Child’s Play Part 2.2 (Student Council, Darkness, Tetsuya)
When they get to the scene of the new Bleeding Zone, it’s a real mess. Meliaya looks around, trying to see past Shu and Ran’s legs at the front of the group. Cars have crashed and formed a pile-up, but at least it was an unusually high-traffic area, so none of them was going very fast. People are wandering around like they’re lost, and Tsukumogami are all over the place.
Closing her eyes, Yaya opens them and stands shoulder to shoulder with the boys. Amelia, her Idolon, fills her with a larger-than-life calm. All the tears from what happened with Madoka are pushed back, and it feels like the world can be alright again. She can make it alright again! Her vision cycles between several spectrums, assessing the scene without need for prompting. “Something about this Bleeding Zone is promoting the formation of Tsukumogami. I’m detecting a lot of them, enough that it’s hard to pinpoint individuals.”
“Least the little craps are easy to knock around,” Ran cracks his knuckles, his brother’s armor folding out around him. Feeling a rush of elation, Amelia glances away. It’s nice when he eases up his foul language around her, like a responsible big brother, even if it is a little condescending. She’s heard swear words before. She could even say one, probably!
“Amelia, you’ve got the field scans. How should we spread out?” Laplace asks, standing with one hand on her hip while Geistzer rushes in to start checking on the people in the jammed up cars.
“I think we can leave the ones out here to Geistzer, he’s already on it.” Besides, he’d find his way to where he needs to be. He always does! Holding her metal hands to her chest, Amelia traces the other pockets of activity. “The strongest signal is there,” she points through the outer wall of the Lucky Land department store. She knows it well- “The children’s toys section! We should rescue as many civilians as we can, establish a base of operations to extract them to, then converge on that point with our best units.”
Laplace nods along with the plan. “I see a ruckus in the restaurant across the street,” she points out. “It’s on the edge of the Bleeding Zone, so it should be the safest place for anyone injured. Ame-chan, would you mind clearing it out and sending your drones to coordinate us and collect our rescues?”
“Nope! That sounds great!” raising her shoulders, Amelia puffs out a breath. “I’m ready. I can do it. Then, Twin-san and Laplace-chan can go into Lucky Land together. The enemies are weak but there are a lot of them, so stay safe! Do a sweep in the opposite direction before you tackle the epicenter in the children’s toys!”
“Don’t gotta tell me twice,” breaking into a sprint, Ran tackles past a crowd of floating toy instruments on the street corner, who have some people tied up in their power cords forced to listen to their music. Looking back, Laplace nods at Amelia with confidence and walks after her teammate with a more measured and easy pace.
Turning to her own target, Amelia first jets herself into the Fancy Burger parking lot. Touching down ever-so-gently, she detects movement on her left and raises her arm. Two tires are detaching themselves from a parked car, sprouting eyes from their metal rims. Cracking off two shots, Amelia leaves them deflating. The car-owner probably won’t be happy but maybe they can help him switch out some spares later!
Detecting a surge in Idea World energy signatures at the edge of the Zone, Amelia spins in place and lowers herself into a crouch, unfurling the gatling guns from her back. A Garganta forming! It could be that one enemy that’s been sending-
No, it’s just Scarlet Senshi! “Scar-chan!” Amelia bounces up to her feet and folds her deadly weapon emplacement back into her spine.
Leaping through the portal, the bright red tokusatsu hero lands with a pose, spinning her tire iron. “We meet again, ally of justice!” Walking into the parking lot, she leans down and checks on a guy sprawled out on the ground. It looks like he fell asleep. “Did an enemy do this?”
“I think some people just react that way to Bleeding Zones,“ Amelia answers while Scarlet Senshi lifts the man onto a bench where he won’t get stepped on or run over. “Hey! Can you use your tire iron to help us change some tires after?” When Scarlet Senshi looks at Amelia and cocks her head to the side, Amelia points at the two deflated tire Tsukumogami. “Something in this Zone is infecting all the objects with malice and turning them into Tsukumogami! It looks like it’s even affecting objects that wouldn’t normally turn into one.”
Scarlet Senshi clips Amelia’s shoulder with a loud metallic clang. “A true hero, thinking about the fates of those caught in the crossfire. I would gladly help you. But first, we have a battle to win!”
The two approach the broad, open windows of the Fancy Burger, peering around a large poster advertising their new udon burger. Menu items are coming to life, jumping up and biting or grabbing onto the guests! Thankfully their french-fry teeth aren’t very sharp, but Amelia can see some of the victims have burns from the hot food, or are getting stinging ketchup in their eyes!
Behind the counter, Amelia notices a strange aura around one of the order screens. The employee standing underneath it collapses, and an outline of him is left behind, changing shape into- actually it’s not really changing shape at all. “I think there might be a more powerful boss monster in there, Scar-chan, be careful!” she advises. Scarlet Senshi nods and the two back up to get a running start, then charge the window. As one, they shatter onto the scene.
“Scarlet Senshi - watcher off the watchmen!” the tokustatsu declares, swinging her weapon and knocking a burger Tsukumogami off one of the victims’ faces.
“And me, Amelia Steamheart!” raising her arm, Yaya feels a rush at getting to jump in like a real action hero! This must be why Shu loves it so much! With pinpoint accuracy, she shoots a serpentine mass of noodles that was tied around another customer’s neck trying to strangle her, causing the tangle to go lump. It’ll be tough not using her heavy firepower in here, there’s too many civilians to catch in the crossfire.
From behind the counter, the employee- now wearing a dark spiky-looking jacket and with spiky, bright-red hair, grabs onto the counter and leaps over. He flies head over heels across the room and slams onto a table next to the two girls. He must be a new Awakened not used to his powers yet- but, there’s something that feels off about him to Amelia’s senses. She steps closer and reaches down to help him up. “Are you alright?”
Slapping her hand away, the guy lifts himself up atop the table and reaches out with his palm. He must want a high-five for doing it himself! Amelia winds up her hand, when a pushing wave of force slams into her body and sends her flying through the air. Her Idolon body smashes through a dividing wall between the seating area and the ordering area, but it honestly doesn’t do a whole lot to her steel frame.
“Begone, woman! No one touches THE DARKNESS without permission!” the new guy jumps off of the table, standing opposite Scarlet Senshi. She’s got her tire iron in hand, wound up to strike.
“People like you,” Amelia can hear Scarlet Senshi grinding her teeth behind the mask of her helmet. “You think having power lets you do whatever you want?!”
“That’s right,” reaching into his pocket, the darkness guy pulls out a small cylindrical bit of metal. With a ZVOOM sound, it grows a black rod of manifested darkness in a sword blade. “Don’t underestimate my power, white knight!”
The two step towards each other. Their weapons swing, and clash in the air. Black sparks fly from the point where Scarlet Senshi’s red thorns impact the dark energy blade. Getting up and dusting herself off, Amelia hears someone crying out from the kitchen, and then gunfire. Unchecked bullets fly into the room through the kitchen wall, and Amelea stands up straighter. “I’m moving to another designated area!” she calls out.
“Go, I’ve got this guy,” there’s a real intensity in Scar-chan’s voice, like she’s channeling something else into this fight.
Turning around, Amelia jumps and spirals in the air, launching herself through the food-chute window like a missile. She lands smoothly in the kitchen, where several of the appliances have come to life, turning into decidedly more dangerous Tsukumogami than the wimpy food-monsters out in the dining area. To a non-awakened, at least.
One of the cooks has a burn across his face, but the grill that attacked him already has a string of bullet holes through it.
A refrigerator opens up and produces sharp icicles that launch from its insides at Amelia. Each of her arms moving in perfect concert with the others, she shatters the incoming projectiles with small-arms fire of her own. Then, a rising spray of automatic weapons fire chews through the side of the fridge. It sparks and then its lights go out, and it falls forward.
Amelia leaps ahead to grab it before it can topple over right on top of the other cook in the kitchen! She heaves the appliance back upright, and spots the source of the gunfire. A tiny mechanical creature that looks like a really mangled computer-brain inside a jar. And when she says mangled, Yaya means the brain and the jar!
“Ehehe, how clumsy of me,” the tiny creature says in a tinny voice. Amelia recognizes it from the Student Council’s past meetings with other Awakened- it’s Abe-san’s Idolon! Its demeanor seems different, though.
“You could hurt an innocent bystander if you use your automatic weapons all willy-nilly in here,” she scolds the smaller robot.
“I would hate for that to happen.” It’s hard for Amelia to tell if the little guy’s deadpan voice is sincere or not. Well, maybe he just needs a point in the right direction! There are two pots of soup noodles coming to life on the other side of the kitchen.
Amelia points at them. “See? Why don’t you take those targets out with single-shot fire to reduce the chances of accidental casualties?”
The Idolon aims at the pots with both arms and shoots two metal canisters out of its wriggly tube arm cannons. The canisters explode, releasing a dense gas that immediately vaporizes the new noodle-monsters, but starts eating through the metal of the pots and the counter too! “Oh, it looks like I overdid it again.”
Thinking quickly, Amelia creates two large fans out of her arms and blows the caustic fog into the back corner of the room before it can reach any of the unawakened. “Hey!” she calls out as the tiny robot zips away, but it’s gone out the back door before she can stop it.
Each blow, each connection between their weapons, fills Scarlet Senshi with greater purpose. Though her opponent’s pale face looks far more natural than that selfish bastard who she confronted in the street, she can’t help but see him in the dark gothic clothes and superior attitude.
Meeting his laser sword with her pipe again, Scarlet Senshi can see the energy blade crackling and beginning to flicker. With each strike, her Breakcore subtly cracks at the crystal inside of his cylindrical hilt, wearing the weapon’s durability down. Their eyes meet across the weapons, and the Darkness raises his hand. It’s the third time he’s tried this move, and it doesn’t get any more creative each time.
Moving with the wave of force, Scarlet Senshi spins and lands with her feet on the ceiling, redirecting the momentum into her legs to free-run across it. With a wave of her hand, she summons a flurry of flower petals the spiral down at her foe. He waves his sword at them, but some get through and fly into his eyes. Using the moment of blindness, Scarlet Senshi leaps down into a handstand in front of the Awakened goon and plants both of her feet into his chest in a kick that launches her back up onto her feet.
Darkness sails backwards through another window, into the parking lot. Before she gives chase, Scarlet Senshi swiftly flips through the room, catching two more burger Tsukunogami with her iron and flattening them into mush. It would be the irresponsibility of a false hero to chase her fight before ensuring nobody else is harmed!
Dashing and leaping out the window, Scarlet Senshi activates Backstab to teleport behind the still-recovering Darkness. She drives her knee into his back and then spins in midair to deliver a roundhouse kick, sending him flying into a parked car. The alarm starts going off, and Scarlet Senshi cringes behind her helmet.
“Aha… but did you know,” climbing to his feet, Darkness looks at her with a wide grin. “I, too, can do that move, sir.” Vanishing backwards into the shadow of his car, he tries to leap out of Kaoru’s shadow and strike her through with his blade.
Except, like a fool, he’d announced exactly what he was doing… Scarlet Senshi’s danger sense feels the moment of impact and she activates her own power, appearing behind him in a flash. He slips back down into the shadow and tries to reappear behind her, but she just does the same.
They do this dance around the parking lot for an embarrassingly long time before Darkness gives up and reappears with his back pressed protectively against the blaring car. “So it seems we are evenly matched! As two heroes of DARKNESS should be!”
This guy is really getting on her nerves. Reaching back, Scarlet Senshi tosses her tire iron like a boomerang. The move catches him off guard and he reflexively raises his dark beam sword to block. When the two impact, the gradual work of Scarlet Senshi’s Breakcore finally reaches critical mass. With a loud POP and the cracking of metal and plastic, the cylinder in his hands explodes, and the tire iron sails straight through the vanishing blade to strike him upside the chin, knocking him sprawling over the hood of the car.
Exercising control of the attached thorns, Scarlet Senshi has her iron spring across the parking lot back into her hand as she walks over to the fallen foe. “Someone like you calling us equals,” she almost spits, but she remembers she’s wearing a helmet. “You dirty the word hero when it touches your lips!”
“Agh,“ sliding down the hood, Darkness rolls onto the ground, on his hands and knees. “This… this is not the last you’ve seen of- THE DARKNESS!” He raises his hand in an attempt to throw his foe in some effort at a last laugh, but Scarlet Senshi leans back under the pulse as it runs through the air, then springs back upright.
He’s gone. Slunk away into his own shadow to flee who-knows-where. “Amelia would know, assuming he’s still in the same Bleeding Zone,” she says quietly to herself, kneeling down to collect the partially-shattered dark crystal from the ground. Pocketing the Idea Materials, she rushes back inside to meet with her comrade and learn what the Student Council’s plan is. Where did everybody else go?
TO BE CONTINUED