6784/Hearts of Glass: The Gather

Hearts of Glass: The Gather
Date of Scene:	20 August 2019
Location:	Mitakihara Town
Synopsis:	A strange Witch attacks Mikoto's private school, and causes more questions than answers.
Cast of Characters:	Lezard Valeth, 7002, Haguro, Staren, 7039, Rean Schwarzer
Tinyplot:	Hearts of Glass

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Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Mitakihara Town has seen better days. The whole partially flooded thing doesn't help, but it's a nice, bustling place nonetheless for what it's worth.

    While most of the town seems to be fairly peaceful, those sensitive to such things might notice a disturbance at a local private school dedicated to the daughters of rich families. Several students who had been staying late seem to be trapped inside, their screams echoing through the halls while a low, happy giggling noise rolls about lazily. The doors and windows are sealed, a slowly growing, strange sheen encompassing the entrances and expanding over the building in sharp spurts of movement. The air is filled with an odd crackling, crystalline noise attendant with them.

HEARTS OF GLASS
CHAPTER 1: THE GATHER
Theme: https://youtu.be/1rwAvUvvQzQ

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Mikoto was coming out of the lockers from Kendo practice when she heard the scream and felt the disturbance.  Her eyes narrow, after feeling the witch, but something was wrong.  It was...like trying to hear a really garbled song on the radio.  She makes the observation over the multiversal radio.  

Then running towards a nearby convenient door and into an empty room.  With a steadying breath, she pulls her soul gem to her hand.  There is a flash of green, ~Magical Girl Sparkles~, and other various colors around the wealth side of things.  

Silver, golds, blues, and of course Green.  The outfit forms around her out of green bits of jade, before becoming fabric.  A mask appears over her face, obscuring her features with jade and gem coated material.  The fabric being of the highest quality, and seems to glitter like gemstones in the light.

Eventually, a spike of jade shoots up from the earth in front of her, shattering into her blade as she picks it up.  She SHOULD wait for people, but eh...she decides to forge ahead, trying to track down the source of the screaming and the laughter.

The last thing they needed was a witch to claim any more lives.

Haguro has posed:
If not for the muffled screaming and strange wall shiny something or another surrounding the school, Haguro's day out on the town would have actually been pretty normal. Alas, normalcy is overrated these days, and it doesn't take long for the cruiser to find herself approaching the floating crackling thing with nothing more than her wits and a half-eaten lunch to carry her through this predicament.

That, and the strange black armor hidden underneath her clothes, but the civilians don't need to know that. If there's any police presence around, it might take a bit of convincing for them to let a random ^sightseer through, but she's gotten better at the annoying insistence thing (and just pushing her way on through if need be).

First things first: Scoping out the area. Flicking out a disposable camera, she snaps a few pictures of the floating sheen before moving towards the school proper. Once she spots a colorful teenager heading in, Haguro breaks into a light jog to keep up the pace! Should anything visibly dangerous get in their way, her first instinct will be to just barrel right into it with all the strength a ship ghost can muster!

Staren has posed:
    Another witch attacking Mitakihara! ...Well, that's enough reason to come help out, isn't it? Staren arrives outside the school and thinks nothing of trying to break some of the windows with the strange effect to them to try and find a way in. Who's concerned about property damage when an eldritch horror is killing people, after all?

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     He's been drinking.

     Of course he has. The Great King of Evil was in the end but a man, with a man's heart and a man's feelings. No matter how massive his stature, no matter how powerful his magic, no matter that he is the one and only male Gerudo, in the end, Ganondorf Dragmire is a man, and he has lost many. The last of his hopes slipped through his fingers in the Song of Healing - a cruel and wicked taunt from the Hylian gods, else a brutal reminder that nothing good can stay.

     So he went drinking. At first he drank with his sisters, but that made him angry. It made him ashamed. How could they drink and laugh and let their cares fall away when outside the walls were his family, dying? How could *he* drown his sorrows when they had to see their King a hero, tall and strong? The shame of it drove him into the Multiverse. The Multiverse drove him to Mitakihara Town. Mitakihara Town drove him into the red light district, and it's there that the Great King of Evil has spent the night, laughing and drinking and carousing with businessmen and hostesses. He even bought modern clothes for the occasion - a suit, a tie, with a distinctly Gerudo scarf wrapped around his neck and his distinctly Gerudo boots and gloves.

     The buildings are the worst part. They loom. More than loom, they choke the sky and the wind. They choke the darkness with ever-present lights. Ever-present noise. Ever-present brightness. He was already lost, but he didn't, at the moment, care - wandering for the sake of wandering was enough. The red light district was far behind, now; only the city remained.

     A little dark blue ball perches on his shoulder. Ganondorf shrugs to dislodge it. It refuses.

     "Veran," his words slurred only slightly, "Leave me. I command it."

     "No," the ball replies.

     "Fine," Ganondorf says, "Then don't."

     So they go on in silence. Finally, Veran says, "It's not your fault."

     "It is my fault."

     "It's the Hylians."

     Ganondorf's fists clench, crushing a can in his massive palms. He hadn't even noticed he was carrying it. "Fine. It's them too."

     "I just wanted you to-"

     The Great King of Evil holds up a hand. "Did you hear that?"

     "?"

     "Screaming."

     "I love screaming," Veran says maliciously, "Do you want to see what it is?"

     Ganondorf tilts his head to the side and adjusts his tie. "As a matter of fact I do. It might be something to take my anger out on."

     So the Great King of Evil strides towards the private school. His stride is slightly wobbled, slightly off, but still imperious, still proud. The business suit looks like a suit of armor on his frame; the scarf blows behind him as he moves. And his eyes are as piercing as ever.

     The Great King of Evil is angry, and it is nighttime, or soon to be, and that is where he rules. Something - deserving or otherwise - is going to feel his wrath.

     At the moment, it might be the front door, as shadows lash out from the ground to blow it open. Gates are for people who aren't kings.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
Rean shows up at the school in response to Mikoto's commentary over the radio. His eyebrows furrowed at the weird sheen on the school. Weren't Witch barriers normally more...crazy than this? Aside from the sealed doors and the screams and strange laughter, the building looked normal, and not 'separate' from the outside world. Ignoring the fact that he's a teenage boy entering an all-girls school, he takes a deep breath and draws his sword. Maybe he could cut his way through whatever this was, if it was physical enough? It was magic, but it was worth a shot.

Unfortunately, that idea goes out the window when Ganondorf of all people shows up. Rean doesn't even attempt to make eye contact with the King of Evil as he tries to break the door down with darkness. He can feel it again, and he knows exactly what Ganondorf is drawing his power from this time.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Mikoto is fortunate enough to be on site when the strange, off-color sensation of the Witch is felt. Garbled, distant, weak... But insistent, worming its way through the area insidiously. The cries of the other students continue to echo through the halls, dragging Mikoto and Haguro on as they seek out the survivors. Already, there are glistening drops of blood on the floor and walls here and there, but the movements are /infuriating/, as if the influence is intentionally being evasive, trying to toy with Mikoto and the others present. Haguro takes pictures of the force slowly growing over the building, and finds the light reflecting from it, a glassy, sharded, mirrorlike intensity that that defies precise classification, almost invisible and yet colorful at the same time, carrying a crackling, incessant timbre. Meanwhile, the giggling continues to drag Mikoto and Haguro around the school, making no sense whatsoever as it evasively seems to taunt with its presence and then absence... though the students seem to steadily be drawing the group on with their cries and frantic scurrying, always just ahead, always just around the corner.

    Staren moves in with the others, working to break windows and open up exits. As he hauls off and punches with his power armored arm, the window breaks immediately. Nice and easy. The problem? The sheenlike force around it shatters lightly too, immediately beginning to grip at his arm and rapidly clawing, emitting glass-screeching noises as it tries to dig through the power armor ineffectually... But insistently. And what's more, is it begins to rapidly attempt to engulf him entirely to drag him... inside. Yes. Inside. We'll call it that.

    Rean's perception is quite accurate. The Barrier, such as it is, is quite subtle compared to most examples for some reason. This only is more pointed when Ganondorf storms forward with the dark anger of the desert behind him and his well-suited scorn, the magic blasting the influence and the front doors apart immediately. The presence retreats from the King of Darkness, the man sensing that whatever is causing it has quickly moved to evade what seems to be a superior force for the time being. Rean and Ganondorf are able to enter without interference, joining Haguro and Mikoto as they wish... or not.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
"Blast..." she says, this IS a barrier, but its just...something is weird.  Especially with the blood...was it attacking directly?  That was weird for a witch...they tended to only attack as a last resort.  The few rare enough to be able to resist their influence...and of course, the magical girls who fight them.  

However, going around chasing after them was...well fruitless.  However, battles in such spaces usually were without damage to the outside.  Broken from her concentration by new arrivals.  Haguro gets a smile and a nod.  Rean also gets a smile and nod, but Staren gets a polite wave.  Ganondorf gets a stare, like..., not an 'oh my god' stare, but an 'oh my god he's handsome' stare.  

Coughing politely, she says with a flick of her hair... "It's a witch's labyrinth, she can manipulate it however she wants to, and it appears to just be leading us on...I think the idea is that it's trying to delay us...or tire us out.  I am not sure which..." she says, though why this place?  

"Not sure what to do though...usually you can just provoke them by being in here...or killing their familiars, but I don't see any.  It could be a weak witch or a recent familiar turned witch..."

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     So it's wise.

     That's good. Ganondorf is more interested in something that can be afraid at the moment. A mindless beast is less enjoyable a punching bag; if he wanted that, he'd simply find a punching bag, after all. No, in his rage, his mixture of self-loathing and the regular variety, Ganondorf wanted something that he could look in the eye and watch suffer. And watch *hurt*, the way he did. And watch take his own pain onto itself in the most physical way imaginable.

     The shadows at his feet roil like bubbles from a cauldron as Veran flits along his shoulder. "Hey!"

     She shoots forward, turning around in front of Ganondorf. "Listen!"

     "The glass isn't safe, Your Malevolence." Veran floats as he walks, her back to the school. "It's where the problem is, not out here. If you go through that strange building you'll only run into problems along glass cases and mirrors; you won't find your target otherwise."

     Ganondorf tilts his head. "But?"

     "But it wants you all to go to one place."

     "Ah," Ganondorf says, and cracks his knuckles, "Then let's oblige it."

     The Great King of Evil's shadows lash outwards again. Hands emerge from the ground to grab one of the mirrors and hold onto it. Two more shadows lash onto Ganondorf's legs as he walks forward, pressing his left hand against the mirror. His right hand is open.

     "I understand!" Ganondorf roars as darkness gathers in his hand, "That it's customary to knock when entering someone's home here!"

     "Let it never be said that the Gerudo King is anything but polite!"

     The dark fist smashes into the glass with all the force he can muster - which, it turns out, is quite a lot, supernaturally. He may only be as strong as a bodybuilder, but that magic is dangerously powerful.

Staren has posed:
    After reflexively trying to pull away, Staren decides that entering the barrier is better than seeing if it can eat his armor, and leans into it, entering the labyrinth. Every Witch he's gotten this close to has either been defeated or driven off, after all...

Haguro has posed:
Haguro's still feeling some of the adrenaline rush despite not having to actually bash into anything or anyone, jogging around those confusing corridors after the soundds of both frightened and amused children. Mikoto, Staren, and Rean are all familiar and welcome sights, and she slows down to double back and touch base with the whole lot of them.

And then a giant red man in a suit shows up to punch a giant fist through things. She steps back briefly while assessing just how to approach this new arrival, but Mikoto starts to make some sense when she starts talking about witches and labyrinths and generally knowing her stuff without pointing Ganondorf out as a current threat.

She still doesn't look all that calm around him, though. "I.. I see. If it's trying to tire us out, then that might explain all the sounds. I haven't seen any children in here yet, but I keep hearing them around..." The shipgirl gestures around herself and down the halls, an uncertain frown crossing her face after a moment. The blue glowing thing did have a decent idea, though, and with little else to work with?

Why not. "If there's chidlren that really are in danger here, then there may not be a lot of time for us to do things the formal way." Breaking into a run again, Haguro follows up on Ganondorf's massive punch by throwing herself at the shiny glass-like thing as well, leaping towards it and thrusting both feet out in a big dumb drop kick.

Hopefully, nobody runs on the spot right where she lands.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
Rean follows Ganondorf into the building as he smashes his way into the building and into the barrier via a mirror. He returns Mikoto's smile, and waves at Haguro and Staren who promptly gets pulled further into the window he's trying to break. They'd probably all be in the same place soon, so he's not worried.

Mikoto notes over the radio that Witches don't normally do this mirror thing, which only adds more to this witch's odd behavior. Was it even a Witch to begin with?

There's probably no reason for him to try, but if for some reason neither Ganodorf or Haguro can bust through, he'll try and break the mirror with his sword.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    Everyone rapidly comes to the conclusion that this Witch is nonstandard for some reason. This is accurate, and Veran seems to be pretty good at identifying this strain of bullcrap pretty quickly. Blame Faeries. This results in basically everyone choosing to just dive into the barrier and meet the Witch head on. Staren is swallowed in, allowing himself to be pulled across dimensional space into her labyrinth.

    Ganondorf is next by virtue of intent and not accidentally triggering the Witch's snares. He blasts his way through the mirror, the sheen crackling and blasting outwards some distance as the glass fragments, flying in all directions... And then there is a another of those little giggles as it suddenly reverses its path, reforming and then blossoming out /the other way/, spreading to engulf Rean and the charging Haguro as well.. The sheen jolts, quickly blossoming out and manifesting through the area. Multicolored layers begin to seethe, interlocking in arcane and beautiful patterns as the Barrier rapidly expands, dispensing with subtlety as the world around them promptly disappears into a world of glass. A world of glass... and light.

    There once was a beautiful girl who loved flowers. The girl loved her flowers so much that she would travel deep into the Dark Woods to find the prettiest ones. "You shouldn't go into the Dark Forest." Said the Mother. "There are things there that would take you away."

    Everything is bright. The light shines around you, this flat world unfolding before and after like a pop-up book rendered in incandescent, glittering edges, sharp and beautiful. Trees, fruit, flowers, an entire forest of flat glass stretches before and after you, the light shining down through translucent, viridian chips. Perhaps it would be beautiful, were it not also disorienting, as you and the others around you are also rendered against this glassy background, flowing from one piece to the next in a glistening two-dimensional world.

    As the group begins to adjust to the strange environment, they will notice the figure flittering about, parallaxing between the trees with a soft, distorted giggle. A blue hooded cape and a bone-white mask of a laughing face dance about, a glistening, shifting light shining behind one eye and then the other as it moves back and forth. The body beneath is indistinct, almost an impression, a shadow of a being beneath the mantle it wears. It hovers up, pausing for a moment...

    And then the glassy world around each of the group sprouts into spikes of obsidian, piercing inwards and growing from the angled sides of the inset shards of glass to attempt to run each of them through and spill glittering, crimson drops of translucent blood. Some might notice some of the trees are already decorated...

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
The Great King of Evil, seems to know what he was doing, and it lines up with what she could guess.  So following along, she tries to sum up things as quickly as she can so that nobody is left unprepared...and then also realizes nothing about this makes sense.

As they enter...

Mikoto is frozen as if struck by lightning or hit.  She looks around...this place was something that was both abstract but filled her with memories.  Dreams...this was a place in her dreams?  Of course, the thought that fills through the area shakes her out of her daze...that or the lots of shards in her chest do.  

Screaming, potentially in pain, she recoils and tries to shake all of the glass off, before looking up and glaring up at the witch.  Blood dripping down her hands as she grabs the sword again, and charges forward.  There, it is THERE and now she can kill it...

"DON'T MESS WITH ME!" she booms, attempting to cleave right through it.

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     The glass gives way. This is what he wanted. It reverses and engulfs others. This is beyond the Great King of Evil's ability to give a damn about.

     The light shines, and the world goes flat. Ganondorf experiences this sensation twice over, as the haze of sake becomes folded on top of this flat pop-up-book world, and the roiling colors are distracting and sharp. He reels a bit, stumbling forward as he tries to get his sense of direction. It's only thanks to Veran that he can keep his direction, or he'd probably plant himself face-first onto...what? The ground? The grass? It's impossible to know here. The psychadelic pop-up world is too much. Too alien.

     Still, he's here, isn't he?

     The figure is enough to get his attention. He raises his hand -

     -it's almost a direct hit. The spikes of obsidian shoot inwards, and they nearly pierce right through his chest. In fact, he shouldn't've dodged that - but his fingers clench at the last moment, and the party sees him speed up abruptly as shimmering threads of starlight closes in his hand. To Ganondorf, the whole world slows down, and he moves on instinct, and the spikes only cut into his suit and graze his chest.

     It wants to play with darkness.

     Two can play at that game.

     Veran disappears forward, shooting through the glass undaunted to hover over the blue-mantled beast.

     Ganondorf is a spellcaster. But Ganondorf is not a spellcaster who chants, who waves his fingers. Nor is he a spellcaster who points and blows things up, nor who summons great runes to work. No. Watching Ganondorf cast spells - and that is certainly what he's doing - is like watching someone wrestle the world and win. He lumbers forward, a freight train of arms and muscles, hands akimbo and open like grasping claws. As he moves, he drags his hands upwards, and the world moves with him, roiling, oozing purple malice exploding out of the ground around the monster. It comes crashing down when he brings it back down, splashing across the field in an attempt to at least try to hinder movement.

     It looks odd and misshapen in this 2D world, like it's dripping off the pop-ups themselves. The Malice doesn't care about things like physics. It's Salvador Dali Melting Clocks.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
They all step into an environment that's more in line with what he'd come to expect from a Witch barrier, a living stained glass piece.  There's a figure in a blue cloak dancing among the trees narrating a story about a girl who loved flowers.

And then everything erupts into black spikes.

Rean shouts, narrowly sidestepping one of them as it scrapes against his arm, drawing blood. The witch is right in front of them, and so he grips his sword tighter as he charges in after Mikoto. He swings his blade, following up Mikoto's cleaving attack with one of his own.

Staren has posed:
    It's bright. Staren holds his arms up to try and block some of the light; his armor's visor darkens. He takes in the strange landscape; for a witch barrier, the only true oddity is the lack of familiars. Perhaps this Witch is weaker and hasn't made them yet? Is that how that works?

    The others show up! "Ah, good, you're all--" when he sees Ganondorf he pauses. Even if he couldn't have known, Staren still feels bad for bringing the Song of Healing to him. But there's nothing to say.

    The hooded figure darts around. Staren raises his arm to attack -- and then tries to jump away from the obsidian spikes so they hit at an awkward angle, cutting into his armor but not drawing blood yet. Wings appear to stabilize him so he doesn't fall on the shards, and then he takes to the air, hastily firing a couple of shots at the witch(?) to distract it while he gets his bearings.

    There's blood. Is that just part of the place, or is it from victims?

    They try to make victims commit suicide, don't they? But where are the bodies...?

Haguro has posed:
It starts to move again. Flipping herself over to get back onto her feet faster, Haguro observes the sheen spreading to become their new environment, the school going unseen in favor of... Haguro's not sure what to call any of it. Glass, light, colors, and all sorts of incomprehensible shapes assault the Cruiser's vision, and all she has to work with is the strange story she can hear in the back of her head.

"What is all of this...? Do Witches normally do this sort of thing?" Haguro asks as she watches that blue figure closely to try and determine if it's friend or foe. "I've been hoping to find one of them myself, but this... Isn't quite what I was expecting." As she speaks to nobody in particular (but probably Mikoto by virtue of her being a native), the cruiser doesn't even noticing at first when the ground beneath her starts to shift again.

Perhaps it's thanks to the reflections of the blinding light against those glass-blooded trees, but she somehow manages to react just in time to not get turned into a pincushion by the obsidian spikes by hurling herself gracefully into a much less graceful tuck and roll. With Mikoto screaming at the blue figure, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that perhaps THIS is the Witch in question.

First things first: Bringing it down. "Don't let it get away!" Haguro shouts as she springs off the ground towards the rising thing, blue lights flashing at the back of her stockings as the hidden-ish armor's boosters flare to give her a little more of a speed boost. As she nears the creature, she tries grabbing onto it and yanking it downwards, aiming to slam it downwards and bring it within convenient stabbing range of her companions.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
But the girl did not listen. She wished to find the prettiest flowers, because the Mother's birthday was coming and she wanted to give her a gift. So it was that the girl walked into the Dark Forest, travelling the Dark Paths as the butterflies floated overhead. It was there, in the middle of a valley of beautiful flowers, that she saw the Shimmering Man.

    The Witch dances amongst the trees, making happy noises that only resemble speech in the most vague of terms, the tones overlaid with a hissing backmasked noise. However that story is being narrated, it's not through its own direct efforts... Odd. It doesn't seem to think what happened to Mikoto is anything to be concerned about, new little beads of glassy blood rolling through the strange two-dimensional frame. She cleaves back in return, her slash cutting across as she leaps through the shards, the blade cutting lightly into the cloak. It hits the cloak and little more, the Witch dancing backwards.

    Ganondorf strikes right afterwards. Veran flies ahead, the circular faerie cutout glowing brightly with that inhuman blue energy and highlighting the Witch as if shining a flashlight through glass, thr figure pulsing with faerie fire amongst the trees and flowers, visible in silhouette even when behind a foreground tree element. The Warlock King, in the meantime, works to bludgeon the world around him into doing his desire through sheer willpower. The Malice crashes down, oozing and melting the glass cells into an unrecognizable mess where it lands, but the Witch gives it wide berth, perhaps wisely yielding the ground in the face of the Malice.

    Haguro puts a quick end to all of this 'dodging about' as she lunges and command-grabs the Witch to slam it into the ground. Glass shatters as the 'ground' buckles, shards spraying everywhere as some cells rapidly adjust to bleed into others. The Witch emits a pained noise, an incoherent shriek as Rean follows up with a swift blade strike. He doesn't feel it pierce flesh per se, lacking that sick resistance of steel sliding through a body, but it wounds the Witch nonetheless as he tears at the form.

    Staren follows up with a barrage, the Witch taking a fusillade of fire and being riddled with holes. It twists, beginning to sag a bit already as it pulls further back into the forest, trying to recover a better position while gleaming azure butterflies flit down in a swarm towards the invaders. Each one delicately rendered in perfect detail in glasswork as they flutter... And then each one promptly explodes into a large spike ball of more obsidian glass, threatening to skewer anyone in range of one, or perhaps worse, drop and tumble about eratically, making the entire area a moving hazard.

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     The monster is smart enough to give the Malice room. That's good for it, but bad for Ganondorf. Well, no. Not bad. It means he gets to enjoy it more. For a beast, it's a beast with good instincts, which is close enough to something that can feel fear for his preferences.

     He grabs the air and swings it forward, and the Malice responds, lashing outwards - but he's interrupted by the gleaming butterflies. The purple ooze splatters as Ganondorf brings up his hands, covering his face as best he can. The spikes of obsidian glass crash against him, piercing into his arms and his legs. He's bleeding - of course he is. He's a man. But he's also buzzed enough to push through it, and angry enough to push through it twice over.

     The moving hazard is more of a problem, but not much of one. Ganondorf brings up his foot and stomps it down. A platform of purple, rolling shadow rises, a 2D cutout plastered over stained-glass nonsense. It's unpleasant to watch from the outside - as if someone dumped paint on the stained glass pop-up and that paint was still wet and bubbling.

     With that done, Ganondorf starts advancing. Each step produces another platform, and the platform behind him disintegrates into nothingness as he walks forward. He's taking his time. He's not very fast, after all. He just has to wait for the perfect moment.

     Mikoto and Rean engage in melee, while Staren fires from afar. Haguro, though, gives him his chance.

     The Witch goes down, trying to pull away.

     "YOU WON'T!" Ganondorf roars.

     He leaps off the platform, surprisingly dextrous. As he rises darkness gathers at his feet. He flips forward, his feet thrusting downwards, his arms crossed, and he shoots straight down towards the witch for a brutal impact. The impact cracks the glass around it. It spills Malice all over the place in fits and spurts, decorating the trees further with the melting ooze. It might even leave a crater.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Just ignore it, Mikoto told herself, just ignore it...

Mikoto's eyes narrow, a shadow falls over her face, as the obsidian shards rush towards her.  Her blade pierces the ground, as spikes of jade stab up through the earth, intercepting the shards of obsidian and deflecting them away from her.  Pulling her sword backward...

She stabs the ground a second time, and shards of jade spike up from the earth right below the grounded witch, aiming to impale her viciously.  Mikoto's eyes were focused, it was easier to let it ride like this.  She just had to kill it, then take its grief seed.  Nothing else mattered.  

Ignore everything else, the story, the familiar setting.  Just focus on killing it.  The image of her father rushes through her mind, incentivizing her own.  

Staren has posed:
    Is it... narrating? That's new. Who the heck is the Shimmering Man? What kind of an origin story is this?

    Their attacks seem to have the witch on the defensive, moving away from them. Good. When it launches those butterflies, though, Staren suspects something is up. He doesn't wait to see what they do -- the missile racks on his shoulders pop up and fire everything, some missiles explode amongst the butterflies to shatter them early, while most continue on to explode around the Witch, homing in on Gannondorf's fairy and trusting it's word that it won't be harmed!

    Staren activates his forcefield immediately after firing, the remaining butterflies scoring the field deeply.

    Staren waits for the fairy to reappear through the smoke, firing beams below it immediately. He's not assuming that attack finished the witch!

Haguro has posed:
If nothing else, that shriek confirms that the Witch still has some sort of sentience. Sapience? Haguro makes a mental note to look that up later as the volley of attacks from all directions seems to be working rather well against the Witch, but it's not down for the count just yet. Keeping her eye on it/Veran's strange glow, Haguro's reflexes aren't quite on point the second time around when the Witch launches the swarm of impaling butterflies all around. Oily blood sprays from the myriad of cuts on Haguro, and she bites back an angry noise as she forces herself to bob and weave through the painful spikes stabbing into her just to keep it from getting too far away.

This'l lteach her to take a day off and expect to not get wrapped up in a fight somehow.

With Ganondorf taking the slow and steady approach and being the big visible target while Mikoto summons those spikes from below, Haguro has a moment to figure out just how she's going to approach this thing. Dragging the Witch down seemed to work pretty well the first time, and with Staren blasting it with lasers, there might just be a good opportunity to strike.

"... I'm going in again! Just keep attacking!" Launching herself forward once more, Haguro once again aims to get a firm hold on the Witch. Should she get enough of a hold, she starts jerking it back and all around, trying to amplify the worst of everyone's attacks by slamming and dragging the Witch further into them: Pulling it along spikes, swinging it into beams and swords, and even jumping into flying feet if it can't get out of her grip.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
Rean listens intently to the narration in the air around them. Maybe it would help them figure out how to deal with this Witch. The fluttering butterflies remind him of a certain orbal art, and so he raises his arms, bracing for the oncoming explosion. They explode into /spikes/ though, which is different than Grim Butterfly just straight up exploding. There's shards of black glass stuck in his arms now, and he hisses, pulling out at least a few of the smaller shards so he can move. Ganondorf throwing Malice everywhere is distracting, but he at least tries to stay focused. He rushes the Witch, dealing as many slashes as he can as he passes by her.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    The girl tried to hide from the Shimmering Man, but she could not escape. The Shimmering Man took her far away, to another land. There, her heart became glass. But it was all right, because she was shown a new place and made so many new friends. She could play with them all day, and not have to worry about the Mother ever again. She could play all day and all night.

    Even a beast can understand danger and the fear of the unknown. Perhaps more than humans do sometimes. Still, the Malice is a phenomenon that one cannot ignore, especially with what it is doing to the environment of the Labyrinth. Ganon powers through the spiked swarm, greating his own way over and through the rolling spiked balls of splintering pain. The moment the Witch tries to flee deeper, Ganon is already there, as if the envornment shift is somehow working in his favor... Or maybe the Witch doesn't have the manifest will to stand against the combined forces present. Schoolgirls are much easier, prey, aren't they? He stomps downwards, crashing into the Witch and crushing it into the ground to leave it in an oozing puddle of Malice that hisses and consumes more of its form. It emits a low shriek of pain...

    Only to increase as Staren follows up, blasting into that Malice-soaked hole with a barrage of missiles that sends the entire pane crackling and shattering, leaving an uneven, spike-filled ground around them as the shattered pieces of landscape pile up in jagged, razor-sharp edges. Veran makes a pretty top tier weapon guidance method if you can put up with its sass.

    It is wise to think that the Witch is not done, for it is not. It emerges, but Mikoto is right there amidst the beam spam, the spikes punching up from the earth to spike it from all directions and affix it there for critical moments. It shudders, the form writhing there with a terrible approximation of a body for several moments as the light shifts to the other eye of the mask.

    Haguro, meanwhile, doesn't stop and is possibly unstoppable. How does one stop an angry boatgirl, anyway, especially one that seems as experienced in wrestling as artillery? She crashes forward, enduring the assault as she crashes right into the transfixed Witch, following up on Mikoto's attack to aggravate the incoming damage and manhandle the screaming eldritch thing. Her hold helps Rean stay on target as he leaps in to cleave into the increasingly tattered and chipped being over and over again, its screams like crackling glass dragged across a chalkboard as the pain and damage mounts intensively.

    Finally, however, a spike shoots up between the Witch and Haguro, growing between them to force her to break her grip and leave her smoldering and tattered, dancing back and forth on the shattered ground with a smile still on its motionless face. With a spin, it emits a warped, half-delerious giggle as the glass suddenly erupts, the 'background' shattering as massive black claws clamp down to try to grip, shred, and pierce each of the invaders, trying to pull and tear them apart in this forest of broken glass.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Claws scrape and squeeze at Mikoto.  They tear at her flesh, they squeeze her bones until she can hear crunching, but she swings the blade, sending them away from her, and the ones behind are knocked away by the force of the swing.  The blade comes back overhanded as she focuses on the witch.  

"SHUT UP!" she screams, once more the blade thrusts down into the ground, as animals pour out of the hole in front of her.  Elephants rush forward, aiming to try and stamped the witch, while tigers attack from multiple angles.  Bears come clawing in...

In a burst of speed, Mikoto rushes in with that HEDGEHOG like quickness.  The sword slashes in with the MIGHT of Haguro, aiming to tear through the creature.  Lilly's machine gun appears out of nowhere, taking place of her jade sword, as she unleashes a barrage of well-aimed shots from it, aiming to try and tear through critical areas.

And then, leaping up onto the back of her animals, the sword impales into the ground as Jade spikes attempt to impale the Witch multiple times, as her hand seems to have a strange BRACELET made out of data on it.

She points it forward, as she attempts to use Hasero's DATA DRAIN on the creature.

Staren has posed:
    Staren frowns as it describes the heart of glass. But then this wasn't possibly going to be a happy story, was it? It sounds like a character one of August's friends would summon as a Persona...

    He's hovering in place in the air because there's noplace good to land with the floor threatening to turn into obsidian spikes at any time. Claws come for him, and the forcefield goes up, but the claws begin to crush and tear through it. Soon it's less than half the size it started at, components on Staren's armor exploding and smoking as successive layers of field crack and shatter like the glass so prevalent here, although once separated from the field the energy just kind of breaks into glittering amber dust and fades away.

    Staren growls. "Nnnngh... NO!" He pulls something off his belt and then drops the field as he spins in the air, twin plasma swords whirling around him to cut into the claws!

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     Ah.

     It can feel pain.

     The shriek is a pleasure for the Great King of Evil. It's another shot of adrenaline, pushing the slight haze of liquor away in favor of the strong clarity of his dark strength. He grinds his heels into the beast a little more, not to do real damage but merely to take pleasure in his own cruelty. Veran giggles a little above it, dancing this way and that to keep people on target.

     Staren fires, and Ganondorf seems to speed up as he clutches in his right hand two-dimensional tapestry-threads of woven stained glass starlight. He skates backwards before the explosion can hit. The missiles seem to go in slow motion for him. The shards of glass fall around him and are easily avoided. He just walks through them. To everyone else, he's moving like lightning as he clutches his fist tighter, a blur of black and brown and red. When the claws come, they're fast, but not fast enough for a clean hit - only scrapes and scratches as Ganondorf moves through them and up to the Witch directly.

     His fist closes.

     It's not just Malice that surges around him, that surges through him. The Malice on the field gathers to his hand, all of it scooped up in a single, compact place. What darkness he can find leaps at his call like eager puppies, shadows from the party jumping into his hand as he draws it back. His eyes flash. Haguro has it held. This is his best shot.

     This is his best shot.

     The drawn-back fist starts to shake. His other hand coils around those stained-glass threads, slowing down everything around him. Just long enough to land the hit. Just long enough to land the blow, and then release.

     His fist swings forward.

     "WARLOCK PUNCH!"

     The fist is not the part that hurts. No, the part that hurts is the Malice, the shadows, the roiling hate and darkness all mixed together as one. For Rean it's probably like looking at a sun made of pure evil. For anyone magically-sensitive it's a flare of dark magic that ironically lights up senses.

     For the witch, it is a strike carried onwards, not merely one punch but a spear of hate that goes right through and out the other side. Indeed, all that gathered Malice splatters briefly across the field before it vanishes, its power spent, and the shadows hang from trees before they fade and return to their proper owners.

Haguro has posed:
The spike pushing between Haguro and the Witch forces the Cruiser to back off, the momentary respite giving her a chance to reflect on the wisdom of rushing through a field of spikes stabbing foot and body alike. Her casual outing clothes of the day are pretty much ruined at this point, and the pain from getting stabbed so much is starting to wear the shipgirl down more than she'd like to admit.

If nothing else, it gives her some time to whatever the Witch is going to throw at her next. The giggling puts Haguro on guard as she looks around rapidly to try and identify what's coming her way, and the giant claws give her little room to move out of the way by the time they appear.

Really, how is someone supposed to dodge THE BACKGROUND coming to attack them? Instead of trying to dodge it outright, Haguro moves with the claw slashing at her to limit just how much it can actually tear her flesh apart. It still hurts like hell, of course, but her body is strong like the ship she was named after! The constant bleeding makes that harder to notice, but Haguro just has to compensate by doing something even crazier and impressive. But what can she do with the Witch so determined to stay away from her?

Right. The Abyssal armor. Watching Ganondorf's Malice-filled punch going forward, Haguro gets her idea! Activating the thrusters in her leg armor, Haguro closes her eyes as rears back for a big haymaker of her own, twisting around at the last moment ^while hurtling forward rapidly. Instead of colliding with everyone in front of her or the Witch itself, though, she just phases right through them, the blue glow stopping once she's behind the Witch to start lashing out with a flurry of mighty and frustrated punches!

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
One of the dark claws grabs Rean, digging and tearing into his skin. "Get...Get off!" Rean shouts, swinging his sword at the arms to clear them away from him. And then bleeding  from all the cuts, he charges at the witch once more, igniting his sword and trying to slice through the witch again as hard as he can.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
    And so the girl and all her friends began to gather together. All of them wanted to make a new friend. All of them wanted to share their happiness forever and ever.

    The claws strike, but they're not enough to stop the enemies. This Witch seems to be somehow... lesser... than others that more experienced hunters seem to have faced. The attacks less biting, less murderous in their nature. The tactics are less immediately hazardous, the inherently disorienting nature of the Labyrinth aside. Staren slashes in, cleaving down through the Witch and leaving long trails of glowing pain in his wake, the cloak burning and seething as it tries to reconsitute itself. This leaves it wide open for Ganondorf.

    The Warlock King draws forth the Malice, concentrating it from the scarred and broken and partially melted ground. He seeks out the darkness, the hatred of this place and it responds. Despite the beauty, there is a rampant hatred and deep resentment that boils here, and like calls to like. He steps forward, striking with that intense power... and the Warlock Punch crashes directly into the Witch. The first crushes into the being, somehow punching it along his swing and carrying it forward before the blast of dark power rips through it. There is an intense shriek from the horror, the light behind the mask shaking and dimming for several moments before launching it straight into Haguro.

    The Witch rebounds right into that haymaker, caught in Haguro's crushing grip and combination strike. The hammering blows crack the mask, driving it into the jagged ground and grinding it there with overwhelming force. Somehow, it manages to hold together despite its delicate appearance, Haguro's movements exacerbating the damage dramatically to the being. This puts the Witch into position for Rean to come in and cleave right through with his flaming blade.

    In the end, that leaves Mikoto. She screams in anger and defiance, she lashes out in pain and anger. Animals rush in, stampeding, clawing, biting, striking the Witch in a constant barrage of destructive force. The Witch tries to escape, but Mikoto is already there, the speed allowing her to crash into the Witch with that same intense melee power that Haguro has, channelled into a deadly blade. The machine gun blasts into it, juggling the Witch in the air as it begins to fall apart, howling in incoherent pain and despair... And then once again it is transfixed, stabbed through and holding it in place as Mikoto unleashes the Data Drain on the thing. It is caught in the blast of light, tearing through it and holding it there as lines of staticky black are ripped from behind the mask, flooding into Mikoto.

    The Witch is left twitching and trembling, the light flickering there, the being barely more than tatteres and chipped china. There is a low moan of pain, of resignation and anger that comes from the entity, and the world shatters, breaking apart as the Labyrtinth heaves upwards and hurls them all into the air... Leaving them lying in the school gym, the world returned to three dimensions, of normal coloring and hue. There, against the wall, a trio of Mikoto's classmates are seen sitting on the floor, blood running from a number of wounds all up and down their arms.

    As for the Witch... It seems to have simply... left, instead of remaining to meet its doom at the hands of those assembled.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
The lines of darkness trace back into Mikoto, and there is a scream.  That was a mistake, she realizes too late, and falls to the ground.  There is a reality moving heartbeat that seems to originate from her for a moment, as she holds her head.  

No no no...

She just sits there trembling.  

Ganondorf Dragmire (7039) has posed:
     It doesn't die. It runs.

     Unsatisfying. Ganondorf flexes his fingers slightly, working them. The aftermath of the Warlock Punch is always a bit unpleasant for him, too, a brief pause in what might be an otherwise nonstop assault. The field shatters and he relaxes.

     The girls are in danger and that Mikoto girl is in pain. Ganondorf considers stopping to help. But he's of no use in this regard. He's not really capable of aiding the women in any way but his brute strength - no magical healing or anything of that nature. He's not even especially trained in first aid save the obvious 'wash the wounds and bandage them'.

     So he just...leaves. If they really need him they'll tell him. Otherwise, he's in the way.

     Veran floats off over his shoulder.

Staren has posed:
    The Witch is defeated... or is it? Gannondorf says it ran, and there's no grief seed... hmph. Usually the witches die from an assault like that, are they getting smarter? Or is this one just particularly slippery?

    Well, Staren can think about it later, there's students bleeding out over there. Staren gets out the nanobandages and applies them -- the medical nanites can't heal gross physical trauma but they can make smaller repairs and keep their blood in until they can get medical treatment. He calls emergency services to come pick them up...

    Then turns to Mikoto. "Woah, are you okay? What's wrong? You fight witches all the time, so..."

Haguro has posed:
Haguro's running on fumes as she finishes letting all of her pent up frustrations loose on the Witch, bracing for one last attack which doesn't end up coming when it instead decides to escape and fling them into the air as a parting gift.

"... Huh. Okay. That was... Could have gone worse." Haguro comments idly as she stares at the gym ceiling, leaking blood/oil all over the floor in random patches. It takes a moment before she finally picks herself up, breathing a sigh of relief as it appears that the victims are mostly safe. Perhaps not in the best condition, but they don't appear to be dead at a casual glance. Before she can go check on them, however, Mikoto screams, and the boat ghost hurries over to check on her instead.

"Miss Mikoto! What... Nn." She has no idea what happened. She has no idea how to fix this, but she's seen peple freak out before. She's been freaked out before herself.

She can probably handle this. Maybe. Haguro sits beside the magical girl and pats her shoulder lightly, keeping herself looking about as small as she can considering the vaguely apparent age difference. It'd probably be more reassuring if she wasn't bleeding in several places at once, but still. The gesture means something, right?!

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
The Witch departs, leaving behind three schoolgirls who were bleeding from the arms. Rean quickly drops a Tear spell on the three girls to close up some of their wounds, before doing the same to himself. Together with Staren's nanobandages, they should probably be good to go in no time.

Then Mikoto screams.

Rean turns around and runs over to her side. "What happened?" He also chucks another healing Tear spell at Haguro while he's over there.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
The nanobandages do the job, stopping the bleeding. They'll live, albeit barely. They'll probably need a transfusion or something, that's a lot of blood on the floor and all over their clothing. But they're not dead, and that's what's important.

    At least all in all this seems to have been fairly low-impact for a Witch. Surely it won't cause any more problems...

    Right?