"You missed out" The older boy would say as he picked up a compound bow to examine. “It wasn’t much more than him running, but his acceleration and deceleration was crazy. I wish I knew it was about to happen. I would have paid him more attention. I might have been able to learn something from that alone.” He would state as he gave the bow a full draw to test what the weight on it was.
“From what I saw of you, you’d likely have been able to as well.” The boy would say easing off the draw and shouldering the bow. “Only really saw your take down at the end, but you have definitely got the skill for it if that is anything to go by.”
“Name’s Inei” The now named Inei would introduce himself as he extended a hand towards Jinny. “My brother’s Kiri and while he’s too shy to admit it, we are both looking forward to sharing class with you. You are about the only other person here who seems to know what they are doing.”
A quick look would show that Kiri was on the other side of the room, looking at a pair of rifles. And though it was well hidden, he was also unfamiliar with the more modern firearms. A longer look would show Bee had gravitated towards the submachine guns, a pair of pistols already on her hip.
It would also allow Jinny to notice Gizmo. More or less glaring at her still, though it was more determined than actively hostile. His three weapons have already been chosen; a revolver, a bolt action rifle and a crossbow. He seemed to be waiting for her to finish choosing her own weapons, as he was making no move towards the stalls of the firing range.
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.
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.
Before Jinny’s final, lethal, strike could land home a voice was suddenly speaking from right next to her “That’s quite enough of that'' and just as suddenly she was wrenched up and away from Gzimo.
It didn’t take long to realize who it was that had interrupted her murder attempt, if his voice alone hadn’t clued her in, but that did nothing to stop her from being stuck dangling in the air due to Slade’s grip on the back of her shirt.
His gaze was resting on her, and for most people it would be a bland look that conveyed nothing of note, but she could detect the humor in his eye. “Wasn’t sure if I was going to need to tell all the classes this, but the trend seems to be holding so far. So take this as all of your one warnings: Don’t kill each other while in my class.” He would say, his amusement bleeding into his tone easily.
He shifted his attention down to Gizmo for a moment assessing the downed boy. Who was slowly pushing himself up, but surprisingly wasn’t shooting his mouth off as he normally seemed to do so. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t pissed, his glare was dark enough when he sent it Jinny’s way, but oddly enough it didn’t seem like the young man had taken the near death experience personally.
It returned to Jinny soon enough. “Overall not bad, you lost some points for the theatrics however.” he would say, setting Jinny down. “Tossing your weapon back and forth like that is asking for it to get taken from you.”
“There is a med kit in the closet over there” He would then say to Gizmo gesturing towards a door at one end of the gym. “You are welcome to it.”
With that he would turn away from both of them ostensibly to continue observing the rest of the class, but it was quickly apparent that wouldn’t be the case. As by now everyone else was watching them instead.
The students were of three minds, either they were looking at Jinny with fresh eyes, no one who could so easily go for a killing blow was to be ignored after all. Were looking at Gizmo with a mix of schadenfreude or concern, the pint sized genius had a reputation after all, but it was still a rather vicious looking take down. Or they were looking at Slade with growing amount of trepidation, his absolute nonchalance at the near murder reminding all of them that their teacher was a well known killer.
“I guess we should move on to guns then, since everyone seems to have finished up with their spars.” Slade would say after a moment of everyone staring at him.
A few students looked like they wanted to speak up about that, if it was about Slade’s disinterest in Gizmo’s injuries or that they weren’t done with the weapons was up to interpretation. Regardless, Slade didn’t address those that didn’t speak.
Instead he reached into his belt and pulled out a remote. Hitting a button on it the room began to reconfigure itself into a shooting range, the crash mats being retracted into the floor as shooting stalls began to rise up. The tables with the weapons were also removed as gun racks folded out of the walls. There were dozens of different firearms of all varieties, everything from state of art assault rifles to plain old fashioned longbows.
“For this you will need to choose three weapons.” Slade would go on to explain the next segment of class “You need a side arm, a primary weapon, and either a specialist weapon or a low tech weapon. Once you’ve picked your weapons, pick a stall. Once everyone is ready we will move on to the evaluations.” With that said Slade moved off to the side to wait for every one to finish with the task assigned.
“But what about these weapons?” one of the students would ask, holding up his ax for emphasis.
“They are yours now, keep track of them.” came Slade’s bored reply.
There were a few moments of uncertainty before the class started going about to look at the various guns that now hung from the walls.
Jinny would notice that she would be getting a handful of looks from some of the other students still. Most unsure of what to do in regards to her displayed willingness to kill. Bee was one of them, and looked a bit more disturbed than the rest of those that looked her way.
It would take a bit, but one of the other students would eventually approach Jinny while she was examining the guns. He was a taller student, not outstanding in the class for it, but notable nevertheless. He wore his dark hair on the longer end of short and had it slicked back. And his green eyes seemed cheerful enough.
All in all not all that distinct, if it weren’t for the fact that there was another student in this class that looked nearly the exact same. But such is the life of a twin. “I have to say I was rather surprised that our teacher was able to stop you in time” The boy would say, a slight oriental accent to his words “Last I was aware he was watching me and my brother, and we were on the other side of the room.”
Ashlyn set down her book as a chill slowly crawled down her spine. Something was off, what that was she wasn’t exactly sure. Slowly she stood up and looked around the common room senses cast out as she tried to pin down the sense of dread that was pooling in her gut.
The Sanctuary normally felt calm, especially this time of night. But now it starting to grow cold and harsh. The place was still safe, what ever it was that was setting her on edge it wasn’t a danger as her Hero Token wasn’t warning her, but it was uncomfortable.
She wasn’t the only one who was noticing it either. A few other of the residents were starting to sit up and take note much as Ashlyn was. It wasn’t until Monica came up from their room looking pensive that Ashlyn was able to put to gather the common thread of those that were noticing something going on.
Everyone has some way of sensing extra about people. Psychic, Spirit, and Empaths all could feel something shifting about the atmosphere of Sanctuary. But no one could tell what.
They could only wait and hope it reveled itself soon.
The surge of power from the guns nearly went straight to Penny’s head, she was already on eradicating everyone that was attacking this town and the power swell from the guns went a long way towards recovering her spent mana.
The only thing that stopped from taking off was the feeling of oily new routines slipping into her systems. She couldn’t reject these new thoughts, the bubbling fizz of their presence was already burned into her, but she did recognize them for what they were. A consequence and warning.
These thoughts weren’t so terrible a burden, the stats and schematics were already a thing she pondered from time to time after all, and she already enjoyed putting her skill in to practice when the time arrived. No, these new thoughts were hardly a worry at all, their inherent priority wasn’t even as detrimental as her old enforced line of thinking was.
The crystals were a threat however. They were imbued with someone else’s thoughts and desires. And while Penny didn’t disagree with some of them, she would not stand to let this other inflict their thoughts on to her.
The guns fused to her were emptied of their ammo as fast as the weapons would allow. No reason to not take advantage while she could after all. Headshots became her primary target, as her ‘kills’ standing back up didn’t escape her notice, but the ones ahead of her had higher priority than the ones taken down already as she had stolen the weapons of everyone behind her.
Once Penny’s first array of guns were empty, she let them decouple from her systems and fall away. The ones connected to her outer limbs and chassis fell to the ground, while she retained the one in her off had as she came to a standstill. Her mind was running along a handful of thoughts at the moment, dealing with the rapid changing environment of the battle field. Movement was no longer a priority and she needed that processing power.
The light from the core embedded in her chest flared up as a wash of energy came over Penny. In its passing she looked much the same as she always did, the largest differences were in her legs and extra limbs. He legs had elongated and came to rest as points rather than feet, and were alight with complex circuitry that were lifting her up.
Her upper spider limbs had split into two pairs of two, smaller and thinner then normal and each tipped with a clamp rather than their normal claw. While the lower two had been reshaped into two pairs of long snaking tendrils several times linger than the spider limbs had been, though they were sill tipped with the tri-point claws.
In addition to all of this her coloration had become entirely monochrome. Broken up only by the neon glow of her eyes and various ports.
The moment her changes were done Penny rejoined the fight; a rifle held in each hand was her main offence while her Ray casters were also deployed and were intermittently discharging explosive blasts as well. Her upper limbs in charge of reloading her purloined weapons of choice when they ran dry, no longer was she interfacing with the guns directly, she wasn’t going to risk further corruption after all, but that hardly reduce her own efficiency with them. The empty clips were being feed to Penny herself. Waste not want not after all.
Her lower limbs were taking care of three things. First was removal of spare clips from the guns around her, those were being magnetized to her back for her own use.
Second was removal of the crystal from the guns she had called. Her interfacing with those guns told her where they were located and she had an idea for them. The crystals were placed into a tank on her lower waist constructed out of the metal of the spare guns willed into the correct shape.
Last was the collection of the now destroyed guns which were fed to Penny as she continued her onslaught. She had mana reserves to restore and damage to repair, and the de-gemed guns would help with both of those. Much the same as the empty clips and brass.
She would recast her call to metal every now and again to stay topped off on materials as well. The machinery of war would roll in her favor now as each dead man gave her more to work with.
Second assault was underway.
Or it would have been had the new comer not teleported not far from Penny herself.
“I’m more the strike leader and comms officer at the moment.” Penny would reply the emotionless of her face at odds with the near giddy tone of her voice. “But so long as you aren’t with them” She would sate launching a Gauss round towards an encroaching vehicle forces to emphasize who she was talking about. “Then I’m pretty sure we are on the same side. Myra, the fire drake, isn’t someone I can control. She’s only an ally of circumstance unfortunately.”
Before the new dragon could respond Penny heard another voice call out over the comms network. “My Queen! Bad news They brought a literal army here! This city is lost! We simply don’t have the numbers to defend.”
”Rodger that Tina, you and Ellen should regroup with Alex and Lily and focus on evac, I’ll hold out as long as I can before falling back to initiate the jump out.” Penny would say aloud. Her eyes refocusing towards the encroaching army.
”I’m guessing you already knew about the army incoming,” Penny would go on to state. ”Far as I am concerned you can leave with us when we cut and run if you need to. After Penny spoke another chime echoed out, but the mechanical girl seemed oblivious to it.
[“Orange alḙ̷͒r̴̩̽t̴̝̂. C̸̰͛ȏ̴̬g̴̥̿ǹ̸̩à̷̧t̶̻͋ḯ̷͎v̴̯̿e̷̝̔ safeguards have M̴̛͙a̵̜̕l̶̯̅f̷͙͋u̴̢͋n̷̰̈́c̶̘̊t̸̠̕i̷͖͌ö̴͖́ǹ̴͍e̷͎̔d̴͕̀ D̷͞҉͏̡è̛͘҉̕s҉̶̛̛҉t́̀͘͢͜r̡ứ̧ć̸t̶̡̨͟į̛ơ̶͜͡͝n͏̡̛ ̴̵̛͞E͏̨ņ͏ģ́̕͠҉i̡͞͏̸͠n̴̢͠͝e͏̧̀ ̶̵̨̛ has reached 75%. Heightened Ḋ̸̯i̷̢͐ş̸̽c̶̗͒ṛ̴͝e̶̝̕t̸͈̍i̸͇̿ő̷̼n̸̹̓ required”]
Aurelio let out a sigh as he reappeared in Beacon HQ. Penrose was relatively quiet at the moment. No major attacks, no growing horror intrusions, no riots. All in all, that was a good thing. The problem was the growing unrest, though Aurelio would be willing to take bets that he was among the only member of Beacon that recognized it.
Penny was a well-known figure in this city and her removal from Beacons forces, while done bloodlessly and gently, had the darker aspects of the city on edge. After all Penny hadn’t done anything wrong except be herself and Beacon gave her the boot. It put them on edge.
With a bit of luck, it would blow over without anything coming of it, but it wouldn’t be hard to make something of the tension at the moment.
Putting those thought out of mind for the time being Aurelio rounded the corner towards the cafeteria, he was in the mood for some pudding, when he caught sight of someone he hadn’t seen in a long time chatting with Alicia. “Serenity!” He would call out joyously as he trotted over towards the returned girl. “Serenity” He would say again pulling the girl into a quick hug “It’s been too long. I heard you got called to go see the big wigs but missed you on your way out.”
He would say before taking a step back to get another look at her new appearance. “You’re looking good, as always, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t mind a jacket” came the appraisal as he took off his own before offering it over to her.
“Oh! Sorry” He would bow slight scratching at the back of his head sheepishly when he remembered that Serenity had been talking with others. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Despite his absolute lack when it came to physical capability there was one thing that Gizmo did have in his favor, his awareness in a fight was razor sharp. Not that it helped all that much, seeing Jinny move too close in did nothing to help stop her as his body just wasn’t capable of keeping up with her, much less the speed of his thoughts.
Still it did allow him a partial victory when he was able to block the first strike, not that it was more than him getting a small length of chain between him and the gladius. He couldn’t do anything about the follow up strike however, and just grit his teeth at the painful smack.
His pain fed into his anger, which Gizmo had long ago learned how to use as fuel for his spite. Not directed at Jinny in particular, even if she was his current target. It sharpened his focus, and Jinny could almost see the gears in his head churning as Gizmo’s gaze flickered around for a moment not abandoning her, but calculating everything around her.
His attempt at retaliation was quick, impressively so considering his poor physical condition, a smooth pull and twist and Gizmo once again had the chain fully extended out and swinging down on Jinny from above.
But now that she was looking for it Jinny caught sight of the basis of Gizmo’s manipulations. There was about six inches of chain slack that Gizmo kept on hand and he was using that slack as a fulcrum to redirect the chain. Had he been in better shape it would have been easy to assign it as long hours of practice, the lack of that meant he had to be running the math in real time. He was simply too accurate for it to be anything else.
Still his overall attacks were simply too straight forward or too slow to be of much real danger to Jinny, Gizmo might have been skilled, but he wasn’t that skilled. Soo his attacks remained easy to dodge.
There is however always one thing that can bridge a skill gap. Sheer dumb luck.
With one of his strikes he miscalculated, put too much force into it, it went wider then he meant for it too causing the chain to run into the ground. Something that he had been trying to avoid as that normally would have killed any momentum the chain had.
It didn’t this time though, it wasn’t something Gizmo was expecting, so he wasn’t entirely sure what caused it, but instead of simply striking the ground the handle skipped off it. Reacting nearly blindly Gizmo was able to pull off one more redirection of his weapon. Whipping the length of the chain into Jinny’s ankles, which hurt, and pulling once the chain wrapped around her leg causing her to stumble at least.
Gizmo was quick to let out a triumphant “Ha!” at his first successful hit. Unknowing that he drew Slades attention back to the fight, and him in particular because of it.
Unseen by Jinny both due to her eyes being closed and Gizmo demanding her attention right afterwards, but a few of the other students in the class did notice her little trick. Bee, and the twins mainly, but so did a couple others. It got all of them suddenly much more alert, not because Jinny was an overpowering threat like Slade had been, but because Jinny was a credible threat and they had all missed it.
Gizmo didn’t seem to notice, but he also missed Slade’s open threat so it seemed more like he just couldn’t read the atmosphere of a room worth a damn.
That said he was prepared for Jinny’s sudden opening. As she darted towards him he launched the length of chain he had been spinning right at her. That was an easy enough move to dodge, his follow up of using the other handle to somehow forcefully redirect the chain in mid flight into a horizontal sweep was less so.
Still the short exchange did what Jinny was wanting, it told her about Gizmo, and to her eyes he had basically no idea what it was he was doing. He had no stance, he was literally just standing there. His skill with the chain was impressive, all the more so since it was obvious he wasn’t a very athletic person, but it wouldn’t be hard to get the timing for it and then rush down Gizmo as the pintsized genius didn’t seem like he was planning on moving.
Getting him to concede would be more difficult, if the look of determined spite in his eye was anything to go by, but details.
Rather than wait for Jinny to make another go, Gizmo just continued to launch out the chain at her and once again he displayed frankly ridiculous control over the thing. Able to redirect the momentum of the chain multiple times back to back, though how he was doing it was beyond Jinny. There did seem to be a limit to how many time he could do it though, after the third redirect he needed to reset and relaunch the chain before he could redirect it again.
Penny wanted to grin, Penny wanted to let out a whoop of unbridled joy and she wanted to weep at the feeling of utter contentment that flowed through her once she had taken to the field. She knew it was wrong, or more accurately that it was utterly inhuman. The carnage and devastation that was abound was soothing to her in a way that she had not felt in so long.
She was built for conflict, for destruction, and even though she no longer needed it, she reveled in it.
Not that anyone would be able to tell with a glance at her. Her face had become a blank facade showing no emotion at all. A cold and efficient killing machine. But she didn’t care, she didn’t have to keep up her pretenses here.
Still there were worries, not major ones, not yet at least. But the fact that Wonderland had firearms capable of actually punching through her outer layers was a notable point to keep in mind, even more so when one considered that Penny was augmented above her already formidable resilience.
But that very same danger was something she was planning on taking advantage of. After all she could sense that the weapons of those she had already killed weren’t vanishing, which meant they were enchanted weapons, not innate magical ones. Perfect for the taking.
Slowing down slightly Penny reached out with her senses and called to her the guns of each soldier she killed. Called to each piece of metal and technology they had. Because metal calls to metal and in that domain she is the undisputed ruler.
As she did that she reconfigured her system layout. Her blades winked out, she didn’t need her offensive power here, not when her enemies were willing to give theirs to her cause after all, and in their place was a half dome of translucent energy affixed to her left arm.
The guns that she called were quickly snatched by one of her extended limbs, one for each spider limb and one for her right hand. Any extras that came were racked up on her back and the lower struts of her spider limbs. Enchanted meant that she wouldn’t be able to use them infinitely and would need extras after all.
Empty guns would be eaten and then replaced with a fresh one, spare clips would be used first as well before they too would be consumed when spent.
Because in only a short instant Penny changed from a storm of blades to a roving hurricane of bullets. Her raised barrier would stem the worst of the incoming fire, and bullets that made it though would also be turned into more fuel as her body stabilized the bullets that penetrated. Never enough to refill the damage, but more cost efficient than relying on her own Regeneration for the moment.
It would also help her coordinate with the various sound points she had access to to triangulate where she needed to return fire, that is if she couldn’t just see her targets herself. Not that there was a dearth of targets.
That did little to halt Penny’s unflinching march towards the incoming forces, each dead soldier she came across gave her ammo to rain down towards the incoming forces, and the wrecked hulls of the far away tanks were calling to her just as she was to them.
She almost missed the addition of the unexpected back up, the other dragon girl taking out a tank and making short work of the escort of soldiers. But Mayra was loud enough that Penny heard her even without the headset.
”I wonder if I should be insulted or complimented that you wanted to save our fight for a more personally dramatic encounter or not.” Penny would say to Mayra he tone coming across as vaguely amused. “Pretty sure the pretty lady isn’t part of Wonderland so I’m not sure if she’s going to be willing to give her all to fight you just yet.” She would go on fully aware that most of what she was saying likely was going unheard by the manic fire dragon.
’All units be advised we have a sighting of another magical joining this conflict, they are openly hostile towards Wonderland but no confirmation on if they are allies. Be on the lookout for more and be careful.’ Penny’s voice came through all the headsets she had passed out, save Mayra’s, It was clinical and sounded focused.
So caught up in the fight that Penny hardly recognized that her girlfriend was missing in action. Over looked that fact that she was quickly being drenched in the blood and viscera of her enemies, as she was not kind to the corpses that stubbornly tried to keep their tools away from her. Didn’t recognize the outer edge of her thoughts were slowly going quiet.
Within her systems an alert that she had not worried about in a long time sent out an alert that was ignored by it’s progenitor, and went unheard over the din of battle.
[Yellow alert. D̷͞҉͏̡è̛͘҉̕s҉̶̛̛҉t́̀͘͢͜r̡ứ̧ć̸t̶̡̨͟į̛ơ̶͜͡͝n͏̡̛ ̴̵̛͞E͏̨ņ͏ģ́̕͠҉i̡͞͏̸͠n̴̢͠͝e͏̧̀ ̶̵̨̛ has reached 50%. Caution a̴͚̽d̷̍ͅv̷͓̀í̸̩s̸̟̈ḙ̶͛d̶̳͘]
Penny was waking up, just as much as Penny was fading away.
Even if she had already turned away, Gizmo’s reaction to Jinny’s baiting was very easy to hear. As it was a lound string of unrepentant cursing before he marched up to one of the tables, shoving people out of his way as he went.
Slade’s only reaction to such was to tilt his head to the side slightly in softly apparent curiosity, but let the cursing go without comment.
Still despite Gizmo’s angry approach to the tables, it didn’t take long for most of the students to select their weapon of choice. Jinny herself actually didn’t stand out with her choice of weapon, she was far from the only one to pick up a shortsword, as the majority of them stuck with more traditional weapons. Staves, swords, maces. A few students opted for the two handed variants but nevertheless traditional.
The students that did stand out were the twins from earlier, Bee, and Gizmo.
The twins each had chosen a Jian, not to stand out on its own, but they both also picked up a second sheath as well. one of the sheaths was worn on their belt while the other was wielded as an off hand weapon. and it seemed that the bases of their style had them trading off one of the swords between each other.
Gizmo for his part seemed to have partially cobbled his choice together. A long length of chain with a decent handle on each end of it. And while his stance and basic movements were atrocious his skill of getting the chain to move was notable.
Bee had picked a pair of Tonfa, and in a lot of ways was the inverse of Gizmo. Her warm ups showed a solid handle of hand to hand, but a lack of awareness on how to make use of the tonfas as anything more than a fancy pair of brass knuckles.
Once everyone had chosen their tool of choice most of them easily paired off. The outliers were Jinny and Gizmo. The reason why? They were both shorter than everyone else. A fact that Gizmo was quick to pick up on and had him even more pissed off.
“God damn, moronic, long limbed, crud munching…” Even without Jinny’s extra training it would have been easy to hear Gizmo heading her way. There was a fierce look of determination in his eyes as he marched up to the only other person in the room near the same height.
“Right. I don’t doubt your word at being able to take me out. But don’t think that means I’ll go easy.” He would say as he began slowly spinning one end of the chain. “First to three hits or conceed?” He’d ask ready to start the moment Jinny replied.
Penny willingly stayed at the back of the pack as everyone ran through. She would have normally been the first one through, but she had her reasons. Still didn’t stop her from giving a sigh at Lily’s cherry call out, knowing that she was almost certainly going to be the one buying Ice cream later. She also chuckled at Mayra’s playful chaos. She could tell it wasn’t spiteful after all.
It had its uses though, letting her see Angel’s nod and return it with one of her own. Also giving Ronin and Miko a chance to approach her without it standing out.
“I’ve got nothing against saving her whole crew” Penny would reply to the sister’s hushed words. As she agreed that no one should be held in the thrall of a Horror. It was at least part of the reason she had extended a hand of friend to Freya and Shelyn. She’d do the same to all of the girls that she could in truth.
That wouldn’t stop her from taking them out incase they proved to be too dangerous to handle in the short term. Penny’s priorities were rather set in that regard, but if she could help without endangering those she was protecting, she’d be all for it.
Plus, it gave her a good excuse to cut loose on the other side of the portal. And once Penny was sure that everyone else had passed though she walked through it herself, drawing into herself flashy and bright tendrils of electricity from the edges of the portal as it closed.
From there it didn’t take long to take stock of the situation. It was a war front after all. But rather than being disheartened by that, Penny couldn’t help but feeling eager anticipation. She might not be required to smash and destroy, but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy it anymore.
“Ellen, Tina” Penny would snap out falling into the quick concise tone needed for communication on the battle field. “you two are with Alex, I want as many eyes and ears as you can safely get out and about. Infiltrators are a danger and you are our counter.”
Turning she would next address the two that more or less started this expedition. “Alex, Lily. Finding a safer location to bunker down in to heal people needs to be your next goal.” She’d offer more than order, not that it was more than a shift in tone. “Annabell, any intel you can give would be helpful, just let Tina or Ellen know.”
With that covered Penny turned towards the oncoming tanks and soldiers and raced towards the front line. As she ran, she would connect to Mayra’s headset. “Want to see who can take out more of Wonderland’s goons?” She’d ask even though she was sure of what the answer would be. “Bonus points from keeping them away from the giant sunflowers as well. Those are on our side after all” Regardless of the answer let a feral smile overtake her features as she charged towards the oncoming enemies. It was time to learn how it was she dealt with the gaps in her own self without the assistance of the Spark.
[Initiating Phase three response configuration. Primordial Tempest: Online. Assault Mode Loadout: Active] [Suspending J-M response constraints.] [Surveillance points one through eight active and receiving]
Penny surveyed the collection of Maho that had gathered at the park. It was a diverse set, but thankfully it was also a rather limited one as well. Penrose wouldn’t be left defenseless if she left with these girls, she decided with a short nod to herself.
She stayed quiet as everyone gave out their assorted blessings. Her systems greedily accepted the lightning, nearly demanding more, something Lily would possibly note. Even as they completely rebuffed the Beast magic, something that Alex would definitely notice. Penny simply lacked the amount of animal, the amount of nature, within her to be able to benefit from said specialization.
“I can handle getting us back from Bolorton” Penny would speak up once it looked like everyone was ready to go. “I’ll need to be near the last one though, but I’ve got a few tricks that mean I should be able to replicate the way home if we need it.” She would explain. She knew most of the people here likely had seen her mimicry abilities at one point or another, and would assume that was why, as Penny hadn’t really told anyone that she had replaced those abilities for her own safety.
She was fine with that, she had other options after all.
“To that end I’ve a gift of my own to help out while we are on the other side.” She’d go on to say as she pulled out a fair few technological ear pieces from her leg compartment. “These will let us stay in contact with each other” She would explain as she handed them out. “And help keep track of everyone so we can all be sure to get out when it’s time to leave.” The ear pieces would wrap around the outside of the ear and were rather simple to operate, a button to turn on and off the mic and a switch that showed which of the four channels it was connected to. “Hit the button to turn on the mic, and again to turn it off. They are rather sturdy, but I don’t expect them to withstand a direct attack so try to be careful.”
Ellen and Tina made their showing just in time for Penny to hand them their set as well, though she just gave them a nod in greeting for now. There would be more time for a brief of what she wanted once they crossed over, as well as time to ask where Sann was.
It might not have been as fancy as anyone else's magical showing, but it was perhaps the largest single drain Penny had used for her own magic outside of when she had access to Killing Blow. She was already apologizing to whoever it was that owned the car she was going to be eating for it as well.
Penny waited until everyone had gotten their earpieces put in before sending a test comm so everyone would get an idea of how they worked.
Then came Myra’s overly dramatic opening of the portal, something that Penny would put Coins on being mostly for show. The mechanical Queen had used Portal Magic a few times herself after all. Still it was time to go into the breach and with that in mind she waited at the back of the pack, she had her own show to put on after all.
There was also one other thing she wanted to take care of.
To parties unknown
“Hey, I’m contacting you over a private line as I want to keep this quiet” Penny would silently broadcast out.“As a precaution I wanted you to try and keep an eye on me. Not sure how my systems will handle the loss of my Spark, so if I start Redlining or growing too unstable just tell me‘Remember your oaths and vows.’That should get me to calm down” She would tell them. In truth she had no idea if the override codes would work as she expected them to, even if she didn’t read any loops or recursions in the logic. “Again, this is just a precaution, I doubt that you’ll need to talk me down at all. But rather safe than sorry with this.”
Light the Dark
Mistress Dizzy
Majoraa
Izurich
LG
twave
