416/Strawberry Blender Sneak Attack

Strawberry Blender Sneak Attack
Date of Scene:	14 September 2023
Location:	Near a Punny Coffee Joint
Synopsis:	Michiru goes out to find trouble, and she finds way more than she expected. Firefly has a new glaive, and it sure does look terrifyingly familiar!
Cast of Characters:	Hotaru Tomoe, Michiru Kaiou, Takashi Agera

---

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Firefly had to, well... experiment with her blade. Just like Takashi had told her. So when she left the tower today she took one of the daimon eggs as she went. Gather energy, siphon some off for Takashi an the rest goes to the department. But honestly? The real duty here was test her new weapon. The glaive now had an energy blade and, according to Takashi, it wouldn't kill. Just... hurt. A lot. Magic!

So she'd looked around the city for a while before choosing a small, out of the way coffee shop. That had a terrible pun for its name. It wasn't a family owned place, even! It was just a cheap coffee joint.

It wasn't long before she decided... To insert the daimon egg into her really, really awful 'strawberry shake', that frankly tasted kind of like 'strawberry shake with coffee grounds in it cause they didn't wash things well'. Ew.

A strange, strawberry blender girl appeared!

"Uhhhh... just... suck, I guess," Firefly said. I mean, it wasn't hard for them. She stol-- borrowed this from the witches 5's office, so it wasn't like it could actually be that useful...

As around the local area, people began to feel the drain of energy, absorbed into the blender of the youma!

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Michiru Kaiou could not think of a time she had ever been happier. She lived in a mansion with her literal soulmate and the closest thing to a big sister she'd ever had. She could see Haruka whenever she wanted. She wasn't alone any more. She'd lost her parents, but she'd found family all the same.

But something felt _wrong_ with the world. Something had ever since she awakened to her powers. Ever since the dreams and visions started. But now, she could feel it. She could feel it in the currents and eddies of magic around her. The sea of possibility. Those seas were getting more and more rough, and it bothered her. Sailor Soldiers don't get to live happy lives. They have duties to fulfill. And hers was to listen to those feelings, to sense the enemies and threats. It's not easy being the early detection soldier.

At first she dealt with her discomfort by painting and practicing her violin. But she could only distract herself for so long. She may not be as brash as her prince, but eventually she needs to _act_. So, today, she decided to have her driver take her where the currents led her. And that brought her right into the vicinity of this coffee shop. Just a couple blocks away, when she started feeling the presence of the youma at a distance.

"Don't linger here, Takuya-san," she says to her driver as she steps out of the car. She doesn't explain why, and he doesn't ask. He just turns the car right around and leaves the way he came. She'll call when she's ready to be picked up. He knows she can handle herself, even if he _doesn't_ know about Neptune.

Ducking into an alley and making sure no-one is looking, she retrieves her pen and holds it high, calling out, "Neptune Planet Power, Make Up!" There is a whoosh of water and then Sailor Neptune steps back out of the alley and runs toward the youma she senses. It's not hard, the magic is practically drawing her in.

"Hey!" She calls out as she rounds the corner on the coffee shop and sees Strawberry Blender Girl. "Stop that!"

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
The strawberry blender youma didn't listen. Instead, she just kept sucking. Well, and gathering energy.

It was a REALLY bad shake.

And as Neptune came closer, she'd realize why.

Firefly suddenly LEAPED off the nearby building (dramatically) and came CRASHING DOWN! "SNEAK ATTACK!"

It was NOT in fact a sneak attack. Why? She yelled sneak attack. That was how it STOPPED being a sneak attack. Also, she did know this. But she ALWAYS wanted to yell things as she attacked. And now she got to! It--

Except she stopped in mid swing, just hovering in the air and staring down at the girl. She... she'd seen her before. Hadn't she? She knew she had. She'd...

She couldn't remember where. But she... no. No. She remembered. She'd seen her in her dreams, hadn't she? Was this--

NO! She shoved that strange sense of familiarity away and slashed down, the glaive humming with a yellow light as she descended at her, attempting to cut, though... the whole 'sneak' part was loooooong gone.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
They never listen. Why did she even bother? Not that she'd fought _too_ many of those monsters. Maybe she was just holding out hope that one of them would listen. That she'd be able to talk one of them down. She knew that it never would, though. It always takes a fight. It is known.

She was just about to say the words for her attack when the SNEAK ATTACK was announced. Neptune dodged it with the grace of flowing water, and the glaive hit nothing but pavement where she'd been standing. She kept moving, putting some distance between them before turning around to face her new opponent. her _real_ opponent.

This was not good. That weapon was not good at _all_. She knew that weapon. She _remembered_ that weapon. Or, well, she remembered a weapon that _strongly resembled_ that one. Her eyes shifted to Firefly herself, and Neptune could feel the dark magics at play with the girl controlling the youma, and the flow of magic between her and the device. When she focused finally on the girl, on Firefly, she realized just how much worse this could be. She looked at this girl who was so incredibly familiar, she was certain she knew her. She was so clearly magical, and she seemed so, incredibly _familiar_. She felt familiar in the same way as Haruka, Setsuna, Usagi, Ami, and Hotaru.

Setsuna's words echo in her mind, "Someone is trying to get their fingers in one of US"

Fuck.

She wasn't wearing the right outfit, because she wasn't quite the right magical girl, was she. Well maybe _this_ one she could talk to.

"I can't let you take these people's energy," she says, her voice unwavering, commanding. Eliminating the youma is her priority, and so she doesn't have to think about hurting the girl just yet. She turns her attention toward the Strawberry Blender Girl, and starts to form a huge ball of magical energy between her hands as she calls out, "Deep Submerge!" The energy ball whooshes toward the youma.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Firefly stared at the girl. That... was so familiar. It was just so... "I know," Firefly said. "But... I do need it. But I know you won't believe me anyway. So I think we kind of have to fight. You can't--"

Aaaaand then the girl was sending a ball of magic at her youma. She interposed herself between it and...

< Silence Blade >

The voice from the device was creepy, like something out of a horror movie. The blade glowing with purple energy for a moment before she *slashed* through the sphere, scattering it. "Nuh uh. The youma has some work to do. If you want to destroy it, you'll have to fight me first," Firefly said. "Come on, it'll be-- OH! Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! I-I never introduced myself! I'm Firefly! Nice to meet you! Are you... ummm... are you like... Sailor... V's... understudy?" she asked. "Cause I fought her once and she was nice, and she made a whole new attack JUST to fight me! Isn't that cool?"

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
It said _Silence_. Pluto was not going to be happy when she got home and debriefed with her. She was not going to be happy _at all_. But, well, there was a path forward now. And it, unfortunately, was through this girl Firefly, whom she was pretty sure was _Saturn_. Sailor Soldiers don't get to have happy lives. Least of all her.

But there were formalities to these things.

Neptune strikes a pose, and in a bold voice, she declares, "Protected by Neptune, the Outer Planet of the Seas, Guardian of the Deep Sea. I am Sailor Neptune!" Then she looks back at Firefly and her curiosity gets the best of her for a moment. "You've actually _fought_ Sailor V? What did she fight like?"

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Firefly stared at her. Why... was it that... something about that... felt so familiar? Why was it that she felt she KNEW it? Why was it familiar? Why... did she feel she'd had a dream about this girl? It felt... weird. But this was a glaive test! So she had to, well, test it.

"Oh, like, this really cool lazer beam. I'd show you but ummmm... Okay, how about this! If you beat me, you can destroy the youma AND I'll show you the attack she did, okay? Well, kind of. I guess I'll describe it to you... oh.... which I already did. Well, I'll do her pose! It was SUPER cool! But you gotta beat me first!" she said before suddenly... She just took off like a bolt, slashing with her glaive. Left, right, down, up, diagonal. She... she was good. She was INCREDIBLY good. The glaive was WAY too big for her, yet you'd think she'd been fighting with it for years. Hell, like she was born into it...

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
The problem here is that Firefly has a bladed weapon with reach. Neptune can't just go in and start punching her. She can't _get_ in. The girl is clearly proficient with it. There's no way she'd get close enough. That's what Uranus does, and she's not here. Not yet. All she has are ranged attacks, and her go-to Deep Submerge is no match for what appears to the _Silence Glaive_ reborn. So she's left with little choice.

As she turns to run, doing her best to keep the distance between her and Firefly, she reaches into where she keeps it and retrieves the Deep Aqua Mirror, it turning around in her hand just once as she does so. She's not a talkative type on her best days, and even less so when she's fighting. So she doesn't have anything to say until she turns around.

She calls out, "Submarine Reflection!" Seawater blasts out of the mirror like a hundred firehoses pointed right at the advancing magical girl and her fearsome polearm.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Firefly raced at the other girl, cutting, slashing, cleaving through part of the cement as her blade whistled through the air. She didn't have any idea who Neptune was, but she knew she made an ideal testing ground for her strikes. Huh. She really expected another magical girl would have showed up by now. Cool!

She went in and-- A mirror? Why--

Why was it so familiar? Why did she *know* that the water was going to come out of it. Why was it... And she stepped to the right, swirling around, the glaive tip humming as it cut through the cement, the water tearing past her...

And then slashing up. The glaive slashing up close and trying to cut either the mirror, or knock it from her hands. But there wasn't a follow up strike...

Why... why did she know that? Why was that so familiar? Why did it feel like she'd... done this...

She didn't like this anymore. This wasn't *fun* anymore.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Sailor Neptune did not know that the blade was non-lethal. It certainly _looked_ lethal enough. She was not about to treat it as anything less than the threat it was. Even if it was less of a threat than she thought. Firefly is a threat. Michiru can't bring herself to hurt the girl, though, and so, when her mirror is knocked out of her hand, she does something else entirely.

As the glaive is still moving up, she rushes in toward Firefly, keeping low and underneath the shaft of the polearm. She reaches out to try and wrap both of her arms around Firefly, trying to pull her into a hug. "We _don't_ have to fight. You don't have to do this. You don't have to hurt people," she pleads, her voice filled with the power of love and friendship. "You can be _good_," she says, and then her voice drops to a whisper, only loud enough for that one other girl to hear her. "Saturn."

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Firefly froze when the other girl just.... hugged her. She didn't... she didn't like this. why was she... "W-we're supposed to... to fight. We're not... I'm supposed to be the cute, adorable one here. N-not you. I-I don't... I don't want to hurt people, but I have to do this so--" And then froze.

There it was. Saturn? Why did that... feel... so...

Strange? Why did it feel so... right?

AND WHY WAS SHE SUDDENLY SO TERRIFIED?! Why was she scared? Why did she want to hide? To flee? Why was she suddenly so scared of being alone again? "I-I'm Firefly. I'm not... I don't know who you think I am... I don't know why you... I don't know... STOP IT!" she screamed.

< Warning, dark energy levels warning. Retreat. >

But she was being held. An alert was sent as Firefly tried to escape, tried to shove the other girl off her! "GET OFF!"

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Sailor Neptune held on for just a heartbeat, but the love and friendship was not working, at least it didn't seem to be, and she wasn't going to keep holding onto this girl who clearly didn't want to be hugged. It was a gamble. So when Firefly tries to shove her off, she just backs away, rather quickly in fact, putting as much distance between them as she can as quickly as she can in her heels. If she just so happens to be retreating in the direction her mirror went, well, that's great.

"It doesn't have to be like this," she says again, once she's definitely outside the glaive's reach. If she can just get the mirror again, maybe with the girl dysregulated, the attack will actually be effective.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Somewhere, Takashi Agera was working on something. But he knew Firefly was out. He was trying to give her space, let her grow. Let her gain some confidence. Apparently, sending her out alone was a mistake, since his own device started blaring in hisd mind with a shrill warning that almost gave him a headache. He didn't waste any time, other than to make sure what he was working on wasn't going to explode. He stopped the work, henshined into Riventon, and stepped through the break between worlds - into the Dusk Zone, and then out of the Dusk Zone, using Firefly's device, Luminous Titan, as a beacon for the jump.

    Which meant he duskported out very close to the two of them. He didn't have time to really process what was happening. He just appeared between Firefly and Neptune. He wasn't the only thing that appeared. While normally he'd be as content as Firefly to bring some zany, evolved bit of food or refuse into a goofy youma - when Firefly was in trouble, the gloves were on, metaphorically speaking.

    So Riventon didn't have youma in a traditional sense, but what he had were his shaped barrets - and while in previous circumstances they'd been more like shadows, he'd been playing around with new versions - which meant a large series of shadowy canines with long singular tendrils that split off from their necks, spawned into existence between himself and Neptune - much more sound and threat than they actually were, but growling, barking, and snapping teeth, like a pack of some sort of angry demonic wolves, with the same red eyes as their summoner.

    Mostly, designed to distract, distress, and destablize the situation in his favor, they began to sort of 'stalk' along the ground closer towards Neptune, maintaing the sound and acts that indicated they were threats. To draw attention. If Neptune tried to move closer to Riventon and Firely, they'd leap in, though they could only give or take a single hit before dispersing into dark mist.

    Riventon turned and put a hand on Firefly's shoulder. "Do you need to go?" He asks, leaning down and kneeling to be closer. "Do we need to go home? Or do we need to go back out over the water?" he asks her. "Can you tell how bad it is?" She's building up Dark Energy, but he's trying a different tactic here too - seeing if she can gain some degree of control. If she starts choking him again, though, that probably means no control.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Firefly let out a sigh of relief before looking towards the other girl. Neptune. She knew her. She knew her from her dreams. She'd seen her. "I... I know her and... and she doesn't know me but she thinks she does and I don't... I don't know why but she scares me and I..." And she was shaking now. This had been so FUN a minute ago. But then she'd moved in a way that she just... she knew it and she didn't know it and she felt like a part of her was... she felt wrong. She felt so, so, so incredibly wrong.

"We need to go. N-not over the water. I think I can hold it. But we need to go. I need to... I need to go. I... I'll... Just hold her off," she said before she ran to her youma...

And struck down the youma herself, her glaive slashing through it in an instant. It wasn't real, so there was nothing there to really get hurt. From its remains, she took the energy gathered, in this case into a small egg. "Okay! OKAY! Let's go! Let's go!" she yelled before, well, she just... she flew away.

She already felt... wrong. She felt so wrong. But she didn't want to dusk port. If she did, it would only make it worse.

She did pause to glance back at the other girl. Who was she? WHY did she feel so... warm... and scary... at the same time? Why did she want to lean into that hug and pull away at the same time? Why did it hurt? Who was Saturn? She shook her head and just fled, flying away as fast as she could.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon stood between Firefly's escape and Sailor Neptune, and maintained his control on the fake wolfpack. She dealt with her own youma - good, he didn't want it rampaging around after they left. The not-barrets wouldn't hold long without his presence - they weren't a threat the way that an uncontrolled youma might be.

    "Another one of the navy girls." Riventon said, remembering the one with the stick. Navy, sailor, he was somewhere on the right line but not quite on point. "You... you stay away from Firefly. I don't know why, but you seem to be causing her... distress. Which means you're causing me distress. Which is hazardous to your health." He was really, really weighing laying into her right now, but Hotaru-chan needed him now. He couldn't disregard her to fight this sparkleskirt. "If I see you bother her again, I won't wait for a third time. I'll hunt you." he warns. Mostly, he can't leave without saying -something-.

    <<FLUGEL DES FGLUGES>> (Wings of Flight) his device calls in Belkan, and the little black wings that sprout from his boots are clearly decorative, but the magic isn't, and he shoots off rather quickly into the sky to chase after his Imoutu. And find out just what the hell happened. The wolves only stay around a few seconds more before dissapating into Dark Energy and vanishing like ashes on the wind.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
The barrets didn't have to work too hard to keep Neptune away from Firefly, as she was still putting distance between them. She knew she was outclassed, and once Firefly destroyed the youma, she had no reason to stay.

Riventon's words were just met with her stormy gaze, the breeze catching her hair and blowing it to one side. She stood there and just stared at him, committing that face to memory. He was the real enemy here, not Firefly. She was obviously being controlled somehow. All that dark energy had got to be the key.

She retrieved her mirror and stowed it away then ducked into an alley to de-henshin as she left the scene, texting her driver to come pick her up.

The enemy had control of Sailor Saturn and the Silence Glaive, but somehow she didn't know she was Sailor Saturn. They were so fucked if she woke up.