Episode 1: Welcome to the Club

On the first day of school, Emiko Fujimura joins the Yukigaya Hero Club.

## Synopsis

It is the first day of school at Yukigaya High School and already clubs are recruiting new students. Among these is the Yukigaya Hero Club, a club dedicated to training high schoolers on their path to becoming professional super heroes.

As school ends, two new recruits, Emiko Fujimura, a young half bard, and Jokushi Nakamoto, a human sorcerer with several small faerie flying all around him, enter a quiet classroom to find two upperclassmen already there: Obi Gidayu, a quiet kid in the front, tapping a pen on the sign-in sheet, and Donovan Helwig, a pale skinned, dark clothed boy reading from a college-level biology textbook, twirling a butterfly knife in his hand, and drinking coffee using mage hand.

The two new kids are quickly joined by another pair of students, Nobu Fujimori, a blue skinned Tieling occultist, and Akira Aoyama, a half-elven fighter. As Emiko and Jokushi introduce themselves to Nobu, Akira chooses to introduce herself to Donovan. When he tries to brush her off with "I'm not interested in making friends", she retorts "Not interested, or not able to?"

As Donovan scowls and returns to reading, a final recruit walks in: a second year transfer student aasimar from Candera, John Smith. He introduces himself to the other newbies, but is cut off as two more upperclassmen enter in a vivid discussion about anime: Dennim Buncho, a tall, ripped guy with a pompadore, and Bubbling "Bubble" Brook, a tabaxi. The two are quick to introduce themselves to the new recruits, but are unsure where the president and vice president of the club are so the meeting can be started.

However this question is quickly answered by a loud commotion out the window—a teenage girl, still in her school uniform, is fighting off a shadowy demon with a large greatsword. A crowd gathers round as she, quite efficiently, takes down the monster. The upperclassmen explain that is the club president, Ansai Ryoku. However any more explanation is cut off as over the school intercom it is announced that, due to the shadow monster attack, all after school activities are cancel.

The newbies rush outside to meet this president before returning home. She is *very* excited at the prospect of five new club members—apparently the club had several upperclassmen graduate the year before. Beside the club president is another girl, Yadama Doku a yuan-ti. While she doesn't speak, she seems to be watching the party intent, giving off a bit of a creepy vibe.

After the next day of school, the newbies return to their first *proper* hero club meeting. Ryoku gives a proper introduction to herself as the president, and we learn that Yadama, Obi, and Bubble are the vice president, secretary, and treasurer of the club respectively.

Ryoku then dives into an icebreaker—each member of the club introduces themselves and explain why they want to be a hero. The club goes around in a circle; Emiko explains they are *huge* fans of the hero Tetsu Mantarey and want to be like him, Akira says that it seems like it was something to do. The last to go is Nobu, who reveals that while he has wanted to be a hero his whole life, his primary reason to be a hero is because a few years ago he learned that his dad was, in fact, not a hero but actually a villain and thus he wants to bring his father to justice. The club is taken aback by this, but Ryoku quickly recovers so the club can move on.

Ryoku moves on to talk about equipment, explaining that club members can take out a loan from the hero's guild to buy magic items and gear. As she goes on towards the topic of training, she realizes that, upon asking the new members, none of them have ever really fought monsters before. It is explained that the club trains by holding regular sparring matches. Because the gym is open, the club is going to go there so the newbies can display their abilities.

After changing to gym clothes, the club goes to the gym. On the way over, Donovan approaches Akira and asks if she's ever been in a scrap before, tossing her a aged carbon fiber light crossbow, with several nicks and scratches. "Don’t think of this as a gift," he said. "I just got a new one and don’t need this one anymore." "Don’t worry. I don’t think of this as a declaration of war," Akira snarked back.

While the upperclassmen all have fancy equipment already, the newbies do not. Ryoku points them to a back storage room where lots of old equipment is kept—instructing them to borrow whatever they want and meet the upperclassmen in the gym when they're done. The newbies go inside to find old bows, crossbows, fencing gear, hockey pads. Jokushi casted Detect Magic, but nothing registered as magic.

Just as people were beginning to grab equipment, a deafening quiet sweeps through the room. A tentacled shadow monster with eyes all over its body materialized from seemingly nowhere. Emiko grabs a saber. John activates a magical transformation into a masked hero. Nobu tries to cast mage armor, but fails because of the silence.

A fight begins. Emiko charges forward and strikes at the monster, but misses. The monster retaliates, knocking Emiko out of commission. The rest of the party jump into action. Akira fires her crossbow. John grabs a bat and swings at the beast. Jokushi, seeing the silence as magical, chooses to fire a sling instead of casting a spell. Nobu activates a special Awakened Sight that allows him, too, to see the magical silence and moves to the edge of the room just out of the silences sphere.

The creature strikes again, this time at John. The students continue to attack best they can—crossbow, bat, slingshot. The Creature attacks John again, knocking him, too, unconscious. Nobu, looking at his two companions on the ground, blasts an Eldritch Blast through the center of the monster and it disintegrates into dust.

The silence fades just as the monster dies. Jokushi immediately rushes over to Emiko and casts Cure Wounds, just barely in time. Emiko sits up and casts Healing Word on John.

Emiko casts message to Ryoku, stating there was a monster. She, Yadama, and the other upperclassmen rush into the room. Startled, they ask what happened, to which the newbies explain in rushed detail. "What this a hazing ritual?" asks Akira. "No, of course not!" replies Ryoku.

Ryoku explains that demons can only show up through rifts, and that, while they can be summoned, its rather rare since they only care for destruction. There isn't a good way to know how the demon appeared. She remarks these types of incidents are something to be wary of; the club will have to take careful watch to ensure prevent them from occuring.

It is quickly decided the newbies should head home for the day—with escorts, if they feel they need them. Emiko creates a group chat for the quintet, appropriately named "newbies", and sends a bunch of informations about how demons occur only in "evil" locations, which suggests something sinister going on with the school.

The next day after school, the newbies, albeit shaken, return to the hero club once more. However a new face has arrived to join the club: a kemonomini named Shisa. Ryoku cheerfully introduces herself to Shisa, but is quickly interrupted by an enthusiastic Bubble. "Seven... eight... nine! Nine tails! That's eight more tails than I have! May I touch them? *Please*, can I touch them?" Shisa backs away, and only after Dennim's intervention does Bubble calm down.

Ryoku calls the meeting to order by immediately apologizing for the incident of the previous day, saying "hopefully today we can properly train".

The club members, however are quite interested in the new member. One of Jokushi's faeries fly over to her, offering her a sandwich. Meanwhile Donovan, scoffs at her. "Can you fight?" Shisa isn't sure. "I guess I can defend myself."

Ryoku manages to corral everyone to the gym. This time, she watches over the newbies as they get equipment from the storeroom to prevent the prior day's incident from repeating itself.

Ryoku explains that normally the club members fight in groups against each other, but to start off the newbies can do a mock battle amongst themselves; three on three. "Blood will be spilled," warns Obi, however he notes that he will be on standby to heal anyone who needs healing.

"If you don’t fight as if to the death," said Yadama, "consider your position in this club gone."

It was time to divide up. Nobu suggested that Emiko and Jokushi, the party's two healer's, would be the best team captains to even out the match.

Emiko chose first, picking Nobu. Next Jokushi picked John. Emiko chose Akira, which left Shisa joining Jokushi's team. The two groups huddled to strategize. As soon as everyone was ready, Obi gave one final warning: "Right, so the policy says the winning team is the team responsible for cleaning up the blood on the floor."

Last preparations are made—Nobu casts mage armor on himself and John transforms—and the battle begins. Akira starts the attacks with a shot aimed right for John. Nobu then flies into the air, launching an eldritch blast that narrowly misses Jokushi. Shisa, revealing herself to be a warlock, casts Hex on Emiko and fires her own Eldritch Blast which deals damage but doesn't down.

Spells fly back and forth as Jokushi casts a faerie fire on Emiko and Akira and Emiko casts Vicious Mockery on John whilst healing themself. Just as John reaches Emiko to strike them, Akira blasts him with a crossbow bolt that knocks him out. Nobu, still up in the air, casts a Witch Bolt on Jokushi which takes him down as well. All that's left is Shisa.

Shisa makes direct eye contact with Emiko and fires an Eldritch Blast which narrowly sails past their pace. Emiko flashes a smile and casts Vicious Mockery. Shisa tries to resist, but it proves too much and she falls as well. The battle is over.

The winning trio celebrate their victory as Obi restores the losers to their feet. Congratulations are exchanged, and the victors are each handed a mop. There's a gym to clean.

The victors stay behind, cleaning the room gym together. While frustrating, there's a sense from each of them that they're aching for more. This is the club for them.

## Trivia

* This is the first, and so far only episode in which John Smith was present at the beginning