Magical Teacher Professor Landry! - Episode 3: Bad End?

[Teal Mage]

Faint and pale, a blanket of aqua-tinted white mist hung over the black and brown alternating tiles of the Field of Honor's second tier. Glowing faintly with the lightless radiance of the supernatural, the mist did little more than outline the dim shadows of the three humans within it. A corona of darkness surrounded one, a beautiful red-head in a ripped blue dress, as her leg lashed out in a vicious spin-kick, connecting solidly with her short haired opponent and sending her flying down the hallway. The red-head landed with a sharp click, the mist around her seeming to glimmer, as she flowed gracefully from a slight crouch, back to a standing position.

With impressive coordination, the short haired girl turned the kick's momentum into a back flip, landing deftly in a crouch several meters distant. A pair of black-tipped tan coyote ears crowned the girl's head, and curved dog's tail of similar coloration was visible at her back, emerging from a hole in her sleeveless white dress. Around her slim frame, a corona of pale aqua - a more intense version of the mist that surrounded them - danced and tumbled, as she drew a pair of curved fighting daggers from sheathes hidden on her person.

"Behind you!" The short haired girl cried.

A dark shadow appeared in the mists to the red head's right. Hissing, the shape of a white and gold serpent resolved itself, flying through the mist shrouded air, jaws wide, toward Diana's pale throat.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit!"

Swearing, the third figure burst out of the effervescent mist on Diana's left. Clad in a dark suit jacket, the young man's long black hair spilled out in his wake, each strand outlined by a thin aura of supernatural light. His dark dress shoes pounded the marble beneath him, as he raced toward the short haired girl - who now stood facing him. Aura dancing wildly, the girl's pale eyes glinted mischievously, and a smile split her tanned face.

"Oh Kooooooh. Don't let the City Girl do all the hard work!" Hie Mica voiced a faint giggle. "Let's have some fun!" The pale silver of her daggers glittered menacingly, as her hands tightened on the weapon's white leather grips.

Atop the green-outlined youth's head, a pair of jet black canine ears twitched with annoyance, and his brown eyes burned. "Hie!" Sticking out of a hole in the back of his dark slacks, the youth's wolf tail lashed, coarse black fur bristling with indignation. "I swear if you call me that one more time," the intense forest green of his aura flared brightly, as he landed before his short haired foe, dropping to a crouch, and narrowly avoiding a probing slash from one of the girl's knives in the process, "I'm gonna kick your arms off!" His hands dropped to the marble tiles -

* * *

- "Tsk." A breath of annoyance passed Diana's lips, as she coolly stepped back, red hair and tattered blue dress wafting out in her wake.

Hissing, the slim white form of the serpent broke the mist directly in front of the girl. Reptilian eyes glinted, as it twisted, mouth snapping shut on empty air. The edged blade capping the creature's tail lashed out -

- Distractedly, Diana's hand snapped out, closing firmly on the smooth ivory of the serpent's body. The mist around her body glittered, as she twisted, strands of vivid red hair swirling around her face, and indifferently sent the creature back the way it had come. Her eyes and body language clearly articulated her thoughts at that moment, A waste of screen time.

Hissing in outrage, the snake plummeted out of sight, vanishing into the dancing mists below the second-tier balcony.

* * *

Limbs outlined in a blaze of emerald light, Kohana's dark-clad legs swung at the side of Hie's white dress. Pale aqua aura burning bright around her, Hie lifted a foot, turning the momentum of her missed slash into a sharp pirouette, narrowly pulling the girl out of her cousin's reach. The hem of her white dress swirled around her ankles, and the girl's gaze snapped back over her shoulder. Fully dilated, her pale eyes fell upon Kohana, and she planted her uplifted leg on the tiles beneath her.

"You hear me!?" Movements fluid, Kohana's legs completed their lashing arc, and slid back to the ground beneath him. Burning green, Kohana's eyes met Hie's unflinchingly, "Now cut it out or I swear I'm gonna skin you alive!"

A maniac grin split Hie's face, as her muscles tensed -

Bursting free of the mists behind Kohana, Diana swept up on Hie. Dark supernatural light burned bright around her frame, as her hand darted out, and fell on Hie's exposed tail. Grip firm, the directress tugged hard on the tanned appendage. Then, muscles tensing, the red head lept further down the hallway, releasing her target's tail as suddenly as she grabbed it.

Letting out a yelp of surprise, Hie jumped away - tail slipping from Diana's suddenly loose grasp. Her bare feet landed soundlessly on the marble tiles, only a few steps away from the lacquered wood of the second floor's banister. Pale eyes darted warily from Kohana to Diana, as she brought her twin knives up defensively before herself.

"So, you two know each other then!" Diana called brightly, tattered dress swirling as she spun round to face them. "Where abouts are you from? Do you have anything you'd like to say to my fans?"

Hie giggled. "Of course!" The girl gestured loosely with her left hand, the dagger held within it pointing back in the direction Diana and Kohana had come from, and her aura flared. In the far north-west corner of the hallway, there came an answering bloom of pale-aqua.

And a black bladed claymore clattered to the tiles in front of her.

"Fire in the hole!" Hie's hands snapped back, before lashing outward - curved daggers flying from her fingers, and swirling end-over-end through the mist filled air. The silvery weapons quickly bore down on their targets, one aimed at Kohana, and the other at Diana.

At her feet, the draconic form of the black dragon slowly began to rise again.

* * *

Above the main level of the Field of Honour, dark grey storm clouds milled and swirled, all but obscuring the psychedelic purple void where the battlefield ceiling should have been. From the clouds, light leaked down, filling the checkerboard marble expanse with faintly gold-tinted ambient radiance. Those same checkerboard tiles flew beneath the soft-soled black shoes of Sao Opallios, as the brilliant eyed girl dashed north, escaping the enfilade of wind, water and bone at her back. She quickly arrived at the mid-point between the north-most Ninja Butler's. Brilliant blue supernatural light flowed calmly around her frame and, in her dominant hand, a length of blue-green ephemeral crystalline energy glinted.

The west-most of the two robots broke away, dashing south, while the east on sprung toward her, a steak knife flashing in his hand -

Sao's energy sword bisected him.

That was one.

* * *

Green spheres of energy erupted from the smooth grey stone of the newborn wall on the south of the Field of Honor. Slightly larger than a tennis ball, the orbs of light flew in straight, swift, lines, one aimed at each of the Amaranth Students who stood near-by.

Thinking quickly, Sean threw himself to the brown and black tiled floor beneath him, and dragged his still-stunned-classmate with him. Ever the pragmatist, the Canadian turned in mid-air and landed on his back, holding Jackson Hall tight to his well-toned chest; a human side against any unfortunate maulings by a certain magical mountain lion. Green orbs of energy passed above the pair, striking solidly into the brown stone of the pillar above them. The balls rebounded away, flying further into the Field before landing on the tiled ground and, eventually, coming to a stop near the prone form of the pale blue statue to their north.

...how anticlimactic.

Some distance away, Astarte proved herself to be no less quick thinking than her Canadian classmate. Yellow aura gutting out, the swirling bandages of the elaborately dressed mummy ceased their frenzied motion and quickly wrapped themselves tightly around her black gloved arm. Trusting in the supernatural arts of her mother, Astarte raised her right hand at the last moment, using it to block the path of the energy ball aimed for her.

Her arm was knocked back, hard, against her chest by the impact's force, but the orb was deflected – straight to the south. It passed through the grey stone wall in front of her, as if it wasn't there.

Thunder cracked, then a roar of outraged surprise exploded from the other side of the wall.

…she'd gotten lucky?

Mysteriously, the puma now lay in a crumpled heap far to Astarte's north-east, near the crimson barrier of the Firewall. The pale green aura around the creature flickered only weakly, and, if not for the subtle-rise and fall of its body, it would not have been difficult to mistake the stunned creature for dead.

…now what?

* * *

Loosening a roar of fury and pain, Shinobu rushed headlong into the torrent of broken dishware and powerful winds. Fragments of bone pelted her, a handful lodging shallowly into the front of her body and causing small welts of blood to spurt, but most shattered on impact leaving bruises beneath the orange fabric of her kimono. The wind tore her golden hairpins out, causing her black hair to billow behind her as she closed on the robot to her south. Cuts blossomed at the edges of her form, lucky shards slashing her in passing, causing puddles of red to leak into her white-under-kimono.

Then, she was in front of the east-most south robot.

And had horns.

Loosing a computerized shriek of terror, the Ninja-Butler threw its hands up, and made to run, "Eeeeeeeeiiiiiii! Monster gir -" Shinobu's spiked club took him full in the side and, in the instant before he was launched into the air, the Oni could feel the crumpling of the robot's body armour beneath her powerful strike - it had almost seemed to be made of paper.

Chest shattered, the south-east robot sailed swiftly through the gold-tinted air. He slammed full into the back of his southern brother, who appeared to have been attempting to flee from the, now horned, long haired, red skinned and tattered kimono-clad figure that was Shinobu.

They both exploded.

"That's not kung-fu, idiots." Shin growled softly.

* * *

"You're all gonna pay for this!"

Jay Miles' dress boots tapped loudly against the marble tiles beneath him, as he charged west, his baseball bat glinting gold in the warm light that filled the Field of Honor. Yellow-green energy raged in a fiery tumble of motion around his body, the hue contrasting vividly with his bright red necktie. A white teapot flew past his head, but he ignored it; dark eyes instead fixated on his target, the lone female robot in this battle.

She was running away from him.

"Princess Teanne!" From the north, the robot that had fled from Sao and her strange sword appeared before Jay. In the silvery being's delicate hand, a steak knife glinted, as it landed directly in the baseball player's path. "You will not harm the Princess!" He declared, snapping his hands together, fingers working around the cleaver to form -

Jay's bat took him full in the side, sending the surprisingly light robot into the air. The being flew far and fast, eventually striking the tiled floor far to the north-east. Silvery body-parts scattered, as the being's fragile structure was shattered on impact, and the faint red aura around its frame gutted out completely. It appeared that these robots really were pathetic.

"Teabomb!"

Unwilling to allow the sacrifice of her four servants to go to waste, Teanne had run far and fast. Now, she stood far to the north-west of Sao and Jay, her soft-soled black shoes dangerously close to the Field's edge. Once again, the long haired robot-butler-princess had folded her hands into a handsign, and once more, a spherical white teapot had appeared before her. A pulse of force sent the floating piece of bone-china toward the still-approaching form of Jay Miles.

How vexing.

* * *

On the far east side of the Field, a worm lay in a slowly spreading puddle of its own fluids, at the high-heeled feet of Johanna Imirsdotter. Flecks of white and blue floated up from the hem of her robes, as the virulent deletion acid continued to leak out from the dead worm's maw, destroying the luxurious material of Jo's robe with insulting ease. Eight shadows, all faint, fanned out around the pale girl, as if the faint gold light that filled the Field was, in fact, cast by multiple sources.

Vivid red blood dripped slowly from the vicious-looking ice-talons that now capped the snow-white hands of the Jotun, as she turned her coal black eyes toward the masked sorceress on the far side of the eastern platform. Chanteuse supernatural light fluctuated around her body, a sharp contrast to the white haired girl's calm and dispassionate words.

"You still haven't answered my question." She shifted her robe and more pixels sprayed into the air. Through the gapping hole left by the now-dead worm's death-throw-attack, a hint of red was visible. "Strange woman, Marisa Grimaldi." Jo declared calmly, as her aura fluctuated around her, "You will be defeated." Muscles of enchanted snow tensed beneath her, before the Jotun launched herself forward in a burst of motion, another burst of coloured pixels appearing in her wake.

"Zero, one, one, zero, zero, zero, zero, one… "

Loosing a shriek of rage, a blast of deletion acid flew from the maw of the nearest worm to Johanna. Yellow-green aura flaring bright, the girl vanished into a veil of mist, as the deadly green fluid struck the spot she had stood in moments ago.

"Zero, one, one, one, zero, zero, one, zero… "

* * *

Aura flaring yellow, the translucent and delicate looking wings of Dalbhach Nuada beat downward, loosing a powerful pulse of fae magic and driving the tuxedo-clad being into the air above. Twin jets of green fluid flew through the space the dark haired man had occupied instants before. The opposing streams of virulent liquid brushed each other in passing, spraying green pixels into the air, before falling harmlessly to the ground, several paces away. Two creators quickly formed, one on each side of the Sorceress's firewall.

Grinning confidently, Dal's green eyes fell upon the chanting sorceress. "…suicide seems a bit extreme, doesn't it?" The Fae began, his gold as calm as his tone, as he settled into a logical argument, perhaps seeking to try and confuse his foe's computer-like mind. Below Dal, the Sorceress's worms began to loft jets of deadly green fluid toward him; but if the Fae took note of these projectiles, his tone didn't betray it. Luckily for him, the worms proved to be poor archers, at first at least.

"Zero, zero, one, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero…"

Similarly, if the Sorceress was fazed by the Fae's words, the tone of her chant did not show it.

* * *

Leaving a second corpse in their wake, Johanna and her newly generated twin raced toward the next summoned worm in their path toward the Masked Sorceress. In the air above the, Dal was surrounded by a calm corona of golden light, as his dragonfly-like wings beat rapidly, keeping him aloft. He was speaking, and, as the twins neared their third target, the words resolved into something they could make sense of.

"…wait, you wouldn't be speaking about Jo and I, would you?" The Fae asked, conversational tone taking on a hint of good-natured confusion.

"…Jotun..." In another deadly high-five, the twins struck their chosen target from behind, reducing its jet of deletion acid into a gurgle, as it collapsed boneless to the stage at their feet. "…Fae..." The pair broke apart, each one making for a different worm, as Dal danced back in the air, narrowly evading the most accurate acid blasts yet.

"We've been around since the beginning." The worms swung their eye-less gazes toward the fast approaching twins, Dal temporarily forgotten, in light of these new threats. Green acid bubbled into their tooth lined maws. "As much a part of this world as the clouds in the sky."

Jumping away at the last second, the twin Johanna's evaded the acid jets cleanly. Under her mask, Marisa Grimaldi's white irises darted from one Johanna to the other, as they leapt forward, vicious-looking ice-claws cleanly severing the ball-like heads of her last two worms from their bodies. Her hand snapped a gesture toward the real Jo, and a new Firewall erected itself between the Sorceress and the original Jotun.

"Downright normal compared to an 'abnormality' of your calibre." Dal stated firmly, by way of conclusion.

"Zero, one, one, zero, one, one, zero, one…" Swinging toward the clone Johanna, Marisa brought her white-gloved hands up before herself warily, as her white-slippered feet shifted subtly. It appeared that she intended to enter hand-to-hand combat with Jo's clone, rather than erect a fourth fire-wall between herself and the girl. "…zero, one, one, one, one, zero, zero, one…"

Her chant was barely a third of the way done.