Scene #9166: Dark Star Precure ~ Villain to Villan Communication

Owner	Pose
Merelisa Shaynore	Earlier today, a flying saucer appeared over Osaka while a spark-filled scuffle between yakuza with the top button of their shirts undone and aliens in full body grey rubber suits and masks happened below. After the inconclusive result, another Nottrei came to Natsuki to deliver a letter from Tenjou, suggesting that their time would mutually be better used talking, rather than continuing with wasteful minion brawls. Earlier than that, when Lilian consulted her precognition on where to go to resolve her complicated feelings about her encounter with Eyewon, it directed her towards that same Osaka. She got there right as a black intergalactic portal yawned into existence for Natsuki, perfectly timed to step through along with her. The place it brings them is planets, stars, and maybe Sectors away. The atmosphere around the planet is an iridescent green like poisonous fog, with a streak of blinding white and orange cutting in an arc from horizon to horizon, and no sun to provide natural light besides it. Gravity feels irregular, or at least unusual, like going up a flight of stairs would make you noticeably lighter, and your feet drag infinitesimally more than your head does. All of that makes sense when glimpsing out the window, and seeing the matte grey buildings and suspended walkways of the planet Nottrei built around caverns and crevices punching holes in the surface of their hollow planet, with the visible-yet-invisible core of a pure black singularity in the center. Where Natsuki and Lilian specifically are, is a dark stone castle built up along the crumbling edge of a chasm, where sticking your head out and looking straight down puts you face to face with the soundless roar of a black hole. Inside it, Tenjou, the red-skinned villainess with a long-nosed mask, is being carried down the hall in a grey egg-shaped throne-palanquin by four loyal Nottraiders. Her black platform heels rock idly, clacking against the throne or the Nottrei's back, whichever is conveniently closer. "Ahem. I'm sure that there's no need for me to remind you that, if your plan was to infiltrate and then backstab me on behalf of your precure friends, that it's futile, and you would be better served by behaving yourselves. You have traveled into the heart of my army, put yourselves at my mercy, and Lady Mujinko's domain is unassailable." "But you already understand that, mmm?" Tenjou sounds relaxed and confident, as she should when so comfortably in the literal and metaphorical seat of her power, but there's a slight bit of insecurity in her pause after that. "Though, that document that your other friend gave me suggested that there may be some aspects to the distant universe that are unfamiliar to us. Tedious things, perhaps, like governments and loyalties, but something about it did catch my eye. Your Concord values power and righteousness, does it not?"
Merelisa Shaynore	Tenjou comes to a stop outside a heavy steel door that's alone in the hallway. A black sign on the door is hand-drawn and covered in evil yellow and purple adhesive rhinestones, with a face with one angry eye and two frizzy pigtails declaring KEEP OUT // I'M, LIKE, BUSY. She raps on it with her knuckles, which causes a thick echoing sound, calls out "Eyewon~", and snaps her fingers to command a minion to ease it slowly open. "It may be to both of our benefits, that you can find an abundance of both here on Nottrei." Inside the room is a laboratory of dark metal, green vials, and glowing blue screens. Lights blip on and off on indeterminate but ominous devices, a long tube-shaped contraption suspends a vantablack fragment between prongs under glass in the center and sends crackling energy pulsing through it. Inside, Eyewon is wearing a black labcoat and yellow-purple goggles, which she pulls up to her forehead while complaining. "Tennnnnnjouuuuuu!! What did I, like, tell you about butting in like that?! I even, like, put up a freaking sign, you know?!" She turns towards the door and shrieks, pointing at Natsuki and Lilian. "You--?!! What are you, like, doing here?!"
Natsuki Nuki	EARLIER. . . Natsuki squats on the roof of a convenience shop, knees forward and apart. Gargoyle perched on tiger-orange and tanuki-brown feet with kneesocks from ankle up, the chimeroid woman rests left arm on the inside of her thigh, and drinks a canned coffee with her other hand. Across the street on an opposite roof, Tenjou on her attended palanquin also takes a dulled interest more than likely... In the least conclusive battle that's happened for a while. Nottrei are struck by bare fists and explode into sparks and sparkles before falling over not that much worse for wear. Thuggy Yakuza with better jackets than haircuts get bouncingly attacked by the alien soldiers and get tossed into walls, thrown into dumpsters, and given lumps and bruises that only seems to inflame some inner heat... But nothing happens. Water slaps against water in the middle of a tide pool and creates more ripple-back than what's going on. The swaying-tailed woman tosses her can into the periphery of the fight on the street and stands up with a long crackling stretch and a big feline yawn. "You want to get out of here?" Natsuki asks, across rooftops. "They're gonna be at it a while." . . . Still holding a to-go basket of fried skewers and cups of sauce, Natsuki offers one to Tenjou -- an alternation of deep fried meat, deep fried potato, and a deep fried vegetable twice across the sticks of the 'special combination' sticks they had picked up before being invited back to Tenjou's place. Natsuki was, while she munched and listened, almost entirely convinced she was going 'back to Tenjou's place' for something more usual than a shared meeting with an evil god type, but Lilian's joined arrival was something of an 'I don't know if this is a threesome or not' situation for the Lady Nue. Lilian was also offered skewers, though. "I wasn't even planning on using my tail..." Natsuki complains, before realizing that's not what Tenjou is talking about when she speaks about 'backstabbing', then exhales a sighing 'hyooo~' of amusement. "They're my little sister's friends. If you didn't notice, I recruited those local pepper boys to my Yakuza army, seeing as they took orders better than just about anything I've ever met. I don't even know what a 'precure' really is beyond Shining Galaxy Super Defensor but real." She understands it well enough that she's grinning and shrugging. "Their effects are a little better." Natsuki pinches her fingers. "A little." 'Your Concord values power and righteousness, does it not?' "It does. Power, ability, vision, and will. Speaking of, I've noticed you've got quite the unified front yourselves, so as a Dorado Acquisitions Division alumni, I couldn't help but see a proper power structure when I spotted it." Top down godbeing over a bunch of collected goobers for great justice (dark revenge/student councilry)? Exactly what Natsuki understood. Stopping at the door, though, Natsuki frowns just a faint bit and glances from sign to Tenjou to sign. "... It's like Futaba's door..." She exhales, without mirthful birdsong of laughter. Moving on quickly, she asks: "'On' Nottrei? I thought Nottrei was the name of your army boys." Pointed at, though, Natsuki lifts her own hand to point -- at her skewers. "Business lunch. For you, looks like it's catered."
Lilian Rook	The oft understated risk of peeking through time to find the exact sequence of places and times and things to do to fulfill some gnawing need or realize some grand ambition, is that leaving the future up to what you know you want in the present is dangerously close to insanity sometimes. Instead of perfect knowledge being limited by human flaws trying to navigate toward or away from it, perfect pathing is a matter of being brave enough to see it through, trust that it'll be better than not trying, and hope that what you really want isn't as bad as it's starting to look like. It's a difficult road to walk at times. Often, even. Which Lilian reminds herself of, and that she is so very very brave actually, after taking a black hole portal to the other end of the Multiverse and ending up walking around in the incredibly spooky halls of what is obviously the Bad Guy Planet. 'You have traveled into the heart of my army, put yourselves at my mercy, and Lady Mujinko's domain is unassailable. But you already understand that, mmm?' "Oh no. I'm going to be defeated and corrupted into a dark magical girl. And be sent to tragically fight my former friends. 'Iyaa'." Lilian says lifelessly, coping. "I met Lala and Hikaru by complete coincidence. If I was planning to assassinate you, I'd like to imagine I'd be stealthy about it." Stiffly, Lilian gestures down over herself, still wearing 'an adult going shopping two hours before a party' livery. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it's part of her bit that she be the one too old and serious to call herself something so silly as a protector of smiles. It's also a necessary maneuver to pretend that it isn't incredibly awkward for Natsuki to be also here. She kind of barely knows her, and only then as 'Futaba's much more competent sibling', which she intuits is not the right thing to point and call her. 'Your Concord values power and righteousness, does it not?' Lilian staring blandly at something behind Tenjou, accepts a skewer with a quietly generic "Thank you." and keeps her fucking mouth shut. 'I wasn't even planning on using my tail...' "What?" Mission failed. "Beg p-- no. Don't mind me." 'You--?!! What are you, like, doing here?!' "I'm here to rescue you from your inevitable fate; one that will be wrought by your own hands unless you learn the error of your evil ways; and show you the goodness that was always in your heart." says Lilian exclusively while looking around the lab. Her eyes fall on the hovering sliver and the filler words dry up with the ghost of an incomprehensible little half-smile. "Would you believe me if I said that it bothered me to see all of your hard work go down the drain just because of bad luck?" she says, perhaps still wearing a layered blanket or two of ironic ceremony; but of a different kind, tinged more sincerely than before. "Or that I didn't feel like I could put what you said out of my mind." Lilian says, glancing away and absently touching her cheek with her knuckle like one would rub their upper arm. ". . . What are you working on? It looks impressive."
Merelisa Shaynore	Tenjou looks at Natsuki's offered skewer with some bemusement that morphs into genuine confusion when they remain out for her to take. She makes an awkward, fumbling smile, and covers it up with an airy flap of her fan, looking away without taking one. "My, my, a celebratory offer before we've even begun. You're quite confident in yourself, aren't you?" She says it as if it's some calculated master chess maneuver, but it's really not. "If you didn't notice, I recruited those local pepper boys to my Yakuza army, seeing as they took orders better than just about anything I've ever met." "Is that what those were...?" Tenjou curls her hand underneath her chin, pursing her florescent yellow lips in thought. "It makes sense, that you were only accompanying your sister. I'd have a hard time believing that you're the childish 'friendship and love' type, after seeing how you handled your underlings." She glances down the side of her palanquin towards Lilian, studying her for a moment. Implicit in the beats of silence is that Lilian did seem to fit a lot better into the magical girl dynamic. "So you only came across them by coincidence...? A stiff fight, for being allied by chance, but no matter. There's no 'pure heart' that could find its way here, after all." "I couldn't help but see a proper power structure when I spotted it." Tenjou proudly 'hhhuuuuu~'s, hand on her cheek. She holds a palm to her side, and one of her Nottraiders starts massaging it without needing to be asked, a fact that brings a pleased smirk to her face. "Yes, power. Power and structure. This is what Lady Mujinko gave us, and then next, she gave us a purpose. Everyone knows their place within it, and everyone knows that the end will benefit us all, so what results from that structure is the only planet in the entire Starscape Galaxy where society is united and no one is left behind." "It's not hard to see why we ought to be the ones calling the shots now, mmmm?~" She sweeps a hand towards the nearest window that overlooks the cityscape. "Planet Nottrei; the Nottreis are its inhabitants." It's impossible to tell whether they wear those suits while out and about in the city. You can't even tell them apart except by body shape while they're wearing them, if they're even people at all.
Merelisa Shaynore	"Business lunch. For you, looks like it's catered." Eyewon stays indignant for all of the five seconds it takes for the smell of Natsuki's skewers to waft over to her, and then she practically teleports over to her side to grab one and start tearing away at a stick of fried chicken, forgiving the two intruders before she's even swallowed. "--Snacfs!! ... Well, fyou can, like, shtick around amd wamtch for a minute, if you wamt. I'm, like, a freaking super genius, so." "I'm here to rescue you from your inevitable fate; one that will be wrought by your own hands unless you learn the error of your evil ways; and show you the goodness that was always in your heart." Eyewon sticks her tongue out at Lilian mockingly, but reads the tone and scarfs down more of her skewer before responding. "Or that I didn't feel like I could put what you said out of my mind." "So what you're saying is..." Eyewon trails off in what seems to be serious contemplation about Lilian's emotional outreach, setting her finished skewer aside. She stays quiet for a moment longer, before slapping her hands on her hips and cackling madly. "I, like, totally stole Star and Milky's friends~~~!! Kyahahahaha~!" That is absolutely all the encouragement she needs to start scurrying around her lab pointing at stuff to proudly show it off, while Tenjou's palanquin is carried through the door (it's actually wide enough to accommodate it; every door has been) and set down in the open space in the middle. Bakenyan, the stern-looking cat butler from before, steps out to give her some mild advice. "My lady, for the safety of our guests, do you think it might be best to pause the experiments for now?" "Uhhhh, totally NO, Bakenyan! I'm going to, like, double them, actually!" "... As you wish. Then ought I collect the spare goggles and distribute them?" "Uh huh, totally. Good idea." Bakenyan returns with several other goggles, in varying colors (none that are Eyewon's yellow and purple). Tenjou takes the red one, of course, and puts it on, leaning back in her chair with her cheek in her palm to watch the excited child rush around. When Bakenyan fades to the accessible-but-unimportant corner of the lab, there's a short moment where he fixates Natsuki and Lilian with a sharp, intense stare, and his tail flicks. "So, like, THIS bad boy--" Eyewon hops up on top of the particle accelerator-looking machine, wobbles a bit on the curve, and brandishes a remote with a bunch of dials and buttons on it. "Is some crazy NEW stuff I'm working on with the Dark Star shard. It's been through some, like, test runs, some... better than others, but I've totally got it this time." "The idea is, like, channeling the power of the shard into a super-contagious corruption like a DISEASE. 'Cause, like, everyone's heart's got a certain way you can hack it, so it'll keep, like, spitting out pathogens forever! Unlike the Dark Pens, it's not gonna superpower anyone... but imagine! Boom! Planet down! Everyone, like, shouting and crying and being total garbage losers to each other, forever and ever! Cool, huh?!"
Natsuki Nuki	On the same token that Lilian cannot really explain the presence of Natsuki in this meeting, Natsuki can't really explain the presence of Lilian so directly. At this point, she knows that the Dame Director was a major multi-factional figure - as well as one of the Commonwealth's Paladins. Ask Natsuki before, and she would have without turning rendered the judgement of 'cop' or, worse, 'Metal Priest'. Ask Natsuki during the Precure encounter and she might have said something else - something like 'Precure?', or, when she was paying attention, something too complex to point and spit as foisted-title or petty-seeking shot. Despite the whole Pretty Cure act, Lilian and Eyewon had done something other than trade canned animation attacks... ''Iyaa.'' It's the dry 'oh no, don't throw me into that there briar patch of cosmic darkness' that bursts Natsuki out in fresh laughter, birdsong mixed with the tempura fried crunch of a sweet potato chunk. "Yeah, your costume's going to change a lot, isn't it? You can't even add that much black to yours, can you?" 'Beg p-- no. Don't mind me.' Natsuki misreads this a second time, having been holding a second skewer out to Lilian and shrugging in the retreat of the savory-fried treats to chomp down on the fried shrimp on the end with a happy set of chrunches. "Suit yourself." She offhands, without looking, then glances, then 'hyoo'-puffs one more bit of amusement. Suit jokes too? Perhaps it was just on the mind. However, in Natsuki's wake, the curl of a second set of red eyes in black pools keeps minding Lilian despite, interested in the same time as Natsuki's open interest falls off. 'What was she up to?' The snake's eyes asked coolly. 'What shouldn't the snake mind?' Coops and wire only meant there was something there to guard. Tenjou's own moments of hesitance-into-a-strange-disinterest air covered by fan and turn of head pulls a similar 'suit yourself' shrug from the chimera, though her trailing tail doesn't climb up the height of her back on muscle lift alone to see over palanquin to Tenjou. "I'm quite confident in what works, that's right. Isn't sharing a meal normal between business partners? The places deals are made are over desks and dining tables. As for my sister - I was trying to give her a second beating before spotting the opportunities. And seeing as everything was trying to kill my new minions and take what was newly mine - I defended myself. I'm sure you'd do the same." There was, of course, more to it. The nostalgia of Hikaru and Lala, of Futaba and everyone else, that made her smile without baring teeth, and cooled her fires in somber thought and calmed her storms like summer ought. But that was that - and this was this. 'It's not hard to see why we ought to be the ones calling the shots now, mmmm?~' "I'm considering it, sure." Natsuki asides. "You weren't born here, on Nottrei, were you?" She guesses rather than asks. "And not Kappard either. Is Lady Mujinko from this planet? They seem to like you different." Waiting for Eyewon to get her snacks while sliding skewer through teeth to clean it off, Natsuki offers the whole rest of the little basket of skewers and sauces to Eyewon in her zip of excitement and hungry attack of theh food, nodding with an amused twinkle to sharp red eyes. "Something like friend-stealing, sure." Natsuki decides in the third deployment of her suit-yourself shrug.
Natsuki Nuki	Accepting two pairs of goggles, orange and charcoal blast, Natsuki lifts the dark goggles to her own face with a snap, before turning about to half-chase her slightly bratty back-serpent around with the orange set, her tail ducking and squirming out of having such a dorky child's safety device added to its head before Natsuki's tiger-clawed hand snaps out to seize her tail and get the goggles poorly around the snake's head, held due to the width of the spade-head and not the depth. 'The idea is, like, channeling the power of the shard into a super-contagious corruption like a DISEASE.' "A spreading-curse. Not bad, genius." Natsuki admits, stroking cheek with thumb and across with index while holding a skewerstick between her teeth and hanging from the corner of her mouth. "If you want to change a whole planet at once, then cursing the planet might be the exact right idea -- but with what? Super-contagious corruption that makes people... stupid and useless?" 'Cool, huh?!' "If you want to beat them at a spelling competition, sure. Why not make the curse instead something like 'love for darkness' - like inverting the polarity of disgust, or eroding some part holding people to their stupid ideas and make them useful to you instead?"
Lilian Rook	'So you only came across them by coincidence...? A stiff fight, for being allied by chance, but no matter.' "Thank you. You weren't bad either." Lilian says, sounding like she's thinking more about how she could contrive being carried around on a palanquin at home like this. 'There's no 'pure heart' that could find its way here, after all.' "Excuse me? It wasn't--" Lilian sharply breathes through her teeth, then clicks her tongue. "Not that I believe that things like 'pure hearts' exist. But I don't remember a spirit vision or a test of virtue to get here." She isn't even sure why that bothers her. 'Yeah, your costume's going to change a lot, isn't it? You can't even add that much black to yours, can you?' The petty urge to tell Natsuki to lay off bubbles up partway and dissipates into air. "Using black to convey that something is supposed to be evil is so unimaginative. Even the creative dregs at least try to use skulls or sex appeal or their personal hangup to project a sense of unapproachability." says Lilian, carrying on with her finger twirling thoughtfully. "It'd have to be an evil mask. And more of a bodysuit, with gothic frills or something." 'As for my sister - I was trying to give her a second beating before spotting the opportunities.' "She is just an ungodly handful." Lilian sighs explosively, suddenly as sincere as she's been since getting here in her exasperation. "Remind me to tell you about her blunder at Quicknest sometime, oh my--" Oh right. Other people are normal about family. "Well, don't take that the wrong way please." 'so what results from that structure is the only planet in the entire Starscape Galaxy where society is united and no one is left behind.' Uneasily walking alongside the moving procession, Lilian, keeps herself out of the conversation by eating her skewer. Deep fried isn't normally her preference, but it's good enough and gives her an excuse to not be talking. She fully plans to let Natsuki handle the villainous recruiting speech about the allure of hierarchy, up until just that one line. Lingering at the window, Lilian looks out over the bleached cityscape, and resists the temptation to look down. Staring into what passes for a crowd doesn't give her any answer she's looking for. "What is the Starscape Alliance for, then?" Lilian says, correcting "Like. What is it like?" over her shoulder. "I heard one of the girls talk about it." The sudden urge to try and sound disinterested, and the urge to not be shitty about it, only meet halfway. "I'm unaware of their stance on private masseuses." she says, staring at the one particular Nottreider. . . . 'I, like, totally stole Star and Milky's friends~~~!! Kyahahahaha~!' Lilian holds in a sigh for so long that it puffs her cheeks slightly. She lets it out only in the middle of Eywon's cackling, when she's least likely to hear it. Try as she might, she can't imagine arguing about that leading to literally anything, so she just takes some green lab goggles instead, saying "Thank you very much." by force of habit and then watching the butler overlong as he retreats.
Lilian Rook	'The idea is, like, channeling the power of the shard into a super-contagious corruption like a DISEASE.' "That is . . . quite impressive." Lilian says uneasily. "I wouldn't have drawn the connection myself. Between . . . I suppose, something living and driven, like a pathogen, with something otherwise the opposite." Gosh it is hard to find a cool way to talk about this. She glances to the butler again and back. It seems meaningful, though it's only another habitual fixation in reality. "What do you mean 'a certain way you can hack it'? You aren't just talking about appealing to different people with different emotions, are you?" She sounds like she's half-hoping Eywon is. "I suppose I didn't understand what you were really trying to accomplish at the time. I just saw the way that things were going, and felt that it was . . . really unfair. Like always, when 'getting along okay' means more than actually caring; actually trying." "Is that what you're trying to undo? People being garbage losers to each other hasn't ever stopped them from ganging up on someone before, so I can't help but ask. What is it about that ugly side that makes it so appealing to you?"
Merelisa Shaynore	"You weren't born here, on Nottrei, were you?" Tenjou's gaze loosely tracks Eyewon as she runs around her laboratory, excitedly holding up some alien soldering device that crackles with green lightning. Her hand trails off the side of her palanquin, idly stroking the head of a Nottrei that's kneeling besides and waiting for her to command them to move again. "Ahhhh... not me, not Kappard, not Eyewon. None of us here were born here. Lady Mujinko... was here before any of us.")] She lays her fan to her lips, giggling coquettishly. "What gave it away; was it disbelief that my gorgeously warm complexion could bloom in this cold and dark corner of the universe?")] The fan drops, and so does her expression, twirling the snapped-shut fan between her fingers. "Everyone here once had somewhere else they called home, and now they call Nottrei home. No wonder we're more united than the rest, mmm?" "What is the Starscape Alliance for, then? Like. What is it like?" "Oh dear, did the Precures not extol their virtues enough to you? Shocking~" Tenjou clears her throat, then lapses into a coughing fit for several seconds, doubled over in her chair. "Well, anyways, it's simple enough. An alliance of planets with nothing in common besides the insistence that no one else ever joins. Nearly every planet in the galaxy is a part of it, besides backwater primitives such as Earth, and Nottrei, along with... well, just Nottrei, now." "I wouldn't have drawn the connection myself. Between . . . I suppose, something living and driven, like a pathogen, with something otherwise the opposite." "You mean, like, the Dark Star shard? Nuh uh!" Eyewon slaps a button on her remote, then hastily pulls her goggles on while the glass over the void fragment slides open. She hops down to a set of metal drawers, pulling them open one by one and muttering to herself while shoveling through them, then Bakenyan politely taps her on the shoulder and holds out the box she'd been looking for. After she grabs it, he slides the drawers shut for her and steps back again. Eyewon slams the box onto her workbench, flips open the top, and draws out pink heart-shaped fragments of crystal with a set of metal tongs. "So, so, these are, like, shards from Planet Aikoro that I YOINKED from 'em after sending a Nottrigger there. The stones there are, like, infused with lovey-dovey garbage and stuff like that, right? You know? They're totally perfect specimens for testing stuff on, because they're, like, mood stones." She lowers them into the machine, in clips arranged around the 'Dark Star shard', then closes the glass and charges the machine up again. Green energy crackles around the nodes beneath the glass, and lights flick on along the length of the tube, until it charges fully and an eruption of vantablack pours through the glass and into the lab. Gaseous void floods your vision with hazy points of absolute blindness, moving particles that can't be interpreted as having any depth or distance, and along with it comes a dizzying feeling of hopelessness and loneliness.
Merelisa Shaynore	Eyewon's cackling hitches and cuts out into shallow gasping, but after a second the vented energy fades away and she redoubles her laughter. Bakenyan is trying to hastily smooth down his tail, after it puffed up in fear, and Tenjou just holds her hand to her chest with her eyes closed. She slides the glass open and grabs a different esoteric tool to point it to the heart-crystals, now tainted different colors. Deep red-black rather than pink, or laced with coils of green, or dull grey. She pokes each of the hearts a couple times before making a satisfied 'kekeke'. "Why not make the curse instead something like 'love for darkness' - like inverting the polarity of disgust, or eroding some part holding people to their stupid ideas and make them useful to you instead?" "People being garbage losers to each other hasn't ever stopped them from ganging up on someone before, so I can't help but ask." "Keheheh, see! They were just charged with mushy love stuff before, but each~ of~ those~ seeds~ were, like, destined to become totally rotten from the start. All I did was, like, tune in and speed it up, you know?" "That one there's... obsession, and that's, um... possessiveness, and that's... well, the point is! They're all only winners 'cause they already teamed up and left us out! So, freaking, screw their teams! Screw them! When I show them that they can't actually stand each other, they'll just, like, fall apart, and then we win!" "Oh, Bakenyan, can you go throw these away please? Can't let em, like, contaminate the samples." "Of course. Though... in the interest of reusing your test subjects, have you yet considered developing a remedy?" "Ehhh. I'll just, like, go back to Aikoro if I needta."
Natsuki Nuki	"It's not like I said purple veins and curly horns." Natsuki lightly returns, taking the commentary more like a fashion disagreement than a spiritual argument. In a sense - it very much is! "And purple might be the right color, but the gas outside's green." Which means Natsuki can't make a proper call on Lady Mujinko's and the Planet Nottrei's poison color in aesthetic sense. "But there's not too many colors to be corrupted into. Tenjou's red," And black and green. "Eyewon is yellow," And black, and purple. "And Kappard is green." And black. And some blue! "And I'm not about to tell someone they'd look better sporting horns. Horns are between you and you." A smirking shrug leads her across Tenjou back to the fussing and fixing Eyewon. "Try wrestling her sometime. You'll run out of hands long before you hold a handful." A chuff and dip of the chin follows, with Natsuki plucking wooden stickfrom teeth. "I'll remember to ask you later." She promises, sotto voice. 'What gave it away;' "Not just that." Natsuki smiles, faintly confirming everything Tenjou asked before continuing. "You don't share a complexion with any of your guys, or Kappard, or Eyewon. And what would a beautiful tengu, a masterful kappa, a dutiful nekomata, and a genius kozo have in common other than a shared benefactor or master?" It could be a few things, but she's leading with her best idea and expecting to be corrected. 'Everyone here once had somewhere else they called home, and now they call Nottrei home.' Natsuki's orange-and-brown fuzzy tiger hands slowly extend and retract with claws, the faint muscle-curl of stress expressing the claws almost to full extension before with a breath she relaxes. "No wonder." She echoes, genuine. It's something that strikes her darkly even before the activation of the Dark Star's shard. Weren't these 'her people'? And weren't the Precures and the space alliance of ladder pullers 'the other side'? "And if the other side has nothing in common but hating you, then, I can see how you band together even tighter. You're pressed to. It's nice to see some flourish is still left on the outskirts of 'allowed'." 'Planet Loveheart' is just about the most 'as seen on TV' statement even for Natsuki who is already living between the pages of legend and cautionary tale. Then again, with how literal the powers of emotions could be-- Then she Eyewon activates the 'we won't call it a demon core' device and even with goggles the surrounds of her facemask widen open and then scrunch shut and turn, a thick palm lifted to ward away the light into one set of her eyes reflexively. But Natsuki has two sets of eyes, and those on her tail, goggled on the sea of scaledark hold dead-on to the effect. Ripples of not-shiver flow down the muscle, scales pushing and bulging with arched chitin-limbs like spiders and centipedes, smoothing to a scaleless length of dark and a belly of red, and then splashing behind her like thick water or a limp hose that slitherslides forward on the lab floor to get closer.
Natsuki Nuki	As a snake in a dark wood might silently approach prey her tail gets several feet away from her on the ground before Eyewon's device shuts off. With an exhale that ends with the faint crack-snap of the stick she still holds, Natsuki lowers her guard and her tail retracts in a dimmed interest, though it spools like heavy, lazy cable. "That's... a strong device." The chimera admits, working her jaw with a quarter-yawn, mostly-stretch pop. "They'll fall apart, but, I don't think it's just their positive feelings they use to fight you. Hate's a power of emotions too. I..." Natsuki tracks to Bakenyan. "Think Bakenyan's up to something." She speaks, waits a second, and then-- "The idea's great." She clarifies. "Not a remedy - but a next step. Not back, but 'forwards again'. After breaking up their alliance - why not make them your allies? For your Lady Mujinko, or you, or even Tenjou? I bet you could make a power-up with 'obsession' and 'love' for Tenjou's guys, or for Kappard's ability to practice a skill. Once you can control these, can't you just... control the precures?"
Lilian Rook	'But there's not too many colors to be corrupted into.' "Alas. I suppose I'll simply have to stay a good girl." Lilian says, taking a while to come back to the more important point. "And I don't plan to join them and muck up their colour scheme. There aren't any friendly heroines for me to tragically terrorize back home anyways." 'Horns are between you and you.' "I'm afraid I definitely don't understand now." Lilian says, amidst an eyes-shut hairflip on the topic. She's remembering the time she had to deal with antlers for a little. 'What gave it away; was it disbelief that my gorgeously warm complexion could bloom in this cold and dark corner of the universe?' "I was shy of asking. Can you blame me?" Lilian says, halfway falling into the rhythm now. "I'm actually quite a fan of your lipstick. I've been meaning to try something bright and sharp like that myself, when I work up the nerve for it. Though, obviously a colour that'd work better for me." Oh no she is far too comfortable socializing with the villains now. 'Oh dear, did the Precures not extol their virtues enough to you? Shocking~' "No." Lilian says, and pauses. "If anything, they just sounded a little bit afraid of them." She waits overly long for Tenjou's fit to finish. It seems as if she's going to politely ignore it, and then she hesitantly asks "Are you . . . alright?" 'Well, anyways, it's simple enough. An alliance of planets with nothing in common besides the insistence that no one else ever joins.' "I see . . ." Lilian exhales. "So like everything else." 'So, so, these are, like, shards from Planet Aikoro that I YOINKED from 'em after sending a Nottrigger there.' The deeply uncomfortable realization that Eywon has probably actually won before, perhaps even every single time the Precures weren't there to defend people, sinks heavily into the pit of Lilian's stomach. Holding it down is easier than letting it out by far. It always is. 'That one there's... obsession, and that's, um... possessiveness' Her weight shuffles from one foot to the other. 'They're all only winners 'cause they already teamed up and left us out! So, freaking, screw their teams! Screw them! When I show them that they can't actually stand each other, they'll just, like, fall apart, and then we win!' "God I wish." Lilian reaches her limit, and just like that, what she's been thinking comes out like ejected brass. "This is what I was worried about. This is exactly it." Lilian rouses from halting discomfort, as if not sure she is allowed to approach the animal again. The energy that suffuses her is something that is distant kin to ferverish; a kind that forces her heels to pace, her fingers to curl up in each other, and her voice to fry in the back of her throat. "You wouldn't know. You can't know. They're keeping it from you. So believe me when I tell you, Eywon. They don't get along when you aren't looking."
Lilian Rook	'They'll fall apart, but, I don't think it's just their positive feelings they use to fight you. Hate's a power of emotions too.' "They don't use their emotions at all. That's for Precures and no one else. The fact is, they want to fight you all the time. It's an overpowering urge for them, whenever they see you. Their emotions only act as a limiter; how much they feel justified trying is how much force they can bring down on you." "The fact is that they all despise each other already, but can't justify it, so they pretend they don't. Dragging out all the worst parts of them won't make them any less inclined to gang up on you; just more likely to tear each other apart when you aren't around anymore." Lilian forces herself to stop, and breathe, trying to focus only on Eywon. "I'm sorry. It's really not my place to say. But I haven't been able to get it out of my head since then. What you really want to see is proof that they're not any better than you at all, isn't it?"
Merelisa Shaynore	"And what would a beautiful tengu, a masterful kappa, a dutiful nekomata, and a genius kozo have in common other than a shared benefactor or master?" Tenjou smiles, charmed, and fingers the edge of her throne. Her eyes track over to Eyewon while she's distracted, and her smile takes on a fondly bittersweet edge. The Nue's flattery, and more importantly the understanding unspoken, gradually coaxes Tenjou to elaborate on what she'd implied before. "... Nottrei is home to the wanderers. Everyone here was, at one point, robbed or cast out of 'home', and in searching for another, ended up here. Their stories are all their own, but what we all have in common most is... deserving more. That's why, the Nottraider Empire; the war. To seize 'more' from the rest of the universe that betrayed all of us." "I've been meaning to try something bright and sharp like that myself, when I work up the nerve for it." "Oh, it'd be gorgeous on you." Tenjou says with a flick of her wrist, appearing for all the world like she should have a glass of wine in her hand. "Mmmm~... have you thought about green? Eye-catching, unusual, matches your eyes and hairpiece-- people wouldn't be able to look away~" "If anything, they just sounded a little bit afraid of them." Tenjou pauses on that for a few seconds, reflective. Then she thwips her fan open and lightly waves it at herself, covering her mouth. "Well, not every young girl deals with responsibility equally well, I suppose." "Are you . . . alright?" "It's-- nothing to worry about." Tenjou waves Lilian off, bracing her arms against the armrests of her palanquin to readjust her sitting posture more comfortably. "Hate's a power of emotions too." Eyewon sticks her tongue out snottily, and slaps her hand on the particle accelerator. "Then they'll lo~ose. One on one, we, like, freaking win those. I said what I said; that's the only thing they, like, have going for 'em." "Think Bakenyan's up to something." Bakenyan folds his hands behind his back and shoots a sideways glance towards Natsuki, but doesn't say anything until-- "Not a remedy - but a next step." The butler smoothly unsticks like his animation only hitched for a frame. "I wouldn't claim to be giving suggestions on my lady's end goals, only ideas for her to expand upon. And if I did..." Bakenyan turns his head slightly towards Lilian and Natsuki, still only looking out of the corner of his eye, and his tail flicks. "Pardon my rudeness, but it wouldn't be in front of guests from outside Nottrei. A certain level of trust is needed, or else 'expressing doubt' might give an undue impression to those who weight signs of weakness as more defining in their mind than strengths." Eyewon wobbles a bit, arms crossed at Natsuki, but Bakenyan's support gives her the momentum to nod sharply. "I don't, like, want them to be my allies. They're all losers. I want them to suck and stay mad while I stay winning." "Those precures..." Eyewon looks to the side and pouts, bothered by the mere mention of them in this holy place of hers. "They're all immune to everything I make with Lady Mujinko's magic. It's super duper freaking annoying. When we get our hands on that stupid little Star Drop, I'll... I'll... use it to make a counteragent."
Merelisa Shaynore	She totters over to another set of drawers and pulls them open, unfolding an empty Nottrei suit from inside. "Maybe I could, like, build those blotted-out hearts into the next line of Nottraider armor. Then I could, like, make different weapons powered on each type, so that they wouldn't all be using the same stuff... but I'd totally need to do tests on what long term exposure does to you. Nottriggers only go back to normal once the precures beat them." "This is what I was worried about. This is exactly it." Eyewon's eye widens reflexively to Lilian's tone, expecting to be scolded even though Lilian theoretically holds no power over her, besides adulthood. She quickly glances over to Tenjou and Bakenyan, then slowly eases out air and folds the empty Nottraider suit up in her arms as a bit of fidgeting cloth. "They don't get along when you aren't looking." Off-balance, Eyewon faintly interjects-without-interrupting, "...Star and Milky don't...?" "They don't use their emotions at all. That's for Precures and no one else." "E-ehh... well...." "Dragging out all the worst parts of them won't make them any less inclined to gang up on you; just more likely to tear each other apart when you aren't around anymore." Eyewon shifts, disquieted by that, and absently rubs some cybernetic webbing woven into the sleeve of the suit. "... I'm pretty sure that's, like... not true. They, like, all have the stuff in their hearts to hate each other, and fight, and... there's no reason why that wouldn't...." "What you really want to see is proof that they're not any better than you at all, isn't it?" When Lilian breathes, so does Eyewon, and she hardens her expression and injects more steel into her faltering voice. "I want them to freaking know they're not any better than me. I want to see them all totally alone and trying to fight with everyone at once and failing while I win. When anyone's got the darkness in their hearts to turn into a Nottrigger and start rampaging, they'll stop feeling safe with each other. And then I win."
Lilian Rook	'That's why, the Nottraider Empire; the war. To seize 'more' from the rest of the universe that betrayed all of us.' Lilian could not possibly be any more glad that she did this on her own time. If Lala saw her wavering like this, she'd be sick. 'Oh, it'd be gorgeous on you.' Oh noooooo she really kind of likes them now that they aren't threatening to hurt the girls. 'Mmmm~... have you thought about green? Eye-catching, unusual, matches your eyes and hairpiece-- people wouldn't be able to look away~' "Well, now that I've heard it from you, I suppose I have to try it." says Lilian, still possessed of the embers of a previous smile. "I'd feel sort of ridiculous if I told myself that I couldn't." 'Well, not every young girl deals with responsibility equally well, I suppose.' Lilian looks at Tenjou with a quiet frown that communicates 'I know you know that means something'. 'It's-- nothing to worry about.' "That's a relief." Lilian says, then hastily adds, "It'd be disgraceful to hear anyone claim victory because you had to quit the field for your own health." 'Pardon my rudeness, but it wouldn't be in front of guests from outside Nottrei. A certain level of trust is needed, or else 'expressing doubt' might give an undue impression to those who weight signs of weakness as more defining in their mind than strengths.' "No offense taken, of course. That should simply go without saying." Lilian says far too easily. She can't help but naturally fall into the role of implicitly trusting the bond between Lady and Right Hand Servant. "I can tell that you two have been through a lot together, so for what little it's worth, you have my thanks for looking after her as you have." she says. "I know it's not easy; it means a lot that someone will." 'I don't, like, want them to be my allies. They're all losers. I want them to suck and stay mad while I stay winning.' A vicious little smile springs to Lilian's lips. There's a certain twinkle in her eyes, before she turns aside to cough and smooth it back down. She deflects instead. "Oh my. You're even responsible for the uniform wear? You're even more industrious than I'd given you credit for." The mood builds up too fast, and her tension has to escape somehow; then its place is taken by a different kind. She sees she suit folded up and squeezed in Eywon's arms, and the air that escapes her all at once sounds like "Eywon I'm so sorry." Compulsively brushing back her hair, moving it from her face only to let it settle back in the same place, Lilian's hand hesitates in falling away, and her fingertips habitually trace the scar beneath her eye, only to flinch away when she realizes she's doing it. "I said too much."
Lilian Rook	'...Star and Milky don't...?' "First, those girls are special. I've never seen anyone get along like they do. And even they fight sometimes. There was a big fight between them while we were there. And--" Now Lilian veers into overcompensating by saying too much about someone else. "I think they get along as well as they do because it's like everoyne on Lala's planet hates her and wants to get rid of her, and I don't think Hikaru even had a friend before her, so . . ." She squeezes the words back down queasily once she notices how much it's doing nothing to disprove the Nottreider ideology; only to nakedly reveal that she gravitated to the side of justice for the same reasons. 'They, like, all have the stuff in their hearts to hate each other, and fight, and... there's no reason why that wouldn't....' "And they do have all of those things in their heart, all the time, but the way it works is . . ." Lilian makes a slightly frantic gesture with her hand as if it could summarize everything so she doesn't have to say it. "They're all afraid of being ganged up on too. That's what 'justification' is. It only looks like they 'get along' from the outside; all that's really happening is that everyone is scared of getting singled out, because they know that everyone else will do to them what they do to you. That's why they love taking all those feelings out on people who have no one to stand up for them." 'I want them to freaking know they're not any better than me.' It's Lilian's turn to have her breath taken away, though half of it is in relief that Eywon seems to have bounced back with determination, rather than crumpled in distress. She lets out a held breath, and it oozes guilty appreciation. "You're honestly sort of . . ." No, she lets that word drop. "No wonder Mujinko left that with you. I'm actually . . . for some reason I feel a little jealous, haha."
Natsuki Nuki	'There aren't any friendly heroines for me to tragically terrorize back home anyways.' "There is for me." Natsuki declares a a low rumble, undertoned from her prior confident declarations. "And more besides. Just because I've planted flag and castle back on home doesn't mean I'm done. But," The woman who has clearly claimed tiger orange for herself rakes claws through the right side of her hanging bangs and dropping arm with a reconsidering path through her facial emotions - thoughtful to pensive to released. "You're right that I'm fitting you to their color scheme. And she's right - you'd probably look good with green..." But Natsuki is a purple poison type and thus thinks of one before the other. "... or a glossy lip color. Why not? Lip gloss's between you and you." Natsuki re-emphasizes, her own matte black lips making the dagger-fine curl of her lips clearly show just the faintest side of teeth. 'I'm afraid I definitely don't understand now.' "Horns? It's a personal thing, in every sense. Do you grow a big crown? Split-brow or skin-horn? Two? Four? Six? Swept out, swept back? Whatever you choose -- I'd not second guess an Oni on their head ornaments. It's between them and them." Though she might guess both first and second on other matters as was her prideful habit. Insight and daring were often closely tied. 'This is what I was worried about. This is exactly it.' Natsuki affects surprise at Lilian's lead-in, her own reasons for following up with the Nottrei a mix of respect, interest, greed, and raw alignment value. She had been mildly starving her curse to play pleasant-faced priestess and fashion queen of the punk thug scene, and the amount of palpable 'dark power' on display had demanded her slit-eyed interest in emphatic double. 'You wouldn't know. You can't know. They're keeping it from you.' "Those two - Milky and Star - got into a big argument and even split up for a while because of the Pikmin. The peppery ones liked me - and Star - and it made Milky get so sad she ran off for a while." Her hair raking hand gestures to the apparatus Eyewon works. "It's not a pure heart you're fighting, but their emotions. And the rest, well..." Natsuki's hand shifts back to hook a thumb into jacketside pocket and rest idle, foot stance more casual, blinking calmly. "... You'd probably flatten any of them in a one-on-one. Probably." The draw of a side-cheek tisk holds the chimera woman's squint, then her round ears flick in mild irration. "Some 'fair fights' just aren't. Help's better, isn't it, Bakenyan?" Natsuki, to be frank, doesn't have a full read on the butler. The refined servant sorts usually aren't memorable as extensions of their masters and minded sorts, but Bakenyan was: self-admittedly and strongly not Eyewon's 'minder'. His guidance towards every aspect seemed more like lab-hand or Takeshi-esque helpfully interested relative. 'Pardon my rudeness,' "No." Natsuki's response, amid her slithering-tailed scuttle-stop puts all her eyes - and more, up her tail, seaming across the length irregularly with scrolling-snapping oculi - on Bakenyan. Nothing happens, though, beyond the dripping-sharp note of hard denial. Bakenyan keeps talking, though, and after a few words, moves again. The eyes - disappeared to four, as if they never existed up black-scaled bar to back - track away, and her tail finishes its travel back to her. Tail coiled loosely about one leg, arms shifted to a cross, and ears doing another irritated flick, Natsuki finally rumbles out another thought.
Natsuki Nuki	"You could keep your confidence to yourself just as easily - and less rudely. I won't need a reminder to not praise your ideas going forward, then, as you've given it quite clearly." Lilian giving it up instantly gets her a dirty look too - not betrayed, but coequally insulted in the moment, and then a 'well, now I'm mad' tongue click and squeeze of jacketed bicep with opposite arm. "Whatever." She puffs, trying to not look at anyone in specific. Natsuki's tail, head resting on her foot, is back to staring at Bakenyan. 'Dragging out all the worst parts of them won't make them any less inclined to gang up on you;' Natsuki, grumpy and feeling that she's having her ideas repeated but just changed a little, wishes she had a skewer left to munch on, but having passed out all her party favors and still not at the point of 'getting out her flip phone and playing Snake' levels of checked out, the hands-and-eyes idle Natsuki listens and waits and contemplates what she'll be doing after this bust of a meeting, having already written off her chances due to the pissy vizier in the room and having long experiences with the poison a dedicated advisor could work (being one, in several cases). 'When anyone's got the darkness in their hearts to turn into a Nottrigger and start rampaging, they'll stop feeling safe with each other. And then I win.' "That's the power source for those kaiju? The darkness in a heart?" Natsuki asks, then hears herself, then sighs again, the dissatisfaction spreading to her own foolish excitement running over her bad mood. "... Well, of course it is. And all your Nottrei types have that power." Tracking the suit Eyewon hugs out of the corner of her eye, Natsuki exhales like a roll and crackle of a stormfront and flops backwards onto a pillowy black cloud that condenses behind her, the exact character of someone dropping into a blobby beanbag chair. "I saw that magic curse you used, the Nottrigger? That's why I'm here. That and business, of course - information, offering your Lady Mujinko a Concord referral application if she was interested, and following Tenjou here to see where that went." Tenjou apparently wasn't inviting her back to hang out alone, anyway. "I was admiring your work just like I took a shine to those pepper guys the Pikmin. Why not let me taste it, the next time my idiot sister squads up with those Pretty Cures? If I flatten them on my way to flattening her, that's win-win, right?" A finger raises from Natsuki's recline, as if to silence the first negative response. "And before you warn me about pain or danger, I'm a curse-eater, master of poisons and bindings, and it's not my first time trying dark power."