Marisa led Nanoha out to her yard. Marisa?s house was located at the edge of a small clearing in the middle of a forest that stretched as far as Nanoha could see. It looked very much like a forest back in the outer world. The house that they just walked out of was a simple one-story thing, with a few windows, and a brown pointed roof, with a chimney perched on top. Vines covered the structure, and Nanoha got a distinct feeling of homeliness from the house. Beside her, Marisa filled her in on the system of magic that Gensokyo mages and youkai used.
??Because Of Reimu?s importance to Gensokyo, she invented the spell card system to allow youkai to defeat her without killing her.? Marisa talked as they moved into the clearing. ?Before, it was more of a ritualized duel, but after a little trip to the moon, and a fight against someone not bound by spell card rules, Reimu allowed more physical aspects to be used in a duel, ze. However the first rule of a spell card battle is non-lethal magic only.?
?That?s fairly similar to how we use magic at home.? Nanoha explained. ?At least that?s how I use it. Mid-Childian magic?s effects are based on the user?s intent; and I?ve never had to fight someone with intent to kill.?
?Interesting, ze. I wonder if your magic will work under this system.? Marisa stopped in the middle of the clearing and took out a hand full of cards. ?These,? she said displaying them to Nanoha, ?are spell cards, ze. They?re a physical manifestation of the spells that a mage would use in combat. Each magician and youkai has a set of spell cards that relate to their specialties, ze. ?
Nanoha picked out one of the cards. It was a rectangular sheet of paper, with writing on both sides. On the front side she recognized the writing as some kind of incantation. On the back side she guessed, was name of the spell with the picture of a rather large rainbow-colored beam. She read it out loud.
?Love Sign-?Master Spark??
Marisa grinned. ?That?s my favorite one, ze. I specialize in direct confrontation attacks like lasers and direct bullets.? She hefted her broom. ?So you want to see what I can do, ze??
Nanoha smiled. ?Sure, if you?re going first??
Marisa waved her off. ?No, no, no, ze. What I mean is,? she pointed her broom at Nanoha. ?You and me. Up in the air.? Her grin got wider. ?Dueling.?
?Eh!?? Nanoha was surprised at the declaration to say the least. ?But we?ve just met, and we don?t know how each other?s magic works! What if we end up hurting each other??
Marisa sat on her broom and started floating. ?You said that your magic doesn?t deal permanent damage, right, ze??
?Well yeah, but??
?Then there?s nothing to worry about, ze.? She got off the broom and walked over to Nanoha. ?Besides, in a real battle, you won?t always know what your opponent is capable of. Sometimes you have to learn under fire.?
Nanoha thought about it for a little while, then slowly smiled. As far as she could tell with what Marisa had told her, fighting against her would be only slightly different from fighting against a Mid user, and there would be no permanent damage to either party. She held out Raising Heart. ?In that case, I accept. Raising Heart, set up!?
During the short transformation, Marisa watched with interest. When Nanoha finished, Marisa whistled. ?That was sure something, wasn?t it, ze??
Nanoha was about to reply that is was nothing, but a voice behind her cut her off from behind.
?Yeah, that was pretty cool.?
Nanoha jumped in surprise and turned around. Standing there was Reimu, with a smirk on her face. ?What, you didn?t think I was going to stay in the house with a show about to start, was I??
Nanoha mouth worked for a little while trying to get something out. ?Y-you didn?t have to sneak up on me!?
Reimu looked nonplussed. ?Why not? Anyway, you guys were going to start??
Nanoha looked back at Marisa. She was already above the treetops, looking down at her ?Hurry up, ze!?
Nanoha jumped off from the ground. Immediately, pink wings of energy sprouted from her feet.
?Flyer Fin?
As she drew level with Marisa, she saw that she?d already pulled out a card. Marisa smiled. ?You ready, ze??
Nanoha had Raising Heart transform into shooting mode and returned the smile. ?Are you??
Marisa?s grin got even wider. Without preamble, she declared her attack. ?Magic Sign ?Milky Way?!?
Suddenly, the sky was filled with stars. Nanoha?s eyes widened at the sheer amount of them. There was no way she was going to dodge all of them!
?Wide Area Protection?
A translucent sphere wrapped around her, and not a moment too soon. As soon as the barrier closed itself off, countless stars of all sizes began to impact the barrier from all directions. She realized the barrier wouldn?t hold for long as spider web cracks began to form in the sphere. The moment the barrier failed, she was plunged into a mad hailstorm of multicolored stars.
This is insane! Nanoha thought as she whirled around a particularly large star. How can she keep up this barrage for so lo? She was cut off as she was blindsided by a star. The star packed a much larger punch than she realized and she was sent reeling.
?Oof!?
?Come on, is that the best you can do?? Marisa laughed as she sat in the eye of the star formation.
Nanoha shook her head to clear her dizziness and glared at Marisa. She was about to retort, when she saw something that stopped her short. There was a pattern the stars took as they travelled. Every so often, the stars would shift, opening up gaps in the formation. Suddenly feeling confident, Nanoha started to dodge with renewed vigor.
Minimum movements to conserve energy. She thought. Feeling much more confident at dodging the stars, she decided to respond with her own attacks.
?Accel Shooter!?
Six pink balls of energy shot out at Marisa. She wove through them easily and pulled another card.
?Light sign: ?Ear?OW!?
Something slammed into her back hard, interrupting her spelling. She vectored off her line of flight quickly, and saw five pink shots flash past. As she watched, they slowed down, and re-aimed themselves at her. Homing shots!
She quickly moved out of the way of the shots and threw several bullets of her own at them. As each of her green arrowheads impacted Nanoha?s pink orbs, it released a bright flash of the combined energies of the two shots.
As she destroyed the last of the offending projectiles, she had a sudden premonition of doom. She quickly veered left just as a large pink beam scythed through the space she had occupied milliseconds before. Quickly Marisa looked at the beams point of origin. There, Nanoha had another ball of energy charging.
Marisa smiled slightly. So, she wants a head-to-head? She pulled out her hakkero. Fine, let?s see if she can take on a spark!
?Love Sign!?
Marisa aimed her Hakkero at Nanoha and declared her attack. As her Hakkero began to glow with power, Nanoha did the same.
?Master??
?Divine??
??Spark!?
??Buster!?
Two beams of destructive power lanced out towards each other. Unfortunately for Nanoha, Marisa?s spark was consuming the distance between its front end and Nanoha as it swallowed up her buster. Up above, Marisa watched as her spark made contact and exploded. Nanoha and the surrounding area was surrounded by a gigantic clout of dirt and debris as the spark annihilated the trees and dirt behind Nanoha. Marisa whistled.
?I thought she could take it, ze.? She lost some altitude to look more closely. ?I hope that didn?t end it, ze.?
?Restrict Lock?
Marisa suddenly found herself unable to move her arms and legs. Looking at them she saw glowing pink circles around each limb. What is this, some kind of bind? She thought as she tried to move again. Suddenly noticing a pink glow, she looked down at the dust cloud fearing the worst.
Out of the dust and broken trees, battered, but none the worse for the wear, was Nanoha. Marisa noticed that her clothes had transformed from before. Now, instead of thigh-high socks and a short skirt, she had a long skirt and no bow. Her staff had also transformed, becoming very much spear-like. At the tip of the spear was the source of the glow; a giant ball of energy that continued to get bigger as she watched. Nanoha had a nasty grin on her face.
?Excellion??
This is going to hurt, ze. Marisa sighed and braced herself for the oncoming holocaust.
??Buster!?
A much larger pink beam barreled its way towards the bound witch. As it got closer, Marisa judged its strength to be at the level of her Master Spark, or higher. She smiled uneasily. Who is this girl, to live outside the Border, but still have this power?
Then the beam hit, and questions about the outside world were swept away.
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As the beam dissipated, Nanoha watched the now limp form of Marisa start to fall to the ground. As Marisa fell, her elation at beating Marisa turned to horror as she realized Marisa didn?t have any way of showing her fall. Panicked, she looked at Reimu who seemed completely unconcerned that her friend was falling to her doom.
?Aren?t you supposed to do something?!? Nanoha shouted at Reimu.
She shrugged. ?Her fault for flying so high. Besides, she?s not as out of it as you think.?
Nanoha turned back to watch Marisa?s plummet. Sure enough, not five meters from the ground, Marisa?s hand shot out to grab her broom that had suddenly materialized within arms reach. Her speed fell sharply until she was close to the ground at which she dropped unceremoniously to the ground in a heap. Nanoha ran up to her as she was pulling herself together.
?I?m sorry about that!? Nanoha apologized as Marisa sat up. ?I forgot you didn?t have a barrier jacket, I didn?t know that the fall might have killed you??
Marisa waved off the apology. ?Naw, don?t worry about it, ze. I?ve gotten hit with worse before.? As she was waving her arm she grimaced ?Ow, ow, ow. I feel like I?m bruised all over. Can you help me up, ze??
Nanoha smiled and took her hand. As she pulled Marisa up, Reimu walked up to the pair and smiled. ?That was a good fight there Nanoha. Your magic style seems fairly compatible with what we have here. Maybe you should try your hand at making spell cards.?
Nanoha laughed sheepishly. ?Nyahaha, I just got lucky.?
Marisa laughed. ?Naw, don?t be so modest, ze.? She grimaced. ?That last shot was pretty good, ze. At least as strong as my Master Spark.?
?Moving on,? Reimu said, ?it?s best if we find you lodging sooner than later. Marisa?s house isn?t meant to support sentient life.?
?Hey!?
?Maybe Alice?s house?? Reimu never finished her sentence. Suddenly a low rumble shook the ground. Although the quake lasted only a few seconds, Reimu had frozen in place for about a half minute, during which her face slowly darkened. Nanoha was about to ask her what was wrong before Reimu started up again.
?Change of plans.? She said while turning her back on them. ?We?re going to the shrine. If Tenshi or Yukari are fooling around with my shrine again??
She took off without another word. As they watched her disappear over the trees, Marisa and Nanoha exchanged a glance, then took off after her. Nanoha silently hoped that she wasn?t about to be dragged into anything too big, but, she thought, it was starting to look inevitable.
It's been a while since I've posted last, mostly because of the fight scene. This is the first piece of fiction I've ever written, and I had a hard time approaching the fight scene. Also, other parts of the story were clamoring to be put down before I could get to this part of the story. For example, I know who's going to attend the after-incident party, how they're going to take on Satori, and how I'm going to re-introduce Fate. I have so many chapters in progress, but none completed.
On that note, who else has specific places where you think up plotlines? I seem to only be able to think of them in the shower and right before I go to sleep. :V