Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Thread starter Firnagzen
- Start date
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- Tags
- puella magi adfligo systema puella magi madoka magica be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist bad decisions dating mami tomoe (tomoe mami) diabolical laughter friendship is the best ship handholding identity crises microwaving tea gets you put in the bad place names are important the body is the fursona of the soul this is not the baked goods thread we don't talk about rionna what could possibly go wrong? who in the world is azure sanfrancisco?
Angrygenius
Professional Insomniac
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Appletank
Acquire Cheese
I think it has been determined that grief appears to act as an ideal solid, that can divide indefinitely. Especially since it can do the Banach Tarski paradox, which requires an infinite amount of points to perform (though it does go witchy)
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
Nothing, I just thought about it, and equating Angstrom's surname verbatim with a unit of volume of angst might be just a tad disrespectful... so I switched one letter.
Angrygenius
Professional Insomniac
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Well it's still a unit of length.Nothing, I just thought about it, and equating Angstrom's surname verbatim with a unit of volume of angst might be just a tad disrespectful... so I switched one letter.
The correct volume units would be Cubic Angstrems. 25 quintillion Cubic Angstrems to be exact
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
Well it's still a unit of length.
The correct volume units would be Cubic Angstrems. 25 quintillion Cubic Angstrems to be exact
I am aware, yes
Though an Angstrem is bigger than an Ångström by a factor of "I didn't care about math when I was writing that shitpost"
Angrygenius
Professional Insomniac
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Good lord! 25 quintillion Anstrem! Why would we need a volume of grief equivalent to the size of North America?
- Location
- Colorado
Why wouldn't we need a volume of grief equivalent to the size of North America?
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Grief generation ship?
blast flame
How far will we go if it means lighting the way?
- Location
- Perth, Australia
- Pronouns
- They/Them
As someone with an Analogue: A Hate Story avatar I feel like I need to advise against the creation of any generation ships ever.
I misread that as 'a volume of 25 quintillion Ansem' and was amused by the mental image.
I also am intrigued by how reasonable of an idea it may be to equate Grief to Kingdom-Hearts-Darkness.
Angrygenius
Professional Insomniac
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- Him/He
2 days.
CaptainCece
A Stereotype
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Grief doesn't sound like a word any more...
Also if Sabrina wish to speed run every thing, I feel like we can do better than Grief control. It is very powerful but I don't think it solves the problem of Hug Demand massively outstripping Hug Supply.
"I wish to undo all the pain and misery you've caused and prevent it from happening again?"
Also if Sabrina wish to speed run every thing, I feel like we can do better than Grief control. It is very powerful but I don't think it solves the problem of Hug Demand massively outstripping Hug Supply.
"I wish to undo all the pain and misery you've caused and prevent it from happening again?"
AionVal
(Verified Figment)
- Location
- Beyond The Veil
[PROTOSS VOICE] NOT ENOUGH KARMIC POTENTIAL. YOU REQUIRE MORE KARMIC WEIGHT. [/PROTOSS VOICE]
CaptainCece
A Stereotype
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I thought Brina's Karmic Potential is just YES.
SeQuester
Novice explorer
- Location
- Russia
- Pronouns
- He/His
Not YES enough to fundamentally change the setting.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
More like "Here's my Potential Card, hun, but don't go wild, okay? Mommy's still got to pay the bills."
Now you have made me sad that we cannot go out on a night downtown with Madokami-mom, who, if Sayaka Quest has taught me anything, has just as much of a predilection for being a heavyweight alcoholic as her own mother.
However, if Madokami Quest has taught me anything, it's that we can take vacation portals to neighboring universal settings and go hog wild shopping and drinking with Madokami-mom, so long as we keep our memories by portalling out before she finishes her witch cleansing duties and is forced to restart spacetime to allow Windows Update Agent to finish installing the new security patch.
Lowlife pt. 21
Your expression tightens, and you still for a moment. Mostly an act, but not just an act- you can feel the wave of anger and concern that races through you. You're not willing to accept a threat to the hostages.
You take a second to orient.
Your friends are safe, for the most part. Mami and the rest of Team Aleph are still on overwatch, Mika flitting around with Delta Team and the bears in tow. Sayaka's taken flight on her own, Kirika's making for the platform with Mami, that's fine. Yuki and her squad are on the deck, and they seem to be safe for the moment, though you can feel the seethe of Grief in Yuki's Soul Gem as she burns magic. That's fine - they're within your range, and you can keep everyone cleansed.
Yuma, Noriko, Akemi - your squad. They're fine, albeit separated from you. Fighting still, and they're being harassed by the... the wizard girl, you mentally tag her. There one second and gone the next, just enough to force your friends back to back to defend themselves. You'll get to that in a moment.
Where are the rest of the enemy? Discount Power Girl remains locked down in a giant blob of Grief, struggling still. You give her enough room to breathe but not enough to gain leverage - she might not need it, but it feels polite. Their antimage has been dropped off with Aleph, and you can sense Mami's ribbons binding her down - or, no, not quite Mami's ribbons. Sayaka's copy of them, alongside the sizzle of what must be Umika's magic.
Fine, and good.
The rest of the Iowa group, then. With a moment to breathe, you can place them now, the presence of their Soul Gems and their Grief burning bright in your mind's eye. Their hostages, too, now that they're not buried behind the nauseating crawl of antimagic.
Good. You know where they are, and that means you can act. You'd been relying on Oriko, for her overview of the battlefield and her insight to call out patterns and to coordinate, but now you're in the perfect position to act.
A second to orient, you'd told yourself. That second is up, and it's time to put thought to action. Your Grief surges, stirring in anticipation to match the anger on your face, and the worry that's only half feigned. You make a show of the anger, letting Grief darken the air around you and stir your coat as you clench your fists, buying yourself a couple seconds more to arrange things with your friends.
The simmering fury that pulls your face into a grimace is only mostly for show. An unmistakable threat has been presented to the hostages, and you will not let that stand. You've been holding back, keeping to the niceties of not dismembering or Gem-snatching. Not all of your friends know about the truth of Soul Gems, but if it's between that and lives on the line...
"Hold up for a moment, everyone," you snap over telepathy, telepathy flowing at the speed of thought. "Yuma, Miss Saito, Miss Watanabe, I'll be with you in a sec, everyone else - they don't have me locked down, and I'll break out in a moment, and I'm gonna see if I can shut down their teleportation. Miss Tsuruya, I'm going to break the ship, I think. It's too much of an advantage for them."
"Agreed," Yuki says, annoyed frustration bleeding into her mental voice. "The captain has been resisting my attempts very well."
"Are you sure, Sabrina?" Mami asks you. You can hear the worry in her tone, and it instantly brings you up short.
"I'm sure, Mami," you tell her and her alone. "I'll be out soon, um, I have a plan to share with everyone." With the same mental breath, you continue on the general channel. "On that note, there's a girl with a green bodysuit, I'm pretty sure she's a power enhancer," you say - you'd thought she might be a teleporter, but after a moment's thought, power enhancement makes more sense. "And she's boosting the captain. Keep an eye out."
"We saw her earlier," Sayaka says. "She was with the captain, and I think she linked up with their flier for a bit.
"Right... We know where the hostages are," you say. "I'm going to break the ship and try something to limit their mobility in a moment. It's gonna feel Witchy, but it will be my work. Yuma, Miss Watanabe, Miss Saito, I'll link up with you when that's done. Uh... Sayaka, Miss Tsuruya, Kazumi, can we focus on freeing the hostages? I'll extract my team, get out, get an overview, and join you as soon as possible."
"Got it," Sayaka grunts. "Miss Nakano, can you get us in position?"
"With pleasure," Mika says.
"What do you mean by breaking the ship?" Akemi asks, her mental voice tight and strained.
"I'm going to tear it apart and see if I can keep them from reforming it," you say. "I have zero interest in playing their game. Don't worry about footing, I'll keep that handled."
"When you're ready, Miss Vee," Yuki says, tone even once more.
Grief, Grief, and more Grief. You're giving the Iowa girls Grief, hah. But still, you have more at your disposal, the air around you thickening yet more until it's a visible haze of deep, unsettling purple, a roiling fog bank that surges and eddies around you. More crystallizes around you, plates forming armour that... you didn't really feel was necessary, but the twinge of your broken ribs suggests that it might be a good backup to have.
Eh, not like it slows you down, anyway.
But that's not where the majority of your Grief goes. Even as you focus a fraction of your intention on shaping the Grief you'd enchanted, you guide still more until it pervades the ship, an invisible, cloying cloud that billows and permeates every square millimeter, every square nanometer of the Iowa. As far as you can reach, anyway, the bow- and sternmost bits are just out of reach.
"Well, Miss Vee?" That voice crackles over the speakers again. "Would you like to talk?"
Talk, hah. Even now you can feel your friends being harassed. Two magical girls now, a new one teleporting in - or perhaps three, really, given how much they lean on the teleportation for effect the hit and run.
Well, you're going to put a stop to that. You reach mentally for the enchanted Grief, as mutable and fickle as reality itself to the touch of magic. You hold your intent for a fragment of time, just a moment between seconds, and you brand your will upon the world.
"On zero, everyone," you murmur.
You wait for the confirmations as your eyes slide shut, and for the countdown to end. A sliver of attention focuses on shaping the enchanted Grief along semi-familiar and yet different patterns. Interdiction. Control. Not that different, the forms sliding into place. Distant for now, leashed by your will and held in hammerspace, but unmistakable and ready.
You'd debated starting this whole thing with a show of force, and there remains... value in the idea of intimidation.
"I suppose I never did open with a statement of intent," you murmur. Your voice doesn't issue from your mouth, instead vibrating from the very walls of the ship. "Surrender."
"Zero," you whisper to your friends. They explode into motion, and so do you.
The first thing you do is to drop the anchor - and anchor it is, because what else would it be? Nothing changes, to your eye or anyone elses', but you can feel it, an oppressive pressure that blankets the world and screams at the back of your mind of Wiiiitch.
Distantly, you can sense one of the Iowa girls fall to her knees, clutching her head and dragging another down with her.
Your smile contains no humour at all. You can sense your friends moving: with a bit of luck, you'd timed it well enough to trap both their attackers with Yuma and Noriko and Akemi. Yuma, who is definitely Kyouko's student, proceeds to revoke wizard-girl's kneecap privileges as Noriko turns on the other. You sense Sayaka diving in for the attack, the rest of her squad in tow and Mika at their backs.
And so, with Grief already in place, it's time to do your part.
You unmake the Iowa. Every bolt, every weld, every rivet. Every press-fitted plate, every armour segment, every pipe and wire and gear and fixture from radar mast to keel. The turrets rise from their well with a groan, the shells and propellant set aside. It's almost musical, a cascade of twangs and groans as you forcibly part metal from metal, lifting each section free until the ship resembles a diagram from a child's how-it-works book, exploded into nice, tidy segments for easy labelling.
The citadel, especially. The heavy armour means very little to you as you part the walls and open it to the skies beyond, the flinches of the girls within obvious in your senses. You hope that the Iowa girls don't do anything stupid before you shut them down.
Sunlight filters in from the gaps, fresh air and warm sun mingling with the smell of oil and metal.
At the back of your mind, you track your friends. Kyouko's whoop cuts through the shriek of disassembly as she dives through what used to be the command tower of the Iowa. Deck plates slide apart at your behest, enough traction for her to ping-pong off the walls on her way down, her spear flicking out to redirect her path. Sayaka plunges after her, the rest of their squad following.
Yuma's arm is broken - shattered. Wizard-girl finds herself trapped, mired in grief as you lock her down. Akemi's magic blazes bright around her, but her partner-
The floor goes out from under her, taken apart by your Grief. She scrabbles for footing, bouncing off thin air to grapple at a Noriko with a dagger. The other Noriko swings, and you understand. Some kind of rebound, or backlash magic, and despite Noriko's shimmering bladework, she's forced to retreat as cuts open up on her arms and torso, but then Akemi strides forward, footing certain on Grief plates you form ahead of her.
You unfurl Grief around her, because you don't need to be there to act. Yuma's already healed up, the glow of her magic lighting up in your mind's eye as she extends it to Noriko, too. And then Homura's there.
Without hesitation, she puts two shots into the attacker's torso, and a third into her arm, smashing aside the dagger. It buys Akemi time to gather magic, and when her magic flares to life, a deep, rosy hue that glows through the gaps in the disassembled bulkheads, the girl crumples.
What-
You don't understand what Akemi just did, but you'll take it. You wrap the fallen Iowa girl in yet more Grief, piling on layer after layer to immobilize her along with her partner.
"Let's get out of here!" you bark.
"She's tough - it won't hold her for long!" Akemi snaps.
"I'll get her to Kirika," you respond. "C'mon!" And to Homura, you add, "Thanks, Homura. That could have turned out badly."
You're already rocketing upwards, wings unfurling once more. Homura and Yuma and Noriko and Akemi rise with you, borne on discs of Grief as you punch up through the decks, and in your wake, you drag three blobs of Grief. Three of the Iowa girls, freshly captured, to join the first - their antimage.
Mami soars to meet you on golden wings.
The rest of the Iowa girls-
Six of them. Just six left, just past half their number. They'd retreated to the citadel, the deepest, most heavily armoured part of the ship, pulling the hostages with them, but now, what used to be a dense, armoured warren of rooms is now an open plain, deck shattered and bulkheads rent. The hostages -the locals- seem... dazed. Fear gnaws at you for a split second, swept away by the realization that you can sense their Soul Gems. They're alive.
Your lips peel off your teeth as you feel the captain's magic surging, just enough to keep a deck beneath their feet and a weapon to her hand to face your friends. Greeny -their power enhancer- blazes in your mind's eye, a nova of unrelenting power as they turn to face your friends dropping from above.
Kyouko leads the charge with a yell and the streaking jabs of her spear, Sayaka a flowing shadow at her side with sabers. Kazumi has rifles reminiscent of Mami's, conjured from the air and already roaring out shots.
That poncho girl's there to meet them, her magic sparking turquoise. Emerald twines through her magic, stoking it ever higher, and-
Kazumi's shots miss.
Kyouko's strikes go wide.
Sayaka gets a backhand. You catch her with Grief, offering footing and support as her hand dives beneath her cloak.
Two of the Iowa girls blink out of existence. You suck in a breath, eyes widening. You'd disabled their teleportation, so it shouldn't be possible.
No.
Her Soul Gem. You can sense it blazing bright, still right there in the middle of your accreting Grief, but-
"Stealth!" you warn. "Two of them, I don't have enough Grief in the area so watch out!"
Priorities. You need to get the hostages out of there, and you need to protect them- you flood them with grief, dense enough to shield them and to snatch them from behind the Iowa girls.
The captain levels her pistol at the hostages-
You slam her aim away, and-
Sayaka lashes out with a yell-
Her finger tightens, and the blast-
Grief. More Grief, stolen from other tasks and congealing out of the air around the pistol, around her hand-
You focus the blast away, a burning column of magic and force that shudders through the afternoon air, a visible shockwave pulsing through the air and incinerating a hole through the side of the disassembled Iowa. The Iowa's own main guns, condensed down into a pistol that sears shadows through the disassembled plates, and-
Moe's there. Speed in shadow, striking at the captain with a flipping, rising kick that connects under her chin. Kyouko leaps into the fray with a yell, then pushes off to dodge jagged shards of ice slashing past her from thin air. Moe folds around what must be an invisible kick.
The captain lands, blood flowing freely from her mangled wrist -there's nothing left of her hand- for just a second before it reforms. The other Iowa girl. A healer, it transpires, but then Sayaka's on her with a battlecry and lightning crackling in her veins.
"I require a backstop," Sasami murmurs into your mind.
"On it!" you bark back. More Grief to the task, as you estimate angles and positions. A solid block, fuzzing darker than black to soak up Sasami's laser, on the opposite side of the Iowa from her, and barely a heartbeat after you finish it, Sasami fires.
A second sun scorches through the sky, an incandescent bar that sears into your retinas and leaves you blinking away afterimages.
Yuki drops through the hole as the Iowa girls reel, Mirai, and the bears slamming down after her. Kaoru plummets with a yell, driving into a descending kick that seems to connect with nothing at all and slamming something into the deck.
In the same instant, Yuki pivots and draws a nodachi taller than she is from beneath her cloak, the curved blade carving through the air and stilling, a mirror of Kyouko's blade, seemingly trapping nothing between them.
The two girls shimmer into visibility. Yuki has her blade right under the chin of one of the girls, and you can sense her swallowing as she carefully raises her hands in an unmistakable gesture of surrender.
Mirai's bears storm forward with growls rattling low in their throats, but too little, too late, as the nauseating grease of antimagic floods from Sayaka, smothering the battlefield.
Movement stills, and slowly, finally, the Iowa's captain raises her hands in surrender.
You exhale, and take stock.
[x] Hug Mami
[x] Heals and cleanses
[] Check on the hostages first, leave the Iowa girls to your friends
- [] What do you say to them?
[] Interrogate the Iowa girls first
- [] What do you ask?
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
I am really, really sorry for how long this update took. Hopefully, it'll be the last one to be delayed this much.
Two minor details that didn't quite fit the flow: Mika's caught the two far ends of the Iowa that you aren't supporting, and Mami's still flying to meet you. That last segment of combat took place over maybe thirty seconds, and her flight isn't that fast!
She'll catch up in a bit.
Now, with that aside, I want to bring up something ahead of time.
The next logical thing that's going to come up, inevitably, is discussing what to do with the Iowa girls after interrogating them. And it's probably something that might spark some disagreement. But... look.
2020 has not been a kind year. The world's kind of horrible. Don't add to that. So even if you disagree with your fellow questers, just remember that there's another person behind that screen. Be kind to each other.
You take a second to orient.
Your friends are safe, for the most part. Mami and the rest of Team Aleph are still on overwatch, Mika flitting around with Delta Team and the bears in tow. Sayaka's taken flight on her own, Kirika's making for the platform with Mami, that's fine. Yuki and her squad are on the deck, and they seem to be safe for the moment, though you can feel the seethe of Grief in Yuki's Soul Gem as she burns magic. That's fine - they're within your range, and you can keep everyone cleansed.
Yuma, Noriko, Akemi - your squad. They're fine, albeit separated from you. Fighting still, and they're being harassed by the... the wizard girl, you mentally tag her. There one second and gone the next, just enough to force your friends back to back to defend themselves. You'll get to that in a moment.
Where are the rest of the enemy? Discount Power Girl remains locked down in a giant blob of Grief, struggling still. You give her enough room to breathe but not enough to gain leverage - she might not need it, but it feels polite. Their antimage has been dropped off with Aleph, and you can sense Mami's ribbons binding her down - or, no, not quite Mami's ribbons. Sayaka's copy of them, alongside the sizzle of what must be Umika's magic.
Fine, and good.
The rest of the Iowa group, then. With a moment to breathe, you can place them now, the presence of their Soul Gems and their Grief burning bright in your mind's eye. Their hostages, too, now that they're not buried behind the nauseating crawl of antimagic.
Good. You know where they are, and that means you can act. You'd been relying on Oriko, for her overview of the battlefield and her insight to call out patterns and to coordinate, but now you're in the perfect position to act.
A second to orient, you'd told yourself. That second is up, and it's time to put thought to action. Your Grief surges, stirring in anticipation to match the anger on your face, and the worry that's only half feigned. You make a show of the anger, letting Grief darken the air around you and stir your coat as you clench your fists, buying yourself a couple seconds more to arrange things with your friends.
The simmering fury that pulls your face into a grimace is only mostly for show. An unmistakable threat has been presented to the hostages, and you will not let that stand. You've been holding back, keeping to the niceties of not dismembering or Gem-snatching. Not all of your friends know about the truth of Soul Gems, but if it's between that and lives on the line...
"Hold up for a moment, everyone," you snap over telepathy, telepathy flowing at the speed of thought. "Yuma, Miss Saito, Miss Watanabe, I'll be with you in a sec, everyone else - they don't have me locked down, and I'll break out in a moment, and I'm gonna see if I can shut down their teleportation. Miss Tsuruya, I'm going to break the ship, I think. It's too much of an advantage for them."
"Agreed," Yuki says, annoyed frustration bleeding into her mental voice. "The captain has been resisting my attempts very well."
"Are you sure, Sabrina?" Mami asks you. You can hear the worry in her tone, and it instantly brings you up short.
"I'm sure, Mami," you tell her and her alone. "I'll be out soon, um, I have a plan to share with everyone." With the same mental breath, you continue on the general channel. "On that note, there's a girl with a green bodysuit, I'm pretty sure she's a power enhancer," you say - you'd thought she might be a teleporter, but after a moment's thought, power enhancement makes more sense. "And she's boosting the captain. Keep an eye out."
"We saw her earlier," Sayaka says. "She was with the captain, and I think she linked up with their flier for a bit.
"Right... We know where the hostages are," you say. "I'm going to break the ship and try something to limit their mobility in a moment. It's gonna feel Witchy, but it will be my work. Yuma, Miss Watanabe, Miss Saito, I'll link up with you when that's done. Uh... Sayaka, Miss Tsuruya, Kazumi, can we focus on freeing the hostages? I'll extract my team, get out, get an overview, and join you as soon as possible."
"Got it," Sayaka grunts. "Miss Nakano, can you get us in position?"
"With pleasure," Mika says.
"What do you mean by breaking the ship?" Akemi asks, her mental voice tight and strained.
"I'm going to tear it apart and see if I can keep them from reforming it," you say. "I have zero interest in playing their game. Don't worry about footing, I'll keep that handled."
"When you're ready, Miss Vee," Yuki says, tone even once more.
Grief, Grief, and more Grief. You're giving the Iowa girls Grief, hah. But still, you have more at your disposal, the air around you thickening yet more until it's a visible haze of deep, unsettling purple, a roiling fog bank that surges and eddies around you. More crystallizes around you, plates forming armour that... you didn't really feel was necessary, but the twinge of your broken ribs suggests that it might be a good backup to have.
Eh, not like it slows you down, anyway.
But that's not where the majority of your Grief goes. Even as you focus a fraction of your intention on shaping the Grief you'd enchanted, you guide still more until it pervades the ship, an invisible, cloying cloud that billows and permeates every square millimeter, every square nanometer of the Iowa. As far as you can reach, anyway, the bow- and sternmost bits are just out of reach.
"Well, Miss Vee?" That voice crackles over the speakers again. "Would you like to talk?"
Talk, hah. Even now you can feel your friends being harassed. Two magical girls now, a new one teleporting in - or perhaps three, really, given how much they lean on the teleportation for effect the hit and run.
Well, you're going to put a stop to that. You reach mentally for the enchanted Grief, as mutable and fickle as reality itself to the touch of magic. You hold your intent for a fragment of time, just a moment between seconds, and you brand your will upon the world.
"On zero, everyone," you murmur.
You wait for the confirmations as your eyes slide shut, and for the countdown to end. A sliver of attention focuses on shaping the enchanted Grief along semi-familiar and yet different patterns. Interdiction. Control. Not that different, the forms sliding into place. Distant for now, leashed by your will and held in hammerspace, but unmistakable and ready.
You'd debated starting this whole thing with a show of force, and there remains... value in the idea of intimidation.
"I suppose I never did open with a statement of intent," you murmur. Your voice doesn't issue from your mouth, instead vibrating from the very walls of the ship. "Surrender."
"Zero," you whisper to your friends. They explode into motion, and so do you.
The first thing you do is to drop the anchor - and anchor it is, because what else would it be? Nothing changes, to your eye or anyone elses', but you can feel it, an oppressive pressure that blankets the world and screams at the back of your mind of Wiiiitch.
Distantly, you can sense one of the Iowa girls fall to her knees, clutching her head and dragging another down with her.
Your smile contains no humour at all. You can sense your friends moving: with a bit of luck, you'd timed it well enough to trap both their attackers with Yuma and Noriko and Akemi. Yuma, who is definitely Kyouko's student, proceeds to revoke wizard-girl's kneecap privileges as Noriko turns on the other. You sense Sayaka diving in for the attack, the rest of her squad in tow and Mika at their backs.
And so, with Grief already in place, it's time to do your part.
You unmake the Iowa. Every bolt, every weld, every rivet. Every press-fitted plate, every armour segment, every pipe and wire and gear and fixture from radar mast to keel. The turrets rise from their well with a groan, the shells and propellant set aside. It's almost musical, a cascade of twangs and groans as you forcibly part metal from metal, lifting each section free until the ship resembles a diagram from a child's how-it-works book, exploded into nice, tidy segments for easy labelling.
The citadel, especially. The heavy armour means very little to you as you part the walls and open it to the skies beyond, the flinches of the girls within obvious in your senses. You hope that the Iowa girls don't do anything stupid before you shut them down.
Sunlight filters in from the gaps, fresh air and warm sun mingling with the smell of oil and metal.
At the back of your mind, you track your friends. Kyouko's whoop cuts through the shriek of disassembly as she dives through what used to be the command tower of the Iowa. Deck plates slide apart at your behest, enough traction for her to ping-pong off the walls on her way down, her spear flicking out to redirect her path. Sayaka plunges after her, the rest of their squad following.
Yuma's arm is broken - shattered. Wizard-girl finds herself trapped, mired in grief as you lock her down. Akemi's magic blazes bright around her, but her partner-
The floor goes out from under her, taken apart by your Grief. She scrabbles for footing, bouncing off thin air to grapple at a Noriko with a dagger. The other Noriko swings, and you understand. Some kind of rebound, or backlash magic, and despite Noriko's shimmering bladework, she's forced to retreat as cuts open up on her arms and torso, but then Akemi strides forward, footing certain on Grief plates you form ahead of her.
You unfurl Grief around her, because you don't need to be there to act. Yuma's already healed up, the glow of her magic lighting up in your mind's eye as she extends it to Noriko, too. And then Homura's there.
Without hesitation, she puts two shots into the attacker's torso, and a third into her arm, smashing aside the dagger. It buys Akemi time to gather magic, and when her magic flares to life, a deep, rosy hue that glows through the gaps in the disassembled bulkheads, the girl crumples.
What-
You don't understand what Akemi just did, but you'll take it. You wrap the fallen Iowa girl in yet more Grief, piling on layer after layer to immobilize her along with her partner.
"Let's get out of here!" you bark.
"She's tough - it won't hold her for long!" Akemi snaps.
"I'll get her to Kirika," you respond. "C'mon!" And to Homura, you add, "Thanks, Homura. That could have turned out badly."
You're already rocketing upwards, wings unfurling once more. Homura and Yuma and Noriko and Akemi rise with you, borne on discs of Grief as you punch up through the decks, and in your wake, you drag three blobs of Grief. Three of the Iowa girls, freshly captured, to join the first - their antimage.
Mami soars to meet you on golden wings.
The rest of the Iowa girls-
Six of them. Just six left, just past half their number. They'd retreated to the citadel, the deepest, most heavily armoured part of the ship, pulling the hostages with them, but now, what used to be a dense, armoured warren of rooms is now an open plain, deck shattered and bulkheads rent. The hostages -the locals- seem... dazed. Fear gnaws at you for a split second, swept away by the realization that you can sense their Soul Gems. They're alive.
Your lips peel off your teeth as you feel the captain's magic surging, just enough to keep a deck beneath their feet and a weapon to her hand to face your friends. Greeny -their power enhancer- blazes in your mind's eye, a nova of unrelenting power as they turn to face your friends dropping from above.
Kyouko leads the charge with a yell and the streaking jabs of her spear, Sayaka a flowing shadow at her side with sabers. Kazumi has rifles reminiscent of Mami's, conjured from the air and already roaring out shots.
That poncho girl's there to meet them, her magic sparking turquoise. Emerald twines through her magic, stoking it ever higher, and-
Kazumi's shots miss.
Kyouko's strikes go wide.
Sayaka gets a backhand. You catch her with Grief, offering footing and support as her hand dives beneath her cloak.
Two of the Iowa girls blink out of existence. You suck in a breath, eyes widening. You'd disabled their teleportation, so it shouldn't be possible.
No.
Her Soul Gem. You can sense it blazing bright, still right there in the middle of your accreting Grief, but-
"Stealth!" you warn. "Two of them, I don't have enough Grief in the area so watch out!"
Priorities. You need to get the hostages out of there, and you need to protect them- you flood them with grief, dense enough to shield them and to snatch them from behind the Iowa girls.
The captain levels her pistol at the hostages-
You slam her aim away, and-
Sayaka lashes out with a yell-
Her finger tightens, and the blast-
Grief. More Grief, stolen from other tasks and congealing out of the air around the pistol, around her hand-
You focus the blast away, a burning column of magic and force that shudders through the afternoon air, a visible shockwave pulsing through the air and incinerating a hole through the side of the disassembled Iowa. The Iowa's own main guns, condensed down into a pistol that sears shadows through the disassembled plates, and-
Moe's there. Speed in shadow, striking at the captain with a flipping, rising kick that connects under her chin. Kyouko leaps into the fray with a yell, then pushes off to dodge jagged shards of ice slashing past her from thin air. Moe folds around what must be an invisible kick.
The captain lands, blood flowing freely from her mangled wrist -there's nothing left of her hand- for just a second before it reforms. The other Iowa girl. A healer, it transpires, but then Sayaka's on her with a battlecry and lightning crackling in her veins.
"I require a backstop," Sasami murmurs into your mind.
"On it!" you bark back. More Grief to the task, as you estimate angles and positions. A solid block, fuzzing darker than black to soak up Sasami's laser, on the opposite side of the Iowa from her, and barely a heartbeat after you finish it, Sasami fires.
A second sun scorches through the sky, an incandescent bar that sears into your retinas and leaves you blinking away afterimages.
Yuki drops through the hole as the Iowa girls reel, Mirai, and the bears slamming down after her. Kaoru plummets with a yell, driving into a descending kick that seems to connect with nothing at all and slamming something into the deck.
In the same instant, Yuki pivots and draws a nodachi taller than she is from beneath her cloak, the curved blade carving through the air and stilling, a mirror of Kyouko's blade, seemingly trapping nothing between them.
The two girls shimmer into visibility. Yuki has her blade right under the chin of one of the girls, and you can sense her swallowing as she carefully raises her hands in an unmistakable gesture of surrender.
Mirai's bears storm forward with growls rattling low in their throats, but too little, too late, as the nauseating grease of antimagic floods from Sayaka, smothering the battlefield.
Movement stills, and slowly, finally, the Iowa's captain raises her hands in surrender.
You exhale, and take stock.
[x] Hug Mami
[x] Heals and cleanses
[] Check on the hostages first, leave the Iowa girls to your friends
- [] What do you say to them?
[] Interrogate the Iowa girls first
- [] What do you ask?
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
=====
I am really, really sorry for how long this update took. Hopefully, it'll be the last one to be delayed this much.
Two minor details that didn't quite fit the flow: Mika's caught the two far ends of the Iowa that you aren't supporting, and Mami's still flying to meet you. That last segment of combat took place over maybe thirty seconds, and her flight isn't that fast!
She'll catch up in a bit.
Now, with that aside, I want to bring up something ahead of time.
The next logical thing that's going to come up, inevitably, is discussing what to do with the Iowa girls after interrogating them. And it's probably something that might spark some disagreement. But... look.
2020 has not been a kind year. The world's kind of horrible. Don't add to that. So even if you disagree with your fellow questers, just remember that there's another person behind that screen. Be kind to each other.
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Tarot I : The Magician
The Magician holds the number One, representing Beginnings and Opportunity. The Magician points with one arm upwards towards the Universe, and with one arm down towards the Mortal World, for it is the Magician's responsibility to be the bridge between the heavens and the earth.
Above the Magician is a lemniscate, symbolizing infinity, for the Magician has unlimited potential. Arrayed on a table before the Magician are the tools of each of the suits: the Cup, the Sword, the Disk, and the Staff. This is a symbol of the Magician connecting to all the facets of the Tarot. The Magician is surrounded by blooming flowers, a symbol of their ideas reaching fruition.
The Magician represents Will, Reason, Skill, but above all, Power.
My greatest thanks to @ArcadianPhoenix for completing this commission for me!
Apologies for interrupting the discussion. I randomly remembered this 'Draw the Squad' art meme from a few years ago, and I was instantly struck with inspiration. I must share my vision with all of you.
I'm sorry.
Added all of these to the index! And again: they're all fantastic.
And speaking of adding things to the index, apparently I'd completely forgotten about this one:
Which has now been indexed, too.And now that we're back, I have something important to share with you all:
It's Masami and Hiroko!
Produced by our own @ArcadianPhoenix
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
Well done, everyone!
- Location
- Illinois
WE ARE ALMOST FREE
Now look I know I have said before certain things such as "I am trying to disintegrate Iowa with my brain" but it is very important that we not kill anyone we don't absolutely have to kill. Even if you believe that Sabrina shouldn't not kill -- which btw would be a very controversial take here -- the statement "We have taken the criminals known as Iowa Group into custody" is politically much more powerful than "We have slain Iowa Group." A group which kills Iowa is inside-power-context for meguca. A group which takes Iowa into custody, without incurring serious injury or casualty, is outside power context for meguca. We gain far more from keeping these people alive than not, and what we gain we will find use for in the coming days -- tomorrow, even, at Tokyo, and elsewhere, and IMHO with Madoka. A group which takes Iowa into custody, without incurring serious injury or casualty, does not require Madoka's help. That's powerful.
Now, furthermore, I will take this chance to remind everyone -- we need to inquire with Iowa about the status of the locals and perhaps anyone back at Thir--Indian city I can't spell. Anyway.
Now look I know I have said before certain things such as "I am trying to disintegrate Iowa with my brain" but it is very important that we not kill anyone we don't absolutely have to kill. Even if you believe that Sabrina shouldn't not kill -- which btw would be a very controversial take here -- the statement "We have taken the criminals known as Iowa Group into custody" is politically much more powerful than "We have slain Iowa Group." A group which kills Iowa is inside-power-context for meguca. A group which takes Iowa into custody, without incurring serious injury or casualty, is outside power context for meguca. We gain far more from keeping these people alive than not, and what we gain we will find use for in the coming days -- tomorrow, even, at Tokyo, and elsewhere, and IMHO with Madoka. A group which takes Iowa into custody, without incurring serious injury or casualty, does not require Madoka's help. That's powerful.
Now, furthermore, I will take this chance to remind everyone -- we need to inquire with Iowa about the status of the locals and perhaps anyone back at Thir--Indian city I can't spell. Anyway.
- Location
- a Minecraft Rollercoaster
...Wow.
... Moving on from narcissistic awe, we should prepare to receive prisoners with antimagic, watch out for false surrender, and try to arrange to deal with the hostages and past victims of Iowa.
Maybe now we can bask in social.
... Moving on from narcissistic awe, we should prepare to receive prisoners with antimagic, watch out for false surrender, and try to arrange to deal with the hostages and past victims of Iowa.
Maybe now we can bask in social.