1367/Eclipse Investigation: M&M&M&M&M&...

Eclipse Investigation: M&M&M&M&M&...
Date of Scene:	29 March 2024
Location:	Plot Room 1
Synopsis:	Gretchen makes an incursion into the deeper, darkest parts of the Eclipse Zones. While she manages to get her tiny hands on an important book of information, it comes at a steep price... Being captured by Sunbreaker. Fortunately, she's not eggbreaker. But the dark mahou has a few prying words for the little egglet.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Madoka Kaname

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Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
It hadn't been too long since the Eclipse Zone had first gone off and, at almost all times, there were a few youma within the area. That was what made them so difficult. Normal people didn't even notice them. A person could spend all day in one and, while they would be exhausted, they wouldn't pass out.

Sunbreaker was.... studying. Because of COURSE she was. Sitting off to the side near the stage as mooks moved around, seemingly storing and unstoring things, as Sunbreaker went over... plans.

Next to her, on the table, was a small potted 'plant'. Minus the plant... it seemed to, for the moment, just be a seed.

There were a few kinda bads running around and Chaar, the red DG girl...

... Chaar had fallen asleep on a hammock. Yes, she did, in fact, bring a hammock from home.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Gretchen's small Labyrinth has been redone to look like a war room or command center. There's a big central screen displaying a map of the Eclipse Zone, displaying all sorts of information that would probably be a lot more helpful if they weren't all written in Witch runes. Surrounding the screen is a tiny amphitheater of tiny stations, flanked by several monitors and a keyboard that, also, is in Witch Runes. On the one hand these Chara can touch type, but on the other they're just kinda taking it on faith that Gretchen hasn't taken any liberties with the layout, assuming she even bothered to see how a keyboard should be set up to begin with. (Spoiler: she did not).

    Brai and Medo are sitting at their respective stations, the former is watching what she's pretty sure is tactical information and the latter is monitoring the health of their infiltrator. Lydian is sitting in a centralized 'captain's chair', while Sio stands next to her as the clear executive officer. Each of their stations has a few written notes translating common relevant words from Witch Runes to Hiragana, but it's a fairly short list and that was all the help that Gretchen was willing to give them.

    So then, since all four of the normal Chara are inside the Labyrinth, Who is left to be the infiltrator? A closer examination of the floating egg, painted black with a white cross, might reveal that. Gretchen, being a dark energy user herself, is the most natural choice for this. Of all the different Chara who could be sneaking in, the one who has her very own X-Egg to hide in would likely be the least suspicious.

    Gretchen's X-Egg floats around the area, trying to look as natural as possible. Well, natural for a floating dark energy egg, anyways.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
The egg flew through the reaches of the Eclipse Zone, unseen. Unmonitored.

However, eggs such as that were not... quite the uncommon sight as she'd have likely hoped. Chaar was asleep for now and the kindabads were useless...

However, it wasn't long until she realized there were mor than just youma here. Thugs in suits, sunglasses on and all, were stationed near the towers. She could see one of them typing on the display, going through the different menus. Seemed they were checking the output and then writing them down in a small notebook.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Gretchen slowly coasts through the Eclipse Zone, using the shell of her egg to hide her quiet tension. As an X-Chara she can't really help but be expressive sometimes, but that's what the mask and the eggshell are for.

    She's going slow, flying above people's heads. She already knows what will happen if she draws too much attention to herself, and she knows that some of those thugs are more than willing to kill. There's no reason for Gretchen to think she'd be an exception.

    Within her egg, Brai's voice crackles in over her headset. "Okay, so you should be close to the tower now. What do you see?"

    In a low whisper, Gretchen responds, "It's guarded by men in black. One of them is typing on the screen. There are multiple youma here, and I'm pretty sure I saw someone lying in a hammock?"

    "So we've caught them napping? Alright... can you see what they're doing with the screen?"

    "Maybe if I get closer..."

    "Well, whatever you do, don't start dancing on the controls again."

    Gretchen pouts. "I wasn't gonna!"

    The tiny X-Egg starts floating a bit closer to the tower and the thug typing on it. Slowly, cautiously, seeing if any of the thugs respond to her presence at all. If she can get a closer peak, maybe she can figure out how to use the console...

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
The display itself was fairly simple and easy to read. Simple menus. A reading for displays. Some minor adjustments....

A big red button on the bottom right of the display that seemed to always be there, no matter what menu they went through.

There seemed to be a few options on it, namely 'Schedules', 'Readings' and 'Current output'. Though, they were only using the reading option at the moment.

Fortunately, nobody had noticed her... yet...

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    From inside her X-Egg, Gretchen whispers through her headset. "There's a big red button on the screen. What should I do?"

    From inside the command room, Sio says, "It's probably a self-destruct button. I say press it!"

    Brai frowns and looks back at Sio. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would they have a self-destruct button where anyone could push it? I bet it's probably an alarm system that wakes up all the youma."

    Medo gives in her two cents. "What if it blows up and hurts Gretchen? I say don't push it."

    Quiet and calculating, or at least giving off that vibe, Lydian speaks in an authoritative tone that screams 'I saw someone act like this on TV and now I wanna do it'. "Let's set aside the issue of the button for now. What else do you see, agent?"

    Peeking a little closer, Gretchen pulls out a tiny phone and starts recording the screen. "Here's what I'm seeing right now. It looks like... Schedules, Readings and Current Output. He's looking at readings right now."

    The image shows up on the war room main screen. All of the words are in Witch Runes. Brai quietly twitches at how unhelpful that is.

    Gretchen starts pulling up and away from that tower. "It's too busy here. I'm going to find one that isn't being used." There are others in the area, and she starts looking for a tower that doesn't have too many obvious thugs looking directly at it.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
There were three towers out in the open, easy for anyone to see. One. Two. Three. One of them was by Sunbreaker. The other two had some easter goons standing nearby, keeping an eye on them, running normal patrols...

There were, however, two more. They were hidden, out of sight and each inside one of the nearby buildings. But those ones were designed to be harder to notice, so it was debatable if Gretchen could find them. Then again, if she looked at the readings, she might have noticed the readings seemed to have five sections to them.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    "Okay..." says Gretchen, floating higher into the air with her X-Egg. She's about four stories up, hanging near a window that hopefully doesn't have too many hidden youma on the other side of it. "Something doesn't add up right. We've only seen three towers, but that monitor listed readings for five of them."

    Lydian, sitting in her chair, considers out loud. "So... five? What are the chances that they're even in this Eclipse Zone? They might be elsewhere."

    Brai responds. "I think what it really means is that not all of them have to be out in the open. If we only saw three, that could mean that the nearest two are within buildings."

    Sio adds in, "Well... our main energy bloodhound would be the agent herself."

    Gretchen shakes her head, even though literally no one can see her. "If they were using Witch magic, or even Witch-like magic, I could find them easily. If X-Eggs were involved, I might be able to find those too. When it comes to common youma, I'm no better than any other Chara."

    Medo chimes in, "If we were to go digging through buildings, there's no telling what we'd run into. Keep in mind we can't really help Gretchen if something goes wrong."

    Lydian shifts in her seat and leans on her palm. "I think we need to consider the fact that we're only going to get one shot before things go wrong. What else can we poke at? I'm pretty sure that the Schedules is just what Tracy already found, and we've seen the Readings screen. So our two current gaps in our knowledge would be the Current Output and the missing two towers."

    Gretchen hesitates. The defenses seem pretty solid, and she can only play it safe for so long. After a moment, she says, "I'll send in Hansel and Gretel. If they get caught, I can just reform them later."

    The two tiny eldritch Familiars appear near Gretchen's X-Egg and immediately flutter away. They split apart, looking into different buildings. Hopefully they won't just vanish and slack off this time.

    As for Gretchen, she considers the three visible towers and decides that the one next to Sunbreaker is the worst possible choice. So she goes for one of the other two and watches, either until someone pushes the Current Output button or until she thinks she has a chance to push it herself.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Gretchen would find, when she looks... Sunbreaker... wasn't... there? Her book was closed, but she was gone. When had she...

Actually, she didn't seem to be anywhere. Odd, that. Very odd. Did she teleport off?

However, the familiars start traveling through the buildings and... Almost IMMEDIATELY one of the familiars runs into trouble.

One of the buildings, a shed, does have a shed... And A PAIR OF SUNACKYS! Playing cards! And when it comes in... both look up RIGHT AT IT AND BEGIN THE PURSUIT!

On the other hand, the other... finds... the building in question was just a storage. Well, the eclipse zone covered multiple buildings, so it wasn't like it could always get it in the first try.

One thing Gretchen might notice is that while there were multiple guards on the towers, only one of them seemed to be making notes in a notebook as such.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Hansel, ever the unlucky one, can't really stand up to even minor youma by itself. It can, however, pass through walls and go back the way it came. Which is exactly what it does.

    They are now officially all in trouble. Gretchen whispers quickly, "Sunbreaker is MIA! I don't know where she went."

    Sio, suddenly at attention, asks, "Did she spot you?"

    Brai considers, "We are now officially on a very narrow time limit."

    Lydian, thinking quickly, says, "Make noise. They've already found one of your Familiars, right? Use them as a distraction, look at the tower, and then extract."

    Gretchen takes a precious few seconds to consider, then says, "I'm going for that notebook!"

    "The what?" repeats Sio.

    Hansel's mad dash away from the Sunackys takes it out into the open, where it makes strange eldritch screeching noises and flaps its wings wildly. Gretel, who found the storage shed, starts swooping at the thugs near the note taker. Gretchen's egg floats right up behind the note taking thug and she slaps a Witch Sticker on the back of his neck. If this thug is a mundane or a weakling, he should suddenly have a case of temporary mind control. Otherwise, he just hears a squeaky voice in his head demanding that he hand over the notebook.

    Either way, Grechen opens a Labyrinth portal near the notebook and opens up her X-Egg just enough for her to grab one end of it and tug. "It's mine! I want it! Gimmie!"

    The red button remains unpressed...

    ... for now.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
The distraction worked, it was all coming together! Mwa ha ha ha! The youma were awake, and running towards the distraction, as Gretchen applied the sticker! Perfect!

Even better, the witch's mark worked like a charm. The person she charmed? Entirely mundane. No magic. They just handed it over without question. And Gretchen was getting out, she was racing towards the portal, the book out and--

Then, right before she crossed the threshold, she stopped moving and her egg snapped shut. The notebook would fly free, out, into the labyrinth before Gretchen's captor could grab it...

And something was holding Gretchen's egg closed. Then... did she hear... tape?

"I thought I warned you lot about bringing your little omelette's into my Eclipse Zone's?" Sunbreaker's voice asked... uh oh.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    The notebook, giant by Chara standards, falls neatly into the War Room. It knocks Lydian off of her captain's chair when it lands, leaving her failing underneath it, but she and everything else is relatively unharmed. Brai and Sio immediately rush to help.

    Medo, meanwhile, is monitoring Gretchen's vitals and noticing her panic. "Gretchen. Gretchen come in. Talk to me. Gretchen? Gretchen?! GRETCHEN?!?!?"

    Pulling herself out from underneath the notebook, Lydian says, "What happened to Gretchen-chan? Is she safe?"

    It's then that they all hear Sunbreaker's voice.

    Gretchen's X-egg wiggles back and forth in Sunbreaker's grip. Her grumpy muffled voice can be heard through the shell. "Hey! Let me go! What is that? Is that TAPE?! In no universe would that work against me--"

    The Witch fairy tries to force the egg open. It's... not working as well as she'd like. Or at all, really. The two distracting Familiars turn towards their Witch's captor and start flying towards Sunbreaker, swooping at her recklessly. Gretchen complains, "Oh, now you two start acting right. When I'm already caught. Thanks!"

    Inside her Egg, the dark fairy considers. Bribery didn't work on Luna. Would it work on Sunbreaker? Think, Gretchen. Think!

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Just flicked a hand and well... There was a burst of flame and dark magic, then they were gone. A quick, fitting end. Gretchen, meanwhile, was tossed up and down in Sunbreaker's hand, as she eyed the egg. Now taped up.

"It's not just tape, eggy. It's special tape made just. For. You. Well. Not you. You're not THAT important. But for creatures like you. You know... Tiny. Insignificant. Magical. Pains. In. My. Flank."

Toss. Catch. Toss. Catch.

"You're a dark energy one, aren't you? You were able to touch my towers... but it won't work for your bearer, will it? Just because you're dark... doesn't mean your bearer is..." She was walking, now. And the others?

Well, they were making themselves scarce. Why?

Because one of the advantages of dark energy was being able to wake up and make it EVERYONE else's problem.

She made her way back to her desk and just liiiiightly rolled the egg baaaaack and forrrrrrrth on the table. Watching it. "So... what *is* your name. I feel I should know the name of... Madoka's most powerful egg, no? For being such a bland, uninteresting little twerp... she really has a lot of you... doesn't she?"

There was a light thump. Thump. Thumping.

... And wait, was that the sound of SIZZLING?! Omelette was a joke, right?! She... she wouldn't really...?

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Two fallen angels going down in flames. Who would've guessed? They briefly make noises that may or may not be anguish. It's hard to tell the difference between a scream and normal talking when it comes to Witches and Familiars. Maybe they're just always screaming?

    "What do you mean I'm not important?!" demands Gretchen, because that's totally what matters right now.

    "Anyways... she can use dark energy if she really tries!" No. No she cannot. That's been established. "Just because last time it didn't work out..." The tradeoff to being too pure for this world is not being able to use darkness to any meaningful degree, even if a tiny fairy spoonfeeds it to you directly. "... I mean, she can do anything! She's just a cuddle-brained dummy who doesn't apply herself." Actually, Gretchen, should you even really be advocating for Madoka to use darkness in your condition?

    As she starts rolling back and forth, helplessly across the table, she starts getting nervous. Is that sizzling? All of a sudden she's panicking. If she dies in a situation like this, it'd be a pretty stupid end to this timeline.

    "Gretchen! My name is Gretchen! And... look... I don't know what you're doing but maybe we can talk this out?!"

    If she ever makes it out of this alive, she's never gonna pull this stunt again...

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker hmmed and then... gripped both ends of the egg and spun it. Was she going to kill the egg? Of course not. It was, well... The familiars were like youma. But this? These things at least seemed to be... kind of sentient? Maybe? "Gretechen?" No, mascots. Buuuuut... mascot or not, this one was Madokas. And if she hurt something of Madoka's... it would hurt Sayaka. Indirectly, at least.

"Give me one good reason I should. Does... Madoka even *need* you? You're obviously her strongest, sure. But... She's a little goody good. Doesn't want to get hurt hands dirty... So what, pray tell... does that mean about you? How are *you* any *worth* in a situation like this?" Tap. Tap. Tap. Rocking it back and forth. Slowly. Gently. Before...

"I wonder... does this mean, right now, she'd be helpless? Can she henshin without you? Or does that mean she just can't try to wield dark energy?"

She tapped her phone and the sound of oil popping could be heard... meanwhile, she grabbed the shoebox and, slowly, began to slide the egg inside...

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Sunbreaker is asking some questions that Gretchen has been struggling with for a while. It makes the dark fairy feel very... insecure, actually. Rather, it brings up some insecurities that she might otherwise be putting on the back burner and refusing to process.

    "I think you're underestimating her if you think she wouldn't get her hands dirty, but there's a difference between being grimly practical and being a dummy. Deep down, she's far too kind, and she holds back way too much..."

    She pauses for a moment, and then sinks into her egg. "Doka-chan likes me, as a person... in as far as she likes having someone cute around to play with, but that's not my role in this. I'm a dream that she doesn't fully accept. If she needed me, then I wouldn't be an X-Chara. She'll be fine as long as she has any of the others. Really, she never needed anyone but Brai-chan. She'd lose one henshin and that's it."

    She pauses for a moment to reflect upon her sadness. "She doesn't accept me... not really. Even if she thinks she does, even if she wants to, she really doesn't. Being powerful in of itself doesn't appeal to her. I'm a failure of a Chara, and no amount of power will change that. That's just how it is."

    Gretchen is too busy feeling sorry for herself to really listen to what's happening. She feels herself being moved somewhere, and can hear the acoustics change as she's set inside the shoebox, but this whole experience is new to her because neither Homura or Madoka would stuff her into things.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was... probably being too hurtful. Too mean. But well... Meh. It'd get over it.

"Ahhhhh. So that's what you are. A failed dream," Sunbreaker said, lightly rocking the egg back and forth. "And oh, no. I think she'd get her hands dirty in the sense of... fighting. For someone else."

"But she'd never turn to dark energy, would she? She's far too squeaky clean for that. It's 'bad'. And she can't be bad..."

Very, very softly rocking the egg back and forth. "And it's Madoka. Is there anyone she doesn't like? Anyone who... well... except someone trulyevil... she wouldn't like? Even if she hated you... would she ever really tell you? I just can't see it. The girl's just too sickly sweet for that."

"... At this point it might almost be a mercy if I was to destroy you. Not for you. But for her. I wonder just how much damage you've caused. How much pain you've caused her, just by existing. Just by... running around and causing her trouble. But it's her. She's the type to just smile and say 'It's fine', isn't she? But you know it's not..." Sunbreaker muttered.

"But don't worry. I'm not a monster. No matter what most people may think. And beleive it or not, I do feel for you. Just a bit..."

She slid a letter into the box.

"Nobody ever wanted me either. But if you really want to rid Madoka of your trouble? There are easier ways than harassing me."

And then the box was moving. "Just think on that. Next time? I won't be so nice."

Later, Madoka would find an old, beat up shoe box that was duct taped closed with the words 'For Madoka' on it.

Inside was a letter.

        I found this snooping around my Eclipse Zones. You get one. Next egg I find gets cracked.
        SB

At least the egg could be easily untaped and let free?