Dust Bloom Lotus
I wandered, I watched, I judged
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's amazing. Great to see that Naru embracing her role. We now have Oni on our side. Not long before we can stomp on Imperial Ministry. On a side note, Usagi x Naru OTP.
Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)
RadiantPhoenix
Trudging up the Hill
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The goal of recruiting groups like the Oni isn't to be able to stomp on the IMO in battle.
The Night Market proved that our existing allies are sufficient to do that.
The goal of recruiting them is to:
- Make things better for the groups we're recruiting
- Weaken the IMO (in both hard and soft power) so we don't have to deal with as much of a mess after the battle.
iggyfan
Verified Man-Thing
- Location
- Kentucky
It should be kept in mind that the Imperial Ministry considers "Edo" to be a backwater whose only notable feature was the slave trading hub that was the Night Market. It would probably be unwise to judge their strength based on how easily we seized it, just as one shouldn't judge the strength of 19th century Denmark based on how easy it was to take Fort Christiansborg.
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Grue
滅亡迅雷
- Location
- -
Admittedly OngoroQuest has probably now entered their 'Quest end is now visible on the horizon' phase simply off the weight of simeltanous crises, it's just that outside of the NegaQuest panic and Solaryon pointing out this was a matter of time coming, that doesn't translate to them immediately stopping from being a threat. Especially given it's not at the OngoroQuest Epilogue stage yet.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And then there's the sequel quest, Black Moon Rising.
- Location
- Painting, Peach's Castle
I thought it was Onogoro that was considered backwater by the global magical communities at large?
Besides, for all possible bluster, the Senshi
dismantled two notable targets (Chicken House and Armored Oni), MCAT captured a third (The local lord in his...dieselpunk armor?), while a Lord Inuyasha "imposter" 1v1'd a fairly deadly Gumiho with a horrific reputation. Something must be getting through their skulls.
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Thinking about a hypothetical Senshi vs IMO slugging match is missing the point for both sides.
For the IMO the problem isn't the Senshi per se, it's the fall of the Masquerade. The Dawn of Fire is a silly idea as it applies to magic users in general, but it's a very real threat for the IMO specifically. When the Masquerade falls they'll almost instantly go from being the dominant power in their region, only needing to crush rebellions from their own population, to being a small group embedded in a much larger modern state that doesn't approve of them. They simply can't win that fight, at best they might be able to force some small concessions in return for surrendering in an orderly manner. The Senshi are a problem not so much because we're going to smash down their door (though we might do that), but because we're going around fighting magical enemies in public, giving press conferences, teaching people to use magic, and (arguably most importantly) handing out awakenings like so much confetti. The Senshi are hard for them to deal with, not just because there aren't many people who could match us, but because we have absurd mobility and concealment that makes it very hard for them to make us actually fight any of those people.
But even if they could beat us, and even if they could somehow pin us down despite our incredible mobility, they'd still need to deal with MCAT, Nanoha, a swarm of Pretty Cures, all the random people we've awakened (both hard because there's not even an easy way to find them), the Dark Kingdom, any of the Pretty Cure enemy factions that don't care about secrecy, capturing all the Jewel Seeds before they accidentally another city, any new threats that hit Japan, all while somehow upholding the Masquerade. I simply don't see how that's possible. Oh, and lets not forget what's happening outside of Japan. Remember when the US President gave a press conference with Big Foot?
On the Senshi's side, we also don't need to defeat the IMO in battle. We care about bringing magic back to the world, defending it from hostile forces, helping the poor and downtrodden etc. The only part of that that really requires confronting the IMO on their terms in freeing their Yokai slaves, for everything else they need to come to us to make us stop, and we're mostly fine just avoiding the fight if we can't win it outright. Convincing IMO loyalists to defect is useful because it makes it harder for them to strike at us, but we don't have that much need to strike at them.
For the IMO the problem isn't the Senshi per se, it's the fall of the Masquerade. The Dawn of Fire is a silly idea as it applies to magic users in general, but it's a very real threat for the IMO specifically. When the Masquerade falls they'll almost instantly go from being the dominant power in their region, only needing to crush rebellions from their own population, to being a small group embedded in a much larger modern state that doesn't approve of them. They simply can't win that fight, at best they might be able to force some small concessions in return for surrendering in an orderly manner. The Senshi are a problem not so much because we're going to smash down their door (though we might do that), but because we're going around fighting magical enemies in public, giving press conferences, teaching people to use magic, and (arguably most importantly) handing out awakenings like so much confetti. The Senshi are hard for them to deal with, not just because there aren't many people who could match us, but because we have absurd mobility and concealment that makes it very hard for them to make us actually fight any of those people.
But even if they could beat us, and even if they could somehow pin us down despite our incredible mobility, they'd still need to deal with MCAT, Nanoha, a swarm of Pretty Cures, all the random people we've awakened (both hard because there's not even an easy way to find them), the Dark Kingdom, any of the Pretty Cure enemy factions that don't care about secrecy, capturing all the Jewel Seeds before they accidentally another city, any new threats that hit Japan, all while somehow upholding the Masquerade. I simply don't see how that's possible. Oh, and lets not forget what's happening outside of Japan. Remember when the US President gave a press conference with Big Foot?
On the Senshi's side, we also don't need to defeat the IMO in battle. We care about bringing magic back to the world, defending it from hostile forces, helping the poor and downtrodden etc. The only part of that that really requires confronting the IMO on their terms in freeing their Yokai slaves, for everything else they need to come to us to make us stop, and we're mostly fine just avoiding the fight if we can't win it outright. Convincing IMO loyalists to defect is useful because it makes it harder for them to strike at us, but we don't have that much need to strike at them.
Both are correct. Onogoro is a not-very-important magical government, and they consider Tokyo a not-very-important city.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It bears remembering that "to Onogoro, Edo is a backwater" may affect what kind of strength is in Edo, more so than it ensures that everything in Edo is weak by their standards. Faust kept a chicken house there, but it seems like Faust is an independent operator who was trying to keep his activities on the down-low by operating in a relatively lawless environment where he could trade slaves freely. That doesn't mean Onogoro as a whole has anything like that.
On the other hand, other locations may have more of what Onogoro would think of as 'real soldiers' and 'real defenses.' That fortress the oni-imprisoning wardens had might be an example. One imagines that it would have to be more priority for military power than the Kurayami manor, with the Kurayamis having probably second-line warriors and weapons backed up by relatively basic security and a few weird heavy hitters like Lord Kurayami's armor and the Night Oni.
I think most of them believe 'secrecy' to be a type of root vegetable, and only really care about not getting caught and beaten up.
Nitpick: The president's George H. W. Bush still. That was Bill Clinton on the campaign trail.
...
...
Oh God, now I've got the phrase "I did not have sexual relations with that sasquatch" stuck in my head.
[cries]
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Why have you inflicted this cursed thing upon the rest of the world? That is an image I never wanted in my mind.
RadiantPhoenix
Trudging up the Hill
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This cracked me up, thank you.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
They may be taking offensive actions that aren't really on our radar as Senshi, though in that case hopefully they'll show up in our next 'news' post.
Or they may be having issues getting their mobilization in gear.
Or they may be having issues getting their mobilization in gear.
- Location
- Painting, Peach's Castle
Well, the question is how do they do that in a way that doesn't have them declared as terrorists? MCAT is an official organization funded by and operating under the Japanese government.
Further, they're...basically nonexistent to said government, despite considering themselves it's counterpart for Magical peoples.
They're having to act as stealthy as possible in acting against MCAT, and cannot risk provoking the actual government and have that anger directed at them more than it already is. Because if they go too far, they'll be declared enemies of said government they are supposedly equal-but-seperate to, and then their own citizens will wonder what in fuck's name is going on when their narrative has it's crutches kicked out from under it.
And this is assuming a lot of competency that we...haven't really seen thus far.
When the most competent individuals under Onogoro are a single member of their council (who has seemingly been outvoted multiple times), a beleaguered and frustrated doctor, and two groups of Teens without much Attitude...it's not a good sign.
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iggyfan
Verified Man-Thing
- Location
- Kentucky
They'll likely be declared such regardless of what they do. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if a significant fraction of the Diet already treats them as domestic terrorists.
"Little Brother has been brain washed by demons, so Big Brother is simply removing the infestation."
In addition it would be narratively dull if the Imperial Ministry never fights back.
Furthermore I cannot put into words how insanely arrogant it is to assume that ones enemy will never retaliate during a war.
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I suspect they're more likely to act against MCAT then us, they're a softer target, and more directly opposed, and it's probably ideologically easier to swollow to fight a group lead by a Yokai then a group of apparently-humans.
But like I said, fighting them is a distraction in a lot of ways. We can just keep doing what we're doing and they have to find a way to respond to it, of which there aren't really any good ones.
But like I said, fighting them is a distraction in a lot of ways. We can just keep doing what we're doing and they have to find a way to respond to it, of which there aren't really any good ones.
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- Location
- Dragyxx
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Yeah, we should remember that Ongoro is MCAT's starter villain, not ours. They may well pull together and give MCAT something equivalent to XCOM's Base Defense mission, but they're unlikely to direct too much at us beyond infiltration, just because we are very much an unknown and proven to be very hard targets.
Heartcatch Chapter 2.0 - Wait, I'm the Weakest Pretty Cure in History!?
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"All right! I can do this!" Tsubomi shouts.
Sasorina sweeps a hand in front of herself. "Ha! you're real after all! Well, I'll take the Perfumes, Pretty Cure and all! Desertrian! ATTACK!"
"DOLL!"
The monster stomps towards Tsubomi, covering ground fast with those big legs, reaching out and swinging down with those gigantic arms. And Tsubomi leaps, jumping up out of the way as hard as she possibly can.
Just exactly as hard as she can.
Little Things Count A Lot! activates!
Cure Blossom: 8 + (14+1) = 22
Desertrian: 5 + 21 = 26
DESERT APOSTLES SUCCESS!
Cure Blossom: 8 + (14+1) = 22
Desertrian: 5 + 21 = 26
DESERT APOSTLES SUCCESS!
Some tiny, strange instinct, perverse, whispers to her and counts the seconds.
One potato. Two potato.
Her skirts maintain their shape, in spectacular defiance of aerodynamics. The wind from above, now merely tornado-force, flattens Tsubomi's bow against her chest and whips back her ponytail without tearing it apart. She tumbles. Sky, ground, sky, ground... She tries to block out the dizzying spin and looks down and Chypre, clasped in her arms, is okay, even though Tsubomi's fears told her that she really shouldn't be. Tsubomi's just glad that Chypre's okay, and that she didn't drop the little fairy and lose track of her in the impossible wind.
Five potato.
The wind's slower now, 'only' like a huge thunderstorm or the outskirts of a typhoon now. The tumble isn't quite so bad. Tsubomi's... she must be hundreds of meters above the city. Not that far from the playground below her; she's jumped practically straight up. She looks around. It's so beautiful for a moment that she can ignore everything else. But... but... what goes up... must come down... oh. Oh no...
"AAAA!"
Tsubomi stops rising. She looks down sees the ground starting to rush up towards her. The wind is from below her now. She doesn't want to think about how fast she's going to hit. Hit fast, like a racecar or an express train or an airplane or a cannonball. She's going to die, and nobody's going to save Erika, and she's been the 'legendary Pretty Cure' for about two minutes.
Ten potato.
Evans sees the dust and leaves ripple upward from a blast, subconsciously starting to count.
*boom*
There it is. He's never seen Sailor V do something quite like this. On reflection, he wouldn't be surprised if she could.
But God knows that lass down there must be surprised.
She started going up like a shell from a gun, complete with distant boom Evans' learned to recognize, from a long strange career, as the sound of a projectile breaking the sound barrier without a pile of cordite behind it.
But artillery shells don't wear pink skirts and ribbons. And they don't flail and tumble as they pass through the air. By now, drag's caught up with the girl. The ascending pink streak's turned into something he can at least track with the Mark One eyeball. Into something that's begun to descend.
Evans clenches his teeth and wills his eyes to stay open.
*boom*
There it is. He's never seen Sailor V do something quite like this. On reflection, he wouldn't be surprised if she could.
But God knows that lass down there must be surprised.
She started going up like a shell from a gun, complete with distant boom Evans' learned to recognize, from a long strange career, as the sound of a projectile breaking the sound barrier without a pile of cordite behind it.
But artillery shells don't wear pink skirts and ribbons. And they don't flail and tumble as they pass through the air. By now, drag's caught up with the girl. The ascending pink streak's turned into something he can at least track with the Mark One eyeball. Into something that's begun to descend.
Evans clenches his teeth and wills his eyes to stay open.
She clings to her count as the last thing she'll ever do. And at least Tsubomi can let go of Chypre so she won't smash into the ground and die with her, because she knows how to fly, the lucky little thing.
Twelve potato.
Is it the heights that seem so scary, or is it the sudden short stop at the end coming-
Fifteen potato.
Blackness.
A young woman, gifted with remarkable powers but utterly untrained in combat sorcery, arrows straight down into the earth. At, if Evans is any judge, about a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
Evans clenches his teeth harder, balls his fists, and shudders in dread and uncertainty. A long and checkered life has taught him both to believe, and not to believe, in miracles.
Evans clenches his teeth harder, balls his fists, and shudders in dread and uncertainty. A long and checkered life has taught him both to believe, and not to believe, in miracles.
*BOOM*
"Uuuugh..." Tsubomi can't see anything; she's buried in a huge gouge in the dirt!
Chypre's voice sounds, barely audible- there's dirt in her ear, maybe? "I hope I didn't make a horrible mistake-desu…" Big stompy crashing sounds get louder and louder. "Cure Blossom, hurry-desu!"
"Aack!" Tsubomi rolls over, and can see up now. The giant doll looms over her, reaching down for her, stooping at the lip of the hole she's left in the ground.
Tsubomi screams. "AAAAH!" She leaps.
She's... actually not smashed into pieces! She's fine! She knows she's fine because she's running! Away from the giant monster!
She leans into a turn and dirt skids out from under her foot and she spins awkwardly and plants her face against the ground, but that's not as bad as hitting from a zillion meters up! She jumps back up, blindly running, running, the crash having driven the thought from her head and the dirt into her eyes, half-blinded by soil and tears at how useless this is.
Chypre catches up.
"You can't run away-desu!"
"I'm very fast!"
"LOOK OUT WHERE YOU'RE GOING-DESU!"
"I can't sto-"
*THUD*
Running full tilt into the tree hurts almost as much as smashing into the ground. Uhhhhgh... I'm so strong I can't control it... Tsubomi falls back on her butt, groaning. Uuugh. I LIKE gymnastics! Why can't I move right!? Well, nobody ever taught her how to do gymnastics at a hundred kilometers an hour, darnit!
"Cure Blossom, you have to get up-desu!"
A shadow passes over her face. Wait. What. Where? Oh. Oh no...
*BOOM*
And that's when the beating really starts. She dodges enough to escape some of it. Half, maybe. Not enough to keep getting kicked around by the giant doll from hurting.
Evans clenches his fist, feeling powerless as the enormous ragdoll closes in. His off hand swirls in passes and he mutters incantations. But at this distance, making blessings or curses bite to any real effect takes more preparation than he has, or more power than is the lot of mere mortals.
He can't make out any sign of the fairies. But the girl, tiny even with magnification but marked by her confection of pink skirts and hair, is whipping around left and right, sometimes throwing herself out of the way of the Desertrian's blows and the clouds of dust they kick up, and sometimes simply being knocked back and forth across the ground or into the air. Boxed in back towards the playground.
She's already taken enough of a beating to kill a small army. He'd be dead several times over down there, warded service jacket and all. God, God she must be green. What were the fairies thinking!?
He can't make out any sign of the fairies. But the girl, tiny even with magnification but marked by her confection of pink skirts and hair, is whipping around left and right, sometimes throwing herself out of the way of the Desertrian's blows and the clouds of dust they kick up, and sometimes simply being knocked back and forth across the ground or into the air. Boxed in back towards the playground.
She's already taken enough of a beating to kill a small army. He'd be dead several times over down there, warded service jacket and all. God, God she must be green. What were the fairies thinking!?
A massive slap like being hit by a truckload of rolled-up fabric flings Tsubomi towards a playground chin-up bar at car-accident speeds. On reflex she reaches out and grabs it, leaving dents and thwacking her hands painfully. In spite of herself, she does what's probably the world's first accidental vigintuple giant circle, whirling around the bar fast enough to spin her mind into dizzy jelly. Showers of sparks fly from her grip, and at last she slips loose… and crashes into another tree.
"Uhhhhhh..."
Her hands hurt. Among other things. She wobbles unsteadily to her feet; the world is spinning top-to-bottom…
Sasorina stands perched easily atop one of the playground slides. Her voice is low, flat, contemptuous. "This is the legendary Pretty Cure!? How pathetic can you get? You idiot, you must be the weakest Pretty Cure in history!" She sighs. "Whatever. Just finish her already, doll."
"Uhhhhgh..."
The Desertrian roars again. Tsubomi barely flings herself out of the way in time.
Tsubomi jumps. She flails. She whirls. She keeps from getting pounded into the ground... mostly. Well, too many times. She's not sure how many times is too many. At least one more, she guesses.
And finally, her moment comes. She finds her nerve. Rallies. She can't put up with this anymore! Not with Erika- and Coffret- in danger!
Pink light flares from her. For a moment, even the Desertrian takes a step back.
"ENOUGH!"
Tsubomi- no, Cure Blossom!- gestures with a sweep of her hand. And points. And shouts.
"No more running and panicking! I'm ready to face you now, Sasorina!"
The Desert Apostle waves her left hand airily, letting the opera glasses dangle on their lanyard. Sasorina is laughing at her. Laughing.
"Hahaha! Oh, please. It's clear that you're not the true threat of Kibougahana these days!"
Coffret, still trapped in Sasorina's fist, screams at the Desert Apostle, pounding on her index finger with his tiny hands. "Don't talk like that about Cure Blossom-eek!" Sasorina squeezes a bit.
Tsubomi glares at the maddening, mocking woman in gold. "LET HIM GO! I may not be Cure Moonlight, but I can still-"
And Sasorina does relax her grip a bit, at the sound of her shout. But at the sound of 'Moonlight,' she laughs even more cruelly than before, cutting Tsubomi off.
"HA! I'm not worried about that broken disgrace, scurried off to whatever hole she crawled from. She's gone. And I'm not worried about you, either. No, I'm talking about that treacherous sneak who blew us up last week! Compared to that, you're clearly little more than a brightly dressed... distraction... oh. Oh. Oh, King Above, they're hiding in the trees, aren't they!?"
Sasorina whirls around frantically, raising the strange green-glowing magical artifact to her eyes and looking around.
Wait, she's distracted! She's vulnerable!
Wait, I'm distracted! I'm vuln-
"AAACK!"
Little Things Count A Lot! activates!
Cure Blossom: 3 + (14+1) = 18
Desertrian: 7 + 21 = 28
DESERT APOSTLES GREATER SUCCESS!
Last Legs malus applied to Cure Blossom!
Cure Blossom: 3 + (14+1) = 18
Desertrian: 7 + 21 = 28
DESERT APOSTLES GREATER SUCCESS!
Last Legs malus applied to Cure Blossom!
The monster grabs her.
The grip stops being comfy. It becomes not-comfy. Very, very not-comfy.
"AAAAAA!"
The Desertrian's grip isn't breaking any bones- it kind of feels like being crushed under a mountain of carpets or something. But it's so very much crushing. Tons and tons and tons… She struggles, but she can't break free, and if nothing else, she can't draw a breath…
It's no use... it hurts too much!
Tsubomi screws her eyes shut. She feels the fabric of her dress stiffen by some strange magic. The monster does its best to squish her body like a tube of toothpaste. She strains with all her strength to fight off the grip of the huge doll-hands, but it's useless, she has no leverage at all against them…
Protector activates!
Little Things Count A Lot! activates!
Last Legs activates!
Mysterious Protector + Cure Blossom: 2 + (20+2) + 0.4*((14+1)/2) = 27
Desertrian: 4 + 21 = 25
??? SUCCESS!
Little Things Count A Lot! activates!
Last Legs activates!
Mysterious Protector + Cure Blossom: 2 + (20+2) + 0.4*((14+1)/2) = 27
Desertrian: 4 + 21 = 25
??? SUCCESS!
She opens her eyes.
They're swirling in the thousands, drinking the summer sunlight so eagerly that the cloud of them casts something like a true cloud's shadow across the ground. They give that light back in a pink shine that draws the eye from all else and-
Tsubomi's mouth opens in a breathless gasp of shock. A shadowy warrior leaping through the air obscures the sun briefly. He brings a sword wrapped in green fire down on the Desertrian's wrist, cutting a long rip into its fabric hide. The monster's grip spasms open and Tsubomi's desperate pushes win her enough room to slip free and fall seven meters to the ground.
Tsubomi draws deep, shuddering breaths as her dress crackles and ripples, fading into the simple, undecorated, luminous pink gown it started out as in the tunnel.
The warrior in the blue-gray kimono stands over her, his head twitching slightly to shake dark bangs out of his resolute- and shockingly handsome- face. He takes his left hand off the hilt of his sword and jabs his palm outward, and a heart of blazing light crashes into the Desertrian's middle. It roars again, staggering, waving its arms awkwardly, and falls over.
And then the warrior sheathes his sword in a surprisingly hesitant motion, stoops down and scoops Tsubomi up. Consciousness leaves her, but she passes out feeling safe in his arms as they vanish together in a spray of flower petals.
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Hi Tuxedo Mask. Fancy seeing you here.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
He's more of a Kimono Glasses?
Nah thats not Tuxedo.
Just a copycat.
On the other hand, wonder if we could do a Salir moon and cure moonlight roll call later down the road.
Just a copycat.
that is actually a fairy taking a human form, to be exact the form of tsubomi grandfather, since this fairy was Tsubomi's grandmother partner during her days as a precure
On the other hand, wonder if we could do a Salir moon and cure moonlight roll call later down the road.
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Now here's a girl who needs Sailor Venus's talk about mysterious boys who show up while fighting!
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Well, we did vote to send her to Kibougahana.
FictionPack
Monochromatic Ursine
- Location
- Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
She also needs the lasers talk.
Blossom is in for a very long lecture from Venus.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Poor poor Tsubomi, though she does show she really has the heart of a hero in just keep getting back up.