A/N: Thanks for your reviews. I hope the big Witch fight lives up to the hype. ;)
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EINUNDZWANZIG
TIMELINE X + N
Once out of view of Ichigo, the three girls detoured toward the railroad tracks yet again. This time they proceeded west, crossing into Naruki City. They were seven city blocks in when their Soul Gems began to glow faintly. They followed the tracks another two blocks until they were facing an overpass where the road went above the tracks. Wary of the tunnel, the girls veered around it to see if the Witch was further on. Unfortunately, their Gems led them back to the overpass.
Karin huffed, let her Gem turn back into a ring, and put her hands on her hips. "I swear to God, if we defeat this Witch and immediately get hit by a train I will be pissed," she grumbled.
Yuzu sighed. She threw her hands over her head and did a warm-up stretch. "We'll have to be careful when the labyrinth collapses."
Homura coolly said, "Let's get this over with," and entered the tunnel, Soul Gem brandished before her. The other two girls nodded and followed her. Halfway through the tunnel, the amethyst flared and the orange pumpkin clock sigil appeared before them. When the trio entered the portal, they found yet another surreal subway station. This one, however, had sprawling branches of blooming jacaranda growing along the ceiling in addition to the industrial wreckage and clocks. Dozens of painted lady butterflies darted about the lavender flowers. There was also a heavy presence in the air.
"Finally!" Karin said. "Only took forever to find her." She held up her Soul Gem. "Let's do this."
All three magical girls transformed and summoned weapons. After a minute of consideration, they cautiously set out along one of the tunnels.
"Homura," said Yuzu, "The last time we found this Witch, we had to go through several areas like the one with the scarecrow-thing. We managed to get to the center of the labyrinth, but there were a lot more Familiars. The Witch ran away when we were too busy fighting them."
"Neither of us has much of an area-of-effect attack," Karin griped.
Homura hummed. "I have some ideas."
"Oh?" Karin said archly. "You have some tricks up your sleeve? Or in your shield, I guess."
"Grenades, bombs, assault rifles, and such," Homura confirmed calmly.
Karin gaped, then laughed. "You're a walking arsenal, huh?"
"I suppose."
Karin slapped a hand on Homura's shoulder. "Glad you're on our side, then!"
They soon found themselves in a subway station like the ones they had found before. It was a bit different, though; the omnipresent jacarandas decorated the ceiling and there were a dozen turnip-headed conductor scarecrows spinning around on the platform in an intricate pattern.
Yuzu sighed. "Even more than last time. We'll get worn out before we get to the Witch again."
Homura made a thoughtful noise and put her handgun back in her shield. "I will take out as many as I can with a gun, then you two run in and pick off the leftovers."
Karin looked at her skeptically. "How are you going to take out a bunch of Familiars by shooting one at a time? They'll swarm— holy shit, is that a machine gun?!"
Homura held up the FN Minimi and checked its ammunition box as the sisters stared with wide eyes. "Yes." She lifted the gun to firing position. "Are you ready?"
Karin sputtered, then collected herself and made a still-incredulous sweeping gesture at the Familiars. "After you, Lady Shoots-a-lot."
Homura's lips quirked up, then she went serious again, stepped forward, and methodically sprayed bullets at the turnip heads. Several exploded, leaving only four. She lowered the gun so its muzzle faced the ground. "Go."
The two sisters leapt forward. Karin sliced Familiars in half with her katana while Yuzu lashed out with her whip, turned sideways as she jerked the Familiars to her, and bashed in their heads with the butt of her whip by slamming it backwards as each creature flew toward her.
As the last Familiars disintegrated, Karin gleefully crowed, "Sweet."
The girls continued through the subway tunnels, using the same strategy every time they came to a subway station. As they progressed, each station housed more Familiars and butterflies than the last and the scent of jacaranda flowers became much more cloying. After more than half an hour, they came out of a curve in the tunnel and saw that the next archway was larger and far more ornate, indecipherable runes etched in the bricks.
"This is it," said Yuzu.
The trio carefully approached the tunnel exit and peeked around its sides. Before them was an enormous brick chamber. Instead of a subway platform, the cavern housed a sprawling train switch yard with tracks that snaked around and into adjacent tunnels. There was more variance in the size of the clocks on the walls, ranging from pocket watches to cuckoo clocks to ornate grandfather clocks. Around the perimeter of the cavern were the trunks of jacaranda trees which formed a fragrant lavender canopy over the room and branched out into the tunnels. Crystalline high-heeled shoes filled with burning embers dangled from the branches and glowed like lanterns. A huge bell was suspended from the very center of the ceiling. Beneath the bell, all the various train rails converged into a train turntable. The areas between the tracks were studded with randomly-placed pumpkins connected by vines made of wire. Upon the center point of the entire room sat the Witch.
The Witch's base was a huge jack-o'-lantern that took up most of the space on the turntable. An over-sized vintage plaster mannequin was affixed to the top of the jack-o'-lantern from the hips up, lifeless eyes staring vacantly. A gauzy black ballroom skirt flowed down from its waist and encircled the pumpkin base except for the glowing jack-o'-lantern face; jacaranda flowers decorated its waist. It wore a black bodice and its stiff arms were covered with black elbow gloves. Atop its head sat the cut-out lid of the jack-o'-lantern, its thick stem making it resemble a top hat. A mourning veil trailed down from the pumpkin-hat. The entire ensemble was completed with an upside-down pair of painted lady butterfly wings at the mannequin's back. The Witch was not facing the girls directly, but was turned about fifteen degrees away from them.
The Witch was surrounded by a different sort of Familiar than the turnip-headed fairy conductors. Clockwork creatures made of bare gears and metal whirled around the floor of the chamber in an intricate waltz. The vaguely-female Familiars bore short pseudo-skirts made of jacaranda branches trailing flowers; their partners wore pumpkin-lid top hats on their heads. Their dancing carried them around the rail yard pumpkin patch without tripping.
"Okay," Karin began, matter-of-fact. "We know the dancing thingies can make their hands turn into bayonet-things to slice with. They keep spinning so the room may as well be a gauntlet. We didn't manage to get to the actual Witch last time so we have no clue what it— she— does."
Homura hummed in consideration as she surveyed the cavern. This Witch was living up to her expectations of trickiness and complexity. Technically speaking, she could freeze time and walk right up to the Witch and kill it. That wouldn't give her any intel on how well the twins fought, though. After all, Walpurgisnacht was formidable and had its own army of Familiars. She settled on reducing the number of combatants, observing the sisters' performance in mêlée combat, then seeing how well she could work with them to take out the Witch.
Homura ducked back into the tunnel, followed by the sisters. Karin and Yuzu watched curiously as she set down the machine gun and rummaged in her shield. Homura pulled out her hand and made a neat stack of ammunition belts for the machine gun. That done, she dipped into her hoard and pushed a frag grenade at Karin. "Here."
Karin grabbed it automatically, then gaped at it with undisguised dread. "UH."
Yuzu stared at the grenade in her sister's hands, then squeaked when Homura pressed one into her hands as well. "W-w-what are we supposed to do with these?"
Homura blandly arched an eyebrow, palming a third grenade for herself. "Attack the Familiars, of course."
Karin was stuck on, "UHHH."
"But— but we've never even seen these in real life!" Yuzu squealed in dismay.
"It is quite simple," Homura began. She then gave them a quick lesson on their use. "Now, we will enter the chamber; one of you will go left, one of you will go right, and I will take the center. We will enhance our speed with magic, go as far from the entrance as we can in one jump, throw the grenades, then jump back to the doorway for cover before the grenades detonate. Then we can form a united front to defend this doorway. We can save some energy and let the Familiars come to us. They will be easier to hit if they group up. I will use the machine gun to take out more, then we can go for mêlée combat."
"Good plan," Karin said. "We just can't lose track of which door to run back to." She had a point— there were dozens of identical arches around the cavern.
Homura hummed, absently shoved her grenade at Yuzu (who squealed), reached into her shield, and pulled out two little red spheres with fuses.
"What are those, cherry bombs?" asked Karin.
"No. They are colored smoke bombs you can get from firework stands. I got a lot to use as signals with my friends." It seemed so long ago, now. Homura carefully stepped outside the arch, set a smoke bomb about fifteen feet away on either side of the door, lit them, and retreated.
As Homura retrieved her grenade from Yuzu, Karin asked, "Why so far from the door?"
Homura smoothed her hair behind her ears and calmly explained, "If they were any closer, we would be blinded or choked by the smoke. Having two lets you aim between the two points if you get confused out in battle."
"Oh!" Yuzu said with understanding. "Like when you're swimming at the beach and they put up flags so you know where the edges of bad currents are so you stay in the safe water!"
Homura had never actually been swimming in the ocean, so she just shrugged and agreed. It made Yuzu more confident to know something and sounded reasonable enough. "Are you ready?"
The Kurosaki sisters fiddled around with their grenades, obviously reciting Homura's lesson in their heads. Karin took a deep breath and looked up with a grimly determined grin. "Let's do it!" Yuzu nodded agreement, face drawn in concentration.
"On three," said Homura. Each of the girls got her grenade ready. "One... two... three!"
The girls launched themselves from the door with the magical girl version of flash step. They landed, pulled the pins and lobbed the grenades, then immediately spun and dashed for their door. The concussive blast of three nearly simultaneous explosions made them stumble on entry. Homura kept moving through it, picking up and readying her machine gun as the sisters yelped. All three girls surveyed the cavern as the smoke from their grenades dispersed.
"Awesome," Karin marveled while her sister's eyes went wide in disbelief.
There were three large craters spread around the half of the chamber directly in front of them. Pumpkin fragments and twisted metal remnants of Familiars were strewn all about. About a third of the Familiars had been destroyed. Others staggered around, damaged. The intricate waltz they had been engaged in fell apart into spinning chaos. The sisters grinned a bit smugly as they readied their weapons for whatever the retaliation would be.
GONG!
The huge bell at the apex of the chamber pealed out once, deafeningly loud. A series of clunking, squeaking, and grinding sounds heralded the slow, clockwise rotation of the central turntable. The Witch was turning to face the girls.
"Uh... this seems... bad," Karin commented.
"It didn't do that last time," Yuzu said uncertainly.
Homura scowled as the turntable jolted to a stop with a loud clunk. The Witch's mannequin arms rose as stiffly as a doll's. The remaining Familiars straightened, transformed their hands into bayonets en masse, and whirled toward the girls.
"I'm going with yeah, pretty damn bad," Karin said urgently.
Homura gave a quiet hmph and brought the gun to bear. Karin didn't have a chance to sass at her before their tunnel was filled with the reverberating sound and flashing of rapid gunfire as Homura mowed down the charging Familiars. The twins flinched and clapped their hands to their ears.
When Homura paused to reload while Yuzu threw up a glowing shield made of three interlocked magic circles, Karin snarled, "Dammit, Homura, give a girl some warning before you shoot a fucking machine gun like right next to her ears!"
Homura snapped the ammo tray closed. "My apologies," she said, not sounding sorry at all.
"Suuure, you're s—"
Karin was cut off by another volley of gunfire. She rolled her eyes powerfully and watched the Familiars falling all over each other in their mindless determination to attack in the face of automatic gunfire.
GONG!
Karin scowled up at the big bell. "The hell?"
As Homura paused to reload again, Karin twisted her fingers in her ears and looked behind them. "Are my ears fucked up or do I hear someth— OH, SHIT!"
Karin and Yuzu turned and desperately fought a gaggle of Familiars which must have gone into other tunnels to approach them from behind. Homura gripped her gun with her left hand and desperately reached into her shield for a grenade. "Behind me!" she screamed. To their credit, the sisters obeyed her immediately. Yuzu was even observant enough to see what she was doing and throw up one of her shields to seal the doorway as soon as Homura's grenade passed her. It focused the resultant explosion entirely against the horde in the tunnel.
GONG!
That was all well and good, but the girls had now been forced out into the open. Plans were discarded as the three formed a circle and focused on taking out as many Familiars as they could. When Homura's Minimi next ran out of ammo, she dropped it, pulled out a Beretta and wielded it left-handed with support from her right for close quarters shooting, then started pulling out and throwing grenades into the surrounding mob with her right hand whenever she reloaded the handgun. Karin attacked the Familiars that approached her with surgical precision, lopping off heads and bladed arms with every swing. Yuzu had a more difficult time in battle, but developed a pattern of snagging enemies' bladed hands together with her whip then hauling them in close so she could kick their heads off their fragile necks with her high-heeled shoes.
GONG!
The girls weren't sure how long the mêlée lasted. It certainly felt like forever. Homura blew through more ordnance and ammo than she ever used against anything save for Walpurgisnacht. A ring of debris from destroyed Familiars gradually piled up around the girls. Instead of getting tall enough to protect them, it simply gave the remaining Familiars a height advantage so they could attack from slightly higher up— where the girls would have more trouble defending.
"We need to move!" shouted Homura.
"Uh, yeah, duh!" Karin replied. "Plans?"
GONG!
"Let's make a run for the wall," panted Yuzu. "We can have the wall at our backs."
"Let's choose one the creeptastic Witch isn't facing," Karin added. "Dunno what fresh hell she's gonna unleash."
Homura surveyed the wider area next time she threw a grenade, analyzing everything. "Let's go to the wall ninety degrees to the Witch's left."
"You got a reason for that?" asked Karin as she lopped off yet another clockwork head.
After emptying another magazine into the faces of the attacking automatons, Homura said, "A guess. The Witch spun clockwise and has a clock theme. If it can only turn clockwise, we will have more time to react to it moving."
Yuzu made a sound of understanding and Karin laughed. "We got a smartypants over here, Yuz!"
"I'm not complaining!" Yuzu cheered as she kicked in another face.
"I could be wrong," Homura hedged after her latest grenade exploded.
"Only one way to find out!" shouted Karin. "Ready?"
Homura and Yuzu sharply answered, "Yes!"
"On three! One... two... three!"
The magical girls jumped to the top of the pile of clockwork parts, flared their magic around them in a brief aura to push back their attackers, and flash-stepped to the wall in question. They pressed their backs to the wall and took the opportunity to catch their breath while the minions whirled in directionless confusion at their disappearance.
GONG!
The automatons paused, straightened, then spun toward the girls' new position.
"Faaaaantastic!" Karin drawled. She rolled her shoulders and got in a ready position. "Round three. Bring it!"
It was easier to fight with their backs to the wall— no worry that the fighter behind them could miss something and let them get hit in the back. Homura stood between and slightly farther out than the sisters then pulled out a second FN Minimi. She sprayed a deluge of bullets at the Familiars with the pre-loaded gun, then stepped back and let the sisters pick off enemies while she fed the machine gun another ammunition belt. The twins would step back when Homura gave a sharp shout to announce she was ready to shoot again.
GONG!
Once again, a deep series of clunking and grinding drew their attention to the Witch. Its turntable had begun to rotate again.
"Clockwise," Karin said with amusement. "Well, I'll be damned."
"You're great at this, Homura!" Yuzu gushed.
"You would have figured it out yourselves," Homura demurred.
Karin snorted with self-deprecation. "Maybe if we miraculously wiped out a ton of Familiars before we could get worn out. And I do mean miraculously. I've never seen a Witch with this many Familiars before. Well, so many dangerous Familiars."
In the next few minutes of harried but comfortable teamwork, Homura fleetingly wondered what fate befell the sisters in all the previous timelines. Considering the state of their Soul Gems when she met them and how this particular Witch seemed to finally be something too big for them to handle by themselves...
That train of thought was shoved to the back of her mind.
GONG!
"Oh my God, will you SHUT UP with the bell!" Karin snarled at the labyrinth in general.
When they had whittled down the Familiars to about three dozen, Homura said, "Ideas for attacking the Witch?" Satisfied with the sisters' teamwork and performance against Familiars since Walpurgisnacht's tended to space themselves out more than the ones in this labyrinth, she wanted to see how well they did against a Witch.
"If I can get up top of that big pumpkin I could slice the doll part either down the middle or across the waist," Karin offered after a minute of glancing at the Witch between enemies.
"We need to be careful," Yuzu said. "We don't know what kind of attacks it uses— or even if the doll part is a decoy. What if the Witch is really inside the jack-o'-lantern?"
"Right," Karin said tersely. After another minute of thought, she offered, "How about I try to get up and attack the doll, and you and Homura cover me? Yuzu, be ready to shield or snag me, and Homura, be ready to shoot at any surprises. Sound good?"
Homura and Yuzu agreed.
GONG!
It only took a few more minutes to wipe out the last of the Familiars. The girls took a minute to catch their breath while Homura switched her machine gun for a semiautomatic rifle. They watched the Witch's steady progress as the turntable rotated. With some nodding and pointing to coordinate their attack, Yuzu stayed where she was while Karin and Homura ran to their left. Homura stopped when she was directly to the Witch's right side; Karin kept running until she was directly behind the Witch. Once in place, she got into a ready position and nodded at Homura. Homura looked to Yuzu; she also nodded her readiness. Homura pointed her rifle toward a tunnel off to one side so her signal shot wouldn't rebound and hit anyone, then fired the gun like a starting pistol. Karin took off at a sprint and leapt up toward the pumpkin.
GONG!
The bell clanged again when Karin's foot made contact with the jack-o'-lantern's upper curve. By the time she had taken a second step and swung her katana, the mannequin's arms had dropped ninety degrees to be parallel to the ground— one in front and one in back— and long serrated blades popped out all along the length of its arms. Then the entire mannequin rapidly spun clockwise at the waist even as the turntable remained slow.
Yuzu's three-ring shield snapped into existence to Karin's right even as she kicked herself into a vertical jump in an attempt to avoid the blades. The leading edge of the front blade struck the shield and jarred to a halt, snapping the arm off in the process. Karin turned the falling velocity of her jump into a downward attack toward the mannequin's head, but the jacaranda branches around its waist shot up and extended in a counter-strike. Eyes wide, Karin slashed at the branches. While she did cut some, others grabbed her ankle and threw her away so hard that the brick wall of the cavern cracked around her impact.
GONG!
Homura aimed for the mannequin's head and shot several bursts. The plaster cracked, but the jack-o'-lantern lid top hat slid to the side of the head that faced Homura and acted as a shield. The turntable continued to rotate. Homura scowled.
"Karin!" Yuzu shouted.
Karin staggered to her feet, still glowing from flaring her magic to soften the blow then heal some of the damage. "I'm good, I'm good!" she wheezed.
The turntable and jack-o'-lantern ground to a loud halt with a sound like the tumblers of an old lock clunking into place.
GONG!
The Witch's mouth dropped open like a marionette's and uttered a train-whistle-like wail. Hundreds of glowing glass shoe lanterns exploded simultaneously, showering shards of glass and blazing embers in every direction and plunging the cavern into darkness lit only by the face of the jack-o'-lantern and the multitude of butterflies which began to glow orange as they wafted among the jacarandas at the ceiling. The girls all held their arms to their faces to protect their eyes from the unusual shrapnel. The shards hadn't all hit the ground yet when the cavern was filled with echoing sounds of cracking, booming, and tearing. When they opened their eyes, the girls found that the train tracks that crisscrossed the switch yard were being ripped up from the ground, curling and flailing around the Witch like tentacles.
"Now would be a good time for a Plan B!" Karin screamed urgently.
Homura frowned hard as the rails curved around the Witch in an intricate, spiraling cage. This was one of the most complex Witches she had ever fought. I may actually need to stop time and take it out myself, she thought.
The Witch raised its remaining arm. The bell at the apex of the chamber pealed over and over as the mannequin dropped its arm like a guillotine. The train tracks around it made the sound of metal against metal and shot railroad spikes in every direction with the speed of a machine gun. The ping! of shattering glass reached Homura's ears just before she stopped time. Pain radiated from the multiple wounds spikes had left behind where she had been shot, only two still lodged in her body. Okay, she could manage that.
Homura looked around and discovered that though her wounds were not grievous, she had still reacted an instant too late: The pieces of Yuzu's Soul Gem were frozen in the midst of supernova, her eyes already empty.
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WITCH DATA
CYNTHIA, the Pumpkin Witch. It is in her nature to be tardy. She always leaves things until the last minute and would probably be late to her own funeral.
Minion: Jakob, whose duty is to keep everything on schedule.
Minion: Charles & Charlene, whose duty is to dance.
A/N: Ruh-roh. :D
Witch Cynthia's concept is a combination of Cinderella and the Vocaloid song/video "Mrs. Pumpkin's Comical Dream." Plus a few other things punning on the name Cynthia. When I first saw InuCurry's art for Witches in PMMM, I immediately thought of the art in that video. As a bonus, the main character in that music video is what Cynthia's magical girl form would look like.
This chapter was replaced with an edited version on November 1, 2019. Reviews with timestamps before that date refer to a slightly different version of the chapter.