It had been a week, and Yoko still ached all over. After all, she'd been thrown into a building multiple times. It was a miracle that she wasn't dead, and her partner had gotten it worse. Did being Pretty Cure make them immortal, or just really hard to kill? Either way, she didn't want to test that out, and she especially didn't want to test it against another stupid-looking monster. If that giant floating pair of lacy panties had finished them off, she'd never have lived it down.

"Why me?"

"Yoko?" Okamoto Yukari put a hand on her shoulder. Yoko jolted out of the daydream.

"Huh? Oh! Yukari!"

Yukari sweatdropped. "Spacing out on the way to school? That isn't like you. The homework must be getting to you."

"You're right," Yoko said. "They really are piling it on... Didn't Ami-sensei mention that she was giving us a big science project, too?"

Yukari nodded and brushed a fallen leaf out of her hair, tugging loose some strands from her crown braid. "Having her for both homeroom and science is a little... Well, it's interesting." She smiled. "Better than some other teachers we've got, though!"

Yoko laughed a bit and pushed her own hair back. "Either way, we'll get through this. It'll be simple!"

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 4: Another School Project? What Do You Mean, We're a Team?

It certainly looked like it would be simple. The classroom was filled with students as usual, all looking up at Ami-sensei. Well, Asa was half-asleep, and Izumi Misaki was passing Misaki Izumi a note, but everybody else was looking at her.

"All right!" The teacher forced a smile and twirled a meter stick in her hand like a baton. "Now, I know you're all very excited about the science project! By that, I mean you're bored and waiting for lunch break, but you should be excited, okay?"

"Yes, Ami-sensei," everyone replied, with a late "yes, Nakata-sensei" once Hoshi shook Asa awake.

"Good!" Ami-sensei crossed her arms, letting her black hair shine in the fluorescent light. "Now, I'm sure you've all prepared for this group project..." Everyone looked around quickly and locked eyes with their closest friends. The teacher twitched. "Hold on a second!"

"Huh?" the girls chorused.

"You're going to have to pick someone other than your usual partner," she said.

"Whaaat?", cried one girl.

"Why?" That was another.

Ami-sensei swept out her arm and pointed the meter stick at her students. "I'm staving off a social injustice!" Any imagination could easily have substituted the Lily Class' room for a wave crashing on a rock behind the teacher. "All you girls have your cliques, don't you? The people you like to hang around with and the people you glare at and push aside! Your best friend forever is all well and good, but you can't just have one friend! Not if you're in my class! By the end of this year, you'll all be model students who are friends with everybody in Clair Academy, and maybe even that other school on the south end of town that's not as good and is likely to get torn down any day now!"

Asa flinched as a few people looked at her. She couldn't tell if it was because she was one of the aforementioned people that everyone hated or because she'd come from that school.

Ami-sensei hoisted herself up on the desk and posed with the meter stick like she was planting a flag on the moon. "This class will be made up of the students that all the other teachers wish they had! They'll all be jealous of me! I'll finally get that promotion!"

The students stared.

She coughed. "Um. Go get your partners. I'll just be getting down from here."

The scramble for partners was somewhat chaotic at first, but didn't seem to work in the way that the young woman in charge had intended. Hoshi apologized to Asa and walked off to the other side of the room, attaching herself to someone instantly. Asa tried to approach a few people, but they quickly turned their heads and moved over to friends they weren't quite as close to as their usual partners. She sighed and drooped her head and shoulders.

"Come on, somebody pick me..."

Someone tapped Asa on the shoulder. She jumped around and stumbled back, bumping into a desk.

"N-Nakayama-san!"

A few partner groups turned around and stared at the scene. Yoko pushed some of her hair back. "I can't go with Yukari," she said. "It makes sense if I go with you."

Asa gulped and looked aside. "Um... sure! Yeah! Okay, partners it is!"

Misaki Izumi stared and turned back to Izumi Misaki, who was standing next to her despite not being her official partner. "Those two? Does this even make sense?"

"It makes sense," the other girl said. "Besides Okamoto, people are scared of Nakayama."

"Ohh, people are scared of Nakayama," repeated the first. "And besides Kondou, no one likes Kawada."

"Yup, no one likes Kawada." The second nodded. "So they can't be with anyone but each other."

"No, they can't." Misaki Izumi looked over at Izumi Misaki's partner, a girl with short green hair and black glasses. "What do you think, Omemi-san?"

"Yeah, what do you think, Omemi-san?"

Omemi Emiru adjusted her glasses. "It's interesting."

Binbeat stood on his hands in front of Mekuramast. "Guess what I found out."

The magician gave a brisk sigh and adjusted his eye mask. Children were annoying sometimes. "What is it, Binbeat?"

The organist started walking backwards on his hands. "I found out you fought Pretty Cure and didn't tell us."

Mekuramast was taken aback by this, but quickly resumed his regular expression. "Oh, you did, did you?"

"Yep!" The kid seemed proud of himself. "So, why didn't you say? C'mon, tell me!"

Another sigh. "Binbeat, you ought to give up. A magician does keep his secrets, you know."

"Nyaaah." Binbeat stuck his tongue out and stood back up on his feet like a normal person. "I bet you just wanted to look better than Kainatrol. Whatever. I'm gonna go out looking for Moon Pieces again."

Mekuramast shook his head. "As long as you don't steal any more panties."

Binbeat looked hopeful. "Bras?"

"No."

"What about those little things that look like panties but they're not, I never saw those before, I don't think they were invented the last time we were in this world and -"

Mekuramast groaned. "Absolutely not. I will not have thongs cluttering the Etherium."

"Whatever." Binbeat teleported out, leaving the magician to wonder just why they'd picked that boy up in the first place.

"Has everyone got their partners?" Ami-sensei walked between the rows of desks, writing down the pairs on a clipboard. "Good! Now, you have until the end of the week to choose what your project will be about, and a month and a half to complete it. Does everyone understand?"

"Yes, Ami-sensei," chorused the class again before looking back at their partners. They began to throw around ideas of moldy bread, baking soda volcanoes, roller coasters constructed from building sets, and everything else that they'd all seen and done before. Yoko sighed and turned to Asa, who was chewing on the end of her pen.

"I don't want to do something overdone. Do you have any ideas, Kawada-san?"

Asa looked to the side. "Well, a couple... I mean, I wanted to see if it were really possible to make the DaiVan!"

Her enthusiasm was creeping back into her voice again, Yoko noted, and they weren't even talking about Pretty Cure. "What's a DaiVan?"

Asa moved to face Yoko and smiled. "It's the most awesome thing ever! It's what DaiFighter and his friends use to get around. It has infinite space on the inside, it can cross between dimensions, it can fly, it can compress itself to squish through tight spaces, it shoots lasers out the signal lights, and it runs on BURNING SPIRIT!" Everyone turned to stare at that last part. She didn't seem to notice. "Oh, yeah, and it has a vending machine on the inside."

Was she serious? Yoko rubbed her forehead. Well, cars she could do, and if anyone asked, it was Asa's idea. "Fine, let's do that."

Asa froze. "...really?"

"Might as well." Yoko pushed some hair back with a shrug. "We'll need at least five reference books. Can you come to the town library after school? The one here will be packed."

The blue-haired girl shifted around in her seat. But, come on, the DaiVan. She nodded and gave the thumbs up. "Yeah! Sure! All right!"

Yoko blinked. That was odd. "Well, then, after school."

"Are you crazy?" Hoshi felt Asa's forehead at their small, empty corner table in the lunchroom. "Nakayama again?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Asa pouted. "Are you trying to be the friend police all of a sudden? I thought you wanted me to try and fit in with more people besides you."

"It's not that!" Hoshi said. "It's just... come on. She doesn't talk to anyone. Even you never talked to her before, and I know you're not shy, transfer student or not. Now you're meeting her at lunch, you're staying behind after school -" Asa flinched. She'd hoped that Hoshi hadn't noticed that - "and now you're doing your project with her. What's going on?"

"It's just a coincidence!" Asa swallowed down another mouthful of rice. "Don't worry so much, okay? She's not going to eat me or anything, and besides, you get to spend more time with other people." 'And save your reputation,' she thought, mind still on what Mia had said a few weeks before and what the class had whispered about that morning.

Hoshi shook her head. "...well, it's not like you're doing anything bad. I just worry sometimes."

"Come on!" Asa forced a laugh. "I'm perfectly fine."

The day was over again. Starry hopped out of Yoko's phone in a corner of Kazahana City Library. "Hey, why are we here today ~susu?"

"We need to be here for school," Yoko whispered. She looked at Asa. "What are we going to do about this... DaiVan thing?"

"The DaiVan ~susu?" The little orange creature perked up. "You're building your own? I like the little vending machine."

Yoko stared at him, then at Asa.

Asa sweatdropped. "He likes to watch TV with me on the weekends that I have him."

"Never mind." Yoko pushed her long hair back again. "Start thinking of ideas for what we're going to do. I'll go get the books." She walked into the appropriate aisle and started collecting research books without even looking.

Binbeat hung from his legs upside down off the edge of the library roof. He gave a big yawn, swung himself up and summoned the large, old organ, which was decorated with the same green jewels as he had on his mask. He was about to press down on the keys when someone teleported beside him.

"Bwaaah!" The child threw up his arms and spun to the side. There stood the Mystical Seer, Mireyes, the fortune teller. She was an aged woman, wearing a billowing white dress with a lavender jacket and star-adorned veil. White for the Etherium, purple for herself. The customary eye mask didn't suit her, but she did have her sheer head covering pulled over her eyes to make up for it. As Binbeat had found out once when he planted banana peels all over the floor, yes, she could indeed still see.

The Youthful Musician crossed his arms. "What're you doing here, old lady?"

Mireyes put her palm to her forehead. "Were you anyone else, I would have ended you for that kind of treatment. Besides, you shouldn't be saying it in the first place. You'll start to age again if you spend too much time out of the Etherium, you know. It's only there that time doesn't matter. It still works on us here."

"I know, I know." Binbeat dropped onto the piano bench.

"Speaking of which," added Mireyes, "what do you think you're doing here, young man?"

"Looking for Moon Pieces." He stretched out his arms. "What's it look like?"

"And have you found one?" Mireyes took the small boy's grimace as her answer. "In that case, why were you about to attack when you don't even know if there is one here?"

Busted. Binbeat scrambled through his mind for an excuse. "Well... I saw those girls from last week there! Yeah, the new Pretty Cure! Well, the only one you'd know, you only showed up twenty years ago, but they're new. Those were them, all right!" He sat there, looking quite proud of himself.

The old woman's eyes began to glow behind her veil. "Is that true, or did you just make it up?" A purple magic circle drew itself above her head.

Binbeat gulped. "Come on, you really don't have to use Future Sight! Don't you trust me? I saw them!"

A vision appeared in her mind: a flash of light and two girls in strange uniforms. Mireyes blinked the glow out of her eyes, and the magic circle vanished.

"It's your lucky day," she said, laughing, even. "Just send in a Hidoinaa. You don't need to attack on your own this time."

"Huh? They're actually here?" Binbeat blinked. "Wait, yeah, of course, they're here! I'm awesome! Oh, yeah!"

Mireyes shook her head. "Why do I tolerate this from you?"

Yoko set her fifth pile of books on the table. "We've got the basic and advanced mechanics of automotives, then we have specific books on vans, the physics of motors, a few theoretical texts that would cover how it could be possible to have infinite space in the van, ten on laser weapons, some explaining how to shrink the van, physics books that mention why we don't have flying cars, all the major auto magazines, and an article on vending machines."

Asa gaped. So did Starry, who was now in her phone and hanging from her hand. "Whoa."

"Whoa?" Yoko put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. "We've gathered more books than the library will let two people take out at one time, probably more than they'll let four take out, at that. We have enough material to write a DaiVan encyclopedia. This group seriously needs to narrow the focus, or else this project will be sprawling all over the place. All you can say is 'whoa'?"

"Hidoinaa!", something called back.

"'It's awful' isn't much better! We need-" Yoko stopped. Asa's vacant stare and pointed finger directed her to turn around and face a tall, wooden card catalogue. It had not been this tall before. It had also not had a face before.

"Hidoinaaaa!", it repeated.

Asa stood up from her seat. "Let's run."

"You can't run in a library!"

She pointed to the crowd of patrons fleeing out the door. "They're doing it!"

This seemed to be acceptable to Yoko. The two of them dashed off in the direction that the civilians were running at first. Asa suddenly stopped, yanking Yoko's wrist back with her, and dragged her back into a run right under the legs of the Hidoinaa.

It lumbered around, knocked over a bookshelf in the process, and scratched its head. "...Hidoinaa?"

Yoko and Asa ducked behind a book cart until the staff member evacuating the place passed by. They scrambled into the handicap elevator and quickly shut the door.

"How much - gasp - time - do we have?" Yoko panted and leaned against the wall for support.

Something banged against the door, leaving a series of dents. Asa pointed. "Not much." She drew out her phone and Moon Card. "Let's go!"

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The light show came on again, over in an instant like always. The damaged doors of the handicap elevator forced themselves open, revealing the two transformed Cures posing to the monster.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"To ensure a peaceful era!"

The card catalogue monster roared. "Hidoinaa!" It reeled back to launch an attack of book cards. Cure Night paid no heed to this and stomped past her partner, focused directly on the threat.

"YOU!"

The monster paused. "Hidoinaa?"

Night stood her ground and pointed right at it. "You monsters don't have any respect for the library! First of all, you made too much noise! Even normal levels of noise aren't acceptable in here! Nobody needs to hear 'hidoiiiiiiinaaaaaaa' when they're trying to study! What if someone had entrance exams? What then?"

Sunday gaped. "Uh, Nakayama-san..."

Night ignored her. "Second of all, look at the mess you made! Elevator doors aren't cheap! They'll need fixing! What's more, you've scattered the contents of the card catalogue all over the library, and-" She jabbed a finger in the direction of the fallen shelf. "You- you knocked over that bookshelf! What if you broke that, too? What then? Libraries live on donations, you know! City council never gives them enough!"

Sunday's phone visibly sweatdropped. "It'll all go back to normal when you defeat this monster ~susu..."

The silver-haired Cure marched right up to the Hidoinaa and glared up into its glowing eyes. "Your trying to get the Moon Pieces is bad enough, considering that they don't belong to you, but what's worse than that is that you're disturbing everybody else! Your creators are just as bad, hypnotizing people and stealing panties and what have you! I can't allow such things to happen!"

The Hidoinaa scratched its dark wooden head. "Hidoi...naa."

"Well?" Cure Night crossed her arms. "Aren't you going to fix it?"

It stared for a moment.

She stared back.

It opened all of its drawers and sent a rain of book lists flying at them. "Hidoinaaaaa!"

"Night!" Sunday ran forward, but was hit back and side to side by paper cards. Night's eyes began to fill with liquid rage.

"You... are not going to do this again!" She launched herself up into the air, a far cry from the unathletic Nakayama Yoko of a few minutes before, and spun around to kick the monster. It skidded back and she landed on the floor. Immediately, Night ran after it again and began punching and kicking at it.

"Hey, what about me?" Sunday grumbled and pulled herself up from a bruised, blindingly coloured heap on the floor.

"Sunday!" Night called back as she kicked the giant card catalogue down again. "Come on, we need to finish it off!"

"That's my line!" The pink and orange Cure ran over, clutching her aching side, to the black and blue one. They grabbed each other's hands and stood to face the monster as instant runes formed behind them.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"You've used up your days..."

"...and you're out of time!"

The burning blue aura engulfed them again, and they stepped back just to launch themselves at the recovering Hidoinaa.

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

The Cure-comet shot right into the monster, burning off its dark aura, and broke right through it. When they landed, the Hidoinaa burned up, leaving only the card catalogue, and everything calmly reverted to normal.

From behind a far shelf, someone nodded and walked off.

The Lily Class was, as usual, abuzz with gossip the next day. Everyone knew that the library had been evacuated, but no one seemed to know why, or keep their story straight. One person said it was a gas leak, another said that someone had caused a disaster knocking down all the shelves, someone else was saying that it was a fire drill, and where one story made it to your ears, ten more passed by. After school, the two girls and their shared mascot met as usual in the classroom.

"I don't get it," Asa grumbled as she dug out her books on car motors. "They all saw the monster, so why would they lie?"

"It's easy," Yoko frowned. "Nobody wanted to admit it until someone else did. It's the way some people are."

"Don't worry ~susu." Starry patted Asa's fluffy blue hair. "If less people know about Pretty Cure, then the job will probably be easier ~susu."

"Still!" Asa sighed. "I want to be famous and have my own TV show and merchandise from this!"

'There's something wrong with this girl,' Yoko thought. She sorted out the car books and clapped for Asa's attention. "Let's get working on this project."