Chapter 4: The Party Starts
"Harley! Hey, Harley!"
Harley Waters, dressed as Gandalf the Grey, paused in his determined march toward the newly-opened food tent and turned to see Bob trotting up to him, with Brent not far behind. "What's up, Bob?"
Bob skidded to a halt on the grass. "Can you do us a favor and introduce the first few bands that are playing tonight? I would do it, but..." He gestured to Brent as the other manager caught up to him. "We're just about to run out to supervise the trick-or-treating expedition."
"Peggy can't do it?" Harley asked, leaning on his staff and tilting his head.
Bob shook his head. "Her dysnomia kicks in big time if she's trying to talk to a crowd."
Behind his powdered beard, Harley frowned minutely. "Dysnomia?"
"She starts having problems finding words," Brent explained, "and ends up spending more time searching for what she's trying to say than actually saying anything." Bob looked over at him with raised eyebrows, and Brent shrugged. "I've known someone who had a similar condition."
Bob nodded at him then turned his attention back to Harley. "It's not a big job and the running order's been posted in the 'green room' tent like I said earlier, as well as on both sides of the stage. All you need to do is just get up and basically say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, thus-and-such-band'."
"And if they try to come on too early, you just hold your staff and shout, 'You shall not pass! Until the other band finishes their set, anyway'," Brent added.
Harley mock-scowled at that, then nodded. "Sure, not a problem. Let me just get a bite first."[1]
"Thanks, Harley," Bob replied with a broad smile. "We didn't exactly schedule this terribly well."
Harley returned the smile. "You're welcome. When do you need me to kick things off?"
"The 33-Stars are the first act and they take the stage at 6:30," Bob said. "So, be at the stage like five minutes before that?"
"That I can do," Harley confirmed.
"Okay." Bob nodded. "We should be back not long after eight, so that means you'll only need to announce the 33-Stars, Hokago Tea Time, and OnNaGumi. Okay?"
"Sure thing," Harley replied.
Although the party had started spooling up as soon as the guests had arrived at six, it really didn't hit its stride until Harley completed his thirty seconds' worth of emcee duties and retreated from the stage to leave it in the hands of the 33-Stars. For the first venue on their debut American tour, it probably could have been a nicer location. It certainly wasn't going to lead to bigger gigs. But it had one big upside – the band members didn't have to hide their history, or the fact that they were all sexaroids.
The quintet of Meg Deckard, Sylvie Stratton, Lou Collins, Anri Astoria, and Nam River hadn't formed after school like so many bands. All five of them had memories of life in a space habitat, and of their dramatic escape. And of themselves shutting down, one by one. When they found themselves awake and aware twenty years in the past, well, there was only one thing to do: form a rock band, in tribute to Priss Asagiri.
They weren't in special costumes, either, just their normal stage outfits – perhaps a little more appropriate for a 1980s band than for 2016, but it was part of their charm. And, like a lot of girl bands, their charm was the ticket to their limited success so far. Plus, being not quite human, they could play a pretty long set... although they'd been informed by the stage manager, Nao Okuda, that there was a long list of bands who planned to play after them.
But they didn't start until a minor disagreement in the Ottawa crowd was cleared up.
"No, Ruiko, you are not recording 33-Stars' entire set ... on that cellphone. Plug a good-quality recorder into their soundboard." Mii held up a large solid-state audio recorder.
"I didn't bring one, Mii-sempai."
"What do you have in the rolling briefcase, then? Paper?" In reply, Ruiko simply looked over the top of the glasses that she was wearing. Mii took the hint. "Of course you brought paper. This isn't supposed to be a Buffy Halloween party."
"Why do you have a recorder?"
"Rob-san asked me to record what he's missing."
Ruiko noticed that there was already a girl with glasses running the soundboard, and she already had a bank of recording devices plugged in. She was wearing just a T-shirt and jeans, but on the chair behind her was a massive ... well, helmet was the only word that seemed to apply, with huge mouse ears and an opaque shield behind its grin-shaped opening. "Hi, I'm Ruiko Saten. Pleased to meet you! Mind if we plug this one in, too?"
"Nao Okuda. Happy to meet you. Sure, plug it in over there, between my deck and Meg Deckard's." She gestured toward a board behind her that already had a nest of patch cords connected to it. "I'll keep an eye on it with the others, you can go enjoy the party."
"Thanks!"
Once all of the recorders were plugged into the soundboard — with the band's permission — 33-Stars led off their set with a frantic, mathematically-precise cover of Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" with Nam on vocals, belting out an almost perfect replica of Jett's angry girlish rasp:
"I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation!
Living in the past, it's a new generation!"[2]
As she deftly manipulated the soundboard, Nao smirked at the lyrics. Livin' in the past, indeed.
Standing guard at the barriers that blocked off the access to Douglass Gardens from Hamilton Street, Nodoka Manabe (dressed in the distinctive blue and white uniform of a certain Gundam pilot) and Yuu Inagawa (in a panda costume, its head removed and perched on the nearby curb) grinned at each other. The sound of the 33-Stars' performance, only slightly muted, carried down Annette Court to make their shift at the barriers less onerous and more entertaining. Yuu began vigorously swinging her head to the powerful rock beat as Nodoka handed out candy to trick-or-treating passers-by — increasing numbers of whom weren't moving on but were lingering to listen to the music, too.
"What's going on?" a teenaged girl in an elaborate "Harley Quinn" costume asked Nodoka.
She grinned. "Our apartment complex is throwing a Halloween party."
"The whole complex?" asked another trick-or-treater from the small group who had walked up with her, dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
Nodoka nodded, smiling. "The whole complex."
"Harley" glanced at her friends. "Any chance we can come in?"
"Sorry, no, it's a private party," Yuu said between head bangs. "Insurance reasons. Sorry!" she repeated.
"Harley" pouted, as did a few of her friends. "Aww."
Sylvie swung her guitar to hang behind her back on its strap, pulled her microphone from its stand, and strode up to the edge of the stage. She favored the audience with a grin, and lifted the mic to her lips. "Nam River, everyone! All right!" she said, an Irish lilt making her speaking voice almost as musical as her singing voice. "How we doin' tonight? You havin' a good time?"
The audience cheered, and the grin transformed into a genuine smile. "So are we!" she said. "Tonight's a lot of firsts for us — first time out of Dublin since we got to Refuge, first real show... first time meetin' so many of ye." She glanced over first her left shoulder then her right at the other members of the 33-Stars. "And yeah — we're havin' a great time. Right, girls?"
A chorus of agreement rose up behind her, punctuated with a quick drum hit by Nam. Sylvie laughed. "Anyway — enough out of me. Let's get to the next one, yeah? It's another cover — we're not on the originals yet — but you might say this one has a special meaning for us." Behind her Lou rolled her eyes, and Anri giggled loudly enough to carry into the audience. "And singin' it," Sylvie continued as she returned the mic to its stand, "the one and only Meg Deckard!"
As Sylvie faded back and took up her guitar again, Meg strolled forward. "Yeah, like Sylvie said, this means somethin' to us." Where Sylvie's Irish accent was a faint lilt, Meg's was strong and up-front. "And if you know anythin' about us, you'll know just what." She whirled about to face the rest of the band and shouted, "One! Two! Three!" then launched into a pounding bass line. Nam struck one of her cymbals and began laying down the beat, followed by Sylvie and Lou leaping into a paired lead.
"Mmmmm, yeah," Meg crooned into the mic as the lead guitars picked up, leaning back as the entire band sang wordlessly to what some in the audience obviously recognized as the song's chorus. Meg shared a wicked grin with the audience and leaned back into the mic to leap right into the first verse: "Tonight," she sang, "I want to give it all to you...
"In the darkness, there's so much I wanna do.
And tonight, I wanna lay it at your feet
'Cause, boy, I was made for you..."[3]
"They're not bad," Helen commented then sipped her drink.
"A little mechanical-sounding," Linda noted. "Technically perfect, or close to it, but not a lot of..." She waved a hand. "Artie, help me here."
"Humanity?" Arthur offered. "It's like they're trying to sound like a MIDI playback."
"Ah," Helen replied, nodding. "Well, they are androids, after all."
Linda and Arthur stared at her. "They're what?"
Peggy nodded. "They're from a science-fiction anime called Bubblegum Crisis."
"They were built by an evil corporation as sapient sex dolls," Helen added, "then they escaped from the space station where they were being held. In the anime most of them died in the escape, but it looks like they all made it to our universe." She took another sip from her drink. "In every way except for their construction they're human, so I expect they'll eventually develop a more natural sound."
"Oh, they will, don't worry," a woman's voice said, and everyone turned to look at its source. Standing a few feet away was a blonde woman in a white off-the-shoulder blouse with large, blousy elbow-length sleeves, a calf-length skirt of pale rose slit on both sides up to her hips, and white knee-high leather boots. She had eyes so blue they almost seemed to glow, and her shoulder-length hair shimmered in the yellow light of the tent. In one hand she held an elaborate-looking mixed drink with a twisty straw and a tiny bamboo umbrella, a hefty slice of pineapple garnishing the rim of the outsized hurricane glass. "I'm Terpsichore. May I join you?"
Peggy blinked. "Oh, sure!" she said after a moment. "Plenty of seats, make yourself comfortable."
"Terpsichore, like the muse?" Linda asked. Helen and Peggy traded knowing glances.
Terpsichore smiled. "Exactly like the muse."
Helen rolled her eyes while Peggy snickered. "That explains why you look like Olivia Newton-John," Helen commented dryly.
As she stepped around the table to pull out one of the folding chairs and seat herself, Terpsichore grinned and winked at her. "It seemed like an appropriate costume, don't you think?"
"Dressing up as yourself isn't much of a costume," Peggy said, laughing.
"Ah, but when I manifest on Earth I'm normally an olive-skinned brunette." She sipped a bit of her drink through the straw, then set the glass down on the tabletop. "The Nordic look is a new one for me."
"Does it really count though if every human guise you take is already basically a costume?" Helen asked with a smirk.
"When you manifest on Earth?" Linda asked, staring puzzled at Terpsichore. "You don't mean..."
Terpsichore nodded. "That's exactly what we mean. I'm the Muse of Dance and Choral Singing, although my remit actually includes pretty much any singing involving more than one voice, like the 33-Stars," she gestured to the stage, "and even solo artists multi-tracking themselves." She smiled again, and this time it felt like that of an old friend. "As a result, I'm very familiar with both of you and your work. In fact, I've whispered in both your ears once or twice."
Peggy chuckled as both Arthur and Linda's eyes widened. "Welcome to our world, where the gods hang out with us, drinking crazy tropical drinks, while we listen to the music of an android band." Looking up and past the others at the table, she added, "Uh-oh, it looks like I'm needed." She rose from her seat. "Enjoy yourselves, I'll be back shortly."
Smiling, the muse raised her glass to toast her departing hostess before taking another long pull on the straw.
"'Oh brave new world that has such people in't'," Arthur murmured as Peggy dashed off. Meanwhile, a black cat hopped up on the stage and sat down near the edge.
Sylvie introduced the next song, "This one is dedicated to everyone out there who wants to ride the fire to freedom – it was worth it!" She glanced back over her shoulder and shouted, "One! Two! Three! Four!" On "four" Nam started a simple downbeat as Sylie and Lou dove into a melodic hook that weaved back and forth between them for a few bars before Sylvie began to sing. She was a whole verse in before Meg's bass and Anri's keys made their appearance in the arrangement.
"And the phoenix flies straight and high
Back to Avalon.
Now I'm on my way back where I belong,
Gonna go there with the sun, back to Avalon..."[4]
As a creditable recreation of Heart echoed down along Annette Court and out onto Hamilton Street, a pair of motorcycles pulled up to the barricades. After being recognized by Nodoka and Yuu, they proceeded from there into the parking lot on the right — the BMW with a sidecar being the more recognizable, but the custom ride drew the attention of those in the know (including Harley Waters and every member of the Okanoue Girls' School Motorcycle Club). The BMW's driver helped his passenger out of the sidecar while the other parked her bike where it wouldn't fall over... and then, as if they had practised, they all took off their helmets at the same time.
The two women were, in a word, beautiful. The sidecar's passenger was, in two words, divinely beautiful. The man who had arrived on the BMW was ... not handsome, but at least not plain.
"I'm sorry that our meeting ran long; the party started without us," Chihiro Fujimi commented. "Do you two need time to get into your costumes before you join the fun?" she asked as she carefully removed a few high-visibility additions to her own outfit, making her look almost the same as Top Gear's "tame racing driver".
"No need," replied the Goddess who waved one hand. After a brief light show, she and her driver were dressed as characters from ReBoot.
"I look ridiculous in tights, 'Dot'," Keiichi Morisato muttered.
"You are my beloved Guardian, and you look wonderful," Belldandy Morisato replied at the same volume, getting him to smile just before Urd and Skuld arrived in their own costumes from Mainframe... barely ahead of the Norns being mobbed by the party-goers who had spotted the bikes' arrival.
Usagi and Mamoru were inseparable, a Jareth and Sarah in their own little world. Shirou and Momoko Takamachi, following their lead, were as close as Masuo and Sazae-san. Kaorin followed Sakaki around like a distant shadow. And Aeka and Ryoko managed to get into a tiff over whose cooking was better. In other words, God was in his heaven, and all was right in the world.
And while some were eating, some were dancing, and some were just listening to the live music, others had already retreated from the chill October evening into one of the party's indoor spaces.
"Do we have Exploding Kittens?" Heather Raven asked, her plague doctor's mask shoved under one arm as she worked her way through a teetering stack of tabletop games in the complex's community center.
"Not at the moment, but I have some C4 if you can supply the cats," Sousuke replied, slightly muffled by the head of his Bonta-kun costume.
"C4?" May Hopkins, dressed an eclectic combination of tattered clothes in browns and pinks with a pink bunny apron over her ragged skirt and a bandage on the bridge of her nose, suddenly popped up between them, eyes large and hungry. "Where?"
"Don't you dare," hissed Luna, who had followed the others in, mostly out of curiosity that she was beginning to worry might be proverbial.[5]
"Don't do that, sergeant," [url=https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/Pam_Holder" title="Pam Holder]Pam Holder[/url] insisted. Her dark cyberpunk-themed costume, which drew attention to her bionic hand and its crab-like maker's mark, seemed at odds with the military demeanor she radiated. "We don't need to re-tell the story of The Loaded Dog. In fact," she added sternly, "you shouldn't be carrying anything like that to begin with. You had very specific orders." She held out her hand. "Give it here."
Reluctantly, Sousuke began withdrawing blocks of plastic explosive he'd had secreted in his costume. When he was done and both Pam's natural and bionic hands were full, she scowled at the sheer quantity. "Kurz," she snapped, "run this back to [url=https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Hangar" title="The Hangar]the Hangar[/url] right now and see that it's properly secured."
"Ma'am. Yes, ma'am." The Captain Kirk lookalike nodded once, relieved her of the C4, and promptly trotted out of the community center. May pouted and gazed longingly as he (and, more importantly to her, the explosives) disappeared out the door.
"Oh, dear. What's that doing here?" a soprano voice said from behind them, startling the group. A slender feminine arm darted past them and dove deep into the heart of the pile of games. "Please excuse me." Belldandy — instantly recognizable despite the green skin and short green-black hairstyle of Dot Matrix from Reboot — quickly withdrew the copy of Jumanji she found there without disturbing the unstable mound, then turned and dashed through the wall mirror overlooking the sectional sofa. A moment later she returned, empty-handed and smiling brilliantly at the small group as she sailed majestically past them and out to the rest of the party.
"Well," Heather said after a moment. "That was a close thing."
Pam glanced at her. "The game or the C4?"
"Yes," Heather replied.
"Where in the world am I now?" Ryouga Hibiki complained, as was his wont.
He went almost unheard over the hubbub of discussions at the nearby party. But only almost.
"Ryouga-kun? Is that you? I thought you weren't coming to the party!"
He looked around to see a girl approach him. What was her name, again? Ui? No, that was her sister. "Yui? What are you doing in Innsmouth?"
Yui was in a long blue tunic and white leggings quite unlike anything he had seen her in before. A hat — or was it a hood? — with two mirrored lenses above its front edge sat atop her head, and on her chest was a white and red logo that looked a little like a winged target. "Innsmouth? We aren't in Innsmouth, Ryouga-kun. We aren't even in New England. We're at my home in New Jersey. Did you forget to turn on your GPS again?"
"No, the battery's charge ran out."
"That happens a lot to you. Why did you want to go to Innsmouth?"
"I was getting hungry and thought I'd catch some fish for dinner."
"Oh, you don't need to catch fish for something to eat today. Come join the party!" And the eternally happy girl took the eternally lost boy by the hand and dragged him to the tables where all of the potluck dishes were spread out. "Mugi-chan! Sumire-chan! Look who's here!"
The two girls, who were wearing maids' uniforms while tending to the buffet, looked over and smiled. The younger girl said, "Hibiki-san! We thought you weren't coming to the party."
He laughed nervously, unused to having so much attention being paid to him by pretty girls who were close to his age. "Well, it looks like I found my way here anyway."
By that point, Ryouga's presence had been noticed by one of the residence managers. Peggy walked over, stopping only long enough to pick up a few alcohol wipes from the end of the table. "Ryouga! It's good to see you again. Yui, Tsumugi, make sure Ryouga doesn't leave until Sumire and I pack a meal for him."
"I'm right here, you know."
"For now," Sumire replied, "but I've noticed you have a habit of disappearing when nobody's looking at you."
"So Yui and I are going to look at you!" Mugi added.
"I like what I see when I look at you," Sumire said with a smile.
And that made Ryouga blush. "But... You do know I'm still hoping my girlfriend Akari will end up coming to this world, right?"
"That doesn't mean I can't look..."
"Sumire," Peggy said sternly from beside her, "stop teasing Ryouga and start helping me with this lunch box."
"Yes, Mrs. Schroeck." Sumire sighed as she turned her attention back to work; she hadn't lied when she said she liked what she saw, but she knew nothing could ever happen between her and somebody who didn't know whether he'd be coming home every evening.
"And you do know you don't have to call me 'Mrs. Schroeck'."
"Of course I do!"
Yui did what she was told and ignored them. Instead, she asked, "So what have you been doing since the last time I saw you, Ryouga-kun?"
"Oh, wandering around, defending the helpless, the usual. What's been keeping you busy?"
"Schoolwork, playing music, writing music – oh, I actually wrote an entire song in English! We're going to play it for everybody tonight. I hope you can stay and hear it."
"I hope so, too," he sighed, knowing that his sense of misdirection would probably lead him away from the party before Yui was on stage.
"We're making lots of recordings of the music! I'll make sure you get a copy."
"Oh, you don't have to do that..."
"I insist!" she replied while using her free hand to sneak a cookie from the buffet. "I like it when people listen to my music!"
Asahi Sakurai, who was putting together her own dinner (and being careful not to spill anything on her rabbit costume's fake-fur body stocking), couldn't help but overhear Yui's comment. But she knew better than to distract her from Ryouga if the boy was to have any chance of staying put long enough to finish a conversation. The singing-idol seiyuu, famous in a world that wasn't Refuge, made a mental note to mention Bandcamp, SoundCloud and Spotify to Hokago Tea Time after the party was over.
Then Ryouga was surprised to see Ranma in line for the potluck. He almost said something before remembering that it was a costume party, and let the cosplayer come to him.
"That's a great Hibiki Ryouga outfit," the girl said as she helped herself to some chicken fingers. "Hi, I'm Hikaru Shidou."
"I actually am Hibiki Ryouga," he replied. "I didn't expect to be here." In a quieter tone, he added, "I don't expect to be a lot of places."
"I never expected to be in another world," Hikaru replied, misunderstanding his comment, "but this is the second time I've been in a world that isn't my home."
"Why did you choose to dress like the only person who can give me a fair fight?"
"There's a fanfic starring the two of us. I've read it, well, what there is of it; Libby Thomas never finished writing it. And I was reading it when we had to choose who we'd dress up as for this party, so I thought, I've already got the hair," she reached around the back of her head to bring her red pigtail forward, "why not? Oh, hang on, I should fix that."
Ryouga and Yui watched as Hikaru reached under the lasagna tray and re-lit the alcohol burner that was under it... using only her fingertip and her elemental power.
Then Hikaru turned to Yui. "Have you seen Peggy anywhere? I should tell her who went trick-or-treating."
"I'm right here," Peggy said as she and Sumire re-joined the small group. Turning to Ryouga, she offered him a plastic box with a selection of potluck items that didn't need to be kept warm or cold, along with a set of single-use cutlery and the alcohol wipes that she'd grabbed earlier. "Ryouga, this is for you. If you do happen to wander off, you can at least share our dinner."
"Thank you, Pei-gi-san," Ryouga said as he accepted the packed meal with a slight bow.
"You still haven't lost your accent?" Yui asked teasingly.
"I lose my way often enough. I don't want to lose anything else!" But Ryouga was smiling when he said that. "Seriously, sometimes I get some funny looks from people in New England if I don't let them know that I'm not from that area, so I have to keep a bit of an accent. I blame Ranma."
"You blame Ranma for everything."
"I have to blame Ranma. To quote the Dirty Pair, it's not my fault!"
Just then, the person who was next in line, dressed in a white kimono with a pale green obi and lavender ribbons, said, "Excuse me, but can I get at that lasagna? I have to eat soon; both of my bands are due on stage soon."
Yui turned to her and said, "Oh, we're sorry, Azu-nyan! Here, eat, fast."[6]
Ryouga got out of everyone else's way and found a quiet spot where he could put the meal into his backpack. Then he wondered why he couldn't hear the party any more. He looked around to discover he couldn't see the party any more, either.
"Where in the world am I now?" Ryouga Hibiki complained again, as was his wont.
"Azu-nyan's got a point, Sumire-chan," Yui noted. "If I'm going to eat anything before we go on, I'd best do it now."
Sumire smiled and pushed a plate already filled with an assortment of samples from the potluck into her hands. "No worries, Yui. This should see you through 'til your set's done." She blinked and glanced around. "Oh no... reckon we've lost Ryouga again."
"Mmph," Yui noted around the plastic fork already in her mouth, then swallowed. "I was hoping he could enjoy more of the party." She shared a knowing smile with Sumire. "You can catch him the next time he comes around."
Sumire blushed.
"Anri Astoria, everyone!" Sylvie declared as the last notes of "Back to Avalon" faded away and applause washed over the stage. "All right, that's nearly it for us tonight — gotta let the other bands have a go, yeah? So... last one. This one's an old favorite of mine. I'm dedicatin' it to a friend who didn't make it to Refuge." She paused as more applause broke out at the dedication. "So good night, everyone, and have a safe night everyone... 'cause... Tonight is a Hurricane!"
Sylvie slashed out the opening riff without warning, sharp and electric, and the rest of the band snapped into place around it — Lou's rhythm guitar building on and reinforcing the melody, Nam's drums kicking in like a piston-driven heartbeat, Meg's bass locking tight beneath, Anri's keyboards spilling a wash of neon-bright sound that rolled over the audience and filled the tent. They were barely a bar in when cheers broke out in the audience, lasting long enough to overlap with first chorus of wordless "aaaah"s, and only fading away when the girls sang "Did you love?" and Sylvie launched into the first verse.
"Arashi no highway hashiritsuzuketa
Togireta yume no yukue sagashite
Nigai maboroshi subete no uso o
Senaka de hajikitobashite."[7]
As some of the audience began singing along with the Japanese lyrics, Linda leaned across the table. "Sounds a bit like Jim Steinman," she said.
"It does at that," Arthur agreed after a moment.
Terpsichore chuckled. "That's no accident," she declared knowingly. "The songwriters were influenced by Steinman's songs in the movie Streets of Fire."
"And only by Steinman's songs?" Helen asked with a faint smirk.
The muse returned the smirk. "Ask me no questions and I'll give you no divine revelations."
In the middle of Annette Court, halfway between the green party spaces and far enough from the stage to hear each other easily, a girl wearing a long coat over a frumpy suit and pulling a lawyer's briefcase was introducing herself to a boy just a couple years older than her, who was wearing a cheap Japanese-style school uniform. "Hi, I'm Ruiko Saten. Happy to meet you."
"Er... I'm Shinji Ikari. Hello."
"From Evangelion? Cool. Who are you supposed to be?"
"Kyon from Haruhi Suzumiya."
"Never heard of him."
"Who are you supposed to be?"
"Yomiko Readman from Read or Die."
"Never heard of her."
It took them three minutes to explain to each other who they were dressed as... which gave Asuka enough time to notice that Shinji was paying attention to another girl. But they disappeared into the food tent before she could make her way to them and reclaim him from her.
"Yui! Ui!"
Yui looked up from her plate to see a near mirror image of herself trotting across the tent, complete with a guitar slung over her back, dragging a taller redhead in a tight red blouse, a short grey plaid skirt and black knee boots. "Hane!" she squealed, leaping out of her seat. Next to her, resplendent in her white and pink magical girl's costume complete with wings and pink wig, Ui rose with a smile and followed at a more sedate pace. Azusa, taking care to avoid getting food on her kimono, took a moment more to get up and join them.
Hane and Yui collided between tables in a hug that Ui and Azusa quickly joined. The redhead hung back, looking vaguely embarrassed as the four exchanged high-pitched greetings.
"Oh!" Hane exclaimed once the hug broke and they had all stepped back slightly from each other. "I want you to meet Molly!" She turned to the redhead. "Molly, this is Yui Hirasawa..."
"Hi!" Yui smiled broadly.
"...and her sister, Ui," Hane added.
"It's nice to meet you, Molly," Ui said, less energetically but smiling as widely as her sister.
"And this is Azu-nyan," Hane added with a little grin.
Azusa rolled her eyes. Bad enough that Yui-sempai did it, now other people are calling her that. She sighed, then smiled. "Hi, I'm Azusa Nakano."
Hane gestured at the redhead. "Molly's dad Tom is our local liaison. Our place is too small to have a manager running it, Hayakawa does what little needs to be done, but Tom lives around the corner from us and does all the maintenance stuff for our house."
"Hi," Molly finally said, returning their smiles. "Hane's told me a lot about all of you... and she had me watch your anime."
Yui giggled. "That's still kind of strange to me, that we have one." Ui gave an amused sniff.
Azusa, meanwhile, was peering at Hane. "Hane-chan, are you... dressed as Yui-sempai?"
"Aw, you guessed!" Hane said, but her grin and her tone belied her apparent disappointment. "Of course I am!" She spun around to reveal the guitar on her back was plastic, painted to look like Gitah. "I found this toy guitar in a thrift shop and realized I could build an entire costume around it. I even have barrettes just like Yui's!" She ran her fingertips along her bangs on the right side of her face where two golden hair clips held back her brown locks instead of her usual wing-shaped barrettes. "And the rest of the club dressed like the rest of you guys, too!" She grinned. "We got the idea from what Jun-chan said about our show copying yours, back when we met you."
"Wow," Yui breathed. "Who're you dressed as, Molly-chan?"
Molly twisted back and forth, making her skirt flare a little. "Cady Heron. From the movie Mean Girls?" she added when Yui looked blank.
"We haven't seen that one yet," Azusa hastily interjected.
"Why don't you two join us while we finish eating?" Ui asked, waving toward the table where they'd been sitting. "Hokago Tea Time goes on stage in ten minutes or so, and Yui and Azusa need something in their bellies before then."
Hane and Molly traded smiles. "Sure!" they said in unison.
Helen, Linda, Terpsichore and Arthur were chatting while listening to the 33-Stars finish up their set when a middle-aged man in a boldly checked yellow zoot-styled suit, a black fedora and tinted glasses walked up to the table. He was on the short side of average height, and held a full rocks glass of what appeared to be whiskey in his left hand. "Mind if I join you folks? Missus Schroeck sent me this way." He held out his free hand. "Artie Duncan."
As the 33-Stars wound up their final song, greetings were exchanged. "The Artie Duncan? Owner of Artie's Artery?" Arthur asked as they took their seats again. "The man who single-handedly saved the live music scene in the Northeast?"
"Well, I don' know about the Northeast," Duncan replied amiably, "but I definitely kept it alive in New Brunswick. Well, sorta..."
"Sort of?" Linda asked.
"Ah, well, y'see, I'm one a' them displacees, only whatever stuck me inta this world gave me a whole package. I showed up wit' my club, an' a twenny-year history a' runnin' it in this universe." He shrugged. "Me an' the Banzai Institute an' a few other folks — don' ask me why or how, but we lucked out." He took a long sip of his whiskey. "Sure it ain't fair, but if life was fair, we wouldn't be in Refuge to begin with, now would we?" He set the glass back down on the table and nodded at the stage, where the 33-Stars had begun breaking down their kit. "So when there's a band with displacees in it an' they're halfway decent, I give'em gigs so they get known and maybe start doin' good for themselves. May not be much, but it's what I can do ta help," he added. "Me an' Gene over at th' Roadhouse both."
The tall, heavy-set fellow in the Gandalf costume reappeared on the stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, the 33-Stars!" The party-goers around them burst into applause, and they joined in.
"Me and Helen caught a few shows at the Artery back in the 90s," Attila said, shaking his head, once the clapping had faded away. "And now you say it wasn't really there. Fuckin' weird."
"Quite," Helen agreed.
"Tell me about it," Duncan replied. "If I think hard about it, I can remember stuff I know I didn't do 'cause I wasn't here to do it. Welsper — he's my contact at Funtom — tells me it's just part a' how Refuge goes about fittin' us displacees in once we're here." He shrugged. "Anyways, we're holdin' our own Halloween bash at the Artery, but I figgered I'd drop by for an hour or so, be neighborly while I check out some a' the bands. Been keepin' an eye on'em since I first found out about'em."
He gestured with his whiskey at the departing 33-Stars. "Them girls, good technical chops but they need seasonin'."
"It is one of their first performances," Terpsichore said, and held out her hand to Duncan. "Terpsichore," she added as he shook it.
"Th' muse?" he asked, and she smiled.
"One and the same," she confirmed. "As I was saying before you joined us, they'll improve."
Yui glanced over where Ui and Azusa were chatting with Molly. "Hane-chan... make sure you and Molly are up front near the stage while we play, okay?"
"Sure, I was going to, anyway." Hane's brow furrowed. "Why?"
Yui shot her a sly grin. "I need to check with the others, but once Molly told us her boyfriend's name..."
Hane's puzzlement persisted for another moment, and then enlightenment lit her face. "Oh, Yui, you are bad."
Several minutes later, the members of the band had taken their places, while (as requested) Molly, Hane and the other members of the Okanoue Girls' School Motorcycle Club had gathered on the dance floor right in front. At Yui's nod, Harley stepped back to the microphone stand located at center stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, our second band tonight," he announced, his amplified tenor voice stilling the chatter which had begun between sets, "Hokago Tea Time!"
As a wave of applause broke, he retreated down the stairs off stage right as Yui stepped up to the microphone. "Just one more," he muttered to himself.
"Hello, fellow displacees!" Yui, the hood of her Nausicaä costume thrown back over her shoulders, squealed into the microphone; the high pitch of her voice threatened explosive feedback in the amplifiers. "We are Hokago Tea Time, and we are here to rock! We've got a mix of songs for you tonight — some of our originals and a few covers to spice things up, selected for maximum fun. But right now... right now it's time..."
She launched into a riff familiar to everyone in the audience who'd ever seen an episode of K-On! in their home universe.
"Right now it's Fluffy Time!" She stepped back from the microphone, and as the audience began to clap to the beat, Ritsu (in a black tanktop and cargo pants and a yellow scarf) picked it up. Mio (with the cowl of her Spider-Man costume off and tucked into her waistband) leapt in with her bass, followed by Mugi wailing away on her keyboards with their "60s rock organ" setting dialed up to 11. (She had had enough time to change out of her maid's uniform and into an elaborate blue and gold gown from 17th Century France whose skirt was as wide as her keyboards.) A bar later Azusa (the sleeves of her white kimono tied back out of the way) dropped into place, underlying and reinforcing Yui. Smiling, Yui leaned back to the mic and started singing — not in Japanese, but in English:
"When I see your face, I feel my heartbeat go boom-boom.
Like a marshmallow, my thoughts just float around the room
Working hard each day"
Mio leaned into her microphone and echoed, "Working hard each day."
"And I watch you near..."
"And I watch you near," Mio echoed again; Yui glanced her way, smiling broadly as she nodded.
"...Still you never notice me at all, it seems
I wish in my dreams..."
"I wish in my dreams..."
"...We could be much closer than it feels to be.
Ah, dear God, please hear my call —
Give me one small Dream Time, that is all!
With my bunny in my arms, I close my eyes and say:
'Goodnight, it's okay'...
Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!" Mio sang in counterpoint.)
"Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!")
"Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!")[8]
Linda didn't recognize the song, but it was obvious that many in the audience did, cheering as soon as the melody began. She could even hear a few nearby singing along in what she thought was Japanese. The tune was catchy, with an odd bubblegum pop-punk feel too it, and Linda found herself bobbing her head to the beat for a few moments before saying, "They're not bad. And that has to be the perkiest song I've ever heard about the heartbreak of unrequited love."
Arthur smiled. "The drummer needs a little work, but they've got potential."
Duncan leaned back in his seat and took a sip from his glass. "Yeah. They're one a' the groups I've been watchin' close-like. They're almost ready to get a gig at the Artery." He set his glass down again. "Openin' act, not headliners, not yet. But still..."
Helen snorted. "I'm not surprised. Their animated counterparts are still among the most popular bands in Japan, even though it's been a few years since their show ended."
"Thank you," Terpsichore said with a grin. "I've put in quite a bit of work on those girls — both sets of them," she added.
Helen raised an eyebrow, and then lifted her drink in salute. Terpsichore inclined her head, the grin morphing into a smirk, and returned the gesture with her own drink.
Meanwhile, in the shadow of some bushes at the base of building 4, safely out of the way of human foot traffic, two moon cats briefly conferred.
"What's wrong, Luna?" Artemis asked.
"It's that Sakaki girl from Los Angeles. She makes me uncomfortable for some reason."
"You, too? I thought I was imagining it."
"Her and that Sagara fellow." Luna shuddered. "If he tries putting any C4 on me, I'm clawing his eyes out."
Bill Preston (dressed as Ted Logan) and Ted Logan (dressed as Bill Preston) wandered aimlessly through the party space. (They weren't the only pair of party-goers to do an outfit-swap as their costumes, but they were certainly the least obvious or impressive.) Their girlfriends — the princesses Elizabeth and Joanna of York, daughters of King Edward IV of England, elaborately done up as the Wilson sisters of Heart circa 1985 — had shooed them off just before joining one of the many groups of teenage girls enthusiastically turning fellow displacees only known to each other online or by reputation into in-person friends.
"We'll be fine," Joanna had assured Bill with a kiss.
"Go enjoy yourselves," Elizabeth had instructed Ted. "We'll catch up with you later."
So now, red cups of soda in hand, the pair strolled through the party, admiring the costumes, the pretty girls, and the pretty girls in costumes. "Ted, my friend," Bill said with a grin, "this is a most excellent party, with babes aplenty."
"Indeed, Bill," Ted replied with a bobbing nod. "While we are of course faithful to our bodacious royal girlfriends, we can still enjoy the visions of beauty surrounding us on all sides."
"Just as long as you aren't being creepy about it," a Chinese girl in a skimpy black leather outfit commented in passing.
The pair grinned widely at each other. "Excellent!" they chorused.
Yui looked out over the audience. Just as she'd requested, Hane and Molly were down front. Off to one side, Mr. Duncan was sitting with Bob and Peggy's friends Helen and Attila and a few more people she didn't recognize. And that black cat — it wasn't Luna, because Luna's fur was kinda blue-black and this cat was a solid night-black, and it didn't have the crescent on its face — it was still sitting right in front of the stage-right speaker stack. She was sure it'd been waving its tail to the beat during "Fuwa Fuwa Time". Maybe it was another displacee like the Mau? She'd have to ask. Later. She leaned in to her microphone. "This next song is something new that Mugi-chan and I wrote since we came to New Jersey. Someone who's listened to a lot of our songs once said that I tend to write about the things I love — my guitar, my sister, my friends... Food..."[9] She grinned. "They weren't wrong."
The audience laughed and a few applauded. Yui's grin grew wider and she inclined her head toward the ones clapping. "So of course the first song we've written since coming to Somerset is about my new favorite treat! I call it 'Blend-in!'"
Ritsu gave the group the beat: "One-two-three-four!", then Yui launched into a short but distinctive hook that led into the song proper, and leaned into the mike again.
"Chocolate or vanilla,
Strawberry's good too,
But it's what goes inside it
That makes it good, so true,
Can't have one too often
Or my waistline will balloon,
Gonna get a blend-in!
"Fill it up with fresh fruit
Or pick a nut or two,
If I'm really hungry
Get candies in there too,
To really fill my stomach
Add a milkshake, too,
Gonna get a blend-in!"
The tune was bouncy, the arrangement simple and the lyrics rapidfire. It had the same kind of energy as "Fuwa Fuwa Time" while not sounding like it at all, and within a few bars the audience was clapping along to the beat, and a few were energetically dancing. Others turned to each other, asking whether they had any idea what a "blend-in" was, only to get a hint of an answer as the band drove into the song's bridge:
"Chocolate and vanilla, oreos and cream,
French vanilla, butter brickle, each one is a dream.
Butter pecan, cappuccino, coffee, maple nut,
Cups and sundaes, cones and waffles are delicious but
There's something that they make there that simply nothing beats
That unique mix of ice cream and a million different treats!
Gonna get a blend-in!"
Up on the stage, Yui repeated the opening hook, a brief respite before the last verse.
"Peaches or blueberries
'Cause fruit is good for you,
Lots of different cookies
Give me something to chew,
Mixing them together
Is what makes it good,
Gonna get a blend-in!"
The other members of the band echoed the line.
"Gonna get a blend-in! (Gonna get a blend-in!)
Gonna get a blend-in (Gonna get a blend-in!)
With pineapple on top!
With pineapple on top!"[10]
Yui and Azusa traded bars back and forth then abruptly brought it all to a close. As the audience broke out in applause and scattered cheers, Yui smiled broadly. "Yeah, it's a little short. But we're working on a bigger arrangement. Just wait until the next party!"
"You'd think after a month and a half I'd be used to havin' real food all th' time," Mal mused, pushing the wide-brimmed brown hat of his costume up and back away from his forehead, "then I see a spread like this an' I don't rightly know where to start." He waved at the table full of potluck dishes in front of them, each giving off its own different and enticing scent. Music from one of the bands playing the party drifted into the tent, barely audible over the conversations of the dozens of people around them.
![[Image: 300px-Mal_and_Inara_Halloween.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/w/thumb_handler.php/3/3f/Mal_and_Inara_Halloween.jpg/300px-Mal_and_Inara_Halloween.jpg)
Inara nodded. "The people of Earth have no idea how wealthy they are." She smiled faintly as she watched him load his paper plate with a selection of meats; her own was an assortment of fruits and non-root vegetables plus grilled slices of tofu covered with a tangy red sauce. "It will be hard to go back to the diet we had back... home."
"Makes a man mighty tempted not to leave," Mal noted as he topped his plate with a trio of meatballs on a skewer dripping a clear, sweet-smelling orange-hued sauce. "I tell you, 'Nara, if we had Serenity here with us, I wouldn't go back if you paid me." He straightened up and turned to look into her eyes. "Compared t' the 'Verse, this is paradise. You and the Serenity — that's all I'd need to be a happy man here for the rest of my life."
"Flatterer," she said, matching the intensity of his gaze with her own. "Let's find a table."
Not far away from them, Shinji stared at the first table in the tent, unsure of where to start. "That's the number one thing that's so different about Refuge — the food," he said to his companion. He gestured with the stiff cardboard plate in his hand at the entire line of tables running along the length of the tent wall. They didn't sag or groan, although given how heavily laden they were with potluck contributions, he really felt that they should.
Ruiko turned and raised an eyebrow at him over her costume glasses. "Really?" She'd parked her rolling briefcase at one of the round tables near the tent entrance and had two hands free with which to fill her own plate.
He nodded. "Uh-huh. Second Impact didn't just wipe out half of humanity — it also wiped out something like three quarters of all the land used for growing food. What didn't end up permanently underwater got contaminated or messed up in other ways." He shook his head. "A lot of people starved before the U.N. got farming all over the world going again. Even then, there was a lot less food, and fewer kinds of food, to go around. Something like this?" He waved again at the tables. "You couldn't get half the food here, and even what you could... well, this'd be a really expensive party. A rich man's party."
"Wow," Ruiko said. "So, what, like you've never had..." She glanced along the table and chose a dish at random. "Steak nachos?"
Shinji laughed. "Do you know how much land it takes to raise cattle? The U.N. would rather see it used to grow corn or potatoes or soybeans. Feeds a lot more people that way." He grew pensive. "Beef is so expensive and hard to get, Misato once promised us a steak dinner as a reward for a successful mission."
"Were you successful?" she asked.
He nodded. "But Rei doesn't eat meat, so we just had ramen."
"Well, in that case," Ruiko declared, determination flaring in her eyes, "let me reward you instead, with some of my favorites. Starting with the nachos!"
"What are you doing?" a girl's voice, shrill and angry, came from behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruiko saw Shinji suddenly shrink in on himself.
"Just getting something to eat, Asuka," he said in a subdued tone. He turned around, his plate still empty; Ruiko turned with him to see a redhead in a brown sweater over an aqua and white seifuku, her fists planted on her hips and scowling at Shinji. She flicked her eyes over to Ruiko.
"Who's this?" she demanded.
Ruiko sighed mentally; meeting Asuka Soryu had not been on her list of things to do tonight, but she might as well try to make the best of it. She held out her hand. "Ruiko Saten, from Blossom Apartments in Ottawa. Hi!"
Asuka sniffed dismissively and turned her basilisk stare back to Shinji, who was actually cringing. "I knew you were a pervert, baka, but I didn't think you were into little girls."
"It's not like that, Asuka," Shinji protested as Ruiko frowned and surreptitiously tugged her trench coat tightly around herself to emphasize her precocious figure.
"We were talking about how Refuge has more food and more types of food," Ruiko forged ahead gamely. "He was telling me how your world's been coping with food shortages." She gave both fourteen-year-olds a deliberate once-over; they were only a few centimeters taller than she was, and she was barely twelve. "Shinji will probably get taller because of better nutrition here. You, too."
If anything, that annoyed Asuka more. "Baka Shinji's already having a growth spurt. He used to be shorter than me, now we're the same height," she growled. "He's grown three centimeters while I only grew one."
"See?" Ruiko said brightly. "It's having an effect already."
Back on the stage, Mio leaned in to her microphone. "So... Azusa found the next song on YouTube, and she and Yui talked me into doing it tonight. It was originally in, um... Swedish?" She glanced over at the other two guitarists.
Azusa nodded. "Yeah, Swedish," she said, leaning back into her mic.
"Right, Swedish," Mio said. "But it turns out there's an English version, which since I don't speak or sing Swedish, I'm going to do." She mock-glared at her bandmates. "Under protest!"[11]
Laughter rippled through the audience again. "So anyway," she continuted, the glare evaporating, "it seems doing videos of characters from all kinds of stories and shows dancing to this song are real popular among Refuge's fans, and that's why our guitarists want me to sing it, so they can see all of you dancing to it."
"Don't worry, everyone," Yui said with a grin, "just watch Azu-nyan and me. It's a really simple dance."
Mio rolled her eyes, but was grinning. "It's a really silly dance."
"Your point, Mio?" Mugi asked from behind her keyboard.
The bassist shook her head with a sigh. "Just warning everyone, Mugi." She took up her guitar, her right hand on the neck, and her right hovering over the bridge, then announced with a broad smile, "Okay, everyone, it's time for 'Caramelldansen'!"
Some twenty minutes after they had relieved Nodoka and Yuu of their "gate guard" duties, Ayame Yoshida (shivering in her blue shorts and green tank top, and regretting dressing as Ayane Mitsui) and Fuu Hououji (somewhat warmer, dressed as Haru "Noir" Okumura in black tights, violet puffy shorts, and a black corset vest over a pink blouse, the entire ensemble topped by a black mask and cavalier's hat) watched with undisguised curiosity as a massive black stretch limousine appeared on Hamilton Street only to slow down, turn into Annette Court and come to a halt at the traffic barriers.
Fuu stepped up as the driver's window rolled smoothly down with a quiet whir. "Can I help you?" she asked.
At the wheel was slender, pale-skinned man with amber eyes and blue-black hair that was cut short except two locks which hung to either side of his face. "Good evening, ladies," he said with a faint smile. "Lord Phantomhive, here to attend the party."
Ayame made a wordless sound of surprise as Fuu nodded. "Of course. Just a moment, Mr. Michaelis."
He smiled again. "Sebastian, please."
Fuu returned the smile. "Of course, Mister Sebastian. Welcome to the party, both of you."
"Thank you," he replied, inclining his head in lieu of a bow.
A minute later, the limousine proceeded on to the parking lot as the two young women moved the barrier back into place.
"Dance to the beat, wave your hands together.
Come feel the heat forever and forever.
Listen and learn, it is time for prancing.
Now we are here with Caramell dancing."[12]
The song ended abruptly with a soft chord struck by Mugi on her keyboard; the members of the audience who had been dancing took a moment more to stop. The last was a slender, pretty girl with long brown hair wearing a gray tanktop, black jeans and boots; a massive smile spanned her face, which was made up to look like half its skin had had been torn off to reveal a shining metal skull beneath. Up on the stage, Yui and Azusa lowered their hands from their "rabbit ears" positions, grinned at each other, and began to laugh, followed by Ritsu and Mugi. Mio mock-scowled at them before giving in and smiling as well. Yui reached over to where she had set Gitah on its stand, grabbed the guitar, and turned back to the audience. As she slid back under Gitah's strap, she stepped over to her mic. "That was fun! Thanks for dancing along with us! And watching everyone dance was just like watching one of those videos on YouTube!"
"I bet by tomorrow it's going to be one of those videos on YouTube!" Ritsu called from behind the drums, and both the band and the audience laughed.
Peggy was in the food tent, still working to set out all the potluck dishes, when a chorus of gasps echoed through the tent behind her. As she straightened up from where she had bent over a chafing tray to light the cans of Sterno beneath it, she saw that Sumire had frozen in place on the other side of the table, staring at something behind Peggy.
"What is it?" Peggy asked, and when Sumire didn't answer, she shrugged mentally and turned around.
![[Image: 300px-Sebastian_and_Ciel%2C_Halloween_2016.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/w/thumb_handler.php/6/62/Sebastian_and_Ciel%2C_Halloween_2016.jpg/300px-Sebastian_and_Ciel%2C_Halloween_2016.jpg)
Her breath caught momentarily at the sight of the tall figure with huge bat-like wings, massive ram's horns curling through his wild black hair, and burning fuschia eyes — wearing a butler's uniform and carrying a stack of aluminum catering trays. "Good evening, Mrs. Schroeck," he said amiably. "Where should I place these?"
She shook herself; she recognized that voice. "M-mister Michaelis!" she managed to stammer, before swallowing. As she did, she spied the young man casually strolling in behind him, dressed in an elaborately detailed, film-accurate (and clearly very expensive) "Jack Sparrow" costume.
"Sebastian, please," the demonic figure said with a smile that she supposed was intended to be reassuring.
Peggy nodded. "Sebastian, then." She nodded to the young man, who had come up alongside him. "And Lord Phantomhive?" she asked.
"Indeed," the young man said with a slight smirk and the faintest hint of a bow.
"Welcome, and thank you for coming," Peggy said. "Oh, and just put them down there on the end of the table," she said, gesturing. "We'll get them sorted out in a minute."
"As you wish," Sebastian said with a tiny bow of his own, before stepping over to the place she'd indicated.
Peggy glanced back over her shoulder. "Sumire, please help Sebastian with those trays."
The Australian girl started. "Oh, yes, of course," she said, and trotted around the back of the table to help the butler.
Turning back to the smirking pirate, Peggy asked, "Will you and Sebastian be needing rooms for the night, Lord Phantomhive?"
He shook his head, a genuinely regretful expression replacing the smirk. "Sadly, no. I'm afraid this is little more than a token appearance, as Sebastian and I must leave early. We each have obligations early tomorrow that preclude us staying for the whole party."
"I'm sorry to hear that," she replied. "So many of us only know you – either of you – by reputation; it would have been nice to get to know you as actual people."
"Well." He smiled, and this time it was warmer, not a smirk at all. "We shall see what we can do in the time we have."
As Minami served herself a slice of lasagna from the buffet, a female voice from above and behind her said, "That's an interesting costume. I like it."
"Thank you," she said before turning around to face the speaker. When she did, she froze for a moment in surprise. A humanoid lizard, some thirty or more centimeters taller than she was, stood there, wearing a skirt, jacket and fedora. Not a person in a lizard costume, she was certain, but an actual lizard. The giveaway was the mouth — it (and the tongue in it) moved and flexed in a way no mask would; inside it was moist like a real mouth, too. It was had to tell through the yellow lenses of her costume's mask, but she thought that the creature's skin was blue, with orange-yellow eyes that almost seemed to glow. "Um." Well, it wasn't like there weren't other non-humans among the displacees, after all. Just none this... extreme. "I'm dressed as Taylor Hebert from Worm, in her 'Skitter' identity. It's a little makeshift, but..." She shrugged.
![[Image: 300px-Saurial_and_Minami.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/w/thumb_handler.php/e/e4/Saurial_and_Minami.jpg/300px-Saurial_and_Minami.jpg)
The lizard tilted... her? yes, her... head and raised her eyebrows in a surprisingly human expression of surprise. "Worm? I've never heard of that."
Minami nodded. "It's a web novel that came out in this world a few years ago, set in an Earth with superhumans. Taylor is a teen-aged girl with insect-control powers who sets out to be a hero but ends up branded a villain because of a whole lot of stupidity, mostly on the part of other people." Under Skitter's mask Minami grimaced. "It's not the happiest story, especially not for Taylor. But she's such a great character..."
The lizard girl grinned — another surprisingly human-like expression identifiable on a nonhuman face, Minami thought. "I'll bet. Could you tell me more?"
"Oh, certainly," Minami said happily. "Let's go sit down and I'll tell you while I eat."
"Sounds good," the lizard girl replied, then she gestured at the plate in Minami's hand. "And let me know how you like the lasagna — I brought it."
Minami glanced down at it. "Oh, you did?"
She nodded. "It's my mother's recipe, a Family favorite. Oh, where are my manners?" She held out an imposingly claw-bedecked hand. "I'm Saurial."
Minami had been in New Jersey long enough to get used to Western customs, and shook the lizard girl's hand with her own. "Minami Makimura. Nice to meet you."
At a table filled with crudités and other vegetable dishes, two girls with paper plates in hand found themselves face-to-face. One had pale purple hair courtesy of spray coloring, glasses, and a brown sweater over an aqua and white seifuku. The other had a shaggy pale blue wig and wore reasonable facsimiles of a white plugsuit and matching white A10 nerve clips.
Rei Ayanami studied her doppelganger for a long moment as the other girl grew visibly nervous. Finally, she nodded with a faint smile gracing her lips. "I approve." She turned back to the table, retrieved a handful of celery sticks and placed them on her plate before walking off.
Sakura Matou blinked and watched the girl disappear among the other party-goers before shaking herself and taking some raw vegetables of her own.
Ruiko poked unenthusiastically at her dinner with a plastic fork. Asuka had clamped her hand around Shinji's upper arm so hard he'd winced, then after sneering at her dragged him off. The despondent look he'd given her as he and Asuka vanished into the crowd haunted her.
"So... I see Asuka's worked her special magic on you."
Ruiko looked up to see a young couple — in their twenties, she thought — had walked up to her table and were regarding her with sympathy. They were in matching costumes: he in plate armor with black and gold highlights and a simple crown with eight broad cross-shaped crenellations, she in a pale green medieval-styled gown with a high waist, scoop neck and a long train, and a crown of her own, this one more delicate with ten filigreed points which leaned outward from her bound chestnut hair. It had been the young man who had spoken.
Ruiko blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I said, I see you've had the dubious pleasure of meeting Asuka Soryu." He held out his hand; Ruiko shook it. "Simon Tam, from Gulfside Rest in Florida." His English was measured and careful, almost precise, and made her think he might have been well off, possibly upper class in his home universe.
"Kaylee Frye," said his companion as Ruiko shook her hand as well. "From Gulfside Rest, too." She sounded almost rural by comparison, and Ruiko realized the contrast was visible in their body language: Simon held himself very formally, almost stiffly, while Kaylee seemed much more relaxed and casual.
"I'm Ruiko Saten, from Blossom Apartments in Ottawa," she said quickly. "You... you both live in the same building as her?"
Kaylee laughed. "Oh, yes. Been nigh on... what, six weeks now, Simon?"
Simon nodded. "Yes, just about that. We've gotten to know her quite well in that time." He gestured at the table. "May we join you?"
"Oh! Please!" She slid her plate to one side as the couple took the next couple of seats to her right.
"We couldn't help but see her treatin' you like niu shi," Kaylee said gently as she settled into place, "An' we wanted to let you know it ain't anythin' you did."
Ruiko didn't understand the oddly out-of-place bit of Chinese, but the meaning was obvious from context. She frowned minutely. "I've seen Evangelion, I thought I knew what to expect, but..." She trailed off and waved vaguely.
Simon nodded. "Then you know she's... emotionally damaged, correct? A good deal of that behavior is really just her holding herself together well enough to function."
Ruiko grimaced. "And I'm guessing from what I've seen that Shinji's part of that?"
"Yeah," Kaylee confirmed. "She acts all prickly 'cause she needs him and don't wanna admit it. Seen her get downright twitchy when he ain't around."
"What, can't go without her whipping boy?" Ruiko almost snarled.
Simon shook his head. "No, it isn't like that, though I suppose it resembles it from the outside. Kaylee and I have talked about it with... a couple people, and the conclusion we've mostly come to is that he represents safety to her. If he's with her, then in her mind, nothing terrible can happen."
Ruiko gave them a flat look. "What, and she's going to make sure he stays with her, regardless of what he wants, to keep her safe forever and ever? That's pretty fucked up."
"You ain't wrong," Kaylee admitted.
"I sincerely hope the managers, or Funtom, or someone arranges proper counseling for her, because I really don't see this ending well if nothing changes," Simon added.
Ruiko frowned. "What more can you tell me?" Maybe she could help, somehow. She didn't have to like Asuka to do that, did she?
"Now that is one scarily accurate costume!" The voice was male and redolent with the North of England.
Sam Tyler looked up from the table full of chafing pans to see a tall fellow with prominent ears and thick curling brown hair, dressed in the heavy coat, floppy hat, and ridiculously overlong scarf of the Fourth Doctor. "Thank you," he said, laying down his plate and turning to face him, tugging slightly at the bottom of his black Nehru jacket as he did. "Took me forever to get the beard right," he added, running a fingertip along the fake goatee he'd painstakingly spirit-gummed to his face.
"Oh, yes, that's good. Delgado. Proper creepy." He tilted his head, studying Sam. "...Yeah, no, hang on. I know that face." A flicker of a grin. "You're a Brit. And you've got a bit of him about you. Fantastic job."
"Thank you." Sam held his hand out. "Sam Tyler, from the Dublin gang of displacees."
The other man grabbed his hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Good to meet you, Sam. I'm the Doctor."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I can see that."
The Doctor looked puzzled for a moment, then gave a bark of laughter. "Right, the costume. No, I actually am the Doctor — Nine, they call me when they have to make a distinction — and I figured it'd be a bit of self-referential fun to dress as one of my earlier regenerations, one of my favorites." He tugged on a lock of his curly brown hair. "You had difficulty with the beard; for me it's the hair." He mock-scowled. "I don't remember it being half the trouble this wig is."
Sam boggled for a moment, then managed a stumbling, "It's an honor, sir."
The Doctor waved dismissively. "None of that, Sam."
"If you insist..." Sam paused for a moment, then added, "Say, maybe you can help me with something. Back home — before Refuge — I had an experience that... well, it might've been time travel." He grimaced. "Or a hallucination. I still don't know which. And it— it still gets to me. Do you think you could help me figure it out?"
A broad grin appeared that looked as much at home on the Fourth Doctor's face as the Ninth. "Yeah. Easy. Tell you what — I'll get you a pint, you tell me everything, and we'll sort it out."
The returning grin looked out of place on the Master's face, but not on Sam's. "I won't say no to that."
The music from the stage wasn't being piped into the other tents, but for all that was still audible — loud enough to be heard clearly, but nowhere near loud enough to make conversation difficult. A teenaged girl, a soprano, was singing "Ui, ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla bing-bang"[13] with an audible giggle in her voice, and her clear, high-pitched tones carried clearly through the tent where food and drink had been gathered.
At one of the beverage tables, two party-goers found themselves reaching for the same drink. They both yanked their arms back when their hands collided just in front of the can of soda.
"Oh, excuse me," said one, a college-age girl in an elaborately beaded and fringed gold flapper dress. Her chin-length brown hair was held back by a matching headband with a feather rising from it, and in her off hand she held a long cigarette holder; a fake cigarette, red glitter on its end simulating fire, was mounted in it. Those who could tell would know immediately that it was a Tomoyo Daidouji original.
"Sorry 'bout that," said the other, a much younger boy dressed in khaki pants, an olive-drab shirt, black combat boots and a camo jacket. The whole ensemble was topped off with an incongruous knit cap, complete with ear flaps, of brightly-colored wool. Those in the know would recognize it as a Jayne Cobb original.
"That's all right," the girl said, reaching for a different can. She glanced at the boy, then did a doubletake. "Do I know you? You look familiar."
"I don't think so," he said as he took the can they'd originally collided over. "But you know, you look a little like my dad," he added, looking her over.
She returned the look. "That's odd, you look a little like my mother. I'm Kaori Aida, from Aria House in California. Call me Kaorin, everyone does."
"Aida? Wow, that's a coincidence. I'm Kensuke Aida, from Gulfside Rest in Pensacola."
She frowned slightly as she took a closer look at him. "That's ... weird. We're not counterparts, are we? I was born in 1984."
He shook his head. "I was born in 2001. Maybe we're cousins or something? My dad's name is Hajime."[14]
"Huh. My father's name is Hajime, too." Her frown deepened. "My mother's name is Kari[15] . What's your mom's name?"
A look of sorrow flashed across his face. "My mom's... not around any more." Puzzlement replaced sorrow. "But she was named Kari, too..." He screwed his eyes shut in concentration. "Dad told me once that I had an older sister, but she died in Second Impact, before I was born." His eyes sprung open. "You don't think...?"
Kaorin bit her lip and studied the younger boy. "I don't know. Maybe we should ask one of the megami?"
Trying not to look like he was running, Shinji took advantage of a moment's distraction on Asuka's part and fled the tent holding the potluck. He'd had to leave his half-full plate behind, but it was the perfect opportunity — enough people getting food or just milling about to cover his escape, but not so many that he had to force his way through the crowd; in a matter of seconds he was out of sight of her.
He plunged through the tent's entrance and out into the chill night air, stepped to one side, out of the way of the other party-goers seeking sustenance, and took a deep breath. Okay, that worked, he thought. Now what?
"Ho ho. Nicely done, mate — didn't fancy bein' chewed up by the redhead, eh? Smart lad. She's the sort that'd bite." The voice was deep and gravelly and just a bit nasal, with an accent that he'd come to learn was British... but a lower-class British. Shinji managed to not start in surprise at the sound of it; instead he turned around to face the speaker.
Leaning against one of the pine trees that studded the green spaces hosting the party was a man in an expensive-looking Superman costume, a lit cigarette in one hand and a red plastic cup in the other. He was a Westerner, taller than Shinji — then again, pretty much all adults were — and a bit too thin to carry off the superhero look. A mop of black hair topped his head, with a thick mass of bangs hanging down in the front almost hiding his dark eyes; a lumpy potato of a nose that looked like it might have been broken once — or maybe twice — sat below and between them, giving him a thuggish look.
His skin was green.
Shinji blinked and looked again. Every inch of the man's exposed skin was a bright kryptonite green, which struck him as exactly wrong for Superman. And it wasn't makeup.
"Um," he managed to say.
"Superman" took a long, final drag on the cigarette, dropped it into the grass at his feet, and ground it out with the toe of one red boot. He pushed off from the tree then stuck out the hand that had just held it. "M'name's Murdoc — Murdoc Niccals. I knock about 'round here. Douglass Gardens, that is."
After nearly two months in Refuge, Shinji knew what to do, and shook his hand. "Shinji Ikari, from Pensacola in Florida."
Murdoc nodded. "Right, well... good meetin' ya, lad. Now, 'bout the redhead — reckon you'd rather she didn't find you for a bit, yeah?"
Shinji nodded. "Yeah."
He smirked and waved, half grandiosely, half mockingly, toward the center of the party space, where Shinji could hear a band playing. "Right then, follow your Uncle Murdoc — I'll get you tucked away proper. Outta sight, outta mind, yeah? An' you might even have a bit of fun while you're at it, see if you don't." He took a swig from the cup then immediately started walking, before looking back over his shoulder and asking, "Y'comin', lad?"
Shinji shook himself and then trotted after Murdoc.
As they made their way around and through the other costumed attendees, Shinji glanced over at the man. "Mister Niccals, if you don't mind my asking, why... why are you green?"
Murdoc snorted. "Bad life choices, lad... an' a handful of legendary ones."
Shinji tried to imagine the kind of life choices that would turn someone green without killing them first, and drew a blank. He was still puzzling over it when he realized that Murdoc was leading him to the stage tent. Five pretty girls were on the stage, playing a song he'd never heard before that was slow and rhythmic; one was using an odd device that combined her voice with her guitar as she sang, "My daddy was a Gibson, my momma was a Fender, that's why they call me 'Mind Bender' — 'Mind Bender', that's my name."[16] He'd've liked to have stayed and watched, but to his surprise, Murdoc marched him around the side of the tent and into another behind it, which was filled with musicians — most of whom were again pretty girls.
Murdoc paused just as soon as they'd entered and didn't bother lowering his voice. "Oi, Noodle!"
At one of the tables at the back of the tent a taller girl with short black hair, Japanese like almost every other person there and wearing a black leather catsuit, looked up from where she had been in the midst of a conversation. She said something to the magenta-haired girl in a cheongsam next to her that Shinji couldn't hear (but imagined was an apology of sorts) and rose from her seat in one smooth motion, already watching them by the time she was on her feet and stalking toward them.
Her gaze flicked over Murdoc first — quick, measuring, familiar — and then settled on Shinji.
Shinji felt it immediately. Not harsh, not unfriendly... just direct. Like she was taking him in all at once.
He straightened without meaning to, suddenly aware of his hands, of where to look. She was—
He looked away, just as quickly.
"Murdoc," she said. Her voice was high and almost sweet — and to his surprise she spoke with a light but obvious Japanese accent.
Murdoc jerked a thumb in his direction. "Picked this one up out by the grub. Tryin' not to get himself murdered by a redhead."
Noodle's eyes shifted back to Shinji, quieter now.
"I see," she said.
Her voice was soft, but clear — no hesitation, no strain. Just a statement.
Shinji swallowed. "I— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude—"
"Told 'im I'd sort 'im out somewhere to hide from the bint. This'll do. Keep an eye on 'im, yeah?"
She lifted a single eyebrow. "So you've brought me a guest." Her gaze shifted back to Shinji; it was calm and measuring, but not unkind. "That should not be difficult." She gave him a faint, knowing smile. "There are many ways to disappear here."
Murdoc smirked at her. "Yeah, cheers, Noodle. Owe you one." He clapped Shinji on the shoulder, almost enough to make him stagger. "Good luck, lad." He turned, and as he swaggered out of the tent, cup still in hand, he added, "Don't do anything I wouldn't."
And then he was gone.
As Shinji looked after him, he felt another, gentler, hand on his shoulder, and turned back to see "Noodle" looking down at him, that faint smile still on her face. "What's your name?"
"Shinji," he said hesitantly. "Shinji Ikari. I'm sorry, if I'm not supposed to be here..."
The smile grew ever so slightly larger. "Don't worry." She tilted her head toward the chattering girls at the back of the tent. "Come. There's food... and friends. You'll be all right here."
And with that, she guided him into the crowd.
"Give it up for Yui and Gitah as Mind Bender!" Azusa demanded of the audience, and they did, cheering and clapping.
"Thank you, thank you," Yui said, hopping down off the stool she'd perched on while using the talk box and pushing it back with one foot. "And Gitah thanks you, too!" she added brightly. She glanced around at the other members of Hokago Tea Time and shared a secretive smile with them as the audience contined to hoot and cheer, then glanced down front where Hane and Molly still stood with the rest of the Motorcycle Club.
"It's been great playing for everyone tonight," Yui continued, "but I'm afraid we're down to our last song. And to sing it... well, we have a special guest vocalist." That secretive smile was back. "One so special she doesn't even know she's going to sing with us! Everyone, give a big hand for Molly Ritter!"
"What? No!" Molly shrieked as the applause ramped up again while Hane (with Onsa and Rin's help) gently pushed her to and up the steps that led to the stage. "Oh no no no no..." she protested as she got within reach of Yui's microphone. "I know what song you want me to sing. You think you're the first ones to ask me to sing it?"
As a giggling Yui stepped aside to let Molly's friends carefully position her in front of the mic, Ritsu called out, "Maybe not, but I'll bet we've got the biggest crowd to encourage you."
"You're not helping!" Molly scowled, but it was obvious by how she wasn't trying to make a break for it that she had resigned herself to what was coming.
Yui leaned into Azusa's mic. "You see, everyone, Molly has a boyfriend who isn't here with us tonight. And his name is Desmond Jones!" Scattered sounds of amused comprehension rose from the crowd, followed by the murmur of explanations being made to those who lacked the cultural context or simply hadn't made the connection. "So, obviously," Yui went on, "Molly has to be a singer with the band!"
"If you say so, Yui," Molly said with a good-natured roll of her eyes. Laughter rippled through the audience, followed by cries of "Sing it!"
"And of course," Azusa added, a feline smile gracing her lips, "life goes on."
And with that Mugi banged out the familiar intro, her keyboard set to sound like an old upright bar piano. Yui jumped in with Gitah filtered to a level of distortion Hokago Tea Time had never used in one of their own songs, followed a few seconds later by Azusa, then Mio and Ritsu. Molly rolled her eyes again, but grinned in spite of herself as she began to sing:
"Desmond has a barrow in the market place,
Molly is the singer in a band.
Desmond says to Molly, 'Girl, I like your face'..."
Although she was no match for Yui or Mio, her voice was strong and pleasant. She had no trouble keeping to the melody, in key, and on the beat, and by the second line it was obvious that for all her protestations, she was actually enjoying herself. Behind her, the other girls were clearly having fun of their own playing backup singers to her, and adding in the little bits of silliness the Beatles had thrown into the original recording. The crowd was already cheering and hooting again by the time Molly reached the chorus, grinning like a madwoman:
"Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah..."[17]
Over near the gazebo, Princess Peach was tugging on the sleeve of a teenaged wolfman as live music from the stage echoed off the apartment buildings surrounding the green space on three sides. "C'mon, Marty! It sounds like they're having a great time!"
"Okay, okay, Jennifer. Geeze, no need to rush," he said with a smile barely visible through the fur covering his face. "They're like just a hundred feet away."
"They're pretty good!" Cameron, resplendent in the red tunic, black trousers and white turtleneck of a late Original Series Starfleet captain, commented. He, Ferris and Sloane were seated at one of the tables ringing the dance floor that occupied the middle of the tent immediately in front of the stage.
"Even that girl they pulled up there, she's not bad either," Sloane added, then took a sip from the cup of soda in front of her. She was in an elaborate gold-trimmed, ivory-colored medieval-style gown, with her ringletted hair held in place by a golden ornament that was too large to call a clip and too flat to call a crown. Cameron still wasn't sure where she'd gotten the whole ensemble; she'd said something about a bay, but he had no idea what she'd meant by that.
Ferris, done up in the brown longcoat and pinstriped suit of the Tenth Doctor, had pulled his chair up next to Sloane's, and had his arm around her. "Watching these girls reminds me of the time I wanted to start a band," he said, before glancing at the readers and mouthing "Later".
"I don't know what you were thinking, asking me to be in it," Sloane smirked. "I can't sing to save my life."
"You're better than you think," Ferris countered.
"Still not good enough for a band." She glanced over at Cameron. "Tell him!"
Cameron lifted a hand in a vaguely defensive gesture and shook his head. "I'm not getting involved in this." He paused, then added, "But whether Sloane can sing or not, you need more than just your keyboard to make a band."
"I..." Ferris began, only to be interrupted.
"Hey, mind if we sit at your table?"
They turned to see a well-done wolfman accompanied by a girl in a bright pink dress and white gloves, a small golden crown perched atop a voluminous blonde wig. The pair seemed to be teens about the same age as them. Cameron, Ferris and Sloane exchanged a glances, then Ferris said, "Sure!"
When "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" ended, Molly was still grinning broadly, all reticence and shyness long gone. The audience exploded into cheers and whistles as Yui said, "Molly Ritter, everyone!" A moment later she added, "And we are Hokago Tea Time! Thank you, everyone! Thank you, Douglass Gardens!"
"Thank you, Budokan!" Ritsu added to scattered laughter.
As the cheering continued, Molly scampered back down the steps into the audience and the band began to collect their gear prior to leaving the stage. Harley took that as his cue to mount the stage and return to the central microphone stand. "Ladies and gentlemen, Hokago Tea Time!" The applause grew again, before finally tapering off. "Up next in a few minutes, OnNaGumi!" he added when he was sure he'd be heard again, then left the stage as quickly as he could manage.
To his surprise, Shinji was not only welcomed by the musicians in the tent that they inexplicably called the "green room", but included. He quickly found himself deep in conversation with a revolving collection of the performers either waiting their turns on stage or (in the case of the women from Ireland) relaxing after their set. When asked if he played an instrument, he very reluctantly admitted to playing the cello, expecting to be immediately dismissed by rock'n'rollers around him. Instead, though, it just triggered a deeper discussion of instruments and playing styles.
"We've got more in common than you might think," a rather energetic girl who'd introduced herself as "Jun" said. He had trouble keeping his eyes on hers because she was distractingly dressed in an off-the-shoulder gown of black and gray satin and tulle. It had a short, wide skirt with black petticoats under it and a huge grey bow at the small of her back; an obviously fake tail tipped with a pointed spade snaked from somewhere under it and stood up stiffly behind her. Her hair was done up in two fluffy "pom-poms" on either side of her head, with a red rose tucked into the left one. He'd tried not to stare at her legs (which were quite nice), but had looked long enough to notice the thick-soled maryjane shoes, also black, from which ribbons inexplicably rose to twine around her calves almost to the knee. Hanging from a strap around her neck was a white guitar with a long black neck. "Y'see, a bass" — and here she gestured to her guitar — "is the exact same thing, but... you tip it on the side and, chell-oooo, you've got a bass!"
"Jun!" said the other girl sitting with him at the moment. Her name, she'd said, was Ui, and she was in a similar dress, only in pink and white with no tail, and she wore a pink wig with two similar short ponytails to either side tied off with darker pink ribbons. "You know that isn't right! A cello is tuned C-G-D-A and a bass is tuned E-A-D-G," she continued in a mildly chiding tone. She turned to Shinji. "I'm sorry, she's quoting a scene from the movie School of Rock at you." She had a mint-green guitar with a shorter neck propped up against the table they sat at.
"Oh. I haven't seen it," Shinji admitted.
"Oh, you should!" Jun enthused. "I think you'd really like it. And some of it was filmed nearby.[18] But yeah, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not exactly wrong, Ui." She teasingly scrunched up her face at her companion, smiling, before looking back at him. "Even though they're tuned differently, a bass and a cello play pretty much the same role, whether you're in a rock band or a string quartet."
"I... uh, I wouldn't know, I usually play alone," he said. Absently, he noted that the music from the stage tent had been replaced by applause and cheers.
"Oh, well that's cool, too," Jun said. "I used to be in the Jazz club, back at our old school, and I never got to play with the band, so I did that a lot, too."
Shinji wasn't sure what to say in response to that, but at that moment Ui suddenly perked up, looking past him at something. Or rather, someone, given that she said, "Oh, here they come!" before hopping up out of her seat.
"Here who come?" he asked Jun as he twisted around to try to see where she'd gone.
"Hokago Tea Time," Jun replied with a smirk.
"Who?" he asked, turning back to her.
Ui suddenly appeared at his side with a girl in an odd blue jacket and hood set who he realized was practically her twin — and the girl who had been singing with her guitar's voice. "Shinji, this is my sister Yui."
"Hi!" Yui chirped.
"Sorry about that," Peggy said as she finally took her seat at the table once more.
"I hope it wasn't some big emergency," Linda said as Peggy picked up her drink.
Peggy shook her head. "No... just one thing leading to another. But it eventually reached a point where I could step away again." She sipped her drink, now slightly diluted by melted ice.
"You missed all of Hokago Tea Time," Helen noted.
"No, I could hear them from the tent I was in." Peggy smiled over her cup. "And even if I didn't, it's not like Bob and I haven't sat in on some of their rehearsals over the last couple weeks."
"They definitely know how to work a crowd," Arthur noted. "Better than the band before them."
"Well, it's not their first time in front of an audience," Peggy said. "Outside of school shows, they've played in a couple clubs and at a festival in England."
"England?" Linda asked. "Really?"
Peggy nodded. "They were on a school trip to London, and got recruited at the last minute." She took another sip. "It's in the K-On! movie."
"Well, after seein' 'em tonight, I'm thinkin' they're ready for a gig at the Artery after all." Artie Duncan swirled the last of his whiskey around the bottom of his glass. "I'll give that teacher of theirs a call and set somethin' up."
Terpsichore smirked, licked the tip of her forefinger and drew a quick tally mark in the air.
Attila barked out a laugh.
"Oh, where is he?" Asuka Soryu growled as she stalked through the green space between the white pavilions that provided partygoers with shelter against the chill air of the New Jersey night. The thin brown sweater that was part of her "Mikuru Asahina" costume wasn't nearly enough to ward off the cold, but her anger and annoyance at her fellow pilot was sufficient to keep her warm despite that, at least for the moment. When she found Shinji again, she'd let him know in no uncertain terms what she thought of his irresponsibility. How could he run away like that? Didn't he want... Didn't he realize he was supposed to be with her? She suppressed a surge of fear and worry at the thought of being alo... unaccompanied. Yes, "unaccompanied" was a much better word.
A flash of crimson caught her eye and derailed her train of thought — a familiar crimson. She pivoted on one loafer-clad heel and made a beeline toward the unknown girl in a red plugsuit — in her plugsuit. Well, an inferior copy of it at least, she realized as she got closer. Whoever she was, she certainly didn't carry it off as well as Asuka did, even allowing for the poor quality of the replica.
Fake!Asuka, as it turned out, was talking to a fake!Ayanami in her own bogus plugsuit, and what was up with that? Who in their right mind would want to dress up as that boring little doll? Asuka's irritation with Shinji and his disappearance generously expanded to include these two unknown girls, and she stalked up to the pair with a scowl. As they turned to face her, Asuka took a moment to give a long head-to-foot scan first to fake!Asuka, then fake!Ayanami, and then fake!Asuka again. Her brow, already furrowed in annoyance thanks to baka-Shinji, deepened when she realized that the girl dressed as her was actually quite pretty.
Not as pretty as her. Definitely not. But pretty, nonetheless. Annoyingly so.
After a long silent moment, fake!Asuka returned her scowl. "What?" she demanded.
"Hmph," Asuka sniffed contemptuously. "First off, that's my look. Second, you are definitely wearing that plugsuit wrong."
Fake!Asuka glanced down at herself with exaggerated calm as fake!Ayanami's eyebrows crawled up into her scraggly blue bangs. "Really? Because from what I've heard, the secret ingredient is glaring at everyone like they personally offended you."
Asuka folded her arms across the front of her middy blouse. "Cute. Did you buy the attitude separately, or does it come free with the cosplay?"
"And here I thought you'd appreciate accuracy." Fake!Asuka smiled sweetly. "Though I guess I should've practiced looking more emotionally unstable."
For a moment they just stared at each other.
Then Asuka sniffed again and turned away. "Feh. The wig's too dark anyway."
As she stalked off, she heard the fake reply, "And the original is shorter than advertised." She clenched her fists and suppressed a snarl. She had more important things to to than argue with an impostor. She had her... a baka to find.
"Was that really necessary?" Sakura asked her sister as they watched Asuka Soryu disappear into the crowd.
Rin shrugged. "I was prepared to be pleasant to her. She was the one that stormed up to us already in a foul mood and got nasty."
As the trio took their places on the stage, Harley stepped up to the center mic for what he hoped really was going to be the last introduction he needed to make. "Ladies and gentlemen," he intoned, "give a big hand for our next band tonight, OnNaGumi!" As applause welled up — not nearly as strongly as for Hokago Tea Time — he hastily backed off and hurried off stage. As he did, the drummer — a bleach-blonde in athletic garb too thin and skimpy for the October night — settled in, and the bassist, a tallish girl with long light brown hair dressed in a sequined jacket, slacks, dress shirt and tie, all of an identical shade of black, dropped a shining silver helmet with a red visor on the drum platform before stepping up to one of the microphones and readying her gleaming mahogany Gibson Thunderbird.
A slender girl with an agressively spiky black pixie-cut, dressed in the same black-and-sequin suit as the bassist, followed. Holding a Les Paul Custom hanging from a strap flat against her hip with one hand, and carrying a gleaming gold helmet in the other, she strode up to the mic Harley'd vacated. She dropped the helmet on the stool nearby, then grabbed the mic in her now free hand. "Thank you!" she said, glancing to where Harley stood off the side of the stage. Looking back out at the audience, she continued, "I'm Akira Wada, and like Mr. Waters said, we are OnNaGumi!"
As someone in the audience shouted "Harley!", Akira released the mic and swung her guitar around in front of her, poised to play. Behind her, the drummer clicked her sticks once followed by tight, rapid hits on hi-hat. The bassist joined in immediately with an aggressive line that laid down the foundations on which Akira began building a guitar feedback swell, leading into a hook as she shouted "Count it down — Three! Two! One!"
The band detonated on the downbeat, and Akira launched into the first verse:
"Pull the wire,
Strike the spark,
Light me up against the dark.
You say 'slow down',
I say 'not yet',
Burning through each safety net.
We're glass triggers
Thin as air.
One more hit and we're everywhere!"[19]
The contrast between OnNaGumi and Hokago Tea Time was all but palpable to the audience — where the previous band had been playful and enthusiastic, almost schoolgirlish in its buoyant charm, OnNaGumi were locked in and serious, almost grim, a band that had rehearsed until that opening hit landed like a punch to the gut. They had the precision of a machine carrying along the singer's unbound fury.
"Okay, here," Kevin said, releasing Garnett's hand. He'd led her out of the party proper back around building 4 and into the parking lot where the portals still loomed at the far end. Up against the brick wall past the first set of backdoor steps, they were surprisingly well-insulated from the sound of the band; it still echoed, but was oddly muffled, reduced enough that they could speak in a normal conversational tone.
That they were also alone was a bonus.
Garnett tugged on the cuffs of her peppermint-striped blouse and said, "Okay, Kevin, what's up?" She thought he looked quite spiffing in the cream jacket, brown trousers and sweater vest of the seventh Doctor, his paler cream hat pushed to hang almost off the back of his head. The contrast between the lighter colors and his brown skin was quite striking.
He searched her eyes for a moment, the light of the lamps illuminating the parking lot occasionally glinting off the lenses of his glasses. "Garnett, what the hell is going on here?"
She frowned. "What do you mean, what's going on? I told you."
"You didn't expect me to believe that, did you?" he demanded.
"Well, yeah," she said. "Why would I lie?"
He threw up his hands and turned on his heel. "Because it was completely crazy? I thought you were having me on."
Garnett parked her fists on her hips. "And why would I do that?"
"I don't know!" He threw up his arms again and turned back to her. "It was so out there it couldn't possibly be true." He drew a deep breath. "But..."
She tilted her head. "But...?"
Kevin swallowed. "But... the teleporting, flying girl. The black circle that took us from early afternoon to full on night in one step. People all around that I recognize from movies and anime..." He shook his head. "Explain it to me."
Garnett managed to avoid rolling her eyes; Kevin was really shaken, which she hadn't expected. She'd honestly thought he'd understand, especially after meeting the Masakis. "I already explained everything to you."
"Explain it again!" he snapped. Then he winced and rubbed a hand down his face. "Sorry. Just... go over it again, please? And this time I'll pay attention and believe you."
Garnett stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. Then she started to tell him everything again, right from the beginning.
"Tell me again," Arisa growled, "why we decided doing gate duty was a good idea?" She shoved a handful of bite-sized chocolate bars (lifted from the bowl stationed at the sidewalk for passing trick-or-treaters) into her mouth and chewed resentfully before swallowing.
Back at the party proper, the band that was playing finished up a song with a hard rock flourish that echoed all the way down Annette Court to their duty station, and out into the park across the street.
Kyouko sighed, not for the first time since they took over at the barricades at 7:30. "Because we thought it might help us get back into Mr. and Mrs. Schroeck's good graces if we acted responsibly and volunteered."
"Grrr." Arisa grabbed another handful of candies from the bowl and began viciously tearing their wrappers off and letting them flutter to the ground, just like she had the previous three times. "And tell me why we thought these dumb costumes were a good idea? I mean, a pair of plainclothes cops from a thirty-five-year-old TV show? Who'd recognize Cagney & Lacey, if they even realized we were in costumes?" She crammed the new handful into her mouth.
"It doesn't matter — it's not like we recognized even a third of anyone else's costumes," Kyouko offered. "And I liked that show when we streamed it," she added after a moment, more softly.
Arisa didn't reply, and together they leaned against the yellow barricade as the band began another song, this one with a strong drum intro.
"Black lace gloves and amplifier hum,
Pretty little disaster on the run,
Lipstick smile like a switchblade shine,
Say we're trouble — maybe that's fine.
Velvet riot! Raise your hands!
Burn the rules but keep the glam!"[20]
"Peggy!"
Peggy looked up to see Minami, her costume's mask in one hand, trotting up to the table. "Minami?" she asked.
The younger woman slid to a halt. "We have a situation," she said in a low, breathless tone.
Peggy nodded and stood. "Excuse me, please," she said to everyone else at the table before letting Minami lead her away. Once they were out of the tent, she asked, "What's up?"
"It's the Natsumes," Minami said.
"Shit. Take me there."
The couple dressed as Gomez and Morticia Addams weren't in the middle of the party traffic, but given the volume at which they were addressing each other, they didn't need to be.
"You deliberately waited until I was distracted and sent him out anyway," "Morticia" snarled.
"I'm letting our son spend one evening feeling like a normal kid, Akiko." It was obvious that "Gomez" was trying to be calm and patient, but that his ability to do so was fraying badly.
"A normal child does not live in an apartment complex full of teenage musicians, magical girls and psychics, Kyusaku!" Akiko wasn't moderating her tone, for all that she was nose-to-nose with her husband.
Kyusaku rubbed his eyes and sighed. "He's with adults. Responsible adults."
"One of those 'responsible adults' thought turning this entire complex into a public Halloween attraction was a good idea."
He gave her a flat look. "You do recall that the Schroecks were told to do this by the Megami?"
"That is not the point!" she hissed.
Kyusaku closed his eyes and tried to compose himself before replying, "No, the point is that Ryunosuke looked at me like he was asking for permission to breathe, Akiko."
"And what was I supposed to do? Smile and wave while he vanished into a crowd, disguised as another boy entirely?"
"Yes! It was trick-or-treating, not a black-ops mission!" Kyusaku had given up on controlling his voice.
"You do not get to mock me because I take his safety seriously!" She punctuated the last few words with finger-pokes to his chest.
"And you don't get to keep wrapping him in cotton wool and armor plate every time the world scares you," he said through gritted teeth.
"The world should scare you! It certainly seems to do a better job than common sense ever has."
"He wanted one night with friends. That's all."
"And he'd've still had one with him — you know Ascot would have stayed behind because he wouldn't want Ryunosuke left alone," Akiko noted smugly. "Which, unless you've forgotten, means someone in this family is at least teaching children loyalty."
"Don't do that," he growled. "Don't turn this into proof you were right."
"Then stop making me sound like a villain for refusing to gamble our son on the judgment of a pair of apartment managers and a holiday invented to encourage strangers to approach children in masks."
"Do you have a problem with how Bob and I run this complex, and how we provide for you and your family, Mrs. Natsume?" Peggy asked coolly as she walked up to the arguing pair. "If you don't trust your son with my husband, then we must have given you some reason. Do we need to contact Funtom and find you a residence where you feel more secure?"
Several minutes later Peggy had, if not talked the Natsumes down, at least shamed them into retreating to their apartment if they absolutely had to continue their argument. This was helped in great part by Akiko's complete mortification at letting her temper lead her into insulting her hosts.
Still, Peggy didn't look forward to telling Bob that the implosion of the Natsumes that they'd both feared had begun. Since their arrival the couple had been subdued and mutually supportive — a state of affairs that both managers knew from their exposure to multiple versions of their story was both uncharacteristic and likely to be temporary. The question had been just how temporary — Bob and Peggy had both agreed that as soon as the shock and numbness from their displacement wore off, Kyusaku and Akiko would inevitably go for each other's throats. And almost guaranteed it would be over Ryunosuke.
Naturally their détente had finally shattered in the middle of the freaking party. They should have expected it.
"Jesus Murphy!" Peggy swore quietly, then sighed. She needed to get away from the crowd for a few minutes to calm down a bit before she unintentionally lashed out at some undeserving innocent who just happened to catch her at the wrong moment. Someplace just a little bit quieter than right in front of the stage tent, where OnNaGumi were belting out their current song.
"Turn it up till the ceiling shakes!
Drown the doubt and the cheap mistakes!
Everybody wants a piece tonight,
Flashbulb halos in the stage-light white.
We disappear inside the sound,
Lost and finally found..."[21]
She glanced around. Everything seemed to be going well for the moment, and Minami was ready to step in if necessary. Peggy nodded once to herself, then retreated from the party to the parking lot behind their apartment as quickly as she could without actually looking like she was rushing somewhere. If necessary she'd slip inside for a few minutes, but for now, fewer people and a little less noise would do wonders for her temper.
Rob stepped though the portal from Ottawa into a (mostly) empty parking lot. Following the sound of live music he walked to the end of the long two-story brick buildings on either side of him to the road which ran down the center of the complex and into what could only be the party. He'd barely reached the corner before he ran into a familiar face — one, he thought, that looked just a little stressed out.
"Rob! It's good to see you again. Welcome to Douglass Gardens."
"Peggy! It's good to see you, too. Sorry I'm late; I didn't run out of candy until a few minutes ago. Did I miss anything interesting?"
"Well, we're on the third band already. And you missed meeting Ryouga Hibiki."
"I thought Ryouga wasn't... oh, right. Eternally Lost Boy. Never mind."
With a grimace Peggy added, "And the Natsumes finally had their blow-up, just a few minutes ago."
"Oh, dear," he replied. "And at the worst possible moment, too."
She nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking."
He lowered his voice and continued, "On a happier note... Don't tell anybody, but I have a little something here for just you and Bob."
"A present? What is it?"
"It's an item given with no expectation of reimbursement, but that's not important right now."
"You've been hanging around Bob for too long."
Rob smiled. "The two of us would never have met if I hadn't. Here you go. I remembered you said you liked these."
He passed a bag to her, which she opened. "Oh, maple leaf cookies! Thank you!"
"You'd better put those away before somebody adds them to the snack selection."
"I'll do that now."
As Peggy made a quick visit to her apartment to drop off the box of cookies that would last her and Bob for at least a month, Rob made his way into the party proper and toward the bar. He had barely touched grass before he almost bumped into one of the other party-goers. "Oh! I'm sorry!"
"Oh, hello! I don't think we've met. Megumi Morisato." She was wearing a black leather jacket over a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
"Rob Donaldson. Pleased to meet you." He was wearing the standard-issue M.I.B. suit and glasses, complete with a faux "blinky thing" in his pocket. They shook hands, and Rob continued, "I've heard your name before, and I must say your mangaka didn't do you justice."
"Why, thank you! Which story are you from?"
"I'm one of the apartment managers. If I'm a character in a story, I don't know which one it is. And I just got here, fashionably late."
"Ah. In that case, you missed my sister-in-law's entrance; they just got home after meeting some of Whirlwind's new clients, but she stole the show." Megumi nodded toward the crowd that was still surrounding her family.
"I'm sure that they made an impression. Unlike me," he added quietly as absolutely nobody else rushed over to say hello to him. But he didn't expect that anybody would have.
"Maybe if you went and got a drink from the table over there, you might bump into somebody you know."
Rob could tell Megumi wasn't particularly interested in speaking with him. Diplomatically, he didn't mention that he'd already spoken with Peggy Schroeck. "That's a good idea; I'll do that. It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Morisato."
She gave him a thumbs-up and answered, "Ayyyy."
As Rob headed for the refreshments, he wondered what else he'd missed because he arrived late.
"You talk like we should stand in line,
Speak soft and never cross the line.
We learned too young to play that part
So now we wear our scars like art.
Your paper rules and plastic crowns
Mean nothing when the lights go down.
We built our sound from sleepless nights
And wired our names into the lights."[22]
"I'm likin' these girls, too," Artie said as Akira laid down a fast, stylish lick that carried the song — a hard rock number heavy on the bass and sharp accents from the guitar that stepped right up to the edge of punk and stared down confrontationally into it. He ran his fingertip along the edge of his now-empty whiskey glass. "Think I might offer them a gig, too."
Attila was leaning back in his chair, nodding his head to the beat. "Yeah, they're good. I'd pay to see'em."
Linda glanced at Terpsichore. "Are they another of your projects?"
The muse laughed. "They're all my projects. Them, all the other bands here tonight, every little garage band anywhere in the world with any idea of vocal harmony... I keep an eye on them all."
"I'm surprised you have time to come to a party, then," Helen said with faint smirk. "You sound like a very busy woman."
Terpsichore grinned at her. "Anything to keep me off Olympus and out of Dad's sight."
"Raise your voice above the static haze!
Let every rooftop carry back the phrase!
We were never born to fade away unseen!
We are the fire deep within the machine!"
Rob had stopped by the bar, where he picked up both a ginger ale (he thought it was too early in the party to start getting drunk, and he didn't want to risk bringing cola anywhere near the next person who he wanted to meet) and the bartender's name (remembering to address Tom by name later was simple courtesy). Then he waited for a chance to make his way through the crowd surrounding the Norns... until the more traditional Japanese displacees politely made way for him. "I guess I really am getting old," he muttered as he took the opportunity to jump the queue rather than argue.
Once he was close enought to speak with the Megami, he bowed deeply to the goddesses and their escort. "Milady Urd, Milady Belldandy, Milord Morisato, it is an honour to finally make your acquaintance. And hello again, Milady Skuld."
"Please, Mr. Donaldson, call me Mrs. Morisato, or just Belldandy."
"Of course, just Belldandy."
"Hey! Treat my sister with..." Skuld finally realized that Rob had made a small joke. "Oh. I guess that's funny. What's with 'milady' and 'milord'?"
"He's using terms from Dumas."[23] Urd turned from Skuld to Rob. "Aren't you?"
"Exactly. You are all worthy of my respect, but you are not Powers that I honour."
Keiichi put his hand behind his head. "I'm nothing special, really. You don't have to call me 'milord'."
"But you are special, Mr. Morisato. You've earned and won the love of a Goddess."
"That just means she's special, because she can fall in love with somebody like me." Belldandy smiled at Keiichi's answer.
The stagelights reflecting off the sheen of sweat on her face, Akira looked out over the applauding crowd with a broad smile. "Thank you, everyone," she said, wrapping her hands around the microphone and pulling it close to her mouth. "Well, that's almost it for us. Once more, we are OnNaGumi! But before we play our last song tonight, let me introduce the other members of the band: On drums, Ayame Yoshida!"
The bleach-blonde grinned her way through a short but energetic drum solo. As the applause briefly swelled, Akira looked back over her shoulder at her, and returned the grin. "Fear her high kick!" The drummer rolled her eyes.
Akira then gestured to her right. "And on bass, the irrepressible Sachi Hayashi!" The bassist barely glanced up at the audience before launching into a brief, noodling riff. Again, the applause grew heavier and louder for a moment, before Akira took the mic in both hands again. "And I'm Akira Wada. We've had a great time tonight, and we hope you have, too." She released the mic and took up her guitar again. "But we can't go without one more number, one that our landlord has decided is our signature song – 'Unbreakable'!"
Ayame hammered out a two-hit combo and Akira launched into an aggressive hook; Sachi's bass answered the guitar in spaced, thunderous hits until all three came together to drive deep into the song proper as Akira sang:
"I rise from the ashes, can't hold me down,
Fists clenched tight, I'll take back this town.
They tried to silence me, but I found my voice,
With fire in my veins, I've made my choice.
I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!"
They were barely into the first chorus and the audience was already chanting along to the beat.
"Every setback's just fuel for my fight,
I'm turning the darkness into pure light.
They throw their doubts, but I wear them proud,
A warrior's heart, I'll shout it out loud!
I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!"[24]
"I'll break these chains, I'll tear down the walls,
With every heartbeat, I'll rise when I fall.
No more limits, I'll shatter the mold,
This fire inside me can't be controlled!"
![[Image: 300px-Ferris_Bueller_as_the_Tenth_Doctor...n_2016.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/w/thumb_handler.php/8/80/Ferris_Bueller_as_the_Tenth_Doctor%2C_Halloween_2016.jpg/300px-Ferris_Bueller_as_the_Tenth_Doctor%2C_Halloween_2016.jpg)
Hi, readers. Ferris Bueller here, cleverly disguised as the Tenth Doctor. Great party, isn't it? I'd offer you a drink, but, well, you know. Those OnNaGumi girls really know how to rock, don't they? Kind of make me want to try to form my own band again. All I'd need would be a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, maybe some backup singers...
Ah, I can think about that later. Right now, though, I'm busy enjoying the party. This is exactly the kind of thing I talk about, and I can't emphasize more: Every time life hands you a moment of joy and delight, you need to grab it with both hands and then live and love it for all it's worth. You know, seize the day. And not just seize it, but hold on tight and squeeze everything you can get out of it. You never know if or when you'll have another chance at it.
And this Halloween party? A once-in-a-lifetime, never-before-never-again thing that's simply begging to be experienced and appreciated to the fullest. So that's what I'm doing, and what I'm making sure Cameron and Sloane are doing, too.
Case in point, the couple who just joined us at our table – Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker. Yeah, from the Back to the Future movies. (Of course, only the first one came out before we were displaced, but we caught the other two since arriving in Refuge.) It's an opportunity we'd never have had in our home universe – and you know what? We're making the most of it. They're fun people to hang with. Sloane and Jennifer hit it off immediately, and if I'm not mistaken they're going to be new best friends. Marty, Cameron and me? Well, we're talking music and bands, and analyzing the groups who are playing the party.
We're having a great time.
Oh, hey, looks like the trick-or-treaters are back from their expedition into the wilds of New Jersey. And they seem to be queueing up for something... I'd keep my eyes open if I were you. Oh, hold on. You're going to have to wait – there's a chapter break coming.
You know what? Just kick back for the moment and enjoy the rest of OnNaGumi's last song tonight, and I'll see you when Chapter 5 comes out.
"I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!
Unbreakable, hear my roar,
I'm rising up, I'm ready for war!
Nothing's gonna hold me back,
I'm on the attack, it's my time to act!
I'm unbreakable!"
If you didn't bother to read the footnotes, we just wanted to let you know that a couple of the original songs that appeared in this chapter can be downloaded from the project's Google Drive:
And there will be more in the next chapter!
"Harley! Hey, Harley!"
Harley Waters, dressed as Gandalf the Grey, paused in his determined march toward the newly-opened food tent and turned to see Bob trotting up to him, with Brent not far behind. "What's up, Bob?"
Bob skidded to a halt on the grass. "Can you do us a favor and introduce the first few bands that are playing tonight? I would do it, but..." He gestured to Brent as the other manager caught up to him. "We're just about to run out to supervise the trick-or-treating expedition."
"Peggy can't do it?" Harley asked, leaning on his staff and tilting his head.
Bob shook his head. "Her dysnomia kicks in big time if she's trying to talk to a crowd."
Behind his powdered beard, Harley frowned minutely. "Dysnomia?"
"She starts having problems finding words," Brent explained, "and ends up spending more time searching for what she's trying to say than actually saying anything." Bob looked over at him with raised eyebrows, and Brent shrugged. "I've known someone who had a similar condition."
Bob nodded at him then turned his attention back to Harley. "It's not a big job and the running order's been posted in the 'green room' tent like I said earlier, as well as on both sides of the stage. All you need to do is just get up and basically say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, thus-and-such-band'."
"And if they try to come on too early, you just hold your staff and shout, 'You shall not pass! Until the other band finishes their set, anyway'," Brent added.
Harley mock-scowled at that, then nodded. "Sure, not a problem. Let me just get a bite first."[1]
"Thanks, Harley," Bob replied with a broad smile. "We didn't exactly schedule this terribly well."
Harley returned the smile. "You're welcome. When do you need me to kick things off?"
"The 33-Stars are the first act and they take the stage at 6:30," Bob said. "So, be at the stage like five minutes before that?"
"That I can do," Harley confirmed.
"Okay." Bob nodded. "We should be back not long after eight, so that means you'll only need to announce the 33-Stars, Hokago Tea Time, and OnNaGumi. Okay?"
"Sure thing," Harley replied.
Although the party had started spooling up as soon as the guests had arrived at six, it really didn't hit its stride until Harley completed his thirty seconds' worth of emcee duties and retreated from the stage to leave it in the hands of the 33-Stars. For the first venue on their debut American tour, it probably could have been a nicer location. It certainly wasn't going to lead to bigger gigs. But it had one big upside – the band members didn't have to hide their history, or the fact that they were all sexaroids.
The quintet of Meg Deckard, Sylvie Stratton, Lou Collins, Anri Astoria, and Nam River hadn't formed after school like so many bands. All five of them had memories of life in a space habitat, and of their dramatic escape. And of themselves shutting down, one by one. When they found themselves awake and aware twenty years in the past, well, there was only one thing to do: form a rock band, in tribute to Priss Asagiri.
They weren't in special costumes, either, just their normal stage outfits – perhaps a little more appropriate for a 1980s band than for 2016, but it was part of their charm. And, like a lot of girl bands, their charm was the ticket to their limited success so far. Plus, being not quite human, they could play a pretty long set... although they'd been informed by the stage manager, Nao Okuda, that there was a long list of bands who planned to play after them.
But they didn't start until a minor disagreement in the Ottawa crowd was cleared up.
"No, Ruiko, you are not recording 33-Stars' entire set ... on that cellphone. Plug a good-quality recorder into their soundboard." Mii held up a large solid-state audio recorder.
"I didn't bring one, Mii-sempai."
"What do you have in the rolling briefcase, then? Paper?" In reply, Ruiko simply looked over the top of the glasses that she was wearing. Mii took the hint. "Of course you brought paper. This isn't supposed to be a Buffy Halloween party."
"Why do you have a recorder?"
"Rob-san asked me to record what he's missing."
Ruiko noticed that there was already a girl with glasses running the soundboard, and she already had a bank of recording devices plugged in. She was wearing just a T-shirt and jeans, but on the chair behind her was a massive ... well, helmet was the only word that seemed to apply, with huge mouse ears and an opaque shield behind its grin-shaped opening. "Hi, I'm Ruiko Saten. Pleased to meet you! Mind if we plug this one in, too?"
"Nao Okuda. Happy to meet you. Sure, plug it in over there, between my deck and Meg Deckard's." She gestured toward a board behind her that already had a nest of patch cords connected to it. "I'll keep an eye on it with the others, you can go enjoy the party."
"Thanks!"
Once all of the recorders were plugged into the soundboard — with the band's permission — 33-Stars led off their set with a frantic, mathematically-precise cover of Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" with Nam on vocals, belting out an almost perfect replica of Jett's angry girlish rasp:
"I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation!
Living in the past, it's a new generation!"[2]
As she deftly manipulated the soundboard, Nao smirked at the lyrics. Livin' in the past, indeed.
Standing guard at the barriers that blocked off the access to Douglass Gardens from Hamilton Street, Nodoka Manabe (dressed in the distinctive blue and white uniform of a certain Gundam pilot) and Yuu Inagawa (in a panda costume, its head removed and perched on the nearby curb) grinned at each other. The sound of the 33-Stars' performance, only slightly muted, carried down Annette Court to make their shift at the barriers less onerous and more entertaining. Yuu began vigorously swinging her head to the powerful rock beat as Nodoka handed out candy to trick-or-treating passers-by — increasing numbers of whom weren't moving on but were lingering to listen to the music, too.
"What's going on?" a teenaged girl in an elaborate "Harley Quinn" costume asked Nodoka.
She grinned. "Our apartment complex is throwing a Halloween party."
"The whole complex?" asked another trick-or-treater from the small group who had walked up with her, dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
Nodoka nodded, smiling. "The whole complex."
"Harley" glanced at her friends. "Any chance we can come in?"
"Sorry, no, it's a private party," Yuu said between head bangs. "Insurance reasons. Sorry!" she repeated.
"Harley" pouted, as did a few of her friends. "Aww."
Sylvie swung her guitar to hang behind her back on its strap, pulled her microphone from its stand, and strode up to the edge of the stage. She favored the audience with a grin, and lifted the mic to her lips. "Nam River, everyone! All right!" she said, an Irish lilt making her speaking voice almost as musical as her singing voice. "How we doin' tonight? You havin' a good time?"
The audience cheered, and the grin transformed into a genuine smile. "So are we!" she said. "Tonight's a lot of firsts for us — first time out of Dublin since we got to Refuge, first real show... first time meetin' so many of ye." She glanced over first her left shoulder then her right at the other members of the 33-Stars. "And yeah — we're havin' a great time. Right, girls?"
A chorus of agreement rose up behind her, punctuated with a quick drum hit by Nam. Sylvie laughed. "Anyway — enough out of me. Let's get to the next one, yeah? It's another cover — we're not on the originals yet — but you might say this one has a special meaning for us." Behind her Lou rolled her eyes, and Anri giggled loudly enough to carry into the audience. "And singin' it," Sylvie continued as she returned the mic to its stand, "the one and only Meg Deckard!"
As Sylvie faded back and took up her guitar again, Meg strolled forward. "Yeah, like Sylvie said, this means somethin' to us." Where Sylvie's Irish accent was a faint lilt, Meg's was strong and up-front. "And if you know anythin' about us, you'll know just what." She whirled about to face the rest of the band and shouted, "One! Two! Three!" then launched into a pounding bass line. Nam struck one of her cymbals and began laying down the beat, followed by Sylvie and Lou leaping into a paired lead.
"Mmmmm, yeah," Meg crooned into the mic as the lead guitars picked up, leaning back as the entire band sang wordlessly to what some in the audience obviously recognized as the song's chorus. Meg shared a wicked grin with the audience and leaned back into the mic to leap right into the first verse: "Tonight," she sang, "I want to give it all to you...
"In the darkness, there's so much I wanna do.
And tonight, I wanna lay it at your feet
'Cause, boy, I was made for you..."[3]
"They're not bad," Helen commented then sipped her drink.
"A little mechanical-sounding," Linda noted. "Technically perfect, or close to it, but not a lot of..." She waved a hand. "Artie, help me here."
"Humanity?" Arthur offered. "It's like they're trying to sound like a MIDI playback."
"Ah," Helen replied, nodding. "Well, they are androids, after all."
Linda and Arthur stared at her. "They're what?"
Peggy nodded. "They're from a science-fiction anime called Bubblegum Crisis."
"They were built by an evil corporation as sapient sex dolls," Helen added, "then they escaped from the space station where they were being held. In the anime most of them died in the escape, but it looks like they all made it to our universe." She took another sip from her drink. "In every way except for their construction they're human, so I expect they'll eventually develop a more natural sound."
"Oh, they will, don't worry," a woman's voice said, and everyone turned to look at its source. Standing a few feet away was a blonde woman in a white off-the-shoulder blouse with large, blousy elbow-length sleeves, a calf-length skirt of pale rose slit on both sides up to her hips, and white knee-high leather boots. She had eyes so blue they almost seemed to glow, and her shoulder-length hair shimmered in the yellow light of the tent. In one hand she held an elaborate-looking mixed drink with a twisty straw and a tiny bamboo umbrella, a hefty slice of pineapple garnishing the rim of the outsized hurricane glass. "I'm Terpsichore. May I join you?"
Peggy blinked. "Oh, sure!" she said after a moment. "Plenty of seats, make yourself comfortable."
"Terpsichore, like the muse?" Linda asked. Helen and Peggy traded knowing glances.
Terpsichore smiled. "Exactly like the muse."
Helen rolled her eyes while Peggy snickered. "That explains why you look like Olivia Newton-John," Helen commented dryly.
As she stepped around the table to pull out one of the folding chairs and seat herself, Terpsichore grinned and winked at her. "It seemed like an appropriate costume, don't you think?"
"Dressing up as yourself isn't much of a costume," Peggy said, laughing.
"Ah, but when I manifest on Earth I'm normally an olive-skinned brunette." She sipped a bit of her drink through the straw, then set the glass down on the tabletop. "The Nordic look is a new one for me."
"Does it really count though if every human guise you take is already basically a costume?" Helen asked with a smirk.
"When you manifest on Earth?" Linda asked, staring puzzled at Terpsichore. "You don't mean..."
Terpsichore nodded. "That's exactly what we mean. I'm the Muse of Dance and Choral Singing, although my remit actually includes pretty much any singing involving more than one voice, like the 33-Stars," she gestured to the stage, "and even solo artists multi-tracking themselves." She smiled again, and this time it felt like that of an old friend. "As a result, I'm very familiar with both of you and your work. In fact, I've whispered in both your ears once or twice."
Peggy chuckled as both Arthur and Linda's eyes widened. "Welcome to our world, where the gods hang out with us, drinking crazy tropical drinks, while we listen to the music of an android band." Looking up and past the others at the table, she added, "Uh-oh, it looks like I'm needed." She rose from her seat. "Enjoy yourselves, I'll be back shortly."
Smiling, the muse raised her glass to toast her departing hostess before taking another long pull on the straw.
"'Oh brave new world that has such people in't'," Arthur murmured as Peggy dashed off. Meanwhile, a black cat hopped up on the stage and sat down near the edge.
Sylvie introduced the next song, "This one is dedicated to everyone out there who wants to ride the fire to freedom – it was worth it!" She glanced back over her shoulder and shouted, "One! Two! Three! Four!" On "four" Nam started a simple downbeat as Sylie and Lou dove into a melodic hook that weaved back and forth between them for a few bars before Sylvie began to sing. She was a whole verse in before Meg's bass and Anri's keys made their appearance in the arrangement.
"And the phoenix flies straight and high
Back to Avalon.
Now I'm on my way back where I belong,
Gonna go there with the sun, back to Avalon..."[4]
As a creditable recreation of Heart echoed down along Annette Court and out onto Hamilton Street, a pair of motorcycles pulled up to the barricades. After being recognized by Nodoka and Yuu, they proceeded from there into the parking lot on the right — the BMW with a sidecar being the more recognizable, but the custom ride drew the attention of those in the know (including Harley Waters and every member of the Okanoue Girls' School Motorcycle Club). The BMW's driver helped his passenger out of the sidecar while the other parked her bike where it wouldn't fall over... and then, as if they had practised, they all took off their helmets at the same time.
The two women were, in a word, beautiful. The sidecar's passenger was, in two words, divinely beautiful. The man who had arrived on the BMW was ... not handsome, but at least not plain.
"I'm sorry that our meeting ran long; the party started without us," Chihiro Fujimi commented. "Do you two need time to get into your costumes before you join the fun?" she asked as she carefully removed a few high-visibility additions to her own outfit, making her look almost the same as Top Gear's "tame racing driver".
"No need," replied the Goddess who waved one hand. After a brief light show, she and her driver were dressed as characters from ReBoot.
"I look ridiculous in tights, 'Dot'," Keiichi Morisato muttered.
"You are my beloved Guardian, and you look wonderful," Belldandy Morisato replied at the same volume, getting him to smile just before Urd and Skuld arrived in their own costumes from Mainframe... barely ahead of the Norns being mobbed by the party-goers who had spotted the bikes' arrival.
Usagi and Mamoru were inseparable, a Jareth and Sarah in their own little world. Shirou and Momoko Takamachi, following their lead, were as close as Masuo and Sazae-san. Kaorin followed Sakaki around like a distant shadow. And Aeka and Ryoko managed to get into a tiff over whose cooking was better. In other words, God was in his heaven, and all was right in the world.
And while some were eating, some were dancing, and some were just listening to the live music, others had already retreated from the chill October evening into one of the party's indoor spaces.
"Do we have Exploding Kittens?" Heather Raven asked, her plague doctor's mask shoved under one arm as she worked her way through a teetering stack of tabletop games in the complex's community center.
"Not at the moment, but I have some C4 if you can supply the cats," Sousuke replied, slightly muffled by the head of his Bonta-kun costume.
"C4?" May Hopkins, dressed an eclectic combination of tattered clothes in browns and pinks with a pink bunny apron over her ragged skirt and a bandage on the bridge of her nose, suddenly popped up between them, eyes large and hungry. "Where?"
"Don't you dare," hissed Luna, who had followed the others in, mostly out of curiosity that she was beginning to worry might be proverbial.[5]
"Don't do that, sergeant," [url=https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/Pam_Holder" title="Pam Holder]Pam Holder[/url] insisted. Her dark cyberpunk-themed costume, which drew attention to her bionic hand and its crab-like maker's mark, seemed at odds with the military demeanor she radiated. "We don't need to re-tell the story of The Loaded Dog. In fact," she added sternly, "you shouldn't be carrying anything like that to begin with. You had very specific orders." She held out her hand. "Give it here."
Reluctantly, Sousuke began withdrawing blocks of plastic explosive he'd had secreted in his costume. When he was done and both Pam's natural and bionic hands were full, she scowled at the sheer quantity. "Kurz," she snapped, "run this back to [url=https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Hangar" title="The Hangar]the Hangar[/url] right now and see that it's properly secured."
"Ma'am. Yes, ma'am." The Captain Kirk lookalike nodded once, relieved her of the C4, and promptly trotted out of the community center. May pouted and gazed longingly as he (and, more importantly to her, the explosives) disappeared out the door.
"Oh, dear. What's that doing here?" a soprano voice said from behind them, startling the group. A slender feminine arm darted past them and dove deep into the heart of the pile of games. "Please excuse me." Belldandy — instantly recognizable despite the green skin and short green-black hairstyle of Dot Matrix from Reboot — quickly withdrew the copy of Jumanji she found there without disturbing the unstable mound, then turned and dashed through the wall mirror overlooking the sectional sofa. A moment later she returned, empty-handed and smiling brilliantly at the small group as she sailed majestically past them and out to the rest of the party.
"Well," Heather said after a moment. "That was a close thing."
Pam glanced at her. "The game or the C4?"
"Yes," Heather replied.
"Where in the world am I now?" Ryouga Hibiki complained, as was his wont.
He went almost unheard over the hubbub of discussions at the nearby party. But only almost.
"Ryouga-kun? Is that you? I thought you weren't coming to the party!"
He looked around to see a girl approach him. What was her name, again? Ui? No, that was her sister. "Yui? What are you doing in Innsmouth?"
Yui was in a long blue tunic and white leggings quite unlike anything he had seen her in before. A hat — or was it a hood? — with two mirrored lenses above its front edge sat atop her head, and on her chest was a white and red logo that looked a little like a winged target. "Innsmouth? We aren't in Innsmouth, Ryouga-kun. We aren't even in New England. We're at my home in New Jersey. Did you forget to turn on your GPS again?"
"No, the battery's charge ran out."
"That happens a lot to you. Why did you want to go to Innsmouth?"
"I was getting hungry and thought I'd catch some fish for dinner."
"Oh, you don't need to catch fish for something to eat today. Come join the party!" And the eternally happy girl took the eternally lost boy by the hand and dragged him to the tables where all of the potluck dishes were spread out. "Mugi-chan! Sumire-chan! Look who's here!"
The two girls, who were wearing maids' uniforms while tending to the buffet, looked over and smiled. The younger girl said, "Hibiki-san! We thought you weren't coming to the party."
He laughed nervously, unused to having so much attention being paid to him by pretty girls who were close to his age. "Well, it looks like I found my way here anyway."
By that point, Ryouga's presence had been noticed by one of the residence managers. Peggy walked over, stopping only long enough to pick up a few alcohol wipes from the end of the table. "Ryouga! It's good to see you again. Yui, Tsumugi, make sure Ryouga doesn't leave until Sumire and I pack a meal for him."
"I'm right here, you know."
"For now," Sumire replied, "but I've noticed you have a habit of disappearing when nobody's looking at you."
"So Yui and I are going to look at you!" Mugi added.
"I like what I see when I look at you," Sumire said with a smile.
And that made Ryouga blush. "But... You do know I'm still hoping my girlfriend Akari will end up coming to this world, right?"
"That doesn't mean I can't look..."
"Sumire," Peggy said sternly from beside her, "stop teasing Ryouga and start helping me with this lunch box."
"Yes, Mrs. Schroeck." Sumire sighed as she turned her attention back to work; she hadn't lied when she said she liked what she saw, but she knew nothing could ever happen between her and somebody who didn't know whether he'd be coming home every evening.
"And you do know you don't have to call me 'Mrs. Schroeck'."
"Of course I do!"
Yui did what she was told and ignored them. Instead, she asked, "So what have you been doing since the last time I saw you, Ryouga-kun?"
"Oh, wandering around, defending the helpless, the usual. What's been keeping you busy?"
"Schoolwork, playing music, writing music – oh, I actually wrote an entire song in English! We're going to play it for everybody tonight. I hope you can stay and hear it."
"I hope so, too," he sighed, knowing that his sense of misdirection would probably lead him away from the party before Yui was on stage.
"We're making lots of recordings of the music! I'll make sure you get a copy."
"Oh, you don't have to do that..."
"I insist!" she replied while using her free hand to sneak a cookie from the buffet. "I like it when people listen to my music!"
Asahi Sakurai, who was putting together her own dinner (and being careful not to spill anything on her rabbit costume's fake-fur body stocking), couldn't help but overhear Yui's comment. But she knew better than to distract her from Ryouga if the boy was to have any chance of staying put long enough to finish a conversation. The singing-idol seiyuu, famous in a world that wasn't Refuge, made a mental note to mention Bandcamp, SoundCloud and Spotify to Hokago Tea Time after the party was over.
Then Ryouga was surprised to see Ranma in line for the potluck. He almost said something before remembering that it was a costume party, and let the cosplayer come to him.
"That's a great Hibiki Ryouga outfit," the girl said as she helped herself to some chicken fingers. "Hi, I'm Hikaru Shidou."
"I actually am Hibiki Ryouga," he replied. "I didn't expect to be here." In a quieter tone, he added, "I don't expect to be a lot of places."
"I never expected to be in another world," Hikaru replied, misunderstanding his comment, "but this is the second time I've been in a world that isn't my home."
"Why did you choose to dress like the only person who can give me a fair fight?"
"There's a fanfic starring the two of us. I've read it, well, what there is of it; Libby Thomas never finished writing it. And I was reading it when we had to choose who we'd dress up as for this party, so I thought, I've already got the hair," she reached around the back of her head to bring her red pigtail forward, "why not? Oh, hang on, I should fix that."
Ryouga and Yui watched as Hikaru reached under the lasagna tray and re-lit the alcohol burner that was under it... using only her fingertip and her elemental power.
Then Hikaru turned to Yui. "Have you seen Peggy anywhere? I should tell her who went trick-or-treating."
"I'm right here," Peggy said as she and Sumire re-joined the small group. Turning to Ryouga, she offered him a plastic box with a selection of potluck items that didn't need to be kept warm or cold, along with a set of single-use cutlery and the alcohol wipes that she'd grabbed earlier. "Ryouga, this is for you. If you do happen to wander off, you can at least share our dinner."
"Thank you, Pei-gi-san," Ryouga said as he accepted the packed meal with a slight bow.
"You still haven't lost your accent?" Yui asked teasingly.
"I lose my way often enough. I don't want to lose anything else!" But Ryouga was smiling when he said that. "Seriously, sometimes I get some funny looks from people in New England if I don't let them know that I'm not from that area, so I have to keep a bit of an accent. I blame Ranma."
"You blame Ranma for everything."
"I have to blame Ranma. To quote the Dirty Pair, it's not my fault!"
Just then, the person who was next in line, dressed in a white kimono with a pale green obi and lavender ribbons, said, "Excuse me, but can I get at that lasagna? I have to eat soon; both of my bands are due on stage soon."
Yui turned to her and said, "Oh, we're sorry, Azu-nyan! Here, eat, fast."[6]
Ryouga got out of everyone else's way and found a quiet spot where he could put the meal into his backpack. Then he wondered why he couldn't hear the party any more. He looked around to discover he couldn't see the party any more, either.
"Where in the world am I now?" Ryouga Hibiki complained again, as was his wont.
"Azu-nyan's got a point, Sumire-chan," Yui noted. "If I'm going to eat anything before we go on, I'd best do it now."
Sumire smiled and pushed a plate already filled with an assortment of samples from the potluck into her hands. "No worries, Yui. This should see you through 'til your set's done." She blinked and glanced around. "Oh no... reckon we've lost Ryouga again."
"Mmph," Yui noted around the plastic fork already in her mouth, then swallowed. "I was hoping he could enjoy more of the party." She shared a knowing smile with Sumire. "You can catch him the next time he comes around."
Sumire blushed.
"Anri Astoria, everyone!" Sylvie declared as the last notes of "Back to Avalon" faded away and applause washed over the stage. "All right, that's nearly it for us tonight — gotta let the other bands have a go, yeah? So... last one. This one's an old favorite of mine. I'm dedicatin' it to a friend who didn't make it to Refuge." She paused as more applause broke out at the dedication. "So good night, everyone, and have a safe night everyone... 'cause... Tonight is a Hurricane!"
Sylvie slashed out the opening riff without warning, sharp and electric, and the rest of the band snapped into place around it — Lou's rhythm guitar building on and reinforcing the melody, Nam's drums kicking in like a piston-driven heartbeat, Meg's bass locking tight beneath, Anri's keyboards spilling a wash of neon-bright sound that rolled over the audience and filled the tent. They were barely a bar in when cheers broke out in the audience, lasting long enough to overlap with first chorus of wordless "aaaah"s, and only fading away when the girls sang "Did you love?" and Sylvie launched into the first verse.
"Arashi no highway hashiritsuzuketa
Togireta yume no yukue sagashite
Nigai maboroshi subete no uso o
Senaka de hajikitobashite."[7]
As some of the audience began singing along with the Japanese lyrics, Linda leaned across the table. "Sounds a bit like Jim Steinman," she said.
"It does at that," Arthur agreed after a moment.
Terpsichore chuckled. "That's no accident," she declared knowingly. "The songwriters were influenced by Steinman's songs in the movie Streets of Fire."
"And only by Steinman's songs?" Helen asked with a faint smirk.
The muse returned the smirk. "Ask me no questions and I'll give you no divine revelations."
In the middle of Annette Court, halfway between the green party spaces and far enough from the stage to hear each other easily, a girl wearing a long coat over a frumpy suit and pulling a lawyer's briefcase was introducing herself to a boy just a couple years older than her, who was wearing a cheap Japanese-style school uniform. "Hi, I'm Ruiko Saten. Happy to meet you."
"Er... I'm Shinji Ikari. Hello."
"From Evangelion? Cool. Who are you supposed to be?"
"Kyon from Haruhi Suzumiya."
"Never heard of him."
"Who are you supposed to be?"
"Yomiko Readman from Read or Die."
"Never heard of her."
It took them three minutes to explain to each other who they were dressed as... which gave Asuka enough time to notice that Shinji was paying attention to another girl. But they disappeared into the food tent before she could make her way to them and reclaim him from her.
"Yui! Ui!"
Yui looked up from her plate to see a near mirror image of herself trotting across the tent, complete with a guitar slung over her back, dragging a taller redhead in a tight red blouse, a short grey plaid skirt and black knee boots. "Hane!" she squealed, leaping out of her seat. Next to her, resplendent in her white and pink magical girl's costume complete with wings and pink wig, Ui rose with a smile and followed at a more sedate pace. Azusa, taking care to avoid getting food on her kimono, took a moment more to get up and join them.
Hane and Yui collided between tables in a hug that Ui and Azusa quickly joined. The redhead hung back, looking vaguely embarrassed as the four exchanged high-pitched greetings.
"Oh!" Hane exclaimed once the hug broke and they had all stepped back slightly from each other. "I want you to meet Molly!" She turned to the redhead. "Molly, this is Yui Hirasawa..."
"Hi!" Yui smiled broadly.
"...and her sister, Ui," Hane added.
"It's nice to meet you, Molly," Ui said, less energetically but smiling as widely as her sister.
"And this is Azu-nyan," Hane added with a little grin.
Azusa rolled her eyes. Bad enough that Yui-sempai did it, now other people are calling her that. She sighed, then smiled. "Hi, I'm Azusa Nakano."
Hane gestured at the redhead. "Molly's dad Tom is our local liaison. Our place is too small to have a manager running it, Hayakawa does what little needs to be done, but Tom lives around the corner from us and does all the maintenance stuff for our house."
"Hi," Molly finally said, returning their smiles. "Hane's told me a lot about all of you... and she had me watch your anime."
Yui giggled. "That's still kind of strange to me, that we have one." Ui gave an amused sniff.
Azusa, meanwhile, was peering at Hane. "Hane-chan, are you... dressed as Yui-sempai?"
"Aw, you guessed!" Hane said, but her grin and her tone belied her apparent disappointment. "Of course I am!" She spun around to reveal the guitar on her back was plastic, painted to look like Gitah. "I found this toy guitar in a thrift shop and realized I could build an entire costume around it. I even have barrettes just like Yui's!" She ran her fingertips along her bangs on the right side of her face where two golden hair clips held back her brown locks instead of her usual wing-shaped barrettes. "And the rest of the club dressed like the rest of you guys, too!" She grinned. "We got the idea from what Jun-chan said about our show copying yours, back when we met you."
"Wow," Yui breathed. "Who're you dressed as, Molly-chan?"
Molly twisted back and forth, making her skirt flare a little. "Cady Heron. From the movie Mean Girls?" she added when Yui looked blank.
"We haven't seen that one yet," Azusa hastily interjected.
"Why don't you two join us while we finish eating?" Ui asked, waving toward the table where they'd been sitting. "Hokago Tea Time goes on stage in ten minutes or so, and Yui and Azusa need something in their bellies before then."
Hane and Molly traded smiles. "Sure!" they said in unison.
Helen, Linda, Terpsichore and Arthur were chatting while listening to the 33-Stars finish up their set when a middle-aged man in a boldly checked yellow zoot-styled suit, a black fedora and tinted glasses walked up to the table. He was on the short side of average height, and held a full rocks glass of what appeared to be whiskey in his left hand. "Mind if I join you folks? Missus Schroeck sent me this way." He held out his free hand. "Artie Duncan."
As the 33-Stars wound up their final song, greetings were exchanged. "The Artie Duncan? Owner of Artie's Artery?" Arthur asked as they took their seats again. "The man who single-handedly saved the live music scene in the Northeast?"
"Well, I don' know about the Northeast," Duncan replied amiably, "but I definitely kept it alive in New Brunswick. Well, sorta..."
"Sort of?" Linda asked.
"Ah, well, y'see, I'm one a' them displacees, only whatever stuck me inta this world gave me a whole package. I showed up wit' my club, an' a twenny-year history a' runnin' it in this universe." He shrugged. "Me an' the Banzai Institute an' a few other folks — don' ask me why or how, but we lucked out." He took a long sip of his whiskey. "Sure it ain't fair, but if life was fair, we wouldn't be in Refuge to begin with, now would we?" He set the glass back down on the table and nodded at the stage, where the 33-Stars had begun breaking down their kit. "So when there's a band with displacees in it an' they're halfway decent, I give'em gigs so they get known and maybe start doin' good for themselves. May not be much, but it's what I can do ta help," he added. "Me an' Gene over at th' Roadhouse both."
The tall, heavy-set fellow in the Gandalf costume reappeared on the stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, the 33-Stars!" The party-goers around them burst into applause, and they joined in.
"Me and Helen caught a few shows at the Artery back in the 90s," Attila said, shaking his head, once the clapping had faded away. "And now you say it wasn't really there. Fuckin' weird."
"Quite," Helen agreed.
"Tell me about it," Duncan replied. "If I think hard about it, I can remember stuff I know I didn't do 'cause I wasn't here to do it. Welsper — he's my contact at Funtom — tells me it's just part a' how Refuge goes about fittin' us displacees in once we're here." He shrugged. "Anyways, we're holdin' our own Halloween bash at the Artery, but I figgered I'd drop by for an hour or so, be neighborly while I check out some a' the bands. Been keepin' an eye on'em since I first found out about'em."
He gestured with his whiskey at the departing 33-Stars. "Them girls, good technical chops but they need seasonin'."
"It is one of their first performances," Terpsichore said, and held out her hand to Duncan. "Terpsichore," she added as he shook it.
"Th' muse?" he asked, and she smiled.
"One and the same," she confirmed. "As I was saying before you joined us, they'll improve."
Yui glanced over where Ui and Azusa were chatting with Molly. "Hane-chan... make sure you and Molly are up front near the stage while we play, okay?"
"Sure, I was going to, anyway." Hane's brow furrowed. "Why?"
Yui shot her a sly grin. "I need to check with the others, but once Molly told us her boyfriend's name..."
Hane's puzzlement persisted for another moment, and then enlightenment lit her face. "Oh, Yui, you are bad."
Several minutes later, the members of the band had taken their places, while (as requested) Molly, Hane and the other members of the Okanoue Girls' School Motorcycle Club had gathered on the dance floor right in front. At Yui's nod, Harley stepped back to the microphone stand located at center stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, our second band tonight," he announced, his amplified tenor voice stilling the chatter which had begun between sets, "Hokago Tea Time!"
As a wave of applause broke, he retreated down the stairs off stage right as Yui stepped up to the microphone. "Just one more," he muttered to himself.
"Hello, fellow displacees!" Yui, the hood of her Nausicaä costume thrown back over her shoulders, squealed into the microphone; the high pitch of her voice threatened explosive feedback in the amplifiers. "We are Hokago Tea Time, and we are here to rock! We've got a mix of songs for you tonight — some of our originals and a few covers to spice things up, selected for maximum fun. But right now... right now it's time..."
She launched into a riff familiar to everyone in the audience who'd ever seen an episode of K-On! in their home universe.
"Right now it's Fluffy Time!" She stepped back from the microphone, and as the audience began to clap to the beat, Ritsu (in a black tanktop and cargo pants and a yellow scarf) picked it up. Mio (with the cowl of her Spider-Man costume off and tucked into her waistband) leapt in with her bass, followed by Mugi wailing away on her keyboards with their "60s rock organ" setting dialed up to 11. (She had had enough time to change out of her maid's uniform and into an elaborate blue and gold gown from 17th Century France whose skirt was as wide as her keyboards.) A bar later Azusa (the sleeves of her white kimono tied back out of the way) dropped into place, underlying and reinforcing Yui. Smiling, Yui leaned back to the mic and started singing — not in Japanese, but in English:
"When I see your face, I feel my heartbeat go boom-boom.
Like a marshmallow, my thoughts just float around the room
Working hard each day"
Mio leaned into her microphone and echoed, "Working hard each day."
"And I watch you near..."
"And I watch you near," Mio echoed again; Yui glanced her way, smiling broadly as she nodded.
"...Still you never notice me at all, it seems
I wish in my dreams..."
"I wish in my dreams..."
"...We could be much closer than it feels to be.
Ah, dear God, please hear my call —
Give me one small Dream Time, that is all!
With my bunny in my arms, I close my eyes and say:
'Goodnight, it's okay'...
Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!" Mio sang in counterpoint.)
"Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!")
"Fluffy time!" ("Fluffy fluffy time!")[8]
Linda didn't recognize the song, but it was obvious that many in the audience did, cheering as soon as the melody began. She could even hear a few nearby singing along in what she thought was Japanese. The tune was catchy, with an odd bubblegum pop-punk feel too it, and Linda found herself bobbing her head to the beat for a few moments before saying, "They're not bad. And that has to be the perkiest song I've ever heard about the heartbreak of unrequited love."
Arthur smiled. "The drummer needs a little work, but they've got potential."
Duncan leaned back in his seat and took a sip from his glass. "Yeah. They're one a' the groups I've been watchin' close-like. They're almost ready to get a gig at the Artery." He set his glass down again. "Openin' act, not headliners, not yet. But still..."
Helen snorted. "I'm not surprised. Their animated counterparts are still among the most popular bands in Japan, even though it's been a few years since their show ended."
"Thank you," Terpsichore said with a grin. "I've put in quite a bit of work on those girls — both sets of them," she added.
Helen raised an eyebrow, and then lifted her drink in salute. Terpsichore inclined her head, the grin morphing into a smirk, and returned the gesture with her own drink.
Meanwhile, in the shadow of some bushes at the base of building 4, safely out of the way of human foot traffic, two moon cats briefly conferred.
"What's wrong, Luna?" Artemis asked.
"It's that Sakaki girl from Los Angeles. She makes me uncomfortable for some reason."
"You, too? I thought I was imagining it."
"Her and that Sagara fellow." Luna shuddered. "If he tries putting any C4 on me, I'm clawing his eyes out."
Bill Preston (dressed as Ted Logan) and Ted Logan (dressed as Bill Preston) wandered aimlessly through the party space. (They weren't the only pair of party-goers to do an outfit-swap as their costumes, but they were certainly the least obvious or impressive.) Their girlfriends — the princesses Elizabeth and Joanna of York, daughters of King Edward IV of England, elaborately done up as the Wilson sisters of Heart circa 1985 — had shooed them off just before joining one of the many groups of teenage girls enthusiastically turning fellow displacees only known to each other online or by reputation into in-person friends.
"We'll be fine," Joanna had assured Bill with a kiss.
"Go enjoy yourselves," Elizabeth had instructed Ted. "We'll catch up with you later."
So now, red cups of soda in hand, the pair strolled through the party, admiring the costumes, the pretty girls, and the pretty girls in costumes. "Ted, my friend," Bill said with a grin, "this is a most excellent party, with babes aplenty."
"Indeed, Bill," Ted replied with a bobbing nod. "While we are of course faithful to our bodacious royal girlfriends, we can still enjoy the visions of beauty surrounding us on all sides."
"Just as long as you aren't being creepy about it," a Chinese girl in a skimpy black leather outfit commented in passing.
The pair grinned widely at each other. "Excellent!" they chorused.
Yui looked out over the audience. Just as she'd requested, Hane and Molly were down front. Off to one side, Mr. Duncan was sitting with Bob and Peggy's friends Helen and Attila and a few more people she didn't recognize. And that black cat — it wasn't Luna, because Luna's fur was kinda blue-black and this cat was a solid night-black, and it didn't have the crescent on its face — it was still sitting right in front of the stage-right speaker stack. She was sure it'd been waving its tail to the beat during "Fuwa Fuwa Time". Maybe it was another displacee like the Mau? She'd have to ask. Later. She leaned in to her microphone. "This next song is something new that Mugi-chan and I wrote since we came to New Jersey. Someone who's listened to a lot of our songs once said that I tend to write about the things I love — my guitar, my sister, my friends... Food..."[9] She grinned. "They weren't wrong."
The audience laughed and a few applauded. Yui's grin grew wider and she inclined her head toward the ones clapping. "So of course the first song we've written since coming to Somerset is about my new favorite treat! I call it 'Blend-in!'"
Ritsu gave the group the beat: "One-two-three-four!", then Yui launched into a short but distinctive hook that led into the song proper, and leaned into the mike again.
"Chocolate or vanilla,
Strawberry's good too,
But it's what goes inside it
That makes it good, so true,
Can't have one too often
Or my waistline will balloon,
Gonna get a blend-in!
"Fill it up with fresh fruit
Or pick a nut or two,
If I'm really hungry
Get candies in there too,
To really fill my stomach
Add a milkshake, too,
Gonna get a blend-in!"
The tune was bouncy, the arrangement simple and the lyrics rapidfire. It had the same kind of energy as "Fuwa Fuwa Time" while not sounding like it at all, and within a few bars the audience was clapping along to the beat, and a few were energetically dancing. Others turned to each other, asking whether they had any idea what a "blend-in" was, only to get a hint of an answer as the band drove into the song's bridge:
"Chocolate and vanilla, oreos and cream,
French vanilla, butter brickle, each one is a dream.
Butter pecan, cappuccino, coffee, maple nut,
Cups and sundaes, cones and waffles are delicious but
There's something that they make there that simply nothing beats
That unique mix of ice cream and a million different treats!
Gonna get a blend-in!"
Up on the stage, Yui repeated the opening hook, a brief respite before the last verse.
"Peaches or blueberries
'Cause fruit is good for you,
Lots of different cookies
Give me something to chew,
Mixing them together
Is what makes it good,
Gonna get a blend-in!"
The other members of the band echoed the line.
"Gonna get a blend-in! (Gonna get a blend-in!)
Gonna get a blend-in (Gonna get a blend-in!)
With pineapple on top!
With pineapple on top!"[10]
Yui and Azusa traded bars back and forth then abruptly brought it all to a close. As the audience broke out in applause and scattered cheers, Yui smiled broadly. "Yeah, it's a little short. But we're working on a bigger arrangement. Just wait until the next party!"
"You'd think after a month and a half I'd be used to havin' real food all th' time," Mal mused, pushing the wide-brimmed brown hat of his costume up and back away from his forehead, "then I see a spread like this an' I don't rightly know where to start." He waved at the table full of potluck dishes in front of them, each giving off its own different and enticing scent. Music from one of the bands playing the party drifted into the tent, barely audible over the conversations of the dozens of people around them.
![[Image: 300px-Mal_and_Inara_Halloween.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/File:Mal_and_Inara_Halloween.jpg)
Inara nodded. "The people of Earth have no idea how wealthy they are." She smiled faintly as she watched him load his paper plate with a selection of meats; her own was an assortment of fruits and non-root vegetables plus grilled slices of tofu covered with a tangy red sauce. "It will be hard to go back to the diet we had back... home."
"Makes a man mighty tempted not to leave," Mal noted as he topped his plate with a trio of meatballs on a skewer dripping a clear, sweet-smelling orange-hued sauce. "I tell you, 'Nara, if we had Serenity here with us, I wouldn't go back if you paid me." He straightened up and turned to look into her eyes. "Compared t' the 'Verse, this is paradise. You and the Serenity — that's all I'd need to be a happy man here for the rest of my life."
"Flatterer," she said, matching the intensity of his gaze with her own. "Let's find a table."
Not far away from them, Shinji stared at the first table in the tent, unsure of where to start. "That's the number one thing that's so different about Refuge — the food," he said to his companion. He gestured with the stiff cardboard plate in his hand at the entire line of tables running along the length of the tent wall. They didn't sag or groan, although given how heavily laden they were with potluck contributions, he really felt that they should.
Ruiko turned and raised an eyebrow at him over her costume glasses. "Really?" She'd parked her rolling briefcase at one of the round tables near the tent entrance and had two hands free with which to fill her own plate.
He nodded. "Uh-huh. Second Impact didn't just wipe out half of humanity — it also wiped out something like three quarters of all the land used for growing food. What didn't end up permanently underwater got contaminated or messed up in other ways." He shook his head. "A lot of people starved before the U.N. got farming all over the world going again. Even then, there was a lot less food, and fewer kinds of food, to go around. Something like this?" He waved again at the tables. "You couldn't get half the food here, and even what you could... well, this'd be a really expensive party. A rich man's party."
"Wow," Ruiko said. "So, what, like you've never had..." She glanced along the table and chose a dish at random. "Steak nachos?"
Shinji laughed. "Do you know how much land it takes to raise cattle? The U.N. would rather see it used to grow corn or potatoes or soybeans. Feeds a lot more people that way." He grew pensive. "Beef is so expensive and hard to get, Misato once promised us a steak dinner as a reward for a successful mission."
"Were you successful?" she asked.
He nodded. "But Rei doesn't eat meat, so we just had ramen."
"Well, in that case," Ruiko declared, determination flaring in her eyes, "let me reward you instead, with some of my favorites. Starting with the nachos!"
"What are you doing?" a girl's voice, shrill and angry, came from behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruiko saw Shinji suddenly shrink in on himself.
"Just getting something to eat, Asuka," he said in a subdued tone. He turned around, his plate still empty; Ruiko turned with him to see a redhead in a brown sweater over an aqua and white seifuku, her fists planted on her hips and scowling at Shinji. She flicked her eyes over to Ruiko.
"Who's this?" she demanded.
Ruiko sighed mentally; meeting Asuka Soryu had not been on her list of things to do tonight, but she might as well try to make the best of it. She held out her hand. "Ruiko Saten, from Blossom Apartments in Ottawa. Hi!"
Asuka sniffed dismissively and turned her basilisk stare back to Shinji, who was actually cringing. "I knew you were a pervert, baka, but I didn't think you were into little girls."
"It's not like that, Asuka," Shinji protested as Ruiko frowned and surreptitiously tugged her trench coat tightly around herself to emphasize her precocious figure.
"We were talking about how Refuge has more food and more types of food," Ruiko forged ahead gamely. "He was telling me how your world's been coping with food shortages." She gave both fourteen-year-olds a deliberate once-over; they were only a few centimeters taller than she was, and she was barely twelve. "Shinji will probably get taller because of better nutrition here. You, too."
If anything, that annoyed Asuka more. "Baka Shinji's already having a growth spurt. He used to be shorter than me, now we're the same height," she growled. "He's grown three centimeters while I only grew one."
"See?" Ruiko said brightly. "It's having an effect already."
Back on the stage, Mio leaned in to her microphone. "So... Azusa found the next song on YouTube, and she and Yui talked me into doing it tonight. It was originally in, um... Swedish?" She glanced over at the other two guitarists.
Azusa nodded. "Yeah, Swedish," she said, leaning back into her mic.
"Right, Swedish," Mio said. "But it turns out there's an English version, which since I don't speak or sing Swedish, I'm going to do." She mock-glared at her bandmates. "Under protest!"[11]
Laughter rippled through the audience again. "So anyway," she continuted, the glare evaporating, "it seems doing videos of characters from all kinds of stories and shows dancing to this song are real popular among Refuge's fans, and that's why our guitarists want me to sing it, so they can see all of you dancing to it."
"Don't worry, everyone," Yui said with a grin, "just watch Azu-nyan and me. It's a really simple dance."
Mio rolled her eyes, but was grinning. "It's a really silly dance."
"Your point, Mio?" Mugi asked from behind her keyboard.
The bassist shook her head with a sigh. "Just warning everyone, Mugi." She took up her guitar, her right hand on the neck, and her right hovering over the bridge, then announced with a broad smile, "Okay, everyone, it's time for 'Caramelldansen'!"
Some twenty minutes after they had relieved Nodoka and Yuu of their "gate guard" duties, Ayame Yoshida (shivering in her blue shorts and green tank top, and regretting dressing as Ayane Mitsui) and Fuu Hououji (somewhat warmer, dressed as Haru "Noir" Okumura in black tights, violet puffy shorts, and a black corset vest over a pink blouse, the entire ensemble topped by a black mask and cavalier's hat) watched with undisguised curiosity as a massive black stretch limousine appeared on Hamilton Street only to slow down, turn into Annette Court and come to a halt at the traffic barriers.
Fuu stepped up as the driver's window rolled smoothly down with a quiet whir. "Can I help you?" she asked.
At the wheel was slender, pale-skinned man with amber eyes and blue-black hair that was cut short except two locks which hung to either side of his face. "Good evening, ladies," he said with a faint smile. "Lord Phantomhive, here to attend the party."
Ayame made a wordless sound of surprise as Fuu nodded. "Of course. Just a moment, Mr. Michaelis."
He smiled again. "Sebastian, please."
Fuu returned the smile. "Of course, Mister Sebastian. Welcome to the party, both of you."
"Thank you," he replied, inclining his head in lieu of a bow.
A minute later, the limousine proceeded on to the parking lot as the two young women moved the barrier back into place.
"Dance to the beat, wave your hands together.
Come feel the heat forever and forever.
Listen and learn, it is time for prancing.
Now we are here with Caramell dancing."[12]
The song ended abruptly with a soft chord struck by Mugi on her keyboard; the members of the audience who had been dancing took a moment more to stop. The last was a slender, pretty girl with long brown hair wearing a gray tanktop, black jeans and boots; a massive smile spanned her face, which was made up to look like half its skin had had been torn off to reveal a shining metal skull beneath. Up on the stage, Yui and Azusa lowered their hands from their "rabbit ears" positions, grinned at each other, and began to laugh, followed by Ritsu and Mugi. Mio mock-scowled at them before giving in and smiling as well. Yui reached over to where she had set Gitah on its stand, grabbed the guitar, and turned back to the audience. As she slid back under Gitah's strap, she stepped over to her mic. "That was fun! Thanks for dancing along with us! And watching everyone dance was just like watching one of those videos on YouTube!"
"I bet by tomorrow it's going to be one of those videos on YouTube!" Ritsu called from behind the drums, and both the band and the audience laughed.
Peggy was in the food tent, still working to set out all the potluck dishes, when a chorus of gasps echoed through the tent behind her. As she straightened up from where she had bent over a chafing tray to light the cans of Sterno beneath it, she saw that Sumire had frozen in place on the other side of the table, staring at something behind Peggy.
"What is it?" Peggy asked, and when Sumire didn't answer, she shrugged mentally and turned around.
![[Image: 300px-Sebastian_and_Ciel%2C_Halloween_2016.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/File:Sebastian_and_Ciel,_Halloween_2016.jpg)
Her breath caught momentarily at the sight of the tall figure with huge bat-like wings, massive ram's horns curling through his wild black hair, and burning fuschia eyes — wearing a butler's uniform and carrying a stack of aluminum catering trays. "Good evening, Mrs. Schroeck," he said amiably. "Where should I place these?"
She shook herself; she recognized that voice. "M-mister Michaelis!" she managed to stammer, before swallowing. As she did, she spied the young man casually strolling in behind him, dressed in an elaborately detailed, film-accurate (and clearly very expensive) "Jack Sparrow" costume.
"Sebastian, please," the demonic figure said with a smile that she supposed was intended to be reassuring.
Peggy nodded. "Sebastian, then." She nodded to the young man, who had come up alongside him. "And Lord Phantomhive?" she asked.
"Indeed," the young man said with a slight smirk and the faintest hint of a bow.
"Welcome, and thank you for coming," Peggy said. "Oh, and just put them down there on the end of the table," she said, gesturing. "We'll get them sorted out in a minute."
"As you wish," Sebastian said with a tiny bow of his own, before stepping over to the place she'd indicated.
Peggy glanced back over her shoulder. "Sumire, please help Sebastian with those trays."
The Australian girl started. "Oh, yes, of course," she said, and trotted around the back of the table to help the butler.
Turning back to the smirking pirate, Peggy asked, "Will you and Sebastian be needing rooms for the night, Lord Phantomhive?"
He shook his head, a genuinely regretful expression replacing the smirk. "Sadly, no. I'm afraid this is little more than a token appearance, as Sebastian and I must leave early. We each have obligations early tomorrow that preclude us staying for the whole party."
"I'm sorry to hear that," she replied. "So many of us only know you – either of you – by reputation; it would have been nice to get to know you as actual people."
"Well." He smiled, and this time it was warmer, not a smirk at all. "We shall see what we can do in the time we have."
As Minami served herself a slice of lasagna from the buffet, a female voice from above and behind her said, "That's an interesting costume. I like it."
"Thank you," she said before turning around to face the speaker. When she did, she froze for a moment in surprise. A humanoid lizard, some thirty or more centimeters taller than she was, stood there, wearing a skirt, jacket and fedora. Not a person in a lizard costume, she was certain, but an actual lizard. The giveaway was the mouth — it (and the tongue in it) moved and flexed in a way no mask would; inside it was moist like a real mouth, too. It was had to tell through the yellow lenses of her costume's mask, but she thought that the creature's skin was blue, with orange-yellow eyes that almost seemed to glow. "Um." Well, it wasn't like there weren't other non-humans among the displacees, after all. Just none this... extreme. "I'm dressed as Taylor Hebert from Worm, in her 'Skitter' identity. It's a little makeshift, but..." She shrugged.
![[Image: 300px-Saurial_and_Minami.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/File:Saurial_and_Minami.jpg)
The lizard tilted... her? yes, her... head and raised her eyebrows in a surprisingly human expression of surprise. "Worm? I've never heard of that."
Minami nodded. "It's a web novel that came out in this world a few years ago, set in an Earth with superhumans. Taylor is a teen-aged girl with insect-control powers who sets out to be a hero but ends up branded a villain because of a whole lot of stupidity, mostly on the part of other people." Under Skitter's mask Minami grimaced. "It's not the happiest story, especially not for Taylor. But she's such a great character..."
The lizard girl grinned — another surprisingly human-like expression identifiable on a nonhuman face, Minami thought. "I'll bet. Could you tell me more?"
"Oh, certainly," Minami said happily. "Let's go sit down and I'll tell you while I eat."
"Sounds good," the lizard girl replied, then she gestured at the plate in Minami's hand. "And let me know how you like the lasagna — I brought it."
Minami glanced down at it. "Oh, you did?"
She nodded. "It's my mother's recipe, a Family favorite. Oh, where are my manners?" She held out an imposingly claw-bedecked hand. "I'm Saurial."
Minami had been in New Jersey long enough to get used to Western customs, and shook the lizard girl's hand with her own. "Minami Makimura. Nice to meet you."
At a table filled with crudités and other vegetable dishes, two girls with paper plates in hand found themselves face-to-face. One had pale purple hair courtesy of spray coloring, glasses, and a brown sweater over an aqua and white seifuku. The other had a shaggy pale blue wig and wore reasonable facsimiles of a white plugsuit and matching white A10 nerve clips.
Rei Ayanami studied her doppelganger for a long moment as the other girl grew visibly nervous. Finally, she nodded with a faint smile gracing her lips. "I approve." She turned back to the table, retrieved a handful of celery sticks and placed them on her plate before walking off.
Sakura Matou blinked and watched the girl disappear among the other party-goers before shaking herself and taking some raw vegetables of her own.
Ruiko poked unenthusiastically at her dinner with a plastic fork. Asuka had clamped her hand around Shinji's upper arm so hard he'd winced, then after sneering at her dragged him off. The despondent look he'd given her as he and Asuka vanished into the crowd haunted her.
"So... I see Asuka's worked her special magic on you."
Ruiko looked up to see a young couple — in their twenties, she thought — had walked up to her table and were regarding her with sympathy. They were in matching costumes: he in plate armor with black and gold highlights and a simple crown with eight broad cross-shaped crenellations, she in a pale green medieval-styled gown with a high waist, scoop neck and a long train, and a crown of her own, this one more delicate with ten filigreed points which leaned outward from her bound chestnut hair. It had been the young man who had spoken.
Ruiko blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I said, I see you've had the dubious pleasure of meeting Asuka Soryu." He held out his hand; Ruiko shook it. "Simon Tam, from Gulfside Rest in Florida." His English was measured and careful, almost precise, and made her think he might have been well off, possibly upper class in his home universe.
"Kaylee Frye," said his companion as Ruiko shook her hand as well. "From Gulfside Rest, too." She sounded almost rural by comparison, and Ruiko realized the contrast was visible in their body language: Simon held himself very formally, almost stiffly, while Kaylee seemed much more relaxed and casual.
"I'm Ruiko Saten, from Blossom Apartments in Ottawa," she said quickly. "You... you both live in the same building as her?"
Kaylee laughed. "Oh, yes. Been nigh on... what, six weeks now, Simon?"
Simon nodded. "Yes, just about that. We've gotten to know her quite well in that time." He gestured at the table. "May we join you?"
"Oh! Please!" She slid her plate to one side as the couple took the next couple of seats to her right.
"We couldn't help but see her treatin' you like niu shi," Kaylee said gently as she settled into place, "An' we wanted to let you know it ain't anythin' you did."
Ruiko didn't understand the oddly out-of-place bit of Chinese, but the meaning was obvious from context. She frowned minutely. "I've seen Evangelion, I thought I knew what to expect, but..." She trailed off and waved vaguely.
Simon nodded. "Then you know she's... emotionally damaged, correct? A good deal of that behavior is really just her holding herself together well enough to function."
Ruiko grimaced. "And I'm guessing from what I've seen that Shinji's part of that?"
"Yeah," Kaylee confirmed. "She acts all prickly 'cause she needs him and don't wanna admit it. Seen her get downright twitchy when he ain't around."
"What, can't go without her whipping boy?" Ruiko almost snarled.
Simon shook his head. "No, it isn't like that, though I suppose it resembles it from the outside. Kaylee and I have talked about it with... a couple people, and the conclusion we've mostly come to is that he represents safety to her. If he's with her, then in her mind, nothing terrible can happen."
Ruiko gave them a flat look. "What, and she's going to make sure he stays with her, regardless of what he wants, to keep her safe forever and ever? That's pretty fucked up."
"You ain't wrong," Kaylee admitted.
"I sincerely hope the managers, or Funtom, or someone arranges proper counseling for her, because I really don't see this ending well if nothing changes," Simon added.
Ruiko frowned. "What more can you tell me?" Maybe she could help, somehow. She didn't have to like Asuka to do that, did she?
"Now that is one scarily accurate costume!" The voice was male and redolent with the North of England.
Sam Tyler looked up from the table full of chafing pans to see a tall fellow with prominent ears and thick curling brown hair, dressed in the heavy coat, floppy hat, and ridiculously overlong scarf of the Fourth Doctor. "Thank you," he said, laying down his plate and turning to face him, tugging slightly at the bottom of his black Nehru jacket as he did. "Took me forever to get the beard right," he added, running a fingertip along the fake goatee he'd painstakingly spirit-gummed to his face.
"Oh, yes, that's good. Delgado. Proper creepy." He tilted his head, studying Sam. "...Yeah, no, hang on. I know that face." A flicker of a grin. "You're a Brit. And you've got a bit of him about you. Fantastic job."
"Thank you." Sam held his hand out. "Sam Tyler, from the Dublin gang of displacees."
The other man grabbed his hand and shook it enthusiastically. "Good to meet you, Sam. I'm the Doctor."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I can see that."
The Doctor looked puzzled for a moment, then gave a bark of laughter. "Right, the costume. No, I actually am the Doctor — Nine, they call me when they have to make a distinction — and I figured it'd be a bit of self-referential fun to dress as one of my earlier regenerations, one of my favorites." He tugged on a lock of his curly brown hair. "You had difficulty with the beard; for me it's the hair." He mock-scowled. "I don't remember it being half the trouble this wig is."
Sam boggled for a moment, then managed a stumbling, "It's an honor, sir."
The Doctor waved dismissively. "None of that, Sam."
"If you insist..." Sam paused for a moment, then added, "Say, maybe you can help me with something. Back home — before Refuge — I had an experience that... well, it might've been time travel." He grimaced. "Or a hallucination. I still don't know which. And it— it still gets to me. Do you think you could help me figure it out?"
A broad grin appeared that looked as much at home on the Fourth Doctor's face as the Ninth. "Yeah. Easy. Tell you what — I'll get you a pint, you tell me everything, and we'll sort it out."
The returning grin looked out of place on the Master's face, but not on Sam's. "I won't say no to that."
The music from the stage wasn't being piped into the other tents, but for all that was still audible — loud enough to be heard clearly, but nowhere near loud enough to make conversation difficult. A teenaged girl, a soprano, was singing "Ui, ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla bing-bang"[13] with an audible giggle in her voice, and her clear, high-pitched tones carried clearly through the tent where food and drink had been gathered.
At one of the beverage tables, two party-goers found themselves reaching for the same drink. They both yanked their arms back when their hands collided just in front of the can of soda.
"Oh, excuse me," said one, a college-age girl in an elaborately beaded and fringed gold flapper dress. Her chin-length brown hair was held back by a matching headband with a feather rising from it, and in her off hand she held a long cigarette holder; a fake cigarette, red glitter on its end simulating fire, was mounted in it. Those who could tell would know immediately that it was a Tomoyo Daidouji original.
"Sorry 'bout that," said the other, a much younger boy dressed in khaki pants, an olive-drab shirt, black combat boots and a camo jacket. The whole ensemble was topped off with an incongruous knit cap, complete with ear flaps, of brightly-colored wool. Those in the know would recognize it as a Jayne Cobb original.
"That's all right," the girl said, reaching for a different can. She glanced at the boy, then did a doubletake. "Do I know you? You look familiar."
"I don't think so," he said as he took the can they'd originally collided over. "But you know, you look a little like my dad," he added, looking her over.
She returned the look. "That's odd, you look a little like my mother. I'm Kaori Aida, from Aria House in California. Call me Kaorin, everyone does."
"Aida? Wow, that's a coincidence. I'm Kensuke Aida, from Gulfside Rest in Pensacola."
She frowned slightly as she took a closer look at him. "That's ... weird. We're not counterparts, are we? I was born in 1984."
He shook his head. "I was born in 2001. Maybe we're cousins or something? My dad's name is Hajime."[14]
"Huh. My father's name is Hajime, too." Her frown deepened. "My mother's name is Kari[15] . What's your mom's name?"
A look of sorrow flashed across his face. "My mom's... not around any more." Puzzlement replaced sorrow. "But she was named Kari, too..." He screwed his eyes shut in concentration. "Dad told me once that I had an older sister, but she died in Second Impact, before I was born." His eyes sprung open. "You don't think...?"
Kaorin bit her lip and studied the younger boy. "I don't know. Maybe we should ask one of the megami?"
Trying not to look like he was running, Shinji took advantage of a moment's distraction on Asuka's part and fled the tent holding the potluck. He'd had to leave his half-full plate behind, but it was the perfect opportunity — enough people getting food or just milling about to cover his escape, but not so many that he had to force his way through the crowd; in a matter of seconds he was out of sight of her.
He plunged through the tent's entrance and out into the chill night air, stepped to one side, out of the way of the other party-goers seeking sustenance, and took a deep breath. Okay, that worked, he thought. Now what?
"Ho ho. Nicely done, mate — didn't fancy bein' chewed up by the redhead, eh? Smart lad. She's the sort that'd bite." The voice was deep and gravelly and just a bit nasal, with an accent that he'd come to learn was British... but a lower-class British. Shinji managed to not start in surprise at the sound of it; instead he turned around to face the speaker.
Leaning against one of the pine trees that studded the green spaces hosting the party was a man in an expensive-looking Superman costume, a lit cigarette in one hand and a red plastic cup in the other. He was a Westerner, taller than Shinji — then again, pretty much all adults were — and a bit too thin to carry off the superhero look. A mop of black hair topped his head, with a thick mass of bangs hanging down in the front almost hiding his dark eyes; a lumpy potato of a nose that looked like it might have been broken once — or maybe twice — sat below and between them, giving him a thuggish look.
His skin was green.
Shinji blinked and looked again. Every inch of the man's exposed skin was a bright kryptonite green, which struck him as exactly wrong for Superman. And it wasn't makeup.
"Um," he managed to say.
"Superman" took a long, final drag on the cigarette, dropped it into the grass at his feet, and ground it out with the toe of one red boot. He pushed off from the tree then stuck out the hand that had just held it. "M'name's Murdoc — Murdoc Niccals. I knock about 'round here. Douglass Gardens, that is."
After nearly two months in Refuge, Shinji knew what to do, and shook his hand. "Shinji Ikari, from Pensacola in Florida."
Murdoc nodded. "Right, well... good meetin' ya, lad. Now, 'bout the redhead — reckon you'd rather she didn't find you for a bit, yeah?"
Shinji nodded. "Yeah."
He smirked and waved, half grandiosely, half mockingly, toward the center of the party space, where Shinji could hear a band playing. "Right then, follow your Uncle Murdoc — I'll get you tucked away proper. Outta sight, outta mind, yeah? An' you might even have a bit of fun while you're at it, see if you don't." He took a swig from the cup then immediately started walking, before looking back over his shoulder and asking, "Y'comin', lad?"
Shinji shook himself and then trotted after Murdoc.
As they made their way around and through the other costumed attendees, Shinji glanced over at the man. "Mister Niccals, if you don't mind my asking, why... why are you green?"
Murdoc snorted. "Bad life choices, lad... an' a handful of legendary ones."
Shinji tried to imagine the kind of life choices that would turn someone green without killing them first, and drew a blank. He was still puzzling over it when he realized that Murdoc was leading him to the stage tent. Five pretty girls were on the stage, playing a song he'd never heard before that was slow and rhythmic; one was using an odd device that combined her voice with her guitar as she sang, "My daddy was a Gibson, my momma was a Fender, that's why they call me 'Mind Bender' — 'Mind Bender', that's my name."[16] He'd've liked to have stayed and watched, but to his surprise, Murdoc marched him around the side of the tent and into another behind it, which was filled with musicians — most of whom were again pretty girls.
Murdoc paused just as soon as they'd entered and didn't bother lowering his voice. "Oi, Noodle!"
At one of the tables at the back of the tent a taller girl with short black hair, Japanese like almost every other person there and wearing a black leather catsuit, looked up from where she had been in the midst of a conversation. She said something to the magenta-haired girl in a cheongsam next to her that Shinji couldn't hear (but imagined was an apology of sorts) and rose from her seat in one smooth motion, already watching them by the time she was on her feet and stalking toward them.
Her gaze flicked over Murdoc first — quick, measuring, familiar — and then settled on Shinji.
Shinji felt it immediately. Not harsh, not unfriendly... just direct. Like she was taking him in all at once.
He straightened without meaning to, suddenly aware of his hands, of where to look. She was—
He looked away, just as quickly.
"Murdoc," she said. Her voice was high and almost sweet — and to his surprise she spoke with a light but obvious Japanese accent.
Murdoc jerked a thumb in his direction. "Picked this one up out by the grub. Tryin' not to get himself murdered by a redhead."
Noodle's eyes shifted back to Shinji, quieter now.
"I see," she said.
Her voice was soft, but clear — no hesitation, no strain. Just a statement.
Shinji swallowed. "I— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude—"
"Told 'im I'd sort 'im out somewhere to hide from the bint. This'll do. Keep an eye on 'im, yeah?"
She lifted a single eyebrow. "So you've brought me a guest." Her gaze shifted back to Shinji; it was calm and measuring, but not unkind. "That should not be difficult." She gave him a faint, knowing smile. "There are many ways to disappear here."
Murdoc smirked at her. "Yeah, cheers, Noodle. Owe you one." He clapped Shinji on the shoulder, almost enough to make him stagger. "Good luck, lad." He turned, and as he swaggered out of the tent, cup still in hand, he added, "Don't do anything I wouldn't."
And then he was gone.
As Shinji looked after him, he felt another, gentler, hand on his shoulder, and turned back to see "Noodle" looking down at him, that faint smile still on her face. "What's your name?"
"Shinji," he said hesitantly. "Shinji Ikari. I'm sorry, if I'm not supposed to be here..."
The smile grew ever so slightly larger. "Don't worry." She tilted her head toward the chattering girls at the back of the tent. "Come. There's food... and friends. You'll be all right here."
And with that, she guided him into the crowd.
"Give it up for Yui and Gitah as Mind Bender!" Azusa demanded of the audience, and they did, cheering and clapping.
"Thank you, thank you," Yui said, hopping down off the stool she'd perched on while using the talk box and pushing it back with one foot. "And Gitah thanks you, too!" she added brightly. She glanced around at the other members of Hokago Tea Time and shared a secretive smile with them as the audience contined to hoot and cheer, then glanced down front where Hane and Molly still stood with the rest of the Motorcycle Club.
"It's been great playing for everyone tonight," Yui continued, "but I'm afraid we're down to our last song. And to sing it... well, we have a special guest vocalist." That secretive smile was back. "One so special she doesn't even know she's going to sing with us! Everyone, give a big hand for Molly Ritter!"
"What? No!" Molly shrieked as the applause ramped up again while Hane (with Onsa and Rin's help) gently pushed her to and up the steps that led to the stage. "Oh no no no no..." she protested as she got within reach of Yui's microphone. "I know what song you want me to sing. You think you're the first ones to ask me to sing it?"
As a giggling Yui stepped aside to let Molly's friends carefully position her in front of the mic, Ritsu called out, "Maybe not, but I'll bet we've got the biggest crowd to encourage you."
"You're not helping!" Molly scowled, but it was obvious by how she wasn't trying to make a break for it that she had resigned herself to what was coming.
Yui leaned into Azusa's mic. "You see, everyone, Molly has a boyfriend who isn't here with us tonight. And his name is Desmond Jones!" Scattered sounds of amused comprehension rose from the crowd, followed by the murmur of explanations being made to those who lacked the cultural context or simply hadn't made the connection. "So, obviously," Yui went on, "Molly has to be a singer with the band!"
"If you say so, Yui," Molly said with a good-natured roll of her eyes. Laughter rippled through the audience, followed by cries of "Sing it!"
"And of course," Azusa added, a feline smile gracing her lips, "life goes on."
And with that Mugi banged out the familiar intro, her keyboard set to sound like an old upright bar piano. Yui jumped in with Gitah filtered to a level of distortion Hokago Tea Time had never used in one of their own songs, followed a few seconds later by Azusa, then Mio and Ritsu. Molly rolled her eyes again, but grinned in spite of herself as she began to sing:
"Desmond has a barrow in the market place,
Molly is the singer in a band.
Desmond says to Molly, 'Girl, I like your face'..."
Although she was no match for Yui or Mio, her voice was strong and pleasant. She had no trouble keeping to the melody, in key, and on the beat, and by the second line it was obvious that for all her protestations, she was actually enjoying herself. Behind her, the other girls were clearly having fun of their own playing backup singers to her, and adding in the little bits of silliness the Beatles had thrown into the original recording. The crowd was already cheering and hooting again by the time Molly reached the chorus, grinning like a madwoman:
"Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah..."[17]
Over near the gazebo, Princess Peach was tugging on the sleeve of a teenaged wolfman as live music from the stage echoed off the apartment buildings surrounding the green space on three sides. "C'mon, Marty! It sounds like they're having a great time!"
"Okay, okay, Jennifer. Geeze, no need to rush," he said with a smile barely visible through the fur covering his face. "They're like just a hundred feet away."
"They're pretty good!" Cameron, resplendent in the red tunic, black trousers and white turtleneck of a late Original Series Starfleet captain, commented. He, Ferris and Sloane were seated at one of the tables ringing the dance floor that occupied the middle of the tent immediately in front of the stage.
"Even that girl they pulled up there, she's not bad either," Sloane added, then took a sip from the cup of soda in front of her. She was in an elaborate gold-trimmed, ivory-colored medieval-style gown, with her ringletted hair held in place by a golden ornament that was too large to call a clip and too flat to call a crown. Cameron still wasn't sure where she'd gotten the whole ensemble; she'd said something about a bay, but he had no idea what she'd meant by that.
Ferris, done up in the brown longcoat and pinstriped suit of the Tenth Doctor, had pulled his chair up next to Sloane's, and had his arm around her. "Watching these girls reminds me of the time I wanted to start a band," he said, before glancing at the readers and mouthing "Later".
"I don't know what you were thinking, asking me to be in it," Sloane smirked. "I can't sing to save my life."
"You're better than you think," Ferris countered.
"Still not good enough for a band." She glanced over at Cameron. "Tell him!"
Cameron lifted a hand in a vaguely defensive gesture and shook his head. "I'm not getting involved in this." He paused, then added, "But whether Sloane can sing or not, you need more than just your keyboard to make a band."
"I..." Ferris began, only to be interrupted.
"Hey, mind if we sit at your table?"
They turned to see a well-done wolfman accompanied by a girl in a bright pink dress and white gloves, a small golden crown perched atop a voluminous blonde wig. The pair seemed to be teens about the same age as them. Cameron, Ferris and Sloane exchanged a glances, then Ferris said, "Sure!"
When "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" ended, Molly was still grinning broadly, all reticence and shyness long gone. The audience exploded into cheers and whistles as Yui said, "Molly Ritter, everyone!" A moment later she added, "And we are Hokago Tea Time! Thank you, everyone! Thank you, Douglass Gardens!"
"Thank you, Budokan!" Ritsu added to scattered laughter.
As the cheering continued, Molly scampered back down the steps into the audience and the band began to collect their gear prior to leaving the stage. Harley took that as his cue to mount the stage and return to the central microphone stand. "Ladies and gentlemen, Hokago Tea Time!" The applause grew again, before finally tapering off. "Up next in a few minutes, OnNaGumi!" he added when he was sure he'd be heard again, then left the stage as quickly as he could manage.
To his surprise, Shinji was not only welcomed by the musicians in the tent that they inexplicably called the "green room", but included. He quickly found himself deep in conversation with a revolving collection of the performers either waiting their turns on stage or (in the case of the women from Ireland) relaxing after their set. When asked if he played an instrument, he very reluctantly admitted to playing the cello, expecting to be immediately dismissed by rock'n'rollers around him. Instead, though, it just triggered a deeper discussion of instruments and playing styles.
"We've got more in common than you might think," a rather energetic girl who'd introduced herself as "Jun" said. He had trouble keeping his eyes on hers because she was distractingly dressed in an off-the-shoulder gown of black and gray satin and tulle. It had a short, wide skirt with black petticoats under it and a huge grey bow at the small of her back; an obviously fake tail tipped with a pointed spade snaked from somewhere under it and stood up stiffly behind her. Her hair was done up in two fluffy "pom-poms" on either side of her head, with a red rose tucked into the left one. He'd tried not to stare at her legs (which were quite nice), but had looked long enough to notice the thick-soled maryjane shoes, also black, from which ribbons inexplicably rose to twine around her calves almost to the knee. Hanging from a strap around her neck was a white guitar with a long black neck. "Y'see, a bass" — and here she gestured to her guitar — "is the exact same thing, but... you tip it on the side and, chell-oooo, you've got a bass!"
"Jun!" said the other girl sitting with him at the moment. Her name, she'd said, was Ui, and she was in a similar dress, only in pink and white with no tail, and she wore a pink wig with two similar short ponytails to either side tied off with darker pink ribbons. "You know that isn't right! A cello is tuned C-G-D-A and a bass is tuned E-A-D-G," she continued in a mildly chiding tone. She turned to Shinji. "I'm sorry, she's quoting a scene from the movie School of Rock at you." She had a mint-green guitar with a shorter neck propped up against the table they sat at.
"Oh. I haven't seen it," Shinji admitted.
"Oh, you should!" Jun enthused. "I think you'd really like it. And some of it was filmed nearby.[18] But yeah, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not exactly wrong, Ui." She teasingly scrunched up her face at her companion, smiling, before looking back at him. "Even though they're tuned differently, a bass and a cello play pretty much the same role, whether you're in a rock band or a string quartet."
"I... uh, I wouldn't know, I usually play alone," he said. Absently, he noted that the music from the stage tent had been replaced by applause and cheers.
"Oh, well that's cool, too," Jun said. "I used to be in the Jazz club, back at our old school, and I never got to play with the band, so I did that a lot, too."
Shinji wasn't sure what to say in response to that, but at that moment Ui suddenly perked up, looking past him at something. Or rather, someone, given that she said, "Oh, here they come!" before hopping up out of her seat.
"Here who come?" he asked Jun as he twisted around to try to see where she'd gone.
"Hokago Tea Time," Jun replied with a smirk.
"Who?" he asked, turning back to her.
Ui suddenly appeared at his side with a girl in an odd blue jacket and hood set who he realized was practically her twin — and the girl who had been singing with her guitar's voice. "Shinji, this is my sister Yui."
"Hi!" Yui chirped.
"Sorry about that," Peggy said as she finally took her seat at the table once more.
"I hope it wasn't some big emergency," Linda said as Peggy picked up her drink.
Peggy shook her head. "No... just one thing leading to another. But it eventually reached a point where I could step away again." She sipped her drink, now slightly diluted by melted ice.
"You missed all of Hokago Tea Time," Helen noted.
"No, I could hear them from the tent I was in." Peggy smiled over her cup. "And even if I didn't, it's not like Bob and I haven't sat in on some of their rehearsals over the last couple weeks."
"They definitely know how to work a crowd," Arthur noted. "Better than the band before them."
"Well, it's not their first time in front of an audience," Peggy said. "Outside of school shows, they've played in a couple clubs and at a festival in England."
"England?" Linda asked. "Really?"
Peggy nodded. "They were on a school trip to London, and got recruited at the last minute." She took another sip. "It's in the K-On! movie."
"Well, after seein' 'em tonight, I'm thinkin' they're ready for a gig at the Artery after all." Artie Duncan swirled the last of his whiskey around the bottom of his glass. "I'll give that teacher of theirs a call and set somethin' up."
Terpsichore smirked, licked the tip of her forefinger and drew a quick tally mark in the air.
Attila barked out a laugh.
"Oh, where is he?" Asuka Soryu growled as she stalked through the green space between the white pavilions that provided partygoers with shelter against the chill air of the New Jersey night. The thin brown sweater that was part of her "Mikuru Asahina" costume wasn't nearly enough to ward off the cold, but her anger and annoyance at her fellow pilot was sufficient to keep her warm despite that, at least for the moment. When she found Shinji again, she'd let him know in no uncertain terms what she thought of his irresponsibility. How could he run away like that? Didn't he want... Didn't he realize he was supposed to be with her? She suppressed a surge of fear and worry at the thought of being alo... unaccompanied. Yes, "unaccompanied" was a much better word.
A flash of crimson caught her eye and derailed her train of thought — a familiar crimson. She pivoted on one loafer-clad heel and made a beeline toward the unknown girl in a red plugsuit — in her plugsuit. Well, an inferior copy of it at least, she realized as she got closer. Whoever she was, she certainly didn't carry it off as well as Asuka did, even allowing for the poor quality of the replica.
Fake!Asuka, as it turned out, was talking to a fake!Ayanami in her own bogus plugsuit, and what was up with that? Who in their right mind would want to dress up as that boring little doll? Asuka's irritation with Shinji and his disappearance generously expanded to include these two unknown girls, and she stalked up to the pair with a scowl. As they turned to face her, Asuka took a moment to give a long head-to-foot scan first to fake!Asuka, then fake!Ayanami, and then fake!Asuka again. Her brow, already furrowed in annoyance thanks to baka-Shinji, deepened when she realized that the girl dressed as her was actually quite pretty.
Not as pretty as her. Definitely not. But pretty, nonetheless. Annoyingly so.
After a long silent moment, fake!Asuka returned her scowl. "What?" she demanded.
"Hmph," Asuka sniffed contemptuously. "First off, that's my look. Second, you are definitely wearing that plugsuit wrong."
Fake!Asuka glanced down at herself with exaggerated calm as fake!Ayanami's eyebrows crawled up into her scraggly blue bangs. "Really? Because from what I've heard, the secret ingredient is glaring at everyone like they personally offended you."
Asuka folded her arms across the front of her middy blouse. "Cute. Did you buy the attitude separately, or does it come free with the cosplay?"
"And here I thought you'd appreciate accuracy." Fake!Asuka smiled sweetly. "Though I guess I should've practiced looking more emotionally unstable."
For a moment they just stared at each other.
Then Asuka sniffed again and turned away. "Feh. The wig's too dark anyway."
As she stalked off, she heard the fake reply, "And the original is shorter than advertised." She clenched her fists and suppressed a snarl. She had more important things to to than argue with an impostor. She had her... a baka to find.
"Was that really necessary?" Sakura asked her sister as they watched Asuka Soryu disappear into the crowd.
Rin shrugged. "I was prepared to be pleasant to her. She was the one that stormed up to us already in a foul mood and got nasty."
As the trio took their places on the stage, Harley stepped up to the center mic for what he hoped really was going to be the last introduction he needed to make. "Ladies and gentlemen," he intoned, "give a big hand for our next band tonight, OnNaGumi!" As applause welled up — not nearly as strongly as for Hokago Tea Time — he hastily backed off and hurried off stage. As he did, the drummer — a bleach-blonde in athletic garb too thin and skimpy for the October night — settled in, and the bassist, a tallish girl with long light brown hair dressed in a sequined jacket, slacks, dress shirt and tie, all of an identical shade of black, dropped a shining silver helmet with a red visor on the drum platform before stepping up to one of the microphones and readying her gleaming mahogany Gibson Thunderbird.
A slender girl with an agressively spiky black pixie-cut, dressed in the same black-and-sequin suit as the bassist, followed. Holding a Les Paul Custom hanging from a strap flat against her hip with one hand, and carrying a gleaming gold helmet in the other, she strode up to the mic Harley'd vacated. She dropped the helmet on the stool nearby, then grabbed the mic in her now free hand. "Thank you!" she said, glancing to where Harley stood off the side of the stage. Looking back out at the audience, she continued, "I'm Akira Wada, and like Mr. Waters said, we are OnNaGumi!"
As someone in the audience shouted "Harley!", Akira released the mic and swung her guitar around in front of her, poised to play. Behind her, the drummer clicked her sticks once followed by tight, rapid hits on hi-hat. The bassist joined in immediately with an aggressive line that laid down the foundations on which Akira began building a guitar feedback swell, leading into a hook as she shouted "Count it down — Three! Two! One!"
The band detonated on the downbeat, and Akira launched into the first verse:
"Pull the wire,
Strike the spark,
Light me up against the dark.
You say 'slow down',
I say 'not yet',
Burning through each safety net.
We're glass triggers
Thin as air.
One more hit and we're everywhere!"[19]
The contrast between OnNaGumi and Hokago Tea Time was all but palpable to the audience — where the previous band had been playful and enthusiastic, almost schoolgirlish in its buoyant charm, OnNaGumi were locked in and serious, almost grim, a band that had rehearsed until that opening hit landed like a punch to the gut. They had the precision of a machine carrying along the singer's unbound fury.
"Okay, here," Kevin said, releasing Garnett's hand. He'd led her out of the party proper back around building 4 and into the parking lot where the portals still loomed at the far end. Up against the brick wall past the first set of backdoor steps, they were surprisingly well-insulated from the sound of the band; it still echoed, but was oddly muffled, reduced enough that they could speak in a normal conversational tone.
That they were also alone was a bonus.
Garnett tugged on the cuffs of her peppermint-striped blouse and said, "Okay, Kevin, what's up?" She thought he looked quite spiffing in the cream jacket, brown trousers and sweater vest of the seventh Doctor, his paler cream hat pushed to hang almost off the back of his head. The contrast between the lighter colors and his brown skin was quite striking.
He searched her eyes for a moment, the light of the lamps illuminating the parking lot occasionally glinting off the lenses of his glasses. "Garnett, what the hell is going on here?"
She frowned. "What do you mean, what's going on? I told you."
"You didn't expect me to believe that, did you?" he demanded.
"Well, yeah," she said. "Why would I lie?"
He threw up his hands and turned on his heel. "Because it was completely crazy? I thought you were having me on."
Garnett parked her fists on her hips. "And why would I do that?"
"I don't know!" He threw up his arms again and turned back to her. "It was so out there it couldn't possibly be true." He drew a deep breath. "But..."
She tilted her head. "But...?"
Kevin swallowed. "But... the teleporting, flying girl. The black circle that took us from early afternoon to full on night in one step. People all around that I recognize from movies and anime..." He shook his head. "Explain it to me."
Garnett managed to avoid rolling her eyes; Kevin was really shaken, which she hadn't expected. She'd honestly thought he'd understand, especially after meeting the Masakis. "I already explained everything to you."
"Explain it again!" he snapped. Then he winced and rubbed a hand down his face. "Sorry. Just... go over it again, please? And this time I'll pay attention and believe you."
Garnett stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. Then she started to tell him everything again, right from the beginning.
"Tell me again," Arisa growled, "why we decided doing gate duty was a good idea?" She shoved a handful of bite-sized chocolate bars (lifted from the bowl stationed at the sidewalk for passing trick-or-treaters) into her mouth and chewed resentfully before swallowing.
Back at the party proper, the band that was playing finished up a song with a hard rock flourish that echoed all the way down Annette Court to their duty station, and out into the park across the street.
Kyouko sighed, not for the first time since they took over at the barricades at 7:30. "Because we thought it might help us get back into Mr. and Mrs. Schroeck's good graces if we acted responsibly and volunteered."
"Grrr." Arisa grabbed another handful of candies from the bowl and began viciously tearing their wrappers off and letting them flutter to the ground, just like she had the previous three times. "And tell me why we thought these dumb costumes were a good idea? I mean, a pair of plainclothes cops from a thirty-five-year-old TV show? Who'd recognize Cagney & Lacey, if they even realized we were in costumes?" She crammed the new handful into her mouth.
"It doesn't matter — it's not like we recognized even a third of anyone else's costumes," Kyouko offered. "And I liked that show when we streamed it," she added after a moment, more softly.
Arisa didn't reply, and together they leaned against the yellow barricade as the band began another song, this one with a strong drum intro.
"Black lace gloves and amplifier hum,
Pretty little disaster on the run,
Lipstick smile like a switchblade shine,
Say we're trouble — maybe that's fine.
Velvet riot! Raise your hands!
Burn the rules but keep the glam!"[20]
"Peggy!"
Peggy looked up to see Minami, her costume's mask in one hand, trotting up to the table. "Minami?" she asked.
The younger woman slid to a halt. "We have a situation," she said in a low, breathless tone.
Peggy nodded and stood. "Excuse me, please," she said to everyone else at the table before letting Minami lead her away. Once they were out of the tent, she asked, "What's up?"
"It's the Natsumes," Minami said.
"Shit. Take me there."
The couple dressed as Gomez and Morticia Addams weren't in the middle of the party traffic, but given the volume at which they were addressing each other, they didn't need to be.
"You deliberately waited until I was distracted and sent him out anyway," "Morticia" snarled.
"I'm letting our son spend one evening feeling like a normal kid, Akiko." It was obvious that "Gomez" was trying to be calm and patient, but that his ability to do so was fraying badly.
"A normal child does not live in an apartment complex full of teenage musicians, magical girls and psychics, Kyusaku!" Akiko wasn't moderating her tone, for all that she was nose-to-nose with her husband.
Kyusaku rubbed his eyes and sighed. "He's with adults. Responsible adults."
"One of those 'responsible adults' thought turning this entire complex into a public Halloween attraction was a good idea."
He gave her a flat look. "You do recall that the Schroecks were told to do this by the Megami?"
"That is not the point!" she hissed.
Kyusaku closed his eyes and tried to compose himself before replying, "No, the point is that Ryunosuke looked at me like he was asking for permission to breathe, Akiko."
"And what was I supposed to do? Smile and wave while he vanished into a crowd, disguised as another boy entirely?"
"Yes! It was trick-or-treating, not a black-ops mission!" Kyusaku had given up on controlling his voice.
"You do not get to mock me because I take his safety seriously!" She punctuated the last few words with finger-pokes to his chest.
"And you don't get to keep wrapping him in cotton wool and armor plate every time the world scares you," he said through gritted teeth.
"The world should scare you! It certainly seems to do a better job than common sense ever has."
"He wanted one night with friends. That's all."
"And he'd've still had one with him — you know Ascot would have stayed behind because he wouldn't want Ryunosuke left alone," Akiko noted smugly. "Which, unless you've forgotten, means someone in this family is at least teaching children loyalty."
"Don't do that," he growled. "Don't turn this into proof you were right."
"Then stop making me sound like a villain for refusing to gamble our son on the judgment of a pair of apartment managers and a holiday invented to encourage strangers to approach children in masks."
"Do you have a problem with how Bob and I run this complex, and how we provide for you and your family, Mrs. Natsume?" Peggy asked coolly as she walked up to the arguing pair. "If you don't trust your son with my husband, then we must have given you some reason. Do we need to contact Funtom and find you a residence where you feel more secure?"
Several minutes later Peggy had, if not talked the Natsumes down, at least shamed them into retreating to their apartment if they absolutely had to continue their argument. This was helped in great part by Akiko's complete mortification at letting her temper lead her into insulting her hosts.
Still, Peggy didn't look forward to telling Bob that the implosion of the Natsumes that they'd both feared had begun. Since their arrival the couple had been subdued and mutually supportive — a state of affairs that both managers knew from their exposure to multiple versions of their story was both uncharacteristic and likely to be temporary. The question had been just how temporary — Bob and Peggy had both agreed that as soon as the shock and numbness from their displacement wore off, Kyusaku and Akiko would inevitably go for each other's throats. And almost guaranteed it would be over Ryunosuke.
Naturally their détente had finally shattered in the middle of the freaking party. They should have expected it.
"Jesus Murphy!" Peggy swore quietly, then sighed. She needed to get away from the crowd for a few minutes to calm down a bit before she unintentionally lashed out at some undeserving innocent who just happened to catch her at the wrong moment. Someplace just a little bit quieter than right in front of the stage tent, where OnNaGumi were belting out their current song.
"Turn it up till the ceiling shakes!
Drown the doubt and the cheap mistakes!
Everybody wants a piece tonight,
Flashbulb halos in the stage-light white.
We disappear inside the sound,
Lost and finally found..."[21]
She glanced around. Everything seemed to be going well for the moment, and Minami was ready to step in if necessary. Peggy nodded once to herself, then retreated from the party to the parking lot behind their apartment as quickly as she could without actually looking like she was rushing somewhere. If necessary she'd slip inside for a few minutes, but for now, fewer people and a little less noise would do wonders for her temper.
Rob stepped though the portal from Ottawa into a (mostly) empty parking lot. Following the sound of live music he walked to the end of the long two-story brick buildings on either side of him to the road which ran down the center of the complex and into what could only be the party. He'd barely reached the corner before he ran into a familiar face — one, he thought, that looked just a little stressed out.
"Rob! It's good to see you again. Welcome to Douglass Gardens."
"Peggy! It's good to see you, too. Sorry I'm late; I didn't run out of candy until a few minutes ago. Did I miss anything interesting?"
"Well, we're on the third band already. And you missed meeting Ryouga Hibiki."
"I thought Ryouga wasn't... oh, right. Eternally Lost Boy. Never mind."
With a grimace Peggy added, "And the Natsumes finally had their blow-up, just a few minutes ago."
"Oh, dear," he replied. "And at the worst possible moment, too."
She nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking."
He lowered his voice and continued, "On a happier note... Don't tell anybody, but I have a little something here for just you and Bob."
"A present? What is it?"
"It's an item given with no expectation of reimbursement, but that's not important right now."
"You've been hanging around Bob for too long."
Rob smiled. "The two of us would never have met if I hadn't. Here you go. I remembered you said you liked these."
He passed a bag to her, which she opened. "Oh, maple leaf cookies! Thank you!"
"You'd better put those away before somebody adds them to the snack selection."
"I'll do that now."
As Peggy made a quick visit to her apartment to drop off the box of cookies that would last her and Bob for at least a month, Rob made his way into the party proper and toward the bar. He had barely touched grass before he almost bumped into one of the other party-goers. "Oh! I'm sorry!"
"Oh, hello! I don't think we've met. Megumi Morisato." She was wearing a black leather jacket over a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
"Rob Donaldson. Pleased to meet you." He was wearing the standard-issue M.I.B. suit and glasses, complete with a faux "blinky thing" in his pocket. They shook hands, and Rob continued, "I've heard your name before, and I must say your mangaka didn't do you justice."
"Why, thank you! Which story are you from?"
"I'm one of the apartment managers. If I'm a character in a story, I don't know which one it is. And I just got here, fashionably late."
"Ah. In that case, you missed my sister-in-law's entrance; they just got home after meeting some of Whirlwind's new clients, but she stole the show." Megumi nodded toward the crowd that was still surrounding her family.
"I'm sure that they made an impression. Unlike me," he added quietly as absolutely nobody else rushed over to say hello to him. But he didn't expect that anybody would have.
"Maybe if you went and got a drink from the table over there, you might bump into somebody you know."
Rob could tell Megumi wasn't particularly interested in speaking with him. Diplomatically, he didn't mention that he'd already spoken with Peggy Schroeck. "That's a good idea; I'll do that. It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Morisato."
She gave him a thumbs-up and answered, "Ayyyy."
As Rob headed for the refreshments, he wondered what else he'd missed because he arrived late.
"You talk like we should stand in line,
Speak soft and never cross the line.
We learned too young to play that part
So now we wear our scars like art.
Your paper rules and plastic crowns
Mean nothing when the lights go down.
We built our sound from sleepless nights
And wired our names into the lights."[22]
"I'm likin' these girls, too," Artie said as Akira laid down a fast, stylish lick that carried the song — a hard rock number heavy on the bass and sharp accents from the guitar that stepped right up to the edge of punk and stared down confrontationally into it. He ran his fingertip along the edge of his now-empty whiskey glass. "Think I might offer them a gig, too."
Attila was leaning back in his chair, nodding his head to the beat. "Yeah, they're good. I'd pay to see'em."
Linda glanced at Terpsichore. "Are they another of your projects?"
The muse laughed. "They're all my projects. Them, all the other bands here tonight, every little garage band anywhere in the world with any idea of vocal harmony... I keep an eye on them all."
"I'm surprised you have time to come to a party, then," Helen said with faint smirk. "You sound like a very busy woman."
Terpsichore grinned at her. "Anything to keep me off Olympus and out of Dad's sight."
"Raise your voice above the static haze!
Let every rooftop carry back the phrase!
We were never born to fade away unseen!
We are the fire deep within the machine!"
Rob had stopped by the bar, where he picked up both a ginger ale (he thought it was too early in the party to start getting drunk, and he didn't want to risk bringing cola anywhere near the next person who he wanted to meet) and the bartender's name (remembering to address Tom by name later was simple courtesy). Then he waited for a chance to make his way through the crowd surrounding the Norns... until the more traditional Japanese displacees politely made way for him. "I guess I really am getting old," he muttered as he took the opportunity to jump the queue rather than argue.
Once he was close enought to speak with the Megami, he bowed deeply to the goddesses and their escort. "Milady Urd, Milady Belldandy, Milord Morisato, it is an honour to finally make your acquaintance. And hello again, Milady Skuld."
"Please, Mr. Donaldson, call me Mrs. Morisato, or just Belldandy."
"Of course, just Belldandy."
"Hey! Treat my sister with..." Skuld finally realized that Rob had made a small joke. "Oh. I guess that's funny. What's with 'milady' and 'milord'?"
"He's using terms from Dumas."[23] Urd turned from Skuld to Rob. "Aren't you?"
"Exactly. You are all worthy of my respect, but you are not Powers that I honour."
Keiichi put his hand behind his head. "I'm nothing special, really. You don't have to call me 'milord'."
"But you are special, Mr. Morisato. You've earned and won the love of a Goddess."
"That just means she's special, because she can fall in love with somebody like me." Belldandy smiled at Keiichi's answer.
The stagelights reflecting off the sheen of sweat on her face, Akira looked out over the applauding crowd with a broad smile. "Thank you, everyone," she said, wrapping her hands around the microphone and pulling it close to her mouth. "Well, that's almost it for us. Once more, we are OnNaGumi! But before we play our last song tonight, let me introduce the other members of the band: On drums, Ayame Yoshida!"
The bleach-blonde grinned her way through a short but energetic drum solo. As the applause briefly swelled, Akira looked back over her shoulder at her, and returned the grin. "Fear her high kick!" The drummer rolled her eyes.
Akira then gestured to her right. "And on bass, the irrepressible Sachi Hayashi!" The bassist barely glanced up at the audience before launching into a brief, noodling riff. Again, the applause grew heavier and louder for a moment, before Akira took the mic in both hands again. "And I'm Akira Wada. We've had a great time tonight, and we hope you have, too." She released the mic and took up her guitar again. "But we can't go without one more number, one that our landlord has decided is our signature song – 'Unbreakable'!"
Ayame hammered out a two-hit combo and Akira launched into an aggressive hook; Sachi's bass answered the guitar in spaced, thunderous hits until all three came together to drive deep into the song proper as Akira sang:
"I rise from the ashes, can't hold me down,
Fists clenched tight, I'll take back this town.
They tried to silence me, but I found my voice,
With fire in my veins, I've made my choice.
I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!"
They were barely into the first chorus and the audience was already chanting along to the beat.
"Every setback's just fuel for my fight,
I'm turning the darkness into pure light.
They throw their doubts, but I wear them proud,
A warrior's heart, I'll shout it out loud!
I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!"[24]
"I'll break these chains, I'll tear down the walls,
With every heartbeat, I'll rise when I fall.
No more limits, I'll shatter the mold,
This fire inside me can't be controlled!"
![[Image: 300px-Ferris_Bueller_as_the_Tenth_Doctor...n_2016.jpg]](https://kanrikyara.miraheze.org/wiki/File:Ferris_Bueller_as_the_Tenth_Doctor,_Halloween_2016.jpg)
Hi, readers. Ferris Bueller here, cleverly disguised as the Tenth Doctor. Great party, isn't it? I'd offer you a drink, but, well, you know. Those OnNaGumi girls really know how to rock, don't they? Kind of make me want to try to form my own band again. All I'd need would be a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, maybe some backup singers...
Ah, I can think about that later. Right now, though, I'm busy enjoying the party. This is exactly the kind of thing I talk about, and I can't emphasize more: Every time life hands you a moment of joy and delight, you need to grab it with both hands and then live and love it for all it's worth. You know, seize the day. And not just seize it, but hold on tight and squeeze everything you can get out of it. You never know if or when you'll have another chance at it.
And this Halloween party? A once-in-a-lifetime, never-before-never-again thing that's simply begging to be experienced and appreciated to the fullest. So that's what I'm doing, and what I'm making sure Cameron and Sloane are doing, too.
Case in point, the couple who just joined us at our table – Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker. Yeah, from the Back to the Future movies. (Of course, only the first one came out before we were displaced, but we caught the other two since arriving in Refuge.) It's an opportunity we'd never have had in our home universe – and you know what? We're making the most of it. They're fun people to hang with. Sloane and Jennifer hit it off immediately, and if I'm not mistaken they're going to be new best friends. Marty, Cameron and me? Well, we're talking music and bands, and analyzing the groups who are playing the party.
We're having a great time.
Oh, hey, looks like the trick-or-treaters are back from their expedition into the wilds of New Jersey. And they seem to be queueing up for something... I'd keep my eyes open if I were you. Oh, hold on. You're going to have to wait – there's a chapter break coming.
You know what? Just kick back for the moment and enjoy the rest of OnNaGumi's last song tonight, and I'll see you when Chapter 5 comes out.
"I'm unbreakable, I'm unstoppable,
Climbing higher, nothing's impossible.
Through the storm, I'll make my stand,
I'm taking my future, I'm in command!
Unbreakable, hear my roar,
I'm rising up, I'm ready for war!
Nothing's gonna hold me back,
I'm on the attack, it's my time to act!
I'm unbreakable!"
- RK: You'd better be careful how you phrase that. I think I saw a werewolf in the crowd.
- Lyrics from "(I Don't Give a Damn About My) Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, written by Joan Jett, Martin Kupersmith, Ritchie Cordell and Kenneth Benjamin Laguna, copyright © 1980 Jett Pack Music Inc.
- Lyrics from "I Was Made For Lovin' You" by Kiss, written by Paul Stanley, Desmond Child, and Vini Poncia. Copyright © 1979 The Island Def Jam Music Group / Casablanca Record and Filmworks, Inc.
- Lyrics from "Back to Avalon" by Heart, written by Ann Wilson, Nancy Wilson, and Kit Hain, copyright © 1993 Capitol Records, Inc.
- RK: "Curiousity killed the cat; satisfacton brought it back."
- RMS: But if she eats and fasts, then it zeros out and she's still hungry... <rimshot> Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Try the lasagna.
- Lyrics from "Konya wa Hurricane", music by Suzuki Kisaburō and lyrics by Aran Tomoko; originally copyright © 1987 Youmex/AIC/ARTMIC but now managed through successor labels under Universal Music Group.
- Original English adaptation — not, strictly speaking, a literal translation — of "Fuwa Fuwa Time" by the KanriKyara Project team. Placed in the public domain for the use of other writers.
- As reported by Azalynn dv'Ir Natashkan to Kaitlyn Hutchins in The Federation Lives Forever!: Supporting Documents, an Undocumented Features story.
- Lyrics from "Blend-in!" by the KanriKyara Project team.
- RMS: This is a bit of a meta-humor, for those who don't catch it — Mio's North American voice actress Cristina Vee posted YouTube videos of herself singing both the Swedish and English versions of "Caramelldansen". She did so a couple years after 2016, though, so no chance Yui or Azusa saw one of them.
- Lyrics from "Caramelldansen (English Version)" by Caramella Girls, written by Jorge Vasconcelo and Juha Myllylä, copyright © 2001, 2008 EMI Blackwood Music Inc. o/b/o EMI Music Pub Scandinavia Ab and Universal Music-Mgb Songs o/b/o Remrec Songs/Remix Records.
- Lyrics from "Witch Doctor" by David Seville; written by David Seville, copyright © 1958, Universal Music Publishing, Inc. Lyrics intentionally misspelled for effect.
- RMS: As given in Rebuild of Evangelion.
- RMS: Not even close to a canonical name, as Kaorin's mother has none.
- RMS: Lyrics from "Mind Bender" by Stillwater, written by Buddy Buie and Rob Walker, copyright © 1977 Capricorn Records Inc. The device Yui's using is called a "talkbox", and involves her singing with a hose running into her mouth. Yeah, it looks as odd as it sounds.
- Lyrics from "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" by the Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, copyright © 1968 Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
- RMS: In particular, the "Immigrant Song" sequence was shot in Edison, only a few miles from Douglass Gardens. And most of the rest of the movie was filmed in the NJ/NY area.
- Lyrics from "Glass Trigger", by the KanriKyara Project team.
- Lyrics from "Velvet Riot", by the KanriKyara Project team.
- Lyrics from "White Noise Parade" by the KanriKyara Project team.
- Lyrics from "Iron Halo", by the KanriKyara Project team.
- RK: Specifically, The Three Musketeers – the English noblewoman DeWinter is referred to as "Milady" by the French musketeers.
- Lyrics from "Unbreakable", by the KanriKyara Project team.
If you didn't bother to read the footnotes, we just wanted to let you know that a couple of the original songs that appeared in this chapter can be downloaded from the project's Google Drive:
And there will be more in the next chapter!
-- Bob
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....