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"Commander! You're urgently needed!" Bradford's voice echoed throughout her quarters, what should have been her sanctum from any and all nonsense. "We have a situation!"
Takashi had no idea why he couldn't handle it himself. She was trying to sleep. Nonetheless, when Bradford repeated the message a second time, and then a third time, Takashi got back into her uniform and rushed to the Geoscape. "What is so important, Central?"
"I don't know where to even begin, Commander," Bradford admitted, motioning to the monitors displaying footage from the security cameras positioned outside the base.
Takashi couldn't believe it.
"...Are those anime cosplayers?" Takashi managed to say, blinking several times to clear her eyes and hopefully banish the images from her mind. They remained, however, proving themselves indeed real.
"I believe those are Fire Emblem cosplayers," Bradford clarified. "Three Houses, specifically."
"...What is the frakking difference, Central?" Takashi rolled her eyes.
"Well-"
"Don't."
"I don't know about this, Commander," Aran said, looking right at one of the cameras so Takashi could see the doubt on her face, as Caspar Naruto Ran behind her. "What are we supposed to do about this?"
"I don't know, convince them to leave!" Takashi grumbled, opening a Starbucks Doubleshot energy drink can. She didn't have enough sleep to deal with this. Too much caffeine would have to do.
Aran grimaced, turning to face the crowd as other XCOM personnel stared at them from beyond the gate, as if daring them to take a step further. Aran really wasn't sure that Takashi was fully grasping the situation here.
On the other side of the gate stood the Blue Lions, the Black Eagles, the Golden Deer, and a handful of important people from the Church of Seiros. These cosplayers really did go all out, they looked like the real thing.
"So... any ideas?" Miyazaki asked, as a wyvern that looked too real for comfort stared at her from across the gate. She glared at it. "Stop looking at me like that!"
Edelgard stood closest to the fence, holding up a handmade sign that proudly declared 'FRAK THE CHURCH!' as Rhea stood nearby and glared at her. Noticing Rhea, Edelgard lowered the sign and picked up another one that read 'FREE E.T. FROM THE GOVERNMENT!'. Rhea still glared.
"Why am I even here?!" Felix growled, kicking an empty water bottle around and ignoring everyone else, who in turn saw fit to ignore him.
"What an honour," Claude muttered, leaning against the gate despite the guard repeatedly shouting at him not to. "We could be somewhere else, anywhere else, doing something meaningful, but instead we're just here ruining these people's day."
"We'd like it if you stopped," Miyazaki added.
"No," Claude immediately replied.
Another guard found himself staring at Hubert, who only gave him the most ominous of ominous smiles. He decided he would rather be anywhere else and walked away.
"Do you have any idea who we are?" Dimitri asked Aran, holding up his lance in what should have been a majestic pose but only served to annoy Aran.
"The reason I got out of bed at this unholy hour in the morning," Aran grumbled.
Dimitri didn't have any way to argue with that.
Byleth walked beyond everyone else, standing in front of a specific camera that was near a pond. She maintained eye contact with the camera, pulling a fishing pole out of nowhere and standing there, waiting for a fish to bite.
"...Why is she doing that..." Takashi's eye twitched, as she stared at the monitor in disbelief. "There aren't any fish in that pond."
Still maintaining eye contact, Byleth managed to reel a fish in. It was at this point that Takashi noticed the wyverns and the pegasi roaming about in the background.
"...I'm going back to bed," Takashi deadpanned, already walking out of the Geoscape despite protests from everyone else.