Magical Girl Home Base Quest

[7734]

Author's Note: Our first sidestory commission, by @Tiny_Dic.
/-/-/-/-

Spoiler: Music

Sitting around the small firepit, Jacqueline studied the back of her fingers and the patchwork Familiar at her side. He'd been a loyal companion these last few months, his cat-like form and long combat claws helping her escape those damn girls again and again. Sighing, the Witch studied her fire, before pulling out a tin of beans and using her Familiar to open it. As it cooked happily on a rock, she gazed up at the stars, plotting.

"Miss me, Jacky?" a voice said from the tree line, footfalls deceptively light for their jackboots coming towards her.

"Melchie, I'm hurt." Jacqueline said, her voice all too saccharine as she sketched a four-dimensional symbol in the air, the fire extinguishing into a pellet that flew into her hand. "I could never miss a spiteful bastard who's tried to kill me, oh, at least twice now."

"I assure you, that was only in the most professional of contexts." Melchoir said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a silver case engraved with a broken hakenkreuz. "Care for a cigarette?"

"You know me too well." Jacqueline said, moving over to accept the cancer-stick before lighting it with a puff of lightning. It was always good to remind the boys what she could do, especially a man like Melchoir Tomislav. Not many Alchemists lived to be the ripe old age of a hundred and thirty-two, and fewer still could keep their good looks doing it. Aside from blonde sideburns and a long scar that trailed away from his right eye into a white shock of hair from a long-forgotten sabre-stroke in the trenches of the Isonzo, he still looked like the dashing young man who'd started practicing alchemy back in the death spiral of the twenties. Jacqueline still had memories- not hers, of course- of watching him laugh while drinking some hell-brew next to a stack of rifles and a burning pile of reichsmarks as he celebrated some accursed deed.

Two puffs of the cigarette, and her eyes started swimming pleasantly, while the beat of Jacqueline's heart started dancing spastically. Throwing back her head to laugh into the night, she grinned madly at Melchior as her hands went numb.

"Really? I thought we were friends." she said, draping her form over his with a too-wide smile as the arsenic coursed through her veins. "Trying to kill me in such a pleasant meeting would just sour our whole relationship, you know?"

Melchoir laughed, blowing out a plume of smoke. "Would you believe me that I'd forgotten I'd poisoned the smokes? The apprentices were stealing them again, and I figure I might as well take the chance to winnow out the herd."

"Well, fortunately for you," Jacqueline said, laying down carefully to let her mortal coil expire, "I have such an adverse relationship with old man Death."

"I so forgot how you looked, m'dear." Melchoir said sincerely, bending down to kiss her flickering hand as what was left of her soul flickered through a technicolor rainbow, distorting the very air around it with the perversity it exemplified. Limbs extended and contracted, until the very expression of the Witch that was Jacqueline had snaked itself around the small clearing they were in, letting the unreality seep through the ground and bones of the earth.

"Why did you come here, anyway?" Jacqueline asked, smirking with one half of her head and sighing with the other. "It can't be because you're interested in a little dirty dancing, unless I really did steal your heart last time."

"Alas, no." Melchoir said dramatically, setting down his rifle in the grass and leaning it up against the too-tall dandelion that had bloomed behind him as tall as a sapling. "I need your help for a trade."

"Really, Melchie, just business?" Jaqueline said, sighing dramatically as a lamia's torso and too-beautiful human face formed out into an exaggerated version of her human body. "We had so much fun the last time we rolled in the hay!"

"You also tried to suck my life out of me through my dick, Jacky. I spent weeks in therapy, not counting the time it took to grow a new one after you bit it off."

Jacqueline tiffed, putting a faux-hand beneath her faux-head and snorted. "I was hungry, and you were so tasty though!"

"And you wonder why I never come to visit anymore." Melchoir muttered. "Before you keep distracting me, I do need to say what I actually need."

"You're here for what you're always here for, Melchie. A soul." Jacqueline said lazily, the curls of unreality creeping skyword until they created a laticed dome where an inverse of stars shined through. "Your law of Equivalent Exchange is so restrictive, keeping you out of your work. I know you need something still a little more possessed of intellect, of desire, of that spark of life that just dies when you turn everything into a mathematical balance beam that must come out exactly right."

"Jacky, you wound me with such lack of ambition!" Melchoir replied, standing up while lighting another cigarette. "I don't just need a soul, I need several souls- creative souls, bright souls, above all else souls with that sparkle of magic that means they can evolve ever further beyond."

"Oh, by the broken Cross, not this again." Jacqueline muttered. "Thirty-five liters of water, twenty kilograms of carbon, four liters of ammonia, one and a half kilograms of lime… start to sound familiar yet, Alchemist? An artificial human is impossible, and the last one of your ilk to try lost control and it killed him!"

"I'm smarter than Hanoch ever was, and that fat bastard never mastered making homonculi so his work is invalid." Melchoir said with a sniff. "We still don't know if he succeeded, which is the worst part. So much knowledge wasted."

"Hubris will forever be your downfall."

"And lust, therefore, unto thee."

The two stared at each other until the Bounded Field finished materializing, and with a snap they were transported. Planes stretched and slithered, coiled and folded, becoming separated and adjacent as coterminal nodes flashed into being. Physics itself went on holiday as the construction finished, Jacqueline's soul providing the teather and fabric itself of the demiplanar pocket. With a wave of her power, the mortal body that had been accidentally stopped was rewound like fine clockwork, foam and blood flying from the mouth as the poisons were purged and Jacqueline came back to rest in her prefered form.

"The topic of payment would be next to discuss, I suppose." the female form occupied by the Witch said, her words echoing out and around the fantastic landscape. "You know my prefered currency are the Westmost Ducats, but I'm apreciative of anything you would care to sweeten the pot with."

"You and I both know the Westmost Ducat has been deflating for three hundred years since the Frisians stopped minting them." Melchoir said, rolling a smooth golden coin between his fingers. "I can pay in Buffalo Dollars, and a corvee of labor from my apprentices. Well, the ones that are left anyway."

"Five thousand a soul, and two hundred hours of labor." Jacqueline said imperiously, her Familiar stalking up to her. "I require a broodmare for my poor St. Elzear here, as he has been terribly lonely."

"You know I can do that in under eighty hours of work from the apprentices, so let's cut it down to ninety." Melchoir said, smirking. "As for price per soul, I'm thinking around three thousand per."

"Why, I'll barely be breaking even on that deal!" Jacqueline said, poorly acting out a shocked expression. Really, remembering to animate one little sack of meat was kind of difficult when your consciousness- since as a Witch her soul was forfeit- was stretched over a hundred and fifty seven cubic kilometer bubble of demiplane. "Four thousand eight hundred a soul."

Melchoir winced overdramatically, picking up his rifle to sling it over his back. "You and I both know you'll end up eating one of my apprentices who fails to pay you hospitality or something, so I am obligated, obligated I say, to drive you down to three and a half thousand a soul."

"And is it not my right to deal with interlopers to my home as I see fit? Once the terms of contract are complete, they are guests in a Witch's domain, and it would behoove them to remember that."

"I'm not hearing a no…"

Flipping her hair back, Jacqueline sighed. "Four thousand even a soul, and that's as low as I'll go. A girl has needs, Melchie, and you'd best remember that."

"And to you, Jackie, I know exactly what needs those are and where you can have them fulfilled. I hear Rotterdam is quite pleasant this time of year. Still, three thousand eight hundred a soul wouldn't be that bad."

"Fine, you old graybeard. Three thousand eight hundred Buffalo Dollars a soul."

Melchoir smiled, and clapped his hands. "Excellent! I'll need ten."

Jacqueline nodded, before wincing in pain. "Oh! Good, very good. If you'll excuse me, though, I think we have us some intruders."

"Oh?" Melchoir replied. "Some poor, innocent souls?"

As a crack of explosives went off, Jacqueline winced again. "Hardly innocent, but yes. They've had me on the run for a few days I'm afraid. Their spell-weaver is incompetent, but I can't afford to make light of five of them."

"Woe betide me to not help a good friend." Melchoir said, pulling out a flask. "I'll handle it."

"Really?" Jacqueline asked, smiling. "Oh, someone's getting a present for Beltane this year. Would you rather she be fiesty, or meek?"

"Feisty. I need something to beat that isn't an investment." Melchoir said, drinking a hell-brew calmly as his form pulsed with arcane power. "Now hush, please. This will take some work."

Moving through the rolling hills of sugarsweet sand that made up the spineward part of the demiplane, it didn't take long for Melchoir to spot the girls. There were five of them, just as Jacqueline had said, spread out in a simple skirmish formation.

"You sure this is where the Witch headed?" one asked, glaring. "This doesn't feel like a full Labrynth to me."

"Damnit, of course it's a full demiplane!" another yelled. "Just look up for proof!"

Calmly, Melchoir loaded a packet of rounds into his rifle, and hauled the bolt back and forth. A regular round first, before he saw to with his limited sorcery. As the safety was clicked off, none of the girls thought they were in danger.


As the rifle cracked and the rearmost girl dressed in a ragged costume went down screaming, they were proven wrong oh so quickly. Running the bolt again, Melchoir scanned the battlefield. All the girls had found cover, meaning his first shot hadn't finished the job. Blast. Whispering words best forgotten, the barrel of the gun began to glow softly as the bullet inside soaked up an enchantment. Six left now, the Master Alchemist thought, the knowledge of how to make lead sharp as glass leaving his mind to descend back into Hell.

The worst part of fighting magical girls was the waiting. Both sides could afford to be patient, but only one of them would reliably win at a protracted and long-range duel of the fates- and it wasn't the magical girls. As a screaming golem of clay blitzed towards the dune where Melchoir was hiding, he shot it in the forehead with the finality of someone putting down a horse. A perversion of his Art, and enough to annoy him as the clay beast continued charging. Another spell, another round, and finally it was enough to dislodge the primitive helmet protecting the Name of God and the motive force of the monster. The last round was eight millimeters of lead alone, but that was enough to stop the monster in its tracks.

"They're running for the breach they made." Jacqueline said calmly over Melchoir's shoulder, her incorporeal form permeating his personal space. "I'll count that as a win."

"Pitty. Might have been a good fight." Melchoir grumbled.

"We can't win them all."

 

[7734]

AN: Commissioned by @KreenWarrior

Spoiler: Music

Sitting on the terrace café in Marseilles, Ouroboros sighed and stirred her coffee. Europe was a beautiful place, if you could get used to the peculiarities of the girls there. Everywhere around the world, this profession of hers was different. The bright lights and darks of Asia, the flash in the pan of the Americas, protective and cooperative powers in Africa, the glorious fury and epics of the Middle East… it was all different, and all special.

"I told you already, my circle can handle him." The girl in front of her, Bridgette, said airily. "It's not so major a demon to cause a true planar warp, and that's the danger here. Everything else, we have a counter for."

Ouroboros rolled her eyes. "If you are correct on the identity of what was summoned, then yes, you can handle him. If you are incorrect and my guild's research holds true, then what will happen is you'll walk in and then you're going to get entrapped by a bounded field."

"You place too much stock in your circle's research." Bridgette said loftily. "You are but a young group, and have much to learn from your seniors."

Rolling her eyes, Ouroboros pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a snap of her fingers. "One, that is blatantly disengious considering we are the experts in Demonic interference in Witch-work and are globally known for it. Two, your circle is twelve girls strong, and this is the sort of threat that everyone agrees should be handled by at least twenty or thirty girls so you have proper recovery for wounded."

"We are masters of elan and have autonomous recovery." Bridgette said, sipping her drink. "This has let us trim out far more wasted manpower than you'd first think."

"You finally got that finished?" Ouroboros asked, nearly dropping her cigarette. "You are dancing on the cusp of madness, and there is exactly one artificer I know who could be remotely trusted to create a golem not given direct and divine animation. We are not in Rome. This path has been closed to us for centuries!"

Bridgette chuckled darkly. "Whoever considered that we would give the machine a soul? No, let it rest as mere iron and automata. Without something for a demon to strike at, it will be as if a tree, or safer."

"I do not trust your engineering nor your artifacy."

"And I do not care what a girl a century my junior has to say about the way I run my circle or how I choose my targets. I was born under the auspices of the Sun King, and this circle was founded with his personal blessings." Bridgette said, her temper cold as leaded glass, and twice as brittle.

That was nothing, though, next to Ouroboros' rage. "The Sun King, then? Well enough, for a ruler in Europe, a benighted continent of disease tied to the yoke of feudal warlords. I was born as cousin to Abbas the First, the Great, the Shah of Shahs, and I predate your precious lightbulb of this cesspit by at least sixty years. If we did not both fight those evils which have plagued our trade and the world for the last three thousand years after Sulayman the Great first took note of what djinn chose to reject the light of God and work against the hands of man, then I would surely take you to the field and demand what excuse for satisfaction one so enraptured in their own chemical bliss might provide."

Rejecting the table, Ouroboros moved over to the balcony, staring south. "Sirocco!" she roared, ire raging. "Sirocco! Sirocco!"

This done, she stood up on the railing, put her spread hand up to her lips, then pointed to a closed hand with one finger before jumping off the railing. Two stories were enough of a fall, though, and as she ran over Bridgette realized that her conversational partner had disappeared without a trace.

-/-/-/

"Boss, you can't keep doing that to me." Sirocco groaned, back when they were on the boat. "I nearly dropped you. Twice!"

Laughing, Ouroboros gave her friend a hug and a kiss on the forehead. "I know, I'm sorry, but it's so much fun! You're the fastest flyer I've seen in decades, and it's like the good old days of barnstorming again!"

Walking up to the two of them, a young woman in dark slacks and a ruffle shirt under a waistcoat sighed. "Ouroboros, please stop trying to poach my girlfriend for, like, ten minutes? Please?"

"I'm sorry, Zephyr." Ouroboros said, before walking over to her and kissing her cheek too. "I'm still a tad wound up by that damn tart. Trying to bludgeon me, of all people, with her seniority and pedigree!"

"Well, you can be salty about it belowdecks." Zephyr said, although not unkindly. "We've a request to make best time for Montreal, because some other members of your whatever-you-call-it need to take the Northwest Passage up and carry some plane-sensitive cargo to Sendai."

"Couldn't they just fly out to Kaguya and fly back?"

"It's too sensitive even for that apparently. Might even be too sensitive for you to stay on the boat!" Zephyr said, laughing. "As much as I love your coin, you know that your semi-corporeal form fucks with touchy stuff."

"Listen, you need a crazy Serb to try and potshot you out of a car one time with bullets that'll actually stick, and you get a little paranoid." Ouroboros griped. "Still, I do need to do some stuff and change my makeup, so if you don't mind?"

"Go ahead." The two Winds said, smiling.

Belowdecks, the ship was titanic, enlarged beyond the constraints of her mere physical volume time and time again over the last hundred and fifty years. Each timber had been enscrolled with corporeal magic ten, no, a hundred times over; each frame decorated in layer on layer of fine spellwork and mysticism. It took a fair bit of walking to find her cabin suite, but once Ouroboros did it still smelled like home and a boat. Lighting two sticks of incense, she settled down on the floor, humming softly as she brought up the hundreds of bounded fields that surrounded her body. Before she had been Ouroboros, she had been the Decietful, using layers on layers of fields to control her appearance like the paint on a doll. As the last of the magic faded away, she examined her true form. Strong bones defined her face, and there was a trace of the mountainside in the tone of her skin and the structure of her face. Her body was still full and hale, an image of slight beauty that had just discovered the cusp of womanhood, but would never become a matron in the fullness of time.

Smiling into her mirror, Ouroboros sat down on the sea chest at the end of her bed, and considered what to become. Montreal was a city of European design and logic, but the people, the Canadians, were not the blood-hungry ones that clamored for the strength of nations that Europeans did. She could afford to let more of her true face show, although some slight tweaks to her eyes added a sense of Orientalism that would throw most people off. A bit more flare to her nose, now, and a narrower, more heart-shaped face would work wonders. As to the rest of her? Well, now, that depended. Negafook would probably be there, and she was a sucker for a strong build.

Inflating her size to over two hundred centimeters, Ouroboros started sculpting her body carefully. Muscle, yes, but not the corded and detailed work that would be incorgious. Assets a-plenty, yes, both above and below, but a trim waist with a hint of softness. Voluptuous, that was the goal, not balloons on bricks. The right clothes to accent it, that would be a trick. Black, red, white; that would be the color scheme, darker below and lighter above as the blouse grew white fluff and blood-red trim and the skirt had napping panels that changed colors as she spun. A ring on her right finger, black jet, and a pair of golden studs finished the costume with a smile.

After that came the waiting. Grabbing a smartphone built as a trade of tools with a rather adventurous gal in Singapore, she started scanning through the contacts. Everyone was asleep, naturally. Oh well- she could use this time to design a scroll, or-

-or get some tedious rituals out of the way. Taking a few minutes to lock down the spellwork that led to this appearance, Ouroboros sent it away and got to work. Her present title was one that was older than her, and a technique that was a trade. The American Alchemists with their strict focus on not bypassing the Law of Equivalent Exchange, and for all the headaches it caused them it existed for a reason- not because it was a law of nature, but because it was a law of man. It kept the caster out of the equation; prevented the soul from entering the work, and divorced the practitioner from what they wrought.

The Ritual of the Ouroboros was the opposite. At the end of the world beyond which all the lands of Men might lie, was the World-Snake, forever encircling the world with it's tail grasped in it's mouth to form a circle of containment and bounding. Here lies the realm of Man, and here lies the realms not of Man. It was eternal. If one could draw a mystical connection, one could take on attributes of a creature. Shapeshifters used it as the root of their art; summoners and voudun priests too.

The fact the World-Snake was alive made it a perfectly valid target, and at some point, a brave woman went and made the connection, and bound it into a ritual.

Now, it was Ouroboros, once called Deceiver, once called Djinn-whisperer, once called Nahid, and forever known for her artistry, who would preform this working. Drawing out her namesake symbol on the floor of the cabin, she sighed and started chanting. This was the language of her childhood, and not one soul would understand the simplicity of the creation. Three steps around the inside of the circle, repeated three times, then a pinch of hair from the head and a pinch of hair from elsewhere to show the head and the tail coming together. Settling down to the floor, the girl once called Nahid sighed and got to the hard part- shifting her leg up and around to where she could bite her foot.

A large part of the ritual was establishing the sympathetic mimicry, and that meant motion to represent the orbit of the World-Snake around the realms of man, and stillness to show the eternity. While, naturally, mirroring the posture of the World-Snake. So, the girl once called Nahid sat there, and bit her foot until faint drops of crimson fell to the decking, and held her position. Scars still decorated her foot from those early days when her legs and tendons weren't used to holding this position and her teeth had ripped at herself, but several hundred years was plenty of time to correct a technique. The rocking of the ship didn't disturb her any, and slowly her mind faded away. Mortal concerns did not disturb the World-Snake, for it was eternal. The passage of days, the motion of one star, the spinning of a planet, not nearly so important as the peace and serenity that was eternity.

The girl once called Nahid was not so immortal, nor so immaterial, however, and as a twinge ran through her leg she brought it down, sighing. The ritual was complete, and some quick work with a broom and dustpan cleaned the floor, while a fast spell disposed of the material reagents needed.

Groaning, Ouroboros stretched herself back out, and re-cast her preferred face for today. If her clock was correct, they'd reach Montreal soon, and it would behoove her to make sure she was ready. After all, one never knew what sort of fun she would find!

 

[7734]

(A series of four commissions by @KreenWarrior to be posted as I finish them. Three more to go.)

The club was noisy, with bright lights flashing out of the windows and the thump of a base desire and heavy beat coming out the door. There might not have been a line, per say, but there were a pair of bouncers to control the crowd in front of the affair. Most of the guys and girls waiting to get in were patient about it, but someone always was going to get pushy. The girl walking up screamed fashion punk, from the once-long plaid skirt that steadily frayed until you could only count the top third as a complete garment, to the white shirt sans sleeve trying and failing to hide a full black corset with silver piping. The only misnomer on her was the two golden torcs on her wrists, each one a coiled snake- the right with sapphire eyes, the left with emerald.

"ID, please?" one of the bouncers asked. A wave of her left hand, though, and his eyes were glazing over.

"C'mon, Paddy, you know me." The girl said, voice sweet and dusky.

"Of course, miss." The bouncer said, nodding. "Still like an Emperor's Horchata?"

"You know it."

Inside the club, the pulse almost seemed dimmer as it mixed with the heartbeat of the patrons. A powerful piece of magery was at work here, but powerful didn't mean louder than the music. Sipping her thirty dollar drink at the bar, the girl waited calmly. Her target would be coming through any minute to pick a new victim.

It was a few minutes later, and a tap on her shoulder by the bartender, that got her to blink.

"From the owner." The bartender said, smiling. It was a tall goblet of washed milk punch, red with raspberries and bitter with cloves. "He invites you to the higher lounge."

Shrugging, the magical girl moved up to the wrought iron stairway to the next floor. There, the sound fell off, and amidst the velvet and leather a young man sat on a loveseat between two buxom girls.

"Ah, Celeste, my darling, so good to see you!" he said, flouncing his way in. "It's been months, you know!"

"Sitri." Celeste muttered. "Why are you talking?"

"Because you're not stupid enough to beard a dragon in his own den." The Grand Prince of Hell said, his mortal illusion flickering in the sapphire light that gently came from the torcs.

"True." Celeste said, smiling. "Considering how well things went last time, however, I was willing to give negotiation a shot."

"Oh?" Sitri said, form flickering.

"The delusional vampire that summoned you is dead. Now, either you can agree to go back to Hell peacefully, or I can turn your unholy artifact upstairs into ash and watch the Presidents drag you back to work."

"A hard offer…" Sitri said, before bringing his hand up, forming a magical circle to throw a ray of heat. Celeste was ready, though, and a thin green line pierced through to strike the demon in his shoulder. As corrupted ichor flowed forth, the demon screamed, the girls on the couch fell back frothing at the mouth, and the heat ray flew wide.

"I warned you." Celeste muttered, eyes flickering as the power coursed through her. Putting both hands over her head, circles of prepared runes flickered out around her, layering themselves deeper and deeper. This was not her spell, but it was still a great one. "Titans' thunder, heed my cry/ for if not, then we shall die/ 'twixt barren rock and broken plain/ our home and God ne'er seen again."

The green and blue snake eyes flashed, and above the building energy built.

"I didn't think I'd be worthy of your death, Celeste!" Sitri yelled as he started forming a thin sword out of demonic energy. "I'll enjoy playing with you down below, but it won't be for long!"

"From demon's wroth and bitter brew/ this gift we make to send to you/ all sin contained in package clad/ of hellspawn and devil's band"

Sitri paled. "oh"

Then the thunder came screaming down. Hitting the roof of the club, it struck through the demon's living quarters to destroy the binding seal, then coursed down around Celeste. Laughing, she walked up to Sitri, before blasting his head off in a ray of light.

"Now, let's get you home." She muttered to the poor girls still paralyzed by their master's banishment. Lightning that once burned soothed, and in a crackle of ozeone the maleficence was burned away.

 

[7734]

"Well, this is a pickle." Sona muttered. Three vitriolic Familiars were standing guard at the end of a cul-de-sac, covering all the angles. "I hate it when we get a smart Witch."

"I mean they could be garbage men?" the new girl, Pica, asked.

"First rule of a hunt, they're never just innocent bystanders. No such thing."

"I'll handle it." The other girl, Acer said. Dusting off her red and violet dress, she pulled out a combat knife from behind her back, testing the balance. "Don't hit me, please?"

"Relax; I'm not pulling the trigger until you're clear." Sona said. Nodding, Acer moved in. The Familiars turned, staring at Acer as she walked forward, an old solitaire ring on her knife-hand glittering. Hissing, the first one got ready, before letting out a piercing scream. That was the inhale. Next came the exhale, a wave of sharp acid that left smoking concrete in it's path. It struck true on Acer, burning and hissing.

"Is she nuts?" Pica asked.

"No."

The familiar laughed, right up until it noticed the girl was still walking. Two more screaming jets of acid failed to slow her approach, and then she was close enough. Reaching out, she casually grabed the shoulder of the first familiar, dragging it to the ground. Mutating under her hands, it turned more and more serpentine, until it was fully revealed as the root combination of man and snake. Then the knife came down into it's throat, and through it's spine. Acer was thourough, ripping with a too-calm precision as she butchered it and extracted the heart. Taking a bite, she smiled a bloody smile.

So horrified were the other two Familiars that they never noticed Sona and Pica casting oblivion onto them. Then came the house itself. Caught in a heated debate on how to breach and clear it, Pica and Sona didn't notice Acer's approach, heart still in hand as she ate and kicked down the door. The attached shotgun blast didn't even faze her.

"Rock salt? Really?" Acer called up. "Points for creativity, I guess?"

A hand grenade out the window was the Witch's response.

"We'll keep her from getting out." Pica yelled. "Good luck!"

The witch hadn't left her post, and moments later a bolt of ice narrowly missed Pica's head. Ducking, the junior magical girl winced.

"You idiot." Sona muttered. "Do you want to pull a Muskateer?"

"Who?"

"I'll explain after this just pay attention!"

Growling, Acer moved through the house. The kitchen was sadly clear, and the tripwire to the lighter by the leaking gas stove was too easily diffused. Then came the stairs.

"Stay back!" yelled the Witch from up top. "I'll shoot to kill!"

Acer didn't care, moving up the treads. Credit where credit was due, the greased treads didn't start until the fourth step, and it wouldn't have gotten her if there hadn't been a bowling ball thrown at her from the balcony at her back. Falling down, she groaned. Fine. Cracking her knuckles, she slammed her knife into the wall, hauling back until it caught on a stud she could haul herself up with it. Knife, stud. Knife, stud, until she finished the climb up.

The snap-crackle of a lightning bolt told Acer the Witch tried to bolt. Fat chance.

"You!" another familiar roared. "I won't let you hurt my sister!"

Turning around, Acer braced herself for the monster. A Familiar made of a stitched together child and dozens of pieces of construction equipment, it howled mournfully before powering up the drill fore-ends and pulling forth a profane sword.

"Oh. Oh dear." Acer murmured. "I'm sorry."

"DIE!" the Familiar yelled, charging. Parrying the sword, Acer was shoved into the ground by the drill trying to rip into her dress. A swing of her knife stopped that as she cut the air line, the loose pneumatic hose flying free in a havoc of cutting air. As the hose whipped around and sliced off an arm and a leg, Acer's knife flew up, right under the child's sternum to pierce it's heart. Coughing and laughing, the Familiar just tried to bite her before the blood loss killed it.

Stepping up, Acer came to the last room of the house. Inside was the Witch. Moving through the door quietly, she saw the girl, a pale memory of someone like herself. Power, corrupted, twisted and bent.

"Please. No." the Witch whispered. Acer nodded, and tucked her into the bed, smiling faintly.

Then the knife came down.

 

[7734]

Sitting at the small round table were two girls, one in black and one in white.

"This is the last one I can get you." The one in white warned. "They've figured out I'm giving them away."

"I'll only need one shot." The one in black promised.

"I hope so, for your sakes."

-/-/-/

It was several days later that things finally came to a head between the Witches of the Delta and the Sirens of Pontchartrain. War was in the air and waves, as the girl in black ducked behind cypress trees and through the swamps along the north edge of the lake. If she could get back to Amite, from there it would be a short walk across the inverse of the world to reach New Orleans and her target.

"Well, ain't this'un a find!" a voice called up from up in a tree. Looking up, the girl hissed. One of the Sirens, her matte feathers dripping with gore as the wrung neck of a Familiar sat in her claws sat there, smiling a vulture's smile. "Been a fair while since I smelled me a martyr in the making!"

"The cypress swamps are neutral ground."

"Oh, don't you give your gran-mere that!" the Siren said, cackling. "At least give me a name, girly, so I don't take you out for a ride where the Three Sisters are waiting. Got 'em fresh up from mon amis in Detroit, and they be right hungry from the swim down here."

"Souvalaki." The girl in black said. "What will passage cost?"

"A bad turn against the voduns would be a good start." The Siren said. "They started this war, and it'll be the blood of them and their loa we spill to end it. Swear on a Name you'll break the first piece of gris-gris you find, I call this passage even."

"Fine." Souvalaki said. "I, Souvalaki-"

"I no said what I called you, girl." The Siren spat. "I said your Name."

"I, Marie Grant, swear to break the first piece of gris-gris I find."

The Siren cackled. "Good girl. Keep on walking now, and I might even forget what you just told me."

Shaking her head, Souvalaki just kept moving through the swamp. It wasn't long before she hit Amaris, and then it was a walk across the inverse of the world to reach New Orleans and her target.

The Vodun Witches were good, but they were still bound by ritual. It was there, in the courtyard where the morning empowerment happened, that she planted her charges. Nine inconspicuous bricks, coated in symbols and thrumming with magic, they were not out of place in the cobbled square. All that remained was finding a garret to hide in, and to wait for morning to come.

When the sun and stars brought the appointed time about, the square was full of the devout Witches and their Familiars. The Queens had been warned to keep their hands away from this fight, and no mortal man would die here today. These creatures had forsaken humanity long ago.

Quietly, then louder and louder, the singing began and the drums were beaten. Each Witch was choosing her Loa, preparing for the day's war as they sang and preened in front of their hoards. Settling down, Souvalaki pricked her finger to draw blood, and inscribed the circle on the wood of her perch.

"Let the snake's skin come and whet their cries for attention." She muttered, the spell to arm the devices warm in her hands. "Let the ashes come and clean the remains."

The trap was set; as their ritual escalated higher and higher, more and more of the Witches completed the bargains for power. Then, as the lead Witch completed her binding, the gates of the trap slammed shut. Each brick started unfolding, the hundreds of runes encapsulated in each lighting up as they raised a dome around the event. Nothing was severed, so the seniormost Witches weren't worried about it.., until their shoes were soaked in the water pouring forth. The semicircle had revealed the method of their destruction: drowning. More than a few of the younger witches charged the barrier, slamming their fists and magery at it, and the sweeping waves of cinders that erupted in response killed no few number of them.

It was about an hour before the dome's work was finished, the Witches dead and destroyed. Nodding to herself, Souvalaki dismounted her perch and got to work destroying their tools.

 

[7734]

(finished this piece late last night, forgot to post it)

Looking at the 'abandoned' train terminal, the strike team of magical girls scowled.

"They're dug in pretty good." Eowyn muttered. "I smell at least two machine guns, and there might be rockets."

"Lots of magical defense too." Trompdoy grumbled. "Feels like a… I want to say five-stage ward. I can't spoof it."

The other two girls winced. The initial plan was for Trompdoy to spoof the wards, break in, steal and burn everything not nailed down, and use Eowyn's Shadow Mounts to ride out before they could organize a pursuit. Now that plan was carked right proper.

"Let me take a look at it." Calypso said calmly. Stepping up to where she felt the magic tripwire, she knelt down and pulled out the pocketwatch. As the cover slid open smoothly, the hands kept ticking in true time, while the dials inside the face started spinning carefully. Scratching a quick circle in the dirt and muttering an incantation, she stared at it carefully.

"There's a way through." Calypso said carefully, staring at the sympathetically displayed ward matrix around her. "Just give me a minute to pick it out."

"You sure it'll stick" Trissa asked, squinting. "Cause that ward smells nasty."

"It's not a real strong one, just five back to back apprentice ones." Calypso explained as she felt her watch focus click into synch with the ward net. "Normally I'd have to goose-step through all the holes with about a centimeter for error, but right now? Now I have options."

As Calypso fiddled with the watch, the rest of the girls watched carefully. "Nothing on one, two is binding... no, that's a spooler, damnit, nothing on three, is four… four is not anchored to anything you fucking scrubs…"

"What in tarnation." Trissa asked.

"I'm defusing this mess of a ward now hush"

A minute later, Calypso started chuckling. "You fucking idiots. Girls, follow me!"

As the group walked straight in, Calypso kept grinning right up to the front door. "Trissa, think you can blast through?"

The young magical girl smiled. "With pleasure."

Placing her hands against the door, Trissa muttered a brief incantation, and there was heat, fire, and most of all rage that left the door asunder. Charging through after the dust settled, Eowyn pulled a sack of darts out and started throwing, each missile digging preternaturally deep into the walls of the building.

There were few guards, and fewer still when their work was done. Then came time for the pillaging. Diving into the stockpiles of treasure, there was much rejoicing- and no small amount of trepidation on Calypso's part. A trapped cache would be devastating, and before she entered each one got scanned. Not all the others were so paranoid, though, and as they were cracking into the supply areas she felt a seal go off. Turning and screaming, her hand instinctively clicked the third button on the watch. Time slowed, stopping, and it gave Calypso a chance to turn and start running.

As the grayscale world held true, the pocketwatch grew hotter and hotter. It still held long enough for her to get to Trompdoy and the slowly expanding fireball that was going to eat her alive. Going into a slide, time finally broke free it's artificial chains just as Calypso's foot hit Trompdoy's legs. It wasn't enough to get her below the blast entirely, but one burned arm was better than her whole body.

With the world returning to it's natural rhythym, an alarm started blaring.

"What the hell?" Trissa yelled, packing a sack full of cinnabar and myrrh.

"Traps on some of the caches, we gotta scram!" Calypso roared. "They'll be bringing in the combat units soon-"

"Oh shit!"

Turning around, everyone looked at the tracks, where Mistletoe had spoken for the first time today. Next to her, the train was slowly standing up and transforming into a giant combat mecha. As steam and smoke poured out of the stack, Mistletoe yelled.

"Get back! I got this!"

"Are you nuts?" Eowyn yelled. "Run!"

Moments later, Mistletoe started chanting, a spear forming in her hands. It started covered in leaves, but as her work finished it condensed itself into a bolt of gray metal, rust, and glistening explosive. As she threw it, Mistletoe yelled 'Begone' at the mechanical beast, and when it struck explosions and flames jolted out. Screaming, the train-golem clawed at it's chest, but the bolt was not stopped as it exploded into burning fragments that destroyed it's volatile innards.

"Time to go." Calypso, said, sighing. No one there was going to argue.

 

[7734]

Commissioned by @Strypgia

Spoiler: Music

To most people, the auto shop would have looked long abandoned. Decrepit vines crawled over it, while the insides were filled with a soft gaslight. Four magical girls were sitting around inside, two asleep and two awake by the fire. Some small sound filtered out, the hum of the old treadle sewing machine and a crackle of the heater and light.

"Do you think it'll rain soon?" the one on the sewing machine said, sweeping back her cyan hair. "It always rains before trouble starts here."

Lying by the heater, her friend sighed. "Ramiel, I don't think we're going to have more trouble than usual right now. It's the quiet time of the year, after all."

"You always say that, Fate. I can't take you seriously."

The sewing machine kept humming, and the gas-lamp kept flickering. In the back of the garage, four carefully-tended motorcycles sat without moving, until they weren't and one fell over. Sighing, Fate got up from her spot by the heater, brushing off her catsuit and staring at Ramiel with a stink-eye.

"Could it kill you to make a skirt sometime?" Fate asked, sighing.

"Yes." Ramiel replied, pulling another pin out of her work and putting it in the pincushion wrapped around the old Singer's neck. "I know how to make stuff skintight, so skintight is what your costumes are."

Moving towards the bikes, Fate groaned. "Yeah, but they're too hot, and I end up unbuttoning it to my naval, and there's no support. C'mon, can't you at least make something I can put a bra under?"

"Since I'd have to make the bra for it to integrate right, no." Ramiel grumbled. "I'll think about something nice for you once I'm done with the one for Lisa, though. Fair?"

"Sure."

As Fate got to the motorbikes, she found a large calico cat sitting on one of them, licking it's paw and glaring.

"Well good to see you too, Elise." Fate said, picking up the large cat. Meowing softly, the cat stared at Fate until they got by the heater and she started to transform back into a girl.

"God, it's been a long week." Elise groaned. "Y'all got a spare bathrobe or something?"

Tossing one at the naked ex-cat, Ramiel grinned softly. "Find a new squat, or just coming to bother us for another can of tuna?"

"Believe it or not, no." Elise replied, grinning. "I found another item-crafter."

"No shit?"

"No shit. Medicine Boy's good." The shapeshifter stressed, sketching an amulet in the air. "He figured out how to stop time on a dime, and judging by what his proxies carry that wasn't the result of some fey mood."

"A guy." Ramiel mouthed. "Is he single?"

"Worse, he's thirteen and crippled." Elise sighed. "Don't you try and get your claws into him too deep now; you know the curse of the draw as well as I do."

"Yeah, I know, don't cross the streams or you'll eat each other alive." Ramiel sighed. "Eiren and I only get along so well because we can alternate crafting times so we don't intersect, and even then I can't operate at my fullest potential with her around."

"Is it really worth it then?" Fate interjected. "I mean, I know I'm the youngest of us all, but…"

"Safety in numbers trumps good gear every day." Ramiel said decisively. "It takes minutes for me to change my combat applications, and I'm helpless when I do that. No spell or sorcery will save me then."

"Anyway." Elise said, coughing. "You can probably trade stuff with him, and he does medical work too in case something happens."

"Great." Ramiel muttered. Checking a watch, she sighed. "Fate, time for shift change."

"I'll get Eiren and Lisa up." Fate said calmly, as Elise settled down by the heater. Soon, Ramiel was asleep in her bedroll, and the other two were up and about fixing breakfast on a hot plate.

"Morning, Elise." Eiren said, smiling slightly. Lisa just went over to their bikes, presumably to do her magic on them. "Fate will tell me the news later; any signs of good hunting recently?"

"I got nothing." Elise sighed. "Whole city's locking down, and I had to panhandle to make rent this week."

"I should note I've only ever seen you pay rent all of twice." Eiren noted dryly while getting out a skillet to make breakfast in. "Lisa, how do the wards look?"

"We'll need to juice 'em in a few hours, but they'll hold. Do we still have eggs?"

"We got spam, and… beans." Eiren said, sighing. "Damn."

Going over to pat her friend on the shoulder of her red and blue quartered catsuit, Elise took one sniff and lost her apatite.

"Girl. Get a fucking shower." She said, without heat in her voice. "You smell like a dumpster."

"I would if I could…" she muttered. "but…"

"Fucking hell, I will turn into a bird and lead you to Medicine Boy's joint to get you showered if that's what it takes. You know how much I hate turning into a bird." Elise griped.

"After today's hunting." Eiren said, sighing. "Speaking of which, the bikes are set up, right?"

"Just finished gassing them up." Lisa said, sighing. As the other magical girl came back to the light of the heater, the grease stains in her denim coverall became apparent, and she pushed her blonde hair up and back out of the way. "Can I just say it's a bitch making a Kawasaki work when all you have are shitty Mercedes parts though? Because it really is."

"At least you get to use your abilities without a janktastic workaround." Eiren grumbled. "I was supposed to become a doctor. Healing. Medicine. Now I figure out better fucking gunpowder and know all sorts of sweet spots to shoot people in."

"Well either you picked up a gun or I did, and I know more formal sorcery." Lisa replied, going over to ruffle Eiren's snow-white locks. Dodging the greasy hand, things quickly devolved into a scuffle on the floor while Elise subtly moved in on the pan and tinned beans to start breakfast. Once the scuffle was decisively concluded with Lisa in a joint lock and Lisa covered in oil, the shapeshifter served them all equal portions of breakfast.

"What are you even hunting for, anyway?" Elise asked.

"Machines." Lisa said, eyes sparkling. "There's tons of old abandoned tools, and if I can get a decent air compressor I can start working on something bigger than these bikes. Or maybe a welder, so I can do a permanent warding. Maybe a sandblaster, oh, I've always wanted one of those…"

"Lisa talks to machines." Eiren explained. "She's only been like us for two months, but she's got talent and doesn't mind the living conditions that much."


"I can tell." Elise said. Sighing, she took off her bathrobe, and went back behind a curtain towards the toilet. "I'm going to transform now; don't look."

Sitting by the fire, Lisa and Eiren started going over their map. They'd need to head north a fair bit today, before hitting up some abandoned tooling shops and a warehouse district on the way back south. Before long, a large bobcat padded out behind one of the curtains, and curled up next to Eiren.

"Glad to have you with us." The medic said, smiling. It took a few minutes to get Elise's combat cat form situated onto a motorcycle, but after that the two girls took off. As the wind flickered past her ears from where she was draped across the gauges and the handlebars, she watched buildings go whizzing by in a haze of blight with islands of hope spaced between them.

It wasn't long before the group stopped, and the weapons came out. Lisa's choice of a chalk stick and a flashlight may not have been normal next to

Eiren's pistol and the bobcat that was Elise, but she was the most dangerous one there with her sorcery. Moving through the workshop, it didn't seem like much was going to happen- aside from the dark and dead tools, there was nothing moving. Then, outside, there was a crash.

"Man, I told you." One voice muttered. "The boss-man wanted glassware, so why the fuck we breaking into a paint shop?"

"Because he said Pyrex, you dumbass." Another voice replied. "If we get the wrong stuff, it'll explode."

"This is just as dumb as the time he wanted us to steal a truck of cough drops." The first muttered.

Looking at each other, Lisa and Eiren raised eyebrows. "Do we want to engage?" Eiren asked. "I mean, no loot."

"They have a car though." Lisa replied. "I always wanted a car."

Moving through the workshop, they got to the back alley and the Corolla that sat there idling. As far as getaway cars went, it was kind of terrible: rusty, with one flattening tire and the windows locked down. Still, Lisa's eyes lit up at it.

"What about the motorbikes?" Eiren asked, waving her hand in front of the mechanical girl's face.

"What about them?" Lisa asked back.

"Give me, like, five minutes." Eiren sighed. "I'm gonna hide the bikes across the street."

Looking at the car, Lisa nodded. She never really noticed one partner in crime gone as she knelt down to sketch some circles on the concrete.

"Did you hear that?" one of the men called. "Sounded like scratching."

Eyes snapping up, Lisa gulped as one of the stooges across the street played his flashlight out, before cussing.

"Jaysus, that was one hell of a cat! Damn near looked like he'd eat me alive!"

Relax, Lisa. She told herself. They didn't see you.

"I'm gonna check on the car, that thing could have finished fucking the tires or something."

Ah shit.

Moving quickly, Lisa started scrawling circles of invisibility. One for her, one for Elise, one for Eiren, one for the other cat here in case Elise wasn't a bobcat… no. She had to calm down, now. Panic was bad. Fear would kill you. Pulling out her flashlight, chalk quickly filled pre-scrawled runes on the outside as Lisa got ready to fight. Coming out of the building, the mook started moving towards her car purposefully, and she snapped.

Charging out of invisibility, Lisa yelled and flicked on her flashlight. Normally, this would produce a beam of light, but now it produced a discrete brick of light that flew out at the thug.

The fact it missed was incidental. The first thing Ramiel had taught Lisa about fighting people was that the word of the day was closer. Get closer, and clobber the shit out of them. A homemade flashlight built into a gas pipe would work wonders for the job. Thus, the skull-reverberating thonk following the brick was nothing more than guerre d' course for Lisa, followed by the man falling backwards and gibbering.

What was not guerre d' course was the man standing back up with a visible dent in his skull, pull out a Glock, and start garbling at her.

"I'ma kill you!" he yelled, pulling the trigger. Much like Lisa's light brick, it went wide. Unlike her magical attack, though, it was followed by another one, forcing Lisa to duck behind the car. Screaming, he kept shooting, until Eiren finally got a line of sight on him and pulled her own trigger.

Most Alchemists disdained regular bullets, and in this neck of the woods the perfered enhancer was enchanted radium. As such, when it hit the dumbass who'd taken pay in kind from the wrong masters, it exploded. Violently.

As chunks of man-turned-monster fell, Eiren cocked her revolver again and ran forward to Lisa. "Are you okay?" she yelled.

"ughble" Lisa muttered.

"Fucking fuckit." Eiren muttered, before shoving her gun in her belt and throwing Lisa into the car. Once in contact with the mechanical device, she straightened up immediately, grabbing the wheel with one hand and the shifter with the other.

"Hey!" yelled a voice from inside. "That's our car- shit! Jim? Jim!"

Moving around the car, Eiren pulled the gun back out and threw a shot at the other mook. Something in the building opposite was enough to arm it, and the explosion shattered something glass as she got into the passenger's seat.

"Get us home." Eiren yelled, before the car peeled rubber in a desperate attempt to escape. A few minutes of driving later, and the pair finally found themselves free of pursuit.

"So… good haul?" Lisa asked, trying not to flinch.

Eiren's eye twitched. "I have no idea yet. It depends on this junker's value, because you better believe we're not keeping it."

"Yeah, I thought so."

"You're not sad we're scrapping it?"

Lisa sighed, and patted the dashboard. "She's an old girl, late eighties model. Too much is going in her guts. Better I put her to sleep instead of some monster who leaves her to rot."

"Great." Eiren sighed. "You wanna stop for some McDonalds?"

"We have cash for that?"

Banging open the dashboard, Eiren pulled out a stack of dodgy bills. "We got… sixty dollars. We can eat on that."

"How'd you find that!" Lisa asked, gasping. "We could use that more!"

"Tell you the truth, I smelled the cocaine on it first." Eiren said, grinning abashedly.

"Oh. Which McDonald's do you want to go to?"

"The one on Hall is pretty decent."

It was about twenty minutes later that they got their food, and soon it was time to head back to the base. Cruising southbound, things were going smooth as silk as the rest of the money went into some groceries while Lisa kept the poor old thing going through a touch of magic and a deft foot on the pedal. When they finally got home, the noise was enough to wake Fate and Ramiel.

"Holy shit! You got a car!" were Fate's first words, and it wasn't hard to blame her for it. Cars were hard to find, and just jacking one would be prone to developing problems like gang attention.

"They were homonuculi, so this is spoils of war." Eiren said, going over to take the groceries out of the back. "Don't celebrate too hard, either- we had to leave the bikes hidden on Seven Mile Road, and this thing's gonna get parts'd up."

"Do we have to?"

"If you can fix two cracked cylinder heads, I never knew." Lisa replied from inside the car. "Most of the suspension is shot, and the trans is gone too. It can barely leave first gear, and fourth gear is just fucking gone."

"Crap." Ramiel said quietly. "Well, I'll let you get up to that. I need to sleep."

Flopping back into her bedroll, Ramiel put words to deeds as she crashed out. Fate followed suit shortly after, and Eiren just muttered and got out he medical pestles.

Tonight had scared her. She wasn't a fighter at her core, but a pharmacist who had traded her fate for a chance to save her sister. It had worked, for a time, but when that man came into her life and stole her away, it boiled the blood in her veins and driven her to such a rage. Eiren had nearly died that night, and in a fit of pique swore off the medical vow that had been the crux that saved her soul.

Now, there was no more protection as she danced with the dead, and as the conglomerate in the pestle came together she sighed. One day, one dark day, she would let herself die and be judged for what she had done. Today wasn't that day, though- and as she scraped the paste up into a ball to swallow, her actions made sure tomorrow wouldn't be that day either.

Meanwhile, over at the car, Lisa was preparing the Last Rites. Writing out the description of the car, she slowly walked around it, catalouging damage. What would take an experienced mechanic hours of work took her minutes, the speech of the car and the pained sounds it made as the parts continued to fail in slow motion saying volumes about the quality of it's care.

Once that was done, it was time to extract the fluids. A pan under the car was set to capture the oil, while a siphon pump was taken to the gas tank. Once that was done, the battery was disconnected and removed, and the radiator drained. There were still a few more things Lisa could disassemble, but they were minor in comparison. The car was now hibernating- the rest would be painless.

Jacks and blocks held the car up as wheels were pulled to the side, and the bad tire removed for use in other projects later. Brake calipers were pulled, lines taken off, and slowly the suspension became parts in the wind. Going over to the cabinet of supplies, Lisa took a sprig of holly and some holy water, blessing the corpse-to-be.

Taking the engine out properly could wait for another day, though. So much work to do for Lisa, but for now she needed to eat. A cup of tea and a biscut would suffice, as Eiren looked on in bored amusement.

"Do you think the car cares about what you're doing to it?" Eiren asked calmly, sipping her own tea. "Do you think it knows what this really means? An end to it's life?"

"Machines aren't like people." Lisa said, blowing on her tea carefully. "They age more gracefully, don't fight and swear the winds of fate, understand that time on this Earth is limited to the care of their component friends. But, for them, there is no concept of death. Only rest."

"Then that is the question for all of us, I suppose." Eiren said. "Is death the rest at the end of life?"

"Only a life well-lived, though." Lisa corrected, nibbling the sweet biscuit happily.

"Did we have one, then?"

"I don't know."