Magical Girl Quest - The Fire That Burns

You turn to Daiyu and shout without thinking. "Get them out of the way!" Your voice cracks strangely for a moment, carrying a hum, but your words come through fine.

Daiyu nods at you as she floats closer. You cross your arms, bracing yourself with a wall of swords as she crouches against them. You feel her build magic, energy crackling along her form before she pushes off of you with a deafening bang. The force slams you into and through your brace of swords, with squinted eyes you can just about see Daiyu rocket towards the ground.

She hits the ground like a bomb, shattering the asphalt and sending a billowing cloud of ash.

You take the opportunity to turn your eyes towards the furry thing, which you were assuming was your target. It had already recovered from it's impromptu ride and was staring in the direction of the ash cloud. Still floating downwards, you don't have the chance to act as you see flames begin to lick along it's mouth, before exploding into a literal wall of flame. It rushes forwards into the cloud, melting the floating ash to glass as it passes.

(Fire Breath: +1200 Base Damage, +29 Dice, -200 Blind Shot = 1029 Total Damage

Primordia Intercept!

Ebon Heart: +361 Base Damage, +91 Dice = 452 Total Damage

577 Damage Difference, Ebony Knight loses.

Heart of Steel: 75% Reduction.

144 Final End Damage Heart of Steel)

You don't see Daiyu's response, but you see another wave of orange light cut through the cloud, hitting absolutely nothing. It does part the cloud though, letting you see a cone of undamaged ground behind Daiyu, who looks completely unruffled next to her charge.

You take the opportunity to form your barrier, then cast at the Peluda as it pricks its spines, magic settling heavily around you in as you let it surge through your sword. It tears free with a booming shockwave that snuffs out every fire within two miles, the sound giving the creature just enough time to react to your sudden interruption, dashing to the side faster than you can see.

(Juggernaut Wave: +61,200 Base Damage, +177 Dice, +208 Spell Boost, -15,396 Alpha and Omega = 46,189 Total Damage

Peluda: +1700 Base Resilience, +158 Dice, +4000 Overwhelming Speed, +20,000 'Invulnerable' Body = 24,335 Total Reduction

21854 Total End Damage

Peluda: 21,000 - 21,854 = -854)

It is fast, unbelievably so, but your spell covers such a wide area that it has no chance of escaping. It hits the ground and there is a flash, the air imploding from the force as the ground lurches. You see the Peluda try to stand against your spell, but when the full force hits it, it is just flattened. Your spell keeps going, enormous sections of the ground literally lifting into the air, an entire street pointed into the air as the world shakes.

You just float there and watch as your spell pummels the earth into submission, the shaking just getting worse and worse and the ground starts splitting. Your spell finally wears out, and the ground is mercifully still. You gently set down next to Daiyu and her charge, a short teenager wearing a Seifuku and holding a fucking katana.


Japan? Oh fuck, I don't speak Japanese.

You don't have a chance to say anything, because the ground starts shaking now, entirely on it's own. You feel a slow rumble building, before it comes to you. A fucking earthquake?!? You grab the teenager, Daiyu following behind you as you rocket upwards, ignoring her indignant shouts. Is that... French? The fuck?

You stare down at the ground as it roils and bulges, great cracks running through the already devastated village. The ring of earth pointing towards the sky begins slowly falling, colliding with the ground in an bang that could probably be heard for dozens of miles.

It doesn't last long, the ground settling in only a handful of minutes, the girl in your grip constantly squirming and yelling in French. You give her a rough shake and open your mouth. "Stop that and be quiet." Her sudden silence after your raspy words confuses you, until you catch her nervously looking between you and the enormous crater that was the Peluda.

It was outside of the village when you had cast, so it was mostly spared, ignoring the following earthquake. But the giant crater that you had driven into the ground was easily sixty metres deep and well over a one hundred and fifty wide. There was no covering that up, unless they somehow managed to make it seem like there was always a lake there, let alone how they were going to explain the fucking earthquake.

You gently set the girl in your arms down, where she promptly collapses onto her ass, staring around herself dazedly. Daiyu doesn't look much better, so you gently guide her over to a standing segment of wall and have her sit down. She struggles to keep her eyes open, but you gently run a hand down her cheek. "Shh, rest now. You've done more than I could have ever asked of you." Her eyes slowly droop, her head dropping forwards limply as she passes out, her transformation fading. You shift her slightly so that her head is resting against the wall instead of dangling awkwardly.

That done, you turn back to the... other Magical Girl? She is still sitting slumped on her knees, staring around at the destruction with wide eyes. She doesn't react to your approach, but slowly turns her head to look at you when you kneel beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder. Her ringed green eyes stare blankly at you, then turn back to the decimated village around you. You follow her eyes, settling on a strange black lump a couple of metres away. It takes you a moment of staring before you understand, a charred corpse.

Your breath hitches slightly as you look at it, but you shake your head and look down at the girl, ignoring the dozens of other lumps nearby. She was older than you, maybe a year or two? She was shorter than you though and she had light brown hair. You shake her shoulder slightly, until she turns to look at you again. "Hey, it's alright, it's safe now."

She stares blankly at you, apparently not understanding, until you hear her slowly speak back. "S-safe? It's safe?" Her accent is clear, but her pronunciation is fine.

You nod, gently moving your thumb over her shoulder as you would Una after she's had a nightmare. "Yes, I killed it."

She slowly nods, her clothing flickering as she slowly tilts towards you. She suddenly falls forwards, clothing dispersing in a crackling cloud. You catch her before she lands on her face, resting her against a large mound of dirt. Her sword remains solidly clutched in her hands and you see tiny red stains begin spreading all along her body. You quickly tear through her shirt, exposing dozens of tiny little wounds oozing blood.

You dig out several of the larger pieces, chunks or slivers of stone that are half buried into her. You pull out the last piece, a thin sliver that lodged itself under a rib and take a breath, leaning forwards as you build your magic, pushing it through her skin.

(Ignition Knight: 90 Magic Modifier
???: 15 Magic Modifier

Ignition Knight Wins

Regeneration Active)

You crush the resistance, much stronger than before and see her injuries scab over rapidly. They stop bleeding within a minute and you withdraw your magic, the constant struggle to maintain the healing pushing you. Her life no longer in danger, you pick her up and carry her over to Daiyu, setting her alongside.

With the two of them safe, you rest back against the remains of a car, fingering the Radio you'd found in a holster on the way over. "Ignition Knight here, the Peluda is dealt with." You glance around at the devastation surrounding you. "I'm gonna need a pickup, this place is wrecked."

The line is a little fuzzy, but you hear a voice come back through. "You have no idea how glad we are to hear your voice." You can hear relieved laughs in the background. "We were the combat group." That would explain that. "We'll be there in twenty minutes. You got any injuries?"

"Not me, but there was a..." You weren't sure if she was a Magical Girl, but it seemed right. You weren't going to say that here though. "Mage of some kind that was fighting when we arrived, she got roughed up pretty badly. I've stopped the bleeding, but she's still messed up."

"Right, we'll have a medic ready for her." The radio clicks off and you let your head flop back, connecting with the door behind you and denting it slightly, your head completely unharmed. The exhaustion of the past couple of days suddenly catches up to you, leaving you a little short of breath.

You lie there, idly staring at some of the corpses lying around until an APC comes tearing down what is left of the road. They quickly disembark, fanning out until they spot you, running towards you quickly. You let them approach, pointing to the girl when the medic closes. He tears off towards her, quickly healing what he can, throwing you a thumbs up when he's done.

The leader of the group, a tall woman wearing a fucking pointy hat, stops next to you. She holds out a hand, pulling you up when you accept. She glances around, whistling slightly as she stares at the new landmark you had created. "You don't do anything in half measures do you?" She scratches her chin. "I guess this explains that earthquake..."

You wince slightly as you look away from the hole, walking over to Daiyu. "Yes, it was... a little bit stronger than I thought it would be." That's a fucking understatement. That was way stronger than what I used at the camp. You lift Daiyu onto one shoulder, her body not even twitching at your touch and grab the other woman when the medic gives you a nod. You carry them to the APC, setting down the woman across several seats and propping Daiyu up against your shoulder in a seat.

You send a look at the woman leading this group and she nods, banging on the APC before calling through the hatch. "Hey, get these three back to base pronto, we're going to need to work fucking quintuple time to try and hide this." You don't hear him call back, but the vehicle's back closes quickly, the engine revving up before it pulls away.

You rest your head against the seat behind you, absentmindedly shifting Daiyu's head to rest against her seat more than your armour. It only takes her a minute to slide back onto you, head resting on your bare shoulder. You give her an amused glance, but leave her this time.

You look out the window as you pass some kind of checkpoint, large crowds of people being kept out.

Shit.


The base you pull into is buzzing with activity, uniformed soldiers trying to calm a massive crowd of people. You don't understand a word they are saying, but they don't seem to be violent.

You grab your cargo and are quickly ushered into a more private part of the base, out of the way of prying eyes. A computer is waiting for you, Karen's face upon it. Large chunks of it pixelate and detach as she moves, before refreshing. When she sees you, a tinny version of her voice comes through as you set the other two down on a pair of sofa's. "I'm assuming that everything went well then?"

You snort. "Relatively. You better be good at hiding earthquakes."

Her face scrunches slightly at your words. "Yes... we thought that might have been you." She sighs. "You don't need to worry about that, let me do my job, we'll take care of it." You highly doubt her ability to hide this, but you'd have to see. Her eyes laggily turn to the brunette passed out on the sofa. "Do you know who she is? Our sensors certainly felt your spell, but they thought they felt something smaller before that."

[] Tell her the truth, that you think she is a Magical Girl.

[] Tell her you don't know what that could have been, you don't trust her right now and the girl seems to be in shock.

+500xp Squished the Peluda like a bug
+25xp Met ???
+15xp Triggered an Earthquake, ???