymore. Getting the clue rather quickly on the uptake, though as Speedwagon seemed to be surprised by some even unknown to her Nina sighed. Quickly putting the phone to her side, she didn't even have to look at Alice to realize the other magical girl knew what was going on. Scope on that rifle was able to tell her enough normally anywho. Nina then held her left arm up, and snapped her fingers using her left hand.
Violet-colored vines with leaves grew up around her left arm, seeming to shimmer into existence in the blink of an eye. They grew in length until they reached down in front of the magical girl, forming a mirror-shaped oval as tall as an adult man. Then within this space the air seemed to shimmer, as the image of Speedwagon and the scene around her came up as if it being displayed on a computer screen. Looking to Alice, Nina nodded and her partner nodded in return before leaping into the image in front of them. Nina then pulled down her arm, the vines remaining attached to her as she walked into the image in front of her as well. Though as she did this, the vines forming that had become the "portal" in front of them seemed to be drawn in as well, sucked in until naught was left behind but empty air.
This was the spirit 『Violet Hermit』, which could create a portal to the general location of anyone the wielder knew the appearance of. Which for a magical girl, meant they had to be in the form she recognized for this to actually work. Not that the portal would drop them right by the person...it wasn't a perfect teleportation after all.
Speedwagon would see a figure zoom over from a nearby rooftop, landing next to her with a rifle in hand. Red Rifle has a small grin on her face as she hoisted the weapon up, aimed in the direction of the witches in the air, before looking over to her side at the fellow magical girl. The grin remained in place, but Alice gave a teasing wink regardless.
"Nina sent me ahead to meet up with ya, since we kinda landed in an odd place location coming here. She decided ta' give the portal one more chance to get to a better spot.
At any rate, you ok, Speedwagon?"
Her tone was sincere despite the grin and teasing wink, a thing that at times seemed to catch people off guard. Nina, however, had become accustomed to it.
Meanwhile....atop the tallest spire of the cathedral, a figure seemed to appear on top, standing without so much as a sway as they looked down upon the witches in the air around them. Blue clothes, ponytail....the trademark magical girl appearance of Nina herself in all honesty. However, as the violet-colored vines shimmered away and faded from where they had been on her left arm, another figure seemed to shimmer into existence. The same spirit as she had been using the other day, albeit without getting to use its ability.
"『Star Platinum』Summoned"
"Yare yare, daze. You old hags really like to mess up peoples' day, huh? Messing with innocent people.....it makes me sick!"
Nina struck a pose, one hand in her coat pocket and the left other pointing out at the witches as she called out to them in a loud, annoyed voice. The striking image of the character her patron had designed her magical girl form to be like. Were that goddess here, she might have been giggling like a happy geek to herself about things despite the situation.
"Now you'll pay!"
"『Star Platinum』Ability Activated: Worlds of Pain"
Star Platinum, floating behind and above Nina's back it always did when summoned, held up its hand with one finger pointed at the sky. A sphere began to form just above it. Smaller spheres made of metal began to form within it as well quickly, and just when it might have finally drawn some attention the power finally kicked in proper.
The larger sphere evaporated, leaving the many small metal balls floating in the air. Then snapping the fingers on her left hand again as the metal gauntlets on her arm glistened in the sunlight, the snap merely done for dramatic effect as she had done prior, the small metal balls began to move quickly. Flying out into the air, they began to rain down like a shower of small, speedy meteors to try to smash into the witches. It was the strongest attack of this spirit of hers, which utilized the Metal element. But instead of one large attack it made up for it....
....by assaulting the enemy with an array of homing metal balls as its special ability!!!
Alexander groaned "Wonderful; more magical politics. " He massaged his forehead "Fuck...just, fuck all of this." No longer feeling like a fight, he wandered off in search of people to heal 'I guess it was too much to hope for that everyone would just keep getting along like during the raid. But I guess that only works when there's someone we all hate even more than each other. Dammit I can't fix this shit! I'm more likely to get everyone attacking me' He sighed 'I really hope these people don't burn down the entire town with their political bickering'
@Ariamis@Crusader Lord@Rune_Alchemist@Shifter_Master@BrokenPromise Amaryllis was faster than that. Against a true monster, her sword would have wholly dismembered all four limbs and then turned to behead the creature, all before the first errant limb hit the ground. Her specialty was speed and swordplay, her senses guided, nay, prodded by a supernatural force far beyond the realm of magical girls. Once she closed the gap, any creature of lesser physical ability would have been hunks of meat.
But the Knight of Rose did not seek to claim the Maiden’s head as a trophy, for snakes were far more insidious than a child who couldn’t see past her own delusions.
And that was her first mistake.
A wave of impossible magic that removed monster and magic alike from the very fabric of existence. An entire fractured squadron of magical girls and boys, emerging from nowhere. Questions. Lies. Reprimands. Strikes. For a moment, Amaryllis leveled the polished flat of her sword upon the new knight that sprung from the skies, the silvered blade reflecting the iron warrioress in all her valor, all her madness. There was no doubt in her mind that these were allies of Annabelle, those that favored the destruction and chaos she willfully or willlessly caused, and if that was the case she would have to f-
Gunfire roared towards the shieldbearer that had emerged beside Rina. A black shadow shot out and smashed into the knight. A final wave of horrors opposed the Knight of Rose, and two more magical girls flew to snatch Annabelle away.
It was chaos and it was madness and it was opportunity and she let herself fall into her Sword completely.
Like they’ve always, eldritch horrors fell apart before the flashing rapier, dissected and disassembled as Amaryllis raised out her hand towards the disappearing form of Annabelle and grasped her. Silver chains burst out of the bloodied stump of the darkness mage, shooting like quicksilver into the fencer’s grasp, the magic as familiar and simple as ever. Nothing but chains. Nothing but silver ivy. Nothing but a single spell, sharpened to perfection.
With herculean strength, Amaryllis yanked Annabelle out of her peaceful conversation and the hands of those that sought to facilitate her escape, sending her flying towards one of the new arrivals instead, a phantom thief in all white. “Don’t let her escape! She’s at the center of this incident! Rina, blast the fliers out of the skies!”
Her heart beat, her blood roared, and her Sword sang.
Su did not understand the metal girl's fighting style enough to discern why her hand was smaller after the attack. But her own mastery over wind gave her an idea of what was going on. Su was able to detect the floating particles behind her back without even looking. It didn't take a very bright person to realize that she was being cornered between a wall of projectiles and a very sturdy magical girl. It was a recipe for a very nasty looking pincer attack. Her opponent was relentless, and Su was going to have to be more forceful if she wanted to get through. She had hoped to hold onto all that magical energy she was storing, but that didn't look possible in this situation.
Su landed on the ground in a horse stance and thrust her fists out in either direction. The gusts of wind were proportionate to the incoming threat. The gale that Su threw towards the incoming metal knives was just strong enough to knock them off course, while the brunt of Su's might was directed at the metal bunny girl. She was heavy, but Su's super charged air burst was strong enough to push the metal girl back. It would not be incorrect to say Su was attempting to smash the bunny girl with a wall of wind. Few things could force their way past such a gale, and Su's opponent wasn't one of them. She immediately charged towards the metal magical girl, which caused the wall of wind to smash her into the opposing wall, possibly through it. ”We can flirt later.” Su jumped through the hole in the floor and attempted to advance past her opponent. She was aware of her opponents ability to smash through walls and extend their limbs now, so she wouldn't try to advance directly under them.
Mika did not have a great time after plowing through the skeletons. They were able to reform into powerful creatures and form a counter attack. The wheel skeletons were troublesome because of the hit stun how easily they knocked her down so that other skeletons could approach uncontested. Before long, Mika was completely surrounded. She had limited options when surrounded like this, and shifting her entire body into a giant animal was powerful, but taxing on her mana. Things were looking grim, but Mika knew this wasn't the end. There was too much left she had to do. She needed to make Su and Helga happy, she needed to find that mysterious girl who shared a meal with her, she needed to defeat Penny. This couldn't be the end.
And she was right.
Skeletons started crumbling and exploding around Mika. She couldn't tell what was causing it to happen, but was pleased regardless. The only thing Mika could think of was that she must have a secret admirer, protecting her when she needed it most. ”That has to be it!” She was being protected by a tuxedo mask, or a mysterious racer X. She could hear someone else skating through the skeletons. ”Reinforcements are here! Hahaha!” She lunged at one of the skeletons that were trying to box her in. Before it could react, her head transformed into that of a great wolf and claimed onto its skull. She crushed it her jaw as soon as her feet landed on the other side. It clearly wasn't enough to just attack them. Perhaps if she broke their bones instead of blowing them apart it might have a different effect. One could hope. Otherwise, her admirer would probably protect her. But that was sort of embarrassing.
Elroy shrugged his shoulders when Rina stepped away from the roof edge. Once she was out of Elroy's field of view, he placed a hand on his hip. ”I know you're still there, mop head!" But a bright flash from the center of the stadium caused Elroy to turn and face the newly arrived group. ”Is that my good friend mecha girl I see?" The chairs he was holding up with his magic fell to the ground. ”We get to have a round two! And I might actually remember some of it this time!" If Elroy was much closer to Penny, he might not have been able to get out of the way of her gauss shot in time. But with him near the top edge of the grand stands, and her down in the center of the stadium, He had enough time to simply step out of the way. It slammed into the back most wall, and turned the metal roof Rina was standing on into scrap. Elroy did not actually look over his shoulder to confirm if Rina had moved or not. She was not as interesting as his new target. ”Wait right there!" Elroy promptly dropped his shield and hopped on top of it. His metal magic let him surf down the steps in an attempt to get to the center of the stadium. He occasionally used his magic to shadow step through shadows hidden under the bench seats. He wouldn't be an easy target for most, but it would take him some time to get to Penny's position.
Regina's mobility was limited by the daylight, but the upper most ring of the stadium was sufficiently dark thanks to the roof that almost encompassed the entire thing. Regina left one of her dark projectiles in one spot, shadow step elsewhere in the ring, before leaving another. Her veil of invisibility would make her hard to spot, or hear. But once she move away from a spot, it would be possible to spot the nebulous shadow spheres she was leaving behind. Difficult, but possible. She repeated this process again, and again, and again.
"Almost..."
Shona turned just in time to spot Sil, but she was moving so fast, the knight could only barely form a proper defense. She raised her sword to deflect the incoming blow, but between Sil's time magic and enhanced abilities, she was able to easily maneuver around the sword and stab her knife directly through Shona's chest, armor and all. The thrust was so strong that it threw the knight backwards, tumbling end over end. She managed to get her feet under herself to prevent from sliding further backward. Annabelle was able to erect a wall in front of Sil, which the enraged assassin beat upon with unending fury. It would not hold much longer. She briefly looked at the newly arrived beacon girls out of the corner of her eye. ”Sally?” She chuckled to herself. ”Good to see more beacon reinforcements in the area.” Shona gripped her sword in both hands and charged towards Amaryllis. ”Sisters! Sally has arrived with reinforcements!” Shona's sword surged with energy, and when it released, it formed a transparent crystal edge around the perimeter of her weapon. ”Let's show them that a Beacon's spark...” A similar energy was released from Shona's armor, which made it considerably thicker. None of these enhancements slowed her down. ”...Shines brightest before the dawn!” With a war cry, Shona attempted to sweep the blade through Amaryllis's legs. It likely wasn't an unexpected attack, given the distance Shona had to travel, but the power might have been. The gusts of wind left in the blade's wake were enough to throw one off balance.
Tonya only got angrier when Alexander walked away from her. ”Hey! There is nothing political about this!” She drummed her fists against the back of his head. ”Quit being so indecisive, you fluffy eared prick! There's plenty of monsters to beat up.” She huffed and lowered her arms. ”W-well whatever! Go cry or something!” Tonya promptly took flight and soared into the heavens. Or was she flying straight for Rita?
Before Amaryllis even used her magic, Divina's eyes shot wide open. ”Abigail, be careful with Annabelle!”
Abigail raised an eyebrow. ”Is there a reason?” Annabelle's stump suddenly sprouted chains, which raced back to Amaryllis's hands. ”Ahhh, I see now.”
The verbal warning did little to prepare Abigail for what was about to happen, But Divina was able to grab a hold of Annabelle and spread her wings to at least slow her decent. Still, Amaryllis was a reasonably strong magical girl with leverage on her side. Divina was only delaying the inevitable. ”I can't hold her much longer!”
”Meh.” Abigail started to dive. ”I really didn't want to use this.” Just as Divina and Annabelle were about to fall beside Auelio. Abigail landed between all three of them. ”Later, suckers!” A pulse of gravity expanded outward from the haughty magical girl, before collapsing into nothingness. It would seem that the magical boy and three girls had been crushed out of existence. But what actually happened was much stranger...
Auelio, Abigail, Annabelle, and Divina tumbled into a strange space. The floor was covered in a checkerboard pattern, which seemed to stretch and bend over the alien landscape. Abigail promptly threw her fists into the air. ”I did it! My shift to the overcity was successful! Hahahahahaha!” She pointed at Divina. ”Alright, I think this is a safe place to do that thing.”
”Right.” Divina folded her hands together and kneeled. She seemed to be calm at the moment, while Abigail was dripping with excitement.
”Hahahahahaha!” She spun on her heel and looked at Auelio. ”You must be new. I don't remember you, but you came in with Sally and that useless cyborg, so you're from Beacon. Sorry I wasn't there to welcome you into the club! I wonder why that rapier girl threw Annabelle at you?” She extended her hand towards the boy. ”My name is Abigail, by the way.” She averted her eyes. ”But you can call me 'sis' if it's easier to remember.”
It seemed these were beacon girls, but if Amaryllis was to be believed, they were protecting someone who was very dangerous. What would he do?
The detective clapped her hands together. “Hmmm, yes, I suspected you would make that pose and introduce yourself.” She folded her arms. “I'm Sammy the supah sleuth. And this girl that's gradually getting away is Binky. She's an evil criminal mastermind.” Sammy observed the rope that was hauling Binky away. “Even though this appears to be some strange form of cartoon logic, apparently it's 'fourth wall' magic. The two do not relate in any sensible way, but my deductions are never wrong.” Sammy looked back at Speedwagon. “I am a bit disappointed that Beacon would choose to ally themselves with a nefarious criminal, but I know it will not end well. Because that girl is going to tell Binky that she is Beacon, which will cause her to freak out.”
Sure enough, Summer told Binky that she was a Beacon girl, and Binky immediately started to panic. ”I don't think I'm safe here! Um, uh, bye!” Binky took off running as fast as her high heels would let her.
Sammy was pushing her cats into position. “Brief interlude, that one with the bow is going to shoot a barrage of arrows at us. I am unable to deduce why at this time. As long as you're standing in the right spot, every arrow will miss.” Sammy gave Speedwagon a shove just as the arrows flew past them, narrowly missing both magical girls and every cat. “Alright, let me gain my bearings” She placed a hand on her head. “Avoiding the shot seems to have changed some things.”
By this point the fear magic was starting to set in. Its power was most notable in Binky, who was already screaming in terror. ”Everything is horrible! Why bother existing at all!?” Binky closed her eyes as tight as she could and whaled into the heavens. It wasn't clear if she stumbled, or simply ran off the edge of the cathedral, but she tumbled off the edge of the roof and landed in a heap. This time, she didn't create anything soft to land on. But there was so much adrenaline pumping through her system that she was able to stand up and keep running, only to stumble and fall into a thorny rose bush.
Sammy was feeling it a bit too. Her face was visibly pale, and she was using a handkerchief to wipe away the sweat running down her face. “W-well, my mark appears to be gradually escaping.” Sammy took a deep breath and walked past Speedwagon. “I can't think straight, can't, deduce, much.” She took a deep breath, but made no attempt to face Speedwagon. “I'm not sure now is a good time to keep up a conversation.” She swallowed. “Do what you will, I just have to catch my mark.” The felines on the other hand seemed unaffected by the dread that was targeting the magical girls, and quietly followed the detective.
Age: 24/11 | Gender: Female/Female | Illusion, Gravity Body | Power of Friendship, Regeneration, Third Eye | Moirai Coercion, Soul Jar, Martial Training, True Sight, Parasite, Gifted, Awareness, Mystic Artifact
Mac grit her teeth, but she wasn't going to cave under the effects of some fear magic. She redoubled her efforts to assist with elimination of the witches. Alicia's bombardment would look even more terrifying with Mac's assistance, and when the word of pain spell hit, she would assist with her gravity magic.
Helping Beacon was not something that gave Mac any joy, but there was little she could really do about it. It was this, or risk harm to many innocent human lives.
Vanessa immediately folded her hands over her chest when Lily mentioned their outfits looked good, and let go of a breath she didn't know she had been holding. The Rockett sisters gave each other a small nod before turning back to face Lily. Vanessa was the first to speak. “Sure, we're new here ourselves.”
“New to Penrose even!” Jessica leaned her head on her sister's shoulder. “Unfortunate we don't have the same class. Boo!”
“Regardless, the gym sounds like an excellent idea. Let's head there together.” Vanessa walked on Lily's right. “I wonder why we're all gathering at the gym though? I've never done anything like this before.”
Jessica walked on Lily's left. “Maybe we're going to play a game? Some basketball would be cool! Though jamming out on guitar would be even better!”
Vanessa grinned. “I doubt they have musical instruments set up, but it would be nice to practice on a fancy drum kit. I'm looking forward to music class.”
“Tell me about it!” Jessica leaned in towards Lily. “What do you hope to do on your first day of school?”
The witches who were previously intimidated by the illusionary dragon now returned, and joined the rest in a gangrene gang of evil, totaling nine fully ready witches, with one carrying a struggling man around her arm. "Mmm, you'll make for a lovely stew, hee hee!" However, as her final act before the transformation fully took over, Eliza fired a bright laser that stung the witch, and caused the man to drop. Fortunately she prepared for such an outcome, and a net of ribbons caught him. The man saw how the girl was subsequently reduced to but a small amphibian, completely shocked. "Aaahh! Frogs are raining from the sky! Is this the Rapture?" The man was in complete terror, no thanks to Suzette's terror magic, and curled up into a fetal position in the grass. The witch had her arm burnt, and crashed down into a bush, her legs spread striped red-and-white bloomers in comical display as showed off her curled boots. "Ahh, curses!" She screamed.
Celia then attacked the witches, using her reserves of emotional magic in diverse ways to her limit; using her temporary platforms, she was able to enter shooting range, and cast splitting fire arrows; four of them were successfully hit the witches,, causing them to scream in agony as their filthy clothes easily set ablaze. Two to burn to cinders, and the other two to be unable to attack. She also created a barrier, protecting her from the counter-fire of a couple of witches nearby. She cast a masking spell, using the fear in the area to conceal the two and then continued firing as much as she could, setting three more witches on fire, incinerating two. However, Suzette's magic affected Celia's as it slowly converted all emotion into nothing but fear. Combined with her having performed so many spells in such rapid speed, the result left her quickly shaken and seeing vertigo. Though there was plenty of fear to go around, her mentally stressed state struggled to use it to create lame wraiths who moaned and flailed around before they disappeared, afraid of the Empty Empath.
Elliot, who happened to accompany Celia at the scene, did his best, trying to counter Suzette's dreadful spell with his own song and blasting soundwaves at the witches, but was quickly turned into a toad himself by a particularly sharp-eyed hag. Reduced to a small critter, he panicked, croaking and trying to jump away, reaching the fence of the surrounding yard. Meanwhile, Alicia was more successful, flying in a simple strafing circle around the cathedral and corralling witches more closer to the building; her tactic of focusing more on a dazzling light-show than lethality proved very effective, the witches clearly distraught and threatened by the flechettes that looked more dangerous than actually were. As a result, all the witches were now circling close to the rooftop and central tower. Now brought into Nina Kujo's proximity, the witches were bombarded by her Worlds of Pain spell; though very short in range and risky due to a massive mana cost, the attack connected with most witches, clobbered and beaten to a pulp by orbs of ore, leaving them as puddles of goop by the end of it.
Nina felt as heavy as metal afterward, her legs wobbly before she lost her balance, and fell off the spire, hitting her back on the rooftop, her head teetering over the massive hole on it. Now, only a couple of witches remained who were unharmed, as the others were either dead, down in a bush, or flying erratically around on fire like giant torches; they decided to capture the lone, shocked human by his arms and fly away, having decided they had enough. Suzette simply smiled, though Celia could feel the girl was cold as ice, a speck of amusement coming out of the girl's twisted mind. ‘How sad. You try so hard, but you can't even control your own emotions. Well, looks like the party's over now. Toodle-doo.’ She turned, and began flying away in a different direction from the witches, flapping her big sleeves as she fled the cathedral's perimeter. She did not look back once, as if she was sure nobody would try to pursue her, or be able to catch her.
"That's right, you better run!" Helga called out after Victoria, followed by a shivering groan as the cold began taking over her body, causing her to slump to her knees, holding her leg and staring at the wound she managed to deliver. "...Brr...She's the type to spread the cold, huh? At least Doris was courteous enough to smash you with the ice." She dropped to all fours, and shook her body like a dog, dispersing the icy dust off her. "These girls are dangerous! I gotta help Su!" She then leaped towards the wall of the neighboring building where she heard sounds of fighting coming from; she latched on to a piece of wall just above a window with her claws, and in a single smooth motion, swung inside with a glass-shattering kick. "Su! Where are you?" She yelled out, using her Sound magic to amplify her voice so it reached the entire building.
Mika was in trouble, the skeletons quite eager to cut her tiger form into little pieces, no matter how many of them she scattered like bowling pins, as they simply returned often even worse. She had to endure wound after wound; though none of them were lethal on their own, she was soon bleeding. But, she discovered a weakness in the skeletons as she bit down on a skull and crushed it; the remaining body collapsed into motionless bones, no longer reanimating. “Oh, so that's how you do it?”
Mika heard the voice of a tomboyish girl amidst the horde of walking anatomical models. And then, she saw her: an intimidating-looking monster girl dashed around the horde, tearing into them with claws and teeth. And she wasn't the only one; Mika saw numerous clones of her biting and crushing skeletons, working as a team as they circled and isolated small pockets of the undead army. “Nice chompers you got there. Wanna join my pack?” She happened to ask in the midst of punching her claws right through a ribcage, sending the ribs flying.
Sally stopped shooting when she saw the Beacon buddies, in utter shock. "Shona? Where have you been? And what are you doing!? That girl over there's a DMG!" She pointed towards Annabelle, and used her other hand to continue blasting any Minions that showed up. "Stop her!" She then screamed as she saw Silhouette attack Shona, and ran at full speed, her chest bouncing violently. "You don't hurt my friends, vile witch!" She then proceeded to shoot at Sil, who dodged and weaved through the shots, occasionally taking a lucky hit as she slashed back with wild abandon; despite the pain, she kept going, Chloe's Crystal dampening her sensory input. Luckily for Sally, she wasn't the smartest fighter, and the Beacon girl was able to avoid her attacks, mostly by luck.
Lily was at first apprehensive about the two girls coming to talk to her so suddenly, but now she felt like she could relax, if only a little bit. Even when the girls told her they were in a different class, she didn't seem to mind too much. "Oh, you're transfer students? Me too!" She giggled a little bit, mostly out of nervousness, and then smiled. "I lived somewhere else until I moved here, and haven't been here for more than a month. I thought I was the only one, but am I glad that's not the case." She listened to the two as they talked about music, surprised to see them so enthusiastic about it. She then blinked at the question as the two entered the school building. "Well, I was hoping I'd get along with everyone, and maybe join a fun school club, like ani-" she stopped herself, aware of the blunder she was about to commit.The two entered the gym, and sat down to listen to a boring speech held by the school principal. "-I mean, like a light music club. I've always wanted to play in a band, just like K-On! I love that show!" She managed to redirect her nerdiness...And she might have overdone it.
Aurelio hadn’t gotten very far before things started to go haywire, he had been trailing after Sally, albeit at a considerable distance, launching simple blasts of magic from his cane at various monsters that seemed to be unnoticed or over looked. His goal was simple at this point as he was mainly a support unit thus he was following and planning on supplying support to his allies if they needed it.
Then someone got thrown at him.
“Seems we’ve lost normality faster than usual” He remarked to no one in particular as a girl was thrown his way. With a flourish he pointed his cane at the living projectile sent his way, for while he might have taken the chain wielding swords-woman's warning with a grain of salt, hearing Sally confirm it was enough for him.
However, before he could unleash his spell he found himself transported to who knows where via an overcity shift. “I’m just hopping all over the place today” he once again said to no one as he tucked his cane under his arm the vibrant yellow ban still in place as a dull red one started to swirled down next to it.
“And you have it in one, just got popped in the other day." Aurelio would reply as he turned his attention back to Abigail, while not letting the winged girl or the chained girl out of his vision “And not sure I would call her useless, she’s been more than willing to help us out from what I’ve heard, that’s got to count for something.” He defended Penny, as while he hadn’t seen much of the Monstergirl in question, his Vow would accept nothing less for an ally of Beacon.
”Still pleasure to make your acquaintance Abigail, please call me Aurelio.” The magician would answer bowing low and giving the back of the offer hand a light kiss on the knuckles. “And if I might be so bold as to ask what you are doing?” He would ask after standing back up pointing over at Annabelle as he did “After all Sally did mention that this one here is a Dark Magical Girl”
Something was wrong here, he could tell, but he wasn’t sure what it was. So for the moment he would watch, he was good at that after all. Still he wouldn’t hesitate to lash out and try to incapacitate everyone here if this was going the way he feared and it turned out that these two were working for the forces of darkness. He just hoped that they were doing it against their will.
Quietly he siphoned off the excess excitement from Abigail in preparation for whatever might be coming “In addition, Abi, if you need a safe place to do it, I could get us back to HQ in a snap. I’ve got teleporter privileges after all.”
-Opening volley-
Penny wasn’t surprised in the slightest that her shot missed, it was more of a way to announce herself then anything. Thus it was no surprise that she started moving just as Elroy started moving, the difference was that Penny wasn’t moving to intercept. She knew he had back up somewhere and would prefer to keep to the open as much as possible to dodge the incoming attacks.
Thus Penny had rushed to one of the dugouts, bulldozing through anyone who got in her way and started throwing everything she could lift. Which with her inhuman strength was everything but the dugout itself, and even that was getting chunks of stone torn out of it to be thrown. While nothing she was throwing was magical in nature, getting hit with something moving upwards of 300kph was going to hurt or at least distract long enough for a Gauss round to land.
Most of her thrown barrage was aimed at Elroy, but every now and again she would take aim at one of the mummies dotting the arena. All of her projectiles were aimed at center of mass, but the mix of balls, bat and other miscellaneous rubble she was making for use as projectiles mad it hard to tell if she was going to be hitting with blunt impacts or sharp ones.
It was while she was dismantling the dugout that she noticed the flickering portal in here with her as well as a handful of grunt monsters. The grunts got a face full of close range projectile barrage, while Penny just kept eyeing the portal speculatively in between volleys she threw out. She did alter her tactics a bit to keep anyone else from getting close to portal.
An electric whine for told of another Gauss round ready to fire, and this one she wan't planning on missing with.
“Do what you will, I just have to catch my mark.” The detective girl seemed to be much worse for wear. Her cats, on the other hand, seemed unaffected by the dread that was targeting the magical girls, and quietly followed the detective.
As the girl departed, Speedwagon suddenly became aware of something heading right for her. She quickly looked up, tracking the sight of a figure zooming over from a nearby rooftop, landing next to her with a rifle in hand. The newcomer had a small grin on her face as she hoisted the weapon up, aimed in the direction of the witches in the air, before looking over to her side at the fellow magical girl. The grin remained in place, but Alice gave a teasing wink regardless.
"Nina sent me ahead to meet up with ya, since we kinda landed in an odd place location coming here. She decided ta' give the portal one more chance to get to a better spot. At any rate, you ok, Speedwagon?" Despite this girl's flirty grin and wink, Speedwagon could tell that her tone was sincere. A brief spot of relief broke through the unusual feeling of fear that was gripping her... which had come as abrupt as the feeling of hope she was experiencing.
As she recognized that, and pondered this strange warring of emotions within her, Speedwagon could hear the distinct sounds of motorcycle engines growing closer. Thirteen of them, to be exact, a rare type that were only used in one model of...
Oh. Oh Bloody hell. She knew exactly who was coming to the cathedral.
"I'm doing as well as I can, but things are about to get a lot worse here." She put power into her words, shouting out as loud as she could. The more who heard her words of warning, the better. "Everyone, look alive! The bloody 「Timberwolves」 are coming!"
"I swear, it's like these girls want to get on the news," The Faceless Bastard said, shaking his head at the footage. Behind him, the bodies of the technicians lay on the floor of the control booth, sprawled on their sides. He was sitting in one of their rolling chairs by the console, but they weren't in any condition to object to this arrangement. Whether that referred to being on the floor, the Servant sitting in their chairs, the live broadcast being shut off, the fact that he was drinking their caramel lattes (not my usual thing, but nice)... well, that was up to interpretation. And that Chloe kid thought I was being too flashy?
He sighed. "This city's is an even bigger fucking powderkeg than I thought. No wonder Magreat chose this place." Allegedly. Allegedly speaking. But it made more and more sense for him to pick here. If anyone went too high on the radar, let alone go after him guns blazing? Not only would they be dealing with Servants of the other Fears, at least one of these 'magical girls' could swoop in and make things a whole lot messier.
The Faceless Bastard typed away on Blogger, making sure to get down the details of the clusterfuck he was getting from the local feed. Of course, as he kept using the laptop in front of him, a part of his mind couldn't help but wonder... what was it's original owner up to now?
A black leaf blew by on the breeze, and a certain pair of eyes followed it dutifully. The black leaf drifted around for a moment in a dance of eldritch choreography, before it headed directly towards the skeleton horde. It clung to the hair of a girl they were surrounding, and remained there in plain view. Even from within the shadows of the alleyway, the message was plain to see:
Protect this girl.
So her master commanded, so she would obey.
A girl stepped out of the alleyway wearing a new mask; a blank white visage, one that obscured everything from the neck upwards save for the hackneyed grin torn into it by hand. In those hands was the sleek black form of her true weapon, an instrument of plastic and colors of five.
The Masked Massacrer rushed the mob with inhuman speed, staving in the skulls of two skeletons with her first strike, shattering a third apart on the backswing.
He shook his head. Best not waste time on that line of thought - he would probably be seeing a blog post about it before the day was out.
While the Faceless Bastard took notes on the situation, his attention kept shifting to the dugout feed. Whether that distorted mess was something only the cameras could pick up or something everyone could see unaided, he got a bad feeling about those mangled and bloody bodies popping out of it every so often. He glanced over at the microphone on the console, and the button next to it.
Fuck it, he'd rather risk discovery than death. He pressed down on the button, and the microphone light came on. "Hey, pay attention to what's going on in that dugout!" His voice boomed over the stadium. "Whatever the hell's going on in there, that thing looks like it's going to explode!" Or... something. He had no idea what the actual failure of that portal would mean, but 'explode' seemed like a pretty good guess. And frankly, he wasn't going to wait around for it to go off. He packed his stuff into his bag before slinging it over his shoulder, headed straight for the door.
And as he passed the technicians on the floor, one of them groaned.
The Faceless Bastard paused for a beat. Then he turned on his heel, knelt down next to the one who groaned, and slapped him in the face.
"Wh-what the hell?"
"Can you stand?"
The technician blinked a few times, trying to get his bearings. His nametag read 'Barry B.' "Wh... I, I think so?"
"Help me get your friend up. We need to get out of here." The Faceless Bastard grabbed the other technician's arm.
Barry put a hand to his head, absently rubbing where he had been slapped. "Why-"
"Bomb threat. They knocked you out, announced it over the sound system. We don't have much time to get out of here. Grab your friend's arm, drape it over your shoulder, like this. Where's your car?"
As she finally arrived at the cathedral, Joanna caught the sight of Nina standing atop the roof, unleashing some sort of steel ball gun attack at the witches. She felt oddly secure seeing her there, with that righteous look upon her face and the angry confidence she exuded.
"Everyone, look alive! The bloody 「Timberwolves」 are coming!"
She heard Speedwagon's voice and turned her head to look in her direction. With another [color=gold]"Zoom Jump!" she cleared the rest of the distance between her current roof and her friend. She landing not far from Speedwagon and the girl beside her, a scantily clad lady with an impressive gun in her hands. "Speedwagon! It's good to see you're alright."
"Miss Jo-star! Glad to see you made it." The two briefly hugged before the blonde pulled away, glancing up oddly at the sky. "Listen up, both of you, I'm going to make this quick as I can: in the next few minutes, a gang of cultists calling themselves 'The Timberwolves' are going to show up here. Their shotguns'll hurt as much as any other would, but you need to keep just as close an eye out for their swords. They so much as nick you, they'll come after you until you're either dead or they physically can't anymore. Fight them at range if you can. I'll be back soon."
"Where are you going?"
Speedwagon turned her head mid-stride to call over her shoulder. "I'm going to check on someone. I've got a bad feeling about what'll happen if I leave them be." She ran off in the direction of a rapidly departing girl with a deerstalker cap and a lot of cats. Joanna briefly found herself admiring the cat lady's choice in headwear, before turning back to glance at where Nina had been standing...
...only to watch her start falling.
And as she did, she caught a glimpse of a magical girl flying away from her perch, with what looked like a hellish grin on her face. close one eye
Joanna began gathering power once more. She pointed into the sky, making sure the riflelady followed the movement, directly towards the retreating form of that girl. "Stop that girl with the sleeves, I'm going to help Nina!" she said, and her power reached the golden point once more. "Zoom Jump!" she cried, and rocketed upwards. I hope I can make it in time...
Fear started to grip her heart, to make her doubt herself mid-flight...what if she missed? What if she'd reacted too slowly? What if Nina fell to the ground, and all she could do was watch helplessly as her neck snapped?
No! she thought, as the warmth of the sun pulsed through her heart. I won't let her fall! Channeling her power into her arm, bolstered by the light of the sun, she let it loose with a mighty roar of "Zoom Punch!"
@Ariamis@BrokenPromise They had a teleporter too? Amaryllis clicked her tongue as gravity collapsed over the four magical beings, causing them to blink out of existence. It made little sense to her, why they wouldn’t have used that teleportation ability earlier on, but the matters involving Annabelle, her cadre, and the Beckoner were out of her hands now. Three versus one weren’t good odds, but that phantom thief would have to rough it out.
Her own concerns were mounting too. The aerial bombardment she had requested from Rina didn’t happen, meaning that her ranged support definitely had problems of her own, while the storm of random objects being tossed in every which direction was more ‘offensive’ noise to account for. Her muscles may be of steel and elysian might, but her body was still of flesh, and her clothing, embarrassingly skimpy as it was, offered nothing even comparable to the swordwoman’s polished armor. Then there was those strange words, how someone who supported the escape of an eldritch-summoning fiend was somehow affiliated with Beacon and even proud about it. The male, adult voice that rang through the speakers of the stadium as well, pointing out the dugout that was being dug out by a juggernaut of a scale beyond even herself.
It all piled onto her like a stack of annoying documents, filling her skull with consideration after consideration after consideration, until her Sword got tired of her bullshit and delivered a psychic slap across her cheek.
That cleared things up easily enough. A hero went straight through. A duelist took things one at a time. Someone like her, with such average grades outside of her gift of mechanical knowledge, should definitely not be cramming for multiple exams at once. And at the brilliant warcry of the silver lioness, Amaryllis charged as well, her thick thighs coiling and explosively propelling her towards her foe. Reading the sweeping strike, she gracefully bounded over the blade, but before her rapier thrust could land, the aftershock of the enhanced weapon sent her back.
Her weight was still that of a human, after all.
Somersaulting eloquently amidst a storm of petals scattered by the silvered champion’s might, Amaryllis smirked with the veneer of a noble fencer, her long locks billowing in the gust. It was nice, feeling the wind against her skin, and she leveled the point of her blade upon Shona once more.
“You speak of light, and yet paradoxically serve to protect the witch who has brought a mass of fiends upon the innocent populace, filling the stadium with their lifeblood. A warped righteousness is nothing but a delusion that will see the guiltless slain,” Amaryllis spoke, her blue eyes the distant cold of a peerless arbiter, “Though you claim to be Bedivere, you’re naught but Don Quixote, lead astray by the madness that you dismiss within your silver reflection.”
She stood tall, her chest puffed out, her offhand pressed against her back, her voice proud and unrelenting.
“I am Amaryllis Evenings, the Knight of the Rose, Swordbearer and Sineater. May this moonstruck blade free your soul, lest it be stained black with belated regrets. En garde!”
"Shion" simply stood in silence, switching between filming the girl she was next to and the scene before her, unsure what to say to her fellow doppelganger. She thought about whether to contact her original self, after all while this girl might not care what an army of skeletons did, perhaps Shion should. But with now two magical girls fighting it, no, a large number of familiar looking magical girls, it seemed best to stay and observe rather than interfere.
Summer started as Binky ran off and fell off the roof just as a wave of unnatural fear struck the area. She heard the girl below say something about her magic not being what it appeared, and about Binky being some sort of criminal, but she couldn't make out the details from so high up. While she desperately wanted to find out from the girl what she had said, and furthermore wanted to save the unfortunate magical girl she was chasing, she knew that Alicia was depending on her for her ability to shift to the Overcity. But as the wave of fear struck, doubt entered her mind. What didn't she know about her powers, if they truly weren't what they seemed to be? Was it really okay to leave anyone behind? It was then that a new wave of emotions hit. Summer was filled with focus and determination not to fail. The conflicting emotions fought within her, so strong that they made a mark on her magic; her shadow began opening its mouth to talk to her, telling her that she was going to fail, that everyone would get hurt and she could do nothing to stop it.
So she stopped it. She activated her Overcity Shift and dragged in the entire cathedral, the witches, those on the ground in the surrounding 10 or so meters, a plan formed in her mind to shift back immediately with those inside the cathedral itself, leaving only the magical entities in the Overcity. She could only hope she could pull it off.
"I...a-am not....a D-dark M-magical Girl...i just...work for...a Horror," Annabelle said, a small spike of adrenaline kicking into her as the sudden environment shift slightly spooked her, looking at Aurelio and speaking directly to him herself, albeit sound rather weak as she continued to bleed out of her cut stump...which now had chains sticking out of it to boot, "N-Now listen...to me....please...tell Beacon.....Soth...is p-planning s-something....big h-here. Leave...m-me alone...please...and...p-prepare everyone f-for it. I-I-If you...take me away....h-he will...kill everyone t-there. I-I went...to the s-stadium....wanting to help people....and h-h-he lied to...me...ah!"
Annabelle grit her teeth as she held onto consciousness, feeling even worse as the stump of her arm gushed out blood, and the area where the chains had emerged from burned red hot it seemed like. Her left hand weakly reached over to clutched the stump, trying and wanting the sensations from it to stop, a mentally pained expression on her face. This...pleasure, and other stupid things like how she was bleeding to death. that stupid Amaryllis trying to kill her....even when she'd tried to protect her! She didn't even try to fight her or anything, but that....that bitch had cut off her arm! That stupid bunch of goons that hadn't listened to her no matter what as well! That stupid archer had shot a hole in her side, which was also still bleeding right now to boot.
And her stupid boss...ah...the best she could do right now is give this magical boy a warning. Warning him what was to come, implore him to leave her alone for the safety of others....and to prepare people. Her boss seemed to be putting value on her...more than she'd heard many magical girls would get from their patrons otherwise. She'd rebelled against orders, yet he had shrugged it off without a second thought. He had never done that with other minions, she'd seen it in person. Sure even in such times like dealing out "punishment" for abysmal failures or rebellion, he was calm and sounded...strangely relaxed.
She had to know what was going on...the truth. Something didn't feel right, like a familiar yet alien feeling in her very bones by now. Already there had been fear for what he was doing....and the first fear she'd felt in a long time for people other than herself too with it. Regina. Elroy. The Beacon Buddies. Heh...how long had she dreamed of using the word "friend" to describe some people. Yet beyond this he had escalated, in a way he had never done in the past before. Even she couldn't say "no" directly to him, and leave...it was like he was bonded to her very power itself, her magic at its core.
"Ah...Ah!...AHHH!!!" Annabelle said, letting out noises before eventually screaming, her thinking interrupted by a sudden sensation she couldn't recall feeling before. Like hot, burning knives gouging into the bit of the upper-arm and should stump of a right arm she had left. It wasn't pleasure, nothing she could recall feeling before.......pain.
Pure, agonizing pain for the first time in what life she could ever remember. And it hurt more than anything.
The silver chains, glistening in the otherworldly light, began to darken bit by bit. This was no corruption, even a basic magical girl could see this. This was magic, darkness magic seeping into the chains, as if naturally consuming them...or perhaps assimilating them into itself. Was this a reaction to Annabelle's magic to the presence of another's power? Was this...Soth's doing potentially? There was perhaps no way to be sure, but for the mind-bent Annabelle to feel pain for the first time there had to be something going on. Something strange.
Continuing to scream as the chains became as dark as night, like the frayed nerves in her arm were on literal fire, it was a horrific sight to watch for any potential observer. Of course some might not find it horrifying...certain crowd might find such a thing pleasing to watch even. Yet as the darkness finally reached the cut ends of what had been Amaryllis' chains....it receded rapidly. The formerly silver chains were dark, ebon black, covered in small sharp spikes now. Spiky chains. Then where her stump was, A curved piece of silvery metal seemed to be attached, covering the bloody stump's end and the various black chains seemed to be sticking out of it from being attached somewhere within.
At this point Annabelle stopped screaming, her throat feeling rawer than even before as she look at her...what was this? Too tired to be shocked, but wondering what had just happened, the void-touched girl watched as the chains seemed to coat in darkness again, before they magically contracted towards the stump and folded. They formed the inky darkness-made shape of...an arm, which appeared like a metal, ebon black colored version of her old arm even. So eerily on point with the appearance of human anatomy, but looking so different than it. Overall it looked like she had a long black glove on her right arm, with a silvery metal-colored ring at the top.
As some blood still was coming out of her side, Annabelle raised her arm to look at it. It wasn't pointed at anyone, even Aurelio. Disbelief wrote itself into Annabelle's face as she rotated the arm, moved it. It felt...natural, as if it was part of her...an extension of herself she had been born with even. Sweat continued to run down the magical girl's face, before she let the arm fall to the ground again and her head fall back onto the ground.
Lying there, she didn't even feel she had the words to use right now. What had happened? Did her magic do this on its own or something?
????
The Faceless Bastard's warning over the stadium's intercom system was more than warranted. Penny's observations, however, would turn up...nothing, not even as a servant of destruction did this thing seem to have noticeable weak spots. Like some power beyond even magic had tainted the entire thing, seeping into it and causing it to become more and more erratic and unstable. However, one thing Penny might notice, or perhaps the others at that, was that the portal would eventually stop allowing grunts through. No more maimed bodies, no disfigured survivors emerging, no miraculously intact bodies to join the stadium fight. Wait, but why might that be the case? Had Soth not sent in more goons, or....?
An immense, utterly alien roar erupted from the portal, able to burst normal base human eardrums within the stadium's range as it rung through the stadium and into the city beyond. The very concrete and metal and walls of the stadium even quakedfrom the sound as it passed through them.
What....what was that?!
Then the portal seemed to after this suddenly stretch, widen, grow in size thanks to Penny having made room for it to do so. The portal reached up into the sky, unstable and flickering in the process, stretching up to the height and width of what seemed to be a ridiculous extent. Parts of the stadium in the way collapsed on that dugout's side, structural damage was notable....and then it stopped in place, far larger than it had been before. It was...horror-sized even when it came down to it.
Before any attempts to get to the portal could be made, a single, monstrous figure began to emerge from the portal. One hundred and sixty five meters tall, its very footsteps shook the ground as it stepped into the stadium proper....or rather what was left of it by this point. Already unstable structure due to its roar began to collapse the right side of the stadium the rest of the way as support crumbled and the ground creaked against its weight and cracked as easily as an eggshell.
its body was covered in many smaller, writhing tentacles, and more mouths and eyes than any of the goons had possessed before. Even many sets of smaller legs with cloven hooves stuck oddly and erratically out of its ebon-colored, shiny eldritch flesh. In fact, on closer inspection even from a distance, the truth was perhaps rather apparent. This thing was made out of goons, dozens, perhaps a couple hundred even, smashed together like Frankenstein's monster on steroids....Japanese kaiju-sized steroids.
On this monster's head all over were a set of gigantic eyes naturally fitting for a creature of its size and dimensions, with several giant mouths that seemed like freakish horror-monster zippers from hell....especially as a pair of very long, forked tongues licked came out of and licked each of them simultaneously. This was a greater horror, not on the level of Soth himself by the longest shot....but an amalgamation of lesser horrors had formed a greater horror had emerged into the world. And as soon as it fully entered the world, the portal finally dissipated into black particle behind it, scattered to the wind and disappearing.
At least...at least they didn't have to worry about more new lesser goons, right?
-Minor Boss Monster Has Emerged-
Type: Greater Horror
Designation/Name: Behemoth: General of the Infinite Abyss
***(NOTE: @Ariamis will be controlling this monster from here on out, as arranged prior with our dear GM themselves.
As she fell it was almost like a dream for a second, as the minor exhaustion from using that special ability hit her like a freight train. Perhaps she should have used something more minor? Heh. Not a chance in hell that those witches would have gotten less, at least in her point of view. She could almost imagine falling onto the roof, maybe her neck snapping....nah, that wouldn't happen. Star Platinum caught her hat as it fell off of her head, nabbing it midair before placing it securely back on its user's head and held it there. The normally stoic girl could feel the air rushing over her body as it fell through the air from the highest point of the church, like a cool breeze coming up from the inside was blowing over her.
A sly, small grin came into her face, however, as she noticed a blur in the air begin to form...and then closed her eyes. Then, as Nina had suspected, she felt herself grabbed...but more so than that she felt the feeling that she had stopped falling. She could then feel arms carrying her, as if they were...ah. So small, and yet they were carrying her. Opening her eyes, though her body felt like weighed down metal a bit still despite the feeling having begun to already fade, she chuckled at the face of someone she hadn't suspected to be here...but wasn't surprised had arrived either.
"Yare yare...you useless goddess, i would have caught myself. Besides, i've done worse."
Having caught Nina midair, gently holding her in their arms was a mysterious, small girl with a set of twintails secured with lovely black ribbons. The mere fact this individual was floating in the air was astonishing enough even perhaps among magical girls, but the fact that such a small body was bridal-carrying a magical girl in her arms was another thing. But wait, this wasn't another magical girl, right? Nina had said something....no, wait it-
"BAKA BAKA BAKA BAKA BAKA!!!! I told you to not try stuff like this you big dummy! Hmpfh!"
-....was a currently pouting, childish sounding goddess who was looking at Nina with reddened, puffed out cheeks and a disapproving gaze fit for a small fussy child. It almost looked like she was gonna cry, or throw a tantrum even. Was this even a goddess at all, and not just a very confused magical girl? Only two people in the area knew for sure, and one of them was in said loli goddess' arms as said loli goddess fussed at her.
In response, Nina merely used Star Platinum to flick said goddess' forehead, though the grin shifted into a small, sly smile now before the magical girl began to speak again.
[color=blue]"Hey, i'm not gonna die on ya like the other girl did when you found me, you idiot. Hell i and Red have survived this long in your patronage, so at some point i think we lost the ability to die."[/blue]
"Owies! Y-You meanie, your supposed to be my champion!!! Waah...i coulda' been looking for more followers too....." Majora responded as she shouted now at Nina, still pouting. Yet after this she began avoiding eye contact with Nina now, looking to the side as the flicked spot on her forehead became a bit reddened in a distinct manner. Had...hadn't Nina gone too far by hitting a goddess?!
Nina let out a small peal of laughter at the sight, before doing the unthinkable...and reaching up to pat the goddess on the head. Gently, softly, as if she was lecturing a younger sibling on something or such.
"Yare yare, you still act like a small child, useless goddess. You don't even know the magical world to the point you took on Red to help me...
...But come on, you did a good job this time at least. Just don't get involved in my fights unless you really need to, ok? This is your second offense. if you do it again, i'll flick you using my gloves and full power next time."
Meanwhile, Alice had nodded to Joanna as the other girl leapt to try to rescue Nina. Despite the wind user's doubts that Nina would die from such a fall, even if she fell into the church somehow (her partner was that stubborn...), she also didn't want to turn down the help either. It was noble, and Red Rifle knew "that" attack would weight Nina's body down like a sack of rocks when it was used. Idiot had decided to use the worst vantage point to look cool and get an overview of the situation...haha. One day that could kill her, though, which did worry the veteran magical girl a good bit in the process.
Hefting up her rifle as soon as she could in the right direction, Alice noted the fleeing individual with the sleeves, who had a hostage in tow. This was a simple shot, nothing more and nothing less.
With her sight automatically following the individual, and her finger carefully on the trigger, a grin came to the face of Red Rifle as she fired three of her "homing" shots in succession. The air itself was bending around them and propelling them at high speeds, though normally being able to be guided by Rifle herself, in this case they were being guided by her scope to their destinations. Two of the shots were aimed to pierce the head and heart of the enemy respectively, the third to explode beneath the soon-to-be falling victim to form a wind cushion for him to float safely down on....albeit he could land on a roof.
She hadn't considered it, merely keeping him from splatting on the pavement was her goal. So even if he fell onto a roof, it wouldn't be any big deal if he yelled for help that would obviously come for him after all of this.
Everything was going according to plan, and Alicia wore a pleased smile because of it as she snapped off another volley. Sure, there seemed to be some other drama going on, but they weren't being attacked by other magical girls and no one was getting in her way either. All things considered it was going fairly well as far as the usual monster stomp involving multiple groups of magical girls went.
Her efforts at corralling the witches successful, she was about to yell at Summer to do it when their foes were suddenly taken out by one large attack. She faltered for a moment before letting out a resigned sigh. "Well, I guess that works." It was too bad that they didn't get to carry out her plan, since she thought it had been particularly clever, but so long as the witches were gone she wouldn't be too bitter about it. That was what was most important after all.
Fluttering forward, Alicia snapped off the occasional shot as cleanup began. The few witches left weren't any threat to the assembled girls there, and all in all she figured that it was a job well done. Her thoughts had already turned to later, what she was going to do with her friends. With Janet back she needed to catch up on lost time, and she was not going to lose that opportunity.
As such she was distracted about until the voice rang out. "Huh? What now..." she muttered as she glanced around. Something about wolves? As if things could never be simple these days. She was having trouble remembering the last tine that she had fought monsters without it perpetually escalating into significant destruction.
Moving towards the cathedral, she snapped off shots at the remaining witches, looking to put holes in their brooms and send them plummeting to the ground. "Alright, good job," she called to her companions. "Let's deal with the stragglers and get ready for these...wolves, or whatever." Arriving over the hole in the roof, she glanced down to make sure that the congregation was safe before returning to the spat at hand. She just hoped that these new guys who were ostensibly about to arrive weren't too much trouble.
The metal girl headed for Su when she presented a hand in each direction, and her visible (and still kind of red) eye widened as she presumably realized what was going to happen. Instead of focusing on attacking, the metal hands were brought in front of her to block whatever might be coming. Su’s blast backwards scattered the metal pieces, sending them flying all over and piercing walls, ceilings and remaining debris of furniture all over behind her, but Su was untouched. The blast in front of her, meanwhile, hit her opponent straight on and sent her careering backwards through the room. Su pushing forth to enhance the blow then blasted the metal girl towards the opposing wall, and-
‘KAH!’ -straight through it, blowing a sizeable hole in the wall and sending her rolling a full lap around before planting herself on her back. Despite just having been knocked through the building by a powerful wind, she was smiling widely.
‘Owowowow… Okay, that’d do it,’ Su’s opponent said with a chuckle on the other side of the hole in the wall.
‘Flirt? What kind of Magical Girl are you taking me for!? Haha…’ she laughed back at Su’s statement, though she wasn’t moving, taking a moment to recover from the blow. The time that took was far enough for Su to seek deeper into the building without being harassed by her current attacked. She entered a corridor and… then she saw the smoke. After that, finding the “monster” was trivial. For, should she choose to, she could but follow the smoke to…
‘Not good, not good!’ a voice called from around the corner.
Inside… a girl with black skin, with yellow pockets of heat surging along her back and limbs. Her hair was visibly orange of fire, her feet and hands with animalistic claws. She wore no clothes, other than the shoulder-pieces of armour on her shoulders, yet no features typically labelled obscene kind could be seen. Behind her, a long black tail extended onto the floor…
‘Victoria, this is your fault! You can’t freeze me and then expect me NOT lit things on fire trying to get free! I know I’m not supposed to put things on fire, but-’
And currently, she was quelling a fire using fire-powers to remove them from the burning furniture and walls to then snuff them out… then breathed a bit extra with her nose.
‘Sniff, sniff. Hm?’ Then she spun about to look curiously in Su’s direction, weather or not she had actually gone past the corner.
‘Who’re you? … Did you get past Victoria and Jelena?’ the girl asked. The fire in the room was not extinguished yet. Then Helga’s voice called from a distance, and the monster girl simply looked on curiously.
Helga swung herself and broke through a window, calling out after Su… and just happened to end up within the room where Su had just sent her opponent spinning into. It was a bedroom, but now the debris of the wall had dusted the whole place up, and the girl with metal legs and hands was lying startled on the floor.
‘Woah, woah! Hold up! I’m briefly out! I’m still recovering! Hahaha!’ she called out, slamming her hands into the floor and making the fingers extend as to shove herself back onto her metal legs, up again and taking a stance just in case she was about to be attacked. ‘Su? That’s the name of the air-girl that just bashed me through a wall? I gotta remember that~’ she chuckled, and now looked to Helga, to see how she’d react to her.
‘Whelp,’ the Victoria next to the Shion said. ‘Looks like Victoria left, so I guess I better be ready to help, just in case. I might not have her ice-powers, but I still got a pretty good punch!’ Victoria said, throwing a single punch forward in demonstration. Indeed, that punch she just threw into the air was way faster and more powerful than the one of a normal human or even a normal Magical Girl.
‘So, uh. Talk to you later! See you!’ Saying so, Victoria bounced off the building, heading for the building which Helga had just swung into. … As were numerous other Victorias all around the building, heading to prepare themselves to invade.
