2017-01-21: Dropping in at a bad time
01-18-2025, 11:00 AM (This post was last modified: 01-18-2025, 11:01 AM by robkelk.)
01-18-2025, 11:00 AM (This post was last modified: 01-18-2025, 11:01 AM by robkelk.)
Niflheim
January 21, 2017
"Oh, dear - we can't have that", Hagall muttered while looking at the next batch of displacees that were expected to arrive. "Somebody who can summon demons - and control them? Let's move her entire group away from that island they're slated to appear on, and out into the middle of that nice, big river." She manipulated the appropriate coordinates. "There, that's better," she finished... just before realizing Hild was looking over her shoulder.
"Tsk, tsk. Hagall, don't you realize how many souls we get from that scam? It's almost as good as the golden fiddle scam for breeding hubris. But let's see how good these mortals really are." Hild reached over Hagall's shoulder and adjusted a different part of the coordinates that had just been changed.
Hagall loked at the second edit, and smiled - a grin that Accelerator sometimes wished he could pull off. "Yes, that should test them nicely."
Montreal, QC, Canada
January 21, 2017
9:23 AM ET
They weren't in Tokyo any more. Nor were they on the ground.
Itsuki's first thought, after "what just happened?", was of the safety of his friends (most of whom were his employees). For once, Itsuki actually appreciated his Glam Sight ability; he would never have seen through the fog otherwise. A half-dozen of Astral's staff, including himself, were in the air above a rather wide river.
Somebody had to do something if they were going to survive the next few minutes. (Except for Kuroha, of course; she was long past the point of surviving anything.) And Itsuki was the person in charge. He shouted at the top of his lungs:
"President's Orders!"
He was surprised that he'd shouted it in English, but there was no time to wonder about that.
Adilicia was already summoning her favourite demon, as she always did during an emergency, so Itsuki turned his attention to the other girl who had a claim on his heart. "Honami! Pick me up!" As she manoeuvred her broom to catch him, he continued, "Kuroha! Channel power from Netzach to Gevurah! Use your Poltergeist to hold Mikan!"
"Right!", the team's resident ghost answered, catching the youngest member of Astral and pulling her back up to where she was levitating near Honami and Itsuki.
That left one person who still needed to be rescued. "Adilicia! Catch Nekoyashiki!"
Standing on the demon Forneus' back, she manoeuvred down to where the oldest member of Astral was still falling. The fish-like demon quickly locked its jaws around the back of the neck of Nekoyashiki's clothing.
"I do appreciate the save," he commented, "although, while I do love my cats, you really don't need to treat me like one." Said cats - Genbu, Seiryū, Suzaku, and Byakko - poked their heads out of the folds of Nekoyashiki's clothes at the sound of their human's mention of them... and immediately took refuge back inside his coat. "There, there, stay inside where it's safe and warm."
"Be glad I bothered to rescue you at all, you old onmyōji," Adilicia muttered.
"Since you mentioned 'safe'..." Mikan started.
Honami cut her off. "There's just enough room for you on my broom," the young witch offered.
"Thank you, Honami-neesan!"
"And thank you for taking her from me," Kuroha added. "I was almost at my limit."
"What do we do now?"
Itsuki considered Adilicia's question while Mikan sat down between him and Honami. "First, we land."
"I don't see any place near here where we can set down unobserved."
"There's a park on the peninsula almost directly below us," Itsuki replied. "We'll land there, and meet at the gazebo at the tip of the peninsula."
A few minutes after they had landed and gathered under the gazebo, and Honami had cast simple spells on everyone so that they wouldn't be affected by the freezing air, Itsuki sighed. "We're safe now. Does anybody know what happened to us?"
"We can figure that out later," Adilicia replied while banishing Forneus. "First, we need to learn where we are, and whether there are any immediate threats to us."
"Right. I'm glad one of us knows enough to think about possible danger."
"President..." Nekoyashiki said quietly and not unkindly, "We all know that much. It goes with being a magician." Then his white cat, Byakko, poked his head out of Nekoyashiki's clothes and meowed. "There is? Thank you for letting me know." Nekoyashiki turned his attention back to Itsuki. "There's a very large group of people slightly over a kilometre directly west of us, and they're all angry about something."
"Is there a riot going on?" Mikan asked worriedly, holding Honami's hand for moral support.
"If there is, we won't go anywhere near it," promised Itsuki. "But I'd better make sure." He reached for the patch over his right eye, preparing to remove it so that he could use the full extent of his Glam Sight.
"No! You can't!"
"My eye is already picking up impressions, Honami." He removed his patch, revealing the dragon's eye that had been hidden behind it.
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montreal, QC, Canada
Same time
Caster suddenly gasped and sat up from her slouch.
"What's wrong?"
She turned to Souichirou as she stood up. "Someone nearby is using True Magic. And it isn't me. I have to go."
She spoke a spell, and true to her word, she was gone.
Dieppe Park, Montreal, QC, Canada
Same time
Itsuki winced and covered his right eye with his hand. As both Adilicia and Honami rushed to his side, he said, "I've never seen magic like that before. It was far on the other side of the group that Byakko sensed, but I could see it clearly. And... it was movement magic, aimed here."
Suddenly nobody was by Itsuki's side, as Adilicia reached for her Seal of Solomon pendant, Honami pulled mistletoe from her pocket, and Nekoyashiki and Mikan both pulled ofuda from their own sleeves, each person at a cardinal compass point around the company president.
Kuroha moved closer to Itsuki, ready to create a wall of ectoplasm around the six of them if necessary. "I guess there is an immediate threat."
"Oh, I do hope you don't consider me to be a threat." Everyone but Nekoyashiki (who had taken the southern point of the circle) turned to see a beautiful, blue-eyed, blue haired woman with elfin ears. She continued speaking, but in a language that most of them didn't understand.
Adilicia replied in the same language, and was answered curtly by the newcomer.
"Whatever language they're speaking, it's Greek to me," Nekoyashiki commented quietly.
"It's Greek to everyone," replied Honami at the same volume. "But it's so ancient a version of Greek that it's only spoken by scholars and spell-casters nowadays. Oh, I have to get involved; Addie's annoying our visitor." She joined the conversation, which got Adilicia annoyed at her, but the blue-haired woman became calmer... until Honami said something about Glam Sight.
"Which of you has the True Sight!?" she demanded in English.
"Our President, Itsuki Iba," Honami replied in the same language.
"That would be me," Itsuki added while putting his patch back over his eye, before looking directly at the woman. "And you would be...?"
She smiled and curtsied... but it was obvious that the courtesies were sardonic. "In this time and place, I am simply called 'Caster'. But when I was human, I was the Princess of Colchis, the granddaughter of Helios, and the spurned wife of Jason."
Even Nekoyashiki's cats gasped in shock.
Adilicia was the first to find her voice. "Medea..."
Itsuki was the second. "You said you're called 'Caster'. Is there a Grail War going on right now?"
Caster scowled. "You're an idiot. If there was, I'd have to kill you all for knowing about it."
Le Centre Eaton de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada
January 21, 2017
10:20 AM ET
"If you can't find anything you like here, we'll head downstairs into RÉSO."
Mikan and Nekoyashiki felt it prudent to refrain from arguing with the First Mage when she suggested they get clothes that would let them blend in. Itsuki and Honami could get away with their high-school uniforms once Honami had removed her witch's hat and cloak (said cloak being used to conceal her broom), Adilicia was already wearing a stylish blue dress, and at that point nobody who wasn't a mage or a medium could see Kuroha anyway. But Medea insisted that the miko and the onmyōji needed clothes that didn't identify them as Shinto priests, and they all (save for Kuroha) needed winter coats. Hence the visit to a shopping mall.
Caster found it amusing that they had called her the "First Mage" while they were en route to the Montreal Eaton Centre. She was definitely not the first mage in her home reality... but she allowed that her counterpart in their home reality might have been the first mage that they knew about.
She was distracted from her thoughts by a question. "What's with all the nekomimi? Is there a cosplay convention going on?"
Medea looked puzzled at Mikan's question, then noticed two women wearing pink hats with something resembling cat ears, looking at a rack of t-shirts emblazoned with the words "I'm A Nasty Woman". She wondered how much to say to a group that included somebody who appeared to be barely old enough to attend grade school, then decided that they all needed to know. "They're protesting the recent election in the United States. That country, in its infinite wisdom..." - everyone could hear the sarcasm dripping off those two words - "... decided to elect a President who is so blatantly misogynist that he makes the Argonauts look like feminists."
"And people are protesting that in Montreal?" Honami asked.
"People are protesting that around the world," Caster replied. "But, as aunt Circe said, all men are pigs. Foreign politics isn't our concern right now. What is our concern is getting you some clothes that are appropriate for the season."
While neither of them picked up a t-shirt just then, Adilicia and Honami each quietly resolved to come back and buy one when they had some spare cash.
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montreal, QC, Canada
January 21, 2017
2:45 PM ET
"I'm back," announced Caster as she let the half-dozen Astral staff into the apartment building.
"Welcome home", replied Cassiopée, the building's manager. "Who are your friends?"
"They're a new group of arrivals. An entire association of mages!"
Itsuki held up a hand. "We aren't the entire Association" - everyone could hear the capital A - "just a single company. Itsuki Iba, president of Astral, at your service."
"Cassiopée Bright, building manager of Appartements Mont-Royal Sud. I'm happy to meet you." She smiled and offered to shake his hand.
From the door to the common room, Konata Izumi said, "Did I hear somebody say he's Itsuki Iba from Astral?" Poking her head out and seeing the group, she continued as she raced over, "I did! Hi! I just watched your anime last week! I'm a big fan!"
Cassiopée smiled. "I'll take recognition by our resident anime otaku as a positive identification."
Before Konata could continue, Kagami Hiiragi grabbed her shoulder from behind. "Right, right, stop bothering them. They just got here."
As Kagami dragged Konata back to the common room, Konata replied, "Haiiiiiiiiiiiii..."
The staff of Astral looked at each other. "Should we go somewhere else?" Itsuki asked quietly.
"Go where?" Adilicia asked in reply. "Do you know anyone else in Montreal?"
"No," he admitted.
Caster pretended that she didn't notice the exchange. "As you can see, Cassiopée, we need to set up our last remaining apartments for six people."
"Six?" Cassiopée asked in puzzlement. "Will there be somebody else arriving later?"
"Ah, you can't see the ghost. I'll need to do something about that."
"A ghost? We aren't going to be in any trouble, are we?"
Caster sighed. "Ms. Bright, we're called Heroic Spirits for a reason, the way Verðandi granted your wish notwithstanding. Ms. Kuroha is no more dangerous than I am. Actually," she added with a grin, "it's probably safer to know her than it is to know me."
"Heroic Spirits, Sweets Spirits, and now an actual ghost," Cassiopée said to herself. "Nobody warned me that I'd be administering a haunted building." Then she smiled and turned back to the newcomers. "In that case, welcome to the building! Unless you'd rather live somewhere else."
Honami took the chance to involve herself in the conversation. "I'm sure that your hospitality is more than sufficient for our needs. I'm Honami Takase Ambler, corporate secretary of Astral. I'm happy to meet you."
Cassiopée's smile turned into a grin. "Oh, you'll definitely fit in here, Ms. Ambler! You sound so much like our Rin Tohsaka that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you were both played by the same voice actress. Oh, but you have no idea what I'm talking about; I need to explain both transfictionality and the Refuge to you."
Mikan looked puzzled. "What does that big word mean?"
January 21, 2017
"Oh, dear - we can't have that", Hagall muttered while looking at the next batch of displacees that were expected to arrive. "Somebody who can summon demons - and control them? Let's move her entire group away from that island they're slated to appear on, and out into the middle of that nice, big river." She manipulated the appropriate coordinates. "There, that's better," she finished... just before realizing Hild was looking over her shoulder.
"Tsk, tsk. Hagall, don't you realize how many souls we get from that scam? It's almost as good as the golden fiddle scam for breeding hubris. But let's see how good these mortals really are." Hild reached over Hagall's shoulder and adjusted a different part of the coordinates that had just been changed.
Hagall loked at the second edit, and smiled - a grin that Accelerator sometimes wished he could pull off. "Yes, that should test them nicely."
Montreal, QC, Canada
January 21, 2017
9:23 AM ET
They weren't in Tokyo any more. Nor were they on the ground.
Itsuki's first thought, after "what just happened?", was of the safety of his friends (most of whom were his employees). For once, Itsuki actually appreciated his Glam Sight ability; he would never have seen through the fog otherwise. A half-dozen of Astral's staff, including himself, were in the air above a rather wide river.
Somebody had to do something if they were going to survive the next few minutes. (Except for Kuroha, of course; she was long past the point of surviving anything.) And Itsuki was the person in charge. He shouted at the top of his lungs:
"President's Orders!"
He was surprised that he'd shouted it in English, but there was no time to wonder about that.
Adilicia was already summoning her favourite demon, as she always did during an emergency, so Itsuki turned his attention to the other girl who had a claim on his heart. "Honami! Pick me up!" As she manoeuvred her broom to catch him, he continued, "Kuroha! Channel power from Netzach to Gevurah! Use your Poltergeist to hold Mikan!"
"Right!", the team's resident ghost answered, catching the youngest member of Astral and pulling her back up to where she was levitating near Honami and Itsuki.
That left one person who still needed to be rescued. "Adilicia! Catch Nekoyashiki!"
Standing on the demon Forneus' back, she manoeuvred down to where the oldest member of Astral was still falling. The fish-like demon quickly locked its jaws around the back of the neck of Nekoyashiki's clothing.
"I do appreciate the save," he commented, "although, while I do love my cats, you really don't need to treat me like one." Said cats - Genbu, Seiryū, Suzaku, and Byakko - poked their heads out of the folds of Nekoyashiki's clothes at the sound of their human's mention of them... and immediately took refuge back inside his coat. "There, there, stay inside where it's safe and warm."
"Be glad I bothered to rescue you at all, you old onmyōji," Adilicia muttered.
"Since you mentioned 'safe'..." Mikan started.
Honami cut her off. "There's just enough room for you on my broom," the young witch offered.
"Thank you, Honami-neesan!"
"And thank you for taking her from me," Kuroha added. "I was almost at my limit."
"What do we do now?"
Itsuki considered Adilicia's question while Mikan sat down between him and Honami. "First, we land."
"I don't see any place near here where we can set down unobserved."
"There's a park on the peninsula almost directly below us," Itsuki replied. "We'll land there, and meet at the gazebo at the tip of the peninsula."
A few minutes after they had landed and gathered under the gazebo, and Honami had cast simple spells on everyone so that they wouldn't be affected by the freezing air, Itsuki sighed. "We're safe now. Does anybody know what happened to us?"
"We can figure that out later," Adilicia replied while banishing Forneus. "First, we need to learn where we are, and whether there are any immediate threats to us."
"Right. I'm glad one of us knows enough to think about possible danger."
"President..." Nekoyashiki said quietly and not unkindly, "We all know that much. It goes with being a magician." Then his white cat, Byakko, poked his head out of Nekoyashiki's clothes and meowed. "There is? Thank you for letting me know." Nekoyashiki turned his attention back to Itsuki. "There's a very large group of people slightly over a kilometre directly west of us, and they're all angry about something."
"Is there a riot going on?" Mikan asked worriedly, holding Honami's hand for moral support.
"If there is, we won't go anywhere near it," promised Itsuki. "But I'd better make sure." He reached for the patch over his right eye, preparing to remove it so that he could use the full extent of his Glam Sight.
"No! You can't!"
"My eye is already picking up impressions, Honami." He removed his patch, revealing the dragon's eye that had been hidden behind it.
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montreal, QC, Canada
Same time
Caster suddenly gasped and sat up from her slouch.
"What's wrong?"
She turned to Souichirou as she stood up. "Someone nearby is using True Magic. And it isn't me. I have to go."
She spoke a spell, and true to her word, she was gone.
Dieppe Park, Montreal, QC, Canada
Same time
Itsuki winced and covered his right eye with his hand. As both Adilicia and Honami rushed to his side, he said, "I've never seen magic like that before. It was far on the other side of the group that Byakko sensed, but I could see it clearly. And... it was movement magic, aimed here."
Suddenly nobody was by Itsuki's side, as Adilicia reached for her Seal of Solomon pendant, Honami pulled mistletoe from her pocket, and Nekoyashiki and Mikan both pulled ofuda from their own sleeves, each person at a cardinal compass point around the company president.
Kuroha moved closer to Itsuki, ready to create a wall of ectoplasm around the six of them if necessary. "I guess there is an immediate threat."
"Oh, I do hope you don't consider me to be a threat." Everyone but Nekoyashiki (who had taken the southern point of the circle) turned to see a beautiful, blue-eyed, blue haired woman with elfin ears. She continued speaking, but in a language that most of them didn't understand.
Adilicia replied in the same language, and was answered curtly by the newcomer.
"Whatever language they're speaking, it's Greek to me," Nekoyashiki commented quietly.
"It's Greek to everyone," replied Honami at the same volume. "But it's so ancient a version of Greek that it's only spoken by scholars and spell-casters nowadays. Oh, I have to get involved; Addie's annoying our visitor." She joined the conversation, which got Adilicia annoyed at her, but the blue-haired woman became calmer... until Honami said something about Glam Sight.
"Which of you has the True Sight!?" she demanded in English.
"Our President, Itsuki Iba," Honami replied in the same language.
"That would be me," Itsuki added while putting his patch back over his eye, before looking directly at the woman. "And you would be...?"
She smiled and curtsied... but it was obvious that the courtesies were sardonic. "In this time and place, I am simply called 'Caster'. But when I was human, I was the Princess of Colchis, the granddaughter of Helios, and the spurned wife of Jason."
Even Nekoyashiki's cats gasped in shock.
Adilicia was the first to find her voice. "Medea..."
Itsuki was the second. "You said you're called 'Caster'. Is there a Grail War going on right now?"
Caster scowled. "You're an idiot. If there was, I'd have to kill you all for knowing about it."
Le Centre Eaton de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada
January 21, 2017
10:20 AM ET
"If you can't find anything you like here, we'll head downstairs into RÉSO."
Mikan and Nekoyashiki felt it prudent to refrain from arguing with the First Mage when she suggested they get clothes that would let them blend in. Itsuki and Honami could get away with their high-school uniforms once Honami had removed her witch's hat and cloak (said cloak being used to conceal her broom), Adilicia was already wearing a stylish blue dress, and at that point nobody who wasn't a mage or a medium could see Kuroha anyway. But Medea insisted that the miko and the onmyōji needed clothes that didn't identify them as Shinto priests, and they all (save for Kuroha) needed winter coats. Hence the visit to a shopping mall.
Caster found it amusing that they had called her the "First Mage" while they were en route to the Montreal Eaton Centre. She was definitely not the first mage in her home reality... but she allowed that her counterpart in their home reality might have been the first mage that they knew about.
She was distracted from her thoughts by a question. "What's with all the nekomimi? Is there a cosplay convention going on?"
Medea looked puzzled at Mikan's question, then noticed two women wearing pink hats with something resembling cat ears, looking at a rack of t-shirts emblazoned with the words "I'm A Nasty Woman". She wondered how much to say to a group that included somebody who appeared to be barely old enough to attend grade school, then decided that they all needed to know. "They're protesting the recent election in the United States. That country, in its infinite wisdom..." - everyone could hear the sarcasm dripping off those two words - "... decided to elect a President who is so blatantly misogynist that he makes the Argonauts look like feminists."
"And people are protesting that in Montreal?" Honami asked.
"People are protesting that around the world," Caster replied. "But, as aunt Circe said, all men are pigs. Foreign politics isn't our concern right now. What is our concern is getting you some clothes that are appropriate for the season."
While neither of them picked up a t-shirt just then, Adilicia and Honami each quietly resolved to come back and buy one when they had some spare cash.
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montreal, QC, Canada
January 21, 2017
2:45 PM ET
"I'm back," announced Caster as she let the half-dozen Astral staff into the apartment building.
"Welcome home", replied Cassiopée, the building's manager. "Who are your friends?"
"They're a new group of arrivals. An entire association of mages!"
Itsuki held up a hand. "We aren't the entire Association" - everyone could hear the capital A - "just a single company. Itsuki Iba, president of Astral, at your service."
"Cassiopée Bright, building manager of Appartements Mont-Royal Sud. I'm happy to meet you." She smiled and offered to shake his hand.
From the door to the common room, Konata Izumi said, "Did I hear somebody say he's Itsuki Iba from Astral?" Poking her head out and seeing the group, she continued as she raced over, "I did! Hi! I just watched your anime last week! I'm a big fan!"
Cassiopée smiled. "I'll take recognition by our resident anime otaku as a positive identification."
Before Konata could continue, Kagami Hiiragi grabbed her shoulder from behind. "Right, right, stop bothering them. They just got here."
As Kagami dragged Konata back to the common room, Konata replied, "Haiiiiiiiiiiiii..."
The staff of Astral looked at each other. "Should we go somewhere else?" Itsuki asked quietly.
"Go where?" Adilicia asked in reply. "Do you know anyone else in Montreal?"
"No," he admitted.
Caster pretended that she didn't notice the exchange. "As you can see, Cassiopée, we need to set up our last remaining apartments for six people."
"Six?" Cassiopée asked in puzzlement. "Will there be somebody else arriving later?"
"Ah, you can't see the ghost. I'll need to do something about that."
"A ghost? We aren't going to be in any trouble, are we?"
Caster sighed. "Ms. Bright, we're called Heroic Spirits for a reason, the way Verðandi granted your wish notwithstanding. Ms. Kuroha is no more dangerous than I am. Actually," she added with a grin, "it's probably safer to know her than it is to know me."
"Heroic Spirits, Sweets Spirits, and now an actual ghost," Cassiopée said to herself. "Nobody warned me that I'd be administering a haunted building." Then she smiled and turned back to the newcomers. "In that case, welcome to the building! Unless you'd rather live somewhere else."
Honami took the chance to involve herself in the conversation. "I'm sure that your hospitality is more than sufficient for our needs. I'm Honami Takase Ambler, corporate secretary of Astral. I'm happy to meet you."
Cassiopée's smile turned into a grin. "Oh, you'll definitely fit in here, Ms. Ambler! You sound so much like our Rin Tohsaka that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you were both played by the same voice actress. Oh, but you have no idea what I'm talking about; I need to explain both transfictionality and the Refuge to you."
Mikan looked puzzled. "What does that big word mean?"
--
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
Forever neighbours, never neighbors
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
Forever neighbours, never neighbors