The Maid
Akane was shocked to the point where she could barely let a single word out. The situation they had been thrown into was distressing enough... but seeing her little sister transform into a Magical Girl was really pushing the limits of what she could handle.
"K-Kiku... you accepted the contract with Kyubey already!? You're really a Magical girl!?"
If I'm sure of something it's that I'm not sure of anything.
As the rock the girls were standing on spun around the huge artificial sun - thousands, millions of lightbulbs burning all together - passed by another orbit, strange creatures began to boil out of the interior of the other planet. They were completely two-dimensional, like cardboard cutouts, and painted brick red, with crude, frowning alien faces drawn onto their rudimentary heads. They clustered around the near side of the planet, then leveled a bristling array of rayguns at the girls - and these looked anything but crude. There was a hum of charging energy...
Sorry, can't stay. Have a show to go to. Will be back later tonight.
It's been fun.
"Yeah, I- Ah nuts. Hang on a sec, would ya?" Kiku began to do handsprings and cartwheels, leaping nimbly over the familiars, the bells on her hat jingling. "HEY! OVER HERE, UGLY!"
The familiars opened fire, drawing burning lines in bright purple and green across the open space around them. Despite their numbers, not a single shot hit Kiku, the energy instead dispersing into other planetoids with loud pops and showers of artificial rock, or into the bronze superstructure with nary a sound. Tiny golemlike creatures bustled from behind the massive gears, each clutching a tiny chunk of rock; they swarmed around the blasted craters in the new planetoids, filling them in, and paying no attention to the intruders.
There was a loud click, and the planetoid dropped suddenly, its bronze support pole fitting into a new track. Rei ducked as their rock whistled past another, much larger planet... then her eyes widened as something kicked her sense of gravity in the head. Against all common sense, she found herself falling upward, toward the larger planet, and she struck the rock hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. By the time she had recovered, the Hanami sisters were gone with the redrock planetoid, leaving Rei by herself.
It's been fun.
"Ohshit... Okay. You can do this. Need to... okay. Mind if I borrow this for a second?"
Kiku leaped over a familiar, snatching its raygun as she passed, and opened fire on her opponents.
Several of Kiku's shots hit, and the aliens folded in half like the cardboard that they were; but there were always more of them. And up in the mechanisms of the Ossery, the large shadow from before began to move; the din of clockwork that preceded it was almost deafening, and as it pulled into the light from the giant globe of lightbulbs, Kiku finally saw why.
The Witch - because it had to be her - was a huge, ornate telescope covered in bronze scrollwork and gears. At least fifteen feet long, she moved with unsettling speed despite her size and the complex mechanism that connected her to the superstructure. As Kiku watched, the lens cap swiveled open. In place of a glass lens, what capped the telescope was a huge blue human eye, and it fixed directly on her.
Crap, I need to ask LORd how Caroline fights...
edited 8th Apr '11 12:09:07 PM by RedSavant
It's been fun.
"Augh. Where did that other girl go..."
Kiku slipped the pen into one of her baggy costume's many pockets. Blasting another familiar away, she stole a second ray gun. Brilliant beams of light lanced out from Kiku's pilfered pistols towards the massive metal body of the witch. No longer fighting the familiars, she instead focused on trying to topple the titanic telescope.
Kiku's shots fizzled harmlessly into Caroline's metal body. Just like the cardboard aliens' earlier shots hitting the bronze structures around them, the scrollwork barely sparked. A small lightbulb on the lower left side of the Witch's eye flickered on, but the Witch made no counterattack; she merely kept pace with the small redrock. As Witch and planetoid circled around the sun to the other side of the Ossery, taking Rei's planet out of sight, the now-too-familiar whine of the cardboard aliens' energy pistols charging sounded, and beams lanced into the darkness from all around the Hanamis - but not toward them. Each beam impacted the Witch's metal casing... and more lightbulbs around the Witch's eye flashed on...
It's been fun.
"Damn! These things just make it more powerful or something... If I just had a little time..."
Kiku blasted her way out of the group of familiars that she'd attracted, and ran straight back towards Akane. "Hang on, sis!"
Grabbing her sister, Kiku leaped out into space, towards another planetoid passing nearby. "If I can give 'em the slip for just a bit..."
As the sisters left the redrock asteroid, the final lightbulb around Caroline's eye lit up. If the Witch had had a face, she would have smiled; as it was, she experienced something quite like grim satisfaction as her pupil contracted.
Caroline's iris began to glow a bright, unearthly blue, and energy crackled in the space in front of her eye. The girls' jump took her by surprise, and she frantically attempted to reverse her momentum and track them back to the other planetoid... but it was too late. The energy stored in Caroline's body lashed out into space, bleaching the color from the Ossery and transforming it into a drawing in stark blue-white light and dark pen. Even shielded as they were in the shadow of their new planet, the light was almost too bright for the Hanamis. As the light faded and the planets turned, the redrock planetoid came into view... or rather, the twisted, charred stump of bronze that had supported the rock came into view.
Yes, I gave her a charging eye-laser.
It's been fun.
Ysanne had stared as Rei had tackled her. Rei apparently hadn’t noticed that she had knocked her into her bike and knocked her silly for a few moments, so Ysanne was in no position to do anything for a few seconds.
After Rei had let her go, Ysanne had sat there for a moment, seeing stars. No, not the stars that the Maze had created, but the stars you see when you’ve received an almighty knock to the head. When she managed to get her wits about her, Ysanne stared at the area.
“Okay…we’re in space, and the witch is a giant laser telescope…AWSOME!” Then Ysanne, as she would later put it, ‘went magical on her ass’.
Ysanne’s body was enshrouded in a brutal red glow, as she activated her magic. She didn’t bother with fancy words or wand movements. With a flash of red light to signal it was done, Ysanne was standing in her magical armor. Yes, armor, as this was no dress. She was dressed in red battle armor seemingly inspired from a mecha show. From her shoulders, on each side a pair of wing-like thruster arrays were attached. On her back a massive thruster was also attached. She had small maneuvering thrusters on her legs, and arms. She was sporting a massive rifle of some kind, and she had a helmet on her head with two white antenna aerodynamically folded back. Ysanne smiled…and then roared,
“PARTY TIME!” With a roar, her back thruster ignited, and Ysanne made like a missile and rocketed out, Flying up and around.
“HEY! MISS LONG, BORING, AND COMPENSATING! CATCH!” As Ysanne shot past the telescope like witch, she swung herself around and pointed her rifle at the Witch. Pulling the trigger, the end of the rifle unleashed a flurry of red energy bolts that tore loose from the rifle and lanced towards the Witch’s side.
Kiku scurried around to the back side of the planet and set her sister down. "Hang in there, sis. I'll get you out of this crazy place." Ysanne's battle cry echoed through the air. It was kind of hard to miss. "Now that's what I call a distraction. Perfect."
Kiku whipped out her pen and began writing on the planetoid's rocky surface. Geometric arrangements of silvery runes began to form on its surface.
The red energy bolts from Ysanne's rifle scorched Caroline's side, and her eye rolled in annoyance. The first two lightbulbs lit up, but they glowed anemically, nowhere near as brightly as they had from the aliens' rays. She detached from her node, moving along the outside of the Ossery at almost her top speed, trying to shake the annoying red fly stinging her sides.
It's been fun.
Newbie Drifter
In the exact opposite direction of Caroline's motion, an azure light thundered down one of the rails of the Ossery's superstructure. Unlike Ysanne, though, the only sound that came from Rei was that of her footsteps.
Being awed by Kiku's interesting choice of costume just a second longer than was probably necessary was a mistake (and potentially a fatal one; Rei admonished herself silently for it); she barely dodged the incoming planet, and having said planet suddenly pull her up right into it caught the Magical Girl completely by surprise. By the time the blue-eyed girl recovered from her shock, she was already on the opposite side of the Ossery... and she was surrounded by the alien familiars and their charging rayguns.
... cardboard aliens? Are you serious?
Being, as they were, effectively made of cardboard, they barely offered any resistance to the crimson and yellow flashes suddenly blazing through their ranks. There were now two spears in Rei's previously-empty hands: one long and red, the other short and golden, and they tore through the aliens as if they were made of... well, cardboard! Within seconds, the small familiar army had crumbled into dust.
That did not change the fact that Rei was now on the wrong side of the Ossery, and the sound of moving gears echoing from the other side only reinforced it. She was going to have to run. Fast.
A sky-blue aura began flowing out of Rei's limbs as she coiled up, ready to jump off the rock she was on. She was never fond of using her magic for flashy, spectacular attacks, and now was no different; instead, Rei's style was to pump that magic into her limbs instead, giving her physical prowess easily surpassing those of her peers, and then dive through an enemy's defenses and catch them off-guard with ferocious attacks.
jump
With a powerful drive, Rei rocketed off towards the outermost part of the Ossery. More aliens had appeared, trying to aim at her, but she ignored them all: they posed no threat to her right now, and they wouldn't be able to keep up with her right now. Instead, she set her eyes on something more important: the Witch itself, currently rumbling away from Ysanne and straight into Rei's path.
I wonder if those wing-like appendages on the sides serve any purpose.
Dematerializing the golden spear and gripping the red one with both hands, Rei leapt at the base of the brass wing on her side, spearpoint first; the crimson lance made no objection as its head punctured a hole in the body of the telescope, followed shortly by the rest of its body thanks to a rough kick from its wielder. Without pause, Rei ran up to the top of the telescope, pulling out two more red spears and driving them into the Witch's main body to secure her position; then she looked at the spot where her first weapon was buried.
Detonate.
The crimson lance obeyed.
I'll leave it up to Red Savant to determine how much damage the explosion causes, but I'm personally hoping for the wing thing to crash into Caroline's side since I blew the base up. If there are any problems you have with the post, just inform me and I'll see to fixing it
edited 8th Apr '11 9:53:39 PM by Midreus
That is all she needed. That is all... Her dreams of seeing the world have become her strength, and lifts her wings.
The explosion rocked Caroline's massive body, and the Witch let out a pained shriek - or perhaps it was just the tearing of metal as the winglike appendage folded in on itself and the gaping hole that had opened at its base. The wing stayed on, seemingly ignoring the pull of gravity on the inch-wide band of twisted brass that still connected it to the main body, and Caroline twisted viciously, lashing out at Rei with the solid lump of bronze at the eyepiece end of her body. Behind her, more of the cardboard aliens popped out of the Ossery's fixtures; half opened fire on Rei, while the others set back to charging up Caroline's laser.
It's been fun.
"What's this? New Magical Girls? Kyubey must have been really busy today..." Minori stayed outside the barrier, feeling what was going on inside. She was ready to jump inside if necessary, but her new comrades seemed to do be doing alright. No need to take their moment away!
Rei and Ysanne did a fine job of distracting the witch — no familiars bothered Kiku while she worked. With a flourish, she finished writing. The symbols glowed brightly and sank into the surface of the planetoid, and there was a grinding of stone and a screech of twisting metal as the planet's surface reshaped itself according to Kiku's written instructions.
In a newly-formed shallow crater in front of Kiku lay two large stone clubs, with wicked-looking bronze heads with protruding bolts and screws. The magical girl pocketed her pen again and lifted first one of the clubs, then the other. They wobbled shakily in her hands. "I... think these will work okay..."
Experimentally, she tried tossing one of the clubs into the air. She just barely managed to catch it in her opposite hand, juggling the second one back into her first hand. She tried again — one of the clubs slipped and went crashing to the floor.
But Kiku had been watching closely the entire time, data pouring into her head. The shape and mass of the clubs, the effect of this world's strange gravity on them — everything there about the physical system that the clubs and her hands had created, trickling gradually into her head so as to avoid overloading herself (a lesson she had learned very quickly indeed.)
And not even a minute after she first picked up the clubs, she was tossing and spinning them effortlessly through the air, so quickly they appeared as just as blur.
"Excellent."
A feral grin spread over her face as she ran around to the other side of the planetoid to join the attack on the witch.
Newbie Drifter
As fast as Caroline's attack was, Rei's reflexes were faster; letting go of her spears, the veteran Magical Girl immediately rolled away from her position, allowing the Witch's lash to drive the crimson weapons much further into itself than Rei's own strength could ever have achieved.
Detonate!
And just like before, both lances obeyed her mental command; the combined force of the two explosions sent a shockwave running through the entirety of Caroline's body. Without missing a beat, another spear materialized itself in Rei's waiting hands, and she drove this one into the body of the telescope again to stop her rolling.
One problem: there was a new set of alien familiars, and half of them had already begun firing energy blasts at Rei, right at the place where she stopped. Even with her augmented speed and reflexes, it would be difficult to deflect all the blasts with her spear; launching herself into the air to dodge the shots, on the other hand, would leave Rei with no solid surface to get a foothold on and thus limit her available options. She had to hold her ground.
"Rampart!"
By associating words with a desired object or outcome, envisioning it becomes much easier: for example, the word 'dog' would immediately bring to mind a member of the canine family, and 'attack' would bring to mind the action of intentionally inflicting damage on a target. For Rei, 'Rampart' took the form of a thicket of spears materializing in midair, which then lodged themselves into the ground in front of her to form a makeshift wall; and the wall did its job splendidly, successfully absorbing every blast that was aimed at the blue-eyed girl.
As soon as the enemy volley was over, Rei countered with her own storm of projectiles: ripping the spears that formed Rampart out of the floor, she began lobbing them at great speeds at the enemy army. At the same time, however, she noticed the actions of the familiars that weren't attacking her... and the lightbulbs that flared to life with every shot aimed at Caroline's body.
Rei suddenly realized the origin of the thundering crack she heard a moment earlier.
Still hurling her spears at the cardboard aliens, Rei called out to Ysanne at the top of her lungs: "Taihou, look for a weak point! Don't let the Witch use her super attack again; I'll deal with the familiars!"
That is all she needed. That is all... Her dreams of seeing the world have become her strength, and lifts her wings.
Kiku leaped directly towards the witch. During the time she spent in the air, she noticed the damage done by Rei to one of the witch's appendages. She hurled one of her clubs towards the still undamaged one on the opposite side of the witch's body, and, clutching the other one tightly, flew directly towards what looked to her like the witch's most sensitive area — its eye.
Can't let it do that laser thing again...
Caroline screeched in agony, writhing against the burning metal shafts that pinned her in place. Like a butterfly in a display case, struggling against the mounting pins, her violent contractions only made the damage worse, tearing her bronze skin and exposing the seething darkness within. Driven past madness by pain and rage, the dying Witch experienced a sudden moment of clarity the likes of which she never had before and never would again: the knowledge of her own death, even now flying toward her with the smallest of the three hated points of light that had invaded her home. Her pens half-heartedly moved, writing down the observation, but there was no more blank paper, and after a moment she stopped trying.
Instead, she flapped her one functional wing in the seconds she could before Kiku's first thrown club bent it backwards; the Antons to a man opened fire on their mistress as the signal spread through their ranks, and Caroline's lightbulbs filled with power. Halfway... three-quarters... full... and her familiars kept firing, as she had commanded. The lightbulbs grew brighter and brighter still, and then the gentle sound of falling glass as miniature explosions ripped them apart. Electricity arced unbound from the shattered sockets as Caroline's iris glowed blue.
As Kiku landed in front of the massive telescope, the light spread to the rest of her eye, then began to shine out of the rents in her body. A whine of power filled the air, and Caroline used her last moment to take a good look at the tiny intruder. Through the light of the power cascading through her body, Caroline could just make out the creature's eyes. Though tiny, they were filled with determination. How nice it would have been, just once, to document something real...
Caroline closed her eye, and let the energy howling inside her loose.
edited 10th Apr '11 10:03:39 AM by RedSavant
It's been fun.
つ ◕_◕ ༽つ HELIX
Machi Nazuna found the witch's lair a bit late. The other magical girls from the area were already there, dealing with it. She hadn't met any of them personally but it was better that way. Less personal problems to deal with.
As the battle raged on within the witch's lair, Nazuna simply stood at the edge, watching and observing the fight. There were more than enough magical girls to handle the monster and she didn't even have to participate. A few stray shots from the familiars flew to her general area but the witch herself, and indeed the magical girls, didn't seem to realize her presence. All the better for her eventual plan.
As the final blow was dealt to the witch, it began to give off an eerie glow. The glow magnified into a shining light, signalling an explosion. Sure enough, it exploded and Nazuna summoned a massive single dagger to take cover behind.
After the big boom, Nazuna moved quickly. The other girls would be recuperating soon so she would have to go before they reacted to her presence. She dashed to where the witch had been eliminated and searched the area. Sure enough, there was a grief seed. Nazuna hastily snatched it up before the other girls. After safely pocketing the item, she finally announced herself to the others, speaking in a loud clear tone of voice.
"Bravo girls, you did well. From what I saw, you are all very talented and skilled. I applaud you on your success."
And you don't seem to understand...
Meanwhile, outside of the stunning, totally amazing battle that most were blissfully unaware of, life continued as normal. People bustled from here to there, each of them having somewhere equally important to be. And among them was someone who... sort of didn't have anywhere important to be. Well, Noa didn't really deem school to fall into such a category. Which was probably why things were not so hot at home with the 'rents. Oops. Clad in her school uniform, messenger bag slung lazily over her shoulder, she walked along with her hands clasped behind her head, not bothering to keep her elbows from smacking into various bystanders. Hey, they were the ones who should have moved. Didn't they see her coming through?
Yeah. Winning a medal for manners was not going to be happening anytime soon.
Thoughts of ditching school fresh on her mind, she had little time to pay attention to where she was going. Maybe she could hit the arcade in the mall all day long... or go to that new ice cream place that- ACK! She was so busy trying to determine a destination to steal off to that she didn't realize she was about to walk smack into another girl. Stumbling a bit once they made contact, she regained her bearings and blinked over at her.
"Shouldn't be standing there like that. People are sort of trying to walk here..."
For clarification, Noa bumped into Minori, who was described as being outside the witch's barrier. ^^
"Who am I, Elisha Otis?"
Just a reminder, folks: Caroline's barrier established itself in the bushes outside of Kiku's junior high (which I could have sworn I named, but oh well). So I'm gonna go ahead and say that everyone inside Caroline's barrier was deposited onto the sidewalk in a bit of an out-of-the-way area... though obviously not out-of-the-way enough. =)
Also, Noa now uses Kansai-ben. Make it so, Maxy. (You don't actually have to change your typing style.)
I kinda wanted to see Ysanne and Rei's strategies for escaping the giant laser explosion cloud, but I guess that's not going to happen.
edited 9th Apr '11 9:49:38 PM by RedSavant
It's been fun.
Minori saw that the battle had finally ended, and the new girls had done well. As the barrier dissipated she stepped forward and prepared to introduce herself... and then some other veteran Magical Girl came out of nowhere and introduced herself. "Uh... well... Excuse me! My name is Hotaru Minori and I also want to congratulate you on your victory!"
"Ah, well..." Aoi turned around to look over to where Miki was sitting. "She always seems so lonely...I think she could use some one to talk to that isn't me."
I'm going to add stuff to this but this is essentially what Aoi's response is, It won't change.
edited 7th Apr '11 10:32:58 AM by stargirl93