Most Likely A Refuge

[whatamithinking]

It was probably safe.

The bar was...unusually reticent, in the lower layers of her mind (and she hadn't pried further; she wasn't sure if she'd be noticed; she wasn't sure if offending would get her kicked out, and regardless of whether it was actually safe it was safer than anywhere else she'd been for the past...three years?) so she couldn't be sure this place wasn't really a trap of some kind, but the higher layers gave a plausible explanation that didn't involve being a trap, and whatever else it was warm and dry and had food. Her guard was probably a full 25% down. Positively trusting, these days.

Comments

[whatamithinking]

"For, uh, purposes of studying differences between alternate universes, I should probably mention I'm straight," the other Edie says, eyes still firmly on her book.

[onceandforall]

"Good for you."

[whatamithinking]

"...I mean, in the absence of any other alts to learn things from, it is potentially useful information on how we vary," Cerebella admits.

[onceandforall]

"Yes, yes."

[whatamithinking]

"...So, you...needed me to hold the door for you so you can take advantage of my world's awesome magic. Um. You...said your parents were dead, do you want to...hug mine or something? Because my Mom and Dad are home, and this was going to be my front door, until it wasn't."

"...I think I had better not," the other one says after a moment of looking incredibly conflicted. "Differences and...stuff. Um. I'll just...do the magic thing and then flee like a coward, probably."

[onceandforall]

"Well, if you'd feel a sense of accomplishment from hugging her parents..."

[whatamithinking]

"...I think probably not, but it's...a good thought. Anyway." She gives her alt a look. Cerebella rolls her eyes a little, and opens the door. The other one darts through it.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Given how distracted she is, the beginning is a great deal like looking up and realizing you'd wandered somewhere you hadn't been expecting to while lost in thought. She hadn't gotten a particularly good look at her alt's living room, but this is not it. It's as though she was suspended in midair in the center of a mass of swirling lines, that gradually clear out to form shapes and images.

Her world. It can only be hers, of the three, because it's dotted with minds of a familiar kind--mutants. Too few, far too few, and more winking out all the time as the Sentinels reap their bloody work.

The image dissolves, and reforms--one of the deadly metal creatures, looming over a screaming woman. A barrier springs up between them. Protection, murmurs a voice from nowhere.

Another Sentinel, shifting rubble out of the way to reach the young boy it was shielding, raising an arm to--crush him, or spear him through the chest, or something. It halts, shuddering--and collapses in on itself. Vengeance, the voice whispers. (She hates herself, a little, because she has gotten to the point where that sounds more appealing.)

She sees herself, older, wiping out a horde of them with a single magical blast. She sees others. She sees her sister, in an outfit not much less ridiculous than the one her alt had been wearing. She sees a girl with purple skin being offered a similar choice.

I will follow you, the voice murmurs. Your people need not be powerless. You can be the vanguard of a new era. A leader, as those before you were, and would have continued to be. You are not broken beyond repair.

She sees herself, laughing, face lined with past grief but not so overburdened by it that she cannot walk forwards.

[whatamithinking]

She says yes almost before it offers her the choice.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Power fills her as though she had been merely an empty vessel waiting for it. Her entire being glows with potential, and the channels to exersize it are obvious

[whatamithinking]

Leg sweeps out and up into a balletesque pirouette, arms outstretched, twirl--hands up, crossed over her forehead as her clothes dissolve into her own magical girl uniform--hands strike down at a diagonal, now holding--whips? Really? That look like vines with black thorns--

"Fear, devourers of kin! Flee, evildoers unto the innocent! The Rose of Defiance is come, and there is no promise of mercy for the spillers of blood in her heart!"

[onceandforall]

"Not a bad name," Bella comments.

[whatamithinking]

"It really isn't. I...don't think either of yours came up."

[onceandforall]

"Salvation Jewel Princess."

[whatamithinking]

"Psychic Maiden Cerebella."

[whatamithinking]

"Not terrible, but yeah I like mine better."

[onceandforall]

"You're very thematically thorny."

[whatamithinking]

She looks down at her rose-petal mid-thigh skirt, and at her forearms. She has bracers. With roses like corsages on the wrists, and otherwise--thorns, yep. "Indeed. Well, I can't say I don't feel thorny."

[onceandforall]

"My magical girlnesses played pretty nice with each other. I got shinier colors but the same basic costume design I already had."

[whatamithinking]

"This kind of magical girlness...does seem like the kind of thing that plays well with others."

[onceandforall]

"More or less, yeah."

[whatamithinking]

"I want to know what my spell is, but...I'm not getting a strong sense from it that it's meant to be used indoors."

"If you got a heavy hitting combat spell for your first...I will be slightly jealous but not necessarily surprised given your situation."

[onceandforall]

"There's a backyard, but don't hurt the squid."

[whatamithinking]

"Squid?"

[onceandforall]

"There's a giant squid in the lake, who is a long-term resident and should not be shot at."