The Labyrinth of the New Moon

[bravenewmods]

Most of Union was familiar now with the second world that had so abruptly inserted itself into their lives. They called it the Dream World: a place where fiction became more real than reality and where the imagination knew no bounds. If it weren't quite so intrusive, some might even find it an amusing place to visit - there were secrets to be uncovered here, surely, where the mental barriers of friends and enemies were relaxed, and powers to be taken advantage of. Who wouldn't want to host a pool party every night?

For a week, the people of Union continue to pop in and out of the Dream World until most have grown tired of the seemingly random nature of the disappearances. Low mutterings and disgruntled complaints begin to spread throughout the city, but it seems as if no one truly knows how to stop it. Giant fans to disperse the fog are suggested facetiously once, and a number of Fan Rotoms are seen working hard the next day... But such efforts amount to nothing.

On the night of the seventh day, something changes.

Those who pop into the Dream World tonight will realize immediately - the landscape has changed. Dream mists still swirl and eddy at random intervals, but the Neutral Spaces have grown dark and shadowed. There's no ominous feeling of danger, but rather... alertness. The sense that something unusual is about to happen.

Up in the sky, a shadowed moon gleams with a faint luster. A new moon. ...This is impossible, of course, but then, many things are impossible in this world. And no matter where you head, it seems as if each step takes you closer to that black moon, a gaping maw in the twilit sky... Step forward, retreat backwards, close your eyes and flee. It matters not. One more step and it has devoured you whole.

There is the sensation of falling, of spinning, of coming to an abrupt halt without feeling an impact. But when you open your eyes, you are not alone. Two or three others you may recognize are with you, and a long corridor stretches out before your group with doors dotting each side as far as the eye can see.

Welcome to the Labyrinth of the New Moon.

[OOC: All plot logs for people in the Dream World will occur here. Please make the first post with all the names of the people in your group in the subject line so people know where to post. Mod responses will come about once every 24 hours as long as at least one person has posted.

The group listings are here. We will not be running randomizers anymore, but you may still sign up with a full group of at least three if you can find one and tag in. Keep in mind though that the log may not be finished depending on when it is posted. You may also hop in an existing group as long as all existing group members give permission and the group is not full.]

Comments

[inthenameofthemoon]

[ Usagi's about to open her mouth and do proper introductions, mainly because that's the right thing to do, but the wiggling door that's right behind her startles her with a short yelp.

Still, she's made sure that Eiji's up and okay before she hesitantly looks to everyone after that little door stunt.

Well, they probably should, because random place in the dream world that's making itself really obvious? ... Hey, it'd be something she'd do. So, Usagi just slowly makes her way to the door so she can open it... ]

[faithfulflame]

[Oh...that...is really weird.

Rei blinks, and just sort of glares at the door. Do you mind, Dream?]

[actsmagnificent]

Get away from it!

[ Haruka doesn't think to actually knock Usagi out of the way, though. She just yells at her.

Because that's worked so well in the past. ]

[inthenameofthemoon]

[ It worked in that Lava Lake shrine, didn't it? So, when Usagi hears Haruka yelling at her, she freezes just as she's about to turn the knob on the door. ]

W-well, what are we supposed to do then? [ She wants to whine and pout, and she's on the precipice of doing so, but she doesn't. It's okay, Usagi. You can do it. You can be a strong woman who ain't afraid of no ghosts shaking door! ]

If there's no other way out, then we have to open the door anyway!

[ Because, she's not seeing any other options, so, the most logical thing to do is to take what they've got and roll with it... ]

....

[ Except now she's too scared to turn the knob. One step forward, two steps back. You tried, Usagi. ]

[bravenewmods]

[Don't worry, Usagi! You won't have to!

Even as she stares at the door, the shaking increases - in one swift motion, the door swings open, the labyrinth tilts 90 degrees, and all of them tumble down to the ground... which is now the gaping maw of the open door.

Bon voyage!

Eiji will come to first. Not that this is really a good thing. He is tied to a post jutting out from the center of a lake... A lake filled with what are clearly hungry Sharpedo. Around him, three long wooden pathways stretch out, about a quarter-mile long - at the ends of each of these pathways, Usagi, Rei, and Haruka appear out of thin air.

Clearly, they just need to run the quarter-mile to rescue him, right?

In the moment it takes them to think this, the three quarter-mile boardwalks ripple and spit out an obstacle course filled with swinging blades, pits of spikes, and long falls into Sharpedo-infested waters.

A giant timer hangs in midair flashing 5:00.]

[underwearfortomorrow]

[Saying this was a rude awakening was a bit of an understatement. Eiji wakes up to the uncomfortable feeling of rope biting into his skin. It takes him a few moments of staring blankly at the environment around him to really register what's going on.]

[And even then he's not even sure.]

[So he shouts in alarm and looks around. What???? What is going on???]

[Yeah Hina is having a fit. She's flying around him trying to peck at the rope.]

[faithfulflame]

[Rei sees this and blinks, surprise being her initial reaction. This is definitely not what she'd expected, and it's damn weird!]

What?!

[And on reflex, she starts forward, hurrying to try and reach her cousin. Tapping her warp band, she calls up Phobos.]

We have to help him!

[actsmagnificent]

[ The moment she sees that timer, Haruka is on her way as well: Harsh! Saint Cry!! the Honchkrow is her Pokémon du jour, flying ahead and testing his maneuverability against the obstacles. She doubts he'll be able to free Eiji, but every little bit helps.

Haruka, however, is fresh on his heels. The booby traps don't make her flinch. This is some kind of sick game and the only way out is to play. She'll use every bit of agility - and, if necessary, Agility - at her disposal to do so.

What is this but one huge, intense Rhyhorn racetrack, after all? ]

[inthenameofthemoon]

Huh? What? [ When Usagi comes to, she's a little disoriented. But, when she finally gets her bearings straight, there is nothing short of absolute and loud shock in the form of a yelp once both the traps and the timers pop up. ]

What kind of crazy place is this?!? [ Regardless, Usagi starts running towards their goal of one Eiji. She's keeping up the pace as best she can (probably due to always being late to school. Who knew?) She blinks when she notices Haruka off in the distance with her Murkrow, Rei with Deimos. As she dodges a swinging sword that almost takes off half of her hair tail, she taps her warp band and calls out Lucky the Talonflame.

It appears with a loud caw and glances to her human. ]

Go, Lucky! Get to the others and try and get Rei-chan's cousin out!

[ Lucky nods before zipping through the air to meet up with the other aviary pokemon to help as best she can as Usagi just tries not to get herself chopped to bits or turned into Sharpedo food... ]

[bravenewmods]

[As the bird Pokemon flap towards the prisoner, steel traps drop out of the sky to encage each of them in turn.

The timer flashes momentarily to show the words INTERFERENCE PENALTY and then -1.00.

The clock now reads 4.00 as it rapidly begins to tick down.

After the generic sort of swinging blades and rotating platforms, Obstacle Number 1 for each Sailor Senshi is a climbing wall. At periodic intervals, jets of fire incinerate a path. A few of the rocks are fake and detach the moment any weight is put on them.

In the meantime, Eiji is not without entertainment as his left hand suddenly jerks free. A blinking sign hangs in front of him with several options - it may be hard to tell what's going on at first, but it will soon become apparent that he can add numbers to the timer... at great risk to the three girls. 10 seconds means the jets of fire will go off twice as fast, 30 seconds means that sections of the climbing wall will begin to detach, and 1 minute is marked with a great big ?????.

He also has the option to drop one of the Senshi into the pool in return for his immediate release.]

[underwearfortomorrow]

Hina! [OH HELL NO DID YOU JUST CAGE HIS BIRD? And also all the other birds too, wow RUDE.]

[Interference penalty....oh. Eiji might have audibly gulped. He looked ahead as the others fought their way towards him and then dropped his gaze to Hina trapped int the cage. She's still fighting to get free with a tenacity but to no avail.]

[He's startled as the sign is dropped in front of him. It takes him a few moments to figure out what's going on- but he gets it and when he does, his brows knit and his expression darkens. Really? There's no way.]

[He would have faith in his cousin and her friends, he wouldn't dare put them in further danger just to buy him some more time. That was preposterous.]

[faithfulflame]

[Rei grits her teeth and keeps moving. She isn't Haruka, but since her evolution she's had very little trouble with acrobatics of any kind. An Agility to speed her along helps, and she's nimbly climbing and dodging and ducking like any of the Sailor Senshi. Or...a pretty athletic psychic type.]

Just...just hang on!

[actsmagnificent]

Krow! Krow! [ Hey, what gives?! Harsh! Saint Cry!! beats his wings against the cage, which ultimately serves no purpose whatsoever. Haruka clicks her tongue against the back of her teeth but motors forward. She'll retrieve her Pokémon somehow after Eiji's in the clear.

Reaching the climbing wall, she bypasses the first few lines of handholds by jumping as high as she can, using Gust on the ground to give herself an extra boost. Which handholds are safe, which -

She narrowly misses burning her foot as a jet of flame roars to life, but there isn't room in her mind for fear - just dispassionately tackling the obstacle. Okay. Almost there.

Dare she risk a look to see how the others are faring? ]

[inthenameofthemoon]

[ It's probably better not to see how Usagi is faring at least. She's finally reached the bottom of the climbing wall, and staring up at it nervously, watching as jets of fire appear almost out of nowhere to make her way up even more difficult. Look, she was never good at climbing either and this is just making it even worse!

Still, she doesn't dawdle too much because now Lucky is in trouble and the moon rabbit can't just leave it like that! So up she goes, after she ties up her hair real fast so it doesn't inevitably get singed from the flames. Fumbling with getting a good grip at first, but making a bit of head way once she gets used to it, Usagi finally gets to the first stream of flames... winces once when it almost cooks the top of her head, and then bolts upwards once the flames die down.

Oh! Hey! She did it! Yay!

... now to get up the rest of the way. OTL. ]

[bravenewmods]

[The screen will fade from Eiji's sight once all three Senshi have made it about halfway up. Haruka scales the wall the most quickly with her Flying techniques though a jet of flame may singe her as she goes, followed by the Fire-type Rei.

Usagi.....

Well, at least she's not dead yet! The ends of her hair might be smoldering, though.

Let's leave Usagi for the moment and look forward. There's another long path of swinging blades before Obstacle Number 2: a crawling course. A long length of barbed wire is strung close to the ground, requiring the girls to get down and crawl along a staked out path. As with the wall, at periodic intervals on certain sections, spikes will erupt from the ground.

As Haruka reaches the crawl pit, the timer reads 2:49. There is one more obstacle to go after this.]

[faithfulflame]

[Rei doesn't even pause, she just bolts straight for the pit. Dodging the spikes and timing her movements is actually somewhat simple, thanks to the gift of foresight she has. This, at least, is a challenge she's well equipped to handle and she'll go as fast as she can, desperation driving her forward. She will not let her cousin get hurt, she just won't and that's all there is to it!]

[actsmagnificent]

[ Usagi's not dead yet. Good. She just has to manage to stay that way. Haruka checks the timer with little more than a flick of her eyes upward, then hunkers down to begin the crawl. Crawling itself isn't too difficult, spikes aside, but she's the largest person doing this course. She can feel the barbed wire tearing at her clothing and, in places, biting at her skin.

But she doesn't let that slow her down. One arm in front of the other. That's the size of her world until she gets out of this.

One stop to go! It doesn't matter what condition she's in when she reaches it, as long as she's there. ]

[inthenameofthemoon]

[ It's okay. She didn't need that hair anyway it was just getting in the way.... ... at least, that's what she's telling herself as she finally makes it over the climbing wall.

NOW it's the crawl pit. But, she's learned from the climbing wall with its jets of fire and is now watching for the spikes that shoot up from the ground for a few seconds before she finally gets onto her stomach and begins crawling at quicker pace than she had with the wall..

Look, she's the tiniest of all three and the barbed wire will probably miss her head about an inch. That's enough space for her to move a little more freely while hoping that all she acquires are a few holes in her clothes. ]

[bravenewmods]

[As Haruka is slowed by her size, Rei begins to catch up with her abilities. Usagi, too, makes more headway as the clock continues to tick down. No one is likely to be speared through the chest or anything along those lines, but the barbed wire is liable to induce some scratches here and there.

The timer reads 1:14 as they make it to the last obstacle. What a pain - it's a long stretch separating them from Eiji with rapidly moving walls of various sizes shooting their way to push them back. Some can be jumped over, some must be ducked under, and some will require careful alignment to fit into a hole halfway up the wall.

The timer is rapidly ticking down...

When the clock hits one minute, the post holding Eiji will slowly begin to sink into the water. Options flash once again for Eiji - he can increase the speed of the walls, he can make the walls spiky, or he can even swap places with one of the girls in return for extra time...]

[faithfulflame]

[Rei barrels forward, barely stopping to look at the clock. There's a fire in her eyes, and while she is beginning to feel the strain from all this running and moving and dodging, she isn't about to let herself slack off. A single second could be disastrous for her cousin, and that's not something she's willing to let happen.

The moving walls are another challenge foresight helps with, but her body isn't quite as trained as it should be for this kind of activity. Rei isn't Haruka, her Senshi-like abilities are more focused on speed and agility than actual stamina, and because of that she doesn't hit everything perfectly. Her Enlightened agility and speed thanks to that recent evolution coupled with her ability to predict (if not always dodge perfectly) walls should give her good time. But she'll definitely get clipped more than once.

And even if she is starting to slow down, panting, she isn't giving up...she can't, she won't! Family is on the line.]

Just-Just! Hang on!

[underwearfortomorrow]

[He's staring intently at them fight their way towards him. While he wants to fight his way free, he doesn't want to incite another penalty. He behaves for now. When the pole begins to sink he jolts, eyes going wide. His heart is beating in his throat- he's scared, but he hasn't given up hope that he'll be saved.]

[When the options flash in front of him again, he only spares them a moments notice before he tsks and turns to see if he can peer over them for the others.]

Put the others in danger just to save myself some time? What a terrible joke.

[He directs his eyes skyward.]

Your game is sick, but you won't win! I have faith in them!

[A pretty brash thing to yell as he sinks to his doom.]

[actsmagnificent]

[ Focused though Haruka is on the obstacles in front of her - she's about halfway through the last stretch and getting pretty frustrated with it - Eiji's cry hits her ears and she smirks. The Hino family makes them tough, doesn't it? ] Taking all the cool parts...

[ Right, enough of this "following the rules" nonsense. Anything she can't easily leap over (which is, admittedly, a much larger range than a normal human's) is getting Earthquaked until it crumbles from now on. The best way out is always through.

Almost there! ]

[inthenameofthemoon]

[ Well. Crunch time's now! Once Usagi's managed to crawl her way through, worse for wear, she doesn't even stop this time once she's met with the walls that move to inhibit her from getting to the sinking, yet hopeful, Eiji.

She's 100% done with this obstacle course from hell! The sooner they won this thing, the faster they'd be able to get out of this place!

So, every so often, she ends up slamming into a wall that she didn't duck far enough down for, or she fumbles over a wall that's too high to jump over, but now that this moon rabbit was serious.. well.. nothing's about to stop her from getting to the end of this race. ]

[bravenewmods]

00:50

[Haruka sends an Earthquake rumbling down the path. The walls collapse, but more rise in their place. As if in punishment once more for breaking some unspoken rule, they seem to come even faster.]

00:40

[Rei stumbles as she leaps over a wall, her foot just clipping the bottom. She's not prepared for the next one and almost gets knocked off the edge, but thankfully, she rolls to a stop before she does so - and the next wall sails right over her head, giving her enough time to recover.]

00:30

[Eiji's feet are almost within biting distance of the Sharpedo now. One lunges out of the water and barely misses his soles.]

00:20

[Usagi bounces over the walls with surprising agility. The world supposes she is a moon rabbit, after all, and she clears 5 in a row perfectly before getting the top of her head clipped by another wall.

Eh, hair just gets in the way, anyway.]

00:10

[The walls are clear. All that is left is a 50 meter dash to Eiji's side.]

00:02

[An outstretched hand can barely reach the sinking man. But is there time to release him?]

00:01

[For each of them, the scene ripples and glitches. All of them will see each of the others as frozen in time. The screen flashes before Eiji even as he begins to be submerged - he can still choose to swap with one of the girls at no cost. The choice for the other three is clear: leap in the water to save him or save yourself.

The Sharpedo look hungry.

And a voice echoes across this frozen scene to each of them in turn.]

Well?

[underwearfortomorrow]

[Things didn't look good and while it had been so close, for all of Eiji's bravado, he isn't stupid. He probably isn't getting out of this. He smiles serenely at them as they get with in arms reach. It's okay, he thinks. They did their best.]

Take care of the others.

[It's the last thing he's able to say before everything freezes around him. He blinks, realizing that he's both submerged but not actually drowning or being eaten. He looks ahead of him at the choice and then glances around having heard the voice. Realizing it must be who orchestrated this he frowns, closes his eyes and tips his head back.]

My answer is still the same.