The White Devil of the Moon Chapter 11

This is for posting Fiction and C&C replies ONLY. Note this does not have to be a "fukufic" or evenfanfiction. All longform creative writing allowed. Replying posts must give actual commentary, no "GREAT IDEA" or "THIS SUCKS".

The White Devil of the Moon Chapter 11

Postby bissek » Fri Sep 09, 2011 8:41 pm

Disclaimer: I do not own MGLN or Sailor Moon

The White Devil of the Moon
By bissek
Chapter 11
Operation Bowser

Makoto was in trouble. Her opponent, a man considerably larger and stronger than she was, closed in on her. The man's fist swung towards her with enough force to knock her for a loop. She darted to the side and brought her arms up to make an inside block. Grabbing the man's wrist with her left hand, she launched a backhanded blow at his face with her right. The man turned his head to the side, keeping her from breaking his nose. Despite that, he was still knocked back a bit from the blow.

Sensing an opening, Makoto took the offensive. She snapped a high roundhouse kick at he opponent's throat. He caught her foot before it could strike. Undaunted, she threw herself backwards, pulling the man down as she gained the leverage she needed to make a rolling throw. As she got back to her feet, a sudden instinct made her throw herself back to the ground, as a metal sphere whizzed past where her head had been. It seemed that Vita had entered the fight.

Makoto had been interested in fighting for as long as she could remember. She supposed that was a side effect of her past life. From the night when she woke up screaming when she first relived how the previous Sailor Jupiter had died, she had suspected that a part of her subconsciously remembered how much dying in pieces (She still didn't know exactly how many pieces she had ended up in - she had thrown up when she reached thirty seven and refused to count any further) hurt and wanted to ensure that history didn't repeat itself if she ended up in a similar situation in her current life.

She had thought she had gotten pretty good. That belief had been reinforced when she was able to take out two TSAB agents in close combat during the evaluation exercise. Then she started advanced training under Zafira. The TSAB apparently didn't require their low-level operatives to undergo much training in hand-to-hand. The same was not the case with their specialists. Zafira was more skilled than her earlier opponents by an order of magnitude at the very least, and every match that Makoto had had with him so far had ended in defeat. But over the course of those battles, she had learned how to channel her power through her already magically enhanced muscles, and a great deal more about fighting that she could use even without using her Senshi powers.

Still, the lessons would be a lot easier if the Princess hadn't decided to work a situational awareness exercise into them. Every now and then Vita would step into the fight to launch a few of her magic croquet balls at her, forcing Makoto to detect and evade them or find her main teacher stepping in to take advantage of her recovering from the sudden blow.

The one time she had tried firing back at her second opponent, it had turned out badly. She hadn't even hit the girl. She had managed to scorch Vita's silly looking hat, however. That had been a mistake. The girl had taken one look at her damaged headgear before Makoto found herself fighting for her life against an enraged loli with a hammer that now suddenly outmassed both of them combined. That had been painful.

Makoto's brief reminiscence was ended by the realization that Zafira had taken advantage of the brief delay that Vita had forced her to take in regaining her footing to climb to his feet and resume his attack. With no time to climb to her feet, Makoto rolled to the side and attempted a leg sweep. Zafira went down, giving Makoto the time she needed to get back up again and return to a fighting stance.

The two slowly circled each other, looking for an opening. As they watched each other, Makoto spotted some movement in the corner of her eye. Realizing what it was, she made her move. Makoto darted forward. Zafira readied himself to meet her charge, but she didn't even try to attack him. She moved past him and launched a light strike that forced him to reorient himself to face her - and incidentally place himself into the path of Vita's projectile.

Taken off guard by the unexpected friendly fire, Zafira's guard slipped for the first time in the fight. Makoto quickly moved in to take advantage of the opening. One kick and Zafira was knocked to the ground. She then bent over him and punched the ground just next to his head. The match was over. She had won.

"You've improved." Zafira admitted as he got back up.

Makoto smiled triumphantly. This was her first victory against her teacher, a man larger, stronger and far more experienced than she was. If she kept this up, she wouldn't have to worry about reliving a certain nightmare in real life ever again.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alicia's life had undergone a massive upheaval. One day she was just a girl whose mother was away from home due to her work. The next she had woken up in a home she had never seen before on a planet she had never heard of to find that she had been ill long enough for her mother to have visibly aged in the time she was asleep. A few short weeks later, she had fallen ill again, and witnessed her mother attack a woman for no reason that she could see.

It wasn't just the attack. Alicia would have been willing to believe that her mother had done it to protect her. It was the fact that her mother was laughing as she did it. That had told her that there was something very wrong with her mother. And now she was being taken to yet another new home by a little sister who hadn't been born when she first fell ill. A little sister who was technically ten years older than she was.

Because Alicia hadn't been ill for a few months. She had preserved in stasis while her mother desperately searched for a cure for more than thirty years. All of the children she knew from her old home were all grown up, probably with children her age of their own by now. Even though she hadn't known any of them very well, it was still a troubling thought.

What had happened to make her have to spend decades in stasis? What had happened to her mother to make her capable of hurting people and laughing while she did so? Why did her mother attack that woman in the first place? There was so much she didn't know. Hopefully her sister would be able to explain what was going on.

Arriving at the third place she would call home in what seemed like a month from her perspective, Alicia was surprised to see what looked like a living doll flying up to pin something onto a bulletin board. She knew some people could use magic to fly, but had never before seen someone that small before.

"Welcome back, Fate." The miniature woman said.

"Hello, Rein. This is my sister Alicia." Fate replied. "Alicia, this is Rein. She's a Belkan Unison Device."

"Hello, Alicia." Rein said, shaking one of Alicia's fingers with her entire hand. "Oh, Fate, we just got a message from your brother. Congratulations, you are now an aunt." She pointed to the bulletin board, where a pair of baby pictures had just been attached, with the caption 'Karel and Liera Harlaown'.

Alicia's eyes widened. "We have a brother?" she asked excitedly.

"Chrono is the son of the woman who took me in after Mother disowned me. He married one of his coworkers last year. I was expecting the twins to be born soon. Come on, Alicia, there's someone I really want you to meet."

Travelling upstairs to a bedroom, Alicia was approached by a puppy.

"Alicia, this is my familiar Aruf. I made her when I was about a year older than you are now."

The puppy walked up to her and sniffed her hand.

"Hello, Alicia." Aruf said. Then she licked Alicia's face. She giggled.

As Alicia sat down on the bed, Aruf jumped onto her lap. As she idly stroked the puppy, her sister started to tell her about all that had happened in the family in the long years that she had missed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ami stretched her hands above the shallow bowl and concentrated. This form of magic was different from what she had used as a Senshi. Most of the magic she had used as Sailor Mercury was like a software application. It was already written, she just needed to give the proper command to execute it. That made it easy to use but limited her to using the commands she already knew about. While she probably could develop new spells, there was no one alive who knew enough about that form of magic to explain how, and she didn't have the time to do the experimentation that would be needed to figure out the principles behind doing so, which left her with a highly limited repertoire unless she managed to recover the memory of additional spells at some point.

Mid-Childan magic was far more difficult. It required her to actually understand what she was doing with the spell, effectively making her write out parts of the program in her head. But since there was documentation on how it worked and instructors available (While it was possible that some of the records recovered from the palace included information on the principles behind Senshi magic, she hadn't found any yet. She was still searching though), it was possible to learn the principles on which the magic operated, making development of new spells more feasible. Which was why she was staring at a bowl of water, attempting her first original spell.

Ami turned her thoughts to the formula she had worked out. Focus. Draw the thermal energy away from specific points in the water and disperse it elsewhere. A diagram appeared under the bowl as the water started to freeze. A minute later, she released the spell and reached into the bowl. Looking at the large ice cube she had just created she smiled at her success.

"Nice job," Yuuno said, walking up to the table.

"Does it always take so much effort to cast a spell?" She asked. It was certainly a lot easier to break the laws of thermodynamics when you didn't have to work out exactly how you were bypassing them.

"It gets easier once you get more familiar with a particular spell. It would be a lot easier if you had a Device that could help crunch the numbers for you, but we don't have any to spare."

"So those weapons you use are computers?"

"Part weapon or tool, part computer, part power channeling implement."

"That gives me an idea."

Changing into Sailor Mercury, Ami pulled out the Mercury Computer and started typing. Fifteen minutes later, she had entered the necessary formulae into the computer. After discarding the ice cube and refilling the bowl, she recast the spell. As the diagram formed under the bowl, the results of various calculations needed to cast the spell appeared on her visor. Taking advantage of her computer handling the data processing for her, she decided to try something more complicated that simply freezing the water. Activating a subroutine she had created earlier but hadn't tried in her first attempt, she started to shape the freezing effect.

Even with the computations being done for her, casting the spell wasn't as easy as using the spells she had relied on as a Senshi. The power she called upon there flowed through her as naturally as breathing. While she hadn't noticed it on her first attempt at casting magic due to her having to focus on the math equations inherent in the spell, the way the power channeled through her body seemed awkward to her, like the power was coming from some source other than where her Senshi powers came from, which wasn't as bountiful or suited to her. But even with that additional handicap, freezing a small bowl of water didn't take that much effort. Ten seconds after starting the spell, she reached into the bowl and pulled out an ice cube shaped like the astrological symbol for the planet Mercury.

"I hadn't considered using a normal computer to help with the processing." Yuuno admitted.

"If it had been a normal computer, it might not have, or at least not as well. The Mercury Computer is already linked to my powers as a Senshi, so I was able to take advantage of that."

"I see. Nice idea."

Ami smiled at the compliment as she changed back to her civilian persona. She had proven that she could use Mid-Childan magic and had found a way to make using it practical despite the math-heavy casting process. She would have to think about what she could do with this form of magic now that she had established proof of concept.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rei knelt in her family shrine, staring into the sacred flame. The young miko had lost track of how many times she had done this over the years between her duties at the shrine and her work as a Senshi. But this time she wasn't trying for a vision. She was attempting to locate a person.

"This might not seem to be an important skill, but knowing where to find an enemy is often an essential first step to dealing with them. In some situations you might be dealing with a prospective ambush or an opponent who you wish to take the offensive against." Shamal said.

Rei could sympathize with that. The fact that the Senshi had no way of tracking down the Dark Kingdom and taking the fight to them was part of the reason why the war had stretched out as long as it had. Even being able to quickly locate youma without needing to patrol the city for hours or run into them by chance would have been a great help. Shamal actually had been able to locate a few youma the week previous, allowing the Senshi to eliminate them before they even got started on their latest energy-draining operation.

"Now, I'm not going to start you out trying to track down an enemy. I've already checked, and I haven't been able to find any youma, and the only other person of interest that we know of out there is actively concealing herself, so I doubt you'd find Precia even if you tried. First I want you to extend your senses to the street outside and tell me how many people are there." She continued.

Rei gazed into the flames and entered the familiar mental state she used when seeking a vision. Following the instructions that Shamal had given her, she cast her senses to the street outside the shrine and felt the presence of people travelling down the street. Giving a quick count, she blinked and looked away from the flames.

"Seven." She said.

"Good. Now for something a little different. Hayate is somewhere in the district. I want you to tell me where she is."

Rei turned her gaze back to the fire and began again. This was more difficult. Where before she was gathering general information on a small region that was nearby, this time she was searching a much larger region for a specific person. Concentrating on the image of the young woman she was searching for, she found herself drawn more and more in a specific direction. Finally she found the person she was looking for, and a vision appeared in the flames.

"She's inside a store, looking at fabric. It's about two and a half miles away. I can't see anything that really identifies what the shop is, but it's that way." Rei pointed.

Shamal checked what direction Rei was pointing with a compass, then made a note on a map of the city. Then she was strangely still for a moment - probably speaking to her commander using some spell. Comparing whatever response she got against the note on the map, Shamal smiled.

"Well done, Hino-san. You were a bit off on distance, but you should get more accurate with experience. You're picking this up a lot faster than I expected."

"It's not that different from how I've used the sacred fire for visions as a miko. I just never thought of using it in this way before."

"Well at the rate you're going, you're likely to end up surpassing my skill in this. Now, here are some other ways to apply this technique..."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zoicite snarled in frustration. He had learned of Precia's actions at the hospital from the news. While learning where she was aided in his task of retrieving the crystals that his queen wanted, the manner in which her location was exposed meant that she had long since fled by the time he could act on that information.

Despite this setback, he was still able to find where Precia had been hiding since he had last encountered her. Overpowering the police officers who were searching the building was a trivial exercise for a General of the Dark Kingdom. Unfortunately, after scouring the building himself, he could find no trace of the crystals he was looking for anywhere. The runaway sorceress apparently kept them with her.

Still, one interesting notion had occurred to Zoicite as a result of this incident. He wasn't sure what Precia needed the life energy she was taking for, but the manner in which she had acquired it was clever. If she hadn't gotten greedy, she could have gotten far more energy without anyone noticing.

Zoicite decided to try implementing a similar plan. He would have to have his youma be more choosy about targets - say, a single person a night, from a different hospital each time. That would keep the death rate down to a level that was less likely to be noticed. And the best part was that even if anyone suspected something was going on, nobody would think it was the work of a youma. All the blame for the deaths would be placed on a person who had already been caught red-handed in fatally draining people in a hospital - Precia Testarossa.

The thought of an energy-draining scheme that the Senshi were unlikely to disrupt appealed to him. Especially since he was likely to need something that would delay his queen's wrath for failing to have already secured the crystals. He left the building to summon one of his subordinates.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Learning the sword was an interesting experience for Minako. She had been an excellent swordswoman in her previous life, and had been recalling various techniques as her memories of that incarnation returned to her. As she worked with an actual sword in her hands, she found that those memories came more easily to her. She was rapidly regaining the knowledge of how to handle a blade. Unfortunately, the memories of battles fought millennia before didn't bring with them the physical conditioning necessary to use those skills.

It was a good thing that she was already in excellent shape from years of athletics and combat. She'd needed it. A great deal of her training was in the form of actual combat, and Signum had apparently been a master for considerably longer than Minako had been alive. Minako had yet to land a single blow on her teacher. Still, she was getting better. The rate at which Signum had been hitting her was starting to go down.

That wasn't enough to make it stop completely, she regretfully thought as she fought the urge to let go of the shinai and rub her aching side. She knew full well that relaxing her grip on her weapon would just get her disarmed and hit again. She raised her practice sword to block and overhead blow. The force of the strike just powered through her defense and the blow landed on her shoulder with bruising force.

"Angle your blade when parrying!" Signum's voice cracked out. "Deflecting an attack takes less strength than blocking it directly."

As Signum withdrew her blade to ready for her next strike, Minako launched her own attack, a series of strikes she had first learned thousands of years before. A swing to the right side of Signum's head was quickly deflected. As the blow slid downwards, Minako jerked back at her opponent for a weak strike at her waist. It was also blocked, but she was expecting that. Spinning around, she used the momentum of her turn to launch a far stronger attack on Signum's other side, hoping to catch her before she got her guard back up. Signum spun her sword, knocking Minako's blade upwards. Planting her feet, Minako stopped her weapon's upward motion and turned it into a downward swing. Signum brought her sword to bear, but instead of guarding her head, she moved to protect her neck. Because of that, Minako's shinai slapped into Signum's forehead with a resounding thwack.

Signum stepped back and lowered her weapon. Minako did the same, grateful for the respite and amazed that she had actually managed to get past her teacher's guard.

"I've never seen that variation before." Signum admitted.

"Variation?"

"You took a Belkan combination - one I've never shown you, by the way - and changed the last strike. You hit me because I was expecting you to use the standard form."

"No, that was a form I learned back in the Moon Kingdom. I didn't change anything at all."

"Hmm. I'd be interested in seeing some of the other forms you learned then at some point," Bringing her sword back up, Signum advanced. "This is the pattern I was expecting you to use."

Signum swung her sword, but at a slower speed than usual, as she was simply demonstrating an attack rather than seriously attacking. Minako blocked the first three blows as Signum had, but on the fourth strike, instead of striking at the head, Signum turned the final strike into a thrust, placing the tip of her weapon in the hollow of Minako's throat.

So, the reason Minako had managed to gain a single victory over her teacher was because her attack had been similar enough to one that Signum knew that she fooled herself into thinking that she knew what the next move was. Somehow, Minako didn't think she'd be able to pull that off again, at least not with any version of that particular pattern. Bringing her shinai back up to a guard position, the lesson resumed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miyuki hadn't been able to spend as much time with her sister as she would have liked. First Nanoha had to spend the early part of her vacation in a totally different city since she couldn't get any peace and quiet at home with the preparations for Kyouya's wedding. Then the wedding battle occurred and Nanoha found herself going back to work ahead of schedule, albeit with friends carefully watching her and willing to sit on her if it looked like she was about to overwork herself again. Between that and Miyuki's work - made heavier than usual due to Kyouya being out of town on his honeymoon - the family had effectively been separated just as much as if Nanoha was still on Mid-Childa. But now Kyouya was back, and so Miyuki had much more free time available to her. So she decided to take the train to Tokyo and spend the day with her sister.

Her sister's life had changed far more than she would have expected in the short time since the wedding. Nanoha had never been one for romance, so the revelation that she had acquired and broken up with a boyfriend was rather surprising. Nanoha's developing relationship with Fate wasn't quite so unexpected. Miyuki had actually expected something like that to have happened years ago. Fate's devotion to her friend was rather obvious to anyone who was actually paying attention.

As Miyuki tried to find a way to change the subject after a few comments from Nanoha about 'Princess Serenity' made it clear that she found that to be a rather unpleasant topic, two other people walked in, toweling off their faces. She recognized one of them as Signum, but the other was unknown to her.

"Takamachi-san." Signum greeted.

"Signum-san." She replied.

"Minako-chan, this is my sister Miyuki. Miyuki, this is Minako. You met her at the wedding." Nanoha introduced them.

Miyuki didn't remember anyone named Minako at the wedding. There also hadn't been very many blondes there. Except... for the girl who showed up during the fight and didn't give her name. Minako was Sailor Venus. Miyuki bowed to the younger girl.

"Thank you, Minako-san, for saving my mother's life."

Noting the confusion on Minako's face, Nanoha explained the more complicated version of how they were related. Then she turned attention back to her sister.

"So tell me, how have things been going back in Uminari?"

"Things at the Midori-ya have been very hectic. Ever since the wedding, a lot of people have been turning up. While that's good for business, the new customers are really annoying. Far too many of them ended up being magical girl otaku hoping to see something magical happen. But some of them aren't in that crowd. I'm now dating one of them. Masato..."

Minako, who had been about to leave the sisters to themselves, promptly spun around. "Would that be Masato Sanjonin? Red hair? Green eyes? Drives a Ferrari Testarossa?" She inquired.

"Yes. Why? Do you know him?"

"Yes, I know him. Masato Sanjonin is an alias of General Nephrite of the Dark Kingdom."

Miyuki's eyes widened in horror. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. "No." She whispered.

"I'm afraid that every one of the Senshi has gone up against at one time or another. You aren't the first person he's fooled with that act."

"You don't understand," Miyuki croaked. "I invited him to meet the family tomorrow night. I was planning to ask Nanoha to come."

Miyuki saw the other three people in the room share looks of concern over that revelation.

"I think we need to come up with a plan for what happens tomorrow." Nanoha said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nephrite smiled as he parked his car outside the Takamachi house. His work was about to pay off.

After Jadeite's botched assault on the Moon Princess at her brother's wedding, the home had been warded extensively. There was no way he'd be able to force his way in, not without time and effort that would allow the princess's protectors to arrive and get in the way. Even if he was allowed in, there was a good chance that casting a spell would alert anyone on watch to his presence. The Midori-ya was similarly warded, though the defenses against entry were considerably weaker due to the fact that the owners needed strangers to be able to enter freely if they were going to do any business.

Because of this, he needed to be freely welcomed into the house if he wanted to be able to do anything there, and was highly limited to how much he could do before being caught. And this night, he had been invited to meet the family. The entire family, including the Moon Princess. Given the princess's sister's near total uselessness as an intelligence source so far (As he had gotten into her good graces by not being obsessed with her sister the magical girl, there wasn't much he could do to probe for information on that topic), that meant all the effort he had put into courting her was now paying off. All he had to do was get close to his target, which shouldn't be that hard at a family gathering, and then strike her down with his first blow. After that, it didn't matter how many people responded to any alarms that were sounded.

"Masato-kun!" Miyuki greeted him enthusiastically.

"Thank you for inviting me, Miyuki-chan." He replied.

Miyuki welcomed him into the house and led him to the family room, where several people were gathered.

"I'd like you to meet the family. Everyone, this is my boyfriend Masato. Masato-kun, this is my father Shirou, my mother Momoko, my brother Kyouya, his wife Shinobu, and my sister Nanoha."

Nephrite greeted each of the people in turn, noting that Shirou's arm had yet to fully recover from what Jadeite had done to it, though he had moved from a cast to a sling. But as he approached the Moon Princess, she excused herself and left for the bathroom. No matter. He was going to be in the house for several hours, so a delay of a few minutes wasn't going to change anything. Sooner or later he would get close enough to kill the Moon Princess, at which point the Dark Kingdom would be victorious.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miyuki hadn't wanted to believe what she had been told about Masato. But it was apparently true. If the Senshi currently using some kind of disguise spell hadn't recognized Masato as Nephrite, she would have stepped outside, where she would have signaled the real Nanoha that they could safely switch places. Instead she had used the danger signal. Right now the Senshi was sending an alert to her sister, and the TSAB/Senshi team currently with her sister would be moving in to set up a barrier to trap Nephrite in one place long enough for them to confront him.

Now came the hard part: keeping Nephrite in the house long enough for the trap to be set up, knowing what he really was. Knowing that her first serious relationship in years had been a lie, and that a man she had honestly come to care for had just been using her in a plan to hurt her sister. That he had been involved in the attack that injured her father and ruined her brother's wedding. And most importantly, pretending that she wasn't aware of his duplicity until it was too late for him to do anything about it.

The girl disguised as her sister returned, and took a seat outside of striking distance from Nephrite. Normally Miyuki wouldn't think in such terms, but that was before she learned that her boyfriend was an enemy. She felt the weight of the twin kodachi concealed beneath the skirt of her dress and the knives in her sleeves, and cursed both the circumstances that made her believe that going armed to a date was necessary, and the revelation that proved that her belief was justified.

Time passed glacially as she waited for the moment when her sister's associates would take the man who had toyed with her heart with every intent of betraying her away. Making casual small talk without letting anything slip was a torturous exercise in self-control. Finally, she made a small mistake.

"Would you like some more tea, Ne-Masato-kun?" She asked.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nephrite was about to accept the offer of more tea when he realized that Miyuki had almost addressed him by his real name. A name he had never once told her. Horror filled his soul as the implications of that one syllable occurred to him. She knew who he was.

He thought that he had been leading her along until he could get her to let him get close to the Moon Princess. Instead, Miyuki had been playing him, slowly luring him into a trap, using the one target he couldn't afford to pass up as bait. Truly, the Moon Princess had been born into a formidable family. It had almost worked, and would have had it not been for that one slip.

But even if he had been caught, it was too late. He was in the same room as the Moon Princess. And even if the trap would destroy him moments later, he could still take Serenity with her. He might fall this day, but because of his deeds, the Dark Kingdom would be victorious.

"So you figured it out, did you." He snarled, then leapt forward towards his mortal enemy. Gathering his power, he readied himself to release it at the princess point blank, but instead of any signs of surprise or fear, the princess rose to meet him. A sudden palm strike to his sternum promptly reversed his momentum, and he felt a jolt of electricity shoot through him with the surprisingly strong blow.

As he climbed to his feet, he saw the Moon Princess's appearance change. Her hair darkened to a deeper shade of brown, and the ponytail rotated to the back of her head. Her eyes turned green. Her height grew as the general shape of her body also started to morph, along with her clothes, until he found himself facing a younger girl than he had expected, wearing a familiar and much hated sailor fuku.

"I'm sorry," Sailor Jupiter said, "But the princess is in another castle."

The Moon Princess wasn't even here? Then all of his work had been for nothing. Still, they wouldn't have been wasting his time with small talk if they had been ready to take him down. He still had some time before the trap they had been leading him into fully sprung. Nephrite was sure that bringing back the head of a Senshi would make up for his failure to eliminate his primary target.

Suddenly, Nephrite found himself immobilized. Looking down, he saw that he had been tangled in some fine wire by Miyuki's brother. He was able to snap the wire, but the time it took him to do so allowed Sailor Jupiter to close in. As she punched him in the face, he noted that she had gotten considerably stronger since the last time he had seen her fight. She also hadn't been able to channel her lightning spells into her punches.

Realizing that the evening would be very painful for him if he remained on the defensive, he readied a spell. Timing his attack against a high kick, the spell knocked his enemy off her feet and out the window. Smiling coldly, he pursued his opponent.

"Did you really think you could best me by yourself, Senshi?" He taunted.

A gout of flame lanced across the yard and caught him on the left arm. Calling on his power to block the flames, he turned to see where the attack had come from. Three more people had shown up. One was a man he didn't recognize, in some sort of uniform and carrying a staff. The second was a little girl wearing a dark red dress and a rather silly hat wielding a mallet. The third was someone rather familiar to him.

"She doesn't have to." Sailor Mars countered as the reinforcements went on the offensive.

An electrically charged punch caught him across the jaw. This was followed by two solid body blows and a snap kick that drove him backwards. Taking advantage of the breathing room that the distance afforded him, Nephrite threw a spell at Jupiter, only for her to dodge out of the way. In her place came a metal orb that smashed into his face at great speed. As blood poured from his broken nose, Nephrite reassessed his priorities.

His primary target was long gone. Now that Jupiter was no longer alone, it was unlikely that he could achieve his secondary objective. If he stayed, there was a good chance that he would be beaten, especially if the man with the staff finished whatever spell he was casting. He knew very well how his Queen would react if he returned without something to show for his work. Quickly glancing around, he saw something worth taking.

Nephrite launched a quick blast of power at the man, who went down. Turning back towards the house, he made a dash towards his target of opportunity. A bolt of lightning and a burst of flame struck him from behind. He winced in pain as the spells breached his weakening defenses. He couldn't take much more of this. But fortunately he didn't have to. The Senshi didn't have enough time to cast any more spells before he got to what he was after.

He reached through the ruined window and grabbed Miyuki Takamachi by the throat. He hadn't been able to get much intelligence out of her while posing as Masato Sanjonin, but that was because he needed to maintain his cover. With that no longer an issue, it wouldn't be too hard to get her to tell him everything she knew about the Moon Princess and her allies. She could also be used as a source of life energy.

Jadeite had been able to break a man's arm with one hand. Everyone present knew this, and froze as Nephrite lifted his hostage from the ground, in case he decided to do the same thing to her neck. A part of him wanted to gloat over his success, but he knew that every moment he remained he gave his enemies a chance to find an opening. Instead, he knocked his hostage into the wall. Slinging the now unconscious woman over his shoulder, he bolted for the exit. With the girl's body draped across his back, the Senshi and their ally were unable to find a place to attack him without risking the hostage's safety. Passing outside the wards placed on the estate, he stopped at his car and cast the spell that would return him to the Dark Kingdom. He laughed as he faded from sight.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: It's not mentioned in MGLN, but according to the original source material, Miyuki is technically Nanoha's cousin, not sister. Her mother is Nanoha's Aunt Misato, who left her child in her brother's care while she searched for the terrorist that bombed the Fuwa clan gathering, killing most of the family, including her husband. Shiro eventually adopted his niece and raised her as his own.
Last edited by bissek on Thu Sep 15, 2011 11:40 am, edited 2 times in total.
Genius is 1.7% inspiration, 98.6% perspiration, and .4% poor math skills.
bissek
Moon Senshi
Posts: 1088
 

Re: The White Devil of the Moon Chapter 11

Postby frice2000 » Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:56 pm

She had counted while taking her old body to the site of the Lunar Fire

83? That's um...really quite morbid. Not funny. I can see her slowly picking up and overturning the dust with each one, can't see how I can laugh there. Smaller number would be better.

As always too long with no dialogue. Needs more, with less summary. That's pretty much still consistently the problem with this story.

Vita's silly looking hat, however.

Heh nice.

from her perspective

Cut

she could call

she would call

"We have a brother?" Alicia asked.

Emotion here would be nice. Shock, happiness, something.

when about a year

when i was about a year

As she idly stroked the puppy, her sister started to tell her about all that had happened in the family in the long years that she had missed.

Too short needs more. Feels crazily abbreviated with what could be something quite nice.

Mid-Childan magic was far more difficult. It required her to actually understand what she was doing with the spell,

Failing to see how this is helpful for the balance of your two crosses. The Senshi spells on their surface are at least more powerful are they not? Extra utility is all well and good but if the raw power level she ends up managing is higher, that's disappointing since the cross is pretty much trashed further power level wise.

I hadn't considered using a normal computer to help with

Really? Seems to be something that would be in their history as being done before highly advanced magical AI computer weapon systems.

life energy himself

gender agreement? Kind of fuzzy.

That would keep the death rate down to a level that was less likely to be noticed.

See now this...is creative and nicely dark. Nursing homes, hospitals, maybe even neonatal units...All could be some horrifying targets. Nice work on that.

Learning the sword was an interesting experience for Minako.

Bit too predictable and monotonous with these training sequences. One, other material, one, other material...Kind of blah. I'd mix it up a bit more, or put them all in one place learning to move things faster.

"No, that was a form I learned back in the Moon Kingdom. I didn't change anything at all."

Do this sort of thing more, you desperately need more balance.

that she had acquired and broken up with a boyfriend

Um...That's well, generous to say that about that relationship.

Things at the Midori-ya have been very hectic.

So business is good? Part of her should be pleased about that right?

Nephrite smiled as he parked

Again, needs dialogue. Feels rushed.

Knowing that her first serious relationship in years had been a lie, and that a man she had honestly come to care for had just been using her in a plan to hurt her sister. That he had been involved in the attack that injured her father and ruined her brother's wedding. And not doing anything to let him know that she knew until it was too late for him to do anything about it.

Could use some work. Bit too fragmenty.

"I'm sorry," Sailor Jupiter said, "But the princess is in another castle."

Very nice one liner indeed! You write really good dialogue at points don't know why you use it so sparingly it's quite excellent when you go with it.

"Did you really think you could best me by yourself, Senshi?" He taunted.

Surprised he didn't go, 'kidnap time!' faster when he discovered that Nanoha wasn't present.

he stopped at his car and cast the spell that would return him to the Dark Kingdom. He laughed as he faded from sight just as Sailor Jupiter's reinforcements arrived.

That was easy. Poor planning on their part to not consider this.

This was OK as always. The sad thing as always is it could be far better. Slow down, more dialogue, more emotion, less summary a solid B fic moves to a solid A fic, but you again don't seem to want to make that jump. That's why whenever I see a new chapter of this story I'm simultaneously happy and melancholy.
frice2000
User avatar
Asteroid Senshi
Posts: 572
 

Re: The White Devil of the Moon Chapter 11

Postby bissek » Wed Sep 14, 2011 8:40 pm

Revised version of chapter has been posted.

I personally find conversations to be harder to write than descriptions of events.
Genius is 1.7% inspiration, 98.6% perspiration, and .4% poor math skills.
bissek
Moon Senshi
Posts: 1088
 

Re: The White Devil of the Moon Chapter 11

Postby frice2000 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:03 am

Can't help but feel the addition of a scene where Nanoha learns that her family and non-magically inclined friends is being targeted would make for a very excellent addition.
frice2000
User avatar
Asteroid Senshi
Posts: 572
 

Re: The White Devil of the Moon Chapter 11

Postby bissek » Thu Sep 15, 2011 11:43 am

Slight revision to the fight scene posted.

As to why so few people, remember that they expected this battle to be fought indoors. Even with the barrier preventing property damage, there's a limit to how many people can fight inside the room of a typical house without getting in each others way. This is especially true in a battle with ranged attacks, where a missed strike could hit an ally on the other side of the room.

There was a battle in Usagi's house in the SM Stars where the crowding issue was demonstrated (Along with Eternal Sailor Moon's wings knocking stuff over every time she moved).
Genius is 1.7% inspiration, 98.6% perspiration, and .4% poor math skills.
bissek
Moon Senshi
Posts: 1088
 

Re: The White Devil of the Moon Chapter 11

Postby bissek » Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:15 pm

The mook was there to set up the barrier - and didn't get the job done fast enough.

This should be the final version.
Genius is 1.7% inspiration, 98.6% perspiration, and .4% poor math skills.
bissek
Moon Senshi
Posts: 1088
 


Return to Stories and C&C

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users

cron