It's a nice cool afternoon after school. Ordinarily, Kotomi would wander off alone for a bit, but as a result of current Nightmare-events, she's taken to moping at home, reading manga, and taking far too many naps.
Now, however, she's walking up the street in the direction of Verone Aquarium, accompanied by her sister Kurumi; they're respectively wearing the middle school and elementary school uniforms of Verone, and Kurumi has her hair in twintails.
And, of course, Kotomi is looking considerably less enthusiastic about being here than Kurumi, who is ... not quite dragging Kotomi along, but one can hear it in Kurumi's voice as she says, "C'mon, sis, the aquarium will be fun!" She tugs at Kotomi's sleeve. "I said you can't just stay cooped up at home, and I meant it!"
Kotomi laughs weakly. "I know, I know ..." There's still no enthusiasm, though.
Riley stood upon the roof of a tall building, the cape of her "superhero" suit billowing in the stiff high altitude winds. Normally such a thing could be described as "moping", but, seeing as she was a *mighty* all American superhero, this was simply "brooding".
This is what all good superheroes do. Batman, Superman, you name it. They seemed especially fond of such things in the early 2000s but Riley didn't really know for sure. She wasn't around for most of it. Heck, she was just a year or so old at the start of the MCU proper. Scary thought.
In truth though, she was more just people watching. People watching while looking all dramatic and serious sure, but simply people watching nonetheless. In fact, she could have sworn she saw Kotomi.
Yes, it is indeed highly probable that Riley saw Kotomi. However, her attention might be caught by a very weird sensation of approaching ... darkness.
Kurumi huffs up at Kotomi. "Kotomiiiiii!" she whines. "Don't just act like that!"
Kotomi shakes her head. "Sorry," she says softly. "I'm just ... working through some stuff, and ..."
"Hah!" Kurumi says. "So there is something!" She pokes Kotomi's nose. "You're my big sister, you're not supposed to hide stuff, you're supposed to set a good example for your little sister!"
Without missing a beat, Kotomi says, "You have more experience being a sister than I do. Uh-oh ..."
"What?" says Kurumi.
The crowd suddenly begins stampeding away as a large monster lumbers out of an alleyway! Its body is comprised of multiple unconnected segments, which seem to consist of either a red orb labeled "O" and two blue orbs labeled "H", or two large red "O" orbs. The entire thing keeps giving off bursts of purple dark energy as it starts lumbering directly towards Kotomi!
Kurumi yelps and starts running away! She comes to a sudden stop, however, when she hears Kotomi's reaction: an exasperated groan.
Well it was a nice day for superhero-ing Riley supposed.
The girl stepped forward, hopping off the roof's edge and fell downwards, spinning herself over so that she was plummeting head-first into the pavement. Feeling the wind whip against her face she closed her eyes...
PCHWOOM!
Fire errupted from her, searing hot flames coursed over her body forming the shape of an eagle as she arced up and away from the ground, her fist inside the fiery avian form's beak as she landed a fist on the... whatever it was. An "Oh" that fires lasers? She seriously had no idea.
She didn't hang around after her strike though, propelling herself upwards with the eagle spitting and sputtering, leaving behind a giant American flag overhead as she finally performed a three point touchdown upon the ground right in front of Kurumi and Kotomi hard enough to crack and dent the pavement beneath her, leaving it smouldering.
Yeah the taxpayer'll cover that. Freedom, bitches!
The monster gets knocked off-course by the sudden fire-punch, which hits one of the O-O segments, which somehow causes the fire to flare up brighter and hotter! It staggers back, and quickly moves the segments around itself, moving more H-O-H segments against the flames and spraying out puffs of dark energy which ... oddly seems to douse the fire? Somehow?
Kotomi interposes herself in front of Kurumi. "Oh, hi, H-- uh. Brass-san ..."
Kurumi says, "What!?"
Kotomi whirls around. "W-why are you still here!?" she exclaims. "Get out of here, it's me it's after!"
Kurumi says, "WHAT."
The monster doesn't stay still for long, however. Putting an H-O-H segment at the front, it charges towards Riley, and hence Kotomi and Kurumi, spraying dark energy towards the Prism Keeper! The energy attack has two effects: draining energy from anyone it touches, and dousing any flames in its path!
A few of the people in the crowd stared at Riley's flashy entrance for a second, naturally enough though from a safe distance. There was at least one small high pitched voice cheering for "superman", before being rather quickly shushed. Riley took a moment to respond though, grinning and giving a thumbs up right back.
Her attention however was soon grabbed by one of the purple beams whipping past her head! She ducked to the left, then to the right, ducking and weaving out of the way and even drawing her sword and parrying one with the blade which nearly sent her flying onto her backside until she corrected herself.
Hovering there, she raised her hand, letting loose a purifying beam at the.. whatever the heck it was. Riley had no words to describe the thing apart from "oh". Which wasn't even really a word as *such*.
The monster once again recoils from the assault! And ... yeah, when it hits the H-O-H segments, it seems to be less effective, but when it hits the O-O segments, the fire flares up and increases in power! Once again, the monster takes a moment to douse the flames with energy from the H-O-H segments ...
"Why does that look familiar," mumbles Kotomi, who is cowering back against a wall.
Kurumi grumbles, and grabs Kotomi's arm, starting to drag her away.
In response, the monster rears up, and starts lunging towards Kurumi and Kotomi, ignoring the Prism Keeper completely! It fires a spray from the lead H-O-H segment ...
Kotomi shoves Kurumi away, and takes the brunt of the attack. She promptly slumps against the wall, looking exhausted. And suddenly soaking wet.
Riley looked almost insulted! "Hey! Hey asshole! Over here you great big exclamation! Big badass all American superhero here to kick your ass! Stop trying to eat civilians!"
"Captain..." PSHWOOM! She fired another burst of flame at an O section.
"America..." She fired another, punctuating each shot by yelling at the thing.
"Aint got..." SCHOOM!
"SHIT ON ME!" She switched to both hands, firing as big a burst as she could, again, targetting the "O" sections. She hadn't quite figured it out as of yet, but what she did see was that the thing seemed to burn up reaaaal good if she gave it a proper good smacking right there.
In the monster's distraction, Prism Keeper Brass's attacks strike true, and it promptly begins flailing around! It tries to move the H-O-H segments closer to put out the fire, but it's clearly trying to do several things at once, and doesn't have enough of an attention span to focus much on either offense or defense ...
Kurumi tries to help Kotomi back to her feet. Kotomi just stares at the monster, dazed, and finally mutters, "O2." Her voice has gotten even less girly than it usually is. She laughs weakly, leaning heavily against Kurumi. "And H2O."
"You have got to be kidding me," Kurumi replies.
Riley tried to keep up the pressure, hovering over the thing as it flailed about and smashing it with beam of fire after beam of fire. The little superhero was a little busy trying to fight the thing to be thinking about its molecular structure right about now, hitting O segment after O segment in an attempt to just keep frying the thing, the bursts of crackling, surging flames radiating from her hands reflecting in the almost mirror finish of her aviator shades.
Yeah safe to say Riley was actually feeling pretty good about this whole superhero malarky right about now. Who knew burning things was so damn satisfying?
With a few more blasts of flame, the monster starts to lose cohesion. Some of the O2 segments sprout a third brown orb labeled "C", and in general, they start to become less super-effective and more normal-effective, as well as starting to become normally-effective against the H2O segments. Finally, it gives up the ghost; the CO2 and O2 segments and half of the H2O segments evaporate into a purple mist, and the other half of the H2O segments melt into water.
"Okay, whew," says Kotomi.
"What was that thing?" says Kurumi.
Kotomi freezes up nervously. "Uhh ..." This is the worst-case scenario! ... Actually, no it isn't, because the Eater of Dreams isn't attacking them at the moment, but ...
Riley landed in front of the two, this time far more gently than before. "Considering that an "oh" monster was trying to tear your face off, I'd say this is a pretty good scenario honestly. Hey, no one got killed and the property damage is eeehh..."
Riley looked around, seeing the chunks ripped out of the pavement here and there as well as the original crater from when she landed. "Minimal. Yeah. Minimal."
Kotomi furrows her brow. "Okay, uh ..." She stops. "You know what, I'm just not gonna object." She starts to get her voice back under control. "Brass-san ... this is my little sister Kurumi. Kurumi, this is Prism Keeper Brass, a magical girl ... and ... also a superhero, she's one of a whole bunch of people who protects Tokyo from these random encounter monsters called 'youma'."
Kurumi glares at both of them. "How long have you been part of all this?"
"Since January," says Kotomi. "But then in February, I got cursed by a monster to 'smell delicious' to creatures of darkness."
Riley, not sure how to respond to herself and the whole Prism Keeper thing as a whole being introduced like that, just grinned and saluted. "Just doin' my job. We're basically like the Avengers, except we don't have as big a budget. That and I'm the only one with a cool suit."
She thought back for a second. "Uuuh, how long have I been a part of this? About four months now I reckon."
Kurumi peers at Brass. "I don't know anything about the Avengers," she says. "I'm gonna --"
She stops suddenly, then turns to Kotomi. "That thing about Hanazawa-san's girlfriend Ariel being stuck with a monster wasn't a joke, was it," she says accusingly.
Kotomi recoils nervously. "Uhhh ... no, it wasn't," she says softly.
Kurumi facepalms.
Riley shifted back to her more ordinary self with a final woosh of flame, the classic but slightly "knightly" themed superhero suit smouldering and burning away to reveal a more normal day to day outfit, which in this case consisted of a black hoodie, jeans, and white sneakers. She looked down when the conversation turned to Ariel, nodding.
"Yeah. Yeah we lost someone recently. Someone important. We're trying to find a way to bring them back still."
Kurumi looks surprised at both Riley's sudden change in appearance and at the suddenly dark turn this took. "... okay," she says, trying to play it cool and not quite succeeding. "Now I know I haven't just wandered into one of Kotomi's weird magical girl books."
She sighs, and looks up at Kotomi. "What are we gonna tell mom about how you got all wet?"
Kotomi, still unsteady on her feet, struggles to think a moment. Then she perks up. "Oh, I know!" she says. "We can say I fell into the water while we were walking on the pier."
"Sounds better than what I'd have made up." Riley said, rolling her shoulders for a moment. "I suck at making excuses. My last one had something to do with "aurora borealis" and "isometric excersise"."
Kurumi sighs softly and grabs Kotomi's arm. "Let's just get you home," she says softly.
Kotomi nods. "Okay," she says. "I'll, um, see you in the dream-world when the time comes, Hunter-san ..."