2015-10-01 - North Pole, Part One

Title: North Pole, Part One
Summary: Queen Beryl, terrifying menace, challenges the magical girls of Earth to meet her on her own battlefield, at the North Pole! On the jagged ice of the Arctic, an army of darkness will rise to meet the invaders, and the clash will be of truly epic scale. Never again shall light touch these shores.
Who: Masque Feu, Fate Testarossa, Lera Camry, Fuu Hououji, Sayaka Miki, Mami Tomoe GM: Honoka Yukishiro
Where: The North Pole
OOC - IC Date: 29 August 2014 - 10/01/2015

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.

<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhttZz9lmpk

Darkness.

Philosophers sometimes call it the mere absence of light, a lack, a void, a vacuum.

How fortunate they are to have never experienced it fully.

Cold and darkness are often found in association with one another, and that's never more true than now, but this darkness is yet distinct. The cold merely makes breathing feel like gnashing knives. The cold merely makes the nose smell only metal and the toes so present in their absence that they go around the sensory back-end and come out burning coals. The cold is pervasive, screaming all of the senses, demanding attention, a tithe of misty breath and diamond tears.

The darkness is an identity.

It breathes. It beats with its own pulse, subsuming that of all around, which instinctively speed up to match it.

It is a violation, an assault. The pillar lancing into the sky may be an embodiment of it, but it is so much more than that. It is present, cloying as the smell of an overripe pear, overwhelming as an oncoming train.

Unstoppable as an avalanche.

It is not, however, an avalanche that is kicking up a massive cloud of ice and snow into the sky, but the arrival of the opposition.

Tuners spill out of choppers somehow inured to the blinding snowstorm causing a horrible howl louder than any rotor blade.

Members of the Magic Association step through a mystical portal being held open by the combined efforts of a hundred lesser witches, their hearts in concert as they send their friends off to fight a battle they cannot.

And other girls arrive in other ways. Some enjoy (or don't enjoy, given the conditions) the power of flight; others teleport. A few independently wealthy girls have chartered an iceboat. There are other extraordinary friends and favors called in -- a flight of alicorns, a mighty, saddled bird carrying another four or five girls in a net; a massive truck summoned from another realm with tread that can cross anything, no matter how treacherous.

There are more of them assembled here than have ever been in one place, throughout all of history, even, though few can appreciate that easily. Some grandmas know, though. There have been other dark times, and bad times, times when the protectors of the world came together... but not like this.

This is their time -- our time -- the time of the magical girl.

And this is, without any question, the place...

Even if, so far, the only enemy to face is the storm--

--and the shadow.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Lera Camry came with the Tuners, even if she didn't -- strictly speaking -- need a chopper for the whole flight. She could still conserve some mana by not flying to the North Pole from Tokyo, though, and thus she accepts that. She said goodbye to Setsuna, she patted Citadel on the head, and she left Broken Ground sitting at home with instructions on what to do if she died. She doesn't know if he will ever want to transform with her again; it was a dire situation. She isn't going to ask him to now.

She steps off the helicopter, her feet touching down on the snowy ground of the ice cap. She lands and takes a look around, before she pulls her large green jacket against her tightly. She shivers regardless, and not entirely from the cold. The darkness plays a part, too.

"Any sign of them?" she asks, both of her Device and the other magical girls arriving. Her words might be lost in the wind; flecks of snow and ice blow against her face.

<No.> Soaring Sky answers. <I'll keep scanning.>

<Pose Tracker> Masque Feu [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Seika is rich, but her extravagance does not extend to owning a helicopter with enough range to get her to the North Pole. She took the portal the Magic Association set up.

She also brought a cloak, provided to her by Augustine. It is a heavy one with white fur trim about the edges, and she hunkers down in it against the first shock of the cold. Augustine pokes his head out through the folds of it around Masque Feu's collar, the girl having already transformed before stepping through, knowing that a battle is liable to be joined on the other side of the singularity. Possibly the most dangerous battle she has ever faced.

The snow whirls in the darkness. Biting flakes slash like knives across Masque Feu's exposed cheeks. She shivers, forcing herself to think of herself as a creature of the Blessed Flame. Its light burns inside her.

She wishes it could stop the blizzard, though.

Even if it is less offensive than the pall of darkness that presses itself against her consciousness.

"I do not like this, Masque Feu," Augustine trills from the folds of the heavy cloak. He has to raise his voice to be heard. "Queen Beryl would not have shown herself so brazenly were she not ready for us. We may be walking into another trap."

Masque Feu sets her jaw, glaring ahea, into the snow and the shadow. Trying to see what's ahead. "We probably are, Augustine-sama," she concedes. "But not risking the trap carries too high a cost for the world. We have to take the chance and defeat her now."

The turtledove shivers under the heavy layer of cloth. "Remember the lessons I taught you," he advises, his voice serious. "And know that whatever happens, I have faith in you."

"...Arigatou."

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mami Tomoe is here, on the ice, after stepping through the Magic Association's portal with her partner. The blonde Puella Magi has seen many things, in her time as a magical girl, and she knows the difference between darkness and /darkness/. ...But she still has to steel herself, looking up at that awful pillar, now that she's so close to it.

"You'll need to stay on your toes," she reminds her partner, looking around to see the great assembly of magical girls around her. ...There's so /many/ that it's frankly baffling to Mami, who is so accustomed to fighting alone, and has been for so long. She's never seen this many gathered in one place. ...She wonders if she ever will again.

Dressed in her battle attire already, black and yellow, Mami's magic lets her protect her eyes from the storm, but she suspects she'd be able to see through to that pillar, regardless. Her breath chills in the air. ...And she steps forward, beginning to walk closer, heedless of the group around her.

She only needs one partner, now.

"...This is beyond anything I've faced," she says to a certain girl beside her, her voice hard in order to cut through the winds. "...But we can do this together. I'm sure of it."

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

Even though Lindy Harlaown is no longer part of the TSAB, her briefing for a number of Tuners still is almost military in nature.

Fate Testarossa pays attention, and doesn't at the same time. Her mind is elsewhere... remembering.

She remembers walking within D-Point, entering the court of Queen Beryl, and kneeling to her. She remembers the cold in particular. The numbing cold turned into a bone-chilling bite when the wind blew. Reaching a temperature that felt akin to absolute zero when she came near that throne. She'd remembered wondering if the regal woman sitting on her throne felt it.

She remembers every act she performed for Dark Fall. The type of monsters that join them.

She remembers her mother falling on her long journey.

She remembers Queen Beryl's visage within the mirror, thinking that this was it. That she'd come for her in particular, only to learn what she'd known all along. To one of the Dark Queens of Dark Fall, Fate Testarossa was nothing more than a gnat to her. It was enough to put her off from going at all...

She looks around during the briefing at someone. Then several someone's. A few smile at her comfortingly. She remembers why she's doing this.

At the North Pole, Fate Testarossa steps off the helicopter, behind Lera, her boots sinking into the snow. She tucks her mouth behind a pink scarf, letting it cover up to her nose, crossing the arms clad in a heavy winter jacket, hands covered in mittens and fuzzy earmuffs over her head... It all barely helped. She was still cold, the wind blowing her twintails like streamers.

She looks up at an older girl with crimson hair. Then around over the snowswept plain. "Don't wait until you pick them up on your scans." She has to pick her voice so it can be heard. She believed in her heart of hearts that they were already here, waiting. "If you do, then it might already be too late."

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

And then there are 'birds' which look more like gryphons, and which are too big for any saddle to fit properly. It's easily big enough for three girls to sit comfortably on its back for the flight from Japan, and the residual magic that surrounds it even helps to keep the biting cold at bay.

... at least until they dismount. The giant gryphon-like creature alights, and its passengers climb down quickly; the Magic Knight of Wind, her quiver and bow already manifested, hugs herself for a moment, shivering as the literally arctic cold makes itself known to her. It doesn't take her too long to adjust, though, and the Wind Knight unslings her bow before advancing alongside her allies, glancing around for more-familiar faces to form up with and possibly to strategize.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji transforms into Magic Knight!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

As Mami Tomoe stands resolutely in the driving snow, a tentative white boot pokes from the portal behind her, and feels around on the ground. When that shy foot determines that there is, indeed, something firm to stand on, the rest of its body follows, shoulders tight with nervousness, face grimacing.

"Y-you bet!" Sayaka agrees with Mami. "Any time you fight at the North Pole, you know it's a big deal, right?

The blue-haired Puella Magi blows into her hands instinctively as she walks up beside Mami, snow rapidly creating netting in her hair. She looks around at the amassed might of girlhood, and her jaw firms, her teeth showing in a grin. "That's right! Mami-senpai could do this all alone, so I won't make her look bad by messing up." She slaps her bicep with her opposite hand. "Keeh! This is so cool! Can I stand next to you and stuff? Can I call you senpai in front of people? Whoa, can I get my cell phone out somehow?"

Sayaka pats herself down, perplexed. "I kinda want to take a picture of you, it's just swords in here though... Did I say 'of' or 'with'? Well, either's okay..."

Sayaka is starting to slow down. This place is darker than it ought to be. Her bare arms prickle. "...maybe... with the flash though," she murmurs, getting more subdued.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has fully healed herself.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki transforms into Puella Magi Sayaka!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has fully healed herself.

<Pose Tracker> Dark Endymion [Ohtori Academy (12)] has posed.

Within the darkness, there are realms deeper than pitch, more dreadful than the blackest night. Over one such realm, hidden in the heart of the storm, a queen reigns over one kingdom with her eyes set on another. Geometries twist in ways that would bring madness to the most eccentric of mathematicians, colours blinding to the most ethereal of painters.

Here, a queen holds court - crimson hair billowing in a phantasmal wind as long-fingered hands play over a hovering crystal orb. Within its swirling depths, visions may be seen - visions of howling tempests raging around countless arrivals. A vision of those courageous enough to brave this storm.

"And so these bothersome children dare to accept my gracious invitation. Eager to die like the cattle they are, they have come to our very doorstep." With the wave of a hand, the vision fades into abyssal blackness - marred only by glimpses of something within even that oblivion. "Of course, these guests must be welcomed properly, and such a welcome requires preparation. Go forth to greet those who have asked to die, Prince - entertain them with all the kindness that remains in your heart."

Before the throne, a prince kneels. Sword sheathed at his side, he raises his head to behold the queen for whom alone his eyes gaze. "As you command, my Queen."

---

Helicopters throttle down their engines, mystic portals flicker, and fantastic beasts take their rest. Countless lights have gathered with courage and faith on these shores of cold and darkness, standing firm against proclamations of death and despair. The shadows are all the deeper for the light that shines here, though, and the storm rages more and more. Snow and ice are blasted across this dead landscape with all the force of a tempest, and what one could see in the darkness is obscured by sheets of blinding white.

Blinding - until it stops.

The wind, the falling ice, even the last groans of the transports brought here - everything goes silent in the same instant that ends the raging storm. Not merely an end to the inclement weather, but fragments of ice hang suspended in the air. It's as if time itself has ground to a halt...

And then, that silence is broken by the clap of shoe against ice. Step, step, step - sure-footed across the ice floes, displaying casual confidence in his approach, a lone man. Wearing armor of black and grey, a crimson mantle trailing in his wake, Prince Endymion of the Golden Kingdom approaches in full raiment and glory.

Through suspended fragments of ice, across the icy plain - until he stands before those gathered, hand resting comfortably upon his sword's hilt. A glimpse of his eyes, however, betrays his true nature - undisguised contempt for those who stand before him.

"You have answered the challenge put forth to you, and stand darkening the doorstep of the Golden Kingdom. I shall not appeal to your wisdom, for in setting foot here...it is clear you have none." The deathly silence hangs in the wake of his words for a moment - broken, finally, by the sound of metal clacking in a sheath. "Welcome to the place where you will all die."

COMBAT: Dark Endymion has fully healed himself. He is now ready to take on 6 opponents!

COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Realize Your Weakness! on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Realize Your Weakness! on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Realize Your Weakness! on Masque Feu.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Realize Your Weakness! on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Realize Your Weakness! on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Realize Your Weakness! on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa narrowly braces Dark Endymion's Realize Your Weakness!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Fate Testarossa is Taunted! Cripple applied to Fate Testarossa!
COMBAT: Masque Feu fails to dodge Dark Endymion's Realize Your Weakness!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Cripple applied to Masque Feu!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe perfectly dodges Dark Endymion's Realize Your Weakness!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! Mami Tomoe's Fade ability activates! Mami Tomoe's Flash ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.

<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ4YWdnaXBQ

When it comes, it comes all at once, from every direction, like on days when the whole world seems to conspire to criticize, parents at the breakfast table, teachers in the classroom, strangers on the bus. Suffering can be inescapable.

They erupt from the crevasses between the ice. They step from storm-cast shadows. They fall like the driving snow.

They strike without hesitation, without fear, and without mercy.

And they are all distinct.

The denizens of the Dark Kingdom are many and varied. They are individuals, even as they stand united beneath the banner of their Queen and adamant strength of her will. They wear all manner of raiment, eyecatching fashions all:

• Grecian elegance is not uncommon, with simple, sophisticated folds and one or both shoulders bared. The colors are always dark but often rich as well, blues and greens and violets, icy hues were the sun present and accounted for.

• Skintight leotards, dark mirrors of their native foes, also make regular appearances, with or without the accompaniment of skirts.

• Some people sport absolutely modern garb with incandescently unearthly touches. A three-piece suit with flames licking off the cuffs; a perfectly reasonable T-shirt and jeans combination... on a six-legged, beastly tiger; a miniskirt that might as well be in a Harajuku window, worn by an animated marionette.

Admittedly they tend to all be armed the same way, though, with vicious, grasping claws and gleaming fangs. It evokes savagery, brutality.

The way any and all of them can launch blasts of painful dark magic -- some from their eyes, others their palms or mouths or even navels -- firmly removes any possibility of mistaking them as merely physical threats, however. Their fingers rend reality, their smiles announce cataclysm.

Their hatred for every single girl upon the ice plain is perhaps the most powerful, and palpable, force of all.

Instantly, the unprecedented army of magical girls is surrounded and outnumbered.

COMBAT: Queen Beryl transforms into Beryl's Dark Army!

COMBAT: Queen Beryl has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 6 opponents!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to dodge Dark Endymion's Realize Your Weakness!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Exploding out of the ice! on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Exploding out of the ice! on Masque Feu.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Exploding out of the ice! on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Exploding out of the ice! on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Exploding out of the ice! on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Exploding out of the ice! on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Masque Feu fails to dodge Queen Beryl's Exploding out of the ice!, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Queen Beryl is Psyched! Cripple applied to Masque Feu!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe perfectly counters Queen Beryl's Exploding out of the ice!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe's counterattack, Tiro Retort, bursts all the way through, doing 57 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa narrowly counters Queen Beryl's Exploding out of the ice!, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Fate Testarossa's Reverse ability activates! Fate Testarossa's Tactician ability activates! Cripple and Stun applied to Fate Testarossa!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa's counterattack, Scythe Slash, partially gets through, doing 4 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!
COMBAT: Lera Camry fails to dodge Dark Endymion's Realize Your Weakness!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Lera Camry perfectly counters Queen Beryl's Exploding out of the ice!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter! Lera Camry's Reverse ability activates! Lera Camry's Tactician ability activates!
COMBAT: Lera Camry's counterattack, Sentinel Flash, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!

COIN FLIP: Masque Feu flips a coin. It lands on heads!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

"All right," Lera says to Fate. She looks back at her, then she nods her head quickly at the younger girl. She lets out a long sigh she had held in, which comes out as mist in front of her mouth. She has some idea of what must be going through her head, right now; she has some idea that Fate must have a touch of uncertainty and fear, because she used to be part of Dark Fall. She can only guess at how much.

"I'll stick by you, the whole time," she says. "We'll both be watching, okay?"

She puts her hand on the younger girl's shoulder. It's brief -- and Lera smiles down at her, expression lighting up -- before she pulls her hand back. Then, she looks up. She spots Mami and Sayaka approaching; she recognizes both and knows one. She waves her hand once at her friend, before she looks back ahead, into the storm.

Then it stops. Lera has only met Tuxedo Mask periodically. She doesn't connect him to the man here; Prince Endymion is someone else entirely. Someone else from a dream, where she lived as Jadeite. For a moment, she feels an impression of loyalty; a memory that came from living as Jadeite in that dream. It dies quickly and easily, once Endymion begins to speak. The words make her eyes widen.

Something about being called foolish stings. Being told she will die here, after what she told her friends...

"I don't plan to die here!" she yells back, aggravated; the irritation shows on her face. She turns, glaring at the prince. "You--you were there! At the Moon Kingdom's fall! I saw you, with--with the princess, and the others, in my dreams! What are you--"

Then the Dark Kingdom's denizens come rushing in. <Here they come!> Soaring Sky yells. <Fate was right! Slasher Form!>

With a click the blades split in half -- forming twin sabers -- and two sets of claws come slashing down at her. The blades swing up, and bright flashes of light erupt from each, catching those sharp claws and holding them at bay -- <Sentinel Flash!> -- and then beating them back with a flash of light. Lera turns after that, and leaps.

She jumps right at the army, her left sword slashing. "C'mon, Fate!" she yells. The first sword comes down at one of the Dark Kingdom's minions -- and then her left chops out for a second. She pivots, and then stabs the saber in her right hand hard at the midsection of a third.

<Rapid Skyfall!>

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Rapid Skyfall on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki narrowly braces Dark Endymion's Realize Your Weakness!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Sayaka Miki's Block ability activates! Sayaka Miki's Parry ability activates! Sayaka Miki is Taunted!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki narrowly counters Queen Beryl's Exploding out of the ice!, taking 4 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki's counterattack, Disjunct Chord, partially gets through, doing 9 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"...Maybe later," Mami answers about the photo, unable to stop herself from smiling slightly as she looks back at Sayaka. Smiling, and... Well, she /can/ stop the sigh, though one perfect eyebrow lifts just a little as she looks Sayaka over. ...She feels the absolute frigid cold too, even through her magic, but lets the attention Sayaka draws draw any attention away from the fact that her fingers shake slightly until she closes her hand.

"You're certainly energetic, Sayaka-chan." Already her hair is beginning to freeze enough that her drills could well become lethal anytime. The metal of her hatpins is cold to the touch, already beginning to gather frost.

"...But, let's stay focused. Remember, it only takes one wrong move--" As she speaks, everything is silent, and she cannot help but go silent herself, suddenly staring out over what looks like something /visible/, until those steps break it, like fragile ice.

Mami's golden eyes narrow as she sees that strange look in the Prince before her--but her awareness can't settle there. She looks into his eyes--and then looks away, to find the army instead, letting her heart focus on the girl beside her instead of the enemy before her while her eyes cast about for--

In an instant, the ice around them bursts into an army, and the veteran Puella Magi is already in motion at the same moment. "Careful!" she calls, twirling in an instant back as in her hand appears a ribbon that turns to a gigantic gun the size of her torso. The column explodes into the outstretches teeth and claws, and Mami realizes that it is that /feeling/ above all else that made her act. That sheer hatred...

"At least you all came dressed for a funeral occasion!" the blonde calls back, and leaps towards the rear guard, fanning out a set of rifles with a wave of her hand to crash towards the enemy with a cascade of thundering gunfire, set to distract from the assault she's counting on next.

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Suppressing Fire on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji perfectly dodges Queen Beryl's Exploding out of the ice!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Dodge! Fuu Hououji's Fade ability activates! Fuu Hououji's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl narrowly dodges Lera Camry's Rapid Skyfall, taking 21 Fatigue damage! Stagger applied to Queen Beryl!

<Pose Tracker> Masque Feu [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

"Of course," is all Masque Feu says before someone in fancy clothes comes out.

The girl has no real concept of Silver Millennium history; she just sets her jaw and takes a half-step back, unconsciously giving ground. Mostly because she's fairly sure he's not wrong.

She is proven entirely right as the ice shatters. Shards of it bombard her as the massive army erupts forth. Claws and fangs slash madly at her. Immediately her cloak is torn away; a few slashes cut through and slash into her arms as she throws them up to shield herself. Another dark figure hurtles in and slams something sharp into her.

With a choked gasp, Masque Feu is slammed down into the snow and skids for about fifteen metres.

It takes her a few seconds to begin trying to struggle her way to her feet. She hurts and it's cold. She looks, for a moment, off towards her cloak, trying to find Augustine amidst the chaos. She does not have much luck.

With a lurch, the girl manages to push to a knee at least; snow builds around her calf. It hurts but she tries to put it out of her mind. She clenches her teeth, trying to stifle the sense that, once again, she has walked with Augustine into a trap - that she should have known better than to come here, that she should have trusted her instincts in the first place.

That it is hopeless and she is going to die in the most futile, painful way possible.

Silent, she levels her right hand forward. A few sparks of flame dance out from her palm, sailing into what looks like a horde of rainbow spandex-clad Viking longship reenactors.

The sparks expand. They billow into a guttering pattern of flames and embers, attempting to burn away a few of the minions of the night and at least buy her a couple of seconds to breathe.

COMBAT: Masque Feu has used Flame of Ackbar on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Masque Feu has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

"I suppose we should have expected a warm welcome to show up after all," the Magic Knight of Wind comments as the darkened prince and the army show up to 'welcome' them. By now she's spotted Lera and Fate, as well as Masque Feu, and is trying to work in their direction, but the sudden onset of a hostile army means that there's little time for social niceties, or even for proper strategizing.

The Wind Knight takes a moment to steel herself against the wave of malice from Endymion, followed by dodging the initial onslaught from the army that's backing him up (as if he needed it; the Wind Knight may be unruffled, but she's fairly certain the dark prince could slaughter all of the magical girls by himself if push came to shove and the wind blew in his favor). Then she brings her left hand up, light glinting from the jewel on the back of her glove. "Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi!!" she calls out, conjuring a massive tornado and flinging it into the massed enemy forces, trying in particular to blow a horde of suspiciously winged-looking monsters off their feet and further away from being an immediate threat. The more disarray the magical girls can put the army into with area spells, the better.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl perfectly counters Mami Tomoe's Suppressing Fire, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl's counterattack, Drowning Swarm, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Mami Tomoe!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl narrowly braces Masque Feu's Flame of Ackbar, taking 4 Fatigue damage! Masque Feu is Psyched!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl narrowly dodges Fuu Hououji's Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi, taking 35 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka is listening with stern, complete attention to Mami when the foe makes his grand appearance. She lets her sword sizzle from her cloak, drawing it free in a reversed grip. When she tosses it up to switch grip, however, the disdainful voice of a villainous lord echoes over the plains, and Sayaka's fingers fumble with the hilt, the sword clinking to the ground as she blanches. She scrabbles to retrieve it in mere moments, but the moment of vulnerability is a wound that bleeds inward, the black of this place staining her.

Mami's sharp one-liner and devastating instant response to the arrival of the army is not something that any amount of broken ice can hide. Sayaka herself leaps back instinctively as a twisted youma silhouette rises where she was standing, and the arc of ichor slung from her sword marks the toll she took on her new foe. Biting her lip, she glances to Mami. "Y-yeah! And you dug your own holes for Mami-senpai to UNDERTAKE YOU DOWN!" she shouts. Her sword meets the rock-hard hand of some sort of chimney youma as it approaches, and she leaps into the air, pitching her sword directly down the square opening on its dull-eyed head. Keep it together, keep it together....

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Perfect Pitch on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

Fate starts at so simple a gesture, hardly expecting it, all the same. "Alright." And then a moment later, "Be careful please."

As the wind stills and her prince appears, her jacket shimmers gold. A metallic poleaxe materializes into her hand. A dark mantle of her own drops on her shoulders, as if that mere fact alone would make her ready to face him. It does not. His contemptuous announcement is one that she feels is correct within her very soul.

She was going to die here. And nothing of value would be lost in her passing.

Her gloved hand clenches upon her poleaxe, even as crippling fear grips her heart. She looks at the older girl beside her. Then at another in the distance, picking her out amongst the crowd of Magical Girls. She takes a deep breath, allowing it to fog in front of her. She makes a resolution internally... Bardiche in turn shifts in a hiss of steam and ratcheting of metal, as a curved blade of radiance erupts. <Scythe Form>

When Lera leaps forward, she's not far behind, in fact she's at her side, except she isn't leaping, she's soaring just a few meters off the ground. <I don't think she takes any pleasure in that Sky.> "Definitely not." She mumbles, as she criss crosses her flight with Lera's path to join into the melee. <Look out!>

Which is the exact moment that ebon claws rake against her barrier jacket, showering her in dark embers that for some reason feel like they're chilling to the bone. Fate responds by rolling around in an aerial maneuver that allows her to cleave Bardiche upwards, causing the strike to get locked up as the Youma's other clawed hand snakes out to grab his haft.

She gets a better look at her foe then. Orange skinned, and vaguely feline features in a leotard and skirt, it's mouth covered by a scarf which was seared apart by Bardiche's stopped swing to reveal a wicked maw. For a moment, she almost loses her composure, between the sheer numbers, the ferocity of the horde, and it's general's taunts.

Fate lets go of Bardiche with one hand, holding fast with the other a crackling sphere of electricity forming into her hand. <Spark Edge> She punches her off-hand towards its chest, the sphere collapsing to shower her immediate area in sparks and arcs of electricity. She then tries to roll over backwards, in an attempt to kick off her chest and make a rapid descent.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Spark Edge on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl fails to dodge Sayaka Miki's Perfect Pitch, taking 19 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Sayaka Miki is Psyched!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl perfectly dodges Fate Testarossa's Spark Edge, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge!

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.

<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY

Lera enjoys great success both in defending herself and cutting down the youma immediately around her. The second manages to push the first out of the way of her plasma swords, then falls alongside the third. They were all a pale, delicate leaf green, unbecoming of this climate, with coordinated leg warmers in pink and blue and yellow respectively. Perhaps they were sisters.

Now only the pink one remains, and she glares, her night-dark eyes exploding with power that she raises above her head, then sends crashing to the ground in a mighty explosion that engulfs the Midchildan high schooler and the yellow Puella Magi -- who somehow finds that her strategy of suppressant is tactically outmaneuvered by an apparently infinite supply of foes, they just keep popping up -- both. Her bullets vaporize nearly as many of her opponents as they merely discourage, but one in particular, a massive creature with human arms and legs and the rest of it all bricks, belching smoke and flame from the top of its chimney head, rushes the gap between two blinding golden spheres.

But Sayaka is there, her sword gleaming in the unlight with a ghostly edge, and impales it with glorious precision. It explodes instantly in a cloud of soot that congeals amid the floating chunks of snowstorm... and animates them. They draw back together, under the control of still another monster, this one broomlike, all black bristled skirt and a jaunty sweeper's cap. The now-dark cloud of winter is sent at dangerous speeds, razoring through the air towards the white-cloaked swordmaiden...

Masque Feu, meanwhile, lights some vaguely Nordic youma on fire. The embers catch and blaze on their long blades and also their ship housing; each of them is wearing armor that, when they stand next to each other, all together forms the sort of boat that one might see, in modernity, swinging to and fro with happy, screaming children inside. It has a red dragon painted on it, though this is difficult to see when they split up to assault Feu from all sides. Their claws combine strangely into spearlike appendages, suitable for carving up meat but not for playing the piano. They will try to play a dissonant melody on the girl, instead.

The Magic Knight of Wind discovers great success fighting suspended storm with her own, loud and mighty. Her winged enemies -- the wings, in particular, opalescent shimmering violet, like dragonflies dipped in an especially enthusiastic test-taker's ink for which she will /absolutely/ be penalized for failing to use blue or black -- are simply blown away. They crash into a nearby cliff and do not return. Several of their allies, or perhaps rivals, however, scream revenge, soaring out of the sky from all directions to take Fuu with their three-foot long fingernails, trying to lift her into the air amongst them and then drop her into the abyss. Their wings are not like dragonflies, but wasps, and the rate of their flapping creates an ominous, awful buzz.

Fate finds ill fortune in turn; the pumpkin-hued youma grins savagely as it ducks and weaves through the arcs of electricity without so much as singed fur, and then reaches out its other hand to grab Bardiche as well. Now they're locked in a furious battle for possession of the Device, and what's worse... a second, especially massive monster, with an unsettlingly intelligent gaze and a dazzlingly stylish silver corset, is coming up on the young girl from behind. She raises her hands above her horned head and dives forward, fangs-first!

COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Shadowfall on Lera Camry.

COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Shadowfall on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Ice and Snow on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Surprise Flank! on Masque Feu.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Sky Jumpers on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used The Endless Tides on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Masque Feu fails to dodge Queen Beryl's Surprise Flank!, taking 18 Fatigue damage! Blind and Trap applied to Masque Feu!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa narrowly dodges Queen Beryl's The Endless Tides, taking 6 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Fate Testarossa's Fade ability activates! Fate Testarossa's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe narrowly dodges Queen Beryl's Shadowfall, taking 26 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Mami Tomoe is Quipped! Mami Tomoe's Fade ability activates! Mami Tomoe's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Surprise Flank! on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa perfectly counters Queen Beryl's Surprise Flank!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter! Fate Testarossa's Reverse ability activates! Fate Testarossa's Tactician ability activates!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa's counterattack, Defenser, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki fails to brace Queen Beryl's Ice and Snow, taking 14 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Blind, Stagger, and Stun applied to Sayaka Miki!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 6 opponents!

<Pose Tracker> Dark Endymion [Ohtori Academy (12)] has posed.

The ice shatters, revealing that Endymion did not approach the light alone. Enough youma to blot out the sun, as if the very world has risen up at Endymion's word. As the battlefield erupts into chaos, as light and flame and suplexes ring out all around him...

Endymion walks.

Even in this mayhem, the scrape of his sword being drawn from its sheath can be heard. There is no haste in his stride, just a quiet confidence as he surveys this portion of his kingdom...and when his sword swings, it does so with purpose.

Here, where a ritual of purification is being readied - a barren rose stem knocks one anchor from its place, ruining the effort.

There, where two youma have fallen in as many seconds - a swift golden light diverts the girl's attention while a third moves into place.

A handful of voices, a handful of efforts garner his attention in the melee. Mami Tomoe and Sayaka Miki make several quips about funerals and graves. The confidence brings a smile to his face as he raises his sword high, slashing twice against the darkness - and shadows of his blade rain down on them. "The occasion was only fitting of the grandest preparations. The gravediggers have toiled, and attires befitting this last dance - but worry not. You will not be mourned long."

Fate Testarossa's desperation - and faint recognition, from her days in Dark Fall - have Endymion finally move swiftly, darting to where her mighty strike has fallen. Quiet steel, and quiet words. "As every storm comes to its end, your last peals of thunder are but fading echoes. You have stood here too long."

And then - Lera Camry's words make his smirk fade at last. "...dreams? ...what do you think you know of that day?! You forget too swiftly the greater kingdom that fell- " His sword shines gold as he lunges towards Lera - and for a moment, it's as if four soldiers accompany him, light shining in the darkness as it bears down on her. "MINE!"

COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Bane of Selene on Mami Tomoe.

COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Bane of Selene on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Cutting Remark on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Shades of the Golden Kingdom on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Ancient Nobility on Dark Endymion.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion accepts Dark Endymion's Ancient Nobility, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Accelerate and Withstand applied to Dark Endymion!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa fails to dodge Dark Endymion's Cutting Remark, taking 15 Fatigue damage! Fate Testarossa is Quipped!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to dodge Dark Endymion's Bane of Selene, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Dark Endymion is Psyched!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki narrowly dodges Dark Endymion's Bane of Selene, taking 10 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to counter Queen Beryl's Sky Jumpers, taking 44 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji's counterattack, Spinning Slash, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!
COMBAT: Lera Camry fails to counter Queen Beryl's Shadowfall, taking 28 Fatigue damage! Lera Camry is Quipped!
COMBAT: Lera Camry's counterattack, Aura Surge, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!

COIN FLIP: Masque Feu flips a coin. It lands on heads!

COMBAT: Lera Camry narrowly dodges Dark Endymion's Shades of the Golden Kingdom, taking 20 Fatigue damage! Lera Camry's Fade ability activates! Lera Camry's Flash ability activates! Diversion and Stagger applied to Lera Camry!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

<I wouldn't think so. Too bloody many of them!> Soaring Sky chimes back to Bardiche and Fate, even as his blade sweeps through one of the trio of youma. Lera watches the two fall, before she looks up at the remaining one. The shadowy blast comes screaming down at the glacier, and Lera swings the left-handed sword up to try to catch the blast of power hurtling at her.

<Aura Sur--> Soaring Sky starts to chime, but the blast hits before Lera can even finish the spell. The mana she gathered for it ripples outward, flowing out every which way, and the blast of shadowstuff slams hard into Lera. It throws her backward, sliding across the ice and cutting a gougle through the snow.

She rolls a couple of times, watching the monsters come rushing for them all, thicker and thicker in number. She takes a few deep breaths, glancing at Fate only after they have started to converge around her. She stumbles up, seeing the large monster.

"FATE!" she screams, at the top of her lungs. "Fate, don't let it distract you! We--we can still win this! Just hold on and bring them down! They can't come at us forever!"

Then, lastly, Endymion comes rushing at her. Lera's shout to Fate doesn't continue, as she has to step quick to the side. When those four ghostly phantasms strike with Endymion, Lera weaves and bobs; the girl's sabers swing up, batting away some of the phantasms' blades. She smartly sidesteps the third, ducks under the fourth, panting hard the entire while -- and then she shoves her head to the side. His blade slashes along her cheek, drawing blood -- and sending away a few strands of orange hair that flicker away.

"I saw that you were there!" she yells. "With your princess--not with... not with the people from that kingdom! I saw what they did! I saw--I saw a lot of things! What are you doing here!? Why are you doing this!? And--and where is your princess!"

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Hold the Line on Fate Testarossa.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa accepts Lera Camry's Hold the Line, taking 0 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Masque Feu [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

(I so often don't have a good day,) Masque Feu realizes as spears come at her from all sides and hit her no matter how she tries to move. She screams as she's caught in a crossfire of them.

(All these other girls can defend themselves against this effortlessly. Everyone can except me. No matter how I try to defend myself, I fail.)

(I can't even stop myself from being hurt.)

Spear after spear jams into Masque Feu. It's a miracle she isn't actually skewered. After a few hits, she simply stops crying out because she has no more voice. Agonizing seconds pass as the Lost Vikings just play a bleak melody on her. More seconds pass. It goes on for entirely too long.

It passes. With a limp slouch and a quiet 'whump,' the girl sags to earth and lands on her front. She lies there immobilized for a long moment.

(Fate and Lera aren't having any problems. It's just me.)

For a moment, she is reminded to the thing she sees so often. A man and a woman, smiling and waving goodbye. The door closing behind her.

Slowly, with a certain unsteadiness and a pronounced shiver of both cold and pain, Masque Feu pushes herself back to her feet. Her movements are understated and laboured. She moves with the barely-thinking resignation of a beaten boxer simply waiting for the knockout blow.

Her eyes narrow.

(I am tired of being beaten half to death every single time.)

She holds her hands out to her sides, breathing in, then letting it out as she pours her spirit out into flame. Tongues of fire whisper down her arms, coiling in her palms. She brings them across, wrists crossing in front of her face, eyes closing as she focuses. A breath of hot air ripples around her, warming her, blowing her hair out behind her.

"Binding Flame," she intones, voice ringing more steadily now.

She reels back and casts out with her left arm, then her right arm, hurling her flame out in two long, chainlike coils - and she /spins/ on one toe, her other leg sweeping out behind her. With eyes hard with intent, the Soeur attempts to drag her chains into the colourful spike Vikings -

Trying to wrap the fire chains around their ship, and bind it, and try to burn the darkness from it and its horned crew.

COMBAT: Masque Feu has used Binding Flame on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Masque Feu has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

There are just too many; accustomed to large numbers of foes, Mami brought out her typical strategies for the same, gracefully preparing to flow into her next move as if it were more part of some routine than part of a battle--but the delicate green of her enemy remains, even as a gigantic opponent manages to break through her attempt at a guard--to break through, and go straight for Sayaka.

Mami finds it funny that as she turns to look, everything seems to slow, and she notices Sayaka's quip about her. It stands out, in the instant before dark power erupts in an explosion around her, which she can only hurl herself from in time to be chilled to the bone by its periphery, rather than obliterated by its full might. She crashes downward to the ground, rolling across the ice and only coming to a stop to look up at dark Endymion calling back. 'You will not be mourned long.' It's like the darkness of that blast clings to her, because in that instant, Mami knows how true it could be. She stares, and the shadow cuts across her, sending her tumbling down again.

There's a rush of gunfire from her position, but even the thunderous report of six rifles crashing outward through a set of beautiful, elegantly dressed statues is consumed by the roar of the army--as it just keeps coming.

Disappearing into the crush of the enemy, the Puella Magi falls backwards into broken ice. Desperately, Mami casts out a ribbon before her, to try to find purchase in the ice--

But as it hits the ground, it begins to slide already.

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Tiro Flourish on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl narrowly dodges Masque Feu's Binding Flame, taking 20 Fatigue damage! Trap applied to Queen Beryl!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

When the wasp-winged warriors come swarming at her, the Wind Knight's first reaction - the only one she has time for - is to exchange bow for sword and try to smack her attackers away en masse ...

Only for them to anticipate the wild swing, hold back until AFTER she's committed to her strike, and let her whiff. She's actually left wobbling a little bit when her spinning slash comes to a halt - and at *THAT* moment, the youma swarm over her, grabbing hold of the Magic Knight of Wind and lifting her into the air. All she can do is struggle helplessly, trying to break loose before it's too late ...

And by the time they release her? 'Too late' is more than apt; where the icy ground would be merciless enough to land on from that height, they aim her at a deep chasm, and she falls too far down for her landing to be seen by her allies. Fortunately, she lands in a snowdrift and against a slope - but the landing still leaves her separated from her allies, by line of sight as well as by the lines of battle.

Until she finds a way out of the chasm, the best the Wind Knight can do is trust her will and her luck, literally launching arrows blind into the melee above her ... maybe something will come looking for her, and give away the secret to escaping the crevasse so she can rejoin her allies.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Trick Arrow Shot on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl perfectly braces Mami Tomoe's Tiro Flourish, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Brace!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl fails to dodge Fuu Hououji's Trick Arrow Shot, taking 18 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

Fate had hoped her attack and the maneuver would wrench Bardiche out of the Youma's grip. Unfortunately it does not. It descends upon her, with incredible savagery, as she tries to wrench Bardiche away with a flourish, then spins her body to get just out of the way of its claws. She doesn't entirely succeed, they rake the back of her cloak, as she whirls, leaving trails of soot in the chill air. Caught in this desperate mid-air struggle, she relies partially on her partner to... <On your six Sir!>

She whips out a palm behind her, <Defenser> Bright runes form in the air, leaving a solid barrier, that rocks against the impact, tiny spidery webs forming against the magical arrays against the sheer massive of the horned monster in the corset. But even as it beats against it, shattering more and more of it with every impact...

Quiet steel, and quiet words. The sword sings out, her eyes wide. He was fast, so fast that Bardiche and her hadn't even sensed his approach. It cuts a line across her barrier jacket, and sends Fate Testarossa downwards to impact against a snow flurry. She vanishes for a moment, before emerging, shaking snow and bits of ice and frost off her twintails.

She breathed more heavily, every single one an effort, her breath fogging. "Even..." She says brokenly at the Prince, "...even if the storm passes. At least it will give way to... clear skies..." Her eyes flicker over to Lera on the battlefield, then they look searchingly for another figure of Masque Feu, "...and an endless blaze."

Fate... hears Lera's words. But doesn't really believe them. It was perhaps her knowledge and her ignorance of just how much the Dark Kingdom could bring to bear that makes her think they're endless. Still she tries to smile. A small one for her benefit. "We'll do our best." <Yes Sir. We will.> He chimes.

She zips forward at that moment, Bardiche forming and releashing golden spheres with cascades of violet lightning arcing across each of them. They blossom in eruptions of light across the sky meant to give her former opponents a rough time.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Photon Lancer: Full Auto Fire on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl narrowly dodges Fate Testarossa's Photon Lancer: Full Auto Fire, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Fate Testarossa is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka whoops as the chimney youma's rectangular body bursts, the gangly body within dissolving along with the stone. She lands with a smile, but that smile slowly widens into a grimace as the remains of the monster seem ill-inclined to let the loss of their body inconvience them. The mixture of ash and snow reminds Sayaka of a late Tokyo winter, when car exhaust has turned winter magic into greyish filth. Then, all at once, it converges on Sayaka like iron shavings to a magnet. She doesn't even get a chance to move before it pelts her into the ground, burying her from sight.

Her blue head bursts through the mess a moment later, her sword more foundering than slashing as she waves it around herself blindly. "Bluch... ugh!" Wiping her eyes, she tries to blink away the sting and stench of the ash. Someone's talking about graves, and for a horrifying moment, the smell is that of cremation. Then a great crescent of shadow slams down into Sayaka, driving her back into the ground.

She gets up a little dizzier the second time, but her supernatural body is already attending to the wound. It is her spirit that is in graver danger, and she plunges out of the mess, high-stepping her way out of heaped demonic snow. "Ma-" she coughs, and spits some ashy taste from her mouth. There is darkness all around her. It makes it easy to see yellow.

Catching sight of a ribbon lying amidst the great dark host, Sayaka comes up short and makes for it, rushing through the crowd, her sword pushing but not fighting. She doesn't want to fight alone right now. Grasping the ribbon, Sayaka starts spinning her forearm to wind it up as she goes, but there is an awful lot of it, and some of it gets around her elbow, tying that forearm against its own bicep. Sayaka starts taking up the slack around the first few (blunt) centimeters of sword near the hilt, but the sword is too long to do this easily. As loops start to gather in her free hand like a shelf full of Christmas bows, Sayaka finally pulls the latest meter of ribbon up to her mouth and bites it, holding it for a moment, and at just that instant there is resistance on the line.

Sayaka only glimpses Mami, but with her bound arm, her full hand, and her closed teeth, she twists her body and pulls hard, dragging Mami away from the ruptured ice and violently to her feet, to bump right into Sayaka.

"Shenpah!" Sayaka cries through the ribbon clenched in her teeth. She appears at first to be wearing a poofy beret, but it is actually the grimey snow nestled against her clef hair ornament as if it were a roof ledge. Her shoulders are covered, too, and her smudged face looks as though she were fresh from an Oliver! audition.

"Shenpah ah lahs yoo," Sayaka half-apologizes. "Cannah faid wid yoo?" She wants her bat back, right now. She's used to The Bat.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Admiration on Mami Tomoe.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe accepts Sayaka Miki's Admiration, taking 0 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Dark Endymion [Ohtori Academy (12)] has posed.

Those traces of gold fade into the blackness as the truth sets in. The Moon Kingdom is gone, the Golden Kingdom is gone, and now...now, the Dark Kingdom rises.

Endymion rises from his lunge, flicking the last memories of golden days from his sword. "Whatever you think you saw...dreams are but ethereal fragments of forgotten truths, ever the betrayers of memory." A sneer mars his elegant face more than any mask could, and he swings his sword sharply at the ice. It splinters, and begins to collapse under Lera's feet as he turns to go. "There is no princess dear to me - only my Queen. Survive this battle, and you might win the honour of dying by her personal attention." He laughs, returning to the battle at large.

It's a pitched fight, and the caped man strides confidently through the melee. Where flames announce the resurgence of Masque Feu fending off her foes, those youma attacking with fang and claw are briefly joined by a darting blade, giving her fewer places to run. As Fate flies across the ice, defying her destiny, shadows of a royal saber rain down, pursuing her movements. Where Fuu has fallen behind a snowdrift, attacking from afar, a billowing crimson cape is visible a moment before ice begins to collapse in a small avalanche atop her.

And Sayaka soon finds a sword confidently placed between her and her senpai, ready to sever the ribbon or worse. "Girls' friendships are fleeting, torn asunder by their growing maturity. However much you cling to them..." A boot lashes out to separate the younger Puella Magi from the older. "You are always alone in the end."

COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used The Princess Is In Another Castle on Lera Camry.

COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Regal Elegance on Masque Feu.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Bane of Selene on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Icy Grave on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has used Friendship Is Fleeting on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Dark Endymion has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji narrowly dodges Dark Endymion's Icy Grave, taking 14 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji's Fade ability activates! Fuu Hououji's Flash ability activates! Trap applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa narrowly dodges Dark Endymion's Bane of Selene, taking 19 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Dark Endymion is Psyched! Fate Testarossa's Fade ability activates! Fate Testarossa's Flash ability activates! Exhausted applied to Fate Testarossa!
COMBAT: Masque Feu narrowly counters Dark Endymion's Regal Elegance, taking 18 Fatigue damage! Masque Feu's Reverse ability activates! Stun and Trap applied to Masque Feu!
COMBAT: Masque Feu's counterattack, Super Mario Goomba Stomp, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Dark Endymion!
COMBAT: Lera Camry fails to dodge Dark Endymion's The Princess Is In Another Castle, taking 15 Fatigue damage! Diversion applied to Lera Camry!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki narrowly braces Dark Endymion's Friendship Is Fleeting, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Sayaka Miki's Block ability activates! Sayaka Miki's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.

<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McegZXtYE_U

"Sing unto me, sisters of Fate, choir of souls..."

Somewhere, Queen Beryl is chanting. It is not quite a song, but her contralto is resonant, powerful both figuratively and literally. Her words caress the ear, almost as though they come from directly behind -- or even from within.

There is little enough time to dwell on the implications, though.

'They can't come at us forever,' Lera claims, but the armies certainly seem endless, clashing across the ice plain with a fearsome -- but far more finite -- legion of magical girls. A few have already begun to drop, making puffs of snow. The pink-leg-warmer-clad sister, the survivor, lives yet, and summons a second blast of shadow. Her eyes narrow with malice, though, and she trembles up to the tips of her odd, grasshopper-like feelers that rise above her eyebrows as she aims this concussive dark blast not at the one who rended her sisters from this world, but at Lera's own little sister figure, the much-beleagured Fate Testarossa.

Her grin is full of fangs, but not so many or so nasty as the ones much closer to the little Midchildan; her enormous sparring partner, the horned one who tried to take her by surprise, finds itself abruptly reduced to soot and a couple of little blinky eyes by a glorious flower of lightning. That catlike lady makes it through intact, though, and grins even more widely.

It is a knowledgeable smile.

"I know you," she says, three simple words that convey a massive legacy of meaning. Perhaps they simply saw each other across the floor of Beryl's court. Perhaps they shared a forgettable moment passing one another in a frozen hallway.

But the youma remembers, and she knows what it is to be betrayed. In much the same vein of her leg-warmed comrade, she leaps at first what seems to be /at/ Fate, but within a terrible heartbeat is revealed to be /past/ Fate, and at Lera instead.

Masque Feu, meanwhile, incinerates her enemies utterly, appropriately giving the viking youmas a viking funeral. This gives her a moment to breathe, though the peace at the eye of the storm is interrupted by another verse -- and this time, a glimpse, just the barest hint of a violet robe and furiously enflamed red hair -- and most recognizably of all, those same burning golden eyes last reflected in the mirror.

"Circe, Kikimora, Morgana..."

She is lost within the rising storm, which abruptly howls back into existence, its momentary time-out apparently at an end. Painful shards pepper the air, and some malicious will sends an extra volley of them towards the Soeur.

There is an interchanging moment of irony between the Magic Knight and golden Puella Magi. Mami Tomoe's bullets entirely fail to make their mark upon fully all six of her targets, statue-like creations straight out of Ancient Greece, but Fuu's blindly shot arrows, by fate or fortune, hit them, bullseye, sending them cracking, shattering unto dust. As an apparent defense mechanism they surge together, going from being a half dozen dying monsters to one broken but unbowed marble demon, one wielding one of those Olympic discs, predecessor of the frisbee.

Only much, much deadlier.

It arcs through the air, ricocheting between both Puella Magi and then down, down to Fuu, who sees the disc and the briefly-hung Mami at roughly the same moment. That, there, the other girl, is a way up.

Sayaka has also fled from an assailant in order to rescue one or perhaps an unexpected two allies, and she is not forgotten. There are a few blissful moments in which there is no sign, none at all, doubly so now that the terrible, unnatural-yet-all-too-natural north pole storm is back at full force. But then the Sweeper bursts out of the shadows, the terrible night. Her arms spread, becoming sooty bristles as well, the better to impale each of the Puella Magi, predators become prey!

COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Shadowfall on Fate Testarossa.

COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used The Endless Tides on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Ice and Snow on Masque Feu.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Drowning Swarm on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Drowning Swarm on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Drowning Swarm on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa narrowly braces Queen Beryl's Shadowfall, taking 4 Fatigue damage! Fate Testarossa is Quipped!
COMBAT: Lera Camry narrowly dodges Queen Beryl's The Endless Tides, taking 22 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Lera Camry's Fade ability activates! Lera Camry's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji narrowly braces Queen Beryl's Drowning Swarm, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Masque Feu perfectly counters Queen Beryl's Ice and Snow, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter! Masque Feu's Reverse ability activates!
COMBAT: Masque Feu's counterattack, Dancing Fire, bursts all the way through, doing 11 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe fails to counter Queen Beryl's Drowning Swarm, taking 30 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe's counterattack, Legare, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Surprise Flank! on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe narrowly dodges Queen Beryl's Surprise Flank!, taking 12 Fatigue damage! Mami Tomoe's Fade ability activates! Mami Tomoe's Flash ability activates! Blind applied to Mami Tomoe!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki narrowly dodges Queen Beryl's Drowning Swarm, taking 21 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Surprise Flank! on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki perfectly counters Queen Beryl's Surprise Flank!, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki's counterattack, Disjunct Chord, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 6 opponents!

<Pose Tracker> Masque Feu [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

There's a breather. Masque Feu takes it. But can realize Fate is looking at her, Endymion stomps through and whacks her one. She tries to jump at him. It doesn't do much good; she takes a solid hit and tumbles awkwardly before crash-landing on her shoulder and sliding for several metres more.

She grimaces, but this time she pushes to her feet a little faster. She's beginning to get angry. Her eyes dart towards Fate -

She has no time to check up on the tiny girl. The storm rises. She catches the barest glimpse of something else gold - but it is not an adorable pair of twintails. It is a pair of eyes like the ones she saw in the looking-glass. A sonorous voice chanting as the wind mounts. The blizzard gale cuts across her -

And the lone Soeur levels her right hand.

Masque Feu's expression is stony as she walks forward, letting her flame erupt from her palm with a sudden, fiery roar. The Blessed Flame pushes out into the blizzard in a crackling billow, blooming into the shape of a wide dome. The individual fires aren't overly damaging, though they may threaten the forces of darkness as they push into the night.

Wordless, Masque Feu draws herself up and begins to walk forward, her dignity drawn around her again. Her carriage is not imperial or queenly in the same way the Dark Queen's is, but there is something commanding about it as she walks through that steadily fading bubble of flame, clearly intent on wading through the fire and confronting Beryl herself.

She will have to wade through an army, though.

"I have a song for you," she says simply. "Queen."

Dark forces loom betwen herself and Beryl - not vikings, this time, but something else. A few amorphous figures, vaguely humanoid; the most prominent a feminine one in a huge fur stole and ushanka, carrying a massive spear that looks like it's got an ice pick for a tip.

Masque Feu flicks her hands across her face, thumbs and forefingers out. Steadier now, she sweeps those hands around in a dual arc before cupping them together, thrust out in a clamshell. "The song," she calls in a ringing voice, "of the Blessed Flame!"

Light blazes around Masque Feu as she lets fly. Fireballs plume out from her palms in a steady barrage, eight, nine, ten, twelve - she tries to push out more, breathing heavily as she puts her heart into the barrage of fireballs, trying to keep shooting as long as she can. Trying to absolutely lambaste Queen Beryl's dark army with a monstrous bombardment of purifying fire.

(If I can punch a hole in these waves, maybe I can break through and stop her before she can finish that chant...)

COMBAT: Masque Feu has used Purespark Barrage on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Masque Feu has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Down below, with the arcing discus, Mami's hand is occupied by her ribbon--it's all she can do to cast out her hand to try to catch the projectile mid-air... But it doesn't work, slamming into her at full force right in the chest, in a blow that would have likely obliterated an ordinary girl, and still sends Mami coughing.

It's a close thing, but Mami can feel the tension on her ribbon, as she casts around in the chasm for something she can do. She hangs on with all her might, spinning her arm elegantly to get a better hold as her ribbon wraps about her hand a further time, and is /pulled/ upward, crashing out of the ice and towards Sayaka with a hard bump.

"S--Sayaka-chan!" the older Puella Magi breathes, still catching her breath. "...Of course," she answers, the concern in her expression suddenly obvious, for a brief instant, her mask fading as she can practically feel the never-ending horde spreading out to cover the whole of the ice plains. ...The moment's reprieve gives her plenty of time to see it in her mind, and then to look up again, suddenly her old cool self once more.

"There's someone--" Mami hurls her arm out, and a ribbon casts before Fuu, suddenly solid, a bridge to take hold of--and once she feels pressure, she doesn't tug so much as /will/ it upward, letting her magic control it to bring back their ally.

"Sayaka-chan, you have to--" Suddenly, the sooty bristles of the Sweeper's arm send her to the side as Mami only barely manages to hurl herself out of the way, landing with a spin and trying to suppress the blood she's coughing already; in fact, her beautiful battle attire is torn already, and the wounds of the fight look already to be catching up with this magical girl, too.

"Sayaka--You have to--Keep moving! I know you can!" Summoning forth all the energy she can muster, Mami conjures up a rifle, another, a dozen at once, an entire line of them packed all together, right between her and the enemy forces, trying to find that statue she missed before--

In a blinding conflagration, they all fire.

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Wall of Rifles on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl fails to dodge Masque Feu's Purespark Barrage, taking 41 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl narrowly dodges Mami Tomoe's Wall of Rifles, taking 17 Fatigue damage! Stagger applied to Queen Beryl!

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

Clutching shadows rain at her one by one. She spirals through the air as fast as she can, but can't escape all of the grasping shadows which seem to leech away much of her enthusiasm. Only to be caught head on by a blast of concussive energy from a Youma's feelers that sends her spiraling end over end, sorely testing her auto-protection spells.

She freezes in her uncontrolled flight only in time to meet the Youma's eyes. Her own widening in startlement. "You do-? I'm..." Did she remember this one? It's a moment's hesitation, a distraction that causes her to miss the one that leaps past her at Lera. "Lera!"

It all feels so hopeless. So relentless

But this girl knew how to pull resolve out of the depths of despair. Her scarlet eyes find the general fierce but somehow gentle. "It was only after I left, I learned just how precious friends can be." Golden mana broils off of her like the heat of a fire. "That we're never truly alone. I won't let your army away any of the girls who taught me that."

At her feet, circles of runes form, then extend outwards, adding new rings of orbitting runes, flowing counter to each previous layer's movement. Given the dark aurora's light in the sky, the formation of stormclouds that condense and roil outwards to cover her section of the battlefield only add new layers to the darkness, one which seems far less oppressive than the darkness above it that promises doom. Fate cuts her partner's Scythe downwards, "Thunder-"

<Thunder Rage>

"-RAGE!" Bright flashes criss cross the clouds, filling the air with an ozone scent, before... lightning descends and smashes into the battlefield, discriminate only in not striking the Mahou Shoujo, bolt by bolt.

A betrayal against her former allies, marked with all the fury of the storm. A fading one perhaps, if Endymion has his way.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Fate Testarossa has used Thunder Rage on Dark Endymion.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Fate Testarossa has used Thunder Rage on Queen Beryl.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

"Gh!"

The blow to the ice causes it crack and collapse under Lera's feet. A portion of it gives way -- and she is pulled down by falling chunks of ice into a crevasse, disappearing for a moment into a chasm in the ice some fifteen feet deep. She screams as it comes crashing down around her. A chunk of it smashes into her Barrier Jacket, causing it to ripple and flash, and she has to struggle to get out. She pushes some of ice back -- and sees the blast of darkness come striking down at Fate. She turns her head and yells.

<Look out! There's another one!> Soaring Sky yells. The cat-like one rushes for her, and those claws strike into her back hard enough to rend three long gashes through the magically created garment. She screams, stumbling away.

She breathes, hard, and her head pounds.

They're everywhere, she realizes. Despite her claims, there isn't an end to them, and slashing down youma after youma won't do the trick. Chunks of ice cling to her clothes and she turns, glowering at the youma that hit her. Blood dribbles down her cheek and her legs feel week. "C'mon, Sky," she grunts, softly. "Can't... can't be done yet."

<We're not. ...Yet.>

She doesn't want to die here. She doesn't want to leave her friends back in Tokyo wondering what became of her. She doesn't want Fate to see her fall like this. She doesn't want her mother to hear the news from Lindy. She doesn't want to break the promise she made to Setsuna in the park. She spits, then a shockwave erupts from her feet as she flies up into the sky. She shoots up a good few thousand feet, becoming a blur of light.

Then, she turns downward, staring at the battlefield below. She spots a section, where some of the hordes are rushing in -- where there isn't a magical girl standing and fighting. "Sky," she says. "How thick is the ice pack?"

<Twelve feet. I don't like this question.>

"We're gonna try to blow a hole in it," she says. "I don't think I have an Aurora Burst in me. Can we do the new spell? Not as much punch, y'know, but..."

<It's fast enough to get out. Let's try it.> Soaring Sky chimes.

Lera nods -- and then she drops down, cutting the flight spell. She comes screaming down at terminal velocity, before she shouts. Plasma shoots up around the two swords -- and then around her body. The new flight spell activates, and Lera shoots down into the midst of the pack that she spotted before. She speeds up, faster and faster. A sonic boom explodes out from around her.

<Jet Ignition!>

Then, like a shooting star, she smashes past the bodies and feet of the youma, and into the Arctic ice sheet. The ice melts ahead of her -- then it shatters with a colossal explosion. Fire and ice rain down, but most of it shatters into pieces over the seawater below.

Then Lera hits the freezing cold water and it's like a shot. She grits her teeth, grunting hard -- and throws herself back out with a reversed spell. It shoots her up like a catapult, then she slams into the ice not so far from Fate. It cracks under her feet, as steam rises off her -- and water drips off her. Her teeth chatter, hard, as she turns to look at the hole she punched into the ice -- and whatever fell into it, she hopes.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Jet Ignition on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl fails to dodge Fate Testarossa's Finisher, Thunder Rage, taking 93 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl narrowly braces Lera Camry's Jet Ignition, taking 15 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Queen Beryl is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Dark Endymion narrowly dodges Fate Testarossa's Finisher, Thunder Rage, taking 66 Fatigue damage! Dark Endymion's Flash ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

More snow is kicked down from the top of the crevasse, and most of it lands on the Wind Knight - not enough to COMPLETELY bury her, but enough to make moving around a lot harder. Then the sudden-gestalt youma descends with Mami in tow; all the Magic Knight of Wind while she's under an added layer of heavy snow can do is to steel herself against the impact, and look for an opportunity to jump back into the fight.

... or climb into it, as the case may be. Mami's ribbon lands close enough to the Wind Knight's hand that she barely has to move to grasp it - and then she's pulled free of the snow, back into the open battlefield.

"My thanks, riflewoman-san!" the Wind Knight calls out to Mami. Maybe 'musketeer' would have been more appropriate ... well, hopefully she can seize a chance to ask her rescuer's name later. For now, she takes stock of the battlefield; the shadowy prince is still standing, while it seems like there's a small break in the swarms of monsters.

Once the Wind Knight's boots are back on the ground, she readies her bow and an arrow, nocking the latter to the former's string and drawing back; as she does so, the breeze picks up around her, stray flakes of snow swirling into motion as the wind ruffles her hair and her skirt.

"Gale Arrow!"

She lets the arrow fly, a piercing wind brushing past her ear as it accelerates the shaft's flight, steadying and guiding it at the same time. The resulting projectile is less like an arrow loosed from a bow, and more like the shot launched by a railgun ... although it's still an arrow, when all's said and done.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Gale Arrow on Dark Endymion.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

Sayaka does not find, in Mami, the confidence that she had chased up that ribbon, but she does find competence, responsibility, and grace. She feels her ribs start to let go of her lungs, and a faint smile reaches her lips. "Ptooh," she says, spitting ribbon from her teeth. "Senpai, I'm really ha--"

Endymion's sword feels frigid, its presence in the air between her and Mami a wall of fear and doubt. Sayaka's first instinct might have been fatal if Endymion was fighting seriously, because she simply reaches out. "No--" Then his tall boot introduces itself to her stomach, hurling her away.

Sayaka shoves herself to her feet, still failing to really notice how resilient she is, how much punishment she's taking without serious injury. She /thinks/ she is hurt, she /thinks/ she is about to topple. And panic is starting to fill her even before the Sweeper spreads its hideous bristles and stabs them down. Sayaka dodges well enough to avoid impalement, but every single bristle feels like it drags across her lower back, and she screams. The next blow is already coming.

Mami's voice answers Sayaka's. She's still there, and she believes in Sayaka, but these THINGS are keeping them apart. Fear cracks into rage, and Sayaka's arm snaps up as if autonomously, hammering the Sweeper's bristle and stopping its momentum dead. As if all of that force was actually absorbed into her trembling arm, Sayaka stands for a furious moment, glaring hate at the youma.

"You," she seethes. "You're in my way."

The snow around Sayaka flattens in a perfect geometric circle, a twisting arcane imprint of notes punching it down, flakes erupting all along the edges. Sayaka is driven up from that circle directly into the Sweeper, transfiguring into a twisting, hacking ball of sharp edges and ravenous points.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has used Furioso on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl narrowly dodges Sayaka Miki's Furioso, taking 17 Fatigue damage! Queen Beryl is unable to keep fighting! Sayaka Miki drains 7 fatigue from Queen Beryl!
COMBAT: Dark Endymion narrowly braces Fuu Hououji's Gale Arrow, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Fuu Hououji is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.

<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO1Cn-hvivU

If Queen Beryl can hear Masque Feu, she gives no sign. Nor does she reappear in the same place; the Soeur successfully incinerates a good dozen monsters, rendering them instantly to dust, only to have the next verse of the dark chant come from another direction entirely. The vision of the Queen is as brief as it was last time, before once again she is lost to the storm.

"Jenny, Hecate, Bell... your battles were not in vain."

Mami fills youma with bullets, while Lera simply opens up a chasm beneath the feet of her feline assailant, who clings to the ice desperately before taking a furious bolt of lightning from Fate's massive, stormy assault. As Lera has just learned, this is an awful way to go, down in the deep, cold depths. And this monster was a cat, too.

The horned demon suffers no better, one of a double, triple handful of monsters who also meet their respective ends at the hands of heaven's wrath, transfixed for a blinding moment by shafts of golden electricity, then gone from this world. Transformed unto vapor, they fast become nothing at all, the storms of the girls and the Queen dispersing what little remains.

But the Sweeper is still standing, having ejected one of her arms to use as a lightning rod. She is, after all, no stranger to rooftops, her native element. With Puella Magi she has somewhat less experience, and Sayaka overwhelms her, biting deeply with blade after blade, removing first her other arm, and then her legs, and finally her head.

Her jaunty cap puffs into a little ball of soot as it impacts the snow.

Other girls around the battlefield have begun to unleash their greatest magics as well, their fiercest desires for the safety of their friends taken form. Lights of every color of the rainbow arc from creature to creature, rapidly reducing their ranks to a few, and then, for a shocking, precious moment... to none.

And in this moment of silence, someone takes advantage.

From forgotten snowdrifts they come, carried on gusts of wind or hopping precariously across chunks of ice. Some might be familiar, like the little stuffed lion with wings and a truly spectacular Kansai accent, who bears a fluffy red pouch full of candy of such sweetness it might momentarily banish the cold. "OI, everyone, look out, the cavalry's comin'!!" Others are not -- the manifold mascots of a hundred other magical girls on the field, all cute and cuddly but some deeply, deeply weird, like the round-bellied man made of nothing but LEGO, or the trio of brightly-colored songbirds with the eyes of cats. Each of them has brought something from warmer climes, something personal, something wonderful. A scarf, a thermos of cocoa, even a cell phone with a friendly voice on the other line.

They deliver their gifts before the wrath of Beryl scatters them once more to the four winds. The storm never truly stopped, but now it finds malicious resurgence so mighty that ears pop and eyes tear from the sheer pressure. As the wind rises, bus-sized chunks of ice tear loose from the edges of things, creating massive platforms swirling about with impossible speed and deadliness. A good thing, too, for it also sends girls upwards, torn head over heels from the ground and into this three-dimensional arena. At least they -- sort of -- have somewhere else to stand.

"Isis, Graea, Morai... inscribe my wish onto your hearts!"

Into this frozen maelstrom fly the last two youma in the Queen's reserve, who have, until now, remained as her honor guard. One can be spotted mostly briefly as a flash of red hair not dissimilar to Beryl's own, before she decomposes into dozens of bats, all of them red-eyed and silver-fanged and infuriated.

They surge inwards from all directions, raking and tearing at flesh and hair, especially attracted to Mami's spectacular drills, Fate's flaglike twintails. Right on their heels come a different sort of magical music from Sayaka's, warped dissonant notes pounded out of a drum that might as well be stretched flesh, even if that's a PETA-like description of regular old drum leather. They soar in direct challenge of the blue Puella Magi, and two more have a diminished and jarring impact on either side of the Soeur.

From this chaos emerges a shred of order, groups of bats congealing here and there into larger creatures, each one gray as a thunderhead but with eyes just as red as their bretheren. Their claws and fangs are sharp, but uniquely their wings are even sharper, and slash towards the Magic Knight and elder Midchildan with deadly intent.

Amid all this, Beryl is once again lost to view.

COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro transforms into Mascot Jamboree!

COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has used Santa's Little Helpers on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has used Santa's Little Helpers on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has used Santa's Little Helpers on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has used Santa's Little Helpers on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has used Santa's Little Helpers on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has used Santa's Little Helpers on Masque Feu.
COMBAT: Honoka Yukishiro has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl transforms into Bat and Band!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 6 opponents!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa accepts Honoka Yukishiro's Santa's Little Helpers, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Empower applied to Fate Testarossa! Cleanse! All of Fate Testarossa's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Masque Feu accepts Honoka Yukishiro's Santa's Little Helpers, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Empower applied to Masque Feu! Cleanse! All of Masque Feu's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Catastrophic Swarm on Mami Tomoe.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Catastrophic Swarm on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Drums of War on Sayaka Miki.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Drums of War on Masque Feu.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Wingstorm on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has used Wingstorm on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Masque Feu narrowly dodges Queen Beryl's Drums of War, taking 12 Fatigue damage! Masque Feu's Flash ability activates! Cripple, Stagger, and Stun applied to Masque Feu!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji accepts Honoka Yukishiro's Santa's Little Helpers, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Empower applied to Fuu Hououji! Cleanse! All of Fuu Hououji's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to dodge Queen Beryl's Wingstorm, taking 54 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Fuu Hououji is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Lera Camry accepts Honoka Yukishiro's Santa's Little Helpers, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Empower applied to Lera Camry! Cleanse! All of Lera Camry's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe accepts Honoka Yukishiro's Santa's Little Helpers, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Empower applied to Mami Tomoe! Cleanse! All of Mami Tomoe's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Lera Camry fails to dodge Queen Beryl's Wingstorm, taking 42 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Lera Camry is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Mami Tomoe perfectly dodges Queen Beryl's Catastrophic Swarm, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! Mami Tomoe's Fade ability activates! Mami Tomoe's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa fails to dodge Queen Beryl's Catastrophic Swarm, taking 39 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki accepts Honoka Yukishiro's Santa's Little Helpers, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Empower applied to Sayaka Miki! Cleanse! All of Sayaka Miki's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki fails to counter Queen Beryl's Drums of War, taking 20 Fatigue damage! Cripple and Stun applied to Sayaka Miki!
COMBAT: Sayaka Miki's counterattack, Disjunct Chord, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Queen Beryl!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Lera catches the present that comes her way, watching the feline youma sink down into the depths. Her breathing is ragged and her teeth are chattering -- she is aware, on some level, that this might be hypothermia setting in -- and she unwraps the paper quickly. She stares down at what's inside: a thermos, full of something. She lifts it up, and starts chugging the hot cocoa inside.

It helps.

She throws the package and thermos aside, wiping at her lips. She can't see who threw it, unfortunately.

Then, the bats come down. Lera swings her right-handed saber out; she clips one's wing, but only a little, and when she turns to dodge one coming at her, she fails. It slams into her hard -- and then she smashes, bodily, into the ice. She skids over it.

Her body shudders, before she falls still, knocked out quite literally. <Get up!> Soaring Sky yells. <You have to get up!>

<Pose Tracker> Masque Feu [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

The Queen keeps moving. Masque Feu tosses her head and looks after her, towards the sound of that voice, but she can't isolate her.

She hears something else.

"MAAAAAASQUE FEEEEEEEEU," trills Augustine as he comes fluttering wildly out from the snowdrifts.

He is, inexplicably, tailed by what looks an awful lot like a pink slow loris in a little purple tuxedo. Tuxedo Loris is carrying a large Thermos full of steaming hot green tea.

Masque Feu just stares for a second. "Augustine-sama," she says finally, a touch startled. "Did you arrange this...?"

"Technically no," Augustine admits as he flutters near the girl. "But I was in on it. Quickly, take the tea and warm up!"

"SUPER SPECIAL OISHII TEA," exclaims the pink loris in the tuxedo in a high-pitched squeal of a voice, extending the tea to the Soeur. Masque Feu stares for a second.

She takes the tea. Sips it daintily.

"...It /is/ super special oishii tea~," she exclaims with a gasp, eyes shining.

Before she can say anything more, the bats pour forth. Two swing for Seika; she sucks in a breath, clutching her tea and bolting backwards with a short, swift leap. It's enough to get her clear of a direct hit, but her landing is awkward; a lance of pain fires through her left ankle as she lands, staggering.

Then her eyes catch something else. Lera Camry going down.

"LERA," she calls out, breaking into an unsteady run towards the redheaded girl. The snow, her ankle and her shoes make it difficult in combination. She makes it only by virtue of managing a short jump, rolling and coming up on a knee beside Lera. Clenching her teeth, she pivots, positioning herself between the fallen Lera and the congealing bat youma.

"Hang in there, Lera," she growls as she whips her right arm back, forming a baseball-sized fireball up hastily. She sidearms it violently into the throng. The blessed flame cries with a sacred shimmer as the Soeur attempts to punch it through a couple of the bat creatures with ferocity.

COMBAT: Masque Feu has used Blessed Spark on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Masque Feu has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl fails to brace Masque Feu's Blessed Spark, taking 50 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!

<Pose Tracker> Dark Endymion [Ohtori Academy (12)] has posed.

Desperation. Again and again, it's desperation that Endymion witnesses before him. Beryl's army is grand indeed - befitting the reborn Kingdom of Earth - and steadily, those standing against it are falling. He does not walk, but leaps to a sheet of ice torn from its surroundings, the general surveying the battlefield from on high.

Flames and furious swords and shattering ice all leave their mark on the youma horde - but none quite as painfully evident as Fate's lightning storm. The heavens rage, and at last Endymion's dignity is stricken - he ignobly dives from the icy shelf to tumble across the snow. Slowly, ponderously, he rises - sword flashing out against an abrupt surge of wind. He spares a glare in Fuu's direction, and then is briefly diverted by the arrival of her arrow, which cracks a pauldron of his armor soundly.

As the battlefield shatters beneath his feet, he cocks an ear as though receiving a signal. Even as mascots lend their aid and the honour guard makes its appearance, he works to temper his fury.

"The storm howls, and grants me my cue to leave - and announces that now is the time for you to perish. Farewell."

In seconds, he's lost amid the storm.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

"Puuu pu pu puuu pu puuuu~!"

"Eh? Mokona-san - ?" The Magic Knight of Wind glances away from the opposition (and the retreating Endymion with his damaged armor) briefly, spotting the familiar egg-shaped white fuzzball whom Clef said would be a guide for the Magic Knights on their quest; she remembers the Guru saying that Mokona would have everything they needed. But in a fight such as this - ?

The question is answered before she has a chance to fully phrase it, even just working out in her head what she would ask. A fresh quiver of arrows appears across her back, fully loaded to replace the shafts which were lost during her brief foray in the crevasse earlier; additionally, a plush green scarf settles around her neck, already arranged so that it drapes away from her quiver's mouth, avoiding the chance of getting snagged. "Thank you," she begins to call out -

Only to be brusquely, and EXTREMELY rudely, interrupted by a partial flock of bats abruptly congealing into a large shape and backhanding her across the face, hard enough to completely shatter her glasses.

Bow and quiver vanish as the Wind Knight goes flying, her body settling into a snowdrift - right in front of the now-departing Mokona. "Puu~?" the faerie fuzzball chirps, looking quizzically at the Magic Knight's unconscious form ... then grasps her scarf in its paws and begins trying to scurry off the battlefield with her. "Puuuuuu~~!!" It takes a few seconds before Mokona can build up enough traction and speed to start actually dragging her to safety; fortunately, whatever guardian spirit watches over the mascots of magical girls sees to it that Mokona is able to escape relatively unmolested, even *with* an unconscious Magic Knight in tow.

<Pose Tracker> Mami Tomoe [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Mami can /feel/ the magic she has to expend, the energy she has to use just to survive in this cold, desolate place against this gigantic army, like it's blood pounding through her veins and slowly fading away into nothing. She forces her expression to stay cheerful, to stay hopeful, and as long as she looks it, she believes she can feel it, just a little bit.

The ribbon she had discarded fades as suddenly Sayaka is sent hurtling away. "No--" ...But she can see Sayaka standing again quickly enough, can see her friend getting up and letting her magic crash her towards the Sweeper, seeing her... succeed. The relief that floods through her is extended by that instant of nothing here, and then of comfort sent by a great group. Kero-chan's arrival comes as something of a surprise; Mami blinks once at him before accepting, with as much grace as she can muster. She looks once at the object in her hand, and once up--but the little mascot is moving on already.

The photo of herself at school, among her class, is something she didn't think someone outside her tiny little circle would ever have, and even they don't go to the high school with her.

She puts it away, as the storm breaks back through, carefully wrapping it in a ribbon in her sleeve, and staring outward, bracing herself as the wind suddenly rushes in so hard that it drags her from her feet, too.

But while she's tired, she is not finished yet; the bats suddenl rush towards her, and Mami can see them coming--a burst of brilliant golden ribbon serves as her decoy, crashing around her, as Mami herself lunges to the side, rolling out of the way of the attacks that otherwise would surely have drained the last of her strength along with whatever blood she still had. "Sayaka!" Mami calls, trying to find her friend in the crush--

And when she can't see her, she conjures another gigantic gun, letting its torrent of brilliant, blinding yellow light clear her path through the monsters around her.

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has used Tiro Retort on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Mami Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl fails to brace Mami Tomoe's Tiro Retort, taking 65 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

After the display... Fate feels drained, her shoulders slump, she hovers somewhat listlessly in the air, trying to catch her breath. A thick Kansai accent announces that the cavalry is coming... "Feito! FEITO!" "Arf?" Fate scarcely has time to say it before the wolf-woman is within range of her, grasping at her hands as orange energy flows through her, "You're pushing yourself too hard! You have to look after yourself too you know!" Fate's expression softens. "I know. I'm sorry Arf." She says gently, as Arf cocks her head to the side, then raises a hand to place a finger gently across the smaller girl's forehead.

<<Ah! Thank you Arf! Fate-chan I'm sorry I haven't been in touch things are a little of hand out here. I just wanted you to know that I'm proud of you. Please come back safely. I'll have a fresh cup of tea waiting for you just how you...>>

The mental contact breaks off almost as quickly as it occurred, as if the maelstrom of dark magic had affected the connection. Even as it bolsters her spirits, she hardly has time to think it through before, a contralto call sends red-eyed and silver fanged bats at her from the remnants of youma.

They surge at Fate, swarming her instantly. Tearing at her barrier jacket, her hair, hitting her from all directions, so much so that it instantly overloads her auto protect spells. She's immediately a flailing mess, completely on the defensive to try to ward them off.

Even Arf seems like she's going to be swept away from it but... "Feito! I'm getting you out of-" But through the swarm, Fate spies that Lera had been completely overwhelmed. She makes her choice. "I'm fine! Get Lera!" A wolfen growl, "There's no way I'm leaving you behind Feito!" A pained response from the sorely beset girl, "Please Arf! She needs help right now!"

From the agonized look the wolf-woman gives Fate it looks like she's going to disobey, but then abruptly she changes her mind, as she dives down so suddenly that she cracks the ice beneath Lera, hauling her up and underneath her arm before it can break. Orange runic rings appear beneath her, "Just be glad she considers you worth it!" She whispers harshly, perhaps unfairly so at Lera. "Transfer!" The pair vanish, to behind the lines.

As for Fate she suddenly streaks backwards, using the speed she's known for to try to keep one pace ahead of the swarm that's hot on her heels. Abruptly, she swings Bardiche full circle. <Arc Saber> The blade detaches, moving in serpentine arcs to try to slam against the central mass of the swarm where... "Saber explode." It reaches critical mass, filling the air with explosions and smoke.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Arc Saber on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl fails to brace Fate Testarossa's Arc Saber, taking 49 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

"Masque... Feu...?"

Lera looks up, weakly, when she sees the Souer land between her and the bat-like youma. She stares for a moment -- but in her state, she isn't quite able to process it fully. She feels gratitude like she feels awareness and everything else: slowly, as if through a fog or molasses. She blinks, a couple of times, a few times.

Similarly, she isn't quite sure what to make of Arf's rescue. She grunts, when those arms lift her up -- and then her arms wrap around the wolf-woman tighter than she really needs to. She is relieved to see her. She looks up at Arf, then nods. "Thanks. Sorry, I should have--I didn't mean to leave her out here, y'know?"

She glances back at Masque Feu -- and she nods, quickly.

Then, in a flash of light, Lera is gone -- transferred back behind their lines, closer to the helicopters. She slumps over against Arf, then, and frowns.

'Just be glad she considers you worth it!' she thinks, again, in her mind. Soaring Sky is quiet, before he transmits: <Bardiche. Be careful out there. Both of you better come back alive.>

<Pose Tracker> Sayaka Miki [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

<SoundTracker> Emperor Waltz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBLaMmxyibE&t=3m

Sayaka's final two slices meet nothing but snow-spattered air as her foe shreds away to nothing, and she lands with a thump, dropping to one knee. Panting, she pushes herself up.

<< Sayaka! >>

"Kyuubey?" Sayaka exclaims aloud, looking around. Some of the white around her is moving, bounding like a hare, and suddenly Kyuubey leaps onto Sayaka's shoulders like a stole. "What are you doing here?"

<< I brought you something special. Something to make you shine bright. >> Kyuubey has an envelope in his tiny mouth. << It's from your best friend. >>

"K-kyuubey," Sayaka says, stupefied. "Why did Madoka-chan write me a letter /now/?"

<< It's not a letter. It's a poem. I watched her write it, and I can tell that it has her sincere emotions in it. >> Sayaka blinked, hesitant. << Go on, >> Kyuubey urged. << She worked on it for many hours. I am sure it has Madoka's powerful feelings in it. >>

"Madoka's... powerful feelings?" Sayaka wonders hesitantly. She reached out carefully, and Kyuubey stuck his adorable face a little further out from her shoulder, offering the letter. Sayaka's fingers pause, then she takes the envelope in her gloved hands and opens the unsealed flap reverently. The paper within is a simple piece of lined notebook leaf, with Madoka's shy handwriting covering most of its face.

"Madoka," Sayaka whispers, her eyes getting wet as she smiles. "You goof." She takes a breath, and examines the text, as Kyuubey leans over expectantly.

The little dog laughed...

There are a few moments of silence.

"Kyuubey," Sayaka says. "This is Madoka's English homework."

<< It's a poem, >> Kyuubey replies optimistically.

"It's an /English/ poem. It's..." Sayaka breaks out into laughter, followed by a smiling sigh. "Sorry, Kyuubey," she says to the mystified creature. "That was... that was really sweet. It makes me feel good, knowing you were worried about me." Sayaka summons herself a fresh sword, discarding the dented one she used on the Sweeper. She looks like her normal self... but there's something wrong with the corners of her eyes. Something frail. "Come on! Let's save everybody and go see Madoka!"

When the bats come, Sayaka rasps in a fearful breath and turns, fleeing through the snow. What is she supposed to do against that? She only has swords! The refusal of the bats to come down to swinging distance also spares Sayaka their wrath, but it bares her back to the second youma, whose percussion punches her between the shoulderblades. Turning to slash through the next wave of sound, Sayaka rips her sword through it ineffectually, taking it right to her front instead, falling to the ground with her ears ringing so deeply in her skull that she can't even hear Kyuubey in her own head. Her breath, however, is somehow crystal clear, and the sound of panic in it panicks her further. Looking down to the leftover ribbon still wrapped around her wrist, Sayaka watches it dissolve into sparkles.

"Ah," she comments softly. It isn't that she thinks something happened to Mami. She can't think, right now. The fading ribbon is just another poem-that-isn't. What happened to Madoka's? Sayaka sees that she abandoned it many yards back, that it is getting covered in falling snow. Things

start

to

sep

ar

a

And the piano plays loud.

Sayaka is in the air, and her feet find another note, another concentric circle of sound. It plays all at once in her head, every note at the same time, but she understands it, she wrote them, she sees the shape. She does not fight the drummer. Sayaka plays together with her.

The beat is dissonant. The blade is counterpunt. The beat cannot rebel. Harmony. Ribbons. The staff, the rod, the clef, the blade, one and two and cut and three and ha-ha-ha HAH HAH HA and die, DIE, DIE!

A fading pattern of aqua spirals is on every side of the Drummer.

Brava.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Sayaka Miki has used Wassermusik on Queen Beryl.

COMBAT: Sayaka Miki has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Queen Beryl fails to brace Sayaka Miki's Finisher, Wassermusik, taking 65 Fatigue damage! Queen Beryl is unable to keep fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Queen Beryl [None] has posed.

<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApEGeCLCyZg

Not everyone makes it through the initial ambush of bats and drums, but those who survive defend those who've gone down with unmatched intensity.

In the strange unlight cast by the pillar, mixed with the muted starlight behind the storm, Masque Feu creates an immense bloom of orange, her silhouette merging with that of falling bats. A moment later, twin yellow suns erupt amid the icy fog, one broad, long, carving out a path, and the other jagged and full of lightning, following that path before it detonates. Between Mami and Fate, no harm will come to the fallen from those dreadful bats -- and no further harm to those who yet stand.

And wending and weaving amid these other colors is blue and white and just a hint of gold, a soundtrack of beauty and violence, a magnificent ending, the best finale a youma based on music might have ever hoped for. It dies happily, if, in the very final moments of its existence when all the slices catch up to it, also messily.

The rest is silence.

There are no more youma to slay.

The battle is... won.

---

But the war is lost.

Queen Beryl reappears at the heart of the steadily intensifying pillar of darkness, which still juts straight through this distorted, warped battlefield, the only useful reference point for ground and sky, Earth and -- shadowed behind layers of clouds -- Moon.

As the darkness reaches its apex, it draws itself into her, and she raises her arms, bathing in it as enthusiastically as a maiden in a sunshower. She laughs with rising energy as it thins and finally vanishes, except for where it lingers, behind her eyes, no longer gold but black.

They sizzle -- she seethes -- rolling her shoulders, flexing her fingertips, feeling the breadth and depth of this new, summoned strength. Everyone can feel it, even though it exists within only the power-greedy soul of an ancient Queen; its presence cannot be denied, a shadow on the heart.

"In the name of those who came before me -- in the name of those who came after me -- in the name of every broken heart, every shattered dream, every thrown stone!"

Everyone hangs in midair as the storm silences on her first syllable. Reality itself is waiting on Beryl's incantation now, and so no one can fall. Around the world, even, where those magical girls who were unable or unwilling to face the North Pole fight their own battles, there is an indrawn breath, a hesitation.

Her eyes widen with appreciation of the irony, the madness, the impossible inversion that she's about to commit. Her lips part, and every word is sweet, not like Kero-chan's candy was sweet but like revenge is sweet, sweeter than a fine wine stolen from the cellar of one's enemy.

"NEVER AGAIN SHALL LIGHT TOUCH THESE SHORES!"

---

What happens next is difficult to describe, even after the fact. It is easy when witnessed externally, as every person in the world with the light of hope in their hearts, all but five spared for the most malicious reason possible, five who have this whole time been desperately infiltrating the Dark Kingdom below and behind and beneath this battle--

--vanish. They're gone without a trace, banished utterly from Earth without so much as a pop of displaced air to mark their passing.

But what it /feels/ like...

For those left behind, even though they can't quite understand what just happened, in local actuality, much less in full scope, there is only absence. An instinctual understanding that something precious and beautiful has been lost to the world in general and them in particular. Food tastes just a little bit blander, the sun shines a hair less brightly, the soccer game is just a little less fun.

And for those taken...

Their vision swirls with rainbows, rainbows, a dizzying, even sickening swirl of torn space and rent time. Clocks tick with impossible, whirring speed juxtaposed with slow, basso beats. The illusion created by the maelstrom of there being no up or down is now reality, and vertigo is overwhelming, a strong and dangerous sense of pulled every which way but the right one.

Hands are torn apart, no grasp strong enough to withstand this unbidden, involuntary journey, and so added to this terrible transport is that sickeningly familiar sense of being totally alone. Not just lonely in a bedroom, but alone on a dark night on a street corner. And it's raining.

Stars stream by, not outer-space-stars but five and six-pointed sigils, blaring away with a confusing smorgasbord of sounds and colors, leaving streaks of scent behind them, toxic and sweet and sharp alike.

The human body was not meant to endure such strangeness, and there is a pins-and-needles sense of disembodiment, of stretching and straining and warping and--

--and then it ends as quickly as it started. Like waking up from one dream into another, like emerging from a pearlescent bubble as it pops, girls blink, and the lifting of their lashes raises the curtain on a new stage:

They find themselves somewhere... else. Many somewheres, and somewhens besides.

The magical girls of Earth are now scattered between time and beyond space, in a twisted tangle of dimensions known only in hushed whispers as the Multidimensional Chaos World.