Scene #9333: Star¤Twinkle Precure ~ Silver Mario Galaxy 3

Owner	Pose
Dimokratia	LAST TIME, The Star Twinkle Pretty Cures - and You! - had taken the battle with the invaders of the Mushroom Kingdom to the very streets of the castle town, battling a swarm of flying saucers and purple aliens to bring some semblance of peace back to a place that just hours before to your reckoning -- "And mine!" Gadd asides, once again narrating in the rubble, but this time, no attacks are coming his way. To prevent Stuffwell from addressing each topic with helpful happiness and incessant tutorialization, Gadd stands on the top of the suitcase like a milk carton to address everyone, gaining less than a foot of height and still being dwarfed to his true gnomish stature by Dimo still besides him. The tall sophont champion had attempted to unhook him from his chrome anti-wandering leash but then the doctor immediately tried to wander off and investigate the crater where his lab used to be ("For clues!"), and so Dimo had to put the morphmetal harness about the elderly scientist's back to prevent him from getting too far into danger. Failing the civilian leader of the Toads reappearing, Princess Toadstool arriving in all her glory, or Mario appearing to tell people how they ought to in a pinch. . . Dimo had been forced to confront that Doctor Elvin Gadd was currently the acting leader of the Mushroom Kingdom due to the chain of crisis succession as chief officer of the sciences. Thus, the man was let narrate while standing on his own intelligent invention in lieu of whatever else the doctor would decide to do. ". . . As I was saying," He launches back in anew. --and a week or more of invasion for the local people. The very castle itself had been stolen and taken away into space by the Shroob leaders, and Princess Toadstool with it - as well as a very important laboratory that also must be restored! - leaving all of the Power Stars of the kingdom within a massive mushroom that was secured by the Cobalt Star! This Temporal Mushroob Castle was able to deploy paradoxical amounts of Shroob from either the past -- or the future! -- but thankfully you destroyed it! And kept the pieces! You did... keep the pieces, right? --(Gadd looks very hopeful)-- Thanks to the Sundew Navy's timely reinforcement of the Koopa Cruiser in the airspace over the kingdoms, the Shroob carrier that had been left as orbital garrison and/or colony ship met its flaming end, disgorged its broken cargo over the land, and most likely caused a problem for Mario or Luigi to clean up the next time they're not busy. On Mario... He's missing! --- Ending his narration, Gadd nods and steps off of Stuffwell, who flips immediately back to standing with the same big smile. The doctor's spectacles bounce more than his head when he nods, but when they slide down he raises an arm to push them back almost exactly to the same position but just enough fixed that the problem stops. He fixes his glasses an unusual amount, as a character tic, because of this, and still doesn't get that good of an effect out of them despite wearing such thick lenses.
Dimokratia	And it's worse when he's missing key details, like the one hundredth Power Star following Sarracenia not to empower her but searching out Mario's Hat, and floating about Sarracenia in a bouncing but fairly tight orbit, such that it's extremely obvious to everyone except Gadd that the important artifact of the local hero is already in hand (and lightly dusted with mushroom spores, but the Power Star's light cleans the hat to perfect by mere proximity. The Star sort of Powerup Screentraversing in a loose circuit around to highlight Sarracenia, and for as long as Sarra holds Mario's hat this close to a Power Star she can feel a not-unpleasant feeling of battery-to-skin tingle that imparts warmth rather than shock, and the intuitive answer appears in the mind without context - that it is love, a kind of radiated love from the Star into the hat. Mario, himself, is loved, but the hat is particularly special. Protective, or, at least, empowering. Gadd, meanwhile, is much more interested, staring-gazing, bad-knees fist-up hopping towards Cures Star and Milky in scientific triumph. "I'm sure I saw a bright blue flash of light, and detected unusual time particles in the air, so, please!" Arriving in a huff and puff at the Pretty Cure's attention, or splitting the difference, depending on how people are arranged in the post-battle aftermath of the city, and how far Dimo has to keep from the hand-shaped crater in the ground that contains the smushed-flat and de-swigging Swiggler in a metal-mulchy biomechanical pulp after it was Hammered, Smashed, and Well Jumped On so that Gadd doesn't explore his way into a deep and dangerous hole. Except, there's a reason that Gadd is chasing the girls: Both Cure Star, who snatched one from up close by chance, and Cure Milky, who it fell near and was easily detectable by AI, have one 'point' of the Cobalt Star. The town is primarily, evacuated, and one could hunt fungal stragglers throughout the city's random encounter table for several hours, or probably days to find them all for a fungus foe in a fungus realm. The question of Mario's fate, the direction of the Mushroom Kingdom's Princess Peach, and the Stellar Note that was originally intended to be a star-themed prize for a race and doubles tennis tournament remains unseen but quite missing.
Futaba Nuki	One of the 'and you's' still involved in this whole mess is a tanuki, but a different type from the ones that might be seen as a statue or floating plumber hero in these parts of the Mushroom Kingdom. No, the tanuki present is of the more ninja-themed variety, and Futaba's listening closely as Gadd summarizes the goings on. She's nodding along in a show of support and obvious attention-paying, although she's still a little distracted by the tutorializing suitcase he's standing on top of. She's also distracted every now and then by that Power Star floating about by Sarracenia and the hat in hand, but she turns her attention back to Gadd by the time he mentions the flash and time particles. "Sounds like... You're saying he went through time? That's-" She pauses to look over at Sarracenia again, then squats in place. "Wouldn't be too weird. Forwards or backwards, then? 'cause if he went back, he'll pop up right here any second now!" Closing her eyes, Futaba lets her tail spin around above her head a few times like she's using it like a radar, and then she points it to her left. A peek, and then Futaba sighs when there (probably) isn't a Mario conveniently standing right next to her. "... Unless he went real far back. Or later. Anyway. You said somethin' about time particles, right? Any chance you got a way to detect which way he went and how to pull him outta whenever he ended up?"
Audrey Basque	With the, for now, most fortunate and thankful end of the Shroob Menace(tm), and the recovery of... SOME, of the Cobalt Star, Audrey drops to the ground, takes a deep, long breath in, and then scampers over towards Lala (who was until moments ago helping her!) to inspect her shiny but broken price. "I wonder if it's safe to keep that like that? Considering what we just saw that thing do..." Gadd's incoming Scientific Zeal will be extremely useful to figure that out, she wagers. It was his, wasn't it? Though... stars usually have five points, and this is just two. Who took the other three? "Praying I never have to see another giant killer mushroom ever again," she comments to herself, a bit winded. "But, thanks for the assists, Cure Milky! That was... ah... you're a magical girl, so I bet this is pretty normal for you?" Her golden-blue starry eyes size Lala up, like she's never seen a magical girl up close before. Which is MOSTLY true. She's seen like, one! And Love is... a different thing, mostly! She, obviously, does not count herself. Hands on hips, slight exhaust and deflating, Audrey glances towards Futaba and Gadd, adding it: "Time particles is kind of putting it lightly. That thing was bending time something fierce with that artifact of yours. I don't suppose that's why the attack was so sudden but actually looks like it took place some time ago too?"
Sarracenia	Sarracenia had said as soon as the giant mushroom was dealt with that she would be recovering that special hat, and she made good on her word. As a native of Pipeland and a princess obsessed with heroes, she treated the hat with reverence, holding it up in both hands as she carries it. The tingling makes her shiver slightly and giggle a bit. "It is...magical? Where did Mario get a magical hat? I thought he was from a very non-magical version of Earth?" she muses. Lady Tamamo had asked to see the hat once it was recovered so that she could work some magic and perhaps glean some clues about just what all happened here, but when the Power Star appears and starts orbiting Sarra she becomes hesitant to give up the hat. The temptation even arises for her to put the hat on. It is already radiating such lovely energy...surely putting it on would be even better, right? She hears but doesn't really listen to E. Gadd's recap. She does at least wait until he is finished and headed toward the Precures before she lifts the had up...and places it on her head over her crown as she walks toward Tamamo. "What do you think, Lady Tamamo?" she asks once she is near the sun goddess. "It is unfortunate I am wearing black these days. My usual red would go rather well with the hero's hat." she says, then reaches to remove it and hand it over to Tamamo. "It tingles when you touch it!" she adds, then looks to the Power Star. "Thank you for cleaning it. A hero's hat should never be sullied."
Tamamo	It's in the midst of stunt driving up boss limbs that she realizes something important. <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Oh!" <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "Someone please be sure to retrieve that hat for me." <J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "A beloved and iconic accessory is the perfect item to perform a divination." <J-IC-Scene> Audrey Basque says, "Oh! That's a good idea." <J-IC-Scene> Sarracenia says, "I fully intend to retreive it! A hero should never be without their signature item! It is a crime!" Whether or not it's a crime, Tamamo needs an important item of Mario's to do her locating magic. Having a solemn, quiet space and friendly spirits to beseech would also be helpful, but isn't absolutely, strictly necessary, just as it's very helpful to have spilt blood when using sympathetic magic, but other bonds of association can do as well. Having to deal with blood -- whether by following it, or spilling it -- all tends to be rather grisly, anyway. Better to hope the kingdom's spate of kidnappings have been... kinder...? Tamamo tilts her head after pulling off her motorcycle helmet, shaking her head a little to fluff out her ears once free of its confines, and tilts her head. Can anything involving being transformed into mushrooms -- into a different type of mushroom -- be considered either kind or gentle? She's not ready to give an answer on this. But now, to the hat. Once Sarracenia retrieves it, Tamamo says, first, "I suspect that it would only work for another," and then gives a short, "Thank you, princess," before setting to work. She clears off a piece of post-boss-battle rubble and a small space around, sets the hat down like an artifact upon an altar, places her hands above it, and begins to feel for the threads that extend into its past and future. Tamamo looks off into a space that isn't now, and asks, "And whence came you, little one? Would you tell me that story? Whither traveled the crown you protected?" This technique sometimes results in what someone might call a cutscene, being a non-interactable scene of another time and place, into which those near the magic's invocation are drawn. Sometimes, it results in nothing, but Tamamo will be surprised if that happens, this time.
Combaticon	Combined as they are, Onslaught and Vortex hover over the ruin of the great Mushroob Castle monster that had contained all the power stars and the Cobalt Star. Onslaught himself glowers down at the mycelial carcass, his right arm hugely out of proportion to the rest of him because that is the entire body of Vortex attached to his shoulder. The whirling rotor blades stop very suddenly with a KACHUNK, then fold down like the wings of an insect. He winces; his body letting out an energetic winding-down sort of sound. Right away, he disengages from Vortex, the right shoulder transforming back into the normal configuration and extending his normal arm and hand in her place. Losing altitude at a controlled, drifting pace, Onslaught eventually lands in the streets with the metallic noise of his feet hitting cobblestone. In the air, Arm-Vortex twists and reconfigures herself back into an attack helicopter-- then again into a robot who continues to hover. "Time particles," Onslaught muses, clearly masking some level of exhaustion. Reaching up, he taps the side of his head, "Depthcharge." What? "Temporal nonsense. You will be collaborating with local organics to determine the nature and settle on a resolution." Collaborating with organics. Onslaught's face changes. It's a sidelong glance 'towards' his commlink. Somehow, the glower that rests so naturally on his metal face become even more severe, "Get down here. Be on your best behavior." Fine. I will be there. While Onslaught 'convinces' his subordinate to not be an awful little shit, Vortex settles down and folds her rotors in, "So we have a hat, a bunch of these yellow star fellows, and a lot of organic contamination..." She glances towards the two Cures, "And what's got them so excited about you two? Are you alright?"
Angela	Love is doing great because she got to have a magical girl adventure but it's not like it's over! Tuxedo Hat (Mario) still needs rescuing! Because Mario is still missing! But now that there isn't something to inflict Elite-sponsored violence upon, Love is a little less sure what to do with herself. There's no rats to chase and she has a job and place to live now so she doesn't need to go looking for a place to set up a tent or even a sewer... "Now that she has the hat does that make her the new Princess Mario?" Love asks the universe and Roland because that's the lens through which she views the world. "AHhh I get it. Like a magical wand passed down from magical girl to magical girl." Roland says. He's from The City, maybe Mario is a magical princess for all he knows. And sure, why not be a plumber at the same time? That's some real groundwork that's going on there. "Junior Magical Girls," Love says. "....Junior Magical GIrls..." She is trying to think of a magical lesson of the day that isn't 'Don't invade kingdoms and zombify castles. "If your landlord tries to kick you out or turn your house into a zombie house, it's okay to blast them with magic...!" Whew, Love thinks, she figured something out. ''Praying I never have to see another giant killer mushroom ever again.'' "Something tells me," Roland says. "You're probably gonna see at least one."
Star Twinkle	In the crater of the swigless Swiggler, Cure Milky lets out a slow exhale, staying perfectly still in finisher-kick position until it becomes clear that there's no more immediately relevant enemies. She detransforms in a flash of light, Precure outfit replaced with her usual heart-clasped yellow bolero over short hoop dress, and she wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "A-ahhhh... we've got the big mushroom taken care of, but what about Mario and the-- oyo?" Her glove lights up with a spinning digital symbol, indicating AI's reconnection right before its voice emits out of it. "Miss Lala, I've detected an energy signature nearby. Please make use of my radar." A holographic display map pops up above Lala's glove, with a pinging blue dot aiming towards the corner of the little crater. Lala, face-down and focused entirely on navigating herself via mini-map instead of observing the real world, almost trips on the crater's edge, catching herself with windmilling arms and a reflexive "Oyo--?!". Right at her feet is a mystical and plot-relevant underglow, which she cups in her hands when picking it up so that its blue shine can illuminate her face. "This must be...." At the top of the crater, Hikaru, similarly detransformed, scrambles over with a similar glow clutched in her fist. "Lala! This must be a piece of that Cobalt Star that Doctor Gadd was talking about! You found one too, right?" "Lun!" Once Lala exits the crater, the pair of Precures are standing nearby its edge when Gadd approaches them. Seeing Dimo's exasperation and the narrow margin of error in the allowance of leash between Gadd being able to talk with them, and Gadd being able to escort-NPC his way into a pit, Lala tries to surreptitiously shuffle farther away from the edge over the course of the conversation, keeping the Cobalt Star visible in her hand so she doesn't lose Gadd's attention. "The Cobalt Star... that must mean there's three more pieces than these, lun. AI, could you do an analysis on this piece? Is this what sent everyone traveling through time?" Meanwhile, while Lala's glove projects teal green scanning-lights, Hikaru engages the professor with her fists clenched to her chest in enthusiasm. "This is what you were working on, right?? Were you inventing time travel? How's it work? Do you think Mario could be millions of years in the past with the dinosaurs now?? Or maybe in the future? We'll have to travel through time to find him, right, huh?" "That was... ah... you're a magical girl, so I bet this is pretty normal for you?" While AI works on processing data, Lala brightly smiles in Audrey's direction despite her battle-scuffs and tiredness. "Lun! Well, actually, it's not very normal. Usually we just fight one kind of alien, and we weren't expecting to fight anyone today... or is it not today anymore? Oyo...."
Audrey Basque	"Something tells me," Roland says. "You're probably gonna see at least one." "Thank you, Roland," Audrey beams, in that slight 'I would be annoyed if you weren't both right and earnest about it' way. "If your landlord tries to kick you out or turn your house into a zombie house, it's okay to blast them with magic...!" "And good work, Love. It's a treat to see you in action, even if I was a bit distracted." Just a bit! But now things are calm(er), so she's got time to catch up and chatter away. "And whence came you, little one?" Oh right!! The divination!! Audrey turns to look into Tamamo's (and Sarracenia's) direction, curious to see how a goddess does it. "Or is it not today anymore?" "I... um... that's a fantastic question, actually. I don't think we got time displaced. Did we?" That surely is a question for Gadd.
Dimokratia	The hat isn't magical for any reason other than a lot of starlight has shone on it, of the special and local variety. Once a plumber from Earth, now Mario Mario (of the Brothers Mario), . . . Is missing! But there are clues just in hand to find and divine. Sarracenia treating Gadd like Gadd treats Stuffwell is the great circle of not listening, which is a perfect torus of interaction - and it's thankful Sarracenia doesn't really need the explainer anyway while so adjacent to Tamamo-no-Mae, a divination expert. Meanwhile, considering what the Cobalt Star can do... The star-points in question aren't more active than any other crystal object of faintly palpable power, and it's twice agreeable that the radiation thrown off by Power Stars tends to be the reinforcing kind and not the cancerous kind. There's a strange internal mirroring in the crystals, and light isn't let through but captured by the faintly blue surfaces. There's other colors, dark at the inner core of the points, but it's hard to just eyeball it. Dimo gives an appreciative sweep of her eyes and smile at the carbon-dark lips in silent thanks towards Lala while she maneuvers around the pit while using the Cobalt Star point in her hands as a lure. Keeping her distance to restrain the doctor at conversing distance keeps a good medium between grabby-insistent little men and certain dooms of various varieties. Gadd, meanwhile, acts like he's not being held on a leash by placing his hands behind his back and pacing. "I'm glad you asked!" He dips in a bow while nodding. "It's a mystery to me! During the battle, I was also there!" The doctor carries on in yabu-yabus, then brings a hand to chin. And pauses. And waits. Thinking? Dozing off? Hard to see his eyes behind the glasses, and with his level of squinting it might go either way. . . "It's my scientific opinion-" He launches into, like his dialogue was only proximity triggered after being stood around long enough. "That the Cobalt Star is the cause of the time event!" He starts with the obvious, a true professional. "During my studies of the Cobalt Star, I built the original Warpulator - the Time Warpulator! It allowed the travel from the point of the star backwards of an indeterminate amount, supplied its own power, and the star had several novel light-bending properties across the fourth dimension!!" Gadd's triumph is short lived, however, when he realizes that the star is broken and there's only two pieces. "This appears to have lost several of its dimensions." He understates, flat, headshaking. AI's analysis is fruitful of several kinds - chiefly that the Cobalt Star is a stable artifact at least, though it is heavily diminished in its current form. The whole Mushroom Kingdom had an entire alien invasion incursed roughly a week into the past, during the final preparations for the local raceway and tennis courts. This massive expenditure certainly drained the Cobalt Star, and there was another more mysterious blockage that prevented major travel back. While Lala or Hikaru, starpoint in hand, might be able to snap themselves back several moments by using the Cobalt Star's power through their Star Color Pens and Pendants, there is at least one significant impediment of the Star's use that isn't merely having all the pieces together. There is also, usefully and as the Doctor indicated, a particular frequency of energy given off by both of the Cobalt Star pieces and not the Power Star, so AI can isolate and detect just that frequency.
Dimokratia	Back at Tamamo and her cleaned-off area of workable space, Sarracenia and her star-with-eyes companion of the moment come to a stop, the hero's hat passed over. It is, perhaps, nonobvious that Mario's hat might not work for anyone else, but the thing holds belief like a sponge despite. It must be the thick front of the top, where the M proudly displays. Tamamo could ask for blood, but the hat serves in spite of blood's lack, a different but no less useful guidance. The threads of the past expand outward and touch nearly every corner and spot in the Castle Town, drape through windows once open and thickly across usefully low roof hangings. The threads of the present rise, ready, awaiting, uncut and reaching but scatter uncertainly. Alive, but. Present, but. Somewhere, but. And the threads of the future. . . Cannot be found at all. While Mario is Present, he has absolutely no current future. Missing from the rolls entirely. A no-call, no-show, Mario Bro. Those present threads do continue to rise skywards, up up up, into the starry black. "I believe we have avoided being personally time displaced." Dimo answers Audrey, arms crossing while the lower sorted arm still maintains her Scientist Leash. "We saw the 'time of the invasion' - the Pretty Cures, Elvin, and myself. Doctor Gadd's atmospheric invention appeared to ablate the time shock from the orbital base we were at. My internal timer notes the announcement of the race's registration opening happening and then receiving a delayed distress communication in close proximity, claiming a week of siege and occupation. It might be necessary for us to chase the Shroob's forces, though sweeping an entire stellar sector might take an unreasonable amount of time. Miss Tamamo, Love Prime, do you have any insight?"
Combaticon	dew dew dew Depthcharge arrives through one of the warp pipes, wearing a scowl. Eyes closing, she straightens her posture and forces her expression to something more neutral before she approaches the energy signatures of her fellow Combaticons. "So it has indeed been a full week's occupation before we arrived, Onslaught confirms what he hears from Dimo, rubbing his faceplate in thought, "That certainly matches the state of affairs." His eyes shift to the deceased castle-shroob again, then up to the orbiting wreckage of the mothership. > "It might be necessary for us to chase the Shroob's forces, though sweeping an entire stellar sector might take an unreasonable amount of time." "So we autopsy the computer systems on their ship and determine its point of origin," Depthcharge speaks up as she approaches. By Onslaught's faint jump, then glance in her direction, he was about to suggest something similar, "At the very least, we may be able to track its exhaust trails and at least determine a direction." The white and pale blue robot comes to a stop beside the bulkier commander, folding her arms with a resting-hostile look on her face. "Oh, yeah!" Leaning back, Vortex shields her optics as she glances up at the wreckage, "I can't tell how much is still functional after the Sundew Navy blasted it, it still might be worth a look." "Do it, then. Vortex, acting escort." Without hesitation, the smaller black 'bot floats up and backflips, unfurling and reconfiguring into a helicopter. The red canopy slides back so Depthcharge can board; and then the pair ascend towards the destroyed Shroob mothership. Onslaught remains here on the ground, folding his arms behind his back just beneath the cannon mounts.
Angela	Roland grins back at Audrey and offers her a fist bump which, if Audrey accepts, will rapidly transform from a direct fist to fist bump to Roland swingings his hand up to bonk into her hand from above, giving Audrey the opportunity to retaliate by swinging her own fist up and bonking the top of Roland's fist. If Audrey is willing to go that far, Roland will pull his hand back and mime firing a bullet from his finger and blowing the smoke out of it with a 'peeow!' noise. ''Miss Tamamo, Love Prime.'' "Her name is Love too? And she's Love Prime??" Love startles in shock! "Love Prime... does that mean... I've been replaced as the Magical Girl of Love?" Her mood immediately sours. "I can't fly anybody into space. I don't have any rocket power at all... I'm the old model..." Her head hangs. ''And good work, Love.'' "Do you mean me or Love Prime?" The Magical Girl of Love mumbles mopily. "I'm sorry I'm an outdated magical girl..." "Uh--" Roland says. "I mean ... you have ...legs? Love Prime doesn't have legs--" Roland awkwardly tries to soothe the magical girl. "Only sometimes..."
Futaba Nuki	"We'll see more of 'em, I bet. I doubt those guys'll give up just because we beat 'em back this time." Futaba comments to Audrey, rolling her shoulders once and straightening out her tennis skirt. "Got a good point there, yeah... This place's been through the wringer. It'll take a hot minute to get all this cleaned up unless..." A pause, and then Futaba strokes her chin. "You think using that Cobalt Star once it's put back together'll help get this cleaned up any faster?" A beat, then she shakes her head. "Nah, never mind. Not how time works. Prrrobably?" Her curiosity is piqued rather suddenly, though, as Sarracenia brings up its magical nature and Mario's background. "It is? It isn't? Huh. Wouldn't've guessed it, looking at the pictures. Guy's built way closer to the folks here than the ones back home." She also deflates just a bit at Tamamo's prediction that the hat might not work on anyone else. "That's a shame. Could be neat seein' the princess go to town with whatever kind of power's built up in that combined." Onslaught brings up a point that Futaba hadn't quite noticed before, although she does finally realize that Gadd's chasing after the Precures at all. "Huh, yeah... You two okay over there? If we're headin' somewhere after this, just say the word and I'll make sure you get there in styrle! Star... Aisle..." Even in that busted English, Futaba doesn't sound too convinced about the delivery there. Thankfully, she doesn't mangle it further, nor does she become some kind of gross flesh chariot to demonstrate. Love's lesson provides a welcome distraction from that flub and gets Futaba to close her eyes, and the ninja eventually nods her head slowly like she was some kind of wise sage minus the beard. She does not grow a beard to look the part for the bit. "Landlords and zombie houses are pretty gnarly in the wrong ways, for sure. Just make sure to use a solid beam instead of a strobin' one, because kids might be watching and you don't want to give 'em seizures!" After holding her thumb up like she's posing for the fade out at the end of an episode, Futaba goes right back to loitering near Dimo, giving her a light nudge on the forearm affectionately while eyeing that man-leash keeping Gadd from wandering too far. "How many messes did he into before all this?" She asks Dimo in a stage-whispery tone, keeping one ear turned towards Gadd once he starts talking about the- "Time Warpulator? Traveling backwards... Okay, so Mario must've gone way further back if he didn't show up by now. Unless..." Futaba pauses, looking over at where the group had first seen his hat on the ground. "He already did, or he's stuck in a loop comin' back at the wrong time...?" She's having trouble wrapping her head around which kind of time travel is involved, and eventually musses her hair up in mild annoyance. "Anyway! How far can we get with what's left of that Cobalt Star? Think we'll be able to catch up with wherever Mario went if..." "a week of siege and occupation." "That much? Huh. Maybe this thing's been warping time for the whole planet if it's hittin' all the way down here AND the Shroob army way out in-" Futaba points around randomly, watching Dimo's face to try gauging which direction is the correct one. "-there. If we gotta chase 'em, I don't think we'd have too much trouble. Got plenty of people that can go far here, and if we need to really go the distance..." Futaba gestures over at Audrey, then over at the castle. "Maybe we could borrow some rides from the racetrack?"
Audrey Basque	"That the Cobalt Star is the cause of the time event!" "So you didn't build the star, so much as something to put it in? Is... are these just naturally occurring, here? Like the golden ones that burst out during the fight?" She'd be lying if she didn't feel the tingle of a special sky, like the stars here are more than simple fixtures on a black tapestry. Bu the idea something like a time travelling crystal star could just be something you find, that occurred on its own, is quite baffling. "If we get the missing points back, you can fix it, right?" she asks of Gadd. "And then we could fix... whatever happened?" "I believe we have avoided being personally time displaced." It's Audrey's first time seeing Dimo, though not her first time hearing the voice. But what catches her attention is the morphmetal harness keeping the doctor from wandering off. "Is that... is that morphmetal?" It'd be really hard for Audrey not to have her attention drawn to it, considering. But Petra never really talks about it much! Sarracenia has some too, as she recalls, but that's all she knows. Roland fistbump. It's bold of Roland to presume Audrey knows how to do cool fistbumps! She can do a normal one, but then she's lost when there seems to be a continuation. "Do you mean me or Love Prime?" "You! Lady Tamamo obviously did well too, but... don't worry, you're the Magical Girl of Love to me." Audrey attempts to smile reassuringly. "It might be necessary for us to chase the Shroob's forces, though sweeping an entire stellar sector might take an unreasonable amount of time." "Oh. I could-- I could try something. The sky here feels... I don't know how to put it, exactly, but it feels like the stars might be more responsive than I'm accustomed to. I can try asking." While Vortex and Depthcharge set about getting computer data, Audrey focuses on the sky, the star patterns on her skirt lighting up to shift and mimic the sky. A little bit of an astrology reading, to see if their villains might have left enough of a mark on the firmament that she can glean... well, anything at all, really!
Tamamo	"Is he too far away, or is he in a state wherein he cannot be seen?" Tamamo, hands poised, vision elsewhere, frowns in concern. It's difficult to keep her focus like this, without being able to find the thing she'd like to focus on. "Somewhere 'above' is far too vague... and the 'past' is only as expected." She continues to look for nearly a minute longer, attempting to follow backward from 'hat' to 'past Mario,' then forward again to Mario's 'present,' though without expecting any great deal more success. And when she comes to her own present... "Regretfully, Ms. Dimo, the tidings are all but fully ill. I would say that our local hero," though she hasn't actually met him, "has 'no future,' though this is an oracle I would be hesitant to deliver as it is. For this present moment, I can only say that he exists, taken somewhere into the sky above. Perhaps, even, to another star, though that is a distance difficult to trace by touch." She folds her hands together, the posture habitual, only unable to perform the stately sleeves-in-hands priest pose because she is, in fact, still in a race suit. "For matters of... unexpected time travel," she says, looking toward Gadd, "it is ever more difficult to do more than speculate. Might the time even before 'a week ago' have been affected? If such a thing has occurred, is there any way it may be remedied? If we have not the power to follow this problem to its source, we would be left to retrieve the pieces of what has shattered in those shadowed moments." 'Her name is Love too? And she's Love Prime??' Tamamo considers telling Love just how popular ai is in naming girls. "You need not worry. Are there not magical girls unable to fly, as well?" Like that one who just punches monsters. Or that other one who just punches monsters.
Sarracenia	'I suspect that it would only work for another. Thank you, princess.' Sarra shrugs with a smile and nods. "You are welcome! And you are right, of course. A hero's item like this only works properly with that hero." she says, giving Futaba an apologetic smile since the Nuki won't be able to see a Mario-powered princess. Sarra steps back a bit and watches curiously as Tamamo sets about doing her magic. She listens to Tamamo's findings but finds that a little less than helpful. Sarra huffs softly and crosses her arms. "Time travel is so troublesome. Mario could be in any place in our galaxy at any time. It will be difficult to narrow down location, much less time!" Sarra looks up at the sky...then pauses. "...what is that Koopa cruiser doing here, by the way? It seems unlikely that Bowser would have responded before we did, if at all. Perhaps we should ask whoever is onboard just what they were up to?" Sarra waits for Tamamo to finish with the hat, then once it seems all the information that can be gathered has she reaches to take the hat again. "No one minds if I keep this safe, right?" she says even as she goes to stuff it into her magical princess purse of holding. After that, Sarra makes her way toward the Dyna. "Who wishes to join me in interrogating the crew of that airship?" she asks as she walks. "It is just as likely that Princess Toadstool is aboard that ship as it is that the Shroobs have taken her."
Star Twinkle	"I'm glad you asked!" "Mm!" Hikaru nods, eyes sparkling and ready for a lecture. "It's a mystery to me!" "Alright!" That's okay too! That just means it's a mystery, and a mystery, by definition, is something that Hikaru can figure out! She's going to learn how to do time travel! Hikaru cups her fingers under her chin, nodding along with Gadd's explanation now as a Fellow Scientist, rather than a mere hapless punchgirl. "The Time Warpulator... I see... and now since it's down three points, it's lost three of its dimensions too, mmhm mhm. But a one dimensional shape is a line, so we should be able to still use it as long as we don't change the shape of the time'line', right? Right!" Did that make any sense? It certainly did to the newly appointed Doctor Hoshina! As she's contemplating the vast quandaries of the fourth through first dimensions, a spinning blue patch of star-light appears next to her, our of which pops a second, triumphant-looking Hikaru. Original-Hikaru widens her eyes in surprise, and the new one double hi-fives her and shouts "Twincooooo--!!" before abruptly vanishing in another star animation with reversed SFX. Hikaru, still holding her palms in lo-five position and in stunned disbelief, stays still for exactly twenty four frames before gasping and whirling around to Gadd. "Huh??? Was that me?! Was that time travel?! How'd that happen?? Can you show me how to do that??" In the background, Hikaru will be fiddling with the fragment of the Cobalt Star that she has for some time, holding it above her head and shaking it around to try to squeeze the magic juice out of it. In the foreground, Lala's glove chimes politely once AI finishes processing the data of its scan on the Cobalt Star, and she lifts up her arm to head-height to listen to its report. Miss Lala. The energy signatures radiating off of the Cobalt Star confirm that it is indeed capable of facilitating time travel, though its powers are substantially diminished in its current state. However, the energy signature of the Cobalt Star is also present in this environment broadly, which suggests that not only has it successfully been used to travel through time before... but that it may still be doing so currently. That is to say, this current moment in time is a pocket created by the Cobalt Star's power, and so travel beyond it is temporally impossible without the full power of the Cobalt Star itself." "Lun...?" Lala's affirmation is trailingly uncertain as she tries to process what AI is saying, and then she widens her eyes in realization. "Lun! That means we have to find the other pieces of the Star, right? And then we'll be able to save everybody!" Behind her, Hikaru has pulled out her Star Color Pen as part of her experiments into the mythical realm of time travel. She presses the tip of the Pen to the Cobalt Star and it starts shining with a deep blue light, which she draws out into ribbons that form a star shape. It encompasses her and starts spinning and ticking backwards, and she makes a startled noise before vanishing. "Oyo?! Hikaru?!" Lala panics at her disappearance for a few seconds, but, that's how Hikaru is sometimes. She'll probably be back soon. She's very reliable about that! So instead, she gets back to discussing the problem of the Cobalt Star. "I believe we have avoided being personally time displaced." Lala frowns and twists the Star fragment over between her fingers. "Hmmm... we haven't, but everything around us has been affected by it, lun. And since Mario's the hero, he must've been affected by it most of all."
Star Twinkle	"It might be necessary for us to chase the Shroob's forces, though sweeping an entire stellar sector might take an unreasonable amount of time. Miss Tamamo, Love Prime, do you have any insight?" "It's possible that a temporally-displaced stellar vessel might leave a trail of the Cobalt Star's energy through space as it travels." AI's display on Lala's glove spins in thought, brief flickers of datasets appearing on the domed screen. Lala chimes in over that, looking over to where Vortex and Depthcharge are examining the fallen ship. "But hopefully we can find something in their ship to point us the right way, lun." "Her name is Love too? And she's Love Prime??" "She's AI, lun! Or Love Prime, since that's what the people on Cybertron were named like when we took her there." Lala taps on the display, and a little hologram of the round pink spaceship appears for Love (original, not prime) to look at. The glove lights up as AI speaks over the display. "I am fond of the name, though AI is correct as well." "She's not a magical girl though, lun. She's a magical girl's helper. Like Yuma is, lun! Don't be sorry! I'll be your friend, Love; I don't think you're outdated, lun." In the background, Hikaru pops back into existence with the tail end of a "--oooool!!!"
Star Twinkle	"Are there not magical girls unable to fly, as well?" Hikaru, having rejoined the timestream, hears Tamamo say this and puffs out her chest to proudly add her own opinion. "That's right, Love! I can't actually fly even when I'm transformed! I just punch monsters!"
Angela	Roland leans in to murmur, "Wait do they not have, like, custom handshakes on your world? Or like fistbump elaborations? Okay, uh. See. Here. I'll show you." Roland takes a moment to take Audrey's fist with his other hand and guide her through the rest of the fistbump process he was trying to show her. "It's like a sign of comradery." Roland explains. ''You! ... don't worry, you're the MAgical GIrl of Love to me.'' "Audrey...!" Love sniffs. "You're such a good frend..." Somehow, despite sounding exactly the same, the lack of i is evident in how she says it. ''Are there not magical girls unable to fly, as well?'' Love IS aware that Ai is a name, but she's not really connecting that to 'Love Prime' right now. She does wipe at her eyesand steady herself. "I do like blasting monsters..." It's not exactly wrath that makes her so inclined to go monster blasting, but a pure and unsullied hatred of all that threatens that which she holds dear... All that threatens to take her meaning of existence away. Normally she'd be piqued by the offer to interrogate the bad guys. That sounds like a fun new way to do magical girl work that she hasn't really tried before. You're not supposed to blast prisoners, of course, so instead to get them to talk you have to sort of blast their self esteem...! Gosh, she bets it's REALLY effective to do that too. But is that a power she could unlock for herself? She doesn't like saying mean things... Maybe she best leave that up to Sarracenia. ''She's AI, lun!'' This seems to snap her to attention as she her head snaps to Lala, eyes wide. AI! That must be why...! But more than that, like Angela? "No wonder sis is so upset all the time, she's an AI too and she can't get to space at all." Love laments sympathetically. "I'm sorry, AI... I shouldn't have gotten jealous..." She sniffs again, though, now feeling double bad! ''She's not a magical girl though--'' A magical girl...helper...! Love knows what that is! Like the \|\|\|\|\|\| and in anime! "Gosh... I had no idea... Thanks for helping Lala and Hikaru, Love Prime...! I'm glad they have someone as reliable as you looking out for them." She can just be thrilled of AI's many capabilities now that she knows she's not stealing her place in the multiverse and also is a magical girl helper. She can't be mean to a magical girl helper! That's definitely against the rules and, more to the point, she's helping her friends! "Thanks Lala..." Love says. "I'm glad you feel that way... I'll do my best to help both of you!" And she bobs her head to Hikaru and adds, "And I'll try my hardest to believe in myself too! Thanks Hikaru!" She is sympathetic. "Punching monsters is great!"
Dimokratia	The Combaticon's plan is quite solid once revealed, Depthcharge arriving more swiftly at a solidly synthetic answer to the problem without need of divination - simply ripping the computer core! Nodding approvingly, Dimo's warm buzz-hum fluctuates like an unvoiced affirmative. "If you have brought a suited agent, your consideration is appreciated. Interrogating that core I had deemed another timely waste, but I did not have the specialized assets to do so..." An open-handed shrug works out from the champion, the loop of chrome around synthetic palm keeping Gadd from contemplating the edge of the pit or peeking into any of the potentially still-infested buildings, or diving into the castle's crater... Dimo appreciates someone else getting to it, and it crackles in the synapses and springs. As for the Shroob's big carrier: A ship that large (and that mechanical) had to have some sort of computer assist, and the Shroob had shown a full willingness to use robotic assistance! The Lab Shroobs didn't just have biomechanical creations like the Swiggler, but full out Shrooboids in simulacra of fungus! Flying up over the crashed ship, Vortex's ascent takes them out of the city a bit. Near the water, the kingdom's harbor is now host to the fallen and listed-over wreckage of the ''mothership'' in several pieces. There's choppy waves all about from the water distortion, and Vortex has a few targets of opportunity from shipwrecked Shroob putting up a token spiteful resistance. Several wobbly saucers, and a few motor-buoy operators, motor up with intent, coming from choppy seas in extra head-bounceable patterns and swooping from above near convenient rocks for climbers, but... none of that matters to Vortex and their laser cannon! Still, it's crashed-ship choppy in air and water around the crash as small knots of Shroob band together, and then, as random encounters, attack the approaching Decepticons. The computer core is still located deeper within the complex, and as water pours into the partially submerged interior, pummeled by airship. It's a big. . . mushroom shaped complex with interior layers and chambers, because this culture has one shape repeated at every scape even with advanced technology, filled with danger that's not entirely accessable by air! Depthcharge has her work cut out for her to access it, but, as the name might imply - she might have particular skills. Dimo realizes she might have made a misstep when selecting names when she failed to consider the potential of 'Love, Magical Girl of' and Love Prime mixing negatively. Then again, she had partially failed to consider Love(, Magical Girl of) over considering Love Prime and centering her fellow synthetic intelligence, so now she seemed to be paying that balance. "No, I was not implying ordinal primacy," She says the words like referencing scripture. "I was merely using a given name. However, if you so quickly move to doubts about your form, perhaps updates might be in order?" The Champion steeples fingers, and Gadd gets just enough rope in his harness to take a few more steps and peer at the edge of the crater left by the Swiggler's combo finisher, but he doesn't manage to get into danger, and is slowly dragged back while he whips out a clipboard and takes some notes.
Dimokratia	"Doctor, stay close." Dimo chides, lowering a hand to turn the note-taking Gadd towards Futaba. When Gadd looks up, there's questions directed at him and he's clearly receiving this person! "The Time Warpulator! The Princess allowed me use of any star I needed for my research, and I found the most suitable one in the Star Chambers under the castle!" Gadd pauses, and then taps his chin with a pen. "Those might be state secrets. . ." He nods, yabuing confirmingly. "Please forget those." ". . . As I was saying, I found this special star giving off unique energy, and placed it into one of my devices to see what would happen! And--" One might imagine a drumroll, but the only one is Dimo's fingerdrum across her opposite forearm, t-t-t-tnk. "I encountered myself - from the past! A past where I still had my hair!" Gadd claims, before flipping clipboard to a tacked in photo of the same general figure with one less wrinkle and brown hair instead of wispy white. He'll show it off to anyone that looks. He'll feel sad if nobody looks but that chance is very low. "I can move expedition assets to assist, but it will take some time to reposition. AI -" Dimo doesn't quite like that one as much as 'Love Prime', a slight variance in her otherwise perfect waves. "It is not the distance that pauses me, but the vastness. Even a straight line might become a tremendous amount of space if it must all be combed. Spreading a network takes time, though would be certain. The simplest answer would to spread a network across the outward from the Kingdom, but that's [throwing fishing nets when hoping for boats]," Dimo delivers the idiom in an alternate language than her normal, clearly simply a useful saying she's borrowing complete with faint recording-grade pronunciation and not-quite-her-own voice. Audrey calls out to the stars above, expecting a response. She calls, and calls, and calls, and that call reaches, and reaches, and reaches. Near Sarracenia, the little Power Star that was following around and fading in real time gains a surge of presence and purpose and shoots up and away, disappearing into the upper atmosphere before fading. 'Is that... is that morphmetal?' Dimo pauses, and considers the word for two full seconds, and then lifts the harness-cord in her hand, the drape of liquid-seeming chrome matched to the two long jellyfish-like trails that wing from her lower back in color and composition. She smiles, curious. "Morph-metal? I wonder if that is what those that do not wish to name it would fall upon. This is the Silver - the physical manifestation, the all-shaper, that which I am 'of'. If a human is within their blood, than I am within the Silver."
Dimokratia	A trail sweeps around, not muscular but pseudopodic, and shifts through space to bump Audrey's brow. Being around Dimo is warm, but like a hot day. Being touched by the Silver is a wet-warm feeling that's got a high intensity of contact, near-'soaking' in sensation but simply just a high surface area contact. Just a prod leaves a sizzly brow sense, though. "I noticed, too, that the Princess has adopted one of our flowers as her own. A touching sentiment I hope I can share soon after my duty to the Doctor is released," She asides, on that same topic, and tries to move on past Love Prime after that. Audrey's call takes some time to answer. Tamamo's does not. 'Is he too far away' returns a majority-positive, minority-negative feeling, water that is warm because it is both hot and cold at once closer to the source. 'Is he in a state wherein he cannot be seen' helps center the reading: Very hot, completely yes. Currently, Mario is definitely is unjokingly Missing in a direct sense. The certainty of the populace even in seeing their hero's fallen hat seems borne out! The threads... don't tie together neatly. 'Tracing by touch', as admitted, would be difficult if it just took them through a wood - doing so across the stars would be a trick and a half. Thankfully, it is unnecessary. "Your news is grave but useful." Dimo lightly praises Tamamo, appreciating foresight when available as a tactician. "And I think combined with AI's navigational assistance we should be able to track a course across the stars. A combination of energy wave displacements and biological matter castoff might lead us right to them, in fact. And this is before Onslaught's operators report back." "A one dimensional. . ." Gadd's textbox interrupts Dimo's more paced contemplations, drawn up and in in his own thoughtful pose, before bob-nodding and minor-jumping in confirmation. "Yes! That should be possible! Even one-dimensional time travel is still quite powerful, and exciting!" "Happiness!" Stuffwell announces, forgotten and buried under other dialogue interrupts. "Hikaru, would you like a tutorial on Time Paradoxes?" Stuffwell looks at the empty air where Hikaru used to be. Then she reappears! "Good job! Wow! You're so good at this! That's my Time Paradox tutorial!" Stuffwell announces before taking one big steppy back so everyone can know it's done.
Dimokratia	Finally, the call out for help to the stars above is tried out by someone that had a voice powerful enough to be heard. Assisted by the 100th Power Star, rising up into the air and twinkling away, that up and up and up call doesn't entirely disappear. It stops! And, rather than echoing out into emptiness, rather than that little light disappearing, it twinkles for a while, and then gets bigger again. Audrey gets a pretty good idea of what's coming, though it's as big as a Power Star so it takes a while for it to be visible. A second shooting star, aimed right at her, is tumbling down leaving hollow star-shapes in hanging gold in the sky! Parabolically dropping while leaving the physical ornamentation of empty stars in its wake, the star-shape tumbles and aaaalmost slows down enough to make itself not dangerous (lethal) and merely dangerous (comical) when it nearly drills the space witch in her chest. It's a star! But... Fat? Soft? Like getting air cannoned with a t-shirt or a warm pillow, the tassel-topped little starling bounces like a very hungry needy cat who is greeting a very late owner. There is, slowly, some amount of distress as the little starling realizes that perhaps this person is not the person it thought she was, and... The ball of first contact falls to Audrey!
Futaba Nuki	"A hero's item like this only works properly with that hero." "True, and it doesn't look like he passed it on to a younger Mario or anyone like that to keep it goin'." Futaba nods slowly at Sarracenia with a thoughtful noise, laughing a moment later. "Well, maybe you'll get to shoot your shot if something real dramatic happens once we find him." "Twincooooo--!!" Two Hikarus! That starts giving Futaba some more ideas about how this might work, and the sudden disappearance of one of them has the ninja staring into space shortly afterwards. "That... Yeah, that sure looked like it. All the way up to the new one disappearin' on contact..." She considers Mario and his hat again while rubbing her head. Something starts bothering her about that, but she looks over at where the older Toad had been during that fight, and she keeps that all bottled up for now. "Hope I'm wrong about that one..." "it may still be doing so currently" "Wait, hold up. Which way're we headed, then? You think we're even heading in the same direction as Mister Missing Mario?" Futaba asks while fighting off that uneasy feeling, eyes drifting over to see what Hikaru's getting up to with the Cobalt Star next. She jerks up straight when Hikaru promptly disappears, eyes darting around to see if she can see Hikaru coming from somewhere else, then... Well, Lala seems okay with that right now. A deep breath later, and Futaba calms herself down, too. "I found the most suitable one in the Star Chambers under the castle!" That gets a longer, more thoughtful stare from Futaba. "Uhuh... Well, she did say ANY star. Might as well go for broke." She concludes in a few short seconds, nodding quickly in apparent approval. Gadd's request to forget certain things even has her seemingly poking a finger right through the side of her head, picking out something small and grayish pink, and rubbing it off on her jacket's sleeve. "Forget what now?" She jokes, then gets right back to listening to his explanation about how things got to this point. "And now the Cobalt Star's in pieces, so just getting it to work the same's going to take some doing while we've got to sort out this invasion AND find Mario while we're at it. Unless..." Another pause, and Futaba glances over at the Power Star that shoots into the sky and disappears. "You think you can get it working right with just two pieces and some other power sources? Like... Uh. Some of those stars those Shroob guys used for their big stunt? Or just plain ol' fire? Because I can totally do fire." Futaba pats her little pouch for emphasis, but doesn't actually elaborate on how that equates to fire. "A combination of energy wave displacements and biological matter castoff might lead us right to them, in fact." Although Futaba's no scientist, she's watched enough TV at home to actually somewhat follow along with Dimo's ideas and Tamamo's info-gathering. "I'm still wondering if that time particle detection couldn't be used to trace his hat's timeline DNA-" She starts, then pauses to aside to Gadd and Audrey with 'Is that something that exists?' before getting right back to her thought. "-to wherever all that points us. More angles to track him, and I might even be able to sniff him out if we're real close." Before she can ask for the hat to get Mario's scent, though, she sees another star! But not a power star, since this one looks way different. The tanuki raises an eyebrow slowly, then a hand in a casual wave towards the distressed little thing. "Sup."
Audrey Basque	Cobalt Star explanations. Audrey watches (and listens) with a lot of interest as not only Gadd explains (some) of what he feels safe explaining about the object, but also as Hikaru plays with her shard of it. "I found the most suitable one in the Star Chambers under the castle!" "S-Star Chambers? You have rooms full of these?" What is this place? Roland fistbumping lessons!! "O-Oh, we do, but-- I mean, I never... I don't really--" Rich girl doesn't get a say. Roland teaches her how to fist bump. She'll remember for next time he tries! "You're such a good frend..." "Of course, Love. You're important to Petra and Angela, so you're important to me too. And we are technically neighbors, and coworkers, too." "This is the Silver - the physical manifestation, the all-shaper, that which I am 'of'. If a human is within their blood, than I am within the Silver." "Oh. My apologies. I'd only ever heard it called "morphmetal", but the way you phrase that is poetic." Audrey seems sincere, in interpreting this as maybe having slighted Dimo with a misnomer. There's, maybe strangely, not a reflex from Audrey to try avoiding the trail of Silver, and when it bumps her gently on the brow she reaches up to place a finger against it, clearly familiar. "Ah... it feels warmer, though. And a bit..." How do you even describe sizzly? "... tingly? Odd. But not unpleasant. Thank you for humoring my question," she half-bows politely. Calling to the stars. If at first Audrey seems confused by the silence, the sight of the little star shooting off into the sky gives her patience to wait and see. Until-- "Oh! Something is coming down!" It's... another one of those power stars? Recalling that the previous ones were perfectly harmless to touch and in fact just kind of absorbed into your body, she's confident enough to wait this one out... and realizes with a loud "oof!" that this was not the same kind of star at all, as it knocks her back onto her rear and clutching at her chest like she just took a dodgeball right to it in gym class. "O-Ow... unfair..." She shakes her head to see what came down! It's... it's a little star? Still on the ground, she glances at it, and eventually settles on: "U-Um... hi? Are you-- ah... can you speak? I was just trying to read the stars but... don't tell me all the stars in this sky are..." Actual little critters and magical artifacts? No way, that'd be crazy.
Combaticon	Vortex, having expected remaining crew to provide a defense, already has her vehicle mode's lasers ready to go. She swings about in a wide arc, moving sideways at a respectable clip while dealing with one group or the other. Near the ship, she transforms again-- Ejecting Depthcharge in the same seconds that she converts and shrinks down into robot form. In the same seconds, Depthcharge's body unfolds and reconfigures into a combat boat. The hull hits the water. Vortex lands inside. The roof closes behind her. And, as Shroob on speedy little boats close in, the aquatic Decepticon dives underwater. "'Specialized assets'," Depthcharge mutters through her console while Vortex sits down in the pressure-safe cabin, "I suppose it falls to me to make up for her inability to be properly prepared." "I think we can fit in there." "I see it." As Depthcharge's vehicle form banks gracefully up into a gaping hole in the hull, she releases several floating mines for the Shroob on the surface to deal with; just out of spite. At a certain point, being a mini-submarine is still too big though and she has to return to robot mode. Not that working underwater is much of a problem for either Combaticon. It falls to Vortex to pick off any submerged Shroob that present a problem and to Depthcharge to break through any doors or barriers with her plasma cutter while Vortex covers. At the end of it, the pair break into the computer core in a flare of sparks and laserfire. Once the area is secured, Depthcharge approaches the central computer. Her left forearm splits open, her hand sliding in and a universal jack replacing it. "Reveal your secrets to me," When she thrusts the connector into place, the Decepticon's infiltration of the shipboard network is conveniently represented by any colorful glowing greeble nearby colorshifting its light effects to a rich Decepticon-like purple. Standing nearby, Vortex lowers her blaster, gaze lifted and following the color transition overhead. -- On the surface, Onslaught watches the initial sortie. He only turns his attention away from the harbor when the pair dive underwater. > "Those might be state secrets. . . Please forget those." "I will not," the Combaticon commander states simply, "Any detail may be useful in finding a functional resolution." Hikaru disappears after doing something Reckless(TM). It immediately puts Onslaught on edge, his practiced military bearing broken into a started pose that easily implies he doesn't know what to do. It only relaxes when Hikaru reappears. Letting out a sigh-like buzz, Onslaught closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with two metal fingers. These Human protomorphs are charming, but they might be the death of him. "Are you all right?" he finally asks the pink Precure, lowering his hand from his face, "It appears you've jumped forward in time a few seconds."
Tamamo	Tamamo both listens to the explanation of the warpulator, softly asking, "Star Chambers? Are other...?" and looks at the younger-Gadd picture. "However... how is it that your younger self had use of a... time warping device," she's having a little trouble with the yabu'd proper noun, "if you had only just gained it, yourself? Did you travel into the past, yourself?" 'Your news is grave but useful.' "It is most grave, for those of this kingdom who so rely upon their hero." Tamamo's been having some thoughts about that, but she still hasn't met Mario, so she's hesitant to comment aloud on the locals having categorized Magical Girls as Mariolikes. "Under more usual circumstances, I would have some picture of his current state. Unfortunately, for some unclear reason, he 'cannot be seen.'" The unusualness of it is just sort of needing important capital letters. Meanwhile, the prospect of space travel creates other concerns. While the matters of computer and prisoner interrogation are being handled elsewhere, Tamamo looks over her motorbike. "Should I simply store this nearby, perhaps? I would hate to have lost it by chance before the celebrations." Or, maybe, they will all travel on a spaceship with bike parking and a plausible reason to need land vehicles. "If--" That thought is cut-off by an astral descent. "M-Miss Basque?! Are you quite alright?" Judging precise impact measurements would depend on knowing the mass of a star, which is something she does, in fact, have a fairly good idea about, but not in ways relevant to this locale. In moments, inevitably, Tamamo's attention is shifted to the starling, itself. She approaches with an unassuming caution, like one would toward a creature only partially, or questionably, socialized. "And you, little one, are you well? Did you mean to come down just now?" As she did when signaling her intent of familiarity with Yuma, Tamamo lets out some of her own, white-gold flame, emitting a warm day-presence as her hair and fur shifts and shimmers with the light-bands of sunlight.
Star Twinkle	"Those might be state secrets. . ." "Alright! I'll ask the Princess later!" Hikaru's cheerful disregard of the sanctity of state secrets may increment the number of governments currently in pursuit of her from three to four. Hopefully being a hero will help offset that! Hikaru is sooo happy to look at this tottering old scientist's pictures of his younger self. She's had plenty of practice in agreeably 'ooh'ing and 'ahh'ing at old photo albums when shown them in the observatory, and even pulls out an exaggeratedly shocked 'that's you? no way!' even though Gadd still looks pretty much like the same shriveled little gnome in the picture. She's not even insincere about it, she's just extra polite around Gadd. Though that doesn't stop her from being exuberantly triumphant when returning from her own brief time travel adventure, shaking around the piece of the Cobalt Star like a stolen flag. "I diiiiid it! I did time travel! Nebulamazing!!! I got to see myself and it looked so weird to be seeing me not in a mirror but I remember feeling confused and the hi-five was exactly the same like a closed time loop like I traveled through a wormhole at faster than light but without needing to move at all! It was like-- Lala, Lala, did you see? Did you see??" Lala is passively infected with Hikaru's excitement, smiling wide at her even though she isn't quite caught up. "L-lun! I saw two of you for a second, but... that was really you, traveling through time? Can you teach me how--" Before Lala finishes her sentence, the time travel SFX appears next to Hikaru and spits out Lala-from-the-future, who wraps Hikaru in an abrupt and firm hug, shooting a smug look at present-Lala before vanishing. Hikaru wobbles from the impact, baffled and flustered, but Lala gasps affrontedly and pouts, cheeks puffed. She grabs Hikaru's wrist and reiterates, "Teach me how, lun!" before drawing out the magic of the Cobalt Star with her pen and disappearing, muttering something about how she'll 'show that other Lala'. "This is the Silver - the physical manifestation, the all-shaper, that which I am 'of'." During the short period where Lala is gone, Hikaru confidently launches herself into other people's conversations. "She also has a whole world made out of that, with metal plants and grass and rivers and everything! And it can make you ten meters tall! And her hair's made of the same goop! It's super galacticool!" "And I think combined with AI's navigational assistance we should be able to track a course across the stars." Lala pops back into existence in the current time, and without any delay, AI responds to Dimo from her glove, since 'AI' herself never actually went back in time. "Of course, Miss Dimo. Do you believe that Lala's spacecraft will be useful for pursuit? I may be able to navigate it through the warpgate to this planet's surface." "U-Um... hi? Are you-- ah... can you speak?" At the appearance of another blobby little star-child, Yuma swoops out of her orbit around Hikaru to hover in front of Audrey and the Luma, facial glow-mask popping off into several smaller circles around a larger one, resembling an animal's paw. The green fluid-light swirls together again after a second, forming two !! exclamation notes instead. Synthesized notes warble out of her, in conversation with the plump power star, who might actually be able to sing back. "¯¯¯-_¯! ¯__-- -. ¯¯¯--¯___-__¯-_¯¯¯_." <Handshake/Hug>! <Hero/Red Pretty Cure> <Adventure/Assistance/Advice?> <Handshake.>
Angela	''Perhaps updates might be in order?'' "Oh! But... I already learned my magical lesson for the day. Is... Is it allowed to just get updates? I didn't know you could just do that before you learned the lesson, I thought it was always sort of part of learning the lesson." Love thinks this over. She already learned her lesson--that it's okay to be proud of what you CAN do and support your friends through your own talents! But... "Sometimes when I wink, I can send little cartoon hearts flying out but I learned recently that with flipping magic, you can make the hearts flip upside down too. Is there an update for flipping? I guess I shouldn't be asking this since I am pretty proud of my ability to shoot hearts out of my body but it's also true that you shouldn't ever be afraid to improve... But I don't need to get better since I'm not in competition anymore and Hikaru said it's okay if I only blast badguys. I wouldn't want Hikaru to feel bad by adding flipping... Maybe after a big dramatic fight which I lose so I need to get strength so that I can protect my friends? I think that's how it has to go." Love nods to Dimo. "But thank you, that was very sweet of you. If I ever lose a big dramatic fight I'll look you up okay? Gosh, you're sweet." Roland, meanwhile, having taught Audrey the power of fistbump/handshake elaboration, observes the process of two stars becoming friends. "Aww..." Roland says, feeling the sorrow of his heart fade just a little teeny tiny bit. "Well ain't that sweet."