Dodging under the massive fist, Alex gulped, imagining what it would have done to her face.

If that connected I’d most likely be out cold with a broken jaw or worse.

“Jump back within one second.”

Doing as the voice in her head told, Alex jumped back to see a foot brushing closely to her face. Armor’s legs were like logs as they passed by ruthlessly, still, Alex jumped so quickly that she skidded away a few meters.

Launching in the air, Armor jumped off the ground and smashed down on Alex's position with an elbow.

“Roll backwards now.”

‘Tell me how to attack, your useless voice!’ she yelled internally.

Following the strange voice, instructions threw herself in a roll as Armor’s elbow smashed into the hardened earth, causing large cracks to form and dust to kick up.

“Circle and attack from behind.”

Doing as she was told, Alex used the dust for cover. And when she got up, sent a strike to the back of Armor’s neck under the voice’s instructions. Although it was a solid strike, Armor’s muscles were as hard as steel—making her hand hurt like hell.

Armor, in a fit of rage, sent her arm out behind, hoping to swat Alex away. She only hit the air, as Alex had already fallen back a distance. Seeing this, Loka turned to Sugar who watched on while gritting her teeth.

“Hey, could Alex always do that? She looks too nerdy and frail to pull off those movements. Yet she can fight like that? She always struck me as your common nerd that didn’t come out of her room.”

“She told me her life story, and she never once brought up that she could fight. So it makes sense she should have no battle experience.”

With a shit-eating grin, Loka replied, “In that case… Why has your lesbo partner not told you?”

Loka’s comment made Sugar feel a stabbing pain in her gut, feeling betrayed, but happy Alex wasn’t being thrashed. In the end, she didn’t know how to feel, seeing the girl that seemed too weak to fight for herself seemingly holding on her own. She should be the one protecting her life savor from the harshness of the world.

As Sugar dealt with her inner problems, Alex was sweating bullets, trying to follow the commands the voice gave her to the letter. Dodging, more dodging and trying to give an occasional attack only to do no damage to the walking tank called Armor.

Alex knew she couldn’t just walk away from this fight. Despite not being able to do any damage, if she didn’t show off well enough she wouldn’t get any food or water. But her movements were getting sluggish. All the moves she was barely pulling off, thanks to the voice, were putting a large toll on her sedentary muscles and joints. Every stumbled step caused the voice feedback to go awry, screaming many things at once like a GPS after a missed turn.

Seeing that her mosquito of an enemy did not seem to be quite agile. Armor decided to change her strategy. It was time to end this joke of a fight.

Backing away, Armor started to give off a silver light full of energy. This caused Alex’s eyes to narrow with anticipation at the waves coming from her. The girl was about to transform into a magical girl!

“Suggested transformation into a magical girl or fleeing.”

“Suggested transformation into a magical girl or fleeing.”

“Suggested transformation into a magical girl or fleeing.”

‘How? How do I turn into a magical girl? They use some cringe-worthy lines to transform, but I don’t know my lines!’ As Alex tried to think of how to transform into a magical girl, Armor’s hulking figure was slimming down at a visible pace.

The cracking sounds of bones and muscles being condensed made Alex’s danger alarm go off. The voice in her head was now almost screaming at her to transform or flee.

She felt sickly desperate as she looked at Armor, who was now almost at her height and filled with bone cracking.

Then the voice, that sounded almost mechanical, had in it loud rings but suddenly went silent. It took Alex a bit to notice that time had slowed to a crawl.

“Now what? First a voice, and now time is slowing down?”

As Alex questioned herself about what was happening, a voice that sounded as confident as it was haughty entered her ears. She knew that voice very well. How could she forget it, even if they only met each other once for a brief time.

“You really are a hopeless piece of shit, aren't you. That is why you should just give me the body and die in a ditch.”

“Xel?! What the hell do you want? You know, I’m kinda busy.”

A dark shadow formed in front of Alex and smiled, showing it’s black teeth. It floated over to her and hung on her shoulder. Alex felt conflicted at Xel’s proximity and wished to move, only to find out to her shock that she couldn’t move her feet.

Xel didn’t seem to mind and whispered in her ear, “Well, the body will eventually be mine, so I guess I can give you a freebie until then. So your chant is…”

Listening to the chant, Alex frowned, a feeling full of distrust running amok through her mind. Why would this embodiment of her desires give the chant over so easily? She felt that it was a scheme, badly hidden at that.

What is she playing at? She herself wasn’t the patient type, so what could her evil variant be?

The chant was very chunni, like the ones she had heard before, only the one Xel told her seemed wrong. Something was fundamentally wrong with it, yet she couldn’t point out what exactly.

She compared it to the ones she heard and it wasn’t the same type of flow, it wasn’t any close to what they used to become a magical girl.

As she was thinking, Xel disappeared and time resumed its normal pace leaving Alex alone to face the shrinking Armor. Closing her eyes Alex dug deep inside to find out her real chant. And then she felt it. Below her belly button, a round object that she had seemingly missed.

Focusing on the orb, she tried to mentally poke it. As if provoked, power began leaving the orb and rushing into and around her body. In mere moments after tapping into the orb white, black and gold colors started to flicker off her body.

The lights were like small waves, before growing in intensity with each passing second. It soon reached the level of intensity of Armors' light. By then, Armor had stopped shrinking and at the same time, the Armor girl started to chant.

“Flesh tempered in hell, bathed in the blood of foes.”

“I am the fortress, born to deflect all blows.”

“And in my wake, the safe ground claimed for my own.”

“I’m Armored Knight! All of your vile plans are blown.”

“The radiant light reaches the end of the world.”

“I am the eternal judgment, I shall not fold.”

“In my wake, the corpses of sinners remain.”

“I am a Magical Girl Ein, evil’s bane.”

The Armor auras blasted with intensity as their clothes started to transform. Armor's black robes turned into silver armor full of metal frills that made her look sharp. But thanks to the cloak turning into armor, it finally revealed the girl's heroic face, long black hair, and silver eyes. And despite being now around a size smaller than Alex, she still seemed like an iron wall looming over her.

Alex also transformed, her clothes transforming into traditional magical girl garb. Her main color was white lined with black and gold frills and strings. Her brown eyes had turned gold with pupils that were the roman numeral one.

Armor didn’t say anything as she charged at Alex.

As Armor charged, numbers began to appear in her vision. Although these numbers appeared random to Alex for a second, she quickly figured them out.

What she gained out of the numbers quickly was that 0 meant guaranteed failure or death and numbers above zero promised a chance for success.

There were so many thousands of numbers in front of her that it made her brain feel as if it was shattering. But the zeros fell away under her command, leaving a dozen or so numbers left.

She was dumbfounded at her lack of choice when the highest was 80% chance. Picking the best choice, a blue projection made out of numbers made an intricate movement.

Gritting her teeth, Alex followed the movement to the letter, as Armor rushed at her. When she was only a few feet away, Alex jumped in the air, spun once, and sent an axe kick to Armor's heroic face.

Surprisingly, her body was able to pull off the movements, and it followed her commands to the letter. They were good. Alas, she had solely underestimated magical girl Armor Knight.

As the attack landed, a helmet appeared, covering Armor's head in an instant, causing Alex's foot to propel her upward with a deafening clang. Alex did a backflip and held a dismayed expression at the lack of response. Armor stopped for a while, studying the girl before. Then, as if making up her mind, she began to move.

Spreading her hands wide, she gathered the energy from within her, and began chanting.

The siege began

Survivors understand

It shall be swift

By counter fist

Nemean lion!

At the end of her chant, she hit her knuckles together, emitting a deafening lion’s roar, followed by a flash of golden light. After it subsided, her hands were covered by massive golden gloves in the shape of lion heads.

Alex looked at numbers all around her, but couldn’t make herself believe them. Everything was red, except for 2 small blotches on the high right and high left, they read 6 and 5 respectively. The vision of the grim future made her freeze in tracks to think of a better solution.

Armor made the first step forward, slowly accelerating. The Armor lifesaving numbers changed to 4 and 3. ‘Oh, for fucks sake’ Alex cursed internally, and decided to go with a higher number. As Armor accelerated to full sprint, Alex jumped high to her right. Armor stopped in half the distance between them, and slammed her right fist into the ground with her whole weight behind it. Her arm went in right up to her elbow, and a shockwave formed a white lion head ripping everything in front of it. Within a second, the head had arrived where Alex was just a moment before, and exploded with another roar.

The explosion sent the lion’s mane's hair outward like a scattering of white spears. Everything in close proximity was turned to dust, as each white spear had exploded on impact. Luckily for Alex, she had only got caught on one explosion that hit her left forearm. Her arm bone snapped, and the pain caused her to scream her lungs off.

Falling to the ground, her vision turned full of red zeros, with a small white blotch in the middle that read 40. Soon she realized why everything was lit up in danger.

She… still has her left gauntlet.

Paling at the realization, she started executing the only plan that might leave her alive. Alex tried to get up, but fell on the ground. Seeing her opportunity to strike, Armor smashed her left fist into the ground, sending forth the second lion. Alex sent her mind in overdrive, running the projections. And as her brain cooked, she found the thread leading to life.

Through sheer willpower, she managed to stand, and pushed her body to the limit to dodge the hell-storm head-on, while using the power of the explosion to shoot her out of the ring.

Clenching her stomach that felt like it had cracked in a few places, she smiled inwardly.

I’m alive.

Now that Alex was out of the ring, Spada frowned, but declared the winner, “Armor, you have won your meal. Come and claim it. Number 153 you get scraps!”

Spitting out blood, Alex stood up and let her broken arm hang limp. Although she lost, she felt good that she kept herself alive. A bottle of water and half a meal were thrown into her chest, making her grit her teeth from the throbbing pain.

She bent down with great difficulty and picked up her food items, before she walked into the crowd. Not going to Sugar, she directly made her way to Incus, under the gazes of blanks full of disdain and magical girls watching with strange looks. Holding her head high, she didn’t want to look weak although she was defeated.

Finding Incus, who smiled at her, she was brought away to get healed. While, in the crowd, Sugar saw Alex’s state and wanted to go over to her, only for her number to be called up just in time. As she fought her opponent, the magical girl teachers were talking with each other about Alex instead of Armor.

“What was up with that strange chant?”

“It didn’t sound like a magical girl chant.”

“Is she a defect? But she turned into her magical girl form. In fact, she didn’t chant any spells. How curious. What is she?”

Such talks happened between the teachers, only the Black Card teachers remained silent even when they were gazed at by their peers. Spada watched the fights without batting an eye. Inwardly though, she was thinking up an explanation to tell the magical girls.

Off to the side, Incus was healing the injured magical girls. Alex was playing the fight back in her head trying to understand the numbers. Mulling over it, she figured her powers dealt with numbers, which in her opinion was pretty shitty of an ability since it didn’t increase her strength.

Without strength, how could these numbers be useful to not get her shit kicked in. As she was sulking over her loss, Armor walked over her with her cloak and large size back to normal. Alex stared at the shrouded figure that stood in front of her.

“What do you want? You kicked my ass.”

“What are you?”

“Eh? I’m a normal girl that's a magical girl, what do you mean?”

Hearing that Armor shook her head, “You’re not a magical girl. If I had to say, you're a fake.”

Alex looked at her confusion, “I can transform using a chant. How does that not make me a magical girl?”

Armor hesitated a bit and replied, “You're more like… A demon.”

“Eh?”

...

Sitting on the grass, Alex stared at the numbers floating in her eyesight watching the combatants interest. Watching there vectors of attacks be projected in statistical values amazed her.

'Amazing. Shifting your foot just a little bit makes such a difference.'

Alex was so enraptured in the display that she didn't notice that Sugar had sat next to her.

Leaning in Sugar whispered in her ear, "Hey."

This startled Alex causing her to leap to the side put a hand on her chest.

"Where did you learn how to fight? Why didn't you tell me?" Sugar asks with a hurt expression.

"I don't know how to fight Sugar. It's my power I can just, see the odds of the best movements do you get me?", Alex sincerely replied.

"That's it? You weren't hiding some secret past?"

"No? I told you I was a farmers daughter turned into a city girl. Why would I lie to my... friend?" Touching her lips Alex tested the word mentally. Friend? She never really thought about it deeply. As a loner she didn't really make friends stuck in her own bubble. Sugar really was her first friend.

Sugar gave a blindingly bright smile as she snatched Alex's hands, "Best friends?"

Alex returned the smile despite her sore body, "Best friends."

...

For six more days the girls traveled as such through the thick greenery, with each ending of the day battling it out. Of those days, Alex lost 6 of the 7 fights, Sugar won 7 of 7 fights and Loka won 6 of 7 fights.

By now, Alex’s body was full of bandages from all the damage she had taken, and she was full of hatred for Spada. Every fight except for the last one was a loss, and the only reason she won was for the fact her opponent was more injured than her.

And even then, it was a hard-fought victory, with the person being temporarily blind in one eye. She gained a deep understanding that she was weaker than other magical girls. Their abilities were more powerful than her predicting probability.

They were stronger, faster, had more utility, and their powers were monstrous. It was unfair to her to be so weak to the other girls for no reason.

“You see? This is why you should use the actual chant then that fake you created.”

“I’m not that weak that I would give in to you, bitch.”

“Why?! you fucking virgin!”

Alex ignored the harpy screaming in her ear, as before, she learned that if she ignored Xel she would go away and sulk soon enough. As she was cutting the plant shit in front of her, she soon saw blinding sunlight she hadn’t seen in forever.

Her group also noticed this and cut with more fever. When they cut through the greenery, they could see buildings standing with an imposing air. Alex and the girls were excited, almost crying at the sight of civilization.

“Welcome, teachers and blanks. I hope you enjoy your stay in Hel—Heaven!”