2024-03-06 - Days of Future Past
| Days of Future Past | |
|---|---|
| Summary: A meeting is convened -- the Nanohites need a way to the future, and the Sailor Senshi need allies for Chibi-Usa's fight. | |
| Who: Usagi Tsukino, Setsuna Higashi, Kyouka Okazaki, Hayate Yagami, Zafira, Ami Mizuno, Minako Aino, Makoto Kino, Fate Testarossa, Raiko Takashima | |
| Where: Pino Karaoke Lounge | |
| OOC - IC Date: 3/6/2024 - 05/21/16 | |
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Pino Karaoke Lounge +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
A motley half-rainbow of neon lights spell out Pino KARAOKE on the sign
above the door, emblazoned over a jaunty, stylized palm tree with a pink
background. The interior of the lounge has only a bit more restraint, with
cool pink walls and neon lights decorating the counter, where customers can
rent private booths of varying sizes, from two-person rooms for serenades to
large party rooms. The booths are mostly soundproof, for obvious reasons,
but there's still a constant hum of noise from them at peak hours, along
with occasional bursts of music, laughter, and (often untalented) singing
when someone opens a booth door.
Inside the booths, rich red seating (rich in color, not in material) and low
grey coffee tables hold the audience and their food respectively. Pino is a
bit on the expensive end for its hourly rates, but because of it, the booths
are unusually spacious, and even the two-person booths have a "stage" about
the size of a hotel shower, consisting of a grey platform raised a few
inches from the ground, equipped with a microphone and a small screen. The
party booths expand the stage a bit, permitting more simultaneous singers,
and add a feature only found in Pino: a corner with a hospital-style green
curtain that can be used to change into any number of cheap novelty
costumes.
A small electronic remote can be used to enter the code for one's desired
song while listening to others sing, and the request will be queued in order
(or cancelled, if need be). Karaoke almost always involves food and drinks,
and like most karaoke lounges, Pino's cuisine is unusually Western, and
includes pizza, french fries, burgers, beer, and, most rare of all, an open
soda fountain with free refills.
COMBAT: Usagi Tsukino transforms into Sailor Moon! Setsuna Higashi walks over from Akihabara Electric Town.
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
The word goes out, sometimes by mascot and sometimes by text. By word of mouth, exchanged beneath moonlight on the Tokyo rooftops. Magical girls talk, and listen, and learn: Sailor Moon and her court are looking for allies for a big fight. And, though this much is only whispered, rumor has it that the battlefield may not be 2016 Tokyo. It might be somewhere else... or rather, somewhen.
Over the years, Pino Karaoke Lounge has become something of a traditional venue for gatherings of this sort. War councils by way of pizza parties, as it were. The chief benefit to this locale, versus, say, Fruits Parlor Crown, is the privacy; Pino has a back door that can be propped open by the wise, too, so those who prefer to enter the booth already transformed don't need to suffer the indignity of being mistaken for their own cosplay on the way in.
There's a piece of paper taped to the appropriate booth door with a drawing of a black cat with a moon on her forehead, which is modestly more subtle than the textual alternative ("RESERVED FOR SAILOR MOON PARTY") might have been.
Inside is one of the larger party rooms; lots of red seats, low coffee tables, full-sized stage. Sailor Venus placed a big food order, so steaming hot pizzas and other snacks await the hungry, while Sailor Jupiter is looking slightly anxiously at a big basket of cookies that were obviously snuck in rather than purchased, waiting for someone to try the cute little shortbread stars with raspberry, apricot or fig jam fillings. The black and white crescent-emblazoned cats standing on the table, peeking over the edge of the basket to inspect its contents were probably ALSO snuck in.
Sailor Mercury has turned the big screen behind the stage into a PowerPoint presentation, because she's a dictator who hates fun. Or at least, that's what Venus muttered while fingering one of the microphones with the same soulful yearning that a chef might itch to wield her spatula -- or a warrior her sword.
The title slide is coolly professional, with a calming, undulating blue-white gradient. It says:
Operation Save Rabbit Mama
and then, in smaller font,
~A Sailor Mercury Presentation~
The presenter, though, is off to one side, sampling the dip with a baby carrot. Now is the time for arrivals and reunions; the presentation can wait.
Not far from her is Hayate Yagami and a much-smaller-than-usual shaggy blue puppy(?) who is probably her boon companion Zafira. He and the cats are keeping one eye on each other at all times, but no hackles have been raised... yet.
Hayate is not transformed (everyone who's anyone knows who she is from the Book of Darkness Incident anyway). She's wearing a typical cardigan-and-skirt outfit and a curious and slightly excited smile; for once, she seems more or less her age, rather than a tiny grandma in a grade-schooler's body. It is possible to perceive that she might be a little bit of a Sailor Senshi fan.
She looks up at Mercury. "I don't see any cabling -- you're doing wireless casting, even though it's not a smart TV?"
Never mind. She's just a nerd.
OOC: As a special feature of this part of the plot, alts are okay! Consider resisting the urge to have them get into lengthy conversations with each other, but it's totally fine to have multiples in the room. <Pose Tracker> Sailor Moon [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
"Hey everyone! I'm happy you found the place! It just goes to show that Luna's graphic design skills are top notch!"
Waves Sailor Moon to those who came, who's just an extroverted enough party girl that even though she's not technically the hostess here, it's like she's trying to act it anyway, right now, with a piece of pizza in one hand, and a Jupiter cookie in the other. She nearly waves the slice of pizza, then remembers it's Pizza, and instead opts for the cookie hand.
"Dig in dig in! Venus-chan has gone all out tonight. Also please appreciate Jupiter-chan's baking! She didn't have to go to all the effort - but see see?"
Once again, the half-eaten pizza slice is chosen, before Usagi quickly opts it with a cute little shortbread cookie that's equally nibbled, such that a little blob of jam is in danger of leaking out.
"It's delicious! And so cute!"
Sailor Moon, apparently the hype woman of everyone in the room, especially when food is involved. She's happy! Her stomach is full! And-
Operation Save Rabit Mama
Oh right this is a serious mission briefing, she almost forgot about that. She coughs, into her hand, then scrunches crust, then quickly polishes off the rest of the pizza slice, then wiping the grease off of her glove.
"Mercury-chan can do anything." Is her hushed response to Hayate, not really understanding how nerdy it is, "She's basically a computer wizard." As she cites perhaps, one of her earliest adventures with Sailor Mercury. "One time my phone had no bars, and she found a way to make it work anyway!"
Fate Testarossa has come in at some point, she's not transformed, in contrast to the Sailor Senshi, but she's not someone who really ever took advantage of Recognition Inhibition.
Arf however, is in puppy form and on a leash, because she absolutely is someone who does that, and revels in it.
She's far more serious about this, but even she certainly doesn't fail to take one of Jupiter's cookies. If she's learned one thing about these magical girl gatherings over the years - you do not turn down free home baked goods.
Even if they're Shamal's. Perhaps especially so.
Fixing a plate of all the meats Pizza for Arf, who gets up on her hind legs and onto the table, beginning to dig in, she takes a nibble of a cookie, then another, nodding to Hayate, but not interrupting the conversation.
Hayate is very passionately a nerd, and despite being more of a jock herself - she supports her!
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Setsuna Higashi has heard, and she's no stranger to 'somewhere else'. But she'd help anyway. And she approaches! She is here, and not transformed either; it hasn't been a secret who Setsuna Higashi is to the magical community for a very long time.
She does have a Jupiter cookie. ...She has three.
"Mm!" Setsuna answers Sailor Moon, mouth full of cookie.
"This seems like an important mission," Setsuna comments as she sees the presentation's idle screen. "...I'll do my best."
NOM. Until the briefing starts, it's cookie time.
Tarte happens to be here and partaking as well, in point of fact, having SNUCK IN. "Ne," he says, "Saving that girl's mom... It's very important!"
<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Kyouka's grinning a little as she steps into the room, dressed... rather casually, but in a different way than her normal fare. Gone is the black hair, reverted back to her natural blonde, which has been loosely parted and the front part dyed a bright purple instead. She's wearing a short-sleeved buttoned shirt over a dark puple tank top, with a few of the top buttons left undone and the shirt itself untucked. Slacks and black sneakers finish the look. She gives a cheerful wave as she steps inside, "Hey, everybody."
She might be familiar to anybody who goes to Juuban, though she's never actually run into any of the Senshi before, somehow.
And she's got a guest! She's not familiar to anybody, a teenage girl about Kyouka's age with bright red hair, a black dress, and a white cardigan that looks suspiciously like it should be a lab coat. She pauses as she sees both Zafira and the moon cats, a light hiss rising up in the back of her throat. But her eyes are inevitably drawn to...
Pizza.
Clara grabs a plate and several pieces of pizza and some baked goods and retreats to a corner to savor the food, all the while keeping an eye on the other mascots in the room. Because she's definitely not a fox in disguise right now.
Kyouka's at least more personable and makes the rounds before going for the food. "Hey, Hayate-chan, Fate, Arf." And then she goes to the food, making sure to compliment Jupiter on the baked goods.
Raiko, meanwhile, hesitated outside the entrance. She's in street clothes, a pleated blue skirt, a t-shirt with a large nut over two crossed wrenches (her flag means she's hear to fix things), and a cute denim jacket. Her long blue hair is pulled back into a ponytail tied off with a bright orange ribbon.
And from inside the backpack, there is a sigh. "Raiko, dear, nobody is going to make fun or kick you out."
Raiko sighs. "I know, I know, but... you know..."
"You're very accomplished, I'm sure they'll all be glad to receive you." A beat. "... at the very least, I'd like to get out of your backpack at some point."
"Okay, okay." Raiko takes a deep breath and steps inside. She gives a half-hearted wave and then realizes something very crucial. She's not transformed, so none of the sailor scouts know her, and she hasn't met any of the other magical girls here--
Except she does recognize one person. "... Higashi-san...?"
There is some struggling in the backpack and Shiori eventually frees herself, since Raiko isn't doing it. She hops down to the ground and clears her throat, composing herself. "Much better."
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
Jupiter and Venus share a look at Sailor Moon's hyping the food.
"Try to leave some for other people, ne Usagi?" says Venus, though she modulates her words with a certain sweetness in her tone.
Jupiter chuckles. "I'm just glad everyone likes them... Sailor Moon kind of spoils me as a food critic." Because she likes everything.
Hayate rolls over to sit between Fate and Setsuna, after briefly swapping tips with Mercury about magical hijacking of ordinary systems. "I had no idea Silver Millennium magic was so high-tech," she gushes briefly, "I thought this was much more a Midchildan or Belkan attribute! Ah, hello Kyouka-chan," she adds, as Strike Wolf's partner arrives.
Sailor Mercury gives Raiko a welcoming wave in return, whole-hearted though demurely small. A graceful person, she waits for people to fill up their plates and take seats before clearing her throat.
"Everyone," she begins, levelly, "Thank you for coming tonight. Let's get into it, shall we?"
She presses the stud in her right ear, and a blue visor pops across her eyes. Meanwhile, the karaoke screen begins to glow more brightly, and then... project, its light coalescing above the food table in three dimensions. Makeshift hologram table.
Slowly rotating is a familiar little girl with pink twintails. Usagi in miniature. Chibi-Usa.
"Most of you have already met Chibi-Usa-chan," she says quietly. "Often under unfortunate circumstances. She has attracted a great deal of trouble, mostly from entities bearing the Black Moon on their foreheads."
She gestures, and another set of figures appear: red-haired Rubeus, scowling, arms folded; the Four Ayakashi Sisters, frozen in the midst of some long-ago battle; and Esmeraude, laughing behind her red-plumed fan.
"We knew that the Black Moon Clan wanted Chibi-Usa-chan, but that isn't all they wanted. Minions of Esmeraude admitted that their full goal in Tokyo is to attack the present, saturating it with energy from what they call a Black Crystal... in order to change the future. Which is where they are from. And at last the truth has come out: Chibi-Usa-chan is too. She has asked us to return to the future with her, in order to save her mother, who is apparently in danger. But... we suspect it will be more than that. Surely, any future that makes a small child into a refugee is not a happy one. We've had glimpses of her dreams, and if they're anything like the reality, the devastation is already catastrophic and widespread."
She pauses for questions and comments.
<Pose Tracker> Sailor Moon [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Setsuna Higashi! Definitely Sailor Moon's kind of girl. Anyone eating three of Jupiter's cookies is intrinsically a good person - UNLESS they take the last one.
Then they're probably a Dark General.
She knows she's a good person, and a reformed Dark General so she assumes she'd never do anything so evil as that.
Sailor Moon enthusiastically waves towards Kyouka and her Guest, "Hey!" And the same goes for Raiko.
Venus' words however cause her to momentarily look abashed before, "But you went all out Venus-chan! I wouldn't want to let it go to waste! All of this fresh pizza being made into reheated leftovers."
Apparently Usagi is on the side of reheated pizza being the enemy of taste, thus one must finish off all the pizza before, but it's truly that she doesn't like to go to a lot of EFFORT reheating her pizza, so she has learned that microwaving only gets her something that tastes like cardboard.
"As if it isn't deserved. You deserve every ow-nce-!" (She was trying to switch to English units to sound fancy there) "-of my praise!" She gushes towards Jupiter.
She's genuine, but her positive reinforcement keeps rewarding her, so it's never ever going to stop.
Fate nods to Hayate with a smile, "I learned a little about it in Magic History class. It's very fascinating. From what my Professor said, it's very much the match for any Lost Logia producing civilization." Arf looks up, pizza on her face, as if suddenly paying attention. After all once upon a time, she and Fate were all about finding Lost Logia.
"The moon hmm..."
She very much doesn't explain what she was thinking about before going back to her pizza.
The presentation begins, and Fate listens with some intensity. Sailor Moon seems more focused on her pizza, one bite, then another.
Then something seems to grab her attention.
"Wait - hold on." Sailor Moon asks, as if she's about to make a clarifying point, and then- "Chibi-Usa-chan..." She trails off, and there's a prolonged sort of pause, "... being from the future..." It's like she's trying to work something out.
"... That's terrible."
The gravity of the situation apparently has sank in, "I can't believe it's a future where kids feel the need to carry guns and wave them around threatening people! This has to be their fault!"
As she juts a finger towards one of the Black Moon clan on screen.
(Rubeus in particular, he feels like the kind of guy who would make a future where kids carry guns.)
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
"I didn't either," Setsuna admits to Hayate. "But it seems that technology in this dimension used to be much more advanced than it is today..." Fate comments about the Lost Logia, and Setsuna nods. "I see..."
She waves at Raiko. "Hello." It's a surprise to see her! Some people would say this. Setsuna does not. She just waves.
Then she looks to CAT, and Tarte steps over to Shiori, "Undignified, eh?" he asks. "The things we go through for our charges..."
"Have a cookie, Tarte." Setsuna chimes in.
Then she looks to Kyouka and consiers the girl there. And...
"Hi." To Kyouka.
She listens, though. The figures there; she recognizes these figures. And she reconizes...
"Right."
A pause. "...The future..." She wonders what that means, for them. How far ahead is it? What does it mean?
"...I've been to a number of hostile worlds, when I was Eas," Setsuna explains. "I can help if it's like that."
She does not comment on the guns. Maybe she's just mystified too...
<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Kyouka gives Sailor Moon a grin at the wave, "Thanks for having us, by the way." She loads up a plate of pizza and cookies, and then takes a seat with Hayate, Fate, and Setsuna to start chowing down. "Hey, pizza's great the next day if you know how to heat it up. The trick is to do it in an oven, not a microwave."
She loves leftovers. She loves cooking, but it's way easier to cook all at once and then save yourself the effort the next day.
She does pay attention, seriously, as Mercury starts to explain things, frowning at the image of Chibi-Usa. "Well that's terrible... especially if they're allowed to get their way."
Raiko, meanwhile, looks kind of shy and definitely feels a bit out of place as she waves back to Setsuna. "Ah... um... maybe we can talk later...?" (Just wait until she finds out who Setsuna is.)
Shiori is sitting primly upright and she nods to Tarte. "Quite so. I tried to insist that I could just walk in..." She shakes her head gently. "But it made her feel better to do it that way. I am Shiori, by the way."
Raiko's a little too nervous to eat--except that's not entirely true because she does take some cookies, with a respectful bow and a thanks to Jupiter (and some minor grumbling from Shiori, though honestly pizza isn't much better.) She sits, and seems to set her plate on empty air as she materializes a small notebook in her lap to take notes with.
Predictably, she gets a bit excited at seeing the TV converted, magically, into a hologram projector, and hearing the talk of magic and technology. "Oh, cool, how'd--"
Shiori clears her throat, "Dear, focus."
"R-right..." Raiko ducks her head a little and tries to hide her blush under the collar of her jacket. But she's all serious as the presentation starts in earnest, and scribbling down notes while frowning thoughtfully. She looks startled as Chibi-Usa's image comes up, blinking widely.
When Mercury pauses, Raiko raises her hand and waits to be recognized by the Senshi. (Presentations are serious business.) "Hi, um, I don't doubt that they could definitely change the future by doing all that, but... wouldn't that have massive ramifications for the future? How would they escape the massive paradoxes such a drastic alteration would cause?"
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
Jupiter gives Moon another soft look, but focuses on the presentation as it begins. When Setsuna volunteers her experience of hostile worlds, she nods, her ponytail bouncing between her shoulder blades. Both because she's grateful, and because... she remembers Eas.
"That'd be a really big help, Setsuna-chan," the Pretty Soldier of Thunder says, with great familiarity, almost like they're classmates or something. "We'll be counting on you for sure."
Raiko brings up a point, and it's Venus who answers, faster than Mercury can and with a razorblade grin.
"We think that's the whole point," she says with airy good cheer. "They need massive ramifications, you see. Their whole dumb plan to change the future by creating a paradox in the past suggests they can't change the future... in the future! It means they can lose, and we intend to make them lose to us. Not that we didn't already know that. Chibi-Usa-chan blew up their spaceship, after all."
Mercury gestures and Rubeus turns red(der), an X crossing him out. He died in that explosion, as far as they all know.
"It's also true," Mercury says somewhat more calmly, "That they are... historically, if you'll pardon the pun, fairly omnicidal. To the point that we've scored some defections." The Four Ayakashi Sisters turn green. "It is not our impression that their goals for the future are more specific than 'saturating it with evil energy in order to bring about a ruinous world,' which is what they've been trying to do here and now instead."
Venus nods affirmatively. "Besides, since Chibi-Usa-chan came to the past to get help, just our going to the future because of her will be creating a paradox. We aren't trying to escape it. Sometimes, to make an egg, you have to break a few omelettes!!" She pumps her fist.
Mercury gives her a sidelong look, but holds her peace, with the long-suffering silence of someone who has given up on getting a bonkler to get their idioms right.
Meanwhile, Hayate looks extremely excited. Her knees bounce -- which is amazing in itself, a real mark of progress that they would vibrate to her thrill so instinctively, though she doesn't seem to notice this product of her considerable physical therapy. Fate and Setsuna speak up, and Kyouka too a bit, and Hayate seems increasingly baffled by what they DON'T say, rather than what they do.
"But don't you see?" she says to them, "This is it! This is our ride! Our coordinates for the Pericosmic Array led to the past... to get to the present, we have to use them from the future."
Jupiter blinks. "The peri-what-now? I don't think you're talking about chicken recipes..."
Hayate smiles at her friends. "Fate-chan, Kyouka-chan, Setsuna-san... why don't you tell them our story?"
<Pose Tracker> Sailor Moon [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Sailor Moon gives Kyouka a look like 'Why would anyone go to all that trouble?!' the moment she invokes use of OVEN for leftovers. "Leftovers should be the fastest and easiest of fast food." Moon describes, in mild disagreement to her.
Moon does smile however as the Ayakashi sisters turn to green on the screen.
It was difficult, but she never regrets what she did that day, she's happy they're getting to live their lives away from that man who would do that to her.
Fate does seem to be listening to the explanation in wonder- after all time travel magic, every mage has thought about the theories behind how it could happen... she especially, but it alwayss eemed too big, too grand.
Too world shattering.
(Thanks Precia.)
It was only recently when they went back to the past that she started thinking of it more.
She smiles at Hayate in her enthusiasm, and then- as Jupiter asks about it.
"Oh! I think Mars-chan uses that brand."
Did she hear it as Peri-cosmetic?
Fate looks at Moon for a moment as if trying to process what she meant, but then at Hayate's urging... stands up.
"It's a long story, but long ago in Ancient Belka - invaders came, attracted by their magic. They fought, and fought, and fought - but the end result, ruined their world, and brought the death of her daughter. In response, she believed the correct solution was to- seal away, powerful sources of magic, no matter the consequences to those worlds, their peoples, and their cultures."
Fate Testarossa pauses for a moment, "A man, who calls himself Infinite Desire - Jail Scaglietti, is seeking the means to find where she sealed all of this away. He has... attacked us, every step of the way, utilizing..." Hayate might see Fate's fingertips digging into her palm subtly in that moment, even if she looks outwardly calm, "... the worst possible means. By duplicating our Devices into, versions that wield people. All to find the array - a crystalline structure with the means of finding this place."
Fate takes a moment to, consider her words before continuing, "We found it by travelling into the past, but it will take - time, too much time, more time than any of us have- for it to finish calculating the location where she sent these powerful sources of magic."
Fate Testarossa looks to them in this moment, before she states, more resolutely, "If we go with you then - not only can we help you to save Chibi-Usa-chan's mother, but you can give us the gift of time. Time we don't have at this moment. From the future, we can return to it's present, after it has finished locating it, and get ahead of this man's plot before it's too late."
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Setsuna knows full well Jupiter's history with Eas. She was there, after all. ...It's gratifying when Jupiter of all people thus says it'll help. She nods to Raiko, too. "Yes," she answers her. They can talk later!
Tarte, on the other hand, "I'm Tarte!" he answers boisterously. "Going in the back way worked fine for me! You gotta make sure to insist sometimes."
Setsuna does not comment there. She smiles at the Ayakishi Sisters' mention, though. That always makes her feel good to think about.
But for now...
Paradoxes, and help. Setsuna nods. "If it were going to break time-space it already would've," she decides. "But dark power can do many strange things that shouldn't happen, anyway."
Pause.
"...I thought animals made eggs." She looks at Venus, a little confused.
But Hayate--she says it. And Setsuna looks thoughtful. "...Fate is right," Setsuna says. "That's the possibility that we have. We were able to travel there, but this would let us travel again."
"...I didn't bring it up at first, but I do think we can do both, this way."
"That we can help everyone, by helping her. Both missions are important. But we have to see what the future is like."
Pause. "...Such a long distance into the future we shouldn't have to worry much about what we see giving us the wrong kind of knowledge, at least. But we still have to be careful."
"...Are you willing?" she asks. "To help us, in this? We're still willing to help you, too."
Haruka Tenoh walks over from Akihabara Electric Town.
<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Kyouka gives Sailor Moon an equally weird look. "Well, yeah, you already did the prep work before? Turning on an oven's not that hard... Sure, you have to wait, but good food is worth waiting for." Because everyone plans their meals ahead and can start the oven early, right? Clearly.
Shiori sighs and nods to Tarte. "I tried to impress this upon her, however..."
Raiko just kind of stares at Venus as she says that creating a massive paradox is kind of the whole point. Her jaw just kind of hangs open for a moment, as she tries to process how incomprehensibly irresponsible that is.
Shiori clears her throat, and mutters, under her breath but with some urgency. "Raiko."
She seems to get the message and closes her mouth.
And it's only after that she seems to process the bit about the spaceship. "Wait what?" Raiko does look thoughtful at the mention of defections, though.
Raiko might be wearing the exact same look Mercury is, at that mixed-up saying.
But Hayate's excited, and--oh right. They have some time-related dilemmas to resolve, themselves. Kyouka nods as she looks to Hayate, though her eyes do flick downwards to note those knees bouncing. "You think that'll work? So we'd go a thousand years in the future, and then go a thousand years back from there? We're not just gonna end up in the same place as last time? Er, the same time as last... time..."
Fate tells the majority of it, and Setsuna notes that traveling so far in the future probably won't give them future knowledge they shouldn't have. "Yeah, having knowledge of the future clearly isn't helping those jerks that much."
"We don't know exactly what it is that Jail wants--wants to accomplish, that is--but with all the stuff he's done it can't be anything good. He'll..." Kyouka tenses up a bit here herself. "... he'll threaten innocent people, to get what he wants. The copied devices he made are so powerful, but he still wants more, and..."
She scratches the back of her head a little. "It should be impossible for him to find all that hidden magic, but we can't take that risk. And even if you stop those guys in the future, well... we gotta make sure there's a now to get back to after, you know?"
<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
The Black Moon Clan is, indeed, not a particularly responsible organization. But it's also true that Raiko has absolutely no idea how paradoxes work in practice -- she's working off of whatever science fiction books she's read. In any case, it's hard to know if Venus is also staggeringly irresponsible, or just very practical. Her smile suggests the former, but something about the way it softens, becoming reassuring, suggests the latter. Setsuna says it, really: if this kind of thing was going to shatter the universe, well, all those horses have left the barn already.
"Don't worry, Raiko-chan," she says, flashing a two-fingered V. "We're going to save the future, not break it. If we don't stop them, what they have in mind is surely far worse than anything we could do. And it's better to fight them there than to fight them here, for sure. At least then they'll be defeated in their own time."
Mercury and Jupiter hear out Hayate, Fate, Setsuna and Kyouka.
They exchange a look. There isn't really a senshi equivalent of the Devices; it's not like their transformation wands can talk. Still...
"People being wielded by weapons... how backwards," Jupiter murmurs. "Feels wrong."
Mercury nods. "Yes. It does sound as though we can help one another. You need to go to the future, and we can take you there." She's been so serious this whole time, but she finally smiles, and it lights up the room. "I love it when things turn out in such a... harmonious way."
Hayate beams even more brightly. "Yes!" she says to Kyouka. "Even if we don't travel to exactly the right amount of time in the future to correspond to when the Pericosmic Array will produce its search result, just going a long distance in time should give us the information we need to do the last of the math ourselves. It's quite complicated otherwise... it's not sufficient to simply assume that all the spatial coordinates are the same in the future. What if a star has gone nova in the interim? It would change the whole calculation."
Mercury's visor flashes opaque with raw enthusiasm. "You and I should have a long talk when this is over."
Venus clears her throat. "AN-NY-WAY," she says, "It sounds like we're in agreement... we all go to the future, we save Chibi-Usa-chan's mom, defeat the Black Moon Clan so they quit bugging us in the past, and also visit the Peru-- Peri-- Pentacostal Array."
"Pericosmic," Mercury corrects automatically.
"That," Venus affirms brightly. "Two girls are stronger than one, and this will be like ten! Assuming more of our friends come along. It will be a legendary team-up. Like what the bad guys always do, only for once it's our turn to seize the day!"
"The future day," Jupiter says reflectively.
"...seize the future day!" Venus agrees. "Sailor Mercury, are you done making the karaoke machine boring yet?"
Mercury closes her eyes for a moment, as though accessing her vast internal briefing book, then nods. She thumbs her earring again, and her visor disappears, as well as the hologram. And the TV screen goes back to song selection.
"Anything anyone else want to say?" Venus asks. "Or anything anyone else wants to......" Her eyes are stars. ".......sing?"
<Pose Tracker> Sailor Moon [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Sailor Moon looks at Kyouka for a moment longer, "That feels like it defeats the point of leftovers." Sailor Moon is apparently all about instant gratification. But she does pipe in with Sailor Venus on the saving the future part, "Don't worry so much! We know someone who knows all about time stuff. She won't let anything happen!"
Should she really be saying that out loud? Well apparently taboos are just meant to be not broken but line toed over a pizza party.
Fate looks at Sailor Jupiter, and after a moment there's a nod. She doesn't say more. Even if many people were there during the Garden of Time - it still feels too personal.
To say whose face these weapons wear.
Indeed her smile returns subtly when Hayate and Mercury bond, easily, over this kind of thing. and-
-there's a resolute nod as they agree. As she's more than prepared to do what she must to stop this man.
This man who could be her father.
Sailor Moon nods quickly, "And- AND- once we're done with the legendary team up, there's nothing saying we can't stay a little longer for some fun after." Moon says, as if trying to add in solidarity with Venus' whole thing, "The best part about going to the future is - you don't need permission slips to miss school!"
Luna perhaps, may be drawing her paw across her face at Usagi saying so. But Usagi just looks happy.
In the end, she looks at Sailor Venus, then gets a big smile, and at the song suggestion puts forth- "Say La Vie?"
(She means C'est La Vie of course, which is a pun. An INSIDE pun. Those are absolutely the best kinds of pun.)
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Setsuna is willing to believe Venus. She doesn't know much about temporal mechanics either; Labyrinth may have such knowledge, but it doesn't pass it to its citizens, even the Executives without cause.
"Sometimes," Setsuna says to Raiko, "You have to believe, instead of think. ...It's counterintuitive, but it's sometimes just what you have to do."
Mercury has their temporal mechanics covered, anyway!
"We've done a lot of impossible things," Setsuna says. "So has he."
But the Senshi...
She looks to Fate, for a moment. Notes her resolution. And--
"I'm not sure we'll have much time for fun," Setsuna admits. "But if we do, then I'm sure you'll have the most fun, usagi-chan. You always do."
She opens her mouth and closes it, at the talk of singing. "Ah..."
Setsuna does not volunteer. But Tarte doesn't push her into it, either. Instead he says, "I think you've got it covered!" to Venus. "You can do it, girls!"
<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.
Raiko can't help it if she had a responsible magic upbringing that didn't include things like 'massively devastating the space-time continuum for fun and profit.' Or curses.
(Sorry Yumi.)
The point is, she's inclined to try and wrap her head around magical phenomena and she's doing her best with what she's got here. She does relax, a little, as Sailor Venus flashes her that V, though she still looks plenty worried. "Right, right... they tried to open that rift at Juuban, and I guess I'm still here to talk about it, so..."
Setsuna says she has to just believe and not think sometimes, and Raiko slowly nods to that. She takes a deep brath and then lets it go. "Right."
"Yeah," agrees Kyouka, of the backwards arrangement. "That's... something we need to stop too. For their sakes." She glances to Fate as she says this, but doesn't clarify on whose sake it's for. She looks down at her plate after a moment. "A lot of people have gotten hurt because of everything involved with those treasures. We should put a stop to all of it, once and for all."
Meanwhile, she tries her best to follow along with Hayate's explanation. "Right, because it can still tell us where the last search results are, which is where they're at now, and then we can just come back to the present and..." She almost had a grip on it, but then Hayate mentions the coordinates might change in the future... because of stars exploding. "Ah... right?"
Clara sighs, stepping through the conversation to grab seconds--or is this actually thirds?--piling food onto her plate. "Honestly, if you can't even follow that, I don't know how you ever managed to make a contract with my Master's device." She looks back to Hayate, scrutinizing her. "... You'll need my help with those calculations. I'm not risking anything happening to Strike Wolf."
But when Venus calls the TV boring, Raiko blinks, and looks to Mercury. "... I thought it was super cool, though... That's not even a smart TV, is it? I can see how you could hijack the signal processing, but how'd you generate the hologram?"
Shiori sighs, shaking her head but lets Raiko go, since the serious matters have been resolved, for the moment. "You will have our support, in whatever capacity we can provide it," she assures the room.
Kyouka grins as a legendary teamup is mentioned. "Heck yeah. If there's a fight to be had, count us in. Right, buddy?"
From the leather bracelet around her wrist, Strike Wolf chimes in, <Affirmative.>
But as for Karaoke, Kyouka grins. "Anybody got a catalog? If there's any American standards I'm all over that."
