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Reiki Rokugin

As Asher sat down, Reiki looked around to see if he could spot the glowstick girl and flag her over. Whatever they symbolized or didn’t—maybe something about supporting the luchador/town vigilante with no magical powers (as far as Reiki knew, anyway)—they were cute and Asher deserved to have one, too. Or at least he deserved the chance to decide for himself if he wanted one. Yuki did too, for that matter.

“I have gotten it working on Apple Watch!” Having the kid sit down and start chatting despite any reservations—and despite Yuki admittedly being rather blunt—endeared Yuki to Asher instantly. Any further comments on his age—either Asher would tell him to knock it off, or he’d learn that Yuki didn’t mean them in genuine derision; he was just kind of a blunt person like that. “The Apple Watch wasn’t easy. They’re so protective of their tech, they take truly absurd measures to prevent people from jail-breaking their stuff. But aside from the Apple Watch……? I have played Doom on a graphing calculator, a Kindle, my old electronic vape—”

“Good riddance that thing is gone,” Reiki humphed, still searching the crowd for The Glowstick Girl. “I’m too young and pretty to be a queerplatonic widow because you vaped the wrong stuff, or weakened your lungs and caught some death plague, or whatever.”

“Yes, ********, I’m well aware.” Smirking fondly, he seized an opportunity to sneak in and kiss ******** cheek. “Thank you for caring about me so intently that you want me to be alive as long as possible.” Looking back to Asher, Yuki went on, “So, yeah, my old vape. Then, the Leapfrog tablet that my niece and nephew were obsessed with for a while, then lost interest in. Microsoft Excel. An iphone—both independently and within the Pokémon Go app. Then, there was this old Nokia phone that his brother found in their parents’ garage at some point? It didn’t really make calls anymore because of SIM card things, and by all means, Hinami—their middle sister—should’ve broken it when she ran over it with a car? But those old Nokias are indestructible like that, and that one still ran Doom perfectly well.”

Yuki shrugged. The infinite panoply of Things That Could Run Doom never ceased to amaze him.

“But how about you, though? ******** only told me that you’re cute, and sweet, and looking for more queer friends. What does this particular Asher enjoy doing?”

Richard Bell (and NPC siblings)

Richard was having quite a good time needling Garber, but his attention was yanked away by the sight of Don Diablos carrying--of all things--a cut-out of Ignacio. Seeing his husband in cut-out form, much less seeing that cut-out wedged under someone's arm, made Richard do a double-take. He rushed to grab his phone again, knowing that this was something Ignacio absolutely had to see. Ignacio would get a kick out of it, that was for sure!

As he lifted his phone and the shutter whirred, Richard noticed that--unlike the rest of them--Garber hadn't stopped staring at a certain someone.

"Richard Arra Bell, I am not stressed." Oh, that was plenty easy to see through, and the grin Richard flashed his oldest brother said as much. Not that Garber could see it, of course, for all the staring he was doing at The Sensation. ...As well as all the shenanigans The Sensation was engaged in. It was very much like Garber couldn't look away.

Lee jumped in with, "You're definitely stressed." A purr curled his mouth through, "didn't know your type was strongmen," and he rolled the words around on his tongue like candy.

"Tall strongmen at that," chimed in Dominique, looking no less satisfied than Lee. Richard was content to let them take the reins of teasing Garber so that he could respond to the text Ignacio had sent.



Though it did create a great moment--

The Don and Company were fast, blazing a trail, getting aid from the crowd!! It was the most fun Albite thought he'd had in months. He only ever had more fun than this fighting some big new beatumup in DC, or in space, or ---Hanging with his loves, speaking of which? He figured he could slow step to spare a glance to the right, couldn't spare it for long because then he would've wanted to stop and cheer on his boys in the stand. It was too damn cute, the fast little peek of Eion, Ren, and Aelius looked like they were getting along so well! All bundled up n close against the softly drifting snow --- too damn cute!!

He had to focus though! To focus and move and ru---was that another Aura he knew!?

There and gone in a whole damn flash of a blip, but Albite coulda s w o r n he'd felt the sunburnt warm rainbow edges of -- of -- nope, nope, nope and nah! Couldn'tve been! There were no prettily bodiced DMS's in the stands, no Cosmos Knights with canes n cute goatees...

He was just sensing things sillily!

The crowd was just fulla pretty people, that was all! There were so many lovely people out tonight, braving all the cold just to cheer them on and --- ohmygod was that Todd, too!?

Ohmygosh, yes, Todd! Todd believes in me!!!!! Todd wants me to win---

I CAN DO IT I CAN FIGHT---

As Albite skidded up to grab the next item, he realized he'd have fight to win, because this thing was an entire a** mannequin!? Why was it fully clothed, whos store was it from, what!?!

"You are shitting me---" no, forget it! It didn't matter! He could carry all his cake, and all his wins, and an entire human sized mannequin modeled after one of those pretty ballet dancers!!! He gave the winter attire wearing doll a kiss on the head for good luck before putting the trophy between his teeth and shoving his fingers into the fake-cake like it was a bowling ball, then finally hoisting the mannequin into a fireman carry! Albite was growling the whole way back, sweating, finally, over what he'd end up grabbing next!! He still needed two more items---

Magnus

Word had gotten around the city that something was going down on the outskirts of the city. The possibility of a good time was enough in and of itself to pull the street cat out of the city and to the outskirts, but the fact that there was likely going to be food was an even bigger motivation. He was a cat after all and people loved cats.

So Magnus found himself at the competition and was very pleased to see the plethora of two letters milling around. Some, he noted, looked to be showing off and doing some sort of ridiculous things in equally ridiculous outfits...wait...He stopped misstep, eyes narrowing at the field. There were signatures there. Mixed signatures. Well, that was interesting! And how incredibly curious that they were sharing a space civilly. He liked that! When they were done shouting and making fools of themselves perhaps he'd scurry himself over to them, but now? Now, he wanted food.

The best place to start was teh stands. There were lots of people there and would require the least amount of travel between groups. So, tail held high, he hurried himself to the metal bleachers.

Wanting to attack the stands in some semblance of order, the Mau opted to start towards the top. The first victims people he found were boisterous and fun sounding. There was a woman with glow sticks and the three with her looked thrilled at their new possible acquisitions. Magnus didn't blame them. The read sticks were fun and dazzling to his little magpie self. But, he didn't see any food. WAIT! Was that a bag? Oh, prospects were still good!

With a meow, Magnus hurried to the two and began weaving his large grey body between their legs, tail wrapping around legs as he meowed and looked up at them with it blue eyes. Eventually he stopped, hopped onto the bleacher in front of them and sat, staring them down with big needy eyes.

He couldn't help but think how much easier this would be if he could just tell them he was hungry.

Third thing. Okay. She was almost halfway there. Time to focus.

Time to focus on victory and not on the gross disgusting awful slimy sandwich. Ugh. She could feel it starting to drip on her fingers. This was the worst thing she'd ever touched in her entire life, and she'd touched youma.

She ran faster.

Next she was handed an oversized chain necklace, which was fine. She could appreciate statement fashion, and it was also something that she didn't have to hold in her hands. Silently, she sprinted, half thinking about victory and half thinking about the point where she could stop holding this sandwich.

Reiki Rokugin

“Well, hey, if you ever want any help with that…?” Shuffling his new glowstick over to one hand, Yuki rummaged in his pocket for his phone, unlocked it, and handed it over. “Put in your number and I’ll text you. I’ve been making online pages since Geocities was still a thing.… Granted, the ones I made back then were all horrible, visually assaultive combinations of colors, and going on about, like, why Squall Leonhart was secretly dead the whole time in Final Fantasy 8 or why the Sages in Ocarina of Time all died, except Princess Zelda.”

Wrinkling his nose, Yuki made a pensive sound. “…Not all of the video game theories I was into in middle school involved someone secretly being dead, I swear.”

Once he’d thanked the girl with the glowsticks for coming over to bestow them on Asher and Yuki—and studiously ignored the feeling of something winding around his legs because it honestly felt like Soyala when she knew that she had salmon waiting for her, and he didn’t want to think about it—Reiki turned back to them with a mind to tell Asher that he only told Yuki things that were entirely true……and found himself blinking quizzically down at a big, fluffy cat. Distinctly not Soya-hime……but oh, the cat had a star on his forehead. Not a black one like Soya’s, so……an Order cat?

Could he sense an Awakened senshi even without Reiki being all dolled up as Murikabushi?

Well, no matter. A cat—a Mauvian—was looking up at him expectantly, so Reiki went to rummage in his bag.

Looking back from handing his phone to Asher, Yuki glanced at Reiki and saw him……digging a plastic lunch container out of his bag and cracking it open. Tilting his head and frowning a bit, Yuki watched as his ******** pick up a set of chopsticks from inside the container, then picked up a little slice off some smoked salmon and held it out for………a cat.

A cat who was sitting on the bleachers in front of them, with an expectant face that ******** had apparently interpreted as meaning “feed me.”

“Who are you,” Yuki deadpanned at Reiki. “Cats hate you, ******** style="color: #582788">“Soya-hime doesn’t.”

“Okay, fine, the cat who likes to sleep in a pile of your cardigans likes you.” Still, Yuki sighed. “That doesn’t obligate you to feed this little fluff-ball just because he’s here.”

“I don’t feel obligated,” Reiki told Yuki, glancing over his shoulder to look him in the eye (more or less). “I’m offering this little guy the salmon because I want to.”

Whether this Mauvian could sense that he was a Chaos senshi or not, Reiki had no reason to treat him badly. So, he scooted closer to the edge of his seat on the bleachers, and held the chopsticks out for the little guy to take his smoked salmon or not.

THERE IN THE AIR A GLOWING BEACON SOARED!

Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!!!

The item that would be his fourth to add to the pile!!! It held the Dons colors, but that mattered not! It'd save him a far more difficult trip of finding and sorting and being handed too many extra things -- Albite stumbled briefly, going for the glow, the trophy left his mouth and there was a hush of suspense in his mind as he just barely grabbed it with the pinky of his cake holding hand --

C'mon finger strength don't fail me now!!

All of albites hopes pinned on a digit as he sprinted forwards, and then, like the tri-headed, top dog of gate guarding he claimed to be? Hopped up to snatch an errantly flung glowstick with his open mouth!

He hoped the thing didn't leak----

It turned his grin a crazy sort of red, bright, hellish glow of stick backlit against pearly whites. Albites howl of triumph for a successful game of fetch was muffled behind it; tearing up after Don Diablo, eyes watering in his devilish dust --- stunned by him n The Heartbreakers swag and oh come on!!? How come they got cool fits n free food and he got mannequins!!?