An actress in our midst! (web version)

Like an enraged bull, Tepes mused as the man formerly known as Forneus charged right through the wall behind her, completely missing her.

It had been a while since she had dealt with Forneus. Back then, she had just barely learned the basics of being a minion and using magic. A surprise pepper spray had been enough to take him out. Obviously, the same tactic wouldn’t work anymore. Not when he was utterly furious and in full combat mode already. She wasn’t sure how much of the hatred in his eyes was the demon’s doing… Or maybe it was all Forneus. Did he see her as his nemesis or something?

Dismissing her idle thoughts, she charged into the hole in the wall after him, spear at the ready, and Pretty Flame right by her side. Bloom, in the meantime, continued to provide support from the back.

They couldn’t overwhelm him as easily as they had with Frost, unfortunately, but someone had to take care of the other two demons as well. Hopefully seeing her mother hadn’t completely rendered her useless… Tepes didn’t exactly have time to check on the other fights.

“You!” the man kept shouting even as their sword and spear pushed him back.

“Me!” Tepes replied, as usual.

For a moment, she wondered whether the man in the armor was even conscious or aware of what was going on or whether the demon had completely taken over, feeding off his hatred for her.

It didn’t really matter. Either way, they needed to seal him and go help the others.

One swipe here, a counter there, the fight continued as their opponent got more and more agitated and started spewing his hellfire magic all over the place.

If only Frost was here to help them counter it with her ice.

Luckily, Jessica wasn’t too shabby at using magic to defend either. She had come a long way since the first time she had blocked Bloom’s Sunflower Canon with her magic.

“You!”

“Me!”

The fire washed off the barrier she had erected, and a moment later Flame covered him in her own fire, all while Tepes circled around and stabbed her magic-draining spear at him again.

The man roared in an inhuman way as he backed off from the continued assault. Right into the spot where Bloom had been preparing her spell.

“Law of the jungle!”

A surge of thorny vines sprouted from the ground and wrapped themselves around the raging man. Tepes wasted no time in preparing an appropriate sealing spell to finish the fight for good. She exchanged a glance with Flame and relayed her intentions with a mere eye contact.

Flame held her hand in Tepes’ direction and released some of her magic, letting Tepes take it and mold it into the superior mash-up of magic.

“Black ash cage–!” she shouted even as Forneus finally gave up on struggling and simply unleashed a power blast of magic, burning away the vines holding him in place.

Jessica staggered, but managed to hold her magic for a second as she recovered. As soon as she did, she tried again, sending her spell forward in hopes of finally sealing Forneus.

Unfortunately, fire magic just wasn’t as good as sealing as ice magic. Not to mention, the demon had likely been anticipating this.

For a moment, Tepes thought it might have worked, but the damn demon then hijacked part of the magic the same way she had done with Flame’s magic, and managed to wrangle himself out of it and gain distance.

Tepes cursed under her breath. The damn demon had to have seen her use the trick and imitated it. It was craftier than she had expected. This was going to be a pain wrap up without Frost.

As if she had heard her plea, Frost barged onto the scene in her full Demonic Frost glory, ramming Forneus with her shield while already working on mixing her magic and encasing her target in black ice.

“Arctic maw!”

The icicles closed in on Forneus, keeping him stuck in place, and letting Tepes prepare another sealing spell to finally finish the fight. She borrowed some of Frost’s magic, combined it, and used the spell at the same time Frost unleashed her own magic.

“Black ice cage!” they yelled together.

This time, the demon’s struggles weren’t enough to shake off both Tepes and Frost focusing their magic on him. He raged, broke off pieces of the ice, tried igniting everything around him, but ultimately, he stopped moving as a layer of gray ice settled over him. Followed by another one, and another… And about twenty layers later, the iceberg solidified and two symbols appeared on opposing side of it. One of a snowflake with horns and wings, the other of an evil smiling face with snowflakes in its eyes.

Everyone stood around, ready to continue the fight.

A beat passed in dead silence.

No movement from Forneus.

Flame was the first to break the silence, heaving out a tired sigh. The others echoed her a second later.

“Is it over…? Did we win…?” Flame tried asking, exchanging a glance with the others.

“Well… the fight probably is…” Tepes grimaced as she looked back into the building through the hole Forneus had made. “But I have a feeling this hot mess has only started.”

The other three followed where she was looking and saw… the drama club members, peeking at them from behind the curtains, eyes wide.

Because apparently, some people just had no fucking sense of self-preservation.

Frost looked back and forth between the suicidal observers and Tepes before asking, “What… now? What do we do? We all just outed ourselves…”

Tepes thought for a moment, considering what this meant and how she should proceed. This complicated things way beyond what she had expected.

After a moment of deliberation, she grunted.

“Well… For the time being, let’s do some damage control,” she declared as she began strolling back into the building.

The three magical girls followed after her.