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Hardly anyone had time to hang out with her anymore. This wouldn't have usually bothered her, except... Well, everyone was back. Giselle had been back for an entire month now. Things should have been back to normal, but they weren't. Her friends, all two of them, kept getting beaten up and it was. Incredibly, incredibly inconvenient, for one thing. Extremely frightening, for another.

She gritted her teeth and looked up at the poster outside the movie theater. Originally, Giselle had been planning to go with her. Then that guy, Jude Lawson or whatever, had gotten killed and suddenly Nestor and Katharine were being possessive, apparently. She wasn't to go out without an adult. Tate had pointed out to Giselle that Nestor and Katharine knew her, and that Tate could drive very well even if she was no Edward Cullen with his fishtailing-and-not-upsetting-the-car. This had come to no avail, leaving her gritting her teeth.

If senshi were fighters of love and justice like they always claimed, like rumor said they were, then they would be able to stop this. Should have been able to save that Jude kid from getting murdered. That would mean that Giselle would still be free to see Heavy Rain with her.

At least the poster still looked interesting. A blood spatter on asphalt? And they weren't being ridiculously obvious about it, it looked like a random line of shine until you peered closer... She recognized the composer for the soundtrack, too.

"Hans Zimmel always does the best work," she said to no one in particular, hands shoved in her pockets and chin tucked into her coat.

Tate had almost been expecting an answer from the ether, so she didn't jump; when she saw who was talking to her, though, she looked surprised. It was another girl, and not a goth-ish girl like most of the people she saw going in to see movies like Heavy Rain. She looked... normal. Exceedingly normal. She knew not to discount normal appearances; who could forget the lesson of Fruits Basket, where hugging a normal-looking boy could turn him into a rat? Not Tate.

A little belated, she smiled, and almost let it end there. That was where it should have ended, a momentary brush of universes. Then she remembered--trying to make Giselle jealous. Making more friends, too, so that if Giselle ever left her again, she'd be able to get over it faster. To forget. With that in mind, she glanced at the cast list, and then returned her gaze to the blonde girl.

"It's the test of a true movie, isn't it, though? If you're still on edge without the sound, it's got to be good. Have you watched Cannibal Apocalypse? Terrible eighties filmography, but the effects are astounding. I couldn't eat for a day and a half." Her fingers flickered out, indicating the poster for Heavy Rain. "Are you going to the next showing?"

"Not nearly as good as Cannibal Holocaust." Here was a real test of truth and justice. If Veronica--Ronnie--knew Cannibal Holocaust, Tate would have died and gone to heaven. Cannibal Holocaust was banned in seventeen countries. The effects were so good, the director was arrested for murder and torture. You couldn't even get in to see it until you were eighteen (at least, before the days of the internet).

The grin was returned, hands were shaken, and she said, "Tatiana, call me Tate. References to Bond will have my soda upended over your head, if that's all right with you."

Of Heavy Rain. Tate had been looking forward to this movie for ages. It was supposed to be pretty frightening, pretty gorey. And then, of course, Hans Zimmer. His soundtracks were godly. "I'm going to see it this showing, too," she said, "All I know is the plot summary on Wiki. No sense in spoiling it."

You had to laugh at Zombie Patrol on I-240. The only person it had scared, ever, was Ladon. And Tate's mother. But mostly Ladon. Tate started off towards the ticket booth. "

All right, Tate liked Ronnie. Ronnie was cool. She had seen the entire Cannibal trilogy. Even Giselle couldn't claim that, and Giselle and Tate usually watched all of their movies together. (Tate had seen every incarnation of Pride and Prejudice in the history of ever. She was not impressed. Also many documentaries on Napoleon. It got boring.)

"Teeth," sighed Tate. "It is the stuff of internet legends." Her ticket secured, she followed the blonde to the concession line. She was mildly insulted for a moment at the accusation of light stomach--she'd played Fatal Frame in all its incarnations, after all. Her father had weaned her on the live mummification scene in The Mummy. "I had to cross my legs at the clip I saw. Can't imagine how much watching the movie would've sucked if I had a Y chromosome."

v****a dentata was hilarious, as long as you weren't actually watching it.

She folded her hands behind her head. "Nope. If it turns out bad, someone to MST3k with, if nothing else, right?"

Tate was not nearly so calorie economical; she got a large popcorn and a fruity drink called 'Tremor' that was a toxic orange color. It smelled like pixy stix. It tasted like pixy stix, too, and would hype you up so bad your hands would shake if you drank more than eight ounces in an hour. It also turned your pee orange, which was odd but not altogether a terrible consequence. Normally Tate did not drink Tremor. She would buy it for all-night gaming tournaments, and that was all. Today just seemed to be a good day for Tremor, and the tremors it induced. Toting her snacks, she followed Ronnie to the center of the row; her snacks stowed away, she threw her coat over the back of her seat.

It amused her for thirty seconds that apparently Ronnie and Tate liked to sit in the same way, although Tate looked a great deal sillier--she was so tall and gangly.

"Same thing, pretty much," said Tate. "I know what you mean. The first movie my uncle ever took me to was The Mummy--pretty tame, I know, but the live mummification scene was terrifying to a four-year-old mind." That tongue. That tongue.

She shrugged. "Well, I'm into that too." And she laughed, like it was some kind of personal joke. "I'm waiting for them to make a movie out of another Japanese horror. Maybe Uzumaki. Do you watch the foreign language films?"

Foreign films weren't everyone's cup of tea, but then, it was really the same concept as turning off the sound and seeing if the movie was still freaky. If you didn't know what the bad guy was saying and you were still one edge, you knew it was hardcore s**t.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon made Tate smile, as usual. Oh, Japanese cinema...

"Jesus," said Tate irreverently; her smile was huge, amazingly huge, as she watched the hapless protagonist attempt to make her way back to her car. "It's like. It's like Pyramid Head and Jason had a baby that got it on with the lepers from The Fog and the Thing." You didn't have to mention the movie The Thing was from. It was from The Thing. Saying 'the Thing from The Thing' was like saying 'the Department of Redundancy Department'. "Augh."

Her agreement with the 'gets better from here' did not have to be voiced. Tate had played so many horror games that her thumbs were practically twitching, trying to turn the idiot girl around. In stupidity-induced agony, she asked, "Isn't it clear that the whole thing is a trap?"