counterfeit

[onceandforall]

This. This is a good bar.

She does not mind taking counterfeit currency and she sells everything.

Bella is going to exploit the fuck out of that but first she is eating really, really good pad thai and finally talking to a person who is a) interesting b) not someone she has already talked to a lot in the last... several years. Lovely friendly bar who makes a lovely delicious pad thai! Bella will have to try opening that door at that moment again in the past.

Comments

[onceandforall]

Okay. Let's see how fucked up a transformation phrase she gets.

Bella balances on the toes of one foot, kicks the other one up behind her with maximally bent knee, and taps the shield in its wristwatch position on her left arm with her right index finger. "Eternal Determination for a Perfect Future, the moment is now! I'll go through and around anything that stands in my way!" She glows. She does a backflip. Her costume stays mostly the same, mercifully; the gray goes brightly silver and the purple intensifies, that's all. "With all the time in the world, I am forever the one and only Salvation Jewel Princess!"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Her brand new magic sense informs her that she has a spell available. It feels...cleansing, somehow. Does she want to cast it?

[onceandforall]

First she wants to shuffle back into Milliways.

Then: yes, let's give it a whirl.

[maggie_of_the_owls]

When she nudges the spell with her mind, the incantation bubbles to her lips as naturally and irresistibly as the transformation phrase had.

[onceandforall]

"Shining Jewel Purification!"

...

"Wow. I am so glad I met you. I wonder if I can do this for other people. Short-circuit the entire ecology."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I have no idea what that did! But congratulations, I guess. Nifty outfit, at any rate."

[whatamithinking]

"Also, hi, I'm back, time apparently flows at different rates in different parts of Milliways."

[onceandforall]

"Welcome back. I am apparently Salvation Jewel Princess, which could have been worse, and it makes my costume look like glossy wrapping paper but doesn't do anything unfortunate to my modesty, and I can clear my soul gem with a spell, holy fuck."

[whatamithinking]

"...And this restores your magic like the evil seed things do?"

[onceandforall]

"Yes. And the evil seed things are why we can't just wipe out all the witches. I mean, this is still going to be stupidly hard to do, aforementioned world-ending witch, etcetera, but a lot of puella magi actively let witches grow and bud because that is how we get the evil seed things is killing witches after, and only after, they are big enough. If I can learn to do this for other people, if I can do it enough times a day and spend most of my life on airplanes making sure everybody gets a turn - we don't need witches which means we don't need random human witch fertilizer committing suicide and murder and arson and industrial sabotage which means girls who are currently puella magi and not witches yet can just stay that way. ...I may not have actually mentioned that if we run totally out of charge this provokes the turning into a witch thing? I can completely bypass the intended life-cycle. Stick it to those evil fucking furballs."

[whatamithinking]

"That is fantastic."

[onceandforall]

"Yes!"

[whatamithinking]

"You know...if you really, really want a particular kind of spell, and you think about it a lot, and especially if you manage to have one of your milestones be related to it, you can get spells that are particularly useful instead of just thematically appropriate. So you could maybe learn to teleport."

[onceandforall]

"Well, that'd save me a lot in airline miles, now, wouldn't it. How about magical translation, is that on the menu?"

[whatamithinking]

"I don't see why not. I haven't heard of anyone doing that in particular off the top of my head but there are spells that give you information about things."

[onceandforall]

"...Magical translation seems readily possible and nobody's picked it up? Really?"

[whatamithinking]

"I'm not saying no one has, I'm saying I haven't met anyone who mentioned having it. Not quite the same thing."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah, I guess it wouldn't necessarily stand out enough that you'd have heard of, it's not flashy. Any tips on spell aiming?"

[whatamithinking]

"Want it. Attach an emotional significance to it, that is, not just objectively prefer it. Spend a little time every now and then thinking about how it would fit into whatever themes your magic seems to have. Consistently getting into situations where it would have been useful to have it helps but I can't particularly recommend it even so. I heard of a girl in Thule or Sweden or something, somewhere Scandinavianish anyway, who managed to attach enough emotional significance to a chain of spells that getting each one supplied the necessary personal achievement to get the next, but no one's been able to replicate it since."

[onceandforall]

"I mean, if I want translation there are all kinds of situations where it would be really useful but I can get by without if I have to. And I can work up a good mad about having to be on an airplane easy."

[whatamithinking]

"Sounds like working on teleporting's your best bet, then, at least until you get it.

"...You know, maybe once you've got a stable system set up, you could try and work on getting introspection spells."

[onceandforall]

"Sounds like fun. ...I do still have to figure out how to save the world. I now have an idea what I'll do with it after I've managed, but while being able to cleanse my soul gem means that I can fight the Walpurgisnacht - technical term for a really big witch - for hours and hours, I can still only do that if it doesn't physically crush my gem and send me back to my reset point. I have some downtime while looping and might get introspection sooner than 'when I've got a stable system'. Although who knows, I can stay in Milliways for a decade if I want now, maybe I'll come home with even more cool magic powers sufficient to one-hit-kill the thing."

[whatamithinking]

"Well, I don't know what you've been doing so far this loop, it might be better to start over the once to erase any ordinarily poor life choices you made under the assumption that you wouldn't have to deal with them, but yeah."

[onceandforall]

"I did stow away on a plane. But I didn't get caught. I'd reset to avoid the fluffs knowing things I don't care to share with them, though. And then I still have to find out where the blasted thing is before it comes down the western seaboard. It'd be faster to track down if I could bring people with me and divide the work. Be nice to do that for other reasons too. Two loops ago a puella magi in, where was I, Calgary, she hit on me, and, like - I have explained how I feel about all this looping but even if I explained it to her and she was cool about it, that would be extra layers of weird. Being forgotten."

[whatamithinking]

"Yeah, that...that doesn't sound like fun. So you like girls?"