1426/Falling Lights, Rising Stars

Falling Lights, Rising Stars
Date of Scene:	29 April 2016
Location:	Mitakihara/Pikarigaoka - King Penguin Park
Synopsis:	When the stars go out, someone must come to bring them back and destroy the Starless. Several magical girls (and a boy? Iunno there was a skirt there...) move to do just that and we see the power of the Star Touched first-hand!
Cast of Characters:	Natsumi Matsumoto, Hoshi Kogane, Norie Okana, Chloe Stingray, 152

---

Natsumi Matsumoto has posed:
The night air was cool and crisp, sunset having arrived early. The wind came in short, but warm bursts out of the east relieving the likelihood of the coolness setting in for long.

But it was not the temperature of any sort that brought a chill to the bone this night. By now, the stars should have been slowly dotting the sky with their silver-y brilliance above the park. But instead a total blankess enveloped the sky, rolling darkness that covered the stars and lessened the glow of the waning gibbous moon above. It was something some may only notice on some level that they were not aware of, a inner-self who is always looking to the stars.

But still others... Those who can feel the magical ambience of the world, they'd might well feel something else entirely. That darkness brough feelings of negativity with them. This might have been easy to explain away if it wasn't quite so powerful. It was clearly magical in nature, this consuming darkness.

Hoshi Kogane has posed:
Hoshi's Chroma Crystal warns her of this darkness, as it always does, through a little itch. She knows exactly what it means, and thus as she gets up on the balcony of the family apartment, she says the simple incantation. "Chroma Prism Yellow, transform!"

Moments later, Prism Keeper Yellow is jumping, leaping and at parts even briefly flying towards the park, the direction from which she feels the darkness. As she reaches the park, she lands, looking up. "... the stars are gone." One of her stars pops out in the air next to her, a horrified expression on its face.

Norie Okana has posed:
Nighttime.

Hunting time for Lacrima.

Lowering her energy needs wasn't a choice she wanted to make, but it's one she had to. This meant dropping the Norie guise and being Lacrima more. That being said. Burning emotions hot the past few days hasn't exactly been good for her. She needs to 'eat' tonight and that meant finding someone to drain.

She floated from tree to tree in the park as she often did in the nightime. It was dark. Something felt off. She'd always taken the stars for granted- more so than usual. Did she notice them gone?... she did.

She pursed her lips a moment as she felt that enveloping darkness.

It's almost comforting when she's like this.

Almost.

She floats along into another tree trying to figure out where exactly it may be enamating from.

Chloe Stingray has posed:
    Emergency!! Danger!! comes the call from Chloe's necklace as she gets ready to head home from school. Chloe stopped as she looked at the blue orb upon her neck. "really. Give me a direction." She says turning and....."never mind. I can see it."

No stars in the sky were bad news, whether she wanted to admit it or not. "Here we go again." She almost sounds excited. "Burning Soul. Activate."

Acknowledged. Stand By. Setting up. The orb says as Chloe holds her left hand out......and pixelated flames flow across her form and the staff appears from the now red orb. Her jacket appears from these flames and she begins to float into the air. "Lets go take a look."

Kanata Shirahime has posed:
Early to bed, early to rise: that's Kanata's motto, at least after he's already fulfilled his part of the Contract for the moment. He doesn't have to be out patrolling, so he doesn't bother. This magical girl (.../boy/) thing he's got to deal with isn't really something he does by choice! He'd much rather catch up on sleep and not fall behind in school any more than he has. So there he is, all settled in, drifting to sleep...

Kanata is awakened by the sound of a scratch, like a record skipping tracks. He sits bolt upright, eyes wide and long hair in a state of 'frazzled'. He looks out his window...

"Where... are the stars?"

Hastily, Kanata gets out of bed and starts changing out of his pajamas, mumbling about the inconvenience. He's just barely fully dressed when he extends his hand upwards, summoning his Origin Key. The staff descends, falling out of thin air while he spins his meaningful words:

"Spread widely, to the end of the sky!"

Light fills his room. Outside in the hall, pawing at the door, Moeru makes his disappointment at missing the transformation sequence known by wailing inconsolably until he gets snatched up and dragged away.

    AND THEN

Kanata lands on a rooftop overlooking the park. His pigtails blow in the wind. He's too concerned with the sky to worry about the awful skirt he's stuck with. Moeru, similarly distracted by the dire portents, clings to the shoulder of the magical 'girl'. Kanata looks up, concerned, while Moeru looks thoughtful and determined (catface aside). "What could have done this...?"

"Too many things to guess, Kana-tan~" Moeru says. Kanata twitches, clenching his teeth. Moeru smirks, glad to get his charge more alert with the unwanted nickname. "Just keep an eye out for anything unusual, alright?"

"That's kind of hard when it's so dark..." Kanata plants the butt of his lamppost-like staff on the roof, squinting into the distance.

Natsumi Matsumoto has posed:
Things began to emerge from the patches where even the meager light of the moon didn't light and no shape could truly be distinguished. These things... They had no definite shape aside from humanoid, coming in all sizes and barely able to be scene against the backdrop of this darkened night. They were only noticeable as they were darker still, shapes of pure blackness against the lighter dark.

They all looked to the sky too and as they do, the miasma of negativity enveloping the air grows thicker as the Starless grow happier. Any darker and they'd be able to ascend but now... Now they may walk about in this shadow they've wrought. That is enough for now.

Natsumi Matsumoto, astrology geek and astronomy flop, was there to see all this from across the street of the park. She'd intended to come to just lie on the grass beneath the stars but that didn't seem possible. Not with the crab charm on her bracelet pulsing in a steady ruby glow. There was only one thing that could mean, and she muttered darkly about the Starless under her breath before extending her lift wrist out, the charm pulsing brightly as she intoned, "Oh ye Stars, Guide My Hand! I call upon the formation of Cancer! The Crab, Let Thee Shine!".

The bracelet expanded, charms all bursting into bright swathes of different coloured light. A starmap began to be apparent before her as a wide-circle of glistening air and then it started to shift, the charms broken from the chain and taking the place of the stars of the map. As it shifted they moved, becoming different constellations in the sky, fluctuating between six different ones before stopping at a specific one that glowed a deepening ruby red.

PULSE. Natsumi stepped into the ring, eyes closed and the light seemingly sticking to her. The charms seemed incorporeal and then from the other side she emerged.

Starlit Cancer sighed, looking over the bright white and ruby red uniform that now adorned her. It was for all accounts her second time wearing this, and it still startled her.

Her hair was adorned with a ruby crab upon a big white bow and then down from there was another bow of white with a pin of a crab about her throat. Then came the top, long sleeves ending in a billowing styled set of crab claws, a mix of white and ruby set out. Her skirt reached her knees and billowed in the wind, white streaked with the ruby red.

Chloe Stingray has posed:
    Incedentally, Chloe would fly right by Starlit Cancer as she flies to check out the Miasma of negative energy. "Yikes. Even Joy would have hissy fits looking at this." She says as she flies closer, feeling around to see what others are coming. She guesses That one girl she flew over will join up as well....

Norie Okana has posed:
Lacrima steps to the end of the branch she's on and looks down, tapping her bottom lip in thought a moment. Others were transforming and arriving. She let herself fall from the branch to the ground, letting herself be more known as she looks up and around and---

There's some sort of big staff weidling girl... some sort of red magical girl and--- some sort of crab themed girl. What..?

She raised a brow.

She's still not seeing anything. She looked around.

"I feel something kindred but...." she mutters to no one in particular.

Hoshi Kogane has posed:
Prism Keeper Yellow notices the critters take shape, and the little star floating next to her flies into the little telescope she holds in her hand. The girl then points that very same tool at one at these dark critters, Lacrima for now excluded in the list of Dark Critters, and fires a simple beam of purifying Yellow.

Kanata Shirahime has posed:
There's a light in the darkness. It catches Kanata's attention the moment it appears. His eyes track over to it, widening while the lights shine and swirl and... something happens. In a place this dark, it's hard to miss it, but he doesn't immediately catch what. "Unusual... like that?"

Moeru's eyes light up. "Another magical girl! You should go introduce yourself, Kana-tan! I bet they know what's going on." The cat looks up suddenly, and then to the left, spotting another in the air and a third descending from the trees. "This must be bigger than we thought," he says seriously.

Kanata is almost positive he's been spotted, which might explain why he's suddenly a bundle of nervous energy instead of curious and collected. This get-up is just too much to handle. "E-er... right. Maybe..." Kanata takes a deep breath --

He jumps, leaping off the rooftop and into the park itself. He touches down on a tree, nearly losing his balance but swaying to the side /just/ right to keep it. It's little things, moments like that, that remind him why he does this at all. (Besides the consequences of /not/ doing it, that is.) He starts to make another hop -- and then sees the moving dark in the darkness before he does. Kanata holds his staff in both hands, channeling magic into the weapon. The orb at the top lights up with a bright blue light, the color of the sunlit sky, casting it into the darkness.

/That/ is when he takes that other jump. Kanata sails over Prism Keeper Yellow's head, double-taking at the presence of yet another magical girl in the vicinity, and lands a short ways from Lacrima and Starlit Cancer, somewhere between both of them. He looks to both, head turning quickly, and asks just as quick, "Does anyone know what's going on here, or what those things are?!"

It sounds a little hurried, but that's because Kanata sort of is. The less time he spends transformed, the better!

Natsumi Matsumoto has posed:
@emit As the energy attacks go, two or three Starless fall from both Prism Keeper Yellow and Kana-tan's strikes against them. Seemingly they collapse back into spots of darkness that race across the ground towards where they originated from. Perhaps more obvious though is that with the fall of these two or three, some of the sky lightens up and a few stars shine through with a bright radiance after their absense.

Starlit Cancer's charms connect together and cease glowing, her Starbeam floating before her before she takes it in hand. As she does so, the wand expands into a quarterstave that ends in two quaint ruby red claws. Quaint, yet ominous. She then notices everyone there, and calls out. "Um! Wait! I can tell you what these are!".

She herself doesn't wait, and begins to speak. "Those things are the Starless... They're from real darkness and negative feelings, which they just create even more of. They want to blot out the sky, supposedly so they can go live there.". A silly goal, but perhaps with further thought it is a dark and sinister goal considering what comes with the Starless.

She noticed the attacks hitting them too and blinked. "Well... I guess there's more hope than I thought about dealing with them... I'm Starlit Cancer, of the Crab sign.".

Chloe Stingray has posed:
    Chloe floats down near Cancer and tilts her head as she listens. "And only those with positive feelings can hurt them I'll bet." She says as she looks to Lacrima and Prism Keeper yellow. "So....it's like a blob of sorts." She then makes a face. "Well. Let's see what this does."

"Fire Bolts." A Magical diagram appears under her and five red orbs appear over her shoulder. "Fire." And she points in the direction of the darkness. They streak towards the darkness and lance through making holes in the darkness.......seems they're guided bolts too....

Hoshi Kogane has posed:
"They sound bad. We can't let them do that." Yellow answers Starlit Cancer, and she starts to fire a dozen little yellow stars into the sky, where they whizz about and glow, and form all kinds of strange and disorienting patterns. Their glow is empowered by purifying colour energy, which would make the disorienting effect far stronger against the dark entities around.

Norie Okana has posed:
Lacrima looks to Starlit Cancer and blinks once and then finally looks up. "Oh." she says.

She looks down. "So that's why...." she frowns a bit and sighs some. How much help can she really be here? Can darkness fight darkness? Is that a thing? Darkness usually likes other darkness. That's one thing she's learned.

"I'm not sure if I can help here." she says softly. "My name is Lacrima. I'm out...."

"...feeding..." she says ominously.

She purses her lips and looks back up. "I guess I can..."

"Try...?" she asks.

She raises her hand and a pulse of dark energy builds up along it, before a jagged bolt rakes up skywards with the other shots. This energy feels wrong and bad when she uses it.

Kanata Shirahime has posed:
Kanata doesn't really shoot energy bolts. Kanata can make his staff glow, and hits people with a stick. He is not very good at this whole 'magical girl'-ing thing.

"Okay! Right! We'll --" Fire shoots down. Bright yellow bolts, like a shower of falling stars, appear. Jagged bolts of energy shoot up, and a dischordant noise follows them, audible only to Kanata. He jerks his head away from Lacrima, like she was a squealing speaker in a badly-tuned sound system.

"Get in there, Kana-tan!" Moeru urges. He hops off his shoulder and stays safely in the back.

"Right!" Kanata leans forward, crouching in almost a runner's start -- and then blurs forward, propelling himself into the midst of the dark shapes like a silver-haired streak. He swings his staff like a baseball bat, the power thrumming through the magic weapon augmenting his already superhumanly strong swings. He's all power and no finesse, laying into the Starless whenever the comforting blue glow of his staff reveals them.

He kind of likes this part, too. Maybe that's not a good thing, though...

Natsumi Matsumoto has posed:
The Starless draw back from Prism Keeper Yellow's glowing stars and some of them fell from Bullet Jacket Chloe Stingray's fireballs, although when they suddenly grew agitated and angry it was not these things that did so. No, they'd felt the stars coming out and their power lessening from the loss but they couldn't see where it was and kept stumbling into one another and briefly becoming one made of two and things like this until they stopped moving.

They felt Lacrima's power and they froze, their eyes drawn to her. They'd almost started to advance forward before a stall to this plan came in the form of Kana-tan, laying waste to them amongst their ranks. Still, at least half a contigent of them remains standing as the others go and half the sky is still covered in darkness.


Starlit Cancer gave a sigh and held the Starbeam before her. There was only one thing for this. "Starlight Shine Bright! By my right as Starlit Cancer, the Crab, I call!". The Starbeam glows and then the glow shoots up, bright ruby red against the sky as it penetrates the darkness. Something seems to stir in it's depths and then from above comes a giant celestial crab.

It descends into the morass of Starless that Kana-tan hadn't touched and begins to lay evident waste to them as a shape made of stars. More and more swathes of the sky begin to reveal themselves and Starlit Cancer gives a ragged breath as she watches the display, looking to all of them although her eyes linger on Lacrima. "Thank most of you for helping although... Lacrima was it? Perhaps some other method might be good to help you deal with them. I think they wanted you when they felt that.". Like attracts like.

Norie Okana has posed:
Lacrima looks to Starlit Cancer and frowns. "I have no other way of combat, I'm afraid." she says. "My power is like thiers." she says softly. "Do you understand? Sadly..."

"It seems I won't be too much help here." she says as she presses her teeth together- a bit frustratingly.

"I have no clue what they'd do with me." she insists.

Chloe Stingray has posed:
    Chloe watches as the sky is completely revealed....and she calls her bolts back to her....and finally makes them disappear, along with the cicle underneath her. "Ah...more work for the magical girls." Chloe says with a chuckle. She turns towards Cancer and tilts her head. "Sooo...these things are all negative emotions, hmm?" but she does look to Lacrima. "it's possible you could be like a beacon to them. Instead of them absorbing you, you could be a bit of a trap for them." She then makes a face. "Sounds weird, but it'd be a seriously easy way to do it. It's insulting to you though."

Kanata Shirahime has posed:
Kanata turns around with a wide, sweeping gesture, smashing aside the shapes of utter darkness. These aren't quite like the Noise he's used to, but they 'sound' similar. Maybe it's their similar nature, being entities of negative emotions. Is that what he's picking up on? He wonders, briefly, if all youma are like that.

A giant flippin' star crab comes down and lays waste to the rest of the opposition. Kanata stares, wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. Moeru slides into the frame with a similar expression. One of the Starless tries to sneak up on him from the other side, which he smacks over the head with his staff one-handed, still staring.

"Was that... the real power of a magical girl?" Kanata is in awe.

"Maybe you should practice more, Kana-tan," Moeru asides, slyly. Kanata scowls at the cat, for just a moment.

Kanata puffs out his cheeks and claps his hands to his face. Focus! He turns to the other girls. "So if you're all, er, magical girls..." Kanata looks to Lacrima. "...why do you have a power like those monsters?"

Natsumi Matsumoto has posed:
The Starless have been banished back to the place they arise from, wherever that actually is. The night seems completely normal now, with the warm breeze blowing gently through the trees and pushing against the coolness.

The giant star crab starts to dissipate, and with it starts to go Starlit Cancer's hold on her power. Too much used at once, perhaps. The quarterstave shrinks into a wand and then breaks into the charms, strung up once again. The magical girl clothes recede in a slow, weak glow of ruby red until all that remains is Natsumi Matsumoto. The strand wraps around her wrist with a *SNIP* as they clasp at end end and she slumps to the ground, looking at the others. "Sorry.".

Norie Okana has posed:
Lacrima looks to Kanata and frowns. "Because I'm a vampire. I don't want to be. But it's what I am." she says softly. "I was out feeding. That's probably what you think it is. If this is going to be a big deal. I can walk away now." she says at Kantana.

"....you have a talking cat." she says.

"I am not a 'magical girl'." she says with a more dour frown.

She looks to Chloe. "I don't think I want to bring attention to myself like that." she says.

She looks back to Starlit Cancer and blinks merely once. "N--Natsumi-san!?" she says.

Then she shuts her mouth, because that's not a name Lacrima should know. She steps back, and frowns.

"Are you okay?" she asks merely silently.

Chloe Stingray has posed:
    Chloe smiles as she sees Cancer dissipate into a friend of hers. "Just from the way you were talking about the stars, I had a feeling it was you, Natsu-chan." She says as she puts the butt of her staff on the ground. "And don't be sorry, Natsu-chan. You see, it seems you have a lot more in common with a member of your astronomy club."

It's then that her barrier jacket dissipates like the pixelized flames they were, and the staff dissappears into the red orb...that just turned blue, replacing itself on her necklace.

All that remains is Chloe. "Like me."

Kanata Shirahime has posed:
Kanata blinks. "A vampire? Like..." He holds up his hands and makes little fang gestures with his fingers. To his credit, he does not go 'bleehhh!!' or make any other stereotypical vampirey motions or noises.

Moeru sighs a little, and then peers up at Lacrima. "What do you feed on, vampire-chan," the cat asks, suddenly interested but feigning /dis/interest by cleaning a paw apparently attentively. It's a cat thing.

Kanata dutifully schools his expression when Natsumi turns out to be Natsumi, but kind of fails. He looks stunned for a second, and then /aggressively clueless/, to the point of being mildly suspicious. He looks between her and Chloe, sputtering, "Should you just be -- doing that?!"

Natsumi Matsumoto has posed:
Natsumi blushes a little. "I couldn't help it. The Call used up all my power and I couldn't hold onto it anymore.". She tugs gently at her charm bracelet, the crab not pulsing now despite Lacrima's presence.

She did give a little start at Lacrima knowing her name, briefly staring at her in confusion and then even further confusion as Chloe changes to well... Chloe. "It told me there were other magical sorts but... I didn't think anyone I was friends with...".

Norie Okana has posed:
Lacrima frowns. "Let them make silly decisions." she says at Kanata. She purses her lips. She looks at Moeru. A talking cat? A talking cat.

"Energy." she says. "Not blood." she says shooting Kanata a harsh look. "But close to that, yes." she says softly.

She frowns at Chloe and then looks at Natsumi.

"So you're okay. Alright... I should... I should.. go..." she says as she begins to step backwards and away.

Yeah being around these types is making her feel awkward because normally these types would be trying to stop her from surviving.

And she still needs to find a target to drain tonight.

Chloe Stingray has posed:
    "There's a lot more than you think, Natsu-chan." Chloe says putting her hand on Natsumi's shoulder. "If you ever need my help, let me know." She does look at Lacrima and tilts her head. "If you drain people's energy.....can't you drain a little from many people?"

Kanata Shirahime has posed:
A talking cat. A talking cat who is asking questions while Kanata is confused.

Kanata nods a little, and looks kind of embarrassed and apologetic for the weird gestures. He looks away, self-consciously tugging on the ridiculous outfit's skirt. Moeru looks vaguely disapprovingly after Lacrima, but doesn't say anything to stop her from leaving. "Hmmm..."

Moeru hops back up to Kanata's shoulder. "C'mon, Kana-tan. We've got some things to do. While you're up, you should go look for more Noise!"

"But... don't those count? I'm done! For... for now." Kanata slumps.

"Practice makes perfect, Kana-tan!" Moeru sticks a paw in the air. "Let's go! Unless you want to introduce me to your cute friends~?"

Kanata looks between the cat, Chloe and Natsumi, turns beet red, and then leaps into the night as if standing on a springboard.

Natsumi Matsumoto has posed:
Natsumi blinks, wondering if some is implied by the cat's remark and then realising she'd been listening to a talking cat this entire time. Her eyes go wide as she shakes her head, and looks to Chloe. "Chloe-chan? Yo-you're a magical girl?".

She watched Lacrima go over Chloe's shoulder with a forlorn look coming over her face, a feeling of pity for the other girl rolling in her heart. Then Lacrima was gone and so was Kana-tan, whoever Kana-tan and Lacrima actually were.

Chloe Stingray has posed:
    Chloe nods her head. "mmhmm. I'm a magical girl. Don't worry, I didn't think I could be about a month ago." She then looks to the sky. "I'd better get hom, Natsu-chan. give me a call before school tomorrow." She gives Natsumi a hug and makes her way home....

Norie Okana has posed:
Lacrima doesn't answer Chloe on her way out. She's dissapeared somewhere in the treeline in the park.

She might not even be in the park now!

Natsumi Matsumoto has posed:
As everyone clears out, including the strange girl with stars of her own, Natsumi is left to her own devices. She looks about and then gives a low sigh, starting on her way home. The Starless.... They've come again.