Day 183

[from StarLight]

"I summon the ANCIENT WARRIOR OF LIGHT, IN ATTACK MODE!"

The man with the long rose-coloured hair raised the card high above his head, and from out of it burst a heavily-muscled man in silvery armour so shiny it was almost blinding to look at. "Since I have Temple of Light in play," declared the man, in an unnecessarily-loud voice, "The Ancient Warrior of Light's attack is BOOSTED BY 500! AND HE GETS TO ATTACK YOUR LIFE FORCE DIRECTLY!"

"NOT SO FAST!" His opponent, a teenager with wild blue-and-yellow hair that pointed in all directions, held up a finger, grinning. "You just activated my Trap Card, Pit of Plot Convenience!"

"WHAAAAAAT?!!!" screamed the rose-haired man, reeling backwards in shock.

"That's right!" said the wild-haired teenager. "Pit of Plot Convenience sends any monster that attacks me into the PIT OF ETERNAL DARKNESS!"

"NOOOOO!!!" yelled the rose-haired man. "NOT THE PIT OF ETERNAL DARKNESS!"

"BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!" the teenager boomed. "Since it's a Monday, my left shoelace is untied, and I had bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning, Pit of Plot Convenience also allows me to summon THE ULTIMATE DRAGON MONSTER FROM MY DECK! AND YOU'LL ALSO RECEIVE THIS FREE TOASTER!" He held up the card in one hand, and the toaster in the other.

"NOOO!!! NOT THE ULTIMATE… wait, is that a four-slice toaster?" asked the rose-haired man.

"No," said the wild-haired teenager. "It's only a two-slice."

The rose-haired man dramatically fell to his knees and let out a loud "NOOOOOOO!!!" of despair.

***

As Amaya headed out of the school that afternoon, she, like most of the other students filtering out, couldn't help noticing the extremely loud card battle going on in the schoolyard. "Huh, so there is a card game anime going on here," she remarked.

"Apparently, the loser gets sucked into the Pit of Eternal Darkness for, uhh… eternity!" said an onlooker.

"Doesn’t that just mean they die?" asked Amaya.

"Sshh!" said the onlooker in a hushed voice. "They think 'Pit of Eternal Darkness' sounds cooler!"

"Well, I think they're losers," said Amaya, a moment before the rose-coloured man let out another scream of terror as the Ultimate Dragon reaped the last of his Life Points. "Losers with no concept of volume control," she added. That reminds me, I wonder how Sanae's getting on at the Sewing Club…

***

"Okay, first order of business," said Hitomi, adjusting a pair of red glasses she had put on. She didn't need them to see, but she thought they added to her moe appeal. "We all need official roles within the White Star Fan Club. I'll be the chairman, because this whole thing was my idea. Nagisa, you'll be the treasurer. You'll be in charge of our budget."

"What budget?" asked Nagisa. "The school isn't going to give us any funding!"

"Then we'll have to secure our own funding," said Hitomi.

"How?" asked Nagisa. "And what for?"

"You're the treasurer, you figure it out," said Hitomi, shrugging. "Mio, you're the secretary. You'll be making notes of each meeting."

Mio nodded, pulling a notepad and pen out of her bag. "Leave it to me," she said.

"Sanae, you can be vice-chairman, since you're the oldest out of all of us," said Hitomi. "Now, what could we get Hinata to do…"

"Well, I-I don't really mind," said Hinata nervously, "as long as it doesn't involve public speaking… o-or anything embarrassing…"

"Hmm…" Hitomi thought about it for a moment. "Oh! Since we're an official fan club, we should have a website, right? Are you any good at HTML coding?"

"I-I don't even know what that is…" stammered Hinata.

"Then just set up a Blagger page, and write articles on there about White Star's exploits!" said Hitomi. "I'm sure that'll do!"

"Oh, please," said Nagisa, "who even uses Blagger anymore?"

"We do!" said Hitomi.

Mio seemed to have had an idea. "Could we post fanfictions on the blog as well?" she asked.

"Why?" asked Sanae.

"Oh, no reason," said Mio, her glasses gleaming. "No reason at all."

"Sure, why not?" said Hitomi. "Just make sure they're good ones, and not just stuff you stole from F*nF*ction."

"Oh, I will," said Mio, smiling, "don't you worry about that."

"And no lewd fanfictions either!" said Sanae. "This series is rated T for Teen, and that should go for the website as well!"

"I agree," said Hitomi. "I couldn't possibly picture White Star in that way! But then, I'm guessing that's the same for all of us here, right?"

Mio's enthusiasm immediately took a sharp dive. "Uhh… yes, of course," she said. "I couldn't possibly think of White Star in such a perverted manner!"

"Okay, good!" said Hitomi. "Well, now that we've settled all of that, on to the second order of business…"

As Hitomi carried on speaking, Sanae was suddenly distracted by the arrival of Kousen, floating down through the ceiling and hovering in the centre of the table, unseen by everyone except her. "Another monster has just appeared," she said.

Are you sure that's not just the card game guy doing his card game things?, thought Sanae.

"It is not," said Kousen. "This monster has appeared downtown, in an area full of giant smoking buildings. They do not appear to be on fire, but if the monster damages them, something catastrophic might happen."

You mean the industrial area?, thought Sanae. That's not good. Okay, I'll be over there as soon as I can, I just have to get out of this meeting first.

"-senpai?" Sanae blinked as she realized Hitomi was addressing her. "What's wrong? You're spacing out."

"Uhh…" Quick, I need to think of an excuse. Bathroom? Phone call? Uhh… "I need to use the phone call. I mean, uhh, make the bathroom. I mean, uhh…" Panicking, Sanae pointed out of the window. "Look! A terrible getaway excuse!"

"Where?!!" The four underclassmen all turned to look out of the window, leaving Sanae to slip out of the room unnoticed.

"Heh, suckers," she said, as she headed down the corridor. "Alright, now that I'm finally away from those lunatics, I can get back to what this show is really about: me, beating the crap out of monsters!" Opening her bag, she took out the White Star Emblem and raised it into the air. "White Star: Transformation!"

Once more, Sanae was engulfed in a blinding white light. Her school uniform morphed into a beautiful white knee-length dress with violet lace trim. White thigh-high socks and high-heeled shoes gently enveloped her feet and legs, the straps of the shoes winding their way delicately up her shins. White gloves manifested themselves on her hands, and as the Emblem transformed into the White Star Wand, she clutched it tightly in her right hand. Finally, her hair curled itself into two neat ringlets either side of her head, and her transformation into White Star was complete.

White Star flew off through the corridors and out of the main entrance, and as she headed towards the industrial area, the White Star Fan Club - still searching for the terrible getaway excuse that Sanae had pointed at - suddenly noticed their hero flying away. "Omigosh! It's White Star!" Hitomi exclaimed. "Alright, gang, you know the drill: let's go follow her and cheer her on for victory!"

"Yeah!" cheered the other members. The four of them quickly rushed outside into the corridor, heading towards the exit.

"Hey, where did Sanae go?" asked Nagisa. "She was with us just a moment ago."

"Probably making the bathroom," said Hitomi. "What a shame… she's gonna miss out on seeing White Star battle!"