493/A-Point

A-Point
Date of Scene:	23 September 2023
Location:	Hasegawa Art Gallery
Synopsis:	The mysterious 'Lord Nephrite' appears with his loyal minion, Arachnis, to test the Earthsplitter at the art gallery! Who will appear to stop him from sacrificing works of art to Metallia!?
Cast of Characters:	Nephrite, Ami Mizuno, Veronica Perenna, Wako Agemaki
Tinyplot:	Midnight Tokyo

---

Nephrite has posed:
    An art gallery in Juuban Ward is the site of a disturbance. A figure in black armor, cape, and skull helm has walked into the building while guests and guides wander about admiring the art and cultural exhibits on display. Obviously, he draws attention. Not only does he look like an anime villain, but he's very, very tall. He has with him what appears to be a sickly male teenager who slouches around nearby.

    "Good day," he says in a deep baritone voice, slightly distorted by his helmet.

    The proprietor of the gallery approaches and politely says, "Err... Yes, good day. May I help you...?"

    The cloaked man just says, "You should probably evacuate. This gallery isn't going to exist anymore in the near future." So saying, he clears his throat, and then just starts putting out as much Dark Energy as possible across as wide an area as he can manage.

    Anyone with the capacity to sense or detect Dark Energy or evil is going to pick this up. It's a huge volume. More than most magical girls, even veterans, have ever encountered.

    This is the first time that Dark General Nephrite of the Shitennou has used his true power in this era after all. He is a few tiers above 'random youma', to put it mildly.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Ami Mizuno's Mercury Computer goes off in her pocket. There's a large concentration of dark energy going on, somewhere in the city. She transforms and hitches a ride on the top of a train, jumping off and making her way through an alleyway, Mercury Visor on and providing her with a compass point to follow.

She arrives on the outset of the gallery and widens her eyes. That's. A large quantity of dark energy. More than she's detected before.

She looks around and steels her gaze before moving to place her back against the back door of the gallery, and opens it slowly, before she sneaks in. She's making an assumption that feel of energy will attract others. It's a good one. She can feel this without the help of her equipment.

Veronica Perenna has posed:
Coincidence has it that Veronica is exploring this very art gallery. After all, her upper class parents have inducted into her this habit too, and old habits die hard, even if that same habit got you into a bit of a mess. Ok, her curiosity was in no small part responsible, but still, she isn't going to quit her habit of that!

So when the surge of Dark Energy happens, naturally her first instinct is to go check it out! Except, she at least knows to adopt cautionary measures against things that are obviously going to scald her. She quickly goes for the bathrooms, the perfect place to hide, and it's time to become the gallant thief that extends a helping hand!

She starts reciting a quick intonation in a whisper, bringing out a calling card with a cane and top hat on it out of nowhere, holding it in front of her "While the world is full of trouble and anxious in its sleep, the princess of moonlight does dance and leap."

As soon as she says that, the aforementioned moonlight bathes her, condensing in a blue top hat with an azure ribbon and an ebony cane with a cat handle. The light on her upper body then explodes in a tone of white, turning into a waistcoat, before a blue burst surrounds it, coalescing into a blue suit. The light swirling around her lower body stops rotating, arranging itself in a white skirt with many layers. A blue-white burst follows, turning into boots with long stripes. Finally the moonlight gathers around her hair, fashioning it into a long braid and granting it its colour.

'Ok, time to go see what the disturbance is about', the Princess of Sarek smirks, becoming ethereal and making her way unobserved through the walls the gallery, reaching the place where the man with a helmet is putting out all this dark energy.

"Would you be so kind as to tell me what you are doing?", she asks Nephrite, still keeping herself ethereal. Better to have her guard up after all.

Wako Agemaki has posed:
It rolls over Wako like a tidal wave, even from such a distance - like a dark cloud over the sun, but under the skin. The oppressive feeling of it leaves no room for doubt, and she only takes the briefest of moments to dash out a quick text before she reaches for Wawna's power.

"Approvoiser!"

Something very bad is happening.

Not long after, a magical girl in white and gold military-style uniform flies on a beeline in the direction of the art gallery, trailing a wake of glittering pink. A shudder rolls through her as she nears the gallery, and the massive pressure of negative energy grows thicker. Setting her expression into one of firm determination, the Galactic Maiden brings up both hands before her. "Zero Time."

At her will, the barrier rushes outward. It shifts this whole area of the city into otherdimensional space, turning the sky above to a many-colored starfield and shifting any unmagical civilians safely out of harm's way... she hopes. She's never really dealt with dark energy on this great a scale.

With the barrier in place, she descends to alight at the front entrance of the gallery, and makes her way inside.

Nephrite has posed:
    --One Week Ago--

    "Pyrite. Jadeite. Are you both ready?" Nephrite asked, already in the intentionally-scary outfit he had made for him.

    The other two had affirmed that they were. In a flicker of red light, the trio disappeared. They were going to see the 'terminals'. Youma who were infirm, sick, lacked a basic ability of youma like draining life or casting a glamour to conceal their appearance, or were otherwise useless in youma society were mostly killed or discarded by the Dark Kingdom. However, someone had the foresight to gather the terminals, for use as expendable troops. Now they were going to see a new purpose.

    The cavern that houses the terminals stank of the dead and the dying. Neither Nephrite nor Jadeite showed any expression at the stench. Pyrite probably didn't even notice. The terminals recognized two of them as Hematite's ice-hearted deputies, and the little girl that accompanied them was obviously a demon even to these youma. Perhaps, the terminals thought, Hematite felt their usefulness was at an end and had sentthem to purge this place. Then Nephrite began to speak.

    "Brothers and sisters, for too long you have languished here! Dismissed as useless by your peers, you have wondered how to prove your worth to both her majest and Metallia. Wonder no longer! Lord Hematite is sending me to Earth to conduct operations vital to the Kingdom. I have chosen you to be the troops that accompany me."

    Jadeite could sense the terminals' fascination. He mainainted his cold expression.

    "It will be dangerous. Many of you will not survive. But you will have proven your value to our lord, our queen, and our god!" He had them. "For now only one of you will be able to accompany me each trip. A deadly enemy awaits and you may well not return. Knowing that, who would choose to accompany me?"

    There was a howl as all the terminals began shouting at once. A few of the louder cries were understandable.

    "We're dying anyway, a chance to die fighting for the Kingdom... Pick me, Lord!"

    "Glory to Metallia, choose me!"

    "A chance to walk on Earth, to taste human blood... Take me!"

    "Hail Hematite!"

    "Hail Nephrite!"

    "Glory to Lord Nephrite!"

    "Pick me!"

    "Choose me!"

    "ENOUGH!" Nephrite's 'dark lord' voice boomed over the din. There was silence and he pointed at a youma that seemed a combination of man and spider. "You, what is your name!"

    "Arachnis, my Lord."

    "You'll do. Be ready to depart at any moment's notice." He cut off the youma's torrent of thanks and said, "Some of you may try to eliminate Arachnis and take his place. If anyone does that, I will find them. I will not kill them, but they will forever lose the chance to go to Earth."

    The youma who'd been eyeing Arachnis looked away suddenly.

    "I will return when it is time to cross. Be ready!" Nephrite, Jadeite, and Pyrite all disappeared. Arachnis began glorying in the envy of his fellows.

Nephrite has posed:
    --One Hour Ago--

    Nephrite stood with Arachnis by the gateway. Arachnis was using his glamour. He looked like a thin and sickly teenager. Which was in fact what he was. "Remember to maintain the glamour until we've reached the power point. And address me as Lord Nephrite on the other side." Nephrite had made up a story about various points of energy existing in the city which he'd be using to power the Dark Kingdom's battle machines. Points that may or may not actually be part of Midnight Tokyo's foundations in the future. The terminals had bought it hook, line and sinker. "Okay, let's go!"

     "On to glory!" Fearlessly Arachnis stepped through the gate.

    Carrying a large cube disguised to look like a parcel, Nephrite followed.

    School was just letting out. The perfect time to draw Magical Girl attention.

    --Now--

    At the Hasegawa Gallery, the manager was trying to figure out if she was dealing with a crazed conceptual artist. The black clad figure had materialized in the main exhibit room flanked by the sick-looking kid and pointed at the wall, which had immediately exploded outwards. He'd then announced he'd do the same to any human still on the premises in sixty seconds. Everyone else had cleared out, but Akane had stuck around. The captain going down with her ship. THe man had gestured at his parcel, which had floated up about two meters and unfolded into this thing.

    Two black marble-like pillars with an array of twenty crystal roads about the diameter of a golfball and half Akane's length between them. All twenty had rotated to face their pointed ends at the ground. The stranger looked at her and smiled as he said, "The Earthsplitter is almost fully charged. In a moment, I'll set it to discharge and we'll depart. You'll have a firsthand view of the magma welling up. Your gallery is about to become the hottest place in town!" He began to laugh, and the kid echoed him.

    Then new voices broke in.

    

Nephrite has posed:
    'Lord Nephrite' sounds puzzled by the question and the sudden dimensional shift that moves anyone who failed to get a move on fully out of the combat area. "Who are you?" he asks of the disembodied voice. Then he turns his attention on the obvious Magical Girl who just walked in through the entrance. "Oh, who cares! More Enemies await! Arachnis, DESTROY HER!"

    "As you command, Lord Nephrite!" The sickly kid makes an impossible leap at Ginga Otome. As he flies, his shape changes. Two more pairs of arms emerge from his sides, arms with talons instead of fingers. Madibles emerged from his cheeks and extra clusters of eyes emerged from his forehead. He is one of the grossest things most Magical Girls have ever seen.

    He's also very, very fast.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Sailor Mercury gets through the door easily enough and continues to scan and take in the readings of the Mercury Visor along with her computer as she puts the computer away. Passively taking in all these readings. They're... they're pretty big.

She peeks from a doorway and sees the mess, the wall exploding outward near her as she ducks back in. She changes scanning targets to that marble and then lets the Mercury Computer do it's thing. For now...

She jumps into the fray!? Drawing her hand backwards and plowing out with a very, very Belkan-style punch towards the back of 'Lord Nephrite's' head, trying to use the gift of surprise, and Hannah's training to use.

"We won't let you just do as you please." she says.

Wako Agemaki has posed:
Ginga Otome was ready for trouble from the moment she stepped through the gallery doors. At least, she thought she was. She wasn't quite prepared to be greeted so immediately by a grotesque spider-person launching himself at her at great speed.

Which means that the first thing the Galactic Maiden does upon entering the space where all of this is going down is to let out an extremely undignified and slightly panicky "Aaah!" Her hands come up reflexively in front of her; the defensive movement is accompanied by a sphere of bright pink energy around her, a shield antithetical to dark energy by its very nature. With a sharp gesture, she shoves it outward to meet Arachnis' charge with no finesse whatsoever. "What the heck?!"

She hasn't even had a chance to take in Nephrite, the pillars, or the arrival of Sailor Mercury yet. Everything is secondary to the immediacy of AUGH GROSS NOPE.

Veronica Perenna has posed:
'So much for trying to understand what he wanted to do first', the Princess of Sarek thinks, going back to a material state of being. 'This guy doesn't seem to want to relent at all', she thinks.

But at least BOOK GIRL seems to have some companions with the same spell as her, which gives Veronica lots of relief since whatever is going on, isn't going to involve people who can't protect themselves.

"I am the Princess of Sarek, this city's Phantom Thief. It's a pleasure to get to know you", Veronica says, tipping her hat towards Lord Nephrite. "I hold quite dear both the arts and the people, unfortunately, so we may have started this on the wrong foot. Now, could you please reply? I hold a preference towards seeking pacific solutions, if I can."

She keeps her cane with the handle onto her shoulder, positioned at an angle it would be ready to strike Nephrite if there was the need to.

Nephrite has posed:
    Sailor Mercury leaps out, making an ill-advised attempt to strike the armored figure in the back of his head. Her fist collides with an invisible wall. A forceshield. It seems Lord Nephrite has taken basic precautions for his safety. Mercury's hand might be in pain, but if she takes the time to evaluate what her computer is showing her, she will see that it's accumulating energy, presumably for something nefarious, and breaking it should be sufficient to stop the process.

    But now she has the villain's attention. He turns, raises a hand, and releases a blast of Dark Energy at point-blank range. Maybe she should have done the analysis first before trying to attack...?

    "One of the Sailor Senshi who hunt down youma, are you? Well, I shall have to make sure you do not interfere further!" he boasts in a deep, menacing voice.

    Meanwhile, Arachnis's blows collide with the barrier that Ginga Otome puts up, the force and sharpness of his claws shredding the floor. As he is pushed back by the barrier slamming into him, he turns and spits something towards Wako, but it misses and begins burnng a hole in the wall just to the side of her head. Acidic. Arachnis gets himself sorted out and prepares to leap forwards again!

    For the first time in years, Arachnis forgets his pain. This effort was killing him, but it was just as Lord Nephrite had promises. Glory. Time to finish this!

    It seems that, in the midst of this chaos, the Princess of Sarek has gone unnoticed or at least unaddressed. The apparatus is glowing with light, and the air is filled with a rising hum! It might be up to her to stop the doomsday device from triggering!

Wako Agemaki has posed:
The smoking, hissing hole forming in the wall not that far away from her gets a wild take from Ginga Otome. "Acid spit? Are you--" Whatever else she meant to say is hastily cut off, because Arachnis is already leaping at her again. The yelp that escapes her as she throws out both hands is mingled alarm and exasperation.

"Can you just not--" The shield around her inverts itself, the bubble of bright pink energy snapping closed around the spider youma instead like a much-glorified hamster ball. "--for five seconds?"

Five seconds might be a bit much to ask, all things considered. Throwing a hasty look around, Wako takes in the sight of the machine - glowing, humming, more ominous by the moment. "Sorry," she says, and it's not clear to whom: Arachnis, maybe, or the Princess of Sarek and her attempt to talk things through peacefully. "But this looks way too dangerous!"

Mustering her effort, she lofts the sphere of her shield into the air, and - spinning once in place as if to gather momentum - launches it, with Arachnis still inside, headlong at the machine.

Veronica Perenna has posed:
Veronica sighs. There she goes being ignored again. Looks like she has no choice but to take a more decisive approach. Her fellow defender is doing the same anyhow. 'I guess I will attract his attention first, and delay whatever plan he has at the same time.' She makes her handle face Nephrite's machine and the sphere among the cat's paws starts shining with a white light, a beam of moonlight freeing itself from it, getting in the direction of the machine rapidly.

Veronica takes a last look at the ominous machine, before directing her attention towards Nephrite. "That was your warning. Now, can we please conduct ourselves with the propriety expected from nobles, Lord Nephrite?"

Meanwhile, she also nods towards Wako, in case the apology was directed to her. "Don't worry, he wasn't paying attention to us anyhow. Maybe now he will." She hoped to anyway, it was really frustrating how he kept turning his attention elsewhere, despite this annoyance not showing up on the face of the Princess of Sarek. "That was quite the stunning performance, as an aside", she adds as a compliment to Ginga Otome. "Trapping his minion and using the trap to strike the machine at the same time is quite inventive."

Nephrite has posed:
    Arachnis is torn in half at the midsection when he slams into the doomsday device, the sickness of his body rendering him rather less sturdy than a normal youma. He is dead by the time that the Princess of Sarek strikes the device with her moonbeam, triggering a catastrophic overload where it practically disintegrates before their eyes, amidst impressive sparks and powering-down noises, before crumbling into crystal fragments on the ground. Arachnis is already turning to dust, as dead youma tend to do.

    "Noooo!" Lord Nephrite roars, clenching his fists in front of himself, and then lowering them to his sides as he glares at Sarek and the Ginga Otome in turn, with smoldering red eyes. "This isn't the last you have seen of me! The Dark Kingdom will be victorious, and glorious Metallia will end this world in flame!" Then he disappears in a flicker of red light.

    Is that really it? In the remains of the package he brought into the art gallery, there's the burnt fragments of a couple pieces of paper. A brochure or something, and part of a map.

    Akane Hasegawa, the gallery owner, is busy wondering if her insurance will cover the damage to the wall or not.

Wako Agemaki has posed:
In the aftermath of the machine's collapse and Nephrite's dramatic exit, Ginga Otome takes a moment to just breathe, and surveys the destruction with wondering eyes. "Thanks," she manages to reply to the Princess of Sarek's compliment. "It was mostly panic, though. Do you have any idea what this was even supposed to do?"

She glances around again, getting another uncomfortable look at the acid-burned hole in the wall. "...I was a little distracted by the spider trying to eat my face."

Veronica Perenna has posed:
So much for actually talking. Instead of proving his rank, he chose to behave like a sore loser and go away with a random ominous sentence. Well, not that it actually matters to Veronica. That spiel is old news.

She peeks curiously at the package that has been left behind, grabbing the partial brochure and map both, taking a good look at it.

She looks up from her findings at Wako's question, shaking her head. "I don't know, besides the obvious erasing this museum from the neighbourhood.

"I was hoping Nephrite could be willing to talk, but nothing we could do about it in the end. Dark folk will be dark folk", she comments with disapprovation.

"At least it didn't manage to do that." She doesn't know if there is any healing that would help if that thing would have actually started to take bites out of it. "As for the wall, maybe I can scrounge up a donation or two."

Nephrite has posed:
    The brochure is the charred remains of a travel brochure, advertising various ways to get to Antarctica, of all places. The partial map is also of the same place, with a word in English partially visible towards the bottom. 'lon' or maybe 'ion'. Not very useful. But it's a starting point. The fact the word is above a triangle or something hand-drawn over the map, not part of what was there originally, also suggests that the location marked is somewhere of importance to this 'Dark Kingdom'. What they could want with Antarctica is yet another mystery to add to the pile.

Wako Agemaki has posed:
Wako sighs softly and inclines her head at the reply. Disappointed, but not really surprised - as the other girl just said, dark folk will be dark folk. "That much, at least, should repair itself when I bring down Zero Time."

She regards the Princess of Sarek's find curiously, moving closer for a better look. Antarctica? Do people actually take tours there?

She's just opening her mouth to ask something when she catches sight of Hasegawa-san and thinks better of it. "--We don't want to still be here when that happens, though. I'm sure someone will be on their way, after the fuss he was making when we got here. I can keep the barrier up a little longer, if there's anything you need to do, but..."

Veronica Perenna has posed:
"Do you know any magically relevant word that includes "lon" or "ion"? Apparently it is something important for these guys' trip to Antartica", Veronica mentions to Ginga Otome. "I don't know what use they could have of such a frigid and faraway place, though."

Veronica whistles when her fellow mahou mentions the wall will be repaired. "Wow, that's quite nifty. I am sure it will spare the manager of this museum lots of headache."

The Princess of Sarek regards the news with a bit of concealed apprehension. "We can go now then, and maybe rendezvous somewhere else."

Wako Agemaki has posed:
"Nothing comes to mind," Wako admits. "I know a couple of people who are collecting information, though. I'll make sure to ask them. For now--" She smiles and doffs a quick little salute. "A strategic retreat sounds like a good idea."