I'm Trying to Be A Hero Here! (Mikona and Tooki)

It tasted terrible, but Bliss bit through the arm of sludge monster. With her mouth free, she spit out a large portion of the sludge. Never again would Bliss ever want to discuss such a terrible taste or what exactly it was she put in her mouth, but it at least help her yell. "Tyuki! Don't-"

But, Tyuki did not care. Because Tyuki had one gear and one gear only. And that gear tore through the sludge monster, cleaving it in two. The mission to destroy the three sludge monsters finally came to a conclusion, but behind the sludge monster stood the current CEO of Clement Corps, none other than Elizabeth Joules. A small smirk rose across her face as Bliss fell to the ground in the direct vicinity of MIKO and Tyuki. "Do it."

A purple and yellow ray shot towards the trio of heroines. It filled them- nothing.

Bliss held up her hand, trying to form ice, but nothing came out. She tried pulling some sludge to her, yet again nothing came. Then, she poked her teeth. They never really looked different to begin with so, it did not give her any real information. "Eclipse! MIKO! Can either of you do anything? Heroic?"

"What do we do now?" All the strands of blonde hair went on display as the Korean speedster took her pink hood down. "Do I just kill them?"

"What? No. The plan. Dammit Camille, you say you hear things, but it really feels like-" Joules turned from the losers towards Camille. "I'm going to send out the press release. You unleash the monster. Once it kills the you-know-who, hit it with the ray. Then once we get all the money from the contracts, you get paid. Got it?"

"You just told them the plan." Camille pointed to the downed heroes.

"No, I told you the-listen, just make sure the monster kills them, and we're good. I just got a few text messages from the local and national media outlets, so I'm going to go announce everything, and then I can also make a teary response on how sad it is the trio of heroes perished fighting the monster." Joules turned towards Bliss. "Have a nice day Bliss. Tyuki. MIKO-7?"

"What is the whole plan you came up with?" Bliss wiped some sludge from her arm.

"I'm not telling you my plan." Joules set her pen in her lapel.

"You pretty much already did. I also don't see why we don't just kill them right now, then unleash the monster and-"

"They can tell, Camille. They have tests to see how people died." The wane of the conversation pulled Joules towards the exit.

"We can just tie them up so the-"

"Just let the monster out and get the ray ready." Joules dug out the remote from her jacket pocket. "Any last words?"

"Bliss' outfit is tacky. Eclipse is a dumbass. MIKO-7 didn't age well."

"Wow, Camille. Learning English was a mistake."  Joules left the school through the side door, tossing the remote to Camille. "Just, deal with them."

Camille lifted her finger. "Here goes Joules' stupid plan." Her finger touched down on the button, sending out a signal. Her super speed took her and the ray out of the school immediately after.

A low rumbling began to shake the floor. Powers would be nice, but it would take a few minutes for them to come back. "Eclipse. MIKO. We're going to have company real quick. We need to be smart about this. Tyuki, you might need to sit back on this one because of your brain thing."

A massive hand shot through the floor. A second hand knocked out a support beam, pulling up a large black bird-like face. A pair of wings tore through the main hallway, reaching all the way up to the second floor. Each claw along the hand of the creature stretched out for a few feet. The creature pushed upward, knocking through the roof of the school.

On the floor, lying naked on the ground and covering herself, Kaguya looked down at the floor solemnly, her tiredness really coming out. She listened to the monologues mindlessly, not even responding when Bliss asked if she could do anything superhuman. Finally, the two villains of the day left, and Kaguya stood up, in full nudity, disdain seething in her voice. She looked the giant bird in the goddamn eye as it rose, her red eyes dulled by apparently having no powers.

"Good thing those two are fucking idiots. You, Bliss; go chase that bitch down. Your legs still work."

As it stood, MIKO-7 had years of research and resources to understand her powers. Magical girl-esque superpowers weren't exactly rare in Japan; in fact, they were fairly common, among high school students. Magical and supernatural powers were also fairly well-known, given Japan's past as a land of youkai, legends, and fables; the fact they had historical records of the Imperial Regalia almost testified to their ability to record magic.

Kaguya knew her powers inside and out. Which meant--

"Malignant spirit, / the sacred night forsakes you. / You will die. Henshin."

She knew that she could fight just fine.

Eyes full of tired precision, honed by years and years of doing this, hot with the ashes of burnout, MIKO-7 activated Infrared Eyes, scanning the broken, cracked floors for... something. Oh, there. Sprinting towards the giant bird and picking up a broken piece of locker, one edge sharp with a point, as a result of being shattered, MIKO-7 stabbed the giant bird's stomach with it, wedging it in by about four inches, before materializing a hammer and driving it in an entire foot, leaving half of it outside, half of it inside.

The blue-haired woman noted the bird's screams of pain from the roof absentmindedly as she started driving the hammer into the broken locker horizontally. The bird's arms attempted to swat her away, but her ears heard it's attack from a mile away, and the fact that her reaction time was practically slow-motion allowed her to backdash out of the way every time in advance. Not like it could see that she dodged, after all. Soon, it was just percussion, a total repetition of the same sound.

KER-CHUNK.

KER-CHUNK.

KER-CHUNK.

KER-CHUNK.

Her face was solemn as she did it, her teeth grit and her eyes squinting, almost trying to find perfect precision with every swing. And she did; with every swing, the gash became longer an longer, a steady stream of red oozing onto feathers onto Kaguya's hands onto the floor onto her feet. The dance of death continued; the bird tried, tried it's best to punch MIKO-7 away, to stop her from doing more damage, but she heard it too early and thought too quickly, and easily jumped out of the way every time.

KER-CHUNK.

KER-CHUNK.

KER-CHUNK.

KER-CHUNK.

Finally, something dark and vague started drooping out of the bird. MIKO-7 growled, before throwing aside her hammer and taking the dark, vague thing in two hands. With a roar, the magical girl yanked, and the bird screamed it's loudest, echoing through all of Tokyo surrounding it.

"URYAAAAAAAAA!"

WHA-PLK.

In her hands, whipping forward before falling like a dropped piece of meat out of the bird, there was a wet, red rope that smelled like sewer.

"Going! Going!" Bliss took off towards the side exit, trailing her most hated nemesis. No ice to slide across. No telekinetic blast to propel herself forward. Just Bliss and her average at best speed chasing down Joules to deliver a massive blow in the name of justice.

She ran into the door. "Gah! Dammit!" After just going over the fact she did not have telekinesis, she completely forgot she did not have telekinesis. It only took her a minute and a few curses to push the door open. "Back on the trail!"

Something behind her began to sound heroic. Something else also sounded very terrible and monstrous. Then, the heroic turned to sound monstrous. Hey, whatever works works. Bliss needed to put her own mettle to the test without the use of the things she normally resided on. Sure, she could still hack things and create software, but right now, that did not seem too important.

"Joules!" Bliss picked up a loose rock and chucked it at her foe. "Get back here and fight me!"

"You're out of breath just running here." A green glow came over Joules hands as she waved away her limo. "And, you don't have any powers."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just fight already." Bliss threw her arm out just like she always did to conjure ice. The first part of her action looked exactly the same as always, but no ice appeared. "You can make the first move."

"Pathetic. I'll just let the monster kill you." Joules turned to get back into her vehicle. The door she left open fell from the hinges as a blast of energy pierced through it.

"You will not escape!" A diamond encrusted torso shined with a brightness capable of blasting through solid metal. Hiroki stepped forth, clenching his fist. "Nor, will you hurt my counterpart!"

"I'm more of your mentor, but you know what-" An ice barb shot out of Bliss' hand. "Oh, there we go! Hey Joules! Why don't you bring that mouth of yours over here for a bit!"

Having successfully disemboweled the giant bird, Kaguya started panting for breath, the pull of the intestine having taken a lot out of her. Her short-term energy and adrenaline were wearing off, and her rabbit ears were pounding with blood. The bird let out what seemed to be a death cry by the end of it, giving the bluenette a feeling of respite.

"Alright, thanks for the hand, Eclipse. Swear to god, giant monsters are--"

WHAM.

Kaguya was suddenly whisked away from the ground in a flash in the monster's grip, not even realizing it until the bird's hand had gone through two stories, her own head bleeding from various cuts, debris and dust in her hair. Catching her breath from the sudden collision, Kaguya clenched her teeth and roared in her throat, trying to swallow the bile rising from the immediate vertigo. The butterflies in her stomach got worse as the hand slowed to a halt in the air, far above the ground.

The head. She should have destroyed the head! Goddamn it, big monsters could survive and have death throes! Mentally kicking herself for her mistake, Kaguya realized that she was currently in the palms of a freakish bird kaiju, and she'd have to just tank it's next attack. And then, the vertigo kicked in again, and then it stopped, and then it started going the other way, and MIKO-7 realized the fucker was trying to throw her, and --

The pressure around her body let up, and she felt air on her. The bad part was, she was headed straight for a wall, so unless she wanted to get defenestrated through a window that didn't exist yet and probably sustain brain damage, she'd need to redirect her force.

Kaguya materialized a kine as she rolled through the air, trying to find an opening to stop her traction. It was, in essence, two sticks at ninety degrees of each other, where she could just peg one into a flat surface, so -- maybe she could --

Acting at the last minute, Kaguya slammed her hammer into the ground, it's long handle parallel to the wall she was about to hit. Kaguya held on tightly to the long handle of the mochi mallet, trying to hold her barf in as she spun wildly, like one side of a top, or one of those manual screwdrivers. The magical girl stuck her foot out and tried to skid to a halt before the bird decided to try another throw.

Well, it worked, and Kaguya recovered. But, uh.

The "try not to barf" thing didn't.

God, she hated her job.