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.
[X] Mami - Probably easier? And it'll give you an idea of her powers and limits. (DIFFICULTY 2 - She's an unknown, probably about as tough as Takane is, but several times more ruthless. Also, she's not your girlfriend.)
Definitely remembering why Mami is my fave. I loved the diner scene, Moid.
Alright that's way too fucking unstable an image for someone mentally adjusted, so either Minako's creates metaphors in their head to dramatize the things they see or Hiro is about to snap like a twig.
Depends on how much of what Minako sees is current emotional state versus long term emotional turmoil. Hiro has just learned that magic is real and one of his best friends is a magi. I think most people would be confused and somewhat overwhelmed by that.
[X] Mami - Probably easier? And it'll give you an idea of her powers and limits. (DIFFICULTY 2 - She's an unknown, probably about as tough as Takane is, but several times more ruthless. Also, she's not your girlfriend.)
the old restaurant that used to be here actually went bankrupt because of it, and it's since been bought out by a restaurant that has way better money sense (but no better taste)
Decision made. You nod in her direction as she props herself onto her legs and stands up straight. You take a step ahead. "I think I'll take on Mami."
Almost in response, the girl snaps her fingers. Her boots form, then her hat, then her breastplate and her gauntlets and her cuisses. She nods once at you. "I had wanted to speak to you earlier, Minako."
"Heh." You raise your hand over your head. A bat drops down,which you sweep across your body. Your outfit materializes over your body, school uniform and hoodie turning into, well, a far fancier uniform and an intricate-looking hoodie. Two eyes open wide on your chest, your bat swinging over your shoulder as you take a few steps towards Mami.
"Well, there's no reason why we can't just talk here."
Mami nods. "Agreed. Then why don't-"
She whips a flintlock pistol up and fires before she's done talking.
You block the shot with your bat with enough force to send pebbles flying and bits of metal tinkering against the ground. The swing sends a cloud of dust into the air before you whip it over your head and stretch.
The tip of the whip-bat screams across the ground, scraping against it as she simply raises a foot and stomps. The momentum carries a wayward blade just close enough to her boot to scuff it before she grabs the razor-wire with her gloved hands and pulls.
You've already learned your lesson, and you let it go. Your bat bounces across the ground in segments as you immediately make a new one. Mami counters by bringing a shotgun right up towards you. Instead, you bring the bat down, one hand on the end, the other on the handle, and smack it upwards. She fires, and the recoil knocks the gun down out of her hand.
You try to shove the bat forwards, and she instead wraps a ribbon around it and twists the both of you around. Momentum carries you into the ground with enough force to rattle the dirt.
"So-!" Mami clenches her teeth. "How did you know?"
"How did I know about-" You flip yourself over by yanking the ribbon and the bat sideways. The force is surprising; instead of just rolling across the ground, what happens is that the both of you are ripped sideways, tearing up the earth and sending dust flying in every direction. You're immediately on top of her, pressing against her as the both of you come to a stop.
"How did I know about what?"
"About you!"
"About my what?"
Mami rolls her eyes, letting go of the ribbons. You lurch forwards and she brings a pistol right to your chest. You slap the gun out of the way, rolling backwards as she shouts.
"About your gayness!"
"About my fucking what now?!" She fires at your feet. You jump in surprise, landing with a pirouette in the other direction before she can fire again. "What are you talking about?!"
"When'd you know you were nonbinary!"
"I don't fucking know? Since always?!" Another shot at your feet, and you spawn a bat out of your heel and kick it in her direction.
She bats (heh) it out of the air and drops two rifles out of her cape before firing one right after the other. "I'm just curious!"
"There's not a lot to tell!" You swipe another several shots out of the air. Finally, you spin the bat over your head and the head balloons into a gigantic metal umbrella. You slam it into the ground in front of you. You can't see shit past this.
"I thought it would be enlightening! Maybe help me figure things out!" The gunfire stops. You take a glancing look out the side, then the other.
You plant your feet. You're not moving yet; you really don't want to lose this footing. "I can't help you figure out gender identity and shit like that! That's up to you!"
"That's not really why I'm asking. I already know I'm a girl!" She's still on the other side of the umbrella. She probably knows you could just turn to face her. "I'm asking because I think you could help me figure out-"
"If you like girls?!"
"Maybe?!" There's still dead silence on the other end. You wonder if she's given up. You peek open two of the panels in the metal umbrella.
And you're faced with a gigantic cannon.
You immediately let go of the bat as Mami fires a Tiro Finale right over your head. The entire umbrella flies into pieces, sending shrapnel spiraling backwards in all kinds of directions. Immediately, a number of spears jut out from the floor as your mama and a number of newly-made clones dash across the area, catching any wayward shots before they have a chance to fly off and hit a wayward house.
Mami winces at the debris. "Apologies!" she shouts over the din before turning the gun towards you.
Except you already moved. In the split second of her distraction, you decided to play a little dirty. You kept your body low to the ground, legs dashing across dirt, feet crashing against the ground as you make sure to catch her off-guard.
And then the tip of your bat slams into her breastplate. The ground ruptures under the force, the air howling and the wind screaming as Mami is lifted off of her feet and sent stumbling backwards.
"Hah!" You clap your hands. "That's the first fuckin' spar I won!"
Mami sighs. "That...that was dirty."
"But it wasn't illegal. Sparring is meant to give an idea of how a magi will fight." Akane shrugs. "Like, that was downright filthy, but it works to give an idea of how fighting a magi will go down. Albeit with, say, less actual bodily injury."
Mami shrug. "Effective, perhaps. That was still dirty."
You stick your tongue out. "Hey, come on. It was a legit win. Can't expect others to play fair."
Mami narrows her eyes at you.
You just shrug. "Oh, and also, if you want we can talk later. You know, about queerness n' stuff."
"O-oh?" Mami blinks.
"Yeah. Like, tomorrow. Oh! We can get Tatsuya in on it too."
"Oh, my landlord?"
"Yeah! He helped me figure some of that stuff out, too!" You beam at her. "I mean, it's not exactly super easy but he can help you out with that!"
"I...alright. That would be...that would be a nice start, actually."
You nod at her a few more times before you move off to the sidelines to watch the other sparring matches.
Next up is your girlfriend and Akane, as you jump up the hill to where Reika and Hiro are watching. Reika, who is wide-eyed and staring in absolute shock, and Hiro, who looks more or less catatonic.
"I-I had a mental image of how that was supposed to go after seeing Takane but...that wasn't it?"
You shrug. "That's kind of just how it goes sometimes."
Reika leans back against the grass. She stares up at the clouds passing overhead. "That...mm. Have you actually fought a magi before?"
"Yeah. Last week." You scratch the back of your head. "It was...messy. It gets real messy."
On the ground, Takane doesn't bother going for an initial strike. Instead, she slowly walks around Akane, her shotgun gauntlets out. She's waiting for Akane to snap, to punch, to do anything.
"Like...Nanoha violent?"
"What?" You blink. "Wait, no. I mean Souls of Thunder."
"But that's a Seinen fantasy...ohhh...oh." The thoughts click in her head. "Oh no. Oh no."
"It's...rough. It takes a lot to kill a magi, though, so nobody died. And my mom can heal them, but it was..." you say with a grimace, "...I didn't know having a leg chopped off would hurt that much."
Reika stares at you with quiet shock. She looks between you and Hiro, who seems to be finally coming back to reality.
"O-kAY!" He claps his hands. "S-so either I'm hallucinating, everyone's in on a really good joke, or that...you're a magical enby!"
You shrug. "I mean, kinda? We just use 'magi' as a catch-all kinda dealio."
"That was...that was a lot! Is it just-"
There's a loud boom. All three of you glance down to see Akane with her fist planted in the center of a smoldering crater, Takane dancing around the edge and propping up shields. She punches one, sending it right towards the seemingly implacable woman, before she simply brings her fist to the side. The shield-shot shatters into a million tiny pieces, and the debris from that shatters the other two shields.
All the while, Takane loads up some explosive rounds and fires them all. The shots embed themselves around Akane, who simply jumps before Takane has time to snap. But to her credit, Takane saw this coming. She fires herself into the sky with a pair of shotgun rocket shots and brings a dropkick right into Akane's chest.
The woman flies backwards at the impact, landing right in the collapsed concrete building to the rear of the training grounds. You pump your fist into the air and holler.
"Holy fucking shit, Taka, that was awesome!"
Your girlfriend laughs and waves right back. "I-I can't believe I frickin' did it!"
"Yes, you fucking did!" You clap your hands. "WOO!"
On the ground, Akane pulls herself out of the crater, seemingly none the worse for wear, before she simply raises a gauntlet to shake Takane's hand.
You sit back down to look back at Hiro. "Oh, uh, yeah, I bet it was."
"It...this is surreal. And your parents are that, too?!"
"Yeah." You grin. "They're...yeah, they're magi, too."
[=]
Your name is Sayaka, and right now you're about to spar your wife in the middle of the training grounds. You and Kyouko take a few steps to the center of the field as everyone around the two of you keep careful watch.
Your wife shrugs. "So...any thoughts you wanna get out, Saya?"
"Heh." You grin. "Of course. I mean, thought one, you're hot."
"Oh, stop." Your wife waves a hand. "That was mine. You don't get to steal thoughts."
[] Keep the dialogue breezy and light. This is as much a hobby as it is training.
[] Talk about future plans; you already discussed Group C's foray into Mitakihara, maybe you should consider sending one of you in.
[] Minako's taking to being a magi pretty decently. And honestly that's worrying as fuck.
[] Mami's back and you still don't know what to think about that.
[X] Keep the dialogue breezy and light. This is as much a hobby as it is training.
-[X] Steal all of Kyouko's thoughts.
--[X] ...
---[X] Kyouko! Don't say that in front of the kids!
No need for serious face talk when this is about teaching the kids and one of the most important lessons is to teach kids that learning is fun.
Minako: Mom no!
Minako: Edutainment always sucks!
Minako:Also, stop being gross!
Mami:*realization that Kyouko is a parent and thus responsible for another human intensifies*
It is vitally important as adults that we shame our child in front of they're friends and make being a Magi look like spending time with their mom is what I'm saying here.
I was curious what our odds of beating Mami were. So I did the math. Actually. Considering our final result was an 11, and we just barely won, I was able to derive the assumption that a result of 11 or higher on 1d20-2d6 was a win, a result of 10 would be a tie, and a result of 9 or lower would be a loss.
Through some math, I found that Mami's odds of winning based on this assumption was just a hair below 80%.
This is not including the chance of a tie, which I found to be about a hair below 5%.
That leaves the odds of our success, which shakes down to just right above 15%.
Mami, you scary.
Oh, and a vote.
[X] Keep the dialogue breezy and light. This is as much a hobby as it is training.
-[X] Steal all of Kyouko's thoughts.
--[X] ...
---[X] Kyouko! Don't say that in front of the kids!
[X] Keep the dialogue breezy and light. This is as much a hobby as it is training.
-[X] Steal all of Kyouko's thoughts.
--[X] ...
---[X] Kyouko! Don't say that in front of the kids!
Yes, this sounds like something Sayaka would say during a spar.
Sakakwest 1 spars were a doozy.
[X] Keep the dialogue breezy and light. This is as much a hobby as it is training.
-[X] Steal all of Kyouko's thoughts.
--[X] ...
---[X] Kyouko! Don't say that in front of the kids!
[X] Keep the dialogue breezy and light. This is as much a hobby as it is training.
-[X] Steal all of Kyouko's thoughts.
--[X] ...
---[X] Kyouko! Don't say that in front of the kids!
[X] Keep the dialogue breezy and light. This is as much a hobby as it is training.
You and your wife circle around each other, a grin on your face and that sly, sexy smirk on hers. It's funny, because that alone is like a gleaming reminder of why you married her. That confidence, that smile, the way she keeps her chest forward, back straight, hands in the pockets of her coat.
Your own stance matches her, your pelvis forward, teeth bared in a broad grin as you both slowly circle one another.
"Oh, I'll steal all the thoughts I wa-" You gasp. "Oh, Koko not in front of the kids!"
She laughs as you hear a loud groan from the hillside, a little bit of snickering from Akane, and an embarrassed "EEP" from Mami.
"Shit, Saya. Where've you been keeping that sense of humor?"
You roll your shoulders, bring your hands up beside your head, and sweep. Two blades form in your hands, the handles wrapping around your fingers as you cross them over your head. The entire armor forms underneath your neck, starting with the gorge and continuing to the breastplate all the way to your sabatons.
"Why don't you find out?"
Across from you, Kyouko presses her hand against her face. She taps her forehead, then punches her chest. Her breastplate explodes out her back before it clacks into place over her chest. Her gorget forms over her shoulders before the metal slides into its standard configuration behind her. She yanks the polearm out of her palm, starting with the staff and ending with a razor-thin blade that explodes into its full width with a quick twist of her wrist.
You haven't sparred in about a month. You clash together, her polearm against two of your swords, and you wonder why. Her strike is an underhand swing, which you block with one of your swords and a sideways sweep. And just as she does that, a second polearm shoots out of her chest, held by two new clone-arms. You block that with your right hand sword.
Your blades slide across the poles, grinding across them before she lets go of one of her spears and and leaps into the air. You whip one of your blades out, the chains jingling across the ground before you swing upwards and right towards her.
She blocks it with her off-hand before the spear in it segments off. She wraps it around your whip-chain and pulls with a midair spin.
You let it carry you up towards her, bringing a new blade into existence before you yank sideways. A sword turns into a kite shield, and you raise it in front of you as the momentum carries you soaring upwards into her.
She kicks your shield; you can tell because you can feel her full weight, the force of two feet hitting it at two different times. She bends down, wraps the fingers of her left hand around the edge of the sword, and tears it down. The shield is pulled downwards, the base hitting your shin with a CLANG as she raises her fist and aims a spear at your heart.
You narrowly dodge the attack, glancing it off with a quick shove from your gauntlet as you bring the shield over your head. You pull a brand-new sword out of the air and slash, only for her to catch it with a brand-new billhook, which wraps around your blade as a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth hand all wrap around your shield.
You let it go, but not before tearing the center of your shield out. Kyouko throws it away just as you pull the trigger.
There's an explosion of blue light and smoke and debris. Bits of material rain down onto the ground and batter Kyouko's armor. She throws a spear right towards you, before ten hands all reel out a single gigantic line of chain. The initial strike misses you, but the point wasn't to actually hit you.
And you only realize that when it's wrapped around your ankle. The chain tightens around your heel as Kyouko pulls. You spin and spin and spin, the wind whipping your hair around your head as the air screams. But you knew that was going to happen; you pull out two new swords mid-swing, slamming them together to form a gigantic slab of steel.
Your back hits the ground hard, hard enough to crater it, hard enough to cause an explosion of dust and smoke. Anyone else would think that the fight was over.
But your wife knows better. A spear hits your five-centimeter-thick shield with enough force for the tip to burst through, after which two, then three all dive into the same spot. You duck quick as the force finally penetrates, the spears slamming into the ground just above where your head was before you slam a fourth sword into your broken tower shield.
The thing folds, promptly turning into a gigantic blade. Kyouko's eyes widen as you pull it overhead. She sliiiiides herself off to the side, three spears all acting as a barrier between her and this new surprise weapon.
She rolls across the ground before promptly jumping right back to her feet. "WELL, that's new!"
"Heh." You wipe your mouth. "Wanted to get a new surprise out there, just for you."
"Aw, you're sweet." Kyouko waves her spear around. "Is that like payback for the multi-arm trick?"
"Maybe." You heft the oversized sword over your shoulder, raise it behind your head.
She responds by bringing her spears behind her back and promptly pulling out a spear that's half blade, half staff, easily as thick as her torso and just as long. Three hands hold onto the base of the weapon, two hold onto the head, and the three remaining hands hang around, wide-open, ready to assist or block.
And then you clash. Your blades slam into each other with a thunderous crash, each strike enough to send dust clouds flying and debris spraying into the air. The occasional miss tears whole chunks out of the ground.
Finally, though, you find an opening. You bring the sword up, both hands ready, and press into her spear. It slams against her chest, and then your face reaches hers. Your faces are an inch apart as you reach right around her neck, just past her spears and your sword, and you tap your fingers against her back.
"I win."
She stares past you, then sighs. "Yeah, I guess you do." She taps the back of your neck with two of her hands, brings another two to your face. "Nice job, Saya."
"Same, K-"
You're cut off by her lips against yours.
You break apart after a second, then you pull her in and press your forehead against hers, clutching at her face with a broad, broad grin.
You giggle. "You're so sweet!"
"Fuck yeah I am." Kyouko relaxes and lets the spear dissolve. Your own greatsword vanishes too as Akane waves her hand.
"Alright, show's over."
Mami keeps observing the two of you, awkwardly looking around as she watches the both of you walk right back. She coughs into her fist, and you look back to the hill to see your child still averting their eyes. Next to them, Takane quickly gives them a kiss on the cheek as Hiro and Reika both laugh and laugh.
"Well..." You sigh. "...I figured it would be a nice sendoff before you went on patrol again. Come back safe, alright?"
"Yeah, I will." Kyouko punches your shoulder. "Don't worry, Saya."
You smile before giving her one last kiss on the cheek. It's then, of course, that Mami coughs into her fist. The both of you turn to look as she traces a foot across the ground.
"Kyouko!" she shouts.
You both turn to face her.
"About...about the other day." She scratches the back of her head. "What...what does it mean to 'bottom'?"
[=]
Your name is Kyouko Sakura and your face is as red as your hair as you jump towards the bridge. You left as soon as Mami started asking, before you could give an actual answer. That is, of course, under the assumption that you can escape peoples' thoughts.
'Kyouko what the f-!' Aaaaaaaaaand you're not gonna message your wife over thoughts right now. You hear a buzzing in your phone, aaaaaaaand you're not gonna pick that up either.
The last thing you need before possible combat is more embarrassment. You jump and hop and skip a few times to the edge of town, towards the bridge between Kasamino and Mitakihara, before you skid to a halt on top of the district water tower. The added momentum of your armor spins you around the top of the pole as you finally come to a stop.
You hold onto the tip, three hands wrapped around the top as you hang over the edge.
You take a breath. "Shiiiiiiiitshitshit god that was bad." You giggle to yourself. "God that was such a bad fuckin' thing to mention." You rub your temples with a left and right hand,as you keep your eyes glued to the bridge ahead.
You take a deep, deep breath. You suspect it'll be a quiet night this time; Lady Rin has been biding her time. But complacency is just as dangerous as, say, mentioning that your wife bottoms in the heat of combat.
You take a long, long deep breath...then you spot something interesting. Rather than on the bridge, there appears to be a boat. More specifically, there is a motorboat with a thin red canopy crossing across the bay. You can only tell because of the white sheen against a dark bay, and you can see figures atop it.
It's not playing around in the water...and more suspiciously, there is hardly a reason for anyone to play around in a boat in the middle of autumn.
You should probably investigate this...
[] Alone. (DIFFICULTY ???)
[] Call for backup; you suspect an attack. (DIFFICULTY ???)
[X] Call for backup; you suspect an attack. (DIFFICULTY ???)
We are not risking Kyoko on a very-probably-very-obviously-enemy boat. At the very least, we're making sure everyone's aware of what's going on and what we're doing.
You can if you're fast enough Saya. If you run all the way around the world in the wrong direction, you'll end up at yesterday and you can stop Mami before she asks. Superman told me so.
[X] Call for backup; you suspect an attack. (DIFFICULTY ???)
