The Surgeon General's Warning:

Read at your own risk. Suspension of Disbelief is required. WARNING: this episode...is LONG. I, seriously, scare myself.


Springfield, Ph.D.: A Different Paradigm

Chapter 11:

Scornful Profusion

An Negima-ish fanfic by James "Ray" Edwards


In an instant, the priceless charismatic porcelain mask of her egregious hauteur shattered into a million fold pieces, and like Humpty Dumpty, the metaphorical legion of the former Dark Mistress's finest could not restore Humpty Dumpty once more. Evangeline A.K. McDowell had never been more insulted in the centuries long span of her un-life! Even the humiliating event of her own downfall paled completely to this very infernal moment, the great pride of vampires, a pillar of her very existence dismissed, shredded, burned, and urinated on like yesteryear's refuse for the edification of all who might care to listen.

She could not bear it, could not stand it that the spitting image of the awful man, who had stolen her everything, would spout such pernicious condescension...! Such was her legendary outrage that the infamous nosferatu forgot the time and the place, namely her imminent confrontation against a neurotic wizard of enigmatic origin and curious talent.

"WHAT YOU SAY-OOMPH!"

She had been observing (read: stalking) for the better of seven months in preparation of tonight's climatic event, alas the best laid of plans were oft doomed to go awry, which was especially true in a lapse of better of judgment. And for all her vaunted triumphs, Evangeline A.K. MacDowell caught flatfooted in a tantrum, just ate the full electrifying force of twin luminescent bolts of red crackling light to the face, adding injury to insult. The imperious force of the sucker punch-like blows would have done any street fighter proud, sending the vainglorious vampire careening backwards comically through the air in a flurry of limbs to crash some dozen or so yards away from where she once stood on the unforgiving pavement.

"All your base are belong to me, i~diot," The Doctor replied smugly, using the contextually paraphrased MEME of course, and blew out the spent colorful motes of magical residue trailing from the business end of his wand like gunsmoke.

Simple cantrips may have fallen out of disuse in duels, thanks to the modern advancements in magic, but when employed with merciless violence of action in the way of a "quick draw", they could still be astoundingly effective. After all, the odds of a long aria beating a one word incantation that did not require an activation key was slim to none under normal circumstances. There was not a day that went by where he did not give thanks to Mister Haken Browning, who had devoted countless hours in edifying technique, spirit, ethos, and culture, conditioning the then younger apprentice into an "adequate" gunslinger.

Naturally, Negi never beat his mentor in the feat, which was humanly impossible to begin with, since Haken was a synthetic post-human, crafted by a questionably masterful artificer. The reaction times of a "Normal" did not have a chance in hell of beating an "Abnormal" in a fair contest, and the latter party being roaring drunk did not help even the odds much, either. On the bright side, the Doctor's "quick draw" proved to be an invaluable trump card time in and time again, having just added Setsuna Sakurazaki and this glorified trollop of a ghoul to his list of triumphs to name a few.

Now, in hindsight, scrutinizing his handiwork clinically like so, Negi had to admit he put a considerable amount of force behind his unincanted Stupefy. The unceremonious heap of trollop, spilling a head of blonde hair like spilt champagne from a broken bottle of black sheathe, may have deserved a more gentle crash landing-had she been entirely human. Vampires were notoriously tough undead, even by the unliving's standards, and the longer they lived the hardier they became, so he doubt a potentially fractured or broken jaw would inconvenience her for long, never mind the whip lash.

But enough idle thinking, his real work was just beginning, and the fun part was already over. Ahh, what a letdown! And here he was hoping the juvenile looking flea bitten bloodsucker would keep him entertained a bit longer. How bor~ing.

Mumbling irately under his breath, Doctor N. Springfield flourished a "true" spell, "I invoke the ancient covenant written in Our blood. Come forth, spirits of light and darkness, Brothers within and without, and answer my humble entreaty."

With a crisp flourish, the miraculous phenomenon occurred, which by any stretch of common sense should not be yet was so. The blowing wind shuddered and the air about the wizard's person twisted about, almost like a mirage. Shadows danced, lengthening and twisting sinuously, and impossibly enough, the moonlit night grew darker, in spite the lack thereof clouds and the ambience of the city. From these happenings did they appear, perfect twins, one in a keening sibilant crack of brightness, while the other stitched itself together from the ground up by the thousand of writhing black threads, almost like worms that came as legion.

Were he a narcissist, Negi might have felt it appropriate then to espouse that the best thing about being himself: there were so many "Mes" of him. The "Brothers" of light and darkness were utterly incorrigible doppelgangers of him down to his fashion statement, and about the only warning anyone might have guess it was not him was the obviously switched color palate. "Whitey" was fair haired and blue eyed, sporting a movie star worthy tan, not to mention a penchant for whites and blues. Erstwhile, the appropriately nicknamed "Blackie" looked every bit the part of an "Emo" Gothboy, pitch black hair, red eyes, way too much black and red, and he really could use some more time in the sun.

There were additional idiosyncrasies, but as far as elementals went, they suited his complicated needs far better than the other noble elements. And on a good day where The Doctor managed to get the "Brothers" to agree to disagree and get on with each other, they were nigh unbeatable, punching well above their weight as mid order spirits.

"What is thy bidding, mi'lord?" the Brothers chorused as one, professional, but added their own tastes of paying respect to his own nod. The light pressed a clenched fist to his chest and bowed, while the darkness clasped his hands behind his back and inclined his chin at the wily wizard in laconic familiarity.

To be frank, the boys still gave Negi a case of the goose bumps, even now, as they seemingly offered snapshots of him, possibilities lost to the sands of time. "Work. Whitey take the girl to you-know-where I am thinking of, and do not let her out of your sight until you-know-who I am thinking of, again, appears to collect her. Oh, and take that witch's hat with you too; I think it'll make a great a trophy. Afterward, you are free to leave."

Whitey turned aside, noting the object of interest, discarded mournfully by Konoka's side, having been blown off the little vampire's head in the violent exchange. He faced him once more, briefly flashing a smile, before going about his task.

"Blackie. You already know what I am thinking too: do handle the little flea bitten swamp leech with a touch of paranoia, and if necessary... You are free to persuade her to seeing our way of thinking, if you get my meaning."

Blackie rolled his eyes at him with a scoff, but obeyed nevertheless, passing by his twin on the way over, who was already on the way to vacating the scene of the crime. For all the heartache they could cause him, on the bright side, The Doctor had to admire their efficiency, carrying out his orders with little fuss. The same could not be said of Lady Luck, whom if she happened to be in a terrible row, may have Negi running around campus all night, rounding up unfortunate eyewitnesses in desperate need of a memory consultation.

Speaking of which, he ought to call up "the office" to let Anya know of their next move...

SPRAAAKKkkkkk!

... or maybe, he should get on the phone right away, as the half frozen form of Blackie, from the waist up, toppled over like Goliath with one shrill kick, shattering mournfully into a hundred odd crystalline fragments upon the indiscriminate pavement. Surprise-surprise, David came in the form of the little blonde-haired trollop of a vampire, whom he had not bother to demand a name. Alarms rang in his inner ear, probably having sounded well in advance of his momentary inattentiveness. The heuristic battle software in his A.R. glasses immediately zeroed in the flasks she held in her trembling hands, filled with strange colored fluids.

Best estimates believed them to be catalysts for the freezing spell that had struck the unfortunate spirit of darkness, which was quite the oddity. Vampires were notorious as a genus for their natural magical talent, passed on from sire to offspring, amongst many other unsavory things. Even younglings were more than a match for most wet behind the ears mages coming straight out from the academies, so why was it?

"Rrrrgghhh!" she growled angrily, reminding him a fox trying to make itself bigger than it really was, "you're next, brat. EAT THIS!"

Again, unincanted, The Doctor flicked his wrist, brandishing his wand before him in a ritualistic flourish at the oncoming improvised projectiles. Mana burned in his circuits, a simple combustion effect, producing a cone of humming vibrant blue energies projected right in front of him, like an oversized umbrella. The air snapped, crackled, and popped from the rapid deathly freeze, capturing some stray cherry blossom petals, as the volatile mix did its work, only to wash impotently against his shield.

Looks, though, could be deceiving, and underneath his facade of outward calm, Negi scowled at the sharp, phantom feedback flowing through his dominant arms, as his magical reserves shuddered a notch. The potency of the spell was actually quite something to experience; hence, no wonder poor Blackie had been sundered in half, not that he particularly needed his upper half most of the time. The human form was merely a vain shell the Doctor insisted on for convenience's sake.

"My, my, how uncouth. Is that any way to repay my good will in ensuring recyclable refuse is put in its proper place? I am a firm believer in global warming and clean energy, savvy, and though you might be a rutting rotten corpse, I am sure Mother Nature would be happy to extract the nitrogen from your posthumous carcass to feed the birds and the trees."

They say, "Sticks and stones might break my bones but words will never hurt me", but judging by the anguished ululating howl loosed by the vampire, his tender, honeyed words were cutting deeply as any sanctified conceptual weapon. No matter what species of vampire the unfortunate observer might encounter from the lowest warg to the highest true ancestor, these creatures of the night had one Achilles Heel that time could not conquer: their overwhelming pride as the nobility of the night. And the blonde-haired trollop of a leech could not stand it, his audacious impertinence spoken as frankly as him wiping his backside with satin silk after defecating on a silver platter to be handed directly to her for consumption.

Evangeline, absolutely, could not tolerate the idea of her prey, the unremarkable living blood pack known as humans, was copping an attitude problem with her!

"Well, you are just a regular one-trick pony, are you not?" drawled Negi, rolling his eyes skyward in boredom, as another reprisal "washed" pitifully off his Protego shield charm. "Oh, but please for the love of oxygen, do not suffer another word; I know your best trick already: play dead. That's ri~ght, play dead, you fermenting sack of fertilizer!"

Like a beaten, dying animal, the vampire yowled again and unleashed the remainder of her ordinance in a reckless tantrum, laying down a literal wall of projectiles. Doctor N. would be lying, if he said he was not enjoying his daredevil gambit. Shame; the ultimate high in valor always seemed to require the so-called badass to taunt the jaws of ignominious defeat by sticking half of his arse into it and dancing out at the last moment. He was all too aware things could go horribly wrong at any moment, if he pulled the last straw that would break the beast's back, sending it into a wild frenzy.

Vampires had considerable superhuman strength, too, and until he could find an opportune moment to retrieve Blackie, the magister had to walk that tightrope act tight-tight-tight! Youngling or otherwise, the little leech could easily shove her hand into his gut and pull out all sorts of soft squishy insides that did not belong outside, gutting him like livestock to the slaughterhouse. Unfortunately for the raging blonde lolita, his act had many more routine to play out yet, and the relatively tight formation of her barrage gave him a brilliant idea.

"Expulso!" he roared with mad glee, ceasing his defense to go on the offensive.

Again he felt the burn to his mana reserves, but the spectacular result, happening in a split instant, was worth every precious ounce of magical power. The rustling trees gave a violent shudder, when the entire barrage shattered prematurely into a beautiful shower of ice crystals in mid-flight, blown backwards as if by a passing supersonic bow wave that had crossed the dozens of yards effortlessly. And for his efforts, Negi was rewarded with a blood curling shriek; shrapnel, bits of frozen ice and glass from both the potions and the hapless lampposts, had torn into the vampire's exposed arms and face in a razor sharp hail, slicing tender, shallow cuts into her vain flesh and culling stray tresses of hair.

"A, agghh, wa...waaagaaaaahhhhggh!" she collapsed unto her hands and knees, bleeding from many wounds, at the sight her own tainted crimson blood. The wretched leftovers that could not even oxygenate on its own, a sight she likely had not seen in a good, long while. "Ga, gwag-hhh...! Uuuuuu~, Gammiiiiit!"

Ah, the poetry of the irony!

The Doctor crowed spitefully in the pitiless breeze that was whipping up into a right and proper gale along the darkened street. He could not have asked for a better stage, "HYAH ha ha ha! Hey, what is wrong with you, silly deaf and dumb leech? Huh? What is wrong? Did you happen to have a little mis-fire~ with your little toys now? Huh? HUH~! Iihihihihi! ...Hey, hey, HE~Y, don't you feel just AW-ful? Heh he he ha ha ha! Oh, what FUN~; Accio, Blackie!"

It would have been quite embarrassing to have the magic of his performance ruined by the flying remains of half-a-man from the waist down, bowling him over, but right on cue, the dark elemental dispersed into a storm of pitch black darkness. Negi was swallowed whole in an instant, but far from worried, he became even cockier, impossibly enough, much to the vampire's shock, mesmerized by the surreal event. His arrogance on display for all too see, as a nightmarish caricature of a smile appeared on the undulating surface of the maelstrom, oozing red hot crimson like burning coals.

"Mi'lord, permission to flesh meld?" boomed Blackie's otherworldly tenor, his approximate true voice, with a hint of malice that whipped the storm into a frenzy, slashing apart any stray pink petals that drew near.

"Why, of course, permission granted, Blackie," his contractor encouraged him. "Release restriction codes one thru two; fire control is yours! I will fret about moving and thinking for us, though do watch your aim, I am still responsible for Whitey, after all."

"Affirmative. Rules of engagement?"

The curt military tongue had been taught unto them by The Doctor's insistence, as he found their old fashioned, noble mannerisms to be far too ungainly in a modern combat situation, where life and death could be measured in seconds. Thus, the ability to communicate concisely and clearly was of paramount importance.

"I only need it alive for questioning, understand? That anathema against nature can make do without a limb or two. Besides, they might even grow back good as new after the fact, like a lizard sacrificing its own tail to save its skin, eh? Iihihihihihi! Oh, I can scarcely contain my anticipation!"

"No time like the present to find out, Lord."

"And I could not agree more."

The infamous Dark Mistress had heard of such tall tales in her long life, wild theories and campfire stories, but to see the myth of man and elemental bond together as one was a jaw dropping sight to behold. And the end result of boy and darkness brought forth from the dispersing maelstrom, keening ominously in its final climax, in spite of all her experiences, chilled her to the bone. There he was, a mortal and yet not mortal, a demon of the dark that exuded trails of dancing shadows as if Hell's inferno burned beneath his skin. Indeed, the magister's very body seemed to sap the very presence of light, shrouding him in a distorted ball of perception, sometime present, other times invisible.

"Ah~, what is this?" spoke the glowing crimson eyed smile from within his hood. "You waited for me? Really? Really-really? Aw, how cute~! I think I am starting to take a little shine to you, may-be. Eh-heh he he he! But you do not get it do you? You just cannot bloody comprehend how a lowly human is putting a glorified flea bitten maggoty cadaver, way passed its expiration date, like you in its place, can you? CAN YOU?"

Of course, the Maga Nosferatu could not understand it, but there was no doubting the cruel reality in front of her. The ghastly vision in front of her disbelieving eyes that was not a mere human, some hairless ape with a measure of power called "Mage", but an abominable monster hiding in thinly veiled faux human flesh. She came to play "games" with a foolish human boy, not a monster, dammit!

"Hey~, just some piece meal advice, write it down if you have too~, because this might turn up on the test later, huhuhu... This. Is the part where you start running!"

Like anyone faced with unreasonable life or death circumstances, even the mighty Evangeline A.K. MacDowell sensed she had bit off way more than she came to chew, tucked her tail between her skinny legs, and ran as fast her stiletto heeled pumps could carry her. ...which for the record was not very fast. She would have been better off wearing more practical Nike sneakers, even if it would clash with her "black lolita witch" fashion, custom tailored anonymously at Victoria's Secret.

As for the overwhelming victor in this dreary contest of bluffs, the spectacular Doctor N. Springfield gave his erstwhile opponent a full head start and breathed a much deserved sigh of relief, taking the brief seconds to gather his highstrung, miles-per-second thoughts. It had been a close call, way too close for his comfort zone; one misspoken line and he would have been seeing his own bleeding intestines fed to him by brute force. He felt he was inordinately lucky that the vampire had remained docile, like putty in his capable hands, allowing him to dictate the terms and tempo of the event with impunity.

In fact, Negi would have loved to call it a night right there, as between using his "bloodletting lip service" to maximum output and threat of imminent disembowelment, he was quite tired, but the work of the wicked was never finished. Fishing out his bluetooth headset from his pockets to place a call, only then did he begin to give chase down the street.

"Control! Overlord Actual here, I-" the magister barked briskly into the receiver bit upon receiving the "go ahead" chime, while ignoring the now constant burn on his mana reserves.

Again, Negi adopted the military speak, a matter of "radio discipline" his dear Anya and himself had decided out of the necessity for urgency, lacking a better alternative for communication. The capability to send and receive messages by secure means was not a specialty they had any proficiency in, having always relied on a third party to facilitate such transmissions. Even now, they were regrettably using a commercial telecom carrier through which it would be easy as child's play to listen in on their affairs.

"Um," the person who answered the line, however, was not whom the Doctor was expecting to be on the agreed shift tonight, "Sakurazaki here, sen-I mean-Overlord Actual, Cocolova-san is..."

Setsuna was still having difficulties grasping the finer disciplines of modern warfare, an understandable deficiency, considering her modus operandi had no such paramilitary background, until she met the two mages. In fact, even the princess's security teams did not engage her in such details, leaving her sorely lacking in that particular body of "language", and hopelessly naive in how battles should be fought, not that his secretary was any better. Anastasia still considered herself more of a law-abiding undercover police girl than a real "Operator", but she was warming up nicely enough to the idea.

"Wot? Oh, never mind, save the story for later; you'll do," Negi said plainly, opting out of the fat of his usual verbiage, as he caught up to the vampire, holding just thirty odd paces behind her. She heard him coming, of course, and when the little blonde trollop shot a glance over her shoulder, he made sure to shoot her his best Cheshire Cat's grin, with way too many shiny teeth. "Tell Anya ASAP to double time to Site Nine for a pick up. Code A.i.A. is in effect. I repeat. Code A.i.A. is in effect. Over."

"Angels in the Attic.! Y, You're kidding," Setsuna exclaimed with a shocked gasp.

Spurned on, understandably, the vampire ran faster, which did not inconvenience him too much, and the sakura trees of Cherry Blossom Lane soon gave way to an intersection, bringing the heated chase back to the familiar European style sprawl of the academy proper. She cut across the sleepy streets, which were mercifully devoid of civilians, but there was no telling when The Doctor's luck would run out. The oversight in OpSec (read: operational security) needed to be addressed right away admittedly, but first...

"Don't go anywhere, Control; I need you to run support with Charlotte's Web for me on the bounce. Anya can handle The Package. Over."

"B-But...!" Setsuna protested shrilly, almost as if she were on the verge of panic and doing something reckless. He was not about to have her possible insubordination ruin his little unexpected operation of which the fine details, the magister magi was making up as he went along.

Negi put his foot down, although he could not understand why the electric itch in his palms suddenly came back with a vengeance. Agh, he so did not have time to be contemplating such ill omens now! "Trust me, no, trust us. We're a T-E-A-M, remember? And we're all in this mess TOGETHER. I don't care if you don't get along with the magistra magi, because at the very least, right now: I want you, need you to believe in ME, who believes in YOU! Savvy?"

Tonight, this event was a test, no doubt, of his leadership, the small bonds he had formed, but also his character. Little did the raven-haired bodyguard realize that even as strongly Doctor N. Springfield spoke to her, he brandished a double-edged sword that cut both ways. He, too, now stood on the deadly precipice of defeat with everything to lose and everything to gain, a terrifying proposition he had placed himself into unwittingly, and the power to decide the fate of all-was in her small, trembling hands.

"Do you get me, Sakurazaki Setsuna?" Negi barked urgently, as he saw his quarry steaming full speed, like her life depended on it, towards a pedestrian overpass that yawned over the nearby river.

How strange; lesser vampire should not be able to cross running water. The bridge helped, but the ordeal would sap her strength considerably. So what in the devil was she planning? Also, what was taking Setsuna? Yes, he understood that at the moment was far from an ideal time for such a question, but god dammit, the fates have a funny way of dolling out responsibility to people when they least want it!

"Setsuna!"

"Permission to fire, Lord?" Blackie whispered in his ears, dropping a big red lockbox around the fleeing vampire within his augmented field of vision. "I can guarantee a minimum hit probability of sixty-seven percent."

"Not yet. Not until the fields are up; we're already overexposed, and we can't risk collateral damage in real-!"

The Magister Magi stopped himself short, as right before his stunned eyes, the conundrum facing him just got a whole lot worse. He had dismissed the vampire's fancy cloak prematurely, after all, because that particular article of clothing now revealed its true function. With a flutter, swathes of the tattered sinuous material unfurled itself visibly backward into a rigid form, like bat wings, even giving a testing flap or three in the flowing gale.

"Oh bloody hell, that sack of fermenting compost is trying to fly...!" Negi managed to curse, before his quarry leapt up, using the bridge's railings as a spring board, to soar skyward in a sudden updraft. No, it was not just wind; she was riding on an upflow of mana particles in the very atmosphere! "Control: hostile is airborne. I repeat. Hostile is airborne. Activate temporal displacement fields along my heading NOW. Over."

Damnation. What was taking that fool girl so long? A simple yes or no answer would suffice; yes, he would be disappointed to be rejected, having expected such a setback to be a dim possibility. But at the moment, his prey was about to get away, and The Doctor was nowhere near finished playing with it!

"U, Understood, Overlord Actual," and just when he thought all was lost, Setsuna hesitantly answered. Goodness, what a way for her to string him along on, tip toeing on eggshells, but the senseless theatrics aside, could she work any faster? "Tracking you on the grid... Sector confirmed. Unknown marked. Fields up in three... Two... One..."

Negi cut the line, breathing deeply as his autosenses detected the sudden electric spike of energies, indicating the reality warping influence of the preset, mass area temporal displacement field in this particular district. Progress was good, but the hardest part was yet to come, and he gathered his concentration for his next savvy trick. He might not be able to fly, but sure as hell could make titanic leaps and bounds, like The Incredible Hulk!

"Maximum output: GO!"

The burning in the magister's veins intensified, bequeathing an ethereal, searing clarity unto his very soul: one word, one will, one vision, one purpose. The "flames" from the furnace of darkness wrested in his flesh, burst forth in an uncanny conflagration, but instead of cremating him to dust and ashes, Doctor N. Springfield was-transformed into a burning avatar of shadow. Blessed thusly, it was no surprise that by one leap alone, stepping off the exact same length of railing the vampire had co-opted prior, he catapulted himself skyward in a supersonic propagating bow wave. Naturally, the magister magi also destroyed the bridge in the process, leaving behind a catastrophic cacophony of dust and debris in his wake.

Thanks to the wonders of magic, though, the actual bridge in reality would not suffer a sudden wanton calamity, probably, for another ten to twenty years, give or take a few.

"WOO-HOO~!" Negi howled loudly with glee, relishing the screaming vernal air against his cheeks and hair, as he climbed rapidly above the pink petal dressed trees and the sprawling cityscape in a matter of heartbeats. "And that's one small step for The Doctor, one giant leap for Doctorkind!"

His jubilant ascent, thankfully (or he would have been sorely disappointed), had not gone unnoticed, for down below the vampire saw him and gaped, rightly so, at his falling shadow skylined against the glowing moon, an ill omen of imminent pain.

"Weapons free..."

Even as Negi spoke his command with exuberant bombast, the dark elemental had already anticipated its summoner's desire. Coils of writhing darkness slithered out from underneath his skin, like hundreds of tiny snakes, coagulating together into a single tubular mass that stretched over his shoulder. The mass contracted and lengthened, like a breathing organism, forming the unmistakable shape of a gun, with three ominous barrels to be precise, housed together in a revolving pattern. And each one was headed by a serpentine maw, red-eyed to match the malevolent intent of their transformed master.

"DEATH FROM ABOVE, BABY~!"


It was not a stretch to say that Evangeline A.K. MacDowell had already been convinced some time ago, she was way in over her head. The powers that be upstairs must have had it out for her badly tonight. How else was the Maga Nosferatu to rationalize the fact she was now engaged in a flashy, high-octane dogfight, with a howling mad four-eyed monkey wielding a magick autogun that belched shrieking infernal bolts of darkness at her? The whole rotten situation was so wildly beyond her expectations she almost forgot her common sense!

With a yelp, the vampire tugged on her fixed "wings" and threw herself into a roll, banking hard to the right, as the pink canopy below her spontaneously burst aflame under the screaming onslaught. The withering impacts sundered wood and earth, and more disturbingly still, the infernal bolts burned visibly through the atmosphere, like tracers, in an unnatural contrail of prismatic colors, all wrong and reversed. Had she the time she could have counted each individual "bullet", yipping at her heels, but as it stood, Evangeline was in the flight for her life, using every ounce of willpower to ride the currents air and mana, faster.

Trying to evade the Springfield boy's line of fire was a fool's errand, as he was directly above her, falling more at a leisurely glide than a hapless brick, and could adjust his aim with little hassle. In fact, the trail of consuming black fire that followed her was getting closer by the second, despite her wild evasive pattern, zigging and zagging to and fro. It could only mean his altitude would soon break her plane, affording Evangeline even less time to dodge.

God, she could not believe his audacity! The sight of their air battle should have been visible for miles around, and still, his diabolical "steel rain" did not let up, continuing to fire with maddening impunity, even as she exceeded the threshold of the tree line. Hoping to deter his aim, the vampire tucked her wide angular wings tighter to her body, limiting her maneuverability but increasing her airspeed dramatically, as she swooped in below the tree line and into the urban streets of the shopping district. The European aesthetic buildings lined up together in relatively neat rows should make him think twice at the risk of collateral damage, before opening fire, alas, Evangeline was to be sorely disappointed that common sense no longer appeared to apply to Negi Springfield.

"Oooo~, bonus points for mayhem... LET'S GET DANGEROUS, BABY~!"

The furious belching grew more belligerent if it were possible, much to her shock. Only by the grace of being a smaller target did she managed to roll out of the way, the bolts drawing uncomfortably close enough for her to feel her painstakingly conditioned locks of blonde shriveling into awful split ends. Another unforgiveable insult added to her list of damages, and oh, how Evangeline swore there would be a reckoning, even as the world around her exploded into confetti! Glass panels and bricks blew out from the nearby buildings into deadly shrapnel at the seemingly slightest touch of the infernal "bullets" of darkness.

What the hell, they burn things and are explosive too! she thought incredulously.

Nothing around her was safe, nothing too sacred, as fire hydrants popped spraying columns a hundred feet into the air. Traffic lights were sundered from their posts and shattered into a millions bits. The asphalt pavement was torn up, spraying dust and debris, in her wake that the pursuing mad boy gaily charged straight through, amazingly keeping pace with her despite being on foot, before making another powerful leap into the air to strafe at her. It was wanton destruction at its finest with no regard for the consequences, as she dove lower, almost hugging the ground, the screaming projectiles whipping about her probable path.

Evangeline was convinced beyond any doubt that he must be crazy. How else was she to explain the fact Negi did not seem to be aiming at her specifically anymore, instead taking out targets of opportunity at his slightest whim? He strafed his fire at the supports of an overhanging skybridge dead ahead of their course, bringing the whole structure crashing spectacularly onto the street in a cloud of debris and smoke, while she narrowly escaped underneath. For a second, the vampire thought her pursuer had blundered at last, but a curt backward glance put an abrupt heartbreaking end to her wishful thinking.

Out from the wake of his destructive handiwork, The Doctor came running up the side of an intact building, not unlike a scene from The Matrix, and kicked off, twirling about in mid-air like an acrobat with a wild whoop. She was so astonished by the superhuman feat, as he laid down his continuous barrage that the vampire did notice the fact she was passing dangerously close to a parked delivery van. Negi, obviously, did not miss the seemingly innocent environmental hazard.

"Oh, I love cars! They blew up real~ good!"

He just about cackled in its direction, and the van's humble frame crumpled from a sudden series of gouging impacts, exploding momentarily into a terrific fireball. The flash, the heat burned intensely, as pieces of scalding hot shrapnel sliced at her, but even in disaster, Evangeline's instincts sensed an opportunity. She unfurled her "wings", exposing her vain personage partially in the process, but considering her cuts had already healed, the vampire felt confident enough that she would live through a bad case of sunburn. And oh did it burn, but the pain was worth it, as she altered the subtle properties of her wings on the fly and rode up on the explosion, like a thermal updraft, in a sudden burst of speed, narrowly avoiding a lazy follow up sweep from her foe.

The Doctor, though, far from being put out, greeted such a plot twist with great enthusiasm. After all, he had just received confirmation of a work-in-progress that had kept him waiting for some time, and it was now time to bring this merry farce to its conclusion.

"Package delivered, Lord," Blackie intoned helpfully. "Your mana output surplus has freed up another seven percent; reserves are at sixty-seven percent."

As awesome his transformation had been, remaining fused with an elemental was an exponentially expensive partnership, despite the benefits. Without the spirit of darkness, there was no way he could have chased the airborne vampire across most of the shopping district, hardly breaking a sweat, while simultaneously laying down a withering barrage to knock her out of the sky. Alas, her reflexes were up to snuff, or she was extremely lucky, prolonging the high-speed chase in open spite of his more optimistic projections. In the best case scenario, Negi never expected to have to pull out his bigger guns, but she had made him work for it, and he could think of no better way to give the fair-haired flea bitten leech a proper send off.

"Ex~cellent! Now, enough tomfoolery, my fabulous black-hearted puck, you may release restriction code number three and bring out The Mortarslug. Make ready with Hellstorm shells, three-shot spread, fifteen-meter dispersal, and afterward, I want a tight, accurate burst with the Tridents, dear puck. Bring. It. Down!"

Now the mage's accusatory tone was not entirely fair to Blackie, considering he had been enjoying the carnage, too. Blowing stuff up, in the parlance of common mortals, was quite the stress relieving exercise, and Negi Springfield had plenty of pent up emotion to spare after going seven months without a good fight. His present opponent could be better, but an opportunity to let loose and have some good clean fun should be savored at all costs, a service the dark elemental was happy to facilitate.

"He" happened to like his role as the preferred number two man compared to his kinder, perfidious "twin". It was a good rule of thumb, after all, to never trust a goody toe shoes, because good did not necessarily equate nice, polite, well-mannered, self-righteous, or naive, unless they are trying really hard to cut the other party a rutting sorry deal. Indeed, Blackie stood appropriately abashed when the cat came out of the bag, and felt first hand how awful goodness was.

"Mimetic generation complete. Beginning optimal trajectory calculations... Accounting for wind, air temperature, and air pressure... Preliminary firing checks complete. Standing by on your go, Lord."

Negi grunted his acknowledgment and slammed hard on his metaphorical break pedals, skidding to a kneeling halt that left steaming melted furrows in the road, not unlike a trail of burning rubber. The living autogun on his shoulder slithered off onto his forearm with a serpentine hiss to make room for the yawning maw of its far larger, and ponderous cousin. The construct was a fat sluggish creature in comparison with a quartet of eyes on long stalks and whiskers, though it quickly ensconced itself in place, with a greedy snort, spreading out its many long spindly legs that seemed to sprout form its corpulent body against the asphalt for additional stability.

"Locked down and in position; the bloomin' trollop's a hundred meters out. No time like the present to get me my runaway cadaver, Blackie!"

"Final firing checks complete, Lord," the dark elemental notified him dutifully, overlaying the colorful firing arcs in his augmented vision. "By your command..."

"Swat her from the sky!" roared The Doctor.

The Mortarslug did its name proud, and with a disgusting wetness, vomited forth its deadly ordinance in rapid succession unabashedly, venting a foul yellowy-white steam from gills along its body with every shot. But for all of its evident foulness, the construct did its job well. Powerful muscles hurled the darkly iridescent shells skyward effortlessly, as the massive recoil hammered into vulnerable road each time, causing a series of spider webbing cracks to open up with each mighty thump. Being so high up, it was a mixed blessing that the infamous Dark Evangel had no idea what hit her until the trio of basketball-sized aerodynamically shaped shells caught up with her.

After all, the blonde-haired girl was all too happy to be rid of her injurious pursuer at last, and in an unusual twist of humility, decided to not push her luck by sticking around to gloat, as she was still a ways off from her rendezvous point. Hence, she only had enough time to kiss her metaphorical arse, her expression paling in a comical cry of apoplectic incomprehension, before the world as the vampire understood exploded flashily with back to back thunderclaps. Try as he might, The Doctor could never tire of the glorious sound of high-explosive flak.

"Confirmed impacts, Lord," Blackie hummed noncommittally, as they leveled the now arm-mounted Trident autoguns skyward in preparation for the next ugly but necessary task. The darkly serpents hissed eagerly, excited to let fly with all guns once more.

Negi licked his lips. "Patience, my dears. Patience. Haste makes waste and pretty lasses cry, or something to that effect."

Right on schedule, the main course came "stumbling" out of the black smoke in a charred "Bloody Mess", more the pitiful pauper and less the haughty agent of the night when they first met, and The Doctor was about to introduce her to even more humble pie. Concussed and bleeding from the ears, the vampire's dastardly luck failed at last, for the Trident grabbed a hold of her tainted scent and belched contemptuous retribution.

Twice the booming thuds reverberated through the air, the infernal bolts crossing downrange in milliseconds to swat down the object of their master's bemused displeasure for good. Twice she was clipped, sending the vampire pirouetting about violently, and again, she was grazed on the right thigh and left upper bicep, before the bolts found their mark to her squishy guts and frail shoulder in floral expositions of blood. He had to hand it to her, though, the little blonde trollop did not scream but wore a painfully shocked expression on her first, unbearably as if she were about to cry, as gravity took hold, pulling on her wretched soul to return to earth.

"And that my friends, is how you have a roaring good time while safari hunting vam~pire!" Negi chortled wry, unlocking himself from his lockdown position that had helped ensure a well done persecution of his target. "Thank you, thank you! I could not have done it with you."

"Fifty-five percent remaining in your reserves, Lord," Blackie chided the irreverent boy magister to cut the pre-party theatrics and finish his work, before the spirits forbid the cows come home.

"Bah, I am tracking her estimated crash trajectory as we speak... This way, friends; once more into the breach! Gung ho, gung ho, and all that crazy rubbish!"


What they found soon after was not pretty sight, but Doctor N. Springfield had seen and done far worse to beings, without even an ounce of the vampire's inherent durability. If anything, she was fortunate he had not exercise his greater creative faculties, for the magister did very much enjoy tearing apart the rose tinted delusions of so-called "superior beings" of their self-evident invulnerability. Vampires, obviously, were part of the same camp and deserved nothing less.

If the coughing little minx wished it, after his interrogation, he could give her the deluxe treatment, which had made him quite infamous in some sectors as "The Black Beast's Shadow". Whereas The Master preferred to brutalize the objects of his ire into submission, The Apprentice took on a much more clinical, scientific bedside manner. Time was of no terrible object, and the longer the days, the more fond he became of his unfortunate squirming canvas. His patients all came into therapy as loud, pompous windbags, and when they left, they came to comprehend intimately the horrors they had inflicted so callously on others less fortunate.

As for Evangeline A.K. MacDowell, she was too busy being beaten, downtrodden, shot, burned, humiliated, and otherwise, wholly defeated. Laying there on the unfeeling rooftop, sprawled out on her side like a wounded pathetic animal, she clutched at the bony stake protruding from her guts, as the flock of magick'd impish bats that once formed her cloak fluttered about worriedly. Though simple minded, they were dutiful servitors, a quality the Dark Evangel could respect.

Good help was hard to find, after all, and she never seemed to have a reliable pair of hands, when she needed them most. The arrival of the loathsome beast of a boy, smashing ominously onto the roof, was such a situation, obviously. His presence inflamed the creatures into a shrieking frenzy, a vexed anger he soothed with no more than a casual wave of his hand, as they all froze as one by the power of some malign influence, and burned away crisply into crumbling ashes.

"My, my, take a look at you~, short stuff! What a mess. What a riot! If I were to post you up on my blog, I imagine I would have a gazillion hits from my biggest fans," chortled "Negi Springfield", as his seemingly demonic half melted away from his mortal coil and deposited a perfect twin of himself, except the colors were all wrong.

Hah, all wrong? More like out of control, thought Evangeline bitterly. Everything had gone horribly out of control!

Tonight was to have been no more than an introduction, a short skirmish to validate her presence on the playing field. She was to have been the great, glamorous villainess, welcoming the foolish hero to her web, but here she was, instead, the defeated, the roles reversed. The mighty Dark Evangel reduced to the role of a poor victimized girl cowering in fear of what diabolical excesses the awesomely terrifying boy, the true villain of this sordid tale, whom she had gravely underestimated, would allow to get at the answers he wanted. Answers to questions she did not possess, and her pride would be damned if she squealed some trite nonsense, the worst pitifulness just to get herself away from him.

Damn it all, if only she were at full strength...and what was that annoying buzzing noise she could feel straight in her bones? It felt like magic, but for the life of her she could not figure what it was doing or what it was for? All Evangeline could focus on was the awful affront of the present, a reality she did not want to accept. For Satan's sake, where in the hell was her trump card? It had been a miracle she had managed to crash land roughly at the rendezvous point in her tattered state.

What else could be expected of her, huh? Was the Dark Evangel to resort now to the most lowly of servile tactics to buy herself a few more precious minutes? She, Evangeline A.K. MacDowell, would have to bluff?

"Y, You...whore's son! Wh, what...ugh...the hell kind of wizard are you? Black? White?"

Oh, did the Maga Nosferatu know how to put on a tough act, as much as the defiant act humiliated her so. Luckily for her miserable sake, her opponent was the sort of eccentric jerk, who loved an artful contest of rhetoric.

Doctor N. Springfield grinned, motioning for the dark elemental to hold his advance. "Oh? A whore's son you say? You might be right, actually, not that I particularly mind either way."

"Huuhhh?" she spat spitefully right back at him, but inside, Eva's thoughts swam at the shocking implications of the boy magisters words. What! Wha, what was he saying? Did he not realize who he was?

...Well, the former Dark Mistress still needed a drop of his blood to be absolutely certain, but her nose was nothing to laugh at, and she could smell the sins of the father all over his "son"!

"The Master taught me this: it is not about where you come from, it is about where you are going. And I apologize, but your turn on the stage has come to its end."

...Wh, wha? W, wait a second here? He was serious! Then that means he really does not know at all, and...DOES NOT CARE? H, how? ...Why? Who is this The Master? And what in the world happened to Negi Springfield (assuming he was THE Negi Springfield who disappeared six years ago)? It was already surprising enough to see a dead person come back to life after six years, older than he should be, experienced, and exponentially more powerful too. Hell, she had spent a good chunk of the last seven months in relative seclusion trying to unravel that very astonishing mystery behind the young man before her to no avail.

And then, only after having been frustrated beyond word by multiple fruitless dead ends, did Evangeline resolve to give it all she had in her mad gambit, for what she thought to be her last and best chance at freedom!

"Still, in~teresting. Very~ interesting! I did not expect a shitty rotting, maggot infested corpse to be capable of feigning such an intelligent question. From my experience, the majority of plebeians like to paint the world in stark black and white, good wizards and bad wizards, but that level of reasoning is not delectable at all. Oh, no. It is boring. Dull. Absolutely dull! That level of reason cannot possibly be enough to satisfy I, Doctor N. Springfield. Hu hu hu hu, so, how about it? Will you listen?"

Evangeline writhed ineffectually under the torrent of mocking vitriol. What else could she do but listen?

"But, of course, you must listen! And I will The Bard to speak the truth for me thus: for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Iihihihihihihihi...HA ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Satan's blood, the vampire gaped at the insanely cackling form of the Magister Magi, wracked with unabashed bemusement. He must be mad. That's it. Absolutely mad. Bonkers. Off his rocker! Hell, she could imagine it now. Had things gotten on a little differently with the nefarious Nagi Springfield, hero and rebel of the Wizarding World, the vampire could see him turning out just like this young...impostor before her. Yes, yes! It made perfect sense.

The Specter of the Thousand Master!

"Ah~, however, if you wish to speak of morality, I am most~ly a left-wing moderate, and as such I owe you an apology for gutting you only two times in a row," Negi offered her a pompous bow. "Blackie's substrate growths must be rather unpleasant, are they not? Aren't~ they! And I know, certainly so, what horrid things they are doing to your vitals as we speak..."

And then his lips played back into that awful smile, his glasses flashing with an unseemly glare.

"They are forcing your regenerating tissues and organs to set incorrectly. Marvelous, is it not? I am quite proud of them, real~ly, helped design them as a matter of fact. On paper alone, they are the equivalent of fourteen-point-five by one-fifty-five millimeter flachettes, the jacket composed of primordial magick'd darkness with a core of high density nightgaunt bone that has the same hardness as tungsten carbide."

"W, Why in the blood?" Evangeline spluttered in genuine flabbergasted horror. Horrible. How horrible! The Nagi she knew would never think of such cruel things, and... G, guah, it won't stop hurt-ing!

"Because overkill is underrated. Deals death to man, beast, and most monsters indiscriminately, with extreme prejudice. They deteriorate rapidly in daylight, but I could not ask for a better, more murderous tool for the nightwatch. Kkkk, hu hu hu hu hu!"

"You...m, monster!" the vampire snarled at him, much to The Doctor's open joy. He loved it when his patients put up a good fight!

"That is quite something coming from a bonafide monster herself; I think I will consider it a compliment, no? Heh."

But enough foreplay, it was high time to throw off his kid gloves and put on the heavy duty surgical stuff. Things could get unexpectedly messy, but that was why he had Blackie around. Nodding towards to the dark spirit, he understood his summoner's merciless intent, and moved to obey.

"Now, you shitty leech, you are going to tell me ev~ery~thing I want to know, the five W's and the one H for starters, because I will meticulously, scientifically ascertain what makes you tick, and consequently, what makes you hurt. The Worst."

Fear: a weakness of the soul she had not felt in a long time, but dammit was Evangeline getting reacquainted fast. This was it, and she was now, the Dark Mistress was at the total mercy of this scoundrel, this villain, not even afforded a measure of her true strength, thanks to the sealing effects of the curse that bound her to this terrible school. The ability to regenerate her wounds rapidly, a common enough trait amongst her kind, had become both a blessing and a curse. For as long as the moonlit evening lasted, there were hardly any limits to whatever diabolical methods he could use to extract what he wanted from her.

God damn it, where was Chachamaru that useless girl! ...no. No. NO! She did not want to go out like this!

Doctor N. Springfield, frankly, could not give a damn about what his patient wanted. How could he possibly cure the disease infesting their rotten brains, if he did not first purge their delusions of grandeur? Awful. Just awful! There was no way he could work under such suffocating conditions.

His facetious attitudes towards the use of torture on an enemy combatant aside, Negi's parade was about to get a case of the jitters, namely his bluetooth headset notified him of an incoming call. Having not moved an inch from his original landing zone yet, while Blackie went over to secure the patient for the coming operation, he rolled his eyes skyward at the unexpected interruption. Why was it people could not seem to leave him alone while he was trying to enjoy himself, huh?

Did the world find some kind of twisted joy in trying to interfere with him whenever the going got good? Was that it? Well, screw you, World, thought Negi, feeling an odd electric itch building in his palms, as he hit the answer button on his ear piece nevertheless, with the finger. Take that!

"Yes-"

Setsuna's normally stoic, reserved tones shouted over him, with a rare paling urgency, "Overlord, there's a high-speed unknown in bound-"

"Ah, I think I see it," Negi interjected, returning the favor with interest. "Blue striped panties, long neon green hair, and our school uniform? That unknown?"

"Wh...Wa, w, wha, WHAA~?"

"My thoughts exactly," the boy professor agreed with his young intern's incredulousness, as the "Close-Up" window within his augmented field of vision cut out.

Poor Blackie never stood a chance. The interloper struck like lightning fury, a crashing thunder that shook the rooftop, and silver flashed in the moonlit night, cutting the looming dark elemental in half from behind. Head to toe, he was bisected in two, but his torment just began, and the slim silvery blade protruding out from the girl's sleeves flashed again, slicing not once but thrice in three additional planes. Had he been in a human it would have been a very bloody, gory mess for someone else to clean up.

Elemental spirits being creatures of pure magic, he merely groaned in abject disappointment before exploding away into a harmless cloud of black smoke and glowing motes of exhausted mana.

"Oh, hell..."

Negi breathed, weighing in his options and assets coolly, as the troubling interloper turned about to face him. The dark elemental could not be harmed easily by any mere conventional means, which meant that the tall schoolgirl (about half a head or so taller than Asuna Kagurazaka, in fact) confronting him had some competent backing. Her neon green eyes matched her hair, and indeed the combination seemed to lend a bizarre electric glow to the girl, but something was wrong.

Well, two things, in fact: now that he thought about it, these two...delinquents, if he was not making too much of a stretch in logic, seemed very familiar. The boy professor felt like he should know them, having seen their faces somewhere before, the answer idling right on the tip of his tongue but frustratingly, it eluded him. The second realization was much more disturbing.

Indeed, the rabbit-like fin antennae that wrapped over her ears only made the image worse. Her eyes had no "light" in them. It was like staring into a vacant window, muddied over with gray from neglect. The Doctor could not even perceive the subtle rise and fall common in many a living thing that would indicate its fundamental need to breathe, and the longer he gazed, more of her horrifying imperfections jumped out at him.

The "person" standing there was still, too still, unnaturally still. The skin was wrong. Hair. Eyes. Face. Lips. Neck. Wrists. Fingers. Knees. Everything!

Doctor N. Springfield brushed up his glasses by the bridge, fighting down a gag reflex to cringe at the shoddy workmanship. Imitation they say is the highest form of flattery, yet he could only express wordlessly his sincere sympathies for the poor "girl".

It was true. The "person" before him was not a human, but a caricature, an automated anthromorphic doll made to mimic such a form. If his own deductions were not enough proof, than the electromagnetic emissions coming off "her" frame was irrefutable condemning evidence, e.g. her long "silky" hair was one giant radiator for starters.

True, her meister should be praised for being able to construct her even from such sub-par materials and low technology, according to his autosenses' superficial analysis, but still, Negi could not soothe his umbrage. As a connoisseur of the finer things in life, it was an affront to the very art form of creating "Pinocchio and Alice"!

"Cha, Chachamaru!" the vampire choked, her expression complicated by breathless relief and acid haughtiness. How atypical. It did not take a pair of chummy dunderheads to see what sort of relationship these two amateur ruffians shared. "...Well, it's about, bleghk, damn time, you useless servant! What took you so long?"

The Doctor had to wonder what the third was like, considering had to have crafted the shoddy android. ...Gods, he really wanted to take her back to The Society, so she could be seen to a proper refit. Even the second rate technology available to meisters on Mars would suffice; the Earth made materials and tech made his eyes water, and his brain wishing to bleed right out through his nose.

"Please, allow me to speak: my apologies, Mistress. I was delayed by the field," thankfully, the programming for her personality layer seemed to up snuff in a tactical sense. Chachmaru did not take her eyes off him, even as she apologized dutifully to her owner, recognizing him as an immediate threat that should not be taken lightly.

"A field? What field?"

The vampire did not know about the temporal displacement fields? How very strange. Granted, the arcanosorcery behind them was still pretty new to magical society, a technology The Society had only grudgingly parted with some fifteen years prior in return for massive concessions from interested parties. Its utility had yet to attract the mainstream media, but for individuals like former auror, Magistra Magi Anastasia Yurievna Cocolova, it was an asset they could not live without, since criminal elements found the technology to be worth dying for as well.

"I will explain later."

As for the android being delayed, Negi had his theories on the matter, but now was hardly the appropriate time to entertain them. Besides, he was at half strength approximately, underarmed, facing off against one crippled opponent, and a fresh enemy reinforcement in the form of a combat capable android? Ha, he would be remiss if he did not continue to play his moves properly, even when the boy professor could already see the ending.

"Ho there~, new girl. You must be new to the game because I am fairly certain you are not supposed to show me what is underneath the lace of your skirt (in~teresting choice in underthings, by the way) before you show me your face first...and a name. Not that I do not appreciate the break from propriety, with an uncommon boldness."

"My sincerest apologies, sen...sir," Chachamaru corrected herself at the last moment.

Negi raised a brow at the slip of her tongue. Was it a calculated move or a true case of "real" emotion, a fluke some might say that originated "instinctively" from her heuristic programming? If it was the latter, maybe there was hope for her meister yet. In the meantime, the electric itch in his palms had worsened to a near unbearable burn.

The clues were all right in front of him but he still could not figure out the answer. Ugh.

Hambug!

"It is also extremely rude to cut down other people's summons into too many gory pieces for open display."

"I will endeavor upon a more efficient disposal method next time...sir," if her deadpanned voice was any dryer, the Doctor swore the android could strip the paint off of a wall by just talking at it.

"You know, I burned up a lot of calories sustaining him for this long. I am famished and thirsty."

"I will bring tea and biscuits next time...sir."

Is that so? Then let me see how far your accommodating nature goes, thought Negi with an open smirk, crossing his arms over his chest. "Say, new girl, can you stop casting a shadow? The moonlight's got better things to do than provide refracted solar energy to your receiver panels in your fake bunny ears."

"I am very sorry...sir."

Oh? Sub-routines that prevent her from giving away tactical flaws?

"And you are not very creative are you?"

"I am expressing my sincerest regret...sir."

On second thought, she could be a dull-headed drone.

"Deviant."

"I will try to change my ways...sir."

"Cosplayer."

"Forgive me...sir."

"Panty flasher."

"Sorry...sir."

"Drone."

"Sorry."

Negi breathed deeply, as if taking a long drag on the wild night air, which had calmed down now to a gentle breeze. It was time to lay down his trump card on the table.

"Fuu~, you are a rather tough nut to crack, my dear lass. Normally, I would take this as a challenge but...do not think badly of me now. Tsk. It's just that, well... Oh, this is difficult for me too, you realize, because... See. You are just bor~ing."

"Sorr..." Chachamaru began to speak her now customary retort, only to have the words unexpectedly freeze in her voice synthesizer.

The pending process in her cooperative multi-tasking CPUs began to loop. A certain repeating set of instructions had failed to meet its specific end condition, and try as she might to devote more resources to unravel the growing tangle, the android could neither pinpoint the error with her debugging scripter nor terminate the task by brute force. Oh dear, the newly born infinite loop was causing her entire system to become unresponsive, and was it just her, or was something burning?

"Ah," Chachamaru remarked monotonously, smoke pouring out of her nasal intake cavities. To observing looking on the mounting situation, it was definitely not a good sign, with predictably explosive consequences: her left communications antennae and stabilizer, suffered a sudden catastrophic failure knocking the helpless android off balance.

The resulting cantankerous impact was like an elephant collapsing in the concrete jungle. Although according to Negi's scans, the green-haired android could not have weighed more than three-hundred kilograms at most.

"Please, allow me to speak: Mistress, I have fallen and cannot get up. Running debug script. Error. Retrying process. Warning. Error code Zero-X-Ray-Fifty detected: Blue Screen of Death!"

"Hueeeeeeeehhhhh?" Evangeline howled uproariously in flabbergasted disbelief.

For the entire time, she had been cheering on her servant's gallant stand against her tormentor, not that she would ever admit the fact aloud, and thumbing her nose at the offending boy professor. The former Dark Mistress might have had her fallacies as an ex-mortal, but her indomitable servant of steel was incorrigible. Perfect! His vile words laced with honey and poison, had no such effect on her. Ha ha ha ha! Serves him right!

It was a beautiful delusion that the Spectre of the Thousand Master had just now cruelly shattered.

"Ahhh~, what a foul plot twist," The Doctor snickered contemptuously, turning about as if it avert his gaze from the pathetic sight. "In fact, 'tis so foul, I do not feel like playing along with this situation anymore. It smacks of a third-rate sitcom, bleh, and makes me feel as if I am the villain here, like Fraser's Flashman picking on a bunch of Emo Goths for easy lunch money."

"Whose an emo goth, you wiseass jerk?" Evangeline decried. Oh, if only she had enough blood left to risk pulling out these infernal stakes, the vampire would have gone over and taught him a thing or two about Gothic architecture!

"Heh, I knew it. It is useless. It is all absolutely useless!" Negi threw up his hands in frustration, and now, truly began to walk off the staged play. "Why did I even bother from the start? Aahh~, man, what a pain in the you-know-where. My whole eve-ning wasted over some small fry!"

"Hey you, are you even listening to me!"

"I resign."

The sudden onset of stunned silence was quite indicative of one metaphorical shoe dropping, not that Evangeline A.K. MacDowell particularly noticed, since she was preoccupied, well, with being bewildered.

"...Huh?"

Doctor N. Springfield was far from the type of individual to look a gift horse in the mouth, and gladly took his opportunity to make a graceful, though not before leaving a savvy final word at the curtains.

"I am going home, now, so..." he spun about abruptly on his heel in a bowing flourish. "See you again, have a nice dream, or some rot like tha-"

Crack!

"UOOOOOWHAAAAAaaahhhhhhh!"

Considering one shoe had already fallen off, Murphy saw no reason not to make the other come loose too, as the oft punished rooftop revealed an unexpected weakness: an improperly set shingle. Naturally, Negi proved to be the poor sucker, stepping on the previously docile disaster waiting to happen. The trigger pulled, catastrophe then struck in a rightly hilarious, if macabre fashion, as an entire section of shingles came dislodged in a noisy, rapid cascade, carrying the prat falling magister magi off with them.

His world was awash in shocking vertigo, and before he knew it, Doctor N. Springfield found himself in dead air, with fifty stories worth of drop to go (approximately sixty feet). A deadly drop, certainly, for most people, but he was a mage and a warrior scholar to boot, so the prospect of imminent death by pancake did not trip his fight or flight reflex the wrong way. Instead, it focused Negi's concentration to precision pinprick of a laser.

Instinctively, the boy professor twisted about in mid-air to face the ground, like a cat about to land on its feet, and brandished his wand. Alas, there was to be no straight shot to the merciless pavement below. What Negi got and did not ask for, was a face full of tree; in fact, it was a very bushy, pink tree.

"Aw, hel-" he managed out before Murphy had his cake and a good belly aching laugh.

Many an unpleasant thwack and snap of wood marked Doctor N. Springfield not so helpfully assisted descent through the rustling canopy. In a twist of irony that he did not fail to appreciate, despite the world of hurt the boy professor was transitioning through, the fates seemed to paying him back much of the same suffering he had caused on the vampire, scaled to his frail relative mortality, of course. It would not do if he were to perish, since the other victim in this long night had been spared by himself out of necessity, which would ruin all sorts of cosmic karma.

The fall lumped with painful impacts seemed to go on forever, but his reprieve came quite fast, dropping on down into the lush bushes below that were situated in a row of soft dirt, freshly inoculated with compost. Overall, it was quite merciful he managed to survive a sixty-foot drop with no more than a lot of bruises and a few cuts; nothing some healing magick could not mend. Negi's wounded pride, though, was a different story, plus his blistering back made him feel like he wanted to die.

"Uh-HO...! G, God...! Da, dammit~...ugh..." the battered magister magi managed to wheeze out hoarsely on his back.

Somehow or another his bluetooth headset and cellphone managed to survive the fall too, perfectly intact and unmoved from their original placement on his miserable person. The fortunate result, however, did not spell relief, but urgent, concerned solicitation from Setsuna Sakurazaki, who heard the whole experience. "N, Negi-kun, what's wrong? How bad are you hurt?"

"I fell... hah, off the roof," Negi groaned, ignoring the nearby roar of rockets firing off. It appeared a mutual friend of his had already secured her escape, and as for the bodyguard girl's slip up with his name, well, he would overlook this time. After all, Setsuna had enough sense to not ask him a banal question, namely whether he was hurt, considering his actions thus far spoke for him in full.

"...Don't move. Wait right there. I'll be-"

"Appreciate the thought, but a tree, some bushes, and savvy dirt broke my fall. ...I can walk it off."

"But-"

"Oh, do me favor, please?"

"O-Of course, ask away," Setsuna relented hesitantly, realizing there was no headway to be made arguing with him, when he had made up his mind. Good girl. "Ne...Springfield-sensei."

Though in the future, The Doctor imagined he might be open to suggestions, depending on how their relationship happened to develop. Tonight had been a major test, but it was just the first of many nights.

"Turn off the temporal displacement fields; I would rather not my new delinquent friends have an easy time about getting home tonight."

"Delinquent friends? What do you mean?"

"Ha, do I have a story to," Negi tried to humor his intern with a wry chuckle, as he rose noisily out of the bushes, when something...awful happened. "OH F*** ME~!"

The bold, impetuous invective was the perfect match to the sudden, snapping tension in his back that bled out into full blown, burning agony. He had pulled a muscle, and it hurt. A lot! Mother of all that was unholy, how in the hell did he forget The Master's 18th Cardinal Rule?

Rule No. 18 - Limber up.

Live by the rules; die by the rules, but in more practical terms, he was more so regretting his own gaffe of the lips. True, the Doctor realized he was only mortal. Unlike most people, however, he had a huge image to live by, and there was no telling when some ruffians could be listening in backstage where they were neither welcomed or wanted. It was also his luck then that those very scallywags chose to make an appearance, in spite of their earlier promise to retire for the evening.

"Mmmm~, yes~!" Mammon of Greed's erotic moan heralded her coming well in advanced wind of golden butterflies. "YES, PLEASE! Say no more, Master~!"

And where one Sister of Purgatory was to be found, the other was not far behind, as Leviathan of Envy, too, appeared, tackling her younger sisters in a heap of tossing, squirming supple flesh. "Nooo~, stay away from Master, stupid Monmon. I called first go at him!"

Negi slapped his palm to his forehead in embarrassment, and thanked the small mercy that only he was unlucky enough to be privileged to their antics. Though just to be sure, he had to ask a certain reticent girl on the line.

"...hey, Sakurazaki-kun?"

"Y, Yefhg, shen-sei?" came Setsuna's oddly garbled reply, which made him raise an eyebrow.

"Did you hear that just now?"

"N, no. I didn'f hearfgh nothingh."

Okay, he did not want a vague answer like that; what Negi wanted was a very thorough explanation. He could live with her hearing his smart mouth, but not the Stakes! The boy professor was nowhere near prepared to part with his taboo talents that allowed him to call upon the terrible denizens of Inferno to do his bidding.

Sigh.

"...Sakurazaki-kun. Is there something in your nose?"

"No, Nohse bleedhing, shenshei. It jhust happen," she told him in a flustered tone.

The Doctor rose another eyebrow. A nose bleed she says? Goodness, this was big, fat waste of bloody time is what. Better to call off his questioning until he got home to interrogate her properly in person. "I see, well then, you can go ahead and take care of my request. I will see you in a bit. Overlord Actual, out."

Without waiting for an answered, he killed the line and resolved to march straight back to apartment, with no other detours involved. Case in point, the magister ignored the Stakes exuberant wrestling on the ground that had just escalated to a feminine shriek, accompanied by the tearing of clothes. He was an English gentleman, after all, and it would do for him to be seen after hours in the company of women, not of his own household. What, with an important person of interesting waiting for him back home alongside his simperingly adorable cousin and reticently virtuous intern, how he could possibly be in need of wanting?

Then again, it did look like a grand old time. The only thing missing was mud. Yes. Mud wrestling~!


Unfortunately, his strained back made sure his prompt arrival ran afoul right from start to finish. It was much, much later than expected when he made it to the halls of the faculty apartment complex, probably around midnight, and he still had classes to teach in the morning. Ha! Quite frankly, Doctor N. Springfield seemed to be literally on his last legs, limping heavily as he leaned on the walls for support.

"Ugh, god damn you," the boy professor berated his weakness between ragged, pained breaths. "Man, I feed you. I clothe you. I exercise you. I try to take the best care of you. And now, you are just going to quit on me? D, Doh! ...Well, you are wrong, bugger. Absolutely wrong. You are not allowed to quit on me; that ignominy I shall not suffer, and is certainly not happening on my watch, you wretch. So reach down deep for some of that vaunted testosterone, and move!"

But as much pain as he was in, Negi could not even bear the thought of having his subordinates see him in vivid agony. It clashed with his image, a pretense he was still determined to salvage whatever scraps he could, so for appeared like a small eternity, the boy professor stopped and leaned against the doorframe to his apartment. Inhale, exhale, he repeated to himself zealously like a mantra, to help his mind master his physical pain.

Only when he could smile again, as was customary for him, did The Doctor stand erect, battening down the hatches on his overloaded nerves tight, and rang the doorbell. He did not have to wait long before a familiar sourpuss face answered the door, letting lose an almost uncomfortably cool blast of air conditioning. It was Anya, already dressed for bed in her pajamas. They were conservative silky things in plain light blue that contrasted rather sharply with the characteristic shade of green in her chestnut hued eyes.

After such a long evening, Negi could not be happier to fall back into a routine that set him at ease, as she nodded curtly to him, allowing him entry into their private domain.

"Aw, what is it that ails you with such a long face, An~ya?" he drawled after her in his usual ineffable fashion, closing the door behind him. "Come now, cousin dear, can you not welcome your beloved big brother home after a hard, arduous evening? I would not be adverse, absolutely so, to a kiss or a hug, eh? Ha. Just-"

Suffice to say, Anastasia surprised him by turning about abruptly to make good on his offer, right there in the foyer, the petite Russian girl burying herself around his middle with astonishing tenderness.

"Ah."

Amidst the droning hum of the air conditioning, Doctor N. Springfield found himself at a loss of what to say, his mighty intellect failing him, not unlike the day out he spent with the princess of the Kantou Magic Association. Then again, comparing Konoka and him to the magistra magi and him was a poor match at best; they had a rather antagonistic history that still persisted even today. He did not mind the battle line drawn between them, as it helped to keep him grounded in an otherwise worthless reality, a constant he could count on any time.

Aside from his previous experiences of dancing with her, the sudden solidarity was without a doubt uncharted territory, and it made him a little nervous. Just what was Negi supposed to say or do now?

"Stupid onion," the redhead mumbled sulkily under her breath.

Well, erm, how... unusually sweet of her. Perhaps, she had been genuinely concerned with his well being, aside from the possibility of losing her sweet paycheck? Ha. That will be the...WAIT a second here! Why were his palms tingling?

"You really, really, really..."

Crack.

"VEX ME."

"AAAAAAAGHHHhhhhhhhhh! JESUS CHRIST, MY BACK!" Negi howled like a little schoolboy, all pretenses flushed down the toilet in an eye watering blaze of agony. A sneak attack. It had been a sneak attack! The Ruskies are coming! The Ruskies are coming!

"Do not use the Lord Jesus Christ's name in vain," the Russian Red admonished him irritably, as her harsh bear hug tightened another notch to his injured vitals.

"AAAAAAAGHHHHHHhhh! O' LORD~, TAKE ME NOW!" he really regretted adding the sound dampening magicks to the walls at the moment, which made the neighbors none the wiser to his suffering. It was domestic violence, dammit, and he was the victim here, clear as day!

Thankfully, his cries had been plenty to satisfy her gluttonous desire for revenge, and the Ruskie girl pulled away, allowing him a reprieve after what seemed like an eternity of promised pain realized, but judging by her darkly satisfied smile, their cold war was far from over. Doctor N. Springfield just knew she would add this unsightly incident to her bag of tricks that would one day forge a true Sword of Damocles to be hung over his head. In the meantime, he could only hope to regain the initiative and capitalize on his gains, before the great disparity between the two of them no longer matter.

Anya beckoned him to follow her into the living room, and grudgingly the boy professor found he could not refuse such an oh-so-reasonable request.

"Ugh... S, so, ahem, where is that Sakurazaki fellow?" Negi asked his smug companion, hoping to direct the conversation anywhere but at him, only to realize too late the triteness of his query. Goodness gracious, was he slipping! If Setsuna were here, the wannabe samurai girl would have come running the moment he started screaming like a banshee.

"I told her she could go home for the night some time ago. Her nosebleed was being about as cooperative as her lips, which isn't much to say."

"Right~... Is the princess awake?"

"She was, until I stunned her."

Negi balked, "...You did what?"

"I gave her a light dosage of Stupefy," Anya informed him unabashedly, gesturing towards the seemingly sleeping form Konoka Konoe laid out on their couch. "Don't fear. I didn't tell that to our zealous barbarian colleague."

"...B, but, why would you-did you do that? I mean, could you not have been more gentle and lady-like in using something like, I dunno, a sleep inducing spell?"

"I could've, except it was a spur of the moment situation, and the incantation for that kind of girlish aria would have taken too long. You wouldn't want to be dealing with the prospect of having to play with her memories now, would you?"

"You could have just shortened it," mumbled the magister magi, with a wince, discovering his own opportunity to sulk.

"...Shortened it? What are you talking about?" Anya gave him a look, the one that screamed 'Are you mad, man?'

Why yes he was mad! A very mad, mad man too, and now, Negi had to cover another one of his trade secrets that he did not mean to give away just yet.

"Ah ha ha, sorry! Me? Just nitpicking as always. Heh he he he! Or it could be the pain in my back giving me a case of haughty delusions that you so unhelpfully exacerbated, see?"

"Feh. Figures," his secretary rolled her eyes at him, before giving him the "come hither" knife hand gesture, which if she did not mind, he did not particularly trust at present, thanks to a recent trauma. Duh! "Well, c'mon, let's wake her up and get this over with, brother dear."

"Sure~! And, what script would you like to start with for the counseling sessions, my dearest cousin?"

"The one that begins with... So, Konoe-san, what was the last thing you couldn't remember?"

How atypically straightforward of his much beloved poison pink polka dot chihuahua, attacking their delicate predicament with a surgical application of overkill. Then again, he would not have liked her any other way.


To be continued...


Production Notes:

Gott in Himmel! I did it, AGAIN. Arrrghhhhhhhh! Why~? I thought this would be short and all sorts of other cool things would happen, but it's Negima! - Period 17 the redux in 10,000+ words! That chapter was originally only 15 pages of artwork! This one's 32 pages long!

Gahhhh!

...I promise not to do this again, any time soon. I swear to god, people. I can't keep torturing you all like this with huge walls of text. The madness needs to get a rest for a while.

On the bright side, a lot happened in this chapter on the micro scale. Lots of little character growths and details. The fight was pretty much two opponents who grossly underestimated and-or overestimated each other at different points of time. You could say it was one big laugh out loud worthy facepalm of misunderstandings.

I admit Evangeline got burned pretty badly, but hey, she is a vampire, so that level of physical damage is no big deal to her. Hell, she has probably put herself through a lot worse when she used to operate at full strength as the Dark Evangel. If anything, we should be more concerned about her emotional trauma from this event. Hu hu hu hu! But, don't worry you Eva-sama fans; I promise the ending for this arc will not disappoint.

As for The Doctor, I hope you all enjoyed another teaser at his full arsenal. I may try to consider doing one more teaser, but as far as the mage side of the equation and tactics, he is a smooth operator, who knows when he's beaten and it's time to make like George Washington.

My description of his fusion with the Dark Elemental and what they were doing was not the best, I admit. My visual references were a combination of Prototype's Alex Mercer, Marvel Comics' Blackheart, and a bit of The Darkness. The chase scene was more of an homage to Iron Man 2 than the original manga format, plus nods to The Incredible Hulk movies and Prototype.

What else? ...God, I'm tired. I'm finishing this up right around midnight, and for the life of me, I can't think of anything else that needs to be addressed.

So once again thanks for your time and hats off to the reviewers. Sorry, I haven't gotten around to assessing any potential replies yet, because I have been completely consumed by this monster of a chapter. That said, I hope it was satisfactory and folks will be back for my next gig. The Invisible Eva was caught off guard this time, but next time, she'll definitely fire off a solid hits across the indomitable HMS Springfield's bow too.

Oh, and Chachmaru's just great, isn't she? She withstood those salvos valiantly that she did. Let's hope she'll fair better in the future. And... And... I forgot what I was going to say. Dammit, I'm tired.

No more epic long chapters for a while, please.

Next gig? Eeee, dealing with the fallout of this skirmish and beginning the planning for the best campaign yet!

Peace.