A/N: surprising as it may seem, this is only crack by virtue of the fact that I'm writing it. In every other aspect, I'm trying to be serious. I might be failing utterly, but I'm trying. I WILL have more examples of my work in TvTropes, darn it!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!
...
Takamachi Nanoha of 2814
by Shadow Crystal Mage
Chapter 3: On the Job: A Day In the Life of a Green Lantern.
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters in this story.
...
Being a Green Lantern, Nanoha found, was a lot more labor intensive than being your average Magical Girl. They just had to wake up late in the morning, be lazy, make a mad dash to school, have annoying siblings who were always there at inappropriate moments to complicate their life, fight random ghouls who could always be defeated by the attack you have at hand– unless it's an episode where you get character development, (read: new powers), in which case you had to have an emotional moment– and really spent most of their time worrying about boys.
Nanoha didn't see the point of boys.
Being a Green Lantern was similar, she supposed. She had a secret identity, she transformed, she fought for justice– admittedly or a more literal variety than most magical girls did– she had, in Yuuno-kun, a cute and fuzzy side-kick, and she had, in Superman, an older advisor who could actually assist, which is something most Magical Girls only dreamed about.
Still, most Magical Girls only had to protect their town or city. If they were a deconstruction who were part of a sentai-team, they had to maybe at most protect the country. Green Lanterns had to protect 1/3600th of the known universe. Each.
When she told Yuuno this, he'd gone cross-eyed and looked like his brain was crashing. Nanoha had felt that way herself, but after she'd realized that most of space was exactly that– empty space– it had been much more manageable. Plus Earth seemed to be the 'bad neighborhood' area of her sector– a designation she felt mildly insulted and ashamed about– so most of the time she had to stay here anyway.
It certainly made for an activity-filled day, and quite an interesting schedule. It also seemed to have an unusual backlog of things that needed to get done…
...
Nanoha nodded in satisfaction as Raging Heart sealed the Jewel Seed that had been possessing the dog. Restraining it had been simple enough, and with the Intelligent Device Yuuno had given her, Sealing it had been even simpler. She'd had collected all of them already, if she had a choice, but unfortunately, the magical stones were proving to be frustratingly undetectable to her ring.
She looked down at herself. The white uniform she wore– a 'barrier jacket', Yuuno called it– was as frustratingly difficult to analyze for her ring as the deactivated Jewel Seeds. Her ring could tell her the jacket's specific density, thickness, weave, mass, volume, and other such but it was frustratingly blank of what it was made of. Ring-chan was as close to apoplectic as a ring could be.
It also resisted molecular reorganization, unlike her regular clothes. Still, that was an easy enough problem to deal with. A thought and an effort of will, and green light constructs had plasted themselves on it, giving her a suitable Green Lantern-y appearance. Have to uphold the dignity of the service, after all. Properly masked and greened, she took to the air once more.
After all, there were things she had to take care of…
...
Sakura and Tomoyo were flying from the site of the most recent crisis involving the Clow Cards when someone coughed behind them. "Excuse me…?"
They turned, nearly falling off in surprise.
A flying, masked girl, glowing green and holding a jewel-topped staff hovered next to them. She smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry to have to bother you, but are you the magical girls who were involved in–" she seemed to check the ring on her finger, above which some kind of notepad seemed to float. "– an incident where a giant girl fought a dragon?"
Sakura hung her head. "Hoeeeeeeee…"
...
Green Lantern-chan, Tomoyo thought, was very nice.
That did not mean she'd have second thoughts about bashing the girl's head in with her camcorder if she tried to take away her Sakura-chan. MINE!
Currently, the girl was nodding as Sakura finished explaining about the Clow Cards. "I see. Is there any indication of what this… end of the world will be like?"
Sakura shook her head. Green Lantern-chan made a frustrated sound. She looked at Keroberos who was stubbornly pretending to be a stuffed animal. "Don't you have anything to say?"
Sakura chuckled nervously. "Why would he have anything to say?"
Green Lantern-chan smiled at Sakura, not exactly patronizingly, but somewhere in the general vicinity. "I'm a magical girl too, remember? I know how these things go. Besides, my Deputy told me he was magical."
"Deputy?" Tomoyo asked. A cute little furry thing crawled up to Green Lantern-chan's shoulder. It was , for some reason, wearing a domino mask and a green and black sock-like outfit. "Oh, he's so cute!"
"Thank you," it said.
There was a beat.
Green Lantern-chan's smile became beatific, almost Tomoyo-esque. She resisted the urge to sue for copyright infringement. The saintly, mysterious smile© was hers! "I told you, I'm also a magical girl. You don't have to worry about anything from me, Kinomoto-san, though I must ask you try to limit the property damage you cause and to be a bit more discreet. I am concerned about the danger these 'Clow Cards' might represent to the people I protect. You seem to have the problem well in hand, but if you need help, feel free to call me, especially if you feel you might be getting in over your head. I know the tendency of magical girls in those kinds of situation is to just become more determined to do things with their own power, but there's no reason for you to need to do it lone when there are people who can help, and it could lead to a lot of people being hurt if you can't manage it."
"Hoe?" Sakura said, wide-eyed. "You…you're willing to help me? Really?"
"Of course!" Green Lantern-chan said. "That's what we Green Lanterns do. Besides, it would be nice for me to get a phone calling telling me what's going on instead of needing to find out on YouTube."
Sakura's eyes went wide. "YouTube?"
"Yes," Green Lantern-chan said, shaking her head. "There are a lot of videos of you there, fighting these Clow Cards. Most seem to think it's some kind of amateur fan loli panty-shot series."
Horrified, Sakura turned to Tomoyo. She smiled the saintly, mysterious smile©, clapping her hands together. "The world needed to know of the beautiful, sheer awesemoness of wonder that was Sakura-chan!"
"HOEEEEEEEEEE!-!-!-!-!-!"
Yuuno turned to a suddenly more animate Keroberos. He said hesitantly, "I'm sort of new at this. Is this what all 'magical girls' are like on your world?"
Keroberos gave him a flat, inscrutable, but somehow pitying look and raised a stubby arm, patting the ferret on the back. Yuuno's head drooped. "I was afraid of that."
"I find pudding helps," Keroberos advised. "Pudding and video games."
...
There was a giant turtle rampaging down the Ginza.
"IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE GODZILLA! WHY ISN'T IT GODZILLA?-!-?-!" some random idiot in the crowd asked.
"KA-NE-DA!"
"WRONG MOVIE, DUMBASS!"
A giant green hand suddenly descended from the sky, picked up the giant turtle and spirited him away. People cried out even more, pointing as the surprised beast was pulled into the clouds, and disappeared.
People waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
"That's it?" someone said. There was a general murmuring at this anti-climactic turn of events.
Some time later, city hall received an envelope. It contained a photo of the giant turtle, and a note saying, "Turtle-san is now far away and enjoying life as a member of the Atlantean Engineering Corps. Sincerely, Green Lantern, Magical Girl."
"P.S. If you need references, please talk to Superman-sama."
...
RIIIING!
"Lois Lane."
…
"I'll see Superman gets the message. 'Green Lantern', right? All right. Bye. CHIEF!-!-!-!-!"
Clark Kent, listening in a few desks away, blinked several times. Giant… turtles? What was Nanoha up to over there?
...
"WHAT? A NEW MAGICAL GIRL HAS APPEARED?"
Mizuno Ami winced. "Er, no, the news just says that a giant green hand appeared out of the sky and took the giant turtle away. Although city hall reports someone left them a note claiming to be the magical girl who took the turtle away…"
Everyone turned to look at Setsuna.
She shrugged. "Don't look at me. I'm not important anymore…"
"Oh, for crying out loud Setsuna, no one cares abut Pluto any more!" Haruka snapped. "So it's no longer officially a planet! Get over it!"
Setsuna's lip trembled. "BAHHHHH!" she cried.
Michiru sighed. "She's been inconsolable," she said to the others. "All those pictures at Deviant Art aren't helping."
"Go ahead, talk about me like I'm not here!" Setsuna cried. "After all, I'm not a planet any more, not like the moon, so why should my feelings matter?"
There was a knock on the door.
After frantically scrabbling and trying to calm the depressed Time Guardian down, Michiru opened the door, and blinked, staring at the short glowing figure on the other side. "Yes…?" she asked a bit breathlessly.
"I'm very sorry to trouble you," the glowing green girl with the staff said, smiling politely. "But this is listed as the last known address of Tomoe Hotaru, and I was wondering if I could talk to her? I was hoping she'd be able to help me understand what happened at Infinity College some time ago, since I have to file the paperwork on it, and I'd like to interview her on her observations on the Sailor Senshi."
Michiru blinked. "The… Sailor Senshi?"
"Yes, I'm hoping to use her observations to somehow track them down to talk to them. I'm like to pay my respects to the country's senior-ranking magical girls," the girl explained.
"AH! A NEW MAGICAL GIRL HAS ARRIVED!"
"IT'S GALAXIA ALL OVER AGAIN!"
Michiru sighed as the eavesdroppers behind her had hysterics. "I don't think now's the best time."
The girl blinked, looking around her slightly to see all the girls looking at her in wide-eyed panic. "Oh. Well, when it is, can you please tell Tomoe-san to call me at this number? It's very urgent I finish this paperwork."
Michiru accepted the card with the number on it. It, too, was glowing green, and slightly warm. "I'll give her the message. Um, who may I say the message is from?
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm the Magical Girl Green Lantern, at your service! And this is my deputy, Deputy-kun."
Michiru rallied. "Um, that's a very handsome… deputy you have there. With quite a fetching mask. And… uniform?"
"Thank you," it said, sounding slightly dazed.
Michiru nodded and closed the door as the girl turned away.
The other Senshi were looking at her, wide-eyed.
She held out the card. "Hotaru-chan, you have a message. Setsuna, where's the vodka?"
...
Shizuna knocked tentatively on the Headmaster's door. "Headmaster," she said, "there's a young lady here to see you. She wouldn't give her name, but she calls herself 'Magical Girl Green Lantern' and says she needs to talk to you about some paperwork?"
Konoe Konoemon gave the teacher a suspicious look through his eyebrows. "It's not anything related to Negi-kun again, is it? She's not another one of his…" he made vague circular gestures with his hand.
"No," Shizuna said, then added conscientiously, "At least not yet."
Somewhere, the multiverse shuddered at this idea.
"Well, send her in…"
A masked girl entered. "Excuse me Headmaster-sama, I'm sorry to bother you like this, but I'd like to ask you about this strange ionization in the air above your campus. Is it possible you have potential supervillains working in your campus' laboratories working on illegal energy experiments?"
The Headmaster thought of Chao and wondered just how he was supposed to answer that…
...
"Are you sure about your readings, Ring-chan?" Nanoha asked. She looked down at Fuyutsuki city. "It looks so peaceful."
"Positive, ma'm," her ring said. "Traces of irregular displacement of spatial dimensions. However, there appear to be no energy traces remaining capable of producing such dimensional anomalies."
"Hmm…" Nanoha thought. "Could it be magic, Yuuno-kun?"
"If it is, it would be very powerful magic," Yuuno said, holding on to Nanoha's redecorated barrier jacket to keep from falling. "We should scan for Jewel Seeds. "
Nanoha nodded. "Raging Heart, Area Scan!"
"Standby, ready."
"Ring-chan, maintain altitude!
"Yes ma'm."
Yuuno watched as Nanoha began scanning the area. It wasn't long before her eyes snapped open again.
"No Jewel Seeds," she told Yuuno. "At least not yet. But I think I found something I need to investigate…"
...
Green Lantern dropped out of a clear blue sky and said, to the four surprised girls, "Hello, I'm Magical Girl Green Lantern. Is there some sort of problem here? Some monster that needs to be vanquished? You see, I detected your energy and wondered what would need two magical girls…"
Illya took one look at Green Lantern and went "Ba-bump! Ba-bump!"
"Ah!" Illya said. "What is this feeling… I just felt an overwhelming pressure after seeing this girl!"
"Your MS (Maid-fetish Switch) levels have risen to over 53,000 Illya!" Kaleido Ruby said. "I really think you should suppress your power levels!"
The ferret on Green Lantern's shoulder sweatdropped. "Um, you know you said all that out loud, right?"
Miyu bowed. "We are perfectly all right, Green Lantern-san, we were just about to perform a magic ceremony to reset the local area's Earth Pulse to acceptable levels."
"Ah," Green Lantern said, looking a bit unsure what that meant, but seeming to accept it as benign. "Well, that's good. But should there be some kind of big emergency, like an evil kingdom from another dimension attacking, um, feel free to call me for help. Here's my number…"
Miyu politely accepted the green card Green Lantern gave her, and they watched as she flew back up into the air.
"Who was that girl?" Luvia said.
"Eh, probably some American Superhero," Rin said dismissively. "Come on, let's get back to work…"
An hour later, Kuro Illya was born…
...
"Magic?" Superman said warily.
Green Lantern nodded. "It looks like I might be running into magic a lot– nothing I need help with, it's just a small problem for now– but I wanted to ask you advice for dealing with it."
Superman stifled his instinctive groan of "I hate magic" and mused on this. "Don't get hit with it," he said half jokingly.
Surprisingly, Nanoha made a notebook and began writing this down. "And maybe you should learn morse code and sign language. If you're dealing with magic, sometimes this means getting transformed into something that can't talk."
Nanoha nodded, writing this down too.
"That sounds like good advice, Nanoha-chan," Yuuno said.
Superman blinked.
"Oh!" Nanoha said, looking embarrassed. "I'm sorry. Superman-sama, this is my deputy. Um… Ferret Lantern?"
"Nice to meet you," Superman said diplomatically as 'Ferret Lantern' gave Nanoha a look.
"Um, likewise," it said. "Though at the risk of my cover, my name is Yuuno Scrya, and I hope you refer to me as such. Ferret Lantern just sounds… weird. Sorry, Nanoha."
"Eh, well, it does sound pretty weird… oh! Ice cream! Can I have some, Superman-sama?"
Oh, why not? "Sure," he said, and bought them both a scoop. "You can tell me how you convinced Atlantis to take in the giant turtle…"
...
It was, Nanoha considered as she lay on her bed, a good day. There were no mysterious voices in her head asking for help or anything, a benefit she would never take for granted again. She sighed in contentment, deciding to forget her now-slihgtly reduced backlog. Seriously, what was Abin Sur doing all this time? Chasing around apocalyptic prophecies?
She considered that thought.
Guardians, she hoped not…
Are you sure it was such a good idea for me to talk to all those people? Yuuno communicated to her and by his tone, he was still a little embarrassed.
It's all right, Nanoha assured him. People expect things like that of their magical girls. Thanks to you, I managed to convince people I was a magical girl rather than some kind of space police.
But… aren't you some kind of space police? Yuuno said.
Yes, I happen to be that too, Nanoha said. But I am truly a magical girl!
Yuuno sighed and decided to roll with it. He wondered if other archaeologists had this kind of problem…
...
"Achoo!"
"Bless you, Indie."
...
"Achoo!"
"Bless you, Dr. Gates."
...
"Achoo!"
"Bless you, Syaoran-kun."
"Arigatou, Sakura-hime…"
...
"Achoo!"
"Bless you, Dr. Hall."
...
"Achoo!"
"Bless you, Mr. Garret."
...
"Achoo!"
"Are you well, Adam Strange?
...
SUPERMAN ON MYSTERIOUS DATE WITH ALLEGED 'MAGICAL GIRL' GREEN LANTERN! REALLY 700 YEARS OLD OR IS MAN OF STEEL'S SECRET LOLICON TENDENCIES OUT?
Clark really hated those tabloids…
Somewhere, Luthor smiled a mysterious, saintly smile– as opposed to the Daidouji saintly, mysterious smile©, which he totally stole it from– as he had his assistant Mercy blow up and frame that particular headline.
...
- To be continued...
...
A/N: And now, let's play spot the reference! I was going to throw Haruhi in there… but I realized even I didn't have THAT much crack on me.
Yet. (dun den dun DUN!)
Nanoha's not using Raging Heart (I'm sticking to this, since it's what the audio is clearly saying) to scan for magic, rather, she's going through the backlog of stuff Abin Sur didn't get around to doing. The Ring can't detect magic, only effects and side-effects, such as the air above the World Tree being heavily ionized by magic discharge.
Archaeologist is a really dangerous job that requires super powers just to survive. Or a really cool hat. And a whip.
...
OMAKE: Time Travelers Unite!
...
"Told you that wouldn't work," Rip Hunter said.
"So help me Hunter, if you say one word about that stupid 'solidified time' idea of yours, I'm blasting you to a Bad End Blackest Night timeline," Chao Lingshen growled. She set her luggage aside, wondering what she'd do with that oversized bust of her Ayaka had given her.
The time-traveler waved his hand. "Nothing like that. You were up against the Ten Thousand Master. Granted, he was still just a kid, but that's like saying Superboy is still just a kid. Of course you'd get your ass kicked."
Chao glared at him. She wondered if her power suit had enough juice to throw the bust at him.
"Anyway, look at it like this," Rip said, apparently thinking he was being helpful. "In Hypertime, everything that can happen, has happened. So obviously somewhere in Hypertime you managed to succeed."
Chao stared at him in horror. "We're not using that again, are we? I thought The Kingdom was its own separate universe completely not in line with this timeline! They promised!"
"It is," Setsuna said as she strode up carrying a bottle of vodka. She glared at Hunter. "He's just messing with you."
"Am I?" he said mysteriously.
"CHAO, PUT THAT BUST DOWN!"
The British-esque guy with phone box walked it, took in the violence and, in a fit of linear thinking, decided to bother Yuuko at her store instead…
...
END
...
Please review, C&C welcome.
Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.