1907/Necessary Roughness

Necessary Roughness
Date of Scene:	29 August 2024
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	The young versions of Stellar and Lacuna are still in Tokyo, and their hunt for amusement is still making trouble. When they corral four youma in downtown Mitakihara to make things more interesting, Amy, Rashmi, Cho, and Lana end up caught in the middle. These two troublemaking heroes are not glad for the help - even if their magic is on the fritz.
Cast of Characters:	Fuyuko Yuuhi, Kyouka Inai, Lana Voselle Miata, Rashmi Terios, Cho Konishi, Amanda Faust

---

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The sun sets on Tokyo just after 6pm, a fact which does little to diminish the number of people on the streets. In a city prone to overworking, where a full two million people entered and exited daily solely for work, there was never a properly quiet moment -

But there are plenty of times, and plenty of places, where the city is just that little bit less busy, that little bit less full, and though the future has changed plenty, it hasn't changed the fact that Stellar and Lacuna still know all the best places to stage a fight.

It's been over two months since they arrived in what they collectively refer to as 'the Bad Future', and months of slaughtering youma and rescuing civilians has done nothing to get them back home. Lacuna can admit that she's a little - maybe a lot - frustrated about it. Sure, the prey is plentiful and the hunting is great, but she misses her own home, her own bed, and most importantly, her own Kaito.

But since she can't have that, the least she can have is a good hunt. Here, in Mitakihara, that's what they've arranged: because why fight the monsters one by one, when you can corral them into one place and take them all out together?

Perched on a lamp post, Lacuna grins over at Stellar, darkness swirling about her hands and forearms like water, vanishing points of light appearing and disappearing within the void of her power made manifest.

"Well? Let's get this show on the road! We found 'em, now we slay 'em!"

The four gathered youma, harried, harassed, and gathered together, vocalize their disapproval in roars and growls.

There's a variety of them - slithering emerald serpent with a flaring crimson hood, baring foot-long fangs that drip with venom; a pair of toy soldiers grown to the size of street lamps, an aura of dark energy seething from their plastic skin and a purple glow fixed at the ends of their plastic rifles; and the last, shadow-wreathed tree, bark cracked to form glowing red eyes and a cruel smile, walking around on extended roots that crack and tear the ground.

For anyone making their way through Mitakihara, there's a powerful sense of dark energy, from the four of these youma being gathered together - and if that's not enough, there's quickly the loud sounds of battle, as Lacuna and Stellar begin a destructive battle right there in the city streets.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar crouches on the roof of a parked bus, across from where Lacuna is perched on that lamppost. Her bone-white naginata, the hilt carved with intricate designs, rests over one shoulder as she loudly chews some bubblegum, eyeing the frustrated monsters in the middle of the street over the top of her sunglasses (yes, even back then she wore them, and yes they appear to be the same pair, or at least the same style). "Grouping these idiots up here was a lot of work.. I hope this'll be worth it."

    Much like someone seeking to beat the high score in a video game, playing on 'easy' just isn't interesting anymore. Finding ways to increase the challenge is what adds spice to the life of a professional youma-slayer, and in this case, setting up the 'quadrakill challenge' was the route to an entertaining night. Even if it had meant hours of luring, coaxing, feinting, and otherwise corralling these creatures all onto the same street.

    She's far less frustrated about their situation than Lacuna is- after all, she doesn't have a comfy home or a boyfriend to return to, and the hunting here is so much better than back home. But that doesn't mean the lack of success in finding a way to escape this 'bad future' isn't frustrating to her as well. She's not used to failing at anything.

    At least killing monsters helps ease that frustration.

    As Lacuna declares it time to start the show, she straightens from her crouch. Thunder rumbles ominously in the low cloud cover, obscuring what few stars the light pollution would let show, as she spins her naginata around one arm, golden lightning crackling down its haft as the tip leaves a blazing trail of after-image light in the air. "Alright then." She grins, just as one of youma, the emerald serpent, starts to try to slither away towards a group of teens walking on the sidewalk, oblivious to the danger. "Time to slay."    

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Lana V. Miata was not overly concerned with the activities of youma. At least, not usually. However, during her time at Obsidian she's been left out of important meetings, given the runaround by various superiors, told to spend several months sorting out some random office library only to learn that none of it mattered and well...

    Honestly, she's feeling a bit put out by it all. She's missed out on some pretty big events lately and she's never going to complete her goals unless she goes out and does things.

    So that's how this one particular Obsidian Employee is drawn to the scene of no less than four youma, all gathered together in one spot. All of this dark energy in one spot is surely part of someone's epic scheme, which means maybe it's an opportunity for her to either profit off of it or express her annoyance at her coworkers.

    She, of course, does not arrive in henshin. So here we have an annoyed looking not-very-well-known RHA student carrying around a ledger so large that she needs both hands to carry it. She's watching these four youma get corralled around and baited as she slowly starts to realize that the facts of the situation are far, far stupider than she ever thought possible.

    "I can't believe they were so stupid as to let themselves get baited here. Where are their minders?" she mutters. She turns around from the fight and starts to walk away, reacting to the magical combat far more casually than anyone actually should.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
School is almost back in session, and there are only a few days left to enjoy actual free time, before classes start back up and eat up what parts of Rashmi's day aren't already consumed with Device repair training, projects, boyfriend, friends, and mahou life.

...Honestly if she can manage this, a 27-hour work life cycle would be a *breeze* by comparison.

Slipping into an alley, henshining, and flying straight up, Rashmi follows the Dark Energy signatures... and very quickly simply homes in on the sound of thunderous explosions. Which does not help her mood.

Coming up on an active battle in the middle of the streets at sundown, Rashmi is *horrified.*

This is disrupting *so many lives!* And who's supposed to fix the damage?! Who even *are* these girls anyway?!

    << *BONG!* >> << TIME-SPACE BARRIER >>

The oblivious teens -- and all the rest of the bystanders -- are swept away by a staticky green-black bubble that swiftly expands to cover the nearest few blocks, converting the battlefield into a silent, abandoned copy of itself... save the youma, and any mahou in the area.

"What... in the *actual what?!*" calls down the redheaded Devicer from her place around the third-story windows.

Cho Konishi has posed:
Cho Konishi had been walking through Mitakihara, her book bag held over her lap, eyes ahead, a literal monkey on her back.

"So, how has it felt?" Wuwu asked.

"I don't know, weird? I keep... looking for what I'm supposed to do, you know?" Cho said. "I've always been a part of the student council. Leaving it feels... wrong, I guess. No, that's not right. Uncomfortable? Yeah, it... huh?" Cho paused and lifted her nose a bit. Then wondered why she did that, it wasn't like she smelled anything. "Do you feel that?"

"Of course," Wuwu said. "I'm more interested in the fact you do."

"Huh? I guess... I'm just getting used to it," Cho said with a shrug before she started to, lightly, jog towards where she felt the strangeness. It wasn't long until she caught sight of the four youma... and their two corallers. "W-what are they doing?" Cho asked. "Are those two... the dark generals?"

"Mayyyyybe?" Wuwu said. "Looks like you're up, though. Unless you don't want to, you don't have to--"

Cho shoved him off her shoulder and pulled out her compact and pen. "Historic Legacy, Pretty Cure!"

A few moments later, a staff the size of a great oak came flying down AT the serpent youma, Cure Wukong riding on the back of it and intending to drive it into the ground.

"Okay, which one of you two is the one getting their butt kicked, or are you both the bad guys?" she called out to Lacuna and Stellar.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    FOUR youma at once?! Amy starts searching the area for a powerful Witch when she senses that. (A glance down at her soul gem, still over a quarter corrupted, brings to mind the slight urgency in finding such) and looks for signs, witch-kissed she might need to do something about before she calls for backup...

    And what greets her instead is... four youma, and a couple of familiar faces. Well, sort of.

    Just after she comes into view of them, the barrier goes up, and Cure Wukong asks who's the dark general responsible for this.

    "Stellar?! I mean-- Ch-- Wukong I think that's Inai-sensei..."

    The red Puella Magi can only stare at the surrealness of seeing Inai-san also turned into a teenager. Well. Given what Lacuna said it's time travel, not that. But. Like it's still weird to see her former coworker as also a kid now, right?

'Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
Shadows seethe and swirl on the ground, crawling under the monsters, and as Rashmi and Lana arrive on the scene, it's to the sight of Lacuna diving at the pair of Toy Soldiers, slicing at them with a flood of liquid-like darkness. The tips of their plastic rifles are sheared off, and they immediately respond by shooting at her with purple energy lasers.

"Losers!" The insult comes out as a laugh, as Lacuna dodges around both strikes, striking out with a splash of darkness that destroys a portion of one Toy Soldier's leg, only for the plastic to grow molten and form a new leg.

That draws a grin.

The opening of the barrier, and the entrance of Cure Wukong? Causes a scowl to chase away that grin.

"Hey! There are plenty of monsters to fight in this shitty future, go find your own!" Only then does the question Cure Wukong asked register, and she stares at the girl for a moment before bursting out laughing and pointing at Stellar. "She's the one getting her butt-kicked. Come on, what are you, blind? Isn't it obvious?"

She may not know what's going on here, but like any best friend, like any sister, she will take every opportunity to fire a pot shot Stellar's way.

In the moment after she answers, one of the Toy Soldiers takes the opportunity to fire a purple energy beam at Rashmi, for the sole reason of 'she's right there'.

Lacuna laughs at this, too. "Man, there really are so many of us here and for what? Come on, you too lazy to find your own hunt?"

Even as she taunts them (and laughs at them), she's dodging the blasts the Toy Soldiers are firing.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Lana squints up at the sky as she feels the barrier rise around them, and immediately approaches the nearest store at a brisk pace, slipping in through the door so that she has a proper place to henshin.

    Curse it all. Now she's involved in this. How is she going to leave the barrier without being noticed?

    On second thought, who even cares? She doubts these youma are going to make it out alive, even with four of them gathered at once. Whoever those two young mahou are, they're clearly making sport of this, which means they feel perfectly confident to take these monsters on.

    Once she's fairly certain no one's looking at her, she summons her device from her pendant and calls out her henshin phrase. "Break the hands of Time!"

    Nightmare Chain responds, < Beflecke die Erde >

    Lana's ornate tan barrier jacket forms around her, transforming her into Starfall Omen. She makes her way out of the storefront with her ID in staff mode, using it as a walking stick as she approaches the youma and those fighting them.

    As she overhears Cho's question and challenge, her eyes glance towards the young Lacuna and Kyouka with a frown. Is one of them an Obsidian employee?

    Honestly, neither of them really seem to fit the bill. Weird.

    "Yeah I'm actually not looking after those four idiots, so don't look at me, it's not my problem." She waves her hand dismissively at the heroes in a way that is honestly a bit rude. "Just hurry and clean this up so I can leave."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar is just about to totally bisect the emerald serpent with her naginata's glowing blade when it is instead smashed into the ground by a giant tree. Or rather, a giant staff the size of a tree, which makes it rather hard to distinguish at close range. This doesn't outright destroy the serpent, but does do a good job of pinning it down, the staff crushing it's middle into the asphalt and causing it to hiss and flail about, smashing various objects and sending debris flying (which luckily doesn't really matter thanks to Rashmi's barrier.)

    Stellar arrests her diving attack, the blade of her weapon shearing into the asphalt like butter as she lands lightly despite the interruption, scowling at Wukong. "Hey hey hey hey, don't you know it's rude to steal other people's prey? And why the hell would we be 'bad guys', we're here tryin' to kill these youma which you are not getting in the way of I might add." She flicks her weapon back up, golden shards of lightning crackling around its haft as it spins back to her shoulder. "Where'd all the people go, anyway?" She asks, suddenly noticing the lack and frowning, peering around, casual despite the flailing serpent still smashing things a yard away. "Did someone put a barrier up?" She's familiar with the technology, though it's not usually one they have at their disposal.

    Lacuna's call about her getting her butt kicked causes her to turn and shake her fist. "Shut up, I haven't even gotten started yet because I got interrupted, you're getting an unfair head start!"

    She hasn't really seemed to notice Rashmi or Amy (or Lana) at all yet, likely due to the sheer amount of noise and chaos being unleashed. Speaking of, as this is all going on, the shadowy animate tree has been ambling towards her. At this point, it brings one of its creepy crooked branches around and swings it down at her, trailing a miasmic black mist which vaguely resembles Lacuna's magic but is far more sickly and phantasmal.

    The movement catches the corner of her eye, and she ducks, stepping to the side and bringing her weapon back around so quickly a crack of mini-thunder splits the night as she shears the branch off midway, causing the tree to stumble back and howl- somehow.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Yes!" Rashmi shouts at Stellar's question, "*I did!* Because you guys look like you think 'splash damage' is a *featu*-- wups."

A hurried Shield is brought up and faced in the direction of the toy soldiers, as Rashmi scoots to one side and closer to the ground, to keep a better eye on the battle. If these two are carping about 'kill-stealing,' then she's gonna let them work whatever issues they seem to have out.

...Then Amy's words register. "Wait... *Inai-sensei?!* Ho-- wh-- bu-- ... ....... Oh no."

Rashmi has, after all, heard at least one statement about Counselor Inai's glory days, and has never had reason to believe it was a fish story.

Which means she's suddenly *triple glad* she put up a Barrier.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Lacuna is much the same as Amy last saw her.

    Puella Rocket Magi Red, however, is over three times as tall as she was when the two last talked. And less doll-like.

    "Um." It feels kind of weird hearing the present described as a shitty future. But a lot of things in Amy's life feel weird.

    The fight rages on around them, but they have plenty of girlpower assembled, so, talking seems more immediately important to her? She's certainly not got the magic to spare casually on showy attacks -- to the extent that firing a rocket launcher isn't already showy, anyway.

    And besides, Stellar and Lacuna seem concerned about killstealing.

    "Okay, so... can you explain to me what it is that makes it matter how many monsters you, specifically, kill? Do you like, get points for each kill and if you don't get enough points you die or lose your powers or something? 'Cuz I'm just here to help people. I'm not here to take your points or anything, I've watched that anime and I stopped watching it when the character who's way too much like me dies halfway through."

    "So why is it? Do you... collect something from the monsters that your powers run on, or something?"

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
The Toy Soldiers are not strong enough to break through Rashmi's shield attack - at least, not with just one blast. The one that fired on her fires three times more in rapid succession, before Lacuna reaches it, throwing both hands up in a gesture that causes her waves of void-strewn darkness to close around arm and rifle alike, splashing onto the ground nearby. Everything struck is simply - gone, when the darkness clears - a hole in the earth a foot deep, armless for the Toy Soldier, the weapon gone altogether.

She takes the opportunity to smirk at her counterpart, calling out, "Yeah, yeah, we'll be through with this in a second - and it's not unfair if you didn't see the dork with the giant stick coming!"

A girl calls out that she just wants to get out of here, and Lacuna smirks as she jumps behind the other Toy Soldier and makes it to strike - but the darkness around her arm slops down rather than following her direction.

A second hole opens in the asphalt, and the Toy Soldier stumbles into it, flailing to catch itself before it can collapse to the ground. The plastic gun is lost in the effort, sliding in Amy's direction.

What the hell was that? She's had better control of her powers than that for years, so what... happened there?

"Who's Inai-sensei? You kids looking for a teacher or something, because gotta say, we are so not in this teaching business!" What is it with people coming up to them, looking for lessons? Whatever losers their future selves are, that's not them. That's not going to be her. "Look, I don't know why it's so hard to get the idea through your head, but we're having fun. And you're cramping our style."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    While it's fairly easy to tell this Stellar and Inai-sensei are related- the red hair, the same white-and-gold henshin outfit, the sunglasses- it's also fairly easy to tell this is not Inai-sensei. This Stellar is slightly shorter, skinnier and possessed of a more frenetic, bouncing energy than her older counterpart. She dances back a few steps as the tree takes another lumbering swing at her. No doubt getting hit with one of those animate branches would hurt, but the thing is slow and it's no trouble for her to stay out of reach- even if she nearly trips over the pinned-and-flailing snake in the process.

    "Dammit!" She snarls in annoyance, spinning around and using her naginata to do a clean backflip over the thing, landing on its head briefly before driving the blade down into it, pinning the monster snake to the ground a second, much more fatal time. It's flailing begins to subside as it's body starts to disintegrate into whisps of dark energy.

    "Yeah I dunno who this Inai-sensei is," She says, her tone annoyed, "But it matters because it's a competition. I'm not going to let her," A jerk of her thumb towards Lacuna, "Kill more monsters than me. I'll hear about it for the rest of the week!" Clearly that would be the ultimate tragedy.

    The tree has closed the distance again in the meantime, and brings two giant branches trailing dark mist down towards her. Making a 'tsk' sound of aggravation, Stellar ducks to the side smoothly, spinning her Naginata in a whirling blaze of light to shear one of them off almost casually. "Who invited all these killjoys, anyway?" She complains to Lacuna over the soound of the fight. "Except that one, she seems to know her place at least." An upnod towards Lana and her vociferous denial of any involvement in this.

    "Whatever," She turns back to drive her Naginata into the tree again, but as she stabs it forward it quite suddenly... stops glowing. And instead of just spearing through the tree it stabs into the wood with a thunk and seems to get stuck. She yanks on it, but it doesn't come free, and she's forced to dodge another swing of branches by dancing up and around it. "What the hell?"

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Starfall Omen crosses her arms and scowls at the sight in front of her. She's watching the fight unfold and she's definitely not helping. Flinging darkness at youma could go either really well or really badly, considering just how much backstabbing regularly happens at Obsidian. She lets out a huff and taps her foot impatiently. This whole thing is just really putting her out.

    Look, caring about collateral damage or the danger that youma cause is for other people. Lana has deadlines!

    "Nightmare Chain, what time is it?" she asks her Device, and gets a telepathic answer which leaves her aghast. "Seriously?!"

    A few stray shots start heading her way, and her device responds quickly by shifting modes into something that looks like a rifle impaled into a shield.

     < Schildarchitekt >

    A wall of Belkan shields appears around her, separating herself from the fight. Concentrated fire could probably break them, but she also isn't drawing much aggro compared to literally everyone else here.

    "So what possessed you to drag four different youma into this? Was three not enough?" she asks, still not attacking yet.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"*Killjoys?!*" Rashmi says, rearing back, eyes wide behind her glasses.

Drawing in a deep, infuriated breath, she raises a *second* shield to block the triplet of shots from the toy soldier, as a magical seal spreads out under her feet.

    << *BONG!* >> << GAMMA STRIKE -- BOOST UP >>

Four foxfire-like wisps of golden energy resolve and spread out, infusing those they target with a brief surge in power, with the feeling of sunshine on their faces, with a need to *hit it harder.* While it may be difficult for Amy to make use of a melee-attack boost, Cure Wukong *absolutely* will, and it looks like the jerky teenage mahou are starting to slip.

It looks like they need help.

Cho Konishi has posed:
Cure Wukong opened her mouth to object, to comment, to throw shade...

Only to finally just... be struck dumb by the very idea. They. Were fighting monsters. In order to get points. They were competing.

"Oh my gosh they're *those* kinds of heroes?"

"Are you kidding? This is great," Wuwu said, landing on her back a moment later.

Wukong sighed and leaped off her staff, pushing a hand out against the staff and shrinking it down. "No, it's not. They dragged four youma here. How much property damage are they going to do?"

"Property damage happens all the time," Wuwu said dismissively. "I used to do competitions with Sandy like this all the time, sure, you may break a few buildings, destroy a few mountains, but who cares so long as you look awesome doing it?"

"Wuwu, please... don't," Cure Wukong said.

"I mean, come on," Wuwu said, loud enough for the other two to definitely hear. "If you actually tried for once, you'd crush these two chumps."

"Wuwu, I swear..." Cure Wukong said before jamming her staff back to concuss the serpent in the skull just in case it got any ideas of like... moving. Now that the staff was gone. "Please don't egg them on. Even if we're in a consequence free zone, that doesn't mean I'm going to go trying to break everything. Besides, look, even the general isn't picking a fight. She's bunkering," Wukong said, motioning to Lana.

However, suddenly... Both of the other girl's powers seem to go out at once? Time to help!

Cure Wukong launched herself forward, her speed amplified heavily by the boost from Rashmi... And she then spun and tried to give the tree a resounding, earth shattering *kick*, before twirling around, gripping her staff in both hands, and striking at the youma. As she spun, her staff grew to about the size of a really, really, REALLY big baseball bat. Comically sized, even.

Well, she already stole Stellar's kill once, why not do it again?

"Are you okay?" she asked, glancing back to Stellar.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Yeah, it was more the similarity of face that struck Amy as weird, but she could not possibly observe Young Stellar for more than a few seconds and come to the conclusion that Inai-sensei simply ended up in a younger body, even she hadn't already heard from Young Lacuna about the time travel.

    "Do you need any help...?" she offers when Stellar trips over the snake, but she backs off that idea when told it's a contest.

    "Lady. We showed up 'cuz we felt dark energy. It is our job as much as yours to see innocent people protected, although as long as it's taken care of I don't care who does it."

    And now the spear is stuck. "Huh." Amy holds a hand to her chin. "You can't just resummon it? Would it reappear if you de-henshined and re-henshined, although you probably don't wanna do that. Wanna try shooting it with a rocket launcher?" She means shooting the monster, of course, and she conjures her standard launcher -- a plain grey-with-a-few-pink-crystals-on-it affair vaguely resembing an AT4, functioning as a recoilless rifle firing an explosive shell -- and holds it out.

    To anyone but Amy, it weighs like 40 lbs. She could lighten it considerably, but has never had to.

    Also, Cure Wukong is jumping into the fight. Amy opens her mouth to suggest just letting the two finish it, and then remembers she's talking to someone fit to bear the legacy of Sun Wukong, so... Yeah.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
As Stellar puts a permanent end to the serpent youma, Lacuna scowls furiously and grits her teeth, glaring at her fist. "No way are you winning this one!"

The darkness which had begun to swirl sluggishly around her hands erupts into broiling action, churning erratically before consolidating around one fist, elongating into a neat scythe of pitch black and vanishing white points. Even as Rashmi offers a boost to Cure Wukong and Amy, Lacuna darts forward, swinging her scythe-arm up and vanishing the center fallen Toy Soldier leaving two thirds of it to fall, split vertically in two.

The dark aura fades from the toy immediately, and as the two halves fall to wards the ground, they shrink, until there's nothing left but a fist sized toy where there had been an enormous menace.

"Yeah, killjoys," Lacuna snaps at Rashmi, and her face a is a cold mask, her pretty features as hard as porcelain. Internally, she's pissed, embarrassed and frustrated, wondering why her powers had just freaked on her as they hadn't since she was twelve years old and in her first battles, but externally? She's the same pissy teenager, glower at unasked for and unwanted help. "Why don't you act more like her, and mind your own business?"

Her is Starfall Omen, who's clearly coming out of this whole thing as the favorite intruder.

And then Cure Wukong's little mascot is talking (more like talking shit), and she straightens up yet more, eyes focused on Cure Wukong. "You think you're better than us?" the worst part is that she doesn't sound angry. She wounds interested. Wuwu's laid down a challenge, and there might be two more monsters still, but she's ready to go take her up on it.

The other Toy Solier is still standing, though plastic flowing to form a new arm, and with it's weapon gone, it's crashing towards Rashmi, aiming to stomp her flat.

She's a Device Mage, but she's not been fighting, just defending and supporting. Maybe she can fight. Maybe she can't. But Lacuna should probably protect the killjoy, especially since a save and a kill in one go is worth more points.

But when she strikes out with the scythe again, though the blade carves deep into the Toy Soldier - it doesn't shear through cleanly, as it should have. Instead, just like Stellar's weapon, it gets - stuck.

But since the shaft of the scythe is her arm, it means she's kind of cleaved to the monsters, and furiously starts kicking at it in an effort to get herself unstuck.

"We do not need your help! If you felt the Dark Energy here, you should have felt it all over the city; there's prey all over, and you just had to come fight ours?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar is too busy trying to yank her naginata back out of the tree to tell Rashmi that yes, actually, interrupting someone else's game makes you a killjoy! But rest assured she would have in other circumstances. As it is, her problem is more or less solved when Cure Wukong kicks the tree hard enough to send it reeling backwards, then cracking it with a baseball bat. The tree teeters, though it remains upright, flailing its branches angrily, but the impact does cause Stellar's blade to pop free of the thing, the girl stumbling back a few steps herself from the sudden release.

    "Yes, I'm okay!" She snaps to Wukong, seeming mildly flustered as she stares at the weapon. That's never happened before, not in all the years she's been doing this. She's visibly confused, but tries to hide it with indignation as her eyes snap back to Wukong. "And I thought I told you to butt out! We don't need your help, you're going to throw off the balance!"

    She glares at her naginata, and a moment later lightning crackles into being around it's length, racing up to sheathe the blade in a bright glow again, and she huffs out a breath in obvious relief. Everything seems to be working as it should. Whatever that... fluke was about, it must have been just that. A fluke.

    Amy is offering her helpful suggestions and a rocket launcher, but she gets much the same response as Wukong. "No, I don't need help!" She sounds doubly frustrated by having to repeat herself, and now that her magic seems to be working properly again her confidence returns with a vengeance. "Ya'll don't need to worry about protecting people as long as Lacuna and I are around. We're more than enough to handle this level of cannon fodder. We thought by grouping them up we could at least make the fight not boring but it seems like even that was hoping for too much." This may be directed at Starfall Omen's question, but even if it isn't it answers it. "I mean look at this thing."

    She gestures to the tree, which while creepy-looking in a vacuum, is still just kind of flailing about ineffectually after Wukong's attacks. "It's pathetic. But.." She hefts her naginata again. "I'm still not going to let you steal my points!" She vanishes with a crack of thunder-not a teleport, just a very very fast movement, dashing towards the tree while swinging her glowing blade in a dazzling arc, aiming to slice it right in half, the asphalt behind her melted into slag and crackling with leftover golden lightning.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Starfall is called 'general' and for a moment she actually smiles. "General. I like the sound of that. Not quite as good as 'Queen' or 'Goddess' but it'll do for now."

    Granted, most generals are expected to lead and that's exactly what she's not doing.

    As she witnesses the power loss between the heroes she goes right back to scowling, annoyed at the apparent delay. Amy's suggestion almost makes her laugh. "Yeah, just turn the spear off and then on again! That'll work!"

    Well, for all Lana knows, it totally will.

    "Okay time's up and I'm not getting yelled at again for running late. Nightmare Chain!"

    < Untergangsflamme >

    She aims her rifle device at the tree youma and squeezes the trigger, and a rapid torrent of fire-aspected bullets pours out of the barrel. Killing the monsters seems like the quickest way to end this fight, and attacking the mahou right now will just drag things out and cause needless aggro.

    Even if those two kids are making it a little too easy.

    On the other hand, why finish them off now? The scythe user seems to have potential.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Uh-huh," Rashmi says in answer to Lacuna's insistence that they don't need help, the Osaka leaking into her deadpan voice. "Maybe where you come from you can handle stuff on your own."

<< *BONG!* >> << SOLAR BLADE -- BLAZE SHIFT >>

Three Barrets appear above her head, then extend into swords made of hard light... and *then* catch fire. "But here in Tokyo, we don't *go* solo. Sometimes accidents happen, sometimes powers slip."

The blades, designed to carve through a target's defense, and burn them away from the inside out, streak down toward the toy soldier, aimed at the head and at a vector that even should she miss, hitting Lacuna is a deeply improbable event.

"What matters is, in Tokyo someone *always* has your back."

It's the next-best thing to a justice speech Rashmi has ever managed, and while it's not one aimed at the youma? Sometimes mahou need to hear it too.

Belkan speak does grab her attention, however, head turning vaguely in Lana's direction. That... is concerning, especially if she doesn't *dispute* the moniker of General. But... something for another day.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    I don't need help! shouts Young Stellar. Amy replies, "Damn, if I'd gotten the chance to shoot a rocket launcher as a teenager I'd 'a taken it... Hell, I still would now, if it weren't, y'know, what I do every day..." The tree is taken care of -- for the moment -- but now Young Lacuna has a problem. Which also means Rashmi has incoming.

    "Sorry for interfering." Amy hefts the launcher back on her shoulder and attempts to switch ammo types. Confusion and frustration flash across her face as magic fails. So she switches to something simpler. "RASHMIDUCK!" She aims at the Toy Soldier's back, well above Lacuna, and BOOM! fires an almost 8½cm-wide metal ball at a few hundred meters per second in an attempt to knock it over and buy some time for... anything else.

Cho Konishi has posed:
Cure Wukong sighed and shook her head. "You know, just because you don't get someone killed doesn't mean your antics aren't causing damage. What do you think happens to the people who come home to find out their car was totaled by your 'fun'? Or the people who care about you when you end up getting in over your head and get hurt? Protecting people isn't just killing the monsters and--"

"Don't fight with your words, Cure Wukong, fight with your fists! You can take down these losers!"

"I swear, Wuwu!" Cure Wukong snapped before she leaped towards Lacuna and, possibly to add insult to injury... She landed one foot on Lacuna's arm and spun, her tail holding the staff which then *struck* the youma at the same time Amy's blast would!

Then Cure Wukong would quickly leap into the air, flipping, landing on the arm again, upside down, on her own hands and...

"Besides, you're nowhere near as good as you think you are if you're *that* worried about a little help."

... And then Cure Wukong tumbled off her, rolling to try and avoid what was likely the inevitable reprecussions of her taunting.

She blamed Wuwu, he encouraged this kind of behavior.

"There you go, Cure Wukong!" Wuwu yelled. "Ha, show them who's boss! Beating four jobbers like *this* isn't impressive, anyone could do it."

Cure Wukong sighed and glared at Wuwu. Really? She was just trying to do a little light taunting. Did he have to try and egg them on more?

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
First, a large round, fired at high speed, rocks the Toy Soldier, jostling Lacuna, who snarls and kicks it hard enough that the plastic kneecaps buckle.

Then, blades of flame strike the remaining Toy Soldier, starting to melt it from the inside out. It fires it's plastic weapon erratically, pulses of purple energy launched at Rashmi and Amy in rapid succession -

And then Cure Wukong uses Lacuna as a literal stepping stool to steal her kill.

Lacuna sees red. Her arm is torn free by the weight of Wukong stepping on her, and the pitch dark energy of her magic roars back to life. Her white earrings gleam, her dark eyes seem to swallow all light, and she lunges after Cure Wukong, striking out with her fist in a flurry of blows -

Though her deadly magic recedes before it can hurt the other girl, even if her fists certainly fly.

Then, after ducking, weaving, and avoiding any retaliatory blows, she leaps back into her starting point, on a street lamp, glaring down at the strange quartet.

"You're a bunch of idiots who've gotten soft from having all this back up," she says disdainfully, "We're from Tokyo, killjoy. The real Tokyo, not this shitty future. And there's twelve magical kids in all of Tokyo, so you get good or you get dead. And we're the best. If you want to give out corny advice and whine about the power of friendship and taking help, why don't you lot go talk to the elementary school?"

Their game is ruined.

As far as concerns for property damage and livelihoods, it's clear she doesn't see that as worth responding to.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Everyone seems to have just assumed that Stellar was going to successfully take the tree down- which would normally be a pretty safe assumption, so they have gone to assist the visibly struggling Lacuna. Stellar hasn't yet noticed said struggle- all this is happening very quickly, and she's focused on her own attack on the tree. She flashes towards it, swinging her spear.. but again, at the very last moment before hitting, the light of her blade fizzles out, and instead of cleaving through the wood it just sort of bounces off with an anticlimactic 'thud'.

    "Oh, come on!" Stellar wails in frustration, before the tree tries to swat her away with its branches. She doesn't get hit, but is forced to do a rather undignified scramble to avoid it. At just about this time, the bolts shot by Starfall Omen impact the tree over her head, causing it to burst into flame and fall backwards, disintegrating as it hits the ground.

    Stellar whirls about, breathing heavily but deflecting her confusion about her powers' malfunction into anger. "I said I had it! What is with your people?" She yells at the hovering Device Mage. "Ugh, we'll just have to start over tomorrow, this match is totally ruined." She's not thinking about why her magic just failed twice in quick succession. She's determinedly not thinking about it.

    She's totally missed what happened with Lacuna just now, finding her partner standing on the lamppost again and being (rightfully) annoyed. She leaps up to stand on a news stand beside her. "It's not like anybody is getting hurt," She says, with a toss of her red hair, snorting. "If some lamer businessman needs to buy a new car, so what? Without us he'd be dead, so frankly I think he's still getting the better deal. It's a small price to pay for saving everyone's lives that we at least get to have fun doing it. Are we expected to both keep all these oblivious mundanes safe and be bored? What the hell kind of world would that be?"

    She shakes her head. "Let's go, Lac-chan, these kids clearly aren't going to let us have a proper match tonight."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"...Mmm," Rashmi says in answer to their protests. "So if this place is so terrible, *why are you here?* And what's going on with your magic? Cos it looks to me like y'all're having bigger problems than just sucking it up and getting backup."

Was it the last few days that have Rashmi in this kind of mood? Was it being called a killjoy? Probably this attitude comes from all of that, *and* she's judged that the best way to get through to these two is to treat them like Catra.

"And yeah, nobody's getting hurt *now* because--" she waves a hand at the Barrier above them. "But the problems you were just having? Who's to say *what* could have happened?"

Lowering herself to the ground, she alights on the toes of one foot, then the other, then folds her arms. "And for your information, I stopped counting how many mahou are flying around at, like, forty. I haven't the faintest idea why, but clearly we *need* them all. Backup is *just a thing you work with."

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Starfall Omen looks up to Lacuna and Kyouka and claps very slowly. "Yes, yes, you're the best. Clearly you need to harden these losers up. You know, maybe you should try making your own youma some day. You know. To teach these would-be 'heroes' a lesson."

    Granted, she's fairly certain she's earned at least some of their ire since she, eventually, also interfered in the fight. Whether or not Stellar would still be in good health without her interference is a matter that she clearly shows no real concern for. She's not expecting gratitude and doesn't care much when she doesn't get it.

    "Well! If that's all there is, then I'll be on my way," she announces, before turning around to walk away.

    It only just now occurs to her that she probably could have just portaled out. The thought of it causes her to skip a step, then fume in quiet embarrassment as she starts power walking away from the fight.

Cho Konishi has posed:
Cure Wukong yelped as Lacuna tried to punch her and... and... She held up her arms, crossed, the blows hitting her, while she blinked.

"Uhhhhhh..." Cure Wukong didn't try and strike back. She just blinked. "Errr, one of my biggest strengths is that I'm kiiiiind of immortal," Cure Wukong said. "So ummmm... yeah? Having backup is great. Even Wukong needed others to help him sometimes. You know what happened when he didn't? He ended up buried under a mountain with a massive headache. Pride cometh before the deadly crash and burn."

"... And Pagemage is right. Your powers are obviously... doing something weird. If you need help, there's never anything wrong with asking for it. If you don't ask for help when you need it, by the time you finally do ask for help, it might be too late."

She then gave Starfall Omen a sideeye. Okay, that was it. She was bringing a water bottle from now on. To spritz both Wuwu and the villains who try to 'entice' the jerky heroes. Sometimes she swore... "Speaking of..." She leaped up and away to land by Rashmi and... "Thank you for making the zone of no property damage," she said happily, grinning to the girl.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Dang, it didn't fall over, but the other mahou are tearing into it too. As soon as she sees the gun turning her way, Amy rocket-jumps down the street, taking cover behind a car or something if its aim follows her.

    "Hey! No punching her, or any of us!" Amy calls out, dismissing her weapon and running back towards them. "Hey! What's wrong with being soft, we don't all have to be jerks! It's not good to be stressed out all the time, and I'm sorry your lives were hard, but it's the future and things are better now!"

    She balls her fists at the elementary school comment. Gods, she's had nightmares like that a couple of times. Youthened again and sent back to 1st grade.

    "You... you... Whining about how people have it better these days and don't have to suffer as much for falling short of your version of perfect?! You're supposed to be a teenager, but you sound like a shitty old person already. I believe this generation's traditional response is: 'OK, boomer.'"

    She smirks a little at the end, but she's still glaring at Fuyuko angrily for the attitude.

Fuyuko Yuuhi has posed:
"Good for you," she tells the tailed magical girl that she'd just decked (admittedly on crossed arms), irritable. "Don't care. Pride cometh before the fall for people who are pathetic losers, not badasses who know what they're doing."

The idea that they're stuck here because they want to be has Lacuna seething quietly, glaring at the red-haired Device mage disdainfully.

"Yeah, I bet you would quit counting," is her scornful remark. "Like anyone would want to be stuck in this shitty Tokyo, where the only good thing is the prey, and even that gets ruined by all you weirdos. The problem with being soft is being soft gets you dead, Puella. Hasn't hunting Witches taught you that? You start relying on other people, and you get yourself killed - you and the sadsack mundanes counting on you. The whole problem is we're stuck in this shitty future - just because you like it, doesn't mean we want to be stuck here!"

What is with this place, with it's loser Mahou and their wah the future is good, just enjoy it instead of hating being stuck in some shitty place where you don't exist because some loser has your identity?

And more importantly, what the hell was up with her magic? She looks down at her hand, where darkness is roiling as normal, suspicious. Her partner might be good at not thinking about things, but she's not. Something fishy is going on, and if it had happened once, maybe she'd chalk it up to distraction laziness - but she's been killing more than ever, she's been fighting harder than ever, and she's definitely been way more annoyed in a fight, and this has never happened before. So what the hell?

"Yeah," she says, turning her back on the other girls, looking at Stellar. "Let's get some ramen or something. And hey, Device Girl!" It doesn't matter that there were two of them. "Fuck you, there's no way we'd go around making youma. Who needs them? We can beat the hell out of losers on our own."

And then she's heading out, hopping along street lamps, a dark shadow against the night-lights of Tokyo.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "We're heroes." Stellar says to Lana at her suggestion of making their own youma, and she at least believes it enough to sound mildly scandalized. "You may not like how we go about it," she's clearly lumping the girl in with the others here but you can't really blame her, it's not like she knows any of them, "But we're still doing this to save people. It's one thing to want to have fun while doing your chores- it's another thing to create the mess so that you can clean it up." That seems a bit too far even for her.

    She snorts a little but at what Wukong says, and Amy, addressing them both. "Look kid," yes she's still saying 'kid' even though she's barely any older in this iteration, maybe it's just a thing she's always done. "Backup is great when it's needed- but you can't rely on it. You need to be able to handle yourself. And that means pushing yourself, it means challenging yourself. Only when you get to a certain point, the riffraff ain't a challenge anymore. You might think it's great to just call in your twenty friends when you run into bigger trouble than you can handle, but what happens when those friends can't or won't show up? Whatever the reason for it, it could happen. You need to be able to handle your shit." Her tone is less combative than Lacuna's, but the sentiment is much the same. "Just because you all have it easy doesn't mean you should get complacent. We sure as hell aren't. We're the best in Tokyo because we fuckin' work for it. Not because we let other people do our work for us. Maybe think about that next time you decide to interrupt our hunt."

    She doesn't comment on how they're stuck here... Lacuna has that covered, and feels more strongly about it anyway. She also doesn't comment on the 'problems' they just had. It was obviously just a fluke. It won't happen again, so there's no need to dwell on it. "Ramen sounds good, this shit has me workin' up a fierce appetite." She says, and with one last shake of her head for the future's killjoy heroes, she turns and leaps away after her counterpart.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Aaaaand the both of them seem to fail at the most basic understanding of teamwork. It would be upsetting, if it weren't... kind of sad? They *clearly* have an issue they need help with -- two, if they're *stuck* here. With a deep, heavy sigh, Rashmi shakes her head, turning to Amy and Cure Wukong and managing her best smile. "Absolutely never a problem, Cure Wukong," she says, "and that was an *amazing* kick on the tree, by the way. And, uh... Red-chan? I--"

Rashmi turns, looking over her shoulder in the direction of the Mean Girls, and frowns.

"...I guess Inai-sensei was kind of a jerk when she was young?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Rely on other people, get yourself killed. "Never enter a Witch's Labyrinth alone." Amy states the advice given her before her first Witch as if it's a saying passed down for generations, which as far as she knows, it is. "You have it backwards. Working with others means being more likely to survive."

    She turns to Stellar. "Since you didn't get the hint, I am drawing a parallel between your philosophy and that of ableist old jerks who make everyone different from them, everyone not as tough as them, as hard as them, suffer." She points at the time-displaced girl, "You're in our time now, and we won't let your shitty philosophy pollute us. We help eachother, and there are more of us, stronger as a group, because of it."

    "Maybe there were fewer magical girls in your time because they kept trying to do it alone, or were told to stop being pussies if they asked for help."

     She watches the two go, and sighs.

    "Y'know, if you hate it here so much... well, since you're here in the future, you're allowed to ask for help finding a way back to your time. Consider it."

    Afterward, Amy looks at Rashmi and nods. "Yeeah, I can see why she wants to guide us now, if she learned that lesson and wants to make sure the next generation doesn't make the same mistake."

Cho Konishi has posed:
Cure Wukong gave a small nod, watching them go and... then glanced to Rashmi. "They really are kind of jerks."

"I like 'em," Wuwu said, climbing up on Cure Wukong's back.

Cure Wukong just gave him a *look*. "And you are kind of a jerk, too."

"I am a *likeable* jerk, that's the secret," Wuwu said proudly.

"Well, sometimes, yes," Cure wukong said, shaking her head. "Thanks for the help, though. Bothof you. Sorry I haven't been around much, I've just, well, I got called home for a bit and... I'm back in town now, though! So I'll try and be around more to help and make sure things don't get out of hand. I'll be trying to catch up on current events soon. But, ummm, for now? I have homework..."