A hunting we will go

[alilyinthemoonslight]

WHO: All-Star Precure (Lily, Winter, Jasmine, Marina, Russel, Annie, Kari) in Vegas + YOU. If you're in Vegas. OPEN TO ALL.
WHAT: Vermini Hunting!
WHEN: April 22nd -> April 27th
WHERE: Anywhere on the Last Vegas strip.
WARNINGS: None for now! Will update accordingly.

[During this week Lily will be pushing for her teammates to do intensive searching of the Vermini throughout the strip! Both to see if they can deduce where they may be coming from, and to gather samples for Mordin to dissect. As they'll be bouncing out and about in the open quite a bit in this, it's the perfect opportunity for other people wandering around to stumble across magical girls (and a knight, and Russel) who are poking their noses where they may or may not belong, yes?

So this is COMPLETELY OPEN! Feel free to harass one another or us to your hearts content as they hunt down these little critters.

A few things to remember!

1) Vermini flee reincarnates on sight! Normals don't see them, but they CAN see them if you present them captured. They will however think they're some kind of bug.
2) They are tiny. TEENY WEENY. Lily having run across them will been providing the entire team with jars to carry around to shove them in.
3) If looking a reincarnate is likely to run across 1-3 on average in a week. Not a huge number, but one likely to be increased if adding many more people into the search party, I'd expect?
3A) However, they are most likely to appear around bodies of water and large grassy areas.
3B) As such, the Mandalay Bay and its aquarium is a hot spot for them. Coincidentally, its the precise place there is a homicide investigation underway after a body was discovered on the 22nd. Mandalay Beach specifically is closed until the 25th.
4) Capturing every Vermini seen is highly unlikely, as they weren't able to in Locke City before from what Lily's been told. However, we have many more super powered individuals and experience under our belts this time! Use that to your advantage.
4A) However, if multiples can be captured, well. I'm sure there's multiple uses that can be had if this ends up the case.

Otherwise, do whatever! Just figured it'd be a good, fun thing to have a general investigation/mingling sort of log spread over the week as plot things are rearing their heads.

For your convenience and organization, I'll also be providing dated sub-threads, so please stand by!]

Comments

[pianistofraielin]

Luckily, Russel subscribes to that philosophy wholeheartedly. One part having been a team player for so long, another part all the anime he watches. But mostly it's the football; teamwork requires knowing how your team members operate, and that might not always mean getting to know them as people, but it does mean spending some time with them and playing--or fighting--alongside them.

So when Jasmine asked him to partner up, he'd enthusiastically agreed. It was an opportunity to get to know one of his teammates better, and to learn how they could best work together.

He went out in his Cure Love costume, since they were specifically Vermini hunting. And hey, in Vegas? It wasn't like anybody was going to look at him funny for dressing up like that. No, they'd be looking at him funny for the fucking solid gold piano. Hey, it might be heavy and unwieldy and incredibly fucking conspicuous--but it was strangely more convenient for what he needed it for than the keyboard was.

Jasmine's question caught him off-guard. And it was such an obvious thing to ask that he could practically feel the awkwardness radiating from it. He gave a good-natured laugh, which was genuine--he wasn't trying to make her feel bad, he was trying to put her at ease. "Guess I can't hide it, huh? Music's pretty much the most important thing in my life, next to the people."

[jasminebloominginshadow]

Jasmine couldn't help but smile. Russell's reassuring attitude was enough to make her feel at least a little better. The piano was still offputting as hell, though.

"I guess it syncs up well with your echoes then," she said. "I mean... you're lucky you had that in common, right?"

[pianistofraielin]

It will only get worse. I'm sorry.

There was a grin at that, subdued but with a sort of intensity to it that made it clear he'd thought the same thing many times already. Even if the memories of his past life weren't great, and nothing about it seemed to make sense, he was eternally grateful for that one thing: music. "Yeah--all my life I've wanted to learn an instrument, you know? But it never really clicked. And now I know. I just...know. And it's so amazing. I can't even really put it into words. But being able to take something that someone poured their heart into, and then reproduce it with your own hands, and add your own feelings to theirs... It's something really magical."

[jasminebloominginshadow]

Jasmine smiled even wider.

"I can relate to that," she said. "That's how I feel about my artwork... unfortunately, my past life seems to have been focused only on destroying things..."

[pianistofraielin]

Ah. Bad past life memories. He sobered, looking over at her.

"Destruction's important too, you know," he told her. "Forest fires clear out old trees so new ones can grow from the ashes."

[jasminebloominginshadow]

That earns him a long stare.

"Somehow I don't think trying to kill my sister's preincarnation and to turn the whole world into a desert is in the environment's best interest."

[pianistofraielin]

Well, he hadn't quite heard the details of it before now, but he didn't let it faze him. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable. His expression stayed pensive, no negative reaction to the revelation.

They weren't their past selves, and they didn't have to become their past selves. He firmly believed that. Jasmine could be no more a villain to him than any of his other teammates.

He shook his head. "That's not what I mean. Rebirth means a lot of things. She destroyed, and she was reborn into you, and maybe that destruction in your past life made room for you to use this life to create."

[jasminebloominginshadow]

"... That's what I'm trying to do," she replied, with a sad smile. "It's just... I wish I was like you. Like... I could find something about her I at least liked. Not even her powers do that for me."

[pianistofraielin]

He gave her an encouraging smile. "Then you're already halfway there."

The smile fell, pensive again, as he considered her other words. It was no good comparing yourself to others, and he didn't think any kind of envy was warranted in this case. What past-lives they ended up remembering was pure luck, and you could either feel bad about not getting what you wanted or you could make the most of it.

"Maybe you're looking at it the wrong way," he said. This was a far cry from the goofy, cheerful Russel she usually saw. He was soft and serious, and certainly seemed to be putting more consideration into his words than he normally seemed capable of. He's not as dumb as he acts.

"Maybe, instead of trying to find something you like about her, you need to be looking for things you can learn from her. And it sounds to me like you can learn an awful lot--even if it's who you don't want to be, instead of who you do."

[jasminebloominginshadow]

"... That's just about everything," she said, with a sad sort of laugh. "I don't know... I guess that's kind of how I'm approaching it?"

She thought for a moment. "I just wish... I knew why she acted the way she did. All these pulses later, I still have no idea what her motivation was."

[pianistofraielin]

He thought about his own Echoes. About Emil--about Hamel, and how nothing he knew about their situation made any sense. As adults, they traveled together as members of the same team. And as a child, Hamel had brutally murdered his parents and what looked like the entire population of a small town.

Something dark flickered across Russel's face at the memory, a brief shadow of the unpleasantness of remembering someone he loved dying in front of him, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

"The things we remember don't always make a lot of sense," he told her. "I feel like there's a hole in mine too, that would explain a lot of things if I just had that one piece of the puzzle to put into place, you know?" Like why he was traveling with his parents' killer and why he let him treat him so poorly.

"We might never get that piece, though. There's so much in a lifetime to remember, and that pivotal moment is just a single moment in a lifetime of millions for your Echoes to choose from.

"So I guess the question you need to ask yourself is, would it change anything if you knew?" He looked her in the eye with that question, not challenging her, but asking her to challenge herself.

He didn't know the answer to that question for himself, yet.

[roleplay meta commentary alert]

[jasminebloominginshadow]

Jasmine listened to the whole thing quietly. By the time he was finished, she let out a sigh.

"When you put it like all that," she said, "it's almost like there's some kind of will behind it, you know? Like... someone's holding all that information back for just the right moment. For drama or something."

Then she shook her head.

"But to answer your question... yes, I think it would. Because... then I'd at least be able to see her as a person. As someone with a reason for doing what she did, even if it's horrible or stupid. Instead of just as this... evil cardboard cut out."

[pianistofraielin]

"I absolutely think there is a will behind it," he said. "And I think it's probably limited by something so it can only give us these things in bits and pieces through whatever's got it fenced in. Or us."

Russel had decided immediately that he'd been chosen by destiny and he was never letting go of that idea, basically.

He listened to her answer, and when she was finished speaking, he gave a decisive nod and set a hand on her shoulder, facing her full-on. "Then, until you get that reason, make one up for yourself. Whatever makes her seem the most relatable to you, that's the only reason that matters. And maybe one day you'll find out the real reason, but until then, all you need is the one that makes sense to you."

[jasminebloominginshadow]

"... Man, I don't even want to know a reason why I'd relate to wanting to murder Lily," she said, making a face. "But... I'll try to wrap my head around it, I guess? I won't come easy..."