The Defeated Magical Girls

Time rewound to the afternoon.

Members of the Armed Machinery Department began recovering the mechs. The guards who had set up a cordon in the park for the public to observe were merely ordinary officials.

Piloting the highest-performance light mechs, they swaggered into the crowd and retrieved the damaged prototypes.

Ordinary people could not fly like magical girls. Using mech energy to briefly glide through the air, they broke free of the officials' encirclement in the blink of an eye.

Two magical girls appeared atop a high-rise building in the distance, their gazes locked onto the Abyss Return members recovering the mechs.

They were the veteran magical girl Feiyan and the newly promoted magical girl Yuyan.

"Yuyan, you still have one chance to regret this. Are you really going with me?" Feiyan asked bluntly.

"Since I promised you, Senior, how could I back out now?" Yuyan shook her head and answered firmly.

Though she felt uneasy, she could not go back on her word and let the other girl venture into danger alone.

"Then let's go!" Feiyan said excitedly.

As soon as she finished speaking, she impatiently kicked off the parapet and shot forward.

Yuyan suppressed the unease in her heart, stopped imagining all kinds of terrible scenarios, and hurriedly flew after her senior.

Beforehand, she had asked Yalin that if she and Senior Feiyan had not returned by their usual dinner time and had not sent a message, Yalin should find other magical girls to rescue them.

Filled with bright hopes for the future, the overconfident Feiyan was defeated, just as expected.

If Abyss Return had truly been so easy to infiltrate, it would have long since vanished from the world, destroyed by other magical girls.

Feiyan and Yuyan followed the Armed Forces Department members to a designated recovery passage for the Evil Organization.

Their luck was poor. They ran into Zhao Xueshan, who was in a hurry to retrieve the mechs, as well as Karina, who happened to be accompanying her.

"Who's there?!"

Succubi were exceptionally sensitive to all kinds of auras. Karina sensed an extremely unfamiliar presence she had never encountered within Abyss Return.

The moment she entered the recovery passage, Karina blurted it out, and the atmosphere instantly became tense.

The recovery personnel, who had yet to report on the mechs' condition, immediately realized they had made a mistake. As if facing a great enemy, they turned around following their superior's gaze.

"So you can detect me. There are powerful beings here after all." Feiyan stopped hiding and revealed herself in midair.

"Magical girl Feiyan, reporting for duty!"

"Magical girl Yuyan." Yuyan revealed herself as well.

"What? Magical girls?!" *N

Everyone, including the higher-ups, was stunned—especially... Karina.

She covered her cheeks in embarrassment, lowered her head slightly, and muttered to herself:

"It's over, it's over. I'm not wearing makeup right now. Running into magical girls bare-faced... no!

What if the magical girls think I'm ugly? Should I hurry back and put on makeup? Otherwise, bad news might get out!"

"Abyss Return, your time has come. Magic Dress Fusion!"

Feiyan issued her pre-battle threat, stretching both hands forward. A massive crimson gunlance materialized in her hands, and her outfit changed slightly as well.

Magic Dress, the armed form of a magical girl.

It consumed more magic power than the Normal State, but greatly enhanced destructive power and lethality.

"Since we're not in the city, there's nothing to hold us back!"

Feiyan raised her massive Magic Weapon gunlance, astonishing magic power spilling from her body in all directions.

Her light-red hair swayed in the wind, and a smile appeared on her pretty face, confident and radiant.

That smile seemed to carry heat. Even the wind stirred by her magic power was roasted scorching hot.

Her skirt armor became increasingly crimson, magic power flowing across it like starlight.

Terrifying energy gathered at the muzzle, and every decorative-looking opening along the weapon's body lit up with blinding light.

Suddenly, Feiyan raised the muzzle and aimed at the ceiling above.

"Magic Armament Art: Skywide Fireworks!"

Flame-like magic bullets shot into the air. The bullets bloomed like fireworks, erupting into explosive flames that sought to fill and swallow the entire passage.

"Scatter!" Zhao Xueshan reacted swiftly and ordered the personnel to evade.

The personnel were unharmed, but she could only watch as the flames destroyed the passage.

"My research funding!" Zhao Xueshan cried mournfully.

Part of the funding for her experiments had gone into constructing this passage.

"Magical girls, you bastards!"

Zhao Xueshan glared at them with bloodshot eyes, pulled out an unknown button, and pressed it.

Several pits opened within the passage, and mechs of all kinds flew out, charging straight at Feiyan as she wreaked havoc.

"I won't let you get near Senior Feiyan! Magic Dress Fusion!"

A thin layer of protective gloves covered Yuyan's hands, and her appearance underwent an obvious change from her Normal State.

Her inner clothes transformed into a slightly oversized vest patterned with water-like designs, with a large hooded jacket worn over it.

Her lower half became a pair of high-waisted shorts suited for movement, exposing her aesthetically pleasing waist and distinct abdominal lines.

Plain and unadorned, she looked even more like an ordinary person than in her Normal State. If magic power had not been swirling around her, no one would have thought she was a magical girl.

"Magic Armament Art: Water Flow."

Yuyan punched toward the sky, and a surging stream of water formed a barrier that blocked the charging mechs.

"Hey, Yuyan."

Hearing the name of her Magical Martial Skill, Feiyan lowered her head and shouted at her disappointing companion not far below.

"Didn't I teach you that magical girls need flashy move names?!

Your Magic Dress Fusion is already so inconspicuous, and now your move name is inconspicuous too. It'll be hard for you to become famous! Not many people will like you!"

"I'm bad at naming things," Yuyan explained, her face slightly flushed.

She was no longer a teenage girl in her chuunibyou phase.

She was over twenty, had graduated, and had started working. She had no desire to shout out flashy magical-girl move names every time she threw a punch.

Reality weighed on her shoulders.

"No, I really like this kind of plain magical girl."

A mature, pleasant woman's voice rang out as Karina, who had secretly gone off to put on some light makeup, made her reappearance.

She appeared before Yuyan in an instant, startling the latter into hurriedly leaping back and opening the distance.

"The contrast between a magical girl's flashiness and simplicity is so alluring too." Karina covered her flushed face.

A chill ran down Yuyan's spine.

"Enough nonsense. You count as an Abyss Return officer, don't you? Die!" Feiyan swung her muzzle around and aimed it at Karina.

The battle fully erupted.

Only two magical girls daring to infiltrate the infamous Evil Organization was not courage worthy of praise.

It was foolishness and ignorance.

Though magical girls were powerful, their magic power could not withstand the endless stream of attacking mechs and other races.

The moment their magic power ran dry, Karina captured them alive and brought them into an enclosed space.

Using the rope-tying techniques Ye Qing had taught her, she bound the two magical girls tightly.

"Stop struggling!"

"Damn Abyss Return, always using such despicable tricks!"

"No, no more!"

Amid Feiyan's strange, nonsensical cries and Yuyan's quiet acceptance of the restraints,

the two were thrown into a laboratory deep within the base by Karina, who was following the BOSS's orders, still bound up.