Lily and Marigold were returned to the platform where they eyed March suspiciously. A quick glance behind showed Kat climbing out of the bowl. Against her better judgement, Lily stuck her tongue out at her girlfriend. Kat flashed a glare back... but she also didn't have any long ranged attacks without her demonic fire, so Lily wasn't at risk. Yet.
"So what's the plan here?" asked Lily. n-.OVElb1n
"Want to work together and go for a tie?" asked Marigold.
"Not saying no... but why go for a tie?" asked Lily.
"Because it has occurred to me that it will be so much funnier. March will be annoyed she lost... or that she didn't think of teaming up. Kat will be annoyed that I won with you, and Vanya will be annoyed you won with me. Thus we not only win, but annoy everyone else! It's perfect," said Marigold with a smile.
"I'm not sure Kat will care but sure, I don't have anything against it," said Lily with a shrug. *If she tries to betray me I can just use my shadow to touch the finish line. I've already seen that my shadow counts as 'touching' something for the purpose of the tasks, so it shouldn't be any difference for the last point.* "So what do we do about March?"
"Hmm... that's a bit tougher. Not sure I want to poke that bear if we don't have to... you got any spells to push her off the edge?" asked Marigold... while March listened in. She was tired yes, but that didn't stop her ears working in the slightest.
Lily thought on the question, turning back to see Kat had vanished into a challenge room, so they had at least some time to plan this all out. "Not really," admitted Lily. "I mean... I've got attacks sure but for someone like March... I'm not even sure how much real damage they'd do. Honestly the best idea I have is just using my shadow to reach over and try to push her off... but my shadow isn't all that strong over long distances,"
"Right... well we could just go around her?" offered Marigold.
"I'm all for that plan," agreed Lily. With that confirmed Lily transformed and hopped up onto Marigold's shoulder. Marigold bent her knees and jumped over to the checkpoint, aiming slightly off to the side. As she did so, Lily stretched her shadow downwards, ready to tap the platform.
"Wait... you pulled yourself up onto the platform with BROKEN ARMS!" hissed Lily.
"We've got bigger issues now," said Marigold, waving off in the vague direction of March, who was glaring at them.
"Yeah... what's the plan here?" asked Lily.
"Honestly... I'm not sure. March is strong, stronger then I thought admittedly. Especially after she seemed so exhausted. I'm not saying we couldn't win in a fight..." Marigold said slowly. "At the same time... I feel like we'd lose a bunch of time, and I'm not sure we could win without going for a lethal strike, and I'm not sure Thyme is watching us closely enough to prevent it being actually lethal,"
"Yeah..." said Lily uncomfortable. "That's a good point. Um... what should we do?"
"Wait for Kat to deal with her?" suggested Marigold as she wiped the blood from her eyes.
Lily looked over to where Kat should be... and saw nothing. "Huh... she's not around at the moment," said Lily. "I guess she's in a puzzle room. Not sure if that's the same one she entered earlier, if she should be out soon,"
"Damn... so what's the plan here?" asked Marigold.
"I don't know? I mean we could always run sideways, or we could try to work our way forward... honestly I'm not really sure. If I had more mana I'd try to put up enough paper shields to stop March jumping between platforms but I don't have the mana for more than one shot... or perhaps not even that," explained Lily.
"Right... well... hmm... should we punch this barrier a bit to get it to stay around longer? I'm healed but I don't think I'm ready to fight March again just yet. If she's just going to sit there and stare at us we could wait until something changes things up. Either Kat arriving, or the 'end game' triggering,"
"No faith in Vanya?" asked Lily with a slight smirk as she tried to lighten the mood.
"Nope. As spectacular a she might be in bed, she's clearly the physical inferior to both Kat and March. She'll catch up eventually, but not in time to help," said Marigold.
*I suppose I set that one up a bit too well. Really I only have myself to blame for that one.*