There is a rainstorm hovering over the downtown area. It's incredibly localized. Grey, fluffy clouds raining down cold, wet, water. Roy makes a made dash for Prism Keeper Pink. "Nrg! Pink!... it's Griselda, we have to get to Downtown!"
There's already that darkness lingering in the air. That kind that drives people indoors. Away from the area. 'Out of the Rain'. The kind that is filled with the portent of something incredibly dangerous is about to happen. That feeling is right. It draws and eeks at the hearts of heroes to 'come here, or everything terrible in this world wins'.
Standing on the top of a tall building, though, not the tallest, is Griselda, elegant grey parasol protecting her from her own generated rain as she holds her hand out to let the drops hit it.
Phasing into existence in front of her is a Shade--- it's very rare that- one actually sees it. The Shade in it's natural form. An Imp like creature, with two glowing yellow eyes.
Griselda then raises her hand out and there's a burst of dark energy. It smashes across the entirety of downtown-- though it doesn't destroy or hurt or debilitate. Instead.-- all the orange things that should be orange suddenly turn a very sickly, dark shade of obsidian black. The grey energies of the stolen orange across from downtown seem to focus and splay toward's Griselda, as they begin to seemingly imbue the Shade, it's absoring it-- all while making some sort of horrible snarling noise.
Whatever Griselda is doing, it isn't pleasent and dangerous right now.
"I know you're coming." she says to herself, but outloud nothingless.
"Good."
Hakuomaru is there downtown, after school in her uniform and miserable about returning to school, it means she actually has to focus on even more things again. That's a challenge though right? Still, all of the orange things going black, gets her attention rather quickly. She starts to try to follow the issue to it's root, though at this point she's not sure what to expect. Is it going to be the pirate? She was stealing lasers. It's probably not the shoddy youma she accidentally squished. Maybe it's the color thing? That makes sense since it's orange.
She starts running after some time, having henshined in an alley to make this running part easier, what with an assisted earth jump to the roof tops to avoid foot traffic and you know, the grey lady with a pet imp visible off in the distance. She's on the way!
Prism Keeper Pink had henshined sometime before Roy found her, driven by an unwavering instinct that something wasn't right today. Roy found her strolling around aimlessly on foot, trying to see if she'd just bump into whatever was causing the disturbance. As he called out to her she grimaces and nods. "Let's go!".
She kicks her feet and her little wings start fluttering as she streaks like a pink bumble bee through town and towards downtown Tokyo. She zips by building after building until she pulls up short before a specific one and lets her eyes fall on Griselda. "Hiroko-sama.".
The Shade continues to wretch and writhe as it's pumped full of that grey energy, as Griselda lowers her hand and daintly floats upwards with the help of her parasol, hovering there as she looks over at the approaching Hakumaru, then down at Prism Keeper Pink.
"You keep calling me that Prism Keeper. But I am Princess Griselda of the Grey Kingdom." she says cooly, staring with her steel, piercing grey eyes.
With a shriek, the small imp-like Shade explodes into something large, about twenty feet large- with a burst of dark energy. It's bottom ends in a whispy tail. It's grown more sinister- empowered by the corrupted orange. grangly, spindly claws extend from distended arms-- and a toothy toothy grimace.
A Shadow. A Shade that doesn't need to 'steal color' or 'surround itself with items'. It exists, purely on it's own.
Griselda makes a sweeping motion at Pink- atypical of a Princess going 'take her away.' and sends it down at Pink, and it lashes down quickly, flying down to try to try to pin Pink to the build opposite of her. Hopefully. Pink's gotten good at dodging.
"Soon, Pink will join the destroyed colors." Griselda grins maliciously.
Her eyes do glance over to the encroaching Hakuomaru every so often as she summons another Shade.
She begins to repeat the process from earlier. Someone may wanna stop that before there's another of these powerful abominations to contend with.
Hakuomaru gets close enough that she can see the ritual being recreated again. As she's leaping through the air, dashing at the one creating the creature, she draws her flintlock smoothly, bracing it against the hilt of her sword after a leap, she takes a shot at the grey clothed Griselda with a spike of earth infused energy. Landing with a crunch, the flintlock is replaced and she hefts the sword, tilting it at an angle over her shoulder and beginning a proper charge, leaping quickly from building to building to try and crash into the girl and the summoned wisps, preferably with a sword through the wisps in question since she remembers that the girl is basically possessed.
She does have the wherewithal to call out to the Prism Keeper, "Are you going to be alright with that, or do you want to switch partners!?" assuming, you know, that she's quick enough to stop the second monster from appearing
Prism Keeper Pink hadn't gotten very good at dodging, but she had learned about gravity the other day. It effects EVERYTHING. So she just stopped fluttering her wings and plummeted like a bag of pink potatoes towards the ground so that the monster over-shot her head. A stray wisp of hair flicks backwards in the oncoming rush of air.
"Uuuuuum.". She calls out towards Hakomaru. "What do you think? You want it and I take... Well, I guess Princess Griselda Grey, or you want her and I take big ugly face?". Pink had to admit she was way out of her depth of experience right now, and a little advice or help from an older girl would be sorely needed, and surely welcome.
Griselda appears to be some sort of 'controlled' Hiroko, yes. Wether that's the fact or not still isn't known. Wether it's Hiroko's concious thought isn't known. A spike of Earth energy strikes her--- well. Her parasol. She's brought it to bare and it impacts it- exploding into motes og grey energy.
This interupts the ritual she was doing... and then she leaps from building and building and crashes down into her. This sends Griselda spinning downwards-- but she catches herself quickly, on black large butterfly wings.
Roy's caught up and is hovering toward's Pink. The red cardinal worried. "Pink!" he calls out. "That thing... it's basically just a powerful Shade. You know how to fight these! They're just... stronger..." she mutters.
The Shadow wisps around elongating as it seems to slam upwards- and suddenly tries to come upwards from a downward angle at Hakuomaru, screeching out loud. These things don't call out thier 'name' like a normal Shade.
Hakuomaru stumbles after the impact, using the blade of her sword to stabalize. Looking down as the girl catches herself on black wings, she draws her other flintlock and lines up a shot, then decides against it and focuses her aim on the shade, flintlock resting on the hilt of her sword which is impaled in the ground for a moment. Taking a moment to make sure, she fires the dart of fire at the creature and puts it away, yanking the sword free quickly as she calls out, "You knew her right? You take her, I'll tackle the wisp!" and begins to charge at the creature, hoping maybe the younger girl can talk some sense into Griselda.
Then again, she doesn't really know either of these fights, she's mostly just afraid of hurting Griselda if it really is a case of something bigger taking control of an innocent kid! That's not quite her area of expertise, outside of dreams anyway.
Prism Keeper Pink nods and zips up behind the shade and towards Griselda. She flicks her wand in hand and a camera appears, firing off a bright flash of pink light at Griselda. "Stop! You don't need to be all evil and stuff, you're my friend!". Friendship doesn't stop her from sending the beam rocketing towards Griselda. Maybe she could just zap some sense into her at least.
Hiroko Koumoto. Innocent? Maybe. Maybe Not. Betrayal is Betrayal. Wether it's something damming and horrible... or ripping apart your group of childhood friend's because 'it's childish'.
Regardless.
Hakuomaru decides to take on the Shadow. The thing is hard and fast-- and with it's long wispy tail begins to try to wrap around her and constrict. This thing isn't pleasent and if it manages this-- it feels like a dark sensation of cold and burning at the same time while it does it.
Prism Keeper Pink flashes a bright pink light at Griselda and this causes her to fidget a bit. But Griselda is strong. Not like a Shade-- it's going to take more than some weak, color energy infused attacks to damage her as she hrmphs, her parasol folding in inward as she draws a rather large, black charcoal lighting bolt in the sky with the top of the dainty umbrella--- as it then comes to life, shooting donward in a powerful electrical dark blast.
"Is this the best you have?" she asks. "I'm no friend of a Crayola Warrior." she spits.
Hakuomaru has no idea if the girl is innocent or not, the people telling things were already questionable about their details anyway! Still, she swings the long black sword around in a vicious circle around her, transfering from hand to hand before trying to stab into the shade as it wraps around her. There's a beat and a voice yelling Dodge somewhere in her head and she ducks and creates a pillar of earth to launch her into the air before it fully wraps around her. It was cold, chilly, not pleasant etcetra! Landing a short distance away with a roll, she hefts her sword and quickly pats at her arms and shoulders as the cold-burning thing goes through. Definitely not going to let that happen again... intentionally.
Calling over her shoulder at the grey... enemy? "Hey, so there's not anything deep in there that doesn't consider them friends still? I have a hard time believing that!"
Prism Keeper Pink stamps her foot angrily on the air, accidentally over-balancing and tipping over briefly before righting herself. "I'll show you Crayola Warrior!". She twirls her wand in her hand clumsily and three cameras appear before her, stopping the lightning arc gold.
"You can deny that we're friends all you want, but I remember you! I don't care what Mei-neesan and the others might think, I'm not them! I'm not everyone else at school! I. Am. PINK!". She grits her teeth and concentrates, another camera appearing and shooting off an even brighter peam of pink light, almost hot pink.
Hakumaru's sword hits home, slicing into the Shadow and causing it to screech out in pain. When she gets free of it's grasp--- it goes right back to pursuit. This thing is relentless. Something foul and black and dark. It bares it's claws and tries to come in for a one-two strike. It'll rake across the building's top while it does this, too.
Prism Keeper Pink blocks the massive bolt of energy with her cameras- and then Pink goes on about 'Mei-neesan'.
Mei-neesan.
Mei.
Something about this causes Griselda to twitch. Like theres an internal conflict right there. No snark, no mean girl quip.
And it's enough that it distracts Griselda with the bright pink blast as she curses out loud as she's flung upwards.
Anything she was thinking seems to be gone now as she screams. "ENOUGH!" she calls out as she points her umbrella downward at Prism Keeper Pink--- another blast of grey dark energy expeling forward down at her.
Hakuomaru goes on the offensive about the same time that the big creature decides to, though she is learning! Albeit at the cost of some sleep occasionally. She ducks under the first strike from it's claws while bringing the sword around in an upward angled swing to try and catch it's other claw along the blade. What, she's started reading the Five Rings too! Or re-reading as it may be. Whether the attack lands or not, she uses the momentum to step back, working the tingling sensation from her hands as the contact from before definitely still doesn't feel right.
Sparing a moment in her duel with the big creature, she checks over her shoulder briefly to make sure that the Prism Ranger isn't being maimed by the grey one, she really should learn some names here. Though in hindsight, it's probably Pink or some variant of that isn't it? The cry of enough is what really gets her attention though. Another wide swing to buy her some space. They're too high to do her earth magic, instead trying to distract Griselda with another shot, from the earth spike again!
Prism Keeper Pink grasps her wands and strikes a pose. Cameras facing her appear and then photography umbreallas as well at the back of them appear, a stronger shield of her native theme in hot pink colours. She'd noticed something though, something that stood out immensely to her.
"Mei-neesan wouldn't like what you're doing here.". She'd seen the hesitation and she'd also seen Hakuomaru sending something towards Griselda. It was a perfect chance to knock her entirely off balance.
Pink tries to distract Griselda but it doesn't work this time. Like something reasserted itself pretty hard all of a sudden.
She swings her parasol to the right and literarly bats the Earth Spike back toward's it's point of origin. She's on her A-game right now as she turns back to Pink.
"I don't know who this 'Mei' is." she spits. "But quite frankly I don't quite care what the rest of you think. This would will descened into grey. Everything will be perfect..."
She says this almost dreamingly.
At the same time the creature, the Shadow, makes a very hard Sharp Turn toward's Pink. She should probably blast it pretty hard.
Or maybe hitting Griselda hard enough with a strong enough purification attack will make her loose enough control over it.
Afterall, she controls these things. Right?
Hakuomaru ducks out of the way of the reflected... well buckshot at this point as the earth shard fragments on impact. There's a few cuts or scratches, which are aggravating because she really is trying to dodge and she'll totally hear about this toni-. Focusing quickly, she dashes after the shadow creature calling out, "Hey! Back here, we're not finished yet!"
She dashes ahead of the creature and attempts to stun it with a hard stomp into the rooftop, creating a barrier of earth right in front of it that crumples soon after any kind of reaction, back into a pile of sand and rubble. Regardless of time bought or not, she's brought her blade around, holding it steady in her right hand, she traces along the back of the dark blade with her fingers. What looks like fragmented rocks, glowing a deep orange in the cracks forms right behind her fingers. As the creature tries to get past her, she calls out, "CALAMITY!" and swings overhead in a savage swing, aiming for the center of the creature. As the blade hits, the stone begins to fragment, leaving the molten rock behind before suddenly, the sheath explodes with a muffled wumpf before she quickly withdraws the now smoking blade and flicks it to the side, trailing smoke.
Prism Keeper Pink has had enough of the trying to hit her, and then having to defend. Something stirs in Pink's little pink heart, a stirring of rage at Griselda. For what, it was hard to tell, but it needed an outlet. Pink had changed since she first gained these powers, had she not?
It was only right that eventually, what she needed to do changed as well.
Freezing people in place just didn't cut it when those people were taking the people you were supposed to fight with down. It was time for a new tactic. Pink raised her wand and gathered up her feelings. All the myriad ones that made up her person, and concentrated them into a single attack. "Prism Aegis Power! Pink Chroma Papparazzi Party!".
Countless pink cameras, all shapes and sizes manifest in front of her, directed at Griselda and then they all start going off in no particular order. PEW PEW PEW would be a befitting sound if it weren't for the fact they all sounded like actual cameras going off, but also firing beams of pink light instead of a flash.
Rock and Earth magic crack into the Shadow--- it lets out some sort of terrible scream, some sort of awful awful yell as it appears to blast into many many pieces across the rooftop. Is it dead? Is it gone?
No, it's begining to reform. Bits of inky, corrupted black trying to come back together in the air. Does this thing just not quit?
Is it really that powerufl?
Griselda hrmphs and raises her Umbrella. She can shield herself from a silly purifying attack. Some sort of camera flash she imagines. She has full confidence she is powerful enough to end this in her next stroke. Crack the Prism. Remove pink from the world. Why it'd be one of her greatest triumphs, that color going away!
She did not expect the severity of the attack around her. Directed all around her as she goes wide eyed and countless beams of color energy all descend into her general location- exploding into one central place.
There's something like a horrible shriek. Like something being expelled-- almost.
At the same time, the bits of the reforming creature all 'screeech' in tiny small voices.
Hovering in place is a very ragged looking, limp Griselda. Long grey hair sort of hanging downwards as she mutters.
"....Stupid.... Mei-chan." she mutters under her breath before she dissapears off into a poof of smoky rainclouds.
The orange!---- well it goes from being black to grey all around the downtown area. At least things are back to 'bad' from 'absoultely horrible'!
Hakuomaru smacks her shoulder armor a few times, then checks the plates and in general tries to make sure that the color orange isn't back entirely, that nothing is broken and that she didn't fail to dodge too many attacks. She shakes her sword a few times just to be sure, then slings it across her shoulders and looks to Pink, calling up to her, "Are you alright up there?" Not really sure what all happened there.
From there, she pokes her toe at where the creature's bits had scattered, making sure nothing's reforming. She's pretty sure she can't follow the girl in grey, the creature's gone and there's a little kid flying around. That's close enough to normal for the time being. She doesn't drop henshin though, instead, the sword is set into it's sling, being too large for a normal scabbard and hops the rooftops, trying to get closer just in case the girl needed help in one way, or another.
Prism Keeper Pink dusts herself off as the cameras start popping away in a slow, after-flash appearance from the sky. "Well, I guess that didn't go the way I planned.".
She slowly turns and puts her hands on her hips in classic Peter Pan pose and looks at Hakuomaru. "Thank you! I'd have probably become all grey and icky if you hadn't been here. Now I've got to go um... For reasons.". She kicks her feet and zips off to do her first day homework. Nobody needed to know that though.