Intermission 2: Adventure Awaits in Crystal Clear Sight!
Back in St. Peanutsburg, Kiara Noha was still processing all that happened three or so days ago. Meeting with an old friend, making some new ones, even getting a handy new blaster thing, it was all incredibly exciting stuff for her.
However, despite all that excitement, Kiara was more of the kind to sit back in her base of operations: her garage apartment. It was located in a rather nice area of town, pretty quiet, but not in the shady parts or even in "the sticks" as they all it.
"Ah yes a lovely day it is outside, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the kids around town are all doing...kid things I suppose." Kiara dramatically announced to herself, grabbing a nearby bag of chips and a can of Dr. Rapper. "And I'm going to spend the day best I can, by staying inside and marathoning seasons of Tokusatsu shows."
Solarnyan sprawled out on the coffee table in the main living area of Kiara's apartment, which even the living area had several prized possessions to many Tokusatsu enthusiasts like her standing proudly on the mantle. Lunarnyan was also nearby, but on the nearby couch.
"Is there a reason you aren't exactly one to spend your times outside?" Solarnyan asked. "I mean, it's a pretty beautiful day out, sun's shining and everything."
"I dunno how to put it, but I'm a bit more like Lunarnyan, I'm not one to really soak up the sun. Plus indoors has things like air conditioning and wi-fi connection." Kiara responded with a shrug, heading back into her room. "Now do any of you wanna partake in my traditions passed down from legendary yokai summoner for generations?"
Both feline yokai perked up, getting up to follow Kiara to her room.
"I'm quite curious to see what you mean." Lunarnyan commented. "I am more interested to learn about the secrets of your summoning techniques..."
"Yeah, I hope this makes us super strong if it's how you train!" Solarnyan added in as well, happily joining with Kiara.
The gang had made their ways to Kiara's room, being a paradise littered with even more Tokusatsu and similar merchandise and trinkets. Transformation Devices, weapons, even some figures ranging from spandex heroes to magical girls, it was all here.
Kiara sat down with her feline friends in front of the computer, booting up a play list of many episodes of whatever Tokusatsu shows she had, and there were quite a few.
"Alright what we do is stare at the screen and absorb the glory that is Tokusatsu. And to make things better, on my incredibly massive playlist, I put it on shuffle. We could get an early episode of one series, or a vital plot point episode for another. It's all the fun of chance."
The two felines had differing reactions to Kiara's secret techniques.
"Sweet! This sounds like a lot of fun to watch, I'm ready! Bring it on!" Solarnyan cheered, already grabbing his grubby paws to the chips.
"Ermm, Mistress Kiara, I only have one question to ask." Lunarnyan asked, raising one of her brows. Kiara looked over from her computer as she was setting up all the episodes.
"Yeah? What is it?" Kiara asked, still busy getting the screen all ready for a viewing experience.
"Where's Sophie? You know, that child you said you would take extra precautions to babysit." Lunarnyan responded, getting onto Kiara. The summoner gave a nervous laugh.
"Oh yeah her? She's just chilling outside I think. I told her not to go too far from the apartment, and D-Rex is keeping an eye on her. We should be free of any sort of danger or threats." Kiara answered, her nervousness being washed out with pure confidence.
As if fate really wanted to spite Kiara today, the window overlooking the peaceful river in her room had some odd object thrown at it, breaking a decently sized hole in the window. Naturally in this sort of situation, Kiara let out a horrified scream over a simple rock that was thrown. She looked over at her felines, sliding out of her chair to go to a special stand on the other side of the room.
"You two, clean up the glass and I'll let you catch up with me once you two are done." Kiara said, grabbing for her Yokai Timeless Dream, or as she just called it, The Yokai Buckler. Along with that device, she grabbed her model of the Yokai Blaster and a case of medals that quite conveniently clipped to her Yokai Buckler's belt.
"Why do we have to do cleanup duty?" Solarnyan whined, Lunarnyan already having gotten the dustpan and broom.
"Because I, Kiara Noha, am the bringer of justice and peace! And I'm probably going to forget to clean it after I confront this foe with the raw intent of justice!" Kiara said, equipped and ready to head on out to confront today's danger.
Opening the door and going down the stairs, Kiara made her way outside for once. The sun hurt her rather sensitive eyes, which had to adjust to the glaring sunlight. Once her eyes adjusted to the glaring sunlight, she made her ways out. Thankfully for Kiara, Sophie was fairly close.
"Sophie, sweetie honey!" Kiara said rather loudly and concerned. "Are you okay? Some rock was thrown at my window and it left a hole!"
"I'm okay." Sophie responded politely. "I just wanted to prove to this kid I could throw a rock further than him! I think it might have broken your window, though. Sorry about that."
Kiara gave a bit of a confused look, this child caused property damage because of a dare?
"Who is this kid and where can I fight him?" Kiara asked, grabbing to her case of yokai medals clipped to the side of her belt.
"I don't think he should be that far. He asked me to say if he was a man or a dolphin, and he just pencil dived into the river..." Sophie answered, looking over the river. "He should be back any moment now, though. I've known him for about a week, we're friends now."
A few moments passed, as someone jumped out of the river, yelling "See Sophie, see!? I told you I was both a man and a dolphin!".
To the yokai summoner's best observations, she best describes him as the kind of guy who would pencil dive into a river. During the winter nonetheless. He was certainly a very wild child to Kiara's eyes, but probably doesn't mean any real harm. Kiara would still have to negotiate either way to be sure.
"So dolphin man with the dolphin plan, what was your idea to have...my best friend's boss' daughter participate in an event that lead to property damage?" Kiara negotiated. "Specifically my property?"
"Oh that, well I wasn't really expecting that to happen." The boy responded. "I mean, Sophie surely is a lot stronger than she looks if she was able to do that."
"Yeah kid just try not to be too wild." Kiara responded back. "Winter is already here and it probably isn't a good idea to pencil dive into a river and make dolphin noises."
Before Kiara could shame the boy further, out of the apartment door was Kiara's feline duo to interrupt the in-depth integration.
"Kiara! There's something that was in the rock that hit your window you need to see!" Solarnyan yelled, toddling over to Kiara with the rock in hand.
Once handed over to the summoner, there was a notable crack in the rock that lead the rock to split into two quite easily. To Kiara's surprise, there was something quite shiny and eye catching.
Within the rock, there was a strange rhombus shaped crystal about the size of Kiara's hand, gleaming with a strong silvery coating. The sparkly silver material was a bit translucent, giving a slightly bright white color to it.
"Holy, what in the world is this!?" Kiara looked at the crystal puzzled. "How was this just in a rock!? A rock thrown into my window nonetheless!?"
Before Kiara could question the crystal further, it seemed from the crystal, something shined onto Lunarnyan and Solarnyan. Nothing seemed to have changed at first, but Kiara looked at Yokai data on her phone to figure out something surprising.
"What the...They both went from E Rank to D Rank..." Kiara gasped, looking at Solarnyan and Lunarnyan's data. It was true, they shot up from Rank E to Rank D in seconds upon refreshing their data she had saved.
Kiara looked at the wild child dead in the eyes, holding the crystal in one hand.
"Kid, as a wannabee paranormal investigator, Kiara Noha, I must ask if you have any idea what's going on because I sure don't." Kiara asked, in complete confusion and shock over the situation.
"Well Kiara I don't have any idea what's going on..." The kid responded to Kiara, fumbling in his pockets a bit. "But I think I may have something connected to this..."
"Did you ever run me down with your name?" Kiara asked, raising and eyebrow as the kid kept rummaging through his pockets.
"Oh sorry about that. Name's Mac and I finally found the dang thing." Mac responded to Kiara, getting out an old looking map. Somehow it didn't get wet from the river, it was either really good ancient water proof paper or some other form of witchcraft.
Once Kiara got a good look at the map Mac had presented to her, it caused the diamond white crystal to create a new mark on the map. It seemed to create a path from nearby where Kiara and co was right now, through a river to some spooky, misty looking woodlands.
"Alright this is some serious early 2000's role playing game shenanigans right here." Kiara commented, looking at the map that had a new path marked by Kiara as much bringing the crystal close to it. She eyed the crystal for a bit before refocusing on the map. "I hope this thing can help fund my need for new tokusatsu related merchandise."
"I think the two are connected somehow, and there's probably more than one piece to this puzzle..." Mac thought aloud.
"So we're going to have to find those other puzzle pieces I take it?" Kiara asked, looking at the map with the diamond white shard in hand.
"Of course, I think I got a plan so let's go!" Mac cheerfully said, forcibly grabbing Kiara along for the ride. Of course, her yokai companions had no choice but to follow behind her.
"For the last time, Mac my buddy my pal, we are not going to raft down a river!" Kiara yelled, displeased with the battle plan at large.
Kiara, her loyal nyan duo, Sophie and Mac had all made it to the edge of a river, where a presumably hand crafted raft was docked in the river's waters. It was impressive they managed to get Kiara this far out from her home base of operations.
"Oh yes we are, it's the only way we can find clues about that crystal!" Mac responded, much to Kiara's lack of amusement. "Besides, none of us got the time to rent a boat."
"I only go this far if there's really good Churros. Which I made sure to stop and get, since they're pretty good." Kiara said, huddling back to her feline companions with their cinnamon sugary treats.
"I can see why you go the distance for them." Lunarnyan responded, quietly nibbling into the treat. "They are truly something marvelous to behold."
"Seconded, I don't know how I lived so long without these delicious things. Sooooo much better than chocobars!" Solarnyan added, chomping at the churro.
"Didn't you say you liked a bunch of hero shows and stuff?" Mac asked the nerd summoner, who in turned looked a bit off.
"Yeah, but just because I see others do a bunch of crazy stunts, it doesn't mean I can or ever will." Kiara rather coldly responded. "At least, ever since a particular incident. But I don't think you're ready to hear that one."
Sophie quietly approached Kiara, trying her best to lightly pat her on the shoulder.
"It should be worth a shot at least. Plus I'm a bit scared to go alone without you, miss Kiara..." Sophie sweetly asked Kiara, who in turn gave a bit of a deep sigh as she got up, her two nyans following her.
"Alright all in favor of me going on this raft ride raise your hand." Kiara asked the small group with her.
Mac, Sophie, Solarnyan, and Lunarnyan all raised their hands. Kiara now had no choice in this. She was going on this white water rapid adventure whether she liked it or not.
"Alright if you guys insist..." Kiara muttered, slowly boarding onto the raft rather reluctantly. It was something Kiara wasn't used to, but she was doing this for her friends.
"So I'll keep track of the navigation, you steer this vessel, and the rest of you can hit things that are threats." Kiara explained to Mac, having safely tucked the silvery diamond crystal away to look closer at the map.
The crew had made their way to sailing down the river, all was going smoothly. Sure there were a few currents, but nothing of great danger. It seemed like nothing could go wrong for them.
"Oh yeah I forgot to mention, in this river there's gators." Mac mentioned nonchalantly, as Kiara looked up from the map quite shocked.
"Wait gators, as in one hundred percent legit living, breathing river alligators with sharp teeth and can easily kill us!?" Kiara screamed horrified, about gripping the raft's flagpole and climbing up it. She didn't sign up for this...
"Yep, I think we got one coming in!" Solarnyan said, as a large alligator came swimming upstream with it's jaws bearing.
"Well honestly it was nice knowing all you, but that is a gator. We are more than likely toast now..." Kiara nervously laughed, knowing things weren't going to end well.
Though as the river bound alligator swam closer and closer, ready to snap at the rafting crew, it suddenly went flying, through the water and out of the worry. Everyone tilted their heads in curiosity to where the Gator may have gone.
"What just happened?" Kiara asked, looking briefly up from the map.
"It's okay, I just slapped him...I don't think he should bother us..." Sophie responded with a nonchalant shrug. Kiara looked concerned.
"Child what secrets are you trying to hide from me?" Kiara asked, Solarnyan looking over to Kiara.
"I dunno, we high-fived earlier, I think she nearly broke my paw." Solarnyan responded, rubbing his paw slightly.
Thankfully sailing was smoother for the most part from there on out. At least initially, there seemed to be something else on Kiara's map.
"Oh no." Kiara said, looking quite worried with sewing bullets.
"What's wrong, lady Kiara?" Lunarnyan asked.
"Let me guess there's a huge waterfall?" Solarnyan abruptly added in to his lunar counterpart.
"Yep." Kiara said bluntly with a nervous nod.
"With sharp rocks at the bottom?" Mac added in, looking ahead.
"More than likely." Kiara responded with a quick look down at the map and a nod.
There was a brief pause amongst everyone, before Mac let out a rather serious "Bring it on."
Soon enough, the crew was going right over the waterfall, which thankfully wasn't as dangerous as the map had depicted. Just a simple yet quite long drop, not even any dangerous sharp rocks at the bottom. Thankfully, after the waterfall, the way revealed to the mysterious forest known as Mogunoomu Forest.
Once the crew had arrived to Mogunoomu Forest, it was constantly blanketed in a thick, eerie fog, as tall trees perhaps centuries old covered most of the shining sunlight. Generally a very spooky area, but everyone had to peruse forward.
"Do you know where to go now?" Lunarnyan asked, examining the immediate surroundings. Kiara looked down at the map, trying to figure out where to go from here.
"Somewhat? You see these ancient maps, they're always kinda vague with a sense of direction..." Kiara responded, examining the map carefully. "Though I think if this illustration is anything to go off of, we need to find the tallest, largest tree in the woods to get our next hint."
"Well what are we waiting for!?" Mac said, darting off with a lead. "That tree ain't gonna find itself!"
Everyone was making their way through the woods, trying not to be spooked by every moving thing on Kiara's part. Marks were made on various trees along the path, to be sure none of them got lost or went in circles. Though they couldn't help but feel as if someone was following them from the shadows, it was a hard feeling to shake off in woods like these.
By some miracle, they all had made it to the sight of a very large, very old looking tree in the woods. Within blatant, plain sight, there was something sparkling at the bottom of the tree's roots. Thankfully it was within easy reach of Kiara, so she was able to grab it without any hassle.
What this object turned out to be was a crystal quite similar in structure to the diamond white one Kiara got earlier, but instead of a diamond white aura, this shard gave off an emerald green one.
"So, there seems to be another one of these crystal objects..." Kiara commented, looking at both of her crystals. She put the diamond one in her pocket and gripped the emerald one in her hands.
"This calls for some fanfare, on the count of three, one, two three-" Kiara nearly yelled, only for her victorious fanfare to be interrupted by a short kunai being thrown dangerously close to her. Of course, she let out a loud screech, despite the object thankfully not hitting her. It did, however, cause her to fumble and nearly drop the crystal.
"I think someone's here..." Solarnyan commented, raising his tiny paw like fists ready to fight.
"Drop the crystal, kid." A quiet, yet intimidating voice said. Kiara looked around.
"Alright punk, I see what kinda ninja shenanigans you're trying to pull here, come on out already!" Kiara yelled, still having her grips on the crystal.
Revealing themselves was a ninja themed yokai, clad in violet with blond hair styled in the shape of a shuriken. Some people went big or went home with their hair, and this yokai was no exception.
"Do you have any idea what kind of a dangerous weapon you have there? Or at least the potential to be extremely dangerous?" The yokai asked, being quite the aggressive one with Kiara.
"Well kid, I'm none other than wannabee paranormal investigator Kiara Noha. So duh, these sparkly crystal thingys are kinda unnatural and I gotta investigate them!" Kiara stated boldly for her stance.
"I understand your efforts, but that is a piece of the Silver Crystal Star, an artifact described as being extremely powerful on both it's own and as a source of energy. And I, Hanzo of the Brave Tribe and Super Seed's hero of the dark night, refuses to let it fall into the wrong hands!" The ninja yokai, Hanzo, both explained and introduced himself in one swoop.
"Quite the introduction there, I admire it." Kiara commented, praising the brave tribe yokai.
"Now will you hand over your Silver Crystal Star shards?" Hanzo asked, Kiara looking back.
"I thought about it, and nah. With this kinda investigation I gotta do, I can't let go. Plus I'm kinda like a pirate, if anything is shiny I'll get it because I do what I want." Kiara responded, shrugging a little. "Besides, pirates are better than ninjas. Have you seen Gokaiger? Arguably the best season."
"What did you just say?" Hanzo asked, getting more aggressive with his words.
"I just said I liked pirates over ninjas, also Sushi isn't my thing. I wish I didn't eat that churro too fast...Churros are the best thing ever..." Kiara responded, as Hanzo threw another small kunai at Kiara. Thankfully that one also missed as Kiara rolled out of the way.
"Sophie, Mac, this is not going to get pretty so you two stand back." Kiara said, the two standing back quite the distance. "As for you my ninja dude, let's roll!"
Kiara rummaged through her medal case. As handy as D-Rex would be, it probably wasn't too smart to pit members of the same team against each other. But thankfully, Kiara had backup.
"It's Mysterious time!" Kiara's buckler summoning device announced, as from the belt buckle in her hands came out a yellow summoning light.
Jumping out from the light and to Kiara's side was a snow white, rabbit like rabbit lady yokai, with rather cheerful red eyes and an overall very cute aura.
"But wait, there's more than just my gal Snow Rabby!" Kiara added, holding her finger up as she fumbled for yet another medal.
"It's Shady time!" Kiara's buckler device announced once more, now with a shade of deep blue for summoning lights as opposed to yellow from earlier.
In a stark contrast to that of Snow Rabby, this shady yokai wore mostly black and white, only really standing out with glaring yellow eyes behind a skull themed masked and fiery red hair.
"Summoner, I was in the middle of work, must you call me during these times?" The shadowy doctor yokai asked Kiara, quite unamused.
"Geez Dr. Kagemura could you be anymore sassy today?" Kiara responded, looking down at his medal to remember his name. "I wasn't expecting a sass master from what I thought was a cheap toy from the pizza buffet's capsule machine..."
"Well we got to fight either way, this ninja fellow isn't going to fight himself..." Snow Rabby commented, holding a little cards in her fingers.
"I think he left, but he could be trying to sneak around to try and attack..." Kiara commented, looking around for the ninja yokai. He would be anywhere, ready to strike Kiara's unsuspecting self. "That or I just made him bored, makes me really wish I had a device to summon like, three yokai at once."
Kiara kept her wits up, as yet another sharp object went whizzing past her and into a nearby tree. It was yet another small kunai, it makes Kiara wonder how Hanzo managed to carry all those at once...
"Why I aughta..." Kiara said, taking the small kunai from the tree and throwing it back in the direction it came. "Take that you dang sneaky punk!"
From Kiara's frustration, she somehow managed to pin the very tail end of the ninja's scarf, which was impressive for someone with about as much grace as a headless chicken.
"Now this is our cue to go after him!" Snow Rabby whispered to Dr. Kagemura, dragging him by one hand and holding one of her cards in the other.
"Wait really?" Dr. Kagemura questioned the snow rabbit yokai. Snow Rabby motioned her free hand a bit, conjuring up some cold air.
"You gotta make them freeze in place, like so!" Snow Rabby said, firing some Ice magic at Hanzo, whom was still struggling to get the kunai off of his scarf. "But do it with like, I dunno, science."
The ice had iced Hanzo's left arm, making it quite difficult. But through a bit of struggling he had managed to pull out a shuriken or two to throw at the two opposing yokai. The two were able to duck, but the yokai summoner was a bit less lucky. Due to her overcoat and rather long scarf to seem stylish, she was pinned right to the tree behind her, being in quite the odd position as she attempted to dodge but failed.
"Oh come on!" Kiara yelled, trying to work getting the sharp objects out of her long clothing. "These were really nice and you gotta rain on my parade!"
"Don't worry, summoner, we have your back!" Snow Rabby added, looking at Dr. Kagemura, whom was loafing. "Right? Right!?"
"Right, right..." Dr. Kagemura rather tiredly responded to Snow Rabby. He fumbled a bit with the chemicals floating in his hands, throwing one of them in the direction of Hanzo.
The chemical reaction from the ice caused an explosion upon contact, blowing the entire tree up in typical sentai fashion.
It was good timing too, since Solarnyan and Lunarnyan came out from their hiding to get the throwing stars out of Kiara.
"Where were you two even at?" Snow Rabby asked the duo helping the summoner.
"I dunno, I think there was some kind of charge in the green crystal that made us either forget what we were doing or made us really tired from the sheer amount of power." Solarnyan explained, shrugging.
"It probably isn't best we have two rank upgrades in one day, yeesh." Lunarnyan said, quite tired.
"Ah yeah that reminds me..." Kiara said, opening up her phone to check on yokai data.
Upon opening the data for the celestial themed felines, it showed that indeed they went right up from D rank to C rank.
"...I knew it, I was right!" Kiara exclaimed, looking at the data. "Somehow these crystal shards promote ranks, but why these two yokai in particular I'm not sure..."
Before Kiara could ponder more, she remembered something. She slowly walked over to the tree, to find a soot covered Hanzo. He was thankfully alright, just covered in a lot of explosive soot.
"Hey buddy, sorry about angering you. But there are some rules with encountering and fighting a summoner, you know yeah?" Kiara said, holding her hand out to Hanzo.
"It's alright, and I understand these rules. While you were quite the feisty one, I can see you had a certain...passion for fighting for what was right. I think that's quite admirable." Hanzo responded to Kiara, handing over his medal.
"Yeah and no worries my dude, you can guarantee the Silver Crystal Star shard things are safe in my hands. If anyone tries to take them from me, I will fight back you hear!?" Kiara shouted, raising her fist up into the air. "Now I gotta do what I was going to do before I got interrupted!"
Kiara walked a bit aways from the massive tree, pulling the emerald green shard from her pocket. She proceeded to spin a little and do some poses before dramatically holding the shard in the air with a tight grip.
"You got a Silver Crystal Star Shard!" Kiara yelled with such great enthusiasm it probably required a grand fanfare of it's own to accompany such an event.
After a bit of brief celebration, the crew made their way back home with a triumphant victory. But who knows where the other remaining Silver Crystal Star shards where, or even how many there were left to find. All Kiara and company could do was wait for whatever else they had in store.