2016-05-08 - Locks and Keys 4

Title: Locks and Keys 4
Summary: A Key to the City emerges in a victim driving across the Rainbow Bridge, who is immediately dragged into the deeps by a kraken-like protodaimon possessing a squid! A huge underwater battle ensues, in which the victim is saved and the protodaimon defeated, but the Key disappears in the chaos...
Who: Hikaru Shidou, Endo Naoki, Garnet, Ren Aizawa, Takeo Akamizu, Lera Camry, Fuu Hououji, Iona Hikawa, Setsuna Higashi GM: Hotaru Tomoe
Where: Tokyo Bay
OOC - IC Date: 05-08-2016 - 10-20-2014

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoDDHZ_JZBc

There are a number of ways to find out that something is going down near the Rainbow Bridge. All the news stations are carrying it, several of which routinely broadcast on giant flatscreens against skyscrapers -- TokyoTV was the fastest off the starting block. But it can also be seen by the naked eye: there is a weird light emerging from beneath the waters of Tokyo Bay, in a diffuse but gorgeous shimmer. And the screams of horror can be heard from several blocks inland.

Now and then, there is also a dark, fleshy mass, huge in the exact way that an octopus is not supposed to be. In the aquarium they might get up to the size of a human, and be the most impressive specimen in the world; yet here and now, the suckers that sometimes breach to the air are better than dinner tables in diameter.

Bystanders and reporters both scream with shrill intensity about how this all started when a tentacle hundreds of yards in length smacked up onto the Rainbow Bridge and dragged a car into the water below. There was someone in it, surely. The light started emenating from the Bay thereafter, and nobody is sure what it is. Or why, every so often, with a soft bloop of released air, there's the faint, faint refrain of the Japanese National Anthem, "Kimigayo."

The magical girls of Tokyo, though, might have some vague idea of what's going on.

In October the waters of the bay are hideously cold, a slap-in-the-face shock even through the mystical protection of supernatural toughness, but the light that currently permeates the churning waves makes them not-so-subtly different. It's more than just light, of course, it's magic... and while swimming will be necessary, it becomes quickly obvious that BREATHING will not be. One way or another, these waters harbor a force of life right now, one that sustains the lungs of those who take the icy plunge.

But it's up to them to make sure this doesn't become a watery grave.

OOC: Combat will commence next pose In The Deeps, so make sure you're down there by the end of your first round pose!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Lera Camry, as usual, comes in from the skies. The screams gave it away for her; she quickly transformed on the train station platform she had been on, then flew up. She rises over the bridge, as she sees one of the gigantic tentacles rise up. She makes a face, grimacing, and then she shakes her head quickly. "Sky, is that..."

"Yeah!" she says. "I don't think we have much choice. All right, here we go, uh--" She takes a deep breath, not quite making out Japan's national anthem from those few bars (and lack of years of familiarity). She dives into the ocean, shooting into it with a mighty splash. She feels the cold like a shock.

Her mouth opens -- and she realizes, for some reason, that she isn't drowning.

<That's fortunate...> Sky opines, <...but worrisome in its own way.>

COMBAT: Lera Camry transforms into Barrier Jacket Perihelion!
COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou transforms into Magic Knight of Fire!

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

It's the screaming that caught Setsuna Higashi's attention first, followed quickly by a look up to the flatscreen on the side of a skyscraper; even now, one of her first instincts looking for news is to look up at the buildings around her.

She stands just long enough to hear what happened, before rushing away from where she was, back into an alley out of the way, where she won't be interrupted or seen. She could call for help.

...But she has to show that she can do this. Setsuna, back against the bricks of an alley, takes a quick breath and lifts her Linkrun.

"Pretty Cure! Change! Beato... Up!"

So it is that a brilliant blur of crimson light lands on the dock from where she'd leapt, Cure Passion staring downward into the glowing light. It's pretty, in its own way. Beautiful, even. And to be sure, she always wanted to spend more time at the beach...

But the waters by /this/ bridge hold memories for her. Cure Passion shakes her head.

"...I'll save you," she murmurs, and takes a breath before leaping into the air--and diving gracefully straight down into the water, her voluminous pink hair trailing behind as she spins down hard into the freezing water.

COMBAT: Setsuna Higashi transforms into Cure Passion!

<Pose Tracker> Hikaru Shidou [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

There's something strange in the water, and it's definitely not something that you drink either! There's something that doesn't look friendly or pretty, and it's definitely not looking to make new friends! Naturally, the magical girls know what's going down, including Hikaru, who's taken it upon herself to change her form before arriving. "Belief becomes power..." Hikaru chants as she slips on her glove-jewel. "Flames guide me!" And with a fiery display, Hikaru turns into the Magic Knight of Fire!

After changing into her Magic Knight form, she heads for the area where things are going down, and upon arriving, she stares in disgust at the huge tentacles that are most notable. "Ewww... looks like we might be making fried calimari tonight!" The Fire Knight says to no one in particular while sneering. "With something THAT big, you could probably feed a whole army!"

<Pose Tracker> Takeo Akamizu [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Standing on a clifftop is a horse. The Horse looks defiant down on the city and the bay. Her City, her bay. Her eyes scan the surroundings and narrow at sight below her. A giant octopus and strange lights, this can only mean trouble.

Lancelot comes up beside Sparkles and looks at the horse with the serious look in her almond colored eyes. "Sparkles. You know I'm not the side kick right?" Silence greats him, before he says cautiously: "Right?"

The Horse nods once. Her. City.

Lancelot hops up the back of Sparkles and twirls Arondight once. "Let's go make some sushi plates." He says with a determined nod. The pair leap off the cliff and ride toward the water befor ethem. "Okay Sparkles, get ready to grab people if they need a way out, I'm going in the water!"

As horse and knight reach the water's edge, he leaps off Sparkles' back to land in the water and begin his trek toward whatever enemy lurks below.

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Endo is, as he hustles to his destination, thinking about how unpleasant his last few times out on the Rainbow Bridge were. Still, when he saw the images on the TV and heard all the shouting, he went as fast as he could. Now he's sprinting toward the edge of the water, prepared to face the giant enemy octopus. It's only when he has one foot off the edge of the bridge that he asks: "Stern, do you have a submarine mode?"

<NO.>

Endo's barrier jacket-when it forms in a flash of purple-black light-at least provides meager insulation from the cold water below. He sinks like a rock too, the large Device he carries acting like an anchor and dragging him swiftly downward. Stern also provides a dull violet illumination under the water, enough that anyone looking can see the knight's cheeks puffed out with the breath he's holding.

COMBAT: Takeo Akamizu transforms into Lancelot!

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

Just like everyone else Ren's attention is drawn to the unfolding situation by the screaming. "W-What?!" It doesn't take her long to notice a crowd of people near a wall of flatscreen TV displays, and after pushing her way to the front she's gobsmacked by the sight before her. "Is that...?" She doesn't finish the sentence before the familiar ping of Heraut reaches into her mind to address her directly.

<An aquarian menace! Our intervention is needed, your majesty!> He's raring to go, prompting Ren to nod firmly before turning around to run away in the direction of the Rainbow Bridge.

After transforming on the way in a flash of bronze and white Ren has taken to the skies, stopping directly above the weird glowing light in the water below. "I have a really bad feeling about this." And it's not just because of the obviously cold waters crashing below, beckoning her into the icy depths. <So do I... but we must make haste!> Heraut provides her with the prodding she needs to take a deep breath and dive into the blue. It only occurs to her once she's in the thick of it that she likely won't be able to hold her breath forever.

There's another ping from her helpful device: <I am detecting that this atmosphere is breathable.>

Oh. She releases the breath she's been holding, then tentatively takes another in, finding that what Heraut said is true. Phew!

COMBAT: Ren Aizawa transforms into Barrier Jacket!

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

Garnet is on the scene in shorter time than most, she had been Future Vision-scanning remote Gem ruins for Gem Monster activity, and had no sooner stepped on the teleport pad when she hears the commotion at the bridge in the distance. She dives off the platform, a mere second before the transport light does its work, and after checking to make sure she's all in one piece, begins to run out the door of the temple, through the beach house, and onto the beach!

Once she's made it outside she leaps high into the air, landing and leaping again, bounding her way to the bridge with a series of mighty jumps!

When she reaches the bridge, she uses the momentum of her last jump to dive into the glowing water, as she makes her descent, before she hits the water, she concentrates on the harmonious energy that permeates the cosmos, and a pair of armored gauntlets appear on her hands!

Upon hitting the water Garnet is shocked by the feeling of cold! "There is strange magic at work here." she says, though it just comes out as a series of bubbles. She is unaware of the ability to breathe, as she doesn't normally need it, but she can feel the strange forces at work.

She uses her temperature control to try to warm herself as best as she can, finding the experience of uncomfortable ambient temperature a new and unwelcome one that is drawing too much of her attention away from whatever dangers may lurk below.

COMBAT: Garnet transforms into Garnet's Got Gauntlets!

<Pose Tracker> Iona Hikawa [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Iona Hikawa loved jogging. It's nice, calming, and the fact that she's constantly on the move makes her somewhat unapproachable made it a perfect activity for some personal time. And so it was today that the purple haired girl (who is totally not Cure Fortune) was found doing just that, jogging. In her purple jersey, Iona is proceeding at a slow but steady pace, making routes up and down a portion of the city. On a bench where her jogging path starts lies her school bag and a plush doll (which looks like but totally isn't Cure Fortune's fairy partner, Glassan).

So far she's avoided hearing about the antics down near the Rainbow Bridge, but as she completes a circuit and returns to her bench, she hears the sounds of screaming, which brings her to look up at the... giant octopus?!

"Iona!" A voice says. She turns to regard the plushie, now floating and very, very animated. Turns out, it was Glassan all along! "That octopus looks like trouble! We should do something!"

Iona turns and looks at the Octopus again, before pulling out her PreChanMirror. "Right."

Purple light explodes, and when the light subsides, suddenly there's someone else different. Surprise! Iona was Cure Fortune all along! Her wings expand and the Pretty Cure takes flight. When she reaches the bridge, she immediately drops altitude and dives directly into the water, where Cure Fortune braces against the icy cold water, teeth grit both in determination and in tensing against the bay's waters as she dives deeper.

The sounds, though, confuse her. Why is the national anthem playing?

COMBAT: Iona Hikawa transforms into Cure Fortune!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.

Paradoxically, it gets lighter as you go deeper. While the evening lights of the Tokyo skyline fade away with depth, it's more than made up for by the Key, which is shining like a star you could fit in the palm of your hand. It seems that whatever magic is making it possible to survive in these waters also carries sound, at least a little bit; voices are muffled but far from inaudible, and the distortions are far less than they ought to be.

There is darkness, too, however. Where the light ends and the bay proper begins, there's no evil magic required for things to be cold and miserable and deeply, deeply creepy. There are plenty of pollutants in the bay -- chemicals, debris. It is not a safe place, and that's without whatever's lurking, deeper.

The car appears all at once, a sporty little Toyota all crumpled up like a misused child's toy, flung amid some sunken concrete blocks lost to the depths long ago from an ill-fated construction project. The vehicle's positively flowing with slime, presumably due to the one that brought it down here, and the woman inside looks like a ghost, her eyes closed, her hair floating up all around her. It is hard to tell if she is breathing. The cold definitely can't be good for her, regardless.

And the monster can't be seen, only felt, great masses of water pushed aside by its uncomfortably nearby passage, currents that threaten to sweep the unwary up and smash them into each other, into the car or the concrete or the muck at the bottom of Tokyo Bay. It circles at the edge of the light, somehow pressing in on the magical girls from all directions at once. How can something so gigantic be so hard to spot?

There's another way the monster can be felt, too -- in the heart. It's familiar to those who fought some kind of cross between cthonic horror and blood demon in the Museum of Western Art a few weeks ago, except that one burst out of the back of an Infinity Institute schoolgirl, and had more of a carapace thing going. Claws and fangs at the museum, instead of suckers and beaks, the size of a room instead of the size of a building, but... dangerously similar. Ominously similar.

The sense of wrongness that is both intensely evil and intensely alien, that just does not belong, permeates the Bay, and provides a sort of horrible triangulation as to the creature's proximity, its regions of greatest density (the most tentacles in one place, maybe...). Where does the mind flinch away from the most? That's probably where it is.

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe transforms into Proto-Daimon!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has fully healed herself. She is now ready to take on 8 opponents!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Cure Fortune.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Garnet.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Lancelot.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Hikaru Shidou.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Cure Fortune narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 11 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa fails to brace Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 28 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Ren Aizawa is Taunted!
COMBAT: Cure Passion narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 10 Fatigue damage! Cure Passion's Fade ability activates! Cure Passion is Taunted!
COMBAT: Garnet narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 17 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Garnet's Fade ability activates! Garnet's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Lancelot perfectly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Abyssal Currents on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 8 Fatigue damage! Endo Naoki's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 8 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 10 Fatigue damage! Hikaru Shidou's Block ability activates! Hikaru Shidou's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

The water is frigid, and that alone should be more than enough to make Cure Passion uncomfortable, to say the least. It's cold, and it's miserable, and it's creepy, a landscape alien to her entirely; her time has never taken her this deep for this long, and the fact that she can breathe down here doesn't make her feel much better. She swims quickly towards it, though, expert despite a lack of practice in this form. She dodges past a bit of drifting garbage, kicking her feet that much harder until she sees, suddenly, the ruined car the newscast mentioned.

Passion hasn't seen the others, yet; she just sees the woman there--and then /feels/ the presence that's been lurking at the edges of her heart, and its icy grip chills her more than the deep water ever could. A flash of memory fills her mind, of pain and remembered terror. Passion halts right where she is, lifting her hands to her ears as if that could block it out. She shakes her head, hard, her hair still floating behind her, kicking against where she feels the thing getting close.

...It's enough to spare her being dragged down physically, but emotionally is another story. Her eyes open again, and if she'd been holding her breath, she'd be unable, now.

Her jaw sets. Throwing her arms up, she casts herself for the bottom, kicking off of it to jet herself straight towards one of those masses. Cure Passion's rears her arm back, letting her momentum carry her through into a forceful punch.

COMBAT: Cure Passion has used Depth Charge on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Cure Passion's Depth Charge, taking 20 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The armor of the Magic Knights isn't really meant for swimming in, but Fuu isn't about to let that stop her. She was a bit further away than most of the magical girls responding to the monster's emergence, but that only slows her down - and when she realizes (after transforming and diving in) that the water itself is somehow enchanted, or something, and that she doesn't have to worry about maintaining an air bubble around herself - well, one less thing she needs to conserve her mana for.

It does occur to her as she's buffeted by the currents that maybe the giant octopus (kraken?) itself is the source of the life-sustaining magic .... but there's no time to worry about that now. Instead, she cuts through the water as deftly as she can, making sure her glasses aren't going to drift off of her face - and even as she wishes that the Magic Knight of Water were present, she's nocking an arrow and letting it fly, a wisp of her will guiding its path towards the monster to help keep the water from slowing it down.

She can only have faith that it'll be enough.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Basic Archery on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

She has to squint a bit, but slowly Ren begins to notice other familiar magical combatants who have come to possibly beat up a giant octopus with home field advantage. <<Lera-chan! Endo-kun!>> She calls out telepathically to her two closest allies, letting them know she's here to help. Guilt over not being around during earlier incidents possibly related to this one weighs heavly on her -- but she's going to make up for it today!

Eventually the sight of the car swiped off the bridge by the giant sea dwelling monster comes into view, and Ren fails to stifle a gasp when she sees the woman trapped inside. It's enough to make her rush forward on instinct...

<Careful!>

...Which proves to be a reckless action when the sudden disturbance of the surrounding waters by the octopus proves to be significant enough to toss her backwards before she can even think about shielding herself. Her arms and legs fan out around her as she lets out a sharp scream of shock, the overwhelming pressure combined with that horrible feeling of darkness chilling her to the bone. The end result of this, of course, is Ren being slammed into the sandy bay floor, kicking up dust that temporarily obscures her from view.

<Fighting here will be tricky, your majesty.> Heraut warns, though perhaps it's a bit late considering. Still, Ren considers this as she gets upright again, focusing her gaze on where she senses the darkness emanating from. "Alright, it's our turn now Heraut!"

A stream of sparkling gems sear the water around them as they materialize and then zip forward to pummel the sea dwelling menace!

COMBAT: Ren Aizawa has used Seeker Barrage on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Hikaru Shidou [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

It's a good thing the Fire Knight isn't truly made of fire, otherwise she'd really be all washed out in a situation like this! She struggles to stay afloat within the rushing currents of water, planting her feet firmly on the ground to avoid being washed away for real. At the same time, she's readying her favorite magic spell for a situation like this.

"Fire Arrow!" The Fire Knight calls out, shooting forth an arrow shaped flaming projectile at the sea monster. "I'll fry you alive and eat you for my dinner!"

COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou has used Fire Arrow on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

Garnet is struck by the strange alienness of the area beneath the bay, such a feeling is rare even in her experience of the magical.

Even when magic is evil, it is generally driven by a will, a will that has purpose, with goals and desires that are able to be comprehended. There is no such comfort here, though Garnet had never before considered such a purposeful malevolence comforting, the alien indifference she feels is almost more disconcerting.

She begins her descent to the floor, and sees a sudden motion out of the corner of her eyes, Cure Passion taking the direct route!

Garnet nods in approval, and follows her lead, directing a leaping punch against the same mass. It feels like it's everywhere, but maybe a sustained attack on a single part will draw it out to a more vulnerable position...

COMBAT: Garnet has used Leaping Smash! on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe perfectly dodges Fuu Hououji's Basic Archery, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!  Hotaru Tomoe's Fade ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Flash ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Fortune [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Cure Fortune continues to swim downwards towards what is probably the source of the light and octopus parts. Or, at least, what she hopes is the location of the light and octopus parts. Here in the icy deeps, Fortune can't really be sure.

She sweeps her head around as she continues to dive, which is only stalled by the sudden onrush of water, which not only threatens to wash her away, but also helps heap the cold through her body. That's not to mention the incredibly eerie feeling she's getting that's seems to put a damper on her spirit. But she still presses downward, even getting her hands into the action by trying to swim harder to protect against the current. She can feel its presence, which unnerves her, but thankfully she's not washed away from the current fight, or worse, washed into a solid object. That would probably hurt a lot more than she would like.

She takes another look around the battlefield, and rushes towards what she thinks is a dark mass, wings expanding to hopefully speed up her descent. When she gets close enough, she tries to punch. Not once, nor twice, for that is too few punches. Nor four or five, for that is still too few punches. No, Cure Fortune attacks the beast eight seperate times.

She doesn't intend, nor notice, the odd coincidence in hitting an octopus eight times.

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Ren Aizawa's Seeker Barrage, taking 11 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Hikaru Shidou's Fire Arrow, taking 24 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Cure Fortune has used Octo-punch on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Cure Fortune has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Garnet's Leaping Smash!, taking 9 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Cure Fortune's Octo-punch, taking 26 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Endo's face scrunches up as the water tightens around him, eyes darting back and forth, trying to see what the thing moving inside of it is. He can feel the familiar, cold grip around his heart that he felt at the museum and it clouds his thoughts. He remembers how tough the thing there was, and this one is probably even worse--

<BE NOT AFRAID.> Fallen Stern warbles.

Endo bobs his head, puffing out his cheeks even more. He can start to see outlines of other people, those he knows, and it helps to know he's not entirely alone. He turns, taking aim at where he hopes the thing might be coming from, and attacks.

Belkan symbols burn into the air around his Device, energy pulsing through it before the vents in the dark metal begin to spew dozens of small spheres of light, each one streaking through the water looking for their target.

<Ren-chan, Lera-san, be careful!> Is Endo's response to Ren's device.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Meteor Shower on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Lancelot [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

The water was cold, crushing, and hauntingly familiar. Lancelot sinks into the murky depts and holds his sword at the ready. When the wave of darkness begins to trickle down on him, he pushes himself to the side in the water, and steels his resolve. By the time he settles gently to the Bay's murky floor he's ready for this, and his gaze is set.

He wanted to land on the floor and look cool/ Stoic. In control. But instead finds himself with hsi arms pinwilling for balance, as he isn't used to water's environment or the currents that flow around him. Eventually he finds his balance and looks around. His eyes lock on to the woman and he frowns deeply. A woman and a key. This is just the museum but under tons and tons of water.

Lancelot winces slightly. So far all the times he's faced these guys he's lost. Big time.

He gulps once. What would happen if he lost down here? However he sets himself and mvoes forward. If he could breathe, than so cna the woman. Defeat the baddie, THEN get the woman to safety. He takes a step forward, then a second bounding leap in teh watery environment, before he takes one ginat leap and calls out in the muffled voice under the water: "LIGHTNING SLASH!" Sending a wave of lightning from Arondights glowing white blade in the depths.

COMBAT: Lancelot has used Lightning Slash on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Endo Naoki's Meteor Shower, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Lancelot's Lightning Slash, taking 11 Fatigue damage!  Lancelot is Psyched!  Stagger applied to Hotaru Tomoe!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUHqtNCK878

The force of Cure Passion's punch rolls satisfyingly down the tentacle she's found, like cracking a whip at one end and watching the energy flow to its tip -- and then Garnet's punch follows, increasing the wobble to uncomfortably many directions! Bubbles burst all around, from air that couldn't keep up with the water -- and then more, and more, and more! And the bubbles, though they're difficult to see, aren't white, but a familiar and awful blood red. They burn on contact and chase the girls like homing missiles or angry bees.

Lancelot and Cure Fortune wind up engaging with a second mass which turns out to include a bird-of-prey-esque beak about the size of a school bus, and they can hear the shriek that starts on the seventh or so punch and rises with the impact of the Knight's lightning, which scatters and sparks everywhere before extinguishing all at once.

And then, swirling the water in the vortex, that beak comes for the two of them, eager to grasp, to entrap, and to tear.

Those who try to engage at range have a tougher time seeing how effective they were, or weren't, but Hikaru's Fire Arrow -- which turns out to be more of a jet of superheated water, after a few feet -- provides some illumination, its reds and oranges reflecting off of abyssal flesh that is somewhere between 'so purple it's black' and 'so black it's purple.' It is thus possible to see a tentacle duck under Fuu's more typical arrow, and then curl up on itself so that Ren's gems and Endo's spheres are largely disbursed on some of those dinner table-sized suckers.

Which isn't to say that didn't hurt; now that sucker has lots of little sores on it, hot red welts.

It's really easy to see those tiny wounds as the sucker comes up close, the whole tentacle lashing out, trying to entangle as many of the Magic Knights and Device-wielding mages as it can -- once it catches someone, it sticks them with an awful squish to a sucker, and goes for the next victim!

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Body Horror on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Body Horror on Garnet.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Jaws That Bite on Lancelot.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Jaws That Bite on Cure Fortune.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Claws That Catch on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Claws That Catch on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Claws That Catch on Hikaru Shidou.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Claws That Catch on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Lancelot fails to counter Hotaru Tomoe's The Jaws That Bite, taking 50 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Hotaru Tomoe is Psyched!
COMBAT: Lancelot's counterattack, Veil of Steel, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Cure Fortune perfectly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's The Jaws That Bite, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Dodge! Cure Fortune's Fade ability activates! Cure Fortune's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa fails to dodge Hotaru Tomoe's The Claws That Catch, taking 27 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Stagger, Stun, and Tangle applied to Ren Aizawa!
COMBAT: Cure Passion narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Body Horror, taking 3 Fatigue damage! Cure Passion is Quipped! Cure Passion's Block ability activates! Cure Passion's Parry ability activates! Bind Break! All of Hotaru Tomoe's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Garnet fails to brace Hotaru Tomoe's Body Horror, taking 12 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Garnet is Quipped! Bind Break! All of Hotaru Tomoe's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji narrowly counters Hotaru Tomoe's The Claws That Catch, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Stagger, Stun, and Tangle applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji's counterattack, To the Point, partially gets through, doing 12 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Lera Camry narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Abyssal Currents, taking 20 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Lera Camry's Fade ability activates! Lera Camry's Flash ability activates! Lera Camry is Taunted!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki narrowly counters Hotaru Tomoe's The Claws That Catch, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Endo Naoki's Reverse ability activates! Stagger, Stun, and Trap applied to Endo Naoki!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki's counterattack, Asteroid Rush, partially gets through, doing 16 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Claws That Catch on Lera Camry.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Lera glances to each side -- she sees Ren descending on one, Endo not far away either, and then sees Setsuna on her other side. She sees the car and her eyes widen; she can't quite see the monster as more than those currents. She can't quite feel it as more than a pressure on her heart. She grits her teeth, as she ducks lower, but some of those currents catch her and drag her down.

<<I'm all right!>> Lera sends back to Ren, telepathically. <<I'm--aah!>>

One current throws her hard to the side, and she tries desperately to not get hurled away from the battle at all. Light flashes behind her -- a flight spell keeping her there. She closes her eyes, squeezing them shut, and then she looks down to see Setsuna punch at a tentacle, and hear Endo and Ren call out.

<<Setsuna!>> she thinks. <<Ren-chan! Endo-san! We can do this! We just need to focus, and not... not let us scare us too much, y'know? It'll be okay!>>

COMBAT: Lera Camry narrowly counters Hotaru Tomoe's The Claws That Catch, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Lera Camry's Reverse ability activates!  Lera Camry's Tactician ability activates!  Stun, Tangle, and Trap applied to Lera Camry!
COMBAT: Lera Camry's counterattack, Sentinel Flash, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou perfectly braces Hotaru Tomoe's The Claws That Catch, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Brace!  Hikaru Shidou's Block ability activates!  Hikaru Shidou's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Lancelot [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

The beak looms before him, and Lancelot holds Arondight at the ready. As the beak swarms in on him, he moves to counter and drive the beak back. However instead he finds himself overwhelmed quickly, unable to move as swiftly as he normally cna on the surface, and finds himself bit deep by the monstrous thing. He screams in pain as it rips armor and flesh and he nearly, nearly drops Arondight.

Instead, he manages to push away and manages to barely bite back another scream, giving off a muffled grunt instead as he begins the slow float back to the ocean floor. However his eyes narrow, and his jaw sets. "You wanna take a bite outta me?" He challenges the murky depths.

As he lands he pushes off, angling directly toward a Tentacle, "FINE! I'MMA TAKE A BITE OUTTA YOU!" He calls out in anger, rage and pain. He lands on the offending Tentacle and throws himself flat against it, it's not exactly Takoyaki but he rears his head back and dives his own teeth toward the beast. INtent on taking a bite out of the monster that lurks below.

COMBAT: Lancelot has used Bite on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Lancelot's Bite, taking 3 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Lera glances to each side -- she sees Ren descending on one, Endo not far away either, and then sees Setsuna on her other side. She sees the car and her eyes widen; she can't quite see the monster as more than those currents. She can't quite feel it as more than a pressure on her heart. She grits her teeth, as she ducks lower, but some of those currents catch her and drag her down.

<<I'm all right!>> Lera sends back to Ren, telepathically. <<I'm--aah!>>

One current throws her hard to the side, and she tries desperately to not get hurled away from the battle at all. Light flashes behind her -- a flight spell keeping her there. She closes her eyes, squeezing them shut, and then she looks down to see Setsuna punch at a tentacle, and hear Endo and Ren call out.

<<Setsuna!>> she thinks. <<Ren-chan! Endo-san! We can do this! We just need to focus, and not... not let us scare us too much, y'know? It'll be okay!>>

Then, the tentacle swings up -- and Lera spins, to throw her sword out. A flash of red-orange erupts; it blocks the tentacle, holding it just barely at bay. Lera's eyes widen, as she pulls her weapon backward -- and then chops out hard, trying to slash through the limb. Light ignites along the blade.

It explodes off it as a fiery explosion, slashing at the tentacle with her sword.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Soaring Heart on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Soaring Heart on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Soaring Heart on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Inferno Slasher on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Cure Passion accepts Lera Camry's Soaring Heart, taking 0 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

Though she was heartened to see her attack mesh so beautifully with Cure Passion's the oppressive emotional aura of the monster takes its toll.

She moves to brace the impact of the bloody homing bubbles, but though she feels she mitigated their physical harm, as they make contact, the feeling of hopelessness and dread builds within her, as if they were able to strike her heart directly.

She concentrates on her inner harmony, the love and bond that makes her who she is, and draws strength from it, weathering the storm of gloom for now.

She is not as heartened as she usually would be with the momentum of victory and thrill of decisive action, but the love that emanates from deep inside her is stronger than this... thing... and she takes the fight directly to it, with a courageous punch across its hideous beak!

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly counters Lera Camry's Inferno Slasher, taking 21 Fatigue damage!  Lera Camry is Psyched!  Hotaru Tomoe's Reverse ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe's counterattack, Space Invasion, partially gets through, doing 21 Fatigue damage to Lera Camry!  Critical Counterhit!
COMBAT: Garnet has used Jawbreaker! on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa accepts Lera Camry's Soaring Heart, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly dodges Garnet's Jawbreaker!, taking 19 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Garnet is Psyched!  Hotaru Tomoe's Fade ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Flash ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Admittedly, the Wind Knight had her doubts about how well her archery would serve her underwater; the relative ease with which the monster avoids getting punctured is enough for her to dismiss her bow and quiver again. Her sword seems likely to be more useful - and when that giant tentatcle lashes out at her, it proves to be quite useful indeed.

Not useful enough to save her from getting entangled in the tentacle's grasp, but she at least has the satisfaction of feeling her blade punch a hole through the appendage in the midst of the tendril's tangling attack. Now she just needs to break loose ... and she has a distinct suspicion of something that would help her do that. They may be fighting in the water instead of on dry land with normal air about them, but ...

Winds of Healing!!

Or Waterspout of Healing, as the case may be. As it is, the Wind Knight's will reaches out - starting with herself, causing bubbles to form in the water around her, and slowly forcing the tentacle's grasp to loosen; it hurts as the suckers are peeled away, but better that than staying entangled. Similar bubble-clouds foam up around Ren and Lera as well, the closest whom the Wind Knight can see and reach out to with her magic. It won't free them any more easily than the green-attired Magic Knight herself - but it'll give them the chance they need to get loose on their own ... hopefully.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Winds of Healing on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Winds of Healing on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Winds of Healing on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji accepts Fuu Hououji's Winds of Healing, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Cleanse! All of Fuu Hououji's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa accepts Fuu Hououji's Winds of Healing, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Cleanse! All of Ren Aizawa's debuffs are cleared!

<Pose Tracker> Hikaru Shidou [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Something is definitely up with the Fire Knight. She'd had a memory lapse and forgotten they were under water, which was why her Fire Arrow wasn't as useful as it should've been. But she did remember that water makes movement difficult, which was why she chose to bring up her defensive stance in hopes of avoiding being knocked away. This time, the claw that comes at her is deflected away, with no effort required on the Fire Knight's part. It's almost like she knew what was doing, and the water didn't slow her down one bit.

"OK, this is really starting to annoy me!" The Fire Knight says as she goes at one of the nearby tentacles and attempts to slice it off, not caring if they regenerate or not. She moves rather slowly and with some effort, as her momentum and speed are affected by the water. "Why couldn't Umi be here to help us?" She wonders as she swings her sword.

COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou has used Sword Slash on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Passion's fist impacting against the creature's tentacle doesn't do anything to get rid of the pounding foreboding in her ears and in her heart, but it's satisfying all the same; she feels the impact all through her arm, glaring hard at her opponent even as she feels motion from elsewhere, can tell there's an added impact thanks to Garnet behind her.

Silently, she rears back to start swinging again, but stops; she's fas, but not fast /enough/ from that burst of bubbles, crashing around her. She can't see the blood-red until it's too late, crossing her arms in front of herself to try to shield her face from the strike. "Aah--"

She clamps her mouth shut to avoid crying out any urther, shaking her head. She has to stay disciplined. ...She still thinks that, even as the presence of others finally registers for her, and she looks out, seeing Lera, Endo... "Everyone!" she calls in some surprise.

She shakes her head again, drifting back upward by the moment. "I'm not afraid!" Passion calls back. ...It's a lie, an obvious lie to Lera, probably. But she can't open herself to that kind of feeling if she wants to stay in the fight. "Haa--!"

Passion jabs back down, letting loose a flurry of kicks and punches on the creature again from where she can reach it, attempting to batter straight through any further counterattack, letting the last kick drive her backwards into open water, to let her sail right past Garnet fighting beside her.

COMBAT: Cure Passion has used Riptide on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Lera Camry accepts Fuu Hououji's Winds of Healing, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Cleanse! All of Lera Camry's debuffs are cleared!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Hikaru Shidou's Sword Slash, taking 4 Fatigue damage!  Hikaru Shidou is Psyched!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!  Stagger applied to Hotaru Tomoe!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Endo gets smashed when one of the claws comes for him, the blow sending him flailing and knocking the wind out of him. Which is probably good, since it makes him inhale sharply, and his red face becomes rapidly less so once he realizes he can breathe. When the next blow comes he rushes forward, slamming his sword into the fleshy mass and shoving it aside.

All so he can take an even better swipe a moment later, bringing his sword around in a wide slash at the monster. His hand raises at Passion in acknowledgement of her declaration. He, at least, believes it. It might help him swallow a bit of his own fear, as well.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki accepts Lera Camry's Soaring Heart, taking 0 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe perfectly counters Cure Passion's Riptide, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Counter!  Hotaru Tomoe's Reverse ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe's counterattack, Space Invasion, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Cure Passion!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Blueshift on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Endo Naoki's Blueshift, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

<Stronger attacks are necessary.> Still, it's not a complete loss as she does notice some of the blisters. "Looks like getting up close and personal might be a good idea."

...Except that she obviously didn't expect to be grabbed so suddenly by one of the tentacles! "Ahh!" She flails around a bit in a comical fashion as she's then attatched to one of the suckers, which is all slimy and... sucker-y. "Ewww..." Ren shudders for a bit before attempting to pry herself free. "Ugh! Let me go you big dumb fish!"

"Oh... but isn't it still a fish?"

<Well->

"We'll discuss it later!"

<Right! Let's get out of this jam first!>

Though as it turns out Fuu is here to save the day with a helping hand! Ren feels the positive energies washing over her. Strengtening her. That, coupled with the encouraging words in her head from Lera, proves enough for the mage to summon forth the strength needs to pry herself free with a yell. "Thanks!" She shouts to the Wind Knight, happy to be clear of that mess. "Heraut! Let's give him some payback!"

Ren lets go of her device and snaps her finger. In a flash of brilliant light Heraut undergoes a shift from scepter to rapier, which she grasps as she dives forward, setting up a series Midchildan runic circles in strategic positions around the tentacled beast. She delivers the first strike in a swift motion, then flips around to press her feet onto the first circle. There's a brief pause before she rockets off of it, hitting the octopus with another sword strike. And she repeats this in rapid succession, getting faster with each subsequent pass.

COMBAT: Ren Aizawa has used My Sword Goes Slash on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Fortune [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Cure Fortune continues to rocket around with swift bursts from her wings, and only stalls when she sees the giant beak of the monster rising to match her depth. It snaps as quickly as it can, and while its speed is great, Fortune's speed was just a little quicker and the beak closes just as her boots clear the closing mouth.

With a nimble turn and spin, Fortune gets some distance and reorients herself to face the monster. She pauses for just a moment to take stock of her situation, and then rockets forward again, aiming not for the beak, and not the octopus's body, but the place where the beak ends and the daimon's fleshy exterior begins. She first strikes with a kick, followed by an underwater somersault and two swift punches.

COMBAT: Cure Fortune has used Breaking the Beak on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly counters Cure Fortune's Breaking the Beak, taking 13 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Reverse ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe's counterattack, Space Invasion, partially gets through, doing 8 Fatigue damage to Cure Fortune!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Ren Aizawa's My Sword Goes Slash, taking 5 Fatigue damage!  Ren Aizawa is Psyched!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.

Lancelot, bitten, bites back. He is perhaps the first person outside of Tomoe Laboratories to discover what a proto-daimon tastes like. (Those company parties, yikes.) The bad news is that there is no good news. The worse news is that it doesn't taste like bacon /at all/. If anything it takes rather like rotten spinach crossed with soggy boot leather that is soggy because it's been in the drains of the Ohtori Kendo Club locker room since the foundation of the school.

Lancelot's taste buds have been defiled. They may never be the same.

Garnet, nearby, socks the offending monstrous orifice right in the beak. It's hard to see and wicked fast and this combines to prevent the Crystal Gem from shattering it outright; her punch deflects at an angle, sending shockwaves in both directions. A moment later, the monster is out of reach entirely -- moving its various tentacles in precise response to Cure Passion's barrage of attacks, such that her force is harmlessly dispersed, and such that Cure Fortune winds up punching not flesh but the beak itself, and it stings, stings with some kind of paralytic or acid or something. OW.

(Still, that may have been accidental if ineffective Pretty Cure teamwork, considering their focus in the same general area!)

On another side of the massive creature, magical boys and girls pry themselves free and start trying to wreck roughly universally swordy vengeance on the giant tentacle in question.

It goes somewhat depressingly poorly; this creature just doesn't seem to want to become sashimi. Or seared ahi, in Lera's case, plasma swords and all -- her severing strike takes off a SUCKER but the raw mass of flesh loses alarmingly little momentum and slams into her hard, nearly knocking her swords loose entirely, here in the deep dark. Hikaru, Endo and Ren all try their luck with big swords and small ones, broad ones and pointy ones, and discover that whatever it is they're slicing at has a wobbly give to it like evil jello. Flesh slides loose and sticky past their blades, and it's almost impossible to get a decent strike.

And just when things couldn't possibly get any words...

...the light goes out.

The Key's music has been too faint to really follow throughout this battle, but it's suddenly noticeable in its absence. Whether the demonic kraken grabbed it with some tentacle somewhere, or someone else has just retrieved it, it seems to be quite gone, though the magic in the water allowing ease of breath remains... for now.

What good it is to breathe when you're trapped in an icy lightless abyss with a sea monster remains to be seen. It comes at the Knights and Device-wielders from all sides, diving past, vanishing for long, heartstopping moments in which the water does not so much as quiver with its presence, and then suddenly it's there again, in close for another strike. Sometimes it's with a sucker-laden tentacle, sometimes with the beak, and once, horrifyingly, there is very briefly a strobe of light because it has opened a gigantic eye, just long enough to let loose a blast of bloody light into Ren's personal space.

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Bad Taste, Bad Bad Taste on Lancelot.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Shockwaves on Garnet.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Shockwaves on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Shockwaves on Cure Fortune.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Into Darkness on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Into Darkness on Hikaru Shidou.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Into Darkness on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Visceral Eruption on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Into Darkness on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Lera Camry perfectly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Into Darkness, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Dodge! Lera Camry's Fade ability activates! Lera Camry's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Cure Passion fails to dodge Hotaru Tomoe's Shockwaves, taking 15 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Stagger applied to Cure Passion!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki perfectly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Into Darkness, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Brace! Endo Naoki's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa narrowly counters Hotaru Tomoe's Visceral Eruption, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Ren Aizawa's Reverse ability activates!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa's counterattack, Quartz Guard, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Garnet fails to dodge Hotaru Tomoe's Shockwaves, taking 13 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Stagger applied to Garnet!
COMBAT: Lancelot perfectly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Bad Taste, Bad Bad Taste, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Critical Brace! Lancelot's Block ability activates! Lancelot's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Bubble-like clouds swirl around Lera, making those dangerous currents a little easier for Lera to swim inside of; she grits her teeth, then she looks at Passion. She can see that she is afraid, but she isn't about to correct her. Being afraid isn't the same as lacking courage. She swallows, before she looks down at the monster, and nods. <<Right! C'mon, let's do this!>>

Unfortunately, that tentacle slams her back bodily. She grits her teeth, flying backward in the water; then she shakes her head, and looks right down at the huge tentacle.

Blackness follows.

<<Sky! Light!>>

Her Intelligent Device ignites, forming a bright orange light in the utter darkness; it's visible only right in front of Lera, but it lights up enough to see that huge tentacle swinging by -- and she backs up quickly with a soft gasp, amber eyes wide, evading the way it lashes out for her. She sees the second light, then, from the gigantic eye -- and the beam that fires at...

<<Ren-chan!>> Lera cries out. <<Hang on!>>

She goes flying downward, speeding towards the monster. Her sword provides little light; it's utterly dark here, and she is nothing more that a tiny beacon of fire in pitch blackness. But she speeds up, faster and faster, churning the water, and swings her sword 'round -- and slashes hard at, she hopes, the main body of the monster.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Jet Ignition on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Lancelot [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Lancelot furiously rubs at his tongue with guantletted hands. This did NOT go according to plan. At. All. He floats down to the bed of the bay again and re-evaluates his life choices while also wishing very much he just had a packet of peppered bacon cooked by Mai into some delicious dish that was delicious on a scale of deliciousness that can only be measured by the gods of deliciousness themselves. Whomever they are.

He pauses and tilts his head. Rabbit. Bacon would go REALLY good with rabbit...

He looks to the monster and bellows out in a challenging tone. "You are not delicious! This is a sin that nothing of pure heart could forgive!" He pauses. "Not that I have a pure heart. I like gi - Ya know what? I don't have to explain myself to you! Let's just say I like them WAY to much to have one of those!" He then leaps at the Octopus once again, Arondight flashing with the power of the lightning as he surges forward through the depths of the bay calling out once more: "FURIOUS ASSAULT!!"

Each swing bursts arcs of deadly electricty through the water in explosive booms that ripple and echo through the water. THe balde moves swiftly, and quickly, faster than what most eyes can track or see. He lands on the other side of the targetted tentacle and spins, ready for whatever comes his way next.

COMBAT: Lancelot has used Furious Assault on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Lancelot has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou fails to brace Hotaru Tomoe's Into Darkness, taking 23 Fatigue damage!  Stun applied to Hikaru Shidou!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly dodges Lancelot's Furious Assault, taking 17 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Hotaru Tomoe's Fade ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Lera Camry's Jet Ignition, taking 24 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji perfectly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Into Darkness, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!  Fuu Hououji's Fade ability activates!  Fuu Hououji's Flash ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Endo grips Fallen Stern tight as the light goes out and tentacles and claws batter him around, cracking against the protective barrier of energy his device forms around him. Like Lera, he too is lit up by energy, a purple blob streaked with inky black.

In that faint light he can see the flash of red where Ren was, and he goes that way. Crashing into the nearest mass of dark flesh and bringing his Device around in a great, swirling arc at the mass of tentacles.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Radial Velocity on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Endo Naoki has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

"...This isn't working as planned!" Ren shouts to no one in particular as her sword slashes barely seem to phase the giant sea creature. "Maybe we should-"

And that's when the lights go out. Ren lets out a strangled noise as she comes to a stop, head swiveling around her as a modicrum of panic begins to worm its way past her defenses. "Oh come on...!" This is not good. And... hey, wasn't there music? It's been subtle background noise for her up until now. Its sudden absence isn't something she's sure she feels good about.

And then the octopus goes into a frenzy, disturbing the water with it's rapid movements in the darkness. Holding the rapier-device out in front of her, Ren focuses as the blade takes on a white-hot glow. It illuminates the area a few feet before and around her -- enough for her to see the rushing beam of malice headed right for her!

But Heraut is prepared, able to read his master's mind clearly. <QUARTZ GUARD!> The glow from the sword suddenly balloons outward into a dazzling, stylized shield that absolutely dwarfs both device-and-wielder, intercepting the hit meant to induce grievous harm upon them. There's a thunderous sound when it connects with the shield, and it's enough to reduce it to nothingness in the blink of an eye as Ren is swept up into the battering sea currents that result from the immense clash, left spinning and tumbling, but otherwise in much better shape than she would have been otherwise. When she regains control over her orientation the world is still spinning a bit for her, and she can feel her arms screaming from the backlash.

But she's okay. <<L-Lera-chan...?>> Yeah, she's dazed and confused, and shakes her head while cradling her forehead. <<I'm alright... Is Endo-kun...?>> She doesn't finish that thought, however, as she reacclimates to the battle, essentially getting her head back in the game. <<I'm ok!>> She reiterates, then grips her sword with both hands as she narrows her eyes. "You're not going to get rid of me that easy you fishy jerk!"

Heraut remains quiet this time about the designation between fish and not-fish. Instead he provides her with the immediate light she needs to see where the monster has gotten off too, and she follows after it, delivering a succession of quick slashes to the water that causes superheated jets of liquid to lance outward towards it.

COMBAT: Ren Aizawa has used Arc Cutter on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa has finished attacking.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuxkvGvyeLI

If Passion knew that she was encouraging Endo, she'd be pleased; the last thing she wants is to hold any of the assembled back. As it is, she sees his hand raise, and she nods in his direction, brief but just long enough to show she noticed.

She doesn't have that much time, after all; she has to strike quickly, and she does... only to find that even with Cure Fortune nearby, each of her strikes is blocked by movement she can't even be surprised is so fast with such speed. "I'm--I'm not done!" She rears back to try to charge in again already, unwilling to stop. The flashes of magic all around her light her path, until suddenly--

Everything is dark. Cure Passion's heart catches in her throat, her momentum carrying her forward even as she can't follow through with her strike. The unfamiliar music is gone, too, and she's sure for an instant that she can't find anyone. She's alone, here in the water, deep below everything familiar. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to steel herself, and that's when she feels the motion coming towards her. Suddenly the strike comes, and she can't see it coming; with a hard slap, it sends her shooting backwards, driving down through the water into the dirt, unseen. Dark as it is down here, she can't even find the breath to cry out. She just hears...

Everyone is still fighting. She /wants/ to run away. She wants to pretend she hadn't seen any of it.

'...You've got a lot to make up for, huh?'

Passion drags her hand back out, grabbing the seafloor muck below her and rising to her feet again. "I'm not... going... to give up!"

It doesn't matter that she's afraid, that she's cold, that this /presence/ is driving her to want to do nothing more than close her eyes again against it. "I won't!"

Crimson light shines from below, fron a distance, another beacon in the darkness, and a new music briefly replaces the lost Key's, a few short notes followed by a string of others. There might be a glimpse of a girl in red holding a small, heart-shaped harp, locking a top piece set from the clover at her chest into place and holding it out before her.

A burst of magic follows, as she sets it in the crook of her arm. "Roar! Storm of happiness!" She doesn't feel it, until that moment, but she remembers what it feels like. She steps to the side, slightly behind, and begins to move, other hand over her head, calling up the only magic she knows to pierce this kind of darkness.

Even in the depths, thanks to that magic maybe, her voice is loud and clear. "Pretty Cure! Happiness... Hurricane!" The depths rumble, and this time not from the gigantic foe before them. The water around Cure Passion starts to swirl with her as she spins, a brilliant light gleaming from within. A whirlwind of pink and red hearts churn the waters around her, before crashing forward towards the tentacled monster, seeking to fold entirely around it.

With both hands Cure Passion holds her harp out before her, stance set to keep herself upright. With this feeling, not even the terror threatening to overtake her can knock her down, yet. "Haaaa...!"

She puts all she can into blasting the darkness right out of the creature before her, power squeezing around it.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Passion has used Pretty Cure Happiness Hurricane on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

Garnet is knocked back by the shockwaves that rebound off of the thing's beak, and hurtles away several feet, she catches herself with great difficulty, and takes a moment to check herself, the positions of her fellows, and and gather her wits.

Was that her doing? Is hitting it too hard a liability down here? Or did the demon generate the shockwaves itself to mock thier efforts and repel them (to great success, admittedly...)

In either case Garnet realizes she may have to take a more careful approach. With all this water around she might not be able to control any electrical projectiles... but maybe if she gets close enough, she can force her electrical magic into the monster directly....

She swims around to one of the furthest tentacles, grabs on and begins to channel a powerful current of electricity into it!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The sudden absence of a monster, along with the absence of any semblance of light by which to see either the monster or its absence, just brings the Magic Knight of Wind to a halt. She doesn't freeze up, exactly; rather, she finds that still point of balance within her, the brief, precarious moment that could become eternal, the moment of stillness and balance that she finds when her arrow is nocked, her bowstring drawn back, and the target waits before her gaze.

And just as she lets her heart prompt her for the right instant to let loose her arrow, so too does she let her heart prompt her to dodge the unseen, unfelt attack. And she does, ducking under it with what would be a clumsy if serviceable shoulder-roll on land; here in the depths of Tokyo Bay, it's more of a low somersault, her back leaving the tentacle's path just ahead of it, and the mixture of momentum and turbulence bringing her legs up in its wake before she follows through to float right-side-up again.

If she is right-side-up, anyway. It doesn't seem to matter quite so much which way is up, as long as she knows where to swim to when the battle is over so she doesn't risk drowning, or worse. Now if she just knew which direction the *monster* was in ...

Well, possibly her heart can prompt her on that front as well. The Key's song won't guide her in this silence; the light shed by her allies' respective attacks may prove more fruitful. And as for the efficacy of wind magic when there's no air around ...

Winds of Admonishment!!!

Well, she already proved that it doesn't matter THAT much. Air exists, dissolved in the water as individual atoms and molecules - otherwise, fish swimming through the water couldn't breathe; their gills filter oxygen out of the water just like a mammal's lungs extract oxygen from regular air. The willpower which enacts her spell calls out to those infinitesimal bits of 'air,' calling them together, whipping them up - and a cloud of bubbles gathers, swirling in what would be a binding whirlwind above the surface. Hopefully she's able to home in and trap the giant monster octopus with it, even as vast as its tentacles' reach is.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Winds of Admonishment on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Garnet has used License to (Electric) Eel on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Fortune [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

As Cure Fortune strikes the octopus daimon, she quickly finds that she doesn't hit exactly where she wants to. Instead, she hits the beak. Which, in itself, isn't that bad... except for the stinging pain that is involved thanks to the toxins or paralysing agents found on the beak, which stings and burns her hand, which causes her to shake it rapidly, in a possibly vain attempt to shake the pain away. "Ah!" Instinctively, she sweeps herself away from the beast and turns to face it.

"All right." She mutters for a moment. She's about to launch at the monster again before, suddenly, the light goes out. This stops the purple haired Pretty Cure for a moment, as she quickly looks to see where it might be now. But, she gets an idea. She spins the dial on her LovePreBrace. "Fortune..." Her fist explodes in a brilliant blue-purple-ish light. "Star..." With the immediate area lit for the moment, she zooms off again towards the daimon. "Burst!" And as she gets close, she lets loose the punch, directly at the nearst and largest mass she can find.

COMBAT: Cure Fortune has used Fortune Starburst on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Endo Naoki's Radial Velocity, taking 57 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Ren Aizawa's Arc Cutter, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!  Stagger applied to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly dodges Cure Passion's Finisher, Pretty Cure Happiness Hurricane, taking 64 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Fade ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Garnet's License to (Electric) Eel, taking 9 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly counters Fuu Hououji's Winds of Admonishment, taking 9 Fatigue damage!  Fuu Hououji is Psyched!  Hotaru Tomoe's Reverse ability activates!  Trap applied to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe's counterattack, Space Invasion, partially gets through, doing 21 Fatigue damage to Fuu Hououji!  Critical Counterhit!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe perfectly dodges Cure Fortune's Fortune Starburst, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Critical Dodge!  Hotaru Tomoe's Fade ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Flash ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Hikaru Shidou [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

The Fire Knight finds that things have gotten darker than she expected. She struggles to try to look for a way to see again, but before she can, something hits her and knocks her into the water... literally. She floats in the water for a moment, almost like she's suspended in thin air, before she recovers and grabs her sword. "Oooh... how did THAT happen?" She wonders to herself. She looks around for a sign of the monster again and tries to swim towards what she believes to be the monster, given that her eyes are still a little blinded from that last moment.

"Cheap shot, but I won't let it get me down!" She says as she tries to find the monster and slash it again with her sword. This time, her sword movement is a little labored due to the water as well as the fact she's still a bit sore from that last attack.

COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou has used Sword Slash on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to brace Hikaru Shidou's Sword Slash, taking 10 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Hikaru Shidou is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVKolCf7pzM

How can the sea feel so small?

The darkness becomes even more complete, as in this moment, a huge boat of some kind -- a barge, maybe -- passes by ponderously overhead, blotting out what little ambient light filtered downwards from Tokyo and its skies.

And then, seeming to suck the ocean straight through it as it approaches, the monster is everywhere at once. This is a crucial tactical error, because it allows all of the magical girls to strike at it at the same time.

Lera and Endo slash big and hard down at a particularly dense cloud of flesh, adding a fresh cloud of acidic blood to the immediate environs, one that is instantly vaporized by stray electricity from Lancelot's many slashes, just before it might have suffused and burnt them both.

Ren chases a tentacle towards Garnet with her superheated jets, right into the Crystal Gem's grasp -- and it writhes in agony as electricity is pumped straight through it, jerking out of her gauntleted grip. In that same moment it flies into Hikaru's sword, which takes out a nasty chunk, and away from Cure Fortune's punch, which creates a huge cloud of bubbles, but no impact.

These bubbles join with Fuu's invocation to create a whirlpool that might have been able to hold this monster if it were more regular-sized. It's just too massive, though -- its ultimate solution is to inhale the offending water, overwhelming these magical currents with its own impetus, and then expel it, all at once, knocking Fuu head over heels.

It's then that the Happiness Hurricane comes, uncountable hearts, as many fragments of joy as there are stars in the sky. One cannot endure such an assault, and one cannot safely oppose it. One can only get out of the way with ALL SPEED, and that's exactly what it does after the first few hearts find their mark and sizzle on impact in the same way that a grill removes the impurities from the surface of a steak.

When it returns, it's with a vengeance, and Cure Passion is its first target. It comes in on the heels of the heartstorm dying away, exactly when hearts begin to sink instead of rise. It's predictable but that doesn't make it any less terrible, a tsunami of dark flesh and snapping beaks -- yes, it does appear to have more than one, and more than enough tentacles that the loss of a few hasn't slowed it down at all. It comes for Passion with all the hunger and hatred of a thousand thousand lesser youma, like the battlefields of the north pole distilled into a single greater beast, to rip, to tear, and -- has it its way -- wholly consume.

More tentacles arrive from all sides, trying to cruelly keep the rest of the magical girls away from this spectacle, forcing them to watch instead of help... when they aren't being slammed into the muck of the bottom of the Bay, which, despite the fading magic of the Key, is not particularly breathable at all.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Hotaru Tomoe has used Consuming Hatred on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Last Grasp on Hikaru Shidou.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Last Grasp on Cure Fortune.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Last Grasp on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Last Grasp on Garnet.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Last Grasp on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Last Grasp on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Last Grasp on Lancelot.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Last Grasp on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Cure Passion narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Finisher, Consuming Hatred, taking 76 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Cure Passion is unable to keep fighting! Cure Passion's Fade ability activates! Hotaru Tomoe drains 30 fatigue from Cure Passion!
COMBAT: Lera Camry fails to dodge Hotaru Tomoe's The Last Grasp, taking 20 Fatigue damage! Trap applied to Lera Camry!
COMBAT: Cure Fortune narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's The Last Grasp, taking 18 Fatigue damage! Cure Fortune's Fade ability activates! Cure Fortune's Flash ability activates! Trap applied to Cure Fortune!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's The Last Grasp, taking 7 Fatigue damage! Ren Aizawa's Block ability activates! Ren Aizawa's Parry ability activates! Trap applied to Ren Aizawa!
COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou fails to counter Hotaru Tomoe's The Last Grasp, taking 20 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou's counterattack, Sword Slash, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's The Last Grasp, taking 11 Fatigue damage! Trap applied to Endo Naoki!
COMBAT: Lancelot fails to dodge Hotaru Tomoe's The Last Grasp, taking 26 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Trap applied to Lancelot!
COMBAT: Garnet narrowly counters Hotaru Tomoe's The Last Grasp, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Garnet's Tactician ability activates! Trap applied to Garnet!
COMBAT: Garnet's counterattack, The Unstoppable, partially gets through, doing 23 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji narrowly counters Hotaru Tomoe's The Last Grasp, taking 6 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Trap applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji's counterattack, Spinning Slash, partially gets through, doing 13 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Small would almost be comforting, compared to the darkness surrounding them. The shadow down here in the depths means anything could come out, from anywhere. The monster is already too many places, too fast.

But Cure Passion, amidst all the other attacks, does the best she can. She doesn't need to know the magic the same way she might something else, letting her transformation guide her; even if she doesn't always feel it, the /memory/ of that feeling is etched on her heart, and it's enough. She holds her harp out, focusing, trying to follow and trap the creature there... but she can't. Her attack may hit, but not enough. She tenses, immediately, stuck in place as the monster comes back.

Her hearts fade, and her shoulders slump in exertion, before she sees the rush. Her red eyes widen. The brilliant light around her, fading though it is, makes that moment plain to see.

She'd call it to her credit, if she could, that she doesn't scream. The monster bearing down on her makes her lunge, trying to get out of its way, and for a moment it works. The wave crashes towards her, and she moves out of the way of the first strike, spinning from the second. ...It's the third that hits, slamming straight into her back, and then more, as the sheer hatred of its presence overwhelms her as surely as its flurry of attacks.

Brutal strikes larger than she is quickly overwhelm her, and a moment of pain is all she gets before her head slams down against the muck, the rest of the strikes hitting home with no defenses left.

It's a mercy that she's already wearing red, as she disappears from view entirely.

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

It's way too dark down here now. Ren grimaces as more light is blotted out overhead by something. A passing boat maybe? She doesn't have time to look -- not that she'd be able to really see from all the way down here.

And then, as if hearing her thoughts, Cure Passion provides a stunning display of power that batters away at the encompassing darkness and /slams/ into the creature responsible for it. It's immensely pretty, and for the first time since the battle has begun Ren turns and truly /sees/ the Pretty Cure in question. She's practically resplendent. And pretty. Blush.

...But it seems there is to be retaliation for the courageous cure's attack on the sea monster. In a horrifying display of sheer ferocity it unleashes a notably focused attack on her alone. Ren's eyes widen in horror as she helplessly reaches out a hand towards the girl. "Watch out!" Her words echo out muffled through the water, though there's little words alone can do at a time like this. "N-No...!" She can't bring herself to look away from the scene, frozen in fear. So paralyzed she is that Heraut has to ping her into action when one of those accursed tentacles comes swinging her way, the shield she erects at the last moment barely enough to keep her from being flattened into the aquatic floor.

The horror on her face, however, is still there. No matter how many times she's watched others fall in battle, it still shocks her as much as the first. And this is no different.

COMBAT: Ren Aizawa has used Despairin'! on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa has finished attacking.
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa accepts Ren Aizawa's Despairin'!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Ren Aizawa is Quipped!

<Pose Tracker> Lancelot [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Lancelot is slammed down once again into the much at the bottom of Tokyo Bay. A cloud of dust and silt spread out from where he hits the ground. He hurts. He hurts so much, and he's afraid. He won't admit it to anyone, but he knows it. He felt it the second his feet touched the water. The second he sank below to the depths to draw Arondight and stand against the darkness. Now, here he was, surrounded by mud, silt, the barge blocking out light, and it was dark, and the depths were crushing, and he HURT.

Suddenly Arondight glows in that darkness. The light shining through the slowing settling silt and mud around him. He kneels. He sees the red of the wounds as the blood floats up form them and swirls with the eddies and currents that drive the silt around him. His eyes narrow, and Arondight glows brighter.

The center of the cloud created when Lancelot hit the bottom is now a glowing white light of power.

He looks to his fist. He was afraid. He was cold. He was wounded. He hurt. He was a Knight. He closes his eyes and Arondight explodes with power sending the cloud of the silt and mud in every directions and dissipating it. The white blade of Arondight, Demon's Bane is held in his right hand and it swirls with power, the blade casting light in, and shining in the darkness.

Lancelot looks up into the heart of the beast that stands before him. "Lightning - " He says very calmly, very softy before he is suddenly a blur of motion. He moves impossibly fast, Arondight like a burning white electric comet in the depths of the ocean. That white comet is swung and Lancelot cries out in rightous and furious anger, "BARRAGE!" The blade erupts in an explosion of a thousand bolts of lightning, every one of them arcing from the edges of the blade that Lancelot holds, and all of them aimed at the dark heart of the beast in the depths of Tokyo Bay.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Lancelot has used Lightning Barrage on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Lera sees the tentacles go for Setsuna, of course. She screams and rushes forward, blind to everything else -- including the ones that smash into her, repeatedly, and try to rip into her. A few manages; she feels one latches onto her side and pull away, and there's a bloody mist rising up in the water. Her eyes are wide, as she finally rips away, in time to see it.

The tentacles slam Setsuna down -- and she is thrown into the muck, torn away from her sight. "SETSUNA!" Lera screams, shooting down. "Setsuna! Sky--Sky, is she--"

Lera's panic is considerable, evident in her voice -- and unlike her best friend, who is frozen, she is rushing blindly into the fray. Her eyes are swimming with tears, though it's hard to see that underwater. But as much as Lera cares for Cure Passion, her partner likes her too. Something about it strikes Soaring Sky -- not in the same way as the museum.

And, yet, darkness -- and seeing someone swallowed like that -- resonates powerfully with the Device. <Setsuna...> His voice protocol can't quite convey the same panic. But, the scrambled yell that follows says enough: <Warten Sie mal! Registrieren Sie sich da raus ! Lera, beeilen Sie sich!>

Orange light explodes around Lera, bright like a fire, and shines brilliantly under the waves -- and Lera stares in terrified confusion at the Device in her hands.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Soaring Dreams! Fiery Love! on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Lera Camry accepts Lera Camry's Soaring Dreams! Fiery Love!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Accelerate and Empower applied to Lera Camry!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Lancelot's Finisher, Lightning Barrage, taking 22 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Fortune [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Cure Fortune zooms towards the damon--and suddenly there's not a monster in her path! So she zooms past anything monster-related. As the energy from her Starburst dissipates, it becomes dark again. For a moment, everything is quiet. Then, suddenly, the monster swarms someone else? Fortune makes a move to attack it while it's distracted, but she's buffeted by a number of tentacles, which bats her around. After the first few strikes, she manages to dive with the strikes enough that she doesn't get hit as hard as the monster would like, nor does she get slammed into the muck. Which is probably as good as she's going to get.

When the tentacles finally stop attacking her as much, Cure Fortune takes a second to look around... just to see Cure Passion fall into the muck... and not get back up.

Fortune grits her teeth, but looks back at the monster. Monster first, mourning later. So she spins her brace's dial once again. "Fortune..." She raises her arms over her head, and five purple stars appear above her, which shortly turns into purple rings. "Star Ring!" She then throws these rings at the monster's tentacles, attempting to bind them in place to make them stop moving. Or, if necessary, explode on the tentacles.

She... she doesn't care which. Not now.

COMBAT: Cure Fortune has used Fortune Star Ring on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly counters Cure Fortune's Fortune Star Ring, taking 5 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Reverse ability activates!  Tangle and Trap applied to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe's counterattack, Space Invasion, partially gets through, doing 31 Fatigue damage to Cure Fortune!  Critical Counterhit!

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

The electricity she channels into the demon is reflected in Garnet's shades.

But quickly that light is eclipsed by the warm powerful glow of uncountable hearts, seeming to swim towards the demon, as if a school of small fish deciding to confront a gigantic predator and drive it away, once and for all! And as the shards of happiness cut through the creature, Garnet feels joyful hope herself at its spectacle and her resolve is steeled!

When a tentacle attempts to knock her from this reverie she swims to meet it and with a mighty counter-blow knocks it aside! She smiles towards Cure Passion, and cheers! (coming out as bubbles, but given all the same!)

But as the light clears, all is not well, and she watches in horror as Setsuna is struck down by the demon in return. "No..." Garnet tries to exclaim, and a second tentacle grabs her in her distraction, beginning to pull her down. "NO!!"

Garnet pushes her pain, horror and denial into her electricity, reflexively and angrily feedbacking into the tentacle trying to restrain her!

COMBAT: Garnet has used Geofeedback! on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Garnet's Geofeedback!, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Endo goes sinking down under the force of the next blow, swerving out of the worst of it, but still wincing when he catches some of those tentacles. As he spirals deeper into the water he watches with dismay as the monster tears into Cure Passion, blotting her out with its sinister mass.

"Hang on!" His voice jumps ripples with concern, the knight frantically pushing off the muck that he's surrounded with.

<<We need to go help her!>> Endo's thoughts ping out to Ren and Lera, both sword and fist lashing out to try and fend off the grasping limbs of his attack as he attempts to get back toward the larger mass of his opponent.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Panic! on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Endo Naoki's Panic!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Another tentacular assault ensues; the Wind Knight doesn't simply try to skewer the tentacle this time, instead twisting around and adding angular momentum to her counterslash. And again, she manages to slice into it - but also again, she still winds up getting ensnared and yanked away from Cure Passion at the critical moment. And this time, she doesn't have the focus she needs to break free again, at least not right away. The fact that it's growing harder to 'breathe' properly doesn't help her concentration - but she isn't out of the fight just yet, either.

On the plus side, at least the monster is much easier to target when its frenzy has a singular focus like that; on the minus side, the Magic Knight of Wind is stuck WAY too far away to get into swording distance. But she still has her magic, even with her limbs tangled enough that she couldn't bring her archery skills to bear (for what good they did previously, i.e. not very much at all).

Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi!!

Again, she calls out for the air dissolved in the water, but rather than trying to weave it together to bind the monster, she simply tries to turn it into so many whirling blades, trying to do whatever damage she can to the monster while she has the chance.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Fuu Hououji's Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi, taking 4 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe's Block ability activates!  Hotaru Tomoe's Parry ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Hikaru Shidou [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

This time, the Wind Knight tries to counter the enemy monster with her sword, but it fails miserably. The Fire Knight is sent spinning and goes limp for a few moments, before she opens her eyes again and looks towards the monster once again. Weakened and feeling like she's struggling to keep up, the Fire Knight's patience begins to dwindle with every second. She knows that her fire magic is weakened while she's under the water, but she knows something must be done before she passes out. "I won't be defeated that easy! It's time to cook this thing!" She raises her sword and closes her eyes. "The power of fire shall guide me!" She says as she grasps her sword tightly.

Then, a huge apparition in the shape of a flaming sword, appears! Even though it's underwater and the fire is slightly dimmer than it should be, it still glows with great power, almost like the power of itself is enough to avoid being extinguished. "I will strike you down! I will teach you to mess with us!" She sends forth the flaming sword with a yell.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Hikaru Shidou has used Sword of Flame on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to brace Hikaru Shidou's Finisher, Sword of Flame, taking 77 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.

The tentacles loosen their grasp on the magical girls /just/ a little bit, just a smidge, and there is a distinctly awful feeling that the reason is anticipation of the coming feast, that basically enough of the protodaimon's attention is now locked on its torment of Passion that it isn't quite keeping track of the rest of the battle.

This saves the Pretty Cure's life. Or, well -- it helps. People do the rest; Lancelot dives into the fray, his lightning bolts swallowed up by the darkness almost as quickly as he generates them, but it drives the beast back before it can land the final blow, and drag Passion into its gullet entirely. Of course, now he's surrounded, hedged in on all sides by hungry beaks, and they seem eager to go for him as the next course.

But it has plenty of mouths to go around, and strikes a second time at the helpless Passion. Cure Fortune gets there at the last second, holding the grasping tentacles back with brightly binding rings. The monster strains against them, shattering a moment later, and the backblast threatens to sweep Fortune off her feet.

But it was worth it.

Garnet frees herself with electricity, Endo with sheer desperation; Lera with a rip, Ren with a well-placed shield. The monster tries to catch them again, but Fuu's whirling blades are in its path, and though it's easily able to bear each individual slash, it cannot go past, it cannot go through.

Passion drifts freely along the bottom of the Bay, and the only path that remains for the monster is UP. And so it goes, threatening to suck everyone with it, so quickly does it move -- leaving a final hateful curse in its wake, a cloud of burning, bloody ink.

Hikaru is the last person in its path as it leaves, and her flaming sword vaporizes much of the cloud as it comes in, transforming a deadly red tide into a merely dangerous one. Though the sword parts the wave of ink right in front of her face, it cannot stop the furious aftermath, the ripping, dragging currents that flow past the monster's many tentacles.

It's heading upwards with all the force of a waterspout... and although that barge is no longer directly overhead, the Rainbow Bridge, and the thousands of vehicles that pass over it at any given time, are...

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Visceral Eruption on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Visceral Eruption on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Visceral Eruption on Garnet.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Visceral Eruption on Cure Fortune.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Visceral Eruption on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Visceral Eruption on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Space Invasion on Hikaru Shidou.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used The Jaws That Bite on Lancelot.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Hunger on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Cure Fortune narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Visceral Eruption, taking 16 Fatigue damage! Cure Fortune's Fade ability activates! Cure Fortune's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Lancelot narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's The Jaws That Bite, taking 22 Fatigue damage! Hotaru Tomoe is Psyched!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to dodge Hotaru Tomoe's Visceral Eruption, taking 20 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Visceral Eruption, taking 5 Fatigue damage! Endo Naoki's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Garnet fails to brace Hotaru Tomoe's Visceral Eruption, taking 18 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Visceral Eruption, taking 9 Fatigue damage! Ren Aizawa's Block ability activates! Ren Aizawa's Parry ability activates! Ren Aizawa is Taunted!
COMBAT: Lera Camry perfectly counters Hotaru Tomoe's Visceral Eruption, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical Counter! Lera Camry's Reverse ability activates! Lera Camry's Tactician ability activates!
COMBAT: Lera Camry's counterattack, Sentinel Flash, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Hikaru Shidou narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Space Invasion, taking 25 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Lera keeps staring at Sky, at first. A terrified thought runs through her mind: what if he was damaged? What if she loses Setsuna and Sky today? Her eyes widen more, lips trembling, and she doesn't notice the monster rising at first, and one powerful current with it.

Sky does, though. Lera gasps, as a cross-shaped energy projection erupts from her sword -- and the current is beaten back, throwing Lera away from its surge upward. She reaches a hand out, hesitantly, to Cure Passion as she drifts. She gives Cure Fortune and Lancelot a brief, grateful look; then she looks at Passion. She nods, holding a hand out. "Sky--you... you okay? Can we...?"

<...fine. Plasma Bind.> A ring of orange light appears around Cure Passion's waist. <I'll pull her above the surface. As far as I can get her.>

"Th-thanks."

Lera lets go of Passion reluctantly, but she watches as Sky's magic moves her -- towards the water's surface, further from the monster. Of course, nowhere is completely safe. This is the best that Lera can hope for. She takes a deep breath, then she shoots up after it, swinging her sword in front of her. <<Ren-chan, Endo-san,>> she sends through telepathy, <<Let's hurry.>>

She accelerates -- and catches up with the monster from below. A Midchildan magical circle explodes underneath her, expanding outward, as Lera rises up. The longsword Device in her hands shines, fire swirling around it, and when she strikes up, it explodes with a fiery light -- and then again, as she swings her blade around for a second strike across its body.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Jet Ignition on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Lancelot [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

The blinding white Blade of Arondight still flares and continues to shining in the darkness. The knight spins and pushes off a Tentacle to avoid one of the beaks only to find another that crunches down on a shoulder, shattering pouldron and gorget and lacerating the skin beneath both and mail in a quick splurt of blood. Lancelot lets loose with another scream of terrible pain. He slowly turns his head toward the beak that has him in a vice like grip.

Arondight glows bright in his hand and he looks over to that shining weapon. He nods once and grits his teeth, silencing his scream as he musters himself. "Not. Without. Not without a fight..." His fingers tighten Arondight's hilt he calls out in what he believes to be one last time, "FURIOUS ASSAULT!"

With blinding speed Lancelot assails the tentacle that bites and holds him in place. The weapon flashing repeatedly in a deadly cadence as the lighting curges around him and the balde he wields against the evil creature.

COMBAT: Lancelot has used Furious Assault on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

If Ren is gutted by witnessing Passion being struck down, it's /nothing/ compared to hearing Lera's anguish over the fallen cure. It's clear her best friend is hurting. Her eyes snap over from Passion to Lera, then back to Passion again as Lera rushes over to her.

Something stirs inside of Ren at that moment. Any of them could be next. Everyone is still fighting on to the best of their ability, trying to beat back the oppressive darkness to seemingly no avail. A couple of well-aimed and timed attack strike the protodaimon, but fail to completely take it out. The free hand that has been hanging limply by her side slowly clenches itself into a fist, the leather glove the only thing keeping her from accidentally puncturing the skin of her palm with her fingernails.

High above in the sky just over the spot where she and the rest of the group of magical fighters entered the water a dazzling array of runic circles appear simultaneously, growing in size as they dot the air. From the center of them emerges exact replicas of the rapier sword Ren's current wielding. They burn with a deeply bronze tint, filled with a searing light that causes the air around them to heat up.

Back down below, Ren raises her rapier and falls into a proper fencing stance, eyes focused on her target.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She leaps forward.

The sword replicas shoot downward.

And they both meet up for a simultaneous assault.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Ren Aizawa has used Blade Storm on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

Garnet finds herself pulled up along the jetstream of the monster's ascent. She rises and braces through the burning ink and once she's past its cloud, she sees her chance. As long as she's being dragged along with this monster, she's got to find a way to drag it down. Garnet shapeshifts her arms to gigantic size and grabs for the tentacles, trying to increase her mass and density to weigh it down as much as she can!

COMBAT: Garnet has used Heavyweight Clamping-on on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Once Endo has flailed free of the tentacles, he has the stream of darkness to worry about as the creature jettisons to the surface. His barrier shield appears again, the boy gritting his teeth as he rushes upward, letting his Device propel him after the thing and through the noxious cloud. At least Hikaru's fire makes it possible, and soon he's hot on the trail of the monster.

He's relieved to see Lera taking care of Cure Passion, and he responds with: <<Don't worry, Lera-san. We'll get it.>> He can see-and Stern tells him-that Ren is already on the case. So is he, asking his device a moment after, "Right, Stern?"

It glows in response, fiery purple light coursing down the length of dark metal as Belkan triangles materialize in the air around it. Endo rises higher until he's as close to level with the monster as he's going to get. Once he's there he lifts the weapon over his head, the sword flaring into a pillar of light that streaks skyward to break the surface and head for the heavens.

Endo slams his Device down into the tentacled mass as hard as he can.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Endo Naoki has used Absolute Magnitude on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Hikaru Shidou [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

What just happened to the Fire Knight isn't as relevant as the fact that she's barely even conscious now. Her body is aching and feeling like it's about to give out at any moment. She knows she can't go on fighting like this, so she tries to swim, as best as she can, away to safety. Even if she can breathe underwater, she doesn't want to remain underwater in case she does pass out. It's too difficult for her to maintain this with the injuries she has...

"Fuu-chan," The Fire Knight calls out to her ally, "Be careful!" She says before she tries to figure out how to get to safety.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The 'cloud' of caustic ink is too widespread for the Wind Knight to get clear of, although she certainly tries - mostly in the form of trying to ascend faster than it can diffuse through the water. That cloud distracts her from the real danger, though - the currents that the not-exactly-a-kraken's passing creates, like the most lethal of riptides, on its own way up.

Between the turbulence in the water and the spread of that ink, the Magic Knight of Wind simply starts struggling for a moment to ascend through the water - and then catches her wits and begins swimming properly, letting her body's buoyancy (even offset as it is by clothes and armor) aid her ascent. She's only dimly aware of the potential victims above, but the open air -

Then it clicks. She doesn't so much need to reach the air *herself*, if ...

"EMERALD CYCLONE!!"

This time, the Wind Knight's voice actually DOES ring out, rather than focusing her will without giving voice to her spell-call; rather than trying to gather the winds near or around her, she simply calls them out of the sky above, potentially digging whirlpools in the bay's surface as she tries to draw the gale down into the water to strike the monster.

But it takes the last of her mana to do it. Hopefully somebody's going to be able to rescue her on the way up, or the Magic Knights will be down a member ... either way, it's clear she didn't consider 'careful' an option she could afford to play in her desperation.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Fuu Hououji has used Emerald Cyclone: Full on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Fortune [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Cure Fortune doesn't recieve Lera's look of gratitude. She's too busy trying to fight the monster. Cure Passion can wait. Well, Fortune doesn't pay too much attention to Soaring Sky saving Passion, either. Instead, she's still trying to figure out the best way to attack--

When the octopus suddenly bursts upwards, leaving a veritable cloud of red ink behind that covers Cure Fortune near completely. Ink chokes not only her vision but her throat, burning everywhere it can touch. She swims, and continues swimming to try and escape. When the Cure finally manages to emerge, she's right out covered in the stuff, her dress and clothes battered by the ink and all of the strikes that she had suffered throughout the fight. She grimaces, and spins her brace's dial one more time. It may be the last time she can.

"Pretty Cure!" She slaps her brace, then spins her arms up above her head, creating a very large purple star. "Stardust..." With that, she spins once, then twice, then a punch from the Cure sends the star soaring towards the octopus monster. "Shooot!"

COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Fortune has used Pretty Cure Stardust Shoot on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.

It's a good thing that that barge is out of the way -- and that Lera sent Cure Passion out of the battle at a steep angle -- because Tokyo Bay pretty much explodes.

Mostly with swords -- Lera's plasma, Lancelot's flurry, Ren's many replicas and Endo's single, massive, mighty beam. There's no hope for the protodaimon to get away, not when Garnet is holding it still from the bottom, and Fuu's whirlpool is pushing it down at the top.

The swords -- plus Cure Fortune's radiant star -- penetrate its flesh with a terrible serious of sounds, sounds like 'schlurkkk,' and then there's a moment of silence as ichor within the monster builds up pressure -- and explodes!

Afterwards, all that's left is an actual, normal octopus, just a little guy maybe large enough to hold onto someone's hand, which scoots outta there to go get some more wholesome lunch maybe, or maybe find a safe place to hide.

But... there's no sign of the Key. And now the breathability of the Bay is fading fast -- it is becoming the dark, freezing, dirty pool that it always was... with that woman, the original victim, still trapped in her car.

---

Standing on the retreating barge, a shadowy figure presses a few keys on their tablet. Up pops a window that says << AUDIO ONLY >>.

"I've got the goods."

"So you do! Deliver it to the drop point, and you'll be handsomely rewarded."

"Roger."

They turn away from each other, two people in a simple business transaction. The figure on the barge doesn't think too much of it.

The buyer, though, strokes his chin, feeling his cheeks go taut from the wideness of his smile. "Well, well. I don't much care what happens to the waters of a city on this little planet... but I can see an /excellent/ alternative use for such an artifact."

An assistant approaches his desk from behind. "What's that, sir?"

"Bait."

TO BE CONTINUED...

<Pose Tracker> Cure Fortune [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Cure Fortune watches the octopus explode, replaced by the actual real octopus that it used to be. But Cure Fortune doesn't really smile, or anything like that. Instead, she swims back upwards and up to the surface, where Cure Fortune takes a huge breath of fresh air. Sure, she could breath underwater due to the magic in the area, but nothing really beats actual air.

After a few moments of catching her breath, her ribbon-wings extend once more, and she takes off into the skies again, leaving the battlefield (and everyone else) behind.

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

Garnet watches the spectacular fireworks of their magical victory as she holds the monster down with all her strength! As soon as they clear, she feels the slack of the monster shrinking and watches it become a normal octopus again. She considers going after it for a moment, but focuses her Future Vision on it for a moment and decides that this particular octopus' magical adventures are at an end. She remembers both Cure Passion (not having seen her lifted out) and the woman in the car! She swims down to where the car was, and firmly lands on the ocean floor in front of. "I don't know how long this breathing spell will last, but I'll hurry."

Garnet squats down and lifts the mangled car over herself, and jumps swiftly, but gently, careful to not ascend so quickly the pressure actually hurts the woman or car.

When she reaches shallows, she slows, and rises to the surface gently, then swims quickly to the nearest shore.

She pries the car open like a sardine can (damaged as it is already, it's not too difficult) and retrieves the woman inside, placing her on the shore.

<Pose Tracker> Lancelot [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.

Suddenly let go, and with air becoming a scarce commodity, Lancelot ponders his options. He stumbles out of the water, and then to his knees on the beach breathing heavily. He whistles once and soon Sparkles comes gallopping to him. He catches the saddle and swings into it, wincing as he does so.

Sparkles rides hard, even as Lancelot slumps in the saddle, taking her friend and companion to safety. He pats hsi friend's neck and says, "So. I learned something. Daimons do not taste like bacon, nor are they delicios."

Sparkles raises a horsey eyebrow that silently says, "What are you on?" But continues to take her friend to safety.

2016-05-08 - Locks and Keys 4

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