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Whatever Happened to Ala Alba?; A Distant Future Story
Topic Started: Mar 19 2013, 06:22 PM (310 Views)
OverMaster
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Oboy. Whee.

Five-Man Band.

Quote:
 
"What the hell do you mean you snuck into Library Is-- MMMMPPPHHH!" Sanzenin Madoka couldn't finish the sentence before the much taller and stronger Ishii Hazuki covered her mouth from behind.

Hinomori Misato grinned widely, unfolding the wrapping around the dusty, yellowed tome with no covers, exposing it to her classmates' eyes. "Yep! I found this after a lot of searching! Most of the books are useless now, nothing but dust between rotten covers, but this one was very carefully wrapped and packaged! So much I saw it easily even under the--"

"That isn't the point!" the busty and bespectacled Hanagata Miyuki, one of the few girls in the class to tolerate Misato's quirks, hissed with a pointer finger on her own lips. "Are you flippin' insane? Library Island is barricaded and about to crumble down on itself! You could have fallen down a chasm in there, broken your neck, and died alone there! What were you thinking?"

Barahime Mimi, the fifth girl in the room, chewed her gum noisily, scratching her nose. "I heard that old place is full of traps an' stuff from before the Wars. They say even some soldiers who went there once didn't make it back. I think you're bullshitin' us. You surely found that thing under your Grandma's bed!"

"Eh, I found some traps, but most of them were so ancient they had stopped working," Misato said before rolling one of her socks down, revealing a huge fresh red mark. "But one of them gave me this scratch! Cool, huh?"

Miyuki grimaced. "Misato-chan! What the hell! If that gets infected, you'll die in no time! I can't understand how you can be so casual about it..."

"Forget that! What doesn't kill us makes us stronger!" the short blonde waved a hand at her. "And any risk is worth taking for the sake of research! Look at this!" she beckoned them closer, showing them the faded pages of the book, which were stuffed with all sorts of old pictures, most of them of young females. "I think it's some sort of school journal, but there are all sorts of cool pictures of fantastic beasts and stuff."

Hazuki frowned, scratching her long red hair. "What does it say there? I can't read it."

"Ya moron, that's Japanese from centuries ago. Ya couldn't read it even if the printing wasn't so crappy and you weren't as bad even at current Japanese," Madoka insulted her as it was her custom.

And as it was her own custom, Hazuki threatened Madoka with a fist. "Say that again and I'll teach you who's the moron here!"

"I don't need being taught, I already know well!"

Miyuki hushed them before frowning. "Maybe Hotoko-sensei would know, but even so..."

"Are ya the crazy one now?" Mimi snorted. "The Teach would report Misato here to the Discipline Commitee as soon as she knew she went into Library Island. We'll be lucky if we see her again then." Beat. "Or not."

"Funny," Misato humphed.

"Thank you," Mimi shrugged carelessly. "But ya know, if ya could sell this, ya'd make a mint, Mis. Even if it isn't that old, well, even things from the Second War are worth a fortune!"

Misato hugged the book posessively. "Selling my priceless finding? Never! It belongs to all mankind, and to me above all! And I'm not even lending it away until I know what's written here!"

Misato carefully examined a group of thirty one pictures of girls in what looked like a class roster. She managed to make the number and the Western letter on top of it. "I think this is a '3-A', guys."

"3-A? Like our own class? Now that's creepy," Madoka said, managing to sound completely bored regardless.

"Creepy? Try cool! Very exciting!" Misato squealed in glee. "It's as if this was determined by fate itself! Let's go find some old dictionaries and translate this!"

"Only Juliet could have dictionaries for something like this, and even that's a huge maybe," Miyuki hummed. "Remember, old Japanese has been as dead as disco for more than--"

"Well, then let's just stop wasting time here and head for Juliet's!" Misato hurried them, reaching for the door handle of her room, where she had summoned the others to tell them of her finding.

"I thought you and Juliet didn't talk anymore?" asked Miyuki.

"I'm willing to eat some crow for something like this! Come on, come on, slowpokes! Move those butts!" Misato laughed, running off as fast as she could.

"Nut," Madoka muttered.

"Yeah, pretty much," Mimi agreed with a dry nod. She scratched her nose and sneezed. "She didn't even dust the damn thing off."
Edited by OverMaster, Mar 19 2013, 06:25 PM.
What is the point anymore?
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OverMaster
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Oboy. Whee.

The Sixth Ranger.

Quote:
 
Most of Juliet D'Aguillon's house was as normal as they came. Juliet's mother, an overweight but kind and soft spoken woman who just happened to have a funny accent, would greet you, stuff your mouth with exotic snacks, show you her latest acquisitions in plants, Juliet's father would nod at you from behind his newspaper, and the house itself was, if anything, plain looking.

But once you walked into Juliet's room, you walked into a bizarre world of mix and match mysticism. Most of the iconology between those four walls was Haitian, especially related to voodoo, but there also were trinkets and imagery of (supposed) Celtic, Arabian, Chinese and African origins, as long as they looked 'magical' enough.

Madoka kept looking at a dead frog kept in a jar. Through the latest thirteen months, Juliet had been keeping it there in an ongoing experiment to reanimate it as an undead frog, but so far she only had managed to prevent it from rotting down. It was a difficult proccess, since every time any of the formulas she injected into it failed, Juliet would have to drain them out carefully, until nothing was left inside, so they wouldn't interfere with future injections.

Of course, Juliet could have tried to get herself another frog if only frogs weren't all but extinct now. That one had been brought by her uncle overseas.

"No luck with Kero-chan yet, I see..." Madoka mused, tapping on the crystal finger with a finger.

"Break it and you join her," Juliet dryly threatened, flipping another page of Misato's book carefully with her favorite set of pincers. She had an old Ancient Japanese dictionary at her left. "Interesting. Truly, Lady Luck smiles upon the fools. I had heard about the legend of Springfield, but to find evidence of his existence..."

"Springfield?" Miyuki asked. "Like in The Simpsons?"

Even after three wars that almost had destroyed mankind, and the slow and painful rebuild of civilization, they had never stopped The Simpsons. A truly frightening thought.

"Don't be stupid," Juliet said harshly. "It's a legend from before the First War. You know all the fairy tales about how the First War was fought between mankind and magical creatures, right?"

"Oh, please," Barahime Mimi snorted.

"Closed minds can think whatever they want," the dark skinned tall girl replied, "But the echoes from the past are often deceiving. After the First War, it's been said magical beings and humans reached peace through the sacrifice of a paladin named Nagi Springfield, although he's mentioned here as 'Negi', apparently. His and his comrades', actually. If this book is to be believed, most of those comrades were actually women."

"For real?" asked Misato, visibly impressed. "But they just look around our age!"

Juliet nodded. "The pages that have been preserved mostly narrate of their early years. There's a huge portion missing after they graduate from high school, however. After that, the text only restarts with their ultimate fates. Most of them weren't pretty. Or that's what I can read, at least. Old Japanese is very trick. How did they memorize all those signs?"

"You mean they starting adventuring when they were our age?" Misato was almost euphoric now.

Juliet nodded. "So it seems. Lucky stiffs. Regardless, long after the First War, and after most of these girls' demises, the Second War came along and wiped all magical beings from the world. The Third one was fought between humans for control of what remained, and so, it's basically the only one that has been well documented enough."

"Yeah, sure, the first two Wars were fought between tanks and flying unicorns that spat fire. Whatever," Madoka mocked her. Hazuki slapped her on the back of the head. "Hey! Watch out, Gorilla Girl!"

Juliet flipped back to the first few pages and the class roster on it. "The book is signed by one... Ah-ya-see Yue, although I might be botching the pronounciation. It'd seem she was this girl here," and she pointed to a blurry picture of a girl with braids. "Most troubling, however, is this one," and she pointed to a dark skinned and black haired girl on the next page. "Her family name reads, if I'm getting it right, 'Tatsumiya'."

"And?" asked Madoka.

"Doesn't she kind of look like Midori?"

The girls took a closer look.

"Well, now that you mention it..." Miyuki said.

"Midori's family has looked after the local shrine for generations, or so they say," Hazuki hummed. "Don't you think they may be..."

Misato grinned. "Well, only one way to know it, don't you think?"

Madoka facepalmed. "Oh God, not again. Weren't we going to the movies tonight?"
What is the point anymore?
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rikalous
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Creature of the Deep

Ah, I love a good And Man Grew Proud story.

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Even after three wars that almost had destroyed mankind, and the slow and painful rebuild of civilization, they had never stopped The Simpsons. A truly frightening thought.
Snerk.
Let's Watch Nanoha
Wits, magic, and hardboiled monologues.
My other claims to fame.
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Shadow Crystal Mage
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OVERLORD OF ALL CRACK!

Terrifying. Fortunately, Looney Tunes also survived, as did Monty Python. Star Trek was thought to be an actual religion, and today it's worshipers can be found everywhere, wearing pointy ears and wishing everyone would live long and prosper. Jar-Jar is the devil.
I AM THE OVERLORD OF ALL CRACK!!!!!!
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Archivist10
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So, Star Wars and Star Trek have gotten mixed up?
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