1658/Zombie Plants Against Humanity

Zombie Plants Against Humanity
Date of Scene:	25 June 2016
Location:	Mitakihara - Downtown
Synopsis:	The Xenian asteroid's spilled its flowers across the planet, and then-- the flowers wake up.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Reiko Touyama, Naru Osaka, Tadase Hotori, Hoshi Kogane, Kukai Souma

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Outside the hospital it's no better-- except, maybe, for the lack of sick people needing to be evacuated. But a call definitely went out on Virtue along with the 'remain calm and stay indoors, move to lower floors or basements of smaller or older buildings, follow earthquake protocols, steer clear of the invasive pink flowers' messages across the emergency broadcast systems throughout the world. No doubt magical girls and boys of every stripe are out there fighting -- as are brave civilians who see the plants moving or notice the creatures and the breezes stopping, who have seen too many strange things and realize that this must be another one, and who start attacking the plants with everything they've got, trying to kill them before they wake up or while they're little.

But it's not nearly enough. People are frequently drained first before flowers scuttle up on them and wrap them in vines, jerkily making them rise and move, controlling their mindless bodies. Some people, stronger ones, are given strength by the flowers while their minds are mesmerized instead of unconscious. They all move. They all attack.

They're all victims.

A girl from Seishou, Yume -- one of the old friend circle that Naru and Usagi had before all the supernatural started -- was in conversation with Naru and Umino when everything went still. One of the flowers moved so subtly, reached to grab her ankle and twined a vine up her leg and started draining her energy right before Naru and Umino's eyes. Umino, perhaps surprisingly, did not scream: instead, he dove for the non-flowery bushes and reemerged a second later holding a machete. Then he screamed. "NARU! RUN! I'LL KEEP THEM BACK! GO GET SAILOR MOON YOU'RE FRIENDS WITH HER I HAVE PICTURES!!!" he screamed. And then he started hacking at every vine he could see that was safe to cut.

It is the middle of Saturday and school let out maybe half an hour ago, which means there's probably a lot of this going on everywhere.

And oh it's not just vine-wrapped mindless civilians attacking people who try to stop them from moving, and who try to enwrap other civilians--

--there are also hundreds of flowers everywhere that are in the process of waking up, uprooting themselves, and turning their roots into spiderlike legs to scuttle around after people who are trying to dare to resist, to turn them into automatons too.

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Reiko Touyama was walking with Hoshi Kogane along the sidewalk down to the ice cream parlor. It was a time to talk about things and various other such nonsense. "So did you see my video?" she beams a bit. "One those phones we got? But-- well. Did you also see Mercury's about the whole plant thing?" she asks worriedly as she peeks around.

"I'd noticed plants blooming but I figured that it was just you know. Summertime stuff?" she asks scratching her head. "But... I wonder if there's anything we can do..."

A Pause.

"I wonder if my koi can eat bad pla-----"

Suddenly, things start going bonkers nearby. Plants uproot and walk around and attack people-- and turn them into mindless weird drone zombies and Reiko's eyes go wide. "Hoshi...!" she calls out.

There's no time to worry about your identity in situations like this, you just /transform/ and sort it out later. "Chroma Prism Orange, Transform!" she calls out, transforming into Prism Keeper Orange with a vibrant flash and koi swirling around her and tying her bow in her hair. She lifts off the ground to put distance between her and crawling plants and frowns. "Get off the ground!" she calls off to Hoshi/Yellow.

She frowns and looks around, right and left.

"Crap they're headed towards...." she blinks wide. "The hospital!? I think... Nrg, come on Yellow!" she calls out as tiny wings flutter furiously towards that direction along the way she decides to throw some koi down at plants-- which furiously swim down trying to crash into small purifying little bursts of orange energy when they either impact the plants or the ground. Goooo koi!

"Why do you think they're headed there?" she asks Yellow. Like if it wasn't obvious.

Naru Osaka has posed:
There are some advantages to being one who notices things. Naru had stopped listening to the conversation about Saturday evening plans a few moments previously, her attention quirking towards that odd bit of silence.

And then further towards flowers moving. Because that is just not how this is supposed to go.

"Dammit!" Naru is most emphatically not part of the screaming and the running types. If she's cranky about pictures, or if she's cranky about flowers, it seems /really/ more likely the latter than the former. She looks around, and most importantly looking up, and to where she can get a sense of where the bigger mess is. Clearly that's exactly where she should be heading.

Fortunately Naru is a teen girl. She can zip out her phone and text with one hand, while dodging and digging things out of her backpack with the other. "Don't let them grab you!" She tells Umino, which is the voice of experience right there, and well.. Yume is illustrating exactly why getting touched by them is a bad idea.

Naru will wonder where Umino got a machete out of the bushes another time. After she heads off to the hospital. Running towards the screams is always a good idea.

Tadase Hotori has posed:
The good thing about Virtue's presence in the Royal Guardian and the Guardians themselves is that when all hell breaks loose, there's usually enough people of various stripes nearby to handle it. By luck, he was meeting with Lindy and some of the Artha's remaining crew, and there was even more help than usual. Tadase, though, knows that like any crisis of this magnitude, there's more than just the Seiyou schoolgrounds that needs help.

After doing some minor traffic direction - you protect this building, you're over here, watch out for the kindergarten class here - he grabs Kukai by the arm. "I'm going to the epicenter of this, and I'm going to try to stop it or at least slow it down." he says, a firm look in his eyes, and Kiseki's too as he floats over his shoulder.

"I'd like someone I can trust to watch my back there, if they can spare you." he says with a smile, looking for just a moment at Nagi before he turns."

There's a flash, and Kiseki and Tadase are one, as Platinum Royale, and they're gone in a flash, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, following the hordes.

At the hospital, a wave of plantzombies is stopped from advancing any further by the sudden appearance of a wave of golden ribbons, binding them to each other and arresting any further motion.

Hoshi Kogane has posed:
"I have." Hoshi sounds relaxed, but she's hiding her concern, "I'm sure whatever is behind it, we'll be able to stop it. We're part of a team now." And then things start taking a thing for the worse, and Hoshi follows Reiko's lead. "ansi+xterm228,Chroma Prism Yellow, Transform!)"

When Orange points out it's the hospital, Yellow shouts, "Oh no!" And then, she rushes, running, leaping, jumping and where necessary even flying. The star-loving girl hurrying to the place where she volunters, where she knows some of the long-term patients. "The people in the hospital are weak and vulnerable. We have to do something."

So Yellow does something, specifically, she sends little purrifying bursts of yellow energy at the plants as she passes by them.

Kukai Souma has posed:
It's been a nice day for a party. At the very least it got Kukai out of class for a while, and he didn't mind backing up Tadase when he's got people he needs to meet. Besides, it was interesting meeting Lindy and the others, and hey, the other Guardians were there. Which was nice.

And then the ground started shaking and Kukai was on his feet, making sure the sky wasn't falling in. It wasn't that - at least, not here. There's a shadow in the sky in the distance, however, that says that the sky may still be descending.

He helps direct smaller groups - more of a field agent than the director Tadase is - but when his arm is grabbed he looks over at Tadase and listens. "Like you could keep me from going. Everybody here'll be fine - Nagi and Amu and the others will keep things from going to pieces here. We gotta go do this thing." He looks over at Daichi and nods. "OK dude."

"ORE NO KOKORO! UNLOCK!"

There is a brilliant green and white flash and Sky Jack follows after Platinum Royale, booting random soccer balls as he can from his flying board, blowing plant vines off random people as he goes.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The Prism Keepers find it an easy job to make it to the general area of the hospital, and indeed, closer to it, than some people might: they can fly. The plants cannot. They may wish to stay away from skyscrapers, because oh and alas the vines creep up them too, to get in the windows of higher floors and get at the people inside.

Anyone taking up rooftop positions may, in fact, wish to take especial care not to get blindsided by vines-- but anywhere that pink blossoms can be seen is a danger zone (god help the azalea population).

The koi and the stars that burst forth from the Prism Keepers do, in fact, have a potentially startling effect: though this may not quite be dark energy as they've seen it before, purification of any sort absolutely works. Plants fall and wilt, dry up, dessicated to crumbling dust and releasing the energy they've stolen back away from the hospital, or back into the people they've latched onto. The vines some of them are connected to do the same, and the people who've been wrapped up by them fall gracelessly but gently to the ground-- checking them will prove that they're exhausted, but trampling is still a potential problem.

Soccer balls bounce off vines, off of people -- and the vines aren't very strong, they seem to be primarily controlling via energy instead of binding with strength, so simple impact breaks them. People fall there, too.

The glowing gold ribbons, like supernatural Police Line Do Not Cross tape that's rather stronger than vinyl, actually stop the mindless zombies-- since they don't see a source for the tape, and they're only as bright as the plants getting orders from Fiore and the Xenian, they just press up against it and try and keep walking. Pressure builds.

Naru may have a slightly more difficult time travelling, since she's on foot, but presuming she's using that flamethrower on anything that starts coming after her in a terribly JOINNNN UUUSSSS way as she goes, she's also incredibly visible to the magical kids here--

--and her phone gets a text. "Hey it's Jadeite the jackass stabbed Kunzite and stole Mamoru and we're headed for the asteroid to kick it in the teeth and get him back but we told Virtue the deal make sure you hook up with them just say you're friends with the Senshi and know the deal ok? Be safe. Dont let anything drain you. Dont worry K is gonna be OK we got Dai on the case"

Naru Osaka has posed:
There's no henshin for Naru. There's no powers. There's no magic.

She does, however, actually have a flame thrower in her bag. It's small, but little gouts of flame are quite effective for 'encouraging' pink blossoms to keep away from the grabby hands around her ankles.

"Oh HECK no. Nuh uh." Naru is actually chatting with the flowers as she flambes them. "Tell your boss that just /no/. Nope. Not today. I have THINGS TO DO."

Naru reaches for her phone, glancing at it briefly and her eyes widen as she reads. "What's Virtue?" She asks her phone, as if somehow, Siri is going to be useful here.

Hoshi Kogane has posed:
Yellow lands right next to Naru, a cheerful encouraging smile on her face as she holds out a single glowing yellow star to the mundane girl. "We're a group of people who protect people from bad things like this. We do our best, but we need everyone's support to make sure we win, so please give us your support."

The glowing star is let go, and takes up a spot near Naru, glowing with purifying energy, ready to take a hit for Naru if it has to, then Yellow flies up into the air again, and starts firing more stars like it at the zombies caught behind the king's tape.

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Prism Keeper Orange does notice the effect her and Yellow's attacks have had and her eyes light up. "Yellow, did you see that?" she asks. "Let's work together, okay!?" she asks with a smile.

Incoming Soccer balls and Ribbons!?

Up ahead it's Kukai and Tadase! She beams wide and zips over head. "Hey guys~" she sings out. "We're here to help!" she says as she huffs. "Gonna do my best..." she says as she lands somewhere over the opening of the hospital.

She summons up more magical koi, waving her wand around in the air as those little fish pop into existence. She sends them carreening for plant zombies as she hovers back up and over near Yellow.

"That's right!" she follows up with a smile! A wide big smile. Despite the trouble.

"We'll fix this. Somehow." she insists. She nods matter of factly at Naru as she readies up another swarm of koi, keeping up and off the ground.

Tadase Hotori has posed:
Tadase gets behind his ribbons and watches the skies as Jack begins to pelt out the soccer balls. The keepers zoom in and he waves to them - because there's always time for polite happiness, even in the plantzombie apocalypse. "Hey girls! Thanks for the help!" Sparkle sparkle.

The zombies keeping mobbing up and the ribbons aren't going to hold them back for long, but that's okay, because Tadase has a plan. He levels his scepter at the area with the ribbons and shouts. "HOLY CROWN!" he says, and the golden crown erupts from just behind the barrier, slamming into it, taking ribbobns and plantzombies with it and likely knocking them into each other with some degree of concussive force. Hopefully it's like knocking over a domino.

Kukai Souma has posed:
Sky Jack grins and waves at Orange. "Hey, Orange! Any idea what the hell these things are? Is this what we've been hearing about for a while?" He's busy laying out a firing line of zappy soccer balls. He's generally accurate enough to not drill a civilian, but that means he can't kill every vine in the first shot.

Then he sees Naru, who gets a grin and a salute. "Heya! You look like you're having fun~" This is the point where the Foley editors clip in the sound of a bowling ball striking a pile of pins as Platinum launches Holy Crown, sending the plantzombies flying. "Whoop!"

He aims, firing at the zombies on the edge that have avoided the Crown and are slipping past the ribbons. "OK, seriously people, we need to round up everybody who's not been infested yet and get them out, and then we can make a plan to prune this plant!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Just after Yellow answers Naru's question and leaves her a little glowing star shaped Navi, Siri answers cheerfully, "Okay, I found this. Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. Personal virtues are characteristics valued as promoting collective and individual greatness. The opposite of virtue is vice."

Not especially helpful, but--

"The disambiguation page lists Virtue open parens band close parens, Virtue open parens angelic hierarchy close parens, Virtue open parens surname close parens, Virtue open parens film close parens, Virtue open parens Emmy the Great album close parens, Virtue open parens software close parens..."

Thankfully, the Star Navi is good at zorching creepers that come up behind Naru, so she can focus her flamethrower on the scuttling ones in front of her and heading closer to the mob of zombies to re-animate the ones that are falling--

--and falling they are, as bright orange glowing koi and bright yellow glowing stars pelt the mass of herky-jerky moving glazed-yellowed-eyed civilians trying to break through Tadase's ribbons.

Just as they're about to overwhelm the thin strong glowing strands with sheer mass, Platinum Royale's Idea goes into motion: the blast, bright and holy and filled with all the strength of will and righteousness that the young King possesses, hits the mob like a mobile wall. This has a dual effect: plant-controlled zombie civilians get knocked back hard, knocking back the rows behind them, and behind them, and behind them, blowing them back and making them fall over each other and pile up like a giant carcrash. The second effect? It blows a bunch of vines the hell off of most of the people, especially the ones on top of the piles.

Immediately, scuttling triffid lilies start scrambling toward the fallen mob.

There are, of course, zombie'd people who were out of range or on the edges, and yes, since the ribbons are now gone they're shuffling jerkily toward the hospital doors again-- and soccer balls knock them over like spare pins, slamming vines off of them as well.

Naru Osaka has posed:
Koi. And Stars. Ribbons And soccer balls.. that one at least is vaguely familiar ish. Naru doesn't even blink at the sudden increase in the levels of odd that her life has just enjoyed. Because it's starting to not be odd anymore.

Naru does startle a little when Yellow lands next to her and basically acts as a magical Siri and just answers her question. "Er. Well that makes finding you guys easy enough." She comments and then zorches another flower that's getting too close.

"THANK YOU SIRI!" Naru tries to cut off her phone being 'helpful' by snapping at it, her hands busy keeping the flamethrower aimed at scuttling tiffid lillies.

"Fixing it pretty much involves zorching a whole lot of plants for the moment. The energy drain from them /sucks/, no pun intended. One star, do not recommend." Voice of experience, right there.

Naru lifts a hand off her flamethrower to wave to Kukai, who isn't currently Kukai. "Not how I'd planned on spending my evening. I'm just gonna say. But flame thrower is win! Rounding people up to protect them easier seems like a good idea."

Reiko Touyama has posed:
Prism Keeper Orange glances at Kukai. "Yeah I think this is what Mercury posted about." she says with a softer frown. She nods. "They seem to respond to mine and Yellow's energy here badly-- which is a good thing. But you're right, we gotta start moving people...." she frowns a bit as she huffs.

"I can't carry a lot, else I'd offer to start flying people and teleporting isn't a thing I can do..." she sighs heavily.

Then Siri starts talking and she huffs and looks around. "Nrg...." she tries to think of an idea. So many zombies. Not enough clearance-----

Darnit, she's supposed to be the super duper interm Prism Keeper Leader and she can't think of a proper course of action. Well. If there's no clear path um.. Make one?

"Nrg... Yellow. I'm going to try to cut a clear path. Can you help keep it clear and then we can start getting people through it..." she says.

She loop de loops and then lands smack down dab in the middle of the chaos to her feet as she lifts her wand and summons up one of those fish-shaped dome shields she takes a deep breath. "Here it goes...." she calls out as she 'Aha!'s loudly as she throws the dome shield foward with a burst of energy-- trying to knock people out in a straight line clear through the way.

This may not work but it's better than 'Worrying and doing nothing' which is like the WORST thing you can do.

Hoshi Kogane has posed:
"Sky Jack, Ribbon-sama." Yellow doesn't really know what to call Platinum Royale. "Let's do this!" The girl is already preparing the next step, a new star joins the firmament, a subtle yellow light invisible in the light of the sun, but high up there, it's growing to be pleasantly large.

While she prepares that, Yellow nods to Orange, and agrees "Let's go help people." She aims her wand at all infected people near the path she's keeping clear, and sends stars flying. Little Yellow Stars of Hope, as some would call it, and each one is meant to free one person from this curse, to grant them hope at a new tomorrow, and to leave a little spot of yellow on their clothes that will fade hours later.

Tadase Hotori has posed:
Tadase nods at the Keepers and gives a little two finger salute to Kukai. "That's what we're here to do. We gotta keep them from doing whatever they're trying to do, too. Whatever the goal is - we gotta stop them from reaching it!" he says, and shifts forward. Tadase doesn't have the purification powers of the Keepers, but he's fast and surprisingly agile.

So with the scepter drawn, he goes about doing what he thinks is the best course of action with Orange clearing the way and Yellow freeing people - he makes sure they /stay/ freed, by smashing and swinging his scepter like a mace at any of the smaller plants trying to re-zombify the freed people. "Nope, you're not undoing our hard work!"

Kukai Souma has posed:
Jack grins at the Keepers and the boss, then looks to Naru. "Ok, the flamethrower probably won't do a lot to destroy them, so you be careful and focus on one of those things at a time - do not let them grab you if you can help it! We'll escort you and everybody out through the path the Keepers are making. Come on!"

Jack sort of herds Naru forward, looking for un-zombied people near the edges to swoop in and grab, making sure they're clean and then dragging them over with Naru. "Don't let any of them get past us if you can help it! We gotta stop them all if we can manage it! Watch your edges girls!"

Jack's soccer ball shots focus on the edges of the crowd, trying to keep them hemmed in. Every so often he fires a shot into the middle of the crowd which richochets back and forth in a small area, bashing into vines and plants before caroming off. He hasn't quite brought out the cricket bat yet, but his hands are squeezing and crinkling as if he's thinking very hard about it.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Siri, thankfully, shuts up. Zorching a lot of plants is, in fact working-- and Naru gets a text a second after she agrees about rounding people up. It is... a text from a cat. A cat. Who is asking her for help. Because that is completely normal. Apparently everyone went to the asteroid but the cats-- and a VERY WORRIED MOTOKI and the Crown it's a mess again and help Naru hellllp. And there are a LOT OF PLANTS ON THE ROOF OF THE ECFH.

The clear path, knocking people down-- that works, that gets people too tangled in each other to reorient, much like the piles Tadase made. The fish-shaped dome shield swims through like an air-shark playing bowling for civilians, really.

The yellow star Hoshi builds and lets keep going-- it grows in power and light, and grows and grows, and every plant it touches with its light withers, and more and more people are being freed, are collapsing-- are filled with hope, just as the ones who Hoshi is hitting more directly. Hope and goodwill and-- and they're getting their energy back, and the sparkling cheer of Tadase fighting off their former captors?

Gets the civilians riled up instead of zombified! They start picking each other up, dragging away the ones who are too drained, still, to move; they start fighting back on their own, taking off their shoes and smashing plants with them, picking up things off the street, trashcan lids, hubcaps-- it's a regular battle and all the humans are helping each other, looking out for each other!

Sky Jack's lead is also followed -- and one guy calls out to him, "You can stop hitting us with them-- we've got the others handled! You smash the plants! You've saved us-- now let us help you save everything!"

The star Hoshi made-- it's yellow, yes, but it starts to surge with complementary silver light, warm and sparkling and so very familiar to so many people there: that's Sailor Moon's energy. At the same time, the Xenstalk growing out of the top of the hospital and up through it starts to shiver and shudder and break apart. That hospital's going to need a LOT more help in a minute. The last scuttling triffids are weakening and the crowd's taking a lot of delight from stomping them, then running off to go find their families-- things are beginning to disperse, but again... the hospital has a lot of hurt people who are really going to need more help than the nurses can feasibly give right now.