Time for the first real battle!

To The Bathroom and Beyond

00:05:59

00:05:58

Kaede ran around the empty bathroom several times trying to find somewhere to hide. There were no closets that she could curl up inside. The stall doors were nearly a foot off the ground meaning anyone could see her armored feet and then they would know something was up. Normal people did not wear armor suits into work, unless you were aunt Karen apparently.

Kaede briefly wondered why her aunt was wearing armor, but decided it was unimportant. It was probably for some promotional material or something.

Kaede took a breath and refocused on the task at hand. She decided to check if she had time to find a new room to hide in.

00:00:53

Nope! Kaede rushed into a stall, by coincidence the stall at the end of the row with a very nice window looking out onto the city of Tokyo. She sat down and pulled her legs up to her chest. She wanted to cry, but she did not have much experience with crying. She had to do something, her anxiety demanded that she do something.

She could stay here, crouched in a ball on the toilet seat, so nobody would see her legs. The seat part was a little loose, but she was sure everything would be fine. The seat was a little uncomfortable now being at an angle to the bowl from the way Kaede was crouched on top of it, but she could handle a little discomfort. She just had to hold this position for the next ten or twenty or thirty hours.

Yep! Everything would be fine. She just had to wait out her transformation however long that would take and then everything would be back to normal.

00:00:12

Kaede screwed her eyes shut and waited counting down from twelve in her head.

She reached zero and for several seconds nothing happened. She opened her eyes. She was herself.

00:00:02

Kaede realized she had counted down too quickly.

00:00:01

00:00:00

Dark crimson light bathed the bathroom, painting the walls of the stall the color of dried blood. Kaede whimpered as her armor returned to her, coating her limbs in quarter inch thick plates of mystery metal. Her bladed shield appeared on her back.

She noticed that the compact that she had in a pocket of her skirt was now attached to a belt on her armor. She guessed this was the armor's way of dealing with magical items during transformation.

There was a creak. The toilet seat that had already been at a bad angle to the bowl of the toilet strained under the weight of a heavily armored teenager.

Kaede looked down. The floor was slightly damp. She had not noticed this detail when she initially got on the toilet. She hoped the dampness was just from a mop. It was probably just from a mop.

There was a crack and Kaede jumped. If she was going to fall off a toilet seat in a bathroom with a wet floor, she was going to land on her feet.

She may have underestimated her own strength when she kicked off. Her foot went right through the toilet bowl spilling definitely less than clean water onto the damp floor. Kaede quickly retreated not wanting to let any more of the water touch her than she had to.

The water was between herself and the stall door. She looked around and saw the window to Tokyo proper. The window was set in a kind of recess in the wall. There was enough of a shelf in front of the window that she could sit on it. She would be safe from the toilet water up there.

She did her best to haul herself up, but in the process her horns scraped against the glass making an awful noise until at last a piece of the glass cracked and one of her horns went through.

Kaede looked at the broken window and broken toilet seat with horror. She had not even gotten accepted to work at Armagadoon yet and already she was causing what easily must be tens of thousands of yen in damages.

Seeing the cracked window, the ground not too far below, and with a magical compact still on her person, Kaede thought she might just have an idea.

Using her shield she smashed the glass to create an opening. Then with a massive amount of effort she climbed onto the window sill, her armor protecting her from the glass.

Awkwardly balancing on the window sill she detached the compact from her belt, but she underestimated her new weight and nearly fell back onto the floor covered in toilet water. She may have overcorrected ever so slightly in her hurry to get away as she felt her weighed down self becoming weightless.

There was no time to activate her second layer of armor ability. She barely had time to even think the words 'fall damage' before a big white rectangle sitting on the ground, what might have been the trailer of a huge truck, became a white rectangle with a hole in the middle.

She briefly registered the sight of several metal barrels lined up neatly in a rectangle inside the trailer before with a loud shrieking sound she found her fall slowed and stopped.

Her front felt a little bruised and her vision was nothing but the faintly glowing green contents of a barrel and she could feel the torn metal of neighboring barrels keeping her arms and legs pinned.

She could feel something wet around her neck where her fanged helmet met her gorget. The wetness was making her itch and Kaede wanted to scream in frustration at being completely stuck. She probably would not have screamed very loud or in a very menacing manner if she had been able to open her mouth that wide, but that soon became a moot point when as she opened her mouth she found herself sucking in a mouthful of what was presumably the itchy green goo.

She quickly closed her mouth and swallowed even as she could feel her tongue tingling and the inside of her mouth feeling funny. Her throat started to get scratchy, too. The green goo was really tasty though like a sweet and sour pepper jell-o.

Warnings started flashing in her HUD about a mild poison, a mild carcinogen, an irritant, and a mutagen. She ignored those warnings in favor of a much more interesting alert saying that her ability adaptive defense was engaged complete with a tiny bar saying 1% complete three times and then a set of instructions like for a tutorial for the adaptive defense ability appeared, though for some reason it was labeled as which she did.

The instructions explained that the ability would allow the user to adapt to a kind of attack by being exposed to it to which her response was 'duh', every player of New World Online knows that. The only useful part of the instructions was how to navigate to the screen for adapted defenses using a mixture of both her thoughts and eye movements where she could see the 1% bars for poison and carcinogens and a 1.5% for irritants. There was nothing about mutagens, but that was fine since mutagens were supposed to be a kind of permanent ability buff right?

After taking a moment to confirm that she was indeed unable to move her limbs and with the wet itchiness around her neck and starting to get a little worse, she figured she might as well focus on first getting rid of the itchiness, no doubt a result of her still not having an immunity to the goo's effects, and then dealing with being stuck. Without further ado she opened her mouth, noticing that her suit's mouth only opened if she opened her mouth all the way, and took in a small mouthful of the goo, much less than she had initially swallowed. This new information meant she could still breath so long as she kept her mouth mostly closed. At least, she hoped she would continue being able to breathe since her head was currently under the goo with no way as far as she knew to raise it up to get more oxygen into her helmet. She decided that was a problem for later for if she started to take damage from being effectively underwater for too long.

Her adaptive defense menu was still open and she watched as it only ticked up half a percent in response to her swallowing. What was interesting, was that her adaptive defense was technically activated for each category, something she could tell by the bar lighting up, so long as the goo was in contact with her mouth, but after she felt the goo go down her throat, the adaptive defense bars for poison and carcinogen both stopped glowing and the tiny decimal increases for irritant stopped rising as fast with irritant now being only at 2% and the others being at 1.25%. Given how itchy her body was getting, she needed the irritant bar to rise much faster. Everything would be easier once that number was at 50% or even just 20%.

Kaede opened her mouth again and took in a slightly larger mouthful, as large as she could comfortably hold in her mouth and waited while breathing in and out through her nose. She tried to ignore the itchiness by pretending she was listening to her teachers talk about something ridiculous like hazardous chemicals.

She was the unstoppable Maple. Hazardous chemicals were something that affected other characters. The zoning out sort of worked, but she still had to swallow and try again not long after she hit 15% resistance to irritants.

The idea of zoning out was fine, but she needed something more effective for tuning out the world and fast since the wet itchiness had started to spread to her chest and the front of her shoulders and upper arms.

She just had to think about something even more boring than useless warnings. On the plus side, she did not seem to be running out of air so long as she kept her helmet sealed, so her suit either had a way to store oxygen or a way to take it in from the surrounding environment.

While opening her mouth, she decided to try to focus on what her classmates would say about boys, not as friends, but rather about boys looking cute or handsome and things like that. She tried to think about what they must see in looking at famous actors and such, or at male models, but after a few minutes she just gave up. If she ever needed to understand what her classmates were talking about, she could just ask some of her NWO friends from Maple Tree who she knew liked boys like Chrome and Kasumi.

On a positive note, the wet itching had gone down a lot even if it was now covering most of her front and her resistance to irritants was up to 40%. She swallowed the mouthful of tasty jell-o and took in another mouthful, this time trying to think of a way out of her mess.

She first thought about her problem, she was stuck in her heavy armor which would not normally keep her from getting up, but now that she had made a Maple shaped hole in the stack of barrels, she did not have a way to move her limbs to get any leverage to get up. She had once managed to get stuck like this in NWO, but her friends had managed to dig her out. They dug her out, giving her the ability to move again and get her arms under her, so right now she needed more room to maneuver her limbs.

She tried moving her arms back and forth ever so slightly, but they were stuck pretty bad. She thought about what she had on her. Her hand was still holding the compact from when she had been considering summoning her Rose Shell One second layer of armor, what she guessed she could call her Over Armor, to hopefully protect her from the fall damage. The armor created a second layer of armor around her main armor, so that should be enough to push the metal of her prison away at least by a few mm in every direction. Then she could deactivate her Over Armor and use the space to reposition and then activate the Over Armor again. Then rinse and repeat until she was free.

She swallowed, noticing she was now up to 60% resistance to irritants. She kind of wanted to be at 100% in all of the resistances she could before leaving this tutorial zone since she would probably encounter mobs and bosses with poison attacks and there was no better counter in her experience than simple immunity. Her resistances to carcinogen and poison were both at a measly 25%. After doing some test swallows, she found that carcinogen and poison would both rise relatively quickly after taking a mouthful before their rate of increase dramatically slowed down and that the larger the mouthful, the longer they would increase.

She was also feeling a little hungry so she started to make a game of taking little mouthfuls of Jell-O and waiting for the initial burst to quickly finish before swallowing. She spent a few minutes just enjoying the flavor now that the itchiness was no longer anywhere near as distracting as it had been. As her stomach was finally happily full of the glowing green Jell-O sending all kinds of strange new sensations through her and her immunities at last reached 100% though now her entire body except for her head was feeling a little soggy even if it had stopped itching. For some reason her body, probably her body outside of the game world she was sure she was in, was feeling really funny, possibly even a little sick which would be annoying, but she also felt mostly fine and even a little stronger than usual.

She chose to ignore whatever was happening with her irl body and with some quick cries of "Rose Shell One Activate!" and "Rose Shell One Off!", Kaede began to wiggle free leaving even more spikey indentations in the floor and surrounding barrels. The metal floor of the trailer was taking an extra layer of punishment from the added weight and she could see it starting to bend and warp giving her even more room to maneuver and she could even see the goo levels lowering, likely falling through what must be holes in the floor.

With a final cry of Rose Shell One Activate, she found herself falling through a large Maple shaped hole in the floor. As she turned the armor off for a final time she found herself finally free with almost painfully bright sunlight shining down on the concrete beyond the cover of the vehicle.

Blood and Syrup

As her eyes adjusted she could see there were a bunch of people gathering around the trailer and there were voices out there as well. For some reason, two of the voices sounded vaguely familiar.

Hopefully nobody saw her fall out of the window and into the trailer.

"Do you think that person actually survived the fall?" asked one of the voices, one that sounded vaguely boyish.

So much for that. Hopefully they did not recognize her as Maple, the magical girl eating monster.

"I designed that monster armor suit and with the configuration that its new user has and from my own experiences trapped inside that thing, I'm sure the thief is still alive. I bet they are just scared to come out, either that or the various waste chemicals we had in there knocked them out."

Well, so much for that hope. Maple started to crawl towards the people who, given they were talking about designing monsters, she was starting to suspect were Agastia agents, something soon confirmed when she got a peek out from under the vehicle and could see a man and a woman in lab coats with red armbands. The woman had long red hair and the man shoulder length white hair and wolf ears. Maple recognized the red haired woman from the news as one of the Agastia monster makers who had gone missing several months ago during the invasion.

Maple was now sure she had heard that woman's voice the day she found the armor bracelet. This woman had designed the armor bracelet then? If Maple had any doubts about being an Agastia monster before, as the news suggested, those doubts were gone now.

Maple had been called a monster before, though she was honestly not sure why since she was just playing New World Online in her own special way just like countless other people were playing it in their own special way. She was not a monster.

So what if she had magic armor. That was cool. In fact, magical armor would allow her to be a hero of justice. Yeah! And here were some Agastia monster makers. Maple was going to defeat these two making her a hero and then she would not have to feel any guilt about taking a bite out of Magia Zwart! Magia Zwart had attacked her first anyway which was really rude, so it was partially Zwart's fault.

Kaede shook her head to dispel the guilt and tuned back into whatever the two villains were saying.

"Couldn't this rogue monster have just escaped? I mean we did take our time getting up here from the lab."

"You would think that, but the configuration being used by the thief is too heavily armored." How was Kaede a thief? Sure the bracelet did not belong to her, but it had just fallen into her bag. She did not steal it and even if she did, Agastia were evil. Everyone knew that! "The thief might as well be walking around in a giant metal coffin. There's no way she can run in that thing, and there's only one place to hide." said the woman gesturing at the truck Kaede was hiding under and the ever expanding pool of glowing green fluid leaking out of it.

The wolf boy looked at the pool taking a step back, "That looks like some of the stuff we had in the lab. What is it exactly?"

"It was a potent combination of stem cells from Lady Camula, some of Magia Zwart's blood, some nuclear waste, some…"

"Nuclear waste?!" shouted the wolf creature.

"Yeah? It's perfectly safe Wolfie Poo. There was a safety inspection and everything."

"Perfectly safe nuclear waste, hah haha ha, good one." The now named Wolfie Poo was looking at the woman for a few seconds with a slightly disturbed but hopeful expression. The expression soon morphed into just disturbed, "Why did we have something like that just lying around in the lab?"

"It wasn't just lying around." said the woman, "And it was part of the new Magical Girl research that our department is working on." Agastia were researching how to defeat magical girls?! "It was in the memo. You did read the memo right?"

Actually, that was not very surprising. They had been researching how to defeat Divine Swordsman Blader for a few years now without any success, so Kaede was honestly not worried at all about that even if Agastia did somehow get ahold of Magia Zwert's blood.

"I was about to when we got called up here to retrieve that thing. So what are the odds it's dead or at least unconscious from you know," said Wolfie Poo taking another step away from the growing pile of glowing green goo. "the whole falling into barrels of radioactive magical girl blood and vampire stem cells. That can't be healthy."

"I would say 50/50, but Lady Camula's cells and Magia Pilia blood do have a mutagenic effect."

"So it could be even stronger now?" asked Wolfie Poo.

"Maybe? Relax, this is the waste product from making the super serum. You know I wouldn't throw out any of Lady Camula's genetic material unless I absolutely had to." Super serum?! That was very bad news, or at least it would be if Agastia ever got around to defeating Blader. "It would have to basically chug half a liter of that stuff before we need to start worrying." Maple was sure she had drunk at least a liter. "And even then it will probably take a few days at least for any serious mutations to appear." Mutations meant buffs, sometimes debuffs, and almost always a new special ability. Maple was going to get buffs to her stats?! Awesome! Hopefully her Vitality will get a big increase, especially if it is something like another 1.15X multiplier.

Maple was also looking forward to whatever new special ability she would be getting. Hopefully she could use it with the abilities she already had to create yet another perfectly balanced combo.

"Yeah, feeling really reassured right now. We aren't seriously going to try to fight this thing on our own are we?"

"Of course not. I called in Hydra. Between the two of you, we should be fine."

"You're not going to help us?!"

"I make monsters, not fight them. I may know a few fighting moves, but nothing that will help against such a heavily armored opponent."

"So once Hydra gets here, we get this fight started and hope that the thing is unconscious, so we don't get our buts kicked by a mutant monster."

"Cheer up Wolfy. That thing in there has no offensive capabilities whatsoever. You'll be fine!"

"Magia Fluorite is here to fight for love and justice!" said a new voice as a magical girl Kaede had never seen before descended from the heavens. The girl had blue hair and blue eyes and was wearing a frilly purple dress with a short skirt and very long sleeves. The frills were pink as were tooth like protrusions on her sleeves and she wore a pink choker with what looked like a little fluorite heart in the center that was a beautiful mixture of blue and purple. Her boots were a little bulky and the soles of the boots emitted a soft glow and low pitched whine. In her hands was a wand with a fluorite heart at the tip.

"Love and justice really? And did we really have to go with the name Fluorite?" asked Wolfie Poo.

"But I like the name Fluorite. It's pretty." said this Magia Fluorite. Why was this magical girl just standing around talking to the villains? They should be fighting!

And then a new voice spoke from seemingly nowhere, "You aren't picking on our sister are you little doggie?"

"No, no. Just offering some constructive criticism." said Wolfie Poo, stepping away.

Another voice spoke, "Wolf is just upset because he can't fight for love and justice."

"I'm not letting anyone shove me into one of those frilly dresses!" said Wolfie Poo crossing his arms and glaring at, of all people, the red haired woman.

The second disembodied voice continued ignoring what Wolfie Poo said, "In order to fight for love and justice you'd have to actually have someone in love with you which you don't."

"Low blow, but I don't see you going on any dates with anyone." said Wolfie Poo turning his glare onto, of all people, Magia Fluorite. Were they perhaps not friends but friendly? Was Magia Fluorite here to help Agastia capture Kaede? And then a hydra would be showing up soon as well.

Kaede did not like her chances against so many enemies all at once. Hydras were serious business based on all the times she used them as a weapon against her enemies, and she was not in the game right now. This was real life where she could not summon hydra heads to fight for her.

"I'm simply waiting for the right person." said the second voice.

"Yes, the right person, that is one of my favorite excuses." said a third disembodied voice.

"Sisters, please don't fight!" said Magia Fluorite as she hugged herself.

"Yes, everyone please stay on target." said the red haired woman her eyes never once leaving the truck Kaede was under, "We can talk about most of the good gemstone names for magical girls being taken by our competitors AFTER we deal with this thief. Magia Fluorite, how're the boots and stabilizer working for you?"

Kaede did not want to know what these villains and this traitor magical girl were going to do to her. The villains still had not noticed her and were keeping their distance because of the growing puddle of goo or at least the wolf boy was. Magia Fluorite and the redhead did not seem to care. The two villains would also soon be getting an entire hydra as backup once it arrived from whatever lab, warehouse, kennel, or dark dimension Agastia was keeping it in.

What could Kaede do?

She had the mirror compact that apparently let her copy abilities, but were there any useful abilities around to copy?

She had three targets in front of her. The redhead was going to sit out the fight, because she was not much good at fighting. The wolf boy was an unknown, but he did have claws, so probably a close ranged combatant and he probably had sharp teeth as well. He might have some speed boosting abilities to help close the distance which would be great for escaping, but Kaede would only get one chance to copy an ability, because she would have to speak the activation phrase which would tip the three off to her being awake and ready for them, and Magia Fluorite could fly potentially neutralizing a speed boost, at least inside of a city like Tokyo.

Wolfie Poo was also afraid of the green goo meaning he could not actually close the distance with her unless she left the goo while Fluorite could just fly over the goo.

Kaede pointed her now opened stolen, that was to say taken as a spoil of war, compact at Magia Fluorite. Maple knew just how powerful flight was in a fight. It was the ultimate high ground. At least in video games, even a slow flying enemy could defeat almost any enemy on the ground with the right preparations and resistances so long as the enemy could not regenerate and Maple had all the resistance in the world. In just a few words she would become a flying turtle with teeth and then this traitor magical girl would learn what Maple did to magical girls who attacked her. Then there would be only one power in the sky with the others being unable to follow her easily and she would be able to escape.

"Mirror, Rose Heart One!" Maple said in as quiet a whisper as she could, holding the now opened compact towards her chosen enemy as a bright crimson light appeared. She chose heart over star or shell, because she was trying to copy a magical girl's flight and hoping this magical compact would copy the correct ability. She whispered in the hopes that she would not be heard even if the Agastia villains and the traitor did see the light from the compact.

Wolfie Poo's ear twitched, "I heard something. What's that?!" and dove in front of the redheaded woman claws out. So he was a melee fighter. He looked down at the goo at his feet and then started pushing the redheaded woman back.

Magia Fluorite stood her ground and raised her wand. "Fluorite Burst!" Maple saw the girl press some kind of button on the handle and a beam of blue, purple, and white light shot out striking the side of the truck and missing Maple by a lot.

"We're going to need to work on your aim, Fluorite." said the red haired woman.

"You think?!" cried Wolfie Poo.

At last the bright red light coming from the mirror disappeared, esoteric crimson runes danced over the cover of the device as the heart on the cover of the opened compact turned blue. Maple started crawling towards the other side of the truck to get away from her opponents.

When she got to the other side though she saw Magia Fluorite waiting for her wand pointed in her very general direction. "Fluorite Burst!" A beam shot out missing again.

Maple climbed out from under the truck shield in one hand and compact in the other. She held her compact aloft ready to fly away and make her escape. "Rose Heart One activate!"

Red glyphs lit up around the edge of the compact showing the charge left in the magical battery as four scarlet and amethyst draconic serpents burst from Maple's back and shoulders to glare at Magia Fluorite.

Maple looked between the serpent heads which turned to look at each other in confusion.

"Was that supposed to happen?" asked one head. Maple would call it Chocolate because it had pretty dark brown eyes and she occasionally liked chocolate syrup. The other three had light brown eyes, dark blue, and pink eyes so she would name them Caramel, Blueberry, and Strawberry respectively each after a wonderful flavor of syrup, even if maple syrup was her favorite.

"You're a hydra, like me!" said Magia Fluorite. There were tears in her eyes. So this was the hydra the Agastia people had mentioned. It must be a secret that the villains were using to blackmail her with. Hydras were not evil creatures even if they sometimes ate adventurers and the populations of entire towns. Those people would just respawn so it was fine. Agastia were evil though, using something so personal against this poor girl.

"I am." said Maple.

"You are?" asked Caramel, "Since when?"

"In fact some call me the Hydra Queen." mostly because she kept farming the Hydra Boss from one of the hardest dungeons on level one of New World Online and of course because she had a habit of using her hydra powers a lot, especially in pvp.

"I didn't know you were our queen. This is amazing!" said Blueberry. "I love you my queen!"

Magia Fluorite looked terrified before falling to her knees. "My queen." she muttered. She still held her wand but her hand was trembling, not really pointing at anything. "I always thought I was alone. That there weren't any other hydras in Japan or at least in the prefecture, but…" Was Fluorite crying? What had these Agastia monsters done to the poor girl?

"Get away from her Agastia scum!" said an all too familiar voice. Maple turned and there before her was a red and gray armored masked man with a sword, The Divine Swordsman Blader.

"Eep! I didn't mean to!" said Fluorite turning towards Blader and getting into a fetal position. She muttered in a voice so quiet that Maple could only barely hear the poor hydra say, "Please don't hurt me again, Divine Swordsman Blader! Just make it quick this time. It hurt so much the last four times."

Maple had heard enough and she stepped as quickly as she could between Fluorite and Blader which was not very fast. Part of her was dimly aware that this could be a trick by Fluorite, but even if it was, she expected Fluorite had as good a chance of hitting Maple as Blader and Maple was much better armored.

"I won't let you hurt her, you monster!" Was he calling Fluorite a monster just because she was a hydra?

"You don't like hydras do you?" asked Maple stepping towards Blader. She did not like the idea of fighting a hero, but at the same time Blader was not acting like much of a hero right now. How dare he hurt Magia Fluorite just because she was a hydra!

"Oh, he's asking for it!" said Chocolate with a growl.

"Oh yeah, we're going to mess you up whoever you are!" said Blueberry.

"Agreed," said Caramel as she coiled preparing to lunge.

Strawberry was meanwhile distracted licking up the green goo on the ground, "Thisss tassstess sssooo gooood! You all should try it!"

"No, I don't like hydras, and I definitely don't like Agastia monsters. Now, step away from the magical girl."

"You'll have to get through me to get to her!" said Maple, taking a step towards Blader and raising her big shield up to cover everything but her eyes as she watched her opponent.

"With pleasure! Blader Crush!" And Blader brought his divine sword down. Maple only barely managed to bring her shield up in time to block the lightning fast attack.

Maple felt herself pushed back an inch, but her shield held.

"You're pretty tough, I'll give you that." said Blader before diving to the side just barely avoiding two striking hydra heads, "But you're too slow. Buster Blade." he brought his sword down on Maple's right shoulder and she almost buckled from the force of the blow, but she dug her shield into the earth to stay standing. There was a notification for divine resistance and cutting resistance, but she could not focus on it. "How?"

And then she swung her shield back at him with all of her strength. She may be slow but she felt stronger than ever before. She was fighting for a purpose, to defend an innocent hydra maiden magical girl. The adrenaline was pumping and her great mass definitely added to her momentum. The bladed edges of her tower shield caught Blader in the side of his neck and she saw blood trickle out. Unfortunately damage came from force and was more about velocity than mass, one of the few lessons she had paid attention to in school in order to abuse the physics engine in NWO, but she had still drawn first blood.

"No way!" said Blader, stumbling back one hand loosely holding his sword and the other pressed against the cut on the side of his neck. Before he could make it more than a foot, a hydra head slammed into his arm. Caramel had scored a strike. The bite was shallow, mostly stopped by the spandex and plate of Blader's suit, but a drop of something purple dripped from the bite mark. The sword swung and two parts of Caramel dissolved into rose petals. Blader kept backing up.

"You won't reach her." said Maple, setting herself up as an indomitable barrier. Her three remaining hydra heads were all glaring at Blader, even Strawberry who was looking a little different from her sisters, different even than the last time Maple had looked at her. Was that a result of drinking the green goo? She would have to check later. Regardless, they were waiting for their next chance to lunge. Maple's shield was held high with only her eyes peeking over, but ready to be slammed into the dirt if Blader tried to get around her to strike her from the side again.

Blader hit hard. He might be able to beat her into the dirt by sheer force alone. Those Buster Blade attacks hit even harder than his incredibly strong Blader Crush even if they were also slower. Slower made little difference in a fight where your opponent was unable to dodge and it had taken Maple using her shield for support to keep from buckling under just a single Buster Blade.

Blader leaned on his sword, blood dripping down his collar and running in a thin stream down his breastplate. Then he was glowing bright yellow. Then he was flying towards her. "Master Blade!"

Maple raised her shield. She felt something impact her helmet and the next thing she knew she was on her hands and knees facing in the opposite direction. The top half of her shield was just gone and she was now down to just Strawberry and Blueberry. There was a notification that her divine resistance and cutting resistance had increased by 1% not that either would do any good. She would not survive another two strikes like that one, much less another twenty or fifty.

From where Maple was kneeling she could see that Fluorite was gone. She had escaped, hopefully she had flown somewhere safe and was not hiding nearby waiting for the fight to be over or worse hoping to get in a cheap shot at Blader. It would be suicide for the hydra girl. Maple did not like her odds of winning this round of pvp anymore, so she definitely did not want to drag another down with her.

Blader was standing before her, but his armor had changed. It had turned purple and gray and now covered more of his body. He had used a power up.

"Second Form: Master Blader!" cried Blader as he turned back towards Maple. She saw that his injured left hand was hanging limply. Did her hydra bites have a paralytic effect? How long would it take to defeat Blader or was it being purged from his system by the power up? Too many unknowns, but at least the cut on his neck was still bleeding. "I see that you are still standing. Very well. I would say prepare to meet your maker Agastia monster, but I can't risk something as dangerous as you being rebuilt. For what it is worth, I am sorry." Why was he apologizing? "Master Blade!"

The remaining piece of Maple's shield dissolved into crimson petals as pain lanced through her forearm, but Blader was not done even though there were now two new bite marks on his upgraded armor, one on the arm and the other on the knee. The armor was better, but based on how he was favoring his unbitten leg, the back of his knee must not have been as well armored.

"Master Blade!" Without hesitating, barely acknowledging his new wounds, the swordsman was rushing her again and she now had no shield.

Blueberry and Strawberry threw themselves into the path of the sword with a cry of "For the queen!" from Blueberry.

In a shower of blood and roses, Kaede fell on her back. Her stomach was screaming. She was screaming. She had never felt pain like this before. This was not a game. Pain barely registered in NWO and never registered if you were Maple. Kaede was just Kaede. Looking down she saw her hands covered in her own blood.

She hurt so much that she almost wanted to die, just for the pain to go away. She clenched her hands into fists or tried to. There was something in her right hand, something she had been holding in it throughout the fight, something she had mostly forgotten about since using it on Fluorite, the Magia Compact.

"Still alive, huh?" Blader looked at the trail of blood leaking down his sword. "I know you are human under that armor." said Blader. "But I also know what you have done. You've eaten people. You may not have been born a monster, but you've chosen to be a monster." Here was a hero saying she was a monster. "I am sorry, but I don't see any other way to end this. That armor will eventually regenerate and there are no prisons capable of holding a super powered psychopath like yourself." Blader raised his sword.

Blader, who had brutalized Fluorite. What had the girl said? Four times? Four times Blader had hurt the poor girl. Four times this man, this supposed hero, had hurt an innocent hydra maiden, a magical girl no less, a literal warrior of love and justice, all because she was a hydra.

And what had Kaede done? She took a bite out of Magia Zwert ending a fight that Magia Zwert had started. Magia Zwert in her own prejudice had assumed Kaede to be a villain when she was dimly aware that she was in fact a victim. Magia Zwert, if Risa was to be believed, and Kaede trusted Risa, had tried to kill her, Kaede. Kaede had spared Magia Zwert, because she was not the monster they thought she was.

She was not the monster they thought she was. She was not a villain, but heroes fought monsters.

These heroes barely deserved the title. Maybe they did not. Maybe that was her pain talking, or maybe that was the rare tinge of righteous anger.

Maybe she was biased, but she would not, could not let this man kill only hope was to be a turtle. He might be able to stab down and pierce her armor that way, but she had a way around that, "Mirror, Rose Star One!" and a blinding red light shot into Blader's face. He was raising his sword but recoiled.

Kaede scooted away so she was just barely off the spot she had been in and then curled into a ball with her arms and legs protecting her face and torso. "Rose Shell One, Activate." and her coffin closed around her. She could see that there was barely a quarter of the battery left.

"You still had another trick up your sleeve?" Blader swung, "Still, I don't need to see you to hit you. Master Blade!" He could not stab, but the wild slash while he was blinded still just barely struck her armor and the red light cut out. The star was still blank white and the charge for the compact was down to a twelfth. Apparently her mirror could not copy abilities while something it conjured was taking damage. How many of these Master Blade attacks could Blader use? There had to be a limit. Was that limit before or after he succumbed to the venom and blood loss? Was the limit for his ability to stand longer than Kaede's ability to not die?

Blader stumbled towards her. He weakly raised his sword with his one good arm. His other hung limp and he dragged his foot behind him. Droplets of blood fell from his blade, Blader's blood mixed with Kaede's as they traveled along his breastplate.

"Master Blade!" the blade came down again. His voice was much weaker than before. The second layer of armor shattered like glass, and the blade buried itself in Kaede's pauldron.

Blader tried to tug his sword free. With a great grunt of effort he fell onto his back, the blood slick hilt of his blade slipping free of his hands.

He did not rise.

Kaede had won.

Maple's Perks, Traits, and Inventory

Dark Blader Bracelet (Shielder)-An experimental semi sentient monster developed by Agastia as a counter to the Divine Swordsman. This prototype was rushed into the field with more bugs than a Bethesda release. The most dangerous bug for your wellbeing is probably the part where you cannot take it off and will struggle to deactivate it. The Shielder configuration of the suit comes from one of the customization options introduced during the long string of patches as the development team struggled to remove the suit from its previous user/host. Your current configuration is maximum armor, a dangerous configuration equivalent to entombing yourself in metal. You will probably struggle to walk a block down the street without getting tired and don't even think about running. Your days of moving at a speed any faster than a quick walk are over!

Adaptive Defense-This perk allows your Dark Blader armor to very slowly develop resistances and even immunity to attacks if you are exposed to them long enough. DO NOT EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ENEMY ATTACKS JUST TO RAISE YOUR DEFENSE! This is not a game, and you will almost definitely be horribly injured or killed if you try. This perk also allows your armor to reactivate itself if it ever detects something it judges to be a sufficient threat. Did we mention that the Dark Blader Bracelet was also extremely buggy?

Prototype Magia Compact Mirror-Allows the copying of up to six observed abilities. Each copied ability is in some way inferior to the original, but the abilities can be used in conjunction with each other to create powerful combination attacks. Additionally, the compact has a limited battery that will take time to recharge using ambient mana. Summoning new objects and maintaining and repairing those objects when they are damaged will drain the battery faster. There is currently no way to choose what ability will be copied from a target, but a good rule of thumb would be that the compact will copy the target's most iconic ability.

Actual Magical Cannibal-You have eaten the flesh of at least one magical girl. There is no going back, but do you even want to? After consuming their preternatural meat you feel stronger and more healthy than ever. In just one bite your vitality is now beyond human, and any magical girl who hears of you will likely be some combination of disgusted and terrified. For obvious reasons, there are no studies on the side effects of an ordinary human committing such a forbidden act especially since no ordinary person has ever done this before, but there is a first time for everything. Good job, you got to be the first!

Public Enemy Number One-You are now the subject of a manhunt! Don't know what you did, but whatever it was, it must have been pretty unforgivable. Have fun!

You Got The Job!-It may not be official yet, but you basically got the job working for your dream company Armagadoon. You will be working as a test pilot for the new INSIDIOUS VR system. There is nothing suspicious about this at all or about the strangely dressed masked man who was interviewing you. Why did the interviewer with the villainous mask think having experience as a kaiju or piloting military vehicles was important? Obviously because Armagadoon is planning to release some top notch video games! Military contracts and the recent frenzy of research in the face of the invasion a few months ago? Just don't think about those things.

Great Leader Akashic's Business Card-The business card of your aunt's young friend who you have found to be strangely relatable. You both know what it is like to be stuck on a pedestal, isolated from those around you who fear you for your power. Perhaps this is the start of a very special friendship. At the very least you found a new friend to play games with when you are not enjoying your new life of crime.

Hydra Queen-Through a short series of accidents and misunderstandings the somewhat gullible Hydra, secret identity of the Magical girl Magia Flourite now believes you to be her queen. This means she expects you to protect and look after her and her sisters, but she may now be willing to trust you and go along with your bad ideas mostly without question.

Currently Saved Magia Compact Powers

Overarmor-(Rose Shell One)-Energy Drain Minimum (on summon and on taking damage)-Copied from the Dark Shielder Maple this power summons a suit of extremely dense, extremely heavy magical plate armor providing almost as much protection as the Dark Shielder Maple armor with a fraction of the mobility. This armor is so heavy that even a superhuman might need magical assistance to move around in it. Wearing this armor in addition to your regular suit of armor will turn you into a nearly indestructible statue.

Hydra-(Rose Heart One)-Energy Drain Low (on summon)-Copied from Magia Fluorite better known as the Agastia monster Hydra this power summons four heads each with a distinct personality and venomous bite able to offer assistance to the user. The heads do not regenerate when cut off instead needing to be resummoned. While the heads can function independently, this is not always a good thing. An unusual perk of having the ability to summon hydra heads is the ability to claim to be the Hydra Queen and not have people immediately dismiss the claimant as crazy.

Resistances

5% Cutting Resistance

5% Divine Resistance

100% Poison Resistance

100% Carcinogen Resistance

100 % Irritant Resistance

Hope you enjoyed Maple's antics and the fight! Let me know your thoughts and any ideas and suggestions for later parts of the story, characters, and powers!