Erma: Brothers in Arms – A Yokai Tale of Friendship

Date Started: 06-18-2021 A.D. | Date Finished: 06-19-2021 A.D. | Date Edited: 07-02-2021 A.D.

Enriks' A/N: I have gotten in talks with The Toxic Love Machine, who pitched in this idea for an Erma fanfiction. Honestly, this is gonna take away my attention from DOOM: Puer Infernalis Remake and to my readers, I apologize for not updating that story in five months.

Toxic Love's A/N: Considering Enriks has a hard time with his stories, I figured I'd give him an easier and fresher start with this story considering we both adore Erma and need to see more stories for her made here on Fanfiction.


[Chapter 01: Ghost Girl meets Two Stars]

Well, here they are, a fresh new start for both. Enrico had been driving to their new house while Ben peacefully slept in the passenger seat of his old 3rd Generation Plymouth Barracuda.

"Lucky bastard," he thought with a smile as he drove down the road to their new house.

It had been a few weeks since they have graduated from college. Six years of academic hell and resisting the indoctrinations had paid off, somewhat.

It had its ups and downs, on account of some radical movements from both sides of the political spectrum really making both their lives hell.

If it were not for Ben, he would have torched the place to the ground and he was confident in the vice versa of it, too. Hell, he still had that custom flamethrower sitting in the trunk, dismantled to look like a bunch of unrelated tools to get past some of the tighter border security between the states.

Maybe someday he will use it, but hopefully, it will only be when shit hits the fan.

Shaking his head to move away from those thoughts, Enrico could see that they were just a couple of meters from their new house.

It was a decent-looking thing, a two-story house with multiple windows to get a good view from a lot of angles. It was in good condition, too, just the right amount of age in the overall appearance. It also had a garage of its own, so he can easily and safely store his car in there and not risk someone stealing it. Sure, this was a nice neighborhood and all, but Enrico had lived a life of paranoia from before meeting Ben in college six years ago.

He drove into the curb and lightly nudged his friend. The American young adult woke up with a yawn.

"Rise and shine, Mister Shigura," the Filipino spoke in a tone like the G-Man from the Half-Life franchise. "Rise and shine…"

"Are we here already?" Ben asked groggily as he rubbed away the sleep from his eyes.

Ben Shigura was a young adult, just 26 years old, and with an athletic build like some Track & Field runners. His skin was pale, hinting at some lesser exposure to sunlight, and unblemished. He stood at the height of 6'3"/190.5cm. His black, curly hair was messy, looking like a bird's nest than a proper mop of hair. His eyes were what stood out, hazelnut eyes that seemed to glow no matter what kind of light spectrum they were in.

He was currently wearing a black t-shirt, a pair of skinny jeans, and an old pair of sneakers. Around Ben's neck was a silver cross on a necklace, something that was left to him by his mother.

In comparison, Enrico was taller than Ben, but at the same age of 26, standing in at 6'6"/198.12cm, and had an athletic build more suited to parkour and street fighting. His skin was light brown, thanks to some light to moderate exposure to sunlight, and marred with a few scratches, especially on his arms. His chocolate brown hair was cut to a military-style buzzcut. His eyes were charcoal black and were dull in comparison to Ben's eyes.

His outfit was a bit more exposing, consisting of a white sleeveless shirt and some knee-length green shorts, and some sandals. Around Enrico's neck were some dog tags, one was a custom job, and the other was what he had left to remember his father.

The two men were standing in front of their new house in silence until Ben finally broke the ice.

"So, this is it."

"Yeah, our new life." Enrico replied, looking over the house. Ben could see that Enrico's mind was working again and he could not help but smile at that.

Ever since their friendship had started, Enrico had been rather protective, acting like the bigger brother Ben never had. Even in their old dorm room, Enrico had arranged things to where he can easily deal with any attack from the door or from the window.

And now, with a two-story house all to themselves, Ben would be lying if he said he was not the slightest bit worried Enrico might go a bit overboard with how to organize the house.

Taking the first steps towards the house, Ben opens the door and both young men could see the interior. It was practically clean, with no furniture or dust or any décor anywhere.

"A bit bland..." the Filipino muttered, already knowing what the American will do. "But go nuts all the same, Benny-Boy."

His eyes glowed bright and suddenly various pieces of furniture were decorating the hall as well as the adjacent room. Of course, their positions were not perfect, so Enrico and Ben had to manually arrange them after the furniture had arrived.

After a few minutes of decorating the house, they were finally settling in.

Currently, Ben was on the couch watching a few cartoons while Enrico was busy in the kitchen cooking up some breakfast. Ben was watching a few episodes from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic when suddenly the TV started to cause static.

"What the?" Blinking, he switched to other channels to see if they were experiencing the same thing. They were all getting static.

"Uh, Bro? There's something wrong with the TV!"

"I told you to align the antenna properly!" Enrico barked from his place in the kitchen. By now, there was only static dominating the screen.

"I did!" Ben exclaimed back, slowly being freaked out as something appeared within the static. It looked like the shape of a little girl. It was there that Ben's eyes shrunk in realization and he very nearly came close to crapping his pants right then and there.

"OH FUCK! ENRICO! WE'RE BEING HAUNTED!" Ben dived behind the couch just as Enrico emerged from the kitchen.

"What the absolute hell are you talking abo-What the fuck?!" Enrico exclaimed and nearly dropped their breakfast when he saw what was going on with their 70-inch Plasma Flatscreen TV.

Emerging from the TV was what he could best describe as a chibi Sadako Yamamura from The Ring.

On pure instinct, Enrico threw the plates of their breakfast at it and immediately went for his gun, an FN FNX-45 Tactical. He spent a good amount of money in acquiring the gun as well as getting the necessary paperwork for the National License so he will not be having problems for carrying guns between states.

Lining up the tritium iron sights at the intruder, Enrico was about to fire when Ben suddenly cried out.

"Wait up!"

"WHAT?!" Enrico saw Ben pointing at the intruder, who was not moving a muscle and was now covered in their breakfast.

"I think we got off the wrong foot with her?"

"Oh really? What gave that away, the fact that she just came out the TV like Sadako Yamamura?!"

Ben opened his mouth to answer when someone was suddenly heard knocking on their door. The two men looked at one another.

"Were you expecting someone?" Ben shrugged at Enrico's question, just as confused as him.

The young girl that emerged from the TV simply shook off the food from her body like a dog and went to the door, prompting the other two to follow.

Enrico opened the door, while still having a grip on his handgun, to see a couple standing at their doorstep.

"Oh, hello!" The man greeted them. He was a man of average height, with light Caucasian skin and brown hair. He wore a yellow shirt and brown pants with a pair of glasses to go with his dark brown eyes and with some sneakers to complete the look.

By contrast, the woman was ridiculously pale, quite literally white as a sheet. She wore a pale white gown and nothing else. Her face was mostly covered by her long and voluminous pitch-black hair, with only the lower half of her face being visible to show her feminine lips.

"Have you seen a little girl running around?" Raising an eyebrow, Enrico answered with his own question.

"Would she happen to be this little girl?" He opened the door fully to show the girl to the couple, who immediately went to embrace the man in a hug, who simply chuckled in response.

"There you are. You shouldn't be scaring the new neighbors like that, if that gun was any sign." he lightly gestured to the FNX-45 in Enrico's hand.

"Welcome to Blairwood, you two. I'm Emiko and this is my husband, Sam. You've already met Erma, our daughter." His wife smiled as she ruffled her daughter's hair.

"Yeah, we have. At the cost of our breakfast," he grumbled. He spent a good amount of time prepping it too.

Sam chuckled. "Well, how about we treat you to compensate? I know of a good diner a few blocks down."

"I'm good with that!" Ben said and Enrico nodded.

So, after cleaning up the mess in the house and locking it up, the two men accompanied Erma and her family to the diner that Sam had told them about.

As they walked down the street, Enrico felt something tingling at the back of his head.

While not entirely reliable nor completely clear, he had a feeling this new start was going to be a wild adventure for him and Ben. He could also tell his friend was thinking the very same thing.

[END]


Enriks' A/N: Well, that was a short start, but it does help set the tone of the story.

So, in case you guys did not guess, this is a joint effort between me and The Toxic Love Machine. So, while I deal with the more serious aspects of the story, he will be dealing with the fluffy aspects of the story.

As for when in Erma's timeline does this occur, this is after they adopted their doggo Siris but before the Secrets Arc with Widdle Wallace.

Anyways, that is all from me for now. Until next time!

Toxic Love's A/N: We hope you people get hyped up because there will be Humor, Fluff, Action, and Romance involved in this story. All the good points of your typical fun read to enjoy while lying in bed trying to fall asleep or to occupy your time on the toilet.

I'll be keeping the humor alive while Enriks handles the drama aspects, so this is a joint collab effort between us to make an Erma story that will surely inspire others to make their own fanfictions for the amazing webcomic by Brandon Santiago.

Anyway, that's all for now. See you all next time and stay frosty!