2243/A Swing, A Miss, An Evaluation

A Swing, A Miss, An Evaluation
Date of Scene:	17 January 2025
Location:	Tokyo Dome
Synopsis:	After Black Moon Swing, Black Moon Strike, the heroes gather to exchange notes on the situation they just experienced.
Cast of Characters:	Hotaru Tomoe, Chibiusa Tsukino, Amanda Faust, Usagi Tsukino, Molly Skyline, Mamoru Chiba
Tinyplot:	Black Moon Clan
Tinyplot2:	BMC: Rabbit Hunt

---

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
As the threats vanished... the barrier collapsed. Sailor Charon, however, was left panting on the ground, sweat all over her form, as she knelt on the ground.

Chibiusa would likely remember this. She'd seen it once before... Apparently her condition still had... hiccups.

Slowly, however, she regained control. And once she did? Sailor Charon wobly got to her feet. "I... I need to... to go. I... I'm sorry I couldn't help more..."

She then turned to leave, leaping off into the distance!

A few blocks away, Michiru's driver would pick her up, nice and safe.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa finds herself a safe distance away from the fight, still with a rose in her hand and the Luna-P cape around her person, collapsed to her knees. She was tempted, for a moment, to throw the rose at the two sisters but...

    First off, that would have been a bad idea.

    Secondly, they aren't here anymore.

    Small Lady rises, tentatively at first. There is no crescent moon on her forehead, though she still feels the faint tingle of it passing. It's barely noticeable to her, likely mistaken for a bead of sweat and forgotten as she sees the aftermath.

    Oof. That doesn't look good. People are still in the process fleeing, pushing against each other, getting hurt in the press. She takes another step closer to Mamoru, and draws her cape around herself as she tries to stay out of the way.

    Whatever world she was in, and whatever she saw, isn't really as important as staying safe in the here and now. She feels helpless in the moment, but...

    ... is she really?

    A Princess must always be willing to take action. There are things she can do, even with her limited magic. The cape turns back into a catball, and Chibiusa dribbles Luna-P against the ground while saying, "Abracadabra Pon! Become a megaphone!"

    She steps in front of Mamoru, keeping him behind so as to not further destroy his poor ears, as she addresses the crowd.

    "Please, remain calm! The attack is over! Please proceed to the exit an orderly fashion! Stay with your group and keep them in sight at all times!"

    Will anyone listen to her tiny squeaky voice? Maybe not, but maybe if she shouts then others will join in and calm down the crowd.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    An alien world. There's something right about that, because Earth is wrong, isn't it? If there were no other worlds it would be too sad. The miasma is blown away and he looks at the stars.

    He'll show them all! With this power, he'll fix everything, he'll save the world, he'll--

    Memory comes back, and the world, but the vision is still there. Amy holds a hand to her head. "This... you... this can't be the future they made! They'd never do this!"

    But the Spectre Sisters aren't sticking around to talk. They should all probably get out of here too.

    Amy runs across the field towards Tuxedo Mask and Chibiusa. She still looks a bit lightning'd. But, y'know, first things first.

    Chibiusa is actually trying to organize people! Well... People will listen to a magical girl, right? Amy looks at her, and then looks at the crowd. She raises her hand -- BANG -- there's the sound of a small explosion to get people to look this way. Amy's voice repeats Chibiusa's instructions, booming out with mundane skill at projection rather than any magic. Although, that might not be enough...

    "The attack is over! Please, remain calm and proceed to the exit in an orderly fashion! If you are with a group, stay with them and keep them in sight at all times!"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The threats vanish.

Sailor Charon drops, panting, sweating, clearly in a bad way, and Sailor Moon starts towards her, only to stop as the barrier drops, and the screaming returns - they're back in the real world, and the people are still evacuating, still screaming. Many people have made it out, but there are still so many more -
Hersnd Chibiusa already has a plan. Even as Sailor Charon flees - and Sailor Moon is quick to text Haruka and Setsuna -

Usagi TXT to Haruka/Setsuna: Yokina got sick at the baseball game, she's heading back, I'm dealing with the aftermath! -

And then she's walking towards Chibiusa, and scoops her up, balancing her so she can sit on her shoulder, megaphone allowing her voice to carry further.

"Good idea, Chibiusa," she says, quiet so the words aren't picked up by the megaphone. She does jump a bit, when Amy makes a BANG but - it helps. Slowly, though people are still panicked, more begin to notice the situation has calmed, and begin moving through the exit with greater calm.

But there are still people who were trampled and hurt.

Molly Skyline has posed:
Well what in Blazes was all that about?

Molly comes to laying on the ground in the middle of the field. Well, at second base, actually. She's laying on her side, and there's all sorts of warnings going off on her Battle Visor; looks like when the strange vision started she basically just fell out of the sky and would've landed hard enough to break basically everything, were it not for Starcrash taking it on himself to cast Starfall for her. Which resulted in a hard landing but not a catastrophic one, which explains all the bruising and the way everything basically hurts.

It also explains the small crater at what used to be second base. The base itself is almost all the way to the stands. Nice one, Star Devil. Real nice.

"...What happend? What was that?" Molly sits up slowly, and takes a moment to be pleased with herself purely because she's still holding her staff and Starcrash isn't sticking out of the ground all the way over there or something.

"That was... literally the fourth weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. Maybe even the third." She pauses, touching fingers to forehead to judge how bad her headache is. "Okay, third. Third weirdest."

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa is praised and lifted by Usagi, and while her default reaction is to be snarky, right now is so very much not the time that it barely registers in her mind as a possibility. She sits on Usagi's shoulder, taking full advantage of the elevation boost and the fact that she doesn't currently have to worry about being stepped on.

    She mutters a small thanks to Usagi, before continuing to speak through the megaphone.

    "Everyone, please stay calm. The danger is passed, and the game is over. Keep your group in sight at all times and proceed to the exit in an orderly fashion."

    She repeats this line a few different ways and different times. There really isn't much she can do about the people who are already hurt. Mamoru's the healer, not her.

    When she feels like she has a moment, she turns to Amy and says, "That wasn't the world that I know. I don't know what that place was, but it wasn't Earth." Chibiusa has to think about that. Were there other planets? None of the worlds she knows of would be flooded with dark energy, right?

    She shouts at the crowd again, "Thank you everyone. Please remain calm and leave in an orderly fashion. If you need medical help, please stay where you are and let the medics treat you."

    After a moment, she pulls the megaphone away and says, suddenly, to the mahou who are close by, "I know where that was! I mean... it's just a guess, because I was never there, but maybe it was Nemesis."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I don't know what that was, except, that green haired one said something about ghosts - and I'm really, pretty done with ghosts, but... she also said it was a memory? So ... maybe she shared her ghost memories with us?"

It sounds extremely stupid, and by the look on her face she knows it, but what else can she say? It was horrible. It was disturbing. It was -

At least Chibiusa is there to say that's not the world they made. They at least didn't do that to the world, whatever else happened that made these people so hateful.

A few more repeats and, with a calmer crowd, more and more people are able to get outside. Medics are starting to come in, too. to try and tend to all the injured people.

After a moment - "What's Nemesis? Is that supposed to be another planet?"

She's never heard of a planet called Nemesis...

Amanda Faust has posed:
    They're in a stadium, dressed in costumes, and the 900-year-old little girl is telling her the vision she just experienced wasn't Earth.

    So this is what Thursdays are like now. Huh.

    That wasn't the world that I know. It wasn't Earth." Amy asks, "No, it wasn't... Like, we could feel that, right? Is there any other planet that... that we could be at war with in the future?"

    Oh well maybe it was Nemesis, Chibiusa casually says.

    "Nemesis is real?!" She looks at Sailor Moon, and then back at Chibiusa, and nods. "Yeah, what's... what's Nemesis, exactly, in the future?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Also now that they're talking about things she's waving for Molly to come over and join them.

Molly Skyline has posed:
"I... I dunno about Nemesis." Molly sits up, and after some effort gets to her feet. She dusts herself off, and shifts Starcrash up to rest on her shoulder as she approaches Usagi, Chibiusa, and Amy. "I mean... if Nemesis is real, it's supposed to be a brown dwarf star. We wouldn't be having visions of walking around on one of those. But..." She shrugs her shoulders. "I guess it could be a planet? It's not like astronomers have found it."

never, ever underestimate Molly's capacity for being a nerd. Never.

"But, like... I'm confused. What's with those people? Why were they attacking you again? And what was up with all the," she adopts her most scary face (which isn't very scary) "DIE SAILOR MOON and all that? That's a little over the top, don'cha think?"

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa shoots Usagi a dirty look when she asks what Nemesis is. She, of all people, should know the planets in the solar system! Most of them are her friends! Before voicing her sass, though, she remembers out loud, "Oh, right. You haven't discovered that planet yet, and it doesn't have a senshi as far as we know."

    As the crowd starts to calm down, and medics start filing in to give people some much needed help, Chibiusa decides that there's a point where she stops being helpful and starts being one extra cook in the kitchen. So the megaphone turns back into Luna-P and starts orbiting Usagi.

    Amy seems to understand what Nemesis is, though apparently it's only theoretical in this timeline. "It's real, at least in my timeline, but it's hard to monitor and harder to reach. It's like..." She spreads her hands wide, while staying balanced on Usagi's shoulder, "Waaaay far out there! We don't really know that much about it. I do know this much, though." She holds one finger into the air as if giving a lecture. "Momma banished someone really bad there a long time ago. Someone so bad that she brought back the death penalty just for him, but he was so strong that he couldn't be killed."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Maybe Usagi should sit down and commit to learning astronomy. It seems like it's only going to get more relevant to her life, and it's already pretty relevant.

Like, extremely so. Maybe she should have considered this already. She won't be admitting that though, because it would be giving Chibiusa a point.

Besides - "We're going to discover a planet? One that people think is a dwarf star?!"

Because Chibiusa might have said you, but Usagi can't imagine it was her who actually discovered a planet, future queen or not.

Instead, she tells Molly -

"Those are members of the Black Moon Clan. They... didn't actually introduce themselves, which is a little weird? Because the other one does, but... they're Chibiusa-chan here, and they hate Senshi, and also me, because..." Should she admit the truth? It's not all her secret. But Molly is a good friend, and someone she trusts, and also she was just here - "They're time-travelers who think in the future where me and Mamochan rule the Earth, we're bad at our jobs?"

This ended up sounding more flippant than she intended too, which is great, when Chibiusa continues by saying Future Usagi brought back the death penalty for a guy, only to end up banishing him to Nemesis.

"Everything I learn about the future gives me such a crisis," she says faintly. "Like, yay me, I banished the death penalty, but also, I brought it back. Only the guy couldn't be killed? So I banished him?"

Were she not holding Chibiusa, she would be doing the, throw arms up, well I guess! meme.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy nods at Molly, and looks back to the Usagi, explaining, "It's a name for the idea of some massive object coming from interstellar space and messing up the solar system with its gravity, I think." She might be confusing the Nemesis hypothesis with a science fiction story. "If it was that far away in the memory, that means it's..." She gets out her phone and starts Woogling. "Like tens of AU away or so. Waaaaaay out there. Like Pluto and the other trans-Neptunian objects." She says, with confidence that should probably be questioned since she's eyeballing it based on someone's memory.

    "Although if that's like eight hundred years from now, who knows where it is now. With a little more information, we might be able to work out if it exists in this timeline or not. Pluto wanted to study that stuff, we should talk to her about it."

    She got a bit caught up in all the SCIENCE. "Wait, someone that Usagi brought back the death penalty for, but couldn't kill? Who? What'd he do? And why does that other girl remember being there if... could there have been a whole civilization there she didn't know about--"

    Amy's face pales. "Which means... She then sent someone that bad there, thinking it was empty... Oh no."

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly blink-blink blink.

That was certainly a lot crammed into around four sentences.

"Okay, there's... a lot there I didn't know before," Molly admits, reaching back to scratch the back of her head, and-- ow. That's sore. That's a muscle she never knew she had before, and it's sore. That's definitely not fair! How can something be sore if she doesn't know it exists? What cosmic injustice is this?!

"But, uhm, if you ever rule the planet and I'm around to see it then if you're doing a bad job, I'll tell you you're doing a bad job," she offers, in a most earnest tone of voice. "Not like, to be a salty wench or anythin', but just like 'cause that's what friends do, right? If I'm ever being a crappy person I'd hope you'd tell me too, so I could be better."

Molly takes in what Amy has to say, and mumbles something about Nemesis supposedly being sixty-five thousand astronomical units away by now, and then quirks an eyebrow as she glances upwards to Chibiusa, "Yeah, what on Earth could someone do to make one of the most empathetic and kind-hearted people I've ever met or heard of bring back the death penalty? That sounds more than a little extreme somehow."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru smiles down at Chibiusa as she steps around him to use the microphone, but his expression's a little remote; he crouches down to put his hand on the turf and idly, vaguely pays attention to what's going on around him but mostly his attention's been sunk, golden, into the ground. Except for the BANG, he flinches at the BANG.

Tuxedo Mask straightens up and walks into thin air, vanishing.

Less than five minutes later and he's back, gloves gone and sleeves rolled up; he goes over to murmur something to Sailor Moon -- and Chibiusa if she leans down a little -- ("Three more and then we can maybe go.")

Then he checks the ground again, and vanishes. This time he's gone for maybe fifteen minutes, and then he steps up behind Amy. "I sincerely doubt that's the case. The ghst-memories that it was playing back implied strongly that the dark energy environment there wasn't natural for them. It was bad for them. They can't have been there first."

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa is still riding on Usagi's shoulder for the time being. Luna-P is orbiting Usagi while spinning in the air.

    Small Lady has her arms crossed as she responds to the various bits of realization and speculation. "I mean... it's not a star. Those are a lot heavier. It's more of a... tenth planet? Or ninth. I guess you don't count Pluto as a planet in this timeline. We aren't really sure what Nemesis is. That's the first time I think I've ever had a peek at it."

    She smiles at Mamoru, and tilts her head at his whispered comment, but she's not sure how to respond to it, so she doesn't.

    "As for the guy who was banished, his name was Death Phantom, and he brought violent crime and murder back to the world. There wasn't any, for a real long time after the Bad Times ended, until he showed up."

    She glances at a spot where two Spectre Sisters were just a short while ago. "Now that I think about it, those two aren't much different."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"It's a dwarf planet, but some people still insist it's a planet," Usagi reports almost numbly, scrubbing her face against her hands. "So there's another planet... and it's fucked up and evil and I banished an evil murderer there and then somehow other people were there and -"

She will pay tax to the swear jar later, she promises, for now, she is in a bit of shock. Serenity may have been raised to theoretically ascend the throne (no one ever really expected their ten-millennia-and-running-near-god-queen to actually hand the throne to her beloved daughter), but Usagi Tsukino?

Sure, her family has a political background, civil servants in Tokyo going back something like two hundred years, but her dad bucked the trend to go into fashion reporting and magazine editing, and she was going to be a housewife. A homemaker. A mother.

Not a queen.

So forgive her if she's having a moment realizing that in Chibiusa's time, Usagi Tsukino is the queen who ended the death penalty and also abolished crime what the fuuuuuuuuuu-

"Are we... good at that, Mamochan?" She tugs on his sleeve, a little horrified at the thought. "It sounds like we're good at being in charge, maybe."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Tuxedo Mask blinks down at Usagi tugging on his sleeve, and oh my god are Usagi and Chibiusa stacked together like tsumtsums enough to make eye contact with him?

IS THAT THE CASE?

He blinks down at Usagi and tilts his head a little at her question. "I think we'd be good at anything we tried together," he answers after a second, faint little smile curling up one corner of his mouth. "I'm glad I ... rose ... to the challenge."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy just kind of stares at Molly, incredulous at her incredulity. "Um. Sailor Moon's totally okay with killing people sometimes. I mean, yes, one of the most empathetic and kind-hearted people I've ever met or heard of, but remember Beryl? The sorceress who wanted to let a demon mind-control all of humanity and turn us into monsters? So uh. Someone being bad enough for her to kill them isn't unheard of."

    Tuxedo Mask suggests there was not the terrible scenario Amy is envisioning. "Could it be he dragged some people along with him when he was banished?"

    She looks at and listens to the five-year-old / nine-hundred-year-old from the future intently.

    "'Death Phantom'." She echoes. "Wow. Okay. So less subtle than Beryl or, what was it, Metallia?"

    She holds a hand to her head. "And he brought violent crime -- whatever that means here -- and murder back to the world. Great." She glances at Usagi, then back to Chibiusa. "Okay, so. Either he's like, Beryl level dangerous, or after being at peace for so long, for centuries, Queen Sailor Moon faced with, well, any villain -- although to be fair he did at least one murder -- went to banishment-- wait no he was too powerful to kill come on the guy musta been pretty bad news."

    Amy turns back to Usagi. Still grappling with all this. "Enough to end everything that leads to violent crime, apparently! That's pretty good!"

    She's not exactly assuming that Usagi, right now, is the exact same person Queen Usagi was in that timeline, and is more commenting on what Chibiusa's narrative ascribes to her.

    When Tuxedo Mask makes a pun she just bursts out laughing, doubling over and holding a hand to her knee.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Yes, Mamoru. We have Usagi raised to the power of Usagi.

    Chibiusa looks down at the relatively larger Usagi with a childish scowl. "You... I mean..." Gosh, she wasn't giving Usagi that hard of a time, was she? Did her own timeline's Usagi think that way about herself?

    With her arms still crossed, she sticks her nose in the air and says, "Well I mean... maybe after a few years of leading your own Sailor Senshi team you learn a thing or two? Who knows?" Then she shrugs and says, "I mean, when your direct competition is Queen BurnTheWorldDown or Prince Dumbface, the bar isn't really that high."

    Chibiusa may not have an accurate read on how hard it actually is to manage a population of any significant size. She's only really known her mother's rule.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Are you dad joking me right now?" But she is smiling a little, unable to look horrified in the face of that joke. "I guess we would be good at anything together..."

Did she ever put Chibiusa down? Hard to say. They could indeed be stacked like tsumtsums.

"I mean.... I don't like killing people," she murmurs, uncomfortable, even with Amy's stalwart defense, after Molly spoke so highly of her. "But it's true. Well, almost everyone we know helped kill Beryl, that one wasn't on me, but - Eudial... definitely was."

Eudial, who had shot Mamoru's soul out. Eudial, who'd threatened to break it, if they didn't hand a little girl over to return to hell.

Eudial, who had slapped her in the face with Mamoru's very soul.

Yes, Usagi had killed her. No, she didn't regret it. Hopefully, she would be better in her next life.

And then Chibiusa is giving her a pep talk, and she giggles a little, shaking her head. "I guess so. I just - you know, Chibiusa-chan, all I ever wanted was to be a housewife, and be your mama. Finding out I could be a queen? This time? It's pretty weird."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I don't especially want to be a king," Tuxedo Kamen says truthfully, shifting his weight, rolling his sleeves back down. "For the first time, I can make dreams for myself, and I feel like being a king would take up too much time." He looks at Small Lady apologetically. "I don't know how your papa manages."

He holds his hands out to Chibiusa with his eyebrows up, telegraphing it so Usagi can see and nobody gets feet in face, and then LIFTS her up off of Usagi's shoulders and manhandles her the way you're supposed to manhandle little kids -- oops you're sideways, oops you're not supposed to jump that high, oops that was a somersault sort of thing -- but with henshin strength and spatial awareness.

Somehow she ends up in his arms and he grins at her. "Up, or down?"

A beat. He looks at Molly holding her head and abruptly looks alarmed. "Oh no-- I'm sorry, are you hurt? I was so worried about the people who got trampled that I never even asked!"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy recovers from her laughter to look serious again as Usagi speaks of more serious matters. Eudial... the 'senshi' of truth and freedom raises her hand. "I totally tried to kill her too. It just didn't take, and then you finished her." She admits, unashamed. Maybe that can lighten Usagi's burden just a little.

    Queen. "I guess that is pretty wild. I've jokes about what if I turn out to be a princess or something, but..." She looks away, thinking, then back to Usagi. "Maybe once you've made the world nice enough you can take breaks? I mean, a queen's gotta delegate anyway, right? If the world's as peaceful as Chibiusa says... it can't be requiring Royal decisions every day, right?"

    Mamoru mentions dreams and she nods in agreement. What dreams others have... they deserve to get to work on them!

    And then he brings up healing and she holds up her hand. "Oh, me too. I kinda got lightninged? I fixed the skin and outfit to mess with them, but uh, I'm burned underneath." She does look kind of red. "I just, uh, have pain turned off right now." She looks between the others. "...Has it ever come up that we can do that...?"

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa never really knows how to react to Usagi's surprise at one day being a super immortal goddess queen. She's never seen her any other way. Before she has too long to really think about it, she's being stolen by a mysterious masked man!

    She gasps and giggles as she's given what is basically the toddler version of a roller coaster ride. When asked a choice, she considers for a moment. "Ummm. Down!"

    She does want to stand on her own two feet, after all. Also, if Mamo needs to heal someone, it might be easier if he isn't also trying to juggle Small Lady at the time.

    She puts her hands on her hips as Luna-P bounces around behind her. "Yeah well, you never really do something like that unless you have to. In my time, you had to."

    Chibiusa gives Amy a startled look. "Wait, so you can turn off pain? Why do you not do that just like all the time?"

Molly Skyline has posed:
"I awsn't there to fight Beryl I was here patrolling while everyone else was gone and I don't know anything about what happened in Paris and I want it to stay that way okay alright we're good moving on let's go."

Molly gets all of that out in one hurried breath, and breaths a sigh of relief when she's finished. She straightens, still holding the back of her head, and opens her mouth to say something, closes it, and then nods to Mamoru, "Yeah, actually, my head does hurt. So does everything connected to my head and everything else connected to like, me, one way or another. ...I think when the ghost memories hit I fell out of the sky, and Starcrash took it on himself to cast the only spell I have that actually involves landing, which is... Starfall... which is kind of more of an attack, and usually I'm awake to control how I land. Anyway, that's why I'm sore, and why there's a crater over there, but at least I don't have like forty broken bones or something."

Molly tilts her head from one side to the other, working out a bit of the soreness in her muscles. "But hey I'm not dead. Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. Even if it was a crash."

The purplenette looks back and forth between Usagi and Amy. "...Yeah, look, I just wanna do two things when I grow up; race cars, and build race cars. And I'm gonna get a degree in engineering so I can do it all. If I ever turn out to be some sort of royalty for some reason, I will absolutely abidacte that nonsense to one of you two, you can have it."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"No, you... never mentioned that," says Mamoru to Amy, with a look that's amused, impressed, and faintly exasperated. His laugh is a little jangled, there, and he touches Amy's hand and winces. "Yeah keep your pain turned off for a minute. Me not having to block that will make it go faster--"

Carefully, Tuxedo Mask takes her hand, and Amy will get tight little flashes of 'oh you're burned' and 'oh no electrical burned' and times Usagi's been burned and times he's been burned and right so Mamoru may be overdoing it a little with the energy there. There is a flood and the cram school version of regenerating flash-fried puella.

That was very very bright from the inside, and vast, and a little raggedy at the too-close edges. Mamoru lets his hand drop, looking sheepish. "Sorry." He turns to Chibiusa and says earnestly, "Pain's important. It's a message from your body telling you that something is wrong. If you don't feel pain, then you might not know you have a cut, and it could get infected. It's gotta be great to be able to turn it off once you've got the message though."

Then he reaches a hand out to Molly, "Do you want me to at least take the edge off?" A beat. "Or just fix it?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Chibiusa is lifted clean away, and Usagi pouts a little, but, also, she was getting kind of heavy, so it's a good thing Mamoru has her - oh he's just putting her down! If he's not going to carry the baby then why steal her! Outrage! (Fake outrage. Chibiusa did ask to be put down.)

"I hardly still want to be a princess as it is," she says, hand to her chest. "Molly, if you turn out to be a princess, you'll just have to keep the responsibility. Sorry!"

Not that sorry. The Legendary Double Girl doesn't need to be the Extraordinary Double Princess too.

And then Amy drops that bomb. "You can just turn it off?! Like the volume on a computer?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy looks over at Molly as she explains her feelings about Paris. And looks surprised as she explains Starcrash can independently cast spells in such situations.

    And then listens to Molly's dream, which, well, she did already know. If she were royalty, it would interfere with racing.

    "You could be a race queen." She blurts out. Then: "Sorry, my brain put the pun together and it just sort of slipped out."

    Mamoru feels Amy thinking,

    Oh wait now? I thought you'd do her first since I'm okay! Wait I have to get ready so I don't fall for you-- But, thinking that has her distracted, as does picking up his thoughts and the feeling of him trying to speed up the healing, so she's not slammed by that feeling of home, a welcoming home an impossible home, so much as she was the first time.

    Her grip tightens and she closes her eyes and tries to focus on that feeling itself -- it is really nice and she suddenly realizes it is something she so rarely gets to feel -- and not on Mamoru in hopes she won't form some weird attachment, and then it's over and she feels him trying to let go and releases his hand in turn.

    She takes a breath and lets it out in relief as her body's feeling and connection are restored to full fidelity. "Thank you." She can't help smiling a little.

    She turns to Chibiusa, and bends over closer to her level, hands on knees. "I don't do it all the time because it means temporarily lowering the connection quality between my soul and my body. Have you ever tried to control, say, a videogame character over a worse connection?" She nods towards Usagi, who surely knows what she's talking about. "There's just a little bit of lag. And you can kind of get used to it and compensate for it, but it makes some things harder."

    She stands up, and points to where she crashed into the bleachers earlier. "Like messing up that landing and falling instead, which got me lightninged again." She explains, matter-of-factly.

    "...Also, what your dad said. It's an emergency measure so that like, if I take a bad hit in a fight I can get up and keep going instead of lie there and get finished off, but if I did it all the time..." Amy blinks and looks at Chibiusa. "There are people who can't feel pain. It's a medical condition. And they tend to accrue all sorts of injuries that they don't notice."

    She turns towards Usagi, and then looks away a little awkwardly, scratching the back of her head. "When I describe this body as a bio-magical machine designed to fight Witches... Did you guys... what did you guys think I meant...?"

Molly Skyline has posed:
Molly's eyes widen and her expression brightens, "Oh... if it's a choice between taking the edge off or fixing it, honestly... I'm not addicted to bruises and I don't like scars, so I'd be super grateful for option two! That'd be straight up wonderful, thank you," she answer Mamoru. She grins, a little awkwardly, and--
 % r The penny drops.

"Hold up you can turn pain OFF?!" Molly turns to gawk at Amy. "Did you ever tell me that before? I don't think I remember you telling me that before! That's gotta be like, the best super power ever, but I bet you also have to be really careful about how you use it 'cause, you know, pain is the thing that does stuff like warn you hey guess what if you don't stop playing with that rotarry saw it'll chop your entire arm off or something." Molly waves her free hand around in the air, gesticulating about the whole thing like it helps somehow.

"Anyawy, yeah, Starcrash can use his own initiative, in some cases. Like when I'm unconscious and falling outta the sky, apparently. I don't think he always could but Chrono-Kun gave him a serious talking to about protecting his user and I think it made an impression." She shrugs, and shakes her head, "I don't wanna be a racing queen, unless it's a title I earn with victories," she dds in protest. "'Cause I do plan on winning."

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa listens as Mamoru explains why having pain off all the time could be an actual problem. Then she's a little annoyed at herself for not thinking of that. Then Amy explains that it causes lag and immediately Chibiusa understands how that might be a problem in real, actual combat. Then there's medical knowledge that she actually didn't know about yet.

    "Ohhhh. Okay!"

    Fortunately for everyone involved, Small Lady isn't quite the kid to ask 'Why?' incessantly. At least, not anymore.

    (Jump cut to a scene in another timeline where an even younger Small Lady is talking to Sailor Mercury, asking the same question over and over, and getting increasingly detailed answers in a clear and concise manner.)

    She looks down at herself, and pats her own body, turning to peek at her shoulder, and then turning to Luna-P to say, "I think I'm fine. I don't remember getting hit. Luna-P, do you see anything on me?"

    The catball pings twice in a way that sounds somewhat pleasant. Someone well versed in music might notice it sounds like a major chord, but aside from that it's almost unreadable. Chibiusa seems satisfied that everything is okay with her own health, though.

    She looks up at Molly and asks, "So your device looks after you, too?" Small Lady glances at the others around before turning back to Molly and giving her a thumbs up. "Don't worry. I'm sure you'll make a great racing queen!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
For a second it's just Mamoru smiling warmly back at Amy, but saying out loud, "You got flash fried and no pain. You were moving around when you shouldn't have been, which does more damage." Then she's talking to Chibiusa and she literally says 'your dad' when talking to Small Lady about him and he gets smacked in the face with euphoria and that grin hits him while he's still looking at Amy.

It's still there when he turns back to Molly and clasps her hand. The contact is like the last time -- is like in the hospital, after Sunbreaker. It's much easier, it's faster, because it's bruises and aches and abrasions, but the contact is the same, bright gold warmth and that feeling of home and connection... but here, too, it's swift.

And then he turrrrns to Usagi and drops his henshin and there he is in his silly hipster outfit with his inside-joke too-small wrong-team jersey, and he's got that grin and he leans in and asks her, "Did you hear that? Did you? Amy-chan called me Chibiusa-chan's dad."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I mean, I kind of thought you were being dramatic?" Usagi admits, sheepish, "But you know, in a cool way. Like, I'm a rough, tough, Witch killing machine, rawr!"

That was not cool at all.

"But being able to just turn off your pain... I guess it makes sense, what with your soul gem, but I can totally see the problems, you know? I bet I'd be even more klutzy with that."

Mamoru is healing, which means he's smiling and bright, and that is the only reason she's not frowning at the back of Amy's head as she remembers that time Amy said healing could make a person fall for him. (It helps that Amy is into Hannah's and Taro's, who are both delightful but nothing like Mamoru.)

Then he's healing Molly, and well, Usagi is not at all worried about Molly falling for her fiancé - he's not a racer, or equipped with a cool car. Maybe Nephrite would be in trouble.

"A racing queen with a degree in engineering... that'll be perfect. Heck, if you studied like Rashmi, maybe you could build a car that was a device, to be Starcrash's buddy!"

And then? Her adorable fiancé is turning to her.

"Yeah, I heard her, dad," and she's grinning wide. "You're a natural."

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy shrugs at Mamoru listing out how moving while hurt makes things worse. She already said it was so she wasn't outright disabled in combat... but doesn't think he's admonishing her.

    She gives him a curious look after he heals Molly. "Do people, like... not want to be healed?" It seems strange that he had to ask that, right?"

    She smiles at how happy he looks now, though! It's infectious!

    Molly asserts this is the best superpower, and Amy smiles and points to her chest with her thumb. "No, the best superpower is looking, and sounding, and feeling like this," and there's a grin she can't stop even if she wanted as she twirls, once, "But a close second is not dying, yeah!"

    She holds a couple of fingers up to her chin, "My actual second pick woulda been flying. Or teleportation. I can fly, with the rockets, but it burns magic kinda fast. For a fight it's doable, for fun not so much."

    She takes a breath. "But I have to admit. When the idea of... if I even could get out of my contract and become another kind of magical girl... Even thinking about that, I can't help thinking of all the little comforts that come with this. Like... Since I learned to regenerate... and got Mamoru's help," she nods to him, "I've never had to like... wait for long to heal. I mean I was healing pretty fast anyway after the change --" she stage whispers, "is that a teenager thing or a magic thing?" then continues, "--but once I learned to do that, like... Stub your toe? Nope! Fall and scrape your knee? Nope! Paper cut? Hell nope! Like, I prefer to save the amount of magic it'd take for regenerating combat injuries if I can help it, but... little stuff like that?"

    She tilts her head to the side, staring into space in thought. "It's... pretty convenient, yeah. I guess I haven't really thought about it. I just got used to it..."

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Chibiusa watches Mamoru a bit and blinks as he gets all excited and goofy about something that is technically not true yet but still true enough to matter. Then Usagi is praising him for it. At first she doesn't understand the reaction, but then she takes it as something akin to pride. Chibiusa beams up at Mamoru and Usagi as she puts her hands behind her back and wears an expression that is both warm and smug.

    At the talk of magic and related, Chibiusa looks down at the ground. Gee, she sure wishes she had powers. Ones she could fight with, anyways.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Definitely not admonishing. Just providing information.

Mamoru picks Usagi up and spin-hugs!!! Then wobbles and laughs, setting her down. "Whew I'm exhausted actually," he sighs out, then sits on the ground. Sits back a little, propped on his locked arms, fingers digging into the turf behind him. "We should probably get off the field. I'm hungry."

He looks to Amy, then, and it's with his eyebrows up. "Oh worm? I'm used to it too." But he's pulling energy from the ground--

"I'll treat if we go out to eat. Someplace warm with food. Or we can go back to school. Ugh I'll have to henshin again, we're not making it out of this stadium without jumping." A beat. "Or teleporting. Think we can Sailor Teleport to my roof?"

Small Lady is looking down. Mamoru lifts one arm up and holds it out. "Chibiusa-chan, come help me up, I'm weak and old."

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Small Lady looks up at her dad's hand, then up at his face. She laughs and says, "You? You've got a long way to go before you can start saying that, papa!"

    Then she reaches up and takes his hand, cheerfully saying, "I'm hungry, too. Let's go!"