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-food and friends -


Throughout most of Amaryllis’ introduction Penny had a baffled look on her face due to the absurdity of it, as the swordswoman proved to be the most eccentric magical girl that Penny had met so far. That confusion instantly turned in to discomfort, however, once the Knight pinned a metal rose in her hair however before bounding off to who knows where.

“Glad to know I was understanding that correctly” The cyborg replied to Rina as she removed the hair ornament and rolled it in-between her fingers as she looked at it fair amount of uncertainly and a minor grimace. Shaking her head Penny just let out a sigh and started to roll the metal flower in to a ball. “Breakfast sounds nice, and if we are where I think we are there should be a Denny’s a few blocks from here”

“Just got to park the car and send a text to my allies and we can head out” Penny explained reached out to the Earth Bastion and started to recall it back to Laat’s domain. It was immediately apparent that something was happening to the tank-ship, as it started to rapidly sublimate away and ten seconds later both The Cyborg and The Hunter were standing on the baseball pitch with the Bastion nowhere to be seen.

“There we go” Penny said after making sure her ride was safely tucked away “So, mind if I ask for you name since I got your partners already?” Penny would ask as she started to lead the way to the diner she had mentioned earlier, pocketing the balled up flower as she did so. She would wait till they were closer to pull on her disguise.

On the way she would send a quick text to Beacon, as she had no idea where any of her allies had ventured off too.



-Sisterhood of Steel -

@Rune_Alchemist@ERode

By the time Penny ran out of ammo to fire, the horror that she had opposed was nothing more than dust. So determined was she to eradicate her enemy she didn’t even notice Aurelio’s clone flare up and disperse due to her onslaught as she had poured everything, all the anger, hate, and fear she had felt in to the assault. Yet it was not until the innocent civilian’s tentatively came out to survey the carnage and began cheering out their thanks to the heavens that she was able to let her focus wavier.

From the towering point of the Bastions command deck Penny’s perception watched those that had been impacted by the tragedy that had befallen them. It felt like so long ago that Penny was like many of them, but right now she could be thankful that she no longer was fully human. As if she was the monster would have been a nightmare to take care of.

She watched the people for a few moments longer, trying to forever etch in to her memory that despite being forged into an instrument of destruction that she was still capable of helping, of being good.

Finally she turned her attention to the two girls that were upon her deck. “I might be able to get some Whiskey or Rum if you really want.” Penny’s disembodied voice echoed out from the deck plating near Katarina and Amaryllis, shortly before a spot a few feet away from them started to twist and warp as Penny started to emerge from the ship before seamlessly disconnecting from the Earth bastion.

“One of the few perks of having a god on speed dial” She continued as she stepped closer to the other metal users. Her stance was relaxed and her eyes were glowing a bright blue. “I’m Penny, by the way” she added as she offered a hand to the two.





.:Back Together:.

@BrokenPromise@Ariamis

“Nah,” Came Aurelio’s reply to Abigail’s teasing remark “It’s all the bad boy vibes that Frustration gives off. I mean just look at him he’s got the brooding look down perfectly, very hard to resist” he explained with a knowing air.

The clone in question just tossed his hands in the air ”Nope” the Brown clad clone called out “Not dealing with this” he said before stepping over to the original and went to smack him on the head, but the moment they touched the clone vanished in a puff of smoke. The white clad boy’s attitude took a noticeable down turn immediately afterward as well. As he gave Sally a much closer look the worry on his face not hard to see.

The indigo and green copies of Aurelio both stepped up next to the original a moment later “No going off on only a third of the story chief” The blue clone said before he too reintegrated with the original.

”Not much I can add, but I saw what happened to Rage” chimed in the green clone before it too returned to Aurelio.

Shaking his head to clear it from the info dump he just got “Well that answers those questions.” He said his good mood already returned “Penny and a few others took down the Monster; Dog boy and Brave were able to help out those we missed. So it looks like the fighting is done, and as Abigail has mentioned we’ve been invited to meet the Bates. Who are the friends that these girls have been staying with recently if I am correct in my guess?” he half asked half stated as he glanced towards Abigail.

“Regardless I already mentioned that I wanted to meet the two of them, But I can get you a quick lift back to HQ if you want to rest up instead.” If asked Aurelio would prefer if Sally went back to HQ,as he had an ace up his sleeve encase things went south in the meeting with the Bates. After all he had a small amount of Wonder at his disposal, and it was one of the three great emotions in his opinion.

-Firing Squad-


The horrid feeling of disintegration staggered Penny long enough that she missed her chance for a guaranteed hit form the Bastion’s main gun, but she was still delighted to see the monster topple. But as she readied herself for another charge hoping to crush the aberrant thing with the Bastion’s weight, it released a great miasma and started to flee.

The mechanical girl chose not to race off after it, seeing as if she did she would tear down a fair amount of the stadium to do so. Plus Penny could tell that the inky smoke was more than just a screen with the way that Amaryllis fell on to her deck. Instead she started lining up a shot, as she would likely only get the one.

That didn’t mean the Knight’s call for assistance went unheeded, far from it in fact for while Penny could calim to have much power when it came to magic she did have plenty of Mana to toss around if she needed to. Thus when she felt the great chains being passed over to her control she fused them the Earth Bastion where ever they made contact and once Katarina’s greatsword dropped from the sky the monster lost any hop of being able to avoid Penny’s next attack. As now that she was connected to it by metal she knew exactly where to aim in the miasma, and it wouldn’t be able to dodge anymore with the building sized blade lodged in it.

All the while Red Aurelio quietly worked away adding his own two cents to this mess, as he had more than enough rage to work with, both due to his starting mote and the amount of it pouring off his robotic ally.

The main cannon had been boosted for its next shot, as Penny’s intention wasn’t hard to guess. The chains had been augmented as well, super-heated to inflict more damage and boosted to be harder to break. Most of Red’s magic went in to damage control however, as he tried to isolate the area around the monster. So that any damage that didn’t directly harm the monster would be directed to him. As a clone he had little reason to care about his own well-being, and due to his vow he couldn’t ignore the possibility of there being innocents out there.

Finally Penny’s voice could be heard projecting from the intercom system of the Earth Bastion “Brace!” And with that warning the Bastion opened fire on the hapless monstrosity.


.:Clone saga:.


While the original Aurelio was off with Abigail and with Red currently assisting Penny, the other three duplicates found their tasks intersecting in a very unfortunate location.

Brown was the first to find his mark and the moment he did Brown immediately moved to at Sally’s side as a dull brown light started to emanate from his hand “Don’t even think of falling asleep on me” he ordered roughly as he passed his glowing hand over the wound before muttering a string of curses under his breath. He needed to find Indigo and fast, as his emotional range couldn’t heal this wound.

Grinding his teeth together he focused upon the wound as he passed his hand over the wound again this time causing a substance like wet clay to flow from his hand and start covering the wound binding it shut, some of the arcane mud would flow in to the wound to staunch the blood loss internally as well. All the while a feeling of Frustrated determination would bubble up with Sally bolstering her fortitude.

The spell wouldn’t be a gentle feeling but it would keep Sally as she was right now and hopefully buoy her until Indigo could be found, as that took just about all of Brown’s reserve to pull off. “We need to move, as much as I trust the Tank-girl it wouldn’t take much to get flattened by accident out here.” Brown Aurelio said as he picked Sally up in a bridal carry before heading off in the opposite direction of both Penny and the Horror, towards one of the team locker rooms.

Green and Indigo conversely had a rather easy task at the start, it wasn’t hard to round up people and start shepherding them to Brown, and their first batch of civvies took them hardly anytime at all.

“Comp!” Brown nearly shouted when he caught sight of the calm looking copy walked in at the back of the first group. “Sally needs you. Now!” This time the order was shouted and Indigo was not found wanting as he was by the lucky girls side instantly.

“Hey there” Indigo said softly as a comforting blue glow started to suffuse his hands “Sorry about him, he’s a bit frustrated, but I promise you’re going to be okay” Indigo stated as he calmly started working towards healing the devastating cut that Sally had been inflicted with.

This time the magic would be gentle and would feel like a Compassionate embrace.

Back near the entrance Brown and Green were talking “Too close?” asked Green as he gestured to Sally

“We’ll see” Brown replied with a huff “you keep up the train of people going, I’m nearly tapped, wasn’t built with a lot of charge so I’m only good for point defense at the moment.”

“Fair enough, doubt many people would react well to your grumpy mug out there anyway” Green replied with a cheeky grin.

“I will toss you out of here if I need to” Brown threatened as he leaned up against the wall to the entrance. Green just chuckled and went off in search of more people who might need rescue.


-Road Rage-

There is something to be said about the human capability to overcome emotion, for Penny it had become a warped and twisted thing. Her monstrous wrath, her human fears, all had been left at the wayside, ignored in as she became the calm in the eye of the storm. For there was nothing that could focus or sooth the Cyborg like destruction. Regardless if was her or another’s.

That’s not to say Penny would ever forgive the towering monster that had struck her, it was still her enemy and was deserving of being rent asunder. Just that it’s actions had perhaps the worst outcome for it and the best for Penny. Everything unnecessary to this moment was left ignored as Penny forced all of beings attention at the Giant horror.

For these next few moments, she would step beyond herself and fall completely in to her role as Laat’AlOfan’s chosen. Thus she would bring the word of her God to this blighted amalgam.

The Earth Bastion housed over a hundred cannons; forty on each side that could be used in full scale broadsides. An additional thirty were mounted on gun turrets that could rotate to face near any direction there were numerous smaller cannons on fixed locations around the Tankship so that there was no blind spots in its firing arcs. Of all these cannons the tri-barreled cannon that sat on the front half of the ship was by far the largest and most dangerous weapon on the Earth Bastion.

The moment Amaryllis lept off it Penny roared in to motion, letting her actions answer the Knights call to arms. The Bastion spun in place as it realigned to its foe as Penny floored it aiming to ram in to the creature, her main gun poised to act as the spear of her charge. She already knew that the monster’s touch was destructive, and while she was currently part of the mighty ship, it was beyond her to transfer the entirety of her Regeneration to it. That was a skill that lies solely in the hands of the Engine of Destruction.

Still if she could bury the main gun in the things stomach, it would be able to avoid the round of cannon fire that would come moments later, as Penny couldn’t be reckless with her cannons, for one every missed shot would spread the destruction further from this fight, and the focus it would take to reload them wasn’t something she could spare at the moment.
After all it was her first becoming a tank.


.:Preparing for Trouble:.
:-By making his Doubles-:


“Geez what is with today and the nonstop crazy?” Aurelio would exclaim after the Earth Bastion made its appearance. Day one in Penrose was teaching the magician that this city’s problems were on a level of its own when compared to the other places he had been. Still this was not the time to be slacking off.

Tossing his can in to the air Aurelio brought his hands together in a great clap before focusing, and when he pulled his hands apart in a dramatic flourish a flashes of Indigo, Green, Red and Brown accompanied it. ”Gent’s” he would say in a chipper tune as he turned around to face the four clones of himself that he had just made, catching his cane as it fell back to him absently while he spoke “glad you could make it”

Despite being his clones it was immediately apparent that there was something different about these clones, none of them matched Aurelio’s color scheme. Where the original wore a brilliant white, his clones were each dominated by a different color. One wore a vibrant Red and had a slight scowl on his face, another was covered in a bright Green and had a cocky grin, the one wearing a deep Indigo had a compassionate smile, while the one in flat Brown had a look of focused annoyance.

“Red you’re with Penny” he would command pointing at the colored clone as he spoke “Hold nothing back I want that thing gone.” Said clone tsked before nodding and taking off towards Earth Bastion. “Brown, find Sally she spiked a moment ago and I want you to make sure she’s fine. If she is you’re her shadows, if she isn’t take her to Indigo” That clone just ran a hand down its face before giving a thumbs up in acknowledgement as it too ran off to fulfill its task. “Green and Indigo” He continued turning to face the last two clones “I want to find and cover the normies who got caught up in this, Green you’re the tank while Indigo your on white mage got it?”

Got it chief! they replied, giving mock salutes before heading out themselves.

“And Abi” He would say turning to face the girl after he was done with his clones “I’m at your service, lead the way” giving a slight bow as he did. The monsters Elroy and Regina were Aurelio’s immediate concern, now that it seemed that the resident cyborg had the Kaiju under control. That meant sticking close to Abigail, both to try and keep her save and to be able to meet them.

-Mobile Fortress-


Penny knew better to stick near the portal once it started acting weird and stopped letting things in, for all of her lack of magical skill she had a healthy paranoia of anything that could casually ignore grounded reality. Thus she was already speeding away from the dugout by way of her thrusters when the monstrous roar erupted from the portal.

The force of the roar nearly toppled Penny due to her proximity to it and she tossed a glance over her shoulder just in time to witness the massive horror emerging from the now equally as massive portal. The cyborgs first instinct was fear, for as vicious as a fighter as she was and as often as her durability had been tested, this thing towered over the city and at the end of the day Penny still considered herself quite human. That near blind fear was quickly over written by wrath a moment later, as her monstrous instincts raged at the threat to her home.

With an act of will she tore her gaze back to in front of her as she forced herself to asses her options. During this frantic reevaluation she snapped of a gauss round at Elroy, more out of reflex then active intent and was vindictively pleased to see the attack hit home. That moment of clarity that came in the wake of that surprise reminded Penny that she had something that would even the battle field against the Kaiju sized threat they now faced.

Flipping around as she skated away she came to a stop near the middle of the baseball field and focused inward. Her trump card in this circumstance wasn’t one she had used before, after all she had only recently acquired it but instinct told her it would fit, if only barely, but it had the fire power to help tip the scales.

“Coordinates uploaded and LZ is clear. She called out mechanically as sparks of electricity arced off her frame and scored the ground near her “Target is locked and weapons are free” She continued opening her eyes as she focused on the Giant horror as a massive storm cloud appeared above the stadium. With a yell to the heavens Penny called down her stolen treasure “Earth Bastion!” And the heavens replied with a bolt of lightning of tremendous proportions that struck Penny where she stood.

As the flash faded and the thunder quieted, it would be revealed that the baseball field was filled, near completely, with yet another colossal entity. This time it was a tank of truly epic size now sat in center of the stadium, summoned by Penny from Laat's realm, and every gun that it had was turned to face towards the giant monster in a blatant show of hostility and not even a moment later one of the cannons roared out as the tank fired at the monster.

Penny as a creature of Metal had summoned the titanic war machine on top of her, thus she was currently fused with it. This gave her rudimentary control of the Earth Bastion, she could drive it and fire most of the cannons as well as remold parts of the ship if needed, but she was not as capable as her Monstrous half when it came to this, thus she could not turn it in to a golem to fight one on one with the Kaiju But as the Earth Bastion she would draw the creature’s attention and keep it focused on her, letting everyone else act freely.

From somewhere in the ship an announcement would ring out from an intercom system. “Yellow alert, D̷͞҉͏̡è̛͘҉̕s҉̶̛̛҉t́̀͘͢͜r̡ứ̧ć̸t̶̡̨͟į̛ơ̶͜͡͝n͏̡̛ ̴̵̛͞E͏̨ņ͏ģ́̕͠҉i̡͞͏̸͠n̴̢͠͝e͏̧̀ ̶̵̨̛ has reached 50%, caution advised”

&


.:back stage:.


Abigail's cheeks flushed pink when Aurelio took her hand in his and placed a kiss on it. ”H-heh.” She was grinning ear to ear, but the corners of her lips were twitching. Still, she managed to hear everything Aurelio had to say. ”Well, I don't think Beacon HQ is a very safe place for Annabelle. And I don't really think it's fair if we kill her, is it?” She gestured towards Annabelle. ”She's harmless! She's just a normal girl who happens to be serving a horror, likely not of her own will. If we can give a pass to that monstrous bucket of bolts, why not to people like her? That's why we're going to stash her in Divina's interdenominational home.”

A portal opened up behind Divina. It looked like the mouth of a cave, with moss covered stones framing the gateway. Once it opened, Divina picked up Annabelle and walked towards the opening. ”Same thing with Elroy and Regina. Us Beacon girls forced them out of their home. It's not really fair to hold any sort of malice against them. Besides, they're a lovely group of monsters. I trust them more than my fellow Beacon girls!”

Abigail giggled. ”Regina is really nice. After we get Annabelle secured, I'll take you back to the stadium so that we can meet her.”Abigail closed her hand around Aurelio's. Their gloves kept them from actually touching each other. ”I think she's ready to recruit someone else to the cause.”

The carefree grin on Aurelio’s face was quickly removed as he watched the horrific event of Annabelle’s arm being reformed ”I see what you mean” he agreed softly even as he drew in the few motes of wonder that flew from the downed girl. “You’re fellows at HQ aren’t the most forgiving of people” He truly felt for the harmed girl, she was in a bad situation and he just didn’t have the right emotions to help her much at the moment.

Still something was off here, and it was Abigail’s defense of Elroy and Regina that proved it. That she and likely her other friends he had seen trusted a pair of monsters over her peers at Beacon was damning, especially since this HQ had only just started to move away from a hard kill them all stance. The only things that would make sense were manipulation or brain washing. After all there were ways to work around the spark rather than face it head on.

These thoughts never showed on Aurelio’s face however. Instead his smile made a small return as he gave Abigail’s hand a light squeeze “Any friend of yours is a friend of mine” True words as he wasn’t sure if anyone here was a light user “I would love to meet her” More truth, as the best way to mislead a Light user is by speaking nothing but truth, even if strung together it became a great lie.

“Before you go and get her situated mind if I place a tag on you two?” He would ask gesturing to Abigail and Divina “I would also like to heal her a little while I’m at it, but the tag isn’t much just a way to keep track of you girls, so long as we are on the same plane that is.”

Abigail was noticeably happier with Aurelio's apparent understanding of the situation. ”Healing her won't be necessary, I lent Divina my healing artifact.” She nodded at Aurelio. ”Besides, we have to get back to the battlefield. If you want to tag me though, that's fine.” She cast out her arms. ”Hold onto your butt! We're going back! Gheahahahahahahaha!”




When the two returned to the stadium, they could see the addition of a very large monster. ”Oh boy, maybe we'll have to evacuate Regina and Elroy too...” She looked around at all of her allies. ”Oh!” Her head poked up. ”Everyone's going to be right here soon!”

Aurelio gave a low whistle as he craned his neck to look up at the towering monster “Evacuating everyone might not be a bad Idea, as that’s going to make quite the splat when toppled” He supplied as he started working on how to even go about tackling the giant foe. He also did a quick scan of his marks from earlier to make sure his own allies were still doing alright.

“And before I forget: Trickster’s Tag” he said tapping Abigail on the shoulder before snapping his fingers. A moment later a grinning mask appeared on the girl’s shoulder “That way I’ll be able to find you in case we get split up” It would also allow his magic to track after her or be cast from the glyph its self. It wouldn’t give him any indication of how she was doing however, as the purpose of this glyph was subterfuge not support.

.:Ground work:.

Aurelio hadn’t gotten very far before things started to go haywire, he had been trailing after Sally, albeit at a considerable distance, launching simple blasts of magic from his cane at various monsters that seemed to be unnoticed or over looked. His goal was simple at this point as he was mainly a support unit thus he was following and planning on supplying support to his allies if they needed it.

Then someone got thrown at him.

“Seems we’ve lost normality faster than usual” He remarked to no one in particular as a girl was thrown his way. With a flourish he pointed his cane at the living projectile sent his way, for while he might have taken the chain wielding swords-woman's warning with a grain of salt, hearing Sally confirm it was enough for him.

However, before he could unleash his spell he found himself transported to who knows where via an overcity shift. “I’m just hopping all over the place today” he once again said to no one as he tucked his cane under his arm the vibrant yellow ban still in place as a dull red one started to swirled down next to it.

“And you have it in one, just got popped in the other day." Aurelio would reply as he turned his attention back to Abigail, while not letting the winged girl or the chained girl out of his vision “And not sure I would call her useless, she’s been more than willing to help us out from what I’ve heard, that’s got to count for something.” He defended Penny, as while he hadn’t seen much of the Monstergirl in question, his Vow would accept nothing less for an ally of Beacon.

”Still pleasure to make your acquaintance Abigail, please call me Aurelio.” The magician would answer bowing low and giving the back of the offer hand a light kiss on the knuckles. “And if I might be so bold as to ask what you are doing?” He would ask after standing back up pointing over at Annabelle as he did “After all Sally did mention that this one here is a Dark Magical Girl”

Something was wrong here, he could tell, but he wasn’t sure what it was. So for the moment he would watch, he was good at that after all. Still he wouldn’t hesitate to lash out and try to incapacitate everyone here if this was going the way he feared and it turned out that these two were working for the forces of darkness. He just hoped that they were doing it against their will.

Quietly he siphoned off the excess excitement from Abigail in preparation for whatever might be coming “In addition, Abi, if you need a safe place to do it, I could get us back to HQ in a snap. I’ve got teleporter privileges after all.”





-Opening volley-


Penny wasn’t surprised in the slightest that her shot missed, it was more of a way to announce herself then anything. Thus it was no surprise that she started moving just as Elroy started moving, the difference was that Penny wasn’t moving to intercept. She knew he had back up somewhere and would prefer to keep to the open as much as possible to dodge the incoming attacks.

Thus Penny had rushed to one of the dugouts, bulldozing through anyone who got in her way and started throwing everything she could lift. Which with her inhuman strength was everything but the dugout itself, and even that was getting chunks of stone torn out of it to be thrown. While nothing she was throwing was magical in nature, getting hit with something moving upwards of 300kph was going to hurt or at least distract long enough for a Gauss round to land.

Most of her thrown barrage was aimed at Elroy, but every now and again she would take aim at one of the mummies dotting the arena. All of her projectiles were aimed at center of mass, but the mix of balls, bat and other miscellaneous rubble she was making for use as projectiles mad it hard to tell if she was going to be hitting with blunt impacts or sharp ones.

It was while she was dismantling the dugout that she noticed the flickering portal in here with her as well as a handful of grunt monsters. The grunts got a face full of close range projectile barrage, while Penny just kept eyeing the portal speculatively in between volleys she threw out. She did alter her tactics a bit to keep anyone else from getting close to portal.

An electric whine for told of another Gauss round ready to fire, and this one she wan't planning on missing with.




Veronica

-Phone tag-


Jumping from rooftop to rooftop Penny took a steadying breath as she pulled one of her lest favorite contact numbers at the moment and sent the call.

It rang once before the booming voice of Laat echoed out from her ear piece. “You Seek My Counsel?“

“You could say that My Lord” Penny replied unsurprised at the quick pick up, Laat was always watching her and what was going on around her, unsurprising considering she was near literally a walking alter to him and his goal. “I wished to ask about the accusations lain towards your name, the genocide of the Gold Dragons.”

“A Misunderstanding, Though Perhaps An Understandable One, I Did Not End The Golds But They Did Suffer The Beast and It’s Wrath. If The Survivor Who Seeks Your Death Faced It I Have Little Surprise That It Would Imagine Being The Last One Left.” Laat answered his tone conveying his lack of care for his actions “Once It Learns You Have Stolen from Its Hoard, It Will Likely Wish You Dead Regardless, They Are Vain and Greedy Creatures”

“Wait, what? When did I steal from a Dragon?” She asked nearly stumbling at that fact

"With The Acquisition Of The Earth Bastion And The Salvaging Of The Sky Bastion, Both Held the Magic Of A Gold Dragon. Likely The Very One Who Now seeks Your Demise." The god replied with the same disinterested tone of voice.

“Fantastic.” Penny ground out as she continued her track to the Beacon HQ. “Would you be capable of getting me some supplies?”

"The Funds I Send To You Will Be Required For Your Digital Equipment, But I can Restock The Tools You Lost on Your Assault Of The Castle"

"Add in an EMP if you can." Penny replied "Not going to go hunting after This dragon and his girls but I’m sure as hell going to be ready to retaliate if it comes down to it."

"You Shall Have Your Things In A Few Days Time." Laat agreed before the line went silent.

Penny spent a block or two, coming to terms with the fact that she now had a Dragon hunting her down and she was at least partly to blame for it. She knew that Amber was dead, that bit of information had filtered back to Beacon through the various channels that they had. Yet there was something that Penny was missing, she didn’t know what just a feeling she had.

Setting that thought off to the side for a bit Penny pulled up another one of her lesser liked contacts and gave them a call as well “Veronica, What can you tell me about gold dragons in Penrose that won’t add to my Debt?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I'm not constantly trying to add to your debt.” Veronica's tone was clearly agitated. “There is only a single golden dragon left, and his name is Boteg. He's hiding in Penrose somewhere, and he has a vendetta with an unknown entity. I do not know much about that, as my previous agent who was working for them was slain.”

“Don’t really care” Penny grumbled under her breath before speaking up “Well he found his target, Me apparently. Mika attempted to attack me because of it when I went to talk to her yesterday” She explained as she dropped down in to an ally way as there was no more good buildings to jump too “Can you tell me anything about who Mika hangs out with? I’d rather not get jumped without a bit of warning next time.”

There was a brief pause on Veronica's end. “She is a relatively new magical girl, and I know very little about her. But if she's working for Boteg, that makes her a person of interest. I might have more for you later, but I don't know who she could be in contact with. I would assume not too many people.”

“Well this is shaping up to be just peachy, call me if you find anything out." Penny said shaking her head at her luck "Two more questions before I have to go, anything you can tell me about the Independent and a girl by the name of Olympia? It was the only lead I got out of Mika before she tried to jump me.”

“Just some magical girl reporters. I've been reading their news articles but I haven't paid too much attention to the names. They haven't done anything to warrant my interest yet.” Veronica groaned. “I'd talk to Olympia though. But be cautious, this information came from a hostile target. But it's the only lead you have.”

"Why do you think I checked with you first?" Penny asked “Still thanks for what did have. Beacon’s on the other line so I’m going to let you go”

After hanging up with that call Penny thought about giving the independent a call as well, but opted not to. Having no idea how long that call would take, she didn’t want to have to drop it in the middle of a conversation if she made it to HQ before she got the information she was looking for. After all she was only a few minutes away by this point.








.:Opening act:.


Last night had been quite a bit of fun for Kyle, and while it he had lost many more hands then he won that had been intentional. People in good moods tended to be more talkative, so by the time he had called it a night he had made a few new friends and had gotten a better feel for this slice of Beacon.

Now it was early in the morning and he was about to get another chance to see how this group operated. Monster attacks had a way of showing people for who they were. Already transformed and ready to go Aurelio stood next to Sally and Cherry while they waited for the last member of their squad to show up.

Seraph and her Squad had already taken off to deal with the attack at the cathedral and once Penny arrived Aurelio would initiate the teleport to get them to the stadium. Unlike most of Beacon, Aurelio’s Spark functioned as an express pass for the system so he didn’t need to head to the Pads, so long as he was at one of their HQ’s he could be teleported to anywhere they had the location locked in. Plus always being able to teleport back to HQ was handy.

Turning to look around for the oddest member of Beacon Aurelio was aware he looked over at the door just as Penny came rushing through it. “Sorry about that, I live out near the industrial zone” The cyborg said as she came to a stop near the three waiting on her.

“Nonsense” Aurelio replied with a wide grin “You’re just in time”

“Cool, so what’s the plan?” She asked, not phased at all form her nonstop run to get here.

“We pop over to the stadium really quick, save everyone we can and strike out and the ruffians who are causing this ruckus while we do it” he exclaimed happily already starting the teleportation sequence as he did.

Penny just looked at Aurelio oddly for a moment before shrugging her shoulders “You leave to striking to me and I’ll leave the saving to you.” She said before turning to look at Sally “When do we leave?

“Right now” Aurelio replied as a great flash of light encompassed the four of them before snapping down to a single point of light that winked out with an audible pop.

Moments later at the stadium a large complex spell circle would appear in the center of the baseball field and with the same audible pop the four of them reappeared nearly back to back as they appeared just a few feet behind Alex.

“A bit more warning next time would be appreciated” Penny nearly yelled as she surveyed the insanity of the situation she had just dropped in too. There wasn’t much she could really pick out over the general madness that seemed to be going on everywhere but there was one person she recognized in all of this as an enemy.

The moment she was sure that it was Elroy she fired off a Gauss round at him, the cacophonous boom letting all who didn’t see know that even more people had joined in to the mess that was happening here.

At the same time that Penny was letting loose the first round of Beacon’s counter offensive Aurelio was already weaving his magic. ”Magician’s Mark!” he intoned as a simple glyph appeared on his allies, that looked like a pair of cards. These glyphs acted as an IFF for Aurelio’s magic so he wouldn’t them with any of his offensive or debilitating spells. As in a mess like this he might not have the time to aim correctly, plus it would let him monitor their status from a distance.

“Now then!” He called out as he strode towards the hordes of mummies and minions ”Let the show begin!”



-Early morning-


It was early, very early, first light had only just broken over the horizon, but in a small hidden nook of the industrial zone Penny was waking up. Her lair was filled with the sound of thunder as her phone's alarm went off rousing the cyborg from her rest. With a small groan of annoyance Penny pushed herself up to a sitting position and silenced her alarm before looking around the single room of her Lair.

The lone table and its chairs had been pushed up against one of the walls, and all of the supply boxes had been placed on top of it so that there was enough room for Penny to lie down without bumping in to something as she slept as the mechanical girl had set Eliza down on the nest of blankets that normally served as a bed. Reaching out with her magic she started the electric motor, and thus turned on the lights.

It was stupidly early but Penny had things she needed to get done before checking in with Beacon today, and with luck her guest wouldn’t mind the early wake up.

"Ugh..." With a drowsy groan, Eliza turned over to where she was laying on her stomach, and hid her face in the blankets. "F-Five more minutes, Mum..." she grumbled mindlessly, then finally raised her head up and looked around. "Okay, how did I get here?" The witch asked herself, a bit concerned.

"That would have been me" Penny would reply from her position over at the table. She had cleared off most of the boxes from it and set them off to the side and was currently digging around in the parts boxes occasionally pulling out computer parts and setting them off to the side. "Found you passed out in a wrecked alleyway" She explained as she looked over her shoulder at Eliza "Figured It would be safer for you here then out on the streets"

"Oh. Right, I nearly got killed." The witch scratch the back of her head. "Well, thanks...Penny, right? Last I saw you, you turned into a war machine. Sooo, what happened after that?" She asked.

"The chick I was fighting went nuclear and tackled me in to the lake, I survived the explosion through sheer luck, then reinforcements arrived and after we got patched up I tore down the castle." Penny shrugged "Nothing all that interesting if you ask me.But I take it something must have happened on your end if your sporting wings now, as I'm pretty sure you didn't have those last time I saw you." she added pointing at the new appendages for emphasis before returning to looking over her supply of spare parts.

"Oh and I've got some food if you're hungry, not all that filling but better than nothing" Penny slid the cardboard box labeled food over to the bed. Inside the box was dozens of protein, cereal and granola bars. "Help yourself"

"By yourself? That's pretty cool." Eliza said, grabbing a couple of cereal bars. "After we got teleported away from the castle. Me, Alex, Sue and Shade were the only ones left fighting Justine. In the middle of the battle, I got pinned down by a spear to the foot and couldn't free myself. So I used my black coin to become a monster girl. Starting to regret that choice now, heheh.." she explained with a sad chuckle. "Turns out though, the ritual wouldn't have worked after all. Justine still loved her sister, so it was null and void. And now here I am, nearly getting murdered by a lizard girl, getting some of my feathers plucked out, and now probably going to get my ass kicked for not completing my mission."

Penny snorted when she learn that the reason for the assault was nearly pointless “We did rescue Janet and Lily, plus that’s one less evil lair in the Overcity, so it wasn’t a waste in the long run. And I know the feeling of having a target painted on you back for no good reason. Ran in to a beast girl the other day who wants me dead for no other reason than who my patron is” Penny sighed at that bit, she still needed to call Laat and verify that assumption plus possibly call Veronica to see if she knew who Mika’s Patron was. Her list of enemies was growing and she was still undecided how to deal with it.

Shaking away those thoughts Penny continued “And If you really regret the Corruption I know Beacon has ways of purifying it. I’ve been looking in to it in my spare time and it should be an easy process for you as you just ended up with some wings. Can’t say anything about the mission failing bit though, I try and keep the Mint at arm’s length so no idea on that front”

There was another crack of thunder from Penny as she received a text. Pulling it up on her eye piece she saw that it was from Chloe smiling she sent off a quick reply

"Sure I should be free tonight, got some plans this afternoon myself so if nothing else I’ll see you tonight "
Penny


"As that reminded me, you got any plans today Eliza? As I've got a couple and it's something of a nightmare to get in or out of here if you don't know how and I've got a bit more time before I have to head out" Not that Penny was trying to get rid of Eliza, but she really did need to make a few calls, she had some parts but she needed more if she was going to build a decent computer and she needed to get some answers from Laat if no one else.

"Don't have anything else to do besides update Maura and Veronica on what happened." Eliza shrugged. "...Do you really think the beacon could help me? What if they try to kill me too?"

"So long as you had the right introduction I'm sure they would help out. I can even ask about it and let you know, as I'll be checking in with them later. You'll just want to keep the Mint thing secret. That is unless you want to join up with the Beacon." The cyborg replied as she gave all the parts she had pulled out another look to make sure they were useable and putting any that didn't pass her second inspection off to in a pile "And I'll make sure they don't try and kill you but I doubt that will happen. They're going through some reforms at the moment and have started to cut back on the monster hate"

"Really?" Eliza tilted her head in confusion. If the beacon was going to start trusting certain monsters, then what was with the girls with the Bates? Something didn't seem right with them. "Okay, yeah! I'll ask them for help. As for joining, I'll keep that in mind for when my debt's cleared. But I don't wanna part with Maura yet. Not till I help her out with her curse problem."

"Fair enough, and yeah they have, though at that moment it's just me and a cat girl named Kimble. But they pardoned Janet for being messed up by Justine." Penny explained turning to face Eliza as she absently munched on the parts she had deemed unusable "Can't help with the curse issue, not very magic myself, but if Maura's been stuck with it an especially long time Laat might be able to help. He tends to dislike things staying the same for too long"

"According to her, she's been stuck that way for as long as she's been a patron to magical kids. A demon, possibly a horror, wearing a strange mask was the one behind it. She's been trying to hunt it down so she can convince it to change her back, but it's not easy for her." Eliza explained. "I'll let her know about Laat and see if they could meet up."

"Ouch, that’s got to suck, only been under a small curse myself, one that was weak enough to fade after a few minutes, can't imagine what it would be like to be stuck with one for that long." Penny sympathized while shuddering slightly "Hopefully it's not a horror, they tend to be trickier to deal with from what I've gathered" Checking the time Penny stood up "Well I've got to head out things to do, people to call, Laat among them. So how about I help you out of the maze that is my front lawn?" Penny asked moving towards the entrance of her Lair as she did.

"Oh, sure!" The witch nodded, walking up besides the cyborg.

Crouching down Penny helped Eliza up on to her back and waited for her to get situated before opening the entrance in the massive scrap yards that was the inside of the warehouse she hid her home in, and a few moments later both Penny and Eliza were standing atop one of the other dozen or so buildings that lay abandoned in this part of Penrose. "I would say feel free to come back, but as you can tell it's not the easiest place to get in too without help. So instead I'll just give you my number" Penny said as she crouched down to let the little witch off her back "That way you can reach me if you need to"

"I'm surprised you can get through this place easily." The witch said, climbing off Penny's back. "But thanks! Again!"

"Eh I've got the advantage of having set the place up and no worries" Penny replied with a smile before the sounds of Cymbals emitted from her eye piece as an alert popped up in her field of view
Two monster attacks have been detected. You have been assigned under Sally's command, report to HQ ASAP
Beacon Updates

"Seems Beacon's got trouble so I'll have to catch ya later" she added before taking off at a run towards Beacon HQ while firing off a reply to the Beacon
En route to HQ, ETA 45 min. Give me my target local and I'll redirect and meet with Sally there
Penny



-Onward-

@BrokenPromise

“That sounds like her” Penny said holding in her sigh, it was starting to seem as if Thalia snapped or lost herself to the monster within. The cyborg wasn’t sure which truth she preferred at the moment, but didn’t dwell on it too much. She had other worries she had to keep track of right now. Turning to face the Golden Trove Penny started burying her hacked entry way and pulled out of the system. She might need to slip in again if her fears were right and this way she could do it from any computer she could find rather than need to come back here.

All the while Penny kept her attention on Mika, but didn’t turn to follow her as the other girl started to stalk around her. Sure she was trying to be nonchalant about it but Penny had spent a fair amount of time living with a Beast Monstergirl, she could tell the difference. Thus she had time to prepare for how she was going to deal with the incoming attack.

Barely a moment before Mika pounced at Penny the cyborg’s left eye flickered back to life and she reacted instantaneously when she felt the other girl land on her back. The first thing that happened was her body surged with electricity, effectively turning her into a living stun gun. Penny intentionally keep the power output low as she didn’t want to hurt Mika just stun her. Then, once the electricity had stopped, Penny reached out with her magic and tagged Mika’s phone and copied over the contact information and GPS codes in the phone. This would let Penny track Mika’s phone later. After doing that Penny turned and threw Mika back towards the middle of the roof before she could recover from being stunned.

”Take it I was wrong on my assumptions.” Penny would say neutrally as her eyes flickered through various colors before landing on a deep blue ringed with red. With a sigh she turned back towards the way she had taken to get here “Thanks for the info I guess” without any further delay Penny took off in a sprint away from the Golden Trove Hotel. She knew well enough not to loiter around in enemy territory.



@Flamelord@t2wave

Penny had been running none stop for the last five minutes. She didn’t have a destination in mind; she was just trying to put distance between her and the encounter she had just left. While she did have another lead to follow up on when it came to finding Thalia, she also now knew that there was someone, possibly more than one, who wanted her dead for no other reason than she was under Laat’AlOfan’s guidance. At least she was pretty sure that was the case, she would have to ask him to be 100% sure.

Eventually she came to a stop atop one of the taller buildings in Downtown Penrose. “This is so messed up” she muttered to herself as she looked out over the city. She knew it rather well as she spent her days patrolling with Beacon and her nights hunting Solo. It didn’t feel like home though, and sometimes she wondered if it ever would.

She kept her silent vigil for an unknown amount of time, just taking a moment for herself to relax and forget about all the insanity that was her life.

Said isolation was eventually interrupted by a text bringing up the message on her eyepiece Penny couldn’t help but give off a genuine smile at the selfie of Alicia and Janet. ‘Glad that went well’ Soaking in the happy outcome for her friends a thought came to Penny and she sent off a reply before she could second guess herself.

YAAY!
Glad to see things went well for you two, we should celebrate tomorrow. Shopping and lunch on me?
Penny


After sending the message Penny found herself once again looking at the picture message she had gotten. She spent a few more moment’s just admiring it before closing it when she noticed her gaze had been lingering on Alicia for a bit longer then she meant.

Shaking her head, Penny forced herself to not think about why it was she had just spent the last few minutes gazing longingly at Alicia’s picture. Instead she started her trek back to her lair as it was starting to get late.



@Majoras End

Penny was about half way home when she stumbled across what looked to be a battle field she assumed she had missed the party as she couldn’t hear anyone fighting, but curiosity demanded she take a closer look any way.

As she walked through the wreckage she started piecing together bits and pieces of what happened here. She could tell it was a larger brawl, and that most of the combatants seemed to be on the same side, but couldn’t make heads or tells of the magic used. She could find burns here and there as well as what looked like concussive impacts but could only guess at what magic might have caused them.

Eventually she would find her to where the fight had ended, and Penny was honestly surprised to find someone still here, and not dead, though they seemed to be out of it. Unsure if it was due to injury or fatigue or even magic Penny cast a cautious look around before she started moving closer to the unconscious Witch.

Penny was once again surprised as she recognized Eliza, though she couldn’t place a name, she remembered the girl from the assault on Justine’s castle. A quick once over told the robotic girl that winged witch was mostly unharmed, but Penny was by no means a doctor.

After thinking about it for a moment she reached a decision. Picking Eliza up, Penny gently positioned the smaller girl on her back using her spider legs to keep the witches wings folded as well as keep her stable. After making sure everything was in place Penny continued her trek back to her lair, though moving with a bit more urgency and keeping an extra eye out for any impending danger.





.:Turning in:.


”No worries Alica, I can tell you’ve had it rough. I’ll catch you two around” Aurelio replied waving off the apologize as he could latterly feel how tired the two of them were. With a parting wave he turned and walked back to the gaming room he had been shown to earlier.

As he walked he let his transformation fade.



After he was once again in his civvies he called out “Who’s up for a few rounds of Poker?” After all he was still planning on getting to know more of the people here at this Beacon and he had been promised a few hands earlier.
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