Third Journey :: Cosplay

[one_one_se7en]

He rises up through the stairs, his reticule levelled until his eyes readjust to the light, and sees instead masses of people... All dressed in curious regalia, reminiscent of the worlds he had explored, but in a more imitative style than cultural style he had seen in the nexii he had visited... Not to mention many of them seem to be feeding on snack foods rather than full meals they'd devour too quickly. Turning to the windows, he realizes it's a twentieth-first century Earth. No supernatural presences anywhere.

As he turns around, he realizes the cyan lines of the HUD are no longer there, and his eye level is lower. Something's off. Even as he walks, he doesn't so much hear thuds, but clicking. There is an advertisement on the wall about a “Convention” in oriental kanji, denoting the location as... Tokyo.

He puts a hand forward to lean on the wall to inspect the writing -- but the limb that moves forward is the delicate arm of a girl... and from the little he sees of the body, it's the gloved arm of a young senshi rather than the metal of the MJOLNIR.

...

He -rather, she- looks below.

"Not again."

Joan hears herself in a feminine voice.

Comments

[waterfell]

"Not here," says Mercury, but then she, too, pauses. Her eyes narrow and she turns to Sailor Reach.

"You feel it, too, don't you?" she asks matter-of-factly, as if that back-of-the-mind nagging is something normal and expected. A hostile presence. A youma, not one that she might command but one that would be happy to end her life indiscriminately if it can.

Stupid beast.

[one_one_se7en]

Not here. It would be later, but...

Mercury feels it as well. Reach pulls out the stiletto, positioning herself behind her companion -- and hating herself a little for it. However, she knows that Ami is the one with the most abilities right now. As strong as she still is right now, setting herself in front would only hinder Mercury as Sailor Reach tried to understand her powers.

"What is it?"

She mutters to Mercury.

[waterfell]

"It's a foolish creature that doesn't know just how bold it is to think it can match us." She smirks. "A youma."

There's another signal, just as reliable, to tell where exactly the creature might be: The screams start as people panic and run. Someone must have discovered the youma's 'costume' was a bit too real.

Or they were already its victim, flat on the ground with their energy already stolen. Mercury heads forward with a brisk, purposeful stride. After all, she has more pride than to let the youma challenge her.

[one_one_se7en]

Youma. Her expression steels. Joan remembers hearing that word before.

Just as well, Joan hears the commotion. The moment Mercury steps forward with speed, Reach trails close behind her, eyes scanning for threats to cover the young senshi's field of view. She tried not to make notice of the weight disparity in her light body in spite of how fast she ran.

She immediately spots it -- and mutters.

"Were we going to have training?"

[waterfell]

Mercury only grins, and if youma were more intelligent, any nearby would know it for a warning, the look she wears when she's confident of victory and ready to strike.

"Don't you know how to exercise properly?" she retorts, deliberately facetious. Though the words are for Sailor Reach, Mercury's eyes find the youma and stay on it. "Warm up first."

That's all a youma could ever be.

[one_one_se7en]

Baptism. By fire.

Not that Spartans didn't get such treatment. But even Mendez would often let them learn first. Now Joan had to see if she learned enough from watching Mercury. Fortunately, a Youma will do well for this test.

She trails behind Mercury, slowly turning into a run as she finds the creature, a monster that took shape out of the abandoned suit of a civilian... which, Joan thought, was too alike to the MJOLNIR for her tastes. Moreso since she is the one who lacks it.

An alien limb shoot forward -- Reach steps out of the way. Again, bolting meters away as if she weighted less than a feather... And once she lands, her entire body cartwheels to ease the momentum; long hair, skirt, and bow waving with far too much freedom. Light, but unbalanced.

Joan ignores a person screaming they're blue!

Her green heels scratch the floor as she lands to stop her slide. The Youma moves to strike again.

[waterfell]

Not bad. Certainly better than some senshi's first battles, Mercury is aware. She doesn't say so, of course; better to push harder. Or maybe she's learned that by her own lessons. Her training within the Dark Kingdom, to say the least, has not been gentle.

"Over here! Did they send the dregs against us today?"

As soon as she has the creature's attention, Mercury keeps moving the opposite way from Sailor Reach, splitting youma's attention and confusing it. Used to moving this way, she finds it easy to keep out of its range, but that's not enough. They need to finish it off.

[one_one_se7en]

Sailor Reach takes the opportunity. She bolts to the side of the creature as it focuses on Mercury, taking her as the bigger threat for the moment -- and it is right. Until the newer senshi can awake her own powers, Ami would be the one the enemy would be the most worried about.

But it won't have the same level of attention.

The green senshi ducks as an armored limb moves above her. She delivers a high kick from below the creature. Then leaps to throw it against the wall.

It stands up. It needed more.

Joan turns to Ami.

"How do you use magic?"

[waterfell]

It's a question she never expected to be asked. It's a question she'd never been told the answer to. It had simply been there, once she transformed that first time, so long ago. The words had come to her mind, and suddenly she called them out, and there were bubbles and fog where there'd been nothing.

The words.

"The words should come to you," she tells Sailor Reach. They weren't necessary, of course; Venus had used her powers without them, when her attacks would have ruined her disguise as the fake princess. Mercury herself rarely uses them anymore.

But they're a start.

[one_one_se7en]

Words that should come to her. Senshi were ancestral warriors with the past knowledge of their old lives. Joan was misplaced from the body of a Spartan into that of a senshi.

The Youma comes forward. Joan tries channeling her body in a brief meditation. Seeking for new energy. Any energy. Any part of herself that she knows would be alien in herself.

Then, it appears. She opens her eyes.

"Light."

A transparent shield stops the creature in its' tracks.

[waterfell]

Mercury's lips curve upward. Not bad at all.

Not to be outdone, she holds her hands in front of her, palms outward. Ice and hail barrage the youma, stinging at the same time it starts to creep across the creature's body. The stream curves to avoid the shields as if it has a will of its own, and the ice thickens as it grows. The youma has more and more trouble keeping itself free.

[one_one_se7en]

Mercury had assaulted the Youma. Sailor Reach saw ice piercing the monster, and tried attacking her -- only to meet a shield of solid ice.

Joan spread her stance, and pushed the creature back. She needed something else. Another way to attack her. She closes her eyes... until another answer comes.

She raises her right forearm. The words coming out of her seemed ethereal. Otherwordly. Like a memory hidden for centuries, an art long forgotten until now.

"Soldier of mankind and war, Sailor Reach."

Then, as if hearing her, the section over her glove glows blue. It whirrs as several blue glass-like shards materialize and assemble together like a self-building puzzle.

She readies her weapon. A longsword forged and designed with the force and knowledge of ancient empires meant to safeguard mankind against her enemies.

"In the name of my world, I will destroy you."

She charges.

[waterfell]

It reminds her of Jupiter: that force, that physical strength. But what comes from Reach is not lightning.

The soldier of mankind and war. Mercury knows enough of that world to understand it: the war for mankind's very fate, and the soldier who's fought since the beginning and will fight to the end.

She falls behind, with her shorter stature and lesser speed. It doesn't matter. There's plenty for both of them, and these are not opponents that matter. Just low-level nothings. The energy of her sword hums to life, and cuts at the youma.

Its form is strong, she'll give it that; even this has trouble piercing whatever type of material that armor has become.

[one_one_se7en]

Reach moves from the opposite side.

As it reels back from the slice of the smaller senshi, the Youma attempts to strike with one of it's limbs against Mercury.

The senshi of light takes it as her window. As soon as it is distracted, the brunette whirls as it leaps atop the creature, cuts down its limb, and stabs the beast until its parts struggle to move.

Another visage. Another word. Another rush of magicka.

Joan raises her hand in a clawed position. A small dot of light appears. Then grows. She feels the heat beneath her glove. Only the words come up.

"Unyielding. Light."

She blasts the creature. After a moment of silence, it falls.

[waterfell]

Nicely done. But Mercury doesn't let her guard down. Her eyes narrow as she focuses on the youma, for any movement or sign of life. She steps closer, still alert. The click of her heels against the floor sounds loud, now that the noise of confusion and panic among the people is more distant and the youma is silent.

She presses her earring, and her visor slips into place. A second later, she makes the call. "Maybe I should congratulate you. It's gone."

Before their eyes, it seems to shrink until it resembles nothing more than the costume it was created from, somewhat charred and worn from the ordeal.

[one_one_se7en]

"Thanks."

Her boot taps what could have been the head of the creature. It's inert. Even then, there was no need for confirmation; as soon as she stepped off the dead monster, its form began to dissolve into the familiar shape it had been created from... An imitation of her armor.

She frowns. As much as she grew to like using magic -feeling the sheer power flowing through her body and into an attack-, she preferred the MJOLNIR. Too many different tactics. Too many ways Senshi and Spartans differed in how they operated.

"Was that the training you thought of?"

[waterfell]

"No," Mercury, content to have already confirmed the kill, turns her attention to Sailor Reach. "This was an interruption."

There's a trace, just a trace, of annoyance. What was a youma doing here, challenging her, in the first place? Well; it met the fate its foolishness deserved.

"That youma was too bold, trying to challenge us."

[one_one_se7en]

"Then," she asks, her brown hair waving as she turns, "what is the training?"

The worn parody of his armor gets only a too brief glance. Joan was familiar with bold and foolish enemies. Sailor Reach was a little new to it. not that she would have rejected the opportunity.

[waterfell]

"There's a perfect place for it." She's definitely up to mischief, but at least it's the pranking sort rather than the malicious sort, this time.

"Shall we go?"

[one_one_se7en]

She turns to her as she smiles. Joan knows her enough to understand those smiles.

"... Yeah."

She's going to regret it.

[waterfell]

Mercury leads the way - releasing her transformation as soon as they might be seen.

She leads them to what seems to be a large warehouse, with a strange device already set up. Ami turns it on, and air pressure pushes out tiny papers.

She turns to Joan, and holds out a pair of chopsticks.

[one_one_se7en]

While Ami returns to her civilian form, Reach notices her body does not change. Most disturbingly... She was still Joan. In civilian clothes, and she was still Joan.

As long as this form lasted, she would have to learn more on how to use it.

.......

She stares at Ami. And at the chopsticks. Without lifting a finger. Wordlessly asking her if she is serious.

[waterfell]

Oh, she's serious. And it's not quite as strange as it seems.

"It's an exercise that can improve focus. Your mind should be concentrating only on this." And focus, that related to power.

[one_one_se7en]

"Zen."

Another thing Spartans constantly practiced for. They constantly meditate -hell, she sometimes got to contact other dreamers this way-, and even used some of that mental guidance for the MJOLNIR.

Joan feels cheated. And yet she picks one of the damned things.

[waterfell]

Though she's mostly teasing Joan by bringing her here, Ami does take a pair of chopsticks herself. She has decent success; she sometimes lacks the true emotional calm for this exercise, but she has excellent mental focus. The butterflies she reaches for generally end up in her grasp.