An A-rank aerial mage on patrol gets dropped into the world of Fate after a faulty Dimensional Transfer. It could be a while until she gets to go home.
Fate/Enforcer (Lyrical Nanoha/Fate Series Crossover)
- Thread starter MintCalcium
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Your eyelids flutter open. For a long moment, you are alone, with nothing but the sound of your own breath and dull ringing, like a tiny pair of bells in your ears, to accompany you. Slowly, your senses return, and color drains back into the world.
For a while, you just lay there, befuddled.
"Where am I?" you mutter to yourself apprehensively, staring blankly upwards as you lay motionless, flat on your back, and try to recall the sequence of events leading up to your current predicament.
With TSAB HQ reeling from its decapitation strike even now, more than a year since the JS incident, there's been a sharp uptick in underground activity taking advantage of the chaos. Compounded with years of Gadget terror attacks decimating Arms Service and the usual Lost Logia bullshit, TSAB's been stretched close to breaking, even with the Aces flying around, putting out the biggest fires. It's gotten so bad that the Main Office somehow managed to get approval from Governance to grant any sufficiently powerful mage a (supposedly) temporary Enforcer commission, even those without the years of prerequisite criminal investigations or legal training.
Guess who that includes?
Just thinking about it makes your head hurt. And your body hurt. Everything hurts. The last thing you remember is Captain Uplander seeing you off aboard the Valencia as you Transferred planetside to some barren rock along the patrol route suspected to harbor a cache of illicit Devices.
The slightly damp blades of grass tickling at your nape indicates that this planet is not, in fact, that barren rock, or any barren rock for that matter. You squint at the clear night sky, a dark canvas splattered with a vivid kaleidoscope of stars and constellations, and run some quick mental calculations. "Am I on Earth?"
That can't be right. An open palm smacks against your forehead as you prop yourself up with your other hand. Right, well, you're not that bad at math—somewhat above average, actually—but stuff like this is best left for…
"Nova?" you whisper, speaking the designation of your Storage Device. No response. Frantically, you pat yourself down, heart sinking as you pointedly do not find the missing magical supercomputer on your person. Huffing, a dejected sigh escapes from your lips. "Captain's gon' kill me."
Clambering to your feet with a pained groan, you work out an awful kink in your neck and brush off your skirt as you glance around. It looks like you're in a small clearing in a forest of some sort. Surrounded by the ambient sound of the peaceful forest fauna and a slow wind blowing between the trees, you breathe in the cool, crisp evening air, letting it fill your lungs. It's all quite pleasantly idyllic.
'Do they have bears here on Earth?'
You shake your head—now's no time to be taking in the surroundings. Without your Device, you're an easy mark for any unscrupulous mage worthy of the appellative, not that there should be any around. On the bright side, Nova's not exactly easy to miss—in her deployed form, anyway—so you should have an easy time finding her.
"Magnify," you breathe, casting the rather basic Increase spell, made all the more underwhelming by your lack of a Device. Still, with your boosted senses, you quickly spot her as you pace around the low brush, leaned against the base of a tree trunk and looking slightly scuffed.
'Rough landing too, huh?'
Briskly jogging over, you scoop up the—
[Device: Choose 1]
[ ][Device] Gauntlet
[ ][Device] Rapier
[ ][Device] Halberd
[ ][Device] Bayonet
[ ][Device] Staff
[ ][Device] Write-in
—before feeding a tiny trickle of mana into her, booting her up. With a metallic thunk, the Storage Device transforms into her standby form, a plain gunmetal gray pendant that floats toward you, clasping itself around your neck, hanging loosely from a silver collar. With your Device's familiar presence secured, you feel much more comfortable now that—
"CRITICAL ERROR. STOP CODE: 0xG00A009FD821. Please contact your Device Engineer to resolve this issue."
…Oh, for goodness' sake. With a sigh, you clear the telepathic message. Mentally navigating through her kernel, you reset her to her most recent backup; your errant trip here must have corrupted something, which strikes you as odd. Uplander just got done with her calibrations, too. Devices are generally resilient enough to survive these sorts of mishaps.
Come to think of it, how did that happen, anyway? You've probably cast Dimensional Transfer at least a hundred times by now. You're pretty sure you and Nova didn't botch the spell.
That'll have to be a question saved for later. While Nova's busy, you should really get to reestablishing contact with the Valencia—you've put it off for long enough. Frankly, the fact that they haven't attempted the same itself warrants some concern.
Locating the channel comes as second nature to you, and, as you tune into the frequency, you're greeted with the harsh crackle of static and the faintest ghosts of what sounds like panicked shouting. Hints of a voice pricks at the edge of your thoughts, drowned out by some sort of interference. At least they're trying to reach you, if futilely—you'd basically have no way of transmitting on your own, otherwise.
'Why does this shit always happen to me,' you momentarily grouse, reflecting on your chronic case of rotten luck before setting yourself on stabilizing the connection. Shutting your eyes, you steady your mind and reach out, casting forth your consciousness into that which lies between.
It's…strange, to say the least. The topology of Dimension Space is oddly structured here, downright hostile even, as if it were intentionally shaped to ward off intrusion. Your brows furrow as your face screws up in exertion. Fortunately for you, the Captain was just lecturing you on the finer intricacies of interdimensional signals processing not even a week prior—you even paid attention to some of it.
You feel a bead of cold sweat begin to trickle down your neck.
'Now, let's see here…isolate this…modulate that…'
"Gahk!" you yelp, flinching in pain and falling on your ass as your vision suddenly swirls with vertigo. It's like someone's tightening a vise around your skull—! You wipe away the drops of warm blood that drip from your nose and steel yourself for a second attempt. 'Maybe in a minute,' you think to yourself, dazed, chest heaving as you gulp down breaths of delicious air. You shiver, clutching your sides as you slump over on the grass. 'Damn, was it always this cold?'
The world dims, fading in and out of existence.
"—Optra!" the garbled, disembodied voice of the Captain calls out from some point in space in front of you. You think some time must have passed? It's difficult to tell. "Optra, can you hear me!?"
'Oh, good.'
"S…sir," you grunt, stumbling to your feet and groggily snapping off a salute even as you sway as the earth wiggles maliciously beneath you. Whoo, your chest feels tight. You struggle to force the words up from your lungs, your tongue heavy. "No…no signs of…activity…"
"You—! Mana cartridge, now!"
'Huh? Ah, right.' Hand shaking, you retrieve the nondescript brass cartridge from one of the pouches wrapped around your hips. You're really not supposed to be using these like this—breaks all sorts of requisitions-related protocol, you see—but you're pretty sure you're dying. Your gloved fingers tighten around the encased mana, and you squeeze. Effortlessly, the brass crumples in your palm, releasing swirling motes of light that billow out like a cloud of stardust. Exhaling, you allow the potent compressed mana to suffuse through your body, drawing it into your Core.
It's easier to breathe now, but your head hurts like a whole new kind of shit and the world's still spinning around under you. You groan—you think you'd almost prefer being numb to this.
"Optra, listen, you're suffering from brain hemorrhaging!" Wow, that doesn't sound good at all. "You'll need to act fast before—before, well you know!"
Yeah, yeah, you think you've got an idea that will work, probably.
"Physical Heal," you groan, struggling to steady your hands against your temples. Still, the spell works rapidly, with hardly any preamble other than a dim flash of white light, as the mana flows from your Linker Core, shaping into magic that slowly mends the ruined tissue.
A couple minutes later, and you're feeling better already.
"…I see? I was under the impression that that spell was intended only to treat minor injuries," Uplander muses, his reedy voice clear even through the distortion. "Still, we're not seeing any signs of permanent damage—none that can be spotted with your Device, anyway. We'll have to bring you back for a more detailed diagnosis."
"Or an autopsy, if the patch-up comes apart," you drawl, hands dropping to your sides as the fog lifts from your thoughts. Must not have been that bad if that's all it took to repair the damage.
"Well, how are you feeling?" he asks, voice colored with obvious concern. "Any lingering nausea? Pain? Impaired motor function?"
"Other than the existential dread of wondering whether I'm the same person I was before the heal?" you comment sardonically, idly flexing your arms and limbs, putting your body through its standard range of motion. "Perfectly peachy."
"Of course," he says, a frown audible to you in his voice. "You're going straight to medical the moment you get back to the Valencia."
"Yeah, about that, can I get an update on that?" you grumble, nipping the worrywart's fussing in the bud, and glance around the clearing. Something about all of this feels seriously off to you. "'cause I'm not sure I'm going to be able to just Transfer back on my own. Dunno if you've noticed yet, but opening this channel just for audio was tough enough already—don't think I want to risk tossing my body through all that crap."
"Which raises the question of how you got there in the first place," the Captain remarks contemplatively, ever the scholar. "Good work securing communications, by the way."
'Ehehe.'
"Unfortunately, I'm afraid you're correct to be apprehensive. The interference seems to extend across this entire region of Dimension Space," he admits with a sigh. "There's no visible signs of where it even ends from here."
Dang, that far? In the background, you hear a vehement debate raging between what must be a pair of bridge technicians—you think it's Sequoia and Boulevard? Those two tend to bicker.
"Frankly, it's unlike anything we've ever seen before. I'm sure you've figured this out already, but you're on Earth."
"The Ace of Ace's homeworld," you mumble, trying to keep the excitement out of your voice. You almost got to shake her hand once, you know? She was paying a visit to Fourth Ground back when you were a cadet, but you missed your opportunity since you got put in the back of the auditorium. It's a shame, really; a chance of a lifetime, squandered by unfortunate seating arrangement and scheduling. You settle into a seated position against a tree, well hidden by tall brush and with good sightlines. "UA 97's literally on the whole other side of Midchilda, though."
"That's correct. You are on Earth, but not the one we know as Un-administered #97. Rather, this Earth appears to be a wholly distinct yet nearly identical replica, save for some obvious alterations."
That certainly raises an eyebrow. How come you always get into all this weird shit on these supposedly routine patrols? You've only ever been in active service for, like, a year, tops.
"Such occurrences, though exceedingly rare, are not unheard of. What is novel, on the other hand, are these exotic perturbations in Dimension Space causing the interference; these magic readings are entirely inconsistent with known records."
"Of UA 97?" That would make sense; ambient mana conditions are highly sensitive to even minor variations in Dimension Space, after all.
"Of anything. Half of what we're seeing is self-contradictory, and a good part of the rest is just plain gibberish," Uplander answers in a grim tone. "And we have good reason to believe there's a great amount that we cannot analyze for one reason or another, likely the result of active concealment."
"I thought Earth didn't have a native mage population?" you ask, growing more alert as you visually scan your surroundings.
"No—they're not supposed to, anyway," he confirms with a sigh. You relax, if only slightly. "But until we can gather more intelligence on the matter, I believe that it would be wise for you to lay low until we can extract you."
"'Lay low'?" you echo hesitantly. Your feet idly kicks at a couple pebbles as you try to draw up memories of wilderness survival training. "I mean, I guess I could camp out here for a bit…"
Suddenly, you're alerted with a tinny mental ping: your Device finishing her reboot.
"Device online. Error: authentication token expired. Please re-enter your credentials and sync your Linker Core before proceeding to use this Device. Tampering with TSAB military property is, under TSAB criminal code 14-B section 73, a criminal felony punishable by up to four weeks in prison and a full six-month remedial course."
Uplander chuckles, mercifully not realizing you were momentarily without access to your Device and giving you a subsequent earful for it.
"Don't worry, I think I've got something better for you than squatting in some forest," Uplander states cryptically, before calling out something unintelligible to the bridge crew. "You focus on getting Nova back in working order. We should be done on our end by the time you're finished—the preliminary work, anyway."
"Right," you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. Accepting your fate, you begin the arduous task of listing off the rather long-winded array of biographical information, passwords, and identification codes associated with yourself. You'd normally hate this, but, in a way, it's almost comforting—an unfortunately familiar chore in a singularly unfamiliar situation, if nothing else.
"Air Armaments Service, 1229th Squadron, Valencia detachment, 1st Member Optra Matiz, age 16, registered domicile, Midchilda East 9th Main 101-4, bio…"
[Background: Choose 1]
[ ][Background] Slick City Girl (Sleight of hand, sneaking, perception)
[ ][Background] Backwater Farm Girl (Hand tools, machining, horticulture)
[ ][Background] Stowaway Space Girl (Device, electronic engineering)
[ ][Background] Write-in
"…Aerial Mage, rank A, Midchildan, service record…"
[Spell Proficiency:
Proficiency in a spell type unlocks all non-default starter spells of a given type and improves spell development time and results. Proficiency also improves general capability and efficiency of spells of that type.
Choose 4]
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Shooting). Flexible, efficient attacks from middle to long range. Can be modified with different effects and attributes, e.g. decreased casting time, enhanced damage, or active guidance.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Bombardment/Area-of-Effect). Attacks from long range that prioritize power. Bombardment spells are typically unguided, though skilled mages may apply additional effects. Attacks that have a large effective area are considered Area-of-Effect spells.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Strike/Enchanted Strike). Direct physical melee attacks using either the caster's body or Device. Strike spells have minimal casting time, though are somewhat weak in power. Additional magical effects can be applied to create an Enchanted Strike spell. Proficiency improves natural strength, agility, and endurance.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Mana Strike). Shrouds the caster's body or Device in energy in order to engage the target at close range. Mana Strike spells deal significant damage at a low mana cost and allow for greater precision than ranged attacks.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Defense (Barrier/Shield). Creates a defensive barrier. Barrier spells have wider coverage, but are generally easier to break, while Shield spells have smaller coverage, but are generally more difficult to penetrate.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Defense (Field). Negates specific harmful environmental or elemental effects in a region. Proficiency improves Barrier Jacket, increasing its effectiveness and durability and enabling more advanced reconfiguration.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Capture (Bind/Cage). Physically inhibits a target's freedom of movement. Stronger Bind and Cage spells are typically slower to cast, while the reverse is true for weaker ones. Advanced Bind and Cage spells can apply additional effects, such as AMF or soundproofing.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Support (Increase/Decline). Directly heals, revitalizes, or buffs targets (an Increase spell) or debuffs targets or counters other spells (a Decrease spell).
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Support (Transport). Levitates, moves, or teleports the caster or other targets. Spells that grant the caster flight are included within this type. Proficiency improves natural reflexes.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Support (Signals). Spells of this type include long-ranged communications, sensor, and scanning spells. Proficiency improves natural sharpness of senses.
"…first registration, twelve years," you finish with an exasperated pant after what feels like a full fifteen minutes of reciting the exciting life trivia of 1st Member Optra Matiz. You never, ever, want to do that again, which indicates to you that you most likely will in the near future. Gripping your Device in your hands, you hold the pendant up before your eyes and feed in a sliver of mana. "Nova, deploy."
She glows briefly, light momentarily pulsing along the edge of the pendant.
"Receiving," her monotone voice replies, thrumming in your mind. Gingerly, you drop the Device back down the neckline of your Barrier Jacket. "All systems nominal. Device mission-ready."
"Stand by for command," you instruct telepathically. You should probably think about dispelling your Barrier Jacket too. It's not like it takes too much out of you to maintain, but it does make you stick out like a sore thumb outside of administered space. Unfortunately, the Air Arms service uniform it would be replaced by wouldn't be much better in that regard. "You think I could pass myself off as a local like this?"
"Data not found."
"Yeah, I didn't think so," you mutter, picking at the hem of your custom AAS Barrier Jacket. You spent so long perfecting it in spite of your near complete lack of fashion sense and severe dress code restrictions (stifling even with your detailed study of the relevant loopholes). Who could predict looking cute as heck could ever come to lead to your downfall? Woe is you, truly. "How ya holding up, by the way?"
"Mission-ready."
"Right, right," you snort. Honestly, civilian mage fashion is somewhat outrageous, now that you think about it. You can't imagine anywhere else in the entire multiverse with a denser saturation of spikes, belts, and ribbons in close proximity per capita. "Hey, you got any biosphere data about Earth fauna rolling around in there? I'm thinking of maybe gathering some berries for tonight and I don't wanna poison myself again."
"Present sample for analysis."
You roll your eyes. The Captain's probably got the archives on hand, somewhere—you'll have to remind him to send it over when he's done with whatever it is he's doing.
"Optra?" Speaking of. "I see Nova's in tip-top shape?"
"Yep." "Affirmative."
Internally, you groan. Who even says things like 'tip-top'?
"Excellent," Uplander cheers, before leveling his voice. "Now. I'm sure you were probably thinking something like 'I'll just go pick some berries for dinner', but I assure you, living out in the wild is not so simple a matter. The lack of indoor plumbing isn't quite so pleasant, either, and we have absolutely no idea how long you could be stuck down there for."
Your face blanches at the thought. W-well, you've lived through some poor conditions before, but you're afraid you've gotten thoroughly used to modern amenities in the service of TSAB.
Shoot, looks like he kept on talking while you were spaced out.
"...know that maintaining a healthy diet and hygienic lifestyle is essential for a mage's Linker Core to operate at peak performance. With that in mind, I have an alternative proposal," he says, sounding entirely too self-satisfied. "It just so happens that we have the complete records of the network hooks used back on UA 97 to insert TSAB personnel."
That…that raises an eyebrow. You're tempted to ask how and why, but, well, no sense questioning a stroke of good luck for a change, right? The Captain seems to have the right idea and continues without a second thought.
"We'll get you set up with your identification paperwork, enrollyouinanearbyschool, and find a suitable residence as soon as possible. We could use the photo from your TSAB ID, or take a new one if you want—"
"Hold that thought," you cut him off, a scowl coming to your face. Nova heats up slightly against your chest. "What's this about enrolling me for school?"
"What would you suggest otherwise? No offense, but I can hardly pass you off as any older than eighteen," Uplander answers in a tone that, much to your rapidly rising irritation, brooks no argument. Offense taken, by the way—it's not your fault you're vertically challenged. "This is the most convenient arrangement. As a minor, you would draw less attention if you could pass yourself off as a student. It also opens up access to financial aid, which should help ease getting you funds. We'll repay them later, of course."
You shoot to your feet, glaring into the sky where you imagine his stupid face to be.
"I'm not going back to school," you growl, your feet stamping against the grass. "I am not a child—"
"Yes you are," Uplander snaps, raising his voice at you for the first time in a long while. You hear his slow exhale. Whatever words you had, they die in your throat. "Listen. I…you never had the opportunity to experience a normal childhood—as normal as it gets in these troubled times, anyway. Why not take the chance to rest for a bit, however long it takes to bring you back? It's not like there's even anything you can do on your end to get you out of there."
Gah. No good rebuttals come to mind against any of those points. You guess you could try to treat this as some sort of undercover plainclothes operation, but you'd probably end up looking even more conspicuous than if you had just acted like yourself. You're not even trained for something like that. If you just kept mana emissions to a minimum, you could probably go undetected indefinitely, barring any freak accidents.
Plus, Uplander sounds kinda sad, and that makes you kinda sad. At least he's not bringing up how you almost died just minutes ago and trying to guilt you with that, though you do feel a little shit about that too.
Something about meekly going along with his suggestion just feels wrong to you, though.
"How do you even know that's an option," you shoot back after the brief lull in the conversation passes, feeling rather petty doing so. "We have no idea where I am, or if there's even any civilization around to find."
"On the contrary! We took the liberty of accessing the telemetry from Nova," he says, the tone of his voice instantly brightening as he accepts your weak objection as an admission of defeat. "The technicians can say with confidence that you are located somewhere in Japan circa 0062, or 2003 in the local calendar, a state quite similar to its counterpart on UA 97."
In the past? Weird. Or maybe it's UA 97 that's in the future?
"Given the interference, we'll have to rely on an astronomical survey for anything more precise than that. If you would be so kind…?"
You grumble some unkind words under your breath and cast your vision again up towards the sea of glittering stars.
"Magnify," you mentally incant the name of the vision-enhancing Support spell. This time, however, with Nova's assistance, the fidelity increases by nearly an order of magnitude. The aforementioned Device glows ever so slightly.
"Excellent, the data's coming in n-n…" the Captain's voice trails off with a choked stutter and falls silent. You know the man pretty well, but even a complete stranger could tell that he's a bit shaken up by whatever he saw. "…Fuyuki City."
"Mhn. 's that bad?" you ask, frowning. "I could probably head somewhere else."
"…No, that won't be necessary. Probably." Uh, alright then. "I was just—taken off guard, as it seems to be rather different from the one on Un-administered #97. It should be fine though, the deviations are minor enough to work around," he explains, quickly regaining his usual composure. "I would advise that you remain on your guard, however, for anything out of the ordinary."
"Weren't you basically ordering me to go on vacation just a minute ago?"
"I know what I said," Uplander groans irritably, though strangely it doesn't seem to be directed at you. "Just…just stay safe, alright?"
Your frown deepens. Sounds like this whole situation has been weighing pretty heavily on his mind, huh? You should really try to figure out something to say to raise his spirits.
You ponder on this matter.
"You too," you reply weakly, cringing already. "Take it easy now, old man."
The Captain chuckles magnanimously. Why'd you even tack on the last part, he's like 30.
"Don't worry about me, you just focus on yourself. I'm sending over all the relevant information now: address, bank number, social identification—it should all be in there. Your translator should work fine," he informs you. Nova pings politely in affirmation, indicating a successful data transfer, albeit with considerably greater latency than usual. "Remember: low profile, eat your vegetables, fix your hair before going out, feel free to contact us at any time—oh! And think of a hobby! You could be stuck there for weeks, and I imagine Captain Takamachi would be disappointed to learn she managed to inspire the entire next generation of mages to become as bad of a bunch of workaholics as her."
'Too late,' you scoff, thinking back memories of your academy days—the good ones, anyway. Every freshly graduated cadet (that you remained on polite terms with) aspires to be like the Ace of Aces: an immovable bulwark of hope and safety against the innumerable cataclysmic horrors slumbering in the dark.
Still, you guess it's true that you could use a hobby; studies do suggest that taking time to relax the mind improves performance in the long run. You have a couple ideas.
[Hobby: Choose 1]
[ ][Hobby] Baking. You like sweets, you like math—baking is like both of those combined, right? How hard could it be?
[ ][Hobby] Drawing. You spent a lot of time doodling in order to make it past your humanities electives; was getting pretty good too before you entered active duty.
[ ][Hobby] Fashion. You don't need to explain anything to anyone.
[ ][Hobby] Write-in
Oh, and you guess you should also check out your new ID before you set out for civilization, just to be sure. Hopefully they used a non-atrocious pic of you this time.
[Appearance: Choose 1]
[ ][Appearance] Write-in/image
[ ][Appearance] QM finds something off the internet
Well, no point in sticking around any longer. You glance around the clearing—while you doubt anyone's watching, it's probably about time to drop the spells if you're going to go incognito, which means no flying, and a whole lotta hiking.
'You got the directions, Nova?'
'Affirmative. Transmitting to overlay. Remaining distance: 13.8 kilometers.'
You sigh.
For a while, you just lay there, befuddled.
"Where am I?" you mutter to yourself apprehensively, staring blankly upwards as you lay motionless, flat on your back, and try to recall the sequence of events leading up to your current predicament.
With TSAB HQ reeling from its decapitation strike even now, more than a year since the JS incident, there's been a sharp uptick in underground activity taking advantage of the chaos. Compounded with years of Gadget terror attacks decimating Arms Service and the usual Lost Logia bullshit, TSAB's been stretched close to breaking, even with the Aces flying around, putting out the biggest fires. It's gotten so bad that the Main Office somehow managed to get approval from Governance to grant any sufficiently powerful mage a (supposedly) temporary Enforcer commission, even those without the years of prerequisite criminal investigations or legal training.
Guess who that includes?
Just thinking about it makes your head hurt. And your body hurt. Everything hurts. The last thing you remember is Captain Uplander seeing you off aboard the Valencia as you Transferred planetside to some barren rock along the patrol route suspected to harbor a cache of illicit Devices.
The slightly damp blades of grass tickling at your nape indicates that this planet is not, in fact, that barren rock, or any barren rock for that matter. You squint at the clear night sky, a dark canvas splattered with a vivid kaleidoscope of stars and constellations, and run some quick mental calculations. "Am I on Earth?"
That can't be right. An open palm smacks against your forehead as you prop yourself up with your other hand. Right, well, you're not that bad at math—somewhat above average, actually—but stuff like this is best left for…
"Nova?" you whisper, speaking the designation of your Storage Device. No response. Frantically, you pat yourself down, heart sinking as you pointedly do not find the missing magical supercomputer on your person. Huffing, a dejected sigh escapes from your lips. "Captain's gon' kill me."
Clambering to your feet with a pained groan, you work out an awful kink in your neck and brush off your skirt as you glance around. It looks like you're in a small clearing in a forest of some sort. Surrounded by the ambient sound of the peaceful forest fauna and a slow wind blowing between the trees, you breathe in the cool, crisp evening air, letting it fill your lungs. It's all quite pleasantly idyllic.
'Do they have bears here on Earth?'
You shake your head—now's no time to be taking in the surroundings. Without your Device, you're an easy mark for any unscrupulous mage worthy of the appellative, not that there should be any around. On the bright side, Nova's not exactly easy to miss—in her deployed form, anyway—so you should have an easy time finding her.
"Magnify," you breathe, casting the rather basic Increase spell, made all the more underwhelming by your lack of a Device. Still, with your boosted senses, you quickly spot her as you pace around the low brush, leaned against the base of a tree trunk and looking slightly scuffed.
'Rough landing too, huh?'
Briskly jogging over, you scoop up the—
[Device: Choose 1]
[ ][Device] Gauntlet
[ ][Device] Rapier
[ ][Device] Halberd
[ ][Device] Bayonet
[ ][Device] Staff
[ ][Device] Write-in
—before feeding a tiny trickle of mana into her, booting her up. With a metallic thunk, the Storage Device transforms into her standby form, a plain gunmetal gray pendant that floats toward you, clasping itself around your neck, hanging loosely from a silver collar. With your Device's familiar presence secured, you feel much more comfortable now that—
"CRITICAL ERROR. STOP CODE: 0xG00A009FD821. Please contact your Device Engineer to resolve this issue."
…Oh, for goodness' sake. With a sigh, you clear the telepathic message. Mentally navigating through her kernel, you reset her to her most recent backup; your errant trip here must have corrupted something, which strikes you as odd. Uplander just got done with her calibrations, too. Devices are generally resilient enough to survive these sorts of mishaps.
Come to think of it, how did that happen, anyway? You've probably cast Dimensional Transfer at least a hundred times by now. You're pretty sure you and Nova didn't botch the spell.
That'll have to be a question saved for later. While Nova's busy, you should really get to reestablishing contact with the Valencia—you've put it off for long enough. Frankly, the fact that they haven't attempted the same itself warrants some concern.
Locating the channel comes as second nature to you, and, as you tune into the frequency, you're greeted with the harsh crackle of static and the faintest ghosts of what sounds like panicked shouting. Hints of a voice pricks at the edge of your thoughts, drowned out by some sort of interference. At least they're trying to reach you, if futilely—you'd basically have no way of transmitting on your own, otherwise.
'Why does this shit always happen to me,' you momentarily grouse, reflecting on your chronic case of rotten luck before setting yourself on stabilizing the connection. Shutting your eyes, you steady your mind and reach out, casting forth your consciousness into that which lies between.
It's…strange, to say the least. The topology of Dimension Space is oddly structured here, downright hostile even, as if it were intentionally shaped to ward off intrusion. Your brows furrow as your face screws up in exertion. Fortunately for you, the Captain was just lecturing you on the finer intricacies of interdimensional signals processing not even a week prior—you even paid attention to some of it.
You feel a bead of cold sweat begin to trickle down your neck.
'Now, let's see here…isolate this…modulate that…'
"Gahk!" you yelp, flinching in pain and falling on your ass as your vision suddenly swirls with vertigo. It's like someone's tightening a vise around your skull—! You wipe away the drops of warm blood that drip from your nose and steel yourself for a second attempt. 'Maybe in a minute,' you think to yourself, dazed, chest heaving as you gulp down breaths of delicious air. You shiver, clutching your sides as you slump over on the grass. 'Damn, was it always this cold?'
The world dims, fading in and out of existence.
"—Optra!" the garbled, disembodied voice of the Captain calls out from some point in space in front of you. You think some time must have passed? It's difficult to tell. "Optra, can you hear me!?"
'Oh, good.'
"S…sir," you grunt, stumbling to your feet and groggily snapping off a salute even as you sway as the earth wiggles maliciously beneath you. Whoo, your chest feels tight. You struggle to force the words up from your lungs, your tongue heavy. "No…no signs of…activity…"
"You—! Mana cartridge, now!"
'Huh? Ah, right.' Hand shaking, you retrieve the nondescript brass cartridge from one of the pouches wrapped around your hips. You're really not supposed to be using these like this—breaks all sorts of requisitions-related protocol, you see—but you're pretty sure you're dying. Your gloved fingers tighten around the encased mana, and you squeeze. Effortlessly, the brass crumples in your palm, releasing swirling motes of light that billow out like a cloud of stardust. Exhaling, you allow the potent compressed mana to suffuse through your body, drawing it into your Core.
It's easier to breathe now, but your head hurts like a whole new kind of shit and the world's still spinning around under you. You groan—you think you'd almost prefer being numb to this.
"Optra, listen, you're suffering from brain hemorrhaging!" Wow, that doesn't sound good at all. "You'll need to act fast before—before, well you know!"
Yeah, yeah, you think you've got an idea that will work, probably.
"Physical Heal," you groan, struggling to steady your hands against your temples. Still, the spell works rapidly, with hardly any preamble other than a dim flash of white light, as the mana flows from your Linker Core, shaping into magic that slowly mends the ruined tissue.
A couple minutes later, and you're feeling better already.
"…I see? I was under the impression that that spell was intended only to treat minor injuries," Uplander muses, his reedy voice clear even through the distortion. "Still, we're not seeing any signs of permanent damage—none that can be spotted with your Device, anyway. We'll have to bring you back for a more detailed diagnosis."
"Or an autopsy, if the patch-up comes apart," you drawl, hands dropping to your sides as the fog lifts from your thoughts. Must not have been that bad if that's all it took to repair the damage.
"Well, how are you feeling?" he asks, voice colored with obvious concern. "Any lingering nausea? Pain? Impaired motor function?"
"Other than the existential dread of wondering whether I'm the same person I was before the heal?" you comment sardonically, idly flexing your arms and limbs, putting your body through its standard range of motion. "Perfectly peachy."
"Of course," he says, a frown audible to you in his voice. "You're going straight to medical the moment you get back to the Valencia."
"Yeah, about that, can I get an update on that?" you grumble, nipping the worrywart's fussing in the bud, and glance around the clearing. Something about all of this feels seriously off to you. "'cause I'm not sure I'm going to be able to just Transfer back on my own. Dunno if you've noticed yet, but opening this channel just for audio was tough enough already—don't think I want to risk tossing my body through all that crap."
"Which raises the question of how you got there in the first place," the Captain remarks contemplatively, ever the scholar. "Good work securing communications, by the way."
'Ehehe.'
"Unfortunately, I'm afraid you're correct to be apprehensive. The interference seems to extend across this entire region of Dimension Space," he admits with a sigh. "There's no visible signs of where it even ends from here."
Dang, that far? In the background, you hear a vehement debate raging between what must be a pair of bridge technicians—you think it's Sequoia and Boulevard? Those two tend to bicker.
"Frankly, it's unlike anything we've ever seen before. I'm sure you've figured this out already, but you're on Earth."
"The Ace of Ace's homeworld," you mumble, trying to keep the excitement out of your voice. You almost got to shake her hand once, you know? She was paying a visit to Fourth Ground back when you were a cadet, but you missed your opportunity since you got put in the back of the auditorium. It's a shame, really; a chance of a lifetime, squandered by unfortunate seating arrangement and scheduling. You settle into a seated position against a tree, well hidden by tall brush and with good sightlines. "UA 97's literally on the whole other side of Midchilda, though."
"That's correct. You are on Earth, but not the one we know as Un-administered #97. Rather, this Earth appears to be a wholly distinct yet nearly identical replica, save for some obvious alterations."
That certainly raises an eyebrow. How come you always get into all this weird shit on these supposedly routine patrols? You've only ever been in active service for, like, a year, tops.
"Such occurrences, though exceedingly rare, are not unheard of. What is novel, on the other hand, are these exotic perturbations in Dimension Space causing the interference; these magic readings are entirely inconsistent with known records."
"Of UA 97?" That would make sense; ambient mana conditions are highly sensitive to even minor variations in Dimension Space, after all.
"Of anything. Half of what we're seeing is self-contradictory, and a good part of the rest is just plain gibberish," Uplander answers in a grim tone. "And we have good reason to believe there's a great amount that we cannot analyze for one reason or another, likely the result of active concealment."
"I thought Earth didn't have a native mage population?" you ask, growing more alert as you visually scan your surroundings.
"No—they're not supposed to, anyway," he confirms with a sigh. You relax, if only slightly. "But until we can gather more intelligence on the matter, I believe that it would be wise for you to lay low until we can extract you."
"'Lay low'?" you echo hesitantly. Your feet idly kicks at a couple pebbles as you try to draw up memories of wilderness survival training. "I mean, I guess I could camp out here for a bit…"
Suddenly, you're alerted with a tinny mental ping: your Device finishing her reboot.
"Device online. Error: authentication token expired. Please re-enter your credentials and sync your Linker Core before proceeding to use this Device. Tampering with TSAB military property is, under TSAB criminal code 14-B section 73, a criminal felony punishable by up to four weeks in prison and a full six-month remedial course."
Uplander chuckles, mercifully not realizing you were momentarily without access to your Device and giving you a subsequent earful for it.
"Don't worry, I think I've got something better for you than squatting in some forest," Uplander states cryptically, before calling out something unintelligible to the bridge crew. "You focus on getting Nova back in working order. We should be done on our end by the time you're finished—the preliminary work, anyway."
"Right," you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. Accepting your fate, you begin the arduous task of listing off the rather long-winded array of biographical information, passwords, and identification codes associated with yourself. You'd normally hate this, but, in a way, it's almost comforting—an unfortunately familiar chore in a singularly unfamiliar situation, if nothing else.
"Air Armaments Service, 1229th Squadron, Valencia detachment, 1st Member Optra Matiz, age 16, registered domicile, Midchilda East 9th Main 101-4, bio…"
[Background: Choose 1]
[ ][Background] Slick City Girl (Sleight of hand, sneaking, perception)
[ ][Background] Backwater Farm Girl (Hand tools, machining, horticulture)
[ ][Background] Stowaway Space Girl (Device, electronic engineering)
[ ][Background] Write-in
"…Aerial Mage, rank A, Midchildan, service record…"
[Spell Proficiency:
Proficiency in a spell type unlocks all non-default starter spells of a given type and improves spell development time and results. Proficiency also improves general capability and efficiency of spells of that type.
Choose 4]
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Shooting). Flexible, efficient attacks from middle to long range. Can be modified with different effects and attributes, e.g. decreased casting time, enhanced damage, or active guidance.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Bombardment/Area-of-Effect). Attacks from long range that prioritize power. Bombardment spells are typically unguided, though skilled mages may apply additional effects. Attacks that have a large effective area are considered Area-of-Effect spells.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Strike/Enchanted Strike). Direct physical melee attacks using either the caster's body or Device. Strike spells have minimal casting time, though are somewhat weak in power. Additional magical effects can be applied to create an Enchanted Strike spell. Proficiency improves natural strength, agility, and endurance.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Mana Strike). Shrouds the caster's body or Device in energy in order to engage the target at close range. Mana Strike spells deal significant damage at a low mana cost and allow for greater precision than ranged attacks.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Defense (Barrier/Shield). Creates a defensive barrier. Barrier spells have wider coverage, but are generally easier to break, while Shield spells have smaller coverage, but are generally more difficult to penetrate.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Defense (Field). Negates specific harmful environmental or elemental effects in a region. Proficiency improves Barrier Jacket, increasing its effectiveness and durability and enabling more advanced reconfiguration.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Capture (Bind/Cage). Physically inhibits a target's freedom of movement. Stronger Bind and Cage spells are typically slower to cast, while the reverse is true for weaker ones. Advanced Bind and Cage spells can apply additional effects, such as AMF or soundproofing.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Support (Increase/Decline). Directly heals, revitalizes, or buffs targets (an Increase spell) or debuffs targets or counters other spells (a Decrease spell).
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Support (Transport). Levitates, moves, or teleports the caster or other targets. Spells that grant the caster flight are included within this type. Proficiency improves natural reflexes.
[ ][Spell Proficiency] Support (Signals). Spells of this type include long-ranged communications, sensor, and scanning spells. Proficiency improves natural sharpness of senses.
"…first registration, twelve years," you finish with an exasperated pant after what feels like a full fifteen minutes of reciting the exciting life trivia of 1st Member Optra Matiz. You never, ever, want to do that again, which indicates to you that you most likely will in the near future. Gripping your Device in your hands, you hold the pendant up before your eyes and feed in a sliver of mana. "Nova, deploy."
She glows briefly, light momentarily pulsing along the edge of the pendant.
"Receiving," her monotone voice replies, thrumming in your mind. Gingerly, you drop the Device back down the neckline of your Barrier Jacket. "All systems nominal. Device mission-ready."
"Stand by for command," you instruct telepathically. You should probably think about dispelling your Barrier Jacket too. It's not like it takes too much out of you to maintain, but it does make you stick out like a sore thumb outside of administered space. Unfortunately, the Air Arms service uniform it would be replaced by wouldn't be much better in that regard. "You think I could pass myself off as a local like this?"
"Data not found."
"Yeah, I didn't think so," you mutter, picking at the hem of your custom AAS Barrier Jacket. You spent so long perfecting it in spite of your near complete lack of fashion sense and severe dress code restrictions (stifling even with your detailed study of the relevant loopholes). Who could predict looking cute as heck could ever come to lead to your downfall? Woe is you, truly. "How ya holding up, by the way?"
"Mission-ready."
"Right, right," you snort. Honestly, civilian mage fashion is somewhat outrageous, now that you think about it. You can't imagine anywhere else in the entire multiverse with a denser saturation of spikes, belts, and ribbons in close proximity per capita. "Hey, you got any biosphere data about Earth fauna rolling around in there? I'm thinking of maybe gathering some berries for tonight and I don't wanna poison myself again."
"Present sample for analysis."
You roll your eyes. The Captain's probably got the archives on hand, somewhere—you'll have to remind him to send it over when he's done with whatever it is he's doing.
"Optra?" Speaking of. "I see Nova's in tip-top shape?"
"Yep." "Affirmative."
Internally, you groan. Who even says things like 'tip-top'?
"Excellent," Uplander cheers, before leveling his voice. "Now. I'm sure you were probably thinking something like 'I'll just go pick some berries for dinner', but I assure you, living out in the wild is not so simple a matter. The lack of indoor plumbing isn't quite so pleasant, either, and we have absolutely no idea how long you could be stuck down there for."
Your face blanches at the thought. W-well, you've lived through some poor conditions before, but you're afraid you've gotten thoroughly used to modern amenities in the service of TSAB.
Shoot, looks like he kept on talking while you were spaced out.
"...know that maintaining a healthy diet and hygienic lifestyle is essential for a mage's Linker Core to operate at peak performance. With that in mind, I have an alternative proposal," he says, sounding entirely too self-satisfied. "It just so happens that we have the complete records of the network hooks used back on UA 97 to insert TSAB personnel."
That…that raises an eyebrow. You're tempted to ask how and why, but, well, no sense questioning a stroke of good luck for a change, right? The Captain seems to have the right idea and continues without a second thought.
"We'll get you set up with your identification paperwork, enrollyouinanearbyschool, and find a suitable residence as soon as possible. We could use the photo from your TSAB ID, or take a new one if you want—"
"Hold that thought," you cut him off, a scowl coming to your face. Nova heats up slightly against your chest. "What's this about enrolling me for school?"
"What would you suggest otherwise? No offense, but I can hardly pass you off as any older than eighteen," Uplander answers in a tone that, much to your rapidly rising irritation, brooks no argument. Offense taken, by the way—it's not your fault you're vertically challenged. "This is the most convenient arrangement. As a minor, you would draw less attention if you could pass yourself off as a student. It also opens up access to financial aid, which should help ease getting you funds. We'll repay them later, of course."
You shoot to your feet, glaring into the sky where you imagine his stupid face to be.
"I'm not going back to school," you growl, your feet stamping against the grass. "I am not a child—"
"Yes you are," Uplander snaps, raising his voice at you for the first time in a long while. You hear his slow exhale. Whatever words you had, they die in your throat. "Listen. I…you never had the opportunity to experience a normal childhood—as normal as it gets in these troubled times, anyway. Why not take the chance to rest for a bit, however long it takes to bring you back? It's not like there's even anything you can do on your end to get you out of there."
Gah. No good rebuttals come to mind against any of those points. You guess you could try to treat this as some sort of undercover plainclothes operation, but you'd probably end up looking even more conspicuous than if you had just acted like yourself. You're not even trained for something like that. If you just kept mana emissions to a minimum, you could probably go undetected indefinitely, barring any freak accidents.
Plus, Uplander sounds kinda sad, and that makes you kinda sad. At least he's not bringing up how you almost died just minutes ago and trying to guilt you with that, though you do feel a little shit about that too.
Something about meekly going along with his suggestion just feels wrong to you, though.
"How do you even know that's an option," you shoot back after the brief lull in the conversation passes, feeling rather petty doing so. "We have no idea where I am, or if there's even any civilization around to find."
"On the contrary! We took the liberty of accessing the telemetry from Nova," he says, the tone of his voice instantly brightening as he accepts your weak objection as an admission of defeat. "The technicians can say with confidence that you are located somewhere in Japan circa 0062, or 2003 in the local calendar, a state quite similar to its counterpart on UA 97."
In the past? Weird. Or maybe it's UA 97 that's in the future?
"Given the interference, we'll have to rely on an astronomical survey for anything more precise than that. If you would be so kind…?"
You grumble some unkind words under your breath and cast your vision again up towards the sea of glittering stars.
"Magnify," you mentally incant the name of the vision-enhancing Support spell. This time, however, with Nova's assistance, the fidelity increases by nearly an order of magnitude. The aforementioned Device glows ever so slightly.
"Excellent, the data's coming in n-n…" the Captain's voice trails off with a choked stutter and falls silent. You know the man pretty well, but even a complete stranger could tell that he's a bit shaken up by whatever he saw. "…Fuyuki City."
"Mhn. 's that bad?" you ask, frowning. "I could probably head somewhere else."
"…No, that won't be necessary. Probably." Uh, alright then. "I was just—taken off guard, as it seems to be rather different from the one on Un-administered #97. It should be fine though, the deviations are minor enough to work around," he explains, quickly regaining his usual composure. "I would advise that you remain on your guard, however, for anything out of the ordinary."
"Weren't you basically ordering me to go on vacation just a minute ago?"
"I know what I said," Uplander groans irritably, though strangely it doesn't seem to be directed at you. "Just…just stay safe, alright?"
Your frown deepens. Sounds like this whole situation has been weighing pretty heavily on his mind, huh? You should really try to figure out something to say to raise his spirits.
You ponder on this matter.
"You too," you reply weakly, cringing already. "Take it easy now, old man."
The Captain chuckles magnanimously. Why'd you even tack on the last part, he's like 30.
"Don't worry about me, you just focus on yourself. I'm sending over all the relevant information now: address, bank number, social identification—it should all be in there. Your translator should work fine," he informs you. Nova pings politely in affirmation, indicating a successful data transfer, albeit with considerably greater latency than usual. "Remember: low profile, eat your vegetables, fix your hair before going out, feel free to contact us at any time—oh! And think of a hobby! You could be stuck there for weeks, and I imagine Captain Takamachi would be disappointed to learn she managed to inspire the entire next generation of mages to become as bad of a bunch of workaholics as her."
'Too late,' you scoff, thinking back memories of your academy days—the good ones, anyway. Every freshly graduated cadet (that you remained on polite terms with) aspires to be like the Ace of Aces: an immovable bulwark of hope and safety against the innumerable cataclysmic horrors slumbering in the dark.
Still, you guess it's true that you could use a hobby; studies do suggest that taking time to relax the mind improves performance in the long run. You have a couple ideas.
[Hobby: Choose 1]
[ ][Hobby] Baking. You like sweets, you like math—baking is like both of those combined, right? How hard could it be?
[ ][Hobby] Drawing. You spent a lot of time doodling in order to make it past your humanities electives; was getting pretty good too before you entered active duty.
[ ][Hobby] Fashion. You don't need to explain anything to anyone.
[ ][Hobby] Write-in
Oh, and you guess you should also check out your new ID before you set out for civilization, just to be sure. Hopefully they used a non-atrocious pic of you this time.
[Appearance: Choose 1]
[ ][Appearance] Write-in/image
[ ][Appearance] QM finds something off the internet
Well, no point in sticking around any longer. You glance around the clearing—while you doubt anyone's watching, it's probably about time to drop the spells if you're going to go incognito, which means no flying, and a whole lotta hiking.
'You got the directions, Nova?'
'Affirmative. Transmitting to overlay. Remaining distance: 13.8 kilometers.'
You sigh.
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Character Sheet
| Condition | GOOD |
| Mana | GOOD |
| Barrier Jacket | OFFLINE |
| Status | NONE |
Spell Proficiencies
- Attack (Strike/Enchanted Strike). Direct physical melee attacks using either the caster's body or Device. Strike spells have minimal casting time, though are somewhat weak in power. Additional magical effects can be applied to create an Enchanted Strike spell. Proficiency improves natural strength, agility, and endurance.
- Capture (Bind/Cage). Physically inhibits a target's freedom of movement. Stronger Bind and Cage spells are typically slower to cast, while the reverse is true for weaker ones. Advanced Bind and Cage spells can apply additional effects, such as AMF or soundproofing.
- Support (Increase/Decline). Directly heals, revitalizes, or buffs targets (an Increase spell) or debuffs targets or counters other spells (a Decrease spell).
- Support (Transport). Levitates, moves, or teleports the caster or other targets. Spells that grant the caster flight are included within this type. Proficiency improves natural reflexes.
| Item | Quantity |
| Storage Device, "Nova" | x1 |
| AAS Service Uniform | x1 |
| Mana Cartridge | x7 |
| Spell | Unlocked | Category | Type | Description |
| Starshot | Default | Attack | Shooting | Generates shining spheres of energythat orbit around the caster. Upon being triggered, orbs are consumed and fire a fast beam-like bullet that arcs toward the target, dealing moderate damage. |
| Snapshot | Default | Attack | Shooting | Fires an unguided bullet of energy. High power and casts very quickly, but is inaccurate and short-ranged. |
| Starcannon | Default | Attack | Bombardment | Fires a short burst of a large, powerful beam of energy that arcs toward the target. Long casting time and high mana cost. |
| Collider | Default | Attack | Strike | Physical strike that multiplies the kinetic energy transferred to the target upon impact. |
| Super Collider | Yes | Attack | Strike | Modification of Collider that greatly enhances it effect at the cost of considerable recoil. |
| Voltaic Surge | Yes | Attack | Enchanted Strike | Envelops the exterior of the caster's Device in high power electrical currents. Unprotected targets struck by this spell temporarily lose motor function or fall unconcious, facilitating nonlethal takedowns. |
| Resonance Strike | Yes | Attack | Enchanted Strike | Physical strike that induces resonance in a Defense spell. Repeated strikes weaken the spell, eventually unraveling the spell without having to overpower it. Also effective against physical fortifications. |
| Plasma Thorn | Default | Attack | Mana Strike | Envelops the caster's Device in a sheathe of plasma-like mana that enhances its striking ability. |
| Circle Protection | Default | Defense | Barrier | Generates a dome-shaped shield that defends against attack. |
| Bubble Protection | Default | Defense | Barrier | Generates a spherical shield that defends against attack. |
| Round Shield | Default | Defense | Shield | Generates a circular shield that defends against attack. |
| Barrier Jacket | Default | Defense | Field | Summons magical armor that protects the caster from external harm. The armor also actively regulates both the physical and Dimension environment enveloped by its interlocking layers of barriers and fields. Enhances the caster's physical strength, speed, and reflexes. Can be automatically cast by a mage's Device. Can be modified to prioritize different attributes. Appearance is purely cosmetic and can be changed without affecting the armor's functionality. |
| Jacket Purge | Default | Defense | Field | Dispels the caster's Barrier Jacket spell in order to generate a blast. |
| Reactive Purge | Default | Defense | Field | Dispels the caster's Barrier Jacket spell automatically in response to damage that would otherwise exceed the limit of the Barrier Jacket, generating a directed blast that disperses the incoming attack. |
| Ring Bind | Default | Capture | Bind | Immobilizes the target by generating rings around the target's extremeties that physically impede their movement. Fast casting time, low mana cost. |
| Chain Bind | Yes | Capture | Bind | Wraps the target by in magic chains that impedes movements and allows the caster to pull the bound target towards a desired position. |
| Struggle Bind | Yes | Capture | Bind | Shorted ranged modification of Chain Bind. Surrounds the bound target in a strong AMF and disperses active spells. |
| Detention Cage | Default | Capture | Cage | Creates a large cage that applies a weak AMF on the interior. Low mana cost. |
| Interrogation Cage | Yes | Capture | Cage | Creates a large cage that compels its occupants to speak honestly (if they choose to speak). |
| Floater Field | Default | Force Field | Circle | Generates a levitating anti-gravity foothold. Useful for working in or traversing through difficult terrain if flight is not possible. Low mana cost. |
| Temporal Force Field | Default | Force Field | Area | Shifts spacetime within the effective area into an adjacent dimension, concealing the interior from the outside world and containing collateral damage. Exorbitant mana cost to maintain, scales with coverage area. |
| Physical Heal | Default | Support | Increase | Restores target's condition from physical wounds and fatigue. |
| Magnify | Default | Support | Increase | Enhances caster's vision, allowing them to see farther, pick out more details, and become more keen to objects of interest. Low mana cost. |
| First Aid | Yes | Support | Increase | Stabilizes a target in critically wounded condition. |
| Divide Energy | Yes | Support | Increase | Transfers mana from the caster to the target, the amount and rate of which is controlled by the caster. |
| Fortify | Yes | Support | Increase | Enhances target's physical strength, dexterity, and constitution. |
| Bind Break | Default | Support | Decline | Counterspell that analyzes, targets, and attacks Bind spells at close range, allowing the caster to dispel the bind and break free. |
| Barrier Break | Yes | Support | Decline | Short range counterspell that disperses Defense spells. The stronger or the more complex the target spell is, the longer the casting time and mana cost. |
| Dimensional Transfer | Default | Support | Transport | Teleports the caster and nearby targets across dimensions. Very long casting time and high mana cost. |
| Ion Drive | Default | Support | Transport | Grants caster efficient supersonic flight and air combat manuever. |
| Transporter | Yes | Support | Transport | Short range intradimensional teleportation. High mana cost. |
| Reaction Drive | Yes | Support | Transport | Grants caster hypersonic flight and air combat manuever. |
| Telepathy | Default | Support | Signals | Enables instantaneous, mind-to-mind communication with a target. Mana cost scales with range, but is typically neglible. |
| Floater | Default | Support | Signals | Levitates and moves target. Mana cost scales considerably with target mass, levitation speed, and effective range. |
| Countermeasure | Default | Illusion | Illusion | Generates decoys that mimicks the signature of the caster's Linker Core, drawing guided spells and interfering with scanning spells. Mana cost scales with effectiveness. |
| Spell | Unlocked | Category | Type | Description |
| Meteorshot | No | Attack | Shooting | Fires a large homing bullet of energy. Fast moving and high power. High mana cost. |
| Collimate | No | Attack | Shooting | Fires a weak, fast moving beam of energy. Subsequent Shooting or Bombardment spells cast at the same target have improved accuracy and tracking, if applicable. |
| Prismshot | No | Attack | Shooting | Fires a scattered burst of multiple beams of energy that deal moderate damage. Accuracy and power decreases considerably with range. |
| Neutron Lance | No | Attack | Bombardment | Fires a concentrated beam optimized for penetrative capability rather than damage. Long casting time, high mana cost, and cannot be cast on the move. |
| Alpha Strike | No | Attack | Bombardment | Fires a short burst of a very large beam of energy. Long casting time, high mana cost, and cannot be cast on the move. Power increases with time spent preparing and charging the spell. |
| Solar Flare | No | Attack | Area-of-Effect | Emits a destructive omnidirectional wave of energy centered on the caster. |
| Plasma Torch | No | Attack | Mana Strike | Modification of Plasma Thorn that further enhances cutting ability in exchange for longer casting time. |
| Plasma Arc | No | Attack | Mana Strike | Modification of Plasma Thorn that allows the spell to be dispersed on command, generating an arc of mana that strikes the target at close to medium range. |
| Damped Protection | No | Defense | Barrier | Modification of Circle Protection with improved shock absorption. Requires considerably more space to be cast, precluding usage in tight quarters. |
| Reactive Shield | No | Defense | Shield | Modification of Round Shield that layers the surface of the shield with ablative mana that detonates on contact, dispersing or deflecting the power of incoming attacks. Maintaining and regenerating the ablative layer both cost mana. |
| Environment Field | No | Defense | Field | Generates a sealed, pressurized region of space that maintains comfortable ambient temperature and atmospheric conditions. |
| Wide Area Telepathy | No | Support | Signals | Modification of Telepathy that broadcasts a message without a defined recipient. Has long range with low mana cost. |
| Detect Thought | No | Support | Signals | Detects target's surface emotions and general state of mind. Allows caster to infer sincerity in conversation with target. |
| Area Search | No | Support | Signals | Generates telepathically linked spheres of mana that act as additional, independent sensors. The independent range of these spheres and the speed at which they travel scales with mana cost, as well as number of spheres generated. |
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0x0001 (chargen pt.2)
[x][Device] Gauntlet
[x][Background] Stowaway Space Girl
[x][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Strike/Enchanted Strike)
[x][Spell Proficiency] Capture (Bind/Cage)
[x][Spell Proficiency] Support (Increase/Decline)
[x][Spell Proficiency] Support (Transport)
[x][Hobby] Baking
[x][Background] Stowaway Space Girl
[x][Spell Proficiency] Attack (Strike/Enchanted Strike)
[x][Spell Proficiency] Capture (Bind/Cage)
[x][Spell Proficiency] Support (Increase/Decline)
[x][Spell Proficiency] Support (Transport)
[x][Hobby] Baking
The apartment picked out by mission control, as you sometimes like to call them in the safe confines of your internal monologue, turns out to be a thoroughly underwhelming affair: a living room that doubles as a dining room with an attached kitchenette, an unadorned three-quarters bathroom, and a tiny mezzanine bed. You guess there's a limit to how loaded a bank account that materialized out of thin air can be without drawing too much heat. Fortunately, you're decently familiar with austere setups—it's like the bad old days hitching rides on freighters until you made it to TSAB territory all over again, except this time no one expects you to fix their Device after they dropped it in the shower or whatever.
Kicking the front door shut behind you with your heels, you set down your grocery bags, and inhale deeply, letting your breath out gradually. There's nothing like coming back home and kicking off your shoes after a long day out. You guess some things never change, no matter the universe.
You're already starting to miss the clean, sterile halls of the Valencia, though. Hiking through the denser regions of the forest without your Barrier Jacket ended up shredding your non-magical jacket as you shoved your way through bramble and brush, leaving you in a mud-caked dress shirt and grass-stained leggings. It's honestly a miracle your skirt made it out roughly unscathed, or that no one showed up to escort you out of the corner store. You imagine you must have looked like some sort of terrifying forest cryptid come crawling out of the wilderness.
You're hungry, you're tired, and you're seriously regretting that you didn't go with your coveralls this morning.
On the bright side, they were having some sort of clearance on baking supplies! You are now the proud proprietor of not only a loaf pan, but also a cake pan and several bags of flour. It's too bad you don't feel like baking anything right now.
'Right, that's it. A shower and change first, work later,' you fume darkly. 'Water better be hot.'
Twenty minutes later, you're feeling significantly more refreshed and thanking the Saint King, or whatever deity's up there watching over you, whose design for creation included the prior inhabitant of the apartment having left behind some of their clothes in the dresser. Just being able to get the grime off was enough of a blessing, to be quite honest.
[Appearance: Rank in order of preference]
[ ][Appearance] A
You also got done putting away the groceries, though this chore did get a little dicey at parts considering you didn't recognize most of the things you ended up buying, which might explain some of the weird looks you got from the cashier. You'll figure it out later tonight when you make dinner—you've already sated your hunger after tearing through a couple air sealed packages of flavored processed starch flakes, kinda like the ones you get from the cafeteria.
Which leaves you with your other tasks left to finish for the rest of today. You guess you could get to studying for the entrance exam, but…ugh.
You plop yourself down in front of what appears to be some sort of home entertainment system, back leaned against a squat wooden table. Though your vision's fixed firmly ahead, your thoughts are somewhere else entirely.
Your time spent at Fourth Ground was—well, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. You learned a lot, sure, but at the same time it really pissed you off to have to interact with some of those asses. Here they were, the next generation of defenders of peace and soldiers of justice, acting like a bunch of gossipy children and immature glory hounds. How half of those idiots passed qualifications when their only motivation was once seeing an Ace of Aces™ propaganda film and getting their heads all up in the clouds, you'll never know. You were vocal about this, of course, a fact with which certain classmates of yours took umbrage.
'No report of incident on permanent disciplinary record,' Nova helpfully pipes up.
You scowl. They quite literally started it, but the counselor ended up threatening to expel you afterwards anyway, or worse. You got the last laugh in the end, though, when you transferred out once you finally managed to pass the A-rank exam.
'And here I am, heading right on back,' you grouse morosely, before quickly shaking off the thought. It's not at all the same thing—you're a full-fledged mage now, and this is just yet another part of your mission that you will carry out. 'Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it, though.'
With that in mind, you decide to save the academics for later. You've still got three weeks or so, after all, and who knows if you'll even still be here by the time the exam comes around.
On the other hand, while you've no doubt that you could crush the math and science sections, that won't be of any use if you're functionally illiterate, which you are, seeing as how the translator doesn't work on written text. Plus, you get the distinct impression that someone's gonna murder you if you manage to squander their hard work of somehow getting you into an alien school on a literally hitherto undiscovered world in less than a week's notice—Enzo, probably, though she and the intelligence team haven't actually finalized the paperwork yet.
At this point the best outcome really would be that some genius cracks the Dimension Space puzzle and renders all of this a huge waste of time and effort. In this matter, HQ has already been notified, though unfortunately they've apparently got few resources in Research, Technical, or even the Library to spare.
'Nova, got any idea what this is? I think I saw one of these at a breaking yard once,' you muse, distracting yourself from the bad thoughts. You absentmindedly poke at the boxy lowercase 'D' device connected to the offline electronic display. It's armed with an awful lot of cheap plastic tactile push buttons, and you don't exactly see anything even close to resembling a TSAB compliant universal bus. Is there a manual somewhere for this thing? 'I think it's some kind of optical disc drive.'
'Scanning,' Nova replies diligently, falling silent for a brief moment as beams of light splay out from the pendant, washing over the enigmatic object. 'Analysis complete. Target identified as Fog Machine, 96% confidence.'
You push a button at random, and the machine obediently regurgitates its disc tray with a click.
'And let me guess, this must be where the smoke comes out of,' you remark dryly.
'Reevaluating,' your Device continues unflinchingly. 'Optical disc drive in the ultraviolet spectrum with read and write capabilities. 99% confidence.'
You can't help but allow yourself to smile slightly at that. Well, there'll be time to fiddle around with that later—you've wasted enough time and should really be letting someone know that you made it back safely and without ending up on breaking international news.
'Nova, mind opening the line for me?'
Your Device pings quietly in affirmation, glowing slightly. A faint, near inaudible click is the only indication of her completion of the task.
"This is 1st Member Optra Matiz to Valencia, please respond," you speak in a hushed tone, in case the walls don't turn out to be totally soundproof.
"Valencia to Officer Matiz, we read you," a frigid voice replies instantly, projected from your Device. "Are you in a secure location?"
'Aw shit, it's Enzo.' Feeling a chill crawl up your spine, you don't even have the presence of mind to ruminate on just how weird it is to be referred to as 'Officer'. The inscrutable woman showed up one day out of literally nowhere to relieve the prior head of the intelligence team and had all the papers to back it up too. Not that you'd personally seen them yourself—you were a little busy at the time with your impromptu temporary promotion.
"That's affirmative," you answer, instinctively straightening in your seat. "I've arrived at the domicile without incident. No signs of detection."
"Understood, Lieutenant," Enzo says levelly. Yeah, you don't think you're ever getting used to that. "We'll continue monitoring the situation from here and keep you updated on any pertinent developments. I believe Boulevard is close to a breakthrough that may make communications less taxing."
"Gotcha. 'preciate it," you respond, happy that there's at least some progress on that front. Humming, you try to think if there's anything else—ah, right, you should probably ask about Uplander, make sure he's alright. "Have you noticed any strange behavior from the Captain, recently? Just out of curiosity."
'Smooth, Optra,' you grumble internally. Enzo remains silent for a brief moment.
"Strange? Yes, but nothing out of the ordinary for him, if that's what you're asking. However, I would point out to you that if you believe that Captain Uplander has made an emotionally compromised or otherwise flawed decision, you not only have the right, but an obligation, to give your dissenting opinion—in private, of course. This same responsibility goes for his XO or any of his other immediate subordinates," she answers in detail.
That…huh.
"Was there anything else?"
"No," you say absentmindedly, staring at the ceiling. "That's all."
"Then while you're here, may I have a minute of your time?" Enzo asks. "I have a question of my own, if you don't mind."
"Sure, shoot."
"How to put this…? Would you mind if I could ask how you feel about your recent promotion? I understand that similar occurrences as of late have caused quite the stir," she comments evenly. "My apologies if this is too personal of an inquiry for me to make or makes you uncomfortable. I understand perfectly if you do not wish to answer."
Hoo boy.
"No, no, it's fine," you reassure her, leaning back into your seat. "If anything, I'm sorry, since I can't quite give a straight answer yet, though if I had to say what my initial thoughts are…"
[Enzo's Question: Choose 1]
[ ][Enzo's Question] It pleases you. The JS incident—all that pain and devastation inflicted upon innocents; none of it would have ever happened were it not for the red tape and corruption. Decisive action is necessary to burn out the rot.
[ ][Enzo's Question] It bothers you. The ideals upon which the TSAB was founded—a bright, new future of a harmonious union of worlds—is not something to be torn up for the sake of mere legal convenience. The decision is a disgrace.
"…is about how I would feel about it," you finish, picking up and fidgeting with a plastic remote controller that was sitting nearby. That might have been too impassioned of a answer for someone that you don't actually know all that well, in retrospect.
Patiently, you await Enzo's response.
"I see," she finally remarks when you were beginning to wonder if she left or something, her tone giving no indication of any opinion either way regarding your answer. "Thank you for indulging me. I don't believe I had anything else."
"Yeah, no problem," you reply. "Take care."
"Of course. And you as well."
Nova takes that as her cue to end the call, which honestly wasn't as bad as you were expecting it to be the moment you heard Enzo's voice. She's somewhat difficult for you to read at times, but you guess everyone's just got their own unique way of expressing themselves. Still, what she said earlier sits on your mind.
'Gah.'
You'll bring it up tomorrow morning, when the Captain and the rest of the day shift's back on duty, and hopefully the two of you can crank out a quick agenda for the rest of the week—one that doesn't involve you just sitting at home and studying.
[Focus:
Select a task to focus on. While you will carry out other tasks expected of you and reserve some time for rest, you will prioritize this.
Choose 1]
[ ][Focus] Job hunt. A quick check-in with Sequoia informs you that, while you may legally be a minor in terms of local labor laws, that doesn't preclude you from finding gainful employment. Indeed, there are apparently many lines of occupation in this nation within which a young woman such as yourself would not appear out of place, diligently contributing the value of her labor. It would also help take a bit of the load off of Enzo and her team's shoulders. You just need to somehow find one suitable for you.
[ ][Focus] Magic practice. No sense in letting your skills get rusty, right? Might as well squeeze in some drills now that you have some free time, or maybe even see if you can get around to expanding your toolkit. Still, before you can get around to any of that, you'll need to find a secluded place to practice where any accidental light show won't immediately level a house or two and send a swarm of the local authorities after you.
[ ][Focus] Hit the books. On second thought, what if you just went all out on studying—show those textbooks and worksheets who's really boss. You don't want to be just literate at an elementary school level; you want to be literate at a middle school level. That'll teach your silly mental hang-ups about socializing in an academic environment to try to hold you back from a functioning, fully actualized, adult life. Maybe you'll even check out the local library for extra material.
0x0010 (Week 1, Day 3)
[X][Enzo's Question] It bothers you. The ideals upon which the TSAB was founded—a bright, new future of a harmonious union of worlds—is not something to be torn up for the sake of mere legal convenience. The decision is a disgrace.
[X][Focus] Hit the books. On second thought, what if you just went all out on studying—show those textbooks and worksheets who's really boss. You don't want to be just literate at an elementary school level; you want to be literate at a middle school level. That'll teach your silly mental hang-ups about socializing in an academic environment to try to hold you back from a functioning, fully actualized, adult life. Maybe you'll even check out the local library for extra material.
[X][Focus] Hit the books. On second thought, what if you just went all out on studying—show those textbooks and worksheets who's really boss. You don't want to be just literate at an elementary school level; you want to be literate at a middle school level. That'll teach your silly mental hang-ups about socializing in an academic environment to try to hold you back from a functioning, fully actualized, adult life. Maybe you'll even check out the local library for extra material.
Un-administered #234
2/5/2003, 1730 hours
The Japanese writing system consists of three components: two syllabic, one logographic—that's what's in store for you, apparently. The task laid out before you is daunting, especially when broken down in detail by Sequoia.
Fortunately, you happen to find yourself standing on the shoulders of some incredibly adept giants, namely in the form of Translator.
As it turns out, the fact that thousands of disparate human civilizations scattered across the entire multiverse could communicate perfectly is not some grand cosmic coincidence. Employed thoroughly by Ancient Belka in the integration of their new conquests during their initial period of expansion, and speculated to have been developed by Al-Hazardan scholars over thousands of years ago, the spell falls under a category known in academic circles as "autonomous" spells. The mechanisms by which they operate are entirely unknown to even the most knowledgeable of TSAB researchers, but their functionality are as miraculous as they themselves are enigmatic.
Through analyzing a potential caster's brain and Linker Core and then independently rewriting its very structure, an autonomous spell is capable of being cast with near zero training or preparation, differentiating it from typical spells, which are each unique, to a certain degree, to the mage that developed it. Translator is particularly impressive, requiring neither a fully active Linker Core nor even conscious thought on the part of the caster to be utilized, and is the only known spell of its type remaining in existence.
Honestly, it should disturb you more that what's basically a Lost Logia in the form of a memetic contagion has more or less infected all of TSAB territory—but it's just too darn helpful to be too upset over.
'Kumo.' Spider/cloud.
See that? Extracted semantic meaning from two syllables with no context, injecting it straight into your brain. At first you'd thought it needed to be spoken directly, in order to perform inference on the speaker's thought patterns or something, but it turns out it's only necessary for the words to be heard, and not even aloud.
'Kuma.' Bear/ring.
Wild stuff, though Sequoia's torpid lecturing tone did suck most, if not all, of the excitement out of it.
In any case, with this set of revelations fresh in your mind, you spent the last two days committing the combined 92 characters of hiragana and katakana, the two syllabaries, to memory. As a matter of fact, you just got done with that.
"All finished with this one," you speak aloud, closing the cover on both a thin paperback workbook and a thoroughly abused notebook, and set down your pencil. The side of your head collapses onto the eraser shaving covered surface of the tiny wooden table. You flap your writing hand, trying to alleviate some of the aching. "I should probably grab all of them in one go next time, save the trouble of having to make any more trips."
"Well, that was fast, wasn't it?" Sequoia's gravelly baritone voice rumbles from Nova. "And you were so concerned just a few days ago."
You shudder.
"Your input is appreciated, Elan," you mutter, shakily clambering to your feet after having spent literally the whole day sitting in the exact same position. Yeah, it's going to take a good minute or five of stretching to recover from this—it's almost as bad as when you fell out of the sky the start of this week. "But you don't know what Enzo's like when she's angry."
"Oh, pish posh. The good lady couldn't even hurt a fly. Besides, I doubt you've ever seen her truly upset," the older man says, sniffing. "Now, where were we?"
"Getting started on kanji," you huff, trying to touch the back of your ankles without dislocating something.
"Ah yes, of course," Sequoia muses, invoking mental imagery of him stroking a curled, gray mustache. "If I'm not mistaken, there's a total of approximately 1,600 characters typically taught by this point to students of your age."
"Yeah," you groan in abject misery, rolling your shoulders. "I'm doomed."
"Now, now—no need to despair quite just yet. While it won't be pretty, it should be more than possible for you to reach a passable grade," he tries to reassure you, though you can clearly hear the grimace in his voice; you assume the thought of just barely passing offends his scholarly sensibilities. "Moreover, you still have your other subjects to fall back on."
"Sure, whatever," you sigh as you wearily toss on your clothes. You briskly grab your glass of hot water and chug down the remaining contents, before roughly setting it back down as you dump the workbook into a tote bag and begin to head out the door. "Just tell me the next books I need and I'll go grab 'em."
The frigid winter air nipping at your ears beats a hasty retreat, promising to exact its full retribution at a later date as you step into Fuyuki City Central Library, ushered in by a helpful pair of automated sliding doors that welcome you into the blessedly heated interior. Shivering, you breathe out a ragged sigh of relief. Crossing that park to get here gave you some bad vibes for reasons that you can't pin down when you first came here, and this time around is no different.
Taking a brief glance around, you note that the library is devoid of any visitors, occupied only by the same excessively friendly librarian working the front desk that you met on your previous trip here. It's a decently sized establishment, with a large open central seating area capable of seating five or so dozen divided between six oval tables, surrounded by two floors of aisles of bookshelves.
You'd expect there to be more people here, but, then again, you did show up less than an hour before closing time.
'Let's see here,' you hum mentally, spying Miss Naruse dozing away at her station. She's awake, if just barely, giving the well worn wooden surface of her book and computer laden desk a half-lidded, vacant gaze. You scowl. Last time you were here, she'd talked your ears off after introducing herself for what felt like an eternity and was actually, like, half an hour. 'Yeah, I can probably sneak past her. No sweat. Just need to find the books, study for a bit, and check out on the way out riiight before closing time.'
You give the thin carpet tile furnishing the floor an appraising look and tentatively take a single step forward.
Miss Naruse jolts in her seat, snapping awake. The bespectacled brunette's vision eventually snaps onto you, and you cringe internally. You really don't have time for this.
The two of you wordlessly stare at each other as recognition slowly—very slowly—dawns in the groggy woman's eyes.
"Oh, Op-chan, it's you. Back again so soon?" the librarian remarks happily, regarding you with a tired smile that's interrupted by a yawn that she feebly attempts to cover with her hand. "I can call you that, right?"
'No.'
"Uh. Yeah, sure thing, Miss Naruse," you respond weakly as you walk forward normally, abandoning your somewhat pathetic attempt at stealth. Energy seems to visibly drain into her posture as you get closer, somehow, and she excitedly (relative to what limited behavior you've seen out of her, anyway) ducks her head under her desk. You awkwardly pull the thick stack of workbooks out from your bag and thrust it forward. "'m here to return these."
"Hmmm?" Miss Naruse murmurs, her voice muffled beneath her desk. The librarian returns to view holding a…thick roll of tape? Some sort of white paper. She spots the books in your hands, her soft smile widening as peels something off of the roll. "Nice work. Ah, just set it down here."
You do as she requests, gingerly dropping the workbooks down on the desk, when an open palm darts forward, aimed between your ribs—
'Proximity alert—'
'—no, Nova,' you sigh, stamping down on the rising adrenaline and stilling your pounding heart. You look on in bemusement as Miss Naruse applies a sticker depicting a cheerfully smiling gold star onto your jacket. While you didn't neglect to turn off your Device's automated response before heading out, that probably wouldn't have triggered it anyway.
"There we go—one for all your hard work," she says as she absentmindedly peels off another sticker from the roll. "And another for returning your books on time."
S-she knows you're sixteen right? You showed her your ID, there's no way she could have missed it.
"Miss Naruse, you really don't have to," you comment levelly, staring, stock still, as she presses a sticker of a cartoon spider biting into a lemon onto your chest. She waves the roll of stickers in her offhand around in an airy gesture.
"Don't be silly," the woman says softly, tossing the object back under her desk. "Good kids like you deserve a reward."
Your hackles rise.
"Well, if you don't like the stickers, I've got these too," Miss Naruse comments offhandedly, retrieving a large glass bowl filled to the brim with colorful pieces of plastic wrapped hard candies. She shrugs. "Take as much as you want."
Placated, you reluctantly grab a handful of sweets, stuffing them into your pockets. The librarian smiles.
"Why don't you try one? They're very good," she mentions. Seeing your hesitation, she continues, "Don't worry about eating in here; I checked to make sure those are allowed."
"No thanks, I'm good," you reply quickly. If you're not careful you could actually end up devouring these on the spot, as tempted as you are now. "I'm kind of in a hurry, anyway."
"Hmm. Is that so?" Miss Naruse asks, leaning forward. "Is it something I can help you with?"
'—don't say anything don't say anything don't say anyth—'
"Yeah, I'm looking for 'Regular-Use Kanji Basics, 2nd Edition', volumes one through five."
'Darn.'
"Hoh? Moving on to kanji? Hohoh," she says, rising to her feet from her swivel chair, and trudges towards you around the front desk; up close, the dark bags under her eyes are particularly prominent. She sweeps her raven bangs aside in a smooth motion. "I think I can help you with that."
"…and then she had the gall to say to me 'would it hurt for you to call sometimes'—can you believe that, Op-chan? Some people, I swear," Miss Naruse complains from ahead of you, shaking her head in dismay. "Never take for granted those friends who'll be there for you even at your lowest, got it Op-chan?"
You nod numbly, making an indistinct sound of affirmation.
"Anyway, where was I?"
"Your no-good older brother," you answer as you keep pace from behind, trying to keep the irritation out of your voice. She walks so slow.
"Oh, right," the librarian says, idly sliding a thick hardcover textbook in blue from a shelf and dropping it in your patiently waiting arms. "So then! The next week, I decided to make it up to them, so I invited them to this Chinese joint up in Miyama, and can you guess what she said? Just guess."
"I…I don't know, wha—"
"'Too spicy'! She looked me straight in the eye and just told me that. In the middle of dinner! Who does that? Who even does that? And all he did was scold me for not being considerate," Miss Naruse huffs, her usual soft voice rising in aggravation. She stoops down to a crouch, searching the bottom shelf, but continues to drone on. "And then we just had to spend the rest of the evening in awkward silence. Let this be a lesson to you, Op-chan: if you have any worthless siblings, make sure they never involve themselves in any romantic capacity with your equally worthless friends."
'Well, it's not like I have either of those,' you muse. Still, the point is well taken.
"And the worst part is—get this—Mother and Father see absolutely nothing wrong in this relationship when they do nothing but enable the most toxic aspects of each other," she murmurs, head scanning left and right. "They're just so desperate to see him finally settle down with a partner and maybe pop out a couple grandchildren, that they'll excuse anything."
"…I…I see…" you mumble, fighting the heat rising to your cheeks.
Miss Naruse tsks in frustration, standing up and looking at you.
"Something wrong?"
"No—well, yes, actually," she grumbles, reaching into her breast pocket and pulling out a notepad and a nice looking pen. "We're missing the last book, and this particular syllabus I'm cooking up for you doesn't really work without it."
"O-oh," is all you can muster. A syllabus? This is a lot of effort to be putting in for someone she just met two days ago. You also can't help but wonder if Sequoia will be offended.
"Fortunately, I have an idea," Miss Naruse says, furiously scribbling away. "My brother actually owns the bookstore just across the street; they should have it in stock there. Maybe he'll make himself useful for once in his life."
She tears off the small sheet of yellow paper with perhaps more force than strictly necessary and holds it out towards you.
"When you see him, tell him Hina sent you and show him this. If he doesn't help out, let me know," she instructs as you take and examine the note. You have no idea what it says. "Oh—and Optra?"
You glance up, curious.
"Thanks for listening," she exhales, "it…it gets lonely around here."
The bookstore Miss Naruse sent you to is considerably less impressive than the library—more of a hole in the wall than anything. You briefly ponder the financial soundness of running a bookstore so close to a public library, before shaking off the intrusive thought.
You gently push the door open, a jingling bell drawing the attention of the man standing behind the front counter. The interior's dark and somewhat musty, making the narrow aisles and rusting furnishing appear all the more dilapidated. The man bears a close resemblance to Miss Naruse, and wordlessly addresses you with a smile. There's also a boy in here, pale in complexion, who seems to be about your age, albeit about a year or so older.
Something in the air makes your hair stand on end, though you can't put your finger on it.
"Welcome, welcome! What brings you here?" he asks, "awfully late for a girl your age to be out and about, isn't it?"
"Good evening, mister," you greet him around the candy in your mouth and retrieve Miss Naruse's note from your pocket, showing it to him while graciously ignoring his latter comment. "Hina sent me here; told me to show you this."
"What? Let me see that," the man grumbles, grabbing the piece of paper, his polite smile twisting into a frown. Poring over the message, he hisses something unintelligible under his breath and crumples it up, tossing it aside. The elder Naruse sibling jabs a thumb over his shoulder towards the back of the store with a scowl. "Over there—bottom shelf, fifth from the left. You can have it for six thousand yen, no lower."
"Thank you very much."
You nod in gratitude, bowing slightly. Doesn't hurt to be polite, though you hope you didn't just become an accomplice to extortion.
Turning away, you stop abruptly when you see the boy casually grabbing books off the shelves, shoving them into his bag. You glance back at Mister Naruse. Does he not see this? The boy's not exactly being discrete.
'Hmm.'
"Uh, mister? Do you know this kid?" you ask hesitantly, "he's just taking your books."
"Eh? Oh. That's my son. I love him very much," he answers without skipping a beat, "he can have all the books he wants."
You nod again slowly, digesting this new information. Guess it's fine then, if somewhat deviating from your initial impression of the man based on what Miss Naruse told—wait.
Your eyes narrow, scanning over the man, and you try to focus on that feeling from when you first stepped in.
It's subtle, but once you're aware of its presence it's not hard to notice—magic, some sort of hypnosis. Such spells are speculated to have existed during the time of Ancient Belka, a particularly insidious weapon of war, but none are known to exist presently. Its effect is less impressive than what's told of in legend—any mage with an active Linker Core would quickly purge this particular spell—but its mechanism hurts to even look at, like staring into a blinding star of static noise, and, well, it's…completely beyond you. Unnerving, even.
At least you have an obvious first guess as to the culprit.
Your vision returns to the boy—no Linker Core that you can detect, but that's unmistakably some form of mana. He's looking at you now, an irritated glower on his face.
[Encounter: Choose 1]
[ ] Confront
-[ ]
-[ ] Neutral. You don't know the situation here; best to play it safe and keep your cards close to your chest while you squeeze him for info. Use Telepathy—you'd like this to be a private conversation.
-[ ] Friendly. No sudden movements, no outward signs of hostility. Try to make him understand that you just want to have a little chat. No Telepathy—apparently some people are jumpy about that.
-[ ] Write-in
[ ] Ignore
-[ ] Neutral. As much as you hate to abandon a potential victim in need, this is an un-administered world; you have no right to interfere. Act like you didn't see anything and just grab your book and leave.
-[ ] Write-in
[ ] Write-in
If you haven't already voted for Appearance, please consider doing so by attaching a ranked list of the following options to your vote.
[Appearance: Rank in order of preference]
[ ][Appearance] A
[ ][Appearance] B
[ ][Appearance] C
[ ][Appearance] D
[ ][Appearance] E
[ ][Appearance] A
B>A>D>C>E
E>D>C>A>B
A>E>D>C>B
B>C>E>A>D
A>B>D>C>E
E>D>C>B>A
A tie between A, B, and E, followed by D, then C.
E>D>C>A>B
A>E>D>C>B
B>C>E>A>D
A>B>D>C>E
E>D>C>B>A
A tie between A, B, and E, followed by D, then C.
abacadaasap321
veekie
KreenWarrior
Edgedancer
Shaseyu
Herofox
veekie
KreenWarrior
Edgedancer
Shaseyu
Herofox
Also, the spell shop in the character sheet isn't a definitive list, so feel free to drop any ideas for spells to add if you have any.
0x0011 (Week 1, Day 3)
[Appearance] E
[x] Confront
-[X] Friendly. No sudden movements, no outward signs of hostility. Try to make him understand that you just want to have a little chat. No Telepathy—apparently some people are jumpy about that.
[x] Confront
-[X] Friendly. No sudden movements, no outward signs of hostility. Try to make him understand that you just want to have a little chat. No Telepathy—apparently some people are jumpy about that.
Un-administered #234
2/5/2003, 1915 hours
As convenient as it would be to just assume you need to twist the guy's head off, you really have no clue what's going on here. Unfortunately, you suspect the situation is a tad bit too time sensitive to just phone the Valencia and ask for advice.
You hold the boy's gaze, even as he takes a step towards you. It's been a while since threat de-escalation classes—but that's okay. You'll just wing it. The number one thing to remember is to come off as calm and non-threatening. You just need to figure out how to make sure your body language communicates that.
'Hmm.'
Got it.
"Yo," you call out, slowly throwing up a hand gesture that Commander Yagami has been vainly attempting to popularize around TSAB HQ—the 'V sign', a symbol for peace, apparently. "I'm Optra. Nice to meet you…?"
He freezes, eyes tracking the motion.
"Uh," he says eloquently, furrowing his brows with a wary expression. "Hi. What are you doing here?"
"Just buying a book?" you venture.
"And you just happened to pick this particular bookstore to do your shopping at?" the boy snaps. "Don't try to bullshit me."
"No, seriously, I just came from the library from across the street," You nod your head towards the back of the bookstore. "I'm learning kanji, so I'm just grabbing that book over there."
An awkward moment of silence passes—well, it was awkward for you at least. For him it might've been terrifying or something, you don't know. Finally, after what must've been a good minute or so of wordless staring, he exhales.
"If you say so," he scoffs airily, slowly glancing you over. "Fine. You can call me Red."
"Is that because…?" you start, gesturing at the top of your head.
He huffs. Shit, was that offensive?
"Yeah, sure, let's go with that," the boy, apparently called Red, states dryly, crossing his arms. "You speak English pretty well—you're not from around here, are you?"
You were wondering why your voice sounded off. Whatever this 'English' is, though, it's surprisingly close to Midchildan.
"Nah, I'm from," you begin, trying to draw up your recollection of the cover story Enzo and Sequoia crafted for you. You spent your entire hike through that forest memorizing the details, how in the world are you drawing a blank now? Finally, after what you hope isn't too conspicuous of a pause, you finally answer, "the United States of America."
Is it normal to say the whole thing like that? Kind of a mouthful.
"Huh. Really?" Red says, some of the tension leaving his posture. "I'm a New Yorker, myself."
He looks as if he wants to say more, before he stops himself.
"Say, it's been a while since I've been back to the States," Red comments with a toothy grin and an exaggerated shrug. Wow, he's worse at this than you are. "Did you catch the Super Bowl?"
Uh.
'Nova,' you hiss mentally, 'you got anything on that?'
'Super Bowl 37. Final score: 48 to 21, Tampa Bay Buccaneers victory over Oakland Raiders.'
It's a sporting event? Why is it named after a food container?
"Shame about the Raiders," you reply, shaking your head. This is some half-assed acting, but it'll have to do.
The boy snorts derisively, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"Yeah, 'shame' is one way to put it—they got blown the fuck out," he comments, chuckling. While his smile does seem more genuine now, you really hope this doesn't turn into a sports conversation. "Anyway. What brings you to Japan? It's not as bad as Europe, but it's still Clock Tower turf despite what everyone else says."
Wow, those sure are words. Don't know what they mean when they're put together like that, though.
"Didn't exactly come here willingly," you answer truthfully. "Just rolling with whatever life throws at me next, like usual I guess."
"I can sympathize with that," Red agrees, nodding. Despite being all smiles now, you get the feeling that he knows you're being vague, though your read on him might not be perfect. "Japan's a nice place to stay for all of about a week, then it goes downhill pretty quickly after that. Food's weird as hell too—still haven't figured out how to fucking use chopsticks."
…or maybe he's just happy to have a fellow United States of American in a foreign land to complain to? Either way, it seems like you somehow managed to blunder your way into building something of a rapport with the boy in front of you. That's some top-notch community-oriented policing, right there.
"By the way?" you ask with a smile, angling your head at Mister Naruse. "What's up with him?"
Red scowls contemptuously, rolling his pale green eyes.
"Guy was giving me shit when I tried to buy a map off him, saying a foreigner's money's no good to him. Was a pain in my ass about it; a real wise guy, this one," he mutters darkly, before leaning back. "So I decided to calm him down a little, if you catch my drift."
You blink.
"I think I went a little overboard on him, though. Things might've escalated a little," he grumbles with an only mildly embarrassed wince, "I'm not too great at mind stuff."
So he was the one who did that to him—a mage, turning their gift of magic on a helpless civilian. And for what? Just because the victim was rude and maybe a xenophobe?
You feel something hot bubbling up, a fiery warmth radiating from your chest.
'Breathe, Optra,' you remind yourself. 'Resist the urge to obliterate his entire existence.'
"Happens to the best of us," you remark, trying your best to conceal the tremor in your voice with a laugh. You've got a good thing going, hopefully he's as gullible as he is awful. "Ah, I'm not getting in your way or anything, right?"
"Eh. No need to worry about that. I'm skipping town in a couple weeks once I'm done here, anyway," Red says with a shrug. "It's that Tohsaka girl you should be concerned with if you plan on sticking around."
You nod seriously, taking in this information, incomplete as it is, and decide not to push your luck.
"That reminds me of something," he suddenly exclaims, turning to reach into his bag. Red removes a small, gray, tile shaped object and tosses it toward you, underhand. "Recognize this?"
You snatch the projectile out of the air, and turn it over in your hand, examining it. It's a thin, square electronic device, partially disassembled and small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, with what you assume to be half of its casing missing and exposing the interior.
'Silica glass lens, charge coupled device, lithium-ion battery, and solid-state storage,' you finish your analysis, glancing up—it's about in line with the tech you've seen so far in this world. You conclude the obvious, "This is a surveillance camera? Captures and stores digital video data for pick up later, though I'm wondering how much footage you're planning on keeping on such a small memory card."
"Definitely not Association," he chuckles to himself as you hand the device back over to him. "But yeah, it's a camera."
The boy winces, countenance growing sheepish.
"I gotta set up some of these around town—nothing nefarious, of course—but the Tohsaka head's more perceptive than I had thought at first," he says, dropping the camera back into his bag. "I've already had a couple close calls recently that I've only gotten away with because Tohsaka doesn't bother with concealing herself—you, on the other hand, I could barely sense at all standing outside."
Good stuff to know; though annoying, it's probably to be expected that a local mage could pick you out once you get this close, even with all your precautions.
Still, now that you think about it, Red himself comes off as pretty odd to your senses. Despite clearly being magical, you still can't seem to find that Linker Core, and whatever that hypnosis spell is, it's self-sustaining, probably, but both your brain and Nova are still throwing up big error signs whenever you try to figure out how it works. Fortunately for the sake of your sanity, what you thought was mana turned out to definitely be, well, mana.
You'll have to bring up the topic with Boulevard and Captain Uplander later and hope they can make something informative out of all that.
"So, it's actually pretty convenient that you came along," Red continues, oblivious to your silent contemplation. "If you're looking to make a quick buck, I would appreciate it if you could help me out with this. All you'd need to do is install some of these in their designated locations; it'll take only a tiny bit of magical energy each. You just push it in, super basic stuff, capiche?"
"I'll think about it," you respond, carefully keeping your voice level.
Red shrugs.
"You do that; there's no rush. I'll be in town for at least a little while longer. Come find me here if you make up your mind," he says.
"Gotcha," you reiterate with a grin; he returns it. He's awfully talkative for some sort of wannabe spy or criminal—maybe he'll have a little more to blab about. "I do have to ask, though. What are you planning on recording?"
"You don't…? Yeah, I guess you wouldn't, huh," Red says, a pensive expression on his face. "Then consider that information strictly need-to-know."
He winks at you.
'Ugh.'
"Right. I'll be heading off, then," you reply and go to grab your book. Maybe you should have thrown in a laugh, but it's taking all of your willpower just to not throttle him.
As you pass by the counter and fork over the six thousand yen, you jerk your head towards Mister Naruse, who's been completely quiet throughout that entire exchange. "One last thing—are you just going to leave him like that?
"What? Of course not, I'm not some amateur. I can clean up after myself," he grumbles, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. "This'll be nothing more than a bad dream to him, if he even manages to remember anything at all after this. Worst comes to worst, he just has himself a little accident and forgets the last month or so—trust me, no one will care."
You remain silent, mind churning. You think you hear Red's final parting words, but you pay them no mind. Instead, you watch the scowling man in front of you closely as he scans your purchase, noticing for the first time the emptiness in his glassy eyes.
You turn back in time to see Red's face turning away from yours, his back exposed. Every step his retreating figure takes feels like a moment stretched out into an eternity. Your clenched fists tremble at your sides, your chest tightens with strained breaths. The world sharpens.
Nova begins to heat against your heart.
"Thank you for your patronage," Mister Naruse mutters, drawing your attention. Staring at you with mild irritation, he grouses as he hands you your textbook, "It's past closing time. I'd appreciate it if you got the hell out of my shop."
You glance back.
The mage is nowhere to be seen.
Snap.
You glance down at the shattered remains of your pencil. Sighing, you sweep aside the shards of wood and graphite into a steadily growing pile with the back of your hand and pick up a replacement. The characters on the notebook have already started to swirl together into an incoherent mess, a storm of tangled strokes.
Scritch, scratch.
Snap.
"Is something the matter, lieutenant?" Enzo asks, again on the night shift.
"Just frustrated," you murmur, looking at the broken pencil in your hand. These hands can break a whole lot more than just cheap writing utensils, but what good is that if all you can do is sit around? You chuck the piece of wood in your hand at the wall, impacting it with a thunk and leaving behind a sizable groove in the plaster. Hopefully you don't have any neighbors living next doors. "Yeah. Frustrated."
"Learning a new language is always challenging, isn't it?" the intelligence officer muses with, bizarrely, a hint of mirth in her voice. "Perhaps it's time to call it a night?"
"Mm."
Enzo sighs.
"I'm well aware that that's not the issue," she states evenly. "If the matter from this evening is bothering you, you should speak about it openly."
"Yeah, yeah," you grumble, shoving away from the table and leaning back with a groan. You hope she won't mind the impropriety; you're somewhat distracted right now to stand on ceremony.
You rake your hand through your mussed hair, trying to gather your thoughts into words.
"I…someone needed my help," you say. "I signed up to protect people. And I stood by and did nothing—could do nothing."
For a moment, Enzo does not respond.
"Nothing? On the contrary, lieutenant," she remarks, "from what you've told me, you gathered some rather useful intelligence."
"Like what? That chopsticks are hard to use?" you snap, feeling something ugly rising within in your throat, "I should have just bashed his skull in and gotten him to—"
"Lieutenant," Enzo cuts in, voice hardening. You gulp, nervously swallowing your words. "That is far beyond your prerogative. Furthermore, if you seriously cannot think of anything productive to do with the knowledge you obtained, then Fourth Ground Forces Academy is in a sorry state indeed."
"'Productive'? I—!"
You catch yourself, trying to calm your thoughts. Calm down and think. Enzo's right in that, ultimately, the crux of the matter is that you currently have no jurisdiction in this world.
But does that mean no one does?
"…Tohsaka. He mentioned a Tohsaka person that he was hiding from," you say, eyes widening. Leaping to your feet, you pound your fist against your palm with an excited grin. "Even if I can't nail the fucker myself, the local authorities might. Heck, they'd also probably have the expertise to help out Mister Naruse! I'm an idiot!"
Enzo laughs softly, a sound devoid of any malice.
"Now, now. You simply lack experience—there's a difference," she chides. "But yes, that is likely your most promising lead."
"Enzo," you order with all the gravitas you can muster, "you're going to help me with this."
"Of course," she replies plainly. "I will inform Captain Uplander of recent developments before the morning meeting. I imagine you'll have much to discuss."
[Focus:
Select a task to focus on. While you will carry out other tasks expected of you and reserve some time for rest, you will prioritize this.
Choose 1]
[ ] Job hunt. A quick check-in with Sequoia informs you that, while you may legally be a minor in terms of labor laws, that doesn't preclude you from gainful employment. Indeed, there are apparently many lines of occupation in this nation within which a young woman such as yourself would not appear out of place, diligently contributing the value of her labor. It would also help take a bit of the load off of Enzo and her team's shoulders. You just need to somehow find one.
[ ] Magic practice. No sense in letting your skills get rusty, right? Might as well squeeze in some drills now that you have some free time, or maybe even see if you can get around to expanding your toolkit. Still, before you can get around to any of that, you'll need to find a secluded place to practice where any accidental light show won't immediately level the block and send a swarm of the local authorities after you.
[ ] Hit the books: Part II. While you've made a ton of progress already, largely thanks to Miss Naruse's surprisingly effective study tips, it's still only been a week of study to try and cover for years of material. You can't believe you're saying this, but you'd feel a lot more comfortable if you could fit in another week of study before the exam—you should be in good shape by then, though you might have to lean on Nova a little in some sections to scrape by.
[ ] Cultural Analysis. Looking back on your conversation with Red (which, in retrospect, was really more of an interrogation), you realize there were more than a few moments where you could have revealed your foreign origins if you'd hadn't been so lucky, or if Red hadn't been so oblivious. If you're to live here in Japan, or, for that matter, in Un-administered #234, for any extended period of time, you should probably get a better handle on the local customs and way of life. Sequoia suggests consuming native media, though you suspect that's just an excuse to get you to watch cartoons.
[Free Action: Select as many as you wish, within reason.]
[ ] Honor Among Thieves (Time Sensitive). After a fierce debate with Uplander on the matter of your encounter with the rogue mage, you've managed to at least get his approval to send an anonymous tip in the mail to this Tohsaka person. You'd like to do more, but, unfortunately, the Captain seems more concerned with keeping you out of trouble; without the threat of a Lost Logia justifying an intervention, you're already bending the rules as it is. On the bright side, finding her address should be as easy as just looking it up.
[ ] Write-in. There's lots of little things that don't take up an entire week that you could get around to doing.
Example vote:
[x] Bake cake for a week. This is the focus.
[x] Go take a picture of Fuyuki Bridge. This is a free action.
[x] Sneak some candy out of the library. This is another free action.
Sorry about the delay, I was pretty swamped with work this week.