1759/B-Point: Split the Party

B-Point: Split the Party
Date of Scene:	15 July 2024
Location:	The Catacombs
Synopsis:	Part of the Anti-Beryl Squad lands without the rest of the Anti-Beryl Squad in the catacombs and fights dark energy rats and plant youma girls in a cave of bones. And Bow and Glimmer argue a lot.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Bow, Madoka Kaname, Erika Shimizu, Hinote Kagari, Amanda Faust, Jadeite, Usagi Tsukino, Glimmer Brightmoon, Homura Akemi
Tinyplot:	Dark Kingdom Finale

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It is very dark.

The teleport did not go as planned: instead of the rainbow express taking them to a cute park after dark, the rainbow express was shouldered rudely on the subway, staggered, and dumped them into a pitch black space with the acoustics of a corridor of some kind, chilly, with an uneven dirt-ish floor; sound is muffled and dead, swallowed by the walls.

The close-feeling space they're all in isn't alleviated by the flashlights that begin to turn on... it feels close because it is. The corridor, running east-west by anyone's compasses, can fit three people abreast comfortably, and anyone over about five and a half feet tall is going to be uncomfortably close to the ceiling, and the walls are lined with bones. Bones and bones, stacked on each other, the gentle curves of the ends of femurs making a bumpy texture to anyone who may accidentally have reached out to lean.

For decoration there's one row of skulls at head height and one at knee height, but fortunately only on one side. The other side absolutely isn't looking at them.

Possibly fortunately for our heroes, there's a very slight breeze coming from one direction, smelling faintly musty. It's getting warmer with this many people crammed in. They may wish to begin moving.

Bow has posed:
Holding hands with Hinote on his left and Madoka on his right, Bow was excited for the teleport. Would it be different than how Glimmer teleported him? As the rainbow lights go up. "Oh this is sooo..." the teleportation happens and they find themselves in the black of underground night. "...dark!" he yelps as he slams into the ground with a thump and he whoofs for breath.

As he gets his bearings, the instincts of the Princess Alliance general on Etheria kick in as he calls out. "Bow here! Sound off if you can hear me!"

Once he does that, he holds out his hand and calls out, "Light Arrow!"

The illunminated arrow appears in his hands, glowing with a yellow-white light as he holds it over his head. And comes face to face with a wall of skull. "YIKES!" he yells, falling neatly on his ass before recovering. "Just bones, they can't hurt me."

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Madoka, or rather Hope Witch, has brought a special guest with her today! A raven-haired mysterious beauty that some people here may or may not have met before. Homura Akemi has been rather quiet and withdrawn throughout the whole gathering, but the purple-eyed Puella Magi didn't object at all when Hope grabbed her hand for the Sailor Teleport.

    Still... Homura had misgivings. A part of her wanted to convince Madoka not to come, but... if this team fails then they're in a doomed timeline anyways.

    The teleport happens. Madoka's and Homura's hands clutch to each other, neither of them willing to allow anything to split them apart. Which does leave one of Madoka's hands free for Bow to grab.

    Yet, when things go awry and they end up in darkness, the response is immediate. Madoka and Homura stand back to back, releasing each other's hands. Madoka draws an arrow, allowing the faint pink light to provide at least some illumination. Homura pulls an ultra bright glowstick out of her shield, breaks it, and tosses it at the ground before drawing a gun and immediately aiming it down the dark corridor.

    "They told us there were bones, but..." Hope looks mortified at the sight in front of them.

    "We've both seen worse. No time to gawk," comments Homura. "Role call. Who's with us?"

Erika Shimizu has posed:
    This is not a chic and cozy little park in gay Paris. That's Paris pronounced 'Paree' by the way, as Jolly Roger is tousled about in a teleport gone wrong.
    "BLOODY HELL why's it so dark!?" The undead pirate grouses as she emerges from the teleport bewildered, disoriented, and a little cranky. At least she's on the shorter side of the tallness spectrum and is fairly small as IS so she only starts feeling cramped once she realizes others landed around as well.
    Bow lights up an arrow.
    "Roger here." She sounds off when she hears him call for others, and comes face to face with...
    Bones. Skulls to be specific.
    "Ah. I feel right at home." She mutters grimly.

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir arrives in..absolute darkness. That's wrong. Something is wrong he can feel it inn his....bones!?

That's what he sees when he turns on his flashlight. Rows and rows of bones. "Dammit." he says, lifting his fedora a little. "We must have been dumped right into the catacombs." he says as he turns around to look for others.

"Hey." he says. "Who all is here? Is everyone here or is it just us?" he asks quietly, not wanting his voice to echo down into the corridors too much.

He was holding Bow's hand when he left. Is that still the case. He'll also check that. That should be easy.

Apparently he is not. "I'm here." he says as he draws out a Colt .45 looking pistol out of his coat next. No idea what they could encounter down here.

"I guess we're on our own." he says. "We should get moving. Maybe we'll run into the others." he says.

"Hey I'm here." he says for posterity.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    And then she's in the dark. She prepared for this, the flashlight is ready in her belt pouch, and it lights up a skull in the wall, sending a jolt of adrenaline through her. And no one else around her. "Guys?" An enemy might hear too, but... "Guys? Anyone out there?"

    She's alone.

    Could she get out by exploding up through ceilings until she reaches the surface? Or would she just strand herself? Would an explosion big enough to do that collapse the catacombs on everyone else?

    She might actually be trapped here.

    She might be alone alone.

    Could she spend the rest of her life lost down here? Once, she told herself that in a situation like this, she'd tough it out, man up, do everything logically and last as long as possible, bear with it until the very end.

    But Mallory never had to experience this.

    It's... actually pretty scary.

    She's not sure how long she's catastrophizing before, for some random reason, the wall texture jumps out at her. The skulls have been artistically positioned in rows, evocative of wainscotting or something. It's something you'd see in a Doom (1993) wall texture or something rather than in reality, and the comparison gets a chuckle out of her.

    Lifting Amy's spirits long enough for her to notice the faint breeze in the air.

    She takes a couple of steps that way, stops.

    She gets out paper and a pen from her supplies and writes ^ I WENT THIS WAY ^ on a sheet of paper.

    She tapes it to the floor before walking towards the source of the breeze.

Jadeite has posed:
It is very dark. Jadeite does not, in fact, care for it. Nor does he care that his hands are empty, and that his prince and most of his brethren are no longer in sight. He moves, first to grab and snap a glowing blue glowstick that he hangs around his neck, and then to summon his ice shield and epee.

"Jadeite reporting. I can take the lead if you want - or I can summon shields for everyone as neccessary."

He doesn't shudder at the bones. He's seen it before, in his last life as he ran ragged over all the lands of Earth and Moon. Seen it in this life, visiting farms with his family. In the strange half-light, he looks older than a teen with the way he stands and moves.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
There's at least one high-pitched scream that rings out when they end up in the dark - Usagi Tsukino hates the dark, and nothing about being Sailor Moon will ever change that. It doesn't help that she'd been decidedly holding hands with Mamoru and Ami when they teleported, and now neither of them are holding her hands.

"UWAAAAAAAH!!!"

She's got a backpack on, and she scrabbles for it, leaning against a funny feeling wall as she drags her backpack around to her front and digging inside for her flashlight she'd brought along-

And as her light comes on, she almost wishes she'd left it off.

Bones Bones and bones and bones all pressed together, and as she turns, slowly, she sees skulls in the wall where she'd been, and she screams again.

This is when she notices other lights, and runs right for them, for once, grateful for her stature because she's short enough to not brush against the ceiling, rushing forward and then -

Yeah, sorry Bow, she just slammed right into you. She grabs at Bow, grateful to have found anyone in the dark, still clutching her flashlight.

"Uwahhh, Kamen-kun is missing! Kamen-kun! Mercury-chan! Are you still with us?!"

But they don't call back. Jadeite is there, though, offering shields, and in the half-light he looks strange, too old, and she isn't sure she likes it at all... but she knows it's a sign she's got to get it together, so she gulps down her fear and untangles herself from Bow...

"I think... it's safe to say the enemy noticed we were coming. Unfortunately."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's a whistle that comes through the acoustically dead air from the same direction that they're heading -- it sounds like a signal, or an identifying or questioning call.

There is the sound of skittering in the dark ahead, and skittering in the dark behind. When flashlights are pointed in those directions, nothing appears but more floor, ceiling, and bone walls.

Finally, the magical girls and boys push open a metal lattice door -- or in Amy's case just walk through an open arch -- to come out of the tunnel into a wide open space with a rounded column in the middle, featuring a truly artistic display of yes, more bones. Bone column, and bone walls, and yawning black arches all about the same height as the corridor(s) they came out of, some of them gated and locked, some of them open.

There's another whistle, it comes out of one of the other corridors...

Except for the tunnels that Amy and everyone else came out of, there's only one that doesn't suddenly have lots and lots of floor-to-knee-height blinking red eyes in it. That one tunnel has a girl stepping out of it that's made of beautifully green stinging nettle fiber, with a pretty wooden-looking face and a cascade of leaves for hair. She's wearing a tank top and a pair of running shorts, and the fingers on her hands are growing longer and sprouting nettle leaves, and she's smiling.

She whistles one more time, and all those beady eyes pour out of the tunnels, all belonging to rats that squeak and shriek angrily, their little rodent mouths glowing green. There have to be hundreds of them, and they attack with teeth and claws, climbing up legs and biting--

--and they just keep coming! When kicked at, they die a lot more quickly than normal rats do, and dissipate into clouds of dark energy, but their bites hurt and that is dark energy, which means there's also Bad Moods incoming unless the people who are bitten compensate from the little floods of that dark energy.

Stinging Nettle Girl leans against the bone wall, urging the rats on and seeing if she can be lazy or if she needs to step into the fray.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Somewhere along the way Amy gets out an LED light attached to a headband and saves her flashlight's battery.

    Amy walks through an arch and hears people. "Hello? Thank goodness, I--" Her light swings over the creepy columns. "Geeze. We've gone from classic Doom wall texture to 2016 Doom architecture. Who's actually messed up enough to do this in real life?"

    Still, she's walking towards one of the other groups with a smile of relief on her face and arms out for a hug... and then stops and turns and shines her light on the source of the whistle. "What?"

    Glowing eyes. Maybe they could belong to friends?

    The rats swarm. It takes Amy a second to realize the very real possibility of being gnawed to the bone. "Aah!" A sweep of her arm flings magical fire-grenades at the approaching swarm on one side!

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Madoka glances around and looks at the light sources while hearing the nearby voices. "I hear... Bow, Pulp, Pirate-chan... Jadeite, Moon-Chan. Me and Homu, obviously."

    Homura cusses under her breath. "That's... not nearly as many as there should be. Alright, eyes up. They could attack at any moment. Hope, have a Familiar or two bringing up our rear. I don't want surprises."

    Madoka laughs softly and mutters, "You handle tension kinda like I do..." before summoning a pair of small floating benotafraids to serve as an extra pair of eyes. "Let's head towards the breeze. If there's an enemy ahead, well... we're here to fight, right?"

    "We're here to win," asserts Homura as the two girls walk forward. Madoka with an arrow drawn on her branch bow, but pointed down at the ground. Homura, similarly, holding a handgun pointed down, finger off the trigger. For now.

    The skittering doesn't bother them. Just kidding. It actually bothers them a whole lot but they are both, at this point, just cooly pushing forward because they know that they are probably being Watched and they aren't letting it get to them.

    As Madoka pushes through the lattice door, Homura follows in after. "Dammit, they're surrounding us!" calls out the gun-wielding Puella, looking at all those beady red eyes.

    Madoka keeps her eyes ahead, looking at the Stinging Nettle Girl. "Look. She must be their leader."

    The rats attack, and the two act immediately. Madoka fires a spray of pink death all over the oncoming rat youma, wiping out many but they keep coming.

    Homura just vanishes and somehow isn't there anymore... Or actually, she's right next to the evil spooky child with a shotgun aimed at her head. Her finger's on the trigger this time. "Out of our way," she intones before she fires.

Jadeite has posed:
The rats flood like a...well, a flood. Jadeite knows from a particularly morbid evening on wikipedia that sometimes they do this in real life, too, but in the depths of rural South Asia after a rare bamboo fruiting season, not underground in France! Between that and the the glowing mouths, he is so glad he's wearing long sleeves, knee high boots and armor despite the heat.

The rats may be streaming from the walls, but they're mostly coming down the one tunnel with the girl in Poison Ivy cosplay, so Jadeite will start things off with a "Snow Thimble!", sending a rain of fist sized icy bells towards her and the rats. As the ice shatters, the shards will ricochet off the ground and into the crowd of rats, piercing them with both energy and ice.

His head snaps around to Usagi as the rats try to swarm them all - Sailor Moon has a lot of skin exposed and has the kind of sweeping long range attacks that are great against a crowd - and also he'll have to kill everyone in Paris and then himself if he lets his girlfriend-in-law die.

He vanishes his epee and lets the shield hang on his arm as he squares his shoulders, preparing himself. "Up here!" Jump on him! He can take the weight!

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir shines his light into the chamber and huhs. "It's strangely beautiful. In a morbid sort of way." he says as he then... oh. Oh it's a youma. "Rats." he says as he draws up his pistol, before there's actual rats. Lots of rats. Literal waves of rats and he curses and starts firing his pistol at the rats---- which means strong jets of water from the tip rather than bullets. Because that's just how it is for him.

He starts moving backwards as rats bite and tear at his pant legs, ruining bits, making holes... this is getting highly dangerous as he calls out. "Anyone have any good ideas!?" he says. "Besides taking out the pied piper there beyond the rats." he says worriedly.

Then that girl....teleports? and tries to shoot at their pied piper with a shotgun.

In the head.

Oh he likes this girl he's never met before.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
They walk, and they walk, and there's a gate that gets pushed open, and skittering sounds in front of them and behind them and Sailor Moon is biting her lower lip to not outright whimper and whine because does fighting evil have to be so scary, why does it have to be scary, couldn't she have ended up somewhere whimsical and full of jo-

Oh, an open tunnel! Well at least they won't be squished against each other -

"The French! Chat Noir told us it was the French! Was there anyone else in that tunnel with you?!"

This, upon seeing that Red is coming from a different place, but then, there's - red eyes. Everywhere.

And a girl of plants, coming closer, and oh she's a youma, but what are those red ey-

"IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" It's a piercing shriek of sound, echoing cruelly off the stone walls, the acoustics magnifying the terrible pitch of her Supersonic Waves to something devastating.

A rat climbs her boot to bite at her knee and the shriek of pain cuts off the rest of the sonic wave, at least. Sailor Moon kicks at the rat, and isn't thinking at all when she scrambles up the nearest tall thing, shrieking like a terrified animal (but not a super sonic one anymore!).

Poor Bow. He's the tall thing.

And then the rats are still trying to scramble and she's in his way, he fights with a bow, and there's a call for her and she leaps for Jadeite, scrabbling until his shoulders. "Wahhhhhhhhh, I'll use Moon Healing Escalation in a second, in a second aaaaaaaa-"

Bow has posed:
First things first, let's address what happened before. As Usagi backs into Bow, he yelps and turns, just to get a flashlight in his face and Sailor Moon screaming. He screams back at her, "AHHHH!" Before the light moves enough to see the familiar buns on Usagi's head. "Sailor Moon??" he asks, before clinging to her. "I'm so glad you're okay!" he says, before breaking the embrace. He's not shaking, you're shaking! They're probably both shaking.

Once he gathers his wits about him, he draws in a breath. "I'll mark us a path once we decide which way we're going." Once that's decided, he takes the first arrow to aim up at the cieling, but seeing how patchwork it looks, he cancels that. "Don't want to collapse the roof on us."

Instead, he aims at the ground ahead and starts setting a trail of light at equal pacing as the group moves along. He can hear the slight scuttling in the darkness ahead and winces slightly in worry. "Does anyone else hear that. Maybe it's just water."

Sorry, Bow, it's not water.

As the lights come up and Nettle makes her appearance, he frowns. "We didn't have any plant people with us did we?"

And then she whistles and the rats attack. He readies his bow with a call of "Ice Arrow!" He fires only one arrow into the mass of rats... and then suddenly, he can't. Why? Because Usagi is scrambling to climb him and screeching and he's gettting the worst of it! "Hey, wait!" he tries to regain his bearings, but the rats start to climb him and Usagi jumps away, and Bow goes down for the moment, the rats swarming him.

Erika Shimizu has posed:
    So it's as the party regroups and moves on that Jolly Roger remains... Largely quiet. No shanties, no bright and happy caterwaulin'. Not now. This is deep in enemy territory and she doesn't need to be told that dragging undue attention to the party is probably a bad idea. Especially when there are others they've been separated from.
    Moving on though, she frowns.
    "What's that whistlin'?" The pirate mutters, reaching into her greatcoat to draw an old timey flintlock pistol as they head through the lattice door and...
    Those are a lot of eyes.
    It only gets worse when someone steps out and whistles again and...
    "Incomin'!" Jolly Roger calls out as she snaps off a shot, the krak-boom of the flintlock in her hand lighting up the room briefly in a soft flare as she fires at the incoming horde. But one shot against that many giant rats is like a drop in a bucket and she quickly draws her cutlass and--
    Oh god Sailor Moon is shrieking.
    "C-calm down, Sailor Moon, I've seen bigger bilge rats."
    That's a lie.
    THAT IS AN ABSOLUTE LIE as they get up close and- "Oh carp maybe I *haven't* seen bigger bilge rats!" She exclaims flailing her cutlass.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Amy's grenades absolutely set some of the rats on magical fire, burning them until they puff away into clouds of dissipating dark energy.

Nettle Girl SHRIEKS at the shotgun pointed at her head, dropping to the floor when her head's blown clean off. Suddenly her headless body's kicking out with her feet at Homura's, and there's a lot of plant matter that's sprayed everywhere at the shot-- then it grows, each big enough piece of fibrous stem rooting and growing together, growing up, quickly, to try and engulf Homura along with the stinging arms and legs trying to entangle and engulf her as well. At least she no longer has a head and therefore can't whistle up more rats.

The Snow Thimble that Jadeite hurls, fist-sized icy bells pelting rats and what's left of Nettle Girl alike, will unfortunately probably also end up hitting Homura -- but they do take care of a whole mess of rats, and so does the squirting of Hinote's water pistol-- the powerful shots slam rats against the bone walls, shattering some but mostly shattering rats. Erika's cutlass beheads some and bisects others, each rat killed going 'paf!' into a cloud of quickly-vanishing dark energy.

The supersonic wave of Sailor Moon's panic absolutely splats some rats and crushes some skulls, and definitely makes everyone's day significantly louder for a brief time-- and poor Bow, while his ice arrow freezes a big chunk of rats, the ones close to him do swarm, biting you biting you biting you with their little glowing-green mouths and sharp little teeth, dark energy singing its awful way in to the archer.

Nettle Girl's shriek doesn't bring more rats, but instead, two more plant girls step out.

One is made of rose stem and mostly covered in thorns, and her hair is like the heads of a bouquet of roses, red petals drifting down when she shakes her head in disappointment at the antics of the heroes.

The other is made of snaking twisting moving kudzu, her own hair looking like giant-leaf scalemail. She smiles and it's bright sharpened teeth in the darkness, black eyes glittering.

Kudzu Girl says to Rose Girl, "They should be grateful to us. We're providing them with fresh air."

Rose Girl titters, then shakes her own head, leaves rustling. "They need to die. Maybe we should cut off their supply of air after all.

With that, the two of them stride forward into the swarming madness of the rats, their arms flung out and splitting at the hands, each finger turning into a limb and then splitting the arms up to the elbows, then the shoulders, and their arm-vines whip out to trip people and wind around limbs and necks to hold people still or strangle them. Poor Homura: Nettle Girl's vines sting, the hairs sticking in the skin; Rose Girl's vines pierce with their thorns; Kudzu is very, very good at constricting, so is the one mostly working on keeping people apart.

The rats, at least, are dwindling in number.

Jadeite has posed:
Jadeite's first move is to take his shield and hand it up to Sailor Moon. "Protect yourself and keep attacking!"

He's not goign to be moving anywhere - that's a fool's game in this storm of rats, vines, and nettles. He can't afford to topple when he's got Sailor Moon on his shoulders. His thick sleeves and armor protect him from the worst of the various vegetable-based menaces, so he goes on the offensive, summoning and sweeping his epee into the enemy. First he skewer-slashes the worst of the rat swarm off Bow, who's within arms reach, and then he slashes to keep the oncoming plantlife from pinning his arms, pinning Bow, or making Usagi unable to attack.

He can't throw ice yet, when there'd be massive collateral damage for his allies, so he'll make sure Bow and Usagi have enough time and space to tear up the topiary!

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir, taking the dwindling number of rats as a sign, shoves the pistol back into his coat and draws out.... a Thompson Submachinegun. A Tommy Gun, that is, and aims it downrange at rats when two more girls show up. That other girl who shot the Pied Piper seems to be in a bind.

But soon so does he as Kudzu starts to wrap around a foot, up his leg as he quickly aims the gun down and an even more powerful jet of water shoots from the tip than his pistol had. in rapid pulses, trying to prevent himself from being constricted.

In the meantime, he's forgotten the rats, which manage to get in and bite at exposed skin from ripped pants as he let's loose an 'Argh!' and starts shooting at them next.

Which means he gets constricted even more, up to waist, and further still!---

"HEY. A LITTLE HELP IF YOU CAN SPARE A HAND!?" he calls out. He isn't alone here, after all. Maybe someone else can help him.

Bow has posed:
Bow lets out a terrified scream as he's swarmed. Fun fact, it wasn't the rats that carried the black plague, it was the fleas on them. But these rats have dark energy, which may be worse as they tear into his flesh with their chompers. It hurts. It hurts /alot/. It takes Bow almost ten seconds to get his bearings back, another five for him to figure out what he's going to do.

Out the mass of rats, his hand emgeres as he bites a rat that tried to get in his mouth. Let's see for you like biting! Finally, he can speak, thanks to Jadeite clearing the way.

"Whirlwind Arrow!" As he slams the arrow point first into the ground, it creates a small tornado that sweeps up the rats and flings them about, against people, into walls. Whatever is convienent. And while he has a momentary reprive, his hand goes to his abs which are bleeding pretty roughly from multiple bites, as well as his face and arms.

Erika Shimizu has posed:
    At least the rats just kind of... Vanish when the die. That's all well and good, less of a bloody mess. But Jolly Roger is grousing as she swats and smacks a few rats off her body where they managed to scale her legs and start biting at her exposed tummy.
    Curse this nautically themed outfit of hers.
    But then two more plant-girls emerge.
    "Ye ain't no lovely sea breeze I'll tell ye that." She says as they approach.
    It's when they get so prickly that she starts hacking away, drawing a second cutlass- using that to try and hack Pulp Noir free of his binds while fending off others from creeping up on herself.
"I got ye, I got ye!"

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
"Ughhhh," Glimmer muttered. Stupid, STUPID Bow! Why would he... GUH! Of all the things to send her, THAT one was INCREDIBLY rude! He couldn't DIE! HE WASN'T ALLOWED! She hadn't even confessed to him yet! Again! IT was hard enough the first time! And now there was that other blue haired sword girl! And it wasn't like Adora who was obsessed with Catra, nope, Bow had a GIRLFRIEND! And they CARED ABOUT EACH OTHER! And she still didn't know how she felt about that and her ROCK was in SOME JERK'S OFFICE and now her JERK'S BOSS JERK was causing trouble and GAH! "Also, why are there bones EVERYWHERE?!" she asked, teleporting again.

"I swear, it's like visiting Entrapta but with less robots and more BONES!"

Teleport.

Teleport.

Teleport.

Oh, wait, was that a scream? That sounded like a scream. That was TOTALLY a scream. And very high pitched!

Bow?!

And then... She teleported above the group, in a flash, erupting in a flash of brilliant light! WHY WERE THERE BONES EVERYWHERE?! Wait, RATS?! Wait, girl with a shotgun and some plant thing attacking her?! Okay, someone was controlling the plants, possibly the youma...

Screw it. Sparkle them both and let mahou sort them out!

A moment after the flash bang of light, Glimmer appeared over the two, left hand erupted into a flash of dazzling lazer blasts of beam DOWN on the growing plants and destruction...

As her right fist shot out to just try and WALLOP the dark haired girl in the face. SPARKLE PUNCH!

Only to then, finally, catch sight of Bow... And teleporting one more time, to teleport above him, snagging his hand, and teleporting OUT of that mass and--

And falling on top of him with a squeak.

... So, in that moment she really DID land on Bow.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Rats die, bursting into Dark Energy, and there's a rousing panic and anger that fills the air because of that Dark Energy, even before two more plant girls come. Usagi gawps, eyes huge.

And then? She realizes a second has definitely passed. The Crescent Wand drops into her hand,and with her other she accepts the ice shield, gloves protecting her from the cold sting.

"MOON HEALING ESCALATION!"

An aggressive burst of silver light beams shoot down, towards the rats, as soon as Sailor Moon finishes carving a wobbling circle in the air above them. The purifying power is piping hot and ready to burn away Dark Energy after the evil of all those rats -

And then the rose thorns smack against her shield, nearly topping her off Jadeite's shoulders. She squeezes her knees, possibly near strangling the poor Shitennou, a she struggles to keep upright.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Homura is actually surprised when her shot does so much damage. This was where Beryl's elite were kept, right? Surely it wasn't so easy.
        Oh don't worry, Homura. It's not. It's not easy at all.

    Actually, maybe worry a lot because those vines are crawling over her legs and arms and dammit, the girl only has one weakness and these plant youma went right for it. Worry actually enters her up-until-now cool purple eyes as she starts considering options. She's a Puella Magi, after all. She'll survive setting herself on fire, if it comes down to it.

    Madoka, of course, has other ideas. The Witch fires a spread of arrows into the air which immediately drop down and form a minefield around her. Most of that minefield gets expended in seconds as rats continue to swarm, but a second is all she needs to aim another arrow in Homura's direction and-- Wait, it's that girl from the other day... PUNCHING her GIRLFRIEND?!

    "Hey what the hey?!" shouts Hope Witch. "Who's side are you on?!"

    "Clearly, not my nose's," mumbles Homura. Nevermind the fact that Glimmer works for Obsidian. Madoka's opportunity to strike was missed in the confusion, but Homura wasn't waiting on anyone anyways. An incendiary grenade drops from her shield, and Homura pulls her Soul Gem off of her hand, flinging it straight towards Madoka. "Hold onto this!"

    Madoka catches the magic stone out of the air, and then gives Homura a wide-eyed stare. What is she?! Oh no!

    Suddenly there's fire all around where Homura is. Then is gone. Standing right next to her shocked pink girlfriend, covered in burns, taking back her Soul Gem while Madoka looks at her mouth agape. "Why..."

    "No time to gawk! They're still coming!" shouts Homura, pulling out an SMG from her shield to gun down more swarming rats.

    Hopefully a fire in an enclosed area wont cause them any lasting problems, right?

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy sees Homura just blow the youma's head off -- cool -- and then is alarmed when rats from another direction start climbing on her. They barely have the chance to climb past her boots and bite her legs before they're exploded off and their bites regenerated.

    She can just... summon explosives, directional or otherwise, detonate them near herself, and her own magic doesn't hurt her as much, or her magic defends her better from itself, or something.

    The surrounding ossuarian architecture is illuminated by brief flashes of light with each explosion. She flings out some flares as a constant light source.

    More youma. They're trying to be intimidating. Escalate. Threatening to cut off their air? She chuckles. "Please. I'm the one who can--whoap"

    The Puella is tripped, and something wraps around her neck. She stands up, holding her breath to save for a few words, looking at the youmas with disdain: "Idiot. I hunt Witches." She moves her hand towards the vine but it's snagged too. And then--

    Did the other Puella Magi just throw her soul gem?! What is she planning?!

    Amy looks at the vines holding her. Explosions conjure around her, out of which fire small missiles to punch holes through the youma holding her, but maybe not the best weapon against people made of plant...

    When the fire fades, Amy looks at Homura curiously. "You got explosives too? Nice." She gives the black-haired girl a little nod.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The actually kind of hilarious effect of Usagi being on Jadeite's shoulders is that when the vines come for them, they can't get at Jadeite's neck and they can't properly climb up Usagi (Usagi can touch the ceiling with ease from there!) because of the shield-- but the Escalation, combined with Hinote's Tommy gun's fire and Bow's whirlwind arrow and Amy's explosions, quickly take care of the last of the rats. (No: the rat did not like getting bitten before it went paf.)

No more rats! Only vines and thorns!

Jolly Roger thankfully is able to help Pulp Noir get the vines chopped off of him even as they come for her and get chopped in kind by her other hand -- they called her The Blender in her old school --

What's left of Nettle Girl is absolutely no more, due in part to that explosion of ice from Jadeite before as preparation, in part to a lot of lasers from Glimmer, but primarily due to self-immolation as offensive technique.

Kudzu comes for Glimmer and Bow, wild and strong and fast, twining around limbs and going for their necks. Rose thorns bramble their way toward Homura and Madoka even as Homura fires ... fire ... into the last tunnel that rats threatened to come out of, and there's squealing, and then a distinct lack of more rats. There are no more beady glowing eyes.

Only plant girls who turn up the heat because Nettle Girl is no more. "DIE!" Rose Girl announces, and the thorns grow bigger, meaner, drawing blood like the rats did wherever they drag across skin unprotected by armor.

"DIE MORE!" adds Kudzu Girl, and how are they not afraid of fire and purification and sharp things?

They're plants, that's how.

Jadeite has posed:
The nice thing about the rats being gone? There's a wide open space between the mahou in front and the plant girls. Jadeite is getting while the getting is good.

"GLORY OF THE SNOW!"

Massive shields come down in front of Madoka, Glimmer and Homura - shields with jagged edges, shields that spin, shields that grind and cut as they go down, down, down. (Down until they ground themselves in the floor, so that anyone firing at the remaining youma has a clear shot.)

Shields that tear away most of the vines and kudzu, because you know what plants hate? Being trimmed!

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Homura sideways glances at Amy and says, "Something like that. Red, right? Homura Akemi." Have they met before? Maybe once. No time to think about that now.

    With the two girls now together again, and with Jadeite's defenses offering them a brief moment of respite, Hope looks around at the increasingly messy bone room and asks, "Like we planned?"

    Homura's purple eyes dart between the two plant youma, and again at the actually-teleporting face puncher. "Good a time as any."

    Then, in an instant, they are both gone. Like 20 or so Labyrinth portals are open all around the room. How did they open so quickly?! A spray of bullets and rockets fire from each of them, and the various natural ammunition is glowing with a mix of pink and purple light. Normally an attack like this would be reckless, but Madoka is an advanced Witch and space is incredibly malleable in her metaphorical hands. Spacial distortions, homing projectiles and sudden appearing portals make sure that allies mostly don't get hit. The plant girls might have a bad time, though.

    Glimmer gets left alone. At least when it comes to Homura's attacks. Her allegiance can be sorted out later.

    Madoka's stray familiars flit around the area, screeching in a way that's not unlike the rats that were here before but also completely unlike any normal thing that has ever lived on this planet. They seem to be... cheering the sparkle team on, somehow?!

Bow has posed:
Just as he had gotten to his feet, there's a familiar flash of power in front of Bow. He immediately recognizes the purple and sparkles for what they are. "Glimmer?! WHAT THE..."

*TELEPORTED*

"...are you doing here?!" What was the word between? You'll never know!

Now that he's got a moment and trapped uner her - he grabs Glimmer by the shoulders. "What are you doing here?!" he asks in frustrated anger. "The letter I sent you was NOT an invitation to be here! Look at me!" he says as he gestures to the numerous wounds that happened to him. "Do you think I want this to HAPPEN to YOU? Are you from an Etheria where we're STUPID?" Because she's the one that opened the door on the different Etherias thing. "AUGH." he finally says, pushing Glimmer off of him and getting to his feet.

Just in time to see Kudzu rushing them. He immediately moves in front of Glimmer to protect her. "Net Arrow!" he calls out and as the canister arrow forms, he fires it and wraps around Kudzu, he prepares his next arrow. "Ice Arrow!"

Yes, he knows she's on fire, but he hopes as he fires the ice arrow into the net, the conflict of fire and ice will shatter her.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The rats are finally gone, and Sailor Moon has several stinging bites to remember them by. Nettle stings and roses bite but the shield mostly covers her -

And then there's a flash of fire, as someone sets themselves on fire - is that Akemi-san?!

Well, there's the stench of burning flesh, nothing she wants to inhale but which is definitely showing up entirely too often at every major battle -

And as Jadeite drops shields, she reaches for her only physical attack:

"Moon Tiara Action!"

The spinning discuss of cosmic love and light and death, now, goes flying in an arc, cutting through kudzu and rose thorns alike on a perfect towards the rose girl. How dare she defame roses!

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir whews and says. "Thanks, Jolly." he says, drawing his fedora down as he levels his tommy gun at the kudzu girl and starts firing powerful pulses of water towards the kudzu girl, there's still flashes of light from the gun, sound, but it's all powerful force coming from the gun.

He screams. "You first, you botanical disaster area!" he says as he fires.

He then looks towards the infight going on between Bow and... whoever that girl is.

Why!? He thinks as he turns back to his target.

He'll side step kudzu now, as he's quick enough when he sees it incoming.

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
"I'm sorry I wasn't sure which was the bad guy!" Glimmer yelled at Madoka. "The girl with the gun or the plant monster or both! I didn't blast her or anything, doesn't that count?" she yelled at her.

Then focused back on Bow. Who she was laying on. And gave a big, goofy grin. "I mean, you can't tell me you're about to die and then NOT expect me to show up? I--" And then she stopped.

I love you. I love you. I. Love. You. I told you I loved you. And you loved me. And you can't remember it. Because you're like Catra. And now you have a girlfriend and she's nice and all but I love you. "And I'm your best friend. So, I may have expediated some things. Turns out? Beryl got fired, so I managed to track you down, charged up my powers and--" And he was yelling at her. And he was YELLING at HER?! "EXCUSE YOU?!"

And then she rolled to her feet. Moving behind Bow... And held out her hand. And sent a blast of burning, incinerating light lasers out at the monsters. "We're BUSY!" she yelled, before grabbing Bow and trying to turn him around to face her.

"Are YOU stupid?! Do you really expect me to just LET YOU DIE?! We didn't FIGHT the Horde our ENTIRE LIVES just so I could lose you now! You're my best friend and there is no way I am letting you die just because I have to work with Obsidian right now! You should KNOW ME better than that! Why can't you ever just TRUST ME?! I've survived the Horde, Horde Prime, the Crimson Wastes, my mother's cooking, my father's coddling and just... if I lost you don't you understand it would have all been MEANINGLESS?! What's the point of putting up with Obsidian's stupid idiots and weird not-Horde tomfoolery if I lose my best friend you... you... YOU DUMB FACE!" she yelled. Yes, they were supposed to be fighting. But she was BUSY. She had to yell at Bow, dang it. "Look at you, you got bit all over! This is why you need me!"

Erika Shimizu has posed:
    With Pulp Noir free and the last of the rats no longer nibbling on her, Jolly Roger catches a breather for a moment.
    "Aye, no problem." She says to Pulp Noir. "We'd best all be watchin' each other's backs here."
    And then the plant girls come for blood.
    'Die!' They scream, and 'Die more!'
    Instead of dying, the pirate reaches into her greatcoat- and drops a full sized ship's cannon out onto the floor like she had it in her freaking pocket.
    She plants her boot upon the back of the cannon and uses her foot to aim before...
    "I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request." She says.
    The cannon goes off with a riotous *BOOM!!!* as she flashes a smarmy little grin.
    "It means 'no'."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    The war song in Rocket Girl's heart sounds an awful lot like BFG Division.

    The over-the-top macabre architecture and threat of imminent death kind of put one in a certain mindset. Either you can fear, or you can dissociate a little bit.

    She's a consciousness transferred into the body of a supersoldier engineered to fight horrors with nigh-infinite ammo, fighting in a cavern made of bones. This is a situation out of a videogame, not real life.

    Amy nods briefly to Homura and then leans to the side as a vine whips past, and summons a helmet so there will be no bare skin, and then decides to just go ahead and summon the rest of her armor as well. It doesn't cover the whole body, and it's not actually tougher than the bodysuit underneath, but the parts covered by armor are more rigid, a protection against attacks whose threat is more sharpness than actual power behind them.

    Especially without unsummoning the cloak this time, she still looks more like someone from a redesigned Gatchaman or something rather than a hard sci-fi soldier, though.

    "Damn." Red comments, as Madoka unleashes... "Nice Wormhole Smasher. Guess you're what happens if Valsione could do that attack too, huh?"

    No one will get that.

    Thorny vines cut into her midsection and upper limbs, though the cuts aren't as long as they would be if they didn't have to pierce the magical bodysuit first. Amy immediately closes them up and even the tears in her suit close. Let the youma think she's invincible rather than that the repairs are skin-deep.

    Amy holds out her hand as the launcher appears in it and fires... not explosives but incendiaries meant to lodge in their plant bodies and just burn. "No, you die more. The other one already made a good start of it."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"IIE!" shriek the plant girls as Jadeite's ice walls come down and t r i m them which is both painful and rude as hell, and then-- they don't really have time for another reaction as fully twenty Labyrinth portals open and start spewing a hail of death in the form of bullet hell at them (and mostly missing the beleaguered heroes because magic reasons)...

...and Bow fires a net and more ice which vanish into the lightshow of shattering bone and shattering youma, there's a massive PAFF of petals with no glitter as Moon's tiara takes an action, there's water everywhere as Pulp Noir helps pummel Kudzu into the wall...

and there are leaves and bits of still-green mulch everywhere, flittering through the air and sifting to the floor or sticking unpleasantly to people and bones and bone fragments...

...and Glimmer's lasers join the fray and there's glittery sizzling as still more artillery joins them, INCLUDING A FOUR-POUNDER what in the world and more bones rattle and shake and shatter at the BOOM amid all the whizzing and whooomfs, and then incendiary rockets...

...ten seconds later, there's only the dripping of water, the crackling of small fires, the wet plop of sodden leaf-clumps falling to the floor, and Bow and Glimmer arguing.

The room is a mess of bullets, plant matter, and bone shards.

Jadeite has posed:
Everyone else seems to have paired off to some degree- which works for Jadeite, because he is in bodyguard mode and the body he is guarding is the one and only Sailor Moon. Despite the bites and scratches that litter his body, he reaches a gloved hand up to steady his princess, the other held out to keep his balance.

"My princess," and that's how she'll know his mind is half sunk in the past, the bodyguard with blood on his hands and not the boy from Indiana, "the enemy has been defeated. I can help you get down; if you and the others use your cell phones, I'll take point and guard the entrance and exit."

(And yet - the look he has for her and the others is not the maddened murderer but the too-loyal guard, the one who'd take a blade or a bullet for his prince. Every pound of flesh, every drop of blood, is committed to this cause. He is her sword and shield; she may wield him as she pleases.)

Erika Shimizu has posed:
    With her cannon expended, it begins to quickly fizzle and melt away to seafoam and sparkles. And that's all well and good as Jolly Roger leans forward to plant her hands on her knees. She places a hand to her stomach and it comes away red. She's been nibbled on a bit, and her greatcoat is torn in places from thorns to reveal that she's taken a few gashes. But she pays her wounds no mind. Does she even feel them? She certainly isn't acting like she's all that bothered.
    But then again she's a zombie in her natural habitat...
"Right then. What's say a five minute break and then we move on? Recover ourselves a bit... Short Rest and spend some hit-dice?"
...
    "Savvy?"

Bow has posed:
As the Kudzu falls, Bow is twisted around to Glimmer to get an earful! And she lays into him, and he blinks... just before the steam comes out of his ears. "ARE YOU STUPID?" he fires back. "You expected me to die! Is that how little you think of me? See! We had to come to Earth to find out the truth! You don't have confidence in me, you never did! That's why you gave Adora the sword! That's why you had her join the best friends squad, becuase I was never going to be good enough for you!" he roars angrilly.

"You make it sound like on Etheria I sat back and did nothing! I was in the same war, in case you forgot! You are so on to me, but you know, have to make YOURSELF look good! You who is hiding in Obsidian and eating ice cream and showing up when you feel like it and then hiding behind your runestone when it's convienent. Of course I trust you, you dummy! You're my best friends, BUT I COULD NOT TELL YOU because you work for the enemy1 Did you forget that you ... you ... big DUM DUM HEAD!"

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    It's a nice day inside. Plants are burning. Etherians are arguing.

    A larger Labyrinth portal appears and the Chara+Puella couple step out. Madoka holds out her hands to beckon her tiny Familiars closer, and Homura reaches behind her head to flip her long, black, luxurious hair.

    The pink and purple girls look over at Bow and Glimmer for a moment, then at each other, and then they start looking for literally anywhere else to be... At least until Madoka looks at Homura's burns and remembers what she just did.

    Hope Witch grabs Homura by the wrist and says, "Homura-chan, did you bring the burn cream?"

    Homura glances away. "Do we really have time for this? I can just heal..."

    Madoka shakes her head. "We can't waste resources! That's... I mean, you know..."

    Homura looks uncomfortable for a few moments before she sighs and pulls out a medkit from behind her shield. Madoka opens it and dotes on Homura for a bit while everyone else is probably distracted by... literally the rest of this mess.

    After a moment, Hope Witch calls out. "Does anyone else need help? We need to be in top form for the next fight!"

    Because in no way is this over, and everyone here knows it.

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir lowers his gun and runs fingers along the brim of his hat cooly as he hehs. "Guess veggiefaces couldn't cut it." he says with a wry grin, before looking down at his ripped pants as he grimly brushes his coat off and draws his gun back into the trenchcoat, removing the flashlight again.

"Yeah. Let's take a moment to get our bearings and continue on." he says as he reaches into his coat and removes.... a chocolate bar.

"Hey I got a couple of these. Lemme know if you need it." he says as he takes a bite.

He watches the argument between Bow and Glimmer and he frowns. "Hey, cut that out. Now's not the time. You can sort this out when this case is over. It isn't closed yet!" he says.

He sighs and answers Madoka. "I got a few bites, but I'll be fine. I can walk." he says. He takes a step forward and winces. "Nevermind. Got any bandages?" he asks.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
With Jadeite's help, Sailor Moon slides off of his shoulders and sets her feet back on solid ground. There's wet and burnt plant matter everywhere, and two people arguing - and while she doesn't have much against Glimmer, she'd call herself Bow's friend. She joined his Rebellion, and he's joined her cause.

So after patting Jadeite's head, gently, and reminding him - "Hey, I'm not just a princess, eat a granola bar already -"

The granola bar came from her backpack, and it's in his face -

She walks over to the shouting friends, and gives Glimmer a stern look before calling to Madoka, "Bow got bitten a lot because I kind of climbed him like a ladder to escape?!"

She's not ashamed!

"Jolly is right. We should take a few minutes to get ourselves in order. I've got granola bars and chocolate bars and some drinks in my backpack! I brought a soda for you, Jolly."

And then she turns to Bow, "Bow, do you want a drink, a snack, or to keep yelling at Glimmer. All options are good, we're taking a break."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "Everyone alright?" Amy calls out, then dismisses her helmet and re-calls: "Everyone alright?" She takes a step and winces, still sore where she was cut. Maybe she should regenerate that, but she'll wait a moment to see if free healing is being passed out first.

    Amy dismisses her armor (and the base form's chestplate) while holding out arms to offer hugs to any that seem to want them. "I'm so happy to see you all! I was so worried when I-- no, I was so scared when I appeared all alone."

    Um. Bow and Glimmer are fighting? "Uhh... Why are..." you know what? She'll see if they sort it out quickly or not.

    Damn, Madoka's friend can do a cool hairflick. But that also brings another issue to her attention...

    Amy approaches the Puella+Chara pair, with an awkward bearer-of-bad-news look at Madoka. "You realize that all nonmagic can do for burns is keep them clean and uninfected while the body heals on its own, right?" She glances up at the awful architecture around them. "I don't know if we're going to have time for that, and... she can turn off pain but we lag if we do that. We should see if anyone in the party has magical healing before using grief seeds, though."

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Glimmer Brightmoon blinked a few times. Then... "What do you mean *I* gave Adora the sword?! I TRIED TO KEEP THE SWORD FROM HER! I ALMOST DIED TRYING TO KEEP THE SWORD FROM HER! YOU were the one who kept trying to give the sword to her! How could you say that?! I thought you were trying to replace me with her!"

"YOU SENT ME A LETTER SAYING YOU MIGHT DIE! HOW CAN YOU EXPECT ME TO NOT WORRY ABOUT YOU?! HOW CAN YOU SAY YOU'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME?!" she yelled.

"I NEVER SAID YOU DID NOTHING! I SAID I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING! I SAID I NEED YOU TO TRUST ME LIKE I TRUST YOU! BUT I KNOW IF I TELL YOU EVERYTHING THEN YOU'LL DO SOMETHING DUMB BECAUSE YOU'RE THE GREATEST AND SWEETEST GUY IN THE GALAXY AND YOU'LL GET HURT! I'M WORKING ON IT, OKAY?! Gah! Bow, you are SO INFURIATING! Don't tell me you're going to die and then act surprised when I come to make sure you don't die!"

"Do you have any idea what would happen if you died?! You... you... you... YOU MUSCLE HEADED FIST BRAINED DORK!"

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Hope Witch turns to Pulp Noir with a smile and takes a roll of gauze out of the kit. Homura follows as Madoka walks closer to him. "Sure! This'll just take a moment."

    Homura just kind of stoically holds the medical kit while her gal pal digs through it to find things. The tiny benotafraid Familiars happily float around Homura's head in a way that reminds her of Gretchen. "We'll play more after this," she promises.

    Madoka spends some time looking over Pulp and applying antibiotics when necessary before moving on to the next scratch. Whens she gets done she walks up to Bow and asks, "Let me see? I promise I wont break any ribs this time."

    It's at this point, standing right next to the argument, that Homura looks her most stoic, most cold, most unfeeling. Or at least that's the image she projects, to avoid having to actually process how awkward this is. Madoka, in contrast, isn't pretending to ignore it. She actually just is.

    Homura glances at Amy and says, "She knows, and she doesn't care. Her argument is that magic plus medicine is more efficient than magic alone. Besides, magic can't cure everything on its own. If it did, I'd have a lot less problems."

    Madoka winces, because she knows that Homura is talking about Sayaka.

Bow has posed:
Out of all of that... it's the last words that hit the hardest. Glimmer had always praised him for his intelligence and his skills on the fly. To be told otherwise? His lip quivers for a moment, the edge of tears in his eyes. And he says nothing else to Glimmer. Turning away from her, he faces Sailor Moon. Who admitted to shoving him into the rats. ACCIDENTALLY.

"Drink and snack sounds delightful." he says to her, "And maybe some medical attention as well. We still have a ways to go."

Hinote Kagari has posed:
Pulp Noir's wounds are tended to and he says "Thank you. I appreciate it." he says. He brushes his coat clean of bone dust as he finishes his chocolate bar and just looks around with his flash light. He's trying to determine the next path forward, mainly by using his detective sense, narrowing his eyes a little and looking over gated and grated paths.

"This place is a literal maze. But the game is afoot." he says.

He looks between Bow and Glimmer again and just rolls his eyes as he pulls his fedora back down as he turns away to continue trying to deduce the best path forward for the group. If he's able.

"Hrm."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy blinks at Homura. "I guess that might be the case... I haven't scientifically tested it..."

    She glances over at the arguers, but it seems to be about... Bow said he might die so of course his friend came. Why is she mad, exactly, since she's here?

    But she's not sure interrupting them is the best.

    So for the moment she steps closer to Homura and lowers her voice. "I don't suppose whoever warned you about the attack at that archaeologist's presentation had anything to say about" she again looks around with a slight head movement to indicate all around them, "--this?"

Erika Shimizu has posed:
    It is while Bow and Glimmer argue that Jolly Roger graciously accepts her soda from Sailor Moon.
    "Ah, thank ye, lass~." She says, popping the tab and chugging.
    Between the caffeine and sugar content, she's perked up real fast!
    ... Except for the fact that a sticky substance starts blooming visibly from her shirt from a particularly deep stab wound from the thorns prior...
    She's... She's leaking the soda right out as she chugs it, and she *doesn't even notice*.
    "Haaaaaaaaah... Good stuff!"

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Homura, finally, cannot help herself anymore. She hates infighting with a burning passion. "Either or both of you could die here. Now is not the time to say things you'll regret for the rest of your lives. Which will be a lot shorter if you can't pull it together."

    Homura turns on her foot and starts to walk off. "I'm going to stand watch. Take time if you need to, but we shouldn't stay still too long."

    Says the girl who has all the time in the world.

    Homura stops at Amy's question and hesitates before answering. She flashes back to another timeline where she swore, swore, to a lot of people who put a lot of faith into her that Beryl's base was in freaking Antarctica. She lost a lot of credibility when that turned out to not be the case.

    "Beryl's plans are inscrutable. A lot of Obsidian's higher ups benefit from... a level of opsec that you and I simply don't have. No, there was no warning. Sorry."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
A soda is handed off to Jolly, whiel Glimmer screams her head off. Then she "Granola bar coming up! It's got carbs and proteins in it, thanks to all the nuts, sugar, all that. And here, a bottle of green tea..."

And then she turns to Glimmer.

"Look. I can tell you've got a lot of feelings about all of this, and I get it, because I don't want anyone to get hurt either - but we've got a job to do. If you're just going to yell at Bow, because he cared enough about you to tell you that we were going into danger - then like, maybe reconsider your priorities, okay? We're here to save the world. Now are you helping us, or are you making him feel bad?"

With Bow's snacks carefully dispensed, she heads over to the others to provide snacks -

"JOLLY?! Madoka-chan!?!?! I think she's bleeding out all the soda?!?!?! Is that even a type of injury?!?!"

Glimmer Brightmoon has posed:
Glimmer Brightmoon clenches her fists and lets out an infuriated growl. "Gahhhh! I can't believe this! You have any idea how much trouble I've already probably gotten into, since I came here?! It's really not helping my cover, you know! But fine! WHATEVER! FINE!" It was NOT fine!

"Kyle-girl!" she yelled to Homura. What? She had a gun and got blown up. "I'm sorry I punched you! I didn't know which side you were on!" Then looked to Sailor Moon. "So, like. I was told that Obsidian has given up on Beryl so, like, there shouldn't be any problem with me helping you and all." That was NOT what she was told. Not at all.

"UGh, I am SO MAD right now!" she snapped, kicking one of the skulls. Then bent down and picked one up, glaring. "What even is this place? Some kind of haunted ho... hou.... hou...." And slowly the color drained from her face.

It was a real skull. That was a skull. That was a SKULL!

Her scream was NOT magic. But it was DEFINITELY ear piercing.