Episode 4: Blast from the Past! Venture City Invasion!

[omegamods]

On a sunny Saturday morning, it's finally visible - high above Venture City, the descending asteroid. However, it's doing something no real asteroid would do - it's slowing down.

As the space rock comes to a halt, looking like a second moon over the city, several holographic screens emerge from it, all showing the same face.



"Greetings, Earth mammals! A new order is at hand!"

"Sixty six million years ago, a meteor fell, ending the age of my people on this planet. However, not all of us were lost! Thanks to mysterious alien technology found by my ancestors, we were able to escape from Earth before the disaster heralded the rise of your pitiful kind. At long last, with the help of the human Devious, we have found the lost homeworld once more! And so we strike against those that replaced us - we, the true masters of Earth, have returned! And I, Baron Von Tyrannosaur, shall be your new ruler!"

With that, smaller pods start to break off from the dinosaur mothership. As they hit ground (or in some cases, before then), they break open, revealing their cargo - dinosaurs! Some right out of the history books, some of them robots, and some of them somewhere in between!

As Protector watches from deep within the Omegabase, he gives the order. Venture City is under attack. Our time is now.

Calling all Omegafriends!

[[OOC: There will be three dedicated threads for the meteor team: Launch, Breach, and Showdown with Baron Von Tyrannosaur. Once these stubs are up, anyone going on the mission is free to post in them (maximum 8 heroes), and anyone else can reply directly to this post with their actions throughout the city - fighting dinosaurs, rescuing civilians, or even taking advantage of the confusion to commit a few crimes.

Most of the dinosaurs are non-intelligent, aside from the Baron and his immediate underlings. If you want us to NPC some dinosaurs, for a thread other than the last one, drop us a line. Good luck!]]

Comments

[blossominghero]

Dinosaurs. They were fighting dinosaurs.

Tsubomi was doing her best not to get stepped on by a... by a... what was it called? A trikerataps? She didn't know the name of any dinosaurs as well as she did different types of flowers. In any case, Chypre had taken the form of a cape and was now allowing her to fly through the battlefield around the massive beasts' feet.

"Erika! Yuri!" she called out, trying to find her comrades in the chaos. She hadn't yet noticed the appearance of Skeletor and his minions...

[widerthanthesea]

"Blossom!" Geez, if we're hero fighting, use our hero names! Also, it's a Triceratops.

Marine is underfoot, not having figured out the cape thing yet, calling up to Blossom. "Forget about the dinosaurs for now! There's a really suspicious-looking guy over here, and I'm pretty sure he's Skeletor!"

[alilyinthemoonslight]

An eruption of light from nearby - and the bodies of a couple raptors hitting the ground, unconscious - signals Cure Moonlight's entry into the fray, landing near the blue Cure. She's about to make a remark in Blossom's direction about their names when Marine's stops her cold.

Sure enough - in the distance, that is precisely who she spots.

"It is," she says, barely above a whisper, and then shoots a look up into the sky. "BLOSSOM! Get down here!"

[the_evil_forces_of_me]

Despite fighting the invading dinosaurs, the Evil Warriors haven't done anything to quell the chaos. If anything, it's only become worse, as there's clearly no concern for actually protecting the city or the people in it. Risen warriors and monstrous creatures rampaging everywhere and engaging the dinosaurs.

"Skeletor!" Tri-Klops points upwards, calling his leader's attention as his Doomseekers are quick to spy the arrival of the three girls not far away. "The Precure are here!"

Turning his attention away from a group of raptors he'd just contemptuously blasted away from him and Panthor, Skeletor looks up to where Blossom is flitting about up above.

"Well, well, this is an unexpected surprise. The rest of you, continue dealing with the invaders." Slowly, deliberately, he turns the Havoc Staff to aim up at the young hero, eyelights flaring bright in his skull. "These ones are mine."

And a blast of power erupts from the eyes of the ram's skull, shooting up to intercept Blossom's flight.

[blossominghero]

"Eh? Marine, Moonlight, what's-"

Her eyes widen, as she sees what Erika and Moonlight are indicating... and Skeletor's blast coming right at her. She does her best to escape the blast, but even though it misses her, the sheer force of it is enough to blast her into the ground, causing her to crash.

[widerthanthesea]

"BLOSSOM!"

For the briefest of moments, Marine's attention is pulled away from Skeletor as her friend hits the ground.

[alilyinthemoonslight]

Moonlight's eyes widen in horror, and in the next moment she's moving. A glowing cloak flashes around her shoulders and she takes off flying, landing beside the downed Blossom within seconds.

"BLOSSOM!" she exclaims, landing beside her and reaching out a hand, worry dancing across her face. Her guard is still up, and another feeling - pure, unrelenting anger - surges up within her, but for the moment her friend's well being is most important. "Are you okay?!"

[the_evil_forces_of_me]

Too easy. Skeletor chuckles, watching Blossom fall to the ground from the near miss and briefly considers his next target.

The silver one is there, Moonlight, the one that destroyed his chances of reaching the Palace so many months ago. He sees the shot, but... no. That would be too easy, and she deserves so much more for getting in his way.

Slowly, his gaze shifts toward Marine when she takes her eyes off of him and the light in his eyes brightens. Shifting his aim, he fires again at her back.

[blossominghero]

"Moonlight..." Blossom groaned as she tried to sit up. A few feet away, Chypre lies unconscious.

Before she can say anything else, however, she catches sight of what Skeletor is doing... and towards whom. Her eyes widen again, and she reaches out.

"MARINE! LOOK OUT...!"

[widerthanthesea]

"Wha--"

As Cure Marine turns back to Skeletor, it's too late! The shot from Skeletor is a direct hit.

When the dust clears, Erika is down, and back in her civilian form.

[alilyinthemoonslight]

Moonlight swings around just as the blast slams into Marine, leaving just Erika in the wake of the resulting explosion. Which... at the very least, is better than she could be but leaves her completely vulnerable to all the dangers looming around them.

That is a lot of dangers.

She bites back a shout, and a desire to lunge into action. Instead, she helps Blossom back to her feet.

"We have to protect Erika," she says, as evenly as possible. No matter how much she wants to do anything else, that takes priority now. "Can you still fight?"

[the_evil_forces_of_me]

Skeletor watches his blast strike home, watches Erika tumble out from the explosion onto the street. As she drops, he begins to chuckle... and before Blossom can answer Moonlight, Skeletor's laughter his already echoing across the street. Loud, gleeful and completely without pity.

"Such fearsome warriors this world has to offer! Truly, the Heart Tree and the Palace chose their protectors well!" There's a sneer in his voice as he looks down at Tsubomi from Panthor's back, studying the young Precure before shifting his attention to her senior. "I don't know how you survived, or how you regained your powers, but it's of no consequence."

He swings the Havoc Staff, aiming the weapon at Cure Moonlight, power still smoldering in the skull's eyes.

"I will have what I want. Either surrender and open the way to the Palace for me, or your friends will suffer the consequences."

[blossominghero]

For the longest moment, Tsubomi was trembling. Then, Yuri was telling her to get up... and that man... that horrible man... the one who had killed Cologne...

Tsubomi grit her teeth, and pursed her lips. She stood up, not answering Yuri and glaring at Skeletor with no small degree of fear evident. But still, she spoke with utter conviction, despite the shake in her voice.

"We aren't going to give anything to you!" she cried. "We're going to protect this city... y-you won't come anywhere near the things you want!"

[widerthanthesea]

"Blossom, be careful!" Erika staggered back up to her knees, no longer any sort of magical girl. "This guy is totally different from his weirdo minions! You should just leave it to Monlight!"

[alilyinthemoonslight]

Moonlight's hands gripped into fists so tight that she shook. On the one hand, she wanted the both of them to take Erika's advice. Run, let her give them enough time to run, but...

"Erika, just take cover!"

No, that isn't what Cologne would have wanted, is it? She saw what happened when she faced this... monster on her own.

"Blossom," she murmurs, just loud enough for her to hear. "I won't ask you to stay, but..." She narrows her eyes, watching the end of the Havoc Staff, awaiting the first sign of Skeletor's attack. "I can't beat him on my own. I already know this."

[blossominghero]

"I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE!"

The sudden shout is as much to Skeletor as it is in answer to her friends. "I wasn't there to help Yuri-san before...! He... he took away something precious! I've had enough!"

She grit her teeth. "Yuri's right! Take cover...! We will protect you...!"

[the_evil_forces_of_me]

And all of Blossom's sudden surge of fiery courage and determination only earns another laugh from him. Panthor snarls again, flexing his massive razor sharp claws on the pavement.

"What a touching display of loyalty. I believe I'm going to gag." That's quite enough talk from these children for him though. Before they can continue to rattle their speeches at him, he tightens his grip on the Staff and unleashes another blast at the two of them.

[blossominghero]

Blossom thought fast, and leaped towards Erika, simultaneously dodging the blast and pulling her friend to safety... just in time too, because a dinosaur's massive feet were stomping at her amidst all this chaos.

Blossom's head snapped back in Moonlight's direction. "Moonlight...!" she cried. "Let me get Erika somewhere safe...!"