Cal stood on a dark street.
There were street lights, but the flat pane of glass bisecting the street sucked them dark.
It wasn’t actually glass.
It was magic… probably.
At least it felt like magic and looked like magic to all his different psionic senses.
The energy of tech-based barriers felt different.
Power-based barriers, like his mom’s forcefields made for the third type.
Were there more types out there?
Probably…
He pushed with telekinesis.
The physical force did nothing.
It didn’t rebound or slide off.
It didn’t even disappear.
There was no interaction between his power and the barrier.
It was as if existence just stopped.
What was really troublesome was that the satellites hadn’t detected it going up.
Something this huge should’ve put out more than enough energy to be spotted.
“Well?”
The young woman in a bright and colorful school uniform loomed over his shoulder.
A lot of young people loomed around him.
The only one that didn’t was an old government guy in tactical gear.
Young people seemed to keep getting taller every year.
“When did this go up? The exact time or as close as possible, please.”
The old government guy, General Satoru, cleared his throat.
He was more of a frontline general than a hide behind a desk general, which automatically gave him a few points with Cal. Had to respect a person willing to risk his life with the soldiers he sent to fight and die. Sure, it might not have been the best strategy, but it’d be hypocritical for him to say anything about it. Pots and kettles being both black.
“Zero one hundred local time.”
The general explained that the detachment stationed in the Imperial Palace reported in every hour on the hour.
“So, between somewhere between that and midnight.”
He pulled the data from the satellites.
They didn’t have constant worldwide coverage. North America and the Philippines had priority. Followed by the areas around allied settlements around the world and known extreme danger zones. The rest had gaps as the satellites’ orbits passed overhead.
Fortunately, Tokyo was in that second tier, so it usually had at least one satellite pointed its way.
He sped up his perceptions.
The world seemed to freeze around him.
The people stopped.
The insects fell silent.
The data flowed into his faceplate. He overlaid a recording of the Imperial Palace on it.
They didn’t like being spied on, but they didn’t really have a choice.
He had given them access to soothe their egos and they had quickly found the ability to spot dangers forming in the wild mountains worth it. Spotting a kaiju days out rather than on the horizon had saved many lives.
He watched it several times before he was satisfied.
There had been no power spike or surge in energy.
The glass-like barrier had simply appeared in one moment.
The entire Imperial Palace and about a block out beyond the water surrounding the palace area were enclosed in the cube-shaped barrier.
The world resumed motion.
“I’m assuming you tried digging?”
“You know what they say about people that assume?” A young man in black and white robes casually rested an over-sized katana on his shoulder.
The general grunted and the young woman glared.
They were enough to cow the young man.
“In multiple locations. The barrier goes down to one hundred meters. We’re continuing. Our kekkaishi failed to penetrate or dispel it.”
Cal heard the Japanese word thanks to being an anime nerd in his younger days. A non-native speaker would have probably heard barrier master, barrier priest, barrier mage or another similar variation depending on their own biases and preconceptions.
“And you’ve obviously tried shooting it?”
The young woman snorted.
“Portal magic? Flash Step?” he raised a brow at the young man.
The skin under the young man’s eyes and across the bridge of his nose were a bit dark. Like he had been punched in the face.
It was healing quickly though. It must’ve been really bad half an hour ago when the young man had flash stepped face first into the barrier.
“Well, are you going to do something or not?” the young man scowled.
“How important is the royal family to you?”
A question that needed to be asked.
Royalty in the pre-spires era had been essentially in a parasitic relationship with the rest of society. They lived off taxes while providing things like prestige, tradition, and other nebulous things. Feel good things. Objectively speaking they were useless. Sure they spear-headed charitable causes, but one only had to do the math to understand that one would’ve helped said charities more by simply taking all the hundreds of millions spent on the royalty and putting them directly to the causes.
Royalty in the post-spires era had classes.
This made them useful, like the Queen of London, Eron knew her when she was just a young girl, had helped her rise to unquestioned power against those that would’ve controlled her. She had proved her worth to the people main times over the years.
The Slaver King had been another example. Great power, but evil. His existence had been a blight on the world and tens of thousands had been harmed by what he had wrought in Old Florida.
“Think very hard, but quickly. I can try some stuff, but you’re going to have to evacuate this whole area and your kekkaishis are going to have to be really good to keep the people’s homes from being possibly destroyed. Or you can keep trying what you’re doing. I’ll help.”
“Do what y—”
“We’ll evac—”
General Satoru and Marloes Kitagawa spoke at the same time.
The latter was born to a Japanese father and a dutch mother over a decade after the spires had appeared. Her mother had been on a holiday during a gap year before university.
Sadly, the young woman was now alone. Her relatives had slowly died over the years. Even the few children that had been born failed to survive to the present.
It wasn’t an uncommon story, though perhaps she had been unluckier than most what with an extremely powerful monster spawning just outside the neighborhood where the bulk of her relatives had lived.
The magical girl or mahou shoujo depending on one’s perspective was a lot more versatile than her class suggested.
Mahou Shoujo: .50 Caliber.
“The emperor and his family take precedence,” General Satoru said flatly.
“The people do,” Marloes said through grit teeth.
Cal sided with the young woman.
However, the royal family possessed important Skills that benefited the entire nation. They could inspire bravery and temporarily push people past the peak of their capability. Farms produced fruits and vegetables quicker. Livestock grew faster and required less resources. Certain monster types found it more difficult or outright impossible to enter areas in their presence.
The optimal choice would be clear if he was a sociopath.
Sadly, he had empathy for others.
“Start evacuating. Get those kekkaishi and anyone capable of making shields ready.”
To his credit the general didn’t try to argue. “What will we need to block?”
“Physical objects are likely. Let’s say from as small as bullets to as large as a car. Some kind of energy release is possible, but I don’t know the odds. It could be magical, non-magical or a mix of the two. And prepare for monsters.”
“There’s nothing in there,” Marloes said.
Indeed, the glass-like barrier didn’t obscure what lay within.
“Look closer.”
She took a moment.
“It’s frozen?”
The canal. The trees. The tops of buildings farther in. It looked like a photo or a paused video.
“I’ll be back in bit.”
He zoomed into the sky and into space.
There were always a staggering number of asteroids floating in orbit around the planet. The vast majority were small things that burned into nothing when they were inevitably pulled to the planet.
He gathered a few thousand tons worth from the size of his fist to the size of large house.
“Everyone tapped in?” he said into the comms as he flew back into the atmosphere.
He had shared gear with the Japanese government and the strongest or most promising of the independents.
This allowed him to share data through his helmet and the many, tiny drones he had seeded around the area upon his arrival.
The Omninet in action.
“I’m command and control. Don’t hesitate. Commencing bombardment.”
He started small.
Asteroids became meteors as he shot them into the top of the glass-like barrier.
There were less fireworks than he had expected or hoped for.
The cosmic bullets vanished on impact, which was to say that technically, there were no impacts.
The barrage grew in size and intensity.
The barrier weathered it without apparent difficulty.
Even the last mansion-sized meteor vanished with a whimper.
He took a moment to check on the evacuation.
It was proceeding in an efficient and orderly manner.
Quite impressive, really, to wake people up and get them moving to the shelters without much complaint.
He hoped that his next tactic wouldn’t scare them.
Tokyo Bay was only a few kilometers away so he pulled water into the sky, creating the first sky river on Earth. At least, as far as he knew. So, he’d count it as such.
He wondered if the spires would—
A loud chime sounded and text flashed across his vision.
The world first accomplishment was his and with it came a ton of Universal Points and a small note in history.
The dark water flowed in an invisible tunnel a few hundred meters off the ground. It curved overhead before slamming straight down on the barrier containing the Imperial Palace.
It sucked the water into nothing.
Minutes passed.
So many tons.
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The barrier held— until it didn’t.
It shot everything back from the very first bullet to the last drop of seawater on the same exact vectors.
Cal sped up his perception instantaneously.
There was no time, so he pumped information directly into those capable of reacting and moving fast. He made them think that they were acting on instinct or luck.
They cut down bullets and magic spells before they could reach the evacuees under their protection.
Barriers and shields blocked, though some shattered.
He felt their deaths as their minds went dark and vanished.
Twenty-three. Mostly evacuees.
Tons of meteors flew skyward with a stream of ocean water.
He had created a water volcano.
It wouldn’t kill with noxious fumes and heat. It would kill with sheer mass. If he let it.
He grabbed it all with a thought and shot everything into the dark waters of the bay. He contained the splash, preventing a tsunami from forming.
The Imperial Palace was free once more.
Relief was short-lived.
The park surrounding the palace and other buildings had been once filled with lush trees and green lawns. It was now barren. The ground was dark and cracked. What trees remained were twisted, withered things. Like the bones of the dead reaching out from their graves.
The canal encircling the complex was filled with dark water where nightmarish writhing things lurked.
The buildings were partially-ruined. Gaping holes dotted their walls. Roofs were torn. Dark brown stains had seeped into the wood and the stone walkways where footprints, man and monsters left their mark, telling a dreadful tale of what had transpired.
The palace hadn’t been spared.
Cal saw the echoes. The ghosts. Psychic remnants. The greater the emotions involved the stronger the imprint left behind. Terror and despair revealed all.
Two years had passed inside the glass-like barrier.
The people inside had been subjected to unimaginable suffering. The worst torture. Mind, body and soul. The lucky died. Of those that didn’t, all broke. Some were used until they too died. The remainder joined in the evil.
It was all in the service of the rituals.
Here the echoes became garbled, the dark magic interfering with the psychic signatures left behind.
Summoning rituals?
Some of them, but not all.
He got the impression that those weren’t the main goal.
What that was eluded him.
Three things remained in the Imperial Palace.
Monsters.
Twisted sapients, including what was left of the people that had been living there.
Finally, those responsible.
Five Earthians.
Evil to the core.
Cal switched to broadcast to everyone on the comms.
“Enemy incoming. Fall back and defend shelters. Don’t worry about containment. They will all come after people. Sending identification links.”
Those with access to the Omninet would get the pertinent monsterpedia entry or the strengths and weaknesses of the specific species page.
They weren’t facing a single united monster or species.
It was a mix.
And they weren’t fighting each other.
Cal plunged into their thoughts to find out why.
It was like diving into sewage.
To be inside their thoughts was to be them and him at the same time.
A weaker mind would’ve been forced to remain on the surface or risked insanity and worse.
The monster were easy. They wanted to kill people.
The Earthians wanted to kill and spread suffering for levels and power.
The other sapients… some may have had good reasons once, but two years had wiped those from their hearts. Now, they were as dark and twisted as the five responsible.
He dived straight into the dark heart at the center of it all.
The Imperial Palace.
Whatever it once represented was gone. Years of evil deeds within had soaked it in blood and human suffering. Mind, body and soul.
He punched through several layers of magic shields.
The kekkai-flavored variety of the kekkaishi.
One of the five.
The young man’s cries of pain echoed in the physical and psychic.
One out of the fight for now.
Four remained.
He stretched his thoughts outward into the surrounding area.
Command and control.
Much more than his loose allies would ever realize.
He would need to balance his help with the need for people to gain levels. The danger had to be legitimate. The struggle had to be theirs. The margins were razor thin. He couldn’t simply prevent death for that would greatly lessen their gains. He had to be as light as a feather on the scales to just barely tip it in their favor.
The light touch would guarantee that not all his allies would see the approaching dawn.
And for those that did?
Survival and victory went hand in hand.
However, neither assured that they wouldn’t be marked in terrible ways.
Mind, body and soul.
To fight risked marring them all.
----------------------------------------
Marloes or Super Happy Sparkle in her mahou shoujo persona listened to Cal’s warnings.
She had learned to take them seriously, so she maintained her position on the tallest rooftop a few blocks from the Imperial Palace.
The glasses he had given her a while back gave her access to the Omninet.
She didn’t waste time in following the links and quickly reading the information.
She skipped the monsters that she was already familiar with to focus on the new ones.
Parasitic worms sounded bad.
Her uniform left a lot of arm and leg bare.
The magical girl transformation did make her bulletproof.
But not necessarily worm proof.
A stronger body greatly slowed the worm’s trip to her brain, but that meant if she got infected she’d have to stay transformed and she couldn’t do that indefinitely.
Her tiara’s forcefield would provide some protection, but it wasn’t the kind that was on all the time. She could only activate it briefly to take hits. And there were limits to the number of activations.
“Destroy the brain,” she murmured.
That was something she did very well.
Keep her distance.
Which was her style anyways.
“Watch out for white-skinned humanoids, which may have fine, hair-like tendrils coming out of their face holes.”
Cal must’ve written the entry.
“You read so fast, Sparkle-chan,” Dashing Bandit Celebration said. “I’m just getting to that part annnddd… gross! This enemy seems perfect for my parade!”
“Yeah. Start summoning them. I will attract their attention and keep them busy.”
“May we assist?”
Three people materialized behind her.
People?
More like kids.
She was a grizzled veteran at just over 20 years old.
The others ranged in age from 12 to 16, though Dashing Bandit celebration had never wavered from the assertion that she was eighteen.
Miko Hiromi clasped her hands and bowed. Serenity exuded from her aura. A faint white glow in magic-capable eyes.
Marloes nodded.
The girl was 12, but she had always been professional and reliable in the handful of times they had crossed paths.
Shinigami Yuta was less so. The boy was only a little younger than Dashing Bandit Celebration, but he was easily the least reliable and most immature of the four. His katana was sheathed at his waist once more. It was just like him to use the second release solely as some kind of dick measuring contest with Cal. Not that the older man had even noticed.
“Why are we just standing here!” He gave her a feral grin. “There are monsters to destroy!”
The last child relinquished his hold around Yuta’s back.
She didn’t recognize him.
Though, he was one of the JSDF’s judging by the tactical gear and flag patch on his breast.
“And you are?”
“Specialist Jun Endo. Kekkaishi, Level 30.”
30 before 20.
Someone was good and power-leveled.
Dashing Bandit Celebration opened one eye to squint at the boy. “What’re you doing here, Endo-chan? JSDF doesn’t normally let you play on your own.”
Jun bowed, though he failed to hide the eye twitch. “I don’t know. I only know that I have to be here and my sergeant agreed… for some reason.”
“I’m here because the spirits directed me,” Hiromi said.
Yuta shrugged. “Just figured the best fighting’s going to be somewhere here. It’s not like I need any of you. So, if you’re just going to talk then I’ll find monsters to kill myself.”
“The worm monsters are going to come through this way. We can’t let them infect people,” Marloes said.
How did she know that?
The others nodded, like they just believed her or also knew.
Not even Yuta, who was an annoying contrarian by default.
“Their true spirits cry out in agony. We must release them,” Hiromi said.
“You all have the glasses. Read the entry if you haven’t already.”
Yuta opened his mouth to argue, but shut it. His brow furrowed then smoothed. He pulled the glasses out of his robes and donned them with a shrug.
“Do it quickly.”
“I have already reviewed the information,” Hiromi said.
“Me too. We study every entry,” Jun said.
Say what you will about the JSDF, say that they were competent.
“I skimmed it,” Dashing Bandit Celebration muttered.
The teen’s eyes were closed as sparkling portals opened and closed all around her disgorging her summoned creatures.
Colorful, soft, fluffy and armed with toy weapons that were as deadly as the real things.
It looked like she was going to save her best ones for last.
“Kekkaishi Endo, please start putting barriers up across the side streets.” She pointed. “I want to draw their attention and funnel them to us.”
“Is that all, .50 Caliber-sama?”
“Will you have enough energy left over to create more?”
“I have over 50% more than is typical of my level thanks to a Skill.”
“Can you orient them in any other way beyond vertical walls?”
Most kekkaishi could only create their barriers in that manner.
“I can.”
“Then give me platforms in the air to fire from. Each platform needs to be 10 meters from another. That’s the distance I can safely jump.”
The boy walked to the edge of the rooftop and began casting barriers.
Typically, they appeared as a single color. A product of the individual’s subconscious will.
These shimmered faintly with the colors of a rainbow.
Marloes attention was drawn behind her.
A bright flash of yellow-orange light bloomed.
She heard the faint pops of machine guns and the more powerful explosions of grenades and spells. She could almost imagine the sounds of people screaming and monsters snarling.
Part of her wanted to head straight to the nearest shelter or knot of people caught out, but the voice in the back of her head assured her that she could do the most good exactly where she stood.
“What about me?” Yuta picked at his teeth. “I mean, I don’t take orders from anyone but myself… but I’ll listen to suggestions… I guess.” He blinked, as if he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.
She was with him there.
“Defend Miko-sama, carry her where she believes she needs to be. If that remains on this rooftop, then you will not let one worm-ridden monster up here.”
A shinigami with a third release would’ve been preferable, but those were beyond rare, and they were undoubtedly helping elsewhere.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Yuta waved a hand dismissively.
Now, there was nothing to do but wait.
Marloes pulled her wand of laser pointer from her pocket.
The battered steel casing had been matte black once. Lustrous and rich. Now it was faded and bare in spots, rubbed away by the oil and sweat from her fingers.
She checked her tiara even though she knew it was full of magic.
Her bullet necklace rested comfortably underneath her uniform shirt.
The heels of sure-footedness gripped the rooftop.
She raised her free hand and called.
Light swirled around her, coalescing into a star-shaped shield where each of the five points radiating from the center was in the shape of the bullet that she took her mahou shoujo name from.
“Let the parade begin!” Dashing Bandit Celebration clapped. She smiled from ear to ear beneath the black mask around her eyes that mirrored that on the faces of her summons.
The plushies, locked and loaded, armed with all kinds of weapons leapt from the rooftops.
It was a disturbing sight, but nowhere near as bad as the things Happy Night Princess Undead Girl did.
“Remember, they aren’t dumb monsters and they’re armed with weapons taken from the JSDF garrison.”
How did she know that?
“Don’t worry about us, .50 Caliber-chan!” Dashing Bandit Celebrations waved.
The other mahou shoujo knew she didn’t like being called so familiarly.
Everyone that had the right were dead.
She gave them a curt nod before leaping onto one of Jun’s horizontal barriers.
The boy had made a lot more than she had expected. That wasn’t including the much larger barriers that walled off the streets a block in front of their positions.
She was reluctantly impressed. Even if she didn’t like ones so young being forced to fight for lives, theirs and the people.
Marloes… Super Happy Sparkle leapt 10 meters at a time until she came to the last barrier platform.
A bullet struck her right between the eyes a split-second before the crack reached her ears.
The tiara flared hot as the magic shield took the damage.
She crouched behind her small shield, trying to hide as much of her body as she could.
It took about a half second for the tiara to recharge.
Bullets plinked off her shield, rattling her arm.
It seems her instincts had been correct.
The worm-ridden did indeed have JSDF guns.
She peeked around her shield and caught the star-shaped flashes in the dark from the street right next to the canal surrounding the Imperial Palace.
Just like the monsterpedia said.
White-skinned humanoids, tentatively dubbed ‘trogs’ because the species true name had yet to be discovered. They were small, short, wiry things, though much stronger than their size suggested based on a musculature and bone density greater than a human… Earthian.
Smart enough to use weapons, but perhaps inexperienced with proper cover tactics.
She forewent using her wand of laser pointer.
Instead, she fixed the general target area in her mind and fired.
.50 caliber bullets shot out of the open air around her.
The barrage turned the worm-ridden trogs into wet smears of hot red, painting the cold street.
Her bullets weren’t the kind found in pistols. Nope. That had been her early days when she was lower leveled.
Over Level 40 meant that her bullets were like the ones used in anti-material rifles. The kind that could shoot close to 7000 meters. The kind that soldiers in the old days used against armored vehicles. The kind that turned a person into a red mist.
But she did all of that one better.
She could imbue her bullets with a variety of spell effects.
The monsterpedia recommended fire as one of the ways to destroy the worms.
Thus, her follow up barrage ignited a plume of fire that turned night into day for a moment.
So went the first moves in the battle.
A resounding victory for the defenders.
However, the attackers weren’t simple monsters.
More importantly, they had access to the Skills of their hosts in addition to their knowledge and memories.
A familiar mask flashed out of the corner of her right eye.
Half black, half white, split down the middle. A black smile on white and a white frown on black.
The eye holes should’ve been the same juxtaposition. Black on white, white on black.
It shouldn’t have been filled with fine, hair-like tendrils grasping out.
Bright Frown Dark Smile Jester.
The older mahou shoujo by dint of her experience and power was the personal bodyguard of the crown princess.
Had been.
Marloes corrected.
It was likely that the crown princess was no more… if she was lucky. If not, well… that fate stared Marloes in the face.