World Tree MUSH

    It's the middle of the evening in New Donk City. It's a bustling metropolis which will be instantly recognizable to anyone who's familiar with New York City, with a few distinctive differences. For one thing, everything's remarkably clean and well-kept. For another thing, all the residents seem particularly friendly, and they all seem to wear hats like it's the 1950's. The technology, too, seems to be a mishmash of everything between the 1950's and the early twenty-first century.

    An olive-skinned elf is walking down the street from one Vine to another, a worried frown on her face, glancing at a tablet computer with a logo in Elvish from time to time. Among the New Donkers, she stands out slightly inasmuch as she's wearing shoulder- and elbow-pads and light armor, exactly like the sort that Lex Brando is often seen to be wearing when she's in action. The difference is that she's wearing a forest-green sundress and Maryjane shoes which look fairly impractical for adventuring.

    Some Vines seem to be redirecting to this part of the city. To those with supernatural senses, there's an ever-so-faint sense of unease, coming from ... somewhere.

Lucianne hasn't been to this city before, just exploring some vines in the hope of finding somewhere interesting. She hasn't noticed she's been redirected when she walks out of a big green pipe, nor does she sense any unease. She's not wearing the eyepatch, nor bothering to keep her eye closed, so that bright orb of flame is visible for all to see. "Worlds like this always feel so wrong." She mutters to herself.

    Peach is currently in New Donk City. Not for any important reason - she's just having coffee with the mayor, that's all.

    They're sat at an open-air cafe, Peach's far-too-much luggage scattered around them, leaning back and chatting away like the pair of old friends they are. Pauline is wearing her usual red dress, but Peach is wearing a modest white blouse and pink skirt rather than her usual dress. She's not even wearing her crown... unless of course it's hidden under the huge white sun hat she's sporting.

    Yumi had been planning to head home. It's not the first time a Vine has put her somewhere unexpected, but it's definitely the first time she's been a place this oddly anachronistic... or seen anyone other than Lex with gear like that. There's a pause, a soft frown, and then curiosity gets the best of her; the redhead adjusts her backpack, and moves to start following. She has yet to notice Peach or Lucianne.

    With the Vines redirecting, and Ysuran traveling, he ends up in the bustling city! So, the warp pipe emits a garlp-garlp-garlp, and just like that, there's another elf in New Donk City! He is instantly recognizable as out of place, given his pointed ears and his medieval-type clothing.

    He's about to go right back into the pipe (though not without a strange look -- why pipes, of all things?) when he pauses. That's. Not normal. Something's bad here. Or something's about to be bad. Or just... maybe something's about to happen...?

    As she happens to pass by Peach and Pauline, the elf sighs, and peers over the tablet. "No, this is quite certainly part of the route she might have taken from Hyrule," she mutters, possibly loud enough to be overheard by Peach and Yumi, and even just that low tone manages to sound prissy. "Where in the World Tree are you, Alexandra Brando?" She looks around, and blinks in surprise as she sees Yumi apparently following her. "Oh, hello," she says, straightening up. "Can I ..." At that moment, she sees Lucianne, whose glowing eye of fire gives her pause, but she quickly focuses back on Yumi. "... ah, can I help you?"

    The sense of wrongness seems to be physically getting closer, somehow. With Ysuran's particular school of magic, he just might be able to detect that it's some sort of dormant curse -- not precisely necromantic, but still hostile to life and nature itself.

    Peach and Pauline both glance up as the elven woman passes by. Peach tilts her head to one side. "Hyrule..?"

    But Pauline is standing up first. "Excuse me, are you lost?" The brown-haired woman flicks said hair away from her face. "Mayor Pauline. If there's anything you need while visiting our fair kingdom..." she trails off as she begins to take in all of the other people starting to gather around. Oh.

    Peach does her best not to giggle.

As someone who stares at her for a moment goes to address Yumi, Lucianne's gaze is drawn over and she approaches her ... she hopes friend. "Hey Yumi." She greets cheerfully, her gaze turning towards the woman, and smiles. She either hasn't overheard Lex's name, or didn't make the connection between Alexandra and Lex. She doesn't know Peach, but glances towards the woman anyway.

    'Hyrule.' 'Alexandra Brando'. Yumi hears two names she knows quite well, one a place she frequents, the other the name of the girl whose gear this woman shares. Before the woman even notices her, she's on approach, her expression curious - but also guarded. But when the elf spots Lucianne, Yumi glances that way as well, and the familiar face gets a familiar wave, but only a brief one. "Heya."

    More important is the question she has for the woman. "Are you an acquaintance of miss Brando? Is something the matter?" It's a careful, vague question, waiting to see what the stranger says before proceeding.

    Ysuran might be approaching the scene because he can feel the wrongness, possibly coming from the elf-woman. However, when he notices that he's approaching a group of people, he bows. "Greetings to you all," he offers. He has a nasally-sounding, raspy voice, the stereotypical 'scary wizard' from fantasy. The difference though, is that his tone isn't dripping with sarcasm or that certainty that he's plotting something evil. He does have a very genuine tone when he speaks, even if his voice is a little weird.

    The elven woman perks up, and bows to Pauline and Yumi in turn. "Oh, hello!" she says. There is only the slightest hesitation before she nods in greeting to Ysuran as well. "I am Ezella Eccahta -- Ezella Hawthorne -- and one of my employees has gone missing, Alexandra 'Lex' Brando. She was on business in the realm of Hyrule in another Blossom ...?" More-or-less the reason Lex would have given for why she was there. Ezella switches the tablet to a different app which seems to show a profile of Lex Brando with a neutrally-smiling photo; notably, the Elvish text is not translated by the World Tree's translation convention.

    Which suddenly pings with a distressed-sounding notification. "What?" says Ezella, looking frankly baffled. "Why would there be a cursed Atlantean entity here --"

    At that moment, the source of the uneasy feeling appears: an unmarked orange van with tinted windows. It comes around a corner, runs a red light, speeds down the street in well excess of the speed limit, tries to do a turn around the next corner which is clearly too sharp, and manages to tip onto its side with a mighty crash! Somehow, the windows manage not to break in the process.

    Pauline seems lost for words as so many offworlders gather around. She then coughs, about to say something when suddenly a van comes careening and crashing around the corner. She stares blankly for a moment, then reaches into her handbag and retrieves a bulky walkie-talky that absolutely should NOT have fit inside that bg. "Chief, we've got a situation-" she begins.

    And then Peach is on her feet and sprinting towards the crashed vehicle. "Peach, what are- ugh, for Stars sake we actually do have competent police in this kingdom, I swear..."

"Oh yeah, I was there. She said she worked somewhere which could help teach me how to fight." Lucianne answers, brow furrowing slightly as she hears Lex has gone missing. "If I'm going to have to save her life again, I'm going to need to talk to her ab--" That's when she gets interrupted by the notification, "I suppose that's a bad thing?" She glances to Yumi, "What should I do?"

    Yumi frowns a little. "I don't know her very well, but she's never mentioned an 'employer' before." She glances at Lucianne briefly, then back at the tablet. "I-"

    The van very quickly arrests all of her attention. "What the hell are they-" Before she can finish the thought, it's screeched to a crash. At that point, all other concerns go out the window, and she yells, "Luci, follow me, people are probably hurt!" In half a heartbeat, her armor has flared to life, and she's charging down the street towards the wreck at full speed... a speed which is considerably faster than a normal human.

    Ysuran remains quiet as talk of Lex is had -- he doesn't know her, and doesn't know the Blossom she would have been to/come from. No, he's concentrating more on that steadily-increasing feeling of unease. He starts to look around, a frown on his face. And it's only because he's this aware that he sees the van!

    He acts quickly -- as soon as the van tips and comes to a stop, he too is jogging over to the van, a stricken look on his face. He is quite plainly worried for whoever might have been in the van. He's not healer, but he can try to pull people out, right?

    Ezella gawks at the wreck, but once people spring into action, she relaxes, apparently trusting that it's going to be all right. She furrows her brow at Lucianne. "'Again'?" And then her eyes widen. "Oh! You were in ... Natsuto, I believe it was?"

    The door on what is now the top of the van opens, and out leaps an elf dressed entirely in black with orange trim, her face concealed by a mask bearing an emblem of the sun rising over the horizon, except upside-down. In one hand, she carries a five-foot-long high-tech curved sword, with a gleaming white blade, a black edge, and several other black markings which give the impression of running lights which are currently off. She carries herself with the calm and poise of someone for whom everything is currently going precisely as intended.

    As soon as Ezella sees that mask, she takes a step back. "Oh, shit," she says, enunciating this as prissily as ever.

    The newcomer gestures with the sword. "I will deign to speak with you in the language of the World Tree," she says, a sneer audible in her electronically-distorted voice. "I am Vanguard, a warrior of the Dawnfall." She gestures with the sword. "I am here to test Calamitta Toloquë -- in your language, Lightshard Eighteen." She doesn't look as if she's actually about to attack, though ...?

    Peach skids to a halt as somebody clambers out of the van. She... doesn't recognise the emblem, or in fact anything about this woman. She does, however, glance at the sword for a moment, ebfore adopting her best Diplomatic Smile.

    It's a pretty damn good Diplomatic Smile.

    "Princess Peach of Toadstool, Monarch of the Mushroom Kingdom, at your service. Might I suggest you put the sword away? You already have 'wreckless driving' on your rap sheet. You don't want 'assault with a deadly weapon' too."

"Yeah, I was the one who borrowed her sword." Lucianne explains, before everything goes wrong. She chases behind Yumi, being unable to exceed the speed limits of a normal human; she does fall behind some; but eventually make it. "You will make dawn fall; it is impossible for it do ought but rise." She answers with full conviction, eyes opened wide, staring right into the face of the newcomer. That eye would likely be uncomfortably wide as she approaches.

"If you want peop;e to treat your wickedness seriously, you should think of a name that doesn't show off how much of an idiot you are." She does not look afraid as she approaches, completely unarmed and unblinking. "Seriously, have you given that name any thought or did you pick it just because you thought it sounded cool?

    Ysuran backs away quickly when someone leaps out of the open van door. He regards the strange woman with a frown of confusion... for a moment. Her tone. Something in her tone sparks something in his mind, the words striking against it like steel against flint. Something in his memories just out of reach...

    He freezes. Just utterly freezes. In his eyes is a haunted, faraway look. Where has he heard this kind of thing before? Why does it seem so familiar even amongst all the unfamiliarity...?

    Much like Peach, Yumi comes to a screeching halt - quite possibly digging divots into the street with the way she plants her heels. The newcomer draws an immediate narrowing of the eyes, all the moreso when the woman begins to speak. "I don't know who or what Lightshard Eighteen is, but everything about your tone and body language says I'm probably not going to agree with whatever test you're administering."

    She has to pause for a moment then, however, to glance back at Lucianne in mild surprise over the girl's jibes. Not... the words she'd choose, but at least she's taking a stand.

    As for the words Yumi herself would choose? She brings up one fist, which begins to glow softly, a faint gold-white radiance of sunlight. "I'd strongly suggest putting the sword away and backing off until we can sort things out. Dawn's not something to take lightly."

    Vanguard ignores Peach at first, and simply chuckles at Lucianne and Yumi. She's ... slightly discomfited by that blazing fire-eye, but she's doing her best not to react to it. "Humans," she practically spits, and she makes a flicking motion towards Lucianne. There's a faint sense of magic, like a static shock ... "It was not a name I invented. The Dawnfall predates the Atlantean Catastrophe. We brought forth the Catastrophe, and in time, we will --"

    Ezella is now hiding behind Pauline. "They're elven-supremacist terrorists," she calls over. She sighs softly. "Like many elves of Atlantean Earth, they're convinced that all life in the World Tree originated in our particular home Blossom. We aren't sure if the original organization actually caused the Catastrophe of two thousand five hundred ninety-seven years ago."

    Vanguard snorts. "Be silent, traitor," she snarls, walking across the side of the van towards the back. "As for the sword ... well, I'm not going to be doing any 'assaulting' with this sword." She thumps the flat of the blade against the back, then drops it onto the pavement. "But she might."

    The back of the van bursts open, and out falls a large black metal pod, which unfolds to release a tall, battered and bruised-looking young woman with brown hair and cracked glasses ... and glowing orange elven runes wrapped around her left arm, radiating the foul sense of the curse. "-- out you big narcissistic little --" Lex looks around in confusion. "Wait, what. Ezella ...? Yumi, Lucianne, wha--"

    The sword's edge and running lights light up orange as it suddenly flies up to Lex, and her left hand is forced to close around the handle. She promptly sinks to her knees, an expression of utter despair on her face. "Wait, what," she mumbles. "Why am I feeling, like ... advanced-super-depression ... kind of thing ..."

    And then her eyes glow orange with the curse, and glowing armor forms around her left arm, travels down her side, and extends to cover her leg. She lets out a bestial roar, which sounds like two different voices vocalizing at once, and a pair of wings of orange light resembling a crescent moon sprout from her back as she suddenly lunges towards Lucianne, swinging the sword wildly with one hand!

Lucianne is not a fighter, and she's shocked when Lex comes out and attacks her, By the time she gets past her shock she has no time to dodge, so all she can do is lift her arms to try to block it. The blade has more difficulty than it probably ought to at cutting through, but nonetheless, her left arm is cut off at the wrist, the hand falling down.

Lucianne falls down soon after. "Why?" She asks, sounding hurt; and not just physically. But, true to her beliefs, she does not imply take this lying down, her right hand balling up to punch Lex in the leg. "Is this how you repay me?"

    Peach is ignored.

    She really doesn't like being ignored.

    Peach doesn't actually recognise Lex at all. Sure, they've been embroiled in the same battle before, but Peach... isn't great at recognising people she doesn't actually socialise with.

    Plus, they were on opposite sides of the map during that encounter.

    Peach trusts the two clear Heroes - Lucianne and Yumi - can take this mind-controlled girl - Peach is going after Vanguard.

    She suddenly rushes forward, attempting to grab Vanguard by the throat with a striking speed speed and a grip strength that really should not be possible from such a petite lady. "Get on the ground, you're under arrest!"

    'Elven supremacists'...

    The word 'humans' snarled with such disdain...

    'Traitor'...

    Ysuran is shaking now, an obvious tremor setting up in his whole body. The stricken look on his face would make it seem like it's in fear.

    But it's not.

    It's rage.

    Slowly his hands ball into fists at his side.

    It's this thing that happens to Lex that finally breaks through it, in time to see Lucianne be attacked. And to hear her words in response. And he freezes again, this time in sheer disbelief. "...What? Can you truly not see that she is being controlled? Can you truly not see that she is not in control of herself?" It all seems so obvious to him.

    Obvious enough, in fact, that he calls to his magic, with Words that may just scrape at the senses of the living in unpleasant ways. He raises a hand up, aiming at the Vanguard, and a ray of some kind of energy leaps from his hand, aimed at her. It's a Ray of Eneveration, so if it hits, it'll make her weaker.

>> SUMMARY[Ysuran Auondril] >> Spell: Ray of Enervation. Target: Vanguard. Effect if hit: 1d4 negative levels.

    The instant she realizes it's Lex coming out of that pod, Yumi is on the move. Something about those runes, something about what Vanguard said...

    She's far closer to Lex than she is to Lucianne, when the former picks up the sword. When the other girl drops to her knees, Yumi lunges in, concerned - and as a result, by the time she realizes what Lex is doing in that newfound armor, it's too late. "LEX NO-!"

    Too late. Too late. It was entirely too late. A friend just lost an arm because she was slow to react. Before Yumi even realizes it, she's hurling herself at Lex in a full-force tackle, trying to get her away from Lucianne while Ysuran and Peach handle the stranger.

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> Freight train tackle

    Vanguard's reaction to Lucianne losing her hand is to nod in approval. "Indeed," she says, confirming Ysuran. "Whoever your friend was, she cannot hear you. You might as well mourn her now, before the curse brings this -- ack!" She suddenly has a princess grabbing at her throat! She seems to have an uncommon amount of strength herself as she just barely manages to remain upright, and she grapples with Peach, attempting to slam her against the truck.

    And then she has a Ray of Enervation coming her way. She tries to hop to the side and pivot around Peach to try to get her into the path of the beam instead. Overall, her movements are oddly frantic, as if the reason she's fighting isn't to avoid retribution or imprisonment, but for survival.

    "Mass unification five percent," Lex growls in that double-voice. The wings flicker, and she shoots diagonally up into the air to avoid getting tackled by Yumi, then swings her sword horizontally -- too far away to cut directly, but the sword launches a sliver of orange light at Yumi, full of painful curse-energy and cutting to boot.

    "A curse?" Peach asks in a pleasant tone. "Oh, well, in that case-" Peach is taken by surprise by Vanguard's sudden swivel, and she lets out a shriek as the lance of dark magic pierces her, spreading weakness through her body...

    Then she snaps her fingers, surrounding herself with an aura of sparkles, and any lingering connection Ysuran had with his spell is suddenly severed as it's washed away.

    "...So, miss Brando is being controlled by a curse? Hmm. You probably should have kept that quiet, miss Vanguard." She smiles serenely. "I may have forgotten to mention that I am a Star Child, and purification is my primary ability. Yes, this strength is in fact secondary."

    She then promptly leans forward and tries to slam Vanguard to the floor.

>> SUMMARY[Peach] >> Peach is cursed! ... For a few moments before she removes it. Oops, curse removal specialist in range to hear about Lex being cursed.

"Again with the stupidity." Lucianne answers, her voice low and dangerous. "You know nothing." She picks up her hand, gets up and approaches Vanguard, then throws her hand at Vanguard's face, and when she speaks again her voice carries the volume and weight of someone declaring a proper Truth. "I am Lucianne Helia, and I collect on debts owed to me. I make an oath here and now that I will not rest until every last member of that small-minded, stupid, wicked terrorist group of yours has been brought to justice."

Back in Lucianne's normal voice, "But today, you are beneath me, I have a friend to save, so shut up and learn your place." She runs towards Lex and shouts, "Lex Brando. Snap out of it, you're stronger than to let these idiots control you. I didn't save your life so these halfwits could turn you into their puppet. If I need to break every bone in your body to make you snap out of it, I will, so don't let it come to that."

>> SUMMARY[Lucianne Helia] >> Justice will be served, one day. But today, trying to get Lex to snap out of it.

    Lex lifts off, and Yumi's tackle turns into a tumbling roll. She comes out of it gracefully enough, then leaps straight after the airborne girl in armor. With a fast leap like that, the senshi doesn't even have a chance to dodge the incoming attack - so she doesn't. She takes it square on the breastplate of her armor, which takes a deep gouge but repels the physical component of the attack. The curse magic passes right through, drawing a hiss of pain; but her sheer toughness keeps her moving without so much as a falter.

    But one obvious tackle didn't work, and Lex is now in the air. Surely another similar move, with less maneuverability on Yumi's part and more on her target's, won't bear any fruit? Well. Straightforward she might be, but Yumi favors a think-on-her-feet, observational approach. As the attack hits her breastplate, she's already flinging her right hand forward; in front of her palm, there's a sudden, blindingly bright flash, timed just right to serve as a distraction. She's hoping it will give Lex pause just long enough for her to get her arms around the girl. "LEX! I don't know you that well, but I know you're not cold and ruthless! Don't let this thing beat you! Don't let it tell you what to be!"

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> Tanking the hit, trading it for a solar flare distraction into an air tackle.

    Ysuran hisses as the Ray of Enervation hits Peach. That was a bit ill-considered, honestly, to use ranged attacks when there's an ally in melee range with the Vanguard. But then he realizes that she's able to remove that curse from herself. That's a relief. But still, he's not going to be doing that again.
    No, this time he's going to do something ELSE ill-advised. He calls to the Shadows around him, his arms going out to his sides. As he speaks his Words, shadows seem to wrap about his hands, forming around them until his hands are covered by what look like shadowy claws that seem to radiate cold.

    The ill-advised thing is that he's going in to melee range with the Vanguard with those claws, taking a swipe at her. He's not going to be folled into hitting Peach a second time, so he comes at the Vanguard from next to Peach rather than opposite her.

>> SUMMARY[Ysuran Auondril] >> Spell: Claws of Darkness. Target: Vanguard. Effect: 1d8 cold damage on hit

    "Shit," says Vanguard, a split second before she hits the concrete.

    For a second, the wind is knocked out of her. Then she manages jump back to her feet and away from Ysuran, but not fast enough to completely avoid getting a few chilly cuts through her uniform, drawing blood. She hisses through clenched teeth, and jumps back away from the two. She stares for a moment at Lucianne's thrown hand, and then shakes her head as if to clear it. "Are you telling me you genuinely needed me to say it out loud in order to figure out that she was cursed?" she asks Peach. She sighs theatrically, which sounds odd with the electronic distortion. "This is why you're all ultimately doomed, even without letting the curse detonate. Toloquë!" ('Eighteen!')

    "Mass unification at twelve percent," Lex says, as if in response. And then a surge of orange light erupts from the sword and the armor on her arm and leg, and coalesces to form a black-haired girl made out of hard light, glowing with the orange of the curse and holding a ghostly copy of the sword currently fused to Lex's hand. "Combat form manifested," she says, and Lex simultaneously growls out the same words in the double-voice caused by the curse. The sword-spirit's expression is blank -- almost uncertain -- but there's nevertheless a faint sense of grim determination in her eyes as she shoots through the air, making a beeline towards Peach and Ysuran. She swings the ghost-sword at the princess and the necromancer with careful, precise slashing motions.

    And for a split second after Lucianne speaks, Lex hesitates. "Error," she growls, looking slightly dazed from Yumi's flash of light. "Insufficient bones --" The sword zips sideways, almost tugging Lex through the air; it's not enough to escape the tackle completely. But then the sword moves on its own, attempting to make identical careful and precise slashes against Yumi's face. Just with ... a little more force than the spirit is doing.

    Off to the side, Ezella stares at the screen of her tablet. "The signature is quite similar to that of the curse of the Catastrophe ..." She looks up. "Ah, yes, Miss Brando! Do please come to your senses! Your parents instructed me to ensure your survival when you joined the Guild, you know!"

>> SUMMARY[Lex Brando] >> Vanguard: taking some hits and getting Lightshard 18 to conjure up a sword spirit, which attacks Ysuran and Peach. Cursed!Lex struggles with Yumi. Ezella watches.

    "Remarkably, what counts as a curse and for that matter magical physics differs from world to world. Give me a few minutes with her and, sure, I could figure out it was a curse. But you saved me those few minutes, so thank you for that, you condescending bitch."

    It may be a bit of a shock to hear such language coming out of Peach's mouth, and delivered with such a serene tone to boot.

    She turns to see the sword-spirit(?) surging towards her, and she sighs. "Gonna need a Power Star for this," she says as she promptly leaps up out of the way, landing on a canopy; leaving Ysuran to deal with the cursed sword while she hunts for a Power Star. "Do your best, Hero!" she calls to Ysuran.

>> SUMMARY[Peach] >> Peach said the b-word!! ... Also she's looking for a Power Star. Probably one in one of these shops somewhere...

    Ysuran is focusing on Vanguard, not the sword-spirit. It's only Peach's attention moving to the sword spirit that makes him realize there's a problem. He's forced to move away from Vanguard to avoid getting carved up. And still he takes a gash to his arm, emitting a hiss that's almost more serpentine than a sound made by a sapient creature. But it gets the Vanguard breathing room.

    Now, he doesn't know Peach to think strangely of her using that word. Either way, though, he silently agrees! He also has no way of knowing why this whole situation upsets him so much, either... amnesia is hard to overcome. All he knows is that he has a violent dislike of this Vanguard and her whole condescending attitude.

    ...Also he'll have to correct Peach's assessment later -- he's no hero. Right now, though... fight. Explain later.

    To that end, since he seems to have been left to deal with a double-dose of bad guy (whether Vanguard decides to attack or not, she's still a valid enemy target, as is the sword-spirit attacking him), he once more calls to the Shadows in those Words that chafe the living. This time the Shadows take form before him, into the shape of a vaguely humanoid (yet nonetheless quadripedal) shadow demon. This he sends after the Vanguard, as he faces the sword-spirit, watching for weak points.

>> SUMMARY[Ysuran Auondril] >> Spell: Shadow Conjure. Target: Vanguard. Effect: Summons a weak Shadow to attack

"Alexandra Brando." Lucianne yells, quite loudly. "Stop this nonsense, right this instant." She does not look old enough to have a mom voice, but that's definitely mom voice. "You're better than this, and you know it. Get a hold of yourself." She folds her arms, deliberately putting the ... no longer bleeding stump on top. It's still clearly a raw, fresh wound.

    Yumi's grip very nearly slips, but she manages to snare an arm around Lex's waist, and from there holds on for dear life. "Your name is not 'Toloquë'! You are Lex Brando! You've been helping liberate Hyrule! You came to my world and got pulled into a youma's web protecting some kids! You are not a cold killer, don't let this curse make you-"

    Sword strikes. Sword strikes at her face. The first one clips her cheek, the senshi not quite avoiding it - but that's still a lot less damage than that blade should be doing to bare skin. She's bleeding, but her cheek should be wide open. And the second strike, she doesn't even try to avoid; instead, her free arm snaps up, putting her gauntlet right in the way to block the strike. "Don't you let some bloodthirsty sword swing you like a weapon!"

    Hanging onto Lex in the air like this, she can't quite reach the girl's face - or rather, she could, but she'd have to sacrifice her hold to do so. So instead, she swings her fist upward and aims for Lex's arm instead, hoping the blow will break the sword's grip on Lex, or Lex's grip on the sword.

    Vanguard snickers at the shadow demon, and shakes her head, gesturing for the sword-spirit to interpolate herself in front of the shadow. "Unfortunately, I'll have to decline playing with your monsters, as I'm out of time," she says, as the spirit begins carefully and deftly slashing at the beast. "And so, within the next few minutes, are you." She then starts leaping and jumping towards the nearest pipe ... Vine.

    As a result, she misses what happens next.

    Lex keeps twitching with every word directed at her. Ezella, Lucianne, Yumi ... it's clearly that they're starting to work! "Mass ... unification at ... nineteen ..." she says in that double-voice from the curse. "... nineteen ... twenty ... per ..." The sword-spirit is starting to sound outright confused as it echoes her words, more and more uncertainty in her eyes.

    That is, until Yumi starts that punch. With another roar in that double-voice, and swings her blade as hard as she can, meeting fist with the glowing orange edge of the blade with the superhuman strength afforded to her by the curse.

    There's a loud crunch. Glowing orange fragments from the word's edge go flying. Some cracks are visible on the white blade. In mid-swing, the sword-spirit flickers and vanishes.

    There's a brief pause as Lex's enraged snarl changes to an expression of shock. She lets out a strangled scream, and one of the two voices doesn't even sound feminine anymore. The wings vanish, she goes limp in Yumi's arms, and the sword hangs limply at her side, the orange light in her eyes sputtering and starting to die.

    Ezella stares. "Did you get her?" she says lamely.

    Peach is far too distracted rummaging through the closest store - a jewelry store, it turns out - for a Power Star. Of course, they have several in the back - they're used as emergency power sources in case the power grid goes down, after all. After pratically throwing money at the cowering shop owners, she dashes out into the street with a glowing yellow star.

    She stands tall, and takes a deep breath. She brings the star up in front of her, where it floats between her hands, slowly shrinking and fading as she absorbs its power. The princess gains a bright yellow aura, and then a pair of large, ethereal wings erupt from her back.

    Her eyes are glowing yellow now, too. She's a glowing beacon of power.

    "Bowser Koopa once invaded the Mushroom Kingdom. As a Star Child, he is the most powerful magikoopa on the planet - he cast a spell to transform all of my subjects into inanimate objects. Then he kidnapped me." She sketches out the shape of a star in the air before her, fingers leaving a trail of sparkles causing the image to hang in the air. "Because I am the one person on the planet whose power to purify exceeds his power to curse, so he needed me to be locked away. What I'm trying to say is, well... Become pure!" she finishes off with a shout in an authoritative tone, and stomps one foot. The star she sketched out shatters, and a pulse of purification emenates from her body like a bomb.

    If nothing else, this block is going to be really clean for a while.

>> GAME >> Peach spends an Edge for: Star Magic: Purify!

Lucianne feels frustrated, like all she can do is yell and hope that she's getting through to Lex. She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding when the uncertainty comes, and then the sword-spirit fades, and she sighs in relief before falling to the ground, eyes closing before her shoulder even hits the ground. She's lost a fair amount of blood and spent a fair bit yelling, perhaps it's catching up to her.

    The sword cracks, the wings disappear. Yumi finds herself suddenly holding a floating girl several feet off the ground.

    But 'catching a falling person' is very nearly instinct for a magical girl, and Yumi gets the bonus of starting halfway through the job already. All she has to do is adjust her grip and land, using her own body to absorb the shock harmlessly. She's still holding Lex as the wave of purification passes over them. "I... I don't know, she replies to Ezella, shaking her head. Then Lucianne drops to the ground, and the redhead winces. "I- can someone take a look at her? She lost an arm, she needs medical atten... tion..." The bleeding already stopped? That's... interesting.

    The shadow demon is not incredibly strong, but it is very fast, and leaps out of the way of most of the sword-spirit's strikes. However, it is not winning this battle, even with its speed. Ysuran tries to follow the Vanguard -- with Haste, of course -- but then there's the loud crash from the sword controlling Lex, and Ysuran stops to look back and check on things.

    And he loses Vanguard.

    And there's the 'two' of the one-two punch -- Peach's purification. The shadow demon screeches and disappears, its body unraveling like a melting plastic bag. Fortunately it doesn't seem to affect Ysuran negatively. Having lost Vanguard anyway, he returns to where Lex looks like she... might be coming out of it? He pauses to take stock of the situation.

    Lex looks up at Peach as she begins to make that speech. "Error ... ... I'm ... it's ... holding ... at ... twen ..."

    Then the purification magic hits her, and she goes silent. The sword dematerializes into geometric blocks of light, which flow into the armor on her arm and leg. Similar to the sword spirit, the armor flickers out and vanishes.

    Revealing that she doesn't have a left arm and leg anymore.

    She begins bleeding profusely, both from the stumps and all down her side where the armor previously covered, and she lets out a yelp. "Gghhhhh okay I mean ow ..."

    Peach wavers a bit, then stumbles forward. She manages to catch herself, however, and stands up straight again. "Aah it's been a while since I've done that, I forgot how much..." She looks over towards Lex.

    "Oh."

    She promptly spins around, pulls out a cell phone, and starts calling an ambulance.

    "-ah." Okay, the disappearing arm and leg are a problem. A big one. Yumi carefully lowers Lex to the ground, quickly looking around for something, anything she might use. A tourniquet's not possible when there's just no arm or leg to tie off. The best she can do right now is staunch the bleeding. In a flash, her magical girl clothes are gone, replaced by normal street clothes, and Yumi is taking off her jacket as fast as she can in hopes of using it to staunch the bleeding. A quick glance upward, first to Ysuran, then to Ezella, and then Yumi yells, "Both of you, get over here! We need to stop the bleeding, can either of you cast healing spells? Do first aid? Something?"

    Ysuran shakes his head to Yumi's question. "No, I'm afraid I have no healing magics," he offers, as he gets closer to Lex and crouches. "I can offer a makeshift tourniquet, but that's all, I fear." He has ropes in his pack -- no adventurer worth their salt leaves home without them! So he'll move to assist with this, unless someone else takes over. He'll offer the rope either way, though.

    Ezella scoots over. "I'm afraid I have no healing magic of my own," she says quickly. "And the only healing magic I know of which could be sufficient is not presently within this world." She looks at Ysuran. "But, yes, a tourniquet is the perfect place to start, in the circumstances."

    Lex laughs weakly, and then grunts in pain. "So ... you're ... succeeding, then," she stammers. "In ... the ... me not dying thing." Her voice has gone all the way through 'scratchy and androgynous' and into 'just plain weird'. She looks around nervously. "Is ... is ... is Lucianne all right ...? Oh jeez I want to ... punch Vanguard ..." She groans. "... with my ... one remaining fist ..."

    The moment Peach snaps her clamshell cell phone shut, there are sirens, and then there are ambulances. EMTs get to work, ushering heroes aside to let professionals handle it! Lex and Lucianne are soon strapped into ambulances, while the other heroes have any wounds they may have received tended to.

    "Don't worry, miss Brando. She's going to receive the best medical care money can buy. You too, incidentally," Peach says idly, before flipping her phone open again, turning away, and making a few discrete calls.

    Pauline, meanwhile, is coordinating efforts to locate Vanguard or at least get her van out of the goddamn road.

As Lucianne is strapped into the ambulance, her stray hand begins to dissipate into wisps of energy, like tiny embers, which then chase the ambulance she's in down.

    Ysuran has seen these people in the 'weee-ooo' vehicles before. He's seen what they do, and knows that they're medical people. So as they appear it's little issue getting him out of the way so they can help Lex and Lucianne.

    And yes, once he's out of the way, he looks to Peach. "Ah, miss? What you said earlier. I'm no hero," he offers humbly. "I'm simply a traveler. I... merely happened to be here -- and not only did two people receive grevious injuries, but the one responsible managed to elude me."

    "She's... I think she's fine," Yumi replies as she works. "She stopped bleeding really fast. Like a minute or two at most." Way faster than a normal person, she doesn't add; that much is obvious. It's fast enough to suggest some kind of self-healing, though she'll still keep an eye on Lucianne. "I'm more worried about you." Peach gets a thankful look for calling the ambulance; as soon as the EMTs are there, Yumi gladly and quickly gets out of the way.

    Her own injuries could be a lot worse. There's a cut on her cheek, the welt on her arm where she blocked the blade, and... well, whatever mark the curse component of that sword slash might have left. She'll sit patiently while the cut is tended to, though if anyone else seems to need it more, Yumi will absolutely urge the paramedics to take care of them first.

    She does watch the wisps that used to be a hand, though, with a curious frown.

    Whatever mark the curse might have left on Yumi is gone -- cleansed away by Princess Peach's perfect purification. All that's left is Lex's ghastly energy.

    "Okay, awesome," says Lex as the EMTs start loading her into the ambulance. "I mean, or ... the fast-healing is ... weird, but. I can. Worry about that another time ..." She stops, and then grins weakly. "Oh no, I just thought of the worst thing ..." She clears her throat, and gestures with the stump of her left arm. "'Can you give me a hand?'" she says, with what little theatricality she can muster. "'I don't have any left.'"

    Ezella lets out an exasperated sigh.

>> SUMMARY[Lex Brando] >> Exit, stage Lex.

    Yumi barely chokes back a snort. Darnit Lex, that's just not fair.

    Peach snaps her phone closed again, and turns to eye Ysuran. "...Just a traveller, is it? Hmm. Well, Traveller, there are several definitions of 'hero' out there. 'Good guy who catches all the bad guys and doesn't let anyone get hurt' is just one of them, and, might I add, is a fairly childish idea of what a hero is to boot. No, a hero is... a person who tries to help. A person who tries to make a difference, a person who has power and uses it to help others."

    She then reaches up and removes her hat... revealing that, yes, her cown is under there. "...But if that's not enough for you..." She coughs. "Let it be known that I, Princess-Regnant Peach Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom do hereby grant the title of Hero to all those who aided in the defense of the Metro Kingdom from Vanguard of the... Dawn-something group, I forget what it's called, I'll had the official declaration edited to include the correct name." She then reaches out to boop Ysuran's nose, before spinning around and striding off.

    "So you can take your modesty and stuff it, Hero!"

    Ysuran is not surprised by the speech. He is surprised by the crown, however. But the thing that surprises him the most? The boop on the nose. He's not used to people voluntarily choosing to touch him, since he's... well, fairly unpleasant by his world's standards. That said he's not about to call himself anything close to the worst thing there is out there in the World Tree. That would be arrogant.

    So for the moment he just... blinks. He doesn't say anything for the moment, but... well, what can he say? He does think of one thing that he eventually does say. With a bow to Peach, he offers, "Th-thank you, Your Highness." Since she's a princess and all, she gets a title!

    "Dawnfall," Ezella prompts Peach. She smiles faintly at Ysuran. "And I cannot agree more with Her Highness's views on the nature of a hero. Simply 'in the right place at the right time' is sufficient in many cases."

    She waits until the ambulances are out of sight, then gets out her tablet computer, motioning for Yumi and Ysuran to look. "Besides which, I have ... a concern."

    The screen shows a snapshot with a three-dimensional silhouettes of Lex and the EMTs just as she was getting loaded up. It's all blue ... except for an odd shade of mint-green in most of what remains of Lex's left half, as well as a faint orange mark in the depths of her form, the same shade of orange as that displayed by the curse.

    "I would want her to be examined by an expert in the curse which is synonymous with the Atlantean Catastrophe," she says. "... such as Dr. Goldenhair, whose views are ... well, he believes we elves of Atlantean Earth have a stronger connection to the World Tree than we actually do, the same premise from which the Dawnfall derives." She takes a deep breath; apparently, Dr. Goldenhair is a bit of a touchy subject for her. "But from my own device's cursory examination, I fear that the curse was not destroyed; it has merely fled." She pauses. "And I haven't the faintest idea what that other energy is, either ..."