Plank Sinatra

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

_{they don't know that i // know that they know about me}

She supposed she should feel endangered. On some level, she certainly was; Gypsy Soul was upset with her, judging by the amount of sirens going off as her Samadhi batted away the alien's claws once, then twice. Her parries felt effortless, an application of training she had done day in and day out in her past life on Mars. This was always a possibility, Gyps. You knew not to go in naïve. She could almost hear the voices of gleeful executives and scientists, and felt the same skepticism now that she'd felt then - a nagging concern, in her bones, that there was something malicious waiting in space. But she'd gone along for the ride this far.

She heard a new alarm blare in her cockpit, and a grin split the surface beneath her cool metal face.

"Sssstupid bug."

Danger close once. By now, she had been attempting to Gypsy Soul's high mobility Praxis Clock package proved worth the time and risk to implement, sweeping backwards and from the right as Odysseus fired its twin ATs at the creature's armor. They struck, just as Bedwyr's sustained volleys had, and though they didn't seem to do any better of a job at penetrating the alien's defenses, they certainly seemed to piss it off. Almost as much as Gypsy's continued survival did. Another alarm blared.

Danger close twice. Ajax was returning fire, answering the creature's spinal singes with a one-two punch that, if not another shellacking on an already thoroughly shellacked exoskeleton, would send it reeling with the pulse that followed the uranium slug. With no further volleys at risk of obliterating their local, nimble, otherworldly friendly Orbital Gypsy pressed the opportunity to engage.

<<Roger, Bedwyr. Something to keep me on my toes a little bit.>>

//Praxis Clock functionality rating reduced to 3. Samadhi functionality rating raised to 5.

It seemed that, now that she had fully committed to her plan of attack and decided to seize while the Bandit was vulnerable, Gypsy Soul had finally decided to commit to the bit, too.

//Stupid bug.//

No longer merely content to block blows, Gyps' Counterattack struck one talon, then the next, the smaller Orbital attempting to drive back the monster offended by its very existence. If the others could keep up with their engagement, she knew could make short work of the talons. Gyps found her heart thumping in her chest, felt her legs quiver with excitement and her teeth sink into her lip. She was really getting into this.

Gyps was feeling so good, she mused, that maybe she wouldn't even dodge in a few seconds.

//Prepare for evasive maneuvers.//

She would, of course.

...But maybe she wouldn't...

The Zephyr Extinct

Post should be up this weekend on my end!

@Plank Sinatra

Well, this was incredibly, incredibly delayed, and all I can say is that semesters starting will always suck. Sorry for the hold up, but I'm in business now and post is up! If anyone else is still onboard here, I am too.

The Zephyr Extinct

I R I S

*That's it. Archer's dead, or something. I can't find any of you and I'm done trying. Maybe you're dead, too. Worst training exercise ever. I'm telling the council you all suck.*

Despite the whirlwind pace of events and the weight of Fluke's words, Iris almost wanted to smile despite herself. The scatterbrained little trainee hadn't bothered Iris as much as he'd seemed to bother some of the others, and his ornery personality remaining relatively unchanged was a comfort at the moment. She'd almost jolted out of her skin - and worse, lost sight of her trajectory on her glider - at the explosion when it had gone off, but her prey had barely even registered that there was an incident. They'd spared only a fleeting look before dipping in the direction of the hospital; Iris remained in pursuit, but...

Archer's dead? And the others...? But she'd just seen...

"Don't go badmouthing me, Fluke," she complained in his ear. "I'm doing my best here, following the people we think dumped that corpse in the alley. Pretty sure they're the ones that have been leaving the trail of burning buildings too, those rude asses...they had this...never mind." Cedar's reaction to the ring was still in the back of her head. Best to not bring it up. "I was just with Cedar back in the alleys. What happened to Archer? Should we regroup?"

She hated abandoning the chase right now, but if the others needed a big girl on demand, then Iris would have to be there. On the other hand, she could still see right where they'd entered the hospital...

So while that avenue was still available to her, and she waited for Fluke's usual retort, she kept straight on.

Nova Lux: A Magical Girl Game

---

Nicole laughed along at the betrayed look on their own beloved bespectacled girl, even as her blonde counterpart seemed to further tug on what remained of Penny's social graces. Having already weathered what passed for Astrelle's good cheer, Nicole found it hard to be bothered by the girl's snide attitude, but she also wasn't the one directly under attack. If Penny could go without using that cast of hers as a club and beating down on Amanda's head, then Nicole could go without getting her in a full nelson and helping her out.

Her head craned upward at the sound of the dinner chime, and she felt a little rush of excitement go throughout her body - not a rush, actually, more of a breeze. Yeah, a breeze, fluttering out from her core and into her extremities. She found it hard to even concentrate on whatever remained of her food from here.

"What else?" she asked rhetorically. "It's just about showtime. Soon we won't have to argue about whether it's all it's cracked up to be or not. We each can just decide for ourselves." If she could have winked at Amanda and Astrelle at the same time, she would have. I guess that would just be a normal blink, though. Not cool looking. So she didn't even try.

Speaking of the girl in question, she turned to the aloof half of the table - the one-woman bridge between them, Penny, and Dana in their little burgeoning clique. She smiled at them both playfully.

"I'm counting on you two not to upstage me, okay?" she asked, with a mock note of pleading and a twinkle in her eyes. "I know I'm just a material girl, material world and all, but if I'm not the chicest girl on the team I don't really have much else going on. So do your best to be average for once, vi prego, belle?"

The Zephyr Extinct

Post should be up this weekend on my end!

Nova Lux: A Magical Girl Game

---

Nicole liked Penny and Dana a lot, but there were some arguments she wasn't about to wade into for anyone, even friends. Defending the honor or artistic merit of magical girl cartoons she'd never watched as a kid had never really occurred to her as a bullet on her no-fly list, but after thirty hours or so with her new group she could tell it was going to need to be wedged in somewhere. Nicole, personally, found it a little soothing to hear them go on and on about one cartoon or another; as a mediator and people person by nature, it was always nice to see two people resonate on the same frequency without her having to butt in. But that also meant they were more than capable of handling themselves without her ignorant butt elbowing in.

Personally, she was all about neon thrillers with more blood and guts than plot. Or, on the nights where she could see the rain fizzle and burn on the lights of Hasta, she would crawl under a blanket and get into the mood with something tech noir, movies with cityscapes that were like Hasta's in aesthetics but without her warmth. The characters would lack warmth, too - hot android babes, hiring hunky detectives who grew besotted with them only to be killed off at the end so the androids could run away with other women. Like all good noir, it was a beat-to-death twist on a beat-to-death formula, but that was the main reason to love it. There was nothing twisty about it, in her mind, but the vibes were all that mattered. Nicole would do some pretty crazy things for a babe too, be they hot androids or hunky detectives, or definitely, definitely hot androids.

...

Wow, wait, that real-ly explains some things about me.

Her head craned over to look at Vanna, conspicuously silent in the wake of her roommate's full-throated introduction. She gave her a thumbs up and winked, but she knew better than to try and engage Vanna here and now. Her Duodecim status alone was enough to deflate that idea, and the number of girls present at the table who hadn't been through what they had - what she had - was just icing on the cake. Besides, she was already pushing enough limits trying to warm Astrelle up to the others. So she tuned one ear back into the conversation a little.

"In all seriousness, though, I like to think of them as a teen girls' equivalent to the 'Join the Self Defense Forces' clips. I mean, they show them all shooting those shiny new guns, but never seem to mention 90% of soldiering is either cleaning your stuff, digging holes, sitting in a freezing foxhole, or cleaning latrines with a toothbrush. Hopefully, we won't have to do that bit - cleaning latrines with a toothbrush, that is."

Nicole stifled a giggle. Maybe she was starting to feel Astrelle's influence on her a little after all, like Penny had said. It seemed pretty crazy to respond to a retort like the blondie's by openly admitting to enjoying propaganda since childhood, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that was part of Penny's blunt charm.

The conversation quickly turned, at the behest of Vanna's new roomie, to a few other missing arrivals. Nicole furrowed her brow a little bit, thinking of the girls that might have gone through something similar to what they had - or even worse, if they hadn't arrived yet. Her heart went out to them. As for their own experiences, Penny and Dana did a good job of embellishing the tale where necessary and leaving other stuff out, but it seemed that Penny was growing a little uncomfortable with the way she was starting to stick out in the narrative. Time to slip the knife in, babe.

This time, Nicole let her laugh fly.

"C'mon, Penny, bask in your glory a little bit. Not every girl gets to be a hero before she even puts on the uniform. Sure sounds like an origin story to me." She winked. "You wouldn't believe how cool under pressure she was, either. Don't pick a fight with her, ladies, you wouldn't believe the nerves she's got. Real crocodile."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Has this place finally gone dark? I thought it would never die. It had a good long run.

@Prince of Seraphs

One of these days there'll almost certainly be a continuation, if I have anything to say about it. In a year or two if enough of the old crowd is still around and interested. It's hard for me to get some of the characters and interactions in this game outta my head.

Good to see you around!

Nova Lux: A Magical Girl Game

---

It was nice to see Penny and Dana with such a pep in their step. It helped Nicole keep her spirits high and nerves low after a sluggish start to her own day.

Normally, she was a morning person herself - easy-going and amiable, the one to fix coffee for her parents, go out for a run in the morning and watch as the dew lifted off the streets of Hasta. But she wasn't in Hasta, and the jet lag had pummeled Nicole as hard as any of the furniture on the crashing Laurus. She'd spent most of the night rolling from side to side, doing her best not to sleep on the parts of her body the shower had scalded or trying to focus on the sound of her own breathing. For a while she'd tried to keep it in unison with the breathing of Astrelle, sleeping across the room (or maybe just doing a good job of faking like Nicole had) or trying to breathe in time with some of her favorite songs. In between those, she grumbled to herself about not being able to sleep naked with a new roommate. It was a charcuterie of things of things designed to keep her off her game - new city, new time zone, new routine, and a pair of basketball shorts to cut off the sacred sheet-legs symbiosis.

But being around the same group of girls she'd survived a freak Void attack had helped. Nicole was a bit quieter and less personable than she'd been at first, but as the day went on and the girls went through their tests, it began to dawn upon all of them the enormity of what was to come, and her mood began to stabilize as others became more excitable or pessimistic. Naturally, the girls had begun to talk among themselves about their impending surgeries - or the idea of being turned down for them, which was such a cosmically unlucky, crappy thought that Nicole giggled at it when Penny brought it up.

"Ugh, just had a horrible thought. 'Hey, we just tested you, and while you have magic, we don't think you're a suitable candidate for the procedure. Sorry to waste your time, now pack your bags because you're going home.' Wonder if they ever had a case like that. Yeah, I feel bad for thinking about it."

“That’s kinda depressing. But I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. I mean, we went through a buncha prelim tests back home, and I doubt they’d go through all the hassle of bringin’ us here, if there was any chance we’d just have to be sent home again.”

"Besides, they're not really in the business of wasting time here," Nicole pitched in, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and head in hands. "You heard how early they blew the horn for us, and with the way things have run so far, I doubt they're going to waste time bringing a girl into where they do procedures just to bounce her out. If they were gonna go through all that trouble they'd be more likely to kill you just to shut you up."

She winked at her new friends and adjusted her newest skirt, glowering at it with an irritation she hadn't even directed at Astrelle at her worst yesterday.

"I wish they'd kill me, frickin' uniform..." she grumbled. "Hey, wait, I probably shouldn't say that, right? That's probably what they say in those shows you guys watch before things go bad. Forget I said that."

They were on the subject of their favorite shows again, discussing how they hoped their transformations would be modeled after certain girls from certain Adjective Adjective Job Title Noun anime. She thought again of their discussion on the airship yesterday, and the innocence with which they'd discussed Ars Magi propaganda. Astrelle hadn't been fooled, and she was probably smarter not to be. But why go through all the trouble of being an Ars Magi just to feel like shit about it?

"You'll have to tell me who I'd be," Nicole said with an apologetic grin. "I really only speak the language when it comes to over-the-top macho stuff."

God, it would be so sick if I became Eradicator. Or Demonetta or Roboslut. She pictured herself, slinging a pair of pistols in either direction. I don't kiss magical girls. I turn 'em to slag.

"Maybe you girls could give me, like, a list of beginner's stuff to watch for nights off? Help amica tua out?"

The Zephyr Extinct

Hi all! HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🎉

Who's still in to continue? 😄 Should we change things up a bit? Should we conveniently forget some details, or assume others were always true? Or maybe the swarm arrives and everyone dies... ☠ (which could also be a fun send-off 😂)

@Mokley

1000% percent!

Nova Lux: A Magical Girl Game

---

She winced at the sight of Astrelle hitting the mattress - not an airy hit, like the grace of a child bouncing on their mattress, but like a...like a wet sponge, hitting the sink. Or a bug on a windscreen. Nicole stretched out her left arm and pushed her extended index finger into the unoccupied mattress, testing it for any sign of flex.

"Oh my God." She pressed her finger deeper into the mattress, and although it wasn't firm enough to stop her once she put a little pressure on it, she could almost hear the squeak of a spring inside. A tiny exhale blew through her pursed lips in displeasure, an unbidden little noise that reminded her of the beauty of the human body - all those different systems, working in tandem and unison, to keep people as different as the five of them, Victoria, and all their guards grooving the exact same. Her displeasure must have been a cry for help from her skeletal system that had thrown a little switch in the nervous system, then come out through respiratory...the beauty of the human body, indeed. And hey, speaking of beautiful bodies...

"Ha, y'know what?" She looked back at Astrelle and laughed, impish amusement in her eyes. "You look prrr-etty comfy where you're at, and you're already going to hate me enough when I start leaving skincare stuff out. So why don't I bite the bullet on the first shower and tag you in when it's at Goldilocks temp?"

After Nicole walked into the bathroom with her chosen set of towels - surprisingly not starchy enough to have recently cleaned up a crime scene - a clean set of clothes, and a music player on medium volume, the classic sounds of a girl a new shower for the first time started to ring out, muffled, through the walls.

"Porca miseria!"

A few seconds passed. The faucet made a squeaky sound, followed by a squeal of anger and shock.

"Ma che cazzo fai!?"

Twenty minutes later, Nicole walked out in her chosen sleepwear - a faded black t-shirt commemorating the release of the Sancho Stromboli action classic Behemoth (a collector's dream that Nicole's dad had gotten for attending the premiere back in his day) and a pair of short emerald shorts - and a forced grin on her face. Her long legs, as well as her forearms and what parts of her collar were showing, had turned salmon. She plopped down on the mattress; the springs squeaked again.

"Found Goldilocks," she said, grinning through gritted teeth. "Watch the cold faucet. That one sneaks up on you."