Ever After
The Saga of Tanya the Evil
The three crossed into a new book in a burst of light...
"HOLY SHIT," Hazuki managed as they saw the squads of flying mages doing battle in the skies above them.
"Ack," Quill yelped.
Hazuki looked at her, "What's wrong?"
"My device is fritzing out. There's such a high level of magic here..." Quill noted.
"Again?" Hazuki muttered, then looked worriedly at Lilith.
The gorgeous blonde witch was floating in the air, and frowning. "There's... too much magic here," she muttered.
"Huh?" Hazuki blinked.
The huge eye on Lilith's hat even looked concerned, oddly enough. "There shouldn't be this much magic... not without it being a magitech universe like Quill's," she said flatly.
Hazuki looked around them as she remarked, "It looks like photos I've seen of World War One battlefields."
"And why would you have such a crude war if you have powerful magic?" Quill wondered. She muttered to herself, "I should take notes... this culture defies all the TSAB's beliefs about how magic shapes society."
Lilith just ignored that. "Let's look for traces of Eve and get out of here," she suggested.
They heard a unfamiliar whistling sound, then Hazuki grabbed both of them. "COME ON!" she dragged them off with inhuman speed.
"Wha...?" Quill yelped.
Behind them where they had stood exploded as artillery shells impacted, creating a huge crater.
"THEY'RE SHOOTING AT US?!" Lilith roared.
"They might be targeting our magic," Quill noted, also shaken.
Lilith's eyes flashed, "How DARE they nearly hurt my Hazuki."
"I'm fine, really...," Hazuki started.
"I WILL PUNISH THEM...," Lilith vowed.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Colonel Tanya Degurechaff frowned as she said, "Why did you target there?"
The blonde woman was in her late teens, crazilly enough. A powerful mage she enlisted young, knowing she'd be worse off as a civilian. She had swiftly risen through the ranks as the war with the Republic dragged on...
"There was an unknown magical signature," the scanner officer explained.
"Exactly, unknown. It was Republican, or Albion, or any of the allies," Tanya pointed out. "It's entirely possible you ordered a strike on innocent people."
The man visibly paled.
Tanya stepped back, taking her cup of tea from a nearby desk and drinking a bit. She honestly didn't think they had shelled innocents... but there was no way to be sure. She hoped her chiding the man would at least result in him double checking, first.
"Colonel!" the scanner officer yelped.
"Yes?" Tanya hurried back, then frowned at the screen.
"The unknown mage or mages are heading HERE. At high speed!" the man reported.
"Oh hell," Tanya cursed, taking her rifle and heading outside. Clearly they had pissed SOMETHING off. And worse, she didn't know what it was. The alarms were wailing, and she felt some satisfaction at seeing everyone fall in.
Viktoria Ivanovia Serebryakov hurried up, the tall, busty woman frowning. "Republican attack?" Visha asked.
"We don't know. But they're inbound fast," Tanya told her aide.
In seconds they saw three figures coming into view. Two seemed to be flying via magic, and carrying the third person along with them. They also all were blazing with an alarming amount of magical power.
Tanya blinked, "The one's dressed in a Japanese Schoolgirl uniform."
"Attack spells, full spread! Fire!" Visha ordered the mages who had responded to the alarm.
The attack spells just bounced off the strange women's magic auras, which was rather stunning for the powerful Empire mages. The two fliers began to fire their own spells, then the black haired woman charged Tanya, carrying a katana of all things.
Tanya swiftly brought her military rifle up, gambling it could deflect a blade. Wrong, the GLOWING katana cut through it like butter.
"Colonel!" Visha yelped in alarm.
Tanya used her magic Orb to blast the woman backwards, even as she watched the other two women attacking. As angry as they both seemed, they weren't killing anyone, just blowing stuff up. Did that mean...?
As the katana weilding woman charged at her, Tanya made a snap decision, "Everyone, throw down your arms."
"WHAT," Visha blinked.
"Do it!" Tanya ordered.
As weapons were dropped, the attacking women stopped blowing stuff up. The sword using woman demanded, "Why did you shell us?!"
"It was an accident," Tanya said, "we detected an unknown magical source in an area where we knew there were only enemies."
"Hmm," the woman frowned, then looked at the blonde, "Lilith?"
Lilith scowled, but... "You accidentally rained explosive shells on us," she drawled.
"It sounds SO bad when you say it like that," Visha noted.
The (Indian?) woman fought back a giggle.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Is it me, or are we more short tempered here?" Hazuki murmured to Lilith.
Lilith paused, then nodded reluctantly. "There seems to be something disagreeable about this universe," she conceded.
"We could use your help, possibly," Quill noted to the Colonel. "We came here looking for someone."
"As long as they're willing to go," Tanya said cautiously.
Hazuki described Hatsumi, and sketched in her pattern of reincarnation.
"Wouldn't you get bored being reborn and living until you were sixteen, then do it all again?' Visha asked.
Lilith scowled at her. "My sister likes it," she shrugged.
Tanya just ignored that. "She doesn't sound familiar, but we can ask the squad leaders," she suggested mildly.
Quill looked at Lilith and asked, "Why do we always pop up near-ish to where Eve was?"
"Narrative causality. The universe likes straightforward stories," Lilith said.
"Ah," Quill nodded.
They checked with the staff members, found nothing. Lilith cast a search spell, and determined that Eve had been in a camp nearby. "We're going to go take a look," Lilith noted, "PLEASE don't shoot at us again."
"Sorry," Tanya shrugged.
As they took off AGAIN Tanya wondered why the schoolgirl uniform...
It all ended up as a false alarm, and a thoroughly annoyed Lilith transported them off to the next book in their search.
To be continued...
Notes: I'm NOT getting into Being X (God in the Tanya series) and the other gods and goddesses shown in the manga. One can assume Being X breathed a sigh of relief once Lilith left...