>>43527630

“I-I’m sorry, President Takeda, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” the large boy looks somewhere between relief, shame, and embarrassment.

None of them in this room know who you are. None of them have questioned your words yet. Yoshi watches you intently after recovering from his friend’s unexpected charge.

You don’t begrudge him this scrutiny. Everyone in this room has secret lives. Yoshi Sakurada and Daigo Endo lead double lives in a popular local metal band. Nui Takeda for all her proper family conduct that she shirks amid her academic and social behavior secretly pursues a more risque look and mannerisms as the leadership behind a ganguro fashion circle.

And you...you have more secret lives than any of them honestly combined.

Cloaked Hero of Justice. Raging and violent delinquent street demoness. Seemingly Vapid and haughtily postured California style fashionista. Shy and awkward nerd afraid of her own shadow and the squeak of her own voice. A bikeless and witless sage motorcycle enthusiast. A voracious reader of foreign literature and enjoyer of poetry.

These are just some of the faces you have hid behind, hid from who you really are to cope with a past you are only now truly coming to terms with. Only now able to heal.

You are Mikage Chiba, second year highschool student fifteen years old. Just as your mother and big sister before you, and as your little sister carries on now that you have left that mantle behind, you were the Champion of Love and Justice known as Sailor Moon. Now you support the efforts of your younger sister and are building strong allies while opposing the evil she faces in secret beside her.

Presently you are clad in the heroic guise of Eclipse, a cloaked hero who has supported Sailor New Moon and her Court of second generation Sailor Guardians.

>>43527652

“Endo-kun?” she says after retching again and taking his offered handkerchief to wipe away the gobbed and folded nest of spider silk from her mouth and lips, “I don’t understand, what happened,”

~You were afflicted and possessed by a spider like creature of supernatural origin and foul intent,~ you interrupt and explain to the petite and lithe senior student before you, ~It was intent upon spreading its control to your friend, but he proved capable of rebuffing its aggression,~

Nui Takeda mulls over your words as she looks at the grotesque materials spread across the handkerchief she used, then at the disheveled space on the wall near where she had been helped up from, and then at the materials turn and struck across the larger young man’s face.

“You, you’re Eclipse,” Yoshi straightens himself up and says with slight alarm as his mind races through possible realization, “There is a greater monster at work here than just these small spiders, isn’t there?”

His question hangs, but you know that your enemy likely knows one of its own was lost and is sending forces to investigate...or retaliate.

>No time to explain
>Explain the situation specifically
>Generalize the explanation, how?
>Write in

&

>Stay here, let the first of their forces come to you
>Barricade and lock the doors to the student council room
>Tell them to leave this room and hide
>Lead them to another room
>Write in

>>43527666
>No time to explain
>Generalize the explanation, how?
I suspect you are correct, but there is no time to explain, they'll know something has happened here.

We should get away from here, quickly.
[Run!] While beating the hosts seems to break their control, fighting most of the student body is not ideal.

>>43527972
Reporting in from the road for spider time!

>>43527972
>Where?
How about music room or auditorium, whichever is handier?

>>43527666
>Generalize the explanation, how?

There is a greater threat at work, but
>No time to explain

&

>Tell them to find something to cover their mouths with, maybe masks of some kind.
Then
>Tell them to leave this room and hide!

>unless their plan is to beat the student body into a pulp

>>43527666
>Generalize the explanation, how?
Quick rundown on suspected numbers with a vague allusion to a group of obsessed individuals.
>Tell them to leave this room and hide

>>43527666
Tell them to get to the music room and stick together.
Tell them the spiders hate the high C note.

Alright, lets count up what we've got.

~There is a greater threat at work, the spiders are spreading one person’s obsession and it grows dangerous,~ you quickly explain and open the door, ~The three of you need to hurry, they know one of their own fell and are coming, there isn’t much time to explain further. Hide in the music room,~

Your words spark something in Nui.

“Wait, I remember now,” her words roll from her tongue, “It was like I was in love with Keiko Sugimoto...and I-”

She stops as if a revelation had passed.

“And what, President Takeda?” Endo-kun asks with a suddenly serious face as he helps her unsteady step as they take to the hallway at your urging.

Yoshi passes you and follows behind them, and you offer a parting word of advice.

~These spiders, even within their many hosts, cannot seem to stand the sound made by a sustained high C note,~

“I’ll keep that in mind. A friend warned me things might get strange today,” he pauses and bows, “Thank you, Eclipse, for watching over our class yet again,”

Though his mannerism is relaxed, he goes rigid as Nui speaks from behind him.

“It, we, all of it wanted to hurt those we didn’t think deserved to feel our love,” Nui recalls whilst holding her head, “I was going to help hurt Kairi Osaka and Miki I mean-Mikage Chiba!”

Yoshi’s eyes are wide as he whips around to face them. Unable to see his face, you take note of the urgent tone he takes.

File: Moon Light Knight.jpg (37 KB, 500x375)

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>>43528922

“Endo, is everything still loaded in the van?”

There is a beat between words, you can hear the distant clatter of footsteps in the nearest stairwell over the pounding rain outside.

“Yeah, I haven’t unlo-”

“Keys,” its a command, short and simple to which the larger boy obeys and fishes them from his pocket and hands them off, uncertain of what he sees and hears from the usually even handed and soft spoken Yoshi, “I’ll meet you at that place,”

~It won’t do to fight the whole of the student body,~ you say, ~Even if knocking someone out does free them,~

“I have something I need to take care of. Eclipse, I know this is selfish but I ask you to turn your attention to Year 2 Class 1. If what Takeda-san says is true then everyone in that room is in danger,” Yoshi says as he tightens to run in the opposite direction that Nui Takeda and Daigo Endo now flee.

>You won’t have to worry about them
>No, I must cut off the head of this hydra first
>I’ll go there straight away
>Write in

&

>Head back to your classroom
>Head to the Auditorium
>Follow Yoshi
>Head to the academic offices
>Follow Nui & Endo
>Write in

>>43528950
>Head to the Auditorium

>>43528950
"They will be protected."

Distract the approaching spiders while they flee.

Use compact to warn Sailor Sol.

Counting and writing

>>43528950
>You won’t have to worry about them

I'm drawn between options on where to go.

>>43529333
Does she have one of those? If so, maybe call Luna so she can disseminate to Sol and other scouts like we discussed with her.

>>43529825
We have Telepathy why would we need a piece of jewelry?

>>43529900
Range is short on that.

Rolled 12 + 10 (1d20 + 10)

Okay, as I write this up it appears there will need to be a stealth test. Give me the best of 3, dice+1d20+11

Best of 3, 1s and 20s wild. Opposed by the above roll.

Rolled 8 + 11 (1d20 + 11)

>>43530545

Rolled 15 + 11 (1d20 + 11)

>>43530545
>+10
Many eyeses.

Need one more before we continue.

Rolled 5 + 11 (1d20 + 11)

>>43530545
>>43530790
People fear the rolls, I guess.

Rolled 18 + 11 (1d20 + 11)

>>43530790
F-fine! It's not like I want to roll for you or anything!

Alright, 1 degree of success.

Finishing the scene up to the choice.

~You needn’t worry about them,~ you say with a serious intonation, ~They will be protected,~

Yoshi nods, with a certain relief.

“Thank you,”

He explodes in motion, running toward and then past the stairwell, likely planning to loop around the building toward the parking lot where Diago Endo’s van waits. While you have no idea what the boy is planning, you have suspicions that make you smile. He went rigid with worry at the mention of your name, among others.

No sooner than he clears the stairwell entrance to three figures step into the hall. They must not have seen him and all turn in unison toward where they no doubt know the student council room to be. Breaking into a formation of three at the sight of you standing in the hall, they consider their options.

“You aren’t a student here,” one of them says with a degree of caution.

Beneath the cloth covering your lips, you smile. Nui-chan and Endo-kun are long gone toward your instructions of keeping hidden, and you see Yoshi turn the corner and of sight. You’ll keep these fools busy, or at least off their trail.

~No,~ you burst forward, ~but I am a student of the human heart and condition you mock with this sick obsession,~

You charge past them in a leaping roll before landing and sliding on one knee as your foot slams forward and then down to serve as a turning pivot and break. Cape unfurled behind you, you press down with one of your hands and spring into a run down the stairwell, the trio of the possessed giving chase. The second floor has the easiest access to the auditorium, where you’ll head eventually.

After exiting the stairwell, line of sight from your sudden pursuers broken, you engage your invisibility and step just slightly out of the way as they race past your once their own travel down the stairwell is completed.

>>43531105
Flipping open your phone, you shoot a text to Keiko just as the warning bell rings for the resumation of the class period.

You warn her that the spiders are indeed preparing to move, and that they might have something harmful in store for yourself and Kairi-chan.

Her initial response takes less than ten seconds as you navigate the halls as they suddenly fill with methodically and almost mechanically moving students. They’re all coming from the direction you’re heading, the auditorium. With careful plying of your powers of invisibility and unremarkable guise you are able to push your way through this crowd easily and unnoticed.

Keiko explains that she’s been asked by the president of her fanclub, a girl named Mio Nomura, to meet her in the auditorium later today during free period to help her get to the bottom of the weird behavior that has been spreading around. Over the course of a few texts she explains that Kairi and Umeki Saori had a lengthy private discussion after you left the room, initiated by Kairi at your behest. The details remain unknown to Keiko; she further divulges that Midori saved her friend from pissing off the spider possessed sentry by telling him she needed to bum a smoke off of him, for an old favor owed.

The two of them left the classroom, and as the class resumation bell chimes and the hallways are again empty, they had not yet returned.

You stand before the slightly ajar doors of the auditorium, empty halls and full classrooms behind you. The auditorium is important to them, or the who behind all of this. It's where they want to stage their show and give Keiko their twisted love, perhaps you’ll find something within.

>>43531154

Pulling the door wide, you see that near every surface is covered with taught and wound or bound strands of webbing. The walkways and up to the stage are a veritable web funnel of intricate loomwork. The velvet red tops of the seats peak out from the sea of white, as errant strands shimmer in the changing light from the door’s movement.

With a quiet leap, you move toward the stage, landing on the tops of the auditorium seating and stride across them with careful steps and ducking movements. You see the suspended funnel on the stage, pulled taught before the banner proclaiming undying love for your would be idol friend and secret Sailor Guardian of the Sun.

Finding your gait and the pattern of the strands, you are able to navigate through the auditorium without tipping anyone off to your presence. Even if you can’t see them, spiders are connected to the webs, just out of sight. Should you have vibrated them, whoever is here would have been on you in seconds.

Voices echo in this room, just backstage from the distorted projection through soft curtain and taught web.

>Investigate those voices
>Investigate the catwalk
>Look for the sound and lighting booth
>Investigate the funnel nest
>Leave here, make sure Midori and her friend are okay
>People might be suspicious if you miss class
>Lie in wait here, for when Keiko arrives during free period
>Write in

>>43531175
>Investigate those voices
Message Midori.
Message Luna to put the Scouts on alert.

>>43531175
>Investigate the catwalk
>People might be suspicious if you miss class

>>43531175
>Investigate those voices
If we have the time-
>Leave here, make sure Midori and her friend are okay

Her and Jadeite are important for enemy fake out plans.

Writing

Whether through messaging or searching, it would be good to find Jade.

Nodding to yourself, you resolve to get as close as you can and investigate those voices.

...still you are a touch worried about Midori. Flipping open your phone, taking the time to set it to silent and disable the vibration, you shoot her a text in inquiry to her state of relative safety and status. While crossing the tops of sloping seating toward the foot of the stage you also craft a message for Luna instructing her to put your little sister and the Senshi on alert.

Hopping across to the foot of the stage, while maintaining sporadic invisibility, you roll and come to an easy stop before the lowermost anchoring point of the central funnel nest. Edging around and behind it, you walk along the edge of the nearby curtain and into the backstage wings.

Phone open, you see a flicker of light indicating a response.

Checking it while amid the cover of the curtains, you find that your Jadeite Knight is safely smoking in a rear stairwell with her friend, who is lamenting how everyone is acting annoyingly weird today. Apparently he cites how it reminds him of a light novel about a large number of people acting strangely after being cut by some kind of knife.

Relieved that she’s safe, but concerned that she is smoking and cutting her own precious life by an unknown number of years, you press on. Actually, you pause and replay that last thought. You’re starting to passively think, at least when in this guise, in witticism and observational commentary not unlike your father tends to when he is Tuxedo Mask.

With an annoyed sigh, you press forward.

Through the maze of curtains and webs, which you manage to not disturb, you find a young woman among the dressing area vanities. She isn’t alone, behind her floats a man with mid length but wavy copper hair dressed in a uniform similar to what you saw the woman known as Amazonite wearing.

>>43533382
His posture is rigid and alert, though he appears to be sitting in an invisible chair some six feet from the ground. A black stone rests on his brow within a golden circlet.

The girl, whom you don’t know by sight, shrieks and with a great sweep knocks the assorted cosmetics and makeup items from the nearest vanity counter.

“I DON’T CARE!” she bellows, “If she’s your enemy, she’s mine! My perfect idol, my ideal,”

“She may be far more dangerous than that,” he says sternly, “You play with fire trying to-”

“Enough!” she stamps her foot as she turns to face him, swaying her dark blue bob cut, “Look, I’m doing this my way. You don’t have to worry about dead old hags. I just want MY Keiko and it will be fine,”

“Alright, Orbrachnid, just what is your way?” the man says with a sigh.

The thing that is probably not a human anymore just giggles and titters to herself at the man’s frustration.

“Why, I’m going to truss her up and take her to her new home,” she explains in an almost sing song voice as you see the skittering things crawl out of the dark places in this open room, one crawling upon her hand from the vanity, “Then I’m going to take all her love, every last drop so she can stay with me forever. And then I’ll spread that love, and you can have all torment that follows,”

“Well, just be careful,” he sighs again, “This school is a ground frequented by undesirables to our efforts,”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, Hematite. I am quite capable of taking care of undesirables. Just watch, I’ll make a show of it for you as I welcome my idol home,”

He strafes around her from his invisible chair, hand to his chin in thought.

“Now, by every last drop of love you mean-”

>>43533404

“Blood is love,” she says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “Duh, love is life,”

You feel a great unease about the upcoming free period. All in all at least you’ve discovered the spider queen, and identified another member of the enemy’s villainous Shintenou.

>It's time to back out of here slowly
>Stick around, see what else you can gleam
>Throw caution to the wind, attack these two now, how?
>Reveal yourself in poetic fashion, try and reach this broken girl’s heart
>Write in

&

>Be calm and collected about the proposed murder of your friend
>Be angry and simmer with hate at the proposed murder of your friend
>Be understanding about this, the girl is shadow possessed
>Quiet fury, you’re going to eat that spider first chance you get!
>Feel emotionally dismissive of her cartoonishly evil plot
>Write in

&

>Any spells and or powers you want to use?

>>43533433
>It's time to back out of here slowly
Time to go. Maybe snap a picture if we can do it quietly.

>Be calm and collected about the proposed murder of your friend
We can deal with this. Honestly, where else do dangerous and insane o sessions end up?

>Any spells and or powers you want to use?
Suggest a Slide at some point to get us out faster without disturbing things.

>>43533684
>>43533433
With the level of insane going on, I know how we can stir them ALL up at once.

Does the gymnasium have access to the PA system or similar?

If Keiko were to make a school-wide announcement rejecting her fan club and all those associated with it for their behavior, we will almost certainly have an angry swarm coming to get her.
The obsessed do not take rejection well.

Then we just need hold the doors until enough are together to be stopped, whether through amped high C or moon healing (I'm hoping amps!).
Somewhere in there, Jadeite Knight can can have illusion of the harmless girls cowering somewhere in the villian line of vision while Sol and maybe Eclipse are also visible to them.

File: 1441558162290.gif (2.14 MB, 320x240)

2.14 MB GIF

Writing

>>43533433
>>43533684
>>43533858
Sounds plan-like.

You take a quiet and steadying breath. This is the danger that is normal to your life, the kind of thing you seek to use your fantastic magical and psychic powers to avoid and deter. Maintaining your calm you back away from this scene, sliding out your camera to snap quick and quiet pictures of the scheming girl and the floating man.

Confirming you got a clear shot on your phone as you reach the open edge of the stage curtain, you take a certain apprehension of the shot’s composition.

Within the photograph is a hulking shape above and just behind the young woman, as though she only exists at the front of some otherwise invisible mass curled in on itself and standing up the wall behind her.

It offers you little comfort as you press into a shadow between two overlapping folds of curtain and travel through the shadowy space between and reappear through the darkness on the back of the cracked auditorium doors. Your Shadow Slide succeeding in getting you out of there quickly you take a moment to consider your options.

Whatever happens next, you won’t be facing this enemy on their turf or on their terms. That you know for certain as you smile and think of a location for this fight that you saw in a vision of things to potentially come.

Taking your phone out, you shoot off a few quick text messages and prepare to fall back toward the gymnasium.

That room has no soft walls and fantastic acoustics, especially with the PA system patch for on campus sports meets and spirit rallies.

A cocky smile creases your face as you pull the cloth mask down to your neck and stride brazenly through the empty halls, your steps masked by the sound of lectures and the hissing of rain.. As you take the stairwell down toward the first floor, you find a familiar figure breathing heavily and sopping wet on the landing beneath you. He carries two sealed cases, one probably an amplifier and the other the unmistakable shape of a guitar.

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>>43534408

He looks up to meet your eyes, your face still a cypher to him thanks to your special ability. Just as you had assumed, Yoshi Sakurada went to get some useful things out of his band mate's band.

There are preparations to take care of, but you have plan of attack. One that will severely weaken the enemy and present your baby sister with a constrained shooting range.

Eclipsed Moon Quest Episode 109
End

(This thread’s interlude will be written and posted in the morning because I am feeling dead. Hope everyone had a good thread. Thanks for playing)

>>43534432
*some useful things out of his band mate's van.

>>43534432
>>43534445
Rest well good sir, it has been an enjoyable evening.

>>43534432
Rin's going to burn down the auditorium isn't she?

>>43536136
Maybe?

Maybe we should consider homeschooling for Mikage just so she can have a quiet school day.

Oh who am I kidding, the Chiba household would probably be worse, just in a different way.

>>43538122
>the Chiba household would probably be worse, just in a different way.
Well, it would just be Luna and the kitten there most of the time right now.

The kitten! Ok, I just realized a more important reason than crimefighting, item crafting, and quiet-day-having to have some amount of independent study tume at home.
Quality time with Diana, and we could help home school her too!

>>43538494
She has begun learning from Mikage.

She knows C is for Cookie.

I wake. Grabbing a shower and writing some content.

Besides the delayed interview. I will also give a short scene with Nui Takeda and Daigo Endo

Interlude: Sailor Guardian Texts

The rain pats harder against the window as you poke at lunch. Glancing over to your friend and desk neighbor, you giggle at the sight of her having already finished her bento while you aren’t even halfway done your seasoned rice balls.

You know it’s only a matter of time before she slides her desk over and begs for you to share.

With a sigh, you glance out the window and over at the other school. The high school you’ll start in next year, whose uniform you already wear as a badge of success for passing the entry exam early in the term. It is shrouded in the fog brought by the rain, that hasn’t dissipated despite the downpour.

Your name is Kanari Kino, and just as your vivacious and blonde friend drags her desk noisily across the short aisle distance between you only to be distracted by the arrival of your twin brother with an offer of one of his coffee brews, your phone buzzes in vibration. All lunch you’ve been expecting contacts in a group message. Like the girl next to you gushing over your brother, you are a Sailor Guardian.

And there is something dangerous afoot.

Checking the device, you find a text from your friend Rin.

R: It isn’t fog, it just looks like it from a distance.

Another name appears on the track list of the idle communique, Aiha.

A: Confirmed from the front entrance, its surrounding everything but the academic grounds. Rain water seems to still pass through it. Some kind of woven membrane, sticky to the touch.

Your hair stands on end, and not just from the looming electrical charge of the ongoing storm. Its has already begun, the thing that’s happening at the High School? Whatever monster of evil is unfolding...you silently hope it doesn’t turn out to be- no.

You won’t think that of her. She’s your best friend’s sister and even if she says she isn’t ready she is one of you. Beyond that barrier, whatever monster you have to fight won’t be Mikage.

>>43540254
R: I think this substance would be flammable if it weren’t for the rain, as it stands I don’t think we can easily get past it.

Beside you, Koyomi finally notices her phone and excuses herself from conversation with Koito while enjoying the thermos cap full of his latest custom brew of coffee. She goes sheet white and glances over at you apologetically before putting on her game face.

“Is everything alright?” your brother asks to the both of you.

“Trouble, something is wrong at the high school,” Koyomi admits, to which you nod.

“Is this family business trouble?” he asks with some measure of worry slipping into portuguese to secure the conversation.

“Afraid so,” you reply in kind with a pout as yet another name enters the stream of messages, Venus.

V: Bad news another error message trying to text Sunny-chan and PB-chan.

K: So, we can’t make contact and we need a way in. Oh! Maybe mighty Zeus can flash lightning in morse code from Olympus!

You glance back over at Koyomi, who smiles in certain pride at her own perceived cleverness and that she managed to use both her old nickname for you and the roof of your school.

You type: You know I’m sitting right next to you.

She looks dejected as she glances back at her phone and then over to you.

K: but, we’re being sneaky.

You type: Can we figure any way into the building?

“You guys are going to need me to cover for you, right?” your brother says plainly and again in japanese.

“Please, Koito-chan!” Koyomi whips her head up to plead.

“I suppose I’ll think of something,” he agrees begrudgingly, though you snicker knowing he never really had a choice or chance.

A: The maintenance shed near the academic field is outside the barrier. I imagine the utility tunnel there is unobstructed.

A plan is made, and the five of you agree.Your brother will run interference to cover your absence, and then you’ll head out.

File: 1437729452370.png (271 KB, 500x372)

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>>43540263
Koyomi takes a steadying breath, apprehensive about something, but then smiles broadly.

“Ready to save the day?” she asks you while brandishing her transformation brooch.

“Always,” you meet her smile and extend a hand to your eternal partner in crime and heroism.

“Yay!” she cheers while clasping your offered hand with her own and then her eyes fall down to the open box on your desk with a certain begging want, “Then can I have one of your rice balls, mighty Zeus, to carry its power into battle?”

Even in everything that has changed and gone made in your life for the past few weeks, some things will never change.

Interlude End.

>>43538728
The most important letters are C is for Cookie and C is for cake.

>>43540297
do you want a tubby and lazy moon cat, because that's how you get a tubby and lazy moon cat.

Interlude: Beautiful Music

Sliding the teacher’s podium up against the stack of desks you’ve pressed and wedged against the doors to the music room, you offer a short sigh of relief to have achieved some notion of safety. Peeling the last of the sticky threads of webbing from your hair, you sit down with your back to the barricade and let everything catch up to you about what has just happened.

Monsters, possession, and mysterious heroics make you think back to Junior High and shudder. Just what the hell does Yoshi hope to accomplish running out to the van and getting his guitar? That’s the only thing you can think of him doing out there...is he really going to try and help fight this?

Man, you’re still reeling from meeting the real Red Eyed Beast and now this happens.

No, you can’t blame him for wanting to fight. Especially after what President Takeda said about that girl. You’ve known Yoshi for years, he’s your best friend, and you know how hurt he was after things happened back then. Now all of the sudden she’s trying to get back in his life, and if she’s in danger of course he’d do something stupid.

Main reason you didn’t try to stop him.

“Endo-kun?” you are drawn to look up from your seated and curled position, to find your student council president standing in front of you with her hands on her hips.

Looking up into her eyes, you see a steady resolve that bleeds into a cocky smirk on her face.

“Uh, what is is President Takeda?” you ask nervously, your mind racing back to when she was hissing and clawing at you and then spewing tendrils of webbing from her mouth, “I’m really sorry about knocking you down if that’s what you wanted to talk about,”

“No way,” she says in a suddenly obviously false confidence, “I expect all of my staff to be ready to defend themselves. This is Juuban, possession happens, if you came after me while I was in my right mind I would lay you out too,”

>>43540580
You stifle a laugh, effectively, as you look down at your senior leader from your own seated position.

“Alright, President Takeda, then what did you want to ask?” you sigh, slightly more relaxed, like a fool.

“What’s in your van?” she closes the distance between you and presses uncomfortably into your personal space.

“I-I’m sorry Takeda-sama, could you repeat that?”

“I want to know what secrets you keep in your van!” she demands with an all or nothing fire and expression, “We’re trapped and our future uncertain, like hell I’m dying without knowing the truth behind your double life!”

“I-uh, I don’t-”

“Confronting you directly like this isn’t my style,” she huffs and turns away from you, “I like the long game, the chase, and the investigation. Unfortunately desperation and opportunity make strange bedfellows and you are a terrible liar,”

Spinning on the ball of her heel she points at you in an accusatory fashion, to which you spring up and cover her mouth as you hear people passing the room in the hallway. Once they’ve gone and you are both confident you have not been discovered, she continues in a quieter tone.

“Manhandling me again, eh, Endo-kun?” she snickers as a thought crosses her mind.

“What? No- I-”

“How about this,” she crosses her arms, “You can have the forgiveness you want for knocking me down if you tell me the truth,”

>>43540589

You go white as a sheet. This- this is extortion. Nui Takeda is a shrewd navigator of student politics and academic bureaucracy, but this kind of move leaves you at a complete disadvantage.

Offering a silent prayer, hoping Yoshi and the others forgive you, you slump your shoulders and regard Yui Takeda in defeat.

“Well, I’m in a band,” you admit.

She stares at you, at first incredulous and then confused.

“You’re in a band? Not running guns for the Yakuza?” she says and your eyes bug out that she could have even thought such a thing about you, “Then I guess it makes sense that Sakurada-kun ran to it then, if you’re a band then you have instruments and amps. And here I thought he was getting an illegal shotgun to go protect his classmates from spider zombies,”

“Uh, Yoshi isn’t the type to be violent,” you offer and try to undercut her already dissolving fantasy.

“Why are you so keen on keeping a band secret?” she asks in a far more casual tone.

“It’s...kind of hard to explain,” you shrug and sit back down and search for a way out, “How about you just come to the show, we’re playing this weekend if you’re free,”

Interlude End

And there we go. Hope it was worth the wait and that everyone had a good time with this thread.

Neat.

>>43540297
Cookie cat?

>>43543364
All the cookies for that cat.>>43543364

Note to self: bake cookies

>>43545584
An idea, to be sure.

Baking cookies is it's own reward.

>>43547607
Indeed.

>>43548898
any thoughts or reactions to the interludes?

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35 KB JPG

>>43548898

>>43552147
Teal'Cing is a surefire way to end a conversation.

If we're still up, how about another interlude or comedic aside?

>>43554079
in the morning?

>>43554079
>>43554103
I am totally down with such things.
Always enjoyable.

>>43555173
How down?

>>43556255
All of it?

>>43557374
That's pretty far down.

Awake, working my way around to writing

>>43540254
>>43540263
>>43540275
Nice. Though I has a sad that Kanari could suspect us of being a spider-monster.

>>43540297
>>43540311
I'm not sure Tuskino Constitution is teachable, and I image Mom would be the better teacher for that. We'd teach to exercise hard.. and eat just as hard at times.

>>43540580
>>43540589
>>43540604
Poor Endo is really out of his depth with the ladies when he isn't blue.

>>43558337

Mikage being something dangerous is just where her mind went first, Pending certain actions she might not be wrong in the end she shot that instinct down with thought, since what happened in Tomoe's lab she has chosen to believe in Mikage. Mikage is one of them, in her mid, whether or not you guys are ready to make that choice.

Writing something.

>>43553581
Teal'C is an excellent conversationalist, and a great listener. Never says too much.

>>43558337
>Poor Endo is really out of his depth with the ladies when he isn't blue.
I feel like Nui might be a bit out of her usual depth at the show.. but I wonder how well Blue and Teal might mix.

Also: Crap. Convergence of forces at the show.
Then again, with an undead/shadow-construct ancient Royal Guardsman as the band's manager, I guess we couldn't have expected it to be too quiet.. it is a metal show afterall.

>>43559303
Out of her usual depth, yeah that's for sure. I think Tiny Teal will literally be in over her head.

Huh, this is difficult, I can't find a place to start with this.

Funny that. Still working on this.

Interlude: Smokers Bell

With a forceful exhale, you intentionally blow a jet of smoke up into the disabled smoke detector in the infrequently used rear stairwell. Your muscles react as it hits your bloodstream, and it makes the worries and bullshit of the day seem far enough away to complain about.

“This is all bullshit,” you complain and gesture with the cigarette as you crouch down and lean against the wall of the landing, “Everyone is suddenly too busy for anything, I tried to get the boys together to hit the pachinko parlor yesterday and they all had something to do,”

“All of them?” an old friend laughs as she takes a drag herself.

You used to run with her back when you were younger, still punks and delinquents in training rather than the real thing. There was a time when she was an angry tomboy, before she fell in with that Sugimoto girl and wound up in a popular clique. It was a huge turnaround for her, not that you blame her. She never really hung out with other girls after her mom...well that’s not important right now.

“All of them, invited me to your buddy’s fanclub,” you grouse, “What happen, did she finally get discovered and signed for an idol contract or something?”

She tenses up, despite the relaxant in her system a serious look crosses her face. You remember that look, it reminds people that Midori Mori isn’t someone to fuck around with. Anyone got in a throw down with her back in junior high would learn quick that she fought quick and dirty, and if you managed to drag it out she would get pissed and be almost unstoppable.

“Yeah, not surprising,” she shrugs as her phone buzzes, “She’s been getting more popular lately. So, Kaneda-san, anything else going on with you, aside from everyone acting weird?”

You grin, you got something worth bragging about. At least bragging about to someone who remembers the fallout of when you stopped hustling in Juuban.

>>43560188

“I ran into the beast again,” you say with a broad smile, “And didn’t get the shit kicked out of me,”

“Really?” she says in sudden curiosity as she checks her phone, “What happened?”

“She was looking for that new girl gang, who were pushing into her turf,” you explain, “Actually saw her without her mask, she had fangs. Sent her on her way and didn’t lose my cool,”

“Didn’t lose it? Right. So, fangs? Still think she’s cute?” Mori-san jests in response while she slides her phone away and grinds the butt of her nearly spent cigarette into the brick facing of the landing wall.

“Yeah,” you put your butt out as well while, you imagine she put her’s out because time is almost up, “I still think she’s cute. Thanks for the smoke, Mori-san,”

You make to head down the stairs so you can get back to class, but pause when you hear something strange. Chittering and hissing and a muffled cry.

“The hell is that?” you look down the stairs into the hallway as a set of shadows loom.

Midori Mori pulls you back and down, to your surprise. She shushes you and leans around the edge of the stairs, you follow suit.

A number of students walk past, dragging a teacher bound and gagged in white thread. One of them bites his neck and he goes limp.

“What the hell?” you whisper.

“Quiet,” Midori Mori hisses back to you.

They pass. The hall is quiet until the warning bell sounds. Midori pulls you upright and drags you downstairs as the halls fill with students returning to their classes.

“What the hell was that,” you ask as she drags you to a quiet and clear space amid the sudden quiet and uniform rush, her eyes scanning the crowd with worry.

Your name is Kanagami Kaneda, a proper young delinquent, and you have no idea what’s going on.

“It was bad, is what it was,” she says quietly, “Come on. We’re not heading back to class,”

Interlude End

>>43559303
Well, a show should be a happening place.

Just maybe not this kind of happening.

>>43559303
...son of a bitch I think I'm doing this color pattern thing unintentionally.

>>43563169
I mean, the Midori & Jadeite color bit was intentional, blue and Teal is just unexpected on my end.

>>43560207
I wonder what the Beast's reaction will be if Midori slips that a delinquent thinks she's cute.

She's likely to shake down Jade for info then try and fail at making Kaneda nothing more than a quivering ball of terror because he thinks her trying to scare him into thinking her not cute will just make her seem cuter.

>>43560207
Juubaan is an adventuresome place.

Enjoying the cutaway to what the rest of the team was up to.
Think we'll see one for those in the classroom?

>>43565587
You've seen those doujins, right? Where the entire class gangs up on the one unpopular girl in the room?

That doesn't happen, there's a magical beat-down that occurs which is probably over too soon to have an interlude about

>>43565587
If I have time tonight, maybe. Out for an appointment now. I'll be gone around 8:30 and see what can be turned out.

Also. Thread Tuesday night & Wednesday.

>>43565402
Someone who likes spoopy girls? I think it's time to play matchmaker!

>>43565657
Disappointed Saori is disappointed.

>>43566261
she'll write that outcome in the margins of her notebook later, anyway.

>>43566784
she'll also be sure to think about it REALLY REALLY LOUD when we're trying to get a read on people's minds later on who is or isn't possessed.

>>43565657
Wouldn't a beat down be the start of open spider warfare?

>>43567874
Black Widow Ops: Call of Open Spider Warfare[/spider]

Midori and Kairi finally updated to level 3.

>>43569401
>that moment when you remember that your allies are not all on the same level.

Well, this'll be a great exercise in experience building for them.

Interlude: Nope

“So, you guys aren’t having a huge fight?” you reply to the convoluted explanation, dubiously.

“No. We aren’t having a fight,” the red haired girl calms you again with nothing but truth behind her words, as far as you are able to tell.

You spare a glance behind you, as you watch that guy with a crewcut leave the room with one of the girls involved in Kairi Osaka’s plausible but convenient explanation. Plausible but convenient, that alone seals it in your mind that while they aren’t fighting something else is going on between the four unlikely young women you have befriended.

More than just Osaka-san’s story about trying to figure out who in school is a monster obsessed with Keiko Sugimoto.

Monsters is too convenient.

You were a monster for weeks. Osaka-san was a monster long enough to do something crazy. While you know she runs with the former Sailor Moon in secret, you highly doubt that so easy an explanation of helping her single out the monstrously transformed party is the whole of the story.

Not that you’ll contradict her.

“Oh, okay. Thank you, Osaka-san,” you say awkwardly and with a forced laugh, “I was worried,”

Friends lie to friends, right? At least they lie about not believing them or something they’re saying being suspect. You still have a lot to learn about having friends; and you need to see if any of your new friends have a sense of tastes as far as games, comics, and anime is concerned.

They all seem mostly casual, so they probably have shit tastes.

Osaka-san got embarrassed because she saw the porn you’d left out. She really is a prude with no tolerance.

“Well, I’m glad I could help clear up the misunderstanding,” she smiles, “Though I do wish Mikage-chan stuck around earlier. I would have loved to see her reaction to some of your more creative accusations,”

“Hah, well, uh, you too,” you mumble into your shoulder looking away from the red haired girl as she gets up.

>>43570998

“Just keep your eyes open and stay safe,” she leans in one last time to whisper before heading back over to her desk, alone.

It probably isn’t monsters.

Your name is Saori Umeki, the invisible girl of Juuban Central High. Well, no one actually calls you that, mostly because they don’t know or notice you. Besides the new friends you’ve found in fellow outcasts Chiba-san and Osaka-san, and the unexpected friendship you’ve found in popular girl Sugimoto-san and then Mori-bitch of all people, no one else has really paid any mind to you being back in classes.

Okay, actively not counting the four people who’ve made an effort to get to know you isn’t really fair. Begrudgingly you can admit you have friends.

Now, what are they hiding from you.

If it isn’t monsters, it’s probably aliens.

If it isn’t aliens, it’s probably lesbians.

Taking one last sweep of the classroom, you are reminded that Midori Mori left with that guy from the other class. So the only one’s left in the room besides you are Osaka-san, Sugimoto-san, that tryhard guy with the purple highlights, and some guy in the back...just kind of staring at everyone.

Well, staring at everyone else. He isn’t even paying attention to you. Once Osaka-san went back to her desk, no one is paying attention to you.

Ugh, this room is so tense.

Gathering yourself up, you stand up and head out into the hallway. You never eat very much for lunch, and you kind of forgot to pack something today because you were so excited about spending the afternoon with friends yesterday. Intent upon hitting the bathroom and then the school store, you stride through oddly empty halls and oddly empty open classrooms.

Just where the hell is everybody, you see a couple people here or there, but it’s way to empty for lunch on rainy day.

Whatever.

>>43571020

With a yawn, you head into the bathroom and stop in front of the sink. Your skin is pretty oily, might as well give your face a splash and pat down to feel a little bit less icky at the midway point. Lord knows it will be uncomfortable and probably humid on the walk home from all this rain, it's good to be proactive for matters of your own comfort.

There are actually a few other girls in the bathroom, from the sound of things behind you it’s some kind of disagreement. Not your place to worry and really not your style to intervene where you aren’t wanted. Whilst the cool water drips from your face, you glance up into the mirror and freeze.

Three girls are holding a fourth steady, wrists and ankles bound in pure white wrappings out of some kind of purity centric bridal bdsm story.

Wow...that was an oddly specific place for your mind to jump. Maybe it's good that you’re finally making friends and learning how to be socia-

Why are they force feeding her a spider?

Eyes glued to the reflection of events behind you in abject horror, you absentmindedly recognize the spider. It looks exactly like the thing you saw Mikage Chiba flailing about with the other day.

The thing, black and seemingly hard shelled, reaches for the held open but muffled mouth of the girl pedipalps and head first as one of the other girls bites into the struggling and terrified girl's underarm. That act leaves her suddenly slack as another girl holds the bound one’s mouth wide and the skittering thing practically leaps into the open vessel and bulges down her throat.

With a convulsion, her ankles and wrists slide out of the white bindings as they fragment into fading threads.

“Do you feel it?” one of the other girls asks, “Do you feel our love?”

Nope.

>>43571029

Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope.

You are out the door, face still dripping wet onto your uniform sweater vest and skirt.

Reaching the only sanctuary you can think of, your classroom, you march into the room and sit at your desk rigid. No one followed you, and like most situations where you are minding your own business you are relatively sure they didn’t see you.

Glancing over at Osaka-san, you bite your lip and strain at how to even try to tell her what you saw.

It isn’t monsters.

Its aliens.

Body Snatching Spider Aliens.

Possibly Lesbian Body Snatching Spider Aliens.

Interlude noped

>>43567213
I'm sure she'll be thinking several things very loud now.

>>43571029
She needs hygiene and beauty tips. Oily skin is easily countered.

>>43570706
Do you think we're on a plateau until they catch up?

>>43570998
>They all seem mostly casual, so they probably have shit tastes.
I actually laughed out loud.

>>43571047
>Possibly Lesbian Body Snatching Spider Aliens.
Eh, close enough.

>>43571286
Well, lower level characters can tend to catchup quickly, if they survive.

..I worry that Saori might be level 0.

>>43571047
Umeki, I think YOU might be a Possibly Lesbian Body Snatching Alien.

..If we have another Q&A panel, I am amused/terrified at the idea of her being on one.

>>43572209
Accusations like that can easily be thrown back at you, anon, if that is your real name.

>>43572866
I'm just No One of Consequence, nothing to worry about.

>>43573740
Oh, right. Carry on then...you...person? Yes, person, you.

Looking at the character sheets, I noticed three things:

1: Mikage is a TANK. The closest anyone listed comes is Koyomi and Keiko, at 32 vitality each, most of the rest are around high 20’s (except Rin at 22, and Aiha with just 16).
Mikage, however, has a vitality stat at 86.

2: We need to see if we can get Midori and Keiko’s armor class up somehow, 11 and 12 are way too low.

3: Under languages, Mikage has telepathy listed. Does this mean her telepathy bypasses language barriers?

>>43574532
Telepathy should function with any intelligent creature that knows a language.

>>43574532
1) In comparison, but she has taken some serious hits to that. Concerned about any of the others getting dropped in just a couple hits.

2) Aye, one of the reasons we're looking at some of the crafting stuff to bolster our team.

3) I think so? We haven't tried it one anyone we didn't share a language with, I wonder how well it would work with a bear..

Let us fall, that tonight I may let a two day thread rise.

Unless you just want to keep shooting the shit about stuff.

>>43574532
1) Yeah, mythic bonuses to HP are a beast
2) That can be settled with gear and or soulmelds. Or me remembering to add numbers together.
3) Telepathy as 3.5, a communication form that works with any creature that has a language.