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While it was true the Pageless behaved sporadically, almost more feral than usual, this did not dissuade the Magical Girls. If anything, their revamped threat pushed the girls to strike back twice as hard, the area rife with magic in the air so much that it sparked and felt dense. This sensation was normal for those denizens of the light but for someone like Nessie it pressed down on her chest and squeezed her body in different invisible directions. Forces of darkness and light clashed with the darkness fading away into nothingness, leaving the pressure of the Magical Girls around Nessie to nearly swallow her whole.

There was only one inkling of relief that would fester in Nessie’s chest and it got stronger in certain directions Stripes directed her. 
The tiger-like Magical Girl would feel it too, as would everyone in the area. With the Pageless being slain one by one, the new Grimoire’s presence beat brighter like a pulsing heart. Despite their best efforts and instinctual hunger, the Pageless attacking the humans were destroyed one by one. By now the civilians simply walked in place and in circles, left in their deluded magical stupor as the darkness faded. The first objective of protecting the people was complete; all that remained was finding the Grimoire and hunting the last straggling Pageless.

But for every light, there was to be a shadow cast. No matter how powerful it was, the darkness these rays left behind always deepened in response. As the Grimoire pulsed harder, calling out to Nessie, goading her to find its birth place among the construction site’s rubble, the Pageless in turn grew restless. They screeched and snarled, clawed and hissed. Their bodies festered into one another, twisting and contorting and melding with the steel structures of the construction site around them until at long last they formed into a single Pageless, one whose visage was a mockery of their environment.

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The new Pageless clamored somewhere high at the construction site’s peak. It swung loosely like a rusty bar before plopping itself suddenly in the middle of the clearing. Sand and dirt were swept into the wind and sent everywhere as the loomingly tall Pageless gave a mechanical whir. The humans may no longer be its target, but the area was still far from safe for the civilians. Spinning its massive wheel and gears, the Pageless crawled with reckless abandon in a single direction.

Somewhere at the base of the steel towers, in the direction Captain Goodhope’s legions followed, was the Grimoire. The Pageless smashed anything that got in its path, be it Magical Girl or more lingering construction work. The closer it got, the brighter the Grimoire beamed. It was the brightest of course for Nessie, all but screaming at the ginger lass to abandon all caution and pursue it at any cost. 
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