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    1. Card Captor 10 yrs ago

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"No kidding, that was way too close" Alexander agreed "Fucking Wonderland. What the hell even is an 'unbirthday'!?" he wondered as he fished the scroll case out of his underwear and looked it over "So what now? Just wait? And what did they even take you for? I mean, I could understand if they were trying to milk us for information, but they didn't bring up the war at all!"



'...The fuck?' Alexander thought. However, he didn't have much time to ponder what was up with that weird girl, since someone else was coming. Thinking quickly, Alexander shoved the scroll case under his underwear 'Ugh, this feels weird' but he was taken out of his thoughts by something that the person he assumed was the Queen of Hearts said "Woah, hold up. What's this about me being a present!?"


When the strange girl started getting closer to him, Alexander was immediately on guard...until

"It’s me, Brittany"

'...huh?' Now that he thought about it, he did recognize her voice. 'So much for a wonderland spy. Unless she's a really good one.' That's when the weird snowflakes started to appear 'Weird...'

"Uhh, Alex?"

"Right, sorry. I got distracted"

"You’re still going to buy the Lightning Stone, right? Or would you like something else? I got other stones too."

His original plan was to grab something and have it checked for any kind of sigh that it was bugged...or something like that. Now however, he was feeling like a paranoid idiot. 'Well, It does actually sound useful, and it's cheap' but before he could say or do anything, the weird snowflakes attacked

"Ahh!"

First, the one he had seen before got Brittney with...something pointy and small. Right as he was about to act, another one got behind him a stuck him too. 'Fuck!' his body became weak and he crumpled to the ground, unable to move. And he slowly slipped into unconsciousness

---

When he woke up an unknown amount of time later, he still felt a little weak "fuck." he groaned as he got to his feet. A quick look around showed him that was stuck in some medieval prison. He also noticed a bared window. Stumbling over to look out at it he saw; "...It's like someone scooped all the nightmarish fever dreams from my brain and smeared them everywhere" Quickly deciding that he wanted none of this shit, he started to transform. The manacles around his wrists started to glow...and nothing else 'Oh...oh that's not good'

"Alex? Are you there?"

He heard Brittney's voice, and went over to the bars of his cell to try and see if he could spot her. When he did, he saw her hands sticking out of the cell next to him in the same state as his. "Yeah...yeah I'm here" he sighed as he stuck his own hands out to show her

"Looks like we got ourselves in quite a pickle, huh?"

"I always knew I'd get behind bars someday, never thought it be like this though" He snarked

"I hear footsteps…Someone’s coming here."

Almost immediately after that, Alexander thought to himself 'I hope Lily remember to feed the freeloaders'

---

Back in the park, Bob, Tim and Dave were huddled around a spot with Bob's nose to the ground, sniffing furiously. After a little bit, he looked up to the others, and nodded. Tim and Dave both tensed up before collecting themselves, and the three of them ran off, with Bob leading the charge.


Justine might have been satisfied, but Alexander's paranoia was far greater than his impatience 'Yeah, I'm not convinced, but how to...ah, that might work.' Looking over the Lightning Stone, he spoke up "That one actually looks useful. I'm always forgetting to charge my phone at night. So how does it work? Do you just hold the stone by appliance or what? Wait, would the phone just use power from the stone, or would the stone refill the phone's battery? And is the stone itself rechargeable?" at one bronze coin, it was about as cheap as something could get, so he wasn't burning too big a hole in his wallet.


Alexander couldn't put his finger on it, but for some reason, the strange girl in front of him greatly unnerved him "If she is, then we should keep her away from the meeting" he whispered back to Justine, doing his best to minimize his lip movement in the off chance that the strange girl could lip read "Well that depends; what does any of this stuff do?" he asked, hoping the explanation would stall her long enough for...something. He hadn't thought his plan out that far 'I just have to hope something comes up. Or maybe that Justine comes up with something' He thought to himself. Alexander know he wasn't really equipped to deal with subterfuge and stuff like that, so stalling for time was really the best he could do 'Or maybe if I buy something from her and get someone to examine it, we'd fine something useful...maybe?'


'Wait, Penny actively refused to give that ship to Su? I just thought that Su didn't care. That doesn't sound like the Penny I remember' That little nugget of information took Alexander by surprise '...although taking a stranger's word at face value on something like this might not be the smartest thing. Still...I guess it has been a long time since I really talked to Su. I guess we haven't been in contact ever since...'

blood
cold clammy flesh
magic isn't working
WHY ISN'T IT WORKING!?


'...the incident. Not that I can really blame her' Alexander sighed trying to push the unpleasant thoughts from his mind. As he did, he noticed a look of surprise on Justine before she excused herself. Normally, he would have just brushed it off. However, given the current situation, as well as his inability to contribute to the current discussion, he did something else. "Hey, I'll be back in a bit. I'm not going to be any help hashing out a deal with the Mint, and there's something I want to look into for a bit." with that said, he went after Justine


Alexander wanted to groan when a Dark Magical girl he vaguely recognized (who was eventually introduced as Chloe) tried to make a bargain for territory for the Mint in exchange for the location of some extremely important things of Wonderlands. 'And the people in the Mint wonder why they don't have the best reputation' he managed to not say out loud "Okay, so, just to clarify; who are you trying to make a deal with?" He asked Chloe "I know Lily called this meeting, but that's not because she has any actual authority, her signing that paper wouldn't actually get you want you want. And despite several other people's claims, I'm pretty sure that we don't *actually* have a central governing body of any kind, just a couple of factions all led by different people. That's probably something that we'll have to fix sometime, but I don't think right before a bunch of crazy people invade us is really the best time for that. For now though, if this deal is going to be made, it would probably have to be with the leaders of any faction that has some kind of territory in Penrose, because they're the closest thing we actually have to a government"


"I think our first priority should be coming up with a method of getting the civilians to safety Alexander spoke up "Unless we have a way to track them to their home base and invade it, or failing that, invade Bolorton, then we're going to have to fight them in Penrose, and we'll need to have a plan for what to do about the civilians. I just remember that during that whole debacle, I was stuck on evac duty along with a bunch of other people, so I only got around to actually fighting Wonderland's forces right before we left" he sighed "And I wasn't the only one. So unless we want to keep a large chunk of our forces tied up in evacuating, and later protecting the civilians, we'll need to come up with something for them ahead of time. Like, does anyone have a spare pocket dimension or two we could just shove them in?"

He then paused as a thought occurred to him "Well...we'd still need to get them all. Maybe we could set up a Rune array that covers the connected a pocket dimension to shove everyone without magic into it when the fighting starts. But I don't have any spatial magic, so it's not something I can really make on my own. Not to mention powering something that huge is going to be an absolute bitch to do. We'd also need something to keep them all from panicking over having been teleported somewhere strange. Maybe add something to the array that knocks them out, our puts them in a trance. That'd be more complicated and would need more magic, but it would also get rid of the need to wipe their memories..." As he went on, he slowly started to transition from 'talking to the crowd' to 'talking to himself' "...and then we run into the issue of hiding the damn thing..."


"Penrose Park, huh..." Alexander was looking through Glimmer on his phone, when he saw a new post from Lily 'Why does it feel like that's the place where everything began?' he wondered to himself as he fed his animals in their room "What do you think Bob; is what Lily's doing going to crash and burn like the last time someone tried this" Bob simply stared at him "I guess you're right; things have changed. There's no guaranty it'll end the same as last time." he sighed "You know, sometimes I really wonder why I bother with this place. But I suppose I'd never forgive myself if I just ran. And here I thought Penrose would be a quiet place to live when I came here. I had absolutely no idea how high maintenance this place would" Alexander mused as he gave Tim some scratches on his neck, which the little weasel seemed to be leaning into

"I suppose at the end on the day, all I can really do is make sure that succeed or fail, Lily comes out of this alive, and yet..." his mind flashed back to toe sight of Lily missing a limb "I can't help but wonder if she hasn't really fully recovered. Sure, her body is fine...but there are something that healing magic can't fix...that it can't reach." He shook his head "I guess none of that really matters; she's made her move, and she can't unmake it." he got up to his feet and made his way to the door, before leaving however, he turned around and addressed "Thanks guys. You know, you're all pretty great listeners." The animals just stared at him as he left their room. As Alexander transformed in preparation for the meeting, he thought to himself 'You know; Lily really should have set a specific time for this.' Fully transformed, Alexander started to make his way to the meeting site, hoping that if something was going to go wrong, it would wait until he got there.


Lily seemed to bounce back from having had a limb removed for a short time pretty quickly, even if she was still shaken up about the attack. He wasn't too thrilled about being dragged for an interrogation. Oh sure, they called it a debriefing, but Alexander wasn't too convinced. Fortunately, they didn't make him wait in that room too long

"Good evening, my name is Dawn Astraea,” the young woman introduced herself again as she took her seat opposite of Alexander. “I will be conducting your debriefing. If you do not have any questions, then let us begin. First and foremost, I am obligated to inform you that this debriefing is being recorded, and that your answers will be reviewed by a light magic specialist for verification. If any falsehoods are detected, or we are given reason to believe that you pose a danger to The Beacon, you will be retained for additional investigation. Is that understood?"

"Yeah" he droned, clearly disinterested

“What is your name and magical boy title?”

"Alexander Shields. And uh...I don't actually know what my title is. Is there someone who's supposed to assign that or what?"

Dawn just stared at him in silence for a few seconds "You...don't know your-" she shook her head and quickly moved on. "“What is your magical specialization?”

"Reinforcement and Beast" he quickly answered 'Why do I get the feeling that this is going to take forever?'

“Are you a dark magical boy or monster boy?”

Alexander sighed, having flashback to an interaction with a Ascendency girl "Look, if this is about the tails that I grow out of my body, that's just the Tentacle power getting influenced by my Beast spec"

"It wasn't, but should I take that as a no?"

Alexander nodded, being very careful with his words here "I am not a dark/monster boy"

"“Is your Patron classified as a horror?”"

"Only to me" he grumbled under his breath before answering her directly "No, he isn't"

"Have you ever worked alongside a dark magical girl/boy, monster girl/boy, and/or servant of a horror?"

"Probably a bunch of times" Alexander answered honestly "There's a lot of different kinds of magical people that live here, and when someone or something causes trouble, we all swarm out murder them, like an anthill. I don't really care enough to interview everyone at those events about if they're Dark, Monster or serve a Horror. If you're trying to beat up what ever is causing trouble in my neighborhood, then you're fine with me"

"I see" was her only response "“Have you ever opposed the glorious and righteous will of The Beacon Ascendancy?"

Alexander struggled to keep a straight face "You actually called it-" but stopped himself "Well there was that one time that one of them tried to destroy a Christmas dimension, all because she didn't like the artifact that made it. I...think her name was Rachael...or something like that"

"Inquisitor Rachael" Dawn confirmed

Alexander's eyebrows raised "Wait, 'Inquisitor' is her official title!? I thought-"

Dawn interrupted him with her next question “Why have you yet to renounce your Patron and embrace the radiant light of The Beacon?”

Alexander huffed "Well besides the time your 'Inquisitor' became the villain of a Christmas movie. There was one incident early on in my career; Some local magical girl managed to get all the other local magicals together to...I think she was aiming for some kind of mutual defense pact, or something like that. Anyway, there was a Beacon girl who sounded totally on board with the idea...until who I think was her Patron teleported in and basically humiliated her for that, and made her apologize or face the consequences. That was my first real exposure to Beacon, and it kind of soured me on Beacon itself. Sure, the local branch has mellowed out to the point where we can work with them when shit hits the fan. But if the Ascendancy agents are any indication of what the greater whole of Beacon is like...I wouldn't be able put up with it"

Dawn opened her mouth to say something, but Alexander beat her to the punch "Yes, I am grateful that they stepped up to keep Penrose from getting wiped off the map while all the locals were stuck on the wrong side of a time dilation field. But boy if they didn't burn through that good will fast"

"I...see" she didn't seem too thrilled with his answer, but quickly moved on to her next question “How did you learn that Bolorton was under attack?”

'Finally getting to the relevant questions huh?' "Some local magical girl streamer, which is a thing I just found out was a thing-"

Dawn seemed a bit taken aback by this "You didn't know what streaming was?"

"Fuck no, I'm not that out of touch. I just didn't know that magicals streamed themselves doing magical stuff" he sighed "anyway, Lily watches her, so she found out that way, and she told everyone she could."

“How did you reach Bolorton in time to assist with its evacuation?”

"We know someone who can make portals. Lily got in touch with her."

“What was the approximate strength of the Wonderland forces attacking the town?”

Alexander shrugged "Not sure. We spent a large amount of time just working on evacuating the civilians. Then once we had everyone we could grab secured, they just started swarming us"

“Via what method or methods were the Wonderland forces deployed?”

"Couldn't tell you, I only saw them after they arrived. I'd guess teleportation or portals, since that's kind of the standard.

“Did you witness any member of Beacon engaging the Wonderland forces in combat?”

"There was Alicia, and probably a bunch of other people. I can't always recognize someone as Beacon on sight"

“Did the Wonderlanders communicate with you in any way?”

"Not really, they just sounded like a crazed mob of monsters"

“Did you communicate with the Wonderlanders in any way?”

"Never considered it. Again, they just seemed like a crazed mob of monsters"

“If I was to tell you that this was the last question, would you believe me?”

That one caught Alexander by surprise "I...uh...guess?"

“Last question. If I was to tell you that this was the last question, would you believe me?”

This time, Alexander just looked deadpan "Not after the last question."

“That concludes the debriefing,” Dawn announced as she rose to her feet. “The Beacon thanks you for your cooperation in this matter. Someone will be with you shortly to escort you off the premisses.”

"Fucking finally" Alexander let out a sigh of relief.

Not long after that, he, Lily and Justine all left the building. Justine went back to her sister, while Alexander and Lily went home “You know Alex…I never thought I’d have to do this…But now’s the time to follow in my predecessor’s footsteps.”

Alexander wasn't too sure which 'predecessor' she was talking about, but he didn't have any confidence in his ability to talk her out of it "Just...just try not to get in over your head" was the best he could come up with.
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