"Banquet of the Golden Witch"

Tables turn; the party is crashed….where is this narrative going?

"Let me start off my telling you all how I met teacher!" Beatrice started, holding the wine bottle like it was the Holy Grail. "Teacher!"

A ways away, the elder actress called Virgillia looked up when she heard Beatrice calling her. She put up a hand, and waved meekly, as if acknowledging her.

The theatergoers called Gaap and Ronove, who were situated at the same table, both snuck a look at each other and snickered. Instantly catching this, Virgilia diverted her attention to them.

"What? What do you two find so funny?"

Gaap waved her inquiry away. "Oh, nothing at all. If Riiche wants to get drunk and make a fool out of herself, it's not any of my business, ahaha~."

Virgilia furrowed her brows. She looked like she wanted nothing more than to slap Gaap.

"…and I said, 'Teacher, won't you use your magic to fix it! Pretty please!' And then she did. And then the cat knocked it over."

"Bullshit!" Battler interrupted. "There's no magic in this story!"

Beatrice swung the wine bottle at his head, but Lambdadelta grabbed her wrist.

"You. Battler, no interrupting. And you. Beatrice. Hands to yourself." The blonde actress was seated at a table she had dragged over, still handcuffed to Bernkastel and looking highly amused. "Now. Beato, please continue."

"Yes! Now, as I was saying…" She pointed at Battler. "You started to become a pansy!"

"Lies!"

"And because you were a pansy, I was able to summon my dear butler!"

"You have no butler!"

"Battler, Battler. You're drunk. Obviously I do. Ronove is my butler."

Battler looked at her curiously. He knew the man called Ronove was one of the theatre assistants. He knew Ronove often preferred working with Beato (maybe he viewed her as more classy than the other girls?). But…he was her butler? Wait a second…

"How's that?"

Cornelia held her fan of cards over her mouth to cover her giggles. Gohda seemed proud of himself. Gertrude said in a calm voice, "You suck at poker."

Before then, Gertrude, Cornelia, and Gohda had been playing spoons together. A little while earlier, though, Will had suddenly arrived, and Gertrude had roped him into a game of poker (without betting; Dlanor would be on their asses for sure).

And he was not doing very well at all.

Will narrowed his eyes, and glared at Gertrude.

Gertrude yawned, and looked through her cards. "See, that's the thing…Cornelia and I have to be deadpan on duty, so our poker faces come naturally. And Gohda here, he's apparently played professional poker in the past, so he knows it well, too." She pointed a slim finger in Will's direction. "But you. You seem so naturally stoic. Why do your poker faces suck so badly?"

Will responded by slamming down his hand of cards on the table and meeting Gertrude's eyes. "I will not take guff from a member of a rival agency!"

"What does our police work have to do with playing poker?" Gertrude asked simply.

Will opened his mouth to rebuff her, but when he found no appropriate words, he went back to studying his cards. He thought of retreating and going out to the main hall to give Battler and Beatrice his regards, to give Lion a hand with all of the drunken people wandering around. But he was Willard H. Wright, former head police chief and detective of the SSVD crime unit, and Wright of the Twenty Bullets. He could beat these three in a measly game of poker. Hell, one was a mere family cook, and the other two were lowly inspectors from the Eiserne Jungfrau CU.

He had made up his mind to pulverize them. Which why he nearly flipped over the table like Dlanor had when he was interrupted by a shrill voice.

"Ohhhhh my. Aren't you enjoying the wedding? Why are you all out here?"

Will craned his head around to find the source of the voice, and groaned when he saw.

Before the four stood a short actress, clad in dazzling purple and black. She was a near-carbon copy of a Miss Eva Ushiromiya.

Gohda looked panicked. "Miss-Miss Beatrice…Miss Eva, you were not invited to this wedding. We have strict orders not to let you inside—"

Eva-Beatrice slammed her gloved hand down on the table in front of Gohda, snatching his cards from his hands in one quick movement. "Oh? That's a shame. I don't think you can stop me, though. Ahah~."

Handing back Gohda's cards, she extended a hand over her stomach, and bowed to the other three. "Lovely to see you all again. Gertrude. Cornelia. Willard. I shall be entering, now." And without another word, she sauntered her way into the main hall.

Cornelia looked at Gertrude, then Will, and then Gohda. "What…what…who is she? And how does she know my name?"

Gertrude looked defeated. "She's…well, we don't know her real name. We've always referred to her as Eva-Beatrice. She's an actress who worked in Miss Beatrice's theatre group for a short while with the four Siesta sisters as her assistants. She's stalked Miss Eva and the theatre group for years now when her big audition was sabotaged by Mr. Battler and Miss Erika and she was kicked out of the group." Gertrude shuffled through her handful of cards. "Dlanor and I got the call to come remove her from Rokkenjima when she wouldn't leave Miss Eva alone, a few years ago. And knowing her, she knows your name because she's looked at your files. She's creepy like that."

With Battler interrupting her every five seconds, Beatrice's tale was becoming less and less easy to understand. Lambdadelta had to stop her multiple times, and make her repeat things.

"…and then?"

"Rosa killed me."

"Rosa took you out of Kuwadorian. And you slipped and fell."

"It was murder! Murder!"

Lambda brushed her off. "Next."

Beatrice took another drink. "My lovely Stakes and I did some business."

"And then…"

"Teacher and I engaged in a ladies' duel, and Battler stopped being a pansy for a little while."

"Ahaha! I win. Hey, wait. I—"

"Oh my God!" Beatrice suddenly shrieked in terror, looking in the direction of the hall entrance. "It's her!"

"Who?" Lambdadelta turned around, confused. Her eyes scanned the crowd, quickly, and lighted up when she found the source of Beatrice's terror. "Oh. Ohohoho. Looks like Evatrice is back. Well, she certainly lives up to expectations, the creeper."

Somehow, Eva-Beatrice had managed to sneak past the main crowd without drawing attention to herself, and was making her way over to Battler and the rest.

Beatrice kept holding a hand over her heart, mouth agape, as if she was expecting Eva-Beatrice to suddenly reach over and scoop her heart out with her bare hands. "You! You…!"

Eva-Beatrice grabbed the ends of her skirt, and curtsied. "My sincerest good wishes," she said, "…for this happy day of yours." It was hard to tell if she really was being sincere.

"You came to solve my riddle, didn't you?" Beatrice demanded, putting the wine bottle behind her, as if she anticipated Eva-Beatrice to steal it. "Well, good luck. Just-just don't touch my wine. You'll never be the game master."

Eva-Beatrice cracked a cat-like smile, and let her gaze wander over to Lambdadelta and Bernkastel. "They're completely drunk, aren't they?"

Lambda waved a hand in the air. "Utterly. Bern here, too."

Before Eva-Beatrice had a chance to say more, Erika suddenly appeared behind her.

"Evatrice! We meet again!"

Eva-Beatrice spun around to meet the object of her hatred. "Erika Furudo!"

"Yes! For I was actually invited to this wedding. Nfufufu~."

Eva-Beatrice narrowed her eyes. "At least I had the guts to sneak in."

"And? Nyahaha, this conversation is going nowhere. You're weak, Evatrice. Weak!"

"Hate."

Erika wiped a tear from her eye, and peered at Eva-Beatrice. "Pardon?"

"Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I was forced to quit the theatre." Eva-Beatrice turned around, and picked up one of the cupcakes Battler had gotten from Gohda earlier. She looked Erika straight in the eye, and slowly turned the pastry around in her hands.

"Aha, you're so melodramatic."

"This isn't the time to be joking, Furudo." She turned back to the nearest table of food, and picked up what was guessed to be a small dish of jell-o.

And with one quick flick of the wrist, Eva-Beatrice sent the dish of jell-o hurdling at Erika's face. To the credit of the pigtailed actress, it was fast. She had only nanoseconds to react, and with those nanoseconds, she chose to put her hands up to shield her face.

The jell-o went flying, and bounced off of her hands, staining the tips of her white sleeves red. The dish, a clear, plastic thing, settled at her feet and began to seep discarded jell-o juice.

Before she had a chance to fully process the situation, and subsequently the consequences of her actions, Erika picked up a nearby glass of champagne, and dumped it over Eva-Beatrice's head.

Beatrice pumped one of her fists in the air. "Witch-fight! H-Hey, wait. Eva didn't find the gold yet. Or-or did she...?"

Eva-Beatrice looked like a machine about to short-circuit. She proceeded to shove the cupcake straight in Erika's face.

Beatrice and Bernkastel both dissolved into another fit of hysterical laughter. Lambdadelta clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. Battler's mouth dropped open.

"Eva-Beatrice!" Beatrice suddenly yelped. "I proclaim you the new Golden Witch!" Without another though, she tossed the purple-clad actress the wine bottle.

"But she's not the Game Master!" Bernkastel protested.

However, her shouts were not heard. Eva-Beatrice and Erika had begun grabbing whatever food and drink they could find, and throwing at them each other without relent. Over them, Beatrice had taken up a referee-like position, relaying more of the story in the process.

Spying Rosa coming over to them in the background, she changed course a bit. "And then BAM! Evatrice crushed Rosa and Maria with a giant glob of cake. But no-no-no, she wasn't done yet. So she poofed them back to life and crushed them again. Ahahaha~!"

"What a good idea!" Eva-Beatrice sneered, using the wine bottle to defend against a barrage of (what looked like) lemon-cake squares thrown by Erika.

"Hey!" Rosa yelled. "What-what are you two doing?" She pried the new pastries out of Erika's hands, and forced her back. Upon spying Eva-Beatrice, she gasped. "Y-You! I should have known you'd come to crash this-"

Eva-Beatrice proceeded to ball up three cupcakes and fling them at Rosa.

Rosa, who was not expecting the food fight to include her, did not make a move to defend herself. The cakes hit her square in the forehead.

By then, Eva-Beatrice and Erika were both drenched in spilled champagne and punch, and sticky with sliding splatters of cake and other pastries. Rosa was not eager to join them, and took the end of a nearby table cloth to wipe the cake from her hair and face.

As the two girls continuing their food-fight with Beatrice as a commentator, Rosa grabbed a hold of Erika's arms, restraining her. "Hey! Someone help me please?" she snapped at no one in particular. "Someone get ahold of Eva-Beatrice!"

"Ahaha, my successor, you must be more dignified!" Beatrice scolded. She hopped off of the table, and merrily put Eva-Beatrice in a headlock. "If you're going to pulverize someone, you should do it as forcefully and extravagantly as possible, with the highest amount of dakka!"

Eva-Beatrice dropped the food she was holding, and gasped for breath. "B-Beatrice...can't-can't breathe...let-let go..."

It was not as though Eva did not notice the proceedings in the front of the ball room. It was merely that she was too traumatized to pick herself up from her seat and acknowledge them.

The girl only called "Eva-Beatrice", named so for her preoccupation with the two women, had terrorized Eva for the longest time. Eva did not know what she had done to become the object of the girl's obsession. Beatrice, perhaps because she worked in the theatre and Beatrice idolized her, but...what had she done?

She had relentlessly come to Eva's home and demanded to speak with her, standing by her window and repeating long-dead stories of Eva's childhood from Rokkenjima. It had been the family conference a few years before when Eva-Beatrice had finally gotten to the point that the police needed to be called to remove her from the premises. Eva had since gotten a restraining order, and the girl had actually been pretty good about obeying it...until now, of course.

Hideyoshi and George were trying their best to distract Eva from the chaos and food-fight, but she was already in a pose mimicking that of Natsuhi's.

Meanwhile, Kyrie had made her way over, hearing the debauchery, and was helping Rosa hold Erika back. Beato was holding her own with Eva-Beatrice.

"Ahaha. Levi, Bel!" she called to her two assistants. Switching the arms with which she was using to hold back Eva-Beatrice, the golden-haired actress continued her tale. "Don't you two remember what happened next?"

The girl who went by the stage name of Leviathan raised a fist in the air similar to her mistress. "Yes, milady! We-we fought...were defeated...and then scrapped." Leviathan started to tear up, and Belphegor slapped her on the back.

"And then the Siesta Sisters!" Beatrice declared loudly. A little ways away, the two Siesta sisters (blue-haired and pink-haired-what were their first names? no one could remember) looked up at the mention of their names. "To shoot without fail! Extreme accuracy, and only witches and sorcerers of the utmost power can summon them!"

Beatrice made a shooting motion with her finger, and aimed at Kyrie and Rudolf, the latter of which had just arrived and was prying Eva-Beatrice from her grasp.

"This is absurd..." Battler mumbled, taking a seat next to (or possibly hiding behind) Bernkastel.

Letting the others take care of the food fight, Beatrice turned to Lambdadelta and the others. "And so, feeling a change of heart, I resurrected Shannon-"

Battler held up a finger. "One: when did Shannon die?"

"When my lovely Stakes and I were doing business. When you were still being a pansy."

"Two: you didn't do this on your own, did you?"

"Hm?"

"You're not the type of person to 'have a change of heart', Miss Tsundora."

"...but then Eva-Beatrice came back and killed them both! Ahhhhh!"

"Stop ignoring me! Goddammit, Beato."

Beatrice mocked holding a shotgun. "Jessica was all "Raaaaaaagh, Eva you killed them all!' And Eva was all 'Shit! Ahhhh!' and accidentally fired the gun and Jessica died."

"No," Bernkastel interrupted. "She just blinded her with the muzzle flash. Keep your facts straight, jeez."

It was by then that Lion had been forced out of his reverie by the food fight.

Fearing that he would be too tempted to ask Tohya to strangle him with her purse, he made his way out to the lobby, hoping to get a breath of fresh air (and maybe play a game of cards with the girls while he cleared his head).

So imagine his surprise when he entered the lobby only to find Will and Gertrude engaged in a one-on-one, high-speed battle of "war", Gohda and Cornelia gaping at them from the side.

Gertrude slapped a King from the top of deck on the table, and Will grew a constipated look. However, when he drew an ace, he turned triumphant.

"Well, well, congratulations," Gertrude said flatly, as he stuck the two cards onto the bottom of his deck. "You've managed to win a total of one battle in this game so far. Are you not yet convinced that card games are not your forte, Willard?"

"I have no intentions of losing this game to you, Gertrude," Will declared, drawing a Queen.

Upon Gertrude drawing a King, Will scowled.

Upon Gertrude spying Lion, Will said nothing. The man's back was to the door.

Gertrude stuck a finger in Lion's direction. "Willard. Someone's here...for you, I presume."

"Nice try," Will scoffed. He drew a nine. "You're not going to distract me."

"War," said Lion, walking up to Will with heavy, steps laced with anger, "is not a game in which concentration is not necessary. It is a game of luck, Willard." He grabbed a hold of the ex-policeman's jacket collar. "And right now, you have no luck."

Willard dropped his (small) half of the deck, and found himself choked by Lion's incessant pulling. Gertrude scooted back a bit, and Gohda and Cornelia scrambled behind her.

"Willard H. Wright!" Lion demanded. "How long have you been here?"

Will coughed. "A-about...an hour..."

It was then that the backside of Willard H. Wright was attacked.

"Gah! Lion, no! Fuck-stop! That hurts-ERGAHVVV-"

"You-you damn witches tricked me!" Battler cried, shaking his fist.

Virgilia laughed politely. "Ah, it would seem that way." She had made Beatrice take a seat, and was fixing her student's hairbun, which had nearly unravelled itself.

"Sign it!" Beatrice cried. "Siiiiiiign it, Battler! Witches exiiiiiist."

Eva-Beatrice was in the process of being escorted out of the ballroom by Kyrie and Rudolf, and was shouting out bits of unintelligible angry gibberish at Erika. Erika herself was still attempting to throw various objects at Eva-Beatrice, but was being held back by Dlanor (who also was taking on the troublesome task of trying to clean the food out of Erika's dress and hair). The wine bottle had been returned to Beatrice.

"I will return!" Eva-Beatrice shrieked. "You'll see! The Ushiromiya family will see me again quite soon!"

Erika made a harrumph-like noise, and took a seat at the table with Bernkastel.

"I will sign nothing!" Battler declared. "Ange will come to save me like she did last time!"

Erika raised an eyebrow. Ange was...what, nine years old now?

"Just like then, when you witches had me where you wanted me...Ange from the future busted in, and messed up your shit, Beato! Kick-kick-crash. Future-Ange is super badass, take my word for it."

"The Witch of Miracles can vouch for badass Ange." Bernkastel snorted. "I was the one who made her badass anyways."

"No you weren't," Battler said, annoyed. "All you did was use your dumb time powers to suck her into the past. She was badass all on her own."

They squabbled amongst themselves once again.

Lion was luckily not in the room when they decided a fair amount of backstory on how Ange managed to become badass in the "future", along with a "clearer" repeat of the story was necessary.

Dlanor, however, was there to fill in his role.

"I have a feeling this will be a long NIGHT."

SO. I clearly need to stop checking the crack WMG page, because I could not resist the urge to use a bit of "Eva-Beatrice is AM is cute-girl form." Rarg.

Thank you again to all who have been reading, and a huge thank you to Ozimul (who suggested the ideas I ended up using for Evatrice's incorporation into this chapter).

Gertrude X Will is my new crack-OTP orz.