Fuchuu Prison in western Tokyo, the largest prison in Japan. Like many places of its kind, it's a place of misery. Inmates, for whatever reason they may be there, counting the days until their release, or just spending away the day, perhaps at the workships to learn a trade so they may work a honest job when they're out, or for the more cynical among them, to impress any parole officers that may look at their case.
The prison is divided into four blocks. Ordinary prisoners, foreign prisoners, mentally ill prisoners, and physically disabled or injured prisoners. The darkness comes from the corner of the ordinary prisons, a distinct shadow fog imbued with potent dark energy, draining any mundanes caught within its grasp. Enough dark energy to be felt in a large area.
And... they have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
It's hardly a surprise to be able to feel tendrils of darkness near a prison like this one. Stifled rage and hatred and despair. Exhaustion. Pain. In some cases, near-starvation. But --
But this is a change.
Kunzite hasn't been near the place before, so he doesn't know that directly. It was Endymion who got the uncomfortable prodding in his sense of the city -- enough dark energy to influence a large enough area to draw his attention. But Endymion already had his hands full, and besides. Crossing the city is easier for Kunzite. He doesn't need anti-nausea medication to be useful on the far side.
The shadow that flares on a rooftop near the walls, then, is nothing to do with the dark energy at all. Except to the extent that Kunzite lets his power spread out a little further, tasting that darkness at its fringes -- repelling it rather than incorporating it, but getting the feel of where it might be centered.
He doesn't like any of the answers he's getting.
Somewhere, inside the Prison, there is a sitting room for lawyers to talk to clients or for visitors to talk to Prisoners and today one of those people is Lacrima. Long purple hair. Stunning purple eyes. Pale complexion. Slightly pointy canines that aren't really showing yet. She is dressed in some sort of deep purple bussiness suit. She has with her, two 'robo-goons'. Youma dressed in weird gangster like suits. Fedoras hiding red eyes and gray skin.
"So you say you saw a vampire?" she asks the prisoner. Lacrima did not know this person as anyone she attacked. Was there another vampire? She was following this lead. Eclipse gave her easy access to this particular prisoner- some goons for safety. And a hefty bribe for guards to look the other way. Just in case.
"Yeah! He was big... and burly! and.. hit that girl with a bat."
Lacrima frowns a bit. This did not sound like a vampire. "And why do you think it was a vampire?" asks Lacrima.
"Because it happened at /night!/."
Lacrima gives this deadpan 'you gotta be kidding me look'. What a waste of time. "I think we're done here." she says as she begins to stand up and walk back out toward's the door.
She's out in the hallway with her two youma compatriots when a sudden and quite close, wave of darkness hits her. She frowns a bit and waves her hand to the right and casts off the two robogoons. "Go wait for me in the car." she says. No doubt. One of these things is driving her around town and back to Sunset Tower today.
She dissapears into a cloak of mist, to try to begin to get to the bottom of this. It's gotta be coming from somewhere. Right?
Time to peek around.
Nuwu had been out on the docks on the rumors of some ghosts along the shoreline, maybe remnants from some catastrophe. This means she's out in disguise, mist shrouding her, making her hard to focus on. While the shoreline and ghost ships had been a dead end, she did hear about a giant prison and those tend to have their own issues, maybe she can bait one out and grab it.
She initially mistakes the aura of dark energy as the aura of a particularly powerful ghost, but it occurs to her that something like that would be hatred, rage, killer intent, instead it's something else. A sensation she's starting to learn. Drawing the mist around herself, she starts to run, using walls and other things to bound along, using the help of her ghosts to bound ahead even further. As soon as she leaps from one, a burst of grey magic, the ghost runs ahead, ready to catch her and act as a springboard. She'll eventually learn other methods, but for now this works well enough. She doesn't sense anyone else in the area yet.
Usually it's rare for Sky Jack to be flying this far out away from home. Tonight, though, there was a feeling in the air, sort of like a foul scent, weak, but growing stronger and stronger as he travels, and awful enough to pull him towards it. Zipping over parts of the megalopolis city towards the suburbs and parts he'd never been in before, he looks back and forth from his board, as he seems to be zeroing in on a giant building in the distance.
Jack frowns, then pulls out his phone, clicking over to HeartNET.
'Dunno if anyone else feels the giant dark wave coming from the west but I've gone to investigate. Will respond later with more info if I have it. Wish me luck.'
The phone goes back into a protected, sealed inner pocket, as Jack descends, getting closer to the compound - a factory? A... prison? What sort of place is this?
It's a little far from her usual territories... But sometimes, the youngest of unicorns, before settling down in one place for centuries, can be stricken with a terrible affliction known as... Wanderlust.
'I will go just a short distance away' they say, and lose themselves to the feel of new land under their passing; until such a time that they return to their home, or choose a new one.
Little Ariel is not immune to this, and this is why the suburban Fuchuu region of Tokyo might be privy to the strange sight of a small girl mounted on the back of her gigantic hound. A strange sight, yes, but not one to worry about with school not in session and... The fact that the dog seems well enough capable of protecting his tiny ward.
"I wonder what's further this way, Lucky." She muses while the shaggy hound plods along at a slow but steady and tireless pace. Until he pauses. both hound and rider bristle.
The prison on its own seems ominous and imposing, even without knowledge of what a prison IS, the natural negativity surrounding such a location made the pair shy away at first... Then they felt it, too. The much more serious waves of dark energy from somewhere within.
Fingers curl into the dog's fur, and she gulps.
"Think we should maybe check that out?"
"Ruff."
"Well yes, I know, it's just. What if someone is getting hurt?"
"Wurf."
"That's a god point, but I'm not sure it's any reason to turn away."
"... Arf?"
No, she can't really understand him, but the 'conversation' is good to ease the nerves.
"Okay we'll just take a peek."
That's the decision as a slight nudge of her knee guides her loyal steed towards the prison. At least before the neat little phone in her pocket goes off.
It's a tesament to how nervous she is that it makes her near leap off Lucky's back with a sharp bleat. Before she sheepishly settles down and checksit.
A message on HeartNET. She fumbles with the keys for a moment.
'I'm here too. I don't know what's going on but I can try and help.'
She ends the reply with a small chibi clipart image of a unicorn holding up the peace sign. That's how norma; earth human people end phone messages right? Emojis???
The first thing any curious investigators may notice, aside from prisoners and prison staff alike getting dizzy and quickly trying to sit down somewhere and rest, are the ravens. Pitch-black ravens with their wing-tips flowing like dark, shadowy flames. These youma are circling above that section of the prison like vultures above desert travellers out of supplies.
The second thing is the soft, distant giggle. It's flanging, and distant, and too anyone who have heard it before, it's unmistakably Shiniko's. The sound seems to come from the mist itself rather than any distinct place, however, but it slowly gets louder as people come by.
And when enough have gathered, the Shadow Witch speaks, "Come to visit me tonight, dears~?" She giggles again, and then the mists coalesce into cold black fire near one of the buildings, and the Shadow Witch comes out, walking on her hair like she usually does. Although... that's hard to see with the sheer density of shadow that surrounds her.
The eyes, though... the eyes are easy to see. Glowing red, narrowed in an expression that can mean little else than sheer hatred, "I'm afraid I'm much too busy to play~" She turns around and heads towards the nearest fallen prisoner, her shadows starting to wash over him, "I hope you won't mind playing with my familiars instead~"
And at that point, the ravens stop circling around the sky, and instead start flying towards anyone they spot who is not collapsing under the weight of the magic, including Nuwu and Lacrima. In passing, their wings flare up, cold flames that ought to cause frostburn on impact.
Mist uncloaks somewhere in Shiniko's general vincinity- having found the epicenter-- it fades away as quickly, leaving Lacrima there, as she runs a hand over her bussiness suit-- and tsks, letting her normal dress flash into existence as she settles herself.
Shiniko...
"Shiniko. What are you even here to punish." she says deadpan. "You're in a prison. These people are already literarly in the process. Of being punished." she says.
"What are you hoping to achieve. If you just want to cause misery and pain then just admit. Give in. It'll be easier that way. Than trying to rationalize it." she spits.
"Trust me on that one."
Ravens come down for her. She closes her eyes and sighs and reopens them and raises her hand. "Tormenta Oscura.". Beams of dark energy rain down from above-- trying to strike and come down on various birds and just otherwise saturate the area around her.
Still a bird does clip her. It's cold. This is a feeling she's used to-- frostbite only goes so far when you're not flesh and blood.
"--and if you don't. You need to stop now Shiniko. You need to stop until you end up something worse."
There's another answer to Sky Jack and the unicorn. A thumbs-up emoji, followed by 'sry busy but sent kunzite will tell him yr there'. Tuxedo Kamen: filled with grace, grammar, and accuracy in spelling, particularly when in a hurry.
Kunzite does not get the chibi unicorn clipart. Kunzite gets a few words from the communicator on his wrist, one of which makes him frown a little harder than usual. "No place for her at the best of times," he mutters, but only after contact's been severed. And he moves. Not as swift as Sky Jack or Nuwu, but the earth's willing to make its exceptions for him again; when he leaps, gravity isn't an obstacle, walls aren't a barrier, and his own shadows cloak him against other forms of security.
And, to an extent, against the fog. Though when he hears that soft giggle, he knows all too well that 'to an extent' is all that he's going to be getting tonight.
He's not as close as Lacrima, when the vampire unmasks herself; he's landed on a rooftop, staying to the high places, reaching out and drinking the electricity from the security cameras watching them. It won't do them harm in the long run. It won't be more noticed than any other form of magic -- won't be more noticed than the ravens would, or the black mist. These things protect themselves. But there won't be a recording, not of this part of the prison, not of these few moments.
Which is probably good, given the rain of dark energy that ensues, and the lightning that Kunzite casts out to accompany it, a field of energy that scours at the ravens -- tuned not to harm Sky Jack or Ariel, should they pass through it -- weaving its startling pink in an arc around the outside of the area Lacrima's saturating without letting one power touch the other.
The one advantage he has this time that he didn't the last time he faced off in company against the Shadow Witch: this time, he isn't running nearly on empty.
Nuwu hears that familiar laughter and scowls. The mist almost immediately focuses around her face, hiding everything, but her eyes which appear to glow yellow-green through the illusory mist. Whether she's doing it as part of the illusion or not is a good question really. She hops the walls, trailing mist and wisps of magic as she lands lightly before bounding forward again, seeing the attacks coming in. The show almost causes her to miss the attacks.
For once, she's not caught off guard though and she goes into a slide, assisted by her humanoid ghost who helps her back to her feet in a smooth motion.
Using the momentum, she bounds into the air and tries to close the distance, the first raven that had been sent after her finding itself under assult by the second ghost she brings along these days, a sharp edged demon looking thing, clearly having been manipulated by the girl.
The second bird, she ducks out of the way in a smooth movement, ending with her far to the side. Her poltergeist is pulled over before her, moving had hand through the ghost, magic flarign out between her fingers. The ghost mimics her movements, inches ahead of her real fingers as she dashes forward and tries to grab the next bird between those ghostly fingers.
It's not hard to tell that she's actually not in a good mood about something as she's moving with a focus that's rare for the fox girl. Whether she grabs the bird or not or even if the other bird escapes her ghost, she calls out sharply, "Shiniko, you're going too far! Back off before it's too late!"
Okay, so the decision is made, and when Ariel gets the message back, she puts the neat little phone away. At least she's not alone, and will probably meet up with the others on the inside. The issue now comes in getting in. Well it's not THAT much of an issue. A low grunt from Lucky and Ariel holds on good and tight. The dog proceeds to leap... Bound... And scrabble his way up the prison wall, before the two are in... Perhaps the worst place for Ariel to be, yes, but it's too late to turn back, now.
In retrospect, this may have been a TERRIBLE idea.
The dark obscuring mist, and unkindness of dark ravens as black as the night, give the moment such a nightmarish tinge. Ariel has to pinch her cheek just to make sure she isn't dreaming this all up. But that laughter; the chill giggle sends a thrill up her spine.
"Um!"
Some visit this is, topaz eyes flitting to collapsing inmates and guards passing out.
"... Yes?"
No, no the answer is clearly no, when the birds swoop in. Ariel bleats, Lucky snaps jaws, and she's left flailing for a beat, dropping her human guise and donning her armor in a flash of silver, frost coating the silvery plating before mount and rider duck into the protective field of Kunzite's making, leaving Ariel shivering and dizzy for a moment.
Okay this was kind of a bad idea.
Approaching the prison, Sky Jack sees a figure, bounding along on flashing, glowing green platforms, moving past the walls of the prison easily even as he misses the details - everything but the fuzzy tail. That's.. Jiaying? No, that's her foxy form. He'd never gotten a name for her. Later. At least he knows she's in the area. His phone buzzes, once, then twice, and he pulls it out, scanning the words - Ariel and Kunzite? Good. At least he's not alone as he crosses into the prison walls.
Jack first sees the prisoners, beginning to collapse, but then? There's the ravens. Dark, pitch black ravens, flying everywhere. It takes a moment for Kukai to consider whether or not he wants to fight them or try to ignore them, but for now they seem to be non-hostile, so he descends.
That giggle, however? Is certainly hostile. He pulls up sharp for a moment, looking around, then moves towards Shiniko, pointing at her. "I'm more surprised to be agreeing with Lacrima than you know, but she's right. These people are the punished. This is punishment, this place. Why are you hurting them even more?" Nuwu cries out and he nods. "You hear that? Everyone thinks you're going too far. Stop this!"
Before he can say anything else, though, the birds are in flight. Some of them vanish before they can even get close, but others... It's a good thing Jack is agile on his board, flipping and rolling to one side, then back the other direction, a few sizzling soccer balls launched out to pick off a few of the birds before they can get close, even as one slices in from behind and brushes a wing along one shoulder, chilling it and causing the flying ace to hiss. "Are you just looking to piss everyone off, Shiniko?!"
"I thought we were friends, Lacrima-chan, why do you betray me~?" Shiniko's voice is full of clear, unmistakable distaste. "These people are going to come out of here soon enough, and then they'll hurt people again, trying to reform them is the mistake. It's a waste of energy."
The ravens themselves are flimsy, easily vaporized even by magic without any purification. Shiniko's initial experiments with Youma flawed, but Nuwu might notice that unlike prior interactions, purifying them does not seem to result in feedback to her. These things are not merely extensions of herself.
"And that energy can be put to better use, Nuwu. Whether you believe me or not, it's true." Sky Jack doesn't even get the pleasure of a response before she vanishes back into the shadows, apparently done talking, and soon there's no trace of her left.
Well, unless you count the shadows solidifying into wolves, a pack of nine wolves, each of which with dark flames for eyes and tails, and cages for bodies. They howl, a sound disturbed by the same kind of flanging as Shiniko's own voice.
Two of them start to head towards Sky Jack, four more towards Kunzite and Ariel, Nuwu and Lacrima get one each, and the last and biggest remains where it is, behind the pack, howling ever more. With every howl, the fog thickens.
The wolves, as they approach, start bellowing cold flames, full of dark energy. They're not holding back whatsoever.
Nuwu hadn't been purifying the animals, there was a certain viciousness to the attacks from both the fox and the ghost as the bird she herself had caught is roughly thrown to the ground as she continues her movement towards Shiniko. Someone might get the feeling she's got something personal against the witch the way she's acting.
"You threaten your friends Shiniko! I think this was inevitable!" She draws the angry ghost to her, starting to set up a leap towards Shiniko, a blow flame forming in her hand and trailing behind her- though the wolves stop her plan as she can't risk landing wrong with something like that. Not to mention there's quite a few and other people who she just now, is starting to realize are there. "You threaten more than just your friends even." The wolf is gestured at and the angry ghost bounds forward, clawed limbs out, wreathed in Nuwu's magic. She follows right behind the ghost, that ball of blue fire still hovering near her hand. The ravens may not have been connected, not that she even tried, but she's sure the bigger ones will get the usual result.. The more human of her two ghosts in the mean time acts without being told, bounding through the wolf and heading towards the big one. Something is off about the usually friendly looking ghost, eyes covered by hair, arms longer than one would expect, ending in twisted claws and a splash of red in the center of her back, matched only by the red in her eyes. The fox is definitely angry.
After the initial moment of bleating panic, Ariel regains her wits. Though she's breathing heavily, floppy ears pricked straight up, the unicorn rifles through her memories. Like lovingly going through an old drawer of photos, she takes her time from the safety of Kunzite's protective zone, before realization sets in. She knows Shiniko, and Lacrima too. But the last time she had seen the two in one place they had been working in tandem. She's quiet for a long time, after listening to the exchange between the two, ears drooping. It does not sound pleasant in the least... But then...
Lucky growls.
Try as she might to keep the proverbial leash on her hound, he snarls, when the darkness forms into wolves, and... This is when she gives up on trying to hold him back. If anything, his fervor gives her the distinct clue it is time to get off her noble steed.
No sooner than she does, Lucky bolts, growling, maddened. It makes Ariel cringe a bit.
The Irish Wolfhound is a breed that was carefully cultivated over generations, originally bred as a hunting dog with one express purpose, before they became a 'pet' breed.
They were made to hunt and kill wolves.
Though in truth Lucky us a fallen star, it is this breed he guises himself as, and as such the kind of dog he acts most like. Glowing with golden starlight, he rushes into a fray of snapping jaws and flailing clawed paws. That's a thing. It happens. Ariel chooses to not watch it, as she takes a breath.
"This place is for punishing people?" It's true, a prison is no place for her at the best of times, but thanks to Lacrima she gets a crash course. "If that's why they're here, I don't think double-punshing them will teach them much of a lesson..."
Lacrima frowns. "We still are friends Shiniko-chan." she says quietly. "It's why I'm trying to help you right now. You're going to go over the edge. You're going to go over the edge and there's going to be no one there to try to grab you." she says quietly.
This is too target rich of an enviroment. She sort of gnashes her teeth together. She's been practicing. She's been chasing things in the Dusk Zone and studying them. This is is going to be a very good idea or a very bad idea.
She concentrates and then shoots her hand upwards. Convocar y Dominacin!.
She summons up seven weird. Random snake creatures. Thier eyes start out red, but then change to a deep violet purple. Similar to Lacrima's own. She concentrates a little--- then sends them slithering outward toward's the wolves coming for her, and some others.
They're not powerful. Easyily destroyed. All in all, not a powerful effort for a first summon. But it's.. something.
She lashes out with a bolt of dark energy that orginates from her palm towards the one directly coming for her though.
She looks to Ariel and blinks a moment. Isn't she familiar?
"That's not her goal anymore," Kunzite says in answer to Ariel. "Whatever justice she convinced herself she was serving before, she's given up even the pretense of it now. Once someone's decided that she's justified in punishing people for crimes they might someday commit --"
He leaves the rest unspoken, but it's clear enough. Everyone alive becomes, not merely a potential victim, but a desirable target.
These wolves aren't like the ravens; putting out enough energy to cover their area and still damage them would be prohibitively costly. He could manage it a different way, but -- Lacrima. He can't be sure that proximity to that power would damage her, but not being certain it wouldn't takes that option off the list. So instead --
One of the wolves leaps for Lucky's side. Kunzite gestures left-handed, and an arc of flat black shadow raises itself between; it doesn't devour the wolf's energy, but reflects its momentum, sending the shadow-familiar back to the ground hard. Leaving it scrabbling to its feet, giving an opening for the fallen star's gold-glowing teeth.
A second one comes for him, and as it leaps that lightning field overhead diminishes, vanishes, drawn down into the sword he calls into his hand. The blade glitters the pink-gold colors of dawn clouds in the instant before it vanishes into the creature, before jaws close on unyielding cape and iron claws score parallel lines across the far side of Kunzite's chest. That's all right. That's almost all right. The blood freezes in place rather than run --
It shouldn't have been able to make that stroke. But where the gold earth-energy and his own warmer color meet, right now, there's only a sullen, unglowing gray. He'll have to remember that. Until other matters are tended to, not everything he can do will be as strong as it should.
Sky Jack growls at Shiniko as she vanishes, then lets out a slightly strangled sound as two of the demonic wolves turn and face him. "Great, she's going to be like this, now." He backs up away from the wolves as the fight erupts around him, and a soccer ball spawns in front of him. It sizzles with electric energy and he lets out a cry as he punts it, launching it towards one of the two wolves, who leaps to one side. The other one breaks into a sprint, running towards Jack, who spins, kickflipping his flying hoverboard up into his hands and bringing the hard bottom of the board into the oncoming youma, a loud, crackling spark of energy flaring up and making the beast shake as it's fried, dissapating first into dust, then smoke.
The second wolf is racing towards him at this point, but there's still a soccer ball on the ground next to Jack, and he punts it, low and fast, catching the wolf in the legs a second before it reaches him. Actually, through the legs is more appropriate. The wolf lunges towards him, snapping at his leg and sending a spike of sharp, chill pain through his calf for just a moment before the wolf sails past, collapsing and bleeding dark smoke out before vanishing.
Jack reaches down, rubbing at the bare nip on his leg, making an angered face, and setting the board back on the ground to remount it. "OK, somebody seen Shiniko? This has to stop, and fast!"
Shiniko is gone, if she's still listening, she's most certainly not responding. Not to Nuwu, not to Lacrima, not to anyone. The wolves are single-minded in their pursuit, and the mission. Nuwu's blue fire keeps the wolf at a distance, their animalistic intelligence enough to recognize a threat and stay at a distance.
Her attack on the big one manages to cause it to stop howling, a big gap in its jaw where the twisted claws ripped it open, and with that, the fog starts to dissipate while it bounds back. Then it starts howling again, and with it, the fog thickens once again. Slower than before, the howl weakened by that.
Lucky tears through the wolves it attacks, a savage beating that doesn't even come close to making it a fair fight. They try, using team tactics in an attempt to land at least one bite in the star's side. It's a sirius fight, but they're outmatched despite outnumbering Lucky.
Lactima's snakes, well... the wolf simply steps on them, unafraid of any poison they might have, on the way towards Lacrima. The bolt of dark energy slows it down some, one of the 'ribs' of its cage broken, which causes a limp, but it speeds up, spitting flame as it tries to chomp down on the vampire girl.
Kunzite hurts the wolf coming for him, striking it in the side, breaking the chest apart several times, but it's still got enough to get going, and its maw opens up impossibly wide, trying to eat Kunzite whole.
Sky Jack manages to actually destroy both of the wolves coming at him. But that's where things get weird, They collapse into a shadowy substance, an oily liquid that spreads across the ground. And then lights itself on cold fire, sucking the heat out of the area rapidly. In moments, the entire area feels like it's a winter night.
Nuwu is too focused on the smaller wolf in front of her to worry about her ghost attempting to do it's worst to the larger of the two wolves. Her focus at the moment is instead manipulating her second to pin the wolf down, slashing, weakening and attacking. Nuwu asists, keeping the pressure on the creature by attacking with both magically enhanced martial arts and the ball of purifying flame that she's trying to all, but literally force feed into the monster.
In the meantime, Meifeng meets the howl with what sounds like a scream of rage and fades away backwards and reappears dashing forward to claw at the monster, relying on Jia's tenuous connection for energy rather than directly pulling her magic while she works.
Then those wolves turn into cold flame goo. She looks over to the flames and calls out, "Get away from that!" not sure if it will spread or not and bluntly, not sure how to even snuff out a large... coldfire. Maybe creating a blaze? Her magic isn't that strong, involving the elements yet though. This is a distraction and her guard is down, though only for a few moments.
Lucky is... Particularly efficient in the manner with which he deals with the wolves. Though they are beings of dark energy, Ariel still keeps her gaze averted, hands balling tightly. Though Lucky's ferocity is near unmatched by the wolves, he doesn't get out wholly unscathed, eventually returning to Ariel's side, body 'leaking' a golden light- much like a flashlight was shining out from behind his injuries.
She should look familiar to Lacrima- Lacrima certainly looks familiar to the little unicorn, who still shows no ill-judgment towards the girl she met as Norie Okana, when speaking; this time to the vampire, "If you're her friend, you should be there to grab her." It's a simple, gentle, verbal nudge; going off the assumption that Lacrima knows Shiniko much better than Ariel certainly does. But then her attention is elsewhere- the wolf bearing down on Kunzite. One of the ones that Lucky didn't... 'Handle'.
She bleats. Lucky won't make the charge in time, so Ariel thinks on her feet. Her horn shimmers with a flickering seashell green, butterfly, light. She reaches into the protean gossamer stuff that dreams are made of, weaving them into a little daydream that becomes real.
It is a huge plank of wood. That sticks straight up, when those jaws come down- intent to hold them wide open like a support pillar.
Hey it works in cartoons.
Jack feels the heat being vacuumed away from him and rapidly dives backwards away from the freezing fire, shuddering all over as he looks back and forth. For once he was the first to get free of his fight, and he rapidly considers the situation around him. Kunzite can take care of himself, Lucky is winning his fight, Lacrima should deal with her own problems (Jack is perhaps still angry at her), and Nuwu has two furious ghosts tearing at the wolves. The real problem...
"Shiniko!" Jack leaps into the air on his board, looking for the darkest point of shadow, searching for the Shadow Witch, sending out bright, crackling, charged soccer balls into the darkest places, trying to leave her no place to hide. "Come back out and face up to the fact that your pets are losing! You're not here to dispense justice! You're here to mete out revenge!" He looks down. "Everyone! As much light as you can manage!"
Lacrima frowns softly. "I do not see her." she says in her same deadpan as usual tone.
She frowns as the wolf comes in, breathing fire. What she summoned was strong enough. She'll have to get better at that.
List of things Lacrima is not good at:
* Football
* Angry Birds.
* 'Making Light'.
* ...
Look it's a longer list than that. She frowns. Others are going to have to concentrate on the light as she lights her palm on fire--- becoming some sort of Shadowy claw as she tries to shove her hand down the wolf's throat and just sort of rip... something out. She isn't happy. She doesn't care if part of her outfit is now burning.
She frowns at Ariel. "I can't catch her when I've fallen myself." she says flatly.
She looks upwards. Toward's a nearby tower.
Spotlights.
"I see spotlights." pause.
"No idea where they turn on from." another pause. "Sorry."
Wolfjaws open impossibly wide. Kunzite draws the blade from the creature's cage-chest, severing a rib to do it, but that maw is already closing --
-- on -- a -- plank of wood.
"Thanks. Get back." The words is steady, toneless, as if he were making an aside about some piece of legal paperwork in a conference room somewhere, instead of listening to Jack and bringing his free hand up --
The bolt of energy that sears through the wolf is not pink. Nor gold. It's Homura Akemi's blindingly brilliant purple, and it's aimed upward and through the creature, shredding it into another patch of that chill fire; for the instants it exists it sheds more light than a hundred bolts of his pink lightning.
But it's not a spotlight. It doesn't stay.
(Kunzite has a set of things in common with Lacrima. The two of them overlap, for instance, on "not good at making light." ... they might overlap on Angry Birds, too.)
Between the lot of them, the remaining wolf youma are slain. Every last one of them collapses into cold fire, things are getting really cold as a result. On the upside, the fog is fading, and the flames don't spread. As the oily shadowy liquid burns out, the cold flames die.
Starting up lights helps banish the fog, helps restore the prisoners and prison staff, they're tired but they will recover. Shiniko remains nowhere to be seen, looks like she really left.
Ariel is also very bad at angry birds. The app is on her phone, and she can't get past the third level-- oh not those angry birds, right. She gets back, when told to do so, without questioning and prettymuch places herself as out of Kunzite's way as possible to let him do as he must.
But that... Seems to be about it. With the familiars dissipating and no further trace of the Witch herself, the unicorn seems to sag slightly where she stands, Lucky nosing at her side and paying no mind to his own injuries.
This place is kind of terrible. But more importantly than that, she's looking at Lacrima now. Her lips purse.
"I think that just means you know how to help her the best out of anyone, then, maybe."
Nuwu may or may not have been stomping on the wolf when it turned into oil. Luckily she gets away before she catches, but as usual she has a touch of frost formed on her. Kicking her toe against the ground, she looks at everyone gathered and with a sharp gesture, drags both of her ghosts back in, getting a surprised yelp from the Chinese ghost. When both are visible again, they're back to looking mostly normal, for being ghosts anyway.
Walking over to Lacrima, she calls out, "Did you see her?" The mask she's wearing continues to cling to her, hiding the fact that she's angry. This isn't hiding the anger in her voice though.
It's only after a moment that she catches herself and pulls the mist away from her face, letting it cling around her shoulders and arms, trailing behind her as she checks on... a lot of familiar faces now that she's looking including the dog, which she knows isn't a dog, but that she does keep some distance from. "Hi." she says weakly. Hm, maybe she should find her inner calm again.
Sky Jack stares around the courtyard, as the frostfire oil continues to burn away, and the shadows begin to recede once the wolves are defeated. He lowers his arms and descends back to the ground. "...Right." His eyes are on Lacrima as the group begins to recover. "...So you're friends with Shiniko. What the hell was that? She just... why was she here? What was she intending to do? Just hurt people?"
Jack's eyes run over Ariel, Kunzite, and Nuwu for status. Seeing that they're all ok, he gives them all a quick, roguish grin and a thumbs up before he turns back to Lacrima.
Lacrima frowns. "No, I didn't see her." she says to the two of them as she frowns a lot harder. She immediatly snaps to Sky Jack. "I have no idea what went on here. I was in the area for a different appointment." she says matter of factly. "She probably thinks this is 'justice' like everything else. Or maybe she's finally gone off the deep end and doesn't care anymore." she says.
She frowns at Nuwu. "I'm sorry." she says.
She looks to Ariel. "I don't know how I intend to help her up when I'm stuck down here myself." she states.
She tries to catch Kunzite. "Kunzite. When you have time. I would like to.... talk. To you." she says teeth grating a bit.
She sighs and shakes her head. "I dunno. Making monsters. It's very bad."
Close enough to okay. After a few moments of silence, Kunzite warily lets the sword go back where it came from, then places a hand on Ariel's shoulder for a moment (only a moment; frosted armor is cold) before moving. The largest concentration of the frostfire is where Lucky was fighting; he draws up a dome of shadow over it, keeps its hunger confined. It's still cold outside, terribly so; two-thirds of the coldfire is still burning in the open. But it's less so than it would have been -- and the buildings that house the prisoners are uninsulated and unheated. There's a degree to which chill is a welcome break from the summer heat. And then there's a degree to which chill is an added burden on the systems of already beaten-down inmates; that on top of Shiniko's drain could be deadly. Minimizing that is worth something.
"Last time I saw her," he says once he has the attention to spare, "she was attacking someone for the crime of having been attacked. These, she was attacking for crimes they hadn't yet committed. If those are representative, then her condition's degenerating quickly." He glances up and over at the others, studying Sky Jack for a moment, Lacrima, Nuwu, evaluating them one at a time. Lucky's injury he already knows about, but he has no idea who can heal glow.
Lacrima's call of his name pulls his attention back to her, and he inclines his head. "After this, if you wish. Or we can arrange something."
Nuwu watches Lacrima closely as she talks. Eventually she sighs and shrugs, turning to look at the others. "Sky Jack- she's been trying to help, remember? You and I need to talk later- I want you to use your message board or whatever to help me look out for her." Her voice is sharp, but she catches herself once more and says more evenly, "Are you okay?"
Ariel is still given a wide berth, as long as the dog is there, but she calls out to her, "You're okay too?" Feeling oddly strange that she's gotten out of a fight without being badly hurt. There's an involuntary twitch as her shoulders are still not in great shape, but she wasn't as active as she was last time so- it should be fine... right?
To Kunzite, she responds to the statement about Shiniko's attack. "She's convinced she's a good guy, stating that she'd even go through friends and other close relationships to complete her goals." It seems like she's going through what she knows and what she's willing to share beyond that general information. Cape guy was protecting Naru, he's probably okay. Right? "She thinks she's in control of whatever the darkness is. She's not."
There's a long, drawn out sigh from Sky Jack as he listens to Lacrima and Kunzite. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure this has been an example of 'Shiniko is getting out of hand, we need to try to stop her.' of the highest order." He rubs his temples, then blinks, looking down at his pocket as it buzzes. He pulls it out, and the look on his face is clear - something has surprised him. "... Damn. You've got to be kidding. Now?"
He glances up at the group, putting the phone away, and sighs. "If she's gone away for now the only thing we can do is wait for her to come back. I'll make a post to Virtue later and talk about her, but right now something else has come up. It has to wait. And yeah, we should talk later... uh, fox." He salutes them all. "Don't let Lacrima go vampire on you or Ariel or.. her, Kunzite." He points over to Nuwa. "Gotta dash!" Up onto his board he goes and up into the sky he heads...
Lacrima frowns and sighs a bit. "She is losing control. You don't control it unless you become it. Or it controls you." she insists.
"I'd like for that not to happen. To her. I didn't have a choice. She does." she says silently.
She looks to Kunzite. "After this, if you have time. Or later, Kunzite." she says.
Then she rolllllls her eyes at Kukai. Yeah. Whatever.
"I'm sorry." she says again to Nuwu.
"The best that anyone can do is hold on for a while," Kunzite says quietly, in more or less agreement with Lacrima. "I think Riventon has the record on that." Oh, there's a reassuring statement. "If you have any idea what the source of the influence is, that's your best route." Your?
Nuwu's?
Lacrima's?
Sky Jack's departing advice is met with an arched eyebrow; he shrugs to Lacrima a moment after. His eyes flicker back to Nuwu again, but he doesn't single her out. "Are any of you injured?"
Nuwu perks up at the mention of the name and says, "Does everyone work for that guy?" She sounds a mix of incredulous and aggravated. There's a shake of her head and she says, "Be careful where you change- I don't know if she can see through them." Jia has no intentions of letting them see her for long at all, not that she's hard to find for a certain witch.
She slumps forward and lets out her breath, finding it hard to maintain both frustrated anger and calm at the same time. Eventually she says, "I may have a way to drag her out into the open, or at least keep annoying her until she comes after me for getting in her wa-" the question of if she's injured gets a curious look, "Can you heal? You couldn't last time with Naru right?"
Lacrima frowns a bit as she shakes her head. "Riventon-san is not a bad person." she says matter of factly. But she just resigns and sulks a bit as she purses her lips and waves a hand off at Kunzite.
"I'm fine. Not like you or anyone else could heal me anyways without potentially burning me off." she says.
Kunzite shakes his head to Nuwu, on healing. "No," he says. "But I know a couple of people who can -- at least if you're not half made of dark energy."
He pauses for a moment, and then adds, "Neither they nor I work for Riventon. We disagree significantly with his methods. But we agree that there are occasions when those disagreements should be put aside."
Like, for instance, Shiniko targeting two thousand prisoners.
Nuwu watches Lacrima and says, "I didn't say he was a bad person." Just implied it and is getting kind of weirded out that everyone knows who he is. "You've said trying to stuff you with Yin wouldn't work, so- you're probably right, yeah."
She shrugs and crouches down, then sits down and rests her chin on her knees. "She has some kind of master plan cape guy. She thinks in the long run, whatever she's doing will be worth the price and... she's clearly lost it." Not that she looks happy about that. "I'm not at all made of dark energy- why would you even think that?" Aside from hanging out with Lacrima and controlling ghosts. No clue.
Kunzite shrugs his right shoulder. The one opposite the frozen-over slashes. His opinion of what injuries are not worth putting off conversations might perhaps be a little skewed. "Lacrima has at least enough of it to be hurt by some methods of healing," he says. "So does the Shadow Witch by now, most likely. So did I, for a while, though that's past. Under the circumstances, better to check with words than with unfortunate accidents." He and Lacrima have already had enough of those.
He glances back at the coldfire, still burning. Enough magic to keep people from wanting to come and investigate just yet. "So," he says. "If she thinks in the long run. And if this is her plan, or was in the beginning, and not solely the plan of something that moved in to use her. One question might be what she wanted, back then. Wanted enough to take up a power she didn't understand."
Lacrima frowns and looks to Kunzite. "'Enough of it'. Peh." she says. She's all dark energy. That's enough of it.
She frowns a bit and looks over to Nuwu and sulks.
"...I don't want her to have to go through what I went though it sucks." is all she finally says.
Which is an understatement.
Nuwu pushes herself back to her feet. Watching Lacrima, she answers Kunzite first, "When I hit her with good energy the first time- she just looked sick. The last time she got cried out in pain after I stuck it to her shadow cops- You were there." She finally turns to face Kunzite and adds, "This time, when I approached her, she said I wouldn't want to hurt her-" She says that with some emotion to her voice, but it's buried quickly, "She left before I could even get close enough. She's not too far gone though because I'm not going to allow it." Not that she's got a great track record of stopping it.
Looking to Lacrima, she starts brushing herself off, "I don't either- even if it means I have to seal her in a room or chase her into that... place."
Kunzite turns a hand over, palm mostly up -- it's not quite a gesture toward Lacrima, but that's largely because he's reflexively careful to be sure it can't be mistaken for an incipient attack. To Nuwu, he says quietly, "I don't think I've seen any time when doing that to someone in that kind of condition didn't hurt. Even when it worked."
He glances back at the flames. There's much less oil, now. "We should relocate soon. Not much longer before people will start being willing to venture outside again."
Lacrima sighs and shakes her head a bit and just waves a hand dismissively at Kunzite. "We need to have that talk." she looks to Nuwu.
"I.. would rather this talk be private." she turns towards Nuwu.
"Or we can arrange for another time later." she says softly.
She looks to Nuwu and frowns through. Heavily. "You don't go in there alone. Or you let me tag you so I can come /get/ you." she says matter of factly and sternly and coldly.
Nuwu watches the flames burn down as well. "I don't expect it to be pleasant. Not now anyway." She points at him and says, "Where do I go to get the healing? Sky Jack had been trying to help, but his network never did... quite come through. He tried at least though."
To Lacrima, she sighs and says, "Fine, private, later, it needs to happen though." She's about to turn tokeep lookout when Lacrima warns her. "I have no way to get there on my own- doesn't mean I won't try to chase her if it comes down to it." She's going to be stubborn on this
Kunzite simply inclines his head to Lacrima, accepting her preferences on the talk. When Nuwu asks that question, he touches the band of metal on his left wrist; pauses for a moment, as if listening; then shakes his head. "He's still busy," he says to Nuwu. "I'll need to get an okay to either set up a meeting or, failing that, get you the clinic address -- I don't have it myself. You mentioned Naru; if you see her regularly, I can pass word through her. If not, I'll need a way to get word to you."
Lacrima sighs and waves her hand and flashes out of her dress. Into the bussiness suit she was wearing before. She pulls out a black card with a printed name in gold 'Lacrima' and then a phone number underneath it. She hands it to Kunzite. "You let me know when you're ready, as I doubt you'll give me your number." she says flatly.
The bussiness card is made of /horrible dead wretched trees/ and possibly /10% cotton/. Horrible! That is to say. There's nothing magical or dark or tricky about it if Kunzite gets it checked.
She looks to Nuwu and sighs a bit. and yet again...
"I'm sorry."
Nuwu offers something of a shrug. "I see her occasionally? It's mostly lucky any time I run into her- bad luck the last two times since that weird doll and then Shiniko." Her arms drop to her sides and she finally says simply, "Thank you" sounding almost back to normal for a brief moment.
"Stop apologizing Lacrima, it's not your fault. She's the one that fell into it." Brushing herself off, she glances at the card and says two things, "You never gave me a card" There's a beat and she asks Kunzite, "Should I give you... what, a phone number? Just tell Naru, she knows who I am- both ways." Her seceret's not great.
Kunzite's eyebrows lift. Both of them, this time. But he accepts the business card, with both hands, bowing to Lacrima as he does. Which probably hurts like hell, particularly given that some of the slowly melting ... ice ... cracks and falls away. "Shortly, then," he says to her. Possibly 'when he is not actually bleeding.' He glances to Nuwu, and says, "I'll tell her." Nothing else.
And then the frostfire he's confining flickers out, and he banishes the dome of shadows and bows slightly again. To both girls, this time. More shadows crawl up his body and cape, engulf him, dissipate, and he's gone.
Lacrima blinks. "Do you really want one?" she asks as she offers one to Nuwu. Same black. same print. Same material.
She sighs. "I need to get back to my car. I need to get back to Sunset Tower to do work related things. I still need to report my findings in the Manor." she says matter of factly.
"I'll see you later tonight Nuwu." she says softly as she turns and begins to leave.
Nuwu peers at Lacrima and takes the card, just because it was offered. Then she points at her and says, "You have a car too! Why do we walk all over?" She actually doesn't sound upset mind. It sounds like she's almost trying to tease Lacrima. She may also be masking that she's upset for other reasons. The... what, teleport gets a fist shake too and she says, "I need a car." before running off, the run turning into the assisted bounding leaps.