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The Lilypads (16): You can find them in lakes, ponds, reservoirs, and waterways throughout Destiny City. Giant lilypads--some large enough to support the weight of a person--appear overnight. You can try, if you want. It's become a local trend, and pictures are all over social media--of people looking for the largest lilypads, or the smallest ones they can stand on. You'd think the unnatural bubbling around the lilypads would be enough of a sign not to mess with them, but sometimes people need to learn the hard way. Beneath the lilypads lurk strange frog-like creatures that regard nearly everything as prey. The largest of them are roughly the size and shape of a bean bag chair, but they can be as small as a fist. Their broad heads are crowned with lilypads that serve as natural camouflage, allowing them to hide among the floating vegetation until they strike. They move with startling speed and can launch themselves impressive distances with powerful kicks. Long, whip-like tongues lash out to snatch prey, while thick mucus-like saliva can cling to skin, clothing, and even immobilize unfortunate victims. Their skin carries a toxic coating that can cause irritation on contact. The creatures announce themselves with a deep croak that sounds uncannily like a large bell being rung just by your ears. Unfortunately, for anyone that was respecting nature, these strange creatures are aggressive and will also attack without provocation, often attempting to drive even innocent bystanders away from the water's edge. However, if sufficiently threatened, they may retreat into the water. Once submerged, they become impossible to track.

Note: If you choose to encounter one of these frog-like creatures, your character will recognize they are not youma. It is impossible to tell if it is a single entity or if there are many. The creature does not seem to understand or care to listen to human words. All toxic and mucus can be washed away, but effects may persist for a few hours after this encounter. The creature cannot be killed and will always evade lethal blows. While it is rare to find multiple large creatures in the same vicinity, smaller creatures often cluster together, or may be found with a larger one. This RP can be used as a battle requirement as long as there are two powered characters involved; you must be interacting with another player’s powered character. This does not count as the one youma battle per stage for growth. This can only be used as a battle requirement once per character, but there is no limitation for how many times a player can use this prompt.


Crouching a few feet from the water’s edge, Ilmare considered the lilypads. Now, she liked lilypads. They were picturesque as ******** and tickled her brain in all the right places when it came to aesthetic. But these… these were different. These were massive and had appeared all too rapidly and within too many bodies of water. She was just a little too aware of how weird Destiny City could be to take them at face value. So, she thought, happy to have this mental distraction, are they sticky like a carnivorous plant? Is there a hidden mouth like a sarlacc? Or maybe, and the idea made her smile. Just a little. Maybe, you got turned into an enchanted frog and had to hop along to find your prince slash princess. And had she not seen the videos on social media of people bouncing like idiots on them, she might have been able to believe in that last theory.

But when she’d watched, she’d noticed bubbles around the lilypads that didn’t really match up physics-wise with the bouncing water. And something just under the water that moved wrong.

“So, what’s your deal,” she mused aloud. “I’ve had to fight weird, evil trees before. Maybe you all are the aquatic variant, hmm?”

In the moonlight, the lilypads simply glimmered gently, though she thought she saw a hint of movement just beneath after she’d spoken.

-------

Tonight's patrol had brought the Saturn Page to a body of water absolutely littered with those lilypads that had gone viral on social media. Videos of people hopping and skipping on them now plagued his algorithm because he finished exactly one video of someone successfully making it across a small pond. Fascinating as that had been—the bubbles, in particular—he'd quickly decided that there was no way he was going to try and replicate the feat for himself.

"Not that it makes a difference to my feed," muttered Bamburgh as he went, eyes falling to the figure crouching just nearby the edge of the water. They didn't look poised to do any hopping of their own, and honestly this was his first time being physically near the lilypads and he'd be lying if he wasn't at least a little bit curious. Both about whoever that was—theirs was a Chaos signature, but with how they were positioned he wasn't put off or intimidated—as well as the lilypads. So he moved toward them, and made sure to clear his throat loud enough so he didn't accidentally sneak up on them.

The last thing he wanted on his conscience was someone falling in the water at this time of night.

"Did you say evil trees?"

--------

Even as she yelped and spun around, eyes wide, Ilmare was silently cursing herself for being so focused on the lilypads that she’d neglected to pay attention to the rest of her surroundings. Stupid, stupid stupid! Standing now in a half crouch and placing a hand over her racing heart to try and calm it, she studied the guy who’d snuck up on her. Dark, weirdly gothy (and she knew her goths) and symbols that, thanks to a lot of online research into astronomy, she could now identify as the shorthand for Saturn.

Not that it helped anything, but she could at least feel a little smarter for possessing that tidbit of knowledge.

As she felt her heartrate resume a more sedate rhythm, Ilmare took a deep breath and sighed, biting back on the desire to berate the knight for sneaking up on her. Instead, she took his questions at face value and answered bluntly, “Well, I’m pretty sure they were eating hikers and they tried to eat me and a friend, so yeah. I gotta go with evil. And before you can ask, no, they weren’t youma or anything we’re known for conjuring up. There’s some psycho dicks in the Negaverse, but they usually draw the line at sending out things that will eat their own.”

Usually. Sometimes. As long as their own weren’t problematic annoyances with questionable loyalties. But she left that part unsaid. It was just safer for everyone that way.

_____________________________________________________________

The yelp caused him to jump back in turn, his expression souring some as he tried to process what just happened while in what was probably a ridiculous attempt at a defensive pose. At least she was cute he thought in passing as he tried to figure out what just happened. It didn't take him long to realize that he had no reason to be on defense just yet, so he straightened himself out and cleared his throat again.

"Sorry," he said first, because it felt like the right thing to say. So much for trying for nothing on his conscience, but at least she didn't fall in the water. Thankfully she didn't put any focus on his surprise appearance, so he pressed on with the conversation.

"And honestly with the chicken from hell I met last year, I guess I shouldn't be surprised about trees out for blood."

His gaze flickered to some bubbling in the water, beside one of the lilypads, and he frowned. "Were you looking at the bubbles? I noticed it in the video that I saw. Kinda creepy. Makes me wonder what's causing it." He eyed the lilypads, moving closer to the water's edge and reaching out with one of his boots to tap at the edge of one.

"Part of the plant, you think?"

------

“Hell chicken? Yeah, that tracks,” Ilmare sighed, then snorted in sour amusement. “This ******** town.”

She watched, neck prickling as the knight moved closer to the water. She had no real, actual reason to be on edge, yet she couldn’t shake that impression of something moving just under the water in that video. “I didn’t see much in the way of bubbles until just now,” she said thoughtfully. “But yes. I saw them in all the videos. So, add that up with these things just showing up and well, I guess I’m just a bit wary.”

She watched as he reached out with a booted foot and felt another surge of worry. What she wanted to do was grab him and drag him back, but how could she justify that? Oh, sorry I just had a bad feeling. Maybe coming from someone on his own side it could have been done. Not so much from her.

“I’m really not sure you should b-...” she started to say, eyes on the lilypads as something on the smallish side leapt from the water, throwing itself at the knight. Her initial impression was one of ‘Wow, that’s a big, weird frog’ before another four followed their comrade out of the water, moving faster than they had any right to.

________________________________________

“EUGH—”

It was an unintelligible sound, but he could be embarrassed about it later when he wasn’t in immediate danger. For now, his face was screwed up in half terror, half disgust as he processed what was now clinging to the front of his jacket. He teetered back from the edge, balancing on his one foot for a second before the force of a second frog knocked him completely over and onto his a**.

He felt something wet and slimy on his cheek next, which started burning almost instantly.

“Don’t let them touch your bare skin!” he at least thought to shout out loud while flinging one of the things off of him. It gave an angry croak in response, setting off the sound of a deep bell right by his head, which only added to the shock factor of everything. “And not just ‘cause it’s ******** gross.”

He tried to get to his feet, long arms flailing about as he tried to sweep the frog off of him. At least all the scrambling got him away from the water, where another two frogs hopped out to join the others.

-------

Ilmare was already learning her own lesson about the frogs’ mucus even as the knight called out his warning. Hissing in pain, she seized one of the little ******** and ripped it from her, throwing it back at the water. Her skin burned and that made her angry. The sheer viciousness of the attack had her angry.

Hell, maybe she was just angry in general. But frogs as long as her forearms trying to eat them seemed like a justifiable excuse to unleash some of that pent up emotion. Half stomping, half running to where the knight wrestled with the first frog, she gritted her teeth and reached out to seize the disgusting creature by its tongue, yanking as hard as she could with both hands. She caught what she thought might be a glimpse of shock in its eyes as she heaved it away and began swinging it in a circle and using it as a flail to keep the other frogs at bay. Their deep, gong like croaks thudded within her ears.

“I really hope you have some amazing magic trick up your sleeve,” she said, voice deceptively calm. “Because I am going to try to yeet this ******** back into the water and hope he’s too dizzy to come back out.”

Her hands were on fire now and she wasn’t entirely sure that the thick, sticky mucus would let go, but she was willing to let physics and gravity help out a little. As she spun the frog, she opened her hands (with difficulty) and felt said gravity tear the tongue from her skin as the frog went sailing through the air before hitting the ground with a thud and staggering back into the water.

__________________________________________

Bamburgh got up as fast as his gradually burning limbs would let him. The mucus-y stuff had started seeping through, much to his annoyance. Her raw display of strength in her anger shut him up, though, and he watched with wide eyes and a slightly slackened jaw as she chucked the little ******** right into the water.

"No magic here," he said, "but I'm not totally useless." He aimed a kick at an incoming frog as he said this, and it was nothing short of sheer dumb luck that he managed to catch it right in the face. The contact resulted in a less than pleasant squelching sound and a resounding croak before it fell into the lake with a plop. From there he glanced around desperately in hopes of finding some kind of stick that he could maybe use as his makeshift weapon for the evening.

"Doesn't seem like those ones are coming back," he said as he tried for another kick but missed. The momentum sent him closer to the water, and he felt something wet and sticky hit his shoulder hard. He lost his balance, but thankfully managed to fall backwards, away from the bubbling water.

"How many more are there?!"

-------

Rubbing her burning hands across her skirts, Ilmare aimed a sharp kick at one of the frogs who backed away warily. Stifling a smirk, she decided that wherever these had come from, they were smart enough to realize they wanted to avoid her grasp.

Which probably also meant she'd be a target if more frogs showed up. Thankfully, she only counted around five now that they'd got rid of two.

“I count five,” she replied calmly before backing up to help the knight to his feet. “You've got no magic and mine would not really help much unless you want the psycho frogs tripping balls… Personally, I'm not recommending that path. How about your subspace? D'you keep anything fun in there?”

Before she could pursue that path, she shrieked as her hair was yanked. At least two of the five frogs were trying to climb up and their weight and stickiness was making for a bad time.

‐—----

"Tried," he replied, snagging what looked like the end of what was hopefully a nice stick sticking out of the nearby brush just before she helped him up. It was decent, he thought as he tested its weight in his hand. Thin but sturdy, not too bendy but not so stiff that it would break after just a single swing. "Anything even remotely useful just won't go in, so." He swung the stick as he would swing a foil to test it out. "Mostly just gotta–"

Her shriek cut him off, and when he looked up he could see why.

"I got you!" he yelled as he lunged forward and, with a relatively deft hand, swiped at the two frogs that were treating her hair a bit like Rapunzel's. He missed, though mostly because the two decided that dodging was the better move. With resounding croaks they leapt from her hair and aimed the mass of their bodies right at his face.

One jumped clear of both of them, though it aimed its tongue at the senshi as if refusing to completely back down.

The other muffled a swear that erupted from his mouth because the frog hit him square on the nose, and between the sudden disgusting mucus-y feeling all over his face and the burning sensation that it seemed to cause, being polite or articulate was the least of his concerns. He quickly reached up and pried the creature off of his face, sputtering the entire time he chucked it back at the water with everything he had.

-------

“Thanks!” Ilmare gasped before turning her attention to fending off the frog that had decided that it didn’t want to back down. Throwing her arms up in front of her face, she felt the sticky tongue hit and curl around her limb. Well, if it wanted to annoy her, it was accomplishing that marvelously. She moved quickly to grab the tongue and hold it in place while she thought. Then, unaccountably, she began to laugh at the knight’s words.

“Oh honey,” she cooed. “You’re not tryin’ hard enough to be creative. Trust me, plenty of useful things can be crammed inside.”

As if to prove her point, she concentrated for a moment and reached into her own subspace with her free hand and after a brief, fumbling search, grinned and withdrew a portable blow torch. Well, she called it a blow torch, but really, it was just a handy little gadget to help start campfires.

Or any sort of fire, really.

“Right,” she muttered, gritting her teeth. This was going to toast her a little, but she’d heal. Holding the torch up, she flicked it on and sent a lick of flame into the face of the frog holding on to her. Its croak of dismay rang through her skull as it decided it really, really wanted to let her go and she felt the tongue loosen. Finding this agreeable, she let go of the grip she had and practically chased the awful creature back into the water. Then, her grin took on a hard edge. Well look at that, she thought. Both hands free. She should take advantage of that. Reaching back into her subspace for a second, it wasn’t long before she withdrew a can of Aqua Net. Holding it and the torch out in front of her, her voice rang out.

“Let’s light ‘em up!” she called out gleefully, pressing down on the hairspray before touching the flame to it. The tongue of flame wasn’t quite as amazing as Hollywood made it out to be, but it was enough.
___

Whatever fight the remaining frogs had in them gave way to the sudden flames, and they hopped to a speedy retreat back toward the water. It was only a few seconds before it was just the two of them again, and Bamburgh was left staring with mixed surprise, amazement, and gratitude at the senshi.

"I'll have to remember to try loading my subspace up with something like that," he said after a beat. "Nice one. And thanks for the save...s." Because she had helped him more than once throughout that whole encounter, and he wasn't too proud to acknowledge it.

"I'm guessing you've had your share of surprise attacks like this in your time?" he went on to ask as he reached up to feel his burning face. He could only imagine he looked like a red, splotchy mess now. The only positive was that he could show his sister what could happen if she touches these frogs when she inevitably goes out to see them for herself.

Because of course she would.

------

As quickly as they’d appeared, the frogs vanished back into the water with the faintest of ripples before it went still again. Ilmare watched the lilypads carefully, but didn’t see a trace of bubble nor movement. Huh. Maybe the frogs really had gone away. Or at least learned some healthy caution when it came to attacking random people. Whichever the case, she nodded in satisfaction before stowing her things back in subspace and turning to face the knight.

And then, she flinched. “Oh my god,” she murmured, “Your poor face! You need to go home and watch that gunk off before it burns away any more of your skin!” Her concern was sincere and she was not unaware of the oddity of a corrupt showing concern over a knight’s well being. But she hoped that even if she’d been one of the more gung ho corrupts, she still would have shown empathy. The frogs were a common enemy, after all. “Wait a sec…” she muttered, reaching back into subspace. This time, when her hand withdrew, a small pack of wipes was held within her fingers. And not just any wipes. These babies could strip the pancake from a goth’s face in two seconds and leave the skin feeling baby soft after. “Here, take these and use ‘em. And don’t try to argue with me.” Now, her grin was cheerful and friendly. “You can always buy me another pack later.”

Forcing back the twinge she felt at giving away something that could have helped her too, Ilmare steeled herself and tried her best to look unbothered by her own reddened and burning skin. Sure her hands hurt, but he’s taken the brunt on his face. In this instance, his need was definitely greater.

“Go on,” she said, voice chipper as she waved her hands in a shooing motion. “Git.”

------

He was about to say something about being used to skin sensitivity issues because he had them, particularly during the summer when he was sunburnt for...basically the entire season. But she had effectively closed the door for any arguments against being concerned about it or protesting getting help for it, so he took the offered wipes with a small nod.

"Alright, if you're sure," he said, blinking then as she waved to shoo him off. The gesture was a familiar one to him, so he smiled, opened up the pack, and pulled one out.

"I'm not the sort to turn down someone's kindness," he said as he turned to go, already feeling a bit of relief as he started wiping his face. "So thanks. Again. I owe you...two?" And without waiting for confirmation he nodded one, waved his goodbye, and headed home.

itspao_