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 Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2025 9:31 pm
It was a quiet, shameful dream of Clover's to be recognized in public. It had not yet happened, with the exception of a couple of people who - unfortunately - saw her and yelled out the slogan of a long-dead discount furniture warehouse. Argh! Slashed again! It was a childhood commercial acting gig that would - appropriately - haunt her forever. Even hanging conspicuously around the booths of certain independent backyard horror creators - in front of janky DVD cases with her face on them, albeit smaller than the main actress's face, and down in a corner and covered in blood - had not yet merited her any kind of recognition. So she'd stopped expecting it, and certainly wasn't expecting it today, standing on the sidewalk and waiting for her Uber, her nose a little bit buried in her phone but her Destiny City wits at least somewhat honed and therefore causing frequent glances upward to make sure she wasn't about to be crushed by some falling piece of superhero debris or something. She was no longer in costume, of course, but she was wearing a T-shirt advertising the haunted house - free was free, after all - which might or might not have contributed to what was about to happen.
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2025 9:41 pm
Saiph could have stuck to the shadows once she saw the dark haired girl was just that. A girl. And not remotely Chaos tainted. She'd been working on her stealth and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to simply keep walking. But something kept her from doing so. Maybe a desire to make sure that the random civilian remained safe while they were clearly waiting for a ride. Or maybe it was the t-shirt, advertising the haunted house that she'd visited recently. She'd had a lot of fun that night and had been contemplating another round. But as she skulked and watched, she looked at the girl and tilted her head quizzically. Then, she began to laugh when her brain put everything together. The would-be escapee! Given that she hadn't left the shadows, it must have been mildly unnerving to hear gleeful laughter without an obvious body attached to it. "I see you managed to escape! Good on ya!"
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2025 9:49 pm
So far was Clover's mind from her gig work - so rooted was she in reading an article she secretly disagreed with but whose opinions she was internalizing to pretend they were her own later - that she only looked up in blank bewilderment, her thumb suspended over her phone screen. "Uh," she said vaguely at the cackling shadows. Her free hand surreptitiously palmed the pepper spray she kept on her keychain, just in case. The voice didn't exactly sound threatening, but one did not live a lifetime in Destiny City without realizing that this sometimes meant nothing. "Escaped from - the bus? Because I'd really rather be on the bus, but I missed the last run."
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2025 10:03 pm
Making a tchah noise, Saiph emerged by hiding, amusement still glowing in her eyes. "No, silly. Your little house of horrors. You're the girl who was trying to escape. Very impressive set of lungs, by the way." Much as she might have wanted to gush about her experience, Saiph knew that she had to keep things as vague as possible. She couldn't afford to let random people know that Esfir and Saiph were the same person. Keeping a few feet away out of respect for the other girl's personal space, the chibi senshi chose a convenient newspaper dispenser and hopped up to seat herself on it. Still grinning, she kicked her legs slightly and tipped her head to the side, watching the girl. "Only thing I couldn't figure out was if you were supposed to be a poor victim, a ghost or an experiment. So. Which was it?"
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2025 10:13 pm
She gazed blankly for a moment at the girl's costume, trying to decide what it was. Caveman? Bird? Perhaps it was some Pokemon she was unfamiliar with - which was to say, basically all of them outside of the standard ones - or a reference to some cartoon. It was decidedly cool, and remarkably high quality, which kept her, for a moment, from processing what was being said. "Oh! Yeah! That was me!" No, wait. That wasn't cool. That was a little too thrilled. "Yeah." OK, better. "I was, uh - it was - open-ended. Left to the viewer to decide, you know." She paused, pretending it didn't sting that she, herself, had not put that much thought into the character, if character it could even be called. "It's scarier that way," she added, somewhat aloofly. "Horror of the unknown and all that."
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2025 10:29 pm
Looking satisfied to have been proven correct, Saiph outright laughed at the aloofness. Maybe not knowing for sure made things scarier in this case, but she hadn't missed the tiny hesitation. And honestly, as far as she was concerned, this was just plain fun needling. "Horror of the unknown works better when it's Lovecraft or an actual ghost story from Ye Olde Dayes," she declared loftily. Besides, she'd had actual experience with some real horror of the unknown. And frankly, the screaming girl didn't come close to that nightmare. "I could figure out everyone else's lore but not yours. Made things mildly unsatisfying, but eh. Whatcha gonna do, right?" Okay, maybe now she was being slightly mean, but dammit! She'd really wanted some haunted house lore and to have some trite 'horror of the unknown' excuse trotted out...
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2025 10:33 pm
"I get paid to scream, not make a rich and complex backstory," she said, growing even more aloof. "If you want a better script, take it up with the director." Not that she was doing anything scripted, per se. She'd been told to go out and warm up the crowd and had chosen to do so - well, in the way that she had. Which hadn't exactly been what they'd meant, having more expected her to run out and ask people if they were planning on having fun and getting scared. Which she didn't realize until afterwards, to her mortification. But the best way to sell it was to just keep going as if that had been the plan all along. "We get paid, like. Minimum wage. I don't get paid enough to figure out why there's werewolves and chainsaw guys inhabiting the same house, or whatever." And then, glancing back down at her screen: "Anyway. My Uber's almost here," she said, with a significant pause. She was not quite rude enough to bust out a "scram, kid," nor enough of a vintage mobster. But the "scram, kid" was pretty thickly written in the silence after she trailed off.
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2025 10:55 pm
"Aww, did I hit a nerve?" Saiph replied sweetly, widening her eyes innocently. Then, just a quickly, she bared her teeth in a feral grin and laughed again. "Chill, toots. I'm just making conversation and, not so incidentally, keeping your touchy a** safe until your car gets here. You're the one getting all offended." The chibi senshi had tensed ever so slightly, feeling a thin edge of Chaos that was both far off and too close. She'd check it out once the Scream Queen was safely off, but for now, she wasn't moving. Instead, she opted to try some ego soothing. "It ever occur to you that you're the ******** standout there? You're already so good and you could be so much better with so little extra work. But I guess if you want to stick around a little regional haunted house letting teenagers boss you around, go off queen." The Chaotic aura was beginning to fade a little now Good. But she still wasn't leaving yet. "Also, for the record? No one was asking you to explain why werewolves and well girls live in the same house, boo-bean. It takes like two seconds to decide the vibes you want to go for." Laughing some more, she moved quickly, suddenly doing a handstand atop the dispenser before vaulting off and landing neatly on her feet. "I think your cars here," she said, pointing to an oncoming dark sedan. "Try to stay safe, yeah? This city is ******** lousy with crazy bullshit." Then, just because she wanted to be a little s**t, Saiph decided to take advantage of her enhanced physicality by breaking into a run and leaping over the girl, to get across the street. As she landed, she struck a superhero pose and grinned. "Stay safe, Scream Queen," she called. "Byeeeeee!" Blowing a kiss, she went back into the shadows, moving swiftly. If the girl thought she'd simply vanished, it was all to the good. And maybe her warning wouldn't do any good, but she hoped her little display might startle and unnerve the girl. People were always safest when they were watchful and cautious.
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