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Magical Detective Ayase Yue; Someone had to write it
Topic Started: May 28 2012, 11:34 PM (1,774 Views)
rikalous
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Creature of the Deep

Here's the first bit of Magical Detective Ayase Yue, unless I come up with something better to title it.

Quote:
 
In Which There is Hard-Boiled Exposition

The sky was the color of a digital television tuned to a dead channel, and the sun plodded across the sky with the joyless determination of someone beginning to realize that slow and steady won very few races in the real world. My office smelled of a mixture of ozone, desperation, and my orange-and-curry-flavored drinks. To a stranger, that might sound like an awful reek, but to me it was homey, like the nicotine odor of a hobbit-hole. Nevertheless, I was about to exit the fragrant premises at the behest of someone willing to pay good money for my discerning intellect and atrophied sense of self-preservation. My name's Ayase Yue. I'm a private eye.

Experience is a strict teacher, fond of throwing chalk. It had long since taught me that when life doesn't deviate from your plans, it means you're walking into an ambush or dancing on puppet strings. That said, I can usually get through “Step 1: Egress place of business” before the monkeys bring their wrenches. The fact that the wrench came in the form of a dame was rather less surprising.

“Hello? Detective? I'd like your help with something.”

She had long, toned legs fit for an athlete or a dancer, displayed to perfection by her long boots and short skirt. She had big black eyes, pits you'd get lost in without a trace if you leaned in too close. She had hair the same color, an uncommon sight in Mahora, topped by even rarer cat ears. I knew her. Even with the little time I'd seen her, long years ago, I could recognize her. I may never have seen those lovely long limbs covered with that lovely black hair, or those caliginous eyes turn to gold, but our acquaintance had been...memorable enough.

“You're...Koyomi, right? Or you called yourself that when you worked with Fate.” I noticed her tensing when I said his name, going from the same kind of nervous most folks have when they first walk into my office to bowstring tight for a moment. Either she hates him and hates to hear his name or she loves him still and hates me saying it. “I only have a few minutes before I need to get going, but if you let me know what you need my help with I can at least tell you if it's the sort of thing that I do.”

“Me and a few others from Cosmo Entelechia are working on recreating the Libri Sibyllini. We came here because we heard your library has a fragment of it. As long as we were here, we thought we'd do a little sightseeing. It's a beautiful campus. As we were crossing a certain rooftop, we all started feeling sick and weak at once. The feeling went away after we'd walked a bit, and after we spent a little time checking things we figured out that we only felt weird when we were standing in one specific spot. It's marked on this map, ” she said, unfolding said item and handing it to me.

“Interesting, ” I said, tone and face and slouch all putting the lie to my word. “I'll check it out sometime after I deal with this case for the school. Oh, who else is with you? In case I need to ask you all for further details, you understand.”

“Besides me, there's Bri- er, Shirabe is how you'd know her, Tamaki, Homura, and Cassandra. She's a naiad, and she was one of Master Fate's orphans but never a fighter.” Master Fate, huh? Guess it's love after all.

Now, I have not always risen to my full scholastic potential, but none have claimed that I am incapable of basic arithmetic since I was halfway through the first grade. I could tell that something didn't add up. The story itself I neither believed nor doubted just yet, obviously rehearsed though it was. My suspicions were aroused by something else entirely, and I figured my best shot at satisfying them would come from shaking my guest until something fell out.

“So Shiori or Luna or whatever she goes by now couldn't make it, huh? Guess she had better things to do than hang around a bunch of has-beens stuck in weak artificial bodies, huh?”

“Don't you talk about my friend like that.” Her fists were clenched and her voice heated. It was a start.

“You know, Master Fate could probably sort out your little weirdness no problem if hadn't ditched you all years ago. That's rough, the way you got punished and he and Shiori didn't because they stabbed you in the back ten seconds before Negi won.”

“Shut up! Master Fate and Shiori fought hard for us! That's the only reason we were allowed to walk free at all!” Her knuckles were white, her decibel levels had made a jump upwards, and she'd gone into that head forward, shoulders up stance some folks think makes them look tough. If she had a tail, she'd have been lashing it. Come to Mama.

“No kidding? Guess there's some honor among terrorists after all.”

“WE ARE NOT TERRORISTS! WE WERE FIGHTING TO SAVE THE WORLD WHILE YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS WERE WHINING ABOUT SCHOOLWORK, AND I WILL NO-”

I cut her off with a thunderclap, courtesy of an unincanted spell I'm fond of. It's a mere parlor trick, without the force to rattle the glass on my desk, but it does get people's attention.

“Why did they send you, Koyomi?”

“What?”

“They sent you to ask an old enemy for help. Not Shirabe, the one Fate trusted to perform the ritual with Asuna. Not Tamaki, who never loses her cool. Not this Cassandra chick who never attacked me or my friends. You. What makes Miss Angry Kitty the best spokesman, huh?”

She took a moment to collect herself, chewing her lips and looking everywhere but me. Either she was a terrible liar trying to come up with a decent or a brilliant one trying to appear terrible. I figured the first, since if it was the second I might as well resign myself to bamboozlement. I let her get as far as “ ” before letting loose the thunderclap again.

“That's a lie and you know it!” I roared. “Now tell me the truth!”

“We know you like beastgirls!” Koyomi blurted.

“What.”

It looked like all the blood in her body was having a get-together in her face and she was toeing the ground like a kid getting lectured about breaking the expensive vase. “We, uh, heard about you and those girls from Ariadne, and we thought you'd be more likely to help us if it was me that asked you.”

That was too inane and insulting to be taken as anything other than the absolute truth. I knew about those rumors. Between my close relationships with Colette and Emily and the minor celebrity I'd gained as part of Ala Alba, they were inevitable. I'd just never expected my old enemies to try to weaponize tabloid gossip. If Koyomi was lying right then, I would consider it an honor to be cozened by such a master. For a moment, I could only stare silently and marvel. “Look, I really do have a case I should have already left for, from someone who didn't start out with some clumsy manipulation and never attacked me or my friends.” The second part of that is both absolutely true and a bald-faced lie, but I had no interest in getting into that with the catgirl right then. “Why don't you just step out of my office so I can lock up. I'll check out your weird hot spot later tonight, and if you drop by tomorrow, I'll either tell you that I can deal with it or direct you to someone who can. Or let you know that it was all nothing, or that it's a sign the Great Old Ones are going to eat us all, or whatever. Sound fair?”

She nodded and bolted. No wonder. That last revelation must have been about as pleasant to relate as it was to hear. I locked the locks both mundane and magical, and took off towards my patient contact with a fair turn of speed myself.


Yue's contact is Illusion Loli, who tried to capture the proto-Ala Alba in Chao's Broken Masquerade timeline. She's currently the second-youngest teacher in Mahora history, and the rough equivalent to Karrin Murphy, the cop who works with Harry Dresden.
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Darkenning
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Cool!
"Hello! I'm Rurin, the Magical Mouse! My favorite food is cheese! My favorite pastimes are tormenting cats and facilitating romance! I have the power to bind the souls of guys who mistreat women to the depths of hell and subject them to everlasting karmic suffering! Isn't that cute? Pleased to meet you!" -- Rurin, the Magical Mouse, Magical Patissiere Kosaki-chan.
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And it's right about time they did.

Ha. Nobody will guess what I'm quoting. Regardless, thumbs up.
rikalous wrote
 
Yes I am. I said I would, and I hate going back on my word. IANCE, you pustulating whoreson, I am going to find you when this is over. They will make a torture porn movie about your death, and they will have to tone it down to maintain suspension of disbelief.

Shadow Crystal Mage wrote
 
There there. Go do evil things in the name of the government to feel better.


There Be Whales Here
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rikalous
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Original version, recorded for posterity.
Quote:
 
In Which There is Magical Detecting

I alighted from my staff and sprinted the final stretch to the engineering building, so as to appear properly winded in my apologies. Nijūin Rina, the person who would actually be paying me, would forgive much, but the Robot Engineering Club members loitering about were a different story. I expected theater to be the better part of not having the road in front of my office mined. Granted, the traps would be nonlethal by the club's liberal standards, but having potential customers spending money on hospital bills rather than my fee would be very bad for business.

Rina was the daughter of another mage teacher, and the second-youngest teacher in Mahora history. She had a rather inflated opinion of me dating back to our first meeting, where I was able to identify her as an illusion specialist and explain how I would escape if she tried to trap me in one. For some reason, explaining that I had the advantage of her due to chronal shenanigans tied up with a thwarted plot to reveal magic to the blinkered masses failed to remove the stars from her eyes. Ah well. I knew she'd see me tumble off that pedestal sooner or later if I hung around.

In the meantime, I was her go-to gal for identifying the culprits in things like Mahora's intermittent inter-club warfare. The students usually stuck to things like shouted insults, thrown produce, and the occasional light brawl. This time, some enterprising soul had turned one of the walls of the Robot Engineering Club room into a brand-new entrance you could drive a decent-sized mech through.

Once my contrition was judged sufficient by those present, I took a quick nip from my hip flask. My specialty concoction provides an all-around enhancement to my sensory abilities and a pleasant strawberry-pepper aftertaste. The increased glare, din, and reek of the world at large that comes with the drink seemed a little less excruciating than I remembered. I idly wondered if I'd been using it enough to build up a resistance before focusing on the actual job I could get paid for. The cornucopia of scents I was now privy to included sweat, oil, ozone, and a variety of caffeinated drinks. I could also smell black powder and a few more exotic explosive compounds, but at fairly low levels. That and the lack of scorch marks told me the job had been done with brute force, rather than bombs. That meant I could take the Chemistry Club off my list, and move the Strolling Club ninjas farther down. With the streets too narrow here to maneuver a tank, I could rule out the Military Research Club as well. Turning my attention to the scattered debris, I found scrape marks. Some sort of tool or claw then, rather than just a spell or chi technique. The scrape marks yielded something that had never been wall to my probing brush, and a quick test confirmed that the particles were once part of something magical. Only a handful of the school clubs possessed magic weapons or the resources to summon monsters, even in Mahora.

“Got all I can from here, ” I told Rina and the passel of unsubtle eavesdroppers. “Lemme see what I can get from the room.” I got quite a lot from the room, as it happened. Fingerprints, footprints, strands of hair and all manner of other Clues. Unfortunately, it all looked standard human, so I'd need a DNA lab to suss out the owners of the hair, and a great deal of patience to figure out what Clues were left by who, and whether or not they were supposed to be there. The only DNA lab on campus belonged to the rival Bioengineering Club and was thus out of the question, and while I have the patience of a tortoise Go champion, I doubted my clients would be equally sanguine. A shame my quarry hadn't been thoughtful enough to leave a signed note implicating themselves. It's hard to get a decent phantom thief these days. “Was there anything taken? It looks like there's still a bunch of widgets and full robots here, and nothing looks vandalized.”

A girl who looked to be in the tail end of high school swept up to me from the crowd of loiterers. She wore cat-eye glasses, short green hair, and the expression of a queen condescending to speak to the royal rat-catcher. “I am the Club President, ” she deigned to inform me. “The thieves didn't take much, really. Just a couple of old powered armor suits and an early iteration of the 'Damn Gun' mech, all from before we started etheric tech. Plus the locators for those items, which is why we have to turn to your parlor tricks instead of finding them ourselves.” Prof couldn't have invented etheric tech without standing on the shoulders of a long line of mages studying “parlor tricks, ” you twit. Magic is magic, whatever you call it. I briefly considered contacting Hakase to have her tell this upstart the same thing with more jargon and much greater length, but as usual my sloth overwhelmed my spite.

“Thanks, Pres. That helps narrow it down.” The Occult and Fortune-telling Clubs wouldn't have much interest in the nonmagical machines, and the militant faction of the History Club would have purged more technology. It was probably one of the art clubs purloining them in a fit of esthetic avarice. I turned to face the general mass of roboticists. “There are just a few clubs that could reasonably be behind this, and a handful more that could be unreasonably be behind it. It's too late in the evening to interrogate them tonight-”

“And whose fault is that?” called a malcontent slouching on the edge of the group.

“Her name's Koyomi, she never went here, find her if you want to yell at someone. In the meantime, trust me, I'm a professional, justice will be done and you'll get your stuff back soon. Just don't go haring off after anyone you think probably did it, because that'll just lead to more fighting and Ms. Rina being sad.” Nobody wanted that. Rina has a set of puppy dog eyes better than most genuine puppies. “If you have suspicions or any other information that might be relevant, talk to the faculty about it or drop by during my office hours. Any questions?” There were none. As I left, the club members were hashing out who would be on what shifts to protect the unexpectedly remodeled room until it could be repaired.

As for me, I had to figure out what abnormality had Koyomi worried, and how much I could justifiably charge for it.


Revised version.
Quote:
 
In Which There is Magical Detecting

I alighted from my staff and sprinted the final stretch to the engineering building, so as to appear properly winded in my apologies. Nijūin Rina, the person who would actually be paying me, would forgive much, but the Robot Engineering Club members loitering about were a different story. I expected theater to be the better part of not having the road in front of my office mined. Granted, the traps would be nonlethal by the club's liberal standards, but having potential customers spending money on hospital bills rather than my fee would be very bad for business.

Rina was the daughter of another mage teacher, and the second-youngest teacher in Mahora history. She had a rather inflated opinion of me dating back to our first meeting, where I was able to identify her as an illusion specialist and explain how I would escape if she tried to trap me in one. For some reason, explaining that I had the advantage of her due to chronal shenanigans tied up with a thwarted plot to reveal magic to the blinkered masses failed to remove the stars from her eyes. Kids these days. So easily impressed.

In the meantime, I was her go-to gal for identifying the culprits in things like Mahora's intermittent inter-club warfare. The students usually stuck to things like shouted insults, thrown produce, and the occasional light brawl. This time, some enterprising soul had turned one of the walls of the Robot Engineering Club room into a brand-new entrance you could drive a decent-sized mech through.

Once my contrition was judged sufficient by those present, I took a quick nip from my hip flask. My specialty concoction provides an all-around enhancement to my sensory abilities and a pleasant strawberry-pepper aftertaste. The increased glare, din, and reek of the world at large that comes with the drink seemed a little less excruciating than I remembered. I idly wondered if I'd been using it enough to build up a resistance before focusing on the actual job I could get paid for. Turning my attention to the scattered debris, I found scrape marks. Some sort of tool or claw then, rather than just a spell or chi technique. The scrape marks yielded something that had never been wall to my probing brush, and a quick test confirmed that the particles were once part of something magical.  That meant magical weapons or summoned monsters. That could be a couple of the occult clubs, most of the art clubs, the History Club, or the damn Strolling Club. It could always be the Strolling Club. They knew enough ninjutsu and old-school ninja philosophy that damn near anything could be the Strolling Club trying to shift the blame to someone else, and it was all Kaede's fault for teaching them. Just goes to show that anyone who won't open their eyes will be trouble.

“Got all I can from here,” I told Rina and the passel of unsubtle eavesdroppers. “Lemme see what I can get from the room.” I got quite a lot from the room, as it happened. Fingerprints, footprints, strands of hair and all manner of other Clues. Unfortunately, it all looked standard human, and if I had the resources to suss out what belonged to who and whether they should be there, I wouldn't need the money from this job. A shame my quarry hadn't been thoughtful enough to leave a signed note implicating themselves. It's hard to get a decent phantom thief these days. “Was there anything taken? It looks like there's still a bunch of widgets and full robots here, and nothing looks vandalized.”

A girl who looked to be in the tail end of high school swept up to me from the crowd of loiterers. She wore cat-eye glasses, short green hair, and the expression of a queen condescending to speak to the royal rat-catcher. “I am the Club President,” she deigned to inform me. “The thieves didn't take much, really. Just a couple of old powered armor suits and an early iteration of the 'Damn Gun' mech, all from before we started etheric tech. Plus the locators for those items, which is why we have to turn to your parlor tricks instead of finding them ourselves.” Prof couldn't have invented etheric tech without standing on the shoulders of a long line of mages studying “parlor tricks,” you twit. Magic is magic, whatever you call it. I briefly considered contacting Hakase to have her tell this upstart the same thing with more jargon and much greater length, but as usual my sloth overwhelmed my spite.

“Thanks, Pres. That helps narrow it down.” The Occult and Fortune-telling Clubs wouldn't have much interest in the nonmagical machines, and the militant faction of the History Club would have purged more technology. It was probably one of the art clubs purloining them in a fit of esthetic avarice. I turned to face the general mass of roboticists. “There are just a few clubs that could reasonably be behind this, and a handful more that could be unreasonably be behind it. It's too late in the evening to interrogate them tonight-”

“And whose fault is that?” called a malcontent slouching on the edge of the group.

“Her name's Koyomi, she never went here, find her if you want to yell at someone. In the meantime, trust me, I'm a professional, justice will be done and you'll get your stuff back soon. Just don't go haring off after anyone you think probably did it, because that'll just lead to more fighting and Ms. Rina being sad.” Nobody wanted that. Rina has a set of puppy dog eyes better than most genuine puppies. “If you have suspicions or any other information that might be relevant, talk to the faculty about it or drop by during my office hours. Any questions?” There were none. As I left, the club members were hashing out who would be on what shifts to protect the unexpectedly remodeled room until it could be repaired.

As for me, I had to figure out what abnormality had Koyomi worried, and how much I could justifiably charge for it.


Not every Mahora school club contains a member or members who can personally ruin the day of any normal human. There's also the Cooking Club, which relies on mercenaries hired using the Chao Bao Zi's funds, and the Beautification Club, which remains unmolested because attacking them is like winning a boxing match against someone with two broken arms.
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Anonymous
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Dresden File/Negima Fusion?

Who's going to be the Thomas to Yue's Harry?

Who will be the Susan to Yue's Harry?

Where are Eva, Fate and Negi?

Why do I keep asking so many questions?

Should I go out for sushi or eat spaghetti?
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Hyp3rB14d3
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Actually, Magical Detective Ayase Yue is based on chapter 354 of the Mahou Sensei Negima manga, which followed the detective Ayase Yue seven years after the rest of the series.
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Anonymous
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Hyp3rB14d3
Jun 11 2012, 06:24 PM
Actually, Magical Detective Ayase Yue is based on chapter 354 of the Mahou Sensei Negima manga, which followed the detective Ayase Yue seven years after the rest of the series.

I know where it came from, but since it was mentioned there was a Murphy for Yue, I figured there were some Dresden elements thrown in.
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rikalous
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Creature of the Deep

To answer your questions:

Not really. I'm just ripping off the basic Dresden plot structure and possibly making some references later.

Probably nobody.

Probably nobody.

Fate and Negi are off working on Project Blue Mars. Eva travels a lot, frequently dropping in on Negi or Nagi without warning. They're mainly busy keeping their absurd power levels away from Yue's activities.

Because you have a thirst for knowledge. This will either aid you in your life's journey, or get you eaten by a Shoggoth.

Flip a coin.
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rikalous
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Creature of the Deep

Quote:
 
In Which There Are Answers and Questions

I have always found that when investigating an unknown element, it's best to go in armed for bear. Cyborg, spell-casting bear with a black belt in three different martial arts who hates you. The same applies when going anywhere on the say-so of an old enemy. Or doing anything more hazardous than going to the corner store in a crime-free neighborhood, and even that might be pushing it a bit. There are precious few stories about some sap who took a trip down the river Styx because he packed too much gun.

Besides my trusty moon-tipped staff, I carried a brace of fearsome and eldritch brews that would give me the strength to carry on, but could break the spirit of the unwary imbiber. Mixed in with them were some genuine magic potions, to enhance my normally unintimidating stats. In my pockets were a handful of dragon's tooth soldiers, because only a rank amateur discounts the value of an instant numerical advantage. Topping off the list was a card that would transform into an Ariadne-style broadsword with a shout of “Adeat,” because I like to keep all my nostalgia in one place. It ain't exactly Al-Iskandariya, but then the Satellite of Love was decommissioned early on in Negi's negotiations.

The school was deserted by all but the sun, red as a drunkard's nose, when I flew over to take a gander at Koyomi's anomaly. As the rooftop marked on the map came into view, I took a swig from what was normally my hip flask, and returned it to the pocket inside my hat, where my other potables had displaced it. The suspicious summit looked entirely unremarkable from up here. I'd need a closer look.

The unremarkableness stunningly failed to dissipate upon said closer look. Nor did it vanish as I warily circled the designated area like the beginnings of a one-woman dogfight. Although...as I crossed west of the supposed anomaly, a few centimeters of the far end of my shadow seemed to vanish. Now that did pique my interest. As I stepped forward, more of my shadow disappeared, and I realized that this foreshortening was due to what appeared to be a column, about five meters in diameter, made up of scattered points of light. It must have been effectively invisible in the daylight, in the same way turning on a lamp in a bright room doesn't make it brighter. With evening well on its way to night, the contrast was greater, and the column easier discerned. It worried me that my potion-enhanced eyes hadn't registered it earlier. I supposed I really was building up a resistance to my liquid friend.

At any rate, now that I had determined that the anomaly was, in fact, anomalous, it fell upon me to investigate it using the most time-honored method. I poked it with my stick. Nothing happened. Well, Kyomi and company had walked through and apparently come out right as rain. I took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Blind. Deaf. Numb. Whatever you call it when you can't smell anything. My sensory boost went from full power to nothing fast as a bullet hits your gut. I hadn't felt so vulnerable, so weak, so like a mouse in the silent shadow of an owl since we took down the Lifemaker. Spinning to look all around me, I threw a handful of dragon's teeth to the ground as I spoke the melody of battle. The teeth remained inert, the melody impotent as my training shouted down my panic and reminded me to check the skies for danger. I looked up, and saw-

Asuna. In the sky. At least her head, viewed as through a window. Right in the center of the column. Asuna's head was not supposed to be in the sky. Not this sky, anyway. None of her was. She was off with Negi and Ayaka and Fate doing important things somewhere else that was not the sky. If she was going to be in the sky she would have told me. I'd checked my mail just yesterday, so I couldn't have missed a letter. I'd seen pictures and video with her and Shiori in the same shot, so it couldn't be that again. What in the name of every god and half the devils was Asuna doing in the sky?

My frozen bewilderment was interrupted by a rather redundant command of “Don't move!” Naturally, I moved, at least enough to see who was ordering me about. It seemed to be a girl of about fifteen, standing about half a meter inside the column of what I now suspected was Magic Cancel, with a blonde ponytail and a beauty mark under her left eye. That, and the rest of her head, were the only bits that showed above what I figured to be one of the Robot Club's missing powered armor suits (I love it when two cases I'm working turn out to be the same case. It's such fun get paid twice for one spot of detecting.), and the double-barelled guns mounted on both fists were pointed directly at me. “Stay right where you are!” she emphasized, a touch shakily. “I will shoot you if you move.”

She probably seen me coming, and waited until I entered the Magic Cancel so she'd have the advantage. Beauty Mark seemed inexperienced, but not fool enough to prioritize some reckless notion of “honor” or a “fair fight” over winning. I approved. Only the overpowered could afford to fight “honorably.” In fact, I approved so thoroughly I was willing to offer her a demonstration of quality dishonorable fighting, free of charge. I threw my hat high and to the right. As expected, her eyes and guns followed the distraction as I charged at her, low and towards the left. Beauty Mark turned back to me soon enough to throw down her armored arms to block a left-handed staff thrust to her equally armored groin, leaving her face wide open for a spray of orange-curry juice from my right hand. She shrieked and opened fire at me. I'm not the world's largest target, but it's hard to miss at that range. Two rubber bullets slammed into my stomach and left thigh, two into my right arm and shoulder. I staggered, and she let fly four more right into my center of mass before I could recover. I dropped, and she hit me in the back with another barrage while I lay there, and then one more just to be sure. Pragmatic girl. I'd probably like her if she stopped shooting me.

Beauty Mark removed a gauntlet so that her now unencumbered hand could relieve me of my staff, my drinks, my remaining dragon's teeth, my occult-looking card, and my phone. She stepped over me, and I could hear her collect the teeth I'd tried to use earlier, before taking off somewhere with her spoils.

As I forced my battered body to stand, I couldn't suppress a grin. For one thing, Beauty Mark taking the trouble to frisk me for my magic items told me that they would resume functioning once I was out of this thrice-cursed Magic Cancel field, which laid one niggling worry to rest. For another, Beauty Mark was as ignorant in her own way about the point of combat as the most honor-bound twit. The point of fighting isn't to win. It's to accomplish your objectives. Sometimes, your objectives coincide with victory. Other times, you just need to spray your opponent in the face with something pungent, and keep her from confiscating the sense-boosting potion in your hat. A few bruises weren't going to prevent me from tracking Beauty Mark's orange-curry scent back to her hideout, but they should make our next meeting just a little more satisfying.
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rikalous
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Quote:
 
In Which There is a Pleasant Conversation

Many people, many really quite fortunate and sensible people, don't have much of a vocabulary to deal with pain. They can go through life quite satisfied with describing all their injuries and maladies as “hurting.” It is left to those of us who know pain with greater intimacy than a few casual flings to describe her with the proper poetry. There is “ache,” the gentlest pain and the one most often welcomed. “Throb,” sweeping in and out to ensure she never becomes too familiar to be attended to. “Twinge,” small yet vigorous. “Smart,” the fiercest one of all. The potion I was using to track Beauty Mark's scent enhanced my ability to feel them as much as my other senses, and all were enthusiastically making themselves known.

Unpleasant and faintly masochistic as it may sound, contemplating this sort of diction and how it applied to my current state kept my mind off of bringing horrific and creative vengeance upon Beauty Mark when I got my hands on her. I had friends among the Mahora faculty who would be certain to become unbearably cross with me if I did so. I was fairly certain there were also some moral issues restricting the amount of harm one was supposed to deal to teenagers who used nonlethal weaponry, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what they were.

Lost in those ruminations, even with my enhanced senses I only noticed Beauty Mark's return when I heard her gasp. I looked up at her, noting with a certain amount of trepidation that she was holding a roll of duct tape and two pairs of handcuffs in her bare right hand, and that the guns on her gauntleted right were aimed directly at me. She looked to be suffering from an equal amount of trepidation and much less experience keeping it bottled up, so I gave her my best calming smile and slowly lifted my open hands in a gesture of peacefulness. If I were Negi Springfield, that might have done it, green as she was. Then again, he might have needed to kiss her before she spilled everything she knew and most of what she guessed. Of course, to Negi Springfield a loss of magic is just a demotion from an anti-army weapon to anti-infantry. I'm not Negi Springfield. My way involves deceit, followed by strong-arming.

“You made excellent time, you know,” I told her, sunny as midsummer. “I wasn't expecting you for a good seventy-three seconds. Let's do this properly, this time. My name's Ayase Yue, of Ala Alba.”

“Yeah, I know. Uh, I mean, I'm Inoue Nanaho, of the Tea Ceremony Club.” Tea Ceremony Club? Armed guards weren't their style. They were more likely to slip you anything from a laxative to a hallucinogen if you crossed them.

“Of course,” I replied, trying to look as if her name wasn't any newer to me than mine seemed to be to her. It was good she was familiar with me. My reputation could only be a boon. “Now, I know I looked pretty bad back there. That's the price of relying too much on magic. You see, I use a very special potion to help me on my cases, one you didn't find when you searched me. It's an intelligence-booster, which was obviously off when I tried to attack you. I was absolutely kicking myself when it kicked back in, let me tell you. I mean, then it became so obvious that there's no reason for us to fight! I just need to need to give you a sip, and you'll realize why you should really be on my side. Lemme just get it out of my hat here...” As my used-car salesman patter died down, I began to move my hands slowly to my head.

“Wait! Don't move. I'll get it.” Inoue set down the worrying instruments in her right hand and plucked my hat from my head, her armed and armored hand never wavering. After she stepped back to beyond the reach of my fists or feet, she retrieved my supersensory potion and let the barest drop fall onto her tongue. “Disgusting, but not poisoned,” she muttered. I will never comprehend how such a multitude of people can have such a warped sense of taste. Strawberry and pepper, disgusting! In any case, she took a swig, and I took my opportunity.

Just like on the rooftop, I charged and Inoue shot me. Unlike before, the shocking-to-her loudness of her firearm's retort visibly pained her with her newly sensitive sense of hearing. Unlike before, I had access to the melody of battle, granting magical aid to my strength, speed, and ability to shrug off the rubber bullets that struck me. I grabbed onto the neck of her armor with both hands and slammed my forehead into hers as hard as I could. The headbutt, performed thus, is one of the more self-defeating moves in a brawler's repertoire, as it pains the user as much as the target. However, my aforementioned longstanding relationship with pain, even mystically magnified, ensured that I came out the better. With Inoue staggered, I had a chance to scrabble for the catch that would release her gauntlet. She recovered as it fell to the ground, so I grabbed her nose with one hand and twisted hard while my other hand searched out the release catches for the rest of her armor.

Inoue screamed in pain, than cried out again at the sound of her own scream. She tried to pry my hand off her nose, so I jabbed my fingernails into her cuticles and twisted harder. She didn't try again. By the time I'd completely divested her of her ill-gotten mail, she was crying tears of frustration and pain. At least, that's what I assume she was crying about. Sure doubted it was happiness. In any case, she seemed pretty well beat, so I switched to good cop mode and offered her my handkerchief before gently asking her who she took her orders from.

“The, the monkey lady.”

“Asuna is behind whatever you're doing?” Because Asuna-in-the-sky wasn't surreal enough. I had a sudden premonition that I would end up chasing a white rabbit through a looking glass by the end of this case. And the rabbit would turn out to be Asuna.

“What? No. I think. We never actually saw her face, but she had this whole monkey theme going on. Monkey mask, summoned monkeys, stuff like that. It was a little weird, but she was right there with us about how Japan's losing touch with its own traditions and she had a plan that would let us defeat all the imperialist Western mages in the country so we could reclaim it.”

“I think I know who you're talking about.” Amagasaki Chigusa. It had to be. My involvement in her last escapade had been limited to running around in utter confusion and calling on the aid of a fellow Baka Ranger, but I'd been filled in enough to know her style. It was either her, a coincidence too great for me to credit, or a copycat with remarkably low standards. “Where's all the gear you took from me?”

“She took it. We're supposed to bring any magic stuff to her. Taking your phone was my idea. Sorry. When I told her about you, she got all excited and said to go fetch you because you'd be useful as leverage. I don't think she was going to hurt you.” I tactfully refrained from asking if shooting me with rubber bullets several times at close range counted as hurting or not.

“Thanks. You've been a big help, and I'll be sure to mention that to the principal. Do you have a phone I can borrow?” I saw no particular reason to deviate from the strategy that I'd employed against Chigusa last time, especially since I'd done such a bang-up job at the confusion. Now it was time to call on a Baka Ranger. “I'd like to get Ms. Sasaki's help moving all this Engineering Club crap in off of the street.”
Let's Watch Nanoha
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rikalous
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In Which There is a Great Deal of Summoning

Makie doesn't often become involved in my work, despite working much the same beat. Charitably, this is because her temperament is best suited to areas other than detective work. Less charitably, she was once outsmarted by a bush. Long story. Still, when you're backed into a corner and running on fumes and pigheaded spite, there's nobody better to have by your side. Precious few equals, either.

Once the pink powerhouse dropped by, I'd have enough firepower with me to be able to mount a raid on Chigusa's hideout to get back the stolen tech and my personal kit. The miscreants might be worried about their sentry's absence by the time we hit them, but they should still be waiting for her to turn up rather than bolting for another haven. As Inoue informed me, Chigusa was holed up in a clearing in the woods, which should provide ample cover for a pair as stealthy as Makie and myself. The one item I forgot to factor into my plans was the universe's longstanding grudge against me. As I idly fiddled with the scattered bits of armor, gathering them together into a pile, I noticed the distinctive shape of a Newspaper Club bug. Damn. Someone had been listening in, which meant I another call to make once I smashed the cursed thing.

I woke up the principal to let him know that if a giant, hostile robot, possibly able to cancel any magic or ki effects anyone threw at it, showed up, I had the situation well under control. As an afterthought, I added in a request to send a couple people out to the woods. It was possible that Chigusa wasn't the one keeping an electronic ear on her minion. Even if she was, it was possible she and her crew hadn't scarpered yet. It was also possible that it would rain lemon-and-onion juice tomorrow. Makie showed up just as I was hanging up, and I let her know that we'd need to drop by my office to pick up some backup gear I kept for emergencies. Inoue I left with the pile of armor pieces, after I extracted a promise to stay out of trouble. She seemed quite gratified by the trust I was placing in her. I don't think she realized exactly how easily I could track an inexperienced middle schooler, or noticed that I took a few important-looking armor widgets with me as I left.

Makie and I managed to get to my office without incident, and I felt no shame about the fact that she gave me a piggyback ride most of the way. No shame. None whatsoever. After all, she was uninjured and in much better shape than me. It was perfectly reasonable, and the only reason I didn't point that out to the catgirl waiting at my door was that I was sure it would be perfectly obvious to her once she knew I was injured.

“Koyomi, it's late, I've been shot several times and robbed once, and I'm probably going to have to fight a giant magic-proof robot before I can heal up. This had better be good.”

“Oh, I was just here to warn you about the giant magic-proof robot that just showed up. Aren't you going to have the principal call the JSDF or something?”

I let Makie handle that one while I went inside to grab my broom and one of the few potions I hadn't brought with me the last time I went to see Asuna in the sky without diamonds. “Oh, we can't do that!” Makie entered full lecturing teacher mode as she continued. “Mahora and the Japanese government have entered into a tacit agreement. The government is willing to ignore things such as middle school teachers younger than their students, military-grade weaponry in the hands of children, and apparent supernatural events. In return, the chaos so common in our school must remain in our school, and be dealt with without inconveniencing or requiring the assistance of outsiders. Outsiders, such as the JSDF.”

“So, what, are you going to get together the military clubs or something? I suppose in this school, that's about as good.”

“Gasp!” I'm not kidding. Makie actually said the word 'gasp.' “I could never do that! What kind of teacher would force her students to fight in her place?”

“Negi Springfield.”

“You've got it backwards. We always demanded the right to fight from him. And Ms. Koyomi? The first time I got involved with Negi's mission, three of the friends who went with me were enslaved. I don't want that to happen to my students.”

“The mage teachers' spells and ki attacks aren't going to do a damn thing against what Chigusa has! You need to get help from someone who doesn't use them!”

“I don't use any of that, so it'll be fine.”

“You think you're just going to take down seven powered armors and a mech all by yourself?”

“Of course not,” I cut in, magic recharged, broom in hand, and smoke bombs in my pockets. “She's got me. Makie, let's go. Koyomi, stay back so your artificial body doesn't get disappeared.”

The pilfered Damn Gun mech wasn't exactly hard to spot. Granted, the human-sized powered armors weren't precisely camouflaged, but when the fully assembled mech stood up, it topped the buildings. It was walking away from Asuna's aerial perch, so it must have done whatever it needed to with her. Fortunately, the metal titan and its jetpacked entourage didn't seem inclined to shoot me down as I flew in. I assume they were waiting for me to fall like like a chump as soon as I crossed into the anti-magic field. So sorry to disappoint.

I came in high and fast. I felt it the second I crossed the barrier, as the cushioning spell that made a seatless stick a reasonable mode of high-speed travel cut out. The momentum kept us going, our commendable grip strength kept us both on the broom, and Makie's quick work with her ribbon sent us spinning around the giant's torso to land safely on its back. Sleeping Asuna was ensconced in some sort of glass coffin attached there. Makie made as if to pry her off, but I shook my head. Asuna's magic cancel prevented Chigusa's tricks as surely as mine. Instead, I gestured down to the battery pack located just above the legs. Mahora-built robots tend to have vital components located places it would be very awkward to touch if they were on a human. I've never quite worked up the nerve to ask Hakase about that.

At this point, someone worked off the nerve to fire off a shot. It missed us completely, but more would follow soon, and with that many firing we'd probably take some hits if they were blind-firing. Still, there'd be more if they could see us, so I crushed a smoke bomb and got myself nice and cozy in a nook where Asuna's coffin – make that sleeping chamber for perfectly alive people – would provide me some cover from one side.

Around me, I heard bullets impact the robot like a rubber hailstorm. Below me, I heard the crash of what was almost certainly the mech's battery pack hitting the ground, because Makie's awfully petite. Above me, I heard something like rockets, such as might be caused by a mech's pilot evacuating in an attempt to escape justice. That wouldn't do at all.

“You take care of the kids! I'll get Chigusa!” I cried out as I clambered up the freshly debilitated mech. The Wielder of Five Weapons would be more than a match for half a dozen punks. I launched myself from the robotic head using my broom as a vaulting pole, trying to get as much height, and therefor distance from Asuna's field before I had a sudden stop. It worked, with the broom's flight magic kicking in less than a meter above the ground.

Chigusa was waiting for me there, and so was her water-summoning charm. The water didn't come high enough to do more than get my toes wet, so it struck me as singularly pointless until something grabbed my feet and something else slammed into the back of my head. I turned somewhat woozily and saw one of my own dragon tooth soldiers lifting its shield for another blow. Turn my own weapons against me, would she? I knew them better than her. I knew that the bones were easily separated, even if they snapped back into place just as easily. That meant that I could pop the hands on my feet off their arms long enough to send lightning through my broom into the water, dropping all of the soldiers she'd concealed there.

Apparently Chigusa didn't like that trick, as her next move was to summon a small avalanche of boulders down, to serve as platforms for her monkey-armored self and some assorted summons, including a vast frog, an even bigger spider, and of course a whole cartload of monkeys. All of which I could fly right over, so I'm not entirely sure why she bothered. She summoned a tree directly in front of me as I landed behind her, which served as a momentary distraction, but I'd had enough incantation time to unleash Windstorm of Lightning through the branches and send her tumbling over-

The monkey's mouth was open. That momentary distraction had given her enough time to slip out of her armor and use it as a decoy. Confident in my victory, I'd let down my guard and was vulnerable to the attack that she had almost certainly already unleashed. Of course, at the time I didn't consciously think any of that. I just knew that I had to be somewhere else with all haste.

I launched myself backwards on the broom just as an enormous cat statue crashed into the space I'd just vacated. I heard mocking laughter from above, and looked up to see Chigusa held aloft by a great swallow, a fan of charms in her hands.

I can fly and cast at the same time, Western mage,” she cooed. Was that my magic card hanging from her belt?

“Adeat!” It was my magic card! Well, now it was my heavy, distracting sword hanging from her belt, but you know what I mean. Knowing an opening when I saw one, I dropped to the ground, heedless of the water soaking my legs, and let loose a barrage of lightning arrows. Since Chigusa was just another squishy mage outside of her armor, that was all it took. The summons would mindlessly obey their last directives, which meant the only one that could reach me in the air would just flap there, holding its mistress. It had been quite a day. A shame I wouldn't be able to charge the Engineering Club for overnight delivery.
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Darkenning
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Whee! It's back.
"Hello! I'm Rurin, the Magical Mouse! My favorite food is cheese! My favorite pastimes are tormenting cats and facilitating romance! I have the power to bind the souls of guys who mistreat women to the depths of hell and subject them to everlasting karmic suffering! Isn't that cute? Pleased to meet you!" -- Rurin, the Magical Mouse, Magical Patissiere Kosaki-chan.
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Yeah, it took me way too long to get out that chapter. This one too, to a lesser extent, and probably all of them a little. For the next one, I at least have the excuse that I need to plot out a new arc.

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In Which There is Convalescence and Revelation

Receiving my duly earned lucre took place at the school church the next day, while Cocone was taking a break from healing me. My visits to her were generally a slam-bam-His-love-go-with-you-ma'am sort of affair, but matters like a hoplite shield impacting my skull took more time and effort. Given that ending up like Asuna before her political kick would have badly stymied my major life goals, I appreciated the thoroughness.

First up was Rina, who seemed entirely too awestruck over my supposed heroism, given that it mainly consisted of browbeating a student, ferrying Makie to the action, and tussling with a monkey-suited xenophobe with a kidnapping fetish. Not exactly the deeds of which legends are made, but I didn't want to explain kidnapping fetishes to a bright-eyed ten-year-old, so I ended up simply ignoring the stunningly unwarranted hero worship. I made a token effort to offer Makie a cut of my fee for acting as my muscle, which she predictably turned down.

My meeting with the former members of Cosmo Entelechia proved rather more interesting. The whole gang showed up, including a buxom, green-skinned stranger who was introduced to me as Cassandra. They could all fit around the hospital-style bed with the privacy curtains up, but it was a near thing. She started up what promised to be a simply fascinating line of book talk about the Libri Sibyllini, but Shirabe cut us off before the conversation could build up a decent head of steam. Clearly, Ms. Violin still played for Team Evil.

“Here's your fee, Ms. Ayase,” she told me, setting the money on my bedside table. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, and quite an improvement from when we were on opposite sides.”

“Pleasure was all mine,” I lied. Concussions are one of my three least favorite kinds of injury. “Don't think I've earned it quite yet, since I haven't had a chance to give you the rundown on what exactly the thing you hired me to investigate was.”

“We've heard, thank you. Amagasaki Chigusa performing some sort of anti-magic ritual that was interfering with our artificial bodies.”

“Yeah, but a quick phone call got me a few more details. Seems Chao did some shenanigans which resulted in us having two Asunas around, one to do her political thing and a sleeping one to keep the magic world running. First I'd heard of it. Seems only Asuna's closest friends and some magic world bigwigs knew anything about it. Wonder how someone like Chigusa found out.”

If I was ever more desperate for money than usual, I figured I could challenge Koyomi to a poker game, and maybe tell her to bring her friends. Only stone-faced Tamaki and canny Shirabe had managed to avoid looking worried over that last, ever-so-casual remark.

“Perhaps she'll be willing to tell the authorities, now that she's incarcerated,” suggested Shirabe, cool and unconcerned as an ocean breeze. “Of course, it's equally possible that she's got some outrageous lie thought up to protect her sources. I'm afraid some mysteries even you might be unable to solve.”

“I guess. Oh, one more thing. I'd like to congratulate Koyomi.” There was a general expression of confusion. “Before I went after Chigusa, she mentioned that there were seven powered armors with her. Turns out that's the exact right number. I didn't realize that until a few minutes earlier when Rina told me how many were missing. I mean, I could tell there was half a dozen or so, but it's damn hard to get a precise count, the way they were swarming around.”

“She always did have a good eye for that sort of thing.”

“Oh yeah, very perceptive. Managed to spot that Chigusa would be immune to magic and ki, even before anyone showed up to, you know, try to use spells and ki attacks.”

“I spotted Princess Asuna in her coffin thing, and I know how Magic Cancel works,” Koyomi piped up.

“Sure, that makes sense. Hey, something just occurred to me. Fate qualified as a Magic World bigwig by the time they did whatever sealing thing on the Asuna that Chigusa kidnapped. Maybe he knew about it. Maybe he passed that information on to his trusted foundlings, who passed it on to Chigusa. Maybe said trusted foundlings keep trying to pass mediocre-at-best lies past a detective who's rather short on patience and sics the authorities on them. Maybe they walk and maybe they don't, but I know for damn sure that they will be greviously inconvenienced in the process.

“See, the only reason we aren't right now surrounded by grim-faced types ready to take you in for questioning is that you went to the trouble to bring me in. There was no reason for you to do that if all you wanted was for Monkey Girl to succeed. What gives?” There was a pregnant pause. After a few moments, it gave birth to a series of baby explanations.

“All we ever wanted was to help people. To make it so that nobody had to end up as low as we did.” That was Tamaki, showing emotion for the first time.

“Even if we didn't fight alongside Lord Fate, we wanted to help save the world. Some of us wanted to become healers, or to grow food so that nobody went hungry again. I became a scholar because I knew that we needed knowledge to fight against barbarism.” Cassandra, if you couldn't guess.

“But once the war was over, everyone, people we'd bled to save, started treating us like monsters and criminals!” Homura, slamming her fist down for emphasis.

“Ms. Amagasaki had derived a certain notoriety among various parties due to her encounter with the infant version of Ala Alba. She had to be dealt with before she bacame a true threat, but nobody able to spare the time to solve a problem that wasn't yet a crisis would be convinced by a pack of unrepentant terrorists.” Shirabe, gamely trying to maintain her calm facade even as she spit out that final word.

“So we thought we could leak the information about the Princess to her, and then get you to investigate, and then you'd find out about her and then she'd get taken out before she could build up a following of more than a handful of people. But we didn't expect that you couldn't call the JSDF, or that she'd get a bunch of robots, or, well, that we'd be having this talk right now.” Koyomi, swiftly going from excited to worried to sheepish.

“Life lesson, ladies,” I proclaimed. “If you tell the truth, it's a lot harder for people to catch you in a lie.”

“We can't help it!” shot back Koyomi. “You thought I was trying to pull one over on you from the second I stepped into your office!”

“You were trying to pull one over me from the second you stepped into my office. Trying to distract me with a pretty pair of ears, it's downright insulting.” I overrode the catgirl's answering splutters to continue, “Nevertheless, I'll make sure to put in a good word for you in whatever ears matter, and if you hear about something else that needs fixing, you can always let me know and I promise to give you a fair shake. Hope you enjoy your stay in Mahora.”

We exchanged some pleasantries and they trooped out. Before she followed her friends, Koyomi turned back to me, blushing for some reason. “Yue?”

“Yeah?”

“My name, well, my real name? It's Torako. I-I just thought you should know.” And she was gone, like a whiff of perfume fading in the breeze.

“Damn,” said Misora, making me go for the gold in the high jump from a seated start. She must have been eavesdropping on the other side of the curtain. “You really are like catnip for beastgirls. If it works on guys, the twins better watch out.”

“Shut up. Nuns shouldn't have such impure thoughts.”

The End?
Let's Watch Nanoha
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My other claims to fame.
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Darkenning
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Cute ending!

Barbarianism is not a word, though. Barbarism is what I think you mean. Or barbarity.
"Hello! I'm Rurin, the Magical Mouse! My favorite food is cheese! My favorite pastimes are tormenting cats and facilitating romance! I have the power to bind the souls of guys who mistreat women to the depths of hell and subject them to everlasting karmic suffering! Isn't that cute? Pleased to meet you!" -- Rurin, the Magical Mouse, Magical Patissiere Kosaki-chan.
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