Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

Give him a linker core mutation serum and a storage device. Easy as pie. Teleporting, firebreathing pie, admittedly, but still pie.
 
As Silently has stated, a potential ABB redemption would take a lot of work on our parts. Lung is currently besieged by 15 other voices in his head, so he is constantly escalated and roaming the Arctic. While wanting to be free of the Butcher situation is likely, Lung's personality isn't exactly receptive to accepting help from others, so it would be a complex situation of keeping him contained (possibly on another dimension), getting a scan to determine if he has a Linker Core (or we could just feed him a Linker Core serum without checking), and then getting him a Device (storage is the safest choice, but he would not be happy with that). Overall, staying at range is the best strategy to avoid his super strength and festering wounds abilities, as his fire and pain ability will be negated, his "hit at range" ability can be blocked with shields, and his teleportation can be stopped by binds.

Oni Lee vanished sometime during the breakout. Maybe Lung ordered him to flee, maybe he was taken by the Fallen at the time, maybe his few remnants of personality made him go off on his own. We don't know. Given how canonically he was on his last dregs of volition, he is potentially a much easier recruitment than Lung. If we can convince him to follow us (considering we can now stop his teleportation, much easier to contain him), then he'd likely submit to whatever we tell him to. If his personality degradation is fixed by bonding with a device, than we can see how Silently will give him character. If it isn't, than I'd say giving him a Boost or Intelligent Device (as they are purportedly the most sapient of Devices) and make it the central character between them, essentially treating Lee as if he's disabled and the Device is aiding him in everyday life.

Bakuda is a pile of ash from throwing a firestorm bomb at Samantha whilst still in the blast range. If we go the Ward route of recruiting Glaistig Uaine, Blasto, and Bonesaw, then creating a cloned body and implanting Bakuda's ghost into it, then she might be recruitable.

Circus is an option because as an independent villain they don't have any factions actively preventing us from recruiting them (no gang or organization that doesn't want to let them go). Their crimes are fairly minor, so the Protectorate isn't likely to be too concerned with their recruitment. Their powers are also placid enough that the strength and amount of powers a Device offers means swapping to magic is a fairly easy argument.
 
The last we saw of Bakuda was an ash outline on the wall of her Chicago lair, so she's out of the picture entirely. I think Lee is either still inside the Brockton Bay Quarantine, or he died before the breakout, because there was no mention of him during that, so that leaves Lung/Nidhog and finding some way to De-Butcherfy him.

Ah, I only remembered that Bakuda was "dealt with", not what actually happened.

Circus is an option because as an independent villain they don't have any factions actively preventing us from recruiting them (no gang or organization that doesn't want to let them go). Their crimes are fairly minor, so the Protectorate isn't likely to be too concerned with their recruitment. Their powers are also placid enough that the strength and amount of powers a Device offers means swapping to magic is a fairly easy argument.

Fair points, but there is so little character present, either in canon or the couple of times we've interacted with the non-binary (or possibly extra binary, if their powers actually allow a change, and it isn't just a costume/acting thing)thief, that it is hard to drum up much interest in them.

As much as I love a redemption story, I simply can't see it for Lung. He was in charge. He chose to be evil enough that the local KKK equivalent could use him as a poster boy for why whites should come join them. Making him at all redeemable needs a fair amount of AU, and would take a heck of a lot of effort to feel genuine. I'm far more interested in trying to help Danny, social Jujak up enough to give the Cauldron vial or a LC serum, recruit Circus, go dancing *dressed as nuns* with the tribe on Gimmel, or angsting over ruining our relationship with Tattletale than in recruiting Lung. The only reason I'm interested in "helping" Lung is that, as he is, he's a mini-Endbringer who doesn't bother to schedule his attacks so only one EB at a time is attacking. Pop him to an empty Earth, with or without severing his connection to the Butcher collective with a Device, and he can live out the rest of his days as no threat to any people.

*It occurred to me, well after posting this, that what was meant to be completely silly might trigger wrath of mod, so I edited this bit
 
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Fair points, but there is so little character present, either in canon or the couple of times we've interacted with the non-binary (or possibly extra binary, if their powers actually allow a change, and it isn't just a costume/acting thing)thief, that it is hard to drum up much interest in them.
Circus can work well for a fan-story because they canonically have so little characterization that an author can do pretty much anything they want and it won't contradict anything. You do have to be careful around the gender identity thing since it's such a sensitive topic that it can raise some controversy, but if done respectfully it could be quite interesting. I for one would be super interested to see where Silently would go with this character at what sort of backstory they would craft for Circus.
Mechanically for this quest, there's a few reasons why Circus could be a good choice at the moment for bringing onto the team.
  1. Since Circus is an independent, it makes them less likely to come with additional baggage that would sour the transfer to our team. Like how Laura had to explain losing her powers and keep her change in allegiances from Jotun and Winter Hill and how Sarah required we mollifiy the Protectorate before she joined. Top contenders for issues that Circus could bring to the team are that
    a.) They robbed/embarrassed someone extremely important who has the money/power to hire people to track them down and deal with them, meaning Arcana will have to defend them and resolve the problem
    b.) Going with the cluster-cape mechanics, the other cape(s) in Circus's cluster have heavy Kill tendencies towards Circus, and will be trying to attack them at the nearest opportunity.
  2. Circus's parahuman power has nothing major that would be lost should they switch to a device. It's not like with Vista, where their power is something that wouldn't be easily regained through using a Device (if it even could be). Circus has superhuman balance and aiming, a small pocket dimension with nigh-instant access, and control over pre-existing fire. All of which could easily be replicated or improved upon by basic-level spells from a Device, with room for additional spells as well.
  3. As of right now, Circus and Jujak are the only characters that meet the above two conditions that we have social events accounted for. And I like Jujak with the Cauldron vial since he can actually take it. Social counts improve the odds that when we scan them for a Linker Core, it's more likely they will possess one. One characterization about Circus is that they are of uncertain gender. A way to mitigate the mutation risk of the Linker Core Serum is to have previous mutations. And a Gender Transition serum would count towards that.
 
@Silently Watches So, on social actions, since Arcana is now officially Dragontech's corporate team, would PR interviews be a option? Because getting Arcana's 'face' as it were out there and giving people stuff other than Arcana systematically exterminating (literally) villain groups that have been near untouchable for years/decades to talk about would be rather important.

It would be nice if Arcana doesn't just have the image of being executioners of villains whom have forfeited their right to live in society in people's minds.

Particularly so if we want to spread magic. Having magic be only associated with death and destruction when it could be so much more would be a tragedy.
 
Circus can work well for a fan-story because they canonically have so little characterization that an author can do pretty much anything they want and it won't contradict anything. You do have to be careful around the gender identity thing since it's such a sensitive topic that it can raise some controversy, but if done respectfully it could be quite interesting. I for one would be super interested to see where Silently would go with this character at what sort of backstory they would craft for Circus.
Mechanically for this quest, there's a few reasons why Circus could be a good choice at the moment for bringing onto the team.
  1. Since Circus is an independent, it makes them less likely to come with additional baggage that would sour the transfer to our team. Like how Laura had to explain losing her powers and keep her change in allegiances from Jotun and Winter Hill and how Sarah required we mollifiy the Protectorate before she joined. Top contenders for issues that Circus could bring to the team are that
    a.) They robbed/embarrassed someone extremely important who has the money/power to hire people to track them down and deal with them, meaning Arcana will have to defend them and resolve the problem
    b.) Going with the cluster-cape mechanics, the other cape(s) in Circus's cluster have heavy Kill tendencies towards Circus, and will be trying to attack them at the nearest opportunity.
  2. Circus's parahuman power has nothing major that would be lost should they switch to a device. It's not like with Vista, where their power is something that wouldn't be easily regained through using a Device (if it even could be). Circus has superhuman balance and aiming, a small pocket dimension with nigh-instant access, and control over pre-existing fire. All of which could easily be replicated or improved upon by basic-level spells from a Device, with room for additional spells as well.
  3. As of right now, Circus and Jujak are the only characters that meet the above two conditions that we have social events accounted for. And I like Jujak with the Cauldron vial since he can actually take it. Social counts improve the odds that when we scan them for a Linker Core, it's more likely they will possess one. One characterization about Circus is that they are of uncertain gender. A way to mitigate the mutation risk of the Linker Core Serum is to have previous mutations. And a Gender Transition serum would count towards that.
The major counters to this are that drumming up enough widespread interest will be a challenge, and that we already have a good sized cast/team. We don't really need yet another primary character addition at this stage.
 
@Silently Watches So, on social actions, since Arcana is now officially Dragontech's corporate team, would PR interviews be a option? Because getting Arcana's 'face' as it were out there and giving people stuff other than Arcana systematically exterminating (literally) villain groups that have been near untouchable for years/decades to talk about would be rather important.

It would be nice if Arcana doesn't just have the image of being executioners of villains whom have forfeited their right to live in society in people's minds.

Particularly so if we want to spread magic. Having magic be only associated with death and destruction when it could be so much more would be a tragedy.
The major counters to this are that drumming up enough widespread interest will be a challenge, and that we already have a good sized cast/team. We don't really need yet another primary character addition at this stage.
It could be. That's something I would appreciate suggestions on how and what else they'd be doing when such a thing arises, because this feels like a dedicated social activity to me.

ARCANA: LOS ANGELES

A New Team

A New City

NONE OF THE FAMILIARITY OR CHARACTER INTERACTIONS YOU'VE COME TO KNOW AND LOVE.

Characters that are obviously supposed to fill character archetypes from the popular original show, but fall flat because they aren't the same characters.

What, you don't like this wacky new team of homogenized viewer-distilled executive-board-decided "highly marketable" characters?! We took a damn survey, so you're wrong!

:V
 
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I believe that if people truly want to change their ways and become better then they were, they should be offered a hand. If it makes you feel any better, I've offered "redemption" hooks for several villains besides the Nazis. Laura you took me up on, but I also offered avenues for Tattletale and Circus. There's even an ABB member who is potentially recruitable, although I'm not offering them on a silver platter for a variety of reasons.
I don't recall the Circus encounter at all, but I do recall the Tattletale one was botched partially from a lack of time, and partially because of the way Tattletale presented herself.
That said, plenty of people were interested in recruiting/redeeming her. We just never really got the chance after the initial botched encounter.

I also wouldn't mind a chance to help Danny.
 
I don't recall the Circus encounter at all, but I do recall the Tattletale one was botched partially from a lack of time, and partially because of the way Tattletale presented herself.
That said, plenty of people were interested in recruiting/redeeming her. We just never really got the chance after the initial botched encounter.

I also wouldn't mind a chance to help Danny.

The forum bandwagon got stuck on being a bitch to the character who is usually the snarky uber-bitch, burning bridges with great glee. It was a vocal minority who hated the character and wanted nothing to do with her, with no dissenting opinions gaining enough tread to show up in story.

If they'd gone after Coil back when "investigate but don't act on what you learn about Coil" won, despite SW saying bluntly that s/he intended that particular option to be the last stage of dealing with Coil, Taylor could have been the one to rescue TT from the drugged up port'a'Thinker Coil turned her into, giving us another opportunity to recruit her. It wasn't explicit that we were able to recruit her, but I can see an easy path to that, if it were the goal. Then Simurgh happened, and all those event threads became lost. This was years before I'd even heard of Worm, so I had no say in the Quest back then.
 
Constellations 15.1
Constellations 15.1

Monday, September 5


Somehow, when Dragon and Kayleigh cooked up the plan to introduce you and your team to the world as a whole, you expected it to be followed by an immediate and massive shift in everything you knew and thought. Much like the way finding Perfect Storm and then discovering the truth about the TSAB had. Instead, the following afternoon you are sitting in the break room of Dragon's Vancouver plant working on your homework as if it were any other day.

Thankfully you are not the only person there, which just confirms that so much of life is no different than it was before. Missy sits in a chair at the small table, pencil in her hand as she works on homework that requires actual paper rather than a computer screen. Her attention is mostly on her work, the only exceptions being when the yellow gerbil sitting on her shoulder shifts around in a way that puts him at risk of falling off. Kayleigh lies on the other couch, supposedly reading a book for English class, but the times you glance over without her noticing you can not help but see that she is switching back and forth from the book she is meant to read and several browser windows open to various shopping websites. Like right now.

«Somehow I doubt Mrs. Richards will accept your new purse as a good excuse for not reading The Grapes of Wrath.»

Your comment startles her, and you give her a knowing look when she looks at you with surprise that quickly turns into a flushed embarrassment. A flick of her fingers and she goes back to her assignment with obvious reluctance.

You shake your head and return to your own business, doing your best to ignore the clangs and crashes coming from the next room where most of the open space is. Sarah might not be in school any longer, but even she has homework. In her case, that involves several hours of sparring against Samantha both to get used to her sword and to learn how to counter other weapons that might come at her. There will likely be little that can actually pierce through her Knight Armor, but every little bit of protection helps.

A quiet muttering reaches your ears in time to spot Cassiel drifting into the room and heading for the small nests in the corner of the room. Her words are too quiet for you to understand, but the sharp and almost violent manner in which the towels that make up her and Dragon's nests are pulled away and into the air is a clear enough demonstration of her emotional state. She has been like this since before any of you showed up after class today, although she refuses to say why.

When you asked Dragon earlier, all the older fairy would say was that Cassiel knew what she did and why she is being punished.

The towels and Cassiel drift through the doorway again, all the dangling cloth narrowly missing Nostromo's head of red feathers. He shoots her a short glare before continuing inside, a metal cart in front of him with a white cloth over the top. This is not the first time he or his sister have done this; in fact, if you think about it you suspect that setting up their projects and revealing them as a surprise might be something they picked up from their creator. The Guardian Beast pushes the cart to a stop next to Missy. "Present for the little witch."

"Present for…?" She looks down at the crooked shape beneath the cover, and her eyes widen. "Oh! It's done?!"

"What's done?"

Missy ignores Kayleigh's question and brings her closed left fist to her chest and grabs her wrist with her right hand. Her muscles spasm for just a moment before you hear a soft click, and then her entire arm falls off. Had you not seen her switch out her prosthetics before, it would have caught you off guard – it certainly surprises Kayleigh if her sudden squawk is any indication – but instead what you focus on is how the arm was attached to her shoulder. Before her most recent surgery, there was a plate with a few glowing dots at the end of her stump, but now you see a larger circular plate set basically parallel to her side and recessed compared to the skin around it. It means that with her normal civilian prosthetic in place, there is not even a seam to show where flesh ends and machine begins. The other major difference is that instead of dots, the plate now possesses a large number of rings within rings within rings, like a cross-section of a tree.

«Has… has she always had that?» asks Kayleigh.

«The whole time you've known her, she has

With Missy obviously ready and willing, Nostromo pulls away the sheet to reveal her revamped armored limb. The top half is more or less the same as before, still plated with horizontal strips of shiny metal, although you cannot help but think that the contour looks a little smother than before. A little more lifelike. The only other difference is an insignia or something painted onto the shoulder: a red crescent with the tips pointed upwards, a dot in the middle of the curve and seven short pointed lines coming down from the bottom. What it means, you have no clue, but clearly it is intentional.

It is the bottom half that has the greatest difference. Before today, the back of the forearm and the palm and back of the hand were green, the fingers still silvery. Now it is the forearm as a whole is made of bands of metal just like the upper arm, although now starting from the mid-forearm those bands get progressively darker than the one higher up above it. The hand of the prosthetic is jet black, light catching and reflecting back in a rainbow of colors almost like looking at an oil slick.

He lifts it up and holds it out to her, and with no hesitation she turns so he can press the end of the robotic shoulder against her torso. Another click followed by a spasm, and she starts rolling her shoulder and swinging her arm this way and that. "Have to say, I like the new sync-up sequence Tim's using now. Much quicker than before."

"More efficient. That is the main benefit."

You clear your throat, getting the two tech aficionados' attention. Pointing at the new arm, you ask, "What's up with your hand?"

"Just a redesign," Missy says in a hasty voice. "Nothing to worry about."

Your disbelief is clear on your face, and with a put-upon sigh she reaches out and puts her hand in yours. Sure enough, there is definitely something strange worth catching the eye. The fingers of her real birth hand, as well as her civilian and previous armored prosthetic, were round. These fingers, however, are triangular, one corner running along the back of her fingers. Instead of nails, the fingers end in sharp points that look almost… glassy.

"What are they?" you ask when it becomes clear you will not figure it out on your own.

Missy may look sheepish, but her voice tells a different story. "I wanted to make sure it was obvious why fighting was a bad idea, so I asked for diamond-tipped claws."

"Lonsdaleite, actually," Nostromo chimes in before you can say anything. "Approximately 58% harder than cubic-structure diamonds."

A chime comes from the next room while you shake your head. "Let me guess. Diamond claws are just something else the Protectorate wouldn't let you have—"

«Taylor?» You cut yourself off as Samantha's voice enters your head. «Can you come out here for a moment?»

"What does Cassie want?" asks Kayleigh with a frown.

"I don't know, but maybe it's the same thing Samantha noticed."

The three of you leave the break room, followed closely by Nostromo, to find Samantha, Sarah, and Cat Sith watching Cassiel flying around and around Laura in her Scathach outfit. The reason they want you to come is immediately apparent. Laura normally wears a pure white chainmail shirt, and that in turn makes the grey scorch mark just below her left shoulder stand out like a sore thumb.

"Run into some trouble?" Missy asks, going straight for the heart of the matter.

Laura follows Missy's gaze down to her armor, and the next second it crumbles away in a flurry of glowing blue flakes. "Nothing I can't handle."

"Clearly," you tell her in a dry voice. As you had thought to yourself earlier, there is little that can visibly deform or damage a Barrier Jacket, but what can do so is bad news, and that is even more true for the Knight Armor you and Laura share. "So is the problem handled, or will it come back at you again?"

"You were patrolling Winter Hill's territory, weren't you?" Kayleigh asks instead.

You flick the gunslinger a quick glance at her uncharacteristically grim voice, but before you can say anything you notice Laura's head turning away from her. "Mighta been. What of it?"

"Who?"

The silence hung thick between your two school friends before Laura finally sighs. "Solaire. Pounce too, towards the end. They didn't like seeing 'fresh meat' on their turf and wanted me to know it."

"I'm going to echo Taylor's question." All of you turn to look at Sarah, who has now dismissed her sword and her own armor. "Was it a fight you won, or did you need to withdraw?"

"I don't think either of us won, exactly," she admitted. "This was more a feeling each other out thing. Both of us backed off after that."

Is it strange that the idea of heroes and villains feeling each other out seems strange to you? All the times you have fought villains, you did so with the intent of actually defeating them in order to have them arrested. The kind of back and forth Laura is implying sounds like too much of a stalemate waiting to happen.

Then again, you have not forgotten that before giving up her powers, Laura was solidly in the ranks of Winter Hill. It is not too much of a surprise that she would hesitate to unleash frozen hell on her former teammates, even if she has said before that they were not exactly friends.

"Are you planning to go back to that area?" Laura nods, earning a resigned sigh from Sarah. "Then be careful. You all know these gangs better than I do, but at least in my experience, 'feeling each other out things' only last until they know your limits. After that? All bets are off."


It's FINALLY time for a new arc! And a social arc to boot. Let's get things started and thing about what 3 social events you want to see this week.
  • Hang out with another character(s). This is by definition a non-combat activity.
  • Go on patrol. You can bring other characters with you if you want.
  • Make yourself available to help Operation Pentagram.
  • Explore somewhere on Earth Bet. A location must be included. You may bring other characters with you.
  • Explore another world. You may bring other characters with you.
  • Pick a world Taylor already knows about
  • Find a brand new world
  • Train, either in the real world or in Perfect Storm's simulator. SPECIFY which spell or skill to work on.
  • Write-in (subject to my approval)
I know it's been a while, so if you forgot how moratoria work here, take the next 24 HOURS to discuss your options. DON'T vote yet. I'll tell you when.
 
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Going along with Laura on one of her patrols might be a good idea, besides that I'm always up for more Operation Pentagram, or maybe ask Dragon if there is anything the team could do for her now that they work for her.
 
I want to social with Epoch and Mac so that we can start bringing them into the team. Social with Perfect Storm to learn more about it/her is also interesting.

Oh, I think talking to Lacey to see how she's doing would be interesting, maybe get Lacey into contact with Mac so that the two of them can trade tips an knowledge about healing using magic since both are helping out at hospitals.
 
We could patrol with Laura after that lead in.

Hang out with Cassiel to learn about that hissy fit.

I guess shopping with Kayleigh, and maybe drag Missy along?

There's always the Protectorate situation. Missy, MM, Chevy, and Sarah.

Babysitting for Pentagram.

I really want to go to the pantheon world again, Social arc is the perfect to for it! What Earth was that again?

We could hang out with Tim and his assistants too. He's a member of the team. Introduce them to the pantheon? ^-^
 
Going along with Laura on one of her patrols might be a good idea, besides that I'm always up for more Operation Pentagram, or maybe ask Dragon if there is anything the team could do for her now that they work for her.

Finding myself inclined to agree. Laura's new identity might not be that well-known just yet, but if Taylor tags along, that'll hammer it in. Plus, make it more apparent that Laura is, in fact, one of the capes that smote the Mathers clan of the Fallen. If I were some typical cape, that's not someone that I'd be all that inclined to throw down with, if only due to the attention that might come down on my head if by some chance I won that fight. There be Dragons, after all.

Well, just the one actually. But that's one Dragon too many.
 
You know, I wonder how the cape world would react if Arcana releases footage of the extermination of the Mathers branch of the Fallen and shows the sheer clinical nature of the termination.

Arcana basically dropped out of nowhere, burned the central buildings ensuring no survivors from said buildings, eliminated transports to trap all remaining Fallen and did a sweep of the area in a search and destroy operation.

It was basically a military op against a hostile enemy encampment (artillery strike on enemy command and control/HQ to disorganize the opposition, then a multipronged assault to entrap and eliminate all remaining resistance).
 
Going along with Laura on one of her patrols might be a good idea, besides that I'm always up for more Operation Pentagram, or maybe ask Dragon if there is anything the team could do for her now that they work for her.

Laura and Cassiel, maybe take the fairy so either Taylor or Laura can have extra power.

Yes she is being punished but patrol is not exactly what I would call a reprieve of that.
 
I'm in favor of talking to the ex-adepts and getting history lessons from Perfect Storm. Going to the pantheon world has to wait until we built the translator drone.

Alternatively, we go dragon hunting and recruit Lung. I can already imagine him as a magical girl. Pretty Escalation Lung-chan :evil::p
 
There is no reason we cannot combine the Laura and Cassiel activities, plus Laura is Taylor somewhat girlfriend, so Taylor definitely should hang with her more outside of work.
 
I'm in favor of talking to the ex-adepts and getting history lessons from Perfect Storm. Going to the pantheon world has to wait until we built the translator drone.

Alternatively, we go dragon hunting and recruit Lung. I can already imagine him as a magical girl. Pretty Escalation Lung-chan :evil::p

Raging Fire Princess Pretty Kiryuu-chan!
(Taking the time to think of that makes me feel just a little bit dirty.)
 
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