She was sliding across the power lines, her movements fierce and graceful, creating light flashes and sparks that no one would witness. The highway was emptied because of the storms; summer in the Lullaby Islands meant nonstop rain. The folklore said this was how the world kept ocean dragons asleep and tamed. However, on the web, from the surface-dwelling grampas and aunties on MyPage to the deranged threads on '/★/ - Mahou', this season's stronger-than-usual storms had a new association: The newcomer magical girl Rumin.
Rumi found it all to be absurd. She was not a magical girl - mere pastel-coloured corporate products - she was a shaman to the local storm spirit... who just happened to be wearing pastel-ish teal-coloured armour and who also happened to sell some merch with the help of her marketing agent.
Some people didn't like the commodification of the local spirits and their sacred agent, but to Rumi was only fair! This had to be the worst summer vacation of her life. She couldn't go a day without facing a new local weirdo or foreign agent trying to mess with ancient sites or steal a relic.
While she still didn't know the full context of this mess, she was starting to single out the big players. She just needed concrete proof before making her move against them, something a bunch of idiots from her regular rogue gallery were about to provide.
Her target appeared in front of her, a warehouse surrounded by a fortified fence and a warded gate; it was just across a small parking lot from the power lines she had used to quickly move across the island. Typically, she would scout ahead, but she wanted the element of surprise to catch her target, so without a second thought, she somersaulted off from the nearest pylon, diving towards the ground.
Halfway through, she was met with a hail of bullets. Cheap metallic talisman-inscribed projectiles hit her like a swarm of mosquitoes. Not enough to hurt her or get past the armour and wards she had, but it still made her land sooner than expected, way too far from the gate.
Visibility was low thanks to the heavy rain, but she was the shaman of the storm spirit, and although she had been lazy in training her connection to the water aspect of her powers, she still could connect and sense the element with ease.
Droplets of rain splashed against many cloaked figures, moving around in a circle, rifles and pistols in their hands. She started to notice how sometimes the water would hit something fuzzy and cling to it... damp fur? Yes. It seemed this group of people were Chimeras, mostly just having animal ears and tails.
They were trying to bait and delay her, which explained why they used such cheap bullets instead of something that could actually hurt her, like stone talismans or runic sponges.
This was good. A group of four idiots like the ones who owned the warehouse wouldn't normally have the means to hire a squad of what, thirteen mercenaries?
"Oooh. How scary," she said in a sarcastic tone, holding her hands up in the air. "You may shoot me now."
Her words were enough to leave the nearest merc confused for a second or two, enough for Rumi to bring down one of her hands in a charged chop that left him on the ground. Lightning flashed, blinding the chimeras and giving Rumi the opening to strike down at another, opening the path to the warded gate. She had to avoid losing time with these grunts...
Her eyes widened, a spark moved up her spine, and she tilted her head to the side just a few centimetres. A crystalline bolt brushed right by her cheek, taking out some of her hair before hitting the ground with a small explosion of glass and energy.
Rumi turned to face the sniper who had almost hit her, hiding far back in the parking lot, completely dry from the rain; it was a dog-eared chimera, probably the leader since she had the fanciest hat of the squad.
She was a good shooter, but she had been foolish to use a gun that fired using lightning magic. Sure, the extremely fast projectile would have been impossible to dodge once fired but using electricity against Rumi meant she had already missed the shot before even pressing the trigger.
And she wouldn't get a second. The cyan-clad magical girl smirked as she looked straight into the eyes of the dog chimera and charged forward with a burst of thunder and wind.
A loud gong echoed as she reached her target. Rumi would see the mercenary captain still had a confident expression on her face. Between the storm shaman's fist and the chimera's face, there was the broadside of a sword heavily infused with the earth element, her own wild and unrefined storm elements being heavily countered by it.
Worse was what Rumi saw to her side. Hiding within a truck, there was a piece of artillery. Outdated and rusty, sure, but still aiming almost point-blank at her body. She scrambled, breaking contact with the mercenary, putting all she could to ward off the incoming shell.
It fired way too soon, Rumi was left with an all or nothing attempt to slap away the projectile, it was too clumsy and her palm overshot the target, instead, it made contact with her wrist.
And deflected.
Both the magical girl and the mercenary captain were left staring without words as the trajectory of the shell changed ever so slightly to the left, enough to miss Rumi entirely and instead go straight against the warded gate. It exploded in magenta and black smoke, and immediately almost everyone present could feel the anti-magic concoction sapping away at the wards.
Then the small wall that surrounded the main warehouse collapsed. Someone had clearly cut costs in the building of the wall by using enchantments to keep it together, and now that was gone.
The captain's dog ears rose up as she noticed how quickly the situation had deteriorated for her side. Her group, hired as a distraction and road block, had just accidentaly made it easier for Rumi to get to her objective. Maybe because of that the girl went on a frenzy of slashes and strikes, trying to keep her enemy back for just a few more moments.
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Rumi dodged most of it with ease, she could easily tank a strike to her body, but she really hated swords. Plasma swords and talisman swords were within The Protocol, thus non-lethal if both sides were following it, but they still hurt a lot, like paper cuts.
Plus it seemed that the dog merc was quickly tiring herself, she had impressively low stamina for someone who looked so well trained.
A slight change in the lightining of the parking lot immediately caught Rumi's attention, the shadows seemed to flicker as if something was behind her. The magical girl turned her eyes to the mirror of a nearby automobile and she found something absurd.
Someone was preparing a spell right behind her, and it was remote casting atop that, something only well trained mages could do. With a sense of unease, Rumi somersaulted to get a good view of her surroundings, at the cost of giving the dog merc a chance to lunge at her as soon as she landed.
Until that happened, she took the chance to quickly overlook her surroundings. She expected the mage to be hidden but was surprised to find her half-hidden by the wall. She had a scruffy look, with messy red hair, and she was sure she was not with the mercs.
This assumption did have a feet in physical differences. Her clothes, rags actually, had more of a Eastern Aeolia feel while the mercs were clearly from southern Wes'hem. Her skin was also pale while the captain and most other chimeras had a tan to dark tone not too different from Rumi's own.
Yet there was something critically different in the way she held herself. Rumi was not good with people but she couldn't help but observe how the mage's had an unsure stance and a worried expression, while all the mercs held themselves up even when in a bad situation.
Smirking, this difference gave her one idea. As soon as she landed and the captain lunged, she clapped her hands together at the blade, fully charged with the storm elements. Once again, there was a thunderous and flashy impact followed by a loud gong sound as the sword countered it. But this time, a third sound followed, an 'eep!' as the scruffy mage rose her hands to protect her face from the scary sounds and lights.
The effect this had on the spell that was just about to explode behind Rumi was like that of a fishing rod. As the mage yanked her hands back from the casting position to her head, the spell completed itself as a fireball that went straight towards her.
The explosion and impact were way too strong, and they wiped Rumi's smirk right off her face. The mage was sent straight against the wall, which would have collapsed over her if the magical girl hadn't immediately rushed ahead to take her away.
Rumi assessed the situation with her heart split. Apparently The Protocol ward had failed the mage, she had some burns and a clearly hurt ankle, was this something she did? What was going on? She needed to rush ahead to grab her target but she didn't want to just...
Her eyes met the dog eared captain's eyes, who nodded reassuringly. No word was said, but a gentleman's agreement was formed between the two girls. The mercenary sheathed her sword and went to the mage's aid while Rumi got to move on with her mission.
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Stepping in the warehouse, Rumi could see silhouettes in a second floor room through a window just by the catwalks. One idiot scientist who was also her classmate and his three allies: the doll girl, the girl with the big bag and the furry eared werewolf...
No. Wait. Too short. That was not the wolf, that was a fox, The Tengu Company's main agent. There she was! The proof she needed! She rushed ahead with an excited smile, which quickly turned into a wide shocked expression as she noticed her mistake.
If the werewolf wasn't in the room, then where would she be?
A figure pounced at her from above, and Rumi answered by doing a quick handstand and kicking it right in the face. Immediately she noticed it was nothing but a dummy, her real enemy was rushing at her from the ground, and she had no way to protect herself as she was kicked in the ribs and launched against a pile of boxes.
"Hohoh~ Hello Rumin! It has been a while, did you miss me? I expected you to be a little wiser." The werewolf, an older girl named Mazeline, said in the most insufferable of tones. Rumi didn't know what drove people to want to quip and banter in battle, but she was having none of it.
"Wasn't last time enough 'befriending' for you? Stop causing trouble." Rumi jumped out trying to misdirect, overshooting intentionally to try to hit Maze in the flanks.
"A surprise attack to the left is just too predictable." with a fanged smile, the werewolf had her stance ready to meet Rumi with a flurry of quick strikes. Then her smile started to fade. "Wow, wait, wait a second. How did you..."
The magical girl had started to counter each and every single strike with one of her own, but then she continued to speed up, outpacing Maze until the werewolf was the one on the defensive.
Maze broke off the engagement with a wide clawed strike and a jump backwards, letting out a howl as she did so. Immediately Rumi felt the effects of that cheap trick, the walls of boxes around them seemed to tower over her in an oppressive manner, and her footing became unsure.
"You know, you magical girls are really like puppy dogs, you go a month without seeing them and then you get shocked at how much they grew." Maze barked, repositioning herself, her eyes gaining a faint yellow shine. "Another similarity is that both also rarely stick past sixteen."
"Disgustingly desperate to tilt me, Maze." Rumi readied herself despite the dizziness overtaking her senses.
The werewolf answered by pouncing at her, the storm shaman barely managed to avoid the claws at the cost of getting kicked again, thrown halfway across the room.
Maze didn't waste the chance, she jumped up, using the ceiling beams of the warehouse as footing to launch herself down at a high speed.
Showing off was her undoing. Rumi raised her hands and all the windows blasted open as the raging stormy winds invaded the building, crashing against Mazeline, It was not a strong attack, but she just needed to stop her slightly, not too different from how the mercs made her undershot her jump when she arrived.
Mazeline doubled down on her mistake, but that was expected, she tried to power through the winds with her claws ready to strike, she didn't expect Rumi to be able to just side step, given she was still under the influence of the howl.
But Rumi merely allowed the water and the wind to guide her, as she gently stepped back ignoring her cursed human senses.
As for Maze, her claws struck at the concrete floor and got temporarily stuck, forcing her to kneel in a prime getting kicked in the face position. The magical girl happily obliged, raising her feet high and then bringing it down with full force against the werewolf.
Yet, even after such a total defeat, Maze smirked. Of course, she too was nothing but a distraction, and Rumi still had to open that door to the second floor and...
"MAZE!" a new voice echoed within the warehouse, coming from the second floor, as the door to the office opened just slightly and a girl who looked like some pastel doll slid out of the room. "I will help you! This idiot won't just bully and humiliate you like this!"
"Princess, no!" The werewolf screamed with the little strength that was left in her, but it was too late. Way too late. The doll girl tried to open and close the door as quickly as she could, but Rumi was quicker, jumping from box to wall to railing and then throwing a crowbar forward just in the nick of time to stop the door from closing.
Cracking the door open after casually shoving the doll girl away, she could see inside of the room: the data being transferred from a computer to a crystal disk, the workings of a small range teleportation spell, two terrified idiots and a very, very annoyed fox eared woman.
Now that Rumi had dealt with the entrees, it was time for the real battle to start.