28/Mars, the Guardian of Fire

Mars, the Guardian of Fire
Date of Scene:	04 July 2023
Location:	Hikawa Shrine
Synopsis:	People are disappearing from the streets of Juuban. Usagi and Luna are on the case, but what role does a shrine priestess play? Could she be one of the Allies they are looking for?
Cast of Characters:	Usagi Tsukino, Rei Hino

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Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Even magical girls have to sleep, have to count sheep in their dreams and float amidst clouds of cotten candy. But cats don't - or at least, they don't have to worry about getting their sleep at night.

As Usagi sleeps, Luna works, tucked neatly under the bunkbed Usagi and Naru share, Usagi's school issue laptop wedged under in just such a position that the screen can stand upright in the space between wall and bed. Propped against the laptop's keyboard is a school ID from T.A. Girls' Academy, bearing a photo of the mysterious girl who had swept Luna into her arms and fought a youma with simple pieces of ink-brushed paper.

Rei Hino. A fourteen year old girl, according to her ID. A shrine maiden, rumored to have extraordinary spiritual powers, according to her research.

Her status as a shrine maiden explained why the girl's papers - which must have been ofuda - could impact the enemy they'd fought, but still, there was something... else. Something that Luna can'tt dismiss easily. Her first instinct, her first hope, was that this girl, beautiful and strong, clearly blessed with quick and decisive thinking (unlike her current charge, she grumbles to herself), could be one of the allies she and Usagi sought, or even better yet, their princess. *Her*, princess. The wisp of a girl she could barely remember, and knew she must find, for something terrible had happened...

It's been a tumultous week and a half, hardly any time at all to contain so many events - the discovery of Sailor Moon, the first soldier she'd been able to find, had bolstered her hopes, that she'd finally make some progress on her mission, but this week and a half has quickly disillusioned her. How could it not? Sailor Moon was, rather than a leader, or a fighter, or even a person of vague competence, a crybaby and a klutz, obsessed with naps and food, a failure in every class she attended. The subjects weren't even especially difficult - elementary, compared to that which she would have experienced in Silver Millennium, where they belonged and perfectly achievable for the those she learned alongside! How was she such a failure?

Is it any wonder Luna despairs? How is she to turn a girl like Usagi into a soldier in more than name? How could she make Sailor Moon someone fit to guard the princess?

But an ally... or the princess herself... her discovery, perhaps that would be enough to make her take all of this more seriously. At least enough to properly apply herself, instead of getting distracted by all of the other - perhaps more capable - magical girls she kept stumbling upon *instead* of her allies.

And Rei Hino is the best lead she has for that. The girl is something special, Luna is sure of it... mostly.

Above her head comes the sound of something - someone - colliding with the bedframe, and Usagi starts to snore. Luna sweatdrops. She's got to be right about this.

Rei Hino has posed:
    Tokyo is becoming a scary place. Not that most of the people living there know that, but entire busses have been going missing along their routes, with all the passengers onboard vanishing as well. The police are on the case, but they haven't found anything yet. Dozens of missing people have not been found, and the pressure is on. A construction site collapsed in the middle of the night, thankfully without any fatalities, and a bunch of people at the beach passed out from what doctors have decided was heatstroke even though it was many people at once and there were initial reports of tainted icecream being consumed. Also, all the odd weather, an increase in psychiatric patients at hospitals, and a reported rise in nightmares among the general populace.

    And that's just scratching the surface.

    Rei Hino has made a second trip out to the same place she had her own encounter with an akuma (not the exact place, but the same ward) to get a replacement for her grandfather's medicine. She had felt so bad about ruining it the evening she first bought it, but finding her ojii-san had the energy to chase down girls walking by the shrine after cram school did much to abate her guilt and replace it with anger.

    But mission completed this night. The tour busses that come by have been becoming more scarce, so there isn't as much work to do when she gets home and delivers the jars of powder in their brown paper bag. "Remember, I'm not going to buy more if you hurt yourself being a lech!" she scolds her grandfather as she closes the door to his room while he is mid-protest.

    What a mess.

    And on top of everything else, the mystery of the monster that she can remember so clearly but the circumstances around it being so vague is almost more troubling than the monster itself. How could she forget how that incident was resolved? It's not every day that one gets chased by a kuma akuma. With two heads, even!

    But she's already thinking about a bath and eating something small before bedtime, so such concerns again drift to the back of her mind. Maybe she'll perform a fire reading later for insight on what she should do next.

    After flopping face-down on her futon and weighing the merits of just going to sleep like this, right now, the fact that she finds herself sitting up quickly, her long black hair swirling to the side as her violet eyes are wide with alarm is a surprise even to herself. 'What is this feeling?' Long, delicate fingers go to her forehead as though expecting to find something there... Maybe that point of heat from last night? But there's nothing. The rumbling of an engine from the street outside the shrine is recognized for what it is. A bus. She sighs and rubs her forehead before getting up. She should probably change just in case tourists decide to stop by. She'll need to warn them not to take pictures.

    After being so used to hearing engines at night, it's strange that this particular one would catch her attention.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It had been a beautiful day - and now, now it's a beautiful night, but Luna is still a terrible cat.

No, really! Just ask Usagi Tsukino, a poor, hardworking, beautiful girl who's never done anything wrong in her life, and yet has been saddled with nothing but horrible, awful changes. Like having to change schools, at the end of middle school! Like having to take *remedial classes* this summer, because her new school 'expected more out of her'. Like having to move to the dorms for all of it, because Mama says she'll leave at school if she wants to live anywhere, and she's had that look on her face that says she's not kidding. Like that jerk, Darien, stealing her ice cream.

Like being gifted a pretty broach, only to be told she's a soldier for justice, now. Like fighting monsters, all the time. Is it always going to be like this? It's scary! The whole world feels scary, now, in a way it never did before. Going out for ice cream, going to the beach, even just going for a walk - and everywhere, a monster!

She never used to see monsters, except in video games, where they belonged. She never used to have to worry about anything except her tests. Now though?

"We really have to climb all these stairs?!"

Now everything, especially Luna, was terrible.

"It's the only way up to the shrine, Usagi," Luna replies curtly. The only justice in all this is that she's at least climbing the stairs herself instead of forcing Usagi to carry her.

"But the shrine's going to be closed! It's already so late, come onnnnn Luna, this is dumb! First you made me ride buses all day, and now you make me climb all these stairs for a shrine? That's gonna be closed?! What's going on?!" Usagi stomps her foot, not caring how childish it might make her look - she's a teenager who cried in public, if Luna thinks she has any shame, she'll soon find out she's dead wrong. "And don't tell me it's not my concern again, I'm not in bed because of -"

"Quiet!" Never mind that Luna is very obviously a cat. That? That was a bark if Usagi had ever heard one, sharp and impatient enough that Usagi finds herself reflexively blinking away crocodile tears. There's a moment of ringing silence, and Luna's tone gentles. "Usagi. Don't you hear that?"

"Hear what?" She asks, sullen, but - then she *does* hear it. The sound of rumbling from the path below. An engine. "Is that... no. Luna, you don't mean we're going back there for another bus. I'm not doing it!"

Rei Hino has posed:
    The night bus approaches. It's not a tour bus, as was feared. It looks completely innocent to most people. Maybe even abnormal people. But the gaunt features and sickly complexion of the bus driver when the bus rumbles to a stop, and the way the engine sounds more like something alive than mechanical, and the fog that rolls in preceding the vehicle from nowhere and cloaks the surrounding grounds in vaguaries, might seem a liiiiittle bit creepy. Even to the perception-impaired. Or not, it's hard to say with the especially dense.

    The perception-not-impaired, however, have a very different take. It's a bus running nearly empty, only a handful of cram school students aboard, but the boys and girls aren't getting off even though the bus has rolled to a stop and the doors have opened expectantly. This is their usual stop. But they seem to not be paying attention. Or napping. Some of them definitely appear to be napping.

    Finishing changing into her shrine maiden outfit, Rei comes out into the summer evening, and feels only chills instead of any hint of the warmth from earlier in the day. She stares, eagle-eyed, at the machine, and the fog, and the lack of anyone embarking or disembarking. Not even any cute girls with short blue hair. Not that Rei is watching out for such, but it's somewhat important when people you see semi-regularly, even if only in passing, break a routine that was so regular you could set a clock to it.

    Moving a bit further across the upper temple grounds towards the stairs, it is not the blonde spaghetti-head who alerts her to the presence of visitors, or the black cat, but rather than ear-piercing whining. Kami, Buddha, and Jesus, how can a person's voice penetrate into her skull like that? It's enough to distract her from the ominous feeling and focus on this... What even is she? A visitor? A trespasser? Someone who got lost after looking down to buckle her shoe? She seems like the type.

    At least the other girl doesn't appear to be a Westerner, so probably knows better than to take photographs.

    A pair of crows caw loudly from the rooftop of the main shrine, and Rei looks at the bus again as though she understood their warning. This keeps her from realizing she knows that cat. The black tabby with the strange mark on its forehead. No, her attention completely slips.

    Something is very wrong here. Rei just isn't sure what that something is yet.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's a bus. Another bus! They've been on buses all day, riding in this same area, going down Sendai Hill and walking back up just to go back down again, with no explanation, bus drivers looking at her weirdly for only riding for the length of a single stop -

Usagi doesn't care if she's whining. She's not doing it again. Not after Luna made her climb all the way up half of this terribly high staircase, just to come to a shrine, of all things. Did cats even believe in a shrine's power?

"If you want me to take a single step, you'd better tell me what's -"

But Usagi trails off, her shrill whining dying down as she takes in what she's seeing - not just a bus, but something... wrong. The rumbling she'd heard, it was an engine but - but *wet*, almost, like something... something *alive*. And she could see the driver from here, pale and gaunt and sickly looking, and the passengers, slumped against the seats -

And she remembers people collapsed at the beach and the boardwalk. People dropping to the ground, draped across benches as their Dippin Dots spill across pavement.

"Luna... Luna are we hunting a *monster*? By ourselves?!"

But Luna doesn't answer, not with words, anyway. She's noticed the miko at the top of the stairs, Rei Hino, the girl from the construction site. She's noticed how sharp and focused her eyes are, fixed on what, to any normal human, should look like a bus. And there's only one thing to do.

She darts for the bus.

"Luna!" Usagi shrieks, as soon as she realizes what's happened, and - and she hates it, but she's chasing after her, arms pinwheeling so she doesn't trip in her rush down the stairs. "Luna, no, we can't, come on -"

Rei Hino has posed:
    A cat? Boarding a bus!? It's more likely than you think!

    The doors do not close to prevent the frantic feline. Or Usagi when the twin-tailed girl comes rushing up after her (presumed) pet. Why deny more riders? There's always room for one more. The walls of the bus interior even see be stretching to accommodate them! ...And then contracting. And then stretching. In and out. Like they're inside of something.

    It's kind of gross.

    Rei doesn't have time to change back into her school uniform or anything else, so she nearly leaps down the steps as she sees the other girl chasing her cat towards the bus. She doesn't even stop to think, just runs towards the bus, hoping to catch the blonde in time. The whole time, in her head, there's a voice yelling, 'That isn't a bus!' over and over.

    She doesn't feel like she's trying to stop an abduction so much as prevent someone from getting eaten. Nothing but bad vibes. In the end, since Usagi had a headstart, if she gets aboard Rei will only succeed in making it on as well.

    And the doors his shut behind her, like a pair of jaws closing, and the bus rumbles onwards with the bus driver giving a sickly, too-wide smile to the miko.

    Oh, boy.

    The Not Bus hurries along, at a pace that one wouldn't think possible on these streets. It even... Bends a bit into the curves. And the wheels aren't touching the ground anymore. Instead there are repeated impacts on either side, like foot falls.

    Rei draws an ofuda from her sleeve and holds it up between fore and middlefinger as she prepares to take action. Before she gets the chance, everything goes black.

    They've just entered a tunnel.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usagi is going to have a cat fur scarf by the time this is over, because Luna is a *dead cat walking* -

Probably as much as Usagi is a dead girl walking. Because she makes it onto the bus, of course, chasing Luna, recognizing from a sick pit in her stomach that there's danger here and that she has to do something, but unsure of what, carried forward by her reckless worry for Luna and not much else.

Once they're on the bus though? Once she looks and sees, all the passengers slumped in their seats, pressed against the sides of windows or nearly doubled over with their foreheads pressed against the seats in front of them...

She'll never admit it, but Luna was right. They need to be here. *She* needs to be here.

Luna is leaping over the passengers, scratching some over cloth and jumping atop others, trying to futilely to wake them, and yet nothing she does seems to matter a bit. It's like nothing she does reaches them. And Usagi?

Usagi has the terrible, awful feeling that she's been *swallowed*. That she's a small, helpless rabbit in the grip of something terrible. She gulps, taking a trembling step forward, towards the bus driver with his too big grin, not even realizing someone else has entered behind her.

"Hey! Let us off! Someone - someone definitely missed their stop back there, Driver-san, so you should let us off -" She doesn't think he'll listen, anymore than the Dippin Dots salesman had, but she has to try, doesn't she? As the rumble of wheels becomes the tread of footfalls, as the bus curves like something living, as they hurry along into the -

She screams at the crash of darkness, jumping back and crashing against another person. Sorry, Rei-chan! You're getting a crash course introduction.

Rei Hino has posed:
    The pleading for the bus to stop receives a reply from the driver. He just turns fully to face Usagi and says, "We'll be stopping soon." His mouth continues to stretch wider and wider as fur sprouts from his flesh like a bunch of tarantula bursting their legs out of confinement. Huge, sharp teeth split his gums, and his eyes grow in size and shift in hue. At about the time everything goes black and Usagi falls back, the only light is the red glow of those twin orbs in the darkness.

    Rei, for her part, feels her heart thudding in her chest. She found the girl. Maybe she could just grab her and try to force her way out through the doors at her back? Falling out of a moving vehicle might be less dangerous than what's in store for them. The organic feel of the bus makes her skin crawl almost as much as the driver's transformation.

    "Get off me!" she orders as she has to push Usagi aside after stumbling down the short series of steps inside the door. Nailing the akuma with an ofuda has just gone out the window. It's already changing into something nightmarish. She makes a decision. No, she can't leave all the other people behind. All those teenagers are the same age as her. They have lives and families and hopes and aspirations and futures ahead of them. They need to be saved too.

    She'd never be able to forgive herself if she settled for one life and bailed out.

    Before Rei can take further action, there is light again. A hellish red luminence coming from somewhere out in the void they are running through. There are scattered colors like rainbow streams that run together in ways painful to the eye, rather than the beautiful optical illusions back home. Yes, they are very much not in Tokyo anymore. The multi-colored streamers splitting the darkness are no comfort when faced with the brick-red light that filters into the monstrous bus through its windshield and windows and the small visibility ports on the doors.

    And also, the huge, swollen, hairy creature sitting in the distorted driver's seat, where once sat a merely creepy man. The youma's mouth goes wider than should be possible as it offers deep, bellowing laughs and leaves its seat entirely to try to attack the cornered girls.

    It pauses when it finds an ofuda pasted to its forehead. Its movements slow and its limbs start locking up like it has just been hit with a nerve toxin. "Wh-what... Is... This!?" it yells out stiltedly.

    Luna may not have had much luck waking up the passengers, but the extra-dimensional nature of their current predicament should be evident to her. This is how the busses and passengers are disappearing. They're being transported to some other space entirely. Hopefully the captives are still alive. Hopefully, she, her charge, and the shrine maiden make it out of here alive too.

    This is something just on the border of the Enemy's territory. The longer this goes on, the less likely escape will be successful.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
As the driver begins to change, teeth sproute like cactus spines to fill a rapidly expanding mouth, fur bursting through flesh like mold in full bloom, as the penetrating darkness takes hold - Luna's lips curl, small fangs revealed in a rare show of properly animalistic behavior. Cats need far less light than humans to see, and even if her charge - her clumsy, hopeless, *terrified* charge - can't see all of what's happening, as the driver assumes his true form, she can. "Usagi! You've got to transform!"

There's no point in hiding what she is, not now. If Rei Hino isn't one of their Allies with a capital A, she's an ally for the moment regardless, the three of them united as the only waking force against the monster that has them.

As the world comes back into view - a hellish place sprawling outside of their doors, rainbow luminescence outside a mockery of something beautiful. Usagi stumbles when she's shoved, falling against one of the bus's rows of seats with a pained, "Owwww..."

She doesn't know what's going on, and she's going to strangle Luna for that later, because - because now they're in the middle of something *terrible*, and she doesn't even know *why*, or when Luna found out about it. But for now, there's only one thing to do - because it's too late to run, and it's too late to hide, and there are people all over.

"But - there's someone here - " and yet. Maybe it doesn't matter. "Fine! But you've got to stop surprising me like this, got it? Moon Prism Power, Make Up!"

And as Usagi transforms, light and pink ribbons bursting over her form transforming into her sailor fuku, Luna leaps to the top of a bus seat, calling out, "Hino-san! Get back here, with me! You'll be trapped if you stay by the door!"

Rei Hino has posed:
    It's funny how the brain works. When faced with horrifying monsters, and now the blonde girl she pushed aside to keep her away from said monsters turning into a prismatic figure of shining light that completely eclipses the unnatural glow coming from outside, it's the fact that there's someone calling out her name that captures her attention. The youma manages to claw at its forehead with its huge furry arms, tipped with wickedly curved talons, tearing the ofuda to scraps at the cost of scratching up its own face pretty good. Instead of remaining in that corner where she'd be trapped, she does as she is told, dives aside as claws swipe through the air where she just was, and then again as she vaults over the front seats while getting her back barely slashed.

    She cries out in pain and falls forward, landing on her front on the pulsing, disgustingly warm and humid floor. With lines of burning pain across her back, where her uniform was partially shredded, and the overall emotional turmoil she's going through, she can only hope the glowing girl is a sign that maybe she isn't as in over her head as she thought. She had all those ribbons and everything, right? That seems... Familiar. Like something she just saw recently.

    Then her eyes open and she searches around for who it was that called out to her. She didn't see anyone she knew before now. Were they just hidden in the back? All she sees is the little black cat perched on the back of a seat.

    The youma hesitates before the magical girl. Her appearance is very unexpected. As arrogant as he is regarding humans, even he has heard the stories of the relentless youma hunter. That girl who keeps confounding their plans and seems to be an expert in killing his people...

    Could this be...!?

    ...Sailor V!?

    The youma is sweating a bit. He has the advantage in close combat given the confined space, but it also means he has nowhere to dodge if lasers start flying! The tables have definitely turned...!

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
There's something about transforming. It doesn't make her a different person - Usagi is positive about that. She's the same klutz, the same crybaby, the same Usagi - but as Sailor Moon, she's stronger, faster, more durable. As Sailor Moon, people look at her, and they don't see crybaby Usagi, they see - hope. She can't forget how even Darien's face had lit up with a smile at the sight of her. And this situation is the scariest yet, no allies, no comfort, not even an escape, not with the outside world transformed into something scary. She's got to be brave!

"How dare you attack innocent people, who just want to get home safe? Why don't you pick on someone who can fight back, huh? I, Sailor Moon, will stop you right here and now! Sailor Moon Kick!"

And just as the youma slashes at Rei's back, Sailor Moon comes flying at him kicking him hard in the shins. What? She's not a martial artist! But she is a senshi, and her strength is greater than a regular fourteen year old girl's. The youma *should* be knocked back.

"Good, Hino-san," it's that young girlish voice again, stern despite the praise. While Sailor Moon occupies the monster, the voice reveals it's owner, when Luna leaps from atop her perch, flipping once in a neat circle before landing directly in front of Rei. A red pen with a golden cap thuds to the ground just behind her, in arms' reach of Rei. The symbol for Mars is emblazoned on an orbed cap. "Hino-san, the world is stranger than you think. I hoped we'd have more time than this, but - this pen, it *must* be yours. You're Sailor Moon's ally! And she needs your help!"

Rei Hino has posed:
    A... Talking cat? Sure, it's startling, but, you know. Rei has been through a lot lately, and this isn't even that far outside of her daily experiences. She talks to crows, after all. Even so, as she finds herself eye-to-eye with the talking cat, the combination of the scratches across her back, the fear for herself, the blonde, and all these other kids on the bus, and the adrenaline rushing through her system, and the strange build up of heat in her forehead again, she needs a moment. After looking back over her shoulder at the sound of a justice speech being delivered, and seeing the youma is frozen in place for some reason, she focuses her violet eyes forwards again and her eyebrows angle downwards as a red sigil blazes into existence on her brow.

    "I can't let her fight alone. I have to... Protect everyone!" she says aloud as she reaches out for the pen, picking it up, and just... Somehow KNOWING that it is hers. It feels familiar in her hand. Warm. Like the red symbol of Mars that grows brighter and brighter until the crimson radiance begins to tint her vision and her surroundings.

    Pushing herself up on hands and knees, her long black hair falling down around her head like a curtain, she asks, "How do I use it?" Questions she wouldn't have asked under other circumstances. Use it? Use it or what? How? Why? The logic part of her brain is not so much disabled as hyper-connected to her intuition, bridging the gaps of information to arrive at the correct questions, if not the correct answers, she waits for the instructions that will unlock the final gate between her and... Something. Something tremendous, fiery, and powerful that is burning to be released.

    Meanwhile, the Youmatoto blinks its huge eyes a couple times in response to the speech. Sailor Moon? Not Sailor V? He grumbles out, "Never heard of you! DIIIEEE--OWWWW!" His roar of aggression turns into a cry of pain as a Senshi-strength kick is delivered to one of its tree-trunk thick legs, sending it staggering forwards, directly towards Sailor Moon! He takes a swipe at her with his Extra Large clawed paws on the way down, to at least not wind up face-down on the floor with an enemy who has a clean shot at his back.

    The energy of the passengers starts visibly streaming from them, going out the glassless-windows and windshield towards that gross, wet engine that sounds like a very larhe house cat being fed through a meatgrinder with its horrible yowling. Rei starts to lose energy as well, making her attempts to get to her feet more difficult. As the outline of dark spires or perhaps staggeringly tall pitch-black mountains begin to blot out the rainbow flows of light, it seems time is running out!

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
There's something to be said for the relief that clenches Luna's heart, warm in her chest as the symbol for Mars blazes bright on Rei's brow. The planet of war. The soldier who fights for love and passion.

Not her princess - not their princess - but the next best thing by far, an ally who could prove properly competent, and perhaps even motivation for Usagi to take an actual interest in their mission, in their duties. She didn't even have to bribe (trick) her with a pretty trinket!

"Raise it to the heavens and call out your transformation phrase - Mars Power, Make Up!"
Herss Luna instructs Rei in the first steps to her destiny, Sailor Moon is in the fight for her life. No, really! This is not an exaggeration. A bus is no place for close combat, especially for one not equipped with razor sharp claws. Sailor Moon had been smug, for a moment at least, pleased to show this jerk that just because she was new didn't mean she wasn't fierce, but that moment's passed, and she's scrambling to get away from his downward swipes, scrambling back in an awkward crawl. "Hey! Cut it out, you're gonna hurt someone!"

Hurt someone like her, even! She's not fully able to avoid the strikes, but her raised arms ensure her gloves take the blow instead of her skin, leaving her crying out in pain but not cut to ribbons.

But the youma doesn't sto, and from the corner of her eyes she can see energy streaming like smoke, bleeding through the emty, glassless windows. The assengers she can sot seem to shrink in on themselves, grey-faced and sallow-skinned, and she knows that this is going to get worse if she doesn't sto it. Just *great*. Sailor Moon forces herself u, bracing one elbow on too-warm bus seat. "If you want to eat something, try this! It's tasty, I romise! c#FF6BEBMoon Tiara Action!"

"Hino-san! You must do it now! Before it's too late for you!" Luna's voice cuts through the air. Her teeth dig into Rei's sleeve, straining to drag her up.

Rei Hino has posed:
    As her strength leaves her, Rei's attempts to get back to her feet falter. But she does not stop trying. She grits her teeth, grabs a handful of the seat that twitches and pulses, with her other hand holding tight to the pen. She stands up, defiant against the doom that visibly awaits them all. She is only mortal right now. But she isn't stopping until the monsters actually kill her. Nothing short of that is good enough.

    Repeating Luna's words as she raises the pen above her head, Rei starts to call out, "...Mars... Power..."

    Behind her, the youma somehow wiggles and shifts himself so that his upper body raises off the floor even if the rest of him doesn't. That cavernous maw stretches wide again, he inhales deeply, and he releases a deafening roar that sends shockwaves up and down the narrow passage in the middle of the bus. All that air being released... Can even Moon Tiara Action overwhelm it!?

    "...MAKE-UP!" Streamers of flame erupt from the pen, wrapping around Rei Hino, and transforming her into someone else. Someone who is still her, but stronger, tougher, and able to back up the heroine who came here to save everyone else even before Rei herself thought to act.

    She doesn't know how to use this power exactly, but... She can feel it surging up from within, the desire to be used, the NEED to keep innocents from dying here in this void, far from home or the people who care about them. That NEED is ultimately what causes the words to come to her mind. Slamming her hands together and interlacing her fingers, with her two forefingers pressed together in parallel, Sailor Mars closes her eyes.

    "Monster... Even now, you would get in the way of a hero who just wants to save lives? These people have done nothing to deserve your malice! In the name of Love and Passion, I am Sailor Mars! In the name of Mars..." Then, somewhat anticlimactically, and very informally, she yells, "...EAT THIS!" She releases a fireball from her fingertips that swirls forward, feeding on the monster's breath, growing larger and larger, and as the youma tries too late to close its mouth, engulfing it in brilliant red flames!

    "Now, Sailor Moon!" Does she know what Sailor Moon is about to do? No. But Sailor Moon must have a plan, right? Otherwise, she wouldn't have rushed into danger like this! ...Like Rei did, without a plan. Oops.

    The youma thrashes and growls and roars, still unable to get on his feet, but trying to at least bat out the flames that cover it. The bus doesn't sound too happy about its insides being on fire either.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Moon Tiara Action cannot overcome the overwhelming force of that bellowing roar (at least not yet, anyway!), and neither can Sailor Moon, pushed back by sheer force, boots scraping the floor of the bus (the belly of the beast?) even as she gropes for the bus seats to hold herself up. Her tiara is flung back to her, glittering energy falling away as it drops to the floor as inert metal once more. Fright wells, but then -

Sailor Moon feels a burst of warmth behind her, as bright as a summer bonfire, heartening instead of frightening. The fear that should swell fails to manifest. She should be nothing but terrified; there's no way to know this isn't an enemy. But she's not. And it's not.

How could she be?

"Sailor Mars!" The name bursts from her lips, ecstatic and excited, warm and inviting. Her fear is there, but buried low, in the exhilaration of recognition. Sailor Moon thinks she can understand, now, why Luna was so confident that none of those others were ally - how could they be, when she and Mars belong? Fit, two as only two celestial bodies could! This was great! This was wonderful! This was!

"Yikes!"

The youma lashes out, and Sailor Moon dives to the side as a truly magnificent justice speech is a little clumsily executed, and fire bursts forward like the wrath of god. As one glutton to another, Sailor Moon can truly appreciate just how much that must *heart* as the youma feasts on flame, smoke rising from fur.

Isn't it funny? She does know what to do. She does have a lan, sudden, strike, true. This time it won't fail. "Let this teach you not to mess with innocent travelers! c#FF6BEBMoon Tiara Action!"

And the glowing whirl of energy strikes true, this time.

Rei Hino has posed:
    The youma can't dodge. He can't even get up. He is smoldering and covered in burns. The monster bus is writhing in pain and screaming horrifically in that wicked mix of living and mechanical that has marked the foul creature from the start. There is no escape. As the insane amount of magic concentrated in such a small space comes hurtling towards him, straight and true, he swallows and calls out, "Wait, I changed my mind! I'd rather fight Sailor V! I'd rather fiiiAAAAAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!!!" the monstrous death scream still betrays fear and pain before it fades away, along with the youma dissolving into dust. The monstrous bus doesn't fare any better, screeching in its death throes as a feeling of FALLING suddenly presses down on everyone.

    But there's no impact upon landing, just a rusted, broken down bus that was decommissioned ages ago rolling out of a tunnel with a chugging, choking engine, before coming to a stop. The passengers aboard number more than just the kids that were already there. All the victims who had been imprisoned and used as living batteries for the Enemy's machinations are there, even if sprawled across seats, leaning against other, or piled haphazardly on the floor.

    Sailor Mars looks around at them all, then says, "Let's call for the police and an ambulance and get out of here before anyone starts asking questions. I have... A lot of questions of my own." Looking bewildered, but no longer frightened or drained, she glances between Luna and Sailor Moon. "...We can go back to the Hikawa Shrine if we need somewhere to lay low."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's a horrific scream, and a worse sight. Despite everything the monster has been doing to all these innocent people, Sailor Moon can't help but to look away as it dies, eyes clenched shut, unable to take any pleasure in it's destruction. She barely notices the return of her tiara, glittering in the red light of the hellish world the bus has taken them too.

She does notice the falling, the way her stomach swoops and seems to rise into her throat, the ends of her hair slapping the roof of the bus. A shrill whine escapes her. Luna digs her claws into the nearest seat, hunching low -

"We didn't crash," Sailor Moon says, dazed, when they emerge into light instead, the upward tug of falling transformed into the pitching, rocking jerk of an out of control vehicle. The bus limps to a halt, busted and broken, and Sailor Moon listens to Sailor Mars' instructions for lack of a better idea.

"Yeah, we... we've done what we can for them. It's not good to move people who've been hurt, and... I don't *think* it's going to blow up..." she's doubtful, but hope is the better part of valor, sometimes. And. It really isn't like they can stay.

Luna leaps up onto Usagi's shoulder, settling as contentedly as a pirate's parrot might. "Of course, Mars-chan. Lead the way. In your transformation, you'll find it easier to return to Hikawa Shrine at speed, and no one will think twice at the sight of you two."