Realistic or Modern PROJECT: MAGICAL WARRIORS (IC)

[LostHaven]

Hildred & Castaigne

Abandoned Store | "Do they even know what a Supermarket is...?" "I sure fucking hope so, Castaigne."​

How annoying. Hildred had initially hoped that with his suggestion, the rogues would group up, and he'd be able to slip off to work his end, his way. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to be the case. Things never go as smoothly as one hoped, that much was to be expected at this point. The young man watches with a raised eyebrow as Twinkle has her 'heated argument' with her artificial partner, realizing very early on what the crafty little piece of shit magical girl was up to. Form 'groups' with Hildred as the leader for one? Obviously, the other two present would opt to go with Vanguard - there was the non-zero chance that whoever decided to go off with him would never return, whereas Vanguard had already proven herself to be a steadfast, and more than capable leader. Thus, it would only be logical that Twinkle then planned to go with Hildred. Probably to observe him closely.

"Alright then, we'll play along," he telepathically communicates to Castaigne.

"Right into her hands? Alright." The creature agrees, albeit with slight reluctance. Well, whatever. This was Hildred's operation anyway, Castaigne was just fine doing as told.

"If you trust me enough to give me... this role, I suppose I have no choice to comply, hmm?" Hildred muses, glancing toward Vanguard who suggested that it would be unwise to leave him unprotected. Yeah, bullshit. What she meant was that it was unwise to leave him unsupervised. "Then, I suppose it's decided. Seeing as Castaigne is already accustomed to Wingy's magical energy, I think it's best if she and I form a group. Even if we were to run into trouble, with some extra magic energy, I can get two people out of a mess just fine." It was unfortunate that he was practically in the negatives in terms of MP, having exhausted his already limited pool. But, in this case, it worked somewhat to his advantage. He couldn't reveal too much of his capabilities even if he wanted to - drugs could only do so much, after all.

"If you'll allow me to make a couple of preparations, we can set out in the next twenty minutes. Though, I'm not sure if..." he looks over to Gigapuddin', who was practically melting into a puddle. Internally, Hildred scowls, though not a hint of it shows on the outside. Her form was amorphous, her anatomy was nowhere close to a human, and from what he'd heard earlier, she could regenerate and even go without certain organs. He already considered magical girls as monsters, but this one really had to take it to the literal level. Quite frankly, her form disgusted Hildred. She resembled more like a monster plucked straight out of Castaigne's bizarre stories than anything else. "If Gigapuddin' is even in any shape to be out in the field again." He quickly puts his train of thought aside and continues, ignoring the magical girl's little existential crisis.

"In any case, since we're already here, may as well take some useful items. There should be a janitor's closet somewhere - with luck, there'll be a handheld radio." Of course, he wasn't so short-sighted to not give them a burner phone or something of the like to maintain communications without the need of constant supervision from Castaigne, but what was the point of spoon-feeding them everything? None, that was the answer. In fact, it would be an active detriment to deliver them everything on a silver platter. "And as for Gigapuddin's condition, I can fetch you some of the Dark Site's drugs. Unless you're all brave enough to walk into a supermarket looking like you've all just escaped Alcatraz."

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Zoe remained silent for a moment. She then, without another word, stood up with a dark expression, wiping some mochi off of her face. "Pururin... How much can my body take without a stimulant like the weirdo in the mask is offering?"

"My predictions aren't too bright. You should probably take his offer!" Pururin says, seemingly being able to tell what all is wrong with Zoe's body, knowing exactly which parts were missing. Which parts needed more mass to fully regen before she could get to generating more magical energy again and sync up once more.

"Do you have any on you? This is time sensitive, I can't survive indefinitely without more material. Whatever you've got, regeneration stimulants, literally just a Route 44 Lemonade from Sonic, anything, I need something to eat and I need it soon or else we're gonna have to cut the group-up shit and I'm gonna go and find food on my own."

"I'm in extreme pain, having your body liquefy against your own will isn't exactly the most pleasant sensation." She explains to him.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

"Fuck it. I'm gonna go find my own food..." She quickly pivoted her interest, and moved to begin dragging her slimy body outside, leaving foot prints made of a gooey, watery Mochi. Zoe's body continued to push on through determination, willpower, and hunger.

Yes, while it was true that she was definitely one of the more monstrous magical girls, she was debatably still quite human in her sheer determination. Something that other species would frequently lack comparatively. She pushed past the doorway and made her way off as sticky yet watery mochi dripped from her orifices.

It was a disgusting display nonetheless, and if nobody were to follow her, she might be vulnerable. But perhaps she knew this, perhaps she had an extra trick up her sleeve. Or perhaps she really just couldn't think straight as her body gradually degenerated while she walked, held together by her own conscious desire to live and eat something.

The thought that she might go as far as finding a rodent like a squirrel or a rat, and smashing it with her gada, and drinking the sugar, starch, and fats out of its body like some sort of fucked up fruit-juice packet, could make anyone shiver, but she was ready to do it if it meant surviving. She had chosen the path of becoming barely human, in the name of alleviating the feeling of her body as a prison. She would walk it until it ended.

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]
Crunch.
Gravel, walnuts.
Blue's teeth were tough as steel. It's inevitable -- magical girls are just that hard to hurt. Someone suggested that they floss with their wires, and they chose not to follow it. They didn't show their teeth intentionally, not to smile, not to frown.

But they opened their mouth sometimes. To speak, to eat. That just had to be the way of things.

Crunch.
Gravel over socks and stirrup pants. Walnuts under teeth and chewed with a closed mouth. Blue's feet landed heavy, as every part of them did. They weren't made of the same stuff as the world, they were different. Separate. The skin held as a medium between the two. Any food that came in and came out of their body was as light as the rocks that they stepped on. Leigh didn't like feeling empty, so they ate when they could.

Blue Diamonds worked alone, but that didn't mean they worked autonomously. People ask, Executives most of all. Executives ask first before they send squadrons. Blue answered first... and so they'd gotten to Beecham's fast enough. Time enough to scan, too.

Cerulean Emperor's penetrating sight let them see, but Zoe's sludgy form, for lack of a better word, wasn't... solid enough to pick up. They're wandering, she's wandering. Their back's to her.

Blue Diamonds worked alone, but that didn't mean they worked unknown. Executives ask first, and magicals die soon after. The white and blue would be recognizable enough even without any bloodstains... they're holding a two-pound Costco bag of nuts, too. There's incentive for Gigapudding to strike first.

 

[Lord Moldoma]

'Do you smell that?' It was Zoe's partner Pyururin who asked Zoe, through their natural mental channel.

Zoe looked up, making eye contact with Blue Diamond's back, before her eye drooped, slightly and then corrected itself yet again.

'Yeah... What do you wanna bet I can steal those nuts of theirs...' She asks Pyururin telepatically.

'It's really your only possibility unless you wanna become a cannibal.' Pyururin responds.

'Why should cannibalism bother me. I'm already a disgusting monster... Might as well go the full 9 yards.' Zoe responds

'If that's the case, then try the nuts first and their skin second :3' She could audibly hear Pyururin's smile.

'How are we gonna attack them though? We don't even know their powers.' Zoe responds.

'I need you to give me a little bit of your sugar... So we can bash their fucking skull in...' Pyururin responds.

'I-I'm kinda running low on sugar right now. ie; my body's falling apart.' Zoe says.

'That's more than ideal!' Said Pyururin

The gada itself began to unravel into a collection of fuzzy dark tendrils, and began to retract into Zoe's insides. "W-What the fuck are you doing?" Zoe asks, as the tentacles entered her arm and began to move the matter of the gada inside.

"I wanted to save it. I wanted to keep it a secret for you. That I could do things on my own. That I was capable of moving apart from you. But there's no choice, we have to kill Blue Diamonds. I'm going to fuse with you. We'll only have enough mass together to sustain our body for enough to fight them. Think of it like Filia or Cerebella that game you always loved playing.. Before.. you know... The incident." Pyururin says. "God, those were good times."

"Th-This is no time to bring up Skullgirls!" I-I didn't even know you could move anything other than your face without me... F-FUCK HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW I USED TO PLAY SKULLGIRLS!? YOU DIDN'T EXIST BACK THEN!" Zoe shouts

"Of course I did. I just didn't tell you. Sorry, I guess, surprise. But we've really gotten ourselves into deep shit, so I'm gonna get us out of this... Now, just calm down and let me do what I do best... I'll be borrowing the calculator of a brain of ours to make sure we can't be beaten." The head of the gada formed into a series of fuzzy dark claws on the rounded head. Zoe's Right pupil expanded to an unhealthy amount as one of the tendrils pierced her inner shoulderblade. A second eye, then a third, opened up under it.

Zoe began screaming. "YOU'RE HURTING ME!" She screamed out, the gooey half-mochi-half flesh mixture gumming up on her face as her mouth explanded on the right side.

She felt like she was having a dystonic seizure, like you might get from an allergy to a medication, or her body was bending in on itself as it launched forwards suddenly, dragging it's clawed, weighted, gada-like hand behind it to build up elastic pressure.

She felt like her eyes were starting to disassociate. And they were, Pyururin was intent on using them for its own gains. Afterall, it wanted what was best for zoe, and even if that meant pain now, it had to make it clear that she would obey it's wishes. That's simply how much it loved her.. Right?

The moment her body was a meter away from Blue, she stopped and pulled in the weighted end of her arm in a coil like a spring, before pushing it forwards, aiming it at Blue's head, and launching it out, sending it's dense, semi-massive, and more importantly, sharpened structure, rocketing with immense speed and force, directly at its target.

(Players mentioned: KAmber )

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

"That's not subtle."

Solidity was what mattered. Without that, the world bounced off itself, stopped being linear. Solidity mattered, not sight.

Enough of a transformation, enough of a threatening density, and Blue's simulacrum eye picked up the movement easier. Much, much easier.

The screaming didn't hurt, either. Regardless, a combination of the two meant the amalgam Gigapudding lost the drop on them... but not the advantage.
Density was what mattered. Still the first hit - Fluid, with force. They didn't see any structural weakness just yet... with more solid objects, the flaws could be exploited, but this was too heavy and too close for splitting it with the Glint Cutter to matter. Blue Diamonds' wires were precise, they weren't powerful.

So what could they do?

Density was what mattered. Blue had the weight to block it -- had the strength... had the grace. They stepped inward one pace, lifting their forearm up near their head to skid along a punch now gracefully sent wide. The material of their glove ripped under the friction, but the skin underneath held strong under the shadow of a bruise.
A small push, keeping Zoe's arm to the side of them. Parried aside from a deadly line of attack.

They didn't actually meet the blow directly, of course. It's grace in a different way, a different tool than invisible wires to create space and distance. Redirection of energy. They'd studied enough aikido to know the basics.
...But this wasn't aikido. Blue didn't trust anything that wasn't solid, so they couldn't just grapple and throw the opponent with her body's form. And given the shape of her attack being malleable, having any amount of their opponent outside of their field of vision wouldn't be a good idea. Even if it was only an arm.
Leigh hazarded a guess that the arm would stop moving if they cut it off.

"...You're not here, not really." Blue chose their words carefully. They weren't sure which words mattered.

Their second arm slashed down across their body, fingers only a few inches from Zoe's own hyperextended arm, and with a rush of air one clean, invisible slice was made.
The first followed up with a simple cut downwards through Zoe's shoulder and into the bulk of her torso, drawn slightly out to make the slice complete. Two cuts -- even if Gigapudding reformed, it still gave time for Blue to capitalize on the opening to regenerate. They didn't bother waiting and started backstepping -- two hops, three. Enough created space that they were more comfortable with the precision of their wires, with each hop cracking the asphalt underneath and loosening the ground between them.

"How do you choose?"

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

"That's not subtle."

Solidity was what mattered. Without that, the world bounced off itself, stopped being linear. Solidity mattered, not sight.

Enough of a transformation, enough of a threatening density, and Blue's simulacrum eye picked up the movement easier. Much, much easier.

The screaming didn't hurt, either. Regardless, a combination of the two meant the amalgam Gigapudding lost the drop on them... but not the advantage.
Density was what mattered. Still the first hit - Fluid, with force. They didn't see any structural weakness just yet... with more solid objects, the flaws could be exploited, but this was too heavy and too close for splitting it with the Glint Cutter to matter. Blue Diamonds' wires were precise, they weren't powerful.

So what could they do?

Density was what mattered. Blue had the weight to block it -- had the strength... had the grace. They stepped inward one pace, lifting their forearm up near their head to skid along a punch now gracefully sent wide. The material of their glove ripped under the friction, but the skin underneath held strong under the shadow of a bruise.
A small push, keeping Zoe's arm to the side of them. Parried aside from a deadly line of attack.

They didn't actually meet the blow directly, of course. It's grace in a different way, a different tool than invisible wires to create space and distance. Redirection of energy. They'd studied enough aikido to know the basics.
...But this wasn't aikido. Blue didn't trust anything that wasn't solid, so they couldn't just grapple and throw the opponent with her body's form. And given the shape of her attack being malleable, having any amount of their opponent outside of their field of vision wouldn't be a good idea. Even if it was only an arm.
Leigh hazarded a guess that the arm would stop moving if they cut it off.

"...You're not here, not really." Blue chose their words carefully. They weren't sure which words mattered.

Their second arm slashed down across their body, fingers only a few inches from Zoe's own hyperextended arm, and with a rush of air one clean, invisible slice was made.
The first followed up with a simple cut downwards through Zoe's shoulder and into the bulk of her torso, drawn slightly out to make the slice complete. Two cuts -- even if Gigapudding reformed, it still gave time for Blue to capitalize on the opening to regenerate. They didn't bother waiting and started backstepping -- two hops, three. Enough created space that they were more comfortable with the precision of their wires, with each hop cracking the asphalt underneath and loosening the ground between them.

"How do you choose?"

The nature of a malleable substance fully in control of itself, or so it seemed, meant that Gigapudding had the advantage of being able to transmute the location of itself-quickly to create a hole in its own body that encircled where the wires entered, but closing up behind them. Moving semi-autonomously, their arm twisted around, as Leigh moved to skid past it, forming into a complex surface resembling a hookbarbed industrial drill, which moved forwards but within itself, like a chainsaw, attempting to tear and rip through Leigh's skin by pulling at it and greatly increasing the friction. Each one of the barbs itself was punctuated further by a small brittle thorn of hardened "mochi" that would break off and embed in Leigh's arm, attached to Giga's own body through extremely thin lines of mochi, as to maintain her control over the thorns.

Should any of the mochi-thorns break the skin or embed themselves from the fact that they were angled in such a way as to utilize 100% of the fact that Blue themelf was moving towards her to jam themselves in, they would begin to create small hooks of their own to secure themselves in the surrounding flesh.

Giga's only eye not being controlled by Pyuru had rolled back into her head, afterall, her brain was mostly being used by someone else.. Or possibly completely formed into mochi by now.

'See, we don't need to train to match that kind of footwork, isn't that wonderful?' Pyururin speaks internally to giga.

'Your mind is a calculator, I just need to know what to look for, isn't that wonderful?' Pyururin asked internally.

'So stop shutting me out, give me full control and I'll rain down the hell that this bastard deserves.' Pyururin states.

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

"Well," they say. It's wasted breath. Blue preferred to be heard than anything, and this one just... didn't carry the conversation.

She also had the ability to track invisible wires just a shred under the speed of sound, given that the slice was detected without touch.

And react to them. Response time troubling, but not unprecedented. Leigh could work against that, but they needed time.
They pulled. The pain didn't matter, the barbs stayed in regardless. It felt like sawing through solid steel, but the mochi broke skin.

Extremely thin. The lines attaching her arm to the barbs had wires sent to cut entirely through them, and with them being so thin Zoe couldn't pull the same trick as she had against Blue's first strings. Regardless of whether it sliced or separated, the strip of detritus stuck in them was cut off from Zoe's main body.
The very tips of the barbs stayed in and Blue stepped to the side, creating just enough space to react to danger.

The ground cracked again.
Fluid trickled down unstainable gloves. It wasn't right, it wasn't controlled, it wasn't their body.
Leigh slashed. It went wild, didn't matter, but dozens of wires came down through Gigapudding's arm and torso. They didn't intend for any of it to do anything, really -- the point was for the wires to move through her, and the Glint Cutter wouldn't be stopped if Zoe tried to slow the wires' descent through her body. Too thin, too fast -- regardless of her reaction, they were still directly unblockable by anything physical.

Blue had considered the other options for cornering a Magical Girl, of course. Gigapudding had her fluid form, rendering the Glint Cutter unusable but not directly stoppable. Twinkle was an issue with her energy shields being able to block their wires, Vanguard had her superior scan ability, and Scarlet a level of versatility they weren't sure what to prepare for.

But Blue Diamonds always had something in their toolbox.

They pulled, twisted their hands, cut as much as they were able in the time that they had.

A shift, as the chunks of ground Zoe stood on destabilized and sunk five inches into powderized asphalt, kicking up a plume of dust for Blue to form a smokescreen. Zoe may have presented an unstoppable force in her partially-civilian ooze form, but she didn't have the same katamari-style capability to lash out omnidirectionally. She couldn't grow the same way.
It bought space, it bought time.

Lord Moldoma

 

[Lord Moldoma]

The wires passed through her arm and torso, sloughing off into a puddle at her feet, her whole body shifting its wait as Pyururin forced her directly onto the ground afterwards. To rejoin with her lost mass.

Her body began to curl into itself, She began screaming as her anatomy was stretched and twisted in a dystonic manner. As if she were having some sort of odd spiral-inducing seizure. It seemed that Pyururin was fully curling her body down downwards. Once it had curled enough, the screaming stopped, although their mouth was still Ajar, revealing the distortion which was not unlike that of Edvard Munch's The Scream.

"WE saw that look on your face." Two voices spoke simultaneously. "Before you disappeared into the dust. Did you really want an answer? You can't speak in haikus and expect US to give you a satisfying response. Honestly, it just makes you sound like you have the literacy of a two year old." The curling continued as the puddle flattened itself

Vaccuum-like bubbles began to form on the surface of the puddle and slowly gravitate towards the middle., sucking in air and compressing it massively into a single bubble in the middle. through the sheer strength of the Mochi's own self control.

The Mochi formed its slack under the bubble in the form of a drill-like-shape, and, by increasing and then suddenly letting out all of the accumulated pressure, it shot itself into the softened ground at an angle as to create a spinning motion which allowed it to dig down.

There was silence for a moment, And then a shuffling and finally a booming sound as a mouth composed of the mass of the condensed mochi surrounded the bag of walnuts from the ground up consuming it in such a way as to make itself hazardous to any approaching body, who'd might not risk being bitten into.


The Mouth twisted back into a more humanoid form before presenting Zoe as she was in her normal form.

She looked the same, and she stood, lurched slightly forwards, eerily still, finally visible in total just as the dust cleared.

Her body had seemingly returned to solidity, having hardened up, her eyes were still closed though.

Her neck lurched back, she began to cough something up and scratch at her now distending neck. The cat-shaped Gada that Pyururin took as their battle-form exited their mouth, stretching their jaw visibly, evidently showing that they were not fully back in normal form, before slipping out and "hopping" as it visibly appeared, from their mouth and throat into in front of Zoe. Her eyes opened as this happened, rushing around like they were in a rem cycle or like she was terrified. Halfway through she collapsed on the ground, and continued scratching until the Gada fully left her body.

Her neck and jaw relocated and she immediately began crying and whailing.

There was the realization on her mind that her body had been essentially liquefied, twisted, and broken in every possible way. And that didn't bother her. If Pyururin was always a part of her, it meant that anything they did was what she was willing to do to herself and others. The two were inseperable, parasitically, like that, even if she separated from them, they'd likely just find their way back.

No, what bothered her was much deeper, it was a realization that she was alive through all of that, and was now lying on the ground in a very not dead state.

It was the true realization and the manifestation of the belief that she had foresaken what it meant to be human and it was going to haunt her forever.

Her tears were even created out of Mochi, which probably just made the situation worse.

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

I don’t want, that takes time.
There’s no matter in insults.
How do you choose to be human?

They weren’t offended. But Leigh couldn’t speak at all — even breath was a tactical disadvantage here.

Thoughts came out of the mind and through the mouth, they didn’t stay in the body. Blue felt sick from thinking and not speaking the same way they shivered feeling blood down their arm.

People had bones, they had things inside of them. There were obviously things underneath Zoe, but they weren’t… the same. Leigh could see trickles of mana flow through the thick, viscous body, folding over, twisting and kneading… all they could think of was how little there was under the surface.

There was magic, but no capacity. Structure, but no bones.

Creativity, but no constitution.

They had a hard time seeing Zoe the first time, with their density-based vision. It was a lot easier this time, though… what with the debris in the air, tracking Zoe was more a question of where the dust particles weren’t. Blue didn’t fight with a disadvantage in the swirling dust… but that was gone and they were still figuring out how to fight Gigapudding at all.

They had space, though. Thirty feet was enough to keep the distance. Blue Diamonds just needed to know how to stay careful.

They tilted their head. In the movement, a flash of light, the midday sun glaring off Blue Diamonds’ false eye.

“You’re right. You want, but it’s aimless. You don’t expect a question.”
Even footing, now. Zoe’s solid and Blue’s aware. Whatever situational advantages either had ripple out and dissipate.

Posture shifts. Blue presents a side profile, arms out but not raised.

They open their mouth.

It was still strange to have feelings, sometimes. For someone so precise, they really were a blunt instrument.

“Do you plan on fighting?” they ask, respectfully. “It’s not a surrender to question yourself. There’s only a choice.”

She’s kneeling, she’s sobbing. Blue doesn’t treat her differently, but they do treat her reasonably. She’s the same person, after all.

Lord Moldoma

 

[Lord Moldoma]

she continued wailing for at least a little bit longer. Before devolving into sniffles, and standing up.

Her face was darkened, leaned in a downturned manner.

“Y-You know, I-its not easy being the farthest thing fr-fr-from human…” she begins. “Picture in your mind being offered the chance to foresake your old body that you hated, only to find out th-that you weren’t going to get a new one?” She asks.

“I guess that’s what it is…. B-big reveal… I understand now, that my magical girl form isn’t even as human in the first place as I’d like it to be. Nor that I gave up my old body.”

“I’m still here, I still have the instructions for what my body is supposed to look like. But what if I’m wrong? What if I make changes without thinking about it? What if I can’t control my powers as well as I think I can…?”

“It wasn’t long into our fight that I realized… My partner isn’t like the others. When it comes to me and them and our consciousnesses, there’s no reason to make a distinction. Because they are me, but liberated from my old personality’s inhibitions. They’re a vehicle for my hidden desires. The reason why my depression and hate left my body was simply because I was dividing myself in two. But I was still just one thing afterall…”

“Is my body even alive or am I some sort of specter who just hasn’t figured out they’re dead yet? What happens if I wake up one morning and forget what i look like?”

“Will I have to start… stealing other people’s faces…? I… I don’t want to have to do that…”

KAmber

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

That wasn’t an answer. But Zoe was talking, and in some ways that was enough.

Blue kept their footing. Spaced apart, speaking as comfortably as possible. There wasn’t a rush.

“You’re pure control. It's not easy. But none of us are human. There’s just more change in you.” Their mouth cracks open, moves thoroughly. There’s thought in each statement, not so much cryptic as simply… present. “I have an eye now. There’s nothing under my skin. I'd be fine without that, but I wouldn't be me.”

A small mechanical spider decloaks in Leigh's palm, and they gently scritch at its metal thorax.

"Angevin’s an extension of me, too,” they say, “and control doesn’t mean your quirk’s invisible.” There's a silent shift in tone. Blue Diamonds wasn't used to talking about themselves, not used to sympathy in general. “I have radiation from the way my eye works. And there’s weight I have to handle. I can’t act human.”

Angevin disappears, only barely visible by its shimmering outline before it crawls down Blue and behind their back.

“But I’m still myself as much as I can be.”

They look up, meeting Zoe's eyes and trying not to gaze past them. No movement, no action. Blue saw a threat, but they offered a choice.

“If you forget who you were, you don’t have to stay human. You’re living. You’re moving. You're strong for holding yourself together. That’s enough.”

Lord Moldoma

 

[Lord Moldoma]

“… Maybe you’re right… I think... Maybe... I need to take some self inventory..." Zoe looked down at her Gada thinking about what it represented about her. "Sorry for tearing up your arm... I didn't think you were gonna give up your nuts... I could've sworn you were a member of Dark Site and if I asked you'd try to detain me or contact them... So I felt like I had to attack you to make sure you didn't do either of those things."

"I can manipulate my Mochi into a taffy and cover it around your wound if you want. Suturing it won't work because of the way the skin is flayed." Zoe tells Blue Diamonds. "I made sure of that. The human body is very easy to harm in very many ways." Zoe explains to them, morphing their hand into a flat, bandage-like shape, and their other hand into a pair of large gardening shear sized scissors.

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

Blue Diamonds let her speak. They didn’t mind it… they’d almost say they liked listening, if that meant anything. It wouldn’t get anyone to talk more. It wouldn’t mean anything — not to Leigh, not to the world, not to Zoe. All they could do was participate — to enjoy the moment.

But lying wasn’t a thing Blue did in the slightest.

“That's important. You’re the only thing inside yourself.” Blue shrugged one shoulder, regarding Zoe with the same placidity they started with. “I don’t see all of you at once. Only cross-sections… you might be the only one to see yourself completely, if you try.”

That’s true, at least. Blue couldn’t find her, not at first. And when Zoe took her advantage to attack, her form was nothing like the one that Blue saw now. She’s the same material, of course… just a different form. Moving, harder to gauge, but interesting.

Blue Diamonds liked watching, too. But showing that wouldn’t do anything, either.

“Sugar rots,” they say, “and you don’t have to apologize. It’s not sterile. I’m not offended. I don’t need more inside me that isn’t myself.”

Their eye shines reflected light once again, set on Zoe as they waited and walked in a circle.

“I’m not human. I’m… Blue Diamonds.” They huff, feeling the circular logic fits them. “There’s not a difference, I’m just more durable.” Leigh’s mouth turns down, slightly, as they begin to wind to their conclusion. “I don’t think much about my own body. You don’t have to apologize.”

The glimmer of humanity shining through loses slack, and the rope holding civility starts to strain. They have to talk. There’s truth, after all.

Leigh closed their glass eye to see Zoe as she wanted to be seen.

“I’m under Dark Site, I’m not subordinate. But I don’t plan on contacting anyone.”

“…”

“Do you plan on fighting?” They ask, again.

It’s good to be honest. It’s good to be sure.

Lord Moldoma

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

Blue Diamonds let her speak. They didn’t mind it… they’d almost say they liked listening, if that meant anything. It wouldn’t get anyone to talk more. It wouldn’t mean anything — not to Leigh, not to the world, not to Zoe. All they could do was participate — to enjoy the moment.

But lying wasn’t a thing Blue did in the slightest.

“That's important. You’re the only thing inside yourself.” Blue shrugged one shoulder, regarding Zoe with the same placidity they started with. “I don’t see all of you at once. Only cross-sections… you might be the only one to see yourself completely, if you try.”

That’s true, at least. Blue couldn’t find her, not at first. And when Zoe took her advantage to attack, her form was nothing like the one that Blue saw now. She’s the same material, of course… just a different form. Moving, harder to gauge, but interesting.

Blue Diamonds liked watching, too. But showing that wouldn’t do anything, either.

“Sugar rots,” they say, “and you don’t have to apologize. It’s not sterile. I’m not offended. I don’t need more inside me that isn’t myself.”

Their eye shines reflected light once again, set on Zoe as they waited and walked in a circle.

“I’m not human. I’m… Blue Diamonds.” They huff, feeling the circular logic fits them. “There’s not a difference, I’m just more durable.” Leigh’s mouth turns down, slightly, as they begin to wind to their conclusion. “I don’t think much about my own body. You don’t have to apologize.”

The glimmer of humanity shining through loses slack, and the rope holding civility starts to strain. They have to talk. There’s truth, after all.

Leigh closed their glass eye to see Zoe as she wanted to be seen.

“I’m under Dark Site, I’m not subordinate. But I don’t plan on contacting anyone.”

“…”

“Do you plan on fighting?” They ask, again.

It’s good to be honest. It’s good to be sure.

Lord Moldoma

"I can't imagine why you'd want to side with an association built on something like the values that Dark Site is. To tell you the truth, I'm probably in no condition to fight you. But I'm in no mood to go down, so if you're not planning on trying to finish me off and bring back whatever's left for darksite, we might as well part ways." She says. "I guess I don't plan on fighting you if you don't plan on fighting me. You took the 'never let them know your next move' thing to heart and I genuinely can't tell what you're asking or going on about half the time, so I don't know if there's all too much to discuss with you. Talk is cheap, but I can't afford it." Her hands reverted to their previous form. Human hands, as opposed to whatever she felt the need to make them into previously (a taffy bandage and a pair of hardened "mochi" scissors.)

"You're not planning on following me, are you?" She asks. "I have to go find more nutrition in order to make sure I have enough mochi-stock to take on whatever threatens me next. I can probably return to full sync and power if I eat... Maybe a McCalister's Deli's worth of food?" She used a weird measuring system to convey how much food she needed to eat to return to 'Full Sync' and 'full power', though those terms could mean any number of things with every Magical girl being different.

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

…That’s more than a little absurd, isn’t it?
Leigh huffs from their nose organically, the closest thing Zoe could realistically get to a laugh. The needs of human superweapons were a comedy, but not one they indulged in often. This, now, was a rare occasion.

Zoe’s admitting her limits. It’s honest enough — most magicals couldn’t deal with Blue Diamonds, not directly.

Not that most magicals couldn’t beat them. Blue kept their record mostly based on observation, technique. They weren’t special and they knew that, but shooting for their enemies’ weak points was their specialty.

“It’s the healthcare.” Blue deadpans. “That’s my move, all the time. I’m… comfortable, there.”

Blue Diamonds didn’t know anything about their sync ratio — or their power. They passively maintained a sizable quarter ton of weight, cut with Angevin and a very efficient sliver of mana put into that, which left… everything else to go into their scan.

They didn’t have their statistics measured, they didn’t like any others looking into them. But they had a good idea of how powerful it could actually go.

“I’m simple,” they say, “not obstructive. I don’t try to be hard to understand. I’m not threatening you, either… only threatening. I mean what I need to.”
Blood trickles from thorns already planted.

Their passive tone takes on a darker bent, the dull glow in their eye sharpening up into a light visible even in day. Their stance hasn’t let up once, as Zoe’s been sitting there.

“I don’t mean to let you go.”

 

[Lord Moldoma]

“So… what’s your angle then? Are you gonna try and stop me from running away? I don’t wanna have to fight you.” She says. “Really… I don’t want to have to fight you.” She says.

“You could curl a hundred of those wires of yours around me and you still wouldn’t be able to catch me, the certainty you get from other magical girls made of flesh instead of Mochi isn’t here for you to rely on. But I don’t want to hurt you anymore, so I refuse to fight, but I know you can’t win; we’re at an impasse if you want to insist on not letting me go.” She says. Silently letting the heel of her left foot extend into a tendril and dig it’s way into the ground, worming through, for whatever reason.

“You… have tried increasing the thickness of the wires right? You don’t seriously only use them for cutting right?”

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

Their head tilts, considering the point…
Blue shakes their head no.

“I haven’t needed to. It’s like dulling a knife.” They look down at their hand, curl their fingers in and out. Five wires, sparkling just the slimmest in the light, shoot out — then they twist their hand, and all five wrap into a pencil-thin cable that falls limp.“There’s more draw, with something thicker… I don’t usually experiment.” One shoulder shrugs again, and the hand attached to it has the wires retract back in — no, over. In the light of day, it’s almost more… projected, more routed than manifested. It seems different, slightly. “I don’t usually fight with creative people, either. Are you giving a suggestion?”

They’re not trying to fight, either — if Zoe’s first move is to run, they’ll adapt — it’s a possibility, after all. But nothing’s happening, just yet… in some way, Blue wants to stall, or acts like it.

A sigh. “Not you, not directly. But I’m not just one thing.”

They level their eyes downwards and pierce sight through the floor, not overlooking the confection wedging through it.

“I can see inside you. There’s pieces missing. Does it hurt?”

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

Their head tilts, considering the point…
Blue shakes their head no.

“I haven’t needed to. It’s like dulling a knife.” They look down at their hand, curl their fingers in and out. Five wires, sparkling just the slimmest in the light, shoot out — then they twist their hand, and all five wrap into a pencil-thin cable that falls limp.“There’s more draw, with something thicker… I don’t usually experiment.” One shoulder shrugs again, and the hand attached to it has the wires retract back in — no, over. In the light of day, it’s almost more… projected, more routed than manifested. It seems different, slightly. “I don’t usually fight with creative people, either. Are you giving a suggestion?”

They’re not trying to fight, either — if Zoe’s first move is to run, they’ll adapt — it’s a possibility, after all. But nothing’s happening, just yet… in some way, Blue wants to stall, or acts like it.

A sigh. “Not you, not directly. But I’m not just one thing.”

They level their eyes downwards and pierce sight through the floor, not overlooking the confection wedging through it.

“I can see inside you. There’s pieces missing. Does it hurt?”

"Yeah, it was a suggestion." She looks to the wire. examining the thicker cable from a distance. "It'd probably make a good capturing tool if you tried to take someone alive. Maybe I shouldnt've told you, since you're tentatively my opponent and all. But, the question popped into my head and it was bothering me." She says.

A series of holes appeared up Zoe's leg, using her calf like a pneumonic pump, this transferred down out her heal and began to form a large highly pressurized bubble on the end of the snaking extension. The pressure increased at a gradual rate but the bubble held together inflating and stretching as the mass of pneumatic PSI was pushed further.

"I guess there are pieces of me missing right now. Truth be told, I've twisted up my body so much that I'm not actually sure if any of my anatomy is supposed to be where it is, or what I'm missing." She says.

"You've wrecked up the ground a little bit. The concrete in particular got all broken up by your wires earlier." She says. "Silica crystals form a very fine and dangerous dust when you grind them up like that." She continues, the bubble only increasing in pressure, creating a small creaking noise as it lightly displaced the ground around it.

"My whole fighting style is dependent on regeneration and flexibility, so I have to make use of whatever comes to me." She says. "I have to wonder if I could find a way to learn how to increase the extent of my hardening ability, that'd certainly make my punches a hell of a lot more effective whenever I need to throw them. Though come to think of it, I haven't thrown many punches."

"Getting whapped with the speed and mass that my attacks have behind them probably isn't a scoffing matter, but if I could freely swap between a liquid body and a highly densified solid, almost like a metal, then you'd really have to watch out."

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

“…You’re talking. If it bothers you, it’s stoppable. I’m sporting with it.” Blue didn’t really see the relation between ‘being enemies’ and ‘not talking’. It was her choice, after all. “It cuts too well. I’d be more creative, but the Glint Cutter slices through everything. Only not me, not magidrives, not other artificial weapons. The world’s just… fragile.” They strafe slightly, lining up better with Zoe’s submerged bubble.

“You don’t throw many punches… you aim for the head.” There’s a sidelong nod to her hand. “That’s why I avoided it so easily… going for center mass makes your shots land often, and people fight worse with a hole in them.” Blue’s mouth quirks up slightly as they offer advice if their own. “If you put enough force behind it, it still hurts when it hits. Not every attack kills,” they say, ”not every attack has to.”

Part of the strafe was to line up their shots, but part of the strafe was to gauge distance. The bubble was under the ground, and so only their one eye could see it — they couldn’t do anything ranged without depth perception.

”You’re thinking of a crystal. That should be easy, with sugar — it’s a hydrocarbon. You’d make it brittle, but dense… there’s no tensile strength in gemstones.”

They consider offering to look into her — to ask if their sight could help with that, but… Zoe didn’t say if it hurt. There was a reason. They could ask later.

”Your plan’s contingent on the fact that I breathe. Or that my skin gets cut by them. I’ll see through the cloud regardless.”

Blue really did like talking.
A wire slices through the ground and bursts Zoe’s bubble preemptively.

Lord Moldoma

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

“…You’re talking. If it bothers you, it’s stoppable. I’m sporting with it.” Blue didn’t really see the relation between ‘being enemies’ and ‘not talking’. It was her choice, after all. “It cuts too well. I’d be more creative, but the Glint Cutter slices through everything. Only not me, not magidrives, not other artificial weapons. The world’s just… fragile.” They strafe slightly, lining up better with Zoe’s submerged bubble.

“You don’t throw many punches… you aim for the head.” There’s a sidelong nod to her hand. “That’s why I avoided it so easily… going for center mass makes your shots land often, and people fight worse with a hole in them.” Blue’s mouth quirks up slightly as they offer advice if their own. “If you put enough force behind it, it still hurts when it hits. Not every attack kills,” they say, ”not every attack has to.”

Part of the strafe was to line up their shots, but part of the strafe was to gauge distance. The bubble was under the ground, and so only their one eye could see it — they couldn’t do anything ranged without depth perception.

”You’re thinking of a crystal. That should be easy, with sugar — it’s a hydrocarbon. You’d make it brittle, but dense… there’s no tensile strength in gemstones.”

They consider offering to look into her — to ask if their sight could help with that, but… Zoe didn’t say if it hurt. There was a reason. They could ask later.

”Your plan’s contingent on the fact that I breathe. Or that my skin gets cut by them. I’ll see through the cloud regardless.”

Blue really did like talking.
A wire slices through the ground and bursts Zoe’s bubble preemptively.

Lord Moldoma

“Honestly, I was thinking more like pushing the limits of what my “mochi” body can do. It is magic afterall.” She says. Alternating around the bubble to match their strafe, and keep it as an axis in between them.

The explosion of the bubble would send rock, dust and generally any number of debris into the air, creating a cloud of silicate dust and a highly unsteady portion of terrain between Blue and Zoe. More importantly, it would create a layer of thick, sugary liquid which the unstable terrain was depressed in, so if Blue tried to move directly after Zoe. Who, notably possessed more than a few ways to out-speed and outmaneuver them, they would find their particularly heavy body caught up and stuck in the density of the liquid.

Zoe immediately began running away from Blue after detaching from the bubble extension, before jumping, somersaulting and forming into a rolling, bouncing ball of mochi. Speeding off away from her opponent.

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

Blue sighs. People always run. If Zoe ran to the others, it would give away their location -- backup, yes, but also people to protect. Blue expected to cut through one or two of the others if that happened, or threaten that -- possibly unacceptable for Gigapudding, and so more likely she was beelining for food. Organic matter, enough to make some kind of trap to surround them with or crush Leigh directly. Leigh knew that she could outscale them, and that was a problem, but it ultimately gave them a larger target. They didn't just have their Glint Cutter, after all.

Pursuit was possible, though, if done creatively enough. They still had sightlines on Zoe -- nothing could really block their Cerulean Emperor's sight -- but the hard part was finding a path. Blue couldn't hope to leap over it, not directly, and they couldn't risk getting stuck, but this situation leant two advantages. Zoe lost mass, and Blue didn't have to avoid that mochi like radioactive waste, either.

They consider their eye again. Radioactive waste was a bad example.

Angevin skitters off Blue's body and jumps into the middle of the vat of mochi, followed by Blue Diamonds themselves. A foot lands on the spider, presses down, and pushes up -- Blue leaps out of the rest of the terrain, then grants their partner an arm.

Shimmering thread shoots out from Angevin's spinneret, which wraps around Blue's glove tightly, not cutting them in the slightest. They tug, pulling their partner partially free from the sweet-

-but it's still held in place by thick strands of mochi.

Wordlessly, Blue signals to their spider. Angevin grants slack on the wire, and they swing their arm, bringing the string over Angevin's body to swing underneath. They pull taut yet again, and with the wire on the underside of their companion, it slices clean through sugary ichor for Blue to swing Angevin out and over the pit.

That took ten seconds, but it's ten seconds too many. The spider lands and Blue takes off, planting their feet into the concrete with each bounding step to push off more heavily. Still behind still not faster, but not too far... Gigapudding was still within their wires' range.

Lord Moldoma

 

[Lord Moldoma]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

Blue sighs. People always run. If Zoe ran to the others, it would give away their location -- backup, yes, but also people to protect. Blue expected to cut through one or two of the others if that happened, or threaten that -- possibly unacceptable for Gigapudding, and so more likely she was beelining for food. Organic matter, enough to make some kind of trap to surround them with or crush Leigh directly. Leigh knew that she could outscale them, and that was a problem, but it ultimately gave them a larger target. They didn't just have their Glint Cutter, after all.

Pursuit was possible, though, if done creatively enough. They still had sightlines on Zoe -- nothing could really block their Cerulean Emperor's sight -- but the hard part was finding a path. Blue couldn't hope to leap over it, not directly, and they couldn't risk getting stuck, but this situation leant two advantages. Zoe lost mass, and Blue didn't have to avoid that mochi like radioactive waste, either.

They consider their eye again. Radioactive waste was a bad example.

Angevin skitters off Blue's body and jumps into the middle of the vat of mochi, followed by Blue Diamonds themselves. A foot lands on the spider, presses down, and pushes up -- Blue leaps out of the rest of the terrain, then grants their partner an arm.

Shimmering thread shoots out from Angevin's spinneret, which wraps around Blue's glove tightly, not cutting them in the slightest. They tug, pulling their partner partially free from the sweet-

-but it's still held in place by thick strands of mochi.

Wordlessly, Blue signals to their spider. Angevin grants slack on the wire, and they swing their arm, bringing the string over Angevin's body to swing underneath. They pull taut yet again, and with the wire on the underside of their companion, it slices clean through sugary ichor for Blue to swing Angevin out and over the pit.

That took ten seconds, but it's ten seconds too many. The spider lands and Blue takes off, planting their feet into the concrete with each bounding step to push off more heavily. Still behind still not faster, but not too far... Gigapudding was still within their wires' range.

Lord Moldoma

Evidently, Zoe had been planning for this exact eventuality, the expansion had been dotted with a series of small bubbles that formed at the edges, showing an incredible attention to detail, as Blue made it to the edge of the pit and planted their feet, they'd find the area under the concrete dotted with bubbles of compressed air, which burst.

Their focus earlier on the singular bubble she created, not recognizing Zoe would've had to have moved the cord during her strafe and lack of depth perception had proved to be the unfortunate downfall of their traverse. While it had cost Zoe more mass than she would've liked to spend otherwise, it had also created another reprieve from Blue's pursuit in the form of a stationary master-mine, a series of bubbles which erupted, expanding not just the pool of unstable mochi, but spreading it all over Blue's body's due to the point blank discharge.

Ergo, the reason Zoe took on the form of a ball was that she had literally sacrificed her left foot to set all of this up, and it was simply easier to traverse that way until she found something to eat.

 

[KAmber]

Leigh Sullivan -- Blue Diamonds.
[seas of tallow.]

“Huh.”

That's more effective. With Angevin back, they could at least cut effectively. Moving... that was a different issue, altogether. Blue had no doubts about their ability to track Zoe down, but she needed more respite than they did. Stopping wouldn't work. They couldn't keep moving this way, they needed solid ground. Moreover, they needed leverage, here, and couldn't just create one. There wasn't flexibility, not the same way.

Shaving off the mochi was the easy part. It wasn't themself, but it was still over skin. Wires sloughed off the dough easily enough, given their immunity to their own power's contact, but it still took time. Time trudging through the sticky ground wouldn't give them, either.

It would have been easier without conversation. It would be easier for Blue in general if they stopped obeying the Executives. But Leigh was independent. Their specific flavor of sanity didn't care for ease, just satiation. They needed the hospitals the same way they needed to talk and listen. Report, ideas, something about themselves that wasn't material.

But Leigh did need to overcome the material, and that wasn't always easy. With their arms free and carefully de-mochi'd, Blue whipped their wires the same way as when they initially cut up the ground -- throwing thousands of tiny chunks of mochi to catch dust in the particulate air, then falling back down to a path of inert, granulated sugar and concrete dust. It squished under Blue's feet, and they hated the sensation, but it let them move without resistance. They cleared the impact zone, now disarmed by activation, and looked.

Cerulean Emperor's scan had a range of a mile. It could go further, but by that distance Blue could barely tell the density difference between rock and air. Their eye had limits. They had a minute to make up for, a minute of lead time in Zoe's pursuit. They even had a trail -- the magical energy wasn't hard to pick up, but the question was if they could cut their path to Zoe faster.