Preparation
It would actually be not for another three days until they got to their first session. Though they were still young, and just at the cusp of adulthood, the girls were busy idols with prior obligations that they had to fulfill. Dance and Vocal lessons taking up their schedules; an impromptu fan meetup hosted by their senior idols at a nearby mall; their own personal lives that they had to juggle. And all throughout this, Shiki would further explain to them the nuances of the world and system they'd be playing. There were hiccups because the book itself was in English, especially with Syuko who was the least fluent in the language, but the brunette was patient. In an odd and roundabout way. So in time, the girls had a good idea of what the game was like.
Their producer was also busy during this shared time. Either he was in his office, completing paperwork after paperwork that was sent his way to be sent to someone, somewhere else in the agency. Or he would be with the idols, as any self-respecting producer would be, to support his idols and making sure that the event they were pulled into would go off without a hitch along with the other producers. And he also used some of his own personal time to comb through the book itself (along with a couple of other books, supplements that Shiki gave to him with a wide smile on her face.) But he was also a meticulous professional. He didn't want to be caught flatfooted just in case something they'd be doing would go against the grain. So he did the only sensible thing he could do.
"You wish to hold a bonding experience?" the stoic, middle aged woman asked from where she sat, her eyes scrutinizing his form.
"Yes, Director Mishiro. The girls of LiPPS had planned on doing something together, and they asked me to facilitate their needs." He replied evenly to the head of 346 Production's Idol Division.
"This sounds like something they can do in their own personal time, Zulkar-san." She told him, tapping her pen on her desk.
"If it was just them, I would agree, Ma'am. But they asked for my help." He responded back. "I would not like some malicious rumors and gossip to spread if they were to be seen with an older gentleman. At least, if it was within working hours, it can be seen as a group event, a sanctioned bonding experience for them."
Her gaze was kept on him, before her eyes closed as she contemplated the request. The tapping of her pen seemed to grow louder with every second she spent in silence. "I would have just rejected this request before." She finally said, her eyes opening, though they did not have the same glare as they did before. "But I will acquiesce. How long will this take?"
"A single session would take a couple of hours. How many sessions planned, remains to be seen. It would depend on their collective interest." He answered.
"Very well." She nodded, turning to the woman that had been standing silently beside her desk. "Senkawa-san, I want someone along with them."
"Yes, Director Mishiro." The assistant bowed, before standing straight and smiling at the producer.
"Thank you, Director Mishiro." The producer said as he too bowed.
"I want a report on this as well, Zulkar-san."
"It will be done, Ma'am."
He left the Director's office with a relieved sigh, even though he had inadvertently made more work for himself. When one has the permission of the Director, things tend to go over smoothly. There might be bumps in the road, but at least the hardest hurdle had passed. He glanced to his side, seeing Chihiro walking beside him, carrying a number of filed documents, distinct numbers on each of them for each unit and producer.
"You're sending some of your people over?" he asked her casually.
She giggled. "They're not my people. But yes." She held her phone out, waving it a bit before pocketing it back. "Someone is heading to your office right now."
"Wow, I'm special enough to get my own assistant?" he asked lightheartedly.
"You were long overdue of one, Zulkar-san. Producers in charge of idol units have assistants assigned to them, but because there hadn't been any lives or events for LiPPS, it wasn't a priority."
"Kind of figured as much." He said with a sigh. "Well, see you later, Senkawa-san."
"You too, Zulkar-san." The both of them went on their separate ways, with her taking the elevator while he walked down the stairs. Their office wasn't that far down from where he was at.
He reached his office floor, there was already a woman standing there. She looked younger than him, probably as old as the older idols the agency had. Mid-twenties if he had to guess. She wore an almost entirely blue ensemble compared to Chihiro's green, making the cream colored blouse stand out. Her hair was long, reaching to her waist and tied off with a ribbon near the end. She wore thick-rimmed glasses on her youthful face. Her skin was pale, eerily so, even more than Syuko's (and she was like that because of her supposed "hobbies"). At first glance, it seemed like she was keeping a professional air around her. But he noticed the way she was clenching a fist beneath a hand. And the way she was biting her lip.
"Are you the one Senkawa-san sent?" he asked as he approached the office.
It seemed that she hadn't notice his approach, as her body flinched in surprise. She turned to him, eyeing him briefly before bowing. "Yes. I am Minamoto Ushi." She straightened back up with a professional smile. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Producer."
"Likewise." He replied with a nod. "Do you have any idea why you're assigned to me?"
Her brows furrowed in confusion. "You mean, aside for LiPPS?"
"Yes. I'll explain in a moment." He said as he opened the door, entering with the assistant behind him.
"You're late, Producer!" called out the unit's brunette, sitting on the double sofa as she waved him over.
"I'm actually just in time." He said back with a smirk, before turning back to the assistant. "Why don't you introduce yourself, Minamoto-san?"
He didn't wait for an answer, as he made his way inside his office. Stashed to the side of his own desk was his laptop, the books, and a few other things he had prepared. He grabbed them, briefly skimming over them to make sure he had everything needed, before nodding to himself and heading back out. By now, the rest of the unit were sitting in the sofas, their attention still on the assistant who had just introduced herself.
"Is Minamoto-san going to help out with this as well, Producer?" Syuko asked, her arms spread on the back of the sofa.
He shook his head. "No, but she'll help me out when I need to write a report on this." He held out a camera to her.
"You want me to take pictures?" Ushi asked as she held the camera unsurely.
"At your discretion." The producer replied as he sat himself down on the single sofa. He glanced at each one of them, seeing them staring at him with anticipation. Shiki and Frederica taking the two seat sofa, while Syuko, Kanade and Mika took the four seat sofa, along with Ushi as she sat down herself. He turned back to Shiki. "You explained everything to them?"
"Not everything. Just the parts we needed, while you covered the rest Producer." Shiki answered.
"So you all know what the playbooks are then?" they all nodded. "Good. Do you have any idea what you girls want to be?"
"What is the city like, Producer?" Frederica asked, cutting anyone else from answering.
"Yeah, I'm sure comic books are like manga. There are different genres. And I've seen the movies. Batman isn't anything like Iron Man. What's ours like?" Syuko asked along.
"Depends entirely on you girls." He said to them. "I've had experience with a number of genres. I've been part of low fantasy settings, and high scale fantasy battles. Cyberpunk noir, and high stakes action. I can accommodate to what you girls want."
"I don't want it to be realistic." Mika spoke up, leaning back into the sofa as she crossed her arms. "It's a fantasy, right? I want it to be fun."
"But I think there being some realism would help, at least for us to relate to our characters." Kanade countered, turning to face Mika.
"What did you think Halcyon City is like, Producer?" Shiki asked, echoing Frederica's question and drawing the rest of the girls' attention back onto him.
"You girls want to be in Halcyon City?" he responded.
Shiki's brows furrowed in confusion. "We can be somewhere else?"
He shrugged. "It's our game. We don't have to follow the rules to the nail. At the very least, I would have changed the name. Halcyon City sounds too American, and I'd like it to be more international."
The five girls nodded in understanding, before Shiki spoke up again. "So what's the city like then, Producer?"
At the question that was turned to him, the producer closed his eyes in thought, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I pictured, Jupiter City to be its own city-state. Not just a simple city. It's great, magnificent. Independent from any governing nation but its own. But behind that glamour, that gleem, there's a bleakness to it." He opened his eyes again, meeting the girls one by one. "The people don't like it, because they also try to live up to how the rest of the world views Jupiter City. And they feel that this filth unknown to the rest of the world means that they're not living up to that expectation. They all try to put up a front. A proud façade and a smile on their face. But deep inside most of the citizens, lies a cynical outlook that clashes with the brightness of the city."
The girls took in his brief intro of the city with regard. This was how their city was going to be. How their heroes are going to be. How their people were going to be. They took it in, some thinking about it harder than others.
"How about, we as a group are always all smiles, and that is why everyone else don't take us seriously?" Frederica suggested. "How we're also trying to lighten up the city with our escapades."
"That way we can have both." Kanade said with a nod. "I like that."
"Me too. That way, it'll be special." Mika added with a smile.
"Okay, we'll go with that." The producer nodded again, before returning to his question. "Do you girls know what you want to be? Remember, there can't be more than one playbook in each group."
"Hai hai!" Shiki raised her hand up like an enthusiastic grade schooler. "I wanna be The Brain!"
The producer's eyes squinted on her. "Is that why you gave me those books?"
"Hehe, you betcha!" a knowing smirk was plastered on her face before it devolved into an amused cackle.
"Well, you know what you're doing, so I'll help the others." She nodded back as he glanced to the blonde beside her.
"What's The Transformed like?" Frederica asked, her head tilted slightly in a cutesy fashion.
"It's like the Hulk, or Cyborg from Justice League." He told her. "It can be natural, or artificial. The important thing is you're kind of a freak."
"Can I be a cute freak?" she asked with a smile.
"We can make that work." He answered.
"Yay!" Both her hands were raised in excitement as the producer moved on to the next.
"How about you Mika?" the pink haired gyaru was tapping the pencil she was holding in her teeth.
"What's The Janus supposed to be like?" she asked, pulling up one of the playbooks off the table. "Is it like Spiderman?"
"Depends on what you think Spiderman is." He answered back to her. "The Janus is all about living a double life that's both separate from each other. Kinda like you girls as idols."
"I guess I'll go with that." Mika said with a simple nod.
"I want to be The Outsider." Kanade spoke up, though with an uncertain look on her face. "But I don't want to be an alien."
"Then what do you want to be?" he asked, leaning closer with an elbow on his knee.
"I don't know. Something like a fantasy character." She explained.
"We can work with that."
"But how? It says here that The Outsider can fly, and is tough." She pointed out.
He shrugged. "We can say its magic."
"I guess." she ended it there, as she worked out what she wanted to do in her head.
That left the white haired girl who was patiently waiting for her turn. "Syuko?"
"I want to try out this." She said, holding up The Protégé playbook.
"Alright, there's nothing wrong with that." The producer said with a nod, before clapping his hand just as the flash of a camera startled him. He glanced to Syuko's left, as Ushi had snapped a picture of them, before turning back to Syuko.
"Alright girls, we'll start with creating your heroes, then we'll get into the messy bits."
The five members of LiPPS smiled in anticipation, with varying levels of eagerness with their producer pulling them into the world they had never broached before.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
the assistant's looks and name are partially based off of FGO's Minamoto-no-Raikou. hence her name being Minamoto Ushi (with Ushi being Ushi Gozen, which is FGO Raikou's original name.) her looks are also kinda what you'd expect a younger Raikou would look like, though she wouldn't have Raikou's Raikous (not that i have a problem with them). she's just above being flat chested, being an opposite to her namesake.
also, i didn't want to use Chihiro, 'cause based off of the anime i think she'd be too important to be tied to a producer with a single idol unit. also, the idea of her being an assistant to many producers is just stupid to me.
anyway, thanks for the read, and i'll see you all next time!
