The older woman’s voice sent chills through Haru’s spine, a bead of sweat rolled down her left cheek. dangling just under her chin. “U-Uh, yes ma’am!... Um, would you like the short version?” The young Magical Girl’s vibrant blue eyes refused to part sightlines with the older woman’s tempered black pair.
Ultimately, the staring contest was broken up by the restaurant’s sudden and violent shaking, the muffled sound of an explosion, and the grating echoes of gremlin-like laughter filling the air as cries for help also pitched into the chaotic reverie outside.
“I would appreciate it if you were concise.” the Older Woman said as she quickly peeked through the kitchen’s exit door.
Haru rapidly nodded her head and began her very concise catch-up game with the Office Lady. “So basically, there’s an evil Witch girl being a jerk, she’s turning stuff into monsters! I was whooping her butt, but then she cheated.”
“To be fair Ms. Bluecrown, that wasn’t cheating, she simply had the element of surprise-”
“Shut it, Brace.” The Magical Girl shooed her companion away, or at least tried to as the magical bracelet cleanly weaved around the girl's offending hands, and to add insult to injury, Brace shot itself forward and collided with Bluecrown’s forehead. In retaliation, Blucrown got a hold of the floating item and started shaking it like a maraca.
As the two magical stooges kept horseplaying in the back, the Older Woman sighed as she made her way to one of the cabinets of the Kitchen. She crouched beside the cabinet to reach for the contents inside, which was a plastic bag with a yellow smiley face and the words ‘thank you!’ printed above it. The bag itself was filled to the brim with shiny heart-shaped crystals that occasionally poked through the bag itself.
“Hey girl, you don’t happen to have a spare plastic bag, do you?” A simple yes or no question was what she wanted, instead, she got the noises of pots and pans clashing against each other, the childish insults of a young girl, and the occasional crashing plates. “Kids these days…” She could feel one of her eyebrows twitch, just ever so slightly. That could only mean 0ne thing, her normal calm was going to be compromised.
Not wanting to think about it much further, the Office Lady took a sharp breath and whistled as loud as her body would let her.
“Wha-?!” The Magical Girl jumped a few feet at the sudden noise. The Bracelet also rose a few inches at the whistle, but otherwise gave no reaction.
Now with their silly squabble broken up, the older woman raised the bag once more and asked. “You got any extra bags for this?” She shook the plastic bag a bit more to emphasize what was inside, but that turned out to be a bad idea, as the bottom of the bag ruptured, spitting out all the Crystal Hearts it had stored up until now. “Whoops.” Was the emotional response from the Older Woman.
“Do not worry, even as an older model, I come with higher than average storage capacity.” With a bright light, the bracelet morphed itself into its ornate sack form, and strafed around the Crystal Heart spill, sucking them up and searching for any strays that may have fallen away from the pile.
“Huh, don’t remember them being so handy back then.” The Office Lady muttered as her eyes tracked the Sack, it occasionally bumped into some walls and cabinets, kind of like a magical roomba. And judging by the stifled giggling of the younger girl, she must have thought the same thing.
It tugged on her thin lips to hear the innocent laughter coming from such a young individual. If she didn’t know any better, it felt like she was smiling. But, that would mean compromising her normal calm, so she forced her lips back into the neutral stance it has always known.
“Older model?” The office lady asked, now crouched on the floor as she, alongside a listening Haru, helped the Magical Sack scoop up the remaining Crystal Hearts.
The magic sack paused its cleaning for a moment, before going back to its routine. “I admit, it is very harsh wording on my part, but on a purely unbiased level, I am simply not as capable in other fields like my newer siblings.” Upon dumping the last remaining Crystal Hearts, Brace turned itself back into its original form and decided to rest on Haru’s wrist for the meantime.
“And I say that’s a load of bleugh!” Haru, being the mature young lady that she was, stuck her tongue out in defiance to her companion’s statement.
The sigh of Brace told a story in and of itself. “Truly Ms. Bluecrown, you are what every Magical Girl strives to be in these modern times.” Brace, soon after, decided to address the Office Lady in the room. “Besides, we can’t act like such children in front of, Missus…?”
“Anne, Anne Parker. Just your average office worker.” Anne introduced herself as she grabbed Haru’s bracelet arm and shook it, granted the young girl probably wasn’t expecting such a professional handshake from the woman, so her shocked expression came as a surprise to the older woman.
“Uh, yeah! And I’m Haru, Haru Nishikawa!” She answered back to the Office Lady as formally as she could.
With the introductions out of the way, Haru let out a relieved sigh as she broke contact with Anne. It was relieving in a sense. Sure, both of them were kind of just hanging around in a restaurant, shaking hands and learning each other’s names while the outside world burned. But it didn’t stop the fact that she actually talked to someone from overseas! It felt exhilarating- like she was exploring a new world entirely!
But Haru knew that these thoughts were bad with the situation at hand. So, with her gloved arms, she smooshed her cheeks and gave the best serious face she could muster.
“Alright Brace, I think it’s enough talk time.” With a rhythmic march, the Magical Girl silently took Brace off her wrist and manually morphed it into its wand form. Once she reached the metallic door, she opened it and was met with unbridled chaos.
“Jeez, that dumb Witch didn’t even wait for me to come out!” Bluecrown exclaimed as she took her first steps out of the restaurant, and into the streets of Town once more.
Not far behind, Anne took a grand look at what her city had become in the few minutes she had taken refuge in the Mexican Restaurant. “What the hell is this?” Her heels clacked on the cracked asphalt road as she walked further in to view the ‘desecration’ of her home. If she were to be honest, this was the least threatening apocalypse scenario she’d ever seen.
The citizens were turned into monstrosities, yes, but for the most part, everything else that made up the army of monsters were simply mundane items. All grown to large proportions and having angry expressions plastered on them. Hell, even the scenery didn’t change much beyond the odd, candy house roaming around, or parts of the streets being oddly cartoony.
The young, frilly-dressed girl in front of her, however, didn’t seem to share the same thoughts. “I know, right? Such evil really makes me want to punch a wall!” Such genuine anger from this bizarre situation was enough to produce a small ‘wow’ from the older office lady. “Don’t worry, Miss Anne. I’ll clean up your beautiful town, lickety-split! On my honor as Magical Girl Scout: Bluecrown!”
The girl finished her fervorous declaration with her legs wide, her smile bright, and her right arm giving the thumbs up sign. This got a slow applause from her audience of one.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen that kinda spunk around these parts. The posing needs a bit of work though.” A small note with no elaboration. But considering the things going on at the moment, this was the best thing Haru would receive.
The short critique session was interrupted when the roar of a very angry vacuum cleaner was heard nearby.
“Ah! It’s the vacuum monster!” The Magical Girl squeaked as she instinctively conjured a powered up beam from her wand, perhaps a little too much as the recoil of the thing almost sent the poor girl tumbling! The blue beam screeched as it tore through the empty air, looking for its prey. Said prey didn’t look phased by the barrelling projectile, and stood its ground with an angry whir. The vacuum let its hose snake its way to the front, just in time too as the beam let out its final war cry once it collided with its target.
The vacuum whirred as its hose struggled against the ball of light that vehemently pushed against it, its small wheels burned as the Magical Girl’s attack tried its best to overpower it. But the vacuum proved to be too stubborn and the stalemate was being slowly overturned by the giant appliance menace.
“Not on my watch!” Now that Haru had recovered from the sudden scare, she put her newfound focus into molding her next beam. From a blob of power, she refined her new beam, molded it piece by piece with her dainty hands until a slim, aerodynamic arrow that would pierce its bigger cousin hovered above her left palm. The end result? “Be gone, monster. You don't belong in this town!” The arrow beam cried havoc and crossed the area much faster than magic beam mk.1, and once beam one and two met…
The explosion was a blinding one.
With the amount of dust and debris kicked up from the two-blast combo, it was safe to assume the improvised smokescreen would stick around for a while. As if that wasn’t bad enough for the Office Lady’s lungs. With a small napkin she had in her skirt pocket, Anne began her search for the young howitzer girl amongst all the fog and cascading pebbles having a rough meeting with her soft skin.
Luckily, the delusional giggling gave a good indicator of where the girl could be. And sure enough, after a minute of following the noise, Anne stumbled upon a giggling Haru, her body stiff as a board and her cheeks beet red. “Ma, izzat you ma? I swears I put mah shoes away befoh heading inside like ya told me to.”
If Anne didn’t know any better, the scene before her would have played entirely differently in her head. All that was missing from this small scene was a bottle of whisky and you had yourself a controversy brewing. “Kid, you alright?” She asked, lightly tapping the girl on her exposed forehead. It didn’t seem to elicit a reaction from the girl, besides a high-pitched hiccup.
So, the Office Lady had to think of something else to, for the lack of a better word, sober up the poor girl. Fortunately, before she needed to get creative a small glow caught the Office Lady’s eyes. A vending machine stood tall and proud amongst the bizarre destruction of Town, how it continued to work, she wasn’t going to question, and for the sake of time, the Office Lady could not afford to keep the elegant symbol of the sole vending machine intact.
After shaking the ever loving crap out of the vending machine, a single water bottle tumbled out of the comfort of its lane and popped out to the world outside.
Satisfied with her result, Anne walked back with the plastic bottle and kneeled down next to the hiccuping Haru. “Alright, kid. I don’t know why you’re acting like you downed some liquor, but this is going to set you straight.” Uncapping the bottle, Anne, made sure to carefully prop the Magical Girl’s head gently upward.
Before unceremoniously waterboarding the young girl.
“BGLGLUGGH!!” With her enthusiastic response, it was safe to say Haru was back to her senses, granted, there was water up her nose and her nicely done short, wavy blue hair was now drooping and clinging to her face. Funnily enough, this wasn’t the worst way she was woken up. “What the heck was that for?!” It didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Well, you looked more hammered than my grandfather during the fourth of July, so I thought a little downpour would get you out of it.” She replied nonchalantly before helping the addled girl to her feet.
Haru didn’t know if she should be mad or not, sure, she brought it on herself by overusing her magic and all, but a slap to the face would have been preferable to having her lungs filled with water!
And, as if it couldn’t get any worse, a distinct sound started creeping into the Japanese girl’s left ear. At first, she thought it was her chronic tinnitus kicking in, but as she did the usual slap-to-head method to get rid of it, it seemed the sound became louder instead. At least, that was until the sound stopped being white noise, and morphed into a distinct whirring noise.
“The vacuum! How is it still standing?” Again, out of reflex, she took her wand out for an offensive as the towering form of a shambling Vacuum made itself present, but unlike her first attempt, the magic simply wasn’t manifesting, no matter how much she focused.
On the other side of the coin, Anne’s stone-faced expression stood firm as she addressed a panicked Haru. “Simmer down there, howitzer.” She said, gently lowering the girl’s wand. “Last thing we need is for you to blow us up.” Having said this, the Office Lady began unbuttoning her shirt from the navel area.
“H-Hey, do you really think now’s the time for that kind of stuff?” Haru asked as her vision shied away from the older woman’s display.
The smooth insertion and subsequent click drew her eyes back to the older woman. In her left hand rested a bulky revolver, its polished gleam indicated its lack of use.
The monster paused, its vacuum attachment raised high in the air. The instinctual flight or fight mode running through its detached cord.
A fatal mistake.
Once it knew it wanted to fight against the threat it swung down with all its might. The smaller human in the gaudy dress hit the floor, the vacuum just grazing the top of her sparkling sky-blue hair. But the vacuum kept going, with momentum on its side the hose would hit the standing human and turn into a mere red puddle on the wall.
And then the disinterested woman fired her revolver.
The crippling blow to the oversized appliance caused it to, for a lack of a better word, hunch over as it clutched the jagged wound in its pseudo-chest with its hose appendage. It sputtered as it whirred.
The vacuum hit the asphalt road unceremoniously, with no cry of death or attempted counterattack. Smoke crawled on the dead monster’s corpse until it was completely covered like a cocoon. Once the smoke lifted it revealed a regular vacuum, broken and battered with a crystal heart in its plastic container.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Wasting no time, Bluecrown made her way toward the broken machine and plucked the crystal heart out of the container, “Woah, that was pretty fast.” With Brace being non-responsive for the time being, the brightly-dressed girl clutched onto the heart as she carefully backed away from the small wreck.
“That it is.” Resting her aim, Anne let her index finger off the revolver’s trigger as she walked past the girl and her kill. “But it could be faster. Come on, we have a Witch to catch.” With no room left for discussion, the Older Woman took off in a sprint to the north, where a building made of glass towered over everything else in its vicinity. It was also being harassed by a swarm of monsters and the Mischievous Witch, Evelyn.
Seeing this, Bluecrown didn’t hesitate to match the Office Lady’s steps and catch up to her. With a determined nod, the Magical Girl was ready to take the lead.
“Hey,” Anne called out to her, she peered back to listen. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, kid. Check if that Bracelet of yours didn’t crap out on you before you decide to jump into the damn horde.”
Haru slowed down her pace, looking down at the wand she gently grabbed the handle with both of her hands and she brought it up to her face. “Brace? Are you okay?” The first few seconds were filled with nothing but the harsh noise of heeled shoes clacking in pairs.
Had it gone any longer she would have started panicking, but luckily… “Mana depleted: Currently charging. The battery will be fully charged in 5 minutes, thaaaaaank yooouuu…” The poor magical artifact slurred the thank you message out before shutting down again to presumably continue its recovery.
This was good, very good! Brace was just taking the equivalent of a small nap, so by the time they got there she’d be up and ready to continue the fight. Haru herself knew a good deal of CQC training thanks to her peers' guidance, and not to toot her own horn, but acrobatics was a speciality of hers.
And what better way to limber herself up than to combat a charging Gummy Tiger. “Don’t worry, Miss Anne. I have this one!” No sooner than these words leave her mouth, the Young Girl leaps headfirst toward the wild gelatin beast, only stopping when the wild piece of candy lunged in for the kill.
“Sparkling Lariat!” Unfortunately, the Sugary Cat was met with a swift lariat to its soft, chewable neck, causing it to flip on its back with speed that would make a cheetah envious. Not done with her attack, Bluecrown gleefully grabbed the oversized confection by its hind legs. “And I call this one, Sparkling Wall Smasher!” It was only for a second, but everything except the Tiger’s legs turned into a colorful blue splat on the wall, shortly after a Crystal Heart harmlessly bounced on the concrete floor.
Dropping the sweet appendages, Bluecrown quickly grabbed the appendage and happily skipped her way over to Anne, a witness to the monster's eradication.
Looking at her revolver, and then looking back at the goofily grinning Magical Girl, Anne said the first thing that came to mind “What the hell have they been feeding you, kid?”
Alerted by her question, Haru scratched her head awkwardly as she replied. “W-Well, I eat meat and veggies like all good High School girls would do. But really, most of my super cool strength comes from the CQC training some of my Senpai’s taught me, way back when I was still a recruit.”
“Kid, candy or not. You left the thing splattered on a wall.” She motioned to the blue splatter, which was now getting consumed by smoke, just like the vacuum before it.
“...I guess I might have put too much into that swing.” Seeing her handiwork made her realize how much she was hiding her excitement. Usually, she was really good at tempering her strength when it came to self-defense situations like these. But with Brace taking a catnap, she wouldn’t really call that a bad thing in this scenario.
Feeling like she needed to say something, Haru was about to speak up, but the next thing she knew, the older woman’s outstretched arm and the loud bang of her gun didn't let her finish “I wasn’t admonishing you, just so you know.” The Magical girl looked at the direction the revolver’s barrel was pointed and saw a gummy Elephant with its head missing. “Just surprised that such a slender frame can pack that much of a punch.”
“Well, I can say the same thing about that gun of yours!” She immediately cringed at the tone of her voice, she didn’t mean to sound so aggressive, but her body in relation to her physical capabilities was usually something she didn’t like to talk about, a sore subject if she dared say it.
“Are you talking about Bart?” She held out the chunky revolver in her hand. “Yes, he’s a savage in a fight. He hits like a truck for something that I can hide in my shirt, and it ensures the average mugger rethinks their life choices if they’re not dead by the time their body hits the ground. A fitting weapon for self-defense if you ask me.”
A loud bang followed shortly after, the Office Lady had shot the pistol once more, with the bullet whizzing by Haru’s head. Then a resounding thud went off behind her. It was another one of the monsters, this time a wooden gorilla with a jagged bullet hole in its forehead. But had it only been the gorilla, Haru would have reprimanded the older woman for such a close-shave shot. Too bad a whole troop of beasts had followed this gorilla and witnessed its fast death.
Anne simply looked at the small brigade clogging the street the kid and she was in. “It looks like we’ll have to fight our way through.” Anne pushed out the cylinder in her revolver, put a fresh five bullets in with her speed reloader, and looked right ahead for any beast trying their luck on a pre-emptive ambush. “Alright kid, how about a small wager, Bart versus your CQC. Whoever gets the most hearts by the end gets to buy the other a drink.”
“But I’m not old enough to drink.” The Magical Girl replied as she steadied herself for the fight ahead.
To this, the older woman shook her head before clarifying. “Then I’ll get you a Mexican soda if you win, you little wiseass.”
The older woman left it at that and charged ahead to the surprise of her younger companion.
The head of a green toy soldier was blown right off, two more shots made their way inside the jugular of a twisted hound plush, one shot penetrated two monsters with ease, and while the last one was a struggle, a spider made of stringed candy met its end with a well-placed ricochet bullet. Five hearts appeared from the corpses but instead of the usual smoke whisking away the bodies, human forms replaced the slain monsters.
Checking the bodies, Haru was relieved that the brutal injuries dealt to their monster incarnations didn’t stay with them. With the little magic she could manipulate without Brace, she healed the unconscious as best as she could, hoped they would wake up fine and refreshed, and left to follow after the sound of raining gunfire.
With the trail of irreparable items, unconscious civilians, and Crystal Hearts left on a war path, it didn’t take long for the Magical Girl to find the Office Lady knee deep in combat with what looked like marshmallow brutes. Unlike the first batch of monsters, these Marshmallow Brutes soaked up the bullets that collided with their skin, leaving Anne in a mobile defensive.
But this eye-tunneling pressure was easy to exploit. Sprinting and jumping on the Marshmallow Brute that lagged behind, Haru grabbed its left muscular forearm and yanked back with all her might “Bright Suplex!” The monster's head was gone and the body went limp, luckily she scrambled out of the way of the bulky pastry before it crushed her.
The monster, enraged by its brother’s death, charged the young girl and made a backhanded sweep with its right arm. The girl gracefully jumped over it and leaped onto the Marshmallow’s shoulders. “Hehe~ they were pretty tough for you, so let’s say they cost double points!” With a vicious kick, the head flew far and away from the body. Leaving the monster standing in place, not fully realizing its missing piece.
With her hand forming the V shape for victory, Haru harmlessly jumped off the brute’s standing corpse, causing it to collapse on her way down.
In response, Anne had a neat pile of monster corpses in the middle of their disappearing act. Walking down the pile, Anne lazily put up her hand in a V shape as well. “Looks like Gun beats fist.”
The Office Lady then sauntered further down the streets where more monsters popped right out of the woodwork, all intent on avenging their fallen.
“Not if I have to say anything about it!” Haru tackled a nutcracker soldier, now fully motivated to finish the fight as the victor.
Both Magical Girl and Office Worker embroiled themselves in a flood of combat that left many bodies and hearts in their wake. Anne and her trusty revolver tore through the enemy ranks with various tricks that scored her more than one kill per bullet more often than not, if she saw an opportunity, she would line up a collateral headshot, if there was something in the environment she could use to hinder the beasts, she would use it in a heartbeat. Everything was permitted, especially fighting dirty.
In contrast, Haru was more active in her approach as she gracefully dodged and weaved through the enemy ranks, slaying the weakest links in single, surprisingly brutal moves. With kicks hard enough to decapitate more muscle bound monsters, twisting limbs off with swift grabs, and using their own actions against them. The lack of magic made her adopt a more aggressive style of fighting.
Fortunately, as both sides stacked more bodies to their respective corners, the ultimate goal was getting gradually closer to them. But, bizarrely enough the one behind all the chaos was seemingly none the wiser to the big brawl heading her way. It was enough to force Haru to stop herself as she looked at the besieged building.
Just what was Evelyn Blanch planning?
----------------------------------------
“Open the building. Stop letting it be defended!” With the help of her turtle megaphone, Evelyn had graciously given the armed civilians the option to vacate her new headquarters for the umpteenth time. And just like the responses before it, a stray bullet whizzed over her head and struck her witch hat.
“How’s that for an answer?” The person that shot the bullet, a slouched man with long hair held back by a ponytail asked as he took another potshot at her. Evelyn was not amused, with no hesitation she shot back a magical black-and-purple colored bullet from her finger. It missed the man himself, but she did gain a new minion from the couch he was using as cover.
The newly birthed couch of evil immediately started wreaking havoc, jumping on the holed-up workers inside. For something so wide and cumbersome looking, it had the agility of a motivated cat; Shots were fired from all directions, bullets whizzing by as they missed their target, but the couch didn’t care, it made a fool out of everyone in that room and scrambled off once the guns clicked, signifying that they ran out of bullets.
“Oh no! It got in.” A girl cried out as she fumbled when putting a new magazine in her MP5. “If it reaches the boss-”
The slouched man interrupted the girl’s train of thought before it could go further. “It ain’t gonna happen, Mary.” The man was quick to reload his own weapon, a 1911 with a shiny looking barrel. “Paul, Henry, Go chase that shitty old couch and throw it out back like we should have a year ago.”
“Yes sir!”
“You got it, Edmond.”
Both stocky-looking men sprinted out of the room in chase of the monster, which left only two people. Himself and a jittery Mary. Considering the girl they were staring at had an army rolling over each other on the ground floor of their workplace? He couldn’t blame her this time.
Setting himself up behind a metal cabinet, Edmond asked Mary a question. “Hey, you finally got to Anne?”
Mary, who flipped over a wooden mahogany desk so she could hide behind it, rapidly shook her head. “Y-Yes! Last time I checked in she said she was making her way through darkwood Rd, I-I think around Taqueria Nana’s?”
Edmond nodded as he heard the information, good, Anne wasn’t far from the office. That meant he didn’t have to punch in for her today, and he’d get to go home sober too, it was a win-win scenario.
Another dark bullet was shot his way, Edmond ducked but the metallic clang he heard right as he hit the floor meant one thing. “Shit!” He dumped his entire mag into the creature, but all it did was slow it down as it tried to rise up, so he did the next best thing.
“Get the hell out of the Boss Lady’s office.” He kicked it right out the window so it could get in line with the rest of the monster blob below. With that monster out the window, the slouched man guided a new magazine into his pistol and took quick potshots at the harassing Witch, they all missed, but it got her riled up. So he got a good chuckle out of that.
Mary quickly took a peek at what happened and then ducked her head when Edmond jumped over and propped himself behind the table, right next to her. “Y-you sure that was a good idea? She can just turn something else into those… Things!”
Edmond checked his magazine, it was empty so he discarded it and slid a new one right back in. “I know, but that Witch would do worse if we just rolled over and let her waltz into the office.” Peeking his head out, he observed as the witch grabbed her turtle-megaphone hybrid and put it up to her mouth, the only part of the face Edmond could see of the floating girl.
That hat was starting to really piss him off.
“Ahem! If you're done with your futile struggling, I would like to go over my conditions as the new ruler of… Um, what’s the name of this city?”
“I-It’s Town!” Surprisingly, it was Mary that blurted it out.
“Town? Eugh, what a horrible name.” The Witch was clearly not a fan. “You know what? Once I turn this drab office building into my cool new base, I’ll rename this city to something cooler, like Azaroth! Or Ziggurat! Oh! Oh! Oh! Salem’s Hill, that shall be the name of this misbegotten town once I’m done with it.”
Edmond made a half-hearted thumbs up as he stared at the floating girl. “Well I’m glad for ya, but you’re assuming a bit too much. Don’t you think so?” He raised his gun to fire once more, beside him, Mary frantically scampered to position.
In response, the Witch held her hand in a finger gun, dark electric energy crackling as she readied herself to fire.
Edmond could feel the sweat slip from his brow, his index finger itching as it hovered over the 1911’s trigger. That bullet was going to miss them, that he knew. But, what in this office would the bullet hit was the concerning part.
He wouldn’t get the time to speculate, as the girl let the bullet fly.
“Son of a- it’s heading for the door, Mary!” Mary scrambled out of cover and rushed to the door while providing what little suppressing fire she could. The dark bullet cut through the rain of 9mm bullets as it raced the brunette woman for the door, and with each bullet slapped away, the faster it became.
Just as the magical bullet zipped through the window, Mary had grabbed onto the knob and slammed the door open; ducking just as the dark bullet whizzed over her head and hit the hard office floor, rendering it useless.
The Witch didn’t look phased by it. “Drat. I was hoping to box you two in so I could get some nice little hostages, buuut I guess the desk will have to do it.” With no warning, the Witch went for another shot, Edmond had already kicked the desk in order to throw it off the building, but it was too heavy so it was left right at the edge of the window, it was practically on a silver platter.
Fortunately, this costly mistake would not live to haunt Edmond.
A blue wall materialized in front of the office desk, flickering in and out of existence as it held back the bullet from its target. Soon enough the dark bullet fizzled out and the cyan wall snaked its way down the building. The source of the wall? A young girl with short, bright sky blue hair that reminded him of the ocean’s waves. The dress, while equally as vibrant, was also layered with cuts and dirt.
Edmond then looked to the girl’s left and saw the lady of the hour herself. “Huh, wouldja look at that. It only took her forty years this time.” He then sprawled out on the floor, content to sit the rest of the siege out.
“But, it only t00k her an hour?”
Edmond raised his head to look at his dense co-worker. “It’s a figure of speech, Mary. Now can you drag me back inside? Please?”
Mary, while carefully standing up from her prone position, asked the prone man. “But about the Witch?” She grabbed the man by the shoulders, and with considerable force propped him up to a standing position.
Edmond replied by simply leading the young Office Lady to the broken office window and pointed downwards. “Down there.”
The scene down below was a sight to behold, instead of a monster horde clawing at their makeshift defenses, Anne and the brightly dressed girl beside her were in the thick of it as they engaged the small army in combat.
In particular, the vibrantly dressed girl and her use of magic was what caught Mary’s attention. “I-Is that-?”
“Yep,” Edmond confirmed before Mary finished her sentence. “The boss Lady’s gonna wanna hear this.” The slouched man didn’t wait for Mary as he entered the office, leaving the young woman to look over the battle below.
“Is this what Deja vu feels like?” Mary glanced at the Magical Girl for a few more moments, before shaking it off and promptly following Edmond.
After all, the boss didn’t like being out of the loop.