Otaku Reflected 

Episode Three, Eva Revolution 

Part Fourteen 

Dual Slayers! Shock! A Strange Arrival 

by Jared Ornstead 
  
=====

    The white robot crashed to the ground, defeated. 
    Jared had been waiting by the street corner he'd been given the 
address for almost a full minute, watching the explosions and debris 
field get closer. From his vantage point in the second story window of 
a bookshop (could you think of a better place to wait?) he saw glimpses 
of the fight he'd seen only just this morning, through the veil of what 
Mr. Sanada assured him was the separator between the Slayers and a 
dissimilar yet parallel world. 
    The world he was now in. 
    Shoving his purchases into a bag, the superspy ran out of the 
abandoned store to see the disheveled and bloody pilot stagger in the 
open chest plate guarding her pilot's compartment. Clutching a hand to 
her wounded side, the woman in her pink and white pilot suit stumbled 
against the exit jam and focused in on him just long enough to whisper 
the command for him to run. 
    Jared was there in two leaps and caught her just before she 
collapsed. Her helmet was a bubble-style that was mostly faceplate, and 
as he caught her the already shattered transparent material fell apart 
in pieces, cascading her silver hair over his arm as she sagged into 
his careful embrace. 
    Already having had lots of experience, two swift motions had opened 
the herb bag at his belt and he was administering cures to her even as 
he lowered her into the pilot seat, noting casually as an aside that 
her helmet material had melted like ice in stop-motion film on hitting 
the ground. As he was lifting a potion to her lips part of Jared's mind 
was considering the ramifications. Her uniform was obviously high tech, 
and form fitting. The way the shards of her faceplate melted said that 
whatever kept it solid was probably included in the helmet itself, and 
checking there, under the side of her chin, he found a control that 
made the rest of the faceplate substance turn liquid and withdraw into 
the suit itself. The puddles of fallen bits did likewise, reabsorbed 
into the suit by flowing up her limp form from the floor by her feet. 
    Well, at least she wouldn't cut herself on sharp corners. 
    A quick check revealed that whatever else this suit did, medicinal 
aid wasn't on the list. It probably monitored health signs, but that 
didn't help. Although Jared had to admit that she wasn't all that bad 
off to begin with, a fairly minor head injury and some trauma, all of 
it dealt with rather handily through herbs, potions and spells. 
    Spells. 
    An explosion rocked the mecha and made up his mind. 
    The superspy went deep inside himself to administer a healing spell 
to her injuries, and didn't need to be told twice that this robot was 
the opportunity he was sent here to use. In a trice he was seated in 
the throne-shaped command chair, the woman draped in his lap as the 
armor seals went in place. The type of healing usually administered in 
Slayers takes alot out of a person's inner reserves, but Jared had 
developed alternates less hazardous to the patient. Unfortunately, they 
were slow at the small amount of power he could spare them. 
    So he did a no-no. 
    There were ways to use another person's power to fuel your own 
magic. They were rare and thankfully Lina had never heard of them, 
partly because they were almost lost and considered the height of 
rudeness - which, being rude in a Slayers world led to ticked off 
mages, bounty hunters and small armies trying to kill you. A normal 
Lina wouldn't care, but it had practically stamped out the practice 
among those with even a smidgen of timidity. 
    Looking both ways before he began, even though it was useless as he 
was locked inside the command module of a giant robot, the prodigal 
sorcerer and superspy cast the short spell and drew a healthy amount of 
mystical energy, that of an ordinary young lady with no skill to use it 
on her own. Then he was able to cast the increased form of the healing 
spell and restore his own low reserves somewhat. 
    Then he spared a glance to battle readouts and discovered that the 
enemy mecha had just showed up. Sizing it up in a second he had to say 
that it combined a crab-like body with a humanoid lower torso and 
massive weapons in the place of limbs in exactly the right way to say 
'walking weapon platform' to the casual observer. As the hostile war 
machine oriented on him, Jared could see this really was the same 
battle he'd witnessed going on all morning from the alternate world. 
The lady had been fighting all day without a significant mark on the 
larger robot's armor. 
    It was also lining up for a main cannon shot at him. 
    Time to defend. 
    His combat reflexes were shot by being subjected to all those 
visions. Not a good way to start a real fight. He needed options. 
    ~Would it work? Well, nothing for it but to try, I guess.~ 
    "Vas Gluudo!!" Jared called, focusing his stolen power and doing 
his best to send it *through* the mecha he now rode as pilot. 
Unintentionally, the superspy placed his palms on the two pink crystal 
spheres located on the ends of the armrests where the hands would 
naturally lie. Instantly, the spheres began to glow and Jared directed 
his robot in necessary defensive maneuvers while he collected himself 
and took the measure of this enemy. 
    The blast it had intended to shatter his robot's armor was stopped 
by a magic barrier the size of a small shield - in proportion to the 
mecha Jared was now piloting. Grinning with delight, the redhaired 
youth continued to hold the glowing control globes, commanding his 
robot to rise, while privately noting that he'd found the command 
interface for this robot not a moment too soon. 
    Eying the robot eying him and his glowing white energy shield, the 
youth decided that he needed a little time to learn his mecha a little 
better before they got down to serious business. So what could he do 
with just a very little bit of energy? 
    ~Aha!~ The redhead grinned. ~Just the thing!~ 
    Once again focusing himself through the robot vehicle he called 
out. 
    "Swightflange!" 
    A blanket of misty fog spread out from him, almost immediately 
coating the area in a deep bank of cover, reducing visibility in an 
instant. Just the sort of thing you'd need against an enemy who was 
primarily distance weapon based. Jared took his mecha through a few 
evasive runs this way and that to buy some thinking time. 
    ~Hmm, what more tricks can be done with this?~ He thought, then 
grinned. ~Worth it to try? Of *course* it is!~ 
    "Download operational capabilities to pilot." 
    The flood of information he had to deal with was like a sudden 
spurt where his own synoptic teacher was a gentle flow, but he had the 
adaptability to handle it. All at once he had intimate, detailed 
knowledge of this thing like he'd been one of the designers. 
    A very Eva-like premise, blending of a pseduo-biology instead of an 
alien one, and the science involved was at least three tech levels 
higher than the Eva-project. But then this hadn't had the shortcut of 
taking a creature already *able* to do all things desired of the end 
product and making what was in essence a very tightly controlled cyborg 
out of it. The Evas were creatures emulating machines. This robot here 
was a machine emulating a creature. 
    It did a fantastic job, too. 
    Although it was clear this was a copy, not an original. There's no 
way an original, knowledgeable design team would put in three-fourths 
of a working system and not even make allowance for the rest. It was 
like tracing microcircuitry and coming across a mass of transistors 
welded in. Whoever did this didn't understand what they were doing, 
they were just taking their cues from another design. The partial 
systems outnumbered the complete ones and it looked like half of what 
worked was a happy accident. Overall, the robot design was an attempt 
to patch holes on a supercomputer using pinball machine parts. 
    Though it had bits of a fantastic array of technologies, what 
worked was nothing more than a weak force field - not *much* more than 
a repeller field, able to blunt damage, assist jumps and perhaps skim 
across smooth surfaces like an ice skater. A really good pilot could 
get the field focused to enhance physical strikes, but it would be weak 
against anything not built along similarly flawed lines. 
    On a brief hunch, he pegged the robot attacking him as being just 
about as flawed. 
    Jared sorted through the information with professional skill and 
interest. As it was, the robot was close combat only, with no ranged 
attack and precious little defense. There were bits of other systems 
incomplete in there, but nothing that worked. Nothing except the force 
field, weak as it was, and the mental interface that made it not unlike 
piloting an Eva, except in this case there was no will in the machine 
to synchronize with, only a network of systems that emulated a human 
spinal column, making the pilot equivalent to that machine's brain. A 
simple way of describing a complex system that had as many quirks and 
shortcomings as his Thunder Knight's old piloting interface. 
    On a hunch, piloting it would be every bit as tricky. 
    But seeing as his piloting ability from that previous mission was 
still with him, it was *not* going to be a problem! 
    A quick assumption was all he had time for, but the machine so 
closely emulated a second body that might serve as the excuse as to why 
he could cast his spells through it. The machine felt in some ways like 
a magic construct. 
    But that was absurd. 
    The pair of crystal spheres implanted on the ends of the pilot seat 
armrests were the conductor for his will, and if he piloted properly 
there would be an almost Eva-like response without the messes resulting 
from a trapped soul in the machine. 
    So, a wigged out but less dangerous control interface, a slight 
repeller field, and fists. Nothing else. The robot's capacity was used 
in proportion to the pilot's ability to interface in past the implanted 
security blocks - all of which were biologically based. 
    The fog was clearing, but Jared was pretty sure he had it now. A 
control rate of 40% meant that 40% of the robot's physical capabilities 
and repeller field were used, and that was basically it. 
    That was also enough. 
    Jared was an experienced giant robot pilot, if gone a little rusty 
now. He tweaked his interface percentage up, causing the control 
spheres to blaze with a much brighter light, and casually began dodging 
the enemy's best efforts. 
    "Mark fiendlies blue." He said. 
    Not surprisingly, the ranged-attack mecha he was idly dodging did 
*not* turn blue in any degree, shape or form. 
    "Mark hostile mecha red." 
    The ranged-attack mecha that was swinging at him with one arm and 
emptying its center-mount bazooka and cannon at him ineffectually was 
immediately outlined in red. 
    "Mark non-mecha hostiles in yellow." 
    Nothing appeared on his scopes, so that limited his interest to 
mecha, good. 
    "Mark enemy bases orange. Mark neutral combat forces black. Mark 
innocents and bystanders white. Mark friendly bases purple." Nothing 
changed color or acquired outlines that he could tell, except for a 
very few pets that were inside houses, and now could be seen through 
walls by their white outlines. 
    "Display battle map." 
    The redhead got a holographic display of a rigidly defined area 
appeared over the woman in his lap, whose eyes had opened and was 
regarding this and him. She sighed, and Jared continued to dodge the 
enemy as he examined this display. It being so rigidly defined, 
especially along with the apparent evacuation, told him that this was 
an arranged fight with observed rules, like a duel. 
    Since those rules contained a 'Kill the Enemy' clause, judging from 
this opponent's behavior and the injuries of the silver-haired woman 
pilot in his lap, he was fine by this. 
    There was a mess of blue on the display, but only three spots of 
red and no other colors to speak of. Jared considered this and spoke. 
"Revise friendlies. Mark friendly mecha blue. Mark non-mecha friendlies 
green." 
    Most of the battle map blue forces turned green, and from what he 
could tell by this revised display was that three blue mecha (including 
him) were in close combat with three enemy mecha, and the green forces 
were staying out of the fights for some reason. Mecha to mecha only was 
it? 
    "List rules of engagement, and priorities." 
    The computer began scrolling a *very* long list of provisions, 
restriction and rules past his screen. Jared ducked under an enemy 
punch and corrected. "Blank rules display. Repeat and summarize. What 
are this unit's priorities in *this* battle?" 
    [Neutralize the enemy. Do not exceed zone boundaries.] 
    Now Jared could *live* with rules like that! 
    His grin on the control spheres tightened, and the crystals erupted 
with white light that spread beyond the globes' physical dimensions and 
engulfed his hands in a clear, radiant glow as he concentrated more of 
his will into the combat machine. Suddenly his white robot was tearing 
apart the enemy mecha with great, broad swipes that took away chunks of 
armor at every hit. Jared focused on weak points in the mecha and soon 
had dismembered his enemy and stuck a blow to its ammunition stores. 
    The enemy robot exploded, but Jared was already leaping far away. 
The next two pairs of friendly and enemy mecha battling were close by 
each other, but far from him. He sped as quickly as he was able and 
soon came upon a blue duplicate of his present female robot, fighting 
against a near copy of the enemy he'd just slain. The weapon-based 
mecha had the lady robot on the ground, nearly pinned and at a severe 
disadvantage. 
    Battle auras on his screen said the lady robot was his friend and 
the other an enemy. No surprise there. 
    A flying leap kick aided by the repeller field and the stiletto 
heels on his giant robot ripped open a gash across the enemy's back. 
Landing to twirl on one foot, Jared reversed to strike a solid kick 
right on the armor that had been torn open, kicking all the way 
*through* the enemy robot as he misjudged their disparity of strength. 
    The explosion was not yet fading when he was off, carrying the blue 
robot away from the blast, setting her down as he made his landing and 
jumped into another leap. The third conflict was just ahead. A red 
armored girl robot against another of the same enemy types. The red 
robot actually seemed to be holding her own better than the other two 
lady robots had been before his intervention. 
    But she was still battered, cornered against a ruined library, 
trying to fend off attacks with a rifle that was quite obviously no 
longer functional - and probably out of ammunition. 
    Jared did a Ranma-esque jump through and rescue to grab the red 
female robot, turning about midair to throw a hastily snatched 
telephone pole right down the muzzle of the enemy's center-line 
bazooka, jamming the weapon with a risk of catastrophic explosions 
should they try to fire it. 
    He'd just set down the rescued mecha and was just about to blow the 
last bad guy to kingdom come when his battle display changed, closing 
down screens around him. 
    [Battle Completed.] 
    The redhead was sorely tempted to just beat apart the enemy anyway. 
He sighed, noting the woman in his lap had shifted to lie against him 
snugly. ~They'll probably get mad and not let me continue to work with 
them if I do that.~ "Contact base." 
    [Communications are non-functional.] 
    The silver haired woman in his lap was looking up at him with 
adoring eyes. Outside, the last enemy mecha was trudging away like a 
top athlete after a losing match, and the two 'ally' robots were 
standing by, looking unsure of him. Seeing as how his female passenger 
was awake, Jared asked her. "Hey, is there any chance that if I take 
this thing in to where it's based they'll react... unkindly, that I 
used it?" 
    She shook her head. 
    The redhead sighed more comfortably. "Well, that's a relief." 
    "What's your name?" The injured lady asked. 
    "Hmm?" He was plainly puzzled. "Victor Inverse, but only my sisters 
call me Victor. Everyone else calls me Jared. Why?" 
    "Mmm, Jared." She nuzzled his chest, working her hands into the 
folds of his cape. 
    Jared reacted about the way a dry sponge does to water, and with 
about as much choice in the matter. Here was affection. He soaked it 
up. 
    His years of loneliness had left him too dry *not* to! 
    After a long hug he noticed that the red and blue robots had teamed 
up and were carrying his robot in the direction of what he assumed to 
be their base. Jared checked his healing spells on the woman, she would 
be fine. No residual effects, no trauma that hadn't been dealt with. 
There wouldn't even be scars, though it would be a few days before she 
felt well without twinges. Another spell wouldn't be required, not that 
he could cast it as he was anyway. 
    He was still very low on spell energy, come to think of it. 
    That thought did *not* put him at ease. Here he was about to meet a 
strange military and they tended to be twitchy about small things like 
stealing their mecha, even if the theft was only temporary and served 
their ends. This would start them out on a *bad* footing, he felt, and 
if he had to escape from their jail that would only make it worse. Best 
to put off this whole connecting with the local force until he had more 
of a solid base under him. 
    Jared's hands went back to the mecha's control balls. His robot 
suddenly spasmed in the arms of the two holding it, twisting free and 
lunging several steps to kneel at the open side of the parking 
structure of a mall. 
    When the other two mecha caught up with it, the chest cockpit was 
open and within was only their own pilot, asleep peacefully in the 
control chair, clutching in her hands a cape. 

Ten Minutes Ago.... 

    The battle control center of the Earth Defense Force was alive with 
frantic cries and professional care for details as the fight took a bad 
turn against them. 
    "Unit 1 hit!" Announced a young man in a grey uniform with UN tags. 
"Life Sympathy has fallen to 20!" He swiveled in his seat to glance up 
from his flashing console to the face of his stoic commander. 
    The calm, mature woman standing behind and slightly to the side of 
the commander leaned over his shoulder to ask the subordinate. "Are any 
machines free to support?" 
    Already having swirled back to his boards, the young man responded. 
"Units 2 and 3 in battle, unable to disengage!" The brown haired tech, 
who looked oddly like Zelgadis in his pre-chimera form, snapped back 
quickly with more information. "Unit 1 has shut down! Life Sympathy, 
zero!" 
    There came shocked gasps around the command chamber as their first 
thought was to wonder if that meant the pilot's death. 
    A woman sitting at the twin to the Zelgadis-double's tech station, 
and who herself bore a strong resemblance to Amelia Wil Tesla Saiilune, 
competently went on in stead of her companion tech - they two being the 
leads of the small ten man command crew, and the only ones present 
other than their commander and the odd woman by his side who knew 
enough to deal with the emergency rationally. "Activation of Core Unit 
auto-eject confirmed!" She said, sounding ansy. 
    The Zelgadis double went on. "Core Unit Eject canceled!! Unit 1 is 
registering *two* life forms!" 
    "What?!" Shrieked the woman behind the commander's chair. 
    "Signal two confirmed!" Announced the Amelia double. 
    The short haired woman who stood behind the commander's chair was 
ignorant of the infamy normally attached to the name she bore: Akane, 
though to spare our readers the torture of trying to resolve this 
cosmic coincidence and *not* mentally link her with the Tendo daughter 
of that same name, who was not to be found in any local universe, and 
to whom she bore no relation, this lady had luckily been given the 
nickname of Connie. 
    "Where are the evacuees?" Connie asked, as the commander silently 
observed this keeping his thoughts to himself. The commander had as 
much or more experience guiding these battles as she, but Connie shared 
something of the... forceful, personality of her more famous namesake, 
and it caused more trouble than it was worth to disagree with her. 
    Amelia's dimensional twin responded. "Shelter reports all area 
residents present and accounted for." 
    "Has Unit 1 been captured?" Connie asked, rather forcibly. 
    Amelia's twin wilted under the pressure of her stare. "I... I don't 
know." 
    "It... couldn't be." The man in the commander chair, till now 
silent, whispered under his breath, already three leaps in logic and 
reason ahead of the rest of his staff, and coming to a conclusion many 
of them wouldn't guess at til tomorrow. 
    The Zelgadis of this universe stared at the readouts of his board 
in disbelief. "Unit 1 remobilized!" He glanced at the Amelia of this 
dimension to receive her quick nod. 
    "Establishing camera link with cockpit. I'm putting it on the 
monitor." She said. 
    The command center had a huge monitor, big enough that any movie 
theater would envy it, that wrapped over three walls, nearly 
surrounding the bridge-like station where the command crew worked. On 
this huge screen the display switched from technical overviews and 
mecha fact sheets with blinking damage displays to a view as if seen 
from the head of Core Robot One, looking *straight* up at the heavy 
assault mecha it was fighting, just as that enemy drew a bead, looking 
right down the viewscreen, and unlimbered one of the heavy, independent 
tracking, fast attack, armor piercing rockets it had been using 
throughout the day. It was like staring down the barrel of a rifle as 
the bullet came out. 
    Then the white armored arm of Unit 1 was there with a circular 
white shield made up of energy. The blast of the exploding rocket 
dissipated against it harmlessly. 
    Connie was staggered, alone among the bridge crew in not having a 
seat to absorb her nearly falling in surprise and shock. "How did it do 
that?!?" 
    "Establish contact!" The commander, wearing lab coat and glasses, 
gave the order, seeing a gap in Connie's control of matters. 
    "The robot's vocal communication system's down!" Zelgadis answered, 
having tried. 
    Billowing waves of what seemed to be mist or (more probably to 
their minds) white smoke began to pour forth from the mecha their 
viewpoint represented, obscuring details in only a few moments. 
    "Has Unit 1 caught fire?" Connie demanded, recovering herself. 
    "Negative." Amelia replied. "Temperature normal, fire warnings and 
electrical shorts are nil." 
    "Exterior temperature is dropping. Humidity at 100%!" Zelgadis the 
tech exclaimed. 
    "So it's fog." Connie concluded, still mystified as to the changes. 
    They waited in tense silence, only able to see billowing fog 
shrouding all but vague shadows of movement and buildings. After what 
seemed an eternity, Amelia gasped after a look at her control boards. 
    "U... Unit 1's Life Sympathy is falling into the minus range!" 
    Their gazes switched from the featureless fog to the girl. 
    "What?!" Even the commander joined in the exclamation. 
    Amelia counted off as her displays showed ever more drastic 
figures. "Minus 40... Minus 60... Minus 80...!" She swallowed and 
caught her breath, announcing where the stat had finally fixed. "Minus 
106!" 
    Suddenly the point of view of the monitor exploded from out of the 
mist, caught the enemy mecha by surprise and delivered to it several 
quick blows that instantly reduced it to scrap and ignited its 
ammunition. But the robot didn't stop. As its last enemy was behind it 
exploding, Unit 1 was already leaping away, covering the distance to 
Unit 3's battle. It didn't take even as long to destroy that foe and 
Unit 3 was carried free of the explosion as well. In a few hops it had 
reached and engaged in battle the heavy weapons robot attacking Unit 2 
and was about to send it to the scrap pile with the others when the 
surrender signal came. 
    It was over in seconds, screen displays switching from their 
careful record to the few but amazing words. 
    [Enemy Down.] 
    [Battle Completed.] 
    Intent looks and blank silence met the computer's announcement. 

    Jared was in the act of finding out more about this world. 
    It was a little trickier than he was used to. Normally he had all 
the briefing materials he could ask for, but the Agency was being 
strangely reticent and he was having to find it out on his own. 
    In some ways, geography for example (gotta love bookstores), it was 
identical to the Slayers world he'd just left. In others there were 
startling differences. There were two whole orders of magnitude more 
people, so even though the heart of the city was identical save for 
tech level and attendant infrastructure to the city where he'd lived, 
there were miles upon miles of outskirts that had nothing to compare to 
the world he'd just come from. Less forest, more farm... 
    The changes weren't all just in the countryside, either. Granted, 
the Slayers world had a bandit problem, and was something of a medieval 
mess, this place had quite the modern mess to overshadow it. There 
weren't any unifying threats out there in the woods, no trolls or 
monster races or chimera, or.... well, you get the picture. 
    While the kingdoms of a Slayers world more or less got along, here 
there was none of that. Man's chief enemy here was man, and they'd 
spent all the usual centuries of conflict learning to dislike each 
other. The UN had come into being with its usual waste, corruption, and 
vileness seeking to take advantage of that... 
    Aha! 
    Jared found a book entitled "Our present War", found that it wasn't 
on some flimsy political pretext but the actual shooting conflict (the 
giant robot on the cover was a nice hint) and settled down to read. 

    Massive hydraulic lift systems lowered the last of the three giant 
Core Robots into their dual purpose maintenance bay and launch system, 
setting the mecha snugly into their docking cradles. 
    Chest plates securing their cockpits cycled open, and pilots popped 
out of Units 2 and 3 to the salutes of their ground crews. The shapely 
pilot of Unit 2 waved in friendliness to the morose and unresponsive 
girl who'd piloted the blue plated Unit 3, but her attempt went 
unanswered and unacknowledged. 
    Feeling disappointed, the girl followed after her retreating 
partner to where she could get changed out of her flight suit. Behind 
her, factory automachines and servicepeople were already going to work 
at repairing the severely damaged combat units. Central processing 
nodes, called Core Units and the heart of the Core Robot technology, 
were already being extracted by machinery in order to decode and 
download the recordings from their latest conflict. 
    The processing core of Unit 1 went to where several scientists were 
waiting to argue over it. And, after they'd confirmed the readings to 
the best of their ability, they went right at it. 
    "How is it possible?!" Demanded one, among a group all dressed 
alike in lab coats. 
    Amelia, also dressed in a lab coat, admitted her puzzlement more 
constructively to a dressed-alike Zel, having both donned the garments 
since leaving the bridge. "How *can* the Core Unit work in the negative 
range?" 
    "It's theoretically incalculable!" Insisted a wildly frustrated 
staff scientist who was on the verge of pulling out his hair. 
    Zel wasn't entirely pleased either, but he spoke calmly over his 
crossed arms. "It is at odds with all our current theories for anyone 
who can produce those kind of readings to exist at all." 
    Amelia nodded. To her the subtext of what he'd said was obvious. 
All their current theories had to be wrong, or at least critically 
incomplete. 
    "Is it a gauge malfunction?" Demanded one of their desperate 
colleagues. 
    Zel let Amelia answer that one, her checks and crosschecks of the 
equipment had been thorough to the point of mania. She slowly shook her 
head. "The gauge and all other systems are working normally." 
    "It's absurd!" Demanded a scientist who now held handfuls of his 
own hair. 
    "It's not possible!!" Insisted the other staff researcher. 
    Zel and Amelia shared a long-suffering glance, both long tired of 
dealing with guys who insisted that reality fit their theories, rather 
than the other way around. 
    Overlooking the bay where the two staff scientists went on 
pointless arguments with the pair who actually had a good grasp of what 
they were doing, Connie stepped back from the window providing a view 
of the clean room where they worked and started over to a computer 
console, summing up the argument as she typed. "Be it absurd and be it 
impossible, whoever it was defeated the enemy." 
    Her efforts were aimed toward pulling up the voice record of the 
internal proceedings of Unit 1 during the battle, and to her surprise 
those efforts were frustrated by a top security lock, blocking her out. 
    Connie scowled at the screen in growing anger. 

    In the office of the lab-coated commander, that same voice record 
was playing. From the first "Vas Gluudo!!" to the end. The eyes of the 
commander showed he was impressed by the strategies used. As the 
recording announced, "Mark fiendlies blue" the commander couldn't 
resist a snort and a quick assessment of his own. 
    "Clever." 
    Jared's voice on the tape asked for the battle map display with 
various markings and again the man in the chair at the office desk 
listening to this couldn't resist asking. "Now why didn't *we* think of 
that?" 
    The girl pilot of Unit 2, the only other person in the room, said 
nothing. Her brown hair fell to her back in an attractive straight 
fall, and her figure was shapely, but there was a certain irritation in 
her manner from being called in to listen to this before she'd even had 
a chance to change out of the purple and silver flight suit she wore. 
    As the sound effects and commands continued, it passed "List rules 
of engagement, and priorities" before meriting another interjection 
form the authoritative man listening. 
    The commander snorted approvingly. "Guy's got his head on 
straight." 
    The recording ended, shortly after the twin voices. "Victor 
Inverse, but only my sisters call me Victor. Everyone else calls me 
Jared. Why?" and their own pilot's "Mmm, Jared." 
    The commander of the Earth Defense Forces stopped the playback, 
looking more earnestly at his star pilot chafing in her 
sweat-moistened, one-piece flightsuit and adding a shower to her list 
of things to do while changing. 
    "Are you sure this is the guy?" 
    He got a curt nod from the girl, who was thinking longingly of her 
favorite shampoo. 
    The man smiled, trying to draw her out. "That really was an amazing 
entrance wasn't it? His Life Sympathy figures were perfectly drastic." 
    The girl, uncomfortable and in need of a wash, was *almost* as 
unresponsive as the other girl pilot she'd waved to earlier. She stood 
up, unamused. 
    The commander sobered, abandoning that tack. "I realize you just 
got back, but you'll help me, won't you?" He asked seriously. 
    ~Not before I get to change and wash up.~ The girl thought, turning 
to leave without a word to the man behind her, who was left puzzled by 
her actions. 
    His face fell flat. 
    The computer began to beep that he had an incoming message. 
Answering it, he saw the sweet, scowling face of one of the major perks 
of this job. "Ah, miss UN Inspector. What can I do for you?" 
    Before Connie was even halfway into her tongue-lashing about 
concealing the data she wanted the commander sidetracked her by 
promising to send it directly to her. 
    Merely seconds into the X-rated soundtrack, Connie blushed and 
recalled just why she *hated* this job so much. 

    There was warm candlelight, soft music, and a steak that Jared had 
cooked himself using the restaurant's supplies and kitchen. Of course, 
being your own host, waiter and chef as well as customer required a 
certain strange twist of mind to actually enjoy, but he'd almost 
refrained from draping the towel over his arm a second time to stand 
up, face the table, and ask his own empty seat how he was enjoying the 
meal. 
    Sending his compliments to the chef, he sat back down and resumed 
eating. 

    An extremely traditional, grey haired Japanese grandmother walked 
stately into the hospital room to see her silver haired granddaughter 
sitting up in bed, clutching a medieval cape to her bosom. 
    The grandmother, Reika, glanced to the empty coat hanger on the 
wall where she herself had hung that cape when her daughter had been 
brought in for observation, easily deducing that the young woman had 
defied her bed rest orders to fetch it. She sighed, then arranged a few 
flowers in the vase into a more pleasing pattern. 
    "Yayoi," she addressed her silver haired granddaughter by name. 
"The cockpit of your robot was all over with blood. At first we feared 
you were terribly injured, but the doctors say all your tests were 
normal. No bleeding, externally or internally." 
    Yayoi played with the shoulder-blade length locks of her hair, glad 
the doctors hadn't shaved it as she'd first feared they would. 
    Her grandmother sighed, fearing what she had to say to her 
impulsive robot pilot of a granddaughter. "We next presumed it might 
have been blood from the stranger who saved you. But the blood type and 
DNA tests confirmed it as yours. I was wondering..." 
    Yayoi had the sudden feeling that an anvil was about to fall on 
her. 
    Reika paused, unsure of how to put this delicately. 
    "Did you use protection?" 
    The question stumped the granddaughter. Yayoi blinked. "What? I had 
my helmet on the whole time, grandma. It was just bumps. The armor 
held..." 
    Grandmother Reika eased herself into a seat on her granddaughter's 
bed, schooling her face kindly. "No, child. Are you going to be 
expecting?" 
    Frank incomprehension lit Yayoi's face. "...expecting what? A 
promotion? I don't think I could rate based on my last battle 
performance. And I certainly don't deserve a medal..." 
    Reika kept her features calm and soothing. "No, dear." She sighed, 
fearing this same treacherous conversation was getting even rougher. 
"Should I be arranging a marriage for you? Do you know the name of the 
young man you 'performed' with? After all, the blood was yours, and 
with no injury anywhere..." 
    Reika was treated to the sight of her granddaughter facefaulting 
out of bed. 
    "Victor." Came a troubled voice from below the rumpled heap of 
bedcovers. "He said his name was Victor Inverse." Yayoi's face appeared 
shyly (unable to believe she was _having_ this conversation) above the 
lip of the bed. "But grandma..." 
    Reika was already leaving the hospital room in her stately walk. 
"Thank you, dear. I'll try and contact his parents to arrange a 
marriage meeting to cover your little indiscretion." 
    Yayoi closed her eyes and groaned. 
    Then thought about it and smiled. 
    "My prince..." 

    It was late evening, almost full night, when the evacuees began to 
return from their shelters where they'd hid out from the battle. Jared 
paused in his prowling for information long enough to scope out the 
returning crowds. He saw several people who knew him, or rather the 
counterparts of folks he knew from the Slayers world. But just by 
placing himself against a wall as they passed by and reading their 
expressions none of them had any idea who he was. 
    That's it. It was certain. This was another world. 
    Shocking similarities, though. On a hunch Jared went by the place 
where his sisters had their restaurant in the other world. Nothing, 
only an internet cafe. Which... 
    Jared's eyes nearly bugged from their sockets as he saw Lina 
Inverse walk up to the empty business, fumble for and insert a key, 
open the door and shoulder her bag as she went inside and locked the 
door behind her. 
    Was that a *laptop* she'd been carrying?! 
    Well, she'd walked right by him. She didn't know him. While at some 
level he knew it only made sense it still served to shock him, like 
losing a friend, or in this case an adopted family member. 
    Probably the thing he hated most about universe hops was losing 
relationships with people. The superspy turned and walked away, 
dragging his mind back to priorities. There were enough other constants 
that for curiosity's sake the boy went to the abbey, now a high school, 
to confirm the battle damage he saw take place from the other world. 
Provide proof of Mr. Sanada's theory and get claim back to some of his 
lost sanity. Watching a battle that *didn't* take place was lunacy. 
Watching one that *did*, no matter how removed, was not. And he felt it 
ought to ease his strained battle reflexes somewhat. 
    He was right. 
    There was a military convoy, probably looking for him, arrayed 
outside the school with their lights off and endeavoring to be very 
quiet. It was just men and light vehicles, no heavy equipment or major 
weapons evident. With his spell reserves bubbling up nicely from that 
meal and some rest this was something Jared felt willing to risk. 
    So he donned a silly disguise. 
    Why? Because an anime hero has to do what an anime hero has to do, 
after all! But more importantly, they WORKED. Somehow there just 
appeared to be a common sense gene absent in the pools of most anime 
worlds, so they wouldn't recognize their own family members if said 
siblings, parents, in-laws, etc, changed their clothes and talked 
funny. They only ever got recognized as a plot device, in which case 
advanced plastic surgery, forgery of every needed document, deliberate 
voice training or injury to vocal chords, years apart and a foreign 
background built by purposefully spending those years immersed in 
another culture all amounted to nothing. 
    So a cheap wig and Groucho Marx glasses was as good a disguise as 
you'd get. 
    There were about thirty men, all big, burly types associated with 
infantry who had to rely on muscles to get much of their work done. 
They were all wearing olive drab, but not camouflage, and didn't look 
like they were expecting combat so much as willing to evoke a presence 
of official might. In fact they *couldn't* expect combat, somebody's 
daughter was with them, also wearing an olive drab army uniform. 
    Jared puzzled about that, until it struck him that she might be a 
witness who could recognize whoever it was they were waiting for - not 
that he didn't think this trap was set for *him*, but the only person 
who *ought* to be able to recognize him was that pilot rescued by him, 
and he was pretty sure her hair had been an attractive silver. This 
girl's hair was an equally nice brown, and considerably longer. 
    That was, unless she'd been wearing a silly disguise as part of her 
pilot's uniform. If she was, he'd never know. Anime laws cut both ways, 
they did. 
    Wearing a black wig, Groucho glasses, and a reasonable copy of 
their same olive drab, Jared snuck closer, taking his time about it, 
until he leaned casually against the side of the jeep where the girl 
waited. For some minutes she had been intensely concentrated on the 
task of scanning the crowds of tired civilians drifting back to their 
homes. 
    Jared spotted a boy about high school age among the people ambling 
along the street and discretely indicated him, saying under his breath 
with just enough force to carry to the army girl (who turned out to be 
roughly the same age as him). "Is that the one?" 
    The girl's glance took in the student and dismissed him again. 
"No," she corrected. "We're looking for a redhead." 
    Jared nodded sagely. 
    He was tapped on the shoulder from behind, looking revealed an 
unpleasant smile on an officer. "Hey soldier, ain't it about time you 
got a haircut?" 
    Jared realized that his black wig was three feet long. Hippy style. 
    ~Uh oh.~ 
    The sergeant had appeared at his elbow and, reaching up, gave the 
wig a yank to prove the unwise traits of thus not responding to 
regulations. The man was a trifle surprised when the entire head of 
black hair came away in his hand, revealing red thatch beneath. 
    Jared laughed nervously. There was no help for it. It's required. 
    The eyes of the girl had gotten *very* wide as she'd turned to 
watch this display. As her mouth opened, Jared slid a Twinkie in the 
opening to stop her talking and tried to get away. Unfortunately, half 
these men were football linebackers in civilian life and the other half 
were sprinters. He tried defending himself with his sword but was 
caught on the horns of a dilemma when he realized he wasn't sure he 
wanted to *kill* any of these guys. In that brief moment of indecision 
they got him. 
    They locked him in a truck and sped away. The girl in the lead jeep 
munched on her Twinkie as the streetlights flicked past. 

    Their base, surprisingly, was in the heart of town, displacing the 
fortress and grounds of the count who ruled here in the Slayers world. 
The town still coincidentally bore the name of Claire, which it 
inherited from the first countess to rule that country, and though the 
family name ruling there had since changed it still remained both the 
name of the county and town, and it was that irony which had drawn 
Jared there to work on the Claire Blade. 
    Named for the book and not the town, but that would be argued for 
generations. He knew, and was delighted for the playful bit of 
confusion. Hopefully some foes and fiends would underestimate the 
weapon because of it. 
    That is if he ever finished it. 
    As they pulled in the base and the truck pulled up to offload him, 
Jared got punched in the face by a guard upset at being nicked by 
Jared's sword while capturing the redhead, and said redhead got a bit 
upset at the unfair treatment. Spying a jeep full of guards coming up 
to put extra restraint on him, his rather fragile hold on good humor 
evaporated, and the many years worth of exposure to his sister Lina 
came out. 
    A bit of Ryoko's temper may have bubbled up there as well. 
    Jared's handcuffs disintegrated. He thrust a fist at the earth, 
shouting. 
    "Explosion Array!" 
    The guards around him tumbled like hail to untidy heaps where the 
low-power spell had flung them. Many of their comrades were unlimbering 
weapons with clear intent to fire. 
    But the mage held an answer to that. 
    "Windy Shield!" 
    As dozens, then hundreds of guards began to unload their automatic 
weapons at him, all Jared had to do was smirk. Indeed, the shield of 
gales circling round him deflected even the machinegun bursts, and 
though a *normal* spellcaster wouldn't be able to handle that spell 
plus another, Jared was ANYTHING but normal! He posed menacingly. 
    "Infinite earth, mother who nurtures all life, let thy power gather 
in my hand! 
    "VLAVE HOWL!" 
    Jared watched with satisfaction as the ground and pavement under 
the firing troops turned to magma beneath their boots. Men shrieked and 
howled, abandoning weapons to jump and scramble aboard jeeps as boots 
and such caught fire. Ammunition exploded as weapons were dropped and 
guns began to melt into pools of slag. Tires blew out near-instantly 
and the jeeps themselves began to melt from the undercarriages down. 
    "Freeze Arrow!!" Jared decided mercifully to spare their lives and 
made each jeep its own glacier, which quickly evaporated and turned to 
steam where it hit lava, but the juncture of heat and ice would cancel 
each other out. It also didn't hurt that the men taking refuge on the 
jeeps had their boot fires extinguished and were imprisoned up to their 
waists in blocks of immovable ice. 
    No worries from *them* any time soon. 
    A battle tank pulled around the side of the building. 
    Jared's scowl/smile was *not* pretty to see, and came as proof of 
just how much time he'd spent with Lina, sharing her formative years. 
    "Oh, source of all power, light which burns beyond crimson, let thy 
power gather in my hand. FIREBALL!" 
    Bits of tank began to rain down over a wide area. 
    "MEGA VRAIMER!!!" Jared used a specialty spell of Naga's which he'd 
completed and improved on himself. From the asphalt, the concrete walls 
of the military buildings, and the pool of magma itself, golems began 
to arise. Humanoid constructs which normally had a very limited and 
robotic response, but Jared's were advanced enough to respond to jokes. 
It didn't hurt that carbon molecules rearranged themselves as the 
golems were forming and soon he had an army of fifty-two, 
diamond-formed humanoid soldiers each seven feet tall. 
    Jared spied the girl, frozen immobile by her shock, and thought to 
capture a useful prisoner to wring for information on the hows and whys 
of this attack. Snapping his fingers, his army of golems formed up 
around him, and the redhead himself thrust out a hand toward the 
brown-haired girl. 
    "Mono Volt!" 
    He shouted, toning down the attack, intending to paralyze her with 
an electric shock so he could carry her away in peace and safety, 
without all the usual kicking and screaming that accompanied 
kidnappings. 
    "Aero Bomb!" 
    A compact ball of air exploded in the path of his lightning volt, 
deflecting the thing to a harmless explosion, spraying dust and 
concrete from a nearby wall. Inverse was stunned! The Aero Bomb was 
made to be used exactly like that, and was considered a useful spell 
for beginners because of that defensive utility and its quick casting 
time. 
    But who here ought to be able to cast it? 
    Who here should have *any* spells other than himself?!? 
    The dust and smoke cleared away to show the girl panting heavily in 
the pose of just having concluded a casting at the limit of her 
experience and ability, and suddenly the mage recognized the girl 
through her uniform. 
    "Mitsuki?" 
    Jared stood stunned. 
    The thread of Dimension Spanner + Inventor's Daughter = Present in 
Parallel World was not one too complicated to follow, was it? After 
all, it was they and their device that sent *him* here. It's not like 
that was so long ago that he'd forgotten it. 
    Uh oh. 
    He turned to look somewhat regretfully over the ruined courtyard 
amidst the moans of cold, burned and frozen men, his mouth twisted in a 
grimace of sudden shame. "Ooops." 
    There was no help for it. He gathered the last vestigages of that 
restored portion of his magic power and whispered a spell of few words. 
A white glow sprang up from him and spread forth, bathing the entire 
battlefield in its light. When it was gone, even the scraps that had 
once been tank crewmen were assembled together again, wondering what 
had happened. 
    There was not a mark of the fight anywhere to be seen. 
    A VAST amount of blinking went on as people tried to adjust to 
something none of them could believe. Many were thinking of 
hallucinations as their explanation. Mitsuki's eyes bulged out of their 
sockets, but she quickly recovered herself. 
    Jared turned his back on it to distract attention away from the 
spectacle. He sighed, waving a hand. "Well, not the *best* way to go 
impressing a girl, but then how do you go impressing someone who 
kidnaps you on a first date?" The boy mused. 
    Mitsuki unexpectedly flashed him a grin, one of those charming 
smiles that said all was okay between them if he'd let it be. She 
placed her hands behind her back and leaned close to say. "Impressive 
sorcery, really. You never did display anything like that at the 
abbey." 
    He accepted this and weighed it, then smiled back, feeling better. 
There sprouted on his face the ghost of what would be a wry grin under 
better circumstances. "So you *are* the Mitsuki I knew, and not a 
counterpart." The boy shrugged, heading off again, keeping to a pace 
where she could easily remain at his side. "Well, at the abbey I was 
mostly too tired to amount to anything. I had alot of projects on the 
side that kept me busy." 
    Mitsuki continued her smile, staying close by him, judging and 
weighing him with her eyes as she guided him toward the base and a door 
within that opened on a high security corridor. "You throw a mean 
fireball, and that's not even half! Why hadn't you graduated if you 
could fight like that?" 
    ~So *that's* what she thought I was doing there.~ The boy inwardly 
shook his head. ~Luna, your schemes to get me hitched...~ Well, he 
*did* throw a mean fireball, just he'd kept that a secret so long he 
hadn't realized what it would feel like when it at last slipped out. 
The boy mage sighed and signaled his golems to take up positions around 
the building as he went inside, while contemplating his reply. 
    Mitsuki alternatively followed and dragged him eagerly along. 
    Jared grinned more fully, answering her question with the truth 
(always handy when you could use it). "I was there to use free lab 
space, also because my oldest sister wanted me to get married and 
figured that school was a good place to try it." The boy looked aside 
at the girl, returning her gaze. "You've given that abbey quite a 
reputation as a place to get hitched, what with your habits of pairing 
off your suitors with your girl friends." 
    There was a light in her smile as Mitsuki responded. "Well, what 
else was I to do with them? I certainly couldn't marry them all." She 
flounced, moving ahead of him, speeding the pace down the corridor, 
then twirled to show him a grin approving that he'd worked out what she 
was doing in the abbey back then. "Besides, the girls didn't mind." 
    Jared replied with a grin of his own. "No, I imagine they 
wouldn't." The spy suddenly slowed, as he became curious and changed 
the subject. "Where are we going?" 
    Mitsuki grabbed his arm, pulling him on. "To meet the commander, 
c'mon!" 
    They stopped in front of an office with a set of heavy double 
doors. They began to creak slowly open in an ominous way that screamed 
'threat' to his mind. Just then, events exploded into action. 
    "So YOU'RE the one!!!" 
    The front double doors both sprang instantly open and a man ran 
through gesturing widely enough that he took up the space to fill both 
frames. Suddenly Jared was enfolded in the man's glomp, and the lanky 
gentleman was rubbing their faces together. "Thank you for coming! I'm 
overcome with emotion. You're the chosen one alright! You even *feel* 
good!" 
    As the man's scratchy, almost bearded face was rubbed against Jared 
repeatedly in a display of affection normally reserved for pets and 
children, Jared tensed up and shouted. 
    "FIREBALL!!" 
  

*** 
Author's Notes 

    I've been asked to include lists of the spells used, but I tried to 
describe them all well enough in the text. They are all standard 
Slayers spells, perhaps taken to higher levels of mastery.