The AC garage used by Nezha here at Bab al-Qamar...I like to call it the Gate of Ishtar.
It's not exactly as glamorous as the real Ishtar Gate, of course. But it's suitable enough. Ishtar was usually kept offsite back when we were all in university together, but I'm familiar enough with the place. It's nice to be able to approach from the ground, without being rushed away from the city. Even if, compared to all the city's beauty, the girl in here is a far greater gift to me...
"I see we've arrived. I shall remain nearby, on watch." Beatrice quickly unbuckles herself, the tuxedo-wearing maid seemingly eager to get out. (No idea why that would be!) "I will arrive when needed, of course."
"You're not going to stick around?" I ask.
"My Lady, of course, if you request it...but, are you saying you really wish me to interfere with your personal affairs? Besides, I would be a fifth wheel."
I guess I can't argue with that. She'll be around when I need her, but it
would be pretty weird to have her just standing next to me like she's known us all for years. (Plus, Vincent would likely be pretty uncomfortable.)
"If you say so," I say, as I unbuckle and get out, peering at the door. Huh, I wonder where everyone is. Usually it's a bit busier -
Oh.
Beatrice has disappeared.
Really thorough training, huh? (Though, maybe she snuck off for other reasons. Who knows what Dunklar-trained maids do for fun?)
I shrug, and pop open the door, and into the AC garage - a place which looks rather drab for something that houses one of the Zartaj family's most precious treasures. Usually there's at least someone taking a break outside, but it
is a bit early. Maybe none of the contract mechanics had arrived yet.
Of course, this is just the front office. A far cry from the Abd-el-Tif, it looks more or less like what you'd have seen in my world around the turn of the century, full of greasy-looking machine tools, posters of branded mechanical items, cars, racing promotions...really, if not for the ACs and MTs on the photos, you'd probably see this as no different from any normal garage office of my world.
It's a strange duality - a 'noble culture' deliberately cultivated and preserved, while the masses, and much of our technology, maintains something of what I knew as 'modernity'. But then, I've spent most of my life in the Zartaj cluster; what little time I've spent in the other clusters...
Well. Those times, I was visiting nobles, usually. Most of it was in the Alphonse cluster, the colonies furthest from the Earth, behind the Moon...
I'm not exactly the kind of person you
want at a formal function, but I've been to a few in my time. Invited by my
rival, or for one accolade or another, or quite often for the period when the noble families were competing over me. But only once was I invited to something grand enough to
truly be called a 'gala'.
On the night of Walpurgis...
The Palace of Semailles, in the colony of Arcadia, the home of the Alphonse family - and though not the rulers of the colonies, certainly the self-appointed pinnacle of their culture, the architects of nobility itself.
Within this place, on the day of my birth, I was surrounded by Earthly pleasures. By the resplendence of Alphonse life. Someone's vision of rose-tinged beauty, Versailles reborn in the image of the Alphonse founders.
Under an artificial sky, an artificial moon, I watched as men and women danced to an orchestra's perfect symphony, as though dolls spinning on a music box. Dressed in the finest of clothing, created by the most skilled craftsmen and designers, huge amounts of time and resources to compete in the battlefield of aesthetics for the prize of social dominance - especially, for the prize of another lady or gentleman's hand in marriage, and the promise of a strong heir and political union.
Romance.
Pah.
I had no interest in such things. My interests are
scientific,
technological. A thing like 'love', why would I want that?
So I thought, as I gazed upon the women's fashions, never realizing the irony. And even if I had...it didn't matter, that I was clad in a dress with fibres that looked like they were spun from moonlight, in violets and blacks that complemented my pale skin, hair in gorgeous curls, showing skin in all the
wrong ways, looking better than I ever had...
I was no noble
yet. No man would have interest that was above the physical. Right now, I was just a prize to be fought over - a woman who could brush her hand onto a computer, and understand it. A woman who pushed Ishtar's mechanical brain to heights the other families struggled to understand and match...on the mere request of my very best friend.
An exaggeration, perhaps. Nezha's talents were more vital than mine
or my rival's, after all...
But fuck if I was going to tell
them that! You'd have to be an
idiot! Listen, when someone asks you if you want to be a noble, you. Say.
Yes!
That's how it is, in this world of 'nobles', that I had only begun to understand the true depth of.
Playing the part, playing the game.
And so it was...there with my beloved Nezha, getting my first
glimpse at countless powerful figures, even if I'd never paid them much attention at the time. No doubt there was plenty of scheming already, toward me. As I perused the food and drink, as I mingled, made small talk, tried to keep from getting too entangled, yes, there
was the face of the man I would someday call Father, letting the younger generations be pawns in their games...perhaps, other figures in the crowd. The Woman from Jupiter herself, or the Admiral of the Fifth Fleet, or even the men I'd been told of...
But.
At the time? I had thought this whole 'noble bid' thing was a bit of a snipe hunt. Plus, I had enough dealing with politics in research...
I had no eyes for such things. Even my keen eye for feminine beauty couldn't compare to Nezha's passion, nor the green-eyed woman who had invited me here...
But I know I saw
that man - Savior Laurent Louis Valentine, an ideologue who had long sought to claim the title of 'strongest Raven' for himself, who believed he could unite Ravens against pirates and even revive the Second Lunar Expedition. He challenged Nezha, who always fought alone, believing that would be the end of her...
"I don't fight alone," she said to him, baring her teeth in a manic grin, displaying a rare fury only seen within Ishtar. "I fight for my friends, for the people I love, like I always have. Just because
you feel you can't win a battle without five ACs and dozens of soldiers doesn't mean I have to throw lives away, right?"
I was touched, of course.
What we had together was a loyalty beyond family, beyond duty. Even Nezha, who has always held it as her duty to fight as ordered by her family, to uphold the legacy of Zartaj with perfect grace...she would defend us to the end. Even against one of her rivals - and Savior's penchant for responding to space pirates with mass assaults that overwhelmed their enemies with sheer numbers, popular with the nobility for its so-called 'purity' - she would use me,
us, as her strength.
After all,
screw Savior - no, not like
that - and screw the Valentine family's 'Five Hells'!
...ignore that I was extremely annoyed that apparently Heaven, Abyss, and Nemesis of the Five Hells decided they just weren't going to show up. How was I supposed to fangirl over them now?!
But yes, it was not simply Nezha there, nor Savior, nor Lord Izrail...nor even the Woman from Jupiter, or the Admiral of the Fifth Fleet, or any number of others, whose memories seemed so much less important than that of Nezha -
or that of Soreta Alphonse, that radiant 'valkyrie' who piloted the Nibelung Valesti, holder of one of the Three Legendary Blades, the Sword of Moonlight -
or, of her
sister, the heiress apparent, the ruby-haired girl who was
anything but simply another ingenue...
lit under moonlight and an artificial sky, green eyes glittering in the dark, a resplendent dress showing décolletage and lined in gold, her beauty as though the pinnacle of human existence...
declaring her rivalry toward me, now and forever, that for the rest of my days she would be a thorn in my side.
A night I would never forget.
Everyone sees, but only I
know.
"You're later than I expected."
I blink, taken out of my flashback by a
very familiar voice.
"Don't tell me you decided to take the 'scenic' route." As he steps in, a cane hitting the ground as he walks, he sighs in that long-suffering way I've grown so accustomed to. "I guess it's fine - no one else is around yet."
I tip my head over and smile at the man of the hour - Vincent Hamilton. Pariah of the Hamilton family, exiled from his name...my 'buddy', you could call him, most of all. "What, nobles shouldn't be fashionably late?" Oh, to be sure, I was
showing off - he'd seen this before, but not
on me, and it was
fun to see him get flustered.
(...fun? Really? Well, having people
want you isn't so bad, and as guys go, Vincent isn't awful. Yuina was self-aware enough to realize she didn't have any romantic designs on him, so there's no hard feelings here.)
"The family you've joined prefers
punctuality. Maybe they'll give you some latitude, though." Using his cane to steady himself, Vincent reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his pocketwatch. The cover was inscribed in swirling patterns, with a hole in the centre, and two false jewel bearings...
Well, it's not too shocking.
I made it for him, after all. Perhaps, one day, it'll be a companion for Vincent when he travels in time to meet his love -
which, well, won't be any of
us, I can tell you that for free. Is there such a thing as a 'straight best friend'? Well - okay, yeah, I've had more than a few in my time, but
still. Even in the closet, we're not going to pretend
that much...
"Forty-seven minutes or so. If you didn't get delayed in arrival, I'd have to assume your meeting with Lord Izrail didn't go too well."
...right.
That.
Great. Just when I thought my beloved Nezha would help me
forget...
"In a word: no."
"I'm guessing it has to do with nobles' favorite pasttime - marrying people to one another against their will." Pocketing his watch again, Vincent shakily settled himself into a seat, sighing as his glasses adjusted to the new light, the red of Hamilton revealed. "Couldn't even wait a moment, could he? For you to settle into your role and station? Pathetic and controlling, is what he is."
Yeah.
You might see why Vincent's so infamous by now.
Looking at him, he looks every part the noble gentleman from a minor family - a dark formal coat and necktie, matching pants, a fashionable watch with chain - but...
It starts to become obvious.
I'm pretty pale, but Vincent looks like he's never stepped out into the sun in his
life, and there's a good reason for that. The hair on his head is white, and somewhat wispy, short and slick, styled in a manner popular in the day. Despite bearing Hamilton red eyes through visual surgery and attempted corrections, he
still relies on a pair of special glasses to try and give him better vision; these days, he wears glasses with a photochromic lens my rival and I developed, which helps out quite a bit in dealing with changes in light.
Never seen without his cane, he's unsteady on his feet, and generally was always treated by his family as a nuisance. The runt of the litter, so to speak, suffering from albinism and physical disabilities that keep him from being able to participate in the forefront of noble life, and leads to him becoming a whispered curiosity.
But that's not the reason he left it all behind.
In the Zartaj cluster, due to the ruling family's influence, education is integrated. Nobles and commoners visit the same vocational schools and can apply to the same universities, and gender-segregated education is very rare.
Not coincidentally, these schools tend to be the best in the Earth Sphere.
Well, there's plenty of the usual hypocrisy, as inherent in the kind of school systems I grew up in in the real world, but...better than Alphonse Tory factories, right? Or Hanazuki girls' schools?
Either way, such a circumstance is what allowed me to meet Nezha Zartaj, my so-called 'rival', and of course...
Vincent Hamilton. One of our little 'gang of four'. A genius scientist, a genius engineer, a genius Raven, and...a genius
psychologist.
('Psychologist' doesn't do enough justice, if you ask me, though.)
"It's fine. I can't just pretend men don't exist, much as I'd like to sometimes." I run my fingers through my curls, tossing my hair a little in my hands. "This is the world I chose to live in, so I'd better at least
pretend to care. I'm sure if I just make token appearances at attempting such pursuits, I can keep his hands off."
"The entire matter is one of social control toward your actions, however. You, yourself, the person 'Fiona', is simply one aspect of what Lord Izrail desired when bringing you into the fold." Vincent pushes up his glasses, the lenses flickering white a little as they adjust again. "From a broader, societal standpoint, he demonstrates mercy and magnanimity, and provides proof to other nobles that the Zartaj philosophy is not a hypocrisy. Your infamous 'genius' nature provides prestige, and you are treated as an object of ownership already, one controlled by an extant power. But there's spreading Zartaj 'memetics', either to you or others, and then control over your 'genetics' - your reproductive capacity. This can be used as a bargaining chip...ah. My apologies. I seem to be telling you things you already know again.
"I - mm. Mostly, I would prefer you, as one of my best friends, to not lose sight of these matters. I would hate to see you succumb to being just another pawn in a game not your own."
Heh. How nostalgic, I think, as I smile at Vincent.
To me, the me from the twenty-first century of Earth, of course...what Vincent says goes without saying. Basic class and feminist theory, which while certainly not widespread
enough for my tastes in the first couple of decades, were not particularly radical ideas.
But in a world where ideas like 'commoners may not be as inferior intellectually as we once supposed' and 'maybe we shouldn't force women into marriages and force them to reproduce to continue the genetic legacy of some megalomaniacs a century or two ago' are considered radical, dangerous, and Goddess-damned
crazy...well, you can see why his family, affiliated with the Hanazuki, might not want someone around who directly challenges their ideas.
Anyway, in the colonies in general, you know, it's how it always is - say women's lives matter in public, and make them worse behind closed doors.
In public, Vincent is praised as a once-in-a-generation genius in the social sciences. His papers, studies, and other work in the field - both his own directly, and those by others guided by his ideas - have created a revolution in the matter, and brought to the public eye ideas once reserved for pirates, communists, and other agitators that sought to destroy the world order.
In
private...
Vincent's ideas are seen as nothing less than the end of society, the annihilation of man.
Heh. But, you know, it's not entirely serious. I've helped him out fair a bit with them - that whole 'maid and butler' thing, that was a doctrine we were developing in all seriousness! That there could be male maids and female butlers was a radical idea, one challenging conventional logic just as many Dunklar servants had been seen to do in recent years, that felt like the beginning of an entirely new and radical theory of gender! Unfortunately, though, we never got to develop the matter thoroughly once we spoke of the implications, because right around the point we began developing an ambitious plan of opening our own school for noble servants where men can become maids and women can become butlers, the bar closed.
Heh, before that, though...
'The act of becoming a maid is, itself, only a prelude to the act of becoming female!' he'd say, to me and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Good times, good times.
...
...oh, right, I guess I'll need to explain to Vincent why I don't drink now, huh.
"I think I can deal with it," I say. "Lord Izrail seems content to leave me to my own devices, for the most part." And, I've got Beatrice watching my back, too. "So, is Nezha around? I want a good look at Ishtar before anything else."
"She's in the back. The garage got a 'special delivery' courtesy of the Hanazuki Zaibatsu, it seems." Vincent
could not say that name with more contempt if he tried, I swear. "If nothing else, I'm glad I could see you off before we head out tomorrow."
"So you're heading to Arcadia still?" I ask. "I'd have figured you'd stick around the Zartaj cluster for a while. They put more pressure on you over there, don't you?"
"But the Zartaj
themselves hate me more. It's easier for both of us - and we'll be in contact a lot, I'm sure." Going from colony to colony isn't too arduous, even between clusters - hydrogen is easy to come by, after all, a resource we're unlikely to run out of. "What, are you telling me you don't
want more alone time between you and Nezha? You get to monopolize her!"
"I know, it's pretty lucky. Heheh. She's
my treasure now." I wiggle my eyebrows at Vincent. "Even so, it's not the same. I do hope I'll see you often."
"I'm sure I'll find my way into things," Vincent says, as he slowly pulls himself to his feet with his cane. "Come on, let's head to the garage. They'll be rolling in the HZ 'package' soon."
"Package? What is it?"
"Some kind of new-model Muscle Tracer, I hear."
"Wonder what they're doing showing me one of their hunks of junk." I roll my eyes. Hanazuki Zaibatsu MTs are a lot more skeuomorphic than other companies' models - which is to say, they're more overtly
humanoid, and I always found it compromised their performance too much. Style over substance - typical Hanazuki bullshit.
"They've been delivering the models to all the top Ravens, or so I hear," says Vincent, tapping the card at the door to let us inside the garage proper. And, well, it looks about as you'd expect - a big, warehouse-style machine shop which, if not for Yuina's knowledge, I'd never be able to make heads or tails of. Small work-loader MTs line the walls alongside materials, with a variety of weapons and displays hung up on the walls, garage workers flitting to and fro with some of the test model machines we use for calibrating Ishtar...
with the machine itself in the middle of it all.
When pirates steal the rare, valuable,
irreplaceable Armored Cores for their own use, the machines they reconfigure become loaded down with armor and made only for the sake of war. Even the minor nobles, with limited resources and lacking the best mechanics and engineers, often rebuild and regrow machines more for functionality than for looks.
But to the Five Families...
Armored Cores are nothing less than works of art, each and every one.
Ishtar is the pride and joy of the Zartaj family, reshaped by my hands. Its shining black armor, the same shade as my dress, was made in swooping, sweeping curves and lines. Standing around five metres tall, the machine has been designed from the ground up to maximize its mobility, the Femto-fueled rocket engines capable of sustained high-speed maneuvers.
Its legs bend backwards at the knee, the so-called 'reverse-jointed' model - it adds some weight and complexity, but using those legs allows for Nezha to perform boosted-jump maneuvers and leaps that other ACs can't hope to match. Even in the colonies, where for an AC the false 'gravity' is little more than a suggestion, the tactical considerations let her run rings around her foes and maneuver through cover.
The armaments are on display - the prized golden naginata above it, its energy blade dormant. Empty micromissile racks, carefully designed as to not compromise Ishtar's beauty, are placed for inspection by the contract mechanics, while the naginata is flanked by a slim laser cannon and a small pulse machine gun for the off-hand, used prominently in times of war rather than duels alone.
Of course, within the contamination that permeates even deep space, close combat is the order of the day. More than one pirate MT has met its match by Nezha's blade, an act surely unimaginable in the days before the Fall.
Huh, space-based contamination causing combat to revert to visual-range, where even swords are a viable weapon...definitely haven't heard that one before.
All this being said, it doesn't quite look the same without Nezha's will flowing through the machine, lighting the sensor spaces violet as she controls it through thought alone, a Raven whose strength is said to be outmatched, who needs a machine that can keep up with
her - not the other way around.
It also doesn't quite look the same without the
head, the thing placed elsewhere, for my ease of access to tune its electronic brain...
I smile, as I walk up to it. With antennae on each side of the head and a large front 'visor' glow for its 'face', the top has been removed, curling technorganic machinery inside in the vague shape of a cerebrum. I gladly push my ungloved hand into it, smiling as I stroke its insides.
"Hey there," I whisper. "Doing well today? Eager to fight Judgment Blaze and that asshole Savior? Yes we are, yes we are~"
Vincent sighs, trying to ignore my usual greeting to Ishtar as he wanders in. "I wouldn't be so certain of victory this time. Apparently, there's someone else being brought in on advisement on Savior's side to counter your influence."
"That's just a rumor," I mutter, lovingly touching the insides of Ishtar's brain. Such elegant machinery, elegant thoughts...there's nothing that can compare to it in the modern day. "He's just trying to save face. 'I would've won if I had a genius to reprogram my machine!' he says, as he shrinks and turns into a corncob."
"Pft. That'd be the day." Vincent smiles, walking with his cane closer to Ishtar itself. "Barbaric as these duels may be in the abstract, I can't say the animal in me isn't hoping for Nezha to win against him once more. Some 'Savior' he is, that throws away human lives."
"Yeah, he's still pissed about Nezha not 'doing what needs to be done' or whatever. Why can't he be a hot girl instead like his sisters? At least then he'd be slightly more interesting than a plank of wood."
"Would it be that easy? To flip a switch to turn Savior from boring to tolerable?" Vincent seems to take the matter seriously, at least, raising a hand to his chin. "I wonder what a male version of you would look like."
Ugh. Well, I guess Vincent doesn't know any better, but still -
gross.
"I don't know it'd be that different," I say. "Besides that I'd be a repressed shit." Hm, should I say 'that wanted to be a girl'? Nah, I'll save it - better to introduce Vincent to the idea more gradually. Maybe with my modern knowledge, I can try and drag this entire goddess-forsaken era into something resembling a society I might willingly choose to live in.
I guess it's kind of vain of me, though. It's the ultimate hubris, to assume one always knows best, and that prior eras are inferiors that need to be enlightened by the masses. Putting up a story full of strawmen just to knock down is fulfilling, but perhaps in a way intellectually dishonest. Life isn't so convenient as to allow one 'genius' to change the world, no matter who she is; the group is greater than the individual, and human history is not made merely of great men making decisive decisions like
some people seem to think.
On the other hand, though...
Well, they
are all kind of assholes here in outer space, huh?
And I
am pretty amazing, gotta be honest.
"Either way, his sisters are singularly unpleasant, but...they have a certain honesty about them." Vincent steps up to Ishtar, staring at its form. "They're bloodthirsty killers, and proud of it - and openly self-superior and self-serving. Savior has all of the pretense of
noblesse oblige, but not even the slightest pretense that his nobility
obliges him to do anything but accomplish his missions at any cost."
"And he's chasing down the Lady, too. I guess he'll be teaming up with Admiral Arisa?"
"That woman
terrifies me, Fiona," says Vincent, openly shuddering. "She carries around a
claymore as her blade of office. And it's not simply for show."
"Yeah, yeah.
That's just a rumor, forget about Savior's star mechanic. Who would execute someone with a claymore? That's just
messy, and in zero-g -"
The garage door interrupted us.
Opening up into the back loading bay and testing area, another machine was being rolled in, idle upon its frame, clearly of a very different and more primitive design than the elegant AC. Chunky, full-bodied limbs compared poorly with Ishtar's lithe frame, and the cockpit was clearly greatly expanded with the required control and life support technologies that ACs had miniaturized, and rocket engines that required large internal fuel tanks...
Yeah, that was a Hanazuki Muscle Tracer, alright.
"It's a piece of shit," I mutter. "Looks cool, though. Maybe that's the point. You know, you make this kind of thing, and the average girl on the street will go, 'wow, cool robot!'" I wave around my arms for emphasis. "'This is better because it looks cooler!'"
"You used that same logic with my watch," Vincent says. "Remember? Powered by a lithium ion battery that can easily be recharged through magnetic induction...which was all well and good until it caught fire."
"My lawyers have advised me to tell you hydrogen is
also flammable."
"It
was very kind of you to give me a mechanical replacement, but -"
"Miss Fiona."
My heart skips a beat as I hear her voice.
Her presence warms my heart, and her ferocity in battle is my muse.
I would do anything for her, my very best friend, and that she fought so hard to claim me as her sister makes my cheeks flush, and my soul burn with passion. Even if another family claimed me as their own, they would have to drag me away from her over my cold, dead hands...
Curly black hair, held in a side ponytail.
Red Zartaj eyes, with dark eyeshadow making them appear large and open, that look upon me with awe.
Rich, full lips painted in burgundy.
Olive skin, a shade seemingly made to perfectly complement my own...
And a statuesque bearing, that surely could launch wars, like Helen of Troy herself, a face to launch a thousand ships...
This, before me, is the woman known as Nezha - pilot of the ancestral Zartaj Armored Core Ishtar, and the strongest Raven in the Earth Sphere.
...but, uh, well. Let's just say I haven't seen her in this outfit before, and...
"Nezha, I'm glad to see you, but - what are you
wearing?" I ask.
"Oh, this?" Nezha stands up straight and grins, saluting at me. She's wearing a beret, slightly side-cocked, and a series of belts inexplicably secure her outfit together, with a coat that
specifically has a cutout for her undershirt to cover her breasts, a pleated skirt and thigh-highs, and generally just...
Well.
The logo on the necktie was not unexpected.
"It's the latest Hanazuki Zaibatsu Security Force uniform for year CCXXXV!" Nezha says, cheerfully. "I thought you'd like it, Miss Fiona..."
"I mean, on
you, I do, but..." Yeah, of
course it's the Hanazuki. Their security forces change their uniform each year, and they're
heavily stratified by gender. I may appreciate it on Nezha, don't get me wrong, but -
well.
What is this, a gacha game?
Of course, what I'm wearing is...perhaps comparable, with the zettai ryouiki and everything, but -
o-oh.
oh my.
Nezha quickly takes me into a hug, pressing herself against my body. "I like your dress, too. It suits you...I finally got to see this. You've been working hard on it while preparing for your arrival here, right?"
There's just...
something about her voice, the way she moves, the way she looks at me. That just sets all my instincts alight, that this girl, is
mine, and...
ah, jeez, I could
kiss her, but -
of course, she doesn't know yet. If we were alone, I don't know if I could stop myself, but, it's not something to
rush into, and perhaps I'd prefer something romantic among the stars, something that she would
never forget, to claim Nezha as my own...
(Vincent is trying not to look, but - well. It's hard, isn't it~?)
"Yeah...the same as your suit. Although, since this isn't spaceworthy, I didn't have to worry so much about the problems..." Even for a genius like yours truly, R&D is a fraught process. (Especially when it's clearly motivated by our desires as much as practicality.)
A-ah...
Nezha presses in closer to me. "I'm sure, Miss Fiona, that when you show the finished product to the world, that they'll know just as I do. That this is their future."
Those words tickle something inside my brain, and I can feel how
Miss Fiona is hardly a statement of mere respect...least of all since, in status, she was my superior, and now my equal.
"Calling her 'Miss Fiona' is even stranger now, Nezha," Vincent comments, glancing between us and the Hanazuki MT. "You're equals, now - and
sisters, if on a mere technicality."
"Hey, Savior looks nothing like any of
his sisters." Well, like I said, that's not
unusual, and the Valentines in particular
purposefully do pseudo-swinging like the Renata do to pull that off, but
still. "Yeah, yeah, they're already saying 'blue-eyed Zartaj', but it's still
Zartaj."
"It feels appropriate, that you bear such a name," Nezha says, nestling her head against me. Ah...ah, my cheeks are flushed..."In my eyes, you've always been that kind of existence. Though...'Kaplan' or 'Zartaj', neither matters - rather, it's 'Fiona' that matters most to me. That's the name worthy of respect."
...right. Yeah. That smile.
Goddess, how long am I going to be able to go
without kissing this damn girl? Well, Vincent is one thing, but, but there's -
one other thing
one other
person
that will get in the way.
One person, with hair of ruby red, and emerald Alphonse eyes.
And, well, you know what they say, right? Speak of the devil...
"Oh? I can't believe you started without me, dear Nezha."
and she
will appear.
"Miss Miri," I hear, spoken from Nezha's lips, a wave of jealousy flowing through me as her eyes flit toward my
rival, she who I
despise , even as my arm tightens around her to emphasize her closeness to
me. "Where have you been?"
"Inspecting the new machine," the redhead says, brushing back a lock of stray hair. She's just in a thick burgundy sweater and jeans, wear more appropriate for the garage than the ballroom, with not a
hint of makeup, yet -
all I can see is the gorgeous woman draped in moonlight, on the night of Walpurgis.
"That
thing, has no official name. The Hanazuki Zaibatsu refer to it as a 'next-generation machine weapon', model number HZ-X7-1a." The woman, Miri, my
rival...she gestures over to it, and as though on her mere
whim, a mechanic quickly rushes over to climb up and pull open a hatch on the humanoid form.
"Catchy," I mutter, still feeling Nezha's warmth. "Well, if it's still a prototype, why does it still look like the chassis was designed by marketing?"
"Miss Miri has been studying the schematics since she was sent them." A-ah, I just, the way Nezha looks at her, at that
despicable rival of mine, if I could squeeze any
tighter...
"Having had a look at the real thing, it makes even
less sense." The machine weapon's entire upper body rises up - a typical entry method for Hanazuki MTs - and displays a cockpit filled with a complicated series of pedals and hand controls with dials and switches, and a bewildering array of monitors and information. "If the stated specifications are correct, this machine is more capable in battle - in
theory - than any Hanazuki MT I know of before it. But that's meaningless if the pilot cannot accomplish their task. Nezha, if you would."
Nezha tugs away from me, and walks toward the machine, climbing up to inspect the cockpit. That she's so willing to do it, at Miri's very
word...
This woman.
This woman is my rival...
The heiress of the Alphonse dynasty, whose talents have been as instrumental to Ishtar's success as my own, who schemes just as I do...
Miriaria Alphonse.
You see, about five years ago, I began my university education. At the Cosmo University of Our Lady Adia Zartaj - don't laugh, it's a
highly prestigious institution with a very dignified name, and everything has to be called 'cosmo' in space by Anime Law - I was faced with something of a conundrum.
Darija is the language of the Zartaj, but my home colony of Kitchissippi were Cambrian speakers. Needless to say, I had a bit of catch-up to do, if I wanted to keep up. As it happened, Nezha wanted to learn Yamataian...and was more than willing to associate with 'commoners' like Vincent and I to do it, already allowed such latitude as a Raven. And Miriaria, well, she herself was more than willing to push those boundaries.
The 'Language Club' we organized quickly became a space for the four of us, and far expanded its original goals. From here, we pledged to push our minds to the limit...and beyond.
Nezha's strength as a Raven grew under our quiet guidance. Our evening whispers with Vincent turned to his papers and studies by morning. Miriaria was opened to new, beautiful, shining gorgeous possibilities by my science and visions...while I -
reluctantly - was forced to make concessions to the practicalities of engineering and common sense by a woman who as quickly as I met her, became my
eternal rival.
We strengthened one another, and yet, as much as we drew close, as much as we complemented each other...
Both of us, Nezha's best friends. 'Miss Fiona' and 'Miss Miri'. Both of us, positioned as equals, and quietly telling one another that only one of us could win that position. If Nezha, a Raven, was someone whose power could revolutionize the world, then...
under a moonlit night, on the night of Walpur-
okay
no
Okay, no, I'll save that monologue for later, but the crux of the problem is really very simple!
Miriaria Alphonse - if you ask
my biased ass, at least - is every bit the kind of existence every noble
thinks they are. Flawless grace, superior intellect, a natural leader among women. Compared to me, whose 'genius' amounts to sticking my hand in something's brain, who has to lie and cheat her way to the top every step of the way, and is known for abusing
several substances now legal in the Zartaj cluster...well.
She's too perfect. She's too smart. She has to rub everything in my face. She's so smug.
She's
so fucking hot.
"Oh I see the problem. This cockpit was designed by
morons." Nezha sighs, staring at the controls, manipulating some of them as she looks at the dials. "A Muscle Tracer is going to have problems, I realize that, but this makes absolutely no sense. It's like every part of the machine is supposed to be moved manually through these physical controls. And I have no idea who arranged these sensors. Simply piloting this machine will be physically and mentally exhausting...at least they brought the uniform along with it. They may as well have said, 'buy our new uniform, with free shitty mech'."
"...about that," Miri says, stepping toward me, green eyes meeting my blue, that
smug smile on her face...that
look in her eyes, she reserves for her
rival...
(yeah, I know Yuina's memories are screaming 'this is the rival I despise', but
my memories are screaming 'fuck, just
kiss me already you bitch')
"The dress. You've finished it? The miniaturization of the cooling system?" Her hand reaches for the hem of my skirt, as she tugs it with her fingers. "What about the photovoltaic layer? We were having trouble with the microhydraulic pumps, weren't we?"
"
Well, since the dress doesn't have to be spaceworthy, I can cheat a lot of the requirements. Though the advancements in question should still be applicable to the plugsuit model - I've already got one ready for tonight." I grin back at Miri. "Don't tell me you're jealous?"
"Not especially. Because you
will bring those schematics to me, of course. That I might partake of them myself. And we can take Nezha together, and compare designs...and we can see which she prefers. Which one of ours..." Lips closer, whispering, such a powerful
rivalry so easily seen...
(Yeah, you can see why Nezha likes this. Why, even now, she's glancing away from the machine at us, as we partake in words together. Imagine not one but
two beautiful women fawning over you to make you their possession and wrap you in latex black, and pledging their lives to improve you, to make you
better, and...)
Vincent sighs, glancing at the two of us together. "You two, honestly. Every time, you start a fight..."
(...right. If he can't tell that this isn't exactly a
fight, then he's maybe not quite the genius psychologist I thought.)
"Fighting?" Nezha says, as she hops off the machine, landing perfectly on her two feet. Her unparalleled mastery of the physical is something I really can't understand; she less moves than
flows from place to place, and in the few times someone dared to strike her, she demonstrated she could easily snap the neck of anyone who crossed her if she so chose. (More than once, she'd used such violence to protect me...of all the Zartaj, Nezha was one of the few who had no individual servant watching over her. An old superstition, apparently - a Raven being stabbed by their servant in their sleep. Having such a capability only makes sense.) "No, no, it's not like that, Vincent."
"Oh?" Miri turns from me, and tips her head back. Here, it's...well, it's easy to see, just how
alike we are. Both around the same height, the same
softness to ourselves - though not only does she wear it better than me, that's a fucking
corset under your sweater,
Miri, you can't fool me! - such that if you messed up her hair and put bags under her eyes and ensured all the colors lined up, you could
almost mistake her for me.
Except...
She's perfect. And she's flawless. And
her breasts are bigger than mine okay how the fuck could any woman be this fucking closeted
okay
okay, I'm not going to panic, just because somehow Yuina went
five fucking years without realizing, and also
Miri and
Nezha did, and we have a
literal psychologist and apparently there are no fucking books on homosexuality and...
okay.
it's fine.
"Then, how is it?" Miri says, that smug smile she reserves only for me as she presses a finger to my collarbone, a long nail pressing against the shining resilin of my dress.
"Well, you know." Now it's
Nezha's turn to be smug - but a quiet, and dignified thing, that suits her far better, as though knowing us is simply the way of things. "Vincent thinks you're fighting, but...I was just thinking about how you two are such good friends."
...
...
...
fuck this horrible societally-imposed closet.
As I so often do, when facing an intractable problem, I run off to the bathroom.
Okay. Okay, don't panic. Don't panic, and
definitely don't think of how you have two girls fawning over you, and they inexplicably don't -
okay no there
is an explanation, just, no magical thinking. Just - just
think, Fiona. And not about how hot they are, or the passions you share. Just think of...
think of that night.
that night, which set the stage for all of this.
On the night of Walpurgis, under an artificial sky, an artificial moon, a reflection of the dark side's light, the night when the fight to claim me as a noble began...
I was called upon the balcony of the Palace of Semailles, in the colony of Arcadia, by the woman named Miriaria Alphonse - all but literally a princess calling a pauper to the place spoken of in romantic legend. A night, the night of Walpurgis, when if true love blossomed in a kiss under the moonlight, all things were possible.
(Subtext much?)
"Isn't the moon beautiful?" she said, the woman named Miriaria Alphonse, in her most resplendent incandescence. Here, she wore a dress of black spider-silk, lined with gold filament, a brooch of gold and emerald, earrings the same jewel-shade as her eyes dangling from her, hair pinned up with hairsticks, lips painted slick and wet and
inspiring ruby red so similar to the resilin we had started exploring...even with me in a dress made, as my rival so often said, for the sake of
épater la bourgeoisie, it was clear where true beauty lay.
That woman stared above at the reflections from the dark side of the moon, lit with reflected sunlight as the Earth experienced a new moon of darkness and silence. Its surface is criss-crossed with faint lights, of moon bases and facilities once filled with human beings, and now occupied by unthinking drones. "One day, Nezha and Soreta will lay their feet upon its surface in their Armored Cores, and we shall reclaim it for humanity. Water, oxygen, deuterium, helium-3, rare metals, countless other resources - enough for our life in the stars to continue for centuries longer, and for all to enjoy the splendor that you or I witness."
"It'll be a beautiful day, when it does happen," I said, narrowing my eyes, and puffing back my hair a little, blue meeting green, glittering in the moonlight. "When the Sword of Moonlight returns to its home, and Ishtar meets with her father Sin..."
"Precisely. Humanity's one greatest desire is to
live," Miri said, arms open wide as she stared upon the reflections of the moon. "The stars are ours to claim, Fiona! Why, should one of us finally get to meet them, to escape these colonies, to create a future where there are no petty wars over resources and prestige. Perhaps, somewhere out there, other civilizations exist - humans who escaped the Fall, or even other creatures all the stranger."
"You're kinda stealing my bit, you know," I muttered, stepping closer as Miri turned around, proudly laying her hand upon exposed décolletage, grinning to me. "So. Why'd you call me out here? I bet there's five couples out there waiting for the chance for their kiss under the moonlight, and I don't want to be the one getting blamed for holding them up."
"Well. We're competition, aren't we? The two of us, once in a generation...the colonies are the stage of our game, Fiona Kaplan. The one who wins...you could call her a 'lady of the universe'."
Both of us had seen our stars rise, such that we could no longer be ignored. Neither gender nor noble status could deny it. My scientific theories, and her mechanical designs, had become so famous even commoners knew our names. And, even if, perhaps, we didn't realize what was most obvious, just
why we had chosen to declare this under the moonlight...
"I don't intend to be merely an heiress, merely another tool. What I seek is the same as you, Fiona - to claim the true throne, atop society, to be reshaped into something better than those visionless fools that surround us." Miriaria laid her hand upon my heart, upon my chest, smirking to herself. Having thought of these words for a very long time, how to declare just how much she (desires)despises me. "Yes, just the same as you...and now, it seems, we'll be equals. Competitors. We're playing the same game now...and I don't intend to lose to you, Fiona. Anyone else, but you..."
Yes...no matter what happened from here, with the colonies on the brink, pursuing the Second Lunar Expedition, manipulated by the Woman of Jupiter, and on the brink of war against those so-called 'freedom-loving' space pirates that fought a never-ending battle against all nobility...
We knew enough to know we were never going to let ourselves -
neither of us, nor Nezha, nor even Vincent - become tools of a higher power.
"So, I'll put it quite simply, for you," she said, in a whisper, so close to me, "Fiona Kaplan, so that you might understand in no uncertain terms." Glittering in the moonlight, I stared into her green eyes, and my heart pulsed as I felt the passion and heat between us, in this moment...
"...Nezha is my
treasure," that woman said, before me under an artificial sky, leaning closer to me, so close our lips could easily meet, if just one of us were to slip...just
one of us, our passion for Nezha and our passion for each other their equal. "We are friends, of course, but even more than that,
eternally more than that? We are
enemies. And so long as you lay claim upon my treasure..."
Her lips descended even closer, and...if one gazed upon us at the wrong angle, it would look like nothing less than a kiss...
"I will hate you 'til forever."
...
...
...no.
No!
Fuck that!
Fuck
all of that!
I refuse! I
refuse! I absolutely
refuse to participate in such a farce!
"Haha..."
I grin to myself, as wide as I ever have, as I begin to laugh - and this bathroom is soundproofed for a
reason.
"Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! Aha...
ahahahahahahahahaha!"
It's such a
joke! All this time, I've been getting so deep into character, but all of this,
all of this, has such a
simple answer! Yuina Kaplan, for all her supposed genius and 'challenging logic', not only couldn't see what her feelings really were, she couldn't even think of the solution so
fucking obvious to me!
Okay, well, minor problem...I've been rather goofy in this scenario, I'll confess. And to be honest - I don't
mind, because it's
fun, right? It's just a quest, we should really just relax, right? But, well...
Who the fuck knew that the serious part of Fiona Zartaj was not the
Yuina half, but the
Fiona half? It doesn't take a genius to figure out who's taking the lead in this 'competition'. That Miri, well...all else aside, the
noble will win, even if she's someone who's earned her genius and power just as I have.
But no. I am, after all, Fiona. As I have been, for so long. Even deep beneath the waves, all my loves, all my friends, all the people precious to me so distant and forgotten...I still carry that with me, and, well...
I know what none of these people do: that girls
can love girls, and love doesn't have to be a fucking
competition.
Not that I
blame them, as such, of course. It might seem unrealistic to people, but...I've met, and
lived through, far worse. To go years without admitting one's love, or trapped within a system, an obligation that one despises...is not so unusual. Goddess - or
devil - bless us all, that we might understand that our only recourse is to grasp our desires and pull them down from heaven.
So if I'm going to do this? For once, the 'speedrun' route might be our best shot at happiness. To push such a realization upon these two women, such that we can skip the competition, the smouldering looks, the near-misses of attraction. To work
together, rather than apart - or at least make our 'rivalry' something healthy, fun, and even
sexy.
Maybe I'm oversimplifying the situation - maybe there are deeper issues with Miri, that are utterly intractable. Maybe turning two into three won't be so easy as I believe - even if I firmly believe Nezha
wants to be fought over, but equally
wants us
both to love her. I could very well be
wrong, after all - love isn't such a simple thing as to be predicted so easily, right?
But if I'm not...
then why not?
If love isn't enough, then why don't we - why don't
I -
make it enough?
As an old friend of mine taught me...
what point is a love triangle when everyone loves each other?
...okay, that said. Before that, we
do have a duel to prepare for, and a package the Hanazuki Zaibatsu wants us to test. The former is more or less spoken for, but the
latter, well, we're going to need to figure out who's driving the thing. Since we'll be testing it against Nezha's Ishtar, it'll have to be one of the rest of us...
[ ][Test Flight] Do it myself. This
probably won't go badly, despite me being blatantly out of shape and also using several kinds of previously-illicit substances recreationally, right? Besides, I'm in a robot setting, so I should pilot a robot, right? (Wow, cool robot!)
[ ][Test Flight] Have Miri do it. She's...well, she's healthier than I am, yes, but she's still got
curves, and
weight, and is generally Not In Shape. But she might get some insights out of it?
[ ][Test Flight] Uhhhhh...here, random intern/mechanic/other innocent bystander!
-[ ][Test Flight] Write-in for what kind of person has been roped into this inenviable task.
[ ][Test Flight] ...Beatrice! Hey, can you help me out with this one?
[ ][Test Flight] Vincent! We need you! (don't actually do this, he'll die)
I guess maybe I should pick less in terms of effectiveness, and more in terms of entertainment value, though. I wonder why the Hanazuki would create a machine that's so physically and mentally demanding to pilot as to be useless as a war machine...?
Well, after that, I should probably figure out how I wanna pull this off. But, you know, it's not going to be
hard, right? Like, Nezha would probably just kiss me if I
asked, and Miri would just need to be told to stop treating women as the enemy and instead fall in love with them. So instead, it's more like...
How do I want to have fun with this, but also, do I want to bring them both in at once? Or one at a time? Even Yuina, before I went and took on her role, wanted to take Nezha on a whirlwind date - you know, as friends do - before the duel. But, maybe if I brought Miri instead? Would it be better to have both rivals claim treasure
together? Or shall I just try and accomplish the tricky task of a three-way conversation on the matter, and ensure everyone's on the same page from the start?
Or, maybe mix it in with the duel prep. We
are planning to test our new model plugsuit today...and, well, I
may conveniently have ones in mine and Miri's sizes, too...
[ ][Date] Nezha, alone.
-[ ][Date] A romantic, whirlwind date, at the end of which a confession under the gate of the moon...
--[ ][Date] Write-in for exciting space-dating activities.
-[ ][Date] Discussing the matter during fitting of the plugsuit prototype, a confession wrapped in latex black.
-[ ][Date] Write-in.
[ ][Date] Miri, alone.
-[ ][Date] A romantic, whirlwind date.
--[ ][Date] Exciting space date write-in!
-[ ][Date] While fitting her to a plugsuit sized just for her...
-[ ][Date] Write-in.
[ ][Date] Nezha and Miri.
-[ ][Date] A romantic, whirlwind date that leaves all of our mutual attraction impossible to deny.
--[ ][Date] Write-in for details!
-[ ][Date] While wrapping all three of us in resilin black plugsuits...
-[ ][Date] Write-in.
[ ][Date] ...actually, I'm thinking about this all wrong. Vincent may not be as ignorant of the matter as I believe - why not ask him about it first? Reasoning through the situation with an outsider would be helpful, right?
-[ ][Date] Optional write-in for how the hell I tell a guy that his three best friends are lesbians and all into each other. Wait, that might end poorly...
unless...?
[ ][Date] Write-in some kind of wild and crazy idea worthy of the Blue-Eyed Zartaj!
Right,
that thread I started about wonderful date ideas in outer space might be helpful here, right? We're in a fucking O'Neill cylinder in outer fucking space, how cool is that!
...
...well, it is cool, but...
Hehe.
Hehehe.
This world has
no idea what it's unleashed... 🖤
Author's Note
Yeah, you see now why I split this chapter up. But, we've now got our main cast! And now that we have the long-term love triangle that surely would create the bulk of the theoretical anime here a tense tale of sensual desire and need, as these women explore what they mean to one another against the backdrop of outer space, we're now just going to speedrun it.
So this means, for
A Shadow Resides readers: the plot is
officially off the rails. No matter what happens here, the world has already irrevocably changed...
Speaking of, now that we've met some of the principal characters of A Shadow Resides here in this quest - that being, Nezha Zartaj and Miriaria Alphonse - I'll likely be posting a 'preview' of that quest here for people's perusal. As it so happens, we recently covered Nezha and Miri's backstory in the last update of that quest, so it's rather relevant for reasons which will become clear when I do. This'll go along with a slight thread refresh/intro, and maybe a bit of omake content - a new Science Lesson, and a bit featuring Jamie, The Girl Who Watches Uchujo.
I wonder if anyone is going to get that...
No mention of a blue-eyed Zartaj there, though...I wonder what happened to her in the 'original' timeline?
I mean, yes, I know what happened as the QM, but feel free to speculate!
By the way, @Thelxiope? You're welcome. 🖤
