A/N: I am aligned to the Orange end of the spectrum, and am Powered with my Greed for reviews. Feed me! I want it all! MINE!
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Takamachi Nanoha of 2814
by Shadow Crystal Mage
Chapter 2: Enter Ragi–, er, RAISING Heart!
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. Please don't sue me.
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"ALL RIGHT YOU POOZERS! YOU'RE HERE BECAUSE YOU'RE SCUM! YOU'RE JUST FANCY ANATOMY TO PUT A RING ON! BUT I PROMISE YOU POOZERS, BY THE TIME I GET DONE WITH YOU, YOU'D HAVE EARNED THOSE RINGS, AND CAN KICK THE ASS OF ANY POOZERS STUPID ENOUGH TO PUT UP A FIGHT YOU COME ACROSS! NOW, DO ANY OF YOU POOZERS HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?"
A hand came up. It took a while to notice since even raised, it was still significantly below head-level of most of the lined-up cadets. "Um, drill sergeant Kilowog…?"
"WHAT IS IT, 2814?"
"What's a 'poozer'…?"
...
Nanoha had no idea how the Guardians had managed to make her training, which had taken a couple of weeks on Oa, turn out to be a mere half-day on Earth. Perhaps it was some kind of astral projection time manipulating resort in a bottle sort of thing.
Still, she went the bed sleeping the sleep of the just, and the just-finished-with-boot-camp. The next day was a perfectly average day. Get up, get dressed, admire how saccharinely close her family was, meet her friends at the bus, go to school, head home, hear mysterious voice calling her name…
Oh, poot! Not this again!
...
At the vet, Nanoha stared at the ferret intently. Her ring said it was tired and injured, but a quick scan of the surrounding area had revealed nothing she could make sense of. Well, it looked like she had her first case! Obviously, some mean person was going around hurting cute little ferrets. There would be JUSTICE!
…
Where would she start?
Hmm… maybe Superman would know, he did say she could ask him any time if she needed help or advice…
After cram school, Nanoha figured had just about enough time…
Ducking into an alley as she and her friends split off, she had her ring to a quick pulse scan to confirm no one was about before she raised her clenched fist, the ring appearing from under its invisibility field on her finger. Technically, she didn't need to do this, but a lifetime of magical girl shows had ingrained it into her, and now that she had the opportunity, why not?
"By the Power of the Ring, In the Name of the Guardians!
In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night,
No Evil shall escape my sight!
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my Power, Green Lantern's Light!
Magical Girl Green Lantern Nanoha, Make Up!"
She never lost the urge to giggle childishly whenever she did this. Bands of green light flashed around her, molding itself to her skin and replacing the clothes she wore. They melted away as she rose in twirled in the air. Sure, it was time-consuming, but there were standards and traditions for her to maintain!
The standard black bodysuit appeared around her, with the triangular green portion at her upper torso, the Corps' emblem on her chest. This, she had quickly decided, was insufficient, non-traditional, and a bit too revealing. The green bows on her hair took shape, in Corps shapes, dangling like bells. Next came wrap-around skirt modeled after something she saw in a video game, in Corps-black with green cuffs and trimmings, such as a big bow on the back and lacy frills and scalloped edges. The Lantern Emblem on her chest hung like a necktie, and ice, heavy shoes, excellent for stomping covered her feet.
She landed on her toes, cheating with a little levitation, and twirled just to see it all flare out as the mask painted itself on her face. She wasn't very satisfied with it, but it would have to do. She giggled, then cough to compose herself. "Ring-chan, find Superman and bring me to him, really quick! But don't forget to be careful about those sonic booms, okay?"
"Command acknowledged."
"Eh, what did I say about just saying 'yes'?"
"… yes ma'm."
"Good! And thank you, Ring-chan!"
"…"
"This is where you say 'you're welcome'."
"You're welcome, ma'm."
"Great! Now, onward! We need to get home in time for dinner!"
...
"Someone's… going around hurting cute little ferrets?" Superman repeated, just to make sure he'd heard right.
Nanoha nodded sadly, a determined expression on her face as she floated in the air, her legs crossed demurely under her skirt. "Yes, it was horrible! He was all beaten up and injured. My friends and I had to take him to the vet! I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Please help me, Superman-sama."
Superman winced. Oh, it was going to be painful, explaining to an eight year-old that there was just some things they couldn't fix. "Nan-, er, Green Lantern, sometimes–" he trailed of as he shifted what he was carrying.
Nanoha blinked. "Superman-sama, isn't it awkward having that plane on your back?"
"A little, yes."
"Need any help?"
"If you please."
"Happy to."
...
Nanoha had just put down her phone on its cradle and was just getting ready to go to sleep when she heard the voice again.
Can you hear me?
Nanoha paused, one eyebrow twitching. "Ring-chan," she said, "Do your audio records register anything being spoken by someone other than myself and you over the last… ten seconds?"
"No, ma'm."
You, who can hear my voice, please! Please lend me some of your strength! Please, come to where I am!
Nanoha looked hard at her ring. She really should have learned her lesson about mysterious voices asking for her help…
She sighed. Well, she supposed that the life of a Magical Girl– no matter what the Guardians said, she knew that's what she was!– was always filled with strange events like this. "By the Power of the Ring…"
...
She flew, a green contrail glittering behind her. The Makibara Animal Hospital was just passing below her when a strange sound suddenly assaulted her ears.
"Ring-chan, ear-muffs," she commanded, and hard light rose up to her ears, shaping themselves into fuzzy bunny-eared ear protectors. They did no good against the sound, which was making Nanoha slightly dizzy and a bit nauseous.
"Warning: Spatial dimensional displacement phenomenon detected," her ring warned her. "Cause unknown. Detected energy inconsistent with spatial dimensional displacement effect."
The noise eventually receded, and Nanoha grimaced, letting her earmuffs dissolve. She was just about to initiate a ring-scan of the area when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned in time to see what looked like a van-sized tarry dust bunny pass through, crashing through the hospital's outside wall and into a tree across the street.
Nanoha came back to herself as the ferret leapt at her, and she instinctively caught it. "Wha– Ring-chan, what is that?"
"Unknown. Scan inconclusive. Matter cannot be identified. Suspected cause: magic."
"You… came for me. And did your ring just talk?"
Nanoha blinked and looked down. "Did you just speak? Ring-chan, did he just speak?"
"Yes, it did."
There was a roar, and Nanoha and the ferret looked up, realizing that the evil black dust bunny seemed to have recovered. Nanoha felt the urge to flee, but restrained herself, the warm feel of her ring and the thought of the loud and vehement disappointment of Drill Sergeant Kilowog made her hold her ground. She'd defeated Sinestro after all, and he was a VERY BAD MAN. She could do this! She held the somehow-talking ferret in the crook of one arm while she extended her fist, ring clearly visible. "By the authority of the Guardians of the Universe, I am a duly appointed officer of the Green Lantern Corp, Sector 2814, and if you are a sentient, cognitating being, then I order you to surrender to face possible Terran and Oan criminal charges!"
The evil dust bunny gave this no thought and attacked.
"NANOHA EMERALD SMASHER!"
The thing exploded into tarry goop as battering-ram like ring construct blasted through it, taking what was left of the wall behind it. Nanoha winced. "I'm sure I can fix that…" she murmured to herself.
There was a roar, and the thing shot out towards Nanoha, multiple goops bits coming together to smash her. She turned her body to put it between the thing and the talking ferret who was crying out in surprise, an emerald shield barely coming together before her lack of real concentration allowed it to be smashed apart. The thing struck her square, her energy aura taking the force, dispersing it across her body painfully as the backlash of her collapsed construct struck her mind. She flew back, instinctively snapping off a plain energy beam, which merely passed through it.
Shaking her head to try and clear it, Nanoha pushed off into the sky, a green firefly trying for air. "What is that?" she asked desperately.
"Unknown. As previously stated, ring scans are inconclusive. 87 percent probability it is a product of magic," her ring replied.
"I know what it is!" the ferret said in her arms, and Nanoha looked down at it. "It's the result of a Jewel Seed! It will take too long to explain, but it's something that I'm trying to recover! But I need your help for that!"
"What do you need my help for?" Nanoha asked.
"I need your power! I'll repay you! I promise!"
"I am an officer of the Green Lantern Corps. It's my job to help."
The ferret scuttled around as Nanoha began to dodge and shield to keep herself from getting hurt. She tried to counter-attack it, but her constructs seemed to pass through or at best only impede it. She was beginning to be really frustrated with this thing.
"Here!" the little ferret said, holding out a small red jewel in its teeth towards her. "Use this!"
"What do I do with this?" Nanoha said, hastily taking it into her ring hand making sure she didn't drop it.
"Just repeat after me…"
...
Nanoha looked down at herself, then at the staff in her hand, then finally at the ring on her finger. "Ring-chan, make a note: from now on, my Corps uniform is to look exactly like this, in Corps colors. Understood?"
"Noted and understood, ma'm."
The ferret stared at Nanoha, astonished at how quickly she'd gotten the hang of Ragin– er, Raising Heart. "What kind of device is that ring of yours?" he asked.
Nanoha raised her finger, wagging it back and forth. "Uh uh, Ferret-san. It's my turn to ask things. What was that, and who are you? If I'm looking at possible danger to my sector, I need to know."
The ferret hesitated, but seemed to consider it a valid point. "My name is Yuuno Scrya…"
...
In the years to come, many things would be whispered of Takamachi Nanoha, the so-called 'Green Devil' of Earth. They'd say that she always fought with a smile, and that her enemies– those that lived and were female, anyway– had an oddly high probability of becoming her allies (something that caused her to appear in a ridiculously high number of hearings, both to stand as testimony and to prove her mind hadn't been compromised).
They say she talked to herself, a strange stick that she carried around, and her ring. The latter wasn't so strange among Corpsmen, who sometimes went long periods with no one else to talk to, but she was known for teaching it how to sing and encouraging it to develop into its own independent entity (also a cause for lots of hearings). Even afterwards, centuries later, that particular Ring insisted on being referred to as 'Ring-chan', was the only Ring who also acted as an independent Corpsman as times, and tended to get angsty every 365th day, supposedly on the death of the Green Devil herself.
Others say that she never died, and was transcended to a higher plane of existence, becoming a sort of anthropomorphic energy personification of Will Power itself. The remaining Guardians will neither confirm nor deny this, though they always look nervous when asked about it.
No one knows how much of these things is true. What IS known, however, was that on her third day of training, she caused the Great Oan Sinkhole, preserved from then on as a warning to cadets and Corpsmen alike not to be inspired by something called Sailor Moon, and was the cause of the first instance in which a particular ring construct was officially banned by the Book of Oa from use on Oa's surface. 'Ring Construct: Summon Sailor Saturn' quickly joined the ranks of such things as 'gazing upon the creation of the universe' and 'going to Gotham City without permission'.
Several weeks later, 'Ring Construct: Starlight Breaker' was added to a suddenly growing list…
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And somewhere, Sinestro was plotting his revenge against a 9 year-old girl.
We know. He doesn't feel too manly thinking it either. But it's the principle of the thing, darn it!
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- To be continued...
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A/N: I know it's supposed to be 'Raising Heart', and 'Raging' is supposedly the result of a bad fan-sub, but I listened to the original Japanese track, and I can hear the 'g'. They're saying 'Raging'. It's right there in the audio!
I like DrillSergeant!Kilowog better than DCAU!Kilowog, so he's the one I'm using.
Will continue after I fishing the first season properly. I WILL find a way to make Fate a properly justifiable Yellow Lantern! The color scheme is too good to pass up!
In DCAU continuity, this is happening Superman's third season. By my reckoning, there's a year between that and the start of 'Justice League', by which time Nanoha will be eleven. That should be… interesting.
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OMAKE: Magical Girls' Might!
Inspired by Ryuus2 and a motivational poster
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"Are you all ready?" Nanoha asked.
Usagi nodded on behalf of her team. "Ready!"
Sakura nodded as well, determined. "R-ready!"
"You can do it, Sakura-chan!" Tomoyo called out from the sidelines. "I have faith in you! Make sure to pose for plenty of panty shots!"
"HOEEEEEEEEE!"
Fate turned to her. "Did you have to bring your girlfriend along?"
"And the same to you," Evangeline shot back on the girls behalf. Fate colored and looked away.
"Illya and Mayu-chan are ready!" Illya said
One by one, the hosts of girls declared their readiness.
"Then repeat after me!" Nanoha called, raising Ragin– er, RAISING Heart. "Let us, the Magical Girl Corps, swear our oath!"
As one, they spoke:
"In garb for play, in tightest tights!
We giggle and pose while we fight!
Let those who drool as we come in sight,
Ogle our action… MAGICAL GIRL MIGHT!"
The evil generic forces of the generic dark kingdom sweatdropped as this little bit of bad poetry was recited.
"WE ARE THE MAGICAL GIRL CORPS OF SECTOR 2814, AND BY OUR ASSORTED POWER, WE WILL PUNISH YOU!"
Far, far away, various conquering forces quietly took Earth off their 'Take-Over' list…
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END!
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I'm trying to think of a version of the Creed with the words 'loli' and panty' in it somewhere…
Please review, C&C welcome.
Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.