“Ok, say Grimm!” The man behind the camera says to us.

“Grimm!” We say in unison as he takes the picture. It takes a sec before I get the flashes to disapear before my eyes, but through it all, I have a smile on my face. I look to my left at Adam as he rubs his eyes, his mask above his brows, then to my right as Alexandria, or just Lex straightens out her short orange dress.

Oh! Sorry, let me introduce myself and the others. My name is Natali Basatin, but most call me Nat. I am the middle in terms of height when it comes to the three of us, being an average five foot eleven, a bit taller than my character but whatever. I am currently wearing a pink wig that sometimes covers my right eye, a red Ascot, a black dress, pink shoulder-less shirt, black and grey stockings, and black flat shoes.

For those who couldn’t tell, I am cosplaying as the Diclonian Queen: Kaede/Lucy/Nyu from Elfen Lied, though I am missing a pair of horns. I made the mistake/choice of watching Elfen Lied when I was 16 and, even though the gore and nudity were a bit of a turn off, I really like Lucy/Nyu and her story, mainly cause I can relate to her. No, I do not have a crush that I would kill for or invisible hands or Vectors. Instead I have, well...

”Nat pay attention, the photos are done.” an agrravated voice said from nowhere.

‘Sorry, sorry!’ I think aloud. Yes, I have a voice in my head. No, I am not crazy. Legally anyways. But anyways, yes I have another personality living in my head. She calls herself Sorano, where she got that name I have no idea, and she has been with me for over 7 years now after I got hit by a truck. No, seriously I was walking home from the pool when some guy just comes speeding though a parking lot and sent me flying! I was out for a couple days, but when I came to, Sorano was just there in my head. My doctor thinks she was made as a defence mechanism for whenever a stressful situation arises, but I digress.

Anyways, me and my friends are at San Diego Comic-Con getting a group picture of the three of us before we go to meet some voice actors and get some new merchandise for each of our respective fandoms. I am looking for some Elfen Lied or Pokémon stuff myself.

“Hey, Nat. Ready to go to the merchandise booths?” I get my copy of the picture and look left at Adam as he asks. Adam was dressed as a rather appropriate attire of a black jacket with white markings and a red rose of its back, a red t-shirt, black pants and black shoes with a familiar looking mask on his face, covering his brown eyes. Yup, Adam is dressed as Adam Taurus from RWBY and has all but his weapon.

“Yeah, c’mon Nat, I wanna see if I can get some more Celestial Keys for my collection! Or maybe a pair of Wind Reader glasses!” Lex exclaimed. She was in a blue wig with an orange band on it, a knee high orange dress that showed her back, where a familiar mark was shown. Lex was dressed as Levi from Fairy Tail. Rather appropriate consider she was rather short like Levi, but also ironic as she is the oldest.

“Alright, alright were coming.” I said with a chuckle at Lex’s excitement.

”You know, there are some rather nice looking cosplayers around this place.” Sorano said teasingly, causing me to instinctively look around then blush as she was right.

‘Damn it Sora! Please don’t do that. You know I am not ready for anything yet.’ I thought to her embarrassed.

“Hey, Nat you ok?” Adam asks, looking back at me. He sees my rather large blush and looks around, realizing what happened. “Sorano teasing you again?” He deadpanned. I merely nod and he sighs, before making sure no one was paying attention and looks directly at my forhead. “Sora, stop teasing Nat, we both know she’ll look for someone when she is good and ready.” He says in a scolding yet brotherly tone. I heard Sora sigh then go quiet as I take a breath of relief.

“Thanks Adam.” I say now more relaxed.

“No prob. You told me how much teasing Sora can dish so I just act accordingly.” He responds.

“Hey! You guys coming or what?!” Lex yells impatiently from ahead of us.

“Hold you horses, we’re coming. Just talking to Sora.” I reply, to which she goes ‘Ah’ and nods. I was really lucky to have these two. We’ve all been friends for almost a decade now, and aside from my family, they are the only ones who know and actually interact with Sorano. Though I did have to let her ‘take control’ for them to believe me. See Sora is not like me. I am rather shy around new people, I am rather childlike and, despite being a pretty good runner, I prefer to do ‘nerdy’ things like read, watch anime, and play video games on my off time. Like my doctor said, Sorano ‘comes out’ whenever I am in a rather stressful situation, ranging to tests to when some guys tried to take my laptop while I was outside the public library. Sorano is confident, focused and strong but also cold, violent, and aggressive. Hence why I like Elfen Lied so much.

The three/four of us walked the isles of booths, ranging from comic stands, gaming booths, video stands, and everything in between. I even saw some booths with stuff from popular YouTube series like Glitchtale, RWBY, RvB, Death battle and so on. Of course Sorano’s comment from earlier made me eerily aware of all the cosplayers around, mostly those with ‘risqué’ costumes. That really shocks me that they even got through the front doors since I saw some kids around as well. Anyways we were all walking around, seeing some interesting merchandie, taking selfies with other cosplayser, and trying to haggle a sale from a few booths. We spent about half an hour just aimlessly wandering around the area when I heard Adam calling for me and Lex.

“Hey girls! Come check this stuff out!” Lex and I immediately turn and go to Adam who is looking at what could only be described as a menagerie of merchandise. I mean seriously! There was stuff from practically every show and game I have ever seen and then some!

I was so entranced by all the stuff I almost missed the merchant behind the beautiful madness. I have played plenty of games before, including some I was technically to young to play, so I was pleasantly surprised when The Merchant from Resident Evil 4 walked out from the back. His outfit was perfect, it looked like he had every bit of ammo from the game in his pockets. It only got better when he spoke to us. “Hello strangers. What’er You buyin?” It was at that point I had a grin that some would compare to the Grinch’s in size.

“Hello merchant, I like the selection here.” Adam said with a bad impression of the merchant compared to his. He begins chuckling at his response.

“Heh heh, thanks for the response, you have no idea how hard it is to use that voice.” he said in rather relaxed Texan accent.

’Hey, somthing seems off about this to me. I heard Sorano say.

I barely raised my brow and thought, ‘what do you mean?’ ’Not 100% sure. Just be careful.’ she said cautiously. I look around the booth for a bit before my eyes fall on three certain object for us. I see a pair of Wind Reader glasses, Adams weapon: Wilt and Blush and finally, the item that drew my eyes: a pair of Diclonian horns on one of those head bands. I nudge Adam and Lex and point to the three items of interest, Adam lifting his mask to look at the katana/shotgun sheath properly.

“Hey, how much for the Wilt and Blush?” Adam asks.

“The Wind Reader glasses too.” Lex interjected. Before he could respond I raise my hand and point to the horns, silently asking for its price.

“Heh, well, for the Wilt and Blush that’s about $250, the glasses I’ll sell for $100 and just for you, I’ll give you this.” He said, reaching into a drawer and pulling out what looked like a scroll with the Fairy Tail emblem on it. Lex raised her eyebrow at it and asked,

“What’s that?” He responds in a rather calm voice,

“This scroll has all the potential words for Solid Script Magic.” That caused Lex’s eyes to widen and for her smile to widen. “Deal.” They said in unison, taking out their wallet and purse respectively. I look at the merchant while pointing at the horns again, too shy to talk again. The merchant, even though he is wearing a bandana over his mouth, smiles at my shyness and brings the horns up from for me.

“These little beauts go for $25 for you kiddo.” He said joyfully. I merely smile and nod giving him a twenty and a five before taking the horns and putting it on my head, the horns coming out on the sides of my head like little ears, while Adam loops his weapon onto the sides of his pants and Lex puts her new glasses on.

“Alright, you three. Enjoy you trips.” He said as we turn to leave, making us confused at him.

’Natali! Something's wrong! Take off the horns!’ Sorano says in alarm. My eyes widen in panic and I reach up for the band, only to feel my hair. I feel around my head and actually feel my horns on the sides of my head. I look left and right as Lex and Adam seem to stubble, and I start to getting a headache. ‘Sora what’s...happen-’ I couldn’t finish the thought as I saw a bright flash and a sudden feeling of the floor disappearing beneath me.

”NATALI!”

Author's Notes:

Well here we go! Not sure if its good but I’ll let ya’ll decide.
I may need an editor in the future so anyone who wants to, hit me up.