Scene #9193: Star¤Twinkle PreCure ~ Third Lap Throwdown! Rattled By The Late Arrival!

Owner	Pose
Merelisa Shaynore	With Love Prime transformed into a camper van, the race is officially back on. Spinout's goons are entangled in a cloud of infighting a ways behind on the track, so there's no obstacles in the way of catching up to Spinout himself. The sleek muscle car is far and away in first at this point, to the delight of the audience, but it doesn't take long for the pink camper van with a massive trail of flame spewing out behind it to start riding right up against his bumper. In this second half of the racetrack, the glowing plasma road weaves around the inner city of Cybertron, veering between blue steel skyscrapers and into dangerous factory assembly lines, and besides the floating bleachers, spectators are crammed against the windows or pulled to a stop in vehicle form on an overlooking road. Spinout kicks up a haze of smog with each rev of his engine, but with AI's continual stream of information updating their surroundings and Lala's directing, seated in her command-donut, the camper van manages through the limited visibility. Hikaru waits underneath the sunroof with Lilian, shades down and cracking her knuckles as if they're equivalent in threat to Winter Crow, keeping her balance along the rowdy track by bracing against the blue and pink Rice Cooker and Donut Maker Twincool Combo Machine built-in to the adorable camper kitchen like a coffee machine. "At our current pace, we will overtake Spinout for first place in approximately fifteen point six seconds. It is likely that within that time he will try something to secure his lead, Miss Lala." "Got it, lun! I'll watch out!" "In three hundred meters, make a loop-de-loop." "Let's go, Lala, Love Prime! We've got this!" AI steadily gains on Spinout, nearly neck and neck as they're both coming up on an overpass bridging over the racetrack. Suddenly, Spinout flashes his headlights three times, then slams on his brakes, fishtailing as he lets the Precures and their allies speed past him into first place. Lala's surprised gasp and Hikaru's excited squeal don't last long-- "Huh?!?! Did his engine burn out? HA!! That's what you get for "-- before a response triple-flash of light comes from on top of the overpass. Planted charges all detonate at once as the camper van passes underneath it, collapsing the overpass on top of them and burying them, the Hell Train, and the other racers alongside them in rubble. Thanks to Lilian's enchantments, the camper van isn't damaged more than scuffed-up, but no matter how hard AI revs its engine, the rubble is too heavy for it to budge. There's a clatter of rocks overhead as Spinout drives over the pile, stopping to do a donut over top the van, smugly confident knowing that there's not a thing the girls can do about what just obviously happened. "Hahaha. Bad luck, huh? Guess that's just the difference between a proper racer, and some organics sticking their servos where they don't belong. I'll see you junkbots later; I've got a race to win." Hikaru paces around the inside of the camper van, seething, while Lala presses her antennae to the electrical capacitance pads on her chair, scanning through options and anxiously hovering her fingers over buttons. "What's his problem?! That wasn't even fun! Racing's supposed to be fun!" "Hikaru... should we try the Coumarin fuel now, lun? It might boost us out." "Uuuuu... but it could also blow up...." "Lun...."
Merelisa Shaynore	Right after Spinout vanishes in a cloud of exhaust, a familiar black hole portal expands out of a singularity that pops into existence above the pile of rubble. A Nottraider-style flying saucer comes out of it, to the shocked gasps of the audience, and a hole opens up in the top for Eyewon to hop out, strutting on the rim of her UFO haughtily. She spins a new Dark Pen in her hand, laying her fingers against her lips to cackle down at the frustrated Precures. "Kyahahaha~! Poor, stupid, Precures! All that 'being fair' and 'playing by the rules', and, like, look where it got you~" She points down at the van, eye upturned cruelly. "It got you, looooooo~ooosing!" "Let me, like, show you how you really win, losers. And ooooooone of your stupid friends is totally gonna give me give me a hand! Dark Pen!" She spins it around in her hand and it thwaps into her palm, pointed right at... Blastoff!! "Corrupt their stupid heart until it's, like, totally rotted black!" She draws out a heart in glowing ribbons of blacklight, and it zips through the air to slap onto Blastoff's windshield. Poisonous vantablack coats his body, glimmering with distant cosmic light, and then explodes, revealing the jet-themed Nottrigger five times his original size. Dark purple with red flame decals on his wings, gatling guns and missile launchers hanging from the underside of the plane, with his windshield turned yellow and a big purple N slapped onto it. The Nottrigger's wingtips reach end to end across the whole width of the track, and the plane starts rolling forwards, forcing the racers to either get up and go, or be crushed!! "Aaaahh--! This is so unfair! Lala!" "Hikaru!" ""Star Color Pendant!"" ""Color Charge!"" After drawing ribbons of glowing light to form their dresses, 'The twinkling light that shines throughout the universe, Cure Star!' and 'The Milky Way stretching across the heavens, Cure Milky!' glance at each other and nod. "I'll get us out of here, Milky!" "Lun! I'll get the van moving!" With a 'hhhhah!' of exertion and a flash of magical stars, Hikaru heaves the sunroof of the camper van open and stands on top of it, surrounded by the rubble of the bridge. She pulls out a different pen, one with a core that looks just like the music box cylinder of the Stellar Notes, and with it, draws the astrological symbol for Taurus in the air, which slaps onto her chest and causes her magical girl outfit to glow and change again. "Taurus Star Color Pen!" When she stops glowing, she's wearing an altered version of Cure Star's outfit. Bull themed, with a pink cowprint skirt and thick horns, her pigtails have turned into two long braids with planetary rings on the ends. Taurus Cure Star winds up her fist and "Starrrrr PUNCH!!"es through the rubble piled on top of the van, sending a pink magical ripple through it that turns it into powder.
Combaticon	Spinout flashes his headlights and slams the brakes. In the air, Blastoff banks sharply over the track, "Why would he-- Hit the brakes!" A warning that comes too late as the whole overpass collapses. He's still circling around when Spinout revvs back into motion, does his victory donut, and charges off, "That's dirty, even for you!" Radio chatter from the DJD crackles to life; "Report. What happened?" "Spinout brought down the 87th northbound overpass!" "What's the APB even doing?! If they're not protecting the racers-- these two are just organic protoforms!" "Blastoff?" "How could I ever idolize this-- I'm ten times the racer he could ever be!" "Cool your afterburners. He is an Autobot. It is out of our--" "One 'bot to another, I'm gonna teach him a lesson! Autobot or not!" "What about that weird aircraft? Wait, it's the one-eyed alien from the Pikmin planet! Blastoff!" "MELT THEM ALL INTO BURNING SCRAP--!" ". . . I see. Vortex. Do what you have to." Caught mid-maneuver, Blastoff's heart is corrupted by the Black Pen. He lets out a wordless shout as his canopy screen flicker-fades between red and yellow until it finally settles. His wings shift then angle forward into an aggressive reverse-V shape, "I'LL SHOW EVERYONE WHAT REAL SPEED AND FIREPOWER LOOKS LIKE--!" "What did you do to him!" Vortex swings around; accelerating backwards while aiming the business end of her attack helicopter self at her corrupted comrade, "Let him go, weirdo!"
Angela	"Uwaaaa!" Rose shouts as rubble starts caving in on the Hell Train! "Guhhh!!" Nikki says, tumbling over as well. Fortunately, the Hell Train is now moving on its own, but they hope their propelling of Natsuki Nuki pushed them ahead of the rubble rather than into it. They can't exactly see right now. Also fortunately: The rocks do crush down on the Hell Train, slowing it down considerably, but it's not entirely buried under ruubble. It's a train! It's got a lot of horsepower! Nikki picks herself up and pulls on a string, unleashing a braying TOOT from the Hell Train as she helps Rose up. "Hell is going on out there? Rose can you check it out?" Rose pokes her head out of one of the windows. "A one eyed middle schooler turned Onslaught into a giant onslaught!" "What? Onslaught's not racing, I thought? Maybe it's Depthcharge?" "It can't be Depthcharge, that's a ''water'' name and that's clearly a plane!" Rose shouts back. "Well it can't be Swindle, they didn't try to sell us anything yet." Nikki says. "Let's just try to plow through 'em!" Rose isn't sure she likes the idea of 'hit Blastoff with a train' while inside said train, but she doesn't have any better ideas and so the train chugga chuggas onward, trying to ram through Blastoff. Meanwhile Angela, still on the pad, lets out a long sigh. "It is obviously Blastoff. I will schedule a refresher on Concord Partners for you later."
Combaticon	It's quite clear no matter how much Vortex shouts that Eyewon isn't interested in giving up her control over Blastoff. With the perpetrator using him as a shield, effectively, it lies in her servos to blast through Blastoff and set him loose. Fortunately-- well, Decepticons are hardy little jerks, and she knows it. Vortex positions herself between Love Prime and Notrigger Blastoff, "Move, move! I'll slow him down!" "NOTHING CAN STOP ME! I WILL CRUSH ALL WHO STAND IN MY WAY!!" "You glitchhead, get a hold of yourself--!" Once AI and Lala get the van moving again, with Hikaru punching it free, Vortex sweeps back and forth across the race track, swaying from side to side while dropping cluster munitions in the Notrigger's path, safely behind the StarTwinkle Camper.
Timespace Riders	The planted charges take Woz by complete surprise. Zi-O leans back and kneels to brake after the speedometers on his helmet's lenses wind in rapid fast-forward. "Woz, brake!" JIKAN DESPEAR! SICKLEST! The kama-tip of the retainer's weapon strikes up a stream of sparks as it grinds across the track whilst Woz lowers himself to create more points of contact with the ground. Still, though he and Zi-O both have forewarning and avoid direct hits, they still end up buried in the rubble. I'll see you junkbots later; I've got a race to win. What's his problem?! That wasn't even fun! Racing's supposed to be fun! "He shall learn the difference between us in great detail, soon enough." Precures! All that 'being fair' and 'playing by the rules', and, like, look where it got you~ Zi-O quietly ponders that, hand on the chin of his helmet. The rules? You mean... I could have hit that guy more and not gotten in trouble? I didn't know it was that kind of race, I just thought those guys were being jerks... Corrupt their stupid heart until it's, like, totally rotted black! That snaps the Demon King out of his thinking quick. "Woz, get us back onto the track, quick!" Just after Cure Star punches the rubble clear, the two Riders appear on the track in its wake. "Give Genm a boost and stick close to him," he says to Woz, taking off to avoid the Nottrigger. "I'm gonna stick with the Precures and try to help Blastoff!" "At once, sire," says Woz, keeping pace with the Demon King before falling back to Genm. "Kami-sama, let my prayer be heard, and deliver your unfailing vengeance to he who has harmed us so," he says, gassing up the other Kamen Rider as a prelude to wrapping him up with the Shinobi armor's iridescent purple scarf and throwing him forwards down the track after Spinout. After, a smokepuff teleport places him a few yards downwind of the wrathful god, where his screaming will surely be heard regardless of target. Zi-O, meanwhile, maintains a steady lead on AI, swapping out the Drive Ridewatch for his newest-- ARMOR TIME! The horn of a train--not Hell Train's--resounds across the track. In the wake of Hell Train's passing, a golden set of tracks is laid out, with a disembodied suit of armor passing behind it like additional cars. Zi-O makes a sideways flip to land on the tracks at speed, sticking out each of his limbs as each part of this silver-red-gold armor snaps onto place over his body. There's just one problem: this armor isn't a speed form! Each new piece causes him to lose speed, until he's forced to hitch a ride with the Precures to stay in the race. DEN-O! The Demon King's buffoonish 'uwoh' resounds too, as he just barely grabs the handrail for the RV and is snatched off his feet, dangling behind the door like a flag on the interstate. Pulling himself up to stand on the roof, he actually manages the pose of the armor's namesake perfectly, gesturing to himself with a thumb and then crouching with his arms wide. The catchphrase, though... "I'm... coming!" Not quite.
Timespace Riders	Clad in his newest form, he fixes his attention on Blastoff as the clock hands on his helmet wind rapidly in reverse. A brief jaunt into Blastoff's past searches for key moments in the development of what makes him who he is--and, as well, whether Eyewon's corruption is distorting or clouding Blastoff's understanding of any of them.
Combaticon	Digging into Blastoff's past is a little difficult; he's lived for so long that there's a ton to go through. Some memories stand out; things that inform his inferiority complex further amplified by the influence of the Dark Pen's effect on his conscious perception. A kaleidoscope of images, brief clips of a life spanning half a million years in which most of it was spent in open warfare. Each image cast in monochrome save for the glow of Autobot or Decepticon symbols. The first one that lingers, an early memory of a fierce dogfight. The Autobot foe outmaneuvers him. Defeats him. Shames him. He'll work hard. He'll show them. . . Another, a group of Decepticons all with obvious jet wings and thrusters. Caught up in a conversation. When he tries to join in, they shun him as an inferior fighter. It stayed like this until He showed up. . . After the war. A race; meeting Spinout as a dedicated fan of his work. One of the first Autobots he thought he could get along with. It's all just a show. There's no way a Heroic Autobot could actually be that terrible. No way. That's for Decepticons. . . Present-Day. The vision is filled with glitches and distortions. Everything in his view highlights red. Enemies. Faces of the enemy fighters who shamed him. The fellow Seekers who ridiculed him. The idols who tricked him. Blastoff will show them all what he's made of and stand victorious on a mountain of scrap metal.
Kuroto Dan	Motors is unfortunately caught in the explosion, and sadly doesn't make it, given there's a visible and audible GAME OVER! sign that spawns over where he should've been, followed by a fine mist of pixels. Do not weep for him, he died doing what he loved. Simply look forward to his return as Motors Level X in the future. Kamen Rider Genm, meanwhile, just misses getting caught in the bridge explosion, having the benefit of being both slow and far behind enough to only get slightly pushed back from the aftershock. He stares silently at the missing bridge, partly in anger, but mostly in disbelief. There isn't any fairness in this race, though that's honestly what's tripping him. No, it's the fact that these PEONS thought that basic sabotage would ever stop him, THE Game Master. They probably took months to plan this sort of thing out when this is something he'd come up with during lunch. He's about to simply try and platform his way onto one of the surviving vehicles and steal it, before he's stopped by Woz's arrival. "What do you want? I don't listen to the prayers of-Hey! HOW DARE YOU TOUCH A GOD YOU HERETIC, YOUR PUNISHMENT-" Genm's cut off as he's thrown at Spinout, letting out an annoyed screech before realizing what exactly is happening and landing in the perfect spot to intercept. "Will be severe and unending." Genm finishes his sentences as cooly as possible, trying to play off that he had not been losing it just seconds earlier, as he pulls up a holographic menu in front of him, swiping it with his hand before kicking the the item he selected. Gashacon Sparrow! The weapon announces its name, taking the form of a bow with no string and a gun trigger, which Genm immediately aims and fires at Spinout's tires.
Lilian Rook	'At our current pace, we will overtake Spinout for first place in approximately fifteen point six seconds. It is likely that within that time he will try something to secure his lead, Miss Lala.' "He'll try." Lilian repeats over the roar of the engine, the howling of the wind, and the ambient buzz of Cybertron itself. Her total lack of context for ways to feel or behave during racing has her down to a sort of bare-metal focus in lieu of a familiar decorum, and it looks unfortunately similar to being really stoic and badass about it all. Her helpful communication in the name of teamwork sounds like "Get within fifty meters and he won't." 'Huh?!?! Did his engine burn out? HA!!' Even Lilian is stunned by Spinout stopping like that. There's not really any necessity in going after him if he's stopped, and it takes her a couple of seconds of staring to mentally switch tracks to 'we're past him, so now we should switch to lead tactics', so she connects the dots only after AI has accelerated past him at breakneck speed. "No-- Hikaru, there was a braking squeal. We need to--!" 'I'll see you junkbots later; I've got a race to win.' "I'll show you proper when you're doing parking lot donuts on the underside of a moving trash compactor! Whoever un-cubed you ought to be executed!" Lilian descends from shouting through a big pile of rubble like an idiot in a state of absolutely fuming. "Christ, I knew he was a dirty snot rag about his own little personal fief where everything is as he pleases, but having outside collaborators to cheat with is just pathetic!" she mutter-shouts back across the whole length of the camper van, which is almost a fair criticism seeing as Lilian typically doesn't get anyone helping her out with her rampant cheating. 'Uuuuu... but it could also blow up....' 'Lun....' "I'm not about to let him run away from this and pretend he didn't sweat. Hold the boost, girls. We're going to--" 'Kyahahaha~! Poor, stupid, Precures! All that 'being fair' and 'playing by the rules', and, like, look where it got you~ It got you, looooooo~ooosing!' Lilian, interrupted for the second time by an event that doesn't care about her conversational pacing, siiiiiighs, slumps her shoulders, stares back through the roof, and says "Hi Eyewon." like her hyperactive younger cousin just showed up to make things worse. "If you're going to do this, can't it please wait until after the--" 'I'LL SHOW EVERYONE WHAT REAL SPEED AND FIREPOWER LOOKS LIKE--!' "You can do that?!" Lilian screams with her face smushed to the window. It totally isn't starry-eyed fascination she's overcome with at seeing a random Elite get hit with the Turn Evil Beam and it just works(?!), but definitely at the Taurus Star Colon Pen Star Punch (redux) (kai) (true). She makes an accidentally ladylike yelp as the van is freed, then turns to "Gun it Lala! Straight ahead! If Eyewon is going to give us a Nottrigger then let's use it to win at least!" Now deeply invested in experimenting, Lilian calls out from the camper van at Blastoff "You sure about that?! Because it looks like first place is aaaaaall the way down there! You're going to show us by, what, fighting for second place?!"
Natsuki Nuki	Natsuki Nuki, heel racer and astride her Hell Bike, had started her counterattack in the race after an unwanted pit-stop and delay by launching at absurd speed, boosted by the Express Train. A burning wheel-streak zips off the clawed front of the Express Train and goes, chasing the super camper rocket boost of Love Prime with the loud road jerk rumble of bass engine thunder. Somehow able to rev up even higher, the only reason that Hikaru and Lala can stay ahead of her is because out from those swerving wheels of flame and a curtain of embers... ...is the chrome side of the chopper, the bolt-shot heart in the tiger's mouth, and Natsuki, boot first transferring that momentum into the rear chase of Spinout's race crew. In mangled black leathers which have been chewed up by the train pistonwork and lithobraking her shoulders into the railings of the racetrack (and other racers) and with a snap of still-whole red scarf, the heel racer doesn't spend the whole of her speed on just booting one scraphead racer in the back, 'vroom-bbrum!'-iing with a roll of the accelerator to leave that victim immediately in a cloud of exhaust and embers, boosting off again into the pack to shark and swerve into the other racers on the plasma highway around Cybertron. "Try the scenic route, ra-cer!" She calls over the side as she jousts at speed, 'ra-cer' delivered in the same cadence as 'lo-ser'. Through the loop-de-loop her ash-and-exhaust cloud becomes a thick smoke that obscures further skullduggery, lightning-blasting through the pack as she gets opportunities and rivals to rumble with. But then, disaster - and she can't even play it off as cool. Closing on Spinout with her cursed stake ready - a piece of Crash Test's roll cage etched with particularly agonizing hex placed upon it - she hears an explosion from above just before her instinct to race and match Lala and Hikaru for appearance sake comes crashing down on her head: literally! Buried and furious, Natsuki hears the 'wmm-wmm-wmm!!' of passing racers and must spend precious long seconds unburying herself from the rubble and righting her ride. Salvation comes again in the tremendous honk-screeching passage of the Express Train blasting a path right through the rubble, giving Natsuki a chance to right her bike and get rolling again. "Cheeky little -- preparing the track?! Another of these home stage advantage cheating-" While cheating herself, Natsuki continues to curse out Spinout, invocating about the propriety of his cogs and sprockets, suggesting she had relations with the facility his axle was struck at, and a particularly nasty note about the amount of pipework she was going to be doing to him. > Eyewon Appears! "Eyewon if you want this to be about you, send a racer!!" Natsuki shouts angrily. "Listen," She then looks up, from her rumbling race, and sees the Dark Pen. 'And ooooooone of your stupid friends is totally gonna give me give me a hand!' Immediately realizing that this might become very bad when her stake is prideful and personal, Natsuki breaks from her pursuit and skids to the side of the track, jinking what she expects to be a beam that strikes her! Instead... It strikes Blastoff. Pride faintly sore, the aviator-eyed racer gets back into the race. "Don't complain about unfair yet! We came here to race, which means we signed up for unfair -- that's just what a race like this is!" Natsuki shouts over to the PreCures as they complain pre-transformation, racing through the hole Taurus punches and hunting down Spinout anyway. During all this, that other heel jerk couldn't be allowed to win!
Merelisa Shaynore	"What did you do to him!" Eyewon leaps onto Blastoff's wing as the black hole portal swallows her flying saucer again. She lazily flops down to sit with her legs dangling off the wing, kicking her feet and cackling at Vortex's distress. "I, like, barely even did anything, stupid. Your stupid friend is just like this! All I did was make him freaking show it!" The plane speeds along the racetrack behind the camper van, rocking with the explosions that Vortex is dropping down in front of him. Eyewon yelps and scrambles to grab onto a wing flap to keep herself from slipping off, and then pulls herself up to standing, glaring with a single angry eye, fuzzy deelyboppers waving in the rushing air. "Hey--!! Like, my firepower beats yours!" She spins her Pen around to point it at Vortex. "Nottrigger! Freaking blow her up!!! Blow her up now!!!!" A gatling gun racks out of Blastoff's fuselage, then splits in half and spreads to either side, and then each of those duplicate again, giving the Nottrigger four guns along the bottom of its wings. They open fire wildly, mostly aimed at Vortex, but the (explosive beams! not bullets!) that spray out of them pepper the track in front, blasting the side of the camper van, causing it to shake while Hikaru "Uwaaaahh--!!"s on top, teetering. Over the sustained drumbeat of gunfire, Eyewon smugly pats the windshield right above the N. "See?? I, like, made him stronger. I'm better than you are! And it sounds like your dumb friend freaking agrees he's better off with me, too! My Dark Pens don't draw out anything that isn't, like, already festering in your stupid fake hearts anyways!" Standing on top of the RV with her long twin braids flapping behind her, Cure Star rushes to give Sougo a hand getting onto the roof with her. It's a little funny for a fourteen year old girl to lift him one-handed while the scenery whips by at eighty miles an hour, and her magic bull horns flash with pink light as she does. Knowing that Sougo hasn't met Eyewon before, she cracks her knuckles into her palm before swinging a wild haymaker at the storm of bullets coming in their direction to punch them away with a giant magical star projection so she can exposit at him while his helmet rewinds. "That's a Nottrigger, Zi-O! Eyewon makes them with her Dark Pen, but Milky and I can change Blastoff back if we get a good chance!"
Merelisa Shaynore	Just then, the [Filtered] Train plows past from behind Blastoff, crashing through the guns on his underside and tipping the entire jet thirty degrees up as the Train simply pushes underneath it. Eyewon, dangling from the wing by her hands, spits her indignation with the entire ordeal, pulling herself up once the plane rights itself. "Whose freaking monster is that?! This is, like, my race to win now, so buzz off!!" "Hi Eyewon." Eyewon pauses, biig singular eye blinking in oddly innocent surprise with her Dark Pen raised up menacingly in the air. "... Hhhah? Lilian? Natsuki? You're... still helping them?" It doesn't take her long to get over that surprise, though. She pouts and puffs air out of her nose brattily, twirling the Pen around. "Okay, okay, cool. I'm, like, cool. I'll just show off how much stronger I am than those loser Precures!" Blastoff's engines start roaring louder and the Nottrigger speeds up, steadily gaining on Love Prime. A missile launcher slots out below the cockpit, a dozen of them ka-chunking into place. "I, like, have a racer! Right here! And once I freaking flatten Star and Milky, I'll roll over the scrap in first place and take the Stellar Note myself!" "Nuh uh!" Cure Star waves her fist angrily from atop the RV. "If anyone's turning Spinout into scrap, it's us!" "Huh?? What do you, like, mean by that at all?!" Up ahead, Spinout is adjusting his sideview mirrors to peek over his 'shoulders' at the disaster unfolding behind him, comfortable in taking advantage of it for a win. He skids in surprise when Genm appears right in front of him, swerving around to not get his tires blasted out. "Look, organic. This race is already over. It was over from the moment you stuck your bumpers in my business. So how 'bout you just stop your meltdown and go cool off!" Mid-rev, Spinout transforms back into his humanoid form at high speed, suddenly grabbing Genm around the torso with a giant hand. Keeping pace without stumbling, he twists and hurls the Kamen Rider off the track, straight into a giant tub of coolant in the back of a truck!
Angela	Angela thinks back to the various magical girls she's met over the years. The Abnormalities all have a tendency to kill innocent people and that's not something magical girls SHOULD do in her opinion. They are supposed to ''protect'' innocent people, or at least--innocent enough people. Strawberry Princess? She doesn't know too well but she's gotta be in her mid twenties at least. The Holy Refulgence? Angela frowns. The holy Refulgence. And Hibiki Tachibana who is, apparently, actually a Kamen Rider? It's been a long time since Angela has had to think about magical girls. But Eyewon certainly ''feels'' like someone from a Dark Kingdom of some sort. Angela adjusts her computer screen and scooches back a bit, swinging her hands behind her head as she leans back and watches. She wonders if it'll go like in the stories. She provides no guidance. If Nikki has any effective resonance with In The Name Of Love And Hate it should be fine. Nikki does, in fact, end up clambering up through the window on top of the Filtered Train and she takes aim with her hand, sending a spray of cartoon-shaped yellow starts that will still detonate upon impact against Blastoff's body! "Yeah! We need to win this one, sorry!" Nikki says. "Because I'm going to lose my job soon and want to make a good impression on the Partners so maybe they'll hire me!" Angela frowns. It shouldn't matter to her but the idea of Agents trying to make Partner feels wrong to her.
Combaticon	"BUZZ OFF!" is Blastoff's only response to Vortex while his guns rumble. > "You sure about that?! Because it looks like first place is aaaaaall the way down there! You're going to show us by, what, fighting for second place?!" "I CAN'T SMASH HIM UNTIL I BLAST THROUGH YOU, FLESH CREATURE!" A confident declaration accentuated by a burst of thrust and an increase in speed, "AND ALL YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS--!!" > "I, like, barely even did anything, stupid. Your stupid friend is just like this! All I did was make him freaking show it!" Vortex swings aside, peppered with gatling laserfire. It has some trouble getting through her armor, marking the black hull with bright silver paint chips instead. In her maneuvering, the helicopter'bot dips behind a building for cover. When the gatlings simply shift their target to Love Prime an the Precures/Modern Celtic Knight/Kamen Rider on board, Vortex dives back into the fight just as easily as she dipped out of it. "I can't argue that we all got some pretty severe damage," Vortex states as she circles, peppering Blastoff's upper hull with purple laser fire, "But we're better when we resist bad urges to better ourselves!" "EAT MY EXHAUST--! NOTHING AND NO ONE WILL EVER OUTRUN ME!" "Besides..." The helicopter performs a roll, body plates separating as the aircraft reconfigures itself and reduces in size. Reaching back as she changes to her humanoid robot mode, Vortex wrenches off two of her rotor blades and wields them as swords, bringing them down on Blastoff's back in a narrow miss to Eyewon herself in proper PG fashion. As she recovers from the impact and brings her weapons up to the ready, the black and gray robot declares, "I bet if I go after you, it'll help him break free!"
Timespace Riders	When it comes to time travel, Zi-O can afford difficulty, especially when it comes from a large amount of available information. Angela had cautioned him against using this ability too much, and he had taken that under advisement--but this is the kind of thing a good king would do, isn't it? Respecting someone's past to reach them in the present and help them make it to the future, better than they are now. He can spend as long as he needs to in these moments, and so long as he comes back at the instant after he left, his friends in the present won't be any worse. Years pass by in blistering, blurring speed. Cities and landmarks and war rooms and battles, reprieves and detentes and cold wars, familiar faces and idols and rivals; sometimes they rhyme, sometimes there's no greater meaning at all. To look at them with this kind of distance is the privilege of someone seeking the throne of time. Some of them are more integral to the Blastoff of the present than others. When he spots them, Zi-O stops. First, at a defeat that Blastoff took to heart. You were still pretty young then, huh? What did you take away from it? It wasn't just Blastoff that took it to heart-- You couldn't have known it at the time, but they didn't treat you that way because you were 'bad at fighting.' That was just what they told you so you'd leave. But Onslaught was different; he treated you differently because he understood the time he was living in better than they did. Then... He gave you something to look forward to, didn't he? You weren't used to having someone to cheer for that didn't involve a war effort. And because he was 'the enemy,' you could believe in the future where it was over that much more. Now there's just the question of where precisely to return to. There? No, that's too far ahead; he'll miss what Cure Star is telling him. There! --- Zi-O huffs from the exertion of clambering to the top of the RV, nodding gratefully and offering a breathy "Thanks!" to Cure Star, as his mirrored minute and hour hands cease their backwards movement. "I'll do my best to get you two that chance." Your stupid friend is just like this! All I did was make him freaking show it! My Dark Pens don't draw out anything that isn't, like, already festering in your stupid fake hearts anyways! "Don't get the wrong idea, Vortex! She's telling the truth about her Dark Pens, but Blastoff is always making an effort to be someone who deals with those feelings another way--that counts just as much!" "Also--hi! Eyewon, right?" He takes a moment even during the carnage to wave. "I'm Zi-O. I'm gonna be a great king one day. The ninja guy getting screamed at by the guy on the bicycle is my retainer, Woz! Do you wanna talk about this thing of yours--about the parts of people that they decide not to show others? Does it have something to do with why you want the Stellar Note?" Zi-O calls forth an energy pistol (which looks a lot like the grip and crossguard of his longsword sans the blade) and slots the Den-O Ridewatch into it. He holds the trigger down, and tiny golden tracks spool from the mouth of the pistol across the racetrack. It winds around and through the Nottrigger, seemingly doing nothing, until Zi-O releases the trigger. A tiny bullet train sounds a digital horn, blazing down the miniature track and punching into the Nottrigger as the tracks collide with it.
Timespace Riders	So how 'bout you just stop your meltdown and go cool off! Further down the track, Woz decides to be an enabler and glaze Genm even further. "A meltdown would imply that his incandescent fury is for some lack of control. I assure you, God Genm knows precisely what he is doing--which is very unfortunate for you. With your own wheels, you have touched the sacred racetrack--" ninja-running and gaining on Spinout, Woz strikes a handseal with one hand and disappears, reappearing within striking range of the unscrupulous racer. THOONK! Woz's heel crashes down on Spinout's wrist as he winds up to throw Genm. "God Genm as my witness, I vow to see the same wheels you have left idle in favor of parlor tricks and ill-conceived alliances carry you to failure." The impact sees him spring impossibly upward, carrying gravity-defying momentum into a cross kick aimed at Spinout's jaw, before springing off with a backflip. Back on the RV, Zi-O converts the pistol into a longsword by tilting the frame backwards--a silver blade spouts from what was previously the pistol's nose. "Onslaught," calls Zi-O. "Do you read me? Remember when you recruited Blastoff? The other soldiers, he always thought they hated him because he was a bad fighter. But that isn't why--he got into a dogfight during the war, and he lived. You knew that, and you knew the opposite was true. They hated him because he lived--because they knew people, lost people, that didn't. Isn't that right?" "And even if you couldn't explain that to him, you could give him a place where he could be kinder to himself. Spinout was someone he could see a brighter future in--and every second he keeps showing his true colors, Blastoff believes in that future a little less. But--he still has you! Talk to him! Help the Precures!"
Natsuki Nuki	Weaving through the obstacles with a foot-balanced lean, sprinting past the Pretty Cures while they have to deal with Blastoff and using the Hell Bike's more nimble body (than one whole rocket camper), Natsuki does her absolute best to get back in the race and taking lead on the scattering landscape of explosions and danger. She sees Spinout in the distance and isn't waiting for the finish line to finish him. 'You're... still helping them?' Missiles cause tremendous screen-filling and animation saving explosions, and it is not to them but to Eyewon's words that the chopper-riding heel racer flinches. Lips pulled tight around clenched teeth, Natsuki uses more of her body to compensate for not actually being an ace motorcyclist. Scraping around a turn by anchor-spinning on a spiderpoint limb that stretches out because she doesn't have the sheer turning base of a stunt bike, Natsuki rolls shoulders and stays at a racing sprint despite. "It doesn't matter, but," She says, and means 'I know you won't believe me, but,' in every sense and emotion. Identical in shape, in faint resentment. This time she really had just been looking to blow off some steam appying the boot to the bots! The Stellar Note drama, Eyewon included, had burst onto her burn-out! "I'm racing for myself today! They showed up where I was!" And Blastoff without the brakes of a heart is all blast, Natsuki only using her rearviews to dodge shots at an aviators-shielded glance. If she just attacked Eyewon for showing up anyway, it wouldn't matter if it was true or not - and attacking a fellow Partner out of all targets sat sour in her throat. Damn. The kids had to make things complicated and messy. Why couldn't she just be a hater in peace?? Perhaps the Buddha would know, once she was done killing them upon the road. Seeing Spinout skid into a clash with Genm, Natsuki opens up her Hell Bike's throttle to intercept. The faint flicker of the wide-held tops of her red eyes appear just over the tops of her aviators as she locks in on the target, riding the humanoid high-speedster down as he takes time to react to Genm with a mission and a sharpened spike to do it with. 'Look, organic.?' "You're right, you sleek-curves lightweight acting like high octane muscle, the race is already over!" Natsuki shouts, pulling her chopper's front wheel up and standing near-upright on the footrests. Scarf ablaze about her neck and the razor-wheel of brimstone and smoke throwing off sparks from its rotation at her fore, Natsuki cries a triumphant-mad and pointed expulsion of real anger re-aimed to the supercar competitor and ridden into his race-skating humanoid torso. "Find a gutter to pull your name-sake move in, losermobile!!" She howls, because it was not enough for her to win - she needed other people (particularly Spinout) to lose.
Lilian Rook	'I, like, barely even did anything, stupid. Your stupid friend is just like this! All I did was make him freaking show it!' 'My Dark Pens don't draw out anything that isn't, like, already festering in your stupid fake hearts anyways!' "God it's not fair." Lilian mutters under her breath. She leaps out onto the roof of the van shortly after, responding to the imminent threat of friendly-for-all-audiences exploding gatling beams with her usual mena. She should probably have thought to armour up, because Lilian ends up standing next to Hikaru, at the edge of her star shield, deflecting lasers with her sword at a literally machine gun pace, while wearing her ominous heiress-at-the-games sponsor dress blowing dramatically in the wind. '... Hhhah? Lilian? Natsuki? You're... still helping them?' "It's complicated." says Lilian, woth the energy of every exhausted facebook status that says the same. "That guy in first place is an absolute tool, and I specifically wanted to humiliate him at his own game, so . . ." Huh? What about the Stellar Note?" 'If anyone's turning Spinout into scrap, it's us!' "Exactly!" Lilian crows, slipping down 'belowdecks' by vaulting legs-first through the window, hand squeaking against the roof and pulled in quickly behind her. "You understand how wanting to crush a mealy-mouthed upstart with your own two hands feels, don't you Eyewon?" she calls back, sliding to the other end of the van, leaning out the window, bracing her elbow in against the side of the vehicle, and sighting in on the track ahead. 'So how 'bout you just stop your meltdown and go cool off!' Lilian breathes deep, and-- -----[stop]----- --frowns as the music stops in her ears, but the bop is playing out in her head anyways, so she nods faintly to the beat and fires one, two shots at center mass back, then walks one along the curve, then another along the same line, and one more, dotting the smooth progression of the bar to cover the turn-in with a line of pending shots regular enough that at least one is bound to hit. Compensating for how difficult it is to lead a a moving target when they're standing still, she walks the gun back and lets it kick up with each beat in the backweave, aiming at the height of an untransformed head while carefully envisioning if a cool car stunt can slip between them. She touches each lingering magical circle flare in sequence to let it play out and disappear, idly striking them to the rhythm like an osu beat. Then she tosses the gun from hand to the other, back inside the car. -----[start]----- --shouts "SUCK MY PIPE!" to get Spinout's attention just before a double stack of simultaneous magical bullets scythe the track and mysteriously tokusplode all over him ~from out of nowhere~
Kuroto Dan	Kamen Rider Genm is tossed rather easily, though just as he's about to fall into the coolant, a floating block made of bricks appears underneath him, which he uses to launch off of and back towards Spinout, delivering a quick, not very impactful kick to the bot's face as he lands. "If I were to meltdown, not a single screw or bolt of you would remain, you overdesigned trashcan. Though, now that I'm here again, I remembered something. " Pulling out a gashat from his side holster, Genm slots it into the second openeing in his belt, the device making a charging noise as he quickly closes and opens the door on his buckle. Gachan! LEVEL UP! Shakariki! Shakariki! Bad! Bad! Shaka to Riki to Shakariki Sports! As with everything Genm's devices to do, there's an obnoxiously loud callout as the bike he had ridden and abandoned flies through to air to join him once again, this time turning into armor that awkwardly drapes over him. . " I said I'd defeat you with this bike, and I now plan to do exactly that. I don't even need Level X to deal with an amateur like you." The tires on Genm's bike armor disconnect, becoming a pair of haphazard throwing weapons, which he throws with the form and grace of someone chucking a frisbee really hard, though the throwing form really doesn't seem to matter that much as they suddenly turn into purple energy disks that home in on Spinout's face and aim to follow up on Woz's sick kick.
Merelisa Shaynore	"Because I'm going to lose my job soon and want to make a good impression on the Partners so maybe they'll hire me!" Eyewon sticks her tongue out at Rose while the magical stars pepper her Nottrigger. "Uh, if you're losing your freaking job, then what are you even caring about still?? They're kicking you out? Just, like, freaking take what you need!!! Obviously! I'm not the one firing you, iiiidiot!" "I can't argue that we all got some pretty severe damage," "Nyehhhh, booo hoo! So what, you're, like, 'damaged'?!" Eyewon stomps her foot down on her own giant monster minion, irritated. While all this high-speed fighting goes on, the audience whizzing by is just as entertained that the race has completely devolved into a brawl, if not more, and thankfully entirely by coincidence, every building caught in the crossfire happens to be a rubble storage facility. "That's still who you are, stupid! You don't get to ignore it! You don't get to! You're fighting your stupid friend because your friends are stupid and this is who he is and you don't even freaking like each other! So explode! Stop pretending you can better yourselves and explode!" A swarm of missiles launches out from under Blastoff, smoke trails worming through the air in every direction to hit the racers and the buildings to either side of the track. The explosions send debris pouring down over the racetrack, bombarding the top of the camper van with rocks while Hikaru tries to protect herself with a flimsy star-shield that cracks with each impact. "Milky!! Help!" "Love Prime, I'm leaving driving to you, lun!" "Acknowledged. I will 'burn rubber', Miss Lala." "Milkyyyy SHIELD!" Lala jumps out of the sunroof and throws up a massive heart-shaped magic barrier that covers the entire van, Sougo and Lilian included. Her antennae tremble with the teal-colored magic that sparks off of them, until the RV pierces to the other side and the debris is clear. "It doesn't matter, but," Eyewon's eye narrows a tiny bit. "I'm racing for myself today! They showed up where I was!" Eyewon makes a little 'pah-!' of a laugh, arms crossed. "Well, then, you better be fine with, like, getting second place for yourself too! Because I'm getting first! And when I do, it won't matter who you were racing for, because I'll have totally won either way!" "That guy in first place is an absolute tool, and I specifically wanted to humiliate him at his own game, so . . ." "Hahh?" Eyewon seems about 10% less prone to Posting at Lilian and Natsuki still, and bitching about how annoying someone else is rather than stancing up at her is a significant boost to her interaction status. She hesitates and squats down to hide behind Blastoff's windshield for a second while pulling up an evil green holographic display to look into Spinout's vibes while more stars rain onto the cockpit. "... I shoulda Nottriggered this freaking guy! What the heck!! Well, like, now I'm gonna run him over!" Hikaru shouts across the shrinking gap between the racing vehicles, "They say 'slag' here!" "Huh?" "It's local slang! You can say 'he's slagging terrible', or something!" "Well, he is slagging terrible! But that's liiiiterally normal for you people!" "Nuh! He smacked me around, not even in the race!" "... Slagging terrible... still just like all of you, though... grumble grumble..."
Merelisa Shaynore	"I bet if I go after you, it'll help him break free!" Eyewon rolls to the side and whips out a little Martian-style raygun. She waggles the Dark Pen in her other hand while scooting backwards on the wing away from Vortex swinging swords at her, getting a couple zyew-zyew blasts in. "Well I've totally made precautions for that, duh! Do you think I'm stupid? I'm literally the head scientist of the entire freaking Nottraider empire dummy!" "Also--hi! Eyewon, right?" "My super cool awesome reputation preceeds me! Bakenyan?," She plants a hand on her hip, expecting her loyal retainer to do the full list of her accolates, but the cat butler isn't actually around right now. She pouts for a moment. "Oh yeah. He had something else to do. Bleh." "Do you wanna talk about this thing of yours--about the parts of people that they decide not to show others? Does it have something to do with why you want the Stellar Note?" "Uh, I want the Stellar Note and then I want to steal the Star Drop and then I want Lady Mujinko to use their power and take over the entire universe, duh! And then all you people aren't gonna have a freaking chance to lie and gang up together just because it's easy and it's all your choice to decide everything and give everything to yourselves because it's going to be our turn once Lady Mujinko controls everything! And we'll give it to us! And then you'll be so~rry!" Den-O's tiny train smacks into the jet plane just as his engine starts to roar with the effort of trying to take off and just fly over the camper van instead of plowing through it. It stalls and smacks the ground, bouncing twice while Eyewon yelps, and Cure Milky uses the chance to leap on top of it with her, fists clenched and antennae sparkling. The two of them circle at-distance for a few seconds, but then instead of blasting an electric beam at her, Milky suddenly blurts out, "Hey lun, where'd you learn that from?" "Huh? Learn what?" "All that stuff about having to steal from people because they won't give you anything yourself, lun." "Because it's freaking obvious, loser, and you only don't know it because you're stupid." "But--! People aren't all like that, lun! Blastoff's upset, but he has his friends! And they want to help him, lun! You can have that too!" "I don't want your pity, Milky! You don't even get like anything at all!" "Besides, I thought everyone on your planet like, freaking hated you. I'm surprised you're still so-- not getting it. Stupid." "--!! . . ." Stunned into silence, Milky is vulnerable to getting thrown off the neck time Blastoff bucks his wings and shouts. She catches herself with a heart barrier that flashes into existence behind her, but she's barely holding on to the underside of the ship, arms wrapped around a swiveling turret.
Merelisa Shaynore	"God Genm as my witness, I vow to see the same wheels you have left idle in favor of parlor tricks and ill-conceived alliances carry you to failure." Up ahead, Spinout is giving a surprisingly good show of dodging around the Elites harrassing him, skillfully switching between transformations to keep up his speed while narrowly dodging attacks thrown at him. He growls, slamming on his brakes right before a loop-de-loop to cause his back wheels to skip up from the track and skid him sideways so he skips the loop entirely and pulls ahead by a couple seconds. "I do what it takes to slagging win. My axles spin a truckload smoother than yours, organic. I'm jus' not willing ta lose." Blasted by Lilian's simultaneous magic bullets and the meangirl pairs' insults, a plume of oily black smoke is starting to leak out of his engine. He flashes his lights twice, but apparently, whatever sympathizers in the crowd either aren't present, or are happy to see this much cooler fight play out, so nothing happens. He grumbles angrily, then swerves to the side suddenly, grazed by Genm's disks so that a sideview mirror snaps off, and then runs into him at full speed, transforming back into human the moment Genm is launched up. He grips Genm by the legs and throws him into Natsuki's path, then transforms back and tries to zoom ahead.
Combaticon	> "Onslaught, do you read me? Remember when you recruited Blastoff?" Back at the pitstop, Onslaught is in the middle of boarding a Decepticon jet that resembles a huge bomber. Without pausing, in the middle of scaling the gangway, he touches the side of his helmet. "ZI-O. Yes, I do. You are correct. He almost went offline that day. At the time, survivors were a rare commodity. He has been a reliable right hand ever since," Once aboard he makes his way to the empty flight deck. Doors closing, the Decepticon Snapdragon rumbles his engines to life and coasts down the side-track, taking to the air; "Mmmm..." > "But--he still has you! Talk to him! Help the Precures!" Reaching up, he pinches the bill of his cap between thumb and forefinger, tugging it down over his eyes, "I am on my way." Further ahead... > "Well I've totally made precautions for that, duh! Do you think I'm stupid?" "Not at all!" Under fire, Vortex slams her rotor-swords together, end to end, and then holds out the resulting double-blade. Her wrist spins at high speed, turning the blades into a shield against incoming laser fire, "I'm just guessing at how it works, hah--!" Blastoff's missiles arc up and around, exploding around her. The blast wave throws her off the magic-warped jet within a cloud of smoke and debris. With that distinctive sound, the smoke cloud bursts outward and Vortex-- now in the shape of a sleek black helicopter-- ascends before she can hit the track surface, "You're a lot smarter than me, I know that much, but I ain't gonna let you abuse my friend--!" "FRIEND... NO! YOU JUST KEEP ME AROUND--!" A pale gray jet in the sleek, slender shape similar to an Earth-built spyplane dashes through the dark Cybertronian sky. The craft banks, ejecting something, then surges away at high altitude. The object lights up a bit, dragging through the atmosphere fast enough to heat up, though not fast enough to incinerate itself on the way down. "...laaaasssttOOOOOFFF--!!" With next to no warning, Onslaught slams into the trackway immediately behind the charging Love Prime camper van, hitting the metal roadway hard enough to bend the entire structure downward. His recovery is almost immediate, straightening, holding his arms out; one high, the other low. When Blastoff's Notrigger-warped form slams into him, he braces, digging his feet in and sending up a wake of bright orange sparks. His arms clamp down around the jet's nosecone, fingers digging into metallic fuselage, "You will STOP this immediately--" His feet catch on an expansion joint, at last giving the Combaticon commander the leverage he needs to lift the out-of-control aircraft up on its nose, "And we will have a conversation--" There's a long, heavy pause where Onslaught holds Blastoff's jet mode perfectly vertical, the thrusters expelling flame and smoke straight up into the sky. "--Until you realize--" Twisting, Onslaught brings his arms down, joining Gravity's efforts in smashing the jet aircraft into the metal ground upside-down behind him, "How valuable you are!" Releasing Blastoff, Onslaught remains standing. There's a crackling sound, a surge of blue-white sparks from his side. With a strained sound, Onslaught rests his hand where the sparks emerged from, one eye narrowing. It's going to take a moment for him to recompose himself back to the usual stoicism.
Angela	''Uh, if you're losing your freaking job, then what are you even caring about still?? They're kicking you out?'' Nikki lowers her wand because while she is HOPIKNG to make Partner the truth is she's not actually got any confirmation on that and isn't really sure what her deal with Zero Kiryu would really entail after LobCorp shoots its Seed everywhere or something. Nikki doesn't really know the details because she stopped being Captain before the Captains were told anything was going on. On the other hand--other way she gets to shoot giant lasers out of her wand and it got her some vampire powers apparently and that's kind of something she hopes will keep paying dividends so long as she continues to be helpful. Power has always been something she's been lacking and she's found that borrowing it from stronger people works just fine for her. "Well the weaponry's nice. Suspect I'm gonna have to find a way to make my funds last though." "I think I'm just gonna stick with Bikki," Rose says. "It's weird because her government seems to actually care about people? It kind of feels fake..." ''You're fighting your stupid friend'' "Honestly we had to do that a lot already..." Nikki says, thinking about how far less often that's happened since Petra joined the company. ''Eyewon whips out a little Martian-style raygun.'' "That's cute..." Rose's eyes sparkle a little. And then blinks. "...Wait, YOU'RE the head scientist? ... In middle school??? Are you some kind of once in a lifetime genius??" The missiles slam into the Filtered Train instead of Nikki or Rose directly, but Rose nearly tumbles off, barely saved by Nikki holding out her EGO Gear to pull her up with. Once Rose is back on the train, the back half of it totally on fire and sloughing off, Nikki takes aim at Blastoff, a Concord Partner... No. Eyewon? A child who is some kind of bratty genius type? ... Ugh, she'd feel bad. Okay, that leaves... ''My axles spin a truckload smoother than yours, organic. I'm jus' not willing to lose.'' Nikki turns around, takes aim at Spinout. "Heed me, thou that art more Azure than justice and more crimson than love... In the name of those buried in destiny I shall make this oath to light. Mark the hateful beings who stand before us. Let your strength merge with mine, so that we may deliver the power of love to all...! ARCANA SLAVE!" She does in fact have to say it every time. Because she feels the massive heart-shaped pink laser exploding out the heart in her staff is always not quite as explodey if she doesn't do the speech first. Nikki always does the incantation.
Timespace Riders	I'm jus' not willing ta lose. "You and I are nothing alike, it is true--" Woz takes the loop honestly, making up the lost time with a series of short leaps across the track. "--but," he says, capitalizing on Spinout's attack to throw explosive shuriken into the path and create a split-second visual occlusion, "The difference lies in our beliefs. I believe in the power of the Concord, in the bond between the Precures, in my and my Demon King's justice, and in Lilian Rook's." The explosions were there as a distraction, an obstacle demanding a split-second reaction to try and pressure the muscle car into one of the track's pre-installed traps in a moment of panic. "You have a winning record, yet you do not believe in anything other than 'not losing.' What do you have to call upon, pressed this sorely, this close to the goal?" Woz takes the next corner aggressively to shave off a few seconds, hooking the edge of the track with the kama-tip of the Jikan Despear and leaping forward onto the straightaway. "You do not trust in your racing skills enough to be a racer," he says, hooking Spinout by the mirror as if to accentuate his point, only to pull himself up and stand atop the racer as a further attack on his mentals. "Nor in the audience enough to be a performer, in your alliances enough to be a statesman of the track, nor your trickery enough to be a rogue." Keeping Spinout occupied with him should give the others time enough to close the distance. Rather than fight to overtake, he's fighting to frustrate, using the Shinobi armor's speed and mobility to make himself infuriatingly difficult to get rid of--trying to fishtail or indeed spinout to get him off sees him low profile or superspeed backpedal in the opposite direction; rolls likewise see nimble backflips and ramming wobbles but does not topple him. It's taxing on Woz, and if Spinout could see the sweat on his temples, it might not be as frustrating--but there are two Precures who are counting on him, and allies close at hand. As if on cue, Nikki takes aim. Woz allows himself an indulgent smile, behind the helmet. Just a little while longer. "Your neutral-gear determination is enough to prevail over the weak-engined nothings you sent after us, but in a race against us, 'nothing' is precisely what awaits you at the finish line." He stands up straight, holds the Jikan Despear behind his back, iridescent scarf whipping in the wind, and strikes a firm handseal with his free hand, ring and pinky held fast under the thumb, index and middle upright and rigid. Woz disappears in a puff of smoke, reappearing a safe distance away as Arcana Slave impacts, hitting the ground in the archetypal chuuni envisioning of a ninja's sprint.
Natsuki Nuki	Natsuki's spinning front wheel finisher ends with her bouncing on the track, swaying away from the melee as Genm and Woz engage. "I'm never fine with getting second place, Eyewon! Sometimes there's just side-pots!!" The biker nue claims, gunning the Hell Bike with a brummbling of the exhaust pipes that choke black while she jousts with the front wheel down to make another pass at the melee on the fore for 'first place'. First place, currently, is 'whomever has the camera on them doing their move on Spinout', and the race is tight at the fore. Chased by missiles and doing the same 'swerve around the canned missiles' move she did a minute ago but with slightly different backing to save animation budget, Natsuki is suddenly hit by one, popping up her bike, and her, into the air. Not able to contact the racetrack, she loses speed at the head, landing once more at a standing lean braced by four arachnoid legs once more splitting in fairy tale swoop-outs of black chitin with the faintest dusting of orange to point-balance and then spring-bounce-scuttle to stabilize and recover into the lane after the loop-de-loop herself. 'I'm jus' not willing ta lose.' It's not the right type of vehicle for Natsuki to lean forward, stance up, focus in on her prey, but she does rev like an aggressive asshole behind Spinout. "oi, Oi, OI!! I'll run that idea that you're the only one in this race off your face like a--" But before the nue gets to invoke any particular vehicle related wordplay to cleverly hide outright innuendo or cursing oath, God Genm (a senior Partner) is thrown at Natsuki. As fast as bad news and as prideful as a tiger, Natsuki refuses to let a senior get run over by her if she can help it -- and his bike armor gives her an idea. Pulling the keys out of the ignition symbologically, what she draws in truth to her hand is an etched dark purple crystal in solid form, bearing layers of occult scratchings 'within' the crystal - deformations bearing information. When Genm comes for her, she kips knees up under herself, and holds the keystone for the Kamen Rider to acquire. When he closes his hands around it, it is not a 'pair of keys' as was so literally usable by the chimeric Osakan woman. Nor is it the keystone reflection of an unrealized vessel to summon a wrapper from another world. Instead, in his hands, the totem object sympathetically shifts -- it is a genius new game that his godlike intellect generates on the spot! SKELETON BIKE! It features the same bike though. The one he is now on, as Natsuki back-leaps off of her loaned-away ride. Instead, reaching up to her scarf about her neck, Natsuki tugs the cloth free as a single long rope of red cloth and whips it out as a long grapple to snake-bite attach to Spinout! Landing on two dark clouds that keep her bootheels just shy of burning off completely (and instead being shaved by every kiss to the plasma), Natsuki starts drifting on her lasso of animated costume-cloth for long enough to recover. She's ready to get her freak mode on, but there's a sound from nearby and after being run over several times for not paying attention she gets a prompt-- 'Heed me,' --and listens. By the time 'ARCANA SLAVE!' rips off, Natsuki lines up with Love Prime catching up to release from her bucking supercar lasso target, and waits for the tremendous magical girl attack to beam out and deliver Pre-Agreed Upon Justice. But not ENOUGH justice. "You're not the only one with what it takes to win, Spinout!" Natsuki roars, and broadly means more than just herself and it's not even 'for once', bolting off the Camper-nose with a flash of muted light and all momentum and hurlant leap, pouncing after the magical girl blast not just to hit Spinout -- but to do what he's done so many times before, and hurl him off the track completely with a mighty blow!
Timespace Riders	And then you'll be so~rry! "No," says Zi-O, lowering his sword. He removes both the Den-O Ridewatch and the dark, black-gold half of the Zi-O II Ridewatch. "I'm sorry now," calls Sougo Tokiwa, vulnerable in the midst of all the chaos and not particularly bothered by it. The wind whips violently at his oversized button-up, musses his hair, stings his eyes and has his endearingly partially-unthreaded length of web-belt flailing behind him. "Because I don't want to be the kind of person who can only care about someone when it starts to affect me." An explosion too close to him nearly knocks him off the RV; he hangs on for dear life, with the menace of a speeding track inching ever closer, but also for Eyewon. Grunting with determination, Sougo pulls himself back onto the roof, pushes out a huff of effort and unsteadily gets to his feet. The air starts to sting the fresh cut on his cheek, too. "Lala isn't the kind of person to pity someone. If she's telling you that you can have something, it's because she thinks you deserve it and because she'd fight for it. Not because she wants to talk down to you and keep living her life the same way." But that won't be enough, and he knows it. A good king respects where people have come from to meet them where they're at. "If she didn't feel that way, then she wouldn't bother asking you questions. She'd just be shouting over you about how you're evil and good will prevail and all that other dumb stuff," he calls up to her. Underneath Cure Milky, a pink portal opens--a second Zi-O in three-tone red-green-yellow armor emerges. Crossing the track in long leaps rather than sprinting or superspeed skating, he pursues Blastoff with arms outstretched to catch Cure Milky. The present Sougo keeps his attention on Eyewon. "What doesn't she 'get,' Eyewon?"
Lilian Rook	'That's still who you are, stupid! You don't get to ignore it! You don't get to! You're fighting your stupid friend because your friends are stupid and this is who he is and you don't even freaking like each other! So explode! Stop pretending you can better yourselves and explode!' Unfortunately. Eyewon is spitting. Lilian is extra super glad she has shades on, so nobody can see her awkwardly avoiding eye contact. 'Hahh? I shoulda Nottriggered this freaking guy! What the heck!! Well, like, now I'm gonna run him over!' "Right?!" Lilian shouts over a one-handed active reload. "He's one of the 'good guy' robots too! It's insane! They had a huge war over which tribe is the bastards! And the ones who get to go 'phew, not us!' just use it like a license to be like that!" she exasperates at volume, pointing down the track. "And, like, obviously, the guys who get to say 'we used to be the bastards, but we're one of the good ones!' are nearly as bad!" Lilian yells while gesturing at Nottrigger Blastoff now, fully falling into pace. She waves theatrically at Hikaru talking about getting accosted outside the race too. "Can't you zap him too? Please? Does the pen only do one at a time? Or have a cooldown or something?" Even with shades, the moment Lilian remembers she's a Paladin is visible on her face. "Joking. Obviously." 'Uh, I want the Stellar Note and then I want to steal the Star Drop and then I want Lady Mujinko to use their power and take over the entire universe, duh! And then all you people aren't gonna have a freaking chance to lie and gang up together just because it's easy and it's all your choice to decide everything and give everything to yourselves because it's going to be our turn once Lady Mujinko controls everything!' §Ah. <You People>, is it . . .§ 'Besides, I thought everyone on your planet like, freaking hated you. I'm surprised you're still so-- not getting it. Stupid.' Lilian breathes sharply through her teeth. Is that one her fault? No of course not. Eyewon chose to be mean and jump to horrible conclusions. But is she wrong? But what matters is that it hurt Lala to hear! And-- '--!! . . .' "Lala!" It doesn't matter either way. Lilian is already clambering out to rescue her. Weapon stowed, hand on the door, she forces her frame of reference of movement to fit 'both of them being still', and then-- Sougo rescues her instead? Lilian whips her head around to look at him as though everything he'd just been saying has only retroactively computed for her. "Bring her back here so she can cross the finish line at least!" she yells at him instead, to vent her concern. Her approach to a missile barrage is the same as the disgusting cornering before the straightaway; even though no one can see it, the camper van bucks and swerves and bumps with anomalous turbulence that pushes it out of the way; the hull rattles with the sounds of soft impact groaning stress in fast forward, then takes a corner so sharply that it's physically impossible, leaving stray shots raking behind. §Need to take a shower and wash my hands immediately dear god.§
Timespace Riders	Bring her back here so she can cross the finish line at least! "Okay!" yells the future Zi-O, landing with Lala in tow and then springing forward again. He can't quite keep up with the RV--but he can take a shortcut, leaping from the start of a sharp corner to the straightaway just after! Landing with a thud and a creak from the springy grasshopper-leg jump jacks on the roof of the RV, he sets Lala down and gives her and Lilian a thumbs-up. Then, he disappears in a flash of pink, leaving only the present, unarmored Sougo, who hasn't taken his eyes off of Eyewon.
Merelisa Shaynore	"Does the pen only do one at a time? Or have a cooldown or something?" Temporarily distracted by answering trivia questions about her cool evil magic tech, Eyewon holds out the pen in the direction of the RV with two fingers, pointing at it with her other hand and doing inscrutable physical gestures meant to illustrate the technological processes she's referring to. "Well, like, it's got a cooldown sorta, 'cause in order to sustainably channel the magic that Lady Mujinko, like, gave me in the shard, without exploding and totally destroying everything around it or turning everyone into-- without, like, stuff going wrong, I had to crank down the power like wayyyyyy much, and the capacity of the cables drawing on it is a lot lower so the reservoir's gotta, like, charge, and then when I turn somebody into a Nottrigger, they, like, there's their emotional energy that's like, tainting the battery to attune it-- hey! I don't need to tell you this!" Eyewon recoils just a tiny bit from being that hostile, but she pulls her hands back and wipes her excited expression over for a snooty one, planting her hands on her hips. "Okay, but like, it's really cool. It doesn't work for a little while but I can't tell you how long." "No, I'm sorry now," Tch." Eyewon leans her palm against Blastoff's oversized wingtip, frowning. "You, like, really all are just the same. You're literally losing right now. Like, beg harder." "Lala isn't the kind of person to pity someone. If she's telling you that you can have something, it's because she thinks you deserve it and because she'd fight for it." Eyewon scrunches up her face, then turns away and starts fiddling with her Dark Pen. "Jeez, this wind is, like, sooooo loud. I literally can't even hear a thing, because my Nottrigger's about to blow past you and leave you in the freaking dust while I go get first place. Guess it's time to deploy my final weapon, or something." Going 'la la la can't hear you' reminds you that she is a fourteen year old girl. "What doesn't she 'get,' Eyewon?" Blastoff's nosecone flips upwards, and a giant machine gun that's improbably larger than the space it comes from sticks out. Eyewon sneers and stops her foot again, swerving to point at Sougo with a wide aggressive stance and frizzy pigtails that bounce with her shouting. "She doesn't get freaking anything, idiot! She doesn't, like, know anything about me, and she can't, because she's stupid! It doesn't even matter if I spell it out, 'cause those Precures will just keep going on about friendship and love 'cause they don't know anything!" Down below, Milky is carefully maneuvering herself over the future Zi-O, then her finger lose their grip on the wing and she falls. She lands in his arms with an undignified 'ueh-' and then nods firmly. "Thanks, lun. Could you boost me back up there? I still need to talk to her."
Merelisa Shaynore	"...Wait, YOU'RE the head scientist? ... In middle school???" Eyewon sticks her tongue out and slams a button to make the machine gun start whirring to life, cla-cla-clacking as it gets up to speed. "Stuuupid! I'm not in middle school! I'm a super freaking hypergenius who makes aaalllll the Nottraider suits and the Dark Pens and Auntie Tenjou's chair and the computer systems for our ships because I'm the best! I haven't gone to any stupid school at all!" "Me either, lun!" With a teal-sparkly leap, Cure Milky's heels clink on the back of Blastoff's surface, facing off against Eyewon. She squeezes her eyes shut and clenches her fists, antennae bunching up like her shoulders with the emotional and physical effort of shouting. "I didn't go to school until recently! There aren't schools on Samaan at all, because the AIs make it unnecessary, lun!" "And you're just a dumb Precure and not a supergenius, so--" "But it's really, really fun, lun! Hikaru helped me start going to her school, and I've learned a lot there, lun, and made lots of friends that I wouldn't ever have otherwise!" "W-well, good for you, but--" "No!" Milky shakes her head, antennae flailing to either side, as the jet shakes from getting pummeled by falling debris of its own creation. "It's because of Hikaru, lun! I've grown a lot and gotten so much happier because she helps me to, lun! If you find the people who encourage you to be a better person, then you don't have to be so unhappy all the time! I know, lun! People like Hikaru, or Blastoff's friends to him!" "The Nottraiders..." "But do they help you? Do they want you to be happier? The universe is so super beautiful, lun, and I want you to be able to see that too!" ". . ." Now it's Eyewon's turn to be silent from something Lala said. Unlike Lala, though, rendering Eyewon unable to talk doesn't make her vulnerable, and her default emotionally-overloaded action is to press another button and fling Lala off the Nottraider with a conveniently placed spring platform that she just happened to be standing on. She sails through the air in a perfect arc to faceplant on the roof of the RV, right beside Star who is getting shot by one thousand bullets per second from Blastoff's machine gun. "How valuable you are!" On the puttering Nottrigger struggling from the bombardment of attacks, Eyewon looks up to see Onslaught leaping out of the sky towards her. When Blastoff gets grabbed, she clicks her tongue and looks around frantically. Seeing no other options, she runs and jumps...! off the Nottrigger and over the edge of the road, catching herself from falling with a pulse from her tractor beam gun. For anyone paying close attention, she drops out of sight, but there's no telltale event horizon of one of Lady Mujinko's portals afterwards.
Timespace Riders	It doesn't even matter if I spell it out, 'cause those Precures will just keep going on about friendship and love 'cause they don't know anything! Eyewon is a fourteen year old girl, but she isn't the only one of those Sougo Tokiwa has ever known, and he's known enough to know that it's very hard to be one even if you do everything 'right.' He procures a Ridewatch that no longer works; the face is cracked and grayed out. There might have once been something vermillion there, which would have come to life with a press of the stop. The Nottraiders... But do they help you? Do they want you to be happier? The universe is so super beautiful, lun, and I want you to be able to see that too! He smiles sadly at the scratched-out face, then pockets it again. Eyewon lands beside Star. There's a brief moment where his eyes meet hers--I wish you two could talk without all of this other stuff going on. Maybe we can do something about that later. But it's best not to leave temporal loose ends. So, for the time being... "Henshin!" OOO! A red, yellow and green pocketwatch is slotted into the left side of the Driver around his waist, the black-gold half of Zi-O II on the right. The LCD chronometer on the Timespace Driver reads AU18. The frantic ticking of a clock is heard, before Zi-O spins the Driver. ARMOR TIME! Three mechanical creatures--a hawk, a lion and a grasshopper--rush into view, disassembling themselves and reforming as a winged helmet, a breastplate with pauldrons and clawed gauntlets, and plated greaves, all snapping onto him. Taka! Tora! Batta! o/` O-zu!~ o/` Kamen Rider Zi-O, in the three-tone OOOs armor, travels briefly into the past to catch Lala--to say nothing of helping her out, that conversation, brief as it was, needed to happen. He stutters in place, appearing again just a split second later, in the exact same pose the other Zi-O had left the roof of the RV in. When he returns, Eyewon is gone, and he doesn't know to where. Zi-O sighs, his helmet tilted down, but steels himself.
Lilian Rook	'Well, like, it's got a cooldown sorta, 'cause in order to sustainably channel the magic that Lady Mujinko, like, gave me in the shard, without exploding and totally destroying everything around it or turning everyone into--' Lilian contemplates how this is actually an interesting piece of knowledge to consider. It's not usual that she'd consider someone or something like Mujinko to have power in engineering terms; like a practical concern. It grips her consideration that she only ever thinks about power, magical and otherwise, as an obstacle lately. The meaningful connotation dances on airheadedly by. 'there's their emotional energy that's like, tainting the battery to attune it-- hey! I don't need to tell you this!' "That's fascinating actually." Lilian says out loud; by accident, at first, before she doubles down on it. "Just aside for a moment, it's genuinely a breath of fresh air to speak to someone who actually knows what they're doing, in terms of specifics, breakdowns, tradeoffs, the fundamental forces by which they're doing anything at all." 'She doesn't get freaking anything, idiot! She doesn't, like, know anything about me, and she can't, because she's stupid! It doesn't even matter if I spell it out, 'cause those Precures will just keep going on about friendship and love 'cause they don't know anything!' Lilian takes a deep breath, and then somehow shouts only 'moderately' over the wind. "Come on Eyewon. Even you didn't get it at one point, right?" 'Stuuupid! I'm not in middle school! I'm a super freaking hypergenius who makes aaalllll the Nottraider suits and the Dark Pens and Auntie Tenjou's chair and the computer systems for our ships because I'm the best!' "She does do those thigns." Lilian adds, conspiratorially. "Wait-- Auntie?!" 'But do they help you? Do they want you to be happier? The universe is so super beautiful, lun, and I want you to be able to see that too!' Lilian has seen this side of Lala only once before, and it was when she was pretending to be her glamorous foreign cousin to help her out at school. The sight of it makes her heart skip a beat and her breath catch. Lilian touches her fingers to her chest, hold her breath, and say "Lala I need to hug you." when Sougo returns her; and then does it on the spot.