⌈ Inside Beatrice Plaza - Akari and Bellatrix's Turf ⌋
The clashing of metal parts could be heard in every corner of the building, the attendants were in awe and terror seeing Bellatrix in the middle of the plaza, she was fighting an amalgamation of different electronics devices forming a snake-like figure, it lunged its tail several times to try and skewer her, but she deflected every single hit and then counterattacked.
"Lancelot Cut".
From a single swing of her sword, an air blade was shot and hit the body of the snake, it lightly cut its surface made of wires and randoms electronic devices, it retreated but then it got hit with a floating object, it was a vending stall with some figurines still in it, it slammed the amalgam against the floor holding it in place, the devil struggled to get out when it noticed Bellatrix charging at it, It shot out a lightning bolt at her, she just cut the lighting in 2 completely invalidating the attack.
"Degore Thrust".
She lunged the tip of her sword towards the Tech amalgam, it barely dodges it and uses its tails to swipe at Bellatrix, she block with her sword but was thrown to the side with force crashing into a stall.
"Hahaha, this is easy!" Bellatrix laughed as she got up from the stall, she was smiling from how much fun she was having, Akari on the other side was plenty worried.
"Take this more seriously!!" Akari waved her wand and more broken down stalls started floating and trying to collide with the devil, it dodge them by slithering from the tiny openings and charging towards Akari, she decided to try and stop the tech amalgam on her own by using Telekinesis on it, but it was useless as the devil only slowed down a little.
"Don't worry I'll get it!" Bellatrix was already was stupidly running towards the Tech amalgam, 3 trash devils jumped in front of her, she gripped the hilt of her sword tightly, breathe deeply, and lightly closed her eyes, her movements became defined and calm, she did what appear to be a single vertical swing that didn't even connect, the devils stopped moving and let her pass.
"Calesvol Triplets".
The devils were violently cut in half along with the floor and ceiling now having slits in them, the insides of the devils spilled everywhere, she turned to the Tech amalgam and smiled.
"Yo that's fire" The crowd that was still inside the Plaza cheered, they just watched something only really possible in anime, Bellatrix turned at them and flashed an extremely idiotic smile, it confused the spectators but they continued cheering on, the Tech amalgam lunged again at Bellatrix with its tail, Bellatrix dodge by spinning and subsequently cut a large portion of the devils tail.
The devil scrapped metal in its mouth and sounded as if it was in pain, in a fit of rage decided to try and bite Akari who was recollecting more random objects that were lying around, Akari barely avoided being torn in half by pushing herself back with her Telekinesis, from the ground, steel rods that were used to make the vending stalls impaled the Tech amalgam's body, it shriveled up and started running away.
"Don't even think about it" Both Akari and Bellatrix said, Akari started moving the steel rods inside the tech amalgam to slow down its movement, the devil still moved to try and run away only ripping apart its own body, the metal scrapping noises only got louder and more ear-piercing.
"BORS DE GANIS".
Bellatrix shouted her attack, the tech Amalgam was cut in completely in half, it fell to the ground and started convulsing violently throwing random lightning bolts and metal parts, Bellatrix immediately ran to Akari's side and started cutting and deflecting the lightning bolts with her swords, her movements didn't look human as she swung her sword extremely fast, successfully protecting Akari from the bolts.
"We won!" Bellatrix raised her sword in the air.
"We still haven't won" Akari said to Bellatrix, "Amy is still being held hostage by Magda" she walked towards the staff room.
"Miss Akari I wouldn't recommend going in that door" Bellatrix said, Akari ignored Bellatrix, she wasn't gonna listen to an enemy even if she had helped her earlier.
"Please don't go in, just listen to me!!! I know I'm not that smart but it isn't ideal to even open the door" Bellatrix pleaded Akari, she got annoyed that Akari completely ignored her warnings and quickly ran to the door, she blocked the door and Akari stopped.
"Move" Akari demanded.
"IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LISTEN THEN I'LL SHOW YOU WHY IS IT A BAD IDEA OKAY? DON'T BLAME LATER!!!" Bellatrix screamed as she opened the door, she was stabbed with a steel beam in her left shoulder, she instinctively cut the rod before it completely pierced her, then she was hit in the stomach with a bunch of wires and got plunged back into the floor.
"What!!" Akari used her Telekinesis on Bellatrix to make her slow down, she cautiously placed Bellatrix on the ground, her wound was bleeding profusely staining her silver armor, she looked at Akari with a smile.
"That's why you shouldn't open the door!!" Bellatrix reprimanded Akari, Akari looked surprised at Bellatrix's lack of awareness since she got badly hurt and didn't even notice.
From the staff room, A bunch of metal scraps and live wires that were sparkling started to emerge, they force themselves through the door and broke the wall, revealing another tech amalgam, but 5 times the size of the last one.
"Well that's not good" Akari said in shock, the last one was easy to deal with Bellatrix's swordsmanship, but now she was hurt, Bellatrix looked at the giant tech amalgam and try to point at it with her left, when she noticed that she couldn't move her left arm she just pointed with her right arm.
"I was trying to say not to open the door since that would come out" Akari looked at Bellatrix, she was smiling proudly, "And now who's the dumb person" she remarked with a smirked.
"You still opened the door" Akari replied.
"Oh... yeah..." Bellatrix realized that she technically let out the new tech amalgam.
"Well it was everyone's fault that the devil got out, so I'm gonna help you out" Bellatrix said nonchalantly, when she stood up she almost fell from the amount of blood she lost, she didn't seem worried as she didn't have the awareness necessary to acknowledge that she wasn't in a good position to fight.
"Alright, then let's bring it down together!" Akari said as she was feeling pity towards the dumb knight in front of her.
"YEAH" Bellatrix exclaimed, she tried to lift her sword with her two hands, but couldn't move her left one, so she was one handing her sword.
The Tech amalgam pounces towards Akari and gets a refrigerator crashed into its head, Bellatrix laughs at the scene and looks at Akari.
"That's cool!" Bellatrix says, she kept forgetting she couldn't move her left arm while trying to wipe her tears of joy.
"Finally found the electro domestics in the Plaza" Akari replies, Bellatrix chuckles at her answer and faces the devil, her movements are even faster than before, but she is dragging her sword along the ground now, the Tech amalgam tries to stab Bellatrix but they only graze her skin, she jumps into the air and does a swing, the devil preemptively dodges to the side, but Akari moves Bellatrix with telekinesis to make her swing connect, they cut the entire tail of the Tech amalgam in one clean cut.
"NICE" Bellatrix says as she falls face-first to the ground, Akari apologized for being distracted and letting her fall down, Bellatrix just shows a thumbs-up before getting on her feet, Akari is amazed at how tough Bellatrix was, but even then she got beaten by Amy.
"Distract it for a while Bellatrix!!! I have a plan" Bellatrix nods and grabs her sword with one hand, she breathes deeply and her senses spike up, she starts lunging her sword at the tech amalgam, it tried to doge everything but it fails to move its enormous body, It goes to bite Bellatrix but she just dodges underneath its mouth and kicks the snakehead upwards, at the same time, many types of heavy objects start circling Akari, she put her wand up and the objects rise up.
"Kinetic Hold"
All the objects fall onto the devil and start crushing it, the tech amalgam is not suffering major damage but is being held in place, Bellatrix puts her sword in behind her, she is crouching a little bit while being beside the devil, she looks extremely concentrated.
"King's Round Table".
Bellatrix rapidly spun around while swinging her sword, the strength of the swing makes her rise up into the air almost touching the ceiling, the devil gets slices up horizontally into many parts as she ascends, when she starts falling she swung her sword onto the floor completely cutting the devil in half vertically, the devil falls on the ground diced up in semicircular pieces, Bellatrix pulls her sword out of the ground and sheathes it.
"You did it!!" Akari says as she goes to Bellatrix.
"We did it, Miss Akari" Bellatrix says as she laughs, she looks at the staff room.
"You should help Miss Amy, I will help the civilians get out of here" Bellatrix commands Akari.
"You sure?" Akari asks because she is worried about Bellatrix's injuries.
"Of course, after all, I'm fated to meet Amy again!!" Bellatrix smiles brightly, Akari doesn't understand what she meantbut complies, Bellatrix starts cutting a wall to let civilians out of the main Plaza while Akari goes into the Staff room.
"I hope you're okay Amy".
A few minutes earlier, ⌈ Staff room'B' inside Beatrice Plaza - Amy's turf ⌋
"What is aether?" Hui asked me again, I was still thinking through everything that was happening but hearing that she had a plan led me to pay more attention to her.
"Is the energy necessary to make magic? like fuel" I say, since is the thing that sounded most logical to me, Hui flashed an evil grin at me.
"Wrong again, that's why I hate angels so much, they put responsibilities on you and give you powers, and then they don't tell you the truth about it, and when you try to actually understand it through experimentation they write a rule in the contract to prohibit, what was so wrong to experiment on an angel" Hui rambled on about, I was still patiently waiting for the big reveal whatever it was.
[Wait for a f*cking second, experimentation?].
"Did you cause term 17 of the magical girl contract?" I asked Hui, she locked eye contact with me and nodded proudly, now I knew that she somehow experimented with an angel and it got put in the contract.
[So she's is a criminal?].
"Anyway, Aether is kind of what you said, but it is more intrinsic and complex, have you noticed that every living being has aether in them, no matter how small?" Hui pointed out, I nodded as I have previously noted that aether sense could make it difficult to distinguish between trees and foes if the circumstances were unfavorable.
"Well aether is actually the catalyzer, or more fitting, creator of emotions and feelings in the human mind, or any mind for that matter" Hui said, I looked at her incredulously since what she said was weird.
[The f*ck you mean the creator of emotions, moreover, how will it help me?].
Hui noticed my eyes were brimming with skepticism, so she continued.
"All over the course of history we have studied emotions and feelings of the human mind, how can nerves using only electric stimuli generate emotions, colors, imagination, images, sounds, the human experience as we know it, only created with electric pulses and some photoreceptors? but how?!!!" Hui explained passionately.
"Get to the point" I said, I have heard what she was talking about before so I didn't get lost, but we didn't have time to waste, Hui smiled.
"Aether is the answer!!! it makes physical phenomena like electric pulses, the touch of the skin, the photons hitting your retina and many more into feelings, and emotions, that's why they are unexplainable, it's a system completely different from our normal bodies!!!" Hui was completely immersed in her explanation.
"sooo... aether transform physical data into feelings and emotions, neat, but how does this come in handy?" I say, Hui was laughing maniacally as if she found the truths of the world, she regained her normal demeanor and said.
"Aether makes physical phenomena into emotions and feelings, 'magic' is just the reversed process, making feelings and emotions into physical phenomena!!" she said, I try to digest everything that she said and how it amounted to what I have experienced.
[It matched up perfectly, but it does leva with many questions].
I remembered how when I signed the contract I almost died, it was probably me being ripped from my aether for a long period of time, I didn't feel anything, my vision went out and even hearing was just not possible, instead it was as if someone was injecting the information directly, without thinking, this could explain everything, I could not 'think' or hear because aether made that possible.
"With my experience, I say, that I believe you" I say to Hui, she paused for a second, it appears that she did not expect me to agree with her wholeheartedly, she became a little somber and approached me.
"There are many dangers out of this container" Hui said to me, I looked at her dumbfoundedly.
"With my research, I found out that you could put high density of emotions into inanimate objects and make them come to life! so we tried it in trash bags, electronics, algae..." she explained.
[Okay that makes sense].
"By making a lot of people show their emotions in an event like this we can make a lot of devils, so we plan to make it happen" Hui smiled, "What would happen if we trapped people using a barrier in a populated event? what would they do when we show their saviors being killed in from of them? do you think they would still be calm? how much emotion could you harvest from them?".
I'm clenching my fist, I was still listening t Hui's rambling, now I knew that she talks a lot, but she never reserves anything even if it comes out wrong, so I just let my anger sit on the side while hearing her.
"Magical girls getting their guts spilled by an amalgamation of metal in the shape of serpents, the devil running amock the population, your very best friends that were attending an innocent evet being eating while pleading for their lives" I was getting worked up, Hui look delighted with her own imagination, I gritted my teeth and tried to stay calm.
"Kids get emotional all the time, seeing their parents splattered all over the wall would be traumatizing, but that isn't the best, the reversal is even more beautiful, parents crying desperately were their kids gets shocked to death with electricity, what an efficient way of taking aether from them!!".
"Shut up".
"And why should I? you are powerless to change the outcome that I wanted anyway, we're gonna die while seeing our friend get mutilated for the only purpose of getting our emotions out of us, showing pity or anger will only help them isn't it? so why would I even show the slightest of emotion, were gonna get shipped to prison and never ee anyone we care about again, so make yourself comfortable, you can't save your friends anyw-".
I couldn't bear to hear more, I hated the idea of people dying, but my friend getting hurt by my own selfish desire to be here? I couldn't hold back anger, I walked up to Hui who was leaning on the wall, she gave a smirk as she was proud of not feeling anything from the mess she caused herself, I closed my fist and with all my strength I punched into Hui's direction, she barely dodges the fist coming at record speeds towards her head, the speed made a sudden air current, causing Hui's glasses to drop on the floor, I look at her with to let her now that she should shut up.
"You would have killed me with that" Hui said as she bent down to grab her glasses, I looked at Hui and was ready to kick her to death.
"Do you see the dent you caused? that is not normal" she pointed at the now deformed wall, I had stretched enough for the steel to be thinner and was bulging out, I calmed down a little but still was willing to beat down Hui.
"High concentration of emotions can awaken your powers even further, that steel wasn't only affected by strength alone" Hui pointed out, I thought for a second and she was correct, if my punch actually did that then I would be out by now.
[Since Aether is controlled by emotions, then it must be my own magic].
I touch the steel with my hands and feel it thoroughly by infusing aether into it, It feels normal, I try to concentrate further, moving an aether flow through the steel, I encounter irregularities, they feel like warm patches of dirt, but way smaller, they are littered all through the insides of the steel, I recognize the feeling, sand, concrete, and rocks feel this way when I move them, the warm-up when I put my aether in them, so these tiny specs must be some sort of dirt.
[So, probably imperfections in the making of this metal?].
I try to move them, it is tough as hell to even get them to try and move, I put all my strength into it while I pour a lot more aether into it, It's still doesn't budge.
"What, can you lose Amy?" Hui said to my ear.
[The livelihoods of thousands of people are in danger, kids and teenagers are probably gonna die if the plans get completed, then an army of devils will raise from their harvested emotions, then mary will...]
[...].
[Mary will die if I don't get out of here, I need to get out of here and help them out since I'm a magical girl].
My arms get warmer and warmer until I feel they are on fire, I put even more strength from the emotions welling up, the thought of Mary's lifeless body, it reminded me of a nightmare I had, but this time it could happen for real, So I forced my body to love with all it had, putting more pressure into the metal until.
*scrape.
The metal was building out and finally broke, I started to push the metal to the sides bending the metal against itself, I didn't stop until the hole was big enough to go through, I let my arms go, they were completely out, they were sore and I barely had a breath left, I had bent metal successfully with the power of my own fear of being alone.
"Impressive" Hui said as she exited the container, we were on top of another blue container, I looked around and saw that we were in a spacious room, it had a ceiling filled with steel beams as if it was uncompleted yet, I also stepped out of the container and landed on the ground.
"You..." I said to Hui, she looked at me, she was looking at me hesitantly since I was still angry at her, and the fact that I bent steel made her realize just how strong I actually am.
"You provoked me on purpose, didn't you?" I finished, I noticed after I had exited, she got me riled up with the intention to break me free out of here, of course, she was also out of the container.
"No not really, I just have a knack for pissing people off" Hui said as she started to walk towards a room, I followed her since I didn't know where I was, it looked like the place was still getting built, there were some construction materials everywhere.
"You are not going to beat me up" Hui asked.
"Again, I have no reason to do that" I said, Hui was even more surprised she thought about something for some time, I smile at her for actually helping me get out, she seems a bit stunned by my expressions and stops walking and then turn to face me.
"That door leads to the staff room, you can go there to get to main Plaza, I'll stay here" Hui said, she seemed pretty determined.
"Why would you remain here?" I say, I know the kind of person that Hui is, so she probably is going to escape, but she just points out at the ceiling, when I look up I see a twin-tailed girl looking at us, she jumps from the steel beams and lands 20 ft away from us.
"What up Idiots?" Magda says after landing, Hui seems scared of her but looks at me and begins some confidence.
"Magda!!" I put up my guard, Hui places her hand in front of me.
"You can go now!!! I'll fight her" Hui says, I'm shocked about the whole thing, especially knowing Hui's power but she just looks at me and smiles.
"This is personal" Hui says, Magda looks ready to fight her so I just back away and run to the staff room, Hui and Magda stare each other down as my silhouette enter the staff room.
"You have a lot of faith in Amy beating Marchosias, why don't you get on our side instead of getting beat up by me?" Magda offered, grinning behind her face mask.
"I'm not stupid enough to ally with my betrayers!!" Hui exclaimed, in reality, she had the impression that being the enemy of Amy wasn't a good idea.
"Well, I don't care in dealing with weaklings, so I'll go pay a visit to Amy!! Rocket jump".
Magda had flown over Hui impulses with an explosion, Hui simply smiled at this, as she reached into her coat and pulled out a green yoyo, she throws it towards Magda, the string started rolling on her leg and Magda stopped moving.
"Parabola".
Hui pulled the string on her yoyo and slammed Magda into the ground in front of her, the yoyo unrolled and returned to her hand, Magda looked confused at Hui.
"You had a weapon?" Magda asked as she was made aware that Hui didn't have a weapon, but now was playing with a yoyo that extended way too far for it not being magical.
"I said I was gonna stop you, I need to use all my resources at my disposal" Hui pushed her glasses up.