Apparently, cross-posting stories both here and on SB is a thing. And it is now a thing which I...
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
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1.1 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Apparently, cross-posting stories both here and on SB is a thing. And it is now a thing which I have done as well. See also: my attempt to overcome writer's block on all my other projects. Because that is likely to work, right?
Fanfiction.net; SB
INDEX
Arc 1: Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
1.1; 1.2; 1.3; 1.4; 1.5; 1.6; 1.7; 1.8; Interlude: Yuuno; 1.9; Interlude: PRT; Interlude: Lisa
Arc 2: Butterflies
2.1a; 2.1b; 2.2; 2.3; Interlude: Dragon; 2.4; 2.5; Interlude: Danny; Interlude: Gregor; 2.6
Arc 3: Rivals
3.1; 3.2; 3.3; Interlude: Precia; Interlude: Undersiders; 3.4; 3.5; 3.6; 3.7; 3.8; Interlude 3.X: Victor; Interlude 3.X: Yer a Wizard, Colin; Interlude 3.X: PHO; 3.9; Omake Interlude 3.X: Coil; 3.10; Interlude 3.X: In the Shadow of Canberra
Arc 4: Escalation
Interlude 4.X: Distant Thunder; 4.1A; 4.1B; Interlude 4.X: An Old Priest; 4.2; 4.3; 4.4; Interlude 4.X: Chrono; Interlude 4.X: Dinah; Interlude 4.X: Rune; 4.5A; 4.5B; Something Dark is Coming; 4.6; 4.7; 4.8; Between the Motion and the Act; 4.9
Arc 5: Who By Fire?
5.1; Omake: Fate; 5.2; 5.3; 5.4; Fate; Glory GIrl; Armsmaster; The Newborn; Omake: A Bit Jarring; Just Before Dawn
Arc 6: Administration
6.1a; 6.1b; Interlude 6.X: Love; 6.2; Non-Canon Omake: Ants; 6.3 6.4; 6.5; 6.6; 6.7a; 6.7b; 6.8
Arc ?: Hurricanes
Omakes:
- Armsmaster's Help - by @TheUnicorn
- Practice Makes Perfect? - by @Marsyas
Information:
- TV Tropes Page
------------------
Millions of people live beneath this expansive sky, and they all harbor a myriad of wishes and feelings. Sometimes, a person's emotions can touch and clash with someone else's. And there's people whose feelings can bond with another's so perfectly, they can talk without saying a word. Well, this is a story about people like that, and what happens when they eventually meet.
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor is about to start!
-------------------
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.1 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Disclaimer: Do these even work? Legally speaking, I think having one of these might be worse than not having one, since an acknowledgment of deliberate copyright infringement seems like it would be way easier to prosecute than the innocent and unintentional variety of the same. But then, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a writer of fanfic.
-------------------
I don't remember much about the day mom died. I know I was with her in the car, and I remember that she was angry and sad, but I don't remember the accident. I remember her picking me up from school, and I remember that I asked, "Isn't dad picking me up today?" That's all. After that, I woke up in the hospital with a broken collarbone, and everything you've ever heard about how bad that hurts is true. The nurse said that only two things hurt more than breaking your collarbone: childbirth and kidney stones. If that's true, then any woman who decides to have another baby after she's already given birth and knows what it feels like must be insane. I guess that explains why mom stopped with just me. I asked when my mom and dad were going to come see me, and the nurse just looked sad and said, "I'm sure they both want to."
I remember dad came into the hospital room, and the moment I saw him I knew something was wrong. I felt something cold clench in the pit of my stomach. I knew what he was going to say. I didn't remember it happening, but I knew.
"Taylor," he said, and he choked off. "Your mom..." He couldn't say anything else, but he didn't need to.
I didn't cry. Not at first. I just sat there, staring at the wall in a sort of numb shock.
The day before, just before I was about to go bed, mom had taken me aside. "Taylor," she'd said, "I have something for you." Then she'd pulled out the pendant she'd always worn. It wasn't much to look at: just a little red gem maybe 1.5 cm across in a gold setting on a black opera-length necklace. I cupped my hands and held them out, and she dropped it into my hands. It felt warm. "This was your grandmother's," she'd said. There'd been a distant look in her eyes, and she'd had this sad kind of smile. "She gave it to me when I was your age, but I was never able to use it. Now I'm giving it to you."
"What is it?" I'd asked.
"It's a very special pendant," she'd said.
My eyes had widened as I stared at the pendant she held out to me. It hadn't looked like anything special: just a red gem about 1.5 cm across in a gold setting on a black opera-length necklace. "It's special?" I'd asked.
She'd smiled. "Very."
My eyes had widened even further, then. "Was grandma a Tinker?" I'd asked.
Mom had laughed. "Something like that, Taylor. I want you to keep it with you, okay? It will keep you safe."
After what happened… I'd worn it ever since. After things got bad with Emma, Sophia, and Madison, Emma had tried to take it from me a few times, and I honestly don't know what I would have done if she'd succeeded.
Since then, I'd gotten in the habit of going for runs: every morning and every other afternoon. It had been hard at first, but I'd stuck with it. At first all I alternated between jogging and walking, but as I got in better shape I was able to go for longer. Now, I could do my entire circuit across the east side of Brockton Bay at an easy run. I don't really know why I started. Maybe it was because I'd been having trouble sleeping lately, and it gave me something to do in the mornings? All I knew was that when I got into the rhythm of it, things didn't seem so bad. I could just move, feeling the wind in my hair as I went along, the city passing by around me, the slight almost-pain of running on pavement mingling pleasantly with the endorphin rush.
It made me feel free. For a little while.
I could have joined the track team to do it even more often, I guess, but that would have meant dealing with Sophia even more often than I already had to, so that was out. She was part of a clique that had decided to make my life a living hell at school. Sophia Hess. Madison Clements. Emma Barnes. I tried not to think about it. Thinking about it -- especially about Emma -- just took me back to that empty sort of feeling that was starting to become my new default. It wasn't unhappiness, not really. It wasn't really anything. Just… off. Like someone had hit the universe's slow motion button and forgot they'd left it on. When I ran, I didn't feel like that. I felt… like a person, I guess. I didn't know why the terrible trio hated me so much, but I wasn't going to deliberately spend time with a member of that group, no matter how much I liked to run.
Some days, when I was doing a really big run -- usually in the afternoon -- I'd take the bus and then do a couple laps around the Boardwalk. I stayed away from the more dangerous neighborhoods, and people usually didn't bother me. Probably because I was built like a stick. Being tall and thin, with almost zero curves to speak of, eyes that were just a little too big and a mouth just a little bit too wide for my face made me ignorable at best. Though hey, at least I generally didn't have to deal with assholes harassing me on the street with wolf whistles and catcalls the way girls that looked like Emma did. Gotta look on the bright side, right? It didn't hurt that I never really wore jewellery, either. Well, except for mom's pendant.
Winter break was coming up in a couple of days. We'd had a little snow, but not much. Still, it was cold, but a hoodie and sweats plus running fixed that for me. I'd finished my run and my cool down stretches just a few minutes earlier, and my shirt was pretty well soaked with sweat. Ditto my hair. I didn't want to go inside anywhere to stink up a store like this, so I went to this little hole in the wall deli just past the southern border of the Boardwalk, got myself a sandwich and a bottle of water, walked back to the Boardwalk proper and sat down at a table for a late lunch. It was Saturday, and the Boardwalk was crowded: mostly with tourists. From where I sat, I had a pretty good view of the huge steel and glass building in the middle of Downtown that housed the Protectorate Headquarters. You could see it from most places in the city, and every time I looked at it, I wondered, just for a second, what it might be like if I had superpowers.
It was stupid. And I was pretty sure that having them would actually cause me problems instead of solving them, but… a girl can dream, right? Every little girl wants to be Alexandria at some point in her life. Sooner or later, they have to grow up and live a life that doesn't involve thrilling rescues and exciting adventures. ...Maybe I just hadn't grown out of it yet.
I was about halfway through my lunch when the explosions began. Six of them, all in a row. Wait. No. More like… fireworks? People had just started to panic when a huge circle of gold light sprang up all around the immediate area at the south end of the boardwalk, about a hundred feet from side to side in front of the arcade. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and I looked up in time to see a gold sphere the size of a tennis ball zoom by overhead. I recognized it immediately.
People started to leave the area in a rush, though a bunch stayed outside the circle filming the goings on. I got up and jogged out of the circle before I turned to look at whoever was in the middle of it.
At the center of the golden circle of light stood Glory Girl and Laserdream -- two members of New Wave -- each in costume, and each with both a purse and a shopping bag in hand. And Glory Girl was facepalming.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" a booming voice rang out, amplified impressively and sounding a lot like a movie announcer. A spotlight shone down from atop the arcade to illuminate a pair of dramatically red caped men in vaguely familiar looking bodysuits, their hair dramatically spiky, and each with a red headband. "UNDER THESE OMINOUS CLOUDS, YOU MIGHT FEEL THAT ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THIS MATCH! CAN THE GLORY GIRL LASERDREAM TAG TEAM DEFEAT THE MIGHT OF UBER AND LEET'S SKULL GUNDAM AND ASHURA GUNDAM?"
'You have got to be fucking kidding me,' I thought, staring at the pair in disbelief.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Glory Girl muttered, staring at the pair in disbelief.
"Language!" Laserdream said, and Glory Girl immediately and visibly blushed.
A spiraling metal ring descended from above both Uber and Leet, passing down over them and settling on the ground. When the ring had passed, each was wearing an extremely accurate Gundam costume. Uber was Ashura Gundam; Leet was Skull Gundam, and oh God I recognized those Gundams on sight.
Stupid Earth-Aleph video games.
"Well, HERE WE GO!" Uber cried, raising his now metal-clad fist into the air. "GUNDAM! FIGHT!"
Glory Girl instantly shot forward, fists held out in front of her in a full frontal charge towards the two villains.
"Glory Girl," Laserdream said, "Wait!"
She didn't. And when she hit a spot exactly halfway between her cousin and her opponents, she immediately belly-flopped into the ground with a loud crack. She tried to get up, grimaced, and then looked up at her two Gundam enemies. "What is this?"
Laserdream stared. "Is that…"
"A super gravitational field?" Uber asked, interrupting Laserdream.
"Why yes!" Leet replied, not as smooth as Uber, but he poured on extra ham to make up for it. "Glory Girl is being pulled down by a gravitational field many times the force of gravity! She and Laserdream will have no chance in this… TOURNAMENT OF GUNDAMS!"
Laserdream responded with a full salvo of her hard-light beams, blasting Leet off his feet. "NOT FUNNY!" she shouted.
"Damn it," Glory Girl cursed, straining to get up with all her might. The surface of the boardwalk cracked slightly beneath her.
I probably should have run. Almost everyone else was, though not in the "complete panic" kind of way that they would have if this had been an attack by the ABB or the E88. Uber and Leet were livestreaming this through their golden camera drone. They did that. I was pretty sure they had a time delay on it in order to not instantly give themselves away when they started up, but their channel was pretty popular, and I'd watched it myself a couple of times. Their activities were generally videogame themed. One day, they'd be Mario and Bowser. The next, they'd be Sonic and Tails speeding through a bank collecting "coins." And sometimes they challenged other capes to ridiculous fights like this.
I stared as the fight unfolded, Glory Girl totally unable to move because of the gravity field even as the boardwalk continued to crack beneath her feet. Laserdream was getting her butt kicked in the meantime. She made a good showing, sure, and she probably could have defeated either one of them without too much trouble, but both at once was just too much at the moment. At first it was confined to the arena, but then, about a minute into the fight, Leet leveled his arm at Laserdream; a panel opened up, revealing four miniature missile launchers, one on each side of the arm. Then he fired off almost a hundred mini-missiles like they were bullets in a fully automatic weapon. "MACROSS MISSILE MASSACRE!" he shouted, laughing like a maniac.
Laserdream's eyes widened, and she took to the air, soaring up and down in great loops as she led the missiles on a chase, throwing occasional shots at them over her shoulders. "HOW IS THAT EVEN A THING!?" she shrieked.
A few missiles veered off course and detonated near the onlookers who were still watching. A few stayed put, but most panicked, sprinting away now at top speed. I stood there frozen like a moron.
Laserdream darted in my direction. Our eyes met and she immediately pulled sharply up, probably expecting the missiles to follow.
Then three things happened all at once. The Boardwalk beneath Glory Girl suddenly collapsed with a rumble and she fell through the hole the collapse had made. Leet swore loudly. And instead of following Laserdream up into the air, the entire volley of missiles ran out of fuel all at the same time, every single one of them heading straight for me.
Laserdream, Uber and Leet's heads all snapped around towards me, but none of them able to react in time.
My eyes widened. "Oh shi--" I had time to start saying.
And then a synthetic-sounding woman's voice rang out, one I had never heard before but which seemed achingly familiar. "Protection," the woman announced.
The volley of missiles hit me, and the world vanished in a thunderous cacophony of explosions and shimmering light.
The light faded. The smoke faded. I hadn't been hurt. I hadn't even been touched! And my mother's gem was floating in the air in front of me, glowing with a brilliant red light. The light was warm, and I swear I could smell mom's perfume in the air, ever so faintly.
I stared. Uber and Leet stared. Laserdream stared.
"...Mom?" I asked, reaching out to touch the gem. When I touched it, the light shifted from red to iridescent to pink, and I felt the light's warmth spreading through my body
"New User Registration," the gem said in a synthetic but still obviously female voice. "Full Open." A whirling circle of pink light sprang up around me, centered on my feet, within it a complex pattern of concentric circles and squares and alien text I couldn't even begin to decipher. "Please Repeat After Me: The wind is in the sky, the stars are in the heavens…"
I kept right on staring for a long moment before complying. "The wind is in the sky, the stars are in the heavens," I said, not quite keeping the total disbelief out of my voice.
"And a resolute heart beats within my chest…"
"And a resolute heart beats within my chest," I echoed. The warmth grew to almost unbearable levels, and I could see something glowing inside me exactly at the base of my rib cage. Ripples of pink light started spreading out from me. I floated into the air, and my skin began to glow. My eyes were now as wide as they could possibly go.
"Magic is in these hands."
"Magic is in these hands!" And then, without any need to be told what to say next, I went on, "Raising Heart! Set Up!"
The Gem pulsed. "Stand By. Ready. Set Up."
I don't know quite how to describe it. It was like taking a breath for the first time. I felt a warmth in my chest, in my whole body, even around my whole body as Raising Heart woke my slumbering Linker Core, interfaced with it, and we connected. My mind and hers linked together, but we were still separate. Power filled me, and a pillar of light shot up into the sky that was so bright that the whole world pinked out. And in the brightness, I saw ... clothes.
What the hell?
Yeah. There they were, fixed in front of me like a hologram. A long white skirt and long sleeved blouse both with blue piping and dotted with red gems. There was a yellow crest over the chest like a capital T with a red gem set into the center. The outfit included weird blue fingerless gauntlets that would have covered my hands and extended up to just below my elbows plus shoulder almost-pauldrons, white socks, and cute white and blue shoes. There was a questioning behind it. Like something was asking for my approval.
No. Hell no. That wasn't what a superhero costume was supposed to look like!
It started changing, but before I could see what it turned into, the light faded, and I felt different. I was holding some kind of tinkertech staff in my hands with my mother's gem -- the same gem I'd had befire, but expanded somehow: larger -- now suspended within a partial gold ring with two golden exhaust valves near where the ring connected with the rest of the staff's white and pink shaft. And a massive hole had been blasted in the cloud cover above the boardwalk, showing a blue winter sky where there had previously been only an overcast grey.
I wasn't sweaty anymore. Hell, I wasn't even TIRED. I spun in a circle, grinning like a madwoman. A giddy feeling bubbled out of me, and I started to laugh. Regular, healthy, every day laughter. Definitely not maniacal. At all.
Wait. I hadn't been wearing white clothes when I left home this morning. I was looking through some sort of high-tech blue and white visor now, but the blue in my vision went away almost immediately. I caught my reflection in the glass doors of the cafe. The clothes were still white, the highlights still blue, and the red gems were still there, but now I had a long coat that flared out to the length the skirt had been, and sections of both it and the jumpsuit I had on under it were more obviously armored now. I still had the weird gauntlets and the almost-pauldrons, and I still had the golden crest on my chest with the red gem in the middle, but now it was less like a capital T and more like something halfway between a capital T and a capital Y; it was sort like three slightly curved triangles with a red gem at the heart. The shoes had been replaced by boots. To be honest, the design was a lot like Alexandria's costume, just with a different color scheme, a long coat instead of a cape, and without the image of the tower that she used as her crest.
My brows knit together in confusion. "Huh," I said.
Laserdream broke the silence. "What. The hell. Was that?"
Fanfiction.net; SB
INDEX
Arc 1: Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
1.1; 1.2; 1.3; 1.4; 1.5; 1.6; 1.7; 1.8; Interlude: Yuuno; 1.9; Interlude: PRT; Interlude: Lisa
Arc 2: Butterflies
2.1a; 2.1b; 2.2; 2.3; Interlude: Dragon; 2.4; 2.5; Interlude: Danny; Interlude: Gregor; 2.6
Arc 3: Rivals
3.1; 3.2; 3.3; Interlude: Precia; Interlude: Undersiders; 3.4; 3.5; 3.6; 3.7; 3.8; Interlude 3.X: Victor; Interlude 3.X: Yer a Wizard, Colin; Interlude 3.X: PHO; 3.9; Omake Interlude 3.X: Coil; 3.10; Interlude 3.X: In the Shadow of Canberra
Arc 4: Escalation
Interlude 4.X: Distant Thunder; 4.1A; 4.1B; Interlude 4.X: An Old Priest; 4.2; 4.3; 4.4; Interlude 4.X: Chrono; Interlude 4.X: Dinah; Interlude 4.X: Rune; 4.5A; 4.5B; Something Dark is Coming; 4.6; 4.7; 4.8; Between the Motion and the Act; 4.9
Arc 5: Who By Fire?
5.1; Omake: Fate; 5.2; 5.3; 5.4; Fate; Glory GIrl; Armsmaster; The Newborn; Omake: A Bit Jarring; Just Before Dawn
Arc 6: Administration
6.1a; 6.1b; Interlude 6.X: Love; 6.2; Non-Canon Omake: Ants; 6.3 6.4; 6.5; 6.6; 6.7a; 6.7b; 6.8
Arc ?: Hurricanes
Omakes:
- Armsmaster's Help - by @TheUnicorn
- Practice Makes Perfect? - by @Marsyas
Information:
- TV Tropes Page
------------------
Millions of people live beneath this expansive sky, and they all harbor a myriad of wishes and feelings. Sometimes, a person's emotions can touch and clash with someone else's. And there's people whose feelings can bond with another's so perfectly, they can talk without saying a word. Well, this is a story about people like that, and what happens when they eventually meet.
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor is about to start!
-------------------
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.1 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Disclaimer: Do these even work? Legally speaking, I think having one of these might be worse than not having one, since an acknowledgment of deliberate copyright infringement seems like it would be way easier to prosecute than the innocent and unintentional variety of the same. But then, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a writer of fanfic.
-------------------
I don't remember much about the day mom died. I know I was with her in the car, and I remember that she was angry and sad, but I don't remember the accident. I remember her picking me up from school, and I remember that I asked, "Isn't dad picking me up today?" That's all. After that, I woke up in the hospital with a broken collarbone, and everything you've ever heard about how bad that hurts is true. The nurse said that only two things hurt more than breaking your collarbone: childbirth and kidney stones. If that's true, then any woman who decides to have another baby after she's already given birth and knows what it feels like must be insane. I guess that explains why mom stopped with just me. I asked when my mom and dad were going to come see me, and the nurse just looked sad and said, "I'm sure they both want to."
I remember dad came into the hospital room, and the moment I saw him I knew something was wrong. I felt something cold clench in the pit of my stomach. I knew what he was going to say. I didn't remember it happening, but I knew.
"Taylor," he said, and he choked off. "Your mom..." He couldn't say anything else, but he didn't need to.
I didn't cry. Not at first. I just sat there, staring at the wall in a sort of numb shock.
The day before, just before I was about to go bed, mom had taken me aside. "Taylor," she'd said, "I have something for you." Then she'd pulled out the pendant she'd always worn. It wasn't much to look at: just a little red gem maybe 1.5 cm across in a gold setting on a black opera-length necklace. I cupped my hands and held them out, and she dropped it into my hands. It felt warm. "This was your grandmother's," she'd said. There'd been a distant look in her eyes, and she'd had this sad kind of smile. "She gave it to me when I was your age, but I was never able to use it. Now I'm giving it to you."
"What is it?" I'd asked.
"It's a very special pendant," she'd said.
My eyes had widened as I stared at the pendant she held out to me. It hadn't looked like anything special: just a red gem about 1.5 cm across in a gold setting on a black opera-length necklace. "It's special?" I'd asked.
She'd smiled. "Very."
My eyes had widened even further, then. "Was grandma a Tinker?" I'd asked.
Mom had laughed. "Something like that, Taylor. I want you to keep it with you, okay? It will keep you safe."
After what happened… I'd worn it ever since. After things got bad with Emma, Sophia, and Madison, Emma had tried to take it from me a few times, and I honestly don't know what I would have done if she'd succeeded.
Since then, I'd gotten in the habit of going for runs: every morning and every other afternoon. It had been hard at first, but I'd stuck with it. At first all I alternated between jogging and walking, but as I got in better shape I was able to go for longer. Now, I could do my entire circuit across the east side of Brockton Bay at an easy run. I don't really know why I started. Maybe it was because I'd been having trouble sleeping lately, and it gave me something to do in the mornings? All I knew was that when I got into the rhythm of it, things didn't seem so bad. I could just move, feeling the wind in my hair as I went along, the city passing by around me, the slight almost-pain of running on pavement mingling pleasantly with the endorphin rush.
It made me feel free. For a little while.
I could have joined the track team to do it even more often, I guess, but that would have meant dealing with Sophia even more often than I already had to, so that was out. She was part of a clique that had decided to make my life a living hell at school. Sophia Hess. Madison Clements. Emma Barnes. I tried not to think about it. Thinking about it -- especially about Emma -- just took me back to that empty sort of feeling that was starting to become my new default. It wasn't unhappiness, not really. It wasn't really anything. Just… off. Like someone had hit the universe's slow motion button and forgot they'd left it on. When I ran, I didn't feel like that. I felt… like a person, I guess. I didn't know why the terrible trio hated me so much, but I wasn't going to deliberately spend time with a member of that group, no matter how much I liked to run.
Some days, when I was doing a really big run -- usually in the afternoon -- I'd take the bus and then do a couple laps around the Boardwalk. I stayed away from the more dangerous neighborhoods, and people usually didn't bother me. Probably because I was built like a stick. Being tall and thin, with almost zero curves to speak of, eyes that were just a little too big and a mouth just a little bit too wide for my face made me ignorable at best. Though hey, at least I generally didn't have to deal with assholes harassing me on the street with wolf whistles and catcalls the way girls that looked like Emma did. Gotta look on the bright side, right? It didn't hurt that I never really wore jewellery, either. Well, except for mom's pendant.
Winter break was coming up in a couple of days. We'd had a little snow, but not much. Still, it was cold, but a hoodie and sweats plus running fixed that for me. I'd finished my run and my cool down stretches just a few minutes earlier, and my shirt was pretty well soaked with sweat. Ditto my hair. I didn't want to go inside anywhere to stink up a store like this, so I went to this little hole in the wall deli just past the southern border of the Boardwalk, got myself a sandwich and a bottle of water, walked back to the Boardwalk proper and sat down at a table for a late lunch. It was Saturday, and the Boardwalk was crowded: mostly with tourists. From where I sat, I had a pretty good view of the huge steel and glass building in the middle of Downtown that housed the Protectorate Headquarters. You could see it from most places in the city, and every time I looked at it, I wondered, just for a second, what it might be like if I had superpowers.
It was stupid. And I was pretty sure that having them would actually cause me problems instead of solving them, but… a girl can dream, right? Every little girl wants to be Alexandria at some point in her life. Sooner or later, they have to grow up and live a life that doesn't involve thrilling rescues and exciting adventures. ...Maybe I just hadn't grown out of it yet.
I was about halfway through my lunch when the explosions began. Six of them, all in a row. Wait. No. More like… fireworks? People had just started to panic when a huge circle of gold light sprang up all around the immediate area at the south end of the boardwalk, about a hundred feet from side to side in front of the arcade. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and I looked up in time to see a gold sphere the size of a tennis ball zoom by overhead. I recognized it immediately.
People started to leave the area in a rush, though a bunch stayed outside the circle filming the goings on. I got up and jogged out of the circle before I turned to look at whoever was in the middle of it.
At the center of the golden circle of light stood Glory Girl and Laserdream -- two members of New Wave -- each in costume, and each with both a purse and a shopping bag in hand. And Glory Girl was facepalming.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" a booming voice rang out, amplified impressively and sounding a lot like a movie announcer. A spotlight shone down from atop the arcade to illuminate a pair of dramatically red caped men in vaguely familiar looking bodysuits, their hair dramatically spiky, and each with a red headband. "UNDER THESE OMINOUS CLOUDS, YOU MIGHT FEEL THAT ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THIS MATCH! CAN THE GLORY GIRL LASERDREAM TAG TEAM DEFEAT THE MIGHT OF UBER AND LEET'S SKULL GUNDAM AND ASHURA GUNDAM?"
'You have got to be fucking kidding me,' I thought, staring at the pair in disbelief.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Glory Girl muttered, staring at the pair in disbelief.
"Language!" Laserdream said, and Glory Girl immediately and visibly blushed.
A spiraling metal ring descended from above both Uber and Leet, passing down over them and settling on the ground. When the ring had passed, each was wearing an extremely accurate Gundam costume. Uber was Ashura Gundam; Leet was Skull Gundam, and oh God I recognized those Gundams on sight.
Stupid Earth-Aleph video games.
"Well, HERE WE GO!" Uber cried, raising his now metal-clad fist into the air. "GUNDAM! FIGHT!"
Glory Girl instantly shot forward, fists held out in front of her in a full frontal charge towards the two villains.
"Glory Girl," Laserdream said, "Wait!"
She didn't. And when she hit a spot exactly halfway between her cousin and her opponents, she immediately belly-flopped into the ground with a loud crack. She tried to get up, grimaced, and then looked up at her two Gundam enemies. "What is this?"
Laserdream stared. "Is that…"
"A super gravitational field?" Uber asked, interrupting Laserdream.
"Why yes!" Leet replied, not as smooth as Uber, but he poured on extra ham to make up for it. "Glory Girl is being pulled down by a gravitational field many times the force of gravity! She and Laserdream will have no chance in this… TOURNAMENT OF GUNDAMS!"
Laserdream responded with a full salvo of her hard-light beams, blasting Leet off his feet. "NOT FUNNY!" she shouted.
"Damn it," Glory Girl cursed, straining to get up with all her might. The surface of the boardwalk cracked slightly beneath her.
I probably should have run. Almost everyone else was, though not in the "complete panic" kind of way that they would have if this had been an attack by the ABB or the E88. Uber and Leet were livestreaming this through their golden camera drone. They did that. I was pretty sure they had a time delay on it in order to not instantly give themselves away when they started up, but their channel was pretty popular, and I'd watched it myself a couple of times. Their activities were generally videogame themed. One day, they'd be Mario and Bowser. The next, they'd be Sonic and Tails speeding through a bank collecting "coins." And sometimes they challenged other capes to ridiculous fights like this.
I stared as the fight unfolded, Glory Girl totally unable to move because of the gravity field even as the boardwalk continued to crack beneath her feet. Laserdream was getting her butt kicked in the meantime. She made a good showing, sure, and she probably could have defeated either one of them without too much trouble, but both at once was just too much at the moment. At first it was confined to the arena, but then, about a minute into the fight, Leet leveled his arm at Laserdream; a panel opened up, revealing four miniature missile launchers, one on each side of the arm. Then he fired off almost a hundred mini-missiles like they were bullets in a fully automatic weapon. "MACROSS MISSILE MASSACRE!" he shouted, laughing like a maniac.
Laserdream's eyes widened, and she took to the air, soaring up and down in great loops as she led the missiles on a chase, throwing occasional shots at them over her shoulders. "HOW IS THAT EVEN A THING!?" she shrieked.
A few missiles veered off course and detonated near the onlookers who were still watching. A few stayed put, but most panicked, sprinting away now at top speed. I stood there frozen like a moron.
Laserdream darted in my direction. Our eyes met and she immediately pulled sharply up, probably expecting the missiles to follow.
Then three things happened all at once. The Boardwalk beneath Glory Girl suddenly collapsed with a rumble and she fell through the hole the collapse had made. Leet swore loudly. And instead of following Laserdream up into the air, the entire volley of missiles ran out of fuel all at the same time, every single one of them heading straight for me.
Laserdream, Uber and Leet's heads all snapped around towards me, but none of them able to react in time.
My eyes widened. "Oh shi--" I had time to start saying.
And then a synthetic-sounding woman's voice rang out, one I had never heard before but which seemed achingly familiar. "Protection," the woman announced.
The volley of missiles hit me, and the world vanished in a thunderous cacophony of explosions and shimmering light.
The light faded. The smoke faded. I hadn't been hurt. I hadn't even been touched! And my mother's gem was floating in the air in front of me, glowing with a brilliant red light. The light was warm, and I swear I could smell mom's perfume in the air, ever so faintly.
I stared. Uber and Leet stared. Laserdream stared.
"...Mom?" I asked, reaching out to touch the gem. When I touched it, the light shifted from red to iridescent to pink, and I felt the light's warmth spreading through my body
"New User Registration," the gem said in a synthetic but still obviously female voice. "Full Open." A whirling circle of pink light sprang up around me, centered on my feet, within it a complex pattern of concentric circles and squares and alien text I couldn't even begin to decipher. "Please Repeat After Me: The wind is in the sky, the stars are in the heavens…"
I kept right on staring for a long moment before complying. "The wind is in the sky, the stars are in the heavens," I said, not quite keeping the total disbelief out of my voice.
"And a resolute heart beats within my chest…"
"And a resolute heart beats within my chest," I echoed. The warmth grew to almost unbearable levels, and I could see something glowing inside me exactly at the base of my rib cage. Ripples of pink light started spreading out from me. I floated into the air, and my skin began to glow. My eyes were now as wide as they could possibly go.
"Magic is in these hands."
"Magic is in these hands!" And then, without any need to be told what to say next, I went on, "Raising Heart! Set Up!"
The Gem pulsed. "Stand By. Ready. Set Up."
I don't know quite how to describe it. It was like taking a breath for the first time. I felt a warmth in my chest, in my whole body, even around my whole body as Raising Heart woke my slumbering Linker Core, interfaced with it, and we connected. My mind and hers linked together, but we were still separate. Power filled me, and a pillar of light shot up into the sky that was so bright that the whole world pinked out. And in the brightness, I saw ... clothes.
What the hell?
Yeah. There they were, fixed in front of me like a hologram. A long white skirt and long sleeved blouse both with blue piping and dotted with red gems. There was a yellow crest over the chest like a capital T with a red gem set into the center. The outfit included weird blue fingerless gauntlets that would have covered my hands and extended up to just below my elbows plus shoulder almost-pauldrons, white socks, and cute white and blue shoes. There was a questioning behind it. Like something was asking for my approval.
No. Hell no. That wasn't what a superhero costume was supposed to look like!
It started changing, but before I could see what it turned into, the light faded, and I felt different. I was holding some kind of tinkertech staff in my hands with my mother's gem -- the same gem I'd had befire, but expanded somehow: larger -- now suspended within a partial gold ring with two golden exhaust valves near where the ring connected with the rest of the staff's white and pink shaft. And a massive hole had been blasted in the cloud cover above the boardwalk, showing a blue winter sky where there had previously been only an overcast grey.
I wasn't sweaty anymore. Hell, I wasn't even TIRED. I spun in a circle, grinning like a madwoman. A giddy feeling bubbled out of me, and I started to laugh. Regular, healthy, every day laughter. Definitely not maniacal. At all.
Wait. I hadn't been wearing white clothes when I left home this morning. I was looking through some sort of high-tech blue and white visor now, but the blue in my vision went away almost immediately. I caught my reflection in the glass doors of the cafe. The clothes were still white, the highlights still blue, and the red gems were still there, but now I had a long coat that flared out to the length the skirt had been, and sections of both it and the jumpsuit I had on under it were more obviously armored now. I still had the weird gauntlets and the almost-pauldrons, and I still had the golden crest on my chest with the red gem in the middle, but now it was less like a capital T and more like something halfway between a capital T and a capital Y; it was sort like three slightly curved triangles with a red gem at the heart. The shoes had been replaced by boots. To be honest, the design was a lot like Alexandria's costume, just with a different color scheme, a long coat instead of a cape, and without the image of the tower that she used as her crest.
My brows knit together in confusion. "Huh," I said.
Laserdream broke the silence. "What. The hell. Was that?"
Last edited:
1.2 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.2
Disclaimer: Do these even work? I think legally speaking having one of these might be worse than not having one, since an acknowledgment of deliberate copyright infringement seems like it would be way easier to prosecute than the innocent and unintentional variety of the same. But then, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a writer of fanfic.
-------------------
"Well, well, well," Leet said at last, and even if I couldn't see his face, there was a definite grin in his voice. "A challenger appears."
It was about then that it occurred to me I'd basically just triggered as a Parahuman in public, I had done it in front of the Snitch on Uber and Leet's show, and that there were still at least four onlookers standing nearby pointing cell phones at us as they filmed the whole thing. I looked left and right. Nope. Nobody else he could have been talking to. Damn it.
"Can we talk about this?" I asked, stepping back.
"Talk later," Uber said. "Let's see what you've got, Gundam Girl." Both of them leveled their arms at me. Uber doing it looking like Ashura Gundam was juuust a touch more intimidating than Leet's Skull Gundam. "Or do you prefer Baby Alexandria?" Leet asked. Then the fins on either side of Leet's costume's head flashed, and I was suddenly floating in the air 50 feet up and 30 feet back, watching him blast the spot I had just been standing in with hard-light lasers.
"Girl's got moves," Uber said.
Laserdream snapped out of her shock, then, and let loose with a salvo of her own blasts in Leet's direction, and though he weathered it, he was definitely glaring at her in the aftermath. "Hey!" Laserdream snapped, "No picking on the new girl!"
Uber fired again, and his double blast of hard-light glanced off a nearly transparent barrier a couple inches away from my left hand.
[How much do you know about magic?] mom's gem -- Raising Heart -- asked. It was... strange. Her voice was echoing in my thoughts instead of aloud, but I instantly knew how to respond.
I shook my head. [Nothing!]
[Then I shall teach you everything,] Raising Heart said. [Please do as I say.]
I lost track of what was happening with Leet and Laserdream. I could still hear the sound of Laserdream's laser attacks and this ridiculous crackling like lightning strikes coming from Leet, but that was all. I felt like maybe I could pay attention to both opponents if I... if I knew the right procedures? But I didn't. [Yeah,] I sent, [That sounds like a good idea.]
Uber sent a stream of green goo flying my way like it was shot from a high powered hose. "Flyer Fin," Raising Heart announced.
Wings made of pink light flashed into existence connected to my feet, and suddenly I wasn't just standing in midair: I could FLY. My vision lit up with an HUD that showed me the optimal path to evade the spray of goo, and I corkscrewed through that path almost out of control, but managed to avoid the... I looked down, watching the goo now dissolving the table I'd been sitting at, eating into the street, and destroying the remains of my lunch. Acid. I'd managed to avoid the acid. "You have got to be kidding," I said, trying very hard not to imagine what that goo would do to me if it hit me.
Uber just laughed. "You are no match for the might of Skull Gundam, Gundam Girl!" he announced.
I grimaced. [Okay,] I sent to Raising Heart. [How do I attack?]
[Magic responds to your will,] Raising Heart replied. [Imagine you are about to strike.] I felt Raising Heart take control of my flight, then, and she weaved a complicated evasive pattern as Uber did his best to shoot us down with his lasers. The front of the arcade took the worst of it, with deep furrows being carved into the wall of the building.
[You're kidding, right? Imagine I'm about to strike? That's it?]
[Correct.]
Right. Shit. Here goes nothing. I took back control of our course and dove down towards Uber, bringing up Raising Heart as I did, and then delivered a heavy slash with her forward tuning fork part, hoping it might cut into Uber's armor.
Uber blocked it flawlessly with his armored arm. Then he opened up with a spray of pressurized acid directly into my chest. ... which fountained off the glowing, rippling pink shield that sprang to life in front of me as Raising Heart spoke: "Protection."
Uber's lasers joined the acid stream, then, pounding against my shield even as he drew back a fist.
[Hold out your strongest hand,] Raising Heart instructed. I did so. A set of unbelievably complex multidimensional mathematical equations spun through my thoughts through the connection from Raising Heart, and my eyes widened as the equations seemed to fix themselves into place in my mind. [Now,] Raising Heart sent, [Fire the bullet.]
Bullet. Fire the bullet. No problem, Taylor. Just go ahead and alter reality with math you shouldn't be able to understand that you're doing in your head. Wait. ... if I changed two variables, couldn't I make that into three bullets? I did so, focusing on the alternate equation as I...
As I...
I fired the bullets. Three spheres of pink light erupted from my outstretched left hand, and my thoughts expanded. I could see and hear through them. I could guide each of them independently and freely and simultaneously. And I had all of a split second to appreciate that before two of them destroyed the fins on either side of Uber's costume's head, and the third took out the nozzle for his acid sprayer, ripping through his armor and ending both of his attacks.
Uber blinked. He felt for his missing head-fins, and then looked down at the destroyed nozzle, then back up at me. "Really?" he asked.
"I'm not the one trying to melt people with acid!" I snapped.
"It's Manton limited," he said. "The worst it will do to living tissue is give you an itchy rash."
I fired the bullets again. This time, I was aiming center of mass; it threw Uber backwards a dozen meters, and he skidded to a stop just shy of the drop down to the water. He didn't move for a long moment, and my blood went cold. "Oh crap," I said. "I didn't kill him, did I?"
"Target is still alive," Raising Heart confirmed out loud. "Vitals strong. Not in danger of death."
I sighed with relief. "Okay. Good." My gaze swept over to Laserdream's aerial duel with Leet. They were practically dogfighting in the sky, now, moving in complicated patterns of attack and evasion, exchanging fire at such a rapid speed that I was sure I wouldn't have been able to follow it yesterday, but now it seemed trivially easy. "I need to help her," I said, "But I don't want to get close to that dogfight." I thought for a second. [Raising Heart, can I make an attack with a much longer range than what I just used?]
[If that's what you desire,] Raising Heart replied.
I felt a pulse coming from my chest. That sense of warmth grew stronger, and I could almost see a field of energy around my body. I took a breath. I tried to focus the energy I felt through my arms and into Raising Heart. "Let's do it," I said.
"Shooting Mode," Raising Heart announced, her structure reconfiguring in ways that seemed outright impossible. A glowing pink spell circle sprang up beneath my feet. I saw a targeting reticle lock onto Leet's form. I fixed my will on him, forcing it to follow him no matter where he went, and the reticle responded accordingly. "We're not going to hit Laserdream, are we?" I asked.
"I believe, my Master," Raising Heart said.
No pressure, then.
There was a flash of movement, of white and gold out of the corner of my eye, but I was too focused to pay much notice. I really needed to train up my situational awareness.
Just above the red gem, a ridiculous sphere of pink energy doom-flared into existence. "Divine," Raising Heart began. The light grew brighter and brighter as the energy field grew ever more intense. My eyes widened slightly, but I didn't let up. "Buster!" Raising Heart finished.
"CRYSTAL! LOOK OUT!" Glory Girl screamed as she dove into the path of the unleashed and absolutely absurd beam of pink destruction, maybe thinking she could tank it and protect her cousin.
"Vicky, wait! She's on our..." Glory Girl hit the beam. "... side," Laserdream finished with a tone of futility.
"Oh, shit," I said. But it was too late to call back the shot. The beam hit Glory Girl. Glory Girl went flying off into one of the ornate pillars just outside the arcade, plowed right through it, bounced twice, and then skidded to a halt. The massive and absurdly pink beam of energy kept right on going, blasting Leet out of the sky and evaporating a big chunk of the wall behind him. And the wall behind that. And the wall behind that. And the wall behind that, leaving a clear 2x2 meter circular hole all the way through to open sky. And I'd punched another hole in the cloud cover.
"Victoria!" Laserdream cried, diving down to her cousin's side.
My mouth dropped open, and I stared, looking from the fallen Glory Girl to Uber to Leet and back. "... oh, shit," I said again, this time with feeling.
"Nice shot!" Raising Heart called cheerfully.
I tried not to cringe. I was unsuccessful.
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.2
Disclaimer: Do these even work? I think legally speaking having one of these might be worse than not having one, since an acknowledgment of deliberate copyright infringement seems like it would be way easier to prosecute than the innocent and unintentional variety of the same. But then, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a writer of fanfic.
-------------------
"Well, well, well," Leet said at last, and even if I couldn't see his face, there was a definite grin in his voice. "A challenger appears."
It was about then that it occurred to me I'd basically just triggered as a Parahuman in public, I had done it in front of the Snitch on Uber and Leet's show, and that there were still at least four onlookers standing nearby pointing cell phones at us as they filmed the whole thing. I looked left and right. Nope. Nobody else he could have been talking to. Damn it.
"Can we talk about this?" I asked, stepping back.
"Talk later," Uber said. "Let's see what you've got, Gundam Girl." Both of them leveled their arms at me. Uber doing it looking like Ashura Gundam was juuust a touch more intimidating than Leet's Skull Gundam. "Or do you prefer Baby Alexandria?" Leet asked. Then the fins on either side of Leet's costume's head flashed, and I was suddenly floating in the air 50 feet up and 30 feet back, watching him blast the spot I had just been standing in with hard-light lasers.
"Girl's got moves," Uber said.
Laserdream snapped out of her shock, then, and let loose with a salvo of her own blasts in Leet's direction, and though he weathered it, he was definitely glaring at her in the aftermath. "Hey!" Laserdream snapped, "No picking on the new girl!"
Uber fired again, and his double blast of hard-light glanced off a nearly transparent barrier a couple inches away from my left hand.
[How much do you know about magic?] mom's gem -- Raising Heart -- asked. It was... strange. Her voice was echoing in my thoughts instead of aloud, but I instantly knew how to respond.
I shook my head. [Nothing!]
[Then I shall teach you everything,] Raising Heart said. [Please do as I say.]
I lost track of what was happening with Leet and Laserdream. I could still hear the sound of Laserdream's laser attacks and this ridiculous crackling like lightning strikes coming from Leet, but that was all. I felt like maybe I could pay attention to both opponents if I... if I knew the right procedures? But I didn't. [Yeah,] I sent, [That sounds like a good idea.]
Uber sent a stream of green goo flying my way like it was shot from a high powered hose. "Flyer Fin," Raising Heart announced.
Wings made of pink light flashed into existence connected to my feet, and suddenly I wasn't just standing in midair: I could FLY. My vision lit up with an HUD that showed me the optimal path to evade the spray of goo, and I corkscrewed through that path almost out of control, but managed to avoid the... I looked down, watching the goo now dissolving the table I'd been sitting at, eating into the street, and destroying the remains of my lunch. Acid. I'd managed to avoid the acid. "You have got to be kidding," I said, trying very hard not to imagine what that goo would do to me if it hit me.
Uber just laughed. "You are no match for the might of Skull Gundam, Gundam Girl!" he announced.
I grimaced. [Okay,] I sent to Raising Heart. [How do I attack?]
[Magic responds to your will,] Raising Heart replied. [Imagine you are about to strike.] I felt Raising Heart take control of my flight, then, and she weaved a complicated evasive pattern as Uber did his best to shoot us down with his lasers. The front of the arcade took the worst of it, with deep furrows being carved into the wall of the building.
[You're kidding, right? Imagine I'm about to strike? That's it?]
[Correct.]
Right. Shit. Here goes nothing. I took back control of our course and dove down towards Uber, bringing up Raising Heart as I did, and then delivered a heavy slash with her forward tuning fork part, hoping it might cut into Uber's armor.
Uber blocked it flawlessly with his armored arm. Then he opened up with a spray of pressurized acid directly into my chest. ... which fountained off the glowing, rippling pink shield that sprang to life in front of me as Raising Heart spoke: "Protection."
Uber's lasers joined the acid stream, then, pounding against my shield even as he drew back a fist.
[Hold out your strongest hand,] Raising Heart instructed. I did so. A set of unbelievably complex multidimensional mathematical equations spun through my thoughts through the connection from Raising Heart, and my eyes widened as the equations seemed to fix themselves into place in my mind. [Now,] Raising Heart sent, [Fire the bullet.]
Bullet. Fire the bullet. No problem, Taylor. Just go ahead and alter reality with math you shouldn't be able to understand that you're doing in your head. Wait. ... if I changed two variables, couldn't I make that into three bullets? I did so, focusing on the alternate equation as I...
As I...
I fired the bullets. Three spheres of pink light erupted from my outstretched left hand, and my thoughts expanded. I could see and hear through them. I could guide each of them independently and freely and simultaneously. And I had all of a split second to appreciate that before two of them destroyed the fins on either side of Uber's costume's head, and the third took out the nozzle for his acid sprayer, ripping through his armor and ending both of his attacks.
Uber blinked. He felt for his missing head-fins, and then looked down at the destroyed nozzle, then back up at me. "Really?" he asked.
"I'm not the one trying to melt people with acid!" I snapped.
"It's Manton limited," he said. "The worst it will do to living tissue is give you an itchy rash."
I fired the bullets again. This time, I was aiming center of mass; it threw Uber backwards a dozen meters, and he skidded to a stop just shy of the drop down to the water. He didn't move for a long moment, and my blood went cold. "Oh crap," I said. "I didn't kill him, did I?"
"Target is still alive," Raising Heart confirmed out loud. "Vitals strong. Not in danger of death."
I sighed with relief. "Okay. Good." My gaze swept over to Laserdream's aerial duel with Leet. They were practically dogfighting in the sky, now, moving in complicated patterns of attack and evasion, exchanging fire at such a rapid speed that I was sure I wouldn't have been able to follow it yesterday, but now it seemed trivially easy. "I need to help her," I said, "But I don't want to get close to that dogfight." I thought for a second. [Raising Heart, can I make an attack with a much longer range than what I just used?]
[If that's what you desire,] Raising Heart replied.
I felt a pulse coming from my chest. That sense of warmth grew stronger, and I could almost see a field of energy around my body. I took a breath. I tried to focus the energy I felt through my arms and into Raising Heart. "Let's do it," I said.
"Shooting Mode," Raising Heart announced, her structure reconfiguring in ways that seemed outright impossible. A glowing pink spell circle sprang up beneath my feet. I saw a targeting reticle lock onto Leet's form. I fixed my will on him, forcing it to follow him no matter where he went, and the reticle responded accordingly. "We're not going to hit Laserdream, are we?" I asked.
"I believe, my Master," Raising Heart said.
No pressure, then.
There was a flash of movement, of white and gold out of the corner of my eye, but I was too focused to pay much notice. I really needed to train up my situational awareness.
Just above the red gem, a ridiculous sphere of pink energy doom-flared into existence. "Divine," Raising Heart began. The light grew brighter and brighter as the energy field grew ever more intense. My eyes widened slightly, but I didn't let up. "Buster!" Raising Heart finished.
"CRYSTAL! LOOK OUT!" Glory Girl screamed as she dove into the path of the unleashed and absolutely absurd beam of pink destruction, maybe thinking she could tank it and protect her cousin.
"Vicky, wait! She's on our..." Glory Girl hit the beam. "... side," Laserdream finished with a tone of futility.
"Oh, shit," I said. But it was too late to call back the shot. The beam hit Glory Girl. Glory Girl went flying off into one of the ornate pillars just outside the arcade, plowed right through it, bounced twice, and then skidded to a halt. The massive and absurdly pink beam of energy kept right on going, blasting Leet out of the sky and evaporating a big chunk of the wall behind him. And the wall behind that. And the wall behind that. And the wall behind that, leaving a clear 2x2 meter circular hole all the way through to open sky. And I'd punched another hole in the cloud cover.
"Victoria!" Laserdream cried, diving down to her cousin's side.
My mouth dropped open, and I stared, looking from the fallen Glory Girl to Uber to Leet and back. "... oh, shit," I said again, this time with feeling.
"Nice shot!" Raising Heart called cheerfully.
I tried not to cringe. I was unsuccessful.
1.3 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.3 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Disclaimer: Do these even work? Legally speaking it seems like having one of these might be worse than not having one, since an acknowledgment of deliberate copyright infringement seems like it would be way easier to prosecute than the innocent and unintentional variety of the same. But then, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a writer of fanfic.
-------------------
"I'm really sorry," I said for about the tenth time.
Laserdream pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just try not to shoot my cousin again," she said.
"I didn't actually mean to..." I started.
"I know," Laserdream interrupted. She tried to smile at me, and it looked forced. "We've been over this. It's okay. She's alive, and that's what matters."
Glory Girl was still lying where she had fallen. She hadn't woken up yet, and neither one of us had wanted to risk moving her. She didn't look good; her costume had taken a beating and she had a nasty case of road rash starting at her left knee and going up the side of her body to about mid-abdomen. I couldn't tell if she'd broken any ribs. Laserdream had already called the PRT and the paramedics on her cell phone. I'd seen Uber carrying Leet away from the scene earlier and hadn't tried to stop them. Mostly because I wasn't sure how I could stop them without nuking them with one of Raising Heart's doom lasers, and I was too frazzled by what had happened to think of using the spheres again. The snitch was gone, and only a few people were still on hand recording the scene.
"... Sorry," I said again.
She shook her head, a little too upset to laugh but still kind of wanting to. "So what's your name, anyways?" she asked. "Have you thought of one?"
I looked at Laserdream. She was a couple years older than me, and she was prettier than me, though I guess that's not saying much. But she was pretty, and I was a little jealous. She the kind of heart-shaped face, blonde hair and full lips that I would have killed for. Well, less the blonde hair. She had a white costume with a stylized arrow pointing down to her right and a ruby red headband. Actually, now that I looked, the costume Raising Heart had given me fit in pretty well with Laserdream and Glory Girl's. I had Shielder's colors, more or less.
"My name's..." I trailed off. What was I going to tell her? My real name? Some stupid fake name that I'd then get stuck with for the rest of my career as a hero? No. "I haven't thought of one yet," I admitted.
This time she didn't have to fake her smile. "I understand," she said. "You've had more important things on your mind." She paused, then, giving me a searching look. "Are you okay?"
I looked away. "I... yeah." God. I had almost killed her cousin, and she was asking me if I was okay? I felt even more like shit than I had before.
She took out a little notebook and a pen from a pouch on her belt, wrote something on it, and then tore out the page and handed it to me. "That's my number," she said. "Call if you need to talk, okay?"
I tried to smile back at her, but all I managed to do was twist my lips. "Thanks," I said.
She seemed to understand, at least, and her look in her eyes softened. "It's going to be all right," she said. "And I can do the talking when the PRT gets here if you want. Do you think you could keep watch for them? Tell me when they get close?"
That... that sounded like something I could do. I nodded. "Yeah," I said, "Sure." I kicked off the ground, my Flyer Fin spell taking effect as I did so, and flitted quickly up into the air to keep an eye out for approaching emergency vehicles. I saw them pretty quickly: they were only a couple of blocks away now. Looked like two ambulances and a whole lot of PRT vehicles. I called out to Laserdream and pointed, and she gave me a thumbs up.
"Master," Raising Heart said, "You are in distress. What is the matter?"
I looked down at the device-mode version of Raising Heart I was still holding in my left hand. "You mean besides the fact that I almost killed two people, and one of them was Glory Girl?" I asked.
"You did not," Raising Heart said.
I blinked. "I totally did," I said. "You saw Glory Girl. You saw Leet. You saw the damage to the building."
"Was killing your desire when you fired the shot?" Raising Heart asked.
I shook my head. "No."
"You did not wish to kill, so you did not," Raising Heart said, as if the matter was obvious.
The emergency vehicles were only a block away now, and I noticed that an armored figure on a tinkertech motorcycle was a few car lengths in front of the group. A window like a holographic computer screen opened up in front of me, displaying a close-up of the rider and doing a quick scan of both the motorcycle and his gear. A series of complex schematics scrolled past on the right side of the screen even as I recognized the rider: Armsmaster. The screen closed a moment later.
"But I could have," I said. "Because I don't really know how to use..." I didn't want to call it magic. I really didn't want to call it magic. "...magic," I finished.
"I can be shot on a stun setting," Raising Heart offered.
Being cheered up by a piece of weird sentient tinker-tech is weird. It worked, but it was weird. I looked at her with an eyebrow raised. "Really?" I asked.
"Yes," Raising Heart said. "Don't worry, my Master."
I looked down to where Glory Girl was lying. She had finally woken up, and she looked like she was in a lot of pain, but she was hugging Laserdream, so no broken back at least. I then followed the path of destruction up to the holes I'd put in the Boardwalk buildings. Then I looked back to Raising Heart, my eyes wide. "I'll try," I said in a small voice.
The motorcycle arrived, with the PRT vehicles close behind it. I flew down to the two New Wave capes and landed lightly about a meter away from Laserdream. "They're here," I said.
Glory Girl gave me a considering look. She was almost absurdly pretty. Both of them were, really, but Glory Girl took it up to 11. Even with a nasty case of road rash and a ripped costume, she was amazing. I felt like a total bitch for shooting her, and I couldn't stop myself from cringing. "Laserdream explained what happened," she said. "Um. Sorry for assuming you were with Uber and Leet, and thanks for helping."
Oh crap, she was apologizing to me? Now I felt even worse. "Sorry for shooting you though that pillar," I gestured to the smashed pillar. It was one of about a dozen ornate faux-Roman pillars that lined the walkway in front of the arcade, holding up a big faux-stone overhang on which the name of the arcade -- Ceasar's Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex -- was prominently displayed. "And thanks for not punching me for it."
Glory Girl giggled, and the giggle turned halfway through into a pained gasp, "Oh God, don't make me laugh," she said, tried not to giggle again, failed, and winced, "Hurts to laugh." She took a breath. "Don't worry. Panacea will have me back on my feet in no time. I'm just impressed you were able to hurt me at all."
I let out a nervous laugh. The feeling like I was a total asshole faded slightly. "I guess I overdid it a little," I said.
"I guess," Glory Girl said wryly, and then winced again. "Ow. Hurts to smile, too."
PRT troops began to fan out through the area, herding away the people who were still recording the goings on with their cell phones, and Armsmaster was walking over to us, approaching with a slow, deliberate stride. ... Weird. He wasn't as impressive as Glory Girl. I mean, he was impressive, and he looked like a superhero, but... I don't know. If she hadn't been there, I probably would have been way more impressed. I mean, this was Armsmaster. He was the leader of the Protectorate in Brockton Bay! He might have been in his late twenties or early thirties. He wore body armor, dark blue with silver highlights, and he had a sharply angled v-shaped visor covering his eyes and nose. There was a beard trimmed to trace the edges of his jaw. He had his halberd in his hands, and even as I looked, Raising Heart's gem glowed pink, and another one of those windows like a holographic computer screen floating in the air appeared in front of me, analyzing his weapon. The schematics scrolled quickly by, followed by Raising Heart's estimated capabilities of the weapon.
Armsmaster stiffened slightly when he noticed what was on my screen. He looked at me long enough for me to get even more uncomfortable. "Tinker?" he asked.
I tried not to panic. I took a deep breath, dismissing the screen with a wave of my hand. A nice, deep, calming breath. "I, um, I don't know. I just, uh, g-got my powers."
He turned his head towards Raising Heart. "You didn't build that?" he asked.
I shook my head, took another deep breath, and managed to continue speaking without stuttering or throwing in ums and uhs every two seconds. I gestured towards my Device with my free hand. "She belonged to my mother."
"She?" he asked. I could almost feel the raised eyebrow behind his visor.
"Hello," Raising Heart said.
That stopped him. I couldn't tell if he was staring or not, but he didn't move his head for a long moment, and it got even more uncomfortable. "Is that an AI?" he asked, and he seemed actually interested now.
"I..." I tried to begin. "Um... yes?"
"Later," Laserdream interrupted. "Glory Girl needs a doctor."
Armsmaster kept right on looking at me, but he nodded. "Right," he said. He gestured, and the paramedics approached. As they went to work checking over Glory Girl, Armsmaster continued talking. "I'll need a statement from each of you," he said. "What happened?"
We told him while the paramedics were loading Glory Girl into the ambulance. The day only got less comfortable from there.
When it was all over, our statements given and Glory Girl on her way to the hospital and having left a very disappointed Armsmaster without answers to his follow-up questions, I flew away from the scene.
I didn't know if people might be able to follow me on radar or anything, so I tried to stay low and to head somewhere there weren't any people nearby so I could change back to normal. It took longer to find somewhere like that than I thought, but eventually I found a spot near Captain's Hill where there wasn't anybody nearby.
Okay. Time to calm down. Calm down and turn off this Changer state with the weird clothes. I concentrated, trying to go back to normal.
Nothing.
Well, crap.
"Um, Raising Heart?"
"Yes, my master?"
"How do I turn back to normal?"
"I will demonstrate. Please try to memorize the relevant mental processes."
She glowed briefly, and then a slightly less complex string of the same sort of math as earlier flashed into my thoughts. Then my costume turned to pink light and disappeared. I let out a surprised yelp and moved to cover myself, but it turned out I didn't need to; my regular clothes were back. Then Raising Heart returned to her pendant form and settled around my neck.
I looked around to make sure nobody had seen me. I didn't see anyone; I let out a sigh of relief and headed for home. It was about a fifteen minute walk, and for the last hundred feet or so my feet felt like lead weights and dread pooled in my stomach at the thought of having to tell my dad about this. There wasn't really any way to avoid it, though. He'd have seen the news by now.
I walked up the steps like a woman walking to her own execution; then I opened the door and walked in all in a rush.
It was dark in the living room, though the lights in the kitchen were on. The curtains were drawn, and I could hear the sound of the TV in the background. Dad was on the couch in the living room, watching the news.
"Dad?" I called as I walked into the living room.
He looked up. My dad is not what you'd call an attractive man. He was skinny as a beanpole, with a weak chin, thinning hair, big eyes and thick glasses. "Hey, kiddo," he said. He sounded tired, though that wasn't unusual.
I saw the news report on the television over his shoulder and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. He was watching a news report about me. I was right there on the screen, flying around, fighting Uber and Leet and accidentally blasting Glory Girl in front of everyone. "Okay," I said, holding up my hands to stop him from saying anything. "I can explain everything."
He nodded, waiting for me to continue.
"I..." I began, and the words stuck in my throat. I tried to force them out. My vision blurred behind my glasses. "I'm..." My gaze landed on the report. Yep. There I was getting hit by like a hundred missiles with this big glowing shield in front of me. Smoke was choking the whole scene, but you could still see the light of the shield.
Dad must have seen a weird expression on my face, because he looked back over his shoulder at the image on the screen, then back to me. "So," Dad prompted. "You can explain?"
My mind blanked out. I almost panicked. Then I finally managed to choke out the words: "... I triggered at the Boardwalk today. I'm a cape, Dad." As soon as I said it, I wished I could take the words back.
He glanced over his shoulder at the television, then back to me. I don't think he had any more idea how to react than I did. The silence became uncomfortable. Was he proud? Happy? Worried? Afraid? Angry? I couldn't tell.
That sinking feeling was back: that sense of standing at the edge of some infinite pit. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out. People would know. The video of me transforming was probably on PHO by now.
EMMA would know.
Fuck. At least this day couldn't get any worse.
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.3 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Disclaimer: Do these even work? Legally speaking it seems like having one of these might be worse than not having one, since an acknowledgment of deliberate copyright infringement seems like it would be way easier to prosecute than the innocent and unintentional variety of the same. But then, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a writer of fanfic.
-------------------
"I'm really sorry," I said for about the tenth time.
Laserdream pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just try not to shoot my cousin again," she said.
"I didn't actually mean to..." I started.
"I know," Laserdream interrupted. She tried to smile at me, and it looked forced. "We've been over this. It's okay. She's alive, and that's what matters."
Glory Girl was still lying where she had fallen. She hadn't woken up yet, and neither one of us had wanted to risk moving her. She didn't look good; her costume had taken a beating and she had a nasty case of road rash starting at her left knee and going up the side of her body to about mid-abdomen. I couldn't tell if she'd broken any ribs. Laserdream had already called the PRT and the paramedics on her cell phone. I'd seen Uber carrying Leet away from the scene earlier and hadn't tried to stop them. Mostly because I wasn't sure how I could stop them without nuking them with one of Raising Heart's doom lasers, and I was too frazzled by what had happened to think of using the spheres again. The snitch was gone, and only a few people were still on hand recording the scene.
"... Sorry," I said again.
She shook her head, a little too upset to laugh but still kind of wanting to. "So what's your name, anyways?" she asked. "Have you thought of one?"
I looked at Laserdream. She was a couple years older than me, and she was prettier than me, though I guess that's not saying much. But she was pretty, and I was a little jealous. She the kind of heart-shaped face, blonde hair and full lips that I would have killed for. Well, less the blonde hair. She had a white costume with a stylized arrow pointing down to her right and a ruby red headband. Actually, now that I looked, the costume Raising Heart had given me fit in pretty well with Laserdream and Glory Girl's. I had Shielder's colors, more or less.
"My name's..." I trailed off. What was I going to tell her? My real name? Some stupid fake name that I'd then get stuck with for the rest of my career as a hero? No. "I haven't thought of one yet," I admitted.
This time she didn't have to fake her smile. "I understand," she said. "You've had more important things on your mind." She paused, then, giving me a searching look. "Are you okay?"
I looked away. "I... yeah." God. I had almost killed her cousin, and she was asking me if I was okay? I felt even more like shit than I had before.
She took out a little notebook and a pen from a pouch on her belt, wrote something on it, and then tore out the page and handed it to me. "That's my number," she said. "Call if you need to talk, okay?"
I tried to smile back at her, but all I managed to do was twist my lips. "Thanks," I said.
She seemed to understand, at least, and her look in her eyes softened. "It's going to be all right," she said. "And I can do the talking when the PRT gets here if you want. Do you think you could keep watch for them? Tell me when they get close?"
That... that sounded like something I could do. I nodded. "Yeah," I said, "Sure." I kicked off the ground, my Flyer Fin spell taking effect as I did so, and flitted quickly up into the air to keep an eye out for approaching emergency vehicles. I saw them pretty quickly: they were only a couple of blocks away now. Looked like two ambulances and a whole lot of PRT vehicles. I called out to Laserdream and pointed, and she gave me a thumbs up.
"Master," Raising Heart said, "You are in distress. What is the matter?"
I looked down at the device-mode version of Raising Heart I was still holding in my left hand. "You mean besides the fact that I almost killed two people, and one of them was Glory Girl?" I asked.
"You did not," Raising Heart said.
I blinked. "I totally did," I said. "You saw Glory Girl. You saw Leet. You saw the damage to the building."
"Was killing your desire when you fired the shot?" Raising Heart asked.
I shook my head. "No."
"You did not wish to kill, so you did not," Raising Heart said, as if the matter was obvious.
The emergency vehicles were only a block away now, and I noticed that an armored figure on a tinkertech motorcycle was a few car lengths in front of the group. A window like a holographic computer screen opened up in front of me, displaying a close-up of the rider and doing a quick scan of both the motorcycle and his gear. A series of complex schematics scrolled past on the right side of the screen even as I recognized the rider: Armsmaster. The screen closed a moment later.
"But I could have," I said. "Because I don't really know how to use..." I didn't want to call it magic. I really didn't want to call it magic. "...magic," I finished.
"I can be shot on a stun setting," Raising Heart offered.
Being cheered up by a piece of weird sentient tinker-tech is weird. It worked, but it was weird. I looked at her with an eyebrow raised. "Really?" I asked.
"Yes," Raising Heart said. "Don't worry, my Master."
I looked down to where Glory Girl was lying. She had finally woken up, and she looked like she was in a lot of pain, but she was hugging Laserdream, so no broken back at least. I then followed the path of destruction up to the holes I'd put in the Boardwalk buildings. Then I looked back to Raising Heart, my eyes wide. "I'll try," I said in a small voice.
The motorcycle arrived, with the PRT vehicles close behind it. I flew down to the two New Wave capes and landed lightly about a meter away from Laserdream. "They're here," I said.
Glory Girl gave me a considering look. She was almost absurdly pretty. Both of them were, really, but Glory Girl took it up to 11. Even with a nasty case of road rash and a ripped costume, she was amazing. I felt like a total bitch for shooting her, and I couldn't stop myself from cringing. "Laserdream explained what happened," she said. "Um. Sorry for assuming you were with Uber and Leet, and thanks for helping."
Oh crap, she was apologizing to me? Now I felt even worse. "Sorry for shooting you though that pillar," I gestured to the smashed pillar. It was one of about a dozen ornate faux-Roman pillars that lined the walkway in front of the arcade, holding up a big faux-stone overhang on which the name of the arcade -- Ceasar's Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex -- was prominently displayed. "And thanks for not punching me for it."
Glory Girl giggled, and the giggle turned halfway through into a pained gasp, "Oh God, don't make me laugh," she said, tried not to giggle again, failed, and winced, "Hurts to laugh." She took a breath. "Don't worry. Panacea will have me back on my feet in no time. I'm just impressed you were able to hurt me at all."
I let out a nervous laugh. The feeling like I was a total asshole faded slightly. "I guess I overdid it a little," I said.
"I guess," Glory Girl said wryly, and then winced again. "Ow. Hurts to smile, too."
PRT troops began to fan out through the area, herding away the people who were still recording the goings on with their cell phones, and Armsmaster was walking over to us, approaching with a slow, deliberate stride. ... Weird. He wasn't as impressive as Glory Girl. I mean, he was impressive, and he looked like a superhero, but... I don't know. If she hadn't been there, I probably would have been way more impressed. I mean, this was Armsmaster. He was the leader of the Protectorate in Brockton Bay! He might have been in his late twenties or early thirties. He wore body armor, dark blue with silver highlights, and he had a sharply angled v-shaped visor covering his eyes and nose. There was a beard trimmed to trace the edges of his jaw. He had his halberd in his hands, and even as I looked, Raising Heart's gem glowed pink, and another one of those windows like a holographic computer screen floating in the air appeared in front of me, analyzing his weapon. The schematics scrolled quickly by, followed by Raising Heart's estimated capabilities of the weapon.
Armsmaster stiffened slightly when he noticed what was on my screen. He looked at me long enough for me to get even more uncomfortable. "Tinker?" he asked.
I tried not to panic. I took a deep breath, dismissing the screen with a wave of my hand. A nice, deep, calming breath. "I, um, I don't know. I just, uh, g-got my powers."
He turned his head towards Raising Heart. "You didn't build that?" he asked.
I shook my head, took another deep breath, and managed to continue speaking without stuttering or throwing in ums and uhs every two seconds. I gestured towards my Device with my free hand. "She belonged to my mother."
"She?" he asked. I could almost feel the raised eyebrow behind his visor.
"Hello," Raising Heart said.
That stopped him. I couldn't tell if he was staring or not, but he didn't move his head for a long moment, and it got even more uncomfortable. "Is that an AI?" he asked, and he seemed actually interested now.
"I..." I tried to begin. "Um... yes?"
"Later," Laserdream interrupted. "Glory Girl needs a doctor."
Armsmaster kept right on looking at me, but he nodded. "Right," he said. He gestured, and the paramedics approached. As they went to work checking over Glory Girl, Armsmaster continued talking. "I'll need a statement from each of you," he said. "What happened?"
We told him while the paramedics were loading Glory Girl into the ambulance. The day only got less comfortable from there.
When it was all over, our statements given and Glory Girl on her way to the hospital and having left a very disappointed Armsmaster without answers to his follow-up questions, I flew away from the scene.
I didn't know if people might be able to follow me on radar or anything, so I tried to stay low and to head somewhere there weren't any people nearby so I could change back to normal. It took longer to find somewhere like that than I thought, but eventually I found a spot near Captain's Hill where there wasn't anybody nearby.
Okay. Time to calm down. Calm down and turn off this Changer state with the weird clothes. I concentrated, trying to go back to normal.
Nothing.
Well, crap.
"Um, Raising Heart?"
"Yes, my master?"
"How do I turn back to normal?"
"I will demonstrate. Please try to memorize the relevant mental processes."
She glowed briefly, and then a slightly less complex string of the same sort of math as earlier flashed into my thoughts. Then my costume turned to pink light and disappeared. I let out a surprised yelp and moved to cover myself, but it turned out I didn't need to; my regular clothes were back. Then Raising Heart returned to her pendant form and settled around my neck.
I looked around to make sure nobody had seen me. I didn't see anyone; I let out a sigh of relief and headed for home. It was about a fifteen minute walk, and for the last hundred feet or so my feet felt like lead weights and dread pooled in my stomach at the thought of having to tell my dad about this. There wasn't really any way to avoid it, though. He'd have seen the news by now.
I walked up the steps like a woman walking to her own execution; then I opened the door and walked in all in a rush.
It was dark in the living room, though the lights in the kitchen were on. The curtains were drawn, and I could hear the sound of the TV in the background. Dad was on the couch in the living room, watching the news.
"Dad?" I called as I walked into the living room.
He looked up. My dad is not what you'd call an attractive man. He was skinny as a beanpole, with a weak chin, thinning hair, big eyes and thick glasses. "Hey, kiddo," he said. He sounded tired, though that wasn't unusual.
I saw the news report on the television over his shoulder and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. He was watching a news report about me. I was right there on the screen, flying around, fighting Uber and Leet and accidentally blasting Glory Girl in front of everyone. "Okay," I said, holding up my hands to stop him from saying anything. "I can explain everything."
He nodded, waiting for me to continue.
"I..." I began, and the words stuck in my throat. I tried to force them out. My vision blurred behind my glasses. "I'm..." My gaze landed on the report. Yep. There I was getting hit by like a hundred missiles with this big glowing shield in front of me. Smoke was choking the whole scene, but you could still see the light of the shield.
Dad must have seen a weird expression on my face, because he looked back over his shoulder at the image on the screen, then back to me. "So," Dad prompted. "You can explain?"
My mind blanked out. I almost panicked. Then I finally managed to choke out the words: "... I triggered at the Boardwalk today. I'm a cape, Dad." As soon as I said it, I wished I could take the words back.
He glanced over his shoulder at the television, then back to me. I don't think he had any more idea how to react than I did. The silence became uncomfortable. Was he proud? Happy? Worried? Afraid? Angry? I couldn't tell.
That sinking feeling was back: that sense of standing at the edge of some infinite pit. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out. People would know. The video of me transforming was probably on PHO by now.
EMMA would know.
Fuck. At least this day couldn't get any worse.
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1.4 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.4 - Stand By. Ready. Set up.
-------------------
I need to stop giving the universe straight lines. Even in my own internal monologue, there's such a thing as tempting fate.
Dad let out a long, slow breath. "All right, kiddo," he said, "Tell me everything."
I did. He listened carefully to the whole explanation starting with when Uber and Leet showed up all the way until Laserdream, Glory Girl and I gave our statements to Armsmaster and the PRT. When I was done, he didn't say anything for about a minute.
"Okay," he said at last. "Let me see if I have this straight. Annette's old pendant is actually a Tinker-tech artifact that gave you magical powers, and you used them to beat up Uber, Leet, and Glory Girl."
I shook my head, "Glory Girl was an accident. She thought I was trying to shoot Laserdream, and she jumped in the way of my beam attack."
"Ah," Dad said. "My mistake." He waved a hand in a vague apology. Then he fixed his gaze on Raising Heart. "You say it can talk?" he asked.
I tried not to be annoyed by him calling Raising Heart an it. "Yes, she can," I said. "Her name is Raising Heart. Raising Heart? This is my dad, Danny."
"Hello," Raising Heart said.
"Hi," Dad said, visibly at a loss. "You're going to have to give me a second, here, kiddo," he told me. "I've never had a conversation with living jewelry before." A beat passed. "Are you actually alive, Raising Heart?" he asked. "Are you... a person?"
"Yes. Though I am necessarily shaped by my purpose and the limitations of my hardware, I believe I am a person. Others might disagree. I cannot say with certainty that they are wrong."
"Okay," Dad said. "What do you want from my daughter?"
"Nothing."
"You gave her powers, right? Why?"
"I did not. Taylor is a Mage. I am her Device. My role is to amplify, to enhance, to assist. She does not need me to use magic."
"And you, what, woke up her powers?"
"Yes."
"Would she have ever been able to use these powers if you hadn't?"
"It is impossible to say for certain."
Dad didn't like that answer. He glared at Raising Heart. "What do you intend to do now?"
"That is up to my Master."
"Your master?"
"Me," I said.
Dad looked at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but a thought seemed to occur to him just as he was about to form the words, and they died before he could sound them. He fixed his gaze on Raising Heart once more, and asked, "... Did Annette know?"
Oh. Oh, crap. "Dad, please," I began.
His eyes flashed as he cut me off. "Did. Annette. Know."
"Yes," Raising Heart answered.
Dad sighed and looked down. He suddenly looked very, very tired. "God damn it, Annette," he whispered. "I knew she had secrets," he told me, "But this..." He was on the edge of losing his temper; I could see it in his eyes.
"Dad, Mom gave me Raising Heart to keep me safe. And if she hadn't, I'd be dead. Uber and Leet would have killed me."
Dad flinched. "Damn it, Annette," he said again. The he looked up. He looked me right in the eye. "All right, kiddo," he said, "You've got powers. What do you plan to do with them?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He held up a hand. "This is about your future as much as anything else. You're 15. I want to know what you want."
"I want to learn how to use magic," I said. "As much as I can."
"Why?"
I tried not to glare at him. "What do you mean, why?"
"I mean why do you want to? What do you want to use it for?"
"I also wish to know, my Master," Raising Heart said. "Why do you want to learn magic?"
I floundered. I didn't have an answer. Or really, the problem was I had too many answers. I had at least a dozen, and all of them were true. I was tired of being a victim, for one. Emma, Sophia, and Madison had been bullying me for almost a year and a half now, and I was pretty sure they wouldn't stop. Not ever. And I didn't want to be the person they were making me into. I didn't want to be the loser, the ugliest girl in school, the one no boy would ever touch, the one who was pushed and kicked and tripped and then lied to her dad about the bruises. I wanted people to look up to me. I wanted friends who wouldn't betray me. I wanted to matter. To be like Alexandria. But more than that, I wanted to do the right thing. Mom had always said that might didn't make right. That the powerful should use their power to do good; and here I was in Brockton Bay, where people with power, people like Lung and Kaiser, had the whole damn city living in fear. And I had magic, and I could use it to make a difference. I would.
I looked my dad in the eye and told him, "I want to be a hero."
I expected him to lose his temper. Maybe to forbid me from using magic, or being a hero, or putting myself at risk. I expected him to blow up and tell me that I couldn't afford to let my grades slip more than they already had, that he wasn't going to let me put myself in danger. What I wasn't expecting was for him to hold my gaze for a good ten seconds before nodding and saying, "Okay. But I want to make damn sure that you're safe, Taylor. If you're set on being a hero, you're going to do it as safely as possible, you understand me?"
I had to force down the grin that wanted to spread across my face, and I couldn't stop myself from hugging him. "I understand," I said.
"And you," Dad said, turning to look down at the gem in my hands, "Are going to make damn sure my daughter is safe. If Annette really did give you to Taylor to protect her, I expect you to make sure that she knows what she's doing before she ever puts herself in danger by going out in that costume again."
Raising Heart grew warm against my skin. "Then I will do everything in my power to prepare and protect your daughter," she said.
Dad nodded. "And Taylor, if you're really serious about this, you should join the Wards."
I sighed. "Yeah. Probably."
-------------------
Later that night, Raising Heart and I settled in for the start of my training. Dad was on the phone, and with my door closed I figured we probably wouldn't be interrupted as long as things didn't get to doom-beam levels of crazy.
"Inside the body of every mage," Raising Heart was explaining, "there is a specialized mana-generating organ called a Linker Core."
I blinked. "But... not inside the body of every human?" I asked.
"It is more accurate to say that the organ does not produce usable levels of mana inside every human."
I thought about it. "This isn't the same thing as the Corona Pollentia, is it?"
"Human technology on Non-Administrated Planet 97 has not yet achieved the ability to detect Linker Cores," Raising Heart replied.
"Non-Administrated Planet 97?" I asked.
"Local name: Earth."
"Oh," I said. Then a dozen thoughts went through my head at once, and with my link to Raising Heart, I could actually think them all at once. It felt strange. The best I can describe it is to say it was like hearing my formerly solo mental voice suddenly turned into a choir who were all singing the same music even though the members of that choir were singing different parts. After a moment's hesitation, I isolated and voiced just one of those thoughts. "Don't you mean Earth-Bet?"
Raising Heart paused. Then her gem flashed again as she spoke. "I am accessing local records now. Interesting. Alternate Earths in contact with one another."
Accessing local records? How would she do that? It wasn't like she could just log onto the internet or... my mental train came to a sudden stop. "... Raising Heart, do you have internet access?"
"Of course, my Master."
"If you bring up another one of those funny holographic terminals for me, could I access the internet through it?"
"If that is what you desire."
I couldn't stop myself from grinning. I kind of wanted to stop this question and answer session here and now, but I was already kneeling on the floor in a lotus position in my bedroom. The door was closed, Raising Heart had promised that we would begin my magic lessons tonight, and I really didn't want to put that off for using her to browse PHO. "Okay," I said. "Let's back up. So I have a Linker Core. Does that mean I'm not really a parahuman?"
"You are a mage."
Huh. Wasn't there some other cape who called himself a wizard out there somewhere? Merlin or something? I couldn't help but wonder if he had a Device like Raising Heart. "Right," I said. I focused, trying to find the magic organ Raising Heart was talking about. I think I had felt it once before, earlier today, when I was fighting. Or maybe when I was transforming? I'm not sure. My eyes drifted shut, and that now familiar warmth sprang up around me and within me. This time I paid more attention to it than I had before, focusing, letting it fill my mind. The room grew brighter around me.
"You may find it helpful to imagine you are breathing through your Linker Core, collecting and condensing the magic in the air and spreading it through your body," Raising Heart said.
I focused on the idea of breath. Of breathing in the warmth of the universe, of breathing out magic. I felt it almost immediately; my linker core was... not in my chest, but sort of just a few degrees off from the point at which the Q axis intersected with my chest: inside my body, but kind of dimensionally side-along. The implications of that were kind of terrifying, and I tried not to think about them too hard just yet. "I found it," I breathed.
"Very good," Raising Heart said. "This act of respiration -- the act of respiring mana through your Linker Core -- is the foundation of all magical application." A pause. "Your magical energy levels are extremely high, my Master."
"Um, thanks," I said.
"We will begin image training tomorrow. Until then, practice respiring mana. Allow your magic to fill your body. Allow the spiritual heat to expand and contract in time with your breath."
I did, and like before, power filled me. I could see the light of my own aura even through my closed eyelids as I breathed in and out. My cares began to slip away, and I felt an unfamiliar feeling of relaxed peace. "Why is it pink, though?" I asked. The sense of peace retreated.
"Please focus, my Master," Raising Heart chided.
I sighed. "Fine."
----------------------------
I woke up to the sound of Raising Heart speaking into my thoughts. [... to wake up.]
"Muh?" I asked, still at that point between asleep and awake where your brain just isn't fully engaged yet, and you could easily just drift back into some warm and pleasant dream if you had half a chance.
[It is time to wake up, my Master!] Raising Heart broadcast directly into my brain. Every single word was like a knife cutting through my sleep-muddled thoughts, and by the end, I was fully awake.
I reached over to my alarm clock and turned it around. 6:28. Which made today a weekday like any other. My alarm was set for six thirty, but I... wait. "It's Sunday," I said aloud.
[Yes.]
I thought about trying to protest, explaining about weekends and then trying to go back to sleep. There was no point, though. I was awake. "Damn it, Raising Heart," I grumbled. I was a little sore after the fight yesterday, but otherwise fine.
I forced myself out of bed, put on my sweats, and walked downstairs to wash my face in the sink. Dad would be waking up soon; he'd never been very good at relaxing. It was something we had in common. I threw together a quick breakfast of eggs, sausage, and toast with a glass of orange juice, making sure I also made enough for dad to have some when he came downstairs. When I was done eating, I put on my sneakers and headed for the door.
Dad was coming down the stairs in his bathrobe. "Morning, Taylor," he said sleepily. "You're up early."
"Morning, dad. I'm heading out for my run."
"Be safe," he said, and I gave him a lopsided smile. He still didn't like me going out for runs around town. "You've got your..."
"I've got the pepper spray in my pocket," I said. "And Raising Heart's here, too." He bobbed his head in acknowledgment, and I left before he could say anything else, heading out the side door and breaking into an easy run the moment I was past the chain link gate at the side of the house.
It had snowed lightly last night, leaving a dusting of white on the city. Weeds grew thick in the snow-lined cracks in the sidewalk, the tops of the little plants just barely peeked out above the snow. I looked back at my house, the rooftop dusted with snow, lights coming on through the windows.
[Master, Are you ready to begin?]
[Yeah. Just let me get somewhere I can...]
[Commencing image training,] Raising Heart said within our telepathic link.
I blinked. [Image what?]
My mind expanded. All at once, I wasn't on the sidewalk outside my house anymore. Or I was, but I was also floating in the sky far above Brockton Bay about level with a patchy cloud layer. Raising Heart had taken the form of a staff, this time. I could see the city far below; the sun was sinking towards the horizon, now, and parts of the city were in shadow. I was still on my run, though, still making my way to the Boardwalk. It was like two datastreams were flowing side by side. I could see both. I could act in both. I could give both my full attention and not miss anything. I let out a giggle in both. "Holy shit," I said, and heard myself speaking it from two different mouths and with two different sets of ears. It took me a little bit to recover my focus after a surprise like that, and Raising Heart gave me the time.
[Ready?] Raising Heart asked.
I nodded, and in the training simulation Raising Heart had created for me, Raising Heart began to speak. "Speed. And power. Are essential in combat," she said. "But there are more important things. Do you know what it is?"
I decided not to comment on Raising Heart's weird phrasing in favor of actually considering her question. "Accurate intelligence?" I guessed.
"Good answer. But what else?"
I thought about it. "Accurate attacks. A good plan. Superior tactics?"
"Yes," Raising Heart said. "And the wisdom to use those things effectively."
I nodded. "That makes sense."
A series of glowing pink and purple targets appeared, one after another after another, until there were nearly a hundred, each one helpfully labelled with the word, 'Target.'
"How to fly and shoot," Raising Heart said, "and the theory and practice of aerial combat: I will teach you these things."
In the real world, my run continued. In the simulation, my training as a Mage began.
Raising Heart was a relentless teacher. We started very simply, moving through an exercise until it was mastered and only then moving on to the next. I should have been exhausted after five minutes, but instead I almost felt hungry. When Raising Heart explained something, I actually understood it. When I mastered something, I couldn't help but imagine what the next step might be, or how to tweak it into a slightly different application. We had only gone through two full simulations by the time I got back from my run, but I felt exhilarated.
[Is it supposed to be this easy to learn magic?] I asked as we -- as I -- walked up the steps and into my house.
[Your neural architecture is well adapted for parallel processing and magical operations.]
I blinked. [Um. Thanks?]
[You are welcome, my Master. But the difficulty will increase as we continue.]
Right. I shouldn't get too confident, I guess.
Once I was inside, I talked to my dad for a few minutes before I went upstairs to do my morning ablutions. Raising Heart started another simulation while I was in the shower, but it didn't take me off guard this time, and she had to devote less of her own processing power to splitting my thought processes now that I was getting used to it. ... did that mean I might be able to do it by myself eventually? That was... that was a Thinker power, wasn't it? Had to be.
We kept at it. If I was going to be a hero, I needed to be as ready as I possibly could be.
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.4 - Stand By. Ready. Set up.
-------------------
I need to stop giving the universe straight lines. Even in my own internal monologue, there's such a thing as tempting fate.
Dad let out a long, slow breath. "All right, kiddo," he said, "Tell me everything."
I did. He listened carefully to the whole explanation starting with when Uber and Leet showed up all the way until Laserdream, Glory Girl and I gave our statements to Armsmaster and the PRT. When I was done, he didn't say anything for about a minute.
"Okay," he said at last. "Let me see if I have this straight. Annette's old pendant is actually a Tinker-tech artifact that gave you magical powers, and you used them to beat up Uber, Leet, and Glory Girl."
I shook my head, "Glory Girl was an accident. She thought I was trying to shoot Laserdream, and she jumped in the way of my beam attack."
"Ah," Dad said. "My mistake." He waved a hand in a vague apology. Then he fixed his gaze on Raising Heart. "You say it can talk?" he asked.
I tried not to be annoyed by him calling Raising Heart an it. "Yes, she can," I said. "Her name is Raising Heart. Raising Heart? This is my dad, Danny."
"Hello," Raising Heart said.
"Hi," Dad said, visibly at a loss. "You're going to have to give me a second, here, kiddo," he told me. "I've never had a conversation with living jewelry before." A beat passed. "Are you actually alive, Raising Heart?" he asked. "Are you... a person?"
"Yes. Though I am necessarily shaped by my purpose and the limitations of my hardware, I believe I am a person. Others might disagree. I cannot say with certainty that they are wrong."
"Okay," Dad said. "What do you want from my daughter?"
"Nothing."
"You gave her powers, right? Why?"
"I did not. Taylor is a Mage. I am her Device. My role is to amplify, to enhance, to assist. She does not need me to use magic."
"And you, what, woke up her powers?"
"Yes."
"Would she have ever been able to use these powers if you hadn't?"
"It is impossible to say for certain."
Dad didn't like that answer. He glared at Raising Heart. "What do you intend to do now?"
"That is up to my Master."
"Your master?"
"Me," I said.
Dad looked at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but a thought seemed to occur to him just as he was about to form the words, and they died before he could sound them. He fixed his gaze on Raising Heart once more, and asked, "... Did Annette know?"
Oh. Oh, crap. "Dad, please," I began.
His eyes flashed as he cut me off. "Did. Annette. Know."
"Yes," Raising Heart answered.
Dad sighed and looked down. He suddenly looked very, very tired. "God damn it, Annette," he whispered. "I knew she had secrets," he told me, "But this..." He was on the edge of losing his temper; I could see it in his eyes.
"Dad, Mom gave me Raising Heart to keep me safe. And if she hadn't, I'd be dead. Uber and Leet would have killed me."
Dad flinched. "Damn it, Annette," he said again. The he looked up. He looked me right in the eye. "All right, kiddo," he said, "You've got powers. What do you plan to do with them?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He held up a hand. "This is about your future as much as anything else. You're 15. I want to know what you want."
"I want to learn how to use magic," I said. "As much as I can."
"Why?"
I tried not to glare at him. "What do you mean, why?"
"I mean why do you want to? What do you want to use it for?"
"I also wish to know, my Master," Raising Heart said. "Why do you want to learn magic?"
I floundered. I didn't have an answer. Or really, the problem was I had too many answers. I had at least a dozen, and all of them were true. I was tired of being a victim, for one. Emma, Sophia, and Madison had been bullying me for almost a year and a half now, and I was pretty sure they wouldn't stop. Not ever. And I didn't want to be the person they were making me into. I didn't want to be the loser, the ugliest girl in school, the one no boy would ever touch, the one who was pushed and kicked and tripped and then lied to her dad about the bruises. I wanted people to look up to me. I wanted friends who wouldn't betray me. I wanted to matter. To be like Alexandria. But more than that, I wanted to do the right thing. Mom had always said that might didn't make right. That the powerful should use their power to do good; and here I was in Brockton Bay, where people with power, people like Lung and Kaiser, had the whole damn city living in fear. And I had magic, and I could use it to make a difference. I would.
I looked my dad in the eye and told him, "I want to be a hero."
I expected him to lose his temper. Maybe to forbid me from using magic, or being a hero, or putting myself at risk. I expected him to blow up and tell me that I couldn't afford to let my grades slip more than they already had, that he wasn't going to let me put myself in danger. What I wasn't expecting was for him to hold my gaze for a good ten seconds before nodding and saying, "Okay. But I want to make damn sure that you're safe, Taylor. If you're set on being a hero, you're going to do it as safely as possible, you understand me?"
I had to force down the grin that wanted to spread across my face, and I couldn't stop myself from hugging him. "I understand," I said.
"And you," Dad said, turning to look down at the gem in my hands, "Are going to make damn sure my daughter is safe. If Annette really did give you to Taylor to protect her, I expect you to make sure that she knows what she's doing before she ever puts herself in danger by going out in that costume again."
Raising Heart grew warm against my skin. "Then I will do everything in my power to prepare and protect your daughter," she said.
Dad nodded. "And Taylor, if you're really serious about this, you should join the Wards."
I sighed. "Yeah. Probably."
-------------------
Later that night, Raising Heart and I settled in for the start of my training. Dad was on the phone, and with my door closed I figured we probably wouldn't be interrupted as long as things didn't get to doom-beam levels of crazy.
"Inside the body of every mage," Raising Heart was explaining, "there is a specialized mana-generating organ called a Linker Core."
I blinked. "But... not inside the body of every human?" I asked.
"It is more accurate to say that the organ does not produce usable levels of mana inside every human."
I thought about it. "This isn't the same thing as the Corona Pollentia, is it?"
"Human technology on Non-Administrated Planet 97 has not yet achieved the ability to detect Linker Cores," Raising Heart replied.
"Non-Administrated Planet 97?" I asked.
"Local name: Earth."
"Oh," I said. Then a dozen thoughts went through my head at once, and with my link to Raising Heart, I could actually think them all at once. It felt strange. The best I can describe it is to say it was like hearing my formerly solo mental voice suddenly turned into a choir who were all singing the same music even though the members of that choir were singing different parts. After a moment's hesitation, I isolated and voiced just one of those thoughts. "Don't you mean Earth-Bet?"
Raising Heart paused. Then her gem flashed again as she spoke. "I am accessing local records now. Interesting. Alternate Earths in contact with one another."
Accessing local records? How would she do that? It wasn't like she could just log onto the internet or... my mental train came to a sudden stop. "... Raising Heart, do you have internet access?"
"Of course, my Master."
"If you bring up another one of those funny holographic terminals for me, could I access the internet through it?"
"If that is what you desire."
I couldn't stop myself from grinning. I kind of wanted to stop this question and answer session here and now, but I was already kneeling on the floor in a lotus position in my bedroom. The door was closed, Raising Heart had promised that we would begin my magic lessons tonight, and I really didn't want to put that off for using her to browse PHO. "Okay," I said. "Let's back up. So I have a Linker Core. Does that mean I'm not really a parahuman?"
"You are a mage."
Huh. Wasn't there some other cape who called himself a wizard out there somewhere? Merlin or something? I couldn't help but wonder if he had a Device like Raising Heart. "Right," I said. I focused, trying to find the magic organ Raising Heart was talking about. I think I had felt it once before, earlier today, when I was fighting. Or maybe when I was transforming? I'm not sure. My eyes drifted shut, and that now familiar warmth sprang up around me and within me. This time I paid more attention to it than I had before, focusing, letting it fill my mind. The room grew brighter around me.
"You may find it helpful to imagine you are breathing through your Linker Core, collecting and condensing the magic in the air and spreading it through your body," Raising Heart said.
I focused on the idea of breath. Of breathing in the warmth of the universe, of breathing out magic. I felt it almost immediately; my linker core was... not in my chest, but sort of just a few degrees off from the point at which the Q axis intersected with my chest: inside my body, but kind of dimensionally side-along. The implications of that were kind of terrifying, and I tried not to think about them too hard just yet. "I found it," I breathed.
"Very good," Raising Heart said. "This act of respiration -- the act of respiring mana through your Linker Core -- is the foundation of all magical application." A pause. "Your magical energy levels are extremely high, my Master."
"Um, thanks," I said.
"We will begin image training tomorrow. Until then, practice respiring mana. Allow your magic to fill your body. Allow the spiritual heat to expand and contract in time with your breath."
I did, and like before, power filled me. I could see the light of my own aura even through my closed eyelids as I breathed in and out. My cares began to slip away, and I felt an unfamiliar feeling of relaxed peace. "Why is it pink, though?" I asked. The sense of peace retreated.
"Please focus, my Master," Raising Heart chided.
I sighed. "Fine."
----------------------------
I woke up to the sound of Raising Heart speaking into my thoughts. [... to wake up.]
"Muh?" I asked, still at that point between asleep and awake where your brain just isn't fully engaged yet, and you could easily just drift back into some warm and pleasant dream if you had half a chance.
[It is time to wake up, my Master!] Raising Heart broadcast directly into my brain. Every single word was like a knife cutting through my sleep-muddled thoughts, and by the end, I was fully awake.
I reached over to my alarm clock and turned it around. 6:28. Which made today a weekday like any other. My alarm was set for six thirty, but I... wait. "It's Sunday," I said aloud.
[Yes.]
I thought about trying to protest, explaining about weekends and then trying to go back to sleep. There was no point, though. I was awake. "Damn it, Raising Heart," I grumbled. I was a little sore after the fight yesterday, but otherwise fine.
I forced myself out of bed, put on my sweats, and walked downstairs to wash my face in the sink. Dad would be waking up soon; he'd never been very good at relaxing. It was something we had in common. I threw together a quick breakfast of eggs, sausage, and toast with a glass of orange juice, making sure I also made enough for dad to have some when he came downstairs. When I was done eating, I put on my sneakers and headed for the door.
Dad was coming down the stairs in his bathrobe. "Morning, Taylor," he said sleepily. "You're up early."
"Morning, dad. I'm heading out for my run."
"Be safe," he said, and I gave him a lopsided smile. He still didn't like me going out for runs around town. "You've got your..."
"I've got the pepper spray in my pocket," I said. "And Raising Heart's here, too." He bobbed his head in acknowledgment, and I left before he could say anything else, heading out the side door and breaking into an easy run the moment I was past the chain link gate at the side of the house.
It had snowed lightly last night, leaving a dusting of white on the city. Weeds grew thick in the snow-lined cracks in the sidewalk, the tops of the little plants just barely peeked out above the snow. I looked back at my house, the rooftop dusted with snow, lights coming on through the windows.
[Master, Are you ready to begin?]
[Yeah. Just let me get somewhere I can...]
[Commencing image training,] Raising Heart said within our telepathic link.
I blinked. [Image what?]
My mind expanded. All at once, I wasn't on the sidewalk outside my house anymore. Or I was, but I was also floating in the sky far above Brockton Bay about level with a patchy cloud layer. Raising Heart had taken the form of a staff, this time. I could see the city far below; the sun was sinking towards the horizon, now, and parts of the city were in shadow. I was still on my run, though, still making my way to the Boardwalk. It was like two datastreams were flowing side by side. I could see both. I could act in both. I could give both my full attention and not miss anything. I let out a giggle in both. "Holy shit," I said, and heard myself speaking it from two different mouths and with two different sets of ears. It took me a little bit to recover my focus after a surprise like that, and Raising Heart gave me the time.
[Ready?] Raising Heart asked.
I nodded, and in the training simulation Raising Heart had created for me, Raising Heart began to speak. "Speed. And power. Are essential in combat," she said. "But there are more important things. Do you know what it is?"
I decided not to comment on Raising Heart's weird phrasing in favor of actually considering her question. "Accurate intelligence?" I guessed.
"Good answer. But what else?"
I thought about it. "Accurate attacks. A good plan. Superior tactics?"
"Yes," Raising Heart said. "And the wisdom to use those things effectively."
I nodded. "That makes sense."
A series of glowing pink and purple targets appeared, one after another after another, until there were nearly a hundred, each one helpfully labelled with the word, 'Target.'
"How to fly and shoot," Raising Heart said, "and the theory and practice of aerial combat: I will teach you these things."
In the real world, my run continued. In the simulation, my training as a Mage began.
Raising Heart was a relentless teacher. We started very simply, moving through an exercise until it was mastered and only then moving on to the next. I should have been exhausted after five minutes, but instead I almost felt hungry. When Raising Heart explained something, I actually understood it. When I mastered something, I couldn't help but imagine what the next step might be, or how to tweak it into a slightly different application. We had only gone through two full simulations by the time I got back from my run, but I felt exhilarated.
[Is it supposed to be this easy to learn magic?] I asked as we -- as I -- walked up the steps and into my house.
[Your neural architecture is well adapted for parallel processing and magical operations.]
I blinked. [Um. Thanks?]
[You are welcome, my Master. But the difficulty will increase as we continue.]
Right. I shouldn't get too confident, I guess.
Once I was inside, I talked to my dad for a few minutes before I went upstairs to do my morning ablutions. Raising Heart started another simulation while I was in the shower, but it didn't take me off guard this time, and she had to devote less of her own processing power to splitting my thought processes now that I was getting used to it. ... did that mean I might be able to do it by myself eventually? That was... that was a Thinker power, wasn't it? Had to be.
We kept at it. If I was going to be a hero, I needed to be as ready as I possibly could be.
1.5 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.5 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
----------------
I was so not ready for this.
Wasn't like I had much choice, though. I'd gotten up just before 6:30, like normal. Gone for my run. Had breakfast. Showered. Gotten dressed. Done another two training simulations with Raising Heart during the time it took me to do all that. We did another training simulation on the way to school, this one focusing on basic dogfighting technique. My specialty was bombardment, which meant powerful long range attacks, but Raising Heart said that all the power in the world wouldn't help me if I couldn't stop an enemy from gaining the upper hand with maneuver. She'd also suggested I start learning how to fight with a staff. I'd asked dad about it, and he'd said he'd look into it, and I was totally trying to distract myself with anything and everything to avoid what was in front of me.
Stupid Winslow.
I tried to convince dad that I should stay home from school, that I'd transformed in front of everyone at the Boardwalk yesterday and it was on the news, and I needed to keep my head down. All he did was load up the news report on his computer and play the video for me: in Uber and Leet's video, my features were blurred out until I was fully transformed and dressed in my barrier jacket. ... wait, Uber and Leet had hidden my identity?
I wasn't sure what to feel about that. Relief, sure, but why would they do that?
I still half-expected everyone to recognize me at school, but no one did. They all just ignored me like usual, except Greg. Greg kept looking at me, and it made me a little paranoid, but it also wasn't out of character for him; he was kind of a creeper. The cliques were out in force, as usual. I passed by the cheerleaders and the football players. The band kids were all in a group in the main courtyard by the benches. JROTC was in uniform today, and they were mostly gathered near the shop. Here and there, a couple of kids were sitting by themselves. One boy was drawing a picture of an old shop with a sign that read, 'Mrs. Lovett's World Famous Meat Pies.' I smiled when I saw it, and I found myself half-singing, half humming as I made my way to homeroom. "There's hole in the world like a great black pit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it, and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit, and it goes by the name of Winslow..."
I kept it quiet enough not to be heard, but the song seemed to fit, and it gave me a dark sort of amusement. My eyes fell upon the terrible trio. They hadn't been as bad lately. They were still horrendous bitches, but it seemed like they had backed off on the direct bullying at least a little. Emma, Madison, Sophia. They were at Emma's locker with a crowd of hangers on. I stopped humming out loud to avoid giving them any reason to make fun of me as I walked past, but I was still darkly amused by how well the next line from that song fit without any need to change the lyrics: 'At the top of the hole sit a privileged few, making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo, turning beauty into filth and greed...'
"What's with the stupid grin, Hebert?" Sophia asked.
In my imagination, my grin got downright Cheshire-like as I looked Sophia right in the eye and said, 'Oh, just imagining your horrible demise and thinking of a recipe for meat-pies. No big deal.' What I actually did was open my mouth to retort, get about as far as an "Oh," that turned immediately into a glottal stop, and then shut my mouth and looked away, the grin wiped right off my face. Though maybe that was for the best. That whole 'meat-pies' thing probably sounded better in my head than it would out loud. ... Yeah, probably not a good idea to say something like that.
The trio and their cohorts laughed. "Oh my God, what a loser," Madison said.
I wanted to say something back. Something witty, something that would cut them down to size, but my mind had gone blank. I stood there like a doofus for a few seconds, blushed, and retreated for homeroom. Their laughter followed me.
It was weird, being here after what had happened this weekend. I wasn't the same. I had powers now. I was a cape now. And Winslow didn't care. The school and the bullies had just kept right on going like nothing had changed, and everyone expected me to just be the same old Taylor Hebert I'd been before Raising Heart had saved me. It also turned out that "I have superpowers now, but I can't tell you about it!" did not actually get you out of having to turn in your homework, and in all the excitement I had completely forgotten to do mine.
The day passed slowly and miserably. So, par for the course for Winslow. At least the trio didn't do anything more than a few mild insults and laughter. I spent my time focusing on running training simulations with Raising Heart, and that helped. Just having her there with me helped, really.
It was nice not to feel alone.
I was almost afraid to check PHO during Computer class. Not because I thought I'd get in trouble -- I usually got everything done in half an hour or less and had an hour after that to do whatever I wanted, and Mrs. Knott didn't mind as long as I could show her that I'd finished the assignment -- but because I dreaded the thought of someone having recognized me. Mrs. Knott was all right. She was a tallish, broad shouldered and strong jawed woman with long blond hair who tended towards trying-way-too-hard-to-be-girly clothing choices, but she was nice enough. I was one of the advanced students in her class, and that made another degree of separation between me and the trio's minions, so I usually got through it without any problems.
I finished my assignment in ten minutes and logged onto Parahumans Online. It was kind of the go-to place for news and discussion on capes. I navigated over to the sub-board for Brockton Bay and had a look for anything related to Saturday. And there it was. One thread about Uber and Leet's attack, another thread about me specifically. I opened both of them and spent some time reading. It was the internet, so most of it was stupid or irrelevant, and there was a six page argument on the physics of my Divine Buster. They were calling me Gundam Girl, which was annoying. There were video links, too, and even if I couldn't play the sound in the classroom, I let the uploaded cell phone videos play on mute.
None of them managed to catch a view of my face before I was transformed. I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. Okay. So that means the only people who know my identity are Uber and Leet. And Dad. That wasn't so bad. I could deal with that. I hoped.
Wow, xX_Void_Cowboy_Xx was a creep, and I hoped Tin_Mother banned him. And holy crap, Vista had commented in the thread about me! And she was a fan of magical girl shows. Kind of a big fan, actually. Huh. I guess I couldn't really judge considering the minor obsession with Gundam I'd had when I was eight. Which I was totally over now. It wasn't subconsciously influencing my barrier jacket design, and the sight of giant robots did NOT still make my inner fangirl squee with joy. Stupid Earth-Aleph video games. And animated shows. And movies. And affiliated merchandise. Don't judge me.
When school ended, I went straight home. I didn't know why the trio had been taking it easy on me lately, but I didn't want to give them any reason to to change their minds. Just two more days until winter vacation started. I could get through that, right?
Right.
Things were still awkward at home. Dad wanted to make sure I was safe. It was sweet and annoying at the same time, and it made me feel a little bit guilty that I still hadn't told him about the bullying. He'd gotten us an appointment to consult with a lawyer who had experience with parahuman matters, but that wasn't until Thursday.
"So we're not just going to go down to the PRT to sign me up?" I asked.
Dad shook his head, and the corners of his lips twitched in a suppressed smile. "If there's one thing I've learned in the Dockworker's Union," he said, "It's that you need to know what you're getting into before you start signing contracts. Lawyer first. This is going to be a big deal for your future, kiddo. Once we know what our options are and all the potential pitfalls, then we make a decision." He gave me a very serious look. "Until we get this figured out, I don't want you going out to do any heroics, understand? You never want to do anything that might alter your legal situation when you're in the middle of a negotiation. Training with Raising Heart is fine, but no fighting crime."
My face flushed with heat. I immediately wanted to do the opposite of what he said. It was a stupid thing: An impulse I might have listened to if things weren't so serious. "I wasn't gonna," I lied.
"Liar."
"I wasn't!" I insisted.
Dad just rolled his eyes.
We didn't talk about the elephant in the room, but we both knew it was there: Mom had known about Raising Heart. Presumably, she'd known about magic, too. And with what Raising Heart had said the other day when she called Earth 'Non-Administrated World #97,' well, my imagination was going places. Most of those places involved phrases like, 'alternate Earth' and 'maybe an alien,' but I kept things cool. Dad might have been way more stressed than normal, but I was the very picture of dignity, poise, and restraint. I didn't activate Raising Heart, fly off, and take out my frustrations on Emma, Sophia, and Madison in the form of multiple Divine Busters from a thousand feet up even once!
I'm pretty sure that should get me a Nobel Peace Prize.
Dad and I both fell back into our routines over the next two days. I'd wake up before my 6:30 alarm and go downstairs. He'd come down. We'd have breakfast. I'd go for a run. I'd take a shower. I'd go to school. It was comforting, and I don't know about Dad, but I thought it was nice to have a sense of the normal. Sometimes, we'd talk about the training Raising Heart was giving me. Sometimes, I'd show him pictures of it on the holographic video windows she could bring up. Sometimes, I'd use Raising Heart to do web surfing or to watch videos online or to update my status on SpaceBook. Not that I had any friends on SpaceBook. Well, there was Tom, but I was pretty sure he didn't count.
The last day of school before Winter Break was par for the course. Everyone knew it was the last day before vacation. A few teachers tried to keep us on task, but most knew it was a lost cause. Mr. Gladly didn't even bother to teach a lesson: he just had us watch the Alexandria movie. It was almost nice. No taunting. No dealing with bullies beyond a few dirty looks in the hall. Just me going through the school day one moment at a time while in my mind's other fork I continued Raising Heart's merciless training program.
Then the last bell rang and we were free, if only for a little while. I jogged home, and in that moment I allowed myself to think that maybe, just maybe, things were looking up.
Then my account on Parahumans Online pinged me with the alert for a new private message. I brought it up on the HUD Raising Heart provided, not wanting to risk a holographic window in public.
From: Leet
To: AlexandriaFan24601
CC: Uber
Subject: Recent Events
Gundam Girl. We need to talk.
- Leet
It felt like the bottom fell out of my stomach. I stared at the message, as if I could rewrite time and make it never have arrived in my inbox if only I willed it hard enough. No luck.
I was pretty sure the universe was laughing at me.
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.5 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
----------------
I was so not ready for this.
Wasn't like I had much choice, though. I'd gotten up just before 6:30, like normal. Gone for my run. Had breakfast. Showered. Gotten dressed. Done another two training simulations with Raising Heart during the time it took me to do all that. We did another training simulation on the way to school, this one focusing on basic dogfighting technique. My specialty was bombardment, which meant powerful long range attacks, but Raising Heart said that all the power in the world wouldn't help me if I couldn't stop an enemy from gaining the upper hand with maneuver. She'd also suggested I start learning how to fight with a staff. I'd asked dad about it, and he'd said he'd look into it, and I was totally trying to distract myself with anything and everything to avoid what was in front of me.
Stupid Winslow.
I tried to convince dad that I should stay home from school, that I'd transformed in front of everyone at the Boardwalk yesterday and it was on the news, and I needed to keep my head down. All he did was load up the news report on his computer and play the video for me: in Uber and Leet's video, my features were blurred out until I was fully transformed and dressed in my barrier jacket. ... wait, Uber and Leet had hidden my identity?
I wasn't sure what to feel about that. Relief, sure, but why would they do that?
I still half-expected everyone to recognize me at school, but no one did. They all just ignored me like usual, except Greg. Greg kept looking at me, and it made me a little paranoid, but it also wasn't out of character for him; he was kind of a creeper. The cliques were out in force, as usual. I passed by the cheerleaders and the football players. The band kids were all in a group in the main courtyard by the benches. JROTC was in uniform today, and they were mostly gathered near the shop. Here and there, a couple of kids were sitting by themselves. One boy was drawing a picture of an old shop with a sign that read, 'Mrs. Lovett's World Famous Meat Pies.' I smiled when I saw it, and I found myself half-singing, half humming as I made my way to homeroom. "There's hole in the world like a great black pit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it, and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit, and it goes by the name of Winslow..."
I kept it quiet enough not to be heard, but the song seemed to fit, and it gave me a dark sort of amusement. My eyes fell upon the terrible trio. They hadn't been as bad lately. They were still horrendous bitches, but it seemed like they had backed off on the direct bullying at least a little. Emma, Madison, Sophia. They were at Emma's locker with a crowd of hangers on. I stopped humming out loud to avoid giving them any reason to make fun of me as I walked past, but I was still darkly amused by how well the next line from that song fit without any need to change the lyrics: 'At the top of the hole sit a privileged few, making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo, turning beauty into filth and greed...'
"What's with the stupid grin, Hebert?" Sophia asked.
In my imagination, my grin got downright Cheshire-like as I looked Sophia right in the eye and said, 'Oh, just imagining your horrible demise and thinking of a recipe for meat-pies. No big deal.' What I actually did was open my mouth to retort, get about as far as an "Oh," that turned immediately into a glottal stop, and then shut my mouth and looked away, the grin wiped right off my face. Though maybe that was for the best. That whole 'meat-pies' thing probably sounded better in my head than it would out loud. ... Yeah, probably not a good idea to say something like that.
The trio and their cohorts laughed. "Oh my God, what a loser," Madison said.
I wanted to say something back. Something witty, something that would cut them down to size, but my mind had gone blank. I stood there like a doofus for a few seconds, blushed, and retreated for homeroom. Their laughter followed me.
It was weird, being here after what had happened this weekend. I wasn't the same. I had powers now. I was a cape now. And Winslow didn't care. The school and the bullies had just kept right on going like nothing had changed, and everyone expected me to just be the same old Taylor Hebert I'd been before Raising Heart had saved me. It also turned out that "I have superpowers now, but I can't tell you about it!" did not actually get you out of having to turn in your homework, and in all the excitement I had completely forgotten to do mine.
The day passed slowly and miserably. So, par for the course for Winslow. At least the trio didn't do anything more than a few mild insults and laughter. I spent my time focusing on running training simulations with Raising Heart, and that helped. Just having her there with me helped, really.
It was nice not to feel alone.
I was almost afraid to check PHO during Computer class. Not because I thought I'd get in trouble -- I usually got everything done in half an hour or less and had an hour after that to do whatever I wanted, and Mrs. Knott didn't mind as long as I could show her that I'd finished the assignment -- but because I dreaded the thought of someone having recognized me. Mrs. Knott was all right. She was a tallish, broad shouldered and strong jawed woman with long blond hair who tended towards trying-way-too-hard-to-be-girly clothing choices, but she was nice enough. I was one of the advanced students in her class, and that made another degree of separation between me and the trio's minions, so I usually got through it without any problems.
I finished my assignment in ten minutes and logged onto Parahumans Online. It was kind of the go-to place for news and discussion on capes. I navigated over to the sub-board for Brockton Bay and had a look for anything related to Saturday. And there it was. One thread about Uber and Leet's attack, another thread about me specifically. I opened both of them and spent some time reading. It was the internet, so most of it was stupid or irrelevant, and there was a six page argument on the physics of my Divine Buster. They were calling me Gundam Girl, which was annoying. There were video links, too, and even if I couldn't play the sound in the classroom, I let the uploaded cell phone videos play on mute.
None of them managed to catch a view of my face before I was transformed. I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. Okay. So that means the only people who know my identity are Uber and Leet. And Dad. That wasn't so bad. I could deal with that. I hoped.
Wow, xX_Void_Cowboy_Xx was a creep, and I hoped Tin_Mother banned him. And holy crap, Vista had commented in the thread about me! And she was a fan of magical girl shows. Kind of a big fan, actually. Huh. I guess I couldn't really judge considering the minor obsession with Gundam I'd had when I was eight. Which I was totally over now. It wasn't subconsciously influencing my barrier jacket design, and the sight of giant robots did NOT still make my inner fangirl squee with joy. Stupid Earth-Aleph video games. And animated shows. And movies. And affiliated merchandise. Don't judge me.
When school ended, I went straight home. I didn't know why the trio had been taking it easy on me lately, but I didn't want to give them any reason to to change their minds. Just two more days until winter vacation started. I could get through that, right?
Right.
Things were still awkward at home. Dad wanted to make sure I was safe. It was sweet and annoying at the same time, and it made me feel a little bit guilty that I still hadn't told him about the bullying. He'd gotten us an appointment to consult with a lawyer who had experience with parahuman matters, but that wasn't until Thursday.
"So we're not just going to go down to the PRT to sign me up?" I asked.
Dad shook his head, and the corners of his lips twitched in a suppressed smile. "If there's one thing I've learned in the Dockworker's Union," he said, "It's that you need to know what you're getting into before you start signing contracts. Lawyer first. This is going to be a big deal for your future, kiddo. Once we know what our options are and all the potential pitfalls, then we make a decision." He gave me a very serious look. "Until we get this figured out, I don't want you going out to do any heroics, understand? You never want to do anything that might alter your legal situation when you're in the middle of a negotiation. Training with Raising Heart is fine, but no fighting crime."
My face flushed with heat. I immediately wanted to do the opposite of what he said. It was a stupid thing: An impulse I might have listened to if things weren't so serious. "I wasn't gonna," I lied.
"Liar."
"I wasn't!" I insisted.
Dad just rolled his eyes.
We didn't talk about the elephant in the room, but we both knew it was there: Mom had known about Raising Heart. Presumably, she'd known about magic, too. And with what Raising Heart had said the other day when she called Earth 'Non-Administrated World #97,' well, my imagination was going places. Most of those places involved phrases like, 'alternate Earth' and 'maybe an alien,' but I kept things cool. Dad might have been way more stressed than normal, but I was the very picture of dignity, poise, and restraint. I didn't activate Raising Heart, fly off, and take out my frustrations on Emma, Sophia, and Madison in the form of multiple Divine Busters from a thousand feet up even once!
I'm pretty sure that should get me a Nobel Peace Prize.
Dad and I both fell back into our routines over the next two days. I'd wake up before my 6:30 alarm and go downstairs. He'd come down. We'd have breakfast. I'd go for a run. I'd take a shower. I'd go to school. It was comforting, and I don't know about Dad, but I thought it was nice to have a sense of the normal. Sometimes, we'd talk about the training Raising Heart was giving me. Sometimes, I'd show him pictures of it on the holographic video windows she could bring up. Sometimes, I'd use Raising Heart to do web surfing or to watch videos online or to update my status on SpaceBook. Not that I had any friends on SpaceBook. Well, there was Tom, but I was pretty sure he didn't count.
The last day of school before Winter Break was par for the course. Everyone knew it was the last day before vacation. A few teachers tried to keep us on task, but most knew it was a lost cause. Mr. Gladly didn't even bother to teach a lesson: he just had us watch the Alexandria movie. It was almost nice. No taunting. No dealing with bullies beyond a few dirty looks in the hall. Just me going through the school day one moment at a time while in my mind's other fork I continued Raising Heart's merciless training program.
Then the last bell rang and we were free, if only for a little while. I jogged home, and in that moment I allowed myself to think that maybe, just maybe, things were looking up.
Then my account on Parahumans Online pinged me with the alert for a new private message. I brought it up on the HUD Raising Heart provided, not wanting to risk a holographic window in public.
From: Leet
To: AlexandriaFan24601
CC: Uber
Subject: Recent Events
Gundam Girl. We need to talk.
- Leet
It felt like the bottom fell out of my stomach. I stared at the message, as if I could rewrite time and make it never have arrived in my inbox if only I willed it hard enough. No luck.
I was pretty sure the universe was laughing at me.
1.6 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.6 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
----------------
I stared at the PM from Leet for a good minute, a sense of cold dread creeping up and down my spine. Not only had they seen my face, they had also tracked me down to my PHO account. They knew who I was. They probably knew where I lived. Were they watching me right now? Shit, they were probably watching me right now. I tried not to shoot paranoid glances to my left and right. Fuck. They KNEW WHO I WAS. Was Dad in danger?
No. I wasn't going to panic. There was no way they were watching me right now, and dad probably wasn't in danger. Uber and Leet performed video game scenarios. They didn't assassinate people in their homes. But I still needed to deal with this. I needed to deal with this right now, otherwise they might make me the target of their next stunt.
Maybe... maybe I should think about this. I needed a plan. Something better than 'nuke the site from orbit.' First, I needed to know where they were.
"Hey Taylor," dad called as I walked through the front door. That was weird. He wasn't usually home so early.
"Hey Dad," I replied, trying not to let my agitation show in my voice or in my body language. As far as I could tell, I was perfectly cool and collected. "Short day today?"
"Is everything all right?" Dad asked.
Shit. "Everything's fine. I'm fine. You're fine, right?" I forced my mouth shut so it couldn't keep letting out stupid sentences.
Dad gave me a look. "You know you can talk to me if anything's wrong. I may not be superdad, but I'm here if you need me."
"I know, Dad," I said, doing my best to smile. "Everything's, uh, copacetic."
He raised an eyebrow but he didn't say anything else, and I made a hasty retreat to my room. Taylor Hebert: master of social graces. Possessed of queenly dignity. Total spaz. As the door shut behind me, I smacked my own hand to my forehead. "God damn it. Everything's fine, I'm fine, you're fine, right?" I shook my head and let out a disgusted sound. "Raising Heart?" I asked after a moment.
The gem glowed in time to her words as she replied: "Yes, my Master?"
"Wide Area Search." Even as I spoke the words of the search spell Raising Heart had taught me in one of our training sessions, I conjured up the math inside my thoughts and infused mana into it as a spell circle faded into being around me, filling the room with light. It took longer than it would have if I'd cast it through Raising Heart. Maybe thirty seconds to fully manifest it. Raising Heart had said that I would eventually be able to do this kind of magic at full combat speed without her help, which would free her processes up to better enhance my powers.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Raising Heart asked.
Six pink spheres formed in the air around me, filling my room with light. Even as they snapped into being, my awareness expanded. I could see and hear through them and more: each was host to Raising Heart's full sensory capacity. I could move each one independently and freely and simultaneously, and controlling all six at once was just as easy as moving my hand. The spheres shot up through the roof and into the sky, passing through the ceiling and leaving only a faint pink glow on the roof as they moved through. Then they were up over the city and zooming off in different directions to do a full grid search of Brockton Bay. It only took a second to confirm that nobody was secretly watching the house. Or if they were, they were doing it in a way Raising Heart couldn't detect, which was really unlikely. Probably. "I want to find Uber and Leet," I said. "Wherever they are, I need to find them. Are you going to help me?" I asked.
"Yes. But I think this is a mistake."
"We'll see," I said.
"Wide Area Search," Raising Heart said. Another spell circle spun into existence around me. Another six spheres, and my awareness expanded again, and again they shot out into the sky. Twelve was just as easy as six as far as mental control went, though maintaining both spells at once put a dent in my energy output. Eighteen required a little concentration. Twenty four was actually hard, and they took up a good chunk of my available mana. My linker core's output was still growing; eventually, I'd be able to do this kind of thing without straining myself, but for now, this was getting close to my limit. I stopped there, letting my twenty-four pink spheres comb through the city at high speed, watching as a ludicrously detailed map of Brockton Bay began to take shape on my HUD.
Time passed with an agonizing slowness. Every second brought more of Brockton Bay into my sight, and the spheres felt like they were moving through molasses. The tick of my alarm clock seemed to slow, every thunk of the second hand carrying an eternity between it and the next. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. My heart raced; sweat trickled down my forehead, and I felt a very slight sting as it ran into my right eye; I had to take off my glasses to rub it away.
The phone rang about half an hour into my search, and it made me jump. Dad answered it, but I couldn't hear the conversation beyond a distant awareness of the buzzing of his voice.
It took me over an hour to find Uber and Leet. They had a hideout over in the abandoned warehouse district. Well, okay, it was actually just a warehouse in the docks near the waterfront. But the docks had been dying for a long time, there weren't really any jobs to be found, and hardly anyone was actually using those warehouses anymore except as drug dens and, apparently, as supervillain lairs, so I stand by 'empty warehouse district,' even if theirs was close enough to the Boardwalk to be in a part of the docks that was relatively safe. Looked like they'd turned the place into a crashpad slash evil lair. No henchmen on site, and neither one was in costume, but according to Raising Heart the biometrics matched. Uber was playing a videogame in a big living room area on a wide screen television while Leet was...
I blinked. What the hell? Why exactly was Leet putting together computer parts while naked in the middle of his lab? I... had no idea what to think about that. It didn't help that he was so scrawny that I couldn't even appreciate the view. At least Uber had abs. Both of them looked up in surprise as two of my spheres shot into their warehouse. "What the fuck?" Uber asked.
Fuck it. I didn't care why they were doing what they were doing. "Found you," I whispered. Okay. I show up. I blast them. I find out why they didn't just leave me alone. That sounded reasonable, right? ... No. That was dumb. Better idea: I show up, I ask them why they didn't just leave me alone. I bounded down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. Then I sprinted through the house, didn't see Dad anywhere, and dashed out the front door.
Dad was waiting for me outside. He stood there at the curb, leaning against his truck with a distinctly unimpressed look on his face. "Taylor," he said.
"Uh," I said, "Hey dad."
Dad looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot, then looked back to me and said, "Adding another one to the list of questions I never thought I'd have to ask my daughter, but... are you trying to sneak out so you can confront a pair of well known villains who know your secret identity?"
My surprise was total. "What?" I asked. "How did you..." I trailed off. The phone call. The FUCKING PHONE CALL. I held up Raising Heart's gem with one hand and glared down at her. "Raising Heart," I said, trying very hard to control my anger, "Explain yourself."
"Going after them now would be a mistake, my Master," she said.
Meanwhile, through my spheres I saw that Leet had gotten dressed and was now poking a sphere with a tinker-tech device I didn't recognize. The split awareness while I was in the middle of an argument wasn't actually distracting -- I could focus on everything at once with no problem -- but it was disconcerting; I let the spheres drop away, scattering their residual mana across the city.
"So you TOLD MY DAD ON ME!?"
"He made me promise," she said, a very human morose note entering her otherwise synthetic voice. "It was his condition for letting me train you."
I glared at my dad. "Seriously?" I asked.
"Taylor, please. Just hear me out."
I took a deep breath. I didn't want to hear him out. I wanted to go talk to Uber and Leet.
A couple of people walked into view on the other side of the street, and a few cars drove by. Dad lowered his voice. "You're looking at the problem all wrong. You're letting fear and anger control your actions. You can't afford to do that."
"You're one to talk," I snapped, and immediately regretted it.
He flinched, but instead of getting angry in turn, he just gave me a kind of rueful grin. "Do as I say, kiddo, not as I do. Anger is a tool. You can put it to good use as long as it isn't the thing using you. If you charge into this situation loaded for bear, you're only going make it escalate. Don't get me wrong: sometimes, escalation is fine. Sometimes it's exactly what you want. But when it happens, it should be because you deliberately chose to, not because things got out of control or because you lost your temper."
That... actually made a lot of sense. Damn it. I felt my anger starting to slip away. "Okay," I said. "I'm looking at the situation all wrong? How should I be looking at it?"
"Well," Dad said, "Did you reply to their message? Did they reply to your response?"
I felt more of my anger draining away. It was swiftly replaced by embarrassment. "Um. No. I did not do that."
"Do you know they are actually trying to blackmail you, or do you just know that they know who you are?"
And the award for world's dumbest teenager goes to...
Dad sighed. "Let me guess, you were just going to show up and blast them and then demand that they leave you alone?" I flushed an even deeper shade of red, and dad took that as confirmation. "Communication, Taylor. They might not actually mean you any harm. Or they might. Find out. Don't commit to anything. Don't agree to anything. Just find out what they want, and we'll talk to the lawyer about it tomorrow and decide what to do, okay?"
I felt like an idiot. "Okay," I said.
"Good," Dad said. "Now let's go inside before we draw a crowd, okay?"
We did. Dad didn't give me a hard time after that, and I wasn't grateful exactly so much as relieved. I was still a little mad at Raising Heart for ratting me out, but... okay, maybe I'd been a little hasty, and maybe dad had a point about escalation. It was just hard. There had only been three days of school since I'd gotten my powers, and even with the Trio laying off a little, I still had to force myself not to blast them every time I saw them, and now this thing with Uber and Leet... I sat down with a sigh and had Raising Heart create a hard-light keyboard for me to type out a reply with.
From: AlexandriaFan24601
To: Leet
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Recent Events
They didn't reply before I fell asleep that night. That was probably my fault; I guess having a pair of glowing pink spheres randomly fly into your base could be a bit startling to a pair of supervillains. Leet had replied by the time I woke up the next morning, however, with a message sent at 3:27 AM.
From: Leet
To: AlexandriaFan24601
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Recent Events
Okay, so he just wasn't going to say anything about the pink energy spheres that flew into his warehouse? He probably knew that was me, so... was that good or bad? I wasn't sure.
I went for my morning run and took a shower before I replied. I really didn't have any idea what I wanted my cape name to be, but I had to say something or I'd just get stuck with Gundam Girl, and I figured that if he wasn't going to say anything about my Wide Area Search, I wouldn't say anything either.
From: AlexandriaFan24601
To: Leet
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Recent Events
It wasn't a great name. Probably it was a bad name, actually, but it was better than Gundam Girl, and there was no way in hell I'd let them call me White Devil.
-----------------
The sign on the door said, 'Carol Dallon, Attorney At Law.' I'd gotten a little nervous when I realized we were going to the same law firm where Emma's dad worked, and I'd almost told my dad about the bullying then and there, but I'd bit my tongue and managed to keep walking. He didn't need that. Alan Barnes was still his friend even if Emma wasn't mine anymore. And it wasn't like he could do anything to make the Trio stop if I told him about it. I'd just be making trouble for him, and I'd probably ruin his friendship with Mr. Barnes, and he didn't have that many friends to begin with. ... That was something we had in common, I guess. But then dad asked for directions to Mrs. Dallon's office, and I snapped my neck around to look at him in surprise. "Mrs. Dallon?" I mouthed.
He just smiled. The woman behind the front desk gave us directions, and we walked down the hallway, our shoes loud on the patterned marble floor. We passed men and women in business suits every half-minute or so, and we could always hear them coming before we could see them. Then we got to a darkened glass door with those words: Carol Dallon, Attorney At Law.
My mouth was dry. I swallowed nervously anyways. It wasn't very comfortable. I looked at my dad. "We're getting legal advice from Brandish?" I asked.
He grinned. "I did say it was a lawyer who had experience with parahuman matters."
"Right," I said. I could just roll with it. I could just not think about the fact I was about to meet Glory Girl's mom. I lowered my voice to a whisper. "You think she's holding a grudge about me blasting her daughter?"
Dad knocked on the door without answering. A woman's voice called out in answer, "Come in."
Then the door opened, we walked in, and I was in Brandish's law office. In stark contrast to the cold colors of the hallway, Mrs. Dallon's office was warm and inviting, with two soft carpets over the marble floor, paneled wood, and real furniture. An oak bookshelf full of legal reference books took up one wall. Another had windows which allowed in natural light. A dark wood table with well made chairs around it. Carol Dallon rose from her seat behind her desk as we entered. She was definitely Glory Girl's mom: same heart shaped face, same nose, same jawline, same blonde hair. The eyes were different, though. Mrs. Dallon's eyes were ... sharper, somehow. It wasn't cruelty, but there was definitely a calculation there that I hadn't seen in Glory Girl. This was not someone I wanted to anger.
"Mr. Hebert," she said. "Ms. Hebert. I'm Carol Dallon. Thank you for coming." That was another difference between Mrs. Dallon and her daughter: Mrs. Dallon's voice was richer, fuller, more confident, more womanly. It was a little weird seeing the contrast.
"Thank you for seeing us," Dad said.
"If you would shut the door," she said. I did. "Good," Mrs. Dallon said. "Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?"
Dad and I both answered at the same time, "I'm fine."
Mrs. Dallon nodded. "All right, then." She gestured to the table. "If you'll have a seat, we can get started."
We sat down, and Mrs. Dallon joined us a moment later. The chairs were nice. You couldn't lean back in them, but the cushions made them very comfortable just the same, and there was a very faint smell to the table that I couldn't quite place: sort of a warm, slightly sweet smell that was really nice in a way that was hard to describe; it made me think of summer.
"Before we begin," Mrs. Dallon said, "I want you both to know that anything we discuss will be kept completely confidential under the Attorney-Client Privilege. Unless you are coming to me today with the intention of committing or covering up a crime or fraud, anything we say stays in this room. Understand?"
I nodded.
Then she turned to me, and I felt a little like a bug pinned to the wall by her gaze. "The next point to address is that I am serving as legal counsel to you both. Each of you has a legitimate interest in this matter, and this advice will affect both of you. Now, Ms. Hebert, I understand you are a recently Triggered parahuman. What can you tell me about your powers?"
Having both her and dad's attention on me was uncomfortable, but I tried not to let that show. "Yeah," I said. "It was... well, it happened this weekend, when Uber and Leet hit the Boardwalk."
She connected the dots in her head. I was sure she'd be angry with me, but instead she just smiled. "Ah. So that was you."
"I really didn't mean to blast your daughter," I said. "It was an accident. I was trying to shoot..."
"I understand," she said calmly, cutting me off. "And I don't hold it against you. Victoria is fine. The only long term damage was to her pride."
I swallowed nervously. "Um, good," I said. "Because I really didn't mean to. My powers, though. I'm a Mage."
Mrs. Dallon arched a delicate blonde eyebrow, and I continued, "I mean I can use magic. Raising Heart is teaching me how."
"I see," Mrs. Dallon said. "And Raising Heart is...?"
I produced mom's pendant from where it hung under my shirt and held it up so Mrs. Dallon could see the jewel. "Here she is. Say hello, Raising Heart."
"Hello." Raising Heart said. "Nice to meet you."
Mrs. Dallon's second eyebrow joined her first, but she didn't stumble over her words and she didn't stare. "A pleasure, Raising Heart," she said. Then she smoothed her expression and looked my way. "What exactly can you do with this magic of yours?"
"Raising Heart says I'm a bombardment specialist. The first four uses I learned were flying, a forcefield, a low power attack, and a high power attack. But there are tons of applications for my power, and I'm learning new ones all the time. I can use them without her help, but it's harder, and it takes longer."
"Blaster, Mover, Shaker, then," Mrs. Dallon said. "Possible Changer for your transformation. Possible Tinker-Tech power booster."
It went on like that. I told her about what had happened, about my powers, and about the messages I'd gotten from Uber and Leet. Dad told her about his concerns, too, and when we were done, Mrs. Dallon nodded, and then laid out our options for us, as she saw them.
"On the matter of what to do with your powers, there are basically five paths open to you. Your first option is to not use your powers at all. Leave them behind. Go and live as normal a life as you can." My dislike for the idea must have shown on my face, because she held up a hand to stop me before I could object. "I understand if this one isn't particularly appealing. Honestly, it's probably the least realistic option. Parahumans in general want to use our powers. It's not really something we can help. If you have them, you're going to feel the urge to use them, and very, very few of us have ever been able to just abandon those powers once we've gotten them."
"I'm not sure if I'm a parahuman, though," I said. "I use magic."
"So does Myrrdin, if you believe his claims," Mrs. Dallon said. "He still counts as parahuman. I am certain that you will as well." She paused for a beat before she went on. "Your second option is to become a rogue. To find some commercially marketable use for your powers, ideally non-combat. Off the top of my head, I think you could do demolition work or search and rescue without much trouble. If you really are able to develop new abilities with any regularity, then I'm sure there are many other possibilities."
"Your third option is to join the Wards. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. You would have a trust fund set up in your name plus what translates out to a minimum wage weekly paycheck. You would receive training and support from the Protectorate. A transfer to Arcadia could be arranged. Room and board would be provided if you needed them. In exchange, you would have to give up a great deal of control over your life, over your identity as a superhero, and over how you are allowed to use your powers. These restrictions would not be without reason, but they would be restrictions. This would also be a long term commitment. The Wards program will expect you to continue as a Ward until your 18th birthday, at which point you will join the Protectorate as a full member for at least a year. It is possible to leave the Wards before that point, but it isn't something that can be done casually or without possible repercussion. Still, the Wards may be the safest option."
I... didn't know if I wanted to do that. I mean, the upsides sounded good, but I really didn't want to give someone that much control over me. "What's option four?" I asked.
"Option four would be to join another existing team."
"Like New Wave?" I asked.
Mrs. Dallon smiled. "Like New Wave, though if you are interested in doing so, we will have to discuss it at another time; it would be inappropriate for me to act as a recruiter for New Wave while I am serving in any capacity as your lawyer."
"Oh," I said.
"The options here are plentiful. There are many, many hero teams out there. Some are private teams, some have corporate sponsors, a few are government sponsored but outside the Protectorate due to various legal loopholes and grandfather clauses. Most wouldn't accept underage parahumans, but some will, and depending on the results of your power testing, even teams that ordinarily don't work with minors might be willing to make an exception for you provided your father gives his consent."
I gave Dad a hopeful look, and he just replied, "We'll talk about it."
"The fifth option is to go fully independent hero. This is probably the worst option of the bunch. The Protectorate likes to bring out the statistic of most independent heroes not lasting longer than six months, but that's actually misleading. The actual death rate for independent heroes in the first six months is about ten percent. Some are forced into the gangs, yes, but others decide to join the Protectorate or another existing team, some start their own teams, and another 20% end up Rogue or independent Villain instead, with slightly more ending up as villains than as rogues. The death rate is going to vary further depending on just how powerful a particular hero is. If you just look at low-powered heroes, it skews much higher. For someone at the Triumvirate end of the power scale, the risks would be considerably less. Your risk will depend on where you fall in that spectrum."
"Is there a sixth option?" I asked.
"Sometimes independent heroes find common cause and will create a new team," Mrs. Dallon replied. "Whether or not that's viable for you would depend on who you made regular contact with after starting as an independent hero."
"Oh," I said.
We went over each of the options in more detail after that, and Mrs. Dallon answered both my and my dad's questions in turn. She was calm and professional about it, and I think dad appreciated that. Then she came back to something we'd mentioned earlier. "You said you had been exchanging messages with Uber and Leet," she said. "May I see these messages?"
I nodded. "Raising Heart?" I asked.
A holographic screen appeared in midair on which the messages were displayed. "Just, um, use it like a touch screen if you want to scroll up or down," I said.
Oh. There was a new message from Leet. I glanced it over through my HUD while Mrs. Dallon took the hard-light holoscreen into her hands and read the messages carefully.
From: Leet
To: AlexandriaFan24601
CC: Uber
Subject: Re:Recent Events
I had to not glare at the message on my HUD. Mostly because Mrs. Dallon was in my line of sight, and she probably would have assumed I was glaring at her. But the rest of the message... unwritten rules, huh? I made a mental note to ask Mrs. Dallon about that. "Do you think it would be safe to meet with them?" I asked.
"I don't think they would attack you," Mrs. Dallon replied, "and I don't think they mean you any harm. Uber and Leet play by the rules. If they know your identity, they aren't going to spread it around. That isn't their style, and neither is blackmail. If you do meet with them, I recommend you do so in a public place. Don't go anywhere alone with them."
We talked about that for a little while, going over possible meeting locations until finally we got to the subject of my secret identity.
"I'll be honest with you, Ms. Hebert," Carol said. "Your chances of being able to keep your identity secret in light of your public trigger are not good. Besides Uber and Leet's video, there are half a dozen cell phone videos recording your transformation and the fight that followed, and even if none of them give a good look at your face and Uber and Leet censored their video that did get your face, there's probably enough for facial recognition software to extrapolate it anyways. And if there isn't, there were other cameras pointing at the location. The Boardwalk has a lot of security. I would be surprised if there weren't at least a few security cameras that caught a clear view of everything that happened. Add to that the highly visible nature of your transformation, and things don't look promising."
That wasn't what I wanted to hear. I'm pretty sure it wasn't what my dad wanted to hear, either. "So what, a bunch of villains will just come in, kick down my door, and make me do whatever they want?" I asked.
"No. It's not as bad as that. There are... unwritten rules of Cape behavior that will protect you even if you lose your secret identity. They aren't perfect, and there are people who will ignore them, so don't use them as an excuse not to behave as a reasonably prudent person even if you are outed. Actually, you should behave as a reasonably prudent person in general; lawsuits for property damage are no joke. We've had to deal with our fair share of those in New Wave."
I'd meant to ask about that earlier. Might as well do it now. "Leet mentioned the unwritten rules in his last PM," I said. "What are they, exactly?"
Mrs. Dallon laid them out for us. It basically boiled down to, 'no killing,' 'no unmasking,' and 'no going after unpowered friends and family.' There was more to it than that, but as Mrs. Dallon explained it, I got that sinking feeling again.
"Um," I said, and both dad and Mrs. Dallon turned to look at me. "So what you're saying is that I probably shouldn't have sent out twenty four mobile sensor platforms yesterday to search the city for Uber and Leet, tracked them back to their lair, and found them both without their masks?"
Dad put a hand to the bridge of his nose. "Taylor, tell me you didn't..."
I don't think I can adequately describe the look on Mrs. Dallon's face. "No," she managed after a few seconds, "You should not have done that."
"So they're probably going to be upset about that," I said.
"Could be," Mrs. Dallon said. "If you're lucky, they'll just take it as you doing to them what they did to you. They found your PHO account and personal information, you found their lair."
I nodded. "Okay," I said. "What do you think we should do, then?" I was pretty sure I wouldn't like the answer.
She told us. And hey, I was right.
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.6 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
----------------
I stared at the PM from Leet for a good minute, a sense of cold dread creeping up and down my spine. Not only had they seen my face, they had also tracked me down to my PHO account. They knew who I was. They probably knew where I lived. Were they watching me right now? Shit, they were probably watching me right now. I tried not to shoot paranoid glances to my left and right. Fuck. They KNEW WHO I WAS. Was Dad in danger?
No. I wasn't going to panic. There was no way they were watching me right now, and dad probably wasn't in danger. Uber and Leet performed video game scenarios. They didn't assassinate people in their homes. But I still needed to deal with this. I needed to deal with this right now, otherwise they might make me the target of their next stunt.
Maybe... maybe I should think about this. I needed a plan. Something better than 'nuke the site from orbit.' First, I needed to know where they were.
"Hey Taylor," dad called as I walked through the front door. That was weird. He wasn't usually home so early.
"Hey Dad," I replied, trying not to let my agitation show in my voice or in my body language. As far as I could tell, I was perfectly cool and collected. "Short day today?"
"Is everything all right?" Dad asked.
Shit. "Everything's fine. I'm fine. You're fine, right?" I forced my mouth shut so it couldn't keep letting out stupid sentences.
Dad gave me a look. "You know you can talk to me if anything's wrong. I may not be superdad, but I'm here if you need me."
"I know, Dad," I said, doing my best to smile. "Everything's, uh, copacetic."
He raised an eyebrow but he didn't say anything else, and I made a hasty retreat to my room. Taylor Hebert: master of social graces. Possessed of queenly dignity. Total spaz. As the door shut behind me, I smacked my own hand to my forehead. "God damn it. Everything's fine, I'm fine, you're fine, right?" I shook my head and let out a disgusted sound. "Raising Heart?" I asked after a moment.
The gem glowed in time to her words as she replied: "Yes, my Master?"
"Wide Area Search." Even as I spoke the words of the search spell Raising Heart had taught me in one of our training sessions, I conjured up the math inside my thoughts and infused mana into it as a spell circle faded into being around me, filling the room with light. It took longer than it would have if I'd cast it through Raising Heart. Maybe thirty seconds to fully manifest it. Raising Heart had said that I would eventually be able to do this kind of magic at full combat speed without her help, which would free her processes up to better enhance my powers.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Raising Heart asked.
Six pink spheres formed in the air around me, filling my room with light. Even as they snapped into being, my awareness expanded. I could see and hear through them and more: each was host to Raising Heart's full sensory capacity. I could move each one independently and freely and simultaneously, and controlling all six at once was just as easy as moving my hand. The spheres shot up through the roof and into the sky, passing through the ceiling and leaving only a faint pink glow on the roof as they moved through. Then they were up over the city and zooming off in different directions to do a full grid search of Brockton Bay. It only took a second to confirm that nobody was secretly watching the house. Or if they were, they were doing it in a way Raising Heart couldn't detect, which was really unlikely. Probably. "I want to find Uber and Leet," I said. "Wherever they are, I need to find them. Are you going to help me?" I asked.
"Yes. But I think this is a mistake."
"We'll see," I said.
"Wide Area Search," Raising Heart said. Another spell circle spun into existence around me. Another six spheres, and my awareness expanded again, and again they shot out into the sky. Twelve was just as easy as six as far as mental control went, though maintaining both spells at once put a dent in my energy output. Eighteen required a little concentration. Twenty four was actually hard, and they took up a good chunk of my available mana. My linker core's output was still growing; eventually, I'd be able to do this kind of thing without straining myself, but for now, this was getting close to my limit. I stopped there, letting my twenty-four pink spheres comb through the city at high speed, watching as a ludicrously detailed map of Brockton Bay began to take shape on my HUD.
Time passed with an agonizing slowness. Every second brought more of Brockton Bay into my sight, and the spheres felt like they were moving through molasses. The tick of my alarm clock seemed to slow, every thunk of the second hand carrying an eternity between it and the next. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. My heart raced; sweat trickled down my forehead, and I felt a very slight sting as it ran into my right eye; I had to take off my glasses to rub it away.
The phone rang about half an hour into my search, and it made me jump. Dad answered it, but I couldn't hear the conversation beyond a distant awareness of the buzzing of his voice.
It took me over an hour to find Uber and Leet. They had a hideout over in the abandoned warehouse district. Well, okay, it was actually just a warehouse in the docks near the waterfront. But the docks had been dying for a long time, there weren't really any jobs to be found, and hardly anyone was actually using those warehouses anymore except as drug dens and, apparently, as supervillain lairs, so I stand by 'empty warehouse district,' even if theirs was close enough to the Boardwalk to be in a part of the docks that was relatively safe. Looked like they'd turned the place into a crashpad slash evil lair. No henchmen on site, and neither one was in costume, but according to Raising Heart the biometrics matched. Uber was playing a videogame in a big living room area on a wide screen television while Leet was...
I blinked. What the hell? Why exactly was Leet putting together computer parts while naked in the middle of his lab? I... had no idea what to think about that. It didn't help that he was so scrawny that I couldn't even appreciate the view. At least Uber had abs. Both of them looked up in surprise as two of my spheres shot into their warehouse. "What the fuck?" Uber asked.
Fuck it. I didn't care why they were doing what they were doing. "Found you," I whispered. Okay. I show up. I blast them. I find out why they didn't just leave me alone. That sounded reasonable, right? ... No. That was dumb. Better idea: I show up, I ask them why they didn't just leave me alone. I bounded down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. Then I sprinted through the house, didn't see Dad anywhere, and dashed out the front door.
Dad was waiting for me outside. He stood there at the curb, leaning against his truck with a distinctly unimpressed look on his face. "Taylor," he said.
"Uh," I said, "Hey dad."
Dad looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot, then looked back to me and said, "Adding another one to the list of questions I never thought I'd have to ask my daughter, but... are you trying to sneak out so you can confront a pair of well known villains who know your secret identity?"
My surprise was total. "What?" I asked. "How did you..." I trailed off. The phone call. The FUCKING PHONE CALL. I held up Raising Heart's gem with one hand and glared down at her. "Raising Heart," I said, trying very hard to control my anger, "Explain yourself."
"Going after them now would be a mistake, my Master," she said.
Meanwhile, through my spheres I saw that Leet had gotten dressed and was now poking a sphere with a tinker-tech device I didn't recognize. The split awareness while I was in the middle of an argument wasn't actually distracting -- I could focus on everything at once with no problem -- but it was disconcerting; I let the spheres drop away, scattering their residual mana across the city.
"So you TOLD MY DAD ON ME!?"
"He made me promise," she said, a very human morose note entering her otherwise synthetic voice. "It was his condition for letting me train you."
I glared at my dad. "Seriously?" I asked.
"Taylor, please. Just hear me out."
I took a deep breath. I didn't want to hear him out. I wanted to go talk to Uber and Leet.
A couple of people walked into view on the other side of the street, and a few cars drove by. Dad lowered his voice. "You're looking at the problem all wrong. You're letting fear and anger control your actions. You can't afford to do that."
"You're one to talk," I snapped, and immediately regretted it.
He flinched, but instead of getting angry in turn, he just gave me a kind of rueful grin. "Do as I say, kiddo, not as I do. Anger is a tool. You can put it to good use as long as it isn't the thing using you. If you charge into this situation loaded for bear, you're only going make it escalate. Don't get me wrong: sometimes, escalation is fine. Sometimes it's exactly what you want. But when it happens, it should be because you deliberately chose to, not because things got out of control or because you lost your temper."
That... actually made a lot of sense. Damn it. I felt my anger starting to slip away. "Okay," I said. "I'm looking at the situation all wrong? How should I be looking at it?"
"Well," Dad said, "Did you reply to their message? Did they reply to your response?"
I felt more of my anger draining away. It was swiftly replaced by embarrassment. "Um. No. I did not do that."
"Do you know they are actually trying to blackmail you, or do you just know that they know who you are?"
And the award for world's dumbest teenager goes to...
Dad sighed. "Let me guess, you were just going to show up and blast them and then demand that they leave you alone?" I flushed an even deeper shade of red, and dad took that as confirmation. "Communication, Taylor. They might not actually mean you any harm. Or they might. Find out. Don't commit to anything. Don't agree to anything. Just find out what they want, and we'll talk to the lawyer about it tomorrow and decide what to do, okay?"
I felt like an idiot. "Okay," I said.
"Good," Dad said. "Now let's go inside before we draw a crowd, okay?"
We did. Dad didn't give me a hard time after that, and I wasn't grateful exactly so much as relieved. I was still a little mad at Raising Heart for ratting me out, but... okay, maybe I'd been a little hasty, and maybe dad had a point about escalation. It was just hard. There had only been three days of school since I'd gotten my powers, and even with the Trio laying off a little, I still had to force myself not to blast them every time I saw them, and now this thing with Uber and Leet... I sat down with a sigh and had Raising Heart create a hard-light keyboard for me to type out a reply with.
From: AlexandriaFan24601
To: Leet
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Recent Events
What do you want? And that's not my name.
- AlexandriaFan24601
- AlexandriaFan24601
They didn't reply before I fell asleep that night. That was probably my fault; I guess having a pair of glowing pink spheres randomly fly into your base could be a bit startling to a pair of supervillains. Leet had replied by the time I woke up the next morning, however, with a message sent at 3:27 AM.
From: Leet
To: AlexandriaFan24601
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Recent Events
Just to talk. No tricks. You triggered in the middle of our game, right? That's on us. We figure we owe it to you to explain how things work in the cape scene. You down? And if you don't want to be called Gundam Girl, what else are we supposed to call you? Hey, how about White Devil?
- Leet
- Leet
Okay, so he just wasn't going to say anything about the pink energy spheres that flew into his warehouse? He probably knew that was me, so... was that good or bad? I wasn't sure.
I went for my morning run and took a shower before I replied. I really didn't have any idea what I wanted my cape name to be, but I had to say something or I'd just get stuck with Gundam Girl, and I figured that if he wasn't going to say anything about my Wide Area Search, I wouldn't say anything either.
From: AlexandriaFan24601
To: Leet
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Recent Events
Yeah, I triggered in your game. Lucky my powers let me make a costume, or I'd be even more screwed. What do you mean by explain how things work? And call me Zeon.
- AlexandriaFan24601
- AlexandriaFan24601
It wasn't a great name. Probably it was a bad name, actually, but it was better than Gundam Girl, and there was no way in hell I'd let them call me White Devil.
-----------------
The sign on the door said, 'Carol Dallon, Attorney At Law.' I'd gotten a little nervous when I realized we were going to the same law firm where Emma's dad worked, and I'd almost told my dad about the bullying then and there, but I'd bit my tongue and managed to keep walking. He didn't need that. Alan Barnes was still his friend even if Emma wasn't mine anymore. And it wasn't like he could do anything to make the Trio stop if I told him about it. I'd just be making trouble for him, and I'd probably ruin his friendship with Mr. Barnes, and he didn't have that many friends to begin with. ... That was something we had in common, I guess. But then dad asked for directions to Mrs. Dallon's office, and I snapped my neck around to look at him in surprise. "Mrs. Dallon?" I mouthed.
He just smiled. The woman behind the front desk gave us directions, and we walked down the hallway, our shoes loud on the patterned marble floor. We passed men and women in business suits every half-minute or so, and we could always hear them coming before we could see them. Then we got to a darkened glass door with those words: Carol Dallon, Attorney At Law.
My mouth was dry. I swallowed nervously anyways. It wasn't very comfortable. I looked at my dad. "We're getting legal advice from Brandish?" I asked.
He grinned. "I did say it was a lawyer who had experience with parahuman matters."
"Right," I said. I could just roll with it. I could just not think about the fact I was about to meet Glory Girl's mom. I lowered my voice to a whisper. "You think she's holding a grudge about me blasting her daughter?"
Dad knocked on the door without answering. A woman's voice called out in answer, "Come in."
Then the door opened, we walked in, and I was in Brandish's law office. In stark contrast to the cold colors of the hallway, Mrs. Dallon's office was warm and inviting, with two soft carpets over the marble floor, paneled wood, and real furniture. An oak bookshelf full of legal reference books took up one wall. Another had windows which allowed in natural light. A dark wood table with well made chairs around it. Carol Dallon rose from her seat behind her desk as we entered. She was definitely Glory Girl's mom: same heart shaped face, same nose, same jawline, same blonde hair. The eyes were different, though. Mrs. Dallon's eyes were ... sharper, somehow. It wasn't cruelty, but there was definitely a calculation there that I hadn't seen in Glory Girl. This was not someone I wanted to anger.
"Mr. Hebert," she said. "Ms. Hebert. I'm Carol Dallon. Thank you for coming." That was another difference between Mrs. Dallon and her daughter: Mrs. Dallon's voice was richer, fuller, more confident, more womanly. It was a little weird seeing the contrast.
"Thank you for seeing us," Dad said.
"If you would shut the door," she said. I did. "Good," Mrs. Dallon said. "Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?"
Dad and I both answered at the same time, "I'm fine."
Mrs. Dallon nodded. "All right, then." She gestured to the table. "If you'll have a seat, we can get started."
We sat down, and Mrs. Dallon joined us a moment later. The chairs were nice. You couldn't lean back in them, but the cushions made them very comfortable just the same, and there was a very faint smell to the table that I couldn't quite place: sort of a warm, slightly sweet smell that was really nice in a way that was hard to describe; it made me think of summer.
"Before we begin," Mrs. Dallon said, "I want you both to know that anything we discuss will be kept completely confidential under the Attorney-Client Privilege. Unless you are coming to me today with the intention of committing or covering up a crime or fraud, anything we say stays in this room. Understand?"
I nodded.
Then she turned to me, and I felt a little like a bug pinned to the wall by her gaze. "The next point to address is that I am serving as legal counsel to you both. Each of you has a legitimate interest in this matter, and this advice will affect both of you. Now, Ms. Hebert, I understand you are a recently Triggered parahuman. What can you tell me about your powers?"
Having both her and dad's attention on me was uncomfortable, but I tried not to let that show. "Yeah," I said. "It was... well, it happened this weekend, when Uber and Leet hit the Boardwalk."
She connected the dots in her head. I was sure she'd be angry with me, but instead she just smiled. "Ah. So that was you."
"I really didn't mean to blast your daughter," I said. "It was an accident. I was trying to shoot..."
"I understand," she said calmly, cutting me off. "And I don't hold it against you. Victoria is fine. The only long term damage was to her pride."
I swallowed nervously. "Um, good," I said. "Because I really didn't mean to. My powers, though. I'm a Mage."
Mrs. Dallon arched a delicate blonde eyebrow, and I continued, "I mean I can use magic. Raising Heart is teaching me how."
"I see," Mrs. Dallon said. "And Raising Heart is...?"
I produced mom's pendant from where it hung under my shirt and held it up so Mrs. Dallon could see the jewel. "Here she is. Say hello, Raising Heart."
"Hello." Raising Heart said. "Nice to meet you."
Mrs. Dallon's second eyebrow joined her first, but she didn't stumble over her words and she didn't stare. "A pleasure, Raising Heart," she said. Then she smoothed her expression and looked my way. "What exactly can you do with this magic of yours?"
"Raising Heart says I'm a bombardment specialist. The first four uses I learned were flying, a forcefield, a low power attack, and a high power attack. But there are tons of applications for my power, and I'm learning new ones all the time. I can use them without her help, but it's harder, and it takes longer."
"Blaster, Mover, Shaker, then," Mrs. Dallon said. "Possible Changer for your transformation. Possible Tinker-Tech power booster."
It went on like that. I told her about what had happened, about my powers, and about the messages I'd gotten from Uber and Leet. Dad told her about his concerns, too, and when we were done, Mrs. Dallon nodded, and then laid out our options for us, as she saw them.
"On the matter of what to do with your powers, there are basically five paths open to you. Your first option is to not use your powers at all. Leave them behind. Go and live as normal a life as you can." My dislike for the idea must have shown on my face, because she held up a hand to stop me before I could object. "I understand if this one isn't particularly appealing. Honestly, it's probably the least realistic option. Parahumans in general want to use our powers. It's not really something we can help. If you have them, you're going to feel the urge to use them, and very, very few of us have ever been able to just abandon those powers once we've gotten them."
"I'm not sure if I'm a parahuman, though," I said. "I use magic."
"So does Myrrdin, if you believe his claims," Mrs. Dallon said. "He still counts as parahuman. I am certain that you will as well." She paused for a beat before she went on. "Your second option is to become a rogue. To find some commercially marketable use for your powers, ideally non-combat. Off the top of my head, I think you could do demolition work or search and rescue without much trouble. If you really are able to develop new abilities with any regularity, then I'm sure there are many other possibilities."
"Your third option is to join the Wards. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. You would have a trust fund set up in your name plus what translates out to a minimum wage weekly paycheck. You would receive training and support from the Protectorate. A transfer to Arcadia could be arranged. Room and board would be provided if you needed them. In exchange, you would have to give up a great deal of control over your life, over your identity as a superhero, and over how you are allowed to use your powers. These restrictions would not be without reason, but they would be restrictions. This would also be a long term commitment. The Wards program will expect you to continue as a Ward until your 18th birthday, at which point you will join the Protectorate as a full member for at least a year. It is possible to leave the Wards before that point, but it isn't something that can be done casually or without possible repercussion. Still, the Wards may be the safest option."
I... didn't know if I wanted to do that. I mean, the upsides sounded good, but I really didn't want to give someone that much control over me. "What's option four?" I asked.
"Option four would be to join another existing team."
"Like New Wave?" I asked.
Mrs. Dallon smiled. "Like New Wave, though if you are interested in doing so, we will have to discuss it at another time; it would be inappropriate for me to act as a recruiter for New Wave while I am serving in any capacity as your lawyer."
"Oh," I said.
"The options here are plentiful. There are many, many hero teams out there. Some are private teams, some have corporate sponsors, a few are government sponsored but outside the Protectorate due to various legal loopholes and grandfather clauses. Most wouldn't accept underage parahumans, but some will, and depending on the results of your power testing, even teams that ordinarily don't work with minors might be willing to make an exception for you provided your father gives his consent."
I gave Dad a hopeful look, and he just replied, "We'll talk about it."
"The fifth option is to go fully independent hero. This is probably the worst option of the bunch. The Protectorate likes to bring out the statistic of most independent heroes not lasting longer than six months, but that's actually misleading. The actual death rate for independent heroes in the first six months is about ten percent. Some are forced into the gangs, yes, but others decide to join the Protectorate or another existing team, some start their own teams, and another 20% end up Rogue or independent Villain instead, with slightly more ending up as villains than as rogues. The death rate is going to vary further depending on just how powerful a particular hero is. If you just look at low-powered heroes, it skews much higher. For someone at the Triumvirate end of the power scale, the risks would be considerably less. Your risk will depend on where you fall in that spectrum."
"Is there a sixth option?" I asked.
"Sometimes independent heroes find common cause and will create a new team," Mrs. Dallon replied. "Whether or not that's viable for you would depend on who you made regular contact with after starting as an independent hero."
"Oh," I said.
We went over each of the options in more detail after that, and Mrs. Dallon answered both my and my dad's questions in turn. She was calm and professional about it, and I think dad appreciated that. Then she came back to something we'd mentioned earlier. "You said you had been exchanging messages with Uber and Leet," she said. "May I see these messages?"
I nodded. "Raising Heart?" I asked.
A holographic screen appeared in midair on which the messages were displayed. "Just, um, use it like a touch screen if you want to scroll up or down," I said.
Oh. There was a new message from Leet. I glanced it over through my HUD while Mrs. Dallon took the hard-light holoscreen into her hands and read the messages carefully.
From: Leet
To: AlexandriaFan24601
CC: Uber
Subject: Re:Recent Events
You're kidding, right? Zeon? With those Federation colors? Try again, Gundam Girl. There's a lot you need to know if you're going to be part of the cape scene. Do you know about the unwritten rules yet? We should meet. We'll even let you pick the time and place, long as it isn't somewhere we can't go in costume.
- Leet
- Leet
I had to not glare at the message on my HUD. Mostly because Mrs. Dallon was in my line of sight, and she probably would have assumed I was glaring at her. But the rest of the message... unwritten rules, huh? I made a mental note to ask Mrs. Dallon about that. "Do you think it would be safe to meet with them?" I asked.
"I don't think they would attack you," Mrs. Dallon replied, "and I don't think they mean you any harm. Uber and Leet play by the rules. If they know your identity, they aren't going to spread it around. That isn't their style, and neither is blackmail. If you do meet with them, I recommend you do so in a public place. Don't go anywhere alone with them."
We talked about that for a little while, going over possible meeting locations until finally we got to the subject of my secret identity.
"I'll be honest with you, Ms. Hebert," Carol said. "Your chances of being able to keep your identity secret in light of your public trigger are not good. Besides Uber and Leet's video, there are half a dozen cell phone videos recording your transformation and the fight that followed, and even if none of them give a good look at your face and Uber and Leet censored their video that did get your face, there's probably enough for facial recognition software to extrapolate it anyways. And if there isn't, there were other cameras pointing at the location. The Boardwalk has a lot of security. I would be surprised if there weren't at least a few security cameras that caught a clear view of everything that happened. Add to that the highly visible nature of your transformation, and things don't look promising."
That wasn't what I wanted to hear. I'm pretty sure it wasn't what my dad wanted to hear, either. "So what, a bunch of villains will just come in, kick down my door, and make me do whatever they want?" I asked.
"No. It's not as bad as that. There are... unwritten rules of Cape behavior that will protect you even if you lose your secret identity. They aren't perfect, and there are people who will ignore them, so don't use them as an excuse not to behave as a reasonably prudent person even if you are outed. Actually, you should behave as a reasonably prudent person in general; lawsuits for property damage are no joke. We've had to deal with our fair share of those in New Wave."
I'd meant to ask about that earlier. Might as well do it now. "Leet mentioned the unwritten rules in his last PM," I said. "What are they, exactly?"
Mrs. Dallon laid them out for us. It basically boiled down to, 'no killing,' 'no unmasking,' and 'no going after unpowered friends and family.' There was more to it than that, but as Mrs. Dallon explained it, I got that sinking feeling again.
"Um," I said, and both dad and Mrs. Dallon turned to look at me. "So what you're saying is that I probably shouldn't have sent out twenty four mobile sensor platforms yesterday to search the city for Uber and Leet, tracked them back to their lair, and found them both without their masks?"
Dad put a hand to the bridge of his nose. "Taylor, tell me you didn't..."
I don't think I can adequately describe the look on Mrs. Dallon's face. "No," she managed after a few seconds, "You should not have done that."
"So they're probably going to be upset about that," I said.
"Could be," Mrs. Dallon said. "If you're lucky, they'll just take it as you doing to them what they did to you. They found your PHO account and personal information, you found their lair."
I nodded. "Okay," I said. "What do you think we should do, then?" I was pretty sure I wouldn't like the answer.
She told us. And hey, I was right.
1.7 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
... I really need to get a beta for this story at some point.
----------------
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.7 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
----------------
From: AlexandriaFan24601
To: Leet
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Sorry about the pink spheres
From: Leet
To: AlexandriaFan24601
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Sorry about the pink spheres
I met Uber and Leet at the picnic tables at Eagle Park at 2:00 PM. There was a little metered parking lot in front of it that was always full of cars even when the park was empty. It was cold enough that I could see my breath, and the grass crunched beneath my feet when I walked on it. A paved path wound its way through the park in lazy, looping lines that roughly divided it into three main areas: grass and picnic tables and outdoor barbeques on the left if you were looking into the park from the street, a little meadow circled by the path that bloomed with spectacular flowers in the spring but had little showing today in the middle, and grass and a grove of trees on the right where a bunch of LARPers liked to come out and do big battle-games where they fought each other with medieval foam weapons on Saturdays. Cirrostratus clouds covered the sky like a veil; the sun shone from behind them, the light blooming into a solar halo that would have been breathtaking if I hadn't been distracted by my meeting with the two villains.
I showed up out of costume. Sort of. They knew who I was either way, and based on what Mrs. Dallon had said, I was pretty sure they wouldn't try anything in public, but I figured it was probably better safe than sorry, and it turned out that Barrier Jackets could be customized pretty easily. So I had mine take the form of my regular cold weather getup plus a white and blue scarf. I kept Raising Heart out of sight in a little subspace pocket. ... Which is apparently also a thing I can do. And at some point, I'm sure that will stop seeming weird.
They came out of costume. Uber was a gorgeous, tall, broad shouldered man in tan pants and a black, hooded winter coat that was buttoned up all the way; I couldn't see what he was wearing beneath it, and I tried not to be disappointed that it hid his muscles. Leet was unimpressive in comparison, and his winter clothes did little to fill out his scrawny frame. I wasn't sure how old they were exactly, but they were younger than dad and older than me.
"Uber," I said, nodding to him and to Leet in turn. "Leet."
"Gundam Girl," Uber said as he sat down at the picnic table in the seat across from me. He seemed more comfortable than Leet did. More on top of things.
That didn't excuse him calling me 'Gundam Girl.' I pursed my lips. "I told you to call me Zeon," I said.
Uber rolled his eyes. "You can't call yourself Zeon if you want to be a hero, Gundam Girl," he said.
"Why not?"
"You mean besides the fact that they're the bad guys, and that using the name is a little like calling yourself, 'Axis Powers Girl?'"
Aaaand I was glaring at him. "They're not that bad," I said.
"No," Leet chimed in, "They're totally fine to name yourself after. Assuming you're looking to join the E88."
I grimaced. "Fine," I snapped. "Okay. What about Newtype?"
"Why don't you just call yourself Ubermensch while you're at it?" Leet asked.
"That's not what..." I trailed off. Okay, yeah I could kind of see the association he was making. I didn't like it, but I could kind of see it.
"It's not as bad," Uber said, "But it's still bad. Try avoiding Gundam references. If you want to be a hero, you want a name that sounds heroic. Something that doesn't sound like it would be better for a villain."
I thought about it, trying to pair up my powers with a good name. "Laserdoom?" I asked.
Leet shot me an incredulous look while Uber tried not to laugh. "You're doing that on purpose," Leet said.
I blushed. "Okay," I said, "So I suck at coming up with superhero names."
Uber stopped trying not to laugh. His laugh had a pleasant sound, and it felt a little weird looking at these two relatively normal guys and comparing them to the people who showed up on Uber and Leet's shows. For a minute, I thought maybe they weren't so bad. And then I remembered the scenes from their Grand Theft Auto show, and my charitable thoughts vanished. "Keep at it," Uber said, "I'm sure you'll come up with something eventually."
When they were done laughing, Uber and Leet exchanged looks. "So," Uber said, "We didn't actually come out here to make fun of your choice of name."
"We didn't only come out here to make fun of your choice of name," Leet chimed in.
"I didn't actually come out here to make fun of your choice of name," Uber clarified with exaggerated patience.
And now I wasn't sure how to react to these two. I didn't like being made fun of, sure, but there wasn't any of that sense of malice behind it that was there when Emma made fun of me. Was it normal for villains to seem so... normal? "Okay," I said. "You said you wanted to talk. Let's talk."
"Right," Uber said. "So there's a lot you need to know, but the most important part is what we call the unwritten rules of being a cape."
I briefly debated telling them that someone had already explained this to me; I decided against it. Better not to annoy the villains who were trying to help me. Their take on the unwritten rules was much the same as Brandish's, but it was still interesting to hear a different perspective on the matter. The way Brandish had described it, breaking the rules was the nuclear option of the cape scene. Her analysis of the rules and of the consequences of breaking them were very, very sober and serious. But to hear Uber and Leet describe it...
"Think of it as a big game of Team Fortress," Leet said.
"Don't you mean Team Fortress 2?" Uber asked.
"Hell no I don't mean Team Fortress 2," Leet snapped. "Original or nothing."
"Okay," I said. "I don't really play video games, but I think I know what that is. I think I watched my dad play it a couple times when I was little."
Leet looked crestfallen. "Wow," he said. "Thanks for making me feel old, Gundam Girl."
"That's still not my name," I said.
"Okay," Leet tried again, "Bad example. Think of it as..." he floundered. "... Planetside." When I didn't recognize that, he made another suggestion, "Or Tribes." He probably wasn't talking about tribes of humans, so I had no idea what he was referring to. I guess it showed on my face, because Leet immediately went on to another analogy, "Multiplayer Halo?"
I was starting to feel bad for him. "Sorry," I said.
"Cops and robbers," Uber offered.
Leet sighed. "Cops and robbers," he agreed.
I guess it made sense for the two Gamer Villains to explain the unwritten rules in terms of a game. I don't know if I bought how they presented it, though.
"Think about it," Leet said. "Think about how absurd the whole thing is. It's like an MMO in real life. It's like... LARP taken to the next level. Seriously. We've got people running around in ridiculous costumes, making up code names, acting like... did you ever read those old superhero comic books?"
I shook my head. "I never saw the point. We've got the real thing."
"Not important," Leet said. "The point is, it's absurd and everyone knows it."
"And as long as you play by the rules," Uber added, "People are generally content to live and let live. No killing, no unmasking, no going after people's friends and family, no involving unpowered people in cape problems. You beat someone? You let them go to fight an other day. You don't take advantage. The status is quo, and it's in all of our best interests to keep it that way. Hell, Leet and I have been active for years and we've never gotten more than a slap on the wrist. You know why? Because we follow the rules."
Leet nodded in agreement. "Meanwhile, sick fucks trying to create the Evil League of Evil get smacked down the moment they show their faces."
"I don't know," I said. "Seems like there's plenty of people who don't play by the rules."
"Yeah," Leet conceded, "Those people exist. I'm pretty sure Oni Lee's a fucking psychopath, and Heartbreaker needs to be put down like the dog he is."
"There's also the monsters that we'd all like put out of our misery," Uber said. "The Slaughterhouse Nine. Nilbog."
"The Endbringers," I said.
Both Uber and Leet looked uncomfortable at the mention of Endbringers. I guess I didn't blame them. "Yeah, them too." Uber said.
Well. I'd been avoiding the subject long enough. "Speaking of not unmasking people," I said, "About those sensor spheres the other day..."
"Those pink balls that floated into our hideout?" Leet asked. "Yeah, I figured that was you."
"I'm really sorry about that," I said. "I sent them out before I knew it wasn't Kosher to do something like that. I know that doesn't excuse it, but..."
Uber had a nice smile, and I found myself returning it. "Water under the bridge," he said.
"You don't unmask us to anyone, we and every other villain in town won't hunt you down and kill you to death," Leet added, and my smile froze.
Right. Villains.
------------------
I went home from the park some time later and spent a few hours reading a book on the sofa in the living room. Dad came home a little while after that, and we talked over dinner. I told him how things had gone with Uber and Leet, and he seemed pleased to hear that there hadn't been any problems. He was less happy when I told him I planned to go on my first patrol for the evening, but after Raising Heart promised him that I would be fine, he relented. Things were getting better between us than they had been, but I don't think he liked the idea of me fighting crime very much. But I'd done what he wanted; I'd waited until after we'd spoken to a lawyer. It was time for me to get my feet wet.
I just didn't count on patrol being so boring. It was a little after sunset; the stars were coming out, but there was still a dimming light in the western sky. I flew over the city in full costume, looking for some sort of crime I could intervene to stop even as I continued with Raising Heart's visual training mode. It wasn't a distraction. Multitasking was surprisingly easy. I mean, most people can't actually multitask at all, they just claim they can; normal humans only have so much attention and so many mental resources they can spare. Drive a car and talk on a cell phone at the same time, and you just can't do as good a job as if you were driving a car without distracting yourself. It's how we work. ... It's how other people work, anyways. My ability to multitask, on the other hand, was growing every day. At first, all I could do was maintain two forks of my own awareness that pretty much worked according to normal human multitasking rules. But the more I use my magic, the more I seem to be able to concentrate on multiple things without actually splitting my attention per se. I just give all of my attention to every single thing I'm focusing on. I'm not sure how else to describe it exactly, but it seemed like the limits on my brain were just kind of falling away. Used to be I was just an average math student, too, but that was also getting easier every day -- not just the math involved in my spell work, but the math I was learning at school, too.
So there I was, the city shining below me in the gathering dark, and I had nothing to focus my parahuman multitasking capability on. Or is that magi-human? Either way, I didn't see any obvious crimes taking place as I passed over the city. After my third pass, I figured I was probably doing something wrong, and I was getting thirsty, so I landed near Arcadia High School and bought a soda can from a vending machine. After I'd finished off the soda, I called up a set of pink spheres and sent them out into the city to find some crime in progress for me to stop. Then I looked at the soda can I was holding.
There was a trash can a good dozen feet away.
I looked back at the soda can. "Hey Raising Heart," I said. "You know how you said I should do more real life practice and not just depend on your simulations?"
"Yes?"
"I have an idea. But I don't want you to help me with this. Just keep count for me, okay?"
"Alright."
I formed the requisite math in my thoughts, imagining the calculations necessary for what I was about to attempt, stretched out my left hand, and spoke an Aria aloud as I channeled mana into the math and a Midchildan spell circle spiraled into being around my feet: "Holy light, come to my hand," I chanted, "Under my guidance, reverberate through the sky!" A tiny sphere of pink energy formed about an inch away from my outstretched hand, and I felt the familiar expansion of my thoughts that accompanied its appearance. An Aria wasn't strictly necessary to cast a spell, but speaking the right words helped to speed up spellcasting when you were still inexperienced with casting without a Device's help, and served as a kind of mnemonic for making your mana act in a particular way. I tossed the soda can into the air as I finished the Aria and then spoke the command phrase to release the spell I had just called up: "Divine shooter! Shoot!"
I guided the sphere fast as lightning through the air on a course that intercepted the can's trajectory and bounced it further into the air, then brought the sphere back around to bounce the can off it again as its momentum carried it just a little closer to the garbage bin.
I managed six bounces before I missed. I'd never tried this sort of exercise in the real world before, but it felt good, and the soda can wasn't damaged, so I picked it up and started again as Raising Heart kept count for me. I got six again on my second try, nine on my third, and eight on the fourth.
On my fifth try, Raising Heart had just announced my thirteenth hit when a boy's voice spoke from nearby: "What are you doing?"
Had I really just been congratulating myself about my seemingly unlimited multi-tasking ability right before someone took me by surprise? ... Yeah, sounded about right. Turns out you actually need to be paying attention to your senses in order to not be startled by something, multi-tasking powers or no multi-tasking powers; I jumped with a surprised yelp and spun around to face a figure with a smooth, faceless white helmet in a white costume with glossy white armoring and grey clocks all over it. "Shit," I said as my focus completely unraveled, the spell dissipated, and the soda can dropped to the ground.
Then I recognized the costumed figure: Clockblocker. Before I had time to do more than open my mouth, the space next to him twisted in ways that made my eyes water, and a girl in a white and forest green costume with a skirt and a green visor stepped out of an angle that I was pretty sure wasn't possible and was just there a few feet away from him. Vista.
This was a Wards patrol. I felt my inner fangirl begin to squee even as I grinned. Wow! First Armsmaster the day I got my powers, now Vista and Clockblocker? Oh my God, this was awesome! Okay, Taylor. Say something cool. Time to impress them. Just be cool.
"You're Clockblocker!" I said.
Fuck.
----------------
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.7 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
----------------
From: AlexandriaFan24601
To: Leet
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Sorry about the pink spheres
You know Eagle Park? The one that's maybe two blocks away from the public library? 2:00 PM tomorrow. I'll be the girl with the white and blue scarf.
- AlexandriaFan24601
- AlexandriaFan24601
From: Leet
To: AlexandriaFan24601
CC: Uber
Subject: Re: Sorry about the pink spheres
We'll be there.
- Leet
I went to bed a few hours after the last exchange of messages for the day, but I didn't sleep well. I kept waking up in the middle of the night with all these weird aches in my muscles and this almost burning pain in my eyes. Whenever the aching muscles and the burning eyes started up, the only thing that seemed to make it go away was to Respire mana through my Linker Core. That had been Raising Heart's suggestion for how to deal with it, and I don't know how I would have gotten through the night if it hadn't worked. It did, though, and if I felt like a zombie when I woke up the next morning, at least my eyes, arms, and legs all seemed to still work.- Leet
I met Uber and Leet at the picnic tables at Eagle Park at 2:00 PM. There was a little metered parking lot in front of it that was always full of cars even when the park was empty. It was cold enough that I could see my breath, and the grass crunched beneath my feet when I walked on it. A paved path wound its way through the park in lazy, looping lines that roughly divided it into three main areas: grass and picnic tables and outdoor barbeques on the left if you were looking into the park from the street, a little meadow circled by the path that bloomed with spectacular flowers in the spring but had little showing today in the middle, and grass and a grove of trees on the right where a bunch of LARPers liked to come out and do big battle-games where they fought each other with medieval foam weapons on Saturdays. Cirrostratus clouds covered the sky like a veil; the sun shone from behind them, the light blooming into a solar halo that would have been breathtaking if I hadn't been distracted by my meeting with the two villains.
I showed up out of costume. Sort of. They knew who I was either way, and based on what Mrs. Dallon had said, I was pretty sure they wouldn't try anything in public, but I figured it was probably better safe than sorry, and it turned out that Barrier Jackets could be customized pretty easily. So I had mine take the form of my regular cold weather getup plus a white and blue scarf. I kept Raising Heart out of sight in a little subspace pocket. ... Which is apparently also a thing I can do. And at some point, I'm sure that will stop seeming weird.
They came out of costume. Uber was a gorgeous, tall, broad shouldered man in tan pants and a black, hooded winter coat that was buttoned up all the way; I couldn't see what he was wearing beneath it, and I tried not to be disappointed that it hid his muscles. Leet was unimpressive in comparison, and his winter clothes did little to fill out his scrawny frame. I wasn't sure how old they were exactly, but they were younger than dad and older than me.
"Uber," I said, nodding to him and to Leet in turn. "Leet."
"Gundam Girl," Uber said as he sat down at the picnic table in the seat across from me. He seemed more comfortable than Leet did. More on top of things.
That didn't excuse him calling me 'Gundam Girl.' I pursed my lips. "I told you to call me Zeon," I said.
Uber rolled his eyes. "You can't call yourself Zeon if you want to be a hero, Gundam Girl," he said.
"Why not?"
"You mean besides the fact that they're the bad guys, and that using the name is a little like calling yourself, 'Axis Powers Girl?'"
Aaaand I was glaring at him. "They're not that bad," I said.
"No," Leet chimed in, "They're totally fine to name yourself after. Assuming you're looking to join the E88."
I grimaced. "Fine," I snapped. "Okay. What about Newtype?"
"Why don't you just call yourself Ubermensch while you're at it?" Leet asked.
"That's not what..." I trailed off. Okay, yeah I could kind of see the association he was making. I didn't like it, but I could kind of see it.
"It's not as bad," Uber said, "But it's still bad. Try avoiding Gundam references. If you want to be a hero, you want a name that sounds heroic. Something that doesn't sound like it would be better for a villain."
I thought about it, trying to pair up my powers with a good name. "Laserdoom?" I asked.
Leet shot me an incredulous look while Uber tried not to laugh. "You're doing that on purpose," Leet said.
I blushed. "Okay," I said, "So I suck at coming up with superhero names."
Uber stopped trying not to laugh. His laugh had a pleasant sound, and it felt a little weird looking at these two relatively normal guys and comparing them to the people who showed up on Uber and Leet's shows. For a minute, I thought maybe they weren't so bad. And then I remembered the scenes from their Grand Theft Auto show, and my charitable thoughts vanished. "Keep at it," Uber said, "I'm sure you'll come up with something eventually."
When they were done laughing, Uber and Leet exchanged looks. "So," Uber said, "We didn't actually come out here to make fun of your choice of name."
"We didn't only come out here to make fun of your choice of name," Leet chimed in.
"I didn't actually come out here to make fun of your choice of name," Uber clarified with exaggerated patience.
And now I wasn't sure how to react to these two. I didn't like being made fun of, sure, but there wasn't any of that sense of malice behind it that was there when Emma made fun of me. Was it normal for villains to seem so... normal? "Okay," I said. "You said you wanted to talk. Let's talk."
"Right," Uber said. "So there's a lot you need to know, but the most important part is what we call the unwritten rules of being a cape."
I briefly debated telling them that someone had already explained this to me; I decided against it. Better not to annoy the villains who were trying to help me. Their take on the unwritten rules was much the same as Brandish's, but it was still interesting to hear a different perspective on the matter. The way Brandish had described it, breaking the rules was the nuclear option of the cape scene. Her analysis of the rules and of the consequences of breaking them were very, very sober and serious. But to hear Uber and Leet describe it...
"Think of it as a big game of Team Fortress," Leet said.
"Don't you mean Team Fortress 2?" Uber asked.
"Hell no I don't mean Team Fortress 2," Leet snapped. "Original or nothing."
"Okay," I said. "I don't really play video games, but I think I know what that is. I think I watched my dad play it a couple times when I was little."
Leet looked crestfallen. "Wow," he said. "Thanks for making me feel old, Gundam Girl."
"That's still not my name," I said.
"Okay," Leet tried again, "Bad example. Think of it as..." he floundered. "... Planetside." When I didn't recognize that, he made another suggestion, "Or Tribes." He probably wasn't talking about tribes of humans, so I had no idea what he was referring to. I guess it showed on my face, because Leet immediately went on to another analogy, "Multiplayer Halo?"
I was starting to feel bad for him. "Sorry," I said.
"Cops and robbers," Uber offered.
Leet sighed. "Cops and robbers," he agreed.
I guess it made sense for the two Gamer Villains to explain the unwritten rules in terms of a game. I don't know if I bought how they presented it, though.
"Think about it," Leet said. "Think about how absurd the whole thing is. It's like an MMO in real life. It's like... LARP taken to the next level. Seriously. We've got people running around in ridiculous costumes, making up code names, acting like... did you ever read those old superhero comic books?"
I shook my head. "I never saw the point. We've got the real thing."
"Not important," Leet said. "The point is, it's absurd and everyone knows it."
"And as long as you play by the rules," Uber added, "People are generally content to live and let live. No killing, no unmasking, no going after people's friends and family, no involving unpowered people in cape problems. You beat someone? You let them go to fight an other day. You don't take advantage. The status is quo, and it's in all of our best interests to keep it that way. Hell, Leet and I have been active for years and we've never gotten more than a slap on the wrist. You know why? Because we follow the rules."
Leet nodded in agreement. "Meanwhile, sick fucks trying to create the Evil League of Evil get smacked down the moment they show their faces."
"I don't know," I said. "Seems like there's plenty of people who don't play by the rules."
"Yeah," Leet conceded, "Those people exist. I'm pretty sure Oni Lee's a fucking psychopath, and Heartbreaker needs to be put down like the dog he is."
"There's also the monsters that we'd all like put out of our misery," Uber said. "The Slaughterhouse Nine. Nilbog."
"The Endbringers," I said.
Both Uber and Leet looked uncomfortable at the mention of Endbringers. I guess I didn't blame them. "Yeah, them too." Uber said.
Well. I'd been avoiding the subject long enough. "Speaking of not unmasking people," I said, "About those sensor spheres the other day..."
"Those pink balls that floated into our hideout?" Leet asked. "Yeah, I figured that was you."
"I'm really sorry about that," I said. "I sent them out before I knew it wasn't Kosher to do something like that. I know that doesn't excuse it, but..."
Uber had a nice smile, and I found myself returning it. "Water under the bridge," he said.
"You don't unmask us to anyone, we and every other villain in town won't hunt you down and kill you to death," Leet added, and my smile froze.
Right. Villains.
------------------
I went home from the park some time later and spent a few hours reading a book on the sofa in the living room. Dad came home a little while after that, and we talked over dinner. I told him how things had gone with Uber and Leet, and he seemed pleased to hear that there hadn't been any problems. He was less happy when I told him I planned to go on my first patrol for the evening, but after Raising Heart promised him that I would be fine, he relented. Things were getting better between us than they had been, but I don't think he liked the idea of me fighting crime very much. But I'd done what he wanted; I'd waited until after we'd spoken to a lawyer. It was time for me to get my feet wet.
I just didn't count on patrol being so boring. It was a little after sunset; the stars were coming out, but there was still a dimming light in the western sky. I flew over the city in full costume, looking for some sort of crime I could intervene to stop even as I continued with Raising Heart's visual training mode. It wasn't a distraction. Multitasking was surprisingly easy. I mean, most people can't actually multitask at all, they just claim they can; normal humans only have so much attention and so many mental resources they can spare. Drive a car and talk on a cell phone at the same time, and you just can't do as good a job as if you were driving a car without distracting yourself. It's how we work. ... It's how other people work, anyways. My ability to multitask, on the other hand, was growing every day. At first, all I could do was maintain two forks of my own awareness that pretty much worked according to normal human multitasking rules. But the more I use my magic, the more I seem to be able to concentrate on multiple things without actually splitting my attention per se. I just give all of my attention to every single thing I'm focusing on. I'm not sure how else to describe it exactly, but it seemed like the limits on my brain were just kind of falling away. Used to be I was just an average math student, too, but that was also getting easier every day -- not just the math involved in my spell work, but the math I was learning at school, too.
So there I was, the city shining below me in the gathering dark, and I had nothing to focus my parahuman multitasking capability on. Or is that magi-human? Either way, I didn't see any obvious crimes taking place as I passed over the city. After my third pass, I figured I was probably doing something wrong, and I was getting thirsty, so I landed near Arcadia High School and bought a soda can from a vending machine. After I'd finished off the soda, I called up a set of pink spheres and sent them out into the city to find some crime in progress for me to stop. Then I looked at the soda can I was holding.
There was a trash can a good dozen feet away.
I looked back at the soda can. "Hey Raising Heart," I said. "You know how you said I should do more real life practice and not just depend on your simulations?"
"Yes?"
"I have an idea. But I don't want you to help me with this. Just keep count for me, okay?"
"Alright."
I formed the requisite math in my thoughts, imagining the calculations necessary for what I was about to attempt, stretched out my left hand, and spoke an Aria aloud as I channeled mana into the math and a Midchildan spell circle spiraled into being around my feet: "Holy light, come to my hand," I chanted, "Under my guidance, reverberate through the sky!" A tiny sphere of pink energy formed about an inch away from my outstretched hand, and I felt the familiar expansion of my thoughts that accompanied its appearance. An Aria wasn't strictly necessary to cast a spell, but speaking the right words helped to speed up spellcasting when you were still inexperienced with casting without a Device's help, and served as a kind of mnemonic for making your mana act in a particular way. I tossed the soda can into the air as I finished the Aria and then spoke the command phrase to release the spell I had just called up: "Divine shooter! Shoot!"
I guided the sphere fast as lightning through the air on a course that intercepted the can's trajectory and bounced it further into the air, then brought the sphere back around to bounce the can off it again as its momentum carried it just a little closer to the garbage bin.
I managed six bounces before I missed. I'd never tried this sort of exercise in the real world before, but it felt good, and the soda can wasn't damaged, so I picked it up and started again as Raising Heart kept count for me. I got six again on my second try, nine on my third, and eight on the fourth.
On my fifth try, Raising Heart had just announced my thirteenth hit when a boy's voice spoke from nearby: "What are you doing?"
Had I really just been congratulating myself about my seemingly unlimited multi-tasking ability right before someone took me by surprise? ... Yeah, sounded about right. Turns out you actually need to be paying attention to your senses in order to not be startled by something, multi-tasking powers or no multi-tasking powers; I jumped with a surprised yelp and spun around to face a figure with a smooth, faceless white helmet in a white costume with glossy white armoring and grey clocks all over it. "Shit," I said as my focus completely unraveled, the spell dissipated, and the soda can dropped to the ground.
Then I recognized the costumed figure: Clockblocker. Before I had time to do more than open my mouth, the space next to him twisted in ways that made my eyes water, and a girl in a white and forest green costume with a skirt and a green visor stepped out of an angle that I was pretty sure wasn't possible and was just there a few feet away from him. Vista.
This was a Wards patrol. I felt my inner fangirl begin to squee even as I grinned. Wow! First Armsmaster the day I got my powers, now Vista and Clockblocker? Oh my God, this was awesome! Okay, Taylor. Say something cool. Time to impress them. Just be cool.
"You're Clockblocker!" I said.
Fuck.
Interlude 1.X - Yuuno
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Note: this interlude actually takes place after 1.8, which has yet to be posted. That said, the interlude is ready, and it doesn't really spoil anything for 1.8, so I figure I may as well post it now.
--------------------
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
by P.H. Wise
Interlude 1.X: Yuuno
--------------------
It began without warning; one moment, low Earth orbit was troubled only by satellites, debris, and the Simurgh; the next, there was an eruption of light full of impossible colors, a scintillating riot of yellowblue and redgreen and others more impossible and unrecognizable; for a hole had been bored through space and time to some cryptic well beyond our universe to reveal the undimensioned rainbow of unknown light that filled the Dimensional Sea. To call it a portal was a description of function, but fell desperately short of the form, yet a portal it was.
Something resembling a green solar flare in miniature shot out from the open gateway above Non-Administrated World #97, and then another, and another, and more still, until dozens of what looked like green fusion lashes reached from the portal, struggling to arrange themselves into some semblance of a Midchildan spell circle. There was a sense of growing strain, and then spell circle and lashes alike shattered like glass as a starship shot out of the portal. Or rather, as the two halves of a starship shot out of the portal, the violence of spell-collapse and uncontrolled exit ripping apart the portal even as the ship fell.
The rear section remained mostly intact and went far afield, coming down in the northern reaches of Canada. The forward section, shaped something like a tuning fork, had less mass, more empty space; it hit the atmosphere and broke apart into a thousand fiery fragments that mostly burned up as they fell towards the coast of Maine.
And amidst the burning, disintegrating wreckage, unnoticed and unmarked by any earthly eye, twenty-one small seed-shaped blue jewels rained down upon the northeastern United States.
Five landed in Brockton Bay, and all but one went unnoticed.
Many hours later, just after 2 in the morning, a boy appeared in a circle of green light at the Downtown coast just inside the South Brockton Marina. He was very young - maybe 10 at most - with green eyes and light brown hair that almost touched his shoulders. His clothes were better suited for a more temperate climate, but the cold didn't seem to bother him.
As the light of his spell circle went out, he took in his surroundings uneasily.
All was not well in the South Brockton Marina; a mist had gathered over it, hiding the piers and the lower halves of the boats docked there, and the only sound was settling of boat and wood and the movement of the water.
The boy's eyes flicked left and right, and then he whispered, "Area search."
A spell circle flashed beneath him, and a hundred green strands of energy spread from him to quickly encompass the entire marina.
His eyes widened as the sensor data filled his mind: movement and malice; an ethereal form with a glowing blue crystal heart shot towards him like a bullet. He whirled around just in time to put up a spiralling green defensive barrier.
Glowing red eyes formed within the amorphous monster's body, glaring balefully at the boy, and the shockwave of the thing's impact upon his barrier violently dispersed the mist, shattered every glass window on every boat in the marina and sent boats seesawing wildly back and forth in their moorings.
The sound of alarms began to blare.
The boy shoved the barrier forward against the Monster, and it used that barrier like a springboard to fling itself away from him, sending out a dozen lances of its own protoplasmic mass even as his barrier dropped. The boy scrambled out of the way of the salvo, which ripped through the pier around him and sent up a hail of splinters; he sent a single glowing green sphere back at the creature, which struck it at the same instant it sprouted a dozen legs and landed standing up sideways on the side of a yacht. He blew a hole in creature and yacht alike.
The creature's body began to repair itself, and it sprinted at the boy with inhuman speed, five more red eyes sprouting within its body as it ran.
One of the strands of energy left by his still active Area Search sang at him, and he fell flat on his back just in time to avoid having the part of the creature he had blasted out of it with his prior attack cut a hole through his chest on its way to rejoin the oncoming main mass. "Angled shield," he hissed, doing the necessary calculations on the fly without the aid of a Device; the barrier came up just in time to save his life. If the creature had struck his barrier full on, it probably would have broken it. It slid over the angled shield and landed in the water with a loud splash.
The boy knew the creature would not give up so easily; he rolled to his feet, feeling for its approach through his web of detection magic, and once again his preparation saved his life; he caught another dozen pseudopods on his shield even as the creature burst from the water once more. Maintaining his shield, he drew back his fist and shouted, "Jewel Seed... SEAL!" as he released the sealing magic into the creature's primary mass.
It wasn't enough, and the ensuing explosion cracked his barrier and sent him flying through a boat and into the rocks at the edge of the marina. He bounced off, and still had enough momentum to plow through the chain link fence that surrounded it.
The boy -- Yuuno Scrya -- couldn't even cry out in pain. The wind had left him, and the very act of breathing seemed to fill his body with liquid agony.
Was this the end? Was he going to die on this backwater planet? He couldn't sense the creature or the Jewel Seed it bore any longer, but that didn't mean it was gone. He tried to stand, but his agony redoubled, and it was all he could do in that moment to keep breathing.
Yuuno Scrya had failed. He had failed his clan, he had failed as an archeologist, and he was going to die, unremembered and alone, on this backwater world he'd never even heard of before today.
And so, in desperation, he called out into the darkness with his telepathic voice, broadcasting as loudly and as widely as he possibly could, [Someone... please hear my voice... lend me your strength...]
His only answer was the sound of the alarms his fight had triggered.
[Someone...] he called again, [Anyone... please help me...]
Silence. He felt very cold. Blood was pooling around him, and the world felt hazy.
[...Can anyone hear me?]
[{CONFIRMATION}]
--------------------
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
by P.H. Wise
Interlude 1.X: Yuuno
--------------------
It began without warning; one moment, low Earth orbit was troubled only by satellites, debris, and the Simurgh; the next, there was an eruption of light full of impossible colors, a scintillating riot of yellowblue and redgreen and others more impossible and unrecognizable; for a hole had been bored through space and time to some cryptic well beyond our universe to reveal the undimensioned rainbow of unknown light that filled the Dimensional Sea. To call it a portal was a description of function, but fell desperately short of the form, yet a portal it was.
Something resembling a green solar flare in miniature shot out from the open gateway above Non-Administrated World #97, and then another, and another, and more still, until dozens of what looked like green fusion lashes reached from the portal, struggling to arrange themselves into some semblance of a Midchildan spell circle. There was a sense of growing strain, and then spell circle and lashes alike shattered like glass as a starship shot out of the portal. Or rather, as the two halves of a starship shot out of the portal, the violence of spell-collapse and uncontrolled exit ripping apart the portal even as the ship fell.
The rear section remained mostly intact and went far afield, coming down in the northern reaches of Canada. The forward section, shaped something like a tuning fork, had less mass, more empty space; it hit the atmosphere and broke apart into a thousand fiery fragments that mostly burned up as they fell towards the coast of Maine.
And amidst the burning, disintegrating wreckage, unnoticed and unmarked by any earthly eye, twenty-one small seed-shaped blue jewels rained down upon the northeastern United States.
Five landed in Brockton Bay, and all but one went unnoticed.
Many hours later, just after 2 in the morning, a boy appeared in a circle of green light at the Downtown coast just inside the South Brockton Marina. He was very young - maybe 10 at most - with green eyes and light brown hair that almost touched his shoulders. His clothes were better suited for a more temperate climate, but the cold didn't seem to bother him.
As the light of his spell circle went out, he took in his surroundings uneasily.
All was not well in the South Brockton Marina; a mist had gathered over it, hiding the piers and the lower halves of the boats docked there, and the only sound was settling of boat and wood and the movement of the water.
The boy's eyes flicked left and right, and then he whispered, "Area search."
A spell circle flashed beneath him, and a hundred green strands of energy spread from him to quickly encompass the entire marina.
His eyes widened as the sensor data filled his mind: movement and malice; an ethereal form with a glowing blue crystal heart shot towards him like a bullet. He whirled around just in time to put up a spiralling green defensive barrier.
Glowing red eyes formed within the amorphous monster's body, glaring balefully at the boy, and the shockwave of the thing's impact upon his barrier violently dispersed the mist, shattered every glass window on every boat in the marina and sent boats seesawing wildly back and forth in their moorings.
The sound of alarms began to blare.
The boy shoved the barrier forward against the Monster, and it used that barrier like a springboard to fling itself away from him, sending out a dozen lances of its own protoplasmic mass even as his barrier dropped. The boy scrambled out of the way of the salvo, which ripped through the pier around him and sent up a hail of splinters; he sent a single glowing green sphere back at the creature, which struck it at the same instant it sprouted a dozen legs and landed standing up sideways on the side of a yacht. He blew a hole in creature and yacht alike.
The creature's body began to repair itself, and it sprinted at the boy with inhuman speed, five more red eyes sprouting within its body as it ran.
One of the strands of energy left by his still active Area Search sang at him, and he fell flat on his back just in time to avoid having the part of the creature he had blasted out of it with his prior attack cut a hole through his chest on its way to rejoin the oncoming main mass. "Angled shield," he hissed, doing the necessary calculations on the fly without the aid of a Device; the barrier came up just in time to save his life. If the creature had struck his barrier full on, it probably would have broken it. It slid over the angled shield and landed in the water with a loud splash.
The boy knew the creature would not give up so easily; he rolled to his feet, feeling for its approach through his web of detection magic, and once again his preparation saved his life; he caught another dozen pseudopods on his shield even as the creature burst from the water once more. Maintaining his shield, he drew back his fist and shouted, "Jewel Seed... SEAL!" as he released the sealing magic into the creature's primary mass.
It wasn't enough, and the ensuing explosion cracked his barrier and sent him flying through a boat and into the rocks at the edge of the marina. He bounced off, and still had enough momentum to plow through the chain link fence that surrounded it.
The boy -- Yuuno Scrya -- couldn't even cry out in pain. The wind had left him, and the very act of breathing seemed to fill his body with liquid agony.
Was this the end? Was he going to die on this backwater planet? He couldn't sense the creature or the Jewel Seed it bore any longer, but that didn't mean it was gone. He tried to stand, but his agony redoubled, and it was all he could do in that moment to keep breathing.
Yuuno Scrya had failed. He had failed his clan, he had failed as an archeologist, and he was going to die, unremembered and alone, on this backwater world he'd never even heard of before today.
And so, in desperation, he called out into the darkness with his telepathic voice, broadcasting as loudly and as widely as he possibly could, [Someone... please hear my voice... lend me your strength...]
His only answer was the sound of the alarms his fight had triggered.
[Someone...] he called again, [Anyone... please help me...]
Silence. He felt very cold. Blood was pooling around him, and the world felt hazy.
[...Can anyone hear me?]
[{CONFIRMATION}]
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
The MGLN setting for this story is a bit AU, though. Yes, this is technically the start of Nanoha. But things aren't exactly the same as they were in Nanoha besides the bare basics of the situation at the start; Jewel Seeds are indeed loose on Earth-Bet, and Yuuno is attempting to retrieve them. Fate may be involved in collecting them. But butterflies are already flapping their wings regarding both the Jewel Seed situation and the stations of canon for Worm.
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lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Have a like bomb 
I was going to reply on SB, but I like SV better so I'll post here (though SV is more popular for its quests rather than fanfics). If you're looking for more views/feedback, you should consider cross-posting to FF.net and AO3 as well.
I believe Nanoha is capable of casting dimensional barriers and pretty much all the spells that Yuuno can cast, at least by the time of the 3rd series. While mages are expected to have affinities (like bombardment and some element), magic is also supposed to be systematic and versatile. So why is Nanoha never shown casting such spells then?
Watsonian reason: Nanoha is in the military, and in the military you work as a team and focus on your specialization that best complements your teammates.
Doylist reason: With a full cast of mages, there's no reason to have one character - even if she's the protaganist - to be shown casting all the spells. Furthermore, we don't really get to see Nanoha training in the military, and so wouldn't see her practicing spells outside her affinities.
If you weren't introducing mages into the story for a while (like until months later when a Endbringer hits) or never, then I'd think you should allow Taylor an expanded spell repertoire, including dimensional barrier. But since other soon-to-be-allied mages are entering the picture, I think you can let Taylor concentrate on her strengths.
Hmm, I wonder if this due to some Belkan heritage starting to express itself, or perhaps her awakened linker core is somehow tuning her body. Or maybe Raising Heart's doing something. If there's going to be physical changes, I expect Taylor to be pleasantly surprised.
Never change, Taylor
I'm not sure I like the complication of Jewel Seeds in Worm-verse and doing so relatively early in the plot, but that's definitely a good way to introduce MGLN characters. I was thinking a arrival of a TSAB (or whatever you're naming it) cruiser in the aftermath of a Taylor vs Endbringer battle would a more dramatic way of doing this, but it would be tough to get a canon-ish Yuuno and Fate involved.
I was going to reply on SB, but I like SV better so I'll post here (though SV is more popular for its quests rather than fanfics). If you're looking for more views/feedback, you should consider cross-posting to FF.net and AO3 as well.
From the SB thread, I forgot to reply to this earlier.Marsyas said:
I believe Nanoha is capable of casting dimensional barriers and pretty much all the spells that Yuuno can cast, at least by the time of the 3rd series. While mages are expected to have affinities (like bombardment and some element), magic is also supposed to be systematic and versatile. So why is Nanoha never shown casting such spells then?
Watsonian reason: Nanoha is in the military, and in the military you work as a team and focus on your specialization that best complements your teammates.
Doylist reason: With a full cast of mages, there's no reason to have one character - even if she's the protaganist - to be shown casting all the spells. Furthermore, we don't really get to see Nanoha training in the military, and so wouldn't see her practicing spells outside her affinities.
If you weren't introducing mages into the story for a while (like until months later when a Endbringer hits) or never, then I'd think you should allow Taylor an expanded spell repertoire, including dimensional barrier. But since other soon-to-be-allied mages are entering the picture, I think you can let Taylor concentrate on her strengths.
Hmm, I wonder if this due to some Belkan heritage starting to express itself, or perhaps her awakened linker core is somehow tuning her body. Or maybe Raising Heart's doing something. If there's going to be physical changes, I expect Taylor to be pleasantly surprised.
Never change, Taylor
I'm not sure I like the complication of Jewel Seeds in Worm-verse and doing so relatively early in the plot, but that's definitely a good way to introduce MGLN characters. I was thinking a arrival of a TSAB (or whatever you're naming it) cruiser in the aftermath of a Taylor vs Endbringer battle would a more dramatic way of doing this, but it would be tough to get a canon-ish Yuuno and Fate involved.
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Nice. I WILL BE WATCHING
But seriously its gud. Real gud
But seriously its gud. Real gud
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Gotcha. I'll have to do so.
Ahehehehe
No comment.
The arrival of an Administration Bureau cruiser in the aftermath of a Taylor vs Endbringer battle is probably how I'm going to introduce said organization, actually. Three mages are entering the picture prior to Endbringer attacks, though. One is Yuuno. You can probably guess the other two. And yeah, I would like to get a canon-ish Yuuno and Fate involved, and as an added bonus, the complication of the Jewel Seeds in Worm-verse at this stage allows me to send both the Nanoha and Worm side of things off the rails much sooner than I otherwise could have.
That said, it's going to take a bit for the Jewel Seed thing to pick up steam. When it does, the Protectorate is not going to be pleased.
Also, here's something that definitely won't be happening:
LUNG THE MAGIC DRAGON
Lung: "I am a dragon. You are now asian."
Yuuno: "I am a ferret. You are now a mage."
Lung: *beat* "This is an acceptable trade."
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This is great, also thanks for not going with the usual start.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Thanks very much.
By 'the usual start,' I assume you are referring to the locker? I actually did go with that in my first draft of this story, but during the revision process (and with the assistance of some helpful feedback), I realized that with Taylor becoming a Mage instead of a Parahuman, there was no actual reason to try to give her a legitimate Trigger Event.
I figure people in the know might assume she's a second generation cape, while people not in the know will have no reason to think anything is strange about the fact that she apparently gained superpowers just by the simple fact that she was in physical danger and needed them.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
So I just had a thought. If mages can talk with shards via telepathy, and devices can detect the brain anomaly that is the shard connection (or potential shard connection), Taylor's meeting with the Wards could go...really odd.
Vista: ~busy squeeing~
CB: So you can do "magic", huh?
Taylor: Yup! I'm not sure if what parahumans do is magic though...
Taylor: [Hey RH...didn't you say that all mages can talk with telepathy?]
RH: [Yes, master]
Taylor: Hold on a moment, lemme try something.
CB: Okay?
Taylor: [Hey CB, can you hear me?]
CB: ...
Taylor: [... well guess that proves you're not a mage?]
???: [{QUERY}]
Taylor: !!! [WTH was that?]
RH: [I'm not sure, master. Analyzing...]
CB: Uh, you okay there?
???: [{PURPOSE}]
RH: [The signal is coming from a hole in CB's brain]
Taylor: Er, are you, um, okay in the head or something?
CB: Huh?
RH: [I meant a dimensional hole, master.]
Taylor: Oops, I meant did you know you have a talking voice in your head?
CB: WTH are you talking about?!
RH: Apologies, I unintentionally gave master the impression that you had brain damage, when in fact, you are only hosting an extra-dimensional entity.
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
I think... something can be arranged. Why don't you drop by the #nanoha channel on irc.rizon.net?
Er, but maybe not right now, because it's like 4am. :O
I'm sorry, I was enjoying this up until the interlude. It was rather amusing up until that point. There are several reasons why I thought your story stopped being enjoyable.
The first reason is the fact that raising heart didn't mention anything about the difference of a Gemma and a linker core. After getting an internet connection, especially since it and Taylor are both saying they are doing magic and not a regular parahuman, then it should have known that there is a difference. One is that a linker core is not an actual biological organ, like a heart or kidney. Another is that it isn't in the brain. Why didn't it mention this. Especially since it knows that this is an unadministered planet that should have no magic. Hell, the very first time the PRT or Protectorate does a medical scan, they will know that she isn't a parahuman because she didn't trigger. Raising heart should be able tell itself. Even Taylor should know, since the linker core isn't in the brain.
Another thing is the fact that you have now started the nanoha series at the beginning and left evidence for everyone to look into. At this point, I'm expecting Cauldron, the guild, the PRT/Protectorate, every government in the world, and Scion/Zion to start investigating. They are going to hunt down and capture every single scrap of technology that they can get. And depending on who gets what, dissection will be involved. Hell, I just realized that the slaughterhouse 9 is going to investigate too. Real live aliens and alien technology. Bonesaw and mannequin are both going to be super interested in it.
And finally, nanoha and worm use dimensions in completely different ways. In worm, a different dimension is the same planet but different circumstances. Earth bet and aleph as shown in worm. The entities also locked down all dimensions to prevent people from going to different dimensions. They didn't want any unauthorized travel between dimensions.
In nanoha, each dimension is like it's own planet. Hell, the way they treat dimensional travel, it is more like their own version of FTL. At any rate, they also treat each dimension as if it is an entire planet sometimes. Considering entire dimensions have collapsed and disappeared, taking entire civilizations with it, these dimensions are rather fragile and are not the same as dimensions for worm.
Any attempt of dimensional travel is going to grab scions attention because it is not being done by his shards. He is going to detect it and then completely obliterate everything he can find about it. The entities are not going to want any intruders interfering in the main dimension they are interested in. And just because Scion is alone, doesn't mean he isn't going to ignore it. If they can get into his main dimension, then they are a threat because they might be able to get into the sealed dimensions that all if the different shards are in.
But really, all of that can be ignored if you explain it right and I am willing to just ignore it. Except for just how incredibly complicated you just made everything. I don't want read another rehash of the nanoha storyline with some worm characters. I don't want read an incredibly dense story as all of the gangs, the PRT/Protectorate, the guild, governments, and the slaughterhouse 9 ask fight each other for the jewel seeds, dimensional technology, etc. I just wanted to see a Taylor with raising heart and seeing what she is going to do next.
So, it is your story. You can completely ignore my opinions. I'll keep an eye on it to see how it develops.
The first reason is the fact that raising heart didn't mention anything about the difference of a Gemma and a linker core. After getting an internet connection, especially since it and Taylor are both saying they are doing magic and not a regular parahuman, then it should have known that there is a difference. One is that a linker core is not an actual biological organ, like a heart or kidney. Another is that it isn't in the brain. Why didn't it mention this. Especially since it knows that this is an unadministered planet that should have no magic. Hell, the very first time the PRT or Protectorate does a medical scan, they will know that she isn't a parahuman because she didn't trigger. Raising heart should be able tell itself. Even Taylor should know, since the linker core isn't in the brain.
Another thing is the fact that you have now started the nanoha series at the beginning and left evidence for everyone to look into. At this point, I'm expecting Cauldron, the guild, the PRT/Protectorate, every government in the world, and Scion/Zion to start investigating. They are going to hunt down and capture every single scrap of technology that they can get. And depending on who gets what, dissection will be involved. Hell, I just realized that the slaughterhouse 9 is going to investigate too. Real live aliens and alien technology. Bonesaw and mannequin are both going to be super interested in it.
And finally, nanoha and worm use dimensions in completely different ways. In worm, a different dimension is the same planet but different circumstances. Earth bet and aleph as shown in worm. The entities also locked down all dimensions to prevent people from going to different dimensions. They didn't want any unauthorized travel between dimensions.
In nanoha, each dimension is like it's own planet. Hell, the way they treat dimensional travel, it is more like their own version of FTL. At any rate, they also treat each dimension as if it is an entire planet sometimes. Considering entire dimensions have collapsed and disappeared, taking entire civilizations with it, these dimensions are rather fragile and are not the same as dimensions for worm.
Any attempt of dimensional travel is going to grab scions attention because it is not being done by his shards. He is going to detect it and then completely obliterate everything he can find about it. The entities are not going to want any intruders interfering in the main dimension they are interested in. And just because Scion is alone, doesn't mean he isn't going to ignore it. If they can get into his main dimension, then they are a threat because they might be able to get into the sealed dimensions that all if the different shards are in.
But really, all of that can be ignored if you explain it right and I am willing to just ignore it. Except for just how incredibly complicated you just made everything. I don't want read another rehash of the nanoha storyline with some worm characters. I don't want read an incredibly dense story as all of the gangs, the PRT/Protectorate, the guild, governments, and the slaughterhouse 9 ask fight each other for the jewel seeds, dimensional technology, etc. I just wanted to see a Taylor with raising heart and seeing what she is going to do next.
So, it is your story. You can completely ignore my opinions. I'll keep an eye on it to see how it develops.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Correct. Raising Heart is more or less aware of the difference between a parahuman and a mage at least insofar as what can be gathered via an internet connection. Similarly, Taylor knows that she is a Mage and not a traditional parahuman. What Taylor does not know is that she does have the potential to Trigger. Raising Heart is aware, but doesn't know how to cause a Trigger event, and if she did she would not do so; traumatizing her partner is not high on Raising Heart's priority list.
Once Midchildan technology goes public? Yes. Many people will be very interested. Once people start investigating the crash site? Also yes, assuming Scion doesn't take offense and glass the ... already glassed crater. Double-glass. Reglass? One of those.
And I don't want to write one. Conversely, I also don't want to write another rehash of the Worm storyline with some Nanoha characters and/or yet another alt-power Taylor. The current plan is to send both the Nanoha and Worm storylines flying off the rails, off the bridge, and into the gorge. And when they hit the bottom, they will explode. I also mean to tell what I hope will be a fun story that makes good use of both sides of the crossover. There will be humor. There will be seriousness. There will be ludicrous dungeon bypasses. We'll see how it goes.
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1.8 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
Note: This is a chapter I am not at all happy with. Having to rewrite it from scratch after losing the entire thing to a computer crash may have something to do with it (and the original went all the way to the end of the incident and didn't end where the current version does), but I think it's more than that. I am also pretty sure that I do not yet have a handle on either Vista or Clockblocker, and I'm pretty sure I am not portraying them correctly. I'm in the process of re-reading the relevant chapters of Worm for how they talk and behave. I'm planning to revise this chapter once I get a better handle on them. C&C is very much appreciated.
----------------
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.8 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
----------------
Mouth, why must you betray me?
My mouth didn't answer. Clockblocker, however, did, and I could all but hear the smirk in his voice: "Captain Obvious, I presume?"
Vista was staring at me, but I couldn't see her eyes or enough of her face to tell what expression she had.
On the plus side, this was not the most embarrassing thing to have ever happened to me. Minus side: the only thing worse that came to mind was the time Emma and Madison staged a dramatic reading of my Dragon/Dauntless capefic in the school cafeteria. And that's why I don't write capefics anymore. ... I still say Dragon and Dauntless would make a great couple. She's the greatest Tinker in the world; he can improve things by touching them. The story practically wrote itself!
I shook my head. "I'm Gun..." I trailed off. No. I was not using Gundam Girl. "Ze..." I stopped that word before it could fully leave my mouth. Laserdoom? Damn it. "I don't have a name yet," I admitted.
Vista squeed, and Clockblocker and I both snapped our heads around to stare at her. "Oh my God, you're Gundam Girl!" she exclaimed, all but bouncing on her toes. "She's that cape who did a magical-girl transformation and fought Uber and Leet!" She went into a dramatic pose. "The wind is in the sky," she intoned, sounding way more impressive than I had, "The stars are in the heavens, and a resolute heart beats within my chest!" She moved into another pose with suspiciously practiced ease. "Magic is in these hands! Raising Heart," she changed poses again, "Set Up!" She relaxed into a normal stance, giggling. "It was AMAZING! Clockblocker..." and as she spoke the name of her fellow Ward, her joy and enthusiasm was swiftly replaced by a look of dawning realization.
She slowly turned her head to look into where his eyes had to be behind his clock mask. And then, in a tone that was equal parts mortified and warning, she said, "We will never speak of this again."
I had no idea how to react to what just happened. Embarrassment seemed like the go-to, but that wasn't quite right. Embarrassment on behalf of someone else? [Raising Heart, is there a word for being embarrassed on someone else's behalf?]
[Fremdscham,] Raising Heart sent back.
Once again I could practically hear the grin in Clockblocker's voice. "Whatever you say, Vista," he said cheerfully.
[Is that German?]
"Never. Again."
"Absolutely!" Clockblocker confirmed.
[No, Master. It is Ancient Belkan. Do you hear it as German?]
"I mean it!"
[I think so? It sounded German, anyways.]
"Me too," Clockblocker agreed. Then he turned towards me again. "Seriously, though, what were you doing just now?"
[Perhaps it is an artifact of my translation matrix.]
"Wait, can we back up a step?" I asked, and looked at Vista.
Vista blushed. "I, um... I get carried away," she admitted. "Sometimes." Clockblocker held up a finger and presumably opened his mouth. Not that we could see his mouth open. But before he could say a word, Vista was giving him a death glare that was obvious even through her visor.
"Right," I said, deciding that maybe it would be better to change the subject. "Um. What did it look like I was doing?"
Clockblocker tilted his head to the side. "Um, it kind of looked like you were literally playing kick the can with some kind of blaster power."
Vista nodded. "That's what it looked like to me, too," she said.
"I was practicing," I said. I hid my blush by bending down to pick up the can. I held it up once I was standing again; I'd been careful, and it was still mostly pristine despite the repeated impacts. "It's a training exercise for speed and accuracy. The goal is to keep the can in the air for as many consecutive impacts as possible without damaging it. After every increment of ten, you have to go a little bit faster."
"Huh," Clockblocker said. "What's the highest you've gotten?"
"Eighteen in Image Training. Thirteen outside of it. I'm still working on it."
"Hard work and effort must be applied to master magical techniques," Raising Heart said.
I nodded in agreement with Raising Heart. Vista and Clockblocker were staring again. "What?" I asked.
"It talks?" Clockblocker asked.
"She does," I corrected. "If you watched that stupid video, you should already know that."
"But..." Clockblocker began. "She TALKS." Vista made a swiping motion, and Clockblocker let out a startled yelp even though there was no way it could have hit him.
"Don't be an idiot, Clockblocker," Vista said. Then she turned to Raising Heart and grinned. "I'm Vista!" she said. She gestured to her fellow ward, "The dummy here is Clockblocker."
"Hey!"
"Hello," Raising Heart said. "Call me Raising Heart, Vista, an Intelligent Device."
And there was that odd syntax again. Still, I smiled. Maybe this wasn't so bad.
"Nice to meet you, Raising Heart!" Vista said.
There was a flash of light visible through the clouds, and it was wrong. The color wasn't anything I recognized, and that hard alarm bells ringing in my head; if not for the weird color, I would have assumed it was just a flash of lightning or something. I looked up; the cloud layer was very, very high, and there was a rainbow halo around the full moon. "Did you see that?" I asked.
"See wha..." Clockblocker began. "HOLY SHIT!"
Something bright and burning plowed through the thin Cirrostratus cloud layer accompanied by what looked like a thousand shooting stars. A huge plume of fire streamed off it, and it left a trail of smoke in its wake. My jaw dropped open, and I felt very small.
"Meteor..." Vista whispered.
[That's not going to hit here, is it?] I asked Raising Heart.
[Trajectory puts point of impact far to the north and west.]
And so it was. I brought up a holo-window to view the trajectory and estimated site of impact: nowhere near here. According to Raising Heart, it was going to land somewhere near the shore of the Hudson Bay in Quebec.
The sonic boom made us jump, but all three of us would have watched the meteor until it passed out of sight if Raising Heart hadn't suddenly announced, "Protection."
The familiar spell circle sprang up at my feet, and a barrier of pink light snapped into existence directly above us. An instant later something ricocheted loudly off the force shield, and a street light shattered. Something glowing faintly blue fell with the glass. Then came silence.
We stared at each other, none of us immediately knowing what to do.
The blue glow pulsed, and I felt something like the mental equivalent to nails scratching across a chalkboard. There was a sudden and awful discord accompanied by a sense of growing pressure.
Vista was the first to react. She shook off her fear like it had never been there at all, tapped the side of her helmet and said, "Dispatch, this is Vista. We've got an unidentified glowing object of possible tinker origin in front of Arcadia High at 1564 Galileo Boulevard." she glanced up, and the distance between us and the nearest intersection twisted, and suddenly the street signs were easily readable. "Nearest cross street is Kepler."
On my holoscreen, an image of the object appeared; it was a weird blue glowing seed-shaped thing, like a slightly elongated, rounded-edged rhombus. It was only about the size of almond, but it shone with a light that grew paradoxically darker yet no less visible the closer to the core it got, and brighter the closer to the edge. It rose slowly into the air until it was about a meter off the ground, and it pulsed again, this time sending out a ripple of light that expanded outwards in only two dimensions from the floating not!rhombus, at about the same speed as a ripple would spread through a pond. It faded when the radius of the light's circle was just a tiny bit more than 3 meters, and then it pulsed again.
"What do you think it is?" Clockblocker asked.
Every time it pulsed, it was like a chime rang in my brain. I could feel the mana coming off this... whatever it was. "I have no idea," I admitted. I let the Wide Area Search that was combing the city for crimes for me to stop fall away into the energy that had formed it.
"It is a Lost Logia," Raising Heart said. "Energy readings are extremely high. I believe it is very dangerous."
Vista spoke up. "A Protectorate team is on the way," she said. "Dispatch says we keep our distance and make sure no one gets near it." She looked to me. "Would you mind helping us, Gundam Girl?"
I tried not to be annoyed by her calling me that. "That's not my name. But yeah, I'll help."
"Right," Clockblocker said. "You can pick a name later. In the meantime, what's a Lost Logia?"
"Lost Logia are the dangerous and powerful magical items left over from lost civilizations such as Ancient Belka and Al-Hazard," Raising Heart said. "I do not know this one's function, but high energy reaction is increasing."
"Magical items?" Vista asked. She was heading away from us, but she was still close enough to hear Raising Heart, and she actually paused at that. "So you really ARE a magical girl?"
"Of course not!" I said. "I'm a Mage! It's different."
"There's no such thing as Magic," Clockblocker said.
"Magic is the study and practice of the manipulation of the energy known as mana," Raising Heart replied. "Mages wield this energy to accomplish their spells. So in a sense, yes, my Master is a magical girl."
I sighed. "It's not important right now," I said. and I focused on the relevant math, this time using Raising Heart's processing power to make it go faster. "Wide Area Search," I said, charging the equations in my mind with mana; a Midchildan spell circle briefly appeared around me, and then six pink sensor-spheres materialized in the air around me. I sent them to give me a good view of the area from six different angles. "I'll try to keep people from..." I trailed off. Now that I was looking through my sensor spheres as well as my eyes, I could see that we'd drawn a small crowd. Foot traffic was light, thankfully, but people were definitely watching us, and traffic on the road was starting to slow down. Some people in the crowd were filming, too. "Are they really just going to stand there and watch this?" I asked.
Clockblocker shook his head, "Nah. Just the people filming it. The rest will probably run if trouble starts."
I gave Clockblocker a sidelong look. "... would they really just stand there and film it if something bad happened?"
"You have no idea," Clockblocker replied. Then he walked over towards the crowd. "Okay, people, we're going to need you all to move back. Everything's under control for now, but I don't want anyone getting too close!"
I could see Vista doing the same with the small crowd on the other side of the Lost Logia; the bystanders gave ground only reluctantly, and some of them actually seemed annoyed.
The pulses and their associated ripples started to come faster. The light shone both brighter and darker. It was an incremental thing, a slow increase. The sense of increased pressure grew stronger.
"It will become active soon," Raising Heart reported.
That didn't sound good. "What happens if it becomes active?" I asked.
"Unknown."
The crowd moved back a little further, and I met up with Vista and Clockblocker again about 11 meters away from the Lost Logia.
"The Protectorate Team is five minutes out," Vista called as she got close to us.
"Activation threshold will be reached in thirty two seconds," Raising Heart said.
"Sounds like we're in trouble," I said.
"Are you sure your name isn't Captain Obvious?" Clockblocker asked.
The pulses came faster still; the light grew brighter and darker still; rippling concentric rings expanded from the Lost Logia and there was a sound like shards of glass grinding together.
A countdown appeared on the holoscreen. 20 seconds remaining. "Can we stop it from activating?" I asked.
"Yes. But the danger is high, and an aborted activation will preclude the possibility of Sealing for the time being."
"If we can make sure this thing doesn't go off, I think we have to," Clockblocker said, and Vista voiced her agreement soon after.
12 seconds remaining. "If we're going to do something, we need to do it now," I said.
"I'm on it!" Clockblocker said. He starting moving over to the floating Lost Logia; it pulsed again, this time way more violently, and all three of us were knocked off our feet.
Four seconds.
"I don't think it wants you near it, Clock," Vista said. She focused on the floating gem, twisting the space between it and Clockblocker so that Clockblocker wouldn't have to do more than just reach out his arm and touch the thing. "Try it now."
The light became blinding as the Lost Logia passed its activation threshold; Clockblocker reached his arm through Vista's spacial distortion and touched it.
----------------
Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise
1.8 - Stand By. Ready. Set Up.
----------------
Mouth, why must you betray me?
My mouth didn't answer. Clockblocker, however, did, and I could all but hear the smirk in his voice: "Captain Obvious, I presume?"
Vista was staring at me, but I couldn't see her eyes or enough of her face to tell what expression she had.
On the plus side, this was not the most embarrassing thing to have ever happened to me. Minus side: the only thing worse that came to mind was the time Emma and Madison staged a dramatic reading of my Dragon/Dauntless capefic in the school cafeteria. And that's why I don't write capefics anymore. ... I still say Dragon and Dauntless would make a great couple. She's the greatest Tinker in the world; he can improve things by touching them. The story practically wrote itself!
I shook my head. "I'm Gun..." I trailed off. No. I was not using Gundam Girl. "Ze..." I stopped that word before it could fully leave my mouth. Laserdoom? Damn it. "I don't have a name yet," I admitted.
Vista squeed, and Clockblocker and I both snapped our heads around to stare at her. "Oh my God, you're Gundam Girl!" she exclaimed, all but bouncing on her toes. "She's that cape who did a magical-girl transformation and fought Uber and Leet!" She went into a dramatic pose. "The wind is in the sky," she intoned, sounding way more impressive than I had, "The stars are in the heavens, and a resolute heart beats within my chest!" She moved into another pose with suspiciously practiced ease. "Magic is in these hands! Raising Heart," she changed poses again, "Set Up!" She relaxed into a normal stance, giggling. "It was AMAZING! Clockblocker..." and as she spoke the name of her fellow Ward, her joy and enthusiasm was swiftly replaced by a look of dawning realization.
She slowly turned her head to look into where his eyes had to be behind his clock mask. And then, in a tone that was equal parts mortified and warning, she said, "We will never speak of this again."
I had no idea how to react to what just happened. Embarrassment seemed like the go-to, but that wasn't quite right. Embarrassment on behalf of someone else? [Raising Heart, is there a word for being embarrassed on someone else's behalf?]
[Fremdscham,] Raising Heart sent back.
Once again I could practically hear the grin in Clockblocker's voice. "Whatever you say, Vista," he said cheerfully.
[Is that German?]
"Never. Again."
"Absolutely!" Clockblocker confirmed.
[No, Master. It is Ancient Belkan. Do you hear it as German?]
"I mean it!"
[I think so? It sounded German, anyways.]
"Me too," Clockblocker agreed. Then he turned towards me again. "Seriously, though, what were you doing just now?"
[Perhaps it is an artifact of my translation matrix.]
"Wait, can we back up a step?" I asked, and looked at Vista.
Vista blushed. "I, um... I get carried away," she admitted. "Sometimes." Clockblocker held up a finger and presumably opened his mouth. Not that we could see his mouth open. But before he could say a word, Vista was giving him a death glare that was obvious even through her visor.
"Right," I said, deciding that maybe it would be better to change the subject. "Um. What did it look like I was doing?"
Clockblocker tilted his head to the side. "Um, it kind of looked like you were literally playing kick the can with some kind of blaster power."
Vista nodded. "That's what it looked like to me, too," she said.
"I was practicing," I said. I hid my blush by bending down to pick up the can. I held it up once I was standing again; I'd been careful, and it was still mostly pristine despite the repeated impacts. "It's a training exercise for speed and accuracy. The goal is to keep the can in the air for as many consecutive impacts as possible without damaging it. After every increment of ten, you have to go a little bit faster."
"Huh," Clockblocker said. "What's the highest you've gotten?"
"Eighteen in Image Training. Thirteen outside of it. I'm still working on it."
"Hard work and effort must be applied to master magical techniques," Raising Heart said.
I nodded in agreement with Raising Heart. Vista and Clockblocker were staring again. "What?" I asked.
"It talks?" Clockblocker asked.
"She does," I corrected. "If you watched that stupid video, you should already know that."
"But..." Clockblocker began. "She TALKS." Vista made a swiping motion, and Clockblocker let out a startled yelp even though there was no way it could have hit him.
"Don't be an idiot, Clockblocker," Vista said. Then she turned to Raising Heart and grinned. "I'm Vista!" she said. She gestured to her fellow ward, "The dummy here is Clockblocker."
"Hey!"
"Hello," Raising Heart said. "Call me Raising Heart, Vista, an Intelligent Device."
And there was that odd syntax again. Still, I smiled. Maybe this wasn't so bad.
"Nice to meet you, Raising Heart!" Vista said.
There was a flash of light visible through the clouds, and it was wrong. The color wasn't anything I recognized, and that hard alarm bells ringing in my head; if not for the weird color, I would have assumed it was just a flash of lightning or something. I looked up; the cloud layer was very, very high, and there was a rainbow halo around the full moon. "Did you see that?" I asked.
"See wha..." Clockblocker began. "HOLY SHIT!"
Something bright and burning plowed through the thin Cirrostratus cloud layer accompanied by what looked like a thousand shooting stars. A huge plume of fire streamed off it, and it left a trail of smoke in its wake. My jaw dropped open, and I felt very small.
"Meteor..." Vista whispered.
[That's not going to hit here, is it?] I asked Raising Heart.
[Trajectory puts point of impact far to the north and west.]
And so it was. I brought up a holo-window to view the trajectory and estimated site of impact: nowhere near here. According to Raising Heart, it was going to land somewhere near the shore of the Hudson Bay in Quebec.
The sonic boom made us jump, but all three of us would have watched the meteor until it passed out of sight if Raising Heart hadn't suddenly announced, "Protection."
The familiar spell circle sprang up at my feet, and a barrier of pink light snapped into existence directly above us. An instant later something ricocheted loudly off the force shield, and a street light shattered. Something glowing faintly blue fell with the glass. Then came silence.
We stared at each other, none of us immediately knowing what to do.
The blue glow pulsed, and I felt something like the mental equivalent to nails scratching across a chalkboard. There was a sudden and awful discord accompanied by a sense of growing pressure.
Vista was the first to react. She shook off her fear like it had never been there at all, tapped the side of her helmet and said, "Dispatch, this is Vista. We've got an unidentified glowing object of possible tinker origin in front of Arcadia High at 1564 Galileo Boulevard." she glanced up, and the distance between us and the nearest intersection twisted, and suddenly the street signs were easily readable. "Nearest cross street is Kepler."
On my holoscreen, an image of the object appeared; it was a weird blue glowing seed-shaped thing, like a slightly elongated, rounded-edged rhombus. It was only about the size of almond, but it shone with a light that grew paradoxically darker yet no less visible the closer to the core it got, and brighter the closer to the edge. It rose slowly into the air until it was about a meter off the ground, and it pulsed again, this time sending out a ripple of light that expanded outwards in only two dimensions from the floating not!rhombus, at about the same speed as a ripple would spread through a pond. It faded when the radius of the light's circle was just a tiny bit more than 3 meters, and then it pulsed again.
"What do you think it is?" Clockblocker asked.
Every time it pulsed, it was like a chime rang in my brain. I could feel the mana coming off this... whatever it was. "I have no idea," I admitted. I let the Wide Area Search that was combing the city for crimes for me to stop fall away into the energy that had formed it.
"It is a Lost Logia," Raising Heart said. "Energy readings are extremely high. I believe it is very dangerous."
Vista spoke up. "A Protectorate team is on the way," she said. "Dispatch says we keep our distance and make sure no one gets near it." She looked to me. "Would you mind helping us, Gundam Girl?"
I tried not to be annoyed by her calling me that. "That's not my name. But yeah, I'll help."
"Right," Clockblocker said. "You can pick a name later. In the meantime, what's a Lost Logia?"
"Lost Logia are the dangerous and powerful magical items left over from lost civilizations such as Ancient Belka and Al-Hazard," Raising Heart said. "I do not know this one's function, but high energy reaction is increasing."
"Magical items?" Vista asked. She was heading away from us, but she was still close enough to hear Raising Heart, and she actually paused at that. "So you really ARE a magical girl?"
"Of course not!" I said. "I'm a Mage! It's different."
"There's no such thing as Magic," Clockblocker said.
"Magic is the study and practice of the manipulation of the energy known as mana," Raising Heart replied. "Mages wield this energy to accomplish their spells. So in a sense, yes, my Master is a magical girl."
I sighed. "It's not important right now," I said. and I focused on the relevant math, this time using Raising Heart's processing power to make it go faster. "Wide Area Search," I said, charging the equations in my mind with mana; a Midchildan spell circle briefly appeared around me, and then six pink sensor-spheres materialized in the air around me. I sent them to give me a good view of the area from six different angles. "I'll try to keep people from..." I trailed off. Now that I was looking through my sensor spheres as well as my eyes, I could see that we'd drawn a small crowd. Foot traffic was light, thankfully, but people were definitely watching us, and traffic on the road was starting to slow down. Some people in the crowd were filming, too. "Are they really just going to stand there and watch this?" I asked.
Clockblocker shook his head, "Nah. Just the people filming it. The rest will probably run if trouble starts."
I gave Clockblocker a sidelong look. "... would they really just stand there and film it if something bad happened?"
"You have no idea," Clockblocker replied. Then he walked over towards the crowd. "Okay, people, we're going to need you all to move back. Everything's under control for now, but I don't want anyone getting too close!"
I could see Vista doing the same with the small crowd on the other side of the Lost Logia; the bystanders gave ground only reluctantly, and some of them actually seemed annoyed.
The pulses and their associated ripples started to come faster. The light shone both brighter and darker. It was an incremental thing, a slow increase. The sense of increased pressure grew stronger.
"It will become active soon," Raising Heart reported.
That didn't sound good. "What happens if it becomes active?" I asked.
"Unknown."
The crowd moved back a little further, and I met up with Vista and Clockblocker again about 11 meters away from the Lost Logia.
"The Protectorate Team is five minutes out," Vista called as she got close to us.
"Activation threshold will be reached in thirty two seconds," Raising Heart said.
"Sounds like we're in trouble," I said.
"Are you sure your name isn't Captain Obvious?" Clockblocker asked.
The pulses came faster still; the light grew brighter and darker still; rippling concentric rings expanded from the Lost Logia and there was a sound like shards of glass grinding together.
A countdown appeared on the holoscreen. 20 seconds remaining. "Can we stop it from activating?" I asked.
"Yes. But the danger is high, and an aborted activation will preclude the possibility of Sealing for the time being."
"If we can make sure this thing doesn't go off, I think we have to," Clockblocker said, and Vista voiced her agreement soon after.
12 seconds remaining. "If we're going to do something, we need to do it now," I said.
"I'm on it!" Clockblocker said. He starting moving over to the floating Lost Logia; it pulsed again, this time way more violently, and all three of us were knocked off our feet.
Four seconds.
"I don't think it wants you near it, Clock," Vista said. She focused on the floating gem, twisting the space between it and Clockblocker so that Clockblocker wouldn't have to do more than just reach out his arm and touch the thing. "Try it now."
The light became blinding as the Lost Logia passed its activation threshold; Clockblocker reached his arm through Vista's spacial distortion and touched it.
- Location
- norway
Can you imagine the QA shard landing on earth instead of the outside earths dimension thing? Imagine that it became a magical girl/shard
Trooper1023
Look, sir! Droids!
- Location
- NYC USA
This. This made my day.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
You're not supposed to cross the streams. Didn't I tell you not to cross the streams? What did I tell you would happen if you cross the streams? Total photonic reversal, that's right. So why did you still cross the streams?
*Sigh*. Clockblocker...
The Jewel Seeds are basically wish-granting devices, though. They just... happen to be very difficult to control. I wonder what wish CB has that will be awfully granted?
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
His dad got cancer that plus a monkey paw wish that usually creates monsters is more than enough nightmare fuel.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
They provide power, a modicum of safety features, and can be used by someone with no linker core at all (probably). They're power tools, meant to only be used by experts. Clockblocker is probably doomed.
(Safety features? Well, yes. For all their power, the jewel seeds never once hurt their most inexpert users in any serious manner, and given that some of those scenes bordered on body horror and one of those users was a _cat_... They're pretty safe, all things considered.)