A new beginning (the cosplay cafe)

During one of her daily runs through her hometown of Talonia Amita comes up to her favorite street performer and stops. "Good morning Aether, how's business going so far today?" She says optimistically. He replies "not so good I'm afraid, I swear you're the only person in this town that actually likes my music." "Oh I'm sorry to hear that, but hey don't give up your music is great you're just ahead of your time." Amita says as she pulls out a jewel."Here now you won't go home completely empty handed" Aether accepts the money and asks "any requests?"
Amita responds "just play something I can dance to." and gives a wink to the musician. He begins playing, and she begins dancing. It doesn't take long before a crowd forms and people begin dropping jewels in the bucket. The performance comes to an end and Aether picks up the bucket holding it out to Amita."here Amita you've earned this." but she quickly shakes her head saying. "no you take it your music is great you deserve it." Aether looks down "it wasn't my music that drew this crowd, but if you insist let me at least tell you about this job I heard about." Amita scratches her head thinking then suddenly slings her head to the face to her right "whaaattt!" she says exasperated "don't interrupt, I'm talking to my friend!" she turns back to Aether and says "sorry, please go ahead." Aether looks concerned for a moment but shakes it off having known Amita for a few years now he's used to this kind of behavior. "right, well it's a fancy capital job, all expences covered and it pays great on top of that. It really doesn't even sound hard either, just hang out at a cosplay cafe all day serving drinks. You might have to deal with a few rowdy customers but I've seen you handle worse. And don't worry about your parents, they came by earlier and I cleared it with them for you." "man that does sound good, when does it start?" "tomorrow, go home and get ready and you can make the train to stay at a hotel overnight and they'll provide you with a costume when you get there. " Thanks Aether I owe you one" Amita shouts over her shoulder as she runs off. He shakes the bucket and says "no you don't. before Amita knows it she's on the train, and in her excitement time blurs then she's at the hotel checking in, then it's morning and it's time to get dressed.

Sigurd instantly regretted taking on the odd job that his friend from the culinary school had sent him. His friend had recently opened a cafe in the city and had several last minute call outs in her staff. Sigurd had responded to the posting she had sent out to her former classmates, assuming that she was looking for temps to work in the kitchen. When he got there, he had the terrible realization that not only was she looking for coverage for her front-of-house staff, but that this was in fact a cosplay themed cafe.

The tall ex-noble walked through the cafe seething with embarrassment. He owed the owner a favor, and would never leave a fellow chef in the dust with no servers, but he would get her back for her choice in costume. Sigurd, an avid comic book reader, knew of Muscle-Maid, the gag manga about a built, raven-haired hunk keeping the streets clean in more ways than one. He couldn’t rightly call himself excited at the prospect of cosplaying said superhero whilst serving tea and crumpets.

He heard the bell that was attached to the front doorway and turned towards it, dreading who might have arrived to see him in his french maid outfit, complete with a frilly miniskirt, lace headpiece, an fishnet stockings. Thankfully, he was allowed to wear black flats and skip the heels that the true Muscle-Maid wore.


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As a loyal member of the Rune Knights, Kathrine usually saw part time jobs as beneath her. She had little care for having lots of jewels, which was why almost all of her pay went to buying new clothes, armor, and weapons that she could use with her requip magic. Beyond that simple meals were enough, so she rarely ate out and barely even knew what a cosplay cafe was.

All of which is to say, today was a day off from her Rune Knight work and she had found herself taking up a part time job at a newly opened cosplay cafe in the capital. In leu of payment, she had been promised that she could keep the outfit she was dressed as. Having no chances to serve the Rune Knights on her days off was painful, but the chance to keep such a cute outfit was almost as good! It hardly even mattered that the bunny maid outfit had no magical enchantments.


Crash

The sound of a plate hitting the ground and shattering filled the cafe for the umpteenth time as Kathrine stared down as the broken glass in bewilderment. She was an agent of Justice who routinely hunted down dark mages and other criminals. Why was it so hard for her to keep a hold on these plates? It was like they were cursed to jump out of her hands the moment she was not looking at them.

“Hey,” shouted the cafe’s owner from the kitchen. “I’m taking those broken plates out of your pay!”

Kathrine quivered in fear at that, as she was not entirely sure she would be able to keep the outfit at this rate. No. She was Kathrine Albrect, from the Albrect line of Rune Knights! She could do this. She could master this art of “waiting tables.” Then she would receive her reward, and prove how capable she was.

Crash

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Amita came walking through the door wearing long floor length blue wig in braided pigtails with various bits of metal odorning both braids, a short leather crop top with white string wrapped in a thick x shape on the chest, a pair of tight purple and black striped pants, a pair of heavy combat boots with a thick steel toe over the top, as well as a decorative belt that hung loosely off her waist holding a clunky looking gun prop and fake bullets, finished off with blue clouds painted all down her right side and arm. She was admittedly a bit uncomfortable in this costume, the top was fine although a bit revealing, and she may have underestimated the weight of the boots, but most of all the pants were too tight. Amita can't stand tight pants they make her feel too constricted, like she can't move freely, it made her skin crawl. Despite those minor inconveniences though she stood there confidently surveying the Cafe, Jinx is a personal hero of Amita's because despite having the same mental problems she was able to save a lot of people also Amita figured if she ends up having an episode today people will just think she's playing the character really well. The first person Amita noticed was a man in a maid costume. Trying not to giggle she said "oh umm hey there... cutie did you uhh lose a bet or something?"

Words: 240
Total words: 1,222

An intense embarrassment washed over the ex-mage, but rather than blush and cower, he tensed up and radiated an even more dour aura. The negative energy coming from Sigurd was so intense, a wild animal’s instincts would most likely have told it to flee the scene, tail between legs.

“I don’t… gamble. As a rule. The owner is a friend of mine from school, I owed her a favor, now are you a customer?” Sigurd looked at the blue-nette costume the girl was wearing, not recognizing it as a costume. After all, it wasn’t the strangest getup he’d seen a citizen of Fiore walking around in. This world of mages sure knew how to express themselves.

As he inspected closer, he was able to discern that the hair was in fact a wig, and the girl was most likely also a temp server. He didn’t recognize her from culinary school, but that could be said for most of the staff. It seems as though his friend not only put out the request for help to her old classmates, but also must have made a public job posting somewhere.

“Ah, ok you’re working front of house too. Well, look sharp! As silly as this gimmick is, this is still a fairly nice cafe. Our service should be top of the line,” he said, coldly, looking over at the walking disaster of a waitress the girl in the bunny ears had turned out to be, ”Though I suppose it’d be hard to the weak link on this particular team unless you manage to kill one of the customers. Oy! Bunny maid! Do you need some help?”

The tall blonde made his way over to Katherine, ducking gently to catch a coffee mug she had liberated from a customer’s table somehow. He grimaced at her, “I don’t imagine you have much experience with this, huh? Just try and be mindful of your surroundings, and take it as slow as you need. Better the customer waits too long than sees their meal smashed onto the floor.”

More irritating than getting stuck in the outfit was the idea he needed to be training his fellow servers on how to carry a tray of plates. He had yet to see Amita’s competence with the task, but he was to jaded in general to be holding out hope, “I’ll be right back to give you a refill ma’am,” he said, forcing a smile at the customer as he put her half empty mug back on the table, striding off to fetch a coffee pitcher.

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“I am perfectly capable of carrying a mug!” Kathrine said shortly to the strange, cross dressing man. Now, obviously what she said was a bold face lie, but she was too proud to admit to it. Or even acknowledge it privately for that matter. To make her point, she stomped back to the kitchen before Sigurd could, filled up a new mug with an orange colored liquid, and then carried it to the table. She even managed to place it in front of the correct customer. Having managed to do so before the failed attempt at being a femboy had been able to, she turned to give him a smug look.

“Um,” she said nervously. “This is orange juice not coffee.”

“You ordered orange juice,” Kathrine said, the cold stare she gave causing her to shrink back in her seat a little (but also blush for some reason?).

“Oh, uh, yes I guess I did order orange juice,” the customer said, sounding a bit afraid yet also happy for reasons the rune knight could only assume was pleasure at her serving abilities. “Thank you ma’am.”

Giving a satisfied nod at his response, she turned around and got a fresh order from the kitchen and placed it down on another table in front of a young man. One clearly here just to enjoy the cosplay, which did not bother her. It was the entire point of the restaurant after all. “Here is your order.”

“I… haven’t ordered yet?” he said, confused. As evidence of this, the cafe’s menu was still held in his hands.

“You did,” she said with a glare, “and this is it.”

“Thank you?” he said looking no less confused but clearly unwilling to argue with her. Now having served two tables without any issues whatsoever, Kathrine was feeling much more confident about this whole serving thing. As long as she was able to keep this up for another couple of hours without breaking any more dishes, then she could safely leave with her bunny-eared prize. Turning to try and find another table that required her expert service, she nearly tripped over a new girl with long blue braids.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!”

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Amita chuckles nervously. "my apologies ma'am, I suppose you weren't able to see me. Well anyways you're obviously waiting tables, and I suppose the man maid is a concierge?" She turns to the tall blonde man and says "to answer your question yes I heard about this job from a friend of mine, although I don't think I'd be too good at actually interacting with the people" she looked as though she was trying very hard not to look away from the man while talking."but I am very good at drawing a crowd!"

Amita draws her toy gun and fires a small pink ball at the jukebox which then begins playing a popular song. A few of the customers that saw this exchange get the attention of others and point. A low murmuring of the phrase "did you see that?" could be heard all across the caffe.

Amita begins slowly walking towards the center of dining area, swaying her hips to the music. She begins dancing a seductive kind of belly dance, much to the chagrin of many girlfriends and wives. While dancing she maneuvers between tables spending a few seconds at each one before moving on, making sure everyone gets a good show. At the last table she spins, bends back and snags a half empty basket of fries, dumps them out, pulls out a pen, writes tips on the side, then slides it across the floor to the center of the room then she back handsprings to it ending in a double backflip right as the song ends. She then winked at her coworkers and walked over to properly meet them, leaving the tips basket on the floor.

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Total: 280

Sigurd watched his coworkers go about their unique methods of customer service, mouth agape and neurons short circuiting. In all his years working in food service, he had never seen such a unique pair of waitresses in his life, a term he assigned to them with an utter lack of enthusiasm. Witnessing Amita launch some kind of projectile from her toy weapon, Sigurd realized that of course such a ruckus was to be the fault of a mage. It would not surprise him if the blonde were also a wizard, in which case things were likely to get messier and messier unless someone tried to take control of the situation asap. Croaky, hoarse stutters escaped his lips as he tried to maintain some semblance of decorum, dressed in his embarrassingly tight costume. Finally, he smacked himself in forehead and let out an exasperated sigh.

”OK, you two. You are clearly a set of very talented individuals in your own right, but I must remind you both that this is a restaurant. This is an establishment where people are served food and beverage,” he asserted, going up to the woman sipping her orange juice snatching the glass out of her hand, inadvertently spilling some on the shocked woman’s lap. He took hold of the coffee pitcher he had retrieved during the chaos and poured her a mug-full, slamming the cup on the table so hard it’s a miracle it didn’t crack.

He then walked over to the man who Katherine had placed the hot meal in front of earlier, picking up the plate and carrying it over to another table, where the person who had placed the order for a potato, pepper, and cheese omelet had been patiently waiting. He placed it on the table, glared at the customer, turned around, and transferred his glare to his two coworkers, the popular song Amita had turned on still playing cheerfully in the background.

Any humor or joy the patrons were experiencing thanks to Amita’s skilled bellydancing and Katherine’s bossy attitude did not elude the chef. Still, they flew in the face of everything he believed about in terms of food service, I cannot believe my friend is running an establishment like this. Has she forgotten how sacred the relationship between chef and patron should be? If this is what a cosplay cafe is truly like, how horrible that would be.

”Gimmicks of this place being what they may be, I will not allow the two of you to behave so boorishly as employees of my friend’s restaurant. Just take the customers’ orders, relay them to the kitchen, and deliver the food like normal people. I beg you. If you want to show off your magic or put on some charm while you do so, that’s your prerogative, but at least do it after making sure they got what they ordered. Is that really too much to ask?”

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Kathrine glowered at the other woman after bumping into her, but as the woman apologized for her mistake the rune knight did not make a big fuss about it. There was no Justice in overreacting. On the other hand the cross dresser was undoing all her hard work at perfectly serving tables. Her first instinct was to summon her sword and cut the naive down, but she forced the thought down. Since she was not on official rune knight business she could not kill him for interfering with her work. A frustrating loop hole in the rules, perhaps one day she could advocate for the ability to cut down anyone deserving of it.

While distracted by thoughts of justified murder, the other woman had begun dancing for some inexplicable reason. Her movements proved to be… distracting, and Kathrine forgot what she was doing for a moment. Then she shook her head to clear her thoughts. Such things were unimportant when it came to doing her job, and her job must always take priority no matter how attractive the other person was. Which is what brought her back into conflict with the annoying cross dresser.

“You are not my commander,” she growled at him when he tried chewing her out for her excellent service. What did this strange little man think that he could tell her what to do? She had half a mind to try and get an arrest warrant for him. The lack of concrete evidence of wrongdoing was a bit of a problem, but nothing was impossible for an agent of Justice. “Only my commander can give me orders. …and the woman who owns this place. You are neither of those!”

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Amita looked up at the tall man, clearly more erratic than before but trying very hard to hide it, she poked a finger in his chest. "What's your problem man? Are you allergic to fun or something? This is a cosplay cafe, people don't come here for five star food, they come for a show." Amita begins sweating and looked as though she was exerting tremendous concentration not to look in another direction.

She span on her heel to address the customers "Show of hands, who here enjoyed the dance? One, two, three, shut up! she snapped her head to the side, then looked back apologiticaly. "three, four, five, six, ok so not all of you but a pretty good amount. Shut UP! Amita spins one hundred eighty degrees to face an empty section of the cafe. A low murmur of recognition riples across the crowd. Amita chuckled nervously then attempted to get the attention off of herself "haha, yeah and let's here it for the sexy maid waitress over there." she pointed out Kathrine and began clapping "quote unquote accidentally mixing up your orders, just to encourage you to be more adventurous, give her a round of applause!" a round of clapping and a few woops slowly sweep across the cafe.

Amidst the applause, Amita slips back over to the duo of her coworkers and stops right in front of Kathrine "hey I'm sorry, I know we don't each other but I'm starting to spiral and I really need some help." she whispered quietly and quickly then turned again and screamed "I said SHUT UP! AAAAAGGGHHHH!" then she ran into the bathroom crying while the customers erupted into loud applause.

WC: 281
Total:1321

Not here for the food? Well, certainly that could not possibly be the case, at least not in the world that Sigurd chose to live in. Still, he was trying to determine what was going on with his two coworkers, who at the very least had seemed to slow down in their chaotic methods of serving. What Katherine had said at least made some sense to him. It’s true that in the chain of command he was not above her in this restaurant. It really made him wonder what the friend who owned the place was up to, but regardless, perhaps he should have taken a less demanding tone with the blonde.

The girl in the blue wig also did seem genuinely capable of covering for the mistakes that Katherine had been making. As shoddy and excuse as “forcing customers to branch out” was to Sigurd, the audience who had been enjoying the antics so far seemed to genuinely be having a good time. Sigurd still thinks they should reorient their efforts around high quality and standard service, but in terms of saving the awkward vibes, he feels Amita had acted with notable insight. Still, it was odd that she had run off in tears, and Sigurd wasn’t quite sure what it was that had set her off like that.

With a concerned look, the maid-uniform clad man sighed in Katherine’s direction, “Well at the very least, things are pretty quiet right now. I’m going to go check on our coworker and make sure it’s normal food service tears and not something out of the ordinary. We’ve got about an hour before the brunch service ends and we’re off the clock, I’m sure nothing will burn down if I leave you alone out here, short stuff.”

With that he made his way to the bathroom. Knocking on the door, he called out, ”Hey, blue-hair. You okay in there? Sorry for getting all upset earlier I think things are fine now, and the shift is done soon, nothing to be stressed about.”

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Just as Kathrine was feeling like her verbal attack had worked out, the other woman started screaming and then ran out of the room. This left Kathrine thoroughly confused as what to do. While she was fairly certain societal norms would dictate that someone should go check on her, the rune knight had less than zero desire to be the one to do it. She could not be considered a considerate person by any means, she when the crossdresser offered to check on the woman instead Kathrine was visibly relieved.

“Yes, someone does need to stay out here,” she said curtly. “With my obvious skill at serving it does only make sense for it to be me.”

Leaving the overly bossy man to deal with the mentally disturbed girl, Kathrine returned to waiting tables. Being extra careful, she managed to not drop any more dishes. She also probably got at least one order right. Well, okay she got absolutely none of them right but that was okay. Half of the customers seemed to be put off by her rude attitude, while the other half seemed to want her to boss them around even more. Apparently she was causing people to discover sides of themselves they did not know existed, and she was blissfully unaware of all of it.

As the generous tips from one type of customer were more than balancing the lack of tips from the other, the owner of the cafe apparently saw no reason to get involved. Whether that was a wise choice or not remained to be seen. Perhaps she was operating under the premise that there was no such thing as bad publicity, because there was no question that most of the customers Kathrine interacted with would be telling other people about it.

Some time had passed since the other two waitresses had gone to the bathroom, and Kathrine was currently standing at the end of one table looking down at the food she had delivered perplexed. It was a lovely omurice that she had, as instructed, drawn a heart on with ketchup. Just for some reason the entire dish was on fire, the blaze nearly reaching the ceiling. How that fire had started, she had absolutely no clue.

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Amita bursts into the bathroom with shaking hands and blurry vision, her chest heaving from what had then become a full blown panic attack. Every second felt like an eternity as nightmares surrounded her violently ripping her attention from one scene of carnage only to plunge her head first into another. "No, no no no no no no no no, you aren't real, leave me alone." Her hands were gripped tight into the wig, but when that wasn't comforting enough she shed it and latched onto two fistfuls of her real hair. She was stumbling back and forth, jerking her head from one horror to the next bawling her eyes out.

She then heard a knock on the door, and quickly turned her head and skips over to open it. "oh hello mister maid hehehe did you need to potty? Well I'm finished now so it's all yours. Might I say you look absolutely gorgeous in your cosplay by the way, I love muscle maid, we should totally hang out sometime when we aren't working."

Amita cartwheeled past the tall blonde man, then stopped and over dramatically skips backwards to stand next the man again. "oh I'm sorry hehehe I never asked your name did I, my name is Amita Asani, it is such an unbelievable pleasure to meet you." She was grinning from ear to ear and it seemed as though everything was funny to her the way she kept giggling, even her voice seemed like she was just the most happy go lucky girl in the world, that is if it wasn't for the very obvious meltdown she had earlier, and the massive tear streaks that smeared her makeup which unfortunately drove the customers wild since to their knowledge this was all just part of the act.

WC: 300
Total: 2337

Sigurd wasn’t sure what to make of the quick turn in attitude by his temporary coworker. Indeed, to act with such an outgoing attitude while not even attempting to clean up the tearstained makeup around her eyes, there was something going on. The tall man in the maid outfit was not necessarily one to deal with interpersonal situations with too much tact, but he was genuinely concerned. His concerns continued to increase, however, as the distinct smell of smoke began to fill his nostrils.

Looking back towards the dining room, he saw flames and smoke winding their way to the ceiling. Caught between decisions, he thought fast, and slipped into the women’s bathroom.

Luckily, no one was around, as he steeled his nerves. It had been years since he had even attempted something like this, but hopefully he still had it in him. He pointed to the tiled floor and announced the name of a superhero from his favorite comic Defenders of the Earth.

”Nautilus, Defender of the Seas, blah blah blah, come out now I need your help.”

From a white circle, a man emerged, clad in blue, fish-themed armor. He had some kind of arm cannon strapped to his wrists, and his belt had a large silver N prominently displayed. He struck a confident pose, laughing as he clapped the washed up former mage in the maid costume on the shoulder. His outfit was much different than the last time that Sigurd had summoned him. Of course, Sigurd realized that in the time between then and now, Nautilus had received a power up in the story of the comic books, with this new suit being stronger and faster underwater.

“Well, boyo, it’s been a while hasn’t it? Good to see you! Where is the armor you always wear?” the oldest member of the Defenders was as cheerful and paternal as ever.

”No time for conversation right now, Nautilus. There’s a fire I need you to put out, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few more around the corner today. I need to check in on another situation. Oh, and if anyone asks, you’re a cosplayer and you work here,” Sigurd ran off to check on Amita, leaving Nautilus to stroll out of the women’s bathroom. He quickly identified the source of the smoke, and hurried over, spraying a jet of water from the cannon on his wrist to put it out.

”Have no fear, Nautilus is here! My water is the tenacity of humanity, it will never dry up!” he said, striking a pose.

The customers ooh’d and ah’d, thinking both Amita’s disheveled makeup, the fireshow, and this new cosplayer were all part of the entertainment provided by the cafe. One girl’s eyes lit up as she shouted, ”Omigosh! That’s literally, like, the most accurate Nautilus cosplay I’ve ever seen. I looooove the Defenders series.”

Meanwhile Sigurd was trying to get Amita’s attention in another corner of the dining room.

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While watching the flames dance, the young rune knight came to realize that none of her requips were of particular help here. Her focus on gathering weapons and armor that made her stronger in battle left her without anything she could use in situations like this. That was a troublesome realization. As she was trying to figure out how to put out the fire, her female coworker burst out of the restroom looking somewhat worse for wear. Between the fire burning in front of her and her blue haired, or rather black haired now, coworker coming out with makeup running down her face, Kathrine was momentarily frozen by indecision.

In the end she did not get a chance to come to a decision as a bizarrely dressed blue man appeared from the bathroom and began hosing down the fire. His efforts proved effective as the fire was quickly dealt with, with the side effect that the woman who had been in the firing line had been drenched down to her skin. That woman naturally being Kathrine.

Instead of being glad that the mysterious fire had been taken care of, Kathrine turned toward the blue costumed man. In the same moment she drew upon her magic power, and a black and red sword appeared in the bunny girl’s hand. This she pointed directly at the offending magic user with a furious look upon her face. The effect was somewhat subdued by the water dripping down from her hair and onto her face.

“How dare you get my new outfit soaked, you foul knave!” she cried at the offending summon. She then made ready to strike it down with her summoned sword.

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Amita watched in overly dramatic awe, as the strange man ran into the bathroom. "Aww come on don't run away. What's your name, what's your name what's your name. Oh you're no fun." She huffed and bounced off to take someone's order, before suddenly noticing the fire. "woah... So pretty." It didn't take long for the superhero to come extinguish it though. "Hey what did you do that for? Ohmygosh wait are you to save us?"

Amita excitedly jumped into the heroes arms, princess carry style, and looked deep into his eyes. "I think maybe I could use a hero right now." she looked solemn, and began crying again. "Its never been this.... intense before." "I can feel them all staring at me. "Applauding my so called performance." "It hurts." "I think.... I wanna leave now." "I want my mom." "I wanna go home."" I WANNA DANCE!"

Amita flips backwards off the blue clad firefighters arms. She skiped towards the center of the room again scanning the crowd, then her eyes landed on the large blonde haired man cosplaying muscle maid. He never did introduce himself she thought, how rude. Well it appears he wants something now she thought as he was frantically waving his arms. She gestured at him to join her. "Come dance with me."

WC: 217
Total: 3363

Sigurd was momentarily distracted. Well truthfully he was completely distracted, trying to follow the many events unfolding in front of his eyes. Thankfully Nautilus had put out the fire, but a new crisis had emerged. As the blonde girl, now clearly having revealed herself as a requip mage, summoned her weapon, Sigurd felt a strange impulse to smile. Normally he’d hate finding himself in the midst of a magic conflict, but this being the first time one of his summons was up against a lethal foe in so long brought back some sick memory of excitement buried under his PTSD.

“Horaz, Godot, Birdman,” Sigurd chanted in quick succession, speedily trying to hit his summon limit. The red anthropomorphic bird appeared next to Amita and bowed to her. Meanwhile the white-skinned alien appeared next to Nautilus. The hero of the wind, Birdman, was nowhere to be seen. As odd as that was, Sigurd thought nothing of it for now.

Sigurd smirked, limping over to the soaked Katherine ”Amita, you had asked for my name and I rudely forgot to answer. It’s Sigurd Siegfried! Remember it well, I’ll be the one to put a stop to the chaos our coworker is raising. Honestly, threatening a coworker at this fine establishment? Do you want to put your sword away blondie, or do you want to find out what these summons of mine are capable of?”

“Caw~ I will dance with you while Darknight tangos with the sharp looking maid, haw haw haw. That is, if you’d permit me, m’lady,” said Horaz, the bird man as daring as ever around the raven haired girl, not perturbed in the slightest by her slightly disheveled appearance.

Meanwhile Godot placed a clenched fist in his palm, cracking his knuckles while a panicked Nautilus looked about the dining room, frantically trying to think of a way to deescalate the situation.


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Before Kathrine could strike down the offender, backup arrived. It seemed these were summons belonging to the crossdressing maid. That their outfits were as silly as his was not at all surprising to her, he clearly lacked her own impeccable fashion sense. Not that more foes frightened her. If anything, the prospect of having more people to cut up just excited her. She wondered: if she were to kill one of these summons, could he summon them again? Maybe she should test it out, just think of the possibilities of being able to kill the same person over and over again. It would be like a dream come true.

Just as she was about to put her plan into motion she saw the woman who had hired her glaring from the door to the back. Apparently everything that had happened up to this point was fine since no one had gotten hurt, but an out and out fight was out of the question. As Kathrine really did want to keep the maid outfit, she unequipped her sword with a sigh.

“I will let you off for today,” she said reluctantly. “I would not want there to be civilian casualties. That would not be Justice. But should we meet again after today then mark my words I will not hold back.”

Glancing over at their third coworker who appeared set on… dancing? Katherine turned toward where the fire had been. Reaching out she summoned her Mop of Destruction and used it to begin cleaning up the water on the ground. She then dropped the burnt omurice on the ground and swept that up with the mop as well. Channeling magic power into the mop, its magic effect activated and evaporated the water, food, and plate into nothing.

The clean up complete, the still drenched rune knight went back to waiting tables as if nothing had happened.

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"aaaggghhh!" Amita was terrified of the strange ugly bird thing. Her survival reflexes kicked in and lightning formed around her right foot as she roundhouse kicked the beasts head clean off its shoulders. "Oh no, no, no, no, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, I didn't mean it." Amita runs over to cradle the dead bird man, but it poofs away before she can. Amita thinks to herself *she was in control a lot longer than usual, if she did this then what else....* She cautiously cast her gaze around the cafe no one was cheering anymore, they all looked scared, some of them scared of her, some of the female maid who had just dispelled her blade, and some were scared of the many masked men that kept showing up out of nowhere. She sighed *this is bad*.

Amita called over to Sigurd "hey it's all a little blurry but you said your name is Sigurd right, I'm assuming you summoned all these other people? Please dismiss them." She began walking, addressing the whole the whole caffe now. "I feel I have some explaining to do, as I'm sure you all figured out by now I'm not just acting crazy." she gets to a few feet away from the female maid and stops walking. "I will explain everything, but first, I've wanted to do this all day." she was looking in the girls eyes, carefully measuring her reaction. "Don't worry." Amita said taking a few steps closer, now within reach of the girl "it's ok." she steps up wraps one hand around her back, and the other around her head, running her fingers in her hair, and passionately kisses her.

Amita steps back again holding her gaze for a moment then turns back to the crowd "that will help keep the other... um well the other me away, she's still young and thinks intimacy is icky (haha) erm sorry it's not funny, none of this is. See well um I kinda have an alternate personality? Wait no that's not it it's like I'm possessed? Kind of. But it's still me just like another me?" She was shifting uncomfortably and getting embarrassed, clearly not sure how to explain her ailment. "well anyway, the point is she won't be back for a while now. I apologize to all of you, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your meals. If you'd like I can dance to another song in a few minutes, but I understand if you'd rather not see me anymore." She looked at the floor and was fidgeting with her foot, twisting her toes on the floor. She took a long, deep breath to steady herself looked back at the female maid and said "I'm sorry for being so forward, may I have your name?" then upon getting her answer she nodded, turned, and walked slowly to the owner. Ma'am I'm really sorry for all of this, I hope you'll allow me to finish my shift. If the costumers want later I can come back out and dance, but if not I think I'll just wash dishes until time to clock out." The woman simply nodded and gestured to the kitchen. Amita smiled shakely "thank you ma'am, I promise to do great job. She turned to the side with a stern look on her face "and I promise there won't be any more disturbances out of me." She made her way to the kitchen and began working hard on lathering and rinsing the dirty plates and silverware.

WC: 590
Total:4,581

Sigurd was left slack jawed at the turn of events, his beloved friend Horaz being brutalized back into his home dimension, after the situation between him and Katherine had been successfully deescalated. He quickly dismissed Godot and Nautilus, finding the whole situation much too complicated to continue having extra players involved. He processed what Amita was saying on some level, but on another level he could not be bothered to truly internalize what it was the raven-haired woman was saying. The day had been entirely too much for him to handle, and he just wanted the shift to be over.

Thankfully, he noticed the second hand clicking down as Amita retreated to the kitchen to wash dishes. He looked over at his friend who ran the restaurant and scowled at her saying, “Look here. I’m going to wait in the bathroom for four minutes while the shift ends and you go get my payment, and then I’m never talking to any of you again.”

He glanced back at Katherine, “Doubly so for you. I cannot express how grateful I am that this is the only time we’ll need to brush shoulders. I wish you nothing but contempt, and hope every meal you ever order from a restaurant comes out burnt. Good riddance I say.”

Sigurd went to the men’s room and entered into a toilet stall where he would slam his head against the walls of the stall repeatedly, groaning to himself. What was wrong with these people? Hopefully the mages at Rune Knight headquarters were more well behaved. The one glimmer of hope in this situation was that he’d soon be starting his second job that he picked up at the kitchens of the HQ in Era. His life was surely about to become a lot less stressful and a lot more consistent.

Words 304
Total 4,885

Having committed to working out the rest of her shift quietly, Kathrine was very pointedly ignoring the other two maids. Or at least she had been trying to. Before she actually had a chance to escape back to the kitchen to grab someone’s food order, she heard footsteps that were very clearly headed directly toward her. Kathrine spun around to take up a combat stance only to find the other woman forcing her lips against Kathrine’s.

This was not a situation she had trained for at all, so for a few moments she was locked in place stunned by what had happened. Her mind and face were both completely blank until her brain had a chance to reboot, at which point she turned crimson and started to panic. That was my first kiss! she thought to herself in despair. Could she get married now? Had her future been stolen away by this crazy girl?

As she reeled trying to figure out what this meant for her future, the crossdresser started yelling at her. His tirade was extremely rude and uncalled for, though she very much returned the sentiment. Finally she had reached her limit. Apparently deciding now would be a good time to let her part timer go, the owner gave a “beat it” motion with her thumb toward the door. Since she was not demanding the maid outfit back, Kathrine decided that at least her service had been satisfactory. Turning to the many customers looking on with an array of expressions, she nodded to them in acknowledgement.

“You are all welcome for the excellent service you received today. Don't break the law or I'll be back.” Her words given, she turned again and made her way out of the cafe.

290 words
5175 total