809/Which Witch is Which! 1

Which Witch is Which! 1
Date of Scene:	27 November 2023
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	La Crima, Mami and Riventon hunt witches for SCIENCE! Hope Blossom and Sunbreaker also help. For s-science? Bring your spoons!
Cast of Characters:	Norie Okana, Mami Tomoe, Madoka Kaname, Takashi Agera, Hinoiri Kirara

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Norie Okana has posed:
The entrance to the labryrinth is located in an old grocery downtown that's been closed for a while. It's been abandoned but police have been tracking reports that people that enter ... don't leave. They just vanish. Most likely where the witch has been feeding.

La Crima is already in the grocery, in a lab coat and safety googles perched on her head, and she has a big, ridicolous luggable case hooked on a strap on her shoulder, where in a curly wire eminates to a hand scanner. She has it pointed at the entrance of the weird maze and she sniffs the air. The store is dusty, but otherwise 'clean', there's no old cans of food sitting around, thankfully, and she had to break the lock to get in. (Basically, childs play for any mahou worth their salt.)

"Smells. Sickly sweet. Doesn't it?" she asks to anyone coming in. She's expecting Riventon and Mami. She called them not too long ago.

Of course the witch is detectable by other Puella and others that know how one feels, and so on.

Mami Tomoe has posed:
Mami Tomoe is right there, of course, her Soul Gem in her palm. One of the purposes of this little exercise is to gather data on witch detection, and a Soul Gem is the most reliable witch detector there is. It is pulsing a bright yellow. Sure enough, there's a witch there alright.

She takes a whiff of the air just inside the store and wrinkles her nose. Mami loves sweet things. She's an amateur pastry chef, after all. But this? This is too sweet. It must be the witch. "I wonder if it is some kind of sugary food witch," she muses. Then she shrugs. It doesn't matter. They all die the same eventually, and she's not alone this time. She has her team.

A glow of yellow light envelops her as she henshins. That hat always looks so good on her. It's a shame she never wears hats out of henshin.

Then she turns to look to Norie and Riventon, "I'm really interested in seeing how we work together without much practice as a team. That way I'll be able to start to figure out some tactics that work for us. So let's do our best, and pay attention."

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Two of Madoka's Chara have remained asleep since the other day, but Gretchen woke up when she heard Homura's voice which... still leaves her out of Madoka's reach. Fortunately, she's now gotten a fourth Chara! Which is convenient. How many is she going to get?!

    Lydian, the loose-braided ponytail Minidoka covered in paint splotches, tugs on Madoka's sleeve. "Doka-chan... something bad is going on over there!"

    Madoka follows her Chara's lead, hopping from rooftop to rooftop until she lands on top of a building across from the grocery store. "Is that the place?" asks the bearer. When Lydian nods, Madoka decides to prepare.

    "My Heart, Unlock!"

    One bright flash of pink later, Hope Blossom is hopping down to the street and comes across a broken lock. She notices La Crima there, but... wait, she can't be one doing the bad thing, could she?

    No, that's not quite right. Madoka senses it now. There's something else here. A Labyrinth.

    Mami is here too, and... talking about being in a team with Norie? Taking a step forward, Hope Blossom opens her mouth to ask her senpai a question about this, but she decides to hold her tongue. Most of the people here probably don't recognize her like this.

    "I'm just here to fight the Witch," she explains. "I hope you don't mind if I help. I don't really need the Grief Seed."

Takashi Agera has posed:
Riventon nods to Lacrima as she asks. "Yeah, it's pretty gross." he says, the boy in the heavy cloak that wraps around him from back to front. Riventon stepped out of the Dusk Zone when he arrived, but rapidly moved to close the distance between himself and the two girls. "I'll be glad if we find some way to reliably track these, though. For our sake and everybody else's. These monsters are a lot more deadly than anything we usually get coming over from the Dusk Zone.

    They're also the key to keeping Mami Tomoe alive and shooting, so that matters a lot to him, too. "I'll be glad when we drop it."

    He arrives just in time to see Hope Blossom's appearance, and tilts his head at her. "You are... extremely pink and poofy." he says, unsure of how else to describe her. "But as long as you're not here for the seed I won't begrudge assistance." he pauses. "Who uh... are... you?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was, admittedly, tracking the witch for a different reason. And had been for a while now, using a far, far, far less efficient method and had already turned up three failed results. Why?

... It depended on why you asked her. If asked, she'd say it was because she was trying to experiment with some new magic. Witch magic, to be precise. Sure, she'd been told it was a bad idea but a lot of what she did was a bad idea. She'd say that people were just being cowardly. You couldn't create a platinum plated dinosaur without enchanting a few chicken eggs, as it were.

So she'd been trying to track a witch and, finally, managed to have success (conveniently) right about the same time that La Crima and co. arrived.

So in a burst of black flames, she appeared about... ten feet ahead of them.

She took a sniff of the air before shuddering. "Ugh. Smells like Sora's 'snack' chest after the yak incident. They really need to--"

AND IT WAS ABOUT THAT TIME SHE REALIZED SHE WASN'T ALONE! Her familiar popping out of its gem and gliding back around her, giving a low, humming hiss.

Sunbreaker whipped around, fires at the ready... only to pause and then, slowly, lower her hands. "La Crima? What are you doing here? Riventon?" she asked. Then she glanced to Mami. And... Hope Blossom. "Dear heavens. Did two new sparkle skirts drop? Is everyone here?" Honestly, she half expected Sailor Moon, Sharpsong and Yellow Ear Worm Voice to pop into existance any moment.

"You're not stabbing Riventon or La Crima yet, so I'm assuming you're chill."

Though, she didn't really look happy... Because the reason she was here, the true reason? ... Was she wanted to pay Sharpsong back for what she owed her. For saving her life. And she wanted a grief seed to pay her back. And this... made that... a little harder.

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima looks over to Hope Blossom as she enters and she looks back to Mami, and blinks. "I guess I don't mind the help." she says quietly as she lowers her device and says. "I'd prefer if my onee-chan here gets the grief seed. I'm sure Riven-senpai means that as a compliment." probably not, but it's best to smooth things over. At least he didn't call her a sparkleskirt to start off with. In blatant terms. Then Sunbreaker shows up and she blinks. "Huh? What are you doing here, Sunbreaker?" she asks. "ANYWAYS, let's talk more when we enter this place unless it's immediately hostile."

The witches' labryrinth is odd, but that's expected. It looks like the world was assemebled from ripped boxtops of various cereals, all Japanese, English, Europeon... and so on. Norie Okana arrives on one for Frosted Flakes, circa the 1980's. She looks around at the giant milk fountain that cascades down into a giant inset bowl wherein there is a spoon and super soggy corn flakes. She makes a face. "Milk in cereal." she says. "I like mine dry, thanks." she says as she backs into a tower of froot loops cereal and causes the 'o' shapped cereal to tumble and roll about.

Witches familiars, that look like someone literarly cut out the cardboard mascots on boxes, badly, and pasted them together with others, roam in the distance and seem disinterested in the assembled party thus far. It's like they're pretend grazing. This is probably a ruse. Or the real danger are something else enttirely.

The witch is currently in hiding, most likely, or needs some traveling to get to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fOO-N4J6bE

Mami Tomoe has posed:
Puella Magi Mami is just going over the plan when Hope Blossom arrives and then Sunbreaker a moment later. Two people she's never met--as far as she knows. She's never one to turn down help with a witch, but she doesn't know these girls, and they don't seem like Puella, so she's a little worried about them. Witches are no joke, after all.

"You're welcome to join us," she says to them both. "But the grief seed is ours." That is said directly toward Sunbreaker, who had not already expressed her lack of interest. Then she turns and steps into the Labyryinth, giggling as she goes. "Do you all call us sparkle skirts? Is it in the company lexicon?"

Once inside, though, the giggling stops. She takes it all in as she stands atop a Count Chocula box. The milk cascading down into the cereal. The boxes. The pieced together Familiars. What's this witch's deal?

"Let's go further in and see what we find," she says, before she starts moving from box to box toward the bowl where the milk is being poured.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Blossom stares at Riventon for reasons that wont make sense to him for a long time. In a way, she feels like she owes him a real fight, but now isn't the time for that. Nevermind the fact that she'd be outnumbered. At the 'pink and poofy' comment, she says, "Well... I've been called worse." Such as sparkleskirt. "My name's Hope Blossom. I fight Witches for safety reasons, but I don't take food out of a Puella Magi's mouth." Blossom glances towards Mami. Never mind the fact that she'd be hard pressed to fight Mami with zero backup regardless.

    Maybe this is a good thing. If Obsidian also fights Witches, maybe she can angle this to recruit their help later. Maybe Mami is already doing the same. On the other hand, Hope is giving the group a wide eyed stare. She is very well aware that she's swimming among sharks right now, and Sunbreaker's arrival does little to assuage her concerns. "Eheh. Well... I guess that means we have a truce then!"

    As the others start to enter the Labyrinth, Hope hops in after and starts looking around. A Cereal Witch, huh? "I wonder if its Grief Seed has a Cheerio loop on it," she muses out loud. "I get the feeling these Frosted Flakes aren't so great."

    Without Gretchen, Madoka doesn't really have an advantage over anyone else when it comes to Witch tracking. She looks at Mami expectantly, hoping that the veteran will better know what to do here. The Chara Bearer follows the Puella's lead, hopping from box to box a few steps after her.

    None of these people know who she is, but she's met each of them in different contexts.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "It's not a compliment, but it's also not an insult. It's just an observation of the facts." Riventon says regarding his comment on Madoka's outfit, casually. "Look, we haven't found a better name. Sparkleskirt just rolls off the tongue so well, and everybody knows what we mean. So yeah, it's pretty universal now. You're welcome." Riventon adds. "Yeah, truce. We don't clear out witches by blasting each other." What happens at the end if somebody tries to snag the Grief Seed - that's when blasting each other might come out.

    He steps with the hastily assembled party into the Labrynth and immediately looks around and the confusion is evident on his face. "Every time I think I'm used to these, they come up with something stranger. The last one was food-related too, wasn't it?" He asks Mami, as he looks around. "Maybe that's what Witches are. Food-borne illness that gets out of hand. I mean obviously, probably not, but it makes as much relative sense as everything else about them." He adds, keeping his eyes on the goofy looking slapdash assembled Familiars.

    "Careful moving around here. I don't want anybody's cause of death to be 'crushed by a giant cocoa puff' or anything. And it looks kind of unstable." he says, pointing out the tower of loops. "Get to the witch, slap the witch around until it stops making everything weird, and we're good to go. Easy peasy." Of course, when dealing with Witches and Labrynths, everything was complicated. Even just looking ahead was complicated. Since the world was all an unstable-looking mess. This time he doesn't pre-emptively blast the familiars, though he is ready to do so if it becomes a need. He knows the real threat is the Witch itself.

    He moves closer to Sunbreaker for a moment and whispers "What's your angle being here?" Riventon asks. It's Sunbreaker, and she was alone rather than clearly looking like someone's backup. He assumes she has one.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker glanced between the girls. Onee-chan? So, Mami was La Crima's big sister? Weird. She wouldn't have thought the girl had siblings. Nice of them to do things together, though.

"Experimenting with magic," Sunbreaker told her. "It's different from a lot of the magic I've been fiddling with, I decided I'd see what I could learn with some hooves on experimentation. Wish I'd known you were bringing everyone though, I'd have brought snacks," she said in a teasing tone.

Then turned her gaze to Mami. "Oh? And if I decide I want the grief seed?" she asked. "Because last I checked, the only ones who have any real claim on them are Kyubey's girls. So unless..." Then she glanced to Hope. The way she looked to Mami when she said that... The anger and annoyance died out.

"Ah. Well, if you are one of the puella, then yes. You'll have dibs. I'm not here for one of those seeds anyway." Liiiiiiies.

"You should probably wait outside, though. Unlike you lot, none of us die when we use our magic." She turned to follow after La Crema. "And yes. Riventon told me they were Sparkle Skirts when I got here. I asked them what term they preferred, none of them answered with anything better. If you've got a term you'd prefer to have a batch of you called, I'm all for it. But until then, sparkle skirts is the only term I've heard for a herd of you lot."

Ugggggh. "... And I thought the cereal boxes in my world were decorated garishly. This is like... a mockery of them, right? Not what they actually look like? Cause... I've tried your cereal here. Half of it doesn't taste any better than the boxes it comes in, just dipped in more sugar."

She cocked an eye when Riventon asked her why she was here and then... just leaned in and whispered to him. Well, two reasons. He was one of the FEW people she'd give... close to the true answer.

She whispered to him alone. "My girlfriend, she's a puella. I owe her a seed for saving my life. Also, hooves on testing. Speaking of..."

"So, we just need to draw the witch out, right?" she asked, talking at a normal volume now. Before she just RAN off ahead of the group, running STRAIGHT at the roaming familiars. She let out a high pitched whistle before forming a spear of fire in her right hand, then lobbing it STRAIGHT at the nearest of the familiars... If it connected, it would erupt into a glorious black fireball of overcompensating destruction.

Norie Okana has posed:
"Hope Blossom. I am. La Crima." she says softly. "We're researching Witches. Because you're right. They're dangerous. There must be better methods of dispatching them or tracking them, right? So our team is set to do that." she says as she looks over to Sunbreaker and blinks softly. She looks to Hope Blossom apologetically when Sunbbreaker calls her a sparkleskirt. She then huffs.

She looks to Mami also apologetically. "You're not..not a sparkleskirt, onee-chann." she whines as she as she raises her scanner and scans around and attempts to get over towards one of the familiars before stopping short, just getting into reading range, when Riventon warns them. She sighs. "I'll be more careful.." she says."

Right, truce. No infighting. That's pointless right now. She trails off. ANYWAYS: "Right. Let's find the witch!" she says.

As for the witch, well, when Norie accidently disturbs a small pack of...these things that look like the cocoa krispes monkey with the cocoa puffs bird head, fly off there's a loud rumble that makes the milk-pond ripple beyond the milk. Then Sunbreaker decides to fireball another pack of familiars, and the ground burns like the paper it is as familiars scream in agony!...

...and that's then the pond starts lifting out of the ground and on spidery, spoon-legs and oh god is has eyes a nose and a strange mouth all cut out from various mascots and it's blinking irregularly and leaking milk everywhere that seems to burn the ground when it splashes out. It roars in some low, ungodly tone no insturments or vocals could ever get as the ground shakes.

La Crima hovers inches off the ground. To escape the fate of falling onto her butt. "We-well." she says, covering her ears.

"That's horrifying."

Mami Tomoe has posed:
"You're a fool if you think I'm going to sit this out, Sunbreaker. You've got some rather ridiculous notions in your head about us Puella," she says. "We only die from using our magic if we mismanage it. Whoever told you about that must be pretty new, if she hasn't figured that out." She's got an idea who it might be, but it could be anyone really.

"As far as what I'll do if anybody tries to take the grief seed. Well, just ask Riventon what I do to people who try and take things that don't belong to them," she says, glancing aside him with a smirk. A little bit of color rising in her cheeks. Then she looks back at Sunbreaker. "So it's good you're not interested. I don't want to have to hurt anybody other than this witch."

The witch that promptly reveals itself when Sunbreaker does what Mami did not and brazenly attacks some Familiars. She was right. The milk was the key. But now it's so much more terrifyingly apparent that the milk is also a huge problem.

"Watch out for the milk! she calls out to everyone.

There's a swirl of ribbons that becomes half a dozen rifles just floating around Mami. They all fire at once, bullets hurtling toward the witch's bowl. If she can crack the ceramic, maybe all the milk will leak out and then, you know, it'll be...easier to fight?

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    Blossom interacting with Riventon in a non-hostile context is... weird. Well, maybe not so much. The first time she saw him was also in a Labyrinth, right? He was willing to cooperate right up until the seed dropped, she notes, and in this case there's only one Puella Magi involved.

    "Full disclosure if you guys start infighting over the Seed I'm ducking out," comments Hope. She assumes that Mami and Norie are here as a team from the way they're talking, and Riventon seems to be in on that, but she has no idea how Sunbreaker fits into their structure.

    On the subject of sparkleskirts, Hope considers. "Well... I mean normally I use terms like 'mahou' and 'magicals', but those terms apply to you folk too. I haven't really thought of an umbrella term for mahou who aren't with Obsidian."

    "Also I don't really have much of an opinion on cereal. I always have homecooked meals for breakfast."

    Whatever else she could say, her train of thought is interrupted by the sudden attack from Sunbreaker, and also the sudden reaction from the pond. She gives the monster a look of horror. Well, at least she isn't stuck here without a henshin this time. Though she's not convinced that hanging out with four Obsidian peeps is that much safer.

    Hope Blossom's branch bow appears in her hands, and with two fingers she pulls back an invisible drawstring. A pink arrow magically appears, nocked and read to fire. The bow a bit more ornate than the Chara-change version, with a few more leaves and other embellishments, because of course higher power translates directly to more frills and fancier weapons.

    Deciding to follow Mami-senpai's lead, Madoka releases her arrow which spits into something like twenty smaller arrows, each of them spreading out and then arcing inward to attack the spots where Mami's bullets hit. Surely this is more efficient than just shooting anywhere, right?

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Well, I know what my nightmares are gonna be. Forever. You certainly did draw it out." Riventon says as he looks up at the cereal-milk-spider. "I really need to speak to HR and see if we can count extermination of these to count as community service or something. There's gotta be something tax-deductible about removing threats to sanity." he continues, in that tone that makes it an open question if he's serious or not.

    Well, Riventon knows what Norie and Mami and Sunbreaker are good at - laying on damage. That leaves Hope as an unknown, but since she's creating a magical bow he can make an educated guess. His device announces the mode swap, and it's almost ironic, he's changing in order to better defend others. <OFFENSIVE FORM.> Axion calls as the cloak that wraps around him compresses and becomes a gauntlet that runs up to his shoulder, over the lab coat.

    Riventon starts to move between the girls, and focuses on being there to shield in some way any counter-attacks from the Witch. Which is a tall order given how random and strange their attacks can be. The fact that he doesn't know Hope Blossom and didn't invite Sunbreaker doesn't mean they might not find themselves being covered from a hit by a rapidly running Riventon, or having one of his youma-like barret attacks intercept a reinforcing familiar. It just means they're lower on the defense priority list than Norie and Mami. "You girls just lay into it, and I'll try to keep you safe as best I can so that hopefully you can just keep dumping attacks on it..." Riventon says. He doesn't ask anybody about the plan, though. It's his plan and he's doing it. Follow or get out of the way or something.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker stared. Opened her mouth. Closed her mouth. Opened her mouth. Closed her mouth. Finally, just looked to Riventon and motioned ahead as if to say 'What the hell? Is this? Shit? WHY? Why is THIS a thing? Who did this? THIS? This is screwed up.'

She, for the sake of not blowing up the new girl, ignored Mami's threats. Bah. As if she was scared of some little yellow hussy in a short skirt. "Please, as if you could hurt me. I've been hurt by professionals." ... It sounded better in her head.

Still, right. The witch. That... was... actually it seemed the other girls weren't half bad. She'd gotten its attention, though, so she felt she'd done her fair share. Time for her to go--

Okay, not really. She snapped her fingers and her familiar moved to her side. "Fetch," she told it.

What? The yellow and pink sparkle skirts seemed to have it well in hand. Also, something about getting in the middle of that flurry of bullets and arrows was... vaguelly familiar and also something she *did not wish* to do right now.

Her familiar shot off like a dart ,away from the fighting to... try and grab one of the familiars? And bring it back?

Of course, once it was back on its way, and assuming the barrage of bullets and arrows were finished... she'd push out her right hand and cause a wall of fire to erupt directly in front of all of them, hopefully blocking any brute force assaults back at them. Between Riventon's point defenses to make sure nothing sneaks up on them and her wall of fire, she figured they had it handled.

What could possibly go wrong?

Norie Okana has posed:
The witch takes shots to the bowl and indeed it does make a large crack for milk to begin leaking out. Which is a good thing. In that it's leaking out of the bowl, and a bads thing in that it's now leaking out like an uncontrolled spout. It roars in it's defeaning baritone at this as it does so, spilling acidic milk everywhere.

Following up with Hope Blossom's arrows into the same spot causes a large chip for the milk to spill out faster. one again, good but also bad. La Crima makes a parasol out of dark energy as it rains down milk on her, and she can hear it sizzle as she tosses it aside once the threat has passed, dissapating into dark energy mist.

Sunbreaker can grab a familiar! With her...familiar! It makes a fuss and bleating like an animal of...some sort?

Riventon plays defense and this leaves Mami, Hope Blossom and La Crima against the beast.

La Crima summons up her sword as she calls out. "Falcata!" into the air, summoning the ancient, curved shaped energy blade and in the meantime, hears one of Riventon's attack deflect a swing from one of those spoon legs towards her that would have hurt a bunch, La Crima following up by striking it hard and sending it flying back with the sword as she tries to go for the legs as the others hurt the bowl.

She listens to the bickering and comebacks between Sunbreaker and Mami and decides to just keep quiet as she sighs. Mami can handle Sunbreaker for the moment. She's really elegant! and Sunbreaker is..she isn't okay!? Also. Riventon would have things to say if that got physical later she's sure. With his device. For now. Witch.

Mami Tomoe has posed:
If she wants to eliminate the risk of spilt milk, Mami really needs to just spill it all, and the only way to do that is going to be to topple it over. If it doesn't die in the process, it'll at least be easier to kill. She watches it for a moment, and is rather intently focused, so she doesn't notice the big splash of liquid lactose headed right her way.

Fortunately Riventon does, getting there right in time to deflect the milk away with a counterattack of his own. He keeps doing that thing where he saves her. Blush rises up in her cheeks and she...refocuses herself on the fight. She can be flustered about her boyfriend later.

Those spoon legs look very unstable--not that physics actually matters here--and so she gets another idea. Ribbons shoot out from her hands like steel cables hurtling toward the spoon legs to wrap around them, and then she summons another large mass of ribbons that turn into a cannon. A cannon which she leaps atop and that fires away from the witch, sending Mami hurtling in a big circle around the witch's legs as she holds on to the cables.

If it all works out, she'll wind around it's legs and trip it up.

If it all works out.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    The milk is coming out faster! Blossom is helping! Helping the villain team get a Grief Seed. Well, at least no one's going to die from the Witch. She hopes.

    Blossom would likely feel less weird about this if she knew that Riventon was politically aligned with the "Not Blowing Up The World" faction. As it is, she's just hoping that Mami hasn't left her moral compass in her other hat or something.

    Madoka's primary defense up until this point has been range and evasion. Now she also has a layer of actual armor, but she still relies mostly on simply not being wherever the hit is going to land. A few super hops backwards creates distance between herself and the Cereal Witch, avoiding most of the acid milk splash, but a spare droplet gets caught on her henshin dress. Blossom whines at the sight, shouting, "Isn't milk supposed to be a base?!"

    Mami starts pulling a move that Madoka is pretty sure she saw in a movie at some point, but she doesn't quite have the confidence or ability to follow senpai's lead this time. Instead, she draws another arrow and decides to distract the Witch. She pulls this one further and further back as it gains size and gathers magical power. Releasing it on one bolt, she sends this one directly for a spot between what seems to be the Witch's eyes.

    Everyone has a plan until they get shot in the face.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker turned her attention away from the fight when her familiar dragged the papery... thing... to her. Well, it was as she said. Experimentation. Hooves on.

She held out her hand and her familiar, as well as the paper thing, seemed to just.... swoop. Get compressed. Or, well. Her familiar disappeared in a puff of smoke, but the other familiar was compressed. A flaming arcane circle appeared under her feet before the familiar was turned to ash. From the ash, a black gem formed. Fire erupted around her and the gem shattered, absorbing into her hand.

Then it all ended. "Oh... ohhhhh. Wow, that's... urk..." she gave a low burp, wobbling a bit to her left. "What... kind of chaotic... magic..." she promptly fell on her butt, head swaying from left to right. "I got it... I've..." A hand over her mouth, closing her eyes for juuuuuust a moment...

Then she opened her eyes. And they were actual swirls. "Eeeee hee hee hee heeeeeee. Caaaaan you feeeeel the maaaaaaagic tonight?"

No, the strangest part wasn't that she was singing. It was the fact that there was CLEARLY some background music going on when she heard it. Not 'Oh, it's so strange I can almost hear it'. The music was THERE. And disjointed. And almost EAR BLEEDINGLY loud and high pitched.

"The peace that fire briiiiiiiings?"

And then she flung her hands out and little fiery TIGERS started forming around her, charging forward and tearing apart ALL that lay in their path. Worse, though? A quick examination would reveal they weren't fiery tigers at all. They were fiery tony the tiger cutouts. and they were vicious as they descended on the savana of witch magic.

Norie Okana has posed:
Mami Tomoe can wrap around the legs of the spider, well most of them. Some are up in the air , but it's possible to get most of them. She can ride around on her cannon rocket and would wrap around the legs easily enough, well, as said, most of them, some free are causing the witch to skitter forth on them like some sort of witch hermit crab as the bowl topples over.

Hope Blossom hits an eye and causes the beast to skitter backwards on it's two or three remaining mobile legs and now it's trying to run away, but it can't very easily now, nor does this weird cereal savannah have many places to hide. Besides tall, tall cereal boxes.

Sunbreaker starts to uh. Drunkenly? let loose on the poor, poor, witches cereal savannah as Riventon interposes himself between people, and playing defense, oblitering a rice krispy cloud, because seriously, anything can and will kill you here.

La Crima sputters. "Rookie mistake, you have to be careful where your energy comes from...!" she says as she swings her sword downward at one of the skittering spoons, finally lopping off one of the curved ends, leaving it to pathetically crawl forward and away from the group on a remaining one spoon leg.

La Crima stops to take a scan of the witch as it's running away, pulling that scanner up. "I thinkk it's almost dead? Someone care to finally put it out of it's misery?" she asks as she looks towards Mami and Hope Blossom.

Mami Tomoe has posed:
As Mami hurtles around the Spider's legs, she watches Riventon doing his thing. She takes a moment to just look at him dreamily as the magical physics winds her around the witch's legs. He's so handsome when he's being protective. She liked being protected by him.

That moment passes, though, as the ribbons draw her in closer and closer to the witch, pulling so many of its spindly spoon legs together so that the others could topple it over. The cannon disappears in a swirl of ribbon and she lands right next to La Crima right as she's taking her scan.

"Oh yes. Time to see just what your onee-chan can do," she says with a grin and a wink to the younger girl.

Then she runs toward the witch, leaps up into the air with the power of mahou magic, and an enormous amount of ribbons swirl out from her to form an absolutely massive flint-lock pistol--bigger than a car on the bullet train--pointed right at the witch.

Tiro Finale!

She calls out the attack and the pistol fires a massive bullet, sending it hurtling toward the witch.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    "Wait, really?!" responds Madoka to the chemistry comment. Well, shows what she knows. In her mind, Riventon at this point probably suspects that Hope Blossom isn't Ami Mizuno, which fortunately doesn't narrow it down much. The advantage of being extremely average.

    Sunbreaker's singing is a side of her that Hope hasn't seen before. If Madoka's Chara sometimes make her feel like a Disney Princess, then is Sunbreaker a Disney Villain? Are they fated rivals?!

    Well... Probably not.

    The finisher call out comes, and Mami produces Tiro Finale. It's at this moment that Hope Blossom realizes that she doesn't have an actual finisher name.

    "You should make one!" says Lydian, as Madoka's inner voice. "It'd be really cool!" What?! Right here on the spot?! "Just shout out whatever comes to mind!"

    Madoka succumbs to the 'curse' of being a Chara Bearer, and Lydian takes control of her for a moment. She leaps forward, lands with one foot on the edge of the Witch's bowl, and then super jumps high into the air while aiming down.

    "Blossom Blaze!" she shouts, literally making stuff up on the spot (thanks Lydian) as she unleashes a torrential rain of bright pink death. As each arrow impacts either the Witch or the ground, it explodes in a flash of magic, saturating the area in mahou destruction.

    Of course, this makes sense in Madoka's mind. Brai wanted to be hyper competent, but Lydian wants to be flashy.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    What. The actual. Heck. Is Sunbreaker doing? Riventon is almost transfixed because there are bad ideas, there are his ideas, and then there's whatever the hell this idea is. Riventon cannot imagine willingly intaking that energy into someone's system, though maybe she'd be okay since she wasn't as intricately connected - nope, she is not okay. She is absolutely not okay.

    "Yeah let's kill it and maybe whatever Sunbreaker just ate will fade away with it?" he asks, hopeful. Because she looks... rough.

    At least watching the thing goofily try to scuttle away from the assembled team might make it less liable to show up later in anybody's nightmares. Now it just sort of looks like a pathetic, helpless golem made out of whatever was left out on a kitchen table after breakfast. "I can help, too." Riventon says as he lands near Mami and Norie. Because as much as covering for them has been helpful, Riventon's device is still made for blasting at heart...

    <UBERLADENES SPERRFEUER> Riventon's device calls out. With hands upturned outstretched Riventon gathers Dark Energy in his palms and, when both spheres of inky black energy are about basketball sized, he launches them where they settle in near him. The process is done two more times, before Riventon thrusts his hand forward and the spheres as well as Riventon start blasting, all seven sources of the attack disgourge a torrential series of consecutive energy blasts into the Witch. While Mami's got one single big shot, Riventon is dumping an unending series of tiny inky blasts.

    But when Mami sets up for her finisher right next to him, and the large sphere at the end of her gun channels the goriwng magic of her blast, it pulls some of those inky shots into it, and swirls the other smaller blasts into a spiral that surrounds the main bullet, now a gleaming black oblong shot as it rips through the air on the way to the target, Riventon's smaller shots following and impacting in a spinning pattern.

    Riventon doesn't mention how cool he thinks that is, partly because he wants to seem nonchalant. But also because "SUNBREAKER WHY ARE YOU SINGING RIGHT NOW!" Riventon turns and yells as his attack finishes and he's visibly tired. "Now is not the ti-oh man." No, she's more rough than he thought, swirly eyes and all. "Lacrima have you ever drained something you shouldn't have? Is there like, a heimlich or ipecac equivalent for energy?" He asks her. Well, she's much more of the expert on intaking energy, being a need for her.

    He turns back though, because he is not going to miss the witch being impacted by the multitude of attacks - the mix of pink and black mahou devastation that this poor witch has earned by existing and being weird. Okay, that and also possibly killing people. And having a grief seed.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was... was utterly out of it. Mixing witch magic and Kirakirafantastica magic? NOT the best idea. As many, many things were calling for finishers, however... it seemed to penetrate her skull. Somewhat.

Or maybe it was just crazy witch magic.

The disjointed music was switching suddenly, as the burning lions faded into ash. and a new song started, in the midst of it. "Soooo much better, so much fun!" Above, the captain from Captain Crunch appeared... with cannons. She grabbed a familiar as she danced on by, sloshing through the milk and barely seeming to notice that her shoes were *burning.* Spinning around, she tore the familiar in half and tossed them aside. "Lets start from scratch and blow up the sun!"

Above, papery captain crunch unleashed a barrage of cannonfire. It...

It was, admittedly, nowhere near as impressive as the Blossom Blaze or Tiro Fanale or Uberladenes sperrfever. But she was drunk, don't judge her. She ate a whole familiar.

"Come on, shoot faster, just ate a little bit of energy!"

Yup, she was still singing.

Norie Okana has posed:
The witch takes a Tiro finale, a bullet no doubt close to the size of the car the gun was, and the slow moving witch makes an excellent target for it, smashing the bowl completely to pieces and sending common, cheap, dollar store ceramic everywhere, luckily, this feels rather mundane. Nevermind that the following up of a brightm brilliant Blossom Blaze exploding around the area, taking care of the remaining legs before they can skitter away (On thier own!?) and overall decimate the area....

Nevermind Riventon's added enhancements to the attack that allow it to smash that bowl to pieces. And Sunbreaker's...C..Captain Crunch Cannonade just obliterates the rest with explosive, firey cannonballs of some sort. Really, that's just all a mess now and there's nothing left of the witch after all that, except pebbly ceramic and metal spoons.

-That's when reality starts to shift back to the grocers they left and the witch's grief seed falls to the ground with a little ting sound. It indeed, has a frootloop, cherrio and applejack all intersected in a triangle shape on it.

But now that that's over. La Crima sighs over to Sunbreaker. "I.. I think I can remove the energy into my pendant. But then I'd need to air it out somewhere and ew. I dunno where I would do that safetly because I'm not shoving strange enery into my being unless I want to." she says to Riventon before looking back to Mami and going wide eyed.

"That was so cool." she says with wide eyes, with enough neutral enthusiam in her tone for Riventon too, since he wants to be big and chill about it. "That was so cool." she says to Hope Blossom. Before landing on Riventon. "That was so cool! and--and---" She looks to Sunbreaker. "That was so dumb, don't energy drain witches, now you're gonna be what, burping up cereal mascots for a week?"

Mami Tomoe has posed:
Mami steps up next to Riventon and slips her arm through his as the Labyrinth fades around them. She looks up him, smiling, and her pupils are practically shaped like hearts. "I loved how your attack combined with my Tiro Finale. Imagine if we did that on purpose. We need to come up with a name for it!"

Then there's Norie, being excited and Mami beams. "Wasn't it though?!" It was way cooler than her usual Tiro Finale. "You were badass out there, imouto-chan," she says, reaching out toward La Crima. A ribbon extends from her hand turning into a second hand that pats La Crima on the head and then unravels into nothingness.

She looks to both La Crima and Riventon. "I'm so proud of us!" And then turns to Hope Blossom. "And you were amazing Hope Blossom! You are absolutely welcome to fight a with with me any time."

She looks at Sunbreaker, for a moment, but La Crima said what should be said, so instead of commenting, she whips out another ribbon toward the grief seed, flicking it up into the air in an arc toward her and her waiting hand.

Madoka Kaname has posed:
    The Witch is gone, and the fight is over. Hope Blossom gives a wide, sideeyed glance towards the Obsidian folk she just went along with. She meant what she said about not taking the Seed away from Mami, and she'd be saying that even if she was referring to a newbie instead of one of the strongest veterans she knows. Nobody here but Lydian and herself probably know the nature of Hope Blossom's character, though.

    At the compliment from La Crima, Hope smiles a bit nervously and says, "Th-thanks!" while trying not to think about the fact that she might end up blasting a couple of people here with it some day. To Mami, she adds, "With you, I'd love to."

    Hope also has opinions about Sunbreaker's choice of snack, but there's no reason to repeat what her friends are already telling her. They are friends, right? Sorta? They seem to be looking out for her in any case.

    It's not like Madoka has that much room to talk, either.

    "W-well, I'll be going now. I don't have any reason to stay here and you all look... busy..." she says, backpedaling towards the entrance to the story. "It was... interesting... teaming up with you!"

    Turning on her heel, she quickly leaves before someone decides to go back on the truce. She doesn't feel super great about leaving the Grief Seed in Obsidian's hands, but she'd feel even worse trying to take it from Mami, so this is just how it is. It's not like she can realistically stop them from ever getting a hand on a Grief Seed, so it's not a battle worth fighting.

    The weirdest thing about all of this is that Mami and Riventon actually look cute together. Well, as long as she's happy, right?

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon shakes his whole body in response to the leaving of the Labrynth, too. It's nothing like the relative calm of stepping through to the Dusk Zone and back... it's the dimensional movement equivalent of Eudial's driving. He hates it every time, but also likes it, since it signals a complete hunt.

    First he makes sure that the grief seed is being acquired by the right person (Mami) - and then he turns to the others. "Yeah, everyone did well. And no problems this time. Well... no problems among the four of us. Then there's uh... her..." Riventon says, pointing over his shoulder to indicate Sunbreaker. "You think maybe we can just take her back and see if it works its way out of her system? Maybe while we throw paper balls at her or something?" You know. Because they're friends. That's what friends do. Right?

    "Hope Blossom, thanks for not like, turning your bow on us. Not that it would have been a good idea, but that doesn't generally stop people most of the time." he notes. "Just on the assumption another 20 of you would suddenly show up to even the odds or something." This is about as much of a polite thank you as any sparkle skirt is going to get. Especially one that pink.

    Then he turns to Sunbreaker. "Hellooooo. Are you in there?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was being drawn back to reality... "Back to reality, whoops, there goes gravity." ... The terrifying thing? *Was that it did*. For a few seconds, gravity just *stopped* around *all of them*.

But before they could panic too much about that... the music stopped. And with it, gravity returned.

However, there were still things to worry about... Because she didn't even seem to HEAR what La Crima said. Or, if she did, she was so drunk off the witch energy she didn't notice.

And then she practically TACKLED Riventon. Hugging him around the neck. Just. Out of nowhere. One moment she was on the ground. The next BAM! "Riventon. Riventoooon," she said, a serious look on her face, the swirls disappearing for a moment when she stared at him. "Look! A unicorn!" she said in a hushed, almost whispering tone that the others could DEFINITELY hear. "It's meeeee!" And the swirls were back as she said that i na giddy, happy tone, all but squealing in delight before slooooowly sliding off him and to the ground. Like a drunk cat. Or a liquid.

"Psssssst. Riventon," Sunbreaker said from the ground. "I think the yellow sparkle skirt has a crush on you. She keeps giving you the eyyyyyyyes. And I might be a unicorn but even I can see the eyyyyyyyyes in humans. You should totally ask her out. She seems nice."

And then she was standing again. A box of cheerios in hand. Which she was munching from. Okay. That... that wasn't there before. Where did she get those from? "So! Where we going next? Is there another witch? Ohhhhhh! We should go to the dusk zone! My project is almost complete! I bet I could put a dozen familiars in it! Eeeee! Imagine! They'd never clean it off the streets!" then another mouthful of cheerios.

... Why... why did the cheerios box have a tiny... fairy pony thing.... instead of a bee as the mascot? Were... were those even cheerios?

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima blinks as Hope Blossom exits like that and she waves. She knows the body language. "Y..you're fine to leave. P-promise." she says as she sighs but is interrupted by a headpat!?

Oh. Mami. Without the draining danger. This makes her content because she hasn't felt one in a long while. ~.~. "H--hey. I did my best! But I had to get scans too. I got lots of data, Hopefully it's a good starting point!" she says as Mami acquires the Grief Seed.

She sighhhsss loudly at Riventon. "Let's take her back, yeah. If it doesn't clear up in like a few hours I'll. Drain it out." she says. "Ughk."

La Crima eyes go wide when she hugs Riventon and she face palms, and she rubs it across her face.

"Mami-chan. I am so sorry that Sunbreaker is...is energy drunk on witch energy." she says as she sighs. She leans down about to help her up when Sunbreaker pops up with with... a cereal box. "I don't wanna know." she says softly.

Mami Tomoe has posed:
Puella Magi Mami is standing right there, arm in arm with Riventon, when Sunbreaker tackle-hugs him. She's so stunned all she can do is stare as the flame-haired ...unicorn?... just drapes herself all over her boyfriend and then melts into a puddle on the ground. The poor girl was clearly reacting poorly to the Familiar's magic. It wasn't her fault. Besides, Mami couldn't blame her. He was very huggable.

Then she says Riventon should ask her out, and she giggles. She looks up at him and says, "I agree. You should ask me out. On a date. Where we're not working." This is the problem when two workaholics get together. What even is work life balance?

Hope Blossom gets a wave as she departs. Mami's glad she seemed to make a good impression on her. She always likes making new friends. She calls out, "See you around!"

To La Crima she smiles and says, "It's alright. We all get reckless and do stupid things sometimes. Let's just hope she learns from this."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon is suddenly assaulted by Sunbreaker and his first thought is that she's trying to attack him - but that's quickly proving to not be the case. As she melts off him and into a pile of Sunooze. "Hmmm. Fascinating." He says, and that's about as close as he can get to humoring her right now. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "I think we're going back to the Tower next." he says. "Before somebody sees you and thinks we're like, underage drunk cosplayers or something." Or at least, one of them was.

    "I don't think we should take the Dusk Zone, I have no idea how that'll interact with her. And it's not we can all travel that way anyways." Mami being the odd lady out. "Let's find a Door and get her back to... my lab, I guess. Better there than anywhere else I can think of. No idea how long it's gonna take for this to... pass. Assuming it does. I hope she hasn't like... broken herself." he says. And mentally marks off 'inhale witch energy' as an experiment he needs to try or see tried. Thanks, Sunbreaker!

    Then he turns to Mami as they start to walk. "You know what, when neither of us are working or in class, sure." That is, however, an incredibly small period of time. "Ah, that won't work, I'll have to invite you myself otherwise you'll never stop." And neither would he.

    Then, to Norie. "I am glad you got notes. The closer we get to some way to track these that doesn't require Mami's presence to confirm it or people to get eaten the better a lot of things will be." And then he pauses. "Just make sure you're keeping the notes to yourself and us. We're not the only bit of Obsidian looking into Witches, and I don't want them to benefit off our hard work." Or really, to benefit at all.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was just.... was just going to eat her cheerios. Staring at them with wide, swirly eyes. That kept swirling. she. she was sooooo not very.... aware right now. Even if she was watching them. Like one of those statues that watched you when you walked by. Chew chew chew. Cheeeeew.

Then...

"LAB PARTY!" she yelled. "Woo! There are so many experiments you can do in a lab! Even this world's labs. Lab work is the funnest. Nobody can get mad at you if you blow up half the building because then you're just over achieving!"

Don't. Let. Her. touch. ANYTHING. Then....

"Waiiiit. You're blond," Sunbreaker said. Before leaning in and glaring at Mami...

"... You're not Sailor Moon, are you?"

... Just... just get her off the street before she hurts herself. Or someone else.