That's going to be a while, Tennie. I have two or three major story arcs between now and then, covering a solid thirteen years of in-universe time.
I've actually got three different statuses on this thing- one for where I've written to, one for where I've posted to, and one for how far along the SB rewrite is. At the moment, SB is at early August of 0059, you guys are early in March 0061, and my fic file currently ends in early August 0061. If this keeps up, I may have to slow down posting and/or take a Saturday to whip out ten more pages of fic.
Rob, Hayate has sparring partners. What she needs is a chance to get away from politics long enough to use them. That, and several different conveniently abandoned wastelands to spar in, because you know she's going to ruin them at a rate of at least one per session.
ECS: That's an evil thought? I thought that was an awesome thought... assuming you keep him doing SCIENCE!, and not cissolar conquest.
**********
[Malleus, give me telemetry for that new spell. I want as many of them in the blast radius as possible.]
[CALCULATING NOW.][Might as well cast now, and aim when you're done.] "Arcane Blast!"
Thankfully, the spell worked as designed. The Arcane Blast charged up just like the Bolt version did, manually pointed at the cloud of dots that represented the M-Drone horde. Halfway through the process, I shifted my arm minutely, retargeting towards the target point; Mal handled the rest, altering the angle of the magic circle slightly. The instant it was ready, I gave the firing command, and watched it fly.
The beam went flying into the air over the fortress, incinerating a drone along the way, before finally reaching the target point. The front end of it stopped instantly, wibbling and wobbling as the rest of the beam pushed into it, turning it into a ball of blue mana as tall as I used to be.
The instant the entire beam had been absorbed into the ball, it (quite predictably) exploded. I didn't see the blast (being busy dropping another Blast on one of the drone launch facilities- I'd apparently only torn half of it down) or feel it (with the spinning winds in the way); I heard the blast, though, and looked up in time to see a mass of red dots wink out off my AR.
Arcane Blast: High Explosive, Anti-Everything. When you absolutely, positively need something destroyed.Another Blast took care of the second drone facility, and another three low-power shots cleared up the drones I'd missed in the first wave. Drones... check. Launch facilities... check. Mages? Two in the outer ring, stationary. A bunch in the fortress, fighting Tre and Cinque. Looks like a lot of red dots there.
Maybe they could use more exits?
That seemed like a reasonable enough idea, so I set about collapsing sections of the inner wall with a few well-aimed Arcane Bolts. Five different exits should do it. Time to clear some of the guns off the place. None of them were moving at the time- what are these people doing?!- so it was a turkey shoot. Two Magic Missiles per turret did them in nicely.
I used the occasion to practice quickly retargeting my shots. Who was it who said everything was training?, I thought to myself as I drifted (rather loudly, quickly, and awkwardly) around the fortress, bringing up half a dozen missiles as two more guns came into range. I think that was Ranma. Let's see... aim it there, adjust for wind, put a bit of backspin on it...
Three of the six missiles arced around, doing a neat 270-degree turn to hit a turret dead-on. The other three were aimed straight at a turret to begin with. Both exploded rather smartly, leaving half the inner fortress disarmed.
For another couple minutes, I amused myself with the outer part of the fortress. Most of it just got blasted to bits, of course, but every so often, I tried a more... entertaining... approach. One rather tall building lost half its first floor to an Arcane Bolt; the entire thing fell over, crumpling as it hit the ground. It had another, similar one next to it; that one collapsed down onto itself when I blew all its support beams out with Magic Missiles. A third building got pulled down to its foundations by grav-mana: as it turns out, the higher the part you pull down, the more damage you do. Physics!
All told, I wrecked about 40% of the compound that way before my conscience kicked in. Stupid conscience making me worry. Always ruins my fun.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.
I've actually got three different statuses on this thing- one for where I've written to, one for where I've posted to, and one for how far along the SB rewrite is. At the moment, SB is at early August of 0059, you guys are early in March 0061, and my fic file currently ends in early August 0061. If this keeps up, I may have to slow down posting and/or take a Saturday to whip out ten more pages of fic.
Rob, Hayate has sparring partners. What she needs is a chance to get away from politics long enough to use them. That, and several different conveniently abandoned wastelands to spar in, because you know she's going to ruin them at a rate of at least one per session.
ECS: That's an evil thought? I thought that was an awesome thought... assuming you keep him doing SCIENCE!, and not cissolar conquest.
**********
[Malleus, give me telemetry for that new spell. I want as many of them in the blast radius as possible.]
[CALCULATING NOW.][Might as well cast now, and aim when you're done.] "Arcane Blast!"
Thankfully, the spell worked as designed. The Arcane Blast charged up just like the Bolt version did, manually pointed at the cloud of dots that represented the M-Drone horde. Halfway through the process, I shifted my arm minutely, retargeting towards the target point; Mal handled the rest, altering the angle of the magic circle slightly. The instant it was ready, I gave the firing command, and watched it fly.
The beam went flying into the air over the fortress, incinerating a drone along the way, before finally reaching the target point. The front end of it stopped instantly, wibbling and wobbling as the rest of the beam pushed into it, turning it into a ball of blue mana as tall as I used to be.
The instant the entire beam had been absorbed into the ball, it (quite predictably) exploded. I didn't see the blast (being busy dropping another Blast on one of the drone launch facilities- I'd apparently only torn half of it down) or feel it (with the spinning winds in the way); I heard the blast, though, and looked up in time to see a mass of red dots wink out off my AR.
Arcane Blast: High Explosive, Anti-Everything. When you absolutely, positively need something destroyed.Another Blast took care of the second drone facility, and another three low-power shots cleared up the drones I'd missed in the first wave. Drones... check. Launch facilities... check. Mages? Two in the outer ring, stationary. A bunch in the fortress, fighting Tre and Cinque. Looks like a lot of red dots there.
Maybe they could use more exits?
That seemed like a reasonable enough idea, so I set about collapsing sections of the inner wall with a few well-aimed Arcane Bolts. Five different exits should do it. Time to clear some of the guns off the place. None of them were moving at the time- what are these people doing?!- so it was a turkey shoot. Two Magic Missiles per turret did them in nicely.
I used the occasion to practice quickly retargeting my shots. Who was it who said everything was training?, I thought to myself as I drifted (rather loudly, quickly, and awkwardly) around the fortress, bringing up half a dozen missiles as two more guns came into range. I think that was Ranma. Let's see... aim it there, adjust for wind, put a bit of backspin on it...
Three of the six missiles arced around, doing a neat 270-degree turn to hit a turret dead-on. The other three were aimed straight at a turret to begin with. Both exploded rather smartly, leaving half the inner fortress disarmed.
For another couple minutes, I amused myself with the outer part of the fortress. Most of it just got blasted to bits, of course, but every so often, I tried a more... entertaining... approach. One rather tall building lost half its first floor to an Arcane Bolt; the entire thing fell over, crumpling as it hit the ground. It had another, similar one next to it; that one collapsed down onto itself when I blew all its support beams out with Magic Missiles. A third building got pulled down to its foundations by grav-mana: as it turns out, the higher the part you pull down, the more damage you do. Physics!
All told, I wrecked about 40% of the compound that way before my conscience kicked in. Stupid conscience making me worry. Always ruins my fun.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.