“Finger sandwiches, anyone?” Henry asked, pulling a platter that had no right to fit in a backpack out of, well, his improbably large backpack. The eleven of them – Alan and company, Henry, and the five officers of the current anime club, were all a-twitter with nervous energy in the staging area behind the Main Events stage. The sound of a comedy skit rang through their heads, and Henry set down the two-foot disc of miniature sandwiches, meats, and cheeses on a nearby stage crew box.
“Of course the fuck yes.” Steve grabbed a fistful of fingers, and put on his best impression of Saturn Devouring His Son. Alan stared at the platter. He'd let the rest of the group take what they wanted first, and then… Well, he wasn't entirely sure at this point when he'd last ate food, but he was barely suppressing the primal urge to gorge himself on every piece of calorific content on that plate.
The others grabbed their food, and the inevitable happened.
Alan seized the platter.
The next few minutes were a savory blur to Alan, and when he was ready to comprehend the events around him again, Jeff was shaking his shoulder.
“Hey, we're up next.”
From the sounds of the music and feet on the stage, the group ahead of them was more than halfway through a well-coordinated dance number to the opening of Xam'd, which had the delightful title of “Shut Up and Explode”. Alan rose to his feet, and straightened every crooked piece of his costume he could find.
His was easy: While it wasn't even his, he'd grown pretty familiar with it over the past twenty-four hours. The top hat fit snugly on his head, the shoulderpads on the tailcoat were shaped perfectly to give him maximum freedom of movement while still looking on-model – it was better than anything he could have put together himself.
The contrast with his friends, was, in his eyes, a good bit.
They were in… how could he put it? Do you know what a zentai suit is? Imagine a spandex bodysuit that zipped up the back, but it included your head for perfect anonymization. The heads of their costumes, of course, were folded down, and one by one, they put on “body armor” made of white cardboard boxes, with holes cut for their head and arms, helpfully labeled “Mass Production Evangelion Unit” for the audience.
Henry looked back, and smiled at them.
“Game faces on, everyone.” He grabbed the zipper at the base of his neck, and flipped the spandex up with his other hand. “Remember your marks, and trust your partners. I believe in you.”
He zipped himself up, and a chorus of zippers erupted around him, as the eight other zentai-suited members of the anime club went into character. In stencil, marker, and a distressing amount of lipstick, horrible rictus grins were painted on their faces. It was monstrous enough in animation, but in the real world, even Alan cringed.
“Let's go, boys!” Henry said, throwing a fist into the air. As the others yelled out, he caught the eye of the current Webmaster of the Pioneer College Anime Club, the one girl, who was dressed as Asuka Langley Sohryu – she too, was in a form-fitting bodysuit, but functionally, the difference was that hers was better-made, festooned with hard-points, and she had a strawberry-red wig instead of a spandex headpiece. “And girl,” Henry said, nodding at her. She nodded back.
“Let's fucking do this,” she cried out, and they, minus Alan, rushed the stage.