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 Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2025 2:09 pm
While Hybris got to work on taking the pictures of Murikabushi’s senshi phone screen, Murikabushi paid enough attention to him to know when he needed to move to the next photo. Most of his attention, though, wound up on Remarque. Murikabushi hadn’t exaggerated in saying that he had no idea what the deal was with the spike, so he valued all the insight.
“Thank you for the assessment,” Murikabushi said, giving Remarque a nod. “At the moment, the next step is gonna be talking to more people. Kerberos went up to the moon last night, with some others. Visited something called the Celestial Theatre, which……” Murikabushi shrugged and shook his head. “I have no idea what it is either. Whatever they managed to learn there, I’ve gotta touch base and find out about it.
”Then, we’ve gotta talk to the Negaverse. Inherently dangerous, sure, but I trust my odds with three of them who were present. The others, I’m not certain of, but it doesn’t matter as much as protecting the Earth and everyone who lives here. None of the factions in town can handle this problem alone, so we need to work together and share information as much as we can.”
A deep breath, and a moment to think. “The aliens in town are probably worth talking to? But I don’t have any contacts with the ones in the matching purple-grey military uniforms, so Kerberos or someone else is gonna have to take point there. I know more alien Order senshi, but they’re as fallible as the rest of us. They might not know anything. There’s Almadel, but if he does know something, I don’t trust him to be perfectly forthcoming. Not like out of malice, but he’s a trickster, y’know? Right now, ain’t nobody got time for that.”
It pained Murikabushi to say, because he liked Almadel, including the ways he seemed like a trickster. Time was of the essence, though, and Almadel’s track record was at best questionable. On top of that, he wasn’t some omniscient super-being. His knowledge had limits like anyone else’s.
“Asking Cosmos is similar, for me? For one, I’ve only heard about her showing up when someone wants to leave the Negaverse—” Or the Court, but it was probably better not to bring up Asmodeus. “Besides: yes, she’s stupid powerful, but even she can’t be everything, everywhere, all at once. She might not know anything that can help us right now.”
Determined to make the best of things, though, Murikabushi concluded, “Investigating the Surrounding sounds like the best idea. Which has a couple initial steps to it like finding out how to get there—unless you have any ideas? Aside from ‘Ask around with Order to see if anyone knows anything,’ which is my current plan.”
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Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2025 3:24 pm
Glancing up from his phone at Remarque swung the not-a-sword about, Hybris raised his eyebrows and offered a mildly concerned, "Be careful waving that around outside." Of course it was a magical lightning rod, then maybe the weird crossguard was something like a magical weather vein? Murikabushi was probably going to have even more adventures after this, wasn't he? Well. All the best, Big Bro! Cheering the eternal on in his heart, Hybris proceeded to offer nothing of actual substance. Except...hmmm, the pictures weren't quite perfect. Maybe Hella had some tips? Opening up his compact, he was about to send her a message when he paused for a long moment, raising his eyebrows even higher this time. Interesting! Keeping his attention at least partially on the talk of all these other factions and personages, both met and only vaguely heard of, Hybris slowly hovered his compact over the proffered phone. This time his expression much more enthusiastic about the results. Straightening, he held up the compact, "Looks like I'll be able send it to this to ah...a database?" He'd never bothered with it before, but now it seemed a bit different and well, usable. "Isn't that just so fun of the Mirror?" He gave Muri a look that said, very clearly, Isn't the Mirror so much better and more helpful than that Cosmos Whatever?
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Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2025 5:45 pm
“Isn’t it?” Remarque agreed. “You’re missing out, Murikabushi.”
But, he couldn’t say that it wasn’t benefitting them that he’d gone over to the White Moon. Remarque had his fair share of contacts, but Murikabushi had the unique talent of worming his way into more than once circle, it seemed.
He’d done them a solid, meeting up to share this information, so Remarque wouldn’t tease or grip about him leaving the Court.
“Thanks for taking those pictures, Hybris.” He was sure Hybris could pass them pictures to the rest of the Court as needed but he’d have to check the database in the Mirrorscape to see what more he could find. He had plenty of reasons to visit Mirrorspace, anyway.
His attention returned to Murikabushi, who he didn’t want to keep for longer than necessary. It sounded like he had a lot of things he needed to do, and the faster he handled that, the faster they could all get some answers. “Keep us in the loop. If I find anything useful, I’ll pass it along. When you visit the Surrounding, take pictures. I want to see if it looks how I remember.”
He spoke with certainty; if Murikabushi wanted to get somewhere, he would. In some ways, maybe Remarque was jealous of it, but his desire to see the Surrounding was dwarfed by his desire to see Mirrorspace thrive. In an ideal world he wouldn’t have to choose between the two of them, so maybe one day he wouldn’t have to.
“If you get in over your head, let me know. Both of you.”
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Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2025 2:06 pm
Murikabushi perked up at Hybris being able to upload photos with the compact. That was new since Muri had purified, but it seemed, to him, like an objectively good thing.
Order had apparently had their own intel database this entire time, and oh boy, did Murikabushi want to spill some tea all over it. He also couldn’t imagine that the Negaverse didn’t have their own way of sharing intel. Once upon a time, Jet had recognized him by sight and had known his name—as well as a fairly decent pronunciation of it—without them having met before. It stood to reason, in Murikabushi’s mind, that the Negaverse shared intel in some fashion that, knowing how they tended to work, was probably very organized.
“I hope that sticks around after all this is done,” Murikabushi said, nodding toward Hybris’s compact. “Having a database like that seems like it would help you guys in the Court stay safe. Y’know, share notes on which Order senshi or Knights are chill and which ones will aggro you on sight, and which Negas are okay with you versus which ones will try to bully you into doing whatever they want.”
But somewhat more importantly, Murikabushi nodded to Remarque’s requests and looked at him with an earnest expression. “Anything I learn that might help, I’ll make sure it gets to you all, too. I don’t care about people’s quote-unquote ‘sides’ most of the time to begin with.” A claim that he hoped would be reinforced by the fact that he didn’t try to push purification on anybody, and was happy to let people who didn’t want to purify just be themselves outside of instances when they were actually hurting someone else. “I care about that even less under the present circumstances. All of you in the Court deserve to be safe, and to have a chance to prepare.”
Whatever was coming for them, everybody was going to need as much of that extra time as they could get.
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Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2025 2:14 pm
Very demure, Hybris nodded and then proceeded to languish as a clear sign that his usefulness for the night was over. "I trust you both with my body, and the Mirror with my soul."
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