Deadlands

Kai

"...I have no quarrel with you," the skeleton man tells Tai. "Do not give me cause to."

Natsumi does not like him. Very obviously.


Kai sticks the witch in the circle. Buttons, other-witch, and alien-girl start standing around her and chanting. "Ia! Ia! Black goat of the woods..."

The ground starts to rumble, very noticeably. Even Tai can feel it. Something big is coming.

Kai

"D-don't talk about my breasts!" Natsumi yells at Tai. "Y-you... breast-drawer!"

The two of them start towards the woods.


Before they can arrive, A long tendril snakes out of the trees and grabs the sacrificial witch.

"Hey! Wait, you aren't supposed to..." Buttons yells. It's obvious he's lost control of the ritual and the creature.

The tendril drags her into the darkness, followed by the sound of something snapping, then pained screaming.

Kai

You hear one last, loud snap.  Then a giant... thing comes crawling out of the trees.  It's like it's made out of a mass of writhing tentacles.  As it crawls forward, the others all reach for weapons, tomes, and phones.  It's holding the witch's corpse in one tendril.  Her neck is twisted at an odd angle.  The monster tosses her limp body into the distance and shrieks at the others.


"No, my name's not Uh.  It's Pixie!"

Natsumi yells at Tai.  "Fine, I'll help you out.  But I never did anything like that!  And what's a lamia!?  You mean those snake-ladies?  Why would you-"

Natsumi screams as the witch's body thuds in front of the group.  She's still bruised and injured from Tai violently whaling on her, and there are handprints on her neck from the choking.  Her body twitches and spasms as all the edits that Kai repeatedly refused to cure begin to dissipate, reverting her to her real form.

Natsumi stops screaming as she stares at a second, dead Natsumi.  A bit different, but still unmistakably her.

Kai

Tai goes running in, shooting at the monster.  The bullets seem to whiz through the tendrils without doing too much damage.

Natsumi stands and stares blankly at her dead counterpart.

Kai invites Buttons to come along.

"Sh-shut up!  This is not the time!" he yells angrily.  He transforms into his otherworld form.

"Damn, what is that thing!?  How is that supposed to get us home?" The not-dead witch asks.  "Zenia!  We're gonna take that thing down."

"Understood," the alien says.

"One of those tried to kill Kumiko...!?" the magical girl squeaks.  She produces a phone and summons a short alien demon.  "Come out, Grey!"

The blonde woman flips open her tome.  "I'll provide backup."

Buttons lets out a glowing ball of light from his lantern.  It enters Witchy.

Witchy's robes start glowing.  She jumps, slashing with her polearm.  "War Edge Power: Strength Slash!"  The blonde woman dances for her, and Witch quickly twirls her polearm and slices again.  "War Edge Power: Guard Slash!"

Zenia holds her gauntlet out.  "Incinerate."  A burst of flames erupts from her palm.

"Burning?  OK!"  The magical girl and her alien both shoot more fire at it.

The pixie hides behind a tree.  The Dark Young goes into a frenzy, whipping its appendages to strike everyone in the area, other than Natsumi and Pixie.  It deals a significant amount of damage.

Kai

The pixie shakes her head at Kai.  "Mama said I need to hide if any of those show up..."


Natsumi does not react to Tai calling for her.  Somehow, seeing her own bloody, mangled corpse seems to have done a number on her mental health.

"Haaaaa...!  War Edge Power!  Legcut!"  Witchy leaps up and slashes the monster.  The allies close to her heal as the blood from the slash flies to them.  The blonde woman dances for her again.  "We're not done here!  Armcut!"  She really likes to trash-talk while she fights...  She slices through one of the tentacles.  Another spray of blood heals her, Blondie, and Buttons.

"BURN."  The alien fires again.  Buttons uses another light to heal the alien-girl.

The magical girl casts a weak healing spell on the entire party.  Her alien casts an anti-healing spell on the Dark Young.  In the form of fire.

The dark young flails again, this time only hitting Buttons, Witchy, and Blondie, but much harder.

"Kyaa..." the blonde woman is knocked back.  "...I can still fight...!"

Kai

Tai lassos a bundle of the tentacles. He has to fight to not get flung.

"I'm going to finish this!" Witchy yells.  "War Edge Power, Ailing Slash!"  She cleaves through the creature's body.  She waits for the blonde to dance for her again.  She takes the sword from the end of her staff.  "This is it!  With a mighty roar...! FULL GAIN!"  She leaps and stabs deep into the creature.  It recoils, but stays standing.  "Wh-what!? Impossible!"  Her cloak stops glowing.  But her group of three recovers completely from the massive blood spray.

The others start barraging it with more fire magic, except for Buttons, who smacks it with his shovel.  It's dying.  Slowly, yes, but it's being definitely getting pushed back.

It looks around and decides to single out Witchy as his target.  The last one was fun to kill, so why wouldn't this one be the same?  He barrages her with tentacle after tentacle after tentacle, then sends her flying into a tree.


Kai tries to manipulate Natsumi, but it's like there's nothing there right now.  She turns to Kai.  She opens her mouth to speak and instead spews a stream of vomit at him, then passes out.

Kai

You try kicking the thing. It doesn't do much... You practically bounce off. Tai's gale shot does a bit more.

After the others do their attacks, the monster throws Tai off and begins to retreat into the trees. It grabs Witchy and starts to drag her along.