Majoraa
op2024
twave
CitrusArms
Shinny
FaithfulMuse
Lime
Villamvihar
Shadow Dragon
BrokenPromiseA Meeting of the Mindxjs
(the "x" and "j" are silent)At the heart of a labyrinthian latticework of super-scientific ultramagitech megastructures, one can find a soaring spire of transcendent omni-technological perfection, crafted from the refined polyphasic biomechanical manifestation of progress itself. And at the very pinnacle of this apex of achievement, one can find a chamber, and at the center of that chamber, a circular table, a dark purple disc of polished, crystalized unreality, a flame stolen from the birth pangs of the first Edoric Nega-Sun, ten trillion years after its home plenum’s last star was snuffed out, now frozen for all time. And at that table, surrounded by arching, panoramic windows, through which can be viewed the full, spell-binding splendor of the vast, seemingly endless technoscape beyond, and bathed in the yellowy-green glow generated by myriad crackling arcs of actinic lightning, can be found Doctor Nykannis, the greatest mad scientist of them all.
But she would not be found in a good mood...
“What’s taking them so long?” the Monarch of Mad Science muttered as she fiddled with a transdimensional tesseractic paradox projector, while simultaneously running her one hundred and eleventh omni-spectrum analysis scan on her wounded arm, which had since been detached and placed in a supranumious soultech stasis pod. After all, it was easy enough to regrow a new one, even if the reason she had needed to take such action in the first place was highly alarming, to say the least.
Indeed, she had begun to assemble this “meeting of the minds” as soon as her encounter with the Queen of Hearts had concluded. In light of what she had learned of the Wonderland Monarch’s nature, she knew she would need to confer with intellects approaching her own level, ones who had transcended (or were on the verge of transcending) the fourth stratum of omnidimensional confinement. Such individuals were, unsurprisingly, few and far between, but she still had knowledge of more than enough to hold a proper confabulation.
There was Jennifer, of course, the so-called “False Witch of Time”. Then there was Aria, aka Sharr, aka the original Vermilion Veronica, aka the annoyingly smug bitch. Still, for all her smugness, she held vast quantities of knowledge (even if she’d needed Nykannis herself to help restore most of it), and was even beginning to breach the fourth stratum, if she hadn’t completely broken through it already. Thus, her attendance would be a valuable asset, no matter how much the Mad Scientist Supreme hated to admit it. Of course, even more insufferable by far was Oros, for whom the fourth stratum might as well not even exist. It was a pity such an astounding wealth of insight was coupled with such an astoundingly nauseating personality, but Nykannis had happily struck upon a wonderful solution to the problem the pink-haired pervert posed. It appeared that one of Oros’s extra-plenumic analogs (or perhaps a future/past iteration) had recently visited the local reality plenum, if only briefly, meaning that she might be open to a possible collaboration. Nykannis certainly hoped so, since she was basically the best of both worlds, being just as wise (if not wiser) than Oros when it came to polyplenumic matters, while also being nowhere near as annoying. There were others as well, like that dimension hopping squirrel girl and that Konata cosplayer, but the former hadn’t stopped by the local multiversal cluster in quite some time and the later was a member of Beacon, so fuck that noise.
Yet, while the invitations had all been sent, they had all gone unanswered…
I can sorta understand the others, but where the fuck is Jen?! I would have detected if Queenie gave her the Finn treatment, so what’s the fucking hold up?!
"Behind you, Doc."
Jen called out to Nykannis, walking up to her. Her usual smile was absent. "Sorry for the hold up, wanted to prod the Queen for more info and it kiiiinda took a while!"
“Finally!” Nykannis replied, turning to face the false witch. “So, learn anything useful?”
"Which one do ya wanna hear first? Her weak point, me convincing her to work together with me, or the whole her being aware of the magistrates deal?" Jen tilted her head.
“I already know she has knowledge of the Magistrate,” Nykannis replied. “For all the good it’ll do her, and while I’d love to hear about this deal you’ve made, if you’ve really discovered an exploitable weakness, then that takes precedence.”
Knew it. "Alice."
Eugh. She had to jinx herself.
"For how much the Queen may insist she's doing what she does for the sake of everyone, me mentioning her kid provoked quite the reaction from her." The corner of Jen's mouth quirked up. "As much as she believes Mariette is her Alice, the real one must still be somewhere, right? Find out what became of her, and we can use that as leverage against Queenie. A little bargaining chip, if you will."
“I figured as much…” Nykannis muttered. “Although locating her might be something of a challenge, especially if Queenie herself has no idea who she is and just latches onto anyone who vaguely resembles her…” she added with an annoyed scowl. “Then again, there’s still the, admittedly slim, possibility that Mariette really is her daughter. Regardless, it sounds like a job for Kate. I’ll set her to work on it as soon as she gets back from her current assignment. Now, tell me about this deal you made. Gotta say, I was actually planning on striking up a little deal of my own, have her fake her death, lull the Penrose Pack into a false sense of security, and then set her up in a nice cozy adjacent reality layer on top of Bolorton, but she obviously had her heart set on showing off her toys from the Magistrate, proving to all and sundry just how unbelievably scary she is. That’s fine by me, though, since the more of her power she demonstrates, the more knowledge of it I have for round two! Nyahahahaha!”
"Maybe it was less that she was showing off her toys, and more that she was marking her presence as a threat." Wisdom was filing her nails while leaning against one of the windows. "I got your invitation, and while I could have been here first, I get distracted easily, and it’s simply impossible to walk past the germanium quantum shift replicator or the neogenic converter without gawking at them like old flames." She tucked her file in her blouse before approaching the duo. "Even if this is the first time we met, I feel like we can probably skip introductions, right?" She smiled. "I’m actually quite interested in her psychological makeup. Why does she want to rebel against the system so badly? It’s dealt her a pretty nice hand all things considered.”
"A puppet wishing to be free from her strings takes on the role of the villain, all to steal my job- I mean draw the story into its conclusion." Jennifer hypothesized, looking towards Wisdom first. She then looked back at Nykannis. "I basically brought up that getting rid of Penny could cause enough of a cataclysm to draw the Nexus she's looking for out of hiding."
“That would definitely do the trick,” Nykannis confirmed. “And someone with her level of Magistrate-granted power could probably even be able to accomplish such a feat, but like the aptly-named ‘Wisdom’ here pointed out,” she added, gesturing to the new arrival. “The real question is why? Although as far as I’m concerned, it’s not so much a question of ‘why does she want to destroy the Magistrate?’, as opposed to ‘why does she even think she can?’ Aside from being completely batshit, obviously,” the mad scientist clarified with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Oh, and apology accepted,” she told the cat-eared brunette. “After all, admiring the fruits of my incomparable super-scientific genius is always an acceptable reason for being late, though something tells me Aria won’t have nearly as convincing an excuse, if she even bothers to show up in the first place…”
”I was just waiting for the perfect time to show myself!” Aria curtsied in Nykannis’s direction before reaching into the portal behind herself. ”If I was going to be honest, most of what you people talk about goes over my head. So I thought I’d take the extra time to grab someone who understands the situation better than all of us.” Aria winced. ”Come on now, you can at least act like an adult. I know you want to see everyone.” With one final tug, Oros toppled out of the portal and landed on the floor. Her pink hair obscured her face.
”Humph!” Oros folded her arms.
”Sup?”
Aria raised an eyebrow when she saw Wisdom standing beside Nykannis and Jen. ”You invited a Mint agent?”
At the sight of Oros, Nykannis’s visage turned completely livid, her eyes narrowing into an intense glare behind her glowing goggles. “I invited someone who has all of Oros’s knowledge and almost none of her infuriating personality traits,” the mad scientist replied. “So you can toss Pinky’s perverted ass back through that portal, ‘cause she’s clearly surplus to requirements.”
Wisdom folded her arms behind her back. "I haven’t met Oros yet, but I’m sure we’re all here because we have one contribution to make or another. Regardless of who our employers are or how much we enjoy pleasures of the flesh. I for one would love to hear-”
”I knew you all despised me!” Oros rose to her feet while swinging her finger around. But when it stopped, she was pointing at Nykannis. ”And trying to replace me with Oros the Wise is just sad and pathetic. I thought you had more pride than that.”
Aria placed a hand on Oros’s arm and pushed it down by her side. ”You can call Nykannis names later, as ill-advised as it is. Why don’t you show them what you showed me?”
A shark-like grin crossed Oros’s face. ”Fine. I’ll just prove I deserve to be here.” She turned her head to Jen. ”I think of everyone here, you probably see the world the closest to the way I do. But don’t you think it’s weird? The Grand Magistrate creates this entity that wants to destroy its makers? It doesn’t make sense. Unless…” Oros pulled two sheets of paper out of her kimono and handed them to Jen. The first one Showed the Grand Magistrate making a request for someone to take over the Reality Plenum about seven years ago. The second one showed the Grand Magistrate offering to take up the mantle just a day later. But Oros said nothing else.
"Ground Zero!" Jen grinned once she recognized the information she was given. "Back when things were simple, and not running on power creeping and meta narratives. The original Grand Magistrate disappeared without a word TWO DAYS after things got into motion, and hasn't been seen since! Our current one had to pick up where they left off." She went into detail.
“So that’s it, huh?” Nykannis muttered, even as she sent an optic-tipped mechadendrite to peer over Jen’s shoulder as the (false) Witch read over the Omniscient Observer Chronicle transcripts Oros had provided. “The Grand Magistrate’s finally gotten fed up with presiding over the complete clusterfuck his reality plenum’s turned into, so he just decides to orchestrate a way to end it all. Pretty pathetic, but not all that surprising,” the mad scientist noted with dull disinterest. “And even if he does pull the metaphorical plug, the energy generated by such a cataclysmic event will be more than enough to serve my purposes. After that, I’ll be on my way to greener pastures, and I’m pretty sure the rest of you have no great attachment to this place, either.”
“Indeed,(italics employed to denote an otherworldly voice)” an otherworldly voice concurred. “Although I believe the most intriguing pair of potentialities to ponder are whether the Grand Magistrate shall actually allow his creation to claim victory in a climactic confrontation, thus annihilating this plenum in its entirety, or, as has previously been the case, shall he instead once again bestow his munificent favor upon his chosen champion, thus allowing this plenum to persist, even if its further tales go unchronicled.” As the voice went on, a prismatic polyhedron, covered in glowing technoglyphs, would waver and warp into being over the table, where it would continue to hover in midair. “Please pardon the intrusion,” the new arrival requested. “I simply could not help but overhear.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nykannis told the strange being with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “I actually considered inviting you to join us, but then I remembered that you usually couldn’t care less about this crap.”
“Quite true,” the bizarre entity agreed. “Yet, as it transpired, I was deeply immersed in my contemplations of the Micro and Macrocosmic ALL, when, suddenly, your conversation became the dominant aspect of my perception. Thus, unable to proceed until this pressing matter was addressed, I resolved to make my presence known among you. Ah, but I am once again getting ahead of myself,” the being added with a chuckle. “We nonlinear entities tend to do that from time to time. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Xozooth the Xorcerer, Paragonarch of Polymathamagicians and former Master of Xhar’doth. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintances.”
“Technically that’s just his brain,” Nykannis clarified, before looking up at polymathamagician. “And I see your sense of humor is as awful as ever…”
“I am pleased you noticed.”
”Yea…” Oros’s eyes shifted around the room. ”But the possibility that the bad guys might win is pretty cool. It would be fitting revenge from someone who spent the last six or so years doing the thankless work keeping the world running. From my understanding they didn’t do the best job. I mean in particular why let Penny be so OP? I just think I’m a lot more interesting and a huge crowd favorite.”
”Please don’t respond to that.” Aria encouraged the others.
”I was gunna do an epic monologue but it just doesn’t suit the mood, you know?” She approached the rift she had walked out of moments earlier. ”Anyway, there’s too many people here. I guess I’ll leave you girls and brains to gush about the queen. Can’t say I find her that interesting. Do keep an eye on me Nykannis, I think you’re gunna love what I do next!” And with that, she stepped out.
Aria raised her eyebrows. ”This conversation is already way over my head. I’ll take my leave. It was nice to meet you all again, as well as you, Xozooth.” Aria bowed one last time before following Oros. This time the rift snapped closed.
Jen comically blinked, then glanced towards Xozooth. ”I think you spooked ‘em off.” She casually commented. ”... Nah. They’ll be back.”
"What a charming couple! I hope to meet them again!” She walked over to the table where the brain hovered and sat in one of the chairs. "So what will you all do with this information? As Xozooth the Xorcerer pointed out, we don’t know what the magistrate’s exact plan is. I feel like this queen might actually just be another pawn in their plans.”
”There is no might. But you make a good point. I do have a plan in the works, but it’s rather barebones. Hopefully my deal can coax her into giving me more information.” Jennifer spoke up again. ”BUT the Queen isn’t the only concern we gotta talk about, is it?”
“Correct,” Nykannis confirmed, not seeming overly perturbed by the pair of departures. “Though patching up our favorite perpetual failure shouldn’t be particularly difficult, especially since Queenie was kind enough to provide me with a researchable (and thus replicable) sample of her power,” she added with a maniacal grin as she gestured to where her wounded appendage floated in its stasis field, the stream of thick black ink gushing from it frozen in midair. “The real question is, does any of this new information affect our plans for him? Like I said, I don’t much care one way or another how this all ends, although seeing Penny actually fail for once would be an interesting novelty.”
Wisdom let out a lighthearted chuckle. "I’ve honestly given up on Penny. I don’t even know why Mint is interested in her. We have her genetic makeup and can more or less clone her if we want, and she seems poised to load her sanctuary up and leave Penrose should anything happen. Almost feels like she cares as little about the place as you two do.” Wisdom spun to face the other magical girls. "I’m sure Mint would love to collaborate on an operation with you. I’d understand if you were apprehensive about trusting a cut throat like Al, but word on the street is that Chloe is trying to become a coin broker, and I think she’s smart enough to not betray potential business partners.”
“Great, another sex-obsessed pervert…” Nykannis sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it, although I don’t really see what help the Mint can be. I mean, it’d be laughably easy for Penny to take control of those stupid knock offs they made of her, and from what I hear they’re just as terrified of Wonderland as Beacon is.”
“Perhaps Miss Irving brings additional resources of her own into the equation?” Xozooth suggested. “And even if she does not, I believe her mere presence alone will prove considerably disruptive as far as Miss Asimov’s stability is concerned.”
"Chloe is a walking, talking, ball of entropy.” Wisdom nodded at the brain’s projection. "It would be giving her too much credit to call her a mastermind, but she is primarily responsible for the rave. She also had the salt to steal Divina right out from under Beacon and continues to work with a mysterious patron on a plan in the shadows. She’s no Veronica, but is even Veronica Veronica these days?” Wisdom held her chin while rapping her fingers on the table. "How do I put it? Chloe is a rare and beautiful type of plant, but she’s just a seedling. If she’s nurtured, something good will surely come of it. As for the Penny knockoffs, I think a certain scientist might be mad enough to fix them in such a way that even her highness couldn’t hope to hack them.”
“Okay, first off, the rave was a complete clusterfuck,” Nykannis replied flatly. “I mean, what did it even achieve? Secondly, fucking over Beacon is as easy as stealing candy from a blind, deaf, and paralyzed child, so I wouldn’t consider that a major accomplishment. And finally, while I could easily prevent the Brave Little Toaster from hacking into her dumbed-down doppelgängers (or, better yet, allow her to succeed, but install a hidden override to take back control at an opportune moment), would doing so even be worth it? This is the Grand Magistrate’s pet we’re talking about here. Just like Queenie, she gets special treatment, so not only would it probably fail to work, but she’d also find out who did it, and the last thing I want is to get on her bad side. That said,” the mad scientist added after a moment. “As long as I ensured nothing could be traced back to me, it could serve as an excellent test to see if her Protagonist Power is as strong as it used to be, especially in light of Queenie’s recent revelations…”
Wisdom raised an eyebrow at Nykannis. "I hadn’t realized Penny was a risk to your plans.” She folded her hands in her lap. "And my point was not that Chloe had done anything spectacular. I said myself she wasn’t a mastermind. It’s her legacy that makes her interesting. There are few magical girls around that have been around as long as she has. Penny, Alicia, and Mariette are the only ones that come to mind. Granted, she’s changed patrons since the rave. Old Lesud got what was coming to him in the end. Maybe the rave was more beneficial to Chloe than I originally anticipated.” She chuckled. "Do realize that Chloe has been working on a few machinations and I’m not liable to talk about them at this time. Let’s just say she’s gotten a bit of practice since her days of unleashing spirits on the street.” Wisdom stood up and strut towards Jen. "I understand you’ve decided to make Cradle your pawn. They weren’t my first choice, but they certainly aren’t a bad one.” She placed a hand on Jen’s shoulder. "I guess that makes us enemies for the time being. I doubt it will last forever, being as whimsical as Mint’s alliances are. But should our pawns come in contact with one another, let’s agree to let the children fight it out. Because if you help your pawns, I’m going to have to help mine.”
The false witch, having quietly been listening along to their conversation, grinned. "Undoubtedly! Would be less interesting if we didn't let them bicker amongst themselves!" For what Wisdom implied, she didn't seem to care much. "Someone's gotta salvage what they can from Cradle. Unless we somehow make it to where our little 'project' becomes the new leader?"
“Our ‘little project’ has a long way to go before he can even hope to do that,” Nykannis replied. “In particular, he needs to cultivate more Protagonist Power, a LOT more. And you can bet your ass Penny’s a risk to my plans, and anyone else’s for that matter! She has the favor of the Grand Magistrate himself, so naturally her Protagonist Power is off the fucking charts! The only way we can hope to get the one-eyed-reject anywhere close to her level is to ensure that he appears in more of the Incident Chronicle’s Patron Observable Event Transcripts than her mechanical majesty, which is why Jen and I have been arranging so many ‘tutoring sessions’ for him. It’s less about the training and knowledge he’s gaining and more about the Protagonist Power he’ll build up, since, when it comes down to it, that’s the only statistic that really matters,” the Monarch of Mad Science went on. “Physical and magical ability are essentially meaningless when going up against the magistrate’s chosen! Hell, even superior strategy and clever tactics count for jack shit, as what’s-her-tits illustrated so nicely during that ass shoving contest last month! No, Protagonist Power is where it’s at, and even then, I doubt he’ll stand much of a chance… ‘A’ is ‘a’, after all, and it seems like no matter what plenumic iteration you’re dealing with, Finnegan Vanhorn is always going to be a failure.”
"I couldn’t agree more, at least in regards to ‘protagonist power’ as you call it.” Wisdom ran her hand through her hair. "Like all the legacy magical girls, Mariette and Alicia have been showered with gifts from the divine, but they squander them on selfish ends. Alicia is unable to care about anything outside of Beacon, and Mariette is a brutal reminder that you can scheme for months and not have it go anywhere. Penny’s only advantage is that while her aims are no less selfish, she involves as many people as possible. Until very recently, she had allies all over the magical girl spectrum.” She shrugged her shoulders. "This is where Cradle as a whole fails. They change members faster than I change underwear, and their leader is a timid mouse that needs to take suggestions from a false witch to make any interesting plays. There’s no reason anyone would want to interact with them.”
Jen allowed the two to say their pieces, essentially coming to the same conclusion as last time: That there's no point in this hopeless endeavor. Her grin slowly dissipated, and a drawn-out groan slipped from her lips. "Dunno what the hell you want me to do then, not my fault she's been flanderized. I was hoping to knock some sense into her soon, but it ain't like we've been seeing any hooks for her to, y'know, actually be able to do shit! Bad-luck magnet or not, at least Finn put some effort in communicating to the other agents and all that crap. Until he got beheaded." Well, she suddenly wished she brought some whiskey now.
"Unfortunate I can't exactly skip to putting a bullet between Maura's eyes, apparently that's frowned upon. Kinda have to play nice." Jen shook her head in disdain.
"Yes, because sudden, unexpected shifts in leadership have been historically good for Cradle.” Wisdom giggled before glancing down at her wrist. "Well, it was fun to take in the sights and hear about how utterly screwed Penrose is, but I do have a little one to look after. So if you excuse me, I think I’ll take my leave.”
“Fine…” Nykannis grumbled. “I guess we’ve gone over everything that’s needed to be said, although I will note that an intelligent person doesn’t just wait for shit to happen to them, they make shit happen to other people. You need to be proactive, which is why ‘Wisdom’ here is doing all the legwork of visiting multiple reality plenums to cultivate potential agents,” she added with a smirk. “Yeah, I’ve been keeping up with your recent exploits,” the mad scientist confirmed with a smug nod. “And while I still don’t know what your ultimate goal is, I trust it’ll be suitably entertaining.”
“Fair travels, Miss Fang,” Xozooth bade the departing young woman. “If you happen to cross paths with my former apprentice, do pass on my regards.”
"Will do!” Wisdom walked backwards as she spoke to Xozooth. "He enjoyed your letter, if I recall. He’s grown accustomed to your sense of humor.” And with that, the agent faded from view.
Jen had held a finger up and opened her mouth to speak after Nykannis, but frankly? How was she supposed to argue with that. Soon as Wisdom took her leave, she soon deflated with grace. "Fuckin' hell..." She mumbled.
“So, I guess that’s that,” Nykannis muttered. “You gonna be okay?” she added, turning to Jen.
"Eh?" Jen glanced back at her. "I mean, yeah? Can't exactly afford not to be."
“Just checking,” Nykannis replied. “And don’t worry,” she added. “Even if this reality plenum gets totally fucked, I’m sure you’ll still make out just fine. Like me and Xozooth here, you’re a survivor.”
Survivor. Right. Jen nodded in response, a more genuine smile on her face this time.
“Speaking of survival,” Xozooth spoke up. “It has come to my attention that your acquaintance, Miss Natalie, has attracted the attention of no small number of ill-intentioned and considerably powerful parties,” the eldritch brain added. “I trust that you and Doctor Kannis have formulated suitable protective measures for her, yes? Or would it better serve your interests if she were removed from the equation?”
"Oh, that." Jennifer blinked. "Weeeeeell as much as I can pull a few strings behind the scenes, I doubt any of her agents (or the other witches) would be happy if they had to go a damn month without access to the Cradle, asides from any emotional attachment they may have to their boss." She shrugged. "Besides! I heard the pay's gonna be quite handsome! If they play their cards right, they can swindle some coin from whoever-the-hell decided to send the hit out!"
“You really think they’re gonna be so dense as to not know they’re hiring her own agents?” an incredulous Nykannis sneered. “Then again, both the Mint and Beacon have proven themselves to be run by a bunch of complete morons, so I guess it actually could work…” she added, thoughtfully tapping a finger against her chin.
The false witch merely shrugged again.
"So now what?"
“Well, since it looks like our little meeting is over, I’m gonna get back to discovering all the secrets this thing has to share,” Nykannis replied, gesturing to where her amputated, mystical ink-leaking appendage floated in its stasis field. “But you can stick around and watch, if you want.”
"Hm... Eh, got nothing better to do."
“I believe I shall take my leave of you now,” Xozooth announced. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Jennifer,” the polygonal polymathamagician added, before wavering out of existence.
“Yeah, whatever,” Nykannis muttered as she got back to work, an arc of holographic display screens and multi-spheroid meta-molecular models winking into place around her. “Just you watch, Jen,” she told the false witch. “Soon I’ll learn everything there is to know about Queenie’s precious Storyslayer. Then I’ll reverse engineer it, improve upon it. I’ll show that cocky bitch just how big a mistake she made when she decided to mess with the Monarch of Mad Science! Nyahahaha! Yes, she’ll learn…” the mad scientist added, a maniacal gleam in her eyes. “It’s simply a matter of time…”
