Under the Open Sky (CWMGQ Spinoff)

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There's a splash of Ialemus' black blood hanging in the air. Only a small amount from Insight's bullet scraping along the back of his knee. Still, the physical result outstrips the depletion of his essential vitality. That opens up certain avenues of attack.

Hell Beasts are quite tough when fired upon, but if you can get a good grip on their necks it takes less than a tenth of the force to tear them in half. At which point it dies, regardless of how much vitality it holds.

Huh. That probably applies to yourself after a fashion. Another reason to be thankful that your Magical Girl state dissipates some attacks before they hit you.

He's going to react quickly, or at least you have to assume he will. Your speed needs to be truly overwhelming. If you can get a few good blows right below the ribcage that will set up grabbing organs and pulling them out. If. Speed is going to be everything, any power you can dredge up needs to be magnified by speed.

Urgency ticks higher as you plan out your blow. It's going to use everything you have, every bit of your Panoply, and as much of the physical portion as possible right at the end to get propelled at high speed. A good angle will let you interpose something between the demon and Red Rose. Insight probably has already planned to dive behind you.

You have to make your move. You have to hope you've thought of everything. If this goes well he's not going to move again. Short spikes of your weapon shoot into the ground, detach, and are left being as you push yourself faster along the immaterial threads that connect.

(High-Impulse Panoply: 1 Base Damage, +12 Dice, +200 Light of Discovery, +400 Burst of Speed, +100 Pincer Attack, -200 Flurry Mode, x9 SMASH! = 4617 Damage
High-Impulse Panoply: 1 Base Damage, +12 Dice, +200 Light of Discovery, +400 Burst of Speed, +100 Pincer Attack, -200 Flurry Mode, x9 SMASH! = 4617 Damage
High-Impulse Panoply: 1 Base Damage, +12 Dice, +200 Light of Discovery, +400 Burst of Speed, +100 Pincer Attack, -200 Flurry Mode, x9 SMASH! = 4617 Damage
High-Impulse Panoply: 1 Base Damage, +12 Dice, +200 Light of Discovery, +400 Burst of Speed, +100 Pincer Attack, -200 Flurry Mode, x9 SMASH! = 4617 Damage
High-Impulse Panoply: 1 Base Damage, +12 Dice, +200 Light of Discovery, +400 Burst of Speed, +100 Pincer Attack, -200 Flurry Mode, x9 SMASH! = 4617 Damage Hit the claws


600 Strain Damage from Flurry
18,468 Total Damage

Ialemus: 800 Resilience, +1238 Dice, -200 Off-Balance = 1838 Damage Reduction

16,630 End Damage

Ialemus: 646230 - 16630 = 629,600 Health
831 Resilience loss
800 - 831 = -31
Critical Resilience Failure

Magical Girl Summit: 14500 - 600 = 13,900 Health)

He blurs as you start your charge. He steadies himself up with one claw and blinks in fast forward. When the temporal acceleration wears off you're closer by eight meters and he's brought one of his claws up to block your attack.

You let the part of your Panoply that covers you slide off in its entirety. The foothold has ballooned in size behind you and propelled a solid chunk to propagate the lights of orange light. Your hair and labcoat flutter in the wake as the fast-moving mass rockets ahead, leaving its own trail of solid anchors.

The grip on the rocket-propelled Panoply becomes clumsy faster than you anticipated. Everything is already committed, leaving you little option besides trying to surge as much magic as you can call up into the guiding wires.

Ialemus appears calm while your assault sails right towards his outstretched arm. Confident in his strength to withstand you. A shriek of breaking glass and strained metal sounds out as your weapon rips itself apart into six large pieces and a small multitude of grip points. An explosive division that pushes each projectile off course from hitting him into merely bracketing him.

Speed is everything here. You can feel your protective field drain away to keep your weapon, arms and joints intact as you pull force through thin glowing guide wires. It surges tenfold when the pieces hit Ialemus' arm and the tension brings the wayward missiles into a tight curve.

It's not perfect. One part of your attack shatters in mid air. Another is caught by a wild swing from his other claw. The remainder extend barbs just as they impact.

You push with every iota of strength you possess to push the barbs deeper and wider. Time is running short for you. The monster on the other end of your extended weapon begins to act as you feel your capacity to move leave.

So you watch, hanging in mid-air as he reacts. He tries to jolt away, but your outstretched lines hold firm. He howls in pain, then pulls his arms back to pry out your barbs. The first comes free with a slurry of black ichor following.

Then you see horror in his eyes. Breath is failing him as neither head can chant. Red Rose's frozen spell begins to creep towards Ialemus. Voiceless screams fill both mouths as he brings one arm and then another to focus his power and keep the deadly effect at bay. It almost appears to work. Then the magic slips slightly closer and he tries to flap his wings and leap away.

In a tug of war Ialemus loses decisively. A large piece of his torso stays with two of your barbed extensions when he jolted away, a pair of black-coated membranes connected still. He loses coordination from the shock and tumbles onto his back.

The frozen spell returns to life and full potency. Red cuts through both of his claws, turning them into a cloud of bloody specks, then pierces his heart. With his death the dark filter around you vanishes.

Red Rose grunts and brings a hand to her bleeding wounds, scabbing them over with a touch.

"What did you do? What happened?" she asks after taking a breath.

"Summit happened." Insight chirps, "I brought her along for a reason."

You pull back your weapon from the corpse. It's troublesome that the claws were eradicated, you might have been able to use them. The blood spilling out has an odd interaction that is filling the nearby grass with a red color.

"Master! No!" a voice cries out.

More enemies. You lift yourself up and begin firing at the disorganized clumps, not bothering to surround yourself with your Panoply.

You can reach further than you had thought and still hold enough to protect yourself. It feels…
Amazing. Like you're a new person and your mind has taken flight.

Insight runs over to Red Rose. She pulls out a small stack of light green cards.

The demon that first cried out conjured some type of shield to deflect your attacks. You rake over the others with directed shots, a mistake. There's a sensation of dimensional transit from that point and the shield vanishes.

You clench your teeth in frustration and shift your Panoply into a ranged configuration to flatten the structures and harass some of the nearby hellgates for a moment. Orange light sweeps out from four wings as you glide from strands of magical force. After a double check shows no suitable targets you Shift back down to Insight and Red Rose.

"We need to move soon. Before we get targeted." you say. A moment of focus produces platforms for them.

"We are heading back." Red Rose says as she straps into the platform you had intended for Insight.

Insight jumps on the other platform and pantomimes surfing.

"There's another portal location."

"Bring someone else to deal with it."

"Yeah, that's something you couldn't have done an hour ago." Insight says, "Which makes it terrifying for everyone else involved."

You Shift away.

From above the landscape looks almost completely deserted. Hellgates are winking out of existence and the remaining demons are a chaotic jumble of barely-equipped grunts. There's still that oily feeling of active gateways, this place hasn't been abandoned yet.

A few more teleports return you to the center of all of this. A ghostly ring of shields hovers around ground zero. A 50 meter tall ...something, lies lifeless after being nearly shot in half. Lunar Radiance tears apart a crackling red hellgate with the jaws of her giant multi-headed snake form.

Juggernaut Drive, Solid Core, and Judgement Core are running loose circles up in the sky. Solid Drive and Judgement Drive are talking to one another while Goddess White watches and amuses herself by throwing and catching a large stone. Major Roberts, Samael, and Michael have dug themselves a trench, Lucky is presumably resting within it. Gabriel paces a bit back from Goddess White and Aquila is peering through a set of enchanted binoculars.

Maiden of the West and the snake girl aren't in the immediate area.

When you touch ground Red Rose unhooks herself and strides towards Samael's corner of the trench. Insight surries after with a hurried "bye!"

Goddess White gestures you over. You head over. Judgement Drive has her arms crossed and Solid Drive throws up her hands with exasperation.

"Oh. That's a nice look." Gabriel comments.

Solid Drive looks over at you. As does Judgement Drive.

"Good. You'll do. Someone has to start priming this end of the supergate and I have had no luck." Judgement Drive says

"Trying to get someone's attention?" Solid Drive teases, finishing with a bounce in place.

You glance downward momentarily, Insight starts giggling a bit behind you. Followed by Michael's laughter.

"What needs to happen at the supergate? Isn't it destroyed?"

"One, I don't know, that's where you come in. Two, yes and no. Each time a gate is added it's added to every other working gate. You could rebuild the whole system quickly from only one supergate if you controlled the destinations. It's the main reason making more is so damn expensive."

Goddess White chimes in, "Once the gate's mana tap is active the elves can block spells for weeks. Do try to get that working before the Dark Stars overlay an awful vacuum plane on top of us."

"No pressure!" Solid Drive says in a tone that suggests you should feel lots of pressure.
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Up Next: the Elven Empire and Counter Force seize Reluxus!

Summit's Appearance:

[X] Have your Panoply outstretched and leveraged for faster actions

[X] Go back to having your Panoply coiled around you as armor
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+1200 EXP Destroyed an Endurance Boss in One Blow
+300 EXP Put the Fear of You Into Many Demons

404 + 1500 = 1904 EXP

[X] [EXP] EXP Plan?
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A/N: Y'all should thank Faraway-R for making the max-speed plan that avoids Intercept on melee attacks. As well as for making me convince myself to give you a damage bonus for that high speed.

The intended method was to set him on fire and cart Red Rose + Insight around to actually deal damage.