"Anyone got a visual?!"
"Two bogeys sighted, headed towards 4th Avenue, boss!" another voice crackled over the radio. It was a man, and the radio crackled again. "One's a brunette with a tail and ears, boss! Other is some chick in a gothic dress. They've got the VIP."
Samantha yawned, rubbing her eyes as she stretched out her neck, feeling the popping and crunching of bone as it shifted back into its proper alignment.
"You tired or somethin'?"
The hulking form of her brother-in-arms, Hypertroph, loomed next to her as he kept watch. The two of them were perched atop an old building, keeping an eye out for the rogue magical girls who had kidnapped their meal ticket. Samantha had to crane her neck up at the giant, bald black man in front of her.
"Didn't think one job would need all this fucking manpower," Samantha yawned again, idly checking the blades she had hidden on her person and the pistols she had tucked behind her back and under her arm.
"Boss wants the VIP. We give boss the VIP," Hypertroph grunted. "Even if that means we gotta play tag with a fucking magical girl."
"Fucking waste of time if you ask me," Samantha grunted, rolling her shoulders. "If I wanted to play babysitter, I woulda fucked the first idiot dumb enough to knock me up and call it a day. This VIP crap's a fucking waste of effort, and I'm not about to go playing hide-and-go seek in the sewers with one of these freaky, prissy, little bitches."
"Think we should play it safe?"
"Nah," Samantha yawned again. "Let's take them out here and now."
A magical girl's high-pitched giggle rang out, and Samantha turned her head.
"Show time," she grinned.
Samantha could see two figures racing along the rooftops in a zig-zag motion, heading away from where Huntsman, Urok and the other scouts had engaged them.
"I'll cut them off," Samantha smirked, jumping up and taking off, bounding over the edge of her vantage point.
Hypertroph nodded.
The big man could keep pace on the roofs, but Samantha preferred the streets, and he was a heavy enough hitter that she didn't feel a need to wait up for him.
She grinned, activating her own World Skill, her body shifting, muscles and veins pulsing, eyes turning black as the world became a darker, harsher, and much bloodier place, filled with red outlines that denoted her enemies.
They hadn't sent too many of their heavy hitters. Their side jobs were the main focus right now. Samantha and the boys were just on clean-up and escort duty.
Samantha's eyes locked onto two figures. She could see a short kid with cat ears and a tail chasing a raven-haired brat in a goth costume. Both had sinister red eyes and an evil aura surrounding them. One carried a large duffle bag, while the other was carrying a small, struggling, squirming object that looked suspiciously like a teenage girl.
She dashed forward, her speed increasing as her feet flew across the pavement. The girl with the cat ears suddenly leaped down off of a roof and ran into the alleyway below. Samantha snarled, leaping up onto a wall and sprinting along it before vaulting down into the alley after her, landing with an axe kick aimed at her skull.
The catgirl bent impossibly backward as if avoiding a sword swing, dodging Samantha's strike with a look of surprise. But the catgirl supervillain was right there, and threw a follow-up punch at her.
Samantha jumped up and grabbed the cat by her arm, twisting her body and slamming her against the ground.
The raven-haired girl in the goth dress screeched as Hypertroph shot up like a bullet, grabbing her mid-jump with his giant hand, bringing her crashing down. As the raven-haired magical girl let out a frightened cry, he tossed her like a basketball into Samantha's path.
"Owwww!"
She quickly rolled back up to her feet, her face twisted in a pained scowl. A scowl that was quickly replaced by horror as Hypertroph scooped up the terrified Matsudaira heiress, still bound in ropes.
"Well, that was easy enough," Samantha said, her face twisting into asmirk.
Samantha took a second to take stock of her opposition. The catgirl had red hair, slitted yellow eyes with slitted pupils, and a small tail and ears of the same color. Her face and arms were lightly covered in what looked like tribal tattoos, her lower body clad in black athletic tights with metal studs over her arms, thighs, and shoulders. She had a black crop top, with matching gloves, boots and a spiked collar.
The other one was in a dark goth dress complete with red corset, wearing a small crown, with sinister red eyes and long, flowing black hair that fell over her face, partially concealing her identity.
"MMrrrgghhh!"
The flailing and struggling Matsudaira heiress tried to say something, which Samantha assumed was a desperate cry for help or some kind of demand. She ignored it. The heiress had no power or influence in this situation.
"Heh. You know, this bitch heavier than she looks."
The raven-haired magical girl leaped to her feet, glaring daggers at them as Hypertroph continued. "This would have gone a lot easier on everyone if ya just stayed put."
She practically disappeared from sight, charging at Hypertroph while summoning a scythe with a red blade and black hilt from a flash of crimson motes of mana.
*Clang*
Eris's eyes widened in surprise as Hypertroph blocked her attack with his forearms. Sparks flew from his gauntlets.
Hypertroph grinned. "Pathetic. You may be quick, but you lack resolve."
"Get the VIP to the safe house, and let Arsenal and Huntsman know we've got 'em," Samantha commanded.
"You got it, Warden."
With a nod, he grabbed the Matsudaira kid, turned, and dashed away, jumping up the fire escape and running along the rooftops. The raven-haired girl's expression grew desperate.
"You're not going anywhere!" she cried, leaping after him, trying to cut him off.
She let out a scream of pain as Samantha's blades flashed through the air like a silver streak, slicing through her back, her aura shattering in response.
"Bastard!" she hissed between gritted teeth, dropping down onto a nearby rooftop.
Samantha smirked, casually twirling the four knives she'd been throwing.
"Hypertroph is a Class 6 Bruiser," she smirked. "It takes an absolute bitch of an upper class knight to get through that armor and even slow him down." Samantha licked the edge of a knife, the red aura surrounding her darkening further. "Me? I'm a Class 6 Executioner."
Samantha leaped at the two magical girls, knives flying through the air. The cat girl let out a scream as several slashed her cheeks and nicked her body.
"Name's Warden. I'm gonna bleed the both of ya like the squealing little piggies you are!"
"Go after them. I'll take her on!" the catgirl shouted as Samantha's aura pulsed, sending waves of bloodlust down everyone's necks as her eyes locked on them. The redhead dashed forward as she shouted, ducking into a sprint as she tried to race off.
Samantha leaped back in shock as an explosion erupted from the catgirl's direction. Her aura pulsed, her veins growing and pulsating with red energy, and a torrent of pinnk light flared out of the catgirl. Her knives went flying off target as she stumbled back.
"Fuck!" Samantha cursed under her breath as she landed awkwardly on her side.
The raven-haired magical girl with the scythe leapt away, giving chase, leaving Samantha alone with a magical girl wreathed in a new red aura that was pulsating with power.
Samantha was one of Red Masque's first students, a brutal and vicious woman that was trained in his specific style of martial arts. It was all about using one's environment and catching opponents unawares. Samantha was a pro and a sadistic assassin to the bone. She knew that any half decent martial artist was good at analyzing their opponent's habits, so she never gave an opponent the chance if she could help it.
Her cumulative level was well over 150, and she'd fought a few bratty magical girls and knights in the past. Hypertroph also had little issue taking on significantly faster and stronger opponents than the goth bitch fighting him now.
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Although... something about the aura the catgirl had suddenly gave her chills. She had a bad feeling, and her instincts had never lied before.
The girl in front of her settled into a fluid stance, bouncing back and forth like a boxer would, fists and claws poised to lash out at a moment's notice. But a more refined eye like Samantha's could still find subtle flaws in her rhythm and footwork. She would not be too difficult to deal with.
Hypertroph planted his feet in the distance, turning his back towards Samantha to face his own opponents. He had his gauntleted hands raised in a guard as the raven-haired magical girl clashed with him. They danced to the side as she swung her scythe at him in a wide arc, narrowly ducking under the attack and lashing back with an overhand that shattered the asphalt under his fist.
There was no way some mature knight could give a top tier powerhouse like Hypertroph much of a runaround, let alone a low level one like her. She had to be holding a lot of mana back, which would explain why they were able to escape from Huntsman and Urok with such ease. Still, he knew to expect anything. Huntsman had warned everyone about underestimating them, so Hypertroph was taking it easy to avoid giving openings.
Warden had her knives out and at the ready, but she wasn't sure how to press the attack.
"First time I've seen an ability like this on a rookie," Samantha grinned, licking her lips as her aura flared out, bathing the alleyways in an eerie, scarlet. "Sorry to break it to ya, dear, but that won't cut it. I've fought plenty of other magical brats, so this is nothing special to me." Her blades spun through her fingers, shining ominously as the streetlights glinted off their metal.
"It'll have to be," the feline girl retorted, grinning. Her face had an innocent look, like a kid caught doing something naughty, but her aura screamed danger, pulsating like a living, beating heart. "Now, come on. We'll show you why Kaleidoscope is our turf now!"
Samantha had to suppress her surprise, and then felt like kicking herself for underestimating her enemy.
But there was no time. The magical girl let out a battlecry as she lunged forward, and the assassin barely had enough time to block a series of punches aimed at her face. The girl was fast, her arms and legs a blur of movement as she swung her fists and feet around. Every punch Samantha blocked left her feeling slightly sore. Still, it wouldn't be much of an issue. She was still swinging far too wide and it was a matter of time before Samantha found an opening for a count—
The world exploded. Literally.
"Wha—"
She was sent flying back by a sudden blast as her vision went bright red. The world spun, pain coursing through her body as she tumbled through the air like a ragdoll.
'Oh, shit...'
She landed on a pile of trash bags and broken down boxes on the roof, smashing through them as she crashed into the wall, gasping as pain flared through her body. She coughed blood and looked up, eyes wide with shock as she struggled to understand what had happened.
Explosions? From melee hits?
She didn't sense a bit of mana in them either. There was virtually no telegraph.
"Yo, that's a big oof," the cat-eared magical girl laughed as she walked towards Samantha. Her voice was mocking and condescending.
"Get bent..." she snarled, hissing at the pain that shot through her ribs and chest as she stood up. Her whole body was throbbing from the force of that attack.
"Now, that's no way for a lady to talk," the feline magical girl said, grinning, showing a full set of fanged teeth and a feline tongue. "Let's make this fun!"
Samantha glanced desperately back at Hypertroph. The man was laying down a beating on the goth girl, but the brat just kept going, her aura seemingly endless.
'Where's Huntsman when ya fucking need him...' Samantha groaned to herself, desperately trying to figure out how to handle her two opponents.
Samantha's defensive skills were high, but her fighting style focused on a combination of assassination and hit and run, never taking fights directly. Her main tactic for taking on more troublesome or risky opponents were to simply turn them into pin cushions with enough blades and then move on to the next target.
Someone who could deliver point-blank large area explosions to a degree that would throw her off balance and make aiming her knives difficult, all the while attacking at a distance, gave the veteran supervillainess plenty of trouble. It would've been easier if she wasn't already in the cat girl's attack range, or had an ally like Hypertroph or Huntsman backing her up.
Her knives weren't much help against an opponent that was so fast and mobile either. And every punch she managed to land on her opponent only served to give the magical girl's aura an extra burst of pink energy.
Is she a berserker type? That would be bad. Really bad.
Samantha grimaced.
Still, Hypertroph should be able to finish off the goth brat.
The raven-haired girl had taken to dodging attacks and countering them rather than try and fight back directly. The two magical girl brats weren't working in unison — a fact that Samantha found very fortunate indeed. They were doing their own things. No communication, no planning, just raw individual strength and reflexes.
But they had separated her and Hypertroph, which meant that neither of them could cover each other. Samantha would need to engage the redhead in hand to hand combat, and she couldn't even get close enough for a grapple with those explosions threatening her.
Samantha dodged an overhead swipe by the catgirl's claws, throwing several of her knives at the girl as she danced backwards, trying desperately to get some distance from the brat. Her blades flew true, sinking deep into her flesh as she winced in pain.
"Ha! You're too slow, bitch," Samantha laughed, grinning at the bleeding magical girl as the air between them burned in her wake. "You're not even close to my level!"
The cat girl pounced like an animal, her tail lashing out behind her as she leaped at the older villain. But Samantha wasn't about to let her prey get the best of her.
She flicked her wrists, throwing a small set of blades into the air as the girl charged. As the blades flew, Samantha turned and sprinted forward, dashing ahead of them and letting out a wild shriek of laughter.
As soon as she passed them, Samantha let her body move, her muscles and limbs following a script they knew by rote memory, as if she were performing an intricate dance or playing the piano without even looking. With blurring movements that could almost seem superhuman in speed and grace, the villainess snatched two blades from mid-air with unerring accuracy and grace.
Samantha flung her entire set of throwing daggers at the cat girl, a storm of silver that would tear anyone to pieces.
But she couldn't afford to slow down or be distracted. No matter how fast or powerful her enemy was, no matter how badly hurt the cat girl might seem right now, there was no guarantee that the girl would be dead from a mere few daggers. Wires erupted from devices hidden all over her body as they dug into walls, anchoring Samantha and swinging her upwards in a full 180 degree turn.
The assassin's body flew above her enemy, coming back around just as the feline's claws swiped at empty air. And just in time for a barrage of blades to stab into the magical girl from multiple angles. Samantha was able to spot several of the blades puncture her aura with ease.
"Heh, that all you got?" the catgirl hissed out in defiance. Pink light was glowing around the open cuts and holes of the blades that penetrated the feline's defenses. Samantha was no magical girl expert, but it was clearly an odd visual effect for what was probably critical damage on an opponent of her level.
"Ooh. Hey, guess wat?" the cat girl laughed out loud. "I know something you don't know," she giggled playfully as she ran a hand down her hip, the other one moving upwards towards her face, making an L with a thumb and pointer finger and pointing it towards the older villain.
The pink light around the various wounds started to glow brightly, casting a pink light over her surroundings. "Catch!"
The cat girl's aura suddenly erupted into a ghostly blue flame that consumed the entirety of her body, and her smile stretched wide across her face. Her tail twitched, her arms tensing, and then suddenly the feline's form exploded outwards in an eruption of pure force that sent Samantha hurtling back and crashing through the air like a missile, slamming into the side of a taller building with enough power to crush a normal human's ribcage. Pain surged through her, her vision fading as the ground beneath her cracked from the impact of her body, cracks radiating outward from the point where she crashed as shards of glass exploded from the windows on the first floor.
She struggled to regain her breath and her senses, her head swimming as she gasped and clutched her chest in pain, blood dribbling from the corners of her lips and dripping onto the concrete as the magical girl caught her.
"Sorry, Warden. I'm just a terrible matchup against an asshole like you. But that last round was a real hoot, nya," the magical girl chuckled.
Samantha looked up through blurry eyes, trying desperately to think of some plan that would save her life. Her instincts had served her well — this girl was a monster that she shouldn't underestimate. Samantha was one of Red Masque's highest level students, a first rate villain who had survived everything thrown at her. Even Red Masque's younger brother had only managed to beat Samantha once.
"Hypertroph's... gonna..."
"Oh? The muscle-head in armor? Well, we had intel you two would probably be the biggest pains to deal with in a group while kidnapping the Matsudaira girl so we hunted you down first." She pointed over her shoulder towards her team mate's position. "We already swapped off the prize off a different route, for the record. Ol' Hypertroph's in for a rough night on the toilet, unfortunately."
Samantha looked up and blinked in shock.
Hypertroph was the one flailing in terror now, grasping at his throat as a thick, fibrous, pink powder stuck all over his skin and face, his mouth opening and closing frantically in panic. The armored hulking brute of a supervillain desperately punched the asphalt repeatedly with all his might as he fell to one knee.
They'd been played?
"Hypertroph's accelerated assimilation of biomass worked against him," an unknown, husky male voice suddenly echoed from the side. It sounded young, like a teenager's. "He might be Discount Osmium Titan, but I reckon we wouldn't have been able to get away with him in play."
The voice continued. "We knew you two tend to get overconfident, so I made sure to get the drop on him while Nightclaw kept you busy. Ever get a tablespoon full of psyllium husk stuck in your throat? He's gonna absorb it all too fast to choke, but I don't think it's going to be pleasant combo'd with the laxatives I shoved down his throat. His World Skill lets him absorb and metabolize non-living organic matter rapidly. Without conscious control, at that. So it seemed like an easy counter with what we had on hand."
The 'Matsudaira heiress' approached Samantha's position in a confident stride. Her long legs gave him a wide gait now free from her bindings.
Samantha felt a chill go down her spine and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end as 'her' form shimmered.
In a sudden flash of golden colored motes, the form of the Matsudaira heiress was replaced with a heavyset teen of about sixteen or seventeen, covered in a blank blue mask with a full set of dark blue robes and hood that covered every square inch of flesh. There was nothing that Samantha could see that she could identify this man with.
"Nighty night, Warden. Hope to not see ya ever again," the dark-haired magical girl smirked.
Samantha groaned as she struggled against unconsciousness and pain. Her entire body felt numb from shock. She stared into those glowing, malicious, red eyes.
'How the fuck did these brats know how his World Skill even works? Who are these brats!?'
Then Samantha could only yelp in defeat as she was promptly ziptied and thrown headfirst through a broken window.