Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)
- Location
- Peterborough
The good news is we now have confirmation that "normal" humans are immune to the godbinders.
For a given definition of normal, obviously.
For a given definition of normal, obviously.
The Midnight Incident - Part 16
New
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The game of cat-and-mouse goes on as the fatal moment of 11:45 p.m., the time given to the Onogoro godbinders as the start of the attack and thus passed on to their enemies by Unnati, draws near. Two more false teams of mind-controlled victims are captured. In one case the Empty Face mastermind escapes cleanly. In the other, two men from the British liaison team manage to burn through the infiltrator's veils. Their quarry nearly eludes them even so, but she proves unprepared for a barrage of rapidly cycled counterspells from the heavily modified Psion devices that serve most of the British team as personal thaumaturgical assistants…
Unfortunately, as the other MCAT soldiers secure the Onogoro spy for detention and a hasty field interrogation, the Empty Face activates a stun-blast talisman. She escapes with the defenders in hot pursuit, but they have no luck in tracking her down.
The woman who calls herself only 'Whisper' is, at twenty-six, still working her way up to the full trust, confidence, and skills of the Imperial Truth Makers. She handled her mission well enough, leading a group of carefully hypnotized mundane civilians- a bow-hunter taken in the woods, two burglars who stumbled into a warded house, and some macho idiot who'd made a fool of himself and his black belt in front of the wrong people in some little incident down south.
The civilians, of course, were convinced that there was a shadowy political conspiracy behind MCAT, one that had to be uncovered at all costs. And that they were here to find a precious sacred relic taken by the conspirators- Whisper had chosen one more or less at random. And thus, four heroes of their own minds crept into MCAT's stronghold to retrieve the sword Ame-no-Habakiri
As far as Whisper knows, Ame-no-Habakiri is right in Isonokami shrine where it belongs. But the cover story wasn't supposed to hold together for longer than it took MCAT to catch the false team, anyway, so it hardly mattered. Of course, they were caught, and she was almost caught with them, but she managed to get loose and slip away from the yokai and their minions, leaving her somewhat at loose ends.
She and her fellow juniors were given orders, in the event that their decoy teams were detected but they were able to break contact and make their escape. Orders to make their way to the jail and link up with Team Two. But they also have orders to "pursue such secondary objectives as seem good and desirable…" and something fascinates her.
By what accounts they have, the rebels have at least one renegade mage of note, an artificer, among their ranks: Dr. Ryoko Sakurai.
Whisper was one of the Truth Makers on surveillance duty on Monday afternoon. From a distance she saw the young woman in the singing armor, with the endless blade and the lethal grace, smiting a summoned monster that three of MCAT's rogue tengu could not put down. That had to be Sakurai's work, and now Whisper finds that she must seek Sakurai out. She isn't sure what she intends, but she knows that she must.
***
The Truth Makers have determined that much of Dr. Sakurai's lab space must be underground, and that any of several buildings may have one or more entrances to the underground levels. Whisper had a couple of false start trying to make her way down there, but she's made it now. And following the sounds and the flickering traces of magic in the air has brought Whisper to within sight of the woman herself.
At this late hour, there are only three of MCAT's people in the room: Sakurai and two men. Whisper prowls around the room, examining various items and implements, taking a great many photographs, and effortlessly avoiding the attention of the MCAT researchers.
Because Sakurai and the two technicians are entirely intent on the bank of computers and controls they're sitting at. They have eyes only for the green blocks of text from the side-monitors and the more complex graphical displays on the color displays of the boxy computers in front of them. They have thoughts only for querying and commanding their systems with the heavy tac-a-tac of their keyboards. They have words only for each other, in clipped jargon that sounds nothing like any discussion of magic Whisper's heard before.
The Truth Maker reflects that she probably doesn't even need her invisibility spell to avoid these three's notice. All she has to do is not trip on something and knock a pile of equipment over.
Then one particular thing catches her attention.
The glass sphere looks like a funny application of the glassblower's art, with electrodes piercing it from every side, forming an equatorial belt. Glowing arcs dance and flicker, seemingly from the center to the edges- but no, it's the other way around, she's almost sure of it.
The spirals of flickering white twist and spiral and sing a soft lullaby she can feel through the soles of her feet if by no other way. They reach out and hold something there in the center of the sphere.
The tight shivering polychromatic sparkle at the sphere's heart looks like every color of the rainbow, and colors of darkness beyond human sight besides, all chained down into a crystalline trapezohedron. There's something about the gem that reminds Whisper of one of her advanced courses, but there are so many terrible secrets, secrets not told except to those who have firmly proven their dedication as Truth Makers, and done so more than once. It takes her a moment to remember… oh.
There it is. Something terrible, she knows it somehow. The shape, the sense of power as she focuses her mind on it- they didn't trust her with this ancient secret until just last year. And all they could give her was oral transmission from the memory of seniors who were mostly already dead. The old files on this supposedly-suppressed horror mostly went up in smoke at Hiroshima.
This thing doesn't radiate the dark, cancerous nastiness the stories would have led her to expect. But then, maybe it's just trying to lure her in by feigning a capacity for moral neutrality.
.
She touches a gloved, invisible fingertip to the glass, and just like that, flickers of woven-rainbow light, so tight as to appear mostly white to the naked eye, spiral towards her hand, slipping between the spirals. It reminds her of a child's toy she saw once, though with the raw stuff of magic rather than electricity.
The framework's song is no longer subtle, though it is still gentle, a calming pressure in the back of her head… which nearly lulls her into dangerous relaxation as the second song comes through the first. The second song is something different, something more, something from the thing at the heart of the sphere itself. Something scratchy and synthetic and full of intricacy that draws her mind into thoughts of power and possibility and all the glory she could dream of.
In a compressed moment of imagined experience, she stands before the Shadow Emperor and explains matters to him, kindly but firmly. The High Lords' services are no longer required, have not been required in far too long, and at last can be dispensed with. The old title of 'Commissioner for the Suppression of the Demons' is revived. The offices of the Ministry are put into order. Those who would hold back from the work forced into line. Little Brother's vast resources are sheared like the immense herd of largely innocent and well-meaning sheep its citizens are. The occasional exceptions are bound with light but sturdy chains, so to speak, since they seem to crave those chains so much as to sell out to inhuman masters. And those same masters are compelled to bow in their turn, or struck down if they refuse, as are the even more outlandish and sinister factions of magical bandits they spend so much of their time fighting.
She arms her soldiers with things of wonder seldom matched in all the history of these islands. And any so reckless, so incorrigible, and so strong as to stand against those soldiers… why, they fall to their knees, or to their faces in pools of their own blood, never knowing what struck them down, never truly understanding the power of her touch.
And when Japan is finally clean, it is time to turn the eyes of the new shogunate to-
Finally, Whisper jerks back her hand, as though feeling the first sting of pain from touching a hot stove after a moment of mere numbness. It takes more of her to do this thing than she'd like to admit, and quite a bit longer than her teachers would have hoped it would. Though they would likely have done no better, and many of them might have done worse.
This orb, the spirals drawing power off into passive mindless mechanism, the lullaby song, they're the work of an enchantment. Something unlike anything the Truth Maker has ever seen before. This can't possibly be the work of anyone but Dr. Sakurai, and even as an enemy, Whisper has to admire the product of the mad sorceress' art.
Because now she's sure, not quite correct in fact but very much sure, what she's looking at.
Shikon no Tama.
The authorized histories Whisper grew up on told her that the ruinous yokai onslaughts that characterized the Sengoku Period were nothing more than the same terrors the demons had committed across history, up until the Fade and the Clearances. And she still knows that this is fundamentally true. But there are more layers to history than that. Because many of the most powerful, cruel, and evil yokai of the period enhanced themselves with fragments of a legendary accursed artifact.
Shikon no Tama. The Jewel of Four Souls.
The Imperial Truth Makers have fairly good reasons to believe that every fragment of the evil jewel was tracked down and collected, reassembled, and then destroyed utterly. But despite that, the Truth Makers also know that there seem to be… complications... to this truth. Troubling inconsistencies. Strange results from divinations. Pieces of the story that don't seem to align with one another. Enough oddities that a handful of trustworthy mages, who over the years have dwindled into the ranks of only the Truth Makers themselves, are still taught to recognize what could conceivably be a fragment of the Shikon no Tama.
For legend- if there's any proof of it, it's been smoke these past forty-seven years- legend says that the Jewel was destroyed in holy fire once before… and that fifty years later, it reappeared in the hands of a strange priestess.
It is the duty of these few mages who can be entrusted with the secret of the Shikon no Tama's existence to be forever vigilant. To make sure that the old evil, should any part of it still exist or should there be any possibility of it returning from out of shadow and destruction, remains buried forevermore. And most especially, to make sure that the yokai never find out that any fragments may have survived.
For even the tiniest shard of the jewel is said to have power. Blighted, accursed power that can make even the weakest of demons into something vicious, mad, and corrupt. Power that reveals what they are at the heart- power that strips away all the masks and shows their true nature- monstrosity, down to the core.
And there are stories, too, of humans- humans whose hearts were twisted by greed, or ambition, or sadism- who took those fragments for themselves. And in so doing, they became demons themselves.
Mr. Nobody has already driven his fellow Truth Makers into a condition of high alert on the matter. The man suspected, but didn't get the chance to confirm, an aura that might just possibly have been a Jewel fragment in aTokyo police station. Upon discovering this, he was immediately beaten within an inch of his life by Sailor Mars. This fact, and the knowledge that the Sailor Senshi have power many times stronger than even the superhuman might of the yokai, suggests disturbing possibilities for the nature of their strength beyond the "renegade kami" hypothesis now favored by most of Onogoro.
But the presence of a shard here, in MCAT custody, is even more troubling. If the Senshi's power comes from the Shikon Jewel, they've done a good job of hiding it. By all accounts, those empowered by the Jewel became obviously corrupt, foul, and vicious. And the Sailor Senshi have maintained a remarkably clean and honorable reputation among the public and even among some of their Onogoro enemies.
If any of the yokai who seem to dominate MCAT were to get their hands on such power, Whisper cannot imagine that they'd be able to restrain themselves in its use. Indeed, this thing creates a mystery. Why is this here, in Dr. Sakurai's lab? Why hasn't the snow maiden who runs this agency, or any of the other yokai underneath her, taken this power for themselves? With but a touch, any one of them could turn themselves into an unholy terror, perhaps one with the power to end this battle, a power unmatched since before the Fade. Power to rival or perhaps exceed the Sailor Senshi- the very possibility of whose presence has demanded vast resources to contain.
If some of the legends are true, Samui could use this to turn the Ministry armies fighting to claim the base into chaff before her might. Why has she not done so? Whisper can only imagine that Dr. Sakurai, who, whatever else might be said of her, is at least still human, has kept the true nature of the Shikon fragment a secret from her demonic associates.
Perhaps Dr. Sakurai's tattered conscience understands what would happen if that kind of monstrosity were unleashed on the modern world. Perhaps she covets the evil crystal's power for herself.
Does she even know the Ministry has so much as thought about what to do with something like this? The knowledge is kept secret from all but the Truth Makers. Dr. Sakurai might not even realize that the Ministry is watching for them, however indirectly. Could that, could such things, have anything to do with why she threw in with the demons? But…
No.
No, there is no time to think about that.
This is far too big. As important as anything else that can possibly happen in this battle. More important than anything this laboratory could create. Likely more important than anything else that Dr. Sakurai could ever achieve in her life, for all that the singing armor is a marvel.
No, Whisper can't waste whatever blessing of fortune that kept this jewel out of the the direct control of MCAT's yokai masters. She has to get this thing out of here.
Now.
And she needs to do so without falling to the siren-slick promises that it offers her.
As Whisper steels herself to lift the sphere from its cradle, a flashing change on the screens on the far side of the room catches her eye. An alarm sounds. One of the green-screen monitors suddenly flashes a box of text she can't read from this distance, over and over for a few seconds, and then a cascade of other changes strike the rest of the monitors. More alarms sound.
Unsure whether to fully trust her invisibility, Whisper crouches down behind the table holding the jewel and its cradle, peeking out through a gap between the table and a wheeled toolbox. Dr. Sakurai has gone utterly, completely still. Frozen.
Then she moves. Fast.
She leaps from her chair, lunging to a keyboard near the machine that started the screaming. Quick bursts of clattering keys fill the room. She's trying to do something. Or to stop something.
"No, no, no! I told her it would be okay! I'm not going to let this- You! You stupid- Don't you give out on her now! If you give out on her, then I will make your bindings BURN-"
The machine gives a keening whine, then the screen goes blank. Several other displays change, with charted curves or diagrams disappearing. Dr. Sakurai's fingers hover above the keys, poised as if she had something more to do, then slowly curl into fists.
"AAAAAAAH!"
Dr. Sakurai screams and slams her fist into the desktop the keyboard rests on, hard enough that the particleboard cracks under the blow.
Whisper finds herself torn between getting out of here with the jewel and knowing what's going on. For a moment, frozen with indecision, she waits, and then hears Dr. Sakurai speak.
"That's… that's it. I can't stay away anymore. No more. Ogawa- bring me the staff."
One of the two men- probably Ogawa- balks, and both show signs of fear at her words. "Doctor- no, you can't be serious. Every time you've tried to use the staff to generate an effect, it goes haywire, and last time we ended up with that monster and we're lucky to be alive after that one…"
And then she wheels, turning towards them with her fists still balled tightly. Cold fury warps her voice, makes it brutally ugly and terribly compelling. "My daughter is hurt- maybe even dead! It would serve the forces arrayed against us right if I called up the doom of Irem against them! But such a quick death might even be called luck, and I have no intention of allowing them to be lucky!" Dr. Sakurai- or whatever has overtaken her- spits that last word furiously. "No, I have other plans. Tsuru, wheel the heavy projector prototype in from the test range-"
The other man, too, presumably Tsuru, shows a measure of backbone. "You're planning to dismount the main lens, yes?"
Dr. Sakurai's voice grows colder very fast. "Do you object?"
"I think that trying to power the lens, especially the dismounted lens, will cause feedback in the staff, causing its damage points to amplify themselves, and the device to fail."
"It won't fail me. Not tonight. Not now. Go, both of you!"
And that is as far as either Ogawa or Tsuru are prepared to press the matter. And much as Whisper wants to observe and pass information to command now that she's gotten into this important stronghold, she will never have a better distraction to remove the cursed jewel than she does right now. She has a feeling that if she were spotted in this room, it would go particularly badly for her. Especially now that she is alone with Sakurai, who has begun some kind of low, guttural chant in a language that Whisper doesn't recognize.
Fortunately, the glass sphere comes with a convenient carrying handle epoxied to the top. Even more fortunately, Dr. Sakurai managed to insulate the handle last week. And as Sakurai's chant begins to manifest as a knotted glowing band between her hands, as Sakurai's back is mostly turned, Whisper slowly rises behind her, wraps her gloved fingers around the handle, and plucks the sphere from the cradling framework it lies in. The jewel's call grows only somewhat stronger.
Empty Face: 8
Sakurai: 7
Sakurai: 7
That's it, she is leaving! Whatever 'staff' and 'lens' Sakurai was talking about, she doesn't want to find out what happens if a Shikon fragment gets added to the mix, especially if the fragment's starting to like her.
So she makes her escape from the mad sorceress' laboratory, despite the difficult balance between casting her notice-me-nots and avoiding any stray impulses that the jewel picks up on too strongly. It doesn't seem to have yet recognized Whisper as someone trying to claim its power, and Whisper very much prefers it that way.
When Whisper taps her toes together, her shoes are soft, and whether she does or not, her feet are quick. She'd be fairly good at passing unnoticed even without her spellcraft. She wriggles out into the open through the back door of a maintenance room by a loading dock and looks around- she doubts anyone saw the door open. The roar of gunfire and spellfire from the perimeter is loud, very loud, and she imagines most of MCAT's soldiers are busy with it.
She decides, instantly, that escaping the compound on foot is too chancy. She's already learned on the way here that roughly two thirds of her spells for avoiding detection aren't going to work as long as those damn flares are in the sky. Even if there are- she checks- only three instead of the six she remembers from before, that's still at least two or three too many.
Fortunately, she does have a planned contingency for this. She fishes sixty centimeters of silk rope out of her satchel, pops off the clamps that keep the ends from touching, and lays it down on the pavement in a rough loop. She briefly watches the rope stiffen into a perfect circle, then reaches down into the darkness of the no-longer-portable hole to retrieve something she bought on a whim on a brief trip to Europe. Something she's been teased about by her fellows- but only gently. Truth Makers have always had freedom to choose their own equipment; there's simply no other way, given the infinite diversity of magic.
Even when the item of equipment in question is a classic occidental flying broomstick.
The broomstick doesn't look like it'd make for a comfortable ride, but progress can be a good thing. There's a notch to mark the spot where forces conjure up a slightly misty seat which is… adequate, and at least doubles as a seat belt. The same complex of carefully prepared forces allows for hands-free steering with the knees if the rider knows what she's doing. Which Whisper has practiced… enough. Hopefully.
Especially because she's trying to fish her emergency microphone out of her satchel and activate it, without losing her grip on the jewel in its glass globe in her left hand, while concentrating intensely on not casting any spells too firmly. Whisper's grateful that no one's around this loading dock right now, because otherwise she'd have to drop the mic, the Shikon fragment, or herself off the broom and hope for the best.
After seconds that feel like a week, she gets the ear working. "This is Whisper. I've found an extremely dangerous artifact in MCAT custody. I'm taking it out of here. Yes, it is that important…." She racks her brain for a moment, trying to think of a way to warn Lord Nakatomi of what she suspects about Dr. Sakurai's intentions and abilities. Something that won't sound like fatuous nonsense to lords already expecting attack from the Sailor Senshi. "...Also, watch out for at least one renegade mage with enchanted weaponry. I suspect she'll arrive soon, probably powerful, possibly exceptionally so, possibly battle-mad. Don't expect the binding ritual to work on her."
And with the terse acknowledgement of that message, feeling as though she's already tarried much longer than she'd like, Whisper pockets the microphone-ear and commands the broom to start rising with a twist of her hips. Her eyes widen as she describes a quick, fast-climbing spiral; there's a lot to take in. More than she really can, with this good a view of the action.
The fastest, safest way out of the MCAT compound is over the south wall, which overlooks a large cut that has a freeway passing through it. Lord Nakatomi decided not to divide his forces to present any kind of an attack against the south wall; the terrain is extremely unfavorable and the risk of losing an entire squad to an ill-timed speeding truck was deemed unacceptable. MCAT themselves kept a scattering of watchful guards along the south wall, but relatively little in the way of heavy firepower, and even this has largely been diverted to the gates under attack.
Whisper crosses the wall barely over a minute from the time she first climbs more than a meter off the ground, feeling tense and expecting to come under fire at any moment. But she starts to feel as though she's made it.
As she streaks over the freeway and out across the buildings to the south, Whisper's first thought is to curve east and head for Tokyo Bay, and perhaps across the Boso Peninsula to get to the Pacific for good measure. To go and hurl this terrible thing into the sea. But then other thoughts come to her. What if it can still be found by the enemies of the Ministry, even underwater? Magical treasures have been recovered from the deep before. And… the scenes she saw as glimpses as her broom swept and spun around, as she tried to orient herself and start flying south, flash through her mind again and again.
This battle is far more furious and intense than she'd been led to hope or expect. The war is almost certainly not going to end tonight, and very certainly not on any terms of the Ministry's choosing. Kyoto may need every advantage it can get. Whisper doesn't seriously imagine that she can use a piece of the Shikon Jewel in any way without causing disaster, but perhaps someone, somehow, can find a way…
She begins to curve to the west, in the general direction of Kyoto and headquarters. It'd be a fairly long flight, but she can probably make it before sunrise, even if she curves northward to avoid the Nagoya metropolitan area.
***
It takes Whisper a few more minutes to even realize she's being followed. Her attention is firmly forward as she tries to keep a constant altitude over the cityscape. She knows her invisibility spells aren't likely to work well for her under the circumstances, and her other counter-detection magic will be patchy at best.
She w- And she carefully avoids wishing that she'd prepared some kind of talisman. Because if she really formed an earnest wish, the jewel might listen. and though being turned into some sort of permanently invisible demon or something like that might, just might, not end her career given what she does for a living, she doesn't want to stress-test that possibility or any other like it.
Despite having largely lost the Truth Maker's favored protection- invisibility- Whisper is reasonably confident of making her escape. This model of broom clocks out at a top speed between 125 and 150 kph, depending on maintenance condition and ambient circumstances. Hers is brand new, and on a clear night this close to a new moon and the summer solstice, conditions are nearly ideal as far as speed is concerned, if not visibility. Given that she's surely too small a target, too low to the ground, to show up on military radar, she should be able to break contact with nearly any pursuit.
Empty Face: 8
Sailor Venus: 36
Sailor Venus: 36
Because unfortunately for Whisper, "nearly any pursuit" does not take into account Sailor Venus' speed across irregular rooftops at the run. She's got more than enough experience with that unconventional form of movement to keep up with the speck of light in the sky. Especially since it occasionally flickers with wisps of rainbow fire, and that, now that she attends to it, the fire sings to her even at a great distance in a way she cannot name, giving her odd thoughts of a nameless baby sister.
Sailor Venus had, by this point, been patrolling the grounds for several minutes in search of infiltrators or breakaway units that could be overpowered quickly before they can call her position in to the godbinders. It was a speculative action, but one that seemed worthwhile given the trouble MCAT had been having with the Empty Faces.
Empty Face Team One slipped past her already. But Empty Face Team One wasn't trying desperately to avoid putting too much mental effort into their magic to keep from awakening a slumbering 「transcendental nucleus crystal」 And Empty Face Team One wasn't trying to cast their mind-affecting notice-me-not magic while being buffeted by typhoon-force winds through an enchantment that does a… less than satisfactory… job of providing facial protection.
But even as she easily kept up the pursuit, Sailor Venus concludes that she'd better call this in. Because while Sailor Venus is pretty sure that whoever just hopped on a magic broom and ran like she stole something is important, she isn't quite sure what to do about them.
Whisper is wrong, at least in the particulars, about just what it is that she's stolen from Dr. Sakurai's lab. What she carries is no Shikon Jewel shard.
The Uminari Tree Incident raised the significance of the White Meteor and her search for the Jewel Seeds in MCAT's awareness, to put it mildly. Before that Sunday, "Jewel Seeds" appeared only in two pages of forms and notes that had been taken based on a call by the very dutiful Nanoha Takamachi (her voice somewhat distorted by the equally dutiful Raising Heart's identity-concealing scrambling) to the Pretty Cure hotline number.
Very shortly after that time, Director Samui was called to a special meeting of prominent members of the Diet, including both LDP and Opposition figures. She was expected to answer certain inconvenient questions.
Fortunately, Samui had kept herself well enough briefed to know what to call the Jewel Seeds beyond "whatever weird thing just caused a disaster in Uminari." Indeed, she knew enough to assure her political superiors that MCAT was doing everything in its power to locate, secure, and contain these elusive artifacts before any more of them could cause similar catastrophes.
Dr. Sakurai was directed to, 'in her copious free time,' find some way of detecting Jewel Seeds before they could cause a rampage, and some way of containing them so that they would not cause a rampage. However, with no leads and no samples of what a Jewel Seed looked like, and with no direct line to the White Meteor to discuss the matter in detail, Dr. Sakurai at first gave up the job as hopeless.
Then a slightly befuddled septuagenarian pensioner living in a little house in the hills above Hachioji, some ways west of Tokyo, called MCAT to report "a weird glowing rock that didn't look right" in the woods behind his house.
Dr. Sakurai, on intuitions older than she is fully conscious of while at the front of her body and spirit, rushed out with a team to recover the "weird glowing rock" in question. And so, by sheer happenstance, she managed to recover one of the Jewel Seeds while its emissions were still at such a low level that not even Raising Heart could have detected it from any reasonable distance. Further guided by the whispers of that ancient genius that so often fill her with the lightning and madness of inspiration, she was able to hastily improvise a temporary containment arrangement that prevented so much as a microbe from touching the Jewel Seed. The next day (with some amiable help from an oni glassmaker) she created a more optimized vessel… which Whisper has now stolen in its entirety and clutches by its handle.
Those same whispers positively demanded that she keep the strange and wondrous thing for further study, of course.
The Jewel Seed has been handled carefully. Despite the ignorance of those who have dealt with it, it remains dormant. But as it is touched, is exposed to intense emotions only partly insulated by its containment, is moved first slowly and then rapidly, and soaks up the sidescatter of magical workings, it begins to awaken more fully…
Nanoha: 6
Empty Face: 8
Empty Face: 8
The relative neglect of ground support has been less than ideal from the view of the Onogoro heavy infantry, who are barely hanging onto footholds inside the gates and need all the help they can get.
The relative intensity of the 'SAM launches' coming at the JSDF's helicopters, meanwhile, has kept Nanoha Takamachi an extremely busy girl.
"Divine… SHOOTER!"
The 'White Meteor' launches three sizzling spheres of pink light, which blur downrange guided by her heartfelt wish and by Raising Heart's constant millisecond-sharp and millimeter-precise attention to detail. They bracket one of the rockets she sees rising from the cityscape, and when the explosions vanish there's nothing left of the rocket that she can see. As for the other-
"ACK!"
She twists in midair, feeling the turning force yank on her ankles, and dives to more or less interpose herself between the second rocket and the helicopter.
***
Raising Heart, with a moment between tasks, reflects on her decision not to tell Nanoha that the guided projectiles' fierce little spirits are being shredded by the exorcism-pulses emitted by the Device's thaumaturgical countermeasure pod.
What Mistress doesn't know won't trouble her.
Raising Heart will later reflect that her having considered this notion, in this exact moment, masterfully illustrates several Shantair proverbs about the power of ironic timing.
Because another thing she does in her moment between tasks is run a routine scan, a scan she has somewhat deprecated after not detecting any of this particular sort of anomaly in the vicinity during the first few minutes of the action.
She scans for…
Ah.
***
You are Sailor Moon, and you are quite suddenly surprised by a child screaming in your ear. Well, it only sounds like she's in your ear; she's probably a kilometer or more away and flying around in crazy circles or something.
But you recognize Nanoha's voice, so you know it must be Raising Heart patching a call through to you.
Still, it sure sounds like Nanoha is screaming in your ear.
"No. No no no! Sailor Moon! Divine Shoot! Sailor Moon, please, help! There's a Jewel Seed getting away at a hundred and forty-seven kilometers an hour, but- Divine Shoot! - the rockets! The helicopters! What should I do? I can't leave the helicopters alone! But I can't let the Jewel Seed hurt anyone! I don't know what to do!"
There is a moratorium on votes for twenty-four hours, to allow discussion and to enable player questions to be answered
Status Update!
Onogoro First Wave: ANNIHILATED
Onogoro Second Wave: STRUGGLING FORWARD SLOWLY
Onogoro Third Wave: ARRIVING
MCAT HQ Eastern Front: ENEMY ROUTED
MCAT HQ Western Front: GATE LOST, INTENSE COMBAT, REINFORCEMENTS PILING IN
MCAT HQ Northern Front: GATE STANDS, SOME REINFORCEMENT, HEAVY ATTACK EXPECTED SOON
MCAT HQ Internal Security: INADEQUATELY CONTAINED PRISONER UPRISING
Special Events!
Piecing together reports from Sailor Venus and Nanoha, an Onogoro witch just rose on a broomstick and started flying south from MCAT headquarters, and she's carrying a Jewel Seed! Sailor Venus is chasing the witch on foot, and is fast enough to keep up… but she's on foot and the witch is flying at about 150 km/h.
JGSDF helicopter gunships remain in the area and still have a large fraction of their ammunition. However, they are under heavy rocket attack and would probably not last long without protection from the rockets.
***
Terminology change! 'ACTIVE' -> 'EXPOSED' , 'PASSIVE' -> 'COVERED'
Choose options for each of the four Sailor Senshi actually present, and for Nanoha Takamachi. So long as "EVADE" remains the strategy, no more than two Senshi can choose 'EXPOSED' options. Any number of Senshi can take 'COVERED' options. Any Senshi whose actions are not specified by the plan will adopt their 'DEFAULT' options.
Nanoha does not count as a Sailor Senshi, and Usagi believes she will be effectively immune to the god-binding ritual. She is free to take 'EXPOSED' options at will.
Senshi (and Nanoha) action options must be voted on as a plan.
As an optional, non-mandatory part of a plan, the action "Stop Evading" can be added. No character need be assigned to this task. Plans with 'Stop Evading' can assign all four Sailor Senshi to 'EXPOSED' options. However, the +15 bonus for 'Evasive Tactics' enjoyed by the Sailor Senshi against god-binding attempts will be effectively lost.
***
DEFAULT OPTIONS
Default options are those which the Senshi would autonomously adopt as part of the 'Evade' strategy. Any Senshi whose action is not specified will take the following actions. Bear in mind that a default action is not necessarily inferior to the alternatives.
Sailor Moon: Spend her time in the aid stations healing the wounded. Regardless of vote choices, Sailor Moon will feel compelled to do this briefly to heal Chris Sakurai. Healing Chris Sakurai is not mutually exclusive with any other choices, though Sailor Moon may be slightly delayed in acting on other choices because of this.
Sailor Jupiter: Aerial reconnaissance, above the god-binding ritual's effective ceiling. Potentially susceptible to rocket attack.
Sailor Mars: Coordinate the Senshi from inside the MCAT command center. Susceptible to a god-binding attempt if she is located by Empty Faces. Acts as close-in defense against Empty Face attack on the command center.
Sailor Venus: Chase the Onogoro witch who's getting away on a broomstick. May or may not attempt to blow the witch out of the sky; with Minako, you really aren't sure. Is currently outside godbinder range, but could turn around and be back at the compound within a couple of minutes if called back.
Nanoha Takamachi: Nanoha is currently panicking and blowing things up with big glowy pink fireballs at the same time. You have no idea what she will do if not given orders and it is probably a bad idea to find out.
EXPOSED OPTIONS
These actions involve direct conflict with the enemy or conspicuous activity in full view of the enemy, in places the godbinders can affect. Any one Senshi can be assigned to any of them. Any Senshi will attempt to do any of these options to the best of her ability. Results may vary depending on both ability and luck. There are no write-ins.
-[ ] Try to do something about the prisoner uprising.
-[ ] Try to do something about the rockets
-[ ] Violently interfere with an Onogoro attack axis (pick either north or west; any one character can only interfere against one axis)
-[ ] Battlefield healing/buffing
COVERED OPTIONS:
These actions may or may not involve direct conflict with the enemy, but any likely conflict will take place in places the godbinders cannot reach with their ritual. Write-in covered actions are allowed, subject to the constraint just mentioned.
-[ ] Try to figure out where the Onogoro troops came from.
-[ ] Try to figure out where the god-binding ritual is coming from.
-[ ] Pursue the fleeing Onogoro witch who is carrying a Jewel Seed.
-[ ] Call For Support (Write-In: Who you gonna call?)
-[ ] Write-In:
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The good news is, MCAT found a Jewel Seed.
The bad news is, a government agency whose science department is run by a brilliant lunatic and whose headquarters is currently being attacked by invisible ninjas found a Jewel Seed.
The bad news is, a government agency whose science department is run by a brilliant lunatic and whose headquarters is currently being attacked by invisible ninjas found a Jewel Seed.
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So which flavour of unreliable superweapon or atrocity could this possibly be?
At first I thought this was powered by the Jewel Seed, but...
Edit:
And this is certainly a choice?
- Location
- Canada
I can't believe the idiot stole something worse than a Shikon Jewel Shard, but yeah a Jewel Seed is definitely a more pressing issue.
It's time for Usagi to start depowering these mages once she grabs them, because they have officially crossed the line from "Enemy Combatants" to "Planetary Threats" by sheer stupidity.
It's time for Usagi to start depowering these mages once she grabs them, because they have officially crossed the line from "Enemy Combatants" to "Planetary Threats" by sheer stupidity.
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- Location
- San Ramon, CA
I believe it is referring to the Varja, the armament of one of the Shittenou, the basis of Dr. Sakurai's research into the Symphogear system, and one of the most magically infused artifacts on modern-day Earth.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
To be fair, if you were in your enemy's stronghold and you found that they had a Jewel Seed in a glass bottle, you'd probably want to grab it and get the hell out of there too!
Consider the alternative of leaving it there to find out what they plan to do with it the hard way,..
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- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Onogoro try not to be tempted by great and terrible sources of power challenge has its second failure this week. And the empty face's vison of what she would do with that power is both bog standard evil and massively worse than what most of the wishes the seeds did on their own so I'm pegging most of that on her.
As for the battle vote, totally for Stop Evading this round. But less certain on what actions to take, and the helicopters still needing babysitting is a bit of a wrench in what concepts I had brewing before.
As for the battle vote, totally for Stop Evading this round. But less certain on what actions to take, and the helicopters still needing babysitting is a bit of a wrench in what concepts I had brewing before.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah, it's a fairly straightforward case of "screw throwing the One Ring into a volcano, take it back to Minas Tirith!" Boromir fell for that, and I'm fairly sure Boromir had better and more robust moral fiber than Whisper does.
- Location
- Peterborough
MCAT really ought to have contacted Nanoha the second it was discovered.
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
We aren't dying, but we're probably going to have to call for a full-court press of all our magical girls to keep any of the remaining fronts from collapsing.
...Starting to regret letting Sailor Mercury sleep in, but whatayagonnado.
- Location
- Colorado
I mean, if we found a Shikon Jewel Shard or a Jewel Seed in an enemy base we'd probably prioritize securing it too. Imagine how much we'd freak out if we found something like that at Saturn's dad's house, isn't he an evil mad scientist? Heck, Sakurai herself is literally a villain in her own show! I see Simon beat me here though.
Anyway, I still say Venus on the prisoners, Jupiter on the rockets, and Moon on the West gate (after healing Chris of course). Unfortunately Nanoha can't befriend the godbinders this turn, she's got to go catch Sabrina the useless witch.
I kind of want to at least wake Mercury up maybe? Her new minion is in danger. Or even see if we can call in Yuuno, is he even on the list? Powerful barriers and binding spells could be pretty useful here.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yes. Yes, they definitely should have.
But it's like I said.
MCAT is a government agency whose science department is run by a brilliant lunatic whose ambitions far outstrip the means at her disposal.
They aren't just a passive vessel for "fulfilling the players' wishes in all things." Honestly, we should count ourselves lucky that Dr. Sakurai has apparently not tried hooking the Jewel Seed up to anything except a moderately effective containment vessel yet.
Yeah, her managing to make one despite knowing nothing on the true mechanisms this keys off of speaks pretty well of her capabilities?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I dunno, can Jupes intercept rockets as reliably as Nanoha? If not, it might be better to just tell Captain Sano "we cannot provide anti-rocket cover and deal with all this other crud, sorry."
The girls aren't stupid or irresponsible, so I'm not too concerned that they'd just abandon the helicopters with no cover and let them get blown up, and helicopters are by definition very mobile and can withdraw from the airspace quickly.
In fairness, Whisper does seem to legit be moderately good at her job. Everyone was expecting her (before she was really introduced as a character) to get splattered by Finé, but instead she slipped in while Finé was (understandably) distracted and succeeded in stealing an artifact important enough that its disappearance has us shitting bricks and is going to throw the Sailor Senshi's battle plan into considerable disarray.
From the point of view of Team Onogoro, she's doing a great job so far!
I just hope the Jewel Seed isn't as cranky about being stuck in a Sakurai Special Containment Cell as Ahma was...
Looking at the numbers, I think that dropping Evasion isn't very appropriate now?
We know the Default options aren't exactly worse than Exposed / Covered, and right now we probably want to throw 2 Senshi at the Jewel Seed (which is a Covered action); which means that there's no point left to dropping Evasion?
We know the Default options aren't exactly worse than Exposed / Covered, and right now we probably want to throw 2 Senshi at the Jewel Seed (which is a Covered action); which means that there's no point left to dropping Evasion?
- Location
- Colorado
I mean, fucking with gravity seems like a great way to confuse rockets, and even if she's a bit worse than Nanoha at intercepting rockets, she's a lot worse than Nanoha at sealing Jewel Seeds.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Technically speaking we don't need to seal the seed right this second, just stop the Empty face from running away.
The Seed is already beginning to become more active, if we roll poorly on the Fortune Rolls (or the interception, to be fair) I suspect we are going to have an Emergency Interrupt quite soon?
- Location
- Peterborough
And make sure the containment device doesn't break
- Location
- Colorado
Why on Earth would we throw two Senshi at the Jewel Seed when we've got it's designated counter right here? This Whisper chick is not ready to face Nanoha in the air, not even rookie Nanoha.
Sealing the Jewel Seed is way more important than stopping her. If we only stop her or slow her down she might lose concentration and activate the Jewel Seed. If she drops it it might land on someone or something that will activate it.
ThatGuyWithIdeas
Treize died for our sins
- Location
- Romania
It's quite clear we've been on the backfoot for quite some time now, and things aren't working out. Holding back and trying to let the other Senshi not have to put duty over personal life is going to lead to a loss or a phyrric victory at this rate, so we need to step up our efforts to remove the ritual from play so that we don't need to hold back anymore and we need to call the Senshi that aren't active currently (and maybe some other allies as well).
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If the rockets can chase the helicopters while gravity is right side up, can't they chase the helicopters while gravity is upside down?
There's also the issue of area effect. Jupes can hit a sizeable region, but "the helicopters and the rockets coming at them" are spread out over, potentially, a mile or so in various directions, maybe more. Will she be able to track everything and engage the targets as well as Nanoha does while supported by Raising Heart as her radar intercept officer?
To be fair, I think all we really need is to stop Whisper from actually escaping with the thing. If we can just confiscate the thing, then worst case, some random bug lands on the Jewel Seed and turns into a kaiju, in which case we beat the shit out of the kaiju and wait for Nanoha to get there several minutes later.
Remember that the Uminari Tree had significant time to get out of control before the Senshi showed up, and the Senshi were able to at least contain the problem by halting the tree's growth and hoovering up all the falling razor-sharp leaves by the time Nanoha woke up and got there herself. This time, even if there was a kaiju problem, we'd be getting there right as it started before it could do nearly as much damage.
[beta reader hat on]
The fortune rolls are mostly just to figure out who's even in a position to interfere with what.
Nanoha and Dr. Sakurai rolled worse than Whisper (amazingly), so neither was in any position to interfere. Notably, Nanoha probably flies a lot faster than Whisper and can track her Jewel Seed from a considerable distance- these are capabilities that the Fortune roll doesn't strip away. It just means that the engagement begins under conditions unfavorable to Nanoha, and favorable to Whisper, relatively speaking.
Likewise, Sailor Venus rolled better than Whisper, and was specifically trying to do something that would qualify as "catching Whisper." Because her fortune roll was better (but not great, not even average) she's in a mediocre starting position to do something about Whisper, and would have to leverage her abilities pretty hard to accomplish an intercept.
Broadly speaking, in a situation like this, fortune rolls don't cancel out a balance of power or enable weak characters to outperform strong ones in a straightforward contest of power. They just govern how good a day the characters involved in a complex situation are having when they start getting a chance to use those powers.
In this case, Sailor Venus' day is meh and the days of Whisper, Dr. Sakurai, and Nanoha are terrible, in ascending order of terribleness.