Clock strikes death o' clock (INV)

_____Reaper was growing tired of people not respecting him and causing him trouble with his line of work. Countless times those he told to gather information provided false details, unaccounted guards, set him up, or just refused to work for him. So it was about time Reaper began taking out some of the trash as the wind howled across his ears and his right arm held the neck of a women several stories off the ground casually. His left hand calmly cleaning out his ear as the women flailed about trying to touch the ground where Reaper stood just on the edge of, finally growing tired of the women trying so hard to get free he let her go.

”trying to get free makes it so hard to hold them. That was entirely on your wife Carl, that was your name right? Anyways that was payback for double crossing me on the water mill job, your son should be the one to pay for your refusal to keep me informed on the movements of those nobles.”

_____Reaper watched as the man struggled against his chains and tried so hard to shout curses at the cloaked killer while he approached a young boy no older then ten. He took great pride in his work with breaking people, part of him wondered why he never took up jobs as an integrator for some third world countries. Kneeling down to grab the boy’s leg before dragging him towards the ledge and hanging him upside down before turning to the father. The fact that his name was carl dawning on Reaper as he looked past the and waved his free hand to undo the curse that stopped him from speaking.

”I’m going to kill you for this, if you drop my son i’ll make sure you rot away slowly you fucking monster!”

_____That got Reaper to smile, tossing the boy back onto the tower before rushing towards the man and tightly gripping his chin and slapping the man’s cheek with his free hand. ”Now you know how i felt when you fucking betrayed me! All you had to do was tell the truth and your family stayed safe, I thought I made that crystal clear Carl.” Slapping Carl’s cheek again before Reaper went back to the boy and stood him at the ledge of the tower, dark magic freezing him in place as the cloak tower struck seven, Reaper paused for a moment in his mind remembering he had food in the oven and would need to finish things up soon.
@Magi Heart

 

It was late. Really late. Wendy had finished her homework and almost threw her books off of her small study table in her room. Shaking her head she went and put them properly in her backpack for tomorrow. Then she went to the mirror to comb her light pink hair for bed. As she brushed she kept finding tangles, why was her hair tangling so much lately? It always hurt so much to brush tangles. Whatever it did not hurt that much compared to what death felt like. Deal with it Wendy. She pulled hard and winced as she brushed. Her eyes not really looking into the mirror but rather into Terrasphere. Yeah she could not get it out of her head. It was something that gave her a chance to fulfill her dream. And somehow... she was not doing very good at it. Too many times she was watching people die because of some dumb adult reason. It had to stop. People had to stop being hurt. The news today talked about crazy weird people flocking to Terrasphere.... was that normal? Was it a game for weirdos. Maybe it really was not her thing.

Wendy made her way to the bathroom while brushing still. She went on to brush her teeth next. The usual routine her parents expected of her. Wendy used to feel so proud for doing such small things. Doing this everyday... iwhy was this worth it? If only she just never messed up. If only she could just block it all out. Now look at her. Jeez talk about weirdos. She shook her head and headed back to the bedroom and got into bed. She could not sleep though. Her brain was going a mile a minute. Even after all that work. Hmmm maybe a short session would be okay? If she did not play how could she ever get better? Magi Heart was waiting to save people and spread love and justice into their hearts, even if it was hard!

Just for a little bit tonight.... Link Start! Yeah!

Magi Heart materialized back into Terrasphere. Magi struck a transformation pose. It felt good to do this. She wished everything else was so easy. Fighting evil was not easy though. That was becoming clear to her. Evil was becoming something that seemed to be a part of life. That made no sense to the girl but it had to be solved somehow. So that good could win out! Magi's head turn left and right as she noticed it was bit chilly. She wrapped her arms around her frilly outfit and shivered. Oh right... it was pretty late in the game too. It was Stokbon. No one was in the streets. Kind of spooky. Magi began to walk and forced herself to deal with the chill. Late at night.... a hero...hmmm not very magical girl like but it did sound a lot like batman! Magi personally thought batman was mean and not much of a hero. Wendy hated anti hero types. That was just not her thing. Boy's love them though.... and some of her friends.... she really just wanted rainbows and unicorn still. It was nicer. Plop!

Huh? What... plop? PLOP?

Magi turned to see something that made her face turn blue. Her hands raised to her mouth to stop from screaming. A body! It fell from the sky! Running over she thought to heal the woman but it was pointless. Magi's revive spell would not work on a NPC... Forcing herself to look up she saw another person dangling over head. What was going on? A murder? A string of murders? This.... was something that she had to stop! Magi Heart had to not let more people die anymore!

Magi would start to find her way up the clock tower. It was really tall. She generated her bow, Love Bringer about half way up. After finally reaching the top she panted so hard she had to bend over and lean on her buckled knees. Barley able to talk she looked up and saw the culprit. A clocked guy and another man bound in chains. She was not totally sure what was going on but this looked like a really bad scene if there was one.

*huff huff huff*

Magi stood up straight and aimed her bow at the robed man. Sweat dripping down her face. She did not speak a word. She had not found a need to speak, did not know what to say anymore. Not after her experience with death itself earlier. At least it made it harder to scare her. Otherwise she probably would have run away from this....

@Reaper

 

_____Uninvited guest, what was the good of doing things towards nighttime if people stumbled across his work. Seeing the bow did however draw a small smile to Reaper’s face. Lightly holding the boy’s shoulder with her right hand pushing him closer off the ledge while his left was waved to mockingly say ‘no, no, no’ to the girl before he pointed down in hopes she got the message to lower her bow. If the child did not lower her bow Reaper would attempt a mind game shifting his focus to the shadows before waving aside as if to tell someone to remove her from the area.

_____If she made that mistake to look away Reaper would act quickly moving the boy back within a safe area before rushing towards Magi while chanting, arms reaching for the bow calmly and if he manage to get hold he would disappear in purple light and her bow would soon be found pressed to her neck in a faint choking lock. Reaper slowly leaning to get his head near her shoulder having used arcanamancy to teleport behind her and use her own bow to his advantage.

”Little girls should be at home dreaming at this hour, but I can’t blame you really I never stayed asleep at your age either. Now that I think about it, I was about your age when I first killed someone.”

_____Reaper’s voice was rooted with ill intent as she tried to move the bow to further lower Magi’s chance to breath before loosening to toy with her. Mumbling to himself about likely burning his dinner before he leaned up trying to get the bow out of magi’s reach before throwing it off the ledge if he was successful. As far as he cared that was all it would take to stop the girl from ruining his night so he moved back towards the boy.

”I envy you, to see the light and want to help it shine is admirable but I really don’t give much shit about light or dark, I like to take things to chance. So, heres… what Im gonna do. I’ll lightly push the boy towards the ledge and you will have say seven seconds to reach him before you would need to jump to catch him. Starting… now.”

_____Reaper slowly pressed his pointer to the boy’s shoulder as he began falling backwards, his face filling with terror and hope at the same time while Reaper stepped aside to give this ‘hero’ her moment. The father struggling against his restraints desperately while Reaper just enjoyed the show. ”I don’t see myself as a bad person, I think I'm just ahead of time when the world goes into survival mode.” Reaper mockingly spoke from the sidelines knowing full well that even at her top speed the boy would just be out of her reach if she tried, so close to saving a life but not enough.

 

This would have been pretty generic. A evil villain with mad ambitions standing atop a clock tower committing terrible acts against the weak. A hero arriving to stop him and then the classic evil boast and trickery to overcome said hero. Who then would in turn resolve everything and come out on top. Magical girl anime followed this style of routine as well, very often. Monster a day' loved this style. There was a problem though. This was not a anime, or a super hero movie. Amazingly enough... it was not even real life. No, this was a video game. A very very very realistic one, but still just a game. Magi was only able to keep herself going here by knowing that. Her training and shooting of all kinds of critters. Even cute ones was all because it was a game. This was fantasy, and so was this man too. He was either a mean player who was running amok or a NPC villain that was meant to be a enemy for her or anyone else who came here.

Magi Heart did care for the NPC's and this world. They were so life like how could she not? But... she was not in the state to care as much right now. It was late, she had a lot of things bothering her emotionally and mentally. This guy's threats were not going to work on her tonight. She just needed to shoot him. Shoot him a lot. That would solve this right now. She would get her experience and he would learn not to be mean to people. Her eyebrows slanted as her determination to shoot him was resolved. He then shifted to another tactic, this one unfortunately was successful for him. Her eyes had foolishly followed his movements and she fired her bow due to how itchy her trigger finger was right now. Thus allowing him to get right to her and about to grab the bow...

However he too seemed to underestimate her. Magi had been through several battles and while they caused her to doubt many things about life and herself. it did not make her weaker. As he reached for the her bow so very calmly, she would have been chanting with barely a voice since the time when she misfired. This would be the spell she used against the boar long ago. When she was just starting out. She had found a way to use Illumancy defensively and offensively even when the magic itself was not meant for such flexibility. Wendy was never really aware how good that discovery was but she did not know it was useful and kept this spell in mind. The spell?

"White Clearance Light....""

She whispered. As her entire body burst into a bright sunlight that dazzled the eyes. The top of the clock tower now looked like it had a miniature sun placed right where this battle was taking place. The man would likely be blinded and burning at such a close distance and even if his eyes were closed. He was still so close it would leave him with serious sunspots in his eyes.

Magi would pull away from him, and use the chance to start firing her bow at him over and over as she backed away towards the clock tower edge. All she could see now was arrows flying in a fuzz. The blindness effecting her as well even with her eyes having been closed. Magi had yet to figure out how to avoid that....

Then she reached the edge and suddenly gasped. She was about to fall off backwards!

@Reaper

 

_____Reaper would have to give the girl some credit for the quick thinking, the flash of light searing his eyes and drawing him to step back slightly. Ihs eyes sealed shut to avoid some annoyance and trusting his ears and other senses to guide him around the area, luckily he knew the tower better than her it seemed as he carefully stepped to the sides avoiding any serious cuts. This job was considered a failure and so Reaper needed to cut his ties to the area.

_____Rushing over to push the boy who had seen his face off the ledge before getting the father to do the same when he noticed the girl about to fall. It would have been easier to just let her go down, but quickly rushing he pulled her arm and spun sending the male over instead of her, or trying to anyways. If her had her grip he would move his now free hand to holder her chin and force her to look him in the eyes. His cloth that covered his eyes partly cut off during the arrow swarm.

”The world needs heroes, or magic girls or whatever kids call them nowadays. As easy as it would be to get hold of you right now I could have pushed you over, pick your battles and train for the next ones. Life is going to be cruel to hero's so if you ain't ready for that do something else with your life.”

_____Pushing the young girl away before he fell backwards chanting magic, the moment he was close enough to the ground he simply vanished, a mix of arcane teleportation and decay magic spearing to mask the flash of light. The only traces he left behind was the corpses of three, a family along with a girl he chose to spare. Maybe she would become a danger later, maybe this flash of reality he could use to sink venom into her heart, needless to say he would likely be keeping a close eye on the girl.

_____His magic did not take him far however if she was interested in pursuit, his frame landing in the shadows of the clock tower before he moved deeper into them and pulled his hood down concealing any color from himself. There was still evidence to remove at the tower and he would prefer to do such before the guards reacted to the bright flash of light. He did not need people searching for him yet, it was to early, not enough pieces had been on his side of the board.

 

Magi Heart was so close, so close to falling to her death due to her own incompetence. Her feet teetered on the edge before she would try to get her balance desperately and avoid falling. The fact she had a magic that would have saved her if she knew how to use it well escaped her. Magi Heart was just not a quick learner unfortunately. Especially when she was in her current state. She kept missing what she herself was doing wrong. The villain, whether he was a NPC or a player, had done something that left her stunned. Wow, he... he saved her?

Magi did not really think too much about what he said when he pulled her from falling to her death. He had already done his evil deeds for the night and ran away it looked like. Magi did try to chase after him but it was too late. She leaned a hand against the clock tower wall and looked down below. She would have to go all the way back down? Magi decided to log out for now. It was late and while this was a adventure of some kind. It just counted as another mes sup. People just died. Fake people but still people. They felt things too didn't they? Magi felt for them, felt for even evil people who did not know how to be good. Being good was hard. Wendy believed in love and justice and just had to get better and do more.

The words he said visited her again after she logged out and closed her eyes for bed. Wendy did not know who he was, and he was dangerous. A bad person that she had to be to stop at all costs. Funny, the thought of having a good super villain to cure would have made her so excited before. Now she just did not know what she felt. A desire to improve and to be the best magical girl she can be? He did say that a hero was needed. Yeah, that's all she wanted more than anything. To save everyone and make them love and be nice to each other. She wanted a fantasy but wouldn't be nice if she could do that somehow?

She fell asleep. Another day will bring more time for her to grow up one way or another, for better or worse. Unless she just continued to keep herself in her childish bubble that was ever so slowly cracking. Now was probably the time for a good mentor to come into her life.... none have yet stepped up....

[Magi Heart Fin]