Pretty Magic Stompy Robots

Chapter Two
Meeting The Magical Girls

by Jared Ornstead
aka Skysaber
aka Perfect Lionheart

OoOoO

Melissa came awake with a start, startled to have come awake at all, considering the condition she'd been in when she lost consciousness. A quick glance down to her abdomen where the creature's spikes had ripped through her almost to the spine revealed no current damage, even her costume was fine, and Melissa let herself lay back flat on the ground and relax for a moment. She'd been healed. That meant her sister had retained enough charge out of the last wedding she'd attended to cure her. That was lucky, and unexpected. They'd all been certain her charge had been lower than that.

Melissa gave herself a moment of laying there to bask in the good fortune, before she let her mind return to business. Obviously they'd won the fight, as Rebecca would not have been able to heal her otherwise. So luring that monster out in front of that speeding car had been a good idea.

She'd have to remember that for next time the Puchuu tried sacrificing her.

At last allowing the voices to penetrate her self-congratulation, Melissa rolled to one side to observe who was talking, thinking it was probably Max, but what the Puchuu wanted this time so soon after nearly killing her...

It wasn't Max.

Melissa blinked at the unexpected scene before her. It ought to have been absolutely pitch black out, this was the middle of the night in as obscure a location as you could find on this continent. There ought not to have been any lights on for miles in any direction. But there was a young man standing there conversing with her sister Rebecca, while Chione stood by attentively.

The young man was totally unfamiliar to Melissa. What's more, his outfit was unfamiliar and foreign. She did a quick assessment, frowning as she noted the youth wore no makeup at all, only a few pieces of jewelry and all in the wrong style. It was easy not to notice he had any decoration at all, and those clothes were completely wrong.

Melissa gave him her best, most honest assessment, before she gave it up as a lost cause. The man was a slave. She'd tried her hardest, but could not find a single trace of the Glory of Egypt about him at all. Since she knew that one's costume as a magical soldier came directly out of one's personality and self-image, that could only mean that he was one of those captured on raids from one of the wild worlds, and brought in to plow fields, or whatever.

It hardly mattered what his job was, a slave was a slave, after all.

Melissa gave out a long-suffering sigh. The fact the boy was their newest Magical Soldier was also unmistakable, since the light shining bright was being provided by an electrical arc between the fingers on one of the boy's hands.

An electric type, not like they needed one, since that was Chione's type.

Still, as disappointing as he was, and he was disappointing in every way Melissa had observed so far, at least they had a new soldier. That probably meant that they'd lost their best fighting type, since Max would not have empowered someone new unless Berenike had succumbed to her wounds. But slave or not, boy or not, a duplicate type or not, she would still use him.

The Great Game had use for pawns, after all.

And if they were lucky, the boy would even have a useful artifact or two to leave behind once he was gone.

She did not see any... Melissa shook herself, realizing that her Third Eye was off. That was disconcerting, as the ability to perceive the flows magic and recognize not just the presence of magic but the type in use had been one of her primary advantages since becoming a magical girl. It was not a common power, but so useful she'd kept it on without fail for years.

It had saved her life so many times Melissa never turned it off anymore, and the thought something else had deactivated it for her was somewhat worrisome, but quickly shoved aside in the press of more important things she could be doing.

Swiftly reactivating her metaphysical Third Eye, a point of magic blazed on her forehead invisible to normal sight, but the ebbs and flows and types of magic once more became clear to her normal two eyes, and the familiar sensation caused the magical girl to relax slightly - then she sat bolt upright in shock at what her new sight revealed to her.

That BOY!

Oh, the boy himself was nothing but a disappointment. By now she been doing it so long Melissa could reflexively read the type of someone's magic, and his was obscure, meaning it was none of the major styles. That made him an oddball, and thus of no consequence. She'd seen dozens of oddball magic soldiers in her day, and none of them compared well to the major types, which were all major for a reason.

No, what caught her attention and caused her to sit up in shock were two things. One was the boy had traces of an insane number of rituals about him. She could not even tell how many, at least dozens, maybe hundreds, possibly more as traces of the most recent ones overlay and obscured the older until there was no telling what any of it meant.

That was interesting and startling enough, as where and when could he have done so many? As a new soldier, had he not just been introduced to magic a few moments ago?

But no, as curious a point to consider as that was, it paled to insignificance next to the other. That boy, the oddball slave, had somehow come into possession of roughly two DOZEN artifacts! There were too many to easily count, despite the fact that Melissa could see them clearly, concealed about in the folds of those foreign clothes. What's more, of those the boy had a full dozen POWER ARTIFACTS!

Melissa had been a magical girl fighting to preserve her planet and people from the forces of destruction for well over a hundred years, and during that time had seen a turnover rate that averaged four deaths among the magical girls per year. Thankfully, Max or another Puchuu always replaced them, because otherwise they'd have been overrun long ago. But Melissa was an old soldier who knew her way around magical girls, and what she saw on this rookie was something she'd never seen before.

Artifacts were something she'd seen countless times in the past, roughly one in four magical girls were created with one, sometimes more, and they always offered some useful ability. Among the most popular were healing artifacts, which could heal anything short of death given enough magic and time. Groups that contained a member with one of those always lasted longer, which made them something frequently fought over by mage groups and fringers.

Magical girls who had a healing artifact had even been ambushed and had it stolen, although given how much more powerful magical girls were over the average mage that was rare, and attempted only by the desperate.

Melissa made sure those who tried did not live long, either, whether successful or not. Her teams were all that was standing between those people and destruction, and having her girls robbed of their tools by the very people they'd been protecting threatened all of their lives, so not something she was going to tolerate under any circumstances.

Mystic artifacts gave hints and warnings, useful information to have when fighting for your very existence, and purification artifacts created safe zones where monsters dared not venture, another thing that was priceless to have in the war to save humanity. Disguise artifacts had some utility in scouting, but the most useful of all were power artifacts, as with one anyone with a touch of magical talent could almost substitute for a magical girl; or if you already were a magical girl or soldier, it allowed one to use magic outside of your type.

Staggeringly useful.

While healing artifacts might be stolen or fought over, that was all on the scale of a mugging. She'd seen small wars fought over possession of a few power artifacts.

This boy had a dozen, each reading as a different type to her Third Eye. And one of those artifacts was typed as Reinforcement, the most prized support power; better at healing than any other power or healing artifact, while capable of creating safe zones much like a purification artifact, with other capabilities besides.

Melissa had stood some while before without realizing it. She now strode forwards. This boy, this slave, this oddball would plainly be unable to protect any such valuable object, much less a dozen, so it fell to her to take them and distribute them among her teams, where they could be useful.

OoOoO

Jared had spent the last several moments quietly chatting with the two magical girls that had come running up after the monster had been killed.

The first acted very much the 'High Society Girl Who'd Ordinarily Have Nothing To Do With You', while the second was dutifully playing bodyguard to the first. Their first act, on running up, had been to check on a third girl, the one who Jared had barely seen as more than a blur of pink crossing the road.

The bodyguard, on checking the downed girl and seeing the rips in her abdomen, through her intestines, from where the beast had clawed her, had silently looked to the other and solemnly shook her head.

Jared had simply rolled his eyes and cast a healing spell on the downed girl.

They'd both been flabbergasted as her guts knitted back together and the shredded girl resumed breathing, but really, as he'd explained, bleeding out generally took a few minutes, and, unless they hit the abdominal aorta or its matching vein, gut wounds did not kill swiftly in any case. Since that had not happened, really even normal medicine would have had a decent shot at saving her... well, from the immediate death by blood loss at least. Gut wounds, while rarely quick deaths, could also be devilishly nasty to fix because of all of the bacteria, and worse things, less loose in the abdomen by a ruptured intestine.

But really, lying passed out and dying, bleeding out in the desert, was not DEAD! And anything short of dead was fixable when you had enough healing magic to hand. And the more you understood actual trauma medicine, the less magic you needed to fix even fairly severe wounds.

The snooty, high society dame had seemed ever so slightly offended when he'd said that.

In truth, neither girl said very much. The snooty one obviously did not want to, nor did the bodyguard deviate from her boss' example. So they both focused on the third girl as she woke up and sorted herself out.

As the firelight died from last of the precious fuel vapors vanished at last, Jared tapped into a part of his newly acquired magic he'd not used yet and ignited an electric arc between the fingers of one hand so everyone could see.

Then he sized up who he was dealing with, and could make almost no sense out of their costumes, as every culture had different values they expressed when they dressed up, and theirs kept sending out conflicted signals.

The look made standardized in West during the 20th Century emphasized something the English liked to call 'Understated Elegance', meaning the overall look was fairly plain, you had to look quite closely and know exactly what you were looking for to recognize how expensive something like a business suit really was.

'Dressing to Impress' really meant, 'let's give everyone a huge marker for my social status by showing off my wealth, in the form of how expensive my clothes are'.

The 20th Century West expressed their 'status by wealth' in the quality of material, and the tailoring of their clothes. You had to be an expert to know, but the simple, standard dress shirt for men was anything but simple. Making one required every difficult sewing technique there was, and the slightest mistake would get the whole garment thrown out as useless.

Traditional Japanese, to take another example, worked very differently. A kimono was a very simple pattern to sew. That culture expressed their 'status by wealth' through dyes and intricate weaves. Where business suits were solid, single colors, it would be a ruinous mistake to try to follow that theme with a kimono. There color and patterns were fundamental to their purpose, and to neglect those would have been social death.

And, considering how the traditional Japanese traditionally operated, social death was often followed by actual death. So their elites had incredible talents for picking out appropriate dyes and patterns.

The Egyptians, on the other hand, worked quite differently from both of those. Their clothes were almost painfully simple. Not complex to sew, nor weave, and almost never dyed. The fabrics themselves were cheap, and often linen. But then, it could almost be said that no one expressed their 'status by wealth' quite so ostentatiously as the ancient Egyptians, for while they wore very plain clothes, you had to look closely to tell that under the many different layers of decorations they wore.

The base layer was often just a robe or kilt. Over that the well-dressed Egyptian would add a layer of highly decorative additions. An ornamental belt was key to it, usually one with a long strip dangling in front. Along the shoulders there would be a broad, highly ornamented collar usually made of gold and studded with precious gems, then topped off with an elaborate headdress. All of these had requirements of craftsmanship and materials, plus colors, design and patterns, high enough to put those of 20th century businessmen and the traditional Japanese both to shame.

Makeup and jewelry would then be added, and lots of both, more than any other culture would feel comfortable in wearing, to be honest; very often including a couple of pounds of precious stones making up for the fact the basic outfit weighs almost nothing.

Snooty girl and formerly-shredded girl were both rocking the 'Egyptian Princess' look, with some important differences. As while both girls wore the full Egyptian jewelry and makeup, they had on full Elizabethan gowns on underneath it rather than the expected linen shift.

It was not an easy trick to blend those two, but somehow they'd done it. In fact, the way they'd done it suggested this was not something they'd kludged together personally, but had been around, perhaps for centuries, before they'd done theirs, and they'd just been inheritors of an already mature clothing style.

Shredded-girl's costume was predominantly pink, with contrasting jewels mostly in whites and blues, while snooty-girl's costume was pale green, using yellows and gold accents.

All three girls were armed with kopesh, the famed sickle-swords that, as near as he could tell, were unique to the Egyptians. They had a standard sword handle, and about half the blade was just like a normal sword, but the half furthest from the grip gained a dramatic half-moon curve, like a sickle.

The things were deadly on the attack, but awkward on anything but a slash. The balance was all wrong for thrusting and parrying. A straight sword was a far more agile and versatile weapon, even if the kopesh did tend to hit like an axe - to devastating effect.

But the reason he suspected no one else used them was because of the awkwardness in storing them. An axe can be slid through a belt loop, and straight swords have scabbards, but that half-moon sickle shape did not fit into an easy container that a soldier could just let hang from his body during a march. So the only things you could do with the kopesh was carry it in your hand ready to use, which got tiring after a while, or lay it on the ground.

It said something about those girls, he thought, that each carried a weapon that could be summed up as: all offense, no defense, no 'off-duty' state except lying down or dead.

Third girl, the one acting as bodyguard now to the other two, dressed much simpler, in the 'loincloth and kilt' of the Egyptian working classes, plus an elaborately wrapped strip of cloth that covered about what a halter top does, and what was probably considered the minimal makeup and jewelry required to stand out from the peasant classes - along with those frilly ruffles around neck and both wrists so popular in European courts way back when.

In Jared's quiet opinion, which he would probably never share, it made her look like a poodle - all flaring out and fluffy in spots, while being next to completely bare in others.

Hairstyles on all three were pure Egyptian: long, sleek, straight, dyed pitch black where it was not that color naturally, and rather stark overall. Not Jared's favorite style, but in some cases it could work. He did not see fit to mention that this was NOT, in his opinion, one of those cases because there are few stupider things a fellow could be doing than telling ladies the hairstyle they'd obviously spent a lot of time and work on made them look ugly.

But it did. Anytime you've got to apply a layer of wax to your hair to make it shinier, you've gone too far, in his opinion.

Using this time of introspection while he observed them and assessed their costumes, it now became apparent why Snooty-girl and Bodyguard had not really said much, as the way the three girls assembled themselves together to face him made it clear that formerly-shredded-girl had been their leader.

Shredded girl took a stance in front of him, placing one hand on her hip and a haughty look on her brow as she faced him, the other two flanking behind her. "I know I do not look it, but I am over one hundred and seventy years old. My name is Melissa Davion, I am former First Princess of the Federated Suns," she stated with some finality, and Jared had to admit that was quite a reveal. "I was born in the year 2829, and was called as a magical girl in the year 2892 at the age of 63, whereupon my family had to fake my death, claiming I'd died of an incurable fever."

63? Over 170? She was right, she didn't look it. Jared's eye flicked over her cautiously. The girl before him looked like she was 14, and still waiting for the Puberty Fairy to arrive. But then, from his interdimensional travels he had more experience than most with how easily magic could mess with people's ages.

Now Melissa, former First Princess, the one who'd raced out in front of his car, and who he'd been referring to as Shredded Girl in his own thoughts, fixed him with a gaze that oddly reminded him of Cologne, a 300-year old Amazon matriarch he'd known back in Ranma's world.

"I gave up my throne and power over nearly five hundred worlds for one simple reason: No one who is not magic can be allowed to know about magic."

Jared nodded reasonably, and replied, "I am not disagreeing, but have observed many places where that was not the case. So I assume you have a good reason. I would like to know it."

But instead of answering his question Melissa's face instantly twisted into a frown and she snapped out, "What places?"

He waved a hand idly, "Other dimensions, really."

Her faced snapped from scowling to speculative, as she gave him a measuring gaze. "I had an interdimensional tourist as mentor after my first change. He left about a century later, and I refused to go with him. My work is here. So, I take it you are his replacement?"

"That..." Jared spent a moment stunned as he considered it, "... is distinctly possible," he allowed. Although he quickly amended, "Although I would not term myself a tourist. Most dimensions I go to are where a bit of help is required in order to stave off catastrophe."

Melissa's scowl was now a resigned frown, as she admitted, "That describes us far too well, I am afraid." She gestured to his hand, which was still alight with an arc of lightning, whose glow still illuminated their area. "We'll discuss your many power artifacts in a moment, but I can't find a Lightning themed one among them. How are you doing that?"

"Oh this?" Jared smiled, lifting the hand still providing their illumination. "That's easy. Right after the crash, a crimson lizard wearing a fez approached and told me he'd 'lost another one, but I would do as her replacement'. He then attempted to remake me as a magical soldier, unaware of the fact that I'd already been one. Apparently the combination of my dormant powers, plus those he'd been trying to add, overcame whatever safeties he had on the process and gave me control of it."

There the boy smacked his lips appreciatively. "I was unaware how fulfilling it would be to get to pick my own powers, sub-powers and perks like that. It was really quite refreshing. After hijacking the process, I was even able to modify it somewhat."

Snooty-Girl, in the green costume, leaned in to offer her first piece of advice to Jared. "That sounds like a perfect description of Max, one of our local puchuu. They create magical girls. But they have their own agenda, and never share their reasons. You must never trust them, as they've shown countless times they don't care about us, and are willing to sacrifice us to achieve their aims."

The redhaired boy gave Snooty-Girl a nod of thanks. "Right. They can make more, so aren't so concerned about keeping us alive. I will heed that warning. Thank you."

While Snooty-Girl had been talking, the former First Princess had just finished sizing him up with mystified dismay over his lack of clear thinking. "If you could choose anything about your conversion to a magical soldier, why would you choose an oddball magical type when you could have had one of the major ones?!"

Jared drilled her with his own gaze, feeling almost smug. "Because major ones like earth, air, fire and water are only favored because they're popular - enough people have had those enough times that their tricks are generally known, so it's easy to get off to a good start just copying those things you've heard other people with your power could do. Oddball powers can be anything, so it's really rare to find hints of someone else who has had your power set before. That just means you have to work out your own tricks, but it does mean that you get off to a slower start."

Here he looked positively smug. "On the other hand, oddball powers can be literally ANY theme at all! So I learned a lesson from a little purple unicorn pony, and took magic itself as my type."

He gave a small shrug. "Apparently, I can use powers out of any type..." here he frowned, lost his smugness and admitted, "Unfortunately, that means I have a thousand times more study and practice before me, as to truly master my power, I'll have to study every possible aspect of magic - a rather daunting prospect."

He looked up at her with a genuine smile. "So while I have a trick or two to help, it's a good thing I like to study, no?"

Hearing the explanation, Melissa sneered. Neophyte magical girls just come into their magic were always raw and bumbling, just like raw recruits on a battlefield, and while she could almost understand the allure of having the power to do anything, this guy had just chosen to stay in the 'raw and bumbling' stage a thousand times longer?

He was dead. There was no conceivable way he was going to live through being unable to fully master his powers for that long.

She resolved to keep him at arm's length, as too many teams could be brought down by someone who was a perpetual raw recruit.

"So, to return to my question," Jared diplomatically interjected, now that her tangent seemed to have run its course, "Why do you hide magic?"

His question visibly annoyed the princess, but at least this time she answered. "Well, to be brief in speaking, our leaders won't stand for it. Max says the leaders of the Great Houses each know magic exists, but they are all nulls - they can't use magic at all." She grimaced. "So it might be jealousy, but each time they get confirmed reports of magic, they send their starships and orbitally bombard that world until there is nothing left alive on it. It's been done on more than a hundred worlds, including dozens in the Federated Suns."

"Rather extreme," the boy allowed, before spreading his hands. "But those sound like people you wouldn't want for leaders anyway. So get new ones. There's always a way."

The former first princess firmly shook her head. "No. For us it is impossible."

Jared drilled her with a gaze. "I think you'd better explain that."

Melissa thought about it for a moment, then sighed, acknowledging the point. "What do you know already?"

The boy sighed and looked down, before admitting, "It's probably best to just assume I've been living under a rock my whole life, and know nothing about your particular situation."

~Methinks I saw a bit of disgust flash in those eyes of hers,~ Jared admitted to himself, after saying he did not know anything much.

Melissa took on the attitude of someone forced to explain the basics against her will. "Well, to be brief in speaking, human space is divided up into five Great Houses. The Federated Suns are lead by House Davion..."

"Are you related to the current leader?" Jared found himself interrupting.

She looked at him. It was not friendly, but she allowed whatever slight she perceived to pass. "Andrew, who was First Prince before dying just days ago? He was my great-nephew."

At this the previously-silent green-clad magical girl he'd been thinking of as Snooty Girl pushed forward with more information. "Her younger brother, Joseph Davion II, was father to Peter Davion, who in turn was father to Andrew Davion, who was First Prince until he died in an attack by Agony Spirits just the day after Christmas of this year. He's been replaced by his eldest son Ian Davion."

Melissa nodded to the girl speaking. "This is my older sister Rebecca Davion. She became a magical girl before she had a chance to become First Princess, else she would have held the title before me." Melissa raised an eyebrow at him. "And you are?"

"Ah!" Jared smiled, and gave a small bow. "Forgive my rudeness. I am Jared Saotome."

"And you said you'd been a magical soldier before?" Her tone gave no indication of anything.

"Yes," he allowed. "In the court of Queen Serenity of the Silver Moon Kingdom I am the Knight of Reason, and the Prince of Love. I served alongside the knights of Hope and Duty, until the sad fate of the latter where he requested to be erased from existence."

Melissa considered those inferior, cut-down, oddball versions of her own psychic and her sister's empathy powers, but outwardly merely raised a cold brow. "And is this Silver Moon Kingdom in our dimension?"

Jared returned her a rakish smile. "I am sure that if it was you'd have heard of it. We turn out to be rather important in galactic affairs."

She obviously dismissed his claim as idle boasting, and he was happy to let her. She continued haughtily, raising her chin higher, "And what are you doing here?"

He returned her a cool smile. "Why, what I always do when I am on a mission: visiting other worlds, or interstellar civilizations like this one, to prevent their destruction."

Her haughtiness dropped a touch over that, considering his words and doubting they were true, but honest enough to allow for the possibility.

Jared decided to derail this current line of questioning. "So Ian is currently serving as First Prince? So what about this summon I got to appear at the royal courts of Pharaoh Hanse?"

Both former princesses blinked, astonished by the abrupt turn of conversation. "Hanse? He is spending time as Pharaoh of New Avalon while his brother Ian is First Prince."

Jared swiftly translated the local terminology in his head, then checked it for clarity. "Oh? So the job of pharaoh is like a planetary governor?"

Rebecca nodded, answering for her sister. "Yes, I believe it was called something like that once, but everyone now knows that position as Pharaoh."

"Thank you for clarifying." Jared nodded. "I am sorry for the tangent. You may continue your explanation."

Melissa gave him a long glare, inwardly debating how much insult she ought to take over his allowing her to do anything, as if he had the authority to order her about! But propriety gave her the answer, as even if he was just a slave in her culture, he'd once been a prince in his own (that seemed to have been borne out by his manners and lack of proper deference, treating HER as an EQUAL!), and so she let it pass - this once.

There would be plenty of time to show this upstart his place later on.

Jared was actually picking up on these hints of hostility, but considered them fairly normal if she had once been a Head of State, as outside of fiction those people tended to have a strong sense of "You are either with us, or against us" and he was, while being polite, not being what she would consider properly subservient.

He actually rather hated the dominance games nobility typically got up to, so resolved once his business here was concluded to absent himself from her presence as swiftly as he could conveniently make an exit.

He also noted that Poodle-Girl, the one playing at bodyguard, still remained silent and had not been introduced. The other two plainly saw her as an underling, and so far she appeared content to fill that role.

After a long pause to convey just how inappropriate she felt it was for him to *allow* her to do *anything*, Melissa continued coolly, "There are five Great Houses, in total, forming the Inner Sphere of human colonized space. Clockwise from us, the Capellan Confederation, ruled by House Liao is the smallest. Next around lies the Free Worlds League, ruled by House Marik. They are divided and ineffectual, always squabbling. Then next around is the Lyran Confederation ruled by House Steiner, wealthy but poor warriors, and finally last before we return full circle you have the Draconis Combine, ruled by House Kurita. Both Houses Liao and Kurita have earned our eternal enmity by their insanity and their war crimes."

Sounded like bad people, but Jared did not say anything, not wanting to interrupt again.

On seeing that he would hold his peace, Melissa relaxed slightly. "There once was a sixth house, the Terran Hegemony led by House Cameron, which united all six Houses into a great Star League."

Well, that confirmed this was Battletech. Only in fiction could the same six families rule the same territories for eight centuries. In real history most dynasties were doing well to stay in power for three or four generations. Two centuries might be the record, discounting stand-outs like the British Royals or Japanese emperors who spent long periods as figureheads without real power. USA in the early 21st Century was the longest-standing government on Earth, at just over two centuries. Every other country had undergone major upheavals and changed their systems of government during that time.

All of them.

Of course, Jared said nothing to her about the utter impossibility of what she considered history, and he considered bad writing on the part of game designers. Governments were born, got old and rotten, then died - just like people - and generally only science fiction or fantasy authors ignored that fundamental fact about human nature.

Nothing built by mortal hands was eternal. It all fell eventually.

She'd paused, so he prompted her, "And this Star League fell due to the treachery of one Stefan Amaris? President of the Rim Worlds Republic, as I recall?"

Melissa looked at him like he was an idiot. "No, of course not. Richard Cameron, First Lord of the Star League, went mad and murdered Stefan Amaris in cold blood, a man who had been his best friend and mentor since childhood! And rumors hold it that he'd killed off more House Lords than just Amaris. Then, as if we needed more proof he'd gone completely around the bend, Richard declared himself both Emperor and god, demanding that his followers worship him and call him by the name Ra. General Kerensky tried to arrest him, but got murdered by a secret army Ra had built up without anyone being aware of it, using technology no one had seen before, or matched since. Then, in return for Kerensky's 'betrayal', Ra ordered the general's entire family annihilated down to the last genetic relative. In his madness, he even went further and ordered the extermination of every world with a principally Russian heritage - which was carried out by ships of his secret army delivering bioweapons from orbit."

Jared's eyes had grown rather round at this abrupt and total departure from what he knew of the history of Battletech - his local self's memories being of no help here, as having been raised under local-Genma, there had been essentially no knowledge of anything scholarly included in his local self's education.

The former princess continued, "This was enough to stir the rest of the House Lords to action, and they jointly declared war upon Ra. Kerensky had been leader of the Star League Defense Forces, so in loyalty to him those fleets and soldiers stood aside and did not act to defend Ra - but nor did they act to assist the House Lords in taking him down. Without their support, the technology of Ra's secret army was so superior he looked to be about to destroy all of the House Lords at once. Then the Betrayer got betrayed in turn by his chief scientist and architect of this secret army, and the bulk of it vanished. No one knows where, but without his defenders Ra was easily overcome by the House Lords, who stripped him of all of his high technology, and every planet but one - Terra itself, which they now hold under blockade. No one visits, no one leaves. The planet has become the prison of the insane First Lord."

Then her face turned into a pout, as it revealed her sour opinion of this part of the topic in general. "Only the House Lords proved they were no better, as each used their part of the machinery they'd stolen from Ra's secret army to wage war on each other, over who got to be the next leader of the Star League."

Here she fixed him with a *very* serious gaze. "Back during the Star League, the leaders of each nation sat on a High Council on Terra. Only since the madness has started, none of those lords have grown old, so they are still in charge - but each has proven themselves to be just as mad as Richard Cameron! Those who were married ignored or killed off their own spouses, or children, and each titles themselves as a god or goddess!"

She shook her head in understandable sorrow. "John Davion was House Lord of the Federated Suns when Ra went insane, and the same John Davion leads us still today - only he took on the title of Emperor, wears a falcon-headed mask, and calls himself Montu, God of War. All of the other Houses are all in the same position. Jennifer Steiner rules the Lyran Commonwealth as Taweret, wearing a silly hippo-headed helmet! While Kenyon Marik who rules the Free Worlds League wears a ram-styled one and calls himself Khnum.

"The two worst of the lot are Minoru Kurita, who went even more traditional Japanese than before and calls himself Tetsu, the Dragon of the Draconis Combine, complete with another mask; while I can't explain Barbara Liao, who leads the Capellans and calls herself Sobek. Which makes no sense! According to mythology Sobek was supposed to be male!"

"Sobek's theme is crocodiles. Could you even tell gender on a crocodile?" Jared answered with a slight smile.

That comment earned a slight smile from Melissa and her friends as well.

It swiftly passed, and she sadly raised her hands partway, to indicate helplessness. "While they have lost most of the machines taken from Ra in striving against each other, what they retain they employ around themselves as strong bodyguard units, and normal battlemechs can't compete. So their overthrow is completely impossible - and merely waiting for them to die has proved fruitless!"

She drew in an angry breath. "They don't even kill each other! It's been over two hundred years, and there has been no victor. Vast armies have been exterminated, over a thousand inhabited worlds obliterated, most of our technology has been lost and our industry is but a shadow of its former self; only *nothing* has been resolved! The Star League is dead and gone."

The boy tilted his head. "And the omnipresent Egyptian themes come from them?"

"Yes," Melissa answered. "They even took us off the metric system, went to a modified Imperial system of measurement. They even claim to have invented Imperial measurement!"

"Uh huh." Suddenly parts of his tech download began to make so much more sense. "And the technology of Ra's secret army, would it by any chance have included energy shields, fighters using reactionless drives, and starships capable of interstellar travel that do not use jump-points to travel from, completely unlike all ships built without this secret technology?"

"Yes," the former First Princess fixed him with a stare. "I thought you said you knew nothing?"

Jared inhaled a long breath, then blew it out forcefully. "About local history, yes. That would be an accurate assessment. However, you travel enough dimensions you see certain themes repeated quite often." He met her eyes, looking serious. "One last thing: Has the language of the ancient Egyptians made a comeback and become the de facto language of the royal courts?"

She nodded, wondering where he was going with this.

He nodded, having been resigned to her answer. "Go'uld. Well, I never expected to run into them, especially not in a place like this. But it certainly sounds like what you've got."

"Go'uld." The princess repeated flatly, never having heard the word before.

"Body snatching aliens," Jared elaborated. "They're a species of parasites that have only two advantages worth noting. One, they can enter the bodies of other creatures and take over absolute control, piloting them just as you would a mech - except they never have to leave, so they can keep doing it for centuries. Two, is they have a genetic memory. Go'uld are born knowing basically everything their parents did, including technology. They claim to have visited Earth many thousands of years ago, and founded everything we'd call Egypt."

Jared levelly met the shocked gazes of the trio of magical girls. "Most body snatchers are more successful because they are harder to recognize when they've taken over someone. But the Go'uld are clumsy, and leave several tells. Their technology is one. Virtually all of their technology is stolen, but because of the genetic memory they don't really lose any they've collected, so they reuse it alot. Those masks, and claiming to be gods is another. The species are paranoid megalomaniacs who love nothing better than to rule over slaves, and strongly desire to be worshipped. But one of the standouts is their obsession with all things Egyptian. It really tends to give them away - more particularly because the language of Ancient Egypt was dead, nobody lived who spoke it in modern times, and the written form lacked whole parts of language, so attempts to reconstruct it failed - none of them would have been understandable to someone who spoke the authentic version. For it to have been brought back, intact, could only have been done by someone who either was, or had the memories of, a native speaker from the time period before it was lost."

He shrugged. "On the plus side, none of your leaders are actually insane. Aaaaand, on the minus side, that's because they are nothing more than meat puppets dancing on the strings of creatures who've never been exactly sane by human standards."

"And how does it help us to know this?" Melissa challenged, both upset and angry.

"Oh, that's easy." Jared flashed her a grin. "They are parasites. Virtually anyone with curative magic can remove diseases - and a simple Cure Disease spell also removes infestations of parasites."

His grin was slowly met by ever-growing looks of wondering amazement.

OoOoO
Divergence Point:

On a night in Africa, during the 20th Century, one minor bush war among so many prevented a certain archeological dig, with the result that Earth's Stargate never got discovered. Life on Earth went on, unknowing of the greater universe out there.

In their own part of the galaxy, the so-called System Lords, a race of slugs inhabiting the bodies of more capable beings, and who delighted in presenting themselves as Egyptian gods, continued on as they had been for a while, untroubled by interference by the humans of Earth.

But in the original Stargate timeline, that interference had done things both good and bad, so without it, many events did not have the same endings.

That had both some good, and tremendously bad effects for that species of parasites.

However, eventually humans of Earth discovered spaceflight independently. It took them centuries, and countless false starts, but they did manage to colonize several thousand habitable worlds more or less in a sphere, and eventually establish a more or less stable form of government they called the Star League, allying all of the significant chunks of their colonization efforts, which they termed the Inner Sphere.

Wars there are waged by giant robots called Battlemechs, and their pilots became known as Mechwarriors, the elite of all of the Inner Sphere's soldiers.

Both galactic civilizations remained happily ignorant of each other, until one day out in the Rim Worlds Republic of the Inner Sphere, some humans discovered on their planet this weird, alien ring. Humans being endlessly curious, they found out how to activate it (it was not hard when there was a control device standing right there nearby) and ventured through, discovering heretofore unknown human life dwelling on the other side.

However, this first scout team was NOT insanely lucky enough to get in a kill shot on the first System Lord they met, somebody got infected, which led to an infiltration that culminated in one of the System Lords taking over one Stefan Amaris, ruler of the Rim Worlds Republic where the functional Stargate had been found.

This Amaris was already deeply involved in advancing his plans for a coup, to assassinate the First Lord of the Star League and put himself in charge. The alien slug, on taking over his mind, already fond of grandeur and with its species' insatiable appetite for power, approved of these plans wholeheartedly - with only one, comparatively minor modification; instead of assassinating Richard Cameron, the heir soon to come of age and become First Lord of the Star League, it would instead infect him with another Go'uld, one it viewed as nicely subservient to itself.

That plan probably would have worked beautifully had it not been for that species nasty habit of turning on each other in search of advantage in their endless games of power. The new slug did not see itself as subservient to the first slug, instead it saw itself as a rival who now had a chance to overthrow the other.

Bad Things happened.