He should have known something like this would happen. Nothing here was ever simple. A regular Halloween would have been too much to ask for.
It all happened rather quickly for him, starting with the fake fang caps he had put on his canines. It was practice for later in the night, but when they wouldn’t come off, Koutaro assumed that he had glued them too strongly. He could deal with them later. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Then, the sharp nails he applied did the same. It was annoying, sure, but nothing to be suspicious about.
It’s only when seeing his bottle of fake blood that Koutaro realizes something is wrong, and it wasn’t him being sloppy with his makeup.
Hungry. He felt hungry looking at fake blood. That was wrong. So was the feeling of sharp fangs against his lip. He touches his mouth, a sudden panic rising. A quick dash to the bathroom and he sees that he even looks different, his dark hair making the pallor of his skin even more extreme. He looked dead, almost. His makeup job was nowhere near this accurate just an hour ago.
Whatever was happening to him, he didn’t like it.
Scarf and gloves? Check. Jacket? Check. Hat? Check. Sunglasses? Check.
Covered head to toe, he steps out of his apartment building. He looked ridiculous, wearing all this, but he wasn’t about to risk dying in the sun because he was suddenly a...
He adjusts his gloves, the claws making them uncomfortable, and huffs. Wherever the sun managed to touch hurt. It was a sharp pain, but luckily Koutaro had a high tolerance. The lingering hunger, however, was annoying. None of the snacks he had made it go away. Maybe he just needed something good to eat to get rid of this urge. Something salty. And red--
Koutaro huffs again, irritated with how foggy he felt, and shoves his hands into his pockets. He’d be okay. He just needed to figure out how to make all this stop and staying in his apartment alone with his dog wasn’t going to help him figure things out. At least nobody would be able to recognize him right away, walking around the city as if he was cold instead of an undead creature out for blood.
[ ♬ ]—— Ibuki picks the album and peer at the cover, smirking instantly. “Would you look at that. A proper choice for beginners! This band is pretty softcore for many fans, much like many others that won’t destroy eardrums at the first song!” After such grand explanation, she twirls the record around, opens it and pops the resulting CD right into the stereo slot. For the sake of surprise, she sets the whole thing to shuffle and waits.
For a beginner’s set, it does start quite strongly already, a mix of guitar and drums booming through the loudspeakers. Other than that the melody proceeds without incidents; no screaming or murderous instinct yet. That is… until the chorus hits, and the entire room vibrates under the pressure of strong beats laced with yelled words and the violence within them.
“THERE’S BLOOD ON MY HANDS LIKE THE BLOOD IN YOOOOOOU! SOME THINGS CAN’T BE TREATED SO DON’T MAKE ME DON’T MAKE ME BE MYSELF AROUND YOOOOOOOOOOUU!!!!!”
Of course she does her part in the presenting earthquake.
The song that starts to play is good, he thinks. It was definitely not something he’s heard before. Was it American? As if that would be the reason and not, you know, the large gap in time between now and where he belongs.
Koutaro listens intently, trying to memorize the melody and vocals regardless of the fact that there was no way he was going to remember everything Ibuki showed him today. Except, maybe he would, because the song suddenly picks up in volume and so does Ibuki.
He startles, staring at Ibuki who was all but distracted by her own screaming. Louder than the song itself, Koutaro could only hear her as she drowned out the singer.
So, she was one of those people.
He waits for the song to die down and for Ibuki to finish her outburst before trying to speak, his own voice sounding quiet to his ears after what just happened. “Uh... You like heavy metal?”
[ ✥ ]—— Just a bump… judging from the bruises over the guy’s face, and how he couldn’t have just gotten them from that one incident alone, Kivat can deduce the kid might have gotten more that just one bump along the way. Knowing that does nothing but amuse him even further, but he struggles to maintain the worried look on his face and keep his act up. After all, the face he is using isn’t his own. He has to play his cards carefully.
“That’d be impressive, but I don’t want you to get further hurt.” He gently takes Koutaro’s arm, tugging in an attempt to help him up. Feh. If only he could just roll this jerk over and sit on his back… it would be too good to be real. “We should look for a cafè or some place that sells ice. If blood comes out, your wounds might get infected…”
He lets Wataru help him up, still somewhat dizzy from the impact. Embarrassing himself further in front of Wataru by trying to stand up alone was something Koutaro wanted to avoid. He has fallen over enough for one day.
“Thanks.” He squints, trying to focus his vision. He wasn’t seeing double, but everything seemed hazy. He had been good with avoiding head injuries the entire week, though he should have guessed that his luck with that would also run out. Thankfully, Wataru was around.
“Ah...ice?” Right, ice would help with any swelling and pain. Despite how often he injured himself, Koutaro was more of the type to just ignore and bear it rather than take care of himself. A rather childish thing to do and probably why his bruises stuck around for so long. “I think there’s a place down the street.”
Having someone be this interested in her and her magic was entirely too much fun. Lucy kept having to rein in her ego as she listened to the young man and his questions, and she had to do her best not to go full out on him and startle him away. Her magic was indeed amazing and impressive, no mistake about that, but it certainly wasn’t the cream of the crop like she was trying to sell it as. This person probably would swoon over anyone who knew magic, as evidence by the fact he was talking to her.
“They’re spirits are in spirits, not ghosts. They’re actual living beings with their own personalities.” Lucy tapped the key with her fingertip. “They live in the Stellar Spirit world, a place normal humans can’t go unless they’re invited - and even then you can’t survive without a special type of clothing.” Lucy knew of only a handful of people who’d ever been there, and she was proud to say she’d been included in that number. Her spirits loved her just as much as she loved them. “And I do have Scorpio, although his key was taken from me when I arrived in this city. I hope we can meet again soon, me and him and all the others.”
His final question had Lucy smirk. Clearly this kid was all about seeing rather than just hearing, or perhaps that was just her thinking that way as an excuse to show off even more. “Would you like to see? I can show you my transformation, as well as introduce you to Virgo if you’d like.”
He absentmindedly drums his fingers against the book, listening to her talk. It wasn’t a surprise that most of her keys were taken from her on arrival. Koutaro was expecting it, really. It was probably the scientists’ way of seeing how everyone handled being trapped here at first. How voyeuristic of them.
“You might get them back. Sometimes they return our things.” From what Koutaro had gleaned, it was usually after something big in the city had happened. Though, he had received his sword rather randomly. Nothing could ever be easy to figure out here and in the end it was just wild guesses.
Her offer surprises him. Transform? In the middle of a store? He could see this easily becoming a disaster, but she wasn’t him. Not everyone was capable of being a complete mess. “Sure. Go ahead,” he says. He had no plans for the day so wasting time with magic wasn’t too much of a problem. Besides, she looked excited about the idea of showing off her powers and Koutaro would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little curious about how this all worked in practice.
[ ✥ ]—— For someone who never had fingers his whole life, he was quick to figure out how to button a shirt, put a pair of pants on, brush that hair to perfection, and other human-like activities he never thought he’d ever do in his whole life as a tiny bat. Kivat was no longer shocked by the reflection he saw from the mirror of their bathroom. The face of his partner, the body of his partner, everything that could remotely belong to his partner is now his own, although not for long, but who cares after all.
To think he could have obtained such an achievement through one single bite.
It was becoming irritating and verging on completely ridiculous, this current streak of bad luck. When Koutaro was burdened with these, they lasted a couple days, maybe three. This one? More than a week now, if the bruises scattered about Koutaro’s skin proved anything. He hated this. He hated slipping on something as cliche as banana peels and he certainly hated smacking his face right into things.
He winces, eyes still shut and laying on the ground. This wet feeling on his forehead..., did he run into the ladder hard enough to start bleeding? It certainly felt like it.
The voice of whoever was next to him was familiar. Something quiet and soft that Koutaro’s heard before. He sits up with a grunt and squints toward the direction of the person, still disoriented.
“Wataru?” he says, starting to lift his hand to touch his forehead and check if he was actually bleeding. He decides against it. If he was, smudging it would make it worse. The voice belonging to Wataru wasn’t a surprise. Other than grandpa, Wataru was the only person with such a quiet voice that Koutaro knew.
[ ♬ ]—— There will be chances for her to bring the topic back up, but possibly once Koutaro listens to at leats five whole discographies in a row. She’s certain their level of senpai-ness will skyrocket after that event, thus he will find himself incapable to refuse telling her more about his sword partner. What a well constructed plan… she’s mentally patting herself on the back a hundred times.
Even if that doesn’t work properly, there will still be the satisfaction of filling him in about the best genre of music there is. She finds it incredible that none of the bands, even the most popular ones that would make a random human snap ‘I KNOW THEM’ out loud, are known to anyone in the guy’s timeline. A different planet would have been understandable, but Earth… what kind of excuse would they have for such blasphemy?
“WELCOME TO HELL!!!” So, she swings the door open and shrieks in a not so reassuring fashion. The room is filled to brim with random teenager things scattered around– mostly guitars, magazines, comics, videogames– and there’s especially a big stereo towering over a shelf above the desk. She hops over there and begins rummaging through the piles of music CDs that lay around in a haphazard state.
“C’mere and pick one! Ibuki can’t choose since they’re aaaall great and we don’t have the whole day to listen to ‘em all!”
He jumps slightly when she yells. Koutaro was getting used to her brashness, but the “welcome to hell” was anything but reassuring. They were only going to listen to popular music, right?
Unnerving exclamations aside, Koutaro was excited. Ibuki’s collection was large, which in hindsight wasn’t surprising. She was some sort of idol rock person, or at least Koutaro assumed so. Who else could afford so many instruments. He could hardly pay to buy one guitar, let alone enough to decorate a room.
“It doesn’t matter which one?” he says, flipping through her collection. He knits his brows. None of these names looked familiar. Was sixty years that large of a gap for music? He thought maybe there would be some overlap, that something that was a retro classic to him would be modern pop culture to Ibuki. There was no such luck.
He picks a random record with an eye catching cover and hands it to her. “How about this one?”
“Stellar Magic works through contracts with stellar spirits. I then use the contract I’ve forged with the spirit to summon them for help when I need it, or to assist me in battle or everyday tasks.” Lucy sounded all too full of herself as she continued to talk, doing her best to hype up everything that came with being a mage. “Using the power of keys, we summon spirits who represent the constellations in the sky. There are twelve golden keys which represent the Zodiac, and lots of silver keys that represent their own stars.”
As if to make a point, she reached down and pulled up the single golden key that she had with her. “This key belongs to the Maiden, Virgo. Through our contract I can summon her at any time, though being in this place has more or less put a damper on things.” Lucy wondered if all the spirits she contracts with would be rather understanding over what was going on with her new location. Given how fast gossip tended to travel in the spirit world she was certain everyone knew her circumstances, but that didn’t mean things would be easy when everyone was reunited.
“Virgo can dig holes through pretty much anything, and I can borrow her magic to boost my own and even transform.”
Summoning things to fight sounded like something right out of a video game. Though, being possessed and time travelling were things that sounded just as ridiculous. Hive City really was a bit...weird.
“Spirits? So they’re like ghosts?” Koutaro still didn’t have much of a grasp on what she meant. Magic, actual magic, wasn’t really his area of expertise or anything. “Did you have Scorpio? he asks out of curiosity, maybe a little too excitedly. Astrology wasn’t something he paid a lot of attention to, but he was a Scorpio so clearly it was important. Hopefully it did something a little more useful than dig.
Something else she says also grabs his attention. Maybe they did have common ground between the two of them after all. “And what do you transform into?”
Gentarou couldn’t have been happier about fall’s arrival. He loved all of it. The weather, the outfits, and the leaves. Who didn’t love all the leaves? Sure maybe the trees were a little bare and scary, but the leaves always looked a lot nicer in a fall pallet of color. Gentarou had been taken advantage of the fallen leaves, and made himself a pretty reasonable sized pile. He decided he’d have to make a sick jump into this to make sure they all went flying and looked as badass as possible. A running start wouldn’t do it. No no, he’d need the help of a special buddy of his.
Gentarou whipped out his driver and slapped it on, intending only to use one switch. He slammed the lever and transformed, standing face to face with the leaves, observing his crunchy victim through his bug eyes. He took a couple steps back, and flipped on the rocket switch, taking straight to the skies. He’d dive bomb into these leaves and leave a crater of leafy destruction so big that citta would have to consider it a monument. He did a loop around through the air, and began his dive towards the leaves.
He was coming in at an angle, and had it perfectly lined up– that is, until a person was walking between him and the leaves. He tried to shout out, to no prevail. Gentarou turned off rocket and slammed straight into the poor unknowing civilian, taking them right into the pile of leaves with him.
Gentarou felt a bit of pain, but rolled over to find the leaves all floating in the air. It did look pretty sweet, from down here. Him and his unexpected partner had made quite the splash into the crunchy pile. “S-sorry about that, man… The name’s Gentarou Kisaragi, the man who’s gonna befriend all of Hive City… I hope we can still be buds, if you’re alive over there”, Gentarou spoke out to the figure lying in the remnants of the pile a couple feet away.
One moment he’s walking, enjoying the crisp autumn air that had finally begun, and the next his ears are ringing. It all occurred so fast that Koutaro had no idea what had just happened. On the ground covered in leaves, he slowly sits up, spitting out some leaves and groaning from the pain. Red leaves were nice to look at, but god they tasted awful.
Did he trip? No, the force he fell with was too strong for it to have simply been him tripping over his own feet. The answer is clear when someone speaks up, his would be assailant.
“Gentarou..?” Well, at least it was someone he knew. One of the riders who ran the club. While Koutaro never had a true conversation with him, it was hard to not know Gentarou, who sort of flitted across their meetings with boundless energy (and also managed to break into the Milk Dipper before it opened?).
“What were you doing?” he asks, eyeing the Fourze suit.
[ ♬ ]—— She surely expected Koutaro to splutter and blabber excuses, but the end result is even better than what she calculated. When the armor breaks away and his flushed face appears, Ibuki could split her head in half from how wide she’s grinning. That doesn’t look like the expression of someone who merely sees his companion as just a friend.
“Hmmmm, right! Your face is red because of heat then, isn’t it? Ibuki was sure she upped the AC today~!” Chuckling softly, she gains composure and then shoves her knuckles over her hips in a determined pose. If she were to tease further, he might leave in shame, and there are other things they’re supposed to do. Besides, she can bring it back up anytime later.
“Okay then! Ibuki thinks it’s time for the Best stuff! You’ve come here for the music, right?” She gestures towards the stairs. “C’mon, follow Ibuki towards her personal Heaven!”
His only response is to scowl. Yes, it’s hot, he wants to say. That would only continue the current topic and if Ibuki was already dropping it (which was extremely suspicious), then Koutaro was glad to wipe his hands free and continue.
The real reason he had come over, if not to finally get out of his own apartment after a couple days, was for something important. Hailing from the future meant that his knowledge of specific things in the past was limited. It wasn’t a problem before, really. The only times he went to the past was for Den-O related things and he never stayed too long.
Except, he’d been in the city for a while now and his unfamiliarity with past technology and topics was starting to become obvious, especially with pop culture. Either it was because the people here were all from different worlds or there was a gap between the times everyone was from. If Koutaro had to take a guess, it was probably a bit of both.
And that’s where Ibuki comes in. He follows her, ready for whatever this crash course in popular bands would be like. “Thanks for doing this,” he says. Maybe now he can walk into a store and actually recognize the albums.
[ Ω ]—— Shouichi’s evergreen face brightens towards the positive respose to his idea. There is some hope laying among the list of shameful alternatives that have been rejected. He may have met Koutaro for merely a hour or little more, but he values the guy’s opinions greatly already.
If Koutaro says it’s a good idea, then it will work. Clearly.
“I’ll do that! Thank you so much, Koutaro-san!” He stops again to bow his head in gratitude, his body shaking, fretting and starting to get impatient. “We must hurry to the station then! C’mon, we’re gonna miss the train!” His legs precede the end of his sentence as he begins rushing with faster steps, swinging the bag containing Hikawa’s ball back and forth.
Foreseeing the face his friend will make guides him further towards destination, eventually forgetting his momentary companion behind.
It was bound to happen. The crowds in Sector 5 were still thick and Shouichi was, unfortunately, very fast. Koutaro loses sight of him almost immediately and his attempts at looking over people turns out to be completely useless.
To: Koutaro Nogami
From: Hikawa Makoto
My phone back home was a little dated, but it might have had a similar feature. I never needed it.
As calm as his words were, he grimaced. He was on top of technology when it came to fighting for justice, but he barely knew his way around a cell phone. The one he held now was much different, so at least that was one excuse.
To: Koutaro Nogami
From: Hikawa Makoto
I’ve sent e-mails on a PC. Am I able to do that with this?
Lucy brightened up at the mention of a cafe, leading her to think that maybe this Hive City wasn’t going to be so bad after all. It had a huge bookstore like this and now supposedly there was a cafe? It certainly wasn’t Magnolia or any of the towns she knew but at least she wasn’t going to suffer from a lack of culture. If Hive City had turned out to be bustling only on the surface, Lucy was pretty sure she’d have thought this place Hell. “You have a -” Her sentence was cut off as Koutaro started on about her being a mage. A grin started over her face, replacing the bit of hesitation she’d had before when talking about it.
She was always glad to brag about her magic, her guild, and her friends - both human and spirit alike. “Yes, I said mage. I’m a stellar spirit mage - probably one of the last two in existence and as far as I’m aware also the only one here in this Hive City place. That makes me a big deal, I guess.” If she was bragging, she didn’t care. Lucy was proud of what she was, even if she’d just admitted with only one key she was hardly the mage she claimed to be, but this kid seemed impressed. Nothing wrong with showing off a little, even if it was just frosting with words. “Have you never met a mage before? Is magic not common here?”
“Uh-huh,” he nods, her words obviously flying right over his heads. A stellar spirit mage, whatever that was, sounded important. Important enough for her to brag about it, anyway. If she was only trying to impress him, Koutaro wouldn’t know.
“Not really. Maybe? Usually the people pulled here have something going on with them. It’s hard to keep track of.” Maybe to some other person he could be seen as someone who used magic too, especially with the time travel stuff. It was all relative, he guesses.
“But this stellar thing. How does that work? It’s the first I’ve heard of it.” Color him curious. Magic was exciting, fake or real.
so today is my 6 month anniversary here (ﾉ´ｰ`)ﾉ!! huzzah. it’s been fun so far. also look forward to the nogamis opening a certain cafe soon. it will be fun. hip and cool, as the kids say
Lucy finished putting a few books on the shelf before she happened to notice he must have found whatever he was originally looking for. Spying the title written on the spine, she giggled a bit. Fairy tales? Really? She might have liked those sort of fantasy stories when she was younger (and okay, maybe even a bit now) but to see someone her current age specifically looking for them was kinda cute. Mostly cute as in childish, but still cute. “You must really want that book, to go through all this trouble I mean. Knocking half the shelf down just to get to it.” It was friendly teasing, considering she would probably do the same thing over a book she really wanted. Hadn’t she tried to steal a book before, on her first job for Fairy Tail?
“As for me, I’m Lucy! I’m a mage with the guild Fairy Tail, though I don’t really think that means anything here.” She set a few objects back on the shelves before picking up a book she noticed they’d both missed. It had a beautiful fairy drawn on the front, with massive wings. It simple said “Tales” on the front. “Are you a fan of books, or just of children’s stories?”
Koutaro frowns. She was only teasing, obviously, but he was hoping she would forget about what just happened. He wanted to, but the dull pain in his back wasn’t going to let him any time soon. At least she had been the only one to witness it.
Fairy Tail... he was sure he had heard something like that in passing. It wasn’t enough to mention it to her. It could have just been someone talking about a book, like the one in his hands. Koutaro shakes his head. “Not really. This is for my grandpa and our cafe.” He would pick stuff up here and there back home, but not enough to warrant the title of a fan. Maybe he should start reading more. There wasn’t a lot to do in the city and who knew how much longer he would be stuck here. It was probably a good thing that he wasn’t a reader, though. He could spoil a lot of things for people if that were the case.
“Wait, did you say mage?” he pipes up. A mage? Like, someone who did magic? Now he knew she definitely wasn’t from the city. The people who were actually from here were always sort of dull and magic was anything but boring.
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