Scene #2981: True Psychic Tales: Extra Story

Owner	Pose
Amy Faust	It's been awhile since Amy's last grief seed -- Miho and Mamoru remember the encounter with Hook, a battle for a grief seed hard-won. She's already a fifth of the way through her soul gem, and called whoever's free tonight to come out on a hunt after picking up the trail of a Witch. Entrapta's interest in the subject isn't turned away! 'If there's anything you can learn or understand about Witches, it could help a lot of people!' Amy's message responds. Mamoru's additionally asked about healing -- Amy's just got some bruises from Mimi's dark sound-blasts, but it's good to be in peak condition for whatever they may be up against. As the sun drops low towards the horizon, Amy's waiting on a bench by a street of restaurants in Mitakihara, where she's picked up the trail. She's in civvy-mode for now -- she can henshin when they get close or if they need to start roof-running.
Miho Inada	Well, Amy had talked about witch hunting. And Miho isn't about to let Amy do such a thing without Yukihimes near by. At least when Miho knows about it. The girl agreed to meet Amy in Mitakihara. She creeps up on the bench that Amy is sitting on. There's a quick pounce from behind, and Miho is hugging Amy from behind with a small kiss. "Hey! Been waiting?", she asks. The girl is carrying a duffle bag that's loaded with protein shakes and bars. And then sugar things for people like other mahou who need sugar. Miho giggles a little as she does a little cuddle before hopping over the bench, and sitting next to Amy. "Does this count as a mahou date?", she asks a little bit as she stretches. "I'm just kidding, we need to top you off, don't we?", she asks cautiously. The girl tries to look at Amy's ring...
Mamoru Chiba	"You definitely aren't going inside," Mamoru repeats anxiously, for what he feels is probably the twentieth time but is probably the fourth. He's in his leather jacket and skinny jeans, expensive shoes, and a green button-down silk shirt. His hair, he's dyed his tips again, one side blue and one side green. His glasses are clean. "You're taking readings from ''out. side.''" And they're coming up on Amy and Miho, and Mamoru's lips are pressed together. Amy can read his anxiety from here, she knows he's looked like that before when she was touching him and he was anxious. When he extends a hand to Amy for the healing she'd asked for, he feels anxious all right, because Entrapta. When he's done, he takes out his pocketwatch and calls quietly, "Earth Crystal Power, Make Up!" A jewel-toned black-and-red-ribboned henshin later and Tuxedo Mask is on the scene.
Entrapta	What appears to be some form of cross between a mecha and a homeless person is following close behind Mamoru as he lectures. "But..SCIENCE!" That phrase alone, the nasally tone and the way it's delivered tells the story. Entrapta is close in behind, following with the express purpose of ... Of SCIENCE! Obviously. As she drags a cart full of gear, mechanical gizmos and crystalline apparatus, she wears two or three sets of headgear, has at least four arm-mounted scanners, and a backpack. on the front. Names are just labels, people. "I'll see what I can learn from ooh what's that?" It wasn't even a full breath, she's already pausing as she turns and looks at the two already arrived, through what appears to be an insect-inspired pair of glasses. "actually what is that? I need to adjust these things..."
Amy Faust	Amy's focusing on the soul gem in her hand pensively. A cloud of corruption darkens the top fifth or thereabouts. When Miho pounces her, she's startled, and then smiles, returning a quick peck to the cheek. "Hey! Not long." She presses into the cuddle before sighing at the task ahead. At Miho's question of if it's a date, she chuckles. Top her off? "Well, it'll more than top me off, I hope!" When she sees Mamoru and Entrapta approaching... well, Mamoru's anxiety has ''her'' anxious. "Well... as useful as it might be if you can learn anything from in there, we might want to wait until we have a bigger group, yeah." she comments as she's healed, no hidden thoughts but a vague unease as every Witch is an unknown. "Thank you." She nods with a slight smile to Mamoru, and a feeling of relief. She could not help but be aware of the corruption in her soul gem, since before even the haunted house trip. She looks to Entrapta, "Have you seen readings like this bef--" and then she springs up to grab Entrapta's hand as a car goes down the street she was about to cross. Might not have hit her but better safe than sorry. Her other hand is clutched tight around the soul gem, which turns back into a ring. "That's the right way." Across the street, and between some buildings where off the sidewalk there's a place people can walk but not drive, with stairs up because there was a hill here and the 'ground' is a bit higher a block over. Past that they cross another street, and then walk by an island of landscaping surrounded by sidewalk, into an alley by an apartment building. It's ''there'', it's got to be. Everyone can sense it. Amy tries to steel herself and intones, ''"Never enter a Witch's Labyrinth alone."'' She looks to Entrapta. "That goes ''double'' -- no, ''times infinity'' if you don't have a way to fight magical monsters. And if you end up in one alone anyway, ''hide'' and wait for rescue. You can't get out unless the Witch lets you, and... she probably won't."
Miho Inada	Miho smiles a bit, and relaxes a little bit. She takes a deep breath as she listens to Amy. Wait...Why does this sound so familiar? Oh, wait...Didn't Miho ignore this very warning on her first witch? Ayup! Either way, Miho waits until they get closer before she stretches her limbs out. Miho touches her magatama, and quietly whispers. As the woman walks, her style of walking and length of her stride changes. Her skin gets paler. She fully henshins into Yukihime as they get to the portal. Its a sign of how comfortable she's feeling with those around her that she henshined in front of them like that. And while she's still awkward at times, Miho seems a bit more...laxed as of late. As the girl relaxes, she flicks her wrist to loosen two prayer beads, and two snow/ice wolves walk next to her. Yukihime takes a deep breath as she prepares herself. She calls out her naginata, and wolves seem to respond to the naginata. "I'm starting out with 20%, like normal. But I can go up to 80% in a hurry if its Hook bad.", Yukihime tells Amy a bit. She looks back at Entrapta. "My wolves are about..10 percent of my magic.", she tells. Only...something seems a bit odd. Yukihime's wolves...don't seem to be 10% in readings...And they look a little bigger...Not by much...but Yukihime doesn't seem to notice anything.
Mamoru Chiba	Yeah Mamoru has zero problems walking through town as Tuxedo Mask. It's not like anyone's going to recognise him as Mamoru Chiba unless they already know, ''so''... His cape billows dramatically behind him, the blue and green tips really not going very well with the red inside his cape, but that was probably the idea. :\| "Are you--" he starts variations on at least three times, and shakes his head and just shuts up. He's absolutely going even though he's absolutely sure Amy and Miho can handle it, because there's absolutely no way Entrapta isn't going in that labyrinth, and she will straight up die if she doesn't have someone explicitly watching her back. He looks longsuffering when they stop. "Can we get this over with? Nyugh I hate Witches, I always feel a little carsick."
Entrapta	Entrapta, for all her knowledge, is utterly unavailable once Mamoru begins to transform. She stands stock-still, and as Amy pulls her off the edge of the road she peers at one of her wrist mounted recievers. "Fascinating," she murmurs. Mostly because she's been told not to shout in public. A slow pivot allows her to peer at Mihi during the wolves' arrival, and she jots down something with a stylus. "Subject Miho seems to believe in alternate forms of math," she says, easily loud enough to hear. "Perhaps this one is unaware of factual discrepancieeees?" That tone sounds distinctly of trouble. But whatever is causing the issue? It seems like Entrapta is reacting by jotting down figures on a notepad, while biting a pencil in her mouth. "Threefold increase in jotonular notational grid with particulate sentigration past four and one millionth parameters, passing extra in the upper manifold." She takes the pencil and uses it to make a drawing of ...something. "Do any of you know why there's cascading magical reactions here?" Um. Doorway, Entrapta.
Amy Faust	As they stand outside the Labyrinth, Amy nods to Yukihime. "Hopefully it won't be Hook bad." Mamoru says he hates Witches, and feels a little carsick. Amy squeezes his (gloved) hand and nods -- heatless light and fire surround her and leave her transformed, and Amy frowns at Entrapta. "What do you me--" The dark energy felt stronger when Amy transformed. The entrance to the Labyrinth ''moves'', through them, and thus, they through it. Reality ripples and wavers There is a sense of something beginning, and a feeling of movement, forward, and a sense that the area ahead is being constructed to pre-determined specifications. and a sense that something has gone wrong. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDaYMjhWKzo&t=351s A cold forest. But not Japanese. The trees are the wrong kind. Maybe more of a Northwest US type. Or like TV shows that are filmed in that area. they're partway up a mountain, cartoonishly twisty and "gnarled" in the way one might expect a tree to be, and all leading up to one singular peak in an almost pyramid-like way. It looks like it'd be a hell of a hike to get up there. Fortunately you're superhuman mahou. Probably ''un''-fortunately, the mountain is ringed by a strange, voluminous cloud with pulsating, twisty protrusions and an unsightly purple glow. It would be unnerving to look at, except...EVERYWHERE is unnerving to look at. This is a Witch's Labyrinth, but the medium wasn't the usual sort of... paper or drawn artwork deal. The mahou probably recognize the feeling of what they're looking at before they can identify what, precisely, is wrong. ''Besides'' the sky being a miasma of purple shot through with veins of other hues, that is. It's a videogame. Well, it's the VISUALS of one. Materials don't quite look realistic. The groups of needles on trees are flat, partially-transparent textures on invisible polygons parallel to branches. The mountain in the distance even has that... like if you squint and look closely -- and somehow you CAN look closely, even though it should be too far away to -- you can see this is just the LOD mesh of the peak, the polygons are showing if you look.
Amy Faust	...Sometimes, for a moment, even their own clothes and hair don't ''quite'' look realistic (their skin looks much closer to realistic). They look a little more anime, though. Their eyes weren't that big and expressive before, right? And then the effect flickers away, and then a few seconds later it flickers back on. There's a path up the last wooded part of the mountain, violently cut through the forest, trees splintered in half. Sometimes there is the corpse of an animal (that is, a still, rigid, unchanging model that isn't physics-enabled enough to ''quite'' lie naturally against the ground). Bears, deer, wolves, and other forest critters that have exotic, elementally-tinged features. ...And just after you've noticed ''that''? Everything starts glitching. Every few seconds, most of the Labyrinth's terrain and objects flicker. Sometimes everything is textured polygons, then everything is pixel art, then everything is glitched pixels you can see more 'sky' through', and then it's polygons and then it's glitches and so on. Up ahead, patches of ground ? and above the trees, rocks jutting out of the snowy mountainside, easily platform-hopped by mahou superjumps, lead upward. "IT MOVED?!" Amy looks around. "Well. ''That's'' a new one." Amy does take a moment to look around, and behind them, in case there is any other path, but... in all other directions the world ends in a few dozen feet at the clipping plane. There is only forward. Upward. Amy walks towards the rocks. She'll jump up, possibly carrying someone, once the others are ready. "You know. The first few times I entered a Labyrinth, I thought, I wonder what could we learn by studying these places, if they weren't so dangerous. How do they ''work''? Why do they ''look'' like this? But, is there really anything ''meaningful'' we can..." She looks to Entrapta. "I mean, can we even ''affect'' something like this? It's powerful magic, and most of us can't warp space or anything like that..."
Miho Inada	Yukihime just shakes her head a moment. Witch areas always feel uncomfortable for her. Its just the nature of them being off. And her nature of being...nature. The mahou takes a deep breath. "Really? Can we go to a witch's home where I don't need to cling to somebody to move around? And if I get turned into a Mahou ball again, I swear I'm going to ice age this place!", she threatens. The yuki-onna thinks about what Entrapta said, but shakes her head "I math my magic in levels of wolves. 10 prayer beads, 10 wolves. All 10 wolves, 100 percent of my magic being used. Using all 10 seems to make me pass out.", Yukihime tells Entrapta. Which is odd cause she's used all 10 wolves at once a few times. "Anyways, Red, can I hitch a ride with you?", she asks Amy. She stretches a little bit. "And this is a game? Do I have to Konami code for the witch?", Yukihime asks. She's being a little silly, but her wolves show her nerves as they're on edge, glaring about...ciricling around Yukihime protectively.
Mamoru Chiba	It was a trudge with all that gear up the easy part of the path, and now they're at the bottom of a lot of rocks, and Tuxedo Mask stops and looks at Entrapta. "How much of that do you actually ''need''? You can't even use stuff that's not powered by a portable energy source, is that a ''you will not need a blowtorch''." He sighs. "I'm sorry, but you just need to take the danger seriously." Oh no, Amy hit on a Topic that Mamoru has some scientific interest in. "I mean, it's always internally consistent. If there's no surface, I can't touch grass, I can't make the ground explode, I can't get any sense of much that makes sense. If I try and touch things to get a psychometric read on them, I get kicked in the mind. But if there is a ground, it doesn't ignore me when I ask it to blow up. Generally. Do you guys want to try combo-ing to blow up the mountain?"
Entrapta	Okay. Appearing in this alternate world has Entrapta changing goggles furiously, trying to get one that makes everything look appropriate. She eventually chooses 'no goggles' and peers out at the world, taking it in with narrowed eyes. Then goes, "Nope!" and immediately sticks her head back into her equipment, ignoring what's going on unless she's directly addressed. "I'm not sure if this is even where you were planning to go, yet, someone hand me a wrench. Not that one, the other wrench. You have a definite counterwave of magic but nothing that counts under direct amplification." She takes it, from somebody, and makes an adjustment. Mid conversation with Mamo about what can stay and what can go, she's setting up some things to be stationary diagnostic tools as people try to get a grasp on the upcoming trial. Climbing. Shudder. "I'm not sure anything is moving, but the readings are fascinating. Also, wolves aren't a standard unit of measure, but if they are in this situation then your full power isn't ten wolves. That isn't even remotely accurate." She pulls hair out of her eyes as Mamo picks up the items she points out, and then pulls her backpack off. Drops it on the ground. "That was for if we came across ghosts. Not relevant here." So of course there will be ghosts later, but she gets picked up and barely notices. Her eyes are glued to a set of dials on a hand-held pad of some sort, and as the group moves upward, she wonders why she feels like a piece of carry-on luggage. It's just a feeling. "I might need to write different software for this..." Which may be a bit late for the current arc.
Amy Faust	When Yukihime explains the wolfometric system of magic measurement, Amy nods to Entrapta. "Yeah! I thought it'd catch on, but I guess I'm the only other one who needs to monitor her magic level that precisely." She holds out her left wrist. "As you can see, I'm at about 8 wolves. ...My wolves aren't the same as her wolves. But at zero wolves she gets tired and needs to eat, and I..." Amy looks out at the Labyrinth and just waves her arm to indicate it. "...Yes, this is where I meant to go. Somewhere in here is a Witch. Be ready. Anything that moves is probably a Familiar coming to kill you. Anything that ''doesn't'' move from its spot might not be real and just be part of the background. But with Witches you can't really trust ''anything'' to go by rules you know ahead of time. I think these worlds run on... The closest other thing is what Sailor Moon does to the world when she makes Moon Space." Carry Yukihime? "Yeah, of course." Amy tries to carry Yukihime on her back. It's a little awkward, since Yukihime is taller, but... well, at least being strong enough to carry someone isn't an issue. As she platform-hops up, she responds to the others, "It's not a game. Although perhaps the Witch played videogames in life. How would you even enter a code?" "Are Witches kind of ''like'' ghosts? We fought a ghost that was a lot like a Witch the other day." The path of safe-platform-rocks leads up to a more visually stable section of Labyrinth--well below the peak, you don't have to go all that way fortunately--the textured-polygon terrain shaped like a flat, snowy area with a cave a few dozen feet ahead. In front of the cave, half-buried in the snow, is a? well, you can't tell what, because it's glitched, and even when most of the Labyrinth un-glitches for a moment, it just changes to a different mix of glitched pixels. It's boxy, with a long thin protrusion on one end. It doesn't feel as important as the cave. And now that you're focused on it, distant mechanical sounds--shot through with bits of static or the stuttering of the same 100ms or so of audio repeating several times, echo from the cave. Whirs and clanks. Just the entrance is brimming with twisty stalagtites and stalagmites that seem formed by no particular rational geological processes. It also looks like this area was previously inhabited; Rails (pixel art against the texturemapped walls) jut out from long-collapsed mineshafts, or present paths further into the mountain, and hefty iron crosswork bars offer climbing options. The stalagmites and stalagtites flicker between being 3D modeled and being flat sprites that look the same from all angles like in DOOM or something.
Amy Faust	After reaching the top, Amy is drawn to the Nothing buried in the snow, and starts to reach for it before catching herself -- she conjures a cosplay prop magical girl wand and pokes it with that instead, and it just sort of slides off where it touches the glitched object. Like that spot in the world has its interaction rules broken, save that you can't occupy that space -- you can't even bump into it, you just kind of slide over. "Sorry, did anyone else get a sense of like... something's supposed to ''be'' here?" There's the sounds of squawks shot through with static from the sky, and a half-dozen Familiars approaching. They're glitched pixels, but the way they move and their parts move suggest they're 'supposed' to be birds doing a wing-flap animation. There's something off about their perspective. "Look out! Get behind us, Entrapta!" Amy looks over at the squawking, readies her launcher, then decides to switch to her rifle. The familair she shoots doesn't attempt to dodge, but it freezes and flashes when shot, before starting to jerk backwards -- and then she's shot it so many times that it dies, vanishing with a glitchy animation and an anguished squawk. She fires her launcher at another and it just explodes outright, flashing and stunning dying without further hits. If the remaining Familiars are allowed to get close, the mahou can see it's that they're sprites in a 3D world, looking the same from all angles. This does not interfere at all with their ability to rake with their (presumed) talons ? even though they don't do an attacking animation, a 'slash' visual effect animates next to them.
Miho Inada	Yukihime is very very cold to the touch. She's literally snow and ice. Well, ish. The girl relaxes while Amy carries her a bit. At least its not a princess carry! Yukihime would so squeak at that. Either way, the mahou continues to look around as she watches a bit. She listens to Entraptra a bit, and blinks at the other girl's assessment. She takes a deep breath before hearing the squwacking. The mahou blinks a few times before she spins the naginata, and turns it into a bow. She gathers snow and ice into the notch, and a bolt of ice is formed. The mahou takes a deep breath, before aiming and firing. Flying enemies? She needs to change to her bow to deal with them. She fires shot after shot at the familiars. She shakes her head. "Can we ever get something a bit more...normal in a witch's world?", she asks. Yukihime stretches a bit as the wolves stay close to her. She shakes her wrist, and a third wolf comes out, moving over to Entrapta. "Wolves of the Capital, Defend.", she states, pointing to wolf guarding Entrapta. The wolf comes over, and settles close to Entrapta to protect her.
Mamoru Chiba	"I can punch ghosts," Tuxedo Kamen says as an offhand remark when Entrapta mentions she brought equipment for just in case ghosts. That's the sum totality of his contribution to that conversation, because he's trying to pay attention to their surroundings. He decides he wants to see if he CAN blow up the mountain, and R I P this is a situation where putting his hand on something is asking to get kicked in the mind. ''The ground usually isn't like that.'' Either way-- He gets kicked in the mind, inhaling sharply and whisking his hand away, hugging it to his chest for a second. And then he takes a breath and reaches to touch it again, saying grimly and quietly, "We'll make it fast for you, brave one." At any rate, they also make it fast to the top, once Entrapta's done and Mamoru can transport her. He sets her down between himself and Amy, then turns-- and his eyes widen behind the mask. "Tuxedo Glittering Rose Bomber!" he yells, and flings out an arm to loose a spray of magic-breaking roses at the familiars.
Entrapta	Well. Getting carried to the top while trying to code ends up missing a few keys, and the end product turns out to not work. "Could I just...thank you," she says, as Mamoru sets her down. Someone said 'get behind us' and she kind of rubs her head, looking into her screens, and mumbles, "Not now, I'm working." She recorded the sound of the glitches, and is trying to hear them. Slowed down, enhanced. So when things start attacking, she kind of stands there like a complete target. Exactly what Mamoru was worried about!!! He's so smart! Wisdom over Intelligence. "This isn't really sound, it's just a machinery noise," she says as a wolf walks past her, unnoticed. Then she quickly adjusts her handheld, and starts walking off in some other direction entirely. Just in time to avoid the spray of magic, which makes her pause. Look around. "Did I miss something?" Just as a glitch bird attacker comes down at her, and a wolf leaps upward to meet it mid-air. Pause. "Nah." Back to work, then.
Amy Faust	"What is 'normal'?" Amy wonders. "I showed you my Familiars in the Zone. At least, they're what I imagine from Hinoiri's description. Were they 'normal'?" Arrows and wolves and roses make quick work of the remaining Familiars before they even reach melee range, fortunately. Deep within the mountain, for those who can sense such things, there is? an emptiness. A place where something great should be, but nothing is. There's a sense of self-hatred, but not directly ? more like the feeling of ''watching'' someone pace, cursing themselves, through a thick window. Shards of that feeling are spread out through the inside of the mountain. Familiars? The Witch (spread out, somehow?) Just part of the Labyrinth? How could you tell? Moving deeper into the cave, one might notice runes scorched into the rock: https://radiantheartmush.com/images/b/ba/Iron-friend-witch-inscription.png it's hard to read. Does anyone understand these? "Am." Amy looks surprised to be able to read even such a short word, and points to it, the second word in the inscription. She can't make heads or tails of the rest of it, though. Up ahead, you glimpse where the interior of a massive cavern lined with metal and purple crystals has been filled with the innards of some great, nonsensical machine of metal and crystal; Splotches of purple metal and crystal exude from the walls, forming hazardous spikes or attached to mechanical traps like spinning buzzsaws; giant gears and pistons threaten to crush those caught in an unlucky position or with poor timing while being necessary platforms to traverse the space. Vision is briefly obscured by the title card. You can't read it--it's not even runes, the text is glitched pixels--but there is certainly a sense of something like THIS-IS-THE-LAST-LEVEL-BEFORE-THE-FINAL-BOSS ZONE ACT 3 BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Y18c-6XCI the title card's components slide away to the sides of your vision, and the platforming challenge of your lives lies ahead! ...Except that the crystal responds to Mamoru being so done with this. It's like? like that's the trigger, for a replay of this place being destroyed. The metal and crystal bends and warps, pushed aside as if Magneto refused to play this game and made a beeline for whatever's past it all. Or maybe it's a delayed response to Tuxedo Mask's desire to blow it all up? There's a walkable path now, bits of platform, stopped gears, and such making a walkable path down that doesn't even require carrying. Out in the 'level' proper, Familiars like tin soldiers mutter in a language no one can understand. If people tarry too long, they start trying to get into path that's been made. Twisted metal and crystal block the Familiars' way, fortunately. For now. "..." Amy shakes her head. "Something new every time. There was that other one with no gravity and it did a damn ''cutscene'' to get us to the Witch. I'll take... not having to do ''that''" she nods at the machinery beyond the improvised 'walls' of the tunnel they're in, "over doing it, though!" Unless someone has a compelling reason not to, she starts making her way down the path, running when the Familiars start trying to get onto it.
Miho Inada	Yukihime laughs a little bit. "Yeah, Miburo says he's not doing that again. He said witches are the opposite of natural.", she laughs. The girl shakes her head a little bit as she stretches out. "Are you doing ok, Mask?", she asks Mamo. The girl stretches out a little bit as she looks over at Entrapta. "Umm, so I make a wolf grab the back of her shirt, and drag her?", she asks the group. "Either way, faster we get home, the faster I get to the snacks. Faster to snacks, the faster Red beats me in fighting games again.", she tells. The girl pulls out a pair of earbuds, and puts one in. She watches Entrapta..."Actually, Maybe I should put 2 more wolves on Entrapta...", she thinks about.
Mamoru Chiba	"Maybe get a couple of wolves to herd her along? Not grab her, just, you know, nudge her in the right direction," Tuxedo Kamen says with a sigh. "That'd be great. Then I can help fiOH MAN come on Entrapta--" Yeah they're tarrying too long, and Mamoru unceremoniously scoops Entrapta up and runs after Amy with her. They do not need an army of tin soldiers to-- "There's nothing in the middle, Amy! What does that mean? There's no ''there'' there-- there's nothing in the mountain at all, even though that should be its heart--"
Entrapta	Whoop! Entrapta was not expecting to be moving again, and thankfully she's not exactly a big girl. Petite. She drops a few pieces of gear as she goes, which makes her shudder more than the unexpected transportation method! "I was trying to copy down something...nevermind, I'll remember it..." She bites her lip, committing things to memory as she watches things fly past. She moves her goggles so she can see, and loses them down a hole that they jump over. Then looks ahead at where they're actually GOING and her breath catches in her throat. "When did THAT happen?!?" Oh good, Entrapta has noticed the chaos.
Amy Faust	Once you're more than halfway down the tunnel, the scenery starts glitching again, but it's still traversable, and there's an unglitched area up ahead. The sound of machinery fades to an eerie silence. ...which is filled by a soft, repetitive sound coming from all around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8b3EEZ1-Mo "What do you mean there's nothing?! Entrapta it's dangerous, ''please'' stay with us and focus!" Amy shouts back, still running, worried that the glitch they're running on might become intangible at any moment. At the end of the glitch-tunnel, the party enters a large, stone-and-metal chamber, having finally made it all the way through the great machine. The floor and the near wall are metal, but the rest of the cave is unworked stone. A great, off-center, perfectly circular hole in the ceiling extends through tens of meters of rock, the night sky and from one angle, the moon, shining down to illuminate the center of the room. Although the moon flickers in and out, and the sky flickers between midnight-blue and the colorful miasma from before. There's nothing. For a few seconds, there's nothing here. "I..." Amy looks around in confusion. "There can't be ''nothing'', there has to be a Witch somewhere!" "...Right?" "..." And then a chunk of the wall shatters as out comes... She's made up of metal balls about as wide across as those physical therapy balls one can sit on; unpolished, dark grey metal, each with two pairs of insectoid metal legs, one oriented below and one above, with less than two-dozen such segments (you don't have time to calmly count) connected in a line, reminiscent of a centipede or something, except there's no tail and the head-segment is truncated at the base -- instead of the giant centipede-head you'd expect, there's a holoprojected 2D silhouette of a girl, in an ever-shifting rainbow of colors; negative space for stylized eyes and mouth allow for expression, but she mostly just seems angry, sad, frustrated, despairing... and although it ''looks'' like a 2D flat projection in the air, the angle of the silhouette ''does'' change depending on viewing angle, as it would if it were an attached 3D head. She skitters out into the boss arena, rears up, and screeches in inchoate despair as her name briefly imposes itself upon your vision: https://radiantheartmush.com/images/f/fc/Iron-friend-witch-name.png BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVw9kYvbRgc There's a sound from the tunnel behind you, too, a dozen tin soldiers running down the path. This is it! Boss fight! Amy, for her part, readies her launcher and fires a few 84mm HEAT rounds to test the Witch's defenses -- she rocks ''slightly'' from the impacts, but isn't going down easy! Her 'head' briefly disappears, the holo-emitter firing a heat ray sweeping across the room -- Amy barely dodges. "Woah!"
Miho Inada	Yukihime chases after the group. She doesn't have the super speed that everyone else has, but she does run quite a bit outside of henshin. While she's running, she flicks her wrist, and 4 more wolves appear. They surround Mamo and Entrapta in a protective pentagram formation. She summons another 3 more wolves, giving Yukihime 3 wolves, Amy a Wolf, and Mamo a wolf. And yet, Yukihime doesn't seem to be flagging. If anything, she seems to be moving faster a bit. Yukihime doesn't seem to be keeping track of her wolves, since all 10 are out. The girl shakes her head a little bit. "Silly question, but does anyone have a baseball bat? We could just end the fight by hitting a few of the balls out of her, right?", she asks. Yukihime changes her bow to her naginata, watching the Witch a bit. The wolves do stay close by Entrapta if Mamo puts her down, but he also has his own wolf at the moment to help protect him. Like he needs it..."I mean, it is the final boss, right?"
Mamoru Chiba	"I mean it's hollow! There's no psyche, no-- I mean I still got kicked hard when I tried to touch it, but it's... everything is at a remove, there's nothing ''here''," Tuxedo Mask calls back to Amy, setting Entrapta down again, then taking off his cape and putting it on her. "Lots of things going to keep exploding. Please take readings on what Yukihime is doing, if her estimate of her magic was wrong?" Then he just grabs hold of Entrapta's shoulder to keep her in place, and he pulls his fist in close to his chest, then flings his arm out and his glowing extended hand, and he shouts, "Tuxedo la Smoking Bomber!" And wow, yowch, sometimes when you open with a finisher it's enough to level a city block.
Entrapta	Entrapta peers. "Of course her estimate is wrong," she says as she looks at Mamoru. "She's got ten out now and is moving FASTER. That's a logical inconsistency already." She sighs, then hides under the cloak. Is that a gamestation portable she's adapted for magical work? nah. yes. maybe. Honestly at this point does it matter? She's go stuff that goes beep. Some of it may actually be transmitting. "No, you can't create the singularity. It's not actually a target situation, it's a moving zone of irregular constants..." Yeah, she's doing things. She looks up at the pentagram of wolves though. "Calliopie, can I get a deep scan on the puella frequencies? Thanks." She sticks out a small metal rod from her hiding place, and sighs. "Yeah, I know. Just do your best with what we've still got." She'll shout out anything relevant, but for now assume Entrapta In Hiding.
Amy Faust	She's got ten out now-- "Wait, ''what?!''" Amy glances that way but NO TIME, centipede Witch! She looks back at the Witch just in time to duck another heat-beam. She conjures her rifle and fires a few shots, then moves up to 84mm cannonballs to test Yukihime's theory. The Witch ''does'' rock from the impacts, but doesn't break apart-- and also, this is how they find out that because of its legs it can easily ''roll'' side-to-side as well as make normal centipede-type movements. Puella frequencies? "What??" Amy glances over, and fires an HE shell followed by homing rocket-bullets to take out some Familiars making their way toward Entrapta. The wolves get the rest, those not watching Entrapta go for the Witch, and while some got melted by those heat beam sweeps, grabbing the Witch's legs with their teeth ''does'' restrain her movement and hurt her! She screeches in frustration and pulls at them, flailing the rear of her body about trying to smash them-- But explosives, cannonballs, arrows, wolves, and a big ol' blast of Earth, of the feeling of the world and its life and love all so antithetical to the Witch, are together enough -- the projected face screams and the projection flickers and stops as the 'centipede' body shudders and begins to collapse-- --and Witch and Labyrinth both ripple and fade from vision, and the mahou find they're back in the entrance of an alley next to an apartment building in Mitakihara. Amy breathes out a sigh of relief, striding over to pick up the grief seed where the Witch was, touching it to her soul gem and watching in relief as the corruption is drawn out into the grief seed, leaving her soul a pure ruby red again. "Thanks, everyone...!"
Mamoru Chiba	"Thank you for not dying," Mamoru tells Entrapta fondly as he takes his cape back. He turns and looks back to Yukihime and smiles a little crookedly. "Thank you for your wolves looking out for us." And then he looks back to Amy and gestures vaguely, "The way your magic reads to Entrapta." Then he looks back to Entrapta and says, "Sorry you lost a lot of equipment. Do you need a ride home? I'm still in henshin, and you lost enough gear I can teleport us."
Miho Inada	Yukihime watches as her wolves restrict the movements of the Witch while covering Entrapta. She lets Amy handle the offense while she focuses on defense. She takes a few deep breathes, and soon finds the fight is over almost as soon as it began. She blinks a few times before looking over at everyone. "Witches. They never make any sense...", the mahou says. The air around Yukihime seems to be getting a bit colder. After they get back, Yukihime changes back to Miho, and nods her head a bit. She stretches a little bit, and shakes her head a bit. She seems a bit...more energized. Not quite tired, as the beads come back to her wrists. She offers a tiny nod. "Hey, can we grab a pizza on the way back?", she asks...Yeah, she's a bit hungry...
Entrapta	Entrapta-chan gets up, then tosses her last bit of gear into a nearby trash can. "It's the data that matters," she admits as she does so. She apparently has that stored. In the cloud. The brain cloud. Or a flash drive, that also makes sense. "Puella magic works within very specific frequencies of magical expectation, I can show you my analyses.." she starts to explain. But it's too much for right now, and she looks at Mamoru, waiting. "Miho, I have readings on your magic you should see. Touch base once I've had time to correlate it with the standards and you've eaten..." She nods, then takes Tuxedo Mask's hand. Poof? Probably poof. Everyone poof. "It was fun," she says, beaming. So much data to parse. #nerdyay. See? I'm learning.
Amy Faust	> Witches. They never make any sense. "Miki-san's was musical. Mizu Melona-san's was surrounded by melons. Both had Familiars that seemed to represent friends." Amy states plainly. "I wonder if those of us who felt othered or alienated by humanity become Witches with automaton traits?" Amy shrugs. "But..." Amy looks down at the grief seed. "They probably only make sense if you knew the person in life." She slips it into her right belt pouch and dehenshins, hugging Miho. "Pizza sounds great. I know a place around here. Their pizza's even good when it's cold leftovers..." She smiles at Entrapta too. "I'd love to see your readings! Um, next time I see you? Bye! And thanks again Mamoru!" She waves as they teleport off, and then turns and lead Miho back across the streets to where all those restaurants are...