It's the beginning of the Spring Festival! Sure, the it's still cold and snowy, but the beginning of Spring starts now! Never mind the Spring Equinox still being a month away. The tradition of chasing demons and throwing beans around is being played up in full force! As part of the festivities, food and treats stands are opened up to those who're out and about in the afternoon. Along the road in this peaceful district, where students are walking home from school there are making her way down, are several stands!
Takoyaki! Fruit! Bentos! And even Ice Cream! Mmm, Ice Cream.
Greta Legend in the meantime is walking down the road, clad in her Infinity Academy uniform, looking glum and staring at a phone in her hand, really losing track of the world around her. It has been a rough week for her since the only friend she has managed to make since coming to Japan turned into a witch not long after... Her mood is really down...
Minako Aino is also doing festival traditions, running around and scaring the younger children by talking about demons and how they are REAL and if you run out of beans, they might eat you.
Then she starts trying to push beans out of their fingers and laughing when they shout and run around a little nervously. The bean throwing is also all in good fun until somebody hits her with beans, at which point she demonstrates just how good of an arm she has.
"I could have pitched for the New York Nets! You better be careful, boys!"
Her mood is up, up, up!
Haruna Kurosawa is walking down the road, clad in her own Infinity Uniform as she spins, seagull on her shoulder. "Corvus-chan~ Corvus-chan~ It's spring! It's spring it's spring it's spring!~" she sings. The seagull merely sighs and shakes his head with a short smile. "You know, Haruna.." says the seagull. "If you spin too much more you're gonna become Cure Top!" he says.
"Yeah but with spring...! Soon the snow will melt and it'll be ocean time again and!----"
"---Aki is here with me this year! It'll be just like old times and-- Hannah-chan promised to take us! And---!"
She stops in front of a stall. "Huh..." she says softly.
"Food..." she says wide eyed...
"Foooooood." says Corvus, wide-eyed.
Greta doesn't need food. She's a master chef in the cooking club, she could make as much as she liked for herself at home. All these things were a distractions she couldn't deal with, and she wasn't in a good place in her head to begin with.
As she's walking by the ice cream stand, the vendor spots her and callsout, "Hey, nee-chan! What're you doing looking so glum?" The vendor is a big guy of the boistrous variety, grinning widely even as he notes Greta looking down. "It's a little early in the year to be looking sad you know!"
Greta actually pauses as her attention is caught by him, despite having been zoned out. She looks to him and huffs, shaking her head, "I'll be fine. Thank you sir.."
The guy shakes his head, "You think I'm gonna let a glum face go by without trying to make it feel better? No way... Here!" The vendor reaches down and scoops some ice cream into a cone and holds it out, "Ice Cream always makes me feel better! It'll make you feel better too!"
Greta blinks a little more, before sighing and reaching to her back to bring out her wallet. At which point, the vendor shakes his head, "Nah ah! It's on me! Come on!"
Greta bites her lip, before sighing, and taking the cone, "Thank you, sir..." She bows her head, as having been taught the manners of Japan and all. "Have a good day." Before turning and walking off with cone in hand, licking at it after a few paces... Mmm, it did make her feel better.
Haruna Kurosawa turns away from a stand, some of her hard earned money going to the Takiyaki stand owner and now Corvus and Haruna both have cakes shaped like fish and are eating them greedily. She looks over to the ice cream guy, and the fellow Infinity Student in front of it as she jogs on over. Her eyes wide.
Ice creaaaam. But. She has Takiyaki right now. So she nibbles this...
"Hi..." says Haruna.
"My name's Haruna Kurosawa." she says in between bites.
"You looked sad until you got that ice cream. I have it on fact that Ice Cream makes most things bearable." she insists.
.oO(Yeah because you go through about twelve pints a week. >,>) thinks Corvus, not talking in front of the person Haruna is talking to.
Minako Aino raises up her hand (after pelting some young kid and an obnoxious boy who decided to try a round of bean-throwing) and dances her way to ice cream. "Oh no, hey, wait, I'm also looking as glum as a chum in a rum!" she says, crossing her heart and trying to force her smiles to turn into pouts. It's not very effective.
"I deserve a treat. My heart is broken. Also, my........ ankle... is broken. Please!" she sings out, before collecting some discounted ice cream.
Lucky for everybody, as she was secretively shifting more beans into her throwing hand in case she didn't get a discount.
She's a Seiyou student and wears the loudest version of the outfit she can. Minako dances around and throws some more beans. Some plonk harmlessly off birds. It's definitely a scene.
That ice cream vendor just laughs as Minako puts on a show, "Oh is that so? Ahh well, here then, since you're so glum!" He pulls out another scoop of ice cream into another cone and passes it to Minako, "Here, you can have a treat too! Gyahahaha!"
Greta hums softly as she licks at her ice cream when.. SUDDENLY. HARUNA. Greta blinks a bit, before narrowing her eyes and replying, "Greta. Greta Legend. Cooking club. Nice to meet you." Cooooold. Colder than the ice cream.
Minako Aino devours her treat and eventually starts gravitating her way towards people with animals on their head and shoulders. Usually, she's got her own shoulder-cat but the act of bean-assault (as well as the stern glares of disapproving Artemises) keeps her shoulders animal-free.
Now, she's approaching a familiar looking bird, reaching out with beans to see if it will eat it. "Ooooooh. Polly want some beans?" she asks, licking her own treat. "I didn't know birds liked ice cream."
That's sort of Minako's way of introducing herself.
Haruna Kurosawa indeed, Haruna just suddenly happens.
"Hi Greta-san!" she says. "I'm on the Kickboxing Team!" she says. "I'm in my nineth year! You go to Infinity like I do. Do you stay in a dorm?" she asks. "Or do you live off campus? I live in a dorm with my sister, it's pretty great." she says with a smile.
"Are you enjoying your ice cream?" she asks.
Corvus has a Takiyaki, not to mention how he's holding it with his wings. Corvus gives Minako a /look/. He doesn't talk though. He just takes another bite of the cake.
There's that moment of silence as Greta just continues to glare at Haruna, who just keeps going on about herself, despite the cold glare. Icey even. Greta licks her ice cream a bit more, before asking, "Is there something you wanted?" Her icey glare turns to the bird, which she just glares at equally.
Then Minako shows up, and Greta's eyebrow twitches. This was already starting to ruffle her own feathers, so to speak, so she turns and says, "If there's nothing you wanted, I'm heading home." She licks at her ice cream again and begins walking.
MEANWHILE - TEN FEET BEHIND THE GROUP
The vendor is watching the gaggle of girls, grinning all the while... All the while a shadow appears behind him and pours itself into the ice cream cart...
Minako Aino only shakes her head at the bird (she's really addressing Haruna even if she's making bird eye-contact). "Well, dear dear, you've really teed her off," she says, in a faux British accent.
"What about if I want something? Will you stick around for me?" she calls to the retreating Greta, throwing the remaining handful of beans and then cramming ice cream into her mouth and throat so she is ready to respond to whatever is said to her with no distracting snacks and with empty hands.
Haruna Kurosawa woahs, and blinks and chases after Greta. "H-hey now! You were all upset earlier and----! I know the ice cream helps, but... talking about stuff helps too-- and--- pushing away people. That isn't going to help either! Those feelings are just going to stew and get worse until you take em off the burner!" she says.
Corvus meanwhile looks around suddenly and hops onto Haruna's head and seems to place a wing above his eyes to block out the sun and looks around. He's potentially sensing... something not quite right here, as he is won't to.
She's doing her best. Sometimes she wishes she just spout 'bad feelings fill you with darkness and then you become a witch with a bird who wants to eat the world' but she can't.
Swirling around in the cart of ice cream, the shadow takes its time before melding itself into the tubs of ice cream, and becomes one with the ice cream... After several long moments of absorbing the stuff, a long groan before a dark light explodes from the cart, and sends the vendor reeling, and letting out a yell, "UAAAAH!? What the hell is that!?"
Greta's continued coldness just gets colder as she glares more at Haruna, and at Minako, "There's nothing to talk about... Can't you see I want to be left alone?" She never did put down that phone she's been staring at for a while now, even as she munches out on the ice cream.
And then the vendor screams, prompting Greta to go wide eyed and spin around to face it. A bright light glows from a gem hanging at her neck, and before she waits for replies from the other girls, she bolts off without waiting.
"I knew it!" yells the seagull on top of Haruna's head. "Haruna, Cure Up!" he calls out.
Yeah screw it. There's danger and there's a LOT of people here!
< Rollin' Mirror Change! > Time to Change!~
Haruna shoves her PreCards into her PreChaMirror and then she spins the little decorative ball on her mirror.
There's a transformation that involves a cloak-- gloves, boots and a vest being applied- and then-- you know a silly ending pose. She makes wings with her hands!
"The Wings of Hope... that soar across the sea... Cure Gull!" she calls out.
Then she points toward's the light.
"VILLIAN! ATTACKING ICE CREAM STANDS IS A SEVERE NONONONO!" she calls out.
Minako Aino raises up her own phone and asks (around a mouthful of ice cream and one ice cream headache) if she can get a number before everybody gets glarier or runs away from dark lights.
She also dashes off, although with less of a rush to get to a private area, curious what set off the vendor's cart. Something nefarious? Or, as she suspects, improper maintenance of a freezer? Either way, she's a bit slow to escape and thus even slower to return.
For the moment the shadows emerging from the cart don't take any specific form, but eventually after several moments of swirling about, the creature coeleases into the most insidious form it that the girls could possibly imagine...
A GIANT Triple scoop Ice Cream Cone. With arms and a face, as it cackles, "Aahaaaaahahahahaha! There is no hope for you! KNOW MY NAME FROM MY FLAVORS! I AM NEAP----"
It's interrupted by what appears to be a Hatchet made of energy, Flying right into its face!
Where did it come from?! Behind Cure Gull, she would be able to see a girl with an giant axe, bright blonde ringlet hair, blue eyes, and decked out in a red, yellow and white uniform, and she's glaring at the beast, "Are you kidding me?! Here I thought I was worried, I'll take you down easy!"
Cure Gull oh god, a giant ice cream demon!? "Creatures who take hold of delicious treats to attack people don't deserve any sort of quarter! I! Cure Gu---" and then a giant hatchet appears from behind her and smashes the thing in the face. She blinks rapidly and looks behind her. She grins cheesily wide and gives a thumbs up!
She looks back towards the creature!
"I'm going to give you.. TWO SCOOPS OF JUSTICE!" she calls out. She jumps into the air and her wings form from that bow on the back of her waist. "GULL FEATHER STORM!" she calls out, a rain of razor sharp feathers exploding from her hand towards the creature.
Minako Aino eventually makes her way back as Sailor V, jogging along with intent but really taking her time. Part of her reasoning being the weird monster looks suitably slammed around already and partially because ice cream doesn't seem dangerous at all.
If anything, it makes her sleepy, whether she's consuming it or just visiting it in the park.
"Oh my goooood. It looks delicious! Don't melt it!" she demands, bouncing from one foot to the other. "You gotta' return it to its rightful owner. Or everybody'll be icecreamless!"
She starts to advance towards the creature but hesitates, uncertain how to take it out without melting it down. Crescent Beams are off the table, obviously.
Hatchet and feathers render the ice cream monster defensless for a time as it just tanks it all without expecting it. After a few moments of the ice cream that composes its body sit there splattered about, they pull themselves back together and reform its body and face, with the face glaring at them all, at the Axe wielding girl in particular.
"OY! I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF MY INTRODUCTION!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING INTERRUPTING ME LIKE---!" Its protest is cut off by yet ANOTHER hatchet flying right into its face.
The hatchets coming from the axe girl having spun and whirled her axe, releasing an energy bolt in the shape of the hatchet, and she grumbles, "Like I care about your saturday morning villain crap!"
Cure Gull looks to Minako. "I wouldn't worry about that right now, V!" she says with a wide smile. She looks back towards the creature. "He-hey I know it sucks having your introduction speech cut short, well too bad! You wanna be evil so we're PUNCHING YOU UNTIL YOU STOP!" she calls out as she zorts downwards towards the creature, a beam of green light momentarily as she crashes into the creature--- with a force-- wind empowered punch! "HIYA!" she calls out, hoping to splorch off a lot of this ice cream as the wind forces downwards.
Corvus woooooos! He's standing on top of a nearby stall sign, eating his Takiyaki. "PUNCH IT GULL-CHAN!" the seagull calls out.
Minako Aino/Sailor V visibly cringes atht e force of every hit, slam, and punch the delicious treat meets. She has the foresight to hide the sympathetic face she makes as the treat she looked forward to going back for seconds slowly becomes a soup.
"I'm plenty worried. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm worried about," she murmurs, only hesitantly raising up her hand and preparing herself to attack.
"Alright. I guess you're right. I'm gonna help put it down... and not down my throat," she says, with a secret sigh at the end.
The monster just tanks more and more hits, splorching about here and there, puddling up for a while more as it just takes all the hits, before once again regenerating. Pretty durable for a pile of ice cream. The beast lets out a roar, "THAT'S IT! I was going to save it, but now I'm going to defeat all of you with my secret technique!!" It brings its arms up and hands towards its temple... Ice Cream temple.... Whatever, and growls, "FINISHING MOVE!!"
Magic sensitives can sense the power activating, but what is it? What could this beast do?!
And then spontaniously, without warning, innocent people in the surrounding area all start crying in pain, grasping their heads in agony..
The Axe weilding girl growls, "What do you think you're---" She then grits her teeth, staggering as she cries out, "EEaaaaaaGH!!!"
The sufferer's of this pain know what it resembles all too well, as the monster announces it, "~BRAIN FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!~"
However, some people aren't dropping. Some people seem to be enduring past it, only barely, but if you've got a good eye, there is a pattern to the attack... The people suffering were eating Ice cream.
Cure Gull nrrrrrrrg oh god, oww-- bra--brain freeze-- she grabs her temples and growls... "Someone needs to get you to cool d--down more..." she shivers...."FORM CHANGE!"
< Rollin' Mirror Change! > < Blueberry Waltz! >
There's another flash and Cure Gull is now Blueberry Waltz! A light blue ballroom gown-- and Corvus is in an appropiate sky blue tuxedo and has a ballroom mask. He looks dapper and ice crystals form into existence around her. "Okay that's more my temperature..." she mutters into the cold.
She raises her arms and spins forward before calling out. "GULL BLUEBERRY TWO-STEP!" she calls out, ice and wind forming into rock hard crystalized two kick into the creature.
"I WON'T GIVE YOU ANOTHER CHANCE TO FREEZE ME!"
"Urrrg. It's so cold. You need to... lick the top of your mouth," Sailor V calls out. "I heard it on a talk show once."
"Or, put your hands in warm water!"
Either way, when she finally decides to point her finger at the ice cream fiend, it's through blurred vision with one palm on her forehead and it goes wide.
"Or sip hot tea. Or chew on bread. I don't have any of the home remedies on me," she says, panickingly, rubbing her forehead with her palms to try and rub away the headache.
The Ice Cream Monster cackles incessently at its apparent victory, "WHAHAHAHA!! The Brain freeze will disable you all! Destroy you girls easily!---" And suddenly it takes a ice-cold kick to the torso, which actually Freezes up its torso.
"WHAAAH!? What are you doign freezing me! Stop that!"
Now that the monster wasn't actively using its power, the Axe girl finds relief and sucks in a breath, "Owow... Not going to have ice cream for a long while now..." She shakes her head, and raises up her axe, which converts into its beam form, "Screw this, just vaporize it!"
Blueberry Waltz yells. "THIS IS HOW I EAT ICE CREAM! I DON'T GET BRAIN FREEZES!" she says.
Corvus says. "GULL ABUSES POWERS TO EAT ICE CREAM HILAROUSLY!" he says.
"THE PROPER WAY TO EAT ICE CREAM IS IN AN ELEGANT BALLGOWN!" she calls out.
"Vaporize it!? Okay--if you insist...."
"Pretty Cure....!" she claps her hands abover head once....
"Twinkling Sparkling..." another clap-- and then a dramatic spin as sparkly, icy dust builds up around her in the wind she's making with her spinning~
"Storm!...."
And then a final clap! And then there's a brilliant rush of purification from her location--- snapping out against the landscape for the creature-- aiming to hone in on the darkness and do terrible damage to it with this form's iconic!
Of course, the moment she launches the iconic the henshin drops--- and she's back to just being 'Cure Gull' again... and then she grabs her temples and begins eeeking.
"A--ahahahahahahhahaheeeee!?"
She concentrates!
"Don't abuse your powers to eat ice cream!" Sailor V says with after Corvus with a gasp, sounding disapproving.
Through teary eyes and her mask, she makes the fateful decision to skip dessert. She repositions herself across from Cure Gull and performs a fusilade of crescent beams into what she was hoping would be ice cream seconds (at a discounted price).
"Hey, other weird girl, consider it vaporized!"
The monster having been frozen in place gives all the magical girls to rev up their attacks, and it gets barraged by a bunch of Crescent beams and the massive purification storm, blasting away at the melty ice cream form of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. The monster suffers enough damage that the Shadowy form gets ejected from the dairy product container, and it swirls into shadowyness, and seems to be trying to escape.
"/YOU MISERABLE GIRLS, WHEN I COME BACK, I WILL---/"
"<GRETA BEAM.>" Tri Soul the INtelligence device speaks up, as the axe girl aims and screams out, "FIRE!!" The massive beam of energy pummels down at the shadow, tearing through it and vaporizing it, as it screams with finallity.
After all that, the girl lets out a breath and drops down to the ground, huffing in in annoyance. "Glad that's over."
Cure Gull is ready to follow up the attack when... well Greta's attack flares out. She turns around and huhs. "Oh! You're using an Intelligent Device!" she calls out with a smile! She grins. "I have something like that! But..I can't transform with it or anything. We should talk sometimes soon!" she says.
She grins and gives a peace sign and winks!
"Corvus c'ome on over here." she says. Corvus flies over to her shoulder.
"I'm Cure Gull, this is my seagull, Corvus!" she says. Also the same seagull that was with the girl earlier.
"Who are you?" she asks, head tilting.
Minako Aino/Sailor V comes over to stand around and chatter, but only after kicking the ice cream container over to the middle of the trio (plus seagull) where it can be carefully monitored.
"You have an intelligent device too?" she asks to Cure Gull. "Is it the bird?"
But mostly, she keeps her eyes down. She's entirely willing to eat the ice cream, but only if somebody else makes the suggestion or starts on it first.
The girl huffs and twirls her staff before loookingto the other magical girls and narriws her eyes a little, before she replies, "I'd rather you didden't know.." She turns and mutters, Just know that the Sunshine Spark was here." With that, she turns and flies off.
Cure Gull shakes her head. "Nope! Unity Loop! She's kinda close to one, but isn't. She's... something called.. a ... Lost Logia. It was controlled by some sort of malicious intelligence before it was freed and now she's just a real sweetie. But I usually keep her asleep, else she'd continously ping every device user I met friendly like!" she giggles.
"I take her out at home."
"and she talks a lot." says Corvus.
"That too! But no more than me!"
She looks at Sailor V. "It's okay. You can eat the ice cream now!" she beams! "Just be careful of brain freezes~" she winks.
Then she looks back. "H--hey!" she says.
"Sunshine Spark!? But there's nothing... sunny about...."
"Running off in a huff...."
She hrmphs!