Chapter Twenty-Nine - Who's Taking It?

"Do you want to take this one, or should I do it?" Alice asked.

There was only a bare moment's consideration for her to decide whether or not she would try to help the Stalkers below. Yes, not helping would help them keep some level of anonymity but... when had that ever mattered?

Magical girls were many things. Subtle wasn't one of them.

"Hmm, how's your magic feeling?" Crystal asked.

She noticed Koschei glance at them from the corner of his eye. He'd been adamant that there was nothing to do about the strange bear monster a moment ago, but he seemed willing to step back and see what they could do.

"My magic's feeling fine," Alice said.

"Are you sure?" Crystal asked. There was a scream from the gas station, but Crystal had locked eyes on Alice and wasn't going to be distracted so easily.

Alice wanted to just say yes, that things were fine, but she hadn't actually tested herself. It would be a lie, if only by omission, to say that she was fine. "Maybe you take this one," Alice said. "Don't be too flashy about it."

Crystal smiled slightly. "We'll talk after?"

Alice nodded, and then Crystal stepped up and stared down at the monster. It was roaring at the moment, claws raking down to try and swipe at one of the Stalkers, but another had a long stick in hand, a broom, and was just barely managing to hold the creature back.

Then the broom gave in, wood splintering and snapping, and the bear came down onto the screaming Stalker.

It would have been over for him. It would have been. Instead, two spires of blueish crystal ripped out of the ground and skewered the bear, stabbing into its armpits and shoving it back.

The bear roared, but the sound echoed wrongly. The entire creature flickered, and it was suddenly a dozen paces back and in the middle of a charge that it aborted to avoid running into Crystal's attack.

"Looks like it's doing that call-back flicker thing," Crystal said. "It's not teleportation like Koschei can do."

"His ability isn't teleportation," Alice said. "It's temporal displacement."

"Potato potato," Crystal said.

Koschei was openly staring at them now.

"How are you going to take it out?" Alice asked. She could think of... three low-effort solutions. Locking the bear in another dimension, locking it in place by draining the temporal energy it was using, or forcing it into a losing loop where no matter what it did it would reappear in a situation where it died.

Crystal's eyes narrowed, then she gave herself a little nod before picking a fourth option.

The crystal spines she'd summoned warped and shifted into two thin pillars, then they forked at the top into a pair of tines. A high-pitched hum filled the area around the gas station as wind swept through the tines and created a pair of resonating notes.

The bear shook its head, then growled and lunged... at nothing at all.

It spun, seeming confused before leaping to the side with surprising dexterity to avoid something that Alice couldn't see. Lasers? But no, when Crystal used lasers she was never shy about making them blindingly bright.

It had been an issue in her early career, with plenty of civilians complaining of eye damage from seeing her attacks.

But no, Alice couldn't sense any actual light, but there was definitely some light magic going on. "Wait... illusions?" Alice asked.

"Yup! It's a neat trick, right?" Crystal asked. "It's stuck in a perpetual illusion that has it being attacked by visions of itself."

"Which we can't see?" Alice asked.

"They're targeting the big guys eyes directly. Harder to target, but way cheaper in the long run."

"And the spellwork is creating these illusions how?" Alice asked. It was one thing to make light illusions, it was another to have them move and act intelligently, moreso to have them act intelligently without direct control and oversight. That was several orders of magnitude more complex.

Crystal's smile couldn't be any more smug. "I'm tapping into the bear's own magic. It's seeing what it would do if it saw itself. Can't you sense it leaking time magic like one of those spaghetti... hole things?"

"A strainer?" Alice asked. "The expression is leaking like a sieve, by the way."

"Doesn't matter, I'm smart, now give me positive attention please!" Crystal gestured towards her head, and Alice rolled her eyes. She did reach up and give Crystal a pat, because she did deserve it.

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Koschei cleared his throat. "Will this... last?" he asked.

"Forever and ever," Crystal said. "As long as the anchors aren't broken. Think of it like having your own guard time bear! Only it's not loyal and will probably eat you for getting too close while also fighting its own nightmares!"

Alice nodded. "The advantage here is that the bear is probably going to overuse its own abilities. Not to gamify it too much, but it's like pushing a cooldown to its limit. The tapping into its illusions will also drain its power even faster. You'll likely see it running out of magic within... some time."

"Some time," Koschei repeated.

"In a week, or a month, or a century. It'll run out eventually," Alice said. "And when it does, you'll have an exhausted, very worn out, and probably exceptionally unhealthy bear-thing to deal with." It would probably expire all on its own without magic to keep it going.

They could have killed it, but maybe doing it like this was better. It certainly made less noise to have their spellwork be so subtle and localised. Sure, the locals themselves might talk about it and spread the news around, but Alice was less worried about their opinions and more worried about the interaction between her magic, Crystal's, and the world's.

"Let's go see the locals!" Crystal said. "One of them looks hurt."

Alice agreed, and with a glance to Koschei to confirm that he didn't think it was a terrible idea, they started down the rocky hillside towards the gas station.

It took a surprisingly long time for them to be spotted. The Stalker on the roof was, understandably, focused on the large bear who was still freaking out and clawing at the air around it while roaring.

They'd at least stopped shooting at it.

Koschei whistled twice in quick succession, and he made a show of letting go of his rifle, letting it hang by its strap. "Do you need help?" he called out.

The guy on the roof jumped, but it only took a moment of staring for him to recognize their guide. "Koschei?" he asked. "That you?"

"It's me," Koschei said. "No security question?"

"We're a little busy for that," the marksman said. "How's Anton? I can't see from here."

Anton, Alice decided, must have been the guy bleeding all over the place. He was laying back against the door of a ruined car, grunting as another Stalker pressed some bandages into his sides.

"Anton looks like shit!" the Stalker shouted. "Koschei, good to see you. Do you have any alcohol?"

"I could use a drink," Anton said with a gasp.

Alice and Crystal stayed by Koschei's side. He seemed to have a better handle on this group than Alice thought she might have, and as long as they stayed by him, the others didn't seem to think they were too suspicious.

"I've got something," Koschei said. He swung his backpack off and then rummaged around, coming back with a small clear glass bottle of spirits. "It's a bit strong for you, Anton."

"Oh, fuck off," Anton replied. "Who're your friends?"

Koschei walked over and dropped to one knee next to Anton and the Stalker tending to him. The other two eyed him and the girls, but they were mostly busy keeping an eye on the rampaging bear. It was still flailing around at nothing.

"Pour some on this," the Stalker tending to Anton said as he handed Koshei a clean-ish rag.

"Pour some in my mouth first," Anton said.

"No," Koschei replied as he soaked the rag a little and handed it back. Alice caught a whiff of the alcohol and blinked. It was strong enough to burn nosehairs.

Anton continued to grumble until the Stalker over him pressed the rag into his wounds. Then he grit his teeth and grunted in pain.

It was probably for the best. The bear had clawed him along the side, ripping right through the padded coat he had been wearing. Anton had a plate carrier, but it only covered his upper chest and not his sides at all.

The wound was nasty looking, worse because Alice doubted the bear's claws were sanitary, but it didn't look too deep.

He'd live, probably. It really depended on how good the medical treatment was around here.

She looked up and took in the Stalker camp. There were a few tarps hanging off the side of the gas station, the interior looking like it was semi-gutted to make more living space.

She revised Anton's chances a little lower.

***