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Merelisa Shaynore     "Mew all... I couldn't ask for nyanyone better than my cute fans!! Thank mew all so much! How do we feel about oooone final nyumber?! Cosmic Mystery Girl!"

o/` "Is it love or is it hate? Which one do I truly feel~?"

    With their last ditch plan thorough crushed, and their forces throughout the audience gradually being worn down, Tenjou and Eyewon are cornered. Eyewon has her arms crossed, poutily, and Tenjou tries to regather her minions for an escape. "Freaking figures. We ruin the concert and they're all still such dummies that they're *still*, like, tricking themselves into having fun. I wanna go home."

o/` "I'm sorry but let me be free for a little while longer~ because you know, I'm meowmber one!"

    The lingering effect of the Calamity Lights is still derivative of the Dark Star Shards Eyewon uses for her other tech, so there's a lasting aura of confusion and uncertainty in the crowd. If it's anything like the Nottriggers, their memories of today might not be perfectly clear-- but, with the concert rescued from the brink, and Mao performing her number one hit song, there isn't a smudge of darkness to be seen anywhere in the crowds, and the rainbow hue of the Crystallulon's shell is radiantly happy (though it's still stomping, in excitement!).

o/` "Can you find the real me? I'm a trickster who shows up without a sound~"

    The closing lines of Cosmic Mystery Girl are almost drowned out by applause, but the number of people still singing along are higher still. Hikaru and Lala have nailed every step of choreography for the finale, and it wrung every last drop of energy out of them, red-faced and sweaty, arranged to either side of Mao with their hands up in pose. Mao puts a hand to her chest, breathing heavily and smiling wide out to the audience, and then looks to the Crystallulon, and the smile slowly slides off of her face.

"That was amazing, lun!"
"We really pulled it off!! Twincool!"
"Mao, mao, it worked, right? ... Mao...?"

    Even though the crowd's cheering is still tapering off, Mao's expression has gone totally flat, pale and dreading like she's got the worst stage fright all of a sudden. Lala reaches out her hand, and then stops cold when Mao's green eyes flick over to stare at her, and the idol clenches her fist. A small smile comes to her face, but doesn't reach her eyes.

    "Ahh... nyaI hate to say it, but there's one teeny little act left for tonyight. Apawlogies, Star, Milky."

    Hikaru takes a step backwards, eyes wide. "M-Mao...? No...--!"

    "... All good things must come to an end, nna?"

    Mao backflips off the stage, sailing over to stand halfway between the Precures and the Crystallulon, high up on a pillar in the stadium seating. Midway in the air, her form melds and shifts, and when her boots touch the ground, they're blue, and she adjusts her top hat and sunglasses, eyes no longer visible as she tilts her face down towards the girls on stage.

"... Blue Cat!!"
"O-oyo?! H-how...??"
Merelisa Shaynore . . . . . .

    With the energy of the concert draining away now, the large audience is starting to get woozy and drifting off into unconsciousness from the mental draw of the Calamity Lights. The Crystallulon, too, seems satisfied with the performance, closing its eyes and rumbling, swiping its massive tail back and forth. In the stunned instant after her reveal, when the Crystallulon's eyes flutter shut, Blue Cat snaps a grappling wire out of a launcher hidden in her glove, coiling around the Stellar Note and yanking it into her waiting hand. She spins it around with a *snap*, Libra symbol faintly glowing on the music box cylinder's surface.

    Hikaru and Lala, only barely having caught their breath from the performance of Cosmic Mystery Girl, are glaring and wide-eyed teary respectively, towards the phantom thief standing on the pillar above them, back-and-surround-lit by stadium lighting. Hikaru's fist trembles, but surprisingly, it's Lala that finds her words first.

    "Y-you... this whole time... have you just been fooling everyone?"

    Blue Cat pushes her sunglasses up with one finger, opaquely reflective with her expression neutral. "... That's right, nna. Everyone's beloved space idol, Mao-tan... is just my disguise. My true identity is the one who traverses the universe, the galactic phantom thief, Blue Cat!"

    Tenjou has gathered up all of her Nottrei goobers into a clump around the passed-out concertgoers, summoning up one of Mujinko's signature black hole portals to escape through, but-- Eyewon, for just a minute, lingers. Bitter for having lost a gambit she wasn't thrilled about in the first place, she takes the chance to gloat while the Precures are shocked and distraught before following Tenjou away.

    "Stuuuuupid Precures! Don't you know that *everyone* will, like, betray you eventually?! That's how it worrrrks, IDIOTS! Kyahahahaha~!"

    "Mao... no, Blue Cat! Y-you..." Rather than making some defiant declarative hero statement, Hikaru's expression wavers and her voice cracks, gripping a fistful of the vinyl idol dress she was lended. Yuma, on Takeshi's shoulder, makes a low, distressed whine, sounding more sad than angry. "... I-isn't this just horrible? How can you stand lying to so many people this way? That's no way to be happy, no matter what your wish is!"

    Blue Cat lowers the brim of her top hat and frowns. "... Then you don't have very big wishes do you, Hikaru, nna?"

    And with that, she flips off of her soapbox and grapples a wire to the ceiling, running along the wall deeper into the cave. Is there a second exit? Somewhere else she's running to? Either way, she's escaping with the Stellar Note!
Tamamo     'It's 'the galaxy's best'.'

    "As you say." Tamamo's smile is almost as bright as she burns.

    The plan works. The world -- this world, in particular -- is saved. What's more, it was done with Tamamo and Lilian dancing on stage, and they didn't even have to ruin Mao's number in the process. Everything is just going so well.

    Earlier...
    Tamamo, only a tiny bit out of breath after the number, says, "What of the Stellar Note? The Nottraiders are chasing those, too, no?"

    "No...!" It was left there, after all, and now, the Nottraiders can--

    'Stuuuuupid Precures!'

    --retreat? But the Stellar Note is--

    'Blue Cat! Y-you...'

    It's Mao! No, it's a blue cat! No, that's a name, isn't it?

    "Who...?"

    'How can you stand lying to so many people this way?'

    "Is this a persona you know, Hikaru? Ah, but, truly, the secrets kept... those are not the most important thing here, are they? What I would rather focus upon is... Ms. Blue Cat! How can you take a mother's song from her child? Is that price not too much?"

    She doesn't have the speed, herself, to reach a phantom thief. But that's fine, because Lilian is here. Tamamo withdraws one of her talismans, and presses the energizing blessing to Lilian's back, right over her tattoo. There's no need to explain what must be done.
Angela Roland returns back from shoving an unconscious Nottraider in a closet and seems pleasantly surprised that everything seems to be nice and wrapped up. Blue Cat reveals herself and, Roland, not realizing what this means says, "Oh, neat! This concert has a storyline. I didn't know that."

Malkuth, uneasy, says, "I'm not sure that's what's going on..."

rRoland frowns. "...Are you saying she's actually an intergalactic phantom thief? ... That sounds like something out of one of Angela's stories I--" He glances to the Angelapad. "Wait you didn't know she was secretly a phantom thief, did you?"

''Then you don't have very big wishes do you, Hikaru, nna?''

Angela is watching Blue Cat thoughtfully. Something about that line resonated with her. As much as she'd like to help rescue a Stellar Note for Lala and Hikaru, the sad truth is--she barely knows what they're even about, she mostly just wants to help them because Lilian likes them and she thinks they are sweet girls and she's not a monster and Yuma seems adorable. But even so...

"Roland. Malkuth. After her. Do not let her get away..."

"Oh sure--and to return the Stellar Note?" Roland asks.

Angela mms thoughtfully. "...Well more importantly, I want to know what her wish is."

Roland wasn't expecting such a magical girl style answer out of Angela but he gives a shrug and says, "Alright--" And starts running after the Phantom Thief. And he's pretty quick on his feet! But--

--Malkuth is equipped with an EGO Gear that really puts emphasis on speed. Wingbeat's wings flutter and hum faintly as Malkuth crouches down and rushes after Blue Cat!

"Hey...Wait!!" Malkuth shouts. "My boss wants to know your most cherished wish that you are putting everyhthing on the line for!"

Angela bites down on the inside of her lip. She's not sure she likes how Malkuth is phrasing that.
Natsuki Nuki BACKSTAGE,

Natsuki, having worked for the whole show to pull this off expecting a 'certain result' - only insinuated, never promised, but expected - falls to the kind of post-performance slack in her position, a tangle of wires soughing from her hands and lap so she can appreciate the last moments of the final song in person. The buzz of the show, not technical but emotional, still lingered in the crew - local and call-in support both. It was a wine, a shared lunacy, and Natsuki didn't hate investing that kind of effort in 'her latest star'. A fight she'd win, a table she cleared by staking in and simply being better than the competition.

Doramus was a chump, but Mao. . .

But Mao . . .

... All good things must come to an end, nna?

The last song has the crowd wild. Natsuki, watching the final moments from the back of the stage, hears the 'wrong' cute affectation and before her eyes widen and dilate, Blue Cat has backflipped onto the central platform.

Emotions work across the chimera--woman's eyes, obviously the hot flash of betrayal, and the narrowing of anger, and also... A grown-fury, something that had taken root before and only now opened its bloom with fresh watering.

It was 'like this'. That it kept happening, 'this way'. That she was stupid to try. She had chided the Precures on not trying to follow up when she got taken for a ride, but here she was, still on the same tracks.

'Everyone's beloved space idol, Mao-tan... is just my disguise.'

She never had anything at all. Lies to string her along.

With a cold, faint-trembling shift, Natsuki pulls out a simple-seeming ring, fitting the band around her still human-scale hands and firmly shoves the bauble onto her finger, visually disappearing on the spot.

AMONG THE CROWD,

Takeshi doesn't lower his glowsticks until the song is done, and neither does his CHOSEN THUGS, the idol warriors having achieved victory in the culture war by their incredible dedication and alacritous use of both the miraculous power of musical spirit and also by weaving jumpkicking Nottrei back. Takeshi, whose powered up state of Busting It Down Big Man Style deflates as the (idol) crisis subsides, heaves out a big puff of breath and shoulder-slumps as the Nottrei pull their singularity escapes and leaves a spent crowd in the post-encore state of exhaustion.

Several of the Yakuza toughs, including Takeshi's culture warriors, lay insensate on the ground, either beaten up, drained, or idol'ed out, and others are calmly popping water bottles and shifting to running post-show concessions and hustling. Takeshi, looking first to Yuma on his shoulder, lifts a finger to touch to the little musicnote fairy's center and offerly a brotherly sidegrin.

"Good concert, right?" Takeshi asks, but his eye is caught by the color shift. Surely, not another encore?

Worse. Perpetually, eternally worse.
'My true identity is the one who traverses the universe, the galactic phantom thief, Blue Cat!'

"G-graduation?" Takeshi stammers, backstepping in shock and horror, and tracing his eyes to the sailing of the Stellar Note into Blue Cat's hands makes him realizing: This was all a setup! A betrayal! Or worse, 'exactly what the idol needed'.

Huffing and puffing on a grounded retreat, pushing through the tuckered out crowd, Takeshi chases his latest oshi on her graduation sprint. "Mao!" He shouts, since he never really learned Blue Cat's name. "Is this 'freedom'? Do you hate being an idol? Or love it?! As your fan, *I* want to know!"
Lilian Rook     This whole thing was silly. A concert was the opposite of the sort of place that befits a battle between the legendary Pretty Cures and the Nottraiders for the Stellar Notes, not to mention a far cry from somewhere Lilian belonged. The ritual of appeasing the Crystallulon had felt almost feverish in its logical yet utterly surreal extension of stakes, gravitas, and cultural 'through'. That the war was waged through glowsticks, dance numbers, and crowd hype, added up to a trifecta of bizarre divergences that should have put her thoroughly out of her element; especially so shortly after the fiery crucible of Lobotomy Corporation's underground war.

    But still. Lilian had thought that, all things considered, she had done pretty well. That even if a month ago, she'd been soaked head to toe in blood, this sort of thing might not be beyond her. That, for all its silliness and sincerity and strange purity of heart, it might even suit her. Solving things 'the magical girl way' had, again, for a brilliant and fleeting instant, seemed thrillingly within her grasp.

    'Y-you... this whole time... have you just been fooling everyone?'

    All up until this moment.

    'Stuuuuupid Precures! Don't you know that *everyone* will, like, betray you eventually?! That's how it worrrrks, IDIOTS! Kyahahahaha~!'

    The one in which Lilian digs deep for a rejoinder, or at least a strong sense of denial, and comes up empty handed.
    A magical girl should not just be able to say that's wrong, but prove it; to make it so.
    And all that Lilian feels is the wake of all of her hard work and good faith disappearing into the black vortex of someone else's 'even so'.

    '... Then you don't have very big wishes do you, Hikaru, nna?'

    "Hating small ones is the sign of a sick mind, Blue Cat." says Lilian. Paused on the edge of the stage, her rapid vacilation between reaching for her sword and reaching for her radio to the stage crew runs through all of the energy she has to sprint.

    "What did Yuma do to deserve this? What did Hikaru and Lala do except try to help you? A phantom thief of your calibre should have been able to sneak in easily without any of this idol make-believe. The only reason to do this was to make it hurt, wasn't it?"

    Tamamo does indeed not need to explain. Lilian had stayed and fought Kappard last time, not chased after Blue Cat, so her pursuit ability can still be a surprise. Spurred into action by engaging with her coincidentally Cosmic-Themed design element, she hoists Tamamo up into her arms in the same motion as a heel spin and leap from the stage, crouching into the landing and leaping up to the lighting rig to follow along from above.
Merelisa Shaynore "Is this a persona you know, Hikaru?"

    Hikaru slides her foot forward threateningly towards Blue Cat, hand on the Star Color Pendant around her neck. Without taking her eyes off of the phantom thief, she nods at Tamamo and Roland. "Blue Cat... she's stolen a Stellar Note from us before. She's the most wanted person in the galaxy, for lots of other reasons too."

"She helped us once before, lun..."
"And she betrayed us then too, remember?"
"O-oyo... I just can't believe...."

    "Well, we can't let her get away! Lala!" Hikaru brandishes her transformation greeble pen, and after a moment of hesitation, Lala pulls out the Cancer Star Color Pen that was generated just the previous day on the drive over and nods. "Hikaru!"

    ""Star Color Pendant!""
        ""Color Charge!""

    Their final song and dance on the stage, the Precures draw out ribbons of light from their pens, spiraling into their dresses and bows, see-through baubles and cosmic jewelry, for their transformed states. Lala adds the extra flourish of drawing out the Cancer astrological symbol, and her resulting outfit is slightly different from usual, with large, sleek skirt that's ruffled at the ends, and at the ends of her antennae, rather than her typical bulbs, she has massive metal crusher claws that she wields effortlessly.

"The twinkling star that shines throughout the universe, Cure Star!"
"The Milky Way stretching across the heavens, Cure Milky!"

    To begin the chase, one of Lala's claws whips out and grips the same pillar Blue Cat had just been standing on, and mid-leap, the other one scoops up one of Mao's Miracle Lights discarded on the venue floor. It's launched after Blue Cat with shockwave-inducing force, smashing into the cave wall right beside her and shattering into a cloud of magenta sparkles, eliciting a shocked "N-nna?!" from her. Evidently, transforming restored some of Milky's capacity for anger, rather than just shock and disappointment.

    "*You* don't get to insult Hikaru's dreams, lun! Or Yuma's, or mine, or anyone's! At least we have dreams, instead of just... just *stealing* everything and not caring who it hurts, lun!!"

    Blue Cat looks behind her and grimaces at the extent of the pursuit. She flicks her wrist, and appearing between each of her fingers is a marble-sized pellet, which she flings in an arc across the width of the cave. They burst into clouds of smoke, which obscures her position for several seconds, when a flurry of those same playing cards she threw before come flying out. They explode all around the walls and floor, well short of hitting anyone, but the cavern crystals that they impact ring out with perfectly tuned music notes and glow, and there's a faint rumbling from closer to the entrance of the cave. Blue Cat leaps from ledges and runs along barely-slanted walls with the same dexterity she showed when dancing on top of Woz's scarf during the performance earlier.

"My boss wants to know your most cherished wish that you are putting everyhthing on the line for!"

    Blue Cat hadn't expected the wings on Malkuth's outfit to actually be functional, so she manages to catch a significant portion of the way up until Blue Cat is forced to fling an exploding card in her direction to slow her down. Cure Star isn't nimble enough to keep up with Blue Cat's acrobatics, but her magic stars appear below her feet to let her double jump over the rocky cave terrain and propel herself in short bursts. Out of breath, she shouts over to the phantom thief.
Merelisa Shaynore     "Yeah! If we knew what your wish was... we might be able to *help* you, Blue Cat!"

    "Not a chance, nna."

    "But how can you be *certain* if you won't let us *know*?!"

    Blue Cat clicks her tongue, frustrated. She dodges around one of the stars that Hikaru grips onto and hurls at her like a discus, then twirls around on one heeled boot to face her and Malkuth, agitated.

    "Because I'd *always* betray you, nna! I work *alone*, so no one can tell me where I have to *stop*! My wish isn't one that you, or Milky, or anyone can grant, besides *her*!"

    Blue Cat points accusingly at Yuma, clinging onto Takeshi's shoulder while he runs and wobble-bouncing with each of his steps. Even though she claimed to need the Star Drop for herself eventually, she doesn't make a motion to grapple-wire her now, seemingly content with just the one Stellar Note she has.

"What if she doesn't want to grant it?"
"Then I'll have to make her, nna. I won't stop at anything. That's why... if I asked for your help, it'd only be taking advantage of you more."

"How can you take a mother's song from her child? Is that price not too much?"

    That actually makes Blue Cat flinch and stumble. She turns her face away, ashamed, and her fist tightens around the Stellar Note enough to tremble. "... I don't know anything about that, nna. But even if I did..." Her voice shakes. "... It's everyone in the galaxy for themselves, nna? The only thing that decides who gets what they want is who wants it more."

"The only reason to do this was to make it hurt, wasn't it?"

    "No." It's Hikaru that gasps an answer to Lilian's question before Blue Cat can angrily hiss one first. She pulls herself up onto a rocky ledge, locking eyes with Blue Cat down below her for a second. "... There was one other reason, right? You wanted to do the concert first, so that the people on this planet would be happy, didn't you?"

"Do you hate being an idol? Or love it?! As your fan, *I* want to know!"

    Cure Milky swings down from a stalactite on the ceiling to land in a splash of teal magic right behind Blue Cat. She tries to pin Blue Cat between her two antenna grabber claws, and the phantom thief is forced to duck and weave in conversation range to dodge, while Lala shouts at her, hair frizzing up from the ambient electricity she's letting off. "Lun! Do you hate your *fans*, Mao?!"

    "Khh--! It doesn't *matter*, nna! Mao was always a means to an end! To find the Star Drop, I needed access to the whole galaxy, nna! So that's why--!!"

    One of the crusher claws snaps shut inches from her head, grazing her top hat and knocking it off. "Just for that?! There are *millions* of people who think they love you, lun! How can you throw them all away?!"

    "The same way they threw me away!"

    Lala flinches, and Blue Cat snatches her hat back, then grapples away further into the cave. She throws out another spread of cards, exploding along the crystals and making ringing notes like keys on a xylophone.
Angela The wings aren't letting Malkuth fly but they seem to be boosting her speed. Of course, Malkuth is still a bit of a klutz and she is not a trained fighter so when Blue Star throws a card at her, Malkuth reach out to catch it and it explodes, causing her to trip over her own feet, flip onto her face, and slide across the ground. Roland catches up to help her up.

"Still not used to running?" He asks.

Malkuth groans. "Aren't you supposed to be an ''expert'' of catching cats? You're a Grade Nine Fixer, aren't you? That's the kind of work Grade Nines get up to."

Oh no! If Roland fails to catch Blue Cat, will his SECRET IDENTITY be exposed?!

"Alright, I'll see what I can do." Roland says. He's not as fast as Malkuth but he's pretty quick all the same.

''My wish isn't one that you, or Milky, or anyone can grant, besides *her*''

"Yeah? So what're you waiting for, just tell her what it is. Maybe she will and this is totally pointless..!"

But Roland, unlike Finn, doesn't have Skill - Cat Catching so he is going to have to try to fake it instead. He rushes into the smoke, obscuring his own presence for a moment. He wonders why he's bothering with this? He's not actually a fan of Mao and it seems like Mao wasn't even someone that really existed. Angela gave him the job, but he considers finding a way to fall behind--

--but he might learn more about her if she gets in conversational range. He hops over cavernous debris and runs--ducking under crystalline stalagmites as he does so.

''It's everyone in the galaxy for themselves, nna?''

Roland flinches and grimaces visibly.

''The same way they threw me away!''

"I see. So you are angry that they cared about a false persona, and not the real you." Angela says. "You too were cast aside by the world."

"I...get why you might be saying that, Angela, but that's that and--"

"......Do not mistake it for empathy Roland. I simply desire to know of the world." Angela is an AI that can, well, it's unclear. "Whatever it is, it is something that is too important to risk, even a little, correct?" Of course Roland is starting to flag... He's already been bustling around everywhere all day and he just got done with dragging around an unconscious body it's been a real one.
Tamamo     'Do you hate being an idol?'
    'Do you hate your *fans*, Mao?!'
    'Mao was always a means to an end!'
    'Just for that?!'
    ...she hoists Tamamo up into her arms in the same motion as a heel spin and leap from the stage...

    "That cannot be so." With her arms around Lilian's shoulders, it's a trifle difficult to fight, but no problem to keep up with the pursuit and, with that, maintain conversational distance. Neither of them is easy to lose, under normal circumstances, and all the more so together. "Was there ever one who became 'the best in the galaxy' without caring, without being surpassed by one a little less talented, but far more willing? I would not believe it, even had I not seen how you treated your fans, Ms. Blue Cat."

    'How can you throw them all away?!'
    'The same way they threw me away!'

    "Even so, you wished for them to stay. Is that not why you reached out to as many as you could, just minutes ago? Can you look into my eyes and tell me that I am wrong?"

    It's dangerous to look into those eyes, though. Even without the supporting array of talismans planted in the stands, her magic is still active, making it difficult to look away, yet easy to let one's attention sink deeper in.

    "The Stellar Notes... form, together, a mother's lullaby, left for her child to find. Did you not know? I wonder... who was it who told you that little Yuma could be forced to grant your wish, yet made no mention of what it was you must first take?"
Natsuki Nuki Takeshi Nuki is not the same kind of weirdo that his oldest sister is. She, a curse-eating chimera, had developed the family tricks in her own way. Takeshi is not the same kind of weirdo as the middle sister, either; Futaba's powerfully expressed blessings had caused Takeshi to go wide on getting problems solved - even if she walloped his best two minions and stole their power items.

Takeshi is not, however, some one note stooge. Chasing after the flash of lights caused by the transformations of the Pretty Cures, Yuma shifts in a poof of smoke from shoulder-rides to back-of-neck rides when Takeshi takes hold of his leaf pin charm and transforms from the imposing figure of a 'big guy' with slicked back hair to a large dark-brown fuzzy creature with a short tail and a bounding mount for Yuma. Despite being roughly the size of a small bear, Takeshi's raccoon dog form springs over tuckered out fans and hustle-scarpers through the caves, dodging rock formations from below and above and trying to keep pace with the flight of Blue Cat.

Like a cartoon, Takeshi's big canid eyes have that big soulful-water of an honest-faced dog trying and failing to confront some great truth. The mist of emotion - of sudden yet passionate affection for the expression of another, and the intentional indulgence in fandom - had gripped the youngest Nuki's heart tightly, and he'd be a (certain kind of) dog before he'd give Mao up that easily.

"Do you think we don't know that someday, you'll stop making music? That there'll be a last Mao album?" The emotion roils through Takeshi's voice, no longer filtered up through affected maturity. "You're not my first idol, you're--"

The chase-fight is dangerous, and Takeshi isn't really trying to fight Blue Cat at all. With ample neck to hold onto, Yuma's well-situated, but not if the young tanuki gets blown up or impaled! Even if that's... not really the tone of the exchange.

"--you're my favorite, right now, because when I listen to you what you're singing is real! Even the parts about not knowing if you like it or hate it, that's real too!"

Echoing Tamamo-no-Mae without exactly understanding (like Natsuki) exactly whose statement he is heartfully support-shouting about, Blue Cat's point at him -- at Yuma -- gets the big talking raccoon-dog too skid to a stop but seem confused whether he should defend himself and Yuma or not.

'I won't stop at anything.'

There's no 'attack' to defend, no grapple wire to snap and swat at, or even let go. It's good there isn't. In the moment -- Takeshi wouldn't have been ready to stop it. He might have even let it happen. But instead, he's just chasing again, on the next note. He *wants* to know, and believes the teleporting Yuma is along for the ride because she wants to know too.

"This concert wasn't a means to an end! It was for that lame creep you're signed to, but it wasn't for you!" Pleading, but also understanding. Hikaru already called it out.

"Did you really become intoxicated by a lie you told yourself? Idols spread joy even staring into despair - and you're an incredible idol!"
Lilian Rook     'Not a chance, nna.'

    §Not anymore. Not after you've done this twice.§

    'Because I'd *always* betray you, nna! I work *alone*, so no one can tell me where I have to *stop*!'

    §No you don't. You work anything but alone. You--§
    "--pretend to be people who can ask for anything they want, and get it. You only disavow it all after everyone's supported you."

    'That's why... if I asked for your help, it'd only be taking advantage of you more.'

    §So how is stealing that help any better?!§
    "So how is stealing that help any better?!"

    The spillage between thoughts and words occurs somewhere in the midst of the chase where Lilian has yet to fully pay attention to it. Smoke bombs are as annoying an obstruction for her as anyone else, and she's too cautious by half around the explosive cards now. The musical sound that fills the caverns after each blast puts her on edge, leaving her frantically running precognition on overtime as she pursues. The constant onslaught of enemy action from Blue Cat as the girls frantically chase after her just for the right to even talk about it makes it harder to keep the two things separate in motion.

    'The only thing that decides who gets what they want is who wants it more.'

    "That isn't even true! You know it isn't!"

    Lilian makes one slightly too daring lunge for the hat, turning aside to shift Tamamo's weight onto one arm and seize the item that the bunrei could so easily track her by, then stops to shield herself from the fan of blasts instead. She still isn't in good enough condition for this; her split second judgements are sloppy; but the indignation at being used comes more easily.

    "If wanting it was enough, those Nottrei goons--! . . . At least those three would have had their prayers answered forever ago! They're willing to do things you can't even think of, and they get nothing! Nothing except for what the only person in the galaxy who believes in them gives them! Just like how you keep getting your way because you keep tricking people into wanting to believe in you!"

    'The same way they threw me away!'

    Lilian takes in a sharp breaht, then 198,vanishes) up ahead, cutting Blue Cat off further ahead in her route where she can put down Tamamo for at least a second. Everything else she wants to say; everything much more 'magical girl' that she can think of; fails to reach her lips. There's just one idea that can squeeze past the tight set of her jaw like this.

    "Yeah? And what fervent wish of theirs did that fulfil? Did throwing you away get them anything? Or could they just afford to do it because they already had everything?"

    Even if her heart is too scrambled to pick a lane on the matter of violence, Lilian can still choke a short section of the linear trail with little runestone traps; a random jumble of them across a stretch of terrain like trying to sprint through a field of assorted elemental firecrackers that don't require any timing from her at all.

    "You're not in a position to be throwing faith in you away. You can't claim you'll do anything to grant your single most desperate wish, then say that people who love you are just excess. I know as well as you do that you want to keep them. You wish they would help. That's why you've been practically giving away your identity this whole time and daydreaming of the time someone finally notices, isn't it?"
Merelisa Shaynore "Yeah? So what're you waiting for, just tell her what it is."

    Blue Cat glances at Yuma, who's wrapped her arm tendrils around Takeshi's little tanuki neck for stability while riding. For all her crying when being grabbed at by the Nottraiders, the slowly spinning concentric circles of green light on Yuma's face don't show an ounce of fear even when Blue Cat points the glove with the grapple wire launcher inside at her.

    "Twelve of these," She waggles the Libra Stellar Note. "And the Star Drop, can grant you any wish you can imagine. Or so the rumor goes, nna."

    Her face twitches in Lala's direction for a moment, but Lala doesn't have any special knowledge about Yuma's wishgranting abilities beyond that. "And right now, there's only four. It doesn't matter whatever I say now, because there won't be any *results*, nna. And by the time I have the other eight, I'm not leaving it up to chance."

    Hikaru's fingers brush along the pouch where the Taurus Pen sits, as if Blue Cat might have stolen it when she wasn't looking, but it's still there. But Hikaru didn't show it off last time they met Blue Cat, and Lala is only using Cancer now, so how did she know that there were four found in total...?

"I see. So you are angry that they cared about a false persona, and not the real you."

    Blue Cat zips away with a smoke bomb pellet left behind her, bursting around Roland when he steps on it. Her endurance isn't actually infinite either-- she might be practiced at it, but she did just perform an entire high energy concert right before a prolonged sprint away from several powerful pursuers. As she goes on, she has to rely on her tricks and tools more and more to slow the Elites down, rather than raw dexterity.

    "No! Not just-- not just Mao's fans, nna. The entire Starscape Galaxy. Everyone in it, they couldn't care less...!"

    Blue Cat kicks a crystal over to ride like a board down a long rocky slope deeper into the cave, and Hikaru leaps onto one of her magical starshapes, sliding down right behind her. "Well--! I'm not from the Starscape Galaxy! Neither are most of the people here! Even if you're angry at them, *we* can hear you out! Lala, too! I know she would!"

    Lala, for her part, looks a little hesitant about reaching out so empathetically to her 'false idol'. She, even more than Takeshi, was among the 'fans betrayed', and even reconciling that this person in front of them is the same, and different, as Mao the idol, is a process she hasn't completed: 'Blue Cat' hasn't once come out of her mouth addressed to her, because speaking it would make it more real-- and then who was she dancing behind, just earlier?
Merelisa Shaynore "I would not believe it, even had I not seen how you treated your fans, Ms. Blue Cat."
"This concert wasn't a means to an end! It was for that lame creep you're signed to, but it wasn't for you!"

    Blue Cat stiffens, and that lets Lala clamp her in one of her antenna claws, holding her tight for a few seconds. She struggles and squirms, kicking her feet in what seems more like indignation than an attempt to escape, and in her thrashing, her sunglasses fall off to reveal the green eyes identical to Mao's. Lala stares at her face for a second, before tightening the claw grip just a little more, making Blue Cat's breath hitch. Held captive, she drops her chin to her chest.

    "... Not that any of them'd buy that excuse anyways, nna. If they knew what I really was, they'd all leave anyways, and I need them, or else Doramus won't need me, and I need access to him to get anywhere. So no matter what I feel, it's founded on a lie I can't escape, nna."

    "'Scandals are nyo good', right?" That's another lyric from Cosmic Mystery girl, delivered with a unhappy vapor of Mao's cutesy affect. That, plus seeing 'Mao's' eyes, makes Lala's crushclaw loosen just a tiny bit, and then Blue Cat shapeshifts into a housecat-sized form to escape, shifting right back to humanoid form when she hits the ground.

    "Is-- isn't it better, lun?! To be honest with yourself and everyone, even if it makes things a little harder at first? Y-you know, if you had just explained who you were, without tricking us, I wouldn't have hated you, lun. And Takeshi, too.... There's more people on your side than you think! There's people who want to help, lun!"

". . . At least those three would have had their prayers answered forever ago!"

    Blue Cat startles, leaping up into the air and twisting around to stare at Lilian accusingly, slightly wild-eyed. She grips a smoke pellet marble tightly, and her eyes flick around to scan Lilian's face for something. Not finding it, she takes an extra few seconds longer to formulate something, and then loosens her grip to throw the smoke bomb down.

    "... I don't know them, nna. So I couldn't say either way." The location her voice is audible from through the smoke suddenly shifts as she's yanked up to the ceiling, away from the Elites' waiting grasps. "But if tricking them into believing in me is the only way, then that's what I'll do. That's what wanting it more *means*, nna. Without that, I just wouldn't want it *enough*."

"That's why you've been practically giving away your identity this whole time and daydreaming of the time someone finally notices, isn't it?"

    "I..." Without her sunglasses on, you can see the way Blue Cat's eyes widen. The 'honesty' struck at the center of her music, and her performances, isn't something she expected to be commented on so directly and repeatedly, and it forces her to respond in kind.

    "I... didn't think anyone would. Notice, or help, nna. I thought I could... throw it in their faces, and they wouldn't notice, because... after all this time, they always had the chance. Me, everyone... they've *always* had the chance to notice, so why would they *now*?! Just because I *tricked* them into believing in me, right?!"
Merelisa Shaynore "Can you look into my eyes and tell me that I am wrong?"

    A little dazed from her outburst, Blue Cat is suggestible enough even without magic to acquiesce to Tamamo's words-- maybe hers, especially, without shouting. She looks down at Tamamo from her ledge, and locks eyes with her, stumbling a few wobbly steps backwards from the uncertain wave of emotions. She tries to habitually tug the brim of her hat down over her eyes, but mostly just succeeds in covering one of the two.

"The Stellar Notes... form, together, a mother's lullaby, left for her child to find. Did you not know?"

    "N-no, I...." Yuma, looking up imploringly at Blue Cat, synthesizes the same handful of measures of music that played out of the music box in the RV, and Blue Cat seems to instantly recognize that this tune is the lullaby, wincing. Spurred on by Tamamo's magic, but only barely simmering below the surface anyways, she babbles, while the rumbling sound that was spurred on by the musical crystals steadily gets closer.

    "I-I didn't, but... but what do you expect me to do?? What else am I supposed to do? *My* mother-- m-my family, the whole planet-- th-they're all depending on me, now, so... so I-I'm sorry about your mother, Yuma. Sorry. I'm s-sorry, but...."

    Blue Cat rips her face away from looking at Tamamo, and Hikaru reaches out helplessly with her hand from too far away, calling out. "Wait--! Blue Cat!! What happened to your mother? Your... planet, you don't mean...?!"

    She's cut off by the source of the rumbling finally revealing itself. The Crystallulon, drawn in by the sound of more music to enrich its waking day, bounds through the cave and shakes it with every step, giant jaws hanging open like a dopey dog playing fetch. Blue Cat flicks out another hand of cards, tensely facing away, and throws them at crystals at the Elites' feet, blasting with a dissonant chord and causing the Crystallulon to stomp angrily towards them like it's their fault.
Angela ''It doesn't matter whatever I say now, because there won't be any *results*''

Ah, Angela thinks, so this is what it's like on the other side of a statement like that.

''Nna.''

Well, mostly.

''The entire Starscape Galaxy. Everyone in it, they couldn't care less---!''

"Fortunately most of these people are not from--" She makes a complex expression best exemplified as 'happy to be on the same page as Hikaru but also kind of annoyed that Hikaru got out the argument she was going to make before she made itr.

"It doesn't particularly bother me that you lied to us." Blue Cat can be an (A)Idol that lies as far as she's concerned. That's kind of a big part of the whole business model actually and did you know that some poeple get really upset when realizing that the idealized idol doesn't quite match with the real deal and--

Well, Angela was intrigued but she hadn't quite made it to ''fan'' yet by her own estimation, even if she was willing to kill to make sure her concert went off without a hitch properly.

"Perhaps in music, one can't help but let the truth slip." Angela murmurs.

''They've *always* had the chance to notice, so why would they *now*?!''

"A nail and hammer hidden behind the back..." Angela murmurs before adding, louder, "People are like that. They'll believe in the reality they want to believe, and once they realize you're someone who needs help, they can trick themselves into thinking they were someone they were willing to help all along. But some people ... will help you before you need to show any hand at all." Her eyes slant towards Lilian, almost impossible to see while she's on a pad instead of here in reality. "...And you have to hold onto such people, at least, even if you can throw away the rest because that is the only thing you can trust."

Roland gives a small look down at the pad, frowning. With all the conversations today, he's starting to see something of a truth himself. But that moment of distraction leads him easy prey as cards explode at his feet and blast him off his feet, only to be caught by Malkuth.

"Aha! This time you are the klutz!" Malkuth says, a bit leakily. "--Wait uh... That's..."

Malkuth rapidly backpedals, pulling Roland AWAY from the Crystallulon. Like heck is she going to try to, what, fight that thing? NOPE.
Tamamo     Tamamo makes one attempt, amidst it all, to flick a sealing talisman in Blue Cat's direction, hoping to stick its semi-guided flight onto any part of her clothes. Rather than any of her usual curses, it's just something for her to track -- but even if she makes it, it's not like a terribly hidden tracking device. It is merely sticky.

    'The entire Starscape Galaxy. Everyone in it, they couldn't care less...!'
    'I'm not from the Starscape Galaxy! Neither are most of the people here!'

    "I suppose we were not introduced, in that little time," and there isn't time to give a proper introduction now, "but I am a star spirit of another galaxy, not entirely unlike our dear Yuma." It's a quick simplification, but it isn't wrong.

    'Th-they're all depending on me, now, so...'
    'Your... planet, you don't mean...?!

    Set down, Tamamo puts a hand to Lilian's shoulder at the last moment, speaking much less loudly to say, "You saw her before, yes? Then, this much is fine. She will come to see us on her own."

    More quietly, "And, perhaps, something fortuitous will occur if she leaves now."

    Loudly enough for Hikaru, "Her wish is something she thinks unreachable, even with Natsuki's connections and fortune, but still something for which one can wish. Can it be anything but that she seeks a miracle?" There seem to be no true shortage of people in the multiverse who do, she thinks, recalling a few faces -- until the Crystallulon is looming.

    Among her less emphasized skills, Tamamo's ears are as sensitive as they are tall. She couldn't help but hear the music they were making on the way down. Putting it together, and lacking any really solid projectiles of her own -- explosives are not something she considers 'artistic,' in general -- she sets off at a dead run, thankful for the trend toward shorter, more athletic skirts, and brandishes a folded fan as her instrument. She leaps, kicks, and strikes, in a quick and necessarily rough reprise of Yuma's recent lullaby rendition.
Natsuki Nuki It's a lot harder for Takeshi, even in scampermode, to keep up. He doesn't have Futaba's ninja grace to bound across the tips and corners of the upper cave run, and has to make springs along a safer path around. Blue Cat turns to point her action glove at Takeshi, and despite Yuma's lack of reaction, *Takeshi* sees the grapple pointed his way and 'poof!'s again, this time into a shrine-statue of a tanuki with a bright white belly and the normal idiotic grin on the statue obviously turned upside down into a terrible face-dragging sadness. Different from the slicked-back hair adult yakuza boss persona 'but made out of stone', this statue is hokey-quaint - even if Yuma hangs off the neck of the transformed Takeshi, now far heavier and cover-providing.

But, Yuma shows no fear.
But, Blue Cat doesn't fire her hook.
But, Takeshi is seized with guilt at expecting to be 'shot'.

'It doesn't matter whatever I say now, because there won't be any *results*, nna.'

This whole fight is pointless. Takeshi's keen scheming mind, specialized in tricks and gambles and mischief naturally, can already see how painful this is, and feeling caught up in the theater of it himself, doesn't lunge into the melee. The wash of Blue Cat's retreat smokebomb hides mischief statuary as it hazes the periphery, and Takeshi poofs back with a wearing-out groan into the Star Drop rideable sized raccoon dog, his 'FIGHTING' headband making a reappearance in Mao colors as a handhold for Yuma as they enter the belly slalom portion.

With the two back ends of his headband tie as both handles and even a bit of steering control for Yuma, the pair bounce slide and drift across the crystal caverns in pursuit, bellysliding to a stop after the intense segment with dazed sworls in his eyes where Lala has grabbed Blue Cat.

"I'll still be waiting for Mao's next album. The next concert." Takeshi states, soulful. "Not because you have to!" He's quick, insistent to Blue Cat, because he knows what the business of it all really is. Verging on some outburst, the little shake in his voice that he forces out through the intense process of squeezing the self for a favorite. "But because - there's an even greater feeling, even more than finding a favorite, when you hear them say 'it's been a while', when you see them hold a microphone again and smile."

"And it's a fan's duty to support their idol - no matter what! Completely! The performer, and, the person they are. So,"

His voice becomes smaller, teeth tight for a second. Guilt, again - he had known Mao only a short while, and there was a whole rest of a person she was...

"So, I don't think, you tricked anyone." He can't look at Blue Cat and say that. But he can say that, nose dipped. "You wanted *this* enough, didn't you?"

Choked with another smoke bomb and not quick to continue on, Takeshi's turmoil - as a fan, and the stinging memory of his expectations that he was currently shirking to be emotional. To cry over a 'traitor', to spill tears on a lie.

It might be, to his sister, but it wasn't to him.

'Scandals are nyo good'

The Cosmic Mystery Girl line reminds Takeshi, having consumed the discography and now knowing it was literally Mao's real feelings out loud on purpose because she thought nobody listened, and the stunned tanuki is smokebombed again while he processes.
Natsuki Nuki MEANWHILE,

Picking over Crystallulon's concert grounds, while Yakuza fallen from the culture war against the Calamity Crowd put away boxed lunches and microwaved steaks, Natsuki reappears, thumbing the throbbing-tight and ill-fitting ring off her finger with the action of her thumb across the inside of her hand.

Cold anger seethes in her throat, and the sizzle up her spine reminds her that she should've listened. That she was told, that she should expect this.

Sign later. Pay now. How could she have been *this* stupid?

Raking a long blonde-white bang back across the top of her head and sliding down fingers across face firm enough to leave marks that clear slowly, Natsuki exhales a deep sigh and ceases to believe that Takeshi will come through for her. Ran out on - not even declined.

"This will-we won't-we act isn't cute at all." Natsuki growls, looking at one of the sunglasses-at-night toughs carting a stretcher to the first aid popup for concert exhaustion, and spots - no, feels - something. The sluggish goon immediately gets a second wind of activity at the interest of his chimera boss's stalking approach, snapping to attention and almost dropping the stretcher.

Ignoring the goon, Natsuki rummages around the insensate concertgoer until she pulls one of the Calamity Lights that had been left behind. Lifting the orange-glowing object in her hand, a headache rises and then passes, leaving her 'clear'-headedly holding the cursed light.

"Fine. There's plenty of things in this galaxy to invest in." Natsuki broods, thumbing the guttered glowstick with enough ill intent she doesn't feel the drag of extra on her. If anything, it's the clearest she's thought in weeks.

THROUGH THE SMOKE,

Takeshi bounds, worked down and struggling through most jumps despite having the raw ability to do so. Another segment of raccoondog agility while ridden by Yuma, one last spurt that's short thanks to Lilian skipping ahead and Tamamo's words successfully holding Blue Cat back and turning her. But what else is there to say? Can he share... anything that matters? He was just a fan who liked her music, and she was someone running away from that. Fuzzy vehicle, in top-of-head profile framing the Star Drop with ears when Yuma is looked at and centered again, Takeshi turns his head up a bit. Think, Takeshi! This was important!

His mind turns to music, while Yuma sings the lullaby atop his head.

o/` You thought I was crying here (but one second later), I was having fun and laughing at the edge of the galaxy!

"If both are true, that you want to see us and you don't, then, I'll be looking forward to your one second later, Mao!" Takeshi calls, voice ensmalled by circumstance. "So we can meet again!"

Panting, Takeshi really doesn't have chasing left in him when Crystallulon appears, trying to watch Blue Cat until her tense turn-away, and then...

"W-woah! Hang on!" Takeshi frets, trying to spring clear and not quite making it with Yuma in tow.

While Crystallulon starts angrily approaching, Takeshi's stamina finally gives out, the raccoon-dog womp-poofing into sprawl of a shorter and awkward young man with round button ears atop his mop of brown hair that hung over eyes. The size-too-big shirt he wears is the same as his 'big, boss' persona but now hangs limply on him.

Curling up shieldingly around Yuma, Takeshi is pingponged by the angry Crystallulon down a rather musical set of xylophone-esque walls and spills out in a sprawl to pillow the precious cargo he had been entrusted with at the start of the concert.

"Uuuuu-" Takeshi whines limply, but is okay - just dazed. He's been thrown around by worse, but, he might not have worked this hard in his life for someone else's project. And as for the results...

He wasn't sure how he felt.