1961/The Opposite of Art

The Opposite of Art
Date of Scene:	25 September 2016
Location:	Mitakihara/Pikarigaoka - King Penguin Park
Synopsis:	Naru attracts a youma that feeds on art. Jiaying, Alexis, and Mamoru object. What is with that park, anyway? ("YOUMA GENERATOR: A(n) Shadow octopus creature, formed from Sayaka's bat applied to a broken Belkan Device, with the ability to use dark attacks: it is after artistic talent, and it communicates via changelogs." LOOK WE ACTUALLY USED ONE sort of)
Cast of Characters:	Naru Osaka, Alexis Raskoph, Kunzite, Jiaying Maki, Mamoru Chiba

---

Naru Osaka has posed:
It is a gorgeous sunny early autumn afternoon. The park is downright teeming with people enjoying the weather, families strolling along the paths, having picnics, throwing balls around. Not quite enough breeze for kites, but that doesn't seem to be stopping a group of youngsters from giving it a go anyhow, to mixed success.

There's a small blanket spread out on the grass, the remains of a picnic lunch lingering there to provide snacks for the afternoon. Naru is stretched out on her stomach on the blanket, propped up on her elbows as she draws. The tree in her drawing is a familiar one, and just over there in the park. The creatures she's adding around it, clearly from her imagination. Hopefully.

Alexis Raskoph has posed:
And not that far away, sits Alex. And when we say 'not far away', we really mean 'right there next to her'. His arm is out of the splint and sling now, but he's periodically stretching it this way and that for the sheer purpose of getting used to moving it again after spending half a week keeping it as immobile as possible. He only just got the sling off afterall, see?

"This is fine, isn't it?" He asks of NAru, at some point -- it's meant to be reassuring of their location, to some point.

Kunzite has posed:
Under the tree that Naru is drawing sits a little boy in a black T-shirt, blue shorts, and the all-too-characteristic boot to immobilize an ankle; he has a pad of paper of his own in his lap, and a pencil, and an intently frustrated look. He glances over at his presumably-friends running to pick up a fallen kite, and makes a face, and starts erasing; he's been spending as much time erasing as anything else. He puts pencil to paper again; pauses, staring out at the other kids; then makes a face harder and drops paper and pencil both off to the side, in favor of slumping down miserably in the shady grass.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki has made her way to the park today, spending less and less time at her home. She's listening to music, under a tree while reading someting on her phone. She's sprawled out lazily as she does so and doesn't seem to have noticed that anyone else was around. Her illusion isn't particularly good today as she was feeling lazy so instead, she's gone with a long skirt and a light hoodie that she's pulled the hood up on. Which doesn't do much to hide her ears, but it's better than nothing at least.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Most days, the park does not actually draw Mamoru Chiba. Not this park, anyway. Usually he sticks by Ichi-no-Hashi, since it's close to Seishou and Usagi's house and he generally likes it anyway, but it's been a long time since he visited the rose garden in this one-- and he needed to pick up some books at the library anyway, and it's daylight, and he's better able to take care of himself these days, and if he's not then there are any number of people he can call for help.

So he's on the path when ahead, he spots two familiar heads of hair on a picnic blanket-- and his feet slow since Naru saw him yesterday, and he has to come up with a believable lie to explain his behavior.

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru looks up at Alexis, turning her attention away from her drawing and there's a smile for him. "Now that we're here, and settled and it's been quiet and lovely.. not so bad." She gestures a touch towards the kiddo who is getting frustrated at his drawning. "That looks so famiiar." Her voice is fond. "The frustration doens't get any better when you get pissed enough to erase right through the paper either. Poor kiddo."

Mamoru had better think quickly, as Naru makes the spot check and waves towards him, her eyes tracking easily enough towards him from where she had been watching the small boy.

So far, she hasn't spotted Jiaying yet.

Alexis Raskoph has posed:
"I wouldn't know," murmurs Alex after he's followed Naru's gaze towards the kid under the tree, though his attention stays visually there only for a second or so before he looks to the redhead instead. "Never even tried drawing all that much of anythi--"

The german boy stops his words there when he notices Naru waving at someone, and he peers towards that general direction. One Mamoru spotted! Aha! And cue him lifting his previously-broken arm. "Oi! It's good now!"

Kunzite has posed:
Naru and Alexis have turned to Mamoru; Jiaying is reading on her phone; Mamoru is trying to prevaricate, fast. Their attention is, therefore, now off the little boy sprawled quietly in the grass. They doesn't see when the blackness slithers off of his T-shirt, leaving white fabric behind. It melds into the shade of the tree, then into the shade of the grass. Only the faintest of ripples in the early-fall green suggests where it might be.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki fiddles with her phone for a few moments before getting frustrated and throwing it up into the air like it was hot. Sitting up, the phone floats there quietly for a few moments. It slowly gets lowered until the last few inches it's dropped on her head which gives everyone nearby a whole new string of impolite things to say in Chinese. Swatting at whatever it was that dropped the phone on her, she pockets it and looks around.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The slowed steps come to a stop; Mamoru lifts a hand to Naru and Alex distractedly, frowning and looking away from her -- but he seems to be scanning the area. And then he resumes walking, but it's a lot faster now. He gets there and drops his library books on Naru's blanket, the furrow between his brows one of concern. "Hey," he says to the two of them, and Alex gets a quick, tight smile. "Good good. I guess you had someone else look at it if you've taken the brace off. I hope you did, anyway." He rubs at the base of one hand with the other thumb, frown back; he scans more slowly, and this time he sees Jiaying and her ghosts, but he chews on his lip. "There's something..." he trails off.

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Hey Mamoru." Naru greets as she uncurls enough to sit up, now that she's likely to be at least tokenly social. She quirks a brow at him as he looks distracted and glances around.

Her own attention goes to a glance around the park, this time spotting Jiaying and the phone tossing ghosts, waving to them amicably. She turns back to Mamoru and her voice is curious and wary. "What sort of something?

Alexis Raskoph has posed:
"Daisuke looked at it," Alex tells Mamoru with the sheepish hint of a smile before he lowers the offending arm down to rest on his lap then. And the casual expression is slowly replaced by a deep frown. "What sort of something?" He says, almost in sync with Naru there.

Kunzite has posed:
Maybe there's a cloud passing over the sun. The vibrancy of the grass in the immediate vicinity of Naru's and Alexis' blanket dims, just a little. So does the color of the blanket, a moment later, and the shadows of the folds in it thicken.

And then, just as quietly, the page that Naru's sketchbook is open to begins to dim, and gray, and darken.

(There are no clouds passing over the sun.)

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki spots the others, offering them a wave, quickly hiding the frustrated or annoyed look she had going. Standing up and brushing herself off, she walks towards them, checking to make sure she hadn't left her phone behind. "Good afternoon." she calls out, not quite sounding as cheerful as she looks.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I dunno what kind of something," Mamoru says very slightly peevishly, one hand working at the other absently, "but it tastes like dark energy--"

He glances up at Jiaying again as she and her entourage start over. "Yo," he says, and then everything starts to dim and darken. And now-- now, he looks annoyed. "This park, I swear. Is there this kind of activity usually? Like if there's nobody magic here? Or are they attracted to it? It's like the Batman question. He fights a bunch of jerks but would they be in Gotham if he wasn't?"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I swear, it's this park." Naru mutters to Mamoru at his comment. "Or me and this park. If I didnt' come to the park, is it all boring and normal? Reason beyond my current ones to not visit."

The dim makes her hrm softly. "I wish I could actually feel it properly." Naru notes absently. A glance up, to where there aren't clouds and then Naru glances absently over to Alexis.

It's in passing that she catches a glimpse of her sketchbook out of the corner of her eye and that's not right. Naru's attention snaps to it fully and then reaches out to snap the book closed. "That can't be good."

Alexis Raskoph has posed:
"Let's not wait to find out," Alex suggests to Naru, and quickly snaps his hand over to grab one of hers, tugging on it in urging while he's scrambling up onto his feet. He doesn't know *that much* about these things yet -- which is probably exactly why he also doesn't want to take chances. So something like this? Time to make a WIDE BERTH.

Kunzite has posed:
Jiaying's coming closer, so she has as good a view as Alexis and Mamoru of what happens when Naru reaches for the book. Tendrils of shadow leap up off the page, flowing to wrap around her wrist and start a leisurely climb up her forearm. The main body of the thing follows, collecting itself up and out of the shadows of the grass, around and over and through the sketchbook, slithering up closer to Naru's hand.

It's not a straightforward energy drain on contact, at least. Naru doesn't feel any encroaching exhaustion, no sharp and withering cold, no urge to pass out. Just that the skin of her fingers goes faintly numb, and there's something faintly empty in the muscles, somehow. As if they were beginning to forget how to hold a pen.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki isn't entirely paying enough attention to notice the shadow as she's distracted and all. However, she has two dead helpers who are paying attention and a ghostly clawed hand points from over her shoulder at the shadow. She waves her hands through it and says sharply under her breath, "Not here." Though she does look at the encrouching darkness. Scowling, she calls out, "Look out!" and... she doesn't know what to do.

She calmly walks over to the two and... kind of examines the shadow, getting close, but not so close she can't react should it lash out. "That's kind of a new one isn't it?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru sees the darkness on the notebook glom on to Naru's arm and his annoyance turns into sheer frustration as he lunges to grab her wrist and shake the sketchbook out of her hand, his own glowing with a bright flare of gold. "Who cares if it's a new one! Figure it out once it's dead--! Alex, let go; if it spreads to you that's two down-- Jiaying, make sure nobody's looking at us--"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Oh you have /got/ to be kidding me!" Naru exclaims as the touch to her sketchbook doesn't keep the energy /in/ the sketchbook but rather encourages it up her arm, all insidious and /weird/. The sketchbook tumbles to the ground at Mamoru's grab for her, ignored and forgotten for the moment.

One arm caught up by Alexis, the other by Mamoru, there's not a whole lot of movement for Naru. Still, she tries to give a flick of her arm, as if attempting to get a particularly persistent bit of weed or gunk off her. Which works about as well as one might expect. Aka not at all.

"Yep, this one's a new one." Naru nods to Jiaying at her question. "Not painful at least, and not.. straight up energy drain either." She frowns a little, puzzling through the sensation. "Not in my head, doesn't feel like a curse, per se.. my fingers are going to sleep a little though, or .. sort of?" The commentary happens almost absently, as if noting for posterity's sake what, exactly, she needs to add to her catalogue later is important to state aloud, just in case she ends up unconscious.

Alexis Raskoph has posed:
"What are you doing?!" Alex bellows out at Naru and tries to tug at her again-- only for Mamoru to come over, and somehow he ends up off and away, feet stumbling briefly while he backs away and just-- helplessly stares on. "But--" He lets out with the same kind of helplessless tone, arms slumping downwards when he settles to standing in place.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki looks blandly at Mamo and says, "Sure, I'll get right on that. Let me see..." she looks around, stands on her toes and adds, "You're kind of a jerk for a tall guy, making the short girl be lookout." Though she does send her two ghosts out as flickering shadows, one leaving with laughter. "Or did you mean with illusions? You're looking for my mother there, I'm lucky to keep any kind of illusions going at any given time." To Alex, she says, "Let go dummy, one person is easier to take care of than two."

Kunzite has posed:
Jiaying doesn't get so close to the shadow-thing that she can't react should it lash out. That's good, because it does lash out, trying to tangle her hands as well; standing on her toes pulls her back out of range.

Mamoru shakes the sketchbook out of Naru's hand, and the sketchbook falls -- out of the cloud of darkness, regaining its normal color, pages going white again where they haven't been drawn upon. The darkness remains, a vaguely octopoid thing flailing tentacle after tentacle out to climb Naru's arm with them. Whatever it's after, it thinks Naru is a source; it thinks Jiaying is, too, apparently; but it doesn't chase after the flare of gold energy. Just leaves a cloak of blackness around Naru's hand and arm, a lengthening glove as it works its way toward her neck and spine, as if to cross over toward Jiaying's side for another try. Another tendril snaps out, sending needle-spikes of darkness driving toward Mamoru ... who is, after all, the only one who's quite gotten in its way.

Seeing the sketchbook tumble isn't quite what it ought to be, for Naru. She ought to be concerned for the art. It's more like seeing someone else drop a textbook: oh, that might be mildly inconvenient. As the blackness spreads, it seems less and less like her art at all. Despite what she knows, it seems like someone else had to have drawn it. Hadn't they?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Kuso!" yelps Mamoru; he's not staving the stuff off, he's not drawing it away with a different target, he's not anything. And then it's spiking at him-- maybe he at least annoyed it? "So I'm a jerk," he bites out at Jiaying, "and you're better at illusion than I am-- ow, FffffFFF--" is the sound of the needle-spikes stabbing him front and center, and 'kzzkt-crackle' is the quiet sound of him henshining a second or two too late to be armored against anything. He lets go of Naru anyway because he's not helping that way, and he's gritting his teeth as red spots the front of his shirt and he produces a rose.

He doesn't throw it.

He slaps it into Naru's hand, thorns and all.

Then he pulls off his gloves and tosses them to Alex. "Try and, and pull that thing off her--!"

Naru Osaka has posed:
"Oh wrong.. I was wrong.." Naru tries to pry tenticles off herself with her free hand, now that she has one. "In my head.. you rat stinking bastard /get out of my head/."

The emphasis that is placed upon that declaration is one of utter frustration and growing anger. "I /hate/ that feeling." She mutters as she closes her eyes a moment, trying to focus within and building up against..

.. what was she worried about? Clearly nothing of value. Her eyes open again with a blink as she suddenly has a rose in her hand. The thorns bite into darkness and skin alike, but she doesn't seem to mind the nip from them.

Naru tries to offer her enveloped hand in Alex's direction at the suggestion to help pry it off her, bracing herself for it.

Alexis Raskoph has posed:
"Wha--" Alex reacts JUST IN TIME to actually catch the two white gloves tossed to him, and he stares at them for all of three seconds in confusion. AFter that three seconds, his brain decides to just assume that there's something magical in the gloves--

And the rest of his body chooses to take advantage of that possibility.

The gloves are slid on with the same kind of quick, practiced motions that he typically brings his riding gloves on with. The time he spends in getting the gloves on, he also stares at the blackness trying to envelop Naru. A mess of thoughts sweep through his head. It didn't just come from *nowhere* did it? There were signs, but...

"This is just an offshoot here on me--" He bellows to the way of Mamoru while he stomps towards Naru again. "But try the book! I dunno!" Another stomp, and his hands both reach out for Naru's outstretched arm while his eyes search for hers.

"It's okay," he murmurs, in the exact moment his left grabs at the portion of her arm that isn't covered in black yet, and his other starts clawing at the darkness. "It'll be okay--"

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki pulls her hands away further from the writhing mass and says, "About as feisty as your punchy guy usually is there Osaka, watch out." She then takes a moment to glare at Mamoru. She tilts her head from one side, to another, then says, "Really, I'm not-" she looks to her ghosts, then says, "You want a distraction, here you go." She points at the Chinese ghost and makes a sharp gesture while calling out in Chinese. The ghost begins laughing, loudly and darts off towards the center of the park, away from them. Where it begins picking things up, floating them in the air and spinning around and in general enjoying being a poltergeist. Jia did at least insist that she wasn't allowed to drop people any distance.

Her other ghost flits back to her after the distraction starts and she says, "There you go. You wanted people looking away." She says that in a flat tone. In the meantime, her silent ghost is hovering in front of the fox girl, whose illusion is already flickering and fading as she focuses on making sure her resident poltergeist has enough energy to do her thing.

Then it's back to examining the stuff through her ghost. "Could try to purify it maybe. I don't think you want me to dip into some of the stuff I've been reading up on otherwise."

Kunzite has posed:
The rose's thorns tear at the enveloping shadow more effectively than Naru's fingers do alone. The creature clinging to Naru gives an oddly staticky hiss at the wound -- doubly so when the rent gives Alex's gloved fingers purchase, and he actually manages to pull some of its body off of Naru's skin. It stretches like half-melting plastic, unpleasant and somehow artificial.

There is an unfortunate side effect. This time, the creature flings its spikes at Alex's face. Two more tendrils wrap around Naru's neck, dragging its main body to hang awkwardly over her spine. It doesn't choke her breathing. Only her sense of being able to create.

There's this: Jiaying's ghost has plenty to mess with. Balls go in directions they shouldn't. Kites fly against the wind. There is a cacophony of small children screaming: some in protest, some in fear, some in sudden delight at the chaos.

Yep. Nobody's looking at them right now...

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Dammit! Sorry!!" there's no way Mamoru can get to Alex in time to stop him from getting spiked, and even if there were, it's just spikes, the thing's not interested in them like that; he can heal Alex later. "In your HEAD? Here, no, Alex-- it's gone out of her book, it's on her-- yes Jiaying try that I can't purify anything if you can do that then do it, also good job on distracting--" Now Tuxedo Kamen's one bare hand is pulling at the stuff, and the other's produced another rose and is cutting at the plasticky melting goop, focusing on that which has looped around her neck and trying to pull its main body away from her, cut at the limbs it's using to attach to her. "Naru you're going to have to try and build fortifications on the fly. If it's in your head and came out of your sketchbook there might be a problem with that. You've worked with my energy before. Can you use it again? I'm holding it out, grab my wrist or something and take it. Maybe if you build a mask inside it'll think you're someone else--"

Naru Osaka has posed:
Naru would be a happier camper if it was choking her breathing, and not her creativity. In spite of Alex's reassurances, it's a quiet sound of distress as she feels it crawling awkwardly upon her, stealing what feels like far more vital bits to her than mere life energy.

"It's stealing stuff, not quite emotions, but not .. Gah!" Naru's words are a rush, and end in rush of just pure frustration and no little amount of rage. "I have energy." She notes, closing her eyes again, clearly not realizing the potential that if its made of /her/ energy than /her/ energy isn't going to put much of a stop to it.

Naru reaches a hand out anyhow, landing on Mamoru as she seeks something steady while the tugging by Alexis and Mamoru's cutting off of the thing attached to her sends her off balance with her eyes closed. She'll have a hope of using some of his energy to fight back in her own head. Her creative energy is almost gone, but she attempts to whitewash her thoughts, her internal mental lanscape to make it as utterly uncreative and uninteresting as possible on the surface.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki does try to get her ghost to intervene with the ghost spikes, which in this case probably manifests as him being pushed by a ghost. It's probably an odd sensation really! She's about to say something back to the one in a tuxedo, probably in an annoyed tone, but it's dropped because the weird goop thing is apparantly strangling Naru, or that's what it looks like to her. Why is he going on about masks though? There's some muttering to herself, then she slips her hand into her pockets and pulls a slip of paper free, it unfolds itself and snaps open in front of her. Touching her fingers to the back, there's a flash of fire and symbols appear on her tag. Taking the tag between her fingers, she stares at the thing trying to think of how to stick the critter with it before finally shrugging and aiming for the middle. It's just positive energy in a high concentration. The magic required fully fizzling out her illusion, fox ears on full display even counting the hood.

There's a brief moment where she considers getting a hat, then she releases the tag and tries to draw enough of her energy back to herself to resume the illusion. "Maybe it's like a leech. Can we poke it with fire?" She sounds oddly detached as she asks these kind of questions. What, it's attached to someone. Short of possession this is well beyond her thing!

Alexis Raskoph has posed:
"Schei--!" Alex growls out. He *sees* the spikes coming, but he knows for a fact that he can't avoid all of them. He can lean to the side, yes, and evade the worst of it, but whichever way he tries to dodge, he will still be left with his head in the trajectory of at least one dark beam. So what does he do? He snaps his other hand awya from Naru's arm and upwards to that same trajectory. If his timing is off-- the spike is still going to pierce his hand or arm, but he can at least use THAT to shove the spike away from piercing his face, and if it isn't, then MAYBE he can grab the damn thing without tearing flesh off of himself. Maybe.

And somehow, even while that is happening, his right hand is still focused on tearing the damn thing further awya from Naru. A whole lot of good that will do if his brain gets pierced though.

Kunzite has posed:
Alex shifts and pulls a hand up, and feels himself shoved in an odd direction -- to the side and down. The needle-thing slices his fingertip; it doesn't bleed, but it hurts like mad. On the other hand, it's just a fingertip. There could have been a lot worse.

In other attack news, this just in: apparently roses are, in fact, cutting weapons. Who knew? ... besides Kyubey. Though that was more of a stab.

Tuxedo Kamen slices at tendrils of darkness; Alex rips at it with his hand. Consider this from the monster's perspective for just a moment. It's being gashed, stretched on a rack, and for what? All it's done is pursue something temptingly tasty. And even the tastiness seems, at the moment, to have been just a surface layer, dissolving away into something tasteless as sand.

And over there is a sudden bright flash of pure art, as Jiaying commits an act of calligraphy with her mind alone.

All of which might explain why the octopoid shadow lets abruptly go of Naru, and leaps toward the fox -- or tries to, anyhow, given that both of the boys have a hold of its dubious substance.

Which means that it leaps STRAIGHT INTO THE TAG.

There is a wild hissing wail, half steam-pressure and half wind, and the center of the creature dissolves. Naru's mind is largely her own again. (Across the grass, the boy in the white T-shirt props himself up on an elbow and reaches sulkily for his pad of paper.)

That leaves eight tendrils. Naru and Mamoru and Alexis have each mauled one too badly to repair ... so it's only five that attempt to bolt, dropping from the air or from Naru's body and wriggling into the grass.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Oh, screw you, you are not getting away," Tuxedo Kamen mutters, throwing down the one he sliced off and stomping on it, then diving to grab one or two of them, fingers scrabbling in the gr--

--in the grass. Bare-handed, he keeps going for one of them to grasp it alone, but the other hand slams down fingers first -- as he's grass-staining the front of his already red-spotted tux -- over the top of a second one and tries to convince the surface of the dirt around each blade of grass to clam up and momentarily prevent any digging in their immediate area.

He doesn't actually try and squish the tendril, not yet. Distracted by the attempted conversation with the ground, he's also very angrily mentally glaring at whatever tendril or tendrils he's managed to make contact with, like 'HOLD STILL SO I CAN ASK YOU STUFF you might not die'. It's probably not very convincing, even if the monster's remotely intelligent.

Naru Osaka has posed:
The concentration on 'boring. uninteresting. bland. Uncreative.' is surprisingly hard. And more suprisingly, it actually /works/. Naru tenses as it makes the leap, feeling it leave her and she takes a moment to process that.

And then it hits that tag and hisses itself into oblivion, at least the main body of it, and Naru stumbles a little as her brain is flooded again, tangled up in blocks and ideas and confusion.

"Oh /hell/ no. No getting away." Naru takes a moment to realize that it's not actually ALL dead, its just sort of mostly dead and who /knows/ if it can regenerate or something. She lurches a moment, still not quite in sync with herself as she lunges for an errant tenticle, not one that Mamoru is threatening.

Alexis Raskoph has posed:
"NO," Alex bellows out suddenly, and stomps after Naru to toss one arm around her while SHE is making for the tentacles. Apparently the german boy is not VERY HAPPY AT ALL about her current plan of action. "Do you WANT IT to start eating you again?!"

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki looks at Alexis and says, "Would you prefer it getting away and getting bigger?" as she pushes past him since Naru and the others went one way. She gestures towards the black streak in the grass and says dryly, "I want it alive please." as the feral looking ghost darts after the tendril, reaching for it with glowing grey-green energy. She's looking a touch tired at the moment, probably from keeping a few ghosts fed with energy over longer distances amongst other things she won'tbe going into easily.

Kunzite has posed:
Naru grabs a tentacle before Alexis gets an arm around her; the faint numb feeling in her fingertips starts up again, but it's too busy writhing and trying to escape to cause her much trouble. Jiaying's ghost pulls a second, immune to its hunger. Two more make for the nearest patch of shadow as fast as they can wriggle...

And Mamoru grabs one with his bare hand and projects at it.

He may have had better ideas. The thing does not have human-level intelligence, or anything like it. It might be around the level of a cat or a very smart rat, and like them, it's optimized for survival and feeding. It regards humans as falling into three categories: irrelevant; something to be consumed, grown stronger and greater and more intelligent upon, and discarded; and the brand-new one, something that hurts. And that blackly self-centered worldview, devour-and-move-on, starts trying to seep back into Mamoru's consciousness around the edges of the glare.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Just stomp them, Alex! You got stompy boots!"

What the tendril finds as it burrows and soaks into the edges of the Earth Prince's conscious mind is probably not what it was expecting. There's creativity there, and artistry, but the creativity is in problem solving and the artistry is in leadership and the beautiful crystalline elegance of higher mathematics, in diplomacy and acting, in situation-appropriate presentation-- in writing delicately crushing letters in perfect form, in trolling. No, there's nothing that most people might consider artistic talent here.

But there's a bright, consuming fury that flares to life at the thing's reaction to Mamoru's projection, and it's followed immediately by the cold precision of an exact calculation: how much energy does it take to destroy a parasite in a contained explosion of heat and kinetic force?

As he rolls over and sits, his hand glows brighter around the thing, and brighter, and then there's an intense flare from it as Mamoru hisses, "Tuxedo la Smoking Bomber."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I'd rather know its not getting away to snag someone /else/." Naru protests to Alex. "I heal."

Not that she's /quite/ certain how this one is going to heal, or exactly what might be missing. She's trying not to think about that too much right at the moment.

Instead, she tries to slide out of Alex's grasp on her, to be able to bludgeon the tenticle she's got on the ground, immaterial of Mamoru's deep and profound staring into a tenticle's mind.

Which ends in a haze of brilliant pow. Clearly there was no meeting of the minds there.

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki leans forward to examine the thing held tightly in the ghost's hands. She doesn't find anything particularly noteworthy, it's not a spirit like she thought, it's nothing too smart and it doesn't seem too strong. She shrugs, turning away from it while looking for one of the escaping tendrils to grind her heel into it, back and forth and seeming to take some satisfaction in it's destruction, even as her ghost digs its claws in and tears outward, rending it apart before darting after the last to shred it as well.

Then she shakes her head and looks back at the others. "Anyone have anything important eaten?- Is anyone hurt?" That's a better question. She scowls before asking, "Where did that come from? Seems to be kind of a strange one."

Kunzite has posed:
Jiaying and her ghost shred a tendril each, and Jiaying can feel a faint burst of something like inspiration, the momentary itch to wield pen or brush for its own sake. Naru beats her own into dissolution. Maybe Alex stomps one. And one of them disintegrates utterly in a burst of deserved overkill.

Across the way, the boy in the white shirt, unable to play with his friends, has settled to trying to capture on paper the chaos that Jiaying's poltergeist-command has caused. He might have a tiny bit of a grin.

Naru Osaka has posed:
And then.. it's done. No more tenticles, and the park coming back to rights, even down to a small boy going back to his drawing. Good for him! Practice makes perfect. Naru straightens, wiping her hands off on her skirt, even if dark energy goo is perhaps less phyiscially gooey and more psychologically gooey.

"I.." Naru starts and then pauses, as she goes on a brief moment of self evaluation. "I'm not physically hurt, not enough to really matter anyhow." She decides after a moment, and clearly the scratches and scuffs and what might be bruises later speak to not hurt enough to matter much. "Still working out how my head feels. It doesn't have that crippling sense that I got post-wraiths, just.. weirdly let down."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The chaos is dying down, which means Mamoru drops henshin while people are still occupied with picking up, and he just sits there on the grass, scowling. "I'm fine. Everything's healed, anyway. I don't think it got Alex. You know what, the hell with this park."

After a second, he climbs to his feet and scoops up his library books, then looks down (a little) at Naru. "Are you staying here? You know if you can cope with a jillion stairs I'll give you the address to a park you don't have to worry about this crap in. You can bring Alex. Anyone else okay it with me or the guys."

Jiaying Maki has posed:
Jiaying Maki looks around the park and says, "You know, outside of Ayana, I don't usually run into problems in this park. I wonder if it's you, not the park." Though there is a scowl, "There was the time with a giant mouse, but that was a while ago. Let me know if the new park is overrun within a few months for me. Maybe we can look into just... making you seem less tasty to the things that go bump in the night." Speaking of things that go bump in the night, she checks her pockets, fiddling with something. Soon enough, the various things are returned to where they should be (Should they be big things) or at least dropped for te time being. Brushing herself off after, she asks, "The park is fine though. Really. Ask the kids over there."

Naru Osaka has posed:
"I can cope with two jillion stairs to not come back here anytime soon." Naru replies to Mamoru without hesitation. She nods to Jiaying. "Might be me, it's true. It is getting better, as hard as that is to say immediately post atteck, but it's been a while since I got actively snagged."

"It got Alex a little, not enough to be worrisome, unless it provided poison or something, but I dont think so." Naru replies to Mamoru on the topic of who got eaten.

Naru takes a deep breath. "Y'know that feeling after you finish a big project where you feel just lazy and dumb and not wanting to do /anything/ a while? That's how I feel. Except that I was in the middle of a new drawing, not finishing anything."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"It's not you. I can't tell you how many times I've been attacked in this damn place, or stopped something eating someone else," Mamoru says, still scowling. It's almost like he's personally offended. He shifts his weight, closing his eyes for a second. "Yeah, sure, we'll tell you if the new park is overrun. But seriously, don't ask J. Rando Kid if it's okay, because what are they going to remember?"

A little sigh, and the absurdly tall black-haired boy makes his features relax. "If Alex is still having issues later today, let me know. I didn't see any blood. I gotta go do homework. I'll text you the address."