World Tree MUSH

This time, the Starbringers were prepared. As soon as the second Distortion opened up, their newly-instated Multiverse Committee (the name is tentative) put the word out that assistance was needed ASAP for a "supernatural monster-nest -- expect battles of uncertain difficulty."

Brighton, Massachusetts is an ordinary city neighboring Boston, just one of many metropolitan areas making up part of the northeastern megalopolis. It is also apparently the city which is most commonly visited by travelers from other worlds; a number of permanent kiosks have been set up in a convenient park area downtown, providing pamphlets describing the current iteration of Earth and any differences it might have with other worlds. There's also signs pointing down the street for the money-changing centers, which have a multitude of techniques for converting various disparate currencies.

But today ... there's a general sense of malaise. Everyone in the city looks tired, frayed, on-edge. Moods are moodier, and tempers are markedly shorter. You can see it just by looking around at the people making their way through. And those with magical senses would be able to sense ... something going on, off in the distance, in four different directions.

Anna is sitting on a park bench right by a street corner, dressed in winter clothes, looking upset and frustrated. The golden-furred and catlike form of Spiral is sitting next to her, a sympathetic but faintly worried expression on her face. Really, this is practically a mirror image of the first time Outworlders helped with a Distortion in Brighton. "It's okay, Anna," whispers Spiral. "From what you've told me, there was no way you could've fought off the invaders in Elisa. There was just too many of them to --"

"I know that!" Anna says softly. "That's kind of the whole problem here!"

Spiral sighs. "Well, with a little luck, we'll have help dealing with the Distortions right now," she says. "You gonna be okay helping with that?"

Anna doesn't say anything in response.

    'Starbringers' is not a word in Yumi Tachibana's personal dictionary. Not yet, at least. She's in the city entirely on her own, though her reasons are perhaps not... *entirely* unrelated. Her search for answers about herself has only deepend since discovering her powers, but Temulin was at least able to give her a clue to look into - a name. 'Anna Freeman'. Someone, apparently, with a transformation similar to her own. It's not much, and there's every chance it's unrelated... but it's at least something to look into. Anything is better than spinning her wheels.

    But while she's there in the city, something trips her magical senses. A few somethings. The sensation stops her in her tracks, in the middle of the street; her expression slides quickly from 'nothing in particular' to 'alarm' and right down to 'grim focus', and without thinking she turns to start walking, quickly, in the direction of... whatever it is she's sensing. She can only sense one specific thing, and her gut instinct is to be wary of anything that fits that criterion. So it's investigation time.

    Yumi's sudden, brisk walk takes her right past Anna... but then the redhead thinks to stop, and turn to look at the girl with a golden cat thing on her shoulder. "Ah, excuse me. I'm sorry if this is a strange question, but... is magic terribly common around here?"

Of course you should be careful for what you wish for, as the large amount of magic in the air gathers more outside attention. Speaking of the air there's a witch flying through the sky who looks like she's dressed a few months out of date who's followed closely by two ghosts.

 Suddenly she takes a bad turn and loses her grip on the broom before plummeting to the ground below and crashing into the park bench next to Anna and Yumi shattering to pieces. "Ouch!" Holly lets out a cry of pain but she doesn't seem to be too badly hurt as her broom lands next to her.

Despite ostensibly NOT being a hero, Ryuunosuke is there to see if he can contribute to handling the issue of unknown monsters. He's actually less interested in fighting them and more interested in studying them -- if he could control them, he might regain a portion of his former power as Orochi. He had monsters at his beck and call back then. Now? He's just a teenager with cyberware.

What's the exchange rate from his world's credits to yen? Do they even convert? How can Ryuunosuke prove that he has the amount of credits that he says he does? Ultimately, Ryuunosuke decides all this money-changing business is too much trouble. But he's not coming in with no money at all. No, he'll spend a bit of time heading through the crowd, snitching wallets from people who look like good marks. They're all moody and growly, so they're probably too concerned with their own malaise to notice their wallets being taken.

Presumably this 'Multiverse Committee' would include a vague area that the Distortions are happening in. So Ryuunosuke will eventually get there... though he's likely going to arrive behind everyone else, since he spent some time BEING NAUGHTY.

It's Yumi's question that actually makes him think to look there, though -- he has no magical senses, so he has no idea the cause of the overall attitude of 'bad feels' everybody seems to have. He looks to her and raises an eyebrow. Though before he can ask anything else, Holly crashes down. "Hm. Since these sorts of things tend to attract odd people... I would say this is where the trouble is, yes?"

It's worthy to note that Ryuunosuke looks rather.... unconventional. His nose is flat, his eyes are singly-colored red, and there's a seam from the corners of his mouth to just underneath his ear. And he... might smell like magic, given he's the soul of a very old, very powerful demon that's trapped in the body of a human teenager...

The minute Yumi speaks up, Spiral's eyes flicker with a pearlescent light as she scans her.

It comes up: "magical girl." Gives her a fair bit of an idea of how potent her abilities are, too.

Spiral immediately perks up. "Not very!" she says. "But you've certainly come to the right place. My name is Spiral."

Anna nods, still somewhat glumly. "And my name is Anna Freeman, I'm WAUGH!" Her voice suddenly sounds a few notches less feminine as she reflexively leaps away from the bench Holly just crashed into. "Holly!?" Anna clears her throat and gets her voice back under control. "A-are you okay!?"

Spiral sighs softly, then looks at Ryuunosuke, and her eyes flicker as well. Iiiinteresting. Kind of reminds her of that woman Athena they met some time ago ... "Ah, you're here about the Distortions?" she says. Then pauses. "Or however the Committee phrased it?" She shakes her head. "Anyway, this world frequently spawns creatures born of negative emotions called Curse Phantoms, each of which makes its home in a dimensional space called a Distortion. Ever since this world Blossomed, we've had a number of incidents where upwards of five or six Distortions have opened at once, when before it was rare to have even two at once, and so now we need assistance from outworlders. There's four open right now, but we have our own people handling them --"

And then there's a feeling of a fifth one opening up, not very far away.

Spiral and Anna both jump in surprise. "-- correction, five open right now," says Spiral, suddenly looking worried.

    Yumi, likewise, lets out a yelp of surprise, stumbling back several steps. But her surprise is reserved for someone other than the crashed witch. "I'm sorry, did you say 'Anna Freeman'?" The redhead is wide-eyed. What kind of crazy coincidence is that? "I'm Yumi, Tachibana Yumi. I'm an acquaintance of Temulin's, she gave me your name. I'm actually here in the city looking for you." She turns to look off in the distance, folding her arms. "But it sounds like that'll have to wait. If something's going on, I'll help."

    Anna has explanations for them; but in the middle of being told their help might not be needed, Yumi's magical senses tell her another one has appeared, very close by. Yumi doesn't even wait. By the time she whips around and starts to run, sheets of gold-white energy have wrapped around her, settling into the form of white magical girl armor, trimmed with blue and gold. "Explain on the way!"

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> Meguca mode: GO

Holly brushes the splinters off herself as she stands up and grabs her broom. She's a bit beat up, but she doesn't seem to be too badly hurt. "I'm okay! I'm guessing there's not normally this much of a magical presence here though right?" She had managed to pick up it despite going in the other direction. Her attention turns towards Spiral, "You've got your own familar? So you're not that different from a witch...sounds like you're going to go investigate. I'm curious to where all that magic is coming from myself." Maybe there's someway she can harness it's power.

"Negative feelings, hm?" Ryuunosuke replies. "There is some sense to that. We offworlders are suddenly here, and there may be people that find that... threatening. Who are we? Where did we come from? Are we a threat? And so on. That it would breed much more negative feelings is not surprising." He pauses, though, as mention of a FIFTH Distortion comes into play. "Concerning," he notes. "That means there must be a great deal of negative emotions to draw from." However, there are introductions to be made. He bows and offers, "I am called Ryuunosuke." He keeps it short, since there seems to be trouble afoot, even if he's unable to sense it like the others are.

Yumi takes off, while transforming, and Ryuunosuke shakes his head. Yeah, there's no way he's gonna be able to keep up with a magical girl. So instead, he tilts his hed down, closing his eyes... and two telescoping metal rods fold out from his back. There is a small disk on the end of each one. These disks expand out, opening up as if a flower bud opening up, and then a green, holographic, wireframe serpent head forms from the flat top part of each one. The disks detach and have next to him, and the metal rods retract. "Follow," he instructs, and the two disks take off after Yumi.

Ryuunosuke nods to Holly's observation. "Indeed. I must admit to a certain amount of curiosity myself," he admits. "Particularly what has caused the rapid increase of these incidents."

Anna blinks. "For me?" she says. "What for? I mean, uh ..."

And then Yumi is already moving, and Anna blinks. "Oh! You're a magical girl too!" She and Spiral hurry after her.

"I'm not a familiar, I'm just the mascot, so to speak," Spiral says dryly. "And yes, Mr. Ryuunosuke, the presence of the World Tree has been a theory as to the cause, but the result seems to be far beyond expected parameters."

Anna continues marching forward after Yumi. "Anna?" says Spiral, more gently than you might think is warranted.

Anna closes her eyes, and stops as she takes a deep breath. "Right," she says. "I may have failed before, whatever the reason ..." She opens her eyes. "But here and now, I have people to protect!" She focuses gathering her own magical energy into herself.

And when it clears, she's in a blue and green and white magical girl costume of her own -- still with pants under her skirt -- and her hair is cobalt blue. She jogs off after Yumi just fast enough to catch up. "Hey! Wait up!"

The entrance to the Distortion is hovering above an ice cream shop called Bellandini's Ice Cream. It looks like a swirling portal made of all the colors of the rainbow, and it's unpleasant to look at, as if it was bypassing the eyes and reaching right into the part of the brain labeled 'unpleasant.' Most notably, nobody seems to notice that it's there; the patrons are still eating there, albeit rather unhappily, and people are walking in and out none the wiser. Some of them notice Anna and Yumi and seem a bit surprised, but, well, everyone knows about the visitors from other worlds.

Spiral waits a bit for Ryuunosuke and Holly to catch up. "Curse Phantoms have a threat level on a scale from one to six," she says, once they're within earshot. "They start out at level one, and go up as time goes on, but in incidents like these, they tend to go up and up at high speeds. I can't tell you exactly what it's going to be like, but it will be somewhat maze-like, but easy to find the ultimate lair of the Curse Phantom. Above threat level one, we'll also have to deal with smaller and weaker monsters called Curse Imps, which attack in swarms and die in swarms. And ... it'll be full of negative emotional energy, which will get worse when we reach the Curse Phantom itself." She pauses. "I think that's all the relevant details. We ready to go in?"

>> SUMMARY[Anna Freeman] >> Meguca mode x2 COMBO! Also Spiral gives a summary of Curse Phantoms.

Holly's know for her strength and durability and not her speed, especially when she's not on her broom. She rather not crash again so she follows Anna and Yumi on foot, with Servis and Lavaux close behind her. "So what cause the curse phantoms to show up in the first place? Someone getting upset?" Sprial mentions its full of neagitve emotional energy. "I'm not sure how ice cream can make people upset though...food poisoning?" 

 Servis shakes his head, "Their doesn't appear to be anyone vomitting."

 "Maybe they're out of chocolate pumpkin ripple! That would make me upset!" She makes a bit of a punching gesture.

    Yumi isn't running full speed; if anything, she's keeping it within human limits, so that she doesn't get too far ahead of everyone. But time is of the essence, so she doesn't slow down beyond that. Not even when two holo-serpent-discs fall into place behind her. She glances over her shoulder at them, but that's about it. Only when they arrive at the ice cream parlor does she slow to a walk, and then stop. She looks straight at the distortion, too; a frown pulls onto her face. "I'm guessing that's it, considering."

    The magical knight listens to Spiral's exposition, then nods faintly. "Alright. I think I'll take point, if no one minds. I'm a frontline fighter." She'll glance between Ryuunosuke and Holly briefly, then turn and take a single, long hop up to the rooftop. Then, she holds out her right hand-

    -and twin lines of runes burn themselves into the air, glowing white-gold. Between them, a blade takes shape, easily as long as Yumi is tall, and a good ten inches or so wide. When it's fully formed, the runes fade, and she brings the weapon around to rest over her shoulder. She'll wait to make sure the others are ready, but as soon as they are, she'll go in first.

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> Volunteering for tank duty, summoning her Ridiculous Anime Sword.

"Expected parameters?" Ryuunosuke echoes. "Hmm... so this was calculated? What did the figures estimate?" he inquires. Not to worry, he'll follow as well, as fast as he can. It's not too terribly fast -- for having once been 'larger than eight hills and eight valleys', now he's restricted to moving as fast as a teenager. Which admittedly, in this case, isn't terribly slow -- he's slim and made for speed. But still, it's no supernatural travel.

The serpent drones that he sent ahead are circling the Distortion, as if examining it and trying to determine what the heck it is. And from the looks of it, they're having no luck. Ryuunosuke frowns at the thing. "...That looks incredibly upsetting," he notes flatly. Yeah, it's bad when a demon that used to eat people thinks something looks 'upsetting'!

Holly's words get a nod. "Via magical means," he answers. "It can stimulate either production, or lapse in production, of the chemicals in the brain that regulate moods. The resultant energy is what is feeding this Distortion, I believe... if I understood correctly?" A look to Spiral and Anna.

He of course pauses to watch Yumi summon the BFS. Well, Ryuunosuke's Japanese, he's probably seen similar in anime (at least, the Boy has). It does get a blink, though... mainly because sure, he's seen it in anime, but never in real life!

Anyway, he does nod at Spiral's words of being ready to enter the distortion. "Yes. As ready as I will ever be," he notes. If he can get up there... he can't fly or jump long distances...

Spiral frowns. "They're a not caused by specific instances of negative emotion," she says. "The explanation for where they come from is long and technical, but the short of it is that hope has not yet won on this planet. If and when hope wins, completely and utterly, there are no more Curse Phantoms." She glances at the assembled others. "Which seems to be something ... idiosyncratic to this particular Blossom, really. Sometimes the rest of the World Tree is honestly kind of depressing."

Anna, meanwhile, is distracted by Yumi. "That's awesome!" she says softly. She looks between Ryuunosuke and Holly. "Uh ... don't suppose you can give him a lift on your broom, Holly? Because, uh ... hmm ... Ryuunosuke, how much do you weigh? I'm stronger in this form."

"I should be able to fly up there!" She doesn't generally fly with others on her broom but if it's only a short distance they should be fine. Hopefully, there's something soft for Holly to land on the other side. "Well, it would be pretty difficult to eliminate despair completely. Especially if there's five portals like this generally in one area.

 She's good at taking physical hits but not against other kinds of damage so she'll let Yumi lead. "Are the curse phantoms able to curse people or are they the result of a curse?" She can't help but to be curious about that know.

    "If it comes down to it, I can carry you up here," Yumi calls down, facing the group again. "It, uh. It won't exactly be dignified, but it'll work."

Ryuunosuke smirks a bit at the mention of the rest of the World Tree being depressing. Though he... keeps the thought that prompted the entirely unwholesome smirk to himself, whatever it is. It all gives him an idea... If these Curse Phantom are merely derived from the collective negativity of humanity... then it's possible that, on some level, all people in this world are magically-inclined. What if he were to try to drain this power from these people? Could be possibly regain his former power if he could drain this negativity?

As for Anna's question? "About sixty-five kilograms," he replies. That's a little over 140 pounds. He's a bit heavier than he looks, apparently -- must be all that cyberware! To Holly and Yumi, he notes, "If you can but give me something to grab onto within the Distortion, I can handle the rest." As he speaks, another pair of those telescoping metal rods unfolds from his back. This time the disks at the end don't detach, but the wireframe serpents appear.

In the meantime, Ryuunosuke is aiming to send the two drones that HAVE been detached into the Distortion first, to try to look around and see what they're all going into!

Anna nods. "I can carry you, too!" she says. "... So, uh, in summary, basically any of us could get you up there, heh ..." Her mood has definitely improved. "Okay, let's all go ahead and get in there ..." They draw a few stares as they make their way up, but nobody actually does anything about it. Outworlders Are Weird, and anyway they have their own things to worry about.

The Distortion looks ... very distorted. It looks like someone created a 3D model of a cave, and then covered everything with random textures from walls and floors and decorations from restaurants, along with vague dessert-like imagery that's just been scattered around the place. It looks like a Dada artist was hired to decorate a candy shop.

It's also cold in there.

There are several twisty passage leading in various directions. One of them is darker than the others, and has a particularly unpleasant aura, much like the portal itself.

"Okay," says Spiral, looking towards the darker passage. "It's pretty obvious which way we go. Right now it seems to be threat level one, but five'll get you ten it goes up to two at least before we reach the Curse Phantom."

    Once they've given Ryuunosuke the anchor point he needs and gotten everyone inside, Yumi takes a few steps to the fore, and puts both hands on the grip of her runeblade. "They go up that fast?" she replies to Spiral, regaining that frown from earlier. "Then we need to move quickly." Already, the knight feels like she might have an answer to the questions she wants to ask Anna; this strange otherspace feels like something she should fight, but at the same time, her subconscious is telling her it's different from the reality-warping creature (creatures?) she knows. Hm.

    As Yumi proceeds, her stance is cautious, but her steps are smooth and swift, prepared for trouble but not slowing herself down because of it. If the cold bothers her, she makes no mention of it, but-

    "If anyone has night vision, let me know now, otherwise I'm going to make light for us. And if anyone's got serious issues with cold temperatures, stick close. I can help with that, somewhat."

Holly manages to fly up into the distortion without crashing again but her surroundings make her pause a moment. She conjures a string of Christmas lights and ties them around a candy cane decoration before throwing the other end out of the distortion. "This place is making me kind of hungry just being here..."

"I wouldn't suggest eating anything you find." Servis warns her as he floats next to the witch.

"I don't think it would taste that good if it's made out of negative energy. Like Brussel sprouts or something else that's awful. Nope, I'm nice and warm!" She sleeps in a mausoleum so she's not too bothered by the cold.

It's the cold that hits Ryuunosuke first. As soon as he's inside and has a moment to consider the inside... he twitches, emitting a strange sort of 'ghk' noise, and shivers. Even the four serpent heads react, seeming to hunker down on their disks uncomfortably. "...Is it always so blasted cold in this Distortions?" He sounds a little grumpy about it. Though he doesn't look like he's about to leave over it, so there's that.

He looks around the place with a look somewhere between 'ew' and 'good Lord'. "...Someone needs a lesson in interior decorating as well as a good stern beating." As for Spiral's assessment that the odds of this getting very much worse? "That is not a wager I will take," he notes. "Mainly because I believe you are entirely correct on it."

Yumi's mention of needing light draws his attention next. "I can see heat," Ryuunosuke replies. "In a place this cold, that may or may not be useful -- the Phantoms may be just as cold. I can see vibrations as well -- that might be more useful since we are no longer in the city. I know our footsteps."

Holly's mention of being nice and warm? That gets a bit of a sour look. "I hate you," he quips, in a voice that indicates he means it precisely 0%. However, he's sticking close to Yumi, if she's warm. Brr.

Spiral shrugs, floating up by Yumi, oblivious to the mystery going on inside her head. "They only go up that fast in the veritable swarms of Distortions that've been happen lately," she says. "As for night vision ... Y'know, I don't think I've ever been in a Distortion that ever actually got too dark to see in." She furrows her brow at Holly. "But yeah, Miss Winn, please do not eat the Distortion."

Anna, meanwhile, is just looking excited as they make their way in deeper. "Wow," she says. "I can't believe I'm finally doing this! Transforming, going into a Distortion ..."

Spiral points out, "You've been transforming for like three months now, Anna." She grins. "You've been doing basically everything except what you originally became a magical girl to do."

Anna giggles. "I know, I know!" she says. "It's just ..." Her voice trails off. "... What's that sound?"

There's a sort of ... bouncy sound from the path up ahead. There's a few dozen of them, a group of ... of ... Well, they look like ice cream cones as drawn by someone who only had them described in vague terms. Chunky orbs with garish multicolored stripes, with a conical brown spike on top. They are bouncing on the orbs, hopping wildly towards the group of heroes -- and the spikes point forward, poised to stab!

Oh, and the way back to the real world seems to have vanished.

"Curse imps!" says Spiral. "Yep, we've already gotten up to threat level two! We're gonna have to push through this crowd to get to the other side!"

Along the way, Ryuunosuke has vanished somewhere as well. Did he fall back into the real world before the portal closed? Have the Swarm taken him? Who knows? For now, though, there are bigger things for the girls to concern themselves with. Like not dying. Ryuunosuke will probably be all right, wherever he is.

    Yumi is, indeed, quite warm. While transformed, she naturally trends warmer than usual for a human, and on top of that, when he moves closer, her sword begins to glow very faintly, emitting a low but noticeable heat. She gives him a brief glance to make sure he's gonna be okay, then continues on ahead. Anna's enthusiasm for this does draw a little smile out of her, though. "...funny. This is pretty much my first time acting as a magical girl, too."

    She has more to say on the subject, but the arrival of company makes that a conversation for later. Immediately, the redhead takes a step to the fore, falling into a defensive position where they'll have to get past her to reach Anna, Holly and Ryuunosu- ...huh. Anna and Holly, apparently. She'll have to trust him to take care of himself for now. Her own gameplan is simple: Rush forward, whipping Prominence around into a vicious, surprisingly fast spin that will give her good coverage. The tunnel is just wide enough she can swing freely if she's careful about it, and just narrow enough that a sword that big is a serious threat.

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> Tank mode: ON. Swinging that huge sword at Curse Imps.

"They're not tiny winged demons with pitchforks?" Holly sounds a bit disappointed about the appearance of the curse imps. Then again if they looked like that she might have trouble with hurting them. Instead she tries to summon her portrayal of what imps should look like as her lollipop shaped staff glowing. Instead, she summons winged babies with bows. Well, if they're made out of negative emotions, cupids might not be a bad way of dealing with them.

Anna shoots Yumi a quick grin, then gathers her Heart Power into her hands. "Okay, let's see!" She's ... not as much of a disaster as she was when she first started, and she throws a bright blue fireball into the swarm. It seems to take out a good fraction of them, too!

But at that point, the swarm is upon them! The surviving ice cream orbs lunge into the group, launching themselves forward spike-first! On the plus side, they're very clumsy; the ones that miss go careening forward, head over heels (or ... you know what I mean), and it takes them a moment to right themselves before they attempt to launch themselves back towards the remaining heroes.

Spiral blinks, and looks around. "Wait, where's Ryuunosuke?" she says worriedly.

    The horde is bearing down on them - and while Yumi intends to prevent as many of them as possible from getting by, there's no way she can stop them all. After Anna's fireball blasts by, the knight sets her posture, and begins a series of stepping, sweeping strikes, some of which she pivots around into spins that let her change her direction. She's doing her best to use the terrain of the tunnel to her advantage, making as many of the curse imps as possible pass through her 'strike zone'. She even takes a hit here or there on purpose, using her body to prevent a charge from reaching Anna or Holly. "I'm not sure, but he'll be alright for now. If he doesn't show back up, we'll go looking!"

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> Using strategic movement to ensure she can hit a lot of the imps with her sword on every swing.

Of course Holly isn't the most coordinated person either as the cupids try to fight off the the ice cream imps from a distance. If they did get in melee range they would be in trouble, but Yumi is preventing that from happening. She looks around to see Ryuunosuke is missing, "Maybe we should go back for him? Then again the curse imps blocing their path might make that rather difficult.

And with Holly's final salvo, that seems to be the rest of the swarm. "Okay," says Anna. She thinks a moment. "Well ... What do you think, Spiral? Should we go look for him?"

Spiral shrugs. "Not much we can do from here," she says. "The Distortion will just fade if we beat the Curse Phantom, and we'll all appear on the roof of that ice cream shop. If we try to head any direction except towards the Curse Phantom ..." She hesitates, then shrugs again. "Well, we probably won't get lost, because it's easy to find our way back to the correct path, but we really need to beat the Curse Phantom as quickly as we can. You saw how it was affecting people, and if the threat level gets to four or higher, it can be lethal if we don't do anything about it."

Anna frowns, then shrugs. She's still clearly somewhat worried about Ryuunosuke, but she has the feeling he can handle himself, and Spiral is correct. "So, onward, then!"

    The swarm is torn apart, and Yumi's frown returns again. She's torn - part of her really wants to go looking for Ryuu, but what Anna's saying makes sense. "...I hate to do it, but we should keep moving. He seems like the kind of person who can take care of himself, and that's assuming he's not just following us stealthily. If he does need saving, bringing down the Phantom is the most reliable way to do it."

    It leaves a sour taste in her mouth to keep going, but it's the smartest choice right now. "Let's keep moving." She's already starting on ahead.

"If we destroy the distortion, he'll be able to escape with the rest of us!" Holly nods in agreement with Yumi. The sooner they get out of here, the better since should also return the people outside to normal as well right? "So how did you two become magic girls?" She can't help but to be curious about it. Maybe it would be possible for her to augment her own magic.

Anna makes her way through the passage. "I have a super-speed magical ability called 'Windrunner'," she says. "I've had it ever since I was a teenager, my parents even gave me driving lessons so I'd obey traffic laws. Then Spiral came here to tell me about the Curse Phantoms."

Spiral nods. "There's two categories of magical warriors in this Blossom," she says. "Heart Mages, whose power comes from within, and Star Paladins, whose power comes from Starbringers like me. We travel from planet to planet within this Blossom, wherever Curse Phantoms might be found, in search of those rare few who can actually perceive Distortions and Curse Phantoms, and help them become Star Paladins." She pauses. "After some months traveling the World Tree together, Anna decided to become a Heart Mage."

"Honestly, I'd already decided, really," says Anna. "Raven just helped me realize that's what I really wanted." She looks at Yumi. "How about you?"

    "I don't know," Yumi replies, glancing over her shoulder, then returning her attention to the path ahead. "In about five days, I'm going to experience what might as well be my first birthday. I don't remember anything before January of last year, about myself or my past. I only recently discovered these powers, but from some of the weird stuff about me, I assume they were there the whole time. It's... actually what I came here to talk to you about," she adds, throwing Anna another glance. "But I think I already have my answer. I'm probably not from this world, at least." However, that still leaves one person. "What about you, Holly?"

Holly looks ahead for any signs of danger as well before giving her story, "I was born to a family of powerful mages." Of course that doesn't explain why her own magic is weak most of the time. "I'm not from this world either but it's kind of like mine." At least in the sense they were both versions of Earth. "Maybe you should visit my world too, Yumi?" It's always possible that's she from there.

Anna frowns sympathetically at Yumi. "Oh, wow, I'm sorry to hear that!" she says. "I hope someday you can find out where you're from, and hopefully get your memories back!"

Spiral nods. "Same here," she says, sounding worried. "Unfortunately, I'm not much help. I can see that you're a magical girl and you're not a type I recognize, and not much else."

To Holly, Spiral shrugs. "Well, it's certainly different enough," she says. "Magical girls of the type Anna and Miss Tachibana are ... We're kind of defined by that whole transformation between forms. Is there anything like that in your world?"

But soon, they reach an opening into a wide cavern. It's vast, and dim; there seems to be a sort of haze, and it's impossible to see the ceiling or the other wall. Almost before they enter, an eerie clanking sound becomes audible. Plus the bouncing sound of more Curse Imps coming from behind them. "All right, here we go," says Spiral. The atmosphere here is oppressive, despite the cold. "I can't provide any specific tactics, since every Curse Phantom is different. Just keep whacking it until it dies, or until another strategy presents itself!"

    Yumi nods, giving Holly a last backward glance. "I might have to do that. I don't exactly have any leads, so anything is better than nothing." Even if a lead turns out to be a dead end, at least she's actively doing something instead of sitting there waiting. "This world feels... I dunno. Close to right, but not quite there. I..."

    Oh look, a big cavern. "...I'll ramble more later." Her armor clunks softly as she starts to step outward; and now, the runes along either side of her blade begin to light up, glowing faintly with that soft, gold-white radiance that seems to be her signature. "I'm good at improvising. I'll try to keep its attention and head off any big hits. The two of you, keep at range and do what you do best." She adjusts her grip and takes a few big, loping strides into the room, deliberately making a target of herself for whatever lairs here.

"There's magic girls, but I don't know any personally there. So what do magic users who don't transform detect to you as?" Holly can't but help to wonder what Spiral sees her as. She might have to wait to get a response since they've arrived at their destination. The cupids from earlier have vanished by now so she's going to have to find a different way of handling the curse imps.

 She once again tries to summon her own imps but ends up with Christmas elves armed with BB Guns this time. Well, at least they're equipped to handle ranged threats.

Spiral chuckles. "You read as 'magical, with potential realized'," she says. "There's some ... let's call it 'gibberish', since you aren't a magical girl. It took me months to figure out ways of reading the gibberish, too. Anyway ..."

The creature that comes into view is a shambling gargantuan mass the size of a city block, made out of rectangular blocks of metal. It has arms in the form of what appear to be several soft serve nozzles at the ends of hoses. It seems to have wheels -- over a dozen in total -- but it's using them as legs instead of rolling with them. The clanging is caused by the disparate parts knocking into each other as it moves.

Spiral looks up at the Curse Phantom. "Okay!" she says. "Looks like it's level three! The three of us working together should be more than enough!"

Several of the ice cream cone Curse Imps bounce out from under it and start running towards the heroes, but the Curse Phantom itself is faster, and charges at the heroes with reckless abandon, nozzle-arms swinging wildly! It doesn't immediately seem as though it's going to stop at Yumi, either. At the same time, another small swarm of Curse Imps start charging towards them from behind.

"Right!" says Anna, clapping her gloved hands together. "Here we go!"

    ...oh.

    Oh, dear.

    "That... is very big," Yumi murmurs softly. But her fingers curl tightly around her weapon's grip, and her expression grows serious. "Alright, first order of business, I'm going to try and stop its movement!" When the Curse Phantom charges, so does Yumi, lunging into a dead, full-speed run. While she does, her sword begins to glow in earnest, trailing faint streamers of fire as it grows from 'warm' to 'blazing hot'. She's having to go sidelong, trying to get beside the big thing rather than being in its path - both so that she doesn't get trapped under it, and so that she can run alongside it and strike. And she does strike, every time she passes one of those wheel-legs - the magical girl is doing her best to injure the beast's means of locomotion so it can't make any more of these deadly charges.

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> Lighting her sword up and striking at the wheels.

"Hey Holly, why you don't go ahead and smash the soft service machine to bits?" Lavaux finally speaks up, "Anna should be to handle the imps right? Those wimpy elves aren't going to do anything to them anyway."

 "I believe Yumi has it under control go ahead and keep using your magic." Servis tries to convice the witch to keep handling the imps. The elves do their best to try and fight off the imps but what they're able to do is limited.

The Curse Phantom staggers! Its legs give out, and it stumbles around at a snail's pace, its damaged wheels wobbling uselessly.

The Curse Imps, meanwhile, seem to be considerably wimpier than the elves, at least as a group. Though they do their best to lunge-stab at the elves, the Elves successfully take a chunk out of their number.

The remaining ones, however, seem to be lunging towards Holly, Yumi, and Anna. Anna responds by dodging out of the way at the speed of a car on a freeway, her body surrounded by a pale blue corona.

I can do this, she thinks to herself. It's why Spiral gave me the Star Gem. It's why I accepted without hesitation.

She charges right up to the Curse Phantom, slamming into it and giving it punches and kicks.

The Curse Phantom flails and clanks in response, and swings its arms wildly! It's not exactly aimed or anything; it's just not a good idea to be too close to the arms at the moment.

    Anna dives in and goes to town right about the time that Yumi shifts away, watching to see if her attack worked. It seems to have done so, better than she could have hoped. For the moment, it's less of a threat, and Anna's pounding the Phantom pretty hard - so for a second or two, Yumi turns to look at the Imps-

    -and immediately shifts to one side, letting one fly right past her head. The one that follows after, slams into her side; there's a hard THUD as it smashes into the armor, and the impact is enough to carry through to Yumi's body. She doesn't let the pain so much as slow her down, though. If anything, the imps now have her full attention. They've made a threat of themselves, especially to Holly.

    So the redhead dives into the horde, swinging her blade around ferociously. This time, there's not much tactic to it, just a long, ongoing series of attacks, leveraging the full strength of her magical girl transformation. Slash this one in half, punch that one out of the air with a gauntlet, grab the one jumping at her head and smash it into another. Somewhere along the line, she gets clipped, again and again, some of it in places her armor doesn't protect. But she just keeps right on going.

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> Yumi smash spiky bounce thingies!

Holly notices the imps are now attacking Yumi as well as the Soft Service Machine. She decides to take Lavaux's advice and decides to interevene to try and take some of the heat off of her. She rushes in and begins to pummel the machine. There's not much actually skill involved, just brute force as she tries to smash it apart. "Break already! An ice-cream machine should be making people happy not hurting them!"

The Curse Phantom shudders under Holly's assault! Actually, between that and Anna's earlier speedy attack, it looks like it's starting to fall apart. It's big for threat level three, but it seems that this is all bark and no bite.

Where's Anna gone?

She's standing a little ways away from the main group, gathering up Heart Power. She's pulling a lot of it together, actually, the energy is forming a very large ball ...

Spiral blinks at Anna. "Wait, what are you doing!?" she says.

Anna stares up at the behemoth. "Uh ... t-too much, probably!?" she exclaims.

And then she thrusts her hands forward, and a huge beam erupts forth at the Curse Phantom.

The Curse Phantom explodes in a massive shower of metal. The entire body falls apart and collapses in a loud cacophony of clanging and screeching.

A moment later, everything fades. The group finds themselves standing on top of Bellandini's Ice Cream. The emotionally oppressive feeling seems to have lightened slightly.

    Yumi turns between strikes, hearing the sound of something powerful building up. And the ball of energy Anna is pulling together is... wow. Huh. That is a lot of energy. The display puts a smile on her face, briefly, but there's at least a few seconds of 'defending herself' left before the Curse Phantom is blasted apart. Only when the Distortion fades away and the Imps are gone, does she finally relax. The glow of solar light fades from her sword, and a moment later she lets go of it - allowing the weapon to seemingly 'burn' itself away to nothing in a brief flicker of flames. "...That's it, I guess. Do they drop anything when you finish them off?" she asks, looking around. After a pause, she adds, "...and would you like me to stick around and help with the others? I'm still good to go, I don't tire out easy."

Holly calms down a bit once that've exited the distortion. "What a rush! I could go for more! Are you okay Anna? That was a lot of magic you threw out there." The witch can go another round and it sounds like Yumi was up for it." She wanted to make sure that Anna was okay first before they fight some more phantoms.

Spiral shakes her head. "No loot, no dropping-anything," she says, then focuses for a moment. "... Two more Distortions opened up while we were in there," she says, "but the four groups who handled the others have banded together, and we'll probably get them done before they hit threat-level four, without needing extra help."

Anna is bent over double. "Ahaha ... wow!" she says. She grins at Yumi. "You aren't affected even a little?" She hesitates. "... Actually, the Curse Phantom was kinda ..." She frowns.

Spiral blinks. "Now that you mention it," she says, "it didn't have as much of that aura of negative emotions, did it? Another random data-point for the evidence pile."

Anna smiles, and unsteadily tries to straighten up. She's still fairly wobbly. "I think I can go for another --"

"You need to rest, Anna," Spiral says sharply. "Usually, magical warriors wait until they're more comfortable with their abilities before they try to throw around that much power, and you're still working out the kinks of using Heart Power at all."

Anna sighs, and lets herself slump over a bit again. "I know, I know ..." She shakes her head, then grins weakly at the others. "So, uh ... who wants to go for ice cream?"

    "I'd love to stay, but I should probably head out," Yumi replies, shaking her head. "I'm banged up enough I think I need to get a little bit of healing before I get home. The man acting as my guardian, uh... he doesn't know I do all this. I don't want him to see me covered in cuts and bruises." She takes a pair of steps over to the edge of the roof, then pauses. "I can help you two down if you need it, though!"