2025-03-15 - The Labyrinth Reawakens 2

The Labyrinth Reawakens 2
Summary: Fallen Stern makes the ultimate sacrifice to repeat history and drive the Outsiders back to the darkness from whence they came. But the magical girls refuse to accept it, and invite them into the light instead.
Who: Fate Testarossa, Lera Camry, Setsuna Higashi, Mikoto Minagi, Inori Yamabuki, Ren Aizawa, Nori Ankou, Nagisa Misumi, Endo Naoki, Kyouka Okazaki, Westar, Honoka Yukishiro, Miki Aono, Love Momozono GM: Pink Moon Stick
Where: Labyrinth
OOC - IC Date: 3/15/2025 - 6/17/2016

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ Dark Realms +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
  Light cannot exist without darkness, nor darkness without the light, or so    
  some claim. Whether the Dark Realms are simply the Fairy Realms through a     
  mirror darkly is difficult to ascertain, but it's undeniable that some        
  realms in either domain lack an obvious counterpart in the other. Certainly   
  the ceaseless war between bright virtue and dark evil gives little heed to    
  the notion that ultimate victory is impossible.                               
                                                                                
  Indeed, a given realm of darkness will often commit itself solely to          
  extinguishing the light forever. With names like Minor Land, Labyrinth and    
  Dark Kingdom, perhaps that isn't all that surprising. Endless plains beneath  
  a midnight sky lit only by bolts of violet lightning harbor armies of         
  strange creatures, or yet stranger war machines. If there is water, it is     
  brackish, tainted. The air itself stabs lungs like a superheated knife. Some  
  denizens of the Dark Realms claim that they're trying to transform the        
  entire universe into worlds like their own, but colonizing more pleasant      
  environments might be sufficient motivation alone.                            
                                                                                
  Black, too, has shades; there are many dark wastelands, but also dark         
  cities, dark oceans, dark forests, dark deserts, dark skies. Some are even    
  possessed of a loveliness all their own; as beautiful as it is deadly, with   
  shadowy landscapes that mesmerize before they surprise. No matter how         
  populous, all are pervaded by a sense of emptiness, of absence, masked at     
  times by swirling rage or despair, but never erased.

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA

In his greed, Jail ripped all the magic of the universe into Labyrinth -- into himself.

And this immense concentration, its sheer density, attracted the attention of a force that has not been seen for ten thousand years.

It only took one Outsider to swallow the madman and his stolen power -- and it took flight, back to the inverted portal, now hijacked to allow the aliens into this mode of existence.

Its retreat was covered by thousands of its kind. Thousands of strange monsters, so strange that the eye cannot even resolve them, only compare them to more familiar creatures. The Outsiders wear comparisons to insects, to birds, to beasts, like ill-fitting suits, warped far beyond funhouse mirrors. They descended on Labyrinth and its people, and anyone or anything they touched turned cold -- filled with blackness -- and then simply ceased to be. Winked out of being entirely.

But the magical girls fought back. Some pursued Jail upwards into the sky, for if he is lost, the countless worlds robbed of their souls will be lost also, if to a more spiritual heat-death than the more traditional promise of entropy's kiss. Others deployed to the plaza, where a dense crowd of onlookers -- whose belief in the magical girls had, not long ago, empowered them to defeat Jail in the first place -- was threatened by Outsiders; and still more to a building brought to the verge of collapse by aliens that simply flew straight through it, and thus through its structural integrity.

Setsuna Higashi's best friends, her found family, the Fresh Pretty Cure, climbed to the top of the tower at the center of Labyrinth, which had once been the seat of Lord Moebius and the shrine of his secret controller, Northa, once the Belkan Queen who, in eons past, made war upon the many magical worlds in order to secret away their power somewhere the Outsiders could never sense, and thus never invade. At the apex, Cures Peach, Berry and Pine unleashed their love, hope and faith to blanket the city below in protective light that no Outsider could pass through.

At the same time, the magical girls defeated the last of the aliens in the city proper. Labyrinth has been saved -- but the stolen magic of the worlds remains in fatal jeopardy.

All that remains is to take to the sky.

NOW

<SoundTracker> Love Is A Battlefield (Live To Tell cover) - One Last Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsa_9xNpqF4

They rise, some of them Outsider to Outsider, leaping and punching, blitzing and throwing. They rise, flying and slashing, swirling and squeezing and surging. They rise alone and they rise together; they rise in each other's arms.

But they just don't rise fast enough.

Still, the enemy comes... there are so many of them. It feels endless. For every hundred of them slain by a magical girl, there are a thousand more to replace them. And every single time one Outsider manages to pierce the terrific offense-as-defense of the line, and land even a single hit, that is the more significant action than all those deaths that made it possible, because the defenders are so terribly few.

When the battle suddenly changes, the first way to notice is that each of the Outsiders start to glow from the inside out. It is abrupt and simultaneous; none of them were switched on (as it were), and now all of them are. What it isn't, however, is truly identical...

...each alien glows with a specific and unique shade.

What is the color of a soul?

Here's one that's icy. Not the rugged ice of a science fiction planet -- or, rather, not only that -- but the pearlescent glow of sea ice illuminated by aurora. Ice as wonder, as well as danger. It's beautiful, yet the Outsider possessed of it does not become moreso. It is perilous, agonizing, to see such ghostfire ignite within the body of something so ill-equipped to appreciate it as anything other than fuel.

Or perhaps as food. Take this next Outsider, whose cheerful golden light smells like fresh-baked bread, an abhorrent juxtaposition with something worse than writhing antennae, something stranger than chittering mandibles. Another smells of roses, all pinks and whites, the petals almost visible within the aura, hues rendered precisely, exactly, by the steady, unflickering flame. Some Outsiders now are engulfed in a more literal flame; there are silver flames, blue flames, fires of war and of peace, of hearth and of heart. Well. All of them are of heart.

There are as many different glows as there are worlds.

Or... maybe, there are as many different glows as there are undone magical girls, their magic stolen from across those many worlds.

Whether defeating a given Outsider will free that particular magic, destroy it, or do nothing at all to release it from the swarm, is an absolute unknown.

But it's not a matter of choice, because these creatures are coming faster and harder now, sharper and more terrible.

How did this come to be? Thank the holes punched in the cloud by the magical girls, to be able to see it at all.

Plummeting through the sky -- no longer prismatic, rather reverted to a lab coat over a suit -- is Time-Space Criminal Jail Scaglietti.

He is also no longer conscious. He may or may not be no longer alive.

Either way, though still technically in one piece physically, he has unquestionably been... digested. Maybe the singular Outsider who snatched him up and headed for the portal made it; maybe it didn't matter; maybe it still matters.

Everything feels like it matters so much, suddenly, when faced with Outsiders suffused with magics as familiar to our heroes as their own names -- the names of their friends -- the names of their worlds.

Jail falls, and falls, and falls. He's unpredictable and squirrelly, but this feels very final.

Whether or not his life can be saved, his body will unquestionably be destroyed when it makes impact, either on the Fresh force field, or if he passes through because he's not an Outsider, then definitely on the ground.

And the holes in the swarm... the holes are filling fast. Uncannily fast, as though every Outsider is perfectly aware of the position of every other member of the swarm.

COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick transforms into The Outsiders: Ascendant!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Space Invasion on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used The Jaws That Bite on Cure Black.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used The Jaws That Bite on Cure Pine.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used The Jaws That Bite on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used The Jaws That Bite on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Body Horror on Kyouka Okazaki.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Space Invasion on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Space Invasion on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Space Invasion on Cure White.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Space Invasion on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Space Invasion on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Cure Passion fails to dodge Pink Moon Stick's The Jaws That Bite, taking 39 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick is Psyched!
COMBAT: Cure Pine perfectly braces 41 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's The Jaws That Bite, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical
Brace!  Cure Pine's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Cure White cleanly braces 28 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Space Invasion, taking 5 Fatigue damage!  
COMBAT: Lera Camry dodges 33 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's The Jaws That Bite, taking 22 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
Lera Camry's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

They are everywhere, brilliant and strange and terrifying. It is not enough to conceive of what they have done since the beginning, what their presence has wrought. Her mind can barely wrap themselves around the questions.

What are they? Why are they doing this? How many?

That last one sticks with a person in particular. How many civilizations have fallen to them? How many people have died? And in that question, leads to another intrusive one.

... Did...

Did her mother's final end come not from falling through the cracks in dimensions in a failed attempt to reach Alhazard, but at the end the journey, there was only these... things?

Fate's heart quickens subtly faster. Her grip tightens upon Bardiche, and as she draws him back again. She sees a shape in the midst of the chaos, a glimpse of white, a flash of purple waving in the choked breeze.

"... It's him." She utters, softly, but not inaudibly in the atmosphere.

She does not have nearly the same feelings for the man who called himself her father. And yet... and yet! As he falls, she can't help but notice.

I can't stop,

He's falling alone.

BGM for Fate: Invisible Heat (Acoustic Version) - Nana Mizuki - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txf_64xFAp0

I can't stop, Can't stop. Won't stop. As Infinite as the Memory, so is my Desire... this is my purpose. It is why I exist. It is why the Bureau made me, and their unlikely gift.

Maybe out of his own choices, he doesn't have something - someone worth clinging to other than belief in the inevitability of his purpose as desire as he falls, maybe he doesn't have the option.

Maybe it was decided for him at the moment of his birth, and the option taken from him the moment after, just like her... if so, then maybe she inherited something from him after all. A purpose changed - but in others, she found her own purpose.

And despite her anger, seeing him like this in this moment...

... she has to believe that can be true for him too.

Fate's expression tightens all of a sudden, "I'm going." Eyes shining with resolution she says firmly to everyone else, with no explanation other than. "I have to." There isn't much time longer, so her last statement is a plea, "Please help me reach him in time."

Yes, that is right. You look upon the first artificial mage. The original. You were forged to fill a place at your mother's side. I was crafted to find... and secure... and create all the Lost Logia the doddering old fools of the Time-Space Administration could never.

She knows she'll need everyone else here to stand a chance, especially with what she's about to do. And as she flies, and the creatures fly towards her, she makes a sharp call, "BARDICHE!"

At the moment they would make contact, the space she's flying through erupts in a detonation of smoke and lightning, before a synthetic call is chimed.

And a shape flies out of it so fast that it's like that even the other Magical Girls might have difficulty following, a glimpse of her in her barrier jacket, but without her armor or cloak. With sharp sparking flier fins attached to each wrist, and boots, but bereft of many of the accessories of her armor that she had before - made perilously thin. As she flies down towards Jail, and gets cut off, flying up, and in a spiral at incredible speed, before coming back around, and plummeting amidst the radiant colors of their strange auras.

It will give them all an opportunity to strike them en masse. She does not call for the moment to them.

She trusts them all to know.

Bardiche, now in Haken form vanishes, as Fate flies down towards the form of Jail that's nearly struck the ground, and her arms encircle him, much the way her Mother's did Alicia's... before she fell, sharply braking with one great flap of her fins.

They strike the ground anyway roughly, spinning as Fate brunts the impact with her own form as best as she can. For one long moment the wind is knocked out of her, then she takes a breath and coughs violently. You learn to fall, before you fly, but it's hard to practice for falling that fast.

Turning her red eyes on the unconscious form of Jail, she looks, waits... for evidence that his chest is rising and falling beneath his white, now somewhat dusty labcoat, then takes another sharp breath.

"Maybe... Maybe you'll never understand..." And as she forces herself up, glad to know she can, she looks up at the sky. "... but, I have to believe you can..."

...

"...Jail... Scaglietti." She says quietly, rather than Father. Maybe that title is true, but it doesn't matter. She has a home to go back to. She has a Mother. She has friends and people who love her. And at the end of the day, she hopes she'll have three new sisters.

If he wants that place in her life, he'll have to earn it. But if he wants to, perhaps there'll be a chance one day.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa transforms into Barrier Jacket Sonic!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

Lera flies up into the sky, with Cure Passion at her side. She looks sideways at her, before she looks at the Outsiders; each of them aglow with a strange light, a stolen light, from magical girls from across the universe. She fights a shudder, as best she can, and watches as Jail Scaglietti falls.

Fate says she is going. Lera looks sideways at her, then she nods. "Be careful, Fate. We've got your back, y'know?"

The Outsiders come in. One, Lera beats back with Broken Ground; there's a flash of a girl in white, holding up a staff, on a desert world with a butterscotch sky. A second, she parries with Soaring Sky; there's a flash in her mind of a black-haired girl with violet eyes, drawing back a bow.

A third comes in, its jaws hitting her side -- and Lera shouts out, "Aaah!"

Then she swings Broken Ground up. A brilliant dome of golden light explodes away from her, slamming all three Outsiders back with a mighty explosion.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Terra Breaker on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant fails to brace Pink Moon Stick's Space Invasion, taking 39 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi perfectly braces 29 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Space Invasion, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical
Brace!  Mikoto Minagi's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa braces 22 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Space Invasion, taking 18 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Ren
Aizawa's Block and Parry abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Up, and up, and up again. But Passion is still there, still moving up, just as she told Lera she would. Soon, she is fighting, more and more; she kicks through one and another and another, there are still more. She continues to fight, blipping in and out of existence to dodge and weave her way through the Outsiders, until she sees and feels one in particular: one with the wisdom of the water, the familiar calm energy of one she knew--unadultered, unlike how she once knew it.

Passion remembers this essence, a dear friend--one who was something like that another way, once. One from Earth. And Passion hesitates for a crucial second--just long enough for sparkling water in an Outsider to crash; into her side, sending her tumbling down into the tower to smash against it. "Ah--"

"...Maybe I deserved that one," she says. "But no more!"

She shoots back upward, sailing through the air through another three Outsiders, and finds the one that struck her--the one that holds that precious essence.

Is it freedom, she offers? Or something else? She will have to do as Pine, and have faith.

"Haaaaaah--!"

Passion spots Pine, suddenly. "Pine!" she calls. "This way!"

"Haaaaah--!" She pivots mid-air, handspringing off debris, and extends her gracefulf oot in a big kick with Pine, straight for the Outsider!

COMBAT: Cure Passion has started a combo targeting Pink Moon Stick!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Lera Camry's Terra Breaker, taking 44 Fatigue damage!  
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa covers Fate Testarossa for Pink Moon Stick's attack, Space Invasion, taking it upon herself instead!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki fails to counter Pink Moon Stick's Space Invasion, taking 31 Fatigue damage!  
COMBAT: Endo Naoki's counterattack, Asteroid Eilen, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick!  
COMBAT: Cure Black fails to dodge Pink Moon Stick's The Jaws That Bite, taking 53 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!

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

"Fate!" Mikoto calls, not nearly so fast. But perhaps her words are fast enough to catch up, eventually: "Do it!"

How could she ever... blame Fate for wanting to save someone like her, even if he's a bad person?

After all, she...

With Westar safely(?!) held Miroku's vast free hand, he is, at least... well, there are more perilous places to be, right now. Though there are also surely less perilous places -- the Outsiders swarm around him, hungry for his overflowing, overwhelming magic.

To pick one from a crowd, though...

... it would have to be that one with fangs which are somehow also spinnets, curling and flexing like fingers as they shoot entangling thread. It's not red, like fate; it's white, like death. Like something girls shouldn't be so familiar with -- a crime of knowledge in and of itself.

With legs and legs and legs and legs, unfurling in the air, flapping, skittering, soaring.

"Na...o?"

Mikoto echoes her name, dumbfounded, staring at something which she never actually seems able to stare directly at, even though it's right there in front of her. It's chased by anger, as she realises: "What'd you do to Nao?!"

Kozue might have -- let's say -- complex feelings on her, these days; and really, it's hard to say Nao's are any simpler. But they still helped to teach her how the world worked, back before she knew how to walk through Shinjuku. Even if they were expensive lessons, sometimes... Mikoto doesn't want her to be eaten up.

"She's my friend!"

Mikoto might be the only one of the two who would say something like that out loud, though.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Spire: Embrace on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa dodges 11 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Space Invasion, taking 17 Fatigue damage!  Ren Aizawa's Flash
ability activates!
COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki fails to brace Pink Moon Stick's Body Horror, taking 10 Fatigue damage!  Kyouka Okazaki is Quipped!  Bind
Break! All of Pink Moon Stick's debuffs are cleared!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Pine [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

Pine's running behind. For what it's worth? She has a good reason.

"Hurry!"

Cue Tarte, trying to drag a Labyrinth child out from under debris and help him up, a feat made difficult by his tiny ferret like limbs, "Aaaaah!? Pine-han. This is... really hard!"

"He won't be able to walk with one leg Tarte!"

"Yeah! I gathered... it's just! I'm not... THAT strong!"

Pine looks at Tarte as if it hadn't quite occurred to her as her arms strain at the debris she's lifting up, then back at him. "... If only you could become a Pretty Cure." She mentions softly as Tarte keeps trying to help him limp along, more at this point being carried by the kid who's hopping, than actually doing any good. "Oh sure, I'll- get right on that. We're clear!"

She sets it down, then considers everyone ascending...

"Wait... wait up!? Now to get... up." She can jump high but.. "How am I going to get up there?"

"... I suppose I can offer a hand." Cure Pine turns around, eyes widening at...

-=-=-

"And a one... two... and a-" "Wait wait - stop! You're SURE you can throw me that high like this?" "-Was I not an Executive of Labyrinth?" "Well... that's a good point, it's just, does it really have to be like this-?" "-Do you want to get up there or not?" "I do but-" "Three."

Which is the same moment that Soular swings Pine around, and throws her like a Hammer into the sky.

There's an initial cry of alarm, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Before she levels out, and seems to panic less, "He really could do it..." She marvels, right as an Outsider comes at her, and Pine crosses her arms and plows into it. More and more come, as her hands move into a flurry of sudden punches and blocks to try and keep them away, moving more on instinct.

Some score hits, but she keeps moving on raw momentum, until she starts to come down, and lands on top of another Outsider, causing her to get a flash of a blue clothed, wolf-eared man... with a tail.

Bending at the knees, she leaps off it again as she eyes Cure Black, which her and White fighting up here remind her that she wasn't for a bit.

"I'm so sorry everyone!" She bows her head, even mid-leap, one might imagine she'd do a more formal bow if she wasn't aerial, "I was just running a little behind-!"

"That's not like you, Pine... usually it's Peach that gets lost on the way."

"That almost never happens!" Peach complains, as Berry and her come down to kick a mess of Outsiders. Whereas Pine herself pivots in mid-air towards Passion's voice. "Oh! Coming!" And as she redirects, she comes down with leg extended beside her, "Double Pretty Cure Kick!"

A phrase which Peach Echoes with her own alongside Berry.

"You'll never guess how I got up here." Pine asides to Passion, after impact. "Anyhow... I think I got a glimpse of someone who needs saving? He's... a guy, with adorable wolf-ears, and a tail?"

Leave it to her to remember those characteristics in particular. "... It almost feels like that day with Lucky." She notes, because despite the grim scenario...

...some things are as simple as a canine that needs saving to her. And even if it was Eas they were saving him from...

"Except this time, we do it together."

COMBAT: Cure Pine has joined the combo started by Cure Passion!
COMBAT: COMBO! Cure Passion and Cure Pine have used Pretty Cure Fresh Kick on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick perfectly counters 63 Fatigue damage from Cure Passion and Cure Pine's Combo: Pretty Cure Fresh Kick,
taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Counter!  Pink Moon Stick's Reverse ability activates!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick's counterattack, There's Just Too Many, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Cure Passion!  
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa accepts Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Spire: Embrace, taking 0 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (12)] has posed.

Ren squeezes Endo's hand tight, the promise of filling their bellies with good food all but sealed. She then turns to survey the situation. The sheer number of Outsiders and the eerie glow of stolen magic send a shiver down her spine, but she shakes it off, focusing on the battle. Then--

Fate's voice cuts through the chaos.

Ren's head snaps toward the golden blur diving toward the falling figure of Jail Scaglietti. Fate isn't hesitating, pushing herself to reckless speeds, and Ren knows--knows--that she cant let her go alone.

"I'm on it!" She barks, kicking off in pursuit.

Magic surges around her as she accelerates, the world blurring in a streak of bronze. The Outsiders react almost instantly, a new wave breaking off to intercept. One lunges from the side, jagged limbs cutting through the air toward her.

"Get out of my way!"

Instinct takes over. Ren throws up a hastily-formed barrier--bronze hexagonal plates snapping together in midair. The Outsiders strike meets the shield, energy rippling across its surface. For a second, she thinks it might hold. Then it shatters, shards of magic dispersing into nothing as the creatures claws slash through, scoring a glancing blow across her arm. Pain flares, sharp and hot, but she grits her teeth.

And then she experiences a flash, followed by a familiar scent of sweet-smelling plants.

"E-Eri-chan?!" She exclaims, momentarily faltering in her pursuit of Fate. This Outsider has Eri-chan's magic! "Y-You jerk!" She calls out in anger, and pushes forward. No time. No time!

Blood beads at the tear in her barrier jacket, but she powers through. The Outsider is still recovering from its attack when Ren twists in midair, holding a hand out as a runic circle spins into existence in front of it.

"BACK OFF!"

A barrage of mana-infused energy bursts fire out towards the beast, but Ren doesn't wait to see the result, turning away to blast off again.

Her attention is locked on Fate, on Jail, and the swarm that threatens to tear them apart before they even reach the ground. She crashes through the fray, firing off salvo after salvo of energy bursts at the vicious creatures. "Leave them alone!" She shouts, and in the process makes herself a more appealing target. As the Outsiders close in, she performs several tightly-controlled aerial maneuvers to avoid the brunt of their ire, though still gets clipped a couple of times in the process. The horrible feeling of being touched by these Outsiders causes her teeth to rattle, but she's determined to not let them win!

COMBAT: Ren Aizawa has used Scatter Pulse on Pink Moon Stick.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBlKPLeLU_s (Of Monsters and Men - Yellow Light)

La Sirene de Diamant does not have the opportunity, quite, to discern the fate of Jail Scaglietti. It is quite possible she could not see him. And perhaps she would not save him - or could not. But in the end, perhaps, it is moot. This is the great and shining blessing of being with others.

One might have weaknesses. Many? They can guard each other; and rely on one another as well.

And yet, there are so many. Like many swords, at least out west, it cuts both ways.

La Sirene, like everyone, is a star, but perhaps more literally than they - seen from any direction, whatever she has desperately grasped to be able to take to the air is making that auroral glow of inverted-light shine brighter, compressed into a six-rayed star-point. A minor magic, perhaps.

And if they are all stars, they are faced with a galaxy, however different the force and power might be. The Outsiders are horrid enough, even when one of them flies right towards her and engulfs her entire torso in something she thinks are jaws. The teeth are -- absent - it is flat and crushing which is bad enough, even if she is able to rip herself free with a kick and a commanding sweep of both arms. But afterwards, her head swims. She breathes heavily. She feels empty, hollowed out: like a tubular bell.

Will it end? Her heart has always been changeable, and perhaps it's changing from a high tide to a low one. Inevitable. A lot of things are inevitable, aren't they?

Nothing lasts forever.

Everything ends.

Dreams always fade, or distort, or collapse.

And...

...

Something impunges on La Sirene - Nori Ankou's - swirling, whirling mind as she rises upwards. Something unusual. Something that stands out among the background of sussurous horror.

A simple musical chord, as if someone was playing a quiet scale on a piano. A simple five note sequence, soft and quiet yet curiously penetrant.

La Sirene's eyes swivel towards it. One of the Things. Distinct from the others. It's making the sound. It's curious, melancholy but soothing. Something in la Sirene's heart is soothed by it; something else, paradoxically, is moved. That simple musical refrain.

It awakens other things. Memories. Pain and struggle. The smell of Tokyo streets in summer, late at night, after the rain's stopped.

All of these pour through her mind. Something wets her cheeks. La Sirene realizes it's tears at about the same time that she finds her left hand's already raised up as she turned almost a half-circle in the air, right hand already cycling despite a slight shaking. Is it her? Or, she thinks, even as she says:

"Les Mysteres, come"

and strokes down. There is another flare of light; the familiar and trusty charm still is with her, at least. The light bursts out, and to la Sirene it seems like it's moving a little slowly, but, she tells herself as it crosses that span of space between herself and the curiously musical creature, that might just be that she's tired.

It's glowing, isn't it? That color - it's blue, she thinks, like -

A memory of a brooch, carved simply and with labor and with love. Her back straightens as the image rests in her mind, sitting there. Her mouth tightens, pressing together. She doesn't speak, but she blinks away tears again.

Of course, for her, tears have their own meaning.

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Les Mysteres on Pink Moon Stick.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Black [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Cure White and Cure Black are on the move again, hopping after Jail's spirit, Outsider by Outsider. Stopping the creatures was never their main goal, but as time runs out, they have become even more inclined to evasion, letting the beasts slip past them even as they begin to glow with different-colored lights.

"There it is!" Cure White calls, as she and Black split up onto different Outsiders with a jump.

"I've got it!" Black shouts triumphantly, seeing a clear path up Outsider backs between her and the Jail-Outsider at last. Landing in a crouch, she touches the spot on her cheek that White's lips recently graced. Then, thighs bulging, she takes a massive leap across a great distance, towards an Outsider glowing magenta-and-gold. The creature rears up, confronting Black instead of trying to get past her, and Black, giddy from the kiss she wears like a badge on her face, draws her fist back gamely. "YOu wanna play that way?" she challenges. Hurling a massive punch, she slam's into... a golden shield, her blow halted dead, her arm ringing with pain.

Black blinks, the scent of fresh bread in her nostrils. "...Bloom?" she asks forlornly. The shield had not looked like Bloom's until it was struck, but the impact cracked it along a grid, and now it looks a bit like a sunflower. The yawning maw of the Outsider is already casting shadows over her body. Rather than a proper mouth, it is as if the Outsider just opened itself up to engulf her. It slams shut, hiding her from view.

"Blacku!" White shouts, changing course to aid her partner. But another Outsider arises between them, glistening as pale as the moon. Its light catches on Cure White's garments like fire to kindling, glowing on her clothing, but what really ignites is her even paler skin. An observer might be forgiven for thinking Cure White was radiating the moonlight herself. "...Sailor Moon?" Cure White ventures.

"Urrr---AGH!" Cure Black screams, squatting the weight of the Outsider's upper half to force its maw partway open again. There is some horrible fang buried in her back, and a smaller one in her shoulder, making this lift cruel and costly. Bloom's golden glow sinks into Black's tanned skin and suffuses it, its warm hue finding a home there the way Moon's cool one did in White's. As she reaches her full height, Black switches the weight to her hands, starting to pull the fang from her back by forcing the upper jaw up further. She grits her teeth as it slowly drags out of her... and then, Cure White cries out. Glancing behind her, Black sees the ground, so far below that even she would turn to jam if she landed there. With desperation, she tosses herself down towards it. She'll figure something out.

The already-wounded Cure White is driven back onto the back of the Outsider she just left by a burst of moonlight. It burns cold, like what has caught fire now is not merely the tone of her skin, but the fabric of her soul. Alight, White attempts to pat away the flames, but when they do not respond in the least, she makes note, and stands up, ignoring it for now. "Out of my way..."

The Bloom Outsider does not appear content to let Cure Black fall to her death, plunging down for a second bite. Ready this time, Black watches it approach, and as its maw opens, she spreads her body wide, catching the air and shooting much faster into the maw than expected. Landing on the lower jaw, she cocks her fist back like a revolver, and as the mouth closes, she punches upward directly into it, bursting a hole out the top of the monster.

Her moonglowing skin streaking light behind her like an inverted calligraphy brush, Cure White slams a palm strike into the moonlit Outsider. It collides with Cure Bloom's.

COMBAT: Cure Black has used Sen no Sen on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Cure White has used Eight Trigram Palm on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Ren Aizawa's Scatter Pulse, taking 11 Fatigue damage!  
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 22 Fatigue damage from Cure White's Eight Trigram Palm, taking 18 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon
Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick dodges 26 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's Les Mysteres, taking 17 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon
Stick's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick perfectly braces 21 Fatigue damage from Cure Black's Sen no Sen, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Brace!
Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

Endo's eyes skitter across the sky as it becomes a kaleidoscope of lights. The sudden burst of color, in other times, might spark hope. Here the swirling lights feel as empty as the things containing them.

He tracks the descent of the man falling and soon loses track of the blur that Fate Testarossa becomes. "Go, Fate!" He calls. It couldn't happen any other way. Something about that makes Endo's lips cut into a determined smile.

The hand holding Ren's gives a squeeze in return as he lets her handle it. He knows she can.

And then...up. He meets the next wave head-on. If it could be called a wave at allit's more like an ocean. The first to meet him is a thin line, a pulsing pink needle that rips across his armor. The Outsider bends and moves, bladelike points giving chase asFallen Stern cuts chaff around it.

Their exchange is brief, familiar, and comes to a violent end as they exchange final blows. Fallen Stern in the Outsider's center, the vessel's fine edge in the Endo's shoulder.

COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Asteroid Eilen on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick dodges 21 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Asteroid Eilen, taking 32 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick's
Fade and Flash abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

There is so much on the line. The magic of countless worlds that Belka destroyed in her grief in a desperate attempt to save them. All of the magic of every magical girl. Her home--and Japan had really started to feel like home, finally, when she finally figured out what it was that she wanted, and started making friends. The kinds of friends she'd trust with her life.

But she can't forget the image of her parents, with all hope and emotion stolen from them, staring blankly on that street, chanting those awful words...

She had to keep going. She braced herself for the next kick off an outsider, felt the sensation of the void sneaking into her even in the brief moment of contact before she rocketed away, up and ever higher.

There was an outsider glowing with rainbow light that she was chasing.

We have to go faster. We can't let him get away.

But suddenly it's not just one outsider that's glowing, it's all of them. She sucks in a sharp breath and misses her next tjump as she stares in horror at all of the auras flaring up around them.

It's a sickening sight, far more sickening than thinking about the fall awaiting her if she doesn't recover her jump.

It feels... almost gross, to see the Outsiders empowered this way, and Kyouka's skin crawls as she looks around to take stock of the situation.

She completely fails to notice the outsider glowing green with the warmth of sunlight swooping at her until it is too late. All she can do is let out a sharp yelp as she is engulfed. Strike Wolf springs to life, activating a barrier but it's only delaying the inevitable.

It feels like twisted, thorny vines of ivy snaking their way into her body. No--it feels like the vines are wrapping around her heart, and Kyouka suddenly seizes up, feeling her heart pounding with a sense of profound panic.

Underneath the warmth of sunlight ther is also a terrible melancholy trying to draw her in, and as her panic starts to drown in it, she feels herself slipping... like she's...

... lost.

Even in her worst moment, Lost Ivy fought so hard for her.

Even in her worst moment, Lost Ivy cradled her Pure Heart in her hands and delivered it back to her.

Even in her worst moment...

<SoundTracker> Find Your Flame - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wagkbGcX21k

Kyouka's fist tightens.

No.

This will be Ivy's worst moment if they fail. It will be everyone's worst moment. She grits her teeth as her fist starts to glow with a bright violet light, aided by a band of Midchildan glyphs created by Strike Wolf.

"No... one... else..." Kyouka spits out through gritted teeth.

She forces her heart to calm down once more. She has no idea what this will do to Ivy's magic, but she has to believe it can't be so fragile a thing as to be destroyed this way.

She won't believe it.

"Lunar... IMPACT!"

She swings, and unleashes a blinding explosion with her punch.

COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Lunar Impact on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 17 Fatigue damage from Kyouka Okazaki's Lunar Impact, taking 14 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick's
Block and Parry abilities activate!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

When each glowing Outsider meets its end, it turns to stone and plummets. There's no time to watch these corpses hit the still-twinkling force field far far below and see what happens after that; but the stones themselves no longer glow. Each beautiful light goes out.

Are they saving their friends, or dooming them?

Does the Outsider who first swallowed Jail, then digested and ejected him, still matter?

Does the portal?

What can anyone DO now?

In many battles such as these, whether fought in Tokyo or on Belka, there has often been a transition to culmination. First one defeats the little monsters -- then one defeats the big one.

That does not happen here. There is no big one.

Or rather... they're ALL the big one.

It takes time to notice, and there's both very little time indeed for such observations moment-to-moment amid endless peril, and all the time in the world -- literally, because it will run out if the heroes fall -- because the battle stubbornly continues to go on.

But it is noticeable.

<SoundTracker> Immortals (Fall Out Boy) - One More Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHn5Q7hCjxw

The ~~Radiant Knight~~Lera Camry SLAMS her golden shield into one wave of monsters on the left flank, and the right flank flinches -- just for a moment. ~~The Argent Knight~~Cure Passion, united with her golden sister, widens the gap just created with a magnificent double kick, and somehow it is filled again far too quickly, by extra-universals who had no business knowing that a gap existed in the first place.

Unless, that is... they're all one creature.

It makes sense. ~~The Vermillion Knight~~Mikoto eviscerates one creature with a the least swipe of her Child, but a thousand creatures feel its pain long after it is gone. ~~The Ebon Knight~~Fate descends like a meteor to save Jail, but they can tell that they're surrounded just a little too quickly, because others outside of her cage can see it. ~~The Ashen Knight~~Kyouka detonates a punch on her enemy, a blast wide enough to consume far more than just one, yet those outside of it seem perfectly aware of its trajectory. Ren's royal bolts rain down from below as she plunges after Fate, Black and White triggering an explosion via collision up above, La Sirene invoking the silvery Les Mysteres in between; heaven and earth united to defeat these foes, to consume them.

But those who come after, down from the portal, remember every clever maneuver despite having never experienced them. They will not work twice, because they actually just did.

SHE just did. Or he, perhaps. The energy of hunger of these beings is more darkly masculine than feminine, if gender must be prescribed at all. Doubtless the creature -- THE creature -- has no use for it. He, It, simply continues to send out parts of himself, and the defenders mow down his limbs like a forest of hairs. Shave after shave, but none of them close. Even the ~~Umbral Knight~~Endo, whose skills in a melee are unmatched, is starting to--

starting to--

remember. Fallen Stern remembers, and through him, so does a Tokyo boy: remembers that before his dead master failed his Queen; before he failed himself;

first -- at the very beginning -- he failed his original charge.

The Crown Princess started hanging back a little to spot these details; it took more than one save to keep her alive to make the observation she now does. Her sword points out through the ranks -- DEEP through -- which is to say UPWARDS, since the monsters keep spiraling down.

Endo can feel her words tear through his memory, through his mind.

"THERE! That one never moves."

It's true. There's a single rock in the river of ichorous, cthonic monsters flowing downwards to meet them in battle. Sometimes it is momentarily lost to sight, simply because there are too many others in the way. But it always reappears eventually, exactly where it was.

It seems like a creature like any of the others; strange and wrong and, individually, not all that tough.

Endo can see it.

"Together, we must break through and put an end to it!" she calls. "I will be the van!"

He knows what price the Crown Princess paid to save Belka -- and how it felt, as the Umbral Knight, to support but also survive the consequences of her choice.

This time, he doesn't have to watch. Endo -- Stern -- they can put an end to this, if he dares. They can protect everyone.

And, no doubt at all, everyone is in serious need of protection. There are just too many. Too many Outsiders. Too many stolen friends, stolen worlds. Everything is on the line and yet nothing is more painful than seeing the way wounds are opening up on the Device-wielders, the Pretty Cure, their friends. This can't go on.

Something has to give.

Someone...

COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Kyouka Okazaki.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Endo Naoki.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Cure Black.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Ren Aizawa.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Cure Pine.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fever Pitch on Cure White.
COMBAT: Cure Passion braces 23 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 19 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit! Cure
Passion's Block and Parry abilities activate! Exhausted applied to Cure Passion!
COMBAT: Lera Camry cleanly braces 34 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 6 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
Lera Camry's Block and Parry abilities activate! Exhausted applied to Lera Camry!
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant braces 23 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 10 Fatigue damage! La Sirene de
Diamant's Block and Parry abilities activate! Exhausted applied to La Sirene de Diamant!
COMBAT: Cure White perfectly dodges 28 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical
Dodge! Cure White's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa fails to counter Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 32 Fatigue damage! Exhausted applied to Fate
Testarossa!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa's counterattack, Blitz Rush, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick!
COMBAT: Cure White covers Cure Black for Pink Moon Stick's attack, Fever Pitch, taking it upon herself instead!
COMBAT: Cure White braces 16 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 24 Fatigue damage! Critical Hit!
Exhausted applied to Cure White!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi partially dodges 6 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 25 Fatigue damage! Mikoto
Minagi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Cure Pine perfectly counters 31 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical
Counter! Cure Pine's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
COMBAT: Cure Pine's counterattack, Pineapple Reverse, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick!
COMBAT: Ren Aizawa braces 11 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 17 Fatigue damage! Ren Aizawa's Block and
Parry abilities activate!
COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki perfectly dodges 33 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 0 Fatigue damage! Critical
Dodge! Kyouka Okazaki's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
COMBAT: Hayato Nishi transforms into Westar!
COMBAT: Westar has loaded his saved combat state! He is now ready to take on 1 opponent!
COMBAT: Endo Naoki braces 11 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Fever Pitch, taking 17 Fatigue damage! Endo Naoki's Block and
Parry abilities activate! Exhausted applied to Endo Naoki!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

He sees it. They both do, Endo and Stern. Something in the distant past overlaid against something urgently present.

There's a brief calm as his eyes slide across the space above.

"Is it..."

<THERE.>

"Right." The knight gives an affirmative nod as he raises his weapon to point.

"Hey!" He calls, "That's the thing!" He's not as eloquent as the Crown Princess unfortunately. But he conveys the same point. They'll get it.

Endo shows by leading the way. The Outsiders are already clawing and dragging, not eager to give any time to rest. Still he climbs, hacking a line upward as rain from the firmament.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

Lera smashes through Outsiders, smacking them backward with her sword and shield. Another Outsider slams into her -- there's a flash of a girl firing an Intelligent Device like a gun, sending blasts of energy into the sky. She breathes out, teeth gritting for a moment.

But Endo calls out -- 'that's the thing' -- and she sees where he is headed. "Endo-kun!" she calls out. "Right! Let's go, everyone!"

She turns in midair, flying after him. She turns -- and looks at some of the encroaching Outsiders. Lera grits her teeth; she turns Broken Ground towards them.

Then, several bolts of golden light erupt, shooting towards Outsiders that get closer.

"What are we lookng for?" she calls back to Endo.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Fault Siege on Pink Moon Stick.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

"I know!" Fate says to Lera with a smile, but she's already moving, one wonders if she's moving faster than her voice, to the point where it's her afterimage that's speaking to her.

And Fate - as Mikoto says - does it. Pushing herself to her limit, to save someone. It does not matter if he's an awful person. Fate once thought she was too... but she knows now neither Mikoto nor herself are.

It's Ren who jumps into the fray, keeping her from disaster, as she offers one last, "Ren..." Then as she flies away, she gets a message, <<Thank you. I know you can do it.>>

Her telepathic broadcast to everyone above, is heard.

<<Safe. I caught him.>>

Even the eyes of Magical Girls would be hard pressed to see her smiling on the ground, and holding up two fingers in a V from the ground. However, Fate feels that moment, like once with the Resonance Drives.

A call to battle. A call to arms. The urge to follow the Crown Princess into battle is strong. Stronger than ever. But even as the Ebon Knight...

... there was always someone whose memory she was fighting for. She was following in her footsteps. It isn't the past in Ancient Belka.

She knows that perhaps fighting for a memory is a noble thing indeed, but there's something she values more in this moment, and it is not a lack of value in her friends. In fact, it is because she trusts them so much, she can make it - even as Endo charges.

She makes a choice. It is not an easy one.

<<I'm going to take him somewhere else - then there's something I have to do. Can I ask you all for some help... with a small wish of mine? Please, win. I know you can do it.>>

As Fate lifts up Jail, she walks, rather than flies at first, she doesn't want to attract extra attention other than above, and as one of them comes down at her...

... her leg vanishes inside of its maw, and she makes a noise of alarm at the same moment Bardiche chimes.

... the Outsider might swear the bite was solid, and it was, but it's maw is utterly empty... as Fate reappears closer to a particular crowd of Labyrinth Civilians, and a fairy, far, far away from the Outsider who attacked her.

"Can I ask you to watch after him for a while?"

A small ferret looks up at Fate, Fate who knows the ways of ferrets from her time battling one looks back. Tarte looks over his shoulder, then over to the rest of the crowd, then back at Fate, and points at himself.

"Wait... you want ME to do it!?"

"Who else?" Fate sounds confused, "Just be careful not to use a binding spell unless you have to, it might attract them." It's at the same moment that Fate flies off.

"I CAN'T ACTUALLY DO THAT!"

More confused as it's such a basic spell, Fate keeps flying off as she calls out back. "Then it's not a problem?"

Tarte slumps, then puts down his napsack and rummages through the contents to try to figure something out. "Maybe I can make it work with gum..."

COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Lera Camry's Fault Siege, taking 19 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Lera Camry is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Black [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Cure Black stands, fist in the upper 'jaw' of the Outsider, trembling as she tries to hold its mouth open. "Seemed like a good plan," she sighs. A sunflower glow pulses around her.

"Ne, Saki-chan," Cure Black says. "Are you here? Can you understand?"

The maw lurches, trying to close on Black.

"They got you, huh? Strike three, you're out? No, probably not. Probably tagged you out at base, right? You're like me. You go for it when you shouldn't sometimes."

Lifting her other hand, Cure Black braces the fleshy ceiling above her, struggling. She feels like a walnut in a cracker, the leverage of the Outsider's size giving it an advantage in this contest. "Sorry you have to see me not looking so cool. It always felt good, having you think I was so awesome. I'm a pretty selfish person... to let you think that. Because I started before you, you know? Whenever I looked at you, it was like looking at myself two years ago."

The mouth grinds down, forcing Black's shoulders down. "I should have told you that. I should have said... 'you'll get here too. If we were the same age, you'd be here already.' Because..." Cure Black's feet spread, bracing herself to slow the descent of the mouth crushing her. "You're just like me, Saki. You were... just like me." Black's eyes close, spilling the tears in her eyes down her cheeks.

"And when I saw you and Mai together, I guess that's the closest I ever got to understanding." Black's knee hits the squishy ground, her strength finally starting to buckle entirely. "How a girl like her... could love me too. So it's okay, Saki. I'm glad I lost to you, so you know how strong you are. It's not bad... for it to end like this."

Cure Black's other knee hits the ground, her herculean strength quivering in her shoulders. Blood leaks from the puncture in her back, driven out by her straining.

"But I'm sorry," Black whispers. "I can't."

Moonlight floods the dim chamber, driving the golden light of a sunflower back. Cure Black's face is illuminated in gold. The back of her hair is an almost colorless silver. A silhouette at the edge of the Outsider's maw has cranked its mouth wide open, a girl in a skirt who seems, somehow, to be standing in front of a moon, even though she should be backdropped by the ground. Her hair, as it falls, happens to fall in halves, almost like twintails.

Cure Black smiles, gently, expectantly. "She won't let me."

Rent asunder, the Cure Bloom-infused Outsider falls towards the ground in pieces, its golden shield fizzling on and off. Carried princess-style by Cure White, Black looks down over White's shoulder, and gives the plummeting monster corpse a little wave.

Dropping onto the back of a new Outsider, White lets Black down onto the ground. "Are you all right?" she asks.

"Yeah." Black smiles, looking at the pulsing glow of moonlight on Cure White's skin. "What happened to you? Power up?"

"N-no," White startles. "Well..." She looks at Black's face. "If you think so."

"Huh?"

A burst of wind nearly knocks both Cures off the Outsider, as a vast pair of white wings spreads before them. An Outsider has grown feathers somehow, its frightening form now resembling a biblical angels, at once beautiful and unnatural. A keening cry washes over Cure Black and White, its empty hatred chilling.

"...Egret," Cure Black realizes, heartbroken.

Cure White closes one hand, touching into her chest as she looks towards the ground, realizing. "We took her from you," she says softly. "I'm so sorry, Mai." Despite (and because of) her shame, she reaches for the hand of the girl who brings a sunny smile into her life.

Cure Black shakes her head. "It's too late," she realizes, watching the Jail Outsider fleeing. "It's going to get away."

"We can try Marble Screw from here," Cure White insists, but Black can hear the doubt in her voice.

"Egret..." Black pleads, as if the Outsider might hear, and help them.

<Pose Tracker> Westar [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.

Westar is, for very loose definitions of the word, safe right now. Miroku's grip is a firm one - why, if Westar didn't know better, he'd think the giant Child was trying to squeeze him to death - and with a head poking out, he can get a solid view of the battle.

He's not exactly a master tactician; he's only commanded one monster at a time, and honestly the only familiar thing here is 'being unfairly outnumbered'. Mikoto went off to fight that bug-ish Outsider, Fate went to save the guy who got eaten, and all the while Westar himself is kind of...stuck for a plan. And physically stuck, but mentally is the really big problem, he can squeeze free if he needs to. There's too many to fight fairly, so...if it was anyone who wasn't him in charge, the trick would be to fight unfairly, right?

'That's the thing' is the order of the day, and Westar looks for what someone sharper than him has spotted. One strangely still Outsider is...maybe important? But there's a lot of them in the way. Fortunately...as he did every time he inconvenienced Tokyo, Westar has a gargantuan ally.

"Hey, Miroku!" His voice comes out as a squeak - it's nice to be safely held but this is kind of a little much. There's no answer, but the baleful eye seems to glance at him. "I know I'm not your boss, but...I think that one thing might be important! Throw me up there, so we can-"

Apparently that was enough for Miroku to want to be rid of this not-his-child being, and Westar is duly hurled away from Miroku.

"Wait, wrong waaaaaaay-" Hurtling in somewhat the wrong direction, Westar flails around to try to find a path up - he glances off of one Outsider hard enough to bounce, manages an elbow-strike to rebound again, and he's hurtling somewhere into the fray, desperately trying to course correct.

He's hearing notes as he richochet-kicks his way slowly upward - and there's one faintly familiar light gleaming not too far away. Its magic is musical in nature, but with Westar's head ringing, he's not...entirely sure whether it's the holy major chords of a melodious rhythm, or the familiar minor tones of a felonious trio...

Maybe it's both. Some worlds were home to good and evil in equal measure, and whether the magic's land was Major or Minor, that's an Outsider that's stolen the essence of music. Someone should do something heroic here.

Westar himself is pinballing wildly, but he can try his best to serve. He owes it to the villains he fought beside and the Precure he fought against. There's a hint of a clef that's solid enough to kick off of (and no longer burns), there's a phantom of a staff that he can hook a hand on long enough to swing around - he throws himself as a projectile at the musical Outsider. If he can get through, then maybe he can get closer to where he could really help.

COMBAT: Westar has used Executive Pinball on Pink Moon Stick.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

The blast flies. The strangely musical creature perishes in a burst and a flash.

It does not occur to la Sirene, exactly, what this means for the girl it reminded her for, in a grotesque manner. Sayaka. She may not be thinking that far ahead, exactly. This is a place with no rising action, merely descent. Action, surely, but how far are they above Labyrinth, now? If she fell, would she be heroically caught and taken to safety? What would that mean for the others - now missing two? Her eyes track Fate, but...

She cannot think poorly of that. It simply isn't something in the space where she exists now.

And then she hears another's voice.

La Sirene has been ascending semi-solitarily for a while, but Endo's voice rings out to her. It's not people speaking to themselves or to others, but Endo telling them something - telling *all* of them. Her head snaps towards him.

He points. 'That's the thing!'

La Sirene looks up.

She doesn't see it.

And yet...

... aren't there a lot of things you can't see, some of the time? She's never seen France or Mars, but she's certain they exist. She knows some of the language from one, and has met the guardian of the other.

... Is Endo the kind of person who would guess poorly, or speak up simply to encourage people? Would he be the kind of person who creates a hopeless cause from his analysis of what surrounds them, or would he simply hold his peace in such situations? La Sirene's lip twitches just a bit.

... Are there not the bonds between them? (La Sirene's trajectory has already curved towards Endo's.)

... isn't there no reason at all to doubt this?!

The thoughts flash through her mind, and la Sirene speaks: "It must be a ways away. Stern," she says, or shouts, over the chaos, "Did you detect it?" Lera immediately assents, and with that, la Sirene folds her arms over herself. The light around her begins to shimmer, and distort...

... and the funereal pose, her palms set against the joint of her shoulders, slowly shifts. Her fingers, cold but against slightly warmer skin, slid down, as if to clasp her own forearms. For reassurance? No - she feels confidence, doesn't she? If they are wrong, let it be as Chevaliers!

"I'll try to," la Sirene says, just as an Outsider turns (inverts) towards her and lunges (smears) at her -- and those stellate projections of dark-light that seem to come from however she is refracting her Pharos's ever watchful and (so far) undimmed irradiance? The Outsider would have to strike through one to hit her, to rend her asunder, or to simply swallow her whole.

Instead, its snout (proboscis) briefly, violently impales itself on the ray of light. It is not enough to END the thing, but it does at least move (smear) away while pulling (shattering) itself loose of the improbable spire of light.

"... Does it look," la Sirene begins, before frowning as she realizes she cannot even possibly find the words to describe these things. "Will it stand out?"

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Rising Towards The Decisive Battle... on Mikoto Minagi.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick cleanly braces 17 Fatigue damage from Westar's Executive Pinball, taking 3 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon
Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!  Stagger applied to Pink Moon Stick!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Pine [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

There's many, and as Passion and her descend, more come in to fill them, which is why it's her reaction to them coming to simply grasp one out of mid-air with a gasp that's a mixture of both pain and disgust as she touches it, and suddenly pivot into a whirl, warding the Outsiders off with their own fellow, before pitching it up into a release, momentarily stunning the pack.

She was never 'a knight'... but when Endo calls for the charge, the Legendary Warrior Precure calls out to Passion, "Passion! We've got to catch up to him! If we don't..." Pine understands at least - it's far far more than just an adorable wolf that's at stake. She can see Black, stricken, and hear...

... Bloom...

...Egret...

Seeing her face, even from here, she puts her hands together, "Can I use you to jump off of? I can't teleport like you." Pause, small head cant, she thinks about it, "Though I guess I can teleport with you?"

It's hectic, she forgot she could do that. Or maybe it was Love taking advantage of Setsuna's ability to teleport that made her think it was impolite to ask?

"I... I promise it's for a better reason than a beach ball."

"Mouuu... don't bring that up. I said I was sorry for that!" Peach says in the midst of the fray, whereas Berry looks away awkwardly, pretending she was never a part of that. "After you didn't apologize right away and had a whole pillow fight over it."

"Hey! She started it!"

Pine sweats at Passion's ice cream look to Peach, but eventually she smiles and reaches out her hand to her...

... but Passion has other plans... "Huh!?"

"Ha! That's perfect! Impressive as always Passion."

"SuGOI! I've never seen you do something like that! Ahaha... I'm glad it's water under the bridge... Now-! Senpai! Mind if we lend you a hand?" Peach says as she changes focus mid-jump, her eyes fixing upon the Outsider. "There's no way we're letting it get away." Pine tells Black and White. Before Passion corrects them, and Peach looks astounded, "EHHH!? Really!? Okay everyone! ... Let's follow Passion!"

"You weren't paying attention at all, were you?" Berry notes, as Peach replies, "I definitely was! It's just Passion was paying better attention! Together! Precure-"

It's a different vibe, perhaps from Black and White in this moment, but it's not them not taking the situation seriously. It's because... whether this is their last day together or not, they're all trying to get their happiness together. And they can only do that... as themselves.

BGM - Precure Eien no Tomodachi (New Stage OP) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaRDF9WntP0

It's no longer a problem figuring out how they're going to get there, as they all land and launch themselves off in synch the newfound footing, and forward in an enormous arcing leap...

"...Collaboration..."

... Pine draws her fist back with all of them, and pink, blue, yellow, and red join white and black leap into the fray in a titanic arc down the center like an armed missile, ready to detonate down the center with a strength only this many Precure at once can muster.

"... PUNCH!"

COMBAT: Cure Pine has started a combo targeting Pink Moon Stick!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Passion remembers the dreams. She remembers what she was there. And she notices that they keep going, despite all their hits. Despite all their efforts. Pine, Peach, and Berry are with her, and that counts for a lot. Lera is still fighting out there, too. And their friends... Ren, and Endo, and Kyouka, and Mikoto, and La Sirene. And she thinks she even hears--

"Westar!" Passion calls. Then she says deadpan to Pine,"I wouldn't do guessing games at a time like this," Passion agrees with Pine. But someone who needs saving...? Hmmmm. She would remember that. But despite the fact that she'd threatened Lucky herself--

'Right!" Passion answers Pine, and smiles. "Together. ...And we'll have to go see Lucky after this, too."

They will.

But there is something--

"Endo!" Passion calls. The thing? Well, it doesn't have to be eloquent to make sense to her; after all, one of her better friends is Mikoto there, after everything.

He's leading the way. Which means...

Endo calls for a charge, and Cure Passion nods sharply to Pine. "Well--" Pause. She can teleport with her! But... for a better reason than a beach ball. "I didn't forget," Passion says evenly, that small smile still on her face--but a harder look in her eyes. An ice cream look in her eyes. "...But I forgive you." All of them!? Apparently!

"Let's go!" A pause. "But there's no ground up there, so..."

Passion reaches back to the tower. "I'll bring us some! Akarun, with me!"

Passion grips a broken piece of the tower with both hands. "Haaaaaah--!"

She rips it free, dust and debris scattering and falling towards the barrier below, and as she turns, BLIPS--

In a crimson flash, she is gone. And then, she, Pine, Berry, and Peach are there, behind Cure Black and Cure White.

"That way!" Passion calls, and spins with her prize of rock. "Endo-kun says it's there! Let's clear him a path together!" A beat, then a shout, "ENDO! We're coming!"

"Pretty Cure...!"

She swings--and then blip, the six of them blink out, and back in, onto the platform that's already rising from how Passion threw it.

But the beautiful white wings that seem to belong to Cure Egret's heart will have to be faced in order to break through. And then, from there--

"Collaboration...!" Cure Passion rears back her fist, in perfect time with Peach and Berry and Pine and soon Black and White, her blow seeming to push forward in slow motion, as if punching through deep, deep water to reach the foe ahead--

Or maybe it just has that much force behind it. "PUNCH!"

COMBAT: Cure Passion has joined the combo started by Cure Pine!

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

Mikoto nods, when she 'hears' Fate, in her head. "Right!" She agrees to win so easily, so readily, but what else can she do? She is elementally herself.

And her element is black glass, just like...

"There?!" Endo might well look positively loquacious next to Mikoto, but she understands his meaning perfectly, simple though it is. Birds of a feather don't make speeches together.

Another Outsider looms in front of her, horns coming from its horns coming from its horns, and bronze and gold warp through the air, not quite colouring the beast as much as inhabiting existence around it. Mikoto turns to it, and her brow knits in tension.

"But... I still got things to say to you," she says, even as Miroku recognises the profane manifestation, too -- and brings his terrible greatclub down on it.

He hurls Westar away in his next motion, as if in pique. Can Children feel pique? Miroku can.

"Ah... Miroku!" Mikoto cries, but Westar is fine, he has a thick skull. The great beast turns, and Mikoto turns, too, a whole half-circle on his massive back to find la Sirene in her confusion.

"That thing!" She calls, to her, helpfully. "Endo said!"

And then she pauses, and tilts her head.

"... the different one!" She decides, as a good explanation, because she's the best at explaining things. (Chitose wept.) "See? It's not moving? Come on! We gotta help Endo!"

And so they move.

COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi accepts La Sirene de Diamant's Rising Towards The Decisive Battle..., taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical
Hit!  Mikoto Minagi is Reinforced by La Sirene de Diamant!
COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Spire: Expression on La Sirene de Diamant.

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (12)] has posed.

Ren gasps as she lands hard against a floating piece of debris, her limbs trembling from exhaustion. The wound she sustained just moments ago is excruciating, not doubt because of the void-like nature of the Outsiders. Fate's mental message is heard, and Ren smiles despite the pain. <<Of course we'll win, Fate-chan! Be careful!>>

On top of that she can clearly feel her reserves running low, giving her a sensation not unlike a weight pulling her deeper into the abyss of depletion.

Ren next hears Endo's call, the urgency in his voice cutting through the chaos of the battlefield. Her head jerks up, scanning the sky. "That's the thing!" He'd said. The key to all of this.

A sharp cry from the right draws her attention--another wave of Outsiders rushing toward her, their alien forms shifting and writhing, adapting as they have again and again. And like before, one of them radiates something familiar...

Alyce.

Rens breath catches as memories flood her mind. The dedicated and hard-working TSAB mage she'd met in the nascent days of her magical career. "Ducati-san...!" Ren feels herself getting choked up at the sudden exposure to such potent remembrances. Fighting alongside such an experienced magic-user had been profoundly beneficial for her own development. She'd often wondered just how she could ever show her gratitude...

BGM -- Nana Mizuki -- Silent Bible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC6tfg8k7nw

...Well, now that chance has presented itself. She cant afford to burn out now. Not when Alyces magic--her essence--has been stolen. Not when she still has the means to fight. The Outsiders dont wait. They lunge toward her, screeching in unison. The one bearing Alyces magic is conveniently at the forefront. Good.

"I wont let you keep it," Ren growls, and with a yell engages the onslaught, kicking and punching with all of the force and fury she can muster.

COMBAT: Ren Aizawa has used For Alyce! on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Ren Aizawa's For Alyce!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Kyouka unleashes her attack from inside the Outsider, and it consumes it in a large ball of violet-white light--and thankfully Kyouka works her way free as the defeated outsider starts to fall, though she's, admittedly, falling herself.

"Alright, one more time!"

Kyouka swings--but sees the Outsider she was aiming for juke just out of her range and frowns. And she's still falling. Back to the original plan, then. She kicks at the air, and a shockwave of bright violet energy erupts from her heel, sending her rocketing sideways. She misses the outsider, but a quick readjust lets her feint and hit the next one, and now she rebounds off of that one to redirect her momentum back upwards.

"Guys, I think these things are learning and that's giving me a bad feeling!" She's having to work harder to ricochet her way up through the torrent of Outsiders, too--thankfully, she's got fast reflexes, and thankfully, she's adaptive.

But this is still taxing, and she's not even sure what she's heading for, yet.

And then Endo has an answer he points. "Got it, Endo! I got your back!" Two zips through the air and an attack net her another boost upwards, stomping the top of an outsider so she can rocket further up, though she's lagging behind her flying peers.

She spares the briefest of glances as Fate broadcasts that Jail is safe. She'll trust Fate's judgment, though... it's not like she would've left him to die, either. But she asks them all for a favor... A small wish. To please win. <<You got it, Fate! Good luck!>>

She's surging upwards, and she sees her next target to rebound off of, but pauses, just a moment. There's something familiar about that bright celadon glow... and as she gets closer she can feel the refreshing winds of a of an uplifting breeze sweeping out from it, the gentle placidity of a lake...

"Shamal-san," Kyouka breathes in with a sharp breath.

She will never forget that moment, when she thought she was at her most powerless, that she heard Shamal's gentle but firm voice in her ear. How she said that her magic was a part of her, that Strike Wolf helped control it but that it was still her magic.

And at her urging, when Ren's house was in immediate danger of being attacked by Jail and his Dark Devices--Kyouka had been the one to cast the barrier. Her powr, her will, made manifest, shifting everything over half a dimension to the right.

It was revelatory, knowing that some intrinsic part of her was magical. That it wasn't all just Strike Wolf.

That... there hadn't been some mistake to why she had become a magical girl in the first place.

Three kicks at the air, three shockwaves send her zipping back and forth as she approaches, kicks, and resumes surging upwards, the long tails of her belt flapping wildly around her as she tore ever higher into the sky.

"Strike Wolf, I think we need a new trick!" she shouts as she scans the battlefield.

<Affirmative.>

Despite herself, Kyouka grins. "Then together!"

As she ascends Kyouka punches her fist forward. A glowing violet circle preceeded her, as an array of bright violet balls spring into life in front of it. "Go!" she shouts.

Strike Wolf announces, <Hunting Shot.>

All of the balls of magic blast off in front of her, surging forward. But just before the start to impact they break apart, splitting up as Strike Wolf tries to move them in unpredictable patterns to try and throw off the Outsiders.

COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Hunting Shot on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Kyouka Okazaki's Hunting Shot, taking 18 Fatigue damage!  
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant accepts Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Spire: Expression, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  La Sirene de Diamant is
Reinforced by Mikoto Minagi!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Black [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

One moment, Cure Black and Cure White were facing an avenging angel, its hideous beauty spreading feathers across the sky, unfolding a tragic confrontation pinion by pinion. The next, they are surrounded by laughing friends. Shaken, the two older Cures glance around themselves, and begin to smile as well, sadly at first. But then Peach's suGOI sails up her register, and Black cracks, giggling, followed a moment later by White.

"Thank you," White whispers to Passion with a gentle smile, below the warm words of their other friends.

Cure Black reaches over and squeezes Pine's shoulder, shaking it around familiarly, then pulling her into a momentary side-hug. "Endo needs that one, huh?" she confirms.

"Endo called a new play," White tells Black softly. Black glances at her in surprise. They are both thinking of the same athlete, now. The same tree, out in Tama.

"Got it," Black says, her voice tight. "We won't lose."

"Not when we're together," White agrees. "All of us."

Like a row of archers, the six Pretty Cure pull back their fists, and the draw is heavy.

<SoundTracker> Precure Eien no Tomodachi (New Stage OP) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaRDF9WntP0

Collaboration...!

PUNCH!

With an avian keen, the Outsider before them throws its great wings back. A lens of force the color of a robin's egg turns the air to diamond, a shield much like the one that stopped Cure Black's punch dead when she attacked Bloom's Outsider, even as the wind from white wings blasts at the Pretty Cure. But what would have thrown them back individually, even if they had attacked merely at the same time, has almost no effect on six Pretty Cure truly acting as one. Six fists slam into the shield. And they knock through it like a brick through a glass window.

As its shield shatters, the Egret Outsider draws its wings back gracefully, unnaturally fast. But even as it begins to close them down on the attacking Pretty Cure, a spiral of six indents appears on its back for an instant, as the impact on its front lands. Then, explosively, its body erupts into pieces, a beautiful starburst of feather and energy. Nothing quite like it has been seen before. It ought to be remembered.

But there is no artist here who would be capable of drawing this sight.

Malign, horrifyingly aggressive, the Outsiders see this show of raw force and move towards it, their lack of fear more eloquent than any verbal threat that might have come from a more human foe. But among those Outsiders, there are those that hear the call more keenly. Perhaps the Outsiders understand how to fight fire with fire. Could it be, perhaps, that some part of them even heard Peach's call, and recognized that it was for them?

Fast as a hare, an Outsider Whips into the Pretty Cure's path, bursting into sugary sparkles. Undulating as if through The Sea, two similar-looking Outsiders grow filmy fish-wings, crisscross, and slam into the Collaboration punch, their long Mermaid tails pumping to drive the attackers back, but are reduced to a briny spray across the brows of the six heroines.

A fierce procession of some of the most powerful Outsiders rise to the challenge, and are smashed to bits. A butterfly-winged Outsider seems unstoppable until they pass through it like a Dream. Two more butterflies follow, and douse the six Pretty Cure in the refreshing scent of Mint Lemonade. A small Outsider bursts apart with a sound like an acoustic guitar being smashed, its Muse departing.

Cures Black and White exchange a brief glance, after that one, and a nostalgic smile.

A long path has already been cleared, but the offensive faces its greatest challenge yet, as an array of four fearsome Outsiders form a Lovely, quad-barrier, like the crown of a Princess. It even manages to resist the Collaboration Punch for a moment, before caving to the same Fortune as the others, Honey droplets spraying.

Just before the Punch reaches that Jail Outsider, a final offensive is mounted, an impromptu team of six monstrosities to face six girls. Posh Berry is confronted with the Beauty of an elegant Outsider. Genki gyaru Peach stares into an array of alien eyes that Twinkle like stars. Cures Black and White face a duo of monsters that somehow embody a swaggering androgyny and a winsome femininity, attached together like a two-layer Chocolat Macaron. Empathetic vet Cure Pine confronts an undulating Outsider like a blob of yellow Custard. And Cure Passion, an outsider herself in a way, faces a being that is nothing but alien, Scarlet flame.

The impact is thunderous. The sky shakes. The air wishes it could split, pleads to break.

And when the six Outsiders explode, and the Pretty Cure Collaboration punch hits the Jail Outsider at last, of course it pops like a balloon.

The way between Endo and his target is nothing but empty air, made from a tunnel of torn apart monsters.

"Game to Juuban," Cure Black whispers. "For you, Saki."

COMBAT: Cure Black has joined the combo started by Cure Pine!
COMBAT: Cure White has joined the combo started by Cure Pine!
COMBAT: COMBO! Cure Pine, Cure Passion, Cure Black, and Cure White have used Precure Collaboration Punch! on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Cure Pine, Cure Passion, Cure Black, and Cure White's Combo: Precure Collaboration Punch!,
taking 457 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Cure Pine, Cure Passion, Cure Black, and Cure White are Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

<<The one that doesn't move!>> Endo shouts back to Lera, the mental echo of his words cutting through the battle to reach her and the rest of the magical girls.

He pushes off one of the nearest monsters, rocketing toward the heart of the invader.

<<Ren... everyone! Make sure to get it!>>

<SoundTracker> Still in the Dark (Daisuke Ishiwatare) - One More Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPA3Y-acjb0

There are always more of the OutsidersOutsider. Tens, hundreds, millions. They fall like rain but each one leaves some mark of its passing on the young man. A cone of pink energy sends Endo off course, another blue and white glimmer turns the horizon into a field of gleaming swords. The knight's barrier jacket bleeds a violet contrail as each blow chips away at his defensive shell.

Closer...

<<This time we'll destroy it.>>

And closer...

ALmost...

The Outsiders form up like a defensive membrane.

<<Ready?>>

Purple-black flares out from the Device in a long line that soon grows into a searing column of starlight. It pulses, the magical energy lighting the knight as he makes a vicious arc toward the defended core of their existential enemy.

The pillar of light, bigger and brighter than it's ever been, connects with the wall of glowing aliens.

It does not cut.

There are just too many, an endless mass replenishing and pushing back, back, back. Endo's hands shake. The pylon falters.

<<Stern-->>

<SoundTracker> Still in the Dark (Daisuke Ishiwatare, Noah Thys) - One Last Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dILd4K1HKec

So can Endo. They need him to. He grits his teeth and pushes harder. Hard enough to make the wall give.

In the roar of magic it would be impossible to hear the cracks running across the surface of the gem in the weapon's pummel. But Endo can feel them. His hand falters and so does the blade.

<NO. WE ARE NOT FINISHED.>

Endo's grip tightens. More jagged lines break across Fallen Stern's surface. "I won't let go!" They push one last time. Magic tears through magic.

<KNIGHT. THANK YOU. IT WAS AN HONOR TO SERVE. THIS TIME--I WILL GO ALONE.>

IMPACT.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Endo Naoki has used SUPERNOVA on Pink Moon Stick.

<Pose Tracker> Endo Naoki [Juuban Public School (12)] has posed.

What happens to a star when it dies depends on its mass. The smaller celestial bodies burn and wither, fuming heat into the icy black darkness of space for billions of years.

What happens here is the other option. As the purple-black light swells it shifts to a blindingly white hue. As the core of Endo's partner collapses a deafening showave rends the sky along with the final detonation. What is left behind is an inky purple nebula.

And one Endo Naoki. There's no armor, no magic left.

--But there's still life. A dying star leaves some building blocks behind.

A long time ago--not that long really, but it seems like forever now--Endo made an oath and became a knight. When he started he thought he was the only one who could protect the world. He learned better. He can rest.

Because if he couldn't do it, one of the magical girls behind him will.

COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Endo Naoki's Finisher, SUPERNOVA, taking 297 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

<SoundTracker> Magic Sword, The Way Home - One Last Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCikIkXslP0

Afterwards, the most striking thing was how CLOSE it was.

The magical girls brought all of their terrific force to bear, and it was spectacular indeed, but--

But.

That there was a but at all is horrifying.

That there is a but at all is crucial.

And sure, we can ask the question again as history tries to repeat.

What 'but' could stand up to the golden bolts of the Midchildan-American Lera Camry and her Devices, one of whom, Soaring Sky, is as tied to this history as Fallen Stern? The pinball mayhem of Westar, Executive of Labyrinth, who bounces from foe to foe like a ladder of death, a ladder for Endo to climb? Ren's hammering of gauntlets and greaves at the legions of doom, taking not the battle but the entire battlefield to them, all for the memory of one of her very first mentors and friends? Kyouka's rent airspace, from which pour balls of violet light, to draw away with cleverness rather than destroy with strength? Cure Passion and Cure Pine and Cure Peach and Cure Berry and Cure Black and Cure White punching as one -- creating almost a localized vacuum of their own, not Outside space but Within space, warping space, filling space, and ultimately, dramatically, clearing space?

The answer has to do with numbers, and it has to do with size, and -- because being outnumbered and small has never stopped a legion of magical girls on their worst day, let alone their best -- it has to do with sacrifice.

Of course the creature, who has been spending the lives of his legion like toenails, does not hesitate to spend them -- faster, harder, more -- in his own defense. Most of the progress was made in the first few seconds, before the girls' path -- Endo's path -- became clear. After that...

After that, every meter up the column towards him was its own little war. Trench after trench the attacks of the magical girls advanced, clearing them out, but more and more slowly, more and more desperately.

There is just so much ocean, no matter how sweet the shore.

By the time he reaches the master creature, Endo's armor drips with his own blood, at every joint and cavity; and it's splashed with the black ichor of these monstrous unbeings, who throw themselves so eagerly upon his greatsword -- his pillar of violet light -- which falls even as he rises.

He gives everything.

They give everything.

Fallen Stern... implodes.

And the crucial Outsider, the one he saw, guided by the memory of a Princess, brings up his claws in feeble self-defense, and Endo looks up into what passes for his face. Something passes between him and the hive king, before he's eviscerated in a magnificent burst of Umbral power.

A final burst...

All the remaining monsters scream as one -- they scream with his voice, any voice, for the first time -- because, of course, they are him. Their limbs lose their grip on their enemies; they lose their grip even on the air; and they fall.

...their gravity is not Labyrinth's, and never was. Their gravity -- metaphysical, philosophical -- calls them back the way they came.

They fall upwards...

Driven not by any inverted cosmological constants but rather by the extraordinary force of Fallen Stern's sacrifice, Endo is falling with them, too.

Towards the inverted portal. Towards... Outside.

BUT.

But last time, even though she made it back to the ground -- which Endo is not going to do, safely or fatally, unless someone intervenes very quickly -- the Crown Princess died with a final lamentation on her lips:

"My only regret," she coughs, "Is that in saving our world from them... we have surely doomed another. I only wish... we had the power... to save..."

'Them all' dies on her lips, and so does she.

And she was right to regret. Her final stand didn't save Belka, in the end. Considering the chain of events set off by the grief and despair following her sacrifice, she died for, very possibly, less than nothing. Worse than nothing.

The Outsiders are leaving, because they are unable to stay. But they aren't gone. They aren't solved.

So many terrible things happened because of it.

To Belka. To so many other worlds.

To Labyrinth, at Northa's hands -- the Queen's.

And now, to everywhere.

BUT.

But... what can the magical girls do now that the Belkans didn't do back then?

The ancient Belkans went to war. It was their way; it had always been their way.

The modern magical girls... of Tokyo, of Earth -- natives and far-travelers alike, they are certainly all OF Earth by now... they have their own ways, don't they?

When everything is hopeless -- they wage something else entirely.

They wield the power... of refusal.

Souverain Heraut, more than the other Devices, understands this viscerally. And through him, Ren suddenly remembers the truth of the Cephiran Princess he was originally made for, a lady who was the other sort of Pillar, made not of light but of love:

<< You don't have to accept fate. >>

No one does.

But -- this isn't right.

The Outsiders are too strange to easily empathize with; too alien; too frightening. There's really only one emotion, a singular essence, that anyone has been able to comprehend:

HUNGER.

They have, by all indications, no individuality. The Outsiders just hunger because they hunger. The swarm in its entirety cannot really be said to have a mind at all, even if it did have a core and does have the capability to act in its defense.

It is primal. Elemental. Like matter and antimatter. Magic attracts them and they destroy everything.

But -- it isn't fair.

It is, in a way, not even their fault. They are what they are, without even Fate Testarossa's beloved, essential, passionately taken, and kindly offered, freedom of choice. A freedom the Radiant Knight embraced and the Umbral Knight rejected. A freedom the Cephiran Princess died for, so that the three Devices could live to fulfill their destinies as heroes, with heroes, empowering heroes, befriending heroes.

It's just too sad.

What is so wrong with being hungry, anyway?

Does hunger in itself have to always be such a bad thing?

The world likes to tell girls that it is so. Truly the temptation to gender the Outsiders as male at all is a byproduct of this cultural dynamic, ne? It isn't maidenly to be hungry; it isn't proper to eat as much as you want, as much as you need; certainly it isn't polite to show how much you want and need and hunger.

A man's appetite can be hearty, but a woman with an appetite -- for food, for love, for simple attention -- is always voracious: she always overreaches, because it is not supposed to exist.

Like the Outsiders...

...they aren't supposed to exist here, either.

But.

Must desire be monstrous?

BUT.

Isn't it very... human?

BUT--!!

People got hurt. People died. That matters too.

But, it all matters. It all matters so much.

Everyone, everything, deserves better.

...ne. do you want to know a secret?

But: the world can be changed.

The distance is so, so vast. This isn't Fate and Nanoha; Eas and Peach; Mikoto and Mai; Westar and Mikoto; the Sirens of Sorrow's Sea. It's absurd to even imagine the possibility that extradimensional aliens can be reached. Can connect... Can be understood, and understand themselves. Can be, even, accepted... no longer Outside at all, but invited In.

All it takes is an outstretched hand.

All it takes is a miracle.

OOC: This can be interpreted however people imagine. If you're extremely not on board with it your character doesn't have to
receive any of these i

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

OOC: This can be interpreted however people imagine. If you're extremely not on board with it your character doesn't have to
receive any of these insights; or could think through them and reject them. There is no one right way; and there are so many
different kinds of miracles. This scene has room for all of them.
 
OOC: PS someone (probably rhymes with Whyzawa) needs to go save Endo before he falls out of the universe. you can also still
finisher, it's fine

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (5)] has posed.

~*Elsewhere*~

Fate is very fast right now, so it's not long before she shows up at her destination, where her 'Wish' is quietly at stake. The battle still rages far from here.

Two of them are still unconscious, while 'You' watches her as she approaches. "You have returned."

"Yes." Fate replies quietly to her.

'You' points out the obvious, "They're still fighting." And Fate nods, "Yes." Before she walks up to the other two, and examines them for a moment, "... They've been drained this completely. I didn't realize..." Fate puzzles over the situation, it's different from Jail, it's more similar perhaps to the Wolkenritter, what they did to everyone's Linker Cores, but far worse.

Something's missing... and while she doesn't know what that means, she decides not to take a chance. And so she raises Bardiche.

Gold and violet streams out of him, in Midchildan runes that flow like ribbons into the unconscious pair, as Fate lets that energy flow from her into both of them.

'You' goes silent, you can feel her brain trying to understand what Fate is doing, and just not quite getting it. It's at that moment that Stern goes up, far away, and there is an enormous explosion that rocks everything, even here. Fate stands stable, despite it all... she looks, for a moment, then closes her eyes, and takes a breath.

Despite the feeling... she has to trust, and turns back to 'You'.

"It's okay to say what's on your mind." Fate tells her, as she does her work, and 'You' after one long moment replies, "It isn't my role... to think. Even speaking feels strange."

"But, you have thoughts on what I'm doing." She prompts her, and 'You' replies, "Yes. I cannot understand why you would weaken yourself, for these two. In their current state, they're without value to this conflict."

"That's not right." Fate says softly, without any remonstration in her tone, merely explanation. "I'm not doing this because I want you three to fight. I want to do this... because..."

I wanted this in real life, too.

"I want this, for real. I want to know who each of you will become. I want, the three of you to come home with me. I want you to call out to the three of you... with something real, something you picked for yourself."

There's no small amount of sentiment in her tone, as she says, "I want the three of you. It's... my wish. It's selfish for me to be here rather than there." She thinks of Lera, Endo, Ren, Mikoto, Setsuna, Vita, Signum, Hayate, Nanoha... and Lindy, who taught her this, "But I trust them to finish the battle without me... and be at my side for what comes after."

It's just a little wish. And that's wonderful.

'You' looks like she still doesn't quite understand all the words she said, not in the sense of definition. She knows what all those words mean, she just can't comprehend why Fate would string them together that way, and what it means.

But after a moment... she says something else.

"But you've been calling out to me with something real already." 'You' points out, and Fate blinks, as if not understanding herself. Until she realizes she's been saying 'You' over and over and over and over.

And laughter leaves her lips, just this momentary chuckle, before she beams a smile.

"Well, it's just my opinion... but I think we can do better than that. Once this is over..." And extends a hand towards her. "... let's figure it out together."

She does not understand what Endo and Stern just sacrificed at this moment, not yet. She will later, for now... but for now, this is a glimpse of Stern's sacrifice may have bought her.

Just a little wish.

She'll show her gratitude later for them granting it to her.

'You' does not understand the gesture, or the motive, and Fate receives no insights, but that does not mean there is no miracle here. Both Fate and 'You' (Real name pending) are proof...

... that the empty can become full. Of memories in Fate's case, of desires, of purpose's given and changed and kept. As 'You' finally takes her hand, not because it was ordered, but offered, within that small gesture of someone who was merely an instrument, can consider a life greater than that too.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

"Doesn't move!" Lera shouts back to Endo. "I've got it!"

She sucks her breath in as they fly forward, and she watches Endo fly forward, ahead of them all, and surrounded by Outsiders. She grits her teeth, until she comes sharply to a stop -- as she sees the shockwave that rips through the Outsiders' ranks.

But at a cost.

"Endo!" she shouts. Then, with a stammer -- and realization: "S-Stern..."

<Godspeed.> Soaring Sky's voice chimes, solemnly. After all, Stern was his comrade, even if it was something he hadn't remembered.

But Endo is falling upward, towards that portal leading to somewhere else. The source of so many sorrows and woes; but there's also that sense of something else. The desire, alien as it is, that the Outsiders have -- and the lack of understanding.

There is a moment where Lera hesitates. But, then she realizes: the answer isn't one or the other. It's the same as it ever is.

Both. Stop them and understand them, in one stroke.

"C'mon, Passion, Ren-chan," Lera says, looking at her girlfriend then her best friend. "Let's do this for Stern!"

She swings Soaring Sky out to one side. The blade of the Device splits in half; lightning crackles between the two halves of the blade, motes of energy drawing down into it.

<Aurora!>

And then, it expands outward. A beam of gold-red light, burning white at the center, that rises up until it's a single, massive sword of energy.

<GALAXY!>

And then Lera rises up -- and swings it down with an enormous flash out of light.

"DIVIDER!"

COMBAT: FINISHER! Lera Camry has used Aurora Galaxy Divider on Pink Moon Stick.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Fallen Stern and Endo give more. And Passion is there, with a front-row seat, along with the other Cures. She sees it when he presses forwrd, again and again, farther and farther, until the light is too bright to look at. And then she keeps looking, because she's already been burned by Light before, and she has to watch. She won't look away.

She doesn't, as Fallen Stern goes alone. And yet...

Is he really alone?

"Fallen Stern!" Passion calls. "Endo!"

...But she recognizes it. The power of a sacrifice--the power of a desire to protect. ...A desire to see something through.

How can she not understand it, when one of her best friends is Usagi Tsukino? But in the same way, Cure Passion feels...

She feels greed.

Cure Passion wants more than this. She wants more than just to save her world. She wants to save the people already lost. She wants to save the ones who were hurt. She wants to ensure this never has to happen again.

Cure Passion wants it all, a far far cry from Eas who only wanted the one thing, and was never able to get it, could never have gotten it in ten thousand more years. She wants all of it, just like they got Westar and Soular back.

"Lera!" Passion calls, as she's called in turn. "...Sky! Ground!"

"Yes," she says. "...You..."

"I hope you like Labyrinth!" she calls to Lera. "Because I'm going to spend a lot of time here!"

She starts to fall, of course. That's just how it is, with gravity. She starts to fall, and as she does, she hears that but. She hears those feelings, or feels them more like, understands them. She understands as surely as she once didn't understand. Maybe...

Maybe there's a way to get back what they've lost. They just have to accept a little more, to go along with it.

She reaches out--for Cure White's hand, and for Cure Peach's hand. She closes her eyes, even as her hair whips all around in the wind--until, suddenly, it doesn't whip upward so much, and her fall begins to be arrested through no apparent action.

Somewhere, she knows, Fate is being selfish. She knows it in her heart. And she's so, so glad of that. Maybe it's time... for her to be a little selfish, too.

"Together," Passion says, first to Cure Peach, and then to Cure White. "...Because..."

"It's not enough to 'win'," she says. "If I only wanted to 'win'... I could've beaten Pretty Cure, one day. But I wanted more than winning. And I want more now."

"I'm hungry," Cure Passion says. "I'm hungry, and... I think we should share."

"...We have enough for everyone, don't we? At the table in my mom's house... there's always room for another person. All that time ago, that extra person was me."

It's not that Passion immediately comes to love her enemies; it was never like that. ...It's that her relationships changed, and by the end, she wasn't in love with an enemy; she was in love with a friend, trusting a sister.

So...

"Even for them, if they can learn some manners. ...But maybe we can teach them."

It's not that she loves the Outsiders.

It's that one, she was an outsider. And you never know...

...If tomorrow's friend wasn't yesterday's foe.

Passion closes her eyes again. "...If you'll give me back my people," she says, and the people of Labyrinth now are her people, "And everyone else..."

"We'll make room for you in Labyrinth, too. Right Westar? Soular?" She can feel Westar out there, even now. Fighting just with them. And...

"And if you just want magic..."

She grins. "Then Lera's already sending you all you need. My girlfriend won't fail, either."

She grows serious a final time. "...Let's all learn what we can be. Together."

Because it's not about deserving. It's about a choice.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Passion has started a combo targeting Pink Moon Stick!

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

<SoundTracker> It's only the fairy tale - One Last Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFqKHgd0eB0

Endo and Fallen Stern climb impossibly high, and Mikoto knows just what target he's talking about. She doesn't know so much about her numbers, but even she knows -- what it means to go over a hundred percent. "Fallen Stern!" She cries out, her voice breaking with the volume of it. "Still carrying that?! It's too heavy!"

(She's talking about his failures.)

"Fallen Stern--!!", and she might have warned him that if he keeps going he can't come back, except he knows that very well, and her words fail her as the emotions clutch around her throat. Yes, he's tried to defeat her and Miroku, but --

But --

"Don't go," she says, but quietly, to the being who was proof that Miroku could get better.

He's gone.

He's gone, and Mikoto doesn't have time to sit with the tears in her eyes, because Endo's all out of magic. The magic beneath her moves, first, jets firing as the Child soars upwards. "Miroku--! Ah, right! I'll cover, Ren!" She knows that Ren will catch him, and she...

She has enemies to...

Defeat, her mind supplies, helpfully, but something catches in her throat like a chicken-bone, as she watches the Outsiders fall upwards, like she's watching her own limp body fall down half a cruise ship.

Is it so strange to empathise with something dark, sinister and eldritch? Mikoto loves her Lord Brother, though he means no good for the Earth. And she looks at these things she can't quite get a good look at, and she realises...

"Miroku!" Mikoto cries out, grasping her blade. "I know what to do!"

And that great beast rumbles, beneath her.

"Make the biggest torture, Miroku! The worst worst one!"

His hand free, Miroku is free to heft it up. There's a moment's pause, as if calculating, before blackness collects in his palm. He hurls it at the mass of retreating Outsiders, dead centre.

<SoundTracker> I'm Hungry - Once Again! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQLpJcAdc_k

IT IS...

An eldrich horror sized curry bun.

"Get it?!" Mikoto cries out, into the abyss. "Stealing food means your mouth hurts! If you're hungry, ask for dinner!"

... what on earth is she doing?!

COMBAT: FINISHER! Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Spire: Execution on Pink Moon Stick.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Pine [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.

"He does." Pine tells Black as she squeezes her shoulder, her smile fading a moment later to become something more resolute, "So let's go lend him a hand."

Or, rather six hands. Or many many more, should those who are in spirit count. But when Endo pushes further, she remarks, "What- What are they-"

Pine turns her head away from the blinding glare, squeezing her eyes shut, and when she dares to look again, there's a hand over her mouth, and a small gasp. "... Naoki-san."

She doesn't really understand what he did, what happened. There's just an inkling that it's... awful, "... And Aizawa-san is... Oh God." That last part is softer, as she understands at least that his girlfriend is here, watching all that.

It feels like a victory... but one that feels so tragically temporary. As Cure Pine arcs down from the punch, and begins to fall, as they all begin to be drawn back towards the portal, she feels something...

... hunger...

Ravenous, endless. People have to eat three meals a day, and 'Buki knows enough from dance practice about letting herself go hungry, but right now, feeling it... "They're like animals..." Pine notes dully. Wolves hunt on instinct, hunt in packs. Even if adorable little bunnies become their meals, that's how it's supposed to be, isn't it? Is it really wrong, what they're doing?

"... we can't allow it, but..."

But what? What's the solution? It's not like they can kill them all, put the remainders in a zoo, feed them meals of magic every now and then as children gawk at the strange magical predators. What do you do?

What can you do?

Pine thinks on it. Well, what is the solution? Do you just give them all the bunnies?

"... what if..."

What if there were endless bunnies?

That's a strange thought to think on, to turn about in her head, but...

"... what if..."

And as she finds her solution, she looks to Passion, then to Black. Watching Passion take White and Peach's hands... Pine reaches for Black's hand... and and Berry's...

"... Because..."

She echoes with Passion and waits for her answer. Then... tries to articulate her own, "It's not fair. They're just following their instincts. They have to eat too. So what if..."

What if they gave them more than they could ever eat? And more than that besides? It feels strange. They can't do that here, it's dangerous. Too many 'bunnies' and the world will be overrun. Too much magic, and someone will always come for it.

But where they come from?

"... what if we sent it with them."

The Outsiders may not be Wolves. Nor are they cute bunnies, but... if it gives Setsuna back her people. If it stops this fighting because they have enough prey. Then...

"... the Yellow heart is the Emblem of Faith. Freshly harvested..."

Freshly harvested... perhaps that's it, if they can send them a bountiful harvest... she'll have faith.

"... I believe, that it can be better."

For the Outsiders. For them. Even if they don't know happiness, that doesn't mean that helping them can't give them all happiness.

"... Together." She agrees, and has faith in the idea that Peach always tells them. They can get their happiness together. Trying for just themselves - is destined to fail. Letting the Outsiders satisfy themselves means they don't get their happiness.

... But together?

"We can reach for it, after all."

COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Pine has joined the combo started by Cure Passion!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Black [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

All of Fallen Stern's power, expended in an instant. Endo, all but expended himself; Ren knows if he's alive, but Cure Black does not. And then, in the wake of unspeakable violence, a silence arrives.

A short fall means nothing to a Pretty Cure. A long fall gets scary. A REALLY long fall starts to be a little less scary. The ground is so far away that if a Device or Passion doesn't save them, they have bigger problems. So, as Cure Black falls, she gets to ruminate.

Ren is at the side of the boy she loves; the best case is that they will grieve together. The worst case is that Ren might have to grieve alone.

"What's the point..."

On the ground far below, a white feather drifts down into the courtyard, and lands near a yellow petal.

"What's the point... of all of this?"

"You won't let her win...?" Ako Shirabe asked her, when Dark Precure sought her Star Shard. Cure Black held her and promised her she wouldn't, back then. But in the end, Ako lost her heart to something even more monstrous.

"We'll go through there," Cure Black calls, angrily, to Cure Pine, looking up at the rift from which these creatures are coming. "No more of this. They don't get to come through there anymore. If they want to fight, then we'll... then we'll..."

The anger worming its way through Black's mind feels like it's striving towards some light. But when she bursts out into it, and espects her rage to stretch its wings, instead she finds her thoughts in a soft light. It feels like when she was a tiny child, getting out of the bath, her mother offering her a towel.

"Here," Rie says. And the white towel goes over her head. After a moment, Nagisa relents. She lets the bad thoughts go in the towel.

Blinking, she finds herself differently angry. Frustrated. She feels Cure White's palm slip into hers, and she forces her hand to relax, to avoid taking it out on White's delicate fingers. But she is Cure White... and her fingers are not so delicate. She surprises Black by squeezing hard, and after a moment, Black squeezes hard in return.

Futari wa Pretty Cure holding hands is reflexive. But when Pine's hand takes Black's, suddenly, a ring is completed. Passion, then Peach, then Berry, then Pine, then Black, then White, then Passion all over again. Of the six invincible fists that tore the Outsiders apart, none remain for violence. Black looks between the eyes of her friends: giddily stylish Berry, kindred-in-genki Peach, brave survivor Passion. Her close friend Pine. Her everything, White. She nods. And then.

"Oi," she calls to the sky. "Oi! Did you ever think to ask? Huh?! People where I live..." Earth, that is. "They love to feed someone!"

"Oh," Mai says, softly, "so many people! Ah, look at all of them."

"Yeah!" Saki beams at Mai, her smile like an endless barrage of exuberance. "I love big days like this! It's so much fun!"

"We have to eat to survive too!"

Honoka's slim pale wrist sets Chuutaro's full bowl down, as his snout enters it to chow down.

"Why would you eat another person who loves to eat?"

"Ossu, Nagisa-san," Akane-san greets languidly, from above a row of steaming takoyaki.

"You know my name?" middle-school Nagisa asked.

"You come here a lot."

"Look at the way your bodies are! I bet you could eat anything you wanted! Takoyaki. Donuts. Dog food. Butter peanuts. M-miso soup."

The rainbow that transforms Cure White and Cure Black, the power of the creation, is rising up. And as its light suffuses her, Cure Black finally, truly understands Saki Hyuuga's dream.

"Get down here!" Cure Black shouts. "And eat with us!"

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTouBqPkhtc (Blue Oyster Cult - Les Invisibles)

"... Stern.. N... ENDO!" shouts la Sirene, though it's really Nori Ankou's voice amplified outwards. (It's strange. She's always been pretty deep in on the masking. Even insisting this is 'really' her, though she's made less of a point of it lately. Hard to do when you're on fashion posters.)

It's over.

Did they win?

It's hard to say anything like this is a victory, especially with the tragedy of Fallen Stern's name coming true in a wholly different sense, unfolding right before her eyes. La Sirene feels her lips quiver. There is no triumph.

But. The world can be changed.

But.

They don't have to say it's over. That they've lost, or that they've won, or that there's nothing to be done.

You don't have to accept what's in front of you.

You don't have to do what you're told.

Maybe it doesn't feel that way. Maybe there's a price you'll have to pay - a price so great that it seems 'unthinkable' to do otherwise. And it's easy, so easy, to fall into the comfortable shaping of thick gelatinous habit-energy, especially for the things you do wish to do, but don't want to spend your mental energy upon.

But it always remains true. You can tell the sea and the land and the sky: No. They might crush you.

And more often than you'd think... you can get your way.

The miracle rests in potentia in la Sirene de Diamant's memory, a shining and transient thing (but aren't all of they?) And then perhaps Cure Passion picks up on it, and then Mikoto, and Cure Pine... yes.

They hunger.

They're from outside.

Has she not hungered? Has she not been from outside?

Breathing out, la Sirene gazes at the Things. No. The Others. They hurt her eyes, yes. So does the sun that's responsible for all her food. She can -- can she reach out like this? Can her heart open up? She doesn't know if it can. She is often weak (self-judged) and changeable (more objective). And as an atelier's manager might attest, sometimes she can be pretty easily told what to do.

But that, too, is something she accepts. La Sirene de Diamant spreads her hands from their defiant, powerful posture. She spreads them out. Her palms turn towards the opening. Please, she prays.

And then, for a moment, a memory twinkles in her mind.

Did you know? The Brazen Pharos' namesake was a thing built in a far-away land. A mighty work - something counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. But for all of that, the Pharos of Alexandria had a very simple purpose that made the Ptolemies go through all that hassle.

"Pharos" means "Lighthouse" in Greek.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhGNnNUiceQ (Blue Oyster Cult - Dancin' in the Ruins)

Far, far away, in the Sea of Tears, the skies are lightening. Not lightning - they usually seem like they'd be stormclouds on Earth, though there are subtle variations, and the rain is only more like sixty percent of the time, not eternal. (And sometimes it's just misty drizzle - hardly anything. You get used to it.)

But lightening. Growing brighter.

What doesn't come up a lot, unless you stay there for a while, is that a bright sky is hostile to the residents - at least the ones who live on land. They usually come inside when there's a band of light sky, which comes pretty reliably about a day and a half after a westerly cyclonic storm. The plants love it under a lightening sky, but it gives you sunburn - hurts your eyes.

Out over the sea, the skies are lightening.

And they grow so light, that in that towering shield of stormy clouds that wrap this strange realm, this world, like a rug, there is a break. Something that happens, but it's rare; usually it leaves a furious bonanza of algae, and some time later, a rich harvest from the sea. This time is different.

A shaft of light from a star whose more subtle radiations are kept at bay strikes down, upon the black waters of the Sea of Tears. And Tears they are. The light is such that the expanse of water is illuminated and warms quickly, steaming as it churns up top. The light throws a brilliant column into the salty water. The salt - the salt of myriad tears and myriad sorrows - filters. It changes. And for a fleeting moment of optical miracle, it shines down nearly six kilometers, and for the first time in untold aeons, light shines in one of the sinkholes charted, irregularly, by brave captains and Sirens with a more oceanographic bent.

Everything la Sirene de Diamant has been throwing around has been the Sea on a moderate day. The effect, of course, is considerable.

The unlight that comes out of the Pharos doesn't change in nature, but in quality. It surges upright, brightening a thousandfold. A strange light, a light that axiomatically cannot warm - every iota of mere heat in that light was absorbed by some strange factor or crystal or abyssal-dweller in the Sea of Tears. What comes out is what is left when everything else is taken away. A light that isn't really a thing.

In a little touch of irony, it does seem to have a clear and discernible color. Blue.

In the skies of Labyrinth, that six-rayed scintillance of la Sirene's impromptu flight to the heavens resolves. Towards Labyrinth there is a great and strange luminance - harmless, but casting things in strange and wonderful colors, revealing unusual fluoresencences. Maybe it will bring a sudden change of view to the denizens, if they look away -- or can no longer see -- their struggle.

The other side of the beam goes towards the Outsiders.

Look this way.

Come this way.

Come to the harbor safely, and see what we have.

Enjoy the fruits of this-our-worlds with us.

A lighthouse... no, a projector, thinks la Sirene, and then the memory in her mind congeals. She remembers sharply herself facing, what was it, a devil's dozen surely at least, of magical girls and their allies. Standing in the premiere of a film. Magical Detective -- what? Lala something, she thinks, but she can't remember, and she doesn't matter, because despite a strange electric tightening in every muscle and the recurring empty throb of fatigue, la Sirene de Diamant's laughing, as the beam shines towards the Outsiders.

COMBAT: FINISHER! La Sirene de Diamant has used The Light That Never Warms on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Black has joined the combo started by Cure Passion!

<Pose Tracker> Cure White [Juuban Public School (11)] has posed.

Holding hands is very important to Cure White. Very precious. Sacred, even. It never becomes routine. Every time she holds the hand of Cure Black, it feels like she's holding the whole entire universe. It makes her feel small. And it makes her feel boundless.

It's even more rare for her to hold two different girls' hands at once. Cure Black and Cure Passion? Those are extremely different relationships but it's still... overwhelming. An embarrassment of riches. And though she's grieving Stern's sacrifice and the destruction of some of Labyrinth, those innocent lives who made everything possible simply -- so simply -- by believing in them, in perfect strangers -- the grief in her heart is more than balanced by the joy she feels to be among such pretty and pure and powerful sisters. Peach, Pine and Berry, too. And all the others.

They're not alone.

How strange, Hwaito reflects, that a being that appears to be an enormous swarm is by all evidence a single creature of total solitude. The only being from its existence encountered in all of history. Maybe the only being Outside at all. Maybe not. But it does seem... lonely, to be so many and have that be a lie. It must be lonely, to use and abuse the many smaller parts of your whole so easily. To discard yourself so casually.

Last time she confronted this kind of terrible hunger, she was alone. Utterly so. And even then, she wanted to save more than just herself.

The proximity to it now makes her freeze up; Black and Passion can both feel it when it happens, through her rictus palms. And then they can both feel when it ends.

"You don't have to be do this," she tells the Outsider, quietly, earnestly. "It isn't strength," she presses on, soft but intense. "It will never be victory. We won't... be the only ones who get hurt."

She smiles so sadly, like she's lost in a painful memory.

"It's okay for you to have limits. It doesn't make you less...er than."

Her eyes are so, so blue. Royal blue. Empyrean blue. Sorrowful blue.

And then, the blue of La Sirene's lighthouse.

Guided back, she blinks -- dislodging a singular tear -- and returns, and looks not at the Outsiders but at everyone else. At everyone, surrounding her. At everyone, supporting her.

At Blacku, with her. Inviting them in to join them. It doesn't seem ridiculous at all. It is the opposite of unnecessary.

"To be able to stop at enough... is what makes you whole. Please... join us."

Her eyes close, and the rainbow at the center of the girls' wishing ring intensifies. Not in hue; it cannot, it already contains every color in all Creation, the full spectrum from Black to White. No. It intensifies in hope.

<SoundTracker> It's a miracle gathering! - Precure All Stars DX3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wB_1_iZ5Ho

COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure White has joined the combo started by Cure Passion!
COMBAT: COMBO! FINISHER! Cure Passion, Cure Pine, Cure Black, and Cure White have used Pretty Cure Miracle Gathering on Pink Moon
Stick.

<Pose Tracker> Ren Aizawa [Infinity Institute (12)] has posed.

Ren's busy punching and kicking with wild abandon still. She can't stop. She won't stop. Not until they're all vanquished. She can feel her heart hammering away in her chest--the roar of blood rushing through her veins. Finally she finds a brief moment of respite, panting heavily as her vision swims in front of her. But she's already turning to look upward, preparing herself to follow after Endo, Lera, and anyone else heading for the priority target.

And that's when she feels everything around her come to a standstill. A brilliant conflagration of purple light washes over the battlefield, accompanied by a horrific implosion -- an implosion that effectively ends the existence of Fallen Stern. Her eyes widen, mouth fallen open in shock and awe.

"E-En..do..." Her voice cracks, as if she's scared to speak the name of her one true love. Then, Ren's world narrows to a single point: Endo, falling into the portal. The air is thick with the scent of ozone and burned-out magic, and Leras cry of "Endo!" barely registers past the ringing in her ears. But its the next word that cuts deeper than any blade: "S-Stern..."

A chime from Heraut follows quickly. <Fallen Stern... He's gone.>

A jolt of grief lances through her. But in the next breath she's blasting off, making a beeline for Endo. Nothing else matters right now except him. And she arrives there in time to grab onto him, not hesitating as she reverses course and streaks off towards the ground. As she touches down she shifts, laying Endo down on the ground, hunched over him, tears streaming down her face.

"You idiot! Your brave idiot!" She berates his unconscious form, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, absolutely blubbering uncontrollably. "Stern.... Stern..."

Memories of her first encounter with the enigmatic device, the willful black sword that Endo used to cut down whatever darkness came their way. It was impossible to think of Stern as gone--truly gone.

And then, another memory comes to her, courtesy of Heraut--The Cephiran Princess, and a message that resonates within her mind: << You don't have to accept fate. >>

The world comes back into focus now. She can hear Lera calling out for Passion and her, rallying them to finish this for Stern. Yes. This was the way forward. The only way forward. Getting to her feet, tears still streaking down her cheeks, Ren looks up at the sky, eyes hard and firm.

"Heraut. I have to be strong. Will you help me?"

<I will support you until the end of days, Ren.> The device chimes, performing a rare feat in actually speaking his master's name aloud.

"Thank you, Heraut."

<BGM Change> - Daylight on Brave - Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Detonation OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hkc0MI1Xvg

A large Midchildan runic circle traces into existence beneath her feet, the air around her becoming heavy with heat. She takes a single step back, and where she once stood a gargantuan pillar of light--a pillar similar to the one Endo wielded, except bronze in color--flares up from the center of the circle. In then coalesces into a brilliant, searing spear. It doesn't quite crackle like Fate's lightning magic -- it's more like a piece of the Sun itself. It does not burn her, even as she reaches out to grasp it, its hilt solid beneath her fingers, its edge humming with barely contained power. It pulses in time with her heartbeat, thrumming with the weight of her sorrow and fury.

Ren surges upward, spear in hand, the force of her charge splitting the air behind her. At the same time, a dozen more spears materialize in a brilliant formation, each one aimed to strike in perfect unison.

She grips the hilt tighter, her voice raw as she cries out--

"SUPERNAL SHIFT!"

With the final crowd, Ren absolutely hurls the spear in a perfect throw, sending it crashing through the intervening space, the other spears joining it in causing an explosion that feels like it could be felt several universes over.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Ren Aizawa has used Haze Spear: Supernal Shift on Pink Moon Stick.

<Pose Tracker> Kyouka Okazaki [Juuban Public School (10)] has posed.

Endo is leading the charge, and Kyouka is making her way up as fast as she can to catch up. She's admired Endo's strength for almost the entire time she's been a magical girl. Ever since they stood, shoulder to shoulder, together with Fate, to try and turn back the fearsome tide of Shadow Stern's power at the Dark Burger.

They failed, but Kyouka learned, for the first time, just how much she had to give to that struggle. Even if, at the time, she didn't think it belonged to her. Even if, at the time, she hadn't thought she'd earned it. That she'd be a temporary magical girl, that once she found Strike Wolf's owner she'd return the stolen and lost device, and just be... Kyouka Okazaki again.

Just a girl, and not magical.

But despite all that, she never forgot just how much she had to give. And she never forgot how Strike Wolf, then half-finished (as he would be for quite some time yet), encouraged her to do what was necessary. To give so much more at the cost of his stability, at the cost of overclocking himself as he tried to manage the kind of power he simply wasn't ready yet to withstand.

And in the aftermath, when they had all reconvened at Yagami house, Strike Wolf had been offline and Kyouka had been beside herself with fear and grief for her new-found friend and partner. How she'd been twisted up in knots as he'd been repaired, holding her breath to see if he would reactivate at all. The tremendous sense of relief as he activated once more. Even though they'd only been partners for such a short time, then, it still felt like she'd almost lost a piece of herself.

She has learned, since then, that many of those things are not true, of course. But she never forgot how that all felt.

And she never forgot Endo and Stern's strength and dependability, a mage and device partnership she would trust with her life.

Fallen Stern goes Supernova. Kyouka can't help but scream as she feels her heart twist again, her voice straining and cracking. "ENDO!!" A soft gasp, as everything sinks in. "S-Stern..."

She'll hold back her tears for later, even though her heart is twisting in her chest. Endo's not safe yet. Their worlds aren't safe. There's still work to do.

But she won't forget that sacrifice, and why it was made. That will leave its own impression on her, too.

She redoubles her efforts to ascend. It's easier, now, with the core that was guiding them gone. With their unnatural gravity asserting itself.

But she needs to do more. She lands on one, courching, ignoring the feeling of the void leeching into the souls of her boots as several concentric rings of magic suddenly burst from her feet, storing up magic.

But there is something else there now, a thought occurs to her.

She's been an Outsider of sorts herself, hasn't she? Moving from base to base, making friends here and there but never staying for long, always in places where she didn't quite fit in, despite so desperately wanting to?

Wasn't that why she wanted to go to a real high school here in Japan, for the first time in her life? To just... be in a place where it felt more real?

And then it did become real, over time.

She'd wanted it though, so, much, for so long. More than she'd ever realized.

And despite all of that... she's always refused to compromise on herself. So what, if she was athletic? So what, if she could match all of the boys in soccer? So what, if she knew how to throw a punch?

And so what, if she had a hearty appetite? There was a lot of good food out in the world, and she liked to try it all... not to mention all that athleticism requires a lot of caloric intake.

But it wasn't just eating, was it? She'd said it to her friends before... hospitality for your guests was also important? She loved cooking, too, and she loved making food to share with her friends. Dishes from around the world at a party. Chocolates for her friends and classmates at Valentine's. Learning more tips and secrets about making curry with Mai...

Wasn't there just... so much magic in the world?

Certainly far, far much more than she ever imagined possible?

She's seen it time and time again. The first time she transformed. Fighting along side Fate and Endo against Fallen Stern. In the brilliant radience of a Pure Heart.

In the belief of a people for guardians that they (mostly) didn't know ready to put their lives on the line for them.

In providing reassurance for a fox missing her master.

There was so, so much. Surely there was a little bit more they could share?

Nobody should have to leave a table empty.

With a thought, she dismissed the boosted jump spell she'd been gathering.

Instead she held out her left hand, a large circle of bright violet energy forming in front of it. It gathers energy in front of it, a shining white ball of violet-white light that grows brighter and brighter, larger and larger. First, the side of a fist, then a basketball, then a beachball and then as tall as herself.

Corsucating flares brighter and brighter, doubling and then trippling in intensity. Rushing winds wash out from all around her as the pressure builds and builds.

"You weren't ever invited. But all you wanted was to eat, all you've ever known is hunger. I don't think that's your fault. So if you're still hungry..."

Her hair is whipping about her face now as she looks up to the massive crowd of Outsiders being pulled towards that portal, her long belt thrashing behind her as she keeps building power.

"... then I've got a little bit more to share! Strike Wolf! Get Ready!"

<Affirmative. Get set.>

Kyouka is holding up her left hand, but Strike Wolf is on the gauntlet on her right. What is his role in this new spell? Kyouka draws back her right hand, setting her feet, twisting her body...

Strike Wolf suddenly announces, <Shattering Howl.>

And she SLAMS him him into that circle with a punch. The ball of energy explodes outwards in a shining pillar of violet-white light, shockwaves rippling along its length as she sends all that magic forth.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Kyouka Okazaki has used Shattering Howl on Pink Moon Stick.
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Lera Camry's Finisher, Aurora Galaxy Divider, taking 134 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick
is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Mikoto Minagi's Finisher, Obsidian Spire: Execution, taking 181 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon
Stick is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Ren Aizawa's Finisher, Haze Spear: Supernal Shift, taking 103 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon
Stick is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace La Sirene de Diamant's Finisher, The Light That Never Warms, taking 134 Fatigue damage!
Pink Moon Stick is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Kyouka Okazaki's Finisher, Shattering Howl, taking 79 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick is
unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Cure Passion, Cure Pine, Cure Black, and Cure White's Finisher, Combo: Pretty Cure Miracle
Gathering, taking 1006 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick is unable to keep fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.

There is a moment where Lera hesitates. But, then she realizes: the answer isn't one or the other. It's the same as it ever is.

Both. Stop them and understand them, in one stroke.

And so she does. So they all do -- as their energies rise to embrace the Outsiders faster than they can retreat. The individuals die so easily. But it isn't death at all. The collective has already taken so much magic -- all the magic in the world, in EVERY world, but for that they created themselves in Labyrinth. And yet this offering, the first one freely given, seems to fill and fill and fill the swarm without them ever filling up.

Their (non-)existence is a terrible trap.

The eternity of an inability to be satiated is a prison.

Aurora Galaxy Divider -- and a demonic curry bun. They take it all. It hurts -- it burns so badly. Mikoto knows exactly how badly. But they still want more.

They don't know how to want anything else.

Not like Cure Passion -- like Setsuna -- who makes a demand. It doesn't seem to go anywhere. As they are now, the Outsiders are incapable of that kind of reception, or comprehension.

Still, more is on the way. One, a dozen, a thousand Haze Spears -- something the Outsiders never faced ten thousand years ago, because when that cataclysmic war for Belka's survival occurred, Souverain Heraut did not yet exist. It was made for something afterwards. Said differently, it was made for the concept of an after. The spears thud into the Outsiders, delivering their point.

Not in many small meals but one truly immense one, Kyouka slams the remainder of her reserves -- everything she's got -- from gauntlet to circle to ball and finally to pillar; violet-white instead of violet-black but still inevitably comparable to, and almost a homage of, Stern Brecher. It is not the same at all; Strike Wolf and Fallen Stern are such different Devices, used by such different people. But at a time like this it is impossible not to see the similarities, either.

And then: unlight. An unlightHOUSE. Profound. Gorgeous. Guiding. La Sirene de Diamant gives energy, yes, but she also offers something extraordinary: direction.

You are what you eat, and the Outsiders are becoming Ren's sorrow and her fury; La Sirene's laughter; Mikoto's sincerity, her earnest teaching; Lera's remembrance of Fallen Stern; and Kyouka's, too, her determined acceptance, a patient, deliberate choice to share.

More, more... they are becoming more. The rainbow enters them... and does not leave.

SUCH a bountiful harvest. Cure Pine's faith and generosity. Cure Passion's joyful greed, the crucial introduction of another model of desire. Cure Peach's love, Cure Berry's hope.

Pine invited them to take it to go. Cure Black invites them to stay -- and to eat many different things, not only things that hurt. And Cure White suggests that, indeed, the pain will never end until they learn how to not only consume but enjoy. A gentle but keen reminder: satiation is the purpose.

Light and unlight; solid and liquid; energy and emotion.

Yes, they feasted endlessly, and hopelessly, on all the magic in the universe... as filtered through Jail Scaglietti, himself as cruel an embodiment of selfishness, of the darkest mirror of ambition, the worst sort of hunger, as humanity has to offer.

But this is so much more than that.

The Outsiders slow in their upwards fall...

...and then they stop...

...and then they begin to fall... down.

They are, to the very last, stone; which is to say, dead. As the final one is filled to a capacity that never existed before -- to SO many capacities that were never even conceived of -- the portal shivers, high above, and once again transforms from darkness into blinding, familiar light. Chiffon's light. Chiffon's connection, between this and every other world.

There is a moment of silence.

And then there is a soft crackle.

It comes again, as a flake of stone falls off one of the many corpses in the main downtown plaza. Then one of the ones in the building that fell. At the base of the tower. At the TOP of the tower. And scattered, everywhere else.

It is, unmistakably, the sound that an egg makes as it hatches.

The sound that many, many eggs make...

...and from the first near the magical girls, as they land under their own power -- a power greater than they ever imagined they had within themselves -- TWO things emerge.

<SoundTracker> Run - Amy MacDonald - One Last Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jl4kwuSOiY

One is a bolt of familiar icy radiance, which peels off, then straight up, accelerating without limit to hasten its return to whence it came. Not the darkness whence. The light.

And the other is roughly the same size as the shell crumbling around it, but bears no resemblance -- none at all -- to the Outsider it once was. No. This is an Insider; and not just any kind of insider. This is a being that came from a specific place; that was born at this specific time.

And a Labyrinth data diamond sits proudly on its head, in unmistakable -- and unprecedented -- white.

Its wings unfurl, soft fluffy wonderful feathers just like the Cure Angels had. Its eyes -- recognizable both as eyes and as eyes that see, that see the beautiful world they're in -- open. They are the blue of the Sea of Tears, but they aren't tearful; they are joyful.

Its long, gentle body WRIGGLES, but in an entirely delightful -- and delighted -- way.

And with a sweet cry, it launches into the sky. It blushes with soft pleasure at everything it gently brushes past. The tower. The clouds. Occasionally it noms gently on something like a toddler, but it doesn't have teeth, and its overall sense of contentment is clear. It will take time to truly understand what it is that attracts these creatures; and what it is that they eat. But it isn't magic.

Or, well. Maybe it is magic. The truest kind of magic. But if they are drawn to the magic of the heart, and if they consume it, it is undeniable that their simple presence also creates it. Because, inextricably; astonishingly; wholesomely.

One cannot see one and help but get their happiness -- a very special happiness.

These things are cuuuuuuuuute.

"Hohoeminaaaa~" calls one, a dozen, a hundred, thousands -- as many as there are magical worlds, and magical girls upon them.

And as the last bit of stolen power goes home, the portal finally closes.

Just before it does, Chiffon looks up at the Hohoemina and burbles, overflowing with joy; and in a flash of cyan, the missing Labyrinthites are returned, brought home too, In from the Outside. You gazes upon what the magical girls have wrought and smiles in an unprecedented, new way.

Stern is not revived. But he isn't entirely gone, either. Both in the memories sense, and more practically, in the physical one. A fragment still remains. It's dead, for now.

But surrounded by such a wondrous and extraordinary universe...

"Thank you..." (a memory of a memory, as the Crown Princess' spirit knows peace at last)

"...for doing what we couldn't..." (an echo of an echo, as Queen Northa is finally able to move on)

...it's hard to believe that goodbye could truly be forever.

~uehihihi~

BATTLE FANTASIA * MAGICAL GIRL LYRICAL NANOHA SEEKERS * END

2025-03-15 - The Labyrinth Reawakens 2

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