Loop Two - Chapter Twenty-Two - Confrontation

Morgan stepped out into the corridor first, still in her school uniform. That was part of the plan, of course. If their target turned and spotted Morgan dressed that way, then there wouldn’t be much to be suspicious about, and of everyone on their team, Morgan was both the one who could transform the quickest and the one who needed that boost the least.

Amber stayed behind a little, lingering in the entrance of the bathroom before Morgan waved her hand towards her in an ‘all clear’ sort of gesture. We need to come up with something more uniform.

Morgan walked ahead and around the nearest corner, moving stiffly and with a straight back, but that was perfectly normal for Morgan. Amber followed to the end of the corner, then paused. “Clear,” Morgan said. “She must be by the closet already.”

Amber nodded, and together they moved down the corridor a little fast.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket at the exact same time as she heard Cassy’s voice ring out from around the last bend. “Surprise!”

Moran and Amber took off in a sprint.

The first thing she saw when she came around the corner was the girl they were chasing jumping back, the front of her uniform had a shoeprint on it, and her teeth were gritted and her eyes were narrowed.

Cassy stomped out of the closet, a shit-eating grin on as she wiggled her foot as if to loosen it up. She placed her broom on her shoulder while Jade slid out from behind her and walked to the centre of the corridor, blocking the girl’s path.

“Didn’t expect that, huh?” Cassy asked.

Morgan and Amber stopped, shoes squeaking.

The girl glanced their way, and Amber saw her blanching a little as she noticed the situation she was in. Surrounded, four on one, with her opponents seemingly prepared and aware of what she was going to do.

Amber enjoyed that moment of squirming indecision. “Surrender,” she demanded.

The girl took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, then glared. She snapped her arms out to the sides and with a hiss like a steel edge meeting a grindstone, her nails elongated, becoming long, sharpened spikes. “No,” was all she said.

Morgan launched herself towards the girl and Amber grabbed and threw one of her knives right after her.

The girl darted towards Jade.

Jade’s eyes went wide, but she threw her scarf forwards, the material splaying itself wide as it snapped towards the girl like a snake launching itself towards a field mouse.

The girl dodged, flipping around into a roll in midair that ended with her crashing to the ground shoulder-first. Her shoe planted itself against the wall and she shot past Jade who stepped aside, but not fast enough to avoid getting cut.

Four lines of blood appeared across Jade’s bare calf and she hissed as she stumbled back. That left the corridor open for their target who rolled to her feet. But Morgan was almost breathing down her neck, and Amber flung another pair of knives after her, one of which thumped into the back of her arm with a meaty ‘thwap.’

“No, you don’t!” Cassy said.

The far end of the corridor became ‘up.’

Amber’s eyes widened as she felt her grip on the ground loosen and she was suddenly thrown backwards.

“Dammit Cassy!” Morgan swore as she tried to catch Seafoam but missed. The girl had jabbed her nails into the floor and hung on for dear life, her satchel flailing out behind her.

Cassy let go and normal gravity reasserted itself just as Cassy caught Jade mid-fall. “Sorry!” she said.

Team Svalinn charged after Seafoam. The girl reached the end of the hall and rammed through an emergency exit shoulder-first.

Morgan was the first after her, then Cassy and Jade, with Amber taking up the rear. She only paused for a fraction of a second to recall the two knives that had missed. The last one she left right where it was, jammed into Seafoam’s arm.

I probably shouldn’t enjoy causing pain so much.

The back of the school building was close to the wall surrounding Norumbega academy, a wall which stretched up a good half-dozen metres and which Seafoam ran towards before she turned and sprinted down its length, heading south, towards the gap in the middle of the academy past which were the dorms and cafeteria and so on.

If she made it there, it was possible she’d be able to lose them in a crowd.

Morgan grunted, then she flicked her hand to the side and her sword appeared from thin air. Her uniform warped apart and between one step and the next, she was in her magical girl costume. The change seemed to give her a boost as she shot forwards, a clod of dirt flying out behind her.

Amber rushed to keep up, grunting as she flung out the two knives she’d collected.

Seafoam spun around mid-run and struck the knives out of the air with her long nails. She even glared at Amber before backpedalling, turning, and continuing her sprint.

I’m really getting tired of magicals who can completely negate my knives.

“She’s slower than we are,” Morgan said. By that point they’d made it a good ways past the building they’d started at and were reaching the gap in the middle of the school. Moving at magical girl speeds really ate terrain. There was a bridge across the gap a little ways off, and Amber imagined that they might be able to pin Seafoam there.

Then the girl jumped up, kicked off against the wall, and soared ahead as if she planned on moving over the gap.

“Nope!” Cassy shouted.

Gravity didn’t turn around this time; instead it just pulled them all down a lot harder than usual. Amber felt as if she’d just gained a hundred pounds, or as if someone had flung a weighted blanket over her.

It was worse for Seafoam who was caught mid-jump. Her arc shifted dramatically, and instead of a clean leap over the walls and over the gap between both sides of the academy she came tumbling down out of the air.

They lost sight of her as she went past the wall though.

“Cassy, Jade, go over!” Morgan said. She took a sharp left and Amber did the same. They sprinted along the wall until they reached one of the bridges, then Morgan grabbed the parapet and flung herself over the edge.

Amber did the same, only realising that there was a ten metre drop on the other side once her legs were already over the parapet. She screamed, but some instinct had her landing on her feet all the same. She tumbled into a roll and somehow ended up on both feet at the end, jogging with the momentum saved by the roll, and somehow uninjured, even if she was a little dirty from the landing.

Ahead of her, Seafoam was backing away from Jade and Cassy. Jade was on the ground, scarf coiling around, both ends snapping at the air, and Cassy sat on her broom, grinning down from her vantage point even as she slowly circled the girl.

Morgan stepped up and placed her feet in a fencer’s pose. “Please surrender,” she said.

“No,” Seafoam said. Then she took something out from within her satchel and threw it towards Jade.

“Cassy, up!” Amber shouted.

Casy obeyed and gravity flipped itself around.

Jade screamed as she started to lift off the ground, her scarf reached down, looking for something to grab onto, and found nothing.

Then Amber’s knives pinned the ends of the scarf against the ground with twin cracks and Jade hung on for dear life as the sky tried to act like the floor. Fortunately, Cassy was a little more discriminate with her ability, and Morgan and Amber were outside of its range. The satchel, on the other hand, was not.

It flew up, shot past Cassy, and continued to fall upwards until it hovered a good fifty metres above the school.

Then it exploded.

Amber gasped as a wash of warmth pressed her down, and she felt her ears popping a moment before she heard the crack of glass shattering nearby. Bits of plastic and metal rained down around them, but there wasn’t much shrapnel.

Amber recovered quickly, even as Cassy crash landed nearby and Jade thumped to the ground. Still, the only one expecting the bomb had been Seafoam, and she was running again, aiming for one of the doors leading out of the Academy.

Then Morgan’s rapier stabbed her through the calf and she let out a piercing, pained scream as she fell forwards, Morgan’s sword coming out of the wound just as easily as it went in.

Seafoam wasn’t done fighting though, she turned and slashed her nails out towards Morgan who parried the attack with ease.

Amber was running over when she saw Seafoam reaching to the small of her back. “Morgan!” she shouted even as she tossed a knife forwards with all the strength she could muster.

It rammed into the gun Seafoam was pulling out, the magical girl weapon crunching through whatever mass-produced metal the gun was made of.

Seafoam cursed, then fell back as Morgan’s sword came to tickle her neck. “Don’t,” Morgan warned, her rapier’s side touching Seafoam’s chin for a moment.

The girl glared, but she subsided, the fight draining out of her. She winced, then slowly, carefully, reached under her arm and tugged Amber’s knife out from her upper arm. “You got me,” she said. Then she flipped the knife around and tried to plunge it into her chest.

Amber recalled her knife and it tore itself out of the girl’s grip, back into her arm, then tugged itself out as it flew back to where it had been earlier. Amber caught it out of the air as passed by. “You’re not getting out of this so easily,” Amber said. She wanted to stand there and glare, but her attention shifted to her friends. Cassy was standing up, pushing her skirt back into place and snapping the fingers of one hand next to her ear. Jade, in the meantime, was back on her feet and walking over. Her front was a little dusty, but a quick pat down got rid of most of it.

The explosion had caught plenty of people’s attention, and magicals of all sorts were on the nearest bridge, looking down on their group.

Amber noticed the Seelie that had been helping them earlier sitting on the wall, tails swishing. It seemed content.

***