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| Break fast surreal and milk! |
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Posted by: classicdrogn - 03-20-2025, 06:03 AM - Forum: General Chatter
- No Replies
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me, waking: Mnuh, uh.... FUCK!
frendo: ... Good dreams?
me again: No! I mean yes! I mean, I found boxes of genuine Sgt. Slaughter vs Mr. T breakfast cereal, but I woke up before I could taste either one!
frendo: I fear the things in your dreams.
Sgt. Slaughter cereal looked like Lucky Charms with red, white, and blue star marshmallows, by the way, while Mr. T's was the same but with chocolate cereal bits, and if you put the two boxes side by side with Mr. T on the left the fronts formed a single picture of them scowling at each other across a wrestling ring shaped bowl of cereal. Goddammit, why'd I have to wake up just then?
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| 2016-12-10: The Big Raid |
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Posted by: robkelk - 03-09-2025, 07:09 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (3)
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The Big Raid
by Rob Kelk
Prologue
Kemptville, Ontario, Canada
December 10, 2016
5:07 pm ET
Two rather large people caught her attention as she left the coffee shop by the back door. "Hey, you!"
She turned to face them. "Do you have some business with me?"
"Yeah. We'd appreciate it if you were to stay in Kemptville for all of next week."
"Think of it as a ... personal favour."
"Why would I want to do you any favours?" She pulled a mirror out of her purse and primped, hoping they'd take the hint.
"Because it'd be very bad for you if you don't do what we say."
The one who wasn't talking grabbed at the mirror, but she spun it around to keep it out of his reach ... and to catch a reflection of his face in the glass.
What she saw wasn't human. They hadn't taken the hint, but they had taken the bait. "I don't do favours for your sort. I kill things like you. Deep Submerge!" Michiru caught both trolls in the same blast, destroying them utterly.
A moment later, a car pulled into the parking lot. "Sorry I'm late! Why do you have the Deep Aqua Mirror out?"
"Oh, I just had to deal with a couple of Unseelie."
"Again?" Haruka asked while Michiru got into the car. "We really need to do something about them. We're getting lazy, always waiting for them to make the first move."
"Usagi said she and her friends were working on a plan for that."
"We really need to do something about them before Usagi tries to be friends with them."
"When I mentioned that to her last week, she said something about a different kind of befriending."
"I wonder what she meant by that?"
"Who knows?"
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
December 11, 2016
11:55 am ET
"We have a problem." Rob scowled as he sat down for lunch.
Mikoto looked up. "A problem? What is it?"
Rob almost made the Airplane! joke, but "a source of irritation or vexation" was what was important right now. "I just got an email from someone I used to work with. Her husband does design work for Haruka's race team, and he mentioned that Haruka's looking at making a raid against the Unseelie."
"I thought we were supposed to be keeping our existence secret," Mii muttered to nobody in particular.
"We're planning a raid, too, once it warms up in the spring," Makoto replied while carrying a platter of salmon fillets in from the kitchen. "Assuming we're still here then."
"Uranus wants to make the raid before Christmas."
Mii sighed. "Is there any way we can rein her in?"
Usagi shook her head. "She's not somebody who's used to taking orders. Neither is Michiru." Turning to Mii, she added, "Which is probably why Rob-oji's past coworker and her husband know about them – she might have told them."
"Do they know where the Unseelie are?"
"I don't know, Kazari. We know, or at least Jacky and Kate know, but have any of the Sidhe told Michiru?"
"If they have," Rei answered, "then we don't have a lot of time to figure out how to stop them from going in and getting themselves killed."
"They're Sailor Senshi, Niiko Misaka points out. Would they really be at risk, Niiko Misaka asks in continuation."
"They might," Mamoru replied. "It took all six of us plus Railgun to take down a single giant, and I was injured in the process."
"And from what the books say," Rob added, "we can't assume that there's only one giant in their lair."
"Too bad we don't have a military strike force that we could send against the Unseelie right now."
Rob raised one eyebrow. "Rui-chan, have you forgotten the MITHRIL strike force in Adelaide?"
Ruiko grinned sheepishly and and put one hand behind her head. "Ah-heh-heh. Yeah, I did."
Makoto cleared her throat. "Eat now, strategize later. The fish is getting cold."
Rob nodded. "Agreed. Besides, we want Haruka, Michiru, Tessa, Jacky, and Kate here for this. I'll call them after lunch."
"Invite them over for supper," Usagi suggested.
We're Putting the Team Together!
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
December 13, 2016
4:15PM ET
Sailor Neptune looked up from the maps that Jacky and Kate had drawn for Usagi and Rob a day earlier. "These aren't very good."
Rob nodded. "What did you expect from a map based on imperfectly-remembered experiences from a year ago? Kazari has been running some experiments with some tech that Washuu-chan gave her at Halloween, and if she's happy with the test results, we'll make some better maps."
"Good. Next, I'd like to go over the list you've put together, and see who we can and can't work with."
"I'm sure you would, but don't you have a rede to lead tonight? I'd think it would make more sense for you to go get some sleep."
"I'm still young – I can stay up all night."
Rob deliberately ignored the implication in her comment. "Suit yourself, Michiru. Do you want a coffee or something?"
"I want to get this over with so we can start the attack," Haruka replied.
Rob shook his head. "Not until everyone's here. I promised Usagi she could sit in on these planning meetings."
Haruka made a face, something of a mix of cross and upset. "Why? She isn't the best tactical planner in the group."
Rob nodded. "That's exactly why. She needs to learn. So do I, for that matter." Just then, there was a knock at the common room's door. "And here's the other people I'm expecting," Rob continued as he got up, walked over to the door, and opened it. "Welcome to Ottawa, Captain, Sergeant."
"Thank you for inviting me to take part in this operation, Mr. Donaldson," replied a gray-haired teenage woman with a hint of a Boston Brahmin accent. A black-haired woman stood behind her; both were wearing uniforms that Haruka and Michiru didn't recognize.
"Who are you?" Haruka asked.
Rob tapped his own head lightly in an 'oops' fashion. "Where are my manners? Haruka Ten'oh, Michiru Kaioh, this is Captain Teresa Testarossa, commanding officer of MITHRIL's submersible carrier Tuatha De Danaan, and Sergeant Melissa Mao of the ground forces attached to the Tuatha De Danaan."
"My friends call me Tessa." She bowed to Haruka and Michiru, who bowed in return. "And I would very much like it if you would consider me to be your friend, Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune."
Haruka nodded. "So we all know each other now. What's a submarine captain doing here?"
Before Tessa could reply, Rob said, "I've asked her, as an experienced military commander, to take charge of our mission. If things go well here, Lord Phantomhive will consider placing Tessa in charge of all multi-residence military and paramilitary operations."
"And I accepted," said Teresa. "Although at this point, my captaincy is a technicality; without MITHRIL or my boat, there’s not much point to the title. However, my expertise is still valid."
Haruka frowned. "I'll make my question more clear. What qualifies a submarine captain to take charge of a ground attack?"
(Rob was getting annoyed over Haruka's attitude, but he kept it to himself for the moment. Tessa was old enough and skilled enough to take care of herself.)
"Ms. Ten'oh, I am not just a submarine skipper. I command covert amphibious assault forces of mixed units that include ground troops, assault aircraft, and machines that you might call 'mecha'. I have commanded many ground operations in the past, most of them similar in type to the one we are planning to undertake."
"I can show you the anime of some of those missions, if you'd like," added Rob. With a bit of annoyance he was feeling slipping into his speech, he added, "Just like I can show Ms. Testarossa anime footage of your actions against the Witches 5."
Tessa and Haruka both quickly replied, "That won't be necessary" – Tessa in a mater-of-fact tone, Haruka is a slightly-annoyed tone. Tessa continued, "I think that I can work with Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, if they're willing to work with everyone else."
"As long as you don't try to tell us what to do when we're on the spot and you aren't," replied Haruka.
Rob's patience reached its end. "If you aren't willing to follow orders, you're out and we do this without you."
"That is quite enough, both of you," Tessa said sternly.
Once everyone was looking at her instead of each other, she continued. "First, Mr. Donaldson, while I acknowledge that you are the residence manager in charge in this area and I appreciate the advice you give me in that capacity, you have asked me to take overall command of this operation and thus it is my decision who will and will not take part in it."
"Understood," he replied. Tessa noted that he didn't agree to her statement, just that he heard it, but let that slide for the moment.
Tessa turned her attention from Rob to Haruka, who was smiling at the man being taken down a peg. "That said, Ms. Ten'oh, you and Ms. Kaioh have a reputation of failing to cooperate with people whom an outside observer would expect to be your allies, going so far as to challenge Sailor Moon to combat because you didn't believe she was Serenity despite all of the evidence to the contrary. At least you waited until after Pharaoh 90 was defeated; if you had raised your hand against your commander during a mission, I would have dismissed you from this operation immediately."
"That sounds like you've already watched the anime," Rob murmured.
Haruka wasn't smiling any more. "We needed to know that she was strong enough to make the hard decisions!"
Melissa glared at the taller blonde. "That's not your call to make, Ten'oh. Sailor Moon's in command of your unit. It's her job to give the orders and it's your job to follow them, unless the orders are unlawful. And if your unit is going to be fighting beside my unit, then I need to know that you are willing to carry out our commander's orders unless those orders are unlawful. Do I make myself clear?"
Neither Haruka nor Michiru answered immediately.
Tessa pointedly said, "Sergeant Mao said 'Do I make myself clear?' Don't make us ask a third time."
"You make yourself clear," Michiru replied.
"Thank you, Ms. Kaioh. Do you agree to her condition?"
"I do."
"Ms. Ten'oh, do you agree to her condition?"
"Yes," she replied, reluctantly. "But I want to know who else will be involved in this raid."
"That's fair," Rob replied, knowing that despite the way Melissa had phrased her speech very few of the people involved were actually military or paramilitary and thus couldn't be counted on to behave the same way. "We're already planning to draw up the list today, and I don't mind you taking part in that meeting."
Just then, the common room's door opened. "Sorry I'm late! The school bus had some trouble. Oh, hi Haruka, hi Michiru, hi Tessa! Did I miss anything?"
"Come on in, Usagi," Rob said. "Hi Makoto. And all you missed was us exchanging ... pleasantries."
Both girls had a good idea what Rob was talking about – they both winced. Then Makoto headed for the kitchen as everyone else sat down around the big table, where everyone could see the big-screen monitor that was displaying a crude map of the Unseelie stronghold as best as Jacky and Kate could remember it. Only Usagi didn't notice that Tessa and Haruka sat at opposite ends of the table.
In the kitchen, Makoto did her best to listen in on the conversation going on one room over, while she made a snack for everyone else... but nobody was speaking loudly enough for her to overhear them. But finally the coffee and sandwiches were ready. Bringing in a tray, she heard Tessa saying, "No, Usagi."
"Their abilities would be very useful."
"They have no real combat experience, and they're children. We're not going to involve Sakura and Shaoran in this."
"But you'll involve Nanoha and Fate."
"They already have combat experience."
Makoto smiled and put the tray down on the table, being careful not to move any of the papers or computers already there but deliberately getting in the way of the big monitor. "Coffee, anyone?"
"Thanks, Mako-chan!" Usagi answered.
"Yes, than you, Ms. Kino," Tessa added. "But we do need to see the screen that's behind you."
Makoto took the hint. "I'll just leave this here, then."
Tessa turned back to Usagi. "We aren't involving Sakura and Shaoran for the same reason we aren't involving River."
"Oh. I guess we should protect them, too."
Rob nodded as Makoto left the common room.
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
December 13, 2016
6:41PM ET
Michiru had left a half-hour ago to lead her second rede. Rob had sent everybody else who wasn't part of the planning group to the closest pizza place that had tables – which happened to be one of the better pizza places in town. He, Usagi, Haruka, Tessa, Melissa Mao, Mii, Hyoga, and Kazari were the only ones left in the common room – and they had covered every table with notes, except for one table with two extra-large pizzas and a dozen sodas.
Mii was two slices ahead of everyone else. "Unless you're going to rent a bus, we need some teleportation ability that has a longer range and a higher weight limit than what Kuroko can manage."
Tessa smiled. "I know just the person, if he's willing. Yuuno Scrya is an excellent teleporter."
Rob whistled. "If he'll agree, he's perfect."
The others asked in unison, "Who's Yuuno Scrya?"
"Yuuno Scrya, from Nanoha and Fate's home univ- ah, reality," replied Rob, catching himself as to what the correct term was just as he was making the mistake, "is possibly the most skilled teleport-mage in existence."
"Would he be willing to help us?" Tessa asked.
"There's only one way to find out," Rob replied.
Kazari nodded, turned to her computer, and launched her videoconferencing program. As she explained to Yuuno what they were planning, the others continued reviewing the list.
Eventually, Rob proposed including sending all of the Sailor Senshi in with the reinforcing team that would be sent in after the first team was captured. Amazingly, this suggestion was met with opposition.
"Setsuna can't go."
Haruka looked at Usagi in surprise. "Why not?"
"She's still recovering from being deposited into this reality."
Rob added, "Apparently, the connection between this refuge that we're all in and the Door to Space-Time is blocked. Setsuna's powers, at least at the moment, are severely curtailed."
"How do you know about that?" Haruka demanded.
Usagi replied before Rob could. "First, we're all anime characters here. Michiru told me that you already knew that. The Door to Space-Time was mentioned in the show. Second, Donaldson-san is the only person in this building, and possibly in this city, who can contact the megami on a moment's notice and request their help. He needs to know what sort of help to request, which means he needs to know our state secrets."
"I still think we don't need to involve outsiders in these things," Haruka muttered.
Mii looked cross. "That sounds to me suspiciously like not being willing to be a team pl-"
Tessa cut her off before Mii could burn that bridge. "Ms. Konori," she said sternly, "I will be the judge of that." She turned to Haruka. "Sailor Uranus, Queen Serenity has already told you that Mr. Donaldson needs to know. Your commanding officer even gave you an explanation why, which she did not need to do."
Haruka knew that it was time to make a tactical retreat. "Oh, very well. What about Sailor Saturn?"
"We aren't including her for the same reason we aren't including Kinomoto-san," Hyoga replied. "We really should do what we can to preserve what innocence that they have left for a while, despite what Hotaru went through in your canon."
Melissa nodded. "Right. We fight so they don't have to."
Some decisions were made without discussion. Others decisions took some persuading, around slices of pizza and cans of soda. But, eventually, the lists of who was going into the stronghold when were completed.
At that point, Tessa asked, "Now, who do we want to have in reserve?"
Usagi looked puzzled. "Reserve?"
"Forces that we can deploy wherever they're needed, to exploit an enemy's weakness or get rid of our own," Tessa explained.
"I keep telling you about the idea of reserves after every fight the Senshi get into here," added Mii as she grabbed another slice of pizza.
Usagi smiled in understanding. "Oh, that! Maybe Mikoto's sisters would be interested."
Mii nodded – Usagi had made a good suggestion, and needed to be encouraged to make more of them. "Good idea. Let's ask all of them to take part."
"Except for Last Order. If Sakura Kinomoto and Hotaru Tomoe are too young, then so is she," Rob pointed out. After a quick beat, he added, "And so is Chibiusa."
Highway 416, between Ottawa and Kemptville, Ontario, Canada
December 14, 2016
8:08AM ET
"What an asshole."
"Which one?" Michiru asked with a yawn – she'd been up all night leading her second rede, after all.
"Konori, Donaldson, and Testarossa, but Testarossa in particular. What gives her the right to lecture us when she's never fought a daimon, or a ..." She finally remembered the name, "a sluagh, or anything else that isn't human?"
"You told me that it isn't good to get so worked up while you're driving. And Usagi likes them."
"Our neo-princess likes everybody. That doesn't mean I have to."
"Oh, I agree. As long as you like me, and I like you, it doesn't really matter who else likes who else, does it?"
"You and me against the world? I can live with that."
I Spy, with My Eye in the Sky...
Kemptville, Ontario, Canada
December 16, 2016
7:37PM ET
When Washuu-chan said "extended range," she wasn't kidding, Kazari mused as she looked at her computer display. The "Hatsuhara" drone that she received as a Halloween gift was still transmitting clearly to her laptop, despite being 100 kilometres away. Whatever the drone was using for communication, it wasn't Bluetooth.
She sipped at her coffee (and made a mental note to buy some of the house blend before leaving the coffee shop) as the data kept coming in – ground-penetrating radar providing a three-dimensional map of the cave system that wasn't on any of the local maps, paralleling the Madawaska River, and thermal imaging showing where the underground heat sources were. Probably Unseelie cooking fires, she thought. They aren't warm enough to be anything else. Washuu-chan's instruments are so far in advance of anything I could buy. I must remember to thank her. Again.
She switched to visible light and zoomed in on one tunnel that abruptly ended near the surface. "That's definitely an entrance," she said as Michiru looked over her shoulder.
"There are at least two ... what are those? ... walking toward it."
Kazari zoomed in closer. "The two on the outside match Usagi's description of sluagh. Jacky called them elfs who were killed but didn't die. The one in the middle..." She couldn't continue. It was obvious that the third one was human, and not present by choice.
I hope we can rescue her during the raid tomorrow, thought Kazari.
I hope they give her a quick death before they eat her, thought Michiru.
Just then, Rob walked into the coffee shop, looked around, and walked over to Kazari and Michiru. "I've finished my grocery shopping," he announced. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"I'm just saving it off now," Kazari replied. "Give me ... three minutes to finish."
"That's long enough for me to get a coffee to take out."
"Would you get me a bag of the house blend, please?" She sent the recall command to her drone – by the time it would return to her, they'd be halfway back to Ottawa – and saved a copy of the data on a USB dongle that she passed to Michiru. Kazari was ready to leave by the time Rob had his coffee brewed and her coffee bagged.
Later, when they'd pulled over so Kazari could retrieve her drone from the car's roof, Rob asked, "Are you sure it was a good idea to give them a copy of what you mapped out?"
Kazari smiled. "If they can decode the encryption before we start the raid tomorrow morning, I'll be very impressed. I used MITHRIL's encryption routines to protect it from prying eyes."
"Not your own?"
"Tessa gave me hers for this operation; it would have been rude not to use them. After all, she's in charge." After a moment, she added, "And I'll use the same encryption when I email the data to her tonight."
Rob noticed the flatness of Kazari's answer. "What are you not telling me about MITHRIL's codes?"
After a moment, she replied, "They're fifteen years old."
"Ah. And you're worried that she's using something like SHA-1 instead of SHA-3."
"Neither MITHRIL nor Academy City use those exact hash functions," Kazari replied quickly. "But... yes, I'm worried that encryption that old might already be broken."
Rob sighed deeply (in agreement), then asked, "What are you doing about it?"
"HAL and I are working on cracking her encryption. If we can, we'll stop using it."
8:21PM ET
"We have some good news and some bad news, Bonnie."
"May as well start with the good news, Haruka," Bonnie Barstow replied.
"Our friends have found the lair of those... things that attacked us the day after we met. We're planning a raid."
Bonnie nodded. "And that means the bad news is you won't be living here for much longer. It's been good having neighbours again even if it was only for a couple of months. Are you leaving the team?"
"What? No, you're a great group to work with."
"Thanks. Will you stay at least until the end of the month?"
Michiru smiled. "We will need a couple of days to pack."
Syracuse, NY, USA
December 16, 2016
11:33PM ET
"Somebody's using a MITHRIL code!"
Leonard looked up, then looked at Gates. "Where?" He already had a suspicion as to where one end of the transmission was located, but he wasn't about to let Gates know that.
"Patience, dear boy, patience – it takes time to run an IP trace on this antiquated hardware. No AI at all – how do they cope? Ah, here it is: the source is Ottawa. The big one. In Canada. The destination is ... Adelaide, in Australia. Oh, this code's easy to break. We just have to use your libraries. Pretty obvious it's your sister's private code."
Leonard smiled as he gave orders to deploy covert agents to both ends of the intercepted data stream. It looked like AMALGAM finally had something worthwhile to do.
The Plan
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
December 17, 2016
7:44 am ET
Teresa took the stage. Instead of her uniform, she was wearing a white skirt and jacket over a navy-blue blouse, along with her signature navy-blue hair ribbon. She'd added a pair of zero-prescription glasses with rectangular frames, making her look a half-decade older than she actually was. Considering some of the people in the assembled force, she needed to look as mature as possible.
Unfortunately for her plan, her outfit also made her look more desirable to exactly the same people. It took Mamoru and Sousuke three minutes to quiet down the more... "appreciative" men in the room.
Tessa did her best to conceal her annoyance. "For those of you who seem to have forgotten why we're here today, the Unseelie in this part of the world are a clear and present danger to the surrounding towns and cities, including this one. We need to teach them that attacking us leads to retaliation. Intelligence -" (Kazari Uiharu nodded in acknowledgment.) "- has gathered sensor readings consistent with a large number of opposing forces at the identified Unseelie base, which we will refer to by the name of the closest civilian settlement, Calabogie.
"Intel has not detected active sensors at Calabogie. However, our consultants tell us that the opposing force uses magic, not technology." (Kate Crackernuts waved to the group.) "Thus, we will assume that they know who we are and what we can do, and use encrypted communications to keep a communications advantage as per standard operating procedure. Communicators of MITHRIL grade will be issued to all personnel taking part in this operation. This gear is to be returned to quartermaster at the end of the operation." (At the side of the stage, Washuu waved at everyone.)
"The operation is primarily a hostage rescue. Get in, rescue any surviving hostages, do the maximum amount of damage in the minimum amount of time, and get out.
"Stage one: The advanced unit will make themselves conspicuous near but not at the entry, and allow themselves to be captured. It is the advanced unit's job to be taken inside the Calabogie base and activate a beacon in a location that can be secured easily. All members of the advanced unit will have paranormal abilities that can be used to defend themselves, but will not be drawn from the pool of espers and mages known to the opposing force.
"Stage two: The reinforcement unit will be teleported in to the beacon, where they will join forces with the advanced unit. Both teams are to rescue any hostages that they might encounter, and wreak havoc throughout the enemy base. Ideally, we will leave no opposing forces conscious.
"Simultaneously, the artillery support unit will enter the Calabogie base through the same entrance that the advance unit was taken through, and will also wreak havoc throughout the enemy base." Ryoko grinned at that – it had been a while since she'd last had the opportunity to cut loose. Tessa pretended to not notice.
"Stage three: Command post will give the signal to evacuate, at which point the deployed units will make their way out of the Calabogie base by the fastest means possible consistent with operational secrecy.
"The reserve unit will remain in reserve unless the command post deems it necessary for the deployed units to make a tactical retreat, at which point the reserve unit will be deployed to rescue the previously-deployed units.
"Are there any questions?"
"Yeah," Jayne asked. "You want us – the reserves – to sit on our asses and wait for the girls to fuck up. Why not just send us in to start with?"
"If all we were doing was a raid, we would. However, you have no ability to discern possible hostages from enemies that can assume human form, and your weapons do not have a stun setting. Any mistake you might make would likely be fatal for somebody."
"So?"
"Possibly for you."
"Oh."
"So we aren't actually killing any of the Unseelie?" Haruka asked.
"I would prefer to carry out this operation with a minimum loss of life. We will also be giving Usagi the chance to use her Moon Healing Escalation ability to rescue fae who have been corrupted to the opposing side. The local experts have informed me that some of the fae races can be brainwashed into joining the Horde; we should at least try to let these fae re-join the Host. In the best case, Sailor Moon will undo the conditioning of everyone who was brainwashed into joining the Unseelie, and those fae will make their escape after we withdraw. However, there is always the possibility that command might authorize the use of lethal force."
At the side of the stage, Mii Konori stood up. "Speaking for the local resident manager, I concur with Captain Testarossa. It is our job to save lives, not to take them. But that also means that your lives are just as important as everyone else's. If it comes down to a situation where somebody is going to die and that somebody is either you or your opponent, then I would much prefer that you be the one who lives. If something goes wrong and you have to kill someone, we can discuss that during the mission debriefing."
As Mii sat down, Mal Reynolds stood up. "And don't forget that the phrase 'a fate worse than death' exists for a reason. If you can't save somebody, it just might be kinder to shoot him yourself. I've been there, and I've done that. Most o' these things are no better than the Reavers from my universe, so be prepared to act accordingly. And if you have trouble livin' with yourself after the fact, that's what Shepherd Book and Doc Shea are here to help you work through. Am I clear?"
"Like crystal," Usagi replied.
Shirou raised his hand. "What if the advance unit is attacked with lethal force instead of taken prisoner?"
Tessa frowned for a brief moment as she replied, "In that case, use of lethal force in response is authorized, and we will break off the operation. Are there any further questions?" Seeing a raised a hand, she continued, "Yes, Ms. Kino."
Sailor Jupiter stood up. "The briefing notes said that there is a chance of us going up against giants during this operation. Why aren't we sending in your Arm Slaves?"
Tessa sighed. "Sgt. Sagara, answer the question, please."
Sousuke stood to attention. "Ma'am, yes ma'am. According to the briefing notes compiled by the local experts, the possibility of encountering multiple giants is higher than the possibility of encountering one giant. There were three giants present in the caverns the last time the local experts were in the stronghold. There's no guarantee that there won't be more now. And while Uruz 2, Uruz 6, and Uruz 7 could fight giants one-to-one, it is certain that there will also be infantry-sized opposing forces present that we could not deal with while engaged in combat with forces our size or larger."
"And a fighting vehicle can be taken out by somebody your size, if she has an anti-tank missile or something similar," added Mal, seeing the look of confusion on Makoto's face.
"Exactly," Tessa concluded. "Unless there are only giants in the Unseelie complex, ordering Arm Slaves in would potentially be the same as ordering their pilots to suicide. However, we will deploy the Arbalest in the reserve unit, with ECS functioning at all times." She waited for a moment, then repeated, "Are there any more questions?" After looking around the room, she continued, "No? Then report to the quartermaster, who will issue communicators to you and open a portal to the van that Mr. Donaldson has driven to the staging point. You leave at 8 am sharp."
Calabogie, Ontario, Canada
December 17, 2016
7:52 am ET
Rob parked at the side of the road, close to but not within line-of-sight of the Unseelie stronghold. "Well, here we are. Later than I wanted, but still before we needed to be here."
"Just barely," Jacky replied. "You're not going to make me go back in there, are you?"
Rob shook his head. "No, we need you out here, staffing one of the communications stations. Speaking of which, could you help me get them all running, please?" He pulled the keys out of the van's ignition and headed for the battery bank at the back of the van, to double-check that everything was plugged in and working properly. After six minutes of activity, he switched on the last communicator and spoke into it. "Goalkeeper, Polar Bear. Final comms check."
"Polar Bear, Goalkeeper. Comms are good," replied Kazari's voice.
"Home Base, Polar Bear. Advance base is ready. You may teleport when ready."
Back in Ottawa, Tessa spoke into her microphone. "All units, Home Base. Headquarters authorizes commencement of Stage One."
Neither Rob nor Jacky noticed the panel truck on the other side of the river... or its high-gain antenna pointed at their van.
Tune in next week, when The Plan Makes Contact with the Enemy
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| RWBY, pre-Volume 10 |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 03-06-2025, 06:26 PM - Forum: General Chatter
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So... it looks like Viz is doing more than the one short-short I shared in the Trailers thread...
Yeah, that one.
So I decided to start a RWBY-specific thread to hold them until we get the first V10 stuff.
Sit back and enjoy.
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| Shades of the Daicon intros... |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 03-04-2025, 01:25 PM - Forum: Anime Music Videos
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I just stumbled across this; I'm not entirely sure what it's from, but if I'm understanding my Google Translate results correctly, it might be the creditless version of the opening for something called Train Man? Which would mean it isn't really an AMV, but <shrug>. Anyway, it's very reminiscent of the legendary Daicon opening animations.
EDIT: I've found the Wikipedia page for the work in question, and yes, according to it the opening is a deliberate homage to the Daicon IV short.
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| 2017-01-13: Exercising Agency |
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Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 03-02-2025, 09:11 PM - Forum: Stories
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Exercising Agency
by Robert M. Schroeck
Private home somewhere in the Washington DC area
Friday, January 13, 2017
7:00 AM
William Carstairs, director of the Operations Department of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, came to full wakefulness when the phone at his bedside rang. As he sat up in bed and picked up the receiver, he glanced at the clock-radio. Seven A.M., just fifteen minutes before its alarm would have woken him.
"Carstairs here," he said into the receiver.
"Bill, thank god." He recognized the voice immediately, although the speaker was more agitated than he had ever been in Carstairs' recent memory. "I wasn't sure who I'd get. It's Bishop."
"Wasn't sure who you'd get?" Carstairs frowned. "What's wrong? You sound shaken."
"Bill, what's today's date?"
Well, that was an odd question. "October 20."
"The year, Bill?" Bishop pressed.
Carstairs frowned. "1993, of course."
"Bill, I just brought in my copy of the Post, and it's dated January 13, 2017."
"What?"
"There's a headline about the inauguration of President Trump a week from now. Donald Trump." Bishop took an audible breath. "Not only that, but most of the cars in the street below my apartment look like nothing I've ever seen before."
"Huh. Let me take a look." Phone still in hand, Carstairs stood up and crossed to the window which looked out at the street. He pulled aside the curtain and glanced out.
The familiar street greeted him, although after a moment he noticed that, apparently overnight the trees had completely lost their leaves, the Petersons' house had acquired new siding, and the Schwartzes had repainted. The few cars he could see, including one that drove by as he watched, were... different. More rounded, more aerodynamic than anything he'd seen before outside of a car show. They weren't quite as alien as Bishop's description had suggested, but were still unfamiliar. He brought the receiver back to his face. "I'm seeing the same, plus a couple houses on my street have changed, too." A thought struck him and he padded across the house to the door that led to the garage. He opened it and flipped the switch just inside to the right.
His '92 silver BMW 325i was gone. In its place was an unfamiliar vehicle, also silver, with the same smooth, rounded lines and a Lexus logo on the grille. "Hmm," he said.
"What is it?" Bishop demanded.
"I seem to have a new car," Carstairs declared. "Looks like quite a nice one, at that. Hold on." He stepped down into the garage and to the passenger side of the vehicle. He tugged experimentally on the handle and the door opened - not unexpected, he normally left his car unlocked in the garage - and reached in to open the glove compartment. He nodded to himself when he found the owner's manual by touch, then pulled it out and glanced at its cover. "All right. I am, apparently, the proud owner of a 2016 Lexus LS 460."
Bishop gave a low whistle. "LS? Not bad. And it confirms the year."
"That it does." Carstairs slid the manual back into the glove compartment and pulled out the paperwork. "Registration is in my name. Expires in July 2018."
"Hm," Bishop replied. "I just thought of something, give me a moment." As he climbed out of the car and left the garage, Carstairs heard footsteps and then rustling of some sort over the line. Then Bishop spoke again. "Bill, check your license and your Company ID. I just looked at mine, and they both give my birth year as '76 instead of '53."
"Really," he replied as he padded back to his bedroom. His wallet, ID and keys were atop the silent valet where he'd left them before going to bed... when? Last night? Twenty-three years ago? Carstairs suddenly suspected that he might know how Rip van Winkle felt after waking up. He flipped open his wallet and a glance confirmed Bishop's obvious suspicion. "Well. Month and day are right, but I seem to have been born in 1938 now." Another glance at his Agency card showed the same date.
"Bill..." Bishop began. "What's going on? This isn't time travel, or not just time travel. I mean, we still have our homes and our lives. It's almost as if it all just got ... transplanted into the future. Or a future."
Carstairs nodded to himself. "It does seem that way." He took a deep breath. "Look. Let's both head in to Langley. If we have future versions of our home lives, it only stands to reason that we will also have future versions of our jobs - especially since we have the IDs."
On the other end, Bishop laughed. "There is that, yeah."
"So that's what we'll do," he continued. "We meet at the Agency in two hours, find our offices if they're not in the same place, and go to work on figuring out what happened."
"That sounds like an excellent plan." Bishop almost sounded relieved.
The Central Intelligence Agency
George Bush Center for Intelligence
Langley, Virginia
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Bill Carstairs studied the frame full of book covers which took up a not-too-small portion of an "I Love Me" wall that was only partially recognizable as a reflection of his career with the CIA. Whatever phenomenon had plucked Bishop and himself out of their native time and place and then inserted them in this strange future world had done an extensive and detailed job of translating their personal histories to match. His own World War II-era experience with the OSS had, in this time and place, instead become Cold War espionage along both sides of the Iron Curtain, for instance. And Bishop's early Cold War experience had become a hodge-podge history of operations in the Middle East and various Third World nations.
The truly disturbing thing was, if he concentrated, he could bring up memories of these experiences which had never been his. They had a strange gray flatness to them, almost as though they were simple reference copies for his convenience. It was enough to make him wonder if there had been a who behind their move to this time and place instead of an impersonal what.
That, and the contents of the frame in front of him. A brass plaque attached to its bottom edge read "The Great Coincidence". Under the glass, neatly arranged in a grey mat, were the covers of fourteen paperback books - books which all bore a familiar name that should be all but unknown to the rest of the CIA: Mrs. Pollifax.
Emily Pollifax (more recently, after her remarriage to retired judge Cyrus Reed, Pollifax-Reed), was an elderly grandmother whom he had been calling upon for certain special missions an average of once a year for the past decade. Originally an untrained amateur whom he had tapped by mistake for what was supposed to be a milk run courier mission (and which had turned out to be anything but), she had become his go-to choice when he needed someone completely off the books. After her first assignment, Emily had quickly grown into a surprisingly skilled agent with a track record of spectacular overachievement whenever dispatched on a mission, and although it drove his anxiety levels through the roof whenever he used her, he had to admit that she always delivered results beyond anything expected, even when accounting for her history.
In exchange for her services Bill paid her generously out of the "black" portion of his department's budget, classified her identity at the highest level and referred to her as little as possible in after-action reports (and then only by the codename "AUNTIE MAME"), while insulating her from the parts of the CIA that were unsavory, excessively political, or both. Besides Bishop and himself, only a few other members of the group with high enough clearance even knew she existed; no one but Bishop and he knew the full extent and impact of her activities.
To find her name plastered across a series of book covers on the wall of his office in this new time and place was a shock so powerful he was thankful he hadn't had a heart attack at the sight. Bishop had stopped short upon spying the frame for the first time and uttered an uncharacteristic obscenity when he saw its contents. Most disturbing to both of them - at least at first - had been the number of books. The first ten they could map to the missions he had given her, from the initial courier run to Mexico City which had gone so wrong, to the case only a few months earlier by their memories, which had taken her to Sicily and had resulted in the return of the assassin "Aristotle" to jail. But there were four more published between 1995 and 2004, and even now Bill was hesitant to learn their details.
The details they'd found in the first ten were disturbing enough as it was.
According to the first book, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, Emily had originally approached the CIA in or around 1966. Which would would make her birth date just past the turn of the century - the turn of the last century, he reminded himself. But Bill and Bishop both remembered first meeting her in 1983, a decade or so before the two of them had found themselves in this new time and world. The book implied that he had been at least ten and maybe as much as twenty years younger than her at their first meeting when to his recollection he'd never been anything but ten years older than his most unconventional agent, who'd been born in 1920.
The tenth book, Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief, matched his recollections far more closely. It recounted Emily's most recent job for Operations in Sicily; the book had been published in 1993 and its events presumably took place in that year, just as his own memories said they had. The plot summary he'd read matched the facts as he knew them, as well.
But the wide disparity between an Emily who'd started working for him in 1983 and the Emily whom a version of him first met in the mid-Sixties left him doubting his own memories and sense of identity. He was inclined to accept Bishop's suggestion that, since it was obvious that they were for whatever reason now in a different universe from their "native" one, perhaps each book described one of a set of slightly different universes, where a version of Emily (born later and later in the first third of the 20th century) came to the CIA in her early sixties.
If only some of the later books didn't have sly and disturbingly aware comments shared between the characters how everyone seemed so much younger than they should be. Bill shook his head. He needed to just let the problem lie. Worrying at it... that way lay madness.
And the world was mad enough already.
Bill shook his head as he mentally reviewed the summaries of the international scene he had consumed since (re)discovering his office. The Middle East was an even worse mess than it had been in 1993; he was honestly shocked it hadn't exploded into a region-wide war yet. And the Commonwealth of Independent States, which had been so promising in its first years, was now little more than a tail wagged by a Russia that was a dictatorship in all but name, ruled by a former KGB agent with blatantly imperial aspirations.
And the United States - something had happened since the 1990s, or at least their version of the 1990s, that had begun to change the nation into something almost unrecognizable. One political party was all but in open warfare against the other, which manfully strove to keep the nation running in the face of what amounted to constant, deliberate sabotage. And the election of Donald Trump of all people as president just two months before their arrival only suggested things were poised to get worse rather than better, judging by his rhetoric.
If he didn't take the Company's mandate to stay out of domestic affairs as seriously as he did, Bill would have been tempted to take some kind of action. Just what kind of action he had no idea, and he refused to allow himself to speculate, lest he find himself yielding to that temptation.
Better to focus on finding out if Emily had somehow been brought to this madhouse of a future as well.
As he continued to study the frame and its book covers, he heard the door of his office open behind him. "Bill?" Bishop asked.
"Come in," Carstairs replied, turning away from the wall to sit on the edge of his desk. "What have you got?"
Bishop carefully shut the door behind him and waited for Carstairs to activate the room's various anti-eavesdropping measures before responding. "I've finished going through the personnel records for the department like you asked," he said, brandishing the olive-green folder in his hand.
"And?"
Bishop grimaced. "Just as we suspected, we're the only ones who got transplanted. There's no one else in Operations who shows any sign of being from, well, before."
"Pity, that," Carstairs said, shaking his head. "Still, if there had been, I suspect we'd have found out by now."
"I'm not so sure about that," Bishop replied. "I mean, if it were just me, I'd sure as hell be staying quiet about it, just to keep myself out of the rubber room. But since there are no familiar names or faces in the staff I think we can probably eliminate the chance that someone else is hiding that they've been shifted with us."
Carstairs nodded. "Perfectly reasonable deduction." He stood and crossed back to the "I love me" wall. "All right. Expand your checks to as much of the Company as you can look at while avoiding tripwires or raising any questions. I don't expect you to recognize every name or face, but if you come across anyone whose history even suggests they've been plugged into this world like we have, I want to know. In the meantime..." He raised a hand and waved at the frame full of book covers. "This is not a coincidence. This is a message. Emily has to have been transplanted with us." He turned back to Bishop. "We're going to find her."
Washington, DC, USA
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Over the next few days, Carstairs and Bishop performed a quiet, circumspect investigation, keeping as much of their efforts as possible separate from the Agency. It wasn't hard for a "civilian" to search a complete list of the faculty at Yale at will, for instance, especially in this almost obsessively networked future. Unfortunately, Cyrus Reed didn't appear on the University's "online" faculty guide as they had hoped he might, given his position as a part-time lecturer in their original time.
Other searches made with resources available to the average citizen were just as fruitless, and just as frustrating, so they had finally resorted to old-fashioned legwork. "You and I both have complete histories here," Bishop had pointed out, "and however false they are to us, they're 100% genuine as far as this world is concerned. If Emily and Cyrus are here, it only stands to reason that they're going to have legends as thoroughly backstopped as ours. We just have to look in the right places to find them."
Carstairs nodded. "Judging by our experience, they should still be in their house in Connecticut."
"Reasonable," Bishop said. "So that's where I'll start. Give me the authorization, and I'll use the Company cut-out to search the Connecticut DMV records for them. Cyrus definitely had a license." He chuckled. "God knows how many vehicles Emily has commandeered at one time or another on her missions, but I don't actually know if she ever had a license of her own."
"And if that turns up nothing?"
Bishop's amusement vanished and he grimaced. "Fall back to New Jersey, I suppose. I know New Brunswick is Emily's old home town, but I honestly can't imagine why they would end up there instead of Connecticut. Still, it's the only other lead we have."
Frowning, Carstairs turned to the computer that occupied the corner of his desk to his left. "I agree. I'm not happy about it, but I agree." He fell silent as he moused and typed for a minute or so. "All right. I've set you up with authorization to access the Connecticut DMV and New Jersey's MVS." He sighed. "Let's hope this pans out."
Connecticut, as it had turned out, had been a wash. The DMV had no records, current or expired, for anyone named Cyrus Reed anywhere close to the right age. There was a Cyrus Reed to be found in Pomfret, but he was only 25 years old. Bishop immediately dismissed him as a possibility. A little research with Google Maps and a couple of phone calls later to satisfy his curiosity had confirmed that the house in Orange that he had known as the Reed-Pollifax home did exist in this future world, but had never been owned by anyone named Reed, at least in the last four decades.
Disconsolate, Bishop turned to New Jersey, which he expected to be an equally fruitless search, only to be stunned with the almost instantaneous appearance of Cyrus Reed, age 74, 462 Hamilton Street in Somerset. He opened a new browser window and typed the address into Google Maps. Somerset was the town next door to New Brunswick. And the address - identified on the map as Douglass Gardens Apartments - was only a mile from the Hemlock Apartments. For the first time in weeks, he felt a surge of hope.
"You're sure about this?" Carstairs demanded.
Smiling, Bishop nodded. "Absolutely. Once I got the MVS hit on Cyrus, I started searching for confirmatory info. He passed the bar in New Jersey in 1968, and he's been a member of the New Jersey state bar association since then. Beyond that, his history in this world matches the one we know in broad strokes - becoming a judge, serving on the bench until his retirement. And!" His smile grew into an almost manic grin. "I also found all the records for his marriage to one Emily Pollifax, widowed, five years ago!"
"You have?" Carstairs asked. "Excellent!"
"I've got their phone number," Bishop added, "but I think it'd be better if one of us drove up there and contacted them in person."
Carstairs smiled, for the first time in weeks, it felt like. "And by 'one of us' you mean you."
"Well, yes," Bishop confirmed, still grinning.
Carstairs slapped the top of his desk with his right hand. "Do it. Head up there tomorrow."
"You better believe I will," Bishop affirmed.
New Brunswick, New Jersey
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Just in case it took longer than he expected, Bishop booked a room at the Heldrich hotel on Monument Square in New Brunswick. It was, not coincidentally, the closest hotel to both Emily's former home in the Hemlock Apartments and the Douglass Gardens Apartments - the latter was just a mile and a few minutes' drive away, while the former was was only four blocks. Bishop had arrived and checked in around mid-afternoon, still mostly fresh after the drive from Langley, and decided that, while he was certain that if Emily were anywhere to be found she would be with Cyrus at Douglass Gardens, taking the short walk to Emily's old apartment building would do him good.
Fortunately, it was warm for February in New Jersey, almost 50 degrees, and if it hadn't been overcast it would have felt almost Spring-like. As it was, his overcoat was sufficient to the task as he stepped out. Bishop chuckled to himself as he glanced around Monument Square - to him, it hadn't been all that long since he'd last visited Emily in her apartment - five years, if that. But the difference between the late-1980s New Brunswick he recalled and the mid-2010s version he was now in was very noticeable. New buildings everywhere, including a few for Rutgers - and his own hotel, which had replaced a dreary 1920s-vintage building that he recalled with some distaste. Despite the gray sky everything looked brighter and cleaner than he remembered. He was impressed with the transformation thirty years had wrought to the area.
Bishop turned left onto Livingston and began his walk, past the Elks lodge and the library, taking in the Victorian homes on the broad avenue, most of which had long ago been turned into professional offices of one kind or another. To the best of his recollection, this part of the city hadn't changed, although to be fair, he had only ever driven the route before. Looking ahead just a couple blocks Bishop could spy the red brick silhouette not quite towering over nearby buildings on the other side of the street. He smiled to himself at the sight.
To be honest with himself, this little side excursion was completely unnecessary. They were already certain that Emily and Cyrus would be found together at Douglass Gardens - although Bishop had to admit a certain curiosity as to why and how. After all, he and Carstairs had arrived in their own homes with most of their possessions - Bill in his house and himself in his apartment. It was laughable to call anything about their situation "typical", but if he and Bill were "typical" - whatever that meant - then surely Emily and Cyrus should have been found safely ensconced in the former farmhouse in Orange. Failing that, then in Emily's old apartment in the Hemlock.
So why were they living a mile away in a garden apartment complex that had never figured into either of their histories? Bishop supposed that simple curiosity about that question drove his walk to the Hemlock as much as anything else, as though standing in front of the building and looking at it would reveal the secret reason for their new home.
And then again, he realized as he came to a stop in front of his destination, it just might. The red brick apartment building before him was an unfamiliar design, and the sign next to which he stood proclaimed it the "Brunswick Arms".
He glanced around. The other buildings at this intersection were at least vaguely familiar. This one, however... it was not, nor had it ever been, the Hemlock Apartments.
That was probably why Emily and Cyrus weren't there.
As he stood there staring blankly at the entry to the building, he was surprised to hear a girl's voice call out, in an achingly authentic Estuary British accent, "Crikey! It's the Bishop!"[1] He sighed to himself. He enjoyed Monty Python as much as the next man, but there were only so many times he could hear that line around the office before...
He froze.
Other than Emily and Cyrus, no one within two hundred miles should have had any idea who he was.
As he stood there, a girl stepped out of a shadow that was far too small to have concealed her as thoroughly as it had. She was a very pretty girl with long blonde hair and longer legs, with a bright red bow perched on the back of her head, wearing a belted woolen coat that managed to reveal more of her figure than by all rights it should have. Her blue eyes seemed out of place amidst her otherwise Asian features. She would have been exactly to his tastes, he noted, had she been a decade older. As it was she couldn't have been more that sixteen or so, if he were any judge.
"I beg your pardon?" he said carefully.
"William Bishop, right?" she chirped as she stepped close enough to hold out a hand to shake. "I'm Minako Aino. I'm here to take you to Emily and Cyrus."
Bishop moaned, eyes closed, as he savored the chocolate éclair. "You remembered," he said once he'd swallowed and opened his eyes again.
Minako giggled from where she sat sprawled in an armchair, petting the extraordinarily well-behaved white cat sitting in her lap. "He's as bad as Usagi." The cat, Bishop noticed, had an odd marking above and between its eyes, an upward-pointing crescent that seemed almost metallic gold in color.
"Now you know better than to think I would forget," Emily Pollifax chided him gently, a smile on her lips, as her husband Cyrus chuckled in a seismic rumble. "You are one of my dearest friends, after all." She glanced over at the girl. "And you, dear, are exaggerating."
Minako giggled again. "Just a little. But I've never seen a man react to a pastry like that before, Mr. Bishop." Like so many other details about her, her so-very-British accent seemed both out of place and inarguably authentic.
"Just 'Bishop' is okay, Ms. Aino," he said as he resisted the urge to lick chocolate off his fingertips and instead wiped them carefully on the one of the paper napkins a smiling Cyrus handed to him. "And it was quite a good éclair."
"Bishop it is, then. And Minako, please," she said with a cheerful nod. "And yes, Scala makes wonderful éclairs."[2]
He returned the nod, then focused on Emily and Cyrus again. "So... you clearly knew I was coming. How?"
"Well," Emily began, with a sheepish look crossing her face. "When Cyrus and I arrived three months ago, we tried to find you and Mr. Carstairs, but there was no sign that you'd been displaced with us - the usual contacts and drops, including the law office in Baltimore, simply didn't work or weren't there at all."
"Drove Em fair to distraction," Cyrus noted.
She nodded. "It did, yes. We didn't give up hope, though, and when our... hosts made it known to us they had ways to keep an eye out for you, we took them up on the offer." She glanced over at the girl and the cat, then back to him. "They detected your first searches for us, but it wasn't until just a few days ago that they confirmed it was actually you and Mr. Carstairs."
He shook his head. "Whoever your hosts are, their methods are disturbingly effective."
Minako erupted in a peal of musical laughter, disturbing the cat in her lap, who gave her a glare of feline displeasure. "You have no idea."
"So," Bishop frowned slightly. "Who are these hosts of yours?"
"That," a new, male, voice said, and Bishop spun in shock to face the cat, who continued, "is one of the things we wanted to talk to you about."
"You..." Bishop stammered, then turned back to stare at Emily and Cyrus, "That cat..."
"Spoke, yes," said the cat. "I am Artemis." It leapt off Minako's lap, and halfway to the floor, it transformed into a tall human man with waist-length platinum hair, dressed in an all-white outfit that looked vaguely Sixties, with heeled boots, tight slacks and a top that seemed like a cross between a turtleneck sweater and a Nehru jacket. Unlike any man's top Bishop had ever seen before, it had a cutout, crescent-shaped, in the center of his chest, and another round one at his navel. A golden crescent moon pendant hung from his neck. When Bishop finally tore his eyes from the eccentric ensemble, he realized the man was the kind of handsome that verged on effeminately pretty — and he had yet another golden crescent on his brow, just as the cat had had.
"Wha...?" he managed to get out.
"Artemis! Was that absolutely necessary?" Emily snapped. "Poor Bishop was already off-balance enough simply from you speaking." She rushed to Bishop's side and led him to a chair, into which he shakily lowered himself.
"Emily..." he rasped. "What the hell is going on here?"
"I think," she said as she turned and picked up a slender volume from the end table next to him, "that maybe you should read this, first."
Numbly, he took the booklet and stared at the cartoonish image on its cover before reading its title aloud. "So You Just Arrived from a Parallel Universe."
Private Home
Washington, DC area
Friday, February 3, 2017
8:12 PM
William Carstairs had settled himself down after a good dinner in his favorite armchair (brown leather, dime-sized bronze nail heads, slightly overstuffed) and, bathed in the warm yellow light of the floor lamp positioned behind his right shoulder, spent an hour going over the small book that Bishop had given him on his return from New Jersey. So You Just Arrived from a Parallel Universe was not quite as comprehensive as he would have liked, but it certainly answered many, if not most, of the questions he and Bishop had come up with over the past few weeks.
Of course, if he had read it before their arrival in this world, he would have dismissed it as fantasy or self-delusion, but there was something about being transported nearly a quarter-century into the future that made even the wildest speculation palatable. Not to mention it gave him some hope that their native world, should it survive whatever cataclysm was going on out there, wouldn't necessarily descend into the political shambles that plagued this one. In fact, should they be able to return to their home world, Carstairs thought he just might take it on himself to do what he could to make sure events would take a different course there.
He had gone over the book twice, the second time through jotting notes in the margins — more notes in the margins, he mentally amended with a smile at the recollection of some of the comments by other displacees that had been dutifully reproduced. Whoever Baroness Tomo Takino was, she seemed to have taken it upon herself to help her fellow refugees keep their spirits up. Carstairs could respect that.
He was double-underlining a casual mention of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey when his attention was seized by an out-of-place rustling noise. He closed the book, set it on the end table and stood, turning to face the hallway at the far end of his living room; it had been from that direction which the sound had come. Defying stereotype, he didn't have a gun, but he was still fit enough to engage an intruder in hand-to-hand combat if he needed to. "Who's there?" he demanded.
To his surprise a girl appeared out of the hallway. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but she appeared to be a teenager, blonde, in a tight minidress, knee-high boots, and a leather trench coat, all in midnight black. She had an equally black eyepatch over her left eye.
"William Carstairs," she said in a British accent. "You've discovered that you're not the only displacee in the world." She paused a moment, a smile playing across her lips. "Mr. Carstairs, you've just become part of a bigger universe."
Carstairs frowned. "Who the hell are you?"
"Minako Aino. Sailor Venus. I'm here to talk to you about the Bells and Whistles Initiative."
Aino? He recognized that name from Bishop's report, which would mean...
"Mina!" The white cat — the talking white cat — that Bishop had also mentioned stepped out of the shadowed hallway, padding silently between the girl's legs and sitting down before her. "Please forgive my associate, Mr. Carstairs. Her sense of dramatic whimsy frequently gets the better of her." Carstairs was amused to see the cat shoot a dirty look over its shoulder at the girl. She ignored it as she pulled off the eyepatch, revealing a perfectly intact eye. The cat sighed, then turned its — his — attention back to him. "My name is Artemis, and I represent the Crystal Millennium Naval Office of Bells, Charts and Buoys." Somehow Artemis managed a narrow little smile on his feline face. "We're somewhat more than our name would indicate."
- RMS: Yes, we know it's a misquote.
- RMS: One wonders if they have a Sweets Spirit in residence...
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| Clockwork Law |
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Posted by: Dark Seraph - 03-01-2025, 07:20 PM - Forum: The Legendary
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Kings Row.
Paragon Police Department.
Jasmine Briar, cat girl/Devouring earth hybrid was standing before the chief of police, wondering what he could want with her as he coughed and leaned on his desk.
"Detective Briar, it has been two years since the passing of your partner.... We think it is about time we assigned you a new one." He said, pulling out a file.
She chewed her lip, the death of her old Partner Purrfect Detective had been hard, who knew someone with hyper regeneration could suffer a heart defect? She missed her deeply, PD had been her maid of honour.... Hell, she wouldn't be the cop she was now without her.... But she had to move on, if that meant a new partner, then so be it.
The door of the chiefs office opened and in stepped a towering woman in Praetorian Police armour, apparently Vanguard had finished reverse engineered it for public use. As Jasmine started at the new comer, she realised she was a clockwork. "Er,,, Sir?" She asked nervously.
The chief nodded. "This is Sigmar Seven, she originally worked for Longbow, but after her awakening she wanted to work in law enforcement. She will be your new partner Briar, teach her the ropes."
Jasmine got out if her chair and offers her hand to Sigmar, the Clockwork staring at it before gingerly taking it. "Hand shake." She said in a flat tone, shaking Jasmin's hand.
King's Row
Jasmine decided to break Sigmar in with a simple patrol, it was beat cop work.... But she was unsure if Sigmar's level of experience, she did not the clockwork had holstered long barrel revolvers at her side.
"Okay, soo... How long have you been awakened?" Jas asked curiously.
Sigmar turned her head left to right, scanning. "I have been active and in service for over five years, but my awakening only came about November last year, after passing the Turing test, I was given the freedom to choose my own job." She said in that same flat tone.
Jasmine nodded, then paused as she heard a scream, looking across the rose, she saw a Skull trying to snatching a purse. "Time to ac-" Jasmine started, reaching out with her powers to summon plants to restrain the thug, but Sigmar was faster, quick drawing a pistol and firing it, the Skull dropping and screaming in pain.
Jasmine ran over to the goon as the woman he was trying to rob ran. "What the hell Sigmar? Who said to use lethal force on a purse snatcher?" She drops to her knees and checks the Skull.
Sigmar walked up, her pistols still trained on the goon. "I did not use lethal force, I use rubber rounds, no skin penetration."
As Jasmine checked the skull, she saw that indeed there was no bullet wound. "You could of still warned m-" she was cut off as Sigmar fired into the Skull again. "What the fuck?"
Sigmar leant down. "The perp was reaching for thus." She picks up a knife. "I prevented you from being stabbed."
Jasmine just stares, before removing the skull mask from the goin and attaching a zig porter to him. "We need to talk about communication...." She muttered.
Later.
Steel Canyon.
Stogers residence.
Jasmine opened the door to her home and sighed, letting out a long breath, her body rippled as she reverted to her plant hybrid form, gaining a few feet as her skin grew a green moss like fur, she only reverted to this form at home, less strange glances at her.
Walking into the lounge, she saw her husband reading the paper, Captain Erstaz, Reves Stoger, and collapsed into his lap.
"Long day kitten?" He asked, rubbing her ear.
She told him about her new partner and the troubles she was having with her.
Reves tilted her head. "Wel, normally I say what do you expect from a Praetorian construct, but sounds like she was made in the good old USA, maybe she is a bit of an old west gun slinger?"
Jas was about to criticize him on his casual racism, but stopped herself, Reves was from a different time, the time of the Red Scare, his patriotism streak was a mile wide.... Sure it clashed with the world view of twenty twenty, but it was also part of what made her fall in love with him, that old time charm.
She nuzzled him. "Just... Frustrating, Sigmar said she passed the Turing test, but she comes off very robotic, uncaring."
Reve stroked her hair. "Well could be worse, could be a Commie."
She sighed and lightly bapped his nose. "Anyway, where are the kids?"
He smiled. "In the sun lamp room, apparently they have a trick to show you kitten."
Curiously, she got up from his lap and padded to the sun lamp room, bring part plant, she and her kids used it to get some much needed UV rays, opening the door, she squinted in the bright light and looked down at her twins, smiling as they where playing with a potted plant. "Hey Ruby, Jade, dad says you have a trick to show me?"
The five year old girls look at her, their plant like nature slightly more obvious than their mothers as Jade gave a gap toothed smile. "Momma look." She help up the potted plant, screwing up her face as the flower inside exploded into bloom. Ruby then demonstrated the same trick, Jasmine kneeling down and hugging them.
"You two are growing so quick... But he careful, making some plants grow fast can be bad for them, okay?"
The two girls nodded, their tails lashing behind them in excitement.
Jasmine stands and dusts off her hands. "Now for dinner, who wants Mac and Cheese?"
The two girls cheer before running out of the room to get cleaned up, Jasmine smiling as she followed.
(Purrfect Detective belonged to Ran-San who sadly passed away.)
(Reves Stogers belongs to Fox, thanks for letting me use him.)
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| Tiny hero. |
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Posted by: Dark Seraph - 02-24-2025, 08:36 PM - Forum: The Legendary
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Skyway City
Tina's motors.
Tina sighed as she got her step stool and climbed upmto the counter, grabbing her tools, being a mouse girl in Paragon blew when you barely pushed four feet, she would of thrown in the towel on her job if not for the Praet invasions giving her a helper in the form of Bob, a towering bulking clock work she rebuilt.
Looking over her shoulder, she smiled watching Bob easily lift the engine out of the car they where working on, moving it to one side before his hands unfolded into a series of tools as he started disassembling it.
She grabbed her wrench and climbed down, walking over and looking at it. "What do ya think big guy?" She asked, patting his calf.
"At least one, maybe two faulty pistons, the fact they drove it into the shop is a miracle." He rumbled.
Tina nodded when she heard footsteps, turning around, she saw three Trolls enter the shop, their beady eyes looking around as they held a variety of clubs, taking a breath, Tina looked up. "Howdy, welcome to Tina's motors, how can I help ya?"
The lead troll grinned. "Little lady, protection." He growled.
Tina frowned, backing up to Bob. "I'm sorry, but I'm not on any gangs territory, I don't owe protection to no one."
The troll grunted. "New gang, new rules, pay mouse." He swung his club at one of the benches, scattering tools and parts. "Now."
She sighed. "Bob, open up."
The large clockwork nodded and bent the knee, his chest opening up as Tina jumped in, quickly situating herself in the command cradle, Bob's chest swung closed as he stood to his full hight, towering over the trolls, Tina's voice coming from a loud speaker. "Right, I'll make this simple cuz you lot aren't to smart, I'm not paying protection, so get the hell out of my shop."
The Trolls growled and charged, time for her to test out the modifications she did to Bob, in theory he would move like her and she had earned herself a few belts in martial arts classes.
The first troll swung, Bob sliding out of the way like quick silver according to Tina's input, lashing out with a large metal hand in a palm strike that sent the green thug dealing, before Bob did a snap kick, sending the troll out the door.
The two other gangers charged, Bob weaving and ducking their simple blows, new gang alright, these guys had obviously never been in a real fight before as Bob pulled off a round house kick, cracking their skulls.
As quickly as it begun, it was over, Bob's chest opening up as Tina looked out. "Holy shit, it worked big guy, we did it! Now you go get some chain while I call the cops. Tie them up by the light poll." She clambered out, dropping to the floor and running inside as Bob got some thick chain.
Later.
Officer Jasmine Briar looked over the scene as her partner attached Zig porters to the unconscious trolls. "So let me get this right, these trolls harassed you for protection money.... So you maned an unlicensed suit of power armour and took the law into your own hands?"
Tina nodded nervously, not just because the cop was a cat girl and she was a mouse girl, but because the way she said unlicensed sounded serious.
Jasmine looked at her notes. "Look, I don't want to be a baddy here... So I will write that you are a registered hero, waiting on your paper work, but that only works if you register within the week., okay?"
Tina looked up at Bob. "Er.... If we don't register?"
The officer sighs. "Then I have to fine you for an unregistered suit of power armour."
Tina nods. "I guess we got no choice then Bob."
The next day.
Atlas Park.
City Hall.
Tina sat in front of the desk, dressed in her best suit, Bob wedged into a chair next to her also dressed up, because she knew how some people got around naked clockwork, as the government official read over their paper work.
Noelle Minette (Paragon version) looked over their paper work. "Well it has been a while since we have had a duo join, you say Mr Bob is your power armour, but also has his own free thinking AI?"
Tina nods. "Three years of work miss... Um, is that a problem?"
"Not at all, you are signing up as a singular hero, so I'll just make sure your paper work is in order, please give up to five business days for your hero licence to arrive in the mail... I just need a name?"
Tina grins. "We will be known as Tiny Bob."
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| 2016-11-20: They go to the land of the ice and snow |
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Posted by: robkelk - 02-23-2025, 10:17 AM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (2)
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Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 20, 2016
12:03 pm ET
Rob's phone started playing Science Genius Girl. "Sorry, I'd better take this," he said as he stood up and left the table.
Once he was in the hall, he answered the phone. "Hello, Washuu-chan."
"What took you so long?"
"You pulled me away from Sunday luncheon with everyone."
"Not everyone."
"I assure you, all fourteen of my human roommates and all three Mau are enjoying a roast beef dinner - a meal that I made for the very first time since moving into this building, and that I'm not enjoying because I'm talking on the phone." Rob emphasized those last five words just slightly.
"Sorry. But you're missing a half-dozen boarders. No, you called them roommates. So you're getting to be a family over there."
"We are, and we're happy about it. And I'm glad Milady Skuld dropped that hint when she was over so I'd know enough to get some rooms ready. You've finished treating their pre-existing medical conditions, I gather."
"That saves a lot of exposition. When do you want us to drop in?"
Rob thought for a quick moment. "Give us two hours, to finish lunch and clean up the place a bit."
2:05 pm ET
Rob had unlocked the security door that they'd installed in front of the portal in the mail room – nobody wanted a lucky Unseelie invader to gain access to the other residences – but hadn't yet opened it when he heard the telltale hum of power flowing through the portal. He did so, quickly.
Rob smiled. "Welcome back to Ottawa, Washuu-chan. And welcome to your home away from home, everyone else. Come in, please; we have a busy afternoon ahead of us."
"Busier than you might expect. Last stop, all out!" Washuu stepped out of the doorway, followed by four girls who looked just like Mikoto (one of whom was carrying a cat), a girl who appeared to be their younger sister, and a thin pale white-haired teenaged boy. All of them except Washuu were wearing backpacks and carrying duffel bags.
The albino looked around as they walked across the hall and into the common room. "So, this is where we'll be staying from now on. Tch. Whatever."
Makoto leaned over to Rei. "He reminds me of my sempai. The one who I dumped."
"Oh, that jerk. Maybe he'll be better."
Everyone else ignored them. The apparent quadruplets turned to Rob. Amazingly, the one who was also carrying a cat smiled slightly. "Thank you for being willing to take us in, Misaka Niiko says with genuine warmth," she said almost tonelessly. The cat meowed, which made her add, "Hush, Schrödinger, Misaka Niiko instructs."
Rob was impressed. Considering that the last time he had seen the clones, they hadn't learned how to show any expressions, this was a major step forward for them. "Thank you for being willing to live here. I should warn you now that Ottawa is nowhere near as warm as Vancouver is."
"The cold never bothered me anyway, Misaka Rei quotes."
"This cold might. The temperature outside is near the freezing point of water, and in two months you'll be wishing it was this warm again."
"We have warm weather gear in our bags, Misaka Kokoro reassures you."
"You'll need it," Kuroko assured them. (She thought that she was hiding her reaction to the sudden long-term presence of four people who looked just like her oneesama living in the building, but everyone else could see the dreamy smile on her face. The Sisters also noticed the almost-predatory look in Kuroko's eyes.)
The other sister looked around. "None of you are wearing skirts, Misaka Nana comments in wonder, leaving the obvious question unspoken."
"It's far too cold outside to not wear slacks," Usagi explained.
"Where will we be sleeping, Misaka Rei asks? We have belongings to unpack, Rei adds in explanation."
Rob motioned toward the stairs. "We have some apartments waiting for you on the second and third floors of the building, all with a minimum of furnishings so that you can at least put your belongings away and get some sleep tonight. Accelerator and Misaka Misaka, I made an assumption that you'd want to share an apartment, so the two of you get one of our precious two-bedroom units. There are four more one-bedroom apartments ready for the rest of you."
"What's in them?"
Rob didn't expect Accelerator to be polite, so he took comfort in the fact that the esper was at least asking questions. "Kitchenette, chairs, table, wall-mounted television set, bed, and closet with clothes hangers. Two beds and closets in the two-bedroom place. Toilet, sink, and tub with shower in the washroom. We've already provided some menstrual products in the girls' washrooms, just in case, and everybody has toilet paper, towels, and shampoo. If you want to soak, I'd suggest using the sentou in the basement."
"You have a sentou in the basement, Misaka Rei asks in disbelief."
"We do! Wait until you see it!" Ruiko almost grabbed Accelerator by the hand to pull him along, realized at the last moment what she was doing, then dropped her hands to her sides. "Er... if you want to see the bath, that is."
"Later, Rui-chan." Rob turned his attention back to the newcomers. "I'll help you choose some better furniture next week, if you want it."
Washuu looked puzzled. "Didn't you set up a sixth apartment?"
"I already did, as a guest room. But why would we need it now? Are you staying over?"
Washuu slapped her own forehead. "That's right, I forgot to tell you!" She pulled a wafer-thin device out of her pocket.
"What's this?" Rob asked.
Washuu-chan grinned. "Based on my detailed and repeated studies of your boarders from Academy City, Accelerator, and the Misaka Sisters, I have created an AIM Concentrator and Manifester!"
Two puppets popped up, one on each of her shoulders. "You're a genius, Washuu-chan! You're the greatest, Washuu-chan!"
Hey, that's from a different continuity, thought Rob. In the most deadpan voice he could muster (which was nowhere near as deadpan as the Misaka Sisters' speech), all he said was "What."
"Misaka Misaka likes them, and she was my lab assistant during the design phase. Back in your cages, you two!" The puppets returned to whence they came. "As I was saying, this collects and concentrates the AIM fields that your espers give off, focuses them, and allows them to manifest in an anthropomorphized state."
"You're kidding. You're not kidding. Who was manifested?"
"When I tried it with just Misaka Misaka in the lab, it manifested a one-inch-tall version of her. When I tried it with all of the Misaka sisters in the lab, it manifested a three-inch-tall version of Misaka Mikoto. I want to try it out here, with every esper on the planet within range."
Rob reached out and covered the activation button before Washuu could trigger the device. "How long did the manifested personality remain in existence?"
"Until I turned off the manifester. Yes, that means the personification remained even after the Misaka sisters left the area."
Rob thought for a moment, then moved his hand away.
"You're expecting somebody in particular, too. Let's find out whether we're right." Washuu flipped the safety cover open, pushed the button, and flipped the cover back over the control. Everybody watched as the device hummed, then quieted down. Then a light appeared above the device, resolving into a human shape - a teenaged girl in a Japanese school uniform, with a ponytail on the left side of her head, glasses over her eyes, flawless skin, and a build that even Mii would be hard-pressed to match. Washuu looked at Rob. "Am I good, or am I good?"
"You're good, Washuu-chan. I'm surprised that she's twelve inches tall, though."
"More espers being present means there's a larger AIM diffusion field to work with."
"How many espers are there on Earth right now?" asked Rob, completely unaware of some people who were even then keeping a very low profile in Chicago.
The girl suddenly moved, then smiled and cleared her throat. "Er... hello?"
Rob immediately turned his attention to her. "Hello, miss. My name's Rob Donaldson. I'm pleased to meet you."
"Kazakiri Hyoga. [1] I'm pleased to meet you." She looked around. "Oh, I was hoping to see Index."
Washuu and Rob looked surprised, since neither of them were expecting her to have continuity of memory from her home reality. Rob wasn't even sure that she was the same person, considering Washuu's comment about manifesting copies of Last Order and Railgun, but he had no reason to doubt her.
Mii noticed and replied, "You aren't in Academy City at the moment, Hyoga-san."
Rob grinned sheepishly. "We don't know where Index and Touma are, but we are looking for them. Sorry."
"It would be nice if we could find them."
Hyoga turned to the speaker. "Hello! I know who you are. You're Railgun."
"Please don't call me that. I have a name: Misaka Mikoto."
While Hyoga, Mikoto, and the other espers talked, Ami leaned over to Rob and Washuu. "What's an A-I-M diffusion field?"
"Something that espers from Academy City give off simply by living. AIM stands for 'an involuntary movement'. Please don't ask me for specifics, because I don't have any. Hyoga is... well, you've seen the anime, haven't you?"
"I must have missed the episodes that she was in. I'll have to watch them later."
She'd missed the climaxes to both seasons of A Certain Magical Index? Rob didn't push the matter, but made a mental note to find out later whether Ami had watched any of the shows he'd made available to everyone. "Washuu-chan, how long will the power last on that manifester?"
"Until my lab collapses in the heat death of its pocket universe. You don't need to worry about her disappearing because the power ran out."
"Oh, good." Then Rob smiled and chuckled.
"Care to share the joke?"
"If Hyoga ends up dating someone, that person's going to have a real-life imaginary girlfriend." (Rob had no idea how right - and how wrong - that statement was.)
"Not just that," Washuu-chan pointed out. "She'll be a girlfriend from Canada, too."
Ruiko grinned at Rob's remark. "The Imaginary Number District actually exists? I knew it! Is it true that I could get there if I crossed between districts in Academy City at 4:44 pm? Oh, and I'm Ruiko Saten. Hi."
"Hello. No, Saten-san, real people can't enter the Imaginary Number District. Only monsters like me."
Mikoto interrupted before Hyoga could continue. "We don't care what Academy City intended you to be. We care who you are, not what you are. From what I read in the novels, Kamijo-san and Index-san think you're a person - a good person - so that's good enough for me."
Hyoga smiled a shaky smile. "Really?" She started crying. "You really think so?"
"Hey! Please don't cry, Misaka Misaka asks with tears about to fall from her own eyes!"
Off to the side, Rob leaned toward Washuu and whispered, "Is it my imagination, or did Kazakiri just get bigger?"
At the same volume, she replied, "I think she just grew, too. The espers might be responsible, with their sudden belief in her existence. Their esper powers are based on belief, after all."
"She isn't Tinkerbell."
"And nobody's clapping. I need to take some measurements."
4:18 pm ET
"You have no doubt noticed that my clone sisters and I have a verbal tic that involves identifying ourselves when we speak, Misaka Rei points out. As long as I continue to do that, I do not see any possibility of confusion here, Misaka Rei adds."
After a moment, Rei Hino nodded. "I suppose that would work. You don't mind being called by your complete name?"
"It is what I am accustomed to hearing, Misaka Rei answers."
November 21, 2016
7:22 am ET
Rob nodded to the three girls who walked into the common room. "Good morning, Chibiusa, Misaka Misaka, Hyoga!" He noticed they were all roughly the same height, and Hyoga was wearing the manifester on a filigree chain around her neck. "You might want to get a more substantial chain for that necklace, Hyoga."
"Good morning, Rob! Thank you for worrying about me."
"Hi, Rob-oji-san!"
"Good morning, Rob, says Misaka Misaka as she walks to the refrigerator. Do we have any juice, Misaka Misaka asks?"
"Orange, apple, and pineapple. Take your pick."
"Orange, please, Misaka Misaka decides."
Hyoga poured herself a cup of coffee. "Why do you always use your full name, Misaka?"
"So nobody thinks I'm one of my sisters, Misaka Misaka answers! I have lots of sisters, Misaka Misaka adds in explanation."
"The number of Misaka Sisters! It's over nine thousand!" Everyone else ignored Rob.
"My name's Usagi, just like my mom, but everybody calls me Chibiusa. It's a nickname!"
"Misaka Misaka wants a nickname too, Misaka Misaka insists!"
Rob smiled as he brought a plate of toast over to the table and sat down beside Hyoga. "Well, then, let's see what we can come up with. How about 'Chibi-Misaka'?"
"That's too close to my nickname," the pink-haired Senshi said with a pout.
"What's wrong with Last Order?" asked Hyoga.
"The connection between us isn't something people should know, Misaka Misaka replies with foreboding while buttering a slice of toast."
Rob nodded. As far as Academy City was concerned, the 'last order' that Misaka Misaka was ever intended to give was to activate Hyoga; it was only because Index could undo what was done to the girl that both Misaka Misaka and Hyoga were still themselves and sane.
"Call her 'needlessly genki girl'."
Rob didn't look up. "And good morning to you too, Accelerator. Coffee's on the side table, toast is on the big table."
"Whatever."
"Misaka ... Misaka ... Misaka ... Misaka Misaka. It's hard to come up with a nickname, Misaka Misaka announces! Misaka Misaka Misaka Misa Misa...."
"Misa Misaka? That's not too bad." Hyoga tilted her head and lifted a finger to her chin. "No, wait, wasn't there something about a magical girl named Misa somewhere?"
"Misa Misa Misa Misa Misa Mi Mi Mi ..."
Hyoga thought for a moment. "Mi Misaka? That could work."
Rob shook his head. "That could cause some confusion if Mii was ever to adopt her."
"Why would Konori-san adopt Misaka Misaka, Misaka Misaka asks? Besides, Mi and Mii are two different names, Misaka Misaka adds. Mi Mi Mi Mi Mi MiMiMi..."
Rob blinked. "Mimi?"
"Mimi Misaka?" Chibiusa almost sang the name.
"Misaka Misaka likes Mimi Misaka, Misaka Misaka announces! No, Mimi Misaka announces, Mimi Misaka corrects herself!"
"This is bull-"
"Thank you, Accelerator," Rob interrupted as his phone chimed to indicate receiving a message. "Mimi it is. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to take this."
After Rob left, the newly-christened Mimi turned to Chibiusa. "He never told us why Konori-san might adopt me, Mimi Misaka comments in a confidential tone."
"Eat your breakfast, brat."
"That's Mimi brat, Mimi Misaka insists!"
In the hallway, Rob checked the text message, noting it was from Washuu-chan. "Measurements analyzed. Hyoga should reach her full human size within 24 hours. I'm making ID for her now. Do you want to foster her, too?"
He sent back "List her as 17, and we can keep her out of the foster system altogether."
"That means you won't get fosterage money from the government."
"We'll manage somehow."
----
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 21, 2016
10:13 am ET
"You should be asking the RCMP. They're the ones who are responsible for this."
Rob sighed. "I don't want to lie to a police officer, and how would they react if I said 'I have four fictional characters living with me who need firearms licenses'?"
"I can see where that would be a problem. Okay: first, I absolutely cannot let you practice at the range at the police station. Second ... you said four. Some of the Misaka clones?"
"I can see why you made detective so young. Yes."
"The minor's license is good for non-restricted rifles and shotguns only. And you'll need a possession and acquisition license, too, since they're living with you."
"I expected as much. What's required for these?"
"Each of you has to take the Canadian Firearms Safety Course - the RA Centre has a shooting range and can find you instructors. Once you pass that, you can apply for your PAL and the girls' licenses."
"And what will that let me buy?"
"I assume you want to buy weapons for your own use, not for theirs. No, don't interrupt me. That will let you purchase non-restricted firearms only. If you want something else, you'll need to take the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course as well. And don't bother asking for a license for those automatic rifles I saw them use in the anime, because those are on the prohibited list. Oh, and do me a favour, will you? Let the shooting club keep your weapons under lock and key. I don't want the girls walking around with weapons in their gym bags. If they did and I knew about them, I'd have to arrest them."
"That shouldn't be a problem; I don't want the girls walking around with weapons, either. Thanks for the help."
RA Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
11:48 am ET
"It's somewhat unusual for the RA Centre to include foster children in a family membership, Mr. Donaldson."
"I'm not surprised, but my foster daughters are the only family I have. Would you allow children to become members on their own?"
The desk clerk thought for a moment. "I think I can see my way clear to setting you up as a family, then. What are the children's names?"
"Niiko Misaka, Kokoro Misaka, Nana Misaka, and Rei Misaka." Rob spelled the names for the clerk.
"Ages?"
This wasn't the time or the place to tell the truth. "13."
"What, all of them?"
"And they're identical quadruplets, too. Identical down to their interests, which is one reason why I'm fostering them all. They want to join the Gun Club."
The clerk was shocked. "All of them? At age 13? My God, what happened to them?"
Rob looked stern. "Even if I had been told that, I wouldn't be at liberty to repeat it. But I'll point out that they've been given a male guardian."
"Oh. Yes. Of course. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like that." Somewhat embarassedly, the clerk cleared her throat. "Are you interested in the Gun Club as well?"
"Not really, but I'll have to get a license if the girls are going to be allowed to get their licenses, so sign me up, too. Sign me up for the Photography Club as well, please."
The clerk grinned, happy to have something else to talk about. "You're interested in a different kind of shooting."
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
6:11 pm ET
"I don't eat onions, Misaka Niiko points out."
Makoto immediately put down the casserole dish that she was about to pass to the newcomers. "Oh. This potato dish has onions in it."
"I'll make do with the chicken breast and the corn, Misaka Niiko reassures everyone."
Mikoto looked at her clone, who was sitting across from her at the big table in the common room. "Why won't you eat onions? I know I'm not allergic to them."
"It is a moral choice, Misaka Niiko admits. So many of my clone sisters were killed for a project that ultimately failed that I have trouble accepting the idea of killing a living thing just for my own benefit."
Rei Hino nodded. "That's similar to why many Buddhists don't eat onions. I can respect that, even if I don't live that way myself."
"But you eat meat," Rob pointed out.
"I am not the only one who benefits from a chicken's sacrifice, Misaka Niiko explains. Killing an onion plant only feeds one person for one meal."
Usagi nodded. "I think I see what you're saying. And that means you don't eat carrots, either." She turned to Makoto. "So no more serving carrots, Mako-chan!"
"You just don't like carrots," Chibiusa muttered as she helped herself to some carrots.
7:14 pm ET
There weren't any instructors at the gun club that evening to give them their introductory exam, so the Misaka sisters decided to give the building's bath a try instead. Once they stepped through the portal into the dimensional pocket and then down the hall to the sentou, they noticed two doors, labelled "Ladies" and "Rob" - the latter obviously having recently had "and Mamoru" added with paint and "and Accelerator" added with a sticky note. None of them expressed any interest in seeing what the men's side of the baths looked like.
It was almost normal for a sentou, the most obvious difference being that all the signs were in English. Nothing was floating, there was only one level to the bath, the floor and walls were tiled, and there was a mural of Mount Fuji painted on the rear wall of the room. Most importantly to the newcomers, Washuu-chan had installed a teleport shield; Kuroko Shirai couldn't teleport in while the Misaka Sisters were naked.
The sisters stripped, washed, and entered the bath in complete silence. Not that they weren't communicating; they were taking the opportunity to use their mental connection when nobody would be freaked out by it.
After a while, they heard the door open. "Is anybody in here?"
So much for not freaking out anyone else. But they remembered from the memories Last Order - Mimi - had shared that Hyoga wasn't just anyone else. Looked at from a certain metaphysical viewpoint, she was almost one of them.
"The four of us are currently soaking, Misaka Niiko answers."
"You are welcome to join us, Misaka Rei adds."
After a few moments, Hyoga walked in, wearing only a towel - which she slipped out of as she slipped into the water. "Oh, this feels good! I've never been in a communal bath before."
The others looked at her for a moment. After consulting with each other mentally, they decided who would ask the question on their shared minds. "If I am prying, please ignore this question, but why are your breasts different from ours, Misaka Niiko asks?"
Hyoga blushed. "Well, some girls just have larger ..."
"That is not what we meant, Misaka Rei interrupts in order to save time." She pointed to her own chest. "We have aureolae and nipples." She consciously left 'Rei adds in explanation' unsaid as obvious.
Hyoga took a closer look. "Is that normal? I've never seen a person naked before, either. Even when Index and I were having our photos taken while cosplaying, we still wore underwear when we were changing."
"It's completely normal, Misaka Kokoro answers."
Hyoga said nothing for a moment. "Then... why don't I have them?"
"We don't know, Misaka Nana answers."
"Perhaps Mr. Donaldson knows, or could find out, Misaka Rei suggests."
"I don't think I want to show him my naked chest. We just met each other yesterday."
"We can describe the differences between us without showing him anything, Misaka Niiko suggests. Are there any other anatomical differences between us, Niiko asks while standing in the bath."
Hyoga looked at her, nodded, and stood up herself.
8:27 pm ET
"... and the first thing that came to mind was a Barbie doll, Misaka Niiko finishes."
Rob thought for a moment, then turned to Hyoga. "I'm not surprised. Aleister and his people designed you to be an artificial angel, after all, and angels are traditionally described as being sexless."
"I'm obviously female, though."
"True. Aleister Crowley imagined angels as something quite different from the usual description - although you don't match that description, either."
"What did Aleister come up with?"
Rob looked Hyoga straight in the eye. "You really don't want to know."
She shivered in fear, then recovered. "I wonder whether that's why I fought so hard against being activated."
"Could be. I think we need some expert help here. I'll call Washuu-chan... no, I'll text Milady Skuld and ask her to ask Milady Belldandy."
8:44 pm ET
"Milady Belldandy's reply was, and I quote, 'I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to tell you'."
"That sucks, Misaka Kokoro mutters in annoyance."
"I'll say. Why couldn't I have a body like everybody else's?"
"Do you want me to ask Washuu-chan whether she can do anything?"
Hyoga thought for a long moment. "I don't know." Then, after another moment, she added, "No. Don't go to any trouble on my account."
November 22, 2016
7:41 am ET
"Do we get to go to school any time soon, Misaka Mimi asks with curiosity between spoonfuls of cereal. Everybody else gets to go."
"I'm stuck here, too," Chibiusa replied while reaching for the milk.
"Be glad you don't have to waste time in boring classes, kid."
Rob looked up from his bacon-and-eggs. "The school board won't take you until the beginning of the next term, which starts after Christmas, although we'll get your placement tests in before that. Be patient for a month. And do you want to attend classes, Accelerator? I can ask for them to give you a placement test at the same time the Misaka Sisters and Chibiusa take theirs."
"May as well. What about the meganekko with the big -?"
"I have a name," Hyoga interrupted. "Please use it."
"Fine. What about Kazakiri?"
"I'm taking a high-school-equivalency diploma exam later today."
"Maybe I should do that."
Rob nodded. "I thought you might want to, so I made arrangements for a possibility of two people taking the test, just in case. I'll let them know you are able to attend after all. Here's your student ID card."
Accelerator read it. "'Axel A. Rayder?' This is bullshit."
"Then tell us your real name."
"I guess this works."
There was a moment of relative quiet as everyone ate, which Mamoru broke by asking "Do you need any help around the building today, Rob?"
"Ordinarily, I'd say yes, but you have something more important to do today."
"I do?"
"Take a look out the back door. Somebody at one of the other buildings was granted a wish yesterday, and it was worded broadly enough for the megami to do you and Mii-san a favour while they were granting it. You need to go visit the license bureau, and I need to go buy some winter covers for your vehicles - maybe a prefab carport." As Mamoru bolted for the door, Rob turned to the others. "You should check your own rooms while you're at it. You just might have some personal belongings in your dresser drawers that weren't there yesterday."
Just then, a very loud squeal of delight came from Mikoto's apartment, followed by "My collection of Gekota toys!!!"
Rob smiled and continued. "Maybe you should go look now."
"It can wait, Misaka Rei announces, deciding to be polite and finish breakfast first."
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada / The Masaki residence, Vancouver, BC, Canada
8:33 am ET / 5:33 am PT
"I'm sorry to disturb you so early in the day, Washuu-chan."
"What do you need?"
"What makes you think -?"
"You're only this apologetic when you want something, Rob."
"You know me too well. We need a gun vault that the local police won't be able to find. It seems that Milady Belldandy granted a wide-area wish last night, and as a side-effect the Misaka sisters have their fully-automatic rifles again."
"That explains the gun vault, but not the undetectable part."
"Private ownership of fully-automatic weapons is illegal in Canada."
"I'll be there in three minutes."
3:21 pm ET
"Congratulations, Hyoga! Congratulations, 'Axel'!"
"They marked our exams very quickly."
"Why wouldn't they? They had a very advanced computer marking the tests."
Chibiusa looked up at Rob. "You didn't...?"
Rob shook his head. "All I asked HAL to do was make sure the tests were graded accurately. It's the province's standards that are lax." He turned to Hyoga and Accelerator. "Now that you have your high school diplomas, there's no way I can apply for fosterage money for either of you. I can carry you for a couple of months, but you'll need something to bring in an income soon, whether it's a university scholarship or a job. Time to think about what you want to do with your lives."
RA Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
7:16 pm ET
The five of them walked into the RA Centre's Gun Club, drawing attention immediately - and not just because the Misaka sisters had all chosen to wear their school uniforms. "Hello, we're the Donaldson/Misaka family."
An instructor walked over. "Ah, you're the new members! Welcome to the club. Please, call me John."
"Pleased to meet you, John," Rob said as they shook hands. "I'm going to be honest with you: the only reason I'm here is because I'm the girls' legal guardian."
"We can work with that. How much do you know about guns?"
"I know enough to always treat them as if they're loaded, and to not point them at anything I don't intend to shoot, and that's about it. The girls know much more."
"Those are two good baselines to start with. Let's get you a rifle and see how well you can handle it." Ten minutes later, Rob had gone through a dozen rounds and managed to put one in the outer ring of the target. John said, "I've seen worse first tries."
"I really don't have the eyesight for shooting. Keep the glasses on and the sight path's distorted; take them off and I can't make out the rings."
"Sight path? Oh, yes, I think I know what you're saying. Who wants to go next?"
Three minutes later, Niiko had put five shots in a tight grouping in the centre ring.
Three minutes after that, Kokoro had put five shots in a tight grouping in the centre ring.
Three minutes after that, Rei had put five shots in a tight grouping in the centre ring.
The range official called a stop to shooting (which momentarily disappointed Nana, who wanted to show off as well), then walked over. "Are we sure that isn't the same girl trying out over and over again?"
"I think they're different girls," answered John. "But I'm not sure. Clear four lanes for them; I want to see them all shoot at the same time."
Four minutes later, the girls had given their targets "five rounds rapid", shooting out a identical × on each bulls-eye.
"What the hell..." John was flabbergasted.
Rob quietly walked over to Niiko, who was using the outermost lane. "Girls, if you don't stop freaking the mundanes right now, then I won't pay your range fees."
It took them less than two minutes to shoot different patterns of three shots into different parts of their targets.
"Much better." Rob turned to John. "They had the same teacher and took the same classes."
"Even so, they shouldn't be that much alike!"
"Are they in?"
"Yes! I want to learn how they did that!"
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 23, 2016
11:12 am ET
"Nice work."
Mamoru put down the hammer he was holding and looked at the gutters he had just installed on the new prefab carport. "Thanks. It's too bad I have to keep my car in here over the winter."
"Trust me, you really don't want to drive a convertible in the winter in Ottawa."
"Oh, I agree; I don't want frostbite on my face, either. It's just that I just got my car back..."
"And Mii-san just got her bike back, too. At least you can drive my car when I'm not using it."
"You drive an automatic with left-hand drive. Why did we install a bucket at the end of the downspout? We have city water."
"The city water's fluoridated. Rain water and snow meltwater is better for the plants out in front of the building."
"We don't have any plants out in front of the building."
Rob smiled. "Not yet, but I'm sure Mako-chan and Chibiusa will want to plant some flowers come spring time. Now, let's rig an overhang to cover my car over the winter, and then we can get an electrician in to install some more floodlights to keep unwanted visitors away from our cars."
November 23, 2016
1:01 pm ET
Rob had wondered whether he could put Mamoru on the building's payroll. While Mamoru didn't need the money, Rob could use the help with the maintenance work. He figured calling the higher-ups was worth a shot.
"Look, you've got me acting as a corporate official and a building manager. ... Yes, I know I signed two contracts. ... You're damned right that it's a Hell of a job. I need some help with it. I need either an administrative assistant, a housekeeper, or a handyman. ... Or I'll hire one on my own and pay him out of the corporate funds. ... Yes, I can do that. Section 19, paragraph 3. ... Fine. Email me the list."
After he hung up, Rob thought, 'Of course Sebastian has a list of housekeeper candidates. So much for getting Lord Phantomhive to slip Mamoru some money as a live-in handyman; he'll have to find work elsewhere. Or I can pay him out of my own pocket, if he'll let me.'
1:33 pm ET
Rob thought that he should have asked for an administrative assistant and a housekeeper. None of the people on the list were going to be able to help with the paperwork. He realized that he'd made a Hell of a choice in who to ask for.
There were three names on the list that Sebastian had forwarded to Rob. He recognized all three.
As much as he thought Taeko Minazuki might be a good choice, he realized that if Taeko moved to Ottawa, the rest of the major characters from Ai Yori Aoshi would follow sooner or later. He already had teenage angst to worry about; he didn't need unrequited love issues as well. Better to let her and them go elsewhere, he thought, maybe New Jersey or Venice. They'd probably like Venice. Besides, it was Taeko - the one character from that story that Rob could see himself falling in love with ... and for whatever reason he already had two smart and lovely ladies filling that role in his life. He didn't wonder why he suddenly already had two smart and lovely ladies filling that role in his life.
And he thought that it would be an even worse idea to hire Mahoro Ando - at least, not until Washuu-chan could extend her lifespan and she could engage in combat without worrying whether it would kill her. The building was still being attacked by the Host on an irregular basis; he didn't want Management to attack them as well.
And when did he start thinking of the household as a paramilitary force? That was the opposite of what he had wanted a month ago.
The third name ... Yeah. It was a Hell of a choice that Sebastian was giving him. Then Rob realized he might be able to use that choice to his own advantage.
5:14 pm ET
"Mr. Donaldson, could I see you for a moment, please?"
"Of course, Ms. Konori." Rob walked into Mii's apartment, and she closed the door behind him ... then stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
Once his tongue was available again, Rob asked, "What's that for? Not that I'm complaining." For some reason, he didn't wonder why he wasn't complaining, given their age difference.
"That's for setting up a place for me to keep my bike over the winter. Thank you."
"Mamoru helped."
"I'm not giving him a kiss. You might get jealous. Usagi almost definitely would."
Politely but out of character for him, Rob replied, "I choose to remain silent on that matter. Now, is there anything else, Ms. Konori?"
"I could use your help with these..." Mii reached for her blouse's buttons and smiled, which should have but didn't set off alarm bells in Rob's thoughts.
Rob sighed. Finally back in character for him, he replied, "Not before your eighteenth birthday."
She mock-pouted, then grinned and took a step back so he could see her figure better. "Then I suppose that's all."
"I'll be on my way, then." Rob turned and opened the door, to discover Ruiko waiting in the hallway, grinning. "What, are we that obvious?"
"I don't think Kazari, Mikoto, Mimi, Chibiusa, Diana, or either of the Reis have noticed yet," Ruiko replied.
"Actually, I had noticed, Misaka Rei interjects from down the hallway. It's Misaka Kokoro who hasn't noticed, Misaka Rei adds."
Rob looked over his shoulder at Mii. "Should we tell everyone?"
Mii shrugged her shoulders. "The two of us can't make that decision."
6:51 pm ET
As everyone was about to leave the dinner table, Ami said, "We have an announcement."
Two minutes later, Usagi and Kazari had Ami and Mii in a group hug; Kuroko was rolling her eyes at Mikoto's puzzled expression; Mimi, Diana, and Chibiusa were grinning; Ruiko and Minako were talking about bridesmaid's dresses; Luna and the Misaka sisters were wondering which reality the happy trio would be calling home once the time came to leave; Makoto was thinking about wedding cake recipes with a dreamy look on her face; Mamoru and Artemis (in human form) were smiling as they cleared the dishes from the table; Accelerator wasn't interested at all... and Rei Hino was scowling.
Ami had always been interested in men who were older than her father,[2] so everybody who knew her thought that this was perfectly natural... whatever they might have thought if it was somebody else who had made the announcement. Rei's concerns were in another area.
The first chance she had, Rei grabbed Rob's arm and walked him out to the corridor. "Why?"
"What?"
"Not what, why? Why do you get to be open about your love now and I have to wait?"
"You have to... Is that what Inara told you during the Halloween party?"
"Yes!" she hissed.
"You're sure? That doesn't sound like her to me at all."
"I'm sure... No, I'm not sure." The fire in Rei's eyes dimmed, but didn't completely disappear. "She told me about love, and appearances, and ..." She trailed off; the rest of what Inara had told her was none of Rob's business.
"Appearances. Of course. She's protecting you, and it sounds like she did a good job. Have you talked with whoever it is you love about this?" She shook her head. "Then you need to talk with them before any of you make any decisions. One thing that I'll tell you, and I'm sure it's the same thing that Ami and Mii are telling everyone else right now: We don't want word of this to leave the building yet. Polyamoury is still rare enough that it would put both of my loves' careers at risk if anyone found out before they have professional reputations of their own, although I'm sure they aren't mentioning that to anyone in our common room."
"But... that's... Why should anyone else care what your personal life is like? You're not..." She trailed off again, as if she had run out of lines to read from a script.
"Don't ask me. Other people's love lives don't affect me, and ours doesn't affect anyone else, and the three of us are facing our futures together with love and mutual respect and clear and informed consent from all three of us. That should be enough. But it isn't, not according to the law."
"The law is... the law is..." Rei fumed while trying to figure out how to finish her sentence.
Rob finished it for her. "The law is an ass." At her shocked look at his vulgarity, he continued, "George Chapman, 'Revenge for Honour', 1654. If you want to change the law, you could run for office once you're 18."
"No, thank you," she replied coldly.
"Or you could help Usagi run for office, and advise her once she's elected."
"Isn't she going to become Neo-Queen Serenity anyway?"
"If I recall the canon backstory correctly, she'll be elected to the position after she saves the world from a disaster of some sort. Assuming the same disaster happens here or you go home, of course. Either way, she could use the experience of running for office in a few years, and I can't think of anyone better suited to help her than you. Oh! Is she...?"
"Yes."
"Then I'd best let you go talk with her. And I think that I have to make it clear to a few people that Ami and Mii and I aren't getting married just yet, nor are the three of us about to share an apartment."
"You're not going to live together? Why not?"
"We're not going to live together yet. Because the law is an ass. Legally, I shouldn't be interested in them until they're 18, because legally, I'm still Mii and Ami's foster father."
For some reason that even Rei didn't know, that statement sounded perfectly reasonable to her; it fit the narrative of their three lives so well. "We have to do something about that."
"There are plans ready to go as soon as it becomes possible for us to be open about our relationship. Until then, we continue the way we are."
Rei sighed. "I never would have guessed you were the type to only pay lip service to laws that you didn't like."
"We're already ignoring some laws. Those automatic rifles that the Misaka sisters own are illegal in this country, but I'm not going to tell the girls to surrender them. But before you start comparing me to some Diet members that I suspect you've been introduced to back in your home universe, I'll point out that I'm ignoring laws that are detrimental to other people, not to myself."
Rei frowned. "Can I tell you about something called the slippery slope?"
"Can you trust that I have three times as much life experience as you, and know all about the slippery slope?" Forsome reason, that age difference didn't seem to matter in the case of his relationship with Mii and Ami. "I'm not happy about being a lawbreaker, but I'm not about to risk your lives or Ami's and Mii's happiness. And I'd appreciate it if you keep telling me when you think I'm making a bad moral or ethical call."
"Why me?" she asked, surprised.
"Because I trust you to not want to spare my feelings when you call me out."
Rob's phone pinged, then pinged twice again in rapid succession. Even before looking, he knew what the texts would say. As he reached for his phone, he wondered who didn't keep the secret. "Excuse me."
"Congratulations! -Tenchi"
"You'd better treat them well, or you'll feel my hammer! Be happy. -Skuld"
"What took you so long? -Washuu"
He showed the phone to Rei. "So much for keeping things secret."
And back in the common room, Mikoto was still puzzled as to why everybody else thought a relationship between a middle-age man and two teenage girls was a good thing, even with Ruiko telling her about Studio CLAMP's works and Usagi telling her about Tenchi Muyo! While she knew from experience that it was possible for Misaki Shokuhō to control so many minds at the same time, she was pretty sure that Tokiwadai's other Level 5 esper was nowhere nearby. Maybe she was just being paranoid, she suddeny thought.
But before Mikoto could say anything about her concerns, the Good Neighbour System's alarm went off.
And by the time that the situation in Montreal was resolved, everybody was too tired to continue a discussion about three people's love lives... and, the next morning, Mikoto completely forgot why she had been concerned about it in the first place.
November 24, 2016
4:42 pm ET
"Now that I have you alone: How long have you been dating Konori-sempai, Donaldson-san?"
"About a month now, Kuroko. She told me her feelings the night that she was attacked by the Host."
Kuroko relaxed slightly. "That was a hectic time for everyone. No doubt you simply forgot to tell us at the time, being more concerned with whether Mii-sempai would survive." Rob knew better than to disagree; he simply nodded. "As for the matter of hiring someone to help here, I don't understand why you want me involved in the process, Rob-san."
"Because Mikoto's busy. If this is who I think it is, you'll understand as soon as she walks through the door."
As if on cue, the office door opened, and a Japanese girl who looked to be about Usagi's age walked in. She was wearing a blue dress with an apron and a maid's cap, and her short hair was pulled back from her face. Amazingly enough for Blossom Apartments, she wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, or even cute. "Hello, the Funtom Placement Agency sent me about the maid position that you contacted them ab... Shirai!?"
"Maika?"
"And I'm Rob Donaldson. Now that we know each other, the job's yours if you want it." Both girls looked at Rob; he turned to Kuroko. "Is there some reason why I shouldn't hire Miss Tsuchimikado?"
"Her brother ..." Kuroko started, then stopped.
"Yes, we know her brother is a spy for Necessarius." Maika gasped in surprise. Rob ignored her. "And so is she. I'd rather Necessarius has somebody inside sending reports back than have them attack us because they don't know what's going on here, which means they need an information conduit out of our building." Rob turned to Maika and smiled. "Also, I've been assured that you actually are a competent maid."
"I'm a maid in training, actually," she replied somewhat unsteadily.
"Good enough for this building. Your room is downstairs - immediately below my office."
"So I'm to spend my nights on the floor under you?"
Kuroko snickered.
Rob frowned. "No. I don't appreciate the double entendre. And I really hope that Necessarius isn't expecting you to use Mata Hari's techniques."
"They aren't. And Motoharu would get upset if I did."
Rob relaxed a bit. "Good. Although now I'm wondering whether I should still offer you the job."
"You need somebody to help you," Kuroko pointed out.
"I don't have much choice, then," Rob replied. Turning back to Maika, he continued, "The job does not involve sex. Ever. And we're not asking you to become a double agent. As I already said, I'd rather that Necessarius knows what's going on here than have them guess incorrectly."
Maika thought for a brief moment. "That makes sense. What do you get out of this, besides your housekeeping done?"
"Well, as long as you're asking, are you able to contact Necessarius now? On second thought, don't answer that. When you are able to contact Necessarius, I want you to ask them to help us find two people that I expect they want to find anyway."
"Who would these people be?"
"Index Librorum Prohibitorum and Kamijo Touma."
"Oh." Kuroko groused. "Him."
Rob turned to Kuroko. "You know how she feels about him, even if she isn't willing to admit it to herself."
"Does he return her feelings?"
"Does she return yours?"
"I ..." Kuroko wouldn't continue.
"Then it doesn't matter." Rob turned back to Maika. "I apologize for the digression, Miss Tsuchimikado. If you accept the position here, your duties will involve house cleaning, laundry, memorizing the Wikipedia pages about Academy City and Necessarius - Kuroko will give you the URLs - and whatever Necessarius wants you to do that doesn't put anyone here at risk. Remuneration, at least from us, will begin at $600 per week plus room and board. We will review the contract after three months to determine whether this will become a permanent position."
She thought for a long moment. "I accept."
Rob extended his hand. "Thank you, Maika." They shook on the deal. "And if your brother shows up... well, try not to keep me awake."
5:16 pm ET
"I thought that I was the main chef here. Why hire a maid?"
Rob chose his words carefully. "She isn't here to do the cooking, Mako-chan. She's here primarily to do the laundry and general housekeeping. If you or whoever is on cooking duty needs help in the kitchen, you'll need to ask Maika whether she wants to help. Besides, I thought you wanted to be a pâtissier, not a restaurant chef."
Makoto calmed down. "I still haven't made up my mind whether I want to be a pastry chef or a flower shop owner or both, but I'm leaning toward being a chef." She thought for a moment. "All right, as long as I get to say who does or doesn't touch my kitchen gear, I don't have a problem with her being here."
"I won't hold you to that, Makoto."
She was suspicious again. "Why not?"
"Because she's also a spy for a group that has an uncomfortable relationship with Academy City."
"When did you know that?"
"Since before any of you showed up in this reality."
"And you hired her anyway?"
"Of course. This way, we have some control over what Necessarius learns about us - Necessarius is the group she works for - and we get our cleaning done, too."
Makoto's eyes narrowed. "That's awfully manipulative of you."
"She wants to be a maid. As for manipulative, espionage and counter-espionage is rarely free of manipulation. If Usagi is going to become Neo-Queen Serenity and you're going to become one of her advisors, you'll need to come to terms with that."
"Maybe. I still don't like it."
"Besides, this is nothing compared to how government intelligence agencies act, if the declassified reports and what Artemis has mentioned in passing are anything to go by. She knows that we know who she works for, we know that she knows, and we let her in anyway. If she's at all intelligent, she'll be expecting us to give her a mix of truth and misinformation to send back to her superiors."
"That's true," Maika replied from just inside the kitchen doorway, the door closing behind her. "Who else is going to know who I really am?"
"Everyone who's read the Wikipedia articles that I said you have to memorize. What can we do for you, Ms. Tsuchimikado?" Rob asked.
"Please just call me Maika while I'm working. I'm here to familiarize myself with the kitchen, so that I can keep it clean. I was told Kino-dono was here?"
"I'm Makoto. I'll show you my kitchen now, so please pay attention to what I say I don't want you to touch. ..."
As Makoto started the tour, Rob quickly got out of the girls' way; the kitchen really wasn't big enough for three people. He still had to tell Mikoto and Usagi about Maika, and that conversation was going to take some finesse.
And since when was the common room's kitchen Makoto's property?
7:27 pm ET
"Artie, a moment of your time, if you please."
Rob's expression showed he wasn't likely to take no for an answer. And so it was that Artemis and Rob were alone in Rob's office a moment later.
Artemis sat on Rob's desk and played with the computer mouse. "If this is about the maid you hired this afternoon, I already know that she's a sleeper agent for the group that Index-san belongs to."
"That saves us some time. I've already told her that we won't ask her to become a double agent."
"You're tying my paws here with that kind of promise, Rob. But I agree that she wouldn't make a good double agent. Everything in her source material indicates she's a living prop for her brother's cover story, not an agent in her own right. If I hired her, I'd have to train her."
Rob smiled. "So, no harm, no foul?"
"Not this time," Artemis replied. "But I might want to recruit the next spy that we meet, so please don't make that kind of promise again."
November 25, 2016
10:06 am ET
"Maika, would you ... Maika? MAIKA!"
Rob's shout shocked the newly-hired maid out of her daze, just before she was about to walk into the air at the top of the stairs. "Oh! I ... Thank you, Mr. Donaldson."
"Put that laundry down before you hurt yourself." As she did, Rob continued "The rest of the laundry can wait. What's wrong?"
"Nothing, really."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing that will keep me from doing my work."
"That 'nothing' almost caused you to break your neck. That's a workplace health and safety issue. What's wrong?"
Maika started crying. "I'm... I'm a fictional character!"
"You've been reading your Wikipedia page."
"My Wikia page, actually. Do you know what it's like to have your entire life summed up in one screen of text for everybody to read? You don't! You're not a fictional character!"
Rob winced, then grabbed both of Maika's shoulders. "Snap out of it!"
"I'm not hysterical! I'm angry!"
"Then calm down. Reacting this way won't help you."
"Who are you to say what will and won't help?"
"Your boss."
"Oh." She deflated slightly. "That's right."
"Is it safe to let go of you now?"
"... Yes."
He did so. "Then let's break for coffee, or tea, or something, and we can talk about the nature of reality."
Seven minutes later, they were in the common room, sharing a pot of Earl Grey. They'd almost made a ceremony out of the brewing and serving.
"To answer your question, you're right. I don't know what it's like to be considered to be a fictional character. But I do know what it's like to be famous in certain circles, which is similar; I used to have a reputation in some fan communities."
"What were you a fan of?"
"Let's not go there."
"Japanese cartoons."
"Yes, for their technical merits. Let's not go there."
"Are you still-?"
"No."
"So, you've redefined yourself?"
Not really, Rob thought but didn't say. "You can redefine yourself, too, even if you remain a maid."
"How do we do that?"
"First, we look at what makes up you as you are now, then you throw away some things and build on others. One example: You're not really Tsuchimikado's sister, right?" Maika nodded. "But you feel something for him, right?" She nodded again. "Then, if we find him, we don't treat the two of you as brother and sister."
"What?"
"Wouldn't you rather have a more accurate description of your relationship?"
She thought for a moment. "You're saying I should marry him."
"I was thinking more a common-law relationship, but if that's what the two of you want... Oh, right - you're a practising Christian, aren't you? Never mind the common-law bit. I suppose I was saying that, after all."
"Why?"
"It would bring your relationship out into the open, and make both of you less the fictional characters described on that wiki and more your own people."
"It would, wouldn't it?" She sipped at her tea. "It can't be just my decision, of course."
"Of course. And now that you've read your own Wikia entry, you can stop letting the fandom define you and start thinking about what else to emphasize in your life that isn't listed there."
"That's true. I'll do that, after work tonight." She put her teacup down and picked up one of the sweets that Rob had served with it. "Hey, this isn't a macaroon!"
"Some people are allergic to coconut, and I didn't want to take the risk that you might be one of them. That's a cornflake cluster."
Maika studied it for a moment. "Cornflakes and dark chocolate, and ... what?"
"A hint of orange essence. What do you think?"
She popped in in her mouth and savoured it. "It's ... decadent."
Rob knew from the source material that Maika didn't always show as much respect as a proper maid should, and let her choice of words slide. "Good. Now, let's finish up and get back to work; you can leave the rest of the anger and the decadence for after supper tonight."
- RK: Yes, we know the Funimation subtitles spell her name "Hyoka". The Funimation subtitles also repeatedly misspell "Star of Bethlehem" in A Certain Magical Index III. Don't trust the Funimation subtitles' spelling.
- RK: This is Word of Dante, not Word of God; Aya Hisakawa mentions this part of Ami's personality in an interview published in the October 1992 issue of Animage. Tuxedo Unmasked has a translation.
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