Author's Note: Not a lot to say this week, other that I plan to be busy for the next couple of days so I might not be able to work on this as much. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!


Chapter 53: Magical Genetic Engineering, The Trade off for Magic

Tatsuya was busy working in his lab, seeing little harm to be done in keeping it Tatsuya decided to keep the parasite that he had retrieved from their eighth grade spy, albeit under some heavy guard from escaping again. Also heavy guard from delusional eighth graders too, not that he'd have to worry about her for a while, in theory, being suspended from school and all that. Klaud would be back from sending her father off in the morning too, and they had matters to discuss. The Nine School's competition. After last year, specifically after Klaud made a rampage both on the game fields and off, the judging committee essentially booted her out the front and posted a sign telling her not to come back. Now the had just received a message 'inviting' her to compete again. It felt... strange to him, and stink of something else going on. But that matter would have to wait for the time being. Right now Tatsuya was examining the parasite he had in his possession, poking and prodding and seeing what ways that he could possibly use the thing for. Aunt Maya had a vested interest in the parasites, viewing them as a means of furthering the evolution of the Magician. Tatsuya had mixed feelings about that ambition, but the little monsters were fascinating enough to him to warrant study all the same.

"Progress is slow going, without having a live test subject to test on." Tatsuya muttered as he jutted down a note. His problem was that he refused to experiment on a person with the risk that one of these things could kill someone in the process of taking them as a host. If only the parasite could take on a none living host. And suddenly Tatsuya had a idea. "Pick up. Pick up. Pick up." Tatsuya muttered as he impatiently tapped his finger on the counter glaring at a screen that he was using to contact Klaud.

"Yo." Klaud stated as her face appeared on the screen.

"Hey Klaud, some interesting matters have popped up over here." Tatsuya stated deciding on his priorities.

"The eighth grader again?" Klaud asked in a disinterested tone of voice. "Miyuki called me a while ago about that, honestly how deep does that girl's grudge go? You'd think she would have learned her lesson by now."

"It's not about that, it's the up coming Nine School's Competition." Tatsuya stated in a even tone of voice.

"Well seeing as how I'm banned I don't see how that concerns me." Klaud replied with disinterest to which end Tatsuya hit a button and his image was replaced by the email the school received addressed to Klaud. "They're demanding that I come back and compete again?"

"Politely request was the term of phrase that they used." Tatsuya stated in a tone of voice that implied he agreed with Klaud's interpretation.

"Now why would they do that?" Klaud asked holding her chin in her hand.

"I haven't the foggiest, but while I have your attention, I was wondering if we could discuss something." Tatsuya asked folding his hands together, Klaud smirk knowingly in response.

"I was wondering when you were gonna ask me about what I told you the other day." Klaud asked in a knowing tone of voice. "Unfortunately Rebecca's the scientist in this family, and my father's the one who came up with it, I haven't got the foggiest on how to reprogram a person's brain, your mommy would know more about that then I would."

"This much is true, but that is not the subject I came to talk to you about, before I can begin experimenting with that there is something that I need first, a test subject that I can experiment on without hesitation, thus what I want to ask you about is your familiars." Tatsuya stated prompting a sour look from Klaud.

"You can't use Sapphire and Inari as guinea pigs Tatsuya." Klaud stated in a displeased tone of voice.

"I wouldn't dream of it. Which is why I'm asking how to make a familiar of my own." Tatsuya stated prompting Klaud to look at him surprised.

"If you're asking about how to make one like Inari, then it'll be a bit of a complicated process to complete. Rebecca's already explained to you magical engineering right?" Tatsuya nodded his head prompting Klaud to continue. "Using the structure of a lion and a bird, we then super impose that over the form of a doll that has had it's molecules expanded using magic." Tatsuya took out a note book and began scribbling down notes, a sign that Klaud took to continue. "Using reinforcement magic we grant the griffin that has had it's integrity compromised by molecular expansion the same level of structural integrity as a real lion, but because it still weighs the same as in it's regular toy form it is much lighter, and can take flight a lot easier too."

"It sounds like it would eat up a lot of magical power." Tatsuya commented with a feeling of unease.

"Well that's what the Cards are for, they share a symbiotic relationship with the guardians providing and storing magical power for them." Tatsuya nodded his head, Klaud's words made sense to him, even so there was still one thing that was bothering him, the key component that he was after. "How do you impart sapience upon the guardians?" Tatsuya asked cutting to the point of this chat.

"Using empathy, we impart strong emotion and strong thought particles onto the object that we wish to animate as a familiar using a spirit as a catalyst, the parasites we ran into a little while ago are good contenders for the role when you consider that in addition to inanimate objects we've also been known to use people as well. Hence the Angel and the Griffin." Satisfied with this information Tatsuya closed his note book.

"Thank you for your aid Klaud, it was most informative." Tatsuya gave a polite bow to Klaud as he finished with his questions.

"Bye bye Tatsuya!" Klaud stated waving happily and smiling warmly before she closed the screen.

On that note Tatsuya took a look over the warehouse laboratory and spotted pixie who was on the far end of the lab sitting in her recharge chair and let out a small smirk.


"You want me to help you with an experiment?" Honoka asked looking at Tatsuya who was leading her by her hand through the laboratory ware house.

"Correct." As Tatsuya said that he led Honoka to a operating table where Pixie was lying on her back turned off. "It is my intention to impart upon Pixie the Parasite that we captured the other day, towards this end I require the aid of a empath to impart a strong connection between Pixie and that Parasite through emotion. Think you can do that?" Honoka looked at Tatsuya, her secret crush and object of undying affection ever since last year's Nine School's competition. Yah. She can do strong emotion and so nodded her head. "Excellent let's get to work."

Honoka held out her hands aiming with the specialty C.A.D. designed by Tatsuya, tubing connecting the container Tatsuya had built for the parasite into Pixie's neck, she imagined Pixie as herself, thinking that she too must have strong feelings for Tatsuya to serve him so loyally. Tatsuya noted the Parasite being sucked out of the containment device and into Pixie's body. Soon the mechanical maid sprung to life and sat up with a jolt.

"Alright, the first step has been complete, I can..."

"TATSUYA!" Hearing that shout screech through the air Tatsuya looked up from his work station in time to see Pixie leap up from the table and tackle him, snuggling into his body with a overly large amount of affection.

"Honoka, is there something you'd like to tell me?" Tatsuya asked in a questioning tone of voice, even with the mechanical doll that was several times stronger then he was bear hugged him.

After prying the doll girl off of him Tatsuya quickly busied himself with writing up the report to give to Four Leaves technology. The creation of Tatsuya's crash test dummy should be enough for his aunt for the time being, he'd ask his mother for information on reprogramming a human mind tomorrow.

"What a troublesome pet project." For now Tatsuya had to figure out what he was gonna do with Pixie.

"So you like Tatsuya too?" Honoka asked eating her sandwich.

Having her secret revealed in such an embarrassing way worked to her advantage when talking to the android, giving them common ground. Not that they didn't have plenty of that already, Pixie essentially being a duplicate of Honoka's emotions for all intents and purposes. Of course the only other thing holding back Honoka's nervousness was Tatsuya's neutrality to the overall issue. It was as if he didn't even noticed her situation that was the same thing as a confession of her undying love.

"Aha!" The Android stated holding a tray that was full of drinks for Honoka to take. "Well. I suppose that my situation is more complicated than others, I have all my memories of my time before the parasite, but now I have all of these emotions too. It's... very confusing."

"Emotions are." Honoka replied neutrally. "So what are you gonna do now?"

"Well, Tatsuya is debating the idea of taking me home with him, but there's the issue in the way." Pixie made a fearful face as she thought about this issue.

"Miyuki?" Honoka guessed recognizing that look of fear on her features.

"Miyuki." Pixie stated letting out a sigh. Even the android knew about the school's infamous 'sis con queen.' "If Miyuki finds out about us liking Tatsuya, she'll eviscerate both of us."

"Pixie is too important for the Yotsuba clan right now, it's more likely she'll just eviscerate Honoka." Tatsuya commented in a neutral voice.

"Eh!?" Honoka could only make a fearful squeak in response.

"In any case, I've already talked to my aunt Pixie, do you mind staying at Four Leaves for a little while? I've already sorted out the issue of ownership with the school." Tatsuya explained walking over to the maid android in question.

"I can do that without much issue. So long as you're willing to come and visit me that is." Pixie stated fluttering her lashes at Tatsuya.

"In that case, allow me to introduce to you my aunt." Holding up a tablet to Pixie, the image of Maya Yotsuba soon appeared on it.

"So this is your little helper minion Tatsuya." Maya stated sizing up the maid android up and down. "I didn't know you had a maid fetish, maybe I should tell Miyuki." Honoka didn't know what she felt was more disturbing, the fact that Tatsuya and Miyuki actually have a thing for each other, or the fact that their aunt seemed to be actively encouraging a relationship between them.

"It's not like that. This is simply what she came as. The ones with the fetish here are my upper class men who have already graduated." Tatsuya explained prompting a amused laugh from Maya.

"If that's the case there shouldn't be any objection if Four leaves take over the project from here. Bring her over and we'll begin work on some tests. After that though, the jar-heads called a while back and asked you to take shots at someone for them." To Maya's statement Tatsuya nodded before turning to Pixie.

"If you'd follow me please."


Klaud, Rebecca, Maylin and Madison were all gathered together at the docks, seeing their father who was getting on a ship to sail across the sea to America.

"You're gonna sail across the sea in that little dingy?"

Contrary to Maya's concerns, the ship was not small, but rather it was a luxury yacht with supplies enough to last Syaoran and the crew until her got to America, that was not the problem here. Maylin had insisted that Syaoran take a war ship for his own safety as bare minimal precaution, she had already warned him about the Japanese Government who were planning on sinking his ship before he left their waters, so something that could at least take a hit would alleviate her fears.

"I have my vast magical powers, there is literally nothing that they have that can best me in the field of battle." Syaoran stated dismissively. "Rather I need the four of you to create a protective barrier sufficient to make sure no harm comes to Japan."

"Oi why do I even bother." Maylin shook her head down cast and mentally cursed her family that ignored all common sense on a regular basis.

"Have fun getting killed old man." Rebecca stated in a dismissive tone of voice.

"See you next time your home Daddy!" Madison stated in a overly childish voice while she jumped over and hugged her father.

"Come back soon Dad." Klaud was the last of them to give her father a hug.

"Just leave your work at work next time please? I don't wanna have to put my house back together again." Asking that, Syaoran responded by ruffling Klaud's hair.


A distance away, on a warship that was using optical magic to cloak it confirmed that Syaoran was on the ship that he had chartered. After the battle between him and the American agents he had immediately canceled his flight and instead bought this luxury cruise liner. It was a tactic that threw away all defense while leaving him completely open for the longest possible period of time, as if he was daring them to attack him. Point of interest, he was.

"Preparing Miss Mio Itsuwa for deployment." The lieutenant stated working his controls.

At once, a motorized platform sounded carrying a young woman in a wheel chair with a IV drip attached to her arm to the area above the deck. She looked to be about thirteen years old, with her overly thin and gangly body, but her actual age was twice that at twenty six. Truly, she had paid a steep price for her impressive magical power, lacking any physical ability, she made up for it with her staggering magical power. Even though that was the logic, there was a cheat like existence right in front of her that utterly destroyed that logic.

"So I make tidal waves and I can't get out of this chair, you shit nuclear explosions and you seem just fine." The bitter sounding crippled magician stated.

"Well, I can't feel any emotion, so it's not like I didn't pay for my power too." Tatsuya, in his full body armor, stated as he readied his weapon that required ten people to unlock it's case.

"Trade yah." Mio stated in a depressed dead panned tone of voice.

"Well aren't you just a ray of sun shine." Saying that the two noticed the appearance of a girl in a red and yellow clown outfit sitting on top of one of the guns.

"Gelos? So they called you in too?" Mio stated in a un-amused tone of voice.

"My situation is different from yours. I'm not part of Japan's strategic forces, I just live here. I'll defend the country from attack, but unlike you two I won't participate in acts of aggression against other countries." The clown explained swinging her legs over the gun.

"If that's the case then how did you know to be here?" Mio asked glaring at Gelos suspiciously.

"The guy on that boat is my Dad." Klaud explained nonchalantly prompting Mio to freeze up with a look of terror. "Relax I'm not gonna do anything, like I said I'm only here to defend Japan."

"Defend it from what exactly?" Mio asked suspicion and paranoia permeating her features.

"In this case, his retaliatory strike against his ship." Klaud stated dismissively causing Mio to freeze up in terror.

They waited until they were out to sea, sufficiently far away from the Japanese coast that they wouldn't damage it in the process of trying to kill Syaoran. Mio acted first, aiming her magical power at Syaoran's ship a huge depression soon appeared in the water, as if a huge invisible cylinder was crushing down on the water, until the bare floor of the ocean was visible, leaving the boat to lean on the side of newly emerged dry land.

"And release." Mio was a hydrokinetic on a massive scale, her specialty was sinking ships. Therefore when faced with a enemy on the water, the natural reaction of the Japanese government was to deploy the resident tsunami generator, thus leaving Syaoran buried at the bottom of the sea. That was the idea but...

"You'd think that people would learn by now." The resident God of Laughter said in a amused tone of voice, looking at the cylinder of water that had yet to collapse in on itself.

Rather it held it's position as a pink aura engulfed the yacht and carried it into the air, Tatsuya took the opportunity to fire off his weapon several times. The cascade of explosions never came, strangled in the womb by vicious magic that erased the attack like it never even existed.

"Too weak." Now clear of the water, Syaoran released his strangle hold on the tsunami in the making, on the contrary, he made use of water magic to exaggerate and manipulate it so that it was now a tsunami barreling down on the puny little war ship that had taken shots at him.

"Well I guess it's time I did my part." Suddenly the wave froze solid before it reach the ship, before collapsing in on itself and waves it generated in the process being frozen as well, a vicious cycle that repeated itself until the entire area was a frozen wasteland. "So are you guys gonna keep chasing after my Dad or can we go home now?"


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Duked: Resistance is Futile!