You feel light. Lighter than
you have in
days. Though the weight of Candy Heart's death is still there, still bearing down on you, the pain of your betrayal does not feel as crushing as it did the previous night.
James was right. The extra sleep had helped, however minor... so maybe taking the day easy like Rei suggested wasn't that bad of an idea.
And with that thought in mind, you set out to find something to do that wasn't training: intent to simply relax for the day. And the first stop? To meet a new face. Shortly after you had split from James, you find yourself overhearing several soldiers as they speak about how a Independent Magical Girl had shown up from the Front Lines in order to personally investigate the attack on Earth and to see if her help would be necessary. Whether or not she'd be any help seemed to be the topic of debate, but the majority seemed to lean towards yes.
Upon realizing this, curiosity gets the better of you, and within ten minutes you find yourself wondering around the western entrance to the base, hoping to catch a glimpse of the independent.
Back when you had started, the idea of being an independent had crossed your mind: while the death rate of Independent magical girls was atrocious, those that survived tended towards being powerful combatants. Red Rose, and the Drives being prime examples. In all honesty if any survived their first year, they were practically guaranteed a spot in the illustrious Top Twenty.
And that was a prospect that attracted countless girls stronger than you had been to their deaths. So when you first came across her, you were momentarily confused as to whether or not you had found the right person. But that confusion didn't last past the introduction.
"Hi! I'm Magical Girl Judgement Core! Who are you?"
Magical Girl Judgement Core had been a Magical Girl merely two weeks longer than you have. And in that time, she had traveled the literal width and breadth of the Front Lines. Acting as wondering artillery support for beleaguered Unified Light forces in numerous dimensions, she beat the odds simply by making sure no one was sure where exactly she was at any given time. And thanks to that, she played her Divine growth rate
hard.
Simply standing next to her made you feel inadequate.
"Umm... I'm Magical Girl Solid Core..." You feel your cheeks flush, and your heart clench as she practically bounces to you. A quick lap and inspection, she comes to a stop and leans towards you.
"Solid Core eh? So your meant to be my Magical Partner." As her face pulls closer to you, you find yourself falling back on an old fallback that had started with your sister, and had stuck with you ever since.
"I... need an adult?"
Judgement Core blinks owlishly at you. Then turns a luminescent red. "I- I- What?!" She rears backwards, and almost falls over onto her but
t. "What did you think I was talking about you perv?!" You bury your hands into your face and
wish desperately wish you could just dive into the ground and be swallowed up. A thought you quickly squash
as due to the nature of magic making that a disturbing possibility.
-/LINE BREAK IDENTIFIED\-
You attempt to quickly evacuate yourself from Judgement Core's presence after their particular screw up, but you find that ditching the girl was leagues harder than ditching Carnage after a particularly raunchy moment. Which is how you found yourself towing her along with you as you make your way to the commissary to find out what the rumors of cake had been about.
The food fight you walk into wasn't what you were expecting.
The gloppy mess that was the usual distribution was flying through the air in horrific quantities. Along side it follows bread, vegetables, fruits, and an honest to got steak. (
"Nooooooooooooo!") Tables were up-turned
en masse to use as cover, as soldiers from all across the base flung their food at seemingly random targets. Chairs were being used as mobile cover, and the cooks were liberally fueling the battle as they tossed out entire batches of fresh 'ammunition' into the mess.
And the worst part? The officers that should have been working to stop it had gathered into their own little 'camp' and had joined in!
"Oh god. What is going on?" Judgement Core's voice breaks through your stunned horror. And as you prepare to turn to respond, your eyes are brought to the center of the commissary
, and the glorious prize
therein.
A single, perfect and unblemished cake. Two decks high, and covered in brilliant white frosting, with golden inlays and intricate patterns you suddenly know what you must do.
"My sister's birthday is tomorrow." It was a fact that hits you like a freight train the same instant you realize you had not celebrated her birthday in almost five years. And with that knowledge you act, leaving a confused Judgement Core to get brained with a ten inch wide blueberry pie with a creamy gooey center, and home-made crust. (
"My pie!!!!!")
You barrel into the fling-out on auto pilot, focused solely on your prize. The first three feet you cross unmolested, combatants totally unaware of your entrance onto the battle field. On the four-foot mark someone registers your charge across the room and flings a handful of goop at you! Completely on reflex, you reach down and lift a folding chair from it's resting place and block the attack!
As your defense rises, more and more soldiers register your appearance! At the six foot mark, and halfway to your goal, you are accosted from a dozen directions at once as the battle lines change their target to you. Beans and peas fill the air as a lieutenant uses a straw to fire them at you like a machinegun. His aim, while impeccable, proved insufficient to pierce the chaos that closes in around you: a dozen teams and more launch their assault to intercept those that tried to shoot you down as you cross the no-man's land, while twice their number attempt to bring you low!
At the nine foot mark, and so close to your goal you could literally smell you fresh-baked nature of the prize the side trying to stop you upends an entire table's worth of food in one massive attack! A wave clashes against your chair-shield and you can feel bits of turkey slip down your shirt, as beans worm their way into your shoes. Mashed potatoes splash into your hair, and spaghetti binds around your legs and leaps up the legs of your shorts, but the greater mass of the attack is stopped cold by the chair-shield you wield!
At ten feet, you drop to your knees, and slide across the ground in a perfect dive! Your momentum carries you to your target, but the maneuver unknowingly open you to one last attack: a major rises from behind cover, lifting a second blueberry pie to fling at you!
"Nepgear!" James and Michael burst from their own cover in the same moment, diving towards your defense, and for a moment you can
taste victory! Michael dives in front of you, valiantly taking the pie to the face, blueberry spraying through the air in great dazzling arcs, and falls to the ground with a thump, completely defeated by the incredible taste.
And then James leaps over several stacked up chairs, and mid
somersault lifts the cake from it's resting place in one perfectly smooth motion! And in that instant you could almost
kiss him!
...And then he promptly flings the cake at the end of his
somersault right into the face of the major that had attacked you.
Disbelief fills you in your totality as it scribes a perfect arc through the air, and slams right into the other soldier's face, spraying it's glory across the entire opposing 'battle' line. You kneel in the middle of the floor, James shouting at you to take cover for nearly a full minute until a plate stacked nearly a foot high in mashed potatoes takes you like a face
-hugger.
-/LINE BREAK IDENTIFIED\-
"SAY YOU'RE SORRY!!!!"
"I'M SORRY!!"
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU
OVER MY BLINDING RAGE!!!!"
"I'M SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Is she always like this?" Judgement Core's question barely penetrates you
r rage-induced beating of James and his screams. You bend his leg as far back as you can manage, using your magically-enhanced strength to have enough reach to gnaw at the top of his head. You can taste blood, but due to said rage, you can't bring yourself to care.
"Not really. This is the first time I've ever seen her legitimately pissed off. It's actually kind of scary."
You hear bones creak under James' panicked wails of agony, but instead of letting go, you grab an arm as it comes into range, and pull on it as well. "What is she even angry about? She seemed really calm when we walked into the commissary."
"I honestly don't know. This is really out of character for her on all sorts of levels... Maybe the stress of the last few days finally got to her?" Michael is standing off to the side with the other Magical Girl. You feel no anger towards him, for all he had done was take a hit for you during the food war, all of your rage directed at the helpless mortal beneath you, pinned to the ground.
"IT WAS THE CAKE!! IT WAS THE PERFECT FUCKING CAKE!!!! WHEN I SAW IT I KNEW THAT IT WOULD BE
PERFECT!! AND RIGHT WHEN I ALMOST HAD IT IN HAND, THIS IDIOT FLINGS IT ACROSS THE DAMNED COMMISSARY LIKE A GUIDED FUCKING MISSILE!!!!" Your visceral roar is barely legible, but you know that Michael, if not Judgement Core, manage to translate it. And as the light of understanding dawns in James' eye you know without a doubt that he was able to understand it too. "I WAS GOING TO USE IT TO CELEBRATE SEGA'S BIRTHDAY YOU IDIOT! HER BIRTHDAY IS TOMORROW! AND I WAS GOING TO CELEBRATE IT!! WE HADN'T BEEN ABLE TO CELEBRATE IT IN FIVE FUCKING YEARS!!!!!"
"I'M SORRRRYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!" James squeals at the top of his lungs as you continue to take out your apocalyptic rage upon him.
-/LINE BREAK IDENTIFIED\-
Thirty minutes and what was probably at least one broken bone later, you and JC (as you had taken to calling her) meandered your way through the middle of the bas
e. She worked at licking the remains of the blueberry pie from h
er face, while you carefully extracted the
everything that had gone down your shirt during your mad dash through the food fight.
She was having a better time at it then you.
"So, what do you normally do with your free time around here?" JC punctuates the end of her sentence by stuffing a rather large piece of pie into her mouth. "I mean, seriously: you can't have food fights in the commissary every day. That'd get the entire base court marshaled at least."
Sighing, you let your shirt drop back down over your stomach, "Well... normally I look into ways to improve on my Magical Girl abilities. Doing things like research and practice. The rest of the time I go around the base visiting the other Magical Girls on base, and hanging out with my team on occasion... so I'm actually kind of bland." You are not going to tell her of Rei adopting you as a pet. Ever.
Sadly, you have to quickly choke down that promise as Rei literally appears out of
nowhere, loops an arm around your neck, and drags you away with her calling out for everyone to hear: "Truth is holding a get-together between all the Magical Girls on base. I am not going without my pet."
And while the thought of twisting out of her arms and fleeing flashes through your mind, you instead sigh and decide it couldn't be as bad as Rei was making it out to be. Besides: what could be worse than the food fight you had just been a part of?
-/LINE BREAK IDENTIFIED\-
"Alright everybody! As an ice breaker I want you all to tell the rest of us the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you! As host, I shall go first!" You are now desperately wishing that you had ducked out. Truth stands atop a small go-cart in her civilian form, dressed in some kind of tiki-like outfit made from what looked to be pieces of wood and huge leaves. For a moment you wondered if she was high. "Back when I was thirteen, my class had just learned how to tie-die. My beautiful young mind, got it into my head to tie die my father's entire collection of tighty wighties pink in the front yard. It wasn't until I became a Magical Girl and moved to the North American region that I was able to leave it behind me."
Which raised the question of why he had brought it up now of all times... but then again if this plan worked, she would have dirt on everyone here.
Brilliant? Probably not.
Elizab
eth took it from there: "My dad walked in on me and my girlfriends during one sleepover. We were playing spin the bottle." Truth's face goes red, and your own brain locks up for a moment. Blue Sky saves the both of you though.
"Mine would have to be this time when I tripped down a flight of stairs at school and landed on a teacher. A few of the other students where the first to find us, and everyone w
as convinced we were in a relationship for the rest of the year despite me not even being in his class." Not as bad though still a bit embarrassing...
"Sis brought me to a water park once... I lost my swimsuit halfway down the slide." And your mouth is on auto pilot. As you turn red, everyone stares at you for a moment before Rei finally speaks up herself. Possibly to get everyone's minds off what you just said.
"Mom walked in on me and my sisters comparing bust sizes once. Not exactly my most cherished memory." The fact she cherished it anyway was left unsaid, though everyone could hear the unspoken words.
For a moment you all just sit and share in the sudden companionable silence. You pick at some of the food that still covers you, as you reminisce about the days spent with Sega... It... You find it rather relaxing in it's own way. And just like that, you realize the day was almost over...
As Truth's little gathering slowly disperses, you find yourself at a loss as to what to do next. The peace of the day sapped what desire to train you had from you, but at the same time you weren't quite ready to let it end.
You finger and gaze down at your grime encrusted shirt. Maybe a bath would do you well...
-day's end, pick one-
[]Take a
long shower and go to bed. Sounds like the perfect end to this day.
[]Check up on Sam. You haven't heard of him all day for some odd reason.
[]One last visit to another Magical Girl before you turn in. (Write in who you want to visit.)
+25xp The Food War
+5xp Met Judgement Core
+5xp Befriended? Judgement Core
+20xp Truth's Gathering, you think she was high
+50xp Had a relaxing day
+105 EXP = 163 Total EXP
[]EXP Spending Plan?
[]Don't spend any
(Character Profile Unlocked! Judgement Core (Level 2)
Shop Item Identified!)
