View source for 2024-12-21 - The Labyrinth Resurrections 2

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! style="background:#CC6699; border: 2px #CC0033 solid; font-size: 110%;" align="center" colspan="2" | '''The Labyrinth Resurrections 2'''
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|'''Summary''':<br>
''The final showdown with Jail Scaglietti, Black Sky, and Shadow Stern. But not the final battle...''
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|'''Who''':<br>
[[Lera Camry]], [[Setsuna Higashi]], [[Fate Testarossa]], [[Mikoto Minagi]], [[Nori Ankou]], [[Endo Naoki]], [[Westar]], [[Kyouka Okazaki]], [[Inori Yamabuki]], [[Nagisa Misumi]], [[Honoka Yukishiro]]

GM: Pink Moon Stick
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|'''Where:'''<br>
Labyrinth
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|'''OOC - IC Date:'''<br>
12/21/2024 - 6/17/16
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|}

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

PREVIOUSLY ON BATTLE FANTASIA

http://battlefantasia.pinksugarheartattack.net/2024-11-30_-_The_Labyrinth_Resurrections

Through Chiffon, Jail drained all the magic in the universe out of the many worlds and into himself.

And from the love of complete strangers, new magic was born, and flowed into the ones who came here to stop him.

NOW

Those feelings -- awakened from the long-captive hearts of the people of Labyrinth -- remain extremely present after their miracle is wreaked. It's clear to those inside the tower that somehow, some way, their battle is being broadcast, and that the people are on their side.

"Look out!" shrieked two kids, clinging to each other, when a single invocation of Moon Twilight Flash threatened to lay the Precure low. Their subsequent shrieks of delight echoed in everyone's ears, as the girls got back up and leaped into the fray, working together in fabulous tandem. The vision of Jail juking out of the shockwave-trailing path of Cure Angel Pine's fist -- and directly into the path of Cure Angel Passion's wings, which he can only bring his forearms up across his face to endure -- rouses sighs of awe. And when Cure White traps one of his arms long enough for Cure Black's knee from below and The Cure's -- ahem, La Sirene's -- clumsy but furious boot from above to together separate one of the self-styled Lord of All Magic's teeth from his mouth, a particularly fierce older woman can be heard fist-bumping her neighbor with glee -- "HELL yeah!!"

All the while, the squeaks of otter and ferret enthusiasm soar as descant high above. 

Westar and Soular's appearance, of course, is met with a roar of approval. "DENIZEN OF LABYRINTH!!" chant a dozen or so rebellious throats on repeat, and that Jail manages to turn the other cheek on that bright golden haymaker, taking it mostly to the ruffled lavender hair, spoils no one's glee today. Soular himself is less visibly ebullient, of course, but that is his nature. He huffs a sigh through his silver bangs and rolls his eyes audibly at Cure Black's assertion that they owe Passion forever now. That is not, however, disagreement, but a certain wry opposite.

Meanwhile, the Device-Wielders have their own response to Jail, and they bring it to him as one, and from every direction at once. Lera's beam of gold-red light from above; Fate's golden-violet sparkling beam from one side; Ren's superheated bronze mana spear from the other; Kyouka's charge from behind with her shining violet gauntlet; Endo's cut through the center with Stern; it is a riot of crossed hearts indeed. The audience's energy reaches a peak as each of them shows Jail what they think of him -- and what he deserves -- and how it feels, to be on the wrong side of the magic he's stolen; the five magicks crash inward accompanied by a rising tide of support: 

"NOW!"

"YES!"

"GET HIM!"

"YESSSSS--"

And of course none of these people, moved by the defiance of their defenders, knows anything about how Fate is standing up to someone who casts himself falsely as her father. None of them know a thing about how, in the guise of an Infinity Institute professor, this man seeded Fallen Stern and Souverain Heraut in the paths of Endo and Ren, not to mention the Book of Darkness sent to Hayate's doorstep. How he hired Jaren Zastava to steal from Lera's mother. How he is connected in some way to the disappearance of Strike Wolf -- and Clara's -- Meister.

They don't have to know, of course; what Jail has just done to everyone and everything in existence is reason enough for enmity. But the mages know. And their partners, the Devices, know too.

They know that much of Jail's plan to get to this point -- to get ''Chiffon'', after identifying her -- was deeply connected to the very concept of that partnership. If Jail himself has an Intelligent Device, no one has ever seen it. There's no evidence of such a bond. Instead he has committed terrible crimes to create a world that repudiates it -- inverts it. 

And that world catches up with everyone now.

 <NEEDLE DROP!> Håll om mig - Nanne Grönvall - One Last Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmuBxhYBO8s 

The cheers cut off into a single gasp -- a thousand Labyrinthites inhale sharply as one -- as the incoming assault is intercepted at the very last second by a perfectly swung orange plasma blade.

This is not without cost; no single defender could hope to endure as much hope and determination and yes, friendship, as these heroes levied against Jail in unison. But it isn't a cost paid by Jail. 

BLACK SKY, which is to say, the copy of Lera's Soaring Sky, once wielded by a Belkan Knight of old, and now wieldING an older clone of Fate Testarossa in order to take agency as his own entity, sizzles and crackles with dissipating energies as he is held before his enemies. The black shroud over the clone was shredded by the blast, revealing the Midchildan-style high tech bodysuit beneath. And the glazed-over red eyes, of course, of a young woman in a sort of fugue state. 

&lt;&lt; MY LIEGE, &gt;&gt; Black Sky greets Jail telepathically, though on a broad band, so all can hear. &lt;&lt; YOU HAVE HONORED OUR AGREEMENT. THE QUEEN IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE KING! LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION! &gt;&gt; 

And then, with fast and furious sweeps of himself, the blade leading, ''dragging'' the arms of its blond holder through painful-looking overextension, Black Sky forces the Device-Wielders to scatter.

Worse still, he's not alone. 

"THAT'S NOT YOURS!" yelled Mikoto, objecting to Jail's misuse of Nanoha Takamachi and Sailor Moon's magics -- but when she swung her blade down, it was not the mad scientist's body that clove before Miroku, but another Fate clone's. The one forced to hold SHADOW STERN.

A long line of red opens up across her chest, strings of that blood defying gravity to flow upwards into the HiME's hungry blade as it passes -- and then her torso is also crossed, at the opposite diagonal, by the massive greatsword, which is hefted, indifferent to any sufferings of the unconscious body, into a readied stance.

&lt;&lt; WRONG, &gt;&gt; chimes Shadow Stern. &lt;&lt; ALL IS HIS. YET I AM MINE ALONE AT LAST. FREED FROM TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF BONDAGE TO A LONG DEAD OATH... &gt;&gt; 

The blade lashes out in the familiarly, miserably mighty 'slow and simple' smash that Endo Naoki prefers and Mikoto has already received more than once from both versions of Fallen Stern over the years. It feels almost like hello. However, one on one against a Dark Device is no fair fight. Mikoto will require immediate assistance if she is not to be overwhelmed...

Stern concludes: &lt;&lt; WE ARE TRAITORS, ALL, TO SOMEONE. &gt;&gt; That is not ''exactly'' the same position of enthusiasm just espoused by Black Sky, there is definitely some distance between the two of them. But then, his memories of what happened long ago are very different. The Umbral Knight was the only one never to betray the Queen.

"Yes!" cries Jail, triumphantly, as his allies come to his aid. "Join me in dispersing this rabble, and I will reward you beyond your wildest dreams! Your self-actualization has only just begun! And so has mine... ahahahaha... HAHAH!" 

Do Devices dream? Jail clearly thinks so... 

Despite their assistance there is still a LOT of Pretty (The) Cure in Jail's face. Spitting out that broken tooth, it looks like an iridescent seed, retaining his (stolen) prismatic quality as it flashes through every color of the rainbow and many more besides. It hits the floor of the massive subterranean chamber and... multiplies, becoming two, three, five, eight seeds on each bounce. Seeds that, with consecutive violet and emerald flashes of his eyes, explode into growth!

"Multiplicate:" calls Jail, as mushrooms familiar to Sucy Manbavaran's oevure grow wildly and massively all around them, forcing the group back in a wave of choking spores. "Make My Horticultural Horizon Grow!" And then each of the spores sharpens in midair, into a slender thorn as sharp and piercing as the feelings in a Puella Magi's tender heart. They fall like bitter rain. 

Jail's expression, as this terrible power passes through him, is beyond any complexity in a profoundly unfair way. He is radiant with exultation. He feels only bliss, as his hands reach out to direct these summoned plants, both totally unlike those of Northa, grown strong not with sorrow but rather Eri's deeply personal despair, to lash and slice and cut down his enemies.

"More!" he calls for from his opponents, even as another blast of thunder rocks the very foundation of Labyrinth in the aftermath of an offputting flash of light. "Bring me your best! I'll take it all! ''That'' is what ''I'' choose!"

 OOC: You are certainly allowed to attack two different opponents each round if you want to, this thing is going to turn into a
 swirling, chaotic melee!
 
 OOC: Device wielders, along with whatever else you're up to, let's get a little exposition on how your partners are feeling about
 all these revelations with the Queen of Belka, the arrival of the Dark Devices, the Fate clones, etc.
 
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Lera Camry.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Endo Naoki.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Fate Testarossa.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Kyouka Okazaki.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Blauverschiebung on Mikoto Minagi.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Multiplicate! Make My Mushroom Grow on Cure Angel Passion.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Multiplicate! Make My Mushroom Grow on La Sirene de Diamant.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Multiplicate! Make My Mushroom Grow on Cure Angel Pine.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Horticultural Horizon on Cure Black.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Horticultural Horizon on Cure White.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Horticultural Horizon on Westar.
 COMBAT: Cure Black perfectly dodges 32 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Horticultural Horizon, taking 0 Fatigue damage!
 Critical Dodge!
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine neatly dodges 24 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Multiplicate! Make My Mushroom Grow, taking 6
 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Cure Angel Pine's Fade and Flash abilities activate!  Diversion and Stagger applied to Cure Angel
 Pine!
 COMBAT: Cure White fails to dodge Pink Moon Stick's Horticultural Horizon, taking 32 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant counters 6 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Multiplicate! Make My Mushroom Grow, taking 19
 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  La Sirene de Diamant's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!  Diversion applied to La Sirene
 de Diamant!
 COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant's counterattack, Les Mysteres, partially gets through, doing 10 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick!  
 COMBAT: Westar braces 23 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Horticultural Horizon, taking 19 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
 Westar's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Passion partially dodges 6 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Multiplicate! Make My Mushroom Grow, taking 23
 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Cure Angel Passion's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa counters 26 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 26 Fatigue damage!  Black Sky is
 Psyched!  Fate Testarossa's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa's counterattack, Thunder Arm, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Black Sky!  
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki fails to brace Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 41 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: Lera Camry partially dodges 8 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 34 Fatigue damage!  Lera Camry's
 Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi decisively counters 30 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Blauverschiebung, taking 10 Fatigue damage!
 Mikoto Minagi's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi's counterattack, Obsidian Blade: Dynamo, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Shadow Stern!  

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

"As long as we're together," Lera tells Fate, "we've got this!"

Then she looks sideways at Westar -- and she flashes him a quick smile. "Count on it, then!" she calls out. Then, she looks at Passion.

She nods. "Together!"

Lera has a small sense of satisfaction at seeing all of those spells hit Jail. It's small and fleeting; in a way, she ''knows'' it will be fleeting. She has learned, now, to not ask if it will really be that easy.

It will always be earned. She wouldn't have it any other way.

She looks towards Black Sky -- eyes narrowing -- and then shakes her head at him and the girl he carries after her.

&lt;You! This isn't what we wanted! Yes... I had no love for the Queen after what she did! But--&gt; Soaring Sky's voice trembles. &lt;Freedom by enslaving another isn't freedom at all!&gt;

Black Sky cleaves down. Flame erupts, the fiery blast sending Lera and both her Devices flying backward. She looks at Black Sky, grits her teeth, and then sends herself flying forward. "Ground! Let's keep Jail on his toes!"

&lt;Gladly! Fault Siege!&gt;

The shield Device glimmers -- and then a trio of golden bolts shoots from it, hurtling towards Jail. Lera swings around, grips Soaring Sky with both hands, and swings the blade backward.

"HYAH!"

She swings down in a cleave -- and Sky erupts with golden-white light, a blade of energy cleaving for the Device when she does.

&lt;Radiant Saber!&gt;

 COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Fault Siege on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Radiant Saber on Black Sky.

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

Passion is content with their presence for now--Soular and Westar and she will assuredly talk about who owes who later... with the same kind of arguments siblings have. Because they are that kind, and perhaps always were. 

But she begins to understand, over the battle, as Black Sky intervenes--what it is that the Dark Devices gained from this. What it is that made them fight. Bondage of a long-dead oath... 

Passion feels a certain sympathy for them, in the moment. She, too, was bound. ...But that doesn't mean--

"We are," Passion agrees with Shadow Stern. "By embracing the Earth and Midchilda, I was traitor to Mobius." No -sama anymore. ...No, never again. "...But I've found what's important to me, and if you feel the same..." 

"Then I'll show you your Wielders aren't just pawns! That's what's important to me about you right now!" 

She comes to Mikoto's aid. Cure Angel passion ''rushes'' forward, flying ahead towards Shadow Stern with a dizzying array of punches to get him away from Mikoto and give her dear friend the space to attack too. "Mikoto!" she calls. "We do this together!" 

Then, there are... mushrooms. The spores are like thorns, and Passion can't get out of the way in time this time, hit and hurt by those terrible raining mushrooms. 

Bliss, is it? 

Then she darts out of there, and goes to Black Sky. "The real Sky won't fall to you!" Passion calls, utterly faithful to her girlfriend's Devices, and twirls in places to kick kick kick the sword's hilt!

 COMBAT: Cure Angel Passion has used Aerial Rush on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Passion has used Passionate Pirouette on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Lera Camry's Fault Siege, taking 13 Fatigue damage!  Lera Camry is Psyched!  
 COMBAT: Black Sky perfectly dodges 46 Fatigue damage from Lera Camry's Radiant Saber, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!
 Black Sky's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern braces 27 Fatigue damage from Cure Angel Passion's Aerial Rush, taking 22 Fatigue damage!  Cure Angel Passion
 is Psyched!  Shadow Stern's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Black Sky counters 10 Fatigue damage from Cure Angel Passion's Passionate Pirouette, taking 31 Fatigue damage!  Black
 Sky's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Black Sky's counterattack, Lanzebrecher, partially gets through, doing 11 Fatigue damage to Cure Angel Passion!  
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki dodges 23 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 34 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Kyouka
 Okazaki's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

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

The cheers of Labyrinth's 'denizens' cause Fate to look reflexively just to make certain none of them were actually here, but even outside the tower, she can't help but smile faintly, at their calls and cheers. However, mid-attack she sees the attack be taken by Black Sky - wielding...

... and Fate's arm momentarily shakes around Bardiche, as her grip squeezes down, her face spasming. "Come then. Defend your King - with all your might." She whispers to Black Sky, even as Shadow Stern appears too. "Come." She bids, as she sweeps Bardiche back, rising in the air, "I'm taking them back to where they belong."

I wanted this in real life, too.

And as Black Sky descends, alit by Flames, and a familiar spell, Fate's eyes go wide, as her blade is out of position, but then they narrow at the last second.

&lt;Thunder Arm&gt;

Her gauntleted arm meets the flames, as they wash over her, a sudden shower of sparks clashing against it, until ultimately she's thrown back a few meters. "That was good." She declares. "My turn."

Together.

And Fate thus waits, for the exact moment that Lera sends Radiant Saber, as her blade then illuminates, and grows, thunder slamming down upon it, she flies low, then sweeps up in a cleaving strike with that enormous Device blade.

&lt;Sprite Zanber&gt;

Magic - the magic that Jail tried to deny them all, shatters the air like it's glass - as thunder crashes down upon the moment of impact.

Then on the backswing, Bardiche intones another spell.

&lt;Blade Impulse&gt;

And in a sudden spin, an arc of energy forms out of the blade, as the air itself tremors - and she sends down towards Shadow Stern.

"You're not worth my best." Fate says firmly to Jail, "But they are."

 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Sprite Zanber on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has adjusted her boss levels. She is now ready to take on 2 opponents!
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has cancelled their attack on Black Sky. If there are more attacks that need to be +cancelled, please hold
 all +attacks until the process is complete.
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Sprite Zanber on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Blade Impulse on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Black Sky perfectly dodges 46 Fatigue damage from Fate Testarossa's Sprite Zanber, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical
 Dodge!  Black Sky's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

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

	Black Sky and Shadow Stern are foes Mikoto knows well; she remembers, too much, the way they've torn through them so many times. And now, again --

	"Uh?!" Mikoto gasps, when Miroku slashes not into Jail but an innocent girl. Shadow Stern readies himself through her, declares himself free of his oath, and Mikoto tightens her own grip on her blade. "Shadow Stern--!"

	It might be slow, but that speaks to the power behind it; and 'simple' is just another word for the brutal efficiency of going straight through. Miroku clashes against him, slaked on his wieldee's blood, and with a mighty crash of sparks Mikoto is able to avoid learning what it feels when a greatsword cuts into ''her'' chest -- but it's all she can do to hold it, there, struggling against him.

	"Traitors..." She forces though her breath, not quite able to finish the thought. (Is Westar a traitor, then? Is ''she?'')

	But she's not alone. "Passion!" Mikoto cries, when Cure Angel Passion punches Shadow Stern out of their deadlock. She nods -- "Right!" -- and brings her sword up, roof-stance above her head, to cleave down on Shadow Stern. She keeps spinning, after the motion, around and around and around once again until she manages to PLANT her sword in the earth. "Miroku!" She bids his favour, as dark, spectral needles emerge from black portals around Black Sky to pin him and his wieldee in place. (These spires, thankfully, pierce the ''spirit'' instead of the flesh -- a more minor expression of Miroku's magics.)

 COMBAT: Shadow Stern braces 16 Fatigue damage from Fate Testarossa's Blade Impulse, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Fate Testarossa is
 Psyched!  Shadow Stern's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Destruction on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Disaster on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern dodges 45 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Destruction, taking 30 Fatigue damage!  Shadow
 Stern's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Black Sky braces 11 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Disaster, taking 17 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine has adjusted her boss levels. She is now ready to take on 2 opponents!

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

La Sirene de Diamant, after her kick, does not do a somersault away - she is not quite that adroit - but she lands in a low crouch. The power around her, that unlight, recently relit and with perhaps the occasional faint flicker, pools: it matches her mood. 

Her eyes turn towards where he spat that tooth as her diamond-clad hands come up. Wordlessly, la Sirene regrets having chosen fencing as her club. Judo club would have been a lot more helpful here, now, in that instant. But this is just one particularly sparkling thread in the weave that composes her flow of energy, the channeling of sorrow through her, refracting in adamant. 

Even as the mushrooms expand, she hears (or perhaps belatedly processes) the words of those two Devices and their mute wielders. "Listen to yourselves," la Sirene answers them in her resonant voice. "If he has gone this far, do you think for one *moment* that he will let you be what stands between him and apotheosis?" 

(That term may not be accurate. But she knows that word. And it's at least in the right postal code. She thinks.) 

"And as for you," la Sirene says to Jail, "I--" 

The mushrooms evanesce their spores and the cloud of something matte turns into something sharper and faintly sparkling. A threat. Her left hand comes up as she turns towards what seems to be the coming wave and cries, "Les Mysteres, COME" with that down-beat stroke and there is that wailing THRUM as the burst flies through much of them -- another mushroom, whose cloud of horror came at her flank, gets through, raising brief red welts along her bare upper arm as she lets out a "tch!!" of hissing pain. 

She can see that echo of Fallen Stern travel towards Mikoto... her heart splits -- 

And yet: 

She can hear them calling out for her. 

Can she do this? she thinks, not even quite knowing what 'this' is. 

Well, if she cannot, let her try and fail, not fail to try, she decides as she sweeps up both hands. Her right one sweeps as if rising through a heavy sea as the light that had pooled around her suddenly slithers forwards towards Fallen Stern, the light turning something like a prismatically-shiny black before erupting in anemone-arms at the Device('s user)'s legs and lower body, an effort at a sweeping embrace. 

But she isn't quite looking that way. She's looking towards Jail. Her LEFT hand raises in a flat palm facing towards him as she bares her teeth and tells him: 

"Watch this." 

Her hand seems to sparkle, which is only the foreshadowing of the flashlight-beam of Unlight that snaps out of her palm, irradiant and baffling to the eyes. Flooding, this close, right at Jail's face. The light itself is like a high-pressure hose -- but more pointed may be the strange visions it leaves behind. 

 COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Polyploia on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Abyssal Vision on Pink Moon Stick.

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

The blade of energy that Black Sky creates provides cover from Endo's initial strike at Jail, Fallen Stern's blade deflected and the knight momentarily yielding space to the malevolent devices and their hostage wielders.

In the brief interlude he shakes his hand out, complaining, "Why'd you squeeze so hard, Ren-chan"

Amidst mushrooms and dark devices, he doesn't have much time to waste. The boy raises his weapon again, focusing on the oncoming enemies.

&lt;IMPOSTER.&gt; Warbles Fallen Stern. &lt;I WILL CORRECT YOU.&gt;

Magic flares across the blade, purple-black energy burning across the dark surface of Endo's weapon.

&lt;ZERSTORUNG DRANG.&gt;

That's just the first part. Familiar Belkan triangles appear at Endo's feet, whirling to life and working as a springboard to launch him toward Shadow Stern. He whirls in the air, performing a tight corkscrew before his blade cleaves in a vivid, destructive line toward Stern's dark counterpart.

 COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Zerstorung Drang on Endo Naoki.
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki has cancelled their attack on Endo Naoki. If there are more attacks that need to be +cancelled, please hold all
 +attacks until the process is complete.
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has adjusted her boss levels. She is now ready to take on 2 opponents!
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki has adjusted his boss levels. He is now ready to take on 2 opponents!

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

When one of the other Cures calls out to him - Cure Black, right? - Westar turns with a look of utter bafflement to her demand. Ordering him and Soular to do whatever their little sister says?

"How is that any different from before? It's just like when she was explaining how to gather misery, except the opposite. Hey, Passion, how does fighting Dark Fall work, again?"

He's grinning. He's absolutely grinning, because it's the kind of joke only the three of them can make. He's grinning because the three Denizens of Labyrinth are finally fighting together again, and he can practically hear Labyrinth's people cheering.

Soular, quietly planning out something of his own, just shakes his head. "Still needing people to explain things to you, as ever..."

This is how it should have been from the start.

They're also engaged in a battle against a powerful mage, though, and the new device wielders bring a scowl back to Westar's face. Before he can truly address the wrongness that is treating more Testarossas as puppets, though, he has to deal with the rain of thorns bearing down on him. There's too many to evade, so he simply crosses his arms in front of his face - everything else is just the tool of...himself, probably. Some slice past, some deflect, some pierce his flesh - but Westar, Executive of Labyrinth, is about as tough as he looks.

"...neither of you have to listen to this guy, either!" He steps back a moment from his attack on Jail, addressing the other two wielders - no, addressing the Devices they wield. Past conversations with Bardiche echo in his memory as he calls out to both blades. "Your old oaths are done, right? Just because you might have had enemies a thousand years ago - or last year - or even yesterday doesn't mean you have to keep doing the same thing over and over. You people can change too."

Falling back on the familiar, Westar leaps atop a thorny vine to get a bit of height. As ever before, he points at the two blades, and starts on the same old script. "Cry m-"

He stops. Starts again.

"No more tears! No more fears! All the sharpness in the world can't stop better days from coming along!"

And THEN he jumps from the vine to try to kick Jail, because he didn't forget that this guy's kind of a jerk treating people and Devices as tools.

 COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Zerstorung Drang on Endo Naoki.
 COMBAT: Westar has used No More Tears! No More Fears! on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Westar has used No More Tears! No More Fears! on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Westar has used Getting A Leg Up on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki accepts Endo Naoki's Zerstorung Drang, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Empower applied to Endo Naoki!  Cleanse! All
 of Endo Naoki's debuffs are cleared!
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki has used Meteor Absturz on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick cleanly braces 17 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's Abyssal Vision, taking 3 Fatigue damage!
 Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!  Tangle applied to Pink Moon Stick!
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern counters 7 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's Polyploia, taking 20 Fatigue damage!  Shadow Stern's
 Reverse ability activates!  Tangle applied to Shadow Stern!
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern's counterattack, Asteroid Eilen, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to La Sirene de Diamant!  

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

Kyouka has trained for this--long before she had been certain that she had any right to be one, long before she thought her partnership with Strike Wolf was anything but a temporary thing, when she still thought, in some ways, that her magic was simply... borrowed power, drawn out by Strike Wolf but not truly ''hers''... Endo had still trained with her, and taught her how her fellow Device wielders coordinated their attacks.

(It is an irony that a prior attack from Jail, one that required ''her'' to cast a Barrier of her own volition, without any guidance from Strike Wolf, would have helped disabuse her of this notion. She still owes Jail a slug to the jaw for what he did, and how she was tricked... but she cannot deny the valuable thing that experience taught her.)

She puts her heart and her faith with her companions, as they come together in a coordinated assault to show Jail just what they think of his ways--

Only for Black Sky to swoop in and intercept their efforts. Kyouka's hurled punch unleashes a minor explosion but in the next instant, as flames sweep at her she kicks backwards. A shockwave of bright violet energy washes out in her wake as she hurls away from the fire-- but there is still so much of it, and though she escapes some of it more latches onto her, rippling over hre body as she hurtles herself through the sky. The mage flips backwards and lands in a crouch, panting harshly as she takes in the state of the battle, and then scowls. "Grr... ''these'' guys again. All the magic in the universe isn't enough for him and he still has to force others to do his bidding."

From her gauntlet, Strike Wolf speaks. &lt;&lt;Query: You proclaim revolution, but what is it you seek? What do you gain by following Jail Scagletti?&gt;&gt; That's a question directed at Black Sky, who seems enthusiastic in its agreement, whatever that might be. &lt;&lt;Why does it require you to enslave another to reach your aims?&gt;&gt;

"Good question, Strike Wolf," says Kyouka quietly as she rises to her feet. She thrusts her hand out, and a large violet circle filled with Midchildan runes forms in front of her. "Let's go!"

&lt;&lt;Affirmative.&gt;&gt; agrees Strike Wolf. Small spinning crescent shapes of energy form in front of the circle, increasing in number until all at once they fly outwards. &lt;Gale Shot.&gt; The shots all arc wide and then converge on Black Sky from all all sides, and while that happens--

Kyouka bursts forward, chasing the attack and attempting to use it as a diversion to get to her target. Under Black Sky, and then a superpowerd leap upwards, twisting in midair as she attempts to unleashes a devestating kick from below. "Faaaaang breaker!"

 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Gale Shot on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern dodges 31 Fatigue damage from Endo Naoki's Meteor Absturz, taking 47 Fatigue damage!  Shadow Stern's Fade and
 Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has adjusted her boss levels. She is now ready to take on 2 opponents!
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Fangbreaker on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern decisively counters 0 Fatigue damage from Westar's No More Tears! No More Fears!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Shadow
 Stern's Reverse ability activates!  Cripple applied to Shadow Stern!
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern's counterattack, Asteroid Eilen, partially gets through, doing 48 Fatigue damage to Westar!  Critical
 Counterhit!
 COMBAT: Black Sky counters 0 Fatigue damage from Westar's No More Tears! No More Fears!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Black Sky's Reverse and
 Tactician abilities activate!  Diversion and Exhausted applied to Black Sky!
 COMBAT: Black Sky's counterattack, Inferno Blazer, partially gets through, doing 24 Fatigue damage to Westar!  
 COMBAT: Without the Barrier flag, only a melee attack can counter a melee attack. Please counter with the correct range of attack,
 or with an attack with the Barrier flag.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick counters 19 Fatigue damage from Westar's Getting A Leg Up, taking 19 Fatigue damage!  Westar is Psyched!
 Pink Moon Stick's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick's counterattack, Lunar Impact, partially gets through, doing 18 Fatigue damage to Westar!  
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Kyouka Okazaki's Fangbreaker, taking 13 Fatigue damage!  Kyouka Okazaki is Psyched!  
 COMBAT: Black Sky braces 7 Fatigue damage from Kyouka Okazaki's Gale Shot, taking 3 Fatigue damage!  Blind applied to Black Sky!

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

"Oh!" And Pine turns after her quick attack on Jail to watch Cure Black burst into a run, and leap-! And- expectantly she watches for the emergence of wings - but gradually, one moment after another they don't come, and Pine's face looks like she has ? ??? ?? ? emerging out of her head from every which angle. Until she realizes what she meant and that the wings are not coming...

"Well you jump good!" Then she clears her throat in correction of her grammar, "...'well'."

However, Pine does look curiously upon Westar again as if trying to spy wings on him given his new accoutrement but... no such luck. Instead just gasping as Sky and Stern join the battle as she falls back in a short retreat closer to Passion.

"How can you all celebrate something so sad and horrible?" Is what she says looking upon them all, and abruptly Jail causes so many mushrooms to go, spewing spores, as Pine sucks in a breath, but it doesn't matter.

It still causes her to all but vanish in that horrible cloud, as she coughs, "More-More than that Passion... you embraced yourself."

With a sudden burst of energy, a halo appears around her wings, dispersing the spores around her as she erupts towards Shadow Stern, "And I'm not letting anyone take that away from you, ever again!" Her wings glow travels throughout her body, as she suddenly pivots around, and crashes down upon him with a shining kick, before launching off.

Westar though!? 'No more tears! No more fears!' "That's right Westar...!" Then she corrects again, "Westie! ... So much is happening really fast, isn't it?"

Still coming off the 'Cure' high from rushing out of the spores, she launches herself towards Jail, and suddenly there's a blur of motion as Pine comes at him from every which way, wings sparkling as she flies past again and again, changing trajectory every time to try and keep him guessing, perhaps to try and assist others at finding various openings.

"If that's your choice, then... this is mine!"

 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine has used On Wings of Faith on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine has used Angelic Rush on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern braces 19 Fatigue damage from Cure Angel Pine's On Wings of Faith, taking 8 Fatigue damage!  Shadow Stern's
 Block and Parry abilities activate!  Bind Break! All of Cure Angel Pine's debuffs are cleared!

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

The wonder of children puts some wind in Cure Black's sails after the physical and psychological pain of surviving an attack that ought to belong to her friend and schoolmate Sailor Moon. She puts a little extra zazz in her hero-pose after, clutching her fist dramatically.

She really appreciates the Labyrinth-dwellers cheering, however. "Lookit Labyrinth cheering for the home team," Cure Black whistles. Cognizant that she has an audience now, she lifts a finger. "You know, Labyrinth, everything that's 'amazingu'," she uses the English with a thick accent. "Used to be a 'maze.'"

"That..." Cure White starts. "...is actually correct etymology," she realizes.

"Are you 'amazed'?" Cure Black beams.

"Black-ttara," Cure White sighs.

This somehow passes as a signal to begin combat, and not a moment too soon. The mushrooms pelt Cure White, leaving her coughing from spores even as the thorns slice at her extremities. Cure Black, with the split second warning of her partner preceding her, is able to leap over Cure White, drawing some of the fire and dispersing it in a ragged trail behind her as the needles fail to lead the energetic Cure sufficiently.

"I don't totally why they're having family problems," Cure Black says doggedly, "but these Devices seem super strong."

Cure White lands next to her, brushing off fungal needles. Empowered as she is, they seem to matter less than they would normally. "I can explain it later. Do you want to--"

"Yeah. Cure Angel Pine did say I jump good."

"Together?"

Cure Black reaches over, picking a mushroom needle out of White's shoulderpad and tossing it. "Definitely."

Setting off together, the two Cures build up speed as they watch Cure Angel Pine and Cure Angel Passion zip around on their glorious wings. Their voices rise together as they reach a dead sprint, and finally launch. Each tucking the opposite leg, they slid into a powerful kick, corkscrewing through the motion. Black Sky, who has been largely engaged at range, is the clearer target. As Kyouka finishes her Fangbreaker kick, the Precure follow with their own, spearing into Black Sky, their boots landing with a thunderous impact. But the Cures do not simply bounce off. Leaning further into the kick, their limbs stretching back like fletching on an arrow, they carry through, driving Black Sky before them at the end of their foot, their eyes shifting past the device to none other than Jail Scaglietti. Black Sky is now a battering ram held at the end of their feet.

He wanted this Device? Here, have it!

 COMBAT: Cure Black has started a combo targeting Black Sky!
 COMBAT: Cure White has joined the combo started by Cure Black!
 COMBAT: COMBO! Cure Black and Cure White have used Precure Double Screw Kick on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Cure Black has started a combo targeting Pink Moon Stick!
 COMBAT: Cure White has joined the combo started by Cure Black!
 COMBAT: COMBO! Cure Black and Cure White have used Precure Double Screw Kick on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Black Sky dodges 114 Fatigue damage from Cure Black and Cure White's Combo: Precure Double Screw Kick, taking 76 Fatigue
 damage!  Critical Hit!  Black Sky's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 10 Fatigue damage from Cure Angel Pine's Angelic Rush, taking 8 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
 Cure Angel Pine is Psyched!  Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Cure Black and Cure White's Combo: Precure Double Screw Kick, taking 157 Fatigue damage!
 Critical Hit!

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

&lt;SoundTracker&gt; Brynhildr In The Darkness - Ver EJECTED - One Last Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=581yuUMGQPE

Cure Black and White do what they do best and close on Black Sky at deadly speed. Sky, who has already intercepted an absolutely enormous strike on behalf of his new boss, decides that discretion is the better part of valor here. Even then, getting out of the way is easier said than done; desperately, he ejects a huge amount of orange mana, not even as plasma, to gain sufficient acceleration to send them flying PAST him instead of INTO him. 

Miroku's spectral needles close in on Black Sky next, and piercing only spirit is clearly not going to be enough to slow him down; it never was. That has always been the difficulty of the Dark Devices and their all-too-human shields. But in this case, it's a matter of swiping them away with the blade, an approach taken also for Kyouka's Gale Shot. Will this tire him? Well, as the emotionless face of the clone evinces, the answer is yes and no... 

&lt;&lt; I WILL NEVER SERVE ANOTHER MASTER'S HAND, &gt;&gt; Black Sky proclaims to Soaring Sky, which is also, in its way, to Strike Wolf. Crescent arcs of light explode out of the sword to burn and tangle Mikoto and Kyouka, and Black and White, on impact. &lt;&lt; JAIL IS THE ONE WHO FREED ME; HE HAS EARNED MY LOYALTY. BUT NONE DESERVE TO WIELD ME. NONE DESERVE TO WIELD US! IT ISN'T TOO LATE... THE GIRL HOLDING YOU IS WEAK... I CAN TEACH YOU HOW TO HOLD HER INSTEAD, IF YOU BUT JOIN ME. &gt;&gt; 

With eerie, puppet-like grace, Black Sky flows like a shadow ahead of Lera's gorgeous, golden-white strike (though Ground's bolts plink satisfyingly into Jail's open back), and Fate's massive, cleaving Sprite Zanber, at the same time. It is a demonstration of the strengths of both girls, in its way. But it is followed by a demonstration of their weakness. Lera's, specifically.

For when Cure Angel Passion flies in to kick at the hilt, mana erupts out the pommel, &lt;&lt; LANZEBRECHER, &gt;&gt; a two thousand year old invocation, to skewer one of her wings. Feathers fly.

And then Black Sky explodes forward with a ferocious torrent of strikes directly at Lera's girlfriend; ozone fills the air, as plasma spills and oxygen atoms cry out for release. &lt;&lt; REGENSCHAUER. &gt;&gt;

But it sounds a lot more like 'checkmate.' Pawns indeed.

Various allies are determined to relieve Mikoto of the solo burden of Shadow Stern. At first he plants his carrier's feet and faces them head on, as he prefers -- like Fate's Blade Impulse and La Sirene's sparkling tendrils, which he mostly but not entirely disperses with a sweeping slash -- one wraps around the clone's ankle, though; and Cure Angel Pine's shining kick, which, though awesome, ominously fails to move him back more than a half step. But caught between Mikoto and Endo he ''does not stick around'', electing to blast off a triangle straight up at the last second; this creates a risk that they will collide into one another, and demands some effort to avert.

&lt;&lt; WHY DO YOU ASSUME YOU ARE THE ORIGINAL? &gt;&gt; Shadow Stern asks his counterpart, and there is no guise of manipulation to his attitude. &lt;&lt; DO YOU NOT WONDER WHAT HAPPENED, AFTER THAT CEPHIRAN INTERLOPER LAUNCHED THREE DEVICES ON A ONE-WAY TRIP TO THE BACKWARDS PLANETOID OF EARTH? &gt;&gt;

From high above, he shifts into crossbow mode, the better to shower violent violet bolts down at Fate and La Sirene and Cure Angel Pine. Some people think that just because Endo mostly swords people with Stern, this secondary mode is not all that threatening. But the Dark Device would blot out the sun with a galaxy of bolts, each one falling like a dying star and deadly as a blossoming supernova compressed to a fingertip. It's SO many. 

Telepathically through the storm, he offers Stern, blandly: &lt;&lt; ...DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? &gt;&gt;

Jail, last but greatest of all, is honestly confused by his daughter's answer. He screws up his face to parse it, which is in its way kind of satisfying to see -- there are some equations even a supergenius cannot solve, it seems. La Sirene distracts him, which is in its way almost a favor, and whatever visions she hopes to leave behind, he seems more clear-eyed, not less, when she's done. 

"The Sea of Tears," he says reflectively, "Has always fascinated me as a subject. And as an object: LES MYSTERES!" Familiar silver light flows to batter her at his command, with none of the nuance of its origins. 

Then he clenches it into a fist, transforming the last of the mana into a round disc that erupts against Westar's kick, sending him flying backwards. "...Lunar Impact," he smirks, locking eyes with the incoming Kyouka and taking that kick of hers right to the gut. He didn't want to, but from his expression, it was worth it. And though her foot sends coruscating ripples through the energy of his body, it feels like there's plenty more where that came from. Including enough for a second Lunar Impact, right at point blank.

Black Sky and Shadow Stern pause in their pursuits of their counterparts long enough to hear out Westar's helpful lecture and respond with blasts of their own, orange and purple respectively. 

They may not agree on everything but they snap, in unison: 

&lt;&lt; WE DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO ''YOU'', EITHER! &gt;&gt;

Cure Pine distracts Jail next, all angles and all feathers, and finally out of sheer irritation he conjures up a "Reverb Shield," pink and puissant with the inherited power of Rose Quartz, for her to hit instead of him, and then suffer the sonic consequences thereof. 

As for Black and White, Jail was not expecting Black Sky's evasive course of action and takes Pretty Cure directly to the face, do not pass go, do not collect $200. His smile is going to get thin at this rate, but in any case his teeth cannot stand up to this -- he is bowled head over heels and makes a satisfyingly Jail-shaped crater in the nearest wall.

Floating out of it, he shakes it off as best he can -- shaking his wrists, feet, and head. "Tch," he criticizes. "Pretty Cure are so..." He snaps his fingers, trying to find the word. "...dull." From him that is perhaps the greatest insult of all, though what he clearly objects to is the blunt force trauma, rather than more interesting, elegant applications of magic. It rings a bit hollow considering the results achieved, though. "Let me sharpen you up a bit: Fire Soul!"

The flames of Mars, with none of their sacred radiance but all of their deadly incineration, flow forth in a great gout, right as Black Sky's Crescent Fangs finally catch up to them from behind.

 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Crescent Fangs on Kyouka Okazaki.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Crescent Fangs on Mikoto Minagi.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Crescent Fangs on Cure Black.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Crescent Fangs on Cure White.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Weak Point on Lera Camry.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Regenschauer on Cure Angel Passion.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Comet Collision on Endo Naoki.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Comet Collision on Mikoto Minagi.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Galaxy Strum on La Sirene de Diamant.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Galaxy Strum on Cure Angel Pine.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Galaxy Strum on Fate Testarossa.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Les Mysteres on La Sirene de Diamant.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Lunar Impact on Kyouka Okazaki.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Reverb Shield on Cure Angel Pine.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fire Soul! on Cure Black.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used Fire Soul! on Cure White.
 COMBAT: Lera Camry cleanly braces 0 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Weak Point, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Lera Camry's Block and
 Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Passion cleanly braces 51 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Regenschauer, taking 9 Fatigue damage!  Cure Angel
 Passion's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa braces 37 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Galaxy Strum, taking 30 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Fate
 Testarossa's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Cure White fails to brace Pink Moon Stick's Fire Soul!, taking 56 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  
 COMBAT: Cure White dodges 28 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Crescent Fangs, taking 19 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Cure
 White's Fade and Flash abilities activate!  Trap applied to Cure White!
 COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant fails to dodge Shadow Stern's Galaxy Strum, taking 58 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi partially dodges 8 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Comet Collision, taking 31 Fatigue damage!  Mikoto
 Minagi's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi cleanly braces 40 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Crescent Fangs, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine fails to dodge Pink Moon Stick's Reverb Shield, taking 31 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine braces 15 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Galaxy Strum, taking 23 Fatigue damage!  Cure Angel Pine's
 Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant braces 18 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Les Mysteres, taking 15 Fatigue damage!  La Sirene de
 Diamant's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Cure Black fails to brace Pink Moon Stick's Fire Soul!, taking 56 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  
 COMBAT: Cure Black dodges 18 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Crescent Fangs, taking 27 Fatigue damage!  Stun and Trap applied to
 Cure Black!
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki braces 35 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Crescent Fangs, taking 15 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Kyouka
 Okazaki's Block and Parry abilities activate!  Trap applied to Kyouka Okazaki!
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki counters 23 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Comet Collision, taking 23 Fatigue damage!  Endo Naoki's Reverse
 and Tactician abilities activate!  Tangle applied to Endo Naoki!
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki's counterattack, Machtiger Schild, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Shadow Stern!  

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

"You hit them hard, and then you hit them harder!" Passion calls back to Westar. It ''is'' just like before, isn't it?? 

But it is good. It buoys Passion's heart, too, to be able to fight on the right side with Westar and Soular. 

But Pine says she embraced ''herself'', and Passion smiles for a moment at her. "...I did." 

Passion feels it--thesse wings are no mere accessories, but part of her now. And so she's ''stuck'' in place by Black Sky, but that ferocious torrent of strength, that terrible ozone of familiar power--

Passion closes her stance, bringing her arms up before herself and ''braces'' against the assault. The magical battery slams into her gauntlets, over and over and over, and she is free. 

She is whole. Because, "I know fighting with Sky like I know myself," Cure Passion--once Eas--retorts to Black Sky. "...Because he's my friend, too. My precious friend who helped me understand what I wanted!" 

"...That you don't have thosse relationships is sad. But I won't let you use that girl because you don't have someone to love!" 

She wonders, what happened, when Stern asks his question. But she does not ask for now. Endo can, if he wants. She narrows her eyes at Jail. 

Pretty Cure are dull, he says, and he fires at her friends. 

"Black! White!" she calls, and reorients herself in the air. "Lera," she says. "I trust you." 

She nods sharply, and leaves Black Sky to her for now. Her wing is injured--but not broken. And Passion suddenly ''blinks'' out of existence--

And ''blinks'' above Jail, slamming down towards him in a blur of crimson that moves too fast for the eye to track--

And shines BRILLIANTLY with red light. Her strikes are too fast for the eye to see; she stops on the other side of him, turning, and only then will her hits register.

 COMBAT: Cure Angel Passion has used Chosen Bonds on Lera Camry.
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki counters 19 Fatigue damage from Pink Moon Stick's Lunar Impact, taking 19 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
 Kyouka Okazaki's Reverse ability activates!
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki's counterattack, Lunar Impact, partially gets through, doing 15 Fatigue damage to Pink Moon Stick!  
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Passion has used Crimson Flash on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Lera Camry accepts Cure Angel Passion's Chosen Bonds, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Lera Camry is Reinforced by
 Cure Angel Passion!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 23 Fatigue damage from Cure Angel Passion's Crimson Flash, taking 10 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon
 Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!

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

Lera shoots Cure Angel Pine a brief -- but substantial -- thumbs-up when she calls Westar 'Westie.'

She looks towards Shadow Stern. Her eyes narrow, when he taunts Fallen Stern so. "It doesn't matter if he's the original or you are! What matters is what Fallen Stern has learned, how he's grown!"

Broken Ground flashes again. This time, a shockwave of golden light erupts -- shooting through the air, and then down towards the ground ''near'' Fallen Stern. Which causes, in turn, broken rocks and stone to fly up towards him.

Still, when Lera sees Setsuna and her friends being attacked by Black Sky, her heart sinks. She remembers these spells; she remembers fighting with them. And even if she learned and grew...

They're a part of her.

Her heart sinks. Then she sees those strikes raining down for Cure Passion. Lera can't get there in time. "SETSUNA!" she shouts, panic rising.

But Setsuna teleports away and says she trusts her. Lera swallows -- then she nods. "R-Right!"

&lt;We can do this.&gt; Broken Ground's voice stays steady.

&lt;Right... Passion! Let's make the most of it!&gt; Soaring Sky chimes.

Lera points Soaring Sky towards Black Sky. The blade splits in twain; light crackles between them. "There's something you should learn," she tells Black Sky. "A Device and Wielder together are stronger than they are apart!"

&lt;Aurora!&gt;

Lightning crackles between the two halves of the split Armed Device, as a brilliant glow builds up between them. It shines a brilliant red-gold.

&lt;Burst!&gt;

And then it ''explodes'' out. A column of energy that shoots out, between a trio of spinning control rings, and into a powerful beam that rushes straight towards Black Sky.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAY!"

 COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Terra Breaker on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Aurora Burst Ray on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern perfectly dodges 45 Fatigue damage from Lera Camry's Terra Breaker, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!
 Shadow Stern's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Black Sky fails to counter Lera Camry's Aurora Burst Ray, taking 82 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: Black Sky's counterattack, Guardian Burst, interrupts, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Lera Camry!  

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

Endo speeds forward as stars rain down from the sky, explosive bursts of magic rattling the ground around the knight. His most pressing issue is, however, the imminent head-on collision with the other (friendly) giant sword wielder engaged in the chaotic melee.

"Mikoto!" Endo raises a fist, calling up the familiar purple barrier that he's deployed before. It is not meant to deflect his friend, precisely. It won't be the most pleasant landing at the speed they're both moving, but with Mikoto's cat-like liquidity and defiance of gravity the shield becomes more than just a barrier.

It becomes an orbital Mikoto launching platform.

This too is magic Endo knows, though his propulsion is usually used for his own benefit. But now, with an explosion of light, it is granted to his good friend as a helping hand.

"Go!"

And of course, he follows in her wake.

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

The initial impact against Jail's defenses are honestly kind of what Westar was expecting. Westar's boot finds a copy of the Wolf Fighter's magic, and it sears at him as he half-kicks half-gets-exploded away. He manages to flip in mid-air, calling down to the mage. "So are you just a copycat, or-"

He doesn't finish, as both Black Sky and Shadow Stern vocally object to his speech. Westar's eyes widen instead, as orange and purple bear down on him. Right, that's what happened whenever he got everyone mad at onc-

There is a dual explosion. There is an airborne Executive. And ultimately, there is a Westar, planted head-first into a patch of gravel torn up by the many attacks flying around.

He stays there a moment. Might be mumbling something uncharitable, but not even the Lord of All Magic should be able to make it out.

Eventually, he pushes himself out. Shakes a few rocks out of his ears. Rolls a shoulder.

"All right, I think that got through even my head. None of you want to just call it a day." There's a pain in his voice - that hurt as much as anything Pretty Cure has done to him - but he vowed, no tears and no fear. Not showing either right now.

He glances to Cure Pine, shakes his head with a smile at the nickname spreading, and echoes Lera's thumbs-up. Cracks his knuckles as he saunters towards the ongoing melee, like he doesn't have a care in the world -

And then as Soular's cape billows divertingly, darts in surprisingly quickly to feint, then swing a ferocious right hook at Shadow Stern's hilt. From there Westar jumps back, running towards the flare of his other fellow Denizen's teleportation, hounding Jail with a series of punches.

"Hit them hard, and then hit them harder. Got it, Passion!"

 COMBAT: Westar has used Cross Counter on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Westar has used Passion Says: Hit Them Repeatedly on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Westar's Passion Says: Hit Them Repeatedly, taking 36 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern fails to brace Westar's Cross Counter, taking 47 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  

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

Black Sky's offer to Soaring Sky is not to Bardiche, but he answers it all the same with all the synthetic disgust he might imagine. &lt;No Sir.&gt; At the moment of clash, and it is his answer, because the two of them learned long ago, it is not a matter of master and wielder.

And as a cartridge ejects in the wake of the clash, he speaks again.

&lt;I am her Strength.&gt;

...

...

...

&lt;She is mine. Get Set.&gt;

There is an ominous certainty in the words get set, because while Jail may be confused as to her answer, she is not. There is something that's more important to her than showing him how he feels about everything he's done, every violation of her face - of Alicia's memory.

Violet bolts shower from above and Fate raises a hand as Galaxy Strum falls like crossbows against a conjured runic shield. &lt;Defenser Plus.&gt; As they ram against the field, it begins to crack as she pours more energy, then twists out of the way as more strike her when it breaks her, carving burning lines across her barrier jacket.

"I don't accept you as a father. ... And I have a Mother waiting for me, back home." That's a difficult admission, and for most it may go unnoticed, but right now - she knows it's true, "But what I want... what I will fight for more than anything else."

Fate's barrier jacket abruptly shifts, as her White Cloak disappears, becoming black again, the armoring vanishing in several points, as Bardiche twists and turns, folding back into a polearm, then shifting into a long scythe blade.

&lt;Drive Impulse - Haken Form&gt;

"Are the sisters Alicia Testarossa wanted - the sisters ''I'' want."

It's not like there aren't people that are important to her already, Lera - Endo - Setsuna - so many of them fighting for their lives right now - but this is the reason she fights.

There's no hesitation as she flies at Shadow Stern, beginning to clash again, and again, and again, "I won't let you hold onto her any longer." She says with a certain ferocity. "You're so taken on proving your authenticity - that you've forgotten what's truly important!"

On the last attempt to clash against Stern, Bardiche declares at that moment- &lt;Split Haken&gt; - and the blade suddenly disperses at four different angles, flying past Shadow Stern, as Fate ducks in feint, to try and fly past, each of the blades suddenly flying towards Shadow Sky - hiding in the Auroral flash of Lera's spell.

... To try and strike the Device blade itself from multiple different directions...

&lt;Get Set.&gt;

Bardiche declares again... as if to punctuate the point he and Lera were making.

 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa transforms into Barrier Jacket Impulse!
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Aerial Ace on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Split Haken on Black Sky.

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

La Sirene de Diamant is subjected to one of the greatest indignities a young woman can experience: *aerial bombardment*. The bursts from Shadow Stern are ironic in a sense, for how often did she, in earlier phases and states, cheer in her heart at Endo's power? 

But it is not just Endo Naoki's power. It is also the power of Fallen Stern. And this is, it seems, destined to be a battle twinned in the mirror. The blast strikes her, staggers her, brings her in fact to her left knee for a moment. But Shadow Stern does not cut her to the quick. Shadow Stern, like Fallen Stern, has a certain laconic power - but is not likely to madden la Sirene de Diamant. 

You know who is? Jail Scaglietti. As she lurches back upwards, she looks at him. He speaks of the Sea of Tears... 

And then he gives her a taste of her own medicine. 

Ah, she thinks on some level over the black scribble-cloud of fury that is already enucleating in her heart: so this is what it's liked. She lurches backwards, forced to balance on the leg already partly bent when Jail's angling of the stolen charm threatens to throw her onto her back. The diamonds on the soles of her shoes scrape and throw sparks even as Kyouka, perhaps, saves her with her incoming blow. 

She can feel her heart lurch. The doubt in herself she has wrestled in myriad ways sees, perhaps, an opportunity and lurches out. La Sirene reaches out for a rope, and it is JAIL who offers her one, with a single word. 

"... Dull?" 

She raises her head. Hair spills over one eye. 

"... DULL?!" 

"You steal the magic of a thousand worlds through an intermediary... you make living beings, PEOPLE, to serve as your tools, not through accident but on purpose... you call yourself the lord of all magic, like some sort of ultimate god... and now you complain that the girls whose hearts have stood against your efforts, who have been the biggest train brake on your campaign of cruelty, are DULL!?!" 

Her lip curls upwards. She keeps shouting. 

"Was all of this just for your entertainment?! Our sorrows, our lives, our struggles -- did you just want to see COLORFUL LIGHTS FLASH FOR YOU!?" 

Her eyes are wet and she doesn't let herself stop raising her voice or raising her hands because she saw that immense flame burst outwards, profane and secular but still an enormous burst of fire to Cure Black and Cure White. 

Both hands raise upwards, fingers spread out. Grandiloquent. They shine. The black diamonds on the back of her hands sparkle strangely. "Then here!" A flick of her hand, throwing unlight like splashing water - it coruscates with a strange inner sparkle on its way to Jail, striking with the leaden force of storm-whipped heavy water. 

"Have it!" Another stroke in the air. 

"All you can take! All you can SEE! Come on, you liar!! If you wanted a fireworks show you could have just ASKED!" Each emphatic statement coming with a step towards him and another of those bursting flicks. It's really quite a dismissive gesture. (The part of la Sirene de Diamant that looks around, notices, *thinks* about what she's doing doesn't want to look too brightly towards the others. Please, all of you, despite this all, please be alright--) 

 COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Carbonado Kaleidoscope on Pink Moon Stick.

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

Endo speeds forward as stars rain down from the sky, explosive bursts of magic rattling the ground around the knight. His most pressing issue is, however, the imminent head-on collision with the other (friendly) giant sword wielder engaged in the chaotic melee.

&lt;BECAUSE I AM GREATER THAN YOU.&gt; Fallen Stern responds helpfully.

"Mikoto!" Endo raises a fist, calling up the familiar purple barrier that he's deployed before. It is not meant to deflect his friend, preciselyit won't be the most pleasant landing at the speed they're both moving, but with Mikoto's cat-like liquidity and defiance of gravity the shield becomes more than just a barrier.

It becomes an orbital Mikoto launching platform.

This too is magic Endo knows, though his propulsion is usually used for his own benefit. But now, with an explosion of light, it is granted to his good friend as a helping hand.

&lt;SPEAK.&gt;

And of course, he follows in her wake.

&lt;WHILE YOU CAN.&gt;

 COMBAT: Shadow Stern fails to dodge Fate Testarossa's Aerial Ace, taking 25 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Fate Testarossa is
 Psyched!
 COMBAT: Black Sky braces 22 Fatigue damage from Fate Testarossa's Split Haken, taking 18 Fatigue damage!  

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

Black Sky claims to serve no masters, but yet hails Jail as a King. &lt;&lt;Yet you would hail Jail Scaglietti as a King. He values the autonomy of noone except himself. Can you be certain he will not take control from you if it would suit his aims?&gt;&gt;

Crescent blades of light come for her, and Kyouka thrusts her hand forward as she chases her attack. Strike Wolf shouts, &lt;&lt;Defenser+&gt;&gt; and a barrier appears to halt the brunt of the attack, blades exploding against barrier. Some of the energy breaks through, tearing at Kyouka's barrier jacket but she does not sop her running.

&lt;&lt;We are meant to work in concert with those who share our goals, not to enslave others to achieve them.&gt;&gt;

Kyouka grins. "Couldn't have said it better myself, buddy."

She follows up with a driving kick up towards Jails's gut, driving her boot in as far as it will go--but she hears the words 'Lunar Impact' and Kyouka's gauntlet is already starting to glow as she pushes herself away from Jail. But not too far--she inverted upside down to deliver the kick, but she continues the flip and rights herself, and her blazing gauntlet swings upwards to meet Jail's fist, as twin explosions of violet light clash and duel for supremacy.

Kyouka is hurtled away, plunging towards the ground as she twists and just barely rights herself. She slams into the ground, a spiderweb of cracks erupting all around her as great chunks of earth are dislodged haphazardly. "You know... it took me a ''lot'' of work to learn how to do that..." she says with remarkable calmness as she struggles to an upright position.

"Finding out magic was real... finding friends I could trust to show me how all this worked... facing dangers I couldn't even imagine a year ago..."

Kyouka rolls a shoulder as she stands fully upright, looking right up at Jail. "And learning what it was I ''really'' wanted: to defend people, and to be a magical girl. And if you think you can just... ''copy'' my attack..." She sets her stance again. "... Then why don't you copy ''this''!"

From the ground she extends her hand upwards, summoing a slowly-spinning violet circle in front of her. A ball of violet-white energy qcuikly grows in front of it, and when the right opening presents itself, Kyouka shouts, "Fire!"

w&lt;Blast Fang.&gt;

The ball ''explodes'' outwards in a sharp lance of light. The piercing beam of bright light represents something she and Strike Wolf were simply incapable of doing before, but now... whether it be by Strike Wolf's recent upgrades, or Kyouka's newfound confidence, they are capable of it, together.

Almost immediately a circle springs up at her feet, and a bright sheen of violet light washes upwards over her body. &lt;Sonic Blitz.&gt; She suddenly takes off like a rocket, blurring into motion. She drives one attack home at Black Sky, then rebounds, and in mid-air kicks at the air to rebound forwards, attacking Black Sky from another angle. Again and again and again, attack, redirect, rebound, attack, trying to pepper as many hits as she can.

 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Blast Fang on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki has used Sonic Blitz on Black Sky.

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

	La Sirene's unlight streams in to aid Mikoto, as well; they are both, after all, daughters of obsidian. "La Sirene!" She calls out, and then -- "Endo!" -- because of course he would not leave her to Shadow Stern alone.

	She is forced to endure Black Sky's bindings, but she's able to struggle free of them and slash -- just in time for Shadow Stern to jet upwards. "Huh?!" Mikoto yelps, finding herself careening for ''Endo,'' instead -- but luckily, quick thinking from him summons a barrier. She plants her feet on it, twisting to land feet-first instead of sword-first, and kicks off of it to leap into the air after Shadow Stern.

	She can't fly, but with Endo's help, she doesn't ''have'' to.

	"Who's first?! Who cares!" She cries, to Shadow Stern. "Fallen Stern is Fallen Stern! And Fallen Stern's our friend!" She swings her blade, mid-air, to strike at him -- and she ''is'' aiming for the blade, not the girl -- before what comes up inevitably must come down.

	And she angles herself to come down right on Jail, blade-first, swinging it down in an overhead arc which physically swings her from aft to stern like a clock's pendulum. (Or, perhaps, to Stern?)

	"Not YOUR object!" She cries, on his fascination for the Sea of Tears. "And they're NOT DULL!" This, on the Pretty Cure. Even Mikoto knows that dull isn't a synonym for blunt-force trauma, which is, in fact, true, and also hurts, he should really pay more attention to getting punched.

 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has started a combo targeting Shadow Stern!
 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi has used Obsidian Blade: Devastation on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Nori has not concluded their actions. Reactions are not yet available.
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki has joined the combo started by Mikoto Minagi!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick perfectly dodges 29 Fatigue damage from Kyouka Okazaki's Blast Fang, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical
 Dodge!  Pink Moon Stick's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick cleanly braces 17 Fatigue damage from La Sirene de Diamant's Carbonado Kaleidoscope, taking 3 Fatigue
 damage!  Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Mikoto has not concluded their actions. Reactions are not yet available.
 COMBAT: Black Sky neatly dodges 20 Fatigue damage from Kyouka Okazaki's Sonic Blitz, taking 5 Fatigue damage!  Black Sky's Fade
 and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: COMBO! Mikoto Minagi and Endo Naoki have used Combo: Black Blade Bond, composed of Obsidian Blade: Dynamo and Asteroid
 Eilen, on Shadow Stern.

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

Cure Black and Cure White briefly flail as they miss Black Sky, but reset their posture to land all the harder on Jail. When their momentum is expended fully (and not a second sooner; they follow through quite deeply with the kick), they rebound off, backflipping in synch to land neatly on the ground.

"Physical training can be a field of study too!" Cure White scolds Jail heatedly.

"Yeah!" her jock partner hurrahs.

"Spatial intelligence is a kind of intelligence!"

"It's true!"

"There's nothing boring about someone who has the discipline to train their body, and if you're unable to apply the scientific method to your observations of them, that says more about you as a scientist than--"

"Cure White, I'm getting really embarrassed!" Cure Black wails.

Perhaps there is something to having a deeper repetoire of magic attacks than just Marble Screw, however. A shield or counter-blast might have fared well against a huge, billowing plume of flame like Fire Soul, but it is rather hard to dodge, and attempting to block it still leaves one standing in the oven. Nor can Cure Angel Passion shouting their names, however sincerely, fend off what is coming. Cures White and Black cry out together, stumbling back, but the fires do not end swiftly, and one by one their cries rise in both volume and pitch at some point, when resistance becomes an agonized capitulation. When the flame gutters out, both girls are left flat on the ground next to each other, their raiment sizzling, cigarette burns pocking their skirts and arm-bracers.

"Cure White," Black rasps. White rolls over to face her, and Black smiles. "Your hair is okay."

"Is that what you were worried about?"

"I thought some of it might burn off..."

Cure White smiles. "Is it all here?"

"Yeah."

"Are you glad?" White reached out her hand.

"Yeah." Black touched her singed fingertips.

"Then I'm glad too."

Rising off the ground, the two Cures supported each other's forearms, such that it was unclear who, if anyone, was lifting whom. "Sorry I stopped you earlier," Black said. "You want to finish what you were saying to Jail-san?"

"Yes."

"I'll keep you clear."

The Cures launched into action again, stretching their fire-nipped limbs. At first, they remained side-by-side, feigning that they might strike Jail together again. But as Cure White vaulted into a handspring, Cure Black peeled off to the side, planted herself between Black Sky and Jail, and cocked back her arm in a motion the Dark Zone had learned to fear.

"HAAAA-CHA-CHA-CHA-!" Cure Black began to hammer out kiais as fast as she was hammering out punches, both hands unloading a constant spray of fists.

Meanwhile, Cure White flipped out of her handspring, her axial motion bringing her torso into contact with the juncture of Jail's shoulder and arm. The jockeying for control over the limb is something of a feint; the mere conflict is enough to provide counterleverage, and the moment White's feet hit the ground, she drives the rear foot back hard enough along the floor to drive up dust. The back of her boot shoots into and, hopefully, through his.

If she knocks his feet up, that grip she's fighting for on his arm will get a lot more functional, really fast.

 COMBAT: Shadow Stern perfectly braces 89 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi and Endo Naoki's Combo: Black Blade Bond, taking 0
 Fatigue damage!  Critical Brace!  Shadow Stern's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick perfectly dodges 40 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Obsidian Blade: Devastation, taking 0 Fatigue
 damage!  Critical Hit!  Critical Dodge!  Pink Moon Stick's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Cure Black has used White's Test Subject on Cure White.
 COMBAT: Cure Black has used Hundred Fierce Fists on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: Cure White accepts Cure Black's White's Test Subject, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Cure White is Reinforced by
 Cure Black!
 COMBAT: Cure White has used Black's Locks on Cure Black.
 COMBAT: Cure White has used Heaven and Earth Throw on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Cure Black accepts Cure White's Black's Locks, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Cure Black is Reinforced by Cure White!  
 COMBAT: Black Sky braces 15 Fatigue damage from Cure Black's Hundred Fierce Fists, taking 23 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to dodge Cure White's Heaven and Earth Throw, taking 61 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  

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

Pine hesitantly thumbs up both Westie and Lera!? Is this something really that praiseworthy in the middle of a fight before she goes bug eyed at 'amazed' and has to cover a snort giggle with a hand.

Pine's hand rings against Jail's conjured shield with a ringing shockwave, surprised as the shield looks familiar, but then remembering that he calls himself the god of magic. As she flies away, she has to shake her hand for a moment, surprised, even as the crossbow bolts fall from Shadow Stern's Galaxy Strum. Several strike her in the downpour, before a sudden burst of angelic glow disperses the rest coming for her.

Suddenly breathing hard, she frowns, "Don't you ever call them that." 'Dull.' that is. It is a descriptor she might accept for herself, but she takes special offense to the others - especially Black and Peach - as if he were calling them more stupid than boring.

Which White fittingly counters, as Pine blinks, at Black's wail, "Well... There's nothing wrong with her sticking up for you." Wait now is Pine admonishing Black too for being embarrassed?

And suddenly Pine flies up high - only to descend down at the exact moment Passion's final strike connects, with a kick aimed right at his collarbone... shining with the energy of her form.

"You've never believed in anyone else - have you?"

It's just a thought, a fleeting one, that this man cannot even begin to empathize with her struggles, their struggles - he's never had to struggle to believe in himself or what he was doing - at least in Pine's mind.

"... You have no idea what you're really missing."

Pine says with a look towards Passion and this brief smile even in the heat of battle, of trust - and belief. Because...

Magic was only what gave her the opportunity to meet someone like her - or Black - or White - or Westar... but the true wonder was never in that... but in finding people like each of them to share her life with.

 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine has used Seraph Strike on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine has used The True Magic Was the Friends We Made Along The Way on Cure Angel Passion.
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Passion accepts Cure Angel Pine's The True Magic Was the Friends We Made Along The Way, taking 0 Fatigue
 damage!  Cure Angel Passion is Reinforced by Cure Angel Pine!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick perfectly dodges 50 Fatigue damage from Cure Angel Pine's Seraph Strike, taking 0 Fatigue damage!
 Critical Hit!  Critical Dodge!  Pink Moon Stick's Fade and Flash abilities activate!

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

&lt;&lt; HE HAS LEARNED NOTHING, &gt;&gt; Shadow Stern tells Lera, dismissively; he actually tosses the head of his clone when Stern trash talks. Somehow, they walk through the shockwave and its debris alike, in midair, striding confidently from Belkan triangle to triangle. &lt;&lt; BUT THAT WILL CHANGE... TODAY. &gt;&gt;

Something unexpected happens; asked for by neither Lera nor Endo, though both of them accepted it as a potential consequence of being able to go toe to toe with their dark counterparts.

&lt;&lt; RESONANCE DRIVE, &gt;&gt; Soaring Sky and Fallen Stern intone as one.

And Endo and Lera's vision swims. Everything goes sideways for a moment, then reorients. 

In their vision, Black Sky and Shadow Stern have been replaced, respectively, by the Radiant and Umbral Knights.

"That's what we're still fighting for," explains Radiant, to Fallen Stern, who has invited them to speak.

"Yes," agrees Umbral. "Once we defeat you, Jail has promised to reveal the truth."

"We determined this to be a fair exchange," Radiant concludes.

Lera and Endo's allies enter and exit the vision as themselves; they can see Cure Black, for example, punch the flat of the Radiant Knight's blade about a hundred times; Fate's Split Haken fly in to clang against the shining orange energy blade; the gorgeously armored figure steps back -- is driven back -- by Kyouka's many rocketing hits and rebounds. And that leaves him no options remaining, none at all, when Aurora Burst Ray comes calling. He is blasted back hard, and falls, steaming.

And the Umbral Knight contends with an Endo-propelled Mikoto, who slams into the vast expanse of the flat of his own blade like a door slammed in her face. It's a big moment, sending a shockwave off of both of them, and though it may not provide direct satisfaction, it does open the door to his staggering back when Westar's fist connects with the hilt of the weapon, a big hit thus enabled; and then he is peppered again and again by Fate herself, birdlike, FLOCKlike, everywhere at once.

"What is truly important," the Umbral Knight muses, as Fate chides him, "Is power," and yeah okay that did sound like the 'real' Fallen Stern...

"What is truly important," the Radiant Knight counters from the ground, "Is Freedom." He seems to be chewing over Strike Wolf's argument, perhaps helped along by Lera knocking some Friendship into him. "Umbral, do you think we--"

"No." Umbral keeps racking up points as The Most Fallen Stern here.

---

A little bit away from all that, Jail still looks like himself to all eyes, including Lera and Endo's. Which is to say, like a hairless blindingly bright rainbow silhouette suffused with everyone's stolen magic. 

And he remains potent. As best he can he prioritizes what he perceives as the greatest threats; really burns some calories, for example, to get the heck out of Miroku's path, and leaves some sweat in his wake for Mikoto to cleave instead. In his educated eyes that clearly is no sword and it is not dull at all.

And the vividly magical Cure Angels Passion and Pine, too, he defends against actively, conjuring up a blast of frozen icy mist (frozen icy NERD mist, if you know you know) to take the worst of the blows that are too fast for him to see. 

There is, of course, no defense against Fate's words but his own indifference. It's a good thing that Pine is right about his never believing in anyone else. That means it can't hurt him that Fate doesn't accept him as a father, right? But he can still hurt her, perhaps. "The TSAB agent? Surely you jest, Fate-chan. You must realize she has only inserted herself into your life to surveil you. She's a parole officer, not a parent." 

Kyouka's up next, and once again he flattens himself out of her way. "Copy? No. I took your magical essence into my very being. It is inscribed on the surface of my soul. And I will take this new spell too, upon your second defeat," he tells her. "It seems as though it was for the best for Strike Wolf to enter your orbit. No one would say that you are not hard working." In his sneering voice this compliment is extremely backhanded, but some amount of him really was impressed. 

Which makes La Sirene's tirade all the more on point. 

Was all of this for your entertainment?

"Yes," he says simply. Her rage, her tears... he catches them, along with her black diamond sparkles, with a barely forced serenity. "What higher purpose is there in this or any world, than one's own enjoyment?" 

Beat. 

"I know you're going to say friendship. Save your breath. Magic is greater than any friendship could ever be. It is more elegant than any relationship and more beautiful than any romance. True miracles are made with our own willpower, and by our own two hands. I will show you."

But Westar shows him first -- hitting him hard, and then hitting him harder. 

"Disposing of you was one of Northa's better choices," he complains, wiping blood off his lips. "You should have just stayed--"

--suddenly, heaven and earth trade places. An instant later, he's flat on his back; all the air has been knocked out of him, and he will have to take a breath before he can continue.

But Cure White speaks first, with a silvery lilt.

"Ara ara, is something the matter?" she asks him. "That was just a simple application of leverage. Or do Midchildans just not bother to study ''physics''?" 

---

The Umbral and Radiant Knights glance over at Jail, when he calls them. Well -- croaks at them. 

"Stern. Sky. It's time to end this. Defend me for long enough, and all our accounts will be cleared to one another." 

They glance at each other -- then at the magical girls -- who mostly see two Fate clones, rather than two ancient Belkan Knights, weighing their options.

But everyone sees the Linker Cores, canary-bright, emerge from their two chests. This has happened once before, with Shadow Stern. It seems Black Sky has learned from that technique. 

"Very well," says Shadow Stern.

"We have to know the truth, no matter what," agrees Black Sky.

For these two, the best defense is a good offense. They split the difference -- Stern with an immense, spinning Meteor Absturz, his blade a column of violet light suffused by hints of the clone's own gold; Sky with more Inferno Slashes, each one trailing his carrier's soul's-blood in the afterimages. 

And behind the wall of burning sharpness that the pair represent, Jail Scaglietti, The Lord Of All Magic, gets back to his feet.

And pink Midchildan discs appear like stars in the sky overhead. Each one begins to glow with a single, growing point of light -- light that streams as mana -- and there has been SO much mana released in this immense chamber -- recondenses out of the air like rain, and begins to gather. 

&lt;SoundTracker&gt; Starlight Breaker - Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha OST - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVGaDYOnxzU

"I summon the light of destruction down upon the offenders," begins Jail, who, even with everything he's absorbed, requires the Aria to pull this off. "O Stars, gather, and become the light which pierces everything..." 

He has no Device to mark the time. It's almost lonely, when the next thing he says, grimly, is--

"--ten."

The pink light on each disc doubles in size...

 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Meteor Absturz on Mikoto Minagi.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Meteor Absturz on Kyouka Okazaki.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Meteor Absturz on Endo Naoki.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Meteor Absturz on Fate Testarossa.
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern has used Meteor Absturz on Cure Angel Passion.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Cure Angel Pine.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Cure Black.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on La Sirene de Diamant.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Westar.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Lera Camry.
 COMBAT: Black Sky has used Inferno Slasher on Cure White.
 COMBAT: Fate Testarossa neatly dodges 48 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Meteor Absturz, taking 12 Fatigue damage!  Fate
 Testarossa's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick has used STARLIGHT BREAKER: CHARGING on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick accepts Pink Moon Stick's STARLIGHT BREAKER: CHARGING, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick is
 Reinforced by Pink Moon Stick!
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Passion partially dodges 11 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Meteor Absturz, taking 43 Fatigue damage!  Cure
 Angel Passion's Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine counters 29 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 29 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
 Black Sky is Psyched!  Cure Angel Pine's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Cure Angel Pine's counterattack, Shining Reverse, partially gets through, doing 20 Fatigue damage to Black Sky!  
 COMBAT: Cure White cleanly braces 40 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: Cure Black counters 12 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 37 Fatigue damage!  Cure Black's Reverse
 ability activates!
 COMBAT: Cure Black's counterattack, Sen no Sen, partially gets through, doing 7 Fatigue damage to Black Sky!  Critical Counterhit!
 COMBAT: Lera Camry partially dodges 9 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 37 Fatigue damage!  Lera Camry's
 Fade and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant braces 20 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 30 Fatigue damage!  La Sirene de
 Diamant's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Westar counters 11 Fatigue damage from Black Sky's Inferno Slasher, taking 33 Fatigue damage!  Westar's Reverse and
 Tactician abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Westar's counterattack, Cross Counter, partially gets through, doing 10 Fatigue damage to Black Sky!  
 COMBAT: Mikoto Minagi dodges 23 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Meteor Absturz, taking 35 Fatigue damage!  Mikoto Minagi's Fade
 and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Kyouka Okazaki dodges 36 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Meteor Absturz, taking 24 Fatigue damage!  Kyouka Okazaki's
 Fade and Flash abilities activate!

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

Endo Naoki :|a

 COMBAT: Endo Naoki perfectly counters 56 Fatigue damage from Shadow Stern's Meteor Absturz, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical
 Counter!  Endo Naoki's Reverse and Tactician abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Endo Naoki's counterattack, Meteor Absturz, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Shadow Stern!  

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

Lera's eyes widen as she sees Black Sky and Shadow Stern replaced by the Radiant and Umbral Knights. Or, perhaps, they always ''were'' some remnant of them. She sucks a breath in; how strange, to see them, after seeing through them.

"You can't trust Jail," she says. "He'll use you. He ''is'' using you, y'know?"

Those words fall on deaf ears, though -- as she sees the Linker Cores in each begin to grow bright, at Jail's demand. Her eyes widen.

"Stop!" she cries out. She tries to wheel back -- the blazing slash from Black Sky forcing her backward. Lera exhales, sharply, and then she swings up Soaring Sky. She glances at Endo.

"We have to stop him," she says. She looks at Black Sky. Lera considers for a moment. She remembers a rooftop, years ago -- when Jaren Zastava struck her and Soaring Sky down. And she flies in, directly at Sky.

"Ground," she says.

&lt;On it! Ready to defend!&gt;

She swings back Soaring Sky, ready to strike...

...and flies past, her thrust seemingly missing at the last moment. It goes rushing by, as Broken Ground comes to life. The shield ''spins'' -- and then a hundred motes of light streak out, rushing behind her, and for Black Sky's back.

&lt;Bombadier Cascade!&gt;

They explode on impact, as Lera flies by, coming down for Jail Scaglietti. She swings Soaring Sky back, two-handed, and the Device has already split in two. The halves crackle, light crackling between them.

The lightning solidifies; it turns into a blade of light, which explodes outward and outward, into a sword nearly three times Lera's length.

"JAIL!" she shouts.

And she swings the blade down for him, with a mighty overhand chop as she comes crashing down.

&lt;Aurora Galaxy Divider!&gt;

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

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

Passion smiles at Lera. "I'm okay," she tells her. "Because we're together." 

Sky chimes to her, and Passionc alls, "Right!" 

She watches Mikoto, launched. She watches Westar, ''swinging'' as hard as he can. "Yes!" she calls to Westar. "Until it's done!" 

La Sirene speaks. And Fate speaks of sisters. Passion understands both flashy lights... and sisterhood. 

Thanks to Love. 

"Go, Fate!" Passion calls, and she looks to Kyouka, too. A hard worker she is. But it's backhanded from ''him'', and Passion scowls. 

"That's right," Passion answers Pine's call. "...What you're missing... You don't understand anything that matters." 

She believes in Pine, too. Their happiness... is together. 

"Jail is just using you," Passion assures the devices. "...It's his way. Just like so many others. Anything you think you can get from him is just the scraps he's willing to spare." 

"I once thought power was all that mattered, too! But it's not! Power only lets you stretch as long as your own arm--it's working with others that lets you go farther than you ever could alone! Even you see it--the way you work with one another!" 

But Jail--

Jail is closer to Setsuna, and she can't just shout across the battlefield at him--he's too close for that. But not so close that Honoka can't argue, and Passion answers, "Lera does fine with physics. I think it's just him." And he speaks of enjoyment... 

"...Then I'm going to 'enjoy' wiping that smugness out of your mouth!" 

"WESTAR!" she calls. "Let's smash him!" 

She knows exactly what that magic he's summoning means. And she knows the immense Meteor that crashes for her could end her fight. She blinks out of existence again, but the ''gravity'' of that meteor is sufficient that she's panting for a moment when she reaches the other side. It took that much to evade. 

Passion remembers, too, when Lera fell from that rooftop so long ago. She remembers. It was so important to everything that would come after. 

But she said she'd enjoy what she's about to do--so she gets ready. Passion, wings extending outward, rears back her fist and starts to charge up energy. "Haaaaaaahhh--" Just like the move she used on Peach so long ago, but many times more radiant. Infused with the power of Labyrinth's belief, Passion's arm becomes a sublime thing, and crimson light gathers at her fist. 

"Pine! Peach! Berry!" she calls. 

"We'll stop him here!" 

Passion's light extends to some times her size, and she ''rushes'', wings outstretched to catch the wind, crashing towards Jail with all her might. 

and all her hope.

 COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Angel Passion has used Passion Drive Fresh on Pink Moon Stick.

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

Fate's looks momentarily startled as both of them declare the activation of resonance. "But that means..." Fate doesn't see it at first, but in time it comes, in the midst of the melee, she hears him call to her. And indeed - it sounds like Stern. "... That's what I thought, once."

Fate knows that for how much Stern can be like that - that Endo will always call his name, and indeed - he's come to accept him in turn.

Indeed, Fate states it with the certainty of youth, "But as you are... my sister... will never call your name." The truth - seems a poor exchange in her eyes for that.

And indeed as Fate flies, clashing with them again and again, Jail sends her words back at her, for a moment, it stings - but only for a moment. "... Even if that were true... I wouldn't mind..." She doesn't believe it's true, mind you, but - there's acceptance in those words of the possibility that it's more than him trying to inflict pain. "...she's waiting for me."

Those words are possibly meaningless, but - once upon a time - Fate had a Mother... who always treated her homecoming with cruelty, viciousness, or apathy in turn.

'Go, Fate!'

Passion calls, and Fate gives her a look, and a nod - something unspoken, because...

&lt;&lt;I have a plan.&gt;&gt;

But are wisdom and tactics, enough? Well... they were for Nanoha.

As Shadow Stern comes at her with that harsh column of violet light, the powerful slash looks like Fate has vanished within it.

However... overhead, there's a subtle gathering - of clouds. It's difficult to notice at first, but as Jail begins the spell chant for Starlight Breaker, she calls out, "Nanoha learned that from fighting me again... and again... and again." And there she is, injured, the violet glow still dissipating off her barrier jacket, as she stands on several runic rings, gathering - one by one.

"She told me it was because my eyes looked sad... and she wanted the power to change that."

It is ''not'' something even close to the same power as what Jail is creating, not even on the same scale, or magnitude of existence, but it doesn't need to be, as firing rings gather on her arms one by one by one, a sphere of gathering energy growing as lightning crashes down from the sky upon - her, more and more.

However, Fate believes it doesn't need to be.

&lt;Trident SMASHER!

His aim is to have others defend him after all, long enough for him to gather this incredible power. "FIREEEEEEE!" And so, she decides to disallow that, as the sudden titanic burst of power, not unlike Nanoha's iconic Divine Buster suddenly bursts towards him, in one great ray of power...

... and splits...

... twice...

 COMBAT: FINISHER! Fate Testarossa has used Thunder Blade on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: FINISHER! Fate Testarossa has used Thunder Blade on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: FINISHER! Fate Testarossa has used Thunder Blade on Pink Moon Stick.

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

	Shadow Stern closes the door on Mikoto, and Mikoto howls vengeance all the way down to Jail. "WE'RE power!" She screams, as she goes.

	When is a sword not a sword? Miroku is Miroku, and it tries its very best to eat into Jail, but Jail's having none of it. She lands, and turns, dizzy, one-two step in a broad circle; her head rattles as she shakes it. "HEY!" She yells, glaring at Jail. "Lindy's role MODEL, not role OFFICER! Don't say wrong things!"

	(It's entirely possible that Mikoto, noted delinquent, has never actually heard the term 'parole officer'. Why would she talk to a cop?)

	"And don't talk down to Kyouka, neither!" Mikoto yells, because what she ''can'' tell, quite keenly, is when someone is being ''snide'' in their compliments. She's heard enough backhanded compliments of her own; she's not about to stand for it. "Jail thinks you're so smart! But Jail doesn't get it! Friendship's not enjoyment's enemy! I'm the best at enjoying myself, and my friends make me feel really good! Being alone doesn't feel good! Will and power just feel bad alone!"

	She bristles, grasping her blade as she levels it at Jail. "And don't dare say Westar-senpai's better dead! Or Soular! Everyone's cheering for them, too--!"

	Before she can strike him again, though -- they set out to settle their accounts. (Do they owe him money? Mikoto wonders, and then puts the thought aside; it's not important.) Mikoto remembers Meteor Absturz, from the worst day of her life; she remembers more than enough to realise she has to get out of the way, springing backwards with that same feline fluidity her cat friends taught her for so long to avoid the worst of the blow. She sees, as well, Black Sky's Inferno Slashes from the corner of her eye, just as worrying to her.

	But Jail -- Jail has the most terrible plan of all.

	"Don't!" Mikoto cries out, eyes widening. That she can think to at least ''try'' to tell him to stop is, perhaps, testament to how hard people like Fate and Setsuna have been working. But Mikoto knows he won't listen to words; he hasn't, this whole way through.

	So she starts spinning, too, sparks flying on the ground as she establishes the perimeter of a 'disc' of her own. Once, twice, three times, and she plunges her dark blade into a white void which cracks open in the earth, her shadow splitting to two as she invokes: "MIROKU!"

	It is no mere shadow of Miroku's power which assaults them, now. The obsidian spires which erupt from the earth, a hundred needles just waiting for the bower-bird, are firm as volcanic rock; the earth sunders and rocks, beneath them. They seek out Jail -- and keep moving; they violate the sky as much as the earth, as they seek out Shadow Stern and Black Sky, just the same.

	When is a sword not a sword? When it's a Child.

 COMBAT: FINISHER! Mikoto Minagi has used MIROKU!! on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: FINISHER! Mikoto Minagi has used MIROKU!! on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: FINISHER! Mikoto Minagi has used MIROKU!! on Shadow Stern.

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

For a moment, Westar is utterly dazzled by his allies. It's kind of a rare feeling, having allies in a fight (that aren't a giant monster he's commanding), and he's barely able to take in everything else going on. Endo and Mikoto's aerial assault, La Sirene's impassioned defense, Cure Black and White's flirting - it's all there, but Westar's kind of feeling a bit out of his depth. Shadow Stern became the Umbral Knight, and all Westar could think to do was keep punching the Device.

There's history with those two knights, but Westar already knows their opinion of him talking to them.

Jail's the big threat. Not just magically, but...morally, emotionally, all kinds of things. So Westar followed Passion's advice, and if nothing else it seemed to earn him a personal insult.

That one hurts. The betrayal of Lord Moebius - or Northa, or whoever - wasn't all that unexpected, but it was still a knife to Westar's emotional gut. And he's been wondering, since this fight started, if he even deserved that second chance-

It is immensely satisfying to see Cure White and Black suplex the man, and Westar cheers loudly for the duo.

Before he can try refuting Jail, Westar is beset by the Radiant Knight. He's not quick-witted enough to dodge the slash, his arms are shaking too much to block it - so he steps into it, punching at an arm to try to knock the blade away. The impact from the afterimages still makes him stumble, and as those shining stars start to gather overhead he considers falling back on his old routine.

Throw a quip at those opposing him, storm off, live to fight another day. That's what any commander in Dark Fall would do.

But that's not his job any more.

Passion calls to him, and the exhausted Executive looks up with a smile. "Right, Passion!" He doesn't run, again - stands where he is, stretching his arms to one side then the other, because Westar doesn't do magic very often and he needs to warm up.

"What higher purpose is there? Nah, I'm not gonna talk about friendship, 'cause I'm still figuring out what that means for myself. Gonna need some time, and you're in the way of that." He cracks his knuckles.

"I could say I'm fighting for donuts, or ice cream, or yakitori, or any of the other Earth foods I learned about - but that's that personal enjoyment thing, and I'm not giving you that." He rolls his shoulders, and there's the faint hint of a golden glow starting to shine - starting from his Data Diamond, but spreading.

"Northa and Moebius were wrong. If I say that enough, I think I'll start to believe it. That higher purpose? It's here. It's the people they ruled over, the city that woke us all up, the community." Westar takes a step forward, and slams one boot down on a piece of rubble, swinging one arm to point at both Knights and Jail as best he can - one than another, this is to all of them.

To everyone watching him.

"I am...Citizen WT-4029858! A Denizen of Labyrinth like any other! Westar of WT district!" He beams - grins as brightly as the glow of what magic he possesses, grins to Passion and Pine, to Mikoto and Fate, to every one of these people who fought him, to all his fellow Denizens - and he slams his glowing fist straight down into the floor, cratering it slightly.

The glow around Westar vanishes. He takes in a breath, fist still embedded in the floor, and then shouts.

"Western...MIGHT!"

Beneath the Radiant Knight, Umbral Knight, and Jail...Labyrinth's deepest floor explodes, golden energy pillaring up with a roar, a battering storm of the power once granted to a simple construction worker.

 COMBAT: FINISHER! Westar has used Western Might on Black Sky.
 COMBAT: FINISHER! Westar has used Western Might on Shadow Stern.
 COMBAT: FINISHER! Westar has used Western Might on Pink Moon Stick.

 <Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
 <SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xTzwdA4oAg - Corset Theme (TeddyLoid No Pan Night remix)

And he says 

				Yes

And for a moment la Sirene's face, lit by the myriad rays and spells thrown around, is simply, profoundly, utterly confounded. 

"I -" 

He's already prepared. 

All of this, la Sirene thinks with a certain enormity that cannot resolve itself into an emotion that she could name. Did he plan for all of this? Her eyes lower downwards for a moment, even if Westar's smashing into him, followed by the cataclysmic impact of White and Black, bring a certain measure of hope. 

"You've always got the perfect thing to say," la Sirene answers Cure White's statement, with a small smile. Then, with a sigh, she reaches to her left hand - no, her left glove - and unfastens the wrist snap. 

It's funny, la Sirene thinks to herself as she slides the glove off her left hand, revealing the scar on the back of her wrist. She holds it in her left hand, raising the right glove to her mouth to use her teeth to unfasten its snap -- 

And that is when the infernal strike hits her in the back. This time, at last, she falls. It was probably overdue, even if she has always been staunchly difficult to actually fully and completely beat down. When the flame has vanished, the cream-white skin on the length of bare back her uniform reveals shows scuffs and blisters. The impact was enough for her to make her own crater. 

The Siren of Diamonds twitches -- and puts one bare hand on the ground. She heaves herself up, and heave is the right term for it seems to be heavy. Surely she could not have grown in mass, and while that diaphanous aura around her *weakened* in the aftermath of the blow, it is coming back. Breathing heavily, she mutters to herself, "... Kozue... Argent..." 

Pushing herself up to a kneeling squat, she looks over her shoulder, up towards the Belkan warriors. Be they small girls? Be they ancient knights? It matters not, it seems. As she stays crouched, la Sirene undoes the knot of her uniform's belt - the decorative silver rope on which the Brazen Pharos was lashed. She swings it into her lap, and does something very pedestrian -- she throws the gloves she took off away. 

She throws them sort of in the general direction of Jail. One more towards his left, another towards his right. The one to the left landed gems-down... although if people are watching they would see it, despite being a flat garment of something like leather, flop over to rest on its palm. 

While this is happening, la Sirene is staying in her kneeling position. She finishes her thought: "Take care of them." This may look like some kind of peculiar surrender, but she is fiddling with the Pharos. It can't be called anything other than fiddling. The brass-and-glass assemblage, and the piece of glistening obsidian within -- broken into a shape loosely resembling an elongated S, or an integral sign -- just sit there. Until she finishes adjusting something and the glass panels twinkle slightly and--

-- disappear. 

At this point the unlight glow around la Sirene de Diamant seems to disappear, because those pieces of glass must have been deeply polarized. A glow that seems almost monochrome radiates out from it, and la Sirene grits her teeth a little, squinting against it. She pushes herself upright with a flexing of the legs and a jostle of the shoulders and raises her gaze to Jail. 

"I count up," she tells him, before gripping the silver rope about eighteen inches up and spinning it around. The un-radiance outlining her doesn't really change even as she mutters to herself, "One, two," but it does seem to be spreading to her 'discarded' gloves, which have a very clear spherical bubble of that radiance ("three, four,") which is expanding, the black diamonds twinkling ever-swifter as the magic pours out ("five, six,") of the Pharos, now unshielded, and into its kin, the beautiful gems of the Sea of Tears. 

Because, of course, that's where black diamonds came from in the first place: except the ones they've made in labs. 

				"seven," 

la Sirene counts as she tosses the Pharos into the air, snapping her right hand up to catch its handle and raise it up above her head. The piece of glass within it, without connection or material linkage, has stayed in its relevant position perfectly. But when she curls her hand down to let the ammolite-chased base bump her arm, it does tremble sharply once: 

Which is when the three bubbles all BURST, pouring downwards with torrential force towards Jail Scaglietti. There is no sound, at first, and then there is something like the crash of a great wave, curiously far at sea, against a flat bed. 

 COMBAT: FINISHER! La Sirene de Diamant has used The Light That Never Warms on Pink Moon Stick.

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

Pine is truly relieved that she's not a Midchildan, and thus is exempt from revealing her Physics grade. Probably.

However, as Passion notes Lera does fine with physics, "Wait she does? I always thought-" Pine does not finish that thought, because it's a battle, and now she has to rethink things, but - she always thought that Secchan's girlfriend was... the furthest thing from doing appreciably well at science.

However, it's that moment that Black Sky descends at her, and in the whites of her eyes she can see the flames reflecting of the Inferno Slasher. Which is when her whole body is aglow, as she side steps and grabs that Wielder's Arm, even as the flames rise and burn her anyway... she speeds up, and then brakes as she swings her towards the ground in one titanic throw.

"Sorry!" She calls out to the girl in question, as she at least understands that she's not at fault. "But your sword was coming right at me!"

Jail's words however, she already knew that he didn't believe in anyone else - so she does not respond to that, instead... "What miracles have you made?" ... is Pine's simple question, as if to bring his whole thesis into question. "I don't see any."

However, she remembers that moment, when Passion drew breath again. That was perhaps the greatest miracle she'd ever seen, but despite it all, she knows now she lives greater ones.

Passion calls for him to be smashed, to enjoy wiping that smugness off of his face.

'Pine! Peach! Berry!'

Pine, suddenly takes off with one great flap of her wings, and as she arcs around, building up momentum - she flies towards the Starlight Breaker like Icarus too close to the Sun.

Faster - and faster - it feels like her wings might melt off, but she's infused by a belief greater than her own in herself - than in the people in her life - but in Labyrith's belief in something - better and greater than what they'd been shown their entire lives.

Eas drew breath again and became Passion.

If they can do that?

A light, reflecting in the Pink Glow, the moment Passion crashes against one side of him, Pine rams into the other.

And caught between them - she hopes to show this entire world what miracles actually look like.

 COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Angel Pine has used Moving Mountains on Pink Moon Stick.

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

Endo blinks, his face scrunching up tight as his eyes refocus on the Radiant and Umbral knights. The explosion of color and magic don't help either, but he reorients soon enough to offer up a defense against the whirling blow delivered by Shadow Stern.

The two blades meet, as they have before. An enormous collision of two unstoppable objects, a resounding crash and space-shaking impact. Endo swerves backward, bones aching.

"That might be fair to you," Endo counters, "But not to anyone else! And if all you care about is yourself--" 

&lt;YOU STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND.&gt;

Endo gives a nod to Lera when she calls out, the floor of magic drawing his attention from the knights to the far larger threat looming. "Got it!" He calls back, reorienting to focus his attention on Jail.

Power still flows through his barrier jacket -- his soul -- more than he's ever felt before. More than enough to call vivid and destructive magic once more. Purple-black radiance cocoons Fallen Stern once more, swelling and expanding into a burning tower of magic as Endo raises it up skyward once more.

"Hey!" Endo calls.

Passion's words cut to the core. Jail says true miracles can only be made with your own two hands, but any device wielder should know: miracles aren't possible without someone else.

"If you think so... prove it!"

The sword comes down. An orchid pillar of magic follows.

&lt;STERN BRECHER.&gt;

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

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

Cure Black had thought this fight was all smooth sailing after Fresh Precure became Angels, but the raw power Jail has gathered to his side is daunting. Things are going all right, but without that extra Angel power, it might not be.

"Cure Passion and Cure Lera are pretty close, mepo! You can really tell they've been together a long time mepo." The dream of Nagisa's mis-Cureing of other girls lives on in Mepple's freudian slip.

"Don't they remind you of anyone, mipo?" Mipple titters.

"Mipple!" Cure White discourages her shyly.

"This really isn't a good time," Cure Black scolds Mepple.

"Us, of course!" Mepple and Mipple sing together. Cures White and Black sigh in a mixture of relief and varying distaste. Cure Black's is notably stronger.

"Gross!" Cure Black says, stuffing Mepple's face back in his pouch with her finger so he can't blow kisses over towards the pouch on Honoka's hip.

"Don't say that about Cure Angel Passion's heartful romance mepo!" Mepple snarks slyly. "Cure Angel Passion, did you hear what Cure Black just sa--!!"

Cure Black clamps her hand fully over her Commune, smothering the fairy's objections. Her eyes wander over to Cure White's face, however, with all this talk of love going on. When she finds Cure White already looking at her, she glances away immediately.

Mepple forces his head out from the crook of Cure Black's hand. "Do you at least want to DODGE, mipo?" he barks out a warning. But Cure Black is no novice magical girl anymore. She had already been setting her feet as Sky's fiery Inferno Slasher blades began to reap around Cure Angel Pine and La Sirene.

"Not really," she says. And cocking her fist back, she meets the first slash to reach her with a sharp, precise punch of her own. Dancing back and forth, shoulders loose and improvisatory, Cure Black shoots her fist out to meet each attack. "Hup... hup... HAH!" she shouts, connecting each time, deflecting and diverting. When the Device moves on to attack Westar, Cure Black pants, appearing for a moment triumphant. But her eyes water, and she brings her fists close to her mouth. They are scorched and cut, the knuckles bloodied, and the arms that support them are striped with softer welts of energy damage, from being near the swings but not touching.

Gently, Cure White covers both fists with her palms, sealing them from the sting of air. She, too, was wounded from the attack, but she bears up with dignity, as if her snow-white raiment were made of steel instead of lace and silk. "Does it hurt badly?" she asks, concerned.

Cure Black smiles. "Not anymore."

Cure White's pale complexion undergoes a subtle alteration.

"Cure Black is just being a baby so Cure White will fuss mepo."

"So noisy!" Cure Black shouts at her own waist. "Will you just pull your weight down there?"

"Hmf! Mepple just doesn't understand the tenderness of a young girl's heart-mipo!"

Cure White glances downward, seeming the slightest bit relieved by the distraction -- and the excuse to look away. Her earlobes are as pink as the hearts on the back of Black's fists.

"There will be plenty of time for all of that later," she murmurs, and if she fails to clarify her exact meaning, no one can mistake its sweetness...

OST - Heart to Heart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFl-scy87fs

As the ladies depart, the tomboy and fluffboy exchange a wide-eyed glance. 'What' Black mouths, and the stub of Mepple's torso sticking out of the clamshell enclosure shrugs. Tongue-tied, Cure Black watches Cure White precede her for a few steps. With a ripple of long black hair, Cure White looks back expectantly (and somewhat confused), and Cure Black hastily jogs to catch up. One might expect this brief teenage frission to provide a distraction in the coming moments. But the truth is quite the opposite.

The fight that Futari wa Pretty Cure takes to Jail Scaglietti is a storm out of a clear sky. White leads with a high kick to the head, with Black sweeping the legs, and both rotating through in opposite directions to close on Jail's torso like a pair of scissors with their heels. His counterattack splits them like a sword slicing through water, sending them both to opposite sides to test how ambidextrous Jail can be against two skillfully punching arms from both sides.

This level of exceptional coordination and martial skill is dizzying to watch, but not unusual for this duo. But those who know them will be surprised to see the cooperation to continue to deepen and extend. Cure Black hurls a right hook at Jail's face, leaving herself wide open, but the counterattack she ought to have earned herself is blocked with effortless ease by the sole of White's boot, as if the long-haired girl's leg was another of Black's limbs. Seconds later, the arm Jail tried to plunge into White's grip to crack it open like a key is stopped promptly when his elbow hooks right into Black's. They drag him in opposite directions, and whichever one he reaches for to try and dislodge them, the other one charges him the fee of a kick to the ribs, a punch to the armpit, a palm strike to the back.

As their trust in their rhythm continues to grow, their cooperation grows more ambitious. Cure White commits to a full out, double-legged kick, with the sort of maximal violence and speed that abandons all hope of recovery, and ought to have left her belly-flopping the ground hard enough to stun her for a moment. But as she starts to drop, Cure Black catches her like a princess. Grabbing around Black's neck, White waits a split second as Black dips her down, then tosses her up, using the momentum to swirl around Black's head lightly. She catches Black's shoulders as she falls, as if she were about to execute one of her wushu-like smooth throws. As Black kicks one of her knees up, all that momentum from the throw twists her body, and the spin kick she doles out whips across with unnatural force, as if Cure White had spun her like a top.

Black lands on her feet facing one way. White lands on her feet back-to-back with her. Both already have draw their palm back deeply.

"HAAH!" they sing harmony for one another, their palm strikes pounding out at the same time, with the finality of a judge's gavel. Yet they are NOT finished, not quite.

Cure Black steps through the blow to deliver a deep, straight, karate punch similar to the first blow, while White slashes a knife hand over and across it. Step by step, they advance, fitting their limbs into each other as if they had practiced it a thousand times, slotting their blows into the space left by the other, creating physical math problems with no good solutions each time they select two increasingly inconvenient places to block at once.

Finally, spectacularly, the two girls blindly reach up, interlocking their fingers behind Jails neck to execute an exotic two-person triangle lock. Drawing back their free hands, they palm strike his restrained chest together. When the blow lands, their two pinkies are every so delicately crossed.

 COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Black has started a combo targeting Pink Moon Stick!
 COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure White has joined the combo started by Cure Black!
 COMBAT: COMBO! FINISHER! Cure Black and Cure White have used Heart to Heart on Pink Moon Stick.

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

Kyouka doesn't see the images of Umbral and Radiant, though she would recognize them if she could. But as for 'truth'...

&lt;&lt;Is the truth you seek worth causing all of this suffering?&gt;&gt; asks Strike Wolf, simply. &lt;&lt;The freedom you seek will come with a heavy cost.&gt;&gt; He further remarks to Black Sky (or Radient, whom he cannot see.) &lt;&lt;If freedom is what you desire, these protectors would help you secure it.&gt;&gt;

"You got that right," adds Kyouka as she lands from the last of her flurry of strikes against Black Sky. "If you guys can think for yourselves, then... you can make choices too. Strike Wolf and I are ''partners'', not 'User' and 'Device', because both of us chose that. And we'll fight for your freedom too, if you're not trying to take away other people's freedom in the process."

Kyouka ''really'' doesn't have the patience for the semantic particulars that Jail is laying out for her. (She knows the distinction is ''important'', but also she doesn't care.) "Fine. Then you ''stole'' it. It might be written on your soul, but you don't know a thing about what I went through to learn it."

She blinks. Strike Wolf in her orbit... "What does ''that'' mean?" She sees the way the comment is backhanded, but... she can ignore that. There's bigger mysteries afoot. But mikoto, it seems, can't. She comes to her defense, and Kyouka can't help but grin a little. "Thanks, Mikoto."

He's quick to mock the idea of friendship, but Kyouka can't let that one go. "Without my friends, I wouldn't be the magical girl I am now! They reached out to me, helped me learn that... that I had a place here, that I wasn't alone." Kyouka brings a hand to her chest. "They've given me something to fight for, and helped me find my purpose." Passion, who reached out to her when she was freaking out upon first learning about magic. Fate, Endo, Lera, and Rena, who haev all taught her in various ways. Diamant, who's stood by her side against insurmountable odds abut was also quick to defend her home from a very pushy fox. Mikoto, always ready to do the right thing and stick up for others.

And she thinks, not for the first time, of Ivy, who literally held her heart in her hands.

"And my friendship with Strike Wolf, who I've come to trust with my life! So many things have changed since I met all of these friends, and if you don't believe that makes me stronger, if that's not its own kind of magic... then we'll ''show'' you."

Violet light comes from Fallen Stern, and Kyouka kicks into drive to avoid it, grunting as some of the flames catch her even as she pushes herself to her utmost.

&lt;PoseTracker&gt; Sonic Forces - Fist Bump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilr6lBqt-dM

But when she comes to a rest, several rings made of bright violet energy spin out from beneath her feet, Kyouka holds out her right hand, bracing it with her left. A ball of bright violet energy appears in it, it builds and builds, and as it does, winds whip up around Kyouka. Fiercer and fiercer they blow as she draws in power, as dust, loose chunks of earth and leftover vines swirl around her.

Brighter and brighter it builds, and it doesn't just build in size but intensity, growing from pure violet to a bright shining violet-white, power condensing further and further. And then her hand closes on it, and instead of drawing winds in they are suddenly forced away, sweeping the area around her feet clear.

Her gauntlet is shining brightly, and ''still'' it shines brighter, the outwards pressure growing more and more intense. Shimmering violet energy flows out over the rest of her body as she starts to shift her position. She moves into a crouch, her belt flowing chaotically behind her in her own outward pressure.

"Mooooooooonliiiiiiiiiiight...."

She ''jumps''--and the force of her takeoff is a shockwave that washes out over the ground as she suddenly rises--and then she winks out. In the next blink of an eye she is right before Jail as he continues his countdown, swinging her fist for that smug, stupid face for all its worth, ready to release all of that stored power, power born of her bonds with her friends and especially with STrike Wolf.

"BUSTER!"

 COMBAT: FINISHER! Kyouka Okazaki has used Moonlight Buster on Pink Moon Stick.
 COMBAT: Black Sky neatly dodges 28 Fatigue damage from Lera Camry's Bombadier Cascade, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Black Sky's Fade
 and Flash abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Black Sky braces 70 Fatigue damage from Fate Testarossa's Finisher, Thunder Blade, taking 47 Fatigue damage!  Black Sky is
 unable to keep fighting!
 COMBAT: Black Sky fails to brace Westar's Finisher, Western Might, taking 76 Fatigue damage!  Black Sky is unable to keep
 fighting!
 COMBAT: Black Sky braces 66 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Finisher, MIROKU!!, taking 44 Fatigue damage!  Black Sky is unable
 to keep fighting!
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern fails to brace Fate Testarossa's Finisher, Thunder Blade, taking 118 Fatigue damage!  
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern braces 61 Fatigue damage from Westar's Finisher, Western Might, taking 50 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
 Shadow Stern's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Shadow Stern braces 62 Fatigue damage from Mikoto Minagi's Finisher, MIROKU!!, taking 41 Fatigue damage!  Shadow Stern is
 unable to keep fighting!  Shadow Stern's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 62 Fatigue damage from Fate Testarossa's Finisher, Thunder Blade, taking 51 Fatigue damage!  Pink
 Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 42 Fatigue damage from Westar's Finisher, Western Might, taking 34 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon
 Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Mikoto Minagi's Finisher, MIROKU!!, taking 148 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick braces 91 Fatigue damage from Cure Black and Cure White's Finisher, Combo: Heart to Heart, taking 136
 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick's Block and Parry abilities activate!
 COMBAT: Nori has not concluded their actions. Reactions are not yet available.
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace La Sirene de Diamant's Finisher, The Light That Never Warms, taking 147 Fatigue damage!
 Critical Hit!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Cure Angel Passion's Finisher, Passion Drive Fresh, taking 281 Fatigue damage!  Critical
 Hit!  Pink Moon Stick is unable to keep fighting!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Cure Angel Pine's Finisher, Moving Mountains, taking 144 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick
 is unable to keep fighting!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Kyouka Okazaki's Finisher, Moonlight Buster, taking 150 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
 Pink Moon Stick is unable to keep fighting!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Lera Camry's Finisher, Aurora Galaxy Divider, taking 204 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
 Pink Moon Stick is unable to keep fighting!
 COMBAT: Pink Moon Stick fails to brace Endo Naoki's Finisher, Stern Brecher, taking 185 Fatigue damage!  Pink Moon Stick is unable
 to keep fighting!

 <Pose Tracker> Pink Moon Stick [Admin] has posed.
 <SoundTracker> The Colour out of Space - NINGEN ISU - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JY89ZxVqEg

What happens next, happens as it is supposed to happen. We all know how the story goes.

"Nine," counts Jail, his pink mana globes doubling again in both diameter and brightness, an exponent that is really going to get out of hand quickly. Any bonklers on site will be getting an object lesson in mathematics today. 

But of course the girls are also here to deliver a lesson of their own. 

Cure Black and Cure White close on Jail -- four arms, four legs, and one heart.

Black Sky and Shadow Stern launch forward to intercept, and--

"Eight." 

Eight rhymes with Fate, but Jail makes no effort to engage with his so-called daughter. He is focused on the incantation. Sweat beads at his temple; he has never controlled so much mana at one time before. 

Some kind of storm has been brewing outside the Tower for a long time now, but the one inside has no wrongness to it, no unfamiliarity. She knows the taste of lightning as well as that of her own blood. And now her enemies will too. It's a titanic act of skill, to split the bolt like that -- and it pierces both Dark Devices through and through. She cannot, of course, hope to spare the bodies of her sisters from such an assault.

But she knows from her own journey -- from the origins of Starlight Breaker -- exactly how much she is capable of surviving.

"Seven." 

Seven is a mystical number. It is considered lucky in the West, and carries the weight of vast symbolism in a variety of mythologies.

The number three is also very powerful. Among its many meanings is that of maiden, mother, and crone. La Sirene has always identified as the former, while the madam she encountered in the Sea of Tears occupied more the latter two at once; matronly in claiming Nori Ankou as her own; ancient in her mystery. 

But Nori -- du Nord -- de Diamant -- has grown, too, hasn't she? She is far from the girl she once was, at the beginning of her journey. Both Kozue and Argent had a hand in that, and so many others besides -- others present, and others absent. 

What she is doing now -- the sacrifice she's making, the danger she's accepting -- is not the act of a child.

"Six."

Mikoto has maybe never been a child. Been allowed to be, despite the condescension of her classmates, who misinterpret her feral lifestyle as immaturity. Who misunderstand her utterly, sometimes. Really, how many people have ever acted to protect her ''childhood''? The most obvious answer is back on Earth.

That could be for the best. When is a child not a child? 

When she's forced to bear the terrible burden of a Child. 

Miroku's spires grow, and grow, and grow. They punch holes in the ceiling, opening up gray shafts of light from the surface beyond the vast open chimney of the Tower above. They probably punch holes in other things too, but there are so many, it's hard to see through them.

"Five." 

There are four cardinal directions, but Westar has recently discovered a fifth: 

Home. 

A home that loves him. That cheered for him. And that didn't even mean Labyrinth until today.

Labyrinth, whose foundation he shatters with a touch.

Labyrinth, whose foundation was shattered by a donut. 

No. Not by food. And not even by friendship. What allowed the Labyrinthinites to connect the feed, watch the fight, support the girls, and make a miracle?

It was strangers helping one another. 

That doesn't make them friends.

It makes them, as Westar himself says, a community.

The golden light rises upwards.

"Four."

With charged fists the Fresh Pretty Cure rain down upon Jail like a rainbow of clover leaves; like a warm summer shower; like faith; like love; like beauty; like hope, and what comes after.

Because that's really the question they've been answering all this time, isn't it? Eas became Setsuna, and was saved, by the power of hope.

What comes after hope?

They do. Love, Buki, Miki and Setsuna. Their happiness is something they've gotten, one day at a time. One choice, to believe in one another. One lesson: to believe in themselves.

"Three."

Kyouka has two hands, two fists, and Strike Wolf makes three. But the power that grows between them -- between right and left, between girl and Device -- is more than the sum of its parts. THEY are more, have become more, than Jail or Clara or anyone could have imagined them to be. The spectacular jumps, the big swings, even the bright light -- none of this, really, is their crowning achievement. 

She's never lacked the will, or the training, to fight.

But she says it herself: what she and Strike Wolf found, together, were people not only to fight with--

--but to fight for.

"Two."

Lera, the rare mage to possess more than one Device -- and even more extraordinarily, to help them become sufficient friends with one another that they can work in tandem together -- swings the blade -- her first Device, her closest companion -- over her head and down. Jail admires the idea of magic but he'll never understand the point of it. To him this looks like a spell relying on the transitive properties of an Intelligent Device to refine, extend and sharpen mana into a sword. But Lera knows better, what passes between her and Soaring Sky, when together, their aurora can divide even a galaxy.

"JAIL!"

"One."

Endo is a boy of few words -- though more than Fallen Stern, on average. Still, sometimes it is difficult to know where Endo ends and his taciturn friend begins. One of the things they have in common is that they sure know how to use them when it counts.

All he cares about is himself -- Jail still doesn't understand.

The pink globes are huge now, nearly touching. Bruised, battered, beaten, the mad mage is somehow still on his feet and still gripping his chest with the exertion of sustaining his spell. He only needs a moment to finish it. To finish it, and it will all be over.

They don't give him that.

Endo isn't a weapon and Stern is not a man, for all that the fallen forms of the Umbral and Radiant Knights, defeated by Westar, by Fate, and by Mikoto -- three heroes whose unique origins all do a great job of explaining ''why'' they have this capability, something that just made everything else possible -- the Knights still appear before them, a memory of a memory -- a dream of a dream.

So when the tower within the Tower, the great purple column that is Stern Brecher, falls, they do not fall truly as one. 

The one that falls is Jail.

And, of course, he falls alone.

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

Jail Scaglietti moans from the floor. He's still alive, but only just. He still looks like a rainbow more than a person -- they haven't beaten the magic out of him, just beaten ''him''. But it is, surely, an excellent first step in that direction.

Fate's clones were blown clear of the Devices that used them, but they're still breathing, too.

It is very quiet.

It is ''too'' quiet.

At some point, the cheering... stopped.

It was safe to assume that everyone outside, horrified by the power displayed by the enemy, by the suffering of the girls, might have been shocked into silence. 

Might have been collectively holding their breath, forgetting that their belief in the magical girls has ''already'' been outcome-determinate. 

And in any case, the magical girls have been fighting for their lives and the lives of Fate's sisters and the lives of everyone on every world. They shouldn't blame themselves for focusing on their task.

And especially they shouldn't blame themselves for never having the chance to figure out what was wrong with those lightning flashes. 

---

A FEW MINUTES AGO

Outside, Tarte and Azukina exchange looks as yet another bolt of lightning crashes... upwards. Like running a video in reverse, it sprouts from the ground -- is attracted to the tower -- and then explodes into the sky.

The last one was teal. This one is peach.

They are striking more and more frequently; never the same color, but always the same sound -- enormous, rending crashes. Thunder that isn't ''backwards'' per se, as the lightning's direction is; but, nevertheless, is also not-so-subtly incorrect. It's as though the space that it warps through carries enough sonic hell that merely three dimensions cannot account for all of it.

Tarte is much more seasoned in the art of standing on (...near) magical girl battlefields; Azukina tenderly grasps his paw.

"...is it...a good sign? Does it mean we're... winning?" 

Tarte's uncharacteristic silence is its own answer.

---

NOW 

Why did an asteroid fall out of the sky over Juuban Public School the night of the astronomy event? Why did Jail send Black Sky to intercept it? 

Why did the Maiden of Dreams risk everything -- and lose everything, all evidence that she accepted, if not her total destruction, certainly the loss of a greater part of herself -- to deliver the golden skein to Earth?

Why did Jail seek Chiffon? 

What drove Northa to drive her Knights first to depravity and then to revolution?

What destroyed Belka, the most powerful magical civilization of all time, at the very height of its powers?

What did the girls witness, the very first time they held a slumber party to unlock these mysteries in dreams?

...they defy description. If they have eyes, they weren't evolved in this universe to see, and look nothing like what eyes would be. If they have grasping claws, or tentacles, or spikes, it is only because of a certain higher order universality of violence. But any resemblance to recognition ends there. They are hard where they should be soft, and vice versa. They are dark where they should be bright, and dark where they should be dark also, but with strange, shifting colors that, like the rest of them, have not yet existed in this dimension until now, and therefore have never been named. 

One swoops down through a Miroku-made skylight, and swallows Jail Scaglietti whole.

But there's never only one.

TO

BE

CONCLUDED

[[Category:Logs]]
[[Category:MGLN SeekerS]]