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[Devastator]

Tayir

"These hands are pretty useful.  You're probably thirsty, too."

Tayir waters her familiar, bringing some lakewater up with her hands.

"Hmm, well, I don't know where the others are, I suppose they got in front of me.  But I do know we're looking for someone in trouble.  And with this lake reflecting me, well..

..whoever's inner place looks like that could well need a hand."

Tayir begins rowing towards the gray city.

[Takosher]

Aiko and Shizu

"Be careful." is all Shadow can think to say.

As soon as you enter the empty field, the time of day suddenly shifts to late evening. It doesn't take long for a crackle of blue lightning to lance across the sky either.

Shizu immediately recognizes the Land of Sunset and Lightning.

Brynn

"Oh, that's too bad." the girl seems crestfallen, "Please let me know if you find one! I'm sure we can make you something nice to wear in return." With that she almost seems to shift back down as she walks off again.

In light of this, it's hard not to notice that a group of boys standing nearby have had the same conversation three times on loop since you got here.

Tayir

Rowing with your hands proves prohibitively difficult, and the boat ultimately just spins a bit.

[Sutoratosu Akira]

Brynn
Brynn took careful note of how the girl completely ignored the question. She stared at the group over yonder with consternation on her face.

"...Arisen?"

"None of them seem to have souls, no. At best they are akin to Psychometric Etchings, stuck infinitely on repeat unless someone interferes with them. I would not be surprised if even then, their interactions with outsiders followed a rigid script. We will have to seek out the master of this zone on our own."

Brynn simply nodded. She kept wandering through the campus, searching for any head office or anyone who looked to hold a modicum of authority... say perhaps a principal or student council president.

[Twinwolf]

Aiko and Shizu

"Move quickly. If a Magical Girl has accrued a territory as large as this one, it was not by peaceful means."

"Gotcha! Moving quick!"

Aiko continued on her way, trying to take the shortest route she could towards the neutral zone.

[Devastator]

Tayir

"Right, I guess hands aren't the solution to all problems."

"Hmm.."  Tayir stares out over the lake.  The shore is far.  Too far to swim.  Do humans float?

"I'll have to fly.  But.."  She says, waving her arms feebly.

"Right, transformation.  Need to transform to fly here."

With that, Tayir looks at her familiar.

"Well, you're supposed to help me with this.  Do you know how this works?"

The bird looks at Tayir for a moment, and dives into her chest.

The change isn't so dramatic as it might.  All items forming as drawn lines that, once the perimeters are complete, quickly fill in with colour and substance.  Shoes are replaced by long boots, wrapping up to thigh-length and capped with heels better suited for a ballroom than a boat.  A mantle of feathers is outlined quickly over her left shoulder, providing support for the shoulderless blue-black leotard.  Wristguards pop into being, small mundane black things decorated with more feathers.  The ensemble is complete with a jewelled band that wraps around her left arm, each of the three white gems popping into being as the narrow chain grows into a loop.

Pulling back, along with the unseen feathery skirt, is the impression of two sides.  A right side, which is more mundane, with bare shoulders and human clothing, marked only by the single feathered wristguard and the faint glow of the blue-white hair accents, and a left side, which has a long, feathered skirt, feathered shoulder mantle, and the jewelled armband.  Exotic, but relatively restrained.  Finally, the outfit is completed by the outlining of a pair of weapons.. small black daggers.  They are outlines, and then the hand moves to grasp them, and they are real, coming into being so instantly there might be a pop of displaced air.

Transformation ended ended, Tayir could almost be a mundane human dressed oddly.  The clothing is unusual, but nothing about her appearance screams power and magic.

It is in movement where the real change is noticed.  No human is accompanied by a streak of being, blue, black, and white, akin to speed lines from comic books, accompanying and emphasizing each and every movement, from waving a hand to sitting up.  And the afterimages linger, for several long moments.

"Huh, well, this is interesting.  They don't seem to fit in me quite as well as they normally do.  Huh."

"And there aren't wings.. but I feel I should be able to fly again.  Hmm."

"I think I should land and walk towards the city.  If I look like this, carrying weapons, whoever that is might think I want to start a fight."

Tayir puts down the daggers, and flies towards the Northeast, aiming to land in the uncontrolled hex adjacent to the lake and the gray city.

[Takosher]

Aiko and Shizu

The toxic reflection of your home next to you fills you with trepidation, but somehow that lightning feels even more ominous.

It doesn't take you very long to pass through the sunset realm and into the other grassy plain nearby, this one beset by a partly cloudy mid-afternoon with a pleasant spring breeze.

Brynn

You find no luck seeking a principal of some sort, but the large Japanese-style shrine at the center of the collection of high schools catches your attention as something that might be important.

Tayir

As soon as you leap into the air, instinct takes over. It's not quite flying like you're used to, instead you find yourself coalescing small platforms out of your afterimages as you slow down from drag and kicking off of them to accelerate again, essentially jumping through the air repeatedly. It's very rhythmic, not unlike flapping your wings. You find it a surprisingly comfortable and intuitive way to move, perhaps even more so than walking the ground. With this method of flight at your disposal, you have no trouble reaching the edge of the lake and landing in the grasses of the neutral zone.

[Sutoratosu Akira]

Brynn
"You're awfully quiet." Arisen said as Brynn dragged her over to the foot of the shrine.

"...You never did care about me, did you?"

"I care about the mission-"

"So the answer is no. As I thought. Just like all the rest..."

"I fail to see the relevancy of this discussion."

Brynn laughed sardonically, shaking her head. "Of course you don't, you wretched piece of scrap. Of course you don't understand what its like to be alone for so long, feared and hated by all except one, only to find out even that bright spot was nothing but a lie. And as if to salt the wound, now I'm forced to be under your thumb yet again, following along like a mindless peon! Just when I thought maybe I'd finally be free too!"

"You really do need to drop this obsession with having friends and feeling wanted. It's a weakness that will only harm you in the long run... and I was a fool to ever entertain your childish fantasies about it in the first place."

In that moment, Brynn finally stopped trying to reconcile her better wishes with reality. The Arisen she thought she knew growing up had never been real, and never would be. It was time to finally accept the ugly truth for it was: cold and uncaring, just like the wicked construct she'd drug all the way out here. She didn't know why she'd expected anything better. Hadn't she learned her lesson, getting her hopes up only to have them smashed back down to earth?

She let go of Arisen, letting the metallic bitch topple to the ground. Where she belonged, as far as Brynn cared. "There is nothing that can hurt me more than my time with you already has. I see no reason I should trust a word you say anymore. Let alone cooperate with you."

"You'll die."

"For all I know, that's a lie too."

"Brynn..."

"Shut up." Brynn snarled. "Don't pretend you care enough to use my name. You want my trust? Too bad, You've done nothing to earn it, but everything to lose it."

Neither of them were paying much attention to the shrine, or their general surroundings by that point. They were both far too busy staring daggers at the other as an uncomfortable silence began to drag on.

The longer she beheld the contempt in Brynn's eyes, the more Arisen dreaded the little fool actually would just up and leave her in this place forever. Even more, she didn't know what to say to grease the child's wheels anymore. It'd been so much easier when she was younger, more naïve and isolated. She hadn't realized just how much she actually banked on abusing the girl's trust until now, when she no longer had it.


And unfortunately for both of them, if she didn't regain it soon things would quickly get much, much worse. That's when one last wonderful little nugget of leverage came to her.

"Fine." The sword rolled her eye. "If you're so vehement about it, run off to your own destruction. It would be a crying shame if you never heard your father's last words for you, though-"

"What?!" Brynn probably would've looked fearsome in her normal form, given how her face contorted with rage. Her current appearance left much to be desired in terms of intimidation. Arisen was nonetheless off the ground and looking her in the eye with frightening speed. If she still had her breath, and it could harm her, Arisen had no doubt she'd be slag right now... good.

"What. Happened?" The girl demanded through grit teeth.

"If you want to know, I will tell all." Arisen's voice dripped like honeyed poison in the girl's ears. There was a smarmy, detestable smugness to it. The metal fiend had hit a raw nerve and she knew it, reveled in it, and would exploit it for all it was worth. Brynn resisted the urge to tear that obnoxious eye out as its lower, scaly lid curved upwards in obvious amusement. "But first, we must triumph over the current dangers. We're rather lucky whoever rules this zone was so courteous as to not ambush us yet."

Brynn wanted to burn her. Burn her like she had the fraud of a mentor who tried to gut her in her sleep. But no matter how hard she tried, no fire came up -that much at least, Arisen seemed to have been truthful about.

So Brynn settled for something more appropriate to her current form. A wad of phlegm and spittle that hit home directly in Arisen's pupil, causing the blade to recoil in disgust even if it didn't actually feel the sting of the saliva's impact. A stream of startled profanities in numerous languages, both dead and not, flowed out of the blade as Brynn smirked and dragged her closer to the shrine for a better look at its features.

"You're right, dear Arisen." She said coyly. "I really should abandon my obsession with having friends and feeling wanted. I'm oh so glad to have a nemesis like you to help me kick the habit. We'll do as you say, overcome the dangers here, and then you'll tell me everything you know about father's death. And everything else that's gone on at home."

[Twinwolf]

Aiko and Shizu

"Right, neutral zone, apparently super dangerous! Don't let yourself relax just because it looks really nice!" Aiko says, mostly to herself more than Shadow or Shizu.

"It shouldn't be far to the recently-transformed region. We will likely find one of our allies either there or near it."

"Right, and that's... this way!"

And on Aiko's jog goes. It's good she does sports, or else this might have been a rough run on her! She gives the gassy city a respectable berth. Even if the amount of familiar it looks is super interesting. This is like, stuff close enough to home she might see it while going out on a weekend or going to school...

[Devastator]

"Well.. that is a little odd indeed.  But fun."

Tayir does a couple mid-air flips before coming down to land on the grass.  Bounce, bounce, bounce, and now down, feet on the grassy ground.  Just a bit unsteady on the pointy shoes.. they're not pointy in the right way.

"Now.. should I fly in, or change first and walk in?  Looking closer, those gray clouds probably would hide me, but I really don't want to get hit by lightning."

"I'll stick on the ground and transform at the boundary."

Remain transformed and walk towards the boundary with the gray rainy city.  If I don't see any monsters or an obvious magical girl, transform to human and walk into the new area.

[Takosher]

Aiko and Shizu

As you move along the edge of the neutral zone you find the border changes from the edge of a poisoned version of your hometown to a completely unrelated block of city that's so darkened by clouds it seems almost greyscale. Further ahead you can see a large, sparkling lake. And even further past that you can see a large, ominous medieval castle, with a small city of its own surrounding it.

Brynn

As you near the shrine, you can't help but feel almost awed. There's a sort of divine energy emanating from it that makes it readily apparent that this is no mere structure, but the genuine home of a powerful divine being. Several boys and girls seem to be hard at work sweeping the grounds and having looped conversations guiding students around the shrine. Helpfully, several signs point towards the correct place for inquiries, and there you finally manage to find something of interest.

Sitting at the center of the shrine where some kind of altar for offerings would usually be is what looks like an info desk, and the girl manning it seems notably more animated than all the mindless drones around her. Or rather she seems notably less animated, seeing as she's currently slumped over the desk groaning like the most exhausted person you can possibly imagine. Her brown hair is messily falling out of the low ponytail it was probably neatly tied in at one point, with clumps of it falling over her face to emphasize how absolutely done she is right now.

Tayir

"As she entered the grey city, the rain seemed to wash the color away from her body. A flash of lightning lit the clouds above in glaring white and she briefly got a good look at the street ahead of her before it faded to dingy darkness once more. A few streetlamps dotted the way through the business street, one flickered in a valiant struggle against the encroaching darkness that threatened to choke away the life of its bulb. There was a pub, several shops, a small office building, another pub, and a branch in the road that led off towards the docks where all manner of ne'er-do-well could be found skulking.

"Unfortunate that her familiar wasn't able to communicate with her, else she'd be aware that the name of this sad state of affairs was the Land of Mystery and Betrayal.

"Before she knew it, she found herself making her way past the dour residents of that godforsaken city and towards the one worthwhile place to visit. Past the old office building, she ducked into the alleyway to find something you could only find if you were lookin'. The alley cats scattered at her approach, and lightning conveniently lit the way for a brief flash again. An extra back door in the side of the antiques shop, leading into a cramped office. My office.

"'What's a fine dame like you doin' in a place like this?' I asked her as she shut the door. I put my legs down from my desk and sat up, my eyes trained closely on her outfit. They lingered in all the right places, of course, I was always one to appreciate the scenery. I pulled a business card from the drawer and slid it across my desk to her as she walked up. 'Charlotte✩Monochrome,' I introduced myself as she read the card, 'P.I.'"

[Sutoratosu Akira]

Brynn
Fortunately for Brynn, and unfortunately for Arisen, the latter was still too busy cursing under her breath and trying to rapidly blink away the mucus clouding her vision... to little success. But Brynn understood who this particular girl may well be even without the sword chiding her to be cautious.

"Hello?" She spoke up as she approached. "...Are you alright?"

Be...prepared to transform at a moment's notice. That and the relevant information of how to do so was all Brynn could make out in her mind between Arisen's frustrated thoughts of how utterly disgusting this was. Brynn couldn't help but smile, well satisfied that such a simple and quick act of spite had so much outsized effectiveness.

[Twinwolf]

Aiko and Shizu

”The lake is the new one right?”

”Correct. That is where one of our allies would have arrived.”

”So let’s go looking!”

Aiko would continue her jog, going towards the lake.

[Takosher]

Aiko and Shizu

As you reach the edge of the lake, you find that it's now nighttime. Though there are no stars above, the dark blue water reflects the points of light anyways. You can't see much else, it's just a lot of lake.

Brynn

The girl groans loudly, "Can't I take a break for five minutes?"

There's a scribbling sound from the desk next to her.

She sits up to look at whatever has arrived to bother her. "They didn't even ask for any...thing... yet..." she trails off as she sees you.

She has extremely dark bags under her light brown eyes. Her face is set in a look of annoyance mixed with surprise. She grabs the clipboard off the desk and without looking away from you, brings it up to where she can see it. She then sighs a deep, extremely exaggerated sigh that makes use of her entire body to express how not invested she is in whatever she just saw.

"What do you waaaant?" she whines.

[Devastator]

Tayir

"Well, Charlotte✩Monochrome, I'm looking for someone.  Can you help me with that.?"

[Twinwolf]

Aiko and Shizu

Well that was boring! It was just a lake. A pretty nice lake, but just a lake.

Aiko would walk along the shore for a bit, see if there was any evidence of somebody besides her being there.

”Hey, Shadow, Shizu, do either of you have a way to like, tell when someone’s nearby? That would be convenient.”