Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah, but we're magic space people, and the magic side of the equation has such examples as Equestria and She-Ra, so I think on balance it's fine.
We'd be a princessipality anyway.
Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)
We'd be a princessipality anyway.
Um Newtypes are magic Space People too.It's mainly the Space part I'm worried about.That said it would make sense if people living in space for a long time(like multiple generations) would be a legit way to reactivate magic powers considering howi n the Silver Millenium Era Earth was for 'children' and space was where you grew up magically/emotionally speaking.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
We're not copying them. They're copying a shitload of other people, whom we can copy or not copy at our leisure.
They're copying the romans, as are all the princes and princesses.
It really just means First lol.
That sounds like a good way to wind up building a dam over the cursed springs and sending mixed diluted curse water into the general water supply.
Precure Pileup - Peach Panic
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"I ran the numbers for the dial-in when you showed me the letter," Mercury confirms.
"Thanks, Mercury. Venus, you know what to do?"
"Yes ma'am! Tinsnips has given the address. We'll try to find him or Cure Flower as quickly as we can. You can count on us!" And as Sailor Venus ends on that cheerful note… a grunt of acceptance… from Sailor Mars…
You are Haruka Tenoh, Sailor Uranus. And you're not surprised to hear the most beautiful voice in the world ask the obvious question, as you lean together with her over her communicator. "Which just leaves Uranus and I to handle this third problem then?"
The princess pauses on the other end of the line- the conference call, rather. "...Yes. Cure Peach and her friends in Yotsuba town are under attack. All I know for certain at the moment is that whatever's happening caused Peach's mother to vanish right before her eyes."
*crunch*
Your next coherent thought, emerging from a bleak momentary hell, is that the cassette you were absently holding in your off hand is ruined now. It's a fairly distant thought, though. You can feel your face slipping into a cold mask of war. Part of you wishes Michiru didn't have to be here to see this. More of you glories in the knowledge that whatever happens, she'll be beside you every step of the way.
Your lips part, and you make no real effort to mask your anger.
"I... see. If you will excuse us Princess, we need to go and check on Peach."
Cool fingers brush your arm. A gentle sigh sounds a hand's breadth from your cheek. And Michiru speaks. "Oh, dear. That would be something of a sore spot for Uranus. It isn't something that she likes to talk about, so I am not surprised that you didn't know. I'll make sure that she doesn't end up going too far."
A spike of betrayed confidence stabs through your mask, but her hand tightens just a little on your arm and the two people you trust most in the world now are both part of this conversation. You hold your peace.
The princess' voice sounds from the little communicator. "...Thank you. One last thing. Neptune, Uranus. When you get your hands on whoever is responsible for this, I want you to keep hold of them. That girl we encountered last time managed to get away from the Yotsuba town police, and I'd quite prefer that anyone who could do something like this ends up properly in the hands of MCAT so that they can't get away."
A whisper comes to you from the bleakness. Very well, then. As she commands. You will find the one who did this to that girl and her mother, if you have to crack the world open with your own hands to do it. And if you can get those hands on that one even once, then the only ways they're leaving your grip again will be in prison or in pieces.
There are two voices left in the world that could get your attention right now. Usagi does. "You all have your missions. Don't let me down."
If he dies, will that disappoint Usagi? But you don't ask that out loud. The call ends. Michiru tugs you to face her, and you move with the pull.
"You know that we were just teasing, right? I know that you won't go too far. Are you sure you're going to be okay?"
"Close enough to do what we have to do." You reach up and clasp her hand against her arm, then take a deep breath. "We'd better call Cure Peach. Though-" You look into Michiru's eyes, and the two of you nod as one. You separate, and the wands spin into your fingers, and you transform.
"Uranus-
"Neptune-
And then you reach down to your wrist to work the communicator, and the girl on the other end picks up and answers in a flash. An image of her face forms.
"Sailor Moon! Oh… Sailor Uranus." Cure Peach, Love Momozono, doesn't sound too disappointed. Not that you could blame her for anything, anything, not right now. She's not transformed, and the first thing you notice is that the long blonde pigtails you remember her for, rather like the princess's, are sandier and no more than shoulder-length in civilian life.
You force your voice into calmness. "Love, yes. It's me and Sailor Neptune. We'll be there in a few minutes. Have you called your friends? Where are you?"
"I- I'm still in the house…" Her eyes dart from side to side, haunted. "I used my Linkrun to call Miki, and she'll be here soon, but I… then you called."
You wrack your memory. "Okay. She's Cure Berry, and you still need to talk to… Cure… Pine… Inori, right?"
"Everyone… calls her Buki, ma'am." Cure Peach blinks back a tear, trying to be brave for you, and it nearly breaks your heart on the spot.
"Buki, right. Peach, we're going to find the one who did this, and we're going to stop them."
"...You think this is Labyrinth's doing too?"
"Well, it certainly wasn't yours." You manage a hint of your usual humor, trying to bring the girl back to herself.
And maybe it works, because a flicker of hope dances there. "And we'll stop them and get Mom back together?"
Oh. Oh. The promise you wish you could make. "We'll find her." Dead or alive, you refuse to say.
"O- Okay." She gulps, pulling herself together a bit.
"Now, you don't want the neighbors to know you're Cure Peach, right?"
"...Not yet."
"Okay. Call Miki again, as soon as we hang up. Ask her to meet you… where's a place that's easy to find, close to the middle of your town, with some high buildings not too far away?"
"Uh… Riverside Park should work."
"As long as Berry and Pine know where to find it."
"They will."
"Okay, ask her to meet you there, transformed. Then ask… Buki… to meet you there too. Then get out of your house, far enough away that you can transform too without anyone noticing. Call us back when you transform and we'll come to you. We'll be there two or three minutes later."
You close the line and turn to Michiru. Her gloved fingers rest on your arm again, and you just look at her for a long, slow moment, knowing you have a few minutes before you need to start the Sailor Teleport. She is, among so many other things, the brains to your brawn. She's whispered to you that she sometimes has visions and intuitions, that sometimes she doesn't know how she knows the things she knows. After the past two months, you know not to ask too much of her special grace, but you also know to trust it. Wasn't she the one who suggested that fateful double date at the end of April, after all?
"Do you have any idea what's happened to her?"
The gentle melancholy in her tiny rueful smile answers you, even though her words don't.
Your softer side would sigh, but the mask of war forbids it. You know she reads it in you anyway. "Well, let's get ready to go to her, then."
So you do.
None of the other Senshi have been able to match the casual ease with which Usagi slips in and out of space, laughing at time and distance. Some of the way she talks about what she does makes sense to you, in a way the others don't seem to be feeling. But there's something missing for you. You'd like to think some day you'll be able to dance across the world like the princess does- but not now. Still, you can manage with an aiming point. And you have one.
Somewhere out there, across the depths of heaven in which most of reality is shadow, you can feel the spark of Cure Peach's communicator with a gentle nameless sense. You lace gloved fingers with Michiru, not really linked to her but sharing the experience, standing together. To her, she's told you, those sparks are obvious and unsubtle, but they seem farther out of reach.
Grace and poise. Brains and brawn. The bleakness tries to drag you down, and it hasn't let go of you, but she's here to hold onto. You can feel the old pain and new wrath without losing yourself to it entirely.
Wait for it. Wait.
The little spark in the distance flickers, calling out to you. Her hand tightens in yours, because of course she sees it too, and together you begin to push, blurring the line between 'here' and 'there' with intense concentration.
Don't let up. Don't look away.
In one moment, you're standing in the slightly dusty drawing room of the house Michiru's parents hardly take time to use between rounds of jet-setting. In the next, you're falling out of the sky, five meters off the ground, feeling as though you have all the time in the world to land lightly on your feet. Combat reflexes not even you had until a few months ago spin you round to take in the scene, and you're fairly sure this is Riverside Park in Yotsuba City. Cure Peach must have already gotten all the way there before you made it to her side. Quick of her, unless it was closer to her house than you think.
And there she is, along with the other two girls you recognize in their transformed state from your last trip here a few weeks ago.
And you freeze as it all clicks together.
The Pretty Cures rush up to you and Michiru and just grab you, with no sound save distraught wordless cries. Cures Peach and Berry wrap their arms around you like drowning women clinging to a floating log.
You realize what's happening here even before you start speaking.
Because you hear the sounds of children shouting in the distance. Sirens, not close by, but more of them than would ever be normal on a Sunday afternoon. Indistinct blurred voices, some of them distant and amplified by speakers, some of them closer and if anything even harder to pick out.
This isn't a city where one woman has disappeared into thin air.
Something much, much worse has happened. Something bigger.
And then the conclusion that clicks together
Cure Peach's mother didn't disappear because of something she said, of course. And not even because her mysterious enemy, Labyrinth, was targeting her or her family in particular. Labyrinth has vanished a lot of people.
And from the number of little high pitched voices crying out, from the cluster of sobbing children gathered around a food vendor at the far edge of the park, a man who takes only a moment to look up at you before bending down to hug a boy who's clutching miserably at his leg…
Labyrinth has vanished a lot of mothers, in particular.
The bleakness grabs you, and doesn't let go.
Michiru Kaioh, Sailor Neptune, knows within moments of the teleport that something is horribly wrong. The pain is all around her and the distant wails only confirm that she's not imagining it. And when Cure Peach and her friends hear Michiru and Haruka touch down, they way they whirl, the way their voices sound not with greetings, but with wordless sounds of distress, anguish, and perhaps a touch of desperate hope… Whatever has happened, they, too, are caught up in it.
Something about Haruka, a presence Michiru knows better than most, draws the eye even now, even given what she has to be going through herself. Cure Peach and Cure Berry run up to Haruka on instinct. But Cure Pine comes up to her, and something tells Michiru that she's holding together better than the others.
Of course, Michiru's first memory of Inori, from three weeks ago, was of the girl running up to a mutated dog-monster the size of a double decker bus and commanding it to sit, lie down, and roll over. And that particular Nakewameke obeyed, to the considerable surprise of its theoretical dark master. Since that was before Inori took on the mantle of Cure Pine, Michiru feels fairly confident in putting her faith in the girl's ability to keep her head in a crisis.
Even so, Inori's eyes are agonized as she takes your gloved hands in her bare ones, clasping them. "Thank goodness you're here… Miss Neptune, everyone's mothers disappeared!"
And Michiru forces the slightest hint of her affected airy confidence into her voice. "How troublesome. We'll just have to find them all, then."
Inori blinks hard, fighting back tears. "Dad's at a conference in Takamatsu until this evening… he probably doesn't know yet. I don't want him to come home and find her- find-"
"Well then, we'll have to get to the bottom of this quickly." Michiru racks her brain, trying to think of something faster than fanning out to search the city on foot. That could take a long time, especially if Labyrinth- or whoever else- is making any real effort to hide.
"...You think we can?"
Michiru pulls one hand from between Inori's and rests it on the girl's shoulder. "I've done some very strange things, and so have you. We'll just have to believe in ourselves."
Inori looks briefly across the park at a food truck, where a man in a yellow baker's apron watches over a dozen miserable children, stooping and comforting them one by one. Michiru can't make out what he's saying over the background noise, but she supposes it doesn't matter. Inori gulps, takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. "Someone once said to me that if you just keep at it and have faith in ourselves, things will turn out okay…"
"That's good advice for a time like this." Michiru draws a deep breath. "I don't know that this is the work of your enemies-" she thinks for a split second- "Labyrinth. But it's the obvious possibility, isn't it?"
"Sailor Moon thinks so." Inori's eyes flash, and she releases Michiru's hand. "Love said something about it. And… things have been missing. It adds up. If one of them started taking little things, and now things we love. Our families-" She grits her teeth."
Michiru squeezes Inori's shoulder with her right hand again. "Hold onto that thought. We just need a way to find them. Something faster than running aimlessly all over the city. Something…" Absently, she glances down at her left hand. Wait, what about her hand? She needs something to help her find this. Something that in three months or so as a Sailor Senshi, she hasn't picked up. Some trick, some spell. But she doesn't have that, much as she wishes it were here at her fingertips, tries to drag it out of the void and finds nothing.
There's always her usual second sight. Maybe she just needs to concentrate. She quiets her mind as best she can, trying to shut out the screams, to pick out the currents, the flow… Irritably, she opens her eyes and frowns at her left hand. It's empty. Why is it being so stubbornly empty? She's looking for something, damn it! Try again, try again. The pain, the screams, she can't miss them, much as she'd like to. And they're going somewhere, being drawn somewhere, but she can't follow it with an empty hand. If only. If only. Damn it!
She lets out her breath in a single huff. She's missing something. This should be much easier than it is, even with no special spells or relics or tricks. There isn't time to try to tease anything out of the listening stations. Can they track a feeling in the air, track down a monster she doesn't know the appearance of? On some level, in her heart, she believes they could. But how long would it take? Out of the question. She glares at her empty left hand again, willing something to break her out of this so she can move along. DAMN IT.
"Sailor Neptune?" Inori raises her hand, wiggling it a bit to catch Michiru's attention.
"Wh- yes?"
Inori points. "Who are they?"
She feels her eyes narrow. Them. The last thing she needs, or wants to see-
"They look like… old samurai or something."
"Yes… yes they do." And Michiru's mind flashes back two weeks, to a terrible moment in a courtyard back in Tokyo. Of being hemmed in by a whirling wall of blades and scowling faces in armor. Of a terrifying split second of thinking that the last sight to pass before her eyes would be the sword that was about to carve them from her head-
She wasn't expecting, on top of everything else, to see three Onogoro men. Two of them carry swords and wear rattling, archaic, conspicuous armor. They look very medieval- but then, so did the guards at the Night Manor. The third is a walking anachronism, wearing blue jeans and a green T-shirt underneath a robe that looks like something from an Edo Period museum exhibit, and carrying a medieval spear tilted back over his shoulder. They stand out in the park, enough so that if there weren't already a horrifying emergency going on and sending ripples through the air, she imagines they'd have been stopped by a police officer. They'd at least be drawing a lot of questions.
The three men aren't a welcome sight, especially since they're coming closer. Still a long way off, but coming closer. Only the spearman has a hand on a weapon, though, and he seems to be doing that only for balance.
Michiru glances at Haruka, who is still speaking in a low voice to Cure Peach and Cure Berry. Michiru can feel the sparks of compassion and the waves of deep pain radiating from her lover. Letting some bullyboys interrupt Haruka right now is very close to the last thing Michiru intends to allow.
She turns back to Inori. "Those three- I think they're mages who follow the Imperial Ministry of Onogoro. Did anyone mention them?" She can't remember.
"Cure Peach said… something she'd heard from talking to somebody, but it was kind of a rumor." Inori sighs.
"Well, I can only hope they're not here to make trouble."
"Do you think they're behind this?" Inori's face suddenly turns angry once again.
Michiru shakes her head. "No. But as far as I know, in the three months monsters have been attacking Japan, they've never yet done anyone any good, either. Not anywhere. Come with me, Cure Pine. Don't close in on them yourself, and don't start anything; those weapons are probably magical and dangerous. But watch my back if they start trouble."
Unless they're even better than the guards at the mansion, she probably has a very good chance of taking down all three men by herself. And if it came to a fight, Haruka and the other Cures would snap out of it and be backing her up in seconds.
Haruka will be furious if that happens. Michiru sighs. The men are close enough to read facial expressions now, and… well, maybe they're at least not hostile. Grim and stressed, yes. But hell, so is she. She would be, even if the three men weren't here.
The swordsmen have fallen back a pace behind him, leaving the spearman in the lead. His right hand holds the spear balanced across his shoulder, but he waves with his left. "Hello. You would be… from the Sailor Senshi, yes? And those 'Precures' I've been hearing about?"
"Michiru folds her arms across her chest. "True. I'm Sailor Neptune. This is Cure Pine. Now, explain. What are you doing here?"
"I'm Hamada. I think we have a common enemy. My sister-in-law, Lady Yamazaki, is missing. So are a lot of other women. I could be wrong, but I believe they've been kidnapped, so I'm looking for her."
"Carrying swords and spears?"
Hamada blinks, as though confused. "I'm looking for the person who kidnapped my sister-in-law."
Which, to be fair, does explain the weapons. "Right. But why come to us? What are you doing here? The Imperial Ministry doesn't have much of a history of helping us out at times like this. Are you planning to tell us not to use any magic or something terrible will happen? Garbage about the 'Dawn of Fire'?"
"Lady Neptune, nobody pays me to enforce anything. I don't make any laws. And the only person in town who might be able to convince the Ministry to actually send out anyone in a hurry just disappeared. Me, I just enchant fabric and study old tongue-twisters. The way I see it, thousands of women are already missing. If something even more terrible than that happens, it's the fault of whoever started this."
Michiru pauses for a moment, and decides that she can work with that. "All right, so why are you here?"
Hamada shrugs slightly. "When Lady Yamazaki vanished from right out of the dining room, none of us knew what to do. Yuuki's doing his best to keep the nieces calm. Me, I grabbed the old Sanskrit text I've been pecking through and tried the best divination I could handle without apparatus. The first time I tried it, it said something confusing about doing topiary with swords and being too busy. I tried again. And that time… there was a pull to it. Some stray elemental manifestations, and… well, I got 'park by the river,' or close enough."
"So why come to us?"
"The divination invokes the universal feminine principle for guidance. It pointed me here. So here we are. And you five look more ladylike- and capable of finding the bastard that did this- than anyone else around the park, so I have to assume it was pointing me to you."
While Hamada seems entirely at ease with his words, the two warriors behind him seem less certain.
One of the two samurai, a fresh-faced man probably not much older than Michiru is, glances nervously past her to where Haruka, Cure Peach, and Cure Berry still seem lost in their own world, talking softly to each other. Then, just as nervously, he looks at Cure Pine. "Uncle… are you sure that these girls will be able to help us? Some of them seem kind of young. And… odd."
The other samurai, whose face has a few wrinkles, elbows him with a clink of armor against armor. "Shut up, Ichiro. Excuse me, Lady Neptune." He turns to his younger comrade. "Look at her. Sailor suit. Green hair, green skirt. Sailor Neptune. I told you what my second cousin told me about what his brother said. She's one of the warriors who trounced most of the Kuge's men at the Night Market two weeks ago."
"That doesn-"
*clank*
The older man brushes him with an armored sleeve again, a bit more forcefully. "Shut up. Which means the other one, the very tall one- blue skirt, blonde hair- is the one who took down the Oni of Night in a single blow."
"...Oh."
And Michiru feels on firmer ground now. She gives her favorite wicked teasing smile. "Eight blows, actually. But I can understand why your wise friend's cousin's brother thought it was only one or two. My dearest companion moves very quickly, when she has a mind to."
The older samurai smiles grimly. "Thank you, ma'am. Now, Ichiro, where does the two hundred kan oni sit?"
Ichiro's eyes widen. "...Ohhhhhh…." He takes a step to one side, and quickly and nervously bows to Michiru. "Please excuse this one for his ignorance."
The other samurai snorts, but there is a hint of a smile on his face. "Please forgive my young cousin for his stupidity, rather. If you believe that these others will be able to help, then one who says otherwise has likely been using his head as a battering ram too often, hasn't he, Ichiro?"
Hamada smiles gently at the older samurai. "Mark my words, you'll teach the boy how not to get his head torn off yet, Jiro." He takes a step forward. "So you are Sailor Neptune, and she would be… Sailor Uranus, correct? And these others are the 'Pretty Cures' I've heard of around the town?" Hamada seems not to notice the way that Haruka's head snaps up when she hears her title called.
"Yes." Michiru says quietly, keeping her tone calm and trying to figure out exactly what the play here is. The explanation given to her so far hangs together, but there's something more. Something significant. The whispers and half-memories tell her that she's the Senshi of the Deeps… but also the Senshi of Mysteries. And there's something that hasn't finished unraveling itself here.
Hamada smiles grimly. "Let me be entirely frank. When I thought it was only Lady Yamazaki who'd disappeared, I thought I could imagine what was doing this. Now, I know that this is beyond anything I truly understand. My brother is with his children, keeping them safe as best he can. So I am here, and I intend to get my sister-in-law, and I suppose everyone else, back. Even if I have to give my life."
And Haruka strides forwards, crossing the meters between where she'd been standing and the Onogoro mages with the sudden decisiveness that always lights a spark in Michiru's heart. Both of the samurai freeze, looking at her, and she places a hand on Hamada's shoulder, looking firmly into his eyes. Across and down; he's about ten centimeters shorter than she is.
She smiles- coldly, but honestly, and without wrath in her eyes. "That won't be necessary. After all, you aren't alone."
Sniffling, Cure Peach steps forwards in Haruka's wake, visibly putting herself back together and drawing a deep breath, and then another. She locks eyes with Hamada "You… You really think that they're all alright?" She asks.
This isn't the first time that Cure Peach has asked someone this, but Michiru understands how terrible this must be for her. The mere idea of something like this happening to her own mother sends chills of horror and rage down her spine, and Love Momozono is radiating those same sorts of feelings just as strongly as Michiru would be.
Hamada's lips part, and he looks genuinely concerned. "You've lost someone, too?"
"...My mother."
"I'm sorry. And… hm. Cure…"
"Peach."
"Right. Thank you." Hamada nods slowly. "Outside of legends, I cannot imagine any spell, any ritual, that could do this on such a scale. Someone knows something I don't. But I believe magic still has its rules, and if the ones I learned as a boy are still true, then there's still hope. If thousands of people had been killed by magic like this, you see-" his tone darkens- "The world itself would shiver. My grandfather had a story about something like that, once, and that happened half a world away. If anything so terrible had happened in our own city, we'd be feeling it. We'd all wish we couldn't. So while I make no promises… I have to think that they've been kidnapped, somehow. Taken and imprisoned or sealed away somewhere, somehow." He smiles sadly.
Cure Peach's eyes blaze with sudden determination. "Then let's help each other find them."
Ichiro's voice is tense. "Uncle, you're sure about working with these girls? I'm not saying we shouldn't, but… you remember what the message Aunt Sachiko showed us from Kyoto said- that if anything happened…"
"That we keep calm and wait for the cursebreakers. That we not make any unofficial contact with certain persons, including her." Hamada jerks his head sideways towards Cure Peach. He's starting to sound angry. "Are you really suggesting that we sit with folded hands while your aunt is missing, boy?"
"But… The Senshi, too!"
"I'm not blind, boy," Hamada growls. "They're more or less at war with Kyoto. But they're here, the Ministry's not, and nothing matters to me more than getting family back. So we're going do anything we can to find whoever kidnapped your aunt, and all the other women, whether that means working with gods, men, beasts, devils, or Sailor Senshi. What happens after that… heh." The soft chuckle is almost threatening, in its way. "Well, we shall see when we get to that point. Now, enough of this. If you want no part of this, go back to the house and hide in the basement with the children too young to be of any use in whatever happens next."
Ichiro bristles, glares, but remains silent and does not move. Hamada turns back to Haruka. "I'm sorry you had to hear that. What can I do to help?"
Haruka sighs. "If this is the work of Labyrinth, and we think it is… the hardest part will be finding them. All I can think of is to run all over the city looking. Neptune?"
The question is obvious- have you felt anything that can guide us? Michiru shakes her head slightly, wishing she could admit the maddening sense of frustration, of falling just short of making the problem easy. Of something very fundamental being missing, somehow. But she can't explain it in front of the Pretty Cures. And not in front of the Onogoro men, for very different reasons.
"Hmm." Hamada is quiet for a moment. His gaze slowly slides down to the spearshaft lightly balanced across his shoulder. "Actually, now that you mention it, I've been having good luck with divinations. They guided me to you, after all. We could try dowsing. Jiro, do you have your chalk lines?"
The older samurai nods. "Never leave home without them."
"Good. Thank you." He turns to the Pretty Cures, who have clustered together. Cure Peach, if what I've seen around town is true, you do things very strangely, but you're a mage. And not a weak one, or you'd be dead. And thanks to that, I think I can help us find our enemy, but a lot will depend on you."
"Whatever it is, I'll do it." Cure Berry and Cure Pine nod, falling in behind her.
Hamada nods at them both. "You'd be helping." He glances to Michiru and Haruka. "And you two, with your permission?"
Haruka snorts. "Of course."
Hamada shifts the spear in his hand, letting the butt end rest on the ground and holding it upright. He raises his left hand up to eye level, with his thumb and forefinger folded. "I plan to try a dowsing spell. I've seen it used before. Now, we believe this ritual to have been done by the enemy Cure Peach fights often. And we know her mother's been taken. That's two strong lines of connection." He adds a third finger to the first two. "Better still, the obvious choice for a magical focus is an heirloom item which rightfully belongs to another of the victims- my sister-in-law. Three lines of connection. Here, hold this." He extends his right arm, holding the spear out to Cure Peach.
"Wait, what?"
"Just hold it. Though the spells on it can be a little odd, and sometimes it seems to have a mind of its own. If you feel like dropping it, do."
She squares her shoulders. "Okay." She reaches out with both hands and takes the spear as Hamada releases it. "I… um. I think it… likes me?" She frowns, confused.
"A good surprise. Now, with three lines and-" he glances around- "seven supporting casters of admittedly varying power and ability, I believe we'll have a spell that can sniff out these 'Labyrinth' mages anywhere in or near the city. Even working with a chalk circle on pavement. Jiro, get on that, please. Twelvefold symmetry, six support caster positions.
The samurai grins. "You did say 'please.' Come on, Ichiro, help me out here. You can help with the fiddly kneeling work while we draw on the sidewalk." Jiro and Ichiro step aside to the wide concrete path nearby.
Cure Berry, tall and slim and restless, brushes long lavender bangs out of her eyes. "You said 'anywhere in or near the city.' What if he's farther away?"
Hamada is quiet for a moment. "Then we'll try something more complex, with more… side effects. Hm. Jiro, you're respectable as a counterpoint caster in Japanese. How's your Sanskrit?"
Jiro looks up from where he's tracing figures around the chalk circle he and Ichiro have drawn on the pavement. "Don't make me laugh."
"Right." Hamada sighs. "Lady Neptune? Lady Uranus?"
Michiru shakes her head "I'm afraid not."
"...Oh." He looks surprised to hear that. "Well, I can probably keep it balanced alone with this many in quiet support." He mumbles something and a little circle of light springs into being above his right hand. He looks at one after another of the Pretty Cures, then at Michiru and Haruka. "...There's a stroke of luck. You two pair perfectly. Would you mind taking the three and nine o'clock positions?"
Michiru glances at Haruka, smiling. "See? It's confirmed."
Haruka smiles back. "We already knew. And yes, but what do you want us to do?"
"Well, I'll handle the incantation. Cure Peach stands in the center of the circle, holding the spear." He turns to her. "Concentrate on your desire to find the one responsible for your mother's disappearance, with all your heart. The rest of you, we'll be outside the circle. Focus fully and lend all your strength to the spell, and I believe that will give the clues we need. With fewer or weaker mages, we'd need something more complex, but I think that will do nicely." He snorts. "I'll certainly look like a fool if it doesn't."
Cure Peach smiles more strongly than Michiru would have dared to hope she could a few minutes ago. "Whatever happens, you're doing your best, Mr. Hamada. Thank you. Now… I stand in the middle, hold the spear, and wish, and everyone else stands around the circle and tries to give the spell more power?"
"Except for me. I'll be chanting in Sanskrit so that it does what it's supposed to. When it's ready, you should feel the spear tugging you in the direction of these 'Labyrinth' people and wherever they did this from."
Cure Peach nods, and Michiru hopes that either Love Momozono knows what the language 'Sanskrit' is, or that Hamada doesn't realize she doesn't. Either way will do for now…
They all take up their positions. Haruka and Michiru face each other across the circle in a pair, smiling gently at each other. The samurai, Jiro and Ichiro, form another pair at the circle's one and seven o'clock, while Cure Pine and Cure Berry take the eleven and five o'clock.
Hamada takes a deep breath, marking his place in the book he drew from the pocket of his robes with his thumb. "Now, this is probably going to take a few minutes. Maybe several. When I start waving my arm, I want you all to concentrate as hard as you can, and feed the spell all your strength to form the connection we need. Until then, you can relax, but be ready, all right?"
A chorus of agreement meets him.
"I need to send a message." Michiru says, "But it will only take me a moment. Get started, and Uranus will make sure that I'm ready in time for our part."
"There should be time. This usually takes several verses. I hope this helps…" And he begins chanting. Love kneels between them, holding the spear flat in front of her. Given how strong Pretty Cures are, it says something about the spearshaft that it isn't splintering under the girl's white-knuckled grip.
Michiru taps the communicator on her wrist, connecting her to Usagi. Hamada starts to chant. Sounds of sizzling and rumbling come from the other side of the line. Showers of blue and orange sparks rise from around Cure Berry and Cure Pine's feet, and faint, glimmering mists emerge from the samurai warriors' hands.
"Moon he-" Usagi starts, but there isn't time. Not when Michiru might be needed at any point.
"Neptune here. It's not just Peach's mother. There are hundreds of women missing. Thousands. I can feel it in the air- the whole city is thick with a cruel sadness. But we have a lead. An Onogoro-"
But something's wrong. Or right. She can feel it. The tension in the air isn't building slowly. It's fast. She glances over and sees Hamada waving frantically, even as he continues to chant words she doesn't recognize.
And before she can say anything more, Haruka calls out. "Neptune! Now!"
Dropping her hand and stepping closer to the outer edge of the circle, Michiru nods. "Right!"
She gives the spell all her heart. Golden light flares on Haruka's brow. Michiru can see the faint reflections of the blue-green light from her own crest.
Cure Peach shivers a bit. Michiru glances down, wondering what it's like to be the focus of this strange ritual.
And it's only because she's already looking at the girl that Michiru is able to figure out what happens next, because suddenly things begin to happen very quickly.
The spearhead snaps up and out and begins to move, twisting in midair to avoid actually striking Cure Pine. Cure Peach's grip on it would probably dent iron, and she doesn't let go.
And thus, the girl goes from kneeling in the middle of a magic circle, to bowling Cure Pine out of the way, to a rapidly shrinking pink-blonde blur, flying off into the distance, all in the space of half a second.
Cure Peach's sudden doppler-shifted scream of surprise, confusion, and terror is sharply interrupted by a loud crash as she smashes through the shingles of one side of a nearby rooftop and, Michiru realizes with shock, out the other.
Michiru finds herself crying out to the receding girl on instinct. "Shit! Cure Peach! HOLD ON!" Then she realizes that she's left her princess holding the phone, and shouts at her wrist very quickly. "Sorry, Princess! Got to go! Don't worry, we'll handle this for you! Stay safe!"
Of course, her love wasn't distracted by a communicator. Haruka reacts faster than Michiru does. Decisively, as is her way. By the time Michiru finally shakes her head and starts sprinting after the girl, with Cure Berry and Cure Pine chasing behind, Haruka is already over a hundred meters ahead of them.
*Seconds Later, Back In The Park*
Ichiro speaks quietly, as though he's humbled by recent events.
"Uncle?"
Hamada sags a bit, weary from the force of will he'd put into the spell. "Yes, Ichiro."
"When you said for them to wish with all their strength…"
"Yes, Ichiro?"
"I think 'all their strength' was more strength than we expected."
"...I noticed, Ichiro. Somehow, that dowsing spell seems to have turned into a rocket engine." He shakes his head. "Well, we at least know more or less which direction they're going. Let's get back to the car."
"Yes uncle. But if they're that strong, then what can we do to-"
"If there is anything left of the bastards responsible for this by the time that we get there, I have a whole chapter worth of ancient curses in this book. I've never had a chance to try most of them, and none of them on a person. I've been wondering for years, you see. What might happen if I were to cast each and every one of these curses on the same person in alphabetical order?"
Jiro laughs. "See, Ichiro, this is why he's your favorite uncle!"
"...Yes, sir."
"But my money's on there being nothing left of them by the time we get there."
"I'm not taking that bet, sir."
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- Location
- S.E.A
snrk
Asking Magical Girls, they who embody Hope and Dreams, to Wish with all their might.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If it's stupid, and it works, it ain't stupid.snrk
Asking Magical Girls, they who embody Hope and Dreams, to Wish with all their might.
- Location
- S.E.A
Not saying it's stupid, Just very funny.
In fact, are any other intent-based spells/rituals that can get supercharged by magical girls?
Elemental/Plantry stuff is covered by the Senshi. Moon already affected Lord Chandra.
Precure tends to cover Feelings like Hope, Love, and Happiness.
But they also cover stranger things like beauty, freedom, dreams and faith
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
Soular: Ah, look at all this Sorrow Energy! Westar and Eas were clearly amateurs; I'll have collected plenty before those Pretty Cures even show up.
*eeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE* *SMASH*
Soular: ...I stand corrected.
*eeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE* *SMASH*
Soular: ...I stand corrected.
- Location
- Painting, Peach's Castle
No, it's still stupid.
Mostly because they didn't realize poor Peach would be forced to take the Direct Route. Poor girl needs to activate Noclip!
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
Well, there is a chance that the Spear was able to analyze Cure Peach to a degree where it knew that she would survive the Direct Route (that's why it "liked her" so much).
StarSingerBlue
Zenryoku Zenkai !
- Location
- The City of Lights
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Jiro's not half bad for an Onogoro guy.
- Location
- Painting, Peach's Castle
...My brain can't help but imagine the Spear as a very excited dog that just got wind of a triple-deluxe cheeseburger, on second readthrough.
FictionPack
Monochromatic Ursine
- Location
- Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No they lie flat on their back corrected. They aren't standing after getting stabbed by a Peach missile.
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Once again we are seeing that while the Ministry as an organisation is corrupt and unhelpful the people it governs are rather less intractable.
A rare example of non-evil/bloodthirsty empathic weapon. Neat.
- Location
- Painting, Peach's Castle
Assuming there's anything more than his shoes left once a Senshi-Precure fueled evil-seeking throwing spear hits his kidney faster than a speeding car.
This man is about to get fucking Isekai'd into a D-list Light Novel, and it couldn't happen to a better person.
Said feminine principle wouldn't be linked to the moon, would it?
Wherever the oni likes...
Its missing a factoid:
The spear knows the target stole its beloved wielder.
It has a very strong opinion on the correct course of action.
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- Location
- Dragyxx
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Being a spear, it also instinctively knows that the correct course of action is 'STAAAAABBBB!'
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Usually, but when handed to a precure it upgrades to "I can be shot!"
Raising Heart agrees
View: https://youtu.be/wN-VP5R3hSk
Though I think Nanoha nearly broke her arm using herself as a bunker buster
E:
Just noticed
The spear has IFF on its homing. It won't hit any innocents or any obstacles on its way there. It has a target and ONLY that target is taking a Pink to the face.
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