2343/And Let School Spirit Scream

And Let School Spirit Scream
Date of Scene:	19 February 2025
Location:	Juuban Ward
Synopsis:	Calaveras is calling Sailor Moon out - by tormenting the students of Juuban Public Middle School. Unfortunately for her? Everyone disliked that. Jadeite, Zoisite, Sailor Venus, Amy Faust, Cure La Mer (back in action), and Starfall Omen (and Youma) have something to say about it. Somehow? She survives. CW: Injury to NPCs, messed up situation at a middle school.
Cast of Characters:	280, Usagi Tsukino, Kyouka Inai, Minako Aino, Lana Voselle Miata, Amanda Faust, Mamoru Chiba, Laura La Mer, Jadeite, Zoisite, Fuyuko Yuuhi
Tinyplot:	Black Moon Clan
Tinyplot2:	BMC: Rabbit Hunt

---

Calaveras (280) has posed:
It's an ordinary Wednesday at Juuban Public Middle School! It's early afternoon, which means that classes are still in session, the students paying close attention (or not) to the lectures of their teachers or sweating it out in PE, depending on their schedules.

It's a regular day. Perfectly ordinary, in fact, with students beginning to dream about going home, about snacks, about plans for clubs after school -

And that's why not a single person is expecting it when the roof caves in under the force of a single, perfect blow from a whip that crackles with dark energy.

"Hello, students," Calaveras purrs, descending from the ceiling amidst the screams and cries of the students. "We're going to have a wonderful time."

It's not quite fifteen minutes later that the videos start to go up, posted on Clock App, on Tooter, even as ViewTube Shorts. Videos of students - some in pairs, some along, crying and shaking, covered in dust, eyes flickering to something off camera, all with the same message -

"S-Sailor Moon, please help us. I-if you come to Juuban Public Middle School, she promises she won't hurt us."

It's the same message, in half a dozen, then a dozen, videos, uploaded in fits and bursts, with more going up every five minutes, and the students are in worse condition with every new burst.

Bruises.

Cuts, like fingernails scraped against skin.

And then a boy, choking, eyes rolling, pale, as a whip is choked around his throat, as a woman speaks from off camera. "Sailor Moon, we're growing impatient. Don't you want to help these pathetic little souls? It is your fault I'm here, after all. Aren't you and your little friends the heroes who save everyone?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi's in class when the videos start posting - but Luna's not, and Luna is always keeping one eye on the news and social media - they've had more than one surprise come from the media, whether it was Hematite's Silver Crystal announcement on ClockApp or Professor Izono's news blitz on the same subject.

She's the first to see the videos, when the Sailor Moon tag on Tooter starts trending, and an investigation leads to her swearing under her breath, thankful that Chibiusa is tucked away with her kindergarten class.

Everyone with a communicator handed out by Luna or Usagi may well be startled by the loud BEEP that rings out from their communicators, teachers shooting dirty looks in classes, but when they check, they'll see the message:

LUNA message to All Frequencies: BMC attacking Juuban Public Middle School, NOW.

Usagi Tsukino doesn't swear, because she's being stared at by her whole class - at least, everyone who's not staring at their own communicator.

"Tsukino-san! I don't care what kind of smart watch that is, you know the rules are no devices in class. Put that away and -"

"There's an emergency! I'm sorry, I've got to go!"

The teacher isn't given a chance to respond, because Usagi goes tearing out of her seat and running into the hall, leaving whispers, stares, and the startled, frustrated cry of a teacher behind her.

She's going to have detention for that, and she doesn't even care, because as soon as she's turned a corner down a deserted hall, she's raising her compact.

"Moon Prism Power, Make Up!"

It's a fifteen minute bus ride to Juuban Middle School, but by run? It's a lot faster.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    You can't expect the heroes to show up instantly. Sure, in the TV shows the hero always shows up in the nick of time. But this ain't TV- it's real life, and real life has travel time.

    For most people.

    Point is, even the villain must recognize it's going to take Sailor Moon some amount of time to find out what's going on and then actually arrive to respond to the threats. This is why she's escalating the abuse of the children slowly. To lure. But if we're still waiting for her heroes to arrive, why are some of the kids.. vanishing?

    Not all of them- there's no dramatic mass rescue. No cavalry breaking down the doors (yet). But every couple of minutes, someone obsessed with counting might notice there's one less child in the room. It seems to be the ones who are most injured or most in danger, as long as they are some distance away from where Calaveras is actually standing.

    Stellar appears out of thin air outside in the yard, another kid under her arm. The kid, holding an arm that looks like it might be broken, stumbles at the abrupt change of scenery as the white-and-gold-clad redhead straightens and releases him. She's gotten maybe half a dozen kids out of the attacker's immediate reach in the past 10 minutes. Sooner or later though, Calaveras is going to notice the hostages going missing, and Stellar is not in a position to do much more than be a distraction should that happen.

    "C'mon, kid, hurry it up." She mutters, with hope more than rancor. After all, most people have travel time.

    She vanishes again with a faint pop of displaced air. She'll be noticed soon. But she wouldn't be Stellar if she didn't push her luck.

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus was doing her very best not to doze in class to begin with. If it were PE this would be SO much more exciting. As it stands she's currently occupying herself with twirling mechanical pencils and paying little attention to the teacher right up until the communicator beeps loudly jarring her awake. Similarily to Usagi she receives the message, and bolts from her seat snagging her bag on the way.

"Sorry um, limited edition release just hit got to go byyyeee!"

Ohgod, detention for sure, but this was kind of expected behaivor from Minako at least.

Quick on Usagi's heels she pulls her own wand out to declare, "Venus Power, Make Up!"

Sailor Venus is soon running alongside Sailor Moon leaping and jumping over rooftops. "She's got a *whip*? That's MY THING! We totally need to take her down!"

Of course the students were more important, naturally, but if she thought too hard about that right now she'd maybe get a little sick to her stomach.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Lana V. Miata was skipping class today. Not for no reason. There was a book she needed. One of an awfully dreadful series of light novels that were, let's be honest, nowhere near good enough to ever be anything more than a coaster. Yet they had a dedicated niche fanbase. Lana was not a part of that fanbase, but she couldn't stand putting a book series down once she picked it up, and even the most rabid fans could not find the one book that she was just now hunting down.

    Goth Princess Mega-Glitter the Ninth, volume Seven: Rendezvous with the Punk Lord.

    There was only one copy of this long out of print book that Lana was able to track down. One in all of Tokyo, maybe even all of Japan, and it was allegedly kept inside Juuban Public Middle School's library.

    So of course, some other would be villainous upstart just had to start something today.

    Lana scowls at the school from the outside, looking up at to where she saw Calaveras enter. Her arms are crossed. Hostages are of no interest to her, but the book... if that woman does any damage to that Library...

    < Zerstoren >

    < Yes! She did. She broke a lot of things. >

    < Bestellungen? >

    Lana pauses to seethe, to plot, and to scheme. < Start preparing a Perfect Bit. I'm going to break through the library window. >

    < Ja Mutter >

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy is right there in class with Usagi; at the BEEP, she checks her communicator at the same time, and her face falls. "There's an emergency." She says at the same time, standing up from her desk, opening the window, and LEAPING OUT.

    When anyone goes to look though, she's already gone, Magical Girl Rocket Red on her way...!

    ...

    Venus and Moon hear a shout from the sky behind them. "HOP ON!"

    Amy is riding a cartoonishly large rocket, white with red fins and nosecone to match her colorscheme, straddling it near the nose and holding onto handholds. She brings it swooping down by the Senshi!

    "Now, which way is the school actually?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The rainbow flavored cat-call (what, Luna's-- yeah) blurts out from three communicators at once in an eleventh grade classroom and Mamoru stands up and looks apologetically at the teacher. "Earth Prism Power, Make Up!" he says firmly, and he henshins right there in front of Godoka and everyone while Shimada-sensei is looking more and more irritated. "Chiba-kun," he starts, and--

"Emergency," Tuxedo Kamen says, and there's something more than firm in his voice, his bearing-- it's something that's somehow regal, and brooks no argument, and he is going to get detention anyway. "Jadeite, Zoisite," he says as he walks out the door.

In the hallway as they start jogging for the exit, Mamoru says, "Zoi, meet us there. Jadeite, pour on the speed. I'm collecting Moon."

And then he steps through the air, vanishing with his cape going last behind him.

It's Prince Endymion who lands, running, alongside Sailor Moon. "Shortcut," he calls, and catches at her hand, and they teleport midair, landing on the ground just outside the school.

Laura La Mer has posed:
Laura has been thinking a lot. And thinking. And thinking. She has been trying to break through the supposed memory problem she was suffering with, too many signs to ignore now. She had been trying so hard in fact, that she had given herself a splitting headache trying, and consequently excused to the infirmary.

"It really was fine, it was only a headache", she mumbles to herself, keeping a hand to her forehead while she travels to the infirmary. Good thing the Queen isn't evaluating her based on her attendance, but still, she isn't happy at all about being forced to miss on things.

"Can you believe this, Kururun?", Laura sighs, laying down on the bed and petting the seal on top of her while scrolling her phone with her free hand. Who do they believe they are, to force her like that? She is perfectly able to choose for herself!

It's in that foul mood that her eyes fall on that video with the public middle school. Wasn't Sailor Moon that Usagi-san? "That despicable octopus ink...", she grits her teeth at the content. She can try and house the kids in her Aqua Pot if she can get there in time. And then Sailor Moon can beat her up good.

"Let's go, Kururun, we have something to do!", Laura drags the seal into the Aqua Pot with herself, flying out of a open window at full speed.

Jadeite has posed:
Tamaki is not the first to notice because he is attempting to be A Good Student, which is something he can actually get an A in if he tries, and if he wants to mess around with his friends he'll just talk to them in person -

BEEP!!!!

Tamaki stares at the message. Tamaki is commanded by his prince. Tamaki is already following Mamoru out the door, wordless, his face transforming into something almost made of ice.

"Understood," Jadeite says as the transformation ripples over him, and as Endymion disappears, Jadeite salutes to Zoisite and starts running. Despite the temptation to say something silly to break the mood like 'last one there deals with Venus', things are far too dire to be messing around with Zoisite like that now.

Zoisite has posed:
Meet us there was all he needed to hear, with the colorful jingle in the background. There was no question an emergency was underfoot and Izou is quick to transform in seconds at Mamoru's command before rolling his eyes at Jadeite making a run for it. Really? While I'm right here? Stars have mercy...

A snap of fingers and he's in front of Jadeite in an instant. "You really think your legs will get you there faster than me? Hmph, just sit still." Pulling the blond tight against him, a flurry of cherry blossoms hastily dances around them in white light before suddenly their surroundings is completely dominated by smoke and chaos of Calavera's invaded classroom.

"See? That was much simpler." Hip bumps Jadeite away from him. "Get busy."

Calaveras (280) has posed:
Calaveras knows her life is at risk, with the tactic she's chosen, but then, she's known that from the moment they arrived in the past. Two of her sisters are dead, but as a medium, she knows better than to fear death, knows all too well that there is no outrunning it. The fortunate could choose when and where they fell, and Calaveras aims to be fortunate.

Calaveras aims to live, long enough to make Sailor Moon suffer.

That's why she chose the video, route, why she's been careful with every video to not leave evidence of magic, to ensure that these videos, if removed, would have to be done so with mundane means, no corruption, no swift rescue from the strange force that keeps the people here ignorant and pliable.

Long after this day, Sailor Moon will be replaying these videos, seeing these clips, of students at the middle school she made famous, that became a shelter for those hiding from the Calamity, that was restored early, quick, in the years of restorage, that became a pilgrimage site in the centuries after, when Neo Queen Serenity admitted that it was her school, her place, that even as an adult woman her heart was moved by her memories of Juuban Public Middle School -

Even when the body heals, the heart and mind remember. They keep score.

It had been a classroom they'd started out in, but why bother with just one when Calaveras could break down the walls of yet more, leave the children screaming, the teachers panicking, gather them all together?

She's not in the library, but she's close, and so are the students, but there are around thirty-five students to a classroom, and she's gathered the students of three close classrooms together, enough students and teachers that she doesn't notice some of them beginning to disappear as she torments the others -

It had started with shoving them around, taunting those who tried to fight, throwing them back into each other, or the walls, the desks, and escalated to digging her nails into their flesh, scraping across skin, leaving marks that would heal but sting -

And then, into the crack of the whip against their bodies.

The tears had been flowing from the start, but the whip is what truly made the screaming start.

"That's right," Calaveras crows, as energy swirls around her, beneath her feet - there are things stirring, an energy in the air, ephemeral hands beginning to claw from the floor. "Call out to her! Call for Sailor Moon, so she can suffer when she sees you. I wouldn't be here if not for her. You wouldn't be hurting, if not for her. But if she's quick, maybe you'll all go home together."


Outside of the school is a chaotic scene, hundreds of students have evacuated, their teachers with them, talking over each other - most of these students didn't see what happened, only heard the crashing of plaster and wood, only heard the screams, only listened to the calls to evacuate, to flee -

There are emergency services, trucks with blazing sirens, police officers trying to get an understanding of the situation, medics preparing for the students -

Every time Stellar saves someone, there's someone who notices the new arrival, who assumes an open window was the culprit, who rushes them to safety and demands answers -

The woman, who keeps appearing and disappearing, is questioned once, by a police officer who saw her appear with a student and will be questioning his sanity for the next few hours -

"How many are still in there?" He demands, before she can disappear again.

Calaveras (280) has posed:
Inside the classroom area, there's a flicker of motion, of magic, a swirl of petals, perhaps, and then there are two tall, handsome figures in uniform standing there, fierce, ready for the fight -

"I called for Sailor Moon, not her butlers!" Calaveras' mouth twists in an ugly scowl. "Dark Beaut!"

The whip is snapped, the golden-brown length extending, crackling with dark energy as it flies for their legs at lightning speed, entangling with bruising force and yanking one of them towards a wall - though of course, that someone can certainly try and free himself.

Jadeite has posed:
Zoisite grabs him and hoists him to the scene -

"He said to go fast! Besides, I never know when you'll give me a ride," he teases back - and then he's being bumped into the classroom.

And then there's screaming, there's smoke, and Jadeite is back at the moon, his blood running like ice in his veins.

The whip moves and so does Jadeite, shoving himself and Zoisite out of the way of the whip as he summons a shield, "Glory of the - "

But he's not quite fast enough to avoid the whip at his feet. Jadeite summons a pile of snow to soften smacking against the wall, taking it down from bone breaking to bruising, and then drags out his sword and stabs it into the whip.

"I do believe it's the job of a butler to take out the trash," he hisses.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Sailor Moon is running, heart in her throat, barely conscious of Sailor Venus at her side, except she must be, because she's talking -

"This is because of me, they must be going there because of me, how did they know, I haven't even been there for almost two years, I'M NOT EVEN IN MIDDLE SCHOOL -"

That last is a frustrated wail, anger and fear and grief bubbling and boiling in her chest as she runs across rooftops, and then there's a call, and the sound of almost, rumbling? And she looks up -

Right, right, Amy's in their class too, and she's on a rocket, and Sailor Moon reaches -

In time for Tuxedo Kamen to appear and catch her hand. The two fade out of existence, like rippling cloth, leaving Venus to take up Amy on her offer of a ride.

When they appear on the school grounds, Sailor Moon drags in a startled breath, horrified by the sight of so many people in panic and fear, and she sees smoke rising from the school, the crumbled in shape of a building she knows, of a school she attended for two years, and it swells in her chest, that fierce determination to fix this.

"I don't care which one of them it is, we're not letting them get away with this," she says, sharp, determined, and then she's running towards the school, into the building, following the sounds of panic, pulling Tuxedo Kamen along with her.

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus doesn't seem the least bit surprised when Tuxedo--ENDYMION? Shows up to snag Sailor Moon and teleport away. What is surprising is the rocket riding mahou above her calling out to help them along. Given SHE couldn't teleport though? The offer of help is accepted with a quick nod. "Right!"

Grasping at the belt around her waist it's pulled free into the Love-Me Chain of hearts linked together. Whipping it out toward the rocket she loops it around to tag a ride.

"It's that way!" she calls out gesturing in the direction of the middle school. She knew this city after all and spent more time on the rooftops than most if only for having been at this longer than the others.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar has gotten another couple of kids out. It's not fast- she's deliberately trying to avoid notice, which means attempting to wait until the attacker is distracted or looking away, then getting in and getting out in a flash. Avoiding notice isn't usually something she's good at, but being quick and decisive is, so it balances out for this particular application.

    On one of her trips out, she's accosted by a police officer. She did just appear out of thin air, but her henshin outfit does have a bit of a military styling to it. Maybe he thinks she's some kind of Special Forces or something. "More than fifty," She says, giving her best guess. Not like she had taken the time to get an exact count. "At least three classrooms' worth." She doesn't wait around for a response to that- she's gone again before the cop can open his mouth.

    Back into the hallway just outside the classroom. There's more active screaming inside, and she grits her teeth, wishing for the 10,000th time this year alone that the shackles limiting her use of her power could be lifted more easily, more frequently. But then she senses Jadeite and Zoisite arrive inside. Peeking over the shattered wall, she finds them amidst the chaos- just in time to see Jadeite get whipped.

    She doesn't say anything- no shouting an attack name or drawing attention to herself. She, as always, just acts. She grabs a chair, shifts her weight, and hurls it with all her weight straight at Calavers' head. It's not a magic chair- it's just a chair. But she's got a good arm, and getting hit in the head by a flying chair, especially when you aren't expecting it, has a good chance of being distracting enough to allow the two Shitennou to get their bearings.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Lana spots the kids that Stellar has teleported out on her way to the library's outer window. She pauses in her tracks and considers how to proceed for a moment. Letting out a deep sigh, she says, "You know what? Not my business," then starts to walk past. Of course someone heroic would be here to try and stop things. Lana is just quietly glad it's not her problem today. She walks past an injured kid, glances down at them and has a flashback.

    They were just like this. Way back when. Broken and wounded. All over a matter that didn't even concern them. Peasants slain for serving the wrong noble. For working in the wrong field at the wrong time of day.

    Lana's gut wrenches as the few remaining vestiges of her empathy scream in her mind, demanding to be heard, only to be hushed out by an overwhelming darkness as Voselle once asserted its place in her mind. This isn't her problem. She must have the book. It's not her--

    Lana keeps walking until she rounds a corner, trying to get away from the many watching eyes. She covers her stomach, and starts running until she bursts through a door and finds a bathroom to hide in. It was one thing when she was just hearing about it. Actually seeing it was something else. She could ignore her conscience, but not her trauma.

    Those kids are going to die. They're going to die over--

    "Perfect Bit!" she demands, out of henshin, in a voice that echoes off the bathroom walls. She rises to her feet, as her Barrier Jacket forms around her. "Come Forth, and show me your ideal form!"

    A blue portal appears, and a youma, looking like gothic princess in a sparkly yet otherwise purely black dress and a white full-face mask, walks through and kneels before her. "What is your wish, mistress?"

    "The gaudy woman with the whip displeases me. Excise her."

    "Of course~!"

    Soon the princess youma is charging out the bathroom door, laughing like a madwoman, leaping off of walls and dodging between any panickers, first responders, and anyone else wandering the halls. Her fingernails grow to the length of daggers as she claws open the classroom doors. "The Night will consume you!" threatens the monster, pointing its ridiculous nails at Calaveras. Seeing that the fight is already starting, the youma launches herself at the Spectre Sister.

    Starfall Omen, meanwhile, heads in a different direction. She must find that library. Especially before things get more chaotic. If she doesn't get that one book before something happens to it...

    She will never finish reading this book series!

    "That jerk better not start any fires..." she mutters.

Zoisite has posed:
It's pure chaos, acrid smoke and the smell of pain. No, he'll think about it later, mind quickly steeling itself to look at the offender. One quick glance. Slender, gold and red outfit. Not bad for an outfit, but his perfectly shaped brow ticked upwards with a scrutinizing look, gloved fingers curled under his chin. "You could have done something but more creative with your hair, dear. Or picked better shoes. Those rags?" A huff. "More risque seems your type. But 'adequate' suits someone about to regret her life choices." Smirks.

But that's when the whip comes crashing down and he's shoved by Jadeite away from the attack. That 'witch--'

He's on his feet and is quick to take the opportunity to concentrate enough energy into one bright fireball, "I changed my mind, you're better off burning!" and launching it with irritation towards Calaveras.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy's mouth hangs open in surprise at Endymion appearing to snag Sailor Moon and vanishing just as quickly. "...Got it!" She answers Venus, the rocket swerving that way.

    It's impossible for her to miss the crowd of evacuated students and emergency services vehicles and personnel from the air.

    But what's missing is the fight. And the villain that should be at the center of it.

    "Are they inside?! ...Alright, guess we're going in on foot! Get ready to dismount in three, two, one... now!"

    She hops off the rocket and lands, tumbling, on the school lawn, as the rocket zooms off into the sky.

    She answers any questioning emergency personnel with, "Magical Girl business, we're here to save the day. Where's the... oh, the heck with it, you can't remember magic anyway..." before walking, and then running, towards the nearest entrance. (If the door is locked or doesn't open, she melts the hinges off. No time for this.)

    Inside, she shifts her outfit to Chalcopyrite -- having had a moment to think about how the villains are provoking SAILOR MOON and Tuxedo Mask made sure to show up as Endymion -- and she follows the sounds, cloak billowing behind her.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Calaveras and children. There's a reason Endymion's in this henshin, and it's because he knows that there's no playing around with the Black Moon Clan. He knows beyond the shadow of a doubt. He can still hear the snap of Junichi's neck, can still see his head hanging from the wrong angle, can still see the littlest Culinary Guardian at B-Point--

Can imagine Shingo. Can imagine-- won't. Mamoru has no time for intrusive thoughts.

He wrenches his attention back in that split second that Sailor Moon tugs at his hand, and he squeezes her hand and lets go and jumps over the building, jumps up to land himself through the roof into the classroom, and OH THERE'S FIRE HELLO FUCK

and he lands funny, crashing into the burning Calaveras and yelling, something absolutely glass in the back of his voice as he hauls back to hit her with an open hand, "TuxedoLaSmokingBomber!"

Laura La Mer has posed:
It took her a while to reach the school without teleports, but the advantage is the Aqua Pot is incredibly fast from an ordinary person's point of view, so her arrival is timely enough, crashing through the window where the children are detained. Those children are about to be detained in a very different place.

The first signal of entry is broken glass hitting the floor, thanks to Laura not paying any mind about alternative entrances. This is an emergency. Laura pops out halfway and speaks to the other children with a smile. "Don't worry, I am here to help", she gets a boy's and before pulling him inside without many regards, just like the ones she will be grabbing soon after.

"Be good and things will be fine. There is food in the fridge", Laura orders as she picks up children and gets them inside as well. She hopes they won't eat all of it, it comes directly from her living expenses. "This will be over with soon", she remarks with a smile, having gathered about 32 children in total by the end of it.

Minako Aino has posed:
Swinging through the air dragged along by the rocket, Sailor V doesn't seem to mind at all. It was a new experience but kind of fun! Definitely faster than rooftop jumping as well. The arrival to the school meant the end of the ride which Amy confirms.

"Thanks for the lift!" With that the Love-Me Chain dissolves away into sparkles leaving Sailor V freefalling toward the rooftop. Tuck, roll, and she lands deftly on her feet at the edge of the rooftop that she'd just missed Endymion and Sailor Moon going down into.

The light of the fire down below is seen from her vantage point. She only waits a moment before stepping into it to land feet first in the middle of the --OH SHIT BOMBER-- Being delivered fist-first at Calaveras.

Venus leaps back, nearly stumbling over a felled bookcase in her haste, but she manages to clamber atop it while grasping the Love-Me Chain between both hands to light up the area around her with the warm glow. "This is not the best place for a fight!" She blurts out only to add, "Not saying we won't!"

Calaveras (280) has posed:
"I prefer it this way," she sneers, "keeps it out of my face when I make you bleed."

Calaveras' whip only catches Blonde Butler, the man having offered himself as defensive sacrifice, a blanket of snow cushioning his fall, as he pulls out a sword - "Who you think you are, Uranus? Or worse, Venus?"

Her voice drips with disdain - but then there's Zoisite throwing fire and a chair launched at her head and a youma in a princess dress clawing her way through the classroom doors and -

A man in armor slams on top of her, launching a golden beam of light. The second he touches her, he feels it - her hatred, but not just a passive feeling, a knife sharpened against his nerves, a psychic like him - almost like him, could have been something like him, raised wrong and corrupt, drowned in hatred and sorrows and the endless depths of dark energy, drunken with water, like water, for years, marinated in bone and blood and flesh.

As Calaveras gets hit six ways to Sunday, Endymion feels her pain because she forces it on him, thrusts it back like an uppercut to an unprotected jaw, her emotions, her sensations like razor blades thrust into his brain.

On another day, with another woman, this would be the end, a terrible afternoon made better by the swift and decisive end to the villain, and Calaveras, to be clear, is swooning, as the classroom begins to burn - as the children in good enough condition begin to flee, scrambling over the broken in wall, trying to get away, the ones too injured to run trying to drag themselves away from the fighting, some of them helped along by panicked classmates -

The flames catch along dust and send trails of smoke, catch on papers and books knocked askew, but it was aimed for Calaveras, not the room in general -

And from the fire, and the aftermath of those attacks, come the dead.

They rise, spectral figures, ephemeral, half-there and half-not, and some of them in haphazard, peasant attire, ancient, some in the armor of samurai, some in the recognizable style of nobility, and so many more in half-modern clothes -

All the dead of this area, not just the school but Juuban itself.

Tokyo has been occupied for a long time. Edo even longer, the place it was before that even longer -

And Calaveras has called the shadows of the dead to her aid.

They grope at heroes, slashing not at flesh but spirit, sapping at energy, swarming in masse, and the children aren't unaffected -

But then, many of those children are gone, as the Aqua Pot welcomes them in, Laura La Mer swooping up student after student and pulling them into the safest place they could be.

In the midst of the chaos, Calaveras rises, smoking and bruised and utterly livid. Her eyes glow.

"This is the perfect place for a fight Sailor Venus," she croons, as the Soldier of Love joins the fight, and then thrusts her arms out in an explosive wave of Dark Energy.

"Dark Pulse!"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Stellar's goal was to distract the villain, but it seems like she hardly needs to have bothered- no sooner does her improvised missile strike than a much-more-effective missile in the form of Endymion follows. Not to mention Zoisite's fireballs and everything else on top of it. Though she doesn't display it outwardly, Stellar heaves a bit of a relieved sigh- calvary has arrived. The battle is far from won but she trusts her students. They'll get the job done. In the meantime, there's more kids to evacuate-

    And also, apparently, ghosts. She makes a face, before golden lightning crackles to life along both her forearms. She lashes out, putting her arm between the grasping hands of a specter and a fleeing child. The undead recoils- not because it can't drain her energy, but because it did, and apparently the chaotic, unfettered light of creation burns a bit when you suck it into your undead soul.

    "Jokes on you, I don't believe in ghosts," Stellar says grimly, as she does her best to put herself between any of the ghosts and the kids trying to flee past. "Except for.. alright, so I have known several ghosts. But I've never hesitated to punch them when necessary."

    She glances over her shoulder, trying to see if Endymion is alright. He's got two of his boys in there with him, at the very least, but she can't help her instincts.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy throws open the doors to the now-violently-combined classrooms and is confronted by...

    Torture and suffering.

    She's looked into the darkness of humanity's imagination many times, but this is real, living, breathing (thank goodness) children, are those whip marks?!

    "Jesus..."

    And now there are ghostly claws, and the Senshi of Freedom holds out her hand and then thinks twice about using even her 'elemental' attacks in a place this crowded.

    So instead she grabs the two closest kids and pulls them -- a bit roughly, perhaps, but she's in a hurry and it will hurt them less than staying here -- back into the hall. "We're here now. Can you move?"

    She tries to rush back in and drag back out another pair, then another, to get them away from the ghosts. She's not the fastest at getting them to safety in bulk but she can't just stand over them and shoot Calaveras while ghosts are attacking!

    "What is WRONG with you?! They're children! You accuse Sailor Moon of so much, but never of anything like this!"

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    The princess youma is, sadly, just a youma and has very little in the way of mental defenses. The hands of the dead grab at her and pull her down. As her energy drains away, sheer indignation is left in its place. "F-fool!" shouts the youma at the enemy dark general. "Draining people is my job!"

    The princess with long nails starts ripping and slashing at the ghastly hands, too caught up in dealing with the dead to focus on helping Calaveras join them. In the middle of her efforts, a fleeing child trips into her, and then cries as he clings to her. "Help me! Hel--"

    "Annoying brat!" shouts the youma, picking up the child and throwing him out the door she just entered. As he lands and skitters away to relative safety, the goth princess begins to suffer something that plagues just about every youma in her line of work. The realization that she's actually quite bad at her job. She's supposed to be draining and victimizing people, not getting drained and helping them.

    "Actually, no!" she tells herself in a sudden attempt to preserve her ego. "I'm not going to feel bad about that. My mistress told me to remove an annoyance and I'm working hard to get that done! A few escaping kids and missed energy drain opportunities aren't my problem because they're not in my job description! I'm an ideal wor--URK..."

    In the middle of her self-confidence speech, Calaveras's Dark Pulse launches her directly into the teacher's desk, where she skids over the top, flips it back, and crashes into a wall. "Ow~! Hey! I was in the middle of my affirmations! Rude!"

    She leaps up to the top of the toppled desk, points a long nail at Calaveras and shouts, "Alright, that's enough! Fall before the greatness of the Fallen Dream Star!" Then she rushes at her again, swiping at her with claw-like nails, attacking with a kind of inadvisable recklessness that could only be possessed by a creature that exists to flail at heroes for a few minutes and then get guiltlessly dusted.

    Starfall, meanwhile, in all of the chaos, has found the library. A wild, wicked grin crosses her lips. "Soon... fufufufu. Soon the hour will be at hand, and the book will be mine! Haaaa hahaha haaaa!"

    Thunder roars in the background. Wait, no. That wasn't thunder. That was something else exploding. Lana better move quickly.

Zoisite has posed:
Seconds are precious, and he recognizes the sensation of Dark Energy--the caress and clawing and fangs meant leave scars and corpses behind. And as the fire he started starts to crawl up the walls, devouring wood and fabric and paper, seeing his Prince take a punch to the jaw after blasting in, he wants to continue to unleash himself onto Calaveras but--

No. He's not unprotected. Others, more defenseless than themselves however, are.

Turning on his heel, he runs back further into the classrooms. He's fast, grabbing the injured first. The phantoms would not get close to them. One, or two at a time. As long as they remained glued to his arms, he's able to teleport them quickly to the front of the school and pop back in with each flurry of cherry blossoms.

Some soft pink petals lingered in acrid smoke with each coming and going he did. So far, he's able to save 10 children.

Jadeite has posed:
"I'll have you know I'm the superior blonde with a sword!" Jadeite snaps -

And then everyone attacks all at once, and Jadeite cuts the whip off his ankles and staggers up as blow after blow lands, including Endymion, including Venus -

And then there's fire everywhere, and he's got to at least try to talk to Zoisite about collateral damage later, and then the dead are rising -

The dead are rising??

It's like something out of a bad video game, except there is smoke and fire and the screaming is only getting louder and if Jadeite had any choice in the matter, he would run -

Except he has a prince, and he has a duty, and even if he hasn't seen his cousins in years, he's sure at least some of them are this age.

So Jadeite fights, cutting down spirits with his sword as he raises icy walls as he did at the arcade - providing cover for more children to get to ZOisite and be teleported out, funneling another five back to him.

"If you want them, you're going through me," he says, and his blade flashes through the skeletal neck of another spirit.

Minako Aino has posed:
If it keeps Calaveras' attention off of Sailor Moon, Venus is more than willing to do that. A quick glance around allows her to assess the situation --Those helping the students escape, the most likely source of the fire being Zoisite, Jadeite getting sassed, Endymion ... Oh right he has issues with fire.

Dramatically she flicks the Love-Me chain out and away in favor of the holy sword. It's brought to hand, and she launches herself from the bookshelf toward Calaveras.

That was her plan. The grabby hands of the undead coming at her pull and grasp at limbs, causing her to kick the ghostly features of a samurai between the eyes as she starts to fight her way toward the Black Moon Clan woman.

Her leg goes right through the ghost sending an oogie shiver up her spine in response. Change of plans! The sword slashes through a few ghosts, and she regains her feet properly to POINT at Calaveras.

"Venus Crescent Beam Shower!"

Light not from flame ignites in a bright ball at her finger. It shoots off only to burst into a spray of multiple beams that arc through the air aiming not just toward Calaveras, but many of the ghostly spectres, in an attempt to chase them away with the power of Venus' Light.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
He gets decked, our dashing prince, but it's not that which overturns his ability to hang on--
It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, when Calaveras uses the move on him that he used as a child in the orphanage, fighting other children, to protect Takashi or the younger ones-- it doesn't leave marks, does it? It hurts when Calaveras uses the move he used as Hematite as a nonlethal self defense, and his mind bleeds from it, and the dark energy she drank so deeply of cuts into him as surely as it cut into the children with her whip.

And Endymion, the boy who took it when Beryl ran corruption and pain through his nervous system, through his body, around his linker core, suffocating it-- the boy who took it when Thetis kidnapped him and brought him to a Beryl that had resorted to knives-- he takes it, showing teeth.

And he gives it back, in the middle of an invasion of the dead. His own pain that she's giving him, reflected and shoved; her own pain, observed and pitied, the Young King filled with sympathy for her, for that is who this boy is.

That's the shape of him, the weight of his attention, the weight of the Earth's attention. And Endymion opens up a well of welcome, of warm, golden, sweet, calm, still, quiet, accepting, loving goddamned energy and--

--gets shoved back while he's distracted, and then slammed back by Dark Pulse, nearly crashing into a fleeing student, but catching himself on an overturned desk to swing himself around. And the room is catching on fire.

"Sorry," he calls after the kid, then takes a breath and stands up again. He'll be fine. He -- the room is catching on fire. He'll be fine. He has his powers. He can heal. He'll be fine. There are ghosts. Fuck ghosts, he can deal with ghosts. He starts glowing, a faint white aura all around his person. And then...

"Tuxedo," he starts, then flings his glowing fist out in front of him.

"La Smoking," he continues, voice growing more strident, and then he opens that glowing hand and a growing ball of energy forms in front of it again--

--and then he yells out, the force of the laser blast enough to kick him back a half step, "Bomber!"

Laura La Mer has posed:
'The heck is that?' Laura steers the Aqua Pot away from the ghost menace Calaveras has conjured after floating away from the dark pulse. She really doubts the Aqua Pot can have many more passengers, maybe 10 more, and the sudden army makes it more difficult for her to get to the kids still in need of rescue.

It's all that woman's fault. She has no idea if she had seen her before her supposed amnesia, but going after children to draw out a hero? Even with having reached the limit of what she can do, that woman is going to pay for putting them in danger.

"Hey, deadbrain! I get that you are seeking companionship, but the cemetery is nowhere around here!" she jumps out of the Aqua Pot, yelling at Calaveras. Kururun can take care of it, and the kids will be loving her too.

Come on, there has to be something she can help with! 'Queen, you sent me here, there has to be more than this, I want to help!' A flash of a memory, brief, gone as fast as it came, and the pinkette's hand moves by itself towards her bag, to grab something Hinoiri has told her to keep around.

"Pretty Cure! Tropical Change!", she announces as a pink sphere surrounds her, her body changing to her human form with a dress made of blue energy as the giant bubble pops. Placing the Heart Swirl Ring sideways into the keyhole of the Mermaid Aqua Pact, she twists it upright and its seashell cover splits in half, revealing a purple base with white stars and blue waves on the left side and white hearts on the right side, surrounding a blue circle with a motif of crystals all around a white sphere.

"Let's put on make-up! Shine!", she declares spinning a pen with a glowing blue tip in her hand and rotating the circle as it turns pink, a water pillar rising and whirling before dispersing in 2 pink, 1 red, 1 lavender rose and 2 yellow spheres. "Face!" The pink spheres land on her cheeks, giving them a pink blush. The yellow spheres then briefly make her eyelashes glow yellow, adorning them with three pearls and making her eye colour turn pink with the exception of the blue heart at the bottom of her irises.

The red sphere lands on top of her hair, making it grow much more voluminous and colouring the middle section blue, then 2 giant pearls land on top of head's sides, the pink hair above twisting itself around them. Finally the lavender rose sphere lands on top of her lips, colouring them with the corresponding lipstick.

Another rotation of the Aqua Pact's circle and Laura calls out "Nails!", passing her pen on top of her left hand's nails, painting them azure while those on her right hand automatically change to match, before moving it to her toenails and painting them pink.

"Dress!" One more rotation and she draws a pink outline of a star vertically in front of herself, that then spins around rising above her head and descending to her waist before duplicating and the two stars move in opposite directions transforming her clothes into her magical outfit and placing the Mermaid Aqua Pact in a small pink bag appended to her waist.

Jumping upwards with a splash of waters, finally Laura introduces herself. "The Shimmering Ocean! Cure La Mer!"

"Uh, why did I do all that?" the Pretty Cure stares flabbergasted at her transformation, before she jumps back to avoid one of the dead, crashing into the wall. "Ugh, so little space here!"

Calaveras is over there though, she needs something with a long reach, something like...

"This!" The Pretty Cure stirs the compact with her makeup pen, causing water to gather and move in a pattern of recurve spinning lines as it concentrates inside the Mermaid Aqua Pact.

"Pretty Cure Swirling La Mer Stream!", she shouts, a huge rotating beam of water erupting out of the Pact as she points the pen towards Calaveras to give it a direction.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Sailor Moon, ironically, is one of the last people to arrive on scene - but at least when she arrives? It's with a bang (actually, a BEAM).

A beam of light, three feet tall and four feet wide, circular, and silvery-white - purity, made manifest. Love, made visible.

"Moon Healing Escalation!"

The purifying attack will blast through anyone in it's path - but as long as they aren't corrupted by dark energy, it's nothing more than refreshing, like inhaling the scent of eucalyptus and mint, sweet and cooling and setting the world back to rights -

And for those with dark energy?

Oh boy does it sting. Does it burn. Peroxide poured into an open wound.

"How dare you!"

The children - still fleeing, still being helped, dragged bodily, moved out of the way - some of them are staring, at the fight for their lives, but especially now, at the sparkling girl who's standing there now.

"This school, these people, they have never done anything to you! I'll never forgive you for this, Calaveras!"

And with her Spiral Heart Moon Rod, she casts it again.

"Moon Healing Escalation!"

Calaveras (280) has posed:
The ghosts help create space, draining energy, but the heroes are fired up, filled with all the anger that she wanted to inspire, and Calaveras is vindictive, glorying in their hate, even as it threatens her -

And then she feels his sympathy.

His pity.

Endymion's caring, wretched, warmth, the Earth's loving embrace, its willingness to take from her the pain and lay her bones to rest with the others -

While the psychics and the ghosts are at war, the heroes will tarry and toil and oh boy do they, Stellar putting herself between ghosts and civilians, and the ghosts jolt and recoil whenever they touch Stellar, her crackling creation energy scaring them off, though they hiss and reach and snarl at her. Chalcopyrite takes the opportunity to dive in and rescue a pair of kids, she asks them if they can walk -

"No," one says, and the other says, "I've got him, I can help him, just help us -"

And she does. She gets them out, and then the next pair, and Zoisite is doing the same, Zoisite is spiriting them away in a flurry of petals, their knight in flames and flowers, a hero.

"Thank you," a young girl whispers, hobbling - she'd taken the whip to the leg, and the flesh is raised in vicious welts -

"Thank you," a boy gasps, bruises around his throat, the boy who'd been strangled in the video, allowed to breathe only once Calaveras' gruesome message was sent.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," from child after child after child, to Amy, to Zoisite, to Stellar, as she dispels ghosts -

Gratitude amidst the fear, hope amidst the terror.

The first bolt of purification comes flying through, pouring over everyone, and Calaveras' whip lashes out, snatches the poor gothic princess youma who slashes at her - cuts Calaveras' chest open as she's yanked and then turned to dust by Sailor Moon's purification.

HA! She survived it! She's not out of the fight yet, never mind her sluggish bleeding, she can still -

Another Tuxedo la Smoking Bomber, catching her in the gut, and she flies back, strikes a wall, the wind knocked from her, left vulnerable as as another soldier joins the fight, and the swirling stream of water blasts her further into the wall -

She's wavering on her feet, taking too much damage, and Sailor Moon is saying she can't forgive her.

Sailor Moon is saying she can't forgive her -

"You were never going to forgive any of our kind!"

The Crescent Shower falls -

Esmeraude (280) has posed:
The Crescent Shower falls, but a raised fan - white rib bones, connected with black, leading to a fluffy pink-red war-fan - blocks the attack easily.

"Really, this is what you're reduced to?"

The speaker is an elegant, tall woman with long lime green hair and the Black Moon Clan's signature black crescent moon on her forehead. Her eyes are shaded by a pair of golden-tinted sunglasses, and atop her head is a fluffy black hat, with a green gem and feathers sticking from one side. She wears a thick, fashionable black jacket, full-length and shapely, flattering to her figure.

"Dear Rubeus will be carrying my bags for a month, with the effort I've taken to help you," the mysterious woman says, and her red-painted mouth quirks in a cruel smile.

"L-lady Esmeraude," Calaveras gasps, "They're - "

"Don't speak to me," Esmeraude snaps, and thrusts her fan out again, as Sailor Moon's Escalation flies forward -

And she deflects it, with that fan, green-and-black energy burst it apart.

"Not today, little queen," and she wags her finger as though tsking at a disobedient child. "We still have some use for this one. Why don't you go think about your life, and your choices, hm? After all, you're the one who's going to owe all these... pitiable little souls an explanation."

And then the two women are gone, duskported away.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Starfall Omen has finally made her way into the library, tracked down the shelf, found the book. "Here it is... Rendezvous with the Punk Lord. The last volume in the series... NightslaveXx62, you're going to owe me for this. Now..."

    She raises her Device, which is now in Staff Mode, and commands, "Nightmare Chain, begin the scan!"

    The book rises from the shelf in a bubble of darkness. Magical lightning and fire surrounds it as the pages begin flipping rapidly, casting the young lady in a sinister light. Yes... soon her plan will be complete!

    Suddenly she feels a severing, and she glares in the direction of her youma. "Cursed Minus-Glitter. You failed!"

    Should she go after the enemy dark general? No... no, there will be time to deal with her later, perhaps when there are less purifiers around. She has what she came for. She returns the book to the shelf, her scan complete.

    As for the unfortunate youma, the last anyone sees of her is Calaveras yanking her into the line of fire, and the last they hear is her voice crying out, "Refresh!" When the light passes, all that remains is falling fragments of sparkly dust.

    Thus concludes the average lifespan of a youma.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Ghosts claw at her as she evacuates students. Chills run through her -- she can only hope this is garden-variety energy drain rather than what the ice sister had. She tries to think of it as if it's happening to an avatar in a videogame. To see the students she's not currently saving, that she's running away from as she saves others, as background that is ON FIRE WHY IS IT ON FIRE

    Amy is heartened by the victims being well enough to speak to her, but she sees their wounds, thinks of their suffering and pain, and wonders how much darkness she can see; is this damaging to the human psyche? Whatever, it will just go somewhere deep inside with the rest, to be part of her Familiars, her Labyrinth, her Witch...

    In seconds, though, there are half as many kids in the room as there were. And then fewer than a quarter as many.

    Everything hits Calaveras, until it doesn't -- did she just block Escalation, is that antimagic like Tuxedo Mask's roses?!

    She's talking, but Amy's taking steps forward, and then holding out her hand, and

    BANG!

    Just after the two disappear, as if visible for only the following frame, a thin line of orange light matching Venus's uniform streaks through the space the green-haired woman was in and then it's gone, and a spot on the far wall is catching fire.

    "What..."

    'Sailor Chalcopyrite' blinks, looks around at the chaotic scene, is that a youma that just purified, she looks across the destruction, and the few kids still in the room, and--

    Red eyes look to Sailor Moon for direction. "...What do we do now?"

Minako Aino has posed:
With everything happening so quickly at once, it's hard for Sailor Venus to focus properly on everything. The flame, the fire, the brightness of her own light. It's amazing she doesn't end up with hazy after images burnt into her eyes. What she does make out is that not only is her attack blocked by a FAN of all things, but so is Moon Healing Escalation.

The grip on her sword tightens as she prepares to dig her heels in and fight harder against this newly arrived opponent. It doesn't happen, but she's prepared to, and had tensed up like a coiled spring.

Then it's all over other than the fire licking at walls, the remaining mahou around, and the children safely out.

Mostly.

Lifting her head she looks around with a sharp, commanding cry of, "Anyone who can put this fire out! Look for any remaining children, too!"

It's not that she doesn't trust her Princess to take charge, it's just... Her guy is RIGHT over there and she knows from experience they're going to check on each other first.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Cure La Mer, can you please put out the fires?" Tuxedo Mask asks tiredly, having wiped himself out and dropped back a henshin level to conserve what he's got left after all that, and after his daily appointment with Junichi.

He moves over to Sailor Moon and puts a hand on the small of her back. "You didn't believe her, right?" he asks.

Jadeite has posed:
It turns out you cannot chop up ghosts with a magic sword no matter how hard you try - but, uh, the distractoin worked? The kids made it to Zoisite? That took more out of him than he expected - it's almsot a relief that the enemy gets teleported away.

(Almost. He does think that if they had one more minute to wail on that wretched woman, they could have taken her down.

Jadeite puts his hands on his knees and catches his breath before trotting over to Venus, summoning more snow on the floor and slapping it against the walls to put out the fires. The water damage won't be pretty, but it'll be better than fire damage?

"On it, Venus! I'll work on the fires."

Zoisite has posed:
One more kid left outside, one more voice expressing gratitude but it doesn't register with him at that moment. His focus was fixated on the remaining souls within the burning rooms. Perhaps later he'll remember the thanks given to him, or perhaps he won't. It didn't matter as long as their mission concluded successfully.

Once back inside, he notices the new figure all in black and shocking green locks. Oh, at least someone knows how to make an entrance was all that crossed his mind before the Healing was deflected--

Deflected...

Then Venus barking commands.

Deep breath, exhale. Thankfully he was far back enough no one would notice him rolling his eyes again and returning to his duties, taking another pair of kids in his arms and whisking away in more petals.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The second Escalation, hurled with the strength and ferocious this is mine love Sailor Moon has to offer is -

Deflected.

She's never seen that before, and Sailor Moon's jaw drops, her eyes widen, because there's another new enemy, and she can deflect her purification, and she's -

Gone, with just a few parting words.

"How many of them are there?" she murmurs, and then Amy is asking her what to do, and Venus is stepping up, calling for the fire to get put out, and Tuxedo Kamen is echoing that, and Sailor Moon scoops up one of the kids.

It's weird. She attended this school. She's been in this classroom. She recognizes exactly where they are, wonders if it's even still the same teachers, but she doesn't know this student, because she's not attended this school for almost two whole years, and she's in high school, and she's still bringing trouble on them, trouble that she can't even solve, because her purification didn't work -

"Are you Sailor Moon?" the student asks, and she looks to be around twelve years old, probably still in 7th grade.

"I am," she says, and she carries them from the burning classroom, swift and not meeting anyone's eyes for the moment. "I'm sorry, I was late."

"No," the kid whispers, "You still came for us. All of you did, and you - you made her go away."

Laura La Mer has posed:
There is a growl of frustration from Laura, when despite their efforts, the villain that started all this is bailed out, and she is left standing there to ponder where they will try again today's gambit, and how much it will work next time. She definitely shouldn't have been allowed to get away, and yet, that's what they have to deal with.

She doesn't even care much that she is a Pretty Cure somehow, or that she must have done something to earn it, and she doesn't even get to remember it. At least the children are safe now, and they only have to be let out of the Aqua Pot in her case. That's still a victory, she reminds herself, even if this may happen again still.

"I will take care of it", Laura nods to the tall man asking her to work on the fires, using her Twister La Mer stream all over at reduced intensity, so it can actually served the intended purpose. "They are going to try this again, aren't they?", the Pretty Cure expresses her disappointment out loud.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy can put out fires below a certain size, but it would be loud, so she'll leave it to the people with ice and water powers. Laura's already remembered how to use her powers, even though she said it was impossible, I see...

    The smoke in front of her continues to dissipate, and her cloak, which had billowed out behind her from the shockwave, settles against her back.

    'Are you Sailor Moon?'

    Amy lowers her outstretched hand and turns and looks at the child who spoke. Sailor Moon carries her away. Amy turns to the next closest child, helping them up, placing her hand gently on their head. "You shouldn't have had to go through this."

    She's not sure what else to say as she looks at their face, wonders what they're thinking, how they'll remember this moment.

    No heroic speech can undo their suffering, can make this right.

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus shifts to send her sword back to the space that it was kept in when not in use. That little ephmerial space between the stars or something. Honestly she didn't know, she just knew it worked and right now moving around without a sword was a better idea than having it with her given there were children around.

They weren't much younger than when she started as Sailor V.

Jadeite stepping up to send snow and ice at the fire earns a satisfied nod at the work offered. When Cure La Mer also steps in to help with the fires with her water she breathes a small sigh of relief. "Perfect, thank you both. That'll keep the fire from spreading and possibly harming any students that may have hidden in nearby rooms."

Sure most got out, but there was always the chance. Didn't those American school drills tell kids to hide during attacks after all? If any knew of them, they might have done the same. As she scans around looking for other children she does notice the curly ginger that was so VERY IRRITATING helping kids out in his own way. A deep breath is drawn, and she tips a nod in his direction as if to say 'good work' without having to, you know. SAY it.

"Probably. They've been attacking for awhile now trying to lure Sailor Moon out." By the tone of her voice it's clear she's not happy with that. A few steps are taken toward the woman in question as she drops her voice speaking *very* seriously.

"Maybe it's time we try to call them out. I can body double again."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru's hand drops as Usagi walks away, and he crouches to put gloved fingers against the floor next to a kid whose foot's been hurt, his sense a little muted as he finds where Zoisite's been bringing them. His fingertips glow and his eyes close for a second, and then he smiles at the girl and picks her up effortlessly. "Let's get you out of here too."

He glances over at Laura and says, his voice deceptively mild, "Not here, they won't try it again. Thank you!"

With that, he steps through the air and carries her across the dry winter grass to the EMTs. "Thank you," he tells them, his voice quiet and fierce, "so much."

Then he teleports back in, just to check-- to see-- just to check. And there's an unnerved prince in formalwear who can't heal all of them, who can't do it in front of all those people and not be in trouble, who just used kindness to hurt someone, he says in a really even voice, "Too tired to teleport back. Let's go... back to school I guess."

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Starfall Omen exits the library in a stormy mood. She got her book. It's scanned, converted to .pdf, and uploaded to the internet. Mission complete. Yet she's still mad.

    A part of her wants to yell at the heroes. Another part of her wants to not get purified. After considering her options, she takes a slow look left, another look right, and once she's sure the hall is clear of witnesses...

    She drops henshin.

    Lana Miata walks, trudges really, towards the site of the battle. She crosses the yard between buildings, towards the ruins, and as she gets closer she starts to jog, and then run. Should she feign panic? Would anyone actually notice if she wore her apathy on her face? Maybe they'll just think she's cool as a cucumber or something. She considers her approach as she opens the door to the mess that lies beyond.

    People are using teleportation and water magic right in front of her. Yet, surely they wouldn't fire on an unarmed civilian, right? Lana holds the door open and calls out to few straggling kids who are fleeing the halls, saying, "Right this way!" in a fake cheerful voice.

    Some of the kids actually hesitate, sensing that there's something off about her character. She snaps at them and yells, "Do you want to get burned in the fire? Hurry it up!"

    Most of them obey, rushing past her. One of them falls and starts to cry. She rolls her eyes and looks down at the little girl, and picks her up.

    Her sister was like this once. Before she could stand up for herself. Before she had power.

    With a frown, she carries the small child out of there, and starts walking towards the first responders.

    This is the exact opposite of her job. None of these fools would do this for her. They were all selfish and cowardly deep down, and the darkness in her would not allow her to forget that. Yet she can't deny her feelings in the moment.

    Yelling at the enemy will have to wait.

    Even as a couple of them end up teleporting right in front of her, vanishing before she can get a word in. Ugh.

Jadeite has posed:
"I think," Jadeite says, "we should play hooky. We're already in trouble as it is. We might as well be in trouble on a good night's rest."

He's tired, and he barely got in any blows. THey're all tired.

He looks to Zoisite as he plops over one last pile of snow on the smouldering fires. "Hey. Do you have enough juice to get us ALL out, or just the royal couple?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    The kid stares up at her. "Thank you."

    Amy has to say something. "Be yourself. And make sure you've gotten a job at least once, before graduating high school."

    The kid nods and hurries over to Lana to follow her directions.

    Red eyes follow them to Lana, and then Sailor Chalcopyrite turns toward her. An unharmed kid, who clearly snuck back here to help. "You should go, too. That's the last of them."

    She glances around the room once more, just to check; see sees Tuxedo Mask teleport back in, checking too, and squeezes his (gloved) hand briefly before turning to Jadeite. The -ite she's probably seen the most. "You know what? Sure, why not. I guess I'm a delinquent now!" She laughs, trying to inject humor into the situation, but her heart's not fully in it.

    "I'm not sure I should go back to the dorms though, they might catch me there and ask awkward questions..."

Zoisite has posed:
One more flurry of petals and he's back inside taking one last look around and noticed no more victims to be evacuated. Only smoldering walls were left, damaged walls and crumbling roof. He side steps debris on his way over to the 'superior blond' and their prince.

It's uncanny how he hides his exhaustion, if there was any--he was, indeed, tired.

"I have enough energy for two more trips, coming and going." Zoisite states, looking over Tuxedo Mask. "I can take you both and come back for Sailor Moon and Sailor Venus."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Sailor Moon puts the victim she found down, released to the EMTs and she thanks them too, quiet, heartsick.

Being thanked... after this, it just feels wrong.

This whole thing feels wrong, and being unable to stop Calaveras feels wrong, and being unhappy that she wasn't able to finish her feels wrong, and being unable to purify feels wrong -

"I hate this," she tells Venus, quietly. "I hate that they're just - doing this to get at me. That they hate me, and us, but especially me so much that all these innocent people keep suffering for it, and I'm so mad, but I can't do anything! We rescued these people, but... but what if they come back? What if they do it again? There's nothing stopping them from doing it again."

Unless they kill them.

Is that really the best they can hope for? But what are they supposed to do? They can't leave them alone. If her purification kills them, doesn't that mean there's nothing to purify? There's no hope?

Is being a queen about being the one who decides who dies?

She just wanted to be a housewife.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Come back to my place then," Mamoru says to Amy, to everyone else, to La...na... she was talking to Kazuo at the dance he remembers her >:O, then shakes his head. "I can still rooftop it. We're literally ten blocks away. Ask Usako though. She-- I'll tell Kazuo to pick up Small Lady when her classes let out."

He jumps up through the ceiling again, up over the grass, up on the roof where he can see Moon and Venus as he sends a text to Kunzite.

Minako Aino has posed:
"We're here to stop them. All of us," Sailor Venus offers her friend as she reaches out to take her hand giving it a tight squeeze. She continues back toward the inside where the others are though even if she has to gently drag her Princess there to ensure she catches up with the others.

"I'm not against doing something to draw them out. They want the Silver Crystal right? And you? Plus this one just used social media so they know it exists. We could do something similar and trap them for once." Ah... if only. Boy would that be a lot of work.

"For now though let's get back. Maybe get a snack or two." Oh if only she knew it was Zoisite offering to do the teleport.

Jadeite has posed:
"If they do it again, we'll stop them," Jadeite says. She's alreadya crowded around, so he can't get that close to Sailor Moon, but he tries gingerly patting her on the shoulder anyway.

"This is stupid bullshit they're pulling, but you won't be alone in fighting it. We'll find a way to stop them once and for all, and I - you've always been good at figuring out the right thing in the end. I know you'll do it again."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Luring them out so we can kill them," Sailor Moon says, and she's not rejecting their comfort so much as just.... exhausted, and walks past them, letting her hand trail from Sailor Venus' grasp. She's heading back inside, to the ruined classrooms, to where Mamoru and the others are.

"Because they won't stop, because - maybe they want the Silver Crystal, but really, they just... want to hurt me. And us. And the world."

And they're terrible people and they want to kill Chibiusa, and she hates them, and she used to think that they could save everyone, that they could reach them, and she beat a woman to death a few weeks ago, and she hates them, and Setsuna wanted to kill Hinoiri for putting Rashmi in the hospital and she stopped her and then she beat Koan to death for almost killing Junichi -

She wanted her to die. She helped make it happen.

Is she going to have to keep doing that? Is that all she can do?

Kyouka-sensei and Wako-chan said she was a leader and a friend and that she was more than her fighting, but if at the end of the day, her magic kills people - if she saves people by killing people -

All she ever wanted was to be a housewife, to raise a family, to be normal, and -

"A queen is a wife, and a castle is a house," she murmurs to herself, quietly, "Should have been more specific."

She looks up at everyone, when she gets to the door, and shakes her head.

"Are we going home?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy nods to Tuxedo Mask, leaps through the hole in the ceiling after him, then hops down to give Sailor Moon a hug. "Maybe we can find them, somehow." She lets go and steps back. "Heck, they're not exactly on Obsidian's side, maybe Riventon could track their dark energy or something?" She holds a curled finger to her chin in thought. "...Or maybe Entrapta could figure out how to track them. Or, or we could lure them out with an illusory Chibiusa, if anyone could like, project an illusion that's not a disguise..."

    When the time comes to leave, the rocket comes back down to fly Amy to the balcony.

Zoisite has posed:
Watches Tuxedo Mask leave through the collapsed roof and sighs. He felt that tone, and the privacy. So waits until both the princess and Sailor Venus returned to where he and Jadeite awaited. Those two were at least close enough to be heard as they approached.

"That is the plan. Tuxedo Mask said he'll parkour it back on his own, but I can teleport two at a time." He looked between the two sailors, no hint of irritation. Merely neutrality.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Lana, who is right on the lower end of high school age, glances at Amy with a flat, unreadable expression. She doesn't answer, but simply closes the door behind her and tries to help the middle schooler get to the EMTs.

    Why is she even helping? This is stupid. She should...

    What, exactly? Strike them down? Drain their energy? Dead or dying targets don't actually help her that much. Living targets produce the most fear and despair. Attacking them now would be least advantageous. Maybe that's why she can't...

    No, she knows exactly what she's doing. She may not be losing her mind, but she's absolutely letting her trauma control her, and even if she can't push past that she's not going to be too chicken to admit that to herself.

    She goes back to classrooms, still out of henshin, still looking a bit out of place. She wants to say something to them, but words don't come.

    She ducks out of sight again, and when she next appears in the room she's back in henshin.

    Starfall Omen scowls at Moon and storms up to her, holding something in her hand and...

    It's a business card. Starfall Omen, Reclamation and Enforcement, Obsidian.

    "I don't care what happened here and I don't care about you. We're not friends, but those people annoy me and..." she crosses her arms. "... the higher ups consider them bad for business. I'll overlook the death of my youma this time. It was her fault for getting caught."

    Then she turns to leave, not really waiting for a conversation.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Tuxedo Kamen slides down off the wall next to the door, a little more roof crumbling down with him, brushing off the back of his cape. "Yeah," he says, close to Sailor Moon and with an apologetic look at Zoisite, and he takes a glove off and touches her arm--

I love you. We'll get through this. "What Zoi said. Meet you at home," he says in a warmth with a familiar fear in it. "Kazuo's at school with Chibiusa." Home.

Then his fingers slip away and he's gone, nyoom.

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus watches the approach of Lana cautiously. A business card? She doesn't stop Sailor Moon from taking it if she does. Instead she looks toward Zoisite as he informs them of the travel plans managing not to crinkle her nose at the thought of him helping out. Right now that didn't matter.

She's just about to say something more when a hand comes forward from a familiar arm and touches poor Sailor Moon leaving her to nod knowingly.

"Let's get home yeah." Where ever that was. She rather expected it was his apartment again which would suit her fine for now.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
There's Amy, giving a hug, and she doesn't shrug it off because that would be rude and she generally does like hugs.

There's more discussions of luring out, but not of the central problem she's having, because she is dealing with something else and she's stupid.

There's Zoisite, and he's offering to help, and Usagi does want to take his help, because she doesn't want there to be a problem with one of Mamoru's boys and one of her girls, she wishes there wasn't a his boys, her girls at all, but there is a problem, and there is a his circus and her circus, and she has to wonder for a just a moment, if this particular monkey will do something petty.

She doesn't think so.

"Thanks for sharing the plans," she starts to say, but then there's a young woman storming up to her, and she doesn't think she recognizes her, and she's clearly not a regular person, she's clearly - giving her a business card?

"Um?" she starts, and then looks at the card, and then - "Thank you?"

At least her enemies are good at making new enemies, for themselves?

"Thank you, for coming to help them. They really do suck."

And then? There's Mamoru! And he's sharing the feelings, his love, and also, that she's - that he's - that they're - home. Yes, they're going home. And Chibiusa's going to be safe too.

"Thank you, Zoisite. Can you take me and Venus first?"

Laura La Mer has posed:
Laura should count her blessing, and they aren't going to do this again here. She gets contrasting answers from Tuxedo and Venus, and they are both right. Then the best answer is to be both happy and vigilant? She doesn't know yet, but something like that probably.

When she is done putting out the fire, she puts away her pen and motions to Kururun to bring the Aqua Pot over. They have some kids to release, after all. "Be right back, finding a place that's not as demolished where I can let these little kids go", she warns the rest of the group.

That took a lot longer than expected, because a lot of them were still in shock, a non insignificant number kept focusing on the pretty mermaid (group that had some distinct overlap with the first one, probably to avoid thinking about the attack), and a third one that instead was asking as many questions as possible.

Once she is finally let go, she is quick to follow the others' example and jump away as fast as she can.