The list of things that I do not in any way shape or form own are:
K-on, Warehouse 13, Left 4 Dead, Pokemon, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Bayonetta, Resident Evil, Soul Eater, Bleach, Claymore, and Hellboy.
If you are not familiar with Warehouse 13 I recommend that you get familiar with it or ride this out and reach the part in the story where all is explained.
Also this was a contest entry for a DA contest.
Misadventures In Cosplay
"Was this guy a track star in high school or something?" She huffed rather annoyed to be running down the street dodging traffic and costumed geeks.
"Just don't lose him. We don't know how the boots are activated or what they do so we can't risk letting him make it to the convention center." She was right of course but that still didn't make running after the guy any easier.
As she'd gotten a clear shot at him she was forced to jump out of the way of a bike messenger. "Watch it speed freak!"
"Claude you alright?"
"I think I bruised something and we lost him." The rest of what she was saying had been drowned out by a loud explosion. The two warehouse agents looked in the direction of the explosion. "He made it to the convention center."
Through unspoken communication the two agents were up and running full-tilt toward the epicenter of the explosion; with multiple explosions following the first.
It had been bad enough that they'd tricked her into coming with them to the Con on one of their few days off but it was even worse when they tried to get her to cosplay with them. Although she was loathe to admit it but she'd wished she would've of cosplayed with her friends. Or that was until a couple of seconds ago when all hell broke loose.
"Well, well, well," the woman's voice made the bassist skin crawl, "if it isn't the little mudblood."
"So it is, Lestrange." Hearing her friend and piano player answer the witch in a perfect British accent made the bassist do a double take. Her friend Tsumugi who'd been cosplaying as Hermione from Harry Potter, quite enthusiastically, had become a real version of her, somehow.
With a suddenness that left her disoriented and smarting from landing harshly on the ground, she found that she'd been knocked back narrowly avoiding a scrap of cloth that'd been aiming directly for her. The sight while slightly disturbing was far out shined by the girl standing in front of her. One of her arms had transformed into an eerie black blade. "If you want her soul, Kishin Asura, you'll have to go through me."
"Azusa-chan?" Thankfully her whisper hadn't been noticed by the woman. She was cursing her lapse in attention when Azusa had been telling her about the character she was going to cosplay as. "This is not good."
"I'll say. You haven't seen my little brother around here, have you?" The question threw her for yet another loop as she turned to face the speaker. "N-no sorry I haven't."
"Blast it all where the hell is he." The bassist remained silent trying not to draw any more attention to herself. "Well if you see a little runt who answers to Max send him my way will ya?"
All she could do was nod at her and watch as she scrambled quickly away from the two on-going fights mere inches away from where they were. Before she could do the same a spine chilling empty howl echoed through the area. Freezing on the spot she dared not look at what had made the sounds. The creature painted a clear image in her head of what it looked like. After all it was something from her favorite anime; though she had no idea why it was her favorite.
Glancing behind her confirmed what she already knew. A stark white mask with black spirals swirled across its surface like a kid's finger painting on crack, greeted her. Its greyish blue skin shimmering in the florescent lights hid its movements and all too late its three fingered hands were closing around her.
Thunder crashed in her ears as she heard the hollow's mask splinter. "It won't stay down for long and I can't fight it and protect you at the same time, run!"
Not needing to be told twice she moved faster than she'd ever had before. Run now fangirl later. Turning that thought into a mantra she repeated it over and over to serve as a distraction as the convention center filled with the real live versions of tens of thousands of anime characters, movie characters, and game characters.
After reaching what she thought was a safe place, a horrid half-frightened half-elated scream assaulted her ears before she was straddled by a growling zombie. As its clawed hands descended, its blood splattered her face. And if almost being mauled wasn't enough another snarling scream sounded and she heard a distinctive, "Fuck! I don't remember Umbrella's experiments being this successful. Girl you better get the hell out of here."
Ritsu...Sawa-chan...Yui...Azusa...Mugi... Her thoughts were cut short by a commanding, "Move!"
...I promise you I will find out how to reverse this mess. Even if it's the last thing I do. With her mind made up the bassist and likely the last person unaffected by whatever was happening disappeared around the corner as the sound of gunfire resumed.
"Artie please tell me you've identified the artifact or have something, anything." The urgency in her voice alarmed the face onscreen. "What happened and where's Claudia?"
"There's-" a loud guttural bellow accompanied by the sickening squelching of flesh interrupted what she had been about to say into her device.
"-no time to explain."
"Right, those boots were apart of Forest J. Ackerman's costume," She saw the vague image of the legendary monster man dressed as a futuristic star pilot onscreen for a couple seconds before Artie reappeared, "he wore to the first ever World Science Fiction convention held in New York in 1939. As far as what they do I couldn't find anythi-"
"Myka heads up!" For a heart stopping moment the agent stood frozen as the demonic looking angel creature brought a tri-pointed spear down on her. About a second before it would have landed a high heeled foot comprised entirely of black hair impaled the angel. "Don't fuck with a witch."
"I have an idea. It turns anyone dressed up as something into the thing they dressed up as. I think we can handle things from here." Snapping the lid closed she jumped out of the slender woman's way as she chased after the angel.
The two agents had been attempting to make some head way all morning with the artifact but after the fiasco with the angel and the witch hunting it, the crazy got cranked up to the next level. After managing to avoid a raging brawl with two superheroes, qualifying as humans to bypass several silver haired woman wielding giant claymores, and tesla'ing their way out of being exterminated by a cheap Star Wars knock off they found a brief moments rest near the doors to a panel for some popular new show coming out soon.
As the agents attempted to orient themselves both failed to notice a pair of grey eyes observing them closely. "Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"
"Holy frak are those rust buckets hard to keep down. No wonder the doctor always go's in to total oh shit mode when their ugly heads pop up!"
The other agent cast a strange look in her companion's direction. "As much as I appreciate your assessment of the situation Claude, it's really not helping."
"In here!" A heavily accented voice hissed off to the right of them.
"Exterminate!"
Without a second to waste both agents dived for the doors just as the robotic tin can fired a laser. The resulting dust cloud blocked its view of the humans it had been targeting. "And ten points to the mysterious woman who totally saved our asses."
The aforementioned blankly stared at her. "You're...welcome?"
"And who are you guys? Why aren't you like everyone else? What's going on?" She watched as the two women held each other's gaze for a moment before the younger red haired one spoke.
"First I'm Claudia and on my left is Myka," Myka nodded to her as Claudia had introduced them, "Second we didn't come here for the con which thankfully means we aren't qualified for artifact-y whammy-ing and lastly everyone here's been affected by some spooky old trinket that contains supernatural energy allowing or rather forcing everyone to become what they dressed up as."
She blinked a couple times to be certain that the two women she'd helped out were actually there. "If I hadn't seen my friends become the real live versions of the people they cosplayed as...I'd be calling for security."
"I'm Mio by the way." She added as an afterthought. Claudia's mouth stretched into a frightening grin. "Mio? As in Akiyama Mio of Ho-Kago Tea Time?"
Heaving a sigh Mio braced herself for the evitable and rolled her eyes, "Sure am." To her immense relief and amazement Claudia reacted unexpectedly, "If we get out of this with limbs intact, could I...I don't know...rock out with you...sometime?"
Having been rendered speechless and floundering for any semblance of coherent English to respond with she simply resorted to her native language. "Hai."
"Claudia if you're done swapping autographs I could really use some help with thi-" her voice died off as a gargantuan tentacle burst through the door. Without a second to lose Claudia fired off her Tesla and hopefully knocked out whatever creature belonged with that appendage. "How are we supposed to fight our way through an army of super powered science fiction characters?"
"Myka?" Her further prompting got no response from Myka. "Hello, earth to Mykes the libraries called they need their indexes back?"
"Was it the tentacl...?" She trailed off as Myka sent her famous 'finish that idiotic though and die' glare. "Don't."
"Okaaay moving on. What are we gonna do about this?" She asked again without preamble.
"I may have a suggestion." Three people turned to face the speaker simultaneously. "H.G!"
The woman whom had been address as H.G. smiled at the two agents and spared a glance for Mio. "I've had experience with an artifact quite similar to the one you're after. The people out there," she indicated the doors "are still, deep down, the same people who came dressed up. You just need to remind them of who they really are."
"Yeah but-
"Did I not hear you asking this young lady about being a band member? If she were to start playing a song of theirs; it should draw her friends directly to her. And hopefully with them comes their other friends. The people they are connected to through this ritual of costume play acting." She interrupted what Claudia had been trying to ask, and sending her a knowing smile all the while.
"The most epic dose of Claudiousity, coming right up." As she got to work, Mio took time to observe the newcomer. The most obvious thing she was English but not just that but Old English. How is this even possible?!
"Wait, hang on, how do you know that this will work?" Mio's question seemed to bring this H.G. back to the present. "An excellent question darling, I played the violin for an old friend of mine at a costume ball. It appeared as though he was coming round and turning back into my friend but was still able to utilize the abilities of his costume."
Mio shrugged at that. "If you say so, but there's still a problem I need an instrument?"
"Let me handle that. Helena would you mind giving me a hand." She didn't ask but rather told 'Helena' to help.
As if by some magical force the two returned sometime later with a Yamaha RBX170. It wasn't her Elizabeth but it'd do. I sure hope this works.
"Claudia how's it coming?" the red head waved them off. "Almost...and there! One Farnsworth bass amp."
Moving quickly Claudia attached the strange device to Mio's bass and stepped back. The moment she'd stepped back Mio struck the first cord...
Like bad reception on the television the image went fuzzy then cut off completely as the bassist shot bolt upright and narrowly avoided whacking her head on the low hanging light. Once she ascertained her surroundings and confirmed that she was still on their tour bus, she slowly lay back down. It was all just a dream, a terrifying and slightly insane dream.
Reassured at that thought she rolled over in an attempt to get comfortable only to have a hard object dig into her back. "What now?" She groaned softly as she reached for the offending object only to let out a screeching shriek like wail at the picture within the frame.
She stood on stage playing alongside her friends only they weren't quite themselves. Below the picture there was a caption.
Thanks for the awesome show! Let's do it again sometime.
Your fans, Myka, Claudia, and H.G. Wells