[Kenzi Nadir]

Kenzi stood on top of the hill overlooking the school, bouncing eagerly on the balls of her feet. To the other side of her was a lush, green forest that stretched for miles. She was decked out in an intricate costume involving black boots, faux light black leather armor, satchels, hilts containing very realistic fake daggers, and a cowl, complete with a piece of cloth she could use to cover the bottom half of her face. In short, she looked badass. She’d created the costume herself. The daggers she'd bought online. When pushed, they would slide into the hilt, so she could actually stab someone. If she were Kenzi, she would’ve decorated the things with glitter and fake jewels. But today, she was not Kenzi. Today, she was Kaine.

She’d created flyers, using her artistic gifts to make them as visually engrossing as possible. They promised a LARPing session starting at noon on Saturday. It was fantasy themed. They were to meet on top of the hill; they would know where it was once they saw the rogue in black. Beginners were welcome. Costumes were also welcome but not required. Players could use their powers. That’s what made it interesting after all. She’d made a shit ton of copies and hung them all over the school. Students and faculty couldn’t go five feet without seeing one of her flyers. Whenever she walked through the halls, she’d subtly push the students’ attention toward the flyers, getting a nice ego boost whenever someone mentioned how pretty they were. She didn’t ask the faculty if she were allowed to hang them up, but luckily, they didn’t seem to mind.

The flyers directed them toward a link that would explain the story. There were two warring kingdoms - she would let the teams decide the name for their kingdom once they got together. In the beginning, each kingdom would start out with one power gem, and in order to win the war, the kingdom would have to obtain both power gems. They would play in the forest by the school. She included her email in case anyone had any questions. More would be explained at the session. It was basically a dramatized capture the flag; she didn’t want to do anything too ambitious for their first session. She went light on the story to keep things simple so the players could have a lot of flexibility in creating their characters. She’d be more detailed in session two. She held each power gem in her hand. They were large plastic things in the shape of a gem, one purple and one green. She gripped them tight and checked the time on her phone. 11:45. She hummed impatiently before putting her phone away.

Kenzi was actually nervous. This was a rarity for her. It was an uncomfortable feeling and she didn’t like it. But she wasn’t sure if anyone would actually show up. Keke was pretty much a certainty, and Melody said she would watch, but there wouldn’t be much to watch if there were only two people. Besides the flyers, she told pretty much every person she came across about the LARP and gave an announcement at the end of every class, handing out flyers as the students left the classroom. She took a deep breath. People would come. It would be okay. Not just okay. This would be fun. Her anticipation and anxiety intermingled, making her heart beat an uncomfortable amount.

She couldn’t wait for the game to begin.

[Melody Newton]

Eclipse All my childhood heroes have fallen off or died + Kenzi Nadir

Melody, annoyingly, was on time. This may have been annoying to no-one but herself, but that did not disqualify the annoyance. She had intended to be late, as she always was. This was mostly in the hope that nobody would connect her with the nerdy event happening up on the hill, with a healthy dollop of hoping she'd have already missed most of it by the time she arrived. That hope was exceedingly short lived, and her embarrassment grew as she realised the black clad figure on the hill top was Kenzi. She was dressed like some sort of fantasy assassin, with a pair of what looked like knives and an outfit that seemed to consist almost entirely of faux leather. It was at this point that Melody would have turned tail, but unfortunately it seemed she was the first to arrive. Without the camouflage of fellow students she wasn't quite sure what to do, eventually settling on trudging up the last few metres to the top of the hill. She checked her phone, then waved an awkward hand at the other girl. "Hey. Guess I'm kinda early…" She wasn't quite sure where to go from there. Sure, she'd met up with school friends outside of school time, but never for something like this. Usually it was weed, and on one memorable and unfortunate occasion it had been a joyride. Never was it something as nerdy or social suicide orientated as live action roleplaying. To make it even worse she seemed to have beaten everyone here except Kenzi, and she certainly hadn't wanted to be one of the first people would see when they came, if they came. She should have gone with the 'I overslept excuse'. "So uh… are you expecting a lot of people…?" She let her voice trail off awkwardly.

© seadra of gs

[Madison Ardnell]

Madison always enjoyed making fun of nerds. Never mind that he kind of was one sometimes, since parents and teachers loved nerds for some reason, but he'd never considered himself one of the species.

Truth was, though, EMBA was absolutely chalk-full of nerds. It was really kind of mind-boggling how high the percentage of nerds was at the school. Madison found this alternately depressing and inspiring, as it both gave him more victims for pranks and also meant he was surrounded by nerds.

So when Kenzi had run her advertising campaign for her little LARP, there had been no question that Madison would show up. The only question was in what capacity. Madison had always hated Kenzi because of her power. It felt rude, having the power to get people's attention. Galling. Madison would never admit it, but mind powers scared the begeezus out of him. He hoped some farsighted politician would murder everybody who had them someday.

Anyway, the question remained of how to ruin the LARP for everyone. He'd come up with a few ideas but ultimately decided it was best to play things by ear. When he arrived at the spot to see Kenzi already there and dressed up, and Melody standing to the side, he was carrying a duffel bag full of items selected for the occasion. He wore a leather jacket and sunglasses.

“Sup nerds,” he said, making a symbol with his fingers that might have been a gang sign. “Wow, neat costume, Kenzi. I didn't know you LARPed, Melody. This my first time.”