Interlude The Second
Armsmaster had just finished compiling a database of common themes of North-American, Western-European, and Eastern-Asian myths and legends when a chat window blinked on and Dragon's avatar appeared on his monitor. "Good evening," the other Tinker greeted.
"Good evening, Dragon," Armsmaster answered as he began uploading his compiled database into his helmet.
"What are you working on?" Dragon asked.
"I'm installing a database that should help deal with a certain errant young heroine," Armsmaster answered.
"You still haven't tracked her down yet?"
"No, I had an encounter with her earlier this evening," Armsmaster answered. "She was right where my algorithm said she would be."
"Then why this database?" Dragon asked.
"After I informed Princess of the satellite incident," Armsmaster began, "I asked about what exactly she'd been up to and her Tinker-Tech volunteered some information tied up in mystical trappings. The gist of it is that Princess needs cards to work her powers and she's been collecting them from pocket dimensions."
"That seems odd," Dragon replied.
"I think it might be psychosomatic," Armsmaster began, "or perhaps she and her Tinker-Tech don't want to break character. When her tinker-tech claimed that they were looking for cards with the powers of legendary souls, she was quite insistent that she wasn't crazy and invited me to retrieve one as proof."
"So either she thinks she needs these cards," Dragon finished, "or she's trying to play a heroic role. Perhaps a magical girl?"
"Exactly, and in either case playing along with her story makes the conversation run much more smoothly." It'd taken several conversations with Myrddin before Armsmaster had figured that out. "Regardless, she and her device both seem to believe what they say."
"So, is the device sapient," Dragon asked, "as Glory Girl's report implied?"
Armsmaster thought on it. "It's hard to tell," he said, "I'm not exactly the best with people, and our conversation was very brief, but it seemed intelligent enough. It was quick to question why Princess wasn't being charged with a crime after the incident with the satellite and quick to comfort her when I mentioned the judge's corruption."
Dragon was silent for a moment. "...You did tell her about the Simurgh's involvement, right?"
"I did not."
"Why not?"
"Because," Armsmaster answered, "firing massive blasts of energy into the aether is a very reckless thing to do. She's already blown up a ship, Dragon." The database had finished uploading to his helmet, so Armsmaster began making the final adjustments as he spoke. "It might not have been her fault this time, but if she thinks it was then she might not be so reckless in the future."
"I suppose," Dragon said. "So, I take it you're accepting the offer to retrieve this card?"
"I wasn't going to at first," the blue-tinker replied, "I was just humoring her, but her device took it seriously and revealed that my algorithm is more accurate than I'd thought." Armsmaster allowed himself a brief moment of pride. "And by doing so I stumbled into an opportunity."
"By helping with her little mission," Dragon began…
"Not only do I get a chance to see her in action," Armsmaster finished, "but I've got a feeling that she'd be more willing to consider the Wards program if I give her a hand. That way she doesn't just know me as the man yelling at her for being reckless." And getting Princess into the program was a priority. Not exactly a high one, but she was a child with a great deal of destructive potential in a city with gangs always looking for new capes. Not only was she a perfect example of why the Wards program was created, but if she were coerced or manipulated into joining Empire Eighty-Eight or the Merchants… "Besides," Armaster said as he concluded his adjustments, "how hard can it be to find a card?"
F/KLPT
It was only after Princess called the PRT in an attempt to get into contact with him that Armsmaster realized that he'd never actually told her to how to schedule a meeting. Things had been worked out, however, after a few on phone conversations involving the girl and her father, and he was waiting for her on the main platform of the Rig when Princess touched down. He activated his Helmet's recording software, as Princess had agreed for this excursion to be recorded for research purposes.
"Good evening," he greeted, "are you ready?"
"Y-yeah," Princess answered somewhat hesitantly.
"Are you alright?" He asked.
"Yeah," she answered, "it's just-"
"My Master is just suffering from performance anxiety," the girl's tinker-tech device interrupted. "Honestly, we've done this four times already, I fail to see why your presence makes her so nervous. I mean, just because she used to have a set of undergarments with your emblem-"
"Opal!" Princess shouted, her face flushed red. Behind his helmet, Armsmaster winced. He'd have to edit that out of the official copy of the recording. He didn't quite remember why he'd thought those were a good idea. On the other hand, Princess was clearly a fan, or at least had been, and he might be able to use that. But first, he needed her calm.
"Just relax," he said with a practiced, gentle smile. "Why don't you walk me through what we're about to do?"
"Well, first Opal has to take us into the Mirror World," Princess began.
"The entrance of which is conveniently located just a few feet from where we're standing," the now named Opal supplied. "We won't have to stumble through the interior of this structure, looking for an entrance that might be in a wall or between floors."
"Yeah," Princess continued, "and once we're in we just have to beat the servant and get the card."
Behind his mask, one of Armsmaster's eyebrows raised. "Servant?"
The device in Princess's hand sighed. "Alright, lesson time: There exists outside the boundaries of time and space an intangible record called the Throne of Heroes. Whenever a figure of significant notoriety, the heroes and villains of history, legend, myth, or sometimes literature-King Arthur and Mordred, Perseus and Medusa, Jeanne D'arc, Jack The Ripper, Frankenstein's Monster-dies, they become a Heroic Spirit and are recorded in the Throne of Heroes. Sometimes a being who never actually existed will become so well known that they simply come into existence as a spirit in the Throne. Are you following so far?"
Armsmaster nodded while noting that Princess showed no sign of disbelief in her device's words. Armsmaster himself did not believe in magic, but if the device wished to divulge information on its functionality or its creator's power, he wasn't going to turn it down, even if he had to sort the facts from the mystical trappings later. Still, he made note to research this Throne, just in case.
"Now, Heroic Spirits are powerful, with weapons and abilities that border on the miraculous, but they very rarely leave the Throne. However," the device continued, "copies can be made. These copies are much reduced from the original, and thus are summoned in various Class Vessels. The cards my Master and I have been collecting are one such method, involving a mindless copy, while a servant is a sapient copy. Sometimes something goes wrong, and the card makes a corrupt and mindless Servant who has to be destroyed before you can collect the card. Recap time is over now."
"Actually, if you don't mind I have a few more questions," Armsmaster asked. He hadn't been expecting combat, but it wasn't surprising in hindsight. Princess still seemed a touch embarrassed though, so he kept talking. "What are theses class vessels?"
"Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Berserker, Assassin," Opal replied hastily. "There are seven of them, each one is an archetype, each of them emphasizes different abilities, we've already got four, which means whoever is down there is either Caster, Lancer, or Assassin. Are we done now?"
"They're a bit more general than the names imply," Princess added helpfully. "My archer uses a revolver."
As Princess was neither blushing nor seemed to have her nerves on edge, Armsmaster concluded that his round of questions and conversation with Opal had served its initial purpose-that it had been potentially enlightening about the nature of Princess's powers and technology was a bonus. "I suppose we can get going. You said the entrance was a few feet from here?"
Princess's device flew from her hands and floated a few feet further from the edge from where they were standing.
"It's a bit independent, isn't it?" he asked.
"She," Princess corrected, "and yeah, she's been like that since we met." Met? Armsmaster took note of that. If she hadn't created Opal then… A question for another time. "And I'm sorry," Princess continued, "she's been a bit irritable lately. She's not exactly happy that you're coming with us."
Armsmaster "hmmed" and followed as Princess walked to her device and gripped it.
As the girl held her oversized cartoonish Fairy Princess Wand out, Armsmaster took note of the words Opal said. "Adding imaginary axis to the fifth instrumental variable. Beginning inversion process. Confirming that complex space exists. Central coordinates established. Establishing mirror road with a two-meter radius. Beginning partial inversion of mirror world circuits." Off the top of his head, it sounded like techno-babble, but then again non-tinkers tended to think that his own ramblings were techno-babble. It was all being recorded and would be analyzed later. As a portal and a "magic circle" appeared beneath their feet and the world began to distort, Armsmaster briefly wondered if he could get a copy of Opal's schematics. If he could incorporate pocket dimensional or extra dimensional technology into his halberd… But that was a thought for another time, the entrance into the pocket dimension was complete. Armsmaster noted the crystalline look of the sky in what was otherwise identical to the rig and-wait, no. It was rare, but here and there were a few East Asian characters written on strips of parchment in a few out of the way places.
"The spirit is Japanese," Armsmaster said after a few moments. The software in his helmet was already going through the mythological database for mythological figures associated with paper talismans as he drew his halberd and began scanning his surroundings for any sign of movement. Princess had a card in her hand and was likewise wary.
"Take caution," Opal called out, "such talismans could be an indicator that the servant has claimed this mirror world as a territory, and that's the signature skill of-"
The device was not allowed to finish, and her wielder suddenly turned and shouted "physical protection," summoning a translucent, white and prismatic barrier in the shape of a four-pointed star in order to intercept a sudden blast of fire. "Caster," she said in the direction the blast had come from, and Armsmaster turned to see the enemy.
She was crouched down at the very edge of the Rig above the water, sandaled feet and one clawed hand supporting her weight. Pinkish hair, with pale skin and east-asian features combined with sickly yellow, feral looking eyes blended into a bizarre and unsettling visage. The woman was clad in a blood red kimono and a long, bushy tail came from behind her. At first he assumed it to be part of the outfit, but then he saw the pointed, furry ears on her head. The woman sniffed the air, like a wild canine, and then stared at him with a longing gaze and a wide, vulpine smile.
Armsmaster's blood ran cold for just a moment, and could not react as Princess blasted the foxwoman. As the servant lept to dodge, his software returned with "húli jīng," "gumiho," and "kitsune." Immediately the Chinese and Korean fox-spirits were discarded, and his database began searching for kitsune legends associated with paper talismans.
With speed he had not expected, the kitsune landed on him, knocking him to the ground. She brought her face to his own, far too close, with an amorous look in her demented eyes and tried to lick his cheek, like a dog, though his helmet impaired her. "Mine," the spirit whispered to him. It was then that he regained his bearings and pushed the kitsune from him with great force. The relatively small woman was thrown back a short distance, just in time to be struck by a small blast of Princess's opal-colored energy, which sent the spirit tumbling backwards.
Armsmaster made a note to praise Princess's sense of coordination and timing as he jumped to his feet with speed that only a man with years of practice moving in powered armor could achieve. He assumed an offensive stance with his Halberd and charged the spirit. Just as he swung his weapon down at her, the kitsune's arm shot out like lightning and grabbed the polearm's handle and held firm, preventing him from striking a decisive blow. She then performed a series of kicks and one handed punches that made him quite happy that he'd had the foresight to reinforce his armor in certain locations.
Armsmaster wiggled his left pinky, triggering a mechanism that locked his gauntlets in place, then began stepping backwards and pulling while twisting at the hip in an attempt to break the kitsune's grip on his halberd, but the fox-woman held tight and it became a dangerous waltz away from the edge of the Rig. The deadly dance was interrupted by a tearing sound. The kitsune's ear twitched and she turned her head in the direction of the sound. From his position, Armaster could follow with his eyes to see that Princess had torn a paper talisman from it's placement on one of the walls of the Rig.
In response, the Kitsune released it's hold on the Halberd and gave Armsmaster a shove, sending him back a foot closer to the edge as the spirit drew six more such talisman's from her sleeves and hurled them towards Princess. The girl in white looked to the kitsune in a determined manner and waved her wand before her in a circle, creating six balls of opal-colored energy. As the paper talismans reached the halfway point between the spirit and Princess, they began to burn, and Princess swung her device forward, causing the spheres of energy to erupt outward into beams to meet the talismans. Unfortunately, the talisman's pushed through the beams to reach Princess, triggering them to explode in a massive ball of fire.
In the time it took form Armsmaster to unlock his gauntlets and clench his fist in rage, Princess tumbled out from the explosion and landed in a crouch-the card from her hand slammed on the ground and a "magic circle" forming beneath her. Soon Princess was enveloped in light, which drew the spirit's attention, and Armaster returned to the offensive. Rather than try and engage in melee, he activated a mechanism that recalibrated his Halberd into a device that launched a large pellet at the spirit. She was too distracted by the light show to dodge and the pellet exploded into Armsmaster's personal blend of super concentrated containment foam, trapping the spirit.
Or so Armsmaster thought. No sooner had six gunshots gone off, fired by a Princess who was now dressed as a cowgirl for some reason, that the kitsune erupted from the foam in a burst of flame and an ear piercing scream of primal rage. She took one look at her remaining talismans, each pierced by a bullet, and screamed again. She glared at Princess, and looked to him, and then from her sleeve produced a fan with several paper talismans, which exploded in a flash of light and was replaced with an ornate mirror which floated into the air high above them all.
And then the rig was replaced by a dark field, surrounded by countless Japanese gates, or torii, as the fox-woman summoned yet more paper talismans and began chanting
"God who resides in Izumo.
Aesthetically certain,
Breath of the soul.
Residing in the mountains and watery heavens, Amaterasu.
Let this freely become the proof of purification.
Thy name is Weighted Stone of Tamamo.
Become the sacred treasure, Mirror of Uka!"
Some kind of energy was being gathered into the mirror. Armsmaster tried to charge the spirit, not knowing what was going to happen but not liking it, but the spirit leaped into the air and grabbed the mirror. Flashes of light appeared around the spirit and massive spheres of fire and ice soon took their place. "Just kid-"
The kitsune was cut off but Princess's shout of "Thunderer!", an exceptionally loud gunshot, and three bullet holes appearing in her chest. Armsmaster turned to Princess, who blew the smoke from her revolver, spun it in her hands, and holstered it. He looked back to the spirit to see it fading away and a card, not unlike the one Princess had held earlier, slowly floating to the ground.
Moments later, the field and Torii were replaced by the image of the Rig, and Princess stepped forward to claim the card. "I guess no one told Caster not to monologue or give people clear shots?" Princess asked with a smile on her face. She glowed for a moment, the card she'd used earlier emerged from her chest-returning her to her normal outfit in the process, and both Caster's card and the card she had used in the fight were slipped into a holster at her hip. Opal, who had apparently become the gun, levitated from Princess's side where she was grasped by her wielder.
Armsmaster took a moment to breathe deeply, and then asked of Princess, "you've fought four of those by yourself?"
"No," Princess replied. "I've got Opal, so I'm never alone."
"And as long as I'm with my master," Opal added, "she can do anything she imagines."
"Anyway," Princess picked back up, "we should get out of here before the mirror world collapses." And with that ominous statement, she took to the air and lazily floated to where they had come in at.
More hastily than he cared to admit, Armsmaster joined her. "For the record, Princess, 'the pocket dimension can collapse' is something you say before you take someone into it.'"
"Sorry," Princess answered sheepishly as her device brought them back up onto the real Rig. "So, um, are we done?"
Armsmaster ignored how his software produced facts about "Tamamo-no-Mae" just a few moments too late to be useful, and filed the information away for later research. "Not quite." The leader of Protectorate ENE affixed a practiced smile. "Have you considered joining the Wards program, Princess?"
He was not expecting Princess to wince. "Yeah, I'm not sure that I'd do well in… yeah."
"Are you sure?" Armsmaster asked, "The Wards get a steady paycheck, a trust fund, and all the resources they need to safely test the limits of their powers." He'd wanted to emphasize safely, but thought better of it. "In your specific case, help collecting your remaining cards can be-"
"Look," Princess said, "this was nice, and fun," fun? "So I'll be honest with you: The absolute last thing I need right now is more teenage drama and more rules to follow-especially in my career as a cape."
"If you're having trouble at school," Armsmaster guessed. An accurate guess, considering what the PRT knew of Princess, but still a guess. "Then the PRT can pull some strings. Get you transferred to a new one, or get you someone to watch your back."
"I mostly do the cape thing for fun anyway," Princess said. Armsmaster suppressed a disapproving grunt at the declaration. "And to help Opal, and so one of the cards doesn't get into the real world."
"Wait, what!"
"It's highly unlikely," Opal answered, "but under certain circumstances, the corrupted Servant can escape the Mirror World. I think Gilgamesh is still stomping around Fuyuki City."
"Okay then," Armsmaster said simply, "but I still think-"
"She said no, Master of Arms," the wand interrupted. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to manipulate her into joining your little club."
Behind his mask, Armsmaster blinked. "We know who you are, Miss Hebert. We've known for far longer than we've been speaking with you and your father. We've known for sure ever since your encounter with Glory Girl and have suspected such ever since the incident in the alleyway." Miss Hebert stepped back in surprise. "You don't even wear a mask." The girl's glare at her wand was amusing. "You're a powerful cape, Princess. The gangs are always on the lookout for those. They will find out about you, if they don't know of you already, and they will try to coerce and manipulate you into joining them, or else eliminate you as a potential threat. It wouldn't be very hard for them to find out your civilian identity to go after your father or your friends or anyone else in order to deal with you." The look on her face told him that what he was doing was working. "If it seems like I'm being manipulative, it's because the last thing I want, the last thing the Protectorate and the PRT want, is for a teenaged girl to be killed or forced into crime on our watch. We can much more easily protect your master, Opal, if she's one of us."
He sighed. "Look, Princess, go home, talk to your father about it, sleep on it, and think about it in the morning. We can't force you to do anything, but please reconsider. You're dismissed."
Princess took off into the air and flew away, a bit shakier than she'd been seen to fly, but steady enough that she was able to make it back to the mainland and vanish from Armsmaster's line of sight easily enough. He hadn't wanted to play that card, but… He hoped she'd reconsider joining the team. He entered the Rig proper and began heading for his workshop. He needed to analyze the recording and edit out the mentions of Armsmaster Brand Underwear and Princess's civilian identity before it could be archived.
F/KLPT
"Fuyuki City was a city in Kyushu," Dragon stated, "it's only major claim to fame is that it was the home of the blade-tinker Muramasa, who died fighting Leviathan at, well, Kyushu. There's no indication that anything even remotely resembling an ancient Babylonian king has ever resided there."
"Thank you, Dragon," Armsmaster replied.
"You're welcome, is there anything else you need?"
"Actually, I've got a theory I'd like your opinion on, but first… Are there any records of Tinker-Tech spontaneously coming into existence during a trigger event?"
'...I'd have to check," Dragon said after a moment, "why?"
"Princess commented about having 'met' Opal, not created and… If our profile on Princess is accurate, then she spent a great deal of time isolated." Armsmaster had gone into lecture mode. "We know for a fact that there's at least one major incident of bullying, and a comment she made about teenaged drama tells me that there's more to it than that. If it was a long time thing, then she fits the profile of the average master trigger. However," he continued, "long-term bullying is also long-term mental stress and a problem that, from my understanding, isn't always easy to solve."
"Master/Tinker, with a Master projection taking the form of the Tinker-Tech?" Dragon asked. "It wouldn't be the most outlandish combination of power types."
"More than that," Armsmaster, "Opal mentioned that Princess could do anything she imagined as long as they were together, so why does she need those cards? And how did they get there in the first place?"
"...My God," Dragon said. "You think that she's creating these cards and spirits herself?"
"Obviously not deliberately," Armsmaster clarified, "but she's clearly powerful and as far as I could tell, the wand was speaking literally." Armsmaster finished editing out the mention of Armsmaster brand underwear. "If she has some kind of mental block that makes her subconsciously believe she needs to earn certain abilities? She made comments that lead me to believe she's got some kind of independent streak or need for control that would be consistent with a master trigger and the theory. What do you think?"
"I think it… Powers are strange. It's certainly plausible, but I'll need to see your footage before I can give you a definitive opinion."
"I'll forward you a copy when the archival edits are complete," Armsmaster stated. "I'm planning to recommend that she be given a Trump rating. Even if I'm wrong about the breadth of her power, she demonstrated the ability to switch between entire power sets."
"She's got a magic theme and dimensional manipulation abilities," Dragon added, "Just like Myrddin. I'm not saying there's a relationship, but-"
"But it's something to keep in mind," Armsmaster finished. He finished his edits in silence, archived the footage, and sent a copy to Dragon. "While you're looking at that," Armsmaster said, "I'll be doing a bit of research about Tamamo-no-Mae."
"You do that," Dragon replied in a tone that Armsmaster couldn't quite place.