[3] Blow up / shoot the gun with magic
[2] Teleport bullets out or similar
[1] Hit the gangster with a stick
[1] Feed him to the familiar for Science™
[1] Call for ambulance
[2] NO DON'T
Ryouko is considering the best way to approach the problem. You are a little alarmed to note that her primary solution candidates include elaborate longitudinal and latitudinal sections, though at least she is considering the implications on stealth to be very detrimental.
"How about something a little less lethal?" you propose. "Disarm him. Shoot the gun, or cause a jam. Ideally without taking him out of time-stop, though."
Nanami frowns.
"What's wrong?" you ask.
"It's risky and it's indirect, and I'm not sure how we're not better off just dealing with the problem," she says.
You consider how to reply to that for a few moments.
"Nanami," you ask, "have you ever killed a man?"
Homura makes an eep noise.
"Have I ever — Of course not!!"
"Why are you so eager to start now?" you ask.
She seems perplexed at herself, and embarrassed. "I … uhh…"
"While it is less direct, I'd prefer if we all went home un-traumatized and without blood on our hands. I'm a little worried by everyone's sudden preference for violent solutions. I wonder if it might perhaps be tied to the familiar's presence here. I'm not confident that we're thinking straight."
Homura's eyes go wide. "They can do that?" she says, quietly. "I thought they just made people feel like… they want to…" She trails off, and looks down, and kicks at the ground, not saying any more.
Nanami squeezes her hand.
"Maybe some of them can," you propose. "If this one is helping drive people to violence, we should be extra careful. It could be more dangerous in this labyrinth than usual."
"Oh," says Ryouko, sounding quite interested.
For reference, you note to Ryouko, that includes this feeling right here that you can't wait to get started.
Oh, she replies, chastened but not much less eager.
Nanami looks at the shooter carefully.
"So if the main risk is that we take him out of time-stop for a moment and he notices something," she says, "why don't we find like a plastic bag or something in the trash and just put it over his head or in front of his face so he doesn't see? Then we can just snatch the gun away."
"Then we're involved with a gun that's been used in a police shooting," you object. "They can match up the ballistics. We'd be putting fingerprints on it."
"Oh," says Nanami, "that's no problem unless someone finds it, and Homura-chan can keep that from happening. Perfectly useable in a labyrinth. Even with time stop, she can't rely on me being there to lend her a railgun every time."
"Well, okay," you say. "You have a point; it's your magic, after all, and neither of us should be using it like it's not and taking it for granted. It just strikes me as a big risk for us to have this particular firearm."
Nanami gets a funny look on her face, like she's made a mistake, and quickly apologizes, or something like that. "No no," she says, "I mean, like, if Homura has the little railgun I can't lend it to you. We'd have more flexibility. Really, I'd be happy to lend it to you, just ask."
"Well." You consider. "Do you at least have somewhere safe to put it, Homura?"
"Uhh," she says, "I can … umm … Nanami, I need my hand back for a moment."
Nanami takes a hold of one of Homura's pigtails.
Homura pauses, momentarily embarrassed, then demonstrates, withdrawing a baseball bat from her shield.
"See?" says Nanami. "No way the police find it in there."
Ryouko nods. "I think I can manage teleporting just the gun," she says. "The aim is fine but I'm a little unsure about shooting up the barrel. If I'm too close it might explode in the time stop, and with the angle he's holding it there's not a lot of room for error."
A minute or zero later, your girl engages a rather elegant little teleportation, and the shooter flickers for just a fraction of a second, but Nanami is holding a collapsed cardboard box in front of his face.
"Excellent," says Nanami. "And nobody harmed."
You turn your head behind you to look over at Souta, skeptically.
"Further harmed!" Nanami exclaims. She seems mortified, and almost drops Homura's braid.
"I see," you say.
Ryouko hands you something as your head turns back.
Oh, the gun.
"Well then," you say, stepping over to Homura. "Against my better judgement, I guess this is for you."
Homura regards it with skepticism for a moment, then nods with determination.
"We should do a safety lecture later," you say. "The first rule of firearms is that you do not point the gun at anything you do not intend to destroy. Got it?"
"G-got it," she says.
"Second rule," you say, releasing the gun's magazine, "is that you store these two parts separately until we do the safety lecture and get you some training."
She nods, making a serious face and oh goddess it is just the cutest little moe thing ever, it's a little hard to take her seriously. And it's Akemi Homura. And you just gave her a gun safety lecture.
It'll be okay, you tell yourself. Breathe, Clarisse.
Is something wrong? asks Ryouko.
You relate your train of thought, but Ryouko isn't quite sure why it's funny.
Don't worry about it, you assure her.
Homura releases the time-stop.
Kyouko startles to see Nanami and Homura up on the roof beside her suddenly.
Wait a minute, she asks, weren't you two on the other side of the neighborhood?
I — I just stopped time, replies Homura. We walked over.
We took his gun, adds Ryouko.
Kyouko is baffled, but the unfolding scene below distracts her. The shooter trips over the partially-reassembled cardboard box which Nanami put in front of him, falling to the ground and reaching around with his right hand as if it's somehow just there out of reach. The policeman scrambles to his feet, and starts beating him down with a baton.
Ryouko is, in the moment, more upset at this than you would have expected. Some norm has been violated, some expectation of a social contract with everyone on the same side. It's somehow a little worse than the colony mission; they were at least another side. You tentatively update your model weights, and make a note to follow up when you have the chance.
The officer's continued bashing is also a little bit gratuitous.
He stops, eventually, handcuffs the offender, then stands, walking over to Souta. He looks down at the form on the ground, pulls out his gun, and…
hesitates, lowering it again.
It looks like Souta's unconscious, though probably more so from pain intolerance than the seriousness of his injuries. The hospital should be able to fix something like that in no time.
Well, no, the 25th century hospital would do it in no time. The twenty-first century hospital is … probably still going to save him, but, not nearly as well. You readjust your expectations. In this world, non-fatal injuries don't just get healed away as if they never happened. That's something to keep in mind.
The officer sort of just kicks him, half-heartedly, and swears to himself under his breath. He seems at a bit of a loss as to what to do.
Well, says Kyouko, turning her attention to other concerns, at least we got a witch out of it.
Ryouko focuses her attention away from the physical world to the magical. Yes. Something is different about the feel of the magic, not simply strength, but its quality, resonant as if with different overtones. There was definitely something that the witch this morning had that this familiar doesn't. Actually, there's something extra now, as well, and Ryouko is trying to understand it.
I'm not actually that involved with hunting back home, says Ryouko, so I've never actually been there when a labyrinth opens… She pauses a moment to phrase the rest.
— What? How in hell did you mange that? asks Kyouko.
… Never mind that, she says. Is it just me or is this one a little funny somehow? It doesn't quite feel right.
Kyouko frowns.
Maybe, she allows. Guess we should check it out, hmmmm?
She leaps off the other side of the roof to make this happen. The entrance to the labyrinth is easy to find.
Ryouko studies the feel of the opening labyrinth ahead of her. It reminds her of something inexact and hard to place. As the gears in her head metaphorically turn, she realizes that part of it is about the shape of the space, twisting as the labyrinth forms a distortion in space. A curved space that wraps around on itself. In a way, it's a lot like her wormholes, but inside out. Or maybe the wormholes are inside out and the labyrinths are outside in? Regardless, it's more an intuitive feeling than a rigorous topological description, really. Also, that doesn't seem like it's all of that.
Yeah, it smells real weird, calls Kyouko, but it looks like a pretty normal labyrinth inside. You lot want to come take it down?
You take a look down at the ground again. The policeman still hasn't done anything to call for emergency services.
Is he going to go do anything, demands Nanami, or is he just going to stand around while people are bleeding?
coobie you know what time it is??
> maze time, home of the brave
Who's doing what?
[] Enter the labyrinth with the others, trusting the cop to do the right thing
[] Quickly call an ambulance, then join them
[] Leave someone outside to keep an eye on things, while the others fight
- [] Stay outside yourself
[] Wait until the cop is distracted, then have Ryouko take Souta to the hospital
[] Knock out the cop, and apply first aid
[] (write in?)
Any tactical advice for people entering the labyrinth?
[] (write in tactical doctrine for five)
[] shoot all the familiars
[] spare all the familiars
