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

[Lunaryon]

No, those are some scary cabbages. Serenity is more like the cabbage merchant from Avatar.

 

[Almech_Alfarion]

「Moon Sparkling Sensation」: "Look at me."

「Raising Heart」: "「This Device acknowledges.」"

「Moon Sparkling Sensation」: "Look at me. I'm the 「Starlight Moonlight Breaker」 now."

Click to shrink...

FTFY

 

[Alatie]

Hmm...well if nothing else it's good to see the battle is tense on both sides. Even if it could be going better.

Though I had a thought.

What exactly would count for a passive action? We didn't do any beyond the default this turn because they were fairly vital defaults, but if we could search for their HQ as an action...might be worth considering.

Though for now we have the obivous problems of the Army of soldiers and spies.

 

[Simon_Jester]

What exactly would count for a passive action? We didn't do any beyond the default this turn because they were fairly vital defaults, but if we could search for their HQ as an action...might be worth considering.

Click to shrink...

"Search for the HQ" would probably involve running around where Onogoro can see, and being high enough profile to be detected for sealing, which would normally be an ACTIVE option, I would think.

「Moon Sparkling Sensation」: "Look at me."

「Raising Heart」: "「This Device acknowledges.」"

「Moon Sparkling Sensation」: "Look at me. I'm the 「Starlight Breaker」 now."

Click to shrink...

Raising Heart has already crossed thaumaturgical countermeasure suites with Greater Moon Sparkling Sensation and won.

Raising Heart: "「Analytical smugness complete. Presenting findings. Biggawatts are not everything. It is knowing how to use them that is of greater significance.」"

 

[veekie]

Right now we're probably waiting for them to be backtraced by MCAT. Magical girls are not traditionally very good at finding things that aren't actually elemental evil and nobody wants to bring the nine year old with a homebrew AWACS spell into a deadly civil war.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Unfortunately, it seems likely that the kind of people who would be most effective at backtracing the god-binding spell to its ritual sites are classically trained mages. And apart from a small handful of foreign consultants, all or nearly all of MCAT's classically trained mages are ex-Onogoro, and therefore of somewhat questionable reliability under present circumstances, so a lot of them would probably either (1) have been sent far away as part of Samui's preparations, (2) be at home in bed because it's the night shift, or (3) already be busy inside the compound trying to track down Empty Faces.

Unnati's briefing to Naru-disguised-as-Sei included nothing about how to trace the spell back to its origin points. In-character, no one's sure why. Off the top of my head, possible explanations include "Unnati herself hadn't worked out anything," "Unnati hadn't worked out anything she could rely on someone else to implement that wouldn't depend on her own skill set," and "Unnati was holding back information," which she would certainly in principle have been in a position to do.

 

[Vehrec]

it could also be that this kind of magic simply doesn't 'radiate' when active in a way that's easy to backtrace. It could also be cast through portable arrays (like back-banners held by Samurai) or temporary ones set up for that purpose like the one Sir Fred set up in the non-occupied hotel room.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Absolutely right, though that would probably map back to "Unnati can't think of a way to do it," or "Unnati can't think of a way for anyone else to do it and didn't plan on being here herself."

 

[Silverking]

Absolutely right, though that would probably map back to "Unnati can't think of a way to do it," or "Unnati can't think of a way for anyone else to do it and didn't plan on being here herself."

Click to shrink...

Unnati: Technically there's a methodology that would eventually allow one to interpolate where the binding is coming from, but with the speed of deployment and the fact that every data point is associated with an attempted capture, you would effectively need a team of absolute experts or a magical supercomputer to run the calculations in a timely manner, and I haven't any faction with those capabilities in quite some time.
Sailor Moon: … Now she tells me!

 

[veekie]

As mentioned, it wouldn't even be particularly hard for Nanoha. So for now we weather the assault until they run low and hopefully still have enough to harry their retreat.

Not a lot you can do against this model of warfare

 

[Simon_Jester]

Unnati: Technically there's a methodology that would eventually allow one to interpolate where the binding is coming from, but with the speed of deployment and the fact that every data point is associated with an attempted capture, you would effectively need a team of absolute experts or a magical supercomputer to run the calculations in a timely manner, and I haven't any faction with those capabilities in quite some time.
Sailor Moon: … Now she tells me!

Click to shrink...

Unnati has effectively zero knowledge of the potential of magical computing. She is all analog, no digital.

Her relevant archetype is "fantasy archmage," not "IT specialist with sideline in computational sorcery."

 

[Chaosmancer]

The Midnight Incident
Part Five​

The sound of leaden rain on iron rises as the Black Heart Snow begins to strike enchanted armor, leaving bright streaks and dents. Warriors cover their faces and run through protective enchantments. Some of them manage to shoot back, mustering firebolts and blade-winds and more imaginative curses, but those daring enough to look up only see the woman in white and orange almost dancing between the blasts, dipping low, whirling, with no sign that she's even giving direction to the cloud of flying blades.

Her smile is a wide, bright, wild, terrible thing to see, something all too easy to notice in the flashing multi-colored witchlight and the halo she seems to have even in the illusion-stripping glare of the star shells. But then, Sailor Venus got her lessons by putting the fear of herself into demons, not into mortal men.

A grizzled mage, raising an increasingly scuffed and notched armored sleeve to cover his eyes from the flurries of tiny blades, twists power around a fringe-decorated silver wand and casts a shower of glittering red sparks at her. Sailor Venus sidesteps- and the sparks circle her, clinging to her, all the same.

In Lord Nakatomi's headquarters, the Hinoyama clansman at the intricately carved sugi-wood table by the wall, the one that reminds him of a few telephone switchboards he's seen, turns to shout at him. "Sir, I've got a pull from the east gate force!"

"Go!" Nakatomi barks out his agreement sharply, leaving the fellow to it. He doesn't understand the intricacies of the spells- many of them family secrets, he's sure- that guide the products of the Hinoyama 'rocket garden.' Nor does he much care, as long as the rockets go up and then come down on the right heads.

He'd been about to order the weapons used only on the Sailor Senshi, if necessary, and to let the rocketeers concentrate on bringing down those enchanted parachute flares that are depriving his men of their power to cast illusions and invisibility. And maybe he will- in a moment. But for now… he needs to know what the problem is.

Nakatomi picks up the sculpted jade ear that's served his family as a microphone since long before the magic-less public caught onto the idea of having the things, saying "Lord Ogura! The rocket's on the way. What's the matter?" But it's a woman who answers- for the second time in just a few minutes, his niece. She's shouting, and she doesn't sound panicked so much as… desperately urgent.

"Lord Ogura's down, uncle, there was an explosion! It's one of the Senshi! Orange skirt, should be Sailor Venus! She's set something like a swarm of little steel hornets after us! They're pushing us back!"

A spike of fear reaches through Nakatomi's reserve. But then… "Can you hold on for a few minutes, Matsu?"

"A few- where are the binding mages?"

"Just keep the men alive, Matsu, the ritualists will try for her soon!"

They will. Or he'll have someone's guts out for leaving Kojiro's little girl to swing in the breeze. He picks up a second sculpted ear, keyed to a different set of spells. It's carved somewhat indifferently compared to the first, and magically colored in a rather crass manner to imitate a rarer form of jade, but he really doesn't care about either of those things at the moment.

---

You are Usagi Tsukino, and your heart screams with tight, painful tension. The blazing flares hanging on parachutes over MCAT headquarters light up the night sky, casting their brilliance on the battlefield below. That light feels… odd on your skin, somehow.

So much is happening, all at once. Even if you could see through the buildings and watch everything going on at street level, you wouldn't be able to keep track of it all without being in ten places at once. But you can see the big clouds of smoke rising from the streets around MCAT headquarters. You can hear so many gunshots that they merge into an unending crackling roar, punctuated with single loud explosions and the sounds of some of the Onogoro spells. And beneath the powerful light of the parachute flares, there's a constant flicker of gun flashes, the streaks of colored light from the enchanted bullets you've seen before, and the endlessly changing light of more of those same spells from the Onogoro magicians.

You're at war with yourself. Your instinct is to rush down there, to do something. You've got to save someone, anyone, everyone. But you've spent some painful hours thinking this over, in the past night and day, after you got back from that wonderful trip to Mercury. It completely distracted you at school. It cast a shadow over your evening with Minori. Because…

You aren't like Kóre; you can't be every place you're needed all at the same time. And you're… stoppable. You know that, somehow. You suspect that the Onogoro binding spell won't work on you as well as the Indian sorceress who warned Naru suspects it might, but you have no reason to think it can't work. And if it did…

The fights you can see here, even all of them put together, are only one part of a tremendously complicated war. New and terrible things are happening every week. Onogoro wants to lock you away, to suppress your powers, and if they can do that, if they can weaken you or even outright capture you…

You won't be there when someone, when everyone, really, really needs you.

In a way, you owe Mr. Minami- the man you saved on Monday, and you only just learned his name earlier today- some gratitude for showing you the tiniest glimpse of what that would mean. You don't regret saving him even the slightest little bit. But that one action took you out of the picture entirely for nearly two days.

What it did to your friends and family scares you. And you don't even want to think about what else could have happened before you woke up on Wednesday afternoon, without you being able to do anything about it. A new Dark Kingdom scheme, the Ministry trying something- trying this- a Jewel Seed running wild again, or some horrible thing from one of the Pretty Cures' enemies. It's hard to accept, but you were lucky that nothing like that happened later Monday night, or on Tuesday, or Wednesday morning. For forty hours, anything could have gone terribly wrong, and you'd have been powerless to help anyone.

And that thought, of what could happen if most or all of your friends are trapped and unable to act effectively, did more than anything else to convince you that you wouldn't let that happen to you and your Senshi tonight.

People call you a hero. Your friends call you a princess. You know that you're a friend and a daughter and- to your very great surprise- even a mother. You have to be there for people, not just tonight, but tomorrow and tomorrow and every day after that without fail.

You can't run in every time. Not quite. Not without something being somehow different, in a way you can't quite put your finger on.

But it hurts, and it's a strain.

Especially since one of your friends volunteered to go running in herself, because of course she did, and she wouldn't hear otherwise. And… someone has to, but that didn't stop it from hurting and scaring you when Minako jumped across the rooftops in a golden blur, down into the smoke-filled streets below. She's going out there to fight an army for you, and you're not there.

It feels so wrong.

You can't see Minako right now; she's cast one of her spells and from this angle you don't see the street where she's standing. But you can just barely make out the Onogoro foot soldiers she's facing. Their little flags are wavering and sliding away from MCAT, away from her, you think. So at least if Minako is fighting an army for you, at least you're pretty sure she's winning.

But that's just something you tell yourself; it doesn't stop your nerves from winding up tight, like something so sharp it could cut steel. You concentrate on remembering to breathe, which is easier to forget when you're transformed. You concentrate on your communicator and waiting for Rei to tell you anything new as you watch for any sign that something might have gone horribly wron-

There.

A streak of light rushes up into the sky, somewhere at least a kilometer away. Probably two. A rocket, maybe? There are a lot of buildings between you and wherever it launched from; you can't be sure exactly which cross-street or alleyway in that part of the city it might have come from. The rocket hardly leaves any visible smoke trail at all, the way fireworks might, and what smoke there is fades much faster than you'd expect. Faster than is natural.

But wherever that rocket came from, it's in the sky, and you don't think it's friendly, and you know what to do about that.

You draw forth the Moon Rod, twirling it around your fingers as it lengthens and grows into the ancient Moonlight Staff of the princess. You push it down a little ways through the rooftop's gravel and just slightly into the material beneath, to keep it stable. Then you reach out and a shiver runs down your spine as your fingers gently pluck the strange heat-shimmer point at the center of the staff's crystal crescent headpiece.

「Moon Sparkling Sensation! 」

Your consciousness blooms forwards, spreading out through the cone of perception that comes with the true form of Serenity's only combat spell. The burning thing is now arcing over and down- roughly towards where Minako is fighting. It's… it's definitely a rocket, but that's not all it is. It has magic around it- in it- and it's definitely looking for something. You're more and more sure that that something is someone.

Your brow blazes with the familiar sense of your lunar crescent coming to vibrant, radiant life. Power flows from your every pore. You worry that the binding-mages may be able to sense this, but from what Naru learned, you should be outside their reach here. This spell gives you more than enough reach for that. You draw your fingers back, stretching as if you were drawing a bow, ready to swat down the weap-

Wait! That thing isn't just a weapon, it's some kind of spirit-creature!​

Wait, what? At the very literal speed of thought, you try to quell this absurd idea of not zapping this rocket.

You can feel it, it's been… trained somehow, it's just doing what it thinks will get it fed. Hungry little ghostly thing…​

It's not that you like the idea of using the Sparkling Sensation on something that you sense is kind of like a ferocious dog or a hungry hawk but…

Oh, you've heard stories of things like this being used for war, there's… hm, you can't remember, there's something but that's just the kind of militant magic you never really cared for…​

What. Why is your brain doing. Why is your brain. GAH! You wrestle with yourself more angrily, and force the intrusive foolishness from your mind because there is literally a rocket flying through the air and you're pretty sure it's aimed at Minako- And the strings of force connecting your fingertips to the focus of the Moonlight Staff go 'pop' and disappear in a shower of silver sparks. You grit your teeth and begin the spell again, as fast as ever before and probably faster…

You think it's anticipating something- it must be that conditioning, you're sure of it, really kind of pitiable…​

I mean you can kind of see the point but that is a rocket and it is headed for-

Shukra's amazing at this kind of thing, she'll stop it if she thinks she should. You honestly can't imagine her letting something like this really get to her, being a warrior is her whole… idiom, really.​

Damn it, you are going to zap that rocket and- and once again, the spell blinks out. Because magic that only the shadow of Princess Serenity understands, is magic that can only be cast through the shadow of Princess Serenity's ancient understanding of the world.

And the sheer swirling chaos in your brain leaves you frozen, staring, hating that you haven't even managed to shout a warning, as the rocket dips down between the buildings out of your line of sight and there's a boom and you're still frozen and at war with yourself, locked up, until you see Minako balancing atop a streetlight and thank any gods that are listening, as your past life clearly was not, that she's probably okay.

See, just like you thought!​

Your breath hisses in between your gritted teeth as you ball your angry fists. You think you finally understand, for the first time, why Ami talks about Ermis the way she does. When she does, she sounds a little like the way you feel right now. Now that you've seen- felt- one of your most powerful spells be useless to help one of your best friends, seeing the spell leave you useless to help your friends, all because your over-pampered magical space princess past self has the fighting instincts of a head of lettuce!

Another rocket rises into the sky. A little growl passes your lips. If Serenity won't help you, fine, you'll do it yourself! You let go of the Moonlight Staff and take a step forwards. You raise your hands to frame a box of night sky, and-

「Moon Sparkling Sensation!」

You frame the rocket in your fingers, and you can feel your intent forming into a beam. But there's none of the magical awareness, the sense that you know everything that is happening up there, about every bird and bee and airplane and orbiting satellite in the direction that your hands are pointing. You have no idea how Serenity did that. You also have no idea why, instead of the pencil-thin beams you get with the Moonlight Staff, your beam is a fist-sized bore stabbing into the night sky.

The rocket's fast, and quite far away, and climbing at a funny angle and twitching back and forth as it makes little corrections. And it's hard to keep things perfectly centered with just your fingers. This isn't like a light gun game at the arcade, where the enemies are big and right there in front of you. In the first moment, the beam misses, and you try to correct, to twist it a little or guide it onto the rocket. But that just makes it worse. The beam thickens, thins, twists into a spiral, sways back and forth across the sky, and briefly somehow locks into something that squiggles back and forth like a schoolbook drawing of a wavelength.

You miss, and you miss, and you keep missing even as you start to really feel the strain of keeping the spell up for the first time. Fighting things that are flying and kilometers away is hard, and the only consolation you have is that the rocket never curves back down towards the ground at all. It never even touches your friends. It keeps slanting upwards, towards one of the brilliant flares in the sky that are hanging on parachutes. It reaches the flare and explodes with a distance-softened boom that you hear several seconds later. The flare goes dark.

A moment later, as you stand frustrated, you hear a voice.

"Hey, Venus here. I'm okay, though running off didn't feel great. That binding spell's pretty nasty, so watch out!"

"Wait, they cast it on you!?"

"Oh, yeah, Got tied up and dragged and all that. I broke loose, though; it's not unbeatable."

"Do you think it had anything to do with that rocket? I saw there was a rocket. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I've been punched in the face by worse… once. Watch those things; it came after me like it knew my home address. And I don't know my home address!"

That's it. That's… that's it. She's been hurt too many times and you aren't going to let that happen again, not to any of your friends. It occurs to you that the rockets would probably do much worse to anyone else except your friends, but you were already moving before you thought of that.

You glance up at the sky. While you were listening to Minako, four more flares have appeared… or more than four have appeared and a few have disappeared, which might well be true, because you see another rocket climb into the sky like the one from before. And they could switch back to your friends any time they show themselves, couldn't they?

You clench your fist angrily, and say one more thing through the communicator.

"Okay, that's enough rockets! Mars, you're still there in the room with Samui?"

"Yes." You can hear that quiet concern; she can tell you've made a decision but doesn't know what it is.

"Good. Then if MCAT needs any more close-up help, it's your decision, what to do about it. I'm going to go do something about those rockets, if I have to go up there and break them in half myself!"

And you mentally tune out of your communicator, because this is going to take your concentration. You look up into the sky at a streak of blazing fire, and you judge your moment and you can teleport to anything you can see, and you can sure see that thing-

*flicker grab*

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Things stop going according to plan.

There's a lot about the rockets that you don't know.

You don't know that, following the orders of the Onogoro general, the Onogoro rocketeers have set their weapons to chase after the brightest, most radiant and obvious sources of magic they can see.

You don't know that in the 'eyes' of the strange, ferocious little guiding spirits that inhabit the rockets… Well, to them, in the moment of your teleportation, the power of lunar magic briefly outshines the flares.

You don't know that you have badly, badly confused the rocket you were coming for. The rocket which you just gracefully grabbed ahold of with one hand, and which is now trying to home in on a target that is hanging off its own tail assembly.

All you know is that you had expected to grip it with one hand, already sure you could, and then grab it with the other and snap it in half and you really didn't think much about it… and you got as far as having a one-handed grip and now the city skyline is spinning around in wild, crazy circles, crazier even than when you lost control with Ami last night over Mercury, and your twintails are trailing out behind you, and-

"AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

You can barely see anything; even with the senses of a Sailor Senshi, you can barely understand what is happening. The rocket engine is strong. Nowhere near so strong that you couldn't resist it on the ground, but more than strong enough to easily sling your weight around when you have nothing to brace against. And it's chasing the strongest magic in the sky… you.

"AAAAAAAAAAH!"

But you won't… let… go… and you blindly wave your other arm around until you get that grip and do like you planned and snap.

The rocket is broken now and for a moment a wash of burning gunpowder or something a lot like it dazzles your vision and fills your nose with the scent of not quite fireworks and… okay. now you are falling and you've got two big lengths of dented, crudely torn rocket tube in your hands. And since the rockets explode, you're pretty sure the piece with a poky stick on its nose is a bomb, which you're careful not to touch. And you're falling and you whip your head around and… there's a couple more rockets in the sky and they look like they're curving around to head right for you.

Okay. Okay, you can do this.

Except now you're holding a bomb and you have to put it somewhere so you pick a rooftop that looks easy to find again and flicker and set it down gingerly, with the not-poky end facing down. You look up and there are two burning dots in the sky that are getting bigger very fast-

flicker

***​

Lord Nakatomi collects reports from the northern and eastern forces- both advancing slowly, but their commanders don't sound overawed or beaten. They've seen no sign of the Senshi yet. He hesitates for a split second before picking up the ear again to address his niece, with the formality of a commander addressing one of his senior officers…

"Lady Nakatomi, report on the eastern force!"

She was probably expecting it, because the reply is commendably unflinching. "A few dead, several incapacitated, many walking wounded. Sailor Venus broke loose of the binding ritual, but she ran off instead of coming after us again. I- think I'll have the men rallied soon, uncle."

He forces himself to sound sober and calm about that news. "Right. Very good. Carry on, then."

He takes a moment to compose himself, and turns only when he hears a diffident voice from the rocket board. The Hinoyama man. Right.

"Lord Nakatomi, my apologies, but a problem has occurred. It may, or may not, be a concern…"

He has no time for this kind of thing. "Tell me."

"My kin are doing their best to attack the illusion-breaking flares, but one of the Sailor Senshi…"

Alarm spikes in Nakatomi's gut. He twists, more fully turning to face the rocket man. "Are your people being attacked!?"

"Ah, no, not as such…"

***​

"AAAAAAAAAAH!"

This high up, no one can really hear you scream, so you just let it out, because it seems to help. At least it makes you feel better. Darkness-city lights-darkness blurs together in a whirl as, for the fourth time, a missile chases its own tail frantically. As you hang on and dent the casing with your grip and reach up and crack-hissss again get a faceful of burning powder.

And now you're falling again.

You're beginning to think you should do something different, but you can't think of anything that would work, what with Serenity making the Sparkling Sensation pretty much useless for this. So you twist in midair, trying to shake the dizziness out of your head, trying to watch for any rockets that you can only guess are seeing what you're doing and deciding they want to play with you-

kaboom

OW something boots you hard in the small of the back because you missed one of the rockets that was tracking on you and you flail your arms and cry out because dammit that hurts. Everything from the middle of your back down to your toes suddenly aches and you're still falling, wait, you're actually getting pretty close to the ground-

"AAAAAAH!"

flicker

But you won't give up!

***​

Soberly, the Hinoyama man taps the little scrying mirror with his free hand. It shows a very distant view of the tiny figure of a woman, struggling in the sky. "That's happening, sir. I can only assume it's a Senshi-"

Nakatomi nods. "We have reason to believe Sailor Moon could be doing that. I hope none of the others can teleport like that, anyway. But remember your orders. Rockets on the flares, unless they are called after the Senshi!"

"I don't think we can get the flares like this, sir. More of them keep whistling in from somewhere and the rockets keep deciding they'd rather chase Sailor Moon, who won't sit still-"

There's a flash of light from the scrying mirror. "Congratulations, Hinoyama-san. For what it may turn out to be worth, I think your clan has scored another direct hit. Carry on as you are doing."

The Hinoyama man nods and puts the mirror away, then goes back to his board.

Nakatomi suppresses a sigh. He can't let the Hinoyama clan think their efforts are useless or unappreciated. But unless the rockets do more harm to the Sailor Senshi than he expects, more than Matsu seems to think they are or can, this isn't good at all. The flares are still acting on his men unimpeded, denying them the power of illusion, and whatever bizarre combination of magics Sailor Moon is using are allowing her to tie his rocket artillery completely into knots. But maybe a few more rockets will soften the strange kami up a bit for…

He picks up the second, more crudely carved jade ear again.

***​

"AAAAAAH!"

You're pretty sure this is the eighth rocket. Or the seventh? Maybe just six and it feels like eight. You reach sideways-down-up, grip, and snap-

"ACK!"

You catch yourself just before you get confused and set the explodey end of the rocket down on the rooftop that isn't there because you teleported up to get away from the other rocket, which-

flicker

Okay, now you can put the bomb down and before the rockets come down here and blow up in the middle of all these bombs, which would be just a disaster-

flicker

You're a thousand meters high and falling again.

Spoiler: Sealing Moon

Sailor Moon
d100 + 15 (Evasive Tactics) + 10 (Significant Spoilers) + 10 (Extreme Range) + 30 (Flailingly Whirlingly Teleportingly Mobile) - 10 (Spectacularly Conspicuous)
Vs
Onogoro Godbinders
Dd100 - 20 (She's No Kami)

d100 + 55, rolled a 28, result 84
Vs
d100 - 20, rolled an 87, result 67

Senshi Modest Success!
Sealing Attempt Fails!

And as you sort of slump into that familiar falling sensation, you go limp for just a moment, because you're really high up now and you know you must have at least twenty or thirty seconds before you hit the ground and you just need about five seconds, because you are very much on edge and using your magic very hard…

"ACK!"

You see cords shimmering out of nowhere in the light of the flares, whipping through the space you just passed through. They're… ghostly, somehow.

Then you fall past another set that twist and writhe a little behind you. But you didn't see them till you'd already fallen past them, so you think they must have slid… through you somehow, without you noticing, which would make you feel uncomfortable if you had time to feel that way, which you don't, because AAAAH, another rocket-

flicker

***​

"Lord Nakatomi, I'm sorry, but she's moving around too much! And she's switching between being too high, and on the ground, and outside the cordon! If- if she'd just stand still for more than about fifteen seconds, I'm sure we'd have her-"

Nakatomi suppresses, yet again, a grumble of discontent. "But if she stood still, she'd be doing something else to ruin our day. Give up and get ready to try again if another one of them reveals herself, or if something else changes."

"Thank you, milord. I'm sorry."

"There are limits to all things." Nakatomi shakes his head and cuts off the thread of willpower that turns the jade ear into more than just an ornament.

Click to shrink...

Absolutely adorable, and exactly the sort of pick-me-up I needed

 

[Simon_Jester]

Absolutely adorable, and exactly the sort of pick-me-up I needed

Click to shrink...

The missile does not know where it is. It knows this because it knows where it isn't: Sailor Moon. But it *is* where Sailor Moon is, because Sailor Moon is hanging off the missile's tail assembly. Attempts to subtract where it is from where it isn't produce a constant. The guidance spirit uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, but where it isn't keeps moving in unison with where it is, and so it arrives at a position where it wasn't, and Sailor Moon is still not there. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that Sailor Moon was, and it follows that the position that Sailor Moon was, is now the position that she isn't, which is why she's getting dizzy.

As the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. The variation is considered to be a significant factor, but the guidance spirit isn't smart enough to correct for it, and is also helpless to do so in any event, because Sailor Moon is still hanging off the tail assembly.

 

[Almech_Alfarion]

The missile does not know where it is. It knows this because it knows where it isn't: Sailor Moon. But it *is* where Sailor Moon is, because Sailor Moon is hanging off the missile's tail assembly. Attempts to subtract where it is from where it isn't produce a constant. The guidance spirit uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, but where it isn't keeps moving in unison with where it is, and so it arrives at a position where it wasn't, and Sailor Moon is still not there. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that Sailor Moon was, and it follows that the position that Sailor Moon was, is now the position that she isn't, which is why she's getting dizzy.

As the position that it is in is not the position that it wasn't, the system has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the missile is, and where it wasn't. The variation is considered to be a significant factor, but the guidance spirit isn't smart enough to correct for it, and is also helpless to do so in any event, because Sailor Moon is still hanging off the tail assembly.

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This is one of the most convoluted waffles I have ever seen. Not quite to the level of when temporal paradox mechanics mesh with multiverse theory, but nearly equally as glorious.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I took the original and some understanding of function math up through basic calculus and just... stirred.

 

[RadiantPhoenix]

Something to keep in mind for the future:

Serenity is basically defenseless against human shield tactics.

Usagi will have to handle those without her help.

 

[Razzocnor]

Honestly, I suspect that one of our side's bigger advantages in this conflict is that to win, all we really need to do is hold them off until their resources start running out. Onogoro has a finite supply of Empty Faces, rockets, and sealing ritual components in play, and if they spend them all without achieving their objectives, they're basically up a creek without a paddle while JSDF reinforcements move in to surround them and Senshi run rampant. If they actually lose their infantry force here, without managing to destroy MCAT or seal the Senshi, Onogoro authority in the local area is likely to go from shaky to outright collapsing. They still have other centers of power out there, and could conceivably regroup, but their ability to press the offensive in Tokyo, or even just keep control of their population here, will be more or less completely spent. At least on the timescales we tend to work on.

The tricky bit is that they do have a very real ability to push forward with those heavy infantry, who are making significant progress, and the Empty Faces are very much a lurking threat. But if we can stop the Empty Faces, and stall the infantry long enough for the attritional losses they're taking to really start degrading their combat effectiveness even as the rocket supply starts to run out, Onogoro doesn't look to have too many more options for regaining momentum. Though we should keep an eye out for a 'secret weapon', just in case; they might yet have something nasty on hand that they would rather not uncork in public but could in a pinch.

 

[Hazard]

A question that needs answering is; how much of Onogoro's resources are being burned on this operation?

What we've seen of mage population numbers imply that those are... kinda limited, which means that the manpower pool they can draw upon isn't exactly great either, and they're already running what's effectively multiple occupation forces.

They already lost at least a platoon in the opening of the attack to minimal effect.

Not that Onogoro won't have other forces it can call upon, it can draw down the forces at the various youkai reserves a fair bit for a short boost, for example, but if they're committing everything they can for a perceived youkai and divine rebellion with obvious major backing from somewhere in an attempt to smack it down before it can really gather steam, they might well break themselves even if they succeed here.

 

[RadiantPhoenix]

A question that needs answering is; how much of Onogoro's resources are being burned on this operation?

What we've seen of mage population numbers imply that those are... kinda limited, which means that the manpower pool they can draw upon isn't exactly great either, and they're already running what's effectively multiple occupation forces.

They already lost at least a platoon in the opening of the attack to minimal effect.

Not that Onogoro won't have other forces it can call upon, it can draw down the forces at the various youkai reserves a fair bit for a short boost, for example, but if they're committing everything they can for a perceived youkai and divine rebellion with obvious major backing from somewhere in an attempt to smack it down before it can really gather steam, they might well break themselves even if they succeed here.

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If they "win" here then they get eaten by Metallia, assuming something else doesn't get them first..

 

[Slindet]

If they "win" here then they get eaten by Metallia, assuming something else doesn't get them first..

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If they win here, then Metallia eats them, Dark Fall kills them, Moebius enslaves them, Nightmare Corporation does... whatever they want to do, or Dune kills everyone.

Safe to say they're trying to enable five different apocalypses right now, and that's excluding the Knights of Oblivion, the Dark Seeds, the Phantom Empire and Eternal, who the Yes Cures canonically go up against after Nightmare is dealt with.

 

[RadiantPhoenix]

If they win here, then Metallia eats them, Dark Fall kills them, Moebius enslaves them, Nightmare does... whatever they want to do, or Dune kills everyone.

Safe to say they're trying to enable five different apocalypses right now, and that's excluding the Knights of Oblivion and Eternal, who the Yes Cures canonically go up against after Nightmare is dealt with.

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I wish I could call them unrealistic villains.

But that behavior is all to realistic.

All we're missing is another group that would get fucked over by all of those and persecuted by the Onogoro, who openly declare their refusal to support MCAT because "ACAB" or smth.

 

[Angelform]

Right now we're probably waiting for them to be backtraced by MCAT. Magical girls are not traditionally very good at finding things that aren't actually elemental evil and nobody wants to bring the nine year old with a homebrew AWACS spell into a deadly civil war.

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Don't know if they can backtrack but I hope they are doing something this turn beyond holding the line. They have uncommitted heavy hitters and I really don't want to spend the next three combat turns plinking away at the assault forces one senshi at a time. Throwing a senshi, a few 'gears and a high end yokai or two at a force all at once would probable break it.

Something to keep in mind for the future:

Serenity is basically defenseless against human shield tactics.

Usagi will have to handle those without her help.

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Bold of you to assume she would be willing to hurt evil people. Or evil animals. Or entire living plants, rather than dead fragments. Or AI advanced enough to chat.
If we ever want to use the naval PD spell in combat against an actual enemy then we need to dedicate an action to having Usagi learn it herself.

A question that needs answering is; how much of Onogoro's resources are being burned on this operation?

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Basically everything. Their vanguard was all the 'reliable' demon hunters. The main assault forces consist of nobles and their family retainers. Once killed such people would take a generation or more to replace.
The Empty Faces seem like the sort of organisation that recruits the 'best of the best' then puts them through an internal apprenticeship to bring them up to their institutional standard. Again this means any losses take a very long time to replace and enough losses at once mean they need to start from scratch.

Can't say what they are using in the way of spell components and reagents but Onogoro does not give the impression of being rich so probably they are digging deep into their hoarded reserves.

They have one shot at this. They might have a couple of doomsday options they can try instead but this is their only chance at conventional victory.

 

[GrayGriffin]

All we're missing is another group that would get fucked over by all of those and persecuted by the Onogoro, who openly declare their refusal to support MCAT because "ACAB" or smth.

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I mean, there were posters in this very thread who were mad that MCAT was grabbing various magical items that we didn't even need, or suspicious of them working with people who are villains in their home series.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I mean, there were posters in this very thread who were mad that MCAT was grabbing various magical items that we didn't even need, or suspicious of them working with people who are villains in their home series.

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To be fair, at the time, there was no small amount of reason to believe that the home-series villains were dominating MCAT and making it act in evil ways. It wasn't an unreasonable suspicion, especially since at the time the full scope of Onogoro and its relationship to the yokai were a bit... vague.

Things didn't start to come together until we met Samui and realized that fundamentally MCAT is a good team in hypothetical danger of being taken over by a bad guy who wants to co-opt it (Fudo) rather than being a bad team that's co-opted some individually good people.

Bold of you to assume she would be willing to hurt evil people. Or evil animals. Or entire living plants, rather than dead fragments. Or AI advanced enough to chat.
If we ever want to use the naval PD spell in combat against an actual enemy then we need to dedicate an action to having Usagi learn it herself.

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1) It may take more than a simple action to do that, because the spell may be taking advantage of the fact that when Serenity learned it she probably had the education of a 100-200 year old archmage. We see that Usagi can generate the beam just fine, it's all the targeting and aiming and general "avionics" that's difficult. Given how many magical girls have comparably impressive laser beams versus how many have comparably impressive ability to do scrying, the scrying is probably the hard part when you're a teenager who inherited her powers.

2) The good news is that Greater Moon Sparkling Sensation does have a valid use even against things you can't shoot with it. It's a sensor system, and a damn good one.

Basically everything. Their vanguard was all the 'reliable' demon hunters.

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Welll... it was all the demon hunters Lord Soga could personally recruit.

I bring this up because the underlying phenomenon is (a) probably the only reason Onogoro will still have an army after this battle and (b) probably the only reason Onogoro didn't bring like 2x or 3x more guys. Onogoro is feudal. There are some institutions that seem like quasi-state agencies (the "Guardians" that are run either by Mistress Sato or by Sir Not Appearing In This Film, the Empty Faces), yes... But it looks like most of the actual forces are the result of Lord So-and-So calling his 15 closest friends who are into tactical shit and have weapons, or the result of Lord So-and-So specifically spending money to cultivate having 15 close friends who are into tactical shit and have weapons and then calling on them when he needs them.

Presumably there are lords who didn't come along with this attack, and who didn't contribute much if anything to it except maybe some taxes or some donated kit from their personal vaults. Those guys will still have an army when all this is over... but on the other hand, those guys are also the guys who specifically didn't think coming along with this attack was a good idea.

So while Onogoro will not be out of forces, and statistically they may still have plenty of forces and have lost only a small percentage, Onogoro will probably have a much harder time rallying those forces to do anything like this again, because the attackers this time are specifically drawing heavily from the members of the elite who thought doing this was a good idea, plus people who are personally loyal to those members of the elite or otherwise have some kind of solid relationship with them.

Also, as you allude to, some of the "state troop" assets of Onogoro's central government, such as it is, are at relatively high risk. The godbinders may actually just be ordinary mages willing to cast an extraordinary ritual, but the rocketeers are a specific family who make rockets and it's what they do. There might be, say, one other family that does that in Onogoro, or there might be zero, but if we manage to kill or capture a lot of these guys and/or just burn through their stockpiles, they may not have rockets anymore. And prisoners from this family probably know a lot of the secrets of where and how the rockets are made, and so it would be pretty straightforward for MCAT to just blow that one place up after this. As you've said, too, dead Empty Faces are nearly irreplaceable. Same thing.

 

[Xexilf]

A question that needs answering is; how much of Onogoro's resources are being burned on this operation?

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Most of them, likely. Now they will keep some back, obviously, like elite guards for their important bases and other forces that are critical were they are, but those they cannot deploy ever unless the world is ending really. We already know mages are a relatively small population. We also know that most of them don't spend years getting good at magical combat. And we know that Onogoro would want only those who are loyal and skilled for this.

They already lost close to a hundred, and have 3-400 left in the operation. And those are largely minor nobles, personal retainers, and what few elite units they have deployable. Even if they win the battle, it would likely be a Pyrrhic victory that spells the doom of Onogoro, unless from here on out everything goes absolutely perfect for them. In a calm world this would take decades to replace, unless they go a massive recruiting spree and promote other people into nobles in exchange for service or some such, but apart from being politically difficult for them, even that would take years and massive resources.

Empty faces are in an even worse position. Estimates that there are 40-80 of them, assuming mage lifespans are roughly the same or slightly higher than normals, implies they recruit maybe one or two a year. And that probably something that cannot be rushed much even if you throw a pile of money at it. So significant losses there are a very serious problem.