Classes has begun again and it looks like it's the Seishou soccer team versus Verone Academy on the Seiyou soccer field. It's also the biggest soccer field of all of the schools, and a bit of a bragging right for the school, so naturally, the first match of the year will be played there. Lots of students, parents, teachers and more are there to watch the game as the teams try to play their best, fair match.
On one side of the field, despite there being a soccer match going on, even in the first minutes of it, Katherine Tempest sits on a picnic blanket on the grounds near one of the walls. She actually has a genuine picnic basket with her as well, but....no one has joined her on the blaket yet, unless you count an unseen by most fairy named Jihl. She may be waiting for someone other than Jihl.
Rena can't help be present at this game. Not only is it a major event but its a chance for her to hang out with a new friend!!! With a smile she moves over to the picnic blanket and has a seat near Katherine. Out pops Dabble! The only people of course who would see her is those who are magical in nature and of course the jerks from Red Tree if they dare show up. This of course is part of the reason Rena wanted to be here.
She gives a warm smile to Dabble and then to Katherine. "Hey Kat! I brought some snacks if you are interested! And some tea!" She smiles happily as she turns to face the field. "How was school? Everything going alright?"
Kat, as Rena just called her, grinned despite herself. "hey Rena! Glad you could join here!" She says as she opens the top of the basket. "I brought a few things with me as well. Though I didn't bring an instrument cuz I didn't want to interrupt the game." She then smiles at Dabble and Jihl, who has joined Dabble in a hug.
"I'd love some snacks. I brought a few rice cakes, meat buns....I think that's what they're called. Just glad mom helped out a little bit. And Jihl too." Jihl grins and waves. "if she didn't, help, I think I'd have turned to ramen." She says all of this JUST before a whistle blows that one team has scored a goal....and it looks like Verone is the one that scored....
Rena just snaps her fingers. "Nuts. Come on Seishou! You can do it! Kick their butts!" She cheers out before turning to Kat, "Oh yeah, Ramen is awesome! I like it sometimes." She gets out some cupcakes, cookies, and... Two bentos, loaded with rice, chicken, and veggies. She slides one over to Kat and then gets out some chopsticks. "I thought maybe these would be good. My mom and dad made them up for us."
Over on the bench a single boy sits looking as nervous as ever. Minoru Tanaka, a simple boy who just wants to play his flute. Sadly his father hates that idea and has been pressuring him to get into sports. Minoru opted to join the Soccer team and while he hates it entirely, he's been pretending to love it with all his heart. Even now its eating him away, not that he'd tell anyone.
Rena just smiles and pours herself and Kat some tea. SHe giggles a little, "What a crazy day! I think I might actually get that part I was trying out for! It will be awesome!z"
Craft did not want to come to this bout of frivolity. He has /science to do/ and /fairys to capture/ and things way more important than that. Then it occured to him 'there will be a lot of people there. More chances to find a wandering fairy looking for a watch owner. More chances to find someone brimming with that energy'.
Thusly, he holds his bowler hat in one hand to his chest, and cane in the other as he walks along the crowd of people and overall, trying to keep to himself because he doesn't want to actually /interact/ with these people. Ugh.
He might..end up /liking someone/ what a thought!
He's walking along behind the benches keeping an eye out for fairys when--- that feeling hits him like a brick. He stops and looks at the backside of Minoru Tanaka's head. He hops over and reaches over and taps taps Minoru Tanaka on the shoulder with his cane to get his attention. He places it down and that bowler hat goes back on his head.
"Tsk." he says as he shakes his head. "How idiotic. Pretending to be someone you aren't for someone else." he says. "What exactly are you attempting to gain or prove!? No matter..." he says, lifting up one of those mechanical gears. "Become another cog in the machine...."
"GEAR UP!" he calls out as he slams the gear to the boy's head.
There's a CACAOPHONY of WHISTLING WIND INSTRUMENTS as the boy becomes some of ridicolous large steamwork like 'Pipe Oragan' monster- whistling windpipes and overall being loud, ridicolous and blowing a completely and utterly wrong tune out into the stands and game--- it probably blows lots of mundane people over in a sonic wave. It's defeaning!
Craft seems to have obtained earmuffs suddenly. The wonders of science!
If there's any steamwork fairys, or Steam Sentinels in the area-- or even other Magical Girls to mess with, this'll be a way to draw them out. Otherwise. Well.
Free energy!
By now the game has started again and now both sides are playing their hearts out. Seishou trying hard to score, and Verone putting up a hard defense. Suddenly, even after she grabs one of Rena's cupcakes, Kat leaps to her feet and yells 'YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THIS! NOW PUT IT IN THE GOAL!!!!!" Suddenly, one of the forwards breaks free, as if driven by Kat's call, and kicks the ball, bending it off the goalpost and into the goal. Kat immediately cheers for the team......before the sonic wave hits and Kat covers her ears. "OWOWOWOWOW!" She yells to relieve the tension from her ears....and even Jihl covers her ears.....and that's when Kat notices the Pipe Organ monster. "Uh....Rena!?" Like Rena can hear Kathy. "I think there's trouble."
Rena is on her feet too, chearing for her school and just enjoying herself. Thats when that sonic blast hits. She quickly tucks and covers, trying to drown out the noise. Dabble on the other hand has a set of ear muffs extending from her top hat. Very cute. silly Tinkering fairy. As Kat yells, Rena looks up to see... Pipe Organ Monster? Oof!
Quickly the strawberry blonde steps between Kat and the monster. "Kat, Get out of here, NOW! Thats a Cog. Craft is here. Take Jihl and go! He is looking for the Fairies!" She quickly looks at Dabble, "Lets do it!"
"Aether Spirit, SHINE!" Immediately her hand goes to her watch as Dabble slaps a new face on it. Immediately the area is flooded with orange light as her henshin begins. Her clothing rapidly changes becoming much more victorian in styling. "The Fire that melts the coldest heart, I am Steam Sentinel JOY!" The light show ends and she springs into action droping down in front of the Cog, giving it several very hard hits.
The Cog Gears up for another cacophonic blast when Steam Sentinel Joy appears and knocks it off it's high note just as it's about to blast. Instead, a less damaging pathetic 'pfffbbbbttttt' sound gets out instead and it's horrible. There's a blast of steam.
Yeah that got it's attention. It raises two massive pipe like limbs and attempts to slam them down to the ground with a tremendous, bass like ringing out of singing metal being 'dinged'. It's musical!
Oh Craft? He's sitting on the now vacated benches nearby sipping some sort of steamy hot drink from a tea cup and a tiny saucer.
"Joy." he greets, as if he was greeting someone he expected. "Ahhhhh so you're alone today. Lovely~" he says.
"Maybe I can end this today." he says as he sips from his cup again. He places the cup and the saucer down next to him as he places his cane out in front of him and his two hands rest on it. He rests his head on the top, almost sassily, after. "Just give me Dabble and then I can go!~" he says. "It's a pretty even trade. Don't you think?" he asks. "The Fairy for this boy and-- whatever energy I've gotten back, yes?" he asks.
He hasn't noticed the OTHER one yet. His tone would change otherwise.
Kat knew what Rena said was true, but some part of her.....wanted to help. She shook her head at the notion. "Come on, Jihl." She said as she ran for the nearest shelter she could find. Which was a rather long way away.....except for a rather large tree nearby. She'd have to stay there until They were distracted enough to where she could run.
Jihl flew along with Kat to the temporary shelter at the tree. They both had confidence in Joy....probably a lot more confidence than Joy might've had herself, but she had confidence in her friend.....she had to have it.
Joy dives out of the way of the rather annoyed cog. "Craft, I'd say it was a pleasure but I don't like to lie!" She listens to him prattle on about the trade and how great it is. "There is just one small problem, You hurt two of my friends. You tried to hurt Dabble, and now you are posing a threat to my home after you and Red tree destroyed yours. In my book, that doesn't even begin to be an even trade. But I am pretty sure I can balance it out. I got something for you!"
She quickly brings her arms into a circle and takes a strong stance. "STEAM SENTINEL, CLOCKWORK SPIRIT BLAST!" She calls out as a fire gout of purifying energy goes flying, not towards the cog but towards Craft himself.
Craft scoffs. "We seem to have a different definition of 'destroy', Joy!" he calls out. "I call it 'making better progress', this would could do a lot better to, you know!" he calls out. He stands up and points his cane toward's Joy while making his point. "Look how much time is wasted on this stupid game and the space it's played on could be put to much better use!" he spits out.
He's about to make more of a point when Joy says 'she has something for him'.
Oh-- uhoh. That's... going to hurt. He raises his cane in front of him in defense and then the /purifying blast/ rakes over him and there's this horrible feeling overtaking him. It's /horrid/. Positive emotion and energy raking at his being.
He finally looses his footing and gets blasted through the air with a 'nrrrrrrgk' and ends up landing back downwards somewhere.... not too far off from Katherine. He forces his eyes open and painedly gets back to his feet. "No good, vile /Sent-----"
He stares at Katherine. He looks down to the right. He looks at Jihl. He looks back up at Katherine and he blinks. He sort of eye twitches. "OH NO YOU DON'T!" he calls out as he throws his cane up and some sort of nasty--- clawlike spindly metallic claw hand fires from the tip on what appears to thick metal tensile string towards Jihl. Someone's gonna wanna try to stop this.
MEANWHILE, Joy still has her own issue to worry about. The Cog throws it's giant pipe orange limbs forward and blasts out with cacophony blare of sonic noise again- more focused dirtly at her this time.
Joy lets out a soft sigh of relief as Craft goes flying. That is, until she sees just where he landed. Right beside Katherine. "GET OUT OF HERE! GO!" She screams out to Kat, trying to make her way towards her. Then she gets the rude awakening that she really didn't want. The Cog. As the horrific noise forces her to cower, covering her ears, She quickly adjusts her focus to the creature. "Dabble. Get Kat out of here! GO!"
Dabble makes a wide circle around craft and to Kat. She quickly starts tugging on Kat's top. "Come on! We need to get out of here! Joy can't help you right now and Craft isn't very nice!"
Meanwhile, Joy has begun attacking the cog. Her tactics are a little odd. She seems to be focusing on crushing those pipes. If she can crush them, it will stop that sonic attack.
Kat manages to grab Jihl and dive behind the tree, even after Dabble grabs onto her shirt, taking Dabble with her. The Spindly metallic claw hand will likely strike the tree and go through it, but not enough to grab Jihl. Dabble, maybe. If Dabble got pulled back.....Kat would reach for her and just.....not make it to her hand.....barely.
"NO!" Kat would yell as Craft would 'reel' her back to him. She watched in slow motion as Dabble was reeled back......and that was her revelation. She had the ability, but she initially chose not to. She knew, at that moment....she had to protect her friends."
"Give me the watch." Katherine said to Jihl.....her tone wasn't malice.....it was necessity. Jihl took a breath and gave Kat an old victorian watch.....and put a new face onto the watch....as if she knew what Kat was thinking. Kat looked to Jihl.....and the fairy smiled.
"For my friends!"Kat says as she holds the watch up.
Aether Spirit, SHINE!
Suddenly the wind kicks up and wraps around Kathy in an obscuring swirl of a mini-tornado. The sound is deafening as the tornado seems to hang there forever, before it partly disperses, holding Kathy in the air......or who was Kathy. The wind that fans the flames of the heart, Sentinel Spirit!
This is not going to be a good day for Craft....
The claw finds a mark. It isn't Jihl. But it /is/ Dabble and that's practically like best second prize! His eyes light up. Oh yeesssssss~ The lead fairy! He can smell the promotion! Lead of Development! Pennington Under him! Now HE gets to make the timetables! No more dealing with his whining! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! "AHAHAHAHAHAH!" laughs Craft.
Yes he can taste it as that claw retracts! He let's Dabble stay in that metal claw's grip. No need to let her go for an instant.
"I got /one!/." he says. He points towards the Cog. "Now I can use the cog to get the other one!" he says.
The Cog is taking a beating, one of those pipes ends up bent. it lets loose a pathetic whistling sound. That's okay. It has another arm.. and even more pipes briming from it's body! Nasty piano-key like teeth press down in a nasty sweep across as it lets loose another all around pipe blast like the one it started with. This thing seems to to like being indiscrimate-- and being loud and windy and hurting allows best for that it seems.
Craft has high hopes though. "Let's see! I think I'll decorate my office in green..." he says as he taps his chin.
Counting chickens before they hatch, as always.
Oh. Then Jihl sets up that watch. Then Jihl starts the watch.
Then Katherine Transforms! Into Steam Sentinel Spirit.
Craft has to raise his other hand over the brim of his hat at the light. There's a sound of shock!?
"What!?"
"ANOTHER ONE!?" he says angrily. "ALREADY!?" he screams out. He begins shaking the cane, which means Dabble also gets shaken around. "STUPID STUPID STUPID FAIRY!" he screams out. Yeah he's taking it out on Dabble- who's getting shaken about! Poor Dabble!
Joy can feel what is happening to Dabble and it ain't a good feeling. She needs to help her. But the cog needs dealt with. There is a poor kid stuck in the middle of this and she can't leave him. "Okay I've had about enough of this pain in the neck." She jumps backwards and sets herself up.
"Tracing a heart in the air she quickly calls out, "BLAZING HEART BEAM!" A barrage of burning hearts go flying at the cog.
Kat uses this opportunity to leap into the air.....and with the power of wind with her......that means she leaps pretty darned high. "LET GO OF MY FRIEND!" Kathy yells at Craft as the winds holds her aloft, at least for a moment.
She holds her hands at her sides, and watches Dabble get shaken about....
WIND POWER!!
And she throws her hands forward, creating six different whirlwinds from behind her....that curve around and merge together to.....form a translucent serpentine dragon. It roars it's fury as it goes straight for Craft and Dabble. If it catches Craft, it'll also catch Dabble too, but the fury is not for Dabble. It'll also curve around and attempt to catch the cog monster in it's fury.....lifting them off the ground and hold them in a very large swirling tornado. The tornado would be brutal for the both of them, but two things would happen.....Craft wouldn't be able to maintain his hold on Dabble.....and they would literally be a stationary target.....
For a tandem purifying beam.
Craft felt as close to happiness as he's going to get just a few moments ago. He had Dabble! He could run away! It was him and the cog he'd created against one Steam Sentinel with no help in sight. He could taste the promotion, it tasted like /raspberry jam/. Oh yes.
But then..
This.. this INTERPOLER!? The one with Jihl!? awakes as a /SENTINEL!?/. It's aboulstely infuriating and even more so as the wind whips out and he gaurds against it--- gripping the brim of his hat as the wind blows around him--- he tries to hold onto the cane--- but--- nope. With Dabble being held by that claw on the bussiness end of it, it's JUST heavy enough to be picked up-- and flung out and about and let's Dabble get free at some point. He twitches more visibly as he he throws his hand out. "ENOUGH!" he calls out.
"CLOOOCKKKKWOOOOORRKKKKKK!" he bellows out.
There's a phase in of dark energy as steampunk-like, gear based clockwork minions appear from poofs of dark steam and smoke. Hup hup hup! About ten in all! Luckily, Clockworks are not strong creations , well lucky for the two Sentinels.
"SUPPORT THE COG!" he calls out.
The Cog iself is hit with a BLAZING HEART BEAM and gets flung backwards-- leaving a scrape in the Earth as it keeps itself upright.
It gives out a whistle as steam blows from between it's piano-key like ghastly teeth and then with another more screeching whistle, blows steam--- which luckily, seems to be intercepted by Spirit's wind, blowing it off course before it can scald Sentinel Joy any!
Dabble is free! She takes off flying as fast as she can towards her Sentinel Partner. Spirit has Jihl, she doesn't need Dabble too at this moment. It takes a little time but she does successfully get over there. "That was too close, Joy! Lets not do that again!"
Joy watches cog take a monster hit. This brings a smile to her face. A nod is given to Dabble, "Yeah, That wasn't the best move. Sorry about that. I'll make it up to you later on." And then Oh look Clockwork, "Didn't I take these losers out last time? Or do they just keep coming back?"
Oh goody Now there are a bunch of Clockworks headed their way. "Spirit! Lets finish this!" She calls out. Her arms form a circle as she calls out. "STEAM SENTINEL, CLOCKWORK SPIRIT BLAST!" The sound of a ticking clock fills the air as her arms ignite, preparing to unleash hell in tandem with Sentinel Spirit.
Spirit lands close enough to Joy as she starts up the Clockwork Spirit Blast. Jihl's literally explaining every bit of the finer points of the blast as Spirit is watching....and very much an apt listener as Jihl explains it. "Right!" Spirit yells as Jihl finishes explaining. "STEAM SENTINEL, CLOCKWORK SPIRIT BLAST!"
What happens when Spirit extends her hands is not exactly what she expected. Instead of a single tornado flying out from her hands, Spirit's tornado combines with Joy's spirit blast, turning into a roaring flame spiral tornado that obliterates the clockworks and hits the cog right in the chest....if the cog doesn't somehow dodge or block the attack.
Clockworks are not strong. They go to fire blasts of dark energy but get caught up in the sudden dual wave of purifying wind and fire-- and into the cog! The Cog roars and screammmms in agony! But that's a good sign--- as the attack finishes, there's a bright, white flash of healing that comes with purification--- the cog turning back into a young boy with a rotating cog on his head--that slows to a halt and begins to brittle away into nothing.
The boy falls over, probably dreaming of flutes rather than socceer right now. He'll be okay! Then the parts come raining down. Some useful to Dabble and Jihl. Some junk.
Craft appears in a sudden steam effect similar to how the clockworks arrived, teleporting in over the boy, hovering.
"Yeah. Okay..."
"/Yeah. OKAY./" he says annoyed.
He throws his hand outwards to his side. "If you think this is some sort of end, you're wrong! I'll just... /need to work twice as hard!/." he says throwing his hands up in front of him balled fists. He points down at Spirit.
"And.. /you/. You ruined everything! I won't forget this!" he calls out.
And then with a HRMPH! he poofs away into that dark steam, teleporting away. Yeah. He's done here. There is literarly no reason to stick around now besides get his butt beat on more.
Joy just laughs as she watches Craft freak out and then vanish. Dabble is already making a bee line to the mess left behind by the destroyed clockwork. Hey they don't make parts like that on Earth. She is already picking through the wreckage tossing some of the junk and keeping some.
"Well, Steam Sentinel Spirit, How does it feel to be on this side of the comic books?" Joy laughs a little and quickly hugs Spirit. "Thanks. That could of been ugly. Fighting on your own is just a bad idea when a general is involved. I'm just happy I got to return the favor on Craft. He hurt one of my friends pretty bad. He tried to corrupt us and it just got ugly." She smiles a little.
Jihl flew over to join Dabble in picking through the parts.
Spirit, however, doesn't wait too long before giving Joy a hug. "I'm just glad you and Dabble are all right." She sighs a bit. "Admittedly, it's a bit scarier on this side of things, but I.....did it not because it'd be fun, but so I could protect my friends. That included Dabble."
Joy just smiles and continues to hug her friend, "Well thank you! It was definitely needed. Things could have turned really bad. Without Dabble I'd be pretty much stopped from ever becoming stronger. That is what they are doing now. The Clockwork are made on Gearwork. Their tech can be salvaged and used to make upgrades for our abilities. They can't exactly use the stuff we have here on earth as despite appearances, they are much more technologically advanced."
Joy smiles and looks around, "Okay we need to power down now before that kid over there snaps out of it and realizes that he was turned into a monster." A ring of fire rises from her feet to her head burning away her henshin rather quickly.
"I figured as much, Joy." Spirit says before she closes the watches face and her clothes disappear in a gust of wind. "It was all 'just a dream' anyways." She says with a wink. "Now come on.....we can't let the kid think there was anything amis...and I don't want our food getting grabbed by ants." She says tugging Rena over to the table cloth. "When's your next practice anyways? I ended up getting an....invitation to the music club."