"Welp," the construction worker said, "this barely counts as a building, the supports are all wrong, I'm not sure what's up with the lamps or HOW they are glowing by themselves with no electric system set up. And don't let me get started on the god damn floor-"

"Okay, listen, I got that. But can someone live there?" I ask impatiently. Even though I'm not the one being criticized, I still feel offended somehow.

"That's not asking much," he readjusts his yellow hat and takes out a notepad, "It's technically better built than what you can see in the slums, everything here is only made to last for as long as the two cunts stop fighting, which isn't very long."

"But if we were to build this on a larger scale, it would work, right?"

He shrugs, "Honestly? Probably, but it's still a shoddy construction, and it's so unusual I'm sure I've missed a few things that makes this less of a house and more of a death trap. I think the magic lamps are worth more than everything else, might want to look into that if you want a proper business venture."

I sigh, we're probably going to need more time for Hotel to practice before they can build anything else. I was thinking of Hotel being paid for making houses like this, but they still struggle a lot with making things that aren't hallways. Still, one-story houses are doable and hallways are basically just big rectangular rooms, right? With a bit of tweaking, I'm sure we can make it work.

I wave the construction worker away and they just nod and go on their way, continuing to make notes as they walk away. He's a nice guy considering he agreed to check the building out for free, apparently the workers here show up so often to rebuild stuff they are basically part of the community. It's actually quite fascinating how everyone seem to just be used to the constant destruction. Having to hide in a shelter is almost a monthly occurrence.

"Again."

Speaking of.

A girl in a long, sleeveless purple dress is pointing dramatically at another black haired girl holding a grocery bag.

The black haired girl rolls her eyes and sighs, "Motherfu- Perseverance it's been 5 DAYS, can we at least keep it to the weekly rule, or fight somewhere else?"

"Not until you pay what you owe, Frustration." Perseverance slowly walks up to Frustration, the crowd clears up around her with each step she makes, as if the very air around her was sacred. "Every time we schedule a fight somewhere else, you do not show up. As such I must fight you where I find you."

"I did show up in one of those scheduled fights jackass, and you know what happened? I got fucking GLASSED by 4 different magical girls, I'm not walking into an ambush willingly. At least as long as I'm here you're the only one insane enough to risk the collateral damage," she throws her grocery bag at someone in the crowd, she nods to that person, and the bag holder nods back and dissapears in an alley corner, "ALRIGHT GUYS, YOU KNOW THE DRILL. CODE 5, SEEK SHELTER, ALL THAT JAZZ. YOU GOT 2 HOURS, SO SPEED UP!"

The moment she says this, everyone leaves without much fuss. I expected widespread panic, but people are walking at maybe a slightly faster walking pace than before. I even see a man yawn as he lazily checks his phone, completely unbothered by the situation.

I feel a tug on my sleeve. Right, I forgot Hotel was still there. I should take them home so they don't get obliterated in the crossfire. Although they did say we had 2 hours, and the orphanage isn't that far, soooo maybe it wouldn't hurt to watch them interact a little? I'm kind of split between the fun thing to do and the responsible thing to do.

"To never give up in the face of adversity!" Perseverance shouts, "TO LIVE AND DIE BY ONE'S GOAL UNTIL THE VERY END, LETTING NO OBSTACLE KEEP YOU DOWN!" Her purple robe seemingly liquefies and crawls around her skin, making her look almost naked for a split second, with every naughty bit conveniently hidden by a few purple strands floating around her, "THAT IS PERSEVERANCE." The colors around her solidify into a new, much more revealing outfit than what she was previously wearing, thigh highs, a really short skirt and all of it pressing against the skin so tightly it makes me wonder if this isn't actually just paint posing as clothing.

Frustration smirks, "I'm convinced this is what you scream at your girlfriend during sex, your suit is certainly more lingerie than it is proper clothing."

"Do you not get tired of using the exact same joke every time?"

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"I thought you liked doing the same thing over and over? But ho noooo, when someone else does it, it's bad," she snaps her fingers a couple of times, as if she's trying to remember something, "Too weak to be wrath, too strong to be annoyance. When goals are not achieved, it rises," she says, her voice a strange mix of irritation and boredom, "Capable of affecting the most apathetic of us all, to remind us that small failures are failures all the same," metal spikes start to break through her shirt, more and more sprout out until her entire body is closer to steel armor than it is to casual clothing. But the spikes are uneven, the metal jagged and rusty, as if her suit was haphazardly made of random stuff found in a scrapyard, "that is frustration."

PERSEVERANCE BLAST!

Perseverance wastes no time and a purple beam comes out of her hand and- PLINK.

It bounces off of frustration without doing any damage. The "blast" was more the size of a small bullet, and it wasn't that fast either. I'm pretty sure frustration could've walked to the side and dodged it without even trying.

Frustration's eyes twitch and two sawblades grow out of her hands, the sawblades start to spin, but very, VERY slowly. She throws one at Perseverance, and she just slaps it away like a fly.

It takes me a moment to realize the more time passes, the stronger their attack become, Frustration's saws get biggest and spin faster, and Perseverance's blasts get bigger and start actually leaving scratches on Frustration's armor.

It's uh, taking a while though. I'm pretty sure I've been watching them throw things at each other for half an hour, it's like watching a slap fight in slow motion.

Frustration casts a glance at me, "Are you still there? I know it doesn't look like much right now but it escalates quickly. Are you checking her out or something? Just take your kid away before this bitch beams their head off," Frustration's spikes undulate as she's speaking, "I swear, always the same, ALWAYS THE SAME. There's always that ONE person I have to escort or help because of YOUR bullshit," she points at Perseverance, "and I'm supposed to be the villain here? EVERY. GOD. DAMN. TIME." Her saws speed up considerably, she slams one in the ground and it rolls towards Perseverance like a wheel, this time she dodges it instead of blocking it.

Perseverance throws a quick counter-attack and Frustration blocks the attack with a wall made out of screws and bent metal plates, a huge mark is left on the makeshift shield, but it wasn't quite enough to go right through it.

I think I may have accidentally sped up the fight. Which probably reduced the two-hour timer that they gave to everyone else, I really shouldn't have stayed here, but I really wanted to see what one of their fights looked like from up close.

"Violence...less...good?" Hotel asks, looking at the scene a little bit too intensely for my liking.

I nod. Violence is generally bad unless you have absolutely no other choice, which I'm not sure applies here.

Red liquid starts seeping from Hotel's clothing. It starts to surround both of the girls who are too enthralled in their own fight to notice. My brain somehow didn't process what was happening either, and I only realized I should've done something when it was a little too late.

The red liquid solidifies and jumps at the limbs of the magical girls, restraining them like shackles to the ground that now looks like a massive, moving carpet.

And turns out, a carpet isn't enough to contain freaks of nature like those two. Both of them snap out of the hold of the carpet with no effort. Their heads snap in the direction of me and Hotel, as the source of the red stuff is pretty obvious at this point.

"Stop violence." Hotel says, and I can't help but swipe through all of my skills in a panic to see if there's something I can do to get us out of this situation as fast as possible.

"Do not interrupt us." They both say in perfect sync, their eyes fixed on Hotel as if the girls were going to blast them at a moment's notice.

"Stop," Hotel says, completely unfazed by the intense staring of the two girls. The red carpet turns into a more yellowish substance and a massive rectangular structure surrounds both of the magical girls, engulfing them in what looks like a very out of place tower in the middle of the slums.

Of course, it takes only a couple of seconds for both of them to break out.

"Under the magical girl code, even a child is not exempt from punishment if they get in the way of the safety of citizens," Perseverance states. She slowly walks towards Hotel and me, her eyes shining an unnatural purple.

"Excuses, you just want to kill the kid because you've got no chill. Kid, just follow your mother home alright? Don't want this to get more bloody than it needs to," Frustration sighs after sawing her way out of the structure.

It's not as if I'm not trying to keep them in check, but they keep breaking out of my grasp because even though they look like a kid, our stats are the same so I can't brute force them into compliance, and even if I did I'm pretty sure that would encourage them to only get more violent. I'm kind of at an impasse here.

"Come on Hotel, let's just go home please," I plead, Hotel learns fast but they aren't so good at nuance, sometimes violence is inevitable and trying to stop it peacefully will, ironically, lead to even more violence.

"Stop," is all Hotel says before a purple blast goes directly for Hotel's head, just before it reaches them I kick it away and it blows up a nearby building instead.

"Sorry ladies, can you humour the kid and actually stop? As you said, I don't want this to get bloody," I say, as I scratch my head trying to think of a better way to handle this, but I only get silence from the both of them. They made their choice, so have I.

I sigh, I'm setting such a terrible exemple for Hotel.

My UM is all messed up and changing my stats might be an issue, doing a soul surgery midfight is also quite hard without messing up somewhere.

If you're an amateur that is, let me show you what a professional soul surgeon can do when you get a little creative.