To go with your crew...

[highseasmods]

Who: Everyone who is fighting in the battle to kill the witch.
Where: The Black Fortress in the East
When: Jan 24th-25th
What: The grand battle to get back what you have lost, get revenge for what was taken, and avert disaster.
Warnings: Language. Death. Victory. Defeat. True love. Miracles.
Style: Text or prose
Status: Open to all



The black fortress ripples with shimmering iridescent energy, the piles of black coral heaped on roped together barges around it, bobbing in the waves. On the largest barge stands a slender man with a copper belt, wearing a face mask, orange red hair flecked with black from ash or dust. As the dawn slowly folds over the ocean, he'll look up, as if hearing some hidden voice.

At the top of the fortress, a figure climbs into vision, a woman, dressed in gray, features obscured by a hood with impenetrable darkness behind it. She staggers a moment as if she is weary, then straightens to her full height. As she speaks, her voice comes out of the journals, echoing over the water, low but clear.

"This is no small task ye do. She that rots within'll do anythin' ta stop ye. Don't hesitate to kill what ye find. If they were human once, they hain't no more. Watch out for her golems, too, or they'll drain ye dry quicker'n a wink. But if ye can get rid of 'em, it'll weaken her." She hesitates, cants her head to the side. "And if ye lot aren't as much of a bunch'a idiots as usual, ye might come out alive through this."

That said, she raises her hands. After a moment so does the man on the barge. For a moment, nothing seems to happen and then iridescent light shimmers over the coral, seeming to match that which surrounds the fortress. It crackles and dances like a fire, and then without warning bursts into a furious life, slamming against the energy of the fortress. There is the sound like thunder and light snaps and crackles, zipping with energy. Then with a woosh the light flies upward, taking the figure with it. The man on the barge lets out a cry like a seagull and dives into the water as if intending to swim after her.

For the boats that remain, a part of the fortress will crumble away into the sea, revealing a small harbor and an open doorway. Enter all ye who dare.


[If things become too crowded, feel free to make another thread outside of these. Just put where you are in the header.]

Comments

[abundantlove]

Though Mana and Alice had been trapped with the others for several days since escaping their cells, hiding and fighting for their lives, they weren't in such poor shape that they didn't hear or become invigorated by the sounds of combat erupting through the castle.

That meant they were being attacked... and that meant there was a chance at rescue. For Mana at least, what she had to do was completely clear.

"PRECURE, LOVE LINK!"

In a flash of light, Mana assumed her Precure form, for once not bothering with her catch phrase or usual announcement. She just leapt into battle, sending undead flying with a volley of punches.

She had to get everyone to safety. If the castle was being attacked... then that meant they could get back to Rikka and the others...

"Come on...! This is our chance!"

[rosettawall]

Alice ... did not really respond. Not vocally, anyhow.

She wasn't entirely sure on how much time had passed, really, but it felt like an eternity. That she would later discover she'd been gone only a week would actually make it seem shorter than it had felt.

That Mana had been there with her, that Gaius had been there to help them, that they'd had to focus on worrying about Hubert... Those were the only things she truly thought were keeping her sane. Mana, especially. Because otherwise all they had to do was sit around, sneak off to try and get food from the kitchen, and avoid the undead. They couldn't find their way out, and even if they could... She knew they wouldn't be able to leave.

Hearing that, though. Hearing the sounds of battle...

In a yellow flash, Cure Rosetta raced ahead of Heart, slamming a palm into the nearest zombie, sending it crashing against the wall. Then another followed it, and another after that. All the days of anxiety and worry, of her heart feeling like it wanted to just rip into pieces from knowing what she did to Rikka... The knowledge of just what that voice manipulated in her mind to lull Alice into her thrall... It just simply exploded.

What that creature had made her do, how she had done it... Taking both her very motivation to be a Precure, combined with a worry she couldn't even stand to express because of what it had now made her do... As she began to fight, it was far more than she could take.

She wanted that witch dead. She wanted to destroy her with every fiber of her being. She did not care even the slightest bit how terrible this was for a Precure to think.

Even as she smashed a foot back to brace herself as she prepared to throw a punch, cracking and smashing stone beneath her boot, she felt that same feeling tugging at her powers as she did when fighting Rikka. That rejection of her not properly embracing her power correctly. Letting her selfish rage, her anger, and her sorrow drive her.

She wouldn't be able to fight long like this. She knew it.

She didn't care, so long as she could erase that thing from existence.

The punch sent that one undead soaring, toppling over several of his brethren. She swung around as another came at her with a sword. Her hand just snapped out, grabbing the zombie by the neck and slamming it against the wall. Its weapon toppled to the ground, and she glared at its lifeless eyes.

Her hand tightened around its neck.

It wasn't alive anymore, right?

All she had to do was squeeze to stop it. These others that they were just knocking down... they would get back up.

She grit her teeth and didn't even notice her body shaking, tears blurring her vision. She remembered being asked in this place if she'd ever killed someone before.

If she could ever hope to end this and protect them, it was suddenly striking her she needed to learn how.

[abundantlove]

Mana was fighting just as intensely, but her mind was arguably clearer than Alice. Intense, focused, driving on ahead. There was nothing else but her and Alice right now... nothing but them, and a wall of undead separating them from freedom. From their friends. Their loved ones.

She thought of Rikka. She thought of how scared and frightened she must have been. How broken she must have felt, having the two people she cared about most fight her. She wanted to know Rikka was alright. That she was still healing from the injuries that she'd suffered.

She wanted to make things right again.

She wanted Alice to see that the Shepherds were still their friends. Their crew. Their comrades. She wanted her and Rikka to hug, and for Rikka to forgive her, and for Alice to know she wasn't the monster that the witch had turned her into. She wanted to bring back the happiness they'd found only a short time before.

Every one of those thoughts, those emotions, informed Mana's every move, every strike. Unlike before, when she'd been under the witch's spell, she felt alive, free, powerful. Like what a Precure should.

"Alice!" Mana cried as she tore through a group of zombies. "We're doing it! We're-"

Mana froze. She spun on her heel, and she saw Alice standing there, tears in her eyes, holding the zombie's head.

"ALICE!"

[rosettawall]

The zombie tried to struggle, one hand clamping down on the arm Rosetta was holding it up by. Her strength held, for now, and she didn't budge. She felt a twinge in her heart at hearing her name shouted like that, but she didn't look at her. For that moment, she couldn't.

"A- Alice..."

Lance only made things worse, in that regard.

"They will get up again, won't they?" she murmured. "No matter how many times we knock them down. All of these monsters, they will only hurt you and her again and again..."

Clearly, she wasn't just talking about the undead she had pinned against the wall, or the zombies in general.

"What else am I supposed to do, Mana-chan?" she asked, any semblance of using their Cure names then and there falling away. "All of these creatures, that witch... What else am I supposed to do?!"

[abundantlove]

"Alice!" Mana cried as she ran towards her friend, ignoring the fact that she'd been gaining ground against the creatures.

Once she was a few feet away, Mana grit her teeth, clenching her hands into fists. "I don't care how you take them out, Alice! These... these aren't people! They're not even Selfish... they don't have dark hearts to corrupt! You don't have anything to fear from that...!"

She bit her lower lip.

"But... Alice... why are you hestitating? ... It's not... it's not about how to take them out, is it?"

As she said this, a zombie came charging at Mana from behind... only for her to offhandedly throw her fist back and quite literally knock its block off.

[rosettawall]

Her head jerked in Cure Heart's direction as she neared, and this happened. She stared for a long moment, before literally just... throwing the zombie she had at bay down the hall. Hard. It hit the ground and tumbled end over end like a rag doll. She looked down at her hands, and finally noticed she was shaking.

She was hesitating. They weren't alive. They were monsters. But...

Why was she doing it?

Even just standing there, she could tell by sight how different Heart's approach was. It was casual, almost instinctive. She'd been moving like a freight train through their forces, but there was a part of her that... seemed like her again. Even though throughout all of this, Mana still managed to seem like herself.

Their work so far had given them some minimal breathing room, but she knew it wouldn't last long. She gulped, hard, and clasped her hands together as she shook her head.

"N- no, Mana-chan..."

She gazed forward at what they still had to fight, eyes darkening a bit.

"This is hardly the time for it, but I have not been honest... In spite of everything, what that witch manipulated for you was still... you. Your wishes to help everyone, to keep them safe, even if it was corrupted, twisted, and turned into something obscene and awful... For me, however..."

She shook her head, trying to blink her tears away. She had to focus. They would be on them again soon.

"...she found my selfishness, my fear, she... Every way I acted was driven by my own selfish desire and insecurity that I- I should never have had, and yet was there... It is not just about making me hurt someone I love so much... It used that love as the very tool with which to control me, and any worry I ever had over it..."

She let her arms fall to her sides, and began to slowly march forward, hands clenching into tight fists.

"You and Rikka-chan accepted my feelings, and yet I still had worry. If I had made the correct decision in telling you. If I could truly be worthy of that from both of you. If I was not just... letting my own selfishness drive me, just to make me happy... I knew better, though. You would not have accepted me otherwise. Rikka-chan would not have tried to comfort me when all this began, otherwise. Yet this witch... She took that, she used that, and she made me into a monster that hurt Rikka-chan...!"

She placed a hand over the heart crystal on her chest, tears now rolling down her cheeks.

"Turning my own self doubt against itself, twisting my love into something so vulgar, because of my own wishes...! I cannot forgive that! And- and because of what I know I have to do, what I want to do to this monster who started all of this, I know I do not deserve to be a Precure... I don't deserve--"

Her. Or Rikka. Those were her thoughts, but she bit them back. She then added, quietly: "...I want to kill this witch, Mana-chan."

[abundantlove]

Mana stumbled back as if she'd been physically struck. Then... then she lunged forward, a grimace on her face, and...

... turned towards another zombie creeping up on her, punching it away from her. Several times. The final strike was so hard, she sent the creature flying through the nearest wall.

Then, she wheeled around, and pulled Alice into the tightest hug she could.

"This isn't you, Alice!" she cried, as she held her girlfriend. "This isn't... this isn't you! The Alice I know hated the side of her that would do something like that! You don't have to want to save her, or let her go free, you can even destroy her for the greater good...!

"But my beloved Alice became a Precure for the sake of love and protection! That Alice... the Alice you are... you would hate yourself forever if you did that!"

She pulled away, showing Alice that there were tears in her eyes now. She didn't care that even now, zombies were gathering around them.

"I won't let you do it! I know she has to be stopped! I know she has to be brought down! But a Precure... a Precure does not fight with hatred! A Precure is a warrior of love! If you kill her for those reasons..."

She turned from Alice, and faced the advancing hoard as she wiped her eyes.

"... she'll have completely beaten you... and the Yotsuba Alice I love... the one who stood in front of me and protected me... who laughed with me as we drank tea... she wouldn't lose to anyone!"

[rosettawall]

Rosetta's eyes widened, and if anything the flowing tears increased. Of course, Mana would say that. She should have expected it. Really, in fact, she had expected it and she knew it. It was the reassurance she wanted to hear but would not ask for, because she felt - at that point - asking for such a thing would only be thinking of just herself even more.

She stood there for several moments, stunned as her words sunk in. She knew better, she knew it, she had said it herself at a different time, with a different perspective.

Rosetta stayed like this so long, though, that the zombies had neared them again, en masse. Still, she was frozen, almost afraid to move, or say anything, or... just do anything.

Until she saw one raise a rusty blade, while others still began to lumber forward. In fact, they moved far faster than she would have given them credit for.

Without thinking, she snapped out of it and moved, flinging herself in front of Cure Heart. She threw up one palm, attempting to generate a Rosetta Wall, but it barely came. It shattered - as did the sword. But another arm, from another zombie, suddenly surged out.

The blow to her midsection was something she felt far more than she knew she should. And, be it by her wavering heart or the draining power of this prison, her Cure form suddenly broke. Lance flew back, bouncing along the floor until he stopped near Heart, while Alice herself was carried into the air by inhuman strength.

She landed several feet away from both of them, onto her left arm, an intense pain jolting from it as she hit the hard, stone floor without any sort of protection. She was laid out there, dazed and stunned for several more moments. Her head spun.

No, Mana was right. She couldn't lose. She couldn't afford to lose. But as she reeled from the sudden pain, and the equally abrupt loss of power for the moment, she could not do anything but try not to let that overcome here then and there...

[abundantlove]

Mana was able to turn around just in time to see Alice get thrown back by the attack, causing her to cry out...

... and immediately switch to protective mode, as she lashed out and struck the zombies that attacked Rosetta. However, they were too close now, and she was overwhelmed, being hit by a series of punches and swipes of sharp, rotted fingernails that tore at her.

[diamondlight]

"-nkle Diamond!"

A dark jet of sparkling ice runs through the crowd, missing the girls by what seems like sheer luck. The collective undead horde falls to the ground in a clean opening, revealing a girl dressed in blue, finger outstretched, breathing hard and looking frustrated. "Out of my way... dammit, I said move...!" A sharp spin drives her heel into a head behind her, and she stumbles when she comes back around, taking a moment just to catch her breath.

When she looks up, though... she notices. She sees yellow, and pink, and someone important to her on the ground, and her heart stops cold. For a long moment, she's not sure what to think. Maybe she isn't thinking. Were they still possessed? Were they going to switch targets and try to kill her again? What... did she do?

But... no. That's not who she is. That's not why she's here. Captain Marvelous and Colonel Curtiss wouldn't have convinced her to come here if she was just going to have to fight again. She'd bet everything on that, and her power flares in renewed hate and frustration. So she flies down the hallway like a demented pinball, bouncing from head to head with vicious strikes, throwing a hand out and freezing another group, screaming at the top of her lungs as she moves. "ALICE! MANA!"

[rosettawall]

Alice continued trying to push herself up, but found doing so with her left arm not advisable. It hurt. A lot. The force with which she had landed... Something could have been broken, and she could not legitimately remember the last time she had felt anything that hurt this much, physically. But she heard Heart fighting, shouting...

Just as she pushed herself up using her right arm, she saw the pink Cure about to be overwhelmed...

And then came the ice. Before she even heard anything, Alice knew what that must be. Her head jerked around as she called their names, and tears started to fall anew.

"Rikka-chan..."

She was alive. She had come for them. She had tried to convince herself the entire past week this was how it would be, but seeing her... On the one hand, fear and remembrance of all the terrible things Alice had done immediately flooded her mind. Fear of facing Rikka again was now suddenly e very real thing. Yet, she was coming for them. Fighting for them. In spite of everything, or to be more precise, probably because of everything. So on the other hand, in that moment, Cure Diamond was one of the most wonderful and beautiful sights she had ever seen in her life.

"RIKKA-CHAN!"

[abundantlove]

"Rikka..." Mana breathed, eyes wide as the other Precure came to her rescue. Even as she tore into the zombies, her face lit up, and widened into a huge smile.

"RIKKA!"

She was safe (well relatively), she wasn't dying, she wasn't looking at them from behind the bars of the brig, she was there as Cure Diamond, she was right there in front of them!

... And she was here to save them.

Mana couldn't help but smile as she ran to Alice to try and help her up. "Look! Alice, look! It's Rikka!"

[diamondlight]

Letting out a battle cry, Rikka finally brings herself close enough to really make out her friends; Alice seems to be favoring one arm, and while Mana's still in form, Heart looks like she'd been through the wringer a little bit. So... not a moment too soon. With a jump to bring herself closer, Diamond swings out with another vicious kick, knocking one of the undead menaces far back into the wall, and landing gently in front of another, right next to Heart. As she touches down, she thrusts a hand forward into its chest, and her hand glows with a light the color of the ocean's depths - much darker than her magic normally manifested. That's made even more obvious when the zombie in question is sealed inside a black, crystalline prison. What in the world happened here?

Well, not really important now. "Mana, Alice... I..." Taking a step toward them, she stumbles again, but she catches herself and keeps going, a huge smile on her face. "It's okay... I'm here. I'm sorry I took so long. But it's going to be all right now. I'll make sure nothing else hurts you ever again...!" She can feel her heart swelling with emotion; joy at seeing them again mostly unharmed, relief that they're not possessed still, a growing love she hadn't been able to feel for over a week... and a small, selfish desire to keep them to herself so this didn't happen a second time. Once was more than enough.

[rosettawall]

As Alice is helped to her feet by Heart, she attempts to move her left. She immediately regrets it, and gives a minor cry of pain that she bites back as much as she can. Yes, there was most definitely something broken, there.

She bites her lip, and gazes at Cure Diamond as she speaks. Tears well again in her eyes, and she's unable to control it in the slightest as they start flowing down her cheeks like a dam bursting open. The pain in her arm was nothing compared to what her heart was feeling, a mixture of happiness and that bitter, awful self-loathing of knowing what she had done to this person.

All of the creatures teeming around them just waiting to tear them apart don't matter, not in that moment. What she wants to do is step forward and hug her, say how sorry she is, beg for a forgiveness she knows in her heart she doesn't even have to ask for. Instead she feels as frozen as the undead Diamond had left in her path, one foot trembling as if trying to will itself forward, but it goes nowhere. Any attempt at saying anything right then is caught in her throat, coming out instead as a choking sob.

She feels a small, furry presence at that trembling foot, as Lance gazes up at them. "Raquel! Cure Diamond!" he exclaims happily, and then tilts his head in a quizzical manner, bringing a paw up to his face. "What happened to your ice...?"

Only at that Alice notices, through her blurry vision, what that means. The black ice.

Suddenly, that self-loathing rears its head with a vengeance. She remembers her own wavering power, both then and now. She thinks of how Rikka must have been feeling since she was attacked all that time ago... was it days? Weeks, now?

Either way, she once again finds herself in a situation where she thinks she might understand what Rikka is feeling. Knowing their actions are the cause of it only makes those feelings all the more harsher.

[abundantlove]

The darkness of Rikka's ice doesn't go unnoticed, even before Lance comments upon it. Neither does the expression on Alice's face, which Mana immediately reconciles with what Alice admitted to her earlier.

Both of them... both of them... how much had they been suffering?

... This was the absolute worst time for a reunion like this. But Mana knows something like this is needed, so she gently guides Alice to Rikka and...

... she pulls them both into a hug, holding them together as tight as she absolutely can.

[diamondlight]

"What do you think happened, Lance?" It comes out a lot sharper than she ever speaks to them, sharper than even she'd expected. "I had to fight the most important people in the world to me. I had to defend myself as they tried to kill me. And then the gods decided I wasn't worthy of having friends like them, so they were taken from me. I didn't even know if they were still alive! I thought... I thought I'd never see them again...!"

She's been running on anger and pushing everything else aside for the last week. So it's not surprising that she's finally starting to cry now that she's found them and her rage is crumbling.

"I- I was so depressed, I didn't think I was going to be able to do anything. A few people gave me hope that everyone was still alive, but... I just felt so dead, I didn't know what to do... I've been forcing myself through the last week, convincing myself that if I came here, I could kill that witch, and I'd tear her apart with my bare hands until I could get my precious people back... I was prepared to do that. I still am, because she stole something I can't be without."

A dark light blazes faintly around her for a brief moment, her power reacting to the promise of violence, before she wills it away as Mana and Alice approach - she's absolutely certain she'll scare them like this.

"And now... now I don't know what to do. I have my precious people back, but... I still feel like I have to hurt something, to keep myself going, to get revenge. I'm so angry, but I want to cry... I just want to go home. I don't know what to do."

Nothing else useful comes out; she just starts sobbing, and she wraps her arms around the two girls she couldn't bear to be without, like a lifeline she didn't think anyone would throw her.

[rosettawall]

Lance recoils as Diamond snaps, while Alice just takes everything in everything she says. It feels in some manner like needles being shoved into her heart. That she'd been going through that wasn't surprising. It was expected, but to hear it from her... That's a different matter. For someone she knew to always be so calm and collected to instead be like this, knowing it was from her own actions...

And to so fully understand what she wanted to do, to hurt that witch, and everything that had caused this... To see that admitted, she also then understands what Mana has JUST seen in her. It's frightening. Not that she's scared of the blue Cure, but she sees what it's done to her. It's frightening because it's the very same thing Alice wants. It's the very reason she was standing there with a broken arm.

She hesitates, but weakly, as Heart brings her over. She's at first tense as both of them hug her, fear of reaching out, of being allowed to touch this person she'd hurt, that she would be willing to go the same.

Then she realizes how much of a fool she truly was to have had those fears that this witch was able to use to control her.

She reaches out, tentatively and shaking, but still wraps her good arm around Diamond.

"I- I understand, Rikka-chan... I could see everything, I can remember everything... Every time I close my eyes, all I see is you laid out on that beach, bleeding... I didn't know if you were even alive after that fight...! If you had died because of my actions! And all I could do was sit here for days, knowing I had helped in that... Helped to hurt someone I love..."

She shakes her head, trembling quite a bit as her tears continue to fall. She knows those creatures can't be far from her... But Mana's words from before Rikka's arrival still echoes in her mind.

"And she used that love to make me DO that... I- I cannot blame you, it is the very same thing I have been thinking... But all- the only thing I want now is you and Mana-chan! I want her not to hurt us again, I want us to be safe... I cannot stop myself from wanting to hurt her, but... but I also cannot bear for us to lose one another after all of this, in any way..."

[abundantlove]

Mana held them tight, shaking as she listened to them both. Tears streamed down her face as each one said their words, and by the time Alice finished...

"I don't want us to lose each other ever again either!" she said, clinging to them. "I... I... I'm sorry, Rikka! Alice! I can't... I can't bring myself to feel the way you do about her, about the witch... I want her to be stopped, I want to make it so she can't hurt anyone else, but..."

She clenched her eyes shut, unable to look at both of them.

"I can't bear to see you two fight like this! The two people I care about the most, driven to hatred, to anger... I said a Precure doesn't fight with hatred, but it's more than that! You were chosen because of the love in your hearts, not just to become Precure, but... I chose you! I... I don't ever want you to lose something like that, to do something you can't take back..."

She grit her teeth. "I'm prepared to do what must be done, but... I am so selfish to think it has to be done this way, after everything she forced us to do... Alice, Rikka... I'm sorry...!"

[diamondlight]

That arm around her is definitely comforting - she'd been afraid, on some level, they wouldn't want her around anymore, so this was a lot better than she'd expected. Still...

"I haven't exactly been in a good place either, so... I can't really blame you, Alice. I'm sorry I couldn't get to you sooner. I wish this hadn't had to happen. But we're together again now, right? It won't- it's going to be okay now."

Mana, however, is being her usual self. Which is both really good and a little bad. "Mana... do you see me right now? I only found the courage to come in here because I'm fighting with hatred. If I'd tried to fight with my love, I'd have been killed already. I couldn't feel anything through the pain, and the loss, and the rage. Everything still feels... dull. So I understand that you don't want us to keep going like this. But this is what you've got right now. If we keep going, I know I won't be able to control myself, because this will not happen again, and I'm willing to destroy anything in my way to ensure that. I think Alice feels the same way."

That said, she gently reaches up to Mana's face, and tries to soften her expression a little. "But it's not because we're violent people, or because we can't love anymore. It's because I love you that I have to do this. I can't let anything threaten you - threaten us - ever again, and if I have to do something I won't like later to keep you safe, I'll do it. So don't apologize, okay? I... well, I don't know what I'm doing, but I don't think there's any other way, unless we just left and let someone else take care of it."

Rikka? You're saying some really scary things with a smile on your face.

[rosettawall]

Alice's arm tightens around Diamond as she spoke. She does feel the same way. All of that anger and want to lash out that she had kept under wraps since she was a child, that she had learned to control... She wants nothing more than to unleash that again. Even in spite of Mana's words before, she wants to hurt that which has hurt them, if that's what it takes to shield both of them...

Yet, Mana's words still ring in her head, from now and before. She finds herself in the unenviable position of understanding both of them, of feeling like both of them are right. One driven by her instinct and heart, the other by her mind, and that which she knows should be rational. But then, this situation isn't very rational in general, is it?

"I know how you feel, Rikka-chan... I do... I... want to do everything I can to protect you both... even before this, I would have..."

A discussion aboard the Shepherd crosses her mind, before they confronted the Navy. Her resolve then was that if it was people who would hurt them, she wouldn't consider their lives over Mana and Rikka's. If anything, she had held that belief long before this past month.

"Um..." There is a slight tug at her shoe, but she barely notices it for the moment.

"To fight without that hate and anger right now would be so difficult, but- but Rikka-chan... our power rejected us on that beach..." She moves her left arm slightly, enough that she winces, but only a little bit. It's enough to show there's something wrong with it. "It- it's rejected me here, now... If that is all we can fight with, I do not know we can protect one another..."

She isn't saying that Rikka shouldn't feel like that. She can't say that. But if she can't rely on that power...

"Cure Ace took Mana-chan's Lovies when her heart was at its lowest... I think I understand that even more, now... but what I do not understand..." She looks at Cure Heart, and gulps again. "These feelings cannot simply be erased, Mana-chan... so I do not know how we can truly be Precure and have the power to even do that anymore..."

Then, there's a loud, screeching, panicked sound at their feet.

"Alice! Diamond! CURE HEART!"

A slight blink of her blurred eyes, and a look up.

Oh.

Right.

Zombies.

[abundantlove]

"... I'm not saying you shouldn't do what you need to do," Mana said, closing her eyes. "I can't... I have no right to tell you both how you should think..."

She pulled away, and focused her gaze on the zombies that are practically on top of them. Mana clenches her hands into fists, and... rushes forward, tackling through several of the zombies and punching them away from the three of them.

"RIKKA!" Mana cries, trying to focus fully on the mission. "We have to get Alice out of here! Freeze them and we can work on escaping back to the ship!"

She grit her teeth, forcing herself to keep from crying out as a zombie raked her with its claws. "I'm not... saying that to keep you from fighting the witch... I'm saying that because Alice is in no condition to fight...!"

[diamondlight]

Even before Mana starts to shout instructions, Rikka is moving. Cure Diamond breaks away from the group hug, turning, hands coming around and together in front of her, and she starts to call as much of her power to her as she can manage. The dark glow shows up again, starting to bleach itself back to its normal cool blue, but not fast enough. Her hands start to glow as she shouts a battle cry, finally letting her power coalesce into a massive icicle half the size of the hallway, pushing it forward with her power and sending it careening just to one side of Cure Heart and bouncing on the walls for maximum carnage. "Damn all of you... you won't take my girlfriends from me!"

As she pushes, though, she feels a tug when the icicle leaves her hands, almost as if something's being pulled away with it. On cue, there's a crackle and a dull blue flash as she's forced out of her transformation, leaving a tired Rikka standing there with Alice, just Cure Heart remaining to fight their way out.

"That's... not good. Sorry, Mana. I guess it's up to you-" And then her heart falls as something gets its claws into Heart, and she sees red. "Get your hands off of her-!" Even untransformed, she storms over and decks the beast, breathing hard, but having managed to knock it down for a moment.

[rosettawall]

"Mana-chan! Rikka-chan!" she shouts, emphasizing the latter as her powers then choose to give out, as well. The thought 'I can still fight' starts to find its way to her lips, but that's before she starts to move.

A little too fast.

She tries to bite back the shout, but fails, clutching her arm and just sort of finding herself frozen in place for a moment. Long enough to realize that no, she couldn't. Frustration at her own weakness starts to well up, then, on top of everything else.

She gazes at them with concern, but then quietly bows her head. She doesn't want to ask them to save her, not after everything she's done, but... She knows they won't just leave her there. And that she can't help, not now. She can't do anything to that witch in this condition, either...

The thought raises a new swell of anger in her, but she tries her best to push it back down. The excruciating pain helps, there.

She looks up, a simply terrified Lance trembling behind her as he observes Rikka's punch.

"N- no, I... I cannot help in this condition..."

[abundantlove]

Mana gaped as she saw what Rikka did. On one hand, it was incredibly impressive, but... the reaction she saw...

... but that's not important now. She has to carry on. She has to get them out of here. She has to get them to the Shepherd, ensure Gaius and Hubert are safe... and then... and then...

... Mana clenches her teeth, and lunges forward. Her body swells with pink light, and she's moving faster than she was before, her punches cracking earth and creating shockwaves that send zombies flying. For a while, it seems to work... Mana's powered up form begins to clear a path...

... but more and more zombies pour in. Their numbers seem meaningless.

But Mana has to do it. She has to protect them. She has to protect the people she loves.

There's nothing she can do but try. It doesn't work on living beings that aren't Selfish, but...

"Receive my feelings!" Mana cries, pouring energy into the brooch on her chest. "MY SWEET HEART!"

An enormous pink wave, shaped like a heart, pours from her chest, blasting forward. The zombies are consumed in a pink, warm light...

... that fades, revealing them completely unharmed.

Mana crumples to her knees. Her attacks aren't like Alice and Rikka's.

Her power... her love... it can't help them...

She was going to fail.

[diamondlight]

She's tired. But really... there are other things to worry about. Like the most important person in her world losing. That's something she can't allow. So Rikka forces herself to keep moving, over to Cure Heart, and reaches out to grab her hand, tugging as hard as her weary bones will manage. "Aida Mana... you're not allowed to give up here...!" She's straining, but if they lose here... no, better not to think about that. They won't lose. They can't lose...!

"We have... to keep going! There are people that are waiting for us...! And I... I need you! Don't... stop now...!"

...It's not enough. She might have enough strength to pull Mana up, but they can't escape as they are, even with the huge hole she herself had opened. Something was going to have to give...