"Non-lethal!" you roar, putting your diaphragm into the shout. The words ring out over the buildings, as much to remind Kirika as it is for the Ishinomaki group's benefit. You look around.
Kirika, on the left, springing forward to clash with the girl in purple armour again. Claws ring against gauntlets and score off heavy armour. She's
fast, almost a blur to your eyes as she twists and waves and snarls, not letting herself get tagged by her opponent again. She learned her lesson the first time, whatever that girl's magic did.
Two girls on your right, flickering motions in the corner of your eye as they bound across the rooftops. They're staying out of your line of sight.
Smart, but not good enough. You track them unerringly in your Grief senses, feeling the heights of the buildings as they land and push off again.
Three circling behind you, bounding across rooftops. Two clones, there.
One more, her form blurry even in your
other sense, moving to join the brawl with Kirika. Again, smart.
Again, not good enough.
You and Mami standing shoulder to shoulder on your carpet, drifting slowly in the middle of the buildings.
The white flag's gone now, a musket held lightly against her right shoulder, a hard, implacable look on her face as she watches warily.
You take a step, shifting back to back with Mami. A silver warhammer forms in
your right hand, and around the two of you draws the loose Grief into a slow orbit. A defensive screen, one that thrums unsettlingly in your senses, and one that could become all too lethal at a whim. A feeling you've long gotten used to.
Mami's tight grin, conveying worry and firm assurance in the same contradictory expression. Your own answering smile, shot over your shoulder with a half turned head.
We'll be fine.
Two dozen Grief marbles slam down on the girl darting over to Kirika's fight, webbing out into a net crushing down on her. The girl shudders, and
sheds. An outer layer melts off, leaving a smaller, lighter form dancing away from the amorphous, tangling mass of threads you morphed your Grief into.
Huh.
You keep at it, a fraction of your attention on preventing that girl from turning Kirika's fight into a two versus one. It doesn't take much. She seems to be afraid of the mass of Grief hanging motionlessly in front of her. Or perhaps wary would be a better word. She jukes left, and stops when you shift the mass to match, making it rotate in on itself in eyebending geometric impossibility.
Then something, something you can't see in your Grief senses, slams into the Grief. It rocks to the side, and in that moment, the girl bounds past it. The Grief zips after her, tangling in her legs, only for her to kick it free, scraping off another layer.
"They're coming," Mami warns, and you nod. Really, you should have given that warning - you've been tracking the girls. All of them are crouched to leap, or poised to attack.
Without any further warning, Mami levels her musket and fires in a single smooth motion. The shot booms out, exploding into a mass of ribbons midfight, intercepting a girl - wearing what's almost an armoured bodysuit in silver and fluorescent green - just as she bounces into sight. The ribbons weave into an intricate cocoon that wraps around the girl and snaps her back to the rooftop like a bungee cord.
And Mami did that
without seeing the girl before she jumped.
One girl raises her clenched fist to the sky, and another white-hot bolt of lightning roars down at you.
You're ready for it. Lightning splashes against an flash formed shield of Grief, crackling and spitting and expending itself in a futile show of flash and fury.
Mami spins around you, footwork light and dancing across the carpet. A new musket forms in her hand, the spent one falling away and dissolving into ribbons. You move in counterpoint to Mami, gesturing grandly with both hands as you direct the defensive screens.
A clone, in that same frilly yellow dress with a bladed halberd in hand. She smashes feet first into a plate of Grief, slamming a massive blow into the plate with her halberd with a sound not unlike slabs of lead impacting cement. The plate doesn't yield. The clone vanishes in a burst of yellow light, reappearing next to its creator. A probing strike, then.
Behind you, Mami's rifle booms out another shot.
You spare a glance for Kirika's fight - a reverberating clash of magically forged metal on metal, now joined by a hulking figure in grey.
That gives you pause for a moment. The juggernaut moves as swiftly as any magical girl despite the bulk... and as it turns, you spy a pale oval of flesh amidst the
stone. The geokinetic, the earthbender, wrapped in a suit of concrete.
A snake-fast strike with your zipping mass of Grief, tangling and twisting their legs to foul them. Kirika's on purple-girl in a flash, hammering an elbow at the girl's face in a vicious, hooking motion that snaps her head back. The earthbender girl powers through the Grief, concrete-gauntleted hands swinging through one-two jabs Kirika twists adroitly away from.
The girl in silver and green rips free of the cocoon of ribbons. A silver disc a meter across flashes into existence beneath her, and she drops onto it. A small sphere forms in her hand, accompanied by a prismatic spray of square, almost two dimensional particles. Without hesitation, she lobs it at you, face drawn into a frown, and then another.
"
Moving!" you send to Mami in warning. She crouches slightly, and you jerk the carpet upwards just in time to avoid the orbs - which swerve upwards and slam into the bottom of your carpet, detonating in rippling blasts of the same prismatic
pixelation. The solidified Grief sheds the explosions with aplomb.
You feel Mami tense behind you, and you've fought with her enough to know what she's doing. You spin across the carpet as she
leaps, and you follow. The carpet collapses behind you, streaming into the wings of corruption which explode out from your shoulder.
The wings pump, and you slam into the building beside Mami, already dancing with ribbon and musket in a dense melee against silver pistols spitting pixelated green beams.
A whisper of your attention, and a band of Grief snags around purple-girl's wrist as she rears up behind Kirika. You
yank, and she staggers, before slamming her other hand into the band and blasting it off with a pulse of magic. The same thing that threw Kirika earlier?
You frown, and the Grief swerves back to join the larger mass twisting and writhing to interfere with them, preventing the two girls from tag teaming Kirika effectively.
More present worries. Miss Clones freed herself, and three of her are squaring off against you. Miss Lightning darting in behind you, hands crackling with lightning she's too afraid to throw for fear of hitting her ally.
Halberd rings against your hammer, hard enough to buckle your wrist. A second halberd sweeps a blow that'd bisect you if it hits, and you meet it with a shielding screen of Grief. You jump back - three against one is a losing proposition unless you cut loose. And you're not doing that yet.
You whirl away. A flick of your hand, a flick of your attention, and a tendril of Grief licks out to hook Mami's opponent. The silver-and-green clad girl trips, and finds herself bound in ribbons for the second time. This time, a padlock the size of double clenched fists put together forms, slamming shut with a very final
click. Less a physical lock and more a declaration of magical intent.
You complete the spin, leading with your hammer just in time to smack Miss Lightning's hands away. You jab with the head of your hammer, slamming it into her stomach. Her breath leaves her in a surprised whoosh, as pink eyes framed by lavender hair glare at you.
Clone behind you. You sidestep swiftly, and yet still too slow. One of those bladed halberds score a line of fire across your side. You ignore it, forcing the pain aside, and step backwards, leading with your elbow and twisting on your waist. A nasty crunch of breaking cartilage - the clone's nose. It vanishes, and another one flashes into existence.
Those clones are a problem.
Kirika... Kirika is still fighting her duel against the two brawlers.
Mami catches your glance. "
Move?"
"
Lure," you respond. Which had always been the idea, but... plans, and contact with the enemy. Dodge. You move in concert with Mami, and another lightning bolt sizzles past the both of your to blast a crater out of the rooftop. "
Kirika!"
She responds with a snarled, "
Stupid armour!"
"
Can you get them over here? Then hit everyone but us with antimagic?" you ask, slamming the flat of your hammer against a forearm, weaving around a grasping hand crackling with purple sparks of electricity. The smell of ozone fills your nostrils as another hand sizzles past your face, close enough to crisp the ends of your hair.
Kirika plants her hands on the rooftop and her feet into the midsection of Miss Earthbender in a flipping kick that actually shatters concrete and lifts the girl into the air. Impossibly fast, Kirika rubberbands back upright and bounds into the air on a ballistic arc for your roof, leaving behind a tangled pile of heavily armoured girls.
She crashes to the roof and immediately joins your offensive against Miss Lightning. She catches a blow on her claws, smirking as the lightning expends itself fruitlessly on the gleaming black metal. You nod, and dart away to join Mami in fighting the cloner - she's trying to get to the silver-and-green girl.
You barrel into the back of one of the clones, warhammer flicking out to hook her leg and slam her facefirst into the rooftop with your weight behind her. The clone vanishes with that frustrating blaze of yellow light and reappears, fresh. You roll to your feet again, and glare at the originator of the clones.
Mami's muskets boom out another shot, and the cloner's forced to dodge away from a mass of embracing ribbons.
Another loud crash of concrete and boots on the rooftop - Kirika's foes landing behind you.
The rolling crush of Kirika's antimagic, looming and bearing down on all of you like an enormous tsunami. And yet... this time, it passes you by harmlessly.
Magic grinds to a halt.
The two clones waver and vanish like so much mist in the sunlight. Miss Earthbender seizes up, concrete locking around her. The crackling corona of lightning and the ominous purple glow winks out.
Nothing much happens to the girl already trussed up in ribbons.
You clap your hands together, letting your warhammer clang to the rooftop.
Sharp tugs all around - Grief Seeds flying free of pockets and clouds of Grief billowing into the air all around, a deep purple pall
resonating in your senses shrouding the air.
You squeeze your hands together, interlacing your fingers into clasped fists, and Grief crushes down into bindings around all the girls, around their hands and feet and waists to immobilize them. Earthbender girl is trickier - a flurry of slicing Grief blades has the concrete armour in shredded, faintly glowing leavings on the roof before the girl before the bindings slam home.
Kirika drops to her knee beside the form of Miss Clones, claws ready to strike and lips peeled back in a bubbling snarl.
The magic distortion passes.
And you breathe.
You sweep your gaze around the rooftop. Scorched craters blown out of the the roof, shattered concrete, three girls bound securely, one thrashing in her bonds, and one frozen in terror at the spectre of Kirika with claws raised in threat. One bound in ribbons, the others in Grief immobilizing their hands and arms and feet. Their Grief seeds drifting in a slow constellation around the rooftop.
Finally, you meet Mami's gaze, and smile triumphantly, a look which she returns, relief and
happiness that you won, coloured by a little worry when she spies the gash in your side.
You glare at the girls on the roof. A twitch of your attention jerks them upright to face you - you let them stand in a row in front of you, but the manacles keep them from moving. A twitch of Mami's fingers has silver-and-green girl standing, too. "Seriously?" you roar. "Did you
not see the truce flag? We are
not your enemy! We just want to
talk!"
Silence, as Mami joins you at your side, lightly touching your shoulder with her hand.
Looks pass between the girls - telepathic communication you let play out. The girl in purple is beginning to tremble in her bindings, wide eyes darting from side to side.
Silver-and-green girl looks up, meeting your gaze. "Release Hoshiko," she demands, deadly serious. "You say you're here in peace.
Release her."
[] Release them all
[] Don't
[] Write-in
=====
So, for the negotiations, let's try something different - don't give me specific wordings save for the important parts. Just give me an overview of points to be covered, and the tone you want to take, that kind of thing.