Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?

*Bing-Bong* Huh...that's weird. |Hmmm?| Normally you'd have a pause of some kind at this point. What gives? |Don't worry about it.| That worries me. *Bing-Bong* _____________________________________________________ "So if I had to take an educated guess about our current situation, these weird zombie things only react when a specific threshold of aether is detected," Alicia explained to the others. "Which means we have, well,a couple of plans on how to proceed forward, but we have three that are the most reliable in my opinion." To help emphasize her point, Alicia held up three fingers for the others to keep track. "The first plan, which is the least reliable, is to somehow transport this gazebo to the nearest exit to this garden and get the hell out of here. I don't really have faith in the plan, due to it being unclear on whether or not it's this gazebo that's protecting us or something else entirely," Alicia explained while putting down a finger. This was actually a valid concern, as it was a common tactic during the battles between sects to construct red herrings in order to prevent one another from claiming the other's treasures and resources. A very famous example of this involved the stealing of a gold statue that was supposedly able to boost the cultivation progress of everyone near it, but it turned out that statue was a hollow figure meant to draw attention away from the fact that the entire sect was built on top of a giant aether convergence array. In this case, there was a chance the gazebo was meant to draw attention away from some massive underground aether array or something to that effect. "We do have the raw might to just take this thing with us," Alice pointed out. "But if this thing is a fake, we'd be setting ourselves up to be sitting ducks." "Beautiful, aether-rich ducks," Bellona mused. "I thought you were going to make a sheep joke," Harriet commented. "Too obvious." "Ah." "The second plan is that we figure out a way to stop the flow of our aether in an attempt to hide our presence and sneak the hell out of this garden," Alicia continued without missing a beat. "It's tricky, but seems to be fairly viable given that most of this horde didn't seem to react to that aether-less bolt." "That makes sense," Harriet agreed. "I know of multiple diseases that only react to certain levels of aether activity. Maybe the zombies are working off of that?" "I don't know, those Peony Brothers seem cognizant enough to know a viable target over a fake one," Alice added on. The entire time she and the others had been discussing their next course of action, she had been keeping an eye on the diseased Peony Brothers. The reason being, she couldn't help but to notice that those two aformentioned brothers were still staring daggers at her and the rest of the girls. Either way, acting like they had no aether while walking through a horde of undead may have been viable, but it was also incredibly risky. Which is why Alicia brought up her last and most viable plan. "I suppose then, this leaves us no other choice but to go with the third plan," Alicia said while sounding unusually more excited than before. "We go on a rampage." "Wait, what?" "How is that a plan?!" "Didn't Harriet just say that a bunch of the diseases these zombies have are bloodborne?" Bellona pointed out. "How are we supposed to fight something that can make us sick in an instant?" "Did all of you forget that the zako over there has basically been unaffected this entire time?" Alicia asked while pointing in the direction of the aformentioned zako. The wooden zako, at this point in time, had still been more or less pushing through the horde of glass orchid zombies, getting scratched by zombies and stabbed by glass petals in the process. However, due to his nature as a being of [Chaos], these attacks amounted to less than nothing. In fact, the girls started to notice that the more the zako pushed and shoved the zombies, the more and more of his [Chaos] entered and seemed to disturb whatever power was keeping them animated. They could see that little by little, the zombies and their glass orchids were growing weaker and weaker by the second. "Huh…" Now fully understanding what Alicia had in mind, Alice proceeded to take this opportunity to sit back, undo her [Regalia] and take a breather while Harriet provided her with some medicines that she had on hand. At the same time, Bellona got ready to fight and stood by Alicia's side. As she did, she extracted the dream themed hairpin that was in her curly hair. "You know, I think this is the first time we actually got to use these abilities in real combat," Bellona pointed out to Alicia. "I think it is," Alicia agreed while pulling out her own brass hairpin. "To be honest, I always figured out first real fight would be against something significantly bigger, but now I can't help but to wonder..." "Hmm?" "Well, we never go all out in our sparring sessions due to the simple fact that we were practicing," Alicia continued as she empowered her hairpin with aether, "but lo and behold, we now have an army of corpses and a pair of opponents to exercise out abilities on. Get what I'm saying?" "Oh, I do," Bellona nodded as she also empowered her hairpin. "So shall we do a time attack or a numbers game?" "Why not both?" "Agreed." Once they had finished this conversation, their hairpins were now fully saturated with energy and ready to activate. "Sprocket—" "Hypnos—" "—Henshin!" [Majin Makeup: Gear Shojo!] [Majin Makeup: Dream Shojo!] Pressing the buttons on their hairpins, Bellona and Alicia soon became engulfed in a burst of [Chaos] that took on the shapes of a giant brass golem and sheep monster respectively before transforming into their respective [Taboos]. "Whoa..." This was the first time Alice had ever seen these garments of [Chaos], but she could just tell that they were loaded with power. Granted, they were a bit too frilly for her taste. Not that Alicia and Bellona cared or noticed, since they were too busy eyeing their targets. [Ready?] Bellona asked in a voice laced with [Chaos]. [Go!] Like shooting stars, Bellona and Alicia flew out from under the gazebo in opposite directions with their weapons drawn and spirits high, ready to go on a muderous rampage. Granted, their targets were already dead but that didn't really matter in this moment. [Lantern of Progress!] [Dream Weaver Rings!] Once Alicia was close enough to smell the rot and decay coming from one of the zombies, she swung out her weapon and absolutely pulverized several of them in a single blow. At the same time, Bellona threw out her golden chakrams and mowed several of the ones in front of her down until there was nothing but severed stumps and limbs. Under normal circumstances, this would've been the part where they become infected by a variety of diseases. Their actions had blown up the glass orchids growing from the undead bastards and knocked the petals into the air. Once they were airborne, the petals suddenly became incredibly rigid and rained down on the two young women like a hail of razor sharp arrows. Any exposed skin or flesh that were struck by these petals, would end with the owner of those aformentioned bodily bits becoming incredibly ill. (Un)Surprisingly though, that didn't happen. Instead, moments before the petals could even graze their skin, the [Chaos] surrounding Alicia and Bellona rendered the petals into nothing more than dust that lightly peppered their skin at best. Needless to say, the diseases that lived upon these petals were destroyed in the process as well. But that wasn't all that was destroyed by the power of [Chaos]. "Holy shit, they're strong," Alice commented at the sight of Alicia and Bellona going wild on the horde. "Why the hell did they...wait, why do I hear sizzling?" "Because that [Chaos] stuff they're using is literally cooking the zombies into ash," Harriet pointed out. The zombies that Bellona and Alicia had slain were actually turning into ash before the eyes of Harriet and Alice for good reason. These undead plague bringers, and the flowers piloting them,were animated and controlled by aether. Therefore, when Alicia and Bellona gave them a hearty injection of [Chaos], the corpses started to freak out as their bodies couldn't handle the foreign energy. The irony of this wasn't lost on the two girls not participating in the fight. "Oh...maybe I should learn how to use [Chaos] to..." However, this moment of ease wasn't going to last for much longer. The diseased Peony Brothers saw the damage bring wrought at this moment and came to a conclusion. ^Evil healers, slaying our siblings...^ ^Join us they must! To recuperate our numbers!^ ^Yes!^