Bridge Builders Cabal

The Bridge Builders Cabal (橋架結社) is a hidden group of powerful magicians, centered around Alice Anotherbible.

Principles
The Bridge Builders Cabal dwells in the hidden part of the world, and is made up of powerful magicians, each capable of rivalling the regular Magic Side on their own, who have gathered in order to collectively decide how to make the world a better place.

Transcendents
The cabal's members are potent magicians and magical entities from various backgrounds, who refer to themselves as Transcendents (超絶者).

Transcendents have been described as each being powerful enough to rival the regular magic side on their own, such that the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church could not stop with them in the usual way (though the Bologna Succubus briefly noted that some of them might be closer to what the Russian Orthodox Church was used to dealing with).

While the exact nature of their power differs, they are each capable of destroying or changing the world in their own way and each have their own reasons to want to change the world. However, it would much easier for them to wreck a world than creating or protecting one, and if they destroyed a world they wouldn't be able to remake everything they had destroyed afterwards (as a fully-fledged Magic God might be able to do), which is why they gathered together to discuss and agree on how the world needed to change before actually making the changes, so their efforts wouldn't be jeopardized.

They have been described as those who have passed down and provided guidance in magic, a collection of myths and stories that present knowledge at its simplest (which is apparently why their power is strangely missing from records such as those kept by the Anglican grimoire library), and monsters who do not fall purely into the human categories of Science Side and Magic Side. They have been described as each having a legend on the same level as Anna Sprengel, with one reigning above the rest. In a conversation between Anna and Aradia surrounding the subject, letters and notes, texts from correspondence lessons, urban legends, coded, analyzed and rearranged texts, were talked of.

Plans and Rules
When Aradia was guiding Anna Sprengel through their base in an introduction to the group, she told her she was free to do what she wanted, so long as she followed a simple rule - to not upset Alice. As if simply explaining what she saw as a basic universal law and perfectly reasonable, she advised Anna against the contrarian urge of a magician to do something they were told not to do, not to restrict them or test their courage but out of legitimate concern, saying that there was no point in listing and comparing specifications, and that she could not defeat Alice on a more fundamental level. She also alluded to an incident where Alice got upset and start throwing her things around, somehow leading to water and traces of life on a planet dozens of light-years away which was subsequently discovered and being talked about by the public, describing reality as fickle. Alice was described as pure and innocent but capricious, cruel and violent, such that no one could predict what she would do next. If Alice wanted something (such as a giant duck), the brilliant magicians in the group would gather, plan and make it, as though critically important regardless of its actual nature. Prioritizing Anna greeting Alice, Aradia said that if Alice gave permission for Anna to stay, the others would not take issue, but also said not to think that she could avoid detection if she did.

Killers and Rescuers
On December 29th, on the suggestions of newcomer Anna Sprengel, Alice visited Kamijou Touma. Her time with him resulted in a change in her which was detrimental to the cabal's plans. The group became divided over how best to address the issue, and as a result became split into two factions; the Killers (殺害派) and the Rescuers (救出派).

The Killers simply wanted to kill the source of the change in an effort to return Alice to normal as soon as possible. The Rescuers wanted to keep Touma alive, at least for the time being, and monitor the situation, deeming it too risky to eliminate him as they didn't know how his death might influence Alice. Aradia was on the side of the Killers, while Good Old Mary and the Bologna Succubus sided with the Rescuers.

Base
The group's base has been determined by Alice's whims and what has caught her interest, with no other real reason for its form or the group having a single base. In the past, perhaps influenced by an American drama, Alice had created a remote island prison and had been having fun in it until a time still recent when Anna arrived, and Aradia remarked that she might say she wanted an elf forest or a magic school next.

Their current base is located in the middle of a rainforest, in one of the few secluded areas still considered inviolable, upstream of a river winding across several national borders. It resembles a modern stadium, with countless bookcases set up in the tiered stands and the central interior flooded, with a 100m cruise ship floating in the middle in which the group lives. There is at least one giant yellow duck roaming around. Rooms in the ship include a kitchen and a bathroom.

At the very bottom of the ship, where modern cruise ships might have a pool or a theater, there is a circular colosseum, with the scents of old paper and a strong oily smell like from animal hide parchment. At the center is a giant throne of gold and red, meant for Alice, with a back likely more than 3 times its intended occupant's height and elevated such that her feet would not reach the floor.

Background
Not much is known about the group and its past, though until recently Alice had been having fun in a remote island prison she had created, and an incident in which she got upset was responsible for water and traces of life on a planet dozens of light-years away, which was subsequently discovered and being talked about by the public around the time that Anna was introduced to the group.

Los Angeles Arc
On December 26th, around the time that R&C Occultics was destroyed, Anna Sprengel was with Aradia. The two talked about the sacrificial pawn and the change that this would bring about in the new age, along with a brief reference to Alice, before Aradia told Anna that "everyone" was waiting.

Post-Handcuffs Arc
On December 29th, Aradia brought Anna to the group's base, in a cruise ship in a submerged stadium in the middle of a forest, acting as her guide, passing by Good Old Mary snacking on ham in the kitchen and the Bologna Succubus humming on her way to the bath, but was dismayed to find Alice absent when she was going to introduce Anna to her.

Unknown to Aradia, Anna had approached Alice before she was invited and told the bored girl of Kamijou Touma. As a result, Alice had travelled to Academy City and snuck into Touma's home, into his blanket while he slept. She accompanied him during the day's events, and brought her power into play when he was caught up in the Overhunting crash and the subsequent prisoner escape, but ceased after Touma realized what she was doing and told her to return things to how they should be.

After the events surrounding the prison train and the battle in the Vanishing Tunnel (both resulting from the events of Operation Handcuffs) were resolved, with Touma having persisted in not relying on Alice's power, Alice was picked up by Anna and returned to the group's base, where the group were dismayed to find that Alice wouldn't use her power in the way that they hoped she would, due to Touma's influence. Aradia angrily realized what Anna had done, but being restricted by the rule that the group had set, reworked her plan and turned her attention towards Touma as the first problem to deal with.

New Year's Eve Arc
Following the events of December 29th, the cabal was divided as to how to approach Kamijou Touma and the change in Alice, becoming split into two factions; the 'Killers' who wanted to kill the source of the change in an effort to return Alice to normal and the 'Rescuers' who wanted to leave him alive and monitor the situation. Anna Sprengel, the cause of the situation, sided with neither.

On December 31st, Aradia attempted to kill Kamijou Touma, with the Bologna Succubus and Good Old Mary attempting to save him. In the resulting struggle between the Transcendents, which led to people in Shibuya being induced into clashing as witches and witch hunters, the Bologna Succubus received mortal injuries but was saved, while Aradia was eventually defeated by Touma.

Anna was present in the aftermath and tempted to cause more trouble, but before she could do so, she was sealed away by Anna Kingsford, reanimated by Aleister Crowley, who then interrogated her about the Bridge Builders Cabal and Alice Anotherbible, whom he recognized as a product of Magick.

Trivia

 * It should be noted that a similar yet different term has been used previously to refer to certain other powerful beings, such as Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass, Great Demon Coronzon, and the Secret Chiefs, referred to as transcendent beings (超越存在).


 * In the afterword of , Kamachi Kazuma mentioned that he designed Aradia, the Bologna Succubus and Good Old Mary so one could compare them and make good guesses about the average and basic specifications of the standard Transcendents. He also suggested that after such a comparison, it might be fun to imagine how extraordinary Alice was compared to them for what she did, and what the difference was between a standard Transcendent who could use their charisma to start a cult or riot and Anna Sprengel who created a giant IT company to mess with the world.
 * Additionally, he mentioned how compared to a Magic God, who would be satisfied in creating their ideal world on their own, one could see how the Transcendents had basically ed their diffusion and destruction skills, being capable of destroying everything with ease but being unable to remake it all afterwards, to their irritation. He added that this made them reluctant to play their one and only card when Othinus destroyed the world (as if they killed her in the Black World, they couldn't remake the world like she could) and they were caught up in it and killed as a result.