Well, another fact to keep in mind is that Faust is losing his mind. His memories are getting fragmented and scattered because he was never meant to be immortal (note to self, figure out how to fix this). So... maybe he doesn't remember that Yeltsin is no longer in power? I'm also not against the idea of USSR and Magical Russia being in "open" conflict.
Uh... Assuming no major timeline divergences, Boris Yeltsin is the current head of state of the Russian Federation.
The Soviet Union already fell apart in 1991, with some of the 'Soviet Socialist Republics' on the periphery breaking away already and the Warsaw Pact dissolving. Yeltsin has become increasingly prominent in Russian (specifically Russian) politics since 1989 or earlier, and the decisive moment at which he surpassed the last Premier of the Sovet Union (Mikhail Gorbachev) in power was August 1991. In August 1991, a hardliner pro-Soviet coup attempt including military and KGB elements tried to abolish Gorbachev's reforms and reassert Moscow's control over the breakaway republics. Gorbachev was left looking weak in this, while Yeltsin's opposition to the coup caused him to look strong. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the Communist Party (one of his titles, not the only one) shortly afterwards, and the Soviet as distinct from Russian government more or less withered away. Yeltsin took over the remnants.
An overwhelming Ukrainian vote for independence from the USSR in December 1991 was more or less the death blow for prospects of a formally Soviet rump state holding onto anything meaningful. Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus declared the explicitly post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States a week later, and in these accords the USSR was formally dissolved. All the other republics signed onto this pretty quickly.
On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union and declared that the office was extinct. The Soviet flag went down for the last time, and the Russian red-blue-white tricolor went up in its place. The next day, the Supreme Soviet (about as close to an elected legislature as the USSR had) voted itself out of existence.
By May 1992, Yeltsin is pretty clearly the most powerful man in the Russian Federation, all the post-Soviet breakaway states we know and love have already broken away, and the overall economy of most of the former USSR is in the process of falling apart into a misery of rising income inequality, higher poverty, higher death rates, and decaying infrastructure. A process which will continue for some time.
Edit:
SKRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Hit brakes
Faust has memory problems. We have seen a lot of immortals with no memory problems. What if this isn't that Cloch Ghlas gives out bargain bin immortality and a sign that Cloch Ghlas is connected with the Knights of Oblivion. He mentioned his memories being pulled towards a yawning pit. They might be being drained from him, not just lost.
First, his memories seem clearer of things farther back in time, which is not obviously something you'd expect.
Second, the Knights of Oblivion are associated with a single demonic entity who seems to operate on a more human scale. Given how old Cloch Ghlas is and that he even dared to engage in high-level intrigues in the Silver Millennium, Cloch Ghlas is probably enough of a powerhouse that if he's working with Oblivion, it's as likely that he gave them their powers as the other way around.
Not every old person with a bad memory is a sign of Oblivion interference.
Well, Setsuna will be a modern day person who has no idea about any of this. So we will have to call Pluto, who I suspect will be vague and cryptic as befits a mistress of time
Well, Princess Pluto did say she was training the future Pluto for Usagis daughter, so I'd assume Setsuna would be given some training as well on how the Gates of Time work.
Well, Princess Pluto did say she was training the future Pluto for Usagis daughter, so I'd assume Setsuna would be given some training as well on how the Gates of Time work.
Depends on when in the metatimeline Setsuna is. Walking into Crystal Millennium for magic lessons and learning she's a Senshi from there could easily be why she ends up with Gates training.
You pause, trying to remember, there was, um, a thing. Oh! Table manners! Right! Swallow.
"I like the everything, Miss Lily! Thank you!"
For some incomprehensible reason, most of the others laugh.
You look up with more attention, noticing that while you were adrift in foodspace, someone must have lowered the blinds on the shop windows. You're starting to come out of it, feeling comfortably full after… you stop, counting on gloved fingers that have remained cleaner than you had any right to expect them to. After… you actually have no idea how you managed to eat that many helpings. Oh well. You're sure it'll be fine!
And in any case, you're feeling very well disposed to the cook. Cooks? Everybody.
Almost enough at ease to drop code names. Not quite.
"Sailor V?"
"...Everyone here knows my real name. I told them months ago. It's okay."
…How did she know what you were thinking?
The girl who went from urban legend to heroine in your mind about a month ago, and from heroine to friend in the last few hours, has a very good mask. But somehow, that shy smile pushes through it.
"I'd appreciate it. This is… kind of home."
You take a deep breath, fighting an entirely unnecessary cautionary instinct. "Minako, then. You said Emma and Elina used to have magic, but not anymore?"
She nods. "Ever since the Realm of Springtime, uh, sort of nailed the door shut. The Fair Remedies' bracelets don't work anymore, and they don't seem to be able to cast spells without them. And the British can get someone's magic going, but they don't do it just as a favor. Lucy decided she wanted to be a Spellblade when she grew up and went for it, but the others didn't."
You grin and wiggle your fingers. "Think your friends would like a present?"
"...Oh. Oh. Right, you told me you can- I… I think they would." Minako leans back in her seat a bit, and you turn back to the adults, just in time for them all to dissolve into laughter about something Emma said. You wait a moment, then wave a hand.
"Thank you for the wonderful very large meal… Emma, Elina, may I ask a question? I'm very thankful. And I can tell that, you've been good friends for Minako… Would you like to, be able to, use magic again?
Miss Carroll's eyes widen, but she says nothing at first. Emma's lips part slightly and she looks at Elina. Elina's eyebrow rises, and she gives you a look, then speaks slowly and very carefully. "That sounds beautiful, Sailor Moon, but I should be careful saying that. Some things come with too high a price. I hope this wouldn't be one of them?"
If you didn't feel your heart understanding why Elina asked the question, you'd be hurt. You're not- you're just not. You shake your head hard and you can feel yourself flushing a little. "Oh no no no! I wouldn't ask you to do anything, Miss Elina! I just- have a spell. I could do it. It's actually pretty easy!" You beam.
Miss Carroll makes a slightly strangled noise. "Easy."
"Yes. The 「Lunar Healing Burst」 does it."
"The… 「Loonerrr…」... ah…" Something about the way she only slightly mangles that one word of High Lunar suggests that she's heard it before, but something about how she doesn't even try to say the other two makes you wonder if she's only heard that one before.
After an awkward pause, Miss Carroll coughs. "Ahem. The spell can start a person's magic? Do they feel… ill afterwards?"
"Or a bunch of people's! And… no, nobody's said anything about feeling sick yet."
Before you can figure out how to explain that you know about mana doping from what happened to Mom, without specifically mentioning your mom, Miss Carroll nods slowly. "I… see."
Emma looks carefully at Miss Carroll. "You think-"
The Spellblade nods grimly, though her expression softens as she speaks. "I know we don't know them like we know Vee. But I and my surviving best friends trusted them all with our lives just now. So far, it seems to have worked rather well. I won't tell you no, dears."
Emma looks at her- friend? She looks quite carefully, and Elina nods slightly. Then Emma nods, too, smiling. "All right, then. You feel like Vee's kind of people, anyhow, and she's certainly our kind of people."
"Okay!" You bounce up to your feet with an ease found only among people who can lift hundreds of times their body weight. "Okay, come here…"
You gesture, waving Emma and Elina together almost as if you were about to take their picture. You pull yourself together a bit.
"「Lunar Healing Burst!」"
Something- well, you'd say resists, but it's more as though it's off somehow. Like a bottle someone tried to screw the cap back onto, only it got misaligned and jammed. It sticks a bit- you're not having to push hard but it's taking your attention the way a Burst usually doesn't. It's as though the spell is doing something complicated and insisting that you take notice, even though you're not really sure how to describe the process.
Or how to describe doing it twice, even.
And then the pressure lets up and the spell is done, and it seems not to have spread all over the room the way it usually does. Maybe whatever it did for Elina and Emma took more of the spell's energy than you realized- or maybe it just took a little sip of power to do some very delicate careful work. Nurse Serenity would know.
The wash of silver light passes. The woman who answers to 'Emma' and 'Lily' with equal ease turns intently to her- friend? Her eyes blaze, though you think there's no literal glow to them. Maybe a very little. It's probably the light.
"Elina! Elina, give me your hand. That burnt spot..."
"Wait, you think-"
"Yes. I think. I… need to try." She starts to say "Please," but Elina is already extending her hand, which Lily clasps in hers.
You sense a faint and almost familiar magic; for a few seconds white light swirls around their fingers. Lily sways, suddenly, and Elina reaches up to steady her with a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
"That was like... catching a lorry… heh, remember? M' tired. Just need to sit down- uugh." She wobbles towards one of the tables, and as she sits, turn to Elina, who hovers at her side.
"Did it work?"
Elina looks at her hand. "The burn's gone..."
They look at each other and speak in perfect synchrony, even to your accelerated perception.
"It worked!"
They smile at each other for a moment you wouldn't even consider interrupting… then Elina's face settles into a mask of resolve.
"Emma? I'm- I'm going to get my Lens."
"Do you think we-"
"I have to try." She turns and strides through the door to the back of the shop- the kitchens, and from the creaking sound, the stairs.
Emma looks at Miss Carroll, and says quietly. "Did Lucy ever try?"
The Spellblade shakes her head gently. "I don't know. She never said; I never asked."
Silence rules for a moment, before Elina comes back out into the dining area. A filigreed silver bracelet sits on her left wrist, and all its curls emphasize a single piece of smooth, clear, unfaceted crystal. Oval-shaped, about the length of a finger and the width of two. The crystal looks somehow out of place, as if there is more to it than fits in this reality.
She stops in the middle of the clear space between counter and tables, closes her eyes, and folds her hands across the middle of her chest. She silently mouths words as the fingertips of her right hand brush that crystal. For a moment the faintest hint of a curtain of light form around her, and Emma gasps, standing back up. But then the light fades. Elina wobbles on her feet… but there is triumph in the tilt of her smile and she rebounds forward, hugging her suddenly.
"I got through to it, Emma! And- mm," she pulls back a bit without fully leaving the hug, smiling directly at you and your friends. "Do any of you know Telugu?"
You blink, taken aback. "Who's Telugu?"
Ami answers automatically, as though quoting. "Telugu is the most common language of the Dravidian language family of southern India-" but then she catches herself and stops impersonating an encyclopedia. "Waaaait, you're not speaking Japanese, are you?"
Emma steps just a little back herself, now reaching up to hold Elina's shoulders at arms' length, smiling wide. "You- you got the translator working!" She pulls Elina back to herself hard. "I can't believe it! You got the translator working, just like that!"
"I had to trick my way around a bit, there's something in the way, um, I'm not sure I can explain how I did it, I should be able to explain..." Elina lets out a frustrated sniff.
"Stop that, you're brilliant!" Emma quite literally bounces- Elina wobbles a bit under the momentary weight. "If you can get the translator working, then can you…"
Elina smiles back, softly. "I could feel it start to go into rapport, for a split second I thought I was going to change- I wonder what it'd do to my hair now."
Emma's laugh is a girlish giggle. "Maybe it'd put the dye back in. Like it always did for me."
"Maybe so. I thought it might do the whole change, but it was like it was too heavy for me to get it all moving. The 「Rapport-Tuned-Crystal-Potentiality-Amplifier」 must have more… inertia, I guess, than I thought."
"Someday, though?"
Elina smiles oddly. "I think someday, yes. With a bit of practice. Maybe soon, even."
The two slowly separate, silently, and there is a pause in the conversation. Then Rei, red-faced, perhaps from residual curry spice, coughs.
"Umm. Elina?"
The tall, dark woman turns. "Yes?"
"What did you say just now, the name of the thing that had inertia?"
"Why, yes, my 「Rapport-Attuned-Crystal-Potentiality-Amplifier」." She holds up her left hand and points to the bracelet. "This… these are what Clink and the others gave us, to turn into the Remedies, years ago… She said it was something quite complicated, some old and wonderful magic and I believe her, but she said to just call it a 「Rapport-Attuned-Crystal-Potentiality-Amplifier」. Simple word. One syllable. Easy to remember."
Makoto frowns slightly. "Um, I'm not hearing a short word. I'm hearing, uh… Rapport Attuned Crystal Potentiality Amplifier"
Minako looks with confusion from her new friend to her older friends. "What? All I heard her say is 'Lens.' "
Elina pauses and tilts her head. "I think this translator may be even more complicated than I thought when I was a girl…"
Ami touches her chin and looks thoughtful. "And I'm pretty sure it speaks High Lunar, when it needs to… I can think of a lot of uses for something like this!"
"Careful. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched." Elina smiles, and you begin to realize that Elina was probably the Remedies' version of Ami. And they're clicking. This is either very good or very bad.
"How do you mean?" Ami looks curious.
"It always had limits. It doesn't work over the phone or the radio. It can't translate a recording or a voice on TV, and recordings of anything we say with them will just be in whatever language we said it in. Clink said it worked off people's wishes to understand, to communicate, or both… and a speaker or a microphone doesn't have those. And… well, it works better if the speaker and the listener both have magic; it works really badly if neither of them do."
"Can you read text in foreign languages with it?"
"Ah… no. The Springtimers, uh… didn't really do written languages."
Ami just stops then, blinking in incomprehension. "They… couldn't read and write?"
"They could learn, it just… wasn't very important to them. Um. Look, the Springtimers were very nice and they made all kinds of beautiful wonderful things, okay? I… miss them sometimes."
Emma interrupts. "And the delicious buns. Don't forget the buns."
Elina's skin is too dark to see a blush but you can hear the blush somehow. For some reason.
"Anyway. If you got a few hundred Springtimers together, they'd make up a whole new language from scratch just in, oh, ten or twenty years just for the fun of it. And another. And another. And their kids would grow up not knowing the old ones, and they just never really saw the point, and they just got good at translation magic but never got the hang of keeping stable written records."
Minako frowns. "I never quite understood that part. Why keep making up new languages if you're just going to translate them all anyway?"
"I know; I never quite understood either. It worked for them, is all I really had time to find out. They were pretty happy and doing just fine, at least until they got invaded by an army of magic robot monsters. And then, well, they had us." Elina waves around herself.
Rei speaks, suddenly and softly. "That reminds me of something I'd been meaning to ask. How did you first meet the Spellblades?"
Emma, Elina, and Miss Carroll all look at each other for a moment. Miss Carroll is keeping a careful deadpan expression. Elina is grinning. Emma is too. Minako is almost quivering. The two retired(?) magical girls begin to speak.
"It's a bit of a story."
"About the Dark Lady!"
"Aaand the Blight Realm."
"It all started when our English teacher asked to take us- us and Vicky and Lucy- for a walk up into the hills to talk about a script for the little play we were doing as a project. We'd been having trouble agreeing on one, aand..."
Results:
Two demilitarized Pretty Cures (partially) re-awakened!
Emma Wood, Remedy Lily, is recovering her healing abilities!
Elina Naidu, Remedy Lavender, has jailbroken her transformation artifact to serve as a translator!
Sidestory unlocked: Double Cross of Doom!
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Merry Old England! Pretty Cure Episode 9: Double Cross of Doom!
Merry Old England! Pretty Cure Episode 9: Double Cross of Doom!
St. Catherine's School
West of Scarborough
May 1985
Lucy's smile was mock-sweet, framed by dark hair and eyes with a spark of mischief. "It's Greek to me, sir…"
The portly teacher laughed. "Fair, fair. The two words you need to remember most, in any case, are peripeteia and we'll get to the other one in a minute. Now, who remembers- ah. Elina?"
The Indian girl, second-generation immigrant of two aggressively traditional parents trying to cope with a strange land with mixed success, tapped her cheek thoughtfully. "Peripeteia is… a sudden turnaround, a changing situation or how a character acts, a turning point in the play?"
He smiled. "Textbook perfect. Now, in well written tragedy, peripeteia plays a particularly important role… though of course there are other forms of art where it can be at home. Hm. Can anyone give me an example of peripeteia?"
Victoria looked very thoughtful, rubbing her chin. At last, she smiled goofily at him. She lowered her voice into the deepest, raspiest, most baleful stage whisper she could manage. "Nnno… I am your father…!"
The girls all burst out laughing. After a split second of confusion, Mr. Ballon followed suit.
Finally, they all straightened up and calmed down, and he went on. "Almost. You see, that's a good example of what Aristotle called anagnorisis or, you might call it 'discovery,' 'recognition,' or even 'revelation.' A character learns a sudden, shocking fact, especially something about their relationship with an antagonist, something that changes their understanding of events and allows them to see the situation as it truly is. Aristotle believed that the best form of tragedy involved anagnorisis leading into peripeteia. That is to say, a shocking revelation changes how our hero sees what has been happening around them. Thus, it changes the significance and shape of all that has been happening to them- irreversibly so. Would you say your example qualifies?"
Vicky nodded. "It was surprising, that's for sure...."
Lucy looked sour. "I heard about it before I saw the movie."
Lily scuffed a foot at the dirt of the path they were following. "I… um. Didn't. I was scared and IcriedalittleIwaseight."
Their teacher nodded solemnly. "A regrettable result. But one Mr. Lucas put considerable artistry into attaining. Perhaps he studied the Poetics at some point. And I see, all the same, that you young ladies have a proper understanding of the value of well structured dramatics- and of keeping your shocking revelations unexpected."
Elina's face froze. "You… could say that, sir. Hm. Is that why you didn't hand out those copies of the script you want us to use for our sketch?"
ELINA: 4 + 13 = 17
MR. BALLON: 3 + 20 = 23
He laughed softly. "Well, I'm hardly Darth Vader, now am I? Not nearly imposing enough. But I believe, Elina, that this script is best appreciated with wildflowers around, a good cool, stiff breeze, and a bit of distance from the crowds."
As he waved his hand in the air to indicate the countryside around them, Lucy grumbled. "We're going to miss the magic show."
He smiled. "Now now, I've found the top of the next hill a perfect place to contemplate literature. And the view! You'd love it. Besides, I've met the 'Great Frederico.' His magic tricks get old after a while… and his war stories always trail off just before he gets to the good bit. Hmph."
"But it's a magic show!"
"There's good magic and bad magic, Lucy, and bad magic rarely ends up worth messing about with, don't you think?"
Elina paused. Once in a while, Mr. Ballon acted like he knew more than he let on about them, or was making a joke no one else could understand. If he hadn't been so nice all year, she'd be downright suspicious. She turned to look back at the boarding school. Then she turned to Vicky and Emma. "I thought we'd be able to see the school from up here…"
Vicky looked back too. "I guess we're in sort of a bowl in the hills? We should be able to see when we get to the summit, though…"
Their teacher beamed. "That's right, girls. Though this is perhaps the most… interesting stretch of the path."
Emma frowned. "I don't know. It looks kind of scrubby to me."
The vegetation of the English moors varied, and there were as many old trees in the miles around as in any other such stretch of countryside in Britain. But here, it was low and sparse, except for a single gnarled, stunted tree on the slope above them. Rocks jutted out of the dirt not far away from that- perhaps the reason the tree hadn't been able to grow tall. And they'd all already looked over the rusted wreckage behind them, from what Mr. Blimp assured them was a Victorian steam-tractor, from back in the days when this stretch of land was still open to loggers. Clearly, the tractor had broken down, but no one had thought it worth the trouble to come back for most of it for some reason.
And the old man smiled. "Oh, I don't know. It seems a lovely place… for an AMBUSH!"
Four girls turned as one. "A what?"
"Behold the fateful day, children! I've been preparing for this for a long time..." Their teacher laughed darkly as magical concealment faded.
A gleaming-eyed woman in green stepped forth from a veil of invisibility. A tall, thin man in white stepped forth from a veil of mist that rose from the earth. A shadowy, androgynous figure with features disguised by the darkness that gathered from nowhere to veil their form flickered into reality in a swirl of night.
The menace was obvious enough that Vicky, Elina, Emma, and Lucy barely glanced at each other before they grabbed their left arms and rolled up their sleeves, taking a deep breath in unison and touching their bracelets. Gemstones flared in iridescent fire, a polychromatic glow rising to wrap them in something beyond the sunlight.
Despite their numbers and power, the Blight Colonels shrank back slightly from the display, feeling the radiant heat on their faces. They knew from old legends not to risk attempting interference as dazzling polychromatic light hid the moment of transformation.
Victoria leapt skywards with the first flush of her newly heightened strength, spinning in the air, taking on the mantle of Remedy Primrose. And if the extra lace seemed impractical, and if the shocking-pink outfit left a hand's breadth of her midriff bare, what of it? There was a time to be daring, and to not take oneself too seriously.
"Enemies of the Realm of Spring-"
The heavy black dye insisted on by Elina's rather staid parents burned out of her hair between heartbeats. Her tight, demure braid unwound and twisted into fanciful, overlapping waves of pink as the jewels and petticoats and blue skirt of Remedy Lavender shimmered into being over her body.
"-You reveal yourselves unwisely!"
Emma clasped hand and Lens and let the iridescence wash over her skin. Her hair flashed gold, as did a few accenting stripes of her uniform. Magic carried with it all the color of the rest, and the form of the clothes themselves began to change, leaving her refined and remade in Remedy Lily's white dress and white boots, which had so far laughed at every attempt to mark them.
"Willing servants of Evil-"
Lucy began a pirouette that she could only have finished without falling over as Remedy Foxglove. By the time the twirl ended, she was in the transformed state, all blacks and purples and eyeing the angles with a mischievous smile to mask her alarm at the situation.
"-Yield or face powers you know not!"
The girls blinked at each other- Lavender and Foxglove's lines had been different this time and they didn't know why.
But their teacher- and it pained them all to think that he might be betraying them to the Blight Realm- just laughed again. "Powers you know not, eh? Let battle be the judge of that. You girls struggle hard enough against one or two. Let's see how you do when it's four against more… Comrades?" He turned, looking at the recently appeared trio of Blight Colonels.
The woman in green leapt with cruel wildfire in her eyes, laughing and raising her hands to the sky. The stunted tree shivered, crackled at its roots, and twisted into a crazed tangle of slashing branches and knotwood, with a twisted face that roared.
The man in white stooped with a madcap grin on his face, laughing as he sank his hands into the earth. The granite of the rock outcropping shattered, the pieces reforming into a humanoid mass, giant and faceless until two stones parted to give a war-cry.
The mage of shadow gave the hint of a smile as the night whirled about their darkness-shrouded form like a tornado. The remains of the steam tractor broken down by the path twisted eerily and reformed, larger and heavier, thickly coated with rust but sturdier than the machine had ever been for the long-forgotten logging operation that once owned it. The twisted metal shrieked.
All three monsters shouted in unison- "THINGAMABOB!"
Their teacher smirked, as though at a hidden joke, as the monsters arrayed themselves along with their masters in an arc facing the Remedies at a cautious distance. Then he spoke once again.
"But how rude of me, bringing us all together and not introducing so many strangers to each other! Erstwhile comrades-in-arms, I give you the Fair Remedies, champions of the government-in-exile of the Realm of Spring, wielders of the Lens and guardians of the Radiant Wheel!"
He bowed deeply, gesturing with a sweeping motion of his arm to the woman in green. "And my dear Remedies, I give you the illustrious Colonel Beldam!"
He swept with his other arm to the man in white. "The bold Colonel Bone!"
And with a tilted smile he straightened, sketching a half-salute to the shadowy figure of night. "And the formidable Colonel Black!"
"And long but not least, myself. You thought I was but Mr. Ballon, harmless, humble teacher of literature, children! But in truth, I have more often been styled Colonel Blimp, commander of the Seventh Regiment of Blight! And as long as you have known me, I have been in secret service to the fiercely fearsome, the magnificently malevolent, the Dark Lady…"
Colonel Blimp grinned, obviously savoring the moment. Colonels Beldam and Bone, who had laughed just now, slowly turned towards him, dumbfounded expressions on their faces.
He dipped his head to his chest, flourishing his walking-stick out to one side.
"...Margaret Thatcher."
Colonel Black began to speak, confused concern in their voice. "Wait, who's-"
There was a brief, Doppler-shifted whistling sound. Then the explosions started.
"AAAAAA-"
To the everlasting credit of her combat reflexes, Emma had her bracelet in the air, loosing a spell like none she'd ever cast before, before the second recoilless rifle round took the stone Thingamabob in the chest. Even replacing the customary florid incantation with a wordless scream hadn't gotten the dome shield up before the first round hit. But the SAS counter-ambush had been well planned, with a certain respect for shrapnel radius.
A few scraps of steel and chips of wood had pattered down near the Remedies from that first 84mm HEAT round, as it put a spear of flame through the middle of Colonel Beldam's monster. But Vicky, Lucy, and Elina had fallen to their feet from surprise, not injury.
"-AAAAA!"
Remedy Lily gasped for air after her scream, but did not allow herself to buckle, keeping her bracelet and left wrist high as shrapnel and ricochets clattered off the pearl-white dome covering her friends.
Vicky rose to all fours, then looked up, climbing to her feet as the clattering, strangely cheerful strings of pops in the distance rose into a continuous background hum. There were more explosions. Roaring, but a lot of it sounded confused. Strange, baleful incantations, muffled by the crackling sound of the shield of force.
Vicky took a deep breath. "I didn't know you could do that, Emma."
"I didn't either!"
"Good job, though. Um… did you see what happened out there? Usually there's a lot more shouting and-"
KABOOM
"THINGAMA-ama… amabob…bob…"
"-that. Only more angry and less, uh… hurty."
Elina rolled to a sitting position, then began to rise from it herself. "I… I think someone's attacking the Blight Colonels. Hard."
"But there can't be another team of Remedies-"
Lucy cut Vicky off. "Though if there is a team with that many machine guns and bazookas, they must be doing something right. But no. You're right. I think it's the Army."
"Mr. Blimp did say he was working for the prime minister…?"
Elina frowned. "I want to take a look-"
KABOOM-KABOOM
"Let me rephrase that. I want to take a look without dropping Lily's force field. Thanks, by the way."
Emma, still holding her hand up, spoke between slow, deliberate breaths. "You're very welcome." She managed to flash Elina a smile before returning her concentration to the matter at hand. She tilted her head and wiggled her Lens experimentally. "Um… I don't think I can open a window."
Elina squinted for a long moment, looking at the dome. "Waaaaait… I think I see how it works. But if you think the dome's about to fall from this, uh… shout, okay?"
Emma nodded firmly. Elina, gingerly, touched the brilliant rainbow-lit gem at the back of her wrist to the inside of the glowing white shield. The contact sent a ripple out along its surface… and a soul-deep shiver through both of them as their magic connected. A long moment of concentration, but-
"There!"
A port several inches wide spooled open just below head height, and the pink-haired girl peered out through the aperture. The sound of crackling gunfire rose.
Elina frowned. "I… um, if this is the Army… does the Army have wizards?"
Vicky stepped closer. "Wait, wizards?"
"They have wands and everything…"
Dame Judith Carroll, Companion of the Order of St. Ambrose, slashed her wand crosswise and snapped a command. A sudden, tightly contained sheet of tornadic wind at knee height plucked the flowers from the grass and sent the squad of hastily animated little mud-monsters sprawling, some of them going down and losing cohesion. She sagged for a moment with the effort but recovered to guard position, ready for anything- and any damn thing might happen.
There weren't many sorcerers in Europe who could put up a credible fight against a three-mage Spellblade fire team. But the man in white made one more such, even if the bastard was losing ground.
Sir Michael kept up mad-minute fire from his battle rifle, hitting his mark far more often than not. But a steady stream of runic wardbreakers didn't seem to be doing more than keep the fairyland mage known as Colonel Bone busy reinforcing their own wards. Stray shots from the SAS weren't doing much more. The Colonel's return spellfire took everything old Sir Robert had to deflect reliably- and sometimes much of what Dame Judith, in reserve, had too.
A piece of shrapnel plucked at the wards of Sir Robert's obstacle jacket as another HEAT round sent the giant steel beast back to its knee-equivalents. That was three quarters of what the SAS were adding here, and it was damned important. The usual rule of thumb was that what one mage could call up, another could send away. But whatever 'Thingamabobs' used for animus was singularly difficult to banish, as tests on Colonel Blimp's own specimen had shown. Fighting the mages and the big monsters at the same time would have been ugly.
Every time the Thingamabobs tried to stand back up, though, a shot from a Carl Gustav put them back down. The stone and wood monsters were less singular things and more a pair of animated, loosely connected masses of rubble now… but they kept struggling. And the steel beast was at least in one piece and moving, even now after taking punishment that would probably have disabled a main battle tank.
Judith would be worried if they didn't have the summoners on the back foot, but the Colonels were losing slowly, with only their own power and the lesser, more easily conjured Widgets to depend on. They'd wear the enemy down yet. And-
Lucy leaned over, crowding Elina.
"Hey!"
"Hang on, I see one of them."
Elina's brown eyes briefly met Lucy's hazel, and both of them grinned.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Remedy Lavender stepped aside, carefully holding her Lens in place against the dome, converting a viewport into a gunport. And Remedy Foxglove stepped carefully into position, sighting down her arm and splaying her fingers in the familiar pattern…
"Hellebore… Heartstopping... SHOCK!"
Dame Judith had seen Return of the Jedi, not two years ago, in its opening week. She'd had to suppress a slight critical frown at the Emperor's lightning; obviously Industrial Light and Magic didn't know any better, but a proper electrical attack spell just didn't look like that.
Apparently, one of the magically enhanced little girls calling themselves 'Remedies' didn't know that, and had made it work anyway.
Colonel Bone had fifty or sixty magically enhanced rifle rounds slamming into his wards every minute. As if that simple but heavy attack weren't enough, the enemy mage was catching occasional nasty little side-spells from Judith, at least when she wasn't busy helping Sir Robert fend off counterfire. Bone's full attention was occupied, leaving not so much as a thought for the Fair Remedies under the dome shield to the rear.
This proved costly.
The Hellebore Shock caught Colonel Bone squarely in the back. He arched, convulsed, and stumbled to the ground, unable to reinforce his wards for critical seconds.
Sir Michael shifted his point of aim and emptied the battle rifle's magazine. The first several rounds didn't get past Colonel Bone's barriers, but in the end, the magical defenses thinned enough for the wardbreaker runes to do their job.
"What happened?"
"Did you get any of them?"
Lucy spun away from the porthole, clasping a hand to her mouth for a long moment. "I… the one Mr. Blimp called Colonel Bone- I- I hit him and he fell down and then they shot him."
Remedy Primrose took two quick steps to put her hand on Foxglove's shoulder. She spoke softly. "Scary?"
"He didn't just disappear or anything…"
"I guess wars are like this sometimes… this has been a war for a while, hasn't it?"
"I… I guess so…"
"You did the right thing, Lucy."
Remedy Foxglove smiled wanly. "Probably. Better him than us, I guess?"
"Yeah. Elina? Are you okay over there?"
"...Yeah."
"Keep an eye on things. Emma? How are you holding up?"
Deep breath. "I can keep this up."
"Make sure to wa- waaaait, Elina already said that. Sorry."
So I was supposed to be writing today, but I kind of got distracted working on something else...
You aren't going to get the context for it for a bit yet, but here's an image for you all to chew over.
The surface area of the larger circle there is roughly... 315 Square Miles, or just a little bit bigger than New York City in total, and the smaller square is about 80% that size
"It always had limits. It doesn't work over the phone or the radio. It can't translate a recording or a voice on TV, and recordings of anything we say with them will just be in whatever language we said it in.
From what I've gathered from cultural osmosis, if you told someone in Britain that Magaret Thatcher was an alien invader sent to make people's lives miserable, some of them might reply, "Huh, that makes sense."
"And long but not least, myself. You thought I was but Mr. Ballon, harmless, humble teacher of literature, children! But in truth, I have more often been styled Colonel Blimp, commander of the Seventh Regiment of Blight! And as long as you have known me, I have been in secret service to the fiercely fearsome, the magnificently malevolent, the Dark Lady…"
Colonel Blimp grinned, obviously savoring the moment. Colonels Beldam and Bone, who had laughed just now, slowly turned towards him, dumbfounded expressions on their faces.
He dipped his head to his chest, flourishing his walking-stick out to one side.
Man, those poor girls. I'm reminded of how in canon, when Nagisa and Honoka permanently defeat Pisard, Honoka thinks they killed him and the mascots go 'Oh dont worry, he will be reborn as a good person at some point' and I was like 'oh is that the excuse we are going with? Ok.'
From what I've gathered from cultural osmosis, if you told someone in Britain that Magaret Thatcher was an alien invader sent to make people's lives miserable, some of them might reply, "Huh, that makes sense."
It bears consideration that immediately after Colonel Blimp namedropped Maggie Thatcher and flourished conspicuously with his cane, you know, the sort of highly distinctive gesture that someone watching from a few hundred meters away through binoculars could distinguish easily, the immediate next things to happen were:
1) Colonel Black looking at him and saying "wait, who's-"
2) A salvo of Carl Gustav rounds landing on the Blight Colonels.
Man, those poor girls. I'm reminded of how in canon, when Nagisa and Honoka permanently defeat Pisard, Honoka thinks they killed him and the mascots go 'Oh dont worry, he will be reborn as a good person at some point' and I was like 'oh is that the excuse we are going with? Ok.'
Yes. There is a reason Colonel Blimp was talking about abrupt revelations and genre shifts on the hike up to the ambush point.
On the other hand... Well, things will be contextualized a bit better by the next section of present-day discussion in the aftermath. Suffice to say that the Fair Remedies spent a lot less time having to play esoteric child soldiers on net than many other groups of Pretty Cures.
If some of the many Japanese Pretty Cure groups who got their start in the past several weeks haven't already surpassed the Remedies in "total time spent in combat as the main line of defense against people who are seriously trying to murder you," they probably will soon.
Neat side stories, though I feel like if there is a free moment once general contact with the fairy realms are reestablished some very pointed words are going to have to be had with the Land of Spring, and any other that has just dumped the Pretty Cures that had been helping them.
So I was supposed to be writing today, but I kind of got distracted working on something else...
You aren't going to get the context for it for a bit yet, but here's an image for you all to chew over.
The surface area of the larger circle there is roughly... 315 Square Miles, or just a little bit bigger than New York City in total, and the smaller square is about 80% that size
huh… There might be less dimensional shifting and more spacial shifting for these Pocket universes than we thought. and, if my line of thought is correct, explains a lot about how they work. anyone else thinking jovian colonies?
Neat side stories, though I feel like if there is a free moment once general contact with the fairy realms are reestablished some very pointed words are going to have to be had with the Land of Spring, and any other that has just dumped the Pretty Cures that had been helping them.
I can't speak for all the other Pretty Cure realms that did the same thing in canon, but in all fairness, you don't know why the Land of Spring withdrew from Earth and locked the door behind them.
There is sufficient information theoretically available to figure it out, but it would be very difficult for the Senshi to find out in-character without a way of getting to Land of Spring.
It's on the night side of Venus, which is being backlit by something the castle itself is doing.
Hypothesis:
Astronomical photographs are nearly ALWAYS false-color images in one way or another, and this is meant to be something that will one day be visible through a telescope from Earth.
Yeah, when you said he hadn't "been in power for long" I read "been in power for a long time". Misunderstood your confusion that he was refering to Yeltsin by thinking you were saying Yeltsin had been ousted by now. A misread compounded with the fact that I REALLY have a poor grasp of Russian Political History. I have a vague sketch of what happened, and a few of the biggest names, but that leaves it easy to just default to what I think other people are saying, since you guys generally know it better.
Well, not necessarily. Alzheimer's generally attacks the most recent memories first, because long term memories are very very resilient. A memory parasite, for lack of a better terminology, would theoretically work the same way. It is far easier to take a portion of the short-term memories, carving holes in memories being committed to long-term storage than it would be to consume the oldest memories and erase the past.
Additionally, one could assume that Faust is no slouch and a powerful mage. Not the type of person you'd want to clue into something being wrong by doing something as obvious as erasing his entire past and history. Addling more recent memories is something he can dismiss without becoming suspicious.
Second, the Knights of Oblivion are associated with a single demonic entity who seems to operate on a more human scale. Given how old Cloch Ghlas is and that he even dared to engage in high-level intrigues in the Silver Millennium, Cloch Ghlas is probably enough of a powerhouse that if he's working with Oblivion, it's as likely that he gave them their powers as the other way around.
Not every old person with a bad memory is a sign of Oblivion interference.
Firstly, obviously not every old person with a bad memory is a sign of Oblivion. Just like not every new sale on exoctic pets is a Dark Kingdom plot. But when you know that is something they do, you end up looking into it.
Secondly, I have no idea what you mean by The Knights of Oblivion "operating on a more human scale". They have a global reach with soul magic resurrection and a style of magic that seems utterly unique to them. They are exactly the same (in terms of thematic levels) as the Dark Kingdom or the various Pretty Cure Antagonists. Sure, they haven't started blasting entire cities or raising ancient structures, they've kept to raid attacks on the civilian population for their needed resource.... just like the Dark Kingdom does.
The "singular demonic entity" is just referred to as the King of Oblivion, which first off isn't a title I'd just casually dismiss, but also... how is that different than Goyan of the Dark Fall dimension or The Evil King of the Dotsuku Zone? You seem to want to say these things about the Knights of Oblivion to make them seem like too minor of a threat, but... we don't know anything about them and just because their first "Dark General" got slammed by the Moon Ascendant doesn't automatically mean that they aren't on the same level as the other forces we are dealing with.
For example, how old is the King of Oblivion and the Knights of Oblivion organization? I can't say that we know, so how do we know that Cloch Ghlas wasn't working for them and their master when he plotted with Pandora? Those Soul Mirrors are not minor magic, that is a hefty enchantment that I'm sure required an immense amount of power to create.
Now, maybe Cloch Ghlas did create the Knights and is actually the King of Oblivion in disguise. Maybe he's just a Wormtongue figure, after all he's never directly fought anyone to our knowledge and being old and smart doesn't always mean you are good in a fight.
But these seem like strange dismissals of the idea based on... basically saying the OC villain group isn't a big enough deal to warrant it being true? Which is a bit of a headscratcher for me.
As I was writing this, I saw there were two story posts. So I'm going to post this, then read and respond to other things. I don't think this will lead to a double post.
Something- well, you'd say resists, but it's more as though it's off somehow. Like a bottle someone tried to screw the cap back onto, only it got misaligned and jammed. It sticks a bit- you're not having to push hard but it's taking your attention the way a Burst usually doesn't. It's as though the spell is doing something complicated and insisting that you take notice, even though you're not really sure how to describe the process.
Or how to describe doing it twice, even.
And then the pressure lets up and the spell is done, and it seems not to have spread all over the room the way it usually does. Maybe whatever it did for Elina and Emma took more of the spell's energy than you realized- or maybe it just took a little sip of power to do some very delicate careful work. Nurse Serenity would know.
...Should I be concerned that something seems to have actively messed with Elina's and Emma's magic, which would have made it harder for them to be Awakened if it weren't for Senshi BS? Because the main possibilities that come to mind are:
Jury-rigging. The Lenses were originally designed in a society where almost everyone has magic, but when they were dropped into mundane England, they had to... alter things slightly in their users to make things work.
Malice. Either the Springtimers were fine crippling their shanghaied champions as long as their enemies were defeated now, or maybe Q Division didn't want these teenage girls to be wielding their outsized powers unless they were under contract.
I'm more than happy to be wrong, but those were my knee-jerk reactions to this.
"And long but not least, myself. You thought I was but Mr. Ballon, harmless, humble teacher of literature, children! But in truth, I have more often been styled Colonel Blimp, commander of the Seventh Regiment of Blight! And as long as you have known me, I have been in secret service to the fiercely fearsome, the magnificently malevolent, the Dark Lady…"
Colonel Blimp grinned, obviously savoring the moment. Colonels Beldam and Bone, who had laughed just now, slowly turned towards him, dumbfounded expressions on their faces.
He dipped his head to his chest, flourishing his walking-stick out to one side.
"...Margaret Thatcher."
Colonel Black began to speak, confused concern in their voice. "Wait, who's-"
There was a brief, Doppler-shifted whistling sound. Then the explosions started.
Brava and Bravo Colonel Blimp, Brava and Bravo for a most excellent introduction.
Too bad about the actual war and shooting people part of it all though. I think I can guess why the Springtimers might have barred the door on their way out though.
It's on the night side of Venus, which is being backlit by something the castle itself is doing.
Hypothesis:
Astronomical photographs are nearly ALWAYS false-color images in one way or another, and this is meant to be something that will one day be visible through a telescope from Earth.
Additional Hypothesis: We know that the climate of Venus has been changing due to the activation of the Venusian Palace. This could be a result of those changes.
...Should I be concerned that something seems to have actively messed with Elina's and Emma's magic, which would have made it harder for them to be Awakened if it weren't for Senshi BS? Because the main possibilities that come to mind are:
Jury-rigging. The Lenses were originally designed in a society where almost everyone has magic, but when they were dropped into mundane England, they had to... alter things slightly in their users to make things work.
Malice. Either the Springtimers were fine crippling their shanghaied champions as long as their enemies were defeated now, or maybe Q Division didn't want these teenage girls to be wielding their outsized powers unless they were under contract.
I'm more than happy to be wrong, but those were my knee-jerk reactions to this.
My gut answer is that the Faerie Realms don't awaken a person. After all, we know that... Honoka? Cure White is trying to learn normal magic, but that the Fair Rememdies didn't think much of losing their magic when the devices shut off and the Pretty Cure canon seems to state that they lose their powers when the Realm "moves away"
So, it would be kind of like your Jury-rig idea, but more of a... Like taking a machine designed to runs on hydro-electrical power and attaching it to a Wind Farm. You get it all working... then take away the wind. Now you try and jump-start the machine with hydro-electric power and there is an inertia problem because the expected source of power the machinery was adjusted to isn't there.
I don't doubt for a moment that the Fair Remedies could have easily gotten their magic back if the Springtimers door was reopened, but I think that the twist Usagi dealt with came from them firmly shutting that door.
...Should I be concerned that something seems to have actively messed with Elina's and Emma's magic, which would have made it harder for them to be Awakened if it weren't for Senshi BS? Because the main possibilities that come to mind are:
Jury-rigging. The Lenses were originally designed in a society where almost everyone has magic, but when they were dropped into mundane England, they had to... alter things slightly in their users to make things work.
Malice. Either the Springtimers were fine crippling their shanghaied champions as long as their enemies were defeated now, or maybe Q Division didn't want these teenage girls to be wielding their outsized powers unless they were under contract.
I'm more than happy to be wrong, but those were my knee-jerk reactions to this.
Well, without handing over extra OOC information...
...
Militating gainst the jury-rigging hypothesis are two points:
1) Q Division has apparently re-awakened Lucy Howard without benefit of Senshi bullshit. You don't have easy access to information about whether doing so was abnormally difficult for them, but if it had been really difficult, they might well not have bothered, unless they had some other, entirely different ulterior motive in making the attempt.
2) Usagi has almost no in-character information about how "magical anatomy" works and has almost no comprehension of it. Lunar Healing Burst does what it does because it was modified by Nurse Serenity, who had access to a lot more knowledge about magical anatomy. Thus, the hypothesis is unfalsifiable, because Usagi wouldn't be able to tell why or even if any modifications were made.
...
Militating against the "malice on the part of the Springtimers" hypothesis are two points:
1) There is no clear evidence that the Fair Remedies were different from any other groups of Pretty Cures, so unless you have reason to think all Pretty Cure transformation artifacts somehow burn out their users, there's no reason to assume these did. Maybe it's just inherently a different and more delicate process to restart the magic of someone whose magic is disabled due to being bound up with a defunct transformation artifact, than to start the magic of someone who does not now and never has had magic? See previous remark about Usagi's in-character ignorance.
2) The Fair Remedies didn't lose their powers immediately upon the defeat of the Blight. This is information you'll be learning later anyway, but the Lenses stopped working at more or less the same time the Springtimers "nailed the door shut" to their Fairy Realm. Of course, you don't in-character know their motivations for doing so, but it would probably be premature to assume this was a malicious act on their part or one primarily directed at sabotaging their own magical guardians.
...
Militating against the "malice on the part of Q division" hypothesis, well.
1) Minako would have to ask, but if Usagi is (uncharacteristically) suspicious enough to ask her to ask... Elina and Emma would volunteer that as far as they remember, no British mage did anything to them at or immediately before the time their Lenses stopped working. Not right then. And indeed, they seemed rather concerned about the whole thing.
2) Does Q Division seem that committed to the whole "seal and subjugate" approach towards supernatural third party actors? To the point where they'd sabotage a bunch of Pretty Cures they already have a good relationship with, and who apparently continued to trust them afterwards? Remember, they have pixies flitting around in the woods who will apparently approach a Spellblade on terms that imply an established contract relationship. Oni who probably grew up viewing the IMO the way an inner city youth views the cops seem willing enough to risk their lives fighting alongside Spellblades. Dwarves seem to be comfortable not only providing specialist magical support but acting as unit armorers for them. This is not to say "Q Division are good guys," but it does suggest that they are comfortable making stable, mutually beneficial arrangements with supernatural actors not under their direct control, in a way the IMO is not.
3) Unfortunately, the hypothesis is functionally unfalsifiable because ferreting information out of Q Division is the sort of thing you'd have to do by beating them at Intrigue checks, and so far the Senshi don't have a good track record of being able to do that.
My gut answer is that the Faerie Realms don't awaken a person. After all, we know that... Honoka? Cure White is trying to learn normal magic, but that the Fair Rememdies didn't think much of losing their magic when the devices shut off and the Pretty Cure canon seems to state that they lose their powers when the Realm "moves away"
So, it would be kind of like your Jury-rig idea, but more of a... Like taking a machine designed to runs on hydro-electrical power and attaching it to a Wind Farm. You get it all working... then take away the wind. Now you try and jump-start the machine with hydro-electric power and there is an inertia problem because the expected source of power the machinery was adjusted to isn't there.
I don't doubt for a moment that the Fair Remedies could have easily gotten their magic back if the Springtimers door was reopened, but I think that the twist Usagi dealt with came from them firmly shutting that door.
While I find the analogy somewhat confusing, I am unable to think of any obvious pieces of evidence or arguments that would falsify this hypothesis, based on the IC information available.
