A/N: Welcome to Darkwood. This 'story' is actually a compilation of short stories and ideas based upon my series of stories with the same name. This means Silence, Yuki-Onna, and Syndicate. All of the 'chapters' for this compilation are separate of each other, not canon to the main series' storyline, and... wait for it... YOU have input in creating new 'chapters'! That's right, you, the readers are allowed to send me ideas to write that involve the many characters from the three stories I listed above. To send me these ideas, I will only be accepting them via PM, so that you and I can discuss them privately instead of in the reviews. And, on that note; Since this compilation involves reader input (as well as my own ideas) I am keeping the rating for the 'story' overall as Mature, even if the individual 'chapters' are tame/PG.
Now, one last thing: The little words below are to explain where, when and what the 'chapter' is all about. As you can see, this one was created by me, is meant to take place in the Darkwood storyline after the ending of Yuki-Onna (Meaning between it and Syndicate) and is a crossover humour idea. Central Characters means who from Darkwood is primarily involved in the 'chapter', which in this case are Yuuki, Rachael and Serenity. Finally, Rating should be pretty obvious, as it gives a general idea of what the 'chapter' has in store for you to read. These
Takes Place In: Yuki-onna, after official ending.
Idea Created By: Acidika
General Theme: Humour, Crossover (Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou)
Central Characters: Yuuki Darkwood, Rachael Darkwood, Serenity Cora Avalise
Rating: T (Minor sexual innuendo)
"So, wait..." Yuuki was slightly confused as she stared at the stream's chat. "I get that I've been sleeping for most of the stream, but who is this Rachnera you keep mentioning?"
It was true, she'd been asleep while Rachael did a solo - quiet - gaming broadcast, but now that she was awake, she needed to at least catch up with the current topic being discussed.
"I'll explain, ignore them for a sec." Rachael leaned back in her chair. "There's an anime from a bit before you were born, called Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou. It's a harem anime, but all the girls are, as you can guess, monster-girls, like a Lamia, Harpy, Centaur, Drider, and a bunch of others." Rachael smirked. "The Drider is named Rachnera, and apparently I, yes, I mean me as an individual, look nearly identical to her. Obviously, Kakuja's necessary for this, so we were discussing ways to hide the tattoos and cover the big blue one on my Kakuja's thorax." Yuuki tilted her head in confusion at that comment, so Rachael added. "Rachnera's got a skull on hers."
"Everyday Life With Monster Girls..." Yuuki sat down in her own chair and fired up all the camera feeds to join the broadcast. "How many episodes?"
Chat was immediately filled with 12's in response to her question. None of them could tell that she wasn't going to join Rachael's game of League of Legends (she already saw that Rachael was playing as Nautilus instead of theirs and their dad's mutually favourite champion, Jinx) as she searched for the anime online.
"After your match, should we watch it? It's not very long if it's 12 episodes." Yuuki found a torrent of the whole anime and had it downloading. It'd be done in fifteen minutes, ready to view on-stream immediately - since The Spider Web was a personal website, and the anime wasn't brand new, they didn't have to worry about copyright bullshit or having it blocked. The thanks for that hefty privilege, of course, went to Motoko and her inability to still not successfully force her way through her own security coding.
"Actually, when did you guys say Rachnera first shows up? What episode?" Rachael asked while she played. She hadn't stopped the whole time, but six eyes gave her head-turning privileges over her human team and opponents. "End of six, huh? Well, since it's honestly just for her, we could start from there onwards. If anyone's got it up, tell us the timestamp for about thirty seconds before her intro scene, and we'll stream from there onwards until the end of the 12th episode."
A few people gave the timestamp she wanted, so by the end of the match (Rachael's team got overwhelmed by a very, very well fed Nasus with enough stacks to one-shot her tank-build Nautilus) Yuuki already had the episode prepared on the shared monitor reserved for the odd occasion they watched an anime for the first time live with the chat.
"Do I care about missing so much? Not really. Harem anime aren't our thing." Yuuki spotted the concerned question in chat, but shook her head dismissively. "Well, except for that Host Club one... Ouran High School Host Club? Yeah, that's definitely a diamond in the rough for harem animes."
After watching all of the episodes with Rachnera involved, Yuuki and Rachael gave their critique of how best to adjust their tattoos and thorax symbols to match the very entertaining spider-girl in the anime.
"We'd need at least a pound of concealer for our tattoos, I'd need red contacts, and our Kakuja's thorax would likely need a coat of spray paint and her logo stenciled over top." Yuuki had been jotting notes about Rachnera down during the whole session, including a note about how the lore of her species, Arachne, got drunk from coffee... An irony that wasn't lost on the twins, nor their fanbase either.
"Her outfit, can't forget that." Rachael added, pointing at the arachnid's humanoid body with her pinkie finger. "Seems like the outfit's the harder part, since we're the only two in the whole world that can pull it off properly."
"True~!" Yuuki realized that was the cold hard fact. Sure, Miia - the Lamia girl - was easy, so was Papi and Suu - who was Yuuki's favourite, while Rachael liked Centorea - but Rachnera wasn't very likely... Until now. "I'll betcha ten bucks Serenity can make it for both of us in one day."
"I'll up the ante and say 12 hours." Rachael took the challenge and slapped a ten onto the middle of their desk at the same time as Yuuki did the same. "I'll call her, she's not on Widow duty today, it's just Mom and Dad."
"Not even a challenge." Serenity smirked at the twins arguing to each other in Russian. She knew they were debating her time, Tobias had called ahead while they were discussing the cosplay plan. "But, that twenty bucks is mine. I spend 26 hours on the whole project, pay up."
Their surprised expressions meant they hadn't known about their dad calling her, but they took it in stride and handed over the two ten's to their smiling aunt.
"Now, put them. I need to do a test for your spray paint stencil." Serenity gestured for the girls to put the Kakuja-centric outfits on as she herself indicated a nearby table arranged with various black spray paints in a long line, plus a cut-out rendition of Rachnera's skull logo in a large piece of fabric.
Once they got into the outfits and brought out their Kakuja's, Serenity spent a long time testing the correct spray paint hue that wouldn't affect the neighbouring parts of the glossy black of their Kakuja's surface, but was able to cover their respective scarlet and cyan tribal spiders without bleeding through the paint. Especially Rachael's cyan.
"Alright, I've got it!" Serenity's razor sharp eyes as a human couldn't have detected the differences unless she was really closely examining the results. But with her T-Virus enhancing her eyesight to the degree it had (Like how Tobias' hearing was his best enhancement, or Tabitha's sense of touch) it only took a few selections until she found the perfect match for covering the tribal spiders, matching the rest of the surface and have the skull logo put on top. "So, tell me... Is this for a photoshoot, or are you going to the anime convention on the weekend?"
"Convention sounds like a good idea, we just need a pound of concealer for our tattoos, as much as I hate hiding them, of course." Yuuki knew better than to insult Serenity's notorious artistic skills, nor her mainstay profession as a (celebrity) tattoo artist.
"I could just do an illusion on both of your backs, it's not exactly hard for me to do them and walk away to remove them after the convention." Serenity was sitting on a stool with her hands on her knees. "But, if you want the concealer, I think I already know the hue to match your skin tone."
"We're doing this all legit, sorry Sere." Rachael replied to the suggestion of her aunt's photon manipulation power, which in the context of the convention, wasn't fair. Sure, they were using their Kakuja for the cosplay, but even in the nearly twenty years since the anime came out, Rachnera cosplay was almost solely large, near-immobile mechanical rigs that required a constant feed of electricity to move around the room. "Well, as legit as possible... Kakuja's aren't fair either."
"Hey, I think it's all a genius idea." Serenity help up her hands in mock surrender. "Concealer, spray paint and the stencil will need you both to have active Kakuja's for at least an hour before heading to the convention. I know letting it disintegrate ruins all the work, so... y'know... Don't do that?" Sere smiled at the slightly up-tilted note at the end of her sentence making it sound like a question.
The crowds of convention goers, both in cosplay and not, were waiting eagerly for the doors to open on Friday morning, ready for pictures, panels, merch and of course, a good, expensive weekend. Rumours of the real life Motoko and Stella Kusanagi, from the Ghost In The Shell franchise, being in attendance brought a fair number of the much more mature series' fanbase out of the shadow - with plenty of cosplay of the pair in their ranks - and of course, everyone waiting hadn't been expecting the large, unmarked white transport truck to come to a halt on the street.
Curious gazes and scattering whispering broke out until the sliding rear door of the trailer slid open and a man hopped out, wearing a black suit.
"Ladies, are you ready?"
He had turned back to the dark interior - Sere got her illusion in somewhere that would really count - and extended his hand to support the first chitin plated hand that extended from the darkness.
Then, several people started screaming as not one, but several long, thin legs extended from the trailer and revealed the full sight of Rachael's expert cosplay.
The screams quickly changed to cheering as Yuuki - who'd been hanging from the ceiling inside - climbed out while upside down, then flipped herself back upright by standing atop the entire trailer with a smirk on her face.
Scattered through the crowd came enthusiastic cheers as people recognized their flawless Rachnera cosplays and also realized who they were.
"It's Yuuki and Rachael! They're cosplaying Rachnera, from Monster Musume!"
Applause and cheering broke out, so Yuuki tinked her way down the side of the truck to lightly land beside her sister and join the line back, both having tucked their passes inside the neck of the slightly high collar of Rachnera's underboob-loving top.
"So, which one of you is which? I've been hearing people are having trouble telling the two of you apart." Motoko was very amused by the bold methods of using their Kakuja for the cosplay. She herself - and Stella, who'd gone to the bathroom - were wearing the outfits of their respective anime adaptations from Ghost In The Shell. The discussion panel they were part of was for the movie from earlier that year, the one that Yuuki and the pair fatefully met at with Jake.
"Well, we could mess with you..." One spoke with a smile.
"Or we could let you guess..." The other had her clawed hands on her hips, likewise smiling.
"Or~! I can remind Yuuki about a certain incident involving a spare prosthetic body and about eight inches of rock hard heaven." Stella knew right away which one that Yuuki was, because her cheeks went pink and Rachael snickered. "Gotcha, sweetheart!"
A/N: So, that is the first short story of this compilation. I suggest reading through the main stories to get an idea of what the characters look like, how they canonically act/think, and get a feel for the world as a whole. Anyway, like I said at the start; PM me if you have an idea for a 'chapter' that you want me to write. Ideas in the reviews will be ignored, and last but not least, there is no upload schedule for this compilation. I'll write when I have ideas... Mine or yours, it doesn't matter.