As Barbara finished her impromptu concert, the sound of running heels could be heard. Turning her head, she watched as two servants suddenly burst into the room with bright eyes. One wore a magnificent red dress and held a long, jagged red sword. Her green eyes blazed with excitement and she tossed her short blonde hair back as if she were a model. The other had long pink hair and horns, and was dressed out in a black skirt with large frills. A dragon-like tail swished about her as blue eyes met Barbara's silver ones.
"Who was it? Whose voice was it that bounced off the pearly halls of Chaldea and reached my ears?"
"Ah, Nero, Elizabeth! Welcome! I guess you heard miss Barbara singing too huh?" greeted Lily, gesturing towards the confused girl.
"So, it was you! Blue-palette girl in a deacon's outfit with a microphone! Of course! How could the fabulous me not notice?"
"Well, how interesting. A new idol has arrived. The only question is if she's a rival or a friend! Whatever the case is, it's time for introductions!"
"Right! You, the pretty blonde girl in white, introduce yourself!"
"Um. Hello. I'm Barbara, a deaconess of Barbados and an idol from Teyvat. I ended up here accidentally with my s-I mean Jean. It seems I am of the Caster class."
"An idol hmm~? I see, I see... Well, if you came here, that simply means fate has willed you to come as so! Umu, I am Rome's greatest beauty and the pinnacle of rulers! I am Rome itself! Nero Claudius! Bow before my grace as Saber class!", the red-clothed girl announced, swirling her blade around her in a show-like fashion.
"I, as an idol, am aspiring to be the greatest idol in all of existence! If you dare stand in my way on my path to the top of them all, I'll thoroughly destroy you~! Idol Elizabeth Báthory! Lancer class."
"Now then, since introductions are done, it is time for a competition!"
"Eh??", Barbara's eyes widened as her hand flew to her mouth. A competition so soon? And so suddenly? She looked around her at the others in the room, but no one else was surprised by such a declaration.
"Of course! A rival has suddenly appeared! It is only right that a competition should be held! Come! Let us sing to our hearts content in the vocal room!"
Leaping forward, Nero suddenly grabbed Barbara's hand and dragged her towards the hallway with Elizabeth right behind her.
Watching the entire spectacle, Jack asked, "Is she gonna be alright?"
"Of course! Ellie and Nero aren't gonna do too much stuff, right?"(Nursery)
"Yeah! Or else they'd have to face Master!" (Lily)
After numerous twists and turns, Barbara found herself thrown into a colorfully lit room with strange devices on the walls. As she looked around, she noticed that two other servants were already in there. One was a long white-haired girl who wore armor similar to that of Liyue's or Inazuma's dress style. The other had a large purple bow in her short bowl-cut hair and a long pink cloth draped around her shoulders. Both were extremely immersed in whatever was going on in the colorful screen in front of them, only throwing out quick "hello's" when greeted by Nero and Elizabeth before going right back to the screen.
"Ah, seems they aren't gonna introduce themselves huh. Oh well! Of course, I'll do it for them! The long-haired one is Archer class, Tomoe Gozen. Just call her Tomoe. The short-haired one is Osakabehime, although calling her Okki is good enough."
"Anyway! Welcome to Chaldea's Karaoke room! We're gonna hold our competition here!"
"Yup! Although sadly, we won't have much of an audience since most Chaldeans turn down our offer. Hmph! I still don't understand why. I'm offering them first-row seats to a concert by the most fabulous me, umu!"
"You? Fabulous? Hah! If anything, I'm the amazing one here!"
"They turn down yours too."
"So what? They're just missing the world's greatest show."
"Uh...sorry to interrupt but what is Karaoke? And what are all those machines?"
"HUH?!"
Barbara shrank back a bit when the two servants who dragged her hear suddenly voiced out cries of indignation.
"We don't have some of those devices in Teyvat, or at least anything that looks like them. They look foreign, like ruin guards. Oh! They look like something Alice would create."
"You...come."
After a half hour of explanations that didn't quite make sense to her, Barbara managed to whittle it down to 'singing machine that plays songs to sing along to'.
"Alright! Now then, let's get this competition started! I can feel my blood pumping. Just you wait, Nero, Barbara, I'll show you the best performance you've ever heard AND seen!"
"Oho~ so I guess you will be going first eh? Very well then, I allow it! Barbara! When would you like to go?"
"Um...I don't really have a preference."
"Barbara, as an idol, you have to seize the moment! Come on! When do you want to go? After Ellie or after me?"
"I'll....just go after you then."
"Alright! Ellie! Let's get this started!"
"Of course!"
Barbara sat on one of the couches to the side as she eagerly waited to hear Elizabeth's singing. She's never truly met any other idol before and could not wait to see what would happen.
Except....
What met her ears was on another level of singing.
By the time Elizabeth was done, Barbara's head was ringing. Not only was the Lancer ridiculously loud, but also seriously tone-deaf. Still, she couldn't help but notice Elizabeth looked kind of cute while singing. And there were some parts that did sound kind of good. She had the feeling that if Elizabeth wasn't so focused on the competition, she'd actually sing very well.
It also took her a couple seconds to realize that one of the servants from earlier had suddenly appeared next to her and plugged up her ears with ear plugs. Osakabehime?
Mouthing a thank you to her, Barbara watched as she nodded back before returning to Tomoe. Both of them were already wearing earplugs and had switched to sign language.
"So, how'd you like my singing hmm?"
"Good, good, I rate it good! But of course, I'll blast you out of the water with my singing! Mic! Here!"
"How about you Barbara?"
Unwilling to say anything bad about these two servants she had only met a little while ago, Barbara put on her best smiled and said, "Great! It was good!"
Smiling gleefully, Elizabeth threw the microphone at Nero before running over to sit down on another couch.
Nero thought for a moment, before lighting up with an idea.
"Hmm....as it is almost time for Christmas, I should sing my iconic song! Alright, hit it!"
*Breathes in*
"Hashire sori yo~"
"Kaze no you mi~"
"Tsukimihara wo~"
"Padoru padoruuuu!~"
To Barbara, this song was arguably the same level of worse. It was more in tune, but the beat was so far off. Still, she smiled and let out a "Wonderful!" when asked how she thought about it.
"Alright, it's your turn now! Here's the mic. C'mon, give us your best performance!"
"Ah...ok...."
Accepting the microphone from Nero, Barbara got up off her seat and stepped in front of the karaoke machine.
"Hey so, to use this thing, just think of whatever song you wanna sing and then press this button over here. Don't worry, this machine is designed to play the song while you're singing because you think of the tune at the same time."
"Ok."
"Relax, relax! This may be a competition, but that doesn't mean it has to be tense and all that. Just sing your heart out and maybe some more! I can't wait to hear what you sound like! Umu!"
Breathing in deeply, Barbara prepared herself to sing, holding the microphone close to her heart. Slowly, she raised the microphone up to her lips and opened her mouth to let the first note out....
But it never came out. She felt the note die on her tongue. This competition had an even greater mental impact than she realized. The idea of singing in front of a crowd or fans never daunted her but singing against someone else was something she had never done before. Gulping, she lowered her hand a little before looking over at Nero and Elizabeth who were seated on two separate couches. Nero gave her a thumbs up while Elizabeth gave her an encouraging smile.
Oh. Why did she have to think about it so hard?
This performance was only a competition in name. None of her competitors truly wanted to beat her down. That made her feel a little bit better.
As Barbara raised the microphone again, a familiar feeling entered her body. It felt like the brush of wind and the flow of water had somehow filled her with a feeling of lightness. She felt calm and collected. Words began to flow around in her head as she felt her lungs filling with air and her vocal cords filling with power.
As the karaoke machine began to play the beginning of a song she knew by heart, a different set of words entered the side of her mind, as if a reminder of what she had become an idol for.
Elizabeth suddenly frowned. Something seemed different about the girl in front of her. Leaning over to Nero, she whispered, "Hey, you get the feeling something's...different?"
Nodding back, Nero replied, "Yeah."
"Why do I feel like I'm standing before a wind-blown sea before a storm?"
Author's note(kinda long?):
Uh.....
...
.
hi?
Um,
I'm sorry! I'm sorry I haven't updated for so long and I didn't even change the status to hiatus or do anything like that or announce anything. School started and it is such a massive time block/time taker/big thing and then I had to go study for a standardized test for a couple weeks and then switch straight into studying for a competition and I'm juggling all that outside-of-school stuff with sports and homework and all the wonderful terrible things that come with school and I didn't have time to write or even think about this story. I haven't even signed on this account since school started. But ANYWAY. I'm sorry that I couldn't update or do anything about the status of this story and if y'all want to hate me or something go ahead. I'm a bad author that can't keep to my word and all that stuff. Um, thanks for coming back if only to read this chapter and I'm sorry! I only managed to come back because it's break and finals are finally over.
In terms of the actual games, I've only had time for FGO as that loads faster and Genshin is starting to slowly burn my phone back into whatever scraps of metal it was before. I'm having trouble keeping up with current events and whatnot because of that. It also doesn't help that the next story I had planned covers an event I didn't even fully finish so yay me, off to read wiki and other helpful sources. And the fact that a certain purple-colored girl talks in essays. And another white-haired woman curses every other word.
*Breathes in*
*Bows*
And so, I have returned with the new chapter and hopefully a more open schedule to write this story.
FGONA: 20x pulls on the Christmas banner = Np2 Astolfo(saber), Nightingale, Np2->3 Ashwattahama.
FGOJP: A single pull on the current banner = Melusine. Great, another servant to raise when my average skill level is literally 4.
Genshin: I got Eula. Yay? I can't farm bc my phone gets too hot though.