2540/Slumber Party: Don't You Wish You Could Be This Happy All The Time

Slumber Party: Don't You Wish You Could Be This Happy All The Time
Date of Scene:	17 May 2025
Location:	Plot Room 1
Synopsis:	HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY
Cast of Characters:	Emi Hoshino, Mamoru Chiba, Ikiko Hisakata, Amanda Faust, Hinoiri Kirara

---

Emi Hoshino has posed:
They're in the garden again.

It has been a wonderful, wonderful day. Each of them couldn't stop smiling! No matter what! From the moment they woke up, to the moment they fell asleep *exhausted*. That much smiling and bringing that much good cheer to the world really takes a lot out of a kid!

And when they dreamed, they dreamed of the things they wished they wouldn't, as always. That nightmare where the teacher gives them their face down test in front of everyone or they can't remember the academic answer? Guess what? SMILING! The varied dreams -- good dreams!!!! - flicker in their mind's eye, held there for brief moments and they struggle. And it's out of control.

But the garden.

It's familiar. They know they've been here before but everything is just so hazy, so blurry, and so CHEERFUL.

Why, even the enormous rose bushes and other flowers are shouting affirmations at them.

"Everyoen loves a smile!"
"Smile and move on!"You just misunderstood!"
"You were just overreacting! But you're better now! LOOK AT THAT SMILE!"
"It's so SELFISH to be ANGRY when you could be GRATEFUL!"Isn't it freeing to let go of all that SADNESS?!"

Except it's not gone. It's still there. YOU'RE SMILING ANYWAY.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Of course he's grateful, the seething rage and shaking dread he's suppressing notwithstanding. He's grateful that his future wife and daughter are alive! Nevermind what he felt from Chibiusa, what she said in his mind-- she's alive and so powerful, he's so happy she can protect Usagi, he's so happy...

He laughs a little, his smile not faltering once, though his eyes are a little wild behind the double mask.

He's Tuxedo Mask, of course he's good at masking. He knows how to get good grades and clean up his own messes and seem pristine. He knows how to make sure Beryl-sama is in a good mood, he--

His hands open and shut at his sides, and the laugh quiets, and he says under his breath, "Hinoiri-chan? I'm-- I'm trying to let go-- why is it so hard when everyone else can do it? I'm just not trying hard enough, that must be it. Why is it so loud?"

But he likes loud voices shouting, doesn't he? He loved getting shouted at for looking sullen -- after all, the adults were right, right? Fake it 'til you make it. He can smile. He can do it. He can be happy for Usagi, even if he's having a completely overwhelming sensory overload and none of the senses are right--

"Nevermind, haha! I forgot I liked it!"

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Ikiko doesn't remember much about her dreams, as they were blending together way too much, but what she does recall is a general sense of chaos as whenever she tried to speak in one language, she found herself speaking a different language. That normally still has a chance of being understood, but she was doing an excellent job of speaking various animal languages to humans and assorted human languages to animals. How impressive her grasp of linguistics! Definitely something to be HAPPY about!

And speaking of HAPPY, her face is definitely getting a good workout from all of this smiling that she's doing! The aching muscles make it hard to think about her usual schedule for taking care of the strays of Tokyo, but the fact that she has so many four-legged friends is a great reason to be HAPPY!

Amanda Faust has posed:
    (That's twice now, at this rate someday in the future Amy's going to have a weird complex about plants that try to control you... But right now...)

    She's in the garden again. Every day she wakes up is a bright new day full of  F U N

    Which is good because she doesn't like to sleep. It's kind of weird that she doesn't like sleep, considering, but the dreams where he's out of place in class, or somehow forgot to get dressed before going to school, or they took a wrong turn and are lost in endless hallways or roads, or they did something terrible or they're at the Black Moon Clan's mercy--

    She stays up late until she can's stay awake anymore. And in the mornings she's tired, but it's a brand new day and she's HAPPY.

    And she does like that she gets to spred cheer. People are often happy to see the catgirl in her pink slightly-frilly dress with a bow in her hair and a bell on her tail and if you ever think anything about that is odd--

    --Well that's not a happy thought, is it?

    "I'm not angry, I'm just tired... cats are s'posed to sleep a lot but..." She rubs her eyes.

    Mamoru is sullen. She walks over to her friend, hoping to cheer him up, and hey! He does seem to be happier already! He's smiling, and she smiles! Eventually she'll forget she's tired...

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara didn't mind at all that one of her bestest friends in the world is currently filled with enough dark energy to drown a pack of fuzzy rhinos, not at all! She was a pony! And nevermibnd that the future was in so much danger and now this child who she had kind of trauma bonded with was stuck making the same mistakes that she had made over and over was in a loop of her own poor choices, she was SO happy!

And now she had a tall thing!

Besides, she had been so ANGRY before, now she was HAPPY! Now she wasn't angry at all, never mind things were wrong, and WORTH being angry over, it was better to be happy and not fixing things, than angry about things and trying to fix them, right? And it wasn't like she had any desire at ALL to burn this entire garden to the ground, why, actually, that would make her smile SO MUCH! YAY! SUCH A HAPPY BONFIRE IT WOULD MAKE!

Righteous indignation! Let out that anger! Just be happy! "Just keep smiling, just be happy! Smile! Smile! Smile! Come on everybody, just keep smiling!" Hinoiri sang, her head rocking from side to side, as she blinked a little bit, a little fire on the tip of her horn... Oh yes... Happy thoughts... Like all of these flowers... burning...

Burn them all.

Show them something to smile about.

Err, no, no anger. Just happy. She was happy. What was she angry about? Smile, happy, joy joy joy! She was happy, she had a tall thing! Oh so happy! Everything was good, right? "Fill your head up with sunshine, sunshine! All we really need is a smile smile smile!"

... Tuxedo Mask was right... it was so... so loud...

Emi Hoshino has posed:
"Don't linger! Let's plant our sadness in the soul and then NEVER DIG IT UP!" The flowers chant in unison. As things begin to come into vision, the garden seems to extend forever -- just like JOY! FOREVER AND EVER!

There's a little hut in the distance. It looks very pink. It is covered in an obnoxious level of pastel colors and candies. But wait! They're not obnoxious! Seeing them FILLS THE MAHOU WITH GLEE! AND HAPPINESS. That's where their friend, BLiss-Chan, lives and everyone knows that they're the fairy of good cheer and HAPPINESS. SO HAPPY THAT THEIR FACES FEEL LIKE THEY ARE GOING TO CRACK FROM ALL THAT SMILING!

The flowers start to sing.

"So smile so wide your cheeks might tear, pretend there's nothing buried there!
The thorns don't prick, If you don't feel it---then it's not real!"

They all start to giggle. The flowers are giggling. Happily. Like children. There's a strong compulsion to join them.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Ah, yes -- bury sadness in the soul, like a dog buries a bone in the dirt. Ikiko nods at this flawless, logical analogy.

    ...wait, aren't bones supposed to be dug up and chewed on?

The smile on her face falters a bit at this philosophical dissonance. Bury sadness/bone in the soul/soil, then never/always dig it up? One makes you HAPPY, and the other...

A more relaxed smile spreads across Ikiko's face as she recalls the earnest joy that some of her canine friends displayed when they'd dig up a bone they had buried and start chewing on it. That was it. That... felt more true than the other option.

She looks to the others, and giggles slightly. "Y'know, some things should be dug up and chewed on," Ikiko grins, her fanglies glinting subtly.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Tuxedo Mask starts giggling with Hinoiri next to his head, and he starts taking long-leggedy tall-person steps toward the eye-searing pretty pastel house. The thorns don't prick--

(His tuxedo is pristine of course it is)

But thorns prick if he wants them to.

He dissociates, and he lets his body follow the compulsions-- stops paying attention to it, basically, and just goes with whatever, physically. In his mind he's trying to figure out how he got here. It's so loud, though, it's so loud and it's hard to think and he should be happy it's in his head that he should be happy but his wife and daughter are evil and missing in the future and he's having a little trouble breathing--

"Hehehe," it sounds like giggling, "I love your singing, Hinoiri-chan! I mean like really!"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara rocked her head from side to side. "All I really need is a smile smile smile, from these happy friends of miiiiiine..."

Where did she even hear that song? She swore it was from back home. Was it? It felt like it was from back home. It felt like it was from back home, as it was from.

So much happy, everything was so much HAPPIEr this way. If they went this way, they'd be happy together with a big stupid fairy that'd make them HAPPY and joyous and DEFINITELY GOOD! And they wouldn't--

She buried her face in Mamoru's head and okay...

Just. Bury. It.

Just. Bury. It.

She was going to explode. She was about ten. Seconds. From. Exploding. She was about ten seconds from exploding. It was building up like a keg of fire and brimstone and gas. Counting down. Suppressing. Drop. By. Drop. The girl was not MADE for 'masking' her emotions. She was passionate. Direct. She didn't 'mask' it well. She was direct, open. Sure, she was kind of a jerk, but at least you usually knew where you stood with her...

This? This indirect BS? Oh, this was slowly making her 'smile' on the inside on the verge of becoming an inferno and these 'flowers' were about to become the 'crater formerly known as the singing fields of headachia.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    That's right, she should be happy, she's going to see Bliss-chan

        wasn't she worried about that for some reason

    Why would she be worried, she had been cursed with this in return for the power to save the world, and Bliss-chan turned that into a good thing... somehow! Dream logic!

    She grins at Ikiko, "As long as you wash it after digging it up, otherwise eww..." she giggles childishly, fangs glinting back.

    Pricking... if you can't feel it, your body is still damaged... And Amy-chan doesn't want this body damaged, it's important... and it would be a shame for thorns to tear this cute dress... that thought feels like pouting, but she can't

    She's not very good at burying things, blurting out secrets, bad at lying, and that thought

        isn't happy

    but around Bliss-chan that doesn't matter and she only has to bury

        that this is a BAD END

    Isn't it?

        this is exactly what she was worried about well, close enough...

    B T T A   S N T A H P Y T O G T
     U   H T I   O     A P   H U H

    It's not a good kitty thought, it won't bring sunshine and rainbows
and there was unhappiness and fear of... something
                                        EXACTLY THIS or close enough...
    She doesn't want that, but this isn't right either, if only she weren't so tired... Her ears turn towards Hinoiri and she looks at her friend and smiles fangedly, "It's really good singing! I'd like to sing like that too!" why can't she focus... will she feel better if she goes towards the flowers? "D'ya think the flowers will sing with us, too?" her words are happy and smiles but her movement in that direction could more accurately be described as trudging...

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Also as Amy walks that bell on her tail keeps jingling, which probably isn't helping anyone's mood... Amy-chan mostly doesn't notice it, but every time she does she laughs... so far...

Emi Hoshino has posed:
The song continues until they've made their way up to Bliss-Chan's house! Bliss-Chan, always such a delight. Bliss-Chan, follow your light. Bliss-Chan, bring that joy!

Each of the Mahou makes their way to the hut, yes, and the door seems to open for them on its own with a chime that matches what the flowers are singing. They wipe their feet automatically on the 'WIPE AWAY YOUR WORRIES' doormat and make their way into an oversized room full of equally oversized plush furniture. All of it seems designed to make them feel even smaller and more childlike. The wallpaper is animated. Looping scenes of family and friends laughing, baving birthdays, hugging each other. All so perfect. Like stock footage.

Stock footage that feels like its watching *them*.

The entryway of the hut opens into the kitchen, too, where the cupboards appear to be sealed shut with stickers that say things like 'No sad snacks!' and Calories Don't Count If You Smile'. It smells like baking cookies in here.

A set of stairs lead up, with a great sign pointing up it that reads 'HALL OF AFFIRMATIONS'.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Something's missing. Life in the garden is supposed to be happy, and the plants say happy words, but they're not actually comforting. She would almost say that's annoying if she were allowed to. Maybe if they go see Bliss-chan she'll make them feel better?

    Amy-chan wipes her feet on the mat, of course.

    And that plush furniture looks so cozy right now she could almost plop herself down right into it and nap-- no, Amy-chan shakes her head, sleep is when the bad dreams come.

    But this...

    She doesn't actually remember being in a place like this. There was a dream Emi interrupted where she'd ended up as a little kid and had to go to Chibiusa's class and because Emi interrupted it she wasn't able to find out who Masquerade Lapine was so everyone could protect her, sorry-- but this is like, daycare vibes, like she's using her domain to turn them into little children that can't fight

    Amy-chan stands bolt upright and alert, her tail bushy. She may only have seconds. "We have to get out! *giggle*" she smiles at the others, and looks at the door, if there IS a door, and even if it's open there's only the garden outside... out of what? They can't leave the garden. "What do we do?" She says it with a grin she can't stop. There was supposed to be someone who... knew about the situation they were going to (from where?!) and who they were fighting...

    Amy looks around, but... Mamoru, Hinoiri, Ikiko, and herself is everyone that came to the garden... "We can't fight her here..." she almost wants to cry behind that smile. No, not 'almost'.

    She's filled with the sense that the one responsible for their situation will be here any moment, and she runs. Whatever way there is to run away.

    Jingling, and grinning, all the way.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
"Let's see what's here to chew on," Ikiko grins towards Amy, sizing up the sealed cupboards in the kitchen. The flowers wanted things buried, to never be revealed? When what could be revealed are things like bones and toys? Besides, hidden treats are always the tastiest treats!

So of course she heads into the kitchen, trying to pry the cupboards open, slicing stickers with her fingernail (or anything else that can supply a 'point of infinite stress') if need be. What could possibly be hidden in here, and why is it being hidden?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's something wrong something wrong something so wrong-- "It's so funny I usually listen to really angry punk rock and metal, you know? But I looooove these sweet childlike voices singing these absurdly peppy and saccharine songs! I love it so much! But you know what?" He's grinning at Amy, and he reaches up and pets Hinoiri's mane, and he's so angry he's so angry and he's so happy he can't stop smiling!

They're gone he can't feel them in his soul he feels like he won't even know if they die because they are in a different dimension he's sad he's angry-- no, he's trying to keep from grieving when he trusts his fiancee to live and save their daughter, somehow, and he's full of absolute rage that his beautiful clever little alt-future daughter's been corrupted, and he's furious that he has to keep smiling...

He keeps smiling as they go into the house, sees the stickers, smells the cookies, and sees the sign.

"No," he whispers, and takes out a rose from nowhere. He doesn't want to smile. He's not happy. (He's happy.) He's not happy. And he's sick of smiling, and this-- the thorns can't prick you if you smile? That's nonsense. He grabs the rose and lets the thorns sink into his hand, and he lifts it to cut his own mouth with it, where the smile lingers magically, and he bleeds on his shirt collar and his white gloves, and now his grin is bloodied and feral.

"Get out? Let's--" He looks puzzled, and his smile starts calming down to something less out for blood, "--blow--" he laughs and it sounds like he could kill someone. "--it all up!" He laughs delightedly, and claps his hands, and looks to the pony on his shoulder.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara couldn't breathe, all she could do was sing. Sing. Smile. Sing. Angry. Happy. Friends are hurting. Smile. Happy. Be happy. Just keep smiling smiling smiling. Just smile and--

Birthday.

They made her forget the birthday they threw for her.

And there was blood. And there was a friend. And he was hurting. And you know what? And she was hurting. And he was hurting. And she sat up, as he called her. And he was Tuxedo Kamen. And she? Today? SHE! WAS! THE UNICORN ON HIS SHOULDER!

"YES! HAPPILY!" And she was going to do take requests! WITH A SMILE! As fire erupted from her horn and she sent it BLAZING out in all directions, cackling and giggling and SQUEALING with delight as the inferno erupted around them. "MWA HA HA HA HA I'LL SHOW YOU A SMILE! YOU WANT A SMILE?! GIVE US BACK OUR FRIENDS AND THEN WE'LL SHOW YOU A REAL SMILE YOU OLD ROUND FAIRY ACTING HAG!" she yelled, cackling with glee! Well, she was smiling, and seemed to be having fun, back hooves on Tuxedo's shoulder's, front hooves on top of his hat, balanced precariously and shooting out flame from her horn. "IT'S A PARTY WITH SMILES AND YOU'RE ALL INVITED! REMEMBER, IF YOU SMILE ENOUGH THEN YOU CAN PRETEND THE THIRD DEGREE BURNS DON'T HURT! EMI! WHERE THE BUCK ARE YOU?!"

Emi Hoshino has posed:
Strings of memory tug at each of them as they hear sounds -- and make their way towards them. It must be where Emi is right? Or at least Bliss-Chan herself? Could be.

But those memories.

"I don't know how Bliss-Chan came back," said Emi to them a .. while ago? How long? It's unclear. Time is weird in a dream, but it feels different than that. "KenKen ate her the last time -- it doesn't make any sense!" She was angry. Really, really angry -- and perhaps a bit scared. Something about that nightmare truly unsettled her, and she didn't want to talk about it. And then they were off into the dreamscape to face her.

And now they're ... here? Looking for Bliss-Chan and Emi? It didn't make a lot of sense.

But they can hear singing of the same song from the upstairs, into the hall of affirmations. The hallway here has signs on every door.

Every problem is just a smile waiting to be born!

You're not broken! You're just bursting with cheer!
Why Feel Anything Else When Happy Is Right Here?!

Negative Thoughts? Throw Them In Your Giggle Box!

And on and on and on and on and on.

Finally, the singing leads them to a door. Above it reads 'Every Little Raincloud Has Its Sparkles'.

Inside sits a young child. Perhaps eight or nine years old. Unmistakably Emi for the heterochromia. She's got a big smile on her face as she colors with oversized crayons a color-by-numbers tableau of PINK CLOUDS and HAPPY SMILES And A WHOLE AND HAPPY FAMILY.

Seated in an oversized chair some distance away is ... Bliss-chan. They are all struck by the overwhelming sense of deja vu. They've been in ehre before. With her. her cheeks are stained with a permanent blush. Her smile is massive, uncomfortably so, and fixed in place. Her eyes are huge, shimmering pastel pink and gold and her pupils consist of spinning pinwheels. Multi-colored hair that somehow reminds them of candy, but .... a closer look shows it's not actually hair, but rather tightly bound ribbons instead. She could be mistaken for a mahoujin with a dress like the one she's wearing, covered in layer upon layer of laces and hearts and bows, and surrounding her head like a crown are a rotating circle of cry-laughing emojis, all animated.

That's Bliss-Chan.

"OH LOOK EMI YOUR FRIENDS HAVE MADE IT."

Little Emi waves at them with her big, broad smile. She's missing a tooth."HI FRIENDS COME COLOR WITH ME," she says all too loudly. She too got hit by Bliss-Chan, who has kept her close in the time since, evidentally.

"Yes! Why don't we all sing and play? Throw our worries away! No broken toys to fear here, just play time ALL YEAR!"

They feel so small.

Emi Hoshino has posed:
It's probably not great that the flowers outside, when they were set ablaze, kept singing even until their voices croaked with death by fire. The hut burns, catches alight. There's a sense of something ... stirring. A ...happy kind of anger? Like it wants to swallow up all that pain and bury it nice and real deep! Still, the hut is *now on fire*.

And Bliss-Chan doesn't seem to care, but then how could she? Acknowledging anything bad is happening seems unlikely to be possible for her, right?

Given their experience so far...

It now smells very much like burnt cinnamon and sugar cookies in here.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    There was supposed to be someone here who knew about what they were fighting... That's right, where is--

    << Mallory! You have to change the dream into something else, remember?! >>

    There isn't actually a voice in her head, but somehow she knows that the words are being telepathically sent to her. The others might also know that Amy is receiving these words and also that they didn't get it. Dream logic is weird. She remembered something important, but was hoping to hear advise from someone, so... she dreams that she does!

    There is the sense that the advisor is holding her finger to the side of her lips thoughtfully. << Or you can play along and win by the dream's rules, but that's not working out so far, is it... >>

    << I don't think there is a way to win in the rules! >> Amy grouses, the words somehow carrying the sense of the very annoyed shouting she can't do with her face right now. Also that name is annoying, Amy thinks, but now is not the time to argue about it.

    And then Mamoru is laughing madly and Hinoiri is BURNING THE HOUSE DOWN and the words convey a facial expression of horrified concern, << Don't! You have to find Emi! >>

    That's right, Emi was there, too! And the dreamers flash back to remembering Emi. Amy was nervous and worried back then, in her own head about some worry and talking like she was extra worried about this foe for some reason.

    And now--

    << Oh no, she's-- >> Obviously, such words can't reach over the song, though.

    The party arrives at the room and there's kid Emi. << Oh no, is she okay? >> Concerned words too unhappy to say are thought, but... that doesn't actually mean the nightmare isn't aware of them. Amy starts to rush to Emi's side but then

                              That's Bliss-chan.                              

    "Emi..." Amy says her name, worried voice between smiling lips forgetting the previous thought that she couldn't talk that way.

    Amy looks up at the Nightmare and is so very small.

    She runs towards Emi, thinking to grab her and run--

    << No! You have to change the dream to win! >> Amy remembers, again, the thought given this form, again. "HOW?!" she shouts, exasperated, and looks at the others.

    Think, Amy, think! It's so hard to think in this dream...

    She turns to Hinoiri. "Can we laugh at her, instead?"

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
After an unproductive search of the kitchen, wandering upstairs was a logical next step for Ikiko -- especially with Hinoiri working as an incineration turret.

The recollection of the memories, and the sight of Bliss-chan, prompts a puzzled smile from Ikiko, then an eyebrow-raised shrug. She has half an idea on how Bliss-chan escaped, but that can wait on being mentioned until the Nightmare is defeated.

    But how...?

Amy's question jogs a different memory loose -- defeating nightmares by changing the genre, right! Well, assuming you recognize the genre enough to figure out what's needed to derail it, anyway.

"Not a bad idea, although usually laughter creates smiles," Ikiko remarks to Amy. "Mockery might still throw the Nightmare off of its game, though."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
This is a problem-- well, surprisingly the fire's not a problem, it actually makes the dissociation easier, gives him a little bit more clarity. They're dreaming. They're in the dreamscape, and they're not someplace it's easy to get out of, and even if it were,

(there's an important item.) (kenken ate her before) (maybe there were two things? they missed one?)

This is running while Mamoru's backing away from the fire, and now it's around all of them. Do not reconnect, do not re-engage--

A whole and happy family, pink everythings, coloring within the lines, this isn't Emi, this is torture is what this is, torture for Emi, no wonder she hates this nightmare so much. Whole and happy families.

He's so small. He's smaller than he was when he joined obsidian. He's maybe eight, and undersized, and now he's hugging Hinoiri the way one generally hugs a mascot. Undignified-ly but not uncomfortably. His tuxedo is way too big for him, but the sleeves and pants legs are very cuffed and his mask is much wider than his head, and he walks with Hinoiri towards Emi, glancing at Amy as he goes.

He offers her a bloody smile. "Break the rules first maybe? Color on the walls. No one's the boss of me."

Then he puts Hinoiri down and he puts his hand flat on the heating floor, looking for anyone else in the house, looking for anything real in the house.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara cackled maniacly as she burned it alllll! And... and... it... wasn't very effective. Oh. Uhhhh.... that.... was not a good sign. Well. Uhhhh. It did not burn. Welp. Uhhhh. Oops. Uhhhh...

She blinked a few times. Looking out from over Tuxedo Mask's hat. Plan B? What was Plan B? Call her Beryl?

"You've got the right idea, Amy. But wrong application, I think. She's got this some kind of.... horror... show tunes story. So we need to turn it into a.... a uhhhhh.... A...." She, admittedly, wasn't sure. What COULD they turn it into. A self help book? A movie? A comedy wouldn't do, would it?

... It was... already dark... already terrible... Already... What were the other options?

Maybe if they could like...

"... I think what we need to do... is I think we need to make this sad. I think we need to make this incredibly, heart wrenchingly sad..."

She looked to the smile lady, trying, desperately, to resist the magic that tried to make the filly smile. Tried to tell her she was small, and weak, and had to obey, and do as she was told. "You... won't beat us," she said softly. "You won't beat Emi. We're... stronger than you... smarter than you. We're... not just... toys for your... amusement," she said, pointing a hoof at her. "And I... am not. Happy. and I. Am not. Going. To SMILE. And you. Can't. MAKE ME!" she screamed, even as the corner of her lips started to go back up against her will.

Emi Hoshino has posed:
Not. Happy.

Hinoiri said the magic words, didn't she?

It's not that the others are unnoticed, not at all, as Bliss-Chan greets them with her smile. Too big. Too many teeth by far. She had been all about to say something when Hinoiri marched right up and said those Four Words. I. Am. Not. Happy.

"Not happy?" says Bliss-Chan. Her voice, all sing-song. In her hand a wand that has a lollipop on the end covered in frosting, but giving a hint of deeply sour candy that makes one's face want to scrunch when they get too close to her.

"Don't be sad my dear, that's not allowed here! Let's forget those frownies and make some brownies!"

She has a platter in her hands, now, full of brownies and she's holding them out towards Hinoiri. They smell so good, so sweet. Like poison covered in candy.

Her eyes lock on Mamoru. "What are you doing, boy?"



Then to Amy and Ikiko, a third hand from seemingly nowhere seems to want to pat them both on the head.

Emi cringes in her seat, eyes on the ground for a moment. She bites her lip, then locks eyes with Hinoiri.

Emi feels so small, so weak, so lost. The crayon in her hand trembles. She's fighting, yes, fighting to put it down.

Bliss-Chan leans towards Hinoiri. "No one stays sad here," she tells her, "you'll see. You'll be just like all the others -- beaming like a sunrise and humming FOREVER! ... because you'll want to, of course."

The wand raises into the air, sparking.

Making it sad seems to be working, as does distracting her with breaking the rules. The smell of burning cinnamon and cookies grows more intense, like the fires Hinoiri ignited earlier are still smoldering and growing as her attention is held.

"Oh I can see why she likes you," says Bliss-Chan to Emi, who cringes even harder than before, "all of you really. Such GOOD friends. Good friends are IRREPLACEABLE, RIGHT EMI?"

Amanda Faust has posed:
Amy -- who felt so small she's a toddler -- smiles at Mamoru's suggestion, breaking the rules to get at the nightmare sounds fun, but then she's worried about being punished...

    We need to make this incredibly, heart-wrenchingly sad.

    Amy blurts, "Oh, like *************." Did she get it? She thinks she got it, and wanted to communicate that, but the actual word was meaningless.

    Beat.

    Amy -- whose voice sounds at least a few years older than her appearance, and her manner of speaking doesn't match that at all and she might be aging back up just because this behavior doesn't fit -- turns to Hinoiri and throws up her little arms. "Make it sad?! We're in a BAD END! That's as sad as it gets! She traps people like this and makes this their entire existence! Takes away everything they were and everything they could be and feeds on it! How can we make it sadder than that?!"

    It is sad, isn't it?

    Like, the very concept is. And if you think of it that way, then isn't this whole setup kind of tainted, inextricably linked to sadness?

    At least, that's how Amy sees the situation.

    She turns and points at Bliss-chan, "You didn't even do it right! In this kind, we're supposed to actually feel happy even if the situation... is... terrible."

    Amy blinks in realization. "Oh. That was the point all along. You don't want happiness, you want suffering." Having realized that, now Amy can't even conceive of Bliss-chan as a nightmare that makes anyone happy.

    Her arm drops back to her side and she opines, glumly, "You didn't even try to comfort me."

    OH SURE NOW THERE ARE HEADPATS.

    And the kitty-girl can't help lifting her head into it, and it's still a little bit nice and the spark of hope that Bliss-chan can deliver on her promise starts to ignite--

    --and thank GODOKA she's distractible as the words make her suddenly look at Emi curiously. "Was she your old imaginary friend or something...?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara blinked a few times, but well... that got a reaction. That got words. that got... attention.

That got focus. So she looked Bliss-chan to look her in the eyes. She took a few small steps towards her. "There's a saying. Ignorance. Is. Bliss. And I am anything *but* ignorance. I am Hinoiri Kirara. I am angry. I am passionate. I am sad. I am more trouble than I am worth some days. I am a fighter. I am reckless. I am a trouble maker. I am the first, last and sometimes middle person to cause a problem when the time comes for it." She walked up to Bliss-chan and sat up on her hunches, like a cat, putting her front hooves on Bliss-chan's knees. "And I. Am. Not. HAPPY." And then she'd HEADBUTT the tray.

"And you want to know WHY?! Because you are an IDIOT! I am PISSED OFF! And my friends are HURTING and SAD and we are going to KICK YOUR FLANK!"

AND FOCUS ON ME YOU BIG BIDDY!

She kind of wiggled her tail towards Emi as she spoke. Come on, one of you guys. Get the hint. Get. Emi. Get herrrrrr. Come ooooooon...

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
"Guess we really do need to dig up sadness," Ikiko muses out loud as she thinks about the broken analogy. And the bitey feeling it inspired wound up coming in handy when Bliss-chan tried patting her head, as she turned and tried to bite the hand patting her!

    ...okay, it might not be the smartest move, but she's short on ideas and long on musings of chewing on previously-buried bones, alright?

Still, the thought of how comforting a dug-up bone can be to her canine friends reminded Ikiko that there was someone here who needs heartfelt comforting. Ikiko walks up to Emi, carefully takes the crayon away from her, then very deliberately drops the crayon and scoops up Emi into a biiig hug! "Let's get the heck out of here and actually feel all of the emotions," Ikiko smiles to their erstwhile dream-guide.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Touching the floor makes me happy," the oversized-tuxedo-wearing little boy says, giving Blissey a big smile behind his too-big mask. "There are other people in the house, is it still on fire?"

And then he takes off the mask and makes the saddest puppy eyes, chin crumpling. "How does Usako do it?"

He takes a deep breath, then falls to his knees and shuts his eyes and thinks about...

...Wicked Lady.

He thinks about what makes him so angry and feel so helpless and sad and wildly anxious, what's going on with Usagi and Chibiusa, what's going on in the future he's not in, whether Usagi is safe from Demande (Wicked Lady said she'd keep her safe, and he believed her, but Small Lady...)

He sniffles.

He says, thickly, "Don't anyone tell anyone."

Finally, he sits heavily on the floor and sniffles again and then WAILS.

Emi Hoshino has posed:
Emi cringes when she's hugged by Ikiko. This is a natural reaction. She doesn't do well with being touched, necessarily, at least at first. She settles into it and chokes back a pained sob, the crayons dropping from nerveless fingers. Amy and Hinoiri get stared at by her, too, as they're face to face with Bliss-Chan, the former getting headpats and the latter getting stared at by the fairy of good cheer herself with her lollipop wand.

The pinwheels in Bliss-chan's eyes move faster and faster and faster and she is about to answer Hinoiri with something but then there is ... the profound wail of Mamoru. It clearly causes her considerable discomfort when someone reaches down into a wellspring of pain and pulls up something so raw and fresh.

"No! Nonono! There are no tears here! Only smiles!" she yells, "We send the sad people to the GARDEN and BURY THE SADNESS WHERE NO ONE WILL FIND IT AGAIN." She raises her wand up now, pointing at it at Mamoru. "NO!"

The whole home shakes with the force of her anger, the walls cracking and sparking as the flames Hinoiri set earlier seem to be spreading inside the walls, eating away at the spaces between. "NO!"

The whole facade starts to be caught up in a blaze of -despair- and -wrath- and Bliss-Chan clearly can't handle the emotional outpouring -- and the magic therein -- of *several* mahou all at the same time, especially of true anger and despair and of course their old friends indignation. Plenty of that to go around.

It's not a trick of your eyes that Bliss-Chan seems to be smaller, now, herself. Like the intrusion of reality into her carefully cultivated gaslightscape nightmare is hitting her hard. "You can't bring those her! I told you not to!"

Emi gently disentangles Ikiko from herself and then rises up. A little taller.

"They're not your's. They're MY friends. GET HER."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara glowers at her. "Lady, you have no idea who you're dealing with. You have kidnapped the friend of a herd of orphans who JUST got their OTHER friends kidnapped. And guess what! We can't punch the other kidnappers but we can sure as buck punch YOU!"

And thanks to Mamoru, there were certainly plenty of sadness to go with that tears!

And as Bliss-chan starts to try to get up, Hinoiri dives forward and she tries to take her wand and BITE it in half! And... also light her dress on fire. Cause, I mean. Why not add injury to other injury?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Joke's on you," Tuxedo Mask says with a hiccuping sob, "I'm the dirt boy, I like gardens, and-- and I like, I love flowers, and digging, and growing things, living real things... everyone, we've been in here for a whole day and night..."

He's so tired. These problems make him feel so small, in a room with three other boys in bunkbeds, helplessly out of control of his life. This monster is forcing happy family imagery on the orphan who finally has family and they're m i s s i n g, and--

The little boy lunges for Bliss-chan, bare hands outstretched to punch the nightmare in the face, and he introduces Bliss-chan to every tired bit of grief and every loss of temper and every scared night and every furious use of his rage room he shoves his feelings at her and he misses them.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
"When you plant sadness, don't be surprised when you get a bumper crop of rage," Ikiko glares at Bliss-chan, darting in for a sweeping kick to knock the Nightmare off of her feet. While an up-close bite would be tempting, the wolfgirl isn't too keen to chomp something that's currently, actively, and literally getting cooked -- unicorn school of grilling, anyone? Besides, entering into a hand-to-hand scrum with someone who has ribbons for hair is a recipe for getting tangled up in said ribbons.

    And speaking of those ribbons...

"Don't let a single ribbon-hair escape!" Ikiko calls to the others. "That might have been how she recovered from the last time!" After all, some horror monsters can rebuild themselves from tiny scraps; who's to say that a neurotically cheerful Nightmare couldn't do the same?

Amanda Faust has posed:
I am anything but ignorance.

    "Yeah, it's not my thing either..." Amy comments idly.

    And then Mamoru wails and she looks over at him, startled. And it takes a moment for her to get past the 'crying kid WHAT DO I DO / crying friend HOW DO I COMFORT HIM' reaction and remember it's probably part of the strategy of fighting with sadness.

    Yeah. But this is already a place of sadness. "You didn't bury it very well." A Bad End, where people and potential go to become nothing, and its master doesn't even give them anything for it but empty words.

    Amy now looks maybe even a couple years older than in real life. She did in the garden too, the pink-dress-and-catgirl thing kind of giving the look of cosplay or maybe an actress on a children's show or something, when there isn't that haze over everyone's eyes.

    She pushes the hand patting her away. The one kinda good thing in this whole dream, but "Not now." And then a pillar of flame engulfs her, and one henshin sequence later, she's in her magical girl dress -- hers, not any of the cosplays, though she's still holding the cosplay wand -- and she points that wand at Bliss-chan and

    Oh. Everyone's going for melee attacks. She shoulda, like, used being a catgirl to claw Bliss-chan's face off or something, huh? Oh well.

    When she gets a clear shot, she points the wand at Bliss-chan and it somehow fires a heart-shaped rocket that rams into the nightmare's face -- a long-range punch, of sorts -- and then explodes her face in!

    "Plague the world of dreamers no more, you second-rate lotus eater machine wannabe..."

Emi Hoshino has posed:
"No! I just wanted you to be happy! JUST BE HAPPY!"

Bliss-chan yells at them as she bit, punched, blasted, set on fire, kicked, and attacked with emotions. Like sadness. She HATES sadness.

She is -- quite openly -- blasted through a wall by the force of it all, leaving a conspiciously fairy-shaped hole in the wall that seems smaller than it should've been a moment ago -- like Bliss-Chan. Shrinking away. She falls onto flaming earth outside the house where her latest garden burns with Hinoiri's flames and wilts with the sheer emotional weight brought to bear against her.

"Nononono, you'll ruin EVERYTHING!" But it's enough. The continued fullisade -- even Emi joins in -- is more than enough. She doesn't even so much as have an opportunity to fight back when she's being curshed on all that.

You see, sometimes continuing the beatings DOES improve morale.

In the end, between the fire and force, the House of Joy is left in flames, the garden of gaslight delights burns, and Blisschan herself is reduced to a smoking cinder, not a whiff of her left for even KenKen to consume. Emi -- more back to normal, sags and hits the ground. "Wake up. All of you," she whispers.

And they will -- in their own rooms. With the realization -- and memories -- returning to them that they have spent the last twenty four hours in reality being *obnoxiously happy to everyone they met*.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "YOU ALREADY RUINED IT!" Amy shouts after the shrinking monster, striding up to the hole in the wall with the click-click-click of heels (they're imaginary so she can't have trouble walking in them.) She glares imperiously down at Bliss-chan and fires a few more shots to make sure.

Wake up.

    Aren't they forgetting someone? << Bye. >>

    Amy wakes up in her own bed, which is a little confusing given didn't they slumber party if this was a nightmare mission?

    AND THEN THE MEMORIES COME BACK and she covers her face in embarassment.

    Well, she can tell the normies she just had a really good day and magical friends will understand that she got nightmare'd.

    Nemesis and Bliss-chan, that's two Bad Ends escaped. Now they just need to help Usagi, Chibiusa, and Molly escape theirs...

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Ikiko blinks awake after being sent out of the dreamscape by Emi. She takes a moment to sort through her memories, figuring out just what she had been up to while being whammied by Bliss-chan...

...then groans as some of the recollections seem a bit too real to have been blurred nightmares. "Please don't tell me I using animal language in class yesterday," she grumbles to no-one in particular.