trans_9 | A Wicked Shadow [open]

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A Wicked Shadow [open]

Something's been moved down to the hangar.

Something big and foreboding, with glowing red eyes cutting through the dimness of its bay.

And it's watching you.

Incidentally, has anyone seen Vega today? ~~Spoiler: He's curled up on top of one of this thing's feet.~~

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Nanoha reaches up to the red stone hanging around her neck, pulling the chain over her head so she can hold it out to him - and words flash along the surface as it speaks in a synthetic female voice: "Hello. It's nice to meet you."

"This is my Intelligent Device, Raising Heart."

"Oooh."

Vega looks at it closely, clearly interested. "What does she do?"

He attributes genders to inanimate objects readily, it seems.

"Well, it helps me use my magic - it's a tool, a weapon, and a partner combined." She smiles before deciding that maybe it'd be best to just demonstrate.

"Set Up: Barrier Jacket."

For a second, the girl is enveloped in magenta light, and when it clears she's wearing a very different set of clothes - it's a blue and white robe with gold and black trim - and the jewel has transformed into the head of a staff.

"See?"

"Whoah! How'd you do that?!"

Yes, Nanoha, you are officially now on Vega's list of people who are cool.

Nanoha laughs. "It's magic, actually. This is my Barrier Jacket - it helps me in a fight."

"Magic huh?" says Vega, looking it over. "Sarah says magic's not real," he blurts, but manages to stop himself from chattering.

"It's real enough where I come from," she answers with a bit of a teasing smile.

"Is Sarah a friend of yours?"

"No," Vega shakes his head. "She's my boss. But she acts like she's my mom sometimes." He makes a face. He's totally, totally all grown up, Nanoha. Really.

The light envelops Nanoha again as she changes back, once more in her plantsuit with the jewel hanging around her neck. "Oh? And what does your actual mom think of that?"

"I don't know," Vega says, shrugging. "I don't know my mom, or my dad." He's just completely calm and relaxed about it, it's just a casual fact of his life.

"Oh." Nanoha's momentarily surprised, but then it fades. "I'm sorry to hear that. Who do you live with?"

"Sarah most of the time," Vega answers. "I was with the other kids for a while but then they figured out I was good with Zoids. I get to fight in battles now, so we get to go all over the place. It's fun!"

He does like traveling around the continent beating things up. Vega really has no concept of how weird his upbringing has been.

She frowns. "Do you do anything other than fighting in battles?"

Nanoha has a bit of a bad gut feeling about this. A kid taken from his peers to fight in battles? That... worries her. Motherly Instinct A-Go-Go.

"Well," Vega considers, "Sometimes I have to do homework. That really stinks. And I have to have tests run sometimes. And I have to practice a lot. But the battles are fun! They're always trying to find more interesting ones for me so I don't get bored."

"Do you like to do anything other than fighting in battles? There's a lot of interesting stuff out there that you might enjoy, you know."

"Battles are the best, but I guess I like playing games too. I'm really good at sims but that's almost the same thing," says Vega. He shrugs a little bit.

"I like Zoids too, I know all about them and I know how most types of them work. I've gotten to pilot all kinds of Zoids before I got Fury, but he's the best."

It's clear where most of his interests settle.

Yes, yes it is. Hoo boy. "Oh really? What makes him the best?"

Vega puts his hands behind his head and cranes his head back to look up at his Zoid.

"Fury's an Ultimate X. You probably don't know what that means though. He's got an Organoid System, so he can remember how every opponent he's faced fights. So if we ever fight them again, he knows just what to do. He's smart."

"He's also got me for a pilot!"

Nobody ever said the kid wasn't cocky.

"Oh really? But don't you think that makes it too easy, then? A battle should come down to the better fighter, not the one with the best system, right?"

Vega puts his arms down and looks back at Nanoha, furrowing his brow. "Well, that's only part of it. It's no good if you're a good fighter but your Zoid can't keep up with you. That's why I like Fury, because it's easy to get him to do what I want."

"And anyway," he adds, "Sarah says the Royal Cup will be harder anyway."

Pause.

"Not that there's going to be a Royal Cup anymore, I guess."

She smiles, looking at the Zoid - it's intimidating, there's no doubt about that. "Once we're finished here, what's stopping you from starting your own Royal Cup?"

Vega thinks about it.

"Well," he says, "we'd need all kinds of teams for it. Sarah says there were going to be hundreds. And it's really special, and we don't have the Battle Commission or anything." Vega's never really been taught the importance of the Battle Commission or that they have any true authority over him, that's not how the Backdraft rolls, but he does know it's a very important part of having a proper Royal Cup.

It's clear that this sort of thing has pretty much been the boy's life so far. Well, no reason to try to force him out of that. "Well, even if it's not the exact same thing... isn't a different Royal Cup better than no Royal Cup at all?"

"Yeah, but it still won't be the same." He scratches the back of his neck.

"Thanks for trying anyway," he says. "I'm just glad I have my Zoid back. If we're going to be fighting aliens and bad guys and things, I can help if I have him."

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A Wicked Shadow [open]

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