It's Christmas! The night of going with your love on a romantic date, or going with a group of friends to Kentucky Fried Chicken, or going to KFC and getting a bucket of greasy fried chicken to eat miserably alone because you're sad and/or don't have a date. It was a chilly but sunny day, no snow, and now it's a chillier evening, damp and misty.
The local KFC is cheerfully busy, heated inside-- but a few of the employees have had to beg big favors from their coworkers to cover their shifts, because they didn't feel well or suddenly got really tired after their lunch breaks. It's also oddly less busy in the 'looking for tables' sense, because a lot of people have decided that what they really want after all is to take their chicken and go home to finish it. Many of them, leaving, look a little greyish-- it could be attributed to maybe a bad batch of cook oil, except for the somewhat glazed look in their eyes. Some of them even look downright sleepy.
Usagi wants to be one of those eating chicken alone. Well, soon she will be, but before? Cheerful family stuff. She even has a shiny new coat from her parents. Which is pretty and perfect and fancy and exactly what she wanted for months.
She also has the cold Shingo decided to bring home and share with everyone.
Now, though, familial obligations done, she's going for a bucket of fried chicken and is going to go eat it nice, alone, and perfectly miserable.
Sometimes wallowing was the best thing you could do.
When she's ordering, she doesn't really notice the change in how tired she is. Tired is relative these days, anyway.
Maybe a bit of a tingle? But she blames that, for now, on the ridiculous amount of hot cocoa she's had to stay awake.
She yawns a bit, waiting for the sluggish cashiers to help the sluggish customers and it feels like she's been in this line forever.
Haruna Kurosawa run run run run! Kentucy Fried Chicken! Ugh! She had to get some to share with Aki and Hannah! Aki, because it'd make for a special Christmas dinner they hadn't done in two years together! and Hannah was from America so might like Kentucy Fried Chicken because Kentucy was a land in America, wasn't it!? Ruled by some sort of 'Colonel'--- she was pretty sure it was a military dictatorship. That might explain Hannah's way of thinking actually. hrmmmmm.....
Corvus is on her shoulder. Corvus has his arms folded. Grumble grumble, you eat /birds/ grumble grumble.
"Chickens are delicious though!" she says as she gets in line, and peppy and cheery and----*yawwwwn* nrg, maybe it was later than she thought it was.
Homura Akemi is enjoying a bit of fried chicken in her own way. Which is to say that she's just come out of a labyrinth filled with fried chicken and is now tossing the Grief Seed into the air.
There's another Puella Magi walking next to her, frowning at her. She's wearing a red and black costume, red blouse with black undershirt, long red skirts with black frills. Her soul Gem is an upside-down heart, dark red.
"Homura-san, if you break that I'm going to be so mad at you."
Homura side-eye glances at her, catching the Grief Seed before pocketing it. "I'm happy for once. Let me have my moment, Laisa-san."
'Laisa' rolls her eyes and walks on ahead of the other Puella, walking by the KFC before stopping suddenly. Slowly she turns to look inside. Her scowl is incredibly sour. Homura actually found someone grumpier than her.
Homura comes up behind her and looks inside, wondering what she's mad about.
"Hi, wage-slaves! Christmas castaways! Guess who!" shouts a loud fuku'd disaster from the drive-thru window. The first yell goes over the speakers, but she clearly isn't sure if they go on or not without a car, so she opens the windows and repeats herself, waving a hand inside.
"Oh my god, it's that blonde space princess cosplayer."
"NO! That's not a thing. Is it? Forget it. I'm Sailor V! That's even better! Giving out Chrismas autographs and hoping for a Christmas chicken gift," she says.
Judging by her full bag, which includes brownies and other snacks, she's either doing some EXTREMELY last minute gift shopping or she's been getting freebies all up and down the street the past few hours.
It's not actually too long-- the cashiers don't look too tired, really; they're being pretty efficient. It's generally the ones on break. In fact, the manager is there, ringing Usagi's order up and placing a bucket of fried chicken on the counter in front of her, when one of the guys who's just come back from break pauses at Minako's cheery cheery drive-through yelling and sways a little on his feet. He gives her an uncomprehending look, kind of grey-faced and glassy-eyed, and holds up a finger. "Very sorry, V-san. If you would-- would please wait a moment...?"
He gets about five steps toward the manager ringing Usagi up and he literally pitches forward onto the floor behind the counter, in full sight of both Sailor V and the magical girls in line.
Homura and her new grumpy sidekick will see the aftermath-- a rush of cashiers abandoning their posts to try to help their compatriot, and a bunch of customers crowding the counter all of a sudden to lean over it and see what happened to the guy.
Across the street, sitting on the edge of the roof of a little shop that's closed, there's a boy in winter clothes and a hat and sunglasses-at-night. He's eating takoyaki and watching the growing brouhaha with a frown. The fry-grease chimney's smoke and steam are more or less floating in his direction, but not touching him-- out of sight of even those who might glance up, the steam's resolving into a growing ball of dimly glowing energy, winding around itself like a ball of yarn. He brushes off his hands and crumples the takeaway box, tossing it back over his shoulder.
Minako Aino quietly adds a mark to her 'people who pass out after seeing her' book.
Haruna Kurosawa sort of spins in place when customers rush around her to get to the counter and she acks and lifts her arms. "Hey what happend!?" exclaims Haruna. She whispers something to Corvus. Corvus gets onto a light fixture, peeks overhead and flies down and reports that some worker collapsed.
"Ugh! Must be the work exhaustion!" she says. "Always driving fast food workers to death! Hey! Hire some people! You guys said you didn't need any help when Aki came by here and filled out employment applications!" she says shaking a fist mock-angrily. She huffs and turns around and eyes Homura with a blink. "Akemi-san! Hi! Who's your friend?" she asks curiously.
The only indicatations that she isn't as frightened as her sudden scream otherwise lets on, Usagi drops money on the counter and grabs her bucket of chicken while she does so. Then she turns dramatic eyes toward Sailor V. "Oh thank goodness you're here!"
And then, like a damsel in distress, she runs out, still screaming.
She stops as soon as she's out of the building, staring across the street for a moment. Looking up. But she sees...nothing. And she wants to.
She doesn't have to fake the yawn that cracks her jaw as she strolls down the street to duck into an alley.
She sets the chicken someplace safe. "Moon Cosmic Power..." Yaaaaawn! "Make-up!"
Ug. Now Sailor Moon is rushing back into the fray. Steadfast, she ignores that spot she'd stared at earlier.
Homura watches Laisa's growing frown for a moment, before rolling her eyes and putting a hand on Laisa's arm and saying, "Come on. Whatever you're mad about this time can wait."
Laisa grumbles, "You don't even know what it is."
"No but I know that look in your eyes and I'm willing to bet it's about--"
Suddenly, something is happening inside the KFC. Homura looks inside, sees a collapsed employee, and other employees all gathering around him. "What the heck?" she wonders out loud.
"I don't know. He just fell over." Laisa speaks in the flattest tone imaginable.
"Yeah maybe he saw the look on your face and you scared him to death," says Homura, ignoring it when Laisa turns her glare to her. Around that time, Haruna walks up to her. Homura looks around a bit awkward at first, before saying, "Um... this is Laisa. She's a Puella Magi like me. She's... helping me investigate the Walpurgisnacht issue."
Usagi walks out. Homura says, "Hi Usagi-chan," before she vanishes. When Sailor Moon comes back, she says, "Hi Moon-chan."
Homura starts walking towards the entrance to the KFC, turning her head to talk to Laisa. "Come on, you said you wanted to help people, right? Let's go."
Laisa hesitates before following her. Her eyes go across the street, eyes settling on a glare aimed at the boy wearing sunglasses. "Those aren't as cool looking as you think!" she shouts, before turning to follow Homura inside.
Minako Aino/Sailor V doesn't seem too worried about collapsing folks for now. Something weird is up, but it's probably just somebody collapsing at the sight of her. She is pretty shocking, after all.
After the requisite time spent basking in the adoration of others (and secretly marking her 'boys who like me' book with a checkmark), she skips over to Sailor Moon. "Yeah! I'm here. But don't thank goodness - thank your favorite senshi buddy! Out for Christmas presents!"
Scowling as he's almost noticed and then very noticed and criticized, the sunglasses-wearing boy takes a step back from the ledge, pulling himself further out of sight. He scoops up the rapidly forming ball of energy and spins off a long, long, ghostly blue-white thread of it and flings it sailing back into the chimney, stopping the energy-gathering and sending just enough back to--
--to slither in to all the uneaten fried chicken in the place, on both sides of the counter.
People only start running and screaming when the chicken they were trying to eat goddammit start pulling away from their hands and the chicken in the buckets and on the plates starts skittering off the tables on to the floor, gathering up and up, gathering together. Then there's a lot of running and screaming. The pieces begin to melt together, flowing and re-forming, each piece of bone merging with another, each piece of cooked meat mashing up to the next, each piece and crumb of delicious crunchy battered coating connecting to the ones outside it...
..and where the battered skin is cracked, grease unashamedly leaking out to trail onto the floor.
It grows with increasing speed, building a whole chicken that's as big as a person, then an industrial freezer, then a VW bug standing on its back bumper. And it stretches, wings extending and big delicious fried drumsticks stretching one at a time to settle on the floor.
It picks itself up, and out of the socket where its head should be, the head of a jolly white-bearded American guy with a curling moustache and an old-fashioned hairdo pops out and grins at those remaining.
Those are pointed teeth.
Haruna Kurosawa smiles and nods at Homura. "I see! Well, hello Laisa~ if you two need help, lemme know!" she says.
She taps her chin. "Is this something dangerous going on? Corvus what do you think?" she asks the bird. Corvus sort of looks up. "Eh?" he asks. He peeks around a bit. "Oh---woah! Yeah there's something Haruna. Get ready....!" she says.
She dives underneath a booth as she sort of nrgs and pulls her her PreChanMirror!
<Rollin' Mirror Change~>
Cure Gull appears popping off the booth and kicking it into the air--- probably at the youma- but it's also just as likely to smash through the window. She draws a seafoam green heart in the air---which pops! And then she does her pose. "The wings of hope that soar across the sea.. Cure Gull!" then she brings her arms up in a Karate pose.
"Hey! People wait all Christmas for this! And---and you're ruining my best Christmas ever!---hey----wait a minute...."
She picks up a cup. She peers at the Colonel's face on it.
She looks back up at the creature. Back down to the cup. Back up at the creature! /THE COLONEL!/. Here!?
Regardless, she keeps her resolve.
"--WELL!" she says angrily and nervously. "Still! You shall not ruin Christmas for all these people unhindred!" she insists loudly.
She kicks another table up at the creature.
"YOUR COMPLAINTS HAVE BEEN TABLED! THERE IS NO COUNTER TO THIS!" she yells.
Corvus facepalms on her shoulder.
Usagi and Sailor Moon both give a sleepy cheerful wave and a 'Hi, Homura!' as she went by.
Inside now, she's standing with Sailor Venus, trying to help those who need it and--
AUGH! Now her scream is genuine! "Mister Santa?!" How--Why--WHAT FIEND IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?!
Realizing she probably shouldn't freak out in public, she jumps to higher (and safer) ground. Also, conveniently, the lampposts from outside are shining down just right to act as an impromptu spotlight.
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" Oh, she should have known better than to yell!
After she's done doubling over and coughing up more lungs than she has, she sways back on her feet. "Hold it right there! Christmas is a time for lovers to enjoy each other's company! Or to wallow in the fact that their boyfriend is either dead or evil! Fried Chicken is a symbol of both this, for it is both tasty and so full of deliciousness it crackles your arteries! That you would both desecrate this most holy of place and one of the most iconic figures in the world aside from Mickey Mouse, I, Sailor Moon, will not forgive you! In the name of the moon, I will punish you!"
Okay, lean against this wall here while you catch your breath and cough up another five lungs.
Minako Aino /Sailor V stares at the foul fowl freak, then to the empty buckets of once-food, then back to her friend. She addresses Sailor Moon with as much seriousness and decorum she can muster considering what she's about to carefully suggest.
"I'm your friend. Your best friend," she starts, carefully interrupting Sailor Moon's speech at a strategic time. "I see you ate some food here. Nice. Nice. But I'm gonna need you to put your finger down your throat and, uh... look, I'll cover you. I got your back, Sailor Moon," she says, supportive and loving, before putting her bag of (potentially) illicitly obtained Christmas goodies at Sailor Moon's feet and taking up a defensive stance.
There's a pause, then she gingerly moves the bag away from Sailor Moon's feet, a good distance from her, and takes up a position to engage the good colonel.
Homura watches with a blank stare, and Laisa watches with a scowl, as the fried chicken comes to life, gathers, and forms into a growing monstrosity. Homura tilts her head towards Laisa and says, "I guess that stuff really is bad for you." Laisa's responding laugh is bitter.
Homura reaches into her shield and produces a shotgun. Laisa tilts her head. "So you're going to fight this, Akemi-san? It's not a Witch."
"No, but I've got promises to keep," responds Homura, reaching up to touch the black rose hanging over her ear, "My investment in this is personal, so you don't have to help."
Laisa frowns at Homura and says, "You already know the answer to that."
"Then let's get to work."
Laisa notably twitches during Moon's speech, at the dead-or-evil boyfriend comment. Homura glances towards her once before focusing back on the Fried Colonel youma.
"I'm leading. Cover me," says Homura, before rushing towards the presumably tasty monster with a blur of speed, turning as she passes it, letting loose a volley of buckshot.
The boy on the rooftop across the street sends the energy gathered back to the Dark Kingdom, then lightly leaps off the building and crosses the street to lean against a lamppost outside the KFC, crossing his arms to watch through the big plate-glass windows.
The hideous fried monstrosity with the Colonel's head (ish), on the other hand, rears up to smack the flying table out of its way, sending it crashing into the wall and dropping onto another table, breaking them both. A hail of cracked-off pieces of batter rains down at the initial impact, and grease starts leaking out under its wing-- grease that it sends shooting out at Cure Gull. "FINGER-LICKIN' GOOD!" it howls, the giant sharp-toothed grin at terrifying odds with its behavior.
Sailor Moon is yelling at it, and it turns its head to grin at her instead, but Sailor V is covering for her-- it shoots a hail of greasy crackly pieces of flaked-off batter and shards of bone at the Codenamed Senshi. "FINGER-LICKIN'!" it shouts.
Aaaand then Homura's got a shotgun, but the youma's not looking at her, attention on Sailor V instead: the buckshot riddles its backside, and it shrieks in anger. "GOOD!!!" Each one of the tiny bullet holes starts spraying out pencil-sized streams of grease, splattering Homura and Laisa and the floor and windows. The floor's starting to get really slick.
The boy outside grimaces in disgust at the spatters of grease against the windows he's watching through.
What? Throw up? But all she had was a bit of chi--
Oh.
"Um, yeah, maybe that will--"
But she's never made herself throw up before. She has a stomach of steel. Even though, now that it was brought up, she could feel the dark, twisty, not right feeling at the pit of her stomach, trying to move in and on, all over, and--
"BLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAARFFFFFF!!!!
Fortunately, it was as discrete as it could be, thanks to Venus.
Done, she leans against Venus a moment. "Thanks. I wasn't even thinking about that. I just thought it was because of my stupid brother giving me his school cooties."
First mission down! She takes off her tiara. Aims.
"Wait, he's not Mister Santa! He's...he's...he's supposed to be that chicken guy! AUGH!"
"Finger lickin'!"
Grease splatter and other fowl shrapnel head their way.
"MOON TIARA ACTION!"
It's shouted and the tiara's flung as she's sort of leaping that way. She lands, almost graceful, and then slips in a puddle of grease. Oh man, this is not going to come out easily...
It takes a few tries, but she's finally able to brace herself on the door handle to pull herself up.
She looks outside and tilts her head in confusion. Her comes up and the tiara slaps into her palm.
It takes a long moment for her eyes to leave the lamp post.
Oh well. Maybe he's a looky-loo.
She turns and throws the tiara again.
"Guys, I may not be eating chicken for awhile after this."
Cure Gull is used to fighting monsters with a limited vocabulary, it comes with being a Pretty Cure. "GOOD AS IT MAY BE! YOU WON'T BE ALLOWED TO AIEEEEEE.....!" she says as she begins slipping all over to the place because chicken grease. Ughhhhhhh ewwwwww. this is disgustingggggg. She was going to eat this!? Ugh she could just cooked it at home. or try to. Maybe she'll do that when she's done here if she's not spending like hours in a vat of dish soap to get clean.
"Hey! This is----" She hears a 'blaaaarrrrrrrr' and she blinks. Well. That's most certainly not a familar sound to a totally not spiked-drink drunk Haruna. Nope.
She flutters her eyes and continues. "HEY! Sailor Moon is right, you're being a big jerk!" she says. "CHICKEN IS GREAT FOR EVERYONE AND YOU'RE RUINING IT!" she says as she slides across the floor and pushes against the window. She sighs and finally claws her way up. She feels so greasy and icky and foul right now.
"Gull Windy..... Grossout Hurricannnnneeeee!" she calls out. A gust of wind and feathers forms out from her hands and moves to suck up and then fling grease back at the creature with the gust of wind!
"I'm gonna baste this turkey!...erm.. Chicken!...erm... Poultry!" she insists.
"Akemi-san! Blow it up good!" she cheers! "Show that Chicken who's Kentucky's Dictator!"
Minako Aino/Sailor V doesn't like the chicken-shards (whatever they are) spattering around the room, nor the detritus consisting of damaged furniture, grease, and stomach bile liberally coating the floor. She subtly pats Sailor Moon on the back as she leans on her, then immediately turns a shade of green that would go lovely with her hair if it weren't accompanied by unpleasant gurgles deep in her throat. She tries to keep the sound from being overheard.
"GULL! Oh my god no--!" she shouts before winds (and more) start whipping around.
Without any further hesitation, she blasts out a window with a crescent boomerang and jumps outside.
"We need........... more space to fight this thing, allies!" she shouts. This is technically true and tactically sound advice, although her repositioning is encouraged by more than just thorough knowledge of battlefield strategy.
Homura Akemi's buckshot backfires in a very terrible way, as grease flies out towards her and her compatriot. Laisa, fortunately, is quick on the defense, holding her hand out, palm up, fingers as if gripping something invisible. She raises her hand, and a wall of Void, deeply black and empty, grows out of the ground, putting up a barrier between herself and the chicken. Homura, who was a bit closer, got doused with a bit of grease before the wall could come up... but at least it isn't getting any worse?
"... and this is why I bring towels to youma fights," mutters Homura.
Laisa turns her head to Moon, having seen what the two senshi were doing. "Ugh. Are you gonna be okay?"
After the chicken comment, Homura adds, "Yeah I don't blame you."
After Gull's comment, Homura shrugs and says, "You know, maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Maybe this chicken youma isn't such a bad person."
She puts her shotgun away into her shield, and then pulls out a very nasty-looking flamethrower. "Maybe he's just a little undercooked."
Venus wants some more space to fight in... yeah actually that's probably a good idea. "Laisa-san, let's try to force it outside."
"Right!"
Homura runs around behind the fried chicken monster, placing the youma between herself and the entrance. Igniting her flamethrower, she approaches the monster, spreading flames in the air. Meanwhile, walls of void appear around the fried chicken and slide towards the youma, trying to physically push the creature out the door along the grease-lubricated ground. Or out a window. Laisa isn't picky.
Did she just--
The boy against the lamppost looks on in a kind of horrified fascination as Sailor Moon hurls all over the floor, and he reaches up to put a black-gloved hand over his mouth, pressing it there tightly. He's honestly not sure whether to laugh or try really hard not to, lest laughing trigger similar physiological reactions. When Sailor V starts turning greenish too, the boy looks away, mouth open behind his hand; he starts controlling his breathing and definitely not doing it through his nose. Okay, there's a flash-- he has to squint back through the windows--
One of the chicken wings is sliced clean off by Moon's attack, sailing off the youma and then flopping like a dying fish on the nasty floor for a little bit before stilling. More grease gets fired out of the wound, and the youma screams out, "NOBODY DOES CHICKEN LIKE KFC!" as it sprays indisciminately.
When the door opens the boy outside glances back really quickly toward it-- and Sailor Moon's looking, so he flashes her a thumbs up with the hand trying to keep his lunch in.
Then she's back inside, and there's suddenly a hurricane of gross in there, and Dark Endymion -- for indeed that is the identity of the unidentifiable boy -- nopes away really hard. Like, starts backing away, a little greenish himself, and also still trying not to laugh.
As it's flailing, the results of the Hurricane of Nasty are fired at it, taking off another wing and a big chunk of its side, and it leaks more grease and makes sounds that sound a lot like a chicken in distress (coming out of the Colonel's face it may be even more distressing); it's, then, a mostly armless youma that gets void-slapped and flamethrowered toward the door, shrieking "SO GOOD! SO GOOOOOOOOD!!!" as it slip-slides itself, splashing down into the combined ooze on the floor and spattering more of it all around. Finally it crashes through the door, shattering the glass and tearing the metal frame of it with its front, and making a giant-chicken-shaped hole in the wall in place of the door. It rolls out onto the sidewalk and shoots more grease and bone shards.
It would, in fact, probably be even less distressing if it didn't actually smell so tasty.
Sailor Moon is one of the first out the door. After, well, the chicken.
Nope, no more chicken ever.
She tries to chield herself, best she can, but it's kind of hard to do when it just gets everywhere.
She spits out a mouthful of the grease before slinging her tiara at it again, trying to get it gone and dead and just gone!
That boy is still there. The one who gave the thumbs-up to her earlier.
Annoyed, she hopped over to him, pulling off her glove so she wouldn't leave a stain when she lightly shoved at his arm. "You can look later, just get out of here for now, okay?"
Cure Gull wooooos. "Cook that thing's goose!" she calls out. "Okay, it's outside I can stop sliding around now." she says as the bow on her back turns into a pair of wings, and she takes off into the air, out one of the broken windows as she spins rapidly a second in the air, causing Corvus to hold on for dear life a second as she spins the grease off herself to the best of her ability, THERE!
She is a Pretty Cure, not a Greasy Cure!
She's managed to not be completely grossed out, but this is indeed, icky and disgusting. She might just forgo chicken this year and move straight onto beef or fish!
"UGH this thing smells delicious. Can we kill it yet so I can eat something actually appetizing!?" she asks, as she huffs and raises her arms. "Gull Windy...Punch!" she calls out, and throws out a fist made of wind and feathers down into the chicken creature.
Corvus flies off Gull's shoulder and stays next to her under his own power.
"Kick this things tail feathers!" Corvus calls out.
Cure Gull blinks at the weird void walls. Oh! That's Homura's friend doing that it seems!
"Kickin' Chicken and KEEP THAT GREASE AWAY FROM ME!" she screams.
Homura watches in silence as the chicken youma is pushed out the door. After the glass shatters and it's pushed out, Homura and Laisa follow it shortly after. Homura glances towards the boy, and Laisa does too, but the latter only rolls her eyes. "Ugh. Who wears sunglasses at night?" complains Laisa loudly.
"Is that really our biggest concern right now?" asks Homura.
A hail of bone fragments and grease flies at the magical girls, but Laisa is quick with her magic. A spheres of nothing appear around the chicken, intercepting and apparently swallowing up those attacks. Some of the boney and greasy projectiles are still going to get through, but she's at least mitigating it this way.
Homura ducks the bone fragments and weaves between the void spheres as she closes in on the Kentucky Fried Monster, lighting up her flamethrower to give it a bit more time to cook.
Minako Aino/Sailor V dances next to Sailor Moon to try and protect her from actual attacks (and subtly position herself behind her when non-dangerous-but-really-disgusting-things happen, such as Cure Gull's weird grease-splattery punches or crispy and dangerous flamethrowers).
"Nrrrrg, guys, please, YOU come out, don't bring it out-- noooo, arrrg. Ok, just... no windy stuff. Just knock it down. Without spreading its extra-crispy hide around-- no, no, no fire. Definitely no fire!" she cries out, a secret part of her mind hoping the whole place burns down and leaves no trace of any of this behind. For her sake.
For the sake of the night crew who has to clean up.
She uses one hand to cover her mouth and the other to point at the chicken-beast to better direct a multitude of crescent beams at it. Each of them is at low power, enough to knock the monster around but specifically under a temperature she would describe as 'crispy' or 'flash-fry'.
Luckily for Moon, the tiara slices off one of the thing's legs this time, sending the giant monstrosity hopping and screeching around, unstable and finally toppling to roll over, giant drumstick rolling away from it. The Colonel's head starts gurgle screaming, "FINGER-LICKIN' GOOD! FINGER-LICKIN' GOOD! SOOOOO GOOOOOOD!!!"
Cure Gull's windy punch legit punches a hole through its midsection, and grease /and/ delicious stuffing come pouring out to splatter on the asphalt, and the remaining drumstick kicks uselessly in the air as the thing rolls around, howling.
The flamethrower starts charring what remains as the youma's writhing mindlessly, and it's still trying to kill them as Laisa's void spheres prevent it from blowing chunks at them. Chunks of chicken and stuffing, that is. The flamethrower also manages to heat up the pools of and trail of grease on the ground leading back into the thoroughly oily establishment, and yes: it all starts to catch, flames licking up and across, fire spreading.
Sailor V's crescent beams, as low-power as they are, are enough (when added to everything else going on) to finally overload the thing, and the colonel-head turns into a youma-head that's kind of blue-green and dumb-looking as its magical disguise-face melts away.
The boy-- he's still holding his hand over his mouth, still! as he's backing away; Sailor Moon hops over to him and he scrambles back some more, sunglasses-wearing face turned toward her, and my god the things she's splattered with. She reaches out, gloveless, to shove at his arm as she tells him off, and he sidesteps a little faster to avoid it.
He talks from under his hand, trying not to actively retch and just sort of passively gagging instead, and his voice is horrifyingly familiar. "Yeah guh... good luck with tha-- ghk. N-not as planned."
And he teleports away, turning around and stepping through the air and gone. THE HELL WITH THIS NOISE.
Finally, as the flames start to race up the windows and across the greased-up floor inside the KFC, the youma screams "SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!" one more time, and explodes in a hail of its constituent elements. In other words, a whole lot of pieces of fried chicken, some of which are on fire.
Minako Aino/Sailor V makes the best of a terrible, terrible victory.
She kneels down, picks up Kentucky Fried Yuck from the ground, raises it to her lips, and starts to chew, making eye contact with Corvus.
"Good job, Sailor Moon. Friends. Everybody."
"Also we should probably leave."
Eeeeeek! Fried Chicken shrapnel. She sort of raises her arms and takes the hit of chicken and some that is on fire and then opens her eyes and ughhhhhhss, now she's covered in.... fried chicken bits and grease and---uggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
*deep breath* "Ugggggghhhhhhhhhh!"
Corvus sighs and managed to be small enough to evade being hit or greased too much.
Cure Gull lands to the ground and looks around a bit. "---and the day was saved!" she says pointing a finger upwards. She turns around to face the store. OH LORD that's a mess!
Corvus sighs. "Well this is a mes---"
"I SAID THE DAY WAS SAVED!" insists Cure Gull loudly!
A steel support beam that belonged to the door falls over and clatters.
Corvus frowns and crosses his arms at Sailor V. Bird eating...grumble grumble grumble.
"Oh that chicken is safe now!? Corvus grab a bucket!" she smiles wide.
"Really...?"
It's his voice that chills her to the bone. It's his teleportation that almost causes her to throw up.
Again.
"Mamo-chan?"
Of course, this is asked to thin air.
She dashes down the road, stops, and runs back to Venus.
"He--that was--he was--"
And Venus suggests they leave, says they all did a good job, and Sailor Moon just starts laughing. It's not a happy laugh. Well, it is. But it's more half crazed, because this is probably the most insane thing that's every happened. Everything is all upside down. "Merry frikkin Christmas."
Homura looks back at the burning establishment, sweatdropping heavily. "Um... are there still people in there?"
Laisa sighs and holds up her hands, "Your ears might pop. Sorry about that." Several void spheres appear both inside and outside of the KFC, sucking all of the air out and hopefully starting to kill the fire.
Homura shrugs and puts the flamethrower away, turning to the others and saying, "Hey, are you guys alright? Hey Moo--"
What did she just say?
"Mamoru-kun? Seriously? HERE?!"
Suddenly a chill runs down Homura's spine. It's not from the weather, and it's not entirely because of Endymion. She feels more like her stomach is turning, but she's sure it's not from the chicken either. What's going on...?
She brushes that aside for now, focusing on something else.
"I can't believe Mamo-kun would use a youma this gross. Are you sure?"
The fire does, slowly, start to die out. Because although void spheres have to be the effect of the gothiest wish from the gothiest puella, they are damn good at fire suppression when eat the air.
God only knows what the news will make of this one.
"It was either him, or there's more of those rooftop guys with his voice."
Then she realizes something.
She ate chicken.
Chicken that made her throw up.
Because he turned it evil.
And what does a girl do when the only other option is to cry?
Yep.
She gets pissed.
She stares up at the sky. "You gave me food poisoning for Christmas?! UG! You... you... JERK!"
Cure Gull turns around. "Chiba-kun!? Was here!? Nrrrggggg---- I knew it! They're...winding him up like a tin soldier and turning him loose like they did to me...." she mutters and crosses her arms. "--and Kyouko-san--and..!" she huffs and keeps her arms crossed. She kicks a piece of fried chicken towards the store.
Corvus is collecting fried chicken pieces. She takes the bucket. She grumbles. "Not like I should eat this but we should get this back to White-chan~ And--- if it has something to do with Chiba-kun! Well! Maybe this can help!" she beams.
"Oh, Akemi-san! Right I'll send an E-mail soon I got some news!" she says. "Like-- I haven't been home yet, I'll get it out when I get home!" She looks over to Sailor Moon.
"...well. At least he uh..."
"..got you something?" she says. Bright side, right?
Minako Aino/Sailor V quietly pats Sailor Moon on the back (and ever-so-subtly brushes her fingertips on her sailor fuku). "Shh, don't worry about it. Let's just get out of here and maybe buy some pepto," she says, looking around for her treat bag.
"I got you a present, by the way." She didn't get Usagi a present - she got a bunch of presents. Whichever thingy she looks like she likes the best will be the one she 'got for Usagi'.
She sighs and doesn't lean against Venus, even if she wants to. "Okay, just a second though. I--Awww, you did?" She momentarily melts. "I got you something, too! But just a second, and then...yeah."
Sailor Moon stomps into the alley, grabs her bucket of chicken, stomps back out, and thrusts it at Gull. "Here. Not sure if it's still all evil, but I'm not eating it."
Homura Akemi sighs. Laisa looks on curiously. "I'll explain later," says Homura, before moving towards the other magical girls.
To Sailor Moon, she says, "I'm sure he would've rather spent this night with you under much better circumstances. You know... if he was himself." She pauses for a moment before saying, "I guess I'm saying... sorry, on his behalf."
She glances in Gull's direction as she gathers the pieces of chicken. Laisa seems... displeased, again, for some new reason now. Homura's ignoring her. "It'd be interesting to see the results of what she finds," comments Homura.
Glancing between Gull, Moon, and Venus, Homura says, "Alright, well... We have visual confirmation that he's alive. Next time we see him we can work on a resolution. I'm pretty sure I could get you at least one good shot at him, Sailor Moon."
She turns away and starts leaving. Laisa is quick to follow. Homura waves at the others and says, "See you all around."