[Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

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[Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

Postby fallacies » Sat Oct 08, 2011 12:46 pm

Tentative Title: MOON-TYPE MOON
[Sailor Moon / Type-Moon]
Rough Prologue Draft
in Snippets

Section I: The First Advent

---

~ 9100 BCE // Before Then

The men of the first advent were clever creatures -- their conquering of the Age of Winter had primed them to survive in nearly any environment, and a mere two millennia saw their advance from the mastery of the written word to the colonization of the celestial bodies. It seemed that they had divorced themselves from the checks and balances of natural law, subjugating to their will the world that gave them birth ...

The planetary sentiences, roused to the threat of Gaia's unruly children, struggled for an age to impede their cancerous diaspora with external threats. Humanity, however, persevered, and it was decided in the end that if such efforts were futile, the Counter Force would instead impose an unknowing compromise upon the humans from within.

Save for Gaia, who had invested too much of herself in the husbandry of the phenomenon called 'life,' each planet possessed the ability to generate an ultimate embodiment of their will -- beings who, in another refraction of the Kaleidoscope, might have been dubbed the 'Aristoteles,' and were here called 'Types.' Nine were formed and sent amongst the humans, guised in the flesh of men. Their purpose was not to destroy -- merely to appear in times of strife, and to lead; to serve as heroes. In time, they would unite and control humanity as a whole.

---

~ 9000 BCE // The Sanguine Moon Rises

The magus was called "Brunestud of the Crimson Moon." In the chaos of the Second Lunarian Revolution, she assumed command of the rebel colonials and led them to victory against the rule of the Gaian monarchy. Her prowess in magecraft and her ability to overcome seeming logistical impossibilities with tactical brilliance earned her the title "the Witch of the Rainbow Eyes" -- "the Mother of Bloodshed" amongst her enemies.

The fledgling peace had only settled when it was again broken. The Martians, who had long sought a strategic foothold within the Earth Sphere, believed that the Lunarian economy hadn't the resources to field another war. Seeking to exploit this percieved setback, they prepared a all-out invasion, not aware that their intelligence had gravely miscalculated the standing military strength of the Moon.

Brunestud's retaliation was rapid and decisive. A month after annihilating the deployed invasive force, she led an assault on the Archduchy of Tarsis, the most powerful of the member states of the Martian Federation. Within a year, her troops had surgically excised the nobles responsible for the invasion, and the Red Planet was brought under Lunar rule.

The Martian populace had long come to resent their aristocracy for oppressive and uncaring policy, and the fact that the political ambitions of the few had brought upon them a planetary war forged in their hearts a deep mistrust of authority. Aware of public opinion, Brunestud's first act upon securing power was to order the repair and installation of critical infrastructure, taking mind to provide jobs and otherwise recompense those who had lost their families and livelihoods to the war. Academies of both primary and advanced education were provided free of charge to all citizens, both of human and phantasmal descent. The people, in turn, came to view her not as a conqueror, but as a beloved liberator.

Apprehensive of the growing power of the Moonrace, the Gaian monarchy proposed a coalition to the other governments of the Solar System, nominally to prevent Brunestud from seizing for herself the rich resources of the Asteroid Belt. The act fomented the conflict that came to be known as the Great Solarian War.

---

8932 BCE // The Age of the Silver Moon

When the dust had settled, the vast majority of the system was under Brunestud's control. The singular exception was the Earth, which had fallen to barbarism following the collapse of the old monarchy. Luna -- now the Lunar Imperium -- was careful not to alienate the peoples of its newly conquered territories. Rather than installing Lunarian regents, Brunestud appointed planetary governors native to the worlds they were entrusted with -- all of them highly decorated and well-recieved female army officers who had served against her during the Solarian War. By Imperial decree, their regency was to be hereditary, passed down by way of matriarchal succession.

Despite some initial opposition and unrest, by the end of Brunestud's century of life, the Imperium had reached a level of political and economic stability thought to be unprecedented in the known history of sentients. A highly secretive ritual enabled the governors -- officially titled "Guardians" -- to obtain the combat capabilities to single-handedly resolve any major threats to the populace. They and and their lineages would come to function as the arsenal that secured the era of peace called the Pax Argenta.

The Age of the Silver Moon would last a millennium.

---

8001 BCE // The Shadowed Kingdom

Beryl was the eldest of three children, all girls. The majority of her early years were spent shielding her sisters from the advances of their father, who had turned to the bottle when the fish in the nearby seas had grown scarce, and the trade routes started to favor the larger port cities.

At age eight, she caught the eye of a nobleman, and was contracted to his house as a maidservant. Her lord's generosity afforded her family with a large annual compensation, and she would allow the man to do with her as he pleased if it alleviated her father's woes enough that he would again become the kind man she had once known. For her sisters, she resolved, she would suffer anything.

She was not unintelligent. Having taught herself to read in the first years of her service, she rose from her mean roots to the privelege of assisting her lord's scribes in the stock-keeping of his archives. The sort of youth that the man sought in his partners was fleeting, and so to secure a permanent, indispensible assignment to his staff, it had been necessary to familiarize herself with the philosophies. Her own interests, however, lay with history.

Committed to Beryl's memory were the rise and fall of the Royal House of Atlantis, and the breaking of the floating palaces of Mu. She read of the last stand of the Saint of Winter in the icy plains of Terra Australis, and of the thousand years of chaos that followed.

The rare, reproduced scrolls that crossed her hands laid bare the true history of the world: The chain of suffering that bound all that she knew was not merely the work of fate or coincidence. It had but a single author: Brunestud of the Crimson Moon, the magus who was called the Mother of Bloodshed ...

---

Type-Metallia was not a malevolent creature.

Her parent -- the planet known as "the Land of Metal" -- had been ravaged by cataclysms and war for centuries, and gradually, it had lost the capacity to support life. Charged to deliver the last of her parent's children from certain extinction, Metallia crafted by sheer force of will a Reality Marble -- a subspace world that would serve as an 'Ark.' The bounded domain within closely simulated the Ether-polluted environment of her homeland, for the species she salvaged had for the most part adapted to depend upon the poisonous substance for survival. As it was but a pale reflection of a place that existed now only in her memories, she chose to name her creation "the Shadowed Kingdom."

The void of space was lonely, but Metallia soldiered on, clinging to the hope that she would eventually find a planet suitable her and her brethren. She resolved that so long as such a place existed, she would stop at nothing to take it for her own -- even if it meant going to war.

It took nearly a century for her labor to bear fruit.

Hundreds of light-years away, in another galaxy, a newly awakened magus called out to anyone who would listen ...

---

On the forest floor, the nude, bloodied form of a young woman lay supine, surrounded by the dismembered corpses of men.

She had not been broken, as a weaker woman might have been. No -- never broken.

There had been fear, and then, when it had receded, rage. At present, staring upwards at the winter moon through bare branches, she felt nothing in her heart but a cold, empty hatred.

Her sisters were not at home to greet her when she had taken leave to visit. They had grown into fine young women in her absence, her father told her -- fine enough to fetch him a pretty price at a brothel in Lemuria.

That had been an hour ago. Traces of the black flames that had torn her father and his friends to pieces still danced harmlessly along her fingertips.

She was beyond common sense, now, and her judgment was clouded by the strange power that she had awakened. Her only desire was retribution, and the death of her father didn't begin to satisfy her.

"/If that is your wish,/" said an inhuman voice, "/I shall grant it./"
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Re: [Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

Postby fallacies » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:24 pm

Section 2: The Fall of the Lunar Imperium

---

7998 BCE // The Fall of the Lunar Imperium

Altrouge Brunestud gave no quarter to those who would exploit the weaknesses they percieved in her; she refused to become a vehicle to the policies that the sharks of the aristocracy sought to push upon her mother, the Empress Serenity IX. Despite her frail constitution and her young age, she was a princess of the Imperial line, and it was only proper that she carried herself before the court with a bearing that brooked no tresspass of status. The opportunistic worms who presumed her to be as straightforward as her elder sister Arcuied met quick humiliation at the receiving end of her sharp wits.

The raven-haired girl thought herself invincible. Her detractors -- who had not-so-secretly dubbed her "the Black Princess" -- thought her to be an impertinent, insufferable shrew.

On the night that was to have been the celebration of her coming of age, these matters of petty pride ceased to be relevant. Her carefully constructed facade was all but discarded to the massacre that had arrived in the Imperial Capital.

Huddled against a wall in tears, Altrouge Brunestud discovered that she was no more and no less than a frightened thirteen-year-old girl.

The masked, fully-armored knight who stood before her swung his sword at the ground, clearing its black metal of the blood of her bodyguards. An aura of grey clothed the blade, seeming to corrode the space around it.

"/It seems, Princess, that your physiology spared you of Grain poisoning. I expected no less of a vessel prepared by an Ultimate One./"

His voice -- if he was indeed a man -- was androgynous. The language that he spoke in resembled nothing that Altrouge had ever studied, but she found that she could understand it, even if his exact meaning escaped her.

"Wh- Who are you?" she managed. "Why are you doing this?"

"/I am Ado Edem, a Knight of Metallia,/" he said, raising his sword, "/and I am doing this to ensure the survival of my race./"

She squeezed her eyes shut as he swung the blade, and a splatter of warmth stained her face. When the accompanying pain she'd expected failed to manifest, she opened her eyes again.

Clad in a torn and bloody white dress, her sister Arcuied stood between her and the knight, clasping the edge of the blade with her left hand.

"What do you think you're doing, freezing up like that!?" yelled Arcuied, glaring at her. "Get out of here!"

Something within her sister's golden eyes compelled her to scramble to her feet and start down the hall at a shaky run. By the time she realized what she was doing, she was alone in an empty corridor, catching her breath.

Had it really been Arcuied who saved her? Intellectually, Altrouge understood that her sister had trained in combat magecraft, but she'd long grown used to pitying the easygoing older girl for her unsuitedness to the court life. It was difficult for her to reconcile what she knew with the blond-haired fury that had stayed the sword of the seemingly inhuman knight.

She was shaken from her thoughts by the faint sound of talking that echoed from an ajoining passage. Careful to keep her steps light and her breath silent, she peeked around the corner. There were two human soldiers, clad in armor of the same unfamiliar style as the knight. One of them was holding a sword to the throat of a crying woman -- her handmaiden Sciezka.

Biting her lip, she began to ready a Cyrfin in her right hand -- one of the few projectile spells she'd been taught as a matter of self-defense. Before she could muster the prana to strike the soldiers, a leather-gloved hand pulled her back.

---

The bounded field effect known as "Die Schwesternschaft des Blutes" -- "The Sisterhood of Blood" -- was what kept the planetary colonies of the Imperium terraformed and inhabitable. Designed in the unrest following the Great War, instances of the spell were made sufficiently robust that they would reassert in response to a moderate to severe disruption -- as might occur during a terrorist incident.

An attack of ample magnitude to crash a portion of a planetary field would significantly drain even a Type-class entity, and thus it was doubtful that a conventional saboteur could achieve such a thing, willingness to commit atrocities notwithstanding. Nonetheless, the Guardians normally maintained a close watch for disruptions beyond the spell's tolerance zone, responding to any irregularities by diverting prana to reinforce the relevant field anchor network.

Complacency, though, could emerge in even the most vigilant of defenses after a millennium of peace -- and so it was that Brunestud thought it safe to recall the Guardians to the Moon for the gala of her secondary vessel's coming of age. When the woman who now called herself Beryl Metallium learned of the lapse in security, she chose to exploit it, waiting for the Guardians to withdraw before simultaneously launching gates from "the Shadowed Kingdom" to all territories of the Imperium.

"The Gates to the Kingdom" was more than simply a spell that opened a passage out of Type-Metallia's Reality Marble -- it was a weapon that replicated the physics and environment of the Land of Metal to the world outside, overwriting existing phenomenon. Beyond the fact that the Ether incidentally spilt through a portal could lethally poison unadapted lifeforms, initiating instances of the Gate had the effect of disrupting any bounded fields within range.

Unattended, the terraforming fields of the colonies hadn't the capacity to weather thousands of simultaneous disruptions ...

---

It had been a long time since Brunestud of the Crimson Moon had truly experienced pain. She cursed herself for underestimating her opponents.

"Subroutine 72," she intoned through grit teeth.

The three swordsmen who had pierced her torso disintegrated into motes of light along with their weapons. Wiping the blood from one of her wounds, she noticed that she wasn't regenerating.

She began to chuckle. Across the throne room, Beryl and her soldiers warily poised to defend themselves.

"/Why do you laugh?/" asked Beryl. "/Your precious Imperium is shattered, and you verge upon death yourself! What is there to laugh about?/"

Licking her fingers clean of blood, the blonde empress regarded Beryl with a smile.

"One thousand years ago, I was tasked to protect the Solar System from human consumption," she said. "I merely find it ironic that someone who seeks retribution on behalf of Gaia's people would so decisively impede the progress of mankind."

"/What are you saying?/"

"I'm saying that to begin with, the purpose of the Imperium was to check the expansion of civilization. My masters are loathe to engage in needless slaughter, but this genocide that you've perpetrated has advanced our scenario significantly. The Imperium itself is no longer necessary."

A bewildered expression crossed Beryl's face.

"/No longer necessary?/"

"Indeed," said Brunestud, tinging her voice with a sadistic mirth. "In your misguided quest to seek out a scapegoat for whatever wrong you've supposedly sufferred, you've condemned entire populations of innocents to genocide -- incidentally furthering my goals ."

"/Your subjects are party to your sins! They were your accomplices in the Breaking of Gaia!/"

"Those who could've claimed descent from the troops I deployed to Gaia were generations removed from the acts of their ancestors. How do you hold them accountable? For that matter, how do you hold *me* accountable?"

"/Y- you,/" Beryl sputtered. "/You deny your hand in the chaos that the Earth has sufferred these past ten centuries!?/"

"I fought and won a war, and then left the survivors to their own devices. Their sins and excesses are not my responsibility."

The heat of the redhead's rage was now almost palpable. Brunestud allowed herself a mocking smirk.

"/Kill this whore,/" Beryl snarled.

Her soldiers did not charge as one. They dispersed, acrobatically rebounding off the walls and ceiling in a seemingly chaotic fashion. Brunestud couldn't identify how they coordinated their movement, but without obvious preparatory action, they suddenly converged on her. Reasserting herself elsewhere a moment before their blades pierced her flesh, she swiped a hand at them, releasing an arc of distortion. The soldiers collapsed as it passed, bleeding from their eyes and noses.

"I commend you for thinking to furnish your soldiers with conceptual weapons," said Brunestud, turning to Beryl. "If this were a fair fight, you might have even defeated me." She advanced toward Beryl slowly. "This entire world, however, is my domain, and so long as I'm here, my abilities are almost as a goddess. Your mistress is bold to underestimate me."

"/Gates,/" intoned Beryl. When nothing happened, her eyes widened.

"Subroutine 216 quarantines this space from violation by external powers," said Brunestud, still advancing menacingly. "It's been in effect since you arrived."

As Beryl edged backward, rings of black flame manifested around her before racing forward at Brunestud. They dissipated harmlessly on impact.

"The Flames of Severance?" asked Brunestud, reasserting herself in front of the redhead. "A Martian technique, if I'm not mistaken -- a dismemberment spell that cuts the body along the flows of life-force. You should really know better than to try something like this against an Ultimate One."

Brunestud saw the panic that entered Beryl's eyes and savored it. It was for moments like this, she decided, that she enjoyed conflict.

"Don't worry," she said in mock-kindness, cusping Beryl's chin. "I'm not going to kill you. For destroying my sisters and posing a threat to the System, I condemn you to live. Subroutine 926."

Beryl's expression turned to horror as her limbs seemed to disintegrate.

"/What have you done!?/" she demanded.

"Since you're so set upon hating me, I've given you just cause to do so," replied the Empress. "You shall be undying, but henceforth your mistress's Reality Marble will be as a prison for you and your knights, permanent and impermeable."

Beryl screamed before crumbling to nothing.

Alone in the throne room at last, Brunestud allowed herself to collapse to the damaged marble floor. There was no longer a need for the front she had put up for Beryl. Drained of prana, she could feel the damage she had taken worsening by the moment.

"Is this what death feels like?" she asked herself, staring at the blood that spilled across the floor. "I'm sorry, Gransurg. This world that I've built for you ..."

---

Cradling Sciezka's unmoving body, Altrouge could no longer hold back the tears. They tasted of blood.

"What is this?" she asked, sobbing. "Why did this happen, Lord Gransurg?"

"Come, Princess," said the man in the black cloak, pulling her from the floor. "We must leave immediately. The terraformation field is failing."

"No!" she yelled, yanking her arm free. "I won't leave Sciezka!!"

With a gloved hand, Gransurg slapped her, and she fell into a shocked silence.

"Your servant is dead," he said dispassionately. "If you wish to punish me for it, do so later. Your mother has entrusted me with your safety, and I am sworn to her duty."

"Why did you stop me?" she asked in a small voice, looking down at the floor.

"You haven't the skill to defeat a pair of professionally trained soldiers. Even if your preemptive Cyrfin were able to incapacitate one, the other would have slain you before you could attack again."

"But you could've done something!"

"Perhaps, but there were at least twenty other soldiers nearby, and they would have been drawn by the sounds of combat. The Empress' banishment of the invaders is the only reason we can now safely converse."

The princess' only reply was to sob softly, and she offerred no more resistence when Gransurg again grasped her hand. Sighing, he led her down the hall, past the bodies of the fallen palace staff.

"What is this?" she repeated in a whisper. "Why?"

"This," Gransurg replied, "is the aftermath of war."

---

~ 7990 BCE // The Second Advent

The exodus of the Imperium's survivors did not go unnoticed by the people of Gaia. So advanced was the magic the newcomers wielded that some thought them to be gods or devils; they walked the Earth as prodigies, spreading the word of the War in the Heavens and the Calamity from the Skies. Without the authority of the Empress to stay their hand, many were overcome by the temptation to abuse their powers. Legends were born ...

The Age of Divinities emerged thus from the embers of the Silver Moon, and the planetary sentiences occupied themselves in the next stage of their plan. Gradually, they would increase the restrictions on the use of magecraft, raising the costs of upkeep against the pressures exerted by the Akasha.

It would not be by the power of the magi that humanity reached the stars again ...
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Re: [Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

Postby fallacies » Sun Oct 09, 2011 2:12 pm

Section 3: Pax Obsidia
Have some Gilgamesh~

---

~ 4970 BCE // Pax Obsidia

The centuries following the fall of the Silver Moon saw a war as seemingly endless as the territorial avarice of its perpetrators -- the sons and daughters of the Imperium, blessed with talent in magecraft. Arcane conflict in the epic scale defined the very essence of the Age of Divinities.

In the annals inherited by the libraries of Atlas, the fifth millennium before the common era marked the first appearance of the entity called Nehalennia, 'the Black Princess.' Possessed of nigh-legendary combat ability, she decimated the armies of the twenty-six strongest beings, forcing them on the threat of death to covene in the city of Eridu in the land of Sumer. There, in a broken amphitheatre under scarred skies, she explained to them the terms of their defeat.

'The Apostles of the Crimson Moon.' This was the name that she chose for the regulatory body that she and the twenty-six would form -- assembled explicitly for the purpose of governing the behavior of magi and phantasmals.

"The use of abilities not freely permitted by Nature should be restricted," she pronounced, "If employed at all, those unknowledgeable of magecraft should not be made aware, and limitations in scale or impact should be observed. I believe this is for the good of us all."

The only response she recieved was an incredulous murmuring.

"Preposterous," uttered a hooded crone. "You would occult brazen greed behind some thinly pretended code of morality? You ask that we disarm and completely emasculate ourselves before you! Do not add insult to injury!"

"Not disarm," corrected the Princess. "To conceal and restrict. Nonaggression should be observed between the twenty-seven of us, but your freedoms are otherwise unlimited so long as populations of mundanes beyond the scale of thousands are not affected in a noticeable manner. And to clarify, I pursue this course of action neither for convenience nor morality."

"What, then!?" spat the crone.

"The only justification I claim is necessity, and I too shall be confined to the limitations I ask you to observe," the Princess replied. "This is to be a body of peers, as much responsible for policing each other as it is restraining the magical excesses of lesser beings. I encourage you to see to it that I adhere to the terms of the arrangement. If it pleases, think of this as a request."

"A request, is it?" sneered a young man in golden armor. "In other words, you're either incapable or unwilling to force our compliance."

"/Incapable?/" queried a floating cube of metal. "/Analysis unfounded. Observes Subject Nehalennia's event calculation capability bordering Precognition. Flawless evasion of true-randomized swarm projectile offensive at maxumum capacity, thirty times Subject's highest recorded speed. Unable to replicate-defeat./"

"If her so-called 'Precognition' were as effective a skill as you make it out to be, she could simply force us all to comply without requesting consent," explained the young man. "She's demonstrated her ability to defeat us one-on-one, certainly, but she's never directly involved herself in a conflict between any two of us. Why do you suppose that is?"

"/Unidentified event calculation limits .../"

"As loathesome as it is to admit my inability to show this whore defeat, I estimate that the combined prowess of the twenty-six here gathered could overwhelm her." Narrowing his eyes at the Black Princess, the young man asked, "So tell me, why shouldn't we simply kill you here and now? What is this 'neccessity' that supposedly drives you?"

Nehalennia smiled.

"I applaud you for your keen observation," she said. "You are indeed correct. United, you could potentially defeat me. This temporary peace that I've brought about would end, and you'd return to your war, and nothing at all will have changed. But is that truly what you desire?"

"You speak in tautologies, brood-mare," growled an elderly man with dark skin and the head of a cheetah.

The Princess paced across shattered tiles.

"The hierarchy of strength is the law of this age," she said. "For now, you are at the top, and you'll stay there for a time if fortune smiles upon you. However, simply by taking part in the struggle for dominance, you have passively consented to the end that the hierarchy demands. Eventually, somebody will defeat you, and you will die alone. There can be no permanent victor."

"/Subject implies system of alliance as alternative?/"

"Not precisely an alliance in the traditional sense," replied Nehalennia. "There is nobody here with the ability to take the world for their own, and nobody who would lower themselves to serve another. I very much doubt any one of you would be comfortable with the idea of sharing power. The arrangement that I'm proposing, then, entails that if we cannot rule ourselves, we cooperatively prevent all others from seizing control. This is the reasoning behind the policing action I've described."

A gaunt, eyeless giant with the faces of three women stiched across its chest folded its hands before its mouth.

"Why do we not police as well the Sons of Men?" asked the three faces in unison. "Surely by sword and spear they are as able to conquer and take as we, if with more sacrifice. Magecraft differs not so much from the mortal agencies that it alone warrants attention."

"There is nothing the mundanes possess that we cannot easily seize or manipulate undetected," replied Nehalennia, impassively. "Policing them is a needless effort."

"But you have requested also that we keep them unaware of our abilities," continued the faces. "It is suspicious. I posit that your agenda is in fact to protect the mortals out of some arbitrary sympathy, and to employ us to your own ends."

"Not to protect them," said Nehalennia. "To protect us."

"You cannot be suggesting that they possess the potential to harm us?" asked the faces, voices tinged with sarcasm.

"Not directly, no." The Princess paused in her pacing to calmly regard the giant. "They are a commodity, and most here have instrumentalized them as such -- whether to replenish prana, or as components to a spell, or simply as pawns. Provided access to a large population of mundanes and enough time, any prodigy of sufficient skill and intelligence could devise a threat to our power. Why should I permit this?"

"A systematic denial of resources, then," pondered the giant contemplatively, speaking for the first time from its mouth. "An eternal zero-advance deadlock, with the awareness of mortals as a bar for acceptable behavior ..."

"The arrangement is to be stable and self-sustaining," the Princess elaborated. "We are, in short, breeding a culture of terror to prevent the advancement of lesser prodigies indefinitely -- cooperatively striking them down where they attempt to rise. My only agenda is peace by tyranny."

The young man in the golden armor scoffed.

"A coward's rhetoric," he said dismissively. "This necessity you speak of is a fabulously worded nothing, designed to appeal to insecurity. I fight to conquer, and the risks and challenges I face are as much a reward as the territories I seek to claim. If I am to be slain in combat against a worthy opponent, so be it."

"Would you mind, then, if the spoils of war were worthless?"

"What?"

"You are a prince of this land, are you not?"

"Indeed. And what of it?"

The Princess raised a finger to the blood-red streak that marred the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon.

"Twenty-five years ago, you claimed the sword called Ea from its former bearer," she said. "You fought him beyond the walls of this very city, and the earth shook with the violence of your blows. Do you remember that day, sweet prince? The skies were rent with the power of the Enuma Elish, and the people who lived in this district suffered their last moments in vacuum."

Perhaps unconsciously, the young man's face contorted in discomfort. Ignoring him, the Princess faced her audience.

"West of the Seat of Marduk," she said, "there is a twisted land that drives its people to unending battle -- whose very earth sings of pride and vainglory. Leagues sunwards from where we stand, north of the penninsula of Mnar, the country of Sarnath has been reduced to a barren sheet of glass, resonant with energies that could unmake the strongest of us. These are not independent occurences. So long as the martial magicks are unregulated, the scars upon this world multiply endlessly, and entire continents may be one day uninhabitable. You ask why I seek to police the open use of magecraft? This is my answer."

Murmuring filled the abandoned amphitheatre, and Atrouge Brunestud restrained herself from smirking. The extreme egocentrism of the twenty-six before her virtually guaranteed resistence. Where her rhetoric had fallen upon deaf ears, extra 'convincing' would undoubtedly be necessary. Her work was far from completion.

"So what say you, bretheren?" she asked. "Do you agree to my arrangement?"

---

Alulim begat Alalngar; and Alalngar begat Enmenluana; and Enmenluana begat Enmengalana -- four were the generations of kings born to the land of Sumer in the time the Black Princess labored to forge her 'Pax Obsidia.' Of the twenty-six prodigies she'd originally intended to recruit as enforcers to her new order, seven proved entirely unreceptive to coercion, and she was left with little choice but to put them down -- reluctantly drawing replacements from the cream of weaker, more cooperative beings to staff her final roster.

In the end, an institutionalized fear of the Twenty-Seven consigned the heirs of the Silver Moon to go about their business in the darkness of obscurity -- the masquerade called now 'the Moonlit World,' and governed unto present day by the Apostolic succession. Open warfare was no longer a thing of magic.

With the turning of the eras, however, dissenting voices emerged. They asked: 'Is the perpertuation of the Moonlit World justified?' The Age of Divinities was long ended, and the rampant ambitions that had to begin with necessitated the action of policing were by now all but evaporated. Did the secrecy imposed by Black Princess in fact continue to serve a legitimate function?

Somewhere, dreams of the Imperium restored stirred. The groundwork of revolution was laid with whispers.

---

Notes on Magecraft I:

Flames of Severance (Class III, Restricted):
Offensive magecraft of Martian origin, designed to vivisect targets along "lines of life" -- physiological expressions of the flows of life-force -- in a destructive process fueled by the target's own prana. Visually resembles black flame, but no relation to the chemical phenomenon of fire truly exists. Inherited use of the spell was incorporated as a feature of the maternal line of the Archduchess of Tarsis, utilizing a process that codified magecraft crests as a part of the heirs' congenitally-occuring prana circuits. Banned following the establishment of the Lunar Imperium. Effects may be entirely negated with sufficient self-domination of Odic force.

Cyrfin (Class V, Unrestricted):
A simple projectile curse that binds certain aspects of a target's physiology to the will of the caster, normally rendering the opponent immobile if the caster does not intend or specify commands for alteration. Effectiveness of the curse may be reduced or eliminated per the target's inherent magical resistance and training. Due to ease of use, the technique is favored by amateurs in combative magecraft.

Die Schwesternschaft des Blutes (Class O, Restricted):
A high-level bounded field effect that requests permission from the planetary sentiences to implement marble phantasms as an ongoing environmental phenomenon. Typically deployed for purposes of terraformation. By decree of the Lunar Imperium, use is restricted to individuals designated as "Planetary Guardians" before the law.

Field Disruption Magecraft (generally Class II, Restricted):
A type of magecraft that interrupts the activity of a bounded field. Restricted by the Lunar Imperium to military use.

The Shadowed Kingdom (Unclassified):
The reality marble created by the entity known as Type-Metallia to transport the survivors of her destroyed world. The interior of the materialized space has been adjusted to resemble the environment of the Land of Metal, and resembles a planet roughly the size of Luna.

Gates of the Kingdom (Unclassified):
A high-level field disruption magecraft that connects a physical location in space with the interior of the Shadowed Kingdom; invasively reformatting the locale such that it resembles the ether-polluted environment of the Land of Metal.

Subroutine 926 - Tsimtzum (constriction) (Class I, Restricted):
Numerology. Creation of spatial quarantine from external interference, implemented by editting access permissions within conceptual parameters. Restricted to use by designation "TYPE-MOON."

Subroutine 72 - Chesed (kindness) (Class III, Unrestricted):
Numerology. Exertion of Akashic pressure upon numerically defined points within the conceptual existence of an organism, resulting in enforced dispersion to the well of souls. Restricted to use by designation "TYPE-MOON."

Subroutine 216 - Gevurah (severity) (Class I, Restricted):
Numerology. Obtainment of administrative authority over the conceptual structure of organism's soul. Restricted to use by designation "TYPE-MOON."

Nevermore (Unclassified):
A marble phantasm phenomenon that resembles a bounded field encircled by a large flock of ravens. Enforces lifespan termination in accordance with the laws of nature. A technique accessible only to entities contracted as "beasts of Gaia."

Event Calculation (Unclassified):
In actuality, the ability known as "Event Calculation" is closer to what would be termed "Probability Enforcement." Systematic, high-speed request submissions for Gaia to simultaneously implement numerous small-scale marble phantasms results in a macroscopic phenomenon whereby the ability user is able to "script" future events -- giving the seeming of "precognition" or unnaturally strong "luck." However, the practical effectiveness of the ability is limited by the skills and mental capacities of the user. A technique accessible only to entities contracted as "beasts of Gaia."
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Re: [Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

Postby fallacies » Mon Oct 10, 2011 5:13 am

Section 4: The Birds of This Sky

---

1238 CE // The Castle in Blackmore Vale

He remembered the birds that flew free above his ruined village, and the terrible heat of the sun.

He remembered how her rainbow-hued eyes had pierced his soul, and how she had bared her bosom.

"/Drink of my blood, mortal,/" she'd invited.

It was not love or compassion that he heard in her voice -- merely a strange, raw need. Emanciated and weak, he'd suckled greedily, uncaring of her motivations. He had been a child, five years of age. He knew of war.

"/Henceforth,/" she pronounced, "/you shall be called Gransurg./"

---

He stood witness to the myriad tragedies she'd authored for the liberation of the Moon. At her side, he'd served as a soldier in the Great War. She was his mother, sister, friend, and lover; and he her sole confidante and companion.

What they had between them -- it wasn't romance. It was an interdependence -- a symbiosis. The vacuum she left in death moved him, even centuries later, to shield the meager from the ambitions of the mighty where his abilities allowed it. In devotion to the code she had forged, he could forget the pain of loss.

It was on the occasions he failed that the true weight of her absence bore down upon him.

---

The disheveled abductee was bound to a wooden chair at the center of the domed chamber, bleeding from her mouth and her empty eye-sockets. A large quantity of blood -- presumably hers -- stained the tessellated floor, but she somehow remained alive.

She was only a child.

The sight compelled Gransurg to struggle, but the guards restraining him held fast, refusing to budge their unnaturally strong grip.

"Do you make a habit of playing with your food, vampire?" he spat, fixing a glare at the perpetrator -- an elderly aristocrat who stood beside the girl's chair, wiping a long, serrated knife with a silk kerchief.

"Of course," said the man in an amused tone. "I am not so lowborn that I would engage in the act of consumption merely to sate my appetite."

"Befitting of your high birth, then, that you would bribe the humans to conceal your feeding habits."

One of the aristocrat's attendants -- an effeminate youth -- struck Gransurg in the gut, and a pain blossomed across his abdomen.

"Mind your words, mongrel," said the boy. "You are in the presence of the Sixteenth Apostle of the Crimson Moon -- Lord Cristophe of Blackmore."

Grimacing, Gransurg mumbled a response.

"What was that?" asked the boy.

"The birds in my sky," he repeated mirthlessly, "are vicious only to the dead."

Thinking Gransurg fear-addled, the attendants shared a chuckle. Blackmore, who was sensitive enough to perceive a shift in his captive's prana, refrained from joining in. He silenced his subordinates with a hand-signal.

"I had assumed by your scent that you were a common magus," said Blackmore, narrowing his eyes, "but it seems that you are no more a human than I. What business does an elemental have with the House of Blackmore?"

As if in reply, the windows that surrounded the domed ceiling cracked and shattered, and the chamber was filled suddenly with the cawing of ravens. The guards and attendants tensed as the skies grew dark.

"I am a contractor in the service of Gaia, designated to deliver the souls of the dead to the Akasha," said Gransurg. "Your children have committed the error of inviting me through the wards you've erected."

Cursing, the effeminate attendant penetrated Gransurg's chest with an arm, only to find that his body had dispersed into black feathers.

"Show yourself, coward!" he shouted.

"Were you mere predators, I would have ended you painlessly," said Gransurg's voice, disembodied. "Pleasure taken, though, in the pain of the helpless -- that I cannot forgive."

More feathers manifested, somehow suspended in the still air.

"Nevermore," Gransurg intoned.

Through the broken windows, a conspiracy of ravens descended, circling as they poured in. The twilight that had illuminated the chamber was all but blocked away, and an immense cacophony of cawing drowned out the sounds of screaming ...

---

When she awoke, she was alone in a soft, unfamiliar bed. She did not recognize the room she was in, save that it resembled the interior of the mansion that the monsters had brought her to ...

She sat up with a start. With her forefinger, she tentatively traced the edge of her tongue. It was was where it should've been, whole and uninjured. Had what had happened only been a nightmare? The last thing she recalled was the tip of the sharp, serrated knife that had plunged into her eye. How was it that she could now see? Where had the pain gone?

There was nobody hurting her now, it occurred to her -- nothing binding her. She could escape!

The thought died even as it came; there was no home for her to return to -- not anymore. The final moments of her grandmother's life flashed through her mind, and she sagged as tears threatened to cloud her vision.

"Are you alright?" asked a man's voice.

Startled, she was suddenly aware of the dark-haired man who sat in the chair beside the bed. His irises were the shade of blood, and he was dressed in fine black clothes, not unlike the monsters. She backed away, pushing her nude body against the headboard of the bed.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said softly. "Nobody is."

She was normally uninclined to give her trust so easily, but her instincts told her to make an exception -- somehow, she *knew* that he was speaking the truth. How she could be so certain of his honesty she didn't know, but something in the sorrow of his voice resonated within her.

"I need you to listen, and to follow my directions carefully," he said. "It is very important."

Somewhat conscious of her nudity, she pulled the bedsheets to her body and nodded tentatively, telling herself to stay calm. He wasn't going to do anything bad to her.

"I want you to imagine yourself hiding from me," he said. "Think about pulling yourself away from where I can see you, but don't actually move. Just focus upon the idea."

It was a confusing instruction, but she tried to comply. For a long moment, nothing happened, and she decided to make a second attempt with her eyes closed. It felt as if she could almost understand what the man meant -- something on the tip of her tongue that she couldn't quite put to words ...

The sensation felt like a *shift* -- and suddenly she was swimming in blankets. Clawing herself free, she found herself looking upwards at the man's face, as if he and everything else in the room had grown in size. When she tried to speak, only a mewling sound emerged from her throat.

"Please don't panic," he said, producing a small mirror from his cloak. He set it down before her so that she could see her reflection. "This is what I needed to show you."

A small black kitten looked back at her, its face filled with apparent surprise. Baffled, she examined her hand -- only to find that the appendage she raised wasn't human. She looked up at the man in confusion.

"I was unable to save you from your captors," he said, expression pained. "I don't expect that you'll fully comprehend or accept what I'm saying to you immediately, but please understand that you are no longer amongst the living. What remains of you survives now within a new vessel. Forgive me."

---

Replacing his mirror, Gransurg stood and turned away.

"You will find some clothes within the dresser," he said. "When you've attired yourself, I shall return you to your home and explain the specifics of your situation."

He prepared to exit the room to allow the girl a bit of privacy, but there was a small tug on his cloak. He turned to find the naked child behind him, staring at him with pleading eyes.

"You ... haven't a home to return to anymore?" he asked, reading what he could through their connection.

The girl nodded.

"And you wish to leave this place with me?"

She nodded again, and he sighed, wiping his face with a gloved hand.

"I am a traveller," he said. "For a child of your age, my itenerary is harsh and unforgiving. Are you certain about this?"

Her gaze was firm.

"If that is your wish," he replied, "I will abide by it. It is the least I can do to recompense you."

She returned a small, hesitant smile, and he nodded.

"Henceforth," he said, "you shall be called Ren."
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Re: [Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

Postby fallacies » Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:11 pm

Section 5: Death Phantom

---

1982 CE // The Beautiful Night

There was, in the Orient, an organization of magi founded to protect the common folk from the threat of the phantasmal races. The four primary clans -- Nanaya, Fujou, Ryougi, and Asagami -- upheld their sworn duty with an admirable efficiency for generations, but come the industrialization of the late nineteenth century, they began to grow complacent in newfound wealth, gradually straying from their paths or falling to ruin. It seemed almost as if an unseen hand were guiding them to emasculation.

The House of Nanaya -- the last of the four that actively hunted -- recognized that they would not survive without allies. Seeking at least to minimize casualties at the hands of the civilized beings that numbered amongst their traditional opponents, they approached Tohno Makihisa, the leader of the human hybrids, seeking a contract of peace and cooperation.

Tohno readily agreed. Who was he, after all, to look a gift horse in the mouth? The remnants of the enemy that his forefathers had laboured in secret to neutralize had come to him, unknowingly baring their necks. The opportunity would not be wasted ...

---

It was called the Crimson Red Vermillion -- a state where the humanity of a demonic halfbreed is overcome by the power and the instincts of his inhuman ancestry. The martial artist named Kishima Kouma was an expert in its application; it was why Tohno Makihisa tasked him to exterminate the House of Nanaya. Very quickly, the sleepy mountain hamlet that was home to the last of the clan was painted in the entrails of its late inhabitants.

In his youth, years before he had obtained the use of his fully unleashed state, Kishima had lost his right eye to the man whose corpse now lay at his feet. Nanaya Kiri, he had been called in life -- a man known for his skill in the arts of assassination prior to his inheritance of the leadership of the Nanaya.

Kishima didn't slay the man out of a desire for revenge. He committed the act merely out of loyalty to Tohno Makihisa, who had restored his sanity when he first gave himself to the impulses of his blood. Nanaya Kiri, even in death, commanded no emotion in Kishima except fear and respect; it was no mean feat that a pureblooded human could fight the capabilities of the Crimson Red Vermillion nearly to a standstill.

Kishima set his dislocated right shoulder with a crack, grunting in pain. As his regeneration kicked in, he spared a glance at Kiri's son -- a small, quivering boy who glared at him fearfully, attempting to ward him off with a knife. It wasn't his way to kill the weak, but he had his orders.

"Be good," he said. "It will be over soon."

Crossing the distance between them in an instant, he lifted the child by the neck with his left hand. The boy put up a bit of struggle as he choked, but it wasn't long before his knife fell from his limp fingers.

The child's eyes -- which had closed in pain -- opened again, glowing an unnatural royal blue.

It was Kishima's first indication that something had gone terribly wrong.

The second was the impossible sensation of the boy's fingertips sinking themselves slowly through the flesh of his arm. He screamed as his appendage parted from his body, and the boy fell to the ground, unconscious.

---

Observing from the woods nearby, Tohno Makihisa had a sudden change of heart regarding the fate of the Nanaya bloodline. He smiled, looking skywards at the harvest moon.

It was, he decided, a most beautiful night.

---

1982 CE // The Wayfarer at the Gates

The first thing the boy recalled was a hospital room, filled with strange lines that seemed to shift when he looked at them. They covered everything: the bed, the walls, the doctors -- even himself.

He instinctively distrusted the smiling gentleman who claimed to be his father -- especially when the man told him not to worry about what he saw. Even if he remembered nothing else, he was certain that he hadn't been able to see the lines before 'the accident.'

Experimentation yielded results: He found that he could easily push his fingers through the lines that marked solid objects -- breaking them in the process. With nothing but his bare hands, the bedside stool in his room was rendered to fragments of scrap metal.

He didn't come to fear his ability in and of itself. Rather, the more aware he became of the fragility of the world around him, the more afraid he was to touch things. Increasingly wary of human contact, he avoided people when possible -- taking refuge in the fields beyond the hospital grounds if the nurses on duty allowed it.

In a grassy plain, under an open blue sky, he met the Sorceresss for the first time ...

---

The tree on the hilltop died at the height of spring. Its life had been cut short by a single, small puncture made near the base of its trunk, level to shoulder of a child.

There was no reason for Aozaki Aoko to feel emotion at the demise of a mere plant, but she was certain that she felt *something* whenever she set eyes upon the tree's bareness. Perhaps it was because she was indirectly responsible, putting the boy into a situation where he felt it necessary to demonstrate what he could do with a knife.

Tohno Shiki's 'talent' -- the "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception" -- was something she'd long presumed to be myth.

It wasn't that he could perceive and destroy vital force as she'd thought. The trauma that had taken the boy's memories incidentally gifted him with a unique comprehension of the Eidos of Death -- a connection to the Akasha that altered his fundamental nature. When he stabbed at anything, consequently, he didn't merely cut away at physical structure -- he activated the possibility of annihilation inherent to his target's existence.

Possession of such an ability virtually guaranteed that he would never lead a normal life.

She wished she could've done more for him. For all her skill in True Magic and sorcery, her only real contribution to his well-being had been the bit of amatuer counselling she'd thrown at him on the fly -- lending wisdom from her personal experiences to help him develop an outlook more suited to life in the Moonlit World. His 'condition,' she knew, had no permanent 'cure' that didn't potentially endanger his life. And that 'father' of his ...

"Sensei!" she heard, rousing her from her thoughts.

A short distance from the barren tree, the boy waved at her. Standing, she patted her jeans free of grass and put on a smile for him, waiting as he caught his breath.

"Thought you'd never come," she said in a teasing tone. "You're getting discharged today, aren't you?"

"It wouldn't be right to leave without saying goodbye," he replied.

"I'm glad I've hammered that much into you." She opened her arms for him. "C'mon. Gimme a hug."

He still hesitated to touch her as he entered her embrace, she noticed. She pulled him tight.

"We might not get to see each other again," she said, "but I've got a present for you. I think it'll help you out."

Loosing him from her arms, she pulled a plastic case from her right pocket and presented it to him. Within, he found a normal-looking pair of wire rimmed glasses.

"Put 'em on," she urged.

He did so. And blinked.

"The lines ... They aren't there anymore."

She nodded.

"These glasses used to belong to my sister," she said. "I figured you might have more of a use for them."

"Is this ... magic?" he asked, looking about the field and the sky as if he were seeing everything for the first time.

"Listen to me, Shiki," she said, putting her hands on his cheeks. "Someday, maybe soon, you're gonna find yourself in a situation where your eyes have a use. Whatever choice you make -- whatever you do -- you'll have to take responsibility for your actions."

He looked like he wanted say something, but the confusion in his expression was obvious.

"I'm not askin' you to be a saint or a good person or anything like that," she continued. "I just wanna make sure that if you use your ability, you do it because you choose to, and only if you're willing to live with the consequences. Keep the glasses on. They'll prevent you from hurtin' anyone on accident."

The boy considered her words for a moment before nodding.

"I think I get it, Sensei. Thank you."

She rubbed a hand through his hair.

"Keep up the attitude, and you'll be a fine young man in fifteen years," she said, beaming.

---

The mansion was a predominantly Western-styled complex that dated from the late Meiji, when the Tohno Telegraphy Company laid the foundations of what would eventually grow to be an empire. For all the prominence the family had in technology, though, their home was curiously free of electronics. To the boy, it seemed as if they were living in a period drama.

Wordlessly, the maid pushed open the heavy wooden door to the study, bowing her head and gesturing for him to step inside. Quietly uttering his thanks, the boy entered the room.

"I see you're finally here, son," said the well-dressed man at the desk cheerfully, standing from his seat and pacing over. "I'd like to introduce you to your half-siblings."

As his eyes adjusted to the dim natural light of the dusk, a pair of children peered at him curiously from the couch -- a boy and a younger girl with long raven hair. The man, who had arrived at his side in the meantime, set a hand firmly on his shoulder and smiled broadly.

"This is Shiki," the man said to seated pair. "From now on, he'll be your brother. I hope that you'll treat him right."

"Pleased to meet you," said the bespectacled boy, nodding at the two children with a serious expression. They smiled and nodded back, echoing his greeting. Unlike their father, they seemed sincere.

"Your sister's name is Akiha," continued the man, meeting the boy's gaze. "She's two years younger than you, and your brother's your age -- only half a month older, in fact."

"What's his name?" asked Shiki.

For the first time that he could remember, the man's smile reached his eyes -- not in kindness or warmth, but in humor, as if he were laughing at some private irony.

---

[KOHAKU SCENE REDACTED]

If the Master were a bit less self-absorbed, Kohaku suspected, he would've noticed that she and Hisui didn't look exactly alike. She wondered how much longer she could do this before he realized that he'd never actually been with her sister.

---

"Wayfarer at the Gates" Rewrite (Draft):

The boy saw them 'inside' things -- like thin, streaking cracks within quartz. Hologram-like, they seemed to superimpose themselves over the outsides of objects and people, colored in the shade of the afterimages that the Sun left in his retinas if he stared. Only a small number were in sharp focus at any one time, but slight shifts in his attention would reveal a fractal multitude. Much like afterimages, they were visible even if he closed his eyes; and so sleeping was a chore, the stiffness of the hospital mattress aside.

Retrograde amnesia of the episodic memory. This was the name of the condition the boy was afflicted with -- a complete absence of past personal memories. According to his doctors, though, the car accident had left no problems in his mind otherwise. Was the strangeness of his vision a sort of eye injury?

A smiling, well-dressed man introduced by the nurses as his father assured him that there was nothing to be worried about. He didn't know whether or not this was true -- but for his sake, the man requested that the doctors discontinue the tedious, occasionally uncomfortable examinations he was subjected to. In thanks, the boy decided to trust in his judgment, at least until he came across a good reason to doubt it. He tried not to think that the man smiled a little too much ...

The 'lines' he saw in the living were more ordered and strongly pronounced than the messes within inanimates. What this meant exactly escaped the boy, but to his eyes, the vased roses on his bedstand were markedly different from just about everything else in his room. In mid-March, when the doctors finally removed the cast on his right arm, he turned his brimming curiosity to the flowers, thinking irrationally to touch the spiderwebbing pattern beneath the surface.

There should've been some resistance. Instead, it felt as if he were pushing through a solid with the consistency of a gas. The moment that he brushed his fingers against the convergence of the 'lines,' the delicate structure shimmered briefly and shattered, and before his eyes a horrible wilted brown consumed the petals and the stalk like a hungry flame.

In the days that followed, the nurses would wonder at his polite aversion to human contact. The difference between touching and touching 'within' was as slight as a change in intent, and the boy didn't feel as if he could trust himself not to slip up. The consequence of an incorrect thought was unthinkable.

<incomplete section to replace passage above on completion>

---

Miscellaneous Notes:

5th Magic: "The Existence of Motion"

A high magecraft preserved from the Age of Divinities by the ancestors of the Aozaki family (of which the House Emiya is a branch family), involving the manipulation of space and time. Systematically regards the existence "time" not as a process or continuity, but as a concept or attribute -- part of a variance from perfection that seperates the real world from the Akasha, which exists beyond time.

(Humanity is a species that experiences "time" due to its orientation with respect to dimensional reality.)

Phenomenon Name - Starmine
A region of corrosive space, bathed in blue fire. Inside, there exists what appears to be a star.
Ex: A violation of reality that involves editing (greatly accelerating) the passage of time within a region of space; essentially an 'exposed' reality marble. Gaia congregates a shielding of 'blue flame' over the violation to prevent the corrosion of normal space and gravitational distortions, but this effect isn't robust enough to block solid objects. Anything that bypasses the shielding is consumed by the passage of time.

Phenomenon Name - Starbow
A spinning flat circle of blue light and darkness manifested perpendicular to the ground, which reflects motion.
Ex: A planular spacial distortion through which moving objects exit on the same side that they enter. The shielding of Gaia covers its surface.

Phenomenon Name - Retrogression Canal - Genesis Light-Year
A paralysis field formed of blue lines of light, which is used to hold the opponent while Aoko releases projectiles at them.
(Quote: "Sane, Timeless Wars ...")

---

Prodigies are defined as "existences that violate human normality." The category includes phantasmal creatures, faerie, vampiric beings, and human users of magecraft. Non-human prodigies that have not entirely removed themselves from the boundaries of human awareness are regulated by an oversight organization known as "The Apostles of the Crimson Moon." The size of the organization numbers twenty-seven, and is divided into two factions: the moderate Black Princess Faction, and the conservative Ortenrosse Faction, which seeks ultimately to restore in present day the enlightened utopia of the Lunar Imperium -- where prodigies ruled supreme.
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Re: [Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

Postby fallacies » Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:08 pm

Section 6: The Cloth From Which We Are Cut

---

1984 CE // The Garden of Earthly Delights

Tohno Akiha had two older brothers. The one who wore glasses was calm and mature, and the other -- who kept his hair long to annoy the governess -- was lively and full of mischief. The boys didn't always see eye to eye, but she loved the both of them equally. The days she spent exploring the grounds with them and her friend Hisui were filled with endless adventure.

As she neared her sixth birthday, though, the time she was able to spend in her brothers' company dwindled. Her tutors had extended the hours of her lessons, thinking to put her ahead of her peers at the academy she was due to attend come April. Overwhelmed by her studies, it wasn't until a month before school that she was aware of the strangeness that had descended upon her home.

---

On Sunday, Miss Kirino, her violin instructor, kept her until she could play Bach's Minuet Number Three without mistiming the notes. She ended up staying a good fifteen minutes into her lunch hour, and was further delayed because the music room had to be cleared of her belongings before her father's planned renovations could be carried out. With twenty-nine minutes on the clock until arithmetic, she lugged her violin case and backpack through the shadowy corridors.

On the landing of the stairwell between the first and second floors, she caught some feminine voices conversing in hushed tones in the hall above. A few steps up the stairs, and the speakers were recognizable as the pair of particularly chatty maids from her father's janitorial staff.

"You don't feel that the Master's being unfair, telling us to avoid him?," said one of them. "He shouldn't be speaking like that about his own heir."

Heir? Father was badmouthing brother? Eavesdropping wasn't right, she knew, but this was more important than the opinions of her dumb manners instructor. She crept up the steps to listen a bit more closely.

"Unfair? No. Merely cautious. The brat's attitude was terrible enough before he started throwing all of these tantrums. Now he's potentially dangerous. God only knows why the bastard child bothers to defend him."

Akiha didn't know what 'bastard' meant, exactly, but she knew that it was a bad word. It had become the servants' nickname for her bespectacled brother since shortly after his arrival.

"We shouldn't be ostracizing him, Suzuki. He's just a boy."

"A spoiled, difficult boy nearly on the threshold of the Crimson Red Vermillion."

"That's an unfounded rumor, and you know it. I've never heard that inversion could happen to anyone so young."

"Think that if you like, but the Master's orders practically confirm it. No need to go looking for trouble."

The terms were unfamiliar, but it was clear to Akiha that something bad had happened involving her brothers. She hadn't noticed it at all. Why was everyone keeping it secret from her?

Making sure that the maids didn't hear her footfalls, she tiptoed up to the second floor landing, and then up again, clutching her instrument case tightly against her chest. Her arithmetic instructor would scold her for being late to lessons, but she'd made up her mind to find her brother and force him to tell her what was going on. There was no sense in letting him face his troubles alone.

---

"Mind your own business," he said, pocketing his hands and walking away.

Before she could follow, she felt a tug on her arm. A pair of blue, bespectacled eyes sadly met her own.

"Give him a little space, Akiha."

She broke eye contact first, looking at the ground.

"I just wanted to help him," she said. "He doesn't need to be such a jerk about it."

"He's going through a hard time right now. I'm sure he'll be alright, eventually."

He wasn't trying to reassure her, she realized. It was more like he wanted to convince himself that he was speaking the truth.

---

Preparations for supper had yet to begin, and when the bespectacled boy stole into the kitchen for a can of cola, he found it empty of staff. It was just as well -- the head chef didn't like him in particular, and had complained on several occasions when he'd dirtied the marble tiles with footprints of earth. He didn't understand why she'd gotten so worked up about it -- it wasn't as if they served food off the floor.

Kicking the door of the fridge closed, the boy opened his drink and stopped in front of a window to take a sip, watching as the rain poured down outside. The sensation of the fizz in his throat felt reassuring, somehow.

The click of a doorknob caught his attention; a young redhead in a maid's dress had entered, carrying a tray of silverware and miscellaneous food-stained dishes. Reacting to his unexpected presence, she blinked several times before nodding at him in greeting.

"Good afternoon, Shiki-san," she said.

"Afternoon, Hisui," he replied, nodding back.

Formal today, he mused, taking another sip of his drink as she placed the tray on the counter beside one of the lower sinks and donned a pair of dishwasing gloves. It was something he'd come to notice about her in the past year or so -- often, she seemed to swing between two different moods or personalities. There were times, like now, when the cheerful girl that had become Akiha's best friend was nowhere to be seen, and her face took on a somber, focused cast, as if she were driven by some unexplained burden or duty. He wondered if it was because she worried about his father's recent bout of sickness.

"I can, uh, help you with the dishes if you like," he offerred as she turned on the faucet.

"No," she said in a panicked tone, a little louder than necessary. Seeming to collect herself slightly, she continued in a softer voice, "Please allow me to do the dishes myself, Shiki-san. It's a part of my duties as a chambermaid to the Master."

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to offend you or anything." It seemed that his father's sickness weighed more heavily on her than he imagined.

"It's alright."

Tilting the soda can back against his lips, he looked outwards into the grey skies, listening as the raindrops hit the building. He wondered if the weather had kept the other boy from going out to the stone pavillion in the forest.

"You're worried for your brother, aren't you?" asked the girl, as if reading his mind.

"A bit," he admitted. It was an understatement, but it didn't feel right explain everything to her.

For a time, she continued her scrubbing as if she hadn't spoken. Lightning flashed outside, followed by the sound of thunder, and she began rinsing the plate she was working on.

"For my sister's sake," she said without inflection, "I have to stay strong and be patient. Sometimes, that's the only thing you can do."

Strength and patience, hm? It felt odd, getting advice from a younger girl, but what she said seemed sound. He emptied the remainder of the soda into his mouth and tossed the can into the trash. Maybe her odd focus wasn't on account of his father's health, he thought -- maybe she was worried about this sister of hers?

"Thanks, Hisui," he said. "I'll keep that in mind."

---

When the boy left, Kohaku removed the gloves from her hands and placed them on to the rack to dry. Reaching into a pocket on her apron, she pulled out a small, unmarked glass bottle, filled with violet fluid.

"I'm not just doing it for me and Hisui," the girl reminded herself, holding the container so that she could see the storm-clouds through it. "I'm doing it for Shiki and Akiha as well. I'm doing it so that all of us can have a future."

Beyond the window above the sink, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. For a brief moment, the silhouette the girl cast across the kitchen floor was long and dark.

---

Two weeks before school, Akiha took to trailing her longer-haired brother at a distance whenever there was a break in her lessons. He had, she discovered, a habit of going off alone into the darker parts of the woods behind the manor. She was hesitant at first to follow, but -- reminding herself of her resolve to help -- she ventured forth.

A strange apprehension came upon her when she finally located her brother's sanctuary -- a weathered pavillion that stood in a clearing near the center of the forest. Why it was, she didn't know, but at the forefront of her senses was the rapid pounding of her heart and a sweet, metallic odor that lightly scented the breeze.

Inside the pavillion, an object on the polished granite table caught her attention. She wasn't quite able to process what she was seeing until she was only a meter away -- and suddenly she regretted ever setting foot inside the forest.

Lying on the surface, the mutilated remains of a tabby cat stared back at her with glazed eyes.

"You shouldn't have come here, Akiha."

Her brother was standing behind her, just outside the pavillion. His hair wasn't the usual raven black that she shared with him -- it had gone white. In his expression, she could detect no sanity.

"B- brother," she said, involuntarily backing away.

"Your blood," he said, raising an arm before him. "I wonder what it tastes like?"

The flesh in his hand contorted, reshaping itself into a taloned claw. With a toothy, sadistic grin, he slowly advanced upon her.

---

"Someday, we'll both be monsters," the other boy said to him one afternoon a year ago, looking out across the grounds from where they stood upon the rooftop. "I hope that you'll do what's right."

The words had been uttered without context, in a mature and uncharacteristic severity that disinclined him from pursuing their exact meaning or intent. Unsure as to whether the boy had learned the secrets of his eyes, the only response he'd been able to muster was a hesitant nod and wary silence.

Three months ago -- when it dawned upon him finally that the person he had come to call a brother was being supplanted gradually by a hostile, possibly dangerous stranger -- the strange comment began to resolve in his mind as a request to perform a certain service.

Strength and patience, he'd told himself. You're just a kid. Your guesses might be wrong. Maybe you're overreacting, and the blood and the animals and the crazed eyes are just a phase or something. Maybe your brother will pull through this, and everything will be fine.

Watching now from the shade of a tree as his sister backed herself into the forest pavillion, he saw that the time for hope and denial was ended. There was a choice to be made, and no longer any space for restraint.

"I'm sorry," he said, taking off his glasses.

Fifteen meters were crossed within a heartbeat, as if his feet barely touched the root-veined earth. Moving his right arm along the most efficient trajectory on muscle memory alone, he plunged his fingers through the locus on the boy's back where the death-lines converged. It was sickeningly easy.

This was his limit, he knew -- the only solution that his eyes could see.

Limply, the corpse fell away, unblocking his view of his sister's blood-splattered face and dress. Her eyes met his, filled with a fresh terror.

Be prepared to live with the consequences of your actions, his sensei told him long ago ...

---

His father's illness came and went with the seasons, growing progressively more severe with each cycle. In the periods that the symptoms ebbed, however, the man threw himself to his duties with a tenacious intensity, as if to make up for lost time. Even bedridden, he processed a daily allotment of paperwork, which he organized into neat piles atop his sheets in the hours that he labored.

"Are you certain about this?" the man asked.

"Yes, Father," replied the boy.

There was a long, thoughtful silence as the man studied him through upper half of his bifocals.

"I told you before, I don't hold you responsible for what happened," he said finally. "Your brother was lost to us right from the start, and if you had just stood by, Akiha could've been injured severely. There's no need for you to punish yourself like this."

Incomprehensible, the boy thought. How could his father not blame him? He had stained his hands with his brother's blood, and Akiha now knew him for the monster that he was. No amount of forgiveness would make either of these facts go away. A life -- an existence -- had been concluded definitively, and his father was treating it as if it were a complete nonissue. Did he view his own flesh and blood merely as objects?

"It's something that I have to do," he insisted aloud. "My presence here has become a burden to Akiha, and it's only appropriate that I take responsibility."

Setting down the file he was holding, the man closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'll arrange for you to move in with one of the branch houses," he said in a resigned tone. "The Arima family, probably. They live close enough nearby that you wouldn't have to transfer schools. You remember them, right?"

Vaguely recalling a young couple that had attended the Christmas charity banquet with their infant daughter several months prior, the boy nodded.

"That would be perfect," he said. "Thank you for your help, Father."

Hoping to be out of his father's presence as quickly as possible, the boy took his leave. The man settled back against his pillows, looking through the windows at the cherry blossoms that bloomed before his balcony.

"Do you want to attend the funeral?" he asked as the boy reached the entrance.

Pausing in the doorway, the boy stared down at the polished wooden floor. His reflection gazed back at him in silent accusation.

"No," he replied after a moment. "It wouldn't be right."

---

In Akiha's dream, it was dusk -- or perhaps daybreak; the sliver of sun above the horizon lit the time-ravaged music room only barely. Before her, two figures engaged in savage combat.

One -- a hulking, twisted humanoid -- gave a thunderous cry as it charged its opponent, swiping at him with a wickedly sharp claw. The attack failed to connect, but left four parallel gashes in the peeling, fungus-stained wallpaper.

The creature's adversary -- a somehow inhuman boy -- had nimbly evaded, and now silently glared as he settled into a defensive stance that betrayed experience in the martial arts. Save for his eyes, which gleamed with unholy violet light and an almost tangible menace, his features were hidden in darkness. He was not unhurt, Akiha could tell -- there were numerous tears upon his bloodied clothes, and he was favoring one of his legs more than the other.

Undaunted, the creature slammed a meaty, tightly clenched fist at the child -- breaking the floortiles, but again missing its mark. Having stepped back just in time, the boy responded with a roundhouse kick to the beast's side, launching it into the dance mirror along the northern wall despite its immense mass. The cracks that appeared in the glass surface centered about the area of impact like a spider web. Behind the piano, Akiha cringed at the crash.

The boy rushed forward without reprieve, catching the beast in a moment of disorientation. Fingers straightened in a knifehand, he plunged his right arm through the center of his opponent's chest as if it were so much paper mache. With a snarl of agony, the creature retaliated one final time as its lifeblood drained, sinking its canines into the boy's shoulder.

The boy screamed and jerked himself free, clutching his injury as he collapsed to the floor. Now heavily panting, he turned his glowing eyes to Akiha threateningly. Did he intend to kill her as well? Akiha scrambled from where she crouched in a panic, dashing to the double-doors a short distance away -- only to find the lock jammed. She heard the boy's breath approaching, and hesitantly turned. He was less than three meters away from her now.

"D- ... don't come any c- closer," she stuttered, feeling her legs give out beneath her. "L- leave me alone, you monster!"

Noticing a broken chair-leg on the ground nearby, Akiha grabbed it and pressed her back to the door, poising to stab with the sharp end if the boy drew near. Her makeshift stake seemed not to deter him at all. Leaving a trail of crimson as he dragged his body ever closer, he reached at her with a hand -- the same one that had slain the beast.

She squeezed her eyes shut and thrust the stake blindly at the space before her -- with far more strength than she knew she possessed. There was a sensation of the wood sinking into flesh, and then the weapon pulled from her grasp, followed by a slumping sound.

When Akiha opened her eyes, there was enough sunlight in the room that the boy's face was no longer obscured. Half-supine, her brother Shiki gazed at her through cracked spectacles, sadly smiling as a crimson blotch on his shirt expanded from where her stake had punctured. He delicately stroked her cheek, staining her face with the dark red fluid that coated his fingers.

"Everything's going to be alright, Akiha," he whispered. "The monster can't hurt you anymore."

In the cracked dance mirror, behind the carcass of the slain beast, her bloodsplattered reflection kneeled over Shiki's body. Looking down at him with inhuman, scarlet eyes, its lips twisted in disdain ...

---

Awakening, she felt the pressure of the hard wooden floorboards against her cheek. Pushing herself on to her back, she looked at the pendulum clock on the wall, and then upwards at the square panels of the ceiling. No trace of the room's former inhabitant remained; it seemed as if the servants had meticulously removed all evidence of the two years and a half he'd spent at the Estate.

She lifted and pressed her forearm across her eyes, wetting the black fabric of her sleeve. The funeral reception began in roughly three hours. Until then, she would remain here.

"Someday," she said, "I'll make it up to you."

---

Partial Dramatis Personae:

Brunestud of the Crimson Moon:
Type-Moon; the Witch of the Rainbow Eyes; the Mother of Bloodshed. A conceptual entity that occupied a series of humanlike flesh vessels, serving as the sole monarch of the Lunar Imperium in every generation of its thousand-year existence. Her true intent in founding the Imperium was to mechanistically regulate and limit the growth of the human diaspora of behalf of the planetary sentiences. However, it is possible that in the end of her existence, she admitted to herself that her actions were borne of something beyond mere obedience to her patrons.

Beryl Metallium:
A counter guardian appointed by Type-Metallia, who seeks vengeance upon the Lunar Imperium for the thousand years of suffering they inflicted upon the people of Gaia.

Type-Metallia:
The Ultimate of the dead world known as the Land of Metal, who preserved her bretheren from extinction by taking them into her reality marble, "the Shadowed Kingdom." Her sole desire is to colonize and settle upon a new planet.

Ado-Edem / Kino Makoto:
A talented swordswoman born of the Land of Metal; a soldier in the service of Type-Metallia, who normally disguises her gender with full-body armor. Wielder of the Knight Arm known as the Slash Empress, which is said to enforce the dreams of her race as a destructive power. In compliance with Beryl's plans for the invasion of modern Gaia, she has taken to maintaining a human identity as a girl named Kino Makoto; her orders are to grow closer to a certain human. Secretly enjoys pornography involving male homosexuality.

The White Princess Arcueid:
The main heroine; a human interface vessel prepared by Type-Moon. The elder daughter and heir apparent of the Empress Serenity IX of the Lunar Imperium. A cheerful girl talented in combative magecraft, but insensitive to the intricacies of court life. Gave her life to defend her younger sister the War in the Heavens; slain by Ado-Edem.

The Black Princess Altrouge:
The younger daughter of the Empress Serenity IX of the Lunar Imperium. The only known member of the imperial line known to possess black hair; the only imperial second child that made a debut to the Lunar court in the history of the Imperium. Though she possessed middling talent in magecraft, she was considered a prodigy in the affairs of politics and governance. For the odd circumstances of her inherited features and debut, however, she was regarded as an ill omen by her mother's courtiers, and was so stigmatized. As with all daughters of the imperial line, her father's identity was never revealed. She vanished and was presumed dead as of the conclusion of the War in the Heavens.

The Black Princess Nehellania:
The 9th Apostle of the Crimson Moon. The vampiric entity that in the Age of Divinities spearheaded the establishment of the "Apostles of the Crimson Moon" -- a governing body of the prodigal existences within the Moonlit Night that remains active to present day. Though a political moderate unpopular with a sizable fraction of the populace, she in truth holds much of the temporal powers of the organization within her grasp, and dedicates them toward maintaining the Masquerade before the awareness of humanity. As she normally takes the form of a girl-child, her strength as a combatant is underestimated; knowledge of her actual abilities and appearance have been lost to the passage of time. However, challenges to her faction are dissuaded before her mastery of the monstrous canine called Primate Murder.

Theophanus Ortenrosse:
The present 17th Apostle of the Crimson Moon; Lord of the White Wing; leader of the conservative Ortenrosse Faction, which seeks to restore to the world the glory of the Lunar Imperium. A powerful vampire who leads the opposition against the moderates that presently control the Moonlit World. Takes the appearance of a kindly, benevolent elder statesman.

Gransurg of Blackmore:
The present 16th Apostle of the Crimson Moon, whose history as a Count of the Lunar Imperium is little-known; also called Lord of the Black Wing. Thought to be a vampire by his compatriots within the Moonlit World. Maintains a human identity within the peerage of the United Kingdom as "Gransurg Cristophe IX," the Earl of Essex. Opposes the radical conservatism of Theophanus Ortenrosse. Though he also appears to disapprove of the policies of Nehallania, the two appear to have some relstion with each other, and physically bear a resemblance. This is a subject of speculation amongst the prodigies.

Ren:
A small, mute girl who travels with Gransurg of Blackmore. Her nature is unknown.

Nrvnqsr Chaos:
The present 10th Apostle of the Crimson Moon. Originally a human scholar of the University of Ingolstadt -- who, to further his knowledge as a student of naturalism, transfigured himself by means of alchemy to a chaotic conglomerate lifeform called the Lair of the Beast King. A member of the Ortenrosse Faction.

Louvre of the Northern Mist:
A beautiful vampiric youth, originally of Norway; merely for his appearance, he was sired to serve as a lover by an elder vampire some five-hundred years ago. In the time since his sire's passing, he has come into his own, but has yet to attain utility of the fundamental vampiric mysteries beyond the curse of regeneration and the capacity to fade into mist. To compensate, he has made a hobby of slaying mages and churchmen, collecting Mystic Codes and Conceptual Weapons capable of slaying his prospective opponents. Named by Nrvnqsr Chaos as successor in line to the title of the 10th Apostle. By a human woman, he has fathered a pair of twins, and trained them in the art of combative magecraft. A member of the Ortenrosse Faction.

Mizuno Ami:
A normal high school girl, who discovered one night that she was never what she thought she was.

Yumizuka Satsuki:
A classmate and close friend of Tohno Shiki; the human vessel within which Gaia has incarnated the being once known as Type-Jupiter. Targetted by the Ortenrosse Faction for reasons unknown. She is unaware of her true identity.

Lizleihi Justica, the Saint of Winter:
A human magus aligned with the Royal House of Gaia, slain during the Great War by Brunestud of the Crimson Moon in defense of the land of Terra Australis -- present-day Antarctica. The ancestral matriarch of the House of Einzbern, and the creator of the artifact known as the Alaya Terminal -- a system whereby the shared unconscious of humanity is able to act directly upon the world through the realization of a single human wish. The ritual for the activation of the device requires a demonstration of worthiness and strength of intent; sacrifices are necessary.

The Fisher King:
An ancient man of mystery, tasked with the safekeeping of the relic known as the Holy Grail; he who guides from within the shadow of history.

Tohno Makihisa:
The patriarch of the House of Tohno, which rules the phantasmal-human hybrids of the island nation of Japan. Seeking by any means to further the ends of his subjects, he is a man of many vices, who is at once saintly benevolent and diabolically evil. At the center of his heart, his desire is merely to serve as a good father.

Kotomine Kirei:
A priest of the Catholic Church. Prior to taking vows, he was married, and had by his wife -- now deceased -- a young daughter by the name of Karen. Presently, he recides in district of Shinto in Fuyuki City, serving as pastor to the local diocese, and a counselor and Bible studies instructor at a private school known as Mugen Academy. In truth, he is a trained magus -- a participant in a secretive recurring tournament known as the War of the Grail, which levelled a significant portion of Fuyuki some ten years prior.

Kotomine Karen:
A shy albino girl; a student in the junior division of Mugen Academy in Fuyuki City. Stigmatized by her peers for her natural ability to heal wounds. Dedicated to her father, who she loves more than anything.

Kishima Kouma:
A cold-blooded enforcer in the service of Tohno Makihisa; a member of a branch family of the House of Tohno, bound to serve as its combative force on account of purer demonic lineage. Though presently an expert in the use of Crimson Red Vermillion, in youth he was prevented from permanently giving in to its bestial impulses by Tohno Makihisa -- a boon for which Kishima has pledged eternal loyalty. Blinded in his right eye by the demon hunter Nanaya Kiri. His right arm was amputated as a result of a hostile encounter with Nanaya Kiri's son, Shiki. Despite this, he bears no grudges. It is possible that he is a kinder, more merciful man than he believes.

Fujou Kohaku:
The elder of the twin daughters to a disowned branch family heiress of the exorcist House of Fujou, born of wedlock. Her mother, a sickly woman, was cast out their head of clan, and died shortly after being brought under the protection of Tohno Makihisa. Kohaku pledged before her mother's deathbed that she would protect her sister at any cost. Several years later, she was approached by the Ortenrosse Faction with an offer she couldn't refuse.

Fujou Hisui:
Kohaku's younger sister. A naive, happy girl, unaware of her sister's many sacrifices.

Tohno Akiha:
Tohno Makihisa's young daughter. Her greatest regret in life has been the pain that she unwittingly brought upon those she loved.

Tohno Shiki:
A mere monster. The heroine's romantic interest.

The Other Boy:
Originally, a prospective heir to the House of Tohno, but removed from line of succession due to unstable, early-onset Crimson Red Vermillion, which resulted in regression to animalistic predation. A highly intelligent child, whose displays of childish egocentrism conceal a strange maturity.

Aozaki Aoko:
Miss Blue; Magic Gunner; Space Battleship. The younger daughter and heiress proper of the House of Aozaki, a clan that has preserved its tradition of magecraft from the Age of Divinities with the utmost high fidelity. A happy, easygoing woman regarded as one the strongest combative mages in the world. Though rumored to possess unheard-of destructive capabilities, by some obscure rule of conduct, she has distanced herself from resolving crises where her powers have a potentially beneficial use. On whose behalf does she truly act?

---

One more part until I run out of prewritten bits.
Please comment and critique!
fallacies
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Re: [Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

Postby fallacies » Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:13 am

Section 7: TRHVMN, By Which Our Goddess Descends
(The last section that I've written so far ...)

---

1990 CE // La Vigilia di Natale

The elderly gentleman who gazed out the window cast no image in the marble floor of the darkened penthouse parlour. Reversed in the tiles beneath him, the delicately carved cane he held in his left hand appeared to stand free of support -- a lone pillar of shadow in the reflection of the placid starlit sky. Nrvnqsr was reminded of a Magritte painting he had once seen in Ingolstadt.

"Neron Kaiser," drawled the old man, eyed fixed upon the horizon. "You bring news of the Orient? Something good, I hope?"

"The Sixteenth has arrived in Tokyo," replied Nrvnqsr.

"Gransurg of Blackmore, hm?" The old man tilted his head slightly, glancing at Nrvnqsr over his shoulder. "And he knows of our operations?"

"Louvre believes that he's merely investigating the fractures that have formed in the prison of the Calamity. Of the Guardians Reborn that we've so far identified, he seems unaware."

"It would be prudent to keep an eye on him, yes?"

"I understand," replied Nrvnqsr, curtly nodding.

"Has there been anything else of interest?"

"Louvre felt it unnecessary to report, but Mister Kugamine has again petitioned for the removal of the Tohno heiress. He seems unsatisfied merely to serve as the acting head of clan until the girl reaches majority, and has begun to claim that she potentially poses a greater threat to our plans than her father."

The atmosphere in the penthouse suddenly grew heavy, and with a loud noise, a series of cracks appeared across the reinforced glass of the window. The elderly gentleman turned from his vantage with a kind, grandfatherly smile, and -- involuntarily -- Nrvnqsr manifested a pair of black bloodhounds from his shadow. It took a conscious effort to reign in the growling beasts, and he was slightly irked that mere killing intent had again provoked a response in him.

"A funny little man, this Kugamine Tonami," said the gentleman, chuckling mirthfully. As he paced to the white leather armchair near the center of the room, there was nothing in his countenance that hinted of the barely restrained wrath Nrvnqsr sensed from him. "It's always refreshing to hear from him."

"Do you wish that I deliver a reply?" queried Nrvnqsr, businesslike.

"That would be superb," replied the gentleman, softly seating himself. Meeting Nrvnqsr's eyes with a relaxed, carefree smile, he said, "Tell him that his most humble servant, Theophanus Ortenrosse, is in his eternal debt for services generously rendered, and begs that he continue to look after our mutual interests in the Far East."

Only a warning, then, Nrvnqsr noted. His own preference would be to eliminate Kugamine, but the old man presumably saw a use for the fat fool yet.

"I'll give him your regards," he said, nodding curtly.

---

The culprit, Satsuki deduced, was probably Yamazaki Shizuku -- the fifth student assigned to cleanup in the badminton courts. The ditzy girl was well-meaning enough, but it'd be just like her to lock the gym equipment shed without checking first to see if there was anyone inside.

Sanada, a tall girl with a pageboy cut, had worked up a sweat pounding at the door with a baseball bat. Giving it one final kick, she sighed in defeat and sat down on the foam mat next to Satsuki.

"It's no use," she said, panting misty breaths into the air. "If there's anyone still out there, they can't hear us. Figures this would happen on a Saturday afternoon."

"Doesn't Mister Tanizaki make rounds every few hours?" asked Honda, the timid girl from Class C.

"Who knows?" said Sanada. "The groundskeeper ain't a security guard, and this is the weekend. I doubt he'll be working any harder than he has to."

The same thought had been running through Satsuki's head, but hearing it given voice made it seem infinitely more probable. Forcing herself to smile, she said, "Let's not get our hopes down just yet. We don't know for certain that he won't come by."

"I guess," said the tall girl unenthusiastically. "I don't get why they bother putting locks on the equipment sheds to begin with. It's not like anyone's seriously interested in stealing this stuff."

Takaishi, a bookish girl who sat two desks behind Satsuki in class, lightly smacked Sanada in the back of the head.

"What was that for?" asked Sanada, frowning.

"For saying something idiotic," she replied flatly. Pointing at the door, she continued, "Now, how about you get back to work?"

"What? No. You do it. I've been at it for like an hour already."

"You have an athletic scholarship. Being tired isn't an excuse."

It was difficult for Satsuki to tell whether or not the exchange wasn't just friendly banter. Takaishi and Sanada hung out enough that they might've been friends, but there always seemed to be an undercurrent of hostility in the lunch hour conversations she'd overheard. Prolonged isolation in a cold, small room without food or water made for the sort of environment where even mild dislike could blossom into something right out of /The Drifting Classroom/.

"How about we do this in shifts, then?" Satsuki asked. "It wouldn't be fair for Sanada-san do all the work, right? I'll go first."

For whatever reason, Takaishi frowned, and Sanada gave Satsuki an apologetic nod as she offerred her the bat. Taking up the metal implement by its tape-bound grip, Satsuki stood before the door and slammed the wider end into the slightly dented surface.

Coach Miura had a rule against wearing 'accessories' in gym, and wristwatches apparently counted for a violation. Satsuki had left hers in the locker room before heading out to the inter-class badminton competition earlier in the day. Now, she was increasingly aware that late afternoon sun in the row of tiny windows along the ceiling wasn't nearly as convenient an indicator of time. She hadn't been striking at the door for very long, as far as she could tell -- thirty-five minutes at most. Not being nearly as fit as Sanada, though, she felt already as if she'd been running all-out in a marathon.

"Hello?" called a voice from the other side, and Satsuki felt her heart flutter in surprise. "Is there somebody in there?"

She wasn't sure if the speaker was male or female, as even amongst the fifteen-year-old third-years, there were quite a number of boys whose voices hadn't fully changed. Propping herself up with the baseball bat as she fought to catch her breath, she pointed at the door and looked meaningfully at the three other girls.

Takaishi understood her intention immediately, and called back, "Yes! We need your help! There are four people in here, and we've been locked in for a couple of hours! Can you please tell groundskeeper to come and open the door?"

There was a long silence, as if the person outside were making a difficult decision.

"Alright," came the response at last, sounding somehow reluctant. "Just hang on for a few more minutes, and I'll go and get him."

"Thank you!" called Takaishi.

There was a 'click' from the lock, and then, faintly, footsteps padding away into the distance. Tired of supporting her weight, Satsuki let herself collapse, leaning her back against a cage full of basketballs. There was nothing left to do but wait.

Five or ten minutes passed, but the person they'd spoken to failed to return. Their hard-earned relief started to turn to anxiety.

"It shouldn't take this long to get to the fuckin' groundskeeper's," growled Sanada, standing up.

"That guy," said Honda worriedly. "He wouldn't just leave us here, would he?"

Walking past Satsuki, Sanada jogged the doorknob. With a brittle snap, the handle came free, and something metallic hit the ground on the other side. The girls could only stare wordlessly as the steel door came easily ajar. Somehow shaking her exhaustion, Satsuki stood up unsteadily and followed Sanada out into the winter twilight.

In the desolate schoolyard, snow had begun to fall. Their savior was nowhere in sight.

---

Notes - Gaia Terminal // Dark Six:

In the first centuries of the Lunar Imperium, Brunestud of the Crimson Moon embarked upon a project to create a Type-Gaia, based in part upon the human-designed Alaya Terminal. The Type was to be a humanoid entity whose features, abilities, and personality were the synthesis of six distinct artificially-generated conceptual entities, called "Phases." During the stage of maturation, the Phases required installation within separate physical vessels to fully register the use of their functions.

Difficulties were encountered with the controlling personality's directive recognition system -- iteration after iteration, the composite intelligence would default to proposals that annihilation of humanity was the only acceptable solution to the regulation of the human diaspora. Frustrated in her efforts, Brunestud eventually froze the project and sealed her results. The location of the sealing would come to be site of the village of Aylesbury in the United Kingdom.

In modernity, the lifting of the seal and the extraction of Brunestud's prototype was perpetrated by an unidentified party of vampires, who besieged the English village in blatant defiance of the decree of the Moonlit World. The so-called "magical girl" known as Venus Victrix first appeared during this incident to defend the village's inhabitants, but she was unable to prevent the theft.

---

Phase 01 - Athanasia, the Undying
Origin: Depletion (Plunder)
Function: passive, ongoing replenishment of prana from environment

Explanation: creates a plunder field, draining prana into oneself; prana sustains unlimited, perfect regeneration

Vessel: Yumizuka Satsuki
Title: Desolation Princess - Stella Morosa
Class: Vampire
Notes: Type-Jupiter Reborn

---

Phase 02 - Phusis, the Hierophant
Origin: Consumption (Void)
Function: primary subordination to the will of Gaia

Explanation: link to the Akasha causes vessel to function as a beast of Gaia, subsuming entities against nature through consumption; enables Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, amongst other abilities such as regeneration

Vessel: Shirazumi Rio
Title: Predatation Princess - Panthera Rio
Class: Vampire / Vampiric Lifeform
Notes: genetic sex = male; physical sex = hermaphrodite

---

Phase 03 - Arete, the Seneschal
Origin: Suicide (Filicide)
Function: provision of innate directive, secondary to Gaia

Explanation: as Gaia does not issue commands under normal circumstances, the phase functions as a system of secondary directives. (Primary function is secretly to engage in apparently constructive activities that promote eventual destruction of unnatural beings such as humans)

Vessel: Medea
Title: Magical Princess - Medea-chan
Class: Ghost Liner
Notes: Servant of the Holy Grail

---

Phase 04 - Scholazo, the Shield-Bearer
Origin: Shadow (Imaginary Numbers)
Function: absolute defense via dissipation into false space

Explanation: shields vessel with a perfectly black energy membrane, which serves as a 'portal' into a subspace with imaginary / spoofed coordinates. Such a defense is impervious to conventional attacks, and is difficult to circumvent.

Vessel: Matou Sakura
Title: Imaginary Grail - Kurozakura
Class: Magus
Notes: subsumed implanted crest worms

---

Phase 05 - Pronoia, the Executioner
Origin: Time (Severing/Binding)
Function: localized timeline editting capabilities

Explanation: allows localized editting of the timeline, including manipulation of causality and event copy/paste. Severing/Binding origin capable of being employed in other manners

Vessel: Illyasviel von Einzbern
Title: Phantom Liner - Kaleido-Kuruvinda
Class: Homunculus
Notes: Grail Vessel; Pronoia phase structure damaged; repaired with replica of Type-Uranus and Type-Neptune's innate magic

---

Phase 06 - Charis, the Teller of Truths
Origin: Fear (Synchronization; Empathy-Projection)
Function: regulation of society through psychic synchronization

Explanation: promotes psychic synchronization with vessel's mind. Does not qualify as telepathy or mind-control, though both effects are achievable. Base function allows forced imposition of empathy with vessel's emotional state. Synchronization origin usable in other manners

Vessel: Fujou Kohaku
Title: Broomstick Nurse-Witch - Magical Amber
Class: Elemental
Notes: Type-Phobos - Long-Range Combat Support System for Type-Mars

---

Phase 「 」 - Selene, the Lone Queen
Origin: Type-Moon (Terraformation Weapon)
Function: Physical vessel of phases 1 - 6.

Explanation: clone of the vessel of Brunestud of the Crimson Moon. Upon completion and installation of phases, it activates as a weapon of Gaia

Completed Functionality:
01: Perfectly controlled plundering; Infinite regeneration
02: Servant to the Will of Gaia
03: Vested with the purpose of destroying humanity
04: Directs all damage to void space
05: Capable of timeline editting
06: Speaker of the Unified Language; Control of minds

Actual Name: Arcuied Brunestud II
Title: Prototype-Gaia - Serenity X
Class: True Ancestor
Notes: an artificial being created by Crimson Moon to become the 'Queen of Earth.' abandoned in development

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Senshi Line-Up:

Moon = Lunar Maiden - Phantasm Moon
Mars = Flame Priestess - Autumn Vermillion
Mercury = Testamentum Ordina - Crystal Vale
Venus = Golden Angel - Venus Victrix / V.V.
Jupiter = Depletion Princess - Stella Maia
Saturn = (Zettai Karen) Silent Messiah - Empyrean Cross
Uranus = Prisma Liner - Kaleido-Ruby
Neptune = Prisma Liner - Kaleido-Sapphire
Pluto = Obsidian Gatekeeper - Excutioner Ciel

Phobos = Broomstick Nurse-Witch - Magical Amber
Deimos = Brainwashing-Detective - Locked-Room Jade

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Omake: Ren-Sensei's Magical Dojo I

<Arc> Say, why is it that magical girls need a magical mascot? Most mascots seem to be hugely useless, besides providing the heroine with the transformation item?
<Ren> Do you seriously think that a third-grader, given the ability blast away city blocks, would use it responsibly?
<Arc> Uhh .... children are innocent and cute?
<Ren> In your dreams. Real third graders, if given magic like that, would go about throwing giant projectile attacks at people, and then later claim some stupid excuse like, 'Oh, I was just trying to be friends with her.'
<Arc> But ... but ...
<Ren> The notion that children are cute is a fiction made up by adults. Hence, magical mascots are necessary!
<Arc> But they don't do anything besides yap away, usually?
<Ren> That's just the surface. In fact, the yapping disguises their real function, which is to serve as a moral compass where none usually exists.
<Arc> That ... that's a very cynical statement. Also, aren't you a silent character?
<Ren> ...
fallacies
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Re: [Type-Moon / Sailor Moon] Tentative Title: Moon-Type Moon

Postby Xoroth » Tue Oct 11, 2011 8:07 pm

Very interesting. I really want to see where this goes.
Xoroth

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