Little Russia

[yinsukin]

Suerte

Suerte grinned and said, "Thats cute.  I can't say I hate boys like that, but I could see how he might become just as big of a problem as the enemy herself.  In that case, I guess i'll try to be nice, but if she resists too much i'll put her in the ground.  In that case, would you spar with me really quick?  I want to get a feel for this other girl's abilities.  We will have to just go with your husband's abilities based on what you have told us."

She turned to Justice.  "You might want to leave the sword behind," she said, her smile fading into something more natural and professional.  "I say we come up with a plan after this little match.  Do you mind keeping a look out?  It would be bad if she were to come back or something."

[YOLF]

Justice

"You ask a terrible thing, to separate Justice from his tools," he said, chuckling dryly. "I'll do that. Feel free to focus."

Truth is, he was already keeping lookout, and counting on his instincts to come alight if the worst happened to come upon them while they were in the middle of this. With a flick of his mind, crows manifested on his shoulders too, and flew off, keeping to the shadow of the tallest buildings were they were hardest to see.

His servants formed a spectral net of surveillance over the neighborhood, slowly spreading out.

[Cherry Lover]

Sakura

"Well, I was just planning on giving you a demonstration, but I suppose we could try that", Sakura replied. "I usually use my magic in support of my husband, though, it's not really that good for close-range combat. Plus, from what I saw of her, she uses her magic a little differently from me. She's a lot more powerful, but I think she has considerably less practice in using her magic than I do. And, she has Sen.. my husband's magic as well, so she is much more likely to get close than I am."

"Really, I think a demonstration would be better, but if you do want to spar, then I am willing to give it a try. You do need to be careful not to hurt me, though, whilst I can reinforce myself and I am wearing reinforced body armour, I am ultimately just a human, my body isn't particularly durable by the standards of the Nexus", she added.

[yinsukin]

Suerte

Suerte sighed and said,  "Well if you want to do it the boring way I don't mind but it is more effective with sparing.  Learning through our eyes is not as good as through our muscles and eyes you know?  But ah well, the client knows best I suppose."

Suerte leaped backward, landing atop a nearby tree.  "Just don't blow me up!"

[Panda]

Continued from here

Nanako
12:40

Having made it out of the district without much incident, Nanako took a break, nestling into a relatively quiet corner of a nearby coffee shop, having gotten her jacket back on in the meanwhile.

Soon growing bored, the squirrel girl pulled her phone out, tail flitting curiously behind her as she noticed a missed call and a voice message. It took her a couple tries to remember what she'd used for her passcode, but Nanako soon got through.

Oh hey, it's Sakura- she noted to herself with a smirk before it dropped off her face at the rest of Sakura's message.

Frowning for a moment at the strange predicament her friends had found themselves in, Nanako let out a quiet sigh before she dialed up the purplehead. The one that apparently hadn't kidnapped a handsome redhead.

[Cherry Lover]

Continued from here

Nanako
12:35

Having made it out of the district without much incident, Nanako took a break, nestling into a relatively quiet corner of a nearby coffee shop, having gotten her jacket back on in the meanwhile.

Soon growing bored, the squirrel girl pulled her phone out, tail flitting curiously behind her as she noticed a missed call and a voice message. It took her a couple tries to remember what she'd used for her passcode, but Nanako soon got through.

Oh hey, it's Sakura- she noted to herself with a smirk before it dropped off her face at the rest of Sakura's message.

Frowning for a moment at the strange predicament her friends had found themselves in, Nanako let out a quiet sigh before she dialed up the purplehead. The one that apparently hadn't kidnapped a handsome redhead.

Sakura

"I understand but, whilst she can use most of my magic, the way we fight is very different. The tactics which work well against me will not work so well against her", Sakura replied. "I can spar with you if you want, but I'm not sure it would teach you much, I suspect you would defeat me easily."

With that, Sakura prepared to begin her demonstration, only for her phone to begin to ring. Taking it out of her pocket, she saw that it was Nanako.

"Oh, sorry, I need to take this", she said, answering the phone.

"Hi Nanako", she said, "thank you for calling me back. I really need your help, Senpai has been kidnapped by someone much stronger than me and I don't know where she's taken him."

[Panda]

Nanako

"Yeah, I listened to the message," Nanako said, the hubub of the coffee shop audible in the background, "So where are you right now? Wait, I can just ask the squirrels. Alright, I'll see you in a minute or two."

With that, Nanako took her pecan tarts, gave the barista a smile and a generous tip, and left the coffee shop. The squirrel girl zipped through the streets, heading for the nearest park, munching on her snacks as she went.

[YOLF]

Justice

He blinked out of the muted senses of his shades. Fortune had always had a weird sense of occasion with him, but this was something else, he thought, hearing the name and the hazy echo of the voice on the phone. Justice had only barely begun filling in a new journal since arriving, but if today kept going like this, he would soon have enough material to cover the space in entries that usually took him weeks.

Though the lines of his forehead, hidden under his hat's shadow, were even, the rider glanced uncomfortably at Suerte, lips pursed under his scarf. Her advice had been one thing, but with the squirrelgirl here, would she be able to resist acting adversarial? Justice didn't want to see that.

At least on the job it could possibly be avoided.

[yinsukin]

Suerte

Suerte waved at her from atop the tree.  She could tell her that she has trained to take someone down with plenty of non lethal methods.  After all, with just a thought, she could change her bullets to rubber ones, but the girl seemed set on demonstrating.  Arguing with a client just isn't professional unless it is for the good of said client.  That was her thought at first.

"Another one?" she asked, hopping off the tree and landing back on the ground.  "Sweetie.  I know you are worried about your husband but have a little faith.  Me and Justice here are more than enough to save your man."

[Cherry Lover]

Sakura

Sakura was about to answer Nanako when the girl decided instead to come up with a solution for herself.

"OK, see you in a minute, Nanako", she said, before hanging up.

As soon as she'd done so, the girl jumped down in front of her and spoke, questioning her choice to call another person.

"I called her before I even met you, actually", she said. "But I don't see how having extra help can hurt. Plus, she seems to be good at tracking people, which we will need."

"In any case, she'll be here in a couple of minutes, so it's probably not a good idea to attempt sparring, in case she gets the wrong idea. But I can demonstrate some of my magic now, whilst we're waiting", she added.

With that, she began her demonstration.

"Erschaffe Hornissenschwarm!" she shouted, and a swarm of hornets began to form behind her, before moving quickly in the direction of a nearby lamp-post.

"First of all, I can create various insect familiars with my magic. Personally, I make a lot of use of these hornets. They act a lot like normal hornets, but their stings are deadly. Alternately, if I wish, they can instead knock their target unconscious", she said. "As for her, I'm unsure exactly what she uses. I mostly came up with the specific uses of this magic myself, so she might well have come up with something slightly different. Although, I did see her create hornets in battle, at least."

"Verschwinden!" she shouted, causing the familiars to disappear.

"Next, I will demonstrate my shadow magecraft. Vertraute Schatten einsetzen!" she stated, creating a moderate-sized shadow familiar.

"These familiars can be used to shield me and to attack my enemies. Also, they can vary in size depending on how much magical energy I put in to them. Our opponent seems to have considerably more magical energy available to her than I do, so her familiars are far, far larger than I can make mine. As such, they are also far more dangerous."

As she spoke, Sakura sent the shadow creature to stand over near to a wall behind her.

"It might also be a good idea for me to demonstrate their abilities a little better. If you wouldn't mind, could you take a few shots at that shadow? It should absorb them without taking any damage", she added, before waiting for the girl to make her move.

[yinsukin]

Suerte

Suerte folded her arms at the comment and grumbled, "Whatever.  Lets just get this boring part over with."

Watching the coordination between the hornets and her, she felt a little uneasy.  These sorts of enemies required a lot of quick thinking and creativity to deal with.  Moreover, someone smart who could coordinate them well could give even her a good run for her money.  Considering they seem to require orders from the master, it might be best simply to snipe the user and be done with it.  However, that means she would have to take a life to deal with this particular threat safely.

"Got it," she said, watching the hornets move.  "I think I already know how to deal with something like that."

The shadow looked far less threatening.  Really, the idea that the shadow got bigger and stronger was even less threatening.  The fact of the matter was big stupid familiars like this did poorly against her own powers, at least in terms of actually landing a hit.

"I suppose I could," she said with a shrug.  Following the client's directions, she reached into her holster and grabbed her gun.  Two loud bangs filled the air as the gun lazily fired at the shadow.  They were regular bullets, so nothing to be too worried about.

[Cherry Lover]

Sakura

As the bullets hit the shadow, they simply disappeared without trace, leaving no apparent damage.

"As you can see, the shadows absorbed the bullets without a trace", Sakura said. "In fact, they can absorb almost any attack that hits them straight-on. Aside from maybe a powerful anti-magic spell, the only way to destroy them is to cut them from the edge. Do you have anything in particular that you think might work on them? If you do, it might be a good idea to test it out now."

[YOLF]

Justice

He stared, fingering the handle of Absolution. The edge was tempered to sunder illusions, not all magic, but it could likely endure cutting through the border of these shadows fine, if it came to that.

"The insects. How far could they operate, and how easy would it be to make more on a long-term basis?" Justice inquired, voice thrumming. Poison wouldn't be a concern for him, but the other two's possible vulnerability worried him. He could think of a few ways to make use of that, but other gears were turning in his head.

He continued, after a pause, "Can you sense or follow her magic, if it's like your own?"

[yinsukin]

Suerte

A mechanical noise could be heard from her gun, like cogs grinding against each other, trying to rub one another out of existence.  Still looking down the barrel of her gun, she fired another shot.  The bullets exploded just before it reached the shadow, coating it in oil.  The noise repeated itself and this time when she fired, regular looking bullets came forth from the barrel of her gun.  However, if they were able to strike the oil, they would light it ablaze.

[Cherry Lover]

Sakura

As the man spoke, the girl made another attempt to attack the shadow. However, the droplets of oil from the exploding bullet were simply absorbed into the shadow just as the bullets before them had been, the same fate befalling the follow-up attack. Seeing this, Sakura turned to the girl.

"As I said, they can absorb almost anything. The only chance you might have of destroying them with a frontal attack is if you have some kind of anti-magic bullet, and even then I'm not sure if it would work", she said.

Then, the turned to the man and began to answer his questions.

"My insects are familiars, so they can operate at any distance. They also have some limited level of autonomy. If I give them an order, they will attempt to fulfill that order even if they are not able to be directly controlled. Of course, their intelligence is only on the same level as that of an insect, so they can be outwitted easily enough. As for their creation, it is a relatively quick process. The limiting factor is mostly my magical energy supply, both in terms of creating them and also supporting them", she said.

"And, no, unfortunately I do not have any special attunement to her magic. I can detect the use of magical energy by any magus, if they are close enough, and the fact that I am so familiar with her magic means that I might be able to pick up on subtle things that I might miss from anyone else, but overall my ability to detect her is not significantly better than my ability to detect any other mage."