Every punch in the dark had felt like a coin toss- Holly wasn't sure whether her fist would land in Poppy's face, or whether it would eat dirt, and her clone would have retreated with her eldritch powers to some more advantageous location to destroy them all. She had quite the streak going, and was on her seventh full-strength punch when light suddenly returned. She placed her hand around Poppy's neck to make sure she didn't go anywhere while she turned to look back up- finding that the swollen moon had not disappeared, but was itself emitting light. She turned back and found Poppy's bruised face still snarling up at her, leaking something black from its nose and lips.

"What's the matter?" the elf spat. "Having a little trouble dealing with this?" She accentuated her statement with another punch, which wrenched Poppy's nose an entirely different direction. "You can get all high and mighty with your teleporting, but here I am, doing you in with nothing but my knuckles!" She threw another punch, but this time, it did not connect. The body that had been locked underneath her thighs disappeared, and reappeared in front of the elf. Poppy was standing hunched over, with one leg back. The leg came forward before Holly could get up, and a small foot just like hers collided with her face, knocking her backwards. Holly ignored the pain and used the momentum to stand back up, dragging a hand across her face to smear her own blood away.

"No," said Poppy with a grimace.

"That's not what your face says," roared the elf, charging back in. Their slugfest wasn't exactly what Mikasa had imagined the final battle ending up like, but her fight with Twilight was a good indicator that nothing was going as planned. Luckily, Twilight was better with books than she was in a fight, and Mikasa was not having much trouble holding her off. At the same time, she was not making any progress, either, as she couldn't kill her, and was not very good with words to 'talk her down' as Holly suggested.

"Um… please stop shooting me?" Mikasa twirled the sword to break up another small bolt of magic.

"No! You're trying to trick me! I won't let you!" Twilight fired three more blasts, in too rapid of succession to block. Mikasa stumbled backwards, propping herself up with the sword. She began to feel her muscles getting stiff, a sign that the ease of the fight was about to end. Something pressed down on her head, nearly knocking the scout over, until what it was cartwheeled into view.

"Silly Mikasa," giggled Ruby, landing on her hands. "That's not how you do it!"

The Huntress left a trail of rose petals as she dashed to the unicorn and scooped her up, holding her by the nape.

"THIS is how you do it!"

She then proceeded to slap Twilight senseless, all while chanting "PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER! PULL! YOURSELF! TOGETHER!"

Adam walked up beside Mikasa, with Kamina and Simon not far behind.

"Greetings, Mikasa," said the giant man.

"Oh, hello," she said, slumping down. "How did things go for you guys?"

"Very well," he replied quietly.

"We totally obliterated that Haruto kid!" whooped Kamina. "Just goes to show that Gurren Lagann is the strongest there is!"

"Though we did have Ryuko's help," admitted Simon.

"PULL! YOURSELF! TOGETHER!" Ruby ended her series of slaps, letting Twilight's head hang for a moment. The unicorn's eyes closed, then opened again.

"R-Ruby? You made it? And… why does my face hurt?"

Ruby tucked Twilight into a hug. "See? The power of friendship!"

"It's not the power of friendship," growled Poppy from inside of one of Holly's choke holds. "I was getting tired of you saying 'pull yourself together'. What kind of- ngh! - idiot would allow a spell to be beaten by the power of friendship?" She twisted her way out of Holly's grip and clipped her in the chin, before taking a knee to the stomach.

"How ridiculous," snorted Poppy, clutching her abdomen. "How wonderfully ridiculous! Maybe you can pull this off, after all. But you still don't have me beaten, not yet."

"Don't count on that," said Katniss, as an arm reached around the elf-thing's body and plunged a knife into her stomach. Poppy's incomprehensible eyes widened in shock as the girl pried the weapon back out, splattering black ichor onto Poppy's grey suit. She then held up a finger, as if to object, and fell onto the ground.

"Doing better, Katniss?" asked Holly with a relieved smile.

"Yeah. A lot."

"Good to hear."

Mikasa dropped the heavy sword and wearily crossed the street to join the other fighters, with the rest following. "So why did you just end up punching her to death?"

"Well, I had watched her very carefully. When we attacked her at range, she was able to deflect our projectiles pretty easily. But when you tried to cut her in half, she physically had to stop the blade. She's vulnerable to physical attacks."

"You're mistaken," said Poppy, floating back to her feet. The gaping black abyss in her stomach rapidly sealed, and she gave them a condescending glare. "By a mortal measure, my power is infinite. Destroying me is not so simple."

The gathered members of Team Mockingjay took a step back, readying whatever weapons they had left. Holly, however, stood still, tapping at her chin.

"Power is infinite," she muttered. "Weak to physical attacks… wait, yeah. Okay, Poppy. I know how to defeat you."

"I doubt that. I alone, in all of the meta-verse, possess the knowledge of how to slay a Great Old one."

Holly stepped forward, balling her hands into fists again. "Then get ready to add me to the list."

With those words, she disappeared- in a manner familiar to her teammates as the shield, the magical cloaking ability. It was by no means a perfect invisibility, as everyone gathered there could plainly see the haze it created. Unusually, the haze seemed to stretch further than normal, reaching all the way to Poppy, who did seem to be disturbed by something. Across her suit, several wrinkles formed and disappeared, and occasionally a depression would appear on the skin of her face or hands. The haze vanished nearly as quickly as it had appeared, revealing Holly to be holding a pair of fingers to Poppy's forehead, as if pretending to shoot her. The elf drew her hand back, and smiled.

"What was that?" asked Poppy, perturbed. "Did you really just poke me?"

"Many, many times," corrected Holly. "You see, your power might be infinite, but your physical body can still take damage. And while you can use your power to recover from a lot, it's still tied to your body- which is my body. You were stuck in my head… but now, you're stuck in your own head!"

"I liked your illogical statements before, but this is torturous. Spit it out."

"The elven body has a great number of pressure points, which I, as a member of the Lower Elements Police, am very familiar with. By using the accelerative properties of the shield, I was able to strike every one of those points one thousand times each. We'll call it Jigoku Senretsu Ken."

"So you believe you can defeat me with a martial art? Really, Holly, this is reaching a bit."

"I don't believe that I've defeated you," said Holly gravely. "I already have."

Poppy laughed aloud. "Oh, Holly! I admire your defiance, your determination. And it's true, you seem to have beaten my team. But I was a fool to think that, somehow, you would triumph. My wonder at your lack of logic was misplaced. It soothes me to know this was in error, and not the taint of this horrid body! Ha! I laugh at your misguided optimism! That is the crumb that insects devour! Their only sustenance in a world of far more worthy creatures! Ha! Ha! AAAARRRGH!"

She screamed as her right arm suddenly swelled to three times its normal size, before the muscles wrenched the bones in half and the entire limb tore itself apart. Her left arm and legs went next, and finally, some extreme pressure pressed out on the inside of her skull, popping it in a mess of grey matter.

"Holy crap," gasped Katniss.

"I think I just lost my appetite," whimpered Twilight.

"Me, too," agreed Ruby. She was going to ask Adam how he felt, but the artificial man was already vomiting onto the street.

Holly exhaled in relief, plucking a gold coin out of Poppy's stained black police uniform.

"Okay, Poppy's dead. What's left?"

"We still don't have Alucard or Ryuko back," noted Katniss.

"Forget that!" shouted a voice unfamiliar to most. The stocky, baby-faced mercenary from before pulled himself around the corner of what remained of the City Hall, large chunks missing from his elbows, and a Paring Blade emerging from his chest. "Black Materia!"

"Excuse me?" asked Holly.

"Look up!" he cried. "Black Materia!"

"The moon?" asked Mikasa. "I though the Master of Games just made it big to frighten us."

"It does keep getting bigger, though," Ruby noted.

"I can't remember what exactly happened earlier," said Twilight. "But it is getting a lot bigger. I think it's moving closer. And glowing."

"I've seen this before," said Cloud grimly. "It's going to hit the arena. No one's going to be left alive."

"What are we supposed to do?" asked Simon. "Gurren Lagann's trashed. It won't be able to stop it."

Holly turned back to her team. "Twilight, do you have any ideas?"

"No. I don't have enough power to stop it. And I don't think anybody else here does, either. To stop the moon, you'd have to be crazy strong."

"Like Ryuko," Katniss murmured.

"D'Arvit."