Stage 3 – Beauty, the Brains of Team Grimm
The portal dropped the three girls off in a huge castle. The castle is massive, brightly-lit and extravagant, but also completely empty. The castle is a complete mess; covered in metal debris, rubble, books, shadows, broken furniture, objects meant for hunting, animal carcasses and the walls, ceiling and floor are all torn up, slashed and shattered. It more or less looked like some kind of monster had been rampaging inside of it. But even as they looked around, the castle seemed to be magically repairing itself. Looking out of a shattered window, Reimu saw that they are deep within the heart of the Forest of Magic.
Youmu took a look around and asked, "What is this place? What happened here?"
"Alice told me about this place, ze!" Marisa spoke up with a giddy expression, "This is Château de la Forêt Enchantée, the home of the ruler of the Forest of Magic! From what she told me, the previous ruler died years ago, and she gave the job to a kindhearted hunter who cared for her in her final moments!"
"Wait, the Forest of Magic has a ruler?" Reimu paused, "How come I've never heard of this?"
"Ya never asked!" Marisa replied with a sassy smile, "And I did ask Alice that, ze! According to her, the one ruling over the Forest is really closer to a landlord than a king or queen! Anyone who wants to live there has ta seek 'em out, and they have ta give help ta anyone who asks, as long as they're one'a her subjects!"
"That's good to know," Youmu replied with a nod, but couldn't help but shiver from nerves, "but why are we here?"
"I remember hearing that another member of Team Grimm was a Princess who lived in the Forest of Magic all alone because her temper turned her into a horrible monstrous beast," explained Reimu, "This must be where she lives. As a member of Team Grimm, it appears that she's the next member we must fight. But where is she?"
Marisa shrugged her shoulders, then gasped, "I dunno-Eh!? Look! It's Eburinferuton!" she yelped and pointed upwards.
They looked up. Sure enough, Eburinferuton was floating above them, frowning with her hands on her hips and Jin's lamp floating right beside her. She turned and flew away from them down the hall.
"After her!" Marisa shouted, and the girls gave chase.
As they followed her, they noticed that she was not trying to leave the castle but was actually trying to lure them somewhere. Eventually, Eburinferuton led them to the West Wing of the castle, which opened up into a massive wrecked ballroom full of all kinds of debris. The fairy woman stopped right at the huge set of windows at the far end of the room, turned, looked up and smiled.
The girls stopped and looked at her in confusion. Then, they heard a thunderous crash from behind them! They all turn to see a tall, muscular, and curvaceous female Minotaur glaring at them with her pink and blue eyes. This was Beauty Belle.
Beauty wore a dark blue form fitting suit of armor with curving dark red stripes that went down front, sides and back with a low-cut v-shaped neckline that exposes a generous amount of cleavage. There was a large blue stripe that goes down her front leading to a large spot on her naval that's shaped like a horizontal oval. She wore two shoulder pads on her shoulders that are shaped like bull skulls. The left one was red and the right one was blue. Her legs were covered with two bulky greaves that made her legs look like bull feet. The right one was red and the left one was blue. Her arms were covered in bulky armor that alternated between red and blue but the hands were light gray. She wore a burgundy fur coat with dark brown stripes as a cape and a huge pair of curved, pale yellow bull horns on her head that parted her shaggy, blood red hair. Her nose was pierced with a solid gold ring and she held a red, blue and green battleax in her hands.
Beauty gave a loud roar to greet them as she spoke slowly, "Gooorah! I am… Beauty Belle…! So… You are… The ones… I have… To fight…! It's… Nothing… Personal… But I will… Crush you… And… Then…"
"Ugggh!" Reimu groaned as she rolled her eyes her slow speech, "We don't have time to listen to all of this! Let's just fight already!" She readied her gohei. "Geeze… Why the Hell are you talking so slowly! Do you have a speech impediment or something!?"
"DON'T…! Interrupt me… …When I'm speaking. It's… rude…! I don't… Want… To hurt you… So don't… Get on… My nerves…! But still… You have…" "…A point. RARAOR! Nomorewords! Let'sjustfightalready! Iwasinthemiddleofareallygoodbook! IWANTTOGETBACKTOREADINGIT!"
Youmu tilted her head, "…Are all Minotaur's like this?"
"Actually from what I've heard she's really more of an intellectual, so no!" Reimu replied as she stood in front of Youmu to defend her, "But never mind that! The time for words is over! Here she comes!"
"Ndooooooh!"
Eburinferuton created two balls of light and started to cheer for Beauty. "Whoo-Hoo! Go for it! Show them who's boss!"
Beauty lowered her head, gripped her axe tightly and charged at them using a magnetic field to boost her speed and power. Reimu and Marisa jumped out of the way, causing Beauty to smash through a wall. The Minotaur leapt out of the hole, shook off the rubble, and the fight began in earnest.
"This is gonna be tough, ze," Marisa commented as she hopped on her broom, "She looks like she could tank anything we throw at her."
"Then we'll just have to wear her down! Look out!"
Beauty charged at them once more, only for the magical girls to narrowly avoid her attack. Reimu immediately started casting bullets that spread out in an arc. The Minotaur was so huge that she couldn't attempt to dodge them. However, what she lacked in speed, she made up for in pure defense.
Each bullet bounced off of her harmlessly. Beauty turned around and slammed her axe into the floor which generated a shockwave so powerful that the entire castle shook!
"AH!" The girls gasped as they jumped off of the ground and floated into the air to avoid it. Marisa would fly to the other side of Beauty and fire off more bullets to keep her occupied from one side while Reimu handled her on the other side. She countered by spinning while firing beams of pure magnetic force, but the two girl just fought back harder.
"RGGH!"
Soon enough, Beauty's arms bulged, and she grunted, indicating that she had at least taken some damage, but then she quickly charged to the other end of the room and activated her first Spell Card, Magic Rose "North and South Slamming".
Countless clones of the Minotaur appeared on both sides of the room. Half were red and half were blue. Immediately after, they all performed a quick slash with their axes which sent giant arcing magnetic fields towards the girls!
The girls didn't panic though. They each both stood on one side of the room and shot at the fields with their magic until they exploded before they could reach them! Just in time too, as Beauty had got herself ready for another attack!
"RRRGH!" With a mighty roar, Beauty slammed her axe into the floor which caused chunks of the ceiling to fall towards them!
Marisa rolled out of the way, and then hopped on her broom to dodge the others as she flew around the room as a distraction.
Reimu continued her assault, attacking Beauty with all she had, sending wave after wave of bullets out in an arc around the room while creating a barrier here and there to block the falling debris.
That's when Marisa had an idea. With some quick thinking, the little witch blasted one of the pieces of debris with her danmaku with enough force to send it directly at Beauty!
"GAH!" yelped Beauty. The massive chunk of stone had sent her flying into the nearest wall. She had taken a bit more damage from that, and her armor was rather scuffed by now. If they could keep this up, they'd be able to win.
But Beauty wasn't going down so easily. After leaping in front of them and punching them across the room, then leaping up and down to drop huge chunks of metal down their heads, she activated her next Spell Card, Magic Rose "East and West Tractor".
The Minotaur raised her hand and started to conjure magnetic waves that brought loads of metal and other debris into large blocks that would fill the room in a swarm not unlike their danmaku. The girls themselves were almost sucked into the vortex but thankfully were fast enough to avoid being trapped.
Marisa and Reimu dodged each and every block that was headed their way while firing off bullets of their own to counter and destroy each one. The fight seemed like it was going to be a stalemate for a while until Reimu blocked one of the blocks with a shield and bounced it back at Beauty!
This gave them the idea to turn her own attacks against her. They started blasting the magnetized blocks back at her, which caused Beauty to stumble. But she just charged at the even faster several more times and then she immediately used her next Spell Card, Magic Rose "Big Magnetic Sphere".
She summoned 10 giant magnetic spheres above them that floated above them and tried to draw them in as they pulled up the floors. Reimu and Marisa couldn't fly against it, but they fired off several bullets into these spheres which caused them to explode violently. She charged through the smoke at them, and the fight continued. In the end, everyone had started to tire out from the fighting as they all fell to the floor.
"Jusetgiveupalready!" Beauty huffed.
"No… Way…" Reimu insisted, "I'm… Not… Done!"
"Fineletsseehowyouhandlethis!"
Beauty then activated her final and strongest Spell Card, Magic Rose "Magnetic Beast". She created a massive magnetic field that held Reimu and Marisa in place and began to draw them both in! They had both seen this before. If the magnetic field pulled them in, Beauty would completely pulverize them.
"NO!" Marisa yelled as she used one of her Last Word Spell Cards, "Blazing Star" to knock herself free of the field and punch her directly in the face, stopping her attack. This punch came with a final blast, sending Beauty flying back several dozen feet.
Beauty forced herself to come to a skidding halt, narrowed her eyes and started to walk slowly and menacingly towards them. After she got within about two feet from them, she raised her ax, stopped, and then trembled and fell flat on her face, dropping her ax in the process.
Eburinferuton looked at her sadly and stopped her cheering as the balls of light around her hands vanished.
"Oh no, BEAUTY!" she yelled in a panic, "I'm so sorry this happened! Oh, oh, these girls are as tough as I thought… I've got to get out of here!" And with that, she flew off.
As Eburinferuton flew off, "Oh no, you don't!" Shouted Reimu "After her, girls!" and the girls chase after her.
They followed her all the way to the front entrance. Eburinferuton used her magic to throw open the doors and flew out of it. The girls run after her, but they come face to face with Redd, Shuno and Beauty who were leaning heavily on both her friends and her axe.
Reimu growled and snapped at them, "Get out of our way! You know we can beat you, so GET LOST!"
Marisa would flex her broom and add, "Yeah! Or do ya want some more? We ain't afraid of ya!"
Redd narrowed her eyes, pointed at them and raised her arms. The three girls looked at her in confusion but they soon felt a strange sensation around their feet that started to spread up their legs.
As they looked down they were horrified to see themselves vanishing into a rift that was consuming them from the bottom up. They tried to fly away, thinking that would stop it from happening, but they were too slow. The rift consumed them all completely, leaving no trace of them. Once they're gone, Redd slumped over and sighed.
"I can't believe you lost too, Beauty!" the little monster hunter complained, "This is really going to be bad for our reputation!
Beauty gave tired huffs, "I'm… …Sorry. I tried… My best…! But look… On… The bright side…! Goldie… Will… Crush… Them…! I'm… Sure of it…!"
"Yes," Agreed Shuno, "She is our muscle after all. Not to mention, she is the best at Spell Card Battles out of all of us."
Redd felt better after hearing that, "…You're right. Goldie… Big sis… It's all up to you!"