LIGHTNOVELONLINE Ch 28: Lovable Bruiser
"Marchosias".
"Sauriel".
I got startled at Sauriel voice, he doesn't talk in combat so I expected the same thing here but he instead hopped out into my shoulder, he had a serious expression on his face, his hair was also spiked up at seeing the girl who called herself Marchosias, both of them stared down at each other.
[Who is this girl? Hui said this is her boss, she can also see Sauriel and also knows him? and apparently she knows me, well that last one makes sense I guess, but the f*ck?].
"Care to explain Sauriel, should I fight her or not?" I say, Marchosias giggles at my questions with a creepy grin in her face.
"You should, she is a powerful angel though".
"ANGEL?" I said as I look at her, she was 6"2' tall, I already got the perspective that she wasn't human since her face is extremely creepy, but I take a look at Sauriel and then at her.
[WHY DOES SHE LOOK WAY COOLER THAN YOU THOUGH, YOU'RE JUST A CAT]
"Still, for a fallen angel to do something this bold, you must have a higher purpose" Sauriel sounds angry at Marchosias, she just laughs it off.
"Oh my~ Fallen angel is such a MISLEADING term, I prefer to be called 'actually useful angel' so please, respect my decision" Marchiosas gives a little smile while tilting her head 'innocently, I start sweating at how she emphasized her disgust so much that it actually gave nausea.
"Interfering with humans affairs is not a viable option, it will disturb more the natural order of the world, and we already did enough of that" Sauriels explains, I'm completely lost in the conversation.
"NO WE HAVE NOT" Marchiosas screams at us, my ears hurt after the screech, 2 wings sprout from Marchiosas back, they have that papyrus texture to them and a cream white color in them and are slightly transparent.
"ALL WE DO IS GET THESE IDIOTS TO KILL THEMSELVES, SO MIGHT AS WELL GET ON WITH AND DO IT NOW" Marchiosas continued, I didn't know what they were talking about, but the words she said railed me up.
"I'm not gonna let you kill anyone here you angel... demon... whatever you are!!!" I exclaim while pointing at her, she looks at me, her face is unchanging.
"Shallow words from a supposedly Magical girl in a brawler get up, don't get involved in problems beyond your comprehension" She says, she is actively looking down on me with every word she said, I try to say something but get interrupted.
"You still have time to redeem yourself" Sauriels says, he seems to be reasoning with Marchosias, she just looks at me and Sauriel.
"AND THEN WHAT, RETURN TO AN UNRULED LAND AND TRY TO SOLVE EVERYONE'S PROBLEMS WITHOUT MAKING SOMEONE MAD" she screams at Sauriel.
"YOU CAN'T CONVINCE ANYMORE SAURIEL, YOU'RE A HUSK OF YOUR FORMER SELF, YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY POWERS IN THIS WORLD, YET YOU INSIST ON SAVING THEM" Sauriels is taken aback with her words.
[Looks like peace talks have broken down].
"I'M DETERMINED, I'll just do it myself, then maybe all angels can actually be intelligent for once and take action" Marchiosas says, as she begins to walk away.
"I won't let you" I firmly say I start putting my guard up.
"Very well then, It's your funeral then" She says as she composes her figure, she firmly bows down and retracts her wings, I looked confused.
"Good luck Amy, I'm sorry it has come to this, for both of you" Sauriels has his head down, he just make sit back into my hairpin.
"I, the fallen angel, Marchosias - Salomon's Slave, will duel you" Marchosias was extremely hesitant to refer to herself as a 'fallen angel', and a slave.
[Just what the f*ck is happening].
"Amy accepts the duel?" I say, I'm just lost at what is happening, I shake my head to think simpler.
[She is my enemy, she is a fallen angel so I can fight her, that's all I really need to know].
"My ability is 'Heat copy', I can copy 1 ability for an infinite amount of time, but I replicate it with fire properties" Marchosias said.
[Wait...]
She was starting to run towards me, "I can copy the ability by seeing it, I don't need to know the caster" Marchosias ended her speech as she punches towards me, I block with a rock wall, her punch completely destroy the wall.
"What?" I asked in confusion at the wall.
"You truly are new at this, yet you can get out of a steel cage while poisoned" Marchosias remarked, I try to hit her back, but a red transparent barrier is put in my way, when I touch the barrier it burns my fist so I back up.
"Saying your attacks makes them stronger, conversely, saying your powers make them stronger because of the verbal contract, you should already know that by now or you would be considered an idiot" Marchiosas laugh at her own comment.
"I'm already am, my powers let me manipulate the gr-" before I can finish the barrier is launched at me, I put up another rock wall to stop it, it gets dragged along and pushes me into a wall.
"You need to be a more proactive 'magical girl' " Marchosias said, I could her making quote marks in the air as she said magical girl, I make an Amy shaped hole in the wall behind to stop being crushed, I then moved the wall to the side to exit it.
"My powers let me manipulate the ground and earth at will and..." I say, I try to say more but can't, I realize that I truly haven't tested everything my magic lets me do, now that I could bend metal I could technically do more than I said, I stop thinking about what my powers really are and try to impale her but she just dodges it with no unnecessary steps, so she was still running at me.
[Well I need to beat you anyway, so overthinking won't let me do my thing].
I charged towards her, a barrier appears in front of me, I make a bunch of rocks envelop my hand and punch the barrier with all my might, it shatters, I see Marchosias approach me and tries to knee me, she hits in my crossed arm, she extends her arms and grabs my face, her palms are covered in her hot barrier and start burning my face.
"Ahgggg" My screams are muffled by her hands, I feel like she isn't moving her legs, but we still travel to a nearby wall, I grab her by the waist and put a spike through her, her skin is tough enough to not get impaled but I continue to put force into the spike, she has to stop grabbing me to backs off.
I start grabbing my face, my eyes are alright but the rest of my face isn't, I look up and don't see her, I start moving about when suddenly I feel a warm breeze, I immediately sink the floor I'm standing on to make a trench, a red barrier crashes into the ground, unable to get in the trench since it's too small.
"Ufff" I say, I'm finally recovered from her attack I start making my way out of the floor by making a tunnel to the surface since the barrier is still there.
"You're quite sturdy I'll give you that" I look to my side and see Marchosias looking down at me, she kicks me back down into the tunnel, I jump up to get out before I get trapped there, her expression hasn't changed, I stomped the ground and throw a rock at her with a kick, she kicks the rocks back but pulverizes it, reducing it to dust.
[Goddammit I knew that wouldn't work, but I have no sand to actually make a... wait].
In a moment of brilliance, I touch the ground, I put aether into, I try to figure out if I can do what I want, by making a tiny part of rock compress and rub against itself, it gets eroded into dust, I smile but get interrupted by a hot barrier from Marchosias crashing into me, she starts walking towards me.
"Is that all you can do? supposed Magical girl" Marchiosas mocks me but I just shrugged it off.
[Got too into it, but now watch].
"Thar Theater".
I put my hand on the floor and pour a large amount of aether into it, since I have a lot, spreading it through the entire room floor wasn't a problem, then I crushed and eroded the floor, it got cracked more and more until it was pulverized into dust about 2 feet deep and it resembled sand enough and I could control it effectively, Marchosias waited for everything to settle down and looked at me.
"Interesting way to waste time" She began to walk towards me.
"Yeah, I kinda just invented this on the spot" I said with a smile, she looked slightly annoyed that my idea got her feet covered in concrete dust.
"Sand Bayonet".
I punched the ground and an immense sand blade emerged from the ground and quickly crashed into Marchosias, she extended her hand and blocked it, however she underestimated me and was getting pushed back.
[HOW?].
I made a wall behind Marchosias, she got pushed against it and began actually trying to destroy the blade, she eventually did it and saw her own hand, the sand blade actually cut her skin making red crimson blood stained the dust bellow her.
"What a good trick Kid" she says, her wings started to unveil again.
"My turn" she suddenly accelerated in my direction by using her winds, I shot some sand bullets at her but she dodge them swiftly and punched me, as soon as I got punched kicked sending another sand blade into her, she completely tanked it.
I raise my arms and many sand tentacles tried to grab her, she weaved through all the tentacles and began flying towards me again, I throw my arms to the floor and make all the dust raise to make an improvised smoke screen, I make the smoke dissipate only around me as I start 'surfing' with a pile of sand while listening to Marchosias movements, after a few seconds I hear something.
"Sand Bayonet".
"Piston Crush".
My sand blade is destroyed by a cylindrical barrier, It hit my entire body and began traveling to the other side of the building, I grabbed my legs with sand and pulled me aside before crashing into the wall, I made the entire room clear from the dust, I saw Marchosias flying trying to see if I was hit, I make the wall spit out boulder at her she dodges most of them until one of the boulders disintegrated into dust before hitting her, I make the sand shot out at high speed and tear off her left-wing off.
"Yes!!" I say, Marchosias gets hurt enough to actually groan, her other wing retracts and she slowly descends to the floor looks at me, and then did look like she was going to punch.
[Okay now what are you going to do? please don't try to crush me against a wall or the floor again].
A barrier appears behind Marchosias, then it begins to push her at an insane speed towards me, I react by throwing more sand blades at her but she deflects them with arms, I prepare for impact and punch, we clash our fists, both of us are sent back from recoil.
"Useless" Marchosias says, before I notice she was already in front of me again, I try to impale her but she just lightly moves her body, my spike hits her other wing but she punches me in the head with her hand enveloped in a barrier, my hair begins burning up, before I can retaliate I've been kicked into a wall again, I jump to the side immediately to dodge a barrier that tried to crush me.
[She is strong as hell, maybe I need to get rid of walls, no wait that would collapse the building].
I make more sand tendrils to try and catch her, she disperses the sand with strong kicks while approaching me, I surf the sand and make my way to her, I grit my teeth and cover my arms in rocks, I begin rapidly punch her, she does as well, her arms covered in her barrier, she lands more blows than me but I continue.
"Gotcha" I have enveloped her hands with rocks so we are cuffed together, she tries to kick me but I block with my knee, it still hurts a lot but I manage to not cry out in pain, I put all my magic into the ceiling, a steel beam starts to fall on top of her, Her antennae sprung up and she manages to get away from me while barely dodging the steel beam.
"Steel Ammo".
I punch the Metal beam with both of my hands, I send it flying towards Marchosias, her barrier shatters as she tried to stop it, she gets hit with it and crashes into a pile of electronics.
[Serves you well!! maybe you'll stop trying to crush me].
I noticed that my body is getting slightly colder than usual, I look at my body and see that although I don't feel it I'm very tired, even with my massive amount of aether, the fact that half my techniques are improvised means that they are costly, so I'm overexerting myself by taking battle this long, I look at Marchosias, she is angry at the fact that I actually hurt her, and pretty badly at that, her stomach and left hand were momentarily holding like 100lbs.
"You'll regret that" She says, I smile at the threat, which is the first human-sounding thing she has said, I start throwing out more sand blades at her, she dodges and put up two barriers beside me.
[Sh*t].
I get sandwiched between the barriers, Marchosias gets to me and tackles me, she starts beating me up to the ground with her hand coated in her heated up barrier, I make numerous sand tendrils try and stab her, but her aether coating is a bit too much for that to happen, I almost pass out but I make the ground-launched us in the air, I grab myself with sand while Marchosias just lands on the ground.
[Why is she so f*cking hard to beat].
I'm thinking of what to do before I feel cold, I got chills on my spine I try to resonate with what is happening when I hear Sauriel in my head.
["You're almost out of aether"].
I was shocked, I had never been in battle so long that it actually wasted all of my reserves, I try to think out before getting gut-punched by Marchosias, I roll on the sand and try to get up, I'm breathing heavily as I'm tired.
"You humans are so weak-minded, not even able to not harm yourselves" Marchosias is angry at me, is if I'm only a child getting scolded by an adult, this infuriates me.
"I'm a magical girl!!! I will stop you whatever it takes" I get kicked in the stomach, I feel my guts get shoved around before I'm thrown to the other side of the building, I crashed into the wall, I try my best to not pass out, I cough up and try to breathe.
"You're not, you only act like one, you can't even beat me or save people, yet you're here claiming that, I'm sure you use your powers for something mundane anyways" she exclaims, I try to get up, my legs give up mid-way so I fall to my knees.
"Get this drilled into that small head of yours, you're nothing compared to me, your little power fantasy ends here, I'll take what I want from you and leave without a problem" she says.
"I can't..." I try to continue, but my lungs need more air, Marchosias smiles at my half answer.
"I can't let you go! two people are here because of me, I can't let you harm them!" I say to her, she just laughs.
"How unfortunate then, magical girl" Marchosias says.
[Hui's intention, she seemed to think about what to do after I actually didn't beat her up, she couldn't be lying, even if she is a criminal she is still a caring person to own up to her actions, saying that she actually didn't provoke me just after telling me how aether works to make me see everything more clearly, I can't think that she actually wanted me dead, she probably wanted me to beat this thing.]
I got on my knees, I saw Marchosias in her eyes and saw nothing but the pure abyss, a lack of human understanding enough to scare anyone away, I smiled at the view, I keep my eyes locked on her.
[You're the 'thing' Hui pretended to be, an uncaring monster with no sympathy at all, you actually want this to occur, to let you leave this room will be condemning hundreds of people to tragedy, they will be tortured and traumatized, no one deserves this].
"I MAY NOT BE A REAL MAGICAL GIRL, BUT I CAN STOP YOU AT LEAST" I look at my clothes.
[They do not belong to a magical girl, my powers don't belong to any genre other than action, I, more than anyone, know that I'm not a magical girl, but that doesn't matter anyway, I only want to protect my friends, even if I die while at it].
I gaze upon Marchosias, I lower my center of gravity, close my fist as hard as possible until it starts bleeding, I twist my body to the right while still looking at her eyes, she just walks slowly at me, I think of the friends I made while being a magical girl, Vera's prideful demeanor, Mary's dumb banter, Akari's shamelessness, David's selflessness, I get riled up at the thought not being able to see them again, one way or another.
My feet are firmly on the ground, I wait until Marchosias is touching the ground with her 2 feet, once she does I immediately tie myself and her to the ground with rocks.
"Wh-".
Before she can even think, I scream at the top of my lungs, the ground below us starts sliding at incredible speeds, it is moving us on acrash course towards each other, the sand that gets raised by the floor sliding gets clumped on my right arms, compacting and forming a rock gauntlet, in less than a second we are already in front of each other, she tries to block but her feet unbind from the ground that just stopped moving, but she continues being flung forwards while I smile even further, I grit my teeth while my hand is burning up as we are about to collide.
"RAILWAY GUN".
The ground I'm standing on stops moving, I untwist my body and with all the strength I have left and thrust my fist into Marchosias stomach, on the impact makes the rock gauntlet shatter, I can now feel her cold skin get dented inwards while her squishing her guts, I almost can hear her organs gets crushed over the immense force, She coughs off blood that lands on my hair staining it crimson red, I don't care about it, I put my back into the punch and begin twisting and leaning downwards, Marchosias body is thrown into the ground below us.
*Crash.
Marchoisas body impacts the ground so hard it makes a shock wave, I almost fall to the ground but the air shockwave actually pushed me to stand up again, the airwave raises the sand off the ground making everything foggy, Marchosias body can't even transfer all the force to the ground so she lightly bounces up on the concrete, after a few seconds, the sand finally settles downs, I start feeling my fist, pain is all that it registers in my hand, but I put it aside and look at her.
Marchosias is lying unconscious with blood on her mouth, she still breathing, I can see me a fist mark in her stomach, she is convulsing a little in the crater that I made, I sighed, suddenly I felt my own aether almost depleted, everything feels cold, and my thoughts are leaving me, I try to stay conscious, but I can't move, I know that if I try I will just fall to the ground, my hand is numb, I can't move it at all, it is completely bruised, I just sigh in relief once my thoughts regain their normal form.
"I've Won".
In the middle of the Staff room 'A', a hunched figure that has its fist bloodied and many burn marks on her face and body, she is breathing slowly as to not pass out from everything that has just happened to her, the dust is making it seems like sunlight rays are showering her like a divine figure, once it finally settles, A dark brown haired girl with emerald-colored eyes are revealed, she is proudly standing up with the body of her defeated enemy by her side, the first feat that will define her, was a walking legend.
The figure is known as Amy Rochelle - The Lovable Bruiser.