Mahou Shoujo Wars Advent

Upon the blue planet known as Earth was a small island nation, and upon that small island nation was a sprawling metropolis (the largest in the world in fact). Going by the name of Tokyo, Japan's capital is home to some of the world's cutting edge technologies as well as various other products. Its students are among the world's foremost in the field of education and every day the streets are congested with pedestrians who quickly flit from home to work like busy ants. Besides this, it was also the epicenter of certain supernatural activities...

As the land of the rising sun experienced daybreak, households came awake. Mothers began to cook for their families while fathers got ready for work in prim suits. Their children bustled about the house, putting on uniforms and preparing for the day at school. Outside of the suburban dwellings, the creatures of the night withdrew back to wherever they had spawned from, impatient to cause more havoc once the sun set once more.

Set upon a hill in the distance sat a special school aimed specifically for those who were either rich, gifted, or special. In the case of those who stood against the monsters, they were placed altogether in a single campus that extended from elementary to high school, known only as Iwakura Gakuen. Gathered from all about the country (and beyond), the girls (and some boys) were given a free ride. The staff catered to their special needs as often the students were forced to respond to emergencies and their needs taken cared of within the massive government owned property. With the large academy clocktower rising many feet above the surrounding buildings, it was hard to not know where main campus was if one lived in the area.

Yawning, the grey-haired youth made breakfast for first himself and then the others living in his household. Once that was done, the boy put on his uniform and trudged out the door with an umbrella in hand. Seeing as he was bad with direct sunlight, Ayumu had to go early and take shelter within the school lest he be shriveled up to a prune by the sun's rays. Bypassing craters left from previous fights against the myriad monsters haunting his region, the zombie enjoyed the cool morning air with a smile. "It's good to be alive."

"Taro, hurry up and get down here if you want breakfast!" came the sing-song voice of Ms. Uesaka, proud mother of a magical girl.

"Can't you just bring it up to me?" Taro responded with a voice of a higher octave than a boy's ought to be.

"Come on, you don't want to be late for school do you?" his mother persisted.

"I'm not going to school like this, mom," Taro protested, unwilling to give in on the issue.

"I think you look fine. But if you don't want these waffles I made, I guess someone else will have to eat them," she threatened, her tone never changing its singsong nature.

Just like that Taro Uesaka was out of his room and in the kitchen, ready to devour breakfast. As defensive as he was about his appearance and who saw him in certain forms, waffles were his kryptonite. The western style foodstuff was as addictive as any substance known to man for him. His reward for vacating his room was a healthy serving of them topped with kiwi and whipped cream. Within five minutes they were gone. Taro was a magical girl with a healthy appetite. For a moment he almost forgot that his magical ring had once again left him only partially transformed.

"Now go on to school, you'll want to be early. I'll clean up," his mother instructed him and began shooing him out the door.

"Wait! Do I really have to go out like this?" Taro asked, digging his feet in to try and avoid being evicted for the day.

"You look fine in that uniform, Taro! You're lucky I happened to have it just lying around," the maternal unit remarked as she reached past him and opened the door, "Have a good day!"

Taro sighed as the door closed behind him. His mom had tricked him out of staying home like this before, but he kept falling for it. She meant well, but he was sure she was secretly thrilled she could play dress up with him on certain occasions. This being one of them. So it was that Taro - stuck in his girl form yet again - headed to school early, wearing his mom's old seifuku. Thankfully the skirt was a little longer than you saw in video games and anime. It didn't make going to school as a schoolgirl any less embarrassing.

As he rounded a corner, Taro spotted a guy he knew was in a vaguely similar predicament. That guy with the umbrella went to the school, and thus had to be a magical girl. Or something like that. Taro was happy that he wasn't the only one to be stuck with such a fate. Even if it meant attending class as a brunette schoolgirl with pointy ears.

"Ugh.. I hate this," he grumbled, trudging up towards the special school in a very unladylike fashion.

In the westernmost window of Iwakura Gakuen's dormitories, there was always a light, even in the smallest hours of the morning. It was the room of a Foreign Exchange Student, one Noa Cordovero, who was mainly known for her lack of apparent emotion and her encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Tolkien.
That particular dawn was no different from the others; the lights were on, as ever, and Noa was snoring gently as she half-sat, half-lied in her office chair, her head on a large tome that was open on her table. Then her phone began to ring, and she groggily sat up, blinking.
"Mrm… Time already?" she muttered. Picking the phone up, she turned the alarm off before quickly changing into her uniform — a short affair, considering all she had to do was to put a new blazer and tie — and spending a few minutes looking for her schoolbag under the piles of books and papers that filled her room.
Finally finding the bag under a collapsed stack of papers dealing with metaphysics, she stopped by the small fridge and grabbed a plum before exiting the room. Locking the door, she munched on the plum as she walked out of the dorm and toward the main building, her face wearing the same blank expression as always.
She set a quick pace, and so she quickly overtook Taro and Ayumu. "Good morning," she said flatly, not wanting to be impolite.

A girl turned around as Ayumu entered the classroom—the girl, in fact, having been the first to arrive, long before anyone else had. Yukimura Shirouko; genius magical girl and permanently barred from all general knowledge quizzes on the grounds that her perfect recollection of trivia made it impossible for her to lose.

"You are drier than yesterday. Have you considered using moisturiser?"

It was another typical morning for Sakura Kishomoto. Having breakfast with her father and brother, arguing a little with the latter, gathering her things and strapping on her roller blades.

The only thing that had changed about this lately was the inusion of the Clow Card's Guardian nestled wihin her school bag.

"I'm off!" Sakura announced brightly, rolling from her home and gliding down the street. Yeah, things hadn't really changed too much about this schedule, really. It was the rest of the day that included Clow Cards and hiding Kero's existence from her family.

With her characteristic smile, the young Magical Girl made he way to school, passing several people by as she did. Bidding them each a good morning, Sakura continued onward, wondering what kind of Clow Card would appear next.

In her private city apartment, Petra Wessel Tordenskjold woke up quite early. It was quite a luxurious apartment, near the top of a large apartment complex and with a view of Tokyo Bay. It hadn't been hard to persuade her father to buy her this apartment for the duration of her stay in Tokyo, though he had hesitated slightly when he found out about the price. Petra had spent enough time living close to others when she was living with her siblings at the family manor, and wanted to live on her own. While her mother had been concerned about her safety, both of her parents agreed that the independence would be good for her.

Therefore, she made her own breakfast, with soft-boiled eggs, brown bread and toppings brought from Denmark, and ate it in solitude. Though her reserves of food from home were running low, she still wasn't accustomed to Japanese food. The idea of eating rice, seaweed and fermented soybeans for breakfast made her stomach revolt.

After leaving breakfast and thoughts of breakfasts future behind, Petra spent quite some time in the bathroom to get her looks right. Particular care went into making her long and curly brown hair settle the way she wanted.

Finally satisfied, she headed out. Petra went to school by bicycle, detesting the packed subway trains and buses. She could have flown, but it wasn't proper for her to use her magical girl powers like that.

edited 18th Jul '13 6:54:12 AM by Lemurian

"Good morning." Ayumu called back in return to the stoic girl, his greeting being by far the more honest sounding of the two. Seeing as the skies were rather cloudy overhead at the moment, the boy was rather lax in opening his umbrella. It was only when he heard Shirouko comment on his dryness that the boy felt something was up. A small rift in the nimbi had formed, letting down morning sunlight that had just managed to frame his right arm in its rays.

Having responded a bit too late to the attack, the now frantically moving zombie jumped out and held the weather blocking apparatus up with his other hand. The previously sunlit limb looked slightly wrinkled and tough like leather, a few shades darker than the rest of his body. "Aha... Yeah. Me and sunlight don't really mix." Frowning at the minor setback, the zombie opened up one of the many water bottles stowed away in his bag and drank a deep draught from it. Soon, his arm had swelled like a sponge did, limb back to proper proportions and vitality.

After his little jig, the zombie continued to climb the steps of the campus... and saw one admittedly tomboyish girl (apparently). Unable to help himself, the boy called out to the student walking like that. "Be careful. Ff you walk like that in a skirt, then your undergarments will be shown to everyone!" As soon as he said it, Ayumu regretted it. It made him sound like a weirdo with questionable tastes, and embarassment his mind verbally abuse him.

Ayumu's comment caused Noa to stop walking. Taking a few seconds to decipher the Japanese — despite having learned the language even before she moved to Tokyo, she still didn't quite control it well enough — the stoic girl started toying with the sentence in her mind, modifying the Kanji's roots little by little until it was completely unrecognizable.
"That sounded a bit impolite, even if it is quite obvious," she noted in the same flat tone. "You should perchance apologise."

"Sunblock, then," Shirouko concluded, reaching into her own bag and producing a bottle, which was offered to Ayumu as she trailed him into the building. Burning, after all, was something that she herself was substantially at risk of^* That is, until she found someone who had an anti-sunburn spell, which would be far more convenient and it was always good to carry extra, "You can keep any extra."

Adhara walked through the streets on the way to school. She'd accidentally fallen asleep at her desk doing research, and her uniform, while still fairly clean, looked, well, like she'd been sleeping in it. On top of which she hadn't gotten any breakfast or morning tea. 'Ughh... Maybe I can buy something later...' she thought blearily as she caught up with the main group.

As if his morning wasn't already complicated and humiliating enough, the only other guy decided to make a comment about how he was walking. Taro spun around and stared at Ayumu with an eyebrow raised in slight surprise. A girl might be mortified at the words. Being a guy Taro could at least understand why such thoughts would be going through Ayumu's mind. Blurting them out was weird. Surprisingly an emotionless girl (she sounded like it anyway) came to Taro's defense and told Ayumu he should apologize.

"Oh, and I take it you know from experience?" Taro responded to the comment with a smirk, "So either that means you sit around looking up girls' skirts or you've worn a skirt around yourself."

He grinned evilly as he added, "And I didn't know you were interested in oggling other guys. Sorry, you're not my type, man."

Taro spun around and headed up the stairs as before, making it four steps before stopping. Had he just admitted he was a guy to someone who didn't know about his situation? His shoulders sagged as he smacked himself in the forehead. Boy was he out of it this morning!

"H-hey, it's not my fault I have to wear a dress!" Ayumu yelled back while clutching the tube of sunblock, drawing the looks of quite a few passerby's. "...I'm not a pervert!" The boy exclaimed, now working himself into a vicious cycle of being an object of ridicule. "And I won't apologize to a slanderer for pointing out the obvious!" The boy barked to the kuudere girl, rather getting into the swing of things.

It was then the frustrated boy's ears picked up something of importance. The "girl" was a guy! "..." Keeping that to himself, the grey haired teenager chuckled under his breath and breezed past the boy with a spring in his step. He had mixed feelings about another person going through what he did, but the boy decided to stop stoking the fire out of respect for the guy's dignity. Going to class, the boy entered room 1-C and assumed his place near the windows. It was the only one whose curtains were shut all the way too.

Soon, first period would start all about the school and the students made their way into the classroom. Listening to his history teacher drone on about the emergence of all the simultaneous supernatural threats that punctured Earth's masquerade, the boy allowed himself to go to slump behind a book. After all, he lived the life. He could afford to make up some of the time he spent on patrol.

Earlier that morning…

Mai Tohika stood at her kitchen bench, tying her lunch box closed with a satisfied nod. Behind her, the pans and plates of her cooking efforts were stacked in the sink. Besides the red-haired teen the apartment was deserted - Originally from out of town, she had been provided the small suite on the grounds of Iwakura Gakuen when the school had invited her a few weeks ago.

She sighed slightly, glancing out the window to where she could just make out the junior high campus. Normally, she’d be making two lunchboxes – one for her, one for her younger brother. But now Takumi was staying with the other juniors, and all his meals were being provided by the school, just like hers. The government were even paying for his medical bills, so she didn’t need to work double shifts at some café to save up for his operations. The only person she had to look after was herself, and she just wasn’t used to it yet…

Of course, she still had her… other job to occupy her time. Her eyes glanced up to where the red star hung in the sky above the city.

Shaking her head, Mai pushed that line of thought to the back of her mind and hurried to pull on her uniform.

First period…

Mai sat at her desk – a window seat, just in front of Ayumu’s curtain-shaded spot. Her attention wandering, she leant her cheek on one hand, idly chewing on a pen as she gazed out the window. She had already hard most of this stuff before, and besides, she had a lot of other stuff on her mind...

Again, it took Noa some time to decipher the Japanese, but when she did, a smile tugged at the ends of her lips. It didn't reach her eyes, which were as distant as ever; however, it certainly caused her to think about the nature of magical girls. Seeing that person that was supposedly male made her wonder why it was mostly girls who chose to fight, that were given the powers to fight. It made her remember her friend, who insisted on being as heroic as possible. She and Noa had many a heated argument, with Noa firmly taking the side of 'I Just Want to Be Normal', while Sasha, her friend, insisted that since they were gifted with those powers, it was their duty to fight the monstrosities that arose to threaten humanity.
She stopped reminiscing long enough to notice that most of the people around her have already entered their classes, so she entered hers as well. Ignoring the teacher, who was by now used to Noa's weird behaviour — if the subject interested her her grades were good, anyway, and if the subject didn't no amount of studying helped — she took a large, cumbersome book from her bag, opened it, and started to read.

edited 22nd Jul '13 6:34:00 AM by desdendelle

Yet another student in Ayumu's class was paying no attention to the teacher. In this case, it was due to a single, simple fact: Shirouko had already memorised all the relevant history books for the rest of her time in school, and had filled the board with what appeared to be a weird non-Euclidean timeline when challenged to prove that she knew everything as she claimed. Perhaps sitting right at the front of class hadn't been such a good idea in this respect.

Today, the white-haired girl had brought a huge sheet of paper and writing implements. It looked rather like she was attempting to practice calligraphy—though a closer look at the paper revealed that it appeared to be full of numbers, diagrams, and oddly-shaped letters. Whatever she was doing, it most certainly wasn't any normal artform.

Petra sat near the middle of the Senior's classroom, idly reading the handout in English while the teacher lectured in Japanese. Theoretical subjects weren't her strength, but her mother would get in touch right away if Petra's grades started dropping. Most of the time she kept herself on top of the subject by reading textbooks in English.

After school, she wanted to go out with her boat. They hadn't been given any homework for tomorrow (yet) and the weather was really nice. Maybe some of her classmates would come with her...she hadn't really gotten the chance to make any good friends yet.

Taro stood on the school steps for a while, feeling really stupid for blurting out that he was actually a guy. He might've been able to get through the whole day without it coming out otherwise. Not that he wanted to be a girl. Eventually he got the feeling that he should probably get to class. As he made his way into the building his ring started glowing. That could mean only one thing.

"Oh come on! Why do you have do this now?!" he growled at the piece of jewelry, then hurried into the boys' bathroom out of habit.

Which was fortunate since he was transforming again, this time into his normal form. Passers-by in the school halls would see a flash of blue and purple light form inside the restroom. When the dust settles Taro looked into the mirror and was relieved to see no pointy ears or long hair, just regular old Taro. Until he noticed that he was still wearing his mom's old uniform. He glared at his transformation ring.

"Hey, turn me back! I need boobs for this outfit!" he growled at the inanimate object. Nothing happened.

Resigned to his fate and without a spare set of clothes, Taro made his way to his classroom. Coincidentally he shared it with that guy from earlier. This couldn't get much worse, he thought. As quietly as possible he opened the door and headed over to his seat. While he walked he was blushing and staring down at the floor. He hunched over so that he'd present a smaller figure and maybe avoid detection.

Once in his seat he sighed, "I'm the worst magical girl ever.."

Adhara, thankful that the conversation hadn't involved her, flopped down at her seat. Well, she'd at least gotten her homework all done, so hopefully class wouldn't be to hard...

Meanwhile, Kazusa Michiru was sprinting through the school's hallways, the requisite toast hanging out of her mouth. 'Late late late laaate!' she thought incoherently as she ran into her classroom.

As the monotonous droning of the various theories upon the sudden simultaneous emergence of humanity's enemies went on, it was clear that something was wrong. Unwillingly winding down from his long lecture, the teacher glanced at the glass of water placed upon his desk. The liquid sent ripples racing outwards every few seconds, as something ponderously heavy was making its way towards the school. As time went on, the vibrations could be felt acutely by every one of the inhabitants within the class, jolting them in their chairs.

If one were to look outside into the distance, they would see that a large mass of something was approaching from the direction of the rising sun. Framed by the light of the nearest yellow star, the army of strange beings rippled across the ground like a roiling wave of oily pollution, spilling forth from the alleys and roads of a nearby abandoned neighborhood. They were the Youma, born of negative emotions and numbering in the hundreds. Various characteristics of many animals were on display, a veritable menagerie of bestial looking bipeds that eyed the school hungrily.

Ayumu stood up even as the school began lockdown, thick steel plates descending upon the entrances to deny access to openings. Even that was small comfort, considering the power that the dark forces could muster. Jumping out the window even as the first wave spilled upon the school grounds, the zombie clenched his hands and waited for the inevitable chaos to descend upon the previously peaceful property. "For the sake of my idle school life..." Somewhere in his mind, the boy wondered how enough of the thing had gotten so close to the magical girl's base of operations without raising any alarms...

Noa first noticed the advancing monsters when the shocks caused her to look out of the window. Fortunately her class was in the ground floor; opening the window, which was large and wide, she climbed onto the windowsill and jumped outside. Running a short distance away, she took a locket from her pocket and opened it, revealing the smiling picture of a blonde girl.
“I am the Thousand Birds' wings!” she shouted, causing white light to emanate from the locket. It covered her body, and when it was gone, she was wearing her Aegis: a white-and-blue armour designed to deflect blows rather than absorb them. Lifting her hand, she gripped the hilt of a sword that appeared from the extradimensional space is was stored in.
That done, she looked around, and when she found the nearest creature, she charged. “Vengeance!” she screeched.

edited 3rd Aug '13 3:50:48 AM by desdendelle

There was the faintest flash of light from the rooftop. Certainly, it was much brighter when directly observed, and clearly blue in color, but from below it was difficult to tell just how bright it was. It was also unlikely the creatures would notice the noise of wheels on the rooftop.

What happened next, though, was most likely very noticeable.

"Hiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Crying out, Subaru propelled herself off of the rooftop, raising her fist. Revolver Knuckle glinted in the light of the sun as she flew through the air, before rapidly descending towards one of the beasts in the crowd of monsters. As she approached, mana began to pump into Revolver Knuckle, the gear-like segments began to spin rapidly, giving off a loud whir as she descended... and brought her fist down. There was an ugly crack as the gauntleted fist met the head of the beastial creature, smashing it to the ground and likely pulverizing the monster's skeleton, if it had such a thing. It let off a gurgle as it collapsed, and Mach Caliber clacked as the roller skate intelligent device hit the ground. Without wasting a second, Subaru swiveled her hips to adjust her position, raising both hands(and by extension Revolver Knuckle) into a combat-ready stance.

"Alright, Mach Caliber!" she loudly declared, addressing her intelligent device as she stared down the surprised horde of monsters, "We've got the drop on them! Now it's time to take them all out!"

Mai was jolted out of her successful attempt to zone out by the rumbling vibrations judderng her desk. She looked around in confusion, spying the approaching Youma.

"Huh?!" Mai leaned out the window, a dismayed expression on her face. "How did they get so close to the school?!" Any further exclamations were interrupted as Ayumu leapt out through the window beside her, followed closely by Noa. Mai bit her lip, hesitating for just a second, before her expression hardened and she stepped back from the window.

Closing her eyes, the girl concentrated, letting out a deep breath as she reached for her magic. With a metallic ringing sound, glowing yellow light congealed into rings around her ankles and wrists, then cooled into golden rings set with green gemstones. With a grunt, she ran forward and vaulted over the windowsill, pushing off into the air. Her Elements quickly began to glow again, and instead of plummeting back down to the school lawn, she hovered in the air above the others, looking down at the advancing monsters.

Jeeze... With them so close to the school, I don't think I can call out Kagtsuchi... Her CHILD didn't really care about things like "collateral damage" and "civilian casualties". Seeing Nao leap into the fray, followed another magical girl with blue hair and metal glove, Mai took a deep breath and swooped down at the army of monsters.

"I'll keep the ones further back off you!" She yelled to the other magical girls, blanketing the enemy army with a curtain of fire.

As the tide of Youma poured over the horizon, Shirouko could feel it in the atmosphere—excitement, a rising thrill that made her want to sing. Magic; magic was in the air and the girl could feel it dancing to the beat of her heart and thrumming in her bones—or perhaps the other way around, with her body answering to the call all around.

The heady power called for her to act, to strike down the Youma with all the power at her disposal and no thought for something so mundane as her own safety. The girl knew better, though; she knew far better than to let the intoxicating thrill of battle take over and throw caution to the wind. This wasn't who she was. A genius, perhaps; someone thoughtful and cautious certainly. A reckless berserker? No matter how she responded to the chaos around, never.

Not concerned for the 'why' of the Youma attack for now, the white haired female left through another window alongside the zombie, twisted black-purple light eclipsing her for all of a second as uniform was replaced with a defensive barrier and book. The girl hung in the air for a perilous moment, breath tight as she cast the spell that would completely arrest her descent, black wings as ominous as her outfit the next addition.

She was ready.

All that mattered now was finding an opponent of her own low level of ability.

Meanwhile somewhere far away from the fun stuff

The interview with the fledgeling fashion magazine dragged on and on and now Kyoko was late for school. She smiled politely at the two interviewers who were fumbling with their papers and questions, and hoped that nothing too interesting was happening in class.

edited 5th Aug '13 5:30:06 AM by fillerdude

Of course things just kept getting more complicated; that was the way magical girls rolled really. At least when their name was Taro Uesaka. He'd just about made it to his seat in shame as a result of the random transformation when the attack began. Which meant that he'd have to transform once again to meet the threat directly. Taro stood dumbfounded for a good long moment while everyone else was transforming and heading out to fight.

"This is no time to feel sorry for myself.. I suppose if I must," he thought aloud, then focused his arcane energies into the ring which had caused him so much trouble.

This time it reacted quickly (go figure). Swirling bluish energy surrounded him in a whirlwind, blowing his short hair in a magical torrent. His skirt flapped as well, but grew out from its typical high school length. Taro's short unkepmt hair was suddenly elongated exponentially. Gloves of energy appeared on his lower arms and then became real while a circlet appeared on his head. Somehow his ears grew into points rather than rounded tips. When it all settled he stood as a she, the image of a magical princess complete with her enchanted blade.

"Hey, wait up!" she called out, hurrying behind the other magical girls and actually looking forward to the fight. All his pent up frustration could be taken out on them!