Chapter 2: The Dark Evangel
Fate watched as the girl opened her eyes, darting around in surprise, before focusing in on Fate's face. There was a tinge of anxiety within their golden glow, but it faded as the girl put on a bit of a half smile. "Mistaken identity you say? Who did you think I was?"
"Not who, but what. I thought you were a Witch, and this a Witch's World. It seems I was mistake. My apologies. My name is Tomoe Mami, a Magical Girl contracted to Kyubey. You said your name was…Fate-san? What is this "Time Space Administration Bureau?" The girl continued to smile, faintly, but genuinely. Fate lowered Bardiche from her neck, and returned it to device form.
"The TSAB is in charge of administering all of dimensional space, we do not have explicit authority over Earth, though we have experience with the planet. I lived here...there for a while, actually. I don't know what these "Witches" you refer to are though. Bardiche, have you ever…" A bone shattering roar interrupted Fate's questions, and she saw Mami's eyes dart over her shoulder, and her face go deathly pale. Turning around, she sees what shocked the girl so much. Up in the sky there was a...hole, a jagged gash in the fabric of reality itself, revealing not blackness, but a sickening nothingness behind it. Even the bizarre, distorted colorscape of interdimensional space couldn't compare to the shear wrongness this hole in reality revealed. As she looked, creatures, monsters like she'd never seen before began to emerge from the void. First one, then another, and finally a torrent that seemed unending.
Mami had watched the sky rip itself open, something that seemed more wrong than the most bizarre, perverted Witch's World she'd ever seen. Her shock must have appeared on her face, because before she said anything Fate had spun around to look behind her. As the monsters started to pour from the rip in reality, Mami stood up at last. "Well, Fate-san. It seems that we may have a larger problem on our hands now."
The monsters were a dark grey color, with dull crystals embedded across their bodies. Every so often the crystals would flash iridescently, but they mostly stayed dark. The creatures had two legs, and no forelimbs, heads filled with inches long fangs, and whipping tails. Mami and Fate took in these details in a moment as they opened fire with long range attacks. Mami firing her muskets as fast as she could summon them, Fate opened up with a barrage of Plasma Lancers that devastated the opening ranks. But the monsters emerged from the rift faster than they could be destroyed.
Fate and Mami's battle raged, the monsters scales were no match for Bardiche's blade, but their sharp teeth and claws could slice right through barrier jackets. Fate had several gashes on her arms, while Mami had taken what could be a serious injury to her right leg, but still they fought. But no matter how many of the monsters they killed, even more spilled out of the tear in the very fabric of space. The two fought like old comrades, cleanly slipping into roles that were clearly quite familiar to them both. Mami kept up her supporting fire, making sure to take out the monsters that seemed most dangerous at any given moment. Fate had transformed Bardiche back into Zanber form, and was cutting a swath through the creatures at close range, while simultaneously using ranged magic to back up Mami's efforts.
"Mami, get close to my back!" Mami backed up against the older girl, when Fate sensed she was close enough, she raised Bardiche high in the air her magic circle erupting on the ground beneath them. "THUNDER RAGE!" Fate's yell pierced through the constant, unrelenting growl of the monsters, and from the tip of Bardiche's blade, golden lightning erupted all around the two girls, each bolt destroying a monster. the lightning cleared a large circle on the rooftop, but it wasn't enough. Almost as soon as the lightning vanished, the creatures rushed in and engaged the girls once again.
"Fate-san, we have to close that hole, somehow" Mami called out, as she blew two of the monsters out of the sky. "Do you have any magic that can do that?" Despite her wounded leg, she twisted out of the way of a tail swipe and blew the monster away from close range.
"I have something that might work, but it takes a while to set up, I don't think you can keep these things off of me long enough to do it. Even using Thunder Rage again won't work, I can't go from one to the other without stopping for a moment. You don't have any abilities like that do you?" Mami indicated that she didn't, as Fate sliced three of the creatures in half with her Zanber. "If we could just stop them for a minute, I think I can stop them. But as it is, I can't even get into the air without them piling onto me."
"Oh, you need these stopped do you?" An unknown voice rang in Fate's head, glancing over at Mami, she seemed to have heard it as well, judging by the way she was looking around confused. "I think I can handle that, Midchildan Battle Mage. Then you can seal the breach. But first you are going to want to put up a barrier for yourself and your friend. Its about to get very cold around here." The voice was very young sounding, younger even than Mami, yet had an air of authority in it, it reminded Fate of her mother, a little bit. Both her mothers, now that she thought of it. It was a voice that expected obedience.
"Mami, stay close to me, I'm going to put up a barrier, but it won't hold for long against these things, so hopefully whoever that is knows what they are talking about." Holding Bardiche in her left hand, she throws her right hand forward, a yellow magic circle forming in the air. "Protection!" Fate and Bardiche's voices echo against each other. A transparent yellow dome forms over the girls, causing several of the monsters to bounce off, but they immediately start clawing at it. "Whoever you are, do whatever it is you're going to do, fast!"
"I'm right here, so don't get your panties in a twist." In front of the barrier, a young girl floats down from the sky. Wearing an incredibly short black dress, golden blonde hair billowing about, her bare feet not quite touching the ground, she looks over her shoulder, brilliant blue eyes glowing. "The Dark Evangel is here to save your pretty little behinds, so watch and learn!" with that she smiled, and Fate could see that inside her mouth were two fanged incisors.
The girl started to chant, "Lic Lac La Lac Lilac!" The word that followed were in a language Fate had never heard before, but somehow she was able to understand them anyway. "To Sumbolaion Diakonētō Moi, hē Krustallinē Basileia! Epigenēthētō, Taiōnion Erebos, Haiōnie Krustalle! Pasais Zōais ton Ison Thanaton, hos Ataraxia!", "Heed the Contract and Serve Me, Queen of Ice! Come, Unending Darkness, Eternal Glacier! Bring Death to All That Has Life, Eternal Rest!". As the girl chanted, cold wind started to blow all around, the chill penetrating even into Fate's barrier. By the end of the chant, ice had formed, and covered the entire building. The monsters themselves were freezing, forming a huge sheet of ice stretching across the roof, and down the sides of the building, the monsters falling out of the sky, huge chunks of ice with monsters embedded in them crashed to the ground, and into the roof of the building.
Fate realized she'd seen this once before, over ten years ago, at the end of the Book of Darkness incident. But then it required a special device, built solely for that purpose, it should be impossible for someone to do this spell unaided. It was perhaps even more powerful than the Durandal's Eternal Coffin, as impossible as that was to believe. As these thoughts rushed through her head, all the monsters had been frozen, there was even a solid sheet of frozen monsters leading up to the tear in the sky. Finally, the girl turned towards them, and smiled, those fangs glinting in the light. She snapped her fingers "Kosmikē Katastrophē!", "The End of the World!". With those last words, the ice shattered, destroying all the monsters in a single moment. A rain of ice particles falls around the three girls, all traces of the creatures pulverized from existence.
Fate dropped her barrier, "Bardiche, Sealing Form!" Bardiche transformed into a mode she hadn't used in many years, golden wings of light sprouted from the shaft, the blade portion rotating upwards. Putting her left hand up towards the rip in reality, a large magic circle forming before her. Whispering a brief incantation, she thrusts Bardiche into the magic circle. "TRIDENT SMASHER!" three huge beams of energy shoot towards the gash, which begins to glow with a golden light. After a few moments, the light fades, revealing the teal tinted sky, unmarred by the evil looking gash. With a grunt of breath leaving her body, Fate slumps to her knees.
"Fate-san, are you alright?" Mami limps over to Fate, heedless of her own injury.
"I'm fine, just a bit winded. We really need to be concerned about you. Unfortunately I'm not very good at healing magic." Mami looks down at her leg, and suddenly seems to realize how bad it actually is. With this realization the pain comes back to her as well, as if her lack of knowledge had prevented the pain from registering at all.
They mysterious girl walks over to them, her bare feet crunching the ice remaining on the rooftop. "Well, this is a fine mess, isn't it? I try to visit my resort, and instead I find myself here, in the middle of a raging battle. Though you two should be glad, you wouldn't have lasted much longer without my help." The girl had an insufferably smug tone to her voice, though in fairness, she was right. "Oh, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Evangeline A.K. McDowell, The Dark Evangel, also know as Maga Nosferatu, the High Daylight Walker. Who are you?"
Fate and Mami just stared at her in shock.