Magical Girl Lyrical Taylor
(Worm/Nanoha)
by P.H. Wise

1.2

Disclaimer: Do these even work? I think legally speaking having one of these might be worse than not having one, since an acknowledgment of deliberate copyright infringement seems like it would be way easier to prosecute than the innocent and unintentional variety of the same. But then, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a writer of fanfic.


"Well, well, well," Leet said at last, and even if I couldn't see his face, there was a definite grin in his voice. "A challenger appears."

It was about then that it occurred to me I'd basically just triggered as a Parahuman in public, I had done it in front of the Snitch on Uber and Leet's show, and that there were still at least four onlookers standing nearby pointing cell phones at us as they filmed the whole thing. I looked left and right. Nope. Nobody else he could have been talking to. Damn it.

"Can we talk about this?" I asked, stepping back.

"Talk later," Uber said. "Let's see what you've got, Gundam Girl." Both of them leveled their arms at me. Uber doing it looking like Ashura Gundam was juuust a touch more intimidating than Leet's Skull Gundam. "Or do you prefer Baby Alexandria?" Leet asked. Then the fins on either side of Leet's costume's head flashed, and I was suddenly floating in the air 50 feet up and 30 feet back, watching him blast the spot I had just been standing in with hard-light lasers.

"Girl's got moves," Uber said.

Laserdream snapped out of her shock, then, and let loose with a salvo of her own blasts in Leet's direction, and though he weathered it, he was definitely glaring at her in the aftermath. "Hey!" Laserdream snapped, "No picking on the new girl!"

Uber fired again, and his double blast of hard-light glanced off a nearly transparent barrier a couple inches away from my left hand.

[How much do you know about magic?] mom's gem - Raising Heart - asked. It was... strange. Her voice was echoing in my thoughts instead of aloud, but I instantly knew how to respond.

I shook my head. [Nothing!]

[Then I shall teach you everything,] Raising Heart said. [Please do as I say.]

I lost track of what was happening with Leet and Laserdream. I could still hear the sound of Laserdream's laser attacks and this ridiculous crackling like lightning strikes coming from Leet, but that was all. I felt like maybe I could pay attention to both opponents if I... if I knew the right procedures? But I didn't. [Yeah,] I sent, [That sounds like a good idea.]

Uber sent a stream of green goo flying my way like it was shot from a high powered hose. "Flyer Fin," Raising Heart announced.

Wings made of pink light flashed into existence connected to my feet, and suddenly I wasn't just standing in midair: I could FLY. My vision lit up with an HUD that showed me the optimal path to evade the spray of goo, and I corkscrewed through that path almost out of control, but managed to avoid the... I looked down, watching the goo now dissolving the table I'd been sitting at, eating into the street, and destroying the remains of my lunch. Acid. I'd managed to avoid the acid. "You have got to be kidding," I said, trying very hard not to imagine what that goo would do to me if it hit me.

Uber just laughed. "You are no match for the might of Skull Gundam, Gundam Girl!" he announced.

I grimaced. [Okay,] I sent to Raising Heart. [How do I attack?]

[Magic responds to your will,] Raising Heart replied. [Imagine you are about to strike.] I felt Raising Heart take control of my flight, then, and she weaved a complicated evasive pattern as Uber did his best to shoot us down with his lasers. The front of the arcade took the worst of it, with deep furrows being carved into the wall of the building.

[You're kidding, right? Imagine I'm about to strike? That's it?]

[Correct.]

Right. Shit. Here goes nothing. I took back control of our course and dove down towards Uber, bringing up Raising Heart as I did, and then delivered a heavy slash with her forward tuning fork part, hoping it might cut into Uber's armor.

Uber blocked it flawlessly with his armored arm. Then he opened up with a spray of pressurized acid directly into my chest. ... which fountained off the glowing, rippling pink shield that sprang to life in front of me as Raising Heart spoke: "Protection."

Uber's lasers joined the acid stream, then, pounding against my shield even as he drew back a fist.

[Hold out your strongest hand,] Raising Heart instructed. I did so. A set of unbelievably complex multidimensional mathematical equations spun through my thoughts through the connection from Raising Heart, and my eyes widened as the equations seemed to fix themselves into place in my mind. [Now,] Raising Heart sent, [Fire the bullet.]

Bullet. Fire the bullet. No problem, Taylor. Just go ahead and alter reality with math you shouldn't be able to understand that you're doing in your head. Wait. ... if I changed two variables, couldn't I make that into three bullets? I did so, focusing on the alternate equation as I...

As I...

I fired the bullets. Three spheres of pink light erupted from my outstretched left hand, and my thoughts expanded. I could see and hear through them. I could guide each of them independently and freely and simultaneously. And I had all of a split second to appreciate that before two of them destroyed the fins on either side of Uber's costume's head, and the third took out the nozzle for his acid sprayer, ripping through his armor and ending both of his attacks.

Uber blinked. He felt for his missing head-fins, and then looked down at the destroyed nozzle, then back up at me. "Really?" he asked.

"I'm not the one trying to melt people with acid!" I snapped.

"It's Manton limited," he said. "The worst it will do to living tissue is give you an itchy rash."

I fired the bullets again. This time, I was aiming center of mass; it threw Uber backwards a dozen meters, and he skidded to a stop just shy of the drop down to the water. He didn't move for a long moment, and my blood went cold. "Oh crap," I said. "I didn't kill him, did I?"

"Target is still alive," Raising Heart confirmed out loud. "Vitals strong. Not in danger of death."

I sighed with relief. "Okay. Good." My gaze swept over to Laserdream's aerial duel with Leet. They were practically dogfighting in the sky, now, moving in complicated patterns of attack and evasion, exchanging fire at such a rapid speed that I was sure I wouldn't have been able to follow it yesterday, but now it seemed trivially easy. "I need to help her," I said, "But I don't want to get close to that dogfight." I thought for a second. [Raising Heart, can I make an attack with a much longer range than what I just used?]

[If that's what you desire,] Raising Heart replied.

I felt a pulse coming from my chest. That sense of warmth grew stronger, and I could almost see a field of energy around my body. I took a breath. I tried to focus the energy I felt through my arms and into Raising Heart. "Let's do it," I said.

"Shooting Mode," Raising Heart announced, her structure reconfiguring in ways that seemed outright impossible. A glowing pink spell circle sprang up beneath my feet. I saw a targeting reticle lock onto Leet's form. I fixed my will on him, forcing it to follow him no matter where he went, and the reticle responded accordingly. "We're not going to hit Laserdream, are we?" I asked.

"I believe, my Master," Raising Heart said.

No pressure, then.

There was a flash of movement, of white and gold out of the corner of my eye, but I was too focused to pay much notice. I really needed to train up my situational awareness.

Just above the red gem, a ridiculous sphere of pink energy doom-flared into existence. "Divine," Raising Heart began. The light grew brighter and brighter as the energy field grew ever more intense. My eyes widened slightly, but I didn't let up. "Buster!" Raising Heart finished.

"CRYSTAL! LOOK OUT!" Glory Girl screamed as she dove into the path of the unleashed and absolutely absurd beam of pink destruction, maybe thinking she could tank it and protect her cousin.

"Vicky, wait! She's on our..." Glory Girl hit the beam. "... side," Laserdream finished with a tone of futility.

"Oh, shit," I said. But it was too late to call back the shot. The beam hit Glory Girl. Glory Girl went flying off into one of the ornate pillars just outside the arcade, plowed right through it, bounced twice, and then skidded to a halt. The massive and absurdly pink beam of energy kept right on going, blasting Leet out of the sky and evaporating a big chunk of the wall behind him. And the wall behind that. And the wall behind that. And the wall behind that, leaving a clear 2x2 meter circular hole all the way through to open sky. And I'd punched another hole in the cloud cover.

"Victoria!" Laserdream cried, diving down to her cousin's side.

My mouth dropped open, and I stared, looking from the fallen Glory Girl to Uber to Leet and back. "... oh, shit," I said again, this time with feeling.

"Nice shot!" Raising Heart called cheerfully.

I tried not to cringe. I was unsuccessful.