Wednesday Afternoon, After School
On The Way Past Miura Ramen Shop
Tsubomi sighs with relief. "So anyway, I'm really glad Coupe keeps those shakeable sprays of… whatever magic vitamin or whatever it is that Chypre and Coffret need… in his fur. But it was a little funny, because when I got the bottle out, my hand sunk in until I was practically elbow-deep in fluffy."
You turn to her, suddenly raising your voice a little. Because that's silly! "That's impossible! We've both hugged him! He can't be fluff all the way through, can he?"
Tsubomi gestures, vaguely and apologetically. "Maybe he's got a secret… compartment… thing?"
"I guess it could be sort of like how we can keep the Tacts and Sprays out of the way except when we need them. Sort of."
And then a little squeaky voice calls out from just behind your ear- the invisible Coffret. "Of course he can do that-desu!"
"He's Lord Coupe-desuuuaaaaaAAAH!" Chypre's attempt to finish Coffret's sentence is cut off when Tsubomi, startled by realizing that Chypre had landed on her shoulder, jumps. You're guessing that knocked Chypre off, not that you can see her.
Tsubomi looks around… in vain. She crouches down, looking for the fairy on the ground. "Chypre, are you okay? AAACK!"
Tsubomi acks, because Chypre answers right in her ear. "That was scary-desu! But I'm okay-desu!"
"You, uh, surprised me…" Tsubomi sighs. "So, uh, this is going to sound pretty silly, but how good are you at shaking up sodas, Erika?"
Not a challenge you can back down from! "I'll do my best! Wait, HUH?" You are surprised by sudden invisible fluffy cuddling up against your cheeks as the fairies fly to you, making cooing noises.
Tsubomi smiles a little. "They said I wasn't shaking up the mixture enough… I guess they're hoping you'll give it a bigger whirl."
More cooing noises.
***An Hour Later***
The sullen boy, who to your surprise just put the flower back in the arrangement out front of his father's shop, stalks away, headed up the hill.
Tsubomi mutters to herself, "If Grandma says keep fighting, then…" and then she takes off after him. "Miura, WAIT!"
She's… she's taking off without you. At a pretty good clip.
You have absolutely no idea what to do in this violation of the natural order. It is as if raindrops were streaking up into the clouds, or birds were retreating back into their eggshells.
"What are you waiting for, go after her-desu!"
"Tsubomi, WAIT!"
You do not stop to wonder if this is how other people feel around you all the time.
***
She follows him, and you follow her, and she calls out to him and he starts running, and then she does, and she trips on the stairs and screams-
"AAAH!"
Oh no- the burns, and she's just scraped herself… You're at Tsubomi's side almost before you can think- "Tsubomi, are you okay?"
"It hurts…" Tsubomi clenches her teeth; her hand is on her leg and that's a bloody little scrape she's got there. And then Miura's there too, fishing a plastic bag with a zip-close out of his pocket- with bandaids, and a couple of tubes of something, and some other things-
He looks at you. "Do either of you have any water?"
Tsubomi's a bit lost in that- it must really hurt- so maybe that's why she doesn't say anything- but you reach back into your bag and fish out a bottle of water. "Here!"
You push Miura's hands away as he moves to pour water and wash the scrape, but he takes it well and hands you the Makiron when it's time for the antiseptic. You rub that on yourself, too, because there's no way a boy has a lighter touch than you and you don't want this to hurt any more than it has to.
Through it all, Tsubomi still hasn't said anything- her eyes are watering a little, and you're starting to worry by the time you get the big bandaid patch on. Only then does she finally take a deep breath and say something.
"Thank you very much, Miura- and Erika."
Miura doesn't really smile, but he nods a little. "I'm on the baseball team, after all. We carry this kind of stuff around all the time." He spins on his heel. "Goodbye."
And though she's still on the ground, Tsubomi cries out "Wait! Miura, what is it you want from your father?"
So that's why she took off chasing him… because he's been acting funny about the new shop opening! Now it all makes sense! She's worried about him!
You do not stop to wonder if this is how other people feel around you all the time.
But Miura is frozen, and Tsubomi blurts something out- "Do you want him to close his store?" And you wince a little-
And he shouts at her, "OF COURSE NOT!" And she flinches back and-
And he stops, again, turning away, only to stare… at a little boy playing catch in the park up here, with his dad.
Oh.
You think back, trying to remember. Tsubomi's new in town, she doesn't know him even a little, the way you do, so you can ask the question you think of now and she can't.
"Miura, your dad used to play catch with you too, didn't he?"
He slumps. "Used to. And… he came to all my games. But then…"
"Then what?"
He starts walking away. You shout after him.
"If you don't tell us, we won't understand!"
And he shrugs, answering back without so much as looking over his shoulder. "If you did, it wouldn't do any good..." He keeps walking away.
GRRRRRR! You don't quite actually yell at him for talking to you like that, but… that makes you angry. You're trying to help!
Then you turn back to Tsubomi, who's looking at Miura's receding back as if she's forgotten the painful scrape, and shaking her head softly. "Miura…"
Tsubomi's hair rustles, the way it does when Chypre's on her head invisibly. The fairy pipes up, sounding just as sad. "His heart flower looks pretty dreary..."
You sigh. You tried to talk to him but something went wrong. This is why Tsubomi's in chargewait Tsubomi's in charge?Well duh, it totally goes with the pink dress.
***About Another Hour Later***
It turns out that the fairies really like it when you shake up their… magic drink mix or whatever that stuff is, and Tsubomi's grandma's tea is always nice, but it's getting late, so you went home after a short visit with her. Except…
"MENNNN!"
The high-pitched, distorted, very amplified scream booms out and you look around because it reminds you of the ball-monster Desertrian and the giant scrub-robot Desertrian and-
"Look over there-desu!"
And that.
That is a noodle Desertrian.
Your eyes are wide from the sight of the giant across the wide boulevard. You've only ever seen Ichiro the purified Snackey, who's a little different, you gather, but the monster looks something like you imagine the Snackeys must. It looms as high as the storefronts, but it's surprisingly slender, with long gangly legs and a body that looks like black sackcloth filled with sand. But instead of a sandbag head, or any kind of normal head at all, it has a bowl of noodles for a head and huge branching noodly arms!
So of course you and Tsubomi look at each other, nod once, and-
It's different when you do the transformation together- this is only the fourth time you've done it, and one of the others were practice. You lose yourselves in the instinctive motion, and it's though you're in some entirely different place for a moment as the costume- regalia- of Cure Marine appears on your body, as that of Cure Blossom appears on Tsubomi's.
You're a little bit surprised to find yourself balanced on a railing in high heels, glaring at a Desert Apostle with really good hair- surprisingly much of it, too- and a perfectly color-coordinated outfit, besides! You're honestly a little jealous of his hair. Actually more than a little because you could get away with so many fun accessories if you had hair like that darn it!
But you don't quite get sucked into thinking about how you'd accessorize if you had hair like that, because you are, in point of fact, balanced on a park railing and a deep instinct wells up within you to challenge the malignant interloper! To arms! TO ARMS!
You'd say something yourself, but Tsubomi's got this. She really does. She points. She challenges.
"Cobraja! So you finally show your face!"
The Desert Apostle- Cobraja, apparently- bows elegantly. His voice is a languid, mocking tenor and urrgh!
"Ahh, you say so, when we've never met! But then, I suppose my face is unmistakable. Flattered to see it, aren't you? No, you are not mistaken. You are indeed graced by the presence of Cobraja, general of the Desert Apostles. I suppose that you are Cure Blossom, the one my oafish comrade half-broiled-" and then he turns that nasty little smirk at you and URRRGH!- "And you, darling, would be Cure Marine, who I am told prefers to spend her battles running around away from the field and chewing on the scenery! Haha! In case one of you gets away from your impending doom, have something to remember me by!"
He flicks his wrist elegantly. The two spinning projectiles are more than halfway to you by the time you notice them coming! Still, both of you catch them with a blurring motion of your hands and-
-Who the hell does this guy think he is?
Sasorina, you now know, turned you into a giant misery-monster. And Kumojacky came closer than you will ever want to think to killing your new best friend. And you still don't hate either of them as much as you already hate Cobraja. You've known him for less than a minute and you already want to strangle him! URRRRGH!
Tsubomi just looks up from the picture to glare at Cobraja. She turns and calls into the air, trusting that your fairy friends will be there- thankfully they've kept up their invisibility with the little pendants. "Please find the sphere! We'll handle the Desertrian!"
Cobraja shouts and makes a little flounce- "Wait, who are you- don't just walk away from me!" But you're already not paying much attention. Because you and Tsubomi have already noticed the Desertrian's posture shifting, and… oh, no, Miura's mom and dad have come out of the shop!
The two of you leap into position as the giant noodle-monster starts to shout. Slowly it turns towards them, step by step, centimeter by centimeter, screaming and raising one enormous whip-like arm.
"YOU ALWAYS USED TO COME CHEER FOR ME! BUT NOW IT'S JUST RAMEN, RAMEN, RAMEN! I DON'T MATTER ANYMORE!"
That… that's Miura in there, isn't it? Oh no…
But as the Desertrian's right arm rises to slash down on Miura's father, you two are already there- and it lowers its arm.
Tsubomi raises her voice without turning her head, obviously warning the grownups. "Run! Leave this to us!"
Little Things Count A Lot! Triggers! Toujours L'Audace! triggers!
You keep your eye on the monster. And that turns out to be a good idea, because it screams "MENNNNN!" one more time, and bounds over into the park, away from the store and from Mr. and Mrs. Miura. You're not sure why, you're just glad for the lucky break- but Tsubomi and you both you run after it, and trying to get close turns out to be a really good idea because it turns and lashes out at you. And it turns out those noodly appendages can go from being four meters long to forty really fast!
But Tsubomi's bouncing and whirling and dodging giant noodle-whips that must be almost a meter across, and then a bunch of them flash out horizontally in a fan and you get an idea-
"HAAAA!"
You leap up on to the super-noodle and skid forward, heels acting surprisingly like ice skates along the monster's relatively squishy limb. Closer, closer- NOW- you leap up and the magic gets behind you and-
*BOOM*
-You kick a big dent right in the Desertrian's gigantic bowl of a head! Broth sloshes out and the thing staggers back, crashing back against the branches of a large tree. You've landed and recovered from recoiling backwards after your kick, and Tsubomi's mostly scraped off the gooeyness from getting hit by giant flailing noodles, but before you're ready to charge in again, the monster whips up one arm and what it fishes out a pair of enormous narutomaki slices and what what launches them at you like coins from a slingshot!
That attack was too weird even for you, and by the time you what what what realize you're actually under attack and need to dodge… you are already being hit by about a hundred kilos of flying fish paste. You barely have enough time to bring up your arms before-
*BOOM*
-the discs knock both of you down, skidding backwards across the grass. Thankfully, despite the costume leaving about half your back bare, it does a much better job of keeping grass clippings off than you'd been afraid it would. You think of Tsubomi but she's okay and the monster is already standing up, and it's started to shout again.
"He cares about work more than about me!"
Both of you sit up, then, on instinct, shouting "That's not true!" together, but the Desertrian ignores you.
"I hate ramen, and I hate him! The store should just DISAPPEAR! MENNNN!"
And then it reaches up into its bowl-head and pops out an entire giant boiled egg- about the size of a refrigerator- and lines up another of those noodle-slingshots, aiming right at-
You can't quite figure out how Tsubomi keeps stealing a march on you of all people at moments like this. After all, you're usually the fastest-acting, most decisive, most occasionally correct about things person you know, by far. But by the time you figure out the thing's point of aim, she's already sprinting forward, the words "Blossom Shower" on her lips, launching a spray of rosy fire-flecks that chew into the boiled egg. It comes apart in midair and splatters down on the grass in huge sizzling chunks. But the monster's already throwing more things that are landing… somewhere outside the park. In the general direction of the Miura family's new ramen shop.
You're not paying attention to that, though, because suddenly its other arm whips up faster and you were already running closer, but you don't get there before it grabs Tsubomi!
But before it can start trying to squash her or bury her in magic wheat noodle-stuff or something it just… stops. And drops her. And reaches up, grabbing its head.
"Stop it! You mustn't destroy the store! You mustn't destroy his dream!"
It's… it's crying…
You make it to Tsubomi and grab her and jump back to a safe-ish distance, still staring up at the Desertrian. Tsubomi grumbles.
"Ooof… ow ow ow…"
She's still okay, pretty much, it's not like Monday, so you're not so worried. You're kind of… confused, and you blurt out your confusion before you can stop yourself.
"It was trying to smash the place a little while ago. What happened?"
Voices from nowhere answer you.
"Both ideas are part of his true feelings-desu!"
"Struggles between conflicting feelings can mix a Desertrian up-desu!"
"Also we found the orb-desu!"
And then Chypre and Coffret reappear, visible once again. Chypre's tiny little paws clasp a crystal sphere that's bigger than he is… with a shivering tiny replica of Miura inside, still in his baseball uniform. Ugh, those orbs give you the creeps.
Tsubomi pushes herself up to her hands and knees, muttering. "I get it… he wanted so much for his father, who was working so hard, to succeed… He didn't feel like he could tell him that he wanted him there to cheer for him…"
That… That… makes sense.
You kind of wish you'd seen that one coming months ago. Maybe someone could have done something, or said something, that was left undone or unsaid. It would be nice to imagine so. You stare, for a moment, at the wailing Desertrian.
But then you hear the scoff, from the limb of one of the other trees, and- it's him. You grit your teeth as he calls out to you both, and to his monster.
"Oho, Pretty Cure! I see that you've gotten a stay of execution! Desertrian, bouffon, stop crying over all that pathetic nonsense and finish these two!"
You're still working through your sense of outrage and struggling to put together words when Tsubomi's leapt to her feet. She clenches her fists, screaming at Cobraja.
"It's not nonsense! You're taking someone's pain and turning it into a weapon, and then you call that same pain nonsense? I have had it up to HERE with this!"
She whirls to you and something flashes in your eyes as you nod fiercely to the wordless appeal she sends you.
See, THIS is why Tsubomi's in charge.Wait, Tsubomi's in charge?Duh! Goes with the pink dress and everything!Wait, what being the pink one have to do with anything?Look, it's not important.
You both know what to do.
Little Things Count A Lot! activates! Pink+Blue Forte Waves activate!
Your magic merges and the two of you dash forward- you're not entirely sure that what you experience while casting this spell is even real, but it's a tremendously powerful sensation, a wonderful clarity and purity of intent, and something that is more than just you, something given to you by special grace, is singing within your heart, tied to your heart and allowing you to do more than mere magic.
When you return to a sense of the merely real, the bowl-monster's gone from being in front of you to behind you. You and Tsubomi turn to see it levitate into the air, letting out a strangely calming and gentle warbling sound. It bursts into a shower of light, leaving behind nothing but a large magic crystal about a meter long and, unsurprisingly, a bowl of noodles.
Cobraja beats a very, very hasty retreat, vanishing into a swirl of blue witchlight.
You go to get the crystal- Tsubomi is still standing there, gasping for deep breaths.
***A Few Hours Later***
It isn't until you get home that you realize that you never had a chance to do your shopping.
Cobraja is, on top of being vain and annoying and cruel and catty, interfering with your research!
Somehow, you cannot help but feel that this is a slight against the honor of all blue water-themed magical girls everywhere.
+1 Red Heart Seed gained!
Desertrian attack foiled with moderate property damage!
Ramen shop opening delayed due to moderate property damage!
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Heartcatch Turn 2 A Dress For A Princess? What Framed Thy Lovely Symmetry? Part Two
Heartcatch Turn 2 A Dress For A Princess? What Framed Thy Lovely Symmetry? Part Two
It wasn't until you got home Wednesday evening that you realized that you never had a chance to do your shopping.
Cobraja is, on top of being vain and annoying and cruel and catty, interfering with your research!
Somehow, you cannot help but feel that this is a slight against the honor of all blue water-themed magical girls everywhere.
Thursday Afternoon Kibougahana Botanical Gardens
But not even the power of the Desert Apostles can stop the march of science forever!
Study Pretty Cure Costume Fabric
d100: 57
Discoveries!
You, Erika Kurumi, have what you need after a quick run to the hardware store and some raiding of the supplies you keep at school for Fashion Club. You finish your trudge up the road to the Botanical Gardens, quietly thankful that it hasn't had many visitors this year. You hope that isn't going to give Tsubomi's grandma some kind of problem in the long run, but she never seems to worry, so you can only hope things will work out all right. The place seems… quietly peaceful, in a way that makes you want to maybe look at a couple of flowers but otherwise just keep moving. Only a real green thumb like Tsubomi- or her grandmother- seems to show much interest in the actual plants here.
You do not notice the reason this is happening. But you do notice that it's useful to have a place where you can be Cure Marine, and where it's unlikely that anyone will notice.
You enter the greenhouse, and find Mrs. Hanasaki carefully doing some kind of thing with a pot and putting a plant in it.
"Hi, Mrs. Hanasaki!" You wave at her very cheerfully and do not notice her jumping just a little bit, then very carefully placing her transplant into the new pot before turning to face you.
"Hello there, Erika dear. How are you doing?"
"Pretty good! Tsubomi has some stuff to catch up on-" you gather some of it's got more to do with the magic communicator the Sailor Senshi gave her than with her homework, but it's not your job to tell grownups that- "but I wanted to come up to try… Pretty Cure stuff."
It still feels a little strange just saying that you're doing that, even though you know that Mrs. Hanasaki was fighting the Desert Apostles as Cure Flower fifty years ago, before your parents and most of the adults you know were even born.
"I see." Mrs. Hanasaki smiles encouragingly, stepping closer to you. She moves with the deliberate pace of an old woman, though you get the feeling she's in better shape than she lets on. "And what do you have in mind? A new spell? Or, ah, if it's something to do with Mr. Oshima, he's still off in Tokyo on that business trip of his, I'm afraid, though he called me this morning and says he may be back tomorrow, and most likely by Saturday."
"No, nothing like that. I just wanted to take a look at this costume of mine. And see what makes it special."
Mrs. Hanasaki's smile is still kind and warm, but you can't help but sense an edge of smugness in there. "Well, I know you're quite the young seamstress, so I certainly wouldn't discourage you, but… hm. I don't know that there's anything to figure out. It is, after all, magic."
"So's what the Onogoro wizards do, but they have to learn to do it somehow, right?"
"I suppose… but nothing Mr. Oshima ever said made me think that our costumes' magic was that kind of thing. Some day I should tell you the story Coupe told me, about the Queen of the Heavenly Spheres and the Keeper of Time. According to him, the Great Heart Tree remembers that they were the ones who made the secrets of the Pretty Cures' power, ages ago. And I should think that they must have been quite a bit beyond what an Onogoro wizard- or Mr. Oshima, with all respect to him- can do. If you'd like, I could make you a snack and tell you the whole story."
Snack. Also, story. That… is an exciting offer!
But… but science!
You are a more or less properly brought up Japanese girl and Tsubomi's grandma is fifty-three years and two generations your senior, but still… SCIENCE! "That sounds really great, Mrs. Hanasaki! But I'd really like to try the things I have in mind first!"
You know that must sound a little rude, but Mrs. Hanasaki doesn't seem bothered. "Oh, I know how it is with children like you sometimes. This is probably something you've been waiting for a chance to do for days, isn't it?"
You glance at your feet for a moment. Not even your momentum is entirely immune to the widow Hanasaki's secret possibly-magical grandma powers.
"...Yeah."
"Well, that's all right, then. But do tell me if you get hungry." She pats you on the cheek and turns back to the plants she's working on.
***A Few Minutes Later***
You're outside, mostly screened off from the surrounding hills by tall hedges and thick, bushy trees. You can't help but wonder if Mrs. Hanasaki set this place up, years ago, knowing that some future Pretty Cure would want some nice secluded spots to transform where someone couldn't be sure it was her. Surely not. Cure Moonlight only began her battles about three years ago, and some of these trees must have taken much longer to plant…
You whirl in the joyous exaltation of the change, as the blue-white gleam of your foundation gown resolves into the outfit- regalia- of Cure Marine. The world returns to you, just as you left it, and with an instinctive wariness you glance around. On some level this magic, the power of the flower swaying in the sea breeze is meant for fighting, and it always keys your nerves to a high pitch. Somehow, in those first moments, you always find yourself expecting enemies, danger, immediate crisis. But there's none of that now, of course. So you take a few deep breaths.
It's time for SCIENCE!
Okay. So. These are clearly magic clothes for so many reasons. How do you make magic clothes? Yes, there's the design at the fashion level, and there's the question of how to cast spells and all that. But how are they even put together? Where would you start? Hmmmm.
You poke yourself experimentally, running a fingertip along the fabric. And no, you weren't imagining what you remembered from before. There's definitely some kind of embroidered layer, or something much like it, underneath the white-and-blue fabric you can see. There's layers. Hmmm. You pause, tugging and glancing, and check with a fingertip. Then you stop to make very sure no one is watching except Coffret, who's invisible anyway. Because there is no dignified way to look at the underside of the fabric of any part of the dress you're wearing, not even the big puffed sleeve. You check- no, you can't see the embroidery from underneath either.
So. Three layers, at least. In a sandwich. The thought of sandwich- no, that would be making Tsubomi's grandma far too right, far too soon. Not sandwich time. SCIENCE time. There are at least three layers, probably only three. And they're very light. But so far, you've seen Pretty Cure costumes survive crashing into things at a couple of hundred kilometers an hour, being slapped around by giant umpty-meter flailing wheat noodles, getting zapped by a giant laser cannon that trashes buildings, and getting smeared by like two hundred kilos of fish paste.
Usually, those things are happening to Tsubomi, though you've had your share of being knocked through a window and a doorframe and you're pretty sure there was some drywall before you crashed head-first into a steel beam too.
All of these things have left your clothes, and at least as much to the point Tsubomi's clothes, nearly unmarked. Except for some singes from the laser beam that were honestly a lot less bad than the burns on Cure Blossom's skin that you try not to dwell on because they were gross and frightening and Tsubomi's okay now, thank any gods that are listening.
Even aside from the magic that keeps all these beatings from doing nearly as much to your actual skin as you'd expect, these clothes must be really, really tough. Probably tougher than any normal fabric could possibly be, natural or synthetic. Certainly tough enough to laugh at what you'd normally call "hard-wearing, durable" fabric. If this dress were made of something like cordura or duck canvas, and it obviously isn't, then one or both of you would probably have wound up wearing nothing but scraps of it by now, even if the magic kept you from getting hurt. You've never worked with things like spider silk or the kevlar in bulletproof vests, of course, but you suspect even those wouldn't be that tough, not on a dress this light.
Because the fabric does seem very light. Though… hm. Is it very light, or is it just that Pretty Cures are really strong? Could this stuff weigh as much as a suit of armor, and you just never noticed and Tsubomi didn't want to complain because she's like that? Hm. You prod your puffed sleeve again, this time in a slightly more dignified manner. No, it'd hang differently if it were that heavy. Probably. Of course, it's ridiculously strong stuff, but still. You have to start somewhere, even with magical fashion and costuming.
Hmm.
You poke and prod. You toy with the bow on your chest a bit.
Hmmmmm.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
"Erika-desu?"
You look up at Coffret. "Yes? What is it?"
"Why are you doing that?"
"Because clothes are interesting!"
"Awww, thanks!" Coffret smiles and waves his little paws cheerfully in the air. "I'm glad you think so!"
"So I'm going to be poking at the clothes and trying to take them apart a little to see how they're-"
"...Eeeek!"
"Hey, wait, come back!"
You don't really think of Coffret as a magic flying cape. Sure, you've flown together with him several times, for a total of several hours, within the past week. Despite that, you wouldn't normally think of Coffret that way to look at him. He's a little plushy fairy critter thingy. But he apparently has no trouble remembering that sometimes he's a cape.
You feel… well, misunderstood. People usually don't really understand what you're about, and now Coffret's scared of you.
You sigh. It must be Thursday. Something embarrassing always seems to happen on Thursdays.
***A Few Minutes Later***
You take off your shoe. If Tsubomi's burns didn't really stick to her, hopefully grass stains and squashed bugs won't stick to your feet either. You heft the shoe in your hand, lost in thought. Then you squeeze it hard enough that you're pretty sure a brick would crackle. The shoe feels very inflexible. More so than it did while you were taking it off, as if it somehow knows it's being squashed and is fighting back. Which… might actually explain some of the things you've seen and heard about how Pretty Cures and their costumes can avoid getting hurt by monsters, but still be light and flexible enough to move.
Hm.
Absently, you toss the shoe lightly into the air. It soars upwards, maybe five meters up, maybe ten. It slows towards a stop… and then vanishes in a puff of bright blue mist. Then the mist vanishes, too.
WELP.
You take a deep breath.
You will not start panicking. You will not, you will not, you will not. You try very hard to remember how to keep calm and not fly off the handle all the time, so you will not start running around and freaking out.
Besides, the question you suddenly very much want an answer to- am I now the permanently one-shoed guardian of the Heart Tree- that question probably has an answer not far away.
So you march back inside the Botanical Gardens, rather lopsidedly. Walking in one high heeled shoe ought to be very uncomfortable, but super strength has some advantages.
Coffret cannot be seen, and can only be heard by the happy squeaking cuddling noises embedded in Coupe's fur. Coupe looks a bit suspicious of you, but nowhere near as suspicious as you think he would if he actually believed for a minute what Coffret seemed to be afraid of. So that's a relief.
And… Tsubomi's grandmother is waiting for you, too. Waiting as though she has all the time in the world. She's got that peaceful, enigmatic, friendly, wrinkled smile on her face. A very settling smile.
"Coffret was afraid that you wanted to take him apart, dear. But Coupe's set him straight. We both know you would never do such a terrible thing."
Unsure how to reply to that, you settle for nodding firmly.
Mrs. Hanasaki just stands there. Smiling. Very conspicuously not looking at your foot. She is not looking at your foot so hard, you feel as though your foot is sort of tingling and burning from all the attention Mrs. Hanasaki is not paying to it.
You take another deep breath.
"Mrs. Hanasaki?"
"Yes?"
"I lost my shoe."
Mrs. Hanasaki nods. "I see. Inconvenient."
"I'm… kind of worried."
"That's understandable. Is the shoe 'lost' as in you can't find it, or 'lost' as in it dissolved into the mysterious mystical void from which it came?"
"How did you know!?"
"Five years with a transformation perfume bottle, Erika-chan."
"Uh, right. And. Um. The second one! So. Is… Is Cure Marine going to have only one shoe from now on?" You wince at the thought.
"No, dear. The shoe will come back the next time you transform. The same thing happened to me a couple of times, after a fashion."
"Can I ask a question, then?"
"Of course, Erika, anytime!"
"Well… would the same thing happen if I took off one of the cuffs?" You gesture at the stretchy, lace-fringed cuff on your left wrist. Come to think of it, it really is a mystery how something recognizable as lace connects to something stretchy without turning into a mess… but that kind of question is what you're here for!
And then you realize that it's been several seconds since Mrs. Hanasaki said something. By the time you look up, the old woman's gotten a strange, distant glint in her eye. The corner of her mouth twitches up in a smile that's a bit different from the soft, warm, welcoming one she usually has. "Oh, the cuffs? Thinking back… well, I wasn't in the habit of taking those cuffs off myself. But from what I do remember… I do believe it would reappear, child. Why do you ask?" She looks… suspicious, somehow.
You go ahead, forthright as usual. "I'd like to get a look at the stitching, and that means taking it off, and I'm worried I might… damage it if something goes wrong, so knowing it'll come back helps." You smile, feeling a little relieved now. You hadn't quite thought out in words that you're afraid of damaging the Pretty Cure costume by picking at it, but now that you think of the implications of everything, it is reassuring.
And Mrs. Hanasaki seems reassured too, for some reason. "Oh, is that it! Well… I don't think you'll have much luck getting the stitching apart, and it's probably just as well- if those things came apart easily, I wouldn't be alive and here to talk about it! But I hope you have a good time, at least."
She seems a little… smug. You nod politely and turn to head into the greenhouse's back rooms, resolved to show Mrs. Hanasaki that you can learn all kinds of amazing Pretty Cure stuff this way!
Maybe even something Mrs. Hanasaki doesn't know… though admittedly, right now, that doesn't seem as likely as you would have thought earlier today.
***A Few Minutes Later***
The cuff comes off with a little difficulty- the costume is still clothes, not some kind of prison or straitjacket. It's stretchy enough to slide over your wrist when you actually try to remove it. But a strange, subtle change passes over you as you do.
Even more than before, with only one shoe, you feel off-balance somehow, less graceful and more vulnerable. You can't help but wonder if the wrist thingy was a load-bearing magical accessory, actually important to the outfit and not just there to add a nice accent. The more you think about it, the more sure you are that it was.
Still, you've got it off, and you can look at it now.
…You squint. You pick up your magnifying glass and examine the piece closely. Your fingers move delicately as you trace the stitches that attach the lace and the fabric. Hmmm. The stitching is really tight. You can't really call it irregular, but the stitching angles like a machine-sewn garment wouldn't. You'd call it hand-sewn if you hadn't just conjured it up out of magical mist yourself ten or twenty minutes ago. And it's not a stitch that you would use to attach something to elastic. Though then again, this isn't any ordinary elastic. Or, you suppose, any ordinary thread.
Very carefully, you judge the angle and bring your second-favorite seam ripper to bear. Dad didn't even ask why you were trying to sharpen the seam ripper last night on the kitchen whetstone, thankfully.
It does not cross your mind that your parents may have learned a few lessons about which kinds of questions they shouldn't ask, for their sanity's sake.
Hmmm.
You're not sure this is going to work. You poke and prod at the stitches from different angles, frowning in deep concentration.
In the end, you get where you're going with this. After all, the fabric was flexible enough to slip off. It still stretches a bit under your hand. Enough that when you hold things just right, you can just get the tip of the hooked pick underneath one of the stitches. Then, carefully so as not to lose the ripper's purchase on the thread, you manage to slide it forward and hook back. You twist the tool gently, then harder, wriggling the point. You twist harder. And harder.
"GrrrRRR-" *spang*
You look down and sigh at the sight of a tiny bright patch of jagged metal, the stump where the tip of the tool parted ways with the steel shaft.
Aaaand that would be why you used your second favorite seam ripper. Losing the pink-and-purple one would have been heartbreaking.
***A Little SCIENCE! Later***
You place the little lace cuff at the edge of the bench, folding it over the edge of a stone tile from a stack of them that was just lying around.
You really, really want a look at that middle layer, the embroidery sandwiched inside the garment. Maybe you can at least fray this thing a little? If you can fray the top layer, you may be able to get a better clue about the embroidery. Pick some threads apart. Something. Hm. You'll need a good angle and something to pin it in place and keep the degree of stretch consistent…
You reach into your bag, pulling out the hacksaw you bought at the hardware store yesterday afternoon. Not a usual sewing tool, but then, this is research sewing. Naturally, you need advanced scientific instruments for proper research sewing.
(-3 Funds)
You start working the saw back and forth slowly across a point on the fabric. Nothing happens.
"Grr!"
You really put your into it. Your superheroic back, because you're still transformed, even if you're a one-shoed, one-cuffed, grumpy little Pretty Cure at the moment..
"GrrrRRR!"
The hacksaw blurs back and forth and the sound of the teeth against the lace of the cuff rises to a sort of wobbling high-pitched whine.
"GrrrRRRRRR!"
Finally you stop to catch your breath. The blade of the hacksaw looks subtly different. Dulled, you think. And. It doesn't exactly… glow… but something tickles at your vision, something coming from it that usually isn't there, as though you're sensing something like, but not exactly the same as, what you normally see.
But where the hacksaw blade is hot and dulled and generally much the worse for wear… The cuff remains the same as it ever was. Defiantly blue, charmingly elegant, lace-decorated, unmarred, and certainly unfrayed.
It is also warm to the touch. So- ow!- is the sawblade, yeah, like you thought. The sawblade's working surface is very warm to the touch, downright hot, enough that you're noticing it even transformed. And the cuff feels funny against the tile… oh.
You lift the cuff. A trickle of rock dust pours out of the notch that you've ground into the tile underneath it.
You let out an enormous, slumping sigh.
So much for that idea.
***Some Thinking Later***
You know it. You're as certain of it as you are of any of your many daring schemes that occasionally work out approximately as planned. There is an art to this.
Whoever really makes the costumes of the Pretty Cure- the Celestial Empress or the Time Keeper or whoever- knows more about the arts of design, sewing, and weaving than you do. She's taken them in directions you hadn't begun to guess were even possible until now, based on principles you don't understand.
But you intend to learn.
For now, though… Tsubomi's grandma was right after all. About several things, but about one thing in particular.
You badly need a snack.
Erika spends 3 Funds for a hacksaw! Erika blunts the hacksaw blade trying to saw open her own costume! Rudimentary ideas about Pretty Cure costuming design architecture gained! New actions unlocked!
The Midnight Incident Interlude: To Seek A Newer World
9:55 p.m.
Sir Frederick Evans grunts, emerging all the way from his concentration on the relay link, looking around his own hotel room, trying to calm his jangling nerves. He could feel the Japanese wizard on the edge of detecting the other end of the link for a few minutes there. Evans had tensed himself, ready to toss some soul-twister of a curse through the connection and hope for a better result than he expected. But now… nothing.
This is turning out to be a humbling experience. To get picked up on that easily, followed by a very earnest attempt to doorstep him. Damn. Damn.
In a big operation, just because some of the enemy's foot soldiers aren't at the top of their tradecraft, doesn't mean the enemy doesn't have someone who is. And, hell, Evans himself hasn't done anything quite like this in a long time. He's probably not at the top of his game either, in more ways than just the physical. Certainly not the physical, of course.
Hopefully, hopefully, routing his spells through a fake location will fool the bastards. It seems to be working. It usually worked back in France in '43. The Imperial Ministry can't have gotten better at this than the SS used to be, can they? They weren't in '47. Damn. Damn.
Again, as always, for sixty years, ever since the days of old schoolmasters in a timeworn old manor on the moors, remember. Inhale, exhale. What is it, that bestirs you so, boy? Inhale, exhale. You cannot see it or hear it. Inhale, exhale. You cannot taste or smell it. Inhale, exhale. You cannot touch it. It carries no twist of sorcery. Inhale, exhale. It is not real. Master yourself, boy.
It's fear, but a man mustn't let himself weaken at a time like this. He should-
No, no, he should not try his first serious thought, which is to carry on roughly as he was planning to, just a little more carefully. No, that would be a bad mistake, even if his decoy site hadn't been found out. Enough of this one-man war crap. Everything he's heard about MCAT since arriving in Japan has gone beyond his expectations, and there's at least a few familiar faces likely waiting for him there. Time to slow down and work through the system properly, as he's learned to do these past forty years, rather than skipping all those lessons just because he's back in Japan and it reminds him of the old days.
The hard part, of course, is going to be getting past MCAT's perimeter without being taken for an Empty Face trying something clever. Still, soonest begun, soonest done.
He whispers a few commands to the shades that give his suitcases strength, thanks God he's got everything important packed in them or on his person already, and makes his way to the hotel lobby. The desk clerk is obliging about calling a taxi for a small gratuity. Well, small as long as you fight down the momentary sticker shock and remember that that many yen is about two pounds, which is in turn about two shillings in proper old money.
Evans spends the wait for the cab nervously watching every entrance to the lobby at once, muttering detection charms under his breath for all he's worth.
His pair of suitcases fit into the trunk of the Cressida taxi for all the world as if they didn't probably outweigh the car's engine block between them. But then, the ghosts of the old mules have always borne the weight with only minimal complaint, and he has no doubt they'll go on doing it now. Come to think of it, there are enough explosives in the one bag to raise a lot of eyebrows, but damned if he's going to leave the stuff behind for the Imperial Ministry to find…
Well, that had been a fun conversation.
"Yes, sergeant, I absolutely agree that you should be very suspicious of me. I'm a very suspicious man, and it's late at night, but if you can have a man or two hold me at gunpoint and take me far enough back that we're probably not under immediate observation, I can show you a few things that I really, really wouldn't be letting you see if I wanted to sneak into the compound. Like what? Like all the bombs I brought with me in my invisible luggage. They're yours if you want them…"
That got him held at gunpoint, all right.
Knowing Lieutenant Meiou's name didn't reassure anyone, either. It's a pity; Evans had sort of hoped to meet the fellow again. He seemed alert and capable. A good soldier. Quite a striking individual, too; you don't see many Japanese who are six foot four and that broad across the shoulders, with or without the green hair. Something about him seems hauntingly familiar… but no matter.
Instead, Evans has gotten to meet another fellow, with the uniform and insignia of an MCAT security trooper- no rank stripes. A fellow who's nearly as tall and if anything even broader across the shoulders than Lieutenant Meiou. A fellow who now has Evans slung over his back in a fireman's carry- uncomfortable, but what can you do? A fellow who's bringing him up a long stretch of sidewalk towards one of MCAT's office buildings.
This particular fellow has caught Evans' interest, of course. Several of his professional interests at once, even. And it seldom hurts to talk shop with an ally, especially an ally who may be thinking unkind thoughts about oneself.
"Pardon me, my good sir, but I can't shake the feeling that you're not precisely human."
"Hah! So, you figured it out, huh?"
"Oh, yes."
"Hmmm… Is it the strength?" The probably-not-a-soldier carrying him sounds quite jovial, for someone whose racial name is likely often translated into English as 'devil.' Of course, Evans has met some very cheeky devils in his day, so what's one more?
He shakes his head, not that the big fellow can see it. "Oh, not to deny it, but your strength wasn't the cause. Remember, I'm not a big man, and these old bones of mine hardly weigh anything at all. Not much of a challenge to lift, am I?"
"Not hardly. Huh. So… what gave it away, then? Did you see through my magical disguise?"
"Not really, no. Your shapeshifting- I imagine you're usually taller- and glamour's fairly solid journeyman work. And I fancy myself a good judge of such things; you're doing well. I certainly haven't been casting any spells to try and get past it. That would be rude, I should think, and particularly unwise under the circumstances."
"You could say that."
"By the way, what would you do if you caught me starting to cast spells?"
"Rip you in half."
"As I thought, as I thought."
"Heheh. So what is it, then?"
"Your breathing gave you away."
The man- to stretch the term a little- sounds even more jovial than before, if possible. "I have stinky breath, huh?"
"Oh no, not at all, really! But you see, oni have a very distinctive breathing rhythm when they're expecting trouble, I've found. You can't miss it when you've spent any real length of time fighting around them. I suppose not many humans know that, of course, so I can see why you'd think it was the other thing."
"Huh. Well, I'll tell you one thing: I'm glad to hear you say all that stuff!"
"Oh?"
"See, now I know you're not a coward. And that you know about the breath thing. So you just might really be Oshima Kuroko, war chief of the old Circle Table Gang. If you are, I'm going to enjoy shaking your hand. But if, now that I've said that, it turns out you're an Empty Face up to some kind of trick, I'm going to enjoy pulling off your arms and legs even more than I thought I would! So either way, I win!"
Things get a little better after that. The sergeant must have called ahead, because a familiar face is, as Evans had hoped, waiting for him by the door.
Mills. Not a knight, but a good combat sorceress. When he was last in touch, she was running a security team down at the New Annex. But then, there would have been quite a few personnel shuffles with OLD NIGHT fended off and a lot of the badly injured returned to service.
Two Japanese men flank her: one in the uniform of the MCAT security guards he'd seen along with the military MPs at the perimeter, and one in a civilian suit. The civilian almost certainly isn't a magician- probably a translator.
But more important than the company Mills keeps is the thing she's holding.
Knowing how difficult it was for Q Division's less formally institutional precursors to get ahold of the thing, Evans can't help but feel a twinge of discomfort at seeing the Un-Paddle here in Japan, especially in a location that's probably about to come under attack in the next couple of days. Still, it works marvelously on everything short of the Senshi glamour. By Mills' report, it even knocked that back on its heels a bit, at least for a moment. It'll certainly do for any illusion Evans, or any Japanese wizard of the past fifteen to twenty centuries that Evans has ever heard of, might cast.
Perfect.
The cheerfully rude ogre sets Evans down, keeping a light grip on his biceps with both hands. Evans knows from old experience that this grip could become a hundred times harder in about the time it would take him to blink, and that human flesh really isn't fit to stand up to such pressures without more warding than he's got up at the moment.
Mills, with a sober face that's dangerous at cards, raises the device of black wood and inlaid brass. In a dazzling violet flash, the wryly smiling face of 'Kuroko Oshima,' suspected Onogoro spy who is temporarily being allowed to live until proven guilty, boils away. What remains is the similarly smiling, equally wrinkled and spotted, rather more mustachio'd face of Sir Frederick Evans, K. R. T.
The grunt from behind him is much the same as the voice he'd come to expect, though the hands gripping his arms are now powder-blue and hairier around the knuckles than just about any normal man's.
That is definitely an oni, and he has one very natural question.
"So, is that him?"
As Evans thought, the civilian's a translator, because he puts that question into English for Mills' benefit. She answers… ambivalently.
"Wait a moment." The translator turns that into "she's not sure, Dwig"
'Dwig' grunts again. "Well, if I can shapeshift smaller, maybe he can shapeshift uglier. You got a plan for that?" But the translator doesn't answer, because Mills has gestured him to silence and is giving Evans the usual sign-countersign.
"Tinsnips, you know what to do. Scenario KIRIOTH." He can tell the woman's enjoying herself a little too much. She knows damn well it gives a knight of St. Ambrose a headache to go through this. But it gets the job done fairly well as a recognition sign, even if that's not what it's really for. And she's given the challenge directly enough that-
Clarent's touch is no longer coiled in the back of his brain. She's got the right to ask, and he knows she does, and if there are exceptions to the rules then none of them apply right now. He's got to say it, and before too long. The witchlight in front of his eyes is dazzling and a steel bell won't stop ringing in Evans' head as his mind swirls around itself-
"General files, scenario KIRIOTH..." And, ugh, this is going to ache with his sword- or what passes for one- back with his luggage. Probably best to do it as properly as he can or it'll be even more uncomfortable, how does it go in the original Latin, let's see, probably… "Tunc abiit unus de duodecim, qui dicitur Iudas Scarioth, ad principes sacerdotum et ait illis: 'Quid vultis mihi dare et ego vobis eum tradam?' At illi constituerunt ei triginta argenteos." Ow ow ow ouch but the effect's swirling through him and not eating at him, so it must be close enough to the wording Merlin took from the Vulgate Bible to serve as an answer.
Mills smiles thinly. Evans sags in relief as the ringing of steel passes from his mind. Mills looks levelly past him at Dwig. "Now I know it's him."
The oni must have worked out the meaning of those words from context without waiting for the translator to start talking. He's already releasing Evans from his grip. Evans turns slowly, raising his hand.
Dwig, grinning like a fool and looking very much the ghastly-faced devil of legend with every one of the seventy-five inches he has in this shapeshifted form, reaches out to shake it.
"Told you so."
"You sure did."
Ugh.
Passing into the building's lobby, Evans feels a sudden flash from the coiled effects of Clarent's touch, still there at the back of his brain. That flash would make seeing a sister knight for the first time in nearly a month a profound relief, but Evans is fairly sure he'd feel the same way anyhow. No surprise that it's Dame Clarabelle, of course. She'd already been studying Japanese, and she's a damn quick study. And- oh.
Usually, Clarabelle dresses the same every day, without a thought for her looks. Long hair all over the place, blouse and long coat that are in all fairness always at least clean. The girl doesn't think about clothes and doesn't like to think about them, and the only change of outfit he's ever seen her in is the warded obstacle jacket that serves the Order of St. Ambrose for battle armor these days.
That stuff's not comfortable; she must be expecting trouble very soon.
And here he's left his suit back in his luggage, with all that C4 that Coupe helped him brew up.
No matter. He greets Dame Clarabelle- and then falls into Court Anglo-Norman, a language effectively no one outside Q Division and a handful of medieval historians bothers to speak these days. You have to get creative with the vocabulary to get certain ideas across, but some of the good spells are in it, and, well…
English is English, but somehow, Evans never feels really at home until he can lapse back into archaic languages and be understood. The Division is the Division, he supposes.
"Hail, fellow."Are you on a quest?"
"A small matter. Some villains claiming to serve the queen's library. This seemed more pressing. And you?"
"My own orders are kin to errantry. I see you are full cased in armor. Do you expect battle?"
"At a quarter-hour before midnight. 'Tis well that you have come."
Evans grunts and falls back into English. "Well indeed."
And then, true to form, Clarabelle pauses sheepishly, with a vague, lost expression, anticipating his next question. "But I'm not the one who knows the most about the security here.." She nods to Mills.
"That's all right. Thank you. We should get going, though- is this building a command center?"
Mills shrugs. "The bunker underneath it is. The place isn't built with spellcraft in mind, but it's well built."
"Good, good. Lead the way. Though-" he turns to Dwig. "Thank you for the lift. Would you mind going back to get my luggage? There's some important things in there."
Dwig grins, showing a great many fangs now that his pretense of humanity is cast off. "I wouldn't mind, 'Oshima,' but I'm supposed to bring you back to the chief, one way or the other. After that, if she says I fetch a couple of suitcases after that, I fetch suitcases. Her call."
"The chief… would that be Director Samui?"
"Got it in one."
"All right then, let's go."
As their little band makes their way down a fluorescent-lit service tunnel with some of the freshest paint he's ever seen in such a place, Evans tries to take in Mills' summary at full speed, at a brisk walk. It's harder than it would have been twenty years ago, and quite a bit harder than it would have been forty years ago. But no one had accused him of being unable to concentrate when he had to for… well, for even longer than that.
"...They've got plenty of men with Dr. Chiba's goggles, but about the only good those do is that they don't see people who aren't there."
He'll ask who Dr. Chiba is another time. "Right. Wards?"
"We've done what we could, sir, but there's not a lot of us and we can't get all this sewed up properly. They've got work from a fair number of the local priests and ex-Ministry renegades, too, but that stuff's a hodge-podge and I'm not sure we can trust everyone who's worked on it."
"Best not to. Let's…" pause for breath "...see, what's there to secure?"
"Hm. Bomb shelters in the basement where a lot of the noncombatants run to when an alarm sounds."
"Like the Monday attack?"
"You've heard about that, sir?"
Tempted to make a bit of a joke of it, but- no breath for it. "Yes. But besides that?"
"Besides… oh. I see what you mean, sir. There's a couple of artifact storage sites, with one in particular they worry about- some kind of ancient Indian sacred lance. Dr. Sakurai's labs- she's their head of research. There's the prison block, there's here..."
And then Evans thinks of something that stops him cold. He catches up on a few more breaths, then stares intensely at Mills, ignoring the other four people who are looking at him curiously.. "What about guard barracks, at this time of night?"
"They've already thought of it and put people on it. Sailor Moon's one of them. You just missed her."
Right. Well, that's no small favor, especially since it means one of the most obvious weaknesses isn't going to be easy for the Ministry to do anything with. "They're around?"
"Trying to keep a low profile, I gather. I'm told Onogoro has some kind of set-piece ritual aimed at them…" Mills glances at Clarabelle, who takes a moment to realize she's being asked a question.
"That's right. A forced inauguratio to restrict the Senshi to a templum not of their choosing."
Evans feels his brow wrinkle a little more as he tries to make sure he understood that. "Like an inside-out evocatio?"
Mills nods. "I'm getting this about third-hand, and I don't think everyone in the chain understands the details very well, but I think so."
"Well, I'm no expert, but somehow I don't think their inauguratio is going to perform quite to specifications. Spells crafted for the local pantheon probably won't work so well on reincarnated extraterrestrial sorceresses that are, so far as I know, technically still mortal women. Still, better safe than sorry, I suppose… hm. Lots of targets. Have you focused on active trapping, or alarms?"
"Alarms. With all these yokai around, muscle isn't the problem; finding people is."
"Good thinking. But then the trouble's going to be… hm. Hm. I need to ask a few questions when we get there…"
Time to start walking again.
It's become fairly obvious just from watching how the perimeter guards were behaving a little while ago that not everyone on the MCAT night shift specifically expects an attack. To be sure, he himself alerted the perimeter forces to expect trouble on Monday, and Lieutenant Meiou seemed to believe him. But the rank and file out there- probably including Dwig, unless he's got hard nerves even by oni standards- did not have the air of men who specifically knew they were sitting around at H-Hour minus rather less than two. They were only the usual sort of tense and alert.
Quite frankly, if Evans had been so sure the balloon would go up tonight, he might not have been so quick to gamble on the perimeter force being cooperative. Ghastly thought. No matter now, though.
The interior of the command bunker has hastily strung sets of wooden ofuda talismans all over the place, along with a few silver-wire wards in styles he recognizes better. Probably the work of Mills and her people. He frowns. Those should be bonded down thoroughly and not just hastily stapled onto wooden frames fixed to the concrete walls with masonry screws- he can still see the dust from where they were installed.
Now he's sure this place wasn't built for defense against serious set-piece magic. If it was, then all that, or its equally functional oriental equivalent, would already be embedded in the walls and properly grounded. Still, Mills knows her business and he's sure she's doing her best. He doesn't make anything of it, though he can see that she walks a little stiffer, knowing that he can see.
The door is open, but there are several guards and a few yokai watching it- some from both sides of the threshold. Hopefully, if this lot is giving proper thought to infiltration risks, this is the only entrance that isn't sealed up…
Mills and Dame Clarabelle peel off to join the guards. The civilian interpreter asks him, in gracious Japanese, to come along into the next room to meet Director Samui, and Evans does- noting that Dwim and the human MCAT guard have fallen in behind him, giving the impression of a somewhat different kind of escort- for a visiting dignitary, rather than a prisoner. Huh.
Still, when he actually lays eyes on Samui for the first time in over three weeks, he's relieved to see that she's not dangerously relieved to see him.
The leader of Japan's answer to Q Division is conspicuously inhuman. Even in this age of every other child being born technicolor, that white-on-white skin and hair and those piercing, eerie golden eyes stand out impossibly. And that's for those who can't pick up on her chilling aura.
But a spirit of winter can still walk the earth like a woman. And Director Samui has the body language and tone of one. She looks tense, not broken. That's a relief- back in '46 and '47 there were yokai, even some that Evans had thought were sound at first, who would start to come apart when they thought the Ministry was coming for them. Centuries under a secret police force can do that to you, he supposes- the Gestapo started to get to people the same way, and in far less time. But it's certainly good news that Onogoro hasn't gotten to Samui that hard, under the circumstances.
She's got some good people, too. There's Kazanari, that giant redhead with the muscles who he met before, though this time he only catches a glimpse of the man's back at the moment. There's the fat man he never got the name of before, the one who looks like a desk secretary but obviously serves as some kind of senior private advisor-
The civilian who escorted Evans in bows slightly to Samui- a little less than Evans expected, but his memories of local culture are out of date. "Director, the other members of the British delegation have confirmed Evans-dono's identity." Evans smiles and doesn't worry about the way the honorific doesn't quite meet the name the way it does in English; translating that kind of thing is difficult. There's a reason Judith's got the Sailor Senshi calling her "Carroll-sensei," especially given Minako's actual age…
Not important. Samui took the moment Evans spent woolgathering to look him over. She nods slightly to herself and opens mildly. "It's good to see you again, Sir Frederick, especially with a battle coming up. I believe asking you where you've been all this time would fall under my remit."
Well, he can answer most of that honestly enough. Most of it. "Since Dwim here seems familiar with my reputation during the rebellions forty-five years ago, I imagine that you've already learned of my activities then."
"In broad outlines, yes. You recruited a number of yokai to help you avenge your own nation's grudge against the 'Silver Lightning' faction. Some of the veterans of the 'Circle Table Gang' have found their way to us." She volunteers nothing more. She's sharp, and at least a little suspicious of him. Good. His second-biggest worry, after being killed by the perimeter guards, had been that MCAT would turn out to have weak knees, as it were.
He nods. "That summarizes it quite well, Director. I imagine that you've been briefed on the Pretty Cures of Kibougahana?"
"Yes, but I don't see the connection."
"During the time of the rebellions and my own pursuit of the Nazi expatriates you know as the Silver Lightning, I encountered the predecessor of those Pretty Cures by coincidence. She called herself Cure Flower, and we became allies. She was only a few years younger than me, and it occurred to me on my way to Japan that she might still live. Shortly after the Night Market raid, I took it upon myself to visit Kibougahana in hopes of calling upon her. I became involved in the activities of that group of Pretty Cures against their own enemy, the Desert Apostles. This has occupied most of my time, when combined with making sure my own government is aware of the potentially world-threatening activities."
Samui's eyebrow rises. "...World-threatening."
Evans blinks, feigning surprise. "Wait, have you not been briefed?"
"So far, MCAT's only contact with the Kibougahana Pretty Cures was a single extended phone call picked up by an assistant in the Pretty Cure liaison office, on this Monday. We have a potential point of contact, but there hasn't been time to follow up. Matters have been hectic, so confirmation of exactly who these 'Desert Apostles' are and what they're capable of has been… less than a priority."
Evans doesn't have to feign his grin. "Well, Director, if we both live through the night, I'll see what I can tell you. If not, well, I encourage you to follow up on any line of contact the girls would be likely to give you."
"Very well… which, of course, brings us back to other matters. 'If we both live through the night.' I take it you consider yourself to be in some danger, too?"
"If I weren't planning to fight the Ministry, would I have volunteered for an oni ride? It's not my usual idea of recreation."
Samui's mouth quirks up. "I see. And precisely what do you intend to do, then?"
"Advise. Assist. I have… no small experience in illusions, infiltration, and mental magic, you see." And there, it's out. Evans can imagine the thoughts ticking over in most of the yokai in the room, much as they ticked over in the minds of other yokai back in '46. That he plays more or less the same game, the same very literally damned game, sometimes, as the 'Empty Faces' they dread so.
Samui, for her own part, just nods slowly. "And what advice do you have for us?"
"Well, my first thought had been to warn you to secure your guard barracks at this hour. I'm told you've already done that, which is good."
"Yes… and?"
"The Imperial Ministry still doesn't think twice about catching up ordinary strangers in their battle plans, do they?"
Samui lets out a single bark of bitter laughter. "Ha! They do not."
"Lots of places they might go, and… hm. Hm. I'm going to suppose they have about the same number of Truth Makers as in the old days."
A little slice of winter touches him, locks on him, in the heart of June. Not too big a slice to handle, but a slice, as Samui stares at him.
"And how many do you think that is?"
"They don't publicize it, but knowing what I've learned since, I get a sense for it from how I saw them behave during the war." His war, anyway, which didn't end until '47. "I'd estimate that during the rebellions then, there were somewhere between forty and eighty Empty Faces, total, counting the squires in training. They won't send everyone tonight, but they can probably spare a fair few juniors and still throw two or three strong teams of their best. Which means… huh. If I were them, and I had something I didn't have to time right with the start of the attack, I'd start by sending in lone Truth Makers leading false 'teams' of hypnotised people off the street. Use decoys to draw the response, then let the real teams get through to their objectives."
Then the fat man hovering by Samui's right hand snaps his fingers. "Hey, you're right! That sounds kind of like the old shinobi tricks! Have some young idiot with delusions of grandeur throw dinky little knives at the warriors guarding the gate and toss a couple of smoke bombs around. Then while the guards are off chasing him through the underbrush, the real shinobi slips in dressed as a peasant with a mop and bucket!"
Evans shoots the fat man a suspicious look, but this isn't the time to ask him just what he knows about 'old shinobi.' Evans' professional reflexes are playing him like a damn violin, come to think of it. At home you'd know who was and wasn't human and who might remember the days of Richard the Lionheart and who wouldn't. Here, well, pick a snow-nymph to run your agency and it stands to reason a lot of very strange sorts will take it as a license to look human.
Which, back in dear old Blighty, would mean, sure as mud follows rain, the faeries playing games fit to curdle a man's blood. It's different here, the whole situation's just… different. Strange, but strange in a way with its own logic. Best to remember that, and not embarrass himself.
Come to think of it, Samui's looking at him rather suspiciously. Evans turns to look back at her. "Is something wrong, Director?"
"...You thought of that very quickly. Do they do things that way, back in England?"
Ah. Well, to be fair, this particular nymph's got nearly as much cause to be suspicious of a man like Evans as Evans himself has to suspect things that shun iron, sip blood through fangs, or sieg heil. So that deserves an answer. And for all his sins, there's at least one answer he's earned the right to give, at least.
"It would go against our operational manuals explaining how to treat the common man."
"Manuals. Tell me, Sir Frederick, what do manuals mean to you, if there's a reason not to follow them?"
Evans lets the twisted, tired smile spread across his face. "Those manuals, in particular? It would have to be an especially good reason. I missed some very good days because I was too busy writing a lot of them myself, after all. I'd hate for it to go to waste. Besides, I saw enough of that kind of thing in the war, before they taught me to type. My old comrades-in-arms from the, hah, Circle Table Gang will tell you I'm not a perfect knight. I've gotten no better since those days, and don't bother denying it. But…" He shrugs. "Director, maybe someday your kind and mine will finish counting up all the rights and wrongs of the past five or six centuries. That's going to be a long job. I suppose you'll still be your glittering, ever-youthful self when you see the day when all things are reckoned, but I expect to be many years dead by then, of old age if nothing else. So all I can say to what's happened is that we have to start somewhere. For now, how about letting one wicked old man help you catch another, eh?"
Takeda stares at the monks in front of him for a long moment before he sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He… He just… He doesn't understand.
He simply. Can. Not. Wrap his head around the utterly insane things that the monks have just told him.
"I…" The young Guardian starts to ask, before taking a moment to rein himself in. He is here as a member of the Guardians. As an example of the most prestigious organization of the Japanese isles. It wouldn't do for him to lose his temper here. He has to be the beacon of excellence that everyone else orients themselves by - As all Guardians naturally are, of course - and that means that he needs to take a deep breath, before he refocuses on what is most important.
The mission.
"I just need to make sure that I didn't mishear you." Takeda offers, hoping against hope at this point that the fools in front of him will accept the statement for what it is. "You're telling me that you don't know where the Yokai bound to your temple is? That you've gone derelict in the duties of your temple, and your order?"
And yet… Despite the fact that these monks of some piddly little temple out of the boonies are staring down multiple Guardians, their leader simply raises an eyebrow as he crosses his arms. He seems… Takeda cuts that thought off before he has a chance to put a word to the entirely unimpressed expression on the elder Monk's face.
"You overstep yourself, young man." the old monk says, words clipped and almost sharp. The monk's leader is an old man, older than even some of the members of the High Council.
But the old monk isn't anything like the aging Lords of the High Council, who have been treating the ongoing yokai rebellion as little more than an idle distraction from their geishas, their political squabbles, or the little board games that they like to play. His skin is like worn leather, tanned by days working under the sun, and bone white hair is pulled back and up into a proper topknot, something that few of the Lords have enough hair to pull off.
More than that however, the monk's eyes are gray as the stormy seas, harder than an oni's tanebo club, and sharper than the grasscutter blade. The old monk's gaze slides across the Guardians, snapping from face to face as he weighs them, measures them…
They are the best of the best, and yet…
Takeda is unsure if he will find them wanting or not. Then, there is a single moment where an idle thought flits across Takeda's mind. If more of the Lords were like this single hillbilly monk, then the threat of MCAT would have been long since strangled in its cradle.
But that is not the kind of thought that a Guardian should have about the great Lords, no matter how much he disagrees with their decisions. They are the Lords of the High Council after all, and there must be something more to them than the doddering old fools that they seem to be.
And it doesn't matter either. These monks might seem more impressive at the moment, but they too are just old fools hiding away on their little island mountain. What could they know of the dangers of the real world? They have spent generations hiding away from the horrors that the Ministry has faced down during that time.
Clearly, they know nothing. Or else they would have never allowed the sealed Yokai to wander as freely as they seem to be doing.
Finally, the Monk locks eyes with Takeda. "This monastery does not exist at the behest of your failing ministry." The words are almost a sneer, and Takeda barely manages to hold back a sneer. "It never has, and it never will."
It takes everything that Takeda has to keep himself from lashing out at the old monk. He is here as one of the Guardians, and he has to purport himself as one should… But how dare this old man speak to him that way! How dare he call the ministry failing! And the old man isn't even done talking yet! "This is a place of learning, open to all who seek to better themselves, regardless of inconsequential things such as their positions, their species, their codes or creeds. You would have us keep the Master bound in irons and hidden away behind bars, but one cannot learn to truly master themselves in such conditions."
He shakes his head, and Takeda notes the way that the other guardians seem just as off-put by the monk's statements as he is. Good. It seems that they are going to be needed after all. Takeda's original plans are already in shambles, but he would not be a true member of the Guardians if he couldn't react on the fly.
"Still-" Takeda starts to ask, but the Monk simply speaks over him.
"Not that your master's increasingly brittle grasp on Japan would, or could, contain Kasho Zhu. Despite that, he was of the opinion that dressing himself up in chains and rags and pretending to be contained within the walls of our monastery might, over time, calm your fears. Might prevent bloodshed."
…The way that the monk said that, it almost makes it sound like the demon here was playing along with the Guardians in order to make them lower their guards…
But that would mean…
No. No, no, no. No. Surely, even the monks here would not be that foolish? Surely they would have to understand the true nature of the threat that they have been in charge of over all these years.
But then the monk smiles. And for all that smile is soft, and harmless, it sets off every warning bell inside of Takeda's head. Panic surges in his chest even before the monk opens his mouth again. "But the Kasho is wrong. He believes the best of you, that you can rise above the chains weight you down. I know better, though. You enjoy your chains. You relish in your fears, and bind yourself down with your hatreds. Your masters have stagnated. The world has moved on without you. You fear the yokai, believing them to be the monsters from your bedtime stories, but that fear has made monsters of you. Now, the dark of night is ending, the dawn is coming. All your sec-"
With a snarl that sounds more like a beast than a man, Takeda's blood boils. The Guardian lunges forwards, hitting the old man as hard as he can with the back of his hand.
There is a moment of silence as everyone takes in what just happened. Takeda just struck the master of the monastery. The monks must be terrified. A place such as this is not a place for violence…
But as Takeda steps back, running one hand through his hair and glancing over at the other monks, a few have approached the old master. They are clearly worried about him, but the others…
There is no fear there. There is no worry.
There is no relief either. So it seems that at least some of the other monks agree with their leader's nonsense beliefs…
Then… What is that look in their eyes?
It looks almost like…
Anticipation.
But before Takeda has a chance to figure out what that means, a blur rockets up into the air from the forest behind the monastery. Something dark brown that crosses the distance in a single breath. The massive figure lands in the center of the courtyard, between Takeda and the elder monk, the impact enough that the ground seems to buck and heave like an earthquake in miniature.
The rest of the Guardians, older and slower than Takeda, are thrown from their feet, and it takes everything that he has to keep himself standing. He is one of the Guardians rising stars however, so no matter how difficult the situation, he refuses to fall to his knees before a yokai.
But as the tremor fades, he notices that none of the monks have fallen. All of them are still standing.
As worrying as that note is, he has no attention to spare for them, not when the unbound yokai is right in front of him.
The Boar demon stands tall, glaring down at Takeda for a single moment before he turns. Again, Takeda bristles as he realizes that the yokai has entirely dismissed him, but before he has a chance to say anything, the demon speaks.
"Li, are you alright?" The yokai rumbles, a strange question for such a beast to ask, but everything about this damned island is strange.
The old man coughs, struggling for a moment to catch his breath before one of the other monks is there, helping him back to his feet. "Don't worry about me. My prime days may be behind me, but I'm still fit as a fiddle. Just a little slower than I used to be."
"Good." The yokai grumbles, before turning back towards Takeda and the other members of the Guardians. "Now." He rumbles out, before he takes one step forwards, reaching out and grabbing hold of Takeda's robes.
Takeda struggles to keep himself from smiling. Things may not have been going to play, but it seems that they have reached the end that he desired anyways.
His mission is not to kill the demon of the monastery, the one that they call the Master of the Mountain…
But if the yokai were to have gone feral, to lash out and attack him… Well, then the demon's death would be nothing more than self defense. The Lords and the Ladies and all of his superiors wouldn't have anything to say about any of that.
As the demon lifts him into the air, Takeda reaches into a pocket, carefully palming his newest creation.
This is his pride and joy, and something that he didn't exactly want to be forced to use so publicly, but at the same time…
Using this now will definitely mean that the other Guardians will include it in their reports. Which means that he will be asked about it, and then he can reveal it to the Lords.
Getting his name on a spell this powerful might even allow him to be brought in by one of the noble families. The rest of the Guardians have stepped forwards, but Takeda glances over his shoulder, shaking his head at them. "Come now, we can be… peaceful about this, can't we?" He asks, even as he knows that he has no intention to be peaceful.
The other Guardians are clearly on edge, but they are following Takeda's lead for the moment. That is good, but he doesn't have any idea how long this farce can keep on. Someone is going to attack first, now he just needs to make sure that it is the demon.
But what else can he do in order to make sure that that happens?
…Before he has a chance to try and think of anything, he spots the other Guardians fanning out, and drawing their weapons. No. No that won't do at all. What if -
"You!" The towering yokai's words are heavy, filled with hot anger. "You struck the elder! Give me one reason not to strike you the same way. I warn you, my hand is much heavier than yours!"
Oh. Perfect. This is exactly what he needed! It's so perfect that he doesn't even need to pretend when he throws back his head and laughs. "The old man had it coming! He mocked me, but more importantly he mocked the ministry, and the Will of the Emperor! He acted above his station and beyond his means." Wait, that didn't actually make any- No time to think about that. Keep insulting so that the demon strikes first. "But what do you even care? He's just some old mortal. Something beneath you."
The yokai doesn't answer, which is something of a disappointment, but when he crosses his other arm in front of his face, Takeda realizes that he succeeded better than he dreamed. The demon IS going to throw the first punch.
Which is when everything starts to go awry, as one of the other Guardians twists around, before they lash out with their golden sutra.
No. No. No. No.
This is bad. This is going to ruin everything, but right as he starts to think that, Takeda notices the way that the yokai's snout turns up in a grin.
The yokai moves, completely ignoring the foolish Guardian and just dragging him along as he swings towards Takeda.
Takeda hurls his newest creation up into the air - the blackened stone contains a complex magical formula based on what fragments of magical energy had been left at the museum after the Sailor Scouts pulled that girl out of the painting.
Takeda doesn't really understand any of what had been going on there, but the spell effects itself was something fascinating. And if this works the way that it has in his tests so far, this should allow him to teleport himself using a similar gate.
One that can slice through anything when it closes.
The yokai's hand comes closer to Takeda, and he brings his own arm up. Not to protect himself, but to pull the trigger.
Just like that, his new spell is active.
Everything goes dark as he falls into the portal.
…
…
…
…
…
…
With a heavy gasp that burns his lungs, Takeda falls from the spot where his stone had been thrown, up high into the air. Twisting around, he lashes out with a quick spell to pull himself over towards the closest tree.
As he does, it becomes obvious that something has gone very wrong.
It was not yet noon when he threw the stone into the air…
The moon overhead is full.
The cloudless night sky is full of stars.
And a young lady sits on the rooftop of the nearest building, a long staff topped with a heart across her lap, her long hair spilling back. Wait.
He knows that outfit that she wears, and the heavy duty glamor that covers her. This is one of the Sailor Senshi.
"You miscarried a two." the girl says with a huff, shaking her head. Before she pulls herself up to her feet. "You shouldn't have done that. The spell, or the mistakes in your math."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Takeda snarls, as he pulls a knife from his belt. Ready to fight the monster that has done so much damage to the Ministry.
"You don't have time for this." The girl continues simply. "You've been gone for a month and a half now. The time it takes to teleport the way you did increases with the mass that you are sending. You've lost a lot of time."
That… That makes no sense. That doesn't fit with anything that Takeda saw in his own tests…
But at the same time, the night before had been a waning moon.
The moon overhead is full.
The truth of it all starts to set in, and Takeda curses before he turns, and leaps from the tree.
Many thousands of kilometers from the ongoing battle over the future of Japan's soul, a single finger slowly stalks along the sand and the surf of a distant nation. She keeps low, moving slowly along the border between the land and the sea, her one good eye keeping a careful lock on the movements of her target's defenders, atop the walls of the nearby villa.
She wishes that there was a better way to approach this threat - should the sleepy villa's new owner or his guards spare a single glance out towards the sea, they will certainly see her…
But there isn't any other way. Not when there are monsters roaming the forests near the town, and the folk themselves have had their minds and thoughts twisted together into a sick amalgam. No longer are they wives and husbands, sons and daughters, friends and rivals. No longer are they hundreds of individuals, but instead a single great machine, where each heart and mind is but a lone cog.
Perhaps the only other approach that might have worked would have been for the woman to spend some of her riches on buying a small plane and paying someone to fly it for her. The expense itself wouldn't be a problem, not given the sheer scale of the funds that the woman has collected over the ages, but she hasn't continued on for as long as she has by making large payments that people might notice.
Not that she needs any of the commodities that the modern era has brought around. The woman is older than she looks - And by a much wider margin than people might think when they see her…
Or that would be true if they thought about her age when they saw her. Most people don't. They notice the web of lightning shaped scars that run down from her left shoulder down to the ends of her fingers - one of which is missing the last joint. They notice the hundreds of scars that run down her other shoulder from when she was too slow at one point or another. If she's in a more relaxed mode, and wearing something lighter, they might be able to spot the Y shaped scar across her back from an incident centuries ago when a chinese alchemist realized just how old she was.
If they haven't averted their eyes by that point, then they almost always do when she turns to look at them, and they can see the empty pit where she lost an eye - A so-called 'sacrifice' to her patron, the god that damned her to live on, even past the point where he disappeared from the world.
Feh.
Thinking about that bastard was a good way to end up distracted, and she can't afford that now, not when one of these so-called 'Dark Kingdom' fools is close at hand.
Closer and closer she creeps, until she gets close enough to the seaside villa that she can no longer see her prey. Mostly because while the villa is by the sea, it was built at the top of a sheer cliff face. Dropping the pack to the ground, the woman quickly strips down to just her underwear. Most armor would fit well enough over this era's mundane clothes, but hers is special- and unexpectedly hard on most modern fabrics, which didn't exist in those older days. Carefully making sure not to drop any in the sand, she folds her more comfortable clothing away into a different pocket of the pack, before she opens up the main pocket and pulls out the armor that is just as world-weary and worn as she is.
Or, at the very least, the armor looks as world weary as she is scarred, and it looks as worn as she is young.
But neither are what meets the eye.
With each piece of armor a prayer is spoken, quiet enough to be hidden by the splash of the surf.
"Αδίστακτος Ποσειδώνας, Κύριε όλων κάτω από τους ουρανούς, σε παρακαλώ να δώσεις τη βοήθειά σου στην προσπάθειά μου."
"Θύελλα Δία, που διεκδίκησε τον θρόνο μετά τον αδερφό σου, σε παρακαλώ να ησυχάσεις τον αέρα για να μη με ακούσουν οι εχθροί μου."
"Μέγας Ήφαιστος, κύριος των κατασκευαστών, ευλόγησε αυτό το εγχείρημα."
"Σουίφτ Ερμή, σιγά τα φτερά σου, ώστε τα μηνύματα των εχθρών μου να φτάσουν αργά."
"Κυρία Άρτεμις, προσφέρω αυτό το κυνήγι στο όνομά σου."
"φλογερός hāwélios, παρακαλώ όπως πάντα για αυτό το δώρο που ακυρώθηκε, από τον προστάτη σου στον δικό μου.Ξέρω ότι η απάντηση είναι όχι. Ζητώ λοιπόν αντ' αυτού τα σύννεφα να σκεπάσουν τον απογευματινό ήλιο, ώστε να μη με βλέπουν οι εχθροί μου ."
Πονηρό Διόνυσε, ας είναι απροετοίμαστοι οι εχθροί μου."
The ancient warrior pauses, blinking in confusion as she turns her head away from the villa, and out across the waters behind her.
That… That has not happened in a long, long time.
Long before the Decimation took the gods away, they stopped answering her prayers. To speak them became more a matter of habit, and a small ritual to enhance the magics of her armor - though it is the last prayer that she hasn't uttered that is needed to activate the enchantments.
But that doesn't matter at the moment, not compared to the fact that Dionysus just answered her prayer - Or at the very least he took notice of it. Which should be impossible. The gods are all gone… They vanished with everyone else during the Decimation…
Right?
…
The ancient warrior, who first took up a blade when her kingdom was invaded in the distant past, pauses for the first time in a great many years. The thought that her patron might actually hear her…
…She isn't… She doesn't…
If her Patron is back, then it means that things are changing. For the better? For the Worse? Hard to say. She hates her Patron. He ripped an eye out of her head, marking her as his. He granted her a level of healing that outstripped everything the world had known, to the point where ever thousands of years later nothing has been able to put her down.
She loves her Patron. He is her god, quite literally. He saved her when her city's prince kidnapped a foreign queen for his own, bringing an alliance of kings to besiege her home and take the foreigner back. He saved her when she took up a weapon despite being a woman and killed one of her attackers.
He taught her how to defend herself, how to fight and win. He taught her to read twice over, to count beyond the limits of her fingers and toes. How to plot and plan, to get down and dirty with the enemy if needed - Honor is the domain of warriors and kings, whereas she is a Priestess. Was a priestess. It wasn't Eros. Not that kind of love. Her god was like a father to her. She was like a daughter to him. He admitted it to her once.
But the bonds of family were different then, and her view of her Patron has changed over the centuries, not the least of which because he stopped responding to her prayers.
…Despite that, despite all but disappearing from her life, every year on her birthday she received a gift of some kind. In the early days it simply was waiting for her outside of her tent, or whatever cave she was resting in on her hunts…
But even as humanity advanced the gifts continued to appear.
A spirit came to her in the night with a gift, as she drank to the downfall of Mykênê around a warband's campfire.
Traveling peddlers brought her gifts as she maintained a neat if unusual homestead in the hills that would some day become Rome, keeping an eye on a couple of very loud baby boys.
A desert whirlwind gently dropped a heavily wrapped parcel at her feet, during the long bitter march back from the so-called 'Edge of the World' with Alexander. Another gift.
Even in the later ages, when the power of the old gods faded around the Great Sea and the peoples who had known her began to shun her, when she had to make her own living and her heart began to sink and the scars became more prominent, the gifts still came. Even when she was a thousand leagues away on the Silk Road, or sunk in obscurity in the warrens of some plague-fouled city.
Every year. Without fail.
Then came the Decimation…
Sometimes, Astrea wonders if her Patron was forced to stop interacting with her. If something stopped the god who was all but her Father… Well, there are few enough forces in the world that could do such a thing.
But enough thinking of the past, enough wallowing in things that she can't change. Especially here, so close to one of the Dark Generals attacking the whole world.
And definitely not when so close to the place where minds are warped and twisted. Allowing herself to get confused by the past may be a one way trip to something she can't get out of…
With a last scowl, the Priestess of the War God steps forwards, words at her lips.
"Μεγάλος Πολέμαρχος Άρης! Προστάτης μου! Εάν έχετε επιστρέψει από το πέρα από το οποίο όλα τα πράγματα πάνε,τότε σας ικετεύω, σας παρακαλώ, σας ικετεύω. Ακύρωσε το δώρο που μου έκανες εδώ και καιρό. Άσε με να ξεκουραστώ,μετά από τόσο καιρό. Αν δεν το κάνεις αυτό, τότε δώσε μου τη δύναμη να πολεμήσω τους εχθρούς μου,να τους αφαιμάξω να στεγνώσουν και να συνθλίψω τα κόκκαλά τους για το ψωμί μου."
Her armor grows warm to the touch for a moment as the many enchantments awaken, then three quick steps and she leaps upwards, grabbing hold of the rock face, before she starts to climb.
Kunzite better beware - No matter how skilled he might be, and no matter what kinds of warriors and monsters he has under him, Astrea is a Priestess of War itself, and she is far older than he could possibly try to wrap his head around. There are no warriors alive who can match her in strength or skill.
EDIT: Forgot to include the Artist that first inspired this character being imagined up some year and a half ago, but never had a place to put her on screen.
Such fire as the Onogoro platoon does manage to unleash has considerable effect on the sandbags and fells several of the defenders, though. And as the attacking platoon draws closer to the MCAT lines, close enough to carry out their planned final offensive rush, Lord Bojo carries out a variation on his original intended action. He had of course immediately identified the giant redheaded man who fights in his shirtsleeves with huge and obviously magical gauntlets as an MCAT champion. Lord Bojo casts the targeting charm for rocket support and calls for a strike directly against the enemy champion.
While guided rockets aimed at the helicopters are being consistently brought down by the White Meteor, some of those directed at ground positions do get past her during this phase of the engagement. This rocket proves to be one of them.
In the last second or so of its flight, the rocket causes sudden alarm as several MCAT soldiers point up into the sky at the burning streak curving down towards them, aimed squarely for the red sparks swirling around Mr. Kazanari's chest and shoulders. Those around him, realizing what is happening, begin to scatter, though it is too late to reach a safe distance.
To the surprise of everyone present, Genjuro's response is to whip his gauntleted hands out and catch the missile's nose cone between them, with the untriggered fuzing rod protruding to within roughly ten centimeters of his chest.
As Genjuro skids backwards towards the brick wall of a building under the thrust of the solid-fuel rocket, a verdant glow erupts from his gauntlets. He bellows wordlessly at the missile at the top of his lungs, then with a wrench of his arms and hands pivots the missile body- about twelve centimeters in diameter and well over a meter in length- upward into the air.
The intimidated missile guidance spirit does not attempt to re-engage and instead ascends into the heavens, preferring to burn out quietly at altitude and trace a ballistic trajectory across Tokyo Bay to its relatively undramatic retirement via hard landing in a field near the city of Narita.
***
It is perhaps a testament to Lord Bojo's ability to keep his head in a crisis and project, if not enthusiasm, at least a measure of stability, that the Onogoro platoon does not rout on the spot. Bojo begins calling out orders in a voice that carries surprisingly well for its mild-mannered tone, along the lines of "fall back, slow walk, keep your heads, hold the array, do not turn your back on the rocketproof man, slow walk, slow walk…"
The attackers carry out the orders, holding up their barriers and banners rather more nervously than before. They fall back to a hastily conjured earthen fieldwork erected around the east side of the same breach in the perimeter wall that Bojo crossed to enter the compound in the first place. While the defenders attempt to smash the improvised fortification apart with antitank weapons, the depletion of their immediately handy ammunition earlier in the action and further trouble with the Type 87's laser designator forces limits their volume of fire to something less than the Onogoro forces can repair.
***
From his embattled bunker, planted tenuously but squarely in the breach he's forced in the MCAT compound walls, Lord Bojo makes an understandable error of judgment.
Apparently, not only are the Sailor Senshi on this battlefield, but some other minor deity has sided with the rebels and taken the field against his warriors. So he calls for support.
Genjuro Kazanari
d100 + 0 (Foot-Mobile) - 5 (Very Conspicuous) + 5 (Melee Only)
Vs
Onogoro Godbinders
D100 - 5 (Temporary Service Outage) - 3 (Rather Rattled) - 50 (Be Ye Kami?) - 50 (NAY, WE ARE BUT MEN!)
Genjuro is soon distracted from the ongoing efforts to keep the samurai behind that rock-wall suppressed with machine gun fire when a piece of old twine whips past his face. It is followed by another, and another, flailing through the general area around him more or less aimlessly. A few of them slap him lightly, but then twitch and fall to the ground, doing nothing.
Eventually he grows annoyed. He snatches at one of the stupid strings, twisting his hand to wrap it firmly in his grip and pulls.
***
Somewhere in a heavily reinforced and very deep basement under a nearly invisible stronghold well outside Kyoto, a little old magician is watching a rack full of spools of twine. This duty, usually routine and perfunctory, has been vitally important. Many of them have run out and back in the past little while.
But this time is different. He now knows how to recognize something that hasn't happened in his long life- the telltale shimmer of the cords as they generate sealing talismans to bind the power of a hostile kami, like these Sailor Senshi he's heard about. The cords shimmered gold, and then more recently green. That happened. Which meant the cords were still working, as in the days of his ancestors. That he'd been doing his job all this time, even if he's fairly sure something's going wrong over in Edo.
This time, one of the cords is caught, and there is no such shimmer. Is something wrong? Did the binding ritualists somehow... make a mistake? Are they try to snare a mere mortal? That doesn't even- that wouldn't work! What got into those whippersnappers?
And then there's a tug.
More than a tug.
There is a creak.
Old but lovingly maintained Japanese cypress is not a weak wood, but it has limits. Whatever is pulling on the deity-binding cord has the strength one might associate with stampeding wild horses- quite a lot of them. And, importantly, isn't being contained or limited by the conjured talismans that are supposed to keep that strength from being transmitted anywhere where someone might get hurt! This didn't happen the last two times!
The creaks get louder. The enchantment that acts as a ratchet begins to hiss.
The little old wizard realizes that the axle is about to either catch fire, or splinter, and either way it's going to send the whole spool flying through space, probably clear to Edo and into the hands of whoever's got the far end as far as he knows.
He thinks fast.
There's an old toolbox down here. It's always been here, as far as he knows. And he's had this job for nearly fifty years for a very specific reason. Namely, because he's the kind of person who obsessive-compulsively maintains anything around him. It doesn't matter whether it will ever be needed, or what it's for, or anything else. He keeps things ship-shape.
Therefore, the saw in that toolbox, which has been there since the nineteenth century, which would never conceivably see any use in maintaining the spools because a broken spool would be dismounted and taken to a workshop, is not as sharp as a razor. It is sharper, possibly beyond the point of practicality for a saw blade. But the old man does not care. It's the principle of the thing.
The teeth are, indeed, sharp enough to nick the enchanted twine, especially given the profound lack of divine power flowing through it. And it's under a lot of tension. It parts almost instantly.
And whoever's somehow trapped the far end gets only a few meters of the stuff, not the entire spool.
Finally, an involuntary blink broke Lorena's eye contact with the ruler of this dream. That freed her mind far enough that she could at least draw breath, could partly recover from her hypnotized state. Partly.
She had the sinking feeling that things were about to get a lot more complicated.
Lorena realizes, rather grimly, that she needs to think fast. There's a lot, a lot, to process, and very little time. Perhaps only a few heartbeats before- before the Queen, impossible to think of her as anything less now- starts asking questions. Or before she simply pins Lorena like a butterfly to a board with her gaze again. Or does something worse.
The good news is that the Queen's gaze was harsh, even inhuman, but not malicious, not sadistic. And none of her titles recall anything of any hostile power Lorena can remember having heard of. In particular, nothing of the Fae Courts- so Lorena can hope she won't have to navigate all the verbal traps and chains that come with dealing with them.
And the phrase 'Guardian of Humanity' in one of the Queen's titles is... somewhat encouraging.
The bad news? The name Selene sounds familiar from her lessons about the Greek gods, but nothing about this place suggests a minor anything, even if the thing that is 'minor' is a 'minor goddess.' Lorena may be overestimating herself, her own ability to keep her head, but the Queen feels... grander than that, somehow, frighteningly grander. And the title 'Chakravartin' sounds Indian, and by reputation something this grand might be associated with their pantheon, conceivably- but the aesthetic feels wrong, and so does the idea of the entire Earth as something viewed from outside.
Which means that this is an immensely powerful stranger from an unknown culture, and Lorena's flying blind. The mention of 'lunar academies' and the manner of their arrival suggests that association with the moon fits perfectly, but the alternate Earth in the sky with its mid-Atlantic continent raises more questions than answers.
Which means her only chance is, as she'd feared, to hope the courtesies she learned for meeting fae royalty in Intermediate Supernatural Etiquette will suffice to mollify the Queen, get Lorena and Coco through this, and get out.
Lorena scoops Coco from the plate the bunny sits upon and brings her familiar's head down as she bows sharply, folding up past ninety degrees. "Greetings and salutations to Your honored… Your honored Sublime and Celestial Majesty. We, uh, apologize for arriving in your court without an invitation, but-"
Lorena can't see the Queen's face from this angle, but the tone of the Queen's interrupting voice isn't encouraging.
"Relay your message promptly, please."
Lorena glances up. "I'm sorry?"
A tiny bitter twitch lifts the corner of the Queen's mouth. "A handful of entities might suspect that I still exist, in my peculiar fashion. If they do, then I suppose it's understandable that they would seek me out personally, instead of looking for my daughter. But behold- whoever has done this, instead of sending one of their own, recruits a modest and unaffiliated dreamwalker. An unwitting envoy without even context for her assignment, let alone any instructions specific to the manners of my court. One who comes to me with nothing but some sort of sympathetic connection to this dream and certification from what I suspect is a defunct polity. Unless you are, in truth, an emissary of the Dens of the Beasts of Earth, someone wishes to communicate with me with no forewarning and no clue as to their identity. Hardly promising."
The Queen draws a deep breath, and Lorena gets a sense, somehow, of the power behind those eyes intentionally holding itself in check behind that calm, smooth, ancient mask of a face.
"So, child, whose entirety here sits in the careworn, scarred palm of my mercy, graciously relay your message, that I may formulate a response and send you on your way."
Lorena gulps. "I'm... afraid there's been a misunderstanding, Your Sublime and Celestial Majesty. I am not an envoy of another polity. We... came here by accident. I'm afraid I... don't really know who you are."
The Queen's serene mask flickers towards anger for a split second, then settles back into faint hints of confusion. "Strange. You mean no deceit but speak no sense. The Sea of Dreams is navigated by context; you cannot find what you don't know to look for. If you have no idea who I am, how did you find this place?"
Confusion- curiosity- those aren't the feelings of a hostile and inhuman being. Nor, she supposes, thinking back, is a 'scarred and careworn mercy.' A tiny flicker of hope comes to Lorena. And even without that, there'd be no point in trying to lie, even if the Queen didn't have some way of being very confident that she can tell whether Lorena 'means deceit' or not.
"We were using a divination spell that links to many dream bubbles and creates a sort of reflected image, a weighted combination of what's affecting those dreams. And my familiar, Coco here, got it in her head to look for 'dreamers on the Moon.' And... somehow, that led us to you."
Coco waves her little paw. "Hi! I'm Coco, the moon rabbit! Nice to meet you, Her Majesty!"
Selene's eyes widen; if more than ancient habit is trying to hide that hint of pain in her face, it fails. She blinks her eyes closed for a long moment, then opens them again. Her expression is softer now. "...No, little one. You may have the form of their kind, and even the affinities, but you are not one of the leporidae lunaris. You... are merely a construct formed in their image, although if even the memory needed to form that image persists, perhaps... perhaps a warren did escape to Earth after all." She turns slowly from Coco to Lorena. "Though... unless that fraction of their race survived for several millennia, then I fear that their kind is as dead and lost as the Moon you know today. This is your familiar, bound to your soul. What do you know of the truth of its form?"
Lorena finds that she must flinch a little. A soft, quiet place next to her heart wishes she could tell Queen Selene that there are rabbits like Coco all over the world. "I... asked for a 'moon rabbit' for a familiar, but I thought that moon rabbits were part of a myth. We- well, a people on the same continent I come from- have a legend of a rabbit that offered its life to feed a starving man. The man turned out to be the god Quetzlcoatl, who rewarded the rabbit for its generosity by imprinting its image onto the moon. The Dens of Beasts had a ritual that was said to be able to use the power of legends to make familiars, and... well, now I have Coco."
Lorena can't help but smile at Coco as she says it. When she looks back to Queen Selene, she finds that the silver-eyed ancient is very slightly smiling too. Then her face smooths back to its former regal mask. "Coincidence, perhaps. But I shall find it easy to remember your neighbors' myth. As to the rest of your story, I would like to examine your Coco more closely, as corroboration. Please place her on the disc."
Just before Lorena asks 'what disc,' a translucent plate of white material, with subtle etchings that are impossible to make out in the subtle sourceless glow that fills this room, appears in front of her. Lorena looks at it suspiciously. "This isn't going to hurt her, is it?"
"This isn't invasive; it won't cause her any pain."
The Queen's tone doesn't fill Lorena with confidence- I wonder what it's going to be like for ME- but she doesn't feel that she has much choice. "Alright, Coco. I'm going to put you there. Just stay as still as possible, and this should be over quickly."
"Okay!" Coco seems invincibly untroubled, at least so far. Lorena's not sure if that's because Coco trusts the Queen for some reason, or if she just doesn't understand the dangers of the situation they're in.
As Lorena sets Coco upon the disc, it starts to glow. Swirls of strange text appear in front of Queen Selene. Unreadable text, but it... yes, some of the characters look like the script from Ruan's rituals.
Selene's eyes dart from place to place around herself, and she begins to speak- half to Lorena, half to herself. "The ritual for a 'Companion of Legend...' approved by a 'Lord Inuyasha' of the Wolf Throne. Curious, that; how did you manage to get in contact with- ah. You were unaware of each other before the ritual began."
"Wait, how do you know that?"
"Your agreement and its terms are woven into your familiar's body and soul, child- down to the last detail, stipulation, and clarification, for those with understanding to see. This wolf-lord acceded, in the end, but-" Selene's eyes narrow frighteningly and focus very, very squarely on Lorena. "He called you a 'thief using abandoned rituals,' and you called him a 'forgotten god or whatever you are.' This method comedy is no longer amusing, child. How did you acquire this ritual and the knowledge to cast it?"
Honesty has gotten Lorena this far. With the Queen being so easily able to access so much information, it seems the only path forward. "From my cryptid friend, Ruan. He's a researcher of lost magics who managed to flee to Brazil with some ancient scrolls. He says that he escaped from a terrible sorceress who has been capturing and starving other cryptids like him, to try and condition them to attack humans."
The silent waterfall flowing behind the Queen's throne suddenly freezes in place.
"…Did this 'terrible sorceress' have a name? Did he describe her?"
"Ruan never gave me a name; he didn't like talking about it. But I did see an image of her in his dreams once."
"Show me."
Lorena projects colored smoke from her hands, which quickly coalesces into the form of the snarling red-haired woman with the hateful eyes, the one she saw before. "I don't know how accurate it is to the real person, bu-"
Lorena stops in mid-syllable as a white cocoon of fire snaps into life, encasing her whole body, freezing her in place like a statue. In the same moment, a bubble of blue witchlight appears to englobe Coco. Eight ethereal spears condense from air and recollection, forming the corners of a cube and pointing at the sphere's center.
The face of this shadow of an ancient monarch contorts in utter, absolute rage, casting furious whispers fit to pick a soul apart and examine its every twist and whorl- and, theoretically, to put them back together at leisure.
Selene looks sternly at Lorena. Lorena reels. When.. that's... when did she dismiss her illusion? When did the silent waterfall start flowing again? Something's wrong- did she miss some time? No, not important right now.
Selene speaks, and her voice is taut with anger- anger at someone else.
"That 'sorceress' is named Beryl- the greatest living enemy of humanity known to my memory and to what vision is left to me. She's destroyed civilizations higher and more powerful than yours. Fortunately for us all, I've found no trace of her influence in either you or your familiar. Now-" again that pinning stare, for just a moment- "tell me, why would one of her escaped minions choose to grant this ritual to you?"
"He... he's my friend. He's been starved and caged for so long that he didn't know that there could be anything good in the world. When he escaped, I and a few others helped him connect into society. He… just wanted to give something back that could help me be safer, that's all."
The anger stays firm on Queen Selene's face for several seconds longer, and then she sighs. "...That woman makes ill use of every tool she turns her hand to. Her youma, too, no doubt. So, you mean to tell me that you truly did arrive here by coincidence and happenstance?"
She flexes her jaw, and her eyes are lost in thought for a moment. Then she looks at the empty throne set beside her own.
"Serendipity is not to be casually dismissed, especially in such times as these. Hail and well met, Lorena Oliviera and Coco of Brazil. I welcome you to the Moon Palace. Consider yourself safe within these walls."
Lorena gives a sigh of relief. It felt like she and Coco had passed some kind of test- a spectacularly dangerous test. "I thank you, Your Majesty."
With a moment to reflect, she takes another look at the architecture and the altered Earth in the sky. She has more questions that trouble or confuse her than she can easily count, but she has to start somewhere.
"I... have a lot of questions."
The faint hint of a sad smile crosses the Queen's face- a deliberate message, more likely than not. "I have frightened you quite enough; a gift of indulged curiosity seems only fair. Ask onwards."
"This dream, this place, is crafted almost entirely of memory. Is… is this real, then?"
Queen Selene waves her hand, conjuring a flat image- illusion, made to do the work of a screen. Pictures of a gleaming white palace flicker before Lorena's eyes. Strange flowers grow in its courtyards. Men and women in fine clothing of unfamiliar styles walk its halls, on every manner of business. And through it all, peace and happiness and security are revealed in the expression of nearly every person Lorena sees in the pictures, to a degree that she has rarely seen in life.
"Oh, this palace exists. With the right benefactor, you could walk its halls in the waking world as easily as those of your own home by the River of Beginnings. The edifice is real, built of true masonry and will-wrought metals and other things, and survived, occluded, through the age of the Moon's... death."
Lorena nods solemnly, listening, catching the little pauses in the Queen's speech, which hint either at deep feelings or at the skill of one of the greatest actresses in human history. Perhaps at both. Selene goes on.
"But the ocean, the sense of grandeur, the people, everything that made the palace a symbol of human greatness and not a mere abandoned ruin... that persists only through my memories."
The pictures are tugging at Lorena's mind, especially the exterior views of the palace from a distance, on lawns that dimly recall images of the Taj Mahal rather than the cratered lunar landscape Lorena's seen in schoolbook pictures of the Apollo landings.
"Your Majesty, this... reminds me of something. Something of Coco's."
"Oh?" Selene's left eyebrow shifts by a millimeter. "Then perhaps she can bestow indulged curiosity upon us both."
Lorena turns to Coco. "Coco, this looks just like some of your drawings. Did you... know about any of this?"
The lunar rabbit makes a humming sound and paws her face in concentration. "Oohh, umm... well, I did have a dream about a castle on the Moon! But I thought it was just a thing in my head, like the dream about the big hungry vacuum cleaner wanting to eat me. But you said dreams are sort of real, so that's why I asked if we could check! This place is really pretty on the inside, Her Majesty! I didn't dream-remember it being so pretty!"
Queen Selene nods slightly. "I see. And yes, little one, I had a great deal of very good help in making it so... Lorena, I would ask you questions of my own, the better to answer yours." With a silent, interrogative tilt of her head, she looks at Lorena, sending a very clear message- are you close enough to grown, to know when to follow? And Lorena finds that this peculiarly, almost uniquely gentle challenge can only be answered with a similarly gentle nod.
"I… will do my best to help, Your Majesty. What would you like to know?"
"First, confirmation. You are no isolated scholar, surely, but rather abide among a sort of commonwealth of mages. Is that right?"
"Yes. In Brazil, human mages are part of the Community, and we work alongside the cryptids, who live in the Clans."
"And Brazil is the eastern part of the southern half of the two loosely-connected continents which are east of the Earth's largest ocean."
This is not a question Lorena's ever expected to have to answer, but she does her best to work it through. "...Ah, yes, though, not all of the northern part of the continent. The north coast and the parts west of the Andes mountains are separate."
"The mountains, at least, I've met." Queen Selene smiles dryly.
Lorena files that away for important later. "Also, while 'Brazil' is my home, the Community and Clans have many ties to other parts of the continent. The public's political boundaries don't always mean very much to us."
"The 'public.' That would be the benighted, those without magic- and earlier, you mentioned 'cryptids.' You mean... ah. The sons and daughters of Tiamat, All-Mother of most of the sapient magical beasts you know?"
Lorena nods. She knows that some cryptids speak of an All-Mother in their stories. The mythological reference to 'Tiamat' sounds like it might fit. "I can't be sure about the name; she's either very, very well hidden or thousands of years dead."
"I'd thought as much... ah, well. Nothing for it."
Lorena pauses, and part of her wishes she'd thought of this sooner. Some mages, and even some powers, feel that way strongly. Certainly, the Church is very suspicious of cryptids at the best of times... though it seems very unlikely that Queen Selene has anything whatsoever to do with them, or vice versa.
"Do you... disapprove of allying with the cryptids? Is 'youma' the word you use for them?"
Queen Selene shrugs, and her mouth quirks up to add a gently amused, dismissive note to the delicate motion. "The cryptids started no quarrel of consequence with me when their races were young, so I have no quarrel with their kind. But youma..." Lorena is lucky that the Queen pauses, then, to master her anger, because it takes her a second to blink back the implication that this ancient figure predates the cryptids.
Selene's voice is, as always, a precision instrument. Lorena has no trouble believing that the Queen could make it sound however she wanted it to sound, and choose whether to let through any real or feigned emotion she wishes. How many years has this woman spent honing her acting skills? But... Lorena does not doubt that most if not all of what the Queen says is honest. Now less than ever.
Selene's hands clench into fists and the room ripples slightly under her will. "Youma are a different kind, not of Tiamat's brood. They are foully made for foul purposes. They are not the worst thing to darken the doors of creation. but if every youma died a myriad of deaths, I would not shed a tear, had they left me tears to cry. But-" her hands relax, and the room steadies. "-enough of that for now. In this age, Earth's magicians work together by secret ways to delude the benighted into thinking magic the province of fables and fantasies, not of reality. Does this include your Community and its friends' Clans?"
Lorena takes a moment to parse that. "Well, they help to uphold the Masquerade, yes. Although we've... had recent problems with that."
For just a moment, Queen Selene's mouth draws into an amused, sardonic smirk, though she smooths it away. "One imagines it difficult to keep up such pretenses, on a besieged world. So many demons, so little time... Tell me, child. Which foes, in particular, trouble your Brazil?"
"Well, there are the 'Towers of Brass and Silver,' which suddenly appeared one day and started abducting people all around them. They release most of them. The Dark Liberators were building up momentum for a time, but they seem to have mostly relocated to Mexico for the moment..."
"The Dark Liberators... my sight has dimmed, but that, I believe, would be Beryl's way of fouling your continent. Some of her minions are known to me, and are of great cunning- do not assume they are truly gone from your land without proof. And towers of brass and silver- those are weapons, not armies. Someone controls them, for some purpose. Do you know who? Could this, too, be a weapon of Beryl's?"
Lorena shakes her head. "The towers don't exactly come with loudspeakers explaining what they're for. Thousands and thousands of people have been inside by now, but no one who comes back out remembers what happened while they were kidnapped. So there aren't really any clues, I'm afraid."
"A puzzle, then. Is there anything else?"
"There's the Phantom Empire."
The Queen tilts her head curiously. "A name I've heard, but would not expect to be relevant to today's Earth. Perhaps it was a different group of the same name. Do tell."
"Their magicians conjure up monsters called Saiarks that warp and pollute the landscape. The Phantom Empire says they want to 'plunge the world into sadness and despair.' "
She shakes her head. "Not the same people, then. Do you know any more?"
"Only that the Phantom Empire is being opposed by those Curas Bonitas..."
Queen Selene straightens in her chair "Curas Bonitas? That is a familiar name indeed. I would have details."
"They're bands of girls with colorful dresses and flashy magic. They seem to have popped up out of nowhere. They seem, ah... kind of young, and fanciful."
"Young?"
"I doubt any of them are over sixteen."
Selene exhales slowly, keeping her ageless face very still, but Lorena suspects that the ancient queen is discontent. "Ah. The system's collapsed entirely long ago, of course. How fare they?"
"The ones in Brazil are doing rather well... I don't really know what things are like in the rest of the world, though they say there are teams of Curas Bonitas fighting the Phantom Empire on every continent- well, in a lot of places at once, anyway."
Selene frowns. "All at once? Are there then ten of them? Twenty?"
Lorena isn't sure why the Queen is surprised by that. "Uh, I'm pretty sure there are at least ten or fifteen around the world. Why do you ask?"
"Because the Curas Bonitas are empowered by devices which are... troublesome to recreate, if I do say so myself. Devices which were made to exist in sets of two to six. These Curas Bonitas you're familiar with- can you show me their image?"
Lorena quickly conjured up a large image of the wanted poster that had shown the Curas Bonitas. To her surprise, she wound up with an image that was not merely large, but gigantic, larger than life- she glanced at Queen Selene, who was already studying the magnified image intensely. Selene didn't seem to be giving the girls' faces any consideration. Instead, she looked, with that same blazing intensity that had pierced Lorena's heart minutes earlier, at the girls' cute cryptid companions, and on their jewelry and accessories.
Softly, Selene shakes her head. "...They're not the trees' girls; I'd recognize the fairies. And they have the signature; outright replicas they are not. But... hm. Hm. I do believe that would explain it. These girls, have they any exceptional command of languages?"
Lorena tries to remember, but... "Not that I know of, but I wouldn't know."
"In battle, do they call up all manner of implements and constructs from the raw stuff of magic, seemingly without pattern to their weaving?"
"That... does sound like what I've heard about, now that you mention it." Lorena nods slowly.
"Then these girls' regalia springs, I believe, from Hope's Dressmaker... and someone's been making modifications to the Dressmaker." The Queen's face darkens again. "Lorena. Child. Tell me very honestly, very clearly, without shading or kindness, with nothing save truth itself, stark and plain. Have you met any of these girls?"
"No, I haven't."
"Have you heard anything, anything at all, any whisper, that any Cura Bonita, wherever situate, does deeds save for battle against this Phantom Empire?"
"A friend of mine heard something about other kinds of monsters in Japan that are being fought by Curas Bonitas, a group called 'Labyrinth' that does their own kidnapping magic of some kind that sounds different from the Towers. But I don't know if that's the Phantom Empire or something else. Would that count?"
"Not... necessarily. So, again, more clearly. No signs of any secret malice on the part of the Curas Bonitas' part?"
Lorena is starting to worry. Why is the Queen so suspicious? "...Um, Your Majesty, every single word I've ever heard and everything I've seen about the Curas Bonitas is pretty much the opposite of 'secretly evil.' You're starting to frighten me..."
Selene stops, and closes her eyes for a moment, before going on. "Because Hope's Dressmaker was on Earth when Beryl unleashed her demons. I had not thought that it survived the ending, but if it did, I would have expected it to be in Beryl's hands. And yet you say that the Curas Bonitas raised up by the the Dressmaker perform bold and good deeds, without sign of ill intent?"
"We're pretty sure the only bad thing the team in Brazil ever did was a complete accident... and they do seem to be young and, uh... unlucky sometimes."
"If you are correct, child, and there seems no harm in supposing while caution remains..." Queen Selene's calm face suddenly develops a downright mean smile. "Well, well. Someone must have kept the device from Beryl's clutches. She would know what she almost had there- and might miss it sorely in these days. Such a thing would do her good, and she knows she lacks it." Selene chuckles softly.
Lorena pauses before asking the question that's bothering her. "Was this 'Dressmaker' some kind of device for creating an army of Curas Bonitas?"
"In a word, yes. I wonder who kept it from the monsters' grasp? Such a one has earned my gratitude. I must properly thank her, if we ever meet."
Lorena nods slowly, shaken. The Dark Liberators seem powerful enough as it is, but the idea of them having yet another way to create and empower dangerous fighters would only make them worse. "I see what you mean."
"Quite... Now, have the Curas Bonitas you know of made any formal contact with the benighted government of this Brazil, or with your Community?"
"Uh... by 'benighted' you mean 'without magic,' right?"
"Yes, wandering around lost and miserable in the dark." Selene's brow furrows, and she does not look pleased, but then the moment passes. "Have the Curas Bonitas interacted with that government, or with your people?"
Lorena sighs. "No, they haven't. They haven't told us who they are, or how they got their powers- we've certainly never heard anything about "Hope's Dressmaker." We don't even know if they're part of the same organization as all the other Curas Bonitas around the world. If we could just find them and work with them, we'd have a better chance of everything getting back to normal sooner rather than later!"
Queen Selene speaks, and her tone is odd, stilted, as though trying to carefully piece together an unfamiliar and dubious chain of logic. "And by 'back to normal,' you refer to a state of affairs where the diverse incursions are struck down, the errant magical warriors return into hiding, and your 'Masquerade' prevails once more?"
Lorena blinks, a bit confused. "Well, yes. What's..." Something dawns on her. "...Do you think there's something wrong with the Masquerade?"
A tiny voice pipes up. "I think it's kind of dumb, too!"
Lorena looks down, feeling betrayed. "Coco!"
But Queen Selene... doesn't look so unhappy, now. She smiles, gently, and beckons to Coco. Coco sits up, quite suddenly, then turns to look back at Lorena. Lorena, confused, looks to the Queen, who pauses before speaking.
"She is your dear creature, child, and not even I would claim the right, should you bid me not. But... by your leave?"
Lorena thinks she understands, and nods. "If you want to, Coco."
And the little rabbit hops across the gleaming floor up to Queen Selene's throne, then climbs into her lap. The ancient sorceress begins slowly stroking Coco's fur, and lets out a long sigh.
"...For this boon, I thank you both, little ones. Not even I can say with certainty how many centuries have passed since last I touched any creature, save only those images called up from my own memory, which, of course, I know to be dead."
Lorena gulps, wondering just what that implies about the Queen herself, but.. "I... oh. Um, you're welcome!"
Coco, normally quite excitable, just wiggles a little and lets out a soft, high-pitched 'eep' of satisfaction. Lorena makes a mental note to remember that spot. After several seconds more, Queen Selene looks up from Coco and carries on- though she goes on softly petting the rabbit.
"We can speak of the Masquerade later. I would ask another question... what news have you of the wars in the archipelago called 'Japan?' "
Lorena blinks at the sudden change in topic. "Japan? I haven't really been paying much attention to Japan. What I've heard about their own version of the Community didn't sound too good, and they're fairly hostile to cryptids... but recently, hm. There was something about them being part of a task force that was trying to get into talks with the United Nations about the magical incursions. And... I remember hearing something about mass disappearances connected to Labyrinth, as I said, and... I think there was something about an enormous tree appearing out of nowhere, but I gather that settled down."
"Any names?"
"Hmmm... I don't remember anything in particular, except I gather that they have a lot of Curas Bonitas. I know some people who know more, I think. I could ask, if you wanted to know."
"The news would be welcome. But there is another matter." The Queen's hand on Coco's back pauses, then withdraws to the arm of her throne.
"I have my ways of learning a woman's mettle, and much may be learned at a glance when one's gaze is properly studied. But you and I are hardly from the same world, child, and for good or evil, I must leave a great cargo of experience behind, to be used only sparingly, if I am to truly know you. There are things I will need to learn anew. I would speak of your oaths."
"…My oaths?"
The Queen's right hand lightly strokes Coco's forehead, and her left rises to call forth alien characters. Characters Lorena's seen before. "These, of course."
Oh. Lorena feels a sinking sensation inside herself, because...
The Queen goes on. "At the end of the first movement, you swore to be a 'champion of truth, wisdom, and courage,' and that your actions would bring honor to the Dens of Beasts. It has been long ages since I had dealings with the Dens, but it would seem that this 'Lord Inuyasha' sits one of those thrones even now. He, I warrant, doubted your honest intent. Tell me, then, child, what was this oath to you? By what designs did you intend its fulfillment?"
She's going to make Lorena say it, isn't she? She's got the transcript right there, she's seen right through her, she knows.
Queen Selene knows, she has to know, but her voice... her voice... Her voice, somehow, by some art that has little if anything to do with magic. turns the Queen's regard, the certainty that she knows exactly what Lorena had in mind, back upon her like a mirror.
And somehow, that brings the sense of shame more fully into Lorena's mind than anything else Selene could have said or done. Lorena looks down at the floor, with the sense of one who has dishonored the very pillars of the world, has used and misused something once precious, once majestic, something that she thought unable to control the use of its remaining power, whether for good or for evil.
And she did it just for... just for power for herself.
"I… I wasn't planning on fulfilling it. Lord Inuyasha was right. I'm- I'm just a graverobber. Ruan told me- he believed, I know it, he didn't trick me- that the Dens of the Beasts were all dead and gone. He thought that I could get an impressive familiar if we just ran through the ritual, that there wouldn't be anyone left to gainsay it. I- I didn't want to hurt anyone, but respect for the Dens... never crossed my mind. I had thought them to be long dead, long-empty thrones, that what power they had left might as well be put to use by the living, that it would do no harm."
Queen Selene's voice is still neutral, is still merely questioning and not accusing in its tone, and now her words pierce Lorena's heart even deeper.
"And when you asked these dead, empty thrones for 'a spark of the legends that highlight their glory,' when you asked for this little one, 'that you might nurture and grow her into a bright flame of her own,' what did that oath mean to you?"
Lorena doesn't dare to meet Selene's eyes. Or Coco's.
But...
"It meant I was going to take the best care of Coco that I could. I... I will." Her voice trembles, and she still can't raise her eyes, but if the Queen can see her heart and her thoughts with that dreadful silver spear of a gaze... surely Selene must know that this is true!
"Ah. And when Lord Inuyasha spoke to you, showing that one yet sat judgment over such as you, over such requests as you had so cunningly made of the throne you thought empty, in certainty of its fulfillment... what then? You said you would 'help your community as best as you can, and act to bring honor to your family and those who trust you.' What, then, were those words to you? Suppose you leave here, and that this is merely a strange dream you once had, that you go back to the waking world, as though nothing has changed. How, then, is that oath to be fulfilled? I bid you think carefully, and answer at length, for I have known many who could have saved themselves grief by reaching full understanding of the truth of their hearts, their aims, and their desires."
Lorena forces herself to take several slow, calming breaths. This feels like slightly firmer ground.
"We, the Community, can't afford to think of the abuse of magic as something to grumble about from a distance. The towers aren't our first lesson; they're just a big lesson. Lots of people think of other people's suffering as "someone else's problem," but we can't afford that. People get hurt. And our peace with the Clans is a precious thing; we could lose it if we're not careful. As magicians, we all ought to be... to be vigilant, patient, compassionate. We should be doing more. Even if it's not for life or death stakes all the time, not about fighting, people should keep their eyes and hearts open! So that's what I'm going to try to do. To work for that, to look for that. And... and work out the rest as I go, I suppose."
Lorena knows that all this is coming from her, though she can't remember the last time she's felt the urge to put it all out there so plainly. Maybe it's because the Queen is challenging her on it.
"I'm not exactly sure what I can, or should, do. I'm still working on things. I've been able to talk to animals since the ritual, but I'm still practicing zoolingualism with pigeons. Maybe I can set up some kind of early warning system. And being able to share mana and cast spells through Coco opens up some ideas too... but I've only begun to explore them." Lorena shrugs, feeling off balance, a bit helpless, trying to gather her wits.
Queen Selene's face remains neutral, a serene mask. She pats Coco lightly one more time, and that somehow sends a signal to the lunar rabbit, who hops out of her lap and across the floor to Lorena's side. Then the Queen waves a hand dismissively.
"I have good tidings, then, for your leisurely explorations."
Something in her tone confuses Lorena. "...Excuse me?"
Sounding almost bored, Queen Selene goes on. "You need fear no goad, no punishment, for failure in your oaths. I have looked into your Coco, felt the last threads of her weave and heard the last note of the songs that make her. The ties that made her from the power of the Dens of Beasts were snipped when she was finished. The Dens have no way to reward nor to punish you through Coco, nor to withdraw her, nor to set her as watcher over you, witting or unwitting. Should you ignore them and all you have said to this 'Lord Inuyasha' for all your days, I expect that you will do so without cost or consequence. Live your life as you will, Lorena Oliveira, born by the River of Beginnings, and enjoy the good fortune of being bound to no higher law, beholden to no mighty and terrible name of old. A happy privilege, this." The tiniest hint of a smirk tilts one corner of Selene's smooth, enigmatic lips. "I should know."
Lorena blinks. Something... something about that... it feels twisted, wrong, insulting.
"...No. That's not right."
The Queen raises an eyebrow. "You gainsay me before my very throne, child?"
Lorena winces- realizing that she's going to need to explain. Hopefully just for courtesy's sake, but perhaps for more. "I... I believe you when you say that Lord Inuyasha can't help me or hurt me anymore. But I still made him a promise, and that promise is why he let me have Coco. I'm not going to walk away from that just because he can't punish me for it."
Queen Selene lets out a soft, delicate sniff. "Child, wish you, truly, a bond of obligation to one you know nothing of and may never see again? Think you, truly, to impose such a thing upon yourself, for the sake of this 'Inuyasha'?"
Lorena shakes her head. "It's not about Lord Inuyasha. But... from the one much is given to, much is required." Having managed that much, Lorena pauses, trying to find the words. Before she does, the Queen raises her right hand from the arm of her throne, as if to beckon those words forth.
"Oh? Do tell."
"He believed that giving me Coco would really help me, to help my community. I have to do my best to make that happen- for their sake, if nothing else. Why should I give them less than my best?"
"Some questions have fearful answers. Some women's best brings them into peril. Suppose, child, that some quiet, bold enchantment laid within Coco's form could raise you up as a warrior of magic, one like these Curas Bonitas. I have seen such things before and know them well. What would happen then? In ages past, the warriors of the Dens of Beasts had allies to call upon, training and good counsel to hear. You have none of this. Would your honor drive you, all unready, into battle against those that assail your land?"
Lorena freezes. She'd... she'd never thought about that. She's helped the Peacekeepers a few times, but with illusions- they need lots of illusions- and with scouting through the Sea of Dreams. She'd never really thought of herself as a fighter. Could she take up some ancient mantle from a long-dead kingdom against monsters that have frustrated even the Peacekeepers, monsters that can tear apart buildings and warp the land itself?
Is she even brave enough to try?
Coco, meanwhile, seems to have no such doubts. It may take her a moment to understand what the Queen said, but when she does, she bounces eagerly. "Wait, I can turn Lorena into a magical girl? Ooh! Tell me how! Tell me how!"
Lorena draws a deep breath, forcing sudden waves of self-doubt back down before Coco can say any more, or worse yet before Queen Selene starts to answer that question. "I... I should talk to the Peacekeepers to see how to help best. But if that kind of power is available to me- and I know it is badly needed- then I ought to at least try." She bows deeply to the Queen, who watches Lorena with an unreadable face and eyes that, if not hard, are not reassuring. "Your Majesty, I humbly ask that you tell me what warrior-magics are hidden away in Coco."
Queen Selene shrugs lightly. "None whatsoever."
Coco stiffens. "What? Oh no!"
Selene turns to Coco, and something a bit more open, more gentle, dawns in her eyes. "Any familiar of the Den of Beasts, you included, little one, brings power and aid to the mage she follows. The Dens of Beasts made all of your kind to strengthen their followers. But they made them- made you- to help magicians on their own paths, not to force them down a different one. Some breeds of familiar, yes, would be of great help to a bold young sorceress who wished to follow the path of a warrior. But the moon rabbit is... not one of those choices, by tradition. Dear things, but hardly ever fierce or warlike."
Lorena has risen from her bow, and can't tell if she feels relieved or... disappointed. But Coco droops sadly. "Ohh... but I wanted to help Lorena save Rio from the monsters!"
"Fear not, little one. The ancient lords of the Dens of Beasts saw worth and honor in many paths. Healers. Diplomats. Gardeners. Not so much appreciation for craftswomen, granted, but they respected good art when they saw it. I cannot say what Lord Inuyasha had in mind for you, but even if he himself is a warrior born- and he might well be- I sense that he has gained some store of wisdom. He will not be disappointed." The Queen looks back at Lorena. "I become convinced that the greatest worth Lord Inuyasha saw in you was your desire to help others. Hold to that, child. If you do, I expect that destiny will be, if not kind, then at least not unbecoming."
Lorena takes a moment, trying to wrap her mind about what the strange and powerful Queen means about destiny, before deciding to focus on the basics. "So... Coco doesn't turn people into Curas Bonitas or anything like that? No running around punching giant monsters?"
Selene smiles, looking a bit less gently amused. "Not for you, not by the workings of the Dens of Beasts alone. And thank you, child, for your candor and your patience. Doubt not that I know this was a trial of both these things for you. Though I have presumed upon your courtesy in my own house where it is my right, I have presumed nevertheless. And more, young guest, you have given a gift to me. To me, who had thought herself beyond any merely mortal power to bless, here so far beyond the end. For this, and for the answers you have given me, I will give you answers of my own. I will reveal to you the mysteries of the past, explain such as I can of the ills of the present, and speak of the possibilities of the future."
The cell is wet, and none too warm this far past sunset, even though spring is on the cusp of turning into summer. Jeanne's conversation, inaudible to all others, is cut off quite abruptly. Saint Margaret's voice vanishes in mid-sentence, in a way that Jeanne cannot recall having ever happened before. She frowns, looking around even though in the darkness there is practically nothing to see.
Then there is a rustling, the sound of something soft against stone.
And then there is a soft white light. At first she imagines that it is another vision, but it cannot be, for she would be able to hear the saints. This must be some sort of wonder, and the realization makes Jeanne's lips part in surprise. She has heard of many wonders, but-
Oh.
There is a creature. Jeanne frowns, peering at it, for it is like nothing she's ever seen. Assuming that it is somehow connected to the sudden light, she speaks a phrase entrusted to her by Saint Catherine. Jeanne knows not what the words mean, but the saint told her that they are in the secret tongue of angels. Words that do not call for miracles, of course- just words.
The creature stares blankly at her, though, and does not make the Sign Jeanne was told to expect. A demon, then.
She'd wondered, briefly, for it looks quite different from what she might have expected. This one has gleaming white fur instead of black scales or leathery skin. The thing vaguely resembles some sort of misshapen cat, apart from its long, drooping ears. Though its gleaming red eyes are quite similar to what Jeanne had imagined a demon might look like, so there's that, at least.
She looks to the door of her cell, expecting the guards any second now. Cynically, she imagines what they would think to see her with this thing- but then, what would the English do about it? Burn her at the stake?
The demon's voice is high and piping, like a little boy's. It speaks perfect French.
"Hello, child."
Jeanne says nothing.
"Do you know the meaning of the thing you said to me earlier? I surmise that you do not. How remarkable."
Jeanne presses her lips shut.
"I know that you can hear me, young one. Don't worry. The guards cannot hear you or see this light. Their minds are ordinary, after all, without the sort of potential that makes legends by pursuing their wishes. But I have learned quite a bit from those minds. You've come to a bad ending, haven't you? You are sick, and in great distress. The foreign soldiers outside know you as a heroine of your people. They will kill you tomorrow, of course. Such an undesirable fate... And they know you know that."
Jeanne scowls. Why now, why this night of all nights?
"It could be easy enough for you to tear apart these chains, Jeanne. To regain your health. To win free of this place. You could return to your king's side. The English would find it exceedingly difficult, likely impossible, to stop you then. All this can be made to occur- do not misunderstand me- simply as a result of you making a wish, which will be granted to you."
Jeanne briefly considers jamming her hands over her ears, but decides that that would be too childish to bear. The English have not taken all her dignity, and dignity is perhaps the only possession she has left in this life.
The demon is still talking. "...Your wish could be a most remarkable one, I dare say. One with the power to move the world, as great as any I have ever known to be made. And that, even before the marvelous things you could do afterwards."
Jeanne pauses, running over those words in her mind.
Then she looks around for a hammer, because it seems proper to at least check.
Jeanne learned in church, many years ago, that Saint Margaret had a hammer when a demon appeared to her, when she was imprisoned, and that she put it to very sensible and proper use!
But there is no such luck. Perhaps Saint Margaret was not so troublesome a prisoner as to try and knot a rope and climb fifty feet down out a tower window, as Jeanne tried to do at Beaurevoir before the rope broke. Or perhaps simply because the English are more prudent jailers today than the Romans evidently were a thousand years ago. In any case, they have not been so hospitable as to leave tools lying around her prison cell.
Besides which, Jeanne is chained to a heavy wooden block. And even if the chains had enough play to reach the thing- she is not sure- she has no doubt that if she started trying to move swiftly or strenuously, her cough would start to flare up. The wicked thing would no doubt slip away from her, even if she were somehow in a position to even try to emulate the saint whose voice has been a comfort to her for years.
Her imprisonment has been quite an ordeal, and part of her is relieved that it will be over tomorrow.
At the thought, a bitter, mocking smile twists Jeanne's lips, from the place where she keeps her anger at this unjust trial, her knowledge that her trial was never meant to end in her release, not so long as she stayed true to the saints and to France. Perhaps she should say nothing at all, but she finds that she cannot imagine that she will not be forgiven for asking these questions, with this intention.
And so she speaks aloud for the second time tonight.
"Could you make it so that if I commanded the stones to become bread, it would be made so?"
"Certainly, child. Is that your wish?"
"No. Could you make it so that if I climbed the spire of Rouen's great cathedral, and leapt to the ground from that high place, the spirits and winds would bear me up and I would be unharmed?"
"Why, this could be arranged easily, if you like."
"Ah. And could you make it so that I would rule the kingdoms of the Earth, and would have all the glory and praise and exaltation of dominion over it, all delivered to me?"
The demon tilts its head. "To travel and subdue this entire planet? Such a thing might take quite some time, I'm sure you'll agree. The Earth is wider than you may realize. But considering the reputation you have among your jailers… such an achievement would be possible, if you wish for it, I dare say."
Jeanne understands the direction of the demon's promises, of course. She already did before it had spoken more than a handful of words. And so she doesn't really listen to the second half of its reply to her last question. She is distracted by an entirely silly question: Why would a demon call the Earth a wandering light in the sky?
Still, there is only one thing to say, and it is striking that the demon needs to be reminded. Surely it must know the significance of her questions.
For a moment, Jeanne almost thinks to say the only appropriate thing to be said in just the manner He once did so long ago. Well, just as she once would have imagined Him saying them.
One day, before Jeanne had even left Domremy, Saint Michael told her, quite casually in his often abrupt way, that the Savior hardly ever spoke a word of Latin. Not even to the Romans. When she asked further questions later, in confusion, of Saint Catherine, that worthy informed Jeanne that He had used Greek fairly often, especially among the pagans who he would have seen as foreigners, but that His birth speech was yet another language, called 'Aramaic,' one which Jeanne had never heard of before. All very interesting, if not the kind of thing Jeanne had time, or ever will have time now, to learn more of.
But even in the Latin phrase which she happens to remember, even if she now knows these words were not the exact words of His speech… no. Jeanne dismisses the notion entirely. She is not worthy to speak the words. She has said quite enough, perhaps too much, to this thing. And so for all that remains, plain speech will do.
The demon sits expectantly for an answer while Jeanne thinks on these things, waiting and waiting. Which makes it even more obvious that it cannot guess the substance of what she will say. That whatever unnatural sources of information may be available to its kind, even if it can somehow see what is in the minds of the English guards, it cannot understand her heart.
She gives the demon its answer.
"Go away. I refuse."
"An unwise decision. Have you not already taken what you were given? Your sword? Your banner? The advice of your voices? I desire only to give you what will allow you to continue to do your best for your people, child."
"You desire my soul, delivered into your hands." Jeanne shakes her head. "Go away. I refuse."
The demon rounds in a tight circle, much as a cat might. "I have no more hands than you see me with, child. And had I hands, it would do me no good to carry away your soul in them. No, no good at all. I promise you that your soul will remain in your possession, child. And you will have strength, and the fulfillment of your wish."
Jeanne sighs. She isn't even angry. Something about the demon's persistence seems somehow… contemptible. Small and dirty. Does it really believe that it can so easily turn her away from the Lord now, of all times? Do all demons understand the hearts of men, and of women, so poorly as this? Is this demon in particular, out of all its kind, simply a fool?
Or…
Some instinct Jeanne has gained, from listening to the advice of saints and angels, from watching King Charles' courtiers, and most especially from dealing with the vicious rhetorical traps set for her by the canon lawyers who have sold themselves to the English, speaks to her.
Is this demon somehow so desperate to make a deal that it cannot grasp that Jeanne's soul will never belong to it?
Well, that doesn't matter.
"For the third time, I refuse you. Go away."
And then there is a flash of swirling green light, which surprises Jeanne every bit as much as the white light did, if not more so.
The woman towers nearly to the ceiling of Jeanne's cell. She's practically a giantess, fully six feet tall. Her hair is an impossible shade of green. Her clothing- not even clothing, not properly- is scandalous, more revealing than proper underwear, even. Somehow, Jeanne finds herself thinking that anyone who would even consider wearing such an outlandishly indecent costume must have been brought up to think it proper, and must come from a place very, very far away indeed.
It stands to reason, since she's been brought here by magic.
The woman's clothing notwithstanding, Jeanne can make a fairly good guess as to what she wants. Because the demon tries to bound to the cell's window, but the woman's white-gloved hands blur, reaching out to seize it with the speed of a striking snake. She grips it by the head and shoulders. Her face is a mask of hatred; the demon's is just as expressionless as ever.
She growls something in an incomprehensible tongue, and the demon says something equally incomprehensible. They converse, briefly.
"You must have thought that little twist had blocked me from picking up your trail. You only delayed the inevitable, parasite. Why did you pick this one? Never mind. I'll read it out of you later. Tell me, have you things learned any fear of death yet? I hope you have, but if you haven't now, you never will."
"I don't understand. What do you mean?"
"We've found you all in our own time, and I've spent years tracing your time jumps. And caught up with all of them, every one, all but you. You're the last, parasite, the last to try and escape us this way. It's over!"
"Sailor Pluto, surely now, at the last, you must see that your pursuit is irrational far beyond the point of insanity. The active principle of destruction cannot be overcome without greater means than your civilization will ever attain. The task of my kind must continue. The preservation of the cosmos demands-"
Jeanne has never killed anything larger than a goose with her own hands. Not directly, anyway. But she's seen a terrible lot of dead men in the past two years and more, and she's seen animals butchered many a time before that. It happens, evidently, that demons do not die in quite the manner that men or beasts do. When the giantess pinches through its neck as easily as a pair of shears snipping through a pat of butter, the result is surprisingly bloodless.
The giantess stares deeply into the beady red eyes of the severed head, as though she sees a chronicle there. Then, nodding to herself with a look of slow understanding, she turns to Jeanne, and bows, and speaks, just as incomprehensibly as she did to the demon.
Jeanne inclines her head politely. "I can't understand you, but I am glad the demon's gone."
The woman smiles wryly and vanishes. The cell is dark again.
Jeanne, long accustomed to seeing things other people don't realize are there, shrugs in the silence. She closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly. Then she shifts herself to pray for Saint Margaret's voice to come back.
She wonders, dryly, what Father Martin will make of all this at confession in the morning.
One might call this a sequel to the recent Star Twinkle interludes.
I never did think it made any sense to imagine Joan of Arc as being Kyubey's sort of magical girl. Far too much personality clash.
"I just flew in from Tokyo, and man are my legs tired," the man says with a noticeable Japanese accent.
…So that is what kind of day this is going to be…
…
…
What?
Missy Moon- along with everyone else on this chaotic battlefield- stares at the newest arrival in shock and confusion. There's already so much happening, more than Bunny could keep track of, and beyond that…
…This battle isn't just a battle. It's never just a battle. Mohriarty's schemes are never as clear-cut as they seem at first glance. He's always got a plan, an angle, a deeper motivation behind why he chooses to turn people into mutants. Sometimes he uses the attack as a distraction to rob people. Sometimes the destruction itself is the point for one reason or another. Sometimes it seems like something personal is at play, from the way Mohriarty hisses and spits the names of some of his victims, as if he knows them personally.
Bunny has to figure out why Mohriarty warped and transformed the pet shop cashier into a towering mutant. There's always something more going on, and it's up to her, as the leader of her friends, to put the pieces together. But hours of search and study have left her hardly any closer than ever to understanding Mohriarty's real motivations.
She knows, now, that his first attacks on ShieldCo and its affiliates were a search for the orb he's now using to transform people, but that just raises more questions. Questions she doesn't have answers for.
And the police are acting… differently
The first time Mohrarty transformed someone into a mutant was an even worse disaster for the police than for the Missys. Since then, they've stayed back from the battles, though they do try to evacuate civilians from the area. But this time, the police are right here in the mall- in the middle of the battle.
Of course, before, the police always wore ordinary uniforms. If Missy had gone from wearing a button-down shirt to wearing the kind of towering mechanical armor those two officers have, she'd feel more confident getting into a fight with a giant mutant too.
The new arrival is even more of a surprise than the armored policemen, though. He's… striking. He may be dressed much like the phantom thief her friends have fought again and again, but something, everything about his presence is different somehow.
Even when Bunny only knew him as the Tuxedo Thief, Mohriarty was always angry, always railing against the world in general and ShieldCo in particular. He was fighting everyone and everything, it seemed. But the new masked man, even if he has so much in common with Mohriarty's style, seems different. His posture and attitude and presence peak of confident, self-assured strength. Of hope and good spirits. Even of a sort of good humor that Mohriarty's bitter wisecracks and mockery lack.
The new man, the one Bunny- she can't think like that right now. She needs to be strong, brave, quick, Missy Moon, not Bunny, not even inside her head. If she starts thinking like Bunny, she might make a mistake. Might slip up and let someone get hurt, or reveal something that could lead the police to her, her family, or her friends' families.
She can't do that to her big sister, or to any of the other Missys.
The moment of respite comes to a crashing halt as Mohriarty, already gazing hatefully at the newcomer, snarls out something heavy and twisted with anger, a word Bunny's never heard before.
"You!"
But Bunny doesn't need to know exactly what the word means to understand its intent: hostility. Absolute fuming, snarling, crackling vitriol.
The masked man- the new masked man cocks his head to the side and brings up his fists. "Have we met?"
Missy Moon doesn't recognize the words… but hearing a few of the strange words together sparks something. Something about the cadence of tone is faintly familiar.
"Damn you, Princeling! Why are you here?" Mohriarty is quick and angry and snappish as he quickly backs away from the newcomer, bringing the orb back up again. And Missy Moon can't help but think, despite just how little of either man's speech she's heard, that they're actually speaking different languages.
It takes a moment for Missy, distracted by the confrontation between the two tuxedo-clad men of mystery, to notice that the mutant is starting to move. Missy Jupiter's umbrella cords had brought the thing to its knees while Mohriarty was distracted, but now it's fighting the cords' grip, and it's managed to get its feet under it. It even begins to lumber forward slowly towards its master despite Missy Jupiter's best efforts to keep the thing lassoed and under control.
"GIRLS!" Missy Moon calls out, throwing herself forwards onto the wheels hidden in her boots. "GET IT!"
The mutant, like all the others Mohriarty's made, is a mindless puppet to his will. A strong puppet- but strong as it is, this is still their best chance to turn it back into an ordinary person again. Sealing it in ice wasn't enough to stop it, so they'll need something else.
Missy Moon leaps forward, upward, high, near the ceiling, and her impetus builds in midair, turning her leap into a twisting head-over-heels movement that carries her through three somersaults before her heels crash heavily into the beast. She pushes with her legs, rebounding and flipping back to the ground as it wobbles and roars-
TACK TACK! TACK TACK!
One of the police officers has darted out ahead of the rest. She lashes out with quick, sharp punches into the empty air. But each blow sends out a ripple of shadows that twist and condense into a glimmering metal ball, and the spheres smash into the mutant. With each blow, it staggers back a step.
Missy Moon doesn't know much about cannonballs, but those make her think of them. Even with her armor, she's glad she doesn't have to catch hits from those. They look like they'd hurt, or even break bones.
Although if the enormous mutant's hurting, let alone if anything's broken inside it, it shows no sign of it. Maybe it's because the thing's mind is gone- a puppet doesn't feel pain. Or maybe it's because the thing is just that tough. But however tough it is, it isn't exactly quick to move after taking all that beating. The officer has a moment, and she raises her arms above her head and claws at the air. The metal spheres fly back to her and begin rotating around her in the air.
Missy Moon shouldn't be quite as surprised as she is to run into a psychic outside her own circle of friends. Sure, until now, all the ones she's been sure about were her age or younger. But she already had her suspicions about Ms. "Call me Trista" Konig, the teacher's aide in Mr. Waterman's science class, who's either weirdly fast or weirdly good at making other things slow. And there have been rumors, lately, about the two 'queen bee' seniors on the cheerleading team. She wouldn't be surprised if Michelle and Amara turn out to be psychic, too.
But even someone from the police being psychic too? Somehow, it still catches her off balance.
Especially when there's two of them, not just one.
The second psychic is seemingly unarmed, and is the only one of the group who's wearing a short-sleeved uniform shirt. The reason for both these things becomes obvious as a thick, viscous layer of something that looks like liquid wax begins to pour from his forearms. Rather than coating his hands smoothly, as Missy Moon expected, the wax twists into implements that look like a hammer and a chisel in his hands.
All this takes him only a few seconds- time to run between the mutant and the two masked men. Missy Moon tenses herself to tackle the mutant if it attacks him. But it's still roaring and brandishing its arms, perhaps still knocked back by the kick and the cannonballs, and certainly still slowed down by the loops of cord Missy Jupiter still has thrown around its waist and thighs. She can't get enough traction to stop it, but it's not going anywhere fast-
The policeman drops to one knee and slams his chisel onto the ground with the hammer. Both tools deform and merge together into a single mass- no surprise there- but as the policeman bounces to his feet and sprints out of the way with a frantic look on his face, Missy Moon realizes that the seemingly pointless action had a purpose after all.
The wax starts to boil and bubble and expand, increasing in volume, but Missy Moon doesn't pay much attention as it starts to expand into a wall between the mutant and its master, because she's back in action.
Missy Moon feels like a figure skater as she pushes off, trying to build up for another jump, something to hit the mutant harder, hard enough to do more than rock it back for a few seconds. The space is cluttered and none too wide, and if she turns too tightly she'll lose more than she gains, if not wipe out entirely, but she can feel herself building speed and the armor seems to be making it easier-
And while Missy Jupiter slows the mutant, and Missy Moon gets ready to try again to put down the mutant, Missy Mars is keeping Mohriarty busy.
The man's snarling rage at his newly arrived doppelgänger is interrupted by the need to dodge one of Missy Mars' vials, then another and another. He's fast on his feet, maybe faster than should be possible for a human being even with something like the Missys' armor, but it at least keeps him busy. No matter how fast he is, weaving through explosions of light and heat and sticky nylon and imprisoning foam isn't easy.
Mars only has so many of those vials, but then, she's not his only problem. The new masked man sways and steps and twists neatly away from the blasts' effect with even more ease and grace than Mohriarty- partly because Missy Mars isn't aiming for him in particular, but only partly.
It looks almost like the two men are dancing, with Mohriarty the less graceful of the two. Almost, except that the new stranger has a playful smirk on his face, and isn't being entirely peaceable. He's raised his cane up to fence with it like a singlestick, and makes deceptively lazy swatting motions that turn blur-fast and glow strangely whenever Mohriarty draws too close to him. Missy Moon, in the glimpses she can steal while she tries to build up speed, begins to wonder if the cane has been alchemically enhanced like the Missys' own armors. From how much Mohriarty seems to worry about being struck by it, it might be.
The men dance through the alchemical fireworks. Missy Moon hasn't the time or attention to even try to follow their conversation. If she did- well, she doesn't know Elysian, either.
But these two do, and they speak. Endymion, in particular, reborn prince of Earth, seems quite ready to do so.
"You know, it's interesting that you call me 'princeling.' "
Mohriarty hisses as he twists awkwardly to dodge one of Missy Mars' flash grenades, as any easy move to escape the blast would have brought him into range of a numbing strike to the arm from his real enemy's cane.
In a mockingly affected drawl, Endymion goes on. "There aren't many people who ever called me that, you see, and most of them are surely dead." He flicks his cane out to knock a stray tangle-bomb back at Mohriarty's face, though the man ducks under it. "I do believe I'd recognize each and every one of them, if they stood in front of me. A mask wouldn't fool me… any more than mine fooled you. But this thing isn't a youma. I could tell. So who are you?"
Mohriarty laughs darkly, shaking his head and seeming to gain a measure of strength and poise, as though to partway close the gap between himself and the prince who's been toying with him. He bats aside another vial with a force-bolt. "Mayhaps I'm not someone you knew of old, Endymion, but someone entirely new!"
Endymion freezes, suddenly, his eyes narrowing behind the white domino mask.
d10 + 21 vs DC 21/28
First degree success autopass!
Second degree success locked by Fashion Calamity!
Endy does not remember other people's accessories!
"It's that sphere, isn't it? You're not using your own magic, or your own soul, or your own body here- you're puppeting this boy through the sphere."
Mohriarty cries out in a strangely fractured rage, and this time lunges with the sphere in question, clenched in his fist as though to dash Endymion's brains out. But the prince leaps back, flicking his cane up between himself and the possession victim. The dance goes on, in different form.
The mutant is starting to win against Missy Jupiter's attempts to lasso it. Missy Moon was hopeful when her friend managed to belay her line around a heavy planter to anchor the thing in place… but Missy Moon has just learned something about the Westfield Mall that she didn't know before. Namely, the planters aren't actually fixed to the floor. The planter's weight may have been enough to keep shoppers from bumping it around, but it didn't stop the tug-of-war between the mutant and Missy Jupiter from knocking it over in a big spill of plants, dirt, and gravel ballast. She's still hauling on the cord directly, but it's a good thing she's not alone.
Missy Venus darts in and leaps to put the full strength of her armor behind a massive uppercut. The blow, given further momentum by the thick layer of tile and concrete Missy Venus has wrapped her forearm and fist in, knocks the mutant stumbling, and it nearly falls over with its legs still partly bound by the cord. But the tone of its growls changes dangerously.
It's awake now. Fully awake.
It takes a wild roundhouse swipe at Missy Venus, but she's already out of the way, dropping to- and through- the floor and swimming away through the building's foundation. Then it brings up that same arm- the only one currently free, with the other pinned by the noose Missy Jupiter's run around it- and begins sawing at the cords with a glittering-sharp claw.
Missy Moon's fought enough of the big mutants now that she's starting to worry. The towering mutant gets its claw under the cord and snips through it with a swift draw-cut, taking out the tension and setting it free-
THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!
One of the two officers in heavy armor- the red armor- slams into the mutant's side. The armor's machinery gives out a rising whine as he grapples with the mutant's brute strength, and it lurches clumsily on towards Missy Jupiter for a few paces before the green-armored officer grabs it from the other side, shouting "You're not moving an inch!" At first that doesn't quite seem to be true, but after the policewoman with the metal spheres starts battering it around the head and shoulders, it slows down enough that they can get a better grip and hold it still.
The red-armored officer is obviously feeling the strain himself, not just in his equipment, from the sound of his deep voice as he turns his head to call to them. "Hey, girls! You can fix this guy, right? Turn him back to normal, like the others?"
The mutant bellows as if it understood that and doesn't like it, and batters the two men with its wings, but it doesn't- quite seem to be stronger than both of them working together, at least for the moment. The red-armored man shifts his grip for just a moment and chops the side of his gauntleted hand into the back of the thing's knee, which buckles-
-and in a moment the two of them have it down on the ground and pinned, though it's still fighting them like a bucking bronco.
Now it's not moving an inch. Well, not many inches.
Missy Moon slows down and shouts for her friends to come together. "Okay, girls! We need to figure out what went wrong last time. Come on!"
One by one, her friends fall in. Their alchemical abilities link together, layering atop one another to become a renewing, transformative force greater than the simple sum of its individual parts.
They failed to save this person before, but they won't fail again!
The little mermaid darts along the bottom of the ancient dead corals at the furthest, deepest ends of the Grand Ocean. Surging up, she pops over the top, giggling as the tiny fish scatters away.
This place… This place is the only place that she has ever known. It is the only thing that she can remember.
Ruined stone pillars, the corpses of long dead corals, the bleached bones of an ancient leviathan, and the twelve tall Cecaelia warriors, each standing guard at one of the twelve gates that lead out of this place.
The young mermaid doesn't know what is beyond the rusted gates that each octopus warrior guards, but…
But she doesn't need to know. This place is her place.
The stones are her stones. The coral her playgrounds, the overgrown field of kelp her food.
The mermaid allows the tides to guide her, the twisting flows of water seeping along the floors, trailing into the towering kelp that is more like a forest than a field.
There in the green there is something more. Something…
Something…
Something…
But she doesn't know what that something is. She doesn't know what it means, nor does she have words for what she feels.
But then, for all that the girl can remember, she has never heard a single word. She has never heard any laughter but her own, nor has she ever felt the warmth of arms wrapped around her.
Laying here in the green, she watches the way the plants bob and weave along the pathways of shifting waters… And there is something more, at the back of her head. The green billows, each individual strand moving on their own, somehow making the kelp feel deep - deeper - deeper still.
As if the world was so much more than the ruined, worn remnants in the sunken depths. As if this place was larger than what the girl can cross in less than five minutes.
Here, it is almost as if there was something more to the world - No. As if there was something more to the girl.
The girl has no wants. She has the whole of the world here. She has no needs, for there is food when she is hungry, and a place to sleep when she is tired. There is nothing for her to do, but play. So she has no worries.
…And yet…
Something…
Twirling upwards she escapes the green, basking in the soft glow of the distance. The Grand Ocean. A place she knows nothing about. To the point of not even knowing it as a place at all. To her it is the only light that she has ever known. An unchanging light that gives much of the ruins their shape. Allowing herself to bob there for a moment, she looks out towards the light…
And for the first time that she can remember, she starts to think, to wonder.
What is that?
It has been there for as long as she can remember, but it is not water, it is not sand. It is not stone or kelp or flesh.
She might not know the words to go with this wondering, but there is something there.
Twisting, she darts towards the seafloor, weaving across the sands as she moves to the worn remnants of the place where she sleeps. This is the first time that she can remember wondering what that light in the distance was, but..
Something…
Something new. Something that she can't remember. She huddles down among the pale stones… Her body shivers, her stomach turns…
She feels… different. Not the way that she always remembers feeling. Like hungry, but in her heart?
Even then, the idea of hunger is barely a thing in the girl's mind, having barely experienced it in the time that she can recall. Yet…
Something…
The currents around her shifts, and she doesn't know what is happening.
This is different. This is new. This is not what she can remember - Even so, something is happeni-
A mesh of kelp and stone and something else drops down over the girl, pulling tight. It hurts! Pain is something that the girl doesn't know, and she cries out as the kelp twists further around her, pulling her arms close around her.
The mesh pulls, dragging her along the sandy floor as towards one of the rusted metal gates. There, the tall, many-tentacled figure looks down at her impassively. Grabbing hold, he lifts her up, keeping her at an arm's length as he does. The young mermaid squirms, writhing as much as she can, trying to get close. If it would just bring her closer, she could bite at it. Her teeth sharp, despite having eaten nothing but kelp for as long as she can remember.
The figure swims on, soon joined by the others that stand at the edges of the rusted walls that make up the edge of the young girl's world.
This is further than she has ever been before. Beyond the edge, coming closer and closer to the bright light in the distance. She doesn't know what is happening. She doesn't know why she is being wrapped up. She has no words, and cannot ask. All she can do is struggle in vain.
Up she is taken.
Higher.
Higher.
And still further higher she is brought. The light shines brighter as she is taken closer. Now it hurts her eyes, the brightest light she can remember seeing. More pain. So new, and so horrid.
For the first time that she can remember, the girl cries. This is so much. Too much.
She doesn't understand what is happening! She doesn't understand why it is happening!
Still further the young girl is carried, but as they keep moving… She notices things. There are more stones here. Just as worn as the ones in her world. No.
Not all of them. There are some there which seem… different. More defined, with sharp edges and distinct shapes. There is coral, just like in her world, but it isn't bleached white.
Down in the sunken depths of the place that the girl has been for as long as she can remember, there has only ever been the blue of the water, the white of the sands and stone, the silver of scales, and the green of seaweed.
She can't recall ever seeing things in the colors of the coral here. Red and purples and pinks. Bright yellow and deep orange.
Further upwards, the girl is carried to a great opening in the stone, carried onwards through the emptiness towards…
Something.
The girl doesn't know what it is that she is being brought towards, but every part of her rebels against it even harder, struggling more and more against the kelp that holds her in place.
"Eat the Kelp!'
Something burbles in the girl's ear, sounds that she has never heard before…
And yet…
Writhing once more, she nearly folds herself in half - But she manages to get the kelp between her teeth.
One of the other Cecaelia warriors darts forwards, pulling at the girl's legs, but it only rips the kelp holding her in place harder. Twisting, she tries to bite again, only for something thick to be placed in her mouth.
Struggling, more of the kelp slowly comes loose - One arm comes free, and then the world tilts.
The pain of the light was horrid, but as the octopus warrior slams her into the wall of the cavern, the pain is so much more. More than anything that she can remember.
The girl goes limp, unable to even process what has happened. Not when everything hurts to much more than she can remember experiencing.
More whispers at the edge of her hearing, faint and distant enough that she can't tell what the sounds are. Different from anything she remembers, and yet so strangely familiar.
Up and up and up, until the girl is brought to a long, flat place. Filled with light,and… and… and…
A castle.
This is a castle. Like the one that she used to have. What that means the girl isn't entirely sure, her mind so twisted and faint…
But this is not the first time that she has been here.
There are still no words in her head, not truly - even so, meaning is starting to filter through. All of this is familiar. She cannot remember it, but she can almost remember forgetting it.
A feeling that is made all the stronger when the octopus holding her turns, and descends back into the dark. A path downwards into a round cavern, and a massive shell in the center of it all. Thick, oily tentacles seep out of cracks in the shell, idly coiling and writhing, reaching out in the dark around it.
This.
BAD.
Every. Ounce. Of. The. Girl. Is. Filled. With. Fear.
An emotion she can never remember feeling, but one that weighs on her like time itself.
Days. Months. Years. Decades. Centuries. Millennia.
The ideas are far beyond the young girl's understanding, but she knows that if she is brought closer, then something bad will happen.
She just doesn't remember what.
The fight is futile, as moment by moment she is carried closer. Until suddenly, one tendril lashes out, wrapping around her head.
Everything goes black.
The little mermaid darts along the bottom of the ancient dead corrals at the furthest, deepest ends of the Grand Ocean. Surging up, she pops over the top, giggling as the tiny fish scatters away.
This place… This place is the only place that she has ever known. It is the only thing that she can remember.
Ruined stone pillars, the corpses of long dead corrals, the bleached bones of an ancient leviathan, and the twelve tall Cecaelia warriors, each standing guard at one of the twelve gates that lead out of this place.
The little mermaid darts along the bottom of the ancient dead corals at the furthest, deepest ends of the Grand Ocean. Surging up, she pops over the top, giggling as the tiny fish scatters away.
This place… This place is the only place that she has ever known. It is the only thing that she can remember.
Ruined stone pillars, the corpses of long dead corals, the bleached bones of an ancient leviathan, and the twelve tall Cecaelia warriors, each standing guard at one of the twelve gates that lead out of this place.
The little mermaid darts along the bottom of the ancient dead corals at the furthest, deepest ends of the Grand Ocean. Surging up, she pops over the top, giggling as the tiny fish scatters away.
This place… This place is the only place that she has ever known. It is the only thing that she can remember.
Ruined stone pillars, the corpses of long dead corals, the bleached bones of an ancient leviathan, and the twelve tall Cecaelia warriors, each standing guard at one of the twelve gates that lead out of this place.
The young mermaid doesn't know what is beyond the rusted gates that each octopus warrior guards, but…
But she doesn't need to know. This place is her place.
The stones are her stones. The coral her playgrounds, the overgrown field of kelp her food.
The mermaid allows the tides to guide her, the twisting flows of water seeping along the floors, trailing into the towering kelp that is more like a forest than a field.
There in the green there is something more.
The closest thing that the girl has to a treasure - A flat stone, blacker than pitch, and so slick that when she stares at it she sees herself.
She looks at the stone. At herself.
Twirling upwards she escapes the green, basking in the soft glow of the distance. The Grand Ocean. A place she knows nothing about. To the point of not even knowing it as a place at all. To her it is the only light that she has ever known. An unchanging light that gives much of the ruins their shape. Allowing herself to bob there for a moment, she looks out towards the light…
There in the green there is something more.
The closest thing that the girl has to a treasure - a flat stone, blacker than pitch and so click that when she stares at it she sees herself.
She looks at the stone, at the strange scratches along the edge.
At herself.
She twirls upwards.
There in the green there is something more, something special.
She may not have words, but she knows the worth of the black stone she sees herself in, and the flat shiny golden thing.
She looks into the stone, and she sees herself.
Or perhaps not. The shape in the mirror looks like her, but the thing in the mirror has eyes the color of fish blood.
There in the green, that is the girl's special place. The place where the tall multilimbed things that keep her trapped cannot see her.
She doesn't remember anywhere other than this place.
But this place is not all that there is.
She knows that there is a light in the distance. Bright and terrifying. An oppressive weight. She doesn't know how she knows that. She still lacks the words to explain herself, but this place…
Everything that she remembers…
When she looks into the blackness at the bottom of the kelp, she sees someone else.
Someone that she used to be.
Someone that she might yet be.
The only clue she has to what she has to do is the shiny thing. A glimmering golden circle that never gets wet. With a click, it opens.
Inside there is a shape scratched into the metal.
♇
— The pain of the light was horrid, but as the octopus warrior slams her into the wall of the cavern, the pain is so much more. More than anything that she can remember.
The girl goes limp, unable to even process what has happened. Not when everything hurts to much more than she can remember experiencing.
"In the next room, when they bring you to the tendrils, find the shell on the ground. Put it in your mouth."
Up and up and up, until the girl is brought to a long, flat place. Filled with light,and… and… and…
A castle.
This is a castle. Like the one that she used to have. What that means the girl isn't entirely sure, her mind so twisted and faint…
But this is not the first time that she has been here.
There are still no words in her head, not truly - even so, meaning is starting to filter through. All of this is familiar. She cannot remember it, but she can almost remember forgetting it.
A feeling that is made all the stronger when the octopus holding her turns, and descends back into the dark. A path downwards into a round cavern, and a massive shell in the center of it all. Thick, oily tentacles seep out of cracks in the shell, idly coiling and writhing, reaching out in the dark around it.
This.
BAD.
Every. Ounce. Of. The. Girl. Is. Filled. With. Fear.
An emotion she can never remember feeling, but one that weighs on her like time itself.
Days. Months. Years. Decades. Centuries. Millennia.
The ideas are far beyond the young girl's understanding, but she knows that if she is brought closer, then something bad will happen.
She just doesn't remember what.
Which is likely the point.
To fight would be futile, and while the sounds she heard mean nothing to her, they still mean more than she can comprehend. Moment by moment she is carried closer, but there on the ground her eyes spot a glimmer, light bouncing off a shell.
A tendril lashes out, and she darts down. Despite still being mostly bound, she manages to grab hold of the shell, placing it in her mouth. That is all she can do before the creature grabs her by the head, and everything goes black.
The little mermaid darts along the bottom of the seafloor, twirling around the coral corpses that mar her cage, down in the deepest ends of the Grand Ocean. Rising up over the edge, she lays across the dead coral, one hand snapping out and grabbing hold of a tiny fish. Wordlessly she pops it in her mouth, one eye carefully watching the guards keeping her trapped.
This place…
This place is the only place that she has ever known, it is the only thing that she can remember…
But she doesn't remember it like this.
Ruined stone pillars that once were part of her hieron. Here and there are corpses of long dead coral, bleached white by time. She remembers when this place was not in the deep, not in the dark. The lack of light starved the coral.
There, the bleached bones of the ancient leviathan - her brother. How he came to be here, the girl doesn't know. In what little of her scrambled memories she never spoke with Jörmungandr. She also doesn't remember his death.
And, of course, her jailors.
She watches the Cecaelia warriors, struggling to keep the snarl from her face.
Traitors.
They were supposed to be her father's royal guards. Their lineage defenders of the true masters of the seas.
Each of the octopus merfolk stand guard at one of the twelve gates that lead out of this place. This prison.
She isn't sure why they keep her here, nor what is out there. The fact that they are keeping her here means that there is something out there, even if she has no memories of what that might be.
Just a vague shade of a castle, and dark tendrils.
The mermaid's hand twitches, and the currents shift. Making sure to keep herself at the right angle, she glances up towards the light in the distance. She can feel her father's trident there.
She can feel the empty Throne of the Seas there as well.
Her father, Okeanos no longer sits upon the throne.
Rolling off the dead coral, the mermaid subtly twists the currents, guiding them down into the towering kelp forest. The only truly safe place she has.
The true heir of the seas darts through the soft kelp, searching for her hidden stash of treasure.
An obsidian mirror, marked with runes not of any place the girl knows.
A golden locket - One side was marked with the Rune of Chronos, the other side a strange circle with twelve symbols, and a pair of metal hands.
Last, the most precious thing.
A simple shell, one filled with a single memory. She can just barely remember stealing it during the last time that Cecaelia tore her memories away, but she doesn't know how she knew to take it.
What matters is that touching it made her remember the memory inside of it. And with that, she remembered how to remember. Not that she can remember everything, so much of her mind is still twisted and warped. Memories lost and burned by the repeated defilements of herself.
But that ends now.
The girl stares down at the obsidian mirror, seeing herself, the good and the bad.
The currents around her shift, she's been here for too long. The guards have noticed the pattern. For a moment she wonders how long she has been down here. How many years, how many decades.
Centuries, longer still even?
As she wonders, a truth slips out.
It has been a long time since she has had a real meal.
Now is the time to hunt.
The aqua blue eyes of the Daughter of Okeanos flutter closed.
The blood red eyes of the All-Father's most dangerous creation snap open.
The Sea hunter reaches out, calling for her father's trident.
Far and away, at the pinnacle of the Grand Ocean, the Queen of the Mermaids watches in horror as the ancient statue of the First Mermaid Queen - the one who bound Poseidon into the deepest depths - shatters, as the Trident of the Oceans is pulled away, soaring through the water out into the distance…
Off in the distance towards the cell of the Immortal. That is very bad.
Ignoring the distress of her subjects for a moment, the Queen rushes to the treasury. She needs the Tropical Pact. Only the power of the Pretty Cure would be capable of resealing Princess Gura. She can only hope that the unending hunger of the Beast is turned towards the surface instead of the Grand Ocean. It is a shame for anyone to die, yes, but the humans are so numerous that they wouldn't even notice a few hundred thousand of their own being consumed.
…By the time order is restored, the cell of the beast is empty. It is not rampaging through the streets of the Grand Ocean. The Queen orders a contest, the winner of which will be sent to the human world to search for the Tropical Rouge Pretty Cure, the guardians who will be capable of protecting the oceans from this dire threat.
