Intermission 3: The Hair-Raising Night of the Undead!
Another day has risen for the summoner and her usual business. She had been going to her meetings with Francy, but something had always been bothering her. Kiara had managed to get herself deeply involved into figuring out the puzzle behind the elusive Silver Crystal Star. To her frustration, there wasn't a single bit of information to be found online. Search results yielded nothing, just redirects to video game encyclopedias describing powerful objects. But those are works of interactive fiction, this was reality.
"Geez, not even Yoogle is pulling up anything, and that's the most advanced search engine in the entire Yokai World! I swear it would have had something on it!" Kiara huffed, rather frustrated about the lack of info. By her side as usual were her two loyal felines, Solarnyan and Lunarnyan. "All I'm getting is like, video game mcguffins used to seal away an ancient demon or something with a really old door involved."
"Can't you do some cool hacking stuff? I think one of those rainbow spandex men can do that." Solarnyan suggested with a shrug. Kiara squinted her eyes at the yellow and red cat.
"The closest thing there is the series that dealt with high schoolers trying to fight against aliens with nineties tech. There's also another loose arcade themed one with a bunch of animal people that came out recently, but I dunno." Kiara explained. "That's besides the fact numbers and hacking ain't my forte."
"Do you know anyone that can, though?" Lunarnyan asked, Kiara only sighing more.
"Bad news, I don't. Nor am I looking to have a shady yokai attempt to do so, my computer would be fried into a chrisp." Kiara added to Lunarnyan's response.
"But the good news is we have sort of a lead, right? Lunarnyan asked, as Kiara looked into deep thought.
"True, my notes are looking like this. The Silver Crystal Star, if I were to guess, is made of five shards. Each fragment seems to react to giving lower rank yokai power, such as you two. D-Rex, Dr. Kagemura, and Snow Rabby lack a reaction due to already being S rank, but you two kitties seem to react to the crystal fragments. Another guess is that when it's all pieced together, it can give some crazy powers hence why a bunch of hero yokai are bombarding me." Kiara deduced, going over her notes. "Also, for some reason The shards go into smaller pieces when interacting with this collectors replica compact I got not that long ago..."
"Really? What is this compact you speak of?" Solarnyan asked, as Kiara looked over her desk and grabbed a handheld object. It resembled a pink compact mirror, the case design being in a metallic pink with a metallic gold star and a matching border. There was a large pink gem in the center of the star, being surrounded by smaller Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow gemstones.
"Behold, where the shards went!" Kiara announced, opening the compact to show the felines.
Inside there was a shiny gold ribbon pattern with a hollowed out star shape. Already in place were the Diamond and Emerald Silver Crystal Star shards, albeit much smaller than when Kiara found them.
"For some reason, there was a star shaped hole here, and the shards just...Shrunk to fit in. Weird things happen, I suppose." Kiara commented.
"You may want to keep that safe, who knows who is after such an artifact." Lunarnyan suggested. "Some of these yokai are very powerful, I'm not sure if you can face them."
"Of course, I will keep it safe the only way I know how!" Kiara loudly answered to Lunarnyan's suggestion, getting out her red scarf and clipping the compact to it. Both felines looked at Kiara confused if not absolutely done with Kiara's shenanigans.
"Ah it's no big deal, other transforming heroes have their cool transformation devices strapped to them. I'll be fine, it's clipped on really tight too." Kiara remarked proudly. "It's also great since it doubles as a medal case. Just has a little snap under the main part that's a case. Real nice."
"I see, since you've been getting more and more medals now, you probably needed to upgrade." Solarnyan added to the conversation.
"Yeah, who knows how many more medals I'm gonna get..." Kiara said, opening the extra space in the compact to reveal a lot of the medals she had already. Solarnyan, Lunarnyan, D-Rex, Snow Rabby, Dr. Kagemura, and Hazno's medals were all there, a bit disorganized, but still all there.
The summoner picked up and eyed at Hanzo's medal. She gave a deep look of curiosity as she held it in the palm of her hand.
"I'm still surprised I even got Hanzo's medal. For someone pursuing me for a piece of the Silver Crystal Star, I was shocked he joined me..." Kiara commented. "Then again if I win a battle, I get a medal? That or it was simply dropped. I dunno..."
Looking at the medal intensely made Kiara quickly snap back to reality and remember something.
"Shoot...I was supposed to go get groceries after my meeting with Francy. I think I just came by to grab an extra coat or something, it's been getting really cold lately." Kiara talked to herself, rushing into her closet to grab a nice yellow jacket and matching gloves. It almost matched perfectly with a skirt with some thick black pants underneath.
"Alright, let's get morphin, moving, busting, all that!" Kiara yelled, rushing out the door to go get her dang groceries.
Kiara had made a mad dash for the East Cashew district of St. Peanutsburg. It was a bit out of the way for Kiara's tastes, but it was where arguably the best super market was. Could loose the creepy yellow rabbit mascot, but she was here for simple groceries, not to critique aesthetics.
"Alright let's see, we got most of what I need, bread, milk, butter, cheese, eggs, chips, cinnamon sugar, twelve pack of soda..." Kiara listed off, knocking off a each item off her list. "All I need is sandwich cookies and some popcorn. Can't have a good marathon without them. Oh, and dog biscuit shaped gram crackers! Those are good for solving cases."
In her quest to find the rest of her groceries, someone was behind her.
"Hey...do you mind if I ask some questions?" This person asked. She seemed to have been a young woman, slightly older than Kiara. She had dark skin and a certain look to her.
"Uhh...First of all who are you?" Kiara questioned, looking a bit sassy at this mysterious person.
"Call me Pepper." The woman, Pepper, answered to Kiara's question. "Anyways, I couldn't help to notice something odd about you, it makes me want to ask you a few questions."
"What would that be?" Kiara kept with her confused responses to Pepper.
"Have you seen any sort of odd, silvery crystal objects around here?" Pepper began, thinking in deep thought. "They're kinda diamond shaped, having different hues. They're mostly an urban legend around these parts from what I hear."
Kiara chuckled. "You mean the Silver Crystal Star Shards?"
"...How do you know of those?" Pepper began to question Kiara. Shoot. How many people were just after these dang things!?
"Uhhhh well I'm like you and just heard them through urban legends around here." Kiara shrugged, trying to avoid being pursued by this strange person. She saw those dang shiny rocks first, and she was going to keep them!
"Do you know anything more about them?" Pepper asked Kiara. Kiara only gave a more puzzled look, lowering her brow.
"Does it look like I know anything more about them?" Kiara responded, trying to make a bolt for it to avoid any more awkward questions. "I'm just some nerd, I pick up on crazy urban legends all the time. Like such as the Jersey Man and the Moth Devil!"
Pepper was quite for a bit, pressing her lips to one of her fingers as if she was thinking. She then finished and looked back at Kiara.
"...I see. Are you aware of any strange phenomena happening in this town?" Pepper asked Kiara again, keeping her in for more and more questioning.
"Like what?" Kiara responded back, wondering where Pepper was going to go with this.
"Perhaps something called Yokai?" Pepper stated, leaving Kiara shocked.
"Well I mean I got this thing." Kiara commented, presenting her dream watch in it's belt strapped holder. "The heck does that have to do with..."
Before Kiara could finish, Pepper was already gone. Nothing of Kiara's seemed to have disappeared thankfully. At least she could get back to her shopping peacefully without any weird interruptions. What an odd lady.
Kiara kept going around as normal, as Pepper was still around, just drawing a bit more backstage. She was on the phone with someone unknown on the other line.
"I believe I've found the odd person in question." Pepper said on the phone, trying to keep things quiet.
"Did you find out anything else?" Pepper's client on the other line said in response.
"Not really. She only seems to know the Silver Crystal Star by name, not much else..." Pepper began. "But it may be best to keep an eye out, she can see yokai..."
"Alright gang I'm back with groceries." Kiara said, opening the door to her not so bad apartment. Quickly Kiara put away the groceries before going back to her room to keep looking over things. The Silver Crystal Star was something that kept her mind working.
"Did anything weird happen, miss Kiara?" Sophie asked to Kiara, trying to see what the summoner was exactly looking into.
"Eh kinda? Some lady asked me about if I knew about the Silver Crystal Star and if I could see yokai." Kiara began. "Of course to avoid getting more weirdos in my hair, I said no about the Silver Crystal Star, but said yeah about the yokai thing since it's harder to hide my dream watch."
"It's kinda weird Hanzo opened up to you." Sophie commented, throwing Kiara a bit off guard. "Like from what I know of him, he's really quiet."
"Well, he is a ninja, right?" Kiara responded. "Ninjas are pretty quiet, unless you're in a sentai or something."
"Yeah I know that but like he doesn't open up really easily." Sophie added to Kiara's comment. "Then again,he gets super worried if I'm pouting slightly. I think he says something about not wanting to disappoint my papa or something..."
"I wouldn't worry too much about it kiddo." Kiara reassured. "Even if something bad happens, I can bounce back pretty quickly so long as I have my yokai."
"Hey uhhh Kiara, have you checked the map lately?" Lunarnyan said, her and Solarnyan waddling into the room with the mysterious map in hand.
"No, what's up with it ya'll?" Kiara asked, as Lunarnyan handed Kiara the map.
Upon inspection, it showed where the next Silver Crystal Star Shard was but something was astray about it.
"What the?" Kiara said, looking at the map in awe. "The next Silver Crystal Star Shard is in the Super Market?!"
Indeed Kiara was right, the depiction of the next Silver Crystal Star Shard was at none other than the East Cashew Super Market. However, the map depicted a night sky, with an eerie abinece coming from a nearby graveyard.
"You don't think this means...you know..." Solarnyan commented.
"What? Zombies?" Kiara responded to her feline companion. Solarnyan nodded in response.
"I don't know a lot about the night, but I hear there's zombies or something!" Solarnyan whispered over to Kiara in fear.
"There's no such thing as zombies, Solarnyan." Lunarnyan tried to reassure her solar counterpart. Her tone then dropped a little as she looked over at Kiara. "...Right?"
"I'm positive there's no such thing as zombies you guys, I'll go ahead and call the greatest super natural researcher I know." Kiara added in, getting out her phone and dialing Francy's number. Much to her amazement, the woman picked up the phone.
"Hey Francy is there such thing as zombies?" Kiara asked the professor. There was a small pause afterwards.
"You may be shocked to hear...but yes." Francy answered to Kiara, giving way for an even longer pause. Was she for real!? Then again, the stranger things never stopped piling up with yokai around.
"...Is there anything else about these zombies?" Kiara questioned nervously, unsure about the whole ordeal about the undead being indeed, a real thing.
"There's still a lot unknown about them, but on certain nights they seem to arise." Francy responded to Kiara. "What some of these conditions are seemingly random, though more frequent on cloudier nights. Usually most sleep through these nights, though, and the zombies are gone within an hour it seems."
"Ah I see. Well thanks for telling me, Francy!" Kiara thanked graciously, before the call ended. Kiara gave a sigh and looked are her companions.
"Well." Solarnyan began. "Are there zombies?"
"Yeeeeep. Zombies are a real thing. Though, they only appear on certain nights that most humans can't encounter normally." Kiara explained, rubbing the back of her head. "Let's just hope I don't see some freaky hidden hour of the night and the local school turns into a giant tower or something crazy."
"Let's hope not, that tonight is simply peaceful when we go after the Silver Crystal Star Shard." Lunarnyan calmly responded, as Kiara nodded in response.
"Yeah since if there are zombies, then it'd be mass destruction for all of us." Kiara finished, laughing nervously. "Anyways, I don't got anything better to do for the night, so let's just marathon our way until the night arises!"
Kiara, Solarnyan, and Lunarnyan had gone with as they planned, plowing through several sentai episodes until the dead of the night struck. The bell of midnight struck as Kiara got ready to go sneaking out in the night. Sure wearing bright yellow probably wasn't the best option, but it was her only option, especially since the nights were very cold. The trio snuck out, having to keep quiet since Sophie was fast asleep, having gone to bed at a decent time.
But Kiara and her felines had work to do, very important work to be doing. Though, things weren't quite what they were expecting.
Walking outside, the streets were hazed in a greenish fog, giving a very uncomfortable vibe. Plus something about the scent of the air just felt off and foreboding.
"Something just isn't right, everything feels a bit...off..." Kiara commented, locking the door and slowly making her way down the road.
"There doesn't seem to be anyone around, not on the road, not on the streets..." Lunarnyan commented.
The three kept making their way to their destination, only to see a figure in the near distance. Was someone else caught up in this crazy hour of the night?!
"Uhh, hello?" Kiara said to the figure, as it loomed closer and closer.
Once the figure wasn't completely obstructed by the fog, Kiara really wish she hadn't asked or approached this thing.
As to Kiara's shock, it was none other than a zombie. This seriously startled the summoner, causing her to nearly fall over but let out one serious scream.
The Zombie let out a moaning groan, approaching to Kiara faster and faster. The summoner had to think fast, she looked at the nearby lawn which thankfully had something to aid her in combat: a golf club.
"I hope you like the sweet taste of golf clubs punk!" Kiara yelled, strafing to behind the zombie and hitting in the back of the head. She had hoped to catch it off guard, but instead it poofed away with a flame like violet smoke.
"Kiara I'd hate to ask but don't you have that Yokai Blaster thing?" Solarnyan asked. Kiara swung the golf club behind her back, giving a bit of a sassy pose.
"Yeah, and it certainly has sharper aim than a golf club, but it works fine for these zombies it seems." Kiara commented back, shrugging a bit. "Now we got a super market to storm for that piece of the Silver Crystal Star!"
The summoner and her troupe kept on going down the road, finally making it to the Super Market in question. Much to her amazement, the doors were unlocked. Perhaps someone had forgotten to lock the door...
Walking in proved to be a mistake since there were zombies not only outside in the streets, but inside as well. There seemed to be more of them in here as well, which was a problem.
"I don't think you can just run and swing your golf club through all those..." Lunarnyan whispered quietly to Kiara.
"Nor run and gun right through them." Solarnyan added to Lunarnyan's comment, keeping just as much of a low tone. The summoner thought for a moment, before an idea clicked into her head.
"I have an idea, this may just work." Kiara thought up, looking at a nearby air vent and getting out a medal from her clipped on medal case. "Let's just hope the summoning song is something zombies can't hear."
Kiara quickly got out her dream watch, doing all the hand gestures as she popped in a medal. Something just felt more natural to herself about posing while doing it, even if this required absolute stealth.
"It's a Brave Time!" The dream watch's programed voice chirped, as out by Kiara's side was her recently befriended yokai, Hanzo.
"...What calls for my assistance ermm...Kiara was it?" Hanzo asked, as Kiara looked at him dead in the eye.
"Lunarnyan, Solarnyan, stay here and be sure any weirdos don't get near me. As for you, Hanzo...you're a ninja, right? Can you inspirit me to do, I dunno, stealthy ninja stuff?" Kiara asked, as the two felines nodded, but the ninja was absolutely puzzled by Kiara's plan.
"Wouldn't it be easier if I was the one to go in after the Silver Crystal Star shard?" Hanzo questioned the summoner.
"Well Solarnyan and Lunarnyan are only C rank, and I got no idea if there's gonna be any weirdos outside. Plus I can fend for myself if danger arises, I just need a bit more dexterity to me." Kiara responded, keeping her tone low so that zombies don't come after her. "Plus I got gut instincts, I have a good feeling on knowing where it is."
"If you insist, I will go as planned, summoner." Hanzo accepted to Kiara's plan, inspiritng her with a violet aura.
Suddenly, Kiara felt more agile, being able to jump higher. She felt so much like a true ninja that she pulled her scarf over her mouth. Now she looked straight up even cooler!
With a few swift but quiet jumps, she opened and crawled into the air vent. Nobody could see or hear her prowl on through the vents, as she kept with rather swift movements. Kiara wasn't sure what it was, but pure gut instinct lead her to know where the next piece of the Silver Crystal Star was.
Through much crawling in the air vents, she opened one of the vents to a small office. Bingo, there it was on the desk in a small glass case. This piece of the Silver Crystal Star had a bit more of a golden hue to it, as opposed to a diamond white or emerald green hue. The glass case came off rather easily, leading Kiara to grab the golden star shard and go back in through the vent, as if nobody was there. Well, aside from the obviously missing star piece.
Despite having the piece, Kiara had to wait on giving the victorious jingle, being a ninja and as quiet as one too!
Though, without the summoner's knowledge, something had made it's way through one of the air vents overlooking one of the aisles.
"Hmm?" Kiara said to herself, grabbing the strange foreign object. It was a yellow playing card of the ace of hearts, not much to it. The back of it had some bunny insignia Kiara was unfamiliar with.
Without noticing, it seemed the air vent was loosened and Kiara came nearly plummeting outwards.
"Listen you baka! I don't know what you think you're doing, messing with the most kawaii ninja!" Kiara yelled, having not noticed the change of her speech when Hanzo inspirited her. For one that was something she would never say, and second of all, she yelled it.
"My Kiara, I didn't know you were a ninja." A rather familiar voice said, revealing to be that odd pepper lady Kiara had encountered earlier in the day. "And you seem to know about the Silver Crystal Star, after all."
Hanzo's inspiritment wore off, as Kiara repositioned her scarf before snapping back to reality with a muffled "I can't believe I said all that...".
"Alright Pepper, just who are you really?" Kiara asked, taking up more of a stance. "You can bet I ain't handing over any shiny sparkly objects anytime soon!"
Without much fanfare, Pepper revealed herself to be a bunny looking yokai, complete with mint green hair and pink highlights on a black suit.
"Name's Bunny Mint of the Mysterious Tribe, and agent of Super Seed." Bunny Mint introduced herself more properly, Kiara starting to pose to introduce herself more properly to this yokai.
"Day or night, sun or moon, rain or shine, I will not fail to serve justice and protect those in need! For I am Yokai Summoner! Kiara Noha!" Kiara introduced herself more dramatically, posing for the added effect.
"Was the posing really that necessary?" Bunny Mint asked Kiara.
"Yes." Kiara bluntly responded, trying to make her quick and swift escape.
"Wait now, don't just run off like that!" Bunny Mint yelled at Kiara, trying to catch up with her, or at the very least catch her off guard.
"Usually I resort to Tokusatsu styled violence but not today!" Kiara yelled back, trying to make her break for it.
Bunny Mint didn't have much of an option to try and oppose the summoner. She eyed a broom in one aisle that Kiara was about to speed her way through. Just at the right moment the broom was lowered just right to trip up Kiara.
"Ow ow owwwwwch!" Kiara cursed under her breath, having fallen face first onto the tile flooring of the store floor. She kept the Silver Crystal Star Shard tight in her grip despite this. She user her free hand to try and throw a bottle of dish soap at Bunny Mint, but missed by quite the long shot. This left a rather frustrated taste in her mouth.
"You know what..." Kiara commented to herself. "I have a blaster, I may as well use it."
The summoner quickly took the dream core and attached it to the Yokai Blaster Gaburivolver model, signified by lights and sound. Kiara quickly fumbled around her medals, picking out Lunarnyan.
"Gun de Luna! Let's go with the night!" Kiara yelled, the blaster overcoming with a violet aura. She was armed and ready, though some Zombies stood in her way. She kept a good pace, the crescent boomerangs being fired having good distance and well, always came back.
Not only had Kiara been needing to keep pace through all the zombies, but keep her eyes out. She could feel small cards whizzing on by much to Kiara's rather frustrating, well, frustration.
"If I wasn't wearing gloves, I'd have paper cuts by now, you know." Kiara commented loudly. "And those buggers hurt a lot!"
"I'm not saying you need to hand over the piece of the Silver Crystal Star." Bunny Mint commented, standing on top of a shelf to avoid the hoard of zombies. "But I'm saying it would make my job much easier."
Before any really serious sass battle between the two could break out, the zombies ended up coming out more and more into serious waves and droves. So much so that it caused the shelf Bunny Mint was on to shake, causing her to lose her balance and fall off.
Kiara had to think fast in this situation. She quickly unzipped her jacket, storing the Silver Crystal Star Shard in an internal jacket pocket before zipping things back up and diving in to catch the rabbit yokai. The latter of which, was extremely shocked by Kiara's actions.
"What the?" Bunny Mint questioned the summoner. "You saved me, but why?"
"Because I ain't that bad, I'm not gonna let somebody get overrun with zombies you know?" Kiara said, plopping out another medal from her medal case. "Now my Yokai Blaster is out of energy, so there's only the next best thing in our methods of escape."
"And that would be?" Bunny Mint asked, kind of curious to what the summoner had up her sleeve.
"The tokusatsu logical method, if I got the ties with a giant t-rex, I may as well summon them." Kiara responded, reattaching the dream core to her Dino Buckler and doing all the hand motions to summon another yokai.
"It's a Slippery Time!" The watch chimed up, as summoned was the rather large D-Rex. Kiara looked up at the giant dinosaur with a determined look in her eyes.
"Hey buddy, it may have been a while, but we really need you right now." Kiara said, as D-rex lowered his head a little to listen more on what Kiara had to say.
"And that would be?" D-Rex asked curiously. Kiara slowly climbed her way up onto the dinosaur's back, helping Bunny Mint onto him as well.
"You charge us right on out of here, destroying everything to your heart's content. Do not slow down, we need a ticket straight back to home base and outta this zombie infested market." Kiara explained, smiling as she finished. "That sound alright with you buddy?"
D-Rex's eyes lit up at what Kiara's plan was. He happily nodded in response.
"That I can do!" D-Rex responded to his summoner, sounding just about as happy as a T-rex yokai could ever get.
"Alright! Yokai, ready, go! It's morphin' into go time!" Kiara commanded happily, as D-Rex did as instructed. They went on a straight, no turning, line right to the exit, Kiara being sure to grab Solarnyan and Lunarnyan, Hanzo having gone his own way afterwards. That was weird.
"Kiara what is going on?" Lunarnyan questioned, hanging on for dear life on the tyrannosaurs rex express. Kiara gave an excited grin on her face, probably one of the largest she's had in a while.
"Only the greatest escape we can possibly make!" Kiara cheered loudly, pumping her fist into the air as she yelled "Woo, mass destruction baby!". It was times like this where Kiara was truly happy to be a yokai summoner, there were few opportunities out there that allowed her to make her escape on the back of a destructive T Rex.
Once the gang were a good distance from the supermarket and closer to home, it seemed almost sudden but the odd green fog was gone, and too were the zombies. The few nightly drivers were back onto the streets, things went back to a normal night.
Things slowed down by the time they reached back to Kiara's apartment. Kiara checked the time, it was still only about a minute past midnight. That was odd, she was out for at least and hour...
Also odd enough was that Bunny Mint was gone, hopefully she didn't fall off. Though on Kiara's doorstep she found something that caught her eye.
It was a Merican medal, the back side facing upwards as there was a Mysterious Tribe insignia. Upon turning it over, it was none other than Bunny Mint's medal. There was even a small note with the medal, having a simple yet through "Thank you" written on it. Kiara smiled as she opened the door, getting ready for bed and getting some much needed rest after one wild night. Hopefully the Silver Crystal Star wouldn't lead her to anymore nightly missions like this.