Mao opened his eyes, ready for the void like darkness.
“Well, let's do this then.”
With his heightened senses he quickly located the thread of Ezuki Atsuko.
“Hang on a little longer, we'll sort out that knot,” he said, wrapping the magical thread around the Recovery Disk.
He went into his Overlord form, and rushed down the line of twine. He was making quick progress, but he knew things were about to change. The magic within the disk began to radiate outwards, and change the very dimension around them. A sky with a sun, a field full of flowers, such landscape began to fill the void. But Mao continued his flight, for the bees and birds in that field would not be the friendly kind of earth but manifestations of Atsuko's self defense instincts.
He halted suddenly, something that shouldn't have been there, was. A decorative silver wall mirror hung on one of the only patches of void which remained. The reflective part of that mirror was pitch black, and an eye stared out from inside. Mao flew towards it, but the eye took notice. It stared at him until he had nearly reached the mirror, Mao looked on in horror and fascination, the figure of a woman retreated further into the darkness that filled the mirror. Suddenly a vast amount of Atsuko's magic flowed out from the silver mirror! Mao rolled mid air to avoid the chaotic blast, in the same instant he flicked his disk forward, and a large potion of the rampaging energy was siphoned into it. Atsuko's thread now spread in three directions: further into the Lesser Mirror which would eventually lead to the Greater Mirror, into Mao's Fixed Recovery Disk, and into the chaotic gout of magic, which had since begun to take shape as a large bird. Unlike the other rather cute guardians of the magical garden that had formed, this one showed bone in places and dark miasma hung off of it like an aura.
“Time to break a leg...” Mao said under his breath, spreading out his own wings.
In terms of raw magic, Mao was stronger, but he didn't like the look of that miasma. The Dark Mirror and by extension Stagnation Conversion drew out latent power in exchange for one's mortality, this magical bird was the undead equivalent of a phoenix most likely.
“Hang in there Atsuko-chan, I'm gonna have to get a little rough.”
Mao grit his teeth, and summoned two spears of light. They launched forward, piercing the bird's wings. Mao flicked a finger upwards and they returned to him.
The bird shrieked, and the miasma spread out over a wide area, blue flames ate at the holes in its wings.
It flapped, but was unable to take flight. It shrieked again, this time glaring directly at Mao, a blue light filled the inside of its throat, then beak, and with a bass reverberation a beam of blue energy arched towards Mao.
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Mao gave a slight smile, “If it's magic I can deal with it.”
From the tips of each of his twelve wings an orb of light appeared, and formed a curve, connecting in front of Mao, then the curved lines widened into panel-like shields. The beam impacted the shield, a few cracks appeared in it, but that was anticipated. The beam didn't fade! The shield changed shape, channeling the beam along the panels, until finally redirecting it back at the fell phoenix. Mao added additional magic of his own to the reflected beam!
The phoenix looked surprised as the beam arched back towards it, searing off everything that wasn't already bone. It shivered in place, taking a halting step forward, the miasma pouring out of it now unimpeded.
Mao flew up quickly, “Whoa there...Don't get that on me.”
He directed his spears again, with nothing in the way he could see the pulsing core that the thread was connected to. The first spear crashed down through its skull, pinning it to the ground. It struggled feebly, but the miasma production was eating into its mana supply. Unable to resist, the second spear cracked down on the core. It dispersed violently, the flower field and miasma both reduced to particles of light.
“Oh no you don't,” Mao said rapidly flying around with the disk outstretched. It absorbed the light particles like a storm drain. Once the last particle was in, it made a sound like a soft chime.
“Hm!? Already? But I haven't...” Mao looked around and noticed that the thread was indeed gone. He looked to where the silver mirror had been, but nothing was there. He had figured once a certain mass of mana had been collected, the heavier side would pull the other, but he had expected that 'heavier side' to be the tangle in the Greater Mirror. He recalled the form in the mirror.
“I'm not sure what to make of that...At least it seems cooperative.”
About a minute passed, and the disk made a chattering sound.
With a flash of light, a girl in Magical Girl attire appeared, absorbing the disk into her person.
“Huh? Where am I? O-Overlord Otomi?!” Ezuki Atsuko said, coming to.
“Well, if you know who I am than I guess you're doing better than I expected! We're getting you girls out of here before the Dark Mirror devours Priripon. That cool?”
The usually cool and collected Magical Girl nodded meekly as Mao princess carried her, parting the dimensional curtain before him and they arrived within the Greater Mirror.