1929/Solutions Unasked For

Solutions Unasked For
Date of Scene:	06 September 2024
Location:	Riverside Path
Synopsis:	Young Stellar and Lacuna stress over their powers malfunctioning, until Corona arrives to offer a solution... which may be more stressful than the problem.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouka Inai, Fuyuko Yuuhi

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Kyouka Inai has posed:
    The night of the interrupted Youma round-up, sometime after the fight itself ended...

    Stellar lands on the grassy riverbank after having jumped across the road from the buildings on the opposite side. It's late at night, but the grassy hill and walking paths are well-lit by overhead streetlamps. Still, there's nobody around, as parks like this obviously don't see a whole lot of traffic outside the daytime hours.

    Still in henshin but with her naginata nowhere to be seen, the redhaired teen glances back to watch her companion follow her across, a pensive frown on her face. Once Lacuna has joined her, she wastes no time in voicing what's on her mind.

    "What was that back there? I mean, I've never had my powers fuck up like that. Ever. That could have been real messy."

    She's not about to say 'good thing those idiots interrupted us', but the unspoken words hang in the air regardless.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Lacuna might have been the first to make her escape, but she'd trailed behind her companion afterwards, stewing in her own thoughts, her own frustrations. What would have been - should have been an enjoyable exercise after a more-irritating-than-it-had-sounded idea had become an exercise in frustration, and now -

By the time she landed just feet from Stellar, the swirling black darkness no longer circled her hands. It wasn't good form to keep a weapon on hand near a friend, anyway.

"What," she snaps, defensive for a moment, "You think mine have? I've never seen that -"

And she scowls, takes a deep breath, settles herself. Her feet scuff the grass beneath her feet, wearing it away to reveal the soil beneath, and when she continues, she's reclaimed some of the calm she's usually known for.

"It's never happened to me, either. But there has to be a reasonable explanation. I didn't feel tired, so it can't have just been exhaustion - what about you?"

It would go unacknowledged - at least verbally - that it had been a good thing they'd received unwanted aid. Pride like theirs wouldn't tolerate such admissions.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "No, I mean.. not any more than usual." Stellar says, and while her worries about the situation don't express themselves in as anger-laden frustration as her friend's, they seep into her voice in the form of doubt and annoyance. "I mean, I've been way more tired than that during fights before and it hasn't caused that kind of issue. That can't be it."

    She turns, looking out over the water, her face a troubled scowl. "Do you think.. maybe it has something to do with us being trapped here? Like, maybe something about being in this dumb future is fucking with our powers in some way? But we've been here for a while now and it hasn't happened before, so why now?"

    She crosses her arms, her posture a combination of anxiety and pen-up energy. She's not a fan of situations where there's nothing to be beaten up or stabbed as an easy solution to fixing them. "You're okay though, right?" She shoots a sideways glance at Lacuna. "Like, you feel okay? I feel okay." Other than the confused worry, she means.

    This conversation might have gone in circles for the entire night, with no clear answers in sight, if not for a voice which suddenly speaks up from the shadows- a deep-set, feminine voice that neither of the two would recognize. "If you will spare me but a moment of your time..." The voice says in a languid, almost bored tone, "I believe I may be able to offer you some insight."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"That's what I thought. We've fought way harder than this, longer than what we did today, and that's never happened..."

Her frustration and anger - at being trapped here, at being seen in a state of weakness - are real, but it's fueled by an underlying sense of helplessness, which she loathes. Since becoming a Magical Girl, there's rarely been a problem she couldn't resolve, or at the very least, fight - nothing she couldn't dedicate her will to overcoming. But this? They had been trapped for weeks, and she didn't have a lead at all.

"I'm okay," she confirms, looking out over the river, eyes following the turn it took around the ward. "But... maybe you're on to something. I mean, we've been here for awhile, and we're pretty badass; tougher than half these kids, for sure. Maybe it's because we've been here so long, that something is up?"

And it's as she asks, that that unfamiliar voice speaks up, feminine and deep, drawling in practically bored tones, and Lacuna jolts, turning sharply to face the direction her ears assured her the stranger was.

"And who are you, to have insight to offer?" Cautious, but not hostile, expression blank; unfriendly.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    The voice makes Stellar wheel, half-crouching instinctively- while Lacuna assumes the regal and imperious expression of a queen, Stellar scowls with the raised hackles of a guard dog.

    The owner of the voice, however, steps into the light of the street light and reveals herself to be something they are both familiar with. If not in this exact incarnation. A large, black-and-white wolflike-being, with a slender tail and a marking in the shape of a crown between her eyes.

    At the sight, Stellar's brows draw together in confusion. "Aurora-?" the instinctive response leaves her lips before she shakes her head in self-denial. They claim Aurora is dead in this future, and besides, Aurora had different markings and a male voice. The discrepancies make themselves clear with just a moment of thought. "Who are you?" Her tone laden with suspicion.

    The creature comes to a halt, sitting on its haunches and regarding the pair with what seems to be silent amusement before speaking again. "My name is Corona." She says, lifting a paw to groom her cheek absently. "I am Aurora's... successor. That being the case, I think you'll understand why I might have some insight into the nature of your magic.. and why it might be failing you now."

    Stellar straightens to a more relaxed standing position, eyeing Corona dubiously, then glancing sideways at Lacuna, meeting her gaze to gauge her thoughts.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
It's a good thing Stellar makes the mistake of calling out their mascot/mentor's name - it means Lacuna doesn't, though her brows scrunch as she sees the familiar shape of that canid-form approach. The creature, sitting on it's haunches, black-and-white as Aurora was, with a mark between her eyes - it was clear why she would approach them.

This, at least, made sense. Those other Mahou, they didn't make sense - they didn't seem to have any drive to win, to get better, to be at their peak. But another of Aurora's kind, on the ground, continuing the fight?

That, made sense.

"Yeah," she says, slow and dry, "I can see why you'd think you have insight into our problems. But where've you been, if you've actually been here, all this time? Hanging out with the Retirees upstate?"

Somewhere in the distance, working night hours at her office, Fuyuko sneezes.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Something like that." Corona replies to Lacuna, with a 'you don't need to know' sort of air. "They are my responsibility, after all." Not if you'd ask them, but luckily neither of these two is likely to do that and Corona knows that very well.

    "So why are you coming to help us now, then?" Stellar asks, still scowling, her booted foot kicking at a small rock stuck in the grass, a restless movement. "We've been stuck here forever and you've just been ignoring us."

    "Because I didn't have a way to help you." Corona says, with that smugly self-assured attitude she always seems to project. "Your problem was attempting to get back to your own time. I don't have a solution for you. In fact, I don't think it's possible.. although I admit I don't know that for sure."

    Stellar shakes her head, glancing away at this- others have said the same, but she refuses to believe there isn't some way. Even if she has less to return to than Lacuna does. "Then what's the deal?"

    "Now you are having a problem I can help you with." Corona says. "Or at least, I can point you in the right direction. I believe I know why your magic has begun to fail you... and what you might do to correct the situation, if you feel it is truly necessary."

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Are they so weak they need you to look out for them, instead of doing their job?" It's a snipe as much at Corona as at their future selves, a testing volley to see if Corona's cool will crack and reveal something under the surface. Lacuna has no reason to mistrust her, but then, she and Stellar have never needed a reason for mistrust and misgivings. Life has taught them well to ask the price of favors.

"You're even more cryptic than Aurora was," Lacuna continues, nodding along with Stellar's questions. "Go ahead and spit it out then, this way of helping us with our problems. Is it something terrible, and you're tiptoeing around it for the sake of our delicate constitutions?"

There's undisguised scorn, in those last three words, at the thought of being delicate, at the thought of being unwilling to do what's necessary.

Your magic has begun to fail you. Chilling words, that demanded her attention. Anyone who knew her - who knew Stellar - would know that they valued their magic as much as they valued their own limbs. More, maybe, because while Lacuna especially could make do without a limb, without magic, without the part of herself that was freest and truest, she'd be stuck.

What was Corona holding back, in the face of that?

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Aurora used to babysit you two, didn't he? And you weren't weak." Corona says, her tone mildly reproachful. She shares that knack with Aurora at least- the ability to chide unruly children in a way that manages to be humiliating and conciliatory both at the same time. "They have their own work to do. Just because it is different does not mean it is not important."

    Stellar shakes her head, shifting her stance defensively. "That's fine, but not the issue right now. If you know what's wrong with our magic, tell us." She echoes Lacuna's words. "Unless you just came here to gloat and not actually be helpful in any way, in which case I may suddenly find myself in need of a new black and white carpet."

    Corona seems remarkably unthreatened, her posture as relaxed as it's been this whole time. "Now now. No need to be impatient, children. I'll tell you. It's simple, really. There are too many of you."

    She looks at one first, then the other. "There are currently two copies of each of you co-existing in this timeline. The original two, and you two. However, your power source is the same as theirs- power only ever intended for one. It is currently.. stretched beyond its means."

    She glances back into the night. "It will fail you, and it will fail them, because it is simply insufficient to powering both copies at the same time. That being the case, I should think the solution would be self-evident, wouldn't it?"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
That mild tone does more to convince Lacuna of Corona's goodwill than anything, not that she'll admit it. But Aurora had that same tone, that ability to cut them down to size while simultaneously putting a bandage on the wound, putting much needed dents in those outsized egos. Never mind, that Lacuna doesn't see what important work her older self could really be up to - how necessary was teaching, really, when she and Stellar hadn't needed it?

Still, she's waiting, frowning down at Corona, because she knows that whatever the answer is, it will be terrible. That's the only reason she can see for Corona being so cryptic, drawing it out this way.

(Well, it would make sense too, if she were mocking them, looking down on them, but why would she, when they were everything her second go-around Lux Tenebrae would need to follow up on?)

And then the words hit.

"Too... many of us," she repeats, not with uncertainty, but disbelief. "Those other two are teachers. That's what they told Stel-chan. If they're just teaching, they can't be using that much power."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    For her part, Stellar looks momentarily dumbfounded, perhaps not so much at the actual issue presented as at the suggested solution. "You can't mean.. I mean we.." She says falteringly, then shakes her head a little bit, falling silent.

    Corona looks at Lacuna. "It's not about using. It's about sustaining. You've probably never considered it, and I don't blame you, but the Lux Tenebrae gems which grant you your powers have a limited capacity. In order to bind with you, to empower you, takes energy. It draws from the same source. There is only so much."

    She shrugs a little, lifting her front shoulders. "I probably shouldn't be giving you this hint at all.. after all, my responsibility is the other two. Then again, if you were in my position, and you knew you could only have one set of Lux Tenebrae to do your work.. which would you choose?"

    She gives another long look and then, without another word, turns and pads away into the darkness, seeming to disappear instantly once she is outside the pool of light cast by the streetlamp.

    Stellar stares at the spot where she used to be, then slowly turns to face Lacuna. "What the hell..." She says, seeming lost for any more articulate words than that.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
They're heroes. They save people, they don't kill them. It's their whole job, stopping the monsters, not doing their work for them.

And yet, none of those words leave Lacuna's mouth. She holds still as Corona looks at her, as she shares her theory, her thoughts. And it's true - she's never considered what it would take to actually hold her power. She has the gem, the gem has the power, that was how it worked.

But... if she has the gem, and her future self has the gem, they don't... really have the same gem, do they? It's her copy of - ...the same gem.

It's on the tip of her tongue, to demand more, but if she were in Corona's position, had to empower heroes to keep things in order, wouldn't she want the young, cool, effective versions, over the run down models only good for teaching instead of doing?

"...we can't... actually do it," she says, slowly, "Right?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar shakes her head vehemently, her red hair flailing with the violence of the motion. "Of course not! I'm not gonna fuckin' kill anybody, let alone myself, even if it is a crappy future version of myself." She speaks the words with conviction, and yet there's doubt in her expression as she peers at her companion, trying to read her thoughts from the expression on her own face.

    What she says is true, and yet no other solution leaps to mind as an alternative. If what Corona says is really true, then sooner or later the magic will fail. Will it fail just them? Or both them and their older selves? What would happen if the city lost its best protectors, those most capable of handling the monsters which plague it?

    Of course, in this time, there are many other magical girls to pick up that slack, but Stellar still doesn't think that way, too used to her own time, when the loss of the two champions of the hunt would have been a devastating blow. Framed in that way, what is unthinkable may start to seem less so.

    Stellar doesn't want to kill anyone. But as she looks at Lacuna, the thought crosses her mind- would she kill someone to protect her best friend? That's essentially what this means. If they do nothing, they'll both lose their powers, and that's as good as being dead.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"...but if we don't," Lacuna starts, because someone has to say it. Even if she was the one who said they couldn't. "What are we going to do? We haven't found anything else. No way home, no way back. We can't even find the stupid door."

And it's true - the Book Nook (not that they know the name of the shop - hasn't reopened to them, hasn't let them find their way. Whatever lies ahead of them only lies ahead of them.

"Not that I'm saying we turn to murder, just because we can't figure our shit out," she adds, quickly, trying to pre-empt an argument, "But... if it's lose our powers, and lose the city us, or lose them..."

Her face tightens, in a frown, imagining a world without Stellar. Even more than a world without her, she can't imagine a world without Stellar. And isn't that who Kyouka is, at the end? Isn't that who she chose to be?

"If it's some old hag or you, I choose you. But, it's not like we have to do it now... she could be exaggerating. I mean, it just happened once. It could be a fluke."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar doesn't say it out loud- doesn't reiterate the sentiment, but it's clear to Lacuna from the look in her eyes and the expression on her face that she feels the same. Whether or not it's better for herself, whether or not it's better for the city, those arguments pale in the face of the simplest one of all- if it protects Lacuna, she'll do it.

    "You're right." She says after a moment, heaving a sigh. "It's not.. this isn't something we have to decide quickly. It isn't something we should decide quickly. Like you said.. coulda just been a fluke. Or this Corona could be trying to trick us for some reason. But.."

    But they really haven't found any other solutions. No way back. And if their powers do continue to get worse...

    Well, they can talk about that if it happens.

    "For now, let's just keep doing what we're doing." She says, her voice firm. "Having more information can't be a bad thing. But there's no need to be hasty about anything. My powers are fine right now." She can feel them, responding as normal. "So I say for now we go get some ramen and try not to let the condescending wolf get under our skin, yeah?" She summons a grin for her friend, though someone who knows her as well as Lacuna can tell it takes some effort.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"'course not. This isn't -" she was going to say it wasn't a matter of life or death, but, in some ways, it very much is. It's a matter of them deciding, life or death, and the thought is disconcerting enough that she doesn't finish the sentence. "Never mind. Point is, we've got time."

To think about it, to figure it out - to put it behind them and kill monsters until the issue gets pressed. Either way, there's time for it.

"Sounds like a plan. I'm normal again - it all feels good, now, so, who knows, coulda just been something weird with those other girls," that doesn't seem likely - but it's a possibility, yeah?

"Ramen it is! And yeah, we've already got one wolf to call our one - who knows how those old hags screwed up, ending up with another?"

The joke is half-hearted, but there, trying to push the mood up, to push the subject off. She throws her arm around Stellar's shoulders, forcibly turning her counterpart towards the city.

"Let's go. I can hear your stomach growling from here."