Rise of the Gulus Hero (Open 3/3)

The day had been going surprisingly well for once. The new issue of Iwao's favorite manga magazine was out, and he managed to snag the last copy the nearest hobby store had in stock. After that stroke of luck, Iwao figured he'd get himself that figure that kept catching his eye as he came into the store. It was of the rival character from his favorite delinquent manga, an intense-looking blonde kid stood on top of a car tire. He made his purchase, tucked his purchases neatly in the bag so that they were hidden, and silently went on his way.

He was definitely pretty cheery, but you wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at him. In fact, the cashier checking out his items was shivering like it was -30 degrees in the store while doing so. As he walked across the sidewalk, those that noticed him tended to walk a little further away from. No, he didn't have some crazy stored power that people could sense as they approached him. He was just really good at acting intimidating. He strutted in a way that made it seem like he'd run you over if you didn't move out of the way, had an intense look hung up between his ears, and generally gave off the aura of someone who'd roll your jaw if you looked at him funny. This was all brought together by the outfit. He wore an old-school gakuran over his shoulders like a cape, like something from a punk manga come to life. It appeared to stay on his shoulders like magic, but you'd be surprised what well-placed velcro could do. All of this, for what amounted to a very dedicated cosplay. 

He'd make his way down the square, before briefly glancing towards a large commotion as he walked past it. He very nearly paid it no mind, but his eyes shot back to it after a brief moment. It was your standard kids stage show, with characters from a sentai series battling in front of a bunch of little kids, but among them was some big scaly guy he had never seen before. The costume department of this company must be insane! This thing looked like it wasn't even a costume, more like really high quality CGI! After watching the performance for a second, he just got even more impressed. Every individual finger and toe moved independently, the tail looked as if it was moving on its own, and the legs somehow bent backwards? It was just like how an actual animal would walk, like the ankle of the person in the costume was in their knees somehow. That thing was definitely uncomfortable as hell to wear, but that was par for the course with sentai monster suits. He stood off to the side a bit and decided to watch the rest of the show, purely to try to wrap his head around the effect of whatever monster this suit was of.

Suffice to say three groups in the crowd were definitely alerted and alarmed by the being in front of them, if this digimon was aggressive or wanted to pick a fight then things could get really bad and really fast. Though part of Shi didn't think that would be the case, considering he was on stage at the moment and not doing anything but sitting there with his arms crossed while everyone in front seemed to get seated. To which all of the sudden Shi felt a weight jump on his back climbing up and near his head, his Sister was now sitting on his shoulders to get a better view. "I couldn't find a seat close enough, this'll work though!" So now the teen had a magical girl on his shoulders, fun times.

The lights shined down on the stage finally, first to the Hero's on the left side of the stage, the lead one walking forward and pointing towards the GulusGammamon. "It's over now! We have you cornered Demon king! It's time we finish this!" With that line the rest of them got into fighting poses, well exaggerated fighting poses but fighting poses all the same.

Then the light shined on Gulus, his turn to talk. Eyes closed and his arms crossed a soft laughter was heard from the digimon before he threw his hands outward. "Bah, me Cornered? You humans would do well to understand the situation you've gotten yourself into. To delude yourselves into thinking you've caught me, that is your first mistake!" Turning his back to them he raised his shoulders up, shrugging as he took a few steps away from them. As the colorful cast started to approach though from seemingly nowhere. But if one looked really closely they could see them coming from behind stage. a girl in a dark outfit got between them. "After all, the last human to 'corner' me ended up as such a nice puppet, you can play with her instead!" Well that seemed to be the magical girl part of this whole situation.

With her raising her weapon towards the hero's it would seem it was time to start the fight, which was definitely interesting for Shi to see at least after a year or so of only seeing digimon fight. Seems Gulus took what he said literally at the moment as he noticed the digimon walk off stage and a bit away from the area out back.

Deciding Shi should probably go see what this was all about he looked up at his sister for a moment before asking. "Hey, wanna go bother that monster Miss. Starlight?" The little girl on his shoulders nodded and the Namika siblings started to make their way over to the area, where they and anyone else who decided to walk over would find the digimon leaning against the wall.

Iwao would notice that the suited man was seemingly off the job at this point. It should be fine to go up and get a closer look, right? He'd start walking towards the costumed individual, but noticed someone else beat him to the punch, calling them out before he had the chance. Iwao was already too curious about this anatomically dubious getup to care too much about this, so he'd wordlessly follow the "Demon King" into the back and start looking him up and down. He held his hands in his pockets, slouching over as he hunched his back upwards and downwards to get a look at any potential seams or zippers or....anything? Does this costume not have any openings or something? To Iwao, it just looked like scales, muscles, and claws.

"The hell does this costume work...?!" Iwao finally blurted in a gruff tone. "There some kinda hidden zipper or something?" He would then shrug, giving the mascot a brief smirk, saying, "I hope they're not paying you minimum wage, because there's no way that thing can be comfortable to wear."  

As the four groups made their way backstage where literally no one seemed to be around to stop them, it was interesting to see that security was rather light around here. Shi took a quick note of that as he walked up with a pair of parents making the rounds in front of him, a gruff guy who seemed interested in the costume and someone that Shi and Mirai actually knew, Kaya and her partner with her own little sister in tow. Raising his hand Shi gave a lazy wave while his sister on his shoulders gave a very energetic wave. "Of course we're interested, me and my. Wait what did we decide you were again brother?" She asked looking down at him in the eyes.

"We didn't, we stopped at secret assistant brother and then had to leave to come here." seems Shi was playing along with whatever fantasy his sister seemed to be going for, which if anyone knew Shi would seem a bit odd considering his normal loner personality. "Personally I'm a fan of the secret half brother that came back to life and sworn an oath to protect you from the shadows." Shi joked patting her on the head.

"We're working on it, right now he'll just be Shi. While I'm Miss Ultimate Starlight, defender of truth and love!" They'd probably notice her outfit didn't really match any known character, but if anyone was savy enough in that subject they'd notice a lot of, 'inspiration' was taken from some other magical girls, but it was its own custom design which was neat.

Back to the topic of Gulus while they were heading over they could most likely hear him talking to himself for a moment. "Ok, once they... Then I'll... And He'll..." However he was taken out of his train of thought for a moment as Mandrake called out to him, glancing over he saw them and saw the kids as well, letting out a small cough Gulus stood up straight crossing his arms in front of them. "Hmph, you are quite bold to call out to one such as I human, State your buisness before the lord."

Though another person started talking as well, asking how the costume worked. "Costume? Bah, this is no Costume. It is simply who I am, As for the funds I assure you I am given only the best for the work I do." While he was talking like this he seemed to be looking at the kids of the group, as if gauging their reaction. Mirai was definitely loving it.

Iwao would slowly nod his head up and down at GulusGammamon, assuming he was still trying to be in character for the kids around him. "Right...I'll just be over here then...Sire." Iwao sneered a bit as he said sire, and it was clear he was being mildly sarcastic. He was playing tough, but there was no way Iwao would ruin the imagination of these kids by breaking the illusion, so he decided to stop prying further for now. Instead, he'd take a few steps back, and continue trying to wrap his head around how this costume worked. The mouth was completely articulated, and had detailing down to the teeth. It's eyes even looked around, and the eyelids would blink naturally. To be quite honest, if he didn't know better Iwao would think this is some real life monster. That would be ridiculous though. Even a diehard manga reader like Iwao knew where fantasy ends and reality begins, although he usually did his best to blur that line for himself. Monsters, however, are way too far into the fantasy genre for his taste.

Iwao would have his arms folded, looking at GulusGammamon from every conceivable angle in order to somehow find any indicator that this was a costume. He was starting to get somewhat desperate for the answer, since this logically shouldn't take this long to figure out. As he was getting visibly frustrated looking at GulisGammamon, he overheard the conversation between another one of the guests and the "Demon King." If this were just a kid playing pretend he'd pay it no mind, but this person appeared to be an adult going along with some plot about a "Digimon", whatever that is. Now, Iwao of all people knew he wasn't in a position to judge people on their delusions, but the performance from before didn't seem to mention anything about a "Digimon". He'd eventually give it no mind, just assuming that it was something their kids decided to make up, and kept at the more pressing task of trying to figure out how this seemingly impossible dinosaur costume works.

"Yes we do big man I do not know?" Shi said rather bluntly looking up at the Holo-suited digimon, he had only met them in the digital world. Thankfully Kaya confirmed who they were talking to. "Mandrake and, Oh right. From the restaurant I think." Well that made sense at least, it would've been really weird that some guy Shi hadn't met before knew him. Shi didn't really confirm or deny his possible friendship with Kaya but just gave a nod that she was correct about how they knew each other, which wasn't to be rude or deny it or anything that's just kinda how he was.

"Nah, I'll leave that to team Rocket. I'm good taking care of earth for now!" After all starlight shined down on earth or something like that, was that what she was going for? Honestly it was hard to tell which fit in line with a small childs made up story.

"It's mostly just for fun, wear something you normally don't in public, show support for what you like. So long as it makes em happy who cares about the reason." His sister was smiling and that was good enough for him if he was honest.

Anyway back to the actual plot of this story, Gulus heard what Mandrake said and it was pretty clear it had annoyed him, enough to almost drop his persona, but he managed to quickly recovered. "There is naught a thing wrong with my senses I assure you! Mayhap you haven't realized it by now but I am quite distracted with my prior duties. As for what I'm doing here." Gulus was stopped by Kaya and Hawkeye slightly chastising Mandrake for his choice of words. "Tis quite alright Tamer and partner, I am quite used to accusations such as these. such words have lost their ability to bother me. My intentions are as they claim, no more no less. Whatever your daughter may of sensed came not from me." Though as he finished he suddenly felt something grab him by the waist, it was a small kid!

"Oh, heh. Thanks, quite bold of you to grab a 'demon lord' like this." For a moment his voice dropped back down to a much more calm and nice tone rather then the deep brooding demon lord voice he had been using before. Patting Mari on the head for a moment as he looked over towards Mandrake's Daughter. "I am sorry if i scared you, I just want to perform with my friends out there. I usually can't do stuff like this where I'm from."

"Don't worry, even if you're scary the defender of truth and love will surely protect you as well from meanies! Alongside my assistantsecrethalfbrotherguardian." Mirai announced as she leapt from Shi's shoulders over to the Gulus' swinging around his neck with another child hug. Thankfully he was sturdy enough to not fall over from the sudden force of a small child.