Snakes, Kids and Trolling
"Hey, hey, everyone! Look what I found!"
There could be no mistaking Ene's voice, especially not as it bounded full-blast out of every possible speaker in the base. Clatters and curses sprang through the apartment in response, but soon enough the living room filled with disrupted, frowning teenagers. Some of them even brought their best glares - how thoughtful!
"You won't believe this. Somewhere in the USA, there's a kid just like us! And Master tells me not to mess with his phone while he's away. Come, come, lemme show you!" snickered the cyber girl. She hovered a bit to the side, letting two browser windows take her place. The Dan only furrowed its eyebrows, much to Ene's disappointment – which was quickly washed away by another epiphany.
"Right, right! You guys don't know English or have cybernetic control over Google Translate. Well, Google Translate is trash anyways! A human translator would be much better, right, Master?"
"H-hey, why are you asking me about this?! I know nothing about English!"
"But Master, you're a genius! Didn't you get the best marks in English class back in school? Now hurry up and translate for us. You know what I could be doing to you otherwise." Ene smirked.
A sweat drop formed on Shintaro's cheek. "Y-yeah…I'll translate these articles for you. B-but don't blame me if I do a bad job, Ene!" With a small "that won't be necessary" from Ene, Shintaro swiped the phone into his hand and let the Dan flock around it like birds as he read.
The Kisaragi was able to make out the headline of the first article: something about a father and a son getting killed 'last night', which was more like a year ago on August 15. Meanwhile, details like a movie and a lack of bodies made it to coherence while everything else fell into the void. On the second article that Ene had crammed into view, the same kid ("John") was found alive and discharged from a nearby hospital in a matter of days, injury-free. His very worried internet friends kept messaging his username of 'ghostyTrickster', weird-looking English here, they couldn't find his father and so "John" was staying with his…nanna? What kind of relative was that?
"And that's not all! There's another kid too with this kind of event. He's friends with this 'John'. Master, translate these articles too!" Shintaro let out a groan at that, but complied nonetheless. But these articles were even more confusing than the last! He could find, however that this other kid – 'Dave', Shintaro thought – and his older brother had engaged the murderer from the last August 15. The two were able to incapacitate said murderer, but couldn't be found. They were presumed dead until the kid was found alive. The older brother was still gone. Then, the article mentioned'Dave' being friends with 'John' and becoming schoolmates or something. Like they weren't before?
Shintaro felt a dry mouth at the end of all four articles.
"Mm. Good job Ene for finding these news pieces and good job Shintaro for translating them to us," remarked Kido. "What do you propose we do? Ene, you have the first say since you brought this to our attention."
"I propose we contact this John and his friends using the chat client they use! We should all sign up and start telling them things. I'll start!" Various members recoiled at the sound of this, though Kano seemed to have stood up straighter.
"I see. We can't recruit them if they're in the USA, so that may just have to do. Anyone else have ideas?" Silence. "No? Then who would like to do what Ene suggested? Remember that you will have to learn some English, so opt out now if you don't want to."
If Kano had raised his hand any higher, he would have pulled a muscle. Seto and Marry put their hands up too, though with less vigor.
"Good. Shintaro, you'll be helping with this. You do know the most English after all, so I hope it's not any trouble to you."
"N-no…It's not a problem at all," answered Shintaro. He shivered at the thought of what Ene would say, if not do if he didn't jump on this bandwagon.
And so even if there were no such thing as trolls in the universe, there were still humans who could do much the same.