2021-06-06: Magilou Land
- Log: Magilou Land
- Cast: Magilou, Lily Keil
- Where: Zoara Badlands - Crater Town
- Date: 2021-06-06
- Summary: That scourge of love and justice, Magilou, is terrorising a border hamlet! Can our heroline, Lily Keil, save the town?! Will there be any town left by the time they're done?! And is there anything more to this than Magilou being a wicked witch..?
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
'More importantly, are you gonna buy me a beer already or are you gonna make me keep watchin' you slurp down your prune juice, grandma?'
Anyway, that's how Magilou got delightfully sloshed with her old friend Ragnell. It probably wasn't even before 5pm. Shame!
Magilou, of course, doesn't have to worry about the ill effects of drunkenness, which is why she never worries that much about how much they're drinking. Except, of course, it made her an even stranger guest in the nearly-empty Crater Town than she was, and the innkeeper none too politely suggested she be on her way in the coming days. Strangely, climbing up the stairs out of the craters this shattered hamlet is now known for and built amongst, Magilou doesn't sway all that much at all.
That's because there's a Normin slung over her shoulder like a miserable throw pillow, nursing the worst headache in the world. Magilou can make him eat all her bad-tasting medicine to get its effects, and it turns out beer is technically that.
Crater Town is hanging on by a thread on the edge of the Wastelands; while it was ravaged in the horrors of Celesti, enough of it is intact that they're able to grow the reedy tubers they're known for. Guild Galad takes their share, and, nominally, offers their protection. But since Crater Town isn't on the rail line, that protection is more reactive than proactive -- and no one has gotten any hints that they're in danger.
Until, that is, noon today.
"SCATTER, MORTALS!" Crows a spurned jester, as she storms back into the sleepy ghost town, arms all spread wide. "Your doom is come! I claim these lands in the name of MAZHIGIGIKA MILUDIN DO DIN NOLURUN DOU, and only suffering awaits you! Yes," she points to the alarmed innkeeper, "all your sins be remembered! Now it is time for PAYBACK!"
Poor, beleagured Bienfu must be hiding inside his mistress while she seemingly falls prey to the most terrible affliction of all: evil witchery.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
A little day drinking between friends is fine. Even when it involves a perfectly innocent Normin who didn't really deserve this today. But destruction of the little towns...
Lily Keil is always expecting trouble to some extent; it's one of the hazards of going from active wartime to the Drifting life being hunted first by a nation and then by a different nation as well as a nationless army of revolution. It would be nice to say that she was feeling less vigilant than usual, but given matters concerning Shevat and Solaris...
Well. A day out in the wastes looking for spare parts quickly becomes a break to visit a small town and get a drink, which quickly becomes coming to a slow stop as she sees a woman in jester's attire running through the village speaking terrible names and talking of suffering.
"...?" Lily inquires, and to her credit, she does not immediately blast at this apparent threat. She takes a moment to assess.
...She can't, technically, sense a hangover. But the emotional miasma of the moment is sufficient. Lily comes to a stop, and she is every bit the traveling gunslinger; a Drifter clearly, an ARM at her hip and a knife at her boot, in dark clothes without a hat despite the sun. She narrows her eyes at the figure ahead, as people start to react.
Enemies must be neutralized. And besides. This is a random town somewhere. This is heroic.
So it is that ice slams down around Magilou as the woman in black steps out of an alley, golden eyes alight with magical force. Lily doesn't make an ice pun because she's not like that, but the mist that results is indeed very chilly... though, because she has friends who are good influences, not immediately lethal to most.
"Payback for what, exactly?"
Lily senses power. ...It is not entirely unwelcome to have a chance to test it.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Frigid Answer! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
OST: Love-Coloured Master Spark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYqNd7vZFjk
It's true that there are terrible stormcloudy feelings falling over this whole procession, and maybe that just makes it seem even worse than it is.
(How it looks is pretty bad.)
"That's right!" Magilou crows, as the innkeeper grabs her bag and scrambles. "Flee! Flee in the wake of Magilou, evil sorceress! Mwahahaha--"
It would be nice to say that Magilou's evil cackling (which is really quite impressive) got to resolve itself, but right in the middle, there's the taste of chill at the back of her teeth, and OH LOOK, IT'S ICE. "--hyaaGAH!" Is how the laughter actually ends, as Magilou hops back from the place the ice slams down, and that's how she manages to avoid them skewering her legs and pinning her to the ground in an assuredly non-lethal neutralisation.
The shards still play havoc with her tights, though. Good thing they're such cheerful colours, so any colours underneath the little rips are harder to see.
"So your head's on straight enough for this, right?" She tosses over her shoulder, with a shred of bitterness, and leaves the 'trick question' part of the rejoinder unsaid as she turns on a heel to point at Lily. "PAYBACK for the HORRIFIC SCORN I've suffered here, of course! I insist that EVERY MISERABLE SOUL in this MISERABLE TOWN flee back to society! From now on, this horrific hamlet is MAGILOU LAND!"
Unfortunately, Magilou's conscience is malfunctioning, so there's nothing to stop her from subsequently taking vengeance for her ruined wardrobe (let's not mention the legs), pointing accusation with a paper doll held between her fingertips. "Look," she bids her attention, as her hand slashes down, and an icy meteor hurtles down, all water and wind come together: "a shooting star!"
GS: Magilou has attacked Lily Keil with Spirit Drop! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Very High! Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Magilou's Spirit Drop for 216 hit points! GS: Lily Keil activates Arcane Font!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Magilou! Evil sorceress! That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Lily is not familiar with Magilou at all, but she senses that aura of power, that dark pall cast over matters, and that's good enough for the moment. ...As is the 'gah!' that comes of Magilou having to leap back. The cheerful colors are if anything even brighter against the glint of light the ice makes.
"Who are you talking to?" Lily wonders, and then looks at Magilou as she points at her. Payback... for...
"So that's why," Lily says.
"I don't like that much."
The paper doll is meaningless to Lily; the abrubt feeling of gathering magic, however, means a lot. But it's a type she's unfamiliar with, and so the icy meteor slams into her and explodes all around, blasting a hole in her armored jacket with one of its shards to reveal quickly fading blue circuitry on her skin.
"Two elements together," Lily comments as she pushes back up from the ground where she'd hit, rolling her shoulders. There is also blood here but like the colorful tights, the black fabric does a lot to cover that up.
"Unfortunately, you're not the only evil sorceress in the area. And I happened to want a drink here. ...So if you drive all the people out of their homes, that's going to be a problem for me."
Lily breathes in, and shadows begin to manifest around her, misting in like fog. Purple light courses across her skin in the form of circuit patterns as she rises partly off the ground, hovering in place with her arms rising to either side, her eyes starting to darken behind gold irises.
"I guess I'm invading then."
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Lily Keil with Dark Aura! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil heals Lily Keil! She gains 150 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Lily Keil! GS: Mighty applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Never you mind!" Magilou scolds Lily, and in Magilou's mind, maybe she's being nice about it; if Lily can't sense Bienfu, no sense implicating him, too.
(Note that Bienfu, as always, is faciliating Magilou's magic in there. There is no evil witch without Bienfu. She just becomes an evil load.)
Her hand drops to her hip, all a-cock, and Magilou harrumphs: "Like I care! Besides," her thoughts a million miles an hour, the true magic of improvisation, "with magic like that, you're liable to blow up the very people you're protecting! Hear that, peons?!" Magilou turns, sweeping her arms in a grand gesture. "Your doom is upon you! Flee! Flee for the hills!"
Luckily, the peons do, in fact, seem to be fleeing for the hills. There aren't that many peons living here, so maybe it was a natural place to invade and begin her evil empire. Unfortunately, one or two of them might still need convincing; luckily, with the help of this do-gooder, Magilou ought to be able to convince them.
Meanwhile, Lily is still here, and still... recognising things too subtle for a lot of people to pick up, and by the time Magilou spins on her heel back to her she's having to face up to the fact that there's another evil sorceress here eating her lunch. "That much is obvious," Magilou huffs. "So, what's your..."
She doesn't quite get to asking Lily what her story is before Lily demonstrates, though; not Althena's Blessing, then, Magilou thinks. Really, it's hard to say what kind of magic that is. Maybe she would have had better luck staying back with the... "Spectacular!" Magilou claps. "You've figured out how to light yourself up like a festive tree! Here, let me help."
And all a sudden, a fiery Seraphic glyph alights at Magilou's feet, as the ground below where Lily is floating gathers together into roiling red power. "Ready to feel the burn? Fire Mine!" Right now, it's a tightly-coiled ball of flame power, but when Lily lands...
GS: Magilou has attacked Lily Keil with Fire Mine! GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Gamble: High! Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Magilou's Fire Mine for 124 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Drowsy applied to Lily Keil! GS: Lily Keil activates Arcane Font!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
There are, admittedly, more important things to consider than who the weird witch is talking to; it's possible that it means there's a coming ambush of some kind, but Lily will just have to sit on that idea for the moment and keep her eyes open. She does sense another presence, but with this many people around, it's hard to pin them all down given the nature of her perceptions.
"That's true," Lily admits when Magilou says she's likely to blow them up. "I don't hold back very well." She... does want them to flee. Is it because there's something she can do better without people around? Or does she want the land for some purpose...?
"But if you want this place that badly, leaving it a little scorched is better than letting you have it."
Lily, for her part, is very scary to these people and, despite the fact that she is ostensibly on her side, they're kind of creeped out. It's not going to be that hard to convince them to flee...
It's definitely not Althena's Blessing, though--even if Magilou has encountered much Ether, it feels strange for that. Some of this magic just wrenches effects out of the world whether it likes it or not. "Like a November holiday," Lily remarks sardonically to the tree comment, and then suddenly--
This time Lily senses it, but instead of diing out of the way, she charges down into the flames, the dark aura she'd gathered turning red and then violet as it absorbs the damage of the spell. The explosion rocks the ground, sending doors slamming closed and letting the weakening magic linger about Lily's form.
"I like fire," she answers. "Let me show you my version."
...She probably hasn't forgotten that she's theoretically protecting people here. It's for the best that they have time to flee.
But Lily lifts both hands, and the temperature drops. Abrubtly a column of flame slams down from the heavens straight for Magilou's position, exploding with thunderous force until the air itself ignites into sickly golden light, a blast of nuclear flame that will absolutely leave a crater in the town square.
"No Symbols, no Crests... You're Lunarian, aren't you?"
GS: Lily Keil spends 1 Combo on Link! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Flame Break! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has launched an attack Link! GS: Lily Keil enters the Avenger stance! GS: Lily Keil spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Catastrophe! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Magilou guards a hit from Lily Keil's Flame Break for 112 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Magilou activates Arcane Font! GS: You do not have any attacks from that person in queue. GS: Magilou critically guards Lily Keil's Catastrophe for 43 hit points! GS: Magilou activates Arcane Font!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Then I'll rule a kingdom of ashes!" Declares Magilou, as if to say that both the witches her are completely off their rocker. Why would she want to create an aura like that..?
It's probably not important, don't worry about it.
But Lily says it's time for her version of fire, and proceeds to drain all the heat from the universe. Magilou's eyebrows quirk upwards, and all a sudden she thrusts her shikigami upwards, a beehive barrier of magic lighting where that column of flame threatens to pierce straight through. It flares with arcane power, all the more when the air ITSELF catches flame; there's a split-second before the barrier asserts itself all around, which means there's fire on the inside of her barrier just as well as the outside.
Not quite as much fire, mind you, but the tips of her jaunty jester's hat are still smoldering by the time the fire fades and the barrier drops. Char at the edges of her cheeks. Her shadow burnt a little into the potholes of the road.
"Got it in one!" Magilou responds, cheerfully, despite the roasting she's just received. "Boy, you Filgaians sure do get invaders from the stars constantly, don't you?" She leans in, a hand shading her forehead as if to look at Lily without the glare of the sun: "You are Filgaian, right? With magic like that, I can't quiiite tell."
She settles back, bouncing on her heels, and there's this little quirk backwards of her lips before her grin falls back onto her face. "I really can't have you keep doing that, though," she says. "It's bad for my complexion."
Light collects into her, a dozen flittering blue-purple flecks, as she says: "Spell Absorber!"
And nothing, immediately, happens.
GS: Magilou spends 1 Combo on Interrupt! GS: Magilou has attacked Lily Keil with Spell Absorber! GS: Magilou enters a Counter stance! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Magilou's Spell Absorber for 0 hit points! GS: Mute applied to Lily Keil! GS: Mighty applied to Magilou! GS: Lily Keil activates Arcane Font! GS: Lily Keil has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"That's how it is, huh?"
Lily, admittedly, has no particular reason not to believe Magilou, especially given the strange set of emotions ruling in the moment. There's the fear, naturally, as people flee, but whatever Magilou is putting off, Lily can't actually... tell if it's her, or what it is, or what. Maybe she just can't read her.
But Magilou is still standing when Lily's spells end, and she notes that beehive barrier with some interest. "Not bad," Lily says. "So you can use multiple elements at once, and you have a good facility for barriers..." As well as those paper things.
Lily seems unconcerned by the shadow burning into the potholes.
"Kind of happens a lot," Lily admits. "You, the Hyadeans... The Veruni. We get them from the regular sky, too."
A laugh. "Yeah, I'm Filgaian. My magic is a little... unusual. Fun, right?"
She actually does seem to be having a good time. But suddenly, there is--a grin. And blue-purple flecks. Lily pauses, and frowns, stepping forward once to feel out the... barrier? Field? She closes her eyes for an instant to sense it, opening them to regard her foe. It would be logical, of course... to do something that isn't a spell, in the face of a call like that. To avoid the defense completely. And yet...
Then she wouldn't know if she could overcome the field. Lily thinks about it--and then grins back. "All right, if that's how you want to play it."
Breathing in sharply, Lily brings her hands together, a gesture less about arcane manipulation and more about channeling force; there is indeed no chanting, no strange gesticulations; Lily simply 'thinks' her effects, feels them. But right now, she's drawing off heat again...
But instead of bursting into flames, the temperature continues to drop, the air hazy as Lily puts out a hand and a great blue-white beam of frost erupts straight for the sparkling field Magilou put up.
A wiser mage might've just shot her. But Lily is a little arrogant, herself. And so--
There may be an explosion. There may... not.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Polar Burst! GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo! GS: Mighty expired! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Magilou counterattacks Lily Keil with Counter Attack! GS: Magilou takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Polar Burst for 190 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Delay and Drowsy applied to Magilou! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Magilou activates Arcane Font! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Delay expired!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Oh, I'm very versatile," Magilou says, and, to Lily's assessment, delivers two finger guns and a wink. (Her shikigami twirls, floating in the air, above her index finger.) "You wouldn't believe just how much!"
Lily imparts just how hazardous the stars are to Filgaia, and Magilou laughs. "Fun fun fun!" She agrees, after the reveal of her personal weirdness, and maybe that's enough to get another of these small-town suckers (Magilou's words) to hightail it out of here.
There are certain assumptions held within the phrase 'Spell Absorber' which are entirely reasonable to hold. Once upon a time, it did only absorb spells. But as Magilou's masterpiece, she's been refining it for quite some centuries now, and...
Well, maybe it wouldn't have mattered if Lily drew an ARM, because Magilou's had some years to study those even before she got involved, after all. The Blue Star's invaded their home, too.
Maybe it's a good thing she's broadened its effects, because it means that when Lily draws force to a point, all that draining temperature seems to drain further, further...
... into Magilou herself.
And that beam of force comes straight for her -- and into her -- and there's a crash of light-blue light, circular around her, a halo of white gold, those flecks of lilac fluttering away. There's no hint of the spell resolving, as it all falls into the black hole which is Magilou, and as she flashes white with power she says two words.
"Calamity Flare!"
All a sudden the polar energy which Magilou poured through herself becomes very, VERY hot. Flame sparks from her, and fans out, and out, and out -- until the entire main street is dealing with a towering wall of flame, fifteen feet tall, and consuming, consuming, consuming.
GS: Magilou has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Magilou has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Snipe! GS: Magilou has attacked Lily Keil with Calamity Flare! GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: CRITICAL! Gamble: Moderate! Lily Keil guards a hit from Magilou's Calamity Flare for 178 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Lily Keil activates Guard bonus and Arcane Font! GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Twirl~! That's weird. Lily lits an eyebrow at the shikigami. She is unfamiliar with many of these more arcane traditions, after all. But not wholly so; technically, she has a visiting professorship at the Magic Guild of Vane...
'Fun'. Lily maybe ought to be bothered by the agreement, but it's already been established that she's having fun with this. Besides, the innocents have fled by now; there's no reason not to let loose a little. So...
Unaware for now of Magilou's true versatility, she instead gets a chance to watch a powerful effect a thousand years in the making. The spell falls into a black hole of absorption and Lily's eyes glint as she watches the energy shift back--and suddenly... It isn't just the heat. The return of her own spell, the new spell towering forward--the initial wave of power finds Lily jumping from the ground to hover mid-air and allow herself to be carried with it rather than stand against it, but suddenly there is far more fire than she can simply roll with. Consuming, consuming, consuming the fire comes, and Lily disappears in it. The main street is completely engulfed, and when it fades, Lily is on the ground at one knee, her armored jacket ruined again, burnt to ashes protecting her as she shunted the flames into her armor instead of her skin. The strange circuit-like markings fade from red-orange as she lifts her head, grinning at Magilou.
"...Amazing," she admits. "I haven't seen fire like that since..."
She considers. "Only one like that is Elly. And even then your style is different."
Pushing herself off of the ground, Lily rolls her shoulders, the tatters of what was thick fabric falling off to reveal the shirt beneath, still black even before the ashes. "I like you. Pity I can't let you take over the village, though. I've got a problem with tyrants. And their laws don't apply to me."
She might be projecting a little considering Solaris. But maybe not. Lily reaches her full height again, drawing up her shoulders and putting hands in front of her as if she's starting to shape something. She murmurs something--
But if Magilou reads her lips, they are not magic words, but mathematical formulae.
Her eyes snap open again, and there is no iris or pupil, simply completely black sclera, which would probably intimidate any townsfolk who were still here if they were still here. "-Solution found,-" she intones in an Ancient Tongue that she isn't really thinking about, and extends both hands.
Little un-lights begin to drift from above like snowflakes, little bubbles of gray-white pressure that flit down... and then implode, bursting into photonegative colors and grays and purples and blues, each one bursting into an incredible blast of force that starts small and increases, until the individual flares blot out all light with the power of darkness.
There is nothing natural or wholesome about the next couple of moments, even with the dampening effect of Magilou's field still on Lily and the remnants of her broken armor.
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Magilou with Hexenhammer! GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo! GS: Mute expired! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Magilou critically guards Lily Keil's Hexenhammer for 48 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Magilou activates Arcane Font! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Magilou has Fallen! She is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Elly... Elhaym, right? Yeah," Magilou agrees, "she's one to watch, all right." Magilou got that impression, from Shevat.
She grins, tapping two fingers to her forehead. "You're no slouch yourself," Magilou agrees. "Somehow, I thought you'd get up after something like that. Geez, I'm really getting fired up!" Perhaps it's not strange at all that she doesn't argue Lily calling her a tyrant; after all, isn't that what Magilou is?
Still, she looks back, and looks forward, and notes with something approaching satisfaction that now they don't have any kind of audience. Excepting, as always, Bienfu, who is nursing far too much of a headache to tell Magilou to tune it down right now.
Magilou cups her hand to her ear as Lily murmurs, but it's no use. She staggers back an almost comical step as Lily's eyes open, declaring: "Waa-huuuh?! You're the one with creepy eyes, witch!" Magilou, it's not nice to recycle other people's insults.
The academy notes here that despite having had 1000 years to do it, Magilou still hasn't bothered to learn Ancient Tongue. She has Grim for that, wherever Grim has holed herself up these days. She can recognise what it sounds like, though; it has a very distinct cadence.
"Eh?" Magilou asks. "What was that?"
But for all the lightness in her tone, she's holding her shikigami between her fingers. Up goes her arm, again, another of those arcane barriers; and yet those bubbles are so small they almost seem to target the individual beehives of that shield, one into another and another and another --
Magilou sinks down, to a knee; shortly one of her hands presses against the earth, too, the other still holding her spell in place, even as the gravitas of Lily's darkness crushes her into another of those potholes in the street.
(This one is new.)
"Ugh..." Magilou hisses, between her teeth, eyes glancing one way, the other. "... well, at least they're gone. All right," she calls out, a huff of air from her chest, "looks like you win this on--"
"TARGET IN RANGE."
Enter
A G A R E S MK. IX
Four legs all clumped together, a cannon behind it and two guns where its arms ought to be, the terrible Gear Agares Mk. IX wears a crown of machine gun turrets upon its head, and crocodilian jaws where its belly ought to be. It crests the hill, and turns its glowing yellow sensors to its target:
Crater Town.
Press /\ to view a skit from earlier today!
"Miss Magiiiilooou, I don't want to adventure yet! My head's all woobly..."
"Oh, don't be such a big baby, you didn't even drink that much."
"I'm not as big as you!"
"Yeah, that's why it's such a clever trick. -- whoah, hey, what's THAT?"
"Looks big... and dangerous... noooooo..."
"Bienfu, let's go check it out!"
"I don't wannaaaaaaaaaaaa it's naptime."
"Too late, up you go!"
"Waaah! Oof! Uuuh?! Miss Magilou, I think I pressed something--!!"
"Glowing yellow eyes of doom is good, right? That's..."
"SCANNING... SETTLEMENT LOCKED. ENGAGE."
"Bienfu? Bienfu get down from there this is a big problem all a sudden."
"But my head's not on straight..."
"Then we'll improvise! Gods!"
HERE, AT HIGH NOON:
"Well, shit," Magilou sighs, a wince at the side of her face, "looks like it finally caught up. Hey, you!" She points her free hand at Lily, before pointing at the Gear which is even now levelling its cannon at the township. "Evil sorceress! Think you can still fight?! If not, you better scram! This thing is apparently in love with settlements, and its love language is rockets!"
Which... might explain... why Magilou was carrying on...
... WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST WARN THEM THERE WAS A KILLER MECH COMING IN?!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Elhaym! "You've met," Lily notes in some but not total surprise. Elly is also a meddler. "She is." Lily's pride in her friend is obvious even in the brief words she uses for her at the moment, just from her tone. But this...
"Heh heh," Lily answers, and she should definitely not be getting chummy with her foe here. But she does like her. Now there is no audience at all, and Lily is pareparing to finish things up. Bienfu... Well. Lily does still notice another presence, but she can't quite put her finger on where or what, at the moment.
Creepy eyes! "That'll happen," Lily says. And here--Magilou doesn't have to understand it to note it. But there the shikigami go...
The Witch's Hammer is a spell that is either rude or appropriate to use on Magilou, but it is used all right. But they're gone, and--Magilou is about to admit defeat?
'TARGET IN RANGE.'
"The fuck--"
Lily turns immediately to the robotic monstrosity approaching them, after a refreshing pause to view the skit that she of course doesn't get to see. She looks over at Magilou who calls to her and stares at her for an instant. "You..." Pause.
There's a lot that doesn't make sense about this. There's a lot that suddenly does. "...Yeah, I can still fight," Lily says, and jumps down out of the firing path of the cannon, diving to the ground and somersaulting into a space behind a well, eyes still black. "It had to be a Gear," she says. "Well."
"I probably didn't build this one," she reflects to herself, and begins to hover again, strange circuitry moving over her limbs as she adopts a form better-suited to handling mecha. Magical force pulses once, twice, inwards like a vortex; spectral wings extrude from her shoulderblades, her eyes suddenly alight with prismatic colors in computerized form.
"You're going to explain this later!" Lily insists, her voice distorted by the Etheric power she holds. She rises from the stones, and throws out her hands. A crackling red-and-black lightning courses between her and the creature, red light shimmering around her as rust and rents start to appea on its outer plating.
"How about you, or am I on my own here!?" DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Omega - Awakened!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Probably?!" Magilou lances in the face of Lily's reflection, still, for the moment, very much on the ground. Part of that is to avoid the shot firing overhead. Part of it is because she, a witch, just got hammered into the ground.
Could Magilou have averted this if she'd just explained anything at all? "We'll see," she rejoinders to Lily's insistence of an explanation, looking up to find her suddenly much more geared to fight. Wings? Magilou reflects, to herself, with scepticism. Really?
At least she's not a one-winged angel. That's quite enough of that.
"I mean, we might just get flattened here!" Magilou sounds awfully cheerful about that. Maybe she'd rather die than have to explain how her nefarious deeds were actually helpful. Who knows? It's really hard to read Magilou, even with Lily's empathic prowess.
Her magical prowess, on the other hand, isn't Magilou's problem to deal with any more. Agares Mk. IX takes a step backwards as lightning impacts it, a mechanical groan which could well have been a roar were it from an organic creature. (It isn't. That's just what happens, when metal warps.) That crocodilian maw opens, and...
... inside...
... is a bomb, which LAUNCHES out towards Lily.
It might seem for a moment like she is on her own -- but sight unseen, Magilou has been staggering upwards, no matter the pressure she was just under. "Yeah, yeah," she says, grimace coming back to a grin, as this time the glyph beneath her feet glows green as the wind blows. "I guess I can wreck this thing, if you feel that strongly about it. Doesn't seem like this town's much worth saving, but..." Gesturing with her shikigami, she asks, of Agares: "Is it hot, or is it just me? Crown Fire!"
Shortly its targetting will find itself somewhat confused, on account of the tornado of flame which rises around it, superheating those pockmarks of decay Lily brings to its hull.
Magilou is very much staying behind Lily, though. The way she is now, she really doesn't want to get shot.
Unfortunately for Magilou, the crown atop its head shortly goes DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA. Unfortunately for Agares, half the turrets in its crown have already failed on account of the overwhelming magical onslaught it's dealing with. One witch might not have been enough to handle it on their own, but...
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"You never know," Lily says in Magilou's reaction. "But it doesn't look like my style." Likewise she does not explain at the moment. We'll see, she says of explanation, and Lily... will argue more in a minute. Besides, Magilou does rather cheerfully indicate another possibility--
"Hardly," Lily says. "I'm barely warmed up."
Maybe a lot arrogant. The young witch might have something to prove to the old witch too. But first, she has a bomb to deal with, and Lily throws her arms out in front of herself as she creates a shield. Point-blank it impacts with the explosive, sending her slamming backward with a flash of golden light... but notably, not actually exploded, despite the fact that she hits the ground hard enough to leave another crater. "It's all they've got," Lily points out. "...Probably."
If they had more than this, after all, why would they still be here?
But Lily rises up again, and if she finds Magilou sneaking behind her again, she doesn't object to that; it's practical, after all. Maybe it appes to her ego. However...
"Another two elements--fire and wind together? That's a good combination." She doesn't use wind, herself. But of course... There's still--
Dakka dakka dakka. The mech has its opportunity to keep firing on Magilou, but Lily jumps upward as it keeps trying, extending both arms. Giant blades of darkness erupt from either palm, each easily Lily's height on their own. She starts hacking down at it, hoping to keep it busy. "If you've got another trick like that up your sleeve, I can keep it pinned down long enough for you to use it!"
The wings aren't even actually necessary for flight. She certainly doesn't seem to use them. She just floats around and zooms about like--well, it's gravitic magic, clearly.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou: scrambling ENTIRELY comically out of the way of that machine-gun fire. "Hate this! Hate this the most!" She says she hates it, but there's no sense of burning hatred coming from her, so maybe it's as casual as she makes it sound.
Luckily, thanks to a spot of rust and fire, the turrets are bad enough at tracking that she can just about manage to scatter. Magilou huffs, once she's clear of the bullet curtain, hands on her hips. "'All they've got'?! You Filgaians are way too casual about giant killer robots!"
"HOSTILITY INCREASING," chimes Agares, as its sensors shift from yellow to red. "ENACT ANNIHILATION ORDER."
"Oh, you shut up!" Magilou scowls, at the giant killer robot.
Unfortunately, before Agares Mk. IX can manage to make good on its annihilation, Lily descends on it, a falcon in the dive. Surely she sees it lifting the cannon that is its tail -- but those blades of darkness can shear it clean off, rolling down the embattled street with a thud-thud-thud before it finally comes to rest against one of those ramshackle houses.
And explodes.
Well, good thing no one was in there!
"'Up my sleeve', she asks," Magilou mutters to herself, as if she doesn't have an attack named basically that thing. "I'll show you what's up my sleeve." No Seraphic glyph, this time -- it's shikigami-focused magic -- as she takes her shikigami in both her hands, and holds it aloft. "You better be good at manoeuvring with those things!" She calls, and that's the only warning Lily and her very fine wings are going to get.
"Now!" Magilou declares, as it grows large enough to fill both those hands. "Rise!" And as tall as her, suddenly. "Arise!" And so much TALLER, all a sudden, breaking through Filgaia's sorry excuse for cloud cover. "Ascending Angel!"
And all a sudden Magilou brings that high-rise building of a shikigami down... RIGHT... on the Gear, and the power even now building inside of it, even though Lily has soundly defeated most of its weaponry. Is it just planning to blow itself up?!
Before it can, there is a great plume of dust, as her paper doll crushes it into the ground.
There are an awful lot of potholes in the streets of Crater Town, and now, here's another: a Gear-shaped hole with a Gear all crushed inside, a few loose springs sproinging free to roll merrily down the path.
"ERR...ORRRRR..."
Agares Mk. IX whines, and the light of its sensors grows dim.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Do you, though?" Lily wonders. It's weird because she would expect most people to hate machine gun fire coming at them. There is little time to dwell, though. There is, instead, the matter of the giant killer robot.
"This one's hardly giant," Lily points out. "I've seem them bigger than forty sharls like this." Her voice is still distorted slightly, but the distortion changes as she moves around.
Annihilation orders don't sound healthy, though.
She absolutely sees the cannon lifting and focuses there, heedless for the moment of where it goes except that it needs not to hit anybody living. No glyph--but still, a kind of magic. Magilou calls out to her and Lily says, "Good enough!"
She looks--rise, arise... And the angel ascends, all right. Maybe it did have a self-destruct mechanism, but it doesn't work. Lily pauses, and looks after the hol for a few moments, waiting for it to grow dim... and then descends to the ground again, letting her weapons fade.
"Well," she says. "That was something."
The circuit markings, lights, and wings all disappear as her feet touch the ground, though her eyes are still solid black. "...Kinda curious what annihilation order was," she admits, "But it needed much better shielding on its cannons if it was going to try a final destruct sequence..."
Pause. "Name's Lily, by the way. I take it you don't actually care about conquering this..." She looks around.
"...'Town.'"
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Seems reasonable!" Is Magilou's response to whether she really hates it, which is kind of a weird take on how she feels about something, but there is a giant robot in the way of getting to the bottom of that.
Even if Lily is a giant robot snob. "Looks pretty big to me, missy!!" Okay, it's not quite as big as a PROPER Fell Dragon, but it's bigger than a Drake, and that's still plenty enough of a headache for Magilou.
(Magilou, you don't get to think about having a headache when poor Bienfu is bemoaning his existence in there.)
Of course, the funny thing about self-destruct sequences is -- they tend to not work so well when the metal housing the very delicate wiring is all rusted out. Agares Mk. IX might have had noble plans to go out fighting, but unfortunately, witches.
One of whom espies it being crushed into the dirt, and with a cry of "Magikazam!", conjures a fainting couch to swoon upon. "Let's find out never," bemoans Magilou, who is very much done with adventuring for today.
"Magilou," she introduces herself in turn, again, "and I don't care about this crater in the slightest. Frankly, I've never liked any village whose main export is tubers." She reaches up with a hand to wave it, like she's swatting a fly, only to belatedly add: "That's its name. 'Crater Town'. At least they won't have to rebrand!"
Her hand dramatically flops down, dangling over the edge of the couch which is just there now, what on earth, that's not a dove, Magilou.
The armrests do have feather detailing, though...
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily is absolutely a giant robot snob. She fought for Kislev.
But 'seems reasonable' will have to do, and Lily looks over to Magilou as she conjures... a fainting couch. Right there. Lily has great power, but in that power? Not conjuring fainting couches.
"All right, all right," Lily allows, and steps further, taking a seat on the ground and looking around at the devastation. It... could be worse. It could also be significantly better.
Significantly, significantly better.
"I'm not apologizing for starting the fight," she points out. Then she considers. "Tubers... So they probably had pretty decent vodka," she reflects. But that's the name. Crater... Town...
"Yeah, that's pretty rough," Lily says. "But it's better than their town blowing up and all of them dying, so you did them a favor, it seems like."
Pause.
"You conjured a couch."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Oh, don't go on about it," Magilou bemoans (the word for her tone is still, absolutely, bemoaning), as she waves a weak hand once more. "If word gets out, everyone will expect me to save their nothing-holes in the miserable ground." Strangely, Magilou does not fight in the slightest for an apology on Lily's part. Could it be... Magilou feels responsible?!
Okay, no, some things are just too big a miracle. She probably just doesn't care. But it would be nice if she were responsible.
Instead, she drapes herself over the fainting couch which definitely wasn't in the middle of the street a second ago, as Lily points out.
"Technically," Magilou says, airy of tone, though it's hard to read her expression when her face is mashed into the couch like that, "I conjured a dove, and turned it into a couch." What are the limits of dove conjuration? After 1000 years, ARE THERE ANY LIMITS?
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"That's fine," Lily answers. "'I saved a town by flattening half of it' isn't exactly marketable for a mercenary," she points out. As, by way of implication, she states that she is. Magilou could feel responsible... but Lily kind of doubts it. She's just chalked her up to not being able to read her much at this point.
"Correction noted," Lily answers, and examines her hands, glancing over herself for obvious damage. There is some, especially since the whole 'engulfed in fire' problem earlier, but more of it is from Magilou than from the mecha.
"That's a neat trick," she settles on instead. "Is there an underlying principle, or do you just have... Dove Element?" Pause. "I'm pretty sure that isn't a real element."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Frankly, with the ordinance you bring out, I'm surprised you keep it to half a town." Is that... a compliment?! It's awfully backhanded, but it might well be a compliment.
Let's be honest, Magilou isn't swooning on her dove couch because of the evil killer robot. Still face-down, she gives Lily a thumbs-up as she notes her correction.
And lo, does Lily ask --
"Doves," Magilou says, pushing herself up with a hand, "are an intrinsic part of existence. You see, these planets are actually part of a marble, held in a dove's claws, as she flies us across existence. This underpins the ancient charm for traveller safety..."
Very seriously, with an extremely straight face, Magilou imparts this spell: "Cooing like a dove."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Destruction is pretty much what I do," Lily answers. It is like a compliment. She will take it as a compliment. "It's not often I see someone pouring out more fire than me. It gave me some ideas for some new spells." These do not include cooing like a dove. In fact, Lily watches Magilou push herself up, give an entirely straight face--
"..."
Magilou imparts the spell. Lily stares at her for a long few moments. The screen switches between the two of them.
"...That is impressive. I don't detect even a hint of emotion there but there you are, bullshitting like nobody's business."
...Not all perception is psychic powers.
"I have a friend who'd like that take, though. Fine, fine. A dove, was it...?"
Lily extends a hand, palm-up, and closes her eyes, focusing--
Blue light shimmers and an icy dove coalesces into existence, small enough to fit in her hand.
"You're convincing enough that I almost tried it."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"You should see 'Explode'!" Magilou invokes some spells she hasn't used for a while, cheerfully. "Not to mention 'Flare Vortex'." Are those... are those the names of Magilou's spells? No wonder she moonlights as an evil witch. Her entire loadout just sounds sinister.
But not EVERYTHING about Magilou is as evil as it sounds. Apparently, she also has a strong kinship with the dove carrying the world. (Is there really a dove carrying the world, Magilou..?)
A knife splits her smile into two toothy halves, as Lily compliments her lack of emotion. "You can tell, huh? Geez, empaths are always getting in the way of my act."
A friend, huh... well, Magilou can hope it's the friend she's thinking of, because she could always use more friends. And so, she watches, closely, as Lily focuses --
And she finds the energy within herself to clap wildly! "Bravo!" Magilou crows. "Now, all that's standing between you and true dove power is acceptance of the total dove truth."
She waves a finger, cheerfully. "If you can't tell I'm lying, doesn't that mean I might be telling the truth? You~ never~ know~!"
Is Magilou just... always like this?
Magilou might just be always like this.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Flare Vortex sounds promising. Is that more fire and wind together?" She can talk shop. She has no compunction about scary names. Though, "I don't really name most of mine," she admits. "It's mostly just a matter of the energy conversion rates."
Dove carrying the world....
"Heh. You should see the friend I'm talking about. She's much better at that than I am." Lily is also happy to talk about Riesenlied, though she doesn't name her because something something 'wanted in many countries around the world' is not a foreign concept to them.
"Right. The truth that the world is, rather than a ball of rock and gas, a piece of marble carried by a delicate space dove."
She actually laughs, despite herself; it's a dark kind of noise but not particularly unpleasant. "So you're just like that, then. All right."
Lily looks up to the sky again. "...Well, I came here for a drink, so I guess I should see if the bar's still standing. I think people will come back... eventually." Pause. "If I find anything, you want one?"
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Sure is!" Magilou confirms, chipper. "It's much more impressive when I steal someone else's power to embiggen the whirl." Embiggen isn't a real word, Magilou, your skirt is made of books, you know this, stop it.
Magilou is wanted by all sorts of people. Magilou is very desirable! Also she has been causing trouble for a long time but that has nothing to do with that.
"Thaaat's right," she says, in the world thread where they keep talking about doves instead of their friends. And as Lily laughs and comes to her conclusion, Magilou points finger-guns at her again, this time without the shikigami. "Got it in one!"
The bar -- which is also the inn -- does seem like it's survived the worst of their onslaught, and also a giant killer robot. But Lily's last question evokes a wail from Magilou.
This is not to say that Magilou wails.
It's a male voice.
"Waaa-aaa-aaaahhhh no more beer!!!"
Magilou slumps back against the fainting couch, hand to the back of her head. "Alas, I've been outvoted..."
Once Bienfu can be convinced that he won't have to get drunk twice in a row, maybe he'll come out and introduce himself. At least the inn has coffee, too!