Mahou Shoujo Troper Magica * Fujiwara City *

"Hmm? Is that so?" Kyubey asked, he was already lifting his ears to turn Hiroko into a Magical Girl, though now they fell naturally to his sides.

"Then is it alright if she goes first Hiroko?"

"I... I guess," Hiroko replied, still a little surprised. "I mean, I don't see... the more help for Andrea, the quicker we get out of here, right?"

Her eyes kept traveling to the lotus things above. They... were pretty creepy.

"My wish... is to be able to make contracts of my own. Any Magical Girl who chooses to contract with me will have any pain they feel halved, with that lingering pain being sent to me. A scratch that would sting would only prickle, a blade through the heart will only make the sufferer keel over in pain, but not die. Is this acceptable?" Hikari hoped this wish would go in her favor...

"Hey, Hikari-chan, no," Hiroko interjected, grabbing her friend's arm. "That means if I get beaten up, and you're not fighting, you'll feel it too."

She smiled at Hikari. "If I let myself get hit, I deserve to get hurt. That's just how it is."

Hiroko turned back to Kyubey. "Well, I made my wish already, and I'm ready for it."

"And if you die, you deserve it? I don't think this is some fun little game. ...I'll let you make you wish."

Hiroko flashed another quick smile at Hikari. "Hey, don't worry about me. I'm not going to let myself die."

Turning back to Kyubey, she said "As I said before, I wish Kagawa-sensei was a better, and more interesting teacher."

edited 1st Mar '11 3:24:58 PM by AnnoR

"Very well... if you're ready now, Hiroko"

Kyubey moved his ears towards Hiroko, causing a soft light seemed to emerge from the girl's chest, it's color a representation of the girl's nature. The process felt ethereal and it brought a weird sensation to the girl as from her heart a shinning gem was produced, it being the source of that soft glow which was now a brilliant light.

"Take it, Hiroko. It's the key to your fate... the Soul Gem"

Hiroko stared at the floating gem for a second, which had now taken a very light purple color. The whole sensation that had come along with its emergence had just felt... strange. Not really bad, as far as she could tell, just strange. She reached out and took the gem out of the air, and then held it in the palm of her hand.

"So... What... How do I activate my powers? What do I do now?" she asked, not yet looking up from the gem.

"Draw forth your magic from inside the gem. It should feel natural and instinctive~" Kyubey told the newly born Magical Girl.

"Right..." Hiroko closed her eyes and took a deep breath, focusing for a moment. She... tried to do exactly what Kyubey had told her. Her school uniform tore itself, altering its shape and changing colors, becoming a rather stereotypical purple magical girl outfit. Her sould gem appeared in a hair band on her head. She opened her eyes and looked down.

"... Whoa. This... this feels strange..." she said, looking down at herself. "But I need a weapon."

On que, a clockwork rifle formed in her right hand, complete with an extra-long bayonet. She stared at it for a second, then looked up at the rest of the spiral.

Beat the witch, and we're free... Alright.

With that, Hiroko began to ascend the spiral.

Hikari watched every second of it, keeping her eyes solely on her friend's transformation. She felt a bit guilty after watching.... for not being ready to help. She still didn't take her eyes off Hiroko as she climbed the spire, although she did feel herself walk closer to it.

edited 1st Mar '11 4:27:27 PM by Funnyguts

"You are going with her?" Kyubey asked, seeing how Hikari took one step closer to the spiral staircase. Kyubey then looked back at Chiyo and kept addressing Hikari "I cannot stop you if you decide to go after her... however as you are you won't be able to do anything there"

The lotus meanwhile took notice of Hiroko and then started to fly quickly towards her, they stopped flapping their wings lazily to stay afloat and instead started to spin quickly towards the Magic Girl.

Various gears spun and clinked in Hiroko's gun as she raised it. The lotus were... just plain weird. Giant paper flowers weren't exactly what she thought of when she thought of a witch's familiar, but they were probably dangerous in some way...

Hiroko raised took aim with the clockwork rifle and fired at one of the lotus, a resounding crack coming from the muzzle of the weapon when it fired. The flare from the weapon was purple, as opposed to a firey orange color.

Andrea considered the familiars. They didn't seem so tough, and in any case she was positive that she could probably kill them with a single blow. She was mentally sifting through a list of attacks she had named for herself in a moment of boredom when she remembered what she had left just a minute or so ago. Looking down, she saw that Hiroko was now clad in purple attire, and had some sort of odd clockwork gun she had fired at the familiars. So it had been done. Predictable. She whispered to herself:

"Kyubey you son of a bitch..."

Cautiously keeping an eye on the new Puella Magi, Andrea slowly ascended to meet the true threat, the Witch itself.

"I've got these things, Andrea!" Hiroko called to the blond girl, smiling. She was able to help now, and... well, being a magical girl was kind of cool. "I'll come up and help you with the witch after I finish them off!"

— Makoto Tomoe —

On the other side of town, Tomoe unloaded her bags from the pickup area. Her soul gem, hidden in her pocket, was sensing what was all too likely a very powerful witch. But she ignored it.

Not today, she thought. I need to focus on something else for a while.

Still, the murmurs in her subconscious were getting hard to ignore, even from here. To distract herself, she called out to her new foster mother.

"Hey, where do you and your husband live?"

She pointed at the nearby apartment complex.

"Okay, thanks. Let's get going."

Kyubey, Tomoe thought venomously, almost as if she were mentally talking to him, You'd better not be doing what I think you're doing.

edited 1st Mar '11 5:41:00 PM by fruitpork

As if they had heard her, all the lotus familiars concentrated on Hiroko at once. About fifteen of them started to spin at incredible speeds, their parchment petals becoming as sharp as blades as they launched themselves at the newly made Magical girl from all angles.

Meanwhile, after a long ascent through the staircase Andrea was able to find the realm of the witch. On a floor unsupported by anything there grew a vast field of flowers, colored in dark reds, purples and pink. An incredible amount of floating bookshelves made up the walls in form of a dome.

And floating in the middle of this space lay the witch. What was visible was a great sphere made up of unconnected and shifting metallic bookshelves. From the spaces between the bookshelves poured out a brilliant yellow light. At every moment the the bookshelves where changing position in the sphere, moving in a manner slightly reminiscent of an spherical rubix cube. Every once in a while one of the bookshelves that made up the sphere would float away from it, only for it to be instantly replaced by a new one from the walls. The top of the sphere seemed to be bare as a great beam of light fell right on top of it from above.

Hiroko's eyes widened as she saw fifteen of the paper lotus suddenly focus on her. She raised her rifle and fired, hitting one of the things dead-on, before ducking and moving a bit further back on the spiral, trying to get out of the spot they were targetting.

Eventually, Hiroko fell out of sight. Slightly uneasy, Andrea resolved to finish her part as quickly as possible- not for the sake of the three girls personally, but due to the general obligation that she had innocent lives to save. Andrea hadn't let a single person die under her watch and she wasn't about to start slacking now.

And there it was. The Witch, one of many myriad incomprehensible abominations that were the fragments of those Puella Magi who had failed to survive their trials and succumbed to corruption. Knowing full well that this Witch could well have been an innocent girl that she had known before, knowing full well that the three below her could well have the same fate, Andrea cautiously approached the spatial mess of a library that the Witch seemed to represent. She ran through her attacks, picked one at random:

"Bordeaux..." A giant, crystalline egg appeared in her hands; about the size of her head, it's contents were obscured by the opaqueness of the shell. She kept the egg carefully raised between herself and the Witch.

edited 1st Mar '11 6:27:59 PM by Katsuun

Chiyo began to move once again. Still nothing major, and she knew that she wouldn't have a hope of of surviving against things Hiroko had gone to fight if she was left alone, but she could move again without the curse directing her. She wondering if it was because Andrea and Hiroko were distracting the witch.

Regardless, she managed to take a step forward.

"C-can they w-win?" she asked Kyuubey.

The shot paper lotus suddenly had a very big hole on the middle of it before it caught purple flames and fell into oblivion. However the vast majority of the lotus were still unharmed and free to attack Hiroko. They dove towards the girl, missing her by inches due to her sudden evasive maneuver. However they were now quite close and it didn't take them long to change directions into Hiroko once again.

"Hiroko! There are too many to shoot them like that. You are now a Magical Girl! Don't limit yourself in how you defend" Kyubey transmitted to the horribly outnumbered Magical Girl.

At Chiyo's question Kyubey looked back at her "Of course they can! With the two of them I'm sure they have a chance"

The witch didn't move, though she shifted the bookshelves of her shell in a way that leaved a little opening through the which her light shone in a straight line at Andrea's face.

edited 1st Mar '11 7:57:20 PM by daltar

"Right! Magic, I have magic now..." Hiroko raised her clockword rifle. Did she have to shout something? That's how they did it in magical girl shows... Maybe she just had to focus.

With this focus, came a crack of purple energy from the barrel of her gun, which only became louder when a ball of crackling, violet energy gathered there. Hiroko looked shocked for a moment, then this shock turned to confidence as she pulled her weapon's trigger. The ball of energy fragmented into hundreds of individual bolts, flying towards the lotus.

It had just opened a perfect avenue for her attack. Andrea raised an eyebrow.

"Moron."

She tossed the egg with a strong heft of her arm, despite it's size the glass egg actually weighed little and flew easily at the chink in the Witches' odd armor.

The barrage of purple bolts struck the group of Lotus attacking Hiroko. Each individual lotus was soon covered in little holes after the which they fell from the sky to the ground below, their menace ended.

The egg sailed through the air straight at the opening in the witch's shell... however it would be that easy to penetrate her defense. The moment the egg entered it's range, the two bookshelves of either side of the opening moved themselves in an arc and closed themselves like claws to catch the egg in mid-air. After that the two of them shot themselves at Andrea.

Hikari stayed with Chiyo, watching the small bits of lotus paper drift to the ground. Hiroko was too far away for Hikari to stare up at her clearly, so she turned to Chiyo. "Is there anything I can do for you? Please, let me help you..."