#bear bernstein

Chapter 1 - An Average Day

Katie had always had an odd ability, her whole life. There were always odd, unexplainable things your average person couldn't see or hear or otherwise perceive...

But Katie could. She'd always been able to - why and how, she wasn't sure. Neither of her parents had it, nor did her grandparents from what they were aware.

It gave her a slight interest in the supernatural. Particularly in Yo-kai - mischievous spirits invisible to the naked eye. But, her bigger interest was in bugs - Springdale had lots of them, and lots of kids at her school had at least some interest in them.

Speaking of her friends, Katie was hanging out with her best friends - Nate, Eddie and Bear - at Triangle Park, a small and fittingly triangular playground many kids hung out at.

They were simply chatting about random things before Eddie said he had something to show them, digging through his bag until he pulled out a wooden box with glass on the front, with bugs pinned inside - not just common cicadas, either; there were butterflies, and even a couple of rare beetles. "Ta-da!"

"Whoa!" Katie and Nate both exclaimed.

"Did you catch those all yourself?"

"Yep! My yard attracts a ton of rare bugs," Eddie explained.

"I caught some when he got too squeamish," Bear chimed in before getting elbowed by Eddie, "hey!"

Katie and Nate both chuckled before Eddie turned to face Katie. "Hey, Katie, you're catching bugs for your summer project, right?"

"Erm... yeah," she nodded. In all honesty, Katie hadn't even started - she'd been too distracted with the books about Yo-kai she'd gotten from the school library. Her ability had gotten stronger recently - she kept seeing a small, bipedal red cat with markings walking around, who would always disappear before she could get another glance. A nekomata, it seemed to be, given the signature two flaming tails.

"I bet you haven't even started," Bear teased. 

"Yeah. Have you even taken your net out at all this summer?" Eddie chimed in, also teasing.

"Hey, you two aren't being very nice," Nate defensively butted in, "leg pulling or not, it's not very nice."

There was a pause before Eddie broke the silence. "We should all be heading back home now. Seeya guys later!"

"Bye!"

"Seeya!"

Katie waved her friends off before sighing. Eddie and Bear had been right that she hadn't started her summer project - their teasing wasn't even meant to be too cruel, they just ended up taking it too far too often. Part of her had been considering making her summer project about Yo-kai... but the teasing made her determined to finish her bug-catching!

She quickly made her way home, explaining to her mom that she was going out to catch bugs for her project - not before getting scolded for not writing in her summer diary, though. 

Once upstairs, Katie grabbed her bag and put in her bug net, a few small plastic bug containers, her diary, and a notebook. The notebook had a few doodles and notes on Yo-kai, both from her books and from her own sightings. She figured she'd bring it just in case she saw something strange.

"Alright, first stop, Triangle Park," she muttered to herself, hoisting her bag over her shoulder. She said bye to her mom before heading out to the playground.

Katie set her bag on the bench, pulling out her net and some of the plastic bug cages. She made her way to one of the trees, which had a few cicadas resting on the trunk; with one foul swoop, she caught a green cicada and quickly put it in the container. It didn't put up a fight at all, oddly enough, while the other cicada had flown away.

Katie managed to catch another cicada before she looked around again. "Guess that's all that's here..."

As she was putting the cages in her bag, she felt an odd aura from the green cicada who hadn't struggled, and saw it glowing. "Whoa... this must be a rare one!" Or something else...

Quickly, she made a note of it in her notebook (odd aura from glowing cicada) before placing the cage back in her bag.

"Hmm... where should I look next," Katie thought for a few seconds, "oh, the school janitor always talks about his bug collection! I should ask him."

She walked over to the schoolyard, waving to a few of her classmates before finding the janitor. "Um, Mr. Janitor? Where's the best place to find bugs."

"Hm... well, I'd say it's probably Mount Wildwood," he answered, "if you're going bug-catching, take some of these," he handed her some containers of what looked to be a black syrup of some sort, "bugs love this syrup - slather some in your net and they'll be more likely to stay caught."

"Thanks!" Katie smiled, putting the syrup containers back in her pocket. She received a "good luck!" from the janitor before heading to Mount Wildwood.

There were many steps leading up Mount Wildwood; allegedly there were ninety-five, and climbing all of them would give you a good education. It was a tiring trek, and Katie took a break between the flights of stairs until she finally reached the shrine.

Mount Wildwood was serene and calming. For the most part, it was still in its natural state - the shrine on top and the abandoned mining tunnels further up the trail were the only industrialization as far as Katie was aware.

"Alright," she muttered, holding her net tight as she went down the stairs to the right of the shrine. There were a few trees she could access - and a fence, which behind it had a giant tree. It was sacred - Katie wasn't fully sure why, but didn't question it, "guess I'll see what I can find around here!"

She slathered some syrup on her net and in the empty containers - it helped her catch more cicadas, though some of them realized what Katie was doing and managed to escape. By the end, she'd caught around five cicadas in total - three green ones and two red ones.

Speaking of green cicadas... Katie pulled out the cicada who had an odd aura. She still sensed the aura, even stronger than before now... it wasn't only from the cicada now. Katie looked around, her eyes catching on the fence that had previously been a barricade from the Sacred Tree - it glowed the same odd glow the cicada had, and had a much stronger aura... and then, it vanished, as if it had never been there in the first place!

"What the..?!"

Katie looked around, putting the cicada back in her bag. Seeing as no one was there...

"Well... guess a little look around wouldn't hurt!" Katie thought out loud, grabbing her net and again hoisting her bag over her shoulder.

She walked into the outcove with the giant tree, looking around. "Hmm... if I were a rare bug-" or a Yo-kai... "-where would I be..."

Katie's thoughts were cut off as she approached the tree - she hadn't quite realized how tall it was from behind the fence. "Whoa..."

But what caught her eye more was the base of the tree - there sat a gachapon machine, which looked very old. "What's this thing doing here-"

It had an aura.

She simply stared at it for a second. "What in the..."

Then a voice burst into song.

"Feed me, feed meeeeee..."

"What?!"

"Feed me, feed me, feed me now!"

Katie was caught off-guard and was hesitant in her next actions. I guess I should... put a coin in?

She searched through her bag for some change, finding some and approaching the gachapon machine. Quickly, Katie shoved the coin in and backed away, shielding her eyes... nothing happened yet, at least.

She cranked the dial on it a few times and a capsule popped out. It looked like it was made of rock, but did have a defined top and bottom. 

Katie screwed off the top, and was launched back by the force of... rings made of some sort of light coming out? Through the spiraling rings, Katie could make out... a silhouette?