Magical Girls and Chtulutech ch.4 (Patreon)

Chapter 4: Dark Alleys and Dark Spawns

Iroha, or rather her alter ego Last Cinder, flew through the air, technically on an impromptu patrol. She had been so excited that she had gone off without a thought, which was quite embarrassing in hindsight. She wasn’t a twelve years old suddenly gaining magical powers.

She was a twenty years old thrill seeker who just gained magical powers beyond the hedge mage tricks she had going on previously. Not much of an improvement, but still.

She channeled her embarrassment into something constructive: getting used to her new powers and gear.

She had already used Physicality and Celerity in the basement of Pentos HQ. One made her a lot stronger and tougher, the other allowed her to go faster and enhanced her reflexes, to the detriment of lowering the “impact” of her actions. While magic didn’t strictly follow the laws of physics, it still had to abide by them in most ways. The softening of Celerity was created to make sure a physically weak user wouldn’t splatter themself on a wall.

Yet, there were two other schools of magic her awakening as a Luminary had unlocked inside her.

First, there was the reason she had caught the Everburning’s attention: she had a strong affinity for fire, equally as strong as the one for Physicality.

Second, she also had a slightly bit weaker affinity for Force magic, which was basically Telekinesis.

She had Gaia and Ste’ve’s blessings which made her harder to put down.

And then, there was her Outfit and Implement. She was really thankful for the info dump in her head letting her know what they did too.

While all Luminary Outfits gave protection to almost everything with a defense that grew with the magical girl’s power, some Outfits had additional properties, like stocking more magic or increasing casting speed.

Iroha’s dark-colored Outfit allowed her to heal from wounds she inflicted, basically giving her a HP drain, and filling her magic back up if she was unwounded.

In the same vein, Implements were casting tools that had different effects depending on the Luminary. iroha’s gauntlets and greaves allowed for better magic channeling into her extremities, meaning more strength, and turning most spells into short-range, explosive variants.

Iroha saw all the options she had, and all together it painted a picture of a raging berserker running head first into danger, and leaving fire and destruction behind her.

And she couldn’t even argue because outside of the blessings, everything else was an extrapolation of her soul.

She remembered all the times she snapped, like that time she had wanted to blow the whistle on a teacher giving better grades to students who gave him “favors”, and she had been discouraged to do so when she brought it to her homeroom teacher.

She had punched the prick in the face, downloaded everything she had on social media, and reported the pedo to the police.

She had been expelled for “tarnishing the school’s reputation and assaulting a teacher.” She had never regretted a second of it.

Among other examples, there was of course the more recent one when she infiltrated a mega corporation’s underground base, and blew up their security to save a magical girl.

Iroha was self-aware enough that she could only blame herself for having a brute’s powerset when she was the one headbutting walls and picking fights.

So, when her magical senses; amplified by her Luminary rebirth; triggered while she was exploring her powers, she turned toward the source without hesitation.

She threw herself off a building, the aura of her War Song spell flaring around her as she bounced between walls. That bit of supernatural parkour ended as she roll-landed in a dark alley.

There was a man, wearing worn and torn clothing, curled near a garbage bin. He was clearly sleeping, and having a nightmare if the shivering and his frowning expression were anything to go by. A homeless man among many that could be found in the City.

Surrounding him was a trio of monsters. They looked like living shadows, their shapes shifting from animal forms to smoky silhouettes intermittently. The only things consistent were their claws and fangs glinting in the dark.

They were close, poised to strike their unaware victim. Iroha’s landing made them snap their attention to her.

Iroha saw the scene, saw the beasts ready to feast on a defenseless man, and she saw red.

Magic was a thing of intent and emotions. Rituals and incantations were methods to put the caster in the right mindset to cast a specific spell, but not the only ones. Technically, one could cast with just their thoughts, but a “trigger” made it smoother, which made runes, incantations and gestures some of the most effective and swiftest casting methods.

When Iroha threw a punch, still meters away from the man-eating shades, her rage and magic flew through her limb. The motion carried the intent of a strike aimed at an enemy. A punch was a primal action of might. Her gauntlet served as a perfect conduit for the magical energy. 

A shimmering plane of Force magic the size of a trash can lid, almost invisible even to those attuned to magic, shot out of her fist, traveled the distance and slammed into one of the creatures before it could think to dodge.

It was sent flying against a wall. Its brethren hissed at Iroha. The Luminary under the name of Last Cinder glared back and ran towards the shadowy monsters.

Her augmented strength saw her reach the first monster in a blur of movement. It tried to strike her face. Its claws screeched against her raised gauntlet. Its twin swiftly followed in a jab that smashed into the beast’s face.

The second monster came from Iroha’s flank in a biting lunge that would have caught her ribcage, had she not jumped back.

The first monster recovered from the jab and bared its fangs at Iroha. The third monster, the one that had been sent flying, had gotten up, and joined back its brothers. They attacked as one.

Iroha backed away, focusing on dodging, shifting her aura from Physicality to Celerity. Changing magic on the fly should have used more focus, but Those two schools of magic used the same aura to bolster the user, making it easy to switch from one to the other.

She jumped above a bite aimed at her thigh. Mid-air, she flipped away from a claw strike. Landing, she weaved around a flurry of bestial attacks.

“Hahaha!” A laugh echoed in the alley.

iroha was laughing, feeling a thrill surge through her.

She suddenly flipped the situation around, closing in on the shadowy monsters. She switched to Physicality, enhancing her strength as she unleashed a haymaker that folded a monster over her armored fist. At the same time, she tested out her gauntlet’s functionality, channeling her Fire magic for the first time.

The shadow beast was torn in two by the point-blank, fiery explosion that was unleashed through Iroha’s limb.

The other two monsters backed off at the sight.

As for the darkly-clothed Luminary, she gazed at her smoking arm before another laugh spilled from her mouth.

“oh oh! I’m going to have so much fun with this.” Her smile was all teeth. The monsters turned tail and ran.

“No, you don’t!”

With a sudden bout of inspiration, Iroha channeled the same fiery explosion as before, this time through her greaves just as she started running after the fleeing beasts.

The blast sent her flying through the air as planned. What was not planned was her inexperience with the sudden force, making her flip through the air like a thrown shuriken instead of flying straight like an arrow.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!” Thinking on the fly, she once more switched to Celerity to accelerate her mind.

She was still flipping through the air like a rag doll, but now she could keep track of things.

She was just above her targets. She aimed a gauntlet in the opposite direction  of her spin before letting loose a blast of Fire magic, stopping her rotation.

She redirected herself until she was facing the beasts and used her new dynamic mean of locomotion to propel herself down.

She landed knees first on the spine of one of the running monsters. The beast was flattened and the concrete under it cracked from the impact of a ballistic magical girl crashing into it.

The last monster didn’t stop to mourn its brethren. It reached the end of the alley.

Iroha sent a wave of Force magic with a swing of her arm. It slammed into the shadow, making it stumble, yet it kept going. 

Just as it turned the corner, an arrow of ice lodged itself in its head. 

Iroha blinked. The monsters were dissolving, fading away like the shadows they were. The sounds of footsteps brought her attention back to the mouth of the alley as another girl walked in.

She had blue hair and wore a blue trench coat over a grey and black jacket and pants combo. In her hands was a bow with another arrow of frozen water forming into the notch. She also had a very impassive face, making it hard for Iroha to guess what the other girl was thinking about. But she clearly was another Luminary.

The blue-haired magical girl brandished her bow. Iroha went back on guard, synapses ready to fire at a moment's notice to dodge the projectile.

The arrow flew over Iroha’s head to lodge itself in the body of a beast that had lunged at the back of her head.

The redhead finally noticed the other shadows hanging on the walls. The same kind of monsters were crawling over the walls, most likely attracted by their companions’ fight.

“Dark Spawns always come in numbers. Get ready, newbie.” The other Luminary had the time to comment before the horde fell on them.