Hotaru couldn't help the shiver of disgust going down her spine. She vaguely knew of Neige LeBlanche, but she shelled out good money for ad-blockers for a reason.

Having him come up to her shortly after their initial set and show such intense interest in her was beyond weird.

"Are you okay, princess?" he said with gleaming eyes.

That did it.

"I NEED AN ADULT!" she shouted. Neige was startled, but didn't drop her hand.

"Something wrong, Crow-hime?" said a voice.

"Oh thank the Seven," said Hotaru with open relief. She managed to pull her hands away, and immediately ducked behind Che'nya. "Can you please keep this creep away from me? He's giving me some serious stalker vibes!"

Che'nya blinked, before he realized who she was talking about. He pointed at his roommate.

"Are you talking about him?" he asked. Though there was a note in his voice that said he was desperately trying not to laugh his tailed ass off.

"He came up to me at random, started spouting off some weird nonsense about 'rescuing' me and calling me a princess, and he never even introduced himself!" she said irate.

Che'nya grinned at her.

"Don't worry, I'll take you straight to your dragon after this," he promised.

"How do you two know each other?" asked Neige. There was an odd note in his voice that most would have missed.

Instead it made Hotaru's skin crawl, big time.

"The baby crow here is a regular at the Unbirthday parties, and is good friends with Riddle and Trey," said Che'nya grinning. "She also happens to be a furry fan."

"How is it my fault your tail is so huggable and fluffy?" she pouted. Che'nya wisely didn't point out she was currently hugging his tail at the moment.

The first time she met Che'nya, they had gotten along ridiculously well. Then she introduced him to Lilia and the two had great fun pranking the other students by popping up at random. Riddle had long since given up chastising him, since it kept Che'nya out of his hair for a few hours.

Hotaru was the only person with standing permission to hug his tail though. After all the good she had done helping Riddle out, it was a small price to pay. Besides, he considered her an adorable kitten that he wanted to spoil.

"So how do you know him?" she asked.

"He's my roommate," said Che'nya cheerfully.

"Is there a problem here?" asked a voice.

"Vi-kun!"

"Vi-kun, really?" said Hotaru, making a face.

Vil made a slight face, before he noticed the way Hotaru was hiding behind the cat-kin.

"I'm leaving this kitten in your capable hands," chirped Che'nya. He snickered as he disappeared using his spell.

"How do you two know each other, Vi-kun?" asked Neige. His face was smiling, but his eyes definitely weren't.

"She's our team manager. Now if you'll excuse us," said Vil, firmly taking Hotaru by the shoulder and leading her away.

Once they were well out of earshot, Hotaru sighed with relief.

"Thank the Seven. That yandere Ken doll was giving me the absolute creeps," she said.

Vil almost paused in his stride.

"Yandere ken doll?" he repeated amused.

Hotaru shivered in disgust.

"His looks are so fake he might as well be a Ken doll, and it's obvious that he's a Yandere to boot. Total creep."

"What's a Ken doll though?" asked Vil. However there was no disguising his open amusement of her assessment of Neige.

Hotaru paused, before realizing this world likely never had Barbies.

She pulled out her phone and after a moment, she managed to pull up a picture.

"In my world, there is a popular toy called a 'Barbie doll' that has unofficially set the standards for female beauty...especially in the country it originated from. Her male counterpart is called 'Ken'," she explained.

Vil looked at the doll with interest.

"And you're saying Neige is as fake as this?" he said, deeply amused by now.

"He can pretend to be 'nice' all he wants. His smile never reached his eyes and it's pretty damn clear he's been coasting on his looks and popularity for far too long," she said in disgust. "He didn't even bother to introduce himself before he took my hand and started spouting off crap like 'princess' and 'rescue'."

"How did you not recognize him?"

"With how many online games I play, including mobile ones, I pay for the best ad blocker on the market," she deadpanned. "And you know I don't pay attention to fashion trends."

Vil stared at her for several seconds before something unusual happened. He started to laugh, hard. Fortunately they were in the hallway heading to the private rooms for the competition, but he still had to hold onto the wall from how hard his body was shaking from laughter.

Once he got over his amusement, Hotaru could sense there was a change in him. He felt...lighter.

"I needed that. Having Neige fawn over someone only to be utterly rejected was too much," said Vil, still grinning.

"Oh believe me, if he takes my hand again I'll be giving him a repeat of my annoyance with you over the chocolate incident," said Hotaru grinning.

"I would pay to see that," said Vil, vindictively.

He was lucky he didn't end up with any scars, but the sight of Hotaru trying to almost literally bite Neige's head off for creeping her out would be worth it's weight in gold. Forget Magicam, he'd record that shit for his own private amusement in a heartbeat!

Right before the main event...

Everyone was panicked, as Rook had apparently sprained his ankle trying to snap Vil out of his Overblot.

Vil however was oddly calm.

"You look like you have a plan," said Jamil, noticing Vil's behavior.

"I do. There's a reason why I had Hotaru join us in our choreography and had her learn the lyrics. Since Rook is out due to his ankle, she's going to take his place."

"Are you sure?" said Rook.

"I had her officially added as a back-up three weeks ago, and it was approved by the committee that oversees this event," said Vil. "But we're going to make a slight alteration to our performance, beyond adding Hotaru as Rook's replacement."

"Alteration?" said Hotaru, having a sudden foreboding feeling.

She very nearly bolted when she found out Vil made her the main dancer/singer, with him as part of her back-up.

On the plus side, they ended up winning the competition by a landslide.

~*~*~*~*

Hotaru was almost giddy with dark glee. It had taken some effort to get this set up, and her conspirators were giggling with their own amusement at the chaos that was about to unfold in the school.

Idia was just glad that he was mostly being kept out of it, outside of keeping track of how many were left in the game.

"Gentlemen, the preparations are set. Let the game begin," said Hotaru with glee.

Cater, Lilia, Grim, Ortho, Idia, and Che'nya nodded with dark grins, before Idia and Cater sent out a school wide alert to everyone's phones via the school's page. Most of the students had signed up for alerts for the school events and important announcements, and Crowley had given the all clear to use it once she explained her plan.

So long as he didn't have to pay for it, he was fine with it happening. The real headache had been convincing the teachers to agree to a "exam pass" for those who found the special eggs.

Sam had been cackling with glee when he found out why they needed an obscene number of plastic eggs in different colors. He even donated some 'special' eggs along with an agreed location that the students would have to purchase a map that had some very cryptic riddles (courtesy of Lilia and Idia) that would lead them to the location.

Once that egg was found, Idia would mark them off the list and Sam would sell the next set of maps.

With glee, Idia sent out the post. Within seconds, the more alert students took interest and began to share it with their friends.

"Holy cow, this thing is trending big time!" said Cater with glee.

"What cow?" joked Hotaru, which made Lilia snicker at the bad joke.

"Ugh, seriously? Why did that pest have to try and hack us today?" said Idia suddenly.

"Want me to deal with him, Idia-nii?" asked Ortho.

"Shut them down hard, I want to enjoy the chaos we created with those eggs," said Idia.

Ortho gave him a thumb's up and within minutes, had shut Verde's attempts to hack them...again...down.

"Why are they still trying to get through anyway? Did you do something to piss them off?" asked Cater.

"They're trying to find me, but after Ortho stole all his research they became invested," said Hotaru absently.

Dead silence.

"I'm sorry. Are you saying that the entire reason I have these idiots after me is because they're trying to find you?" said Idia slowly.

"How do you know that?" asked Lilia, curious.

Hotaru held up her phone.

"Fon-shifu was called in by his old comrades after months of being frustrated by Idia-nii's stunt of stealing his research and Ortho counter-hacking them. Once he realized who they were trying to find, he immediately called me to make sure I hadn't actually died since he was the only one who had my actual phone number."

"Who is this...Fon?" asked Lilia.

"You know our little sparring sessions? Fon-shifu was the one who trained me, and his nephew was the one who made sure it stuck," said Hotaru.

Lilia looked openly intrigued at that.

"Actually, I think you'd get along great with Fon-Shifu. He has a lot of hidden sarcastic comments and he's really fast. Kyouya said that he's mastered 108 different martial arts, but I don't know if that's true or not. And he has this really cool Eastern dragon tattoo on his left shoulder, along with a really adorable monkey named Lichi," said Hotaru enthusiastically.

Lilia chuckled at that.

"Looks like the first batch have found one of the easier eggs!" said Cater.

Everyone watched with glee as the school descended into glorious, glorious chaos. One of the things Hotaru had been adamant about was that any area that contained live animals...like the flamingo/hedgehog enclosure, or the barn that contained the equestrian club had their horses...were off limits to any eggs. She didn't want to upset the animals, and all the boys agreed.

Ortho was gleefully recording any mishaps from the other students who performed some very ridiculous antics to obtain a hard to reach egg. Likely placed by Lilia, Che'nya or Ortho himself.

Hotaru was downright cackling, seeing Ace and Deuce crash into each other after finding yet another egg. Or attempting to retrieve one.

This was comedy gold, and she was having the time of her life watching the boys scrambling all over the school. There was no point in trying to hold classes with the competition going on. Crewel had already barricaded the alchemy labs, even though it was part of the "no egg zones".

The minor faeries were having unholy glee leading the students astray, after Lilia had a chat explaining what was going on. They were causing almost as much chaos as the boys themselves trying to retrieve the eggs.

Malleus flamed into the room, likely having followed Hotaru's magic.

He looked deeply amused, and had several eggs himself...courtesy of Sebek.

"Having fun?" said Hotaru, giving him a peck on the cheek.

"It is most amusing...however who left those eggs on the gargoyles?" he asked.

"That would be me," said Lilia grinning at him. "I didn't want you to feel left out of the fun."

Hotaru snickered.

Malleus took a spot, and promptly claimed Hotaru for his own, having her sit on his lap. She didn't argue, being used to this by now.

"I would say get a room, but then she won't get to enjoy the chaos live anymore," said Idia, rolling his eyes.

"Like you and Azul are any better," snarked Hotaru. "Who gave Ortho a special gear purely to hide eggs underwater for his boyfriend and the twins to find?"

Idia said nothing, as he had no leg to stand on and he damn well knew it. Azul was already texting him incredulous about the waterproof slips that were in the eggs and asking how he managed to hide them without them noticing. Floyd was having great fun tracking them all down, and even Jade was getting into it.

It was a good day.