Hiko is mostly accepting of your conditions. Since you're going to be purchasing it she can make some adjustments to it to make it so that you simply have to press the symbol for prevention to engage the interdiction and the symbol for passage to disengage it. The difficulty of turning it on and off is a security feature not a necessary part of the artifact.
She can provide the mana battery for the duration of your operations at no additional cost, and replacements in the likely event that they get destroyed. They don't take her a lot of effort to make, charging is the bigger expense. She doesn't show you one but she does describe what you'd be dealing with; she traditionally puts them into wooden chests. In this case what you're looking at is around 30cm x 30cm x 50cm and a bit over 100kg and they really don't stand up to much jostling. Fighting while carrying one is not advisable.
She'll also send someone to provide repairs out of combat. Though if whoever she sends in that case is harmed, you will personally bear responsibility.
A single veteran charging it can hold off at least two elites indefinitely. As to whom you should send for training, someone who doesn't use their wish magic much is best (functionally your unidentified types) as they will have less flavor in their magic to filter out.
The idea of a zone of safe free travel throughout the area is interesting. She'll accept with some reasonable accommodations. Organizations bases and living quarters should have at least some buffer zone around them. Provided they don't overlap with any essential locations like schools or pre-existing homes around 100m for living spaces and perhaps 1km around a single primary region base, location will have to be well planned of course to avoid issues. Also while allowing girls to go to school and homes is one thing, the possibility of it being used for warfare or hunting is troublesome. If she catches anyone hunting in her territory she will of course have the right to end the agreement. And groups larger than 6 veterans or 3 elites should have to give prior notice at least, though long term scheduling for things like going to a school would be acceptable notice.
If you're going to have free travel throughout Tokyo then access to the shinkansen is already available so the location having a station within it is of little consequence. Making those girls who stood their ground in such conditions go someplace other than their own land to hunt and work would be wronging them. While she is of course looking for a permanent supply of grief cubes, taking in the couple dozen girls likely remaining in the area would be something of a bonus, not a detriment.
I'm still fiddling with the balance between what amount of charge is needed to stop what amount of teleporters but I think this a reasonable balance point.
0.5 Taya and 1 Clairvoyant Vet on Tokyo Dispatch service, based on Mt. Hakone. Keeping an eye out for any youma incursions into the area as well.
Ask Kuybey to keep us informed if the beholder starts to move.
Hunting in Minamiashigara and Odawara (leaving Hadano as a buffer):
2 Elites and 2 Vets Pair Hunting (paired 1 Elite with 1 Vet) w/ teleport and w/ 4 sets of Kevlar armor
Each girl is always equipped with an emergency teleport charm (back to rear lines where dispatch service is), as well as barrier, illusion, and healing charms. Teleport out if warned that a youma is entering the area.
If they meet any magical girls while hunting, refer them to our gossipmonger.
Expected Gross Harvest: ~27.5 cubes
-1 cube for teleport transport
Expected Net Harvest: ~26.5 cubes
Serena & Co. (7 girls)
Based on Mt. Tanzawa. Training the two new girls to not be liabilities in the full aura, learn to communicate, training to fight youma based on what we learned. (Therefor Serena is expected to be transformed the whole time). On standby to attack any youma entering the Minamiashigara, Odawara, Hadano area from Tokyo. Each girl is equipped with full kevlar set, barrier, illusion, and healing charms. Don't pursue youma if they retreat back to Tokyo. If the youma decide to fight, Serena can make the decision on whether to retreat or not (can even call on Minamiashigara hunters for backup if needed).
2 vets on teleport support at the dispatch station. (For deploying Serena and teleport transport for the hunters.) Also creating teleport charms back to the dispatch station for the hunters to have. Equipped with full kevlar.
Hunting in the sliver of Tokyo you were trying to harvest was rather tricky. Your girls suffer what amounts to harassments from the youma. The youma come into the area, your hunters teleport back to base, Serena deploys, the youma withdraw. It repeats itself quite a bit grinding down on nerves and draining away charms despite the actual lack of engagement. Oddly they don't try to stage a massive ambush of Serena like they did at the end of last month. It does renders your hunting far less efficient than normal anyway though. (+15.4 GCU)
It ironically also cuts into Serena's group's time spent training and trying to learn Japanese. They mostly have the typical commands for combat down at least: withdraw, hold, shield, attack, and the like. Though any real conversation is still running through Hainako or broken English. Acclimating the two new girls to the aura effects is also going more poorly than Serena would like, they're still pretty heavily impaired, though less prone to randomness. Serena also notes that accommodations could use improvement, and she's spending so long on the mountain that there's some concerning civilian behavior. She's had to keep pretty mobile as human hikers seem to have begun flocking to the area.
You have trouble assessing the relative demon strength as well since it's below anything you ever encountered in your own territories or in Kyouko's. You're guessing the starting value was around -30 or -40, your system of measurement was not designed for demons so weak. They're at a level where they're so highly optimized towards siphoning off humans that they're more similar to fungus than animals.
Kyuubey does report that the Beholder has been on the move around the Tokyo area, but it has yet to come close to your border.
You mostly detect girls traveling through the area on their way out of Tokyo, and in sufficient numbers you can't really gauge how many are living in the area.
Money Actions
Pay for welcome packages for the refugees ($250 x 40 = $10,000)
Acquire apartments for the refugees (2 vets, $12,000 for 48 capacity)
You had to buy a huge amount of new supplies for all the girls you decided to accept from Tokyo, and apartments for them as well. While there's no significant difficulty in doing so, your cash reserves took a big hit, particularly with grief cubes seriously devalued as the probability of Tokyo actually being cleared affects the NM's willingness to buy them.
Purchase 6 bulletproof vests and 5 sets of kevlar clothing from Nagoya ($8,600) [brings totals to 34/34] You purchase additional armor through the NM as well this month to restore the losses you took last month. You're going to need them when you dive back into the fray.
Pet Whisperer (1.0 Nagisa): Now that Nagisa has her basic certification, she needs to actually get some experience. Spend the month volunteering at pet shelters and such to help gain experience and reputation. Be sure to mention to people that you are thinking of starting your own business as a pet trainer.
Nagisa's efforts go fairly well this month. Being able to communicate with the animals is certainly an advantage in taking care of them even if they have no obligation whatsoever to listen. She's definitely noticeably better at calming animals down than just about anyone else, though animals at shelters can be rather depressing.
Second Restaurant (2 Vet): Identify a good second location for our restaurant. Fill out loan applications, plan to get a $600,000 loan for the new restaurant.
Hunting for a restaurant location doesn't go as well as you'd like. The location is crucial to a restaurant's performance and none of the spaces that those you assign the task find are really ideal, there are serious flaws in each of them. The amount of potential customers, zoning, water and gas hook ups, potential competition; all factor into the quality of a location.
Getting a loan on the other hand should be relatively easy once you have the location and permits prepared. Lending is tightening up due to recession, but your business is still performing well.
Training General Training: 3 Vets and 13 greens
You barely finished training the last batch of new recruits and you're right back into mass training again. This time the batch of trainees is nearly as large as your whole group. Just running herd on them is an adventure in of itself. It's pretty hard to drive the nature of your group into their heads when their experience with magical girl life has been so radically different from your girls it may as well have taken place on another planet.
Fusion casting training:
At present with the difficulties involved this is less assured then other forms of training. 1 veteran/elite + 1 GCU per pair to be trained. Base success chance ~75% subject to modifiers.
- 4x Teleport/Barrier (0.5 Seto, 3.5 vets, 4 cubes)
--- Have 1 group try to develop a long distance deployment of a barrier
- 1x Telepath/barrier (0.5 Taura, 0.5 Kaoru, 1 cube)
--- Try to develop a way to block telepathic communication
- 1x Clairvoyant/telepath (0.5 Taya, 0.5 Taura, 1 cube)
--- Try to develop a way to extend telepathic communication further (to clairvoyance distance)
Fusion casting is an intensely magical endeavor, and enough magic is wasted trying to manage it that it would once have been an atrocity. Even now it's a bit worrying with your hunting even with rotating tactics below your monthly cube usage.
Seto struggles with the process quite a bit, blocking the transfer more than most and unbalancing the mix with her magic as well. In the end she manages, but it doesn't really increase the strength of the field much. If she adds much more magic than the vet the result destabilizes. Your two other pairs of teleporter and barrier trying for the teleportation barrier manage just fine. The pair trying for a new variant involving long range barrier projection just can't manage to achieve results though.
Taya and Taura spend much of the month failing terribly at mixing their magic at all. You don't think they ever got more than 2 successful passes in a row the whole month and the level of bickering between the two of them is pretty shocking for two of the most grounded girls in your group.
The telepathic barrier goes a little better. "Can you hear me now?" is a much repeated question as they attempted to tune it just right. They manage to generate pretty significant interference in telepathy. It's more of a garbling than a total shutdown though. And Taura can't maintain the field and test it against her own powers at the same time so she's not sure how effective it would be against a dedicated telepath.
Research Research, teleport barrier: Further refine the teleport barrier. Have Shinobu and Aiko continue trying to strengthen the effect.
Shinobu and Aiko try their best with occasional thoughts from Keiko and help from another teleporter to test the barrier, but their best isn't nearly enough. They don't even really have a model for what they're doing. They don't know if teleportation transmutes you to energy and you travel to the target at the speed of light, or if you pass through another shorter hyperspace route, or open a wormhole or any number of even odder options. Lack of understanding of basic principles severely inhibits making the barrier more efficient. They're mostly letting instinct and natural flow of magic in response to their desires form the teleportation barrier as it is, which makes it very hard to improve. Maybe if they had some more ideas they'd have a better chance.
Tokyo Analysis (3 Vets): Time to analyze the after action reports and the Youma behavior and adaptations. See if we can figure out anything to ease the killing of them, or make it safer. Determine any signals that a teleport youma is about to teleport. Develop training procedures, etc.
What you've learned from your analysis of the Youma of Tokyo is that they're disturbingly intelligent, perhaps more so than the NM believed. The adaptations that you saw were largely behavioral adaptations, changes in their strategy rather than their biology. Though it's hard to say since you don't have the best grasp on what their traits were individually and collectively to begin with. The certainly have some sort of long range communications capable based on the behavior you saw, though the degree of content to that communication is uncertain.
Something along the lines of determining when they're going to teleport is pretty much impossible though, the delay between a teleporter either meguca or youma wanting to teleport and it happening is basically nonexistent for short range teleports. Not to mention it's not like you can ask a youma how long it was charging up its teleport.
Something that you suspect based off the vorpal sword youma combined with the Beholder is that at least some of them have powers that neutralize meguca powers. It's a significant warning to not take your powers for granted when facing an unknown opponent.
The amount of damage each youma can sustain without death is also quite impressive. Your alpha strike style of engagement seemed effective in general when it could connect with the target, though even those without teleportation were quite capable of dodging.
There's no clear weaknesses across the species that you can exploit in general, at best you can intensify your training and simply be aware of the degree of threat to minimize the effect of momentary surprise from unusual abilities.
Ask Kyubey for the incubator assessment of our Tokyo hunting efforts.
Your culling of the Class 3 population has been sufficient that planned sterilization of the region has been delayed pending results. Of course if you fail the Incubators have sterilization of the area in reserve. The adaptive measures noted in the Class 3s are themselves an interesting and dangerous phenomenon. While they are similar to those observed in lower classifications of demons there have rarely been a sufficient number of Class 3s for such a problem to arise. Only a few similar cases existed in history prior to recent events and this offers a rare opportunity for observation as opposed to theoretical models.
Diplomacy Gossipmonger
- Keep Nagoya updated about our current plans. We are reviewing results of last month and making plans for next month. This month we will have far fewer actions in Tokyo, and do not require any interdiction teams from Nagoya.
- Keep in contact with the Tokyo natives. Review the impact of recent activities on their situation, as well as keeping track of how things go over this month.
- Process any girls we meet in the Odawara area, try to find out their condition and if they are interested in joining the Serenes.
- Discuss the current situation with all the surrounding area's groups that we're in contact with that are not being contacted elsewhere this turn (14/13, and any other known minor groups). Try to get a handle on how they're dealing with any Tokyo refugees, and if they might be willing to take any in.
The NM pulls back their forces. They have little interest in taking in new refugees from Tokyo as they are. The extra capacity that their implementation of rotating tactics allowed them has been filled from thawing out girls they already had in storage. They'd be willing to take any you can't handle, but they'd be put into storage at the back of the line.
From what you hear the NM's vassal groups have already been queried for any desire to host extra meguca particularly with the implementation of rotating tactics, and any that were willing to take any have been supplied from cold storage.
You made sufficient progress on the problem that they consider it a good investment in some senses, but there's some dissent on that as punching a hole is causing problems elsewhere. They're already having to put dozens more meguca on ice for at least a few months in efforts to stabilize the Gifu, Nagano, and Toyama prefectures against chain reacting into Youma breeding grounds from the refugees barging into those areas. The influx of additional meguca into those areas is causing some serious problems. And not everyone they're having to put on ice is willing at this point, but they lack other options.
The NM are still interested in hiring a few of your girls to help them manage their hunting operations though. Not as hunters but rather as organizers and quants as you've put it. They could pay you $2k for each of them and they're looking to hire in the range of three to five veterans experienced with managing your hunts. They're expecting them to be useful for at least a few months. They will be provided with access to the data they need though supervised.
From what you can gather from your contacts in Tokyo actual predation activity is significantly down, but large numbers of girls are shuffling around and fleeing now that gaps in the cordon have appeared.
Diplomacy (Kofu): (1 Vet)
- Talk with Kofu about our recent success in Tokyo, and discuss the recent outflow of refugees. See how they are doing, and if they have any space, could they take in a few girls? We are training them in our hunting techniques.
- Discuss possible research/resource trades
- Feel them out about possible cooperation in future Tokyo operations
Contact with Kofu this month isn't a very good situation, from what you gather they've barely held together in the face of a tide of refugees that's basically left them in a total combat mode. They took in the first couple that came by with the open arms they could afford at the time, but quickly were overwhelmed. The rampant hunting of their territory and the flow of girls through the area has basically left them reliant on their reserves as they focus on keeping others out of their territory and trying to keep the demon strength below critical levels. They aren't really sure what they intend to do but the general opinion puts this as your fault.
Diplomacy (Magick Corp):(1 Vet)
- Talk with Magick Corp about our recent success in Tokyo, and discuss the recent outflow of refugees. See how they are doing, and if they have any space, could they take in a few girls? We are training them in our hunting techniques, and would make a copy of our Hunting Manual available.
- Discuss possible research/resource trades
- Do they handle loans for magical girl enterprises? While we could get a loan from a normal bank, we wouldn't mind giving preference to a magical girl business instead. If viable, see what their offers are.
Masaki Sachiko is a bit of an odd character from what you've seen of her. She runs her group as a business, and is undoubtedly very intelligent, but her ruthless businesswoman façade could really use some work. She even tells you straight up what her unique ability is.
Contracts made by her are magically binding. You must agree to the contract of your own will without being forced, but once it is agreed to both sides are bound to the spirit of the contract as they understood it regardless of whether they originally intended to follow through or not.
This is how she can have non-magical staff without causing masquerade issues. Her staff members signed non-disclosure agreements and now are physically incapable of revealing what they agreed not to. They of course have normal employment contracts and receive business standard pay and benefits and normal ability to quit, but their NDAs are decidedly non-standard and continue to apply indefinitely.
She'd be willing to take a two or three more girls if they were willing to agree to her employment terms. The sample copies she sends to you are actually quite lacking in legalese, very straightforward, and succinct - only a single page long. From what you've seen they aren't that bad, mostly it sounds similar to a normal employment agreement: pay in money and cubes in exchange for their work and agreement not to sabotage the company through theft, poaching, or espionage; it even includes employment termination options for both sides, though it would include a continuing but fairly specific NDA about research, dispositions, and the like for a number of years.
She could indeed give you a loan on positively favorable terms. After all she doesn't have to account for default or fraud risk in the same way a normal bank would.
Diplomacy (The Enlightened): (1 Vet)
- Talk with the Enlightened about our recent success in Tokyo, and discuss the recent outflow of refugees. See how they are doing, and if they have any space, could they take in a few girls? We are training them in our hunting techniques, and would make a copy of our Hunting Manual available.
- Discuss possible research/resource trades
- Feel them out about possible cooperation in future Tokyo operations
Talking with the Enlightened is weird and somewhat creepy is how it's described to you by the girl assigned to handle it this month. They went well at any rate. Refugees from Tokyo seem to have begun reaching them, but in sufficiently small numbers that they can handle accepting them rather than turning them away like others have. If your hunting methods increase yields though they could take in a few more, but it's likely to just let them take in a few more of the girls reaching their borders rather than give them such leeway that they could take some off your hand.
They could see offering support but they don't likely have much to offer. Outside perhaps some intelligentsia support.
Diplomacy (Coalition): (1 Vet)
- Talk with the Coalition about our recent success in Tokyo, and discuss the recent outflow of refugees. See how they are doing, and if they have any space, could they take in two or three girls? We are training them in our hunting techniques.
- Discuss other possible research/resource trades
- Feel them out about possible cooperation in future Tokyo operations
While relations between you and the Coalition have certainly thawed they are still not comfortable taking in girls from you, it would give far too much potential intelligence away to integrate them fully and having to compartmentalize everything would render it more trouble than benefit.
They don't really have much in the way of resources that they could trade with you beyond cubes and money, nor further research they're willing to trade. While the fate of Tokyo is of some interest they're not sure what sort of support they could actually provide for you besides perhaps scouting.
Open Formal Relations (Republic of Japan): (1 Vet)
Your efforts to establish relations with the Magical Republic of Japan (MRJ) go poorly. Your previous contact information for them seems to have lapsed. (Failed)
Diplomacy (Area 15/16): (1 Vets)
- Discuss our recent success in Tokyo, removing the youma threat from their boarders. Discuss the recent outflow of refugees. How are they handling it? Suggest they refer refugees to us, as we are attempting to distribute them.
- Ask how many refugees they can absorb considering the added benefits on our Hunting Manual, and the new territory in what used to be a buffer zone.
- Try to get a feel for how receptive they are to the idea of joining the Imperium.
They've barely survived fighting off the flood of refugees that you triggered. They've essentially been fighting other girls on nearly a daily basis to protect their territory, and they categorically refuse to take anyone in. This is their land they've bled to protect, you need to handle your own mess.
Negotiations with the Heaven's Chosen (1 Mami)
Resolved in Negotiation Miniturns
Morale
Mixer day - Lots of time with people getting to know each other. Pick up some board games and card games. Have a picnic at the park. Make sure to organize things so that the new girls are intermingled with the older Serenes.
Trying to mingle so many girls is rather difficult. You try to organize games between random people in order to give them a chance to associate with each other better, but you're definitely seeing a lot more clique formation than you've dealt with in the past. You're not sure that's avoidable as your group grows though.
General
Production (1 Vets, 0.4 cubes):
67 Tandem Barrier charms for 1 meguca (barrier vets) + .4 GCU
Considering last month this month felt quite sluggish really. There weren't any promotions from Green to Veteran, and no major disasters. Your business ventures have been suffering a little from the recession, but still manage to hold things together.
The amount of new girls is resulting in a tremendous increase in your paperwork generation though as you struggle to deal with scheduling, settling them in various places, shuffling supplies. Generating new routes to handle reduced efficiency of greens, trying handling new reports. Your desk is literally buried in a paperwork. The desk may have been magically transmuted to paper and you're not sure you'd discover it for some time.
What's most surprising of all is that no one spiraled this month, which is honestly shocking given the amount of screaming nightmares experienced by the refugees you took in.
Another 27 girls from Tokyo came upon your forward operations looking for refuge this month. Still no elites, but this group at least had 8 veterans.
8 veterans (1 clairvoyant, 1 healer, 1 translator)
19 greens (4 barrier, 3 healer, 2 stealth, 1 clairvoyant, 1 teleporter)
Rumors
From what you've gathered from rumors the Enlightened work on a hierarchy where your magic determines your place. But they're distant and you have little to go off of.
An asteroid struck Buenos Aires this month. The scale of the impact is unprecedented in human history, though nothing special in geologic history. Immediate death toll was in the millions, with the airblast and thermal radiation causing most of the deaths. The EMP from the ionizing effect on Earth's atmosphere as the asteroid entered and broke up has caused mass disruption of communications and monitoring in the area which contributes to difficulty in measuring the exact size of the impact; estimates put the energy in the range of 1,000 Megatons. Mass mobilization of humanitarian aid is underway, but Argentina's government has largely collapsed and lack of communications hampers the efforts.
When you questioned Kyuubey on Buenos Aires with particular stubbornness to drill through his deflections you eventually learn that the Incubators were indeed responsible. An unfortunately abrupt solution but the problem was very sudden. The local collective of Contracted was performing an interesting experiment in enhancing grief energy generation. Unfortunately their containment of the resulting rupture in four dimensional spacetime failed in 43.09703 seconds. Incubator intervention was able to reseal the rupture and sterilize the extraspatial contamination before the damage was too severe.
Their goal was to extract grief energy directly without being limited by the sustainability limits of demon hunting. The containment was preplanned, but the power against the containment field rapidly increased in ways they failed to anticipate and containment failed. When containment failed the facility was almost instantly destroyed with all personnel involved. The human population was already doomed and rapidly dying though they had no way of realizing it. The Incubators needed a very swift response to contain the effects or the human population of the entire continent could have been lost.
The release of so many girls from Tokyo from the Serene's blasting into the Tokyo zone has sparked minor battles across Gifu and Nagano prefectures. Demon strength has risen significantly and nomadic territories especially are getting dangerously unpredictable. NM members have swept through trying to convince people to accept temporary stasis. There are rumors that they've been forcing people into stasis.
Information about the Osaka-Kyoto area is somewhat scattered. The sides are fluid month to month and the results unclear. It seems to be mostly small inconclusive skirmishes between sides where they withdraw without pressing too hard into escalation.
Resources
4 (5) Elite Meguca: Mami (+20% persuasive), Kyouko (can act as if two Elites), Taya (Can fill role of two clairvoyant vets), Seto (Elite teleporter)
Legendary Serena, +4 vet/elite special +2 vet
57 Veteran Meguca, 45 Green Meguca, 1 Associate
Upkeep: 19 Veteran, 18 Green, 1 Associate
Support/Training (11 veterans, 7 greens)
10% meguca training upkeep (6 veterans, 4.5 greens)
2 vets on dispatch service (+30% grief cubes additive with demon finding, -1% casualties)
5% meguca general organization maintenance (quant team time, hunting log writing and cataloging, scheduling, etc) 3 Vet, 2.5 green
Jobs (8 Vet, 11 Green, 1 Associate)
1 veteran (Hainako) Translation service
3 veteran + 6 green working courier business (Minimum 3 vets)
1 Akeno Delivery
2 Vets (Akane), 3 Green, 1 Associate Restaurant
1 vet, 2 greens - Restaurant delivery
Grief Cubes 113.6
Money: $53,730
Expenses: $46,520
$2280 upkeep on cellphones (-2% solo hunting, -1% pair hunting)
$1000 upkeep on cable/internet
$11000 upkeep on apartments
$8000 upkeep on house
$300 upkeep on Akiya
$11400 upkeep on stipend
$11400 upkeep on food
$1140 upkeep on gear (bikes, shields, misc)
Income $37,500
Translator: +$5500 per turn
Courier Business, Mitakihara: +$9500 per turn
Courier Business, Kasamino: +$4500 per turn
Restaurant +$9000 per turn
Akeno Delivery +$4000 per turn
Restaurant Delivery +$5000 per turn
Morale: [3 of 10] Taking in a group of girls two thirds your own group's size and so heavily damaged by their experiences has seriously impacted your average morale.
Assets
Tiny household shrine: Somewhat reduces losses to morale from deaths. (Bonus Increased by omake)
Shields: -3% Casualties
[*]Basic General Combat Training: -2% Casualties (May decay with losses or recruitment).
[*]Basic Solo Combat Training: -1% Pack Hunting, -2% pair hunting, -3% Solo Hunting
[*]Defending Others Training: -2% Pair Hunting, -1% Pack Hunting
[*]Pack Tactics Training: -4% pack hunting, -2% pair hunting
[*]Telepathic communication (-2% pair hunting, -1% pack hunting)
[*]Demon Scanning training (+20% grief cubes)
[*]PvP training: Still terrible, but slightly less so +2% PvP effectiveness
[*]Experienced Hunters +10% grief cube gather rates
[*]Tandem trained
- Healer: 2
- Teleporter: 5+Seto
- Stealth: 2+Kyoko
- Clairvoyant: 3+Taya
- Barrier: 11
[*]Fusion trained
-4 pairs of Teleporter+Barrier
-1 pair Telepath + Barrier
114 Bicycles (Mobility Bonus)
34 Bulletproof vest (-2% casualty)
34 Sets of Kevlar Clothing (-4% casualty)
3 Sets of Leather (-2% casualty)
9 sets hardened leather (-3% casualty)
Housing (106/141)
Apartments (88 capacity)
House (50 capacity)
Mami's Apartment (HQ of sorts) (Can be traded for $1200 per turn)
Okay, so I significantly increased upkeep costs. 10% for training upkeep, 5% for bureaucratic at this point essentially. Really crazy that morale sunk a bit but grief spiral roll was quite high.
I'll post the hopeful conclusion to the Hiko negotiation in a little while, hopefully.
Bring on the million mathematical errors. And please point out if I missed anything.
Sorry this 1 month turn took almost a month to produce. I had a significant lack of motivation as usual. Plus just didn't seem to come out very good.
Keep Nagoya appraised of our plans to hunt youma again this month. Suggest that while the risk of youma fleeing appears to be lower than we originally expected it would be appreciated if Nagoya could send at least one interdiction team to respond to unexpected problems of that sort.
Also raise the issue of future disposition of Tokyo, and get Nagoya's impression of what they would like. Propose that the outside organizations who have made contributions to the defense of Tokyo ought to divide Tokyo into zones of influence with each custodial organization responsible for reorganizing the local Tokyo girls, ensuring that there is no dangerous overhunting, etc. What are their thoughts on the matter?
Explain that to obtain Heaven's Chosen anti-teleportation technology we had to agree to grant HC a zone of influence of 150 cubes, though as part of the deal we insisted that they commit to not overhunting in Tokyo.
Obviously, since Nagoya and the Serenes have been putting a lot more effort into Tokyo, we would expect Nagoya and the Serenes to be responsible for a much larger portion. How large does Nagoya want and feel comfortable being responsible for? (If they want a number we are thinking for them, suggest a roughly 600 to 800 cube territory).
We would also like there to be an agreement among all the organization in Tokyo to allow safe passage, so that Tokyo girls can live at home and commute to school and work without fear, the boundaries being primarily about hunting territory. Include Hiko's suggested exceptions. What are Nagoya's feelings on the matter?
Anything else that Nagoya wants to bring up with us? About Tokyo? Or about something else?
With the idea of Tokyo actually being secured becoming more likely the NM have given some thought to what they'd need to do afterwards. There will need to be some degree of oversight to prevent further outbreaks, by force if necessary. Some sort of inspection force that would ensure demon strength didn't rise to dangerous levels.
Dividing up Tokyo into zones of influence and territory is certainly preferable from some perspectives though, as it would make keeping the city under control far easier. While there is some difficulty in keeping the area under their control and the potential for unrest it certainly will be more feasible than an external group trying to enforce order without the territory. If the Tokyo magical girl population returned to normal levels it would be nearly impossible for them to have the military strength to enforce peace.
They're fine with you taking however much you can handle given you've done much of the heavy lifting. However they've still got around 200 girls from Tokyo in storage that willingly accepted their stasis option. And curtailing the dozens of hotspots scattered across the prefectures west of Tokyo they're likely to end up with fifty to a hundred more, though many of them were significantly less approving. Based on the local population densities they're expecting they'd need around 500 territory to support just the girls they have in storage in addition to remaining locals. Though they expect their ability to actually effectively control further territory will be higher than yours from sheer numbers.
They are quite accepting of the deal you had to cut. You needed Hiko's help to clear Tokyo and a slice of Tokyo is a small price to pay for saving all of it. They'd have made the same deal in your place, even at a far higher cost.
The idea of safe passage throughout the Tokyo area is an interesting one. Hiko's exceptions are reasonable as well. Though they'd like to specify one protected base per 100 territory, in order to ensure that each base could properly serve the area. Even in the densest parts of Tokyo you'd be looking at around 1% of the area being included in such spaces. And even in excluded spaces girls will first be warned to leave, with repeated offenses resulting in contact between leadership.
They do warn you that the refugees are causing serious issues. They aren't pleased with having to come off as the bad guys in to the refugees, but they don't have a clear alternative.
Magick Company Negotiations
Point out the economic difficulties being created by the Tokyo crisis. The recession, the depression in the population due to lack of hunting, and so forth. Relieving the Tokyo crisis quickly will benefit everyone indirectly, including Magick Corp.
The Serenes have been putting a lot of resources into clearing Tokyo, and we are beginning to reach the limits of our own on hand monetary resources. We can continue to successfully clear Tokyo, but believe that recovery will be hampered and slowed by the lack of resources to rebuild. In the worst case, the lack of Tokyo organizations might entice other outside organizations to contest Tokyo, leading to more conflict and another youma outbreak.
Therefor we would like to invite Magick Corp to invest in the rebuilding of Tokyo. Not only will this benefit Magic Corp indirectly through the economic recovery of Tokyo, but there are numerous other benefits.
First, the Serenes will borrow the money with an agreement to pay it back with interest. So Magick Corp will continue to make Sachiko's customary profit. Second, it will establish stronger and more friendly relations between the Serenes and Magick Corp, as we would certainly remember who helped us. Third, it will provide Magick Corp the opportunity to establish itself as the primary lender to Magical Girl organizations in Tokyo. Magick Corp will be free to publicize its funding of the Serene rebuilding of Tokyo, and it will be natural for any other organizations in Tokyo to also approach Magick Corp for loans. (Also subtly feel Sachiko out to see if she is interested in claiming Tokyo territory).
Specifically, the Serenes would ask for a line credit of $4 million, available to be borrowed when needed, with a minimum of $400,000 borrowed to keep the credit line open. Interest to be paid on the actual amount borrowed. Our expectation is to borrow less than the maximum, probably no more than $2 million, but we wish the higher limit to be prepared for unexpected expenses.
As to the Serene ability to carry this loan, we plan to massively expand our current courier business into Tokyo once the current crisis is resolved. With just the Yokohama and Downtown Tokyo area we expect a revenue of $100,000 which is enough to carry a loan of $4 million at 2.5% interest. We also hope to arrange safe passage for businesses with all organizations in Tokyo which should allow almost double that in revenue. We also have a successful restaurant business which we also expect to expand to Tokyo. (The courier business + 5 restaurants would allow us to carry a $4 million loan at 5% interest).
One key issue is that the current crisis in Tokyo requires expending a lot of money right now, but without the ability to begin expanding businesses until all the youma have been slain. Something that mundane banks would not understand, but that Magick Corp is uniquely positioned to recognize. Thus we we would propose a grace period before interest payments begin. We managed to kill ten youma a month ago, and plan to kill another ten this month. Our hope is to clear out all the youma within three to fourth months. Giving us another two months to stabilize Tokyo would put us at six months. We feel a six month grace period would be sufficient.
Is Magick Corp able to make a loan of this size? What interest rate would they charge for such a loan? Does Magick Corp have any other opinions about the future disposition of Tokyo?
Sachiko is not terribly surprised by your request, but comes up with her own counter proposal.
While clearing Tokyo is certainly beneficial to the long term economics of the country, it's not necessarily contingent upon you receiving a loan or not. Her judgement of you is that even if you couldn't hold any of the territory involved you'd feel an obligation to save Tokyo regardless.
A normal loan seems a bit too risky in this case though. You're asking for an amount of money that would be far beyond your current means to pay back contingent on the expectation that your income will improve in the future. Even with her better grasp of the situation than a normal bank would have she doesn't see any collateral that you could use to back your loan, and you're heading into a very dangerous junction. A loan that large could easily be repeating the financial mistakes that have brought down a great many banks.
Your own words to some degree acknowledge this. What you're looking for is not so much a simple loan, as investment. She can't offer you such a large loan at a reasonable interest rate. The risk—even with her power to reduce some of the risks—is too high for the potential payoff.
The risk is necessary though and she can hardly see ways to reduce it, and she does want you to succeed but she'd hardly be a good banker if she let that influence her evaluations. She can increase the gain in the case of your success though. She would invest in your company rather than giving you a loan.
Granted the realities of magical girl life mean that even her own group is unlikely to ever have an IPO, much less yours. So a traditional equity term doesn't work well. It's further complicated by the fact that from what she's heard of you it's unlikely you're ever going to run your group in such a way to see significant net profit at the top, you're probably going to distribute any profits to the individuals in the group.
Magical girl accounting and investment is likely never going to be too similar to the mundane version because of lack of government oversight or any possibility of an IPO. However she has come up with an idea for how division of profits could work. A percent of your total expenditures on your group's members could be set aside for paying capital partners. So for instance if you pay each of 100 girls $10k, and provide them with another $10k in benefits each, then the capital partner would receive $20k per % of equity. Normally this would likely be impossible to enforce, and harder still to determine the actual values, but she thinks it reasonably possible with the benefits her powers bring to negotiation.
She'd be willing to invest in your group at $1,000,000 per 5% revenue sharing in this manner. She'd also want to have the contract signed to by the top 5 members of your organization, including Serena.
So essentially as said the NM just have basically a single extra stipulation and they aren't actually that aggressive in what they want. They're more bothered by the fact that they're essentially having to play whack-a-mole with the refugees and they're coming off as villains.
Sachiko is a bit different. Any way I look at your balance sheets no bank would give you reasonable rates on such a crazy aggressive expansion plan. And she can't really either. Plus she's factoring in quite a reasonable risk chance that you're all going to be dead inside 3 months. So to her a loan rate that accounted for the risk of you never being capable of paying her back would be ridiculous to even speak. So instead she's treating it more like a venture capital investment: High Risk/High Return. Keeping in mind that she doesn't actually have access to your balance sheets or anything like that so she's having to make educated guesses.
I'm not actually sure whether you'll take anything like her offer at all, but I put myself in her head, researched venture capital, researched angel investors, researched capital partnerships; decided that none of those work in a world where you can't have an IPO and where the founder isn't planning to make a profit for themselves, and then made something up that sounded like a reasonable solution.
There's a lot of room for negotiation as well though.
I'm a bit annoyed with myself for not making this into dialogue (since show is supposed to be better than tell), but then decided since you didn't assign Mami to these actions you don't deserve getting direct dialogue. Though mostly it just takes me way more effort to put into dialogue form. Someone could make an omake of it like has been done for a couple previous scenes where I glossed over
- Accept Nagoya's ideas
- Discuss further the refugee issue. We too are concerned, but don't know what else we can do, we've already taken in a large number of refugees, and are trying to make it possible to take in more. Though that will probably be dependent on being able to hunt in Tokyo. Tentatively we are hoping to rent additional teleport interdiction artifacts to allow safe hunting in parts of Tokyo. We'll have to see how effective that is this turn to know if we can scale it to get more cubes to support more refugees. Otherwise we are close to being tapped out in space.
You accept Nagoya's stipulations to the agreement without any issue. You explain your own concerns regarding the refugee issue but don't really have any solid solutions. You're planning to attempt to extract some additional grief cubes from Tokyo, but you're otherwise close to your limits. They didn't really expect a solution from you, but it was worth conveying the issue anyway.
Magick Company Negotiations
Respond to Magick Corp's proposal with interest in the idea. However, there are a few concerns.
First of all, we do not want to have a perverse incentive to skimp on the amount of resources spent on our magical girls. Instead we suggest that the equity payment be made based on the amount of money transferred from our business over to our magical girl organization. Basically our gross income for the magical girl organization (after all business related expenses/mortgages are deducted). (So $37,500 the previous turn). Since this will mean an increase in the base that is included when calculating the payment, we suggest this should reduce the equity to 3.5% per 1 million borrowed.
Second, the exact costs the Serene will be facing in the near future are unclear with current numbers merely being estimates based upon detailed scenario analysis. Therefore a fixed investment of X million is undesirable for both the Serene, paying a higher dividend then required, and Magick Corporation, incurring significantly more risk then necessary. Instead it is suggested a line of credit is established with an agreed upon limit, that will be available until an agreed upon time, such as three months after the Youma and Beholder threat are eliminated, at which point the total withdrawn will be used to calculate the percentage of revenue shared, rounded up to two decimal places of a percent.
Third, since the risk changes quite a bit depending on how far we have gotten in clearing Tokyo, and since we won't need much of the monies until later, we would like to suggest there be a staggered line of credit with different rates depending on the achievement of certain milestones. We would suggest that the first line of credit immediately available be for only $500,000, and because of the reduced amount we ask the equity purchase to be reduced to 3% per 1 million (or 1.5% if we borrow the entire $500,000). Once the Floating Eyeball oni is dead, an additional 2 million line of credit would become available, at the reduced rate of 2% equity per 1 million borrowed. Once all the youma have been cleared from Tokyo, a total line of credit of 4 million will become available, and any credit taken out at this point would purchase 1% of equity per 1 million borrowed. With the line of credit to close 3 months following the clearing of all youma.
Fourth, while we think this to be a very profitable arrangement for both sides, we think it wise to include some method of peaceably dissolving the arrangement. Perhaps a buy back option, where in addition to repaying the initial line of credit we would also pay some premium to represent the new value of the equity. We are open to details on how Maigck Corp thinks it would be the most equitable to arrange this option.
While they are considering the counter offer, also bring up the issue of refugees. Suggest that the organizations surrounding Tokyo ought to share some responsibility in handling the refugees. Would Magick Corp be able to handle one sixth of the refugees? If (when) they react negatively to this suggestion, reply that in consideration of the invaluable aid Magick Corp will be giving the Serenes in rebuilding Tokyo, that we will take on responsibility for Magick Corp's portion of the refugees. They can either send us any additional refugees they pick up to join our organization instead, or we could potentially come to an arrangement of temporarily providing Magick Corp additional territory to hunt in until the Tokyo refugee problem is resolved.
Mention that perhaps in the future there can be additional cooperation between the Serenes and Magick Corp that would allow us to each play to our strengths. The Serenes in the governance of territory and magical girls, while Magick Corp focuses on business activities.
The idea of restructuring it to be dependent on your income as a magical girl organization is easily granted. She only suggested the payment system she did because she lacks information on your how your finances are organized and it seemed like the best method, though hardly simple.
A credit line you can draw against and calculate the equity at the end seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise as well, but she sees little reason for each tier to have individual caps.
As to the percent equity per unit borrowed she counters with 3.2% on any borrowed before the beholder's death, 2% on the remainder. At 1% the amount of growth you'd need to see for it to be profitable for her is simply too high even if there were no remaining risk at all. She's guessing you'd need around a thousand girls to make enough for that to even break even, and she doesn't really expect you to be able to get that many.
As to a buyback system it is reasonable enough for you to desire that, but it's equally not really in her interests. It would have to include a fairly substantial payment to justify it: something along the lines of the NPV of a perpetuity of the current payment at the time of the buyback.
Refugees are an entirely separate matter. And trying to suggest she take in a sixth when her group's size in terms of population is so much lower than the other major groups is just comical. If you want her to take in a large number of refugees she'd need the territory to support it, which she simply doesn't have. Though refugees are highly unlikely to reach her anyway given how she is shielded by the territories of the Enlightened and the Magical Queendom from the direction of Tokyo.
She's wants you to know that she isn't trying to gouge you as you may think. She hopes for you to succeed. But she'd hardly be any good at business if she handed out money without the odds favoring making it back.
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Something that seems to have slipped people's notice is that The Magick Company (keeping in mind obviously that's the magical side name, her real businesses have their own names in the same way that your organization's businesses do) is the smallest of the "major" magical girl groups in Japan in terms of population. That group isn't actually much larger than the Kofu group in terms of population. It's only counted as major because of money.
Also notable: Sachiko is not in fact a business robot, but she tries to act that way sometimes because people can be painful. And the power she got from her wish really does influence the way she set herself up. I think it was TheEyes who thought that she had gained her power realized its applications and then read a bunch of business self-help books and decided to live her entire life by them. It's not perfectly accurate, but it's not entirely wrong either.
@Kinematics Just curious, was my Candeloro quest the one that didn't really count?
Also, have yourselves an omake. Somewhat rough, but it tries to be reasonably canon compliant. Bonus points if you get what the title's a reference to.
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Out of the Silent Metropolis, Part One
The five of them, six if you counted Moka, were crammed into a tiny, so-cheap-it-bordered-on-skeevy motel room. But it was indoors and safe and had running water and beds and they didn't have to worry about superdemons stalking them in the middle of the night.
Their current lodgings were paid for by the Serenes, this baffling group who had actually apologized for the lack of nicer accommodations and assured them this arrangement would be temporary.
The girls were afraid it would be temporary, too, but there was no need to spoil the mood.
Sleeping arrangements had actually been quite easy. As the two youngest, and despite their protests of being consequently the least affected by floorsleeping, Amu and Nadeshiko had been assigned the bed. At sword point. Now, having finally submitted to babying by the others, they were sitting on the mattress, playing cat's cradle. Rather Amu was...trying, while Nadeshiko looked on. The latter either had the patience of a saint or was secretly enjoying "how cute Amu's angry face looks."
Meanwhile Ichigo had made a futon of sorts with the covers from the bed, while Ririka claimed the pillows and curled up on them like the cat she was. Reki for her part reminded them that she'd always been more comfortable sleeping in a chair, having dozed off at her easel many times. Right now she was tipping her chair back on its hind legs, one booted foot on the bedside table. A stress ball was tossed up and then caught again in an idle rhythm as she stared at the ceiling.
In a moment of silence, Ichigo looked around at them before breaking the hush with a soft voice.
"Hey, why don't we...play a game? We can toss Reki's ball to each other and say something we hope happens now that we're out of Tokyo."
Reki paused, and then allowed her chair to rest on all four legs, messy black hair falling forward as she sat up. "I'm down." She absently straightened her denim jacket. "I'd like to start painting again."
The ball soared through the air into Ichigo's hand. Ichigo stared at the ball, as if surprised by her supernatural reflexes. Of course to be fair, they were only hers by virtue of the sixth girl in their group. Then Ichigo tilted her head, long pink hair gleaming more richly than it should in the dim yellow light.
"I'd like to work in a cake shop!" She carefully tossed the ball to Nadeshiko.
As befit her name, Nadeshiko had a classically beautiful face, framed by dark purple hair that she partially tied back in a long ponytail. This made it all the more incongruous when she grinned, abandoning her usual poise.
"I'd like enough cubes that I can be my old self sometimes. And play basketball!" As if suddenly self conscious, she brought a demure hand to cover her mouth. "Although it would certainly be nice to pursue Traditional Dance again, too. Now, who do I..."
Ririka's head rose from her nest of pillows. She opened a hand for the ball Nadeshiko held, toying boredly with a deep blue lock of hair as she caught the other girl's throw. At first you might think the two of them looked similar, both with long straight hair and neat bangs above a reserved face. But where Nadeshiko's expression was usually happy or at least serene, Ririka's eyes were jaded, tired in a way only partially explained by the length of time she had survived.
"Hmm. What do I want." Her voice sounded flat, but they knew better. Ririka rarely showed an emotion other than disinterest. "I want to become improbably rich, and buy us a mansion. That'll be my next miracle." She looked at Nadeshiko and Amu. "As well as sending you two back to school."
The ball abruptly whistled through the air and from the looks of it startled the living daylights out of Amu, who raised up the tangled mess of her cat's cradle just in time to catch it. She glared at Ririka, but her fierceness lost any real teeth when they knew the girl beneath her "cool and spicy" outward persona.
Amu turned the ball over in her hands, seeming lost in thought. She was a strange mix of sweet and punk, with ruffled legwarmers and chains that draped across a pleated tartan skirt. Her hair, clipped with a heart shaped ornament, was the same pink as Ichigo's, but fluffy rather than silky, and only reached to her shoulders.
"I think I want to clear out Tokyo, if they'll let us." Her voice sank to a whisper. "So maybe some day we can see our friends again…" She looked at Nadeshiko, who gave a sympathetic glance. The two of them had been close even before contracting, and from what they'd told the others, left behind quite a few loved ones when they took to the streets.
Amu shook her head, seeming annoyed by the upwelling of emotion.
"Hey vamp girl, catch."
She tossed the ball at Ichigo, and--
shimmer
--a red-nailed hand plucked it out of the air. Pink hair froze into silver, and from one blink to the next warm green eyes turned the color of blood. And Moka appeared before them: confident, beautiful, proud--everything Ichigo had needed in an alter, when she was bullied so badly that she dissociated in self defense.
Moka raised an eyebrow. "I was wondering when you'd remember me." She closed her eyes for a moment, and then nodded, as if coming to some profound realization.
Early in the month Nakanishi, Risa arrives via train courtesy of Hiko with the artifact you've purchased properly modified for your use as well as the battery. The battery is as described though she's hauling it around on a hand cart rather than carrying it.
Risa is rather adult looking for a magical girl, people would probably be more inclined to guess her age to be on the cusp of adulthood rather than the more typical middle schooler age of magical girls. She has the calm demeanor and maturity to go with it as well. She is also much more normal than Hiko in spite of having first shown up in a full miko outfit. She wears the miko outfit when performing magical girl activities but otherwise she wears normal clothes. You've talked to her a few times and you'd probably think her an average young adult if you met her on the street. She's going to stay in your area the whole month in case you need any assistance, though she'll likely trade off with someone else next month if there's no major issues. She really can't afford to be away for that long.
Your plan to get help from the remaining girls in Tokyo bears some fruit. 1 Elite and 17 Vets are willing to fight for Tokyo, and many of them are willing to join SIMP in general, including the elite named Miho.
Nagoya's dossiers provide only very limited information as they largely made them after things in Tokyo were falling apart, they do provide at least this much to you though:
Morita, Miho
Elite Class
PVP Skill rank B
Earth-bender power set, known to spend significant time underground alone.
Estimated Time as a Magical Girl: 3-4 years
Immigration Banned: Former high rank member of Charm Protector group, direct contact has been limited as she's very rarely seen.
What you quickly learn though is that Miho is in no state whatsoever to fight within Serena's aura. You're not entirely sure how she hasn't grief spiraled already. She's obviously suffered from her time alone.
For the most part the extra few weeks has been enough to get the two new girls Serena's group is dealing with settled. They're still prone to some random behavior, but much less than they were before.
Running through the planned scenarios for Youma fishing a few times was a good idea though. It's helped you work out some of the issues with timing of teleporting in and raising the barrier and on waiting to teleport out after the barrier is dropped. It's kind of an oddity in that it's hard for you to tell if it's on or not until trying to teleport. There's no real indicator to your magical senses of the barrier. You wasted more than a few teleport charms against the active barrier when practicing retreats.
The first fishing attempt goes rather poorly, though given there were no casualties you aren't sure it's fair to say that. The interdiction artifact with its battery was set up under layered stealth and a couple of girls set to hunting nearby. A youma eventually showed up, but when your support group and Serena teleported in, they were too slow and staggered in doing so. The youma saw the huge group appearing and teleported out before your own group had fully arrived and the barrier could be raised. (DC 60 to escape, passed)
After a quick debate you decide to try again with the same strategy. The second attempt the youma teleports on top of Kyouko and her twin within the outer stealth layer. They demonstrate their status as your premiere combatant though and parries a misshapen claw and lets the energy of the blow toss her away to gain some distance. It continues to follow her, but she just plays for time bouncing around as your forces respond. Sadly once again when Serena arrives it escapes before you can close the trap upon it. (DC70 to escape, passed)
Frustrating as it is, you withdraw and prepare to relocate your trap.
Another short mini-turn. Mostly to put into solid writing what you already knew happened. DC on demon escaping is base 50, +10 because you actually practiced this, then the second one was +10 because it was pursuing Kyouko and so distracted.
This one is dedicated to the pent up statistical desires that bring us together. Soon I'll put up a group profile post, with relevant info added as necessary.
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Out of the Silent Metropolis, Part Two Hop Step Jump, Chip Syrup Whip
The first time Nadeshiko Switched, it sent more than a little attention their way. "Why is a boy here?" "Why does he feel magical?" These questions Nadeshiko's "old self" answered with as much grace as he could muster. After all it was the Serenes who had invited his group into their house, for which he was incredibly grateful--not least because of the makeshift basketball hoop in the backyard, to which he'd immediately dragged Amu.
"It's just...weird," Amu muttered embarrassed, as she watched Nade--Nagihiko shoot hoops.
"What, me being like this, or--hold on--it's because of my wish," he called up pleasantly at the pair of disbelieving faces that had appeared at a window. "...or because of that?" he finished asking Amu.
"Sorta...both. But mostly the first one..."
Nagihiko sat down next to her, lightly tossing the ball from floor to hand to hand. "I don't blame you. Especially since I don't entirely understand it myself. Gender is complicated." He grinned. "But I'm still the same person as Nadeshiko. Six is the correct number of people in our group."
"I-I guess." Cheeks turning red, Amu glared tsunishly to the side as her lone wolf persona reemerged. "But if they ask you one more time--"
"Huh? What's a boy doing here?"
Nagihiko turned to the newcomer with a smile that would have been absolutely beatific except for the vein twitching in his forehead.
"Good afternoon! My family has a very old Japanese Dance tradition. In fact we take it so seriously that I was required to live as a girl even outside of my lessons." A mad gleam appeared in his eye, at which point Amu scooted away in alarm. "I suppose either Kyubey was confused by my presentation--in which case my performance of that role was truly excellent, or he figured that I identify as a girl at least some of the time." Nagihiko shrugged and added in a friendly tone, "In fairness, he was right."
+++
Breathe in, Ichigo reminded herself as she stepped gingerly through the living room of this...meguca house they'd been invited to. She twisted the ring--Moka's ring--on her finger nervously. The youngest two had already zipped off to the back yard, and while Reki and Ririka were just as awkward in crowds as she was, they didn't have the added burden of wanting to make friends.
Her guide, a girl named Minako, was cheerfully explaining various points of interest in the house: the table they crammed around for a weekly monopoly tournament (Minako explained that while the game itself wasn't very well written, here it was the math of investments that appealed to people); that series of cracks in the paint where Akane and Maki had their ongoing straw wrapper shooting contest before being stopped with warnings of "structural damage"; the beat up old TV where they had crime show marathons (despite Mother Mami's protests that it might cause Grief spirals, and only because Kyoko had dug her heels in and the counselor meguca had promised to keep an eye on the audience).
Minako loved this group. You could tell by the sparkle in her eyes, the spring in her step.
I'd like to love a group like that someday. Maybe this one, even...
"And here's the kitchen. Ooh, they're making somethi--are you okay?"
Ichigo's eyes had gone as round as the mixing bowls set out on the counters. Before she could think about it, she stepped forward and hesitantly asked, "Excuse me, I don't mean to intrude, but are you going to bake something?"
"Yeah. Hey you like making cakes? Come join us!"
"Y-yes I mean I would--is that alright, Minako-san?"
Her guide beamed. "Go for it! This is Nagisa and Sora. You two, this is Ichigo. She's new, so make her feel at home okay! I'll be right over here if you need me. Just gonna boil the kettle for some tea." Doing just that, Minako sat down at the table in the breakfast nook.
Between baking and the friendly manner of the Serene girls, Ichigo found herself relaxing enough to ask the question that had been at the back of her mind ever since Minako mentioned it.
"So...I heard that people here like...math?"
Sora grinned and shook her head. "Bit of an understatement. Math is the thing that brings us together. Well that and magic."
"More than magic, for some," Nagisa put in.
"Point is, if you like math, you'll fit right in."
Ichigo looked down and smiled to herself. "I do like math. A lot." It was one of the few times in school where she had been able to calm down and focus on something other than when her attackers might strike next. Math also gave her a hard counter argument that she was indeed competent at something.
"Well, like I said you'll--is that a boy?" Sora interrupted herself, staring out the kitchen window at the backyard.
"It's because of my wish!" Nagihiko's voice floated up to them.
"Huh. Okay," Sora said eloquently.
"There have been weirder wish powers," Nagisa pointed out.
Something like a shadow passed over Sora's face. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Hey Ichigo, are those your friends down there?"
"Y-yeah," Ichigo said weakly. Her heart was pounding anxiously again, and she wasn't sure why. Maybe it had to do with the implicit judgement of her teammate.
"Cool! What are they like? Is he always a boy? I mean, if those questions aren't too personal..."
An invisible vice was squeezing her chest. Her fingers froze into a skeletal grip on the mixing spoon.
Moka...
...help...
Moka brushed a stray lock of silver out of her face. "Now, where were we?" Seeming unperturbed by the three pairs of eyes staring up at her, she returned to mixing the butter and brown sugar.
"...Ichigo?"
Moka followed the voice to see Minako looking at her in concern (or possibly fear).
"It's Moka, actually. I'm part of a system with Ichigo." She raised an eyebrow at her three companions. "You aren't going to give her a hard time for being multiple, are you?"
After a round of stammered "N-no, of course not"s, Moka gave a nod. "Thank you. I believe I'll return the reins to Ichigo." She tapped the bowl with a long finger. "She hasn't been this happy in a long time."
"Wait!" called Minako. "Uh...are you both magical girls? I hope I'm not being rude..."
"You're not," replied Moka. She paused. "I made our Wish. I'm also the one you'll be seeing in combat." She was the magical girl--hence why their Soul Gem was blood red instead of pink or green.
-shimmer-
"Hey, are you okay?" a sympathetic voice reached Ichigo's ears. That's right, Moka had explained it to them.
"Y-yeah, I..."
She trailed off as another girl walked in with an armful of groceries which she set on the table. "Hi Minako! Mm, something smells good--oh are you one of the new Tokyo girls? Welcome!"
What made Ichigo stare, and sent a shiver down her spine, was that she had no magical presence. Not a hint of potential. This girl was no meguca, just like--well, more than--Ichigo herself, and yet from the looks of it had seamlessly integrated into the group.
She realized Minako had started speaking.
"This is my friend Ayase. She's a Nonmagical Associate of SIMP."
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A/N1: I'm bigender myself, which makes Nade/hiko really fun to write.
A/N2: Thank you to all the girls who guest starred in this one!
Omake: A Message
Brown eyes opened, sharp even on the edge of sleep, and swept across the room, taking in the shadows softly cast from the dim glow of the nightlight. There was a soft whir of a fan running somewhere up above, funneling air to a ventilation shaft. Reaching out with her senses, there was no indication of demon miasma, nor other magical signatures. Miho let out a soft sigh, eyes drifting closed briefly before she heaved herself up out of the bedding that was laid out on the floor.
She reached over and picked up a small plastic lantern, turning the knob with a click that lit up the room much more brightly. Not that there was much to see. Barren brown walls, unadorned by any decoration except a crinkled movie poster showing a giant, white cartoonish character wearing a red scarf and a blue sailor collar, overshadowing four people at the bottom in white stencil. In the middle was the word, "Ghostbusters".
Her eyes flickered past that, then came to rest on a cardboard box in the corner. She walked across the floor and opened the box, rifling through the small handful of objects at the bottom, to pull out a few pre-packaged food items — a rice ball, a fruit cup, a boxed drink of strawberry milk — before returning to her sleeping mat. The room remained silent as she ate, with the soft hum of the lantern and the distant whir of the fans the only noises outside of wrappers being opened and food being chewed.
Despite her living circumstances, she looked surprisingly clean, unblemished by the dirt and soil around her. Her straight brown hair fell down past her shoulders, though as she finished eating, she used a couple hair ties to bundle it up into a pair of pigtails, making her seem younger and more childish. A deep breath, and she forced a smile across her face, only the contrast marking just how melancholy and dispirited she had seemed before.
Standing up, she pulled on a pair of boots, and then grabbed a long coat from atop another box — revealing a small art pad — and swung it around her shoulders. She brushed it out to be sure it was all settled correctly, before briefly flickering to a more adult form and checking yet again.
Satisfied, she returned to her younger appearance, and gave a half salute to the poster on the far wall, before walking straight at another wall that suddenly fell back into a staircase. As the light of the world above finally filtered down, she paused and quickly went back to turn the lantern off. With that, she firmed up into a more confident stance, and began her walk upwards. Moments later, the wall sealed back up, leaving the room once again lit only by the nightlight.
~~~
Miho shaded her eyes in the mid-morning light, as she stepped through the rusted gate marking the boundary to the property of a house that had clearly seen better days, its once-white facade now yellowed and peeling. The frame of a small metal fan glinted from where it was jammed into a divot in the ground, extension cord running off through the weeds. A dirty blue-and-white ball could be seen caught in the limbs of a small tree that rose above the wall's confines.
As she walked down the street, she thumbed through the pile of papers that she'd pulled out of the mail slot, slipping a couple grocery advertisements into a jacket pocket while the rest of the bundle was rolled up to be inserted into the trash deposit area with the rest of the recyclables.
This late in the morning, all the children of the neighborhood had already left for school, and most adults had left for their jobs. The street was quiet, and the clear skies made it seem rather relaxing. One might never guess that this was a city on the verge of collapse, ready to die due to the effects of the demons draining the life out of its inhabitants.
Miho herself could feel the effects, numbed though she was to the feeling after nearly a year of enduring it. She kept her cheery demeanor locked in place through force of habit, despite cracks beginning to show in the facade. The people she was likely to meet would be too depressed to see through the false mask. The only real worries were—
Miho's gaze snapped to the right as she passed a corner, the distinct signature of a magical girl ringing bright and clear. Miho's hand instinctively stretched out, gathering the strength of the stone around it as she focused on a figure in the distance. At least, that's where she was looking with her eyes; her magical senses were keyed up and searching out behind, around, and below her, trying to pinpoint where the ambush would come from, or at least be sure of the ground she would be using as a path for escape.
Meanwhile, the girl in front of her remained still, leaning against the trunk of a cherry tree that was just beginning to blossom. The slight glint of a polearm's blade showed her to be armed and ready, but she made no aggressive moves while Miho examined her. Long minutes passed before Miho finally sent a telepathic message: "What do you want?"
"Well, I'm not interested in a fight," came the reply — calm and delicate, but wary. "Just passing a message along."
"Oh really?" Miho answered back, sarcastically. "What's the glaive for, then?"
"You're not the easiest person to get ahold of, you know," the other girl rejoined with mild annoyance, ignoring the probing question. "I've been waiting out here for three days."
"Terribly sorry for the inconvenience," Miho shot back, not sounding sorry at all.
A breeze ruffled the trees, allowing a dappling of sunlight to highlight the green tones of the dress the other girl wore. "*Anyway*," the girl sent, clearly trying to get the conversation back on track, "Kia just wanted to wish you good luck when you go off to fight the youma."
Miho's eyes narrowed dangerously at that, while the sidewalk's cement rapidly rose up over her boots. "Oh, did she, now? Cheering for my death?"
"Not at all," came the quick reply, trying to head off the threat. "You've heard about the Serenissima's big move this month, right?"
"Of course," Miho replied testily.
"And last month they stayed out entirely, because the month *before* went pretty badly for them."
"I'd heard they'd done fairly well the first month. Enough for people to start running," Miho said, contempt clear in her tone.
"Well, you're not exactly in a position to get the latest rumors, are you?" the girl commented. "Point is, something bad happened, and they tried to cover it up with some pretext about 'better preparedness' or some such."
"Couldn't have been all that bad, if they're coming back."
"Or they're coming back *despite* how bad it was." When Miho didn't respond to that, the other girl continued, "And Kia figured there were pretty good chances that you'd try to help them out."
"And why would she think that?"
"Because that's the sort of person you are." At that, the unnamed girl straightened up, dismissed her weapon, and turned to walk down the street away from Miho.
"And why isn't she here to say that herself?" Miho shouted after her, no longer using telepathy.
"Because she wouldn't be able to keep her foot out of her mouth when talking with you." Miho could practically hear the girl's eyeballs rolling from that tone of exasperated fondness.
~~~
The door opened, and the girl with green hair entered their current hideout, only to pull up short as she almost ran into a rather angry-looking face.
"Where've you been?" Kia asked. "You've been disappearing all week!"
"Just out for a stroll. Ran into Miho, and had a little talk with her." Hitomi pushed past her to set her coat down across the back of a chair.
Kia's eyes shot open at that. "What the hell? How—? She would have torn you apart!"
"If we'd fought, certainly," Hitomi answered, pulling out cups and tea from the cabinet. "We did manage to avoid that, though, so no need to worry."
"Damn!" Kia collapsed back down on the couch. "Seriously, don't do shit like that," she admonished, running her hand through her hair. "You'll give me a heart attack. What'd you talk to her about, anyway?"
"Well, you'd mentioned her last week when we were talking about the latest push the Serenissima were making this month. Turns out, she might be joining them."
"That little hermit? No way! She never leaves that hole in the ground."
"Maybe. But as you said, she'd much rather protect her little 'hole in the ground' than run away. And if the rumors of the Serenissima are correct, it's not surprising that someone like Miho would be willing to work with them."
Kia snorted. "I'm surprised she was paying attention enough to find out. Damn. Bad enough those Imps are trying to get all the credit; now they've got girls joining up with their cause!"
"That's hardly new," Hitomi said, as she poured out drinks. "A lot of magical girls have been joining them recently."
"Pfeh. Just the newbies, is all," Kia said as she accepted a steaming cup of tea. "They don't count."
"All the same," Hitomi said as she sat down beside the other girl, "we should consider what the others here in the city are likely to do in the coming months. It's important to have a solid grasp of their motivations."
"Yeah, whatever."
So, Miho, and more of Kia and Hitomi.
NB: Taking Miho's design from Miho of Fancy Lala.
Miho seems the type to hunker down and dig in, defending her home to her last breath. She hates cowards. Her favorite movie is Ghostbusters, both for the parallels with her magical girl life, and the heroes fighting against impossible odds. She'd probably get along well with Sayaka. Her hobby is drawing.
Of course, she's also incredibly isolated, so doesn't hear all the latest gossip and rumors. Hitomi gave her the nudge that would take advantage of both aspects to get Miho to be willing to consider joining up with the Serenes.
Kia could be described as someone who's an excellent judge of character, with horrible people skills. Most particularly, she fought against many of the other elites during the great Tokyo wars, and has an instinctive grasp on what makes a lot of them tick. However she doesn't see how to apply that knowledge in the game of politics.
Hitomi, on the other hand, can recognize the insights Kia has about people, and occasionally puts them to use. It's not altruistic. In a potential future with Tokyo cleared, and Kia trying to carve out a piece for herself, an independent Miho would undoubtedly cause a massive clash, given their respective personalities. However a Miho that is part of the Serenes is behind the political curtain, allowing for more reasonable interaction.
Any and all research efforts should be redirected to figuring out the mechanics of the interdiction device and possibly requesting assistance from Hiko for the work, so that we can make a variant that affects Serena's aura similarly, allowing us to get her significantly closer before spooking demons, and handily solving a lot of her living space and combat issues.
You don't have any active research crew this month to redirect to the subject, but Mami does manage to ask Hiko about it during the time she's spent in Kyoto training.
Hiko is rather straightforward when you ask her about producing an artifact to block Serena's aura. She asks you a few questions about how large an area if covers, how it spreads when Serena moves, and if there's any empty or weaker spots in the range. She'd have to do some experimentation with Serena to make any firm statements on the subject, but based off the basic information you have available, the interdiction device is nothing like what you'd need. She won't tell you how the artifact works, but the methodology she uses to prevent teleports simply wouldn't work on what is likely a normal-space effect.
While it might be possible for her to come up with something that could handle it, and she does have some ideas on that front; it would take a degree of time and experimentation with Serena's aura that she's not willing to commit to. She's not really interested in experiencing emotion magic again.
Serena is too great a threat for the remaining demons to even consider going near her. All that's left to do at this point is to follow the fishing plan, with the variant that Serena must be out of range of the interdiction bait area until the demon has been successfully trapped and engaged, at which point she can move forward to affect it and, should the demon survive long enough, assist in killing it. When the demons get wise to the fishing technique and learn to avoid it, we will move on to Interference.
The first attempt of this set to catch one of the youma goes well, the bait team draws one in and Kyouko is able to relatively easily draw its attention and stall things out while the support team teleports in and the area is interdicted. The following battle was relatively simple with the youma's ability to teleport dodge crippled and it obviously wasn't prepared for that. It was a relatively safe kill even.
The second run is where things get much more dangerous. Once again the plan proceeds and a drawn in youma is engaged by Kyouko for the few seconds necessary for the support team to teleport in and the interdiction field to be engaged. Unfortunately, at that point the snake-like demon begins firing off what many describe as hyperbeam. Splintering shields with disturbing speed. The amount of grief generated in the barrier girls from stopping it almost makes them call for dispersing. Luckily Serena's aura envelops the area at that point and the simultaneous weakening of its attacks and strengthening of the girls gives them the heart to stand their ground, and the battle is victorious. Though it does leave your girls a bit worried about the next day.
Interestingly though, the next day your team's attempt at fishing doesn't really get anywhere at all. They spend hours trying to attract attention but the best they get is one teleporting in and out before Kyouko can even engage it, much less anyone else.
Interference will be a sustained effort where one third of our entire combat force (and Serena's team/Mami) will push into Tokyo proper and aggressively pursue class 3 demons while they attempt to hunt for food I.E. local girls, supplying as many girls and groups as possible with cell phones to improve our response times. Interdiction will be sustained for the duration of these trips, which will last [some convoluted combination of times and rotations to prevent Serena addiction]. If more than two demons or the class 4 demon with any additional demons attempts to attack us while we're in Tokyo, we retreat outside the city proper to an area we will negotiate with Nagoya as a kill-zone and begin gearing up to go back in again.
Switching over to your interference plan doesn't really improve things either. The description you get is like leaves trying to fight each other. You move on them, and the individuals move in response. Your team manages to catch out and destroy two of the non-teleporting ones just by running them down essentially, but largely wherever you go the youma just go around.
Your forces aren't willing to spread out much and the demons' abilities to apparently sense the numbers and strength of magical girls in the same way you can sense demons works against you. You can essentially ensure that a bubble around your combat team, or perhaps just Serena is clear, but they seem to have quickly taken to circling around you easily. You may be disrupting their hunting to some degree, but it's impossible for you to really determine.
Your mobility is especially hampered by maintaining the interdiction field, which not only prevents you teleporting yourselves, but combined with a hundred kilo battery is unwieldy to jump with even with enhanced strength. It's not so much the weight as the momentum difference and the impact upon the surface is far heavier than normal.
You try this for a few days, but interactions with locals has gone poorly. Perhaps they reject the foreign warband moving through the areas on a regular basis. Maybe your girls make the wrong choices in words or make light of their sacrifices. Or they simply react with anger to Serena's aura as many people did in her homeland. She's experienced with people reacting with anger as defense mechanism in order to avoid liking it too much. It's hard for you to guess since you weren't there and your reports are colored by personalities and the sheer tribalism you've instilled in your group.
Hours of running around at high speed on foot and by rooftop is exhausting, and maintaining combat readiness while doing it is as well, though it's not actually that magically intense. You gained 36 GCU from the four demons you killed. But you've lost around 14 GCU so far this month from the bunker shields, sustained tandem stealth, mass teleports, general drain effects. This month it's mostly from sustaining tandem stealth fields for hours at a time.
Risa also tsks at your girls for the rough handling of the battery when she charges it at night. It was entirely expected though. When it was handled nicely she simply placed her hands upon it to recharge it, drawing from a pouch of grief cubes she brought to do so, but now that it's being bounced around all over the place she's opened it up for repairs. From what your girls have observed the insides are actually an array of dozens of crystals. Though Keiko can already tell you that a quartz crystal by itself holds magic no more easily than anything else of similar thermal properties.
The rough handling appears to damage the connections or even break loose individual crystals entirely. Risa has said that Hiko gave orders to allow you to observe, but not to say anything about how it works or anything related. She fiddles around with the insides and uses her magic, but basic magical senses are not refined enough to tell anything beyond that magic is used. Occasionally she replaces crystals entirely from a small box of replacements she also brought along.
Sorry for total and complete failure to provide timely updates. Been extra depressed and/or distracted. If it wasn't for continual reminders I'd probably have abandoned completely. I do have the main update almost completely filled out though, just a couple bits mostly dependent on this.
Have a bunch of thoughts about how I need to adjust a couple things and clarify a couple things in an officially update post.
For instance the fears that they're way more intelligent that humans. I am pegging class 4 around 90 IQ, and somehow people panicked into superhuman towering intellect. Evolution for demons appears fast, but it's actually cribbing notes from human thoughts/dreams/consciousness and so it's not really that good at advancing mentally beyond human average because humans aren't good at thinking of something more intelligent than themselves. They can know more intelligent people exist, but they can't imagine what that's like very well. Whereas something like laser breath and acid spines they can imagine very easily. When they imagine an ultimate schemer if you examine the plans a lot of times those plans could have fallen apart at a dozen places.
As to magic use, please bear in mind originally you were going to be charged 26 for the heavy magic use last time around, but I failed at math and had it at 16 for so long I didn't want to disrupt people by changing it, so this isn't any more cost than the previous time was supposed to be. (Actually considering the change to how you used magic, this may have been a heavier magic use plan.)
[X] Expand the end-of-month planned hunting to include the extra days we have available. We can't make any coherent plans and practice them to be ready inside three days, and we'll need extra cubes to make up for the losses incurred taking out a few more Youma.
On the last week we spend 7 days doing a massive hunt in Hakone (Minamiashigara, Odawara, Hadano area = ~22 cubes) under the protection of the artifact (with Serena on guard to move to block any youma that attempt to enter Hakone area using non-teleportation). Serena is based on Mt. Hakone (different mountain) with teleport support to move her to block any attacking youma while dispatch team provides support.
Expected cubes from this: 18 vets (28 vets - the vets on the artifact, dispatch, or teleport teams) and 4 Elite pack hunting for 1/4 of a month produces 19.9 cubes.
+8 vets+1 elite recruit mid month
+9 vets temp
The first two days of the hunt proceed relatively without a hitch. Day three the youma seem to spend the whole day harassing your team and hardly anything gets done as you're constantly bouncing them back out with Serena with them never committing to an engagement, rather harassing you from beyond the interdiction's range and escaping when Serena arrives only to return when she leaves. The fourth day begins with a similar harassment but after Serena's team manages to inflict a few decent wounds they seem to have enough for a while.
The next three days pass without any Youma activity in the hunting area at all, which only serves to raise the tension slowly to a simmering pot of nerves. The lone Youma carrying out a short harassment campaign on the eighth day is almost a relief.
Unfortunately, the ninth day proves that relief only an illusion. Kyoclone is leading a group of vets in hunting. Sheer luck really, though it doesn't seem that at the time. Suddenly it's as if the sun turned off and took all the heat and life from the world at the same time. Tingling creeps along her spine and pure despair grips her heart for a moment, like every bad feeling she's ever had is gripping her heart, and this is not a normal Youma miasma. Worse still, she can't feel her other half anymore, there's a level of terror to that which she can't even explain.
Practically on reflex she triggers her teleport charm. The magic fizzles completely, the interdiction artifact still active. She turns and sees the six vets she was leading. Hamasaki and Yamakage from the Serene core, and four more from the people that joined this month. All of them collapsed to the ground in emotional collapse. Hamasaki is shaking but manages to disable the interdiction field, but it's too late now, there's no way you can risk it. A teleport couldn't possibly succeed now. "Use your cubes, now!" she barks, their Soul Gems darkening visibly.
The buildings begin blurring into rock tunnels at a rapid rate. She gets her first view of the Beholder in person. Yamakage tries to cast a barrier, but instead of a shining coherent bubble, it's more something made of gossamer. Two more Youma appear, some sort of mud monster and a grotesque cross between a flying praying mantis and a human.
She can't possibly fight them. Even buying time would be impossible. She shivers as the twisting change in reality races past her. Burning much of the magic that made up her entire body, she summoned a rather ramshackle wall of blades, far less efficient than a real barrier girl's, and not even as strong normally, but with the girls behind her near useless, it was the best she could do.
"Run!" she shouted as she began to do the same, grabbing the two girls most out of it to carry with her. She kind of wishes she were Mami with her ribbons, she could have dragged them all. The other three girls took the hint and started running as well, the fourth actually having already started running before Kyoclone had even turned around.
Sprinting in the opposite direction she glanced back to see the Beholder reduce much of her blade barrier to dust with a few shots from one of its eyestalks. It seemed like the mud monster and beholder were slow enough not to catch them if they kept running, the mantis was much faster though. They wouldn't be able to outrun it for long. She turned forward and kept sprinting away, to anywhere but here, but the warping environment keeps ahead of her.
A blue beam caught June square in the back, her whole body frozen in a single hit, the artifact still attached to her back. Kyoclone can't stop though, there's no way she could do anything for her now. The guilt at that thought is near crippling, magnified a dozen times. Kyouko, and by extension her clone, are used to guilt though, they lived it for a long time, she can handle it to survive. She keeps running.
She takes another glance back just in time to avoid a bladed arm slicing her in half. The blade gleaming with malevolent purpose as another takes its place a tenth of a second later. She resists the urge to drop her shivering cargo of lives, though the desperation shooting through her almost makes her do so.
She turns and tries to run away backwards, desperately parrying a few hits upon the flat of their blades with her feet alone. She kicks against the blows, trying to use their energy to give her an extra couple steps, another second to live. She dodges another blue ray from downfield. She tries to keep the mantis between her and the Beholder, denying it shots at her. Her legs shake, overstrained from being used as weapons directly like this, and her red boots begin sizzling ominously. She suppresses the sensations ruthlessly.
She can't win this fight, every parry she makes just lets the Beholder draw closer. She dodges a beam attack from it even as she manages to land an ultimately meaningless kick against the mantis' torso and gain a second. Yamakage manages another flimsy barrier across the tunnel they've found themselves in buying Kyoclone another second as it's smashed apart.
She tries to sprint away again, but as she makes a random juke black beam lashes out and hits the girl in her right arm, Yuka? Yuki? Yuna? Something like that. She can practically sense the blackness that corrodes the girl's being. The soul gem shatters and Kyoclone drops the lifeless body before it has a chance to even start dissolving. It lets her summon another spear though and manage to parry the next scythe attack perilously close to her body, the spear formed poorly and dented from the blow as she's lifted into the air and pushed back by it.
The depressive field eases suddenly and when the mantis closes on her again the next second her block is sounder; her limbs quiver less. Serena has arrived, it's going to be okay. The girl left in her arm rouses from her fugue, but at the exact wrong moment. Her surprise movements throw Kyoclone off the tiniest bit, she trips through a dodge. A broader black beam comes in from the beholder. She can't dodge.
The strike devours the bit of magic she had left. Her body dissolves into a few shimmers.
As Serena's team closes in from beyond the teleport limit her aura and the Beholder's clash, the boundary of reality and tunnels grows fuzzy. The remaining girls' steps are lightened and the time Kyoclone bought is enough for them to escape to safety with Serena. A few attacks is enough to discourage the mantis from attacking them alone, and the Beholder isn't fast enough to catch them as they withdraw. It declines to pursue when they escape its interdiction field and teleport away.
Observation of it afterwards shows it lingers for an hour or so before teleporting back to its usual location in the center of Tokyo. A squad teleports in with Serena afterwards and moves to see if the artifact is recoverable. There's no sign of any bodies as usual for magical girls, but find the calligraphy plate in an alley which looks perfectly normal. It's kind of disturbing how normal it seems when lives were lost right here.
The artifact looks physically undamaged, but the magical power which it was brimming with before is completely absent. It's just an ordinary feeling calligraphy piece.
After taking it to Risa, she admits that this is a level of catastrophic damage from which it's more like building a new one entirely than simple repair, though it's still easier to manage. Luckily for you Hiko did agree to essentially a warrantee on it for the duration of your efforts to clear Tokyo, and she replaces it with a new one when you bring it to her on your regular trip to Kyoto.
Lives lost: Hamasaki, June (Healer) One of Seto's girls
2 of those from Tokyo that agreed to help but not join (Clairvoyant and a healer)
1 Kyoclone (Feedback hit on Kyouko, requires an additional GCU this month)
GCU lost:
2.4, the three remaining girls surviving emotion draining aura several times stronger than normal for multiple rounds
3 lost because you standard issue 1 GCU per girl in Class 3 threat zones and these are lost with the girls carrying them.
1 lost because Kyoclone is charged heavily in advance since she can't use grief cubes normally.
1 lost from Kyouko recovery from backlash from losing Kyoclone
Total 7.4 GCU lost
Harvest: 45.3 GCU
New Demon strength in Minamiashigara, Odawara, Hadano area ~ -15
You will need to decide how much out of this you pay to the volunteer girls from Tokyo, there are 7 left. Original plan way back when was to give them each 2 GCU, but that may not apply anymore.
So considered a couple ways to write this. Was incredibly tempted to write in second person from Kyoclone's perspective, but decided that might have been a bit confusing to people because it would change from the top section to the middle section to the bottom section.
Was also soooo tempted to never say it was Kyoclone instead of Kyouko until after action report, just for sheer terror aspects. I decided that would be unnecessarily cruel though.
This was an enormous number of rolls. Each day had chance of interference, plus chance of Beholder appearing. You had a whole string of 90+ rolls on that. But then on the ninth day you rolled a Natural 1. Each time there was interference rolled for how many interfered, as well as how many would accompany the Beholder when it was rolled.
Response time of Serena was rolled for (keeping in mind round the clock shifts meant her response time could be longer, though you got really lucky on that roll with only a 4 round response time).
Success of evasion attempts each round was rolled, who died was rolled. Even the composition of the group in terms of whether it was your core girls or new recruits. Plus rolling on a d6 for if there was an elite. You had Kyouko, Kyoclone, Taya, and Miho assigned to this, and there were going to be 6 shifts. So this meant that there was an elite with 4 groups and no elites with 2. You got sooo lucky that it was Kyoclone.
With that the endless mini-turns are complete. Main update will be up next, probably in a day or two.
Though mostly it just takes me way more effort to put into dialogue form. Someone could make an omake of it like has been done for a couple previous scenes where I glossed over 
