Mahou Shoujo Troper Magica * Fujiwara City *

Various gears turned and clanked on Hiroko's gun, doing... something. She couldn't even begin to guess what they were actually doing. But she felt a bit triumphant. She'd beaten the flying bladed paper monsters. She let herself smile a bit about that fact, but then the gravity of the situation sunk back in on her. Hiroko looked up to the top of the spire, then held her clockwork rifle to the side before breaking into a run once more, ascending the massive metal structure further.

edited 2nd Mar '11 10:34:28 AM by AnnoR

Chiyo smiled weakly at Hikari.

"I-it's fine. It sh-should be fine as long as Hi-Hiroko a-and Andrea win. J-just don't let me do any-anything stupid." She faltered, and scratched a bit more at her neck. "Don't quite t-trust myself."

Hikari held her friend close for reassurance.

The moment it came into contact with the shelves the egg cracked open and subsequently shattered. The result was literally explosive, as innumerable shards of pristine glass were blasted free from the innards of the broken egg. The shards launched themselves in all directions, impaling anything in their path. The glass that flew towards Andrea, of course, had the courtesy to fizzle away before striking her.

Andrea meanwhile, undertook evasive maneuvers to dodge the incoming bookcases. Her defensive magic was extremely pointless as it was as brittle as glass- being that it was literally made of glass.

Hiroko made it up to the top, a violet mist still forming from the barrel of her gun. She stared at the insane bookcase thing in confusion, then saw Andrea fighting it. Well, dodging it at the moment. She raised her clockwork rifle to take aim, but had no idea what to shoot at.

edited 2nd Mar '11 3:24:44 PM by AnnoR

The two shelves that shot themselves at Andrea remained in the floor, useless as the explosion disrupted whatever control the witch had of them.

However in no time at all two new bookshelves flew from the walls to replace them and the witch's shell was whole once again. Once again the witch repeated her tactics, throwing the big metal bookshelves at the two menaces to her peace.

Hiroko froze for a second as the bookcase flew at her, taken off guard by the sudden attack. Moments before it hit, she remembered herself and focused. What looked like a pair of giant gears made of purple energy slammed together in front of her and spun, the bookcase smashing into them with a grating metallic crunch. Hiroko threw her hand up to cover her eyes as sparks flew out from between the giant energy gears.

Andrea looked behind her and noticed that Hiroko had made it up. So she had won, then.

"Not bad. You might yet survive." Before any questions could be asked Andrea jumped atop the bookshelf being hurled at her and activated another of her pointlessly named attacks:

"Bernkastel..." A giant scythe of glass appeared in Andrea's hands. She brandished it at the Witch.

edited 2nd Mar '11 4:48:26 PM by Katsuun

Another bookshelves moved itself to block at Andrea's attack with the Scythe. However by this point, with the number of bookshelves busy attacking and defending half of the witch's shell was gone for the moment, exposing the the golden orb of light inside of it.

The two bookshelves that crashed against Hiroko's gears continued to push, trying to to break through the magical barrier to crush the Magical Girl hiding beneath it. The one that Andrea jumped on top of spun in the air, trying to make the girl fall to then drop on her.

Hiroko lowered her arm away from her eyes, and saw that the bookcase was still trying to force its way through the violet gear barrier. This continued to send out a cascade of sparks, but they didn't seem to be doing anything to the girl. The gears started to slow, and Hiroko ran to the side just as they failed, exploding into flashes of purple as the bookcase shot through and struck the ground where she'd just been.

It wasn't too hard to guess what she had to do next. Hiroko raised her clockwork gun and aimed at the witch's core, firing a shot into it.

The spinning bookshelf didn't faze Andrea, her balance was sufficient to keep her rooted. She instead used the rotation to gather a bit of momentum, then jumped off, trying to time her jump just perfectly so as to slip past the armor of shelves and strike at the core underneath.

Upon receiving Hiroko's shot and Andrea's attack the shinning core of the witch emitted a high pitched cry as it's light became blindingly bright. The bookshelf the witch used to parry batted Andrea away from her as the sphere dropped from it's floating position and trashed on the floor in pain, it's bookshelves rotating and shooting themselves in random directions.

Hiroko's eyes widened, and she threw herself to the ground to avoid a bookshelf, which sailed over her. This shrieking ball of light... She had to take it out. It was the witch, it had to be. She had no idea what exactly was going through her mind at this point, aside from survive, and take out the witch.

Trying to stay as low as she could, Hiroko rolled onto her side and stabilized her clockwork rifle, firing at the core again.

The scythe of glass that had struck the Witch was true to it's form and imploded into a shower of glass shards that rained upon the Witch at point blank range. Andrea had left herself in an awkward position and was thus swatted away like a fly by the rogue bookshelf, however in this case it actually had the ironic effect of knocking Andrea away from the danger posed by her own attack. She flew some distance and landed- unsteady but still standing- some feet away.

"Hey, Andrea!" Hiroko shouted from her position on her side, still not getting up as to avoid the bookshelves. "Are you okay?!"

"Andrea, Hiroko! The witch is defenseless right now, finish her with one last big attack!" Kyubey said into the minds of the two girls.

Andrea nodded at Hiroko.

"You heard the douche. You should learn how to use your power attacks now, while I happen to be around."

Hiroko realized what this meant, and stood up. She was a little confused about Andrea calling Kyubey a douche, but dismissed it at the moment. Andrea was right. She should learn about how to do this now.

"Big attack, big attack..." she thought, trying to focus as much as she could on something big and powerful. She raised her clockwork rifle, aiming it at the defenseless witch. The various gears on it clicked and whirred into different places, as the barrel and the bayonet crackled with purple energy. Bursts of energy shot to the side, forming massive gears like the ones that had conjured to block the bookcase. A ball of energy gathered at the end of her rifle. There were now four purple energy gears floating at her sides, spinning rapidly.

Hiroko was a little freaked out by this, naturally, but she focused on the task at hand. A moment of whimsy came over her.

Maybe I should name this one...

In that moment, right before she pulled the trigger, she called out.

"Violet Gear Storm!"

The gears hurtled towards the downed witch, just as the energy ball fragmented into multiple bolts which shot at the witch as well.

edited 2nd Mar '11 7:10:22 PM by AnnoR

The gears crashed and smashed through the flimsy barrier that the light sphere provided, making way for the bolts of purple energy to strike with full strength to the core of the body of the witch. With one last cry of pain, the witch was finally defeated...

In the span of a few moments the barrier of the witch dissolved, the normal world creeping back into the view of the girls as they stood in the roof of their school.

The only thing different was that now a small black top shaped thing lay on the ground in front of Hiroko and that the mark of the witch kiss disappeared from Chiyo.

Hiroko looked around. A grin creeped up to her lips as she viewed the world, which was once again normal. "I... I did it! The witch is dead! I beat it!"

She turned to her friends, grinning and holding her rifle out to her side. She was about to speak to them, when she recalled the strange object that had been left behind. Hiroko turned to it, and took a step towards it, curious.

"Hey... What's that?" she asked.

Hikari saw only a flash of purple before the world around her reverted to normal. She saw the two Puella Magi sweating, on the ground. Reluctant to let go of Chiyo just yet, she cried out to Hiroko. "Are you okay? Did you two win?"

"You bet we won, Hikari-chan!" Hiroko called, turning back to her friend. "That... bookcase... light.... thing didn't stand a chance!"

"It's a Witches Egg. If you intend to use your powers with any regularity, you'll need that."

Now back in the normal world, Andrea felt like she was obligated to pretend like this had never happened. She straightened up, the fight having barely taxed her in any way. She began to walk away, but paused right at the threshold of the door leading back down into the school. Several jumbled thoughts flashed through her mind, none of them making any particular sense, and yet Andrea felt compelled to at least give the three girls a chance.

"If you need any help... you can find my number on the directory. Good luck."

Andrea opened the door and slipped in. Her mask was once more perfect.

edited 2nd Mar '11 7:35:32 PM by Katsuun

"Wait! Where are you going? Aren't you the one who was worried about us? There's still more to take care of!" Hikari worried that she wouldn't have the guidance to make the right decision...

"What Andrea said is correct. It's a Grief Seed, your reward for defeating the witch, Hiroko. As she said you can use it to restore your magical energy" Kyubey said, jumping to stand on Hiroko's shoulder.