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 Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 8:55 pm
While most of Daedalus's work on Almadel's satellites had been conducted in his workshop on his own world, he couldn't stay there indefinitely. His friends wouldn't let him, for one, and for another, while it was definitely doing better, it certainly wasn't fully recovered. Besides, he'd sort of assigned his various assistants with ensuring that he didn't stay too long and let himself work past the point of reasonableness, which was...something he was very given to.
And traveling back and forth was...a challenge. So the offer to go to someone else's world, particularly one he'd always been fond of, was a relief, especially to go with Monoceros and Murikabishi, who were both housemates and good friends.
And seeing Murikabushi was always a joy. The world was beautiful, even in its somewhat decayed state. And when they went searching, they'd found a perfect workspace--Daedalus remembered it as a weaponsmith who sold beautifully made, but expensive arms, but clearly that had changed at some point, because they found a proper engineer's workshop when they arrived.
If Daedalus were just a little more girlish, he might have squealed. As it was, there was a lot of delighted gasping and gathering up of tools.
"Really," he said, "I can't thank you enough for this--I think I needed to be somewhere else anyway, and I appreciate the both of you helping me with these satellites. I....just hope that we can do enough. Collectively."
He wanted to believe. The people of Earth had proved resilient and dedicated. But something like the Calamitous Hollow was not to be underestimated, and it sat ill with him that they had to face it at all.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 10:18 pm
Ever since somebody had mentioned Almadel at Gany-himesama’s little “let’s all commit some felonies in space” shindig, Murikabushi had……not really wanted to discuss him. Ever again, preferably. Which wasn’t something he enjoyed feeling about somebody whom he’d rather liked, the past few times when they’d encountered each other, but……really, a lot of things about Almadel’s whole deal had stopped making sense to Murikabushi on the other side of purifying.
Not in a way where he didn’t understand said deal, but in a way where he increasingly boggled at the fact that everyone was just perfectly ******** okay with said deal existing? And with Almadel doing said deal all over the lives of innocent people?
But, like, whatever. Murikabushi wasn’t about to let Harold Darkstar, Eater of Worlds, PhD. come down and have his way with Earth. And whatever anybody thought about Almadel, there wasn’t any profit for him in letting the Earth be destroyed, so his satellite plans were probably if not for real useful, then definitely not something that he’d disseminated maliciously. While Daedalus got excited about the tools he found to work with, Murikabushi worked to untie the bows at the top of his fuku’s detached kimono sleeves, then to get the sleeves off properly. Couldn’t have those getting in the way of the work, could they?
“I’m always happy to offer my world for things, and to help with saving people from devastation,” Murikabushi said, giving Daedalus a small smile. He knew how hard Daedalus had been working to construct these things, and he wanted to see that hard work pay off. “I kind of want to know who Almadel stole these plans and the materials from, but like……” Murikabushi quirked his shoulders, letting the second of his sleeves slip off. “I can ponder about that later, when we aren’t dead. So, what do you need us to do?”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 10:47 pm
Monoceros smiled at the gentle beauty of the planet Murikabushi. He liked getting to see other planets. Watching them slowly start to thrive again. He hated that he still felt... delicate, after his time in the Negaverse. He was cautious about spending too much time powered up, convinced he'd get snatched away again. But coming to a planet, especially when there was a worse enemy on the horizon? That felt safe. As safe as it could possibly get. "Stole?" he asked, bemused. "What do you mean, stole?" ...Yes the satellites were important, but Murikabushi had so thoroughly stumped him that he needed to know what his friend meant.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 10:54 pm
Daedalus blinked. He turned in his seat, the weight of the multitool Almadel had returned to him feeling somehow heavy in his hands.
"I certainly wouldn't categorize anything Almadel does as stealing," he said, a sort of casual agreement with Monoceros. Daedalus had come to realize that sometimes Murikabushi had...interesting opinions on things, but perhaps there was simply some piece of the bigger picture he was missing. Or maybe Daedalus himself had misjudged exactly what was going on, here.
"And if the blueprints aren't his own invention, I'm sure he compensated whoever he got them from fairly." At least, Almadel had not seemed like any number of merchants Daedalus had once known--the kind that jacked up prices to force people to pay through the nose for things they needed, or the type that would purposely underpay creators who were just desperate to see their inventions in mass use. Honestly, Daedalus knew his own multitool was worth far more than the fruit he'd paid for it, and he'd gladly have parted with more to get it back.
As if it, too, was curious about the answer to the question, Daedalus's little wisp appeared, floating next to him. It had been a regular companion during his work hours, which Daedalus was glad for. Its presence was...heartening, really.
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2025 1:48 am
Any confusion on Monoceros and Daedalus’s collective part was paid back perfectly in kind, with Murikabushi blinking at them, his expression vacant and bemused. Like, okay, sure, he had used a word that probably felt loaded. Yes, he’d done so about somebody whom a lot of people seemed to like and trust implicitly—at least, the hot senshi in the beard and the horned tiara sure seemed to have done. But………it wasn’t as though Murikabushi was saying anything illogical or contrary to objective reality, right?
“I mean, yeah, stole,” he said, as though repeating the word actually explained his point of view to his friends. “Where else does he get the things that he sells to people like he’s doing us some kind of big favor? I’ve been around for three Star Festivals where I’ve been aware of him doing things in Destiny City, right. The first time, he had a Murikabushian pure black rose, preserved in crystal, that had belonged to Airan personally. It was a gift from Valentín—” he said, looking to Monoceros specifically because he wasn’t sure if he’d filled Ceros in on this specific part of the past Murikabushi’s life, “he was Airan’s lover, and the rose was from a community garden Airan had worked really hard to get built in the capital city before the Revolution happened.”
Worked really hard was a polite euphemism for the bedroom diplomacy that certain nobles had forced Airan into doing if he wanted to fulfill his duty as the senshi to protect and advocate for his people, but that wasn’t the point right now.
“The second time, Almadel had this special tea set that Airan used in his chibi graduation ritual. Bringing it here and using it to have tea with Fang? I don’t know what happened exactly, but my magic has been perfectly stable and I’ve been totally in control of it since then. Finally, we come around to last year’s Star Festival, and……”
Shrugging, Murikabushi tucked some loose hair behind his ear. “I don’t have any proof that Airan previously owned the incense burner I found at his quote-unquote ‘museum’—seems more like a glorified private collection to me, but hey, what do I know.” Which would’ve been a fair question, had Murikabushi not said it in a tone that suggested he was only acknowledging the potential of his own ignorance because he thought he knew something important. “But the thing was unmistakably Murikabushian in origin. It had our roses and this little guy—” He pointed at his brooch, and its perpetually unsatisfied ouroboros symbol, “and I’ve found incense burners like it at temples and shrines in the capital while exploring and trying to clean things up.
“And maybe a lot of this didn’t bother me so much when I was still with the Court, right? Because it didn’t feel like I had any other means of accessing anything about Airan and his life. But now that I do, Almadel’s whole deal feels shady and highly sus to me. At best, I have some serious questions about his ethics like, for example, ‘How the ******** did any of these objects come into your possession, Almadel? If it wasn’t through bopping around to people’s worlds and stealing s**t, then where, exactly, did you get these things?’ Because two of three artifacts I’ve gotten from you have been personal belongings of my predecessor as the senshi, things that Airan would not have flippantly discarded or handed away to anybody else.
“Following up on that, I could ask ‘Am I supposed to believe the objects that you put out in your stall or lock up in your so-called ‘museum’ were in, like, a crate or something? That they all just fell off the back of a space-truck and you protected them out of the goodness of your heart? And why, exactly, should I believe that when it’s not like you return these items to the people they rightfully belong to; you charge us a finder’s fee to get back things that don’t belong to you. You’re clearly turning a profit off of this venture, so why should I trust that you care about the significance of these items, or that there’s anything altruistic about your actions here?’”
This……… Murikabushi looked from Monoceros to Daedalus, then back again, hoping that either of them would either agree with him or have something to say that would offer conclusive proof of him misunderstanding the situation somehow, because he really didn’t like feeling as though he had reason to distrust Almadel? But at the same time, everything he’d just said was all perfectly self-evident, right?
Like, Almadel’s behavior was obviously and deeply suspicious when subjected to any level of scrutiny, and Murikabushi was absolutely not the first person to feel this way about him or ask questions like these about his ethics or lack thereof, right?
……………Right???
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2025 6:20 pm
Monoceros listened carefully to Murikabushi's explanation and observations, nodding along to show he was listening, but... he didn't really agree with any of that. "Uh... I think you're overthinking it, dude," Monoceros said, shrugging. "I mean, like, think about this way, yeah? Humans. We excavate stuff from like a thousand years ago and process old pots and ancient dildos and whatever children's toys survived and that kind of thing for museums, right? And, like, the planets all went kablooey with the Chaos a thousand years ago. He's basically an archaeologist, right?" He paused for a moment to sit down. "So he's been sort of tending to the cultures of all these dead and gone places, and then all of a sudden, bam, we start appearing like, what, twenty years ago or something? So for him, it's like, I dunno, the biggest baddest pharoh just woke up from a thousand year long sleep except now he's a 12-year-old girl with few memories of the time before. Or now he's twenty-seven and completely jaded from his time on Earth as a human because of scammers and s**t. Who's gonna immediately trust the weird alien guy who says, honestly and straight to your face, 'hey, I have cool objects from your planet/Wonder, do you want them?' Nah. Us giving him fruit and cool rocks satisfies our need for an exchange. Sure, he wants weird items, but he wants something for these magical items he's giving us, so it makes it a little more trustworthy, even if it's still suspicious. Complete and total generosity would be met with hostility, and the smoke and mirrors act is probably pretty good for tempting Negaverse and Dark Mirror folk into purifying if they want to know more about their previous selves, yeah?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2025 6:31 pm
Daedalus blinked. Took a long moment to listen to what Murikabushi was saying, and turn it over in his head, trying to understand this strange perspective.
Fundamentally, it simply did not make sense to him. There had to be some Earth context that he was missing,
"Murikabushi, many worlds are dead. Lost entirely. The ones that have survivors? Seem to be ones that were cut off by Chaos. It is a miracle that anyone at all is still Awakening as new Senshi, given the wider state of the universe. Once upon a time, it was all but impossible for a Senshi to be born anywhere but their homeworld. I certainly never heard of it happening. So if Almadel did take things from worlds, he was taking them from worlds that, as far as all history should show, would never live again. An act of preservation, not theft. His museum is designed to protect the things he finds, which might otherwise have been completely lost to the vagaries of time. I know, I helped him with some of the repairs."
He leaned back on the worktable, resting his elbow on it and his cheek against his fist.
"Also," he said, and he held up his multitool, "trading even a basket of fruit for this? Is not an even trade. I know exactly how much this is worth, because I made it, and used it for quite some time before I lost it. He charges barely a pittance for items worth a thousand fortunes. Not exactly the behavior of a remorseless thief."
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