- Location
- Peterborough
Especially considering that Vivio may well be the Senshi for Belka in this crossover setting. Not only are they kidnapping Nanoha's friends, but they also kidnapped her daughter. No wonder the BMC are trying to change the past.
Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If Vivio is Sailor Belka, and Vivio is born/decanted more or less "on schedule" (that is, she's a small child when Fate and Nanoha are about 18, which would place her birth some time in the mid-1990s) and if Minori is born some time in the mid- to late 2010s...
...Then if Minori comes from the time when the Black Moon Clan is messing with Vivio, Vivio is already an adult in her mid-twenties and may be giving the Black Moon Clan their own problems right along with a Nanoha who's somewhere around forty.
...Then if Minori comes from the time when the Black Moon Clan is messing with Vivio, Vivio is already an adult in her mid-twenties and may be giving the Black Moon Clan their own problems right along with a Nanoha who's somewhere around forty.
- Location
- Earth
Ask the last person who did that how well that ended for them lol
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The Midnight Incident - Part 11
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Midnight Incident
Part Eleven
Part Eleven
flicker
「Lunar Rainbow Burst! 」
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「Lunar Rainbow Burst! 」
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「Lunar Rainbow Burst! 」
flicker
You allow yourself a bit of a pause to breathe on top of a building about four kilometers away from the ongoing battle, comfortably out of the binding ritual's range. You've carpeted the grounds inside MCAT's gates, and the aid stations that Samui mentioned to you, with Rainbow Bursts. That should get almost everyone who needs it. You can do more… in a minute. All that whirling and falling and teleporting really did a number on you. Thankfully, you put Rei in charge of remembering where everything is, because right now you can barely remember where you are. With another deep breath, you lightly slap your cheeks and turn your attention back to the fight. What was it… You heard some bad things about the… it was the eastern gate situation, so-
flicker
No, wait, you were remembering that backwards, the image in your head was of the west gate, and now you're standing behi-
Aaack!
Panicking catboy with a rocket launcher!
You're used to people being a lot slower than you when you're transformed. But either catboys have really fast reflexes, or this one's special, or both. He's spun around to point the rocket launcher in your general direction before his brain begins to recognize you, distinctive as your appearance may be.
And he's got it around to where you are staring right down the business end of the rocket at the end of the tube almost, almost before you get to the part where your brain catches up to what's going on around you at all.
Your brain, which tries hard to be responsible and unperforated, decides that it doesn't want to find out whether MCAT rockets are nicer or meaner than Onogoro rockets even if Onogoro rockets are a lot bigger.
So you dive out of the way. You're sure that nobody heard any 'eep', and if they did, well, they're lying. And in the same moment that you begin to bounce to your feet from your roll on the ground, a big redheaded giant has reached the catboy's side in a rush of wind. With a mighty white-and-gold gauntlet that trails spiralling emerald flames, he backhands the rocket launcher's tube up so that it points towards the sky.
The catboy never does pull the trigger, thankfully.
As you roll to your feet, Genjuro Kazanari shouts to the catboy, "Careful where you point that thing!"
You breathe out a quiet sigh of relief that that seems to have ended well and give Mr. Kazanari a bit of a dip of the head. "I'll try not to sneak up on people like that, sorry!"
flicker
You decide to teleport behind the Onogoro army to see if anyone got left behind. Which turns out to be difficult because the first place you try is full of thick clouds of blinding smoke and oh…
「Lunar Rainbow Burst! 」
「Celestial Maiden Elevates Offending Pervertt! 」
seize throw
"WHOOA!"
crackle
*thwop*
You pass a very short time doing that sort of thing very quickly, and
flicker
Neither oral accounts of the battle, nor fragmentary security camera footage, nor Sailor Moon's own memories permit a complete and precise accounting of her whereabouts during these minutes of the Midnight Incident. There is, at best, a tally of the lives saved- a sizeable one.
Being familiar with her methods, Director Samui first informed Sailor Moon of the location of the three major aid stations and sole medium-duration hospital-equipped facility to be found in the MCAT headquarters compound back in very late May. Sailor Moon occasionally misremembers which photograph goes with which location, but it makes very little difference in the long run. She covers them all, very quickly, and many other places besides.
Then she teleports forth on what might be called 'search and rescue,' though she would not give it such a formal name. This takes her through a dizzying selection of locations, often to the considerable surprise of both sides.
A few injured men on the east wall walkway, cruelly and multiply accursed and wounded by the short-range bombardment of Onogoro spells that swept the walls, are the last MCAT beneficiaries of this whirlwind approach. A sudden rush of rainbow vitality braces the defenders bare moments after the last shrapnel from the unsuccessful claymore mines rattles off the dismounted compound gates, which Lady Nakatomi has just recently turned into improvised mantlets. The moonfire swirls around them and causes brief dismay as it casually bypasses heavily reinforced wards, but since it does so by virtue of the sheer innocuousness of its intent, nothing happens. The Onogoro troops receive no blessings, but are not affected save by the sight of the thing. They quite abruptly break stride, but that is all. The consequences of this will be felt later, but Sailor Moon is already gone.
And indeed, not only does she criss-cross the base repeatedly seeking MCAT wounded, but she also goes out into the smoke to seek any MCAT personnel abandoned at the original perimeter checkpoints. She finds none- or rather, no MCAT wounded. The MCAT perimeter guards retreated hastily but in good order, bringing their wounded, and even their few dead, back inside the walls already.
But of the twelve Onogoro demon-hunters who survive the night and Lord Soga's disastrously ill-conceived attempt to capture the perimeter outposts by stealth, seven owe their lives to being indiscriminately restored to health by a Lunar Healing Burst. Of course, once saved, each of them is scooped up and hurled bodily through extradimensional space to a location too remote to have any impact on the present battlefield. Several of the casualties among the Onogoro heavy infantry experience the same fate, including the concussed Lord Ogura, who has found that the blast wave of an 84mm recoilless rifle shell is no respecter of noble pedigree, and makes no exceptions for members of the High Council.
The Onogoro wounded had all, or at least all who remained conscious, been unhappily awaiting the followup force of healers accompanying the controlled beasts and yokai of the reserve columns. As this has not gone as expected- in a few cases life-savingly so, particularly on the eastern axis where the healers mostly aren't coming- their fate is somewhat diverted.
Unbeknownst to Sailor Moon, due to a quirk of the local ley-lines, the formerly wounded Onogoro fighters are deposited squarely in the care of the Cherry Tree Blossom Blooming Princess.
The Princess is one of the more powerful and respected kami to survive the Fade. Indeed, quite a few other spirits no more revered and potent than herself did vanish. But mountain-spirits are, proverbially, well-rooted, albeit often stiff in their movements and aloof in their manners.
Despite this trend, abrupt and unannounced intrusions by such a means will usually attract attention from even the most aloof of spirits. The volcano-goddess reads nearly enough to satisfy her from the auras of the first few men who were dropped practically into her lap in the middle of a summer night. She then spends a moment contemplating the chief modern-day sources of her devotion and sacrifices, balances them against old pacts she made with her uninvited guests' forebears in centuries past, and declares herself a neutral party in the Onogoro-MCAT civil war.
Almost as though honoring the Hague Conventions, she interns the POWs. Rather out of keeping with the Hague Conventions, which she has in fact never heard of, she does so in a manner in keeping with her customary ways. Inaudible and intangible to all, invisible save as walking shadows to all including themselves, sustained against all physical diminishment, the detainees are bound to wander her little forest- Aokigahara. There they will remain, at least for the night, likely longer, until one or the other of the warring parties makes a convincing case for the captives' release into their respective custody or care.
With a quiet whisper, the mountain-spirit conjures up two loyal thrushes from her whims. On brief consideration, she decides to wait until the light of morning clears her cone to deliver the information about the captives to the warring parties.
***
Sailor Moon next returns to the east gate, but has a rather unpleasant surprise upon arrival, before she can even fully orient herself to understand the rapidly changing battle situation created by Sailor Jupiter's actions and their aftermath. The roots of this surprise stretch back several minutes during which time she has been otherwise occupied.
After their successful diversionary attack at the loading dock, the reduced Empty Face Team One, now with three effectives, had considered several options. They briefly contemplated bombing a power transformer that, according to their information, powers the base. Unbeknownst to them, the entire base has already switched over to backup harmonic power running off the Vajra in Dr. Sakurai's lab, transmitted over buried landlines, so the effect would likely have been less impressive than they had expected. But even their expectations for such a course were low enough that they chose another option.
They more seriously considered assassinating the rather conspicuous antitank missile team on the roof of one of the MCAT office buildings. However, they thought they could have a more direct and decisive effect by moving in a generally easterly direction to try and covertly support the main attack force pressing the east gate.
This action is complicated by the radiance of the star shells still hanging overhead. Several salvoes of flares have burned out and been replaced by the howitzer battery deployed at Camp Asaka since the start of the battle, and after the opening minutes of the engagement, the intervals between salvoes have been stretched to a full 165 seconds to get as much lifetime out of each flare as possible. Captain Sano is considering calling for the gunners to step back to half-battery salvoes and risk allowing more pockets of shadow in which visual illusions can survive, even though there is no immediate danger of the ammunition running out.
However, despite any long-term concerns, the flares are still providing near-total suppression of visual illusion effects across the entire MCAT compound and its surroundings. It is well for the Empty Faces that they train in a much wider variety of concealment techniques alongside simple invisibility magic. Experienced in psychoactive "witness-me-not" enthrallments, in purely mundane camouflage techniques, in social engineering-based infiltration and in many other skills, the Empty Faces are able to avoid detection as they cross the compound. They freeze in terror at a brief glimpse of the patrolling Sailor Venus, but she overlooks them. After a moment, they consider calling in the sighting to the forward headquarters and the godbinders. But by the time they feel confident moving and casting again, she is already gone and out of sight in an uncertain direction. Ships passing in the night.
Cursing the missed opportunity, the team crosses the remainder of the distance. Their skills at breaking and entering are nearly undimmed by the star shells, so they easily take up an observation post in a third floor office with a good view of the battle now unfolding.
They witness many things and attempt to subtly interfere with magic to the best of their ability in several ways, while avoiding detection. But notably, for the moment, they report Sailor Moon's arrival, in the very instant of her appearance, to the chief ritualist of the binding super-circle.
With the aid of Empty Face Team One, the ritualists finally manage to get a proper lock on the fast-teleporting Sailor Moon for the first time since the battle began.
When the binding ritual was prepared centuries ago, the assumption was, of course, that the kami targeted for binding would occupy a definite, specific location. They might be running like the swiftest deer, swimming like the swordfish, or flying like the eagle, but nevertheless, in one place at one time.
Through the sheer frequency of her teleports, and the fact that she is already beginning a further short-range teleport to get another angle on the situation, Sailor Moon has rendered herself a bit less… determinate.
Sailor Moon
d100 + 15 (Evasive Tactics) + 15 (Done This Dance) + 20 (Teleport-Mobile) - 0 (Very but Temporarily Conspicuous) - 10 (Multiple Persistent Area Effects)
Vs
Onogoro Godbinders
D100 - 20 (She's No Kami) - 5 (Temporary Service Outage- Electrical Hazards) + 3 (Familiar Signature) + 4 (Empty Face Spotters)
D100 + 40 -> 50+40 = 90
Vs
D100 - 18 -> 34-18 = 16
Onogoro Major Failure!
d100 + 15 (Evasive Tactics) + 15 (Done This Dance) + 20 (Teleport-Mobile) - 0 (Very but Temporarily Conspicuous) - 10 (Multiple Persistent Area Effects)
Vs
Onogoro Godbinders
D100 - 20 (She's No Kami) - 5 (Temporary Service Outage- Electrical Hazards) + 3 (Familiar Signature) + 4 (Empty Face Spotters)
D100 + 40 -> 50+40 = 90
Vs
D100 - 18 -> 34-18 = 16
Onogoro Major Failure!
She appears by kerosene-light on a cleared patch of bare cement in the basement of the regional office of a struggling record company. More precisely, she appears in the middle of a ritual circle that shines with a wavering sodium-yellow glow, surrounded by assorted similarly glowing markings- mostly I Ching hexagrams along with a few less recognizable symbols. And she appears to the sound of three men and one woman in robes loosely like Shinto vestments, chanting ominously in a stilted, archaic dialect of Japanese.
It is unlikely that the magicians themselves would have thought their chants were 'ominous' before. If they did, they surely develop a new appreciation for the meaning of the word now.
Sailor Moon's exact location was, as noted, rather less determinate than the ritual normally allows for. Being in transition between one place and another, her whereabouts prove far more… negotiable… than the ritualists would have expected. Instead of binding the upstart lunar deity, they inadvertently perform a summoning.
The three ritualists running Circle Thirteen, along with their substitute, have the bad luck of being at Sailor Moon's arrival point, chosen nearly at random from the twelve circles presently active in the circuit.
The result is a mitigated disaster.
Sailor Moon has, by this point, started reflexively casting spells immediately after a teleport, sometimes without entirely realizing where she is.
「Lunar Rainbow Burst! 」
The ritual circles are meant to be quite resistant against even overwhelming power directed against them from the point on which their magic is focused, through the medium of the binding-cords. But they are firmly linked by spellwork, and were never meant to contain anything directly, nor to block the lateral flow of power from circle to circle. Indeed, such blockages would make it nearly impossible for them to perform their function.
Circle Thirteen does not resist and does not emit so much as a crackle as an enormous cloud of polychromatic light and mist spreads to fill every corner of the basement and begins to expand beyond it.
And that same billow of light is echoed eleven times at each of the other active circles, and even faintly at Circle Nine, which has already been evacuated and is now under a pool of standing water from the sprinkler system of its building.
Only then does Sailor Moon realize that this isn't where she expected to be. It is, in point of fact, not even outdoors. Whirling to get a full picture of her surroundings, she quickly realizes what has happened in a sudden spike of indignation. She stomps across the edge of the ritual circle- which, again, does not resist. She reaches out and, on the theory that the man with the fanciest robes is in charge, singles this man out and pokes him in the center of the chest. When he starts to step back, she steps forward in unison, reaching out to grip the man by his robes and pull him in close, hauling him down to her eye level.
"Hey, now! You can't just go grabbing people off the stre-"
-Which is as far as she gets.
Luckily for Onogoro, the average level of preparation and rehearsal among the mages who have anxiously taken up the godbinding ritual for the first time in generations is very high.
Luckily for Onogoro, the mages' lack of practical experience proves to be an ally in this single instance, because many of them have prepared for one or more contingencies that their predecessors of centuries past would have considered absurdly unlikely.
Luckily for Onogoro, the site chief for Circle Thirteen is standing behind Sailor Moon and wears robes so modest as to be nearly shabby, having been chosen for his knowledge of magic theory far more than for his sense of fashion.
Luckily for Onogoro, the moon is in waning crescent and below the horizon.
Had any of these things been otherwise, the disastrous mishap might have proven even more damaging in the immediate moment. But luckily for Onogoro, one of the great truisms of magic- do not call up that which you lack the power to put down- is barely, just barely, overridden by one of the great truisms of fortune- easy come, easy go.
As Sailor Moon's first outraged sentence begins to pick up full and proper momentum, a frantic reversal of the spell that accidentally summoned her banishes her back to the most available alternative, along the path of least mystical resistance: the place she had originally intended to go anyway, a hundred or so meters and three stories above the site of the attack on the east gate.
However, Sailor Moon now has one very alarmed ritualist in fancy robes flailing frantically to try to get away from her practically unbreakable grip. For the moment, this occupies her attention.
Sailor Moon has accidentally captured one Onogoro godbinder ritualist! This will not entirely disable the Number Thirteen ritual circle in and of itself, but it sure won't do the place any favors! Bearing in mind the full suite of her abilities and all knowledge she has about the situation, what does she decide to do about that?
[ ] Write-in
Eighteen Hour Moratorium.
Allowable write-ins must be 'clean' declarations of intent regarding how to handle the captured magician. Write-ins that include other actions not directly logically connected to this question will not be accepted. For instance, "strand the guy on top of a skyscraper" would be a valid vote. But "strand the guy on top of a skyscraper and then go prank-call Haruka" would not be accepted, because prank-calling Haruka is an unrelated action that has nothing to do with handling the immediate task of 'what to do with the prisoner.'
In-character, Sailor Moon already knows a good deal about the godbinding ritual, including that it relies on twelve linked ritual circles requiring at least three casters, and that Onogoro has some number of spare casters on the circles and some number of spare circles.
She knows that the ritual is more successful at binding targets if their magic lingers or spreads widely in the target area, and also if they stay in place at a known location the ritual can home in on.
She has been told, and her own experience supports, the theory that the keys to avoiding being caught are mobility, keeping the enemy confused about your whereabouts, denying them easy ways to track you, and leaving a low magical profile. Sailor Moon knows that she's been moving so much that she herself has been getting confused about her whereabouts, so she's probably in a good place on those first two things.
However, thinking about it, she has probably left a lot of her magic all over the place now that half the compound has been thoroughly misted down with sparkly rainbow lunar energies.
She knows that the ritual is more successful at binding targets if their magic lingers or spreads widely in the target area, and also if they stay in place at a known location the ritual can home in on.
She has been told, and her own experience supports, the theory that the keys to avoiding being caught are mobility, keeping the enemy confused about your whereabouts, denying them easy ways to track you, and leaving a low magical profile. Sailor Moon knows that she's been moving so much that she herself has been getting confused about her whereabouts, so she's probably in a good place on those first two things.
However, thinking about it, she has probably left a lot of her magic all over the place now that half the compound has been thoroughly misted down with sparkly rainbow lunar energies.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
So... is there any reason, any at all, not to have Nanoha just Nanoha all over their ritual sites?
- Location
- Land of Confusion
Does Nanoha know Wide Area Search yet? Because if she does, Raising Heart should be able to filter MCAT locations out from a search for Lunar Rainbow Burst aftereffects, which should be a wonderful beacon for High Altitude Friendship.
Edit: Ami could probably run the same search, but I don't think she's present? It's a been awhile.
Edit: Ami could probably run the same search, but I don't think she's present? It's a been awhile.
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- Location
- Colorado
Hope she didn't have to deal with Genma too, that would really be something to apologize for.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Usagi bouncing around like a rabbit on speed was real joy to read. And it is time for the god binders to have a very bad ungood day, just the question is who provides the tender mercies Sir Frederick or Sailor Mars.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I honestly can't think of a reason other than "not knowing where they all are yet" or (hypothetically) "some other, even more urgent, matter demanding Nanoha's attention has just arisen." They absolutely do have it coming.
The goddess of Mount Fuji definitely does deserve that.
While we're at it, we should probably go to the sacred mountain we tossed Genma at and apologize for unwanted panda.
She used it in Precure Pileup.
Raising Heart seems to be able to keep track of most things within direct line of sight without an Area Search. Area Search would be useful if Nanoha plans to spend a round poking around the insides of buildings or searching for subtle magical emanations and things that aren't immediately obvious at a glance. Or for something like "identifying a single person out of all the people in a two-kilometer radius," I suppose.
The Onogoro captives tonight were sent to Mount Fuji. Genma got yeeted to another, entirely different mountain.
So all the binding ritual sites got bathed in Lunar Healing Burst, which Nanoha should be able to pick up the traces of if we ask her to search next turn.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
To be fair, going places unnoticed is Empty Faces' whole thing and these in particular were doing their level best to sneaky-sneak.
Though I imagine our vote is about "where does Usagi drop this guy off," unless Usagi plans to interrogate him herself.
- Location
- Peterborough
Suggestion- contact MCAT and arrange a secure drop off point for the godbinder.
Inform Raising Heart about recent unexpected deployment of LRB in godbinder circles.
Inform Raising Heart about recent unexpected deployment of LRB in godbinder circles.
- Location
- Hell.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Hey konohana-sakuya! Sorry for dropping these assholes off on your lawn!
I don't think the Honest Flame does anything to compel someone to answer questions. If we want to interrogate the guy mid-battle, we're going to be passing him off to someone with psychic combat skills, which realistically means Sir Fred. Probably he's going to be less resilient then the Empty Face was though.
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
…If we brought the ritualist to Mars, could she Hinest Flame him to get him to reveal where the ritual circles are, or if it just "whatever he chooses to say is honest"?
Who, it is VERY IMPORTANT to note, can also act as a spotter for the godbinding ritual. Whatever we do with him needs to involve getting rid of the hot potato ASAP