Bunnies XIII: The Bad Hutch

[robkelk]

So with that context laid out, I await seeing what your imaginations can create with it!

Hey, I'll take an opportunity to mention Isekai by Moonlight, found elsewhere in this very subforum.

Starting with chapter 3, where Our Heroes are sent to another dimension - the one that Midchilda is in:

During training the next day, Ami demonstrated all three of the spells that Rein had cast through her while they were in Unison... while hovering three metres above the ground and correcting Rein's German on the fly. Pun not intended.

As for the skills we learned in training, Ami became good at both her Senshi abilities and basic Midchildan healing magic. She was also the best of all of us at tactics, as befitting an International Master at chess. After I casually mentioned Naru-san's ability to create gemstone weapons on the fly, Rein and Ami modified Rein's Frigid Dagger spell to create a full-sized ice sword that Ami could use in combat, and Sakura and Ichiro taught Ami the basics of sword fighting. And Ami spent a lot of time with Meia simply enjoying the ecstasy of flight, in Unison or beside each other.

I remember that it was a few days after that discussion that Ami revealed – at her own sweet-sixteenth-birthday party – that she'd hacked her transformation by transforming instantly without her wand. I had no fears that she was going to end up being useless, this season or any other.

Apparently, Meia and Ami had spent a week and took the Senshi transformation sequence apart, treating the spell as a program and analyzing it subroutine by subroutine, and worked the inefficiencies out of it. Including the part that left the Senshi naked for a second during their transformation. The fix was so simple, once they'd figured out what the problem was, that it was easy to teach to Makoto.

Ryou was quite happy that his girlfriend wasn't flashing him every time she transformed. Makoto said that she wasn't happy that she wasn't flashing me, but I could tell that she was joking. I was happy that they could now transform while moving, and Ami was happy that she was able to modify somebody else's spell. Nobody else thought it was a big deal, but they were Midchildans who were used to magic, not Japanese who aren't.

Then she created a spell of her own, displaying the classic 「やっと来たよ。」 message on a magic screen that was floating in the air.

Her second try at a spell from scratch, a month later, was far more ambitious. She wrote a healing spell just to see whether she could. And I ended up becoming her guinea pig, because I had tripped over a tree root while flash moving during a practice.

"I don't know whether this is ready, Rob. I've never tested it."

"Go ahead and test it on me, Ami. I think my leg is broken!"

So she did, and my leg stopped hurting. However, I was very hungry after she finished; apparently, healing burns through a lot of calories.

"That's to be expected," she said when I mentioned it. "Magic doesn't give anything for free."

Later that evening, Hayate taught me "Mirage Hide". It's quite a versatile disguise spell, and I was able to learn it easily thanks to my skill with matrix mathematics transformations.

Makoto really didn't want to end up hitting herself in the face with her electro-quarterstaff.

But sometimes she did, so, by the end of the calendar year, Ami and Meia had developed a spell that was optimized to heal electrical damage.

Me? Beside the staff fighting, Ichiro continued training me in swordplay, and the two of us refined the Mirage Hide spell to make me look more and more like a legendary oni.

We continued our training, and Ami and Meia continued to create new spells. One that Ami was particularly proud of was "Hyperspatial Sphere Generate", a defensive spell that her manga counterpart used once when their Dark Kingdom attacked. Well, she was proud of it until Ginga told her that it was a re-creation from first principles of the standard-issue "Temporal Force Field" spell that hid magical effects from public view. I like and respect my dearer friend, but sometimes she needs to be reminded that she's human and thus fallible. Better she learns that now when she's unknowingly re-creating spells, than later when she's a doctor.

Yuuno-san taught us all the spell, and copied his notes to our laptops. Yes, all of them. The more copies we had of the spell, the less likely we were to lose it.

And, by that logic, we taught it to all of the Unison Devices, even though none of them could cast it. Ami was the only one of us who could.

I looked at the math in Yuuno-san's notes and sighed. I could barely follow it; there was no way that Makoto or Ryou could cast the spell without a lot of tutoring in university-level math.

Then chapter 4:

"No! The reaction can't be stopped! We're all going to die and no magic known to the Silver Millennium can stop it! Rubeus wins!"

Alas, those were Kooan's last words.

We invoked a stupid genre convention and drew on our knowledge of two schools of magic that were unknown to the Silver Millennium: Belkan and Midchildan. Mercury and Meia cast a spell that I'd only ever seen Yuuno-san and Shamal use in A's; I have no idea when they learned it. "Ultra-long-distance Transportation!" Unfortunately, I was too close to Kooan to avoid being caught in the transport tube – it looked like Ami took "at all costs" seriously. As I'd expect her to, after our training.

"But she's going to kill us, too!"

"No," Mercury stated with conviction. "She won't. Frierenfesseln!" And Berthier was held in the same ice-water restraint that Wendi had been, a couple of years ago. "Gefrierende Kugel!" That spell was new to me. The restraint around Berthier moved away from her body, letting her move, but closed into a complete sphere around her. "Shabon Spray Freezing!" And the sphere froze solid. "It is now your choice, Berthier. Use Dark Water to cut your way free and live, or do as you threatened and use Dark Water Full Power on yourself." Ami stood up and walked away, letting her transformation drop.

Then Makoto showed me that, much like Hayate's spells, Ami's streamlined transformation is more effective if you speak the aria. "Jupiter Star Power, Make-Up!"

It was still a near-instant transformation, but she ended it wearing her SuperS uniform – yellow star on her choker, a heart as her bow clasp, thinner shoulder pads, a larger bow at her back, and only one stripe on her collar – instead of her usual uniform.

The recording finished with Future Ami saying "... and don't think that you can't. I know you're only a Rank C mage, Rob, and Ichiro's Rank B, but in Unison you add up to a Rank B+ mage. Use the coordinates I just gave you; Hayate knows the spell."

"Is there any spell that Hayate doesn't know?" I muttered as I very quickly looked through her brainprint and found it. "B+ is the bare minimum rank for the spell. Shall we?"

«Ami thinks we can do it,» Ichiro replied. «Let's.»

"Just in case... Shario-chan, Naru-san, Ryou, if this doesn't work, Makoto gets everything I own."

"I understand. Good luck, both of you." Shario-chan went back to downloading data from the tiara as Ichiro followed Future Ami's instructions to the letter.

Then I took a deep breath, and Ichiro used my voice to cast the spell. "Transporter!"

And we were back in the fray.

And chapter 5:

As I finished writing a cover email apologizing for not contacting everyone sooner and letting them know that we'd successfully resolved what they would call the Dark Moon Incident, Ami opened a pinpoint Pandimensional Pathway and Shario-chan connected our wi-fi to Ginga's. Then it was a matter of a minute to upload our messages and download theirs... which was all that Ami had the stamina for.

We really needed to optimize that spell, so that the rest of us could take turns with the spellcasting. But that was a project for another day, and for Ami and Meia to do; all I could do there was advise the ladies.

"How long is it going to take us to get there?" I asked. "It takes us six minutes to get from the Earth to the Moon, which would indicate a two-day travel time to Mercury if it's the same average speed. But it took Ichiro and me almost five seconds to reach the Kármán line. Although Ichiro and I didn't accelerate by flying when we went to the Kármán line."

"I thought you were better at math than that, darling. Acceleration accumulates over time. This isn't rocket science."

Ami smiled. "Actually, Makoto, this is rocket science. Rob, I've fine-tuned the spell so that I can set the acceleration to whatever I want. I don't know what accelerating very fast would do to our bodies even in Life Support Mode, though, and I'm worried that Kasandara and Ryou can't handle the same acceleration that the rest of us can."

"Ah. Would two hours each way work?" I asked.

Ami thought for a moment, then nodded. "That's probably within Kasandara's tolerances. I hope."

And when we weren't training and Makoto and I weren't skating as the Emerald Pair, Meia, Ami, and I decoded Future Ami's notes – at least the ones we had access to – and came up with a spell that the notes assured us would put Pure Hearts, Dream Mirrors, and Star Seeds back into people's bodies. We also re-created the contraceptive spell that Dr. Shamal had cast on Ami and Makoto – it turned out to be a basic Midchildan medical spell that Hayate had picked up along the way, so Hayate-chan taught them the spell and the ladies improved it so that the recipient could switch it off early if she wanted to become pregnant. Needless to say, that upgrade went into the e-mailbag for our Midchildan friends.

And a teaser for the still-in-progress chapter 6:

"But then everyone will know Mercury is Ami," Moon pointed out.

I shook my head as Ichiro and Meia flew out of my pocket. "Not if a double takes her place."

Both devices said "Mirage Hide!" and suddenly looked like Oni and Mercury. "Let's go," Meia added with Ami's voice.

Venus grinned as everyone else stepped through the shield. "That's a very useful spell." Then she joined them.