Chapter Text
Anya runs through the park with Bond, a wide smile on her face as her legs carry her across the field. Looking over her shoulder at the large dog, she spots her father sitting on a bench, speaking to a redheaded woman who had been passing by... or so was the cover story. That's actually Papa's boss lady, and she's a spy like him! I dunno what Papa's mission is today, but it'll be exciting no matter what!
The momentary distraction proved to be a fatal error, as Bond catches up to Anya and bowls her over into the grass, where she lies, giggling happily as her dog licks her face. "Haha! Alright Bond, alright! You c-caught me! Hah! Stop!" It takes a few more minutes of struggling against the white hound, but eventually Anya manages to free herself from Bond's assault. Catching her breath where she lay, she stares up at the clouds overhead, observing them as they slowly drift through the great blue sky. Spotting a few of particular shape, she points up at them while speaking to Bond once again. "See that cloud, Bond? It's a big, fluffy Stella Star! And that one looks like Agent Penguinman! And that one looks like Scruffy-head! And all of them look like you!"
Turning her attention to the animal sitting next to her, she watches him look up at the clouds himself, borfing at her comment of his resemblance to the shapeless white overhead, before starting to lick her all over again. "Gah, Bond! Hahaha, no, please, n-not again! Haha! I s-surrender! Please!" Raising her arms to guard her face, Anya descends into fits of laughter once more, struggling to protect herself from Bond until her father eventually finishes up his business, walking over to the laughing child.
"Bond, stop that." Picking up his daughter off the ground, Loid holds out his hand to her. "Let's go, Anya. It's time to head home and make dinner, okay? We don't want to leave Yor waiting, do we?" Anya shakes her head quickly falling in line beside her father as they begin walking, Loid attaching Bond's leash to his collar to keep the dog in line. "...You know, you got your clothes covered in grass stains and dirt. Hopefully we can get them clean again without too much trouble."
Anya simply laughs at her father's exasperation, picking up some stray thoughts in the air. Handler emphasized the importance of this mission, so I need to make sure that I can leave home without arousing suspicion from Yor. Another emergency house call should cover the time it'll take to steal and destroy all the research into that chemical weapon. The young girl stares at her father in shock. With her studies at Eden, she'd slowly been picking up on the threat levels of each mission her father went on, and this sounded quite dangerous.
A kem-ick-el weapon!? That's scary! Papa's so awesome for taking care of it! As the spy continues his planning for the operation, Anya's attention flicked towards her dog, noticing his ears flicking up off of his head. Bond sees something? She leans closer to the hound, focusing on the grainy static in his head. If this would be important to her father's safety, she'd need to know quickly!
However, the vision shared with her is certainly an unexpected one. Inside a movie theater, Ewen Egeburg marches up to Anya, an uneasy expression on his face as his eyes flick around the room, erratically. "Forger, this is your fault, isn't it!? What did you do!? Where are we!?" His tone is aggressive, though Anya seems just as uneasy as he is. Following behind him, Damian Desmond pulls Ewen away from the girl. "Calm down! Can't you tell she knows just as much as we do!? Look at her face!"
Sy-on boy meets Bond in a movie theater? But nobody seems happy to be there... Anya's dragged out of her thoughts by her father tugging gently on her arm. "Anya, is something wrong? You suddenly stopped walking." She blinks a few times, looking around the area to see if maybe the boy and his lackeys were nearby. However, the only person still in the park was the Handler, sitting on a nearby bench, pretending not to be watching them.
Looking back at her father, she winces, the bright sun resting in the sky right above his head. As she shields her eyes from the glare, Anya answers him. "No. I just thought I heard a weird noise." Even though she was covering the sun with her hands, she found that the brightness barely decreased. "The sun is really bright today." Loid also began shielding his eyes, though Anya could hear questions running through his head.
"You're right, it does seem really bright today." That glare isn't coming from the sun, but no matter which way I turn my head, it doesn't get any dimmer. What's going on here? The young girl feels her father tighten his grip on her hand, before the world suddenly lit up in a flash of white, blinding them to whatever was happening.
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As the blinding light fades away, Damian lowers his arm and looks around, taken aback by the sudden change in surroundings. What had once been his dorm at Eden was replaced by a large theater, partially filled with people in similar states of disorientation. There's a few familiar faces in this crowd. I can see Blackbell, Master Henderson, Forger's pops, Forger herself, Emile, and more. But why us specifically?
He hears a groan from beside him, and turns to see Ewen rubbing his eyes. "Gah, that was super bright... Huh!? Where am I!?" The boy's eyes drift towards Damian, and widen further. "Lord Damian!? What's going on!?" Damian shrugs his shoulders, looking over at Emile, who started running over after hearing Ewen's shouting. He gives a wave to the more portly boy as he draws close, sighing as Emile begins fussing over him and Ewen.
"Bossman, Ewen, are you guys okay!? That light really caught me by surprise! You didn't trip over anything during the flash, did you!?" While reassuring his friends that he was, in fact, perfectly fine, his eyes drift down towards the pink-haired girl standing with her father, who had spotted him by this point and started waving a hand over her head.
"Hey, Sy-on boy! This sure is weird, right?" Damian rolls his eyes at the comment, scowling as he turns away from her to look at the other people who found themselves in this room suddenly. Really Forger? Weird would be the understatement of the century! The selection of people here seems almost completely random to me! Blackbell's servant, some random office lady, a couple of young adults, a dog, Forger's mom, that guy's wearing the SSS uniform! Seriously, what's the correlation between all these people!? He turns his gaze back to Ewen as the boy starts yelling again, marching over to Forger, who looks like a deer in headlights at the sudden hostility. Sighing yet again, Damian quickly follows, intent on redirecting focus towards the real questions that need to be asked, and away from the girl who's likely to cry if this continues.
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"My gun is missing too." Chloe watches Yuri as he feels the space his weapon should have been beneath the casual street-wear of the disguises, and was, up until just a minute ago. His grim expression speaks volumes to his own feelings on the matter. "Somehow, we were disarmed and relocated in a matter of seconds, along with numerous civilians, including Chihuahua girl, Loidy, and- SIS!!!" Chloe winces at the volume of Yuri's shout as he suddenly sprinted towards the woman in question, wrapping his arms around her and babbling some kind of nonsense. Turning her eyes to the nearby children, she chuckles as she notes that Yuri's outburst caused them to stop bickering and stare at him with wide eyes.
"Anya!" She sees a fifth child run down the steps of the theater to the group in the front, almost tackling the pink-haired one. It's nice to see that even in such unusual circumstances, kids will still be kids. Hopefully we can figure this out and get everyone home before they start to panic. While she stares in confusion as a similarly-dressed child with the physique of a grown man approaches the group, the sound of footsteps approaching her from behind signals her to the return of the lieutenant. She waits for him to stand beside her, staying in character as a normal citizen even though the situation has changed.
As he passes by her, she watches his hands behind his back, reading the message the signals conveyed. ...Doors are locked, huh? With no way to contact HQ, we have to figure this out by ourselves. How would this have even happened in the first place? It seems like magic... A memory comes to mind, and Chloe snickers, drawing the attention of the lieutenant, who raises a brow. In response, she smirks. "So, what do you think? If I recall correctly, you said something before about not being able to beat a wizard. This seems pretty magical to me." The lieutenant rolls his eyes, turning away, although she does note the hand gestures he makes. ...Be serious? I mean, I was making a joke, but I was serious about this seeming like magic...
Just before she was about to open her mouth to point out how impossible the situation is, a feminine voice fills the room. "HEY EVERYONE! QUIET DOWN NOW, PLEASE!"
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Henry stands silently, counting the seconds it takes for the room to fall quiet. A small smile finds its way to his face as he notes that his students were among the first to fall quiet. They have been handling this odd situation in a most elegant fashion. Clearly, after that bus hijacking situation, they all are more prepared to face stressful situations with clear minds. His eyes draw to Mrs. Forger and the man clinging to her, the two being the last to fall quiet among the group, barely beaten by a man with particularly curly hair.
With the reigning silence in the room, the unfamiliar voice speaks again, no longer shouting. "Thank you, everyone! Hopefully you've all been finding your bearings quickly! Sorry about the bright light, if it wasn't needed I wouldn't use it, but I'm fairly certain none of you want to see what's around you during transportation!" Henderson raises a brow at that comment. That implies that we have passed very unpleasant things on the journey here, despite having only been rendered blind for five seconds.
A silver-haired lady standing nearby him clears her throat before speaking, her eyes flitting around the room, searching. "Excuse me, but who are you? And where are you? And-" She's cut off by the sound of a door opening and closing, and in between those sounds, one of the walls to the theater suddenly opens, a nearly-imperceptible door revealing a young woman, possibly only a teenager, quickly jogging out to stand at the front of the theater, long brown hair catching the wind. Once she reaches the center of the front, she stops, turning to face everyone with a smile, bright blue eyes twinkling with excitement.
"Sorry about that! Technically, the job instructions say I shouldn't be showing myself to all of you, but I figured it shouldn't hurt too much! Either way, hi! I'm the keeper of this theater, and the one who will oversee your viewing experience! I haven't thought of a codename for myself yet, so for the moment, unfortunately, you're all just going to have to call me that, okay?" She pauses her rapid rate of speed, and Henry watches as the children all nod their heads, as does he. The adults in the room, on the other hand, show no acknowledgement to her words. "Okay, cool, I can see that at least seven of you understood what I said! Well, before we begin, do any of you have any questions? Raise your hand, and I'll call upon you, no shouting over each other!"
Almost everyone in the room raises a hand, and the girl spends a few seconds looking over them all before selecting the scarred man in the uniform. "Miss Keeper, you are aware that I am a member of the State Security Service, right?" When the girl nods her head, the man continues. "Then surely, you are aware that you have commit a grave offense against Ostania by kidnapping me, and will be arrested for it, right?"
The Keeper pauses, staring at the man for a few seconds as she absorbs his words. "...Nah, I'll be fine, lieutenant! It's not like you guys will be able to arrest me and disappear me anyway!" How much of a death wish does she have, to directly say that? Disregarding the gobsmacked expression on 'Lieutenant', she looks around the room with an exaggerated gesture before pointing towards Damian, smile present on her face as the boy speaks up.
"You kidnapped us for a reason. Tell me, why did you choose everyone in this room? As far as I can tell, there's no identifiable pattern to the selection of individuals present. What's so important about all of us that we were your targets? And what do you want from us anyway? You mentioned a viewing, and this is clearly a theater. What do you plan on showing us?" The boy is quite calm right now. He certainly has his mind in the right place, considering the questions he asked. I would have asked the same, if I were picked.
"Ooh, you wanna get right into the meat of it, huh? Alright I'll sh-" She pauses, her eyes flicking towards the young Miss Forger and her expression turning deadly serious. "Don't try it kid. You won't be happy if you do." Henry watches Miss Forger's expression shift to one of shock, bordering on horror, almost. Was she about to do something? I didn't see her even move. She certainly has displayed a willingness to try and help her friends in the past, even back on her first day at Eden. I just hope she doesn't get herself in trouble... Seeing Miss Forger's expression, the Keeper turns her attention back to Damian, smiling once again.
"As I was saying, yeah, I've brought you all here for a reason! And there's a reason why I chose the people in this room, too! You see, a LOT of you guys are keeping some pretty big secrets from everyone else!" Henderson notices Miss Forger tensing up, along with many of the adults in the room. "I'm gonna reveal the secrets that are hidden away, in a way that'll be fun, and easily digestible! And everyone in this room is gonna be affected by what's gonna be revealed, trust me on that, kid! Now, I'm sure many of you are curious about WHY I'm revealing all these secrets, right? Well, I'll give you that answer as well, free of charge!" The Keeper looks around the room, pausing for no discernible reason before continuing, this time with a far more serious demeanor. "...You see, a lot of these secrets are very important. The kinds of things that people would fight over. The way I see it, all these secrets are gonna end up coming out eventually. But it'll take so long, that relations between people will be irreversibly damaged by the reveals. So, I'm forcing them out early in a lighthearted setting. Yeah, it's still gonna suck, but it's better than the alternative. At least this way, I'm pretty sure it won't lead to lifelong enemies... Or, I guess not as MANY lifelong enemies."
As the weight of her words is being absorbed, the Keeper looks around the room again, eventually pointing towards Mr. Forger, whose expression reflects the grim atmosphere the room has been plunged into. "How long is this going to take? You DO plan to release us after the viewings are done, right? And if this is going to take a long time, are you prepared to provide food, water, and private quarters for all of us? Because from what I can tell thus far, you do care about all of us for some unknown reason, so it stands to reason that you will take care of us, right?"
As he finishes speaking, the young woman at the front of the room snaps her fingers as her expression lights up. "Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that! Yeah, this might take a while! In THEORY, you guys could be out of here in a little more than half a day, but I think this experience should be extended to multiple days! And before any of you stoic types start complaining about me wasting your time, remember that there are children here! Also, you're going to need time to unpack the things you're all learning about each other! Trust me on that... But anyway, yeah, I'm fully equipped to keep you all in good health and very comfortable during your stay! Whenever you all want to eat, I can open the doors to the dining area! Whenever you all want a break, I can open the doors to the personal quarters and recreational rooms! If there are any other things you guys need, feel free to ask, and I'll add them in!"
Seemingly satisfied with the answer that the Keeper has given, Mr. Forger nods his head. Looking around once more, the Keeper finally points towards Henry, and he clears his throat before speaking. "Miss Keeper... What did you mean by that? When you said that you would 'add them in.' As far as I am aware, would that not be far too much effort for the short period that we are to be here?" The woman's smile grows even wider as she listens to him, and when he finishes, she claps her hands excitedly.
"Okay, so to answer that, I've been given a gift by a colleague that'll help me handle any of your needs while I'm still new at this! After all, every theater keeper needs to be able to have control over what goes on in the theater! So, until I've gotten the hang of controlling the theater, I've got something to help me out! So, anymore questions?" She looks around, waiting for a full minute to see if anyone was going to suddenly put up their hand. After nobody does, she claps her hands once more.
"Alright, then if that's so, then everyone find your seats! A few ground rules before we begin! First off, don't try to hurt me, it won't work and you'll embarrass yourself! Second, don't try to hurt each other to an excessive degree! That means no stabbing, no slicing, no shooting, no stomping, no killing, no arresting! Punches are fine, but only one punch per person per thing that makes you wanna punch someone! However, if you can justify it, then it's possible I will grant exceptions to the one-punch rule! Third, be careful not to hurt yourselves by accident! Because there are children in the room, I will leave it at that! Is that all clear?"
Henry nods his head, as does everyone else. Seeing the agreement, the Keeper continues. "Well then, just so you all know, you're free to discuss the things you're watching at will. The screen will pause whenever one of you starts talking, completely autonomously! So feel free to say anything you want to say, got it?" As everyone nods their heads, she thinks for a moment before continuing. "Actually, for the first viewing session, I have a specific request for seating." She waves one of her hands, and- Is the theater extending!? How!? Sure enough, before his eyes, and to the shock of everyone in the theater, the room widens, and a separate section of seats pops up in the new space. "I'd like to request that the children sit in this separate set of seats until the end of the first viewing session, okay? I've got a feeling that people are going to be pretty up-in-arms to start off, and children shouldn't be caught in the crossfire. So, could all children please make your way over to the separate seats, while all the adults in the room, please find your seats in the main seating area."
It takes a few seconds, but the old housemaster manages to shake off the shock of seeing what looked like magic, and finds a seat in the second row. As he makes himself comfortable, he notices the children have yet to move. "Come now students. As confusing as this situation is, I'm sure you are all aware that it would be best to go along with what has been requested of us." As they begin to move, his attention is drawn to the sound of someone taking the seat on his right, and he turns to find the scarred SSS man from earlier sitting roughly, a scowl on his face.
"Excuse me, but do you mind if I take this seat?" Looking left, Henry finds Martha gesturing towards the end seat on his left. Gesturing for her to go ahead, she takes her seat with far more elegance than the Lieutenant. Idly observing the rest of the adults, Henry notices the silver-haired lady sitting on the opposite side of the Lieutenant, and the seat on her right remains empty. In the front row, Mr. Forger sits ahead of her, with Mrs. Forger on his left, and the curly-haired man on his right. The loud man who was hugging Mrs. Forger earlier sits beside her (and in front of Henry, the housemaster laments internally), and on the end in front of Martha sits a woman with magenta hair and casual clothing.
"Alright! With everyone seated, I'll get the show going!" The Keeper runs up the aisle of the theater to the back, and sits down at a single chair separated from all the others, next to a very sleek, compact projector. With the press of a button and the twist of a knob, the screen lights up and the theater dims, signaling the beginning of the first viewing.