Work Text:
Pray...
FOR ANSWER
A loud thud is heard from the speakers as The League's logo appears on the screen. “This is your mission: eradicate the defensive units deployed in the MakotoMirai zone,” a woman's voice stated as a fact. “As you know, MakotoMirai's the home base of the anti-establishment group that opposes the peace held by The League,” the woman's voice droned on as the screen began showing maps and graphs of the MakotoMirai area. “We have tried to negotiate with these revolutionaries, but they have refused our overtures and continue their violent attacks. This job is a show of force to encourage the enemy to rejoin negotiations. We do not like resorting to violence, but on this occasion, we have no choice,” the screen changed to show the image of an aged woman with bright blue hair and a small hat, her heterochromatic eyes show a coldness that sent chills down the spine of anyone who saw her. “MakotoMirai's main weapon, Cure Eclair, is currently operating in another area. She will not become a risk in this operation.”
The League's logo returned to being the main thing on screen before the woman continued to speak. “Note that this mission is a test run of your capabilities. We trust that you will deliver a successful result.”
Watching that briefing in the darkness of a gunship's hangar, were two people. A pink fairy with darker colored fur near her eyes in the shape of a cherry blossom's leaf and a girl wearing equipment for High-Altitude-Low-Opening jumps. These were Sumirin and Nora Inui, a newly formed duo working as Fairy and Pretty Cure for Curellared.
Sumirin floated to face the girl under her supervision, “Rookie, what's the objective-sumi?” Her voice was surprisingly gruff and harsh for a fairy, but she retained that fairy habit in her speech patterns.
“Destroy all defensive units deployed in the MakotoMirai area…” Inui answered, her voice was raspy and hard to pick up.
“You're making progress. For a rookie, you learn fast-sumi.”
“Entering the mission area, all combat personnel, take your positions!” The gunship's pilot informed them over the radio.
“Time to work, rookie. Show me what you can do-sumi,” Sumirin remained serious as Inui took her position.
One of the gunship's crew approached Inui, despite towering over her, it was him who felt a chill run down his spine when he attempted to make eye contact with her. Due to her mask, her eyes were obscured, but he knew she was keenly observing him.
“Six minutes to drop-off, opening the rear hatch,” the pilot informed, causing the crew member to break free from his fear-induced trance.
“...dawn…” Inui absent-mindedly muttered as she saw the hatch open and the sun's rays begin to illuminate the darkness of the gunship.
“You'll be falling at quite the speed-sumi. Make sure to not freeze on the way down, rookie,” Sumirin warned, although given what Inui was, the warning wasn't as serious.
“Move to the rear,” the crew member commanded, the day the truth came out, the world was turned upside down, despite having been born in the new century, he still thought all of this was surreal.
Inui almost strolled as she made her way to where she was commanded, her mask and suit protected her from the sun's blinding light and the wind's brutal cold. This was her first time doing such a jump in real practice, the chance of failure never crossed her mind, for she did not think too much about anything really.
The countdown had begun…
5
4
3
2
1
“Jump, towards that ever expanding world…” Sumirin's voice rang in Inui's head and after that order, Nora Inui took to the skies.
As she fell, Inui could see the clouds begin to part and soon enough, the visage of MakotoMirai's skyline, she also made note of where she was headed, the bridge. It was there that her “targets” would be. It was cold, the wind was loud and the mask that kept her oxygen supply steady reeked of her own sweat. As she passed the point where any sane person would open their parachute, Inui saw the defensive units she was tasked to eliminate: haphazardly built tanks, armored cars, some infantry units composed of amateurs and a couple of flying drones that had firearms basically forced upon them. The reason Inui ignored the obvious queue to open her parachute was very simple: She had jumped off without one.
Inui pulled out her solution to landing, “Open. Jewel Cure Watch,” a relic thought lost. A relic belonging to a long-dead girl. Cure Mistique's transformation item.
A flash of light engulfed the diving teen, Sumirin watched via a screen in the gunship. “Here it comes…” she grinned.
“Pretty Cure, Wake Up Time,” Inui exclaimed as her gear was transformed into a glowing, dark blue dress, revealing her face.
Inui's short hair was ink black, her skin was ghostly pale as a result of her particular upbringing and her eyes were an unremarkable brown.
“Fifteen. Locate,” The top and bottom of her outfit take shape.
It was a rather humble outfit, still mostly dark blue with a few black accents. The sleeves were long and her bottom half was covered by a pair of shorts.
“Thirty. Identify,” Inui's hair elongated, while it remained mostly black, there were streaks of blue in many places. Her eyes shifted to a dull yellow.
“Fourty-Five. Approach.”
Inui landed on the cold pavement of the bridge and black boots with blue laces formed on her legs.
“Fifty-Five. Engage!” For once, Inui's voice had some life in it. Her hands were covered in black gloves and on her back, a strange sort of metallic item took form.
“Scavenging faint joys, wherever they may be. Cure Stray, ready for action!” Inui, or rather, Cure Stray declared passionately.
The dark blue Pretty Cure straightened out and pointed at the enemy before her, “I'll show you… My Answer.”
“Commence Mission. Destroy MakotoMirai's defense units-sumi,” Sumirin's voice echoed in Cure Stray's head yet again.
Cure Stray simply grit her teeth, her fangs also grew from transforming.
“A Pretty Cure!?” Stray heard a man's voice, likely one of her targets’.
“No! Not now!” A younger man's voice replied.
With a sound almost indistinguishable from a fighter jet's flight, Cure Stray dashed towards a tank. There was little the vehicle or its crew could do before the terrible power of a Pretty Cure as she sent the thing flying into another tank with a singular punch, both crafts would explode after collision. Following this, she would catch another tank's HEAT round and smoothly throw it back at it like a softball, the projectile was more than enough to destroy the crudely put together vehicle. The remaining tank began backing away, trying to escape strike range, with a couple of drones and some infantry providing cover fire.
“Are we doing any damage!?” Questioned one of the infantrymen in horror and frustration.
Cure Stray simply ran past the hail of gunfire and lunged at the final tank, striking it with her elbow and fluidly kicking it off the bridge with her left leg.
“Kirameki Time!?” Another infantryman yelled in despair.
“We have to outlast that, once it runs out, she'll be wide open and we can neutralize her!” One of the armored cars’ drivers ordered, morale's fall slowed as a ray of hope appeared.
‘They're running? Aren't they holding the line against me?’ Cure Stray thought, her enemies’ actions seeming strange to her.
Not really caring about her targets’ strategy, Cure Stray moved on to the drones. A singular jumping uppercut was enough to destroy one while the other drone was smashed with a diving kick to return to the ground.
“Our standard weapons are useless!” One infantryman screamed.
“M-monster!” The driver of the other armored car screamed as he saw the unnatural movements of the Pretty Cure.
“Hurry it up, if you let any escape, they'll docking your pay-sumi!” Sumirin's voice echoed in Cure Stray's head yet again.
“Yeah yeah, I'm on it!”
While a bit annoyed at all the nagging, Cure Stray complied and decided to finish off her targets as quickly as she could. Firstly, she took hold of the metal object on her back, it unfolded and revealed its true shape
“Stray Scythe!” An unwieldy weapon more fit for farming than for combat, but it was inspired by an infamous Pretty Cure of the previous century, one Stray wished to replicate. She twirled the polearm and its blade began to glow with a blue hue.
“Eclipse Cleave!” A simple horizontal swing was made, it sent a wave of energy towards the armored cars and decimated them. Stray didn't even bother looking at the wreckage.
One last group remained, the infantry.
“Where is Eclair!?” One of the men asked.
‘Busy at the moment,’ Stray thought while giving the same unreadable expression she gave every other target on this mission.
“Stray Reaper!” Cure Stray vanished from the bridge, much to the confusion of the infantry.
“Did… did she leave?” One asked.
A small gust of wind blew through them all, the early morning was always rather cool.
Cure Stray reappeared far behind them. The piece of bridge that held the pile of limbs that were once the last resistance against the Pretty Cure fell to the waters below.
“Targets destroyed,” Cure Stray spoke almost robotically.
“Confirmed, all targets destroyed-sumi. Mission complete. Well done, almost perfect-sumi. But don't get too high on yourself yet, rookie. These enemies were nothing to write home about-sumi,” Sumirin spoke up yet again. To Stray, the fairy's praise felt undercut by her warning.
Seeing that it was now time to extract her from the mission area, Cure Stray continued to abuse the seemingly natural ability to break the laws of physics by running up one of the pillars of the bridge. She could see the gunship descending to meet her, but at this point she just wanted to leave. ‘It's not that far away,’ she thought. And while she wasn't wrong, her jumping as high as she could to catch the helicopter's open back deck and pull herself upwards did provide a big scare for everyone in the gunship, Sumirin included.
“Are you insane-sumi!? Do you have any idea how badly that could've ended up-sumi!?” Sumirin scolded her Pretty Cure as the teen went back to lounging around while the deck was closing.
“Turned out fine though,” Cure Stray shrugged.
“If we have to pay damages to this craft or its crew, it's coming straight from your half of the pay-sumi!”
“Not my fault you took too long to pick me up,” the Cure grumbled.
Sumirin sighed, there was no point in arguing with a superpowered child. “...In any case, I'll go find you another contract-sumi. You're still unpopular as a MercenaryPretty Cure, if you wanna get the fat stacks, you gotta work a lot harder than this very often-sumi.”
“Yeah,” Cure Stray closed her eyes, ready to take a nap.
“And make sure to untransform and change back to regular clothes if you're gonna sleep-sumi!” Sumirin added as she floated away.
“Yeah yeah,” Inui reverted from her Pretty Cure form and began taking off the equipment for the HALO jump.
“And make sure to change in a closed room! Don't weird out the crew-sumi!” Sumirin shouted from afar.
“Yeah yeah!” Inui shouted back, walking off to a different room to ensure privacy, not that she truly had any.