Hello, and welcome back to another entry in the story. This is Day 3 of my "Road To Revengeance" week.
Also, I sincerely apologize to anyone who has been waiting for pretty much four months. I seriously struggled to find an idea I wanted to use and yet be able to maintain the characters' reactions as accurately as I could, and it was way easier to do the latter than the former. And for the record (just in case), the words in italics is pretty much me berating myself for not putting more energy into this entry.
With that said, before we get going on the second entry for this story, let's reply to the reviews so far:
Karl the Artillery Piece: Good to hear that you liked it. To be fair, it's not exactly an idea that pops up readily in someone's head, but like I said I was inspired by another story to try the idea out. Other than that, thanks for the review.
Gamerman22: According to Google Translate, "Gendai no Seikatsu" translates into "Modern Life" (I punched in the second phrase first to see what the Japanese equivalent was. I'd like someone who knows Japanese to check for me, though, to be safe), so I thought it would work, but I'm not a hundred percent there. As for how they ended up there...it's a secret, but the idea is not exactly an idea I came up with myself (as stated last chapter, this was inspired by ElfCollaborator's story). Apart from that, thanks for the review and I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
Danger close: I understand that there are more game consoles than the ones I've listed so far, but a major factor of why a PS2 wasn't included was because I don't currently own one (well, not an actual model: I do have a PS3 that is backwards-compatible but it doesn't work at the moment) and it's been a really long time since I last used one. I know that there are always great games on each platform, but it wouldn't work as well as if I had played them firsthand. I can try to incorporate them into the story, but I'd be making choices based on videos and any guides I find, so it'd be tougher for me (I don't mind the challenge, though, but I'd have to find someone who knows the game and has played it before to check the chapter in question for accuracy). Besides that, thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy the next chapter.
Jetfire77: Thanks for the review.
Leonardo777: Perrine's time playing Mass Effect will return...but not for the moment. I want to try making a sort of template for this story and I have considered trying a few things from the story this was inspired from. However, at the same time I don't want to make it a clone of said story, so I'd love to hear what you guys think of the matter. As for any places they'll end up going, I'd have to think of some good ideas, but I do plan on placing them in different places and having them interact with other people. As stated before, though, I want to get a template up for a good idea on how I want to structure the story.
And that's it for the reviews so far. Oh, and I do have some news: due to some reading in a For Dummies book I found around here, I'm going to be changing the title of this story to Strike Heroes: Modern Lives.
Now, let's move on to the current entry, shall we?
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Tempus Certamen (with Roland and Draco)
Sanya sat on her bed as she was waking up slowly, trying to figure out what she was going to do for a while.
From the lack of Eila in the room they both shared, the Orussian girl figured that her Suomos roommate had gone somewhere to keep herself occupied.
"Shirley's going to be gone a while, and she took Lucchini with her..." she heard Draco's familiar voice, "...so what am I going to do for a while?"
Sanya then got off of her bed and, dressed in a light gray nightgown with an emblem of a black cat on the front of it, wandered into the living room, where she saw Draco, in a white turtle-neck and blue denim jeans, going through games.
"Good afternoon, Draco," she told the boy.
Draco flinched a bit as he heard Sanya's voice before he turned his head to look at the Orussian girl and replied with, "Oh, it's you, Sanya. Good afternoon, I guess."
Remembering what the boy had said, Sanya tried asking about it. "Shirley and Lucchini are not here, right?"
"Yeah, Shirley said something about having some girl time for today, so she along with Eila dragged everyone else out. Well, except for you and me. You because you were sleeping and me because...well..."
"Oh. Where's Roland-kun, then?" Strangely enough, the Orussian girl had adopted that nickname from Yoshika, but she chose to use it more as a friendly nickname.
"I don't remember, but...you think you can close the back door? I think it's wide open, and Minna doesn't like having insects in the house as much as possible."
"Okay." Sanya walked around the couch and walked over to the back door, a glass sliding door open but the screen door behind it closed. She thought about telling Draco that the screen door was closed but chose not to mention it (the boy was rather skinny, so he seemed to be more susceptible to the cold than the others, which explained the long-sleeved article of clothing he wore), instead closing the glass door. "Done." She then went back to her room to get dressed, leaving Draco to his devices.
"...what haven't I played lately?" the boy asked himself as he looked through the collection. "I've played enough Xbox 360 games to kill a horse for the moment. A Gamecube game I could play, but I'd have to find one I want to play." He then heard something smack against the glass door, and he looked over to the back door to see Roland sitting on the ground in front of it, a bunch of water on him. Sitting on his lap was a yellow watering can. "Oh, that's where he was at the moment..."
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"I'm sorry, Roland-kun," Sanya apologized as Roland walked back into the living room, now wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt with a pocket near his left sleeve and jeans. The Orussian girl had gone with a black plaited skirt with a white T-shirt and one of her signature gray vests. "We didn't know that you were out back."
"It's alright, San," Roland told her. "I should have checked before I tried coming in." He then decided to look at Draco. "Well, since Sanya's the only girl here, seeing as she was asleep when Shirley and Eila rounded up the others, let's find something to entertain her until they get back, alright?"
"Sure," Draco replied. " How about Gears of War?"
Roland lowered his eyebrows. "No."
"Why?"
"One word: chainsaw bayonet. Also, gore."
Draco wanted to point out the inconsistency of the word count but chose not to mention it. "...Okay, fair point. Dishonored? Wait, that's a single-player...Battleblock Theater?"
"Better in terms of violence, but I'm not up for it. Besides, you'd probably spend more time killing me than finishing the map."
"We could do the multiplayer co-op modes."
"That's worse for my sanity, or do you forget the last time we did that? I'm fairly sure you killed me as much as you killed the other team's members."
"...Chrono Trigger?" Sanya asked as she glanced around and found a DS game case with the title laying on the game shelf.
"That's a single player except for the Arena, San," Draco pointed out. "And we only have one copy for the Dee-Es."
"What about the one we got for the Wii You via the eShop?" Roland replied.
"They're different ports, Roland...unless you want to, you know...have a race on it."
Roland raised an eyebrow. "A race?"
"Yeah. We play at about the same pace until one of us beats the game. Whoever does it the fastest wins."
"Sounds like that thing we were doing with Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, but I'm up for it."
Now Sanya raised an eyebrow. "What's...Chrono Trigger?"
"I'll show you, San. Rather, we will."
Sanya simply took a seat on the couch as Roland and Draco talked to each other about who would use which copy. The two decided rather quickly that they would have it so that Roland would use the Wii U (he had beaten the game three times on the DS already and wanted to try beating it in its original format of being on a TV) while Draco used his blue 2DS (he didn't get very far and was willing to restart his game file). They also chose to have the names be specific names, making them the default names to keep things easy on record-keeping. They were also to play on Active Mode (each had played it, but Roland had time on Final Fantasy 13 and, for some time, its sequel to practice on Active Time Battles. Draco, while he had played the mode itself on the DS version, only had slight experience on it).
"So what exactly is Chrono Trigger, Roland-kun?" Sanya tried as she watched Roland turn on the Wii U and maneuver around to find the game, going to the classic Wii menu to search for it.
"It's an Ar-Pee-Gee," Roland explained. "The main story has you playing as a young man who, along with others, must go through time to save a distant future from Apocalypse."
"Oh. I can guess that you beat it more than once, Roland-kun."
"Yeah. One of them had me beat the final boss before I was supposed to, which isn't quite easy given the way it attacks."
"I see."
Roland then selected the game from the menu and loaded it up. "Ready, Draco?" To Sanya, the Liberion boy added, "Hey, San? You're free to watch either of us at any time. It might be easier to watch mine, though, so you don't have to strain yourself watching the tiny screen Draco's using."
"Okay. Thanks."
"Ready to go," Draco replied.
Both boys started their games and selected their battle mode as Active, each leaving the hero's default name as "Crono". The two then started watching the opening cutscene, Draco deciding to point out an interesting fact he noticed.
"Hey, Roland?" the boy asked. "I just noticed, but your text says things differently from mine."
"How?" Roland tried.
"Crono's mom says that it's time to get up in my version but simply tells him to get up in yours."
"Um, isn't the version Roland-kun's playing the original?" Sanya tried.
"San, the game came out way before the Wii or Wii You," Roland explained. "It was originally made for a system called the Es-En-Ee-Es, or Super Nintendo Entertainment System. When I was younger and my dad had one of them, we'd call it the Super Nintendo. Anyways, it was for that originally." The boys continued playing before Draco opened his mouth as if to say something. "Draco, please don't point out every single difference in the texts, We'll be here all day and then some if we're not careful."
"Right," Draco replied.
Sanya watched as the boys, after naming their inventor friend "Lucca", each managed to get an allowance of 300 G (she figured that it had to be gold or something) in addition to their starting amount and travel over to the Millenial Fair that was nearby via the world map. The boys then went through the area before going through to the next area and finding some girl running around on the screen. The boys moved carefully so as not to touch her and went to go fetch...a cat, taking it to its owner.
"Why did you take her cat over to her?" the Orussian girl asked, "And for that matter, why did you not go talk to the girl before doing that?"
"It's a surprise why we did it," Roland told her. "But suffice to say that it's going to play a big role later on. I think it will: I never thought if it would, actually..." The boys then went to talk to the girl but ended up bumping into her, making some necklace fly away from them. Neither of them went to the girl first, choosing to go for the necklace. Sanya was about to say something about them taking it for themselves before they went back to the girl and handed it back to her. "Now that I think about it, I don't know if you can talk to her before retrieving the pendant." Sanya chose to log that information away as "part of the big role later down the road" and watched as the two named the girl "Marle".
"Marle? That's a bit strange for a girl's name to be spelled, isn't it?"
"No stranger than Minna's name spelled with a second En or Gertrud not including an Ee at the end of hers. I even knew someone who spelled his name a certain way. Didn't help that others spelled it differently, but it just goes to show you how names work out."
"Also doesn't help that we ourselves don't quite know the right way to pronounce it," Draco added. "We pronounced her name based on the name 'Marley'."
"I see. Like how Lucca's spelled with two Seas instead of with one Kay yet can still be pronounced the same as 'Luka'?" Sanya asked.
"...Yeah, Sanya, that's one way to think of it." The boys then went around town collecting some Silver Points to get some cash to buy some essentials, including a new weapon for Crono. "You know, I can't really do the drinking contest very well. I never get the thing done fast enough to get all eight cups on the table. Speaking of that...how can Crono be still walking around fine if he's had about, let's say, thirty cups of...whatever he's drinking? Or are they mugs?"
"I believe they're mugs of soda, Draco," Roland replied. "The man even says so. Besides, it's not at the rating needed to allow for the use of alcohol...I think. I'd have to look at the rating to make sure."
"Okay. Still not a very good thing to drink just soda."
"This coming from the guy who prefers soda over other things to drink half the time."
"Hey, I'm not the only one! At least Lucchini isn't here as well or else she'd probably say something."
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Meanwhile, at an outdoor pool about ten miles from the house, Francesca sneezed as she floated on her back, Charlotte floating right next to her. The sneeze forced the Romagnan girl to flip over so that she was using her legs to keep afloat. She was wearing an orange one-piece.
"Are you okay, Lucchini?" the buxom Liberion girl asked as she flipped off her back. She was wearing a pink two-piece bathing suit.
"I feel like someone just mentioned me for some reason," Francesca told her friend. "Like there was something that was said."
"...You sure it's not just you wanting to play with some unfortunate girl's breasts?"
Francesca shook her head. "Nah, I have a different feeling for that. More of a...curious urge. This one's more of a slight tingle in my spine."
Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. "You ask me, you and Eila have about the same habit."
Francesca gasped out of shock. "You can't prove that! Besides, I'm just curious, that's all."
"Sure you are..." Charlotte then flipped back onto her back. "Anyways, I'm going to go back to relaxing. You should too, I guess."
XXXXXXXXX
"Anyways," Roland continued as the boys continued playing their games, "I'm still not sure if having Eila and Francesca around the same area is just tempting fate or something."
Sanya nodded her head: from what she had learned from her roommates, Eila and Francesca enjoyed playing pranks and teasing the others (especially Roland and Draco, though the only one they really got a kick from was the former) as well as playing what the collective household called "Judging Cup Sizes". What set them apart was that, apart from the Romagnan girl being about thirteen and the Suomos girl being sixteen, Eila didn't really limit herself to breast-fondling: she also went for other means to tease someone. Francesca, while she didn't use other means as much, was sneakier at fondling as she could act cute and innocent if she wanted to.
"Sanya, are you okay over there?" Draco asked as he looked at the Orussian girl.
"Yeah," Sanya replied. "I'm just trying to keep an eye on both of you." She then leaned over to look at the boy's screen as he reached the part where Lucca and her father Taban were showing off the telepod, after the boys had learned that it was ready and Marle decided to make a quick stop for some treats. "What are those?"
"You'll see," Roland replied as Crono moved to the left pod before, after Lucca and her father started the machine up, being teleported to the right pod.
"Neat."
"Yeah, the device is designed to send someone from one pod to another with minimal ease."
Sanya then heard Draco snigger. "What is it, Draco?"
"Hang on..." Draco said as he had Crono talk to Marle. She went to the left pod and the process started to repeat itself...until the pendant the girl had with her started reacting oddly, causing a blue circle to appear in between the pods, and the left pod ended up sending the data meant to go to the right pod into the new addition. This made Marle disappear as, once the anomaly closed, Taban and Lucca were forced to close the demonstration to try figuring out what went wrong. "It always happens: you send someone into a strange device, they come out fine, but when the friend with the pendant wants to give it a whirl she gets the exciting thing happening to her."
"If we find a real teleporter around here," Roland told his rival. "I'll be sure to hand you a piece of metal so you can try invoking the teleporting gods' wrath or something."
"You kidding? I'd probably get ported to Hell. Or to my bed. Either or."
"Why exactly is it a bad thing if Marle's been warped by other means?" Snaya asked. "The telepod worked, right?"
The boys then went up to the left telepod (which had Marle's pendant laying on it) and picked it up, causing a dialogue between the silent Crono and Lucca before the inventor and her father started the machine back up to recreate the events that sent Marle off. The young hero then disappeared after hearing Lucca explain that she would catch up once she figured out more about the anomaly, treating all three of them to a sea of blue with wavy lines and circles (the author advises that you should look for a video or a picture of it so as to better understand what it looked like. This is recommended for those who haven't played the game).
"It's part of something greater," Roland told her. "We'll get there as fast as we can, but there's no guarantee that we'd make it there."
"Yeah," Draco ad-libbed. "That's if the author doesn't decide to take another three months or so for the next update." He then received a look from Sanya and Roland, the former in slight confusion and the latter out of shock. "What? It's true: it's been over three months, maybe four by now, since he put out the first chapter, and yet it's only been a weekend since then for us."
"Could we try not breaking the fourth wall like that, please?" Roland asked. "I don't want to have to figure out a way to explain a hole in the space-time continuum to the workers coming to fix it, especially if said hole is a crack in the ground from here to kingdom come."
"If it's a hole in the space-time continuum, why is it also a crack in the ground?"
"It's breaking space-time! It can be a crack and a hole. Besides, cracks are still holes by technicality!"
"Yes, but couldn't it be something else?"
"Like?"
"First off, it's a space-time continuum, so in order for it to rip you have to find it in the first place. Second, how about you try putting a rip in the fridge and eat some food? Your stomach's growling..."
Roland opened his mouth to respond before he felt his stomach growl, as if on cue. "...I don't want to know how you knew my stomach was going to growl."
"I affectionately refer to it as...actually, what did I call it?"
Shaking his head, Roland focused back on his gameplay as the boys landed at their destination. They then took care of a few Green Imps and even a few Roundillos while collecting supplies. Soon both of them reached the world map, and Sanya noticed that Roland's current time period was unknown.
"Where are you guys?" the Orussian girl asked.
"Let me find the answer around here for you really quick," Roland replied as he moved about to look for the time period she asked for, soon going into a residence and learning that Crono had ended up in 600 AD. "We ended up in the Middle Ages. Well, Guardia's Middle Ages. The main thing this game does is have you travel to different time periods to try stopping the Apocalypse." He then went to the shop that was nearby and bought a few more items (he had need of a few more healing items at the very least). "Alright, I'm going to make my way to the castle. Wish me luck."
"Why do you say that? Didn't you finish it already?"
"You never know. Besides, I've got experience with active battles, and I don't think I'm going to risk as much, but I want to be safe."
"I'm heading in as well," Draco added as he got done with the market and was ready to continue.
The boys entered the forest and fought their way through the area, taking on some new enemies. Soon, Roland made it through the forest and reached the castle. Taking time to enter his menu, he went over to save the game and then looked at Draco, who...was looking at his screen in shock? "Draco? What did you do?"
"I..." the boy started as he tried finding words to explain what had happened to him.
Sanya looked at Draco's 2DS screen and saw the reason why: apparently, he had fallen in the game and had been returned to the main menu.
"You died, Draco?" the Orussian girl asked.
"That's not the worst part," Draco replied. "Not only did I die, but...I...forgot to save."
Sanya looked a little perplexed but, once she looked at Roland's surprised face, understood exactly what it meant: the last half-hour they had been going had been pretty much a moot point in the case of Draco.
"How the hell did you die, Draco?" Roland asked.
"I don't know," Draco tried explaining. "I wasn't paying attention to my health and I died. I can't make it much simpler."
"Why didn't you save?"
"Because I thought I would save when you did so that I had an idea of when I should do so."
"...You should save whenever you get the chance, Draco. I thought you remembered that."
"It slipped my mind! Didn't help that I was using the Classic view instead of the DS view for this; I've gotten used to the DS version."
"Can you make it back?"
"Yeah. I'm going to catch back up. Stupid brain for letting me blank out..."
"Alright, I'll wait for you to catch up, since it's only fair for now. Sanya? You want to play something while Draco catches up? I'm going to get us some lunch, so I don't want to leave the system on if you don't want to."
"Oh, I'm fine..." Sanya started before she thought of something. "Actually, can I play on your Super Mario Sixty-Four file for a bit? I wanted to try playing it myself but didn't want to start a game myself if I found I didn't want to play it."
"Sure. I've got all the stars on it, so I don't really mind. What do you guys want to eat?"
"I guess some sandwiches would be nice. I'll write down what I want so that you can get it for me, thanks."
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A few minutes later, and Roland was out to walk and grab lunch for them, leaving Sanya and Draco at the house. The Orussian girl had turned on the game she wanted to try and was moving around while Draco started another new game, setting the same options as last time with the exception of making the view in DS mode. He then tried again, playing through the game as long as he needed to make sure he caught up.
"Hey, Draco?" Sanya decided to ask as she looked at her couch mate.
"What is it, San?" Draco asked as he looked up and at her (luckily, he was at Crono's house at the moment).
"I wanted to ask...how did you and Shirley meet?"
Draco raised an eyebrow. "Huh? That's a bit out of left field there..."
"I wanted to ask because you two seem inseparable, like how Yoshika and Lynne are or Shirley and Lucchini. Even Eila and I are like that."
"Oh. I see. Well...it's a bit weird, but we've actually known each other since I was about ten or so. She was ahead of me in age by about seven months, and we had moved into a neighborhood in Merced less than a week before we met." He focused back on his game. "Anyways, we had barely gotten settled in when I decided to ride my bike for a bit. The neighborhood we had moved to was a quiet one, not too many cars came back and forth. Even then it was usually someone on the street coming home from somewhere or leaving to go places, so we weren't so concerned with being hit. We did make sure we paid attention to when we crossed the road in case a car was coming, but anyways...I was riding around a bit before I felt my bike's chain fall off the gear for the pedal. I had to stop myself carefully and was about to head back home to put the bike away until my parents could get it fixed when this orange-haired girl came out of a house I had stopped at once I came to a stop and asked me if I was alright. I told her that my chain simply fell off, and she looked at me and simply said that she had that sort of problem before. She then had me flip my bike over so that she could work on it and soon I had the chain back on it. I asked her about why she had decided to help me, and she said that she wanted to help someone who needed it. She never gave me her name, though a week later, when we had settled more into our home, I went back to the house and found her tinkering with her bike inside her open garage." Draco gave off a smile. "'You're the kid whose bike chain fell off, right?' she asked, as if she wasn't sure who I was. When I nodded my head to answer her, she added, 'Well, then. Sorry for the lack of an introduction last time: I didn't realize that there was a new kid on the block until two days after I met you. I don't really get out of my garage that much once I decide to mess with my bike.'"
"Bike?"
"Yeah, she named it 'Merlin'. I guess when she got her motorcycle, she chose to go with her nickname from high school for its name, but she still has the bike."
"Oh. It's the pink mountain bike with the brown bike seat, isn't it?"
"Yeah. She always said that it was for desert camo, but the closest we had to desert was a patch of sand at the end of our street. Not important, though: what was important was that I told her that I had come from out of the city and as such was unfamiliar with the area. She looked at me before laughing and saying that I came to the right person for travel destinations. That was when she introduced herself to me, telling me that I was free to call her 'Shirley' if I wanted. Something about her name making her sound old or something, I wish I can remember. And so we were friends after that. I was enrolled in her school, and when she was accepted into the school we go to currently, I tried applying and got accepted as well. Since we needed some housing while we were here, we were assigned to a group the school called 'Neuroi Wolf' as the code name they chose."
"Oh, right. Roland-kun and Miss Minna."
"Yeah, they were alumni from the school as well as friends, and as such they were the best choice for us: they were around our age so we could be comfortable but they were able to support us due to Minna's profession. Then again, she provides most of the housing and things we needed for the house. And they weren't alone, of course: Barkhorn had moved in with them to help out around the place, and she had been followed by Erica, who asked for a transfer from her old household to keep with Barkhorn and Minna. Oh, and Sakamoto had decided to join as well, but she wanted to be able to help them with new housemates."
"I see. They seem to have been at the same school by coincidence. No wonder Miss Sakamoto, Miss Minna, Miss Barkhorn, and Roland-kun are around."
"Yeah, I guess so. And of course, we ended up meeting them and becoming friends with them. Well, Roland and I have at least. I haven't done a lot of interacting with Minna apart from meals, so..."
"Right." Sanya looked at her game and started playing it as a trial while Draco focused on getting back to where he was.
"Oh, and San? I guess since you asked me about how I met Shirley, how did you and Eila meet?"
"Oh, we were rather good friends once we met in middle school, when I was in seventh grade and Eila was in eighth. Once we met, she and I were pretty much inseparable at school after a month, hanging out when we had breaks for things like a nutritional break or lunch. The 'Mischievous Fox' and the 'Silent Lily' were our nicknames, Eila's because she was always pulling some sort of prank on her friends. She always made sure that no one was hurt or had a traumatic experience and that it was in good fun for everyone, but she had pulled a lot of them regardless. As for me, I...I was considered a 'ghost'. Few people actually acknowledged my existence not exactly because they didn't like me but because I wasn't very extroverted. It's kinda hard for me to make new friends due to being so shy, so I never really made a lot. I think the 'Lily' part was added near the end of seventh grade, as people pointed out that I looked cute and innocent. That, of course, made Eila jealous, not so much because they thought I was cute or innocent as much as...well, you know."
"Ah."
"Not that it's bad or anything, but..." Sanya sighed. "I'm just glad that she's gotten used to the others around here before I was eligible to join the school."
Draco raised an eyebrow. "I thought Eila was the more-worried one, but I guess not." By this point, he had interacted with Marle after getting the cat to its owner. "Anyways...I didn't really think you had that much to say. I kinda took you as being...quiet."
Sanya nodded her head. If there was one thing everyone else could agree on, it was that she and Erica were some of the quieter members of the household, rarely speaking a lot but were able to do so if they wanted to. "It's alright."
"Moving on from that, let's just enjoy ourselves until Roland returns, alright?"
"Sure."
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About twenty minutes after they chatted a bit, Draco had finished his catch-up and saved once he got to the castle, and just in time: Roland had returned with lunch, and the three decided to hang up the games for now, choosing to pick the race back up again at a later date.
For ten minutes after that, they ate their lunch and then sat on the couch and barely got settled in for some movies when the sound of a car being locked played from the front of the house.
"I guess they're back," Draco said as he and Roland got off the couch and went over to the door.
"Let's see if they have anything for us to grab," Roland added as, Draco to his left, the Liberion boy turned the doorknob...
Only to have the door be flung open from the outside.
BAM!
"Sanya!" Eila shouted as she came into the house, making a beeline for hers and Sanya's room before she caught the Orussian girl sitting on the couch from the corner of her eyes. She wore a dark blue T-shirt and denim short shorts and was carrying two bags, one being a plastic bag that seemed to have held her swimwear while the other was a brown paper bag that seemed to carry something inside it. "Sanya, we stopped by one of the toy shops for a bit, and I got you something."
"Eila," Sanya said, slightly surprised to see the Suomos girl so giddy. "Good afternoon."
"Here, San." Eila then handed Sanya the brown paper bag and, as the Orussian girl rummaged through it for her gift, asked, "So how did Roland and Draco treat you?"
"Rather well. They started a gaming race for a game and I watched a bit before Roland-kun went to grab some lunch. I played something while I was waiting and chatted with Draco." Sanya then grabbed the gift and pulled it out, revealing it to be a stuffed black cat with a bow tie and green eyes. "Thanks, Eila."
Eila then blushed slightly as she took the compliment. "It's no problem, Sanya." She then noticed that there was a surprisingly lack of boys. "Hey, they didn't ditch you or something, did they?"
"They went to go get the door..." Sanya's voice trailed off, and the girls then looked at in the direction of the doorway as Yoshika and Charlotte (who had noticed that the door was not completely open) moved it to see that Roland and Draco had been smooshed by Eila's entry. The younger of the two was behind the elder of them, both seeming dazed.
"Hey, Roland-kun, Draco," the little Fuso girl greeted as she looked at the boys. She was wearing a light yellow sundress and was toting around a plastic bag like Eila's carrying her usual swimsuit.
"Hello, Marle," Roland ad-libbed randomly. "How was your date with Crono at the fair?" He moved himself ahead a bit before falling to the ground chest first, Draco following suit as he plopped onto the Liberion boy's back.
Yoshika became a little worried. "Roland-kun? Draco?"
"I'm guessing that they were playing Chrono Trigger," Charlotte inferred as Yoshika got onto her knees to check up on the boys' bodies.
And so the rest of the day went by without incident...apart from Roland and Draco spending some time unconscious because of the force of feeling a door to the face (and in the case of Draco the force of someone heavier than you along with it) and, after waking up from it, recovering from it.
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And there's the end for this entry. In case you're wondering, the title's a rough translation of "Time of Conflict" (my original thoughts were "Time Race" but this also makes sense given the game's story) thanks to Google's translator. If you happen to know Latin, please let me know if that's right or not.
Anyways, this is a good time to explain in some more details about the setting: the main reason why the girls (and Roland and Draco) are living in the same household is because...well, I'll have Roland or Minna explain it in the story. Just know that they are part of a program for the school all of them are attending or have attended, which pretty much allows the students to live with any nearby alumni while they attend the school (stipulations to be announced later in the story).
As for the backstories with Draco/Charlotte and Sanya/Eila, I wanted to make them a bit more realistic for this particular story, and the best I could come up with was how I depicted it here: Eila and Sanya met in middle school and became friends after a while. According to Sanya, she joined the school in question after Eila, which by the information given made it a school year (I think Eila can explain it from her view at a later date). As for Draco and Charlotte, it's basically a flipped version of the one I developed in Strike Heroes 2: Roland's Return (without a scraped knee). For Roland and Minna...well, I'll save that for a later date along with other things.
Also, the ending...well, I originally wanted to have Roland be the only one to be smashed by the door, but after giving it some thought I decided to try having it so that both boys felt the pain, Draco feeling it a bit more due to having been between Roland and the wall.
And one more thing: I was considering covering some fanfics within the Strike Witches community, but at the same time I don't know if it's a good idea to do so. The story I got the idea from does it for its series' community, so I'm a bit hesitant to try the idea for the reason of "just because I've seen it at work". So please let me know if you guys think it's a good idea for me to try doing (or tell me not to, but make it polite if that's the case).
Anyways, please read and respond and let me know you think of this chapter as well as the idea, and don't forget to let me know if the title works better than the last one (Strike Heroes: Gendai no Seikatsu, for reference).
Thanks, and I will see you either in the next update of this story or the finale to "Road to Revengeance Week" that is Project Global (also, in case you haven't checked my profile page in a while, there is now a teaser for it there, so let me know what you think of it) tomorrow.
