Location: X's Place
While Ren is unable to find anything for the group to do while the team is at X's home, Taiga is studying things on her datapad and notices it is Galactic Pig Day; at that moment a cute pig comes falling in from the ceiling. Taiga recognizes it as Hans - the bravest sandwich while the others, including Hess, seem to be confused on it's identity and Hess reports back to 'Lorelei' that she has found it, even though Lorelei is out of range to receive messages. While X gives the pig some food, Ren finds a contest being run about pigs on a galactic scale and when no one else can provide an idea for a case, they decide to look into it since it's close to the war front, to make sure the Tsivrixsh do not attack it or that the contest is not a scam of sorts; though Ren does have to agree to provide the group with a stop by a resort planet for all their hard work afterward, mainly at Noire's insistence.
Location: The Contest World
Lemon, Aurica, Locket, and Michiru join Ren, Taiga, Hess, Charlotte, and Noire on the planet that has tons of pig statues all over and various booths set up to spend one's money. While the team marvels at how popular pigs are throughout the galaxy, they sign Hans up to become a contestant while Charlotte fears being part of this will get out and people will make fun of her - especially Adeline. They need to win four rounds, with three of them being known to the group and the fourth being hidden, as they enter their tent. Lemon prepares to work on the first round - bringing out Hans beauty, so a few of the group heads out to get some food and take seats; as Lemon, Michiru, and Locket dress Hans up in a tuxedo and fake hair while Aurica works on her datapad, looking into one of the hosts of this event to see if he has anything shady to his name, using Lorelei's information oddly.
Hess, Noire, Ren, and Charlotte check out the booths and soon settle on an assortment of food as the first round begins. As they take them with their food, they notice various galactic species like Ridiarum even watching the event surprisingly as Hans takes the stage and wins a multitude of points along with one other pig in a mexican outfit. As for the character round, the mexican dressed pig shows himself off to be a lady's killer while Hans goes for being a heroic pig and they seem to be rather even in the points going into the third round - the race.
Charlotte is relaxed by the emojis, for they lack Spiders. And those are Nope. hans begins to show his acting chops and his amazing grace in the contests to follow thanks to many guiding hands. He wins so spectacularly that the sponsors wish to contract Hans as their official pig! They give him a pig size jetpack as a prize, a natural trophy for such a galant soldier.
The team then heads to an Earth Vacation planet to celebrate their victory. Without getting to experience much, they are accosted by brigands who seek to kidnap the amazing Hans. His personal squadron of badass ladies battle the brigands and Hans rockets to safety like a hero, at least according to Taiga.
The group regroups at X's place, the unofficial base for now. Taiga announces she'll take Hans to the keep her company at the PAX while Cheryl is out of it. X continues to muse on how she's lost control of her life. Everyone heads home, Hess who already is sits down to a good meal.
Fumoffu April Fool's Special: A Foolish Heckling, Hey?
Location: X's House
While Taiga plays with Hans as her pig, Ren decides to find something for the group to do that is more in line with what they really do when they get together; as they all sit around and snark with each other, Ren pulls out an amusement park and informs them she learned about there might be a supernatural situation with people going missing, listing the rides like the big top, the fun house mirrors, a ride through a clown roller coaster that begins to freak Jaime out. They take the van and arrive at the park where a Jester hands them their tickets and wishes them a great day, even getting a Thena CD as they leave.
After they get their food, they head to the "clown ride" and find a tunnel of love ride, where Ren informs them that apparently turns into a clown ride for some people part way. Taiga and Si take one boat down the tunnel while Jaime, Noire, and Ren take the other boat; they three reach the end and are offered pictures of themselves and see no sign of the other two. They circle the building and find a way inside after Ren rips the emergency exit door open, and find themselves in an employee's booth; Noire checking the cameras finds a hidden scary tunnel with a clown face eating Taiga and Si, then resealing itself as the three came up. Ren feels Charlotte arriving in the park, having left a note for anyone who arrived late to the meeting, and Charlotte begins to follow the bond to the tunnel of love building, joining the three as they arrived at the tunnel where they force it open; they discover what appears to have been once a haunted clown tunnel to scare customers before being converted to the tunnel of love. As Jaime freaks out in the area, blasting clowns, they soon find Taiga and Si's missing boat at the end of the tunnel.
Due to Jaime's rampage, they see cables leading from the clowns that lead them to a employee backroom with an exit door that leads to a series of underground tunnels. As the explore the tunnels they encounter employees down here resting about as well as stored outfits, but Charlotte takes note of a map and how all the attractions are connected together. The group heads to the hall of mirrors and takes a ladder up to an employee area that is empty; Ren explains the rumors of the place to them, about odd reflections once one goes inside. As they exit into the hall of mirrors from the employee booth, Jaime encounters a Bimbo in a mirror while Ren thinks she sees Taiga in the hall of mirrors. As Bimbo vanishes on Jaime, Noire sees Si briefly in a mirror; after more Bimbo encounters and seeing versions of themselves in the mirrors, they opt to break a few to reveal a passage.
They arrive at an employee work room where they find Taiga and Si tied up together and free them when Bimbo returns and Jaime destroy him, blowing him up which causes confetti to fly everywhere; as the fire alarm goes off and makes everyone wet, they teleport out to the park itself and wonder if this was some sort of prank. While Jaime remains traumatized as they leave, the Jester thanks them for coming and hopes they have a nice day. As they get into the van, Taiga notes it doesn't feel like Bimbo's M.O though while Jaime notes to everyone that Bimbo is definitely dead now. Taiga promises to look into it while they all leave to go back home.
Location: X's House
While Hess chides Ren about spreading her papers all over the floor and Angela now showing off Meth Gorillas in her pile, leading everyone to wonder what is with her and the meth thing, but after a joke by Taiga about labs that do product testing on animals, Ren once again loses protests that they are a supernatural squad as they begin to head out. Taiga takes them to a run down lab testing building and Ren chides her for wasting their time, but the building has a very high tech security system for a run down joint. Hess ripples them inside and the atmosphere immediately feels heavier as they move along; soon though Ren is yanked through a door that then shuts itself behind her. Charlotte smashes the door open as Noire attempts to scare the door; spotting a tiny figure dragging Ren through a trap door, they hurry over to it. As they enter an underground lab area, cameras watch them as they walk along and are suddenly attacked by a comically large panda bear and two others. The two deals with them since they have controlling devices on their heads and as they get them off, Hess studying one to see a chip and a camera on it, they move along as they return to normal pandas.
Hess uses bad luck on the mind controlling devices, breaking it but it also reveals VI made the device. Kaori, in the lead, comes across monkeys with rocket launchers, who try to blow her up. Hess tells Taiga to go fox form to talk to the animals as they fire and blow things up; as they manage to knock the helmets off the group, Taiga talks to the remaining monkey with his weapon but Noire soon knocks the monkey over so Taiga returns to normal, informing them he was about to take them to Ren when Noire did that.
Hess hands the device she badlucked to Si while the monkeys do monkey things, leading to it putting it on; during this Noire really wonders if this is a V.I plot and not some of their equipment left behind as the monkey reveals a passage where birds with helmets are waiting. The birds attack one of the Thenas, poofing her out of existence, leading to her to hyperspace the birds for dinner later as they continue down the secret passage. They find what looks to be VI scientists working on the helmets on animals to be used on alien animals later and Ren can be seen doing battle with a squirrell who is trying to put a helmet on her. Kaori destroys the window and allows the group into the room to rescue Ren as the squirell retreats through the door and scientists rush in as they untie Ren. After easily defeating the scientists, they begin to suspect foul play and find chips in their necks akin to the helmets for the animals. When asked if they were giving meth to the animals by Hess, the scientists deny doing such horrible things and but claim they were trying to lie low - until Adeline threatens to rip the information out of them.
They soon tell the team about the chips to control people when ancient project they scrapped long ago - the squirrell - began to cause problems. Taiga leads them in fox form to the hanger where the alien squirell in a shuttle attacks them and Thena attempts to be it's friend. The team works together to take out the shuttle, even as it destroys Thena after Thena, and soon it is forced to leave the shuttle and it stupidly grabs Thena as a hostage, leading to Thena getting what it wants - the team leaves the two to their fates, going out for food. Adeline gives Charlotte her report on Venerator even as she casually pockets a mind control chip for herself.
Session 34: Cannibals and a Hunted Fox
Location: X's House
The team is at X's house where Ren is cranky she can't find supernatural cases for the team to tackle and the group talks about the evil of Xevil while they try to figure out what to do. Eventually Ren offers to get everyone a meal and when Taiga tries to drive, Noire takes over due to Taiga's height issues. As they arrive at a fast food place, the group encounters a mascot that looks like Xevil outside due to the place being called Galactic Conquest. Soon though Thena is missing and the group goes to look for her in the back, where they find everything is completely normal and no Thenas are being made into meats. After Noire demands to talk to their manager and Juan is brought out; after some talk they view the camera footage where a hand grabs Thena from under the table and drags her out. Juan apologizes for the people eaters taking her, claiming they are good customers, and gives them a map to their location as way of apology.
While this is going on, the cannibals have Thena in their cave and demand her make more copies of herself so they can have an endless supply of food, despite her claim of them being carbon; but they inform her she is not carbon. As the others track through the hills, Charlotte senses the cannibals' hunger and Jaime tracks with hyperspace to locate Thena with the map. They soon find her being chased by the cannibals, one chewing on her arm, until Noire screams and makes eveyone freeze. When Charlotte exudes scary Dark One power and Thena uses her charm powers, the Cannibals decide to flock to Thena out of fear for the time being; right as Noire is about to lose her cool, Taiga's datapad beeps, informing her about a situation with Fox's convoy being attacked in space. Thena gives the cannibals a teleport code to join her pirate fleet and sends them on their way. They decide to use Thena's pirate fleet to find Fox's fleet as well since none of them have ships on hand when Juan drives up in a monster truck to take them back to their vehicle in order to raise his rating.
After arriving on Heaven's ship in space, she takes them to where they find the remnants of some of Fox's convoy ships while Noire and Thena argue about it not being Thena's ship or not if it's Heaven's. Cargo floats in space belonging to Kumen and Geyze which includes spirit tech while Thena contacts people to salvage the goods. Heaven brings up 3 possible worlds the ships could have jumped to and Charlotte selects one; as they leap they find Fox and the rest of the ships with her battling an unknown vessel. It is clear they are after Fox when Thena uses their weapons to hammer away and the cannibals' ship arrives, smashing into them as they begin to retreat from the fire power, causing the cannibals' ship to explode. The unknown ship limps away damaged and hyperspace away; the group gives chase, leaving Fox behind to sort out her ships. The group arrives at a point closer to Earth where the damaged ship prepares to do another jump when Thena crystals it and stops it from escaping.
Boarding the ship they find an unknown race of red colored aliens with crackly skin and strange colored eyes who informs them it was a job to take out Fox. The aliens agree to work on betraying their client after the war, since it was paid half up front and half afterward. Back at Fox's convoy, a cannibal attaches to Fox's ship and gets inside, vowing to get revenge on Thena and her succulent meat. Back at X's house, Taiga promises to look into who is after Fox and they all go out for mexican food.
Session 35: A Smile to Kill For
Location: Noire's Place
Noire cooks real food for the group at her place as everyone gathers to partake, leading Ren to pull out her folders of her latest supernatural case talking about having their mouths cut into horrible disfigured smiles or being stabbed to death. One of the victims managed to identify a woman asking if she was pretty before attacking him and Noire identifies her as Kuchisake-onna. Noire explains the legend of her to Adeline about her asking you if she's and if you say no, she murders the victim right there, but if you say yes you get a smile for your efforts. She explains to the group the best you can do is distract her. Ren takes the team out to a sleek looking vehicle that gives off a scooby doo mystery van that is more modernized and inside has various equipment for their supernatural adventures.
The team arrives in Japan in late evening where things seem to be winding down and as they near the school they see they are preparing for a school festival of sorts, leading to several students staying late at the school over night. While some students go home alone, with something following them it feels, they also spot the student president checking the school grounds; deciding to split up, they send Thena after some students on their way home while the others track the school president through the building. As they near the stairs, Thena pops out of Noire's breasts to inform her that her clone was attacked by the scissor woman, distracting her from attacking a student and killed on the spot. Noire announces that means she won't attack anyone else for the night when the flashlight of the student president rolls down the stairs; heading to the bathroom upstairs, they find her dead, stabbed to death by scissors. While Adeline scouts the area for signs of a copy cat, Ren asks Charlotte if she wouldn't mind playing high school student again due to her being 18 so that they can learn more.
Location: Japan
High School
Date: 10-642.7.16
Ren uses her comms to keep in touch with everyone from the van while they walk about the festival gathering information; despite it still going on, there is a depressed atmosphere hanging over the school as they question people and learn that the school was rather old due to the age of the village, but one thing that stands out is an attack in the same bathroom the president died in; some students were believed to have bullied a girl though they claim it was something supernatural, but either way it led to her being broken pretty badly and put into a coma, racking up a sizeable hospital bill. The girls have graduated by now, but they do have siblings still enrolled, one of them being the student president; Ren brings up the files of the other two girls and when asked by Noire is there was any relatives of the coma girl, she brings up a file of a teacher that works there for her.
Jaime and Adeline decide to check out the coma girl incase she is projecting somehow all this in some sort of revenge, but while that is going on Ren suddenly cuts out while giving the teacher's location indicating someone is in her van. As Charlotte arrives at the van and sees Ren looking dead inside, having been stabbed multiple times, when a beautiful woman with a horrific smile asks her if she is pretty. As Jaime tells her to say yes, she goes to cut Charlotte's face, leading to a struggle and stabbing as Noire arrives on the scene to help out, distracting her for Charlotte to get the spirit trap that Ren has in the van from Kitsune Udon. While Noire's taunting leads to the spirit growing more and more vicious, the trap lands on her and locks her away while Ren's dragoon healing begins, leading to her bandaging herself up so she can continue to work.
While Jaime and Adeline scan the coma girl's mind, seeing she is reliving the moment of her attack by the girls, but it's clear they were being influenced by something in the walls of the bathroom. As she taps into the mind, it begins to lead her to smother the girl before Adeline yanks her off. Charlotte and Noire find the one relative has been called away by the teacher and led to the bathroom, being barred, so Charlotte and Noire smash the door down to find haggered teacher preparing to finish off the student in some sort of trance. They easily take him down and Noire destroys the wall of the bathroom to reveal the foundation of the older building there where malice seems to seep out. It attaches to Charlotte but Ren, Thena, and Noire use the trap to nab the malice and get it off.
However at that moment the supernatural unit smoke bombs them and takes everything, running for it and they have to give chase through the festival to retrieve it. Adeline, who has arrived back with Jaime, notes they look like V.I agents as Kaelan uses her foxholes to try to stop them as well. After they manage to drive them off, they investigate the hole in the wall and repel down between the walls down to the lower level to find areas of the school that were blocked off. They find even more malice bubbling about and decide to book it for now and close the area down, wondering about the shrine there and what it's all about but decide there's too little they can do about it without more information.
Location: Dark One Homeworld
A celebration of combining Reikana's birthday and wedding with Madison is held on the Dark One homeworld, bringing out Noire and Reikana's family and friends to take part of the celebrations. Erica/Yurica is present with Yuki who is there as Reikana's friend, along with Ren as one of the bridesmaids, Kaori, Athena who has signed her on as one of her idol by working with Madison, Cassandra/Setsuna, Jubei, Fae/Sylph, Jaime/Adeline/Terra, and many more. The guests outside entertain themselves by talking, many of them catching up after a very long year of war, while Bobbi helps get things ready for Reikana to walk down the asile with Madison. The ceremony begins and goes without a hitch, Bobbi using a Dark One ritual book to bond the two together in union, and Ren and Noire make fine bridesmaids as well as Fae being the flower girl. Afterwards, Athena opens the doors to the hall where the food is located while everyone is still having having a good time and they find Sylph eating fruit that seems to be making her intoxicated, looking out of sorts.
While Noire panics about Sylph possibly ruining the day that she downs a drink, Reikana tosses the bouquet and it lands in Kaori's face and then on her plate. While the married couple cuts the cake, everyone picks on Kaori about marrying Hess soon. Ren notes the day seems almost too perfect and wonders if a super villain will attack, sending Noire into more fits. As Jaime and Adeline share cake while there, Bobbi offers to let them try their resort while everyone is there to see what they think as the married couple sets out.
Location: Dark Resort Beach
While Adeline eyes Erica in her daring swimsuit as they stand on the beach, huffing due to their size difference, while everyone debates what to do while at the resort. Fae, Yurica, and Terra play in the water and beach together, but the adults decide to try to get into Bobbi's place to find out what she is doing. After some hijinks, with Noire trying to distract her by suggesting Vesper run the place as the others in the back sneak about, they find Bobbi is tracking the Hunters and dark creatures location, apparently trying to find them for some reason, claiming she is trying to find enough dark energy to locate or bring back Andrea. She also goes over finding the name Ceilidh having a dark artifact in her searches of the past and the name Nyarl being attached to it, which makes Jaime panic wondering if that means Nyarlathotep. Bobbi explains the artifact power is immense and unlike anything on our plane of existence, leading to Jaime to quote a part of a poem - "A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low."
With the Templars destroying unnatural beings, including Dark Ones, Hunters, and relics, the group agrees they need to gather everything they can get their hands on if it might help locate or bring back Andrea. Kaelan stays behind to help out Bobbi when Noire returns to the beach with Ren and takes her Andrea's mansion to check it out, the two getting into adventures and locating things including tomes and objects of frightening power that Andrea sealed away, while Ren and Noire find a hidden cove that looks like a pirate cave. It turns out to be a place for cruises and other ships to enter and dock that leads up to the resort, where Bobbi lets slip about her adventure in the manor.
Location: PAX
A party is held on the PAX with creepy animatronics that Taiga has created for Kaori's birthday and even though they sing and look like Hess and Kaori, due to freaking everyone out, Taiga has them walk out to jump into a trash compactor like Hess requests. As they scream below from throwing themselves inside, the group talks about Kaori catching the Reikana's bridal stuff, Ren being able to arrange their bachelorette party and knowing strip clubs, while Taiga is tuned out working on something; Adeline, Jaime, Erica and Yuki join to celebrate the birthday as gifts are handed out. After a bit Ren shows some signs of the mid-west of the North American Zone, stating she believes the Supernatural Team is stealing ghosts in that area and informs them about ghost trains. They discuss doing a ghost heist on a train in the area and plot out a particular train from the victorian era they believe. As some of them stay behind, the rest decide to get in on the heist for Kaori's birthday.
Location: Earth, North American Mid-West
Taiga informs them their device that will allow them to interact with the ghost train ,so they won't get stolen away forever by it, can also mimic clothing that will match whatever the ghosts will have on. Ren uses a drop of Kaori's blood when Hess isn't looking on the ground to speed up the appearance of the train; sure enough it begins to bare down on them. Hess salts the area as they foxhole onto the train, sinking into what feels like jello; as they land in the train, Taiga is suddenly accosted by someone in a suit demanding a ticket as the atmosphere changes on the train and lights come on. They switch their clothing instantly, Charlotte even going for a gothloli, with Taiga matching her but in white. The ticket conductor after seeing how small Taiga is and Jaime flashing a paper with ticket on it, leaves them be.
As they search the train for the goods, even the food smells food, though Si notes eating it would probably be a bad idea, but it still tempts Ren until Hess offers her pizza slices from the party. A girl playing with dolls takes note of them and doesn't fall for Noire's fake identity, calling them a faker as it leaves. They wonder if she is their jailer as they head to the next cart and find the space has been increased. Using Hess' ripples to get to the next one, they search it with Ren handing off jewelry and gems to as well as a locked box with a code. Locked with hieroglyphs, they try to figure it out until Kaori suggests open and it works; inside is a beautiful artifact from egypt that is powerful and glows as the train continues along the leyline. The girl ghost appears again and reveals she is the guardian of the artifact as she takes the box back from Kaori, closing it, and will send anyone who defiles it to hell.
The train is now decayed as they head backwards through it with even the food rotten from age. They come across the Supernatural Team capturing ghosts in the train and putting them in containment when the ghost girl appears and touches one of them, making him part of the train to wander around, becoming part of the train's story. They work to get rid of the rest of the supernatural unit off the train and the ghost allows them to escape. They debate what to do for a bit before deciding to not push it for now. They return to the PAX where Ren and Charlotte plot about something to do with their case until Noire threatens them, making them knock it off. X shows up to wish Kaori a happy birthday and gives her the present of tickets to a new arcade before training Hess how to suplex stuff.