Magical Girl Quest - The Fire That Burns

When you finally separate, you hear a knock. When you look around, you realise that it was on your door, the one you had never used. You slowly open it and are greeted by Samantha, small folder in one hand. You blink for a moment, before you remember the report you had asked her to put together for you. You thank her for her work and close the door behind you as she leaves. You inspect the folder over breakfast.

(Roll Average = 94)

You are pleasantly surprised by how little bad news there is. England continues to expand their industrial base rapidly, Europe has finally grown out of their funk and are co-ordinating somewhat. Even the tensions between America and Canada have faded slightly after America upheld their end of the border agreement. China was still an absolute mess that wasn't anywhere near being resolved and Japan was taking on a heavy burden of refugees, but the mass of people is apparently somewhat easing their drastic need for lower education work. Huh, I expected something worse.

You finish breakfast without much interesting happening and move on with your daily schedule. You take the free time in the event to experiment with a little, Morgan driving you and Una out to the now repaired spell practice range. You continue with your attempts to properly weaponise your Plasma Sphere.

(Cerys: 65 + 5 = 70)

Well, it doesn't explode this time, but you can't quite get it moving properly. You can move it, slowly, but it's unstable and only moves at four or five miles an hour. Still, after the way everyone nearby was carefully watching you, you were sure that they were expecting more massive explosions. The rest of the day passes quietly and moves on to the next, where your morning routine is fairly normal. When the afternoon comes, you are introduced to your new teacher. She is a giant of a woman, easily standing at six and a half feet. You were pretty tall for your age, but she still dwarfed you by more than a foot.

When you walked into the Gym to meet her, you hide your nervousness as best you can and stride towards her. She looks up from where she was sitting on the mats, holding something enormous in her hands, and greets you with a wide smile. Her head is nearly at chest high with you, even sitting down and when she shifts about it's like watching a small mountain move. She is bulky, but not fat, just very muscular. "Ah, you would be Cerys yes?" Her French accent is very faint, you wouldn't have noticed if you didn't know beforehand. She pats the ground in front of her, an obvious offer that you take.


When you settle down in front of her, you see that the object was a huge two handed sword. The handle was at least a foot long and the rest of the blade was maybe four or five. I guess this is why they called her over to teach me? She stares at your skinny form, you are still thin, but are now just starting to showing very slight signs of muscle. You don't look like you could pick up her sword, let alone swing it. She tuts slightly, leaning over to poke you in the bicep and the thigh.

"No no no, who 'as been teaching you?" She shakes her head. "You are much too thin to wield such a large blade, you would be better off with something smaller." She doesn't sound condescending in the slightest, but it's not like you could manifest a smaller blade, that was it's only size.

"No-one has been teaching me, they called you over to teach you how to use my sword."

She lets out a Hum as she looks at you. "Oh? You 'ave some kind of sword summon then, one you cannot change?" She taps a finger on her sword. "I will admit, I have only just been briefed. I know you are a Magical Girl, but I do not know much of them or you. I was called back from the front just yesterday to teach you." She shifts her sword in her lap slightly. "Come on then, show me your blade."

You nod as you stand, already reaching towards the familiar feeling of creating your sword. This Jeanne, she was a very no-nonsense lady, you would get along with her just fine. You create your sword in it's familiar blaze of blue, the weight settling into your hands. Jeanne shifts her sword off of her lap as she stands, carrying it with her as she does so. She walks around to your side, inspecting your blade as she does so, reaching out to prod it before snatching her hand back. Ah, heat. You quickly douse the heat coming from your blade, getting a slight look from her, followed by her running a finger along the middle of your blade.

"Mmm, I see now. This is your sword, these is no other for you." She nods. "You will have to change your exercise routine, I will provide your friend with what you need. I expect you to follow this to the letter, all of my time here will be spent teaching how to use your sword, not wasting it with improving your body." You nod as she hauls her own sword into her hands, running an hand down it's length with a slight singing of the air, her magic it seems. Her sword seems to have a very slight layer over it now, though you can't tell what it does. "Duelling bubble, makes sure that your blade will not cut anything, also stops them from being damaged." She tips her head towards the blazing edge of your sword. "Two handed weapons are heavy, you can often use them to snap smaller blades in half. The heat from yours should melt most things it cuts and I don't want to replace my sword."

You nod before sending a look at your own blade, she shakes her head. "No, it will be fine. If you manage to cut me then I deserve the injury, it will be a sign that I must still reach higher." You are a little dubious at her words, but she holds her sword up slightly and nods to you. "Now, I want you to swing at me."

You nod, heft your sword and swing. It's a perfectly normal swing, straight forwards and solid. The deafening bang that occurs when your sword meets hers makes you wince. When you have the chance to look, she is standing there, perfectly fine. She shoves your sword off of hers and gives you a nod. "Yes, that was good, a solid swing." She makes you swing at her several more times, each time making you adjust your footing a little or your grip. Eventually she shakes her head and lowers her blade, your arms are burning from the effort of swinging it, but she looks no worse for wear. "You have no bad habits, it was good that they left you alone. Nothing worse than having to un-train bad habits."

She rests the sword on her shoulder as she talks to you. "You are small, but you will grow, muscles will come with time. I will teach you how to break your enemies, yes?" You nod as you take a deep breath, lifting your sword a little as she pulls hers into a blocking position. "Now, strike."

The rest of your lesson continued on like that. Strike, learn, adjust, repeat. By the time you were done, you were completely exhausted and more than ready to just crash. You eat a large dinner that Morgan provides for you and crawl into bed several hours early. The next day is spent aching and groaning as you follow your usual routine, though your exercise regime was apparently passed over to Morgan at some point, because now you were doing an even more intense route.

By the time you are done, you are more than ready to keel over, but drag yourself off for lunch with Morgan. Who, the blessed soul that she is, has already made food for you and has it waiting for you when you arrive. You scarf down your food as you rest your aching muscles. All too soon you are called back to Jeanne's side., her and her enormous sword waiting for you. By the time you get back to your room, you are completely exhausted and once again fall asleep quickly.

The sudden lack of imminent swording the day after is a relief. Even if your body still aches from the exercise you are doing, it is much more manageable without having to try and cut a mountain in half when you are done. You actually feel well enough to do some magic practice. You drive out to the range to practice again.

(Cerys: NAT 1)

It... does not go well, in the slightest. The progress you had made on Monday had calmed people down somewhat, so they weren't as on-edge when your magic spiked when experimenting. They should have been, because that spike was you desperately trying to contain the ball of plasma after a bad idea. You just about manage to shout out a warning, the more experienced there creating any sort of shield or moving as far away as they can, before it explodes in your face.

Plasma explodes out of the ball faster than the speed of sound, the vast majority of it smashing you right in the face. You'd just barely managed to summon your sword and use it as an impromptu shield, but a lot of it still hit your arms and legs. The plasma instantly incinerates your clothes wherever it touches and leaves long stretches of your skin literally steaming as they deflect off of you. The people behind you were far enough away to get to cover and a shield was thrown in-between you and the rest of the range. You see it flicker ominously as you frantically crush every hint of heat around you, the area dropping from several thousand degrees to negative forty in barely twenty seconds.

That is still more than enough to set a vast swath of the range on fire, which you put out as soon as you can. When people emerge from their cover and see you, steam leaking off of your limbs and the arms of your back-up hoodie thoroughly destroyed they just stare. You cool yourself as quickly as possible and balance the temperature around you back to where it should be. When you do so, one of the workers? of the range comes over to you.

By the time you get home, Morgan is still laughing slightly and Una is starting at you in awe. You are banned from practising your more dangerous magic until they can create a safe area for you to do so. That means either going to the mountains somewhere or waiting a week for them to throw together a concrete area on the range.

Friday is a slightly embarrassing affair, as you see the people you pass stare at you as you go, but you endure it. Just before you were going to eat Lunch, Karen calls both you and Morgan to her room for a talk. Apparently, now that you had graduated from 'hopeless' to 'won't hurt herself' with your sword, she was going to start sending you on missions, starting today. When you ask, she tells you that the Scamps are starting to multiply and that if they want to keep magic undiscovered, they need them gone now.

Decisions...
[] Fight
[] Do not fight