-.

The bear was pale orange, and had a painted-on blush on its cheeks. Around its neck was tied a bow in a plaid red pattern.

Monika stared out. /"Player, it's a bear. Just a regular old teddy bear. Standing alone in the middle of a dark hallway, I admit that does look suspicious."/

She switched from her floating semi-transparent 'spirit form' and popped out of my shoulder in her remote fairy body. /"I'm not seeing anything else interesting on infrared or magical sensors."/

"Monika, this thing is just oozing magic. Don't tell me you can't feel that?"

/"It is neither hostile nor friendly. It has no living aura for me to detect. It's just a toy bear…"/ She paused. /"Probably?"/

I turned to the side and gave her a deeply sarcastic look, implying 'Are you so sure about that?'

She turned looked up at me and slowly enunciated out silently /'Noooooooooo~'/ some sort for perpetually aggrieved office manager.

I turned my head back and oh s.h.i.+t is it suddenly closer? "It's a Weeping Angel!" I shrieked like a little girl.

I stared at it. Hard.

"Monika, quick! Help me out here. You don't need to blink unless you want to, right? Don't blink."

/"Player, do you happen to know how digital camera autofocus works?"/

"Not really."

/"Incoming light through the main lens is compared with two apertures on opposite sides of the lens, and then compared if they give an overlapping intensity profile. If not, the lens angle will be adjusted until the object is in desired focus. But this still involves image processing of image slices as they enter the sensor. In addition, multi-camera image clarity combines color output of one sensor with a monochrome capture from another camera. All video in the end are captured still images. Do you have a guess what this means?"/

"Not at all."

/"It means… that since I see everything though a CMOS sensor, I am effectively blinking *all the time*."/

Exceedingly regrettable! "Also now I remember the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel, Monika close your eyes!"

Monika sighed and tapped my right cheek with her tiny little hands. /"Player… It's a stuffed toy. You're being ridiculous. True, you are constantly ridiculous, but this is more paranoid lunatic than the usual."/

"I can take no chances in this bulls.h.i.+t magic world."

/"… Unfortunately, I really can't take much issue with that."/

My eyes couldn't take it anymore and I had to blink. The bear raised a paw.

"Is… it flipping me off?" I crouched bow-legged, leaned back and gave it double raised middle fingers back. Yeah take this, ya t.o.s.s.e.r.

The bear waved its soft cloth arm, beckoning.

"Oh, now it's taunting me! You want some'a dis! All right, let's get it on!" I made to roll up my sleeves like Popeye oh wait this costume didn't have sleeves. b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.

The bear turned around and waved for us to follow.

/"Really, I don't understand why you would be so scared of little friend Fredbear. I realize this sounds strange coming from me, but surely you have no problem distinguis.h.i.+ng fiction from reality?"/

I looked at soft plush body again, its creepy beady little eyes, and all that innocuous soft volume that could be used to hide a spy camera or a bomb or so many drugs and s.h.i.+vered. The image of a white teddy bear, its fur matted with blood, flashed in my mind again.

The moment I truly realized that everything had come all cras.h.i.+ng down, and there would be no one left to pick me back up again.

-.

-.

Monika sat on my head, wearing a Starfleet Kirk-era captain's uniform, a holographic captain's chair around her. While Monika enjoyed watching me act so irrepressibly, we were moral anchors for each other. She thought I was being too ridiculous, so exercised her veto power.

And then for both of us, Elze's veto power usually manifested as a punch to the face, so that wasn't really applicable here.

I wanted to use a The Sims green plumbob, but Monika said no to that too.

We followed the bear through deserted halls. Eventually we reached a small side room overlooking the garden, illuminated only by the bright light of a full moon.

There we found sitting near the tall plate gla.s.s windows was a young girl, about Yumina's age, and her hair was white and tied up in twin-tails, and her eyes were a burning feral gold.

She was wearing a Victorian-gothic dress with a skirt that puffed out before narrowing again at just below her knees, lending a bell-shaped or mushroom impression with her white stocking feet. A bright red bow was tied around her neck, and held together by a clasp that looked like the symbol for Mercury. She sat on a high red-backed hair fronting the window.

She looked towards the bear, who approached and bowed. She smiled and put away her teacup from her bright red lips. "My, what a strange guest you have brought me this time, Paula."

Monika flicked a switch on the side on the chair. /"Red Alert. s.h.i.+elds up."/

Wheeep. Wheeep. Wheeep. Alarms rang and the familiar haze of a fully charged [Air s.h.i.+eld] snapped around me before fading back into invisibility again.

The girl looked up at us and blinked in confusion. "I had hoped you would be more… open-minded. What have I done to merit such hostility?" Her voice was soft, and carried a hint of injured indignation.

She reached over to a hot cup of tea on the round table nearby and stared at us with an imperious expression, awaiting our excuses.

Young girl with pure silver-white wearing a black dress under the light of a full moon alone in a room, sitting on a blood-red chair that looks like a throne, talking to a creepy probably possessed teddy bear. Yep. Totally not suspicious at all.

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"No reason. It's probably safe considering that you're here in the middle of the Mismede Royal Palace… but I don't know you and don't know if you're supposed to be here. This is our first time meeting a vampire, so please excuse our being exceedingly cautious."

"Phrfff!" the girl spat out her tea, and then began coughing as some liquid went down the wrong throat pipe. "You think I am a WHAT?!"

-.

-.