Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Taylor

Flying high over the city, I quickly swung Opal while yelling "scatter shot!" With my declaration, half a dozen baseball sized blasts of prana flew off into the sky. With a flourish and a jab they were joined by a long concentrated beam that I called "magi-lance!" It felt a little silly calling my attacks like that, but Opal had said that it would help me picture the exact prana cannon I wanted, and after that first night I didn't want to take any risks.

"You're doing wonderful, Princess," Opal declared with just a hint of pride.

I smiled, "Thanks, Opal."

The stick in my hand bent in my hands in a way I'd come to think of as a smile. "I think you're ready to start investigating with me."

"Oh, have you figured out where to start?" That hadn't taken very long.

"I think so, Princess," Opal straightened, "these last few nights I've noticed a few… oddities, in the local prana flow. I'm not sure if it's related to the greater anomaly, but it's worth a look."

"Alright then Opal," I said to the magic wand, "you want to check it out now, or-"

"Nonono, I'm not quite sure of what it is or how long it'll take, and you do have school in the morning." Huh, the first day back after my beating… Dad had talked to the school, they said they'd keep an eye out for me and try and find out who filled my locker with…

Opal must have sensed my apprehension. "It'll be alright, Princess. I'll be with you. Now, why don't we get home so that you can get your beauty rest." I shook my head in amused exasperation. "Besides, I've been meaning to talk to your father about trash the two of you have been eating."

I rolled my eyes, "Opal, we haven't been eating trash."

"If you say so, Princess."

I shook my head again and started flying back down to the ground.

*F/KLPT*

Students weren't allowed on the school roof, and I was no exception, so I had to be alert and careful to sneak up here. I needed to get away. Nobody had said anything, but the looks… The school roof seemed like a good place for privacy on my lunch break. Opal wiggled out of my hair once I'd managed to hide behind the stairwell.

"Are you alright Princess?" she asked, concerned.

I let out a sigh as I sat down. "I'm fine, Opal. I just needed to get away from everyone for a while."

"Alright, Princess." She left me alone for a bit, as I ate my lunch, but after a few minutes she spoke up again. "I didn't see much of the trouble you've told your father and myself about."

Did, did… "I wasn't lying, I-"

Opal cut me off. "That's not what I meant to imply, Princess," she said reassuringly. "I just mean that perhaps those who had sought to harm you may have ceased such attempts?"

"That'd be nice, Opal, but..." I shook my head, "I think that they're just scared to do anything so soon." I didn't know if the school would actually keep an eye out for that kind of shit I've had to put up with, but I'm pretty sure that they've at least said as much.

Opal hmmed. "Perhaps. Perhaps not, the only thing to do is to wait. What kind of things did they even do, prior to the incident that made you flee?"

"Oh, you know, the usual stuff..." Did she really want me to go through all of that again? "Um, there's this one who does grabbing and hitting, and one who likes to steal my homework and pour stuff on me, but it's mostly like what Emma does-harsh words meant to tear me down. We, we've been over this, Opal, why are you asking?"

"I know what they've done to you," Opal began in a soft tone, "I just want to know what they've said, exactly."

"Why? Why do you want to know?"

"So that I know what to look out for, Princess."

"Why? Why do you need to look out for anything?"

"Because you're my master, Princess," Opal said flatly, as though it were one of the most obvious things in the world. "And more importantly, because you're my friend. Is it so wrong to want to be absolutely sure when you're in trouble so that I know exactly when to offer whatever help I can?"

"...No," I took a deep breath, "it's mostly just… You know how it is, I told you about how Emma uses secrets I've told her, but most of the bi-cretins-" Opal preferred that I not swear, and I'd rather she not lecture me right now, "most of them just do the standard high school "mean girl" things, like talk about how thin and plain and ugly I

"Hmmph, you're not plain and ugly Princess," said Opal, scandalized.

I shrunk away, I, I…

"You're not," Opal repeated.

I didn't respond.

Opal came down and patted me on the head with one of her wings.

"It's true though," I said to her after a moment. "I'm not beautiful like Emma or cute like Madison. Even Sophia has that fit athletic look."

"Princess," Opal asked in an even tone. "What makes that traitor beautiful?"

"She, she's tall… she's a model," I frowned. "Her mouth isn't too big for her face, she's not too thin, she's got..." I sort of made a double curve shape in the air with my hands.

"Hmm, Princess," Opal said in the most comforting tone I'd heard from her yet, "the first thing you need to realize is that large breasts are a crutch for women who lack presence."

I blinked. "You're not about to give me that load of crap about how looking good on the outside doesn't matter as long as you've got a good personality, are you?"

"Ononono, looks are important. It's sad, but that's the world we live in." Opal came around so that we could talk face to face. "Which isn't to say that a good personality isn't just as important, but that's not what I mean either." Opal cleared her non-existent throat. "Rather, looks are only one part of beauty. Confidence in the way you hold yourself and the way you conduct yourself, a strong presence is more important." Opal flexed her wings, "and trust me if they feel the need to tear you down, then at least some of them lack presence."

I chuckled, "That doesn't really help me, Opal."

"Not yet, Princess, but it will," Opal answered in a mischievous tone, "if you can out presence them, all but the most dedicated will lose their nerve when they come up against you."

"And how am I supposed to do that?" I quietly asked.

"Shoosh, baby steps princess," she didn't sound like she meant to be condescending, but… "for now, just try to smile."

I blinked, "what?"

"Smile, Princess, if any of those people stare at you, just think of something that makes you happy and smile." It sounded so simple when she said it but…

"What, what should I…?"

"You like flying, don't you, Princess?"

I did. The freedom of flying was one of the few things that made me forget… I nodded yes.

"Then just remember, Princess…" Opal paused dramatically, "you can fly, and those cretins can not."

I couldn't help it, I laughed. "Thank you, Opal." I finished my lunch and stood up to leave. "Okay, back in my hair. I need to get going before someone gets suspicious."

F/KLPT

I touched down outside of Winslow's front doors just after midnight.

"I cannot believe that the magical disturbance you sensed was here, Opal"

"Well, one of the disturbances, Princess," my wand corrected, "I sensed another elsewhere in the city, and I suspect that there may be at least one more."

I rolled my eyes, "whatever Opal. So, where is it exactly?"

"The strongest anomalous fluctuations are coming from the exact middle of the parking lot."

"...You couldn't have said that while we were flying, Opal." Seriously, I thought we'd actually have to go in the school.

I lifted back off into the air and flew the thirty or so feet to the actual location of the disturbance. It was faster this way… And I liked to fly. Upon landing, I held Opal in both hands and pointed her outwards.

Opal "hmmed," then bent in my hands to turn up and look at me. "This is most unusual, Princess."

"How so?"

"This is a mirror world, Princess."

When Opal didn't clarify, I spoke up. "Opal, I know basically nothing about magic. What's a mirror world?"

"A mirror world, Princess, is a pocket dimension that reflects the portion of the world around its point of entry," Opal began in a scholarly tone, "only a small handful of things are capable of generating one."

"So now what Opal?"

"So now, we go inside to see what's causing it." Suddenly there was a dark pit beneath me filled with rainbow lights.

"Opal, this is-"

"Adding imaginary axis to the fifth instrumental variable." The world around us was starting to get blurry. "Beginning inversion process. Confirming that complex space exists." Opal began glowing in my hands and I could no longer see anything around us. "Central coordinates established." A bunch of lines in the same white and rainbow of Opal's prana cannon began forming over the pit, starting from my feet. "Establishing mirror road with a two-meter radius." The lines formed a circle and a five-pointed star. "Beginning partial inversion of mirror world circuits."

"Opal, you're freaking me out," seriously, you don't just take somebody into a different… Holy shit. Everything was clear again… Except the ground was a mirror, perfectly reflecting the buildings and sky above it… Then something shifted, I got a bit dizzy, and then everything was back to normal… Except for the sky, I noticed when I looked up, which appeared to be made of triangles.

"Opal… Next time, I'm going to need a bit more warning before you go jumping worlds on me."

"Oh, I'm sorry Princess," she at least sounded embarrassed and a bit apologetic, "I was just so excited to finally get to work."

I sighed, "Okay, now, how exactly do we go about investigating this mirror world th-"

It was at this point that I was cut off by a gunshot and a sharp pain in my shoulder.

Opal shouted, "Taylor, fly!' So I did, as high as I could.

"Opal… Back when you saved me, you could tell how hurt I was… How hurt am I?" I was breathing heavily. Oh god, this was supposed to be a simple thing and now I've been shot.

"Calm down Princess," Opal answered, "as far as I can tell, it was a glancing blow. I should have you healed in no time."

I sighed in relief and then turned back to look at the ground. It was hard to see from up here, but I could make out a man in tattered gray pants and an equally tattered black vest, graying skin, and thinning white hair. It was aiming a pistol of some kind up at me, waiting for me to move.

"Opal," I said as I felt the pain in my shoulder receding, "what the fuck is that?"

"Taking the number of things capable of generating a mirror world into account," Opal declared without commenting on my language, "it can only be a manifestation of a Heroic Spirit."

I blinked and took a deep breath to calm myself, "you mentioned those before, what are they?"

"To keep it simple, Princess, a Heroic Spirit is born when a famous or infamous individual of great skill or power dies." So it was a famous ghost? "Rather than… well, I don't quite know what normally happens when someone dies, but instead of that, the person becomes a powerful spirit with abilities far beyond that of ordinary mortal humans."

"So a legendary dead guy is living in a mirror world in my high school parking lot?" ...I going to start keeping a list of things I'd never thought I'd say before I met Opal.

"Well… Not exactly, but the specifics can come later."

"So," I asked, "how do you beat one?"

"The same way you beat anything, really," Opal answered, "hit it until it dies."

"...And how do I do that without getting shot?"

"The spirit seems to be a younger one, so it'll be a weaker one. The gun implies that it's a ranged specialist… If you can get in close, you might be able to overpower it... " Opal muttered some stuff I couldn't make out… "The firearm does not seem to have any mystical properties of its own, judging from the damage inflicted. With the reinforcements being in the tranced state should give you, as long as you're not hit directly you shouldn't suffer damage that'll put your life in danger… However, the spirit's Noble Phantasm-that is to say, it's ultimate skill or weapon, is unknown..."

"...How screwed am I, Opal?"

"Not very, if you're careful."

After a minute in a Mexican standoff with the spirit, I took my chances and swung Opal at it while shouting "scatter shot!," sending a barrage of prana blasts in its direction heading right before I quickly flew, in a curve, towards where I expected the spirit to be.

My cunning plan was foiled by the spirit dodging to the left, then quickly shooting at me. I took the bullet in the thigh, and I feel I would have collapsed were I not flying. I held Opal in front of me and hissed "physical protection! " forming a four pointed star shaped barrier between myself and the spirit just in time to block another bullet.

I let go of Opal with one hand to check my thigh. I wasn't bleeding, so it couldn't have been that bad, and the pain was starting to recede as before. Once more, the Spirit held it's gun aimed dead at me. This close, I could make out more details… The cowboy boots, that its pistol was a revolver, and that it very strongly resembled a corpse.

"Well that's not terrifying," I said upon taking in the corpses visage. "Opal, I think that I'm about to do something very reckless."

"Princess, what do you mean-" Opal was cut off by my pushing forward, flying towards the spirit while the barrier from physical protection was still in place, pushing it towards the spirit where it took every one of the bullets the spirit shot at my way… More than that gun should hold, but magic's weird.

I managed to get up to ramming speed and bowl the spirit over while it continued to shoot, and I kept pushing. This mirror world resembled the parking lot and exterior of Winslow, and I used that to my advantage by pushing the spirit into one of Winslow's outer walls, pinning it.

"Opal, I need you to count off for me, because on three, I'm going to drop the barrier and blast the crap out of this thing!"

"Alright,' Opal answered. "One."

I thought of the ship I blasted apart my first night training with Opal.

"Two."

The corpse-looking spirit began twitching and glared at me with its dead eyes.

"Three!"

I dropped the shield and prepared to blast, but with great speed-greater than I'd thought it capable of, it whipped it's hand around and pointed its gun at my head. It shouted, in surprisingly clear English, "Thunder-" but was cut off by the massive prana canon I fired at it point blank.

The smoke cleared to reveal the simulacrum of the school leveled and a corpse man standing up out of the rubble. At first, I thought the fight would continue and I'd have to come up with some other way of beating it, but then it sort of faded away, leaving a card of some kind in its place. I let out a sigh of relief.

"As I suspected," Opal spoke up, "a class card." The card in question floated to the ground. "Take it, Princess."

"What's a class card?" I asked as I stepped into the rubble, "I thought it was a heroic spirit?"

"It is, Princess," Opal said, "and you should be proud of yourself for defeating it, but a Heroic Spirit rarely leaves the Throne of Heroes where they reside. Usually what you encounter would be a lessened copy of the Spirit summoned through other means, usually as a Servant."

"And class cards are one of those means?" After getting to where the spirit had vanished, I picked up the card and took a look. There was a picture of a medieval warrior with a bow and a red skirt, with the word "Archer" at its feet.

"Yes and no, Princess. Class Cards contain a mostly mindless copy of a Heroic Spirit. Properly utilized, they could grant a wielder access to the powers of the heroic spirit within." Opal wiggled out of my grip and flew around to face me. "But, under certain circumstances, they will instead manifest as a corrupted and evil version of the spirit they contain."

"You seem to know a lot about these things, Opal."

"Oh, well," Opal answered, "my older sisters were once sent on a mission to retrieve a set of class cards. A general idea of how they work should be expected of any kaleidostick after that."

I looked at the card again, "so, I'm gonna assume that these depictions are less than accurate? This woman with the bow looks nothing like that corpse, and it had a gun, not a bow."

"The Archer Class contains spirits specialized in ranged attacks," Opal supplied, "bow and arrows, firearms, throwing knives, anything like that, really."

"Okay Opal, and there's at least one more of these things?"

"It's probable that there are at least six more, Princess." Six? "It's rare for heroic spirits to be called unless there's a full set, usually in the standard classes."

"So I've got to fight six more tough opponents?"

"Most likely, yes," Opal said, "though it would be prudent to finish this conversation later."

"Why?"

"With the heroic spirit defeated, there's nothing maintaining this mirror world," Opal answered, "it could collapse at any moment."

"Opal," I said through clenched teeth, "that's something you should have said earlier. How do we get out of here?"

"Leave it to me, Princess." Opal was far too cheery for what just happened, but after a moment we were back in the parking lot of the real Winslow, which was unharmed.

I lifted off into the air. Now that that was over, I was beginning to enjoy the rush of adrenaline from the fight. It'd been scary, but it was fun… I'd apparently beaten some legendary hero or villain… And I'd gotten to level Winslow with no consequences! I couldn't help but smile, despite everything it'd been fun.

"Opal," I said as I began to fly home, "Do me a favor?"

"What is it, Princess?"

"Don't tell my Dad that I got shot."

Opal chuckled, "Alright Princess.