Puella Magi Troper Magica

"I want to live! I want to live!" Anna squealed, running over to Mari, thankful for the random protective bubble out of nowhere. "I'm too young to die, Mari-san! This country is scary!"

"HEHEHAHAHAHAH!" Emi laughed on top of her lungs as the entire place rocked into her being? "Feeling scared!? YOU SHOULD!" She added, as she timed her running to jump aside and shoot knives to the wheels of the train familiars.

"TRAINWRECK ATTACK!" She howled as she called forth more knives, targetting the train familiars in a way they were derailed in a direct collision course with the witch.

Natsumi-senpai? "A-alright! Let's go, Junko-chan." Grasping Junko's hand, Saya repositions herself and her friend behind her senior, then letting loose a small sigh of relief.

It'll be over soon...right?

Seika watched Natsumi as she started fighting, and she looked over at the others. More from her school. But why exactly is Natsumi fighting these people in particular? "Kyuubey wasn't it? What is wrong with those people?"

"Ok!" Junko held on tight to Saya's hand. She wanted nothing more for all of them to get out of here safely. She didn't care right now about the details of why Mari and these other two girls were able to so bravely leap in and start fighting the crazed adults. She just wanted to go home!

Was this Witch so sluggish or perhaps it just wasn't bothered by this supposedly deadly maneuver? Heidi wasn't sure what to think of it though Emi's over-enthusiasm was starting to get grating. Jumping to avoid the earth-rocking blow, she set her eyes on approaching train familiars. Her compatriot had a good idea about using them as a weapon against the main threat, but wouldn't they get absorbed into the Witch itself just like in the instance when Emi threw a piece of familiar at it only to have it absorb the projectile.

She had no long-distance attacks to strike the Witch with and she couldn't waste more energy than necessary dealing with familiars. Bonifaz was to strike again however, she needed to be quick on their feet. She went to carry on with her mission, slashing at Witch's supposedly placed there leg joints.

Witch's Barrier: Main Combat

As outlined in the discussion thread, I'm temporarily taking over the asylum until/unless Gladonost returns. I'll be taking a relatively laissez-faire approach to the job where combat isn't involved.

No luck with the familiars: as Emi wound up to unleash the storm of blades something slammed into her from behind, sending her carefully-aimed storm of blades in all directions, the obsidian knives tumbling, and herself to the ground face-first. Several went straight for Heidi, who, committed as she was against the witch's "legs", had no time to dodge.

Two blades hit at the right angle to do damage, taking her by surprise, the blades slashing into her from above; one, tumbling, cut a gash from forehead to cheek, missing her eyeball by a narrow margin; another pinned her foot to the ground. The pain would have been overwhelming, if it were not for the magical reflexes that kicked in to full it. Through a veil of blood she could hear a steam whistle blasting, as in mocking laughter.

As if in response, the familiars rerouted, swarming towards Heidi; the hammer came down again, midway between the two magical girls, with an earth-shaking roar, and from the crater another familiar, all clanking rail spikes, clambered up from the cracks in the ground. The locomotive that slammed into Emi—where the hell had it come from?—tootled merrily as it began to turn around, a long turning curve, rails materializing into existence ahead of it.

Sorry, players. I decided to try to go for somewhat-randomized results by using a dice roller to tell me how successful a maneuver might be, and then interpreting that as a GM. So, naturally, as the RNG has a spiteful sense of humor, she gave me a critfail. Then I rolled for what happened to those knives, treating it as an attack against Heidi...and she proceeds to give me a 19 on a d20. Not kidding. Luckily the witch did almost as badly.

Natsumi's targets didn't say anything, but her cry had evidently tipped them off: they backed away from her, easily out of range of her spear. They exchanged looks a little uneasily, focused on Natsumi; for a moment something like bewildered humanity flickered across their expressions, but it disappeared again under that eerie serenity.

"Leave us alone," said one of the men; behind him a small, thin woman stooped to pick up the sledgehammer, hefting it effortlessly despite her tiny stature. "We only wish..."

"Witch's kiss," said Kyubey, tail flickering. "It's like hypnosis. This witch must have had quite a bit of time to set up a cult like this one."

To continue on today's theme of "RNG, RNG, lama sabachthani?" Natsumi rolled a 3.

Seika looked at the others. "Hypnosis huh?" Natsumi had tried to trip them but she missed as the group backed off together, eerily enough. Perhaps she was only making an aggressive move without trying to hurt them. But there were other girls near Seika that didn't seem to be a part of that group. Maybe it was that they were closer to Seika's age while the group was mostly if not all adults. Seika hestitated for a few moments, this was a really weird dream that seemed all too real. "So where are we right now exactly? This feels like some kind of dungeon and those people are zombified townsfolk brought here. Perhaps by a dungeon boss lying in wait deep inside."

Standing protectively in front of Junko, Saya allows her curiosity to be piqued once more as the situation turns from the immediately threatening.

"A white -cat? No, rabbit?" Her knowledge of magical girls show supply that this must be the mascot, but having watched a certain Mecha-anime whereupon a certain dung beetle -may he dies in a fire- appear, it blares that she must investigate, cautiously.

Mari led Anna away. "No. Just the world beyond humanity is scary. If you wis-" She didn't like that choice of word. Especially since that word has power of its own. "If you choose to stay away from this world, I suggest you run off after this is settled. If you stay and fight, you'll only condemn yourself to death." Mari said to Anna. She got Anna to Seika and the others and heard Seika's guess as what's going on..

"You're not far off. Near this area is a Labyrinth. The "dungeon". Inside is its boss: a Witch." Mari said. "It's the one that's making everyone act like this." She points to the woman trying to get a sledgehammer. She shifted her finger to Kyubey next. "And that will be your last hope if you wish to fight those Witches that torment these poor unfortunate souls." Mari said.

"Nope can't do, lady. You really, really don't want to do that" says Natsumi as she focuses for the moment on the witch kissed before her. She moves quickly and tries to avoid any potential disruptive actions from them as she swings her spear a few times to cut head of the sledgehammer clean off the wooden handle.

Warehouse
The woman flinched when Natsumi lashed out, and though it wasn't a clean break the spearhead struck the head of the sledgehammer off the haft; it hit with an echoing crack against the concrete ground, making the rest of the crowd involuntarily flinch backwards; the man in the lead wound a heavy steel chain around his fist.

"Don't resist," he pleaded. "Heaven waits for us—if only..."

He shook his head, again, apparently in puzzlement, but behind him the others joined in murmurs of assent.

13 for Natsumi's attack roll, if you're interested, which places it square in "eh, okay, GM's discretion" territory.

"I'm Kyubey," said the creature, turning its gaze on Saya. Then, to Mari: "Well, not quite her last hope yet. There's a fair number of magical girls already here...although I don't know how well only two of them will do against a witch of this strength. Think about it, it had a lot of time to set up this cult. That means it had that much time to grow stronger and to prey on its victims."

Offscreen rolls recorded for posterity, 3, 3, 18. Oh god, they're in some trouble.

"I don't want to die," Anna observed, still terrified. "I don't want any part of your Japanese world! I want to go back to Vladivostok!"

Still, she realized that immediate flight wasn't an option, so she tried to pull herself together, and be of use. "Is there any way I can help me escape?"