Serious Plots 10: Two digits too srs

[Gullara]

This thread is for the more Serious Plots in Nexus that people don't think really pertain to a particular location.

Rules

1. Use [Location Tags] or [Plot Tags] in your posts.
2. Each location or plot is under the control of its creator.
3. Play nice and keep the drama low. Serious Plots is just a name.

Archive

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Serious Plots 9: Srsr and srsr
Serious Plots 8: Rawr serisaurus!
Serious Plots 7: Why so srs?
Serious Plots 6: Srs bsns
Serious Plots 5: No lulz.
Serious Plots 4: So Srs it hurts
Serious Plots 3: Too srs for my shirt
Serious Plots 2: SERIOUSNESS OVERWHELMING
Serious Plots

This thread is managed by Gullara. I will create the new thread when this one reached 50 pages. Please contact me for updates to the OP.

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[Chaotic Bob]

[The Jellymoon - Gathering]

A fell moon will soon rise once more.
A thing to prey upon the minds of the unsuspecting and the lives of those seeking to save them.

As was previously arranged, Inside's magical girls have assembled in one of the quieter fountain squares. Not all of them, certainly. The warnings of danger here were dire and some of them were too new, too unconfident, or too afraid.
Most of those who are here understand. They also understand that someone has to deal with the issue, or people are going to keep collapsing, keep vanishing. Having any losses at all is tragic and this has already swallowed up more than its fair share.

There hasn't been a gathering like this before, not in any formal capacity. Most of the girls have only ever communicated over Paragon and many are taking the time to introduce themselves, or catch up in person. Some have preexisting groups they already work with and stick to those, fewer still linger on the outskirts of the entire crowd.
A majority of the conversations are friendly and on the surface, at least, sound cheerful.

It takes very little effort to feel the undercurrent of anxiety passing through the entire gathering.
Night is going to fall soon, and only a few of them really know what to expect.

A small gnome sits atop one of the ledges of the fountain dominating the central area of the square, twirling a small paintbrush in her left hand and trying not to judge everyone below her too harshly.
Another awkwardly fiddles with her stage show top-hat at the foot of the fountain, wondering if she really belongs here.
Two more stand silently next to each other, but nearby, wanting to extend some degree of comfort to the others, but only knowing how to give it to each other.

Everyone is waiting.

[Rebonack]

[The Jellymoon - Gathering]

Catherine, aka Nekohammer, is sitting on top of a low wall in her stylized lion-tamer's outfit, her spirit cat Mittens sitting on her lap for petting. She isn't saying much, just watching the horizon and trying to calm her nerves. Thoughts plague her, especially what became of Wyldfire.

Then there's The Sound of a Forest Waterfall over there, a kenku magical girl in a gaudy gold, silver, and white outfit balancing her (what else?) crow's beak over her shoulders while entertaining some of the other girls with her mimicry. Fall is a cautious sort, and she hadn't lost any of her friends to the moon like some of the girls here, but SOMEONE needs to stop this monster. And if not her, then who else?

And of course Khannie, aka Olympia, is pacing nervously.

She's sort of been thrust into the whole Hero Leadership position.

It's something that... she's admittedly not bad at.

But having all these girls looking to her and expecting her to know what to do makes her nervous. It makes her wish Ester was here heading this expedition instead and reminds her all the more WHY she and the other girls can't back down. They've lost too many already.

[Ironsmith]

[The Jellymoon - Gathering]

Shortly after the gathering begins, a pair of new faces on the cape scene arrive, deep in conversation with each other.

"...You're sure this is the right place?" The boy on the silver-armored wolf asks, looking down at his temporary guide. "I don't see my friend here anywhere..."

"Oh, sure I'm sure." The greasy little imp of a girl walking next to him smirks. "Mostly. Kinda half-and-half, really."

"Half-and- you said you knew Olympia, too!"

"Yeah, I do." Tahara shrugs and stretches, letting out a lackadaisical yawn. "But she doesn't exactly take me out on patrol with her. I've only got a vague idea where the meetup spot is." She raises a skeptical eyebrow at the boy. "But here's the real question; why do you want to be there? You don't exactly look the part."

The garbage-clad unwitch has a point. Amidst all of the elaborate, gaudy and glitzy costumes, the boy on the back of the wolf looks almost painfully drab. He's dressed in a dark hoodie and sweat pants, wearing black sneakers and gloves, with a mask made from a wrapped cloth around most of his face, leaving just a pair of hungry green eyes exposed.

"I told you, Olympia is a friend of mine." The boy replies impatiently.

"Yeah, well, there's a hyuuuge difference between 'friend' and 'someone she'd fight beside'." The wastrel scoffs.

"What do you know? You're neither."

Tahara makes a pouty face and runs a finger down her cheek, sending a little bead of expired cooking oil down it. "So mean." She sniffs. "But, yeah, maybe. What do I know?" She waves at the girls as they approach. "Time to make a good first impression. Knock 'em dead, Blank."

"Blank" sort of lives up to his name and just stares at the lot, breathing heavily through his mask.

"...Nice job. A plus."

[Rebonack]

[The Jellymoon - Gathering]

The two newcomers will be met with immediate skepticism.

"Hey you aren't magical girls, what are you doing here?" one girl demands. She's a human in a brightly colored red, yellow, and white stylized fireman's uniform, the white portions flashing in the evening light like high visibility tape. She's even got a little red fire helmet with long yellow hair cascading out from under it. On her shoulder is resting a fire-axe that, curiously, has a fire-hose nozzle attached to the butt-end. Her stern gaze carries some cross between disdain and concern. There isn't a game or a place for randos to be showing up.

"Hey you aren't magical girls, what are you doing here?" comes the girl's voice almost exactly from the beak of the crow-person standing just behind her, though this time around it has taken on a tone of vaguely mocking scorn aimed at fire-girl. The first whirls on the kenku, glaring. Then the bird speaks again, this time with Olympia's voice. "We're gunna need all the help we can get..."

The firegirl purses her lips, then huffs, her shoulders drooping a bit. "Fine, whatever. But if they get killed because they can't handle it then that's on you and them," she says before turning around and walking off.

A pretty goofy sounding, "Boop boop!" comes from the kenku's beak, directed at the departing girl. Maybe trying to cheer her up a bit. Then she turns back to the newcomers and poofs up her shiny neck feathers for them. Her outfit is a gaudy thing covered in sparkly streamers and little bells, almost jester-like. Clearly the outfit of a girl who wants to have fun. She touches her chest with one of her avian hands and makes a pretty complex melody of sounds, a distant waterfall gurgling in a forest stream surrounded by birdsong. Then she clicks her beak at the pair. "I can't exactly pronounce that... Just call her Fall."

'Fall' is probably easier to say that trying to copy random waterfall noises.

[Ironsmith]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

"Not a magical girl?" Tahara scoffs and glares at the retreating firegirl. "Pretty sure there's only two qualifications for that and I meet both. What does she think I am, chopped liver?"

Tahara is at least partially chopped liver. It gets thrown away a lot in this town.

"Oh, well. If she wants to be a little jerk about it, that's on her." Tahara shrugs as a roach skitters over her fingers, taking a moment to play with the tiny insect, complete with adoring burbles as she strokes its chitin-covered back.

Blank's wolf seems to hold a similarly hostile attitude toward the firegirl, baring its teeth and growling at her, only stopping when it recieves a reassuring pat from its owner.

Said owner hops off the wolf's back and sort of stares at Fall, slowly extending his hand toward the birdlike girl. "...Hi." He says finally, a nervous little tremor in his voice. "I'm A-aaah, Blank. It's nice to meet you."

Tahara giggles. "Don't mind him. He seems to have a lot of problems talking to cute girls."

"I can talk to you just fine." Blank snarks.

"So mean." The garbage witch giggles. "But also, yeah, exactly."

[Rebonack]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

Fall listens to the banter, milky membrane flicking across her dark brown eyes as she observes intently. When they're done she points at herself and in Tehera's voice says, "-talking to cute girls?" followed by a very raven laughing sound. "Can you say 'pretty bird?' Pretty bird? Pretty bird? Hgonk hgonk hgonk!"

She apparently thinks this is absolutely hilarious.

"A-aaaahBlank Wow that's a weird name, did your mom give it to you?" Fall says, poking a bit of fun at Arthfael's stammer. Then she gives her bec de corbin a little twirl and flips it under herself, sitting atop the haft of the weapon exactly like a witch on a flying broom. Little swirls of wind dance below her. "So, what's your deal, kid? You know any magic tricks?"

Ah.

She wants to know how Arthfael and mysterious yet to be named garbage pale kid can be of help to the mission.

That's pretty reasonable.

They ARE going into a dangerous situation, after all.

[Ironsmith]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

"Funny you should put it like that." Tahara smirks, casually popping up next to Blank. "Blank here knows some excellent card tricks." She makes a vague waving gesture out toward Fall. "Go ahead! Show her like you showed me!"

"...I, um, shouldn't... I don't have very many of these." Blank points out.

"Well, you don't have to go all the way through with it. Just show her the card."

"...Okay..." Blank stretches his fingers and quickly flicks them over his palm, producing a token about the size of a playing card. This one has a picture of an imposing woman made from plants and thorns, holding a briar-covered whip in one hand and cradling a small rabbit to her chest with the other. A scrawled note along the bottom labels her a/the "Black Rose Dryad".

"...Yeah, okay, it doesn't look that impressive from here." Tahara admits with a shrug. "But last time he did that, he was able to make the picture on it come to life. Guess who that cutie was." She coos and gives the armored wolf a vigorous series of headpats, while it glares back at her in a way that makes it clear it's only vaguely tolerating her presence.

"...Y-yeah." Blank agrees, tucking the card back into his sleeve. "I, um... that's my actual power, bringing things to life, but it's... a bit difficult to control. I have to be really specific about intent or else my creations go crazy. It works best when I've got... when it's really clear what it is and supposed to be. So I, um, mostly stick to drawings. And I don't know if you've ever tried this, but making a good drawing takes a little while. Longer than I'm going to have out here. So I make them in advance and kinda just set them off as needed."

"Hey, look at you! Up to complete sentences already!" Tahara smirks and gives Blank and affectionate punch in the arm. "Next you'll be reading her poetry and then there's just no stopping you, Romeo!"

What little skin can be seen under Blank's mask lights up red at this, but he can't seem to quite muster up a response.

The garbage witch smirks and stands in front of Fall. "Now, me? I can do this." A loud, shivering sound emits from her as thousands of cockroaches skid out of the folds of her dress, run a short distance over her, and tuck themselves back into hiding. "Smart little guys. They can make pretty much anything out of anything, and I'm always finding more of them." She demonstrates by sending a small crowd of them down her leg to retrieve a broken umbrella from a nearby trashcan, which they carry back to her, bending and twisting it the whole way. By the time it's in Tahara's hands, it's a crude scythe; very intimidating, but probably not much use as a weapon.

"How about you, kid? What've you got?" The garbage witch prompts.

[Rebonack]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

Once more, Fall observes, eyes flicking between the picture and the growling wolf with interest.

She always watches carefully.

Always.

Because she has a pretty crippling weakness, for a magical girl. A curse that kenku suffer from.

She can't create.

Fall is VERY clever when it comes to mashing up neat tricks that she's seen others use. She can even iterate on ideas she's seen before. The Power Forge has been an absolutely HUGE boon to her, since she discovered that she can type more or less without being limited. The curse mostly just messes with her voice when it comes to expressing herself.

"Man, I wish I could draw like that," Fall laments in another person's voice. Really, she does. The problem is she could draw EXACTLY like that, but she couldn't make something of her own. It's a pain. "Those monsters look tough."

But that isn't the only thing she has to say, though. "Witches are bruisers, can you take a hit?"

She knows magical girls can tank hits like crazy. But normal folks? Not so much.

At the talk of poetry she waves one hand and turns her head coyly. "Oh, stop it, you're making me blush!" she demurs in a rather dainty, feminine voice.

Then roaches happen.

Fall watches them skitter about in silence until the 'weapon' is assembled. "You brought the snacks?"

Oh, right. She's a raven isn't she? Roaches are food. Several other girls nearby seem pretty grossed out.

And when she's asked what she can do? Fall responds by singing. "Anything you can do I can do better~ I can do anything better than yooooou~"

[Ironsmith]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

Now it's Tahara's turn to be self-conscious while Blank snickers in the background. "H-hey! I'll have you know these little guys are my friends and there will be absolutely no eating them, understand?" She crosses her arms and tries not to look moderately disturbed, with... probably some amount of success.

"To answer your other question, though, yeah, I can take a hit." The trash witch continues, the moment she's recovered enough to think about something other than being swallowed alive by a human-sized raven. "In fact, you know that thing Olympia does? With the giant fist that just obliterates everything in the area? That thing that absolutely nobody survives?" Tahara breaks out into a grin. "Well, guess what? The first time we met, we threw down, and she threw hard. I lost, but I also lived. Ha! Ha ha!" She puts her hands on her hips and puffs out her chesf proudly.

"...Actually, Tahara... I think she was asking about me." Blank points out.

"Oh, I know she was. But I'll take any excuse to brag." She smirks and gives Blank a punch in the arm. "How about you, tough guy? What kind of stuff have you tanked?"

"Oh. I, um... I haven't really been doing this very long..." Blank mutters. "...I'm not sure. I, uh, might be a bit of a bleeder."

"What a shame." Tahara flicks her greasy mop of hair back and chuckles. "Don't worry. I'm sure you've got plenty of meat shields up those sleeves of yours."

Blank shuffles nervously and glances over at Fall. "It's not... not like that. I-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, I'm not judging. You judging?" She directs that last part at both Fall and any other girl who wants to answer.

[Earl of Purple]

Jellymoon- Gathering

There's three more girls in the crowd. The first is a ten-year-old dwarf, wearing a frilled red-orange dress. She's got copper-coloured hair wrapped in a milkmaid's braid about her head like a coronet and black stockings with sturdy-looking hiking boots manifest on her feet. She's waving around a gun; an antique nine-chambered harmonica gun. She's standing mostly by herself; she's not been in Inside long, and hasn't been a Magical Girl for much longer, and doesn't really know what to expect.

The next is an unusual figure; she doesn't have a head, her face located between her shoulders. She's got quite dark skin, no hair, and she's wearing a dark red leotard with a short skirt integrated into it and a mask integrated into the torso, decorated with white stars. She's wearing bright pink boots with neon green laces, and is leaning back on a folding chair that she has apparently brought with her- nobody else seems to have one.

The third is a slender mermaid, wearing a bell-shaped sleeveless gown. She's got dark purple skin and large black eyes, a mouth filled with sharp teeth and a fleshy protuberance over her forehead tipped with a glowing orb. She's carrying a barbed harpoon in one hand and trying to mingle with the other girls.

[Chaotic Bob]

[The Jellymoon - Gathering]

The crowd is quite sizeable now.
In a happier time, it could probably be mistaken as a cosplay convention of some sort.

From on top of the fountain, the gnome makes a noise in the general direction of Khannie.
"Shouldn't take too long to address the troops, Punch. Don't want to run down our clock with the pep-talk, when it starts."
She tries to not sound too snide about it. She mostly succeeds.

Most of the other girls aren't paying attention, but a nearby Victoria offers Khannie a weak sort of smile and a thumbs up.
"Go team?"

Off in the distance, the sun is swiftly approaching dusk, the colors of the sky already beginning to take their nightly watercolor bath.
Soon, the trails of light from victimized citizens in the city will be visible, and then the timer starts.

[Rebonack]

[The Jellymoon - Gathering]

Fall responds to the objection by crossing her arms and giving her hand a dismissive flip, "Whatever you say, toots," she replies in a very gangster-y sounding voice. She seems a little shocked about the admission that the garbage girl fought Olympia. Girl on girl fights happen every now and again but thanks to how organized they are in the Nexus it doesn't happen often.

When 'Blank' pipes up she points at him and gives a thumbs up.

"You better not bleed on the carpet," she admonishes Blank. "This isn't a game, I'll be upset if you die."

She doesn't get to the talk of tanking hits just yet, though she's thinking about it. Sometimes there's a process of sorting through her list of speech clips looking for one that's fitting for what she wants to express.

Meanwhile!

Ocette, a cardassian girl in a fairly ninja-style outfit (assuming ninjas wear magenta, pink, and white) slides up along side Agate, fiddling with the great big spool of wire harnessed to the small of her back. She hasn't seen Agate since the orphanage and now she's curious what's transpired since they all split up.

"Hey, you're still alive," she observes, her voice scarcely above a whisper.

Also Meanwhile!

But on to some administration things, right?

Let's be real, here.

This probably could STILL be taken as a cosplay convention of some kind.

Right.

Pep talk.

Olympia takes a deep breath and then projects her voice.

"Okay everyone!" she calls out into the crowd. "It's just about go time. You've all been assigned groups of five you'll be going in with, stick with your group and watch each other's backs. To get into the outer-Labyrinth just find one of those green crab ribbons and grab it, it'll pull you inside."

Probably easier than jumping to the moon.

"Remember the rules. Go in, find a Witch, smash the Witch as fast as you can, and then bail. Jellymoon has a gaggle of mini-Witches or giant familiars or whatever they are. This is our first run and the goal here is to wreck her defenses. We don't know how many lines of defense she's got and we don't know exactly how long we have, so being careful is number one. If two or more girls in your group get incapacitated grab them and bail. If the fifteen minute timer starts beeping drop whatever you're fighting and bail. We don't want anyone else getting eaten by this thing. We're going to take this slow and smart, and we're going to win."

Olympia looks out across the crowd. Fear. Excitement. Anticipation. Fury. It's quite the mix of emotions.

She punches one fist into her palm, causing a flash of purple sparks.

"Let's go kick this bitch's butt."

[Ironsmith]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

"Yeah! Whoo-hoo!" Tahara cheers, hip-checking Blank and Fall in an effort to get them to join in. "That witch won't know what hit her!"

Blank stumbles away from the wastrel and sighs, not quite managing to hit the same level of enthusiasm. But, not wanting to show any less than total support for Khannie, he curls his hand into a fist and raises it into the air, giving her a stoic stare.

...Okay, it's stoic from the outside. Internally, "entranced" or "infatuated" might be a better word.

"Whoo! Yeah! Oookay and we're done." Tahara comes down and throws an arm around Fall. "Come on, let's go see where we're assigned. I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to working directly with Olympia... be nice to watch something else get pulped for once." She gestures for Blank to follow them up. "You too, Romeo. Come on, let's go!"

Blank starts out of his reverie and quickly follows, grateful neither of them can see much blushing under his mask.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

There is a lot of cheering that happens here, though it's not necessarily the happy sort of cheering.
It's the pumped up, prepared for battle sort of cheering.

Someone sets off some some fireworks, but that may have just been their power going off from a little excitement.

For the most part, the various girls have already arranged themselves in their groups, but with Olympia's proclamation they all separate from each other a little more visibly.
Soon, the square is populated by a multitude of 5-girl arrangements.

The question remains here, how are our various named heroes arranged?

The gnome atop the fountain hasn't made any particular moves towards anyone.
The two girls over there, the lightning archer Fulmis and the light-shielder Lumia, look vaguely nervous to be in a serious group like this.
And then there's Victoria, wringing her hands and scooting closer to Olympia every few seconds.

What of the others?

[Earl of Purple]

The Jellymoon- Gathering

"Yeah, and you made it too. I've... not actually done that much. I'm here, and grateful I'm not still in Skyside- and my dads are great people, too, if a bit short. They're halflings, y'know? But... I've not got friends yet. So... Figured this'd be a good way to get them. How're the other two, do you know?" Agate looks around, but can't see them around as they aren't in the crowd. Of course, with Ystovelle's magic, that's not a guarantee she's not here. Agate's not sure what's going on, she literally only got the app earlier today and hasn't had time to read all the planning yet or do much more than a really simple introduction. So she's going to stick with Ocette.

The mermaid seems to glide as she moves, her gown making it hard to see what exactly is underneath, if it's a tail or legs. She'll head to join the fire-fighter, trying to smile around all her large and vicious-looking teeth. Her name is Moryana, although she tends to go by the Gulping Princess. Her magic is mostly focussed around currents, especially air and water ones.

The akephaloi heads over towards Fall, the folding chair folding itself up behind her and waddling along somewhat awkwardly behind. She goes by The Amazon, mostly because her parents named her Elissavet and she hates it. Her magic is mostly quite electrical, which pairs surprisingly well with a metal chair.

[Rebonack]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

The fire-fighter girl, Gala aka Torrent, has joined up with Lumia and Fulmis mostly because that's the group that had been worked out ahead of time. They had run into each other out in the field once before and Torrent dousing a monster before Fulmis blasts it had turned out to work pretty well. And as soon as she approaches them she glances around and frowns. "Where's Ticktock I thought she was going to be in our group, too?"

Leave it to the girl with time-powers to arrive at the last possible second.

When the mermaid smiles Gala smiles right back, showing teeth that are significantly less horrifying. "Hey Mory you hyped for this? Never seen so many girls in one place before."

Of course the mermaid and the girl with water-powers have already bumped into each other before. Why not?

Meanwhile!

As The Amazon approaches Fall offers a little wave from atop her flying weapon. "But wait, who's this climbing into the ring?! It's The Amazon with a flying chair slam from the corner-post!" she calls out in a clearly lifted from a professional wrestling broadcast voice, though she had to sub in Amazon's own voice for her name.

Then Fall gives a little squawk as she's pulled off toward Olympia along with Blank.

Olympia appears to have spontaneously gained a 5-Girl (well, four girls and a guy) Band. Tahara is given a look that is clearly approaching hostile. "You had better not be here to cause trouble," she warns the garbage witch. Blank gets a slightly less hostile look. Way more worried than anything else. "Are you sure you want to do this, Blank? You're gunna be jumping in with both feet here since we don't know what we'll be up against."

Assuming some insistence on his part Olympia sighs before turning to Victoria. "Well, you're going to be getting some practice with those swapping tricks. Blank here can bring drawings to life. His minions are real bruisers but he's a softy. Try to keep an eye on him, okay?"

Also Meanwhile!

Ocette nods back. "Getting out of Skyside was ideal. I hope I never see that orphanage again. The other two and me split up after we beat the Witch. It was a really strange fight but I think that black spider thing was stronger."

"Heeeeeey you two ready to rumble?" Nekohammer asks as she trots over to the pair astride her giant white ghostly cat, her mallet hefted over her shoulder.
"Mrow."
"You said it, Mittens! I can just FEEL all the magic buzzing in the air! We're going to take this Witch down HARD!"

[Ironsmith]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

"Make trouble? Me?" Tahara bats her gunk-encrusted eyes at Olympia innocently. "Why, Olympia... you make it sound like you don't even know me. I'm offended, honestly." The garbage witch shrugs her shoulders. "Of course I'm here to make trouble. Just not for you." The garbage witch giggles and makes a dismissive gesture in Olympia's direction. "Tonight's all about dealing with Jellymoon. We've got a common interest there and I'd hate to waste this sort of opportunity. Besides, the way I see it, you blew up my lair last time we met, so you kinda owe me the chance to restock."

"...I don't really think that's how it works." Blank mutters to himself.

At the question of Blank's readiness for this job, he takes in a breath to begin a reply, but Tahara beats him to it. "How about it, Romeo?" She teases. "You going to chicken out on your girlfriend on the night of the big dance?"

"She's not my-"

Tahara puts a hand over where his mouth would be under the cloth. "Whoops! Sorry, spoilers." She smirks and steps away, removing her hand by giving him a little flick under the nose. "I don't want to give away how this story ends." Tahara shrugs him off and steps over toward Victoria. "Swap trick, huh? And crow girl here does mimicry? We've got a lot of copycats here, don't we?"

Blank shuffles nervously, getting slightly more restless when Olympia refers to him as "soft". That might be true, but it seemed to sting a little bit more coming from her. He'd have to prove her wrong on that front.

...Provided it didn't hurt too much.

[Earl of Purple]

Jellymoon- Gathering

"Yess, I'm hyped. Hyped and hop and happening. I can do that now." The mermaid's mouth is really wide, and hard to say if she's smiling or if she just can't close it properly with all those teeth. "I'm glad the Amazzon told me of thiss, I don't have a phone." There's no telephone signal in the bay, and also lots and lots of water. Granted, Mory spends a lot of time on land, but she lives underwater and if she's charging her phone on shore she's not carrying it around with her, which rather defeats the point of having one.

The Amazon grins and gives Fall a big thumbs up at the introduction, and the chair unfolds itself as she sits down again. She doesn't even look as the chair slides underneath her descending rear and she leans back on it. "Hey girls. And, uh, miscellaneous others." She looks at Blank as she says that; he doesn't look like a girl, but there's a lot of weird girls around and honestly she has trouble telling them all apart, with all their faces up on those misshapen flesh blobs they've got.

"Yeah, me too. I've... not done one of these before, so I hope I don't slow you girls down. I've done a bit of practicing, though, with my magic and my gun." She might not pair well with Ocette, given her own musical focus and Ocette's silent one. She smiles at Nekohammer, though. "I'm Agate, this is Ocette. We're not from here, so I don't know... basically everyone." Agate won't immediately volunteer the Skyside connection, however. She's already encountered some hostility from people who thought she was there by choice.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

"Heya, ladies."
Fulmis gives the other girls gathering around her and Lumia a little salute, while the latter gives them a quiet wave.
"You are all the lucky members of a group of veterans."
There's a cocky look that starts to go over her expression, but a little buckler is shoved into her side by her companion.
"...it's not really great in there. Make sure to take Olympia's warning seriously. She already saved our butts the first time around."

****

Over by Victoria, everyone crowding around Olympia is given a hesitant smile.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Victoria..."

She seems particularly unsure of how to deal with Tahara, given the hostility already being shown her by Olympia, and Blank is...unusual for a variety of reasons in this scenario.
"I'll do my best. As long as they're, um...cooperative, I should be able to help summons wherever they need to go."
Are Blank's drawings just wild animals? That might make things a tad trickier, without expediting some of her tricks, which is always more intensive. But if they're more directly controlled, it should be fine...
Oh, right, might as well explain a bit for them.
"I can do real versions of a lot of 'stage magic', so I can help redirect or misdirect a lot of our stuff and theirs. I only have some actual attacks, I'm better at support."

****

The gnome atop the fountain looks down at an oversized pocket watch in her hand, that appears to be dripping gold-colored paint from its sides.
"About that time. Hope everyone is ready for their scraps."

As she speaks, the sun slides the rest of the way down the horizon and green wisps of smoke begin rising up towards a bright full moon (which wasn't there before, and this part of the cycle still shouldn't be full), from all over the city.

The clock is now ticking.

[Rebonack]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

"The Witches in there aren't any stronger than the regular ones, right? We've got that time limit," Torrent asks, more a statement than a question. She wants to make sure she's up to speed here. She quickly squares her shoulders afterward, though. "Not that I'm worried, or anything. I've taken down plenty of Witches."

Three, thus far.

But hey, who's counting?

This will, of course, get attention pulled to fire-fighter girl which makes her immediately uncomfortable. "Where's Ticktock? It's already starting. How is a girl with time-magic always late?"

As if on cue one last girl comes loping toward them on all-fours. "I'm here! I'm here don't leave without me!"

She's an odd one. But then again, this IS the Nexus. Ticktock is a gnoll. And judging from her hunched posture and digigrade feet and wicked claws and prominent jaws, she's one of those 'demonic plague' type gnolls rather than the 'beast-folk' type gnolls. Her features are all softened, though. Not nearly as ferocious as they could be. The crest of fur on her head and neck has been grown out into proper hair, a deep polished wood brown that matches the browns and wood-grain armor of her plates. The half-plate armor has the elegant swooping lines of a grandfather clock bound to her with delicately braided brass chains with a white (frilly!) gambleson and leggings under it. Her teeth have an odd brassy sheen to them when she smiles.

It looks terrifying.

Like Ticktock is trying to decide which throat to tear out first.

She seems to realize this after a few seconds and the expression fades, her expression conflicted between trying to be forceful to offset her embarrassment and apologizing.

"Okay tell me how we start," Ticktock demands, trying to sound sure and confident.
"Just grab a green streamer and ride it to the moon. Which you would have known if you were on time. You don't have to be so rude about it," Torrent replies as she heads for the nearest crab-victim to grab and take off.
"I'm not RUDE!" Ticktock snarls back, her hair standing up and her teeth-bared. "I-I'm not rude. I just... sorry," she mutters as she awkwardly plods along on her hind legs to grab a ride herself.

Meanwhile!

"Heeey don't worry about it! Me and Mittens have to TWICE the experience of a normal Magical Girl between the two of us so I think we're going to be fine! We just need... hmm... two more. Uuhh..." Nekohammer replies, glancing around quickly. Shoot everything is starting RIGHT NOW! They need to pull two more someones into their group in a hurry. She quickly spots the gnome girl with the brush and watch and- "HEY DALLI! C'mon we need another girl or two stop skulking around the sidelines!"

"You'll be fine," Ocette replies, smiling behind the ninja-mask covering her mouth and nose. "Just be careful and help out the others if they get in trouble."

And then? Since it looks like they're more or less ready to go Ocette is going to grab a line and ride it to the moooooon! Nekohammer is close behind.

Also Meanwhile!

"If I smell even a hint of betrayal you're gunna have a bad time," Olympia informs the trash-witch in no uncertain terms. Then she'll call a quick huddle with Fall and Victoria. "I'm not sure what her deal is, exactly. Mistook her minions for familiars. She's some kind of... garbage antlion cockroach monster thing? I dunno. First time I saw her she was causing trouble. Keep an eye on her. If it comes down to a choice between saving her and anyone else, go for anyone else. I'm pretty sure that isn't even her real body."

Honestly Olympia would prefer to just ditch Tahara but the clock is ticking and they don't have time for a fight about this right now.

Then the streamers appear.

"Alright everyone you know the drill. Grab a ribbon and take a ride. Keep your head on, take it careful before going all-in, and stay on your toes. Never forget that a surprised Magical Girl is a dead Magical Girl."

Fall gives a quick nod, hops off her hammer, and bounces over to the nearest ribbon. "Alright let's do this! LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY-"

And off she goes.

Olympia will wait for the rest of her group to grab a line before taking one herself to serve as the rear guard.

[Earl of Purple]

Jellymoon- Gathering

"I've done a witch, thiss won't be my firsst. That was in the bay, however. Thiss iss a new experience for me. Everything iss sso... I don't even know how to ssay it. It feelss different than I'm ussed to." It's drier. In the ocean, wet is so ubiquitous merpeople don't have a word for it, let alone a word for the opposite of it. She'll glide forward to grab a streamer, aiming to get there before the others. Her dress doesn't collapse as she flies upward; and all that's visible underneath is absolutely nothing. A darkness so complete even standard darkvision can't penetrate it.

Without waiting for much of a reply, The Amazon stands and reaches behind her, the folding chair folding up and lurching into her hand. "Wheeeeeee!"

"Right, got it. Um. Not done this before, any of it. I'm Agate, by the way." She smiles a bit nervously at the newcomer girls, before glancing at Ocette a bit more confidently and striding forward to grab a streamer.

[Ironsmith]

[Jellymoon - Gathering]
Over by Victoria, everyone crowding around Olympia is given a hesitant smile.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Victoria..."

She seems particularly unsure of how to deal with Tahara, given the hostility already being shown her by Olympia, and Blank is...unusual for a variety of reasons in this scenario.
"I'll do my best. As long as they're, um...cooperative, I should be able to help summons wherever they need to go."
Are Blank's drawings just wild animals? That might make things a tad trickier, without expediting some of her tricks, which is always more intensive. But if they're more directly controlled, it should be fine...
Oh, right, might as well explain a bit for them.
"I can do real versions of a lot of 'stage magic', so I can help redirect or misdirect a lot of our stuff and theirs. I only have some actual attacks, I'm better at support."

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

"If I smell even a hint of betrayal you're gunna have a bad time," Olympia informs the trash-witch in no uncertain terms. Then she'll call a quick huddle with Fall and Victoria. "I'm not sure what her deal is, exactly. Mistook her minions for familiars. She's some kind of... garbage antlion cockroach monster thing? I dunno. First time I saw her she was causing trouble. Keep an eye on her. If it comes down to a choice between saving her and anyone else, go for anyone else. I'm pretty sure that isn't even her real body."

Honestly Olympia would prefer to just ditch Tahara but the clock is ticking and they don't have time for a fight about this right now.

Then the streamers appear.

"Alright everyone you know the drill. Grab a ribbon and take a ride. Keep your head on, take it careful before going all-in, and stay on your toes. Never forget that a surprised Magical Girl is a dead Magical Girl."

Fall gives a quick nod, hops off her hammer, and bounces over to the nearest ribbon. "Alright let's do this! LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY-"

And off she goes.

Olympia will wait for the rest of her group to grab a line before taking one herself to serve as the rear guard.

[Jellymoon - Gathering]

"Girl, if you smell anything off me, I feel bad for you." The trash witch cracks a smile and heads for her own streamer. "Now, if you don't mind, the fun girls have already left the building." Tahara clears her throat and grabs ahold of the ribbon. "Let's goooooooooo!"

Blank climbs back up onto his wolf and trots the beast toward the ribbon. "Okay, um..." He pauses, trying to think of something cool to say on the way up to Jellymoon. Something that says "I'm here to kick butt" without actually saying "I'm here to kick butt" because that line is sort of lame. Maybe something like-

The wolf snarls and bites down on the ribbon, unwilling to indulge his creator's attempt at drama.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" Screams Blank as the two of them vanish into the night sky.

[5a Violista]

[Jellymoon – Gathering]

A girl, called Wyldfire, has been hanging back, away, listening to the planning and cheering and everything.

Said girl is a wood elf, but her skin looks a little cracker and her eyes have a dim glow of embers behind them. She's wearing a hoodie instead of the frilly garb like most of the people here. If she were in the group with all of them, she would stand out by virtue of looking plain and normal.

Plus, y'know, she stinks of witch.
Which is something most everyone here would immediately notice if she got too close.

Also also, she's kinda been having some sort of existential crisis, too, which has led her to wonder if she even has the right to be here in the first place. Honestly? Probably not. But even so, she's still here.

Watching the groups of girls grab onto the ribbons and get taken away...
After seeing that happen, she wonders which of those, that moment would be the last time anybody sees them.

Wyldfire laughs mirthlessly, and then wipes away her dry cheek.
Yeah...that thought sucks.

As a random group is preparing to grab onto one of the green moon ribbons, Wyldfire runs up.
She grabs onto the back of it, to join them.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Jellymoon - All]

As the various streams of energy are grabbed, the girls are hauled upwards and the world around them shifts. The colors of everything invert themselves and the sky becomes dominated by an abnormally bright, astronomically-concerning-in-size moon directly above the city.
Looking at it seems to result in perspective fundamentally opposed to how reality is supposed to work, as one half of it seems to be curving towards the city while the rest of it is curved away from it.

It hurts the eyes to think about too much, like one of those horrible little "impossible geometry" pictures.

It is also where all of these energy streams lead, dozens and dozens of them, from all over the city, leading up towards it and lending it the appearance of its moniker: an enormous, celestial jellyfish.

Anyone who lets go of their streamers will pretty promptly fall back to the street, but remain in this altered reality. It's most definitely the moon's labyrinth.
The streamers don't disappear when released, but the poor citizens they are coming from do.

For those who keep a hold, they continue to ascend towards the moon, before reality shifts once more, into the impossibility of a secondary labyrinth, with the city now gone but over which the moon still looms...

[Jellymoon - Group A (Olympia, Fall, Amazon, Tahara, Blank, Victoria)]

Olympia has already experienced this once before, she more or less knows what to expect.
The energy stream streaks them up into the air, straight into another unseen labyrinth, and then promptly disappears, leaving everyone to whatever aerial momentum they currently had.

Unlike her previous experience, the group is not pitched into the sky above some infinite skyscraper, however.
Instead, they are tossed straight into the side of an enormous sand dune. It doesn't stretch far enough to reach the Jellymoon above, but it does go pretty far up.

It's pretty fine-grain sand, and would be pleasing to the touch if it didn't feel like it had been baking under a particularly brutal level of sunlight all day.
Every color of the rainbow can be found within it, lending it an almost watercolor appearance when viewed from afar, but a chaotic appearance up close.

Below the sand-mountain, a vast sea of blue sludge burbles and slaps against its base, somehow not eroding the soft structure.

There is the loud sound of a boat's horn, with a warbling inside it reminiscent of an aggressively loud stringed instrument.
Before long, a small little tugboat can be seen rounding around from one side of the sand mountain, in the sludge-sea, itself completely devoid of all color and seeming...very subtly wrong in its proportions. It is hard to determine any specific detail about it that is wrong, just that whole does not have the correct something.

Victoria yelps a bit as she flies into the hot sand, but her outfit covers most of her skin, so its simple enough for her to shake it out of her sleeves and wipe it from her face and be okay.
It's a little harder to get a firm position in the sand, given the rather sharp slope of it and the looseness of the material constantly leading it to try sliding out from under her feet.
"This is really different from last time..."

[Jellymoon - Group B (Nekohammer, Ocette, Agate, Gnome, Wyldfire)]

The energy streams carry this group out of the inverted city and directly into the ground again.
Or, it looks that way.

The sky seems to have been replaced with an enormous mirror, which they've all been catapulted straight towards.

Looking down reveals a more confusing scene though, as while there does appear to be dirt ground directly below them, and in certain other areas, most of the space they found themselves is completely filled with mirrors.
A truly enormous mirror maze, but with the twisting corridors replaced with the shapes of buildings and walls.

Reflections run rampant, in all their disorienting potential, and truly determining what is where with just the eyes is probably an impossibility.
Everywhere, at some point in the periphery, the Jellymoon can be seen in the sky.

"Ah crap, this thing again."
The paintbrush wielding gnome seems to recognize the situation, and (after neatly being run face-first into the ceiling) swiftly paints into the air something like an enormous flying carpet for all the girls to land on instead of falling to the ground below. It's not a very accurate rendition of a persian rug, but it does seem to fit the "flying" part of things pretty well.
"Watch your reflections, this one lives in the mirrors."

And indeed, reflected above and in several places below, a dark shadow of vaguely human shape can be seen moving around in haphazard directions that seem to be getting closer and closer to them.

[Jellymoon - Group C (Torrent, Ticktock, Mory, Fulmis, Lumia)]

This group is pitched into the airspace directly above a crudely-made football field, surrounded by ragged, rust-covered bleachers, with walls stretching up and out to some unspecified point in the distance.
The Jellymoon sits directly above the field, its glow rather easily illuminating the turf beneath and every corroded crack and blemish on the seats.

All around the edges of the field, dozens of monochrome football mannequins can be seen running laps in a wobbling fashion.

Lumia, the quiet girl armed with a buckler on one arm, hurriedly tosses some light barriers in front of whoever isn't able to catch themselves from plummeting straight to the ground, which includes her lightning archer friend Fulmis.
They both land somewhere near the lower levels of the bleachers, the latter quickly pulling out her bow and knocking a metal rod into it.
"Looks like we got some familiars to start with. Again."

[Rebonack]

[Olympia]

Up into the sky.

Face first into the dunes.

Fun.

Thankfully Olympia has the reaction time needed to make something of a big poofy fabric airbag to break her fall and prevent her from face-planting too hard. She's got enough presence of mind to toss one up for Blank, too.

They were moving pretty fast.

She's pretty sure it would help.

The magical girl is quick to begin scaling her way to the top of the dune, boots sinking in the sand, trying to get a good feel for the surroundings. Lots of glittery sand. Weird... goo lagoon? And a tugboat. She doesn't even think twice before launching a missile fist straight at the boat to see how the thing reacts to a high-explosive punch straight to the hull. She has no intention of wasting time here.

"If it isn't another girl it's probably an enemy. Watch each other's backs and give 'em heck," Olympia says.


[Fall]

In spite of her name Fall is pretty bad at this.

For a number of reasons, really. The first and most obvious is the fact that she wished she could fly. She has several means of doing so at her disposal but to start off her arms are going to sprout into a huge pair of raven wings as she grips her war-pick with her feet. With an expert maneuver she skims low over the glittering sand before catching the warm air rising from the dune to spiral higher for a better view of the surroundings. "Tell them to comb the desert, do you hear me? COMB THE DESERT!"

That was, in her opinion, a great movie.

And it supplied a bounty of fantastic quotes.

And speaking of fantastic quotes?

The merry little deformed tugboat of wrongness crosses into view.

Giving a little "CAW!" of delight, Fall hefts the war pick still held in her feet and hurls it toward the boat like a throwing axe. Faster and faster and faster it spins as wind rages around it until it has become a veritable buzz-saw of slicing force.

"You're gunna need a bigger boat..."


[Nekohammer]

Catherine made a pretty important wish, in her opinion.

She wished that her kitty Mittens would be brought back to life.

And like all wishes, that has a passive impact on her. In her case?

Nekohammer lands feet-first on the mirror, springing off before gracefully landing on the carpet. Mittens, now kitten-sized, remains perfectly perched on her shoulder.

"Oh it's a house of mirrors!" she says, her voice enthusiastic.

Then just as enthusiastically. "I hate houses of mirrors!"

"Mrow."

"You said it, Mittens. So how do we fight this thing? Just break all the mirrors?" Catherine asks, falling into a battle stance as she grabs Mittens by the tail, the kitty morphing into an absurdly over-sized mallet with a big cat-paw on each head. Then she finally seems to notice-! "Oh hey Wyldfire you made it!"


[Ocette]

Ocette smacks into the mirror which is... kind of embarrassing. She DOES manage to land mostly gracefully on the carpet, at least. She listens to the explanation on this enemy and makes some quick logical leaps. It lives in the mirrors. It fights in the mirrors. It attacks from the mirrors. With reflections abounding sight is going to be practically useless, here.

So she pulls up the hood of her outfit (which features a pair of cute pointy ears on it), closes her eyes, and unfurls dozens of strands of wire from the over-sized spool on the small of her back. The wires stretch out in all directions around the girls, waving like a tentacles of a sea anemone. If the Witch has to approach them through the mirrors then it'll be forced to navigate through the web of reflected wires as well. Normally Ocette can feel something touching one of the wires like a spider at the center of her web and she's hoping that she'll be able to feel this Witch touching the reflections of the wires, too. If she can...

...then she'll have a nasty surprise waiting for the Witch.


[Torrent]

Falling?

No big deal.

Gripping her axe with one hand Torrent grabs the pull-bar with the other and gives it a crank! An absolutely absurd volume of water explodes from the nozzle on the bottom with all the force of a rocket engine, doing a pretty amazing job of slowing her descent enough that she lands gently on her feet in the (now soggy) grass. She gives her axe a quick twirl before shouldering it, eyeing the familiars trundling around with disdain.

"Ugh. Familiars aren't even worth my effort. Why don't you take these ones Ticktock I should save my strength for the real enemies," Torrent says, her tone exasperated from just thinking about the effort it would take to fight minions. Thankfully Ticktock is well equipped to get rid of these scrubs, in Torrent's opinion.


[Ticktock]

Oh! Floors! Magic floors! Those are good, Ticktock is very happy for them. She's lucky to have many other girls who will help her. Tick digs her claws into one of them and slides on down to the ground, trailing showers of sparks. Very good! She should let the girl with the shield know that she appreciated what she did. Tick is trying to formulate some kind of nice-sounding thing to say in her mind, trying to focus on making her tone just right to sound friendly instead of angry, when Torrent yells something at her.

The enemies?

Oh, them. The shambling things. Tick bristles at being ordered around. She hates that and snarls a bit, but fights the mean thoughts down. Because she needs to think happy-nice for saying nice things to the shield girl. "Your help is good!" she growls, way more forcefully than she meant to. Tick winces at that and tries again, "I mean... thank you. For catching me."

Okay okay she's said the nice words. That will make her pack like her, right? Tick hopes so. But now she has to show how strong she is. Torrent has said she's strong so she needs to show her pack that she IS strong otherwise they'll think she's foolish and weak and Torrent will be angry with her. Thankfully Ticktock IS strong because her magic is the strongest, hungriest magic there is. She has the time magic. But not time like making things go slow or undoing regrets, the sort of time that has teeth. The sort of time that devours.

And time devours everything.

Just like gnolls.

Tick hops out of the bleachers into the grass, drops to all fours, opens her mouth impossibly wide, and bites the earth.

Bronze teeth like bear-traps spring out of the ground to snap shut on the familiars and bite them and chew them and grind them into nothing.

[Earl of Purple]

Jellymoon- Group A

The Amazon squeals as she feels the hot sand as she bounces and rolls, her metal chair folding shut behind her and sliding along the sand until the Amazon is standing once more and steps onto the metal. She adjusts her footing as it snaps back upright under her feet, and she grins as she spies Fall flying overhead. She lacks a neck, so looking around is trickier for her than anyone else, though fortunately that boat isn't too hard to spot. Her chair accelerates underneath her as she kicks forward, one foot on the back of the chair and the other on the seat, leaning it forward as it skates along. She's travelling slower than Fall, and lacks many ranged options with her wrestler theme, so the boat may very well be sunk before she gets there. "Power chair death slide!"

Group B

Agate does not manage to land on the carpet. At least, not first try. She screams as she misses it, then points her pistol straight down and fires, using the recoil- and mostly her magic- to throw herself back up so she lands on carpet. She'll catch her breath and reload the emptied chamber, pushing the slide back afterwards. "That was exhilarating." She'll stand up after and look around at the mostly-taller girls. "I've never been in a house of mirrors before. I... don't like this one."

Group C

Mory wished to travel the lands above the sea. Falling is a lot slower under water, and buoyancy and water resistance play a far larger part than in air, differences Mory doesn't really understand. So whilst she doesn't catch herself, she does drift down without accelerating as much, drifting to the ground like a leaf. She lands quite gently, and grins her own impressive smile. If Ticktock has dealt with the familiars before she lands, she'll give the gnoll a thumbs-up, and if not she'll throw her harpoon at one of the dummies, currents in the air propelling it further and faster, and then drag anything it hits back towards Mory and her incredibly wide mouth and needle-sharp teeth.

[Ironsmith]

[Jellymoon - All]

As the various streams of energy are grabbed, the girls are hauled upwards and the world around them shifts. The colors of everything invert themselves and the sky becomes dominated by an abnormally bright, astronomically-concerning-in-size moon directly above the city.
Looking at it seems to result in perspective fundamentally opposed to how reality is supposed to work, as one half of it seems to be curving towards the city while the rest of it is curved away from it.

It hurts the eyes to think about too much, like one of those horrible little "impossible geometry" pictures.

It is also where all of these energy streams lead, dozens and dozens of them, from all over the city, leading up towards it and lending it the appearance of its moniker: an enormous, celestial jellyfish.

Anyone who lets go of their streamers will pretty promptly fall back to the street, but remain in this altered reality. It's most definitely the moon's labyrinth.
The streamers don't disappear when released, but the poor citizens they are coming from do.

For those who keep a hold, they continue to ascend towards the moon, before reality shifts once more, into the impossibility of a secondary labyrinth, with the city now gone but over which the moon still looms...

[Jellymoon - Group A (Olympia, Fall, Amazon, Tahara, Blank, Victoria)]

Olympia has already experienced this once before, she more or less knows what to expect.
The energy stream streaks them up into the air, straight into another unseen labyrinth, and then promptly disappears, leaving everyone to whatever aerial momentum they currently had.

Unlike her previous experience, the group is not pitched into the sky above some infinite skyscraper, however.
Instead, they are tossed straight into the side of an enormous sand dune. It doesn't stretch far enough to reach the Jellymoon above, but it does go pretty far up.

It's pretty fine-grain sand, and would be pleasing to the touch if it didn't feel like it had been baking under a particularly brutal level of sunlight all day.
Every color of the rainbow can be found within it, lending it an almost watercolor appearance when viewed from afar, but a chaotic appearance up close.

Below the sand-mountain, a vast sea of blue sludge burbles and slaps against its base, somehow not eroding the soft structure.

There is the loud sound of a boat's horn, with a warbling inside it reminiscent of an aggressively loud stringed instrument.
Before long, a small little tugboat can be seen rounding around from one side of the sand mountain, in the sludge-sea, itself completely devoid of all color and seeming...very subtly wrong in its proportions. It is hard to determine any specific detail about it that is wrong, just that whole does not have the correct something.

Victoria yelps a bit as she flies into the hot sand, but her outfit covers most of her skin, so its simple enough for her to shake it out of her sleeves and wipe it from her face and be okay.
It's a little harder to get a firm position in the sand, given the rather sharp slope of it and the looseness of the material constantly leading it to try sliding out from under her feet.
"This is really different from last time..."

[Olympia]

Up into the sky.

Face first into the dunes.

Fun.

Thankfully Olympia has the reaction time needed to make something of a big poofy fabric airbag to break her fall and prevent her from face-planting too hard. She's got enough presence of mind to toss one up for Blank, too.

They were moving pretty fast.

She's pretty sure it would help.

The magical girl is quick to begin scaling her way to the top of the dune, boots sinking in the sand, trying to get a good feel for the surroundings. Lots of glittery sand. Weird... goo lagoon? And a tugboat. She doesn't even think twice before launching a missile fist straight at the boat to see how the thing reacts to a high-explosive punch straight to the hull. She has no intention of wasting time here.

"If it isn't another girl it's probably an enemy. Watch each other's backs and give 'em heck," Olympia says.


[Fall]

In spite of her name Fall is pretty bad at this.

For a number of reasons, really. The first and most obvious is the fact that she wished she could fly. She has several means of doing so at her disposal but to start off her arms are going to sprout into a huge pair of raven wings as she grips her war-pick with her feet. With an expert maneuver she skims low over the glittering sand before catching the warm air rising from the dune to spiral higher for a better view of the surroundings. "Tell them to comb the desert, do you hear me? COMB THE DESERT!"

That was, in her opinion, a great movie.

And it supplied a bounty of fantastic quotes.

And speaking of fantastic quotes?

The merry little deformed tugboat of wrongness crosses into view.

Giving a little "CAW!" of delight, Fall hefts the war pick still held in her feet and hurls it toward the boat like a throwing axe. Faster and faster and faster it spins as wind rages around it until it has become a veritable buzz-saw of slicing force.

"You're gunna need a bigger boat..."

Jellymoon- Group A

The Amazon squeals as she feels the hot sand as she bounces and rolls, her metal chair folding shut behind her and sliding along the sand until the Amazon is standing once more and steps onto the metal. She adjusts her footing as it snaps back upright under her feet, and she grins as she spies Fall flying overhead. She lacks a neck, so looking around is trickier for her than anyone else, though fortunately that boat isn't too hard to spot. Her chair accelerates underneath her as she kicks forward, one foot on the back of the chair and the other on the seat, leaning it forward as it skates along. She's travelling slower than Fall, and lacks many ranged options with her wrestler theme, so the boat may very well be sunk before she gets there. "Power chair death slide!"

[Jellymoon]

[Blank]

"....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

bampf

Oh, good. Olympia saved him from the mortifying experience of planting face-first into the sand.

He just has to untangle himself from a mess of pink fabric instead.

Please let something just kill him now.

After an embarrassingly long time wrestling with the airbag, his wolf finally takes pity on him and drags him out by his ankle, much to the boy's combined relief and embarrassment.

As he stands uo and dusts himself off, he looks ahead at the tugboat and frowns as Olympia punches it. Why is she attacking the only form of transportation visible for... basically ever? Did she know something he didn't?

She probably did. She's been fighting Witches all this time and he's just starting. He should see what he can do to help.

Blank taps his finger to his palm and draws a card, glancing down at it to see if it'll be much good in this situation.

And nearly drops it in the process.

The card has a withered, malevolent face leering back at him, surrounded by blade-like appendages and a pervasive aura of sheer wrongness. He's holding a monster that preys on the mind as much as the body; the Nightmare Centiped.

Which... won't be much good here. He doubts it'll be able to swim across the sludge to the boat.

For now, he just keeps the card in hand and waits for an opportunity to jump in.

[Tahara]

"Hey, girls!" The garbage witch calls up as they land, from her position buried up to her neck like it's a day at the beach. "What a ride, huh? And all it cost was an arm and a leg! Ha-ha!"

Her grin fades as she paws at the sand in front of her. "No seriously, that was rough and I'm down a couple of limbs and also a torso. Could one of you... actually, you know what, I'm gonna do it myself."

Under the sand, there'll be a wave of motions as her roaches get to digging, scrounging around for the bits of her that came off on impact or anything else buried that she could use, before it quickly comes to mind that the sand itself might be a material of sorts... but probably too granular to make a body from. Maybe she could infest it for a big attack or something if a monster came out of the sludge.

As soon as she's out of the sand, Tahara dusts herself off and looks out at the tugboat, frowning as the other girls assault it. "...Olympia. Please, in the name of all that is holy, tell me you aren't hellbent on sinking the only way we have off of this stupid sandbox." She snarks, crossing her arms and lifting precisely zero fingers to help.

[5a Violista]

[Jellymoon: Group B]
Mirrors. Wyldfire.

Wyldfire doesn't let go of the streamer. Maybe if she had grabbed hold before she had decided, she would have let go and vanished, like she can see happened to some other girls in the distance. But, she holds on and is taken upwards.

...
She's pretty lucky, though. Being in the back of this group means she has plenty of time to react when Ocette smacks into the mirror and Agate initially fails to land on the carpet. As a result, she doesn't fall to the same mistakes.
Sometimes letting someone else go first has its benefits, Wyldfire supposes.

She sits herself on the edge of the carpet, looking down and trying to figure out this labyrinth.
"To keep on schedule...we need to find the witch within ten minutes, or we retreat, right?" she says. Ten to find the witch, five to beat the witch.

She looks at the girl's wires unfurling and going all over, thinking that's a really impressive and useful ability in this situation. Might even be useful if they all manage to get separated, it could be used to bring them all back together, she thinks. Oh, but they probably won't want to get separated.

Since the gnome seems to have experience with this mirror stuff, Wyldfire turns away from looking at the dark reflection figures and asks her, "So, you know if we should destroy the mirrors? Or do we need to wait for it to come out at us?"

[Recaiden]

[Sekhmet's Cabin]

Sekhmet will probably notice the approach of several hive creatures first of all.
Three mantises and a marquess.
Sekhmet, will you speak with me in person? Inquires Lokvah. She crossed paths with the other marquess from Ell only briefly before, when Sekhmet was planning to trap Sapphira in that magic circle. Her mental voice sounds a little different from then, if she's paying attention to such things.