This is mostly a collection of various happenings in-between the Mahorafest and the trek to Mundus Magicus. Enjoy.
Please don't forget to check out and add on to the Teana's Travels trope page, which also has a layout of planned future books if anyone wants to know.
The events here are in chronological order, but I could not come up with exact dates for them.
JUST-IN-CASE DISCLAIMERS:
YU-GI-OH (card game appears as plot-unimportant recreation) IS THE PROPERTY OF KONAMI
THE KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC SERIES IS THE PROPERTY OF LUCASARTS AND BIOWARE
-CHAPTER START-
In another place and time, a small, cylindrical object seemed to spontaneously float out of its case in the Imperial City Museum and then vanish into a small rift in space-time.
-SCENE BREAK-
Anya Cocolova felt like her head was spinning. First she shows up to reclaim her Negi (wait, her Negi? She mentally slapped herself and hoped she wasn't blushing) only to get pulled into his little group. Then she finds out that six of them are interdimensional travelers. Then she finds out that several of the girls of Negi's class have breasts that make her flat-chested self feel very upset. Then she finds out that Negi has already formed Pactios with eight girls, and only Mai's quick explanations of how they were all either in mortal peril situations or were against his will stopped Anya from running off and trying to beat Negi senseless.
And now Haruna was finishing up one hell of a bombshell.
"…So that basically means that Negi-kun is literally destined to have a multitude of lovers! I can tell you have your eye on him, Anya-chan, so odds are good you'll be one of them! Ooh, we'll all have such fun together!"
Haruna then launched into a series of very, very racy situations that Anya could find herself in within such a situation, and after about a minute of that Anya literally fell over and tried to pass out, her face as red as her hair as an imaginary Negi did things to her with the help of a small army of girls.
Inside her own head, Haruna was laughing her ass off.
-SCENE BREAK-
The object continued its tumble through the Void, pulled through time & space by its long-dead owner.
-SCENE BREAK-
As Ahsoka headed off to bed, the artificial night sky of the Resort overhead, she sensed as Haruna walked up beside her, and heard the rustling of a bag that the busty human teen was carrying.
"Hey Ahsoka-chan~" she said. "I've got a new present for you~."
Ahsoka stopped walking and turned to face her friend, a curious spark in her eyes and a light flush on her face. "What kind of… present?"
Haruna grinned, looked around to ensure that she and Ahsoka were the only ones around, and reached into the bag, pulling out a rectangular box about 10 inches long. She lifted the lid. Ahsoka blushed as she laid eyes on the little device, which was shaped like a "genuine article" (with a switch on the bottom) rather than a little egg-thing like her first "present".
"And you know what's cool about it?" Haruna whispered. "There was a routine physical about a month ago, and I managed to get hold of a bit of data, and then had this custom-made. This little beauty…" she leaned in close "is the exact shape & size as Negi-kun's."
It took a few seconds for this to sink in, but when it did, what parts of Ahsoka's face weren't naturally red blushed brightly, her eyes going very wide. Haruna still had her signature grin.
"Tonight, if you'd like…" the taller girl purred "I can… help you with it…"
After several seconds of still silence, the Togrutan teen reached a shaky hand out and placed the box back in Haruna's bag, and then grabbed hold of the bag in a way that her hand touched Haruna's. She then, seemingly in a bit of a daze, started walking back toward her room, pulling Haruna along with her. Haruna gleefully proceeded to start moving faster, and now she was pulling her lovely nonhuman friend toward the room. They went in, a soundproofing spell went up, and no-one heard from them until midway through breakfast the next morning.
-SCENE BREAK-
The device exited the rift in reality just inside of Neptune's orbit. It began a slow tumble through space toward its destination.
-SCENE BREAK-
In a specially-prepared room in the Recreation Tech building of Mahora Academy, Teana and Shion stood on opposite ends of a large "playing field" equipped with an array of holograms. Each of them bore an angular-looking device on their forearm, with a deck of cards inserted.
Marie had been happy to discover that this game series existed in this timeline, and had introduced it to a few of the other Gamma girls just for the hell of it. Within less than half a year, Teana and Shion had both gotten rather good at it, building up fairly powerful decks. Now it was time for a friendly game to test skills and pass time.
Kaede, Marie, Mai, and Ahsoka stood on the sidelines, along with Negi, Kotarō, and several of 3-A's girls. The holographic field shimmered to life, and "6000" appeared next to both of the competitors.
Shion placed a monster in face-down Defense Position and ended her turn. Teana started off by summoning what looked to be a caped, green-armored elf warrior carrying a double-edged sword (Celtic Guardian – ATK/DEF: 1400/1200). She commanded it to attack, and it ran forward, bringing its sword down at Shion's face-down card in an overhead strike. However, the sword bounced off of the card with a sound of clanging metal, and Teana's life-points dropped down to 5700. The Defense Position card turned face-up, and the hologram changed to a large dark-green tank with a huge cannon on top and a red, horned, large-fanged, blue-eyed demon mask on the front (Oni Tank T-34 – ATK/DEF: 1400/1700).
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sad to say that this duel will not be described in detail. Because I suck at doing so. Horribly. I tried over and over again, but couldn't think up how to make it flow right or get the card drawing done right or get the back-and-forth "Who's in the lead at what point" working. Some authors can; I am most definitely not one of them. So I am sorry, but we'll be skipping straight to the end of the duel. Don't ask what happened between the start and finish, because I don't know either.)
Teana focused. Her Spirit Ryu was gone, slain by the mechanical titan currently standing between her and Shion (Machine King – ATK/DEF: 2200/2000). Standing beside the Machine King was a silver-white furred canid, fangs bared (Silver Fang – ATK/DEF: 1200/800). On Teana's side of the field were a nimble, golden-plated, eyeless dragon (Curse of Dragon – ATK/DEF: 2000/1500) in Attack Mode, and an armored turtle with a large gun-like device on its back (Catapult Turtle – ATK/DEF: 1000/2000) in face-up Defense Mode.
Shion was down to 2100 Life Points, while Teana was at 1750.
Teana drew her next card, and grinned as she saw what it was. She placed a monster face-up, and on the field appeared an infant black-hided dragon, still carrying a large fragment of its red eggshell (Red-Eyes Black Chick – ATK/DEF: 800/500). Next, she sacrificed her Curse of Dragon to her Catapult Turtle's effect. The golden-plated monster became a supersonic magic projectile that impacted Shion, taking her down to 1100 Life-Points. Then, she activated her Black Chick's special effect, sending it directly to the Graveyard to Special Summon the "mascot/figurehead" of her Deck – a massive, lean, black-armored dragon with piercing red eyes (Red-Eyes Black Dragon – ATK/DEF: 2400/2000). At Teana's command, the dragon reared back and then fired an explosive bolt of Dragon's Fire.
The attack hit dead-on, obliterating Shion's Silver Fang. 2400 minus 1200 is 1200, but Shion only had 1100 left before this attack. Thus, the Life-Point display for Shion hit 0 and turned from green to red, signaling her loss. Her Beast- and Machine-type deck had fallen to Teana's Dragon- and Warrior-type deck. Several of the crowd were cheering.
Both duelists stepped away from the field, walking over to the spectator area and meeting in the middle. Teana and Shion shook hands and then waved to the small crowd.
-SCENE BREAK-
It was passing through the Sol System's asteroid belt now, moving inexorably closer to where its old owner's spirit had telekinetically summoned it to.
-SCENE BREAK-
As per usual, there was a multi-person argument amongst 3-A's girls, with a few peacekeepers trying to break it up. At this point, the dialogue had "devolved" into the different people literally only saying the name of the person they were reacting to with varying tone.
"Asuna!"
"Ayaka~!"
"A-Asuna-san!"
"Negi-bozu!"
"Negi-sensei?"
"Ayaka-san…"
"Setsuna-san?"
"Secchan?"
"Kono-cha… Ojō-sama?"
"Negi-kun?"
"Ayaka-san!"
And so on. Among those sitting back and watching, Chisame had a slight urge that she wanted to test. She turned to Marie, who was sitting next to her.
"Wrex."
A small grin came up on Marie's face. "Shepard."
Chisame grinned as well. "Wrex."
"Shepard."
"Wrex."
"Shepard."
After about 10 more seconds of this, both girls started giggling quietly, having "bonded" in their own unique way. They bumped fists and then got back to watching the "fight".
About a minute later, Chizuru came in and broke up the fight using "The Stare" (perfected during her volunteer work as a kindergarten assistant), which caused all those involved to cringe with irrational, primal fear.
-SCENE BREAK-
As the gang did their own things in Eva's Resort, Marie was walking about when she found one of Haruna's sketchpads. Curious, she decided to look through it. As she sat down and flipped through the pages, she saw a couple sketches of the Resort landscape, some drawings of Negi or others training, a few… compromising images of a few people, and…
For a long time, Marie stared at the masterfully-crafted drawing she'd found.
In the drawing, Marie herself was asleep with a content smile on her face, her hair unbound as she slept holding on to Sarah, whose golden hair was also loose. Erika was on the other side, sleeping peacefully and curled up next to the eldest sister. Sarah had an arm around each of her two siblings; one eye was cracked open, looking down at her siblings, and a warm, loving smile was on her face.
A few tears dropped to the floor, shed by Marie for the situation that she felt could never come true.
-SCENE BREAK-
That night, Teana came within earshot of a heartfelt conversation between Kaede and Marie. She could hear Kaede's noticeably distressed voice, and listened closely.
"…I didn't care how many girls were in Rin-kun's life – 1, 2, 4, 8, 10; it didn't matter so long as I could be one of them! But he never accepted me! I devoted my life to him and he just tossed me aside as soon as that harpy Asa came into the picture! After everything I'd done for him! If… If I hadn't met you, Marie, I… I don't think I'd be here today; without you, I probably would've taken my own life once it sank in that… that the person I loved didn't love me back."
"Then thank God I'm here," Marie replied, "because I can't stomach the thought of you dying. And I hate seeing you sad. Come here."
"Marie~…"
Teana smiled and quietly snuck close enough to silently close the barely-open door before walking away; the two lovebirds didn't notice.
-SCENE BREAK-
SEVERAL DAYS (INSIDE THE RESORT) LATER
Teana was a little worried, but she tried not to let it show. Evangeline had decided to "train" Asuna by throwing her into the "Icy Mountain" sector of the Resort. That was four days ago. Evangeline had claimed she'd be keeping an eye on the girl and would step in if things got too dangerous… but then why would Evangeline be here with them right now, overseeing Negi & Kotarō's sparring match?
"Come on, boys!" Eva shouted. "Loser has to go 10 minutes against me!"
Ahsoka was meditating nearby; several half-ton weights were levitating about her in slow orbits. The two Kaedes were having a contest to see who was more accurate with thrown kunai; Chamo was standing by quivering, because the targets for the contest were stuffed-toy replicas of him. Shion was sitting on a padded bench; Mai was using her lap as a pillow. The others were each doing their own thing.
Suddenly, there was a seemingly-sourceless blast of dark power in the center of the main platform; everyone dropped what they were doing and turned to see. It faded to reveal none other than Asuna, currently in a crouching position with her head down. There was a pitch-black aura seething around her, and bits of ice were visibly melting and vaporizing off of her.
"A…Asuna-san?"
The redhead's head rose, her eyes revealing her to be in her Berserk State. What's more, however, the irises were both golden, signifying Darkness corruption. Those eyes locked on to a shocked Evangeline, and there was suddenly a surge of powerful, unnatural Killing Intent that actually brought some of the weaker-willed individuals present to their knees, trembling. Faster than anyone could react, Asuna lunged at Evangeline with incredible speed, and the small immortal barely reacted in time, catching the Darkness-infused punch; the dissipated energy caused a shockwave that knocked those nearby off their feet. From Asuna's throat came an inhuman snarl. Evangeline repressed a quivering of fear; so this was what it was like being on the receiving end of this.
Evangeline grabbed Asuna by the arm and tossed her away; the berserk teen skidded to a stop on her feet several meters away. She thrust her palm out, and a nigh-invisible wave of power struck Evangeline like a cannonball, sending her tumbling through the air off of the platform. She righted herself, hovering over the long drop. Asuna summoned her massive sword, and then swung it forward at Evangeline; a wave of purple fire erupted from the blade, heading towards the shinso vampiress. Eva cast a shield spell that barely withstood the attack. Asuna then raised her hand, and a hunk of stone the size of herself levitated off the ground. She waved her hand forward, and the rock shot through the air towards Evangeline. Eva charged her fist with magic and struck the incoming projectile, shattering it. She formed a blade of super-hardened ice and then flew in, locking blades with the girl.
"You actually gave in to Darkness to survive my test?" she shouted. "Pathetic! If you can't even prove yourself under your own power, you don't deserve to be my disciple!"
Asuna's response was some hissing, reverberating "words" made in some ancient and tainted tongue; Evangeline felt her senses scramble and her head hurt upon hearing them. Her eyes widened; this wasn't just a person giving in to their own Darkness. Something else was at work here. She extended her magical senses, and sure enough she detected a second, malevolent presence influencing and partially controlling Asuna, artificially amplifying and focusing her dislike of Evangeline into open, murderous hatred.
She leapt away, landing several meters distant. It was at this point that Ahsoka finally recognized what she was sensing.
"Holy crap… Guys! She's using the Force! Asuna's using the Dark Side of the Force!"
Everyone reacted with appropriate shock. Teana and Shion then activated their respective energy blades, while Ahsoka's lightsaber snapped to life as well.
"Something's influencing and controlling her!" Evangeline shouted to everyone.
"Then we need to find out what it is and get rid of it!" Kotarō replied, taking a fighting stance.
Asuna turned to look at Ahsoka. The presence controlling her felt recognition – not of Ahsoka herself, but of her species… and of her weapon. Before it could react, however, Asuna snapped to a defensive stance to block a disabling strike from Shion. Shion reached out with her mind, expecting to startle the presence with her own Void affinity… only to feel shock upon feeling that the presence wielded the Void as well. …No… the presence was a Void, ringed with the Dark Side.
A powerful Force Push sent Shion flying, but she disappeared in a whorl of nonexistence and reappeared next to Teana. It was at this point that the skies faded and darkened (not quite to the extent of night-time), and a large, semi-transparent figure became visible, partially enveloping Asuna. This was the Dark Presence. At first, Evangeline and Chamo felt fear as they believed they were looking upon the Lifemaker. Then, that fear approached terror as they realized it was far worse. The figure – black cloak and red-marked white mask – stared out at the life-forms before it, its power flowing through its potential new host. Marie, Chisame, and Ahsoka went pale with fear – the former two recognizing this figure through a certain game, and the latter through Jedi history texts.
The object that had traveled through space and time tumbled out of the dark sky, landing in Asuna's outstretched hand.
Hungry for Life and impatient to ensure his rebirth, the disembodied spirit of the abomination known as Darth Nihilus commanded his thrall to attack. The Sith Archlord's old lightsaber sprang to life in Asuna's hand, and the semi-possessed girl attacked. After nearly 4,000 years, the most powerful Sith in all of history was again experiencing battle.
Mirage Longsword blocked the crimson chainsaw-esque blade of high-energy subatomic particles, Teana's Sharingan eyes staring through Asuna's and at Nihilus. The dark spirit felt slight confusion as he sensed the mysterious power in those eyes, but he put that confusion aside. Asuna leapt away from Teana, diving at Evangeline, who formed a small Ensis Exsequens around her arm to block the strike, entering into a fast duel with the possessed girl.
Ahsoka leapt in, aiming to hit the hilt of the red lightsaber, but the possessed Asuna sent out an omni-directional pulse of Force that sent Ahsoka and Evangeline flying. She then unleashed a burst of Force Lightning at the downed Ahsoka, only for Shion to intercept it, nullifying the deadly lightning with a tiny Void-Gate generated in front of her outstretched hand. With her other hand, Shion lashed out with a bolt of psionic energy that caused Asuna to stagger back, cutting off her Force Lightning attack. Negi hit Asuna with a Bind spell, hoping that Nihilus couldn't access her Magic Cancel, but after less than two seconds she broke free.
"Oh, no…"
Those within earshot heard Nodoka's proclamation and looked, noticing her looking at her Diarium Ejus.
"He's trying to get Asuna-san to give in to her hatred by killing Evangeline-san! If she does, he'll be able to fully take over her body and be reborn!"
"He won't get the chance."
The new voice caught several by surprise. Suddenly, a huge number of binds, glowing so bright it almost hurt to look at them, sprung up and wrapped around the possessed Asuna. The group turned to see who was responsible. Walking up from the platform that led to the outside world, Sebastian von Klaus advanced, his single arm outstretched with multiple magic circles hovering in front of it, his eyes glowing with power. Nihilus' spirit shouted in his horrible language, causing everyone's heads to hurt, but Klaus ignored it and continued forward, more binds springing up to contain the spirit and its vessel/captive.
Albireo Imma appeared in a flash of light. Both his hands rose, and several large and intricate magic circles came into being all around the possessed Asuna.
"Shion!" Albireo shouted. "Focus your Void powers and channel them into and through Asuna! Quickly!"
Shion complied, appearing in front of Asuna. Her eyes glowed green, and she thrust her palms forward, less than an inch from Asuna. Space warped as Shion called upon her power and forced it through Asuna. The teen was unharmed by this; Nihilus, however, roared in rage and pain. Shion kept pushing, assisted by Albireo's spells, while Klaus' binds kept Nihilus from harming anyone. Soon, there was a burst of dark power, and everyone sensed as Nihilus' unholy spirit was banished back to the netherworld.
The binds came undone, and Asuna collapsed to the ground, passing out. The lightsaber, deactivated, fell to the floor with her.
A little whole later, a mind-scan by Klaus revealed that Asuna's frustration and anger at Evangeline and her test had grown and grown to the point where Nihilus was able to take over Asuna. He thus suggested that Evangeline probably shouldn't be the one to handle Asuna's training. Teana, Setsuna, and Ahsoka ended up being named Asuna's trainers. It was revealed that Asuna's Force sensitivity was not a product of Nihilus' possession, and it was thus decided that she would be taught chakra- and Force-based techniques and such. Nihilus' old lightsaber remained; Ahsoka and Shion scoured it of dark-side taint and replaced the red crystal with a blue one.
-SCENE BREAK-
Shion's mind continued to separate itself from reality as she delved deeper into meditation. She sought to connect to the energy source that the Protoss drew psionic power from, to connect to the 'Khala' and perhaps even make contact with spirits of deceased Protoss heroes, such as Fenix, Razhagal, or Tassadar. So she was very surprised to open her mind's eye to see a very-much-not-Protoss robed figure with green skin, all-black eyes, and several head-tails.
"Greetings" the ghost said with what sounded like a slight Jamaican accent. "Interesting for a Force-user so young to be able to make contact with a spirit of the departed like myself."
"…Force-user?" Shion said. "Oh, you… you must be mistaken. I wield the psionic powers taught to me by the Protoss."
"Feels like the Force to me."
"But… It can't be! The Force is something that not all members of any one species can use, and being able to wield it isn't necessary for life! But the Protoss' powers are inherent for the species; they use their powers to communicate since they don't have mouths, and also to operate their machinery, and even to survive since their photosynthesis is partially based on their powers."
The spirit of Kit Fisto reached into Shion's mind and memories, gleaming info on the Protoss (including the unique "feel" of their 'psionic powers'), getting a clearer picture of what she spoke of, and was astonished.
"Fascinating…" he said. "An entire species of Force-Sensitives, who actually need the Force to even survive. Truly fascinating…"
"…What."
The duo talked for a while longer. Eventually, they ran out of things to say.
"I'm going to go contact the spirits of the other fallen Jedi" Kit said. "And then we'll see if the spirits of the lost Protoss are here, too. Good luck in whatever destiny throws at you, Shion."
With a lurch, Shion felt herself return to the physical plane. She opened her eyes, and tried to process the revelation she'd been handed.
-SCENE BREAK-
Teana's blade sliced through another three lesser demons, they joining the dozens of mindless summons that she had slain so far. All around her, the rest of Gamma Team and those of Ala Alba fought through scores of these small-fry. When these shadowy beings had started popping up in Mahora, Teana & Marie had been quick to cast the Dimensional Shift barrier that Teana had learned in her old TSAB training, separating those not in on the masquerade from the attack. The real problem was the bigger demon. It was about the size of a Scarab walker, and had shrugged off nearly everything thrown at it.
It lashed out with a punch from a huge fist, cratering the ground; the heroes barely avoided being crushed. Teana snarled and was about to hit the demon with Amaterasu, when she noticed a small, blond-haired figure flying up above the demon.
"At long last, in this barrier separated from base reality, I have my full power!" Evangeline's voice telepathically cried out. "Now, watch and be amazed, all, as I vanquish this overgrown Halloween reject with a single spell – the very same spell with which I have vanquished the likes of Ryōmen-Sukuna and the Beast of the Book of Darkness!"
"Oh, boy" Asuna said with a tad of worry. "I know what's coming. We'd better clear out, guys!"
As the gang (wisely) retreated, Teana watched Evangeline, as the eternal child began to incant the second-most powerful spell in the entire Vetus system of magic.
"To Sumbolaion Diakoneto Moi, He Krustalline Basileia…"
"This…" Asuna explained to Teana, "is the "That One Spell" we mentioned way back."
"Epigenetheto, Taionion Erebos, Aionie Krustalle…"
Nigh-instantly, the massive demon and its hundreds of smaller surrounding underlings were flash-frozen into ice as they were trapped within a bound field, at absolute-zero temperature.
"Pasais Zoais Ton Ison Thanaton, Hos Ataraxia…"
The group now stood several hundred feet away. Teana's Sharingan picked out details, and she was left shocked by just how complex and powerful it was. She knew that even though her Sharingan meant that she now technically knew how to do this spell, she'd never be able to – only the combination of Ice affinity and massive power & reserves that Evangeline (and perhaps Yagami-san back on Midchilda) had could pull this SS-rank spell off.
"KOSMIKE KATASTROPHÉ!-!"
They all watched as the huge demon and its underlings shattered on a molecular level. A strong gust of icy wind hit the onlookers, causing them to shield their eyes and brace themselves. After several seconds, it died down. They straightened up just in time for Evangeline to leisurely float down to them, a grin on her face.
"How was that?"
"…Yeah, I can see how you could beat the Wolks with that" Teana finally said, her eyes returning to normal.
Colors shifted as the Dimensional Shift barrier dissipated. Evangeline felt her power leave her, and glared at Teana.
"Hey, I set it to last until all the bad guys were gone."
Eva said nothing, only turned and walked away, trying to suppress the urge to childishly stomp away.
-CHAPTER END-
Next time, we get back to the main plot.