The annoying thing about a crisis is how little room it leaves for planning.

How is she meant to press an advantage, now that Timtam's game is broken? How is she meant to follow up on this rare blunder in execution, or detect if it even is one? What opportunity is there in the middle of this storm of noisy color to answer a question, firmly push the case further open, or plant a seed that might grow into larger evidence? She can't. She can't guarantee any path forward, because she doesn't even have time to settle on what role she's meant to play here between the detective and the knight?

In the end there's barely even enough time to register the frustration. Mayzie is in trouble, in a way she would not be if Erika wasn't around. How could she live with herself if she prioritized schemes and plotting over the health of the sweetest person anywhere across all the compass of reality? Neither Erika nor Eclair are capable: all she does is all that she can ever do.

Thus, the first move is to summon a heartblade. Tumbling through the air still wrapped in the arms of Mayzie Sighs there is no good time or space to observe the proper forms, but ask any master of the martial arts and they'll tell you that strict adherence is a liability. Anyone with keen eyes (or who just happened to be looking in their direction) will see a curved sword appear, but quickly its shape changes into an elongated pole with a scythe blade on the end. Crackles of purple energy do a bit to disguise the pearly color of the weapon, but how successful that is doesn't really matter. Erika takes her weapon in hand and swings it in a great circle around Mayzie, and around the pair of them the air falls away like a bubble. Already her weapon dissolves into insubstantial nothing, but its job is finished. The thing that she was trying to cut was sound.

Thus, the second move is to reach inside her little bag, and take some appropriate tools from its depths in the moment she has bought to act without succumbing to this stupid, awful, terrible, clumsy assault on her poor senses. The first thing she finds is a pair of starglasses, stolen from an idiot. She slips them on in the same motion she seizes a length of rope and winds it up to wrap around a ceiling beam. A skateboard would, of course, have been a much simpler and more flexible tool than any of this, but with Eclair Espoir nowhere to be seen these more amateurish attempts are all that's left. Forgive her, won't you? She really didn't expect to wind up in this situation.

Thus, the third move is to take hold of Mayzie with her legs. She wraps those strong limbs around the other girl's waist and pulls as tight and close as she dares so that she can hold onto her rope with both hands. As a pair they swing wide around and above the chaos; all the fighting and smoking and exploding doesn't touch them even though it envelopes them both as they twirl around the length of the main teahouse floor once, twice, three times. Not quite enough to make it to a window, blast it all. Erika has to settle for a landing on the floor.

It's Mayzie's feet that touch the floor, softer than feathers. Erika merely uncoils and flops into this woman's arms, nestling her head into the crook between this pretty girl's neck and shoulders. All this shouting and smoke and the bang bang BANG BANG color are giving her a headache. And really isn't giving into that her last, best weapon in this duel? The game might have changed shape but she still needs to play it until the end. Maybe she'll catch something before the end, if she keeps her eyes open and doesn't take herself out stupidly.

She nuzzles Mayzie's neck.

"We've gotta go," she mumbles, "Not safe here. Can you? Outside? Please~"

[Defy Disaster with Wit is an [b]8[/b]]