Session 38: Biting More than You Can Chew
Location: Noire's Apartment
As they all gather to eat Noire's food and get into their usual antics, Taiga goes into the alien race that was hired to kill Fox by bringing Warren into and "faking" Fox's death to lure out the organization that hired them. Probing about Fox's past, she goes into Fox's sorrid history with the PAX and Alexander Cran, being accused of murdering him at one point falsely, and getting tied up in dangerous organizations after that. But it's not known if it was her that was the target, or just removing her off the board to get at Charlotte to make her more pliable. Taiga does warn them before they meet up with Warren they might want to look up in people going missing on Fox's ships the past few months with a half eaten body found the other day. Kaelan brings out Nocturne who gathers the location from Taiga and warps them to her ship.
As Adeline uses the vents to locate the cannibal, the others move to the lower decks to begin their search. Searching the darkness of the cargo bays, they are soon attacked and Thena is partially eaten but her carbon form unbalances the cannibal. The group gangs up and utterly destroys the cannibal while another Thena completely vaporizes it afterward. The group returns to Noire's apartment and decides to let Warren handle the conspiracy angle around Fox and research more data since it's a bit above the club's pay grade. While he handles the mystery of the Fox, Ren takes them out on a supernatural case file mystery.
Arriving at a southern swampy manor that is falling apart due to being in a swamp, Ren brings them up to speed about the place having buried treasure that the ghosts guard jealously and leads to a lot of deaths since before Miyuki's time. A logging mill that has long since been buried in the swamp, some sort of accident or being a bad boss led to resentment in the area. As they enter the place looks ready to collapse into the swamp at any time and after wondering if the treasure might be in a basement, Taiga foxholes down to check, returning covered in muck and hands trying to yank her down. As more of the house attacks them, they use the Kitsune Udon tools on the house as Noire discoveres the treasure - 500 million in old world currency that the swamp has begun to rot. Charlotte points out maybe some collector will want it and they take it and leave.
Session 39: Restoring X's Balance
Location: Noire's Apartment
As Ren tries to eats snacks in fox form so she can heal faster, Taiga notes Thena is busy with her own idol work with Athena and the spirits, and begins to over things she has observed while they wait on Warren when Kitty arrives. It seems she is not getting sleep due to X's condition so the group goes over theories on it and how to fix it. They settle on that X, due to Weapon's ability to adapt to situations, might have adapted to an unnatural ability that the weapon is attacking in her system. As they pack up and some comedy between Taiga and Kitty kissing to help wake her up, they drive out to Cheryl's manor to ask her for some help. They find Cheryl wearing a maid outfit who claims Lemon is making her wear due to making a huge mess. After hearing the situation, Cheryl and Lemon lead them down to the base to find something to help shut down weapon's abilities for a time. As they go to X's house, Ren is nearly annihilated by her until Kitty calls out. They find X being restless and pacing with a fever and learn they want to depower her with some sort of shot. In the end, it turns out to work, shutting her power down for the day and no sign of her systems being attacked anymore.
Session 40: The Clock Strikes V.I - Prologue
Location: Noire's Apartment
Warren meets with the club to go over everything he has learned so far with Katrina and goes over how a rogue remnant of V.I is trying to kill original people related to the closing down of V.I and believes they're using what little equipment they have left to do it; with Fox being an easy target and her connection to Charlotte, they went after her first, and believes they want to lift her up in a position of leadership along with Venerator. Also believing they'd want Aya due to some of his contacts, but since she is on the PAX she should be impossible to reach, but Dawn and Eve are in town and could be touched. The group decides to head out to look into the two and Katrina brings up she asked Terra to join them later.
As they arrive at a dress shop that Eve is at, supernatural fog begins to cover it and ghosts attack the patrons. Warren fires into the door to try to break in as the ghosts seal it off and Noire works her way to the back door, but Jaime ends up hyperspacing the door allowing Dawn to swing inside on a zipline. Suddenly Eve is thrown outside as the building is pulled into another dimension with Dawn inside it as the police arrive from the gun shots, one of them being Christina. As Eve gets in touch with Chad about what happened, filling him in, Warren joins in on the line while also informing Christina about it being a terrorist attack. At that moment Terra runs up and joins them, leading to a meeting between Warren and Terra in the first time in a while. As they all get on the same page, they head to Warren's base.
Location: Warren Base
At the apartment room, on a board is people Warren believes are targets of V.I and the group and hands out addresses to them. Ren notes since Charlotte didn't make the meeting, does that mean she's already in trouble and searches for her in the bond. At the same time, Chris' apartment gives off an alarm signal to her. The team splits in two to handle the two problems and leaves Warren and Chad to update each other on theories.
Location: Christina's Apartment
The group finds her apartment intact and as they enter they discover Zayne and laying on the floor, her magic form out of control as she holds Sunny Jr. Shoving Sunny into Chris' arms, she notes that she was attacked by people with strange weapons and tells Chris to protect Sunny. As the lights go out, Zayne warps out to draw the attention to her and warps the team away. The group warps back to Warren, a bullet barely missing Terra, and Taiga takes Sunny as they note that Zayne isn't a bad person to Chris who doesn't seem to care about the Makai.
Location: One of the Many Earth Bases Red Owns
They locate Charlotte at a busy facility when a pirate ghost ship flies in and causes Thena to do battle with them and the others and V.I agents rush up to try to release knock out gas. As they return and a pirate hat begins to turn the Thena into a pirate ghost before she is poofed, the group splits up into two teams to deal with the missions - Warren and his team looking into trying to find more on V.I and it's bases and Taiga and the club will seek out Venerator for help.
Date: 10-642.10.2
Time: 6:00 AM
Darien works out to get his body back in shape without needing the exo-skeleton when Arien clothes herself and senses a ticking sound, grabbing the Rune Sword. As she grabs onto Darien, the house explodes around both of them.
Session 41: The Clock Strikes V.I - Side Story
Location: Noire's Apartment - 10:00 AM
While they have breakfast, Taiga studies the documents Warren left behind and wonders if they have enough big hitters to tackle this assignment. Kaelan pulls Truth out of the shadows, who looks confused, and after they finish talking they head out to the first location Warren marked.
Location: Swamps of North America Zone - 10:30 AM
As they trudge through the swamp with the bugs trying to bite the Dark elemental characters to become Dark Bugs, they come across a half-submerged path in the swamp. Noire's tendrils detect something down there and after a few foxholes by Taiga, she manages to get them inside the swamp base below. It appears to be an ancient V.I base that has old EarthGov style equipment in it that was spying on Earth, but it turns out that someone still has access to the base as they trap them down there and talk through the base speakers. Seeing Charlotte is not with them they note they're no longer needed as they plan to go pick her up; the base begins to nullify their powers and fills with swamp muck. However when Kaelan mocks the name Hodges they begin to explode the base to try to kill them faster and it takes out the nullifer and allows Taiga to foxhole them out of there. After that a bomb is dropped on them and forces them to warp out of there as the swamp explodes, sending gators flying; the group just decides to head to the next location.
Location: Europe - 11:50 AM
They arrive at a fancy resort with a casino and after messing with a V statue, find a switch that reveals a basement button on the elevator, heading downward. There they find Venerator in a nice little place watching events play out across the world relaxing and he acknowledges Ren as Charlotte's wife. They discuss Hodges and McCabe and he notes he does not believe it is either due to the fact Hodges was a loyal figure who definitely died - Lemon is digging him up as they speak - but he did have a family and it's most likely one of them. As for McCabe who knows, but he believes they're using his name - and Charlotte's - to cause all this trouble to stage something, leading the group to think this V.I is out to get something, maybe even rob a bank. Venerator gives Noire a V.I tracker and his card if they need him and they set out to return to the city.
Location: Tokyo, Japan
The entire Arakawa Family is at Andrea's manor following the end of the war and the club is visiting as well checking up on Andrea who is still showing signs of degrading, causing them to call in Cuddles after she heads into her hidden room in the mansion. After some tension and Cuddles explaining Andrea's condition, Charlotte manages to break the door open for them to get into the room where they find a hidden chamber where Andrea has been collecting and hiding powerful tomes and Dark One items that could do massive damage to the universe. As they enter in there they find Andrea talking to another version of herself, named Simulacrum who seems to have been created by Andrea in a similiar way as a Homonculus using her copy power to protect the relic room, demanding to know about the missing tomes that were given to Bobbi by Kaelan; Kaelan hiding behind Sim. It becomes clear that Kaelan has some sort of connection to Sim and used it to get into the room, much to Andrea's chargin, and after having enough just leaves the room and has Noire and Kaelan face off for a bit. After warning Noire to becareful in learning the Dark Arts side of their Dark One legacy due to what it can ask of them, the group decides to go to the Dark One homeworld to take a look at the tomes to learn more about making homonculus to repair Andrea's body before she dies.
As they arrive at the renamed Dark One homeworld, now called Precusor, they find Ceilidh chasing the spiked cat from Hess' place, trying to get it's DNA still and X looking annoyed with her. The group tries to ignore the sight as the meet up with Vesper who seems to give off a dark vibe like when she was Dusk, making Kaelan curious, but the others dismiss it, perhaps due to them being annoyed with her antics so far. As they are shown to Bobbi's place, Bobbi brings out the tomes and brings up the page on how to make a homonculus, a dark ritual with a lot of blood sacrifice and a binding spell to the person who casts it. Andrea tells them to drop it and that there is a time for all things to end, stepping outside to the beach. The group glances over more spells, even considering a swapping spelling with Sim dying and having Andrea locked to the ritual room, but in the end they decide to use the Homonculus spell against her wishes and change the blood bath part up a bit.
They call all the Dark Ones they know from Heaven, Tamara, Sudako, calling Reikana back in from her date and filling her in on what is going on, which leads her to realize that Andrea used a spell in one of these dark tomes to split Noire and Reikana into two people, and Charlotte so that Cuddles to gather all the blood she needs. After that once the return to the manor, Kaelan forcefully kidnaps Andrea up to the baths where the blood is set up to fire on her while Noire reads the spell, minus the bindind part. Furious as she storms down afterward, repowerd to heights beyond what she has been in a long time with so much blood from so many people, Andrea looks ready to kill Kaelan before letting her go, calling them all fools since it will take something from them all - such spells always do. When asked what doing the dark spell to split Noire and Reikana did to her, she notes she was already weakened when she did that, and it basically bottomed her out, causing her to basically shatter across the galaxy until they stepped in. What terrible spell bounce back will occur, who knows in the future, as the group prepares to have a celebration at Andrea surviving.
Location: Noire's Apartment
It is Halloween and Charlotte is dressed as a Witch, Jaime as a Goddess, Taiga seems to be dressed as a large breasted anime character with guns, Ren seems to be dressed as Charlotte somehow, a perfect replica of her, Si as a bunny girl, Adeline as a grizzled war guy with short white hair and a mock beard, wearing a tactical suit, Succubus Queen (albeit with glasses, and Kaelan switching outfits a random. After having some food and enjoying themselves, with Kitty and Taiga discussing Thatcher's adventures with the Geyze group a while back, Andrea drops by via portal to start warning them about something when trick or treaters drop by. After handling them - despite being suspicious due to their location - they go to Andrea's house where she informs them about this being the day where barriers are weakest and rituals are held due to that belief. She tells them a group is attempting a massive ritual and shows them where to go.
As they arrive at Stonehenge where it is dark despite traveling half-way across the world, they find the Supernatural Unit using Zayne's power, having left her half-dead. All the supernatural creatures they been collecting are also present, drawing from them their power in this ritual. As the group frees the spirits and ghost and monsters, as well as grab Zayne, the ritual begins to go haywire as something massive begins to come through the portal and attack the supernatural unit. The Demon soon tracks them down and parlays, some sort of clown demon, wondering why it shouldn't leave it's mark on the world, before they send it to Hollywood.
The group returns to the apartment and has costume contest judged by Ren and Kaori, and Ren gets snacks from everyone who enters. In the end, Kaori judges Adeline the winner of the contest and Ren gives her a trophy that she makes. Terra arrives and nabs all the candy, leading to Ren crying until Charlotte promises her more.
Fumoffu Thanksgiving Special: Stuffing
Location: PAX
The group is enjoying Terra's food at Katrina's bar, who has copied Katrina's recipes to the letter, as they hang out and enjoy each other's company. Ren teaching Akatsuki how to eat turkey, Rachael and Moira spend a moment together, and Yuki and Yurica enjoy some turkey while on shore leave from the Unknown Regions. The holovid talks about elections for the Earth States like Tokyo and a few others that are up for new Governors and Kaori notes she hopes for a Gamer President after Dias as the news talks about how Tokyo's race has lost two of it's candidates mysteriously. They head to Tokyo where Yuki finds them a place to have food and enjoy some arcades when Ren shows off her drawing after they turn off the holovid by drawing a naked picture of Hess for Kaori and Noire for Charlotte, before admitting that's all she has been taught by Erevis before Moira promising to help model for her. During this though giant turkeys begin to attack the streets, leading to the group to investigate and follow the chaos of the birds.
As they battle the turkeys, they soon find a lab where the turkeys have stuffed the humans into various lab machines in revenge and learn that they were growing the perfect turkey to eat. As they enter the lab, Andrea arrives - revealing herself to be the new governor - after somehow knocking off the other candidates and uses the soldiers to help take the lab with the group. The group ends up with more turkey meat than they know what to do with as Andrea takes them to her new Governor Building, having linked it to her mansion, and reveals she wants to help protect Tokyo for what is to come and she did't have a lot of time to tell anyone due to elections and needing to "push the rules" a little.