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Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)

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Silverking said:
I wonder how the fallout of this whole mess is going to play out with Onogoro and the Total Equality Party. On the one hand, Dimitri is going to be outed as betraying one of his fellow Orochi heads to be cannibalized by the Dark Kingdom, which could tar the reputation of the TEP by association. On the other hand, if word gets out that the Senshi had saved the Eighth Head, then that would throw a wrench in Onogoro's narrative that the Senshi are simply out to bring the Ministry low and don't care who gets hurt along the way.
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I reread the 17 Weaver Lane event recently. The Progressives said: 'the Progressives of the True Equality Party are going to offer everything that we have to the Diet, to MCAT, and to the Crystal Millennium. We are going to show the world that we aren't the backwaters that people know Japan as."'
Given how much time has passed and what has happened since that event, such as the giant tree, I would have expected them to have made a start. Thus far we have seen no sign of them. Could be that all the Total Equality Party plot threads are being swept into the general 'MCAT and Diet' background shuffle rather than being something we interact with directly.

This would make the Eighth Head an issue for Director Samui to wrangle and Not Our Problem.
 
Angelform said:
I reread the 17 Weaver Lane event recently. The Progressives said: 'the Progressives of the True Equality Party are going to offer everything that we have to the Diet, to MCAT, and to the Crystal Millennium. We are going to show the world that we aren't the backwaters that people know Japan as."'
Given how much time has passed and what has happened since that event, such as the giant tree, I would have expected them to have made a start. Thus far we have seen no sign of them. Could be that all the Total Equality Party plot threads are being swept into the general 'MCAT and Diet' background shuffle rather than being something we interact with directly.

This would make the Eighth Head an issue for Director Samui to wrangle and Not Our Problem.
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On the other hand, with how enamored the Progressive faction within the TEP is with the Senshi in general, and Sailor Moon in particular, it is a bit odd that they haven't approached us in the last 2-3 weeks. We did botch the roll when Minako went looking for them, and a lot of the events that have pushed the masquerade's envelope have happened in the last ~week or so, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if we have an event where they approach us like CSICOP has "soon".
 
Almech_Alfarion said:
On the other hand, with how enamored the Progressive faction within the TEP is with the Senshi in general, and Sailor Moon in particular, it is a bit odd that they haven't approached us in the last 2-3 weeks. We did botch the roll when Minako went looking for them, and a lot of the events that have pushed the masquerade's envelope have happened in the last ~week or so, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if we have an event where they approach us like CSICOP has "soon".
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its possible the various masquerade events have spooked them, or maybe put them under scrutiny from the guardians. We know from the kid onogoro stories that theres Some Kind Of Horse Piss happening in their background
 
DocMatoi said:
its possible the various masquerade events have spooked them, or maybe put them under scrutiny from the guardians. We know from the kid onogoro stories that theres Some Kind Of Horse Piss happening in their background
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The TEP are more the area of the Empty Faces to handle at this point, and that branch already burned one agent in that regard thanks to us. So far the TEP, while gaining political strength, haven't actually (overtly) broken any laws (other than the one Orochi head committing conspiracy to murder with Cendrellion), and between auditing both The Enforcers and the Yokai Reserves, adding keeping a thumb on the otherwise (so-far) non-violent TEP would probably be putting too many fires in The Guardians' irons at the moment
 
Almech_Alfarion said:
The TEP are more the area of the Empty Faces to handle at this point, and that branch already burned one agent in that regard thanks to us. So far the TEP, while gaining political strength, haven't actually (overtly) broken any laws (other than the one Orochi head committing conspiracy to murder with Cendrellion), and between auditing both The Enforcers and the Yokai Reserves, adding keeping a thumb on the otherwise (so-far) non-violent TEP would probably be putting too many fires in The Guardians' irons at the moment
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You'd think that, but I wouldn't put it past them. Maybe put another student team on investigating them? Seems to have worked in other cases well enough.... :rofl:
 
Orochi and it's heads became our problem when the Dark Kingdom (Cendrellion) got involved with them in any case. Which we only found out in the first place because we got involved with The Equalist Party, which we did because the IMO got involved with us, which happened because we are involved with the Dark Kingdom.
 
Unexpected plot twist - we fail to stop Cendy from killing the Orochi dude, but Usagi ends up in the spot to receive the power. We are now the 8th Head of Orochi, and are now quite firmly stuck in involvement with that group.

Oops.
 
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You Hate Mondays: Part 5
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    • You Hate Mondays
    Part 5​

    Outer Senshi
    [X] ゴゴゴゴ( Menacing) (Vanguard)
    - The Outer Senshi have a lot of experience in combat, and no small amount at kicking in Dark Kingdom doors. They took down several minor operations during their hunt last week, even if it was Endymion's help that proved critical in tracking down Cendrellion's headquarters in the first place. Let them carry on as they've begun as the Vanguard of the attack, bursting through the front doors and drawing all attention to themselves. This will present Cendrellion with a two-Senshi threat she may at least hope she can overwhelm and defeat… for just long enough for you and the rest of your allies to swoop in from the wings and take that hope away.

    Chinese Amazons
    [X] Between a Rock and an Amazon (Flankers)
    - Even compared to MCAT's yokai and many of the magical girls you've met, the Chinese Amazons are masters of physical combat, thanks to their training and… unique courtship rituals. And there are quite a lot of them. As Flankers, they have the numbers to tie up weaker youma trying to mob the Vanguard. They may even have the raw strength to present a secondary threat and catch the enemy between two forces if the situation allows it.

    Inner Senshi
    [X] Unfinished Business (Strike Team)
    - After the first and second teams have most of the youma busy and have captured Cendrellion's attention, you and your Inner Senshi will act as the Strike Team. You'll go straight for Cendrellion, personally, and put a stop to anything she's doing. You have a lot of unfinished business to settle with the glass demon.

    MCAT
    [X] That Isn't Proper Radio Use, Copy? (Overwatch)
    - MCAT has access to the cutting edge in a lot of magical and electronic technologies. They have fancy sensors. They have lots and lots of people who can keep an eye on things, and they're likely to be very good at holding a perimeter and watching everything that happens both inside and outside it. On Overwatch, MCAT is likely to do a good job of keeping track of what's going on and giving the right advice or making the right intervention at the right time.
    Haruka stands, already transformed, tense and alert and very ready for the starting gun. The seconds seem to stretch, here alongside her love at the front of the band of Amazon warriors Sailor Moon recruited for the mission. Instinct screams at her to leap into action, to fight and win and act. But this is a timed and planned action. So she carefully waits, watching the dimly lit row of storefronts from the lengthening shadows of a building diagonally across the highway as the sun sinks below the horizon.

    The stores seem ordinary, if a little neglected. Cendrellion's kept up some appearances, even as sinister energies and- they now know- manipulation of the strip mall's owners ensured that the customers stopped coming many weeks ago. But the maintenance, or illusion thereof, does not extend to cleaning the windows. They're dim and dingy, perhaps intentionally so.

    Haruka squints suspiciously, looking for any clue of what to expect. She wonders if they've been spotted here, or as they trotted into position from the riverfront a few blocks to the south. With luck, the attack should be a complete and total surprise.

    But if it isn't….

    Haruka snorts at her own uncharacteristic moment of fretting. If it isn't, she'll do the same damned thing, and it'll just be a little harder, that's all. She goes back to her admittedly fruitless inspection of the storefronts.

    And as she watches the demons' lair, Michiru watches her communicator. A gentle gloved hand touches her upper arm. "Thirty seconds," her angel whispers, the sound right by Haruka's ear in a way that makes the taller Senshi shiver. Licking her lips, Haruka smiles back before standing and stretching.

    It might be unnecessary for a Senshi, but old track team habits die hard. Because she's about to break into a sprint.

    Another whisper. "Ten. Good luck, I love you."

    Haruka smiles again. "Love you too."

    "Five." Haruka turns her head back, waiting until-

    "Now!"

    Sailor Uranus whispers the words that draw on the magics of a world. Words of pure speed. Words that have only come to her recently, and that she's only practiced a few times prior to this.

    「Crashing Pressure」

    And she moves. From a standing start at the moment she began to speak, she's already halfway across the highway by the time she finishes, only slightly slowed by the enormous bludgeon she took as a war prize at the Night Market.

    The winds roar around her, cutting a path through the air. Everything becomes a blur of motion in a wild hundred-meter dash, so fast that even Senshi grace can barely keep her on her feet. So fast that Senshi senses can hardly keep up.

    She's outrunning her ability to control her movement and magic as space lays itself at her feet, and the best she can do is aim for the empty Shimamura. The youma lair wearing the shell of a Shimamura as camouflage.

    Even twisting her weapon around to act as a ram is difficult. The maul feels heavier in her hands than usual, unbalanced, unhelpful. Doing this armed should be easier, something's wrong, though this should at least-

    *boom*​

    The pillar between two broad storefront windows was never meant to take that kind of impact. It ruptures inwards and the glass shatters. A suddenly visible youma sentry, hidden by now-broken enchantments on the windows, stands frozen.
    ​
    Its metal form, an agglomeration of thousands of tiny mismatched parts forming a vaguely humanoid machine of gruesomely ugly design, is showered with broken glass. The glass pings harmlessly off its body, ignored in a second's indecision. Before it can grasp that the golden flare that first approached like thunder, then slammed into the building, is right there-

    -Haruka drops the head of the spiked maul to the ground. Using the kanabo's weight as a pivot, Haruka whirls. Her boot trails a streak of brilliant golden fire as it strikes the scrapyard-demon's back, hitting some relatively large and solid part with a car-accident crunch. Still frozen in a posture of surprise at the sudden explosion of force that crashed into the clothing store, the youma is launched obliquely out through a third pane of the storefront window, rolling to a stop with a tremendous clatter in the empty parking lot.

    Haruka's whirl around the club has shown her the darting forms of the Amazons following behind. Regaining her balance, she grins wickedly and lifts the wicked iron-shod bludgeon once more, turning her attention back to the store's interior.

    And a massive, brawny youma, larger than any that she's fought before, is already swaggering forward to meet her. The creature's head nearly brushes the ceiling tiles as it grins down at her, showing a mouthful of fangs- of huge, grisly-stained, inhumanly sharp and numerous teeth. The demon stands there, not dismissive but showing a brutish, predatory confidence. He flexes his fingers. His glowing cyclopean eye stares at Haruka's kanabo. He speaks without hesitation; his deep voice carries a strange buzzing overtone.

    ​

    "Nice club. I'll take it."

    Haruka lets the mad, devil-may-care smirk that comes so easily at times like this bubble to the surface.

    "I think I'll keep it."

    And she leaps, threatening him with a strike from the weapon he seems to covet while drawing his attention away, towards her right, to the east, out of the path of the breach she's made.

    Because in the bare seconds that have passed, Michiru has already arrived at the head of a flying wedge of Amazons. Haruka's feints draw the hulking youma out of the way just barely in time to keep him from blocking their passage like a wall. But he ignores them, concentrating entirely on the beginnings of his duel with Haruka.

    And so Sailor Neptune leads the Amazons through the breach. They leap easily through the broken windows, with Prince Endymion bringing up the rear.
    ​
    Uranus Weather: Ring Stabilization System malus active!
    Twin Sisters active!

    Ling-Ling + Lung-Lung: d10+19+(0.375*17) = 7+19+6.375 = 32
    vs
    Müllkeger: d10+(24-2) = 6+22 = 28

    AMAZON SUCCESS!
    Müllkeger takes one hit!
    Two of the younger warrior women- girls, really- have already slowed to a stop, stopping short of the breach in the storefront. Because the teachings of the village are simple. There's no value in leaving true enemies likely to recover in the heroine's wake. And there are few better times to hit an enemy than when he's down.

    Kicking and punching downward is tricky with ki strikes. The natural tendency is for the body to strike lightly enough to be useless against a superhuman opponent, or to catapult itself into the air. Action and reaction are… negotiable… when you have enough command of yourself, but it hardly matters. The girls are well armed.

    They stop beside the scrap-youma that Sailor Uranus catapulted back out into the parking lot with a kick. One pulls out a long baton made from hardwood of remarkable provenance; the other, to the surprise of onlookers, suddenly holds a trident that couldn't possibly have been concealed on her person.

    The youma takes a string of fast, denting strikes from the first girl's baton. Disoriented and confused, it groans and flails its jagged arms, trying to protect the more intricately mechanical parts of its anatomy. As she keeps it down, her twin sister jabs with the trident and twists, trying to pry pieces off the youma's body. The demon writhes, letting out a rusty, grating shout of alarm and anger.

    The girls' mother and older sister, meanwhile, lead the charge at Sailor Neptune's left and right hands. They don't stop to concern themselves with the massive ogre-youma Sailor Uranus is drawing off into a private duel. They don't stop to worry when Sailor Neptune skids to a halt and stops to stare at something in the remaining shadows. They give not a thought to the strange man in the top hat and mask who joined up with their forces at the last moment, accepted with a nod of familiarity with the Senshi.

    Because there are a half dozen demons in front of them.

    The demons are like warped versions of dummies they'd expect to find in a big-city store like this. Faceless dolls the size of people, dressed in the store's clothes to show them off. But these mannequins are twisted and mobile. Some of them have snarling faces formed into what ought to be smooth, faceless plastic. They move, and their limbs creak, and some of them are wrong too. One has all four limbs as legs, Another has three arms and no legs at all. Perhaps its legs are in the hands of the third one, which brandishes them as clubs.

    The mannequins form a loose battleline, squarely across the Amazons' path. And behind the line, like a general of men, one with more fear than strength, is the youma that is so obviously their chieftain. It- she- has a certain aura about her, a presence that's hard to mistake to anyone with experience using ki against youma. This is one of the greater youma, the lesser lords of the Dark Kingdom. The ones that only the strongest warriors can face in single combat and live.

    ​

    The creature turns to face them with a whirr that ends in a mechanical clatter, snapping to a stop with mechanical precision. Its face splits down the center, cracking open to reveal a bloody skull within its head. Laughter echoes out as the creature raises one hand, and snaps its fingers.

    Shampoo, champion of her village's youth, doesn't know her limits. Her mother, Luili, does, but decides that she likes the odds. Both Amazons rush the mannequin with murder in their eyes, and sometimes even demons decide that discretion is the better part of valor. Manakin gestures, and two of her most twisted minions leap into the women's path, raising plastic fists to defend their mistress.
    Liuli d10+33 = 4+33 = 37
    vs
    DollLíng d10+25 = 4+25 = 29

    AMAZON SUCCESS!
    DollLíng takes a hit!

    Shampoo d10+28 = 8+28 = 36
    vs
    DollYī d10+25 = 9+25 = 34

    AMAZON SUCCESS!
    DollYī takes a hit!
    They take a pounding in very short order. Neither Amazon holds back, not even slightly. Shampoo, for all her flaws, has plenty of aggression, plenty of ferocity and ruthlessness, and a prodigy's arsenal of techniques for a fighter of her age. And Liuli, her mother, is the one who taught Shampoo nearly everything the girl knows.

    But youma are tough. For them, reinforcement is not so much a technique as the natural state of existence. Their response to enhanced pressure point strikes is far more resilient than that of inert matter, and as unlike that of any natural form of organic life as a tree's are from a human being's.

    But in the end, it matters very little whether Liuli, leader of this little warband, or her daughter are stopped dead in their tracks pounding against a wall. There are eight more Amazons following right after them, more than the youma puppetmaster has bodies to block with.
    Lanfay d10 + 26 = 2 + 26 = 28
    vs
    DollGni d10 + 21 = 3 + 21 = 24

    AMAZON SUCCESS!
    DollGni takes a hit!

    Zhi d10 + 23 = 1 + 23 = 24
    vs
    DollSaam d10+21 = 9+21 = 30

    DARK KINGDOM SUCCESS!
    Zhi takes a hit!
    Lanfay, an acknowledged mistress of her art, leads her apprentice- and her friend Zhi- into the monsters' right flank, covering Liuli's left side. This… Does not go so well. Lanfay feints and slips a powerful kick past the guard of a plastic monster that tries to block with a spare left leg where its shoulder should be. She's rewarded by a promising crunch.

    But Zhi's many-armed foe blocks more successfully and closes to grapple. And the distressed grunt Lanfay hears from just out of her field of view sends a chill down her spine. It doesn't sound like Zhi's doing well.

    Meanwhile-
    Tùzǐ d10 + 18 = 1 + 19 = 20
    Fumble roll d4 = 1: FUMBLE! Effective 10
    vs
    DollNgóo d10 + 20 = 10 + 20 = 30
    Critical Success! Effective 40

    DARK KINGDOM SUCCESS! Four degrees of success!
    Tùzǐ, Lanfay's apprentice, lets out a fierce war-cry and delivers a vicious jab to a mannequin-monster's neck. But though she tries to mask her inexperience with ferocity, she's not quite battle-hardened enough to keep the flows of inner energy stable in the roiling spiritual chaos of combat. Her reinforcement technique, the result of rather fewer hours of boulder training than Lanfay would have liked, buckles on impact.

    And a youma is a creature that feeds on stray spiritual energy, especially energy flecked with pain and distress and confusion. Here, now, this once, a vicious cycle begins. The ki reinforcement dissolves entirely, draining into the demon Tùzǐ had hoped to strike down, as her own power only makes the creature stronger… and herself weaker. Far too much so. Her reinforcement blows out entirely, before the momentum of her strike dissipates.

    Tùzǐ breaks most of the bones in her left hand against the youma's forearm.

    The steady thrumming, gut-shaking hum the youma lets out rises and falls as though in laughter. For a terrible moment, the sudden shock robs Tùzǐ of her senses. She stares at the bloody mess of her hand. She begins, so slowly, so slowly, to grasp that the youma is swinging an arm back for a chop of its own. To grasp that with her reinforcement punctured, that blow will take her head off as neatly as if the monster was plucking a ripe pear. But she can only stare dumbly at what is about to happen, at the last sight she will ever see.
    ​
    Dramatic Entry triggers!

    Banked Tuxedo Mask roll revealed: d10 + 30 = 7 + 30 = 37 !
    vs
    DollNgóo = d10 + 20 = 10 + 20 = 30
    Critical Success! Effective 40

    DARK KINGDOM SUCCESS!
    Tuxedo Mask takes a hit!
    The sound of cloven air hisses past Tùzǐ's ear, and the youma's hand sprouts a rose. A black rose, impaled stem-first through its palm. The hum rises to a higher pitch as the doll monster staggers back. The rose-stem erupts, budding out shoots that grow like spreading fire into snaking, interleaving vines, winding and twisting and wrapping around the monster's arm. Thorns start to dig slowly into the plastic surface.

    Tùzǐ's eyes widen at the sight of the unfamiliar technique. Turning to see where the rose came from, she sees the masked stranger. His cape rustles as he draws a sword from thin air- Tùzǐ thought that was an Amazon technique; she's never heard of anyone else using it!

    The masked man takes long, quick strides towards the youma, raising his blade into guard position. Perhaps, cannily, he's watching to see how effective his first attack will be at disabling the thing. For a split second, he glances at Tùzǐ and speaks in an unfamiliar language. The words sound, though, almost like a distant dialect that she's never heard before, from some other forgotten corner of China.

    She will choose to believe that the masked man said something roughly like "Find help, brave maiden!"

    Then the youma tears its own arm off.

    The masked stranger lunges immediately, of course. Tùzǐ would have done the same, in his shoes, if she weren't frantically pouring all her spirit into rebuilding her reinforcement before something else goes wrong. Why, or even how, it did such a bizarre thing hardly matters.

    The sword lashes out, with the clear intent of piercing the monster through and through. But the youma thrums with an aura of awful energy- her energy, in part, from earlier- and it moves quickly, too quickly, even by the standards of the lesser demons. The mannequin-creature flows around the thrust with a loose, inhuman double-jointedness and gets in close. Its remaining arm lashes out in a powerful backhand, striking the masked man in the head. His hat falls to the ground, and he staggers, falling back a pace, though still armed and in a fighting stance.

    But perhaps the monster only intended to buy itself some time. With a rattling sound, another arm skitters from out of the shadows, leaping up to replace the youma's removed limb. The masked man shifts his balance, wary in the wake of his enemy's easy recovery.

    And Tùzǐ… doesn't know what to think.

    There is a script, in her culture, for what to do with a man who defeats you in battle. A script put aside for the duration of the village's emergency, but a script all the same.

    What's the script for a man who saves your life by attacking a foe you've humiliated yourself against?

    The fight against the dolls is a brutal, life-and-death struggle for the Amazons on the left flank. On the right, things go more easily. Because before she quite realized just how many charging warriors there were, the youma puppet mistress didn't spread her mannequin-minions widely enough.

    Not that Dandan, her friend Huiying, or her apprentice Nuo are going to stop to explain tactics to the youma.

    You never interrupt an enemy while they're making a mistake, after all.
    Huiying d10 + 24 = 10 + 24 = 34
    Critical Success! Effective 44
    vs
    DollLa̍k d10+18 = 2+18 = 20

    AMAZON TRIPLE SUCCESS!
    DollLa̍k takes three hits!
    DollLa̍k defeated!

    Dandan shares a glance at her wild-child friend. Huiying's crazy enough that her pranks are infamous across the entire valley. Crazy enough that she's been downright persistent about hovering around the first two of the Sailor Senshi to arrive earlier this afternoon, doing all sorts of things with her eyebrows whenever she managed to catch their attention. Personally, Dandan doesn't see the appeal. Even if she did, it's sheer lunacy to be propositioning people on a day like this.

    She's doubted Huiying's sanity before, of course.

    But she's never, ever doubted that Huiying can fight.

    Huiying hefts her heavy gilded axe, eyeing the rightmost mannequin-youma. Then, with a gleam of her eye, she tosses it upwards, burying the head in the ceiling. Lunging forwards, she tackles the creature of living plastic and twists, flipping head over heels to lock her arms around the mannequin's waist. Demonic strength meets inner fire, and the youma is- briefly- thrown off balance. Huiying twists her leverage further, further- With a cry of triumph, Huiying, standing tall, lifts the youma over her head and suplexes the thing into the ground.

    She leaps into the air, tugging on the still-loose length of cord connecting her waist to the haft of her axe, and pulls it down smoothly into her waiting hands.

    The mannequin, dazed, shaken, and less firmly conscious than some of its fellows, has barely pushed itself up from the floor before the heavy axehead severs head from body.

    Just in case, knowing how many of the normal rules these creatures can ignore, Huiying strikes again and again, doing her best to chop the youma's body up like cordwood before she gets a chance to find out whether its head needs to be attached for it to move.
    Dandan+Nuo d10+28+(0.3*17) = 10+28+5.1 = 10+33 = 43
    Critical Success! Effective 53
    vs
    Manakin d10+28 = 5+28 = 33

    AMAZON TRIPLE SUCCESS!
    Manakin takes three hits!
    Manakin defeated!
    But before Huiying's axe lands, even for the first time, Dandan and her apprentice are already circling around, counting on her to leave them free to take on the mannequins' master. Dandan relaxes her grip, letting the heavy metal weight at the end of her meteor hammer sink towards the ground, swaying slightly on part of the length of its chain.

    She gives the weight a twirl and it starts to whistle through the air, faster and faster and faster. She made it herself, especially. She wanted, wants, her name to be remembered. And everyone knows the names of the warriors who bore the weapons of legend. Maybe, she hoped, hopes, this will become one of them.

    She has to lean to one side quite sharply to keep Nuo out of the meteor hammer's path. Her apprentice's ki seems to express itself so easily as pure, physical strength, so much so that it started to come in young. Young enough to make life difficult for the girl. She stumbles over her own feet sometimes, and tools have been cracking in her hands since she was nine. But she wasn't much older than that when she knocked the bad temper out of a raging ox on with a single punch. Good enough!

    With one final twist, Dandan lets her whirring, blurring weapon loose. It crosses the distance in an eyeblink, faster than a human who doesn't train in the secret martial arts could throw. But seeing the way that the youma's head snaps towards her, Dandan is almost certain that the creature could have dodged it if she wished.

    But the hammer's steel carries no magic of its own. The youma allows the strike, perhaps as a demonstration of futility.

    This turns out to be a serious mistake.

    An unenchanted heavy single-ended meteor hammer does not, in truth, carry enough impact to make a greater youma take notice, any more than a bullet would. Not at any reasonable speed.

    But this time, something's different. Dandan grins evilly at the demon as she twirls her wrist, flicking the chain to make the hammer wrap around her head before it can strike home. She sends a pulse of ki down the silken cord woven through the chain links.

    The meteor's hollow head bursts into fierce, dazzling blue flame, flame that seems almost angry. The flames reek with smoke that flashes and sparks like twinkling stars. Smoke that, to the youma, is horrible, choking, anathematic.

    The weapon isn't magical. The carefully tended and prepared herbs inside are.

    Manakin lets out a screeching cry of mechanical rage and raises her hands to tear the chain apart. She must free herself from the painful blue sparks and corrosive smoke, from their cruel hostility to all things that live by consuming the vital energy of other life! But while she's clawing to get a grip on the chain, momentarily blinded by the thick smoke, Nuo smashes the youma in the hip with her heavy mace.

    Most greater youma are agile creatures. A wary, undistracted Manakin could never have been struck this way. Nuo is a powerful girl, but a clumsy girl by Amazon standards. And the weapon she carries is much the same.

    Most greater youma are quite durable. But Manakin is less so than most. She channels so much of her energy into communication with her own half-dozen minions and still more into her network of other, lesser creatures. And she relies, in battle, on lithe agility and clockwork precision. Things lost to her, for a few seconds, in the face of the demon-burning smoke of the Amazons' incense preparation.

    And Nuo truly, truly put her back into this swing.

    Manakin's hip dislocates with a sudden crunch of grinding ceramic and twisted metal. And in that same moment, all five of her servants that remain upright and fighting shudder briefly, as though jolted by an electric shock.


    There are a few very good reasons the Amazon warband have been able to strike the Dark Kingdom this hard, to wrap around and overrun their enemies, even though those enemies were present in such great force. Two particularly good reasons stand out: Sailor Uranus, and Sailor Neptune.

    Who have not, in those first moments of the fight, had an easy time of it.
    Sailor Uranus d10+44 = 4+44 = 48
    vs
    Kintaro d10+41 = 8+41 = 49

    DARK KINGDOM SUCCESS!
    The hulking brute-youma that challenged Haruka mere seconds after she smashed through the storefront is powerful enough that he might have turned the tide of the Amazons' battle almost immediately. Massive stony fists, shot through with golden veins whose sheen seems somehow sickening and unhealthy, lash out. She weaves, twists, and manages an occasional eyewatering spatial flicker. But the youma doesn't even seem frustrated at not being able to land a solid hit, or angry at being slammed again and again with the kanabo- not that she's doing more than scratching and chipping the thing.

    In a rumbling rockslide voice overlaid with strange buzzing harmonics, the youma makes a noise Haruka soon realizes is laughter.

    "The chief was right! You Sailor Senshi are strong! But dainty little things. Not as strong as Kintaro! These days, I'm stronger than strong!" The monster's voice dissolves back into laughter. He lashes out with blow after blow, shattering and scattering what racks of clothing remain in place, crushing shelves into scrap, and leaving great swathes of flooring as nothing but a thin layer of damaged tile over gravel that was once the cement of the building's foundation.

    The kanabo, Haruka's finding, isn't well suited for defense. It dawns on her that the Oni of Night was armed and equipped by Onogoro lords. Lords who not only welded that ferocious yokai into a heavy suit of armor that would make defense less necessary anyway. Lords who wouldn't have mourned the oni's death, either.

    If there's an art to protecting yourself with a weapon like this, it's an art Haruka is having to make up as she goes along.Tricky. And simple evasion is if anything harder for having the unbalanced weight in her hands. She should be armed, but… effectively so. Properly. Without all this mass. Something's wrong.

    And the boiler Nakewameke this afternoon was bad enough; this rock-cyclops is much stronger! Haruka may not care much for being called 'dainty,' but she doesn't care to take a hit from this thing, either.

    And then, at last, she does.

    She wasn't really expecting the youma to kick her. She didn't really believe he could even balance on one leg long enough to do it. But there's a tremendous blow against her hip and she tumbles, going headfirst, then feet first, then smashing full length through the lightweight things in her way. Four displays and a few hundred thousand yen worth of merchandise later, Haruka feels a second, gentler impact, but a much louder noise. She leaves a two-meter hole in the back wall of the display room, and lands in a groaning heap in a dark, cramped, dusty office space.

    She lost touch with the kanabo somewhere along the way. Her leg hurts.

    There's a roaring, joyous bellow. The sound of elephantine footsteps rushes closer..

    Pushing herself to her feet, Haruka has time for only one thought.

    "Crap."


    Sailor Neptune, for her part, came into this abandoned clothing store entirely set and ready to lead the charge at the enemy directly in front of her. The eerie, inhuman line of mannequin-youma that hummed and buzzed so strangely.

    But then something happened.

    She, of course, shares that sense her lover and her new friends have. She, too, feels that warning against dismissing the transformation while others are watching. That sense of being seen, sometimes. To her, that sensation seems like a new sound. A vivid and powerful one, compared to the muted whispers she's heard all her life. One that hints that the life of the mind may have a vibrancy to it that others are deaf to.

    Michiru Kaioh always suspected that. She… notices things. Always has.

    She notices something now, to her shock and horror.

    As she leaps through the shattered windows her love left in her wake, she is seen, she is seen, she is SEEN, she is something more than seen and something is very wrong!

    Dear Void, the Glass Sisters were right. You Senshi really are strong. But so porously protected, for all that strength. You're novices, aren't you? Powerful novices, but… novices.

    The horrifying chill comes to her in a flash. Wait. That wasn't something she'd be thinking.

    Well no, of course it's not, child.

    Someone else is thinking with her brain.

    You could put it that way.

    Michiru skids to a stop, barely through the breach, unable, unable to concentrate on how the Amazons are doing, or even how Haruka's doing against the enormous youma she's fighting alone. Unable!

    Every scrap of her awareness is locked on the thing that emerges from synthetic, magic-deepened shadow, well off to the side of the brawling Amazons and mannequin-youma in front of her. The mass of floating, disconnected stones and petrified wood flickers with shifting, blurring patterns of witchlight that she swears she can almost read.

    ​

    The stones shift slightly. A ripple of motion passes over the youma's form, which traces the outline of what would be a gaunt, ghastly body if the thing were human.

    The thoughts keep coming. She's not sure how to stop thinking them, hearing them, something in between.

    Hello there. I had a name I was attached to quite recently. Very silly. Today… <Call me 'Stanenge'>

    This… this isn't like any of her other battles. All of this is horribly new. The total compulsion to attend. The horror of a mental intrusion unlike any other. The instinctive drive to maintain constant, vigilant resistance. The flickering memories telling her she should have an arsenal of ways to protect herself when she can't even remember their names right now.

    The inability to move against the monst- against Stanenge- with her simpler, her reliable, physical strength and magic.

    At least until she can force h- Stanenge- out of her mind. Out of her damn mind!

    And that thought fills her with a sudden wrath, and the feeling of intrusion retreats a little. A little.

    Ah! Interesting! You must be sensitive. Perhaps instinctively so, in light of my earlier speculations. Perhaps that's for the best. At least you'll understand what's happening to you. Otherwise, in light of your inexperience…

    She has no idea whether all this is happening in milliseconds or hours; time seems to have no meaning. Is this what 'the speed of thought' means? She… she can win this!

    I doubt it. No one, even the fiercest youma I've ever met, has defended their mind against me in this form yet, not alone, save only for a millennia-old sorcerer. Somehow, I don't think you have his schooling. Also, <KNEEL>

    No… she… won't… GAH!
    [ERROR]
    [Psychic combat commenced!]

    To be continued…​
     
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    • Overall, a pretty close battle so far. Uranus should be able to handle her (admittedly very beefy, Cendrillion must not be skimping on feeding this guy) opponent given time.

    Neptune is more of a trouble, though I do wonder about the fact that the psychic attacker just assaulted the ONE Senshi with a mental DDOS attack...

    Amazons took some hits, but they downed their Greater Youma. WIth more of them ganging up on the weaker ones they should be good now as long as the badly wounded one can get clear.
     
    The enemy is learning and adapting! That's not fair, they're supposed to be scrubs!

    In all seriousness, nice battle. This is gonna be a fun fight, I think.
     
    That was a super cool opening salvo.
    Putting the amazons on the flanks/mook duty sounds like it was the right call and the sheer confusion from Tux doing his saving thing is just golden.
    Uranus should be fine though we still don't have a way of getting her, her space sword.
    Neptune's fight is shaping up to be a real trip, though also rather lucky that she is one of the like three people on our side that probably could actually fight a psychic opponent.
     
    Stanenge: Foolish Senshi. I will peel back the layers of your mind, learn about your secrets, and force you to strike down your allies-
    Tethys: Hello there.
    Stanenge: ...Who are you?
    Tethys: You shouldn't have dug so deeply; there are monsters down here in the depths of the soul. Let me share a delightful little song with you that you'll never g̴̩͆e̸̜̊ṯ̴̆ ̴͆ͅó̸̰ų̶̾t̵̡͠ ̸̯̚ô̵͍f̵͚͘ ̷͓̔y̴̰̿o̴͈̽u̵̹͠r̴̢̊ ̶͓̋h̸͇́e̷̟͌ạ̵͐d̸͎̅.̶͔̀
     
    Kintaro is one heck of a beefcake, and we can expect Cendrellion to be at least as powerful. Feeling pretty good about sending all five Inner Senshi after her, anyone else would be having a pretty hard time.
     
    Silverking said:
    Stanenge: Foolish Senshi. I will peel back the layers of your mind, learn about your secrets, and force you to strike down your allies-
    Tethys: Hello there.
    Stanenge: ...Who are you?
    Tethys: You shouldn't have dug so deeply; there are monsters down here in the depths of the soul. Let me share a delightful little song with you that you'll never g̴̩͆e̸̜̊ṯ̴̆ ̴͆ͅó̸̰ų̶̾t̵̡͠ ̸̯̚ô̵͍f̵͚͘ ̷͓̔y̴̰̿o̴͈̽u̵̹͠r̴̢̊ ̶͓̋h̸͇́e̷̟͌ạ̵͐d̸͎̅.̶͔̀
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    "Did you know that the speed of thought can be over 200 times faster than your physical response?"

    A horrendous song echoes across the mindscape, playing thousands of instances upon thousands of times across it, on loop, forever, within a moment.

    Meanwhile, outside, Stanenge twitches, screams, and starts to bash herself against the floor.
     
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    Silverking said:
    Stanenge: Foolish Senshi. I will peel back the layers of your mind, learn about your secrets, and force you to strike down your allies-
    Tethys: Hello there.
    Stanenge: ...Who are you?
    Tethys: You shouldn't have dug so deeply; there are monsters down here in the depths of the soul. Let me share a delightful little song with you that you'll never g̴̩͆e̸̜̊ṯ̴̆ ̴͆ͅó̸̰ų̶̾t̵̡͠ ̸̯̚ô̵͍f̵͚͘ ̷͓̔y̴̰̿o̴͈̽u̵̹͠r̴̢̊ ̶͓̋h̸͇́e̷̟͌ạ̵͐d̸͎̅.̶͔̀
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Proceeds to play Overture at full volume non stop in her head, matching the cannon fire and beats with physical violence.

    Manaken would have been very annoying, hubris was their diwnfall... though maybe they were putting all their focus on DollNgóo? Odd they still operate with her down, and implied she has even more minions. Does this youma act kinda like hive mind droids? Each terminal has a piece of her to keep functioning, but the main body had the most processing power? If so killing her would be very difficult, you can't miss a single piece.
     
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