Trinity Angles (Discussion Thread)

[Kieran]

Ah Jurassic Park 2, the absolute worst Jurrasic Park movie for so many different reasons. From protagonists that were responsible for almost every death in the movie(seriously I don't know who deserved to get eaten more, that dumbass Sarah Harding or that absolute backstabbing fucker Nick Van Owen), and antagonists whose introductory scenes had to be cut* because they made their motives more sympathetic to the audience then the protagonists ham fisted environmentalist message the movie tried to cram down our throats concerning the lives of murderous genetic abominations created by humans and let loose on that island(seriously, the actual environmentalist thing to do would have been to purge all the dinosaurs and allow the islands native habitat to recover). All that is just the tip of this movie's iceburg made of fail.


*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY4y0dOjjNQ

I tend to think of the third as the worst, simply because I enjoy less about it than I do about The Lost World (which means less to counter the film's flaws), myself. Still, I'll admit that in doing this little crossover, I've found a few new points of dissatisfaction.

. . . On which note, I think this idea has pretty well played itself out. I hope I can focus on "The Twilight" now; failing that, I suppose I ought to start reacquainting myself with Digimon Tamers (since it was actually requested) . . .

[Xamusel]

Yes, work on Digimon Tamers, please. We all would appreciate what you do with that IP.

[Kieran]

Nobody saw it coming, although they should have.

They had already collected most of the obvious facts involved, after all: Voldemort was fully capable of concocting and executing convoluted plans with backups and fail-safes, often taking years to reach fruition. He was also a vindictive son of a bitch, perfectly willing to destroy what he couldn’t possess—and he’d broken into the Ministry years before—to hear a prophecy, they’d thought at the time, and he’d certainly tried, but he’d also laid a Portkey enchantment as a later trap, allowing him to kidnap Neville’s grandmother long afterwards.

. . . Really, it should’ve come as no surprise that, on his way through the Department of Mysteries, he might’ve made another stop. But it hadn’t occurred to any of them, either at the time or years later—and so Voldemort’s dying curse, a final strike at his enemies, went unnoticed, until it was too late.

With the death of the Dark Lord, the Department of Mysteries ended its lockdown, returning once more to “normal” reality; and the enchantment, sensing the link to its master’s life having been severed, did as it was meant to do—and blew the veiled arch in the Room of Death to pieces.

And it took the world—or at least, a very significant part of that world—with it.







Shinjuku, Japan
May 2, 2001







Takara woke in her bed with a start. Then blinked, because this wasn’t her bed—

Yes it was . . .?

She paused, employing her Occlumency techniques (which seemed “off,” somehow), the eldest Aozaki child quickly realised the problem: she’d shifted existences again, and this one didn’t account for magic.

. . . And also, in this new life, she was ten.

Exactly which god did I offend, and just how badly, that I have to go through puberty THREE TIMES?!

With a sigh, Takara burrowed deeper into her bed, and did her best to assimilate her new/childhood memories. It was both easier and harder, since she’d done it before and she had almost three decades of memory to buffer her identity with against the lone decade of new ones; on the other hand, this time she was relying solely on technique, with no magic to help her.

Still, by now Takara had been an experienced Occlumens for several years, and it wasn’t her first time, so she did eventually get everything put together . . . And it didn’t take her long to notice a glaring absence—

From somewhere down below (and she did know exactly where, now), the doorbell rang.

“Takara-chan!” her mother called. “You have company!”

Getting up, she threw on a dressing gown (the name a habit from her time in Britain) and went downstairs to find—

Four and a half feet of bucktoothed, frizzy-haired panic, which promptly latched onto her with all the intensity of a heat-seeking missile, and a grip that would’ve done credit to the Death Star’s trash compactor.

“Please, please tell me that you remember Hogwarts,” Hermione whispered desperately into Takara’s ear.

“I do,” Takara whispered back. “But do you know—?”

“It’s good to see you, Hermione-chan,” her mother greeted warmly. “I’m glad you made it through safely, as well—and your family?”

Takara started, and stared at her mother. “What did you say?”

Ciel gave her daughter a raised eyebrow in return, and said dryly, “Come now, Taka-chan—did you really think that all of us wouldn’t be protected? When have you ever known Galen to use half-measures?”

Takara’s eyes widened. “But—”

“If we could all go inside . . .” interrupted a new voice.

They turned to see a red-eyed girl their “own” age standing before the porch, who could only be Ilya, with an equally-young Shirou beside her.

“I can explain,” she finished.








“Ultimately, this is my fault,” the albino girl said after a sip of tea. “Not the collapse itself, but the haphazard way our timelines were slapped together. I wasn’t the Holy Grail, this time—I am, but I wasn’t manifested that way, so I wasn’t in an outsider’s position to oversee and administrate the changes.” She scowled. “Frankly, if it weren’t for the Hallows, we’d all have ceased to exist.

“The Cloak provided the means to hold our lives and identities in place, ‘hiding us from Death,’” she continued, “and the Wand provided the power to spread the effect over as many of us as it did. The Stone provided the means to call our souls, intact, to this new place. They stood in lieu of the Grail—and if they weren’t quite as versatile, they were no less powerful.”

“And none of this explains why we’re children again,” Hermione said. “Or where—”

“Because we didn’t die, but we were more than a little erased,” Ilya said. “All there was to go on was the template I used the last time: fit us in as ‘normal’ to the world—or maybe a better term would be ‘protagonists.’ And in this world, that means as children.”

She scowled, and Takara intuited part of the problem.

“Ai-chan?” she asked, more than a little anxiously.

“Safe,” Shirou said heavily. “And alive, sort of—not born yet, but when the time is right, she will be, and it will be our Ai-chan when she is. She’s just . . . In holding,” he finished awkwardly.

Hermione, on the other hand, was gazing at Ilya through narrow slits. “And I’m not a vampire, any longer—which means that you didn’t do this, did you?”

Takara blinked, before suddenly realising the truth of that. If being a kid again was bad for her, for Ilya it would’ve been a nightmare. Giving up her husband, her baby? No, she knew Ilyasviel well enough to know that she’d have sacrificed almost anything el—

The bottom dropped out of Takara’s world. Oh please God, no . . .!

“I couldn’t have,” Ilya said forlornly. “As a witch, I didn’t have the power; as the Grail, I wouldn’t have the will . . . But there was a pseudo-Servant I’d poured a lot of power into, with a lot of imagination of his own—and a Cloak that made him invisible to Death itself, which gave him time enough to react to what was going on.”

Takara was finding it difficult to breathe, but all too easy to imagine the scenario: running possibilities at frantic speed, settling on something that none of them had ever fully understood, all the while seeing reality literally crumble into nonexistence while desperately trying to grab onto as much of it as could be saved . . .

“He did what he could without the enhancements offered by the Grail system,” Shirou offered. “Just the raw power Ilya had placed in him, and what knowledge he’d gleaned from their connection—along with whatever else he could get his hands on. If he hadn’t had a good look at Rin’s Kaleidostick . . .” The redhead, whose now-brown eyes seemed odd, shook his head. “I know that kind of brute-force magecraft; it works, but it’s absolute hell to get working—and there’s always a cost.”

“And what was this one?” Hermione demanded.

Ilya placed two objects, and two cards, before them. “You’ll need these.”

Takara blinked. Those look like . . .

Almost unthinkingly, she mirrored Hermione’s actions of picking up the device and card, before running the latter through the strip of the former. Immediately, there was a brilliant flash, and—

“Hello, girls,” came the familiar, resigned voice.

Said girls STARED, before responding, “WHAT?!”

Yes, work on Digimon Tamers, please. We all would appreciate what you do with that IP.

Writer's Notes: Hopefully so . . .

As I said, it's been almost two full decades since I saw the series (and since the sale price was $50, I wasn't buying it just for the sake of a snippet), so I had to research a bit; I'm aware I'm mixing canons, somewhat, but I liked the symmetry of this particular incarnation.

And yes, Neville, Ginny and Luna are fine - this was just the big dramatic part of it, so I deemed it the important intro.

Hope you enjoy (ed)!

[MWkillkenny84]

... so Galen is a Elecmon? The Rookie that has Leomon in the lists of its evolutionary lines?

Poor sod.

[Kieran]

... so Galen is a Elecmon? The Rookie that has Leomon in the lists of its evolutionary lines?

Poor sod.

I'm actually borrowing from the video games a bit: he's an Elecmon that will digivolve to Garurumon and along that path; Ilya and Shirou have Leomon and Leowoman . . .

. . . Come on, it's one of Herakles' symbols, and the next stage is Saber Leo - how could I resist?

[MWkillkenny84]

I'm actually borrowing from the video games a bit: he's an Elecmon that will digivolve to Garurumon and along that path; Ilya and Shirou have Leomon and Leowoman . . .

. . . Come on, it's one of Herakles' symbols, and the next stage is Saber Leo - how could I resist?

[Teal'c Mode ON] Indeed. [Teal'c Mode OFF]

[Xamusel]

*reads through it a fair bit just now*

...

*bursts out laughing at the hilarity*

Thank you, good sir, for what you shared!

[Kieran]

[Teal'c Mode ON] Indeed. [Teal'c Mode OFF]

*Chuckles* Precisely.

*reads through it a fair bit just now*

...

*bursts out laughing at the hilarity*

Thank you, good sir, for what you shared!

You're welcome - glad you enjoyed it.

[dpss]

I'm actually borrowing from the video games a bit: he's an Elecmon that will digivolve to Garurumon and along that path; Ilya and Shirou have Leomon and Leowoman . . .

. . . Come on, it's one of Herakles' symbols, and the next stage is Saber Leo - how could I resist?

Oh, Digimon Tamers. Loved that show. Personally though, I think Zubamon or, failing that, Hackmon would probably fit Shirou better. And to go along with the vampire theme, maybe give Hermione a Dracmon?

[Kieran]

Oh, Digimon Tamers. Loved that show. Personally though, I think Zubamon or, failing that, Hackmon would probably fit Shirou better. And to go along with the vampire theme, maybe give Hermione a Dracmon?

Certainly doable - though if I did do this crossover, I'd actually have to buy the season . . .

[Xamusel]

Kieran? I think you can get away with watching it on streaming sites in subtitles. I mean, in the dub, they did cut some of Henry's character development when he slaps his sister... who knows what other changes were made in the dub?

[Kieran]

Sadly, I've yet to find one that doesn't give my computer epileptic fits, if it works at all.

[Kieran]

Nobody saw it coming, although they should have.

They had already collected most of the obvious facts involved, after all: Voldemort was fully capable of concocting and executing convoluted plans with backups and fail-safes, often taking years to reach fruition. He was also a vindictive son of a bitch, perfectly willing to destroy what he couldn’t possess—and he’d broken into the Ministry years before—to hear a prophecy, they’d thought at the time, and he’d certainly tried, but he’d also laid a Portkey enchantment as a later trap, allowing him to kidnap Neville’s grandmother long afterwards.

. . . Really, it should’ve come as no surprise that, on his way through the Department of Mysteries, he might’ve made another stop. But it hadn’t occurred to any of them, either at the time or years later—and so Voldemort’s dying curse, a final strike at his enemies, went unnoticed, until it was too late.

With the death of the Dark Lord, the Department of Mysteries ended its lockdown, returning once more to “normal” reality; and the enchantment, sensing the link to its master’s life having been severed, did as it was meant to do—and blew the veiled arch in the Room of Death to pieces.

And it took the world—or at least, a very significant part of that world—with it.








September, 2010
Storybrooke, Maine








“Remember,” she whispered fiercely to herself. “Remember your Occlumency training. Use it; it’s like splitting and reshuffling a deck of cards . . .”

The struggle came daily—sometimes hourly—but she persisted.

“It was the Deathly Hallows that saved us,” Luna insisted to herself. “The Wand which must always win, the Stone which binds souls, and the Cloak which can hide Death itself . . . They were the Masters of the Hallows, if not of Death, which were united in purpose if not in full. It wasn’t power enough to stop what was coming, but it was power enough to save us from it—to extend to us the same protection they possessed. At least, the three of us: one for each Hallow . . .”

Despite the magic trying to overwrite her mind, despite the drugs they pumped into her to treat her “condition.”

“We barely caught a glimpse of where we’d been sent before we were tossed about anew,” she said sadly, “a victim of the same effect again, but no less so than the entirety of our new world . . .

“And that this second new one is much like our old one is helpful,” she admitted brightly, before pouting to herself and murmuring, “Save for the lack of magic, of course.”

Despite it all, Luna persisted in remembering; she had to, because she was the only one left who could . . .








Several floors above where Luna Lovegood resided was the long-term care ward of Storybrooke General Hospital. Luckily, that particular ward had very few patients; unluckily, however, the patients that it did have were registered as John and Jane Doe, respectively.

They had been brought in at the same time, but had no familial resemblance. Where “John Doe” was a classically-handsome man, square-jawed and blond-haired, “Jane” was a wavy-haired brunette—to say nothing of showing signs of chronic anaemia. She’d required a massive transfusion on arrival, though she bore no visible injuries. The attending physician did wonder, however, about internal injuries; in addition to the low blood levels, where John was simply unresponsive, she seemed to be, even unconscious, in pain . . .








“Henry!” called the girl’s voice, drawing the ten-year-old from contemplation of his plans (not that said ten-year-old, while precocious for his age, would’ve phrased it like that).

Still, despite how annoyed he was by the interruption, the boy couldn’t help but smile, given that the source of the call was one of his few friends in town.

Takara Skye was a year younger than him, but in the same grade. Her dad was a painter, and her mom was a teacher at their school—so she knew what it was like to have someone on her case about manners, homework, and the stuff his mom was so stuffy about. She was Japanese in looks, except for bright blue eyes that looked like a cat’s. And she was always up for playing video games, reading comic books, or whatever didn’t involve playing with dolls or other girly things.

Henry wasn’t sure about girls, marriage, or all that stuff, but he thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad with her.

“What’cha doin'?” Takara asked.

“Looking over this book Miss Blanchard gave me,” he answered, which was true enough; it just wasn’t all he was doing.

“Is it good?” she asked, tilting her head curiously towards it.

“It’s . . . Weird,” Henry said, not willing to share how much sense the book made, to him. “I mean, it’s got a picture in it of the Evil Queen from Snow White, and she looks a lot like my mom . . .”

Takara blinked. “Did she tick off the writer?”

Henry shrugged. “Maybe? Like I said, it’s weird.”

“Well—puppy!” Takara suddenly exclaimed, eyes locked ahead of them.

Henry followed her gaze, and froze. “That’s not a puppy—that’s a T. Rex with fur!”

It wasn’t, in his opinion, an exaggeration; the thing was almost as long as both of them put together were tall, exactly as wide as both of them put together, and had teeth thicker than his arm—lots of them.

“Nah,” Takara said easily, “this is Puppy, my dog.”

Henry blinked. “When did you get a dog? And how did you get that dog past your mom?”

Takara blushed. “Well, Mom doesn’t exactly know about Puppy; he doesn’t live at my house. I just found him wandering around one day, and we made friends.”

“So he’s a stray,” Henry surmised. “Is he friendly?”

“To me,” Takara admitted. “But you can try and say ‘hi’ if you want . . .”

Henry considered the fact that “Puppy” was as tall as he was, and had all those teeth. “No, that’s OK.”

“He’s just a big softie,” Takara murmured, rubbing his ears. “Aren’t you?” As his tail began wagging, she answered, “Yes you are, yes you are . . .”

Henry frowned, watching the pair. If the book had his mom as the Evil Queen, his real mom as the Saviour, and Miss Blanchard as Snow White, was it possible that Takara or Puppy was in his book too? After all, an animal like him being around here was very unusual . . .

[Kieran]

London, England
May 9, 1998
12:01 AM








The correlation wouldn’t be noticed for some time afterwards—far too late to have made a difference in the events that followed.

Nevertheless, that there was a correlation was simply fact. At 12:01 AM on the fifteenth of May, thirteen days after the defeat of Tom Marvolo Riddle, more publicly known as “Lord Voldemort,” the self-imposed lockdown protocols on the Department of Mysteries were lifted. The ninth level of Ministry of Magic building reappeared in its standard placement in space-time, once again becoming part of the “real” world . . . Which was why it was six days earlier—or seven days after Voldemort’s defeat, the most powerful of the three prime magical numbers—that every magic-detecting sensor in the Ministry of Magic began screaming at the top of its proverbial (and in a couple cases, literal) lungs.

Still in disarray following what was already being called “The Battle of Hogwarts,” given the mess left behind by the “preceding administration,” the few Ministry employees active at this time nevertheless tried gamely to respond to the alarms, scrambling Aurors, Oblivators, and anyone else they could lay hands on to tackle the problem.

Fortunately for them, the source of the problem was already gone by the time they arrived.

Fortunately, because based on reconstructions of the events that followed, there was no doubt whatsoever that otherwise, they all would have died.








It wasn’t the best part of London in the daylight, so it went without saying that a naked teenage girl walking around at midnight drew attention, even when she was trying to avoid it. The fact that she was a good-looking teenage girl was almost inconsequential, really; but only almost.

It wasn’t until you got close enough that you realised there was something wrong with her, aside from walking around naked at midnight. Her skin was too pale, almost waxy-looking; her wavy brunette hair hung limply from her head, and her big, reddish-brown eyes were dull and glassy. The oddity of her appearance was only heightened by the awkward way she moved, shying from the brighter areas and walking like each step had to be carefully coordinated before it could actually be taken.

Drugs, was the obvious conclusion; she was high on something, deliberately or not. And while she visibly carried nothing of material value, such easy prey didn’t take long to attract attention from predators.

“Hey, Lady Godiva!” one of them called, earning incredulous looks from his three fellows, and a muttered “What? I read . . .”

Turning back to the girl, he called again. “Hey—you lost, or looking for a good time?”

The girl’s head turned slightly as she took in the group, her eyes focussing sharply.

“Twelve Grimmauld Place . . .” the girl responded, in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone. “Where is it from here?”

Broad smiles spread across the group, before the spokesman responded. “Just stick with us—we’ll get you where you wanna go.”

Her lips peeled back to reveal white teeth, which seemed oddly sharp in the brief moment that they were exposed.

“Excellent.”








12 Grimmauld Place, London
May 9, 1998
12:27 AM








The girl in the robe ran pell-mell down the streets, cursing the fact that she was wearing a robe in the first place as best she could without actually wasting breath on the action. This would have so much easier in mundane clothes . . .

Finally, finally, she saw the familiar house come into sight, and the fact that it was still intact was heartening; it meant that she was probably in time— Jesus, Merlin, and bloody Zelretch, let her be in time—!

Her wand was in hand before she ever reached the door, and she spat the bloody saliva in her mouth onto its tip as a just-in-case, before touching it to the knocker. When it opened, a wave of relief washed through her so strong it nearly knocked her off her feet

However, that happened as soon as she walked through the door—with a wave of force, instead.

The source was easily tracked: a wizened being at the top of the stairs, snarling at her. “INTR—!”

“STOP!” she cried.

Much to the being’s surprise—and hers—it did.

“. . . You is a Black,” it said at last, a wondering tone in its voice.

“. . . It’s Kreacher, isn’t it?” she said shakily. “I need to know: Hermione Granger, Takara Aozaki, Galen Salvatore—where are they?”

Had she been conscious at any point following the red flicker that splashed across her vision just then, she’d have had her answer without Kreacher having to speak.








Kreacher was not happy about her actions, or about needing to bind the intruder after Takara had disarmed her. At the same time, he was intelligent enough to grasp her refusal to let a stranger into their home without properly ensuring their safety and Galen’s orders to obey her as he would Galen took primacy over his nominal loyalty to the Black family, as Galen was the family’s head.

As such, they had the witch bound and blindfolded while Takara went through her things—what little she had, at least.

The witch’s wand was made in a wood Takara didn’t recognise, but it was Ollivander’s style. Her robe and a set of sandals were all she had for clothes; not even undergarments. Of course, that might’ve been because they were the sort of clothes that were easily conjured in a hurry; she seemed to take “travelling light” to an extreme. Her only other possession was a very small pouch—not mokeskin, but obviously treated with an Undetectable Extension Charm, because it was small enough to make swallowing it a genuine risk; but it was also big enough, inside, to hold the wand.

And a gun.

Takara could count on the fingers of both hands the number of witches and wizards who might know how to use a gun; the number who would was less than half of that, and this witch was none of them. Moreover, it was clear that the gun had been enchanted: its outer surface was made of the same patterned steel as her sword—right down to the runic chains worked into the metal.

. . . The conclusion she was meant to draw from all of this was obvious, and only reinforced by the fact that looking at the witch (no older than she, or not by much, physically) was like looking at a Caucasian reflection of herself—but that didn’t make it any less unnerving.

If our lives already hadn’t been so ridiculous, I’d have said this was insane . . . But . . .

Holding the pistol at the ready, she quickly cast a Summoning spell from her other hand to remove the blindfold, followed by a quick “Rennervate.”

As expected, the witch sprang to alertness instantly, opening big blue eyes that looked even wider when she wasn’t unconscious.

“Explain the gun,” Takara said, taking the safety off. “Now.”

A sound burst from her lips, somewhere between a sigh and a sob. When she spoke, it was with a soft British accent (unsurprisingly) not unlike Hermione’s.

“We didn’t know what would happen if any pre-existing things came into contact with their future selves, so we couldn’t risk it—it’s never that easy, is it? That was why it had to be me that came, and why I couldn’t bring any of the simple proofs . . . But even if it doesn’t exist yet, Galen Salvatore will recognise that gun; he’s been plotting its creation from the day he helped forge Mellinoë . . .”

“Name?” Takara demanded.

“Thunderbird,” she replied immediately. “Since it started as a Des—”

“I hope that it’s just Hermione’s influence making you that pedantic,” Takara said with a put-upon sigh (even as she noted said influence on her own vocabulary), “and not Galen’s making you that thick. What did we name you?”

It seemed impossible, but the big blue eyes got even wider for a moment, and Takara almost didn’t need Legilimency to read the shock, hope, and other wild emotions behind them for a moment—almost.

“. . . Elise,” she said at last, almost shyly, “after my grandmothers. It was a peace offering, after Gramma Aozaki—”

“You didn’t break the laws of time, space and sanity just so I could learn about you,” Takara interrupted. “And I’d hope we’d raise you better than to do it for fun—so why are you here?”

“. . . Could you put the safety back on the gun first, please?” Elise said. “I can live with being tied up for now, if I have to; but I really would rather that you didn’t accidentally take out a wall . . . Or three.”








“Auntie Hermione always said that in some ways, it was probably inevitable,” Elise said grimly. “Fear makes people do stupid things, we all know that; and people who dislike anybody but themselves having power are afraid of a lot. We could blame the Americans for being paranoid, MACUSA for doing everything they possibly could to reinforce that paranoia or ourselves for being overly optimistic—but in the end, this probably would’ve come one way or another.

“Almost from the day you started working with the British government, plans were drawn up; ways to ensure national and later, international security against magical threats. You expected it—it’s human nature, after all—but not quite to the degree it went. Publically, it was a private international think tank held online, for high-level scientific research across multiple fields; rather in the same sense that the military have their own private internet system.

“Another few layers, though,” Elise said flatly, “revealed it as the Sorcerous Countermeasures Intelligence Network—I trust you can work out the relevance of the acronym, if I tell you to use a ‘k’ instead of a ‘c?’”

Takara thought quickly, and then blanched. “Oh, God . . .”

“It wasn’t like the movies, though,” Elise said. “There was no sudden leap to sentience, or ‘I have to kill humanity to survive’—it’s not planning to, it’s not that aware. What it is, however, is running on a directive to eliminate all sources of magic, at any cost . . . And since the mundane-born can spring up anywhere at any time . . .”

“All of humanity has to be eliminated,” Takara said faintly. “It’s the only way to be certain of absolutely wiping out witches and wizards.”

“. . . Of course, once somebody realised that, the primary intelligence was disconnected,” Elise said. “And if MACUSA hadn’t been so bloody paranoid in its dealings with the Americans, the results of the 2016 U.S. election might not have seemed like ‘obvious magical interference’ in their government, giving somebody the self-justification to turn the damned thing back on—and up to full active status.

“The islands of the United Kingdom are the only surviving enclave of humanity left,” Elise said. “And only because we’re shielded against being summarily wiped out by weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, chemical or biological, it can’t touch us.”

Takara’s jaw dropped. “. . . How?!”

Elise’s face became a mask at the question. After a moment of obvious struggle, she said, very carefully, “I don’t know—how exactly do you magically protect something—or someone, perhaps—against an absolute killing attack, Mummy?”

Almost in a whisper, she added, “And just who would be mad enough, and powerful enough, to even try?”

If Takara had been pale before, she made Hermione look positively ruddy now.

“But it gets worse,” Elise said mournfully. “‘Terrible things happen to wizards who try to change time’—you told me that all my life. But here I am, looking for you, and Daddy, and Auntie ‘Mione . . . Because what am I up against, Mummy? You’re a clever witch—tell me why I’m here.”

Takara untied her and handed her back her weapons without another word.

“Is it a T-800, T-1000, T-X?” the older witch asked. “And who exactly is the target?”

“Daddy,” Elise said firmly. “A quick data burst to itself now will ingrain the need to send a Terminator back to kill him, making this into a closed loop even if the machine succeeds—but the only way to kill that protection on the U.K., the only way to finally complete the mission and end humanity, is to kill him first.

“But it won’t be easy,” Elise warned. “As long as it’s all gone at the end, SCINET has no qualms about using magic to help eliminate us; it just puts its tools lower down on the priority list. These things might not be as mechanically tough as the movie versions—but add in subcutaneous dragon hide layers and Re’em blood through the biological parts, and they’re possibly stronger and tougher overall. Using magic on them is hit-and-miss, as well; spells have a hard time figuring out whether to class them as animate or inanimate, and trying to use Transfiguration on them at all is a waste of time.

“As for the model . . .” She shook her head. “The need to insulate the electronics from the innate magic of its material components means that the brain isn’t as smart, and the mechanisms aren’t as precise, or sensitive. It doesn’t act as human, not as smoothly—in movements or personality—so it needed a model whose physical flaws could be explained or overlooked, at least from a distance; and preferably one whose appearance Daddy would trust.”

“Hermione,” Takara breathed.

[MWkillkenny84]

Terminator?

And the reason SkyNet want to pull an exterminatus on Humanity *after* saner heads had managed to block it the first time is because paranoid people blamed magicals on Trump being POTUS?

*double facepalm*

Sometimes you wish Riddle had won, isn't it?

[Kieran]

Terminator?

Yup. The crossover that you never saw coming, and yet, makes perfect sense (I hope) within the context.

And the reason SkyNet want to pull an exterminatus on Humanity *after* saner heads had managed to block it the first time is because paranoid people blamed magicals on Trump being POTUS?

I figured somebody would think like that, yeah. And let's face it - to some points of view (mine, for example), that is the only sane explanation for it. (Sadly, I don't have wizards to blame . . . )

*double facepalm*

Sometimes you wish Riddle had won, isn't it?

Again, yup.

. . . Though admittedly, this would be a "dark" or "Bad End" for the series - unless it actually proved popular enough to do, of course, but I kind of hope my readers would prefer a happier ending.

(And, of course, it gave me a great opportunity to portray Elise as a young adult, and actually assign her an appearance/actress. )

[Xamusel]

...who did you assign as the actress for Elise?

[Kieran]

...who did you assign as the actress for Elise?

The link in the story snippet works - I just checked - so have a look for yourself.

[Xamusel]

Thanks, Kieran. Wasn't sure at first if I should use the links, sadly.

[Kieran]

*Shrugs* That's what it was there for . . . Oh well.

In any case, I thought Miss Eisley was a decent match for Takara's appearance (at least, how she's been portrayed in fan art), save that she's fully Caucasian, whereas Takara looks more Japanese. Hence, it wasn't that big a stretch to imagine that Takara's daughter with Galen would probably look like her.