Lily shook her head, wincing at the slight flailing that Sakura made in response to being grabbed.
”But we have to leave and-wait, is that Emily!? What happened to you?” She was about to ask more questions when Alex announced he would lead them out of the rave. Though the music had ended by this point, the main hall was still loud with the sounds of screaming and fighting, blades clanging and gunshots echoing all around.
”I-Uh-Well-I thought-I might-”Connie came over, and Lily handed Sakura to her in turn, like an oversized doll one would see as a prize at fairs, before she slung the drunk girl’s arm over her shoulder as Mia regrouped with them.
”L-Let’s follow Alex!” She finally shouted, and with Alex’ barriers splitting the tide of violence, the group rushed toward the nearest exit.
Leena slightly relaxed her stance once Mika showed her furry additions were a result of Beast magic, and she nodded. However, she still kept her swords out.
“I see. But why did you approach Alicia with your weapons ou-Hey!” She yelled as Mika suddenly bust through the wall and disappeared. She scoffed, and turned her attention to Christine. Helga had reached the corridor the moment Mika had run out, and she amplified her voice to shout at her: “Mika, we need to leave! The Beacon’s slaughtering everyone!”
While Alicia attacked the real Christine, Leena moved as well, destroying two clones near the Light girl in a single move.
The Ascendancy squad who had arrived from the entrance were ready as Veronica approached, and Juliana made a valiant charge, aiming to lance her through the heart. But, in the next moment, she had disappeared into the shadows; the Patron-level magical girl showed her magical skills of evasion as she slipped out of the Gibbet, much like Houdini escaping from a similar cage. As they were distracted, Silhouette also made her escape, evading the Ascendancy using the dark corners and blind spots.
“Leave her,” Violette stated as Juliana grit her teeth at her failure, and pointed towards the main hall. “We have more coming, so get ready-eh?”
The group that rushed towards them was a strange one; encased in a triangle-like barrier, it included Alex, Lily, Sakura, Connie, Mia, and Emily. Sharron adjusted her glasses. “It appears to be the rescue target.”
Violette groaned and gnashed her teeth, but then finally sighed. “Let them pass.”
The girls did as ordered, and dodged to the sides of the entrance hall as the crazy train went.
”Aaaahhh! We’re gonna CRAAASSHH!” Lily screamed as she saw a barrier outside, but Alex kept running.
Rachel spotted the group coming up to the surface, and blinked.
“There she is. What a strange costume for a girl as diminutive as her, but I suppose it worked.”
She made an opening for them, letting the group escape. “Sakura has been rescued,” the Inquisitor informe the squads inside as she closed the hole agan, and then turned to Umukamui, a confident smile on her lips. “We have fulfilled our end of the deal. Now, you will fulfill yours, Puchuu.”
Once they were outside, Lily made a big scream.
”We did iiiit!”She took Emily’s hands, and began spinning her wildly around.
”Alex saved us! We got out!”
Lei Zi’s lightning attack successfully destroyed the loudspeakers in the main hall, causing the music to stop. “Fire! And there’s the source!” Vivi spotted Askefye dancing among the flames, and shot at her with blasts of pressurized water shot from her palms, quenching her fires in the process. The smoke began rising up through the crack the Ascendancy made, slowly clearing the air in the rave.
However, while the normal magical girls were grateful for the effort, the
Corrupted found themselves fighting to the death, as the Ascendancy proceeded with their systematic assault, using coordinated tactics and cold determination to smash through the haphazard formations. But then, as the bodies began hitting the floor, the Angel of Hope used her healing barriers to divide the combatants, restoring the numerous fighters to health. It unfortunately lasted for only a time before her mana had run out, but it was enough to cause the central Ascendancy squad to stop and notice her plight as she fell to the floor, unable to fly any longer. “You stop interfering!” Paula shouted, her metal palm grabbed her torso, binding her arms in the process. She squeezed tight enough to cause her to feel slightly crushed. “These are monsters, they deserve nothing but swift retribution! Your assistance only brings further death!” She was then thrown against the back wall.
Fine succeeded in disabling the filament traps using her hand, and managed to open the metal door with her Skeleton Key. Inside, she found Elvira’s dressing room, complete with vanity stands and mirrors, as well as a small security setup with screens to camera feeds. In the back of the room was a latch that still slightly shook from the impact of dropping back on the floor; Elvira had passed through just a few seconds ago. Upon opening the latch, she saw a glimpse of Elvira looking up at her from the bottom of the shaft lined by a metal ladder, leading down to what looked like an underground tunnel.
The entrance Ascendancy squad had joined the other squad in the main hall and surrounding halls, and soon enough the corrupted girls were outpowered, and surrendered as their minds returned back to non-hostile thanks to the efforts of the redhead twins, who also healed wounds from the numerous injuries. However, they soon found themselves accused of assisting monsters.
“Stop healing them! They are sinners and witches! They deserve naught but death.” One of the triplets stated as she came up to the twins, her halberd pointed towards them. “Stand down. We won’t warn you twice.” By this point, Penny had succeeded in finding the secret exit using the drone; using the backstage, she could sneak by the main hall, but she would have to go through two of the triplets and Delphi, who were currently searching the hall.
Meanwhile, Sharron spotted the Interdimensional Home door, and through the door glass either Ashlyn or Monica would see her return to the others and point at it while discussing something.
Rachel kept two fingers to the side of her head, her eyes intently focused on the screen on her device as she shifted her camera feed from one member to another. Her expression didn’t move even as Paula’s metal fist caved in a reptile monster girl’s chest in, or when Kai shot a dark magical girl right between the eyes.
But then, the appearance of a certain entity drew a fleeting glance.
“You must be Umukamui,” she stated, before looking back towards the screen. “The situation is under control, despite a couple of...unknown factors.” She saw as Penny jumped onto the stage in the feed, and disappeared behind the curtain. “It seems that Elvira’s goal was not to unify the corrupted populace as a single resistance movement as we theorized. Based on the reports of increased corruption activity in Penrose, it seems she intended to cause a riot.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “But why? What would she gain from causing chaos at such a scale?” She adjusted her glasses. “It might be a distraction...”
Eshter’s reinforced tree managed to absorb most of the impact of her cross-slashing wind, but the wounds she caused were deadly nonetheless, as the wood girl’s arm was cut at the elbow before Regeneration fixed the branch-like arm back to the stump. Kimble lifted up to avoid the ensnaring vines, about to dive bomb towards Esther to slash her when a surprise sticky bomb exploded.
“Nhaaah!”
She ended up restrained by the hardened grey goo, and bowled right through the wall Esther had formed dropping into the hole Esther was rooted in. As her vines quickly began constricting all over her, Kimble grit her teeth.
“NNN...NNN….NNNAAAAH!” Gathering up the last of her magic, she created a hurricane that began raging right at Esther’s spot. Despite her efforts in staying in place, she was eventually uprooted by the power of the rotating wind, and ended up whisked away in multiple fast spins, sure to cause the usually stagnant monster girl to become dizzy and perhaps even motion-sick.
Sally’s fight against the tree monsters turned out, to nobody’s surprise, to be a sequence of lucky events, as the treemen ended up hitting each other and even the barrier with their strong swings, shattering it and allowing the rest of Beacon to arrive at the scene.
However, she arrived just as she saw Aurelio’s arm ripped off.
“AURY-POO!”
The sword-wielding girl made a valiant effort against Amaryllis, but one mistake cost her the fight, as Amaryllis plunged her blade through the girl. She gasped, thinking she would draw her last breath, only to be shocked as the wound was sealed, preventing grievous loss of blood.
“W-Why?” She uttered as she clutched at her injury, only to snap to attention as the warehouse crumbled, slowing down the reinforcements.
“This isn’t over!” She shouted after Amaryllis as she and Nuncio carrying Sammy escaped through a portal. But just as the portal closed, the swordswoman heard her opponent one last time:
“I’ll find you, and I will defeat you, Silver Rapier!”
Sylvia’s sweeping cone of gatling gun fire failed to cause much damage despite the volume of bullets she was putting out; almost immediately after she started firing, Reaver moved to intercept, and though his barriers broke and body was pierced by ammunition, he only kept running, his torn face having intimidated her to the point of drawing her complete attention. The bullets that did reach Faith and Lotus were likewise mostly blocked by her sheet music strands and illusions, only stray bullets having hit them. She activated her Third Eye upon seeing the Lotus bodies disappear.
“Wait, those are-Gaah!”
It was too late for her to realize Lotus’ trick in the heat of the moment, and she was caught by her tentacles binding her like rope. Her minigun was pulled up to shoot in the sky as she screamed from both the pain of the lifedrain and upon seeing Reaver swing his sword down at her. “Ahh!”
At that moment, she saw fireworks; they were in the form of sparks from Jenna’s spear as it clashed with Reaver’s blade, blocking the attack at the last minute. At the same time, Janet had created a cylindrical barrier which managed to hold the tentacles back for the moment, though it visibly strained from the squeezing. Free from the draining effect, she glanced back to see if Ishtar was okay, she was swiftly lifted up by Anaya’s spirit-fueled dolls; one of the armor-possessing ones had engaged Reaver, and used a lance to stab Reaver in the shoulder. “Anaya! I’m so glad you’re here!” Motivated by seeing her allies fighting to protect her, she waited until the moment before the barrier broke, and jumped out of the top of the cylinder, causing Lotus’ tentacles to wrap around nothing. As she did so, she activated her minigun again with Third Eye at the ready and shot down at Lotus, now distracted by Anaya’s dolls, with high-caliber rain. “I’ll cover you, Jenna!”
“So you did follow me, Anaya...” Ishtar softly spoke as she was brought back up to stand by her animated armor. “...Thank you.” She faced the battlefield once again with her gleaming eyes, now streaming golden tears as she saw the violence that ensued. She gripped her praying hands together tightly. “Chloe never intended to bring Divina here...She led me into Cindy’s ambush…” She saw as Sylvia screamed in pain, and as Jenna clashed with a monstrous Reaver.
”...I let this happen...Please...Stop this...”
She prayed with her head bowed down, and her own dress was stained with her tears.
”...I’ll do anything, just stop...Please...”
Cindy was charging up another thunderbolt in her palm when Shane interrupted her with his discovery. However, in response, Cindy simply slapped Shane away with her free hand; though it didn’t shock Shane too badly on account of his own stunning nature, her superior control over electromagnetic forces was enough to knock him aside. “Doesn’t matter who attempts to take my life, for the foe before me has taken too many! For I am Queen of Penrose, and I will free my people!” She then let out what sounded like a mix between a rumble of thunder and an eagle’s cry in response to the mental broadcast. “Stop that!” She yelled, and squinted her eyes as Janet stepped forth to deliver a speech, accompanied by Anaya and her bodyguard animated armors.
Wary of the way Janet left herself open to attack, Cindy decided to stop and listen. Her body struggled to maintain human shape as her heart was filled with black bitterness and anger, and occasionally her form turned more jagged and split and thunderbolt-shaped thorns of electricity burst from her back and arms.
“ENOUGH WITH THE RIDDLES!” She suddenly shouted right in Janet’s face, causing a screeching sound so vibrant in frequency that it nearly punctured the girl’s earlobes and pained the rest in the immediate vicinity like Anaya and Ronin. “What third party? What bidding?” Janet’s claim to having been a former monster girl managed to calm her a bit, and she did nod at parts.
But then, a certain phrase from Anaya caused her Mental Mutation to trigger, and her form turned frantic and bright. Both her hands held orbs of electric energy.
“Pride? PRIDE? You call our survival mere conceit? You call our struggle to live and exist, to see the next day, as but arrogance? You’re the ones who are arrogant, Beacon, spouting mere platitudes while belittling our sorrow! RAAGH!”
She was about to shoot both girls with a thunderbolt to their respective faces when Ronin interrupted her with news about the rave. She was completely surprised as a result. “Elvira? But why? What is going on there? My people are in danger? Goblina, send word to-Huh?”
But as Cindy looked around, she couldn’t see Goblina, only a small, black object on the ground with some faint runes etched on it. Nobody had paid attention to the small monster girl since the battle started, not even the centaur who brought her there.
That turned out to be a fatal mistake.
”IAAAAAAHHH!”A bloodcurdling scream surfaced, and everyone’s eyes were drawn to the source; it was Cardinal Ishtar, whose red-stained hands clutched at a vicious, serrated black blade that pierced from her stomach. In the very next moment, it was wrenched out, causing Ishtar to fall to the ground. The moment it met the cold, snowy ground, the people saw the devious smirk of the bloody deed’s dealer; Viper.
“Looks like we have a change of plans on our hands hah.”
The weapon she held was not a mere combat knife, but a gun with the blade affixed as the stock. In her other hand, she held what looked like a remote detonator.
With a click of her thumb, it was activated.
“Killer Queen.”The bomb artifact on the ground exploded, catching Cindy, Janet, Anaya , Shane, and Ronin in the radius. However, it was not a normal bomb that exploded with a loud boom and bright flash, but rather a smoke bomb that coated the three in purple, eerily glowing smoke.
“Nhgh! My...powers…!” Cindy groaned with static in her voice.
Not only was the poison a radioactive agent, causing the human-shaped magical people to fall to the ground in agony as their muscles contracted, their veins stiffened, and their tissues were ravaged by radiation, the pain so horrendous it completely paralyzed anyone short of an absolute masochist. It was also an ionizing gas, causing Cindy’s body to form ion pairs and massively weaken from the loss of electrons, causing her to wobble in place as white noise-like patterns formed on her body.
