Youthful Indiscretion
“Tell me, Corolla: what is this?” Agent Trainer Desdendelle asked, turning the smartphone-like device in his hands, then pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“That’s the new device I’ve been working hard on during the last few years! Well, more like on and off, you know how stuff goes here. Anyways, that’s the most advanced combined Analysis Device the PPC has ever seen, the Holographic Combined Canon and Character Analysis Device! H-CAD for short.” Corolla poked at the screen. “Well, this one is in debug mode with a physical backup screen. It is actually programmed to link up with any DORKS from Model 3 onwards to automatically disguise itself into a matching object. Try it!”
Des poked the H-CAD in various places until he found the “on” switch. The H-CAD’s screen lit up for a second before going dark again, emitting a puff of stinky smoke as it did so. “You’d think they’d make them a bit more robust after all those years,” he said and looked for a place to put it down on Corolla’s messy worktable.
Corolla snatched the machine from Des’ hands and threw it into a bin labeled “Salvageable. Maybe”. “Well, I made that one,” she said, “so I’m taking offense to that. Anyways, that was a test unit that I ran lab simulations on, so it was a bit worn out... Here, take this one.”
The Unison Device took what looked like a teddy bear from the table and poked on its nose, causing a holographic screen to appear over its head. Corolla nodded in satisfaction before handing the H-CAD to Des.
“This one won’t die on me when I point it at a Sue, I hope?” Des said, stuffing the H-CAD into a pocket of his longcoat. “It’s terribly embarrassing when that happens in front of a wet-behind-the-ears, still-shiny newbie.”
“Don’t worry, the sensor is a low frequency one; unlike the ones used by Makes-Things, these are durable. Besides, I added heat sinks to the critical parts, and there’s also a miniaturized emergency coolant tank just in case. Oh, and it can play Tetris.”
Des chuckled. “Tetris? Why not Snake? Snake is fun,” he said with a smile. “Anyway, I’ll get going — the newbie of the day is no doubt already in my RC. I’ll tell you how it went once I’ll actually test it in the field.”
“I’ll be here waiting. It took me over twenty years working in DoSAT, but this time I think I managed to make a reliable CAD!”
“If you say so,” Des said; he put two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute, and left DoSAT. He made his way through HQ’s corridors, mumbling ancient poems to himself, until he arrived at his RC. He squinted at the sailor fuku-wearing girl that stood outside the door, one hand near the ribbon of her uniform, the other holding her skateboard. He cleared his throat.
The girl turned around in surprise. “Uhm... are you Agent Trainer Desdendelle?” she asked.
Des sighed. “First-name basis, rookie. Call me Des. I assume you’re the newbie?”
The girl bowed anyways. “Yes. My name’s Keiko, and I will be working part-time starting today. Please take care of me.”
“Have it your way,” Des grumbled. He opened the door and stepped in, hanging his coat in complete darkness before remembering to turn the lights on. He glanced backwards and saw that Keiko followed him inside and was looking in curiosity at Khataltelet; the brown fire-lizard swooped down from the top of a cupboard and landed on his head.
“Well, I assume you don’t take your tea with milk?” he said, putting the kettle on and gathering the required dishes.
“What…? Oh, no, I don’t.”
“You’re Japanese, aren’t you? Green tea it is, assuming I have any left.” Des opened a cupboard and glanced at the various jars inside. “Hrm, green tea with jasmine. Will do, I guess.” He chose one and put it on the counter and opened it when an ear-splitting [BEEEEEP!] caused him to curse, put the tablespoon down and hurriedly walk to the console. Khataltelet made a clicking noise; Des mashed the big red button and the noise ceased.
Keiko had covered her ears in panic as soon as she heard the beeping. “What… what’s this sound? My ears hurt!”
“That’s the console, which means we have a mission,” Des explained. “No matter how many times I ask DoSAT, the volume’s still too high.” He sighed. “Fact of life here. At least I didn’t drop the jar, that would’ve sucked.”
Keiko stared at the console warily. “Do you mean that every time I get a mission, I’ll have to hear that?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Des said. “Anyway, how informed are you? As in, just how large an infodump do I need to prepare?”
“Well... that strange daisy told me that we protect the canon worlds by killing Mary Sues and exorcising... possessed? characters,” Keiko said, “and we enter bad fanfiction to do so.”
“That’s the gist of it, yeah.” Des went to get his battered backpack. “Before we go off, though, I’d like to familiarise you with the equipment. Can save your life, so pay attention, aright?”
Keiko nodded silently, not wanting to risk to accidentally talking over her teacher.
Des waved a device that looked like a cross between a calculator and an old phone. “This is a Remote Activator, RA for short. It’s a remote for this thing’s portal generator.” He tapped the console.
“Portal generator?” Keiko asked. “Like the one that opened when I answered that mail?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Des handed her the RA. “Keep that on your person on all times, especially when you’re in the field. See the button on top? Panic button. Opens a portal to HQ.”
Keiko slipped the RA in one of her uniform’s pockets. “Okay, I’ll keep it in mind.”
Des stared into the distance for a moment. “I got into a nasty situation, once, because I didn’t have a spare,” he told Keiko after a moment, absentmindedly petting Khataltelet. He took what looked like a large calculator out of his backpack. “This is a C-CAD — Combined Character/Canon Analysis Device. Point it at a character and it’ll tell you how much out-of-character they are, or, if they’re original characters, what their effect on canon is. Fickle tech, though — they tend to explode.” He handed it to Keiko, who looked at it warily, and took a teddy bear out of a pocket. “This is an H-CAD — same deal, only holographic and experimental, so it’ll probably blow up in my hands when I try to turn it on. I’ll be field-testing it for DoSAT.”
Keiko glanced at the H-CAD. “Why does it look like a teddy bear?”
“It’s linked to a D.O.R.K.S. — disguise thingy, basically — and camouflages itself, supposedly appropriately,” Des said and exchanged glances with Khataltelet. “The D.O.R.K.S. works like a console’s disguise generator — it basically gives you whatever new body you need to blend in the background of a mission, be it something simple like a set of robes or something complex like being an Ent for a while.”
“That sounds pretty cool,” Keiko said. “It gives the disguises’ powers too?”
Des ehed. “Depends, I guess. To take the two examples, it won’t give you the ability to cast Harry Potter-verse spells — we have Muggle-Use Wands for that — but it will give you the Ent’s thick skin.” He shrugged. “The other things in your basic kit are canon materials for exorcisms, food, drink and a way to pass the time — you might have to wait long times in the field — something to write charges in, and a canon-appropriate weapon.” Des scratched his goatee and squinted at Keiko. “You’re not a complete non-action person, are you now?”
Keiko shook her head. “I’m a magical girl. My... story arc? Is finished, so I last used my powers about a year ago, but I think I can get by.”
“I hope you’re not the angst-prone type, I’m getting enough of that from my partner — she’s a Time Lord, you see,” Des said. Khataltelet snorted and took off his shoulder, going between and appearing on Keiko’s head. “He likes you,” Des said.
“Uh... I’m sorry about having to ask... but what is he, exactly?”
“A Pernese fire-lizard,” Des said. “Well, it’s a misnomer since he’s not actually a lizard. He’s been bonded with me for nineteen years, give or take; he’s my other stable companion.”
“Fire-lizard? Like a dragon?” Keiko asked curiously before letting out a short laugh. “That would be funny, because dragons breathe fire but I have water powers instead.”
“No, Pernese dragons are another thing entirely,” Des said, “though they both come from the same alien stock.”
Khataltelet trilled, took off for a moment, and landed again on Keiko’s shoulder. He twisted his neck so he was looking straight at her, his green eyes whirling slowly.
Keiko tried to smile, not sure if the fire-lizard’s gesture was friendly or not. “Uhm... hi?”
Khataltelet trilled and took off, landing on the top of a cupboard. Des smiled. “As I said — he likes you.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. We have a mission.” He tapped the console’s side. “It’s supposedly Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha — quite the blast from the past, heh — but it’s one of those ‘in name only’ AUs — you know what those are, right?”
“I think so — like those stories that put people in high school with no reason to?” Keiko asked. “Anyways, I’ve seen Lyrical Nanoha! My parents have all the series and movies — on old DVDs, even.”
“Sorta,” Des said. “Basically — the only connection to canon is some names. That’s the reason we won’t be needing too much in the way of disguises — it looks like it’s set in 2000s World One — and the reason why I’ll be taking a firearm as a weapon.” He went to the same cupboard Khataltelet landed on, opened it, and after a moment of indecision took a black revolver with a wooden handle out along with a holster and a few speedloaders for it.
“This means we’re going to have to kill a Mary Sue?” Keiko asked. “I... I know, it was going to happen, but I hoped that... well, we wouldn’t need to kill already.”
“It’s a possibility,” Des said, “and I’d rather bring a weapon I won’t use in the end than not bring one and end up having to improvise.”
Keiko nodded. “I understand what you mean.”
“Alright then, let’s go,” Des said and opened a portal into the fic. “Ladies first.”
Keiko walked through the portal and found herself in what would be best described as complete nothingness. She looked back at Des, who had just passed through the portal. “Where are we?”
“Pre-fic space,” Des said.
A/n had to reupdate this because I couldn't handle all the mistakes, a voice emanating from everywhere at once shouted.
“Okay, I’m going to get myself some earplugs after this,” Keiko said in annoyance.
“Author’s note,” Des said with a sigh. Nanoha Takamachi’s room came into focus around the agents, with Nanoha asleep on her bed, snoring. Des glanced around, groaned, and rolled himself below her thankfully tall-enough bed.
Keiko followed him. “So... we have to spy on her from under here?” she whispered.
“While we do have SEP fields in our flash patches — oh, crap, you don’t have one — which make canons notice us less often, we do need to keep a low profile,” Des whispered back. “Sues, of course, see right through the field.”
“I see,” Keiko said just as Nanoha’s alarm clock went off. The rookie agent nearly bumped her head on the mattress’ underside in surprise as Nanoha fell off the bed.
"Waaaah, Ow. Dammit that hurt."she rubbed her head cursing under her breath.
“... I don’t remember Nanoha speaking like that,” Keiko noted.
“Charge,” Des mumbled. He felt the weight on the bed shifting and glanced at nothing in particular. “The Words say that Nanoha skip—”
Suddenly, the scene changed and the agents found themselves in a generic corridor. Fortunately, they weren’t thrown off their feet — being prone had its benefits. Des got up and dusted his longcoat. “Augh.”
“Did... did we just get teleported or something?” Keiko asked, looking around as she got up as well.
“Story dragged us along. That’s why we have to keep an eye on the Words and portal ahead when appropriate.”
And everytime she's late she runs into Fate Testerossa. And everytime her Burgandy eyes watch me as I run down the hall.
Keiko’s body started moving on its own. The poor girl was forced to perform Nanoha’s actions, staring into Fate’s eyes, which for some reason had been replaced by miniature maps of France’s Burgundy region.
Keiko felt that she should have shivered when Fate’s gaze became a clash of spirits... but, apparently, not even her involuntary body reactions were hers anymore.
Then, suddenly, the rookie Agent recovered the use of her body and turned towards Des. “Okay, that was weird, what—”
Keiko’s mouth stopped working as the girl was forced again to look into Fate’s eyes. Not again! she thought.
“Fuck,” said Des. He hit Keiko on the head with a Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha DVD. “Out!” he said. The Wraith left her; he grabbed her and ran.
“Ow! And... what the heck is going on?” Keiko asked in alarm as she tried to regain her footing in order to follow Des.
Des stopped once they were far enough from the confused Nanoha. “My bad,” he said. “You got possessed by a Sue-Wraith — the fic switched to first person for a moment. Usually we bring a crash dummy for such things.”
“Oh, I see... Wait, I got what?”
“Yeah, mea culpa,” Des said, rubbing his neck. “I basically exorcised you — that’s the bit with the hitting you on the head with a DVD and shouting ‘out!’. Still, I fucked up. Shows you that even experienced agents make mistakes.”
“Okay, let me see if I got it,” Keiko said after blinking a couple of times, “The story suddenly changed from third to first person, and that caused a Sue-ghost thing to possess me and make me do what Nanoha was supposed to?”
“Yeah,” Des said with a wince. He unfocused his gaze. “Where are we… oh, charge for comma/period switchups — general bad SPaG, now that I think of it.”
Keiko looked at him in mild confusion. “Uhm... Question: how are you reading the fic?”
“Oh, right, forgot.” Des shook his head. “You see, we’re in a story, so we can read its Words. You basically unfocus your gaze; I used to glance over the edge of my eyeglasses, back in the days when I actually needed them, and I remember an Azerothian troll hitting his head to do that.”
Keiko tried doing as she was told. “Uh. Wow. That’s... rather weird, I guess.”
“You get used to it. Anyway, let’s portal to the next chapter — ‘Fate’ and Nanoha are skipping school.”
“I guess that goes on the charge list thing?” Keiko wondered. “I don’t think either of the two would skip school, they were much more mature than that when they were just nine years old!”
“Yeah. We’d have to CAD them and see just how OOC they are, too — I usually get by eyeballing but I’m not sure, this time,” Des said. “Go on, open a portal to next chapter.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” Keiko said as she fished out the Remote Activator. The girl tapped on the device’s buttons until a blue portal appeared in front of her. “Should be this way, I think? I hope I didn’t open one to the bottom of an ocean or something.”
Des sticked his head into the portal, then hastily backpedaled, blushing. He furiously tapped his own Remote Activator and closed the portal. “That’s a girls’ locker room somewhere, Keiko. Try again…?”
“Whoops. Sorry,” Keiko said, blushing even harder, “Let’s see...”
Keiko tapped in again, and tried the new portal herself. She returned a few moments later, dripping wet.
“Bottom of the ocean?” Des asked with a raised eyebrow. “We’re gonna have to go over that after the mission.” He opened a portal of his own and entered it, closing it after Keiko followed.
They landed in a generic Japanese street. Nanoha and Fate were some twenty metres ahead of the agents.
Des squinted. “I’m pretty sure Fate never wore black leather jackets,” he said.
“Okay, no, that’s not right,” Keiko said after taking a look at the Words. “Nanoha’s grades were well above good enough grades for her parents to not kill her. Are we really sure they’re really them?”
“CAD ‘em,” Des said.
“Oh, right,” Keiko said as she remembered that she had the right device to answer the question. The rookie agent pulled out her C-CAD, pointed it at Nanoha, and pushed the “Scan” button.
[Nanoha Takamachi. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s canon: protagonist. 43% OOC. Possessed.]
“Let me guess,” Keiko said, “we bop her in the head with a Lyrical Nanoha DVD case?”
“And shout stuff like ‘avaunt, ghost of bad writing!’ and ‘kishta!’, yeah,” Des replied with a smile. In the meantime, the narration provided more detail about Nanoha.
Nanoha had never done anything this 'bad' before.
The worst she had done was getting detention for cursing in class.
This was exhilerating for her.
“... Right.” Des shook his head. “I’m gonna try the H-CAD, so stand back a bit, aright?”
Keiko nodded and stepped away from Des. After all, getting possessed by a Sue-Wraith and drenching herself with a botched portal were more than enough for her first day on the job.
With a frown, Des pointed the 1:144 Gundam model at Fate and pressed its head, causing a holographic display to appear above it.
[Momoko Takamachi. Lyrical Nanoha canon: supporting character. 95% OOC. CHARCTER RUPTRUTE_]
The H-CAD emitted a puff of bleen smoke and started to frost over; Des dropped it before it stuck to his hand. “... Bloody fantastic.”
Keiko looked at the frozen device. “... It happens often?”
“They usually explode,” Des said tiredly. “And this one needs more work — it took a reading of a completely different character. Of course, that means we need to exorcise Momoko, too.”
“Momoko? Why...? I mean, I think that’s a bad reading, but we haven’t even seen her so far…?” Keiko asked in confusion. In the meanwhile, Nanoha and Fate bickered uncharacteristically, including insults, over Fate spacing out and not hearing Nanoha.
“It might be haywire, I dunno,” Des said.
A cold winter breeze blew making Nanoha shiver and hug herself.
Des buttoned his longcoat up and glanced at Keiko. “Will you be fine?” he asked.
As an answer, Keiko was engulfed in a flash of light. When Des could see her again, she was wearing a rather frilly aqua green dress with detached sleeves. “Good thing I still remember how to do this.”
“That doesn’t look any warmer,” Des said dubiously, keeping one eye on Nanoha and Fate — Fate gave Nanoha her jacket, which resulted in Nanoha ogling her.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s an aura thing or improved physical abilities, but when I’m transformed I don’t feel the cold as much,” Keiko explained. “Probably the same thing that kept me from breaking all my bones when Knightmares threw me around the block. And, besides, even if that wasn’t the case this dress isn’t soaked.”
“Point.” Des looked at the canons; they didn’t seem to notice the flash of light, and the bits going to and fro in the street didn’t have much in the way of personality.
"You alright you looked kinda spaced out."Nanoha thought about the scenarios and fantasy that she had been thinking about before and blushed furiously.
"I-Its n-n-nothing! " She looked back to the ground unable to maintain eye contact for two reasons! One she could look at Fate for long periods with out fantasizing about her or blushing. And two she was positive that her fce was red as a tomato.
“Uugh... I wish that aura of mine could shield me from this awfulness, too,” Keiko complained.
“I want to know what’s a ‘fce’ and how it can be red,” Des said.
“Actually... It’s an English language certification. I’m studying for it, and the fun fact is that my textbook’s cover is red too.” Keiko summoned her school backpack apparently out of thin air and pulled out a book titled Fast Track To FCE from it. “See?”
Des blinked. “O...kay.” He looked at the canons — Fate was hugging Nanoha — and glanced at the Words. “Portal to next chapter, please — there’s an AN incoming in a few moments.”
Keiko nodded, and typed the coordinates on her RA. When the portal appeared, she poked her head in before giving the thumbs up to Des.
“Again with the generic setting,” Des complained after he went through the portal. “And again with the Sue description, too — look at the Words!”
She seemed more relaxed and chilled, just like her beautiful, cold, icy blue eyes.
Her personality was no where near her as cold as her eyes. She had a fiery personality and always spoke her mind, at least she did to Fate.
“... If that’s Nanoha, I’m a mermaid,” Keiko deadpanned.
Des shook his head, frowning. Since nothing was happening — Fate Testerossa was simply standing there — he looked at the Words again and groaned. “Her mother had died of an overdose when she was 6, and her father had gotten very depressed and committed suicide that same year? Fuck me silly. How does that even — gah.”
She felt Nanoha try to cuddle more into her body, groaning when she figured out she couldn't.
Fate felt Nanoha limp in her arms.
So she got a grip on her shoulder and lifted her bridal style. She looked at Nanoha in awe. How had she fallen asleep?Nanoha wrapped her arms around her neck and slightly lifted her head so their face were only mere centimeters apart and let out a breathy groan.
“Why did Nanoha just faint that randomly?” Keiko wondered, “I mean, she was like ‘I messed up a bit’ when she got a scythe though her chest, a wound she took years to recover from. Falling asleep just because it’s a cold day is right out.”
“She’s possessed, don’t forget,” Des said.
Fate carried Nanoha to a generic manor house — which appeared out of nowhere — and was let inside by a butler whose only distinguishing feature was his very distinguished voice.
“Okay, what now? Fate’s a rich heiress or something now?” Keiko said, “next we’ll see something silly like—”
"Ah, Yes, Right away mistress. " Fate cringed at the name. But brushed it off when the gates entered and was greeted by 50 or so maids and servants.
"Hello mistress, welcome home." All of them said in unison.
“Bluh?” Keiko splurted out, eyes wide open. She looked at Des, pointed at the scene, and blinked a couple of times. “Did I call for it to happen?”
“You tempted the Ironic Overpower, probably,” Des said. “But, anyway, we need to follow the characters.” He crossed his arms. “So, rookie, what do we do?”
Keiko rubbed her chin in thought. “Uhm... We can change our disguises now? Because there are so many of these “maids and servants” that I don’t think they’ll notice a couple more.”
“Exactly.” Des handed the D.O.R.K.S. over. “Go ahead, then.”
Keiko looked at the device — luckily, it had disguised itself as a cell phone, so the buttons were in an obvious position — and changed some settings.
“Okay, this is just ridiculous,” Keiko commented as she realized what was given to her as the default “maid” disguise... a French maid uniform.
“Well, what d’ya expect,” Des said, brushing imaginary dust off the shoulder of his generic tuxedo. “This is animeland.” He sighed and entered the mansion — the bit maids didn’t bother to close the gates or front door. He and Keiko stood in the edge of the maid crowd, trying to look as unassuming as possible; fortunately, Fate was focused on Nanoha and the bits were focusing on her.
"Nanoha, if you wake up I'll give you a kiss." Nanoha's eyes fluttered open. And she looked at Fate, confused by the smirk on her face.
“What,” Des said flatly. “That’s stupid.”
“I’m around the age when we girls like sweet romances, and yet I find all of this very, very sickening,” Keiko said flatly.
Des sighed, took a glance at the Words and opened a portal to his RC. “One moment, next chapter’s first person again,” he said over his shoulder. He returned with a soft yellow cube with a pull cord. “This,” he said and closed the portal to HQ, “is the standard ‘me’ crash dummy.” He opened a portal to the next chapter, pulled the cord, and threw the dummy through it. “Now the wraith will possess it instead of, say, you.”
“Good to know, that wasn’t pleasant at all,” Keiko said before walking through the portal. Once on the other side, the girl nearly tripped on a small, furry creature that looked like a hedgehog with a snout.
“What’s this?” Keiko said as she kneeled to look at the creature more closely. “It’s so cute!”
“That’s a pov,” Des explained. The pov snrfed as it was scooped up by Des, who deposited it on his shoulder. “It’s created whenever a badfic author uses point-of-view tags, like the Fate's pov we’ve skipped.”
The narration described Fate’s confused thoughts, but the environment stayed generic until it mentioned that Fate’s car drove me back to my home and a car materialised around the dummy, driving the short distance from the generic nothingness where she previously stood to her mansion.
I entered my bedroom and rested my head on the soft pillow, the narration announced, and Fate teleported from the car’s back seat to her room inside the mansion; Des groaned.
“Okay, how are we supposed to follow her around if she keeps teleporting?” Keiko asked.
The Ironic Overpower listened, and teleported the two Agents straight into the following day, knocking them off their feet.
“Just great,” Keiko complained as she started getting up. “I think I should keep my mouth shut from now on.”
The girl then noticed there was something big and fluffy right in front of her. Very big and fluffy. “Uhm, Des? I think there’s that pov’s mama here.”
“That’d be a POV, in allcaps,” Des said. He patted NANOHA’S POV’s side. “Stay put, aright? We’ll come back for you later.” The POV SNRFed in reply and hunkered down. “Good boy.”
Keiko gave a sigh of relief as she realized that the POV wasn’t there to trample them over for touching Fate’s pov.
Des looked around; the dummy — now in the shape of Nanoha — was standing about ten metres away, staring at nothing. He groaned and checked the Words. “Great, she’s angsting now,” he grumbled. A car pulled up and the world flickered. One moment, it was a generic school; the next, a mostly-empty street. Someone hugged Nanoha and she screamed.
A hand covers my mouth and I feel hot breath against my ear.
I swing my hand only to have it caught and held.
"Shh, Nanoha it's me." I know that voice. The hand was removed from my mouth.
"Fate?" I whispered.
"Yup sure is." I sighed in relief.
“I... think we can’t charge for Fate appearing from nowhere when Nanoha is in trouble, right? She kinda did so in A’s.”
“We should definitely charge for the angst, though,” Des said with a dour face. “And for Fate acting like a creepy kidnapper.”
Keiko gave a quick glance to the Words. “Found another one. Nanoha’s half-British. But, being the daughter of Shiro Fuwa and Momoko Takamachi, I doubt she can be.” The girl thought about it a little bit. “Well, unless either has a double citizenship, but I never heard anything of the sort, and that wouldn’t give her a British accent anyways.”
The dummy deflated, then turned into Fate. “What happened?” she asked, but Nanoha waved her off.
Des read the Words and groaned. “I am normally only able to smell the wounds inflicted on her? What the hell?”
Keiko breathed deeply. “Is this story... Is this story implying that Momoko abuses Nanoha, to the point of cutting her...?” The rookie agent’s eyes narrowed. “Des, remember what I said about not wanting to have to kill on the first day? I’m taking that back.”
“Eh, all in a day’s work,” Des said. He looked tired, a haggard look on his face. “I’m more worried about the bit where Fate smells the blood. I mean, normal humans can’t do that, can they now?”
"Nanoha, you know you can talk to me about anything. I will protect you I swear." Fate said, which caused Nanoha to hug her, crying into her shirt. The two girls got into Fate’s car, which drove them back to the mansion.
Des opened a portal back there, glad that he and Keiko were still in servant disguise.
“Oh, they are cuddling while asleep,” Keiko whispered as she noticed Nanoha half asleep with Fate snuggling against her. “Of all the things that this story’s got wrong, at least this is cute.”
“Only missed by what, a few years?” Des whispered back. He glanced over the top of his eyeglasses again. “The description’s all purple, though. Even when asleep she still managed to look gorgeous? Seriously? That’s about as clichéd as… I don’t even know.”
Keiko glanced at the Words. “Ugh... Yeah, that ruins it, and... Bwah?”
Nanoha had just tried to get up, only for Fate, still asleep, to pull her friend back on her and grope her back.
“O...kay. I don’t quite think Fate would do that?” Keiko said uncertainly.
“Hayate maybe, but not Fate,” Des grumbled. He crossed his arms and watched Nanoha bring that up, to which Fate apologised.
"It's okay. You make up for it by being adorable." Again she looked as if she should have been blushing, but not a bit of blood flooded her face.
Keiko raised an eyebrow. “I feel something ominous in this line. Anyone would blush after that, right?”
Des put a hand on his pistol. “Makes me wish I brought something with a bit more oomph.”
Fate apparently had her doctor give Nanoha stitches and painkiller (“Panty and Stocking?”); she also gave Nanoha gauze and wraps and set up an appointment with the doctor for her later on for the stitches’ removal.
“Wait,” Keiko said while scratching her head, “did Nanoha just sleep through being stitched up and presumably being injected with painkillers? Unless she managed to swallow them in pill form while asleep, that is.”
“Charged,” Des said.
The point-of-view changed, which caused Fate’s Pov to appear; Des scooped it up and portalled both it and the pov that was hanging onto his shoulder to his RC. “Don’t break anything!” he called after them.
"My mother... She's a drunk and..."
"It's okay Nanoha. Take your time." I said wrapping an arm around her waist and sitting on the edge of the bed with her.
"She beats me. I don't know what I do but, she just..."
"What?!" I yelled.
“Okay, that woman’s not Momoko Takamachi in any shape or form,” Keiko said, before starting to breathe deeply to try to keep her anger in check. Unfortunately for her, the narration revealed that Nanoha’s badly cut hand was actually one of the nicer injuries she had suffered at the hands of Abusive!Momoko.
“Nope,” Des said. He glanced at Keiko. “You might want to calm down, rookie. You look kinda… ‘I want to blow stuff up’ angry.”
Keiko glanced at him sideways. “That’s because I am? Please, tell me we get to kill that... thing. Momoko’s a sweet, sensible and caring mother, just like mine, and would never do something like that even if she was being forced to!”
After glancing at the characters and seeing that they were absorbed in Nanoha’s uncanon sob story, Des walked up to Keiko, towering over her. “Rule number one of this job, Keiko: never ever, ever, ever let your anger get control. Never.”
Keiko took another deep breath and nodded. “Got it. Sorry, it’s just... Momoko really reminds me of my mother, you know? And... well... I’m afraid that got hold of me in a bad way.”
“Acting out of anger — hell, any sort of rashness — on this job is dangerous,” Des said. “Very dangerous. Sues tend to be OP as fuck and with your luck you’d end up in ESAS, which takes on even worse ones. If you’re—”
The rest of his sentence was lost as the story grabbed hold of the agents, throwing them on the ground and treating them to a three paragraph-long author’s note.
I need you guys to pick what type of supernatural you want Fate to be! the Author’s voice shrilled.
Des winced and took a glance at the Words, then opened a portal. He staggered through it, hands on his ears. Keiko quickly followed him.
“So, wait, timeout. This story was so badly conceived that they're asking readers to decide part of it?” Keiko asked.
“Yep,” Des groused. “That definitely explains the lack of blushing earlier. Makes me wish I packed some Standard Generic Monster Load. What’s worse, we’ve just portalled past a chapter that was basically copy-pasted from an earlier one. Major charge, right there.”
The new chapter provided more of Nanoha crying in Fate’s arm before the brunette realized Fate’s true nature. Which, by Fate’s own admission, she shouldn’t have been able to.
“... Okay, but what is she?” Keiko asked while looking into the Words, “I can’t find anything here.”
“Fuck all if I know,” Des mumbled, crouching behind a conveniently-placed sofa and sighing. In the meanwhile, Nanoha curled up in a corner while going through an internal monologue about how “they”, presumably Fate’s kind, had destroyed her life and killed her family.
“Okay, I admit it. I’m lost.” Keiko said; Fate’s reaction to Nanoha rejecting her was a crimson tear rolling down her cheek before fainting. Then, the rookie agent smelled something strange.
“Hm, Des, do you smell something burning...?” she asked before realizing that smoke was coming from one of her apron’s pockets. Keiko quickly removed the burning garment and summoned some water to douse the fire.
“And, another one bites the dust,” Des said. “Remind me to take it to DoSAT after this whole thing is over, aright?” He glanced at the Words and sighed. “Don’t want to go through another AN-only episode — what’s it with that sort of mess? — so, portal.” He opened one. “Onwards, rookie.”
The two agents ended up in exactly the same room as before; however, a large and distinguished looking man (who happened to be the butler with the distinguished voice) and a very petite woman were running towards Fate. The man started carrying the blonde girl away, followed by the petite girl, who was followed by Nanoha, who in turn was followed by the two Agents.
“If you are so paranoid about them killing you,” Keiko said after reading Nanoha’s new inner monologue through the Words, “why are you even following them?”
“Badfic,” Des said. “No logic.” He glanced at the manservant, who assured Nanoha that “No harm shall come to [her] by entering” a creaking door at the end of a decrepit stairway.
“Okay, now we’ll be seeing that Fate actually sleeps in a coffin in a dark basement like a stereotyped vampire or something?” Keiko wondered.
“With our luck it’s probably worse,” Des replied.
Keiko let out a short laugh. “You know what? My name actually means ‘lucky child’, even.”
They followed Nanoha and the servants through the door.
There was a table. It almost looked like a more technological version of the table beds at a doctor's office. He gently placed her down on the table.
Now that I examined it closer the part she was laying on looked like the scanning side of a printer
And exactly as I thought a horizontal scanning light quickly flashed across the table.
The table, a Physical Analysis machine according to Daniel the manservant, was the only thing in the room; the agents had no choice but to stick close to the walls and hope nobody noticed them.
There was a pause, a loud beep echoed through the room, and a sigh of of relief escaped Daniel and the petite woman's throat. Des winced at the loud noise.
Afterwards, the woman introduced herself as Alisa, causing her appearance to change into that of a shortened version of Alisa Bannings. She reassured Nanoha about Fate’s health before bringing her a chair.
“And now Nanoha’s intertwining her fingers with a girl she was recoiling away from fear just minutes before. Very plausible,” Keiko deadpanned.
“Charging for bad psychology,” Des mumbled. He glanced at the Words again and nodded at the room’s exit. “Let’s go,” he whispered to Keiko. The girl nodded and followed him out of the room.
“So, what do we do now?” Keiko asked as soon as they were out.
“Well,” Des said with a sigh. “The rest of the fic is just purple stream of thought, which we should probably see… but there isn’t anything to see, it’s all internal. Including the ‘reveal’ that Fate is a vampire.”
Keiko frowned. “Oh, just great. I guess we can say that she’s not Fate Testarossa anymore?”
“She’s even called Fate Testerossa.” Des grimaced. “Acorn to oak she’s a replacement, which means problems: you’d think a vampire would have problems walking out in the sun, but nope, she does that.”
Keiko rubbed her chin in thought. “Hmm... what were the other ways to kill one? Stake, decapitation, silver bullets... no, wait, those were for werewolves... and holy water, right?”
“Running water, sunlight though she seems immune to that, and continuum-dependant ones,” Des recited. He tugged at his goatee, deep in thought.
“You said running water? That portal I botched led to a river, if that’s useful,” Keiko said, hoping to help.
Slowly, Des smiled. “Okay, I’ve got a plan. It’s stupid, but it should work.”
***
Slowly and gently, Des pried Nanoha’s hand away from Fate’s. Nanoha didn’t wake up, but Fate stirred. He cleared his throat.
“What.” she said sleepily.
“Protectors of the Plot Continuum, don’t move,” he informed her. “Fate Testerossa, AKA Mary Sue, I charge you with the following: replacing the character of Fate Testarossa; mangling the English language; having fake chapters, author’s note chapters and a poll instead of a chapter; spawning povs and a POV; possessing Takamachi Nanoha; throwing Takamachi Momoko horrendously OOC; being a vampire; annoying PPC agents, and causing distress to the rookie. Punishment is destruction, no ifs and buts.”
She sprang out of bed and swiped at him. He didn’t quite manage to dodge and fell on his rump. The replacement advanced on him; he scrambled up to his feet and ran out of her poorly-described bedroom.
She chased him out of the mansion, steadily gaining on him; by the time he passed the gates, she was clawing at his longcoat.
“Keiko, the — urk!” he tried to shout, but the replacement tackled him to the ground. She smiled, showing a vampire’s fangs, and bit his neck.
With an ‘ow’, Des tried to push her off, but to no avail; she was fiendishly strong.
Keiko, who had just arrived to the scene, pulled out her Remote Activator and quickly tapped in the last coordinates needed to open a portal under the replacement. It worked, but Des fell in too.
“Fuck you!” Des told the replacement. Or, rather, tried to; only bubbles came out of his mouth. Thankful for being able to hold his breath for a rather long time, he clawed at the replacement, clinging to her despite her frenzied attempts to get to the surface.
Just when warnings began to pop up before his eyes, the replacement turned to dust which floated away with the river’s current. He floundered about, trying to get his bearings; warnings were popping all over his field-of-vision, detailing the depressingly-short time until he had to breathe.
Then something grabbed him from behind and he broke the water’s surface; he had a nice view of the beach, which was getting closer at an alarming speed. “Wha—” he managed before the wave carrying him crashed on the beach.
“Ow…”
“Des! Are you alright?” Keiko screamed as she scampered to get near him, “I’m sorry, I messed up, sorry, sorry!”
Des coughed, then sat up. He put a hand to his neck and frowned. “Great, I’ll need to replace the skin here,” he grumbled.
“... She bit you? Wait, what do you mean with ‘replace the skin’?” Keiko asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m a cyborg, rookie,” Des said tiredly. “The only organic parts I have are the spinal cord and some parts of my brain. Look.” He pointed at the bite wound; circuitry peeked from under the torn skin.
“... Oh. You’re alright, then?”
“Wet and in need of maintenance, but yeah, I’m fine.” Des smiled. “You did a good job, rookie. What else do we need to do?”
“Uhm... Fix Nanoha and Alisa and get rid of that fake Momoko?” Keiko wondered.
“And…?” Des prompted.
Keiko scratched her head. “I... don’t know?”
“We need to get Fate out of the plothole the replacement shoved her into,” Des explained. “Normally we’d split up at this point, but I want you to see how an exorcism goes. Did you tie her up?”
“... Actually, I had to... er... knock her out. She latched to my ankles when the replacement started chasing you. I... hope I won’t get in trouble for that?” Keiko explained embarrassedly.
“Na, you’re fine.” Des climbed to his feet and opened a portal back to the room in the uncanon mansion. He looked at Nanoha — the girl was out cold and securely tied. “Aright, rookie, watch and learn,” he said. Taking a Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha case out of his backpack, he started hitting Nanoha’s head with it. “Avaunt, ghost of bad writing! Out, scepter of wimpiness! Away, Sue-Wraith, KISHTA!”
Urple fog started to seep out of Nanoha’s nose; before it had a chance to coalesce into a discernable shape, Des waved the case through it, causing it to dissipate with a shriek. Beside him, the crash dummy returned to its deflated state.
Keiko picked up the crash dummy. “Will that work to fix Alisa’s height too?”
“Usually once the uncanon influence is gone, canon snaps back into place,” Des said, looking at his coat and sighing at the glitter stains the replacement left on it. “We just need to get rid of fake!Momoko and find Fate now.”
***
“You’ve never been in this dark place and you’ve never seen me or the rookie here. You’ll walk through this hole in the air back to your room, and this was all a weird dream. Good? Good.” Des watched Fate Testarossa dazedly walk through the portal, then turned to Keiko. “Aright, we’re done. Back to HQ for us.”
“Well, I think I can’t get this wrong, can I?” Keiko said as she pushed the ‘return to HQ’ button on her RA. The resulting portal led the two agents back to Des’ Response Centre.
“I’d be very worried if you could,” Des said. He opened the door and was halfway through to the RC’s other room’s door before he remembered that Keiko didn’t live in the RC for the last twenty-two years and probably couldn’t navigate it in the dark. He returned and flipped the light switch. “I’m going to change into something that isn’t sopping wet,” he told her, “then we need to go to DoSAT.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Keiko said before looking at her own clothes. She sighed, and transformed again, adding a mental note to bring spare clothes in an airtight bag the following day.
***
Des and Keiko arrived at DoSAT without any incidents; once inside the main lab, he made his way to Corolla’s worktable. “Hello? Anybody home?” he asked.
Corolla peeked up from the device she was working on. “Hi, Des. Just a second, I’ll finish soldering this chip and...” Corolla peeked up again. “Kei?”
Keiko stared at the technician, eyes wide open. “Auntie? You work here?”
“Auntie…?” Des echoed after her, looking from Keiko to Corolla and back. “Keiko, what’s your full name…?”
“Des, remember those two partners I had when back in SpecOps?” Corolla asked, “you get exactly one guess about her surname.”
Des raised an eyebrow. “Sergio and Nikki? I haven’t heard about them for a long, long while…”
“Well, your rookie of the day just happens to be their daughter.” Corolla said before looking up in thought. “Though, if I wasn’t told that she was going to work here and she didn’t know that I do...”
Corolla’s eyes lowered on Keiko. “You didn’t tell your parents about this, did you?”
“... I’m so going to get grounded.” Keiko said with a sigh.
Des sighed. “Before you guys go into family affairs,” he said, “here’s the H-CAD.” He put the frozen Gundam model on Corolla’s worktable. “It didn’t explode, but it did go haywire — it took a scan of Momoko when I pointed it at Fate, and since she was ruptured, it did this.”
“Uh, I guess that emergency coolant tank got triggered after all,” Corolla said before floating the H-CAD in front of her. A few small magic circles appeared around it. “I get it... They gave me the wrong glue again. When I ask for a heat resistant one, I want a heat resistant one!”
Corolla glanced at Des and decided to explain better. “See, I wanted to use a conductive, heat resistant glue to attach the heatsinks to the various chips and stuffs inside. Except they gave me the wrong one, and as soon as the H-CAD started heating up the heatsinks detached and obviously stopped sinking heat.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” Des said and shrugged. “If-slash-when you get a proper one constructed, give me a call. Oh, also.” He took a sooty-looking CAD out of another pocket and put it on the table near the H-CAD. “This one auto-scanned a vampire!Fate replacement.”
“And ended up doing what any of the Mark VIIs using Makes-Things’ type of scanning sensor would do: burn up,” Corolla stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Good to know, I won’t be putting those in my pockets anymore,” Keiko said.
“Of course you won’t,” Corolla said, before fishing another C-CAD out of a box on her table. “Mark VIIc, with my special low frequency sensor! Still not fail-proof, but I’m not letting my niece go on the field with anything less than top-of-the-line equipment. Of course, there’s one for you too, Des.”
Before Keiko could grab the C-CAD, though, Corolla raised it well out of her reach. “Not so fast — first, you have to tell your parents you’re working here.”
Before Keiko could say anything back, though, a ringing noise came from Corolla.
“Speak of the devil,” Corolla said as she opened up a holographic screen. “Hi, Sergio. I know you’re calling me because you lost track of Kei, and I already found her.”
[... What?] Said a voice from the holographic window. [How did you…?]
Corolla turned the holographic window towards Keiko and Des. It showed a man around Des’ age, with glasses and brown hair.
“Uhm... Hi, Dad?”
“‘ello, Sarge.”
[Hi, Des, long time no see. Keiko, what are you doing there, exactly…?]
Keiko fidgeted. “Er… remember when I told you and Mom that I had found a part-time job?”
[Yes, and I don’t remember you telling us what it was and that you were already starting it.] Sergio said, rubbing his chin. [Hold on a sec. Corolla? Can you open a portal to our house?]
“You’re not going to threaten the Marquis with a flamethrower, are you now?” Des asked.
[Don’t worry, I won’t let him.] said another voice from the window. A couple of seconds later, a woman with long brown hair and green eyes came into view. [Still, you should’ve told us everything, Kei.]
Keiko sighed. It was getting very embarrassing.
“Hey, at least she doesn’t have to show up on her parents’ doorstep stuck inside a metal coffin,” Des said with a smile, though his fist clenched in his pocket.
[Des? Not helping.] Sergio said in a very annoyed tone. [I’m trying to not think about what can go wrong with her being an Agent. She’s not a field one, I hope…?]
Des glanced at Keiko, and when she didn’t speak up, he sighed and did so himself. “I’m training her, Sarge. In fact, we just came back from the field.”
Sergio sighed. [At least she’s in good hands. Corolla, that portal...?]
***
“Now, Keiko, when exactly were you going to tell us about the fact that you joined the PPC?” Sergio asked as the little group was en route to the Marquis de Sod’s office.
“More or less when you and Mom wanted to tell me you were PPC Agents too?” Keiko answered, raising an eyebrow.
“... I’m afraid she has a point. The PPC isn’t exactly believable,” Nikki conceded.
“And that was the same when I became a Magical Girl. Now, anything else the two of you didn’t tell me about yourselves?” Keiko asked, crossing her arms. Her parents sighed in defeat.
Corolla floated between Sergio and Nikki. She pointed at Sergio first. “Reformed Gary Stu.” Then at Nikki. “Character Replacement of Sakura Kinomoto, from Cardcaptor Sakura. Neither of them is a danger to canon anymore, and in fact were quite badass back in the day. Department of Floaters, Special Operations Division. They flew fighter jets, commandeered spaceships, and saved canon countless times. And that’s not counting the Blank Sprite Incident!”
“The what incident?” Des asked, lifting his gaze from his book.
“I thought I had told you the whole story? Oh, well, I’ll tell you as soon as we—” Corolla was distracted by the sound of a door being slammed open. “We stop Sergio from murdering the Marquis, I guess.”