Dream Girl Kogasa: Wendigo Hunt (Part 1)

-Orion Overworld, Zeal Kingdom, December 11th, 2013-

"No."

 The pink magical girl dug her heels in as the cameramen began to set up, ignoring the winged demons flying overhead and perhaps a few tentacles flailing about from house ruins. Her manager, sweating bullets, wrung his hands together as the girl put hands on her hips and huffed.

"But Misaka, your popularity will skyrocke-"

 "No," the girl repeated. "I refuse."

 "Think of the possibilities-"

 She whirled on him and snapped, "No, you stop thinking of ratings, ratings, ratings! Have you forgotten what took place here, oh, I don't know, 2000 YEARS AGO?!?"

 "B-b-but that was then!" he stammered, flinching at her words. "There aren't any Sins here to devour you or turn you into a monster! Just demons, demons aplenty!" There were stars in his eyes, and perhaps cash as well, as he continued, "Imagine how much you will be appreciated when Misaka, Soldier of Love, defeats the foul beasts and purifies the kingdom stained with sin long ago! The ratings would go up! Your name would be remembered by everyone! Hell, the Sages would name you an honorary sage, the greatest honor that could be bestowed upon anyone! Think about it, Misaka!"

 As she heard the groans of hungry demons, Misaka sighed and crossed her arms. "You're not paying me enough for any of this," she said. "Being able to kill actual demons was soooo not in my resume. I mean, I guess shrimpy ones like imps, I can handle, but eldrich beings and whatever else those Sins made just by existing here? No way, Jose!"

 "We already used up too much money trying to get here, Misaka! Can't you at least try?"

 "And whose fault was that, coming to a dead Kingdom that everybody and their mom warned you about?"

 The manager flinched again before turning to the cameramen. At least they were getting some pretty good shots here. If nothing else, they could just edit the footage to make it seem like Misaka killed a demon. To think, he spent all this money getting here, only for his ace in the hole to refuse to do anything. The groans of demons became louder, the stench of death becoming stronger.

 Misaka turned around and said, "Well, if that's done with, let's leave already! This place gives me chills just being here."

 "W-wait!" the manager cried, following after her. "You can't just leave! We have to at least film somethi-"

 Both stopped in their tracks, wide-eyed. Something towered over them, drooling, growling. They both took steps back as they heard the grumble of hunger, the stench of blood.

 Misaka turned towards the cameramen to scream, shout for them to run away.

 Their only warnings were a ravenous roar... and the crunch of bones.


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---Melodia, December 12th, 2013----

 The soft sound of a fiddle playing outside was welcomed with open ears after Marco and Lucy, once again, knocked over several Meloetta and Audino dolls, as well as a dozen mangas or so.

 It was always nice to hear something calming, after all. That and maybe it would get the two pranksters to sit still for a bit.

Nope. They just went and wrestled with each other as their owner let out a soft sigh. "You little tricksters," he said. "You're always making a mess! You guys should be playing with the toys I got for you, or even that box filled with packing peanuts! Not with my mangas!"

 Lucy, the albino ferret, looked up at her owner before dooking at him.

 "I know you have fun with them," he retorted, "but if you're gonna do that, always put them back where they belong! You know I have pretty long days when I'm recording stuff!"

 Marco, the sable ferret, scampered up to his owner and started picking up mangas with his mouth before doing quite a bit of gymnastics to put it riiight at the top shelf. Lucy watched as Marco went up and down before joining in fixing things up. Their owner smiled at them before helping them out for a little while. It didn't take long for the shelf to look just like it did before the little weasels knocked everything over: neat, organized, and with the cutest plushies ever.

 With that settled, their owner took a seat at his desk, booting up his laptop and finding quite a few messages on his Skype. Some were from his manager ("Remember, December 23rd, we're recording the Christmas Special for Nightmare Fighter Kogasa!") while others were from people he made friends with on a role-playing forum ("hey remember that time where we dropped a boombox on, like, this super annoying ultimate evil guy and beat him with an epic rap? that was amazing. when are you RPing the bard girl again?" ). Most of the messages, however, were from one particular person. One person he worked with just about every time he had to record another episode of Nightmare Fighter Kogasa.

 "KOGASA-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN~!" one of the messages said. "It's meeeee, Nazrin-chaaaaan! You're so buuuusy these days! :< please respond because I wnna taaaalk"

 With a smile, he began to type a response.

 "You don't have to call me Kogasa-chan outside of the show, you know :S"

 "Well, well, well, you're always Kogasa to meeee~! <3 What have you been up to?"

 "Oh, nothing but organizing my stuff. The long hamsters knocked them down again."

 "Oh nooooooooooooooooooooo! :CCC Well, is it at least nice in Melodia right now?"

 He looked out the window for a moment to see colorful musical notes floating in the skies like balloons as the bards played their instruments. The sun was high in the sky, the perfect time for music. Then again, in Melodia, any time is a good time for music.

 Turning back to his computer, the white haired youth typed, "Definitely! The bards are playing outside and they're really, really good! I love this kingdom so much! Well, next to the Cupcake Kingdom. For obvious reasons. o3o "

 "You're such a goof, Kogasa-cha- er... Well, Kevin!" replied 'Nazrin'. "You just want all the donuts there, don't you?"

 "Well, er...." Kevin blushed, glancing at a box of donuts sitting on top of his bed, guarded by the cat plush that defended the bed from terrors, before turning back to the monitor. "...Yes?"

 "Hehehe! That's our Kevin! Loves donuts more than aaaaanyone!"

 "Usagi would like to have words with you! And Sayaka! And several other magical girls. :I But yes, everything's fine here, Natalie. Just enjoying my break until the dreaded Christmas Special."

 "Uuuugh, don't remind me! Doing things in the cold with a short dress is a pain! And we did something with a Yuki-oona last year! Brrrr!"

 "Yeaaaah :C It's pretty cruddy, isn't it? I just wanna stay home and put on like 3 sweaters and hang out in a blanket fort, watching this new King of Beasts anime that came out on DVD. With a big mug of hot cocoa."

 "With extra marshmallows? :DDDD "

 "No. With EXTRA. EXTRA. EXTRAAAAA MARSHMALLOWS~~~ :3"

  Kevin couldn't help but giggle at his comment until the next message showed up from his friend. He made a "hmmm?" noise, his glasses shining for a moment after he adjusted them.

 "Well, I need to warn you about  something," it said. He could only imagine how serious she would sound if she was talking to him directly. "You know that one kingdom everybody gossips about? The Zeal Kingdom?"

 His heart jumped. This never ended well. Nothing dealing with Zeal, from what he heard, ended well.

 "Y-yes," he typed in response. "What about it?"

 "Well... Yesterday, I heard that 'Demon Slayer Misaka' was canceled, and it wasn't even past 20 episodes! So I went and looked into it, and I found out that they went to Zeal. And you know what happened?"

 Thump. Thump. Thump. He was shivering, thinking of the horrible possibilities, replaying it over and over in his head.

 "What happened...?"

 A few minutes passed before the next few messages were sent.

 "They found the star and her manager. Something took huge bites out of them. Their cameraman, too. The pictures... they're too gruesome to show."

 The actor paled, his head feeling a little light. But that wasn't all.

 "I heard that our manager is considering taking us there..." Natalie continued. "She knew Misaka really well, and she's really upset about things. She wants to avenge her death by taking out whatever ate her... but she knows he can't do anything. We, on the other hand, can. Sort of. Zeal's full of nasty stuff, and it's where the Sins originated, though, so..."


 Another pause.

 "Either way, I know how you like adventures, but I know that you don't handle certain things well. This is a pretty dangerous job, and I think we may need to call in a favor from one of our Relgion or Melodia fans. Do you wanna do this?"

 Deep breaths. Deeeep breaths. Lucy scampered over to Kevin's side and climbed her way onto his lap and into his white sweater, where she poked her head out and nuzzled her owner. He reached out for her and pet her with a smile.  Considerably calmer now, he finally typed out his reply.

 "Sure, why not? Might be a thrill! Although I think we should get someone that can keep whatever it is distracted. You know, so it doesn't eat us. :S "

 "Sure thing, Kogasa-chan~! We're going to rock the hell out of this monster, that's for sure! Nazzy and Kogasa, givin' a nice hot serving of justice and payback!"

 "This is kind of a weird time to be joking about that, since someone got eaten and all. o.o "

 "Sorry, but I had to lighten the mood somehow. Well... see you in a few days or so? Maybe start praticing your moves before we end up fighting the real deal. And... well...

Stay safe, okay Kev? ~<3"

Before Kevin could type out a reply, Natalie had logged off for the day. He sighed and turned to the lucky cat-shaped clock on the wall. 2 PM. Guess there was time to practice his abilities. Or he could just go for a donut run... Maybe both?

No, no... None of that. They say knowledge is power, right? Time to find out what sort of demons could have possibly eaten Misaka and her crew. Lucy watched as her owner adjusted his glasses, a serious look on his face, and opened up a net browser, setting himself to work...