- Location
- San Ramon, CA
Yeah, that was just off the cuff. I don't know exactly how other pantheons would feel about Christian divine beings, but I'm guessing that "it's complicated."
Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)
Yeah, that was just off the cuff. I don't know exactly how other pantheons would feel about Christian divine beings, but I'm guessing that "it's complicated."
DarkHabit
Soldier of Twilight
- Location
- the border of good and evil
I previously forward a devil's advocate theory that Nephrite didn't want the Fall to occur so much as he wanted the least destructive Fall with the best chance of recovery, using his foresight as a method.
So what stood out is-
Now with talk of him possibly being formally possessed by Wiseman coming up... Nephrite keeps getting more and more unclear as an true antagonist.
So what stood out is-
He wasn't particularly happy about the fall, but was content with his schemes seeming to work.
Now with talk of him possibly being formally possessed by Wiseman coming up... Nephrite keeps getting more and more unclear as an true antagonist.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If Nephrite wasn't under Beryl's mind control and the other Shitennou were, it may well be that the reason Nephrite wasn't "as happy" during the Fall was simply because he wasn't specifically being mind-controlled with compulsions to enjoy what he was doing. Because we know that Beryl's control on the Shitennou can make them gleefully, gloatingly evil, sometimes even when it's counterproductive to their own goals or when they're repeating a strategy that isn't working (e.g. Jadeite and taking hostages).
So even if he had the same goals as Beryl and the others, he might just not be actively getting a magical high out of what he was doing.
Wonder what he would think of Equestria.
So we have confirmation that Kunzite is very much not dealt with. Whoever is looking after South America is, or at least was, giving as good as they were getting. The Dark Kingdom has some number of willing human cultists. Jadeite is an artificer, which makes sense given he has been helping MCAT make new gear and infrastructure.
And future!Usagi never got her intrigue above room temperature. Either that or Minori can just cute her way past mundane electronic locks.
Almech_Alfarion
(Unverified Paradox)
- Location
- Roaming the Void of the Space between Spaces
Alternatively, she was told the passwords of this time period by Big Usagi Mama.
Grue
滅亡迅雷
- Location
- -
Bypassing the locks is actually one of the easier speedrun techniques to learn, much easier than the wallclips we saw earlier in this playthrough.Or she just randomly pressed buttons until the door opened.
- Location
- USA
...Did she Sailor Teleport here just for a nap? It seems like a "yes, that's Usagi's daughter, all right" thing to do.
Agreed. It was always a bit odd to me that Lunaryon was potentially choosing Nephrite, out of all the Dark Generals, to be the irredeemable one, since he was the only one to my knowledge to ever in canon actively betray Beryl. Zoisite and Kunzite I think turned against her for Endymion in the final act, but Nephrite ended up forming a relationship with Molly (american name for Naru) and sacrificed himself for her sake.
So, there was always a chance that he was playing the long-game in cahoots with Kore and Tethys to cause the Fall to prevent a still greater evil. But I think this is ALSO a great way to demonstrate Wiseman. The manipulator and possessor type villain can come out of nowhere, and his influence would generally be subtle. Cloch Ghlas and moving through time as he does, makes him really compelling, and it would make a lot of sense, to me, that Nephrite got whammied really early on for someone elses plans.
But no matter how it turns up, it is fascinating to follow. And I'm loving every second of it.
We know that Cloch Ghlas was active on Earth to convince Pandora to attempt to kill Serenity. We don't know when exactly that happened relative to other events, but my impression is that it came pretty early because we know it was what prompted Serenity to develop political awareness and Jadeite's exile (and the related terrorist attacks on Mercury) seems like it would have done that instead if it came first. Assuming Cloch Ghlas was still Nephrite back then, he would also have been in place to oversee Beryl's corruption - but this is getting pretty speculative.
- Location
- Dragyxx
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It is indeed starting to look like 'Nepherite was the actually evil one, but it was due to a pre-existing possession and a Nepherite that was cleaned of that AND the following Beryl Corruption might still be redeemable' is a possibility.
Though mainly it is just clear that something is going on with Nepherite... and that we should assume he's the most dangerous of the Shittenou in general.
Though mainly it is just clear that something is going on with Nepherite... and that we should assume he's the most dangerous of the Shittenou in general.
SuperBigMac
My titles: MacTheEditor; SuperiorPosterior
- Location
- Untitled States of Disarray
- Pronouns
- N/A
I love that this joke is still alive.Bypassing the locks is actually one of the easier speedrun techniques to learn, much easier than the wallclips we saw earlier in this playthrough.
We've already discussed how Usagi wall clips to exit her house, and how she bunny hops fences to reach school faster, as well as how the Max Loyalty glitch likely happened, but what glitches are there that wouldn't just bypass the Shitennou, but get them all on-side?
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Though there is also the issue of him just running around doing horrible things for centuries, creating vampire demons and enabling Faust's slavery.
- Location
- Dragyxx
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Trick there is that it is starting to look possible that 'Cloch Glas' and Nepherite, while they were the same for a while, were actually different people after the Fall.
If Nepherite was still Cloch Glas post-Fall, then there certainly is a problem with Nepherite being seriously evil.
If Cloch Glas is some kind of possessing entity that abandoned Nepherite to Beryl's nonexistent mercy when he got trapped and hopped into someone else to cause mischief after the Fall, then it is possible that Nepherite might have just had the misfortune of being a long-time demon host.
This is, of course, contingent on us figuring out better exactly what is going on with Cloch Glas.
If Nepherite was still Cloch Glas post-Fall, then there certainly is a problem with Nepherite being seriously evil.
If Cloch Glas is some kind of possessing entity that abandoned Nepherite to Beryl's nonexistent mercy when he got trapped and hopped into someone else to cause mischief after the Fall, then it is possible that Nepherite might have just had the misfortune of being a long-time demon host.
This is, of course, contingent on us figuring out better exactly what is going on with Cloch Glas.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Hmm. That last bit "this would surely have had that effect."
Okay, but that then contradicts the timeline. Jadeite says Nephrite came to Earth after him and is able to comment on what Nephrite was like "from his first day off the ship."
Now, this is theoretically consistent with "Beryl was a basically normal person with no habits morally worse than taking credit for the work of people who were quite devoted to her, without whatever corruption led her to found the Dark Kingdom and unleash Metallia, and Nephrite corrupted her."
The trouble is that you need the sequence of events to be:
1) Jadeite's exile
2) Nephrite's arrival on Earth
3) Cloch Ghlas' corruption of Beryl and manipulation of Pandora, in no particular order.
4) Serenity's encounter with Pandora and secret travels on Earth.
The trouble is that if you're saying "surely Jadeite's exile would have prompted Serenity to political awareness," then necessarily you need (4) to precede (1). So I think that part has to go.
...
Also, look at Jadeite's descriptions of the timescales involved:
"I was exiled from Mercury for over a century, remember."
"It's been a long time. A long time in Beryl's little hell, and a century or so in exile before that."
"my memories of that decade or so, the slide from being my own man to being hers, seems muddy. Indistinct."
"[Anyo/Zoi] was never entirely serious about most of what she did, in the decades I knew her for… until Beryl got to her and made him so."
...
Meanwhile, it kind of seems as though Serenity met Endymion not that long after she met Pandora, which was a significant length of time after Endymion's debut at a ball on the Moon. Endymion and Serenity's friendship could have lasted a fair while, but they apparently only became lovers relatively close to the Fall, at a point when Earth was already in crisis and Beryl's plans were far advanced.
It's hard to nail down a timeline, but it seems likely that the 'Pandora-Serenity-Endymion' subplot started... I'd guess no more than a decade or two before the Fall. Whereas Beryl's corruption probably started a lot sooner, I'd think.
This is all speculation plus textual evidence, to be clear, and I may be missing things.
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- Location
- Dragyxx
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
One thing which isn't certain, but offers implications, is that I recall it being mentioned that when Beryl and Nepherite 'first' met, it seemed as though they already knew each other.
Going off of this, operating on the 'Cloch Glas possessed Nepherite' theory, I would posit that it is possible that Cloch Glas had already been having dealings with Beryl, possibly including corrupting her, before she ever met Nepherite. And that Nepherite was just a new host for Cloch Glas brought in to use his particular powers and skillset for her plans. Hence, she would already know him, despite having never met 'him'.
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Endymion actually gave us a better timeline:
And Pandora said:
Which sounds like a period of months, rather than years, between the attempted assassination and Serenity meeting Endymion.
We also have this statement:
So Jadeite's exile definitely predates the Pandora plot, and we have good reason to think Beryl was fully committed to her path by, at the latest, Endymion's introduction to the royal courts five years later (judging by her unique reaction to Deusmast being sealed into the sun), and probably well before then.
Though we also have this:
Stoirmeach being Nephrite's original name, which implies Beryl was covertly communicating with him prior to his appearance in the court of the Earth King and they may have met in person, either on or off of Earth. So my guess is still that Nephrite played a significant role in Beryl's corruption, but this likely happened over a century before the Fall.
RadiantPhoenix
Trudging up the Hill
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, well, neither does Sailor Moon.
See: Neo-Queen Serenity deciding to say hi to 20th century Usagi face-to-face at the end of the Black Moon arc.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Interesting. Can you quote the specific passage?
[blinks]
I think we may have a timeline contradiction then, or I'm just very confused. Combining those things, Endymion meets Serenity unofficially on Earth, and officially on the Moon, both when he's in his twenties, doesn't meet Beryl until he's thirty despite her being a major figure at Marduk's court, and is just short of a hundred years old at the time of the Fall. Presumably the corruption of the Shitennou and establishment of the Dark Kingdom must take place in between those times.
Also a bit surprising that if Beryl was prominent in Marduk's court, Endymion, who as far as we know was his only son, didn't meet her at all until after turning thirty. Strange Earth customs where the prince is raised cloistered?
One problem we face is that our memories of the 'royal ball' event on the moon are drawn from Serenity's 'death-dreams,' and probably don't involve cause and effect being strictly enforced. It's quite possible that we are remembering a pastiche of different events that took place at different times, mediated by Usagi's own subconscious awareness and Serenity's ghostly thoughts about what information is pertinent. Serenity, for instance, putting it all together to remember who was involved with Beryl, and who all the Senshi were, and giving Usagi memories of those things, even if the chronology is messed up.
Yes, but when he's working with other people who do, there still has to be a recognizable timeline of his interventions.
Also, Cloch Ghlas is probably not Wiseman, though he might, I suppose, be working for Wiseman.
Jadeite tells us this chapter that the corruption took about a decade, so if we assume that the Shitennou were established as a group around when Endymion was born (which would make sense since they were intended to be his guards/servants) there's plenty of time between then and the Royal Ball for them to be corrupted.
Or the corruption of the Shitennou could have happened later, I don't think we need to have any of them other than Nephrite be actively working for Chaos until after that point.
Edit: Especially since Endymion seems to have known an uncorrupted Jadeite at some point.
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That only rules out him being Nephrite and it being a localized temporal incursion. If he was indeed possessing Nephrite.
If it was him messing with time, it was most likely two separate runs through that period of time. Which might be centuries and multiple possessions apart, to the point he doesn't concsiouly remember it.
Meh, very low odds this is correct, just interesting to theorize about
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The apparent clash in the timelines, at least to me, comes from the idea that Endymion met Serenity before Beryl when Beryl was a long-established figure at his father's court.
It also seems a little odd to me if Serenity was visiting Earth for effectively the entire ~100-year period when Endymion was alive, or the great majority of it. Not sure... eh. I really don't want to bicker over this because it's not at all clear what the truth is, and some of the truth may just be "different statements were made separated by a period of years and the chronology is deliberately or accidentally messed up."
It'd be great if we could find, say, Serenity's diary on the Moon or something else that would provide us with a clearer sequence of events, but without that, we may just have to accept some uncertainty.
Honestly, I would consider "the entity possessing Nephrite can body-surf between different hosts in the same time period or control multiple hosts all the time" more likely than "the entity possessing Nephrite was a time traveler who passed through the same era multiple times as multiple individuals."
- Location
- Colorado
Probably, but it's still a possibility to keep in mind. If our side gets a Sailor Pluto we can't discount the enemy also having one.
Under a Rainbow Sky - Part 10
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Under a Rainbow Sky
Part 10
Part 10
You spend a little while in the tiny lounge, with Mini in your lap. Resting and listening to Mini's quiet breathing lulls you into something close to sleep yourself.
But as you lay there, drowsing, daydreaming, something clicks into place in your head.
Something- you can't put your finger on it- about your confrontation with that strange and terrible voice of Silence. For you, that was only a few hours ago. Something stirs, though. It's. It's.
The memories of the ball your last life showed you.
Lady Tǔxīng.
Sailor Saturn. The missing Sailor Senshi.
Something about her.
You shush Ami and Rei gently with a finger to your lips, and carefully moving your daughter over to another chair. You realize that you are about to do something that you may very well regret. But… you have an idea. Still, you probably shouldn't just go do it right away. You scoop up Luna, and bring her with you.
You've had your conversation, and now you need to think. Still transformed, you stand alone on top of the Crystal Millennium building, gazing idly over the edge of the roof. The building is high enough that thanks in part to the elevation of the ground around her, you can see out across Tokyo for quite a ways in some directions.
What you're thinking of doing is a bad idea. A very bad idea. But it's the best idea you've put together so far, and in the past three months, you've grown accustomed to seeing things through. Maybe if you…
Luna, as is so often the case, sneaks up on you. The first sound she bothers to make is a soft clearing of her throat, just before she hops up onto the railing by your right hand.
"Are you sure you want to do this? This is the exact thing that Minori asked us not to do, after all."
And that, you have to admit, is true. Minori asked the Senshi not to go looking for Sailor Saturn based off her accidental mention of the name 'Taru.'
Of course, where one Mau can go, another can go just as easily, and Artemis is so often to be found in the upper floors of the Crystal Millennium building these days. You're hardly surprised to hear his voice from the railing by your left hand, even as you look down at Luna.
"It might not be the best idea, but I agree with Usagi."
You sigh. You've said this already, but it keeps circling through your head.
"I probably wouldn't be thinking of doing this, Luna, but… if Minori was able to travel back in time, I don't see why the people who threatened her wouldn't be able to, either. Especially if they, ah… defeated a grown-up version of me." Which is a dark, chilling thought if ever there was one. And this, this part, is something you now give voice to for the first time. "Minori's come back to me from about thirty years in the future. What can I do against any threat to her, to us, now, that my future self couldn't do at the age of forty-five? How do I win now when I can't win then?"
There. You've said it. The subtle little chill in your heart has a name now.
You shake your head. "I can't imagine it. So far as I know, I, we, have nothing, nothing at all, to fight those people with except the fact that we know they're coming. Whatever that's worth. And the future Sailor Saturn, whoever she is, doesn't have even that advantage. Not only that, but they probably know who we are. I wouldn't put it past them to try and hurt her, or at least stop her from awakening, just to keep us from finding her and keep her from joining our side. So we have to spend some time trying to search for 'Taru', if only to protect her from enemies she doesn't know she has yet."
Luna wriggles her tail, exasperated. "I understand, but that doesn't mean breaking into Tokyo City Hall to look for family records is a good idea, Disguise Pen or no Disguise Pen!"
"I know, but it seems like the only way to get a good list of AAAACK!"
You, quite suddenly, feel an unexpected burst of cold water against the back of your neck. Startled, perhaps more startled than you should be because of the strange and dark places your mind's been traveling, you leap up into the air. You leap high, higher than unaided human muscles would allow. You look down, and your eyes widen in alarm, seeing something like thirty meters of empty beneath you and you are falling-
You snap-teleport several meters to one side-
THUMP
-and land awkwardly on the roof rather than, more problematically, on the street nine stories below.
"Ugh." You push yourself up onto your hands and knees. You realize what just happened. "Minori, what did you do that for?"
Minori holds a spray bottle that glows with a faint blue chill, as though to preserve it at the downright icy temperature you remember feeling on your neck. The girl looks as if she's about to cry. "I'm sorry, Mama, but it was the first time I'd ever done the thing. I didn't think you might go over the railing…"
You sigh, shifting upright. "Sweetie, we're seven stories up. If I'd hit the ground carelessly and fallen on someone, they could have been very badly hurt."
Mini winces, looking even sorrier than before. "I forgot we're on Earth and everything is super heavy. I'm really sorry, Mama, but it was the first time I ever did the thing and I wanted to do it right and… I'm sorry!"
And then you realize that, probably through no fault of the little girl's own, Mini hasn't answered your question. "Come here, Mini, and tell me what the thing was and why you did it. Just give me the whole story."
And now Minori looks… a little proud, really. "Well, Mama, it all started at my fifth birthday party!"
"Oh?"
"You came to me and took me aside and said you'd had an idea. You said something about Rule Number Twelve and a list of evil overladies, and I asked which ones because you've beaten a lot of evil overladies, well, Big Mama has, you haven't yet I guess but anyway it's a lot, and I asked if you wanted my help with the list."
You pause, deciding that worrying about one set of future facts is quite enough. And that the list of evil overladies, or for that matter evil overlords, you already know about is rather more than quite enough. You decide not to ask any more questions about this evil overlady list for now. Except the most urgent one.
"So why did a list of evil overladies mean you sprayed me with cold water?"
"Well, you, uh, Big Mama, said that now that I was a five year old child, if I heard her, uh, you, uh, you know what I mean, making any plans with…" her voice takes on an odd sing-song of recitation "...any flaws I could spot, then they would be corrected before imp-lemon-tation." She returns to her normal tone of voice. "And Auntie Minako said that if I was really sure the plan was, uh, an imp or a lemon, I should spray you with the spray bottle. And you said sure fine."
"That… is actually a better explanation than I thought."
"I'm sorry, Mama."
"Well, if you thought you were doing what I wanted you to, that's something… but you should have warned me."
"I won't do it again, Mama."
"...I didn't say that."
"...Huh?"
"Just say something next time, darling." You reach out and pull Minori into a hug. "Now, what did you think I was doing wrong?"
"Well, I don't know if it's an imp or a lemon, Mama, but… I'm pretty sure if someone snuck into the royal archives and copied a bunch of the files just so they could have a list of names to look through, you'd have gotten pretty mad in the future. I think people would get really mad here on Earth now, too. Maybe more. I don't remember much of anything about Emperor Akihito but I bet he's not as nice as you, Mama."
You blink slowly, trying to process all that. To decide which of the many, many things you could say to Mini right now, that you should say to Mini right now. It's… not easy. It takes a moment. A lot of moments. Especially with the little voice in your head telling you not to be an evil queen, or a queen at all, or… you just don't know.
And in the midst of your silence. Artemis tilts his head, still looking at the two of you from the railing around the building. "Minori, where did you even get that spray bottle? It looks runic."
"Oh, well, I got it after Mama, Big Mama, and Auntie Minako gave me the assignment! I keep it in the hammer place." Mini shrugs. "Just in case."
"Oh. Right…" Artemis looks a bit embarrassed. "Should have guessed."
You fold your arms on the railing and let out a long, admittedly dramatic sigh. "Well, you three have me outnumbered and out-squirt-gunned. No sneaking around looking for name registries. I promise. So, hmmm." You stop, and you have a think…
Ah! Yes, yes, that's the ticket.
Personally, you think Silver Millennium wrist communicators are very much what Ami calls 'user-friendly.' You know what you want to do, and instinctively, you somehow know how to do it. You've heard enough from Naru and some of the Pretty Cures that you've begun to suspect that it's not the same for them. Naru kept having to ask you to show her how to do things, and sometimes Pretty Cures have… adventures... working with the things. Or start gabbling about what are apparently exciting video games they figured out how to play on them. That… sounds interesting, and you occasionally feel a powerful, very natural temptation to try those out. Only when you feel that, the gentle ghostly princessly whispers in the back of your head to turn into a screaming banshee cry of NO STOP DON'T NOOO and then you do not do that thing. Maybe someday, when there aren't eight different gangs of evil supernatural warriors trying to destroy the world, you'll have time.
Anyway. They are, among many other things, really great as a tiny super-portable cellular telephone. And some of your Senshi may be feeling lonely and neglected… you can do something about that!
"Hi, Jupiter!"
"Sailor Moon! I heard you're back but thanks for calling!"
"Hey! Come on, Jupes, it's nothing. How could I ignore my main sweet dealer? So you're…" You pause for a moment, trying to remember if it was Minako or Ami, or maybe even Rei, that mentioned it. "Chasing some of the stray youma from Choshi City, right?"
"MCAT's trying every kind of divination they can think of. So far, no luck, but if they find that typewriter-man-monster, they want me along. Some of the soldiers are saying that the thing shook off a rocket to the chest and a ten-ton tiger on Monday, so I guess I don't blame them."
"Well, I'd love it if you could be here, but I'm really glad you're doing that and I hope you find the monster! Do you think you'll be okay on your own?"
"I'm pretty sure that if the typewriter-monster were scarier than the ones we fought down below the hardware store, then it'd have been in the hardware store. So I think I'll be okay."
"Call if you need any help. Don't you dare get hurt trying to take on too many of them at once!"
Makoto laughs warmly. "Thanks, your highness…" You can almost feel her smiling at you. "Oh, by the way, the MCAT captain wanted to say thanks for us warning them about how Onogoro plans to attack their headquarters on Thursday."
You freeze.
You freeze for quite a bit.
Makoto finally says something. "...Um. Is this the first you're hearing of this?"
"Onogoro's going to attack MCAT headquarters on Thursday night?"
"Uh, we think so. Excuse me." Makoto's voice is a bit muffled. "So this part is confidential, so I'm going to just go jump up on top of that office building to take this part, okay thanks bye!" There is a sudden whooshing sound, which subsides. "Yeah. So yes, we have reasons to think that's going to… happen."
"Are you getting this from the diviners?"
Your eyes narrow. You can't help but be a little suspicious, because while there are plenty of diviners in this city, only one of them is Miyo and you aren't sure you trust any of the others. Is Miyo working for MCAT? Probably not? You don't know! You're a little worried about going to visit her these days in case she figures out something you'd rather she didn't.
Maybe you're a little overconfident in Miyo's cards, given that you haven't seen her in about three months. But then, that advice back in mid-March about how sometimes it's best to rip the bandaid off seems suspiciously on-point in hindsight.
Anyway. Not the point. And you're beginning to wonder why Makoto hasn't said anything yet. But then she does.
"Okay, so… let's just say that back on Tuesday while we were spread out across the city doing things, our good lawyerly friend Sei was keeping an eye on things at the Crystal Millenium building, and the way she puts it, this lady in a sari walked in alongside a handsome man in a suit who turned out to actually be a blue-furred ape-man in a suit in disguise. Who apparently speaks Japanese, and the lady doesn't. And I'm just going to sum all this up; you can get the details from Naru when you like, but apparently she's a traveling magician from India and she was looking for Naru, and Sei gave her the cold shoulder, so then she asked if she could speak to Sailor Moon, and Sei said you were busy and weren't going to be stopping by today. And the magician was very polite about all this- apparently she's on some kind of mission, but she talked like it was harmless- and she left a message."
"Hang on. So let me get this straight. She's looking for Naru, and she wanted to talk to me if she could find me, and she had a message?"
"Right. The thing is, it wasn't even about her mission, it was… well. Apparently, she's been in Japan for a few weeks, and she's mostly been visiting shrines and talking to Onogoro mages while she was doing it, and she heard something. Because some Onogoro mages wanted to know if a spell they were planning would work, and they asked her enough questions that she got interested, and one thing led to another and she found out they were planning, yeah, to attack MCAT headquarters tomorrow night. We hadn't quite figured out what we were going to do about that if you hadn't woken up, but we didn't think we should leave MCAT hanging in the breeze, so Sei warned Samui late last night to tell her, and Minako and me called her later and promised her that some of us would be there."
You nod. That… sounds about like you'd have wanted to handle things. "Okay. That's… that's good. We'll figure out the details later. Anything else?"
"Well. The magician, she didn't give a real name, called herself 'a cattle-rancher in service to the waning god' whatever that means, was very specific about one thing. The Onogoro magicians have done… something... involving a spell that she says they used hundreds of years ago to bind kami into shrines. Including some kami who didn't like the idea of being bound very much. She says they're planning to trap us with it. She didn't say she was sure it'd work on us or not, but she acted like she thinks it would. Then again… I'm pretty sure she thinks we're kami."
That is… a lot to take in. "Oh. Um. Wow. That's starting to catch on, isn't it?"
You hear Makoto's nervous laughter. "Yeah. I'm… not really happy with the idea of people thinking we might be gods."
She can't see you nodding, but you nod anyway. "I worry about it. I hope we can convince people to stop before it causes any trouble."
"You'll think of something. So… well, MCAT is absolutely making sure to be ready now that they have the warning. They haven't come out and asked us to help directly, but they haven't told us to stay away, either. I could see it either way; if I were in their shoes, I wouldn't want those Onogoro jerks to think I was hiding behind somebody else."
"You're right… but I don't like the idea of someone dying to prove they don't need help. I don't like that at all." You trail off, thinking. It's weird to imagine a government organization worrying that they're hiding behind you. At the same time, you keep showing up to their hardest battles. And you and your friends are much stronger than just about anyone in MCAT, or nearly anyone MCAT fights. And… well, trying to do what Makoto does and putting yourself in their shoes, you find that you wonder what they think of you, when a stranger from overseas already thinks you're a god.
You hear Makoto's voice again, softer than before. "Moon? Are you okay?"
"...Yeah. Let them know we're willing to help. I really don't like the idea of someone getting killed to prove a point, or because somebody was hoping to trap me." That… when you put it that way, sounds entirely too much like what nearly happened to Rei, and what did happen to that poor man, back in Cendrellion's lair. "Anyway, you're still trying to track down those youma, right?"
"At least until the fortune tellers give up, or it gets to be too late."
"Okay, then good hunting. But… be careful, and stay safe, okay? Don't do to me what I did to all of you… I'm sorry for that."
Makoto answers after a beat of silence. "It's okay. I'll be fine, and you stay safe too." There's a soft click as the call ends. You turn your attention back out towards the city. You have a lot to think about, but it isn't all bad.
Gods…
That's a conversation you're going to need time to think about. It's going to be weird.
The Sailor Senshi are something very different from gods, as Earth seems to know them. But you know that many, if not all, of the gods were Pandora's children. Which means there were Senshi before the gods. What does that make you and your friends? Does it mean that Onogoro's ritual would just fail against you, or work normally? Maybe it would even work better than they expect. You just don't know.
You'll talk to Naru, before you make up your mind what to do about Thursday. You get the feeling that Makoto didn't know everything about the situation herself, she just didn't want you to be out of the loop. Knowing exactly what Naru heard from this visiting magician would be a good place to start. If she was trying to warn you to do you a favor, she'd probably have given Naru, at least, a good idea of how to escape the trap, or trap the trappers.
But that's a problem that can wait until this evening, or maybe even tomorrow afternoon if it has to, you guess. You have at least one other thing worrying you.
One call you really ought to make, before any of your friends sweep you up into something else that monopolizes you. So you make it.
Haruka sounds… winded. "Uranus and Neptune here. Who's- oh! Princess! We got Naru's message. I'm glad you're up. Thanks for calling!" You hear an indistinct woman's voice, almost certainly Michiru's, and then Haruka speaks again. "Yeah, I'm getting to that. You can't just open a- Wait. Give me a second… there! Okay. I figured out how to make this do 'speakerphone.' We can both hear you now. Don't worry, no one else is nearby."
You force a bit of severity into your voice. "Good. That way you two can't coordinate your story where I can't hear. So. You're in Outer Mesopotamia or something. What did you do, and why did it end up with you ten thousand kilometers away?" You're not entirely sure if there's such a thing as 'outer' Mesopotamia, or if it really is ten thousand kilometers from here to there, but it's a nice round number. Good enough.
Silence.
And then Michiru's soft, melodic, entirely unconcerned laughter answers you. "Well, technically I think we're in Syria. It started with us scouting out a Knights of Oblivion location in Tsuchiura, to make sure there wasn't-" She stops, suddenly, her charm and glibness failing her.
Haruka interrupts. "You know, Princess." And you do know what they mean. You really do.
You try to break the awkward silence. "So, you found their base?"
Haruka snorts. "We found their base so hard, it turned out to be triplets!"
Michiru collects herself. "Ahem. So. We snuck inside and found some kind of ritual room, and a certain someone touched something she shouldn't have."
"Hey! That was clearly labeled 'SAFE ZONE BOUNDARY.' "
"Apparently 'safe' meant something a little different to them. But the entire room seemed to flip upside down, and the next thing we knew we were falling out of the ceiling in the middle of a full room… of Oblivion ritualists."
"Do you think they were more surprised to see us than we were to see them?"
"Briefly, darling, briefly. We started to suspect that we weren't in Japan anymore when we realized that none of the prisoners we were breaking loose were Japanese, or spoke any Japanese. But we got by with pointing, shouting, and a little French I learned in the Rivera."
"Also a certain someone knowing how to hotwire a Rocket Hilux." Haruka sounds smug.
"That too, darling. So we set the prisoners- not as badly off as the ones we saw last time, but there were more of them- on their way in most of the cultists' motor pool, then called Mercury to work her magic, so to speak. That was yesterday."
"Do you need any help?"
That draws another amused laugh from Michiru. "As much as we'd love to have you over, I really don't think the first time that we meet your parents it should be to tell them that 'yes, we asked your daughter to do the one thing that you asked her not to do..
It takes you a second to realize what they mean.
Mom asked you to at the very least talk with her or Dad before you leave the country to go anywhere except the Moon. And though you're still catching up on geography, you know that Syria isn't in Japan. And it certainly isn't on the Moon, either.
"All right, if you're sure."
Haruka chimes in. "We've already got souvenir lava rocks for everyone; Darling says they're basalt, even though we haven't attacked any sheep!
Michiru cuts her off. "Dear?"
"Yes?"
"You've been hanging around Venus, haven't you?"
"Better hung for a sheep than- OOF!"
"I'll take that as a yes. So, as we were saying, there's a separate location, some kilometers from where the prisoners were being held. We're checking it out a little less… aggressively. Whatever the Knights of Oblivion are looking for around here, they've been digging up a lot of the stone. Tons and tons of it. They have heavy equipment out here, even. We captured some documents, and worked out how to send back pictures, and luckily Mercury can piece her way through Arabic…"
You blink. "Wait, Mercury can read what now?"
Haruka chuckles, and her voice has a teasing lilt to it. "Princess, do you really think that there's anything our little ice pop can't read?" You hear a very soft thwap "Hey!"
"Well, she did say she hasn't tried to learn Turkish because all this… Senshi-ing… meant she didn't have time to study languages for the fun of it anymore. She seemed kind of pouty."
Michiru's taken over again. "Well, then, it's a good thing this little patch of extinct volcanoes isn't in Turkey. In any case, she says it's fine. Whatever these maniacs are trying to do, they're nowhere near ready to do it. We've got things under control here, and we stole an atlas so we can teleport back when we're ready."
"Wait, what does the atlas have to do with anything?"
Haruka answers that. "Because some of us have to work at things, oh charmingly naive heavenly maiden." And the tone of her voice stops you short-
thwap
Michiru finishes her thought. "We'll explain anything important that we've learned, if Mercury doesn't beat us to it, when we're back on native soil."
To you, the next question is obvious, and you're not sure why they laugh when you say, "Japanese soil, or lunar?"
Haruka is first to answer you intelligibly. "Yes! Now, the dust storm's starting to pick up again, so we'd better get moving. We won't be able to hear and we might be busy, so we'll catch you later!"
And she shuts off the connection. For a moment, you're tempted to call the older girls and demand more details, but… well, Ami knows more or less what's going on, and she's not worried. So that's good enough, right?
Besides, what are you going to do about it, go to, uh, somewhere in Syria yourself and drag them back by their ears? You sigh. You can't go bouncing around the world on a whim yourself, so if your Senshi are going to do this kind of thing for you, you're going to have to trust them to know what they're doing.
You shake your head, looking out over the city again for a minute. Then you hear the rooftop door open. You turn and see Ami stepping through. Something about the set of her jaw makes you think like she's made a decision.
"Hi, Mercury. What's up?"
"I've been looking at those maps that Jadeite gave me. The ones of Mercury. And I found a map of my own, finally."
You have a feeling where this is going. But it's going to be important to Ami to say this for herself. You don't interrupt. You just nod, and look steadily at her, and wait.
"I've done the calculations. The algorithm's as good as it's going to get for this, at least until I find the one Ermis used. So we…" Ami's words trail off. She draws in a sudden breath, gathering herself, and looks you dead in the eye.
"Sailor Moon. I want to go to Mercury. I need to go to Mercury."
"Okay."
"I know that we-" Ami stops suddenly, looking confused. "Okay?"
"I already said I'd come with you." You smile gently at her. "I should go tell Mom where we're going, but aside from that, I'm ready as soon as you are."