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] Compliment her hairstyle...and don't actually discuss anything difficult. She doesn't need it right now.
It takes a second for the realization to hit you that Mami Tomoe is no longer wearing her hair drills. In all the time that you knew her, she never let them slip. Oh, you've seen her with her hair down, but outside, she never, ever once let those drills slip. She kept them up, kept up appearances, used her magic to curl her hair perfectly in the mirror.
But here? She's beaming. She gives you a bright, powerful smile, and you can almost ignore how tired her eyes are, the subtle bags underneath speaking of the sleepless nights that you know she's had. You put your hand on your shoulder. "You look good, kid."
She looks up at you for a second. Comprehension passes her face, then she looks right back down. A second ticks by and you have just enough time to think you fucked up before she turns back up to face you. "You think so?"
"I know so. Like, shit, look at my hair." You run a hand through your mane and throw. Your hair splays out around your head, wreathing your face in a massive flash of red.
Mami looks like her heart stopped for a second, then her face turns about as red as your hair. She looks away from you, running her finger around her curl. "That...that looks really pretty...yes..."
You realize that you just showed off to a grieving child that's still crushing on a different version of you. You cough into your fist. "Well, uh, I mean, if I can pull it off, you sure as hell can, too."
She nods, despite trying to keep her eyes off of you and on the ceiling. You don't quite know if it's because she's afraid of thinking of that younger version of you again or if she doesn't want to make this uncomfortable.
This is going to take a while to sort out. "Well, let's think of it like this. I'm in my thirties, with a bad smoking habit and a popped-out kid. And this hairstyle works on me. You're fourteen and you've got a whole lotta life ahead of you. I think it works real well on you."
"I mean...I still think you're pretty." She shrugs, her blush deepening.
You sigh. "I'm thirty-five."
"I...right. Yes." She shakes her head. "Yes. That's right."
You sigh even harder. "Okay, let's go out for the town. Maybe get some clothes sorted out. Your look's still good, but we can add to it. Hell, maybe we can go training for a bit afterwards. How's that sound?"
She's pensive when she looks up towards you, still processing what to say, before simply nodding once.
You smile back. "Good. Now let's find you a new skirt. Maybe some extra pants. Those khakis are nice but that skirt is fuckin tragic."
[=]
Your name is Minako. And you are resting on your girlfriend's arm. It's been a little too long since you were last able to do this and you're glad you found time to end the drought, just resting against her as you both watch something on the TV. You take a breath and sigh.
She runs her hand across your hair.
"Hey."
You peek up to her. "Hm?"
"Do you...hm." She shakes her head.
"What is it, Takane?"
She puts her chin on top of your head. "Nothing, Mina."
You nuzzle in a little bit closer. "You sure? Doesn't seem like nothing."
Your mind works before you can tell it not to, and of course, you get a glimpse of Takane's feelings. The grassy plains in her head are flooded, and the water is beginning to choke the scaffold. It wobbles and bends, the water sloshing around as the skies turn grey and the air turns cold. You grimace.
She frowns. "I'm sorry, Minako. I'm just...whelmed. Overwhelmed? Overwhelmed."
"You can talk about it, y'know?" You pull your arm around her waist. "It's what I'm here for."
"I don't...want to? I don't feel comfortable about it."
"Is it about the Glow?"
"How'd you know?"
"I guessed."
She blinks, then she laughs softly. "Ah, like how you guessed my weapon. That feels so long ago."
"It kinda was. A month's a long time. Longer when you have a nonstop trial-by-fire."
"I also feel a little...responsible. I came just before the Glow came and it...it's irrational." Takane doesn't take her eyes off the screen. "It's irrational and foolish of me. But I can't help but feel like it was my fault somehow, like I attracted Rin to the city."
"There's no way that's the case."
"You're right. But I can't help but feel that way." She scratches her neck nervously. "I just...I feel as though there's no way out again."
"Do you mean your power?"
"Perhaps?" She breathes out. "I just...I'm terrified. I'm scared of losing this. I'm scared of losing you. I'm just scared."
"Oh it's scary as fuck." You sigh. "But...I don't think-"
As though to prove you wrong, there's a thud from outside the house. It's thunderous, as though a freight train crashed just outside of Takane's home. Her father jumps at the noise, his husband pulling around the corner.
"The hell was that?" he asks, beard covered in seasoning and apron splattered with olive oil. "I almost burned myself!"
You shoot up out of Takane's lap. Before anyone can stop you, you already have a bat in your hand and a mask over your face.
"Mina!" Takane shouts behind you as her dads stare in quiet shock. She follows you outside as you pull open the door hard.
The street is pitch-black in the night, orange streetlights flickering in the evening as a car alarm blares. A quick scan of the street shows a cracked sidewalk, a ruined mailbox (that looks like the Hiruma family mailbox, judging by the letters on the ground), and an overturned car. The blinkers flash on and off, the light bathing you in a hideous red glow.
You drag your bat across the ground as you circle the car. Half of it is melted, the metal still white-hot. You can feel the heat from over here; it's absolutely scalding. You turn your gaze to the right.
In front of you there is the crater; whatever landed came here from across the bay. Smoke and ash and soot and flame rises from the crater, a sphere of fire rippling across the ground before it pulses, dislodging dust and causing the air to fuzz with heat haze.
You keep your balance;l the mask keeps the worst of it from entering your mouth as you cover your eyes with a spare hand.
You have a bad feeling about this.
[] Approach the fire. [DIFFICULTY 1; It's genuinely uncomfortable to get close to]
[] Stay put. [DIFFICULTY 1: Also not great; it's still really uncomfortable to be near]
[] Shout. [ACCURACY 1: You're crying into the flame to see who's there. You're not sure this is a good idea to do]
Judging by this graph, the fire would be between 1100 and 1200 degrees Celsius, if it's mundane. Definitely not something you want to get close to, and that's before you take magic into account.
The smoke is noxious, but you still manage to raise your head. "Hey!" you shout. A quick scan with your mind. and you can tell there's a presence in the smoke. And the feeling you get...
The feeling you get is flame, flame down to the bone. A figure of blackened smoke, myriad blood-red eyes gleaming through the flames as a building collapses around it. Wood catches fire, the air turns toxic, and the world around them blazes with heat intense enough to melt asphalt. The overturned car begins to melt; flame licks the side door as the figure begins to walk out of the crater.
"A magi's soul is torn from their body, and they experience a second birth. Elevated above the petty conflicts of man, we are forced to seek food and shelter of an entirely different kind, cannibalizing our fallen for the sake of subsistence. What is our lot in life? To devour our lessers, to mock the weak and fallen, and to simply languish until we eventually join them?"
She steps through the flames. Her wide-brim hat burns, her red scarf flails through the air, and her coat flaps in the wind. Flames roar from her back. She spits once, and the saliva bursts into a pop of heated gas. Her left hand holds a soul gem shaped like a pocketwatch that hangs from a chain attached to her belt. Her right, a six-shot revolver.
"Perhaps you believe that to be true. But I know a better way." She looks you down, towering above you. "And let me speak plainly." She's a grown woman, looking about as old as both of your mothers as she spins the cylinder of her revolver. "You stand in the way of that, young one." She raises her gun. "If you tell anyone that I'm here, then I'll gun you down where you stand."
You take a step backwards and clench your fist. You still have three witches that you fought recently, and you managed to grab the energies of them all.
"You can try," you say before you can stop yourself. Takane's already off to the side. She freezes before she crosses past, and keeps herself around the corner, just out of view of the woman. You nod to her. 'Call my moms. Get them here ASAP.'
"Hm." You can see her finger twitch. You spread your feet, your oswn hand twitching as she lets out a long, loud sigh. "You're a tenacious young girl."
"I ain't a girl."
"Apologies," she says, and it's sincere. You can tell because she's quick to apologize. "You're a tenacious one."
"Got it from my moms." You wipe your nose and take a step to the right. "And if you want us to fight, then why don't we keep it away from here. My girlfriend's dads live here."
"Or we can end it right here, kid."
"Hah. That ain't fucking likely." Your fingers are twitching, and you're not sure if it's the fact that you're ready for a fight or the fact that you're terrified. You can feel your heart sink to your stomach as you keep your eyes locked on this grown adult.
You swallow hard, but as you rotate, you see Takane transforming in a quick, quiet flash. "Not fucking likely."
"Too bad." In a flash of gunmetal, you see her fire six times. The ground turns to molten rock and the air ripples with heat as six lines of flame flash by your face.
In the same millisecond your bat is already in front of your face, and six shots of blistering red rock explode into a spray of sparks and flame. The tip of your bat arcs over your head, slamming hard into the ground behind you before you whip it around your body in a yet-larger arc. A cloud of dust erupts around your feet as the bat segments with the sound of jangling chains and whizzing razor wire.
The magi in front of you jumps over your swing. The tip of your bat slams into a nearby wall, the buzzsaw at the tip whirring and squealing as it tries to chew at the brick. She instead jumps backwards again, fanning the hammer and firing six more shots.
They're blocked by a ripple of razor wire, and Takane charges past you to fire a salvo of explosive rounds with her gauntlets.
The girl only has a narrow time to react as she fires at one of the shots. The rest of the buckshot promptly tears into her clavicle. Her left arm goes limp as she stumbles to the side, before she quickly presses her hand into the wound.
It bursts into flame, her wound turning into a searing-hot pool of molten flesh as smoke and fire billows out of her shoulder. Her arm locks into place before she whips it ahead, as though your girlfriend hadn't just blown a hole in it. In her left hand she already has a handle, which she twirls. What was once an errant handle quickly turns into a repeating rifle.
She fires it six times in rapid succession. The first shot is blown outwards to the side by your bat, but Takane has to block the rest with a shot of her gauntlets. A big blue shield crashes into the ground, rolling to the side as she loads an orange round.
The older magi quickly steels herself, feet planted into the dirt as your girlfriend fires a sideways shot behind her. The momentum and speed carry her in a rapid spin, one leg up in a kick as she screams towards the hostile magi.
Except the woman catches her knee with the butt of her pistol. There's a crack, both of asphalt and magical wood as the gun shatters in her hand and the earth ripples. The air turns hot with flame and energy, before she quickly reloads her rifle and raises it towards Takane's face.
Takane manages to grab the end of the rifle and shove it out of the way just before the woman fires, then quickly raises her orange-loaded gauntlet. She fires towards the ground, and the shot immediately tears them both upwards. You whip your bat around your head, quickly spreading your feet as you prepare to join them.
And it's then, in the sky, that both Takane and the woman burst into flames. Your girlfriend's screams fill your ears as the woman takes a deep breath.
"Apologies."
She raises her rifle over her head and promptly slams the butt of it into Takane's chest.
Takane manages to move just enough so that the hit doesn't slam into her soul gem, but not enough to get her sternum out of the way of the blow. The force is enough to send her careening backwards through the sky. Her back slams into a lamppost, shattering glass and sending the entire thing crashing into a nearby brick apartment. She hits the ground like a sack of bricks, cracking the walkway as the woman overhead raises her leg for a stomp.
Takane glances upwards, and she quickly rolls herself off to the side just as the woman stomps the earth with the force of a miniature volcanic eruption.
And it's then that you take the momentum of your bat swing and wrap it around her stomach. The bat's spines and razors tear into flesh, ripping open her coat and the skin underneath and exposing bone and tissue. The woman doesn't seem to acknowledge how you're hurting her as she turns her head to face you, before you pull further.
"Don't you move!" you shout. "I'll-!"
"You'll...?" she interrupts you. Her tone is cool, calm, and cold. Takane raises her gauntlet, this time with her explosive rounds. She quickly flexes her hands, raises her gauntlets, and fires.
And just as the shot is loosed, the woman raises a new revolver and pulls the trigger. A wall of flame erupts, and the explosions encircle her in a ring of fire.
"You'll do what? Threaten me? Wag your finger? Kill me? I'm sorry, but I know people like you. Magi like you who don't quite know how to get the job done. Who don't understand what this line of work is really like. Or at the very least, who think they do and want to mighty well improve the lot. It's admirable."
The wounds on her body turn bright orange before they, too, erupt in flame.
"It's also foolish and naive. There's a fine line between ideals and delusion, and I do well believe you have crossed it. You don't really have what it takes to do what I do. Nor do you understand the lengths we have to go to among the Glow."
She huffs once, before the flames burst from her body. The wires of your bat melt into slag, and the heat passes through magical metal directly into your hand. You yelp and drop the bat, before it all melts into the ground. Your eyes dart between the now-molten bat on the ground and the woman in front of you.
"You are admirable. But you are not-"
Your girlfriend grips the woman's foot. Flames lick her hand, and you hear a sizzle as the woman overhead sighs and lowers her pistol to her back.
But that distraction means she's blindsided when a gigantic row of teeth shred through her arm, through the lamppost and part of the wall behind it. You whip your bat backwards, over your head and through the street as the row of teeth form into a gigantic fanged mouth and a shark-like witch materializes around you.
She raises the stump of her arm to her face as flame billows out the end and into the air. "Oh, you are full of surprises."
"Got more of them where that fucking came from!"
[] Plan with Takane. (Write-in an idea. Your plan, depending on whether or not it's lethal or nonlethal, will either add accuracy or difficulty. All rolls will be determined by myself.):
-[] Lethal. [+1 ACCURACY] - But are you ready for that?
-[] Nonlethal [+ 1 DIFFICULTY] - She is way more experienced than you.
In the same millisecond your bat is already in front of your face, and six shots of blistering red rock explode into a spray of sparks and flame. The tip of your bat arcs over your head, slamming hard into the ground behind you before you whip it around your body in a yet-larger arc. A cloud of dust erupts around your feet as the bat segments with the sound of jangling chains and whizzing razor wire.
The magi in front of you jumps over your swing. The tip of your bat slams into a nearby wall, the buzzsaw at the tip whirring and squealing as it tries to chew at the brick. She instead jumps backwards again, fanning the hammer and firing six more shots.
Well, this has to be one of Rin's veterans? She's more skilled than Mami was back in the day, definitely, and she has this jaded feeling. But she's also efficient and economical with her attacks. That's a worrying thing, really.
"It's also foolish and naive. There's a fine line between ideals and delusion, and I do well believe you have crossed it. You don't really have what it takes to do what I do. Nor do you understand the lengths we have to go to among the Glow."
Your girlfriend grips the woman's foot. Flames lick her hand, and you hear a sizzle as the woman overhead sighs and lowers her pistol to her back.
But that distraction means she's blindsided when a gigantic row of teeth shred through her arm, through the lamppost and part of the wall behind it. You whip your bat backwards, over your head and through the street as the row of teeth form into a gigantic fanged mouth and a shark-like witch materializes around you.
I definitely think we needed this to change the flow of the fight, and I'm still not confident we have it settled even with witch support. So hm...
I'm gonna take the probably controversial stance that we have to go lethal and fast? Thematically, this is a bad move since it doesn't challenge her view that being too softhearted makes you lose, and it loses us an interesting character, but the fight is gonna be rough no matter what, and a handicap is a hard thing to have.
[X] Plan with Takane.
-[X] Be Relentless, hit her with the hardest attacks first, and don't let up or give her any space. -[X] Lethal. [+1 ACCURACY] - But are you ready for that?
I don't know whats happening but I don't see this ending well if we hold back. [X] Plan with Takane. (Write-in an idea. Your plan, depending on whether or not it's lethal or nonlethal, will either add accuracy or difficulty. All rolls will be determined by myself.):
-[X] Lethal. [+1 ACCURACY] - But are you ready for that?
I don't know whats happening but I don't see this ending well if we hold back. [X] Plan with Takane. (Write-in an idea. Your plan, depending on whether or not it's lethal or nonlethal, will either add accuracy or difficulty. All rolls will be determined by myself.):
-[X] Lethal. [+1 ACCURACY] - But are you ready for that?
And now is practically goading Mina into trying to kill her...
This reeks of set up.
[X] Emiko meet SharkFace.
-[X] Attack relentlessly, keep Emiko's focus on you and your Witch.
-[X] Stall the fight. Get support from your moms. -[X] Nonlethal [+ 1 DIFFICULTY] - She is way more experienced than you.
[X] Emiko meet SharkFace.
-[X] Attack relentlessly, keep Emiko's focus on you and your Witch.
-[X] Stall the fight. Get support from your moms. -[X] Nonlethal [+ 1 DIFFICULTY] - She is way more experienced than you.
