Yami To Boushi to Hon no Tabibito: Ever After
Four: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: StrikerS
Hazuki felt a certain amount of disorientation when they traveled to a new world, and this one was more disorienting than most. Her long black hair swirled around her as she took in the sights, her grip tight on her katana.
Mid-Childa, as their guide called it, was a Earth-like world, but one that seemed very different from home. Several moons hung visible in the daylight sky, while men and women flew through the air without any apparent technological means. There were regular cars and floating vehicles, people and human/animal hybrids and other kinds of strangeness. It was all just a bit overwhelming.
Soon after they had arrived on this world they were taken to Lt. ColonelYagami, who had not been what Hazuki had been expecting to see. Instead of an old guy Hayate Yagami wasn't much older than they were, and the brown haired woman's eyes had twinkled with amusement as they talked, the two of them sitting in chairs in front of her big desk.
"Simply transporting to Mid isn't in violation of our laws," Hayate noted, "though the Time Space Administration Bureau does try to monitor such transits for various reasons."
"I see," Hazuki replied respectfully, mildly awed by the other woman's aura of cool confidence.
"So far," a smile quirked Hayate's lips as she joked, "the only thing I could charge you with would be interrupting my friends' holiday."A bit more seriously she said, "To be frank, my primary concern is your ability to travel undetected by our systems."
Lilith leaned forward in her chair as she pointed out reasonably, "It's not our fault you can't detect my magic."
"True enough," Hayate agreed. She smiled winningly as she asked them, "But I hope you'd be willing to help us out a bit?"
In short order they found themselves in a research lab, tested, then in the custody of a new guide, who was taking them to a unknown destination. "So, uhm," Hazuki tentatively asked her, "where are we going now?"
Shari smiled warmly, the technician at the TSAB having been detached to accompany them, "Well, after Subaru and Teana brought you in, the lab determined that your method of dimensional transport is different than others that we've encountered. I was hoping we could see a expert on the subject, if she's in."
Lilith was looking around at the surroundings in awe, as well as a bit covetously. In the past Lilith had tried to get magic items by taking them, so Hazuki was keeping a eye on her. "So, you do all this," the bosomy blonde gestured to a flying car, "through combining magic and technology?"
"Yes and no," Shari said in answer as they walked down a tree lined road away from the TSAB buildings, "you see, we don't see any distinction between those different forces. It's all energy to us, be it magical or physics based."
"I see," Hazuki nodded as they walked by a shop or two before coming to a group of houses, presumably for base personnel.
"Here we go," Shari lead them up a walk way. "Now to see if she's in..."
"You didn't contact her in advance?" Lilith noted, amused at the idea these advanced people might not have phones, even though she herself was dressed in a old fashioned white and black dress.
"She usually doesn't answer her calls," Shari admitted as she knocked on the door.
After a moment the door opened to reveal a tanned, beautiful young woman wearing casual clothes. A woman that both Lilith and Hazuki recognized as she smiled, "Yes?"
"Quill?" Hazuki blinked in astonishment. The woman was the spitting image of the primitive girl that she and Lilith had met on their first adventure across the worlds, the young woman whom Hazuki had become friends with and saved from a animal sacrifice.
The woman looked up at Hazuki quizzically, "Yes, I'm Quill Fiat. Have we met?"
"Ah...," Hazuki opened her mouth, unsure how she was going to explain.
"These are Hazuki and Lilith," Shari took over explaining with smooth capability, "they're travelers visiting here from another dimension."
Quill nodded wisely as she said, "I see." She smiled gently up at Hazuki as she conjectured, "You met another 'me' on a different dimension, I suppose?"
"Yes, we did," Lilith confirmed, frowning slightly at how close the good-looking woman was standing by Hazuki. The original Quill had been FAR too interested in her Hazuki, was this twin going to be the same way?
"It happens," Quill chuckled casually. She looked over at Shari, "I'm sure this is interesting, but why bring them to me?"
"However they arrived in our dimension, our normal scanners at headquarters didn't pick it up," Shari explained excitedly, "if two field agents hadn't been nearly right on top of them we wouldn't have even known they had arrived."
"Oh HO," Quill brightened. She took a small pendant she wore around her neck in her hand and cried, "Cadeus, release!"
There was a bright flash of light and Hazuki reflexively moved to draw her sword, only to blink in surprise. The small pendant seemed to flow outward, 'growing' into a staff with a dark blue jewel, held in place by what looked like a silver mechanical clamp. The steel staff was lined by red metal rings about a foot apart, set all along it's six foot length and it glowed softly.
"Dimensional energies detected," the staff said in a mechanical voice.
Hazuki kept a hand on her sword hilt as she demanded, "What is that thing?"
"It's just her Device," Shari tried to reassure them.
"I'm sorry," Quill tried to hold her staff in a non-threatening way as she said, "I forgot you're not from our dimension." She took on a lecturing tone and explained, "You see, most residents of this world have the ability to use magic, but it's difficult to learn to do on our own. That's why most of us have Devices, artifacts to assist us in channeling energy in various ways. Mine is this staff that I usually store in a pendant form."
Lilith was looking at it with wide eyes, "I want one!"
Quill chuckled as she said, "Cadeus, say hi."
"Hello," Cadeus said in a dry tone, the gem pulsing blue with each word it spoke. It was difficult to guess a gender from the voice, but it mostly came across as male.
"I'd like to use Cadeus to examine you for energies related to your trip here," Quill told them as she waved the staff towards them eagerly, "if you truly used a new method of dimensional transport, it could be very useful to our people."
Lilith took a half step back away from the staff as she asked, "And what's in it for us?"
Quill looked thoughtful, "The betterment of science?"
Lilith snorted with amusement, "Oh come on..."
Soon the two women were down to a serious bargaining session as Shari and Hazuki looked on bemusedly. There was a fair amount of drama and name calling, but both seemed to enjoy it. Quill would insist the energies weren't theirs, Lilith countered that they deserved payment for time and trouble and so on until they finished up.
"All right," Quill said, "we'll provide you with a Device, food and other supplies, but I get to have you as my lab rats until then."
"Lab rats?" Hazuki paled a bit, "I didn't agree to..."
"Hazuki," Lilith pushed herself against Hazuki and batted her eyes sweetly, "this way we'll be better off on the next world." She smiled warmly, "Please...?"
Hazuki tried to muster up a argument, but the big blue eyes gazing at her made it hard to fight. "Oh, all right," she conceded.
"Good," Quill smiled as she addressed Shari, "Thank you for your help, but I think I can take it from here."
"Can I stay and watch?" Shari asked, knowing that if she went back to work she'd just face more filing for Hayate Yagami.
"Sure, if they don't mind," Quill said casually as she nodded towards Lilith and Hazuki.
"It's fine," Lilith waved it away casually.
Quill studied the two of them, then she gave Hazuki a positively predatory look. "Miss Hazuki?" she smiled, "Please disrobe."
"What!" Hazuki yelped, going beet red in embarrassment.
Quill observed that reaction and smirked, certain evidence adding up in her head. "I was just teasing," Quill smiled, "but you and my counterpart must have been VERY close."
"You could say that," Hazuki said sheepishly.
Lilith didn't like seeing someone else teasing Hazuki like this, but she just couldn't let that by. "They were very close," she told Shari and Quill with a smirk of her own, "that Quill even asked Hazuki to eat her!"
"Oh!" Shari blushed as she murmured, "So they were like Nanoha and Fate!"
Quill was giving Hazuki a look that could be described as very thoughtful. "We;;, I can see why I'd ask," she admitted.
"Argh," Hazuki blushed as she shook her head, "It's kind of complicated."
With that Hazuki, with a generous helping from Lilith, sketched in their adventures with the other Quill. The arrival, fighting the savage tribe, Lilith's temporary Queendom, the natives plan to sacrifice Quill, the arrival of the native's 'God' a jaguar like monster, Hazuki's defeat of it and Hazuki's being declared 'God' by the tribe.
Quill was giggling softly as she ran Cadeus over Lilith and noted, "I can just imagine you throwing yourself in Hazuki's lap shouting 'eat me!' over and over."
"It was fun," Lilith agreed as she thrust her bosom forward for the scan.
"Cadeus, compare data with records of anomalous dimension transports," Quill ordered as she ran the staff over Hazuki's sword.
"Working," Cadeus noted calmly then added, "match found. A disappearance some months ago matches energy signature."
Lilith and Hazuki exchanged a look. "Was the person who disappeared about our age, with blond hair and blue eyes?" Hazuki asked eagerly.
"Description matches," Cadeus said as it projected a hologram of the girl.
"Eve!" Lilith growled.
"Hatsumi," Hazuki corrected with a sigh. At the questioning looks from Shari and Quill she explained the rough details of their quest, leaving out the more unusual bits.
"Interesting," Quill mused, "very interesting."
To be continued...
Notes: 'Quill Fiat' is a tip of the hat to Nanoha characters often carrying car related names. I'm assuming Shari knows about Nanoha and Fate's relationship, considering both women live together, sleep in one bed and are raising a daughter together.