2503/Dibs

Dibs
Date of Scene:	02 May 2025
Location:	Crystal Tokyo
Synopsis:	The first party of time travelers reaches the Crystal Palace ... the Boule Brothers' version thereof, at least. There is a little too much mirroring for some people's tastes. Possibly not enough for others'! (Warnings: language, infighting, NPC death)
Cast of Characters:	Kazuo Saitou, Makoto Kino, Mamoru Chiba, Minako Aino, Chibiusa Tsukino, Zoisite, Usagi Tsukino, Nephrite, Veronica Perenna
Tinyplot:	BMC: Dimension Future
Tinyplot2:	Black Moon Clan

---

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
For days now, all through the ruined future Tokyo and under it, the shifting groups of time-travelers and the survivors they've picked up have been chasing one thing: a jutting outcrop of enormous crystals that rise from the Earth at angles around a single immense obelisk of perfectly carved stone. Those crystals are the only things that haven't taken on an ashen, corrupt look, shining with a gleam of rainbow color instead.

The Crystal Palace, greater; with the Crystal Palace, Neo-Queen Serenity-specific, nested at its top.

Here, this close, the Palace looks even larger than it did at a distance; the lesser crystals themselves are the size of skyscrapers, the central obelisk twice the height of any other structure in the city, and each facet larger than the diagonals and diameters of constructed skyscrapers. There is no visible entrance to the inner palace above. But among the crystals is a place where inset into the vastest obelisk is a smaller structure - perhaps a mere twice the height of an average building - in which is set, flanked by row upon row of supports carved with patterns of vines and gardens and clouds and opening lotus flowers, at the top of a set of crystalline stairs that could handle forty or fifty people climbing side by side, a pair of giant doors.

This close, the stairs are intact.

The stairs are, in fact, spotless.

The broken streets and pathways and bare dirt and the wreckage of gardens around the Palace are ... not spotless. And the dividing line is like a knife-cut between.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"So."

Sailor Jupiter regards the immaculate stairs, leading up to the massive, closed doors. She's been more and more on edge, the closer they've come to the Palace - the more time they spend in this city, where the wind feels hollow and sullen and there's not so much as a scrap of living greenery to be found. She's automatically settled into a guarded stance, squared and ready for action at a moment's notice.

"We're pretty much expecting there to be a trap or an ambush or something here, right?"
It's not exactly a question. More like she's looking to the others to confirm something she feels was fully evident to all of them.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Is that... normal, Lapine?" asks Tuxedo Kamen, standing in front of the polished crystal stairs without actually taking a step onto it. He stares, then glances to Jupiter and nods. "But I mean... Should we just knock? Let me just knock."

He starts stepping forward, his cape swirling in the corrupted dust behind him as his foot besmirches the crystal loveliness.

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus had been befriending Zoisite, and perhaps even Nephrite, in an attempt to just branch beyond the usual group she was with. In this instance however she's standing next to Sailor Jupiter as they approach and pause in front of the immaculate, empty, heavily exposed stairs.

"Totally a trap," she agrees with her friend as she nods solemnly. A foot is swung forward to tap the bottom most step with the toe of her shoe lightly.

"I'm honestly surprised there's stairs at all. We all know Sailor Moon's feelings about stairs." How many times had she sworn she would never make a place with stairs while trying to get up to the Hikawa Shrine? So many.

"It's too much out in the open and we'd stand out like ants on a frog."

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Masquerade Lapine approaches the palace on foot in henshin, with Luna-P hovering after her. Where is Small Lady? Probably being looked after by someone else. Why isn't her catball with her? None dare question the motives of Luna-P.

    Lapine's Telepathy spell is active, and she calls out to the others nearby. << Huh... the Palace looks a lot cleaner than I remember it. >> Looking back with her masked red eyes at the ruined cityscape behind her. << Looks a lot bigger with everything else... messed up. >>

    A trap? The moment Jupiter mentions a trap, Lapine stops in her stride. Now, suddenly she's worried. Not just because this is actually very suspicious, but because she was about to walk right into whatever this was.

    Oops.

    << I'm not sure it's normal. There should be a hairline crack in that corner over there, and the texture is off over here. >>

    Kamen is moving ahead. Lapine is hanging back in anticipation.

    Totally a trap.

Zoisite has posed:
This is when Zoisite blinks wide eyed at his prince, approaching him quickly and standing before Mamoru and the door, arms crossed and almost flabbergasted by the suggestion.

"Are you insane? Jupiter is right there suggesting that there might be a trap and I agree with her. Knocking on the door of a fortress that we do not know hasn't been fully infiltrated is begging for to be a target!" Hissed, low voiced and eyes brimming his indignat fire.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The Crystal Palace has been the goal, for all this time, and here they are, and Sailor Moon is... putting her face in her palm, with a huge sigh.

"Kamen-kun, can't we just - throw something at the doors, maybe, instead?"

She's glad that Zoisite intervened, because while Mamoru is a dodge tank, there's no need for him to literally walk into a trap!

"It's definitely a trap." A beat. "I'm blaming the stairs on Sailor Mars. This is her revenge on me, I just know it."

For all the casual chitchat, she's got her Spiral Heart Moon Rod in hand, and Luna is watching from a distance, the mau having tucked herself away on a building somewhat out of the way to keep watch.

Nephrite has posed:
"Ants on a frog. That's a new one." Nephrite muses, but he's in full agreement with Venus and Jupiter. He may not be able to hear the stars, but he feels them burning above him. The wind is too still. This isn't right.

He's had his sword to hand for a while, now, the tip of it pointed down. Ready, but stayed. Sapphire eyes dart from on cystalline shape to another, wary of the multi-hued and reflective sheen that makes him feel eerily watched from all angles.

The words hauntingly beautiful spring to mind. He taps his sword upon the ground before him, a sharp sound that echoes. A small test.

Veronica Perenna has posed:
One step, two steps, three steps. The distance to the crystal palace gets ever shorter, looming more and more over the approaching group of mahoujin. The moonlit magical girl's eyes dart all over the structure, almost losing her breath with how much more beautiful it is this close. Looking at it only, she would hardly believe they are standing on an apocalyptic wasteland.

If this is the doing of Future Usagi, then she really defended her palace well enough despite the no doubt monumental efforts of Black Moon. But part of her turns up her nose at how clean everything is. Would Future Usagi really have done something like that, when the rest of her citizens suffered?

She can scarcely believe she would ever in a million years do that. Is this something real, rebuilt by their enemies, or just a facade they have strewn over the real world? If it's the first, she can do nothing over such sick dedication, if it's the second... "Let me try something", she tells the rest of the group.

Her cane shines to life, and like a mist floating upwards, twinkling moonlight is released, dancing towards the palace. "Uncloaking Shimmers", she murmurs. "If they are concealing something from us, this should show us the truth", she explains to the other mahoujin.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
A trap? Clearly there is no trap. Clearly it is just clean stairs, a lack of dust, perhaps repairs done when no-one noticed. There's no sense of dark energy, after all. Just the glimmerings of color, brightest and warmest at the top, lower all whites and greens, aquas and indigos.

And then there are people touching the stairs and arguing about traps and being targets, and Nephrite tapping his sword to the ground... It's too beautiful a moment to resist.

For a single instant, the Princess of Sarek's mist of gleaming moonlight shows a second Crystal Palace beyond this facade. One that might be presumed to still have a crack in its stairs.

Then the earth shudders around them, and the Crystal Palace itself -- the outer, false one -- seems in an instant to melt.

The stairs slide underfoot, too fast to knock over the people standing on them, like flicking a tablecloth away and leaving the place settings intact. Only with stone. With crystal that reconfigures faster than a blink. Walls the mottled colors of the sea rise about them, roaring impossibly high in a flash, closing overhead in the blue of after-sunset skies. Crystal in the same sea-colors lashes out over the wrecked soil by the stairs, sliding under Jupiter's and Lapin's and Moon's and the Princess of Sarek's feet without disturbing them any more than it disturbed Venus and Tuxedo Kamen and Zoisite on the stairs. Bizarre black lines run through floors and walls alike, looking like cracks and fractures, but filled with a solid darkness.

And the sound of Nephrite's sword tapping against the crystal is still echoing musically in the sudden prison that the Senshi and Shitennou and Princesses and Masks stand in. A single note, over and over again. And each time accompanied by a flash of light somewhere in the multitude of facets. A flash of light that, each time, seems to grow brighter, larger, closer, more familiar - to acquire a stance, leaning against the edge of a facet casually as if against a wall, arms crossed lazily -

Two stances. In the crystals, the reflection of two young men, leaning easily back to back. Colors impossible to determine against the greens and blues they exist in. But both tall, dressed in a sleeveless tunic and leggings, with a pair of ornate black crystal earrings in place against long, long pale hair. And both of the images bear the Black Moon's crescent above and between what might as well be Kazuo's eyes.

Their voices speak in perfect chorus. "We are the Boule Brothers of the Black Moon."

"Chiral," says the one on the right, a couple of shades paler.

"And Achiral," says the one on the left, gentler voice to Chiral's sharper. As if Kunzite were speaking to Zoisite directly, or perhaps Moon, or Lapin.

And in chorus again, smiles identically mocking: "It's an honor to meet the legendary Senshi, Sailor Moon."

And presumably everyone else, but ... apparently they're only going to greet one princess out loud.

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus glances over toward Nephrite at the mention of never hearing that phrase before. It wasn't the first time someone ahd remarked on her use of phrases, so she's about to respond. About to. The world around them shifts to hues of darker greens and blues and the stairs just become not-stairs so fast she feels her balance wobble before catching herself perfectly.

It was unsettling but not enough to make her fall or trip. Score one for her!

A gloved hand flexes fingers reaching for a sword not there until it is, and she grasps the Holy Sword tight with it's dimly glowing light no doubt adding to the refraction of colors in the stone.

Then the twins appear, and greet Sailor Moon, and she's left staring with wide blue eyes at the similarity to Kunzite. A single breath is sucked in.

And let out in a quick rush of a single word, "Dibs!"

Makoto Kino has posed:
"If someone has to spring the mousetrap," Sailor Jupiter is saying, as Nephrite's sword rings against the step and the Princess of Sarek puts her magic to work to reveal the truth, "I think it had better be--"

She doesn't get the chance to finish the thought. In that split second when the second Palace can be seen behind the first, Jupiter's voice cuts off. In the next instant everything shifts and walls close around them. The trap, spring.

"Not good." She sounds faintly strangled, but she's already in motion, sparks hissing to life across the knuckles of her clenched fists. One long, powerful stride - two - eating up the space, she lunges, launching an electrified fist at the crystal wall and the image of the two within it.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Masquerade Lapine frowns and looks up at Sailor Moon. << Don't ask about the stairs. You do not want to hear the story about the stairs. >>

    As various poking and prodding, Chibiusa starts to notice various inconsistencies and issues. Some of them can be explained by magic, but... well, when the moonlit mist reveals a fragment of the truth, Lapine's eyes widen.

    Small Lady takes a step back and wraps her Device Cape around herself. The enemy approaches!

    < Flier Fin > intones Luminous Titan as the stairs seem to move under Lapine's feet. Tiny purple wings form around her little shoes and lift her into the air, causing her cape to swirl around her as she rises.

    << So it's an illusion... >> she thinks at the group.

    Chibiusa is trying to target the image of the two youma boys, but... could that also be a trap?

    Venus is calling dibs.

    "Sorry, Venus. We're gonna have to fight your new boyfriends."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
<<...I willl not ask the story of the stairs.>>

A strangled noise, and then - everything changes. One moment, they're arguing about the obvious trap they're walking to, this sense that everything is normal... and then Nephrite is tapping his sword against the crystal and the Princess of Sarek is casting her revealing light, and everything is not normal.

The floor itself slips out from under them, ripped away as though a tablecloth snatched in a magic trip. Sailor Moon doesn't trip - it was too neat and elegant a trick for that - but she spins around, as the floor is revealed to be stone, and new crystals rise around and above them, mottled colors of the sea rising around, bizarre black lines cracking and fracturing through the area, filled with solid darkness, and she feels the sickening, unsettling feeling of Dark Energy all around them.

"Shit."

The swear jar is going to be fed plenty, when this is all said and done. Sailor Moon's eyes flick, meeting the figures - two young men, long pale hair, handsome in a very familiar way, eyes nearly identical to ones she's familiar with -

"Not unless you mean for a fight, Venus," she snaps, hearing that dibs, as she straightens up, while Sailor Jupiter lunges forward. "I wish it was an honor to meet you. Is there nothing we can do besides fight?"

Yes, she is aware of the irony of saying this while Jupiter is literally going for their faces. She's still saying it with a straight face.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"What!" protests Mamoru, and his eyes are glittering behind the mask, oh, he-- "You'd all rescue me if I tripped it and couldn't dodge in time," he says with absolute faith. "Even if I didn't deserve--"

All of a sudden there's a strangely ringing flash as Veronica lifts the veil of illusion and Nephrite taps the crystal with his sword, and Tuxedo Kamen flinches as the ground shakes. He looks down at the suddenly stone steps, at the suddenly enclosing walls-- and then at Chiral and Achiral, and he stops dead.

He just met Crystal Tokyo Nephrite.

"How the hell did Crystal Tokyo Kunzite end up being twins? It's okay you two you can quit your job with the bad guys, I'm sure after we kick your teeth in, King Endymion will fix it!"

<< *Is* the whole thing an illusion? >> his mental voice comes, and he scrambles over to a wall that does NOT have their reflections in it with his hand outstretched, trying to get a read on the situation while Mako Smash.

Nephrite has posed:
*Dibs, indeed,* he thinks, but for a different reason-- no, these bastards with their stolen looks, he fully intends to impale at least one of them by the end of this. Or shatter, as the case may well be. As long as his blade cuts something true.

For the moment, a call is issued beneath his breath, a sweep of his hand along the flat of his blade bringing a glow to it. The white writhing energy of starlight infusing his weapon. Bright, and brighter.

If there is any interference here to be gained with refractrions, by blinding light or by magic, he intends to find it. His blade turns, driven into the nearest facet and flooded with a fierce burst, to see if the reflections react.

Veronica Perenna has posed:
There is a brief shake of her head when the real Crystal Palace is revealed, and their suspicions are confirmed, with the ugliness of decadence promising the tale of the war that has been brought to this palace. She is not sure if what they did here is better or worse than the alternative, but in the end, it doesn't matter.

"This is your doing then", the Princess of Sarek holds her cane tightly, her ears standing straight, her eyes focused on the brothers who made their appearance. She doubts these walls would stop her escape, if she really wished, but sadly she is by herself. That's always the biggest issue with any escape plan, isn't it? She shakes her head, realising she will have to play by these guys' rules.

"Are you sure you want them?", the cat thief asks Venus. "Despite their names, I don't see much chemistry from them. You could do much better", she tells the soldier of beauty. There is a shine again, and a beam of light follows a swing of her ebony cane drawing the line moonlight into the air. "Transient Lunar Flare!"

Zoisite has posed:
Well, that settled that discussion. It wasn't the door that was the trap--the entire structure was one when the tip of Nephrite's sword hits the crystal stone below.

Already triggering his flight, Zoisite was privy to the chaos of everything being enveloped around them, the warping of the illusionary Crystal Palace and solid ground until all of it was nothing but a prison of cracks and reflective surfaces.

Then the twins echoe through the walls, and the voices did things to his ears. The tone, both so different yet to similar, he had almost forgotten where he was as he saw the twinning images of the brothers. Chiral and Achiral.

They were so like Kunzite his heart leapt into his throat, and when Jupiter jumped in to attack, he felt a violent need to throttle her instead--No time.

No time.

Quick on his thoughts, Zoisite summons his cherry blossoms with pure intentions instead of name, flying through the air in urgent speeds to intercept Jupiter's electric attack, and exploding on midair impact. And his turns, visibly furious at the thunderous senshi and Moon.

Lips part to snap at them, teeth and all, but he gasps instead when he notes Nephrite of all people to step into the attack. Whatever words he had was stolen then--and part of him, deep down, influenced by cracks or scarred manipulation, if those two were in fact Kunzite reborn, even if the chances were so small, that they would stab Nephrite back.

He had no true way of intercepting the rest, and stepped back, feet on the ground, letting the rest go and he hold back any intention of attacking.

Makoto Kino has posed:
It's not an easy thing to check Sailor Jupiter in mid-charge. Zoisite manages it; the blazing sakura explode against her fist, practically in her face. The force is enough to make her stagger. The thunderous punch is flung wide, connecting with nothing.

"What the hell?" she yelps, falling back a step with a forearm reflexively upraised to shield her face. The fingers of her glove are still smoldering.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The light of the Holy Sword casts more glimmers, Nephrite's starlight dozens more, and disconcertingly, every time a facet flashes brightly somewhere, it has some fraction of the Boule Brothers' image. Shoulder leaned against shoulder. Chiral's smile. Achiral's eyes, and crescent, and the sweep of his long pale hair. The one that Jupiter is lunging for and Chibiusa is focusing on remains the largest, the most complete ...

... the one whose version of Achiral is flashing a sly little wink over his shoulder at Venus. "Oh, we have no plans for fighting," his gentler voice assures Moon. "We are artists, not warriors, and only wish to welcome you with our gifts."

With the growing number of light sources, the flickering and flashing grows quicker and more mobile in its random, half-circling spattering about the walls. "First," says Chiral, "to reassure the lady with doubt in our chemistry, comes Achiral's welcoming via isomer..."

Tuxedo Kamen reaches out to an emptier wall and tries to read it, and there is --

-- there is what might be the echo of a memory lingering, as if he were trying to pick up a book, and read through the pages the history of one of the trees whose pulp had contributed. But the walls are new; they have nothing of their own. Only the feeling of delighted malice that shines in the Boule Brother's eyes, and seethes through the black-filled cracks in the crystal. And only a firm idea of home, as if the crystals were laying claim to Tuxedo Kamen's fingertips.

Oh. They are laying claim to Tuxedo Kamen's fingertips. The surface of the wall has fused with his skin, and he cannot draw his hand away.

Nephrite drives his blade into the nearest facet, and starlight gleams across the crystal from one edge to another, dancing up along a narrow face of the outer wall. There is an instant where Nephrite can read the stars of Gemini in it, of course, and another of Libra, both distorted in ways so tiny that he cannot see an individual change - only recognize the gut feeling of wrongness at the sight of them. Then a sudden thread of red cracks through the starlight, and another and another: diverting the brilliance into one of the black-filled fissures, where it's swallowed whole.

Like Tuxedo Kamen's hand, too, Nephrite finds that his blade cannot be drawn from the wall. That it seems to have become part of it. And that if he tries to step away, his feet cannot be taken from the floor where he stands.

Jupiter is half-saved from a similar fate by an explosion of sakura petals. They spatter fire against the facet where the paired reflection stood, echoed a moment later by a slash of moonbeam. The reflection is banished --

-- that one; the others still appear and disappear moment by moment --

-- and the light and fire drowned again in the black.

Zoisite's feet on the ground. Jupiter's, after she falls back a step. Anyone touching the crystal at any point will find that anything touching the crystal is bound to it, immovably ... and that the crystal is flooding. Up from the floor, filling space like water. Out from the sides, waves lashing out at Masquerade Lapin's floating form, her little shoes and flowing cape, her hands and her face and her hair. Anywhere it can touch.

"Once Achiral's Electrochemical Side Chain has formed a bond," Chiral's voice explains, echoing bizarrely from one direction and another, its point of origin changing multiple times a syllable, "no reaction can sever it." Teeth in a pale face flash another smile at Tuxedo Kamen. "A pity that your faith in the dead King seems almost as strong."

There is no reaction from either of the reflections at the word 'Kunzite.' It's as if it were only noise.

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus slides a leg back bracing herself for attack even as Jupiter lunges forward. Jupiter was first. Jupiter had the right mindset and no reason to be distracted by two, hot, cute, partially chest-revealing Kunzi--er, twins. Twins. That made sense.

In spite of her initial urge to call out dibs she grips her sword up in both hands preparing to attack or defend as necessary as well. To Lapine she just gives a curt nod while looking oh-so-serious. "Yeah, that's how it usually ends up with my boyfriends."

Whatever truth she may have revealed about her sordid history of falling for youma, and Dark agents, is forgotten entirely when Zoisite leaps in to defend the twins so voraciously.

A half-step is taken forward. "Zoisite! It's not him." A pause, and she adds, "And we both know even if it was, he would urge us to fight him rather than risk him being made to harm Kamen." Kunzite would not want to harm his Prince even if he were brainwashed--He would want to be stopped. Some part of her simply knows that beyond a doubt. He would not want to return to his actions of the past betrayal... but that doesn't matter now. Because neither of these handsome lookalikes are him.

She's about to move forward when she finds the floor being... er... More? Than before? Unlike many others she couldn't fly or float so she's left glancing downward with worry watching the way the light of the Holy Sword reflects off the rising surface, and the walls, and... She knew light very well.

"Hey, hey! Put out the lights! It needs light!" Right? RIGHT? Oh if only Ami-chan were here to confirm!

With a force of thought she causes the Holy Sword to stop eminating light. It returns to it's dormant form, back when it had been stuck in stone on the Moon.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    << I don't know! >> says Masquerade Lapine, responding to Mamoru. << There has to be a real source for this, right? >>

    Of course, because she's looking at him, she notices right away that his hand gets stuck on the wall. Oh shoot!

    < Rose Barrets Prepared > intones Luminous.

    "Fire!" orders Small Lady, swooshing her cape as a spray of rose-shaped magical bullets fly out from the lining within. The spray is aimed around Mamoru, curving around him to explode against the crystal...

    Doing basically nothing to it.

    The cape-shaped Intelligent Device speaks again, < Increased Power Suggested. Warning: Rising Levels. >

    Masquerade frets as she considers how to free her papa, only to look down and see the crystal 'water' sloshing around below her. She flies higher and starts trying to dodge the hostile splashes, but one of them eventually catches her foot and drags her down.

    She hears Venus's warning a little too late. "Light makes it grow? Seriously?"

    Lapine might be ensnared, but Luna-P is still hovering up ahead, not yet caught. Small Lady calls out, "Luna-P, become a smoke bomb!"

    The catball explodes, and pink smoke starts to fill the area. It's... actually probably not nearly enough to block out all light, and the smoke particles are likely getting absorbed by the crystal, too.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Jupiter-chan, look out!"

It's a shout of warning, of frustration, as Sailor Moon's chest seizes with horror as Zoisite lashes out as Sailor Jupiter instead of the literally self-proclaimed Black Moon Clan members -

There's a thought in her mind, bitten off and horrified, about rabid dogs and feral cats, because this is the second time this boy has attacked her girls again, but there's no time to spare, as they begin their counterstrike, crystal surging upwards.

"You might say that, but you're clearly full of it," Sailor Moon declares, color high in her cheeks, and she twists and spins, cutting a circle of golden light into the air - "Trying to trap us in place after everything you've done to the innocent people of this city! If this is how you want it to go, then so be it!"

The circle is completed, just as her feet become stuck to the rising crystal. Silver floods the golden circle.

"Moon Healing Escalation!"

And purifying beams of light go flying for the crystals, passing through any allies (and purifying them too, if such is needed) as they seek to burn away the Dark Energy and return things to their proper state.

Nephrite has posed:
It is a sick mockery, these singing stars. Off key and discordant, merely an illusion feed back to him and warped. In Libra, justice wears an inverted face, a sickly diplomacy nothing more than a desire to capture and own-- this dynamic is strong, the synergy complete and balanced. As th twins dance upon the facets, they hold their duality firm, strengthening; echoing.

Seemingly imprenetrable, ruled by the curious intellect of Mercury, Nephrite understands that they are at their own mercy, their own detriment. Every move meets equilibrium.

His feet will not move and his blade will not withdraw, and and at once he stops pouring his power forth. He lets his sword go, in fact, as if it is now merely circuit to ensnare him further. His boots are being consumed and he is quick to loose himself from them-- hovering buys him time. But only that as he drifts up into the air.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Backhanded blessings: maybe her bangs are singed, but Zoisite's at least prevented Sailor Jupiter from having her fist fused into the wall of crystal. Her boots, meanwhile, fuse fast to the floor. For a couple of fruitless seconds she strains, trying to rip them free. By the time she thinks of trying to abandon her boots and fly, the crystal has already grown halfway to her ankles.

"Damn it!" she breathes, half-gasped. Instinct urges her to hunker down, try bashing herself free. She bites down on it, fighting for a clear head. A look thrown around her confirms that the others are just as stuck, save only for Masquerade Lapin in the air, and the space is shrinking--

--It needs light!, says Venus--

Jupiter draws in a breath, lets it out. "Flower Hurricane."

For a hurricane, it's a sad attempt indeed. The air swirls around them, more like a breeze than a gale. There are petals, though, scattering and eddying, rose and magnolia. Wherever they brush against crystal, they stick.

Not enough. Sailor Jupiter reaches to her waist and looses the belt slung about her waist. As she flings it from her, it comes apart into still more petals, and these too stick wherever they contact, pushed by the spiral of air that struggles weakly against the encroaching crystal.

It's a delaying action, at best. Maybe not even that, if the crystal engulfs the petals faster than they can overlap it. But if Venus is right that it's feeding upon light, then maybe...

Zoisite has posed:
When Sailor Jupiter turns to him and his need is mostly to square up, he feels he cannot move his feet. What? What's going--

It wasn't just him, other's were beginning to be stuck as well and Lapine above was trying to postpone the sloshes of light. Gods forbid the girl gets caught, even if these two were questionably too similar to the man he loved. There was no time to argue with anyone, and anything said his way is ignore as he teleports out of his boots and flies upwards to the smoke Lapine summoned.

Then he sees the flurry of other petals dancing through the air. It was disturbing how similar some of their powers were, but his mind refocuses on the the now instead. At least this wasn't an attack.

With a kiss to the palm of his hand, he blows the kiss outwards to the twins and followed by a large swarm of cherry blossoms that scatter around--and not explode on impact. Merely covers where Jupiter's petals could not, and summons more to continue the thought process he assumes the senshi was going for.

Veronica Perenna has posed:
"Did I touch a nerve? That's no reason to cling to an illusion", she remarks at the Boule Brothers, watching her attack be bound to the surface somehow, clinging in a game of pretty light that shows the place where the Transient Lunar Flare had hit either Chiral and Achiral.

She has different worries than the state of her powers, and when the crystal starts flooding, she leaps higher and higher, trying to avoid the worst of the crystalline sea trying to ensnare them.

"Well, ok then", she scoffs annoyed when her powers just have been made useless since they feed on light. "Prismatic Wall!", she calls out, creating a surface of light to stand on shielding her from the worst of the enemy's power. "Any idea what we should be doing?" Even Moonlight Masquerade would risk feeding it, with the illusionary moon that would show up.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"ZOISITE!" cries Tuxedo Kamen in alarm, "What-- no, we're not going to-- hey Jup-- fuck, my HAND??"

That's considerably more alarm, and Mamoru nearly losing his balance as he tries to step back in order to yank his hand free, but his feet are stuck too. It's only his natural sense of style that keeps him from tilting backwards of something. Almost instantly his other hand comes up and he fwips... nothing.

There is no rose, only an astonished look on the prince's face, and then affronted fury.

He's listening, certainly, and he's buffering things people are saying, and what falls out of his mouth easily, a lie probably, "I would know if he were dead." So confident, he says it as he looks from Chiral to Chibiusa, and then he closes his eyes as the crystal starts swimming up. It wants to lay claim to his fingertips?

"No, you're mine now," he tells the wall under his breath, and he dives into that malicious amusement he can feel through the stone. New. New. New. Is there anything of... anyone? In there? Achiral's chemical bond...

Is the crystal a part of them? No. No, merely a thing they made and let go of. They made it. They didn't bring it from somewhere, like his roses. They made it. He frowns, and when he opens his eyes, he's in it up to his chest, despite the time passed not having been very long. He's in it up to his chest and his other hand to his elbow, and he lets go of the fury. "Well... I guess..."

What a stupid way to die this would be. He refuses.

He doesn't... release energy, per se. No: this stone cell filled with crystal, pooling and welling up and moving of its own accord but still crystal, is built on the true earth, and he can still take energy through the stone. Even if the Earth beneath them is sick, it still knows him.

He glances up and over, frowning, and behind the many-faceted crystal somewhere, there's a figure dressed all in white with a flowing cape.

<< Pray. Pray to the Earth. >>

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The Holy Sword stops emanating light, and whether or not it stops feeding the effect, it at least stops feeding the madly dancing flickers of reflection. Makes it that much easier to see -- for a moment. And then Luna-P, ignored by the Boule Brothers as an irrelevant child's toy, explodes in pink smoke. And is reinforced by Jupiter's petals, and by Zoisite's, sent to spatter the crystal, to provide momentary safe spaces, like the Princess of Sarek's rainbow platform. It makes the light of the Escalation glow oddly, pinkened in turn --

-- and it shows that the barely swirling breeze Jupiter summons, strangely, seems to be intensifying. To be spiraling around them. Not with her own power. Urged on by something else, something darker. Something that pulls at the crystal, reshaping it, drawing those caught into the center of the chamber, into a column that reaches up to join with the bit that caught Lapin.

Something that catches the beams of Escalation and wraps them into its circles, leaving them as streaks of light orbiting the column among the flying petals and dissipating smoke, till everything is rose and magnolia and sakura and distressingly pink-streaked doom --

It pulls at the fliers, crystal lashing out sidelong from the walls to try to catch Nephrite and Zoisite, and the Princess of Sarek on her protective platform. The curious intellect of Mercury; not only the senshi, but the darker side, the lord of motion and trickery and thieves --

"You're now fixed in the chiral center of a thaumato-magnetic field," says Chiral's voice. Helpfully. Really.

Gently, affectionately, Achiral's voice adds, "You'll never be able to escape. But don't fear. You'll make the most beautiful monument."

And then there is another figure shadowed in the crystal, with a flowing cape. And they can all hear another voice, one that is not aloud, but in the heart.

What those of them not directly connected to the Earth will make of an instruction to pray to it is anyone's guess. But the odds are good that the one giving it expected creative interpretations.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Masquerade Lapine wonders, for a moment, if the Black Moon Clan will ever stop searching for her.

    If she gets caught here, in henshin, under the disguise of the Veil... would they ever realize what happened to her? Would they realize that she still has her mother's Ginzuishou, frozen in this strange crystal?

    Pray to the Earth.

    The Silver Crystal has not once responded to her. Not once has it heard her voice, or allowed her to tap into its power. She had to get a different henshin item entirely in order to wield magic greater than whatever Luna-P could provide. Yet still, as one hand gets trapped in crystal, her free hand clutches to the pendant around her chest.

    Despite having magic, despite being a Devicer, she once again finds herself feeling completely helpless, completely alone, and with no alternative other than to cry out. To Scream.

    Despair clouds her mind as the glowing yellow crescent appears on her forehead. As her helpless yell rings out, a column of shadow appears around her, pouring out formless and unfocused energy.

    Yet behind that energy is one singular intent: Help me, papa.

    ... and that's her prayer to the Earth.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Pray to the Earth. Mamoru's brow furrows as he watches the crystal-distorted figure. He glances towards Chibiusa then, and his eyes widen. "Baby-baby it'll be all right," he calls out to Masquerade Lapine, even though he's not the papa she's looking for probably, "if your mask has no goggles, shut your eyes! Shut your eyes everyone--"

The Earth. He pulls at its power and adds his own that he's carrying, and the crystal flows up over his head.

...

<< Yeah I think just point stuff down! Tuxedo la Smoking Crater! >> comes through Luminous Titan's spell.

His hands glow, and there's an earthquake-weather feeling, and then everything starts to shake--

Nephrite has posed:
The gloves are off-- metaphorically, physically. Nephrite had so very little recourse, but to pour his magical might into the unknown, downwards where the current of the field was weakest. But that is not the best course for his energy, that is not the true heart of the Earth or his connection to it.

No, rather than down, sapphire eyes turn up towards the column, seeking out the Prince. Nearly entombed, but his head still free-- for how much longer, Nephrite cannot know, and so he moves fast.

His own command of the wind propells him along the gale, dodging the crystal that swipes at him, twisting in spiral-- a decaying orbit of speed-- towards Mamoru. His bare hand outstretched, his touch seeking forehead to sweep skin across skin in a last ditch effort.

A surrendering of anything he has to give. The twisted whisper of the stars from beyond Pluto's gaze, the unflinching loyalty that still drives his heart. The deep affection for his friend, and the unyielding desire to safeguard his hope and the hopes of his Kingdom. As always, as ever-- to deliver them. His power, his energy, his prayer to Prince and King.

To the Earth. To Mamoru. Everything, in his hands.

Minako Aino has posed:
Pray to the Earth.

The sentiment floods through Venus causing her to pause as she had been warring with the uneasy sensation of her shoes being locked to the floor with that eerie, creeping crystal flowing up and around toward her ankles locking her in place. The Holy Sword, now dull with no light, is still held in her grasp and thankfully not yet entangled in the situation at hand.

The situation being that her guess was wrong. The wind that picks up tearing at her hair and skirt causes her to squint against it. It's a fight against wind, petals, and smoke to see what was there... if anything. That figure in the crystal. The urge to pray to the Earth.

Some part of the back of her mind finds it makes sense: If throwing their attacks forward only caused it to be sucked into this growing tornado of mixed attacks, then down was an option. That may not be what was meant. There wasn't much time to think. Bolstering her spirit and power she winds up swinging her sword to lay blade-flat over her shoulder to free up her right hand. Fingertips touch her lips, a simple kiss and HOPING BEYOND HOPE that this works as she finger-gun aims down to the 'floor' in front of her.

"Rolling Heart Vibration!"

Makoto Kino has posed:
Oh. Oh, that...

"That... didn't really work out like I thought," Sailor Jupiter murmurs, mostly to herself, watching with wide eyes as the wind she called takes a shape she hadn't intended. For a second or so, remorse swamps her. She'd meant to help, and instead it seems like she's only made things worse, put everyone in even more danger than they were in already.

Then comes the indignation.

How dare they?

How dare they use the wind, her wind, to threaten her friends and allies? How dare they do all of this - attacking Chibiusa's home, putting the people she holds dear in danger?

"......I won't forgive you...!"

In this confined and shrinking space, a charge builds dangerously, prickling over the skin.

Makoto Kino is not a very good student. She doesn't have much understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum and the ways that electricity and magnetic fields interact. But she can feel it. Sailor Jupiter closes her eyes, focusing all of her attention on the small, rebellious voice of the wind and that terrible spiral pattern.

Her hands curl into fists around thin crackling threads of electricity.

BZNT!

It's an almost tangible jolt, one that everyone inside this crystal trap can feel against their skin. Lines of electricity flash, forming a split-second counter-spiral against the one that's pulling them inward, racing downward to ground itself into the Earth below.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Crystal crawls over Sailor Moon's ankles, climbing higher, as she watches her attack be caught in circles, siphoned away and spinning and leaving everything pink, as the flower petals are swept up and twisted around, the wind controlled, and Sailor Moon feels the frustration and concern grip her heart, and she twists -

There's Mamoru, and the crystal is rising, and there's Chibiusa, and there's light blazing from her, and she's caught up too, and Sailor Moon -

Sailor Moon hears that voice, familiar, and sees that figure, shadows in crystal and cape, and she has always trusted him.

Will always trust him.

So even if she doesn't know what to do, she trusts that this... will work.

Eyes closed. Spiral Heart Moon Rod pointed down, eyes shutting, breathing out -

"Moon Spiral Heart Attack!"

It's hard to spiral when you're trapped in Crystal, so she just spins her rod about as swiftly as she can, a giant pink heart spinning into creation, and then spinning all around, and then - barreling towards the ground, point side down.

Zoisite has posed:
Pray to the Earth.

Violent aura of pinks and shades of flushed skin, filled with shard of crystals and light trying to impale him and Nephrite and whoever was still able to keep flight and away from the clutches of the crystal--all Zoisite could think about were roots. How plants bowed down to kiss the dirt and water beneath.

Like his mind having the form of crystals and moss, the vivid rubies within beaming through the fleeting specs of light that was able to filter through leaves and tunnels--Moss and flowers and grass and trees embraced the loving concept that was the earth beneath. Forever giving, even if not always forgiving.

Winds, water, flora, flesh, dirt, rock, metal, crystals, molten heat--a decaying, rotting forest that never knew the kiss of fire. To love the earth was to also succumb to it when your time was up. To trust it knew what to do with the rot in the end of it all: good, bad, benevolent or malevolent. It did not matter.

Kindle was kindle. A purification of its own.

Deep breath.

A flash of bright pink light is caught, one way or another, by Zoisite, in the direction he needed--downwards. The crystal half impaling his palm and sticking to his flesh, the vicious momentum dragging him down to the lower depths of the crystalline prison where earth was. Body colliding where most were stuck as well--decision made by logic as he did not wish the winds to disturb his attack.

"Cleansing Heart of Fire!"

It was his fireball attack, but he put ever ounce of his energy into it, not minding the backfire in return as long as he contributed towards the dent everyone else was.

Veronica Perenna has posed:
"That's not really true, walls have little hold on me", Veronica winks, and then she demonstrates by disappearing like nothingness and jumping in her ethereal state through a crystal formation to reappear on the other side, and back again. "Little useless, your efforts", she taunts him. Hopefully that little maneuver manages to distract at least one of them.

"I can make other things disappear too. Wanna see?", she picks her hat off her head, and she tosses it upwards. In the blink of an eye, it vanishes, and there is never a moment when something may fall to the ground.

The Phantom Thief taps the ground of her shield with her cane, and ripples of nonexistent water traverse the room's actual floor. An illusionary full moon peeks from the fake water surface, bathing the entire room in its silver light.

"A magic trick from me, to the Earth. Moonlight Masquerade!", the Princess of Sarek smiles, her hat, now gigantic hat emerging with a rumble from the ground, passing through the Boule Brothers and purifying their energy, stealing part of the crystal formation for herself, making it disappear completely.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The Princess of Sarek may never know just how much she owes Sailor Jupiter in that moment; the transit through the crystal formation would have been interesting in ways she probably never wanted to find out, if Jupiter hadn't just grounded the charge that interfered with magic.

That charge, and Jupiter's charge, flashes down. So do two twinned immense hearts, as alike and unalike as Venus and Moon themselves. And a third heart, more metaphorical, burning with anger and loyalty, with a purification of a different time. The crystalline floor strains under the impact, twists in the heat; and then, for the sake of the Earth and the stars and one small Rabbit, the ground beneath the floor moves.

The floor shatters. The foundation for the crystal, both the walls of the prison and the column trying to imprison them all - the foundation through which the poisoned energy powering the effects was channelled - cracks wildly open, spitting debris upward, foundation to fountain.

The column shatters, crystal no longer bonded to costumes, to weapons, to skin, to hair, to flesh -- no longer bonded to blood, which is likely a good thing for Zoisite's circulation. Those within it find themselves free. Falling once again, yes, but free.

The walls of their prison shatter, dissolving into chunks of crystal no larger than a hand, falling ... slowly. More slowly than they ought, perhaps. Or exactly as slowly as they ought, if someone were to consider how angry the wind might be with them.

The Crystal Palace, the true one, lies beyond. Still beautiful, still shimmering, still largely untouched - but not perfect, the way the false one was built. The beauty that comes in no small part by having been lived in, been marked by touches, by use, by wear, by feet hollowing out the stairs ever so slightly, by a space at each side not hollowed hinting at where some power might lift, say, Naru in a mobility scooter, or a Queen who does not want to climb those stairs today Rei.

Between them and the Crystal Palace are two figures, merely human height, if very tall. Dressed in matching white. Hair not silver-white, but the color of bone. The lighter is half-sprawled on the barren ground, one hand to the side of his head. The darker is helping him up, hurrying, already half-turned to flee.

A second senshi slips her belt free, orienting mid-fall, unconcerned about the ground. "VENUS LOVE-ME CHAIN!"

... and now there are two figures, dressed in matching white, the color of bone, both half-sprawled on the ground as bits of crystal rain particularly hard around them. Bound together by a chain of golden metal and red stones.

(Veronica is going to have so much crystal in her stash. So ridiculously much. Not as magical as it was, but so much.)

Zoisite has posed:
As crystal shatters, his uniform begins to burn away as his energy is depleted enough to where he cannot keep his henshin. And as the particles crumble beneath, he slips through and falls, unable to fly anymore. Whatever is beneath him is what will catch him.

The crystal is still impaled in his hand but thankfully not fused.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    The ground is shattered, and the crystal along with it, and once again Masquerade Lapine is free. The crescent moon vanishes from her forehead, and she looks out at the twin Boule Brothers who have now been chained up.

    The crystal rain is coming down on her quickly. Her cape Device calls out, < Shield > as a magic circle appears above her head. The little shards, now significantly less dangerous, bounce off of it as she frowns at the two almost-Kunzite looking jerks in front of them.

    "You know..." she points out, "... they're probably just Droids anyways. Everyone else in the Black Moon Clan has turned out to be. Lumie, target them."

    < Target Locked >

    "Moonlight Message!"

    Finally having a clear shot at the enemy, Chibiusa swooshes her cape, and the arc of it's edge forms a crescent moon of purple energy. Its trajectory arcs out to the side and then curves back in, targeting the chemical companions.

    Then she looks at her allies and well... << Um... everyone? Watch out! >>

    << It's raining Shitennou! >>

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Tuxedo Kamen lands, gasping, on a pile of crystal shards and flower petals, and even before he gets landed on (and he will get landed on) he's looking up to where he saw the figure before, and of course the guy is no longer there. Then he gets landed on.

<< Little late >> he vibes at Chibiusa flatly, and after a second of pushing and squirming out from underneath, he asks, "Who's injured, who needs energy, let's do any yelling not here and now."

Makoto Kino has posed:
The fall is cushioned by a spiraling updraft, one that still smells a little of flowers. It's not anywhere near strong enough, on its own, to turn the fall into a gentle landing, but it helps. It almost seems to steer the crystal shrapnel away from the people caught up in it, preventing any particularly painful midair collisions with crystal chunks or the tumbling blade of Nephrite's sword.

With a visible effort, Sailor Jupiter twists in the air and dives, acting on pure reflex, to catch Sailor Moon. It's barely flying, but she manages to slow the both of them from a plummet into something more controlled. Dismay flashes across her face at Masquerade Lapin's call, and she looks outward for the others - but she's at her limit just catching Sailor Moon. The two of them come down onto the petal-covered ground with a soft whumpf.

Venus has the Boule Brothers snared, but Jupiter doesn't make any move to press the advantage. Rather, 'landing' very quickly becomes 'sitting' as Sailor Jupiter sort of folds herself down in a more or less controlled fashion to the ground.

She'll just. Take a moment.

Nephrite has posed:
Uniform fades into a prismatic shimmer, and then it is gone into stardust. For a moment, everything seems suspended, but slowly gravity reasserts itself. He is falling-- drained beyond the point of keeping himself afloat. In amongst shards, he becomes part of the glassy downburst.

He hopes he will not land on Small Lady, but rather Zoisite, if he must. Alas, fate still seems to loop him in with the Prince, and that is perhaps fitting. As if his shared power still radiates within Mamoru like a magnet, Masato drop upon him with an uncomfortable *Auogh--*

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
They probably are Droids, like the others. They probably are full of hate, and even if they aren't, they helped with this - with this empty city, these lost people, everything that Chibiusa has suffered through and from.

Sailor Moon doesn't hate them, these two men caught together in Venus' chain, imprisoned.

But she's learned very well what it takes to protect her loved ones from the Black Moon Clan.

As they fall, as Sailor Jupiter catches her, she twists her arm about and thrusts the Spiral Heart Moon Rod forward.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "But if it's you or my daughter, it's always going to be her."

And the enormous pink spiral heart roars for them. Just to make sure.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The Boule Brothers' eyes widen, a flash of startlement and something that might be distant kin to fear. Purple energy arcs back in in its crescent -- a blade still faintly gleaming with starlight drops from the falling column to pin Chiral to the ground -- a spiral of a very different kind than Chiral's --

-- and also, reappearing from apparently nowhere, there is a startlingly large purifying Hat.

The joint impact does not do what it did with the other Black Moon Clan members. They blur - become distorted white ghosts, their eyes and mouths glowing with a dim red light that spreads impossibly wide, losing them all semblance of humanity. And they blur more. And then there is only white dust where they had been, and Venus's chain, and a faintly gleaming sword.

A few seconds after that, and those are gone, too.

Chibiusa Tsukino has posed:
    Just like that... they're gone.

    Chibiusa's eyes widen. Home is in the distance. She could probably reach it if she just flew towards it at full speed.

    A single gloved hand wipes wetness from the corners of her eyes. Had she been crying? For a moment there, yeah, but it's over now. Landing next to the assorted piles of her comrades, those who had travelled across time and space to help her, she smiles. Chibiusa is grateful, so grateful.

    Yet she also recognizes that, um... people might need a break after a fight like that. Her too, actually. Especially if they have to conquer the stairs. She pulls her hat off of her head and starts pulling out bottled water, juice packs and snacks to pass around to people who want it, because most Devices have ways of storing items and that's how Luminous Titan stores his.

    She's waited so long to go home. She can wait a little bit more while people pull themselves together.

Nephrite has posed:
Masato shifts with some ache in his side, trying in earnest to find his feet and help pull Mamoru up upon his as well. It is an ungainly thing, and beneath both of their prides, and he can only hope very few people saw them collide like that.

Now, they're on their feet, dusting off, and fixing hair-- certainly, Masato is at least. Scraping together his dignity quickly, it is hard to believe he ever lost it. Even so, he clears his throat, and watches his own sword fade.

The Boule brothers are gone, and his anger with Zoisite remains.

Zoisite has posed:
Only off by some distance, Izou had landed in a pile of petals. Some clung to his hair, half of which this green ribbon couldn't hold onto anymore.

Propping himself up by his good hand, eye sight tried to focus from the fall before he heard the distinct sound of blade through flesh that made his stomach twist. Head turned only slightly, his green gaze watching through firey locks that partially covered his face as the twins writhed and twisted like demons. Mouth and eyes gaping shocking red until dust was all that remained.

There was nothing to be done, and the shock was bone deep. Zoisite said nothing, looking away as his mind closed up tight. The icy blue gem of his disheveled bow reflected the remaining light of pinks and reds.