Mei is a very good listener.
...Okay, that's completely not true. More often than not, Mei's off in her own little world, dreaming up stories and generally thinking about anything else whenever someone's trying to tell her something important.
But at least, what she does listen to, she really takes to heart! ...Right?
Sadly, wrong. It's not that the young girl *wants* to be disobedient. She's hardly the type to get a thrill just from breaking rules, and if there's not a pressing reason for her to disobey, she's more than happy to do what she's told but.
It's just that, very often, she finds a reason why a rule simply shouldn't be followed. The color looks so much better outside the lines, or there was a text she just /had/ to send during class, or she /had/ to jaywalk to make it to school on time.
Or, in this case, she /had/ to ignore Tuxedo Kamen, because a few of her classmates just walked into a rundown pizza parlor, and she's pretty sure she's the only one around to deal with a Witch. Good idea or not, magical girls can't stand by while innocent civilians march themselves into enemy territory!
Something like that, anyway. To tell the truth, Mei isn't going in guns blazing as she is grasping at her Chroma Crystal two feet outside the Labyrinth, shivering at what she might find inside. Her ribs still ache something terrible, but they let her out of the hospital, so the doctors must have thought she was ready to return to real life. Those same doctors also didn't know that her real life now included battle, of course.
Whatever. Details. She'll be ~fine~.
"Sorry, Mr. Kamen," the tiny redhead mutters under her breath, before her transformation phrase lets out a burst of light that simultaneously brings her into henshin and ushers her inside the Labyrinth.
Where she lets out a not-so-elegant cross between a squeak and a groan before taking reflexively to the air, clinging onto a nearby support. Whatever she was expecting, this dank, stinky, mold-ridden pizza parlor was *not* it.
The young Prism Keeper isn't the only one on the scene, though she might be under the belief that she is. Tadase Hotori, the King's Chair, has been investigating two things: suspicious dissapearances of children along the Pikarigoaka/Mitakihara ward split, and the strange circumstances causing some people to fall under strange comas that are obviously medical in nature. It's not a normal thing for small children to walk, happily, into a run down and deserted pizza parlor. So he's shadowing, and thinking Mei might be another child, is unready to introduce himself. Kiseki floats nearby.
"This creeps me out too, but a good King must take care of his subjects. And you are destined to be a good king, Tadase." Kiseki says, the small Guardian Chara sitting on his shoulder, a helpful extra pair of eyes in such wierd circumstances.
Were she to be shadowed by some gallant king-to-be, Mei, at this point, would probably appear distinctly Not Normal. The wings are probably the biggest giveaway, though the fact that she leapt several feet into the air and clung to the ceiling would have done it too, most likely. Besides, who would wear *that* in public? Of course, Mei thinks it's adorable, but those ruffles would overheat anybody in the middle of June.
Speaking of which, it is very, very hot inside the weird not-pizzeria. Mei -- now transformed into the brave and elegant Prism Keeper Red! -- can already feel the sweat beading up on her brow, despite the mechanical *whir* of a fan off in the distance. Great. So now she's going to have to deal with pit stains on her adorable dress.
Honestly, the lives of magical girls on tv are such false advertizing.
Shakily, she hovers herself down from the rafter, wings beating at the speed of a hummingbird's just to keep her steady in the air. From the looks of it, she's found herself in a hallway of some kind; dark, humid, nothing like the open (yet still disturbing) field of the other monster's dimension. And that smell is really going to make her puke if it doesn't let up as soon as possible.
Or maybe that's just her nerves...?
*CRASHBOOMSHRIIEEEEEEK*
That's the sound of something or other throwing off a vent cover and crawling inside. The shrieking is poor Red, as she turns on her heel with a snap, scarlet magic flung in a circle around her, staining the area closest to her a bright scarlet that stands out against the violet hue of the Labyrinth.
"Who's there?!" she yells, holding her hands out as though she's armed. "Stay back!"
(Nerves. The nausea was definitely nerves.)
There's nobody there at first, but then from around the corner comes a blonde haired boy, with a soft smile on his face and a crown on his head. Floating above his shoulder is an adorable, albeit stern faced chibi version of the same boy, wearing full king regalia. "It's alright." He says. He doesn't yell it, he speaks softly, and walks closer. "But this place is dangerous. You should leave before you get hurt." he adds.
"That's right, Tadase; this is no place for a commoner." Kiseki isn't speaking to Mei, although Mei can (unusually) see him just fine, he pays her no heed.
Gripped tightly in the boy's hand is a small golden scepter. Tadase's familiar with magical girls, but doesn't interact with them much, and they usually don't seem so... skittish.
"H-huh?" Red exclaims, though this time, it's more out of surprise than sheer, fight-or-flight terror. She'd completely been expecting a monster to come charging at her, like one of those lancers from the other monster's Labyrinth had. She hadn't exactly been prepared for a human voice, much less one that sounds her age. "Who are..."
The question trails off as the figure rounds the corner, and she makes out the costume of a prince. Her jaw -- and her hands -- drop immediately.
"Wait, are you a prince?!" the girl asks, with perhaps a bit more enthusiasm than she meant. Other than princes being the absolute pinnacle of fairy tale romance for her, there's another figure of royalty that she's looking for. After all, where princes are, princesses are sure to follow, right? "Could I ask you a question real qui--"
A metallic scream cuts echoes off the narrow walls around them, followed by the shrill sound of sharpened metal on metal. Big, clunky footsteps too. And they're getting louder.
"Something's coming!" the young magical girl cries out, always one to state the obvious. Her unsteady wings shoot her into the air once again; this time, however, she grabs for the boy's scepter instead of the ceiling. "We have to run!"
Or be dragged along by a scepter, as the case may be. Red doesn't think these things through too much.
Tadase tugs his scepter away from her, as roughly as need be, before he smiles. "I told you to run, didn't I?" But Tadase's not coming. He's gritting his teeth, and pointing his scepter forward. "These are horrible places, but I'm not going to leave until I know all of the others that went in before you get out too." he says. His voice is still kind, but it has a gentle firmness to it now.
Kiseki looks forward, and he's got the same look of determination as Tadase. "Something's coming, Tadase. Be on your guard! I can feel it."
Prism Keeper Red makes a confused 'eep!' as the scepter is yanked out of her hand, propelling her forward at a speed she wasn't quite prepared for. It takes an awkward kick-flip combo in the air to get her facing the right way again, and though she isn't meaning to, she feels her face flushing with frustration. This is what she gets for trying to help?
"I didn't mean run out of this...whatever this is!" she yells, one hand on her hip, the other hand gesturing wildly to the Labyrinth around them. "I meant run from *that*!" You know, the terrible screeching noise that's coming right at them and getting louder every second.
And hey -- who says she needs to run while he stays? That's not how these things work!
In that moment of girl power consternation, the creature comes into the light: a sort-of metal skeleton, with the hide of a wolf draped lazily over it. It's dashing toward the both of them, pointed spear-hands aimed to run them through, should they stay where they are.
Red screams again, since it's basically impossible not to scream about these things, but as she raises her hands, a beam of searing red shoots at the sprinting monster, glancing off its shoulder and knocking it off its balance. One hand buries itself in the wall, though it keeps dashing forward all the same, paying no mind as the limb snaps off.
Tadase smiles a little as she turns and fights - she might be loud; a bit ear piercingly loud - but she can actually muster up some power. "That works too!" he says, trying his hardest to put a jaunty face on. "Tadase, get it while it's stunned!" Kiseki orders, loudly, even as Tadase is stepping forward.
"HOLY CROWN!" Tadase calls out in a sort of response, and from his scepter a large golden crown erupts, a burst of hostile energy slamming into the familiar and finishing it off.
He turns to Mei and smiles. "What's your name? I'm Tadase Hotori, King's Chair of the Guardians. Though I guess that's less relevant right now."
"It's always relevant that you're a king!" protests Kiseki.
"Whoooaaa," Red says under her breath, eyes widening to saucer size as the boy shoots a golden crown from his scepter and demolishes the Familiar. "That's...really, really cool." Ok, she's willing to forgive an insult to her girl power. From a prince. Once.
When the danger is gone (at least for the moment), she lowers herself onto the ground once again, making a mental note to control the knee-jerk response to start flying every time she's startled. There's a moment of silence as the boy introduces himself. Not a rude one, of course; at least, she hopes it's not rude. She just has no idea what most of those titles he rattled off actually mean. "Prism Keeper Red," the girl responds reflexively, then quickly adds, "that's my title, that is. I mean, I have a real name and stuff, but I already transformed in front of a lot of people, so I'm...trying to keep a low profile?" That's how they say it in the movies, right? When spies are trying to stay undercover?
There's another silence as she finally notices the small, floating prince next to him. Would it be rude to point that out? Is she even addressing him the right way, if he's a king?
So many questions.
"We probably shouldn't stay here too long. There should be a big monster around here somewhere. That's the one holding all those people captive," Red explains, deciding to rein in her curiosity for now. "I guess we can follow this hallway and see where it leads? I really haven't done this a whole lot, so." With a nervous clearing of her throat, she turns back to her original direction and starts walking, assuming the other boy will follow.
...this is really going to kill her if she holds it in any longer, so before she can think about it too much, she blurts out, "Hey, so are you really a prince or what?"
Tadase smiles again. "Your red-beam thing was pretty cool, too." he replies, and smiles. "Prism Keeper Red? That's fine - I don't expect you to tell me your secrets." he adds, walking along. To be honest, Tadase hasn't done much work outside of the Guardians, so the fact that people would be given his name isn't that odd. It's something he files away mentally... to be more careful with in the future, perhaps?
"A big monster huh? Yeah, I'm here trying to figure out why all the kids keep dissapearing. There's a lot of wierd stuff going on." There's a pause. "I'm glad you're here too, then. I don't normally work alone..." he thinks of Nadeshiko and Kukai and even Yaya. "To be honest this place is really creepy." He follows along with her, quietly, and the grip on his scepter is pretty strong indeed. All is quiet as they move around, until she blurts out her question.
Then, Tadase shouts, at the top of his lungs. "I AM NO MERE PRINCE! I AM A KING! YOU SHOULD SHOW RESPECT, COMMONER!" This probably does not do anything positive for their attempt to sneak around the Labrynth, at all. "NOT JUST ANY KING, BUT I WILL BE KING OF THE WHOLE WORLD!" As he speaks, literal flames roar around him, lighting up the small corridor they're walking in. Just in case he wasn't acting enough like a familiar/attendant beacon with his voice.