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Ms. Grizzled barged into Mama Maho's diner, struggling to catch her breath. Upon learning of the girl with the very special ability to reawaken powers in former magical girls, who supposedly often hangs out around there, she immediately sprinted all the way from Founder's Blessing, breaking her previous record by twenty two seconds.
“Ursula!” Mama Maho exclaimed when she saw her bent over and panting. “What's happe...”
Ms. Grizzled grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, gazing into her eyes with zealous madness. “MOLLY. WHERE IS SHE.” She growled like a bear that's barely awakened after winter sleep.
“Where is who?”
“THE GIRL WHO COMES HERE. THE ONE WHO CAN GIVE FORMER MAGICAL GIRLS THEIR POWERS BACK.”
“Oh she's not here today.” Mama Maho tried to provide cover for the girl, who was obviously terrified by this psychotic display Ms. Grizzled put on and was trying to sneak away behind her back. But when she got out, the door banged loudly behind her and she started running.
Ms. Grizzled whipped her head that way and immediately took off in a mad dash, blasting through the door and knocking them out of hinges. “Dammit Ursula, not again!” Mama Maho shouted after her, but she was out of hearing distance already.
She caught the girl right around the first corner. She scooped her up into her arms and stopped abruptly, her heels making a squealing sound on the pavement. She then held the girl up like the old baboon did with the baby lion in that animated talking lion Hamlet knockoff. “The chosen one! At last! I've waited decades for your arrival!” She exclaimed and put her down, then spun her around to face her. The girl swallowed empty, as Ms. Grizzled was giving her the crazy eyes. “You must use your powers on me immediately! I need it! I need to feel my old powers again, the magical energy coursing through my veins!”
The girl did no want to say no to the crazy scarred one-eyed muscle lady, and so she obliged, transforming on the spot. “Okay get ready, this will be pretty sudden.” She told her and waved her hand in her direction. Suddenly a huge explosion of magic power knocked her back. When she regained her bearings, she saw Ms. Grizzled in her magical girl form.
She stood there in a green gambeson, with a gray steel mail hauberk over it, a viking spectacle helmet, leather boots and gloves and a dark brown bear skin draped over her shoulders, the stuffed head resting on the top of the helmet. Her old weapon, a large two-handed Norman axe was resting on her shoulder. Ms. Grizzled threw her head back and laughed maniacally. “Hahaha, yes! Power! POWER! POWERRRRR!!! MUHUHUHAHAHA!” But suddenly, after few seconds, her transformation abruptly faded and she was normal again. “HA! Haha... ha... ha. What the fuck?”
“Ummm yeah, my power has a bit of a weakness you see... it only lasts like 15 seconds tops and I can use it only three times per night. Maybe four at best.” The girl explained to her and expected to catch fallout from this, but instead Ms. Grizzled grabbed her and tossed her on her back into a piggyback position.
“Never-mind!” She exclaimed. “We shall find girls who have abilities that enhance the powers of others! They will help you give me my powers back for longer! Now hold on!”
“Hold up now, I never agreed to this deal! What's in it for meeeeeeeeeee...!!!” her words dragged off as Ms. Grizzled accelerated rapidly.
******
After a while they arrived in front of a manhole. Ms. Grizzled let the girl down and grabbed the cover, lifting it and tossing it into the sky like a frisbee. It flew away into the distance, breaking through the outer barrier and giving a monster outside a huge bonk on the head, knocking it out cold. She then reached inside the manhole and pulled out a sewage worker. Before he could say anything she tossed him away and reached with her arm down the hole again. This time she pulled out Wilhelmina, who gave her an awkward smile before being tossed away. Next one she pulled out was Milly.
“Please don't toss me away like a ragdoll, like you did with the others.” Milly kindly asked, and her wish was granted – instead she was just dumped back into the manhole like a sack of potatoes.
Ms. Grizzled reached in for the fourth time and finally got what she wanted – she pulled out Augusta, who stared at her in confusion. “What's all this about?” She asked, but instead of an answer, she was scooped up with the other girl and Ms. Grizzled ran off with both of them to seek more girls who have ally-empowering abilities.
******
Later that evening
Ms. Grizzled had managed to collect all the girls who can boost the powers of others – about a one and a half dozen of them, and was carrying them in a one giant wicker basket. She dropped in on the ground and flipped it, making them all tumble out. “Okay! Quit lollygagging and get to work! The time of barrier activation is coming!”
A shaky hand rose from amidst the group. “But miss.... you did not even tell us what you want us to do yet.” Came the question from a small lavender-haired girl with green eyes.
Ms. Grizzled reached for the girl with power-restoring abilities who was trying desperately to burrow into the crowd. “This here girl can restore me back into a magical girl with her abilities, but she is a weak baby and it only lasts a short while. So I want you all to boost her powers with your abilities.” Then suddenly, the 9:55 PM announcement rang out. “Shit! Quick, stand in circles around the two of us, depending on how close you need to be to use your abilities. Move it!” Some protesting groans came from the crowd and she stared the entire group down with her crazy eyes. “DID I FREAKING STUTTER?”
After a few moments of erratic running about, all the girls got into position then transformed one by one, and on Ms. Grizzled's command began charging up their abilities. The power restoring girl knew she was about to be hit with more buffing abilities than anyone ever did, and closed her eyes to pray to Founder. But then all the abilities hit her one after another and soon she felt immense power coursing throughout her body. She rose her hand from the green smoke produced by all of Augusta's buffing grenades and waved it at Ms. Grizzled.
This time the blast of raw power she unleashed was even bigger, the boom drowning out the 10PM announcement and sending the entire group of magical girls flying, all of them landing tens of distance measurement units away. When the first one of them managed to get up, she noticed Ms. Grizzled was missing.
“What... is she gone? Did that explosion vaporize her?”|
“Nope.” replied Rue (who did not even have any idea how she got there, and how did Ms. Grizzle figure out she can set her potions to buff), and pointed towards the sky no the northeast. A huge mawcrusher got tossed up sky-high and sliced in midair. “Crazy scary badass lady seems to be having the time of her life.”
And so the Berserk Warrior was back for the night and rampaged throughout the city like a wild animal. Never before did so much property damage occur during a single night – or even an entire year - the city looked like a warzone in the morning. Naturally, when the dean of Founder's Blessing learned of this, she wanted to fire Ms. Grizzled immediately, but Ms. Grizzled tackled her and Greco-Roman wrestled her until she agreed to rescind the decision. Then the CDD and the government wanted to throw her in jail for the excessive property damage, but she beat them all into submission and suplexed the mayor.
Having proven that she is the top dog in the city, and with her lust for magical power and monster obliteration sated, she retreated back into the simple life of a battle instructor. All the girls who took part in this insanity breathed a sigh of relief, at least until they all received a big heavy package addressed from Ms. Grizzled. It was a set of dumbbells, several bags of protein and creatine powder and note saying to keep their training up because they will surely do this again in the future. All of them suddenly wished that there was an another City out there they could move to, but most of them realized that even moving to the moon would not put sufficient distance between them and this insane badass.
FIN