prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .012

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You awaken amidst the darkness with only a faint light to greet you. Your body is hemmed in by shards of crystals, gently sparkling and possibly pricking your skin. The surrounding landscape is dyed in the pinks and purples of the dusk filled with crystals protruding from the ground, some as large as a skyscraper. After an hour or two of wandering through the crystal wilderness, a group of people find you worse for wear. They are the gallant Moon Knights from the planet of Prismatica. Because of the strange phenomena during the past months when scientists observed the sudden appearance of rainbow crystals in the sky, the government has been feverishly combing through the moon for more Moonblessed to be rescued. You’ll eventually be brought into Iris’s moon government center.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They tell you about their world and about the first appearance of the Moonblessed as the medical staff give you an examination to make sure you’re not carrying any viruses or biological hazards. If you react violently, you may be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. Once the examinations are over, you’re informed that you will be provided accommodations on their planet during your stay. You will then be escorted to the docks, and led onto a large transport vessel that makes frequent trips back and forth between the Iris moon and the planet. Faces onboard vary from both old and new Moonblessed as well as the local Prismals.

The next destination: Prismatica.

▶ I am the Terror That Flaps in the Night
Iris Moon, Government Center (Arrival) and Planet Prismatica, City of Lunatia | top

Welcome to Prismatica’s hub, Lunatia, the city of your dreams! A bustling metropolis lush with bright lights, vibrant colors, luxuriant plant life, and all the conveniences of technology absent from your own world… It seems like paradise to all the uninitiated. After a quick tour of the city, new arrivals can find themselves getting cozy in their new homes.

A Settle in your new home at Level 2 to find new roommates and say hello to your neighbors! City officials will give you directions to the designated districts across Level 2 and instruct you to pick out a unit. Each apartment complex has a different aesthetic, some may look cozy, some stylish, and some bizarre. The free accommodations have a basic living space that can only fit two or three people at most in one unit.

Starter Chromaspace furnishings are provided which can be controlled with the touch of a built-in panel. Examples are color-changing curtains, transforming sofa beds, cabinets turning into tables, etc. Customizing your apartment or moving out will have to wait until you earn more chroma. Until then, why don’t you check out your new neighborhood or explore the city levels? Maybe your new roommates or neighbors can give you a “hand” with allowance for dinner.

B Your new flat is covered in a sprinkling of feathers here, there, and everywhere! They appear to be coming through the air vents. This seems to be a city-wide problem in all buildings, as many news outlets are informing people to stay alert. They believe the feathers are from the masked seraphim, King Majestas, who attacked the Elaran Amphitheater a few weeks back.

You are advised to destroy the feathers on sight. Prolonged contact with these feathers cause hallucinations and paranoia. You will feel as if winged creatures are always after you, be it one-winged angels or dark-winged ducks. Other side effects include hearing the chanting of voices in an indecipherable language out of this galaxy. These hallucinations may cause headaches, dizziness, or nausea. Thankfully, a bit of moonlacing will heal these symptoms away.

▶ Got Milk?
Level 2, Crystal Beach | top

With the Coiled Hearts Festival fast approaching, local fishermen have already begun procuring food across Crystal Beach’s clear waters to meet next month’s demands. Around this time of year, the popularity of octopus dishes dramatically rises. The Lunatians have an annual tradition to prepare flavorful octopus dishes for the romantic season, such as the much-lauded dark chocolate-coated octopus or the mouth-watering octopus braised with red wine.

Everyone is welcome to join this heart-throbbing affair. During the Second and Third months, everyone is encouraged to give your loved ones something special for a long, successful relationship. Friends, family, and new acquaintances are traditionally given a small amount of Demichroma in tiny cute cases, while lovers are given something that reminds the gifter of their homeland.

A Interested in catching your own octopus? Horned taurus octopi very frequently migrate to the shorelines to perform their elaborate mating rituals. It’s easy to find clumps of taurus octopi participating in a vigorous dance, filled with undulations and strange moaning noises that octopi should not be making. You can lure the octopi by either using a special flute which mimics their moans to gather them in heavy droves. It’s ideal to have a partner with you to scoop the octopi quickly into water containers once they’ve become entranced enough.

Play the flute carefully! If the taurus octopi grow too excited by your music, they will squirt white ink. If you are spritzed with the thick substance, you will start either randomly puking or uncontrollably secreting a milky sweet substance from any body part that secretes liquids. Luckily, the high-end boutique Prissy Polyp is nearby in case you need a change of clothes due to any sizable stains. Effects will naturally wear off after an hour.

B Come with a friend and enjoy learning some octopus recipes together. The Crystal Beach Resort has opened a seminar where several professional chefs will be demonstrating and teaching how to cook various dishes of different flavors and ingredients guaranteed to impress your date, and taste-testing is free!

One dish makes use of horned taurus octopi skin as the star ingredient, renowned for its irresistibly delectable scent. The chefs explain the palatable skin is a potent ingredient in various love potions and aphrodisiacs, so add or mix them to your dishes in moderation! The effects have a significant delay, so you may feel fine for a while, but when it hits, it hits hard. You will become enamored with every little thing — hey, you just met them and this is crazy — but that person’s smile, the sound of their voice, or the way they say your name will make you unable to resist the urge to shower them with your affection.

▶ Going Viral
Level 2, Moonlight Medical Center | top

“Help Wanted” posters can be found on virtual forums and announcement boards across Level 1 to 3. The Moonlight Medical Center has put out a call for volunteers due to a recent shortage of medical staff. The work involves filling in for overworked nurses, performing tasks such as feeding patients their meals, wiping away their sweat, changing their clothes, encouraging their spirits, and so on. Any volunteers may directly walk-in at the hospital. You will be provided a nurse uniform and any necessary equipment while on the job.

The shortage has resulted from the hospital recently taking in a severe number of patients from a nearby small village to the west of Lunatia, Port Sylvel, a known shipping and freight destination. The number of patients worryingly keeps on rising by the day and will soon fill all available rooms.

A Some of the patients are experiencing varying degrees of paralysis. The worst cases have crystallizing parts of their body. The hospital staff will stress that you should be careful around patients with crystallized limbs. Patients like these have a history of aggressively biting anyone who comes close hard enough to draw blood. Those bitten will exhibit similar symptoms as the victims, including crystallization on their bodies, and experience a steady drop in Chroma. An uncomfortable heaviness will cause you unable to move without the aid of others as well as an uncontrollable urge to aggressively bite someone.

While affected Moonblessed can cure it by moonlacing, the Prismals can only be cured by a gluteal inoculation the Lunar Scientia has recently managed to develop. The sick and beleaguered will probably hate you less if you aren’t the one trying to stabbing them with injections in the hindquarters.

B Aside from nursing duties, other available tasks to be completed include making coffee for fellow nurses and doctors, delivering flowers to patients, and general housekeeping. Specifically, disinfecting medical equipment, tidying up rooms, and cleaning the spaces around the hospital. As a result of the current situation, many crystal shards can be found decorating multiple surfaces, such as floors, walls, toilet seats, and so on. These will have to be swept away!

However, as your work day progresses, some of the shards can be seen suddenly moving on their own. These crawling shards will start clustering together to turn into elaborate, floating monolithic formations that will then begin attacking anyone nearby. Their main ability includes shooting diamond spears to impale any unfortunate victims in their line of sight. In the midst of the chaos, nurses and doctors will beg the Moonblessed to please protect the sick and wounded. The crystal formations can be destroyed by any method, though because of their incredibly sturdy composition, they require multiple hits before they shatter into dust.

▶ Questions
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Aqua thinks about it for a moment, before shaking her head. And then she remembers that Kairi can't see it, so she has to speak.

"Not right now. Trying to learn magic in this situation will likely just put you in more danger rather than help." Another diamond spear comes towards them, and Aqua holds out a hand, focusing and letting her barrier magic appear around the two of them, keeping it from hitting them.

"I'll be happy to give you a lesson on it when we're not in danger though."

"Still, that's very much appreciated!" Kairi takes a deep, shuddering breath as she surveys the forces arrayed against her and the Keyblade Master. There were way too many. Even though Aqua seemed more than competent, even she had trouble taking them down. Kairi was not dying or getting crystallized or whatever here, she needed to-

In, out. She had to think of something. Kairi only had a few tricks up her sleeve. Not even a few, just one, really. So what could she do with it? Her eyes dart from enemy to enemy, peeking over Aqua's shoulder, and then she comes to her conclusion.

"When I say duck, duck." Kairi pauses for a few moments, then yells, "DUCK!" at the top of her lungs before throwing her keyblade at one of the crystals. It spins through the air, picking up momentum until it rebounds off the monster, leaving a deep crack. Except Kairi doesn't recall it back to her hand. Instead, she crouches, letting Destiny's Embrace bounce off the next crystal, then the next, then the one after that, leaving wide gouges in all of them.

With the entities momentarily stunned, Kairi catches her keyblade. "Hopefully that weakened all of them enough for one clean hit to take all of 'em out. One my cue: three, two, one... NOW!"

Edited 2020-02-09 03:01 (UTC)

Thankfully, Aqua doesn't take a moment to try to ask Kairi what she meant. As soon as she hears the command to duck, she's bending down, hoping that whatever the other woman is doing isn't going to cause any problems. Unlike the Kairi she knew, this one wasn't trained so...

Wait, was that a Strike Raid? It sure looked like a Strike Raid. And an advanced one at that, considering that it hit multiple targets and was still able to leave a pretty impressive gash in all of them. And with them stunned like that, they're just close enough for that to possibly work. As far as she could tell, they weren't all that close to the patient's rooms, so...

"Stay behind me!"

With that order, Aqua points her keyblade forward, magic glowing at the tip of it as a bigger ball of flame begins to grow rapidly.B

"Firaga!"

Which then shoots forward towards one of the crystals, obliterating it while magic still lingered on her keyblade as she focused on her next target before sending off another blast of her magic towards another one. That just left them with two more- which were now no longer stunned and summoning two spears to head right towards them.

Or rather right towards her, so Aqua focuses and summons her barrier again, managing to block both spears even though it does actually put her back a bit. If only Kairi also knew how to do that she might be able to get in closer...

"The next time they do that I think I'll be able to move in closer to one to attack it before it can fire the spear again. Do you think you'll be able to dodge any attacks from the other one if both of them don't focus on me?"

"KIAI!"

Kairi rushes forward before Aqua can give her final instructions, spinning around to add extra momentum to her strike before shattering both golems in one blow.

Bless that super strength, really. Comes in handy.

Aqua just stares at Kairi. And the crystal monsters. Or the dust that was the crystal monsters, more accurately. Looking around for a moment and seeing that no, all the monsters were taken care of, she just... dismisses her keyblade and takes a good look at Kairi.

Because at this point she's really confused. That was not something that Aqua was used to seeing from Kairi.

"That's... not what I was expecting. Though it is effective..."

Kairi might not have experience. Or training. Or a keyblade before a few days ago. But she does have raw brute strength, and sometimes? That's enough.

She rests Destiny's Embrace across her shoulders and gives Aqua a cheeky smile. "The throwing spin thing and hitting Heartless really hard are the only tricks I have. I've learned to use them pretty well."

Aqua nods, not really sure what to say but she knows that she kinda has to say something. "You've certainly done well with both of those. I'd say you're off to a pretty good start."

Of course, this just doesn't fit at all with, well, anything she knew about Kairi. And she knew Kairi pretty well after being here for almost a year with her... which led entirely to another train of thought that she didn't want to think about right now.

"But something isn't making sense here. I've never seen you do that before, and after we meet again you would've done that if you were able to..."

"Hmmm." Kairi rubs her chin, thinking, then snaps her fingers as she realizes Aqua's mistake. It was the same one she'd made earlier in the day.

"Oh! You're probably from the same weird universe that the Kairi who first came here is from. The one where she likes boys for some reason? There's... some weird differences there, that's for sure."

lots of them, really, and that's the one kairi fixates on

Aqua blinks, and stares at Kairi for a few moments before what exactly she's saying actually gets through to her brain. That was just... nowhere near as ridiculous as it should be, actually.

"That's... so she's still here?" There's a pause from Aqua for a moment, before she shakes her head. "Wait, of course she is. Sora and Riku would've mentioned something if she went home. Still, I don't understand why how strong you are physically would be different between two different... timelines though." At least to that extent. Not to mention the whole sexuality thing which she wasn't going to comment on right now.

Kairi shrugs. "For what it's worth, I don't really understand either." She really, really doesn't. In the heat of the moment, when everything was going to the Realm and there was no time to think, her odd strength was a blessing. Now that she had time to question it... yeah, it's a bit weird.

"But hey, it came in useful back at the Castle that Never Was and it's saving my life here, so I'm not going to complain."

Aqua blinks at that last comment, wondering where it came from before she speaks again. "I'm not saying that you should be complaining about having it. If anything my... universe's," she trails of, wondering if that's really the right word to describe what's going on. But it's good enough for now.

"My universe's Kairi should be the one complaining about not having it if anything."

Especially since this Kairi wasn't using magic or anything to increase her strength. The sheer amount of damage she should be able to do once she was would just be nuts.

Kairi opens her mouth to respond, but the distant melody of crystals crashing into the wall and the screams of the patients interrupt her. Right. This was a disaster zone. That had to be taken care of first; she and Aqua could gab all they like after the monoliths were gone.

"We should probably clear out the rest of this floor, make sure that all the patients are safe. You with me?"

Right, of course there were more of those crystal monsters running around. She really should've been expecting that. "Yes, let's go. The sooner we either evacuate everyone or take care of those things, the better."

And with that said, she's going to go ahead and run off in the direction of the sounds, grip tightening on her keyblade as she did so.

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▶ TDM .012

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love me some short tags for comedic effect

They're brilliant

i love that the kh2 manga gives kairi super strength for no reason

Yeah, that's hilariously amazing.

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smash cut to post-battle after aqua's tag?

Sounds good!