Earlier that day-- like as in maybe two hours ago actually-- Homura'd received a text from the Dark Kingdom. Well. From Endymion, so not all THAT bizarre. And definitely from the burner number he'd told her she could spread around, which... is interesting. What's more interesting is the contents:
Dendy TXT: found that witch
Dendy TXT: the one that's been munching Neph for like 5 mos
Dendy TXT: you in? obvs you can has grif sid
He'd handed her the geolocation and explained that the mountain wasn't on maps or anything because it's not really real, and he'd tagged Kunzite and let him know he actually found the entrance, and now he's sitting on the hood of a leaf-covered red Ferrari in the middle of the woods with his hands in his pockets, staring at The Spookiest House.
Homura recieves a text. From Endymion. She stares at it for a few seconds before she even begins to think of a reply.
On the one hand, aren't the Dark Kingdom her enemies? Helping to release Nephrite right now might actually dampen their efforts.
On the other hand, even if that's true, this is one of Mamoru's brothers, isn't it? It's likely that he'd be freed even without her help, the Grief Seed would go to waste, and it's far safer with the Dark Kingdom than he ever would be with a Witch.
Even if the Dark Kingdom is super creepy right now.
Regardless of her many strategic reservations, the pros are starting to far outweigh the cons. It isn't really a choice. She responds.
Homura TXT: 5 mo? jfc.
Homura TXT: brt.
Homura arrives suddenly. No explaination, she is simply standing right in front of them. She takes one look at the Ferrari and is internally surprised that it's not a Tesla. Then again, all things considered it might not be Endymion's car.
"Endymion. Kunzite. I hear you have a Witch infestation?"
Tagged, past tense. Which is why there's a familiar - possibly unfortunately familiar, to Homura - tall, pale figure leaned against the trunk of one of the spindly, gloomy conifers. Kunzite's arms are folded, just as they were for most of the meeting in her apartment. Well. Mostly folded. One hand starts up at her sudden appearance, then is returned to its place with a nod in her direction. Endymion, apparently, gets to do the talking today.
Endymion doesn't even startle when Homura appears, he just gives her a slight, somewhat lopsided smile. Today he's wearing his half-assed Prince armor-- there may be some pattern to what he wears when, but he probably doesn't even know what it is, himself. He shoves himself up off the car, glancing toward Kunzite for a split second before returning his attention to Homura and grandly gesturing at the mistily haunted mansion.
"I don't think the house is actually real, which probably explains why the thing's been undetectable. But I looked in the windows and... man, it's just NOT RIGHT in there," he says uncomfortably, dull red-grey eyes sliding uneasily over toward the giant house again.
There's a pause. There's really not much else to say. Finally, he starts toward the door, hand on the hilt of his sword.
Okay, he pauses again with his hand outstretched, almost touching the knob, and glances back at the other two. "If there are also ghosts, I'm gonna be really mad." He also remembers not to open it because Kunzite would look exasperated on top of everything else.
Kunzite recieves a short glance from Homura, but her attention returns to Endymion once it's clear who's taking the leadership role here. Not that she couldn't have guessed. "He might be surprised, you know..." Homura glances towards the house. "When he sees us, I mean."
Homura doesn't explain that. Bringing back memories of Mamoru is dangerous. Kunzite should get what she means even if Endymion doesn't. "Last time I saw this man, I was fighting one of his youma. He might not even recognize me, but if he does... Hopefully you or Kunzite can clarify the situation for him."
Homura follows suit after Endymion moves towards the house, taking a position behind and off to the side. She is sure that she feels a Witch, and that there's one here. It feels very strange. Without a doubt, this one is different.
Her purple eyes narrow as she considers the mansion before her. What's going on here? She'll find out soon, she's sure.
There wasn't actual insistence on the subject, this time, probably because this time does not involve walking into a place where Kyouko Sakura and Sailor Venus were both likely to be on hand. It is, however, true that the moment Endymion actually opts not to open the door, Kunzite is moving to pass him. Volunteer to get swarmed by familiars first: check. "Clarify," he comments to Homura in passing. "I'll remember to account for your optimism."
Then he's reaching to open the door, braced to find out the hard way which particular hell is inside.
When Kunzite opens the door to Nephrite's mansion, he also opens the door to the spreading, mutating, twisted labrynth that has been contained this whole time. That is to say - he did not open the door to just one hell, but multiple hellscapes, all twisted and intermindgled together, like Reality just couldn't take it anymore and dove off a cliff. Stained glass windows with mutant landscapes behind them serving as jagged floors, stairways and portals to nowhere, and the only general truth is that everyone feels lost in a way they perhaps have never truly understood before.
And then there's a shift and the landscapes are flowing through, into, around, over each other - the familiars that begin to swarm around them pull themselves through the twisted realities with sickening stretching noises, looking like planetary orbs with faces full of jagged teeth, and one long clawed hand that reach out to tear at the assembled rescue team.
Deep in the heart of the witchs labyrinth, Nephrite pushes his tangled hair out of his face with an ungloved hand. He could probably find something to tie it back with, but the hair brushing his face and the torn uniform on his skin are the only things he can trust to be real in this place, and he would like to keep an eye on them.
He takes a breath--and as he does so, his shadow, too, seems to breathe, a rolling, formless mass of blackness that flexes outward from his being. It should only ever appear when he summons it, only ever take whatever form he wishes, but the shadow, like him, has grown weary and ragged. As he exhales, it settles uneasily around him like a broken cobweb.
The world has become a fever dream, and he does not know anymore how long it has been since he knew ground that did not twist sickeningly away from his feet. But still there is something determined, something bestial in his eye, as he wordlessly launches himself at a cluster of familiars.
They look like grotesque caricatures of the heavenly bodies he seeks for guidance. He would laugh at the irony, if he were not busy fighting for survival.
"...oh, shit," blurts Endymion, instantly taking a half-step back.
All in one reflexively coordinated concurrence of motion, the hand that'd initially gone for the doorknob reaches to grab Kunzite's shoulder and be ready to either pull him back or be shielded; the other draws the watered steel blade it'd been keeping hold of and slashes, hard and neat, at the incoming hand. "Homura-chan, this is your bailiwick: if you take point we'll cover you! Kunzite, I'll take her left--"
(He never needs to add 'and your back'. Never.)
Whatever course Homura decides, then, he'll follow and defend and monitor. It's like she'll be getting a preview of how the Dark Kingdom might actually present at Walpurgisnacht.
A brief flash of horror crosses Homura's face in the wake of Kunzite's response. That wasn't what she wanted to hear right now. Yet, it was probably honest. Enough.
When the door opens, Homura looks inside. She's confused, and everything seems off. It's a Witch's labyrinth, that's for sure. Twisted and wrong and awful to even look at. Homura convinces herself that this is normal. Well, normal for a Witch anyway.
At Endymion's word, Homura flips her hair and walks past him. "Alright. I'm sure you know the drill. Be ready for anything. I will be very angry if either of you die."
Endymion attacked the first few familiars, but as Homura walks past him she dashes forward to deal with the next wave. A black assault rifle drops out of her shield and into her hand. Black shoes push off of the jagged ground and send her flying through the air. The muzzle flash washes over her features as she rains destruction down on the planetary familiars swarming the three of them.
She keeps an eye on the hand, noting it along with the other familiars.
Shadows flock around Kunzite and Endymion, establishing a defended zone - more or less. "They may be able to bypass the barrier," Kunzite warns the Prince. Homura doesn't need the warning; she already knows the ways that familiars can twist space inside a labyrinth, playing mad little games with the normal laws of physics and location. And this labyrinth looks to be outright composed of that capacity. But there's some chance the defenses might be useful, and so they're summoned, in case.
He's already moving as they are, timed with Endymion's swordwork, ready with a hand lifted to test which of his own powers might work against the crazed and hungry little worlds. But mostly moving, into the space Homura's opening. Keeping the two of them close to her, to make it harder for the place to separate them; keeping aware to send calculated darts of energy after anything that tries the Puella from the side. Not that she needs the help. But they'll be just a little faster if she doesn't have to reorient.
Hands and small little planetoid familairs fall in a hail of sword slashes, gunshots, and energy - but the adventure is far from over. This witch, sickened and twisted, has a malicious mind that continues to wreak havoc within it's domain. As more familiars slither out of thin air, the world suddenly shudders.
Gravity is switched - but rather than reversed it hits a 90 degree angle, slamming everything and everyone hard to the right. The world lurches, and there's a sudden hail of golden light - like a shower of shooting stars, only much closer, and much more dangerous, burning like the sparking embers from a celestial flame.
Nephrite knows far too well that bracing himself will do nothing to avoid the gravity switch. As soon as he feels the pull, he quickly rotates his body to hit what previously looked like a wall. His landing is clumsy, sending him stumbling, but at least he is somewhat on his feet. He uses the momentum of his stumble to slam himself into a planetoid, tearing it apart with an angry snarl.
His triumph is short-lived as the shooting stars begin to fire down upon him. It is all he can do to dodge, muttering a string of filthy curses as his cape earns a few blackened holes.
As soon as the gravity lunges toward the right-- Homura's right-- Endymion lifts off the floor and jams his sword in its sheath, pulling his cape up to the left and grabbing for Kunzite with his free hand, keeping the cape up as a shield from both the shooting stars and anything that might be falling at them from what's suddenly "above".
Because he can also feel something ahead. Not just some unidentified thing, either-- the sense of frayed safety, tried intelligence, haggard determination-- the mottled green surety he's been missing--
"Stop us! Homura! He's ahead of us--!"
Ahead of them. Given he's been in the place for five freaking months, he's probably with the witch.
As far as navigation goes, though-- he's the only sense of anything in this place, other than the three of them, that the Prince of Earth can orient on. The only real thing. The only piece of solid earth in this chaotic world of multiple dimensions.
Homura catches onto the intent behind Kunzite's energy fire and moves accordingly, pushing ahead and letting the more defensive-minded Shitennou handle the unpleasant surprises.
Instead of worrying about the two boys behind her, she focuses her attention on the familiars ahead, rapidly choosing a target, gunning it down, and moving onto the next. Her pattern doesn't fail her until the moment that Gravity decides to throw them a curveball.
She's falling sideways, into what was once a wall. Years of experience with superjumping and flight give her the skill needed to orient herself before she lands, crouching to absorb the impact. "Gravity powers? How tricky. I wonder how often it can do that."
"Endy-kun, Kunzite-san, can you two hover or fly? This might be a good time for it." Homura's own flight power remains unused. She'd rather save that for when she strictly needs it.
"Ahead? Alright, let's hurry. If he's in a state to talk, maybe he'll be able to tell us something about the Witch." That is, of course, assuming that he hasn't gone mad, which is a possibility that Homura has to consider. She rushes foward, black diamond-patterned stockings moving rapidly as her legs carry her closer to Nephrite. Empty clicks mark the end of her gun's ammo, and she pushes it into her shield only to trade it for a rocket launcher.
As the many stars fall upon Homura, she holds her shield in the direction that is now upwards, and braces for impact by falling to one knee. A curved purple barrier of energy flares up, surrounding her, absorbing the many tiny stars shooting down at her. It isn't until the shower ends that she stands up and starts moving again.
Already on that one, at least to an extent. One particularly bad fall with Endymion was enough. Endymion has the falling stars covered. Kunzite trusts without looking that what he's about to do isn't going to get him impaled, and reaches to clasp the Prince in one arm, twisting the other hand to transform the shield -- their fall past the sea of stained glass slows, stops, and they reorient toward the new direction before he lets them down. Homura's running. They'll be able to keep up with her better on foot; he's not fast in the air, not the way Zoisite is.
The problem with the soft landing is that it leaves them surrounded by familiars. He orients very slightly off from Homura's direction, lets go of Endymion to free his hands, and brings them together in a particular orientation. The thing that rolls in front of them is not technically a fireball, and isn't as effective against the familiars as it would be against more human opponents, but it clears a path through the swarm well enough -- if they can move fast enough to follow it before the hungry worlds close in from the sides.
He's not worried. It leads the way Endymion's trying to go. Disoriented as the boy might be, he wouldn't want to be standing between their Prince and their lost brother now.
Closing in on Nephrite, and the inner sanctum, the impromptu rescue party powers their way through the familiars - which are truly only dangerous by virtue of their numbers - and towards the center of this world.
The gravity shunts a few more times, likely leaving even the flyers confused as to which way was originally 'down' or even if such a thing existed in this twisted world.
But when they get closer to Nephrite, gravity changes again, and itself becomes cruel and hostile - driving even those who can fly against it, like their bodies were made of heavy lead, taking steps itself requiring effort.
It's under these conditions Nephrite has held his own for years, as the witch itself floats high overhead opposite the gravity. Continuing, to some degree, the celestial theme, the witch is a giant orb, flaring off with bursts of energy which is both perfect black and somehow bright, and from each of those bursts a new planet-like familar forms.
And the gravity is sheer,and threatens to tear apart the Witch's victims as small black holes tear moments in reality before dissapearing, the extreme pressure making them so much harder to escape.
Somewhere in the distance, Nephrite can hear something. Something that does not match the usual noises of this place. Explosions. Gunfire.
More importantly, he can feel something else. Something that scratches at the locked part of his mind. Half-formed memories tumble through the waking nightmare. /Stars that bore different names glittered overhead as he pointed them out to somebody. Somebody important. Important enough to share the stars with?/
Nephrite shrugs in his unfamiliar uniform. Or his familiar one? The one with the cape. It does not matter. And neither do the half-memories of somebody whose face he cannot fully picture. The person who he tried to show the stars, once, and the knowledge they bore. As if any could be worthy of that.
The weight of the witch threatens to crush him, but Nephrite stands upon the wall/floor, stained glass windows scattered around his feet, and refuses to let it squash him yet. If only so he can investigate the source of whatever strange aura is disturbing his memories. And possibly destroy it, too.
Gravity shifts again and again, and while Homura never depends upon it for long intervals at a time, she does briefly use her flight powers to reorient and soften her landing. Short bursts will use less magic.
Her rockets lead the way, and the explosions light the path. The advantage of her attack isn't just in the raw destructive power, but also in the shockwave that pushes familiars out of the way. It isn't until she reaches the final room, with Nephrite and the Witch, that she suddenly has to change tactics.
Flight wont help her much anymore, and the sheer forces of the hostile gravity tear at her, forcing her down to one knee. Her soul gem shines, pouring magic into Homura's body just to keep it working under the stress. The black holes she might not be able to do much about, but the Witch is right there.
One look at Nephrite tells Homura all she needs to know about his state. Optimistic, indeed.
Homura puts away her rocket launcher, trading it for a sniper rifle. Aiming upwards at the giant sphere, she fires a single shot, then watches as the glowing purple hypervelocity bullet flies upwards, slows, stops, and then falls into the nearest black hole. A few more shots are fired, with similar results. The useless firearm is tossed aside.
"Tch!"
The gravity pushes her down. Her right hand struggles against a sudden increase in gravity, reaching for her shield. Gravity is acceleration towards a point, and acceleration is delta velocity over time, right? Well, maybe she can do something about that.
If she can just gather the strength.
There he is. There he is. Endymion can see him-- and his eyes widen. That uniform...
Somewhere buried deep in the cold, hidden behind a thick cloak of darkness and biding its time, there's a determined golden glow. It fights all the time, fiercely, to remain intact and alive, no matter what steps on it, no matter what the body that belongs to it by right has to give up, has to give away, has to endure.
Right now, disconnected in this shard of a miserable un-reality that has its own laws and doesn't let others in, so solid and hateful that Endymion couldn't even find Nephrite properly from outside--? Right now, nothing outside can reach it, nothing outside can step on it, can crush it, can pull its chains and send it lost and spiraling, silenced.
Endymion sees that uniform, remembers the slip of memory in which Zoisite wore it, the delight an eight-year-old felt at Kunzite not wearing it for once, and that warm golden flicker of a glow roars insistently to life inside him.
The gravity smashes the Prince down in front of Kunzite, behind Homura, and dead in the sights of Nephrite. It weighs on him like a planet, and here in this place, he has no access to his own-- only to the threads that bind him to the other pieces of Earth here. He's pulled on Kunzite's, he's pulled on Jadeite's, he's pulled on Zoisite's. Now?
Now his heart takes hold of the bond between himself and Nephrite, embraces it, and pulls.
He's struggling not to fall to his knees. He staggers towards Homura; he allows himself to sink next to her, and one of his hands is braced against the "floor", and the other reaches out to slide over Homura's nearest, and there it is: something she hasn't felt in a long time, only faintly tainted by the darkness resident in his body, courtesy the Dark Kingdom.
Warm, bright, calm, solid-- strength and energy and reassurance. His. His own. He can't draw anything from the Earth, here.
And still he pulls, and he trusts, and he trusts Kunzite to shore up Homura's optimism (somehow) (and hopefully keep Nephrite from killing them if none of this works)-- and he pulls. And the name comes ringing out from his heart and mind, resonating harder than it can in between black holes and gravity storms and stars.
NEPHRITE!
Out loud, too, from a face so achingly familiar from one lifetime and so annoyingly familiar from another, and eyes the persistent blue of the Earth's oceans as seen from space. For a moment. For this moment, disconnected and free. "Nephrite--! Help us kill it! I NEED YOU!"
Shore up someone's optimism? Endymion's leaning on the wrong person for that. Kunzite outmasses the other two, and he's on his feet much the way Nephrite is, by sheer strength of will; there are places where the gray of his uniform is showing the too-bright red of his blood, where flesh gave way under the conflict of pressures when for a second or two more than one singularity manifested too close. He can't get as close as Homura and Endymion, and he doesn't try. Because it serves his purposes to be away from them, right now.
He can't lend Homura strength. He doesn't try to call Nephrite's attention - Endymion's doing that. He can't see the witch's heart, doesn't have Nephrite's knowledge of the stars or Homura's experience as a Puella Magi.
What he can do is annoy it. Be a distraction, to try to buy the others the chance at a moment with a little more freedom to act.
Few of his own powers will reach that bright and flaring orb above them; of the ones that would, some would probably poison him to try, and others would be drawn off-course by the twists of gravity, by the black holes that come and go. But light -- that's not immune to the singularities; but it has a much better chance of finding some place on that bright target overhead. And Kunzite's been keeping a store of it, brooding over the faint distant hope of someday taking a little revenge.
This is a better use for it.
He struggles; lifts his hands, just a little, just to give direction. And then the stained-glass reflects the white-gold light of every Crescent Beam Venus has flung at him in the last month, aim scattered at random across the orb's surface. Just to pull the thing's attention to him, and off the others, just for a moment.
The creature, this witch, posessed of a twisted and malign intelligence, has been planning - in as much of a way as it can - to wear down Nephrite and its new arrivals, to grind them slowly and mill them to death.
The pressure it's exerting has made it nearly immune to successful attacks, until Kunzite's assualt - the sheer quantity of stored up energy, and the type of energy specifically he's unleashing.
The black sun looming over ahead roars - not in a auditory way, but in a way that shakes reality, the very stability of the labrynth rippling in the witch's rage - and suddenly, for the other three, gravity, while still oppressive, seems less so, and the little pinpricks of relativity stop trying to eat at them.
That's because all of that excess strength and power is going into attempting to tear Kinzite apart, massive amounts of both pressure and distortion, a violent and angry response to his successful attack - but also, in a way, a successful distraction.
Like a leash chained to his throat, something grabs hold of Nephrites mind. Something that /pulls/ at him, as certainly as the crushing gravity that the witch is emitting. It is both foreign and familiar, like the cape that he wears. He reels back, his shadow a frantic tattered cloud that flutters around him, instinctively wanting to free himself, to /get away./
But he hears his name. Does not just hear it, but feels it shudder through his bones. It shivers through that place in his memories where the stars are called by different names, and shakes some of the dust from them.
In this place, where reality contorts and shifts like a boat tossed at sea, Endymions voice in his mind is like an anchor. Nephrite looks up at the massive witch above him and /smirks./
Raising his hand, he calls down the stars. Real starlight blazes down upon the false star, white-hot.
Homura feels something familiar, a reassuring touch, something she hasn't felt in a long time. A thought flashes across her mind. 'Mamo-kun?'.
Purple irises slide sideways, glancing towards Endymion. Not quite himself, but in many ways, close enough. He lends her strength, energy, and it's enough. Her hand clasps the top of her shield... but in this moment she attempts something that someone told her about. She sends her own emotions up that same channel.
Hers is a feeling that could be also called strength, but unlike Endymion's, it's not as solid or stable as the strength of the Earth. It's savage, carnal, animalistic. A ferocity that sharpens teeth, that defends the pack, that turns enemies into prey. Behind it all is something that is not sorrow, but an endurance born of both love and long-suffering. It's a determination that will not quit, and not give up on a close friend, no matter how hopeless.
It only lasts for a moment. She smiles at him. "Thank you, Endy-kun, but I think it's better that you not be around for this particular ride. Good luck getting your brother back." She pulls away, breaking the physical contact. Her shield turns.
Time stops. Gravity stops. Well most of it does. Natural gravity was never really immune to Homura's timestop, so she ends up suddenly falling towards a random unpredicted direction before she glows purple, her magic allowing her to come to a stop. Hovering in the air, she looks at the Witch. She holds out her shield as a multitude of weapons appear and hover in the air around her.
She goes for one after another, firing rocket launchers, throwing pipe bombs, firing an uzi until she empties several clip, several shotgun blasts, flinging an even spread of grenades, before pulling out a... spoon?
"I was pretty sure I put those up already!" Homura can only sigh.
All of those rockets, bullets, shotgun blasts, grenades, and pipebombs (but not the spoon) are frozen in time. All of them are aimed at the celestial orb that is the Witch, but none of them will land until Homura allows time to move again.
Which she does.
... and immediately regrets, as the strong sheering gravity begins to pull her back towards the 'ground'. At least Kunzite is tanking most of the gravity, so she has time to see how effective her attack is. Maybe she can freeze time again if she needs to.
She gets a good view of the starlight crashing down, courtesy of Nephrite.
It works. IT WORKS. Both things-- both of them! There's absurdly bright joy in Endymion's blue eyes for a moment, and he takes what Homura sends him and fiercely cherishes it--
And his heart's in his throat as she vanishes and Nephrite lifts up an arm--
And it sinks to the bottom of his stomach like a cannonball as he turns to look at Kunzite and sees exactly why the gravity issues have lessened.
It doesn't stop him, he reacts instinctively, launching himself through the air at his oldest guardian and gripping the white-haired head in his hands; gold energy and everything that should go with it flares up and shoves its way toward shoring up the tortured target of the Witch, healing what he can lightning-fast, throwing all caution and reservation to the wind since the thing is still, STILL tearing at him, and he has less than a second, he KNOWS, he knows it'll all go away, and he's choking down any noise that might waste strength or energy to make, fighting the attack himself, too--
The body that Beryl left Kunzite with looks human from the outside. That's as far as that goes. It is not made of human flesh; it's a construct made from the same energy that the Dark Kingdom steals from human souls and human lives. He physically is his reserves of power. That means that his own power, to an extent, can control what passes for muscle and bone. Not to any great degree. But enough to restore it to his own subconscious self-image, over time, after it's damaged. Enough to keep it in a consistent shape.
That's all that saves him, in those instants before Endymion reaches him. He tries to pull in on himself, but the world around him doesn't let him, and that might be a good thing; he focuses down with everything he has on keeping himself himself, and that doesn't stop the damage, but it keeps limbs from being torn away, keeps the counterparts of significant organs from being ripped free of their containment within his skin. There's more of that too-red blood soaking into his uniform, shining much too bright in the starlight. His own cape is sacrificed, again, torn free, let go as unimportant. There's something threatening to snap, even against all the will and power he can bring to bear, and it's probably just the first that he's noticed, not the first that's happened --
Then there are hands on him, and bright gold, and that is the first moment that the pain is enough to pull a sound from him. Because that's the first moment he's been able to spare enough attention to breathe.
The witch is torn out of its attempt to slay Kunzite by a lot of things. All at once. By Endymion's glowing golden interference. By the combined weight of an entire special forces unit's munitions slamming into it as time restarts from Homura, with explosions and sonic booms and shattering, withering power.
And lastly, the final blinding fury of Nephrite's call to the stars - the call to himself - the call for freedom. A brilliant light of power, of fury, of a man trapped fighting this damned thing for five months and not giving up. And of course, of a guardian for his Prince.
The witch's light dims, and the world around them quakes, and shatters, and the witch is destroyed! This leaves only two problems.
One, they're all deposited in various exits around Nephrite's mansion, always at the roof (including Nephrite himself at the very tall roof the massive orrey)
Two: The witch's grief seed is denying gravity itself, and has lodged itself in the uppermost branches of a tree outside.
Two Point Five: Endymion was let out of the Labrynth about 30 feet above the hood of Nephrite's car.
One second, he's jamming all his energy into Kunzite's composition, and the next, everything explodes and Endymion's shunted out into the real world (and back into the full-on wrench of the Dark Kingdom's influence on his mind and body).
Let's be real. The prince doesn't even know which way is up now that gravity's back to normal. He's really only vaguely conscious, and teleportation and flight are not actually reflexes for him, they're learned things. They're new, not in his bones, his muscle memory.
That means that the first thing pretty much everyone capable of hearing anything will hear is the solid half-clattering part-crunching somewhat-meaty impact of a skinny somewhat-armored teenager into the hood of a bright red Ferrari.
Then a groan, a sliding sound, and a leafy crackling thud.
A moment passes.
SCRAMBLING. (Ow ow ow.) "KUNZITE! NEPHRITE! HOMURA! ARE YOU OKAY!!"
The first thing Nephrite is aware of, after something flat and solid rises up to slam into his back, is the feel of a real breeze upon his face. Though the mansion itself is more or less a construct of his own power, and it and the forest exist in a sort of pocket dimension, it still opens up to the actual sky. When he opens his eyes, real stars shimmer above him like old friends.
A sound bubbles up in his chest, beginning as a low rumble and building up into a roaring laugh. The ache in every one of his muscles as his body shakes with laughter is a welcome reminder of the fact that he is alive. He is alive, and he is home.
Nephrites mansion is enormous, and parts of it did not emerge unscathed from the labyrinth. Nevertheless, it takes him only a few minutes to trudge down to the main floor, tattered cape dragging on the stairs behind him. He crosses to a small bar built into the wall, his shadow lingering faintly over him like a half-formed beast. Most of the expensive liquor did not make it. Shame. He digs through a pile of broken glass, scores an intact bottle of 30-year-old whisky, unscrews it, tosses the lid on the floor, and takes a long swig. He carries the open bottle with him as he shuffles to the open front door.
Nephrite freezes on the threshold, and takes in the sight of Endymion. And his car.
As the Witch's Labyrinth fades away, Homura's eyes immediately go searching for the other members of her party. Kunzite, check. Nephrite, check. Endymion... where's Endymion?
She starts as she hears the crunch of Endymion landing on a Ferrari, and then slowly winces as the implications dawn on her. Shoulders hunched, she slowly turns around to confirm the results with her own eyes. "We're fine, Endy-kun."
Well, he seems well enough. The car... might need work, but Endymion is alright at least.
With that out of the way, Homura looks around for any sign of the Grief Seed and spots it... in the tree?
Muttering, "You have got to be kidding me."
Homura jumps from the roof of the mansion to the ground, and then again jumps from the ground into the tree. Quickly, she climbs. It's not like anyone else here needs it.
"Nephrite!" Kunzite can't support the call the way Endymion will be able to a moment later. But checking on him is still the first instinct. Endymion might ordinarily be a higher priority. But Endymion took a fraction of the damage, whether or not that impact he heard was Endymion; and Kunzite is all too well aware of what a few seconds of that witch's attention did to him. Nephrite was in there for months.
He doesn't hear an answer. He does hear the echo of that laugh, and that's enough. If that's intact, then everything else is only a matter of time.
He does not make an attempt to enter the mansion itself. Roof to ground, exerting a little more power to soften the landing enough not to shock anything broken. And he regards Endymion. And the car. "I'll heal," he says. Drier: "You might not."
And then Nephrite's on the threshold, and he turns to try to get a look at the man. Try. In the moments when he's not yet moving, at least.
The black-haired boy's eyes are, of course, no longer blue. Nephrite's not seen them like this: the dull, faded red that obscures the Earth's color like the dark pall over his golden energy. Nephrite had sensed Mamoru Chiba's energy, from the moment he met him-- strange and familiar and bright and wild, hidden behind the facades the teenager had up at the time, the walls he'd built.
There are different walls now, and he didn't build them.
Nonetheless, his face floods with relief at the answers, at the sights of Homura and Kunzite. Then Kunzite's words actually percolate and register, and Endymion looks behind him at the car, and then he hears the door open behind him--
--and the Dark Prince is cringing. "Oh, shit," he mumbles, much less emphatically than when he said it earlier.
Slowly he turns to Nephrite, and his face is a textbook example of 'oh my god I am so sorry no I am REALLY REALLY SO SORRY please don't hurt me'. "I'll... get... it fixed? Somehow... um."
Nephrite sways a little on the threshold. His uniform--if he got a good look at it now, he would wonder where it came from, whether that hellish place inflicted upon him some warped version of what he normally wore--is torn and bloody. Blood is dried on his temple and matted in his dark hair. If he were fully human, with all the base physical trappings of humanity, one could assume that he would smell very, very rank right now.
He stares uncomprehendingly at... everything. There is some girl (he vaguely remembers maybe he should be trying to kill her?) climbing his tree. His cherry red Ferrari has been turned into a broken nest containing a distressed boy... whose face makes some of the visions he saw in the labyrinth churn unpleasantly in his mind. And then there is Kunzite, who is looking... not well.
Nephrite decides to deal with these things in the order in which he can make the most damned amount of sense of them. He squints at the boy, who is speaking to him, and some of the distressing, lingering visions clear. He knows this boy, and not from any silly witch-induced hallucination.
He fixes Kunzite with something approximating a grin. "Hey, boss. You didnt tell me you were coming over."
He takes another swig of the whisky, which costs as much as some people make in a month, and gestures at Endymion with the bottle. "When did you start taking students out? Is this like, extra credit for him?"
Homura climbs and climbs, reaching the top branch uncontested, and snatches the Grief Seed from its perch. She presses it against her Soul Gem, allowing the Grief Seed to soak up the darkness building within. Her purple soul shines brilliantly, for a brief moment, and then she tosses her new prize into her shield.
Her attention then goes to the three Shitennou around her. They seem to be mostly alright. Well... afor a trio of brainwashed BFFs, anyways.
Homura hops out of the tree, landing with a soft tap, as she starts walking past Endymion and the wrecked car. "Grats on getting your brother back." She punctuates that with a hairflip.
Her eyes pass from Nephrite to Kunzite. Of the four currently here, she has the least business here. Besides, getting too buddy-buddy with them might make it awkward when they try to kill each other later.
Oh who are we kidding? It's already going to be awkward.
Kunzite's mouth pulls sharply at one corner, never mind how much that probably hurts. "That's what happens when you don't answer your calls," he tells Nephrite. Teeth show briefly, red-stained white, and he straightens. That's not the best of ideas either, but he conceals his reaction - most of it, anyhow. "For five months. You never did do things by halves."
He half-turns his head, glances to Homura - lets her continued presence pass, for the moment. "You have it?" he asks by way of checking, but the question's more a formality than anything else, and his attention goes straight back to Nephrite. "Given that he's the one who found you - let's say he's graduated."
--well, Nephrite's not killing him. Nephrite also just got out of a five-month Labyrinth. Therefore, Nephrite gets a little leeway. Endymion relaxes slightly, which reminds him how much energy he just spent and how tired he is, and...
Homura's leaving.
There's a half second of remembrance of what she gave him in that instant, back in the orrery room, and the boy clutches at it still; he keeps the feeling even if it's not safe to keep anything else, and he lets everything else drift. It leaves him with the moment as she's passing him, though, and he reaches out to lightly lay a hand on her sleeve. "Thank you," he says really quietly. "Again and again."
But he doesn't stay her; his hand falls, and he smiles a little.
A glance toward Kunzite, and his eyebrows lift-- and then he blinks, and shoots a look back at Nephrite. He clears his throat. "Maybe I should let you two talk. Homura, need a lift back to town? I promise not to teleport, I hear it's gross."
Kunzite--infallible, militant, ever so boring Kunzite--appears to actually be having difficulty hiding his pain, which is incredibly troubling. But though they may not be technically in the halls of the Dark Kingdom at this precise moment, Nephrite knows better than to rob him of what little facade of strength he was still maintaining. Nephrite can afford to look like a hot mess once in a while, but what would the world come to if Kunzite were seen as such?
So he chuckles at Kunzite's response, even as Nephrite moves forward to take him by the elbow--to steady himself obviously. "Did he? Interesting."
Nephrite regards the boy again, but Endymion is already scrambling away, taking his confusingly familiar face with him. "Five months? Really?" Nephrite sips at the bottle, more for the pleasure of tasting anything at all than for the alcohol content. "Bet I could have made it to six."
"I've got it," says Homura, producing the Grief Seed and holding it over her head, mostly so that Kunzite can see it as she walks away. "This one wont be causing any more trouble, I assure you." Seed goes back into the shield, without ceremony.
She stops, for a moment, as Endymion touches her sleeve. Homura side-eye glances at him. He's thanking her. "Don't mention it," she says, just as quietly.
She takes a single step away from him as his hand falls, and her eyes linger on that smile. She returns it, briefly, before turning away.
Then he offers her a lift. Apparently the other two need to talk alone? Whatever. It's clearly none of her business. She's becoming increasingly aware of how much she does not belong here.
She turns around, rotating on the ball of one foot while her other leg sweeps around. She looks up at Endymion, with a smile that tries to hide the sadness in her eyes. "Sure. I'd like that."
She doesn't know what he's planning, but... for the moment, she trusts him.
Obviously. Nephrite is after all the one having trouble adjusting back to gravity staying in one direction. There is clearly no other reason for that swaying a moment later. And obviously all the blood on both of them belongs to some third party.
"Probably," Kunzite allows to Nephrite's speculation. "If you had your heart set on sitting it out when that thing's bigger cousin pays us a visit." ... someday, Kunzite will show up with good news. Probably the world will end for good three seconds before he relays it, just to keep the pattern going.
And after Homura and Endymion depart, emotionless and matter-of-fact: "We took him six weeks ago. He doesn't remember anything of significance before that. Take a day or two; I'll give you the details after."