Seated across from each other in a theoretically impossible conflict of dimensional laws, two 'beings' discussed a course of action in regards to one of the worlds that they had under their care.
Or at least they were trying to.
"For the last time you obnxious snot. No means no!" shouted the older of the two, currently in the form of a white-furred gorilla.
"You don't understand your position here dear," replied the 'obnoxious snot' with a slight grin across what was for now 'her' face. "I am not making a suggestion, merely stating a fact."
The gorilla frowned, thought about what she had said, then turned so pale that his skin matched the colour of his fur. Currently a shadowy confluence of some of the darker emotions that permeated the universe, Alyeris' face twitched in what might have been a smile.
"You... Not even you would be so stupid as to..." the gorilla tried to speak but struggled to overcome the shock of realisation.
Alyeris laughed softly, what would have been a pleasant sound transformed into malevolent knives to the soul by the energies that filled her. "Oh don't worry so much! It's not as if I have enough power to change prime realities."
"That is not what I'm afraid of," growled the 'gorilla', whose presence of being alone would have crushed any mortal so foolish as to be near him right now.
"Too late," the swirling matrices of darkness began to break up as Alyeris retreated from this domain. "I've taken care not to let the effects spread dear, so just sit back and enjoy the show..."
Left to himself, the 'gorilla' brooded silently on the matter for a few sequences of time and causality that had no meaning outside this space. The first consideration was that it was already too late to stop that stupid snot's plan from going ahead. Maybe if he cheated and... No, that would be a violation of lore. Damn it. She was right. He didn't have a choice.
The 'gorilla' sighed and withdrew his aspect from the space where all normal laws broke down. Only a fraction of his entire being unlike Alyeris' manifestation, but the difference in scale did not mean all that much in the grand scheme of things. All things had their part, and some had stranger parts than others. The pest was one such example who he found particularly aggravating, but there was no denying that her power in circumstances such as the one he was observing was the real deal. Almost resigned now, he tweaked his perception to observe what had happened while he had been distracted.
... Huh? Temporal paradox? Dimensional merge? Physical, spritual, and thaumaturgical energy equivalency algorithms? What the f*** did that bitch think she was doing!
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Throughout the specified universe, destinies were crossed and fates sent astray as the godling went ahead with some remodelling.
Gaea and Akasha suddenly found themselves amalgamated with not just one but four additional 'worlds', magical and theological systems included.
Monsters of the night that should have ruled unchallenged for centuries began to encounter beings that not only matched them, but in some cases went far beyond them. The resultant chaos across the planes created a situation where the secretive elements of the world were unable to do much for a greater portion of human history.
Some people that should have died lived, and some who should have met their ends dodged the bullet.
Magic and science were taken in directions other than where they would have gone, with some interesting results for those that used them.
Last but not least, history changed. Different words were spoken and alternative actions taken. New faces were met and old one passed by. The false history that resulted from all this contained some things that would have been and far more that could have been.
None of which really mattered to Alyeris. The godling had done all this before after all, the only difference this time being that the scale was a bit greater than usual.
Time ticked by, and finally passed the point where the godling had decreed that all the strands should come together.
... Hmm? Why was the pattern a lot messier than had been intended?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Ten years old and currently resident in Japan, Negi Springfield was experiencing a crisis of faith.
In himself.
When he had completed the academic portion of his magister training a full six years ahead of schedule, he had thought that he was ready for anything that the headmaster could throw at him for his practical.
That confidence had fractured a bit once he opened his scroll, but since then had been taped back together. After all, it couldn't be that hard to teach a bunch of teenage Japanese girls English now, could it?
Once he had arrived in Japan however he quickly realised that he might have underestimated the difficulty of the task. The first sign of trouble had come when an apologetic airline official had informed him that his baggage had been misplaced, with his staff and other magical tools currently headed for Australia on flight BA922. For another, he really should have slept on the plane over, in which case he probably wouldn't have fallen asleep on the bullet train. A mistake he only discovered when he woke up nine stops and over three hundred kilometres from Mahora academy.
Low on money and bereft of most of his gear, he hadn't had much choice but to phone in to inform a much amused headmaster Konoe of his current location. Unfortunately there was no one who could get to him on such short notice and thus Negi was directed to the nearest acquaintance of the headmaster to stay the night.
Until here things had still been going... Not according to plan, but still as smoothly could have been expected when you told a ten year old magical boy to go to Japan by himself a week before the school term would start. What came next however had been enough to to give Negi severe doubts as to his suitability for the career he dreamed of.
First he had walked in on a murder, then had come the panicked flight from the scene as some lunatic with a cursed spear tried to ventilate his neck, and now here he was cornered in some park with said lunatic about to kill him.
This was not a good day to be Negi Springfield.
"You done already?" the lunatic asked the young boy before him. "Ah, suppose I couldn't ask for much more out of a tiny tot like you. Shame though, if you had a few more years you could have become a pretty good mage."
Negi was down, but in an attempt to show that he wasn't out he raised his wand in one last effort to take down this man who was after his life. Before he could get anywhere with his spell however the man kicked him in the stomach to send him flying into a nearby tree. With his magic barrier already gone from the chase up to now, Negi felt the full impact and groaned as the pain ripped across his body.
"That's more like it!" the man snarled with a pleased smile on his face. "Never give up kid! If you have to die then do it with your hands around your killer's neck!"
"Ahhh..." Light-headed from the pain and his courage shattered by his opponent's brutality, Negi's mind was blank as he watched the man approach.
The man raised his spear and glared down at him. "Don't have anything against you, but my master told me to leave no witnesses. Hope you have better luck next time kid."
Pinned by the man's killing intent, Negi couldn't quite believe he was about to die. Senses sharpened into a fine edge by terror watched as a scarlet point tore through the dark night. Closer and closer came the cruel seeker of hearts, so slow yet so quick. It was only when an arm's length seperated him and death that Negi realised that, yes, he was about to be killed. He was helpless again, just like that time six years ago. This time however...
Chring! The clear sound of metal ringing against metal.
Unbeknownst to him or his attacker, the ground around Negi had been glowing softly for a while. When the spearman had moved to finish Negi off the light had flared and summoned into being four figures, one of which had quickly moved to parry Lancer's attack.
Clang! Ching!
"Tch!" the spearman found himself at a disadvantage as he was pressed back by the sudden obstacle that had presented itself. Whoever it was, they were experienced in battle and refused to give him the room he needed to deploy his longer weapon freely. He was about to try and disengage when he heard someone else come in from the side.
"T÷dliche Strafe!"
"Whoa!" Negi's attacker narrowly avoided his head being pulped like an overripe lemon as he leapt back to avoid a pointed war-hammer.
The time between the spearman's attack being interrupted and his being forced back hadn't been any more than two seconds. When Negi opened his eyes again to find out why he was still alive he saw four people standing guard over him. A short, red-haired girl with a hammer almost as long as she was. Then a blonde woman that reminded him of the nurse back at his school for some reason. Next was a heavily muscled man with white hair and... Were those dog ears? Since when did people from magica mundus walk around over here without a disguise spell? Finally there was...
A knight, standing proud and strong as she faced her enemy with sword in hand. Under the silver moonlight her long hair took on the shade of cherry blossoms by night, a pale lilac that accentuated her alabaster skin against the darkness of the armour she wore. Radiating determination, she was deadly force embodied in an enchanting shell.
It was the stirring of an emotion unfamiliar to him, but for the first time in his short life, Negi looked upon a woman and thought that she was beautiful.
______________
Around the time Negi had been about to meet his maker at Lancer's hands, those with the eyes to see could have spotted two little girls in the air above Fuyuki city.
"Wide Area Search complete. Anomalous magic signatures detected." Raising Heart informed her 'master'.
"Could you point them out please Raising Heart?" asked Nanoha Takamachi.
"Of course, my master."
Putting words to action, Raising Heart threw up a holographic display of Fuyuki city with the sources of magical energy identified marked in pink.
"So many of them," Fate said quietly as she counted the number of dots. Twenty-two in total, spread across the entire city.
"Arrange them by signature strength please," said Nanoha.
Raising Heart promptly responded by making the dots scale in size in respect to the strength of the signature that had been detected there. Instantly, nine of the dots shrank to tiny pinpricks while four dramatically grew in size.
Fate examined the display and correlated it to the city spread out below her. "I guess we know where to look first, right Nanoha?"
"Yep!"
The two of them were about to head towards the nearest signature when Raising Heart flashed a notice.
"Alert. New anomalous magic signature detected. Strength is seven times that of next largest."
"Ehhhh?! Seven times?!" Nanoha looked at her device in shock. "Raising Heart, is it a Lost Logia?"
"Insufficient data," the device answered. "Closer examination required."
"Change of plans Nanoha?" inquired Fate as she waited for her friend and investigation partner.
Nanoha nodded. "We need to go check on whatever that is. If its a lost logia there might be people getting hurt."
"Where is it?" Fate was a little too far away to see the display that Raising Heart had up.
"South, where... the... explosions are?" Nanoha finished on a surprised note as she spotted the flashes of light and telltale clouds of smoke that indicated a magical battle going on.
"That can't be good," murmured Fate as they quickly flew towards the scene of the battle.
"Uh, huh." Nanoha agreed. "Whoever it is doesn't even have a barrier up," she pointed out in a voice full of concern.
Fortunately, it seemed that the battle - if that was what it had been - was soon finished. Still anxious to find out the cause, Nanoha and Fate arrived on site as the last of the smoke was being dispersed by the slow night wind.
"There's somebody there," Nanoha mentioned as they came to a stop.
"Four, no. Five of them." Ever cautious, Fate had Bardiche at the ready. "Be careful Nanoha, we don't know if they are friendly or not."
"We wont know until we talk to them," Nanoha pointed out reasonably. "Still, I wish Chrono or Yuuno was here to help us identify them," Nanoha sighed as they descended to talk to the mysterious group.
Or at least they were trying to.
"For the last time you obnxious snot. No means no!" shouted the older of the two, currently in the form of a white-furred gorilla.
"You don't understand your position here dear," replied the 'obnoxious snot' with a slight grin across what was for now 'her' face. "I am not making a suggestion, merely stating a fact."
The gorilla frowned, thought about what she had said, then turned so pale that his skin matched the colour of his fur. Currently a shadowy confluence of some of the darker emotions that permeated the universe, Alyeris' face twitched in what might have been a smile.
"You... Not even you would be so stupid as to..." the gorilla tried to speak but struggled to overcome the shock of realisation.
Alyeris laughed softly, what would have been a pleasant sound transformed into malevolent knives to the soul by the energies that filled her. "Oh don't worry so much! It's not as if I have enough power to change prime realities."
"That is not what I'm afraid of," growled the 'gorilla', whose presence of being alone would have crushed any mortal so foolish as to be near him right now.
"Too late," the swirling matrices of darkness began to break up as Alyeris retreated from this domain. "I've taken care not to let the effects spread dear, so just sit back and enjoy the show..."
Left to himself, the 'gorilla' brooded silently on the matter for a few sequences of time and causality that had no meaning outside this space. The first consideration was that it was already too late to stop that stupid snot's plan from going ahead. Maybe if he cheated and... No, that would be a violation of lore. Damn it. She was right. He didn't have a choice.
The 'gorilla' sighed and withdrew his aspect from the space where all normal laws broke down. Only a fraction of his entire being unlike Alyeris' manifestation, but the difference in scale did not mean all that much in the grand scheme of things. All things had their part, and some had stranger parts than others. The pest was one such example who he found particularly aggravating, but there was no denying that her power in circumstances such as the one he was observing was the real deal. Almost resigned now, he tweaked his perception to observe what had happened while he had been distracted.
... Huh? Temporal paradox? Dimensional merge? Physical, spritual, and thaumaturgical energy equivalency algorithms? What the f*** did that bitch think she was doing!
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Throughout the specified universe, destinies were crossed and fates sent astray as the godling went ahead with some remodelling.
Gaea and Akasha suddenly found themselves amalgamated with not just one but four additional 'worlds', magical and theological systems included.
Monsters of the night that should have ruled unchallenged for centuries began to encounter beings that not only matched them, but in some cases went far beyond them. The resultant chaos across the planes created a situation where the secretive elements of the world were unable to do much for a greater portion of human history.
Some people that should have died lived, and some who should have met their ends dodged the bullet.
Magic and science were taken in directions other than where they would have gone, with some interesting results for those that used them.
Last but not least, history changed. Different words were spoken and alternative actions taken. New faces were met and old one passed by. The false history that resulted from all this contained some things that would have been and far more that could have been.
None of which really mattered to Alyeris. The godling had done all this before after all, the only difference this time being that the scale was a bit greater than usual.
Time ticked by, and finally passed the point where the godling had decreed that all the strands should come together.
... Hmm? Why was the pattern a lot messier than had been intended?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Ten years old and currently resident in Japan, Negi Springfield was experiencing a crisis of faith.
In himself.
When he had completed the academic portion of his magister training a full six years ahead of schedule, he had thought that he was ready for anything that the headmaster could throw at him for his practical.
That confidence had fractured a bit once he opened his scroll, but since then had been taped back together. After all, it couldn't be that hard to teach a bunch of teenage Japanese girls English now, could it?
Once he had arrived in Japan however he quickly realised that he might have underestimated the difficulty of the task. The first sign of trouble had come when an apologetic airline official had informed him that his baggage had been misplaced, with his staff and other magical tools currently headed for Australia on flight BA922. For another, he really should have slept on the plane over, in which case he probably wouldn't have fallen asleep on the bullet train. A mistake he only discovered when he woke up nine stops and over three hundred kilometres from Mahora academy.
Low on money and bereft of most of his gear, he hadn't had much choice but to phone in to inform a much amused headmaster Konoe of his current location. Unfortunately there was no one who could get to him on such short notice and thus Negi was directed to the nearest acquaintance of the headmaster to stay the night.
Until here things had still been going... Not according to plan, but still as smoothly could have been expected when you told a ten year old magical boy to go to Japan by himself a week before the school term would start. What came next however had been enough to to give Negi severe doubts as to his suitability for the career he dreamed of.
First he had walked in on a murder, then had come the panicked flight from the scene as some lunatic with a cursed spear tried to ventilate his neck, and now here he was cornered in some park with said lunatic about to kill him.
This was not a good day to be Negi Springfield.
"You done already?" the lunatic asked the young boy before him. "Ah, suppose I couldn't ask for much more out of a tiny tot like you. Shame though, if you had a few more years you could have become a pretty good mage."
Negi was down, but in an attempt to show that he wasn't out he raised his wand in one last effort to take down this man who was after his life. Before he could get anywhere with his spell however the man kicked him in the stomach to send him flying into a nearby tree. With his magic barrier already gone from the chase up to now, Negi felt the full impact and groaned as the pain ripped across his body.
"That's more like it!" the man snarled with a pleased smile on his face. "Never give up kid! If you have to die then do it with your hands around your killer's neck!"
"Ahhh..." Light-headed from the pain and his courage shattered by his opponent's brutality, Negi's mind was blank as he watched the man approach.
The man raised his spear and glared down at him. "Don't have anything against you, but my master told me to leave no witnesses. Hope you have better luck next time kid."
Pinned by the man's killing intent, Negi couldn't quite believe he was about to die. Senses sharpened into a fine edge by terror watched as a scarlet point tore through the dark night. Closer and closer came the cruel seeker of hearts, so slow yet so quick. It was only when an arm's length seperated him and death that Negi realised that, yes, he was about to be killed. He was helpless again, just like that time six years ago. This time however...
Chring! The clear sound of metal ringing against metal.
Unbeknownst to him or his attacker, the ground around Negi had been glowing softly for a while. When the spearman had moved to finish Negi off the light had flared and summoned into being four figures, one of which had quickly moved to parry Lancer's attack.
Clang! Ching!
"Tch!" the spearman found himself at a disadvantage as he was pressed back by the sudden obstacle that had presented itself. Whoever it was, they were experienced in battle and refused to give him the room he needed to deploy his longer weapon freely. He was about to try and disengage when he heard someone else come in from the side.
"T÷dliche Strafe!"
"Whoa!" Negi's attacker narrowly avoided his head being pulped like an overripe lemon as he leapt back to avoid a pointed war-hammer.
The time between the spearman's attack being interrupted and his being forced back hadn't been any more than two seconds. When Negi opened his eyes again to find out why he was still alive he saw four people standing guard over him. A short, red-haired girl with a hammer almost as long as she was. Then a blonde woman that reminded him of the nurse back at his school for some reason. Next was a heavily muscled man with white hair and... Were those dog ears? Since when did people from magica mundus walk around over here without a disguise spell? Finally there was...
A knight, standing proud and strong as she faced her enemy with sword in hand. Under the silver moonlight her long hair took on the shade of cherry blossoms by night, a pale lilac that accentuated her alabaster skin against the darkness of the armour she wore. Radiating determination, she was deadly force embodied in an enchanting shell.
It was the stirring of an emotion unfamiliar to him, but for the first time in his short life, Negi looked upon a woman and thought that she was beautiful.
______________
Around the time Negi had been about to meet his maker at Lancer's hands, those with the eyes to see could have spotted two little girls in the air above Fuyuki city.
"Wide Area Search complete. Anomalous magic signatures detected." Raising Heart informed her 'master'.
"Could you point them out please Raising Heart?" asked Nanoha Takamachi.
"Of course, my master."
Putting words to action, Raising Heart threw up a holographic display of Fuyuki city with the sources of magical energy identified marked in pink.
"So many of them," Fate said quietly as she counted the number of dots. Twenty-two in total, spread across the entire city.
"Arrange them by signature strength please," said Nanoha.
Raising Heart promptly responded by making the dots scale in size in respect to the strength of the signature that had been detected there. Instantly, nine of the dots shrank to tiny pinpricks while four dramatically grew in size.
Fate examined the display and correlated it to the city spread out below her. "I guess we know where to look first, right Nanoha?"
"Yep!"
The two of them were about to head towards the nearest signature when Raising Heart flashed a notice.
"Alert. New anomalous magic signature detected. Strength is seven times that of next largest."
"Ehhhh?! Seven times?!" Nanoha looked at her device in shock. "Raising Heart, is it a Lost Logia?"
"Insufficient data," the device answered. "Closer examination required."
"Change of plans Nanoha?" inquired Fate as she waited for her friend and investigation partner.
Nanoha nodded. "We need to go check on whatever that is. If its a lost logia there might be people getting hurt."
"Where is it?" Fate was a little too far away to see the display that Raising Heart had up.
"South, where... the... explosions are?" Nanoha finished on a surprised note as she spotted the flashes of light and telltale clouds of smoke that indicated a magical battle going on.
"That can't be good," murmured Fate as they quickly flew towards the scene of the battle.
"Uh, huh." Nanoha agreed. "Whoever it is doesn't even have a barrier up," she pointed out in a voice full of concern.
Fortunately, it seemed that the battle - if that was what it had been - was soon finished. Still anxious to find out the cause, Nanoha and Fate arrived on site as the last of the smoke was being dispersed by the slow night wind.
"There's somebody there," Nanoha mentioned as they came to a stop.
"Four, no. Five of them." Ever cautious, Fate had Bardiche at the ready. "Be careful Nanoha, we don't know if they are friendly or not."
"We wont know until we talk to them," Nanoha pointed out reasonably. "Still, I wish Chrono or Yuuno was here to help us identify them," Nanoha sighed as they descended to talk to the mysterious group.
However... Sorry Caster fans... As much as I sympathise with her I was forced to sacrifice her role in order to make this doable.