Episode 2

Proposed intro music

Mori Calliope Ch. hololive-EN

【MV】Non-Fiction 【hololive English -Myth- Original Song】

The Case of the Last True Daughter of Atlantis

"If you go looking for a friend, you're going to find they're very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you'll find them everywhere."  -Zig Ziglar

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The beach of Santa Monica

Los Angles, California

November 5, 2019  (16 hours behind Tokyo time)

She was hired to find someone.  The process of finding the person turned out to be much harder than Amelia Watson had anticipated.  There were far less clues than one would have thought.

Sure, she’d survived several vampire attacks.  Her attackers were all dust now.

That was part of the problem.  If the person she was trying to find had done the same, there were no vampire bodies to use to figure out where this person was.

There was also a stupidly high chance the person she was looking for had not survived such an attack.   Several victims had been fed on and died in Santa Monica.

Days had passed by.  The trail might be getting cold.

The woman she was searching for was most likely blending with the crowds in a fashion that was unnaturally persistent.   For Amelia to have had this much trouble for so long actually suggested magic.

She had gifts that made her extraordinary in her profession.   It was reasonable to assume someone might have gifts that could counter that.

In the end, she had to look for what was out of the ordinary in a broader sense.  That’s when she noticed the surfers were out of the pacific.

Most walked up and down the beach in a huff, unable to follow their passion.   It was what was in the water that stopped them.

A virtual school of shark fins lined up and down the coast.   Though unlikely to kill the surfers, no one wanted to get bit.

The pattern of the surfers also made one other thing stand out.  Standing alone far from the others was a form that appeared to blend with the crowd with a cold weather wet suit.

The figure had no surfboard.  The figure had also wandered far away from the other surfers who had been trying to avoid the sharks.

The lone figure was right in the center of the activity.   Amelia headed to the figure.

She watched the aimless wandering on the beach.  She also watched the detached look in the tiny silver-haired surfer’s eyes.

The surfer was hungry.  She was disorientated.

She blended perfectly with the background.  That said, she was way too comfortable being near a school of sharks for it to be any normal person.

As Amelia approached, she felt a hum from the watch she hadn’t felt since she was a little girl.  When she opened the device, she noticed the branch symbol glowing.

As soon as she looked up again, the girl was dressed quite differently.   She wore a blue shark suit that must have been bought by someone’s mother or grandmother.

It was an expression of adoration for someone they still saw as a child.  It was not a statement of fashion by any stretch of imagination.

Gura wandered the beach on the verge of blood frenzy.  A school of sharks feeling her hunger had come to investigate.

Strange people spoke in strange clothes wandering up and down the beach.  They complained nonstop about not being able to get in the water.

Gura had avoided them out of annoyance.  She wanted to be alone, but she was getting progressively hungrier and more stressed as the days out of water dragged on.

That’s when the lady in strange yellow clothing approached.  She had a calm smile.

The first person in forever really saw her and came up to talk to her.  Despite being a shark, Gura found she was quite shy when so confronted.

The lady asked, “Would you like to go get something to eat?”

Gura would normally be reserved.  However, at this moment, hunger got the better of the Atlantean.

The shark simply replied, “Yes.” 

A Lady on a Mission

“I am a very shy and an introvert by nature and I take a lot of time to open up.” -Tripti Dimri

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do." -Eleanor Roosevelt

On a remote mountain in Northern Japan

November 6, 2019 (16 hours ahead of LA time)

Ninomae Ina'Nis prepared herself, as if going to battle.  She researched clothing and ordered it online.

She researched makeup.  She ordered it and practiced applying what she learned on Youtube.

She was a priestess of the Old Ones.   She had survived countless horrors.

She could do this.  She had found the target by locator spell.  She also knew that they were destined to be friends.

The spell opened the void for her to step through.  The darkness surrounded her for an eyeblink and was gone.

She arrived instantly in Tokyo.  She instantly regretted it.

The city was large and overwhelming compared to her peaceful mountain home.  There were gigantic crowds of people.

The masses of crowds were so vast it was claustrophobic.   A person could literally get trampled if this amount of people became frightened.

That’s when Ina spotted her.  The Phoenix was in a large crowd. 

She was chatting with several foreigners while drinking something at a café.  About ten people were around her.  Maybe up to a hundred other people were silently and secretly watching.

There was a point where the immortal spirit sensed her.  The Phoenix looked in her direction.

Ina stepped back into the darkness like a squid retreating behind ink.  She was back home in an eyeblink.

Ina panicked so badly that she was shaking.   She was also silently crying in disappointment with herself.

She would have had to wade through a crowd of people to even have a chance to talk to the extroverted Phoenix.   She would have had to compete with several people just to vie for her attention.

Ina was not prepared for that level of social interaction or distraction.  She took off her makeup and changed her clothes.

Today’s victory was that she tried.  Today’s defeat was that she retreated.

Ina lay on her bed and tried to calm herself.  She hoped that the dark energy she used to retreat wouldn’t put her at odds with the person that was supposed to be her friend one day.

She would try again one day.  It would not be today.  It will not be tomorrow.

She’d regain her inner calm.   She would try to meet the Phoenix or one of the other three.

Regardless of her position, Ina was simply shy by nature.  She quietly envied the lady she had almost met today.

What would it even be like to be that comfortable around strangers?  This Takanashi Kiara was a formidable woman indeed…

The Case of the huge Five Guys bill

“The man who invented the hamburger was smart; the man who invented the cheeseburger was a genius.”  -Matthew McConaughey

“Educational refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger.”  -Terry Pratchett

“Tried to amend my carnivorous habits, Made it nearly seventy days, Losin' weight without speed, eatin' sunflower seeds, Drinkin' lots of carrot juice and soakin' up rays, But at night I'd have these wonderful dreams, Some kind of sensuous treat, Not zucchini, fettuccine, or bulgur wheat, But a big warm bun and a huge hunk of meat.”  -Jimmy Buffett, Cheeseburger in Paradise

schmoyoho

OH MY DAYUM ft. ‪@DaymDrops‬

Santa Monica
Los Angles, California
November 5, 2019  (16 hours behind Tokyo time)

A shark supposedly only eats about 3% of its body weight per day, as opposed to a human being who eats about 2% of their body weight over the course of an entire day.  Amelia observed these scientific facts confirmed on her phone had nothing to do with Gura.

Gura could eat.  Perhaps, it had to do with her Mythic origins.

Five guys was not the cheapest option.  That said Amelia was glad she was here.

The magic surrounding Gura and Amelia’s watch made sure they both blended.  Gura had helped herself to the soda machine about twelve times so far.   She had scooped up the courtesy peanuts about ten times without people noticing.

She could gulp down a double cheeseburger in about two bites.  The large amount of fries served here was how Amelia kept the hungry shark fed.

Amelia had to go up and order again three times already.   This time she had made sure she had ordered ten large fries, a mix of regular and Cajun style.  She also bought ten more burgers and ten shakes.

She’d do it a few more times if she needed too.  Amelia watched as the shark girl lay into the food with fascination.  Gura’s appearance was changing as she kept consuming.

The more Gura ate, the more human Gura looked.  Amelia had the chance to talk to a few philosophers about magic in ancient Greece.  

Socrates, Pluto and Aristotle all had the idea that transformation magic on some level reflected the inner person.  In a way, it was somewhat similar to Carl Jung’s shadow theory in the past hundred years.

Amelia suspected that Gura wasn’t good at feeding herself.  She would get lost in what she was doing and forget to take care of herself.

The shark had questions too.  She’d ask about the food and how it was made.

As she became more human, Gura’s humor started to come out.  She had natural charisma.  

She was like a natural born standup comedian.  Tragically, she was way too shy to ever be in front of a live audience.

Gura stated, “I’m from Atlantis.  They don’t have French fries there, so I’m not going back.”  She punctuated this fact with a large handful of Cajun fries.

Amelia inquired, “So are there a lot of people there?”

Gura said, “There are lots of people there.  They don’t wear clothes.  It’s underwater.”  In the moment, what she said wasn’t funny.  The humor came from how she said it and how she moved her face.

Gura might be one of those people that could read a phone book and find a way to make it interesting.  Amelia was watching closely, as the shark kept talking about impossible things and making it obvious that Gura was bad with math.

There was something else there too.  There was a hint of loneliness and loss.

As the shark joked, the detective had the feeling that it wasn’t all true.  There would be nothing positive from calling the bluff though.

Amelia offered when there was silence, "I spent most of my life caring for somebody, and when they weren't here anymore, I felt like I lost my purpose."

Gura froze.  She empathized in a way that potentially contradicted much of what she had said.  

Amelia watched the little shark’s eyes water.  Gura stopped eating and the detective instantly understood the root of the eating issues.

Amelia offered, “I need help with something.  I think you might be able to assist.  I’d only be able to pay you with food, room and board though.”

Gura asked, “What’s going on?”

Amelia explained, “I’m being hunted by the undead.  Vampires keep taking shots at my life.”

Gura looked heavily offended.  The shark inquired, “What are vampires?”

“Blood sucking undead.”

“They turn to dust when you kill them?”

“Yep.”

“I think I killed about eight of them.”   Gura held up ten fingers.

Amelia smiled.  She had a way to bond with the shark.  The detective stated, “I’m just a normal human Gura.  I could use a bodyguard to help keep me safe.  I could give you a place to live, food and show you around the world here.  Are you interested?”

The shark wagged her tail excitedly.  Due to magic, no one noticed.  Gura proudly proclaimed, “I’ll take your offer and none of the dusty creeps will touch you.”

Gura finished her meal with the fourth round.  They both walked out together.

Amelia simply stated, “Thanks Gura, I already feel safer with you around.”

The shark looked both happy and sad.  There were stories hidden there that Gura wouldn’t tell for a long time.  

Amelia did what came to her with instinct.  She hugged the small shark girl.

Gura hugged back.  She happily took her first hug in thousands of years…

The real Song of Fire and Ice Begins

“Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.” -Lao Tzu

"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" – Benjamin Franklin

"Shit, I wanted to be your enemy, but I think I fell in love." – Anonymous person on Pinterest

Takanashi Kiara Ch. hololive-EN

CHIMERA - Takanashi Kiara (Official Music Video)

A park

Tokyo, Japan

November 6, 2019 (16 hours ahead of LA time)

Takanashi Kiara could feel the damned thing’s presence, before she could see it.  A spirit incarnation of the very thing that had stolen everyone she had ever cared about was in the city.

The Phoenix was pissed off by its very presence.  That a spirit of death dared manifest in her presence infuriated her.

She had lived too long to be unwise.  Was this thing here to kill this entire city?

She grabbed a couple of cups of coffee.   She might as well talk.  

Forty-one million lives might be at stake.  Tokyo’s people didn’t deserve to die.

It was about a kilometer away and on a park bench.   The Phoenix calmed her nerves.  She wanted to fight, but she could no more kill what was before her, than it could kill her.

Maybe she could reason with it.  Maybe she could negotiate. 

It wouldn’t be the first supervillain she had to sit at a table with.  Had the situation she was summoned for already come to pass?

Kiara had never failed to save a planet before.  Her own inner doubts started running through her mind at lightning speed.

She thought of a thousand past scenarios.   Nothing that would signal something apocalyptic had come to pass yet.

What bothered her most was that it could be something quiet.  It could be something she had never seen before.

There had never been a harsher critic of Kiara than herself.  It was maddening, but it was an edge that defined her.

Unlike her other brothers and sisters, she had never failed in her sacred mission.  That meant constantly learning and adapting.

She was never someone comfortable with settling for the skills she had.  There was a drive to her that always pushed, even when it was mean to herself.

At a certain point, she calmed some.  It wasn’t apocalyptic death, something akin to the appearance of a Great Old One.  

It was a standard spirit of death.  The world wasn’t about to die.

That didn’t mean the city wasn’t in danger.  One of these things could kill thousands or tens of thousands in the time it was taking her to walk over.

She could see it.  It was a woman with pink hair, sleeping on a park bench.

The thing had grave robbed.   It took an innocent person’s body and identity.

On the positive, it meant the death spirit was weaker than normal.  On the negative, the Shinigami could blend.

That was a real issue.  There were too many victims in close range.

This thing could have run around murdering people in Tokyo for years.  Takanashi Kiara never would have sensed it, if she wasn’t close by.

Kiara put on a kind face.  She relaxed her grit teeth.

She’d put her guild leader face on.  She’d put her idol training to good use.

“I’m going to be nice”, she thought. 

She took the absolute hatred out of her eyes.  She looked at it thinking, “You little shit.”

Her sword was ready to be summoned.  She could take true form and roast it.

It wouldn’t kill it.   It would just delay it and really piss it off.

The Shinigami’s scythe could kill almost anything, even when immortal.  The Phoenix was one of the few exceptions.

They were a living stalemate.  Both supernatural cancels of the other.

Shinigami didn’t just take lives.  They enjoyed it.

Someone would have to keep this psychopath under watch.  The Phoenix knew she was likely the only thing on this Earth that could.

Innocent lives were at stake.  Protecting lives was her people’s purpose.

She sat on the bench and offered the just waking spirit a coffee.  As it awakened and tried to blend into the other humans, Kiara got full sense of it.

It was literally just less than a planet's Grim Reaper.  This wasn’t just a standard rank and file Shinigami.  It was just below the leader.

The thing looked at her with the eyes of a serial killer.  Kiara could tell as soon as it took the coffee, it was stronger than she was.

It was stronger than she was.  The Phoenix just thought, “Fuck.”

Kiara thought back to the celestial that drafted her into this world.  The Phoenix thought, “Irys, what the fuck did you get me into.”

The Case of the Curious Shark

“When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.”  -Groucho Marx

“By playing games, you can artificially speed up your learning curve to develop the right kind of thought processes.”  -Nate Silver

Amelia Watson’s Private Detective Agency Residence

Los Angles, California

November 5, 2019  (16 hours behind Tokyo time)

Several hours later, two new friends sat in the living room gaming.  Amelia was teaching Gura the basics of console gaming.

The shark was naturally good at video games.  She took to them naturally, unlike many people with thousands more hours of playtime.

Gura was also a very aggressive player.  The game was more challenging than it should have been.

Amelia was doing her best to make the shark comfortable.  That said, the shark was bringing out her competitive side. 

They’d been playing for hours.  They were both having a blast.

The wall tv squawked with the sound and the music of the game.  The sound effects kept going off.

For someone that had just learned the concept of driving, Gura was already nipping at Amelia’s heels.  It wasn’t like Amelia was still babying her through the process either.

Amelia had mostly taken the gloves off already.  They were competing.

Amelia eked out a win.   Gura was happily swishing her tail sensing a chance to honestly beat her new friend soon.

Amelia offered, “We should get pizza for dinner.”

Gura asked, “What’s pizza?”

Amelia reassured, “Just try it, you’ll love it.  I promise.”  Amelia made a mental note to order at least seven different large pizzas for Gura to try and to make sure she got a few pieces herself.

Gura mused, “Do you like this life?”

Amelia asked, “What do you mean?”

Gura inquired, “Do you like this world above the sea?  Do you like living here?”

Amelia answered, “I do.  With a little time, I bet you’ll like it too.”

Gura was thoughtful.  She liked the company.  She liked the food.  Secretly, she was sick of hunting raw seafood.

Gura asked, “What’s a Private Detective?”

Amelia rattled off, “We investigate cases for clients.  We can find people who have gone missing.  We can find people who have violated contracts, committed crimes, cheated on spouses, and a variety of things.”

Gura didn’t really understand.  The shark didn’t like not knowing, but Gura faked that she did.  She asked, “Do you like being Detective?”

Amelia confidently revealed, “I’m not just a Detective.  I’m a Time Traveler.”

Gura stopped playing.  She stared right into Amelia’s eyes.  The shark had a hint of hope in hers.

Gura stated slowly, “What do you mean you are a time traveler?  What is a time traveler?”

The Reaper gets a Roommate

"Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see" -Helen Keller

"You will always be my favorite hello and hardest goodbye."  –Cecelia Ahern, the novel P.S. I Love You

Mori Calliope Ch. hololive-EN

[ORIGINAL SONG] 失礼しますが、RIP♡ || “Excuse My Rudeness, But Could You Please RIP?” - Calliope Mori

Mori Calliope’s inherited apartment

Tokyo, Japan

November 6, 2019 (16 hours ahead of LA time)

Smoothie and Chonkers sat in the back of their cat carrier wondering what the heck their Phoenix owner had gotten them into. 

The Grim Reaper’s apprentice watched the felines.  They were creatures that had a mythical nine lives. 

It wasn’t true, but the superstition literally insulted the Reaper.  Death was a sacred release of people from endless pain and torture.  These cats mocked her with their very existence.

It was bad enough the Phoenix had barged into her life with its unkillable presence.   She literally couldn’t kill Kiara.

The cats though.  Calli could kill the cats, before the smell of their liter boxes invaded this place she was now forced to live.

The Grim Reaper’s apprentice was trying her hardest to fulfil her mission.  She was already sick of this world and walking around like a living creature.

Calli missed her real home.  She missed talking to her boss and mentor.

There was more.  She missed being on the job.

The Reaper had an itch that she couldn’t scratch.  She had the urge to end any existence that wasn’t walking around in pure bliss.

That would be ok, right?   If people were miserable, or burnt out, it would be ok to release them from their torment.

It felt like mercy.  She should dispense mercy.   After all, it was her sacred mission.

The Grim Reaper’s apprentice was irritated by having to be in this living world.  Evil wasn’t being smited.   The unhappy weren’t being released from their existence.  People in pain weren’t being released from their torture be it physical, emotional, or spiritual. 

As the Reaper was getting irate, Smoothie and Chonkers backed up in their carriers so far that they were one with the back shadows.   Normally, they would growl a warning, but right now neither feline dared.  They could literally sense they were in the presence of death itself.

Kiara asked for a box from her apartment.   Calli summoned it from the same personal nether space she stored her scythe in.

The Phoenix placed the items in the room where she found them aesthetically pleasing.  Calli should have been territorial, but she couldn’t care less.  

This apartment belonged to the dead girl.  Calli felt no personal attachment to it other than what the body forced her to.

The Grim Reaper’s apprentice was compartmentalizing that as much as possible.   The human emotions were pissing her off.

These human feelings had incapacitated her for days.   She refused to keep being weak.  She would not fail her mentor.

Calli noticed the Phoenix was already almost out of boxes.   Twenty had already been broken down after being unloaded.

Saving time, Calli went ahead and summoned the last three.   That was literally everything from Kiara’s former residence.

This was what humans called moving.   Lacking underworld nether space, they had to use things like moving trucks according to the memories she was still processing.

Kiara declared, “That’s enough for today.”   The Phoenix was irritatingly proud of herself.

Kiara continued, “We should go get something to eat.  We could even go out clubbing.  It’ll be my treat.”

Calli responded, “What’s wrong with your cats?”

“Cats take a while to get used to a new place.  They’ll explore when they are hungry or need to use the litter box.”

Calli watched the felines.   She didn’t say anything.

Kiara said, “I noticed you didn’t have any napkins.”

Calli reached into the nether space and pulled out about 100 napkins.   In the physical world, she parked them on Kiara’s lap.

Kiara was shocked by that.  It wasn’t the magic that dropped the napkins into her lap.   It was the things hidden in the magic.

Kiara took a close look at the golden embroidery of the napkin.  It was unusually fancy for something that the Reaper offered like a paper napkin to be thrown away.

It was likely English or German, and the Phoenix could read it.  Kiara asked, “What’s the Titanic?”

Calli answered, “Some ship I got the napkins from while on a job.   I like collecting things that catch my eye, when no one will miss them.”

Kiara declared, “We’ll save these for special occasions.   We can get some paper napkins and towels in the meantime.”

Over the next hour, Kiara offered some advice on how to dress to go out with what Calli apparently owned.  Both did their makeup to blend with the humans outside.

Minutes after they both left the apartment, two felines crawled out of the carriers.  They were both crouched only about a millimeter off the floor as they rushed around.

Smoothie and Chonkers would eat and go to the bathroom.  Both were wondering what the heck their Phoenix owner had gotten them into…