Ah, so most of these are useless. It was kind of dissapointing. Finn rose a brow at Nefer flirting with Iron Mouse, but his attention was mainly on the runestone their gracious host showed. He was curious about the limits and strength of the artifact; Could it absorb something as strong as a Killing Blow? Does the spell weaken on reuse? How long can it hold a spell before it dispates? "Broken, huh? Mind if I take a look?" Finn asked Nefer. He probably didn't have the proper tools to repair something like this, but that didn't mean he can't improvise.

He wouldn't have much time to anyways. They made it to their destination. And their destination?

"What the hell...?"

Was nothing short of chaos. The two boys had to take a moment to take in the surrounding battlefield, allies familiar and otherwise scrambling against Wonderland's encroaching army. Despite the grim situation, Finn remained calm. He had to be, a clear mind can be paramount. Lily's report didn't go unheard.

"So what's the plan here, boss man?" Oliver snapped him out of his thoughts, the ghost himself reloading his rifle in preparation.

"Grimm, Bathory, go assist in evacuations! Think you can deploy enough clones and shit, Grimm?" Finn looked back to Oliver, who grinned in response.

"You underestimate me, old friend??" At that, the ghost called in a large amount of duplicates and spirits; armored or otherwise, but all large enough to pass off as humanoid. They all hurried off to speed things along.

Next, Finn turned to Nefer and Akhenaten. "My thanks for helping us here, but if you wish to depart, I won't stop you. Otherwise, your continued assistance will be much appreciated, whatever you wish to do!" Then finally, he looked towards Iron Mouse, and drew his blade out of it's cane. "That leaves us to hunt down the ringleader. I don't feel too good about dragging you with me while you're still new, but now's a good time to see what you're made of!" Finn grinned, and began making his way towards the battle at hand.

Though as he began using his beast magic to strengthen himself, he couldn't help wondering. Were there any animals around that could assist them? Extending his magic outwards, Finn ended up summoning....a bull! And around 20 chickens, but he couldn't spare the time to count them. "I can work with this." With that, he spent a bit more energy into strengthening the small army in turn. And a bit extra for the bull.

Cause, y'know, big tanky fella.

With the small army all set, Finn approached the frontline trio in time to see the four summoned monsters. He recognized them instantly. His head snapped towards the lion-like beast. "And here I thought you were a coward! Sick 'em!!" Gritting his teeth, the boy commanded the animals to attack it, a wave of chickens crashing into the lion soon as it pounced. The bull on the other hand, took to clearing out as much soldiers as it could first.

"The Tin Man's going to be a pain in the ass to get rid of, but we can leave him to someone else for now." Finn informed Iron Mouse through their coms as he began fighting his way through. "Keep an eye out for anything that doesn't look like a card!"

Looking up, the sight of a second protective barrier reinforcing her own brought a brilliant smile to the Angel of Hope’s radiant visage.

“What a kind and thoughtful gesture!” the heavenly beauty gushed. “This humble servant is so very grateful! Indeed, it fills her heart with such abundant joy!”

I’m glad at least someone’s got the right idea… This barrier’s the only thing keeping this dump from getting blown to bits, and unless those dumbasses out there start getting their shit together, it’s not gonna hold out for much longer! I mean, seriously, what the fuck are they even doing?! Playing hide and seek?!

Although she didn’t show it, the angelic maiden was starting to feel the strain of using so much of her magic, and with the arrival of a quartet of bizarre new foes, it seemed she would need to use even more…

“Good heavens! What appalling creatures!”

Great… And who are these fuckers supposed to be? An edgelord’s take on the Wizard of Oz?

A moment later, the Angel’s eyes widened in stunned horror as she watched a bizarre armless girl conjure a winding golden pathway which proceeded to lift up both barriers as if they were little more than curtains on a stage.

“My word!” the Angel gasped, placing a delicate hand over her ample chest. “How was such a quaint little thing able to pierce our defenses with such effortless ease?!”

Holy fuck… What even is this girl?

For her part, Gaia had been directing the cob cannon sunflowers’ long range bombardment, employing the giant plants to provide counter-battery fire in response to the Wonderland artillery. Upon noticing that her various botanical creations arrayed about the fields were in danger of being consumed by the ever-expanding flames (and a buzzsaw-equipped car?), the verdant maiden regretfully withdrew her magic from them and redistributed it to further bolster the increasingly besieged sunflowers.

It’s a good thing Connie isn’t here to see this… Gaia reflected, upon witnessing the arrival of the monstrous quartet.

The scarecrow, in particular, looked like it had leapt right out of a horror movie, although it was the tin titan that appeared to pose the greatest threat. But how to deal with it? The metallic construct seemed fully capable of shrugging off everything from pea pellets, to cob missiles, to mystic beams. Nothing in her botanical arsenal was likely to make more than a dent, unless…

Could it really be that simple? Gaia wondered.

If these things were adhering to their inspirations close enough, then there was a rather large weakness she could exploit. It might have been something of a stretch, but it was still worth a shot, especially in absence of other options. Thus, even as the metal giant raised his enormous axe to chop down one of the towering sunflowers, Gaia flooded the plant with her magic, causing the cob cannons to morph into blue-bulbed water cannons. Its root network branching out to any nearby lakes and rivers, the colossal plant fired several jets of water at the tin titan, with any luck rusting it enough to freeze it in place mid-swing.

After that, it was time to address the problem of the little armless girl skipping her way towards the opening in the barrier. Gaia had no idea what the girl would do once she reached the center of town, but the verdant maiden didn’t intend to simply wait around to find out. With a wave of Nature’s Blossom, Gaia sent several vines shooting up to ensnare the cheerful girl, while the Angel of Hope formed a shimmering barrier dome over the little monster, in an added effort to halt her progress.

“I am most sorry, little one,” the heavenly maiden called, her radiant visage forming a somber frown. “But we cannot allow you to harm the innocent residents of this fair village!”

Yeah, ya little freak… Thanks to you, I’ve gotta waste even more of my mana… I hope those other losers finish evacuating this dump soon…

Meanwhile, Connie raced through the streets of Bolorton, the augmentations granted by Alex and the Angel’s reinforcement spells coupled with Lily’s speed paths allowing her to move faster than she’d ever imagined possible. Employing her tentacles to pick up extra townsfolk, she moved from house to house in a blur of motion, gently depositing each inhabitant on the grass for others to carry back to the shelter.

“O-Okay!” Connie replied when Lily instructed her on what set of houses to check on next.

Running over to the first home, she was startled to see an ethereal young man flanked by two additional spirits appear before her.

“Eeep!” Connie yelped, coming to a sudden stop. Her tentacles instinctively rising to shield her from attack, the frightened masked girl was about to fire off a nightmare pulse, when she realized that the trio was actually helping with the evacuation. “S-S-Sorry…” Connie apologized meekly as her tentacles lowered and her hands began fidgeting with her hair. “Y-You s-startled me, a-and I t-thought f-for a m-moment y-you were w-with the p-people a-attacking the t-town…”

Ishtar's response was only a little comforting for Alicia, who could not shake the suspicion that Wonderland would try something anyway. There had been little opportunity to build up trust for the group after all, and her experiences had left her disabused of the hope that villains would not take such an opportunity to attack isolated Beacon members if they were exposed. Still, she'd just have to handle these issues as they arose. That was half the reason she'd asked for Hyun to take part in the mission.

"We'll get it done," she assured Ishtar. Regardless of her own personal feelings on Wonderland, she would not give the Beckoners a reason to doubt the ability of their branch.

Thoughts of the mission to come were briefly banished from her mind as a familiar figure appeared in front of her. Eyes widened as she was suddenly embraced, but after a moment she returned the warm gesture. "Serenity! I'm glad that you're back." It felt like it had been a while since she had seen the Horror-turned-teammate. "I see headquarters hasn't made you soft yet."

Alicia continued to smile as Aurelio arrived, receiving his share of attention in turn. Yet they did not have very long to dwell as Hyun and Gabriel made their appearance. "It's alright Hyun," she said with a glance over to the girl. "She's a friend." She could appreciate the desire to maintain status and hierarchy, but in this case it was unnecessary. Still, that did raise one pertinent question. "Well, she is. I don't think I've met the other girl before."

The arrival of the trio caused her to turn back to Serenity. "As much as I would like to fill you in on our somewhat epic assault on a Horror's stronghold, but we were actually about to head out on a mission. For once another city is getting trashed." They would have to catch up and reminisce later. For now she looked between Aurelio, Hyun, and Gabriel. it was a solid team for the mission that they were setting out to do. Even if complications presented themselves, they could still handle it with the squad that they had on hand.

"Just in case you guys weren't told, we're going to Bolorton to assist in evacuating civilians from the combat zone. We're not there to pick fights, but if you end up in one then make sure you end it. Any questions?" Alicia would do her best to answer them, but depending on how the situation developed they might have to improvise. Who knew what Wonderland would get up to in their schemes?

_{@Ariamis@Shifter_Master@Crusader Lord}

---

...Hell. This one was having it rough for the moment, wasn't she? Monsters girls came in all flavors, but a robot sounding giddy with a stoic expression and seemingly merging with the enemy's magic guns was not the strangest thing she'd ever seen. Even farther from the most horrific she'd ever seen by quite a longshot. But she seemed to be in-control over herself, unlike a certain idiot she'd encountered just prior, and whilst not the mission leader this one was the strike and comms for now.

Good. Someone who understood proper military terminology, and wasn't shooting at her, was a welcome presence in her book. It also gave her a moment to straighten herself up in the process. However, the fiery dragon girl being a mere convenience was somewhat frustrating, if not understandable, to hear all the same. Not that it was a bad decision to keep her around. Another body who could soak up fire and wasn't an essential member of the team, especially in the face of these odds, was a sound thing to allow if they proved useful enough.

...But if she got tackled again without warning and in the middle of combat with enemies, she was leaving the fire dragon girl alone for the enemy to deal with. Preferably by using spec magic to throw her into the middle of them if she could manage it.

"I’m guessing you already knew about the army incoming,”

”Far as I am concerned you can leave with us when we cut and run if you need to.

"Yes. Hence why I came here, and sent my mistress went in to help evacuate citizens for now. Far as I am concerned I'll also gladly take your offer to leave with you once we are forced to retreat back inside the boundaries."

Did she trust the offer fully? Eh. She'd just met this person, but she wasn't stupid. Regardless, however, she knew herself and Eliana would need an escape route once things became overwhelming. In that case these 'temporary allies fighting here under a common cause' would be a suitable enough means to better their chances of escape from here. Simple as that. If they tried to turn on them, she'd butcher every single body she had to in order to protect her mistress and ensure her safety as well.

...Wouldn't be the first time at all that her hands had been stained crimson red in such a case.

Enemies shooting from cover of the hill and wreckage on it was one thing, with her keeping lower to the ground to minimize her profile against the shooters. Dodging another rocket was another entirely, however, forcing her and the other two to dive away hard to avoid getting blasted. From here she he minigun fire came in she was forced to use her magic in short/small and timed bursts to move away and dodge the effect area of the bursts off fire from it whilst staying lower to the ground still for obvious reasons. Between some of the minigun firing bursts, Kiyome would stand up briefly and extend and arm out at the hill (aimed at the hilltop and beyond the cover of the growing fire and smoke) before quietly muttering some words under her breath as she called upon her benefit to summon a feasible but solid enough number of Horrific Eldritch Minions that would be appearing on top of the hill enemies. Horrific little things, good for fodder and hopefully buying them some more time. She would ultimately catch a couple somewhat stray bullets in the torso from those on the hill whilst doing so, the price of her efforts, though her expression did not seem to change in lieu of that as she rapidly ducked back down.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a GREAT FALL!”

All of this was just...just Nursery Rhymes. Soldiers made of cards, odd tanks, magic eggs, and all of it. Like the Queen of Hearts herself had thrown up her ideas of warfare on an actual battlefield. Then one of those magical eggs shattered, and from it emerged a slew of four monstrosities that seemed more than ready to go meet the wizard. Now the "Wonderland Rejects" had forged a path through the barrier that had been put up, giving the enemy a direct line into the evacuation area.

If she ever met the maker of all of these things, she'd cut out their tongue for their poor sense of taste. Worse if they hurt her mistress.

But it seemed things were far from over yet, due to the new arrivals at least. The scarewcrow seemed to direct the other two, all as the armless girl went off on her own down the magical road to get into town, the lion charged at the three of them, and jets of water were fired at the metal man from (according to her own guesswork) probably whoever had made the weaponized plants that shot down one of the fliers. In return, Kiyome would pull up her blade in preparation for a strike, gritting her teeth some as she brought in her focus-...and then out of the blue seemed to disappear out of thin at at the last second as the lion came close enough to her.

Because that wasn't the largest threat right now, at least if they were trying to keep these things out of town. The scarewcrow and woodsman were focused on the big sunflowers. The lion was sent at the three of them. Enemies were still going to be firing at them and such, but that left the biggest single threat to continue skipping along on its merry, armless way into toward entering their backlines. She couldn't accept that risk. Even the arrival of combat animals and a fresh set of help wasn't going to change her actions, not that it was something she was ungrateful for either.



Kiyome would reappear right next to the armless girl, immediately moving into her attack against the armless girl the moment she appeared. No hesitation or waiting around. Space and Time would warp and twist and bend as three almighty sword slashes, imbued with a lot of mana, struck from three angles around the Armless Girl to strike her at once and likewise try to cut off any potential escape. A Focused Assault launched on the dragon's target, three blows that would occur simultaneously and hit the target at the same time. Indeed this move, called 'Three Branches' was a moderately draining move to be sure though. A serious move for a serious situation.

...And yet the expression on the swordswoman's face was unconsciously both mildly sour as she continued to unthinkingly grit her teeth as she did it all. This, even though her eyes and focus and body and so forth were fully concentrated/focused on what she was doing.

It wasn't enough to empty her mana out fully at all, even in this situation, but a strong movie to fit what notable amount of 'fuel' it took to utilize. It was also a risk she was taking to pop out and attack like that, especially with enemy soldiers still firing on them and such. But with her target separated from the other misfits that it had been conjured with, and the threat of something creeping into the evacuation area was for at least one personal reason on her end, she was going to risk it to strike that threat down as soon as she could. Then they could deal with the rest of the monstrosities attacking the town, hopefully, before getting out of there.

---

As Lily's magic kicked in, Eliana felt a surge of strength and speed as her own efforts were notably improved by the supporting magic of the green-haired magical girl. She would rush and run and hurry to get as many civilians as she could, physically pushing herself to her fullest for the effort without even a second thought. Men. Women. Children. Wounded. Anyone that was alive that she could help save, get to safety, and get out of danger was a priority. Even as the Alexander clones, Ronin and Miko, Connie, and Lily ran around as well, her focus was first and foremost on the task that was right in front of her. She hoped that would be enough to help.

Even so, somewhere in her mind she did wonder what was going on with her own ally. She was worried about her draconic compatriot somewhere in the back of her mind as she tried to focus on things, rather, though she knew the latter's skills were suited to something such as this. Soaking up bullets. Buying time. By staying off the front lines it meant that they could each focus on their own tasks without distraction, and yet-...no. She had to trust in Kiyome, and she truly did trust her in the end. Had to trust that she'd help buy the defenders as much time as possible, trust that she'd take care of herself, and trust that the other would not let herself-

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

...ah.

Yet more new arrivals appearing within the barrier, seemingly bursting from the fields in a car and swinging in with screeching tires into the central plaza out of the blue. It was certainly a surprise. Definitely that. But as figures emerged from it, one of them seemed to go over to Lily to talk. So, hmm, if Lily was talking to them then they were probably not enemies of the evacuation effort at least! Whew. That much was a small load off of her own mind, though as she passed back by the talking duo of Lily and Justine, with an unconscious little boy in her arms who was holding a stuffed lion toy, she briefly paused to speak to the duo.

"I've cleared anyone left from houses five and what was left of seven, but rubble is blocking six and three has collapsed on four! If someone can help meet me at four, I can carefully hold up the rubble so someone can go get anyone in there!"

Once she dropped the child in her arms off of course. Yet they were running out of time so quickly. Please. Please let them save as many as they could.

@Ariamis@Ponn@Majoras End@Shifter_Master

---

---

---

The hug back from Alicia widened the maid magical girl's smile some indeed, as well as a light flush of warmth coming to her cheekcs, though before anything else could be done on her end-

“Hey! Show some respect!” A voice called out, and Hyun Long stepped out from the gathered crowd. The former monster queen pointed a finger at Serenity. “That is the Paladin Seraph! You can’t go and hug someone like that out of the blue! Not to mention public decency…Well, not that our organization has any policies on that.”

...Wait, was that-? Huh. It was her. They still had her around. Indeed, Serenity blinked in genuine surprise at Hyun's shouting and upon seeing her step out toward them out of the crowd that had formed. Not that the stares were much welcome, but, ah, frankly it did matter less to the former-horror than seeing her friends again. But to see the literal Monster Queen from the trash fire that had been that Rave Incident, who she did remember had been purified and such, was definitely more of a surprise to her considering the Inquisition's presence and her own treatment during the trial and then for those first two week at HQ when she'd been kidnapped by the Inquisition.

Heck, even the battle was still vivid enough in her mind. She could remember riding on the creaky old ghost ship during it all, and heading in with Alicia and the others once she'd gotten the chance to reunite with them. She could frankly remember the even vividly at that, though it wasn't much of a surprise given her 'unique' nature perhaps.

Ahem. Yes. She didn't need to get too distracted by her surprise at it all.

"It's alright Hyun. She's a friend."

"Well, she is. I don't think I've met the other girl before."

The magical maid's eyebrows perked up, before she turned to Vivi and then back to Alicia as she gestured back at the maid. In return, Vivi would nod understandingly before giving a polite and formal curtsy to the others.

"This is Vivianne! I ah...in some part due to some things that happened at HQ, I got a red coin. When I used it, she appeared. She, ah...serves as my maid now actually. She isn't combat capable, but she does make a great green tea."

A maid serving a maid. She hadn't thought too deeply about it all after the initially awkward first meeting they'd had in her room at HQ when she'd used the coin. But now it felt more and more bizarre the longer the concept sank in for her really. Still not the most bizarre circumstances or things she'd ever run into though. Far from it! Truth be told, Vivi had helped her relax more before she'd been sent back home. A welcome thing indeed.

Yet when Aurelio arrived, she both waved at him and couldn't help but chuckle aloud as she hugged him back in return as well. Though as he brought up the matter of a jacket, Serenity felt a small pang of realization dawn on her. Yeah. She'd changed a bit. Was the same, but that red coin had done a number on her magical girl form despite keeping the same core appearance. For one thing, she had abs now! At the same time, however, she did rub the back of her own head somewhat nervously for a moment as Aurelio apologized to her. She did, however, accept the offered jacket

"N-No worries! I just wanted to find everyone, after just getting back from HQ last night, and happened to find Alicia here in the hall.

I didn't even get to say 'bye' to anyone before I left, truth be told, as they just kind of came and spirited me away quickly...and in a blindfold as it would turn out..."

Though as Alicia transitioned to her proper business, leaving her wondering about the mentioned 'epic assault', Serenity merely nodded and kept quiet in return as she listened to the Paladin Seraph give out mission parameters to the trio who had approached them. Wonderland? Nearby? Those guys were a bit 'mad as a hatter', from what information of them that she knew, but someone not actively invading Penrose at the time was a surprise in and of itself already. What was next, monsters taking over half the city again to hold a dance party again?

Thinking for a second herself, she tried to politely pipe in once Alicia left the floor open for questions. Not necessarily her questions, but before anyone else spoke she at least wanted to do one thing. It was the least she could do after getting back, after all!

"Would you like a fourth team member for the trip? At the very least, I could provide time-based enhancements for the team, and take on a supporting roll. I know some about Wonderland as well, if that would help."

@Flamelord@Shifter_Master@Ariamis

“Leave it to Oros to fuck everything up…” Nykannis was muttering as Violet slowly regained consciousness.

“Well, that was certainly an interesting experience…” the heiress remarked, blinking her eyes a few times to clear her vision. “And it’s nice to know you despise her as much as I do,” she added with a wry smirk.

Upon noticing her captive was now awake, Nykannis turned to face Violet with an annoyed scowl. “Gotta admit, that was actually kinda impressive, Princess,” she conceded. “I never would have imagined you’d be able to overcome all that nightmare energy, especially not in your current state…” the mad scientist added as she examined the various diagrams and schematics depicted on an array of holodisplays. “But that’s fine. It still provides me with valuable data for future projects, so I’m not too bothered by it.”

“That is rather unfortunate,” Violet replied with a frown. “And here I was hoping that you’d have a fit after seeing how your little attempt to break me failed so completely.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Princess,” the mad scientist sneered. “But I’m not an infantile crybaby like you.”

“Yes, I suppose I can get rather emotional in my other form…” Violet conceded. “In fact, thanks to you, I’ve just had the opportunity to learn quite a lot about myself, and I’d like to think I’ve grown stronger as a result.”

“Y’know, I’m having a hard time deciding which version of you I hate the most,” Nykannis muttered. “On the one hand, there’s the hyperactive ditz on a sugar rush, and on the other, there’s the snooty bitch who thinks she’s sooo impressive ‘cause she never looses her ice cold demeanor, even when she’s about to be dissected alive.”

“I apologize for not providing you with the show you were so clearly hoping to see,” Violet replied, doing her best to maintain her “aloof dark-haired girl” persona in spite of being presented with a host of wicked-looking surgical implements. “I simply cannot help the fact that I do not find you in any way threatening.”

“Yeah… As much as I hate to admit it, I’m gonna have to go with happy clappy manic pixy dream girl,” Nykannis said with a sigh of resignation. “At least you were actually pretending to be friendly when you were like that…”

“I wasn’t pretending,” Violet replied. “But… is that persona what you would truly prefer?” the heiress asked, sounding somewhat surprised.

“That’s what I said wasn’t it?!” Nykannis snapped.

“In that case, I believe I can facilitate that for you.”

“What…?” the mad scientist asked, momentarily taken aback, and not quite comprehending what, exactly, her captive meant.

“Just because I am untransformed does not mean I cannot act like my magical self,” Violet explained. “Granted, it may not come as naturally to me, but it is still something I am fully capable of doing. Like, Violet Wiolet and Magical Dream Princess are the same person worson, after allsie~” she continued. “And, like, just because she doesn’t normally wormally talky walky like this doesn’t mean she doesn’t super duper wuv being able wable to~! (giggle!)”

Nykannis's eyes widened at the unnervingly incongruous sight of the formerly refined heiress speaking like her carefree magical persona, and soon, one of them began to twitch.

“What.

The.

Fuck.”

“And, like, if Nykannis Wannis really, really wants her to, Violet Wiolet can, like, totally wotally do this aaaall day~! (giggle!)”

“Okay, stop,” a shell-shocked Nykannis deadpanned. “You are seriously creeping me the fuck out…”

“Awww…” the heiress pouted. “Violet Wiolet was having, like, sooo much funsie wunsie… But, like, wait one moment woment~!” she exclaimed as something seemed to occur to her. “Nykannis Wannis is being, like, a super duper meanie weanie head, keeping Violet Wiolet locked up in heresie, soooo, like, maybe waybe Violet Wiolet should keep acting wacting this way~! (giggle!)”

“Whatever!” Nykannis snarled. “I’m actually kinda curious if you can keep that up when I start CUTTING YOU INTO BLOODY LITTLE PIECES!!! NYAHAHAHA!!!”

With that, several buzzsaw, scalpel, and scissor-equipped mechadendrites descended upon the captive heiress, while Nykannis grinned a particularly sadistic smirk.

Violet knew this was bad. Her captor’s patience had clearly run out, and even as she braced herself for the impending agony, her mind raced to find a way to stop it. Why was this happening? Why was she really here? As the whirring and snapping implements drew ever-closer, Violet’s eyes widened, not in terror, but in understanding. Nykannis had said it herself, this was all just revenge for when the transformed heiress had broken into her R&D facility. This was all because of a simple mistake. In a way, this really was all her fault, which meant there was only one thing to do…

“I’m sorry,” Violet told the mad scientist, her voice little more than whisper.

“What?!” Nykannis asked incredulously, her various surgical implements stopping mere inches from her captive’s body.

“I’m sorry for mocking you, and I’m sorry for breaking into your lab,” Violet clarified. “I obviously offended you a great deal, and I realized that I never actually apologized for it, so I wanted to do so now.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet!” Nykannis spat. “At this point, you’d probably say anything to save your skin!”

“Believe what you want, but I promise I’m telling you the truth,” Violet stated firmly. “I never hated you, Nykannis. In fact, I didn’t bear you any ill-will whatsoever. I was honestly fascinated by you, and by everything you had created, although I admit I didn’t exactly express that in the best way at the time,” the heiress conceded with a sigh. “As I am sure you’re aware, I don’t have a great deal of control over myself when I’m transformed, and our first meeting was my first time in that state, so I had even less control than usual. It was my initial intent simply to gather information, but I was so caught up in the wonder and joy of being Magical Dream Princess that I quickly lost sight of that goal. All I wanted to do was just have fun and make friends with everyone I encountered,” she continued. “The members of Team Alpha, Karen, Kate, and yes, even you.”

“Friends, huh?” Nykannis asked with a dubious scowl. “You seriously expect me to believe that bullshit?! Hell, for someone so ‘fascinated by my work’, you’ve done nothing but insult me this whole time!”

“What did you expect?” Violet replied. “Your minions assaulted me, I was brought here against my will, and you made it very clear that you intend to torture me at length. In light of that, I wasn’t about to give you the added satisfaction of seeing me grovel and plead for my life, so I simply employed the persona I use whenever I am in public. That said, I now see that was a mistake,” the heiress conceded. “Keep in mind, I am in no way condoning your actions against me,” she added pointedly. “In fact, I think they are the very definition of disproportionate retribution, but I would be foolish not to admit that my own actions, however well-intentioned, were the catalyst for them. I may not have intended to cause any harm, but I clearly did, and for that, you have my most sincere apology. As for your doubts about my sincerity, do you not have some form of lie detector you could employ to verify my claims?”

A few moments of silence elapsed as Nykannis’s goggles glowed brightly, and then…

“Okay, fine,” the mad scientist grumbled. “So you really are telling the truth… So, what? Do you honestly expect me to just say ‘apology accepted’ and let you go on your merry way?! And here I thought this side of you was the intelligent one…”

“Honestly? While I’d like for that to be the case, I don’t really expect that anything I say will make much of a difference in what you decide to do to me. I just wanted to let you know that I really am sorry for any pain I may have caused, and while I’m absolutely terrified of what you’re planning to do, if you truly think it’s a suitable punishment, then I shall willingly accept it.”

For several long seconds, the various blades and buzzsaws hung poised to plunge into the young heiress, only to rapidly withdraw a moment later as Nykannis gave voice to a defeated sigh.

“Fuck it… This is becoming considerably less appealing by the second, so I suppose I’ll grant you a reprieve…” Tapping a holodisplay, she deactivated her captive’s restraints. “But don’t think you’re free to run amok,” the mad scientist added, raising a finger for emphasis. “I’m still not letting you transform or use your magic, and if you try anything, those restraints will automatically reengage.”

“Thank you,” Violet replied, mentally breathing a sigh of relief as she tentatively flexed the fingers of her regrown hand. “I know I’ve already been through a lot of unpleasant situations, but I really didn’t want to add ‘getting dissected’ to the list.”

“Sorry to burst your metaphorical bubble, Princess, but you did get dissected,” Nykannis informed her. “Half a nanosecond before I released you,” she added with a smirk. “Completely taken apart, analyzed by every type of scanner imaginable, and put back together, good as new. I never said it had to be long, or painful. That was simply going to be for my own personal enjoyment.”

“That’s… incredible…” Violet breathed, more than a little stunned by her captor’s revelation. “And somewhat terrifying…” she added. “So, does this mean that I am free to go?”

“I suppose…” Nykannis conceded. “Although… If you really were serious about being fascinated by my work, how would you like to take a little tour?”

At first, Violet was slightly taken aback by the mad scientist’s offer, but then she realized that it only made sense for someone with Nykannis’s massive ego to want to show off her accomplishments. And Violet knew she would be lying if she said she wasn’t highly interested in seeing them…

“I think I’d like that very much,” the heiress replied.

“Well, then, what are we standing around here for?!” Nykannis demanded, her mouth forming a maniacal grin. “LET’S GET STARTED!!!”

Mac never knew how her alternate identities would be received. She did tailor them to her goals, often choosing traits that she hoped would make a certain impression. Knight of Tonight was made on the spot and probably wouldn’t fool anyone other than MDP. Iron Mouse was intended to be somewhat obnoxious as to make her less interesting to others. Nobody liked a showoff, so she figured people would not want to stick around her. The irony of Iron mouse was that her boasts were accepted at face value, and her self-centered nature was seen as endearing by their “mark.” Mac was a little surprised by Nefer’s open flirting, but she couldn’t let it show on Mouse’s face.

”Yea, you aren’t the only one.” Iron Mouse winked. ”If you keep up the good behavior, maybe you’ll get a cheek pinched though..” Mac grimaced as Iron Mouse uttered the words. She was quiet for the rest of the trip.

…

…

…

”Oh wow.”

Mac might have broken character, but there was so much stuff going on. Even a magical girl with A_W_A_R_E_N_E_S_S would have a hard time keeping up with it all. Evacuations, a giant scarecrow, it was nuts. But she had her orders.

”Sure thing, Fable!” As soon as Iron Mouse hopped out of the car, she brandished a machine gun. ”Oh!” She turned to Nefer and pinched her cheek. ”I’ll show you to Penrose as soon as I’m done here. Shouldn’t take long!” Iron Mouse gave the Egyptian woman a salute before catching up with Finn.

It wasn’t long before Finn started cutting into the enemy ranks. Shortly after calling some barn animals to his aid, he shot Iron Mouse a message, more a suggestion really. He believed that she should ignore the giant metal man for now and focus on something else. Mac could tell the tin man was strong. But that was exactly why she felt like she should be the one to deal with it. She had spent a decade silently operating in the shadows. Now that she was stronger, exposed, she didn’t have to operate on the sidelines anymore. It was also beneficial to attack something that everyone would likely be fighting. If several magical girls were beating on the tin man, who could really say which one was doing the most damage to it?

More importantly, attacking the tin man was just a very iron mouse thing to do.

”You wanted to see how strong I am?” Iron Mouse ran towards the tin man. ”Bet tin can here goes down before lion king does!”

Iron Mouse opened fire. The illusionary bullets sparked as they “bounced” off of the tin man’s frame. ”Gunna need geo rounds for this one!” She dove into the ground. A mole mound raced straight for the tin man before exploding. Iron mouse lept out of the earth with a boulder in hand, fully intent on smashing it into the tin man’s heart.

Though what was actually happening was far more mundane. Mac was on the ground, guiding a cluster of tightly packed stones towards her target.

---

Sakura had managed to free herself from her prison of flesh. It seemed that going to heaven and returning had renewed her strength, almost as if she had gotten a good night’s rest. But she had resisted the urge to use a killing blow or a powerful spell to free herself. Such things were overkill anyway. The other sleepy girls always fled before her attacks landed anyway. He remembered the big oppai cat maid, and was willing to see how far her advice would lead her.

But that didn’t stop her from assuming a combat stance. She flailed her arms around as her eyes scanned the area for foes to beat up.

---

Penrose was never in a state of rest. If things did seem normal, that was an indication that there was some other fuckery afoot. If the streets were quiet, it just meant that there was someone in the overcity scheming to destroy love. Or maybe a group of monster twins and their clueless date were trying to summon a horror. Maybe The Ascendancy were threatening to destroy a beach dimension, or maybe wonderland was waging war elsewhere to claim an outpost for their assault on Penrose. Or maybe Chloe Irving was waiting in the wings. Prepared to stage a spirit attack to drum up some chaos for some end.

Mmmmm, not today.

Chloe strut through Penrose like she was walking down a catwalk. Aurora and Divina flanked her sides, matching her step for step. One might have confused them for charlie's were it not for their appearances. Chloe’s magical girl outfit showed too much skin, Divina was a moth girl, and Aurora was a very petite boy. Chloe was closer to a demon than an angel anyway.

"My my, it looks like they’ve started to put Penrose back together." Chloe grinned as she walked through the business district. "Magical girls love to flaunt how resilient they are, but despite everything, normal people still love to live here."

”It is a sight to see.” Divina beamed. ”It just goes to show you that regardless of how bad things get, human resilience can triumph any hardship.”

Chloe grabbed Divina by the chin and pulled her closer. "Don’t forget where you are, Divina. This is the business district. There’s a reason why this place is more put together than the rest of Penrose." She grinned. "It’s an opportunity for these parasites. They come in pretending to give a damn about the local people, but they’re all here because property is cheap. They bought this rubble for pennies on the dollar." She released Divina’s head with a shove. "Not that I care one way or the other, just temper that attitude of yours."

"Like, it is nice to see the place packed again." Aurora groaned. "Though I can’t go out and buy dresses anymore."

"And what makes you say that?" Chloe wrapped an arm around Aurora’s waist. "I think you’d look stunning in just about anything. And that’s not something I tell many men."

Chloe’s comment made Aurora blush. "I really wish I had my boobs back!"

"Well, regardless, we should probably go undercover for now." Chloe stroked one of Divina’s feelers. "I enjoy having eyes on me, but I think Divina’s going to be a little distracting like that." And so the three magical girls returned to their normal forms. "I have a few errands to run, so if the two of you want to play around for a bit, I’ll meet with you later." Her lackies wished Chloe well as she walked deeper into the business district.

I wonder where that coin broker is in all of this.

Not concerned in the slightest with paying Hatwington any attention, Jelena took the time to eavesdrop on the conversation of the hooded one and Harry. Though, it sounded like the conversation was simply about how safe it was to have Mariette there, or something like that. Well, good to know that if they tried to transport an army in here, they’d end up in the dungeon. Unfortunately, Jelena’s lack of stealth skills meant she was swiftly discovered. Still, she just smiled happily when Harry came by.

‘He sure did!’ Jelena replied to the question if Hatwington bored her. ‘Anyway, I think I’ve strayed too far from my mistress, she’ll be expecting me to be at her side. I will be returning to her now. See you later!’ As fun as Jelena found playing detective and trying to find out whatever secrets they might have at this place, she was also decently sure it’d mean the end of her adventures for a while ahead and they could likely do any number of bad things to them. That, and she was there to ensure she and Mariette weren’t being affected by external magic. So, she picked herself up with metal magic and floated back to Mariette.

Mariette, meanwhile, was dealing with a woman that was claiming to be her mother. She was increasingly thinking this was a case of mistaken identity. Not that she would bring this to her attention.

‘I…’ Mariette absolutely couldn’t tell her that the only reason she was giving gifts was because she wanted a Lesser Force dolphin to give back her Black Mirror that she’d been commanded to keep track of. Such a greedy motive was surely not befitting the Alice that the queen desired…

‘How long ago was this? What happened? And you… made this dimension for… today?’ Mariette asked, as she also took the time to do her swing on the ball. She was probably pretty distracted, far more interested in what the queen had to say than in the result of the game.

Mariette momentarily attempted to use Absolute Direction at the concept of “Alice, the daughter of the Queen of Hearts”, to see if she was pointed somewhere.

__________________________________________


The dragon girl spent some time ducking and weaving aside as to not be hit with anti-tank rounds or whatever those were. Then her mouth opened up when this quartet of destruction showed up. Of course, Mayra was hardly familiar with the story of Dorothy and her unlikely companions so she couldn’t draw the parallel, but what she did see was a bunch of worthy challengers showing up. Mayra grinned.

‘Now we’re talking.’

Finn sent a bull and a bunch of chickens at the lion. Gaia’s plants shot water at the metal giant, and tried to ensnare the armless girl along with Angel of Hope. The green dragon went to attack the same girl. Some other people arrived and someone opened fire on the tin-man, then leapt to strike him.

Guess who was left completely unattended?

The scarecrow, that’s who. Scarecrows should burn pretty easily, right?

Mayra blasted off, directing her arms behind her and blasting fire to send herself off like a blaze of fire. She ran in an arc, because said scarecrow was taking cover behind the giant tin-man. With an eager grin, Mayra raised her claws.

‘HEY, HAYSTACK! DO YOU BUUURN!!??’ she asked, just as she attempted to slice past the scarecrow with a claw blazing and extended with fire-magic, like solidified fire. She was ready to do a blast of fire at him to vault herself sideways if he did some form of counter-attack, but otherwise she intended to slice past his position and then spin around a couple meters later to face her determined quarry, grin on her face.

__________________________________________


‘Woooo! Speed-tiles!’ Ronin grinned as she ran her evacuation a bit faster thanks to Lily’s tiles.

‘So much more to be done…!’ Miko lamented the fact that this was taking a while. All the clones should help out with evacuating the remaining homes faster, but just the pair of Ronin and Miko did their best to reduce that time just a little.

Penny’s gaze darted across the ever-unfolding chaos of this particular battle field. There was always something new to take into consideration, some thing else she had to commutate to keep up to date with the sprawling madness of it all.

She was hardly surprised when she felt her senses sharpen even further. Felt the world turn sharp as everything contrasted more. The world become exceedingly simple, the endless gray morality shifting to a straight forward black and white.

["Red A̴̺͑l̵̖̒ë̶́ͅr̶͚͂t̴̙́. Critical M̵̫̀ë̶̦́ḽ̶̅t̶̫̂ḍ̴̍o̶̫͒w̸̳͋n̸̂ͅ ̴̺̓Ĭ̴̲m̷̝͂m̵̮̓í̵̩n̴͈̽ë̵̲́n̵̟͆t̵̮̓.̶̦̄ D̷͞҉͏̡è̛͘҉̕s҉̶̛̛҉t́̀͘͢͜r̡ứ̧ć̸t̶̡̨͟į̛ơ̶͜͡͝n͏̡̛ ̴̵̛͞E͏̨ņ͏ģ́̕͠҉i̡͞͏̸͠n̴̢͠͝e͏̧̀ a̵̋ͅt 100%. Evacuate ṫ̵͉h̴͍̊ę̸͑ ̶͖͝a̴̱͗ř̷̡e̵̙͑a̴̟̎ ̴̝͌i̴̹͛m̸̳̕m̶̥̈́e̷͇͘d̵̋ͅị̸͂ately.]

She knew no one heard the warning, everyone already split off. No one would really notice the rest of the warning signs either, her colors bleaching away until she wore only shades of gray. Her eyes and lining colors becoming a bloody red.

"Initiating Phase four response configuration. Demon Attunement: Version 2."

Before she was able to do anything else, she had several hundred pounds of enraged leonine beast to contend with. She braced for impact, her upper upper clamps reforging into claws as she grabbed hold on the incoming blade. Even as she was pushed back by the force of the creature, her tendrils digging deep into the earth to stall out the force, the Engine refused to let go of the blade on the beast’s arm.

Matching gaze with it the beast the Engine waited a solitary moment. Before letting out a roar of her own, a deep metallic groaning sound utterly distorted by static.

And in response to her cry, the lights in the city behind her flickered and died. Because her tendrils found more than just rocks in the ground below, they found a power line, and the Engine drank deep in preparation.

Before the beast could respond to this the Engine’s chassis was subsumed by electricity, and she blitzed forward, dragging the beast along with her as she became a streak of lightning across the battle field. Bulldozing over the troops in her way they came to a sudden and violent stop as the Engine slammed the beast into one of the APC’s.

In the wake of thunderous crash, the Engine was no longer a mass of living lightning, though cords of blood red electricity coursed across her chassis, which was now a glossy onyx. Her holographic armor was wrapped around her like a second skin, and her extra limbs were each sporting a humming blade of energy. To say nothing of the vicious looking talons that now adorned her hands.

Slamming the Beast into the APC once more, the Engine flipped up and over the creature, before tearing her way into the APC. The edges of her forced entrance melting into metallic sludge that seemed to infect all the metal it came across spreading further and further.

Shortly after there would be a loud electric whine would be heard building with the APC, before a pressurized stream of condensed lightning and that same metallic sludge tore out from the inside seeking to cut a swath through everything it could. The Beast in particular if it was unlucky.

The Engine would swiftly remerge from the now devastated APC, leaving the wreck to melt into a pile of metallic sludge as she launched herself at the next APC. She was covered in a layer of that very same sludge and her lascasters firing at anything that moved.

On her back, the container she had been using to house the crystals she had been harvesting had changed. It was sleeker and now had gleaming lines of energy across its seams making it looked like a futuristic bomb. It was also being cradled protectively by two of her tendrils.

---

“A Pleasure Vivianne” Aurelio would greet the maid’s maid with a nod and a tip of the hat. Finding that situation to be more that a touch humorous himself. Not that now was the time to get into it, but seriously what kind of maid had her own maid?

“No questions on my end.” Aurelio would quickly answer “It’s going to be a bit more dangerous then our normal search and rescue’s, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some familiar faces when we touch down.”

“I’ve also got nothing about adding another member to out merry troupe, Time magic alone could be a drastic help. But I’m also curious about Wonderland, no one I’ve met knows a whole lot about them despite most people having heard about them at least in passing now adays.”

---

Back in Bolorton Tina and Ellen had split up. Tina was out personally assisting with the evacuation efforts, while Ellen had retreated to the Bunker and was deep into her magics using every cat and dog, she could to help locate everyone still in the town, or at least identify houses that they could avoid due to them being empty.

---

Back at the Sanctuary the odd situation continued to develop. Though now at least the girls there had at least something of an idea about what was causing it. The walls, floor, and anything metal really, had started to lose color, leaving a vast majority of the building a sort of bleached off gray.

Those with extrasensory capabilities were starting to get a clearer sense of what was going on as flashes of pain and anger could be sensed echoing off the walls. That wasn’t the biggest worry, however, no that was the fact that the entire building was slowly starting to feel like a Monster unto itself. And while it was still not hostile, it was steadily growing to be uncomfortable.

Even as the aura of it felt vaguely familiar.

Still more and more of Sanctuary was being driven to the main hall by the growing atmosphere, even Dina had arrived. Though it was hard to tell if she was here out of concern like most everyone else, or to help keep things at ease while everyone tried to figure out what was going on.

Nefer looked confused as Finn attempted to clarify the chaos of the situation to her, and looked at the damaged artifact in her hands. “Eh, why not. But give it back once you’re done. I might still be able to get a couple of coins off it over at the Bazaar.” She tossed the Runestone up and caught it on her palm in a casual manner, and then tossed it over to him. The moment Finn got a hold of it, he could tell that the artifact possessed a vast storage large enough to store a Killing Blow or similar spell, but in it’s fractured state would be dangerous to use. “As for this whole mess,” she turned to Akhenaten, who nodded back with a grumble, his arms crossed. “I suppose we could lend our services for a modest fee. Let’s say…five Gold coins. Three if you let me keep all the Wonderland tech.”

Lily looked relieved as Oliver sent forth his own contribution to the evacuation effort, as more duplicates as well as spirits possessing artificial bodies joined the ranks of rescue. ”Thank you, I appreciate it," She thanked the Crimson Cradle member. However, she frowned when she heard Nefer’s offer. She looked frustrated, her fist trembling.
”Fine, we’ll pay you! But please, help us evacuate the townsfolk!"
Nefer shrugged, and shook her head. “Nah, that ain’t my style. I think I’ll go have a look at these Wonderland weirdos instead. That sounds more fun. Come on, Aten. Let’s go.” Akhenaten grumbled, and the two of them ran off towards the fields. ”I’m going with them,” Justine spoke to the other CC agents.
”I’m more useful in a fight anyway. Keep me posted.”
She then followed after them, having summoned her spear.

Lily and the others continued pushing civilians out the door from building after building, healing the injured as they cropped up or pulling them out from a few collapsed buildings. With Oliver granting one final push of sheer rescuing numbers, the civilian rescue effort rose to a staggering fourteen emptied buildings on the east row, and twelve emptied buildings on the west row. Now, only two houses remained.
”We’ve nearly…haaah…done it!" Lily cried out, panting hard as the strain of maintaining the Chronos Crosser spell had taken a toll on her physically. She jogged over to the evacuation shelter, where Annabelle ran up to her, embracing her in a hug. She then addressed the evacuation group. “Thank you so much, everyone! I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for you!”
”Don’t…haah…mention it!" Lily gave a thumbs up and a bright smile amidst her breaths.
”Now all we gotta do is get them out of town…Wait, how are we going to do that?”" She asked Annabell, but she could only shrug.
“I don’t know, but I’m feeling better now. I better head back and see if my towers have held up.” Annabell then took off on a run using Lily’s speed tiles, leaving a trail of flowers. Lily sighed, and placed her hands on her knees.
”Wait for me…I gotta just…Take a sec…"

---

Finn called forth and imbued the local farm animals with the call of the wild. As a result, the chickens flapped their wings and clucked with vigor as they headed out as a swarm, feathers scattering in every direction. The bull was also roused into a bestial fury, it’s bellow like the sounding horn of battle as it charged into the battlefield. As more squads of card soldiers advanced alongside a couple of tanks, one of the tanks was knocked over by the bull, followed by trampling over soldiers, shrugging off volleys of fire as if they were mere nerf bullets on its magically toughened skin.

The enraged chickens reached the Lion the moment it got within range of the frontline, and distracted it long enough for Mayra to dodge the blade and for Kiyome to teleport out, leaving only Penny as the single recipient of the attack. However, she had abandoned the very idea of retreat, having lost her grip on the Engine of Destruction as it unchained itself and assumed control. She slid back on the black, charren grass as her heels dug in from the massive impact of the Lion’s blade, having successfully stopped it with her hands before her head was sliced off. Drawing strength from the power grid of Bolorton underneath her, she proceeded to hold on to the monster, covered in glowing electricity, and charged forth, grilling the surrounding chickens into a fine, microwaved dish.

The Lion, unable to escape the shocking grapple, proceeded to bite and tear into the Engine’s shoulder, the monster’s megaton bites capable of ripping out a hefty chunk out of her crackling form before it was slammed into one of the APCs that had descended to the foot of the hill, causing it to howl. The Engine then passed over the beast, seemingly shifting in focus to the hapless card soldiers inside who saw the side of the APC being blown open by the impact; they only had a moment to scream before they were shredded alongside their transport.

The closest Club soldiers opened fire on the Engine at first as it approached the second APC past the hill, while others were occupied with Kiyome’s summoned Minions that ran amok in the enemy ranks, disrupting their advance to Bolorton. With their close proximity and sheer numbers, they managed to punch through a couple of spots in the Engine’s armor, though only incurring light damage. But then, the Hearts quickly issued a command, and the rest of the soldiers changed their tactics. At that moment, when the Engine stepped over the hill, she saw as multiple grenades were thrown at her, followed by…static.

She was unable to see or hear anything but distorted, black-and-white scramble and hiss of radio waves. In fact, all of the Engine’s senses were consumed by the disruption, as some kind of ferric solution similar to chaff heavily pervaded through her immediate vicinity, disrupting her electrical sensors. In that moment of weakness, with the Engine solely relying on mechanical functions, she couldn’t detect the Lion closing in on her, ready to stab her in the back like a dirty coward.

Gaia released the enchantment cast on once-verdant fields on Bolorton’s border once the fire had fully reached the botanical traps; vines, venus flytraps and fungi alike dissipated into green spore-like sparkles and glowing root-like streams, which proceeded to travel back to Gaia, allowing her to restore some of the mana she had used to cast the spell before the ever-hungry inferno consumed the grass. She saw as Iron Mouse peppered the Tin Man with bullets, and they clanged with little effect against the monster’s metallic body. At the time, Mac felt a slight tingle against her skin, unsure whether it was simply the thrill of combat while she had Iron Mouse’s illusion dig underground.

In a brilliant move, the emerald-hued maiden then proceeded to channel the water-drawing power of plants into the cob cannons; they bloomed in sapphire sparkles into blue-bulbed hydro cannons. The cannons were charged with Gaia’s magic, and roots quickly spread underneath to the closest source of water, which she recognized to be a river to the northwest. The hydro cannons’ bulbs swollened, preparing to launch a deluge of dihydrogen oxide at the Tin Man.
At the same time, Mayra set her sights on the scarecrow, and it’s flammable straw body, and charged right at the scarecrow once it passed around the Tin Man’s foot.

However, while the Tin Man initially ignored the signs of attack, the scarecrow was quick on the uptake. With surprising speed for a single-legged monster, it pogo-jumped around the foot, and screeched an order at the Tin Man; the Tin Man stretched out its free arm forward, and attempted blocking the splash of water with it’s palm, managing to protect most of its body from the hydro cannons before it swung down with it’s axe; with a single slice, the sunflower tower was easily severed, as if plantlife was mere timber to the woodsman, and began to fall. However, Gaia then saw as the Tin Man’s free arm, the axe arm’s elbow and patches of it’s front rapidly rusted, immobilizing the spots in place. The burning fields in the proximity were also extinguished from the water sprays, causing smoke to accumulate and obscure the view.

At the same time, the Tin Man had lifted a foot, allowing the scarecrow to pass under just as Mayra slashed, forcing her to dodge and back off as a follow up before the foot stomped back down, shaking the earth. However, the attack succeeded to hit; she cut off the scarecrow’s rake arm and burned it to cinders, and set the straw construct on fire. However, that was when the water from the hydro cannons rained down after it struck the Tin Man. Not only was the scarecrow extinguished as a result, but Mayra also was hit by the water, drenching her. While not enough to actually harm her, the water slowed her down just enough for the trunk of the severed sunflower tower to collapse on top of her with a resounding thud, crushing her legs and tail and trapping her under the massive sunflower.
The scarecrow cackled as it absorbed the water on it into its straw body, seemingly boasting about its tactical genius through body language.

While the Tin Man recovered from it’s swing and readied another, Iron Mouse suddenly burst from the ground, and struck it right in the central hatch with a boulder that scattered on impact into rubble. As a result, the heart-shaped lock was cracked, and some of the chains holding it in place got loose. However, that was exactly when Mac felt pain in her chest as if someone had punched her, nearly knocking the breath from her lungs. She tasted blood in her mouth, and noticed how the glowing light inside the monster had intensified, and was now pulsating like a heartbeat. That was when she realized it; the monster was magically reflecting the damage it took.

Gaia, who was located on a neighbouring sunflower tower, then shifted her attention to the armless girl; though it was difficult to see through the clouds of smoke, she saw as the strange creature had passed the first couple of swerves on the golden bricked road in her merry skipping, about to head for the loop. The green-haired girl surprised the monster by summoning entangling vines on the sides of the road, which wrapped around her body and legs, stopping her in place. Gaia felt that her mana reserves had dropped to 80%, some of it saved by her spell salvaging. She saw as the girl’s smile turned more wicked, and golden bricks around her trembled, as if she was at the center of a tremor.

Suddenly, the armless girl coughed out blood, and the vines were cut down. Gaia then realized she had been struck with three swords, or rather three sword strikes, courtesy of Kiyome, who had stepped onto the gold road right next to her and performed a fearsome Focused Assault. It was an expensive technique that together with her summon spell earlier claimed 15% of her mana, but it was seemingly worth it; the armless girl knelt down, seemingly unable to stand, and Kiyome leapt further back down the gold road before the Angel of Hope placed a barrier around the armless girl, attempting to keep her further in place.

However, the armless girl lifted her head, and continued smiling despite the dribble of blood that dripped down the corner of her mouth. “Vines and warriors and walls, oh my!” She spoke out, and once again the golden road shook with tremors. As Kiyome attempted to teleport out, she noticed she was somehow unable to escape. She then looked down, and realized the golden bricks were animated as they opened up a hole underneath her and enclosed on her; her feet were grinded and crushed by the golden bricks, as if chewed on by a giant with gnashing golden teeth, causing moderate pain. Then she started to sink, first from the ankles, then to her knees, and then to her thighs. The kneeling armless girl giggled inside the barrier amidst the occasional cough, delighted by the sight of Kiyome descending down the horrible golden trap. She kept descending and descending…

Just as it seemed like all hope was lost, Kiyome saw an imposing black shape rushing in at the corner of her eye, and she was met with the terrifying sight of a large black golem of Egyptian design standing above her, sand swirling around him like a cloak. He reached out to grab her by the hand, and pulled her out of the teeth, having punched and stomped down on the golden teeth so hard they cracked into pieces. Once she was out of the trap, she could see a girl in a red suit walking in from Bolorton’s direction, wielding some kind of glowing gun. The golem grunted at Kiyome, and punched a block of golden bricks that the armless girl had shot at the two of them, pulverizing it.

---

The Spade soldiers, undeterred by Gaia’s cob cannons, advanced through the sky, and were now right above the Angel of Hope. One Spade opened fire on her with a hail of minigun fire-!
”Look out!”
Suddenly, a shield of crimson blood appeared before Angel, blocking the shots, and she turned to see Justine, her hand outstretched and a magic circle having appeared out of it.
”I’ll take care of the fliers, you focus on ground support!”
She ordered, and dashed up with a flap of her white-feathered wings towards the Spades.
The Spade wielding the rocket launcher aimed at the base of the tower Gaia was standing on, and blew it up, causing the tower to collapse with Gaia still on it. The remaining members had moved ahead, and were laying down fire on the barrier itself; they failed to destroy it, but wore some of the defenses down. Justine chased after them before they finished reloading, launching red beams at them as she pursued them across the sky.
”Take this!”

---

Hatwington scoffed at Jelena’s answer, seemingly offended as he adjusted his monocle. “As I expected, foreigners are rather boorish.” The Marquis and the hooded girl were also not amused by Jelena’s abrupt exit, though they did not chase after her. Instead, they simply kept watching her like she was a party crasher who had ruined their fancy dinner.

Meanwhile, the Queen of Hearts placed her palm on the handle of the croquet mallet, and dismissively waved her hand in denial at Mariette’s question. “Oh, it took some time to build this place, seven or eight months, it might have been. It was quite tragic...But never mind that, my dear Alice. I wouldn'ät wish to reawaken those painful memories just yet. Now, let’s see…” While the Queen was focused on her game, Mariette attempted using Absolute Direction to find the supposed Alice that she had heard. However, as she wasn’t sure if Alice even existed in the first place, and without a decent mental image of what she would look like, the spell fizzled out.

“Huzzah, we have won!” Mariette’s thoughts were interrupted by the Queen’s proclamation; she had successfully scored enough points to win the game. Smiling widely, she tossed the mallet in celebration at one of the card soldiers on guard duty, knocking their helmet off; that was when Mariette saw that the soldier did not possess a head, only a black, smooth stump where the neck would have been located. That was when Jelena arrived, having also seen the missing head on the soldier.
“But don’t worry, Alice. I’m sure you’ll do better with more practice. Now then, we are feeling a bit peckish, so let’s move on to the catering. I’m sure you’ll feel better once you’ve had some crumpets and tea, Alice.”

---

Hyun Long bit her lip at Alicia’s reassurance, and then averted her eyes with crossed arms, seemingly still bothered by Serenity’s social faux pas despite Alicia’s claim. Still, once Vivianne was properly introduced and the group had walked over to the teleporter room, she seemed to turn less tense. Gabriel on the other hand seemed to not be interested in the slightest, and silently chewed on her toast as she listened to the conversation. When Serenity brought up the idea of joining them on their mission, Hyun Long protested. “Sorry, but the mission parameters have already been set for four members, Serenity. Besides, our assigned vehicle is a four-passenger.”

“But it could fit five if three squeeze in the backseat,” Gabriel chimed in. “I could also drop out of the mission; Rachel assigned me to hold a few drills to the newbies, and I’d rather get those done.” Hyun rolled her eyes. “The Paladin Seraph has priority in command for being assigned by the Cardinal. Whether you are from the Ascendancy or not does not matter” she reminded Gabriel, hinting at some animosity between the two as they exchanged leers. “In the end, it is her call as commanding officer”. Alicia and the others then heard Violette’s voice on the communicator: “The teleporter is primed and ready to go. Please hurry, the situation in Bolorton is turning more dire by the minute”.

They were pretty much done. They had managed to grab and heal all the civilians in the town, and brought them all to a single place, that would make defending them all (or better yet, moving them somewhere else) much easier. However, by the looks of it, it had clearly taken it's toll on Lily. The magic she used to speed up the rescue efforts had clearly worn her out, and since right now they were just waiting to decide their next move, he had time to do something to help her. He walked over to her, and with a sigh said "Come on" he dragged her over to somewhere out of the way, and sat both of them down. "Look, I know that spell was my idea, but that doesn't mean you have to burn yourself out" he then grew a series of tails that wrapped around her, cocooning her entire body below her head, which he then pulled into his lap (face looking away from him) to rest on an extra large tail he had grown out of his stomach. "You're no good to anyone if you just break down on the battlefield. So...just try and relax a bit" He told her as he rested his left hand on the side of her head, and through that contact, began sending gentle pules of healing magic to soothe her body

Duplicants and spirits alike clamored in organized efforts, giving the evacuation team a long needed push towards completion.

"Let's go, let's go! Women and children first!"

"Someone help me get these two outta here!"

"Oi, I already cleared that house! This way!!"

"Wait wasn't Batsy supposed to be helpi- Ah forget it!"

If anyone passed by them, they had a chance to overhear the clones' comments. It was only a matter of time, they only had two houses left! The original Oliver, backed up by a pair of armored spirits, hurried to one such house. "Six should be coming over to help carry any kids. Just be careful, not sure how long they can hold 'em of-" Oliver would be interupted when a masked girl was startled by their sudden appearance, and prepared to attack before she realized they were allies.

Oliver couldn't help cracking a playful smile at Connie. "S'all good! Didn't mean to shpook ya!" He chuckled. Nodding to the other sprits to begin searching the house. "Name's Oliver! I'm with the Crimson Cradle!"

Meanwhile Eliana's pleas would be met with a trio of Oliver's clones, lead by Six. "Here to help, just lead the way!"

It seemed things were durning out well on Oliver's end!

Finn's however...

"What the- Hey! Didn't I tell you to help Oliver out, Justine?!" As he and the tank of a bull he created cleaved through Wonderland's numbers, he spotted Justine engaging the Spade soldiers in the air. Dumbfoundment crossed his tone in that instant. He was hoping Oliver would keep an eye on her, damnit! Then when he noticed Iron Mouse wasn't nearby anymore, he looked around before noticing her...opening fire on the Tin Man.

"Guessing no one else is prioritzing that thing, Ms. Mouse?! Geez, hang on, I'll swing by and cover y- WHATTHEHELLWHAT!?" Whether or not Mac would tell him about the Pain Split ability the Tin Man appeared to have, he would've begun making his way back to her when, in layman's terms, Penny went apeshit. Finn quickly directed the remaining chickens away from the ensuing fight between an engine of destruction and the "cowardly" lion. The boy couldn't believe what he was seeing. THAT was what he was preparing to fight?! He almost lost his fighting momentum out of the sheer dumbfoundment of it all.

"Ugh, this is giving me a headache!!" Gritting his teeth, a pair of dragon wings formed on his back from beast magic, and he took off towards the gargantuan monster. Any soldiers he was fighting beforehand would promply get swarmed with chickens. The boy swooped in to attack the Tin Man dead in the heart.

His regenerative ability should negate the effects, but will he be effective enough?

Chickens?! What kind of idiot attacks with fucking chickens?!

Sure enough, a rather sizable flock of chickens was now racing across the flaming field to swarm the monstrous lion, while an enchanted bull slammed into one of the nearest tanks, knocking it over. A bit closer at hand, Mayra engaged the scarecrow with her flaming talons, while a second draconic girl, one of the new arrivals, teleported next to the armless girl and delivered three swift sword strikes, before blinking away just as the Angel’s barrier enclosed the strange monster.

But all that paled when compared to Penny…

“Mother’s Mantel…” Gaia whispered, her verdant visage a mixture of awe and horror as she watched the mechanical monarch plow her way through the monstrous lion and then the rest of the Wonderland forces beyond like a runaway freight train on steroids.

The poor chickens never stood a chance and were swiftly fried to a crisp.

“Good heavens!” the Angel gasped, placing her hands over her mouth, while her eyes widened in shock. “Such atrocious violence!”

Holy fuck… The only other time I’ve ever seen that kind of raw power was during the wendigo attack… Seriously, who is this girl?

Then she remembered the message the robotic girl had sent her.

Pfft… Like I’m seriously supposed to stop that? Yeah right…

Though I suppose helping the poor thing will please Master Chiichuu, who will then reward his humble servant with the most rapturous feelings of bliss!

I am seriously gonna murder that fucking fur ball one of these days… (sigh…) Well, on the bright side, at least her warpath’s going in the right direction, so maybe I won’t actually have to intervene…

Who am I fucking kidding…

Meanwhile, Gaia’s water cannons were succeeding in freezing the giant tin man in place, rust spreading across its towering form even as another new arrival peppered it with a spray of bullets. However, with the guidance of the scarecrow, the tin man blocked the brunt of the water torrent with its free arm, allowing its axe arm to make a mighty swing against the sunflower, chopping it down in one powerful sweep. The toppled plant ended up falling right on top of Mayra, pinning the draconic girl to the ground, while also having the added detrimental effect of drenching her in a deluge of water.

“Blast…” Gaia hissed.

However, while all this was transpiring, the artillery’s continued bombardment had created a few cracks in the twin protective barriers, allowing a squad of flying spade soldiers to slip through. No sooner had they done so, then one of them employed a rotary cannon to unleash a hail of enchanted bullets upon the Angel of Hope. Thankfully, before the heavenly beauty even realized what was happening, a crimson shield appeared before her, fully blocking the incoming fire. A moment later, the source of the blood barrier revealed itself.

“Thank you so very much, kind champion!” the Angel told Justine with a radiant smile. “This humble servant is most grateful for your generous assistance!”

Holy shit, that was close… These fairytale rejects sure are sneaky fuckers…

The vampire girl proceeded to inform them that she would attend to the aerial threats, but even as she said this, a spade trooper fired a missile at the base of the nearest sunflower, causing it to collapse. Gaia, who had ascended the flower to gain a better vantage point of the battlefield below, found herself falling along with it. Dispelling her staff, the verdant maiden leapt off the falling flower and onto an intertwined column of thick vines rising up from the ground, which she promptly slid down until she was kneeling upon the soft soil.

“That’s it,” she seethed, turning a harsh glare upon the advancing Wonderland forces. “Now, I’m mad…”

Taking a deep breath, Gaia closed her eyes as she gathered her mystic power. Conjuring Nature’s Blossom once more, the daughter of Mother Earth raised the verdant staff above her head and rapidly twirled it in her hands, before forcefully driving it into the soil before her. The moment she did so, her eyes shot open, now glowing a vibrant green.

“Despoilers of field and flower,” she uttered, her normally tranquil voice rising to a far harsher intensity. “Taste the full force of Nature’s Fury!”

With that, several glowing tendrils of mystic power shot out of Gaia’s floral staff, the life energy surging across the battlefield, touching every plant, from towering sunflower to humble blade of grass, and even the seeds still wrapped in the soil’s warm embrace, filling them with renewed strength and vitality. The toppled sunflowers were knitted back together, rising up and off of the once-trapped Mayra. Restored to their original splendor once more, the mighty flowers joined their companions in unleashing an all-out Barrage of mystic beams, corn cob missiles, pea pellets, and water jets. The latter were directed entirely at the tin colossus, although Gaia was mindful to keep the torrents well away from where Finn and his diminutive ally were assaulting the metallic monstrosity. Simultaneously, a pair of vines shot out to pull Mayra clear of the deluge, so as not to get dangerously soaked, while another set of verdant tendrils wrapped around the scarecrow and attempted to fling him into the nearest patch of still-burning field, where the fiery dragon girl could hopefully put an end to him.

Even as this transpired, the Angel’s attention was drawn to where the second draconic girl was seemingly being devoured by the yellow brick road the armless girl had conjured.

“My heavens!” the angelic beauty cried in alarm, desperately wishing to help, but being utterly unable to do so. Indeed, it was all she could do to maintain and strengthen the barrier imprisoning the now injured, but still very much alive, armless girl, who, despite her imprisonment, had shown herself to be fully capable of engaging the town’s defenders with her magic.

Stupid fucking pacifistic powerset… Sure would be nice to go on the offensive right about now…

Thankfully, yet another new arrival made his presence known, rescuing the dragon girl, and shattering that segment of the brick path with a mighty blow from his fist. The strange Egyptian-themed golem was soon joined by a gun wielding young woman, and the Angel of Hope wasted no time in granting them her aid.

“Please allow this humble servant to bestow her blessing upon you, most noble champions!” the heavenly maiden called, as a sweep of her glowing staff sent a trio of empowering energy beams shooting towards Nefer, Akhenaton, and Kiyome. The three recipients of this blessing would find not only their physical abilities magnified, but a shimmering field of protective energy surrounding them.

Hopefully that’ll give them enough of a buff so they can finish off that armless bitch…

Back in the besieged town itself, the ghost boy was introducing himself to Connie. The nightmare girl was only vaguely aware of Crimson Cradle, a few mentions from Amanda being the rough extent of her knowledge, but since her dream magician friend was apparently a member of the organization as well, she figured Oliver was probably safe enough, despite his somewhat spooky appearance.

“O-Oh! U-Um, t-that’s okay,” the timid girl stammered out a response. “I-It’s n-nice to m-meet you, O-Oliver,” she added, her mask forming a tentative smile, while her trembling hands continued to nervously fidget with her hair. “I-I’m C-Connie. I-I’m h-here with s-some f-friends,” she explained. “T-Thank you f-for h-helping e-evacuate the t-town. I-I just h-hope everyone’s g-going to b-be all r-right…”

Everything in the magical girl world (that’s a real thing, truly) had been set up by a number of powerful patrons. This was one of the reasons magical girls were so “modular.” Why some had hammer spaces while others had killing blows. These abilities also had to be “balanced” by these mighty patrons to a certain degree, and generally were similar in function. While the cradle was a bit different than most other hammer spaces, it was still a hammerspace power. But with all the powers that magical girls could get, the most wonky one of them all had to be third eye.

It was powerful for sure. Intelligence was the sort of thing that could win wars before the first bullet is shot. Knowing exactly how a spell works, what type of magic an enemy uses, or even if an area has magic in it is a very powerful ability. Naturally, the patrons in charge of this 4-D chess game needed to balance it out. It was how they chose to go about doing it that Mac took issue with.

The third eye had to be open through some conscious effort on the part of the user. It was a weird drawback that Mac didn’t fully understand. It took fairly little mana to use, and it didn’t even work all the time anyway. Seriously, she couldn’t look through a magical coat, but then when it came time to fight a giant metal man, she instantly understood that it had several hearts, and it linked its opponents hearts with its own metal hearts to share damage. Said hearts were also being used to both channel and cast the spell.

All good information, but she wished she had known it before she started attacking.

Mac made sure Iron mouse mimicked her injury. Blood dripped out of their mouths as she suppressed a cough. ”Oh no, I hope Justine doesn’t try to make a pillow out of my blood!”

Mac might have let her mind wander to other topics related to the unusual ways in which the third eye was balanced, but Finn had abandoned his task to “help” kill the tin man. Only the unusual curse was set up in such a way that he would be killing her instead. It was fortunate that he chose to engage in melee, as this gave Mac a bit more time to respond to the accidental friendly fire attempt.

”Hey!”

Iron Mouse, or rather Mac’s gravity magic, shoved his weapon off course. The cane-sword smashed into the chains that held the giant’s heart in place.

”Are you trying to kill me?” Iron Mouse pointed at the giant. ”It has some sort of damage feed back magic, and our health is intertwined with its hearts. If you want to stop it, we need to carefully remove them!” In truth, Mac could survive just about anything so long as her soul jar wasn’t destroyed. That didn’t mean it would be painless or have other consequences, but she did need to pretend to be concerned for her life. Trying to brute force their way through the tin man’s many hearts wasn’t going to help anyone. ”Actually, why don’t we try to rip this thing’s chest open and dump its hearts into the cradle?”

Of course, Iron Mouse wasn’t standing idle. She was already trying to unbind the chains that held the heart in place. Iron Mouse was swinging her gun around like a club, but really, Mac had scaled the metal beast and was delivering blows with her invincible fists. Each swing of Iron Mouse’s gun lined up with one of Mac’s punches.

---

“Why does everything look weird now?”

It was just as Sakura feared. After that big oppai cat maid gave her that advice about using her head, she would have to do just that. Punching color back into the walls was not something Sakura could do with her fists.

But that was only because she didn’t have tha paint yet.

“Fucking hell! There’s gotta be some paint somewhere!”

Punching paint onto stuff probably wouldn’t be too effective, but surely her tail would make for a good calligraphy brush? She could just roll through the paint and get it everywhere she needed that way. Sakura just needed to know where in this dump they kept the paint.

When Sakura turned around, she noticed the monsters stirring. While nothing bad had happened yet, monsters were pretty temperamental by nature. Most had destructive urges and would sow chaos as soon as something upsetting happened. And this was certainly more than a little upsetting.

Also as an aside, Sakura hadn’t seen this many oppai bouncing up and down since he was a mobster. Scratch that, even when he was a yakuza, no club he had ever been to had this many girls just running around with such ill-secured cleavage. The monster and dark magical dress code seemed to enforce a policy where no one was allowed to wear an outfit that offered propper support.

Come to think of it her own chest had gotten a bit bigger after becoming a monster girl. What the hell? At least as a normal magical girl she had a flat chest like a proper man! But she was getting side tracked. Dina looked like she was going to make an announcement, but that could wait.

“Hey, neko-baba.” Sakura slithered closer. “Where do you keep the paint? I can fix this real quick.”

Alicia nodded to both girls as Serenity explained the presence of the new arrival with her. She'd have considered it a bit odd were it not for her previous experiences with Janet. After that, she was a bit harder to surprise when it came to this sort of thing.

It was also not much of a surprise as Serenity offered to come along on the mission. Aurelio was fine with it, but Hyun did raise some objections. Some of those were practical in nature and could possibly be addressed, though she had seemed a bit leery of the ex-Horror so far. Alicia couldn't see a particular reason for that, so she could only hope that it would diminish with time and familiarity. Well, that and Hyun's firmness towards Gabriel too.

She had a feeling it was rules related.

As much as Alicia wanted to see Gabriel in the field, she wasn't going to argue if Gabriel preferred to train the new recruits. That was probably better in the long run anyways, as it would further their mutual goal by instilling a common ideology in those now joining their ranks. Those were considerations unlikely to occur to their companions. "Alright then. I'll leave things here to you Gabriel," she decided with a nod.

Having made the shift in teams necessary, she then turned and waved for the others to follow her. "Everyone else, let's get moving to the teleporters. I think they're starting to get impatient." It was time for them to head to Bolorton, as she led the way.
_{@Ariamis@Shifter_Master@Crusader Lord}

The damage to her shoulder was extensive, but also overall irrelevant. Its status as a primary limb meant that at this threshold of injury it had yet to lose more than twenty percent functionality, though the loss of the outer casing was a problem. As it left her internal mechanisms exposed to further damage.

Her best course of action was to set her auto-repair function to fix the issue from the external side inwards.

That done her attention flit towards the limited damage delt by the hails storm of bullets she had ran though. Her shields were restored with a flex of thought sealing up those gaps, the damage itself was assessed and then ignored.

The guns fired magically charged projectiles. The Engine knew this, she had torn more then one apart already and knew just about everything about the capabilities of the guns. This was actually to the Engine’s benefit at the moment, covered in nanites as she was, the bullets that dug into her had to pass though those nanites. Damage was inflicted yes, but more nanites were created as well. Cost ratio was not in her favor, but the limited damage was still worth the increased nanites for the moment.

Overall, all parameters were within tolerances.

Then she crested the hill and was overcome by a wall of static. Her awareness was constricted down to such a limited bandwidth of information as audio, radar, and other senses ran into a fast amount of interference. Even her sight was compromised.

It was to the point that she came to a halt. Part of it was shock, few entries could simply ignore their senses becoming this distorted. But the larger part of it was that this was a brand-new sensation. Something that she had never experienced, nor had any record of. And for all of her advancements, and evolutions she was still a machine. Machines do not react well to things they have no information on.

So, she stalled out, her systems poking and prodding at this strange disruption, cataloguing and pulling apart the cause and effects of it.

It was possible that the Engine would have stayed stalled out for the rest of the conflict, even with her inhuman ability to analyze, this chaff had been tailor made to disrupt her after all. But that was not to be the case. Because she was a machine and one of her highest priorities, hard coded into her very being, was combat.

And when she registered the Lion’s blade pierce her back, her system reprioritized, she reacted, and the stall was gone.

The Lion’s blade only got about half an inch in before the Engine’s torso came alive, it bucked and writhed around the blade diverting its momentum off to the side. This left a large gash on the Engine, but nothing more than surface damage. It was her luck that the beast aimed high, after all, she still needed the casing she cradled. In all that the flare along her spine that left a strip of bluish chrome in its wake was almost unseen.

That stirp of blue chrome, was vital however, just as it was an extensive drain on her mana. Caging her main systems in cold iron had two immediate effects. The disrupting effects of the chaff couldn’t affect her anymore but by that same metric, nearly all of her magical senses were rendered unusable as well. It was a quick and dirty fix, but would hold for now.

In near the same instant the Engine rotated its upper half to face the Lion, her left elbow leading said turn as she drove it into the beast’s jaw with as much of her considerable might she could bring to bear. Giving no real room to mount a proper response to this, the Engines unoccupied limbs lashed out at the Lion seeking to rip and tear into it for the insult of attacking her.

In the midst of the onslaught, she let out another roar. And like before her element’s responded, but this time it wasn’t electricity she was calling. Each bit of metal in the vicinity would feel a harsh jerk in her direction. Not strong enough to tear the guns from the hands of the soldiers, but impossible to miss as well.

This did lead to her suffering from another half dozen bullet wounds, but that was acceptable, because her primary target also answered her call. A wave of gray sludge came rushing from behind the Lion. But it wasn’t targeting the beast. It slipped around, over and under, all seeking to reach the Engine. Until she was subsumed in it.

The remnants of the APC, now melted into more nanites, covered the Engine. And unseen by all, a jagged, broken, grin torn open on the Engine’s face as the nanites swarmed over her. The gray sludge quickly took on a glossy black color, and red electricity could be seen arcing under the squirming mass as it shifted.

There was a central point coated in hardened crystal shapes with light arcing between them, where the engine presumably resided, but from that central point was several large tendrils that acted as limbs. One of these tendrils spooled out, lashing at the Lion, as it skittered away.

It was large, but only about half the total size of the APC that had been destroyed earlier. That didn’t stop it from being fast however, nor erratic, as it didn’t stick to a straight line. It jittered back and forth as it raced towards the nearest vehicle it could.

And neither was it passive, smaller tendrils would tear away from the larger mass and strike out at anything that it came near, the flowing nature of the nanites allowing the tendrils to carve though what they hit like blades.

And anything metal struck by those whips became more sludge that was called into the greater mass feeding it further.

---

Aurelio would nod his understanding at Alicia’s orders. Made sense to him as well, if for a different reason perhaps. Gabriel didn’t seem like she was interested in working along side the local branch, which if this was going to be anything like normal for Penrose responders that would be trouble.

“We’ll let you know what you missed.” The magician would say as he waved a goodbye to the Ascendency agent.

”And now that we’ve settled. How about I make the next leg a bit quicker?” He would ask rhetorically as he raised a hand dramatically, held the pose for a moment and then snapped. With that snap the party they had would find themselves enveloped in the teleportation that was prime for their next stop.

It was time like this he enjoyed the benefits of being a showman. So much easier to have dramatic timing when one could control the timing. Plus, it gave him time to link up with the teleportation network to let them know he was taking over their primed jump.

Honestly, being approved as one of their living teleportation nodes was always worth it for times like this if he was being honest.

”How long is the drive going to be you think?” He would ask once they all touched down. “Because if this is anything like normal, things are likely pretty hectic over there already.” He would continue on to say as he started packing up the mobile gate. After all, he was given the official training for dealing with this tech due to his status as living node.

---

Seeing as there was only two more houses left to evacuate Tina and Ellen had decided to leave that to those more capable of such and regroup. Just in time to see Annabell take off and Lily still trying to catch her breath.
“You okay?” Tina would ask as she stepped closer to the girl in case she fell over. Having seen the magical network spread over the town she wouldn’t think it uncalled for.

Ellen on the other hand answered the question that was posed, even if it was too late to also tell Annabell. “The Queen said she was going to be able to get us out of here. I would assume that would also include the evacuees. We just need to clear the last of the houses and hold the line until she gets back. Then we should be able to simply leave.”

---

Dina’s sharp gaze would snap to Sakura the moment she started speaking. “Simple paint won’t solve this issue.” The now vampiric girl would say as she turned her gaze towards the walls once more. Stray streaks of black had begun fade in and out of the gray walls.

“Her Majesty is the source of this I believe.” She would say after a moment. As of all the girls now in the Sanctuary, only Dina had ever pushed Penny far enough to feel the edges of the machine girl’s ire. Recently too, as it was back at the dexterous charismas party. And this felt much like that, even if it wasn’t directed at anyone here.

“Something is happening over in Bolorton. But that is not our concern for the moment.” Dina would go on to say, her voice projected out so that everyone could hear her. The magic inherent in her making it impossible to miss when she chose to speak like this.

“Ashlyn, Beatrice” Dina would call out “I am aware that the Scouts are currently abroad with Her Majesty. I need you two to set up a perimeter. I want to know if anything starts coming towards our home. I don’t know if this” she would gesture at the building at large “Has been noted by anyone else yet, but unless it stops soon it will become a problem.”

“Goblina I need you to start digging into those maps. We might need to abandon the Sanctuary earlier then expected. With her Majesty absent for the moment we will need to head elsewhere, but fret not I do know of a few locations we can stay at until she returns.”
Dina would continue to issue order. But outside those named few most of it was for people to prepare to leave.

Eventually however “Sakura. We are likely to be moving though the sewers I’ll be placing you on the vanguard. In the mean time if you wish to test your idea there should be some cans of paint in the storage room. If I’m correct however, you’ll want to start from the outside. As I’m sure our home is quite apparent at the moment.”

“If anyone attacks, taken them down. If they live, bring them to me.”

Violet couldn’t believe her eyes.

Over the past few hours, the heiress had been shown wonders and horrors beyond her wildest imaginings. She had seen biomechanical monstrosities being grown in bubbling vats of glowing liquid, while moon-sized omninoughts hovered overhead. She had seen monolithic mobile fortresses guided by soultech AIs, and capable of unleashing multiple megatons of destructive power every second. She had seen tri-plenumic perpetual motion machines, polyphasic transdimensional techno-wraiths, technomystic teleporters, tetra-tachyonic time machines, hyper-quantum infinity colliders, vita-voltaic resurrection wells, poly-harmonic trans-planar psionic pulse conductor choirs, and a staggering variety of death rays too numerous to count.

Then, of course, there were the obligatory galaxy-shattering doomsday devices, but even they seemed insignificant when placed against the awe-inspiring grandeur of the Lab itself, the sprawling technoscape that, at times, almost seemed like a living creature, and was so stupendously vast, it even had its own weather. Indeed, it had been while their shielded counter-grav platform was passing through a torrential downpour of glowing, green liquid that Nykannis had informed her that she had saved the best part of the tour for last. As arcs of actinic, yellowy-green lighting crackled around them, Violet couldn’t even imagine what could possibly surpass all she had already witnessed, and yet, when they finally arrived, the young heiress found herself presented with a sight that made all the harnessed hypercanes, self-replicating energy-to-matter nano forges, and hyperdimensional quantum singularity cosmic string projectors pale in comparison…

“Y-You… You… have a petting zoo?!” Violet exclaimed, her eyes going wide.

“That’s right,” Nykannis said with a grin. “Whatdaya think, Princess? Cute enough for you?”

“T-They’re… They’re… Adorable!” Violet gushed, her normally cold eyes seeming to sparkle with glee as she ran to the edge of the forcefield bubble, which enclosed the various bizarre creatures.

“Just reach in and grab a bunch,” Nykannis instructed. “You can put them on here,” the mad scientist added, gesturing to a hovering table that had just popped into existence.

Not wasting a moment, Violet did as instructed, grabbing two armfuls of the wriggly creatures, and pulling them from the containment dome.

“T-They’re so soft!” the heiress exclaimed joyfully.

“Yep,” Nykannis agreed. “Perfect for cuddling,” she added as Violet proceeded to do just that, hugging several of the little creatures, and lifting them up to nuzzle against her cheek.

As Violet showered them with affection, the strange little things cooed and trilled happily, bringing an even bigger smile to the heiress’s face.

“Oh~! You are just the cutest little thingy wingies~! (giggle!)” Violet squealed, her voice becoming cuter and more high-pitched as she continued to snuggle with her new friends. “Yes you aresie~! Yes you aresie~!”

“Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself,” Nykannis noted with a sly smirk.

“Mmmhmm~!” Violet agreed, her eyes half-closed in blissful contentment. “I just wuv them soooo much~! (giggle!)”

However, her bliss soon turned to alarm, when the creatures’ contented coos were replaced with anguished cries. Opening her eyes, Violet saw to her horror that her various little friends were beginning to slip through her fingers and messily dissolve into puddles of goop.

“N-No!” she cried, still not fully believing what she was witnessing. “W-What’s happening?! T-They’re all dying! Why?!” she demanded, glaring at Nykannis with tear-filled eyes. “Why are you doing this?!”

“To see the look on your face,” the mad scientist replied, her own face set in a smug grin. “But don’t worry, Princess,” she added, tapping a small holodisplay. “They’re all perfectly fine, see?”

As Violet watched, swirling vortices of yellowy-green energy reassembled all the various creatures, who were soon emitting a chorus of happy trills and coos once more.

“There, good as new,” Nykannis declared. “I made every single one of these little guys, so of course I can remake them! Nyahahaha! In fact, they don’t even remember getting dissolved in the first place!”

For a few moments, Violet was silent as she took in everything she’d just experienced. The “Queen of the Mad Scientists” certainly lived up to her title. Nykannis was staggeringly powerful but could also be staggeringly psychotic, and, not for the first time, Violet found herself wondering if she should be impressed or horrified…

“So, now that you’ve had the tour, whadaya think?!” Nykannis was asking. “Most amazing stuff you’ve ever seen, right?! I bet it makes everything your supposedly brilliant mind has ever come up with look like a bunch of pathetic tinker toys!”

“Nykannis… What you’re capable of… it’s… it’s unbelievable…” Violet told her after a moment. “You could solve so many of the world’s problems, end so much pain and suffering… Yet, you could also add to them, or even destroy the planet completely. Is that why you haven’t shared any of these developments with the general public, despite your obvious desire for recognition?”

“That’s part of it,” Nykannis conceded. “I’ve taken a more direct approach on countless other worlds, and even quite a few versions of this one, but I suppose you could say I have a vested interest in making sure this particular iteration stays relatively intact, at least for the time being. Besides, the Grand Magistrate would rather I not disrupt the status quo too much,” she added. “And pissing him off would be a very bad idea.”

“The Grand Magistrate?” Violet asked with a raised eyebrow.

“No one you need to worry your ditzy little head about,” Nykannis replied with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“I-I am not ditzy…!” Violet protested. “A-At least not currently…”

“Yeah, I know,” Nykannis replied. “I only said it to annoy you. But, seriously, you shouldn’t concern yourself with the Magistrate,” she added. “I mean, you’re pretty much the living embodiment of the saying ‘ignorance is bliss’, after all. Or is that not why you enjoy being Magical Dream Princess so much?” she asked pointedly.

“I…” Violet began to protest, before stopping herself. “You’re right,” she conceded softly. “Being Magical Dream Princess does allow me to forget about my many worries and obligations. I suppose you could even say I often prefer being that way, but I know that some things do need to be taken seriously, and I am not particularly fond of how disoriented my memory and overall mental state become,” the heiress added with a frown. “But, thankfully, I have so many wonderful friends to help me. For the longest time, I had always sought to be perfect at everything, relying on my own innate talents and hard work. It wasn’t until I became a magical girl that I was able to see the real value in having friends I could rely on, who I could trust to be there for me even when I was at my weakest and most vulnerable,” she explained, a warm smile spreading across her face. “Friends like that are one of the most wonderful blessings in the world, and one I cherish with all my heart.”

“All that ‘power of friendship’ crap sounds like something from right out of a cheesy magical girl show,” Nykannis remarked snidely.

“I suppose it does,” Violet replied. “And I suppose that makes me childishly naive, but I honestly couldn’t care less about what you or anyone else thinks of me,” she added firmly. “I’m tired of hiding who I really am. I’ve spent all my life pretending to be what other people want me to be, terrified of showing my true self, but not any more.”

“Wow… That was some speech, Princess,” Nykannis noted, while slowly clapping her hands. “It’ll be interesting to see if you can put your money where your mouth is,” she added. “I mean, I know how much of a big deal having daddy dearest’s approval is for you. But for the protagonist of some disgustingly sweet kids show, I’d give that performance a nine out of ten. Oh, and speaking of magical girl shows,” the diminutive doctor continued. “Did you know that, once upon a time, yours truly was actually in one?”

“You were a magical girl? Violet asked incredulously.

“Of course not!” Nykannis retorted. “I was a mad scientist! And not just any mad scientist, either!” she clarified, holding up a finger for emphasis. “I was the main villain of the show! But I got to team up with the heroine during the series finale in order to help her save the universe, and my epic awesomeness totally overshadowed her in every way! Nyahahaha! Hey! Wanna watch it together?!” the mad scientist asked excitedly. “Then you can see exactly what I’m talking about!”

“Um, I-I suppose,” Violet replied, a bit taken aback by her “host’s” enthusiasm, although when it came to someone as egomaniacal as Nykannis, she realized it probably shouldn’t have been all that surprising. “May I ask the name of this show?”

“It’s called Beautiful Guardian Gunslinger Alexis,” Nykannis replied as she set up a small viewing area in front of a massive, panoramic display screen. “But don’t worry about her!” she added. “The real star of the show is my character, Doktor Xylannis, the greatest mad scientist of them all! Nyahahaha!”

As Nykannis continued to cackle away, Violet reflected on just how utterly bizarre this whole experience had been thus far. When she was ambushed by the mad scientist’s minions, she never would have imagined it would lead to watching the finale of a magical girl show she’d never even heard of before, and the heiress couldn’t help but wonder how much stranger things might get before she returned to her ‘normal’ life…

---

'One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.'

Seems she hadn't been the only one with the idea to try to deal with the armless girl's attempt to get into their backlines. And yet at the same time...she was deceptively seemingly defenseless in hindsight, yet was actually far less so when it came down to it. For what it was worth in getting those hits in to deal damage to her, all the draconic swordswoman got in return was chomped down on like bamboo in a panda's mouth.

She could ignore a lot of things that had happened so far, and had done so simply to keep up the fight. But at the same time-



-the pain was moderately intense. Like her bones and flesh and skin were being chewed on by flat molars, not even being given the courtesy of being chopped off by the front teeth or something. She couldn't run, though, and so she began to sink down into the ground itself. Teeth were grit as she forced her mouth to stay shut despite the pain of getting slowly ground up by the twisted variation on a little yellow brick road. By the time she got to her thighs, the swordswoman had prepared to cut herself off at the thighs in order to escape and teleport away.

And then more help arrived, mainly in the form of some large golem man thing that began to crush the brick-teeth she was trapped and sinking into.



She didn't even so much as bat an eye at Akhenaten's presence, she'd seen far far far worse in her nightmares alone, but once she was helped out and the golem intercepted some projectile attack sent at them she let out a small sigh of admittedly restrained relief. She looked up at the large black golem and gave a nod to it. Her cracked and rather injured legs likewise attempted to steady her body to stand, albeit being forced to use her abnormally long sword and enough spit, grit, and force of will to do so as well. Not that she batted much an eye at it, despite the ultimately reflexive winces of pain that came over her in the process.

"Thanks for the save. Would offer to play a game of senet as thanks, but with this problem here that offer of mine will have to be saved for later I'm afraid.

Right now, its time to crush this pest."

Her tone was rather formal and cordial despite the circumstances, though as the Angel of Hope's reinforcement magic would make standing up normally much more viable for Kiyome in turn. She would note the woman with the glowing gun's presence as well, but would merely give a small and silent nod to her rather than speak. Instead, her primary attention was on the little armless girl, not bound by vines but now damaged and encapsulated in a barrier akin to the one protecting the town.

Was this barrier going to block them from attacking? If so that'd be a truly sad and silly state of affairs, but if it was permeable somehow then they'd have a shot at this at least. Especially for what she was going to do to that little gi-...that monster now. Because she had just the thing in mind for bad little girls wandering in from wonderland and causing trouble like this. Something that well befit someone who stepped into her warzone on her watch and tried to crush her legs.

Focusing silently back on the armless girl, now standing outside of the trap once more, Kiyome would focus her breathing, raise her blade, and channel her mana once more for another attack. She would then start to move and swing her sword, before suddenly seeming to disappear again out of the blue mid-movement. She did not so much as touch the golden road again with her feet, though she'd reappear once more with her blade already mid-swing behind the armless girl without so much as making a noise. No battle cry, no nothing.

As the old queen of hearts had said...



And so the single-strike focused assault attack in this instance was aimed to mightily and more potently take off the head of the armless girl. A single blow with enough mana focused into it to put it up to the task. Nothing on the level of a Killing Blow, but it was certainly not as small-potatoes attack by any stretch of the imagination.

Meanwhile, if any conjured minions Kiyome had summoned prior were even left by this point they'd just keep just going on and tearing through any and every enemy they could.

---

Despite Lilly and the other girl having seemingly ignored her, the other strange help now running around to grab civilians from houses was welcome enough in Eliana's eyes. Indeed, Oliver's clones and Six would find her giving a nod to them before motioning for them to follow her to the particular place she'd mentioned. House Four. At the rate things were going, only two houses being left was definitely a vast improvement compared to the pace they'd been making prior. Hopefully getting to Four, and getting past the rubble blocking Six, would finish the last two houses with any amount of time at all to spare. Anything they could use to try to get the civilians out of Bolorton and somewhere safe.

She also hoped that Kiyome was ok. Tough as the strange monster girl was and put herself up to be, she wasn't immort-...well, technically they were immortal. But she didn't want her to die regardless!

Thus Eliana would push herself to continue assisting, not stopping to rest until all the houses were cleared and she was back with the rest of the rescuers at the bunker again.

@Ariamis@Majoras End

---

---

---

Thank the Beacon itself that Aurelio was there. Not that he wasn't being a bit of a showman in it all, but that was the charm of it in her mind. Still, it was admittedly a small surprise of being suddenly teleported to where they needed to be next. The former horror knew Vivianne would be ok back there, likely would head back to tidy things in her room, but still Serenity blinked a couple of times in her surprise after touching down. Yet in the end she would relax as Aurelio began to pack up the mobile gate, her brows furrowing as the matter of how long the trip would take came up.

"I can use my magic to buff the vehicle, at least, to help us travel faster. It should be enough to help expedite us to Bolorton a little faster."

Yet even as she spoke, a small chill ran down the maid magical girl's back. Something felt...wrong out there. In the distance. Familiar, but also not at the same time. Shaking it off as best as she could, however, all Serenity needed was for them to get inside of the vehicle and she could try to help them get on-location as fast as she could with her magic. At least that would hopefully be something to help them along.

Otherwise, she did hope somewhat that she wouldn't get squished in a seat next to Hyun.

The former monster queen was indeed a former major monster threat, thinking back on the events of the 'Rave', but likewise the former horror herself hadn't held it against Hyun either. Serenity herself had been something far, far worse, and now honestly they were both purified humans and magical girls fighting for Beacon proper as allies. What was wrong with that? Or rather, well, Serenity wished there wasn't anything wrong with that. In truth, what had happened at HQ was only a facet of how others probably still felt about her really. She could feel it in her bones, felt it in her mind like it was simply just a fact of life. So in the case someone not as worse-off as her came along from a similar-type background, it wasn't hard to imagine at all that they might join in on the pointing a finger at her just to 'fit in' or blend in better as it were. Then again, the outfit wasn't helping anything and she knew that. Hadn't been her choice of new outfit either, but that of the Red Coin she'd used. Not anything she'd batted an eye at personally for the most part, though as long as a certain name wasn't mentioned during all of this then she felt they'd be fine.

Whatever the case was in matters, they had to make haste. The mission came first, and frankly being around friends was something the bunny maid magical girl was happy for.

@Shifter_Master@Flamelord@Ariamis

‘… Well done,’ Mariette said at the decently good shot. Then the queen knocked the head off a soldier’s head, and there was no head. Mariette didn’t particularly react, it was a given that things were magical around here, though Jelena tilted her head to see what kind of magic was being used with her Third Eye. When it came to coming to eat something, Mariette obliged, albeit had Jelena inspect the things she was supposed to be eating first.

‘Can I have some?’ Jelena asked with a smirk, just because. In any case.

Mariette was intending on staying a bit longer. Just long enough to get more information. She’d engage in small talk, trying to find out more about Wonderland and the Queen herself. However, perhaps most importantly, is…

‘… So, what’s next?’ simply that. Concerning me, or other parts of the world. I do happen to know you’re attacking a town right now. May I ask why?’

That might be the most important question, albeit Mariette wouldn’t LEAD with that question, but the minor small-talk before she asks that question isn’t important enough to type down by the letter.

__________________________________________


‘Ha!’ Mayra shouted out as she managed to cut part of the scarecrow, but then it escaped behind the giant Tin Man. Mayra wasn’t one to stop moving, but she did come to a halt when she realized the Tin Man was redirecting the water at her.

‘Oh, wa-’ A blazing fire erupted around Mayra and shot up at the water, but flame has less compact form than water and the fire couldn’t quite turn the water into steam quickly enough, so it burst through and soaked Mayra. She didn’t look super-happy about that. Now, she would usually just dodge aside from a giant falling sunflower, but for some reason she didn’t have the time to do that so the giant sunflower fell on top of her.

The giant sunflower stood up later, though. When it did, there was no Mayra there. Instead, there was a hole in the stem of the sunflower, because Mayra had started burning through it to get through on the other side, but then stopped when the sunflower stood up. Instead, there was now a standing sunflower with a hole in it. Mayra’s head stuck out through the hole.

‘Oh, hey, you’re still alive! You’re pretty tough for a flower!’ Now, all the sunflowers had bunched together, and were unleashing a barrage. ‘Hey, I know! Let me help!’ Mayra grinned as she held out her hands, and a blast of fire extended out of both to envelop the cobs and cobs of pellets being launched. But, it wasn’t normal fire. It was magical fire, and it would imbue the attacks from the flowers with the destructive might of FIRE.

‘Nature’s Fury, plus Demonic Fire! FACE OUR MIGHT! HAHAHAHAHA!’ Mayra laughed as she momentarily focused her might into powering up the sunflower barrage.

Albeit, she’d eventually get bored of that. That’s when, in case that scarecrow actually was flung somewhere, Mayra would rocket herself after him like a burning comet of destruction. And if he didn’t, she’d just aim herself at some random Wonderland soldiers and grab a bunch of fire to swing and bash them all with, showing off the combination of her speed and power.

From the side, Mayra glanced a little at what was happening with Penny… cool. But the time wasn’t now. She refocused on what she was doing.

__________________________________________


So, just as Ronin and Miko were escorting a couple civilians out a house, there was suddenly a blackout, courtesy of Penny. It did mean there was suddenly a bunch of shouting.

‘Aaaah! It got dark!’ Ronin shouted, a bit happy. So, it was apparently late, so dark it got.

‘Keep calm! We must get them to safety…!’ Miko called, and they refocused on doing that.

Then they got out, and there should have been more houses to focus on… but at this point there were so many clones here helping with the evacuation that their efforts was kind of meaningless. There was just the two of them, so their supposed advantage of being twice as efficient paled significantly.

‘Haha, we were kind of meaningless, eh?’ Ronin asked, chuckling about it.

‘Every little bit helped,’ Miko responded, and they reconvened at the gathering spot… a bomb shelter. Uh.

‘Hold on, is this even going to be safe? Do we have a plan?’ Ronin asked whoever might be close. Because someone around here should probably have a plan.

‘If not, it may be a good idea to move at once…’ Miko also voicing her concern about this situation.

This was not the first time Chloe had returned to Penrose.

The last time she returned was from some beach dimension. All in all, she had enjoyed her time there. It got her a lot closer to Penny. Though she would have proffered it if time flowed at the appropriate pace in there. Being dropped into a frozen city after she had become accustom to the summer sun was just cruel.

She remembered it just like it was yesterday.

...

...

...

“Tell me Chloe.” Veronica was reclining on a beach towel, unashamedly letting her skin absorb as much sun as it could. “What do you do for fun?”

Veronica had been getting a bit more comfortable around Chloe ever since the drink challenge picture they took. It was probably because Chloe had an embarrassing photo of her, or maybe it was because she had gotten drunk again. Chloe didn’t press for answers. She didn’t really care. Or at least, she only cared that it could benefit her.

"I enjoy talking with pretty things like you." She placed a finger on her chin and grinned. "Though I enjoy doing a great deal more than talking with the especially pretty ones. So long as I enjoy their company we could really do anything."

“So no propper hobbies then?”

"I’m anything but propper."

“I mean to ask if there’s anything you enjoy outside of people.” The Astolpho doll appeared in Veronica’s hand. “I think my favorite thing in the whole world is collecting dolls.”

"Is it because you like the way they look?"

“Aesthetics aren’t the only reason, though that’s part of it.” She turned the plush over in her hand. “Dolls do exactly what’s expected of them without fail. They don’t care what you dress them up as, they won’t complain if you abuse them. They don’t get jealous or sad.”

Chloe took a seat beside Veronica. "I have my underlings for that. Sure, they can be inadequate at times, but they all do exactly what I want in the end."

“As do my agents. But sometimes you just want something that wholly falls under your will and can’t resist.”

Chloe grinned. "Seems we have quite a bit in common. If we were any more similar, we’d be twins."

“How fortunate that we aren’t then.” Veronica looked directly into Chloe’s eyes. ”If I thought for a moment we had the same ambitions, we’d be fighting right now.” She averted her gaze. ”Or at least, once the dolphin was gone.”

"I was about to say." Chloe laid down in the sand and folded her arms behind her head. "But it sounds to me like you aren’t looking hard enough if you think dolls are so great. I think I’ve found someone that bends to my whims just like one of your dolls. I'll always prefer something that bends to my will than something that has no will."

”I would agree, but people like that can change. For your sake, I hope they don’t.”

…

…

…

"Where’s the Mint when you need them?"

It was aggravating how difficult it was to get in touch with the Mint. Sure, Al himself couldn’t be everywhere at once, but for an organization that knew what was going on everywhere at any given time, they were difficult to get a hold of. By now Chloe would have expected to be confronted by them. But it seemed they weren’t as far reaching as she had originally anticipated. Perhaps they just ran a tighter ship in new york.

Or maybe she wasn’t being patient enough.

"Chloe Irving?"

Hearing her full name was enough to make Chloe turn her head. Who she saw was a girl dressed like Julie Andrews in the sound of music. Albite with a lower neckline to allow a view of her cleavage. Though there were some other big differences too. Notably her darker skin and black hair.

"My my. Penrose has really gone to hell recently, but all the girls are just as cute as I remember them being." Cloe’s grin only widened as she drew closer to the mysterious girl. "I don’t suppose you have a name I can call you?"

"I appreciate the compliment, but I’m new here myself. Can’t count myself among your lot." With a nod, she folded her hands together. "I do not think my name is too important, given the bit role I’m going to play in all this. But how about you just call me Wisdom?"

"Wisdom, hmm?" Chloe lowered her eyelids. "If you don’t want to tell me your name, maybe tell me why you’re calling mine?"

"I think it would be easier to show you." Wisdom turned over her hand and revealed an ebon coin. "Just got back from my last operation. Same as you I imagine?" She hid the coin in her sleeve.

"Ahh, you didn’t strike me as a bad girl. Phu phu phu!" With a roll of her shoulders, Chloe stretched her arms out and wrapped them around Wisdom’s neck. "You said you were new here, but do you know where Al is hiding? We need to have a talk."

"I can get him. Can’t say he’ll drop everything he’s doing just to see you though. But that’ll be his call in the end." Wisdom ducked out of Chloe’s embrace. "I have someone else who would like to speak to you too."

"Oh? Another mystery girl? If she’s even half as cute as you are, I can probably make time for her."

Wisdom nodded. "Al take’s priority of course. I’ll come back with someone regardless." She blew Chloe a kiss before stepping into a back alley.

"I do think she’s playing hard to get."

Justine smiled at Angel of Hope’s words of gratitude, and spun her spear as she conjured blood bullets, shooting them at the Spade who then disengaged. She scoffed as she dueled against the Spade soldier, Finn’s message having raced across her mind.
We have bigger fish to fry! They passed the barrier! She messaged back, and winced as in that moment she let a bullet graze her forearm. In return, she threw the spear, piercing the soldier right through the chest. The soldier dropped on one of the houses, and Justine’s eyes widened as the soldier’s body exploded, blowing the house up and scattering burning debris around: she didn’t notice it before, but the flying squad seemed to be equipped for suicide bombing. A piece of the burning debris happened to fly right into Miko who was in the vicinity, only causing light damage but leaving burns on her kimono and cheek.

”The fliers have bombs on them!” She yelled down at the local defenders, and then grimaced upon spotting Penny running rampant in the distance.
As an aside, I’m glad I never had to face her.

---

Lily slightly wobbled once Alex took her hand, surprised by the gesture.

”H-huh? I’m not burning, I’m fine…" She lied, but nonetheless followed Alex as he took them to a porch on one of the empty houses. She sat down on one of the chairs there, and sighed heavily as Alex’s tails comforted her with fluffiness.
”Alex…" She mumbled, her eyes closed as she allowed herself a moment of respite from the chaos and terror. After a short moment, she spoke:
”I’m sorry, but…There’s a reason this keeps happening…Why I keep pushing harder." She opened her eyes, and she noticed how the last civilians of Bolorton were carried out by Oliver’s crew and Eliana, and lifted a hand, slightly waving to them.
”Thank you so much!"

Then, with renewed energy, she turned to Alex.
”I’ve realized…Up to this point, I’ve only used a small fraction of this new magic. I’ve been speeding myself and others up, but…Is that all there is to it? To manipulate the flow of time itself…It’s hard. But…I know I could do so much more with it. There’s so much potential. I could…Help everyone with it. As long as I work hard, I could even make…a miracle." She opened her hand, and her hourglass floated over it, spinning erratically. She smiled as she looked into it.
”Right, Alex?"

She then heard as Justine shouted from above. ”What? How did they get past the barrier?" She exclaimed. That was when a shot rang out, and Alex felt a stinging pain; one of his tails had been shot by a flying Spade soldier wielding a sniper rifle, having aimed at Lily.
Fortunately, Alex had enough Agility to provide a defensive barrier to slow down the bullet. Still, the tail was struck right in the bone, quickly reminding him that the situation was escalating fast.

Lily immediately stood up from her seat and shot back with a lightning-quick draw of her bow, hitting the Spade right in the arm, causing them to drop the weapon before he retreated.
Her arm slightly shook after the shot, her expression hard.

She and Alex, along with everyone else inside Bolorton, saw that the Spade squad had closed in on the town after slipping through their defenses, and began shooting; the soldier with the rocket launcher shot down another tower even as Justine made chase. A Spade with an assault rifle opened fire on Tina and Ellen, managing to hit Tina’s chest and shoulder, and causing her to almost fall as she was held by Ellen.

”How dare they? How dare they!" Lily screamed, and began chasing after the Spades on the ground, rapidly shooting upwards at them as she zipped through the Chronos Crossed roads.

---

Finn disengaged from the enemy forces, having left the swarm of clucking chickens to cover his exit as he ascended up towards the half-rusted Tin Man. As he gained altitude, he saw in the distance that his enchanted bull had slowed down, having been crippled in the leg by a grenade blast, though it’s bellowing presence was enough to still claim the soldiers’ attention as they fired upon it until he fell like a noble warrior. He also saw how Kiyome’s shadowy minions were still managing to hold thanks to their regenerative abilities, though one was driven over by a tank, unable to escape, and the others were surrounded by more and more troops.

The colossus attempted swatting Finn with his free hand once he got close, but the rusted joints locked up, allowing the magical boy to dodge and strike…One of the chains, causing the broken lock to slightly droop from the side.
Just as Mac had wanted, she succeeded in redirecting Finn’s attack before she had the chance to activate the Tin Man’s heart curse.

She then proceeded to attack the other chains, disguised as Iron Mouse swatting with the butt of her rifle, and managed to destroy enough chains for the hatch to swing open as the Tin Man’s massive frame swung back and forth, managing to smack Mac with the side of a metallic elbow; she incurred moderate damage to her shoulder and her side with a small bone fracture, and causing her to be knocked away. Finn saw the metallic hearts inside the hollow compartment of the Tin Man’s chassis, each of them beating at different times as they glowed brightly. This was followed by the Tin Man’s backswing hitting Finn; however, Finn managed to latch on the arm before he was knocked away, barely holding on.

---

Gaia unleashed her full magical prowess upon the battlefield, and lifted the fallen tower that had once trapped Mayra, the stalk regenerating rapidly to restore the trunk. Even the tower cut down by the Tin Man began growing anew from the stump, and developed into a short tower with the small, budding sunflower cannon. Gaia then resumed leading the botanical defense, and continued launching an array of flowery weaponry; The Tin Man was drenched even more by bursts of water on it’s shoulders and legs while purposefully avoiding the midsection, further rusting the giant to the point it was no longer capable of swinging it’s axe. However, it then began stepping slowly forward, seemingly trying to ram into the barrier with it’s hefty frame even as it’s rusted joints grinded.

At the same time, Gaia latched on to the Scarecrow with her vines, and attempted to throw the monster…But the creature didn’t budge, no matter how hard she pulled. She strained her magic, but the straw creature had taken root into the ground, having taken advantage of Gaia’s blessed soil, and drawn magical energy from it. Then, the creature further showed it’s parasitic power as a small straw hand grew from the burnt stump and grabbed onto the vine, corrupting it. Gaia felt as the control of the vine spell escaped her, and it shot out to wrap around her; unlike her own vines, which were beautiful and abundant with life, the corrupted vine looked frayed and blackened, like rope made from sickly straw. She then heard a sucking sound from the straw, and felt as her mana was rapidly drained by the magically stronger Scarecrow’s curse. Her mana kept lowering and lowering…

“Don’t give up, Gaia!” She heard Annabelle’s voice just as she was about to be drained dry, followed by feeling the girl’s hands on her own as she embraced the verdant girl from behind; Gaia felt the infusion of magic from the other Wood user, and helped her break the straw curse in a flash of light as well as restoring her back to 20% mana.
“Thank you for tending to my garden,” she gently spoke, and summoned her own magical weapon, a staff with an elaborate sunflower-shaped tip. “Now, let’s beat these Oz rejects, together!”

Gaia had also sent vines to rescue Mayra. She, however, did not need rescuing, as the monster girl had melted a hole into the tower and burrowed inside like a squirrel. She then imbued her magic with the tower, and through it’s rooted network spread a blazing enchantment on Gaia’s payload; with their powers combined, the cob cannons dropped napalm-like oil on the waves of Club soldiers, causing them to scream in agony as they burned. Upon seeing that the scarecrow was not flung, the chaotic girl decided on a whim to attack some club soldiers attempting to pass by the sunflower towers; while slowed by the damage she had taken to her legs and thus not fast enough to avoid the hail of gunfire, she powered through and ripped the soldiers to shreds, though she did have to spit out a bullet that lodged on one of her teeth.

---

The Angel of Hope quickly adapted to the reinforcements among their ranks, and enchanted the new arrivals; Akhenaten flexed as he felt the surge of power course through him, while Nefer laughed, aiming her glowing gun.
“Ooh, that’s some good magic! Gives me a high like no other! Thank you, super cutie!” She winked at the Angel in a flirty fashion, before turning her attention back to the fight at hand. “Now, how about you make it back to Kansas, you little freak?”

Akhenaten grunted in response to Kiyome’s suggestion, and crushed another block of bricks the armless girl had launched at them, followed by the girl jeering. “My! People come and go so quickly here!” The monster seemed to turn desperate, as it gathered up the nearby bricks into a shell and started running, once again lifting the barrier like a curtain with an arch of bricks.
Akhenaten dashed in front and punched, but the girl had split the road in two and dodged to the left as it ran around the loop, seemingly gaining speed as it headed for the emerald fountain in the square. Nefer spotted as Kiyome was about to go for another attack, and blasted the armless girl with what looked like an explosive shell of bluish magic, breaking the shell.
“Go for it, cutie!”

In that moment Kiyome teleported midair behind the armless girl. Before the armless girl could strike with pillars made of bricks, her head was already rolling down the yellow-bricked road, like a bowling ball down a lane.
Kiyome landed on the blackened grass, and as she did, her broken legs gave out under her, and she dropped to her knees. As she did, she saw as the road dissolved into a golden wind, and the fountain returned back to normal; she had claimed victory.

---

“Affirmative,” Gabriel responded to Alicia’s with a respectful salute, and walked away, causing Hyun Long to sigh in an exasperated tone. However, she did not say anything else for the moment. The Beacon squad, thanks to Aurelio’s initiative, quickly found themselves appearing out of the mobile teleporter situated behind their assigned vehicle; a van fitted with magitech and enough space to store the advanced device in. The van was situated at what looked like a car wash at a gas station on the edge of town, next to a road that led down to the countryside.

It didn’t take them much time to fold the device into a more compact shape and store it in the back of the van before they were already off, with Aurelio on the wheel. Alicia was driving shotgun, leaving Serenity and Hyun Long with the back seats. Hyun Long held her arms crossed and tapped her foot impatiently as the skyline of Penrose drifted further and further away behind them. The vehicle was accelerated thanks to Serenity’s spell, allowing the already fast vehicle to reach an even greater speed.

However, as they were on their way, Serenity noticed Hyun Long nudging her lightly in the shoulder, and she turned to look at her.
“Serenity, I may come off as harsh and judgemental to you. But even so, what I’ve said is still true; you need to show more respect to your superiors, and prove yourself worthy of Beacon’s ideals.” Her gaze turned tighter, and she put a hand to her own chest.
“It is thanks to Beacon’s mercy that I was granted a chance at redemption, to prove myself strong enough to surpass my past self and to repay them for their kindness. I’ve been informed that such is the case for you as well. However…” She then pointed straight at Serenity, who inadvertently jiggled as they hit a bump on the road.
“You, on the other hand, need to work even harder, to earn not only Beacon’s respect, but mine as well.” She then resumed her waiting, having averted her hard gaze. “That said, I look forward to us working together, so we may both earn our redemption,” she added in a lower voice, looking the tiniest bit content.

---

The Queen of Hearts smiled at the compliments she received from Mariette. “Why thank you, Alice. My, I’m glad that after all these years, you still haven’t forgotten your manners,” she spoke, and reached her hand out as the headless soldier returned the mallet back to her as if there was nothing wrong. Jelena spotted that the powerful magic belonged to the Queen, but did not fit any of the known Specializations, meaning it must be Oddball magic. However, she did recognize the signature to be the same as the croquet balls. Jelena’s attention was immediately claimed by the Queen lifting her chin up with the mallet. “But of course. Any friend of Alice’s is a friend of mine…You are Alice’s friend, correct?” She asked, sounding subtly sinister.

They then went on to partake of the catering, as a butler poured tea in both Mariette and Jelena’s teacups, and kept them refilled if they took so much as a single sip from them. The same attention was given to the crumpets, ensuring no matter how many were eaten more would take their place on the table. After some meaningless small talk, Mariette noted that the Queen occasionally seemed to write in a little pocket book. She then landed her question, and the Queen gave a dismissive noblewoman’s laugh.
“So you know of that as well? My, Alice, what a clever daughter you are. Yes, I’ve decided to secure an outpost before proceeding to Penrose. Speaking of, how doth Dormouse fare?” She asked Hatwington, who sighed. “Your Majesty, I regret to inform you that Dormouse has not been up to the task. The locals have mounted quite an effective resistance: even the OZ Unit is falling apart.”

The Queen smiled for a bit…And then flipped the table, causing the pottery to scatter into fragments and the tablecloth to rip apart.
“The insolence of those ignorant slaves!” She then glanced at Mariette, took a deep breath, and recollected herself. “Excuse me for a moment, my dear Alice. Mother has some business to attend to. But don’t worry. I will be right back,” she said, and pulled back on her sleeve, revealing a wrist-mounted magitech device. The device had numerous buttons, as well as a mounted red jewel and a screen. While not as advanced as the magitech she’s seen in other worlds, Jelena had the impression that it was quite effective for a mobile device.

The Queen took a strand of hair from her pocket, and placed it over what seemed to be the scanner part of the device. The red jewel glowed, and it projected a mirror portal before the Queen. That was when Mariette realized what was going on: the Queen had taken one of her hairs, and used it to replicate her own portal magic. She then stepped through the portal to the mundane world. However, Mariette and Jelena realized that in her hurry, the Queen had left her pocket book on one of the unflipped tables; it seems nobody else had noticed it yet, though nearby servants were cleaning up, and might discover it soon.

---

The Engine managed to deflect the lion’s blade enough to incur moderate damage from a gash, and proceeded to assimilate the local metallic materials into itself while adapting to the electrical signal disruption, managing to reclaim its senses and resume its wild assault. As she continued trading blows with the beast, more and more APCs continued to be consumed, until the one at the very back began to dissolve, and a magical girl jumped out of it; she seemed to have a mouse-themed look to her, and channeled a spell in the Engine’s direction. The Engine noted a soporific effect, and while it slightly slowed her it wasn’t enough to completely deter it from its prime directive of destruction.

After enough slicing and stabbing tendrils, the Lion finally succumbed, but not before giving one last bite right into the Engine’s midsection, nearly ripping it in two before it fell over dead.
While the engine focused on reassembling itself, however, it detected a sudden burst of magic nearby, and it’s ocular sensors detected the arrival of someone new, having arrived from what she sensed to be Mariette’s portal.
“Ah, so this is the famous Penny Asimov we have heard of,” the Queen of Hearts spoke, and the Engine deduced this was the leader of the enemy forces, and thus her new primary target, as Dormouse scurried behind enemy soldiers.
“Your exploits have been admirable indeed, having rejected every Power that would try to control you with lies and fear, and building a place independent of their tyranny. Yes…”
The Queen of Hearts smiled, and summoned her weapon. At that point, the engine’s magic-reading sensors went off their limits; her sword possessed magic she was unable to quantify.

“Cease your hostility, and we shall grant you the status of vassal. Then, we shall together liberate the ignorant slaves of the tyrannical Powers. We shall even allow you to govern Penrose under our banner. However, refuse, and you shall receive no such kindness.” She then spoke, and lifted the sword to her side.
“What shall it be?”

---

As Chloe wandered the streets, she happened to come across a pack of monsters; based on what she’s heard of their descriptions, she assumed them to be Wendigos, undead fiends with icy hearts. But then, she saw as the wendigos seemingly saw something behind the corner. The monsters attacked, only disappear without a sound. When Chloe came to investigate the scene, there was nothing left but scrape marks on the ground, in a circular pattern…

“Chloe, Chloe, Chloe…What am I gonna do with a broad like you?” Suddenly, Chloe heard a voice. Then she saw a familiar silhouette rise up on the wall.

There was no mistaking it at that point: it was Al.

“I didn’t think you’d be daft enough to come back to town after your Houdini act. We had an arrangement, if you recall. You have a debt to pay. And the Mint always collects their debts. So, how’s about ya tell me? Tell me one good reason I shouldn’t paint the town red with you as the brush.”