TOPIC: [R4 B-Rank] DreamRise and Last Light in Lemont, One Member Goes Down
[08:43:15] biigdiigfan: Uploading everything decent I found from this mission. @chshr shot most of it on his setup. Everything else is trash quality or censored by the corpo lizards. Tbh, I’m a fan of both these teams, so it’s a little fucked up but I know you guys like this shit
*****.magi/a/******
*****.magi/a/******
*****.magi/a/******
*****.magi/a/******
*****.magi/a/******
[09:00:12] pairofdocks: ur a fan of these nobodies lol? then u were probably ready for one of them to get smoked rip
[09:03:48] chshr: i wouldnt say theyre nobodies but they were out of their depth. the only reason they were there was because R4 wants to kick out teams from other regions
[09:08:11] pairofdocks: wtf what a dumb idea
[09:32:09] jubbly2277: heard their sec is trying to cut costs and pocket the difference. hes got an expensive habit iykwim
[10:10:27] sailor_swoon: Just watched the vids, thanks. Why are they on this mission together if they have no chemistry?
[10:11:51] sayachi: @sailor_swoon dont you kno? they fuckng hate each other lol. their captains had a legit catfight during the indiemagie lmao
[10:28:32] southerntiger: the cute one beat the shit out of the emo one lol
[11:00:23] sailor_swoon: So they poached this mission for revenge maybe?
[11:01:15] sayachi: @sailor_swoon i think heartbreak wanted to kill petals but her bf got in the way oof
[11:39:41] sneckoeye: thats not her bf. itd be like dating your coworker. she probably wants a normal dude
[11:42:30] sayachi: @sneckoeye bro thinks he has a chance lmaooo
[12:24:13] nekopunch: What a fucking disaster. Imagine living in Region 4. Boring as shit and your magical girls can’t even keep you safe.
[12:58:54] korect: it’s a magical girl’s job to die if she needs to. who cares
[13:00:18] sayachi: @korect this was a dude tho
[13:02:04] korect: @sayachi ???? i REALLY dont care then
[13:37:33] FoggyPetals: @korect stfu he’s not dead! and how sad does your own life have to be that you can joke about something like that
[13:39:46] sayachi: @FoggyPetals oh shes finally here lmao. bummer about your ship huh?
[13:51:55] u10na: @FoggyPetals @sayachi what a way to get torpedoed
[14:01:04] FoggyPetals: @u10na @sayachi i hope the next cruelty kills both of you. fucking trash
[14:04:35] u10na: @FoggyPetals ill probably be ok, ive got real magical girls in my region
[14:06:22] sayachi: @u10na they had 7 ppl and they still destroyed a city block and got dropped lol
[14:37:00] R4R_Obsolete: Region 1 morons get distracted by flashing lights and bright colors. No wonder they talk shit about other teams. Your parents should have made you go outside more when you were a kid.
[14:37:00] R4R_Reckoning: bunch of sick fucks making fun of something serious on the internet. Raindrop and all her team could kick your ass irl even without transforming
[14:37:00] R4R_Totality: fuck the haters, in a year everyone’s gonna be saying they were always a Last Light fan. but we’ll remember
[14:39:12] sayachi: @R4R_Totality if theyre even still around in a year lol
[16:59:54] pinpondachi: jfc another thread brigaded by the puddles. can we just ban them? theyre basically bots
[18:58:05] biigdiigfan: Heartbreak doing an interview on MGC tonight apparently. Seems like a bad idea, but maybe we’ll get new info. I’ll post a vod after if it ends up being good
“Don’t read that crap,” Adah said. “You’re just going to make yourself mad.”
Ami waved her hand but continued scrolling through the thread. She had sunk halfway into the agency lobby couch and seemed content to let the cushions continue to swallow her.
“I was already mad,” she said. “Reading this just gives me more targets to direct my anger at. It’s therapeutic.”
“If you say so,” Adah said. Though, she had to admit Ami did look quite relaxed at the moment. “Hey, does this look good?”
Adah leaned toward Ami and tilted her head between a few different angles. She was indeed taking an interview tonight—in just over an hour at this point. She was already transformed into Twilight Heartbreak, but she had made a few adjustments to her typical design for tonight.
In addition to all the music tips Sheffa had given Adah, she’d also offered advice on how best to update Heartbreak’s design with horns that grew seamlessly from Adah’s head. With proper horns instead of ornaments, Adah could afford to mix up her hairstyle as well. Tonight, she was abandoning her twintails for a long ponytail, tied high on her head and accompanied by some sharply styled bangs that framed her face.
She was hoping this new style would make her seem a bit older and more serious on camera. The twintails were cute but less mature, and tonight deserved a colder version of Heartbreak—both out of respect for Ekki and to better serve Adah’s plan.
“You’re asking me?” Ami said.
“Obviously,” Adah said. “Do the horns look natural? Do I seem tougher? Would you want to start a fight with me?”
Ami laughed and said, “You’re half my size. I wouldn’t be scared to fight ten of you. But, I mean, yeah you look cool.”
That wasn’t as reassuring as Adah had hoped, but she knew Ami would have told her if she looked stupid. She only got one chance to make the right impression tonight, and she couldn’t afford to screw it up on something like a hairdo.
The conversation around this mission had veered away from what mattered. That forum Ami was reading was only one example—the news, the fans, and even Thibault were all trying to steer discussion toward their own interests. Adah couldn’t afford to hide away until this all blew over, or the Last Light would blow over as well.
Like she’d told Emi, when something was new, there was a short period during which you could control the conversation. Whether it was a magical girl debut or a tragic mission like this, you just had to tell people what you wanted them to think and give them a reason to believe you.
“Car’s ready,” Grace said, poking her head through the agency doors. “They want you half an hour early for hair and makeup, so we should get going.”
“They’re not touching my hair.”
☆☆☆
Were lights on a television set always this bright?
Adah knew there were a bunch of cameras and crew members behind those lights, but she couldn’t see a thing through the glare. Around the edges of the blinding light, the world turned into a sea of darkness.
“Heartbreak,” a voice called out from an overhead speaker. “Could you turn toward Rebecca, please? We need your face for white balance.”
Adah did as she was told and turned toward the news anchor sitting across from her, a woman of roughly middle age with designer glasses and a dark green blazer. The two of them were seated on a pair of tall stools placed in an otherwise bland set. Adah thought such a set must look boring on TV, but this arrangement was beneficial for her anyway. The less interesting the background was, the more attention would be drawn to Heartbreak.
“We really appreciate you speaking to us so soon after yesterday’s mission,” the anchor Rebecca said. “The public places a lot of value on the perspective of those who were in the battle. As they should.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Adah said curtly. “This is going to be live, right?”
After a few blinks and a delayed smile, Rebecca said, “It will be. You were informed ahead of time, I hope?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just making sure.”
Rebecca stared at her, but Adah glanced around the set again. The crew must have finished whatever they needed her to look straight ahead for, since they didn’t say anything else until it was time to roll.
The same voice that had spoken earlier counted them down until the program went live. Rebecca started the segment off by talking to a camera, recapping some background on the mission and setting the stage for tonight’s interview. Then, she turned back to Adah and introduced the magical girl Twilight Heartbreak. Adah didn’t pay much attention to any of that until Rebecca started the interview in earnest.
“I want to begin by saying we are all very sorry to see what happened to your fellow magic user,” the anchor said. “We’re wishing him all the best in his recovery, as is everyone watching at home.”
That made for as good a starting point as any, Adah figured. No reason to waste time—they only gave her eight minutes of airtime, after all.
“I don’t want you to feel sorry,” Adah said. “I want you to feel mad.”
“Mad?” Rebecca repeated.
Not enough Twilight Heartbreak. Now that she was part of the Last Light, she couldn’t be just an angry girl in a costume. Heartbreak would have a particular way of speaking and a unique approach to framing her ideas. She was disgraced royalty out for revenge.
Shouldn’t be too hard to channel.
“The knight has done nothing but fight for his region, and in return they sent him to die,” Heartbreak said. “His injury was no accident. It was a punishment. That’s why you should be mad.”
Rebecca remained silent. She glanced off into the shadowy void behind the set lights, then looked back at Adah. A producer must have started speaking to her through her ear piece; she blinked in understanding.
That was fine. Listen to them. Adah knew what these producers wanted. They wanted drama, for Heartbreak to cause a scene. Lucky them—that’s what she wanted, too.
“My understanding was that DreamRise and the Last Light were both training to fight a B-Rank Cruelty soon,” Rebecca continued. “How was accepting a mission for that purpose a punishment?”
“DreamRise took too long to meet expectations,” Heartbreak said. “They were commanded to take that mission not because they were prepared, but because they weren’t. It didn’t matter if they all died. If they couldn’t handle a B-Rank, then their commander had no use for them anyway.”
“By ‘commander,’ do you mean—”
“Roland Thibault. He deemed DreamRise a failed experiment, and decided to dispose of them. He sent them to their death and ordered the Last Light to stand back. He might have succeeded in ridding himself of DreamRise, but I decided I didn’t much approve of his plans.”
Though she couldn’t hear any sound from Rebecca’s ear piece, Adah could tell from the look on the anchor’s face that the device was about to explode from all the voices shouting through it.
A magical girl had just accused, on live television, the Secretary of Magic of trying to have a team of magic users killed.
It was a lie, but not one that Thibault could defend himself against. From the outside, the pressure he’d put on DreamRise would look no different from sacrificing them. Iris certainly wouldn’t speak up to defend him either. Adah had also taken the initiative on suggesting he’d ordered her team to stand down. Their late arrival to the mission would only reinforce that idea in the mind of the public.
The whole story was something out of a soap opera, but that’s what the media wanted. Adah was happy to provide them with a scandal if it meant she could control the conversation.
Now she just needed to get people to want to believe Heartbreak. A little charm would do the trick.
Rebecca must have gotten her marching orders from the production team, as she followed up with another question, “This is a bold accusation for a magical girl to make against her Secretary. Are you worried about making such statements publicly?”
Heartbreak giggled. She crossed her legs and held up her hand like she was about to receive a poolside cocktail from a waiter, then called upon Beleth’s Bloodletter.
Summoning her weapon outside of training or battle was technically in violation of magic regulations, but what did that matter after she’d already accused Thibault of manslaughter?
Her scythe materialized in her hand, and she thumped its handle against the floor. The weapon’s blade of smoke crawled out as if on command.
“I’m a princess with an army of devils at my beck and call,” she said with the most wicked grin she could muster. “Why should I fear a simpleminded man who needs to walk around with a bodyguard? I’m only here tonight to remind him that he serves me.”
In that moment, she wasn’t afraid at all.
And why should she be?
This was a war Heartbreak was destined to win.
