I own nothing, not the characters, the space where this story exists, or even the eyes that you are using to read it. This is for entertainment purposes only, no money involved.
"What do you think we should do, Big Brother?" Yukari asked as we walked past the rows of booths that all were trying to catch new members for their various clubs.
"I don't know. We didn't have any club fair things in the USA. Plus, since Tsukune and Moka had their Literature class in first period and Kurumu in her second, we don't know what clubs our friends joined." I said looking around at all the booths. "Knowing Tsukune and Moka they probably tried to get into a normal club." I said looking around.
"I don't see any normal clubs around here." Yukari said looking around with a 'weirded out' look on her face. And she was right, everywhere you looked were bizarre clubs; the mummy club, the potions club, the grave digging club and so on. Each one was weirder then the last.
Then we passed one that had a bunch of girls in swimsuits in front of it. "Come join the swimming club!" A long haired girl who was standing in front shouted with her arms opened wide. "All our current members are all girls so any boy who joins has a good chance of getting special attention from one of us!"
Most of the guys in the crowd were going nuts and rushing to sign up. The woman looked at me. "What about you? Do you want to come and swim with us?" She posed.
"No thanks." I said grabbing Yukari by the arm and pulling her away. "We don't want to be in that club." I said to her seriously.
"What do you mean? I'm glad you weren't swayed by girls in swimsuits, but that does seem to be the most normal club here." She asked.
"Did you hear what she said though? All the senior members are all girls. A swimming club should have a lot of boys that just want to look at girls in swimsuits if nothing else. So why do you think that there are only girls left from last year's entries? " I asked the young witch.
Yukari's eyes widened. "Because something must have happened to all the boys." She said in realization. "Those girls must be a type of monster that feeds on them. Mermaids are known to do that and would be in the swimming club."
"Exactly." I said nodding though I hadn't known that bit about mermaids. "Their club is a trap for a feeding frenzy." Once we got a good distance from the booth I let go of the girl. "And even if it wasn't, Moka's a vampire, she can't go near water. Or so the legends say." I said not really knowing much about vampires. Some said that they burn up in the sunlight, but that was clearly not the case.
"Well, well, you really got good instincts don't you kid." I turned to see a large guy in a black jacket with a white and gold band on his arm. I could sense that he was stronger than the others around us, a bigger marble even in his human form.
"It's more of experience than instincts." I said with a shrug trying to look casual but still with a bit of a guard up. "If something seems too good to be true that is usually because it is." The man had two people behind him in similar jackets, but they seemed pretty normal… not the right word… averagely weird. "Can we help you?" I asked hoping that they would say 'no' and just move on. Yukari move behind me seeming to smell danger to, her wand was held tightly behind her back.
"My apologizes, let me introduce myself, I am Grail with the 'Public Safety Commission'. We heard about an upstart in the freshmen class who took down the freshmen extra credit beast. That giant cobra they sick on the freshmen every year to weed out the weak and dumb ones." The big guy said with a grin. He had copper colored hair and eyes, and even his skin seemed to have a bit of the copper coloring. "It has been killing freshmen for years, and you took it out without using your true form, very impressive Mr. Fenton."
Well they knew my name. "Thanks I guess, but it really was a team effort. One hundred students on one lousy snake wasn't a very fair fight." I said trying to play down my part in the fight. "Someone probably blew my part in the fight out of proportion. You know, 'freshmen's tales' and all."
"You're even modest. Not a common quality among monsters." Grail said with a grin. "That's why I have been sent to see if you would like a place in our committee." The large monster crossed his arms. "Understand that it is very rare that we extend an invitation to any freshman, but you proved yourself."
"Well… um thanks but I think I would rather just spend time with my friends. I understand the necessity for such a thing, but I don't want the job." I said trying to wave away the invitation.
The leader's face fell as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Well… I suppose it wouldn't be smart for us to force you. But remember that the invitation stands." He said before walking away.
"Those guys were scary." Yukari said peeking out from behind me. I nodded in agreement.
"I got a bad feeling about them to. But I guess if they know about the mermaids then they are going to do something before anyone gets hurt. So we don't have to do it ourselves." I said smiling at the witch. "Come on. We still need to find a club."
Several awful club ideas later and three beaten up perverts that wanted Yukari to pose nude for them in a sculpting club, we were starting to lose hope. "Big Brother, come look at this!" I walked over next to the excited witch and found an array of artifacts and old looking writings and pictures. Looking up at the sign for the club it took me a minute to figure out that it read 'Artifact Rescue Team'.
"Hey there." The man behind the booth said with a grin. He had blond hair and a Hawaiian shirt over his school undershirt as well as some sun glasses. People wearing shades at this school wasn't uncommon even when it was over cast or in a darker room, since some of the students were really nocturnal. "I guess you two are interested in our club. You see, there are several dozens of old ruins on this campus from the old school buildings, since the school often got destroyed in over the top battles when several strong monsters attended all at once."
"Some of these older school buildings are over ten thousand years old, from before the time when man began to dominate the world. These ruins hold a lot of forgotten history of monsters and it is our job as members of the 'Artifact Rescue Team' to find them." The man was bouncing around with excitement at his own job.
"Uh that sounds so cool." Yukari said, you could practically see the stars in her eyes. "Can we join this club, Big Brother, please?" She asked practically begging me.
"Well it does seem to be the best club so far." I admitted looking around at the others with a little distaste. "Why not. It might not be ordinary, but if it is fun we can talk to the others about joining it."
"Excellent." The man said showing us the form. "Two more members." He said with a smile.
In the afternoon after classes we gathered with the rest of the club behind the gym. "Alright right it looks like everyone is here." A bald teacher with an oddly shaped mustache said. "I am Mr. Mold and I am the club sponsor and supervisor. So remember that as were go through these ruins I'm in charge." He said and he talked his mustache seemed to shimmy around on his face.
I looked around to see that we had eighteen students total, and seven of us were new freshman. But with the mortality rate at this school it is not odd that freshmen are, if not the majority, the largest group.
"Now everyone follow me and we will go to today's sight, the Yokai school building from 1493 BCE, one of the younger ones." The teacher said and walked off north from the gym building. After a half an hour walk we got to an entrance to what looked like a crypt. "Come along." He aside as he opened it up and went inside.
We followed him in. Yukari and I both gasped with astonishment at how large it was. The initial staircase descended for forty feet and then opened up into a massive hallway. "Since this was from before the time in which we monsters first started to hide ourselves from the human world, we had not yet developed the barrier or thought up the rules about maintaining human form will at school. So this school was a lot bigger and underground. Not to mention that the fashion is nothing like the human's building during the time period." The blond hair student from the booth, Markus, explained when he saw our faces.
We walked forward into the old school. Glancing into the rooms on either side you could see long stone tables and removable slabs of rocks with paint on them that must have been the old chalk boards.
But as we went in further and further into the ruins thought the corridors got smaller and everywhere you looked there we claw marks and smashed walls from the battle that most had caused the end of the school. Or at least that was what we thought.
"Oh my…" the words died on Yukari's face as we passed a room that was ignited in dark blue flames. I could feel the demonic energy radiating off of them. Maybe the fight that ended the school was more intense then we thought.
"Come on everyone, hurry it up. We are almost to the hall of records, so watch your step." Mr. Mold said seeming to get more and more excited as we went.
"Why do we need to watch our…" A female freshman started, but then her left foot sank along with the tile it had been on.
My eyes widened and memories of Fright Knight's castle returned to me. I reached out grabbing Yukari and pulled her to the ground as the sounds of the gear mechanisms were heard. From almost invisible slits in the wall needles shoot out and into the flesh of the unfortunate student.
"Blast, what did I just say!?" shouted the teacher. "Be careful!"
I went forward and looked at the rusty needles. There was no chance of the girl living. She was already gone, the demonic aura flowing out of her. I covered Yukari's eyes as we passed but I stepped on one of the needles and there was a small scrapping. I looked down at it to see a shiny metal exposed. "Silver, this trap was meant for monsters, not humans." I observed.
It wouldn't be the first of the lethal traps that were targeting monsters. There was a trap that activated a water run that would have been for a vampire, and a ball of some kind of hair that the teacher said was to weaken dragons. There we also fire traps and other standard blades and boulders. I kept Yukari close and had to use my ghost powers to protect us at some points.
As we went the teacher draw a line on the ground behind him. "To help on the way back out, best not to trigger a whole new set of traps." despite all the traps no one else was getting hurt as we processed. All we had to do was stay on the line that the teacher was drawing.
Yukari was always excited as we went looking around at all the old pieces of art or writings. When I asked her if she was scared she just responded saying. "It will be alright, you will protect me." She said happily as she kept looking around.
After an hour we came to our destination. We opened a huge door and found a large room full of scrolls. Several people started moving towards the shelves but the teacher yelled at them. "Stop that, the ones near the front are just the student reports and histories. The important things are in the back."
But as the teacher passed the first row of shelves a giant dog head came down and grabbed him. Some of the members of the class screamed as two more dog heads appeared and grabbed the legs of the teacher that were hanging out of the first one's mouth. I covered Yukari's eyes again as the dogs tore the teacher in to three pieces and ate them.
But the dogs were not distracted by their first snack for long. They turned the corner and we could all see that there was only one body for the three heads. "Cerberus!" someone shouted and the students started running back. Yukari and I were following them. We were all soon out of the room. But turning back we saw that someone had tripped and that the dog was on him. We saw Markus being lifted up into the air and torn to pieces, just like the teacher.
I quickly pulled the door closed and put the bar back on it to hold it shut. Turning back to the group I saw not monsters, but a bunch of scared kids. "I think we should all just head out." I said sadly.
It was starting to get dark by the time we got back to the school. We saw Tsukune, Moka, and Kurumu all underneath the pool area looking kind of down themselves. "Looks like we aren't the only ones that had a bad first day with clubs." Yukari said as we reached the group.
"Why, what club were you in?" Kurumu asked.
"The ruins exploring club, but the teacher and club leader were both eaten by a giant Cerberus." Yukari said sitting down next to Moka and placing her head on Moka's lap. "What about you guys?"
"Swimming club." Tsukune said glumly.
"But wasn't that the one that the mermaids set up for a feeding frenzy?" I asked worried. I thought it was going to be taken down since the student police knew about it.
"What… you knew?" Kurumu said surprised.
"Of course we knew. It was pretty obvious for people as smart as we are." Yukari said sticking her tongue out at the succubus.
"Well then everyone else must be stupid too, because the mermaids managed to eat over sixty students before the other Moka took them down." Tsukune said miserably. I felt a ping of guilt that I didn't shut them down before anything happened.
"Well it looks like none of us has a club then." Moka said sadly as Yukari and Kurumu started throwing insults again.
"I got an idea." We all looked up in surprise to see Ms. Nekonome. "Why don't you join the Newspaper club?" She suggested. We all looked at her confused.
"This school has a paper?" We all said together.
"Yeah, I'm the faculty adviser for the club, but I forgot to make a stand this year." She said with a shrug.
"Well… it does sound like a nice safe normal club." Tsukune said looking at a loss for better words. He looked over Moka.
"Let's do it then." Moka agreed.
"Come on Big Brother, let's go to." Yukari said pulling at my sleeve.
I smile. "Sure why not."
"How about we make it unanimous." Kurumu said jumping up onto my back.
"Well then, where do we sign up?" Tsukune said with a smile. And like that, the Newspaper club was born.
So yes, in the end I just had Danny join the Newspaper club, even though he wasn't very good at Kanji.