The picture Momo had of Humurun showed that their architecture was just as whimsical as the people and their colors. I couldn’t tell much more because it was effectively just a big courtyard I was looking at, but there were a lot more ‘inefficiencies’ like curved buildings and narrow sections jutting out. Humanoids liked to pack in as much as possible, but maybe such things made more sense with diverse body types.

  Or maybe they didn’t even need buildings. Did Humuruns need shelter? Did they eat? They were sort of just magical beings. I really didn’t know much about their biology.

  Well, it didn’t matter. I split the cost of a full powered Gate with Midnight, as was our habit. It was nice to have maximum stability and time, and with the split between us we could optimize our mana regeneration.

  This Earth was pretty nice. It had similar mana levels to New Bay after the increases- maybe even more. Thus, at ten mana each we would need less than an hour of recovery.

  The Gate opened exactly where intended- obviously. People that looked like animals began to pour through. They were rarely entirely like their base animal, with mixed features and more importantly a wide variety of bright colors. Or occasionally, blacks darker than midnight. There was one squirrel that looked like a view of a starry sky, seemingly revealing a patch through them as they moved around instead of maintaining a pattern on them.

  I wasn’t going to tell Zeb about that one. For one thing, her powers were ‘full’. It would probably be a wasted effort on both sides.

  Last to wander through the portal was a bison, or at least a bison-adjacent individual. Hanging from the red-furred creature was a sloth. I couldn’t say if said sloth was special in any way except by association with the rest of the Humuruns… and a magical signature that they all had.

  “Is that everyone?” I asked when I saw no more people coming through.

  “Yes,” Eglantine confirmed. “I see no others.”

  “Alright. Closing portal in 3… 2… 1…”

  I let the Gate collapse, shrinking from the outside into nothing. At least, that was what it was supposed to do. No, it definitely happened because the vision of Humurun behind it faded with the Gate. But the portal was still there. Or a portal. Long whips of something black and oily wrapped around the bison.

  “Oh no,” the red-furred individual said without emotion. “I believe I am in peril.” As they said that, a gargantuan blob began pulling itself out of the portal that was definitely not to Humurun, while others began to open throughout the gymnasium. The blob might have been trying to pull the bison back into it, but it was the one moving. “Save yourself, my friend.”

  The sloth may have been trying to respond, but the bison shook, flipping them off of the bison’s belly over onto the sloth’s front. Hooves scraped along the gymnasium floor as the oily blackness pulled.

  I looked around. Shouldn’t there be a lot of fighting happening? Oh, right.

  Strife had transformed and was impaling something that seemed to be more eyes than anything else as it rolled towards the crowd, but there was a reason the Humuruns empowered others to fight.

  I gathered mana for Sonic Lance, blasting the black ooze that was yanking on the bison. I apparently chose wrong, because the choices were either it being blasted into chunks, or absorbing the impact without issue.

  The sloth stretched a claw forward. “Save… yourself… too,” they called to their bison friend.

  Before I could do anything more about that situation, more of The Scouring began to fill the area rapidly. Midnight was already running among them zapping things with Shocking Grasp and scorching them with the lasers from his suit, but his safety appeared a bit tenuous to me. I gathered another burst of mana for a multicast Haste. First was myself and Midnight. Second was Eglantine and through her the transformed Strife. Targets three and four were the bison and sloth I could just manage to reach. The final target was a bull that actually seemed to be successfully goring some a tumbling ball of hands.

  The sloth stretched another claw forward, clacking on the floor as it stretched again.

  I hadn’t heard anything about bison being slow, but the one nearly being devoured certainly was. One step at a time they pulled away, but Haste didn’t grant new strength so it was only capable because of how the limbs stretched.

  I had a few options I could go for. While I considered them, I began whacking things out of the way with my staff. It had a nice solidity to it and was quite durable, so I wasn’t worried about the multicolored blood getting on it as long as it stayed away from my hands and arms- but they should be well covered regardless.

  From what I could see, The Scouring appeared quite breakable- but that was only against those that could fight at all. And there were a lot here who couldn’t. I would have liked to close the portals, but I’d only get one or two before running out of mana, at least temporarily. So I pushed to the best angle I could find, aiming at the largest mass of enemies as Strife and Eglantine set up a sort barricade of quills in the middle of the gym.

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  Blizzard created a great storm of cold and ice that covered a large area. Even if the monsters didn’t freeze to death, they would be incapacitated for at least a few moments. Enough to give some room to breathe. With some space between me and the enemy, I tried pulling out my gun.

  I immediately understood why this world was not able to handle The Scouring without magical girls. I shot straight into the gaping maw of some sort of worm, and the bullets just bounced around inside it until they ran out of energy. My staff had worked just fine but that was magical to some extent. Midnight’s lasers seemed to work, but even if they were made with ‘real’ tech they were beyond mundane levels. Most likely normal fire would work anyway.

  I had managed to get a half clip of magic- or antimagic- bullets, but I didn’t think that would do much good. I swept my gaze across the area to figure out how best to contribute.

  A teacher burst into the gym. “What’s going on here?”

  The bull I’d Hasted- a lime green one- turned his head towards the door and charged over. That seemed a bit unnecessary, but I realized quickly that he wasn’t trying to hide the situation or anything. Instead, monster viscera dripping from his horns, he stood in front of the shocked teacher. She looked panicked already, but she suddenly screamed as the bull spoke.

  “Apologies, but this is an emergency. I would prefer if you use your power to fight but if not, at least use it to run away.”

  The woman’s eyes took a moment to focus, and I realized she could probably only see the monsters- plus Strife, Midnight, and myself. The Humuruns would naturally be invisible. However, the bull speaking to her should now be visible. “... What?” the woman asked.

  I felt a bond forming, and I had a unique opportunity to try something. I took the already active Haste spell and tried to push it through to her without expending more mana. I had no idea if my active efforts did anything, but after she finished her transformation into a set of embroidered pants with an overly fanciful and tasseled jacket she certainly seemed to have the speed.

  In her hands was a two pronged spear- a bident?- that looked a bit like bull horns. In her other hand she had a red cloak of some sort. All timidity was gone from her stance and instead she was immediately charging towards the nearest monster. I had the feeling that throwing the cloak wasn’t its intended purpose, but it did an excellent job of tangling up the metal wings carrying some sort of metal eyeball creature. A moment later, the spear or whatever drove straight into it.

  That lady sure got into it quickly. But two magical girls wasn’t going to be a sufficient force here. “Eglantine! We’re going to need some help!”

  “Strife has already signaled for backup,” she said. “For the moment, we’re going to try to get the Humuruns out of the gym while keeping The Scouring contained.”

  “I feel like Strife has a good thing for masses of enemies.”

  “That may be, ut-”

  “Once we get the Humuruns out, we have to have a couple people look away. It’s not a big deal. Unless it has some other sort of drawback?”

  I cracked the jaw of a wolf with my staff. Then I did it again from below. Unlike a sensible wolf, the teeth were on the outside pointing out. The thing could still be a threat, but only incidentally. Though the reverse-ribs certainly looked more dangerous than the mouth.

  The sloth had made it almost five feet from their starting location. A claw dug into the formerly spotless gymnasium floor and pulled slightly.

  The bison had lost the struggle of distance and was now nearly subsumed into the oily black mass, but that wasn’t the worst that had happened. Still, I felt a connection to the random Humurun, and tried to think of a way to help. Firebolt… could potentially work too well. Same with many other things. So Water Blast it was. It had a bunch of upgrades, so it should pack a decent punch as I aimed for one side of the bison.

  I managed to blast away some of the grip, and a couple more shots made the bison free enough to actually pull itself away. They sure looked like they were merely walking away, but at least Haste meant that was three times as fast.

  The sloth had gotten another foot, almost, by the time the bison used their teeth to pick up the crawling fellow by the back of the neck, large teeth holding onto whatever skin and fur it could. The bison continued to trot onward.

  The rest of the gymnasium was covered in slowly disappearing carnage. Fortunately most of it was the monsters of The Scouring, but I saw a bit of rainbow blood. Strife was still entangled with the mass of monsters while the Humuruns finished rushing out of the gym, but the new magical girl had suffered a few wounds. Not deep individually, but she clearly lacked combat experience that no amount of Haste or magic could make up for.

  “I’m going to create an opening!” I called out. “Take the chance to get out of there!” Midnight should understand that meant him too.

  I tried to pick out what the ‘frontlines’ were as I thwacked at a small portion of the horde. It was a good thing I could swing a staff while gathering mana, because these guys seemed as eager to eat me as they were the helpless magical snacks.

  I didn’t have a ton of mana left, and though we needed to hold off the enemy, conserving mana was actually counter to that end. We needed to get to a better position before we could hold the line, so Chain Lighting came from the tip of my staff when it was finished.

  It burst apart monster after monster on the ‘front’ end of the mass, creating space for everyone. The lightning snaked in and out of people, and I had to say it was truly impressive how weak they were to magical assault despite potentially wanting to eat magic. Normally Chain Lightning lost its oomph after a handful of targets, gradually weakening to useless levels, but I got through at least thirty or forty monstrosities before it ran out.

  The bull managed to catch his bonded ally’s attention, calling her to retreat. She stabbed something with her double spear along the way, but at least didn’t try to bravely sacrifice herself or something dumb like that.

  As Midnight dashed past my feet, I turned around at the doorway and left my back to the room at about the right time for Strife to do her thing. There was a flash of power, and then I turned to see monsters tearing into each other.

  Strife was probably a really good option for solo battles, once all the monsters were spawned. Though surviving to that point was probably tough.