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Heliodor, Corrupt Super Senshi of Ryutou
If he hadn’t caught the senshi of Housekeeping shifting just out of the corner of his eye to join the grouping, Helio would have jumped out of his skin when she spoke from behind him. As it was, he started only a little bit, having assumed she’d not positioned herself directly behind him but had moved further on.

“Already making this a competition before we’ve even begun?” He shifted so the smaller woman was not lurking behind him, but more to his left side. “I have to admit, I am not keen on giant bugs and…acid anything.”

He paused a moment in thought. “Why do you think he needs so many of us to help with these bugs? He’s insisting they aren’t difficult to deal with and not so many that we’d get swarmed by them.” Something about this felt…odd. Like there was maybe something more going on here? Or perhaps it was as benign as Almadel having really wanted this problem taken care of as quickly as possible to save his collection?

If Elsa was sticking a little close to Murikabushi, it was basic self preservation. He wasn't nearly as familiar with people on the other side, but he knew Almadel, still treasured the beautiful, warm cloak he'd gotten from him. And if the man required aid, then Elsa would show up and provide aid, damn it.

Grieve had gone off with some old friends, and she got a brief wave before Elsa turned his attention to Almadel again. A wry smile settled on his face.

"Sounds like we're doing some pest control today."

“Selinur! That almost sounds like a threat!” Almadel laughed. “Please, I’m very well aware of what’s at risk here. Well, I respect being up front about what you want. But we’ll have to discuss details afterwards. If I don’t have a museum after this then it’ll be a poor bargain.”

And, the longer they waited, the more risk there was.

Surtur was a welcome sight, always such a good sport. “Oh, if you think you can handle them, by all means. Just be aware of their breeding habits so you don’t wind up with an infestation. I don’t care how we get rid of them as long as they’re out of my museum.”

Urania was on the right page, though. “Ideally, to save the artifacts we’ll need to take care of the Kosopods. It’s not just damage to the items but if the structure fails? I’m in space, it’s not like I can just call a construction crew out for emergencies. The simplest solution is just to make sure the Kosopods don’t have time to focus on eating. Of course, if you’ve got any snacks you might be able to bribe them with, that might taste better than glass and stone and history.”

It was hard to imagine the palate of a giant bug.

To Tama, he elaborated, “I appreciate your flattery, but I know when I’m in over my head. It’s too big a scope. I’ve done what I can but I’m out of resources. Even if I eradicate them in one room, they can just scurry to the next. I’m running out of time. If I wasn’t so worried about the state of my collection, I wouldn’t bother you with this. But I don’t have that luxury right now. So, I need help.”

To Erytheia, “What did you solve, again? Sorry, I don’t think I was here for that. You did feel the disturbance? Well, I’m not surprised. Many places were affected. I saw a Wonder outright collapse, is that what you mean? I wonder, you might have done the clean up, but to solve it? Hm, I’m not sure. I suspect there’s quite a bit that’s happened since then. Did you feel the second shockwave a week or two ago? I saw the Surrounding glowing, I wonder if it absorbed it. Well, I’ve told you, there’s a lot moving out there in the universe. Earth is very lucky. Ah, but–speaking of lucky, we have to go now, before the stars move again. Sorry, hold on.”

Almadel finished finagling with whatever he was doing with the stars between his fingers. “Okay, let’s go.”

He clapped his hands together.

They left Destiny City in an instant.

There was a brief moment where they might have seen the stars blur around them as they shot through space but they arrived in an instant, unharmed except for perhaps feeling a bit of sudden, brief motion sickness.

In this new room, a great chandelier hung above them but the light flickered erratically. Sometimes it was easier to make out more details but generally the room was cast in a dim glow.

When it was visible, it was an impressive and expansive view.

Though only in one great room of the museum, it visually captured the style of Beaux-Arts architecture with extensive efforts. It looked like he might have just plucked some elaborate building right from Earth and carried it to space himself if not for the collection inside. The building seemed timeless, with endless classical details; there were plentiful columns and pilasters. While there were an array of arched windows, these were all boarded up. Some archways had pale blue, glowing barriers sealing them off, and some doors had been marked with the same.

This room had an immense stairway leading to an upper floor, and balconies to oversee the collection below.

The room was too cluttered to have been part of any exhibits; it looked like Almadel had been using this as a storage room. There were large glass cases with strange objects inside–statues of alien people and creatures. Some looked almost human but some were far from it. Paintings adorned the walls in styles unimaginable; some had colors so vibrant that they didn’t seem real. Some paintings even seemed to move.

There were fossils, tools, outfits, artifacts–some things so strange it was impossible to even imagine. Some of the exhibits had text in an alien script but many didn’t, and some objects seemed to be set aside for preservation purposes more than display.

Magic hummed in the air, though its source was unplaceable.

Almadel had a historic treasure trove here, and if he was willing to expose his true treasures, it was probably clear how important this actually was to him.

Almadel clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he looked up at the chandelier. “Oh, they finally chewed their way through my electrics. Well, I hope the shield stayed up.”

He was quiet for a moment, as if listening for something. “No, I think it’s fine. But we’ll be in trouble if it goes down. The debris has been awful lately. I hate to imagine what’s going on out there to change the currents like this. Anyway,” he turned to the group and cleared his throat.

In the dimness, the glowing chandelier above them briefly reflected his eyes; they looked like they glowed. “As you can see, the problem.”

A wasp-like cocoon of immense proportions was half formed on the wall.

‘A few dozen’ Kosopods was likely a gross underestimate. Almadel’s lips remained pressed in a tight smile as he observed the cocoon, and despite the otherwise charming expression he wore, his raised brows wide eyes indicated that this was not exactly what he had expected to see.

“I think they’ve been busy while I was gone.”

In the distance, something toppled over. Little legs skittered over the marble floor. There was nothing to be seen. The light dimmed briefly and suddenly it felt like the whole room was moving, but when it returned there was nothing to be seen.

Almadel clapped his hands together and rubbed them quickly.

“Okay. I’ve marked off the rooms that still need to be cleared out. Any open door hasn’t been secured. So it’s them, and…here.”

His voice could have echoed for miles if there wasn’t such a labyrinth of displays up already.

“...Let’s just all do our best. And get along. Please don’t break anything.” He had to insist on this because it was very important. “I don’t care how you get rid of them. I just need them gone. And I need things to be in one piece. You have no idea what I’ve got here. Oh, but of course, I’ll be happy to tell you all about it later. Let me just slip over here for a minute, let me see if there’s anything I can do to fix these lights.”

Almadel didn’t so much as hurry away, but there was a bit of a bounce in his step as he wove around the room and headed across the room.

The lights darkened again; it was difficult, but not impossible to see. The skittering grew louder again.

The Kosopods were getting interested in the new guests.

Maybe they were getting hungry, too.

[—IGNORE THIS ROLL, Muri is going off for a branching RP instead emotion_bigheart ]

currently: ready for whats to come.


Ngome watched as Almadel moved across the room, his presence seeming to light up the space around him despite the flickering lights. She turned her attention to the rest of the group, assessing their readiness for what was about to come. Each member had a determined look on their face, a mix of apprehension and determination evident in their eyes.

As the skittering sounds grew louder, Ngome took a deep breath and focused her energy.




((75))

Eternal Corrupt Hestia
currently: by Helio, taunting Borax

"One can never underestimate the power of a head start," Hestia replied sagely. Her attention turned to the nearby captain that looked much too comfortable and bored. "So do try to keep up, Captain Borax."

She was definitely going to smash more bugs than him, it was pretty much a given. But goodness, the thought of seeing that smug face splattered with alien bug intestines and those pompom shoes eaten away by acid, those were also rewards of a sort, weren't they?

They shifted to another world, and Hestia felt a brief pang for what had been lost to her choices. But it was also very nice, to breathe the strange air of space once again. Following his words, she eyed the nest and noted the movements within the area. Honestly, Helio was correct. This didn't need so many people. Actually, she was fairly certain she'd be able to manage this sort of thing by herself, and leave the area in even better condition that before its infestation.

"There's probably a queen," she finally replied to Helio. "A mutant queen that does something terrible." the maid senshi sounded a little too enthusiastic at the possiblity. "Don't worry, Mr. Helio," Hestia reassured, "my magic can clean your uniform." As if that was the reason he wasn't too happy about the bug situation.

Super Sailor Murikabushi of Hunger
Action: tossing snacks at Grieve, Róka, and Madriu, then exiting to a branching RP with Elsa.

Getting transported into Almadel’s museum—or at least what looked like it might have been the junk room of said museum—only felt like a bit of a head-trip because of how much stuff there was. As soon as he felt more or less stable on his feet, Murikabushi couldn’t help but stare, all wide-eyed and sparkly with wonder and awe, at the vast array of treasures that surrounded everyone who’d come out tonight. All anxiety about the Negaverse operatives present here tonight, forgotten. All unnecessary worry about possibly burdening his long-surviving space senshi friends disappeared.

Instead, Murikabushi practically vibrated with an eagerness to rifle through this place, learning everything he could about every single artifact until Yuki personally found a way to make it here and bodily drag him out because meal breaks were non-optional, no matter how much special, fascinating space-history was here for him to learn. Failing that, Muri wondered if Almadel ever needed an unpaid intern to fix with thankless archival b***h-work that most people in their right minds would have never willingly accepted without some kind of guaranteed benefits. (That was Muri’s secret, really: the entire theoretical benefit of such a position, for him, would have been working as an archival intern at a magical space museum full of magical space-history.)

Speaking of Yuki, though—Grieve had said something, just before Almadel had transported everyone. She’d used the nickname that Yuki had attracted very shortly after she’d moved in. “He’d probably be up for making you guys something after this, yeah,” Muri agreed, digging around in his subspace pocket for a moment. “If not cooking it himself, then he’d at least be okay with you guys coming over and letting us get you all takeout.”

In case any of them were hungry now, though, Muri pulled out some snacks and gently tossed them to the once-mercenaries. Grieve received a large package of beef jerky (she didn’t seem to dislike too many things in general, but Muri had noticed that she preferred meat). Madriu got a likewise large bag of pepperoni pizza Combos, little pretzel snacks rolled up around flavored filling. And Róka got a bag of strawberry-chocolate kinoko no yama, Japanese biscuit cookies shaped like mushrooms with the strawberry and chocolate flavored parts on top of the toadstool cap. Junsei had tossed two bags of them Yuki’s way recently, with an intent of them getting back to Muri, and since Muri had an open one back at home, he didn’t feel like sharing with Róka defeated the purpose of his brother going “Please make sure that idiot is eating properly, Yuki. I know I don’t need to ask you to do that? But……please?”

With the snacks distributed, though, Muri looked around at what all lay before them. He made himself take deeper breaths, trying to remain more or less calm, trying to act like a dignified senshi who took his job seriously and wasn’t currently fighting the impulse to forget all about the weird space-bugs and serious threat of exposure to the Negaverse in order to run around the junk room like “The monsters are all missing and the nightmares can’t be found, and in their place, there seems to be good feeling all around!”

Even though he was absolutely fighting against that impulse.

Space-history was everywhere in this room and Muri wanted to know everything about it. Sue him.

Still, the Negaverse auras weren’t going away and Muri grew increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that he had personally met so many of the people attached to them, but none of the auras belonged to either Albite (whom Muri wouldn’t have minded seeing, not least because he felt like Albite would understand that Muri had only left the Court for his own happiness and wellbeing, rather than any larger magical girl sociopolitical nonsense) or Faustite (whom Muri likely shouldn’t have been allowed to see right now, but that wasn’t going to make him stop caring or worrying about Faustite for Faustite’s sake).… The side-rooms seemed to have just as much skittering as the main storage area, so Muri gently nudged at Elsa’s shoulder and motioned toward one of the other areas.

“We might have more luck if we break off from everyone else,” Muri pointed out. “If we don’t stomp the bugs in there, we could try to corral them out here so the people who have area of effect magic can take out more of them with whatever magic reserves they have.”