As she listened to Earthshaker describe exactly what had happened, exactly what the unknown archer had subjected her to, Nyxia was filled with an ever increasing mixture of disgust, horror, and smoldering fury. To take someone’s deepest longings and weaponize them against that person, to so comprehensively cripple both body and mind with empty illusions of dreams made manifest... It was beyond cruel. No wonder she doesn’t want me getting hit… Indeed, if the Neon Tempest was forced to relive with perfect clarity a cherished memory of her beloved brother, only so some enemy could gain an advantage… well, she might not kill the person responsible, but she would definitely make them wish that they had never been born…

“Those fucking monsters…” Nyxia hissed through clenched teeth as her fiery gaze fixed itself on the direction from which the arrows had originated. “And those bitches think they’re the heroes?”

When Roche gave voice to her own thoughts on the matter and made her request for assistance, the Neon Tempest gave her partner a vicious smirk.

“You got it,” she told the Rule Keeper with a firm nod as she charged up her death ray. “And you better believe I’ll be right behind you.”

This time, she would make sure that nothing got in the way of her partner’s quest for vengeance.

The more the schemer thought about their situation, the more she realised she had lost the plot a long time ago. She tried to keep everyone’s needs and feelings in mind, to ensure that there would be as few imbalances between them as possible and that they all lived as happily they could inside a shared body, even if it did mean sacrificing herself but… What did it result in the end? They had been scattered to the winds because she went about it the wrong way. She also did not really pay attention to the others, now that she could look back on it with a clear head.

It stung. Ember had thought she knew Hotaru and Sylvia well. She thought she could guide them as a proper adult should, never realising that her role was that of an older sister. Not a mother. Nor a grandmother. Not that she wanted to become that given their past.

It stung so much she wanted to cry.

But as she had learned oh so long ago, that it was up to the adults to pick up the pieces when children misbehaved. So Ember locked away her feelings for later, then reached out with her magic in an attempt to see what happened with her comrades, which brought back interesting results: she could still feel the other two across the city. She could still identify them as well. Hotaru ran towards some sort of goal, while Sylvia remained in one place, just like Ember herself.

Even better, the connection felt strong. Solid. Maybe that meant their bonds were not completely broken yet. She also felt a link to the other bodies, the Oss scattered around the city. They felt almost as though they were attached to strings on her fingertips. A strange, yet very apt metaphor as she pulled on one as an experiment and the Oss immediately appeared beside her in a rush of magic.

She yelped as she scrambled away from the body, staring at it with wide eyes. That was not supposed to happen! Not only was it farther away than their usual reach - a distant part of her wondered how she could tell that - she definitely could not teleport them like this before. Did the split somehow make her powers stronger? In a sense, yes, but she could feel that other parts of her were much diminished in return.

The amount of magic she wielded, for example, got reduced to roughly one fourth of its former size. Ember frowned at that discovery, but it did make a certain amount of sense. Even if Chiaki slept deep inside their shared consciousness, even if they kept her safe from all the evils of the world, it made sense that she would also get an equal share of their power. Which also meant that there was likely a body Chiaki inhabited right now, if she followed her own logic.

Yet there was no such thing. She could not find Chiaki’s presence anywhere. Was she even ali- Focus, Ember! Hotaru and Sylvia’s lives are in your hands! Don’t you get lost in thought now! You can worry about her later!

Bringing her hands together in front of her, Ember clapped to bring herself into focus and cast her gaze back into the tapestry of strings before her. Now that she looked and felt at it closely, she could feel that there were threads between the Oss as well, along with the Khir. A web appeared before her, with each body being a node that connected to every other one.

She could definitely do something with this. Maybe she could start with Sylvia...

---

Running through the streets proved all too easy. Somehow, Hotaru felt more alive than ever before, her movements flowing into one another with perfect strength and precision. She did not even need to use as much magic as before to propel herself forward. Everything fell into its rightful place, as though she had been born into this body and if she were honest with herself? She loved it. She did not even notice the lack of her friends as she pushed her body to the limit, splattering the Miseria that happened to run into her.

Every step felt like a breath of fresh air. Freedom at last! The ability to step as she liked, to move her arms as she liked, to breathe as she liked! The more she ran, the more she felt like perfection embodied and the more she wondered: Why did it not feel like this when they worked together? They were supposed to be sisters-in-arms. Three parts of a greater whole. Something that became more than the sum of its parts, even if she would not put it that way herself.

But something happened. And now she felt- She felt-! She had no words for it, only grinning as she utterly wiped the floor with Miseria. There was a big one coming too, but in this state, she felt more than ready to take it on. Come hell or high water, she would be ripping it to pieces with her claws, disproving all “rumors” Ember worried about. There was nothing to fear with her at the helm when it came to battle, after all!

However, instead of a giga miseria or one of the freaky birds that she expected, Hotaru came up against a scene that had her stop. Fragments of concrete scattered as she stopped abruptly, trying to make sense of the situation: a gigantic dinosaur assembled from blood - likely Oros; - a torn up concession stand; a mechanical light girl flying through the air; Evil Eye hanging from a swarm of her own Mogalls; and another light girl carrying someone on their back.

It was Tsubomi.

Were those bitches trying to ruin everything again?!

Hotaru blitzed forward as fast as she could, aiming to cut off Diamond’s route of escape or at least catch her with an opportune strike if such a thing presented itself. She channeled her magic into her legs along with her claws, reinforcing them so they would be able to menace anything that came her way.

---

Eventually, both tears and terrors faded.

Sylvia did not know how long she spent curled up, but she felt that her face had swollen and that a miserable weight settled in her chest along with her throat. Having done nothing to help herself or the situation, she had only exhausted herself beyond caring about anything. Because what was the point?

She thought she had escaped hell. When Ember reached out to them, speaking of a place where they could be free from Grandmother and Grandfather, she had thought she had been saved. She would no longer have to be a bad girl. She could be a good girl who got sweet treats instead of whatever punishment Grandfather or Grandmother decided on. All things considered, she felt it was a small wish, something that could be granted even to her, who had been born to a disgraceful daughter.

Of course, that did not mean she could be useless. She had to take on the pain of the others. To shield them from the most awful things they encountered. But could she really do that when Ember and Hotaru shouted at each other, hurling barbed javelins at Sylvia?

Could she protect “Them”? She did not want to. She wanted to run as far away from “Them” as possible. It was just too much and yet… and yet… and yet…!

She sobbed even though the tears would not come. Her throat had dried out a long time ago, feeling as though it were a desert seeded with razor blades. Her sorrow made her legs feel half-frozen along with the pins and needles that appeared because she hugged them so tight.

All because “They” fought again.

…

That is right. Maybe she was not at fault. Maybe “They” were at fault for all of this. Right. Right! That made sense. That made so much more sense! “They” hurt her. “They” hurt her a lot. Sure, Sylvia was a bad girl and she deserved everything that happened to her, but “They” still hurt her like this even though “They” didn’t have to do it. Everything made so much more sense now, because it meant she did not have to protect “Them” anymore.

She laugh-sobbed as she wiped her tears away, because she did not know if she could trust “Them” anymore either. Not unless… she did not know. Could she trust Grandfather and Grandmother? Of course not. They lied all the time. They punished her all the time. Because she was a bad girl. But did she deserve the punishments they gave her? A part of her nodded along and yet there lay a spark in her heart.

A spark that told her that maybe, not even bad girls had to be punished like Grandmother and Grandfather punished her.

She stuffed it in the corner of her heart, of course, because it was wrong. It could not be right. But it was right about one thing: “They” were wrong to argue again, because arguing meant that it was Sylvia’s fault. And she wanted “Them” to get along, so it was “Their” fault that it was Sylvia’s fault.

”Ember… Hotaru… were you… were you really my friends?” she wondered out loud as she tried to massage the blood back into her legs. ”Do you… do you want to hurt me…?” Because if so, then she could not remain around them. Even if it hurt a lot, she could not stay. She had to get away, just as she got away from Grandmother and Grandfather, because if she did not, then she would die.

She wanted to find it out. No, she needed to find it out. She… it felt like poisoned razors being dragged across her body when she thought about abandoning the warrior and the schemer. But if it had to be done, then it had to be done. She would do it somehow, even if it meant injuring herself seriously or talking with Kiyo about it. Sure, she seemed scary, but she also knew a lot about magical girls, so surely she would know what to do in her situation.

But first, she needed to talk to the others. So Sylvia gathered all of her strength before casting out with her magic and let the thread she felt brush across her, pull her into another location.

---

”Ember…?” Sylvia asked as she found herself staring into a pair of blue eyes. The schemer nodded in response even as the sounds of fighting, along with something big moving around could be heard in the distance. What is more, Sylvia could feel a magical girl approaching.

”Yes,” nodded the schemer. ”Listen, Sylvi, I am aware that you have a lot of questions and while I would normally answer them as well as apologise for the poor decisions I have made, I am of the opinion that we do not have time for that.” Ember all but rushed through her sentence as she stepped closer to the protector, grabbing her hand and bringing it closer. ”Can you still find it within your heart to listen to me regardless and trust me when it comes to our safety?”

Sylvia flinched and retreated, the touch feeling like a whip of fire on her skin.

”I… I don’t know,” she responded honestly, her voice trembling.. ”You… you shouted like…”

”Like Grandmother and Grandfather.” Ember’s voice carried a heavy weight, as though she knew she had committed an unforgivable sin. ”I… I apologise from the bottom of my heart. I swear that I will never repeat it again.” She knew how those words would sound to Sylvia. To the protector, who saw promises broken hundreds upon thousands of times. To the one who endured all the pain because Chiaki was too weak to face it all alone.

Yet Ember could do nothing but hope. She tried to imagine herself from the outside, to really see how she would look in Sylvia’s eyes. She found nothing to grasp save for dry straws.

Ember’s heart thundered in her body. Not their shared construct. Her body. Her nails dug into her palm. [b]Her[b] palm. She wanted nothing more than to pull at metaphorical strings, to appeal to Sylvia and to keep talking until she found the lever she needed to pull. She wanted to say she did not mean the arguments, that she did not mean to hurt Sylvia. That her intentions had been pure. But all of those would be one thing: a lie.

Sylvia took a step away from Ember and the schemer’s heart sunk. For not only did Hotaru no longer listen to her, she knew she had broken Sylvia’s trust. What she had built up over months of work, both when they were by themselves and when they spent time with the detention club, shattered like a piece of glass.

All because she did not really pay attention.

”I… I don’t know if you’re… you’re like them.” Sylvia forced those words out. Her voice strained as she fought her ”I just don’t want to be hurt again.”

It was such an innocent wish. Yet at the same time, Ember knew it was the most devastating thing Sylvia could have asked for.

Sayuri looked back at where Boleite should arrive from, probably seeing her catching up to her. From her perspective the night had been relatively calm. Which was why when her gaze turned towards the scene unfolding far from them further in the city, she froze for a couple of seconds staring at what she was seeing.

"We left them like... two seconds ago?! How the hell did this happen - and what even the hell is happening?"

They were of course too far to hear anything or see who was who and what was what. Though it was easy to tell for two of them; the big eye monster and the bloody skeleton. From what Kaeru saw of the club previously, she was able to make an educated guess. So the Club had that kind of power among them? For some reason, it made Sayuri a little angry. Mainly because she knew, or thought she did, from where they gained power. Seeing feats of power like that only served to further prove their selfishness and coincidentally how much misery they probably spread around.

Sayuri took a deep breath and let it out with a big sigh.

"I'm not hiding, that's for sure. Why would they go all out like that? I'm not feeling any big miseria around worth this much trouble toni-"

She was preparing to jump away to the Chaos unfolding to see for herself, but then Kaeru squinted her eyes.

"Something's coming this way, and you're not gonna like it."

Things weren’t looking great for Hizuki. This was the second time she had been attacked by the detention club, and it happened to be at a critical moment when her defences were particularly low. Perhaps it was a mercy that Hotaru had decided to ignore the girl instead of finishing the job herself. Or perhaps she figured it would be more cruel to ignore Hizuki and meet her fate. The building side was approaching, she had only a moment to consider how to spend the rest of her fading consciousness.

But then her course changed. She could feel the G-forces working on her as she suddenly pulled away from the wall. To either side of her were bright green fairies. Their bodies were made of a bubbling, caustic gel that was transparent enough to reveal their skeletons. It appeared that they had been able to redirect Hizuki before she joined some pedestrians for dinner.

Her thrusters died down, and she fell a few feet into the arms of another magical girl.

Though the neck of her violin pressed into her back, causing some discomfort.



"Howdy, partner!" Willow’s eyes shifted from Hizuki’s battered form to the ongoing chase. "I know you don’t like it when I talk about other people’s mothers, but I think she forgot to teach her kid any manners." Willow was flying along with her caustic farries. Behind her, Black Gate was being hauled after them. She had a rope gag in her mouth, with her wrists and ankles bound together. The goat girl didn’t look like she was in much better condition than Hizuki, only there were fewer bruises and more acid burns. "On the upside, Oros is really into the battle damage look, so maybe that won’t happen if we meet up with her again."

A screeching sound caused Willow to look over her shoulder, and she saw tweedle dee and tweedle dum surfing after her. Or what was their name? Ah! The Mediocre Morganite and Pathetic Pearl!

"Wha-" Morganite stood up on her shield. "What did you do to her!? Give her back!"

Willow looked at Hizuki, then back at Morganite, then at the fleeing Diamond carrying Tsubomi. "Are you thinking what I’m thinking?" A triumphant smile crossed her lips, only for it to vanish as a pillar of light grazed her shoulder. "Oop! Hold on tight!"

The caustic farries screamed before rushing for Morganite. They all slammed into her other shield, but managed to coat her shield in burning goop. It was immediately blown off with how fast they were moving. Willow quit floating and fell onto her dark unicorn. She reached out her hand and caught Black Gate before she smashed into the pavement.

"Eyyyyy, Shatterscape!" She twitched her ear just before it was hit by another lazer. The charging girl had a head start on her, but she knew she could hear her. "You’ve dealt with these guys before right?" She lifted her arm, and a beam passed under her arm and scorched her garment. "Let me take the batter, this fight will be over before it starts!" The next beam took a piece of her ear off, prompting her to set Black Gate on the back of her steed and feeling her ear. "Eh, it’ll grow back."



Diamond had been running for a while, but it wasn’t going to last much longer. Once she got to third base, that intersection just ahead, she could change roads and run straight out of the city with everyone. The dark girls could chase if they liked, but it would get more dangerous for them as they moved away from their little nest of sin.

But Diamond had been dealing with a complication a minute, and Evil Eye was about to add an extra one.

A high school student falling from the sky. Diamond’s brow became crossed. Of course it was obvious what the goal was here. The girl was going to die if Diamond didn’t catch her, but doing so would necessitate putting down Tsubomi. Carrying two people at once would be cumbersome, especially if she wanted to do it safely. But that wasn’t an option either. Whatever was chasing her wasn’t in a good state of mind. Maybe it would calm down as soon as she handed over Tsubomi, but what if it didn’t? What if, in its blind rage, it ripped her to pieces instead? That wasn’t something any light girl was willing to risk.

With a growl, Diamond held out her bat in front of herself. While still holding onto it, her fingers gripped onto the handle of a concession stand that wasn’t there. But in a shower of sparkles, suddenly it was. Immediately it began spooling up crazy amounts of cotton candy and overflowing with popcorn. The two mixed to make some unholy sticky, soft mass that grew on top of the table. By the time the school girl landed, her fall was broken by hundreds of unusually large popped kernels and swaths of cotton candy. Aside from some caramel clusters sticking to her hair, butter in her socks, and some cotton webbing between her fingers, she would survive.

"Topaz!" Diamond wasn’t trying to speak into the mic anymore. They were close enough that they could hear each other. That thing’s tendrils were closing in on Diamond. It still looked like a long dead prehistoric lizard, but it was still evolving. It started to grow a dress decorated with flowers, and the number of bladed tendrils flying around increased. The red muscle that was wrapping around its bone structure started to look like red skin. Its evolution was nearly complete and its prey was almost in reach.

"I’m all ready, hun!"

Topaz pulled the string back as far as it would go, and fired a golden arrow. It whizzed past the popcorn tower and smashed into the beast’s heart. The abomination crumpled instantly. What was flesh and muscle and bone turned into coagulated blood. A magical girl, stained head to toe in blood, rolled through the mess on the road. She had no arms or legs, just stumps that had been shaved down as far as they could be. They didn’t give up their pursuit, however She crawled, with her blood stained locks obscuring her entire body. Topaz prepared a second arrow and fired it into Oros’s forehead, causing the girl to fall onto her stomach. Oros chuckled, softly, barely audible over the sound of the chaos unfolding.

"Poor thing." Topaz shook her head. "These dark girls are willing to ruin themselves in their pursuit of power."

Meanwhile, despite everything happening to Hizuki, the schoolgirl falling overhead, and the rapid approach of the dark girls and Diamond, Kaeru chose to observe a bit longer. Indecisiveness was said to be a tool of the enemy, but it was also said that cooler heads prevail. And in this particular case, it would seem that Kaeru’s choice to remain calm and survey her surroundings might have revealed something to her. Topaz only sighed in response to the frog maiden’s words.

"I had an idea they’d be coming around."

And they did. Earthshaker and Nyxia came flying overhead and landed on the other side of the street. By this point, Diamond had arrived and shoved the concession stand with the buttered and candied student. She laid Tsubomi at Topaz’s feet and prandished her bat with both hands, looking out at the approaching dark girls.

"Good golly Miss Molly!" Topaz raised a hand to her mouth. "What happened to her face?"

"Don’t know." Diamond didn’t take her eyes off of her worthy opponents. "See if you can do something. Then we’re getting out of here."

"Alright, alright."

Earthshaker was too angry and filled with rage to pay the presence much mind, but Nyxia could feel that it had followed them all the way over here. And for better or worse, it had gotten stronger. The observant Kaeru could also feel it arrive with the shield and laser duo. Whatever it was, it was going to make its move soon.

Additionally, the sound of crackling electricity was drawing closer. But this was not the power the two were feeling. Boleite drew near.

Topaz kneeled beside Tsubomi’s body and drew one of her arrows. "For love, justice, and a smile!" Then while gripping the arrow like a knife, she drove it straight towards Tsubomi’s heart.

Upon arriving at the intersection, Nyxia and Earthshaker were greeted with quite the chaotic scene. After taking the briefest of moments to make note of all the situation’s myriad facets, the Neon Tempest zeroed in on the most important item of note. The bitch with the arrows was directly in front of them, kneeling over the unconscious form of Apathy Incarnate, poised to plunge one of her heart tipped missiles directly into the rainbow-haired girl’s chest. Even if the weapon was supposedly incapable of dong physical harm, she had no idea what effects its emotional manipulation abilities might have on someone as emotionless as Tsubomi. Furthermore, the simple concept of the girl’s weapon made Nyxia want to vomit.

Thus, a split second after realizing what Topaz was planning to do, the Neon Tempest took careful aim and fired a hyper-focused, pencil-thin beam from The Omega Obliterator at the angelic girl’s raised hands, with the intent of slicing them off at the wrist. Roche would then be free to pummel her senseless. There was also the bat wielding girl and the girl with the frogs, but Nyxia was sure the other club members could deal with them. Her main concern was the mysterious presence that was growing increasingly nearer, and increasingly more powerful. She highly doubted the current clusterfuck would resolve itself before whatever it was arrived, but she at least wanted to be fully prepared to confront the potential threat. Thus, even as her crackling energy beam lanced out, Nyxia deployed her two hovering octahedral drones in order to respond to any new developments at a moment’s notice.

So much happened in so little time, Sayuri needed to take a moment to get it all in. Topaz assessment was right, KAeru did prefer to know what was happening before charging blindly into situations.

Though, right now, it wasn't possible. The situation was charging blindly onto them.

Kaeru recognized there - in the form of the monstrous bloody bone monster - Suki's magic. An information barely registered before Topaz arrow hit her mark first in the chest, then straight in the head. Kaeru could not help but gasp at this, surprised. Magic being magic, it probably did not kill the club member. Between Boleite and Topaz though, the GEMs magic seemed to take a more direct approach.

"Yeah..." she muttered to Topaz statement, more so to herself than anyone else.

What followed happened in quick sucession:

A duo of Dark magical girl landed near them, Diamond arrived holding a knocked out Tsubomi, the purusers were dead on their trail and, worst of all, Topaz had gotten out an arrow and was readying to stab the knocked out girl.

"Hold on..." Kaeru said, low at first. She was feeling something coming, something possibly worst than all of...this.

At the motion of Kaeru's hand, a long tongue reached out from a nearby tree to grab Topaz hand and seemingly stop her from stabbing the girl, but in truth - while it did do that - it mainly pulled it backward, away from the laser aimed at her wrist. Fujin, somehow hidden until now, landed beside Sayuri, offering a barrier between her and the Club's angry duo.

"What the hell is going on?" she said, louder now, as much at the GEMs as the other girls around them. She'd ask them to chill out, but a quick look over at the club's rule keeper's face told her it was a bad idea and a futile attempt.

Despite the apparent Club's bloodlust, she was somehow more worried about that strange presence-like feeling she could not shake off. From the looks of Roches companion, Kaeru was not the only one to have picked up on it.

"Do you guys often kidnap and stab unconscious people?" she'd quickly ask to Topaz, directly, a look of 'should I be worried?' on her face.

The cotton candy cart crashed into an invisible presence—a familiar-looking invisible presence that had, as it were, been lying in wait to snatch Tsubomi, or Kiyo had Diamond allowed her to plummet toward the pavement. Instead, the seemingly unstoppable girl's batting average continued to climb as she thwarted another of Evil Eye's schemes entirely by accident, the only upside being that, aside from her pride, she was unharmed.

The utterly silent doppelganger of Evil Eye began digging into the cotton candy looking for its master. When it found what it was looking for and pulled her out, a merciless hand clamped around its neck. "Useless!! You're both so utterly USELESS!!" Evil Eye shrieked as she shoved the fake's face into the fluffy pillow of sugar. Her eyes were empty wells of infinite black, until she caused both of her creations to dissolve into black sludge, then a black fog, and then into nothing. Only once they were gone did the crimson glow of her twitching, furious eyes return.

The seething hatred only grew as she realized what Topaz was about to do, and that she would be too slow to make a difference in stopping it. Her kitchen had been taken over by an abundance of chefs, most of whom could trample her if they wanted. Yet that wasn't all: a powerful magic presence was approaching, and Evil Eye could only think of two magical girls that could make that kind of impression. Neither of them were people she wanted to meet while both of her assigned partners were in this condition. Neither did she know what Topaz's arrows were doing to Oros, nor did she particularly care. If a light girl was doing it, it was probably designed to do something worse to a dark girl than whatever damage Evil Eye was about to cause to Oros's body by taking them out.

She floated over to Oros's position, leaving Earthshaker and the others to engage anyone who tried to intervene. Flail as she might, each time with increasing ire, she couldn't quite rid herself entirely of the cotton candy, which only worsened the scowl on her face. Muttering bitterly to herself, she began the somewhat gruesome task of trying to pull the arrows out of Oros. "I'll be... ...fore I let some... ...nap my... ...will you?"

---

Willow had been the last person she expected to come to her rescue. Something that almost vaguely resembled a positive emotion began to form in Hizuki's chest as the unreliable-looking magical girl saved her from, at the very least, sudden unconsciousness. That emotion was promptly quashed and replaced with a more familiar frustration as Hizuki realized that her partner had also taken it upon herself to beat the tar out of a girl the Daybreak had been attempting to set up a peaceful parley with. "I swear I didn't know she was going to do this, Mal- Miss Black."

To demonstrate that her word was reliable, she pointed her lance at the rope. The blade on the end briefly became a bar of light that swept over Black Gate, bisecting the bindings and freeing the captured magical girl without so much as singing her clothing. "Get out of here, we'll talk later!" The rest of her ruined THUNDER CRACK fell off her body as she rolled off Willow's unicorn, then rose into the air under her own power. The thought occurred to her that Black Gate might be more or less her counterpart, a dark girl working with a group of light girls, but that only made her think there might be some way to end the fighting. That, however, would have to come later.

The entire situation had, frankly, gone to utter shit, and she was going to have to do something fast. Kaeru had intercepted Topaz before she did something drastic to Tsubomi, and it was probably going to buy enough time for Shatterscape's very clear and rapidly approaching desire to rescue the emotionless girl to be fulfilled. She could feel two impending sources of magic, one of which she recognized from a few moments ago. Impending, but not here yet. Hizuki couldn't fight the GEMs, grab Tsubomi, and ensure Black Gate's escape all at once, so she picked the thing she could most obviously help with - namely, stopping the Detention Club from getting perforated with lasers.

Despite her condition, she gathered her magic and blasted forward toward Pearl. "You bullies aren't getting away with this!" she yelled, charging with her spear in a (much) lesser version of the maneuver she'd planned to unleash on Diamond. She hoped that her speed was enough to prevent Pearl from getting a proper bead on her, but just in case, she flew in an arc, angling to strike the other light girl directly and force her toward an alley where her powers would be less of a problem for the others.

---

It was one thing to have suffered at the hands of the GEMS. Another to know they had hurt her club mates while they were out and about. Entirely different was experiencing the former, and bearing witness to the maliciousness of the sanctimonious vipers planning to inflict emotional devastation on the most emotionally vulnerable of the group.

Stab Nyxia and Miso would burn under a laser-based rampage, but Nyxia would pick herself up out of the ashes with a new vendetta and some creative curses, but still the same Nyxia they knew. Stab Tsubomi? Roche didn’t even know if she’d be the same girl after that!

Even in the depths of her rage she felt a flicker of pride in her partner for shooting first, a laser set to remove the archer’s hands at the wrist in what would have been poetic justice. But in spite of delicious irony, Miso’s resident Light Girl had to intervene and pull her hands out of the way.

The Rulekeeper couldn’t see anything else as a massive toad landed between them, and she had no intention of letting Topaz hide behind the beast, no matter how familiarof a familiar it was. Breaking out into a sprint that reminded all in the club there was a damn good reason she captained the Track Club, her steps ate up the asphalt between as she telegraphed a punch to its admittedly cute face.

Only to find it unmarred as Roche slipped low, ducking under an expected lash of the tongue as her shoulder barreled into the amphibian’s broad belly before releasing a fraction of the stored power she’d built flying Air Nyxia. A teeth-shaking, ear popping crack that would send the frog hurtling backwards across the street to crash into an unfortunate storefront.

And leaving the Rule Keeper standing over Kaeru and Topaz, shoulders heaving as a dark glare bore down upon them from the shadow of her hood.

”Get away from her, you bitch.” Hands curled like the talons of a striking bird the Rule Keeper lunged, no hint of restraint on her face as she closed on Topaz’s face.

While Sylvia and Ember had their talk somewhere in the city, Hotaru had to deal with the realities of battle, a fickle and ever-mercurial beast at best. Exactly as the suddenly appearing mound of cotton candy mixed with popcorn proved, absorbing Evil Eye into itself instead of… she did not finish the thought, for the Warrior had no mind for trickery. She knew not what the club’s mastermind tried to accomplish, only that it was beyond her and that it slowed down her target. Unfortunately, Diamond seemed to have accomplished her goal anyways.

Fortunately, Nyxia remained on point. Her laser would have hit the hand holding the arrow if it were not for the frog girl’s intervention, creating a true disaster of a situation as everyone gathered around Tsubimi. Hotaru was intent on the same. Strangely enough, Ember did not disagree, which meant that she had free rein. And indeed, a grin took over her face as she ignored Willow - that girl never had any sense, nor did she have anything in her skull resembling a brain - leaving her, along with that rotten light girl, to deal with the shield asshole along with the laser asshole.

They could shoot at Hotaru all they liked. Sylvia would soak up all the pain anyways and if this body became damaged, there should be one nearby that she could jump to. The light girls would not even know what hit them. Indeed, Hotaru’s fellow dark girls appeared one after another to engage the whores. Unfortunately, she was still a bit away, but at least she approached from one of the smaller alleyways, so she would likely have a drop on Diamond.

Just a little more. Just a little more! Hotaru drew on more of her magic to enhance her movements, leaving cracked pavement in her wake. She crossed the distance by practically leap-running through her streets, descending like lightning on Diamond to knock her away from Tsubomi. She specifically tried to backhand the batter, because sinking her claws into the light girl would mean taking the time to yank them out.

Then she asked Sylvia-

Where was Sylvia?!

Not used to keeping track of everything in a fight, Hotaru fumbled her next step and instead of becoming the whirlwind she had intended to be, she merely succeeded in placing herself in the crossfire. Everyone present could hit her without as much as trying, but on the bright side, the light bitches had to go through her to get to Tsubomi again… Unless they resorted to a ranged attack.

Shit. Where were her comrades when she needed them the most? She had not counted on Ember, of course, because she sided with the light girls, but Sylvia? Even if Sylvia hated the warrior’s guts, she would never stop looking out for Hotaru, right? The protector would never abandon her even if they disagreed… right?

But all Hotaru heard in her head was utter. Deafening. Silence.

---

Tsubomi's head lolled to the side. "But I'm Tsubomi."

"Incorrect, as usual. I'm Tsubomi. You are nothing but a parasite. At best, you're a false emulation of 'Tsubomi Kana'; a fake imitation of mine." Acid Drop stood from her leaning position. "An unfeeling homunculus that decided to burrow into my body and brain like a tapeworm."

"I'm... a tapeworm...?"

Acid Drop's grin grew wider. "That's right. This damn brain of mine is damaged, badly. I only just started to get my memories back after you feel face-first over that dog." She shrugged. "I guess the physical trauma was enough to reconnect some synapses for me."

"But you said before that you're helping me." Tsubomi replied as she straightened her neck.

Another shrug. "I was. But I've since decided to stop acting as a guardian angel for the demon that's possessing my body."

"How do you know you're not the fake Tsubomi?"

"I'll answer your question with a question: Do you remember a single thing from before the day you showed up, when I saw that dead Mascot?"

Tsubomi paused in thought. She did her best, but she couldn't remember anything from much later than that event, let alone before it. "Mm. I don't remember anything from before coming to Hibusa Town."

Acid Drop began walking in circles around Tsubomi. "Exactly. Because you don't have any memories before a certain point, before the day you took control of me. I'm not sure what exactly you are, but it's not a human. Not a real one, anyway."

When she came to a stop, it was behind Tsubomi's back. The apathetic girl in front of her craned her neck to look back at her. "Humans feel things. Emotions are an integral part of being human. Alexithymia aside, we feel things, because we're alive. You, on the other hand, are nothing. Nothing real, nothing human. And don't go thinking that you're some facet of me that I just don't understand, some trauma response to 'protect' me."

The rainbow-haired girl walked forward to put her right arm around Tsubomi's shoulders. "If you were, you wouldn't have all the unsightly traits you do. Complete lack of emotion, no ability to understand others even when you know exactly what they're feeling, no memories beyond a few months ago... You don't even remember the train ride to this town, do you?"

Just as Tsubomi turned her head to face the other actor, Acid Drop leaned closer to speak directly into her ear. "If you were even a part of a person, you'd remember something before you do. You wouldn't have just thrown me out of my body and trapped me in some dark corner of my own mind where I couldn't even remember who or what I was. I wouldn't have needed blunt force trauma via a concussion to realize that I'm me."

"Mm. Doesn't that mean you might be a fake?"

Acid Drop let go of her co-actor, and moved to be in front of her. "Even if I were a fake, I'd still have an infinitely stronger claim to my mind, body, brain, and life than you. And just so we're clear?"

A step forward, and her hands were to the sides of the other girl's head. Her hands worked Tsubomi's skull like clay into a figurine as she spoke. "I'm going to be taking my life back. Soon. I've figured out how to stop my magic from listening to you in just a handful of weeks. I learned how to force my body to obey me instead of you, albeit in short bursts. Do you think it'll take much longer before I can expunge you from my being?"

A genuine but deeply dark smile graced Acid Drop's lips. "It won't. I give it about... two months, if that, before you're dead and gone. Better make the most of it, you fucking parasite bitch." Her hands fell away from the other girl's face. As if she had given the final line of the grand finale, she turned and walked offstage as the audience full of Miseria clapped and cheered their lungs out, if they had them.

With the end of the denouement seemingly achieved, the audience began to throw roses onto the stage where Acid Drop had been, an equal amount of tomatoes and- ... rocks? Tsubomi felt a hard object collide with her face between the strikes of red fruit, knocking her onto the floor of the stage. It seemed that was the cue for the other actors to come back onstage and give a final bow. As they did, Tsubomi couldn't help but notice that Acid Drop did not return to the stage.

Her eyes closed, and when they reopened a moment later, she was no longer laying in the theater. Instead, she was laying on the ground, covered in confection and butter with a strange girl above her. The girl brandished an arrow, but she seemed to have pulled back. Did she already stab her? And more importantly...

Did it matter?

The situation was about to fall into chaos, but not in ways that Willow could have foreseen. Surely her fellow club members didn’t need to be told explicitly what her plan was. She couldn’t say it herself as a matter of principle. Who would answer the call of a beckoning cat that always lied?

Things started to go south before Willow even stopped yapping. Was she trying to talk to the goat girl. "What are you talking about? She stole my phone to play Wuthering Waves! I’m not going to stand for having chinese anticheats running on my phone! How else was I supposed to react?" Her lips were pulled into a snarl once she realized what she was doing. "Now here’s a real question, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REACT TO THIS!?!?!"

Black Gate rolled off the back of the steed, bouncing along the road. A normal human would need medical attention, but the goat girl managed to rise to her feet. Even with so many wounds, she stumbled towards the back allies.

"SON OF A BI-"

Willow had not released Hizuki, and her armor flaking off hadn’t addicted her grip at all. But she was going wherever the light girl was flying. "Hizuki! I need to trade you for Acid Drop’s safety! They think I kicked your ass STOP RUINING EVERYTHING!"

But Willow didn’t have the means to stop Hizuki’s flight, and she flew straight towards. Speed was not important, because even if Hizuki wasn’t moving as fast as she could, Pearl was flying towards her plenty fast. Rather than fire, she stumbled backwards and nearly fell off the back of the shield. Hizuki’s spear closed the distance. But it stopped just an inch away from her nose. Not only that, but Pearl didn’t fall off the back of the shield.

Standing between the two was Morganite. While Pearl’s heels were off the side of the shield, her arm was firmly in Morganite's grip. Morganite’s other hand was on Hizuki’s spear, and had slowed it down just enough to stop it from hitting its target. Her second shield floated up behind Pearl, and she allowed the girl to sink to her knees on the trailing shield.

"Hizuki! Iz me!" Morganite patted her chest. "Iz ya friend Morganite! Ya remember me, ‘ight? All da poinaz and miseria slayin’ we did?" It wasn’t that much, but it was more than she had done with anyone else. She must have noticed some surprise in Hizuki’s face, because she started to look concerned. "Are ya okay? We’z da good guyz. Wez here ta make sure everyone getz outa dis okay."

"Hahahahahaha!" Willow had planted her legs on the far side of the shield, and was madly playing on her violin. "Talk to her all you want, ‘heroes,’ but she’s under the effect of my music! She fights for me and no one else!"

Morganite growled. "We gotz ta save Hizuki!" She attempted to pull Hizuki into a hug and wrestle her weapon away from her.

Pearl nodded, then her shield shifted so that she had a better vantage point of Willow. She fired another lazer, this time cutting the cat girl’s ear clean off. "Oh, well, looks like I’ve become Beethoven, now."



Naturally, things weren’t any less chaotic around Tsubomi.

It looked like Topaz might turn the poor girl into a ritualistic sacrifice. Though with her hands high above her head, Nyxia saw an opportunity to slice them off. A cruel attack, but one directed at someone who she deeply hated. But if there’s one thing that they teach you in school, it’s that a frog’s tongue is plenty fast. In an attempt to delay Topaz and save her from losing her hands, she was pulled back before Nyxia could slice her through. There was a darkened line on the back of her wrist where she had started to cut through.

Now was not the time to play twenty questions, but the frog girl deserved some acknowledgement for keeping her hands intact. "My arrows can’t hurt people, darlin." As if to demonstrate, she stabbed her arm. The wound on her wrist started to close. "My arrows are filled with positive emotions. Love and happiness ain’t ever killed nobody."

In the right situation, it was a devastating weapon however. Miseria were constructs of negative emotions, as were the familiars of dark girls. Dark girls themselves were fueled by negative emotions, so they likely impaired them in some way.

Something Evil Eye would soon discover.

There were only two arrows stuck in Oros, and they were not hard to remove. As soon as Evil Eye gripped the shaft, they turned into gold flakes and fell to the ground. There was no wound left behind, so if the head of the arrow needed to be removed, she would need to make an incision and try to dig it out. But given that the arrows faded into nothing on touch, it wasn’t clear if she would even find anything.

"Heyyyyyyy therrrrrrrre." Oros tipped her head up, and her hair spilled to either side of her face. She had the same stupid grin on her face that time she kissed Evil eye while also having her mind taken over by her influence. Only her eyes were really wet, and not with blood. "I’m glaaaaaad you decided to come over to my house tonight. We got stuff for smores, yup." She laid her head down. "Hot pockets and pizza bites. We just need to microwave them, babe. Then we got soda for days." Her eyes were running over with tears. "Ahhh, things would have gone better on a do over. I should have just invited you after school." She was still for all of two seconds before immediately ugly crying.

Shatterscape was up to pitch, and Diamond was ready to play ball. The umpire seemed to have passed out, but was waking up. Their power had been untested, but shatterscape approached with the certainty that at least one of her sisters would be there to offer backup. Given her proximity to Tsubomi, there would be no getting between Diamond and the dark girl she was "protecting." Not without the aggressive power to back up her charge. But in a battle with so many people on every front, and with (almost) no one paying attention to anything but their own selfish goals, Hotaru was left without her much needed backup. She pitched her claw, but the batter didn’t strike out.

The batter’s bat had grown in size. The end had turned into a giant corn dog for extra reach. She caught Hotaru’s waist and flung her through the air. The deep fried treat broke apart and littered the ground with saturated fats. It wasn’t quite a home run, as Hotaru’s claws didn’t make her too aerodynamic. But it was an opportunity for Earthshaker to slip by.

She had passed the batter and she had passed the frog, and now she was closing in on the cupid. Kaeru was there, but was she even paying attention to the dark girl charging up from behind her? Diamond was also chasing Earthshaker now. Topaz had just been cut by a lazer, and was rather attuned to what was going on downfield of her. She scrambled back to her feet and prepared an arrow.

Finally, Boleite showed up. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know things were getting crazy. But as frantic as the scene was, she could spot the pissed off prune of a magical girl with a giant deathray. That didn’t seem like the sort of thing you just let walk around. So when she saw her laser focus was on Topaz, she took aim herself. The front of her cannon powered up instantly, and she fired.

It was a frantic scene to be sure. The sort of fight that could carry on for days if not weeks. If only there was some goth mommy to fall into the area and prevent that from happening…

So much chaos! So much bloodlust! Light and Dark pitted against each other in such a discordant symphony, it was a damn miracle for someone outside it all to even catch up! And yet it was so curious at the same time. What was the reason for all of this? Just a bunch of loyal children trying to play the hero? How... charming. And yet, so ill-mannered. No one had even asked that poor girl the little lighteners were dragging about what she desired! And weaponizing love and happiness to inflict such torment, only to feign innocence-

...Oh.

Oh dear. Perhaps this little playtime of theirs is getting a bit too enthusiastic...

A sigh, and then the echo of an eerie chuckle. Tale as old as time.

Time for the adult to break things up.

All around the conflict, the world seemed to darken, reality shattering apart like glass. If one were unfortunate to peer into one of the cracks, they'd witness nightmarish creatures surging about on the other side. A rather unorthodox means of quick travel, but Nocnista had to act just as such. She popped up to catch Hotaru!Shatterscape out of the air before she hit the pavement, then, still carrying her, appeared again in front of Nyxia, opening what looked like a parasol to deflect Boleite's cannon fire.

"Hellooooo, my dears~!" The strange woman, despite her power, was even more strangely jovial, giving the light girls warm regards in the midst of a large-scale battle no less. There was no doubt this was another dark magical girl. Just much, much worse... "Now, I'd hate to break this little dispute of yours up, but..."

At the same time, once Earthshaker lunged at Topaz, the two of them suddenly disappeared into the cracks. "Ah! One moment, if you please~?" Nocnista set Hotaru!Shatterscape down next to Nyxia and slipped away, reopening the nightmarish rift (portal? That's techincally a portal, right?) and reaching inside to pull the two out with ease. She carried Topaz under one arm, and Earthshaker under the other. "But honestly, maybe thrashing your poor friend about like a little dolly isn't exactly the best thing for her~?" She grinned down at the two girls before setting them down near their respective friends.

"I mean, no one's even realized she's not even woken once? Shouldn't that be your concern before trying to do anything else?" She tilted her head towards Tsubomi, pursing her lips in thought, then dissapeared again.

This time, she reappeared behind Hizuki with a hand resting on her shoulder.

"I for one am not one for martyring~ Care to leave those two to your friend? Don't worry, they're small fry in comparison~" Nocnista offered.

Evil Eye beheld Oros, soaking in her blood and the absurdity of the situation. If she doesn't snap out of her 'happiness' soon, she's going to bleed dry. Though she had little in the way of fact to base it on, she got the impression that while her sister-in-arms was looking at her, she was weeping over somebody else. She stopped to consider, briefly, whether or not saying something would make this spell she was under better or worse—but only briefly. "...Sounds like a date. First I need you to not die, though." Looking over the pool of blood and imagining that this really could be the last time she spoke to Oros—something that was, despite being desensitized to this sort of scene, not particularly difficult—she managed to shed a tear or three to produce some pint-sized cotton devils to soak up the blood. She couldn't be sure if this would indeed actually help the blood witch, but Evil Eye was never content to sit and wait for a situation to improve on its own. "Looking a bit light on fluids, Oros. Pull yourself together. Eyes up here," she tried. If the wannabe cupid had put her under a spell of lovesickness, Evil Eye figured she could counter it with some hypnotism of her own. If Oros looked at her now, she would see the patient smile of a sister who always gave second chances, if only she'll get up and fight again.

That was when the approaching presence made itself known. The first welcome realization was that it wasn't a light girl. The second was that it wasn't Rei, here to chide them all again for not begging for help at the first sign of trouble, nor was it Ashbringer, here to make their clusterfuck even more complicated. The third was that she had already made herself plenty useful and brought some sense of order with her—and with that came the first unwelcome realization: this woman was a role model of just the sort of dark magical girl Evil Eye aspired to be. A usurper, if I'm not cautious, she counseled herself. "Well, thank you. Do you know what's happening to her, then?" she tried to ask the woman before she vanished again, leaving Evil Eye talking to herself. She sighed. Tsubomi rarely asks for anything. And the moment we listen, this is what happens...

---

Once more, the situation got more complicated. Willow, for some reason known only to her, decided to hold onto her when she started to move, resulting in her motion toward her chosen opponent being less of a soar and more of an ungainly lurch through the air. It might have been related to her, predictably, being angry about Hizuki freeing her captive, or it might have been that Willow had absolutely zero god damn common sense and yet still expected everyone else to be able to predict what she wanted and how she was going to go about getting it. She prepared to follow through on Willow's plan, only for that ominous presence to reveal itself in full, and a hand to rest on her shoulder.

Hizuki wrenched herself backward, taking her spear with her and stumbling out of Morganite's grasp. She didn't have to play at being confused, her head whipping between the GEM, Willow, and the new stranger as she floated a foot or two into the air with her remaining momentum. "I was going to help Willow as a member of the club," she said, her condition once again removing the need to act at sounding like the combination of Willow and Morganite's words was messing with her. Hizuki did her best to appear as though she was looking to Willow for direction as she asked "Should I be flying Tsubomi away instead?"

“Fucking frog…” Nyxia hissed as she ground her teeth in annoyance at the sight of a sticky tongue yanking Topaz’s hands back just before they could be severed at the wrists. Before she could fire a second shot, Roche leapt for the cupid-themed girl with a baseball bat-wielding girl hard on her heels. The Neon Tempest was just about to redirect her aim towards her partner’s pursuer, when another light girl with a lightning cannon showed up and sent a crackling torrent arcing her way. “Shit…!” Nyxia swore as she prepared to jump out of the actinic tendrils’ path, only to freeze in shock as a tear opened in the fabric of reality, disgorging a strange woman who blocked the lightning blast with her parasol. And… Was she carrying Shatterscape…?

“What the…?”

Even as the stunned Nyxia murmured those words, she realized that this was the presence she’d been sensing. Clearly, the woman was powerful, but she also seemed to be on their side, which was at least somewhat reassuring. But who was she? While the Neon Tempest had never seen her before, there was something oddly familiar about the new arrival. Was this the teacher she’d occasionally seen Rei speaking with outside the clubroom, the woman the club’s enigmatic leader had claimed was its even more enigmatic faculty advisor? If so, she would make for a formidable ally against all the myriad threats currently arrayed against the club, but on the other hand, she had the potential to be even more patronizingly annoying than Rei already was. In any case, her arrival would hopefully bring the current shitshow to a conclusion, thereby allowing Nyxia and her team to get back to things that actually mattered…

The cotton swab demons (WTF?) tried to clean the blood off of Oros, but it was not easy to do. Even if they ignored how difficult blood was to clean off of someone from a purely philosophical perspective, the witch's blood seemed thick and gel-like. The swab demons could no easier soak it up than they could tire rubber or a pillow. Given that Oros always had a hairpin jammed through her skull, perhaps bleeding out was not an issue for the girl. That said, there was absolutely something wrong with her right now, and Evil Eye had to keep on trying.

Oros did respond to Evil Eye’s words, but nothing she babbled out could be understood. But the schemer had gotten the blood witch to make contact with her at last. Her head perked up like a dog that just heard its name called, and she locked eyes with Evil Eye. After staring for a moment, she clenched her teeth.

"You!"

Tentacles raced up the front of Evil Eye’s dress and coiled around her shoulders and neck. The dinosaur skull started to close around Oros’s face as a tendril obscured Evil Eye’s eyes. Being covered like this made her feel… at peace. Or as at peace as one could. Then not a moment later, the tentacles went slack and fell off of Evil Eye.

"Ah! Eyeball!" Oros smiled, with her dino mask nowhere to be seen. "You can’t scare me like that! I thought you were someone else for a second." Her smile wore away as she looked around. "Ah, whoever beat me up did quite a number on me." It didn’t take her long before she spotted Tsubomi. "Oh, uh, one second, Eyeball. We can talk later." The armless, legless girl surfed her own blood up to Tsubomi’s side. She had just enough height to float her head onto Tsubomi’s stomach. "Sunshine! Are you okay?" A bloody tendril started poking her in the ribs. She placed the side of her head over her heart. "Ahh geez! Don’t make me give you mouth to mouth."



Nocnitsa had managed to separate the dark and light girls, but seemed content to leave Willow and the remaining two fighting. Understandably, she had no idea what Willow was scheming either, and as soon as the violin player turned her head, it was a gambit that was totally unnecessary with the mysterious woman showing up.

"Ah…" Willow turned to Nocnitsa and grinned. "She will deny you, harlot! For she is under my spell and helping me deal with these small fries as you call them. For the fries are merely a complementary treat to the despair burger I’m cooking right now." Willow then looked back at Hizuki. "No, my brave interloper! There is no need for you to recover-" Did she just dead name Tsubomi? Was that going to be a problem later? Was it already a problem that she wasn’t transformed? This was so confusing. "...That girl. You can continue to fight on behalf of the club you love so much, fufufufufufufufufufu!"

Morganite sighed. Both the shield she was standing on and the one Pearl had retreated to lowered to the ground. "Aight den. Et’s trade. Me for ‘er."

Willow stopped playing. "Excuse me?"

The pink haired tike folded her arms. "Give ‘er to us, and ya get me."

Pearl shivered. "M-Morganite!"

"We ain’t got a choice. I can’t fite Hizuki. If somethin' were ta happen ta ‘er, it would make ma feel queasy." With a look of determination that rarely graced her face, Morganite stepped closer to Nocnitsa.

"I see…" Willow’s smile only grew wider. She gestured towards Pearl. "Go on, Hizuki. Return to your people. I’m sure you’ll be back in my clutches before long."

Or she'd return of her own will, more likely.

---

Hizuki looked between the two groups of magical girls. She'd been once again left with an unenviable choice, though at least it was in the aftermath of getting Tsubomi back. That's all she'd really cared about in this fight: stopping the GEMs from hurting Tsubomi. As much as she disliked the rival group of magical girls, though, there was only one course of action she could really consider at this point. "Morganite, no." she called out. "I'm not. . . It's a lie. There's no mind control, I just thought this was going to help get Acid Drop back and end the fighting sooner. Nobody needs to get kidnapped by anyone else today." She turned to glare at Willow for trying to take advantage of the situation before returning her focus to Morganite and the rest of the GEMs.

"I'm sorry for lying, even if it wasn't my idea. I was just trying to make things better." Her cybernetic wings drooped as she looked down. She didn't know how the rest of the gathered Detention Club would react to her refusal to play into Willow's scheme, but it felt an awful lot like she was just failing them again. "I'm sorry for being a bad club member, too, but I just can't go along with this."

center][/center]

---

After dealing with all the worst that the GEMs junior members could throw at them, Earthshaker was past the point of caring about Rei’s threats. Topaz was right there, and she was about to thrust her arrow into their most vulnerable member. Everything they’d done since they came to Hibusa had been to hurt the Detention Club, so if she had to maim Topaz to send a message, well, she was willing to pay the bill for that one.

And if she went further, then she’d not have to worry about her consequences for much longer once Rei got wind of it. Assuming that rule of hers applied to Magical Girl on Magical Girl violence. She’d had a hunch the taking of an innocent, defenseless life that had no perception of Magic may have carried a special cost….

But before she could get a good feel for Topaz’s keen eyes, a presence she was both relieved and frustrated to exasperation revealed itself. Because in the end, you couldn’t have a proper without an adult crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s.

Even a Magical Girl club.

Instead of striking out against meat, Earthshaker tumbled forwards, swallowed into a gap of infinite nightmares. If she weren’t so wrapped up in tunnel vision she may have suffered a panic attack and roused to the fore of her mind recollections of the pirate misery trying to choke the life from her.

But the Magical Madam’s powers were expedient, and she lurched back to stable reality in the woman’s grip. Dangling like a flour sack she offered a dry glare up past the woman’s buxom before righting herself amidst friendly faces.

While they may have unexpected backup, Roche had no doubts that she would keep the conflict ‘clean’, or as close as it could be.

”Ah, you haven’t met, Nyxia. This is our….adult supervision, Nocnitsa.” Earthshaker grumbled, agitation bleeding off in her waves as she summoned her shield and eyed the opposing light girls. In particular the display between Hizuki, Willow, and Morganite that left her wanting to spit in disgust. ”This is bad comedy. I can’t believe Willow really thought we could stomach watching that.”

Though as she simmered without an outlet for her aggression she could expand her awareness, looking aside to notice Shatterscape beside, looking strangely lost, her form scuffed from what looked like hurling herself face first into a washer on its spin cycle. She reached out, trying to squeeze the girl’s shoulder and steady her, even if every nerve of Earthshaker’s body was still alight with contained violence. ”You okay, Shatterscape?”

Topaz' explanation of her powers made Kaeru feel admittedly a little embarrassed. Maybe she spent too much time alone to think that fellow Magical girls of the Light would hurt even one of their fallen kin in such a way - even a member of the Club. The GEM's final comment unexpectedly brought back some painful thought to Kaeru that made her lose focus for a second.

Kaeru's attention was quickly forced back at what's directly in front of her, though, as an angry Rule Keeper came charging down towards her and the group she was with. Aware of Roche's abilities, Kaeru and her huge toad were poised not to attack the club member, but to instead trap her; it was not the lash of a tongue that would have met Roche, but the giant gaping open mouth of the frog Sayuri had summoned especially for Roche - but her opponent managed to outmaneuver the beast and hit it on the side. With a painful croak it launched backwards, slowly dissipating as it crashed in the storefront.

That's bad!
She remembered thinking as she herself was about to attempt blocking Roche's next move, whatever it was. Though it never came. Just as it felt like everything happened at the same time and this would soon turn into a literal battlefield of Light versus Dark, the presence made itself known and literally forced a reset. Both Roche and Topaz just vanished. Down in a portal they went before she could even react.

Now, all of a sudden, team BadVibes were all together having a little huddle with their newfound ally. Who oddly looked a little more aged than any of them. Of course on the one time a team of Light Magical girls show up in town to even out the scale, a new Dark Magica-- Kaeru looked down nearby only to see the armless, legless torso of Suki having crawled up to Tsubomi. Everything got weird before, but this took the cake.

Tsubomi's location was somewhere in between the grouped up GEMs and the Club, with Sayuri still having been left exactly where she was.

There was about a few seconds lapse of time where both groups were either talking or focusing on something else in which Sayuri pointed down to the Oros-Tsubomi bloody mess and gave the Dark Magical girls groups a 'Anyone?' kind of face - but they were focused on Darth Mary Poppins there.

So much for Teamwork.

With a sigh, Kaeru started to walk back closer to the GEMs.
At this very moment, Sayuri felt out of place. Magical Girls were supposed to hunt Miseria and make the city a better place, not take roles in...whatever theatrics this all was. For a second there, just as her eyes looked back down to Oros worried for her friend, Sayuri even felt bad for them. Seeing a scene like this, her strongest instincts were to kneel down and help, but... those were Club members. Even the innocent looking Tsubomi was. They were the enemy, no better than Miseria. Right?

With a small hop, the Frog Girl got closer to the GEMs - because where else would she go? Leaving would be in bad taste, plus Boleite just got here and Sayuri still felt like she owed her. "If I knew you'd be late, I'd have carried you." she said at Boleite, attempting to lighten the mood a little while they were in this kind of awkward forced cease-fire.