Mahora was in chaos.
Specifically, the bad kind.
The overenthusiastic forces which had gathered on the north and south beaches had been decimated by the surprise opening salvos as Terminator-like robots and strange, four-legged tanks rose from the water. Panic was the order of the hour as stripped and clothed festival attendees alike rushed inland, desperate to escape the onslaught. Both lines were in full retreat, with the MJ-JSDF struggling in vain to organize what remained of their front-line troops. Colonel Harumi Niikuma fought desperately to wrangle her officers and get a defensive line set up, but it was a losing battle as the “alien” robots continued their tireless advance. Communications were down, and she couldn’t request back-up even if they hadn’t been; she knew that every other front would be dealing with the same issue. As the advancing army began to come into view of her forward command tent, she decided it was time to formally announce a retreat to their secondary defensive position.
“Fall back!” Colonel Harumi instructed as her subordinates began packing up their maps and recruit lists. “This position has become untenable! Fall-”
A mighty roar drowned out the rest of her order. A massive wall of fire sprang up near the edge of the beach, stretching over twenty meters high and spanning the breadth of the robot army, cutting off their advance. Harumi stared in shock, unsure what to make of this development.
“Niikuma-Taisa!”
Colonel Harumi looked up and found herself gaping again. Sunset fell towards her, two wings of golden flame spreading to abate her descent and placing her into a hover before and slightly above the Colonel. “Specialist Hikaru Nichibotsu reporting. I’m the Hero Unit assigned to this front.”
Colonel Harumi could only stare in shock. “H-how-”
“What, these?” Sunset gestured over her shoulder at her wings before fiddling with the collar of her jacket. “Pretty sweet special effects, huh? Chao made sure both sides of this little game came equipped with some awesome toys.” She scanned the abated preparations. “You’re retreating?”
Colonel Harumi - finally managing to collect herself - nodded. “Their attack was too sudden, and we lost most of our men. Our retreat will give us time to regroup.”
“Smart,” Sunset said, “but you don’t have a lot of ground to retreat to. You’ve only got your secondary defensive position between here and the sports fields they’re targeting, right?” Harumi reluctantly nodded. “Well then,” Sunset grinned, “let me give you time to regroup myself.”
Colonel Harumi raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you can handle that, Specialist?”
Sunset chuckled. “Get your troops reorganized, Taisa. And let me show you just why we’re called ‘Hero Units’.” Her wings flared brightly before giving a mighty flap, shooting Sunset skyward.
Sunset gazed down at the field of battle, the army of Tanaka robots halted before her wall of fire. Already they were testing its blaze, finding it a little too hot for them to run through unscathed. The spider-tanks were advancing, their armor more likely to be able to withstand the fire. As she watched them plod their way up the sandy beach, Sunset spread her arms wide, two rings glowing on her left hand.
“Oh Pluto,” she intoned, “King of the Earth, hear these unworthy heathens who trample upon the surface of thy domain. Oh Charybdis of the sea, hear these foolish creatures who shun thy home’s embrace. Join your power now to mine that my enemies may be swallowed up in your devouring maws.” The jade and turquoise gems in her rings glowed brilliantly as Sunset directed her hand, fingers splayed, to the ground below. “Quagmire!”
Instantly, the sand beneath the advancing army liquified, melting into a soupy mess of mud and quicksand. The tanks began to sink quickly, unable to find purchase in the swamp. The Tanaka units fared a little better, scrambling for the drier land towards the edges of the spell or else retreating back into the ocean with its firmer ground. All units, however, turned their attentions skyward. Weapons were raised and mouths snapped open, beams of energy firing away at Sunset as she bobbed and weaved through the sky.
“Too slow!” Sunset cried, nimbly dodging their attacks and reveling in the freedom of flight. Her right hand shot out, the ruby and quartz gems gleaming. “Great Commander Hurricane, thy command of the sky unmatched by mortal hand. Mighty Tiamat, queen of dragons and source of all fire! Fan together and bring a tempest of igniting wrath upon those who dwell below. Fire Whirl!”
Tornados of fire sprang up at her direction, torching three of the tanks that were avoiding sinking into the quagmire and forcing the surrounding Tanaka units to back away. Sunset dipped low over the battlefield, slaloming between robots as she lashed out with smaller spells. She swerved upwards to avoid crashing into a tank, letting magic drain from her arms, replaced with overwhelming amounts of ki. Her wings faded away as she fell upon the tank, swinging her arms down with a might cry. The tank crumpled and exploded at her impact, the force sending her flying back into the air where she reactivated her wings.
That ought to do it for a bit, she thought, gazing over the battlefield. The forces were in utter disarray, scattered and trying to regroup. Sunset winged her way back towards the command tent, passing harmlessly through the wall of fire. “Niikuma-Taisa! How much longer do-”
“Taisa! Reinforcements arriving in five!”
“Send them into the buildings! We need more people on the upper floors, and the front line is crowded enough as it is!”
“Yes, Taisa!”
“Get those sniper rifles loaded and ready to go! I want them on the roofs before our snipers get back from redressing!”
“Yes, Taisa!”
“Taisa! Kiyama-Chujou says that the north-eastern flank has retreated to its secondary defensive position. north-center is barely holding at the beach.”
“Tell Kiyama-Chujou that if Haruna-Taisa can hold out for another ten minutes, I’ll be able to send reinforcements her way!”
“Got it!”
“Nichibotsu-Yuusha! Report!”
Sunset started out of her stupor. The chaotic panic she’d left less than five minutes before had rallied under Colonel Harumi’s command. Students, teachers, and festival-goers lined the wall of fire, crouched behind low walls and overturned tables and other makeshift barricades. More attendees filled the restaurants and businesses that faced the beach, peaking out open doorways and windows. Harumi herself seemed far more confident as she gazed unflinchingly up at Sunset, who quickly snapped off a salute. “Ma’am! The enemy is in confusion and disarray!”
“Good! Prepare to lower the fire wall on my mark.”
“Yes, Taisa!”
Sunset landed by Colonel Harumi and began looking over the various reports she’d been receiving from around the academy. Chao’s surprise attack had hit the south the hardest, with all three fronts having retreated to their secondary positions. The north was doing a little better, with two out of three positions holding the line. Still, the north-center had suffered heavy losses, and most of the heroes were on the south side of the academy where the fighting was fiercest. Only Sunset and a couple of teachers she’d never heard of were defending the north.
Makes sense, Sunset thought, glumly. It’s a shorter distance from the north shore to the World Tree than from the south shore. They probably figure that the three northern points will fall first and that the battle will be decided in the south. She smirked. Let’s see if we can’t confound those expectations.
“Nichibotsu-Yuusha!” Colonel Harumi called. “Now!”
“Yes, Taisa!” Sunset waved her arm towards the wall, dispersing the entire thing in an instant. Immediately, cries of “Strike the enemy!” rang out up and down the battle line, the mages’ weapons firing in one massive barrage at the slowly reorganizing robots. Hundreds of robots fell in that first wave, two tanks following suit as a couple of the larger magic weapons found their marks. A great cheer went up as the robot forces again dissolved into confusion and disarray.
“Excellent work, everyone! Keep it up!” Leaving the command of individual squads to her subordinates, Colonel Harumi turned back to Sunset. “I’m sending you with our reinforcements to Haruna-Taisa. If they have to fall back, it’ll put pressure on our right flank and might make us fall back as well.”
Sunset nodded. “She won’t like that. That leaves her with the open right flank.”
“Hence why I’m sending you. Give them the time you gave us. Help her reinforce and defend her flank. Get her to the point where she’s comfortable sending you back. Once she does, I’ll send more reinforcements to strengthen what you’ve helped set up.”
Sunset saluted. “Yes, Taisa!”
*****
The first hour of the battle proceeded smoothly from there, as far as Sunset was concerned. She knew little about what was happening on the southern front, but with her help the north had rebounded and brought the robot advance to a halt. Her excursion to the north-central front had seen a repeat of her performance in the north-west, with the only difference being a mop-up of some advance forces when she put the firewall up. Colonel Haruna had been every bit the commander that Colonel Harumi had proven to be, reorganizing her forces quickly and readying them for future waves. Sunset had swung by the north-east to see if they needed help, but the two mage teachers there had already given enough support for them to rally. Sunset spent the next forty minutes flying between the north-central and north-west fronts, lending aid wherever she was needed. To her surprise and delight, she found herself needing to do very little. Sayaka had chosen her colonels well, and the lines were holding under their commands. Even when the six colossi rose from the lakes, the northern three simply stood there menacingly, unable to advance. Sunset found herself able to relax a bit as she surveyed the battle from the skies.
Until the first bullet struck her in the back.
Sunset flinched, More from surprise than pain as her ki easily took the damage. More troubling was the sphere of dark purple energy which suddenly sprang up around her. Sunset panicked for an instant before recalling the information that Negi had given them from the future. She quickly teleported a few feet to the left, sighing in relief to find herself outside of the sphere which quickly collapsed into nothing beside her. “Good,” she muttered. “If that field could block temporal shifts, I’d have been done for.” She glared behind her towards Mahora propper, knowing that Mana was back there somewhere. After a minute of nothing happening, she snorted. “Figures. She’s too smart to waste any more bullets on me.” Her gaze turned back to the battle below. “Still, she might target the colonels. I should-”
Sunset paled. A tanaka unit had risen from the water and was making his way up the beach, other units stepping aside to let it through. Unlike most of the rest, this one held a weapon: a fully-automatic mini-gun with a long feed tape.
A feed tape filled with black-tipped bullets.
“SHIT!” Sunset dove for the front lines, pumping her wings for all they were worth. “TAKE COVER!” she shouted as the armed tanaka unit reached the front lines and took aim, two more similarly armed units rising out of the water. “TAKE COVER! GET BEHIND SOMETHING SOLID! TAKE-”
The tanaka unit opened fire, sweeping his gun from left to right. Most of Colonel Harumi’s troops had heard her warning, and most of those had tried to do as she directed. Still, there were far, far too many soldiers still out in the open. Each bullet burst into a sphere of dark energy wherever it struck, each one large enough to swallow up two or three people. By the time the tanaka unit stopped firing, a quarter of the front line was trapped. A few seconds later, they were gone.
Miraculously, Colonel Harumi didn’t panic. “INTO THE BUILDINGS!” she shouted, grabbing whatever papers she could before following her own advice. “INTO THE BUILDINGS, NOW! KEEP BACK FROM THE NORTHERN WALLS UNLESS YOU’RE RETURNING FIRE! INTO THE BUILDINGS!”
Her soldiers rushed to follow her orders, all but stampeding into the nearby businesses. The first ones inside were forced to ascend to the second and even third stories to accommodate everyone else pouring in behind them. By the time the other two tanaka units opened fire, there was barely anyone outside.
Sunset ducked into the command tent, gathering what few papers and maps had been left behind before rushing into the bookstore that Colonel Harumi and her officers had ducked into. She’d barely handed them off to a sergeant when Colonel Harumi stormed up to her, her narrow-eyed wrath barely covering the panic in her eyes. “Nichibotsu-Yuusha! What the hell just happened?!”
Sunset opened her mouth to reply, a dozen different lies competing for believability in her head, before she was interrupted by a familiar voice raised to an unfamiliar, menacing laugh.
“FUFUHAHAHAHAHA!!! LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE HAVING A TOUGH TIME NE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN MAGES!”
That works. “I think our esteemed opponent is about to explain,” Sunset answered, peeking out the front door. A giant hologram of Chao was being projected over the water north of them, and a quick report let them know that the same image hovered over the World Tree and the south coast.
“I AM THE LEADER OF THIS ROBOT ARMY,” Chao continued, “THE EVIL LAST BOSS, CHAO LINGSHEN NE. YOUR SWIFT ATTACKS IN THE FIRST HALF WERE IMPRESSIVE, AS EXPECTED OF MAHORA STUDENTS NE. IT APPEARS THAT THE RULE OF BEING ABLE TO GET UP EVEN AFTER GETTING HIT WAS A LITTLE TOO LENIENT FOR SUCH CAPABLE INDIVIDUALS AS YOU ALL. THEREFORE, A NEW RULE HAS BEEN PREPARED YO.”
Nice of her to play along with the war game, Sunset thought as Chao held up one of her black-tipped bullets. But… why? Why bother?
“GETTING HIT BY THIS BULLET MEANS INSTANT DISQUALIFICATION. ON TOP OF THAT, THROUGH THE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT’S SECRET NEW TECHNIQUE, THE MOMENT THE BULLET HITS, YOU WILL BE FORCIBLY SENT TO THE LOSER ROOM AND MADE TO SLEEP UNTIL THE GAME ENDS.”
A murmur began to spread through the ranks at this news, concern beginning to overtake intrigue as people considered the possibility that they might miss the remainder of the festival.
“RATHER THAN BEING DISQUALIFIED FROM THE GAME, I THINK BEING FORCED TO SLEEP THROUGH THE SCHOOL FESTIVAL’S CLIMAX IS A FAR MORE SERIOUS PENALTY, DON’T YOU THINK? FUFU. ARE WE BEGINNING TO FEEL THE THRILL NOW? YOU ARE FREE TO FORFEIT ANYTIME, YOU KNOW?
“BY THE WAY,” Chao’s grin widened as her tone grew more ominous, “MY SUBORDINATES HAVE ALREADY FINISHED OFF MOST OF THE HERO UNITS THAT WERE YOUR LAST RAYS OF HOPE. NOW THEN, CAN YOU STOP MY MARTIAN ROBOT ARMY’S ADVANCE WITH YOUR POWERS? I WISH EVERYONE A GOOD FIGHT!”
“BY THE WAY, THIS EVENT IS SPONSORED ENTIRELY BY…”
Sunset tuned out Chao’s sponsorship ad and stared out at the coast. The robot army had halted its advance for the moment, but she doubted the peace would last long. And once they began their attack anew, it would be a whole different battlefield. Up until now it had all been a game, a game of tag where being tagged out just meant a small penalty before jumping back into the action. But now, now it was war. A low-stakes war - as far as most of them knew - with an inconveniently timed nap instead of death, but a war nonetheless. One shot, one misstep, one small piece of bad luck, and it was over for you. No do-overs. No second chances. War.
Colonel Harumi approached Sunset, her veneer of confidence beginning to waver. “Nichibotsu?”
Sunset strode out into the street, ignoring Colonel Harumi’s cry of alarm. She lit her wings of fire, ignoring Asakura and Chao’s broadcasted banter. She stepped onto the beach and turned around, ignoring the army now at her back.
War. Sunset smirked. I can do war.
“Students of Mahora!”
Sunset’s voice wasn’t as loud as Chao’s had been, but she had been trained by the Sun Goddess herself. She knew how to project her voice and demand the attention of all before her.
“Teachers! Family and friends! And all the rest of you rabble crowding our home!” She heard a few chuckles from her audience hidden inside the buildings.
“Dire news indeed we have heard this hour. What safety we once imagined for ourselves is now gone. Friends and comrades already have fallen to this new weapon - this threat we could not have foreseen. We are forsaken by all but a handful of our greatest allies, and our great foe - the Chinese Genius Chao Lingshen - has unveiled her face. Her wit and intelligence are unmatched. Her ruthlessness, well feared. Truly, a greater threat we could not imagine. I will not lie: the odds are grim.
“BUT! We are not yet fallen.” Her wings began to flap, slowly lifting Sunset into the air. “Look around! Comrade and friend stand by you still! Great allies still support you! And as for our oh-so-terrifying foe…” She spread her arms wide. “Where is she now?! Where is that great martian princess who threatens our academy?! Where is the genius who causes us to tremble with fear?! Is she here, on the front lines? Does she stand nearby, leading her forces into battle? Nay! She cowers in some dark basement, sending only puppets and holograms to threaten us! And why?
“Because SHE! FEARS! US!” Sunset released her ki, allowing it to spread out, lending greater weight to her words. “She fears our might! She fears our strength! But more than that, she fears our hearts! Heart that will not fail from fear! Hearts that will not run from a fight! And hearts that have every reason to be filled with passion and wrath!” She flung her arms down, gesturing to the overturned tables and low walls that had been their former barricade.
“Look! Here we stood, arm-in-arm with our friends and comrades! Here we fought side by side for our academy! But where are they now?” Sunset gestured up at Chao, whose hologram now stared curiously down at her. “SHE HAS TAKEN THEM FROM US! BROTHERS! SISTERS! FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES! LOST THIS DAY TO HER COWARDLY AMBUSH!”
“ER, THEY AREN’T DEAD, YOU KNOW?” Chao said awkwardly. “THEY’RE JUST-”
“LOST TO HER STRANGE ARTS AND STRANGER TECHNOLOGIES! LOST TO APPEASE HER COLD HEART AND ITS COLDER DESIGNS! FOR WHAT HAVE OUR COMRADES FALLEN?! FOR WHAT PURPOSE DOES THIS EVIL WENCH WAGE THIS WAR?! FOR POWER?! FOR GLORY?! A POX UPON THAT! WE FIGHT FOR SOMETHING FAR GREATER!”
“WELL THAT’S A LITTLE HARSH,” Chao muttered, but no-one was listening to her now.
“WE, WE NOBLE FEW. WE FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. CLASSMATES AND TEACHERS. LOVERS AND FAMILY! WHAT DO WE FIGHT FOR?! WE FIGHT FOR THOSE WE HAVE LOST! WE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND OUR BRIGHT FUTURE! WE! FIGHT! FOR! MAHORA! WILL WE FLEE FROM THAT CAUSE?!”
“NO!” Colonel Harumi shouted, stepping out of the cafe.
“WILL WE FLEE FROM THIS FIGHT?!”
“NO!” shouted dozens of voices, leaving the safety of the buildings to raise their voices high.
“WILL WE SURRENDER THIS ACADEMY TO THOSE WHO WOULD DESTROY IT?!”
“NO!” Every voice was raised as one, and Sunset could swear she heard an echo of the cry.
“THIS DAY WILL NOT BE WITHOUT SACRIFICE! WE MAY BLEED! WE MAY DIE! WE MAY LOSE THOSE WE LOVE!”
“I SAID THEY AREN’T-”
“BUT NEVERTHELESS, WE WILL WIN THE DAY! WE WILL SAVE MAHORA! AND WE WILL SHOW THIS MARTIAN PRINCESS AND ALL HER UNFEELING HOARDS THE POWER THAT LIES WITHIN US!” She turned to face the robot army and, with a quiet incantation, summoned a sword of fire to her hand. “TOGETHER!”
“STRIKE THE ENEMY!!!”
And the battle continued.