A fiber optic skirt appeared around Magical Daemon Yuui, electricity arcing across it as she neared the end of her transformation. She grabbed the spinning Drive Rod in front of her and struck a pose. "In the name of justice, I will strike you down!"
She faced off against a woman easily four times as big as she was, her dark hair curling down onto her elegant black-and-green dress. Dark Queen Eve gestured lazily, copper jewelry jangling on her wrist, and an army of gremlins rose to attack Yuui.
Multicolored fire roared from the end of the Drive Rod, formatting the gremlins into dust. Yuui shouted magical attack name after magical attack name, her voice growing hoarse with the effort. The army circled around her, and she planted her staff in the ground and shouted a wordless cry, sending corsucating energy spinning out around her.
When the light faded, only the Queen was left. "Had-" she panted. "Had enough?"
The answering laughter didn't bode well. "You fool. You came all this way just to look for your lost friend? Well, perhaps I'll reward your effort."
Yuui's heart sank as her friend and companion, Magical Daemon Ada, flew down from the heavens to hover just behind Queen Eve. Her uniform had turned dark green and black, long filaments covered her arms and legs, and her pointed hat had become a dark visor covering her eyes.
"Ada!"
"Yuui!?" Ada shouted. "I can't stop it! You have to-" Abruptly, Ada was muted by a mask sealing around the lower parts of her face, too.
"Now, now, there'll be plenty of time to catch up later. After all, you two are such good friends, it would be a shame to part you. And now that you've gotten yourself nice and exhausted, don't you think it's time to change out of that uniform?"
The Queen flicked her hand, and four pillars burst out of the ground around Yuui. She whirled, but not in time to dodge the arcs of electricity that cascaded out of them. She screamed in pain, dropping down to the ground on one knee, barely holding herself up with the Drive Rod.
"Ah, there, that's the posture we like to see," said the Queen, bringing a giant hand up to her mouth in amusement. "Ada, darling, be a dear and help Yuui out with her new upgrades? I know you've been longing to reach out and touch her. Consider this a reward for being such a good girl." She laughed, and Ada zoomed towards Yuui, rocket boots cushioning her landing in front of the brightly-pulsing energy field.
Yuui raised her head slowly, gritting her teeth as she looked up at her friend. Ada's muscles strained against the prison of her hacked uniform, but to no avail. She pulled out an interface plug from her bracelet, and lowered herself down to get face-to-mask with Yuui. Slowly, she reached out with the cable, carefully swept Yuui's short hair back, and plugged it in at the base of her neck, where the uniform's control nexus was.
Yuui grinned.
Suddenly there was an explosion of light. The four pillars shattered under the shockwave, and even the Queen was forced backwards a step. Flashing, sparkling light flowed out from the connection between the two girls, rippling the darkness away in shards from Ada.
"What? How?? How dare you interfere with my wonderful creation?!" The Queen reared up one hand, fingers now sharp like knives, and slashed down at the pair of them, but it was too late. Ada, holding Yuui in a princess carry, rocketed away from the Queen as she screamed in fury.
"How did you do that? I thought we were both goners!"
Yuui coughed. "After you vanished, I went to Tomcat. We figured maybe you'd been infected by something, so we rigged up an anti-virus, I got myself captured, and I hoped for the best."
Ada stared at her, long hair whipping past her face. "That was your plan? Try a totally unknown anti-virus and hope it worked? Did you even test it first?"
"Nope," said Yuui, nuzzling in close to Ada. "Which would explain the side effects."
Ada looked down further to notice that a few key parts of her uniform had de-rezzed entirely. Her scream of embarrassment echoed through the digital sky.
