To make people actually remember, here's it once for posterity: Minako is nonbinary and uses they/them. This message will be pinned so you people stop getting it wrong and pissing me off. If you get it wrong in the future I'm going to be much less nice, considering you have to scroll past it just to read the quest.
So, in terms of the fight, claw girl is on the ground in multiple pieces, grenade girl has a severed spine and is being carried like a sack of grain, handbow girl just got stabbed in the neck, zweihander girl is back in the fight after Mina bisected her like a huge badass, yoyo girl lost an arm to Sayaka and it hasn't been noted if she's healed it or not, and Mami is incoming...I think we can probably incapacitate these two before Mami shows up, especially if the yoyo girl can't heal herself. @TheOneMoiderah has she grown her arm back?
Not sure how to disable her if she can heal herself, unless she needs to use the yoyo. Maybe Sayaka could make a suit of armor and drop her gem in it so she can't manifest any weapons or something.
Not sure how to disable her if she can heal herself, unless she needs to use the yoyo. Maybe Sayaka could make a suit of armor and drop her gem in it so she can't manifest any weapons or something.
[X] Prioritize the Enemy Magi: this fight is almost over, just end it. (DIFFICULTY 2)
-[X] Continue taking prisoners, keep yourselves between the healer and her incapacitated companions and use that to bait her into overextending so you can disable her.
-[X] Once you've got room to breathe, go heal Tomo to get yourself some ranged support.
-[X] When Mami shows up, gang up on her and take her down, you can talk more when she's less able and willing to murder you.
[X] Prioritize the Enemy Magi: this fight is almost over, just end it. (DIFFICULTY 2)
-[X] Continue taking prisoners, keep yourselves between the healer and her incapacitated companions and use that to bait her into overextending so you can disable her.
-[X] Once you've got room to breathe, go heal Tomo to get yourself some ranged support.
-[X] When Mami shows up, gang up on her and take her down, you can talk more when she's less able and willing to murder you.
[X] Prioritize the Enemy Magi: this fight is almost over, just end it. (DIFFICULTY 2)
-[X] Continue taking prisoners, keep yourselves between the healer and her incapacitated companions and use that to bait her into overextending so you can disable her.
-[X] Once you've got room to breathe, go heal Tomo to get yourself some ranged support.
-[X] When Mami shows up, gang up on her and take her down, you can talk more when she's less able and willing to murder you.
[X] Prioritize the Enemy Magi: this fight is almost over, just end it. (DIFFICULTY 2)
-[X] Continue taking prisoners, keep yourselves between the healer and her incapacitated companions and use that to bait her into overextending so you can disable her.
-[X] Once you've got room to breathe, go heal Tomo to get yourself some ranged support.
-[X] When Mami shows up, gang up on her and take her down, you can talk more when she's less able and willing to murder you.
[X] Prioritize the Enemy Magi: this fight is almost over, just end it. (DIFFICULTY 2)
-[X] Continue taking prisoners, keep yourselves between the healer and her incapacitated companions and use that to bait her into overextending so you can disable her.
-[X] Once you've got room to breathe, go heal Tomo to get yourself some ranged support.
-[X] When Mami shows up, gang up on her and take her down, you can talk more when she's less able and willing to murder you.
[X] Prioritize the Enemy Magi: this fight is almost over, just end it. (DIFFICULTY 2)
You click your tongue, keeping your eyes trained on the yo-yo magi. "Nah, but I'm worried. I don't want her gone again."
"Neither of us do." Kyouko keeps herself by your side. 'Stay in front of the bodies.'
'Gotcha.' Minako keeps close to you, their bat is in their hands.
You stay close to the both of them, as the two magi in front of you try to circle around. The girl with the yo-yo keeps a close eye, the girl with the zweihander clenches her hands around the pommel with a vice-like grip. The both of them slowly encircle you, trying to spread themselves out.
Then the yo-yo girl swings. The razor-sharp wire wraps around your sword and clenches. It digs in deep, deep enough to cut a line in the blade and the back, but the momentum stops just a centimeter in. The girl keeps pulling, only for you to pull right back.
She flies face-first into the flat of your blade, as the zweihander girl comes towards Minako. She raises her blade up for a stab right to your child's neck, but they're faster.
Mina brings their bat up at the perfect angle to deflect. The blade grinds against metal, before they shove it all forwards. And Kyouko follows with a quick, five-pointed stab to her chest.
The spears all lodge themselves into the ground as the winged tips on the side clench the ground. She struggles against the weapons, desperately trying to break free as the healer lets go to make her escape.
Except you grab her by the foot. Her eyes go wide as you yank, and you keep the blade up as her neck goes directly in the path of your blade.
You don't even look as her body falls and the head bounces across the ground behind you. You know that she's not dead; decapitation alone never kills a magi. But you know exactly how painful it is.
You keep your eyes peeled, your blade over your shoulder and you quickly glance around. Kyouko nudges your shoulder, and quickly points.
"That's where?" you ask.
She nods, before she motions for Minako to follow you. "Yeah."
Your kid takes a second to comprehend it, before they blink and nod. "Yeah, gotcha."
It takes less than a minute to find Tomo's hiding spot, and as soon as you do, Kyouko snaps her fingers. The chains shatter, revealing her still with a piece of rebar in her face. Minako flinches, but you've seen worse. You've felt worse, even. You take a close look at Tomo.
"I-I thh-think I g-gogoot Phineas G-Gage'd." She smiles. "H-how bad d-does it look?"
"It looks awful."
"O-oh. T-tell me how you reaaaaaally feel." She laughs, but then she flinches because it makes the rebar bounce in her eye socket.
You carefully wrap your fingers, and slooooowly pull. Tomo grimaces, gritting her teeth tight together as you keep on pulling. As predicted, it pulls a little bit of brain out with it, and as it does you see her eye flicker between the bar, your face and then Minako. You keep the motion slow, gently peeling away whatever matter comes out back off the bar and dropping it back in. It's an unpleasant, horrible process, but thankfully the damage isn't quite as bad as it looked.
Oh, it's still bad, but from what you can tell, most of her memories are going to stay intact.
"Alright." You breathe in. You press your hand against the side of her head and over her eye, as you heal.
There's a flash of blue light, the sound of sliding violins and clashing drums and cymbals as the notes wrap around the wound in her head and close the wound. The brain inside knits itself, the eye seals itself, the debris inside is ejected and the skull fixes itself. When it's healed, Tomo takes a long, deep relaxed breath.
"Fuck me, I forgot what that was like."
"It's better than fishing out bullets." You nod. "That took me what, a minute? Two tops?"
Kyouko keeps watch over the girls in the distance, carefully taking stock of their soul gems. Every so often, you see her pulling out a grief seed and pressing it against their gems as they watch in confusion. Funny enough, Minako keeps their eyes far away from the both of you, their breath shuddering.
You quickly transform your gauntlet, shaking off blood and spare bits of bone, before you pat their shoulder and smile. "Hey, hey Mina."
"That...that was some shit, Mom. Th-that was some shit."
"Yeah. it was." You move close. "We still have one more magi on the loose, though." You take a look into the alleyway, then back to the sky. And you wonder when you'll see her. You take a step back, careful not to hug the wall as you round the corner into the alleyway. You turn back to Tomo.
"So, was it just the five, and Mami?"
"Wait...wait Mami?" Tomo looks up at you. "Is that a coincidence or...?"
"No, that ain't a coincidence."
Tomo stares up at you, before her nose wrinkles. "So...so that's related to what Yuki was talking about."
"Timelines, yes." You pull her up and take a look back down the alleyway. "Somehow, they can bring magi back from the..."
And at the end of the buildings, with a cannon raised at you, is Mami Tomoe, freshly landed. She slides her cannon across the ground, the legs barely touching the floor before they lock into place with the shattering of concrete. You take your left hand and shove Tomo out of the way, before you scream at Minako to move.
The cannon locks itself into place. The gun shimmers and gleams, as she pulls the ribbon.
Just as you begin your swing.
The halves of the shot zip by your face as your oversized blade slams into the concrete. One half slams into a bus, the other rips right through a mailbox, into a clothing store and out the storage room in the back. Your arms sting with the force of a cannonshot, as you slide the weapon off of the ground.
"You made me kill her!" Mami screams. Her hair is disheveled. Her eyes are wild. Her teeth are bared and bloody from where she has bitten her tongue, and she's pulled her broken hand out of the sling to slide it across the surface of the gun. You can tell because there's exposed bone sticking out of it. "You made me kill Kyouko!"
She fires again, and you deflect the shot with a swipe of your blade. This time one of the halves shoots under your feet as the top shoots through the sky towards the ocean, never to be seen again.
"Kyouko's not dead!" you shout, trying to ignore the pain building in your joints. "Mami, just listen-"
"You made me do it!" Mami screams, readying another shot. Tears well up in her eyes as she grips the ribbon. "Y-you made me a monster!"
Then there's a flash of orange. Her eye goes wide. She turns the cannon. It fires.
And the shot completely shatters against a gigantic stone fist.
The alleyway doesn't so much shake as shatter. The ground ripples, the building in front blown into debris and destroyed merchandise as the gun inverts into a scattershot of debris.
Mami is peppered with shrapnel. Her broken hand is turned to slag. Molten metal hits her neck and sprays against her skin as the pieces of the gun tear through her torso and rip off one of her legs and dents her armor. She flies backwards with a trail of smoke behind her, tumbling across the ground before finally coming to a bone-cracking stop against a dumpster.
Meanwhile, out of the crater, Akane slowly emerges. She keeps herself upright as she rises out of the crater. She cracks her neck, flexes her fingers and clenches her teeth. "Sayaka."
"A-Akane."
The woman grunts as she takes a quick look at Mami. She slowly walks over as the girl makes a pistol, raising it toward the soul gem on Akane's waist. Akane simply steps, and you hear Mami's cry from down the alleyway as her remaining hand is crushed.
"Sorry, but don't try. We'll come back for you after the control wears off." Akane steps back and turns toward you. "And you're usually more practical than this. Why the hell were you playing defensive?"
"What do you mean?" You ask. "I-I was doing fine!"
"No you weren't. You could have disabled that girl six ways from Sunday before she had a chance to pull that gun. Hell I've seen you disable girls faster than I just saw. What are you doing?"
You glance back to Mami, who's still rolling on the ground. You can hear her crying, hear her sob into her broken hand as Akane shakes her head. "I didn't want to just-"
"Akane." Tomo finally speaks, as she raises a hand. "That's...that's Mami."
"What do you mean, Mami? Mami's a common name. What do you..." She pauses as she finally notes your expression. She narrows her eyes, before they widen in surprise. "Wait that's...that's Tomoe?"
"Back from the dead, yeah." Kyouko takes a few steps forward, her weapons still out. You see Mami freeze at her appearance as she steps close.
"Oh...oh that explains so much." Akane mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose. "But that doesn't..."
"I thought we could get through to her, yeah." Kyouko mutters. "I just-"
"It didn't feel right to break her I'd imagine. I get it." Akane crosses her arms. "But I've seen the two of you disable hostile gangs before."
"Yeah, well, this was different." You grimace. "She came in with an axe to grind, calling me a tyrant and what, I couldn't just bring her down."
"No, again. I get it." Akane raises a hand. "I get it. I really do. I really, really do." She breathes out and you can feel the exhaustion from a meter away. "You know if I saw my friends I would...probably do exactly the same thing. Shit."
Finally, then, you see Mami move. She hops on one leg, before she quickly, immediately pulls a ribbon out. And before you say anything, she swings. "H-hey!"
Everyone turns as soon as Mami launches out of sight. But before you can start to move, a blur of purple is already well on their way past you.
Minako chases after Mami in the night. "Wait, Mina!"
"I'll get her back!" They shout. "Just...just wait, okay!"
Before you can tell them to come back, they're already gone into the night, all over again.
Even going all spider-man, Mami has what, one and a half functioning limbs at this point? She probably won't get too far, the question is if she's gonna witch out because she's been through the wringer emotionally.
Mina going after her is interesting because when we got Mina's POV they loathed Mami like, on sight. Maybe it's more that she's clearly important to their parents?
So Mami failed to capture Minako... so Minako, knowing this, decides to go haring off into the night after Mami, so that they can be captured? Are they doing this deliberately?
So Mami failed to capture Minako... so Minako, knowing this, decides to go haring off into the night after Mami, so that they can be captured? Are they doing this deliberately?
The reasoning is as follows: Minako is a dumb teenager who thinks they are immortal and has self-worth issues they are trying to alleviate by participation
Excluding them from participation has demonstrably negative effects, which we are shown in Chapter 1
Now that they can view their parents' mental landscape and see just how much seeing Mumi alive but under mental control hurts them, they decide to participate in the solution by, sigh, running after Mami
Into hostile territory
Fucking Kasamino
Ugh
End Chapter 2
Honestly, when I voted to call Homu I thought it would somehow help
It won't
I refuse to stick my hand in the beehive that is Sayaka/Homura relationship
They... "dislike each other" is probably an understatement
The problem isn't about power anyway
As Akane accurately said, we could've mopped the floor with the six Gucas, Mami or no Mami, and we did after a lot of lollygagging
The problem is of course the dreaded Social, SV's mortal enemy, that we cannot help but engage with
The reasoning is as follows: Minako is a dumb teenager who thinks they are immortal and has self-worth issues they are trying to alleviate by participation
Excluding them from participation has demonstrably negative effects, which we are shown in Chapter 1
Now that they can view their parents' mental landscape and see just how much seeing Mumi alive but under mental control hurts them, they decide to participate in the solution by, sigh, running after Mami
Into hostile territory
Fucking Kasamino
Ugh
End Chapter 2
