2975/Not A Bear, Akuma

Not A Bear, Akuma
Date of Scene:	14 March 2026
Location:	FaM-Mart
Synopsis:	Just the monsters for this one were excessive. Our heroes join Corona in a grocery store! All hell breaks loose when the person in front of her in the checkout line draws Corona's ire by taking too long. Also, poor Usagi, wow
Cast of Characters:	Mai Elcamino, Rashmi Terios, Catra, Miho Inada, Amanda Faust, Ikiko Hisakata, Nephrite, Minako Aino, Ami Mizuno, Usagi Tsukino, Gabriel Agreste

---

Mai Elcamino has posed:
It's a grocery store actually, a supermarket. It's late-ish on Friday afternoon, and the store is kind of crowded. There's a hat with wings and roses on it visible over the tops of the low aisles, but no giant wings, so maybe everything is okay.

Then a familiar husky angry voice yells, "NO YOU CANNOT GO BACK AND GET IT YOU HAVE TAKEN TWENTY MINUTES--"

"--less than ten!"

"THIRTY MINUTES IN THIS LINE! ESTEBAN!"

"Yes, Corona-sama?"

"LOS OSOS! And Pelotillero, Flier Fin--" cries out Mai Elcamino, and her wings unfurl as her Device echoes the name of the spell.

Esteban releases tHiRtY-sEvEn sHaRk-ToOtH fOoT-tAlL gUmMy BeArS into the store, and Corona rises above the aisles on her glowing seraphic energy wings, and she POINTS down at the now-cowering person who literally just wanted a price check on something an aisle away even if well okay they WERE taking like fifteen minutes to check out and there's only one line...

"FILTHY SNIVELING WRETCH!"

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Rashmi once said that dealing with Corona is her favorite reason to be in a magical fight.

Rashmi is beginning to sharply reconsider this.

She was *just* picking up stuff to prepare for giving her dorm-mates a 'you survived finals, yay!' dinner...

When Corona's commanding voice rings out over the supermarket, the proclamation is answered with an extremely teenage

    "UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SET UP!"

Followed by a flash of golden light by the spices, followed by;

    << *BONG!* >> << TIME-SPACE BARRIER >>

"Seriously Corona-san, have you ever considered, like... *not?*" Rashmi says, as she rises up on golden wings of her own. "I hear you could have blood-pressure problems if you never stop getting this mad!"

Catra has posed:
A grocery store. Whatever.

Rachel Miller, the (still) ever obnoxious American tourist who's been here for far longer now than a tourist ought to be trudges her way up and down the aisles, hands in her pockets and earbuds blaring something very loud and equally offensive underneath the hood of her hoodie. What is she looking for? Certainly nothing in the produce aisle. Vegetables. Eww. Though, still better than the Grey Kind, even if that is a pretty low bar.

An exceptionally low bar, actually.

Oh but wait this section has fish. Not that she couldn't smell it from across the store, but sometimes it's nice to be surprised, even if you have to pretend to be surprised. Sometimes it's enough to distract you from someone yelling way over there, when you can hear them over the music you're using to drown out the world.

What she can't ignore is the time-space barrier going up.

Moments later, Catra is making her way up a different aisle; the Rachel illusion is gone and she's clad in her dark grey tuxedo with firey highlights and powersend hanging off her belt. She's straightening her jacket as she comes into view, and thrusts her hands back in her pockets.

"Could you piss off?" she inquires with an air of deep disdain. "Losing your cool about a line-up in a grocery store is like... discount villain stuff. Any chance you're still under warranty from Temu?"

Miho Inada has posed:
    Miho got a text from Amy to meet her at a supermarket. After asking what Miho used for her energy burst cookies, yeah...Its for the safety of everyone that they teach her to at least cook something properly. She grabbed her stuff, and headed down to the store.

    Miho is wearing some sweat pants, a cropped blue tank top with spaghetti straps, and light jacket. She heads to the store with a pack of the cookies. As the girl walks into the store, she almost has a NOPE moment. She stared at the gummy bear. "....Life as a Mahou...", she says simply. Miho looks around for Amy for a moment. She just stares for a moment, and then sees Mai. "Ok...Everything is making sense now.", the mahou says before she looks around. Miho sighs, and runs into the restroom. There's a bit of frost coming out from the door, and a scream.

    "Sorry!", Yukihime yells out as she comes out of the rest room...

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Whatever it is that has gone deeply wrong with Miho's idea of how to cook, Amy's sure it can be figured out. So she's come to the grocery store, picked up a few simple things -- some chicken, some vegetables, some pasta, cream and butter in case this all ends up as one dish -- and she's been standing in line for a bit.

    It was moving really slowly, but after almost a minute of waiting and the line not moving she pulled out her phone. She has responded to two messages in a datcord, read some recent manga chapters, and

> NO YOU CANNOT GO BACK AND GET IT
    Oh no

    TXT to Miho: That lady is here at <store>. Shit is about to go down.
    Miho's phone alerts her to a message just as she's coming inside.
TXT to Miho: Corona. The one from the amusement park. Handroaces.

    "[OH my GOD] they are NOT your ENEMY!" Amy steps in between the cowering person and Mai and glares up at her. "If anything, your enemy is capitalism rewarding their lack of staff by lining executives' pockets!" She waves an arm at the line of empty registers. "Look around you, there's one register open when the store is this busy. And you think this person here is the GUMMY BEARS WITH TEETH?!?!?!"

    Also, she's realizing she forgot to henshin, but by the sound of things she'll probably be able to find an opportunity in a moment. Hey, there's a barrier! She turns to run for another checkout aisle in hopes of breaking line of sight so she can transform.

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
In Ikiko's case, the dinner fixings she's picking up is for a surprise arrival of new strays -- her initial amount of supplies she had was calculated based on the regulars, but the added mouths to feed means making an emergency supply run, and this was the closest place that sold dog food.

She sighs at the sound of Corona's rant, then as Rashmi's Barrier goes up she ducks down and mutters to heself as she touches her necklace. One silvery glow later, Cute Wolf Tsukiko stand back up, grinning at the snark already being volleyed.

Instead of adding to the quipping, the wolfgirl goes hunting, prowling through the aisles in search of the shark-toothed gummies, punting those she gets within reach of.

Nephrite has posed:
Masato was just here to get ingredients for Mako-chan with Ami and Minako.

The incensed shrewing of the woman was followed all too quickly by a spell, and that was exactly the moment when the sigh streamed out of Masato's nose. He knew what was coming. Alright, well, the carnivorous gummy bear army was a surprise, but he knew it would be á fight. "Why does it always have to be sweets monsters when I'm around?"

Shit, but those things really did look like they were little savages--

He ducked aside behind an aisle display quickly to henshin, but more importantly, to tuck his basket of hand selected goods out of sight and away from sticky-betoothed nastiness.

"Earth Power, Make Up!"

Skidding out into the open again with a small flash of cape and a flurry of stars (and gloriously long locks flowing by the cosmic winds), Nephrite draws his sword. "You realise this means we're all going to be waiting even LONGER!?"

Minako Aino has posed:
Minako Aino was distracted in shopping. It wasn't as if she was a great shopper to begin with. She'd simply come along because she was hanging out with friends, and possibly buying some ingredients for others to cook in the process. It's during one of her moments of stopping to look over a new flashy snack being advertised that Corona bursts out with her Guerilla Gummies.

The bag of chips is lobbed over her shoulder in favor of throwing her hand into the air with a cry of, "Venus Makeup Magic!" to change in a dazzle of light.

Sailor Venus then points one gloved hand toward the sugary siege with a cry of, "How dare you defile the sanctity of snack time! Sugar is sacred! Mercury, Nephrite! Let's bite them before they eat us!"

Ami Mizuno has posed:
"You really do seem to have really poor luck with food things, don't you?" Ami replied to Masato with a sympathetic question before she, too, managed a sigh.

Unlike Minako, she hadn't really been caught up in the shopping aspect of their little outing. Instead, she'd been carrying a small basket with whatever had already been selected and looked more than a little put out by the sudden appearance of carnivorous confections.

Slipping out of sight into the aisle, across the lane from Masato, Ami set the basket down carefully and followed suit in her henshin.

"Mercury Power, Make Up!"

Sailor Mercury stepped out behind Sailor Venus as she called out to the angry woman. She planted a fist on her hip and pointed with the other.

"Yeah! What they said!"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Rashmi's groan is one variety of extremely teenager response. The other comes as dozens of foot tall sharp toothed gummy bears begin roaming and a barrier opens to transport everything mayical like from ordinary view and vulnerability:

"Nooo! No, no, FUCK, COME ON THIS IS A GROCERY STORE!!!"

aThe voice belongs to one Usagi Tsukino, better known as Sailor Moon, current mood, Extremely Pissed Off. It's one week before final exam, she has far, far too much studying for this, and while it hasn't been the most extreme week of her life, it is the first time she's taking her final exams this seriously in a very long time. she's been all of last summer and summer school after being transformed into a dark energy version of herself last year and this is her last for a good school year, her last chance to be a normalish high schooler ish, that her teachers can think, wow, she really got it together about, and she is not losing it!

She just wanted snacks to add to her study cave (dorm)! she was doing the right thing, she was being mature, responsible, caring about her grades so she could earn a spot in a good school!

Couldn't The cold unfeeling universe cut her some slack just this once?

Clearly not. Clearly, going to the grocery store for a snack was as off limits of having a regular date night or going out with friends, or helping a friend cope with a parent's dickery. Clearly everything, everything in her life, has to be about the magic that she doesn't even want!

Sailor Moon steps out from a grocery aisle at the far end of the store from where Corona and Estaban stand, her little shopping basket still hanging from one forearm, her expression one of someone so utterly furious and done that it doesn't even register on their face anymore. The Moon Scepter is in her hand, swung about with vicious, punctuated grace.

"MOON PRINCESS HALATION!"

The attack punches forward with almost comic speed, the silver stars, golden moon, and spiraling pink points of light a beautiful counterpoint to the blunt brutality of the silver beam of light that punches clean through Estaban, purifying him into so much dust.

Mai Elcamino has posed:
"You again! The more frequently I anger people the more I am paid," Corona laughs haughtily at Rashmi, legitimately having practiced her ojo-laugh in a mirror. Her eyes actually gloss over Catra, ignoring her on purpose in Spanish. It's not even so much a gloss over as she's too busy rolling her eyes when her gaze passes the catgirl to see her.

She can see Yukihime coming out of the restroom and shouting sorry, and she briefly looks confused. "But you didn't do anything except be an ugly raggy dirt-girl, and that is simply how you were born, you don't need to apologize for that--"

"This person was INCONSIDERATE to ME," Corona says hotly to Amy, "by taking FORTY-FIVE MINUTES to CHECK OUT--" and she looks behind her but the person is gone because the barrier is up, and she makes a moue of displeasure.

The gummy bears, Tsukiko will find, bounce. They bounce hard like superballs. And they fly with teeth out as they bounce, and they latch on wherever they bite, like remoras or whatever. CHOM. TEETH. Once they have bitten they dangle. They're crashing into shelves and knocking cans down and making a mess and making the floor awful, too. Smashed jars, spilled cereal, rolling cans...

Corona stares at Nephrite. "I can just leave with my stuff and my Esteban. YOU can wait. I didn't want to resort to something so petty as shoplifting, but my hand has been forced." Her wings flap slowly in the air and she glories in the upset, completely lacking in self-awareness of any kind.

A bear crashes into Minako and bounces off him to latch on to Nephrite. Mai starts to call out as Mercury and Venus henshin, and she scowls and starts over, condescendingly, as Usagi is yelling NO in the aisles. "Esteban, give--"

That's not just yelling. That's purifi-- that's-- no--

Corona's face transfigures into something that's fury and grief twisted up with dark energy and loss and hate. "ESTEBAN!" she screams, and immediately flings her arm out. "Exemplary Barrets!"

Purple-white barrets, crackling with crawling dark energy, shoot out at everybody in the mess of absolute chaos that is superball-bouncing sharktoothed foot-tall gummy bears, and Mai is loudly sobbing, crashing out. "ESTEBAAAAN!!!"

Gabriel Agreste has posed:
Given that he'd had to bring his son into the - well, far from the heart, perhaps the... kidney?... of Obsidian, after finally doing something like reconciling over Adrien's egregious belief that Emilie could possibly be dead, Gabriel had, truly, assumed he might have something of a worse week than usual.

That wasn't the case. Having resolved his familial issues with aplomb and demonstrated to their son that Emilie is, of course, alive, Gabriel had gone onto have a very successful week, akumatizing two citizens for off-screen battles, continuing to engage with the young lady who had shown interest in making a Wish, engaging with Kyubey on the next strategy for gathering a large number of appropriately aged individuals for their next ploy...

In fact, he's in his office, instead of his lair, when he senses the crashout of the century (of the week) happening, grief and rage, fury and entitlement and humiliation and loss coiled tightly in a blaze of emotion so bright it acts as a beacon against Tokyo's general malaise.

All of which is to say, that within minutes, a purple-black akuma is fluttering through the air, slipping effortlessly into the barrier space, and flitting about to land on one of Corona's Device-claws.

<<Corona,>> is transmitted to her, as the purple butterfly emblem manifests around her face. <<Seek the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous, and enjoy thrashing those who stand in your way.>>

Nephrite has posed:
Nephrite's brows rise a little and he doesn't look directly at Sailor Moon, after that Moon Princess Halation-- which is one of the most vicious executions of it he's seen yet-- and his expression says everything about how not the fucking time it clearly is for his friend. He clicks his tongue as Esteban pays that debt immediately in a beautiful, terrifying display of power.

Honestly, he wouldn't mind if she opened with that more ofte-- BEAR! BEAR IN HIS FACE!! Now he is swearing, too, just as colourfully as the gummy bears themselves.

His sword comes up, trying to pry the small beast off of him and especially away from anything it can bite. It's only a foot tall, it's not hard to cast it away from him, but now, there are bigger problems. He feels it before he sees it, and the hair on his neck stands on end. "Shit," He turns a look to Mercury, because at this point, there is a protocol for this-- "Freeze and smash!"

As many as possible, as quickly as possible, ice to stop and solidify the gummies and then a starlight-lined swordstrike to shatter them. That's the plan.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
    << *BONG!* >> << TELEPATHY >>

Rashmi is already rolling *her* eyes at Corona, barely waiting for the Dark Devicer to finish talking before turning away and sending Barrets down among the aisles to crash into shark-toothed Gummi Bearahna. Her first pass takes her toward Produce, and the intent is to cross the market all the way to the Bakery, giving her a literal birds-eye view of the battle to come--

    'Moon Princess Halation!'

Usagi's presence is marked happily, at first, but then what should have been a justice speech sounds a *lot* more herself-at-Seriss-y, which is deeply concerning. And almost immediately after, the target of her attack becomes clearer... And Nicomachea puts up the Shield for her, as Rashmi frantically bends her effort into strategizing the battle to come. The Siege Bearilous is bad enough, but add a rage-fueled Corona into the mix and suddenly the stakes got a lot bigger than cumin and chili.

<< So uh... *that's* a problem, >> she begins, already wheeling back toward the marked positions of Red and Yukihime -- the massed Senshi are definitely best at covering for each other, and Catra might actually have kittens if it was even *hinted* that she couldn't take care of herself.

<< Red-chan, Yukihime-chan, come to me! Anyone who wants to get out of this weather, I've got your umbrella! >>

And, indeed, she waits as long as she can, her own smaller Shield taking hits that *bow* the hard light inward, and produce ominous cracks, before;

    << *BONG!* >> << SOLAR SHIELD -- GLACE SHIFT >>

It's not difficult to tell where Rashmi is, after the Shield goes up; a dome of light that spans three aisles is easy to notice, all the more so when it turns into thick ice with enough force to *pierce* the shelves it crosses.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Sailor Mercury doesn't even managed to lower her hand before Sailor Moon has come right on out swinging. Her gaze does slowly slide over to the twin-tailed blonde--to her girlfriend--with a mixture of surprise and concern. This is all punctuated by a light blink.

"... Moon-chan?"

But there are bigger, gummy-bear shaped problems just now. Bouncing about and causing mandibular chaos. Well... they didn't have a skeleton, so no mandible... Then Nephrite's plea caught her attention.

"Masa-nii?" Her attention shifted back to the Shitennou beside her. "Oh! Right! Shine Aqua Illusion!"

Sailor Mercury drew her hands up and then cast them outward as a powerful jet of water propelled itself at the gummy bear. Where it landed on the gummy bear, the water would freeze.

Catra has posed:
"ROLL YOUR EYES ALL YOU WANT," Catra growls, her twin-colored gaze narrowing as her claws come out. "But It's been a while since I've been in a fight and I might not be a villain anymore but some might say I've got a long way to go before the word hero applies and it's been entirely too long since I've last beaten the crap out o-- HEY!?"

There is a gummi bear with teeth hanging off of Catra's sleeve.

"...For real? What the hell? This is like, even lamer than those little plastic army men Obsidian gave me once. Seriously, the industrial quarters are still lousy with those things but they're not any kind of threat." Catra shakes her arm up and down.

The gummi bear does not fall off.

The feline's eyes narrow a step further and she sighs audibly, gesturing at the bear and bathing it in a torrent of bright yellow flame, that sets fire to the aisle around her and... rather melts the bear.

As her illusory doubles split off and depart to either side of her, moving to find advantageous positions, Catra thrusts her hands back in her pockets and taps her foot. "So... gummi bears..." she pauses. "And a butterfly? Obsidian running out of good ideas or something?"

Oh, and.. Sailor Moon is here. And she's yelling. Catra's ears flatten out, and she grumbles, "And why does everyone gotta be talking all at once?"

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Tsukiko vaults over shelves and dives behind displays as the gummies ricochet around. "Okay, maybe I should try aiming these next time," she yelps as one of them skims through the contents of the shelf right above her head. "Although, given that they're uneven and can move, it'd definitely be harder than aiming a soccer ball."

The wolfgirl peeks up over some of the wreckage, then slams her hands over her visible (i.e., canine) ears at Corona's wailing and dives for Rashmi's cover. "Huh, she can actually care for someone other than herself," Tsukiko remarks with an honest hint of surprise.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    When Corona turns back around, Amy has run off. But Magical Rocket Girl Red steps out of one of the other checkout aisles. "I heard everything." She gives recognition inhibition at least something to work with. "And yes, the people who refused to hire more staff were inconsiderate to you personally, and--did you just call my girlfriend an ugly raggy dirt girl?!"

    Amy... actually isn't sure what is the appropriate response for this.

    Anyone who was rude to Hannah would get punched by an angry Belkan, and she couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be mean to Miho. It never occured to her!

    Also there is nothing actually wrong with being ugly or poor, so is it morally right to treat it as an insult in the first place even if it's true?

    While Amy's considering all this, she's blasted by barrets and bounced off by bears. "Aahh! Ow! Hey!" She kicks another approaching bear away, sending it careening off who knows where and only making it faster, and missing Rashmi's call in the confusion.

    "Do you even care if you're justified or do you just-- uh..." The angriest, most annoying lady is just bawling right there in the middle of the fight. "Um. Was the monster. Like. Special to you, or--"

    And then there's a butterfly and it's on her face "OH NO NOT AGAIN"

    BANG a tight spray of glowing-hot shrapnel is launched from just in front of Amy's outstretched hand, before said hand moves to cover her ruby-red soul gem, one tenth of which is clouded with corruption. "IT'S NOT THE MIRACULOUS OKAY?! Hawkmoth's not getting any wishes out of me! I made mine already!"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Usually, when an enemy starts crashing out mixed with sobbing, Sailor Moon feels bad. She feels her heart tugged by sympathy, by all the many ribbons of compassion that her very soul is composed of.

That's not today.

"No," she calls out, stomping - yeah, pretty much literally stopping in her kitten-heel knee-high boots, and when a gummy bear with teeth comes hurtling towards her, she grabs it with her free hand and bites it, tearing the head off with her teeth. She throws the head, and chews on the mouthful of body, sugary-sweetness (and a bit of Dark Energy that makes her make a grossed out face). "No! You don't get to cry about this one, you threw him into my grocery store! If you care about your youma, you can't just throw them out at people's grocery stores, I have finals next week!"

There are some startled, concerned, and/or surprised glances thrown her way, but Sailor Moon just stomps her foot.

"Battle is over! Go home! I killed the youma! We can be done here, you pissed me off, congratulations you're getting paid, let's go home!"

Minako Aino has posed:
"That's our Moon-chan!" Venus blurts out, cheering on the purification to the face that she just doled out on Esteban. She didn't even know who Estaban was, but it certainly upset Corona quite a bit. Perfect.

For the moment she's thoroughly distracted by the flailing Nephrite with a gummi bear on his face, wincing as she wants to help but... She's holding her sword in hands looking at it, then him, then it with a perplexed expression.

"I don't think I should--Oh! Perfect, Mercury!" Whew. With that situation taken care of she turns to swing out at any bouncy gummi bears that get too close.

Miho Inada has posed:
    Yukihime stares at the gummy bears for a long moment. She twitches at Mai's comments as she looks at her phone for a moment at the texts. Oh! Amy is...Oh, there's Amy! Wait, unhenshined Amy! Squeak! She takes a deep breath as she eyes Mai. "Dirt...girl?", she blinks. There's a twitch. Yukihime hears Rashmi's call, and she changes her position. She heads to Rashmi, but grabs her bag of...energy cookies.

    She looks at the closest gummy bear, and throws a few cookies at a gummy bear. Its a combination of protein bars, energy shake dust, energy drinks, and maybe some energy gummies put together. "Lets see if you can handle this much energy in one go!", she hisses at the gummy bear.

    Yukihime takes a long moment as she adjusts her suiken. "Just cause I wear older clothes...", she hisses. The girl pauses a moment. "The Nekohime is here?", she asks. Yukihime blinks a few times.

Mai Elcamino has posed:
The attacks against the bears are honestly going fantastic: swords cut them, and... while initially it's just the sword cutting away most of the gummi bear on Neph and leaving the teeth, they fall out soon enough. The setup that Nephrite and Mercury have does wonders-- freeze and smash is so good, it's so good, they can definitely keep using that. The bears are definitely being whittled down. There's like 20 left out of 37, and the ones that get punted are so funny-- or would be, to Mai, if Mai weren't crashing out over her own youma. The melted gummy bear goo is... really hot and sticky, and gross, and at least it was only the one Catra got--

Mai is way too far gone to react to Catra's trolling right now, Amy is yelling about something and tears are streaming down Mai's face as they run through the sparkling air that was a kinda hot blue guy... and she looks back up and oh

a butterfly how lovely

"Thank you, Hawkmoth-sama," Corona says as she literally transforms, through the ceiling of the grocery store, into a three-storey mecha wearing really glittery fancy somewhat familiar clothes (Esteban was wearing them last time) that aren't clothes because they're the paint job on a mecha, and the mecha has Mai's hat on now with a wing as big as a window on top.

"I DON'T WANT YOUR WHATEVER!" she tells Amy over a loudspeaker. "I AM LA MECHADORA and you ALL SUCK! You killed ESTEBAN and then said I couldn't even CRY over my beautiful youma, my pret-- ANYWAY, GET FLAT!"

One enormous foot comes crashing down inside, with all the gummi bears still everywhere, and then La Mechador kicks over an entire aisle and laughs a full, deep, throaty laugh, again over loudspeaker. "AHAHAHAHA!" She shuffles forward another foot, collapsing the roof over more of the supermarket, and leans down to rip more roof off and throw it over her big ass mecha shoulder. Showers of dust and debris fall.

Then Mai KICKS the shield. HARD. Harder than when she kicked over the aisle. WAY harder. BONNNNNNG

And then she climbs up on top of it and starts jumping.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Butterfly. Butterfly, flitting through the chaos of cleaning up bitey gummy bears, and it's going for -

"No," Sailor Moon breathes, equal parts horrified, furious, and despairing. "No! No, we beat you, and we won, I finished the fight early, we get to be done, you don't get to -"

But it doesn't matter what she has to say about it, because there's Corona transforming, growing, growing, the grocery store breaking around her as she becomes taller than it's ceiling, a mecha in a matador paint job, and Sailor Moon covers her head with her arms as bits of ceiling start to fall everywhere, crashing around them as Corona starts the rampage.

"No," she repeats, as Corona attacks the shield, but it's a weaker word, "No, come on, not like - Corona, you're not - this isn't a video game, this isn't a two-part boss fight!"

But it's happening, and it doesn't matter if she doesn't want it to. It doesn't even matter that she pulled a Sans Undertale and threw her strongest, biggest hit first to crush her enemy, because she's still up and still fighting and still being petty and -

Sailor Moon is crouching in a corner with her knees tucked to her chest and her arms over her head.

Miho Inada has posed:
    Yukihime /SLIDS/ to a stop just as the MechaMai kicks the shield. "La Mechadora? Hey Red! Isn't this your specialty? How do we fight a...MechaMai?", she asks. The girl just stares for a long moment. There's a bit of backpeddling from Yukihime. Big Robot...Scary Robot. How does Yukihime fight something like that? Not even her wolves are big enough to do anything to something like that.

    "Ummm...What...do I do against that?", she wonders outloud as she backs away a bit. Everyone else as a big how to deal with big things stuff. Yukihime? She has a bow and arrow, and her wolves. The mahou is going into hiding mode for a moment as she tries to come up with something to do...

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Mid-Childan shields are pretty great, you guys. They're basically holograms made of magic capable of holding back almost anything, as long as enough effort and mana is poured into maintaining it. When infused with mana converted into elemental ice, they are fortress walls built to withstand -- if briefly -- all but the very worst of assaults.

What they are *not* designed for, is to be punted and then *jumped upon* by a *nine meter tall Dark Mecha.*

The first kick utterly snaps off one of the spikes on the outer shell, as well as a two-foot-deep *chunk* of ice that immediately disintegrates into golden shards, sending a spiderweb of cracks through that entire face.

When La Mechadora *climbs up on the shield,* Rashmi knows exactly what is going to happen next, and does not want to be stuck underfoot. After some quick vector calculus, Nicomachea highlights a section of shelving for Rashmi to blast through -- which she does -- and dive through to hunker down in the spot least likely to be occupied by mecha feet.

Just in time, too, for the ice shell gives way startlingly quickly, and the resulting cacophony of falling mecha, rubble, and shelving *could* have been lethal to all but the most robust mahou. As it is, Rashmi is simply pinned, currently by more weight than she can shift. This must be what it's like to be hampered by her Ice Barrets...

However, she may be down, but she's definitely not out. "Nicomachea," she murmurs, as cement dust continues to sift down, obscuring her position from any prying, Dark-addled eyes. "Strategist Mode. Support Network."

Ravaged drywall and ruined ducting mostly block out the golden flash, as Rashmi's Barrier Jacket reconfigures, and the comms network is augmented with status updates on every other mahou connected in.

...Usagi's portrait has a little crying face in the corner, which is largely what prompts Rashmi's hurried << I'm okay! I'm okay! I'm... ... ...mostly okay. Gonna need help getting unstuck but later! >>

Catra has posed:
<< Villains these days, >> Catra says across Rashmi's psychic network, << No class. Tell me I was never this whiny about someone destroying one of my youmas. >>

Which she wasn't. She knows she wasn't. She just got really angry and yelled at people, which is entirely different.

And then Corona is really big and she's stomping on things and Rashmi makes really good shields, but she can't hold that up forever. Catra's ears flatten as flames dance across her arms and illuminate her claws, blue on one hand and yellow on the other. But she doesn't ask for grenades from Amy -- not this time.

"Ignore this," she mutters as she doubles launch simultaneous blasts of flame at the villainess, while she herself dashes, making a run on all fours around the foot Mai isn't using to do and stomping; and since the laws of physics clearly state that if you're stomping with one foor then the other has to remain planted, then this will be a good idea. The best of ideas. Better than Adora would ever think of that's for sure.

The feline digs her claws into the back of Mai's leg and starts climbing up her back. "Ever play Shadows of the Colossus?!" she asks. "Where's your weakpoint? Back of the neck? Armpint? Brain?!"

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus continues to deal with the small fry of the gummies since it seems all is well. It was just a matter of cleaning up after a good strong Halation. Usually.

The flit of that butterfly going toward Corona catches her attention as memories of it being important nag at her. She was just a bit distracted so couldn't quite put her finger on it.

At least until it becomes quite obvious.

"Okay, so warmup is done. Looks like it's time to really-" The words die before she can even finish the remark. Sailor Moon was crumpled in the corner panic hugging herself like she used to do a long time ago when she first got her powers.

Instinct kicks in as she rushes forward without heed to her own safety. The sword remains held in hand though she swings it overhead as she twists her weight on one foot to spin. The sword is brought outward, a sharp pirouette. Down the length of the sword a metallic glowing heart is sent spinning out toward her target with a cry of:

"Rolling Heart Vibration!"

"Take that, LaMacaroni!"

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Tsukiko dives for a clear spot as Mechadora starts breaking the ice dome, keeping an eye out for the remaining gummies and making sure she has decent footing available. << Okay, who taunted Murphy? >> the wolfgirl quips ruefully, with some additional very colorful words not transmitted across comms.

Sizing up the situation, Tsukiko notices Catra's tactic, then decides to join in... well, with a small adjustment, given that the wolfgirl doesn't exactly have climbing claws. Instead, she leaps for one of Matadora's shoulder, intent on being as much of an annoying distraction as she can manage while still scrambling out of the way of the mecha-girl's other limbs.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
Sailor Mercury allows her gaze to follow Corona as she grows into La Mechadora with widening eyes. She opens her mouth to say something then closes it again wordlessly with furrowed brows. Fingers sneak up to her ear to squeeze and the Mercury Visor shoots into existence across her vision.

That was definitely a big robot. But, big robots probably had big vulnerabilities somewhere and Mercury was *definitely* going to analyse the crap out of it. Well, as best she could as something else tugged at her attention. Mostly the collapsing building which demanded a sizeable effort to avoid being squashed flat.

Aisles skid together behind a kick and, briefly, it might have looked as though Mercury would be caught behind as it crashed into its neighbour but she managed to clear it with a jump at the last second.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    And then Corona turned into a giant robot.

    Good news: She doesn't want Amy's whatever.

    Bad news: CORONA TURNED INTO A GIANT ROBOT.

    'Get flat!' is sort of a weird turn of phrase, and Amy looks up at her in confusion trying to work out what the insulting insinuation is supposed to be. Sure, flat can be treated as an insult, but one doesn't really get--

    A foot comes down through the store.

    Oh. Get flat!

    Amy grabs a gummy bear that tried to bounce into her out of the air, and backs away. "Why does she get a mecha?! Hey! HEY! No crushing my friends!" Amy shakes the little candy youma emphatically as she shouts.

    "...Did you make these from real candy?"

    She suddenly really wants to know.

    She must know.

    She takes a little bite.

    It's so sweet! But also guilty.

    It somehow tastes sweet and like feeling bad for eating sweets you know you should've have at the same time.

    Dark energy isn't like a half-priced lunch. You can accept that you're buying cheap food and enjoy the food. Dark energy is like a cavity. Accepting it doesn't make the awfulness go away, it's just always there.

    She spits the bit of gummy-youma out, as it's probably not good to ingest dark energy.

    What felt like an insightful simile half-formed in her head gets mixed up on the way to her mouth in the heat of the moment as she throws the gummy youma at the MaiMech -- the MechaMai? The Corona Colossus? -- and shouts, "You made it taste like cavities!"

> Hey Red! Isn't this your specialty?
    Amy blinks. << Hey... that's right! >>

    << It kind of depends on how it works, though! I can beat the armor but that doesn't matter when it's magic! We could overheat it but it's not actually made of electronics probably! I guess get up there like an Elemental and latch onto spots it can't reach and tear into it? Yeah Catra's got it! >>

    << Or massed fire... If we can knock it over, the bigger they are, the harder they fall? Anyone got a landspeeder and a cable OH NO IS THAT REFERENCE TOO OLD-->> she starts trying to think of how else to put it, << Trip it and make it fall over? >>

Nephrite has posed:
A boot smashes the top half of one last frozen gummy bear and all its stupid teeth, snapping off of its little body to go flying, sliding across the aisle-- until the entire aisle seems to collapse. Hell, half the building-- a Konbini isn't exactly built to handle a rampaging robot (although they probably should be at this point). If not for that kick, though, he may have missed catching sight of Sailor Moon-- more Usagi than Moon, right now-- through all the chaos, who looks much smaller suddenly than she usually does. Defensive curl not withstanding.

His eyes seek the Senshi-- where are they, what are they doing-- and Venus is on the ball. Mercury is working things out and not crushed by ice.

"Rashmi!" he dodges a large piece of falling ceiling, and leaps, carving a long slash into the air before him. Glowing sword flashing bright and white with starlight, a long crescent wave seems to blast a cosmic wind with it in a might gale, the visible wave of heat turned towards the mechanical malcontent and mess of ice.

Mai Elcamino has posed:
"Ha," Mechadora says, satisfied with herself at the mess and the crushed shield, honestly, and-- oh wow, did she make the one who killed Esteban cry?

Running mascara loves misery, or something, and she calms down a little. "Awwww, the little sailor girl thinks she gets to cry after she wouldn't let me?" she coos over the loudspeaker, then slaps Tsukiko off her shoulder, and juts guns out of her back to get Catra the hell off it she is scratching the paint job, and then sprouts guns all over.

"SEEING RED!" yells La Mechadora, and every one of those guns turns out to be a paint jet.

Every paint jet shoots red paint--

--that's full of active-corruption dark energy!

And then literally Rolling Heart Vibration knocks the three-storey giant robot with the fantastic hat, the glittery paint job, the opera gloves with red gems on the backs-- ah, Pelotillero, her Device, which she should NOT actually have while she's an akuma, right? ?? ? Venus knocks MechaMai flat on her ass, actually, and pieces of ceiling and snacks and cans and broken jars are rolling around and making the floor perilous all over. That's when Neph manages to land a slice on her with a horrible sound of screeching metal. It doesn't cut through all the way. This is, unfortunately, AkuMai.

La Mechadora yells, "YOUR MOM TASTES LIKE CAVITIES!" when she hears Amy.

EVERYTHING is now splattered in corruptive dark energy red paint (because of color theory.) It looks pretty gory actually, especially since it stays red when splattered all over the somewhat sepia-toned desaturated barrier colorscheme.

"Anyway, fuck you guys, I'm out, I have a job."

Mai starts stomping through the building toward the street and kicks the whole front of the store over on the way.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
The upside to being buried under a small fortune in infrastructure is, you're not likely to be immediately targeted, whether because it's assumed you'd been squashed to paste, or because it's assumed you can't really affect much, when buried under a small fortune in infrastructure.

And were it not for Strategist Mode, at least one of those assumptions might be true.

But Nicomachea's upgraded sensors, and active-mana links, allow her to effectively be The Mahou In The Chair. ...Under The Roof. ...On The Floor. Far from ideal, sure, but not as incapacitating as it used to be. And now it's time to put what was merely field-tested into active operation. Taking a deep breath and bracing herself against the mana drain, she selects *every* ally, closes her eyes, and sends a command to Nicomachea.

    << *BONG!* >> << OCTA BARRIER -- ADVANCE >>

With Corona now MechaDora, Akumatized Dark Devicer, the thought that her friends might come to harm is a *lot* closer to the front of her mind than it ordinarily would be. Thus, through the telepathic link, there comes a rush of energy, and a feeling of... security. Like having a cup of cocoa at a kotatsu, while outside a raging blizzard swirls. *Everyone* who is not Rashmi -- or Corona -- is sheathed in a mantle of golden energy, swaddled in that protective warmth...

...Just in time for Corona to kick rocks.

But Nephrite's slash *does* throw the top layer of rubble off her, which is enough to allow her to start working her way clear of the rest of the debris. << Thanks, Nephrite-san! >>

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
Tsukiko's caution partially paid off, allowing her to roll with the slap to reduce the impact. Mind you, that's just reducing the damage, and that doesn't count the debris, or rolling through the bottom of a partially collapsed display of cans, or the resulting avalanche of said cans...

    (still better than trying to full-tank that slap, though)

And while the layer of cans soak a lot of the red goop that would otherwise have directly hit the wolfgirl, being in a pile of gory-looking cans with a strong ambience of Dark Energy is definitely going to result in major heebie-jeebies.

Rashmi's morale fortifier is a notable help in calming Tsukiko down, although her hackles are still raised. << Eugh, >> she winces over the comms. << Just... eugh. >>

Ami Mizuno has posed:
"Her right glove!" Ami managed to blurt out, hopefully loudly enough for the others to hear. "It's her righ--ack!"

Sailor Mercury threw her arms up reactively. A watery shell splashed upward from the floor to intercept the deluge of corruptive paint, snapping frozen into an icy barrier. She was quick to take stock of her surroundings before her attention fell over Sailor Moon and the blue-haired senshi drew a sharp breath.

"Shine Aqua Illusion!"

It came in short bursts. A jet of water here or there, clearing the rubble-strewn floor of its red between her and the blonde--and anyone else she passed in the process that might require a short shower--as she made her way over as quickly as she could.

"Moon-chan..." Her tone, in that moment, wasn't that of a Sailor Senshi.

It was, vocally, just Ami. "Are you okay?"

Miho Inada has posed:
    Yukihime gets splashed with the corruption paint. There's a few moments where her eyes kinda flicker a bit. She shakes her head a bit, and hisses a bit. The mahou shakes her head a bit as the golden energy flicks around her, and she growls a bit. Yukihime shakes her head bit as she takes a deep breath.

    She lets out the breath, and a blue fog flows out of her mouth as a creepy smile comes across her face. She laughs a bit as she launches herself at the mecha. She blows out snow from her hands at the legs of the mecha, and freezes water in the air as she tries to stab at its ankles. The girl is going crazy as she attacks. There's a bit of a giggle as she tries slashing and stabbing.

    As Yukihime attacks, there's not the normal focus and control that defines her style. Its pure unfiltered rage as tries going after the mecha. Its like in the place of elegance, its pure rage. She's even trying to scratch the mecha with her taloned fingers...

Amanda Faust has posed:
    << Yeah, go Catra! That's how you-->> Mai turned into a giant robot and DID SHE JUST SPROUT GUNS ALL OVER?!

    Amy only has Hinoiri's description to go on but like, Sayaka-san would feel a little weird if someone akumatized into a giant mermaid in full plate, right?

    Amy's not sure how to articulate this, especially to Corona, and then OH GOD PAINT IS EVERYWHERE

> YOUR MOM TASTES LIKE CAVITIES!
    "THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!" While she sometimes forgets that Mai is a teenager, she sure seems it now because Amy has felt this exact 'that doesn't even MAKE SENSE rrrrgh' feeling dealing with teenage peers in both lives.

    Amy keeps shouting as she dodges pieces of falling roof. "I JUST WANTED TO TEACH MY GIRLFRIEND TO COOK, YOU KNOW! BUT I CAN'T HAVE THAT BECAUSE-- RED GEMS ON YOUR GLOVES ARE YOU COPYING ME?!" Well, Dark Energy certainly doesn't make her any less ADHD.

    "Hey. HEY!" Amy starts to run after her. "You do not get to, to do ALL THIS and then have a job that's being a giant robot! That's too cool of a job for you! Ugh! I wanted to be a mecha pilot but we're in a magical girl world instead!"

    But there are other people here, and even through dark energy Amy doesn't not care about them, even if the associations feel a little different. She wants to visually verify her friends' status, for reasons that are hard to articulate right now. Amy starts to turn back, << Is everyone alr-- >>

    And then Orochi Blood Riot Yukihime runs out of the rubble to attack Mai. "Alright, let's go!"

    Amy runs after her, "Yeah, kick her ass girlfriend! Or at least cut her achilles tendons!" For her part, she throws a couple of stick-and-can grenades, which grow spikes and try to stick to Maibot's leg with them before they start spraying sparks like a firework as they heat themselves into puddles of molten slag. "Your job is having a HOT FOOT, that's what your job is!"

Nephrite has posed:
His proximity to the raging bull that was Corona had paid off, but at a cost-- there was very little way for him to avoid the barrage of red that returned. Though he lifted his sword to somewhat split the jet away and around his face and hair, he was nearly covered entirely on one side. Boots hardly took friction in the slip of it, either, preventing any further or fast attack for the moment upon the fleeing Mecha.

Rashmi's soothing came like a balm upon a sting, sapping some of that physical toll as the dark energy bit into him. But it wasn't quite enough to alleviate the sudden anger that he felt rising-- it came with a grit of teeth and a jerk of his sword arm to clear his blade, and a hateful scowl fixed upon the Akuma.

At that moment, he could only see Usagi's curled form, and Mako-chan wondering where they were, and Rashmi nearly getting crushed. The back turned to them all as if anyone could just walk away from all of this.

And it blinded him to Yukihime, who might well be caught in the attack he levelled the point of his sword towards the massive Corona.

"STELLAR--"

Catra has posed:
When the first gun turret pops out of Mai's back, Catra hisses and swipes at it. And her claws are quite effective against metals, but the problem is that then there's another one, and then a whole bunch more than just two, which means the correct strategy is to abandon her previous idea and bail, launching herself into the air and landing perfectly on her feet while her doubles blast flame at Mai to cover her escape.

The problem after that is... the paint. Red paint, all infused with dark energy, and it's everywhere, which wouldn't bother Catra except that it's everywhere all over her and that's basically just unacceptable. She stands there, arms up in the air and looking down at herself with a clearly shocked expression. Like, how on Etheria was she supposed to dodge that?

"What the--?!" she begins, but trails off before she gets to the third word. As she stands there, paint drips off her elbow. And the dark energy, it... it burns, of course. Her hackles rise and her tail lashes behind her. But she knows this feeling. It's familiar, it's... good, if you know how to use it.

Powersend's blade gleams in the light, all six inches of it that stand exposed from the scabbard, before Catra stopped herself from drawing in the rest of the way. Even so, she stands there, knuckles white as she thinks through her options, all with the seductive tug of dark energy whispering to her to come back. Just... just come back. No need for the Spirit Ember.

"No," she growls, and deliberately takes her hand off the sword, letting it slide back into the scabbard. "Hey, Temu girl, nice try," she snarls, still covered in paint as she and her doubles conjure their flames and fire, all at Mai's back while she's kicking rocks.

Minako Aino has posed:
Sailor Venus manages to stand her ground, but barely so, when that tall mecha akuma crashes down from her attack. Having a wide stance was certainly helping her in that effort. Mercury's cry of where the weak spot is hits her but by then the mecha's back was turned on her.

A quick glance reassures her that Mercury--No, Ami--Was checking on Sailor Moon. That deep down instinct to protect overcomes her as she moves to place herself between the pair and the three story girl having a temper tantrum in a mech suit. There were others who could deal with it. For now she was just standing guard.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Sailor Moon is not crying, for the record. This is actually impressive, because she's a crybaby at heart and also at face and everyone knows it.

No, Sailor Moon is curled into an upright ball because she is so done with everything. Not even in an angry way, anymore. Her anger has evaporated into so much mist as she's brought face to face (or, well, face to robotic foot and shin, really) with how little it matters to try and stop the chaos as its getting under way. She did that. She destroyed the youma, within seconds of the fight starting.

And yet here she is, curled up against a luckily standing pillar, while the store falls down around them, because it didn't even matter.

"The annoying voice over the loud speaker is barely worth registering. Corona is just a girl who likes to lash out like a child whenever anything goes wrong. What does she know about anything? She's crying because a youma she sent to torment people got killed. If she wanted him alive, why didn't she do something nice with him?

It's not enough to make Sailor Moon get up, even though a part of her is saying to do just that, to get up, to fight, to help everyone, that they need her, but -

There's a titanic THUD as Mechadora is knocked down, there's the sound of her walking away: they don't need her. She can just sit here in the corner.

And then Seeing Red happens, and paint splatters around her, but she's safely tucked against this wall...

"I'm very tired, Mercury-chan," Sailor Moon says, her face still half-hidden under her arms. "I just wanted to get some snacks for our study sessions this week and now the entire grocery store is destroyed even though I beat the monster, just really fast."

In the distance, Onihime and Amy start going wild, and she closes her eyes. Sailor Moon takes a deep breath, then opens her eyes and pastes on a tired smile.

"But I'm the only one with purifying powers here, and even if she's a jerk, her Device shouldn't get broken, so... I guess I have to get up?"

So she does - she gets up, pushing herself off the floor, turning around and swinging her arm wide, as the Moon Scepter fizzles away, replaced by the Crescent Wand. A golden circle of light is carved into the air, and the Silver Crystal set within the Crescent Wand flickers, the golden circle filling in with crackling silver, instead of the usual clear film of light. Sailor Moon closes her eyes against the sight of so many raginng friends, bolstered instead by Rashmi's pulse of reassuring energy. The golden glow stabilizes, and the silver light solidifies.

"Moon Princess Halation!"

It's an enormous blast of purifying light, firing directly through everything in the path to Mecha Corona's device.

Mai Elcamino has posed:
Literally Mai is walking away with earth-shaking footsteps down the barrier-street, picking up cars for fun and throwing them into each other, *ignoring* the girl freezing and stabbing into her mecha suit's huge armored foot, except maybe shaking her foot a little to try and shake Yukihime off her, and continuing to walk forward while spinning the top half of the suit around to whack at Amy, and/or rip the thermite off her legs and throw it back at Amy--

It's like Mai just doesn't keep track of who's fighting her while even in a fight; she has no idea why everyone's suddenly glowing gold like she hit a team trap card or something?? Unsure?? But it's probably the annoying one who always says UGH and oh right she hates the Page Mage because she called her out over the Gala... >:C But she's out of sight, so whatever.

Mai Does Not Care Anymore, she has an important task to do. She has to go find the Miraculous... and Amy is yelling again. "UGH, idiota, I have to go find the Miraculous for Hawkmoth-sama," she says as condescendingly as she can manage over that loudspeaker, and then MORE fire is getting thrown her way, and--

--there's the power of the Maboroshi no Ginzuishou unleashed fully in a fit of so utterly done and heartsickness. It may not be the size of a blast that could have saved multiple worlds but was too heartsick to do so, but it's more than enough to treat the dark energy possessing Pelotillero and Mai herself like a lightswitch that can be flicked off.

Corona, sans dark energy, is suddenly left standing on the street with everyone coming at her-- she shrieks and lifts off the ground, then starts beelining away. AWAY AWAY. AWAY.

Mai Elcamino has posed:
A tiny purple butterfly flitters around in the air though, trying to get away too~

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Under normal circumstances, Titanic Mecha Corona turning and walking away would be A Bad Thing, and a sign that she has to be chansed -- but how? Even Venus' magnificent strike could only knock her down, and the remains of the store inside the Barrier is *literally splattered* with Dark Energy paint, burning sickly red against the muted, warm colors of the Barrier. Hauling herself to her feet, Rashmi weaves a bit unsteadily; that much mana-drain shock is something she hasn't felt for a long, long time now. Definitely need to deploy that one more, to less people...

And the Moon escalates the hell out of some healing, flipping the threat completely off. Oh good, one less thing to worry about!

...But Usagi's icon still has a crying-face emoji. ...One *more* thing to worry about.

Carefully picking her way around the wreckage, and *not* activating her wings just in case, Rashmi peeks around a pile, Nicomachea's Support Network powering itself down. "...Everyone okay? That was... *yikes.*"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
<<I don't think anyone got hurt too bad, but I purified three or four of them? Can you put down the barrier so everything can be normal and we can grocery shop again?>>

It's a quick explanation, but a tired one, and when Sailor Moon catches sight of the butterfly, she sighs, and waves the Crescent Wand - a thin beam of purifying energy flies forth, transforming the purple butterfly to a shimmering white one.

Miho Inada has posed:
    Yukihime just shacked off the food, and crashes hard into a car. She's ignoring everything else at the moment, especially all the danger as she keeps chasing after the mecha. A normal Yukihime would be spazzing out at the danger, and hiding more in the back, and trying to attack from a distance. The girl gets up, bleeding from a few spots as the blue fog keeps coming out with each breath Yukihime breathes. She's tracking the evil energy...

    She watches the mecha get purified, but then sees the butterfly. She growls a bit, and hisses. Yukihime starts to chase after the butterfly in a rage before she herself gets purified in midleap in the air as she tries CHOMP the butterfly. Yukihime blinks a few times as she's trying to eat...a butterfly. Huh?! What the hell happen? And why does it feel like something smashed her head a few hundred times. She crashes into the ground, leaving the butterfly alone. "...What happen? And did we win?"

Nephrite has posed:
It came at just the right moment, and before the second word was called, Nephrite stilled. The dark thoughts and bilstering anger washes away as easily as a warm splash of water to loose dirt, and he lets the heat-- emotional and otherwise-- go.

He lowers his sword and sighs, taking a moment before sheathing it. Just as the barrier dissipates, so too does Nephrite's uniform, and Masato remains. Pulling out the basket of goods, he takes quick stock of them, satisfied that everything is still in there. He makes his way closer to Ami and Usagi.

"You look like you could use some of Mako-chan's cooking, instead." He gestures the basket, and it's an open invitation to the blonde, at least.

Ami Mizuno has posed:
As the chaos begins to settle and without even bothering to de-henshin, Sailor Mercury throws arms around Sailor Moon in a rather sudden but justified hug. At least, she feels like the hug is justified.

Mercury nods toward Nephrite. "We can study together while Makoto-chan makes us something very good."

Ikiko Hisakata has posed:
"'Yikes' is a good description," Tsukiko agrees, digging her way out from under the cans. "Probably the simplest description, too."

The wolfgirl gives Yukihime a wry grin. "I think it might be more accurate to say that we didn't lose," Tsukiko remarked.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Amy dodges the grenades thrown back at her, barely -- sparks and a few small bits of molten metal splash on her-- "GAH!" --but pink sparkles wash over her, dismissing the grenades and restoring her outfit with only a few small burns underneath. "Why you... go for the eyes, Yukihime, go for the eyes!" she encourages, leaping towards the MechaMai holding a long strip of grenades taped together. "You're not finding anything!"

> Moon Healing Escalation!

    And she lands a few feet away from the suddenly non-mecha Corona. She blinks. She looks at Corona. She looks at the strip of grenades. She looks back to the blinking dashed outline of where Corona was.




    << I'm okay, I think. >> She dismisses the grenades and looks to Yukihime. "Hey uh, you okay? I think we got [whammy]'d." She blinks. "Oh right, you have that headache thing." She moves closer to give her a hug, and a shoulder to lean on while walking if needed. "I guess we won, yeah. Might need to find you a healer. Um... I think that was dark energy? But it felt different from the last two times..." Being captured and immersed in it for hours, and reaching for it when she's already in a mindset unusually susceptable to it, aren't the same as having it dunked on her mid-fight, after all.

    << Thanks for purifying us, by the way, Sailor Moon! Is everyone else OK? We may need a healer here... >>

Catra has posed:
It's over. It's over? It's definitely over when Usagi turns the purple butterfly into a white one after the purifying energy wipes away all the paint (and leaves her tuxedo a considerably lighter shade than it was a minute ago), Catra konws her color-coding well enough by now to know that that means this is over, especially once the call is going out for the barrier to come back down and all that. Catra's ear flicks, as Usagi seems to be... straight up miserable compared to usual.

Yeah, but what's she gonna do about it? Catra isn't precisely known for being any good at offering a shoulder to cry on, is she?

Yeah well time to go, too many people here anyway, even now that Mai has left. So she lets her tuxedo fade and resumes the visage of Rachel Miller, so she can go right back to being passively obnoxious. The music gets turned back up loud, her hands get shoved straight back in her pockets, and she takes what is (for a cat) a direct path straight back to the entrance, with only two of what a human might term a 'detour'.

Sure whatever there's fish here but if she goes down the street there's a noodle place where she can get it already cooked and not have to do any work, and that is clearly superior.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Yeah," Rashmi says gently, out loud, in response to Usagi's question. "Yeah... probably a good idea, Usa-chan, one sec."

Ami gets a brief, worried glance, but just long enough to let the bluenette know she sees it too. But Girlfriend Good Vibes are much more effective than Friend Good Vibes, so Ami can take it from here.

And as Catra puts her disguise back on, she looses a cheery wave. "Thanks for the help, Catra-chan! Good job!" Because obnoxiously loud music can't drown out *everything,* and Rashmi suspects her hearing would be selective even if it weren't overloaded.

But beyond that, she wastes no time in letting her own henshin drop, and with it comes the un-raising of the Barrier, gradual enough that people can find places to be that won't intersect shelving or other people. Because Usagi *does* have a point, in that it's probably better to let the real world in than linger.

...And besides now she needs to add a *ton* of snacks to her basket.

Miho Inada has posed:
    The suiken fades out while Yukihime's features seem to revert back to Miho's normal form. She holds her head a bit. The girl shakes her head a bit before she leans into Amy, and gives a quick kiss before almost falling on Amy a bit. "Remind me to never get whammied again. That hurt...and I don't know what I did. I didn't bite anything did I?", she asks.

    "Can we just grab a pizza, and call it a night?", she asks.

    Miho lets out a sigh as she curls into Amy. "Also, can we go back to the dorm? We still have finals coming up, right? And I think I need to see Setsuna or Mamoru later. My head feels like it got busted open. And I feel...odd. Like a few things got broke upstairs. Also Sleep good...", she tells.