@Enkryption@Plank Sinatra@Krayzikk

Big Mama Jin - Number One Woman in Japan

"We just dropping all fucking pretenses about magecraft, huh?"

Ryou staggered to her feet, her skull ringing like she'd been rammed by a fucking monster truck at a rally. Everything was red, and she was almost one hundred percent certain there was something running down the side of her face. Like brain juices, or liquefied earwax, or actual blood and fuck was she not thinking straight. Everything was jumbled up so hard that the shit oozing out of her was random enough for one of those lotto machines or whatever. Like a ...

She lurched forwards violently, her chest heaving as she spat out blood. More crimson dribbled down her chin, staining her ruined uniform. Fucking A', she was going to have to cash out on a new one and it was all thanks to Terracottamoto's asshole of a ji right there. Who the fuck was Archimedes kidding? Give him a place to stand and he'll move the Earth? Whichever fucknugget of a magus gave her dweeb of a teacher so much musclepower or whatever could do it way more easily. Ryou'd been right at the fulcrum and still got her head jacked like a coconut.

Or whatever.

It wasn't like she could think of pithy metaphors right now, you know? Her brain was fucking killing her.

Her tongue tasted funny. At least it was just the tongue. Maybe she wasn't having a fun rodeo with the crazy magic bullshit stealing away her schooltime funtimes, but her fortunes weren't off there. She wasn't gonna die anytime soon.

And like, did this fucker think she was gonna scram just because he had the balls to go bowling with her? Maybe it'd work on some other punkass, but she was thestrongest woman in Japan. She had to be the number one amongst women - no, amongst everyone in Japan. She was here for a good time, and some crazy Chinese statue boy parasite eating Morimoto's brain was not going to fucking STOP HER.

Strive for quiescence of body, mind and intention.

"A bloody BF?" Ryou wheezed out a snort even as her body pulsed with od once more. "Gimme a fuckin' break, we ain't got time for that."

She took a step forward.

Everything hurt like a bitch.

But that wasn't going to stop her from piledriving this fucker's face into the dirt.

"But we ain't gonna need one. Cos as long as I'm here, we can't lose."

Another step.

The magus responsible here was gonna underestimate her? Bloody hell. Whatever that asshole was smoking, it must have been some low quality shit.

"I'm roarin' and ready to go," she grinned out. Another step. And another.

And another.

And another.

Half her face was covered in blood, but she wasn't going to let something like that stop her.

The od inside of her intensified.

The terracotta warrior would know her power.

Her voice grew deeper. "You will know my name."

"YOU WILL KNOW MY
Helmet manifest, magnificent crest flowing far behind her,【張遼 奉先】 short forth with immense power, leaping off the ground and spinning like a drill of blazing heat towards the terracotta warrior. Towards the enemy. Towards the obstacle that both the delinquent girl and the Flying General were united in a method of overcoming:

DESTROY.

@Enkryption
Noboru's brain was so focused on the pain of the wound inflicted by his possessed mother, he didn't hear his heroic spirit warn him of the incoming surge of magical energy, nor did he feel the heat rise compared to the burning pain piercing through his chest. All his sorrows and grief at the moment were momentarily distracted however, as a pair of lips met his, a sensation other than pain filling him. He'd been kissed before, thankfully, but there was something both enticing, and horrifying about that kiss; As if the girl he'd been trying to save wasn't really looking at him, but rather at some delusion she had cooked up to ignore her own pain. Looking at her as she stood, Noboru saw the spear running through her abdomen.

Parts of him desired nothing more than to run away, while others wanted to fight at the girl's side, to try and save everyone, but it seemed flight was on her mind as well as his wooden arm was taken by her hand, clawed fingers digging into the bark as she seized him, yanking him from the ground as if he was nothing more difficult to move than an empty can, trudging along, only able to keep pace due to Herne's Agility. His mind felt like it was going blank, with a dull, heavy pounding echoing against the inside of his skull...or rather, echoing throughout the school. "--oru! Noboru! Wake up moron, he's taking control of the forest!" Herne called out into his mind, or rather, Noboru finally started paying attention again. He felt a strong compulsion to punch himself in the face, but that was likely more Herne TRYING to, rather than a genuine desire for self punishment.

Flashes of pain that weren't his own crossed Noboru's mind as the corruption of Terracotta continued to overtake his bounded field, before, under instruction for Herne, the boy released it remotely. In an instant, the wood of the forest dissolved, but alarmingly all the Terracotta shells remained in place, remained animated, and now raged without a core to keep them composed, hollowed out shells of their former wooden nature. Thankfully, Noboru wouldn't pass out from using Merry Duke of Windsor for too long, but right now he needed to continue trying to evacuate people, since Ms. Treasurer was fine. Stopping, Noboru's hand slipped out just enough for him to brake. Looking to Maggie, he said: "There are still a lot of people trapped in this mess...I gotta help them, but you should get somewhere safe," before he began running, inches from Maggie as he passed by her. Somehow, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as her eyes met his back, as if a predator were curiously observing the strugglings of its freshly caught prey.

"That Berserker is bad news...if she starts trying to fight you, run."

Don't call it a BF.

It figured that my gayest student wouldn't know how to throw around the letters 'BF' with any sort of coherence, but come on, what was Ryou thinking? Last time a girl threw around the letters 'BF' so casually I had to change my phone number and flee Milan.

It was a Bounded Field.

...

Nonetheless, she was right. There was no time for me to set up anything more than cursory Bounded Fields, which wouldn't do much to protect our rapidly shrinking defensible area. What we would need was nothing short of a fortress.

I could be a fortress.

"Hell with it. On your head be it." Jin would be the offensive component. She would crush Morimoto. There was no other option at this point, not while we were surrounded by the forest, the fog, and the one-time teacher's expanding terracotta battalion. But with her attack came the need for defense; Lia was functionally useless in this fight aside from loafer tossing ability, and she had already expended half her ammo. "Hound of Ulster, dig your heels in. Install!"



No one would confuse the forest for a beacon of light. It was too dark, too dim, too cold; it seemed like through all the layers of interference, even the sun itself could not touch the faces of those assembled. But the black shield that Dorian Fiordilatte held now seemed to drink up what light remained. It was pitch black and cruel; its shape seemed to be a dark mockery of the sun itself, with thorns jutting out like the rays that children usually add to the Earth's star. Blood red patterns were the only source of color on the weapon's surface.

Dorian dug his feet in and grinned. His glare had changed, too; like the blue of the sky above them, the cerulean color had left his eyes only to be replaced with the blood red color of the divine. His grin was downright wolfish.

"Dig in, bambina," the 'teacher' commanded his terrified student. "This is just another test, right? Don't let your mind go blank when you're facing it."

His shield could stop a few clay men. And that buck?

He could probably hunt that buck for fun.

You hear that, you ugly bastards?

While his shield was raised high, they would draw no fear from him. Magus and demigod both had survived far worse than this.

So much for her luck. She did not know how the deer appeared nor did she have time to react as she was flown straight on her back, alerting Bill. She thought it was all over before Bill suddenly took off running. The fact that this was the first time she saw anyone made of stone run was worrying. What made the matter worse was she heard the shouting about some kind of challenge for glory and honor. Whatever it was, she barely managed to duck on the ground as Bill came at mach-speed. She would have rushed after him had it not been to a place where more of those soldiers would be. Pen pal or not, it was simply too dangerous for Rebecca to check on him unless it was from a distance

It was not until after the incident that Rebecca saw the cause of Bill's launch: two figures stood near the gate. A teen and a woman. Another decision had to be made as Rebecca pondered what to do for a moment, ending up deciding to take a chance and go to the figures. Still, Rebecca had a bad feeling about this but decided it was best to at least try. Quickly, she stood up and went to two yet keeping her distance. She didn't know if she would need to run or not.

"Who are you?! What did you do to my friend?!" Fear coursed through her, but she stood her ground regardless as she spoke those words. Why was *any* of this happening in the first place? Too many questions and too few answers.

@Plank Sinatra @Crimmy @Enkryption

Lia screamed.

There really was no way around it. The arms closed around her midriff, grip as tight as iron, and she screamed. From shock initially and then from terror at the idea that she was about to become one of those statues. That she was going to be another casualty, like Morimoto. The feeling was sickening. Paralyzing. That she was already doomed, faster than she could even blink, and that her defiance had been for nothing. That she was going to die anyway. That she couldn't even bring them down with her, because what was she going to do? Throw a shoe? Call them some more names? She was going to die, here, far from her family where no one would remember her once she was gone. She would disappear. The terror made the fear reality, so real that she could feel the fingers tearing into her skin to rend her asunder. Turn whatever was left into another one of them.

She was going to die without leaving a single mark on the world. Nothing that the winds of time wouldn't blow away, nothing that would not be forgotten within even her parents' lifetime. She was going to die without having lived. Because she wasn't strong enough. Because she has no magecraft, no power, possessing only talents singularly useless for preserving her own life. Because she was too inept not to die as soon as one of her protectors looked elsewhere. Because she was dead weight. So her name would join the people lost in whatever the fuck was going on, and she could do nothing while those arms dragged her to Hell.

For a moment, her resolve faltered.

That's enough of that. The voice chided, softly, and brought with it clarity. It's easier to resist at the beginning than at the end, isn't it? It's difficult to know that your end has come, and resist it still. But that's when it's most important. And this is not your end, yet, Ms. Icecolle.

The words, though she knew not where they came from, shielded her heart as much as the spiritrons her body. She was not dead. She was not dying. Hell had its grip on her, yes, but it was not over.

As the man said. Dig your heels in, bambina.

She did. She did, to slow her own descent into Hell, and absent the fear came fury. This was wrong. It was fucked up that all of this could be inflicted upon innocent people. It wasn't right.

No, it isn't. Shall we do something about it?

Yes. She wanted to do something about it. She saw Jin, throwing herself into the fray. Dorian standing stalwart, delaying the darkness with a shield even darker than that. She wanted to act.

I'll walk you through it. Become...

"... Universal. Install."



Lia did not know where the strength within her came from, nor the armor upon her arm, nor the staff in her hand. Except she did. The effect upon her physicality was nothing compared to that upon her mind, the immediate expansion of her horizons. Her understanding of magecraft blossomed, from a meager knowledge to a towering awareness. And with it, came certain realizations.

Now you've got it. This is not a matter of strengths. This is a battle between magi. Let that girl and the nice Italian man- oooh, he is nice- deal with the statues. Find the source.

First, the hands of Hell upon her. She could understand, now, that their state was not irreversible. But she could not prioritize their safety over her own. To do so would not help them. But she could minimize their risk. The fingers of her mailed hand clenched, and in an instant, froze the statues behind her. To slip from their grasp, then, was simply a matter of sucking in her chest and slipping out of their grasp.

"Sensei!" She called out, spinning her staff experimentally and advancing back to safety inside the teacher's effective range. She peered through the new glasses upon her face, feeling the concentrations of mana, and more importantly, od, in the air. "Keep me clear, please, we need to remove the enemy magus. I can find him."

Yes, you can. Listen to the drumming. The drumming is key.

@Enkryption@Krayzikk@Plank Sinatra

Big Mama Jin - Number One Woman in Japan

Morimoto was dead, done and dusted. Like a shitty class art project that got smashed cos some clumsy oaf tripped over a chair and went like all "strike-out!" on the thing. Always kinda funny to watch, but not if you'd been the one to make it, you know? Like her deceased teach's parents definitely weren't gonna be happy. It wasn't like they could blame his death on the misfortune of his birth, not when some asshole magus that wasn't her or Dor or Lia or wow there were a lotta fucking wizards around today was responsible, but in any case, Morimoto was dead and it was all the fault of a bastard who was infecting people with terracotta-itis like someone playing that Pandemic web game or whatever. A fucking bummer, you know? Like yeah, Ryou always thought he was a spineless dweeb, but it still was pretty shitty that he got ganked and parasited by some crazy Chinese wizardry.

"So long, Morimoto," she said, glancing at the terracotta remains. "Gimme a good word with Yanwang, yeah? Wanna get as much good karma, h-"

The terracotta remains were alive.

"Haaaiiiiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh."

What the fuck, they weren't even dead yet? Even when she'd killed their asses literally stone dead? Zombies were like supposed to be squeezed totally dry as a genre, but Bingmayong thought it was cool getting on that kinda game right now? Ryou was feeling like she'd walked in on the Dragon Quest creative process here. Like what the hell? There was no need in our land for worthless drivel! Fengxian was always pretty cool with folks sticking to their guns, real ballsy of them you know, but sticking super hard was just some nincompoop thinking. Look at Kongming! She wasn't some strats whiz like that lazy asshole'd been, but even she knew (and that was without her fortune telling) that gluing so hard to the Longzhong Plan meant fucking jackshit.

Xuande should've stuck with her.

Not some small fry.

Not like the terracotta fodder.

Magical Girl Romantico ☆ Lia wanted her to clear them out while she looked for the mage responsible?

"You are going to make it worth my time, right?" Fengxian asked, voice low. There was a grin across her face. "Do what you will. I just need someone to fight!"

She was pissed off. He was itching for a fight. Their goals coincided.

So this was what it was like to channel a Heroic Spirit. Her ancestors would be proud.

"Come on fuckers, show me your game face!"

Install.

GOD FORCE was manifest. The mechanical armoured hero known as Fengxian swung, the mighty halberd sweeping away at its foes. The terracotta would fall again. And again. And again. That was the vow of their TAMASHIIIII!!