The squid girl surfaced as soon as it looked like the others were going to do so as well. She did so with little flair, simply gliding through the water until she reached the surface. There was no bombastic splash, nor a ripple that wouldn't instantly vanish in the torrent of surfacing bubbles that Roche had created. Only her head and shoulders rose out of the water.

"Cheerio! I hope Felix didn't startle either of you. The bloke likes to wander off and explore, but he's harmless."

"I just wanted to clean myself in peace..."

"Anywho! Name's Sink Queen around these parts. Wasn't expecting to get any visitors out here. Don't suppose you were searching for buried treasure were you? The bones of that ol' ship have been picked clean years ago."

The dark magical girls informed the squid girl that they were here hunting for miseria.

"Terribly sorry loves, but there's no miseria out this time of day. Not usually. While the little rascals like sites of tragedy and the sort, what they really feed on negative human emotions. The reason why miseria come out at night is because humans are so much more susceptible to negative emotions before they sleep. All the bad that happened throughout the day is confronted when they go to sleep. That's not to say they can't be summoned though. Doing so in a place like this is sure to guarantee a strong one shows up. The people on the beach are having a good ol' time. If something were to strike terror in them all simultaneously, you'd be sure to have one hell of a miseria on your hands!"

As Nyxia listened to Sink Queen’s little lecture about aquatic Miseria, all the feelings of suspicion and annoyance she felt towards the squid girl and her odd companion were replaced by a sense of eager anticipation, one which seemed to grow with each new detail revealed. So, they just had to create some negative emotions, and a massive, extra-strong Misera was sure to show up? Now that was something she could work with. While magical girls were invisible to mundane people, their powers were not. That said, the Neon Tempest didn’t exactly want to harm anyone. After all, her psychotic hatred was reserved for the Miseria (and anyone who sufficiently pissed her off). Yet, even so, they had fortuitously brought along someone who was capable of manipulating emotions. All they had to do was get Tsubomi to flood the other beach goers with a sense of desperate panic, and bam! Instant Miseria!

“Ya don’t say…” Nyxia replied, her disgruntled frown having turned into a pleased smirk. “That sounds fuckin’ fantastic! Thanks for the advice, queenie!” she added, before turning to Roche. “Come on, let’s get back to the beach!” she told the rule keeper with an eager grin as she climbed onto her shield. “Uh, sorry we interrupted your bath, or whatever,” she added, glancing back at Felix, before charging up the Omega Obliterator to serve as a massive thruster. The Neon Tempest still had no idea what, exactly, the aquatic pair were doing out here, but she really didn’t care one way or another. Far more important was setting the stage for what promised to be a positively epic battle…

---

Once she finally got to her feet, Tsubomi was able to see Oros walking into the water. Why was she doing that? There was no time to figure that out with Morganite's appearance, a veritable cannon-shot, causing a strange sense of deja vu, though she couldn't place why. As she watched Oros run into the water, she began to follow. If she were capable of being surprised, she would certainly be by her own speed as she walked far faster than she could remember doing since her corruption. She threw a wave over her shoulder at the beach-goers as she walked, and had made it about halfway to the water when she face-planted into the sand from stepping in an indent.

Once again she rose, with the same speed she had been walking, and continued on. When she reached the water, she continued on until she was fully submerged, walking still onward with water above her head. It was only when she was totally out of breath that she transformed and allowed herself to rise to breathe again.

The unfortunate part was that now she had water in her eyes, so Acid Drop rubbed them for a few moments to clear them before looking around once more, searching for Oros and Morganite.

Tsubomi, or rather Acid Drop, would not have much difficulty finding the scarlet harlot or the pink pounder. Oros had made herself a surfboard. She propelled herself along with spinning tendrils that behaved like a thruster. Morgan was using one of her shields as a surfboard, while the other was spinning behind her like a water wheel. A very fast water wheel that didn’t appear to be attached to anything, but was still propelling the magical girl forwards. Fascinating…

On land, Suki was an exceptionally fast magical girl. But her current setup couldn’t match her skates on land. She turned to face her pursuer with a sneer. Morgan was still smiling. They both swung their hands at each other. Each one managed to catch an incoming fist with their off hand. Their propulsion device lashed out next, with Oros’s tendril coiling around Morganite’s shield. It may have seemed like they were evenly matched, but Oros the Joyful was straining to hold Morgan in place, while the light magical girl looked less interested in pushing through and was instead assessing her target. Her eyes moved all over Oros before her smile vanished.

”Oi! Ya look a a tad familiar doncha laddie?” She raised an eyebrow. ”Have we met before?”

"Hell of a pickup line!”

With a roll of her eyes, Morganite’s shield spun. It severed Oros’s tendril and flew into her stomach. High enough to miss her emblem but still hitting hard enough to throw her. Morgan hopped off of her shield, and it swiftly flew behind the airborne magical girl, catching her before she flew too far away. Before Oros could even start to fall, the shield surged forward, forcing her to belly flop against the water before she disappeared under the waves. Before Morganite fell into the water, her other shield replaced the one under her feet. She gazed into the depths, but all that Tsubomi could see from where she stood were some bubbles floating to the surface where Oros had gone under.

Morganite kept her posture straight, her gaze downcast at her struggling foe. Light girls were a valiant and honorable bunch, but there were few people they despised more than dark magical girls. You never knew how far they were going to take things once the fighting started.

---

At first, the rainbow haired girl thought the other two were about evenly matched, but that was quickly put to rest as the Light Girl shoved Oros under the water with her shield. Though not before saying something ominous about recognizing Oros. Could this be a former teammate of hers? Or was she a member of Snap's crew, sent ahead of the rest to test their progress? The light reflecting off the water and personified right above it were problematic for Acid Drop, and more importantly, for her partner. She shielded her eyes with one hand as she sunk below to where it could no longer reach. Once she hit the bottom and confirmed that Oros was still bubbling out, she jumped as hard as she could towards Morganite's location, not quite straight upwards.

As the rainbow burst from the water like the sign from god it's claimed to be, she grabbed the Light Girl tightly by the neck. She also made sure to throw in a heaping surge of diffidence into the smaller magic user as she did. All she had to do was force the feeling into her until she pulled away her shield from Oros. She'd figure out what to do next then, but for now the important thing was saving Suki.

---

It had been an odd degree of optimism that had sent them hunting for Miseria in the depths. Perhaps with a dash of desire for peace and tranquility after a tense car ride to the beach that left Roche intimately familiar with the term 'road rage'. Without Sink Queen's information and the bizarreness of her summon to derail them, Nyxia and Earthshaker would have spent a few more hours paddling about the ocean in vain.

"Thanks for the advice. I suggest you avoid the beach for the foreseeable future." Roche replied to Sink Queen as she shifted forwards along her shield, making room for Nyxia behind her. The Omega Obliterator soon began the arduous task of trying to boil the ocean, the force of it's beam. sending the magical hide shield rocketing across the water's surface. Sink Queen went from a speck to invisible to their gaze as they raced back to the main land via laser propulsion. Rather similar to Ashbringer's means of flight, if Earthshaker thought about it, though the collateral damage made laser based flight rather useless anywhere but the ocean.

Sure, they were Dark Magical Girls, but cleaving a city apart and killing thousands just to do something they could already manage with parkour and leaps was a bit beyond the pale.

To the mundane people whose days would soon be ruined, the twin contrails of water blasting out to either side would be growing by the second, followed by the rising plume of super heated steam as the Omega Obliterator evaporated water.

But rather then slow down Earthshaker caught the rainbow hued magic of Tsubomi, and if she of all people was using her powers openly then there was cause for concern. "Hey Nyxia, I think we have party crashers....Pour on the speed, we're gonna ram 'em!"

"Take care lovelies! And don’t worry about me, I’ve seen a few monsters in my time."

Before Felix could respond to Nyxia’s surprise apology, she blasted off. The laser was there one moment, and faded the next. Sink Queen squinted her eyes until the light faded out completely.

How curious. She should make a call.

Among all of her effects, there was a waterproof phone in a pressure resistant case designed for diving. She fished it out of her bag and speed dialed someone.

"Hello, it’s me. Just calling to let you know… Yes, I know you told me they would be here. I just thought you’d like to know I made contact… I was surprised. I don’t know many magical girls that would go to the beach to hunt miseria, let alone the ocean. Interesting folk this lot… Yes, I put them on the right path. Time will tell if they get anywhere with my advice. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you know they would be here?... I didn’t think you two were on speaking terms. Haven’t spoken to her myself in years… Of course I’m going to keep watch. I need to see how this all plays out… Alright, I’ll let you know if there’s any developments. I’ll talk to you later, Ashley. Cheers." She turned to Felix and smiled. "You might want to sit this one out, rascal."

---

Morganite was pretending to look at her wrist watch when Acid Drop came out of the waters. By the time she registered what had happened, Acid Drop’s fingers were already around her neck. Touch based magic was always potent, but Morganite refused to let this girl fully take over her emotions a second time.

Size was never a good metric for determining a magical girl’s strength. She peeled Acid Drop’s fingers off of her neck. Then she spun, and the centrifugal force caused Acid drop’s limbs to extend before she was released, and soared through the air like an out of control flying squirrel. She hit the water soon afterward.

And then blasting across the water were the other two magical girls, uniting them all together. Maybe it was the diffidence coursing through her head, the fact that they were all together, or both, but Morganite recovered her shields and began to speed back to shore.

This didn’t stop the duo, who were determined to ram into Morganite at full speed. Roche called for more power, the distance between them closed.

But then…



Oros bobbed out of the water, gasping for air just before Roche and Nyx rammed into her back. The front of the shield was pivoted downward. Roche took Oros underwater again, and Nyxia was launched into the air. Since she was creating thrust, she shot herself into Roche’s back, causing them to tumble underwater. By the time they climbed out of the water, Morganite had made herself scarce.

The blood witch was delirious. Between oxygen deprivation and blood loss, her body collapsed as soon as she pulled herself out of the ocean. "Am I unconscious? Does someone need to give me mouth to mouth?” The fresh wound in her back had spawned four tentacles, which she used to create a sort of parasol.

Nyxia’s eyes narrowed as she saw what looked like a battle between Tsubomi and an unknown magical girl unfold before them. “You got it!” the Neon Tempest told her partner with a fierce grin when the tribal girl requested more power so that they could ram the unknown assailant. The aquamarine beam of incandescent annihilation doubled in size as even more power was pumped into it, sending the pair rocketing across the waves as if propelled by several jet engines firing at maximum blast. Apparently having noticed the incoming projectile, the mystery girl wisely decided to flee, but her speed was nothing compared to the velocity her pursuers had attained. A cataclysmic impact was inevitable, yet, when it came, it was not Tsubomi’s assailant the pair struck, but an entirely different pink-haired girl…

“THE FUCK…?!!” Nyxia exclaimed in annoyed incredulity as she watched Oros burst from the water directly in front of them. Mere seconds later, and the unavoidable crash sent the Neon Tempest flying through the air, before landing in the water with a mighty splash. Slowly rising to her feet, she saw that Roche seemed to be okay, although Suki was bleeding from a nasty wound on her back. Then again, she was usually covered in blood, and if her characteristically physical contact obsessed comments were anything to go by, she’d be just fine. Meanwhile, their actual target was nowhere to be found, but that didn’t really bother Nyxia. Regardless of who she was, the mystery girl was nothing more than a minor annoyance, and there were far more pressing matters that demanded her full attention…

Ignoring Oros’s dazed inquiries, the Neon Tempest walked over to the now transformed Tsubomi. “You can manipulate emotions, right?” she asked the rainbow-haired girl. “Can you make all these people scared shitless enough that they start running for their lives?”

---

Well then. Tsubomi was expecting a number of things, but a DBZ dragon-throw was not one of them. As she skidded across the water like a stone, she wondered what the enemy girl's magic might be. Then she fell under the surface and those thoughts vanished under the waves as well. The water made it hard to see what happened, but when she resurfaced and made it to the beach, Oros was there, asking for mouth-to-mouth. Seconds later came Nyxia, asking if she could cause a mass panic.

Acid Drop considered for the briefest of moments. Sure, she could do that. But so could any magical girl, if they tried. Besides, a fight was one thing, was it worth it to stay in magical form just to scare some normies?

"Probably. But you could do that just with your laser, right? Just 'Boom,' giant laser in the sky, and everyone will be terrified."

Satisfied that Nyxia would be satisfied, she walked over to Oros. "Hey there, you okay? That's a pretty bad wound on your back. Did that short girl really do that much damage? It looked like she was trying to drown you..." Her words trailed off. Who was that girl, anyway? Given the way she talked, she should be pretty easy to pick out. And why did she have this nagging feeling that she'd heard someone talk like that before? Hmm... But back to the present.

"If you really need mouth-to-mouth, maybe transform back and we can get someone over to do that?"

---

No one had ever claimed these four particular Magical Girls were well coordinated. That they split up immediately upon arriving at the beach attested to this almost as well as the spectacular flub of a ramming action.

With remarkable speed they went from barreling towards a hostile, seemingly light girl to Roche swallowing a mouthful of sea water as she hit the water like a sack of bricks. For once her power was rather unhelpful as she couldn't exactly parry anything with her face. Let alone the water. In her flailing she definetly felt herself smacking something, and it was only when she was thrown onto muddy shores that she realized it was Suki.

The tribal-themed Magical Girl came up to her knees, retching out water as her hair and cloak sloughed off salty hydration by the gallon. After catching her breath- And sincerely hoping no one saw the see weed strands she hacked up- Earthshaker could turn around to find Suki was being her usual self.

"Huh, would you look at that. Maybe you were right to avoid me." Roche said, amusement coloring her words seeing the blood bender act with her usual theatrics. Deciding to play nice while Nyxia tried and failed to convey the purpose for their return, she pulled off her cloak and used it as a towel, wrapping it around Oros' shoulder so she could help her to her feet without worrying about her touch.

"Come on Suki, walk it off. We had a chat with a local out at sea, and we've got an idea to make this trip into something special." She'd pat Suki through the cloak, only to blink in surprise as Tsubomi approached them. Hadn't these two been on the outs? Huh, maybe violence was the great fence mender.

"Tsubomi, what Nyxia is trying to say is that we need people to feel genuine terror on a deep level. A random laser may spook some people, some may run, but it's not really going to evoke the primal reaction we need. Can't you spike the water so we draw in some Miseria?"

Oros dropped her face into the dirt when Acid Drop arrived. Not because she had anything against her, or was feeling second hand embarrassment from her earlier actions, but because it was the only thing she could do to dull the excruciating pain. That wasn’t to say it wasn’t super awkward to have someone you bullied come to save you. Was she really not aware of who smacked her? But maybe it didn’t matter. Tsubomi was all about her duties, so having everyone in fighting shape was more important than any emotional baggage that she should have. Nothing had really changed.

"I’m a little out of breath. I think they were trying to drown me.” She pulled her face out of the sand. It had stuck all over her forehead and cheeks. "If I turn back, I can’t regain my strength. But if we’re really talking, then I’m probably awake enough to- Hurk!”

Suki had decided she was going to ignore Roche when she got back, but she hadn’t expected to get man handled by Rei’s number two. As soon as she was on her feet, she threw the cloak back at Roche, briefly causing it to float in front of her face.

”We’re dark magical girls, for crying out loud!” Suki found it difficult to stand upright. She was hunched over like a hunchback or a terminally online person with horrible posture. Her tendrils flicked in the air. ”If we can’t inspire some terror, then we aren’t trying. I’m sure if we trap everyone we can get them to have a ‘primal reaction’ or whatever.”

For the months that Tsubomi had been dormant, she had gathered a lot of emotions. If she put her mind to it, she could probably cause quite the panic if she so chose. But if she chose to bank that for later, the magical girls would have to explore other avenues for creating mass panic.

Nyxia ground her teeth when Tsubomi refused to help and instead suggested that Nyxia herself could create a panic among the beachgoers just fine. Of course this pothead bitch is gonna make things difficult… she muttered to herself. Thankfully, before the Neon Tempest could tell the rainbow-haired girl what she thought of that idea, Roche stepped in to clarify things. Then Suki voiced her own suggestion…

“Yeah, that’s something we won’t be doing,” Nyxia told the blood witch, her voice dripping with derision. “I know how much you want this to end with a fucking orgy, you sick freak, but the idea is for them to run away, not be crammed together so we’re stuck havin’ to protect their pitiful asses when the Misera shows up. Besides,” she added, rolling her eyes in annoyance, while placing a hand on her hip. “How the fuck would we even corral all these people together anyway? On the other hand, rainbow head over here can get ‘em all to lose their shit in one shot,” she continued, pointing a thumb at Acid Drop. “She just needs to stop being completely fucking useless and traumatize these fuckers already!”

---

"Good point, good point." It would definitely be better for Suki to heal than trick normies into kissing her. And spiking the water, really? It was the ocean. Even as she was now, she didn't think she could infuse magic into that much. It wasn't like everyone was drinking from a well or anything. Besides, Oros was completely right. And- Ouch, the way she was standing looked really bad. Was she okay?

"Are you okay there, Oros?" She walked to her side. "That's a pretty bad one. Nice umbrella, though." And then Nyxia had to speak up. The insults broke around her like the waves did for the laser-propelled duo, doing just about as much damage as well.

She tapped her pointer finger to the side of her head. "Mmm... I mean, I could. Especially with all the savings I've done. But let's think about this for like, two more seconds. If the people here aren't close enough to each other, then running away in terror won't build up a mass of fear in a close enough space. And if we summon a bunch of Miseria, and everyone does run away, how are we supposed to keep everyone alive? If someone gets half a kilometer away and gets attacked while we're here, then we'll have killed someone. The one real rule. Plus, I'm not even sure that influenced emotions will summon them! They're immune to my magic, mostly, so it wouldn't be surprising if trying to make one failed outright. And lastly... Why? Is it worth a month or two of stocking to summon what might be a handful of regular losers that we can find in the city anyway? None of them seem to be working for us, so why would some here do it?"

Acid Drop wasn't ignorant of the effect that magic running through her had on her mind. If anything, she was glad for it, because she could actually think sometimes. But at the same time, it meant being on edge, having her guard up at all times while it was there. Eventually it would get tiring, but for now she was going to take advantage of the mostly clear head as much as she could.

---

Her efforts to help Suki to her feet were largely unappreciated and Roche found herself plucking the thrown cloak and tossing it over her shoulders once more. What concerns she had for Suki's well-being seemed mollified as the blood fiend returned to lascivious appetites, a sight that was almost refreshing after seeing her so depressed during their journey.

Every step of this vacation had been like pulling teeth, with each of the girls making it difficult in their own ways.

Suki was the one she had expected to be eager to see everyone in swimsuits and play grab ass in the waters with complete strangers, yet she was happy to bury herself in frogs in the mountains like some old hermit.

Nyxia had no issue leaving, but would have happily ran off into the pacific on her if Roche hadn't followed. Given the use of her shield in her return she'd probably been out there for hours if she hadn't.

And now Tsubomi, normally the most passive one of their odd, conflicting group, was using some fairly well reasoned rationale for why they should give up on their plans of summoning Miseria from the sea. If this were the city, Roche may have let the matter drop right there. Maybe if hadn't just gone through a high speed collision after a fruitless voyage to sea she might have remained calm.

"DO WE NEED A REASON?!" Earthshaker threw her hands upwards and bellowed, eyes wild as briefly stopped trying to placate the other Magical Girls. "We are selfish, arrogant, powerful Dark Magical Girls! Spreading chaos and misery should be in our job descriptions if we got paid for this stuff. So what if we waste our time or it fails? It could be cool! It could be amazing! We already heard from one girl out at sea that it's possible, so we aren't just hoping for nothing here."

"Can't we just...for once, act like the group we pretend to be?" Outrage turned to an almost plaintive plea, face turning from one girl to the others as her arms came down to her side, hanging with a limpness that spoke of more than just lethargy. "I brought you all out here thinking getting away from the city would somehow fix things. But it can't because fixing implies we had anything to begin with to be broken."

"And for once, I can't make you all be what I want. I can't make you be friends. I can't make you look towards the goals of the group. We're pretty anti-establishment, aren't we?" Roche let out a sigh, her shoulders slouching somewhere to the level of Suki's unhealthy posture. With a ripple of energy her magical form faded, leaving Roche standing before them without the protection of her Magic.

"But that being said, I can ask you to consider trying this. I think I have a plan that will let us try this without using up all of Tsubomi's savings, but we'd all have to work together. It won't work without everyone, so if you don't want to go forward, well, I guess we can play volleyball and tan on the beach."

She finished with a laugh, her eyes carrying the glimmer of hope as she looked to Tsubomi and Suki.

Of course Nyx would assume that “trap” somehow meant that Suki wanted to personally violate everyone on the beach. Any other day Oros would take the insult with a smile, not because she deserved it, but because the only way to get Nyx to play nice. But Oros wasn’t feeling so charitable today. More than that, Nyx had said something else that really pissed her off.

There was no time to talk though, not before Acid Drop clapped back with facts and logic. Even if she was still upset with Tsubomi, it was more than a little cathartic to see her shoot down Nyxia with a controlled response. As much as Acid Drop’s condition confounded her, it was easy to appreciate how being emotionally distant from the situation was useful to her. Oros could ignore insults, but Acid Drop was immune to them.

But hadn’t she just complemented her umbrella? Was it possible to appreciate such things without a sense of art, or was Acid Drop more impressed with the practical use of her magic?

It didn’t matter. While Oros wasn’t feeling very Suki-esque today, it seemed like Roche decided to take point as the emotionally vulnerable one. It was weird to see the cruel, stringent rule keeper getting so emotional. At least, that wasn’t how Oros had remembered her. While Oros wasn’t in the mood for coddling anyone right now, maybe she’d try a little bit of Tsubomi’s rationality and suppress her urge to be bitter. With a groan, she turned to Roche.

"We are a group, Bed Shaker. You and Nyx are Unstoppable Doom, Rainbow and I are Endless Ecstasy. Was there ever anything else?” She twirled her umbrella for extra flair. "I certainly wouldn't know it! We failed to take down a single dark magical brat, then you dragged us out here so that we could all have ‘fun.’ Fun, as you define it, is having Endless Ecstasy prepare the beach while Unstoppable Doom ventures into the sea. I had suspected that you might be trying to get some lonely time with Nyx, but given your obsession with this miseria summoning ritual, I have to assume what you really intended to do was get stronger without us.” She tapped her chin. "Or maybe you still are trying to shake beds? And helping Nyx get stronger is simply a means to an end? What am I suppose to think?!”

Oros reached an arm around Acid Drop and pulled her closer, her eyes flicked over to Nyxia. "Rainbow isn't 'fucking useless.' If she was, you wouldn't be asking for her help. And she certainly wouldn't be my best friend. I can say that even though she's immune to my charms. But if I wanted an orgy, I could have one with anyone else any time I wanted. I don’t find the sand’s texture pleasing anyway!” That was a lie. Anyone who was in contact with Oros for more than a few kisses would pass out and be quite unable to do anything, but Nyxia didn’t have intimate knowledge of her powers, or that she wasn’t into sleeping people.

"So Bed Shaker.” Oros took a step, only end up stumbling and using her umbrella and Acid Drop to stay upright. "You want us to become ‘Unstoppable Endless Ecstasy of Doom’ _{name pending}? I could do that, but you need to talk to us. None of this running around without telling anyone what you’re doing. So let’s start by hearing your plan.”

---

Somehow Suki was turning into the voice of reason and Roche's tanned cheeks flushed with color to find herself so calmly rebuked. But clearly intimidation, anger, and flaunting her authority had failed well in advance of even coming to the beach. Could a dose of candor salvage their trip?

Though of course Suki just had to comment on her interests, and Roche's blush deepened till she had trouble looking at Nyxia in the eye. "I-I wasn't trying to get in her pants! I don't even know if she likes girls like that..."

The tanned girl refused to get sidetracked with that mess, as for all her infatuation, she hadn't gotten even a hint that Nyxia had any interest. "Okay, so this is might be a bit of a stretch, but I'll just say it plain. Tsubomi doesn't want to use up all her supply, so we need to attract a lot of people close together. Well, we're magical girls. Suki, you would use your magic in front of people and play it off as a magic act, drawing them in. Nyxia can do special effects, creating a laser light show to really draw people's attention."

Relying on those two to coordinate was perhaps risky and already shaky ground for any plan, but between displays of blood control and bending lasers, even the most phone-addicted youths would be pulled in to see what was going on.

"Once you've got a crowd and we have as many packed near the water as we can, Tsubomi will does the beach water. I'll be under water and I'll expel as big a charge as I can back towards the beach. If it all works the water plashing down on everyone will cause enough to panic in terror that it will spread naturally."

Roche raised a finger to her cheek, scratching idly as her head turned from Suki to her partner, pointedly not facing Nyxia. "I figure Nyxia's lasers can blast a trench in the beach to keep them trapped if we need them to be, then if it really draws in Miseria we just crush them while keeping them safe."

It wasn't like they didn't have some experience keeping Miso intact with their own fights. A closely packed clump of drugged people should have been a cake walk for them. "Though I suppose if Suki can do her draining touch through her blood she could knock out all the people with tentacles...."

Roche trailed off, hoping that this gaggle of self interested girls didn't pounce upon her moment of weakness.

Nyxia’s scowl only grew more intense as she listened to Tsubomi’s explanation of why her plan to summon a giant Miseria wouldn’t work. Indeed, the fact that the normally-dead-to-the-world girl was even speaking this much was of little interest to the Neon Tempest when compared to the words she was spewing out. Even Roche’s surprisingly emotional outburst on her behalf did nothing to improve Nyxia’s increasingly sour mood. If anything, the typically stern and stoic rule keeper’s desperate pleas for their dysfunctional quartet to actually cooperate for a change only succeeded in causing the Neon Tempest’s already low opinion of her to plummet even further.

Pathetic…

“I didn’t say she was useless,” Nyxia muttered when Oros began a rant of her own. “I said she was being useless by not doing anything helpful with her powers!”

Still, as annoying as that little misunderstanding was, far worse was to follow…

“W-What the fuck?!” the Neon Tempest snarled after the blood witch insinuated that Roche was crushing on her. “Is sex the only thing you fucking think about?!” It was bad enough that Suki had even brought it up in the first place, but seeing the embarrassed blush on Roche's face and hearing the rule keeper’s stammered denial only made Nyxia feel even more disgusted. Fuck, the thought of being in a relationship with any of these losers makes me wanna vomit…

After that unpleasant matter was cleared up (at least for the time being), Roche went on to outline a plan via which they could summon a Miseria, but only if they worked together. While Nyxia had never been a big fan of all this “teamwork” crap, she very much wanted to face a stronger than average Miseria, and so she would do anything within reason to attain that goal. That said, Roche’s plan, aside from requiring an ambitious degree of coordination, had two fairly glaring flaws, flaws which the Neon Tempest had no problem pointing out.

“I think you’re forgetting the fact that normies can’t see us while we’re transformed,” Nyxia noted in a blunt deadpan. “Plus, even if Tsubomi drugs the water, wouldn’t people have to drink it in order to be affected by it?”

---

Acid Drop froze as Earthshaker shouted her response to her question. As the tan girl turned back into Roche, her words changed as well, far away from those of her normal self. Tired, and it didn't take any magic sense to be able to notice it. But even at her now "normal" processing speed, Tsubomi still didn't fully absorb the things Roche said until after Oros had replied and put her arm around the rainbow-haired girl. She filed away a certain comment from her partner for later reflection, and made sure to help keep her upright when she lurched forwards.

Now that Roche was talking to the air in front of her, according to what any bystanders would see and hear at least, Acid Drop had the nagging thought that the way she herself had transformed might have caused some panic already. Oh well. More importantly, Roche was making it rather clear to all three of the non-empath girls how she actually felt about Nyxia. As it was... the plan had some merit. But even the meanest one had noticed a certain flaw or two. So Acid Drop tapped her chin in thought for a moment, then spoke.

"While drinking will make it easier and stronger, I can affect people with touch, or even from a distance. The effect gets weaker and it takes more the farther the distance from me though. Which is the main reason I would put the magic in drinks, since it gets directly inside someone, there's a lot less resistance. It's probably the second fastest, after just shoving a finger in someone's mouth or something..."

She closed her eyes and continued. "Buuuuuuut, if I can't touch all of them, and it needs to be just one feeling, a conduit would be helpful. Trying to keep it all from just flowing away with the tide would be tough, though." She glanced at Nyxia. "The big problem is the identity thing. In order to put on a show, they couldn't be transformed, and if they're visible, all it would take is one video of them doing actual magic and we might bring in more than just Ash's attention." Not to mention that Nyxia's normal form was handicapped, right?

There was the sound of a "bang" in Tsubomi's mind, almost enough to startle her, but she didn't know why or where it came from. With it came an idea. It'd take a little work, but...

"If you're really that into doing this, we can try. If we get a few of them to feel something strong enough, and can stop anyone from leaving our sight, I can probably spread that around from person to person, then change it into something more palatable to Miseria... We'll probably get in trouble for causing a big scene by trapping people from leaving the area, since we'd have to, but it might work."

Roche might as well have said "Yes" for how unconvincingly she deflected Suki's rhetorical comment on her antics, but chose to not focus on that in the moment. There was a plan to appraise.

The plan wasn't all bad. Parts of it could be salvaged, others needed to be reworked, and a lot could be omitted entirely. "Welp, I think I got bringing them together covered. They don't need to see me, they just need to be impressed.” Suki rolled up her sleeves, which was just her blood. "I'm sure you guys will have a solution for converting them all before I'm done.” She wasn't, but someone had to seem sure of themselves.

A child grieved for his destroyed castle, that an invisible jealous nymphomaniac charged through just a few minutes ago. But the boy dried his tears when he noticed the ruins of his castle moved. The sand swirled and... Blood? No, mud curled around the sandy remains and rolled it into a perfect ball. The ball then rolled down the beach, slowly growing in size before coming to a halt. The boy examined the ball, which was big enough that it reached his waist. Only to realize that there was another such ball rolling from the other side of the beach. It stopped right next to the other one, and a little girl had chased it to its resting place.

Sand wasn't a great building medium, but if one was to use it, they needed to get the water mixture right. Too dry and it would flake apart, too wet and it would wash away. It took Suki a few tries, but she eventually discovered a combination that worked. She was invisible, rolling up balls of sand with just enough water to keep things solid.

Balls rolling across the beach might have impressed the children for all but a few seconds, but the teenagers were starting to take notice. Eventually Suki had enough sand together that she could start sculpting something. She began to mold the balls of sand, slice them apart, stick them back together. As her sculpture grew, more people took notice of it. Some pulled out their phones to take pictures of the magical sand sculpture.

...But it would never truly be complete. Suki didn't have any idea what she was making, and didn't have the kind of fidelity with her powers to make something as precise as a sand sculpture. Getting balls to roll across the beach was hard enough. But as the sculpture grew, got details, and lost details, it was getting attention.

But it wasn't going to scare the gathered crowd. That was something the rest of the girls were going to have to do.

As much as she hated to admit it, Nyxia was impressed by Suki’s creative solution to the whole “being invisible to normies” problem. Plus, it actually seemed to be working, with a sizable crowd having been gathered around the blood witch’s sand sculpture. Now came the part where they got that crowd to collectively shit themselves in utter terror. The Neon Tempest had an idea on how that might be accomplished, but a few steps would need to be taken before hand.

“Ya said liquid mediums work best for your powers, right?” she asked Tsubomi. “Then pump as much fear and panic into this blood as ya can,” she instructed pointing to the moist sand Suki was using to sculpt with. “Preferably at a pace faster than a fucking snail’s. And you,” she added, turning her attention to Oros. “Make that statue even bigger, and fill it with a fucking shit ton of blood. Don’t stop until the whole fucking thing turns red and starts leaking. I’ll handle the rest.”

Assuming her companions did as instructed, Nyxia would wait until streams of blood had begun pouring out of the enlarged sculpture, before crouching down and blasting herself high into the air. At the apex of her ascent, the Neon Tempest would point the Omega Obliterator at the mass of crimson sand and send a ruinous cylinder of teal energy lancing out of the zenith to slam into its “head”, whereupon the sculpture would burst apart, causing a deluge of blood to rain down upon the gathered crowd. It that didn’t terrify them, then the pure terror infusing the bloody downpour certainly would…