Haven Forums>MGs>General Discussion>May Lei, ranged MGs, and “stats”

JaxOnAndJeffFree

[Havenian][Two Strikes]

So, sportsfans, another month’s rankings are in the books, and once again, May Lei got shafted. I’m pretty sure the “statisticians'' are just biased against her unique combat style. Guns for dayz, no melees, that’s how it should be. And they need to give her irony points!

@JeredCruel

[Statistician][Havenian]

JaxOnAndJeffFree, please check our methodology. May Lei was only involved in one fight in April - the Battle of Courtenay. Although she was instrumental in driving back that Emergence, May Lei simply didn’t gain as many points as other Magical Girls. Her weapons also don’t draw as many fans, although it is pretty funny to see her waddling down the street with a mini minigun.

JaxOnAndJeffFree

[Havenian][TwoStrikes]

Dude, it’s not about methodology. It’s about doing what you know is right! If more Magical Girls were like May Lei, I bet we’d be back in Vancouver or Seattle by now. But you keep promoting your swords and giant hammers and spells. See where that gets you, loser melee sympathizer.

TwoLeftGreenThumbs

[Havenian]

JaxOnAndJeffFree, stop. Just stop. Every month it’s the same complaint thread. Guns just don’t work as well with most Magical Girls’ powers, so they don’t use them. You’re acting like a middle schooler! Just give it a rest on May’s ratings, please. She gets what she deserves, and so do all the other MGs.

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Chapter Six: Conflict

Giggling, I gave Overclock a hand up, noticing that she felt a lot lighter than before. “So, uh, he does accents a lot, then? Is that his thing?” Somehow, even though nothing had changed, everything had. With Overclock not dying, I was going to get out of this!

“N-no, it’s not my thing!”

“Yep! He hit me with the Cali surfer accent when we first met. He was barely 14 then, but it was so cute!” Overclock winked, then grew serious as James sputtered wordlessly into my ear. “Okay, James can be a little shit, but he’s still young for the job. Plus, forming bonds with their assigned Magical Girl is literally in the Operators’ manual. Magical Girls get into some pretty bad situations. Without someone we trust to help us out, it’d be pretty easy to give up. And we have to rely on the boys for directions and gear. Give him a little slack, the punk’s just doing his job.”

I thought about it while Overclock leaned on a sink and I got ready to go. If it was his job, I guess I could let the accent thing slide. “I didn’t lie before, though. James did enroll me.” I shoved the filthy graduation robe into the backpack, held up my blazer, and shook my head before cramming it into the trash can.

“She believes you. You had the correct alias for a noob Magical Girl.”

“I didn’t say you were lying. You had the name, and you picked me up good this time. No struggle.”

I paused. “You can’t hear James, can you?”

“Nope! He’s a voice in your head now.” Overclock sounded surprisingly okay with the change.

“She cannot. I’d suggest subvocalizing to talk to me, or clarifying who you’re talking to. It’ll help avoid confusion.” Even though James’s voice had some pep to it, I couldn’t help but hear that the worried tone had never left.

Overclock flung her left arm over my shoulder. “We need to get going. This bathroom’s…nice,” she said, as she wrinkled her nose at the cracked tiles, the puddle of pink cheez-wiz, and the graffiti, “but my - no, our, I suppose - mission is still the same. I’m out of the fight, so we’ve got to find that shelter.”

I started toward the door. Then, I stopped. “I’m sorry, Overclock. I think I left your knife in the hall. With the…Type Four?”

The Magical Girl scowled, limping forward and forcing me to keep up as we exited the bathroom. “I’ll get it back later, just have James create a new weapon for you. Something that matches how you fight is best.”

“I…don’t fight. Just a little with my sister, but that doesn’t count.” Jennifer was at a birthday sleepover with one of her 6th grade friends. She hadn’t come to graduation, so she was probably safe.

“Something simple, then, with reach. James, I know you can hear me! Give her a spear!”

“Alice? Would a spear be okay? It’d take all of your mana to generate a Mark One War Spear. With the right sigils, I could do a lot better, but you’re pretty basic -”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I nodded quickly, holding out my right hand. “I’ll take it for now. If we run into a Type Four, I’ll…poke it in the eyes, I guess.” I felt the same empty feeling above my navel as my mana drained.

The spear shimmered into existence above my hand, and I sucked in a sharp breath as it suddenly dropped, jarring my wrist to clatter on the ground. I’d expected a thin wooden pole with a sharp metal point. Maybe a grip, like in pre-Emergence fantasy films. This spear had the sharpness, and the grip, but that’s where the similarities ended. The thing seemed almost hollow, with a mesh of steel forming most of its body rather than a wooden pole, and it had a cross-guard above the foam grip.

“According to the database, the Mark One has a tungsten-steel tip. With a good brace and plenty of weight coming at you, it can punch through several inches of Mack plating. It also features a handguard for your leading hand. Finally, its light steel-lattice frame is a good combination of lightweight and heavy duty. It’s a fine weapon for a Magical Girl with little training.”

I reached down to pick up the spear and propped it against my shoulder. It towered over me by almost a foot, the sharp gray tip threatening to punch into the hallway’s ceiling tiles.

“Yep, that’s a decent starting weapon.” Overclock eyed the spear judiciously. “You’ll get something better soon. Now let’s go.”

I blinked my eyes, looking up and down quickly until the arrows from the fire alarm popped back up. “That way to the main hall.” Putting my left arm around Overclock, I held the spear like a walking stick and we limped down the math hall. Beyond the fire doors behind us, there might have been a Type Four tearing apart the place, but the door had kept it out of our path. All we had to deal with were posters showing how to use the quadratic formula or do trigonometry.

“Have either of you ever used trigonometry? Like, in real life?” I asked.

“Nope.” Overclock raised an eyebrow at the posters. “I got enrolled out of trade school. Never learned it.”

“Yes, actually, but only in SHOCKS classes. Those are real life, right?”

“What a nerd,” I teased James. The math hall met the main hallway near where I’d come inside before graduation and where Sora had gotten pulled to safety. “James, Overclock, we may have a problem.” I pointed to the doors.

One had been torn completely off its hinges and lay in the hall, a wreck of twisted metal. The other hung lopsided from its frame’s wreckage. The bar in the middle that the doors locked against was nowhere to be seen. “There were two of the small machines by the door when my friend went in. They must’ve gotten help to open up the place.”

“Alice, it was probably the Type Twenty-One that attacked your commencement ceremony. It wouldn’t be able to fit through this gap, but it could certainly rip them apart. You two should be careful. I’m pulling up the map of the building on my end in case you need to change routes.”

“No!” I wasn’t surprised at how shaky my voice was, but by how determined I sounded in spite of the shakiness. “We get down this hall, take a right, and the stairs are right there. The shelter’s at the bottom of the stairs. We’re too close to change plans now.” I held the spear up and Overclock let go of me so I could get my left hand on its shaft. With both hands, the spear tip naturally rested at just under shoulder-height in front of me. Armed, I led the way into the main hall. Overclock limped along behind me.

I’d always thought that the main hall had to be the prettiest place in the building. A dozen skylights filled with colored glass made it feel like a kaleidoscope, and the wide hall was usually filled with different projects, experiments, and writing students wanted to showcase. Some of my poetry was probably still tacked up on one of the bulletin boards. It had always felt like a safe place.

The skittering sound from the stairs shattered that feeling. I held the spear point forward, cowering behind it as I moved forward.

As I got closer to the stairwell, yellow light poured out of it. I poked my head around the wall and looked down. Three Type Ones clattered their way across the tile toward the top of the stairs. The first one’s eye swung toward me, and I ducked back, holding my breath.

The light stayed yellow. It got brighter as the skittering grew louder, though.

I stepped back and changed my grip on the spear, holding it over my shoulder, ready to thrust down. The clattering grew louder. The Type One’s neck passed.

I saw the center of its body.

I stabbed down as hard as I could.

The gray blade punched through the Type One’s armor, erupting from its other side with a spray of black liquid. The machine’s spiked legs scrabbled on the ground for a second, scouring deep lines into the tile as its eye flashed red and yellow. Finally, it stopped moving, the eye fading to a deep purple before darkening.

The stairway glowed red as the other two Type Ones skittered forward. I yanked on my spear, trying to pull it out of the first machine. Just as the first Type One reached the top of the stairs, I freed it and fell on my butt.

The machine’s legs drove it toward me. I could see bits of tile flying as it picked up speed, its red eye fixated on me.

I scrambled back toward the lockers on the far side of the hall. The spear jammed against them, and my weight pulled the tip up. It caught the second Type One right where the base of its neck met its body, and its momentum drove it forward. I screamed a high-pitched scream as one of its legs sliced into the meaty back of my calf. Instead of punching through, though, it stopped just an inch in. I whimpered as the machine’s unmoving weight crashed down on me.

“Kid, the third one!”

The last Type One had reached the top of the stairs and was clattering across the hall toward the door. Its eye flickered yellow and red as it looked at Overclock, but the six spikey legs kept moving down the hall. I shoved the destroyed Mack off me, screamed again as the spiked leg pulled free of my calf, and awkwardly threw the spear toward the running Type One.

It bounced off the floor ten feet behind the retreating Type One, which skittered through the door and out of sight.

I lay back, panting heavily. My muscles all burned and my eyes felt heavy from…thirty seconds of fighting? How could that be? How did real Magical Girls fight for hours at a time?

“That wasn’t too bad for your first fight as a Magical Girl. I do have some notes we can go over later, and…maybe the spear isn’t the correct weapon for you. Regardless, well done! You survived with only minor injuries, and a little QuikClot will fix that right up.”

Overclock limped over and glanced at my leg. Blood dripped out of the puncture, but it wasn’t squirting or gushing. “That can wait, kid…Maiden Voyage.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s gonna grab a Type Four to wrap us up, and we can’t be here when it gets back. The shelter’s right down the stairs, yeah?” She held out her hand, but I shook my head at it. Instead, I rolled my body over and got to my hands and knees. With a groan, I levered my body up. I threw an arm over Overclock’s shoulder, she threw hers over mine, and together, we limped down the stairs toward the shelter. Toward Sora. And toward Dad…