Winds To The Sky Stars To The Heavens
Chapter One: The Coming Together Of The Aces

Kiara

The morning I started at Sky High, I was doing a bit of . . . mid-morning practice with Vajramon.

Translation: I was, as usual, practicing magic when I wasn't supposed to be.

You see, thanks to magic, we had found a way for Oxmon to Digivolve into her Ultimate form and bypass her Champion form for one hour exactly so that we could practice. My twin brother Dragon and his partner Strabimon did the same, but Strabimon only Digivolved to his Human Champion form as I called it, because his Ultimate form was too big, his Mega form was way too big, and his Beast Champion form was, well, a beast with four legs and a tail, and not at all suited for any sort of practice with Jutsu and chakra, which usually required handsigns to mold.

Mom had forbidden me from practicing magic from this anime series I had watched and promptly fallen in love with not because she didn't like it or because it was different than the hero powers she and Dad had, like flying or super strength, but because she was worried that it would backfire on me and get me seriously hurt. On top of that, in the series, one of the character's ultimate attacks took a year off her life every time she used it.

That didn't stop me though, because I had figured out a way to use my ultimate attack, the Ragnarok Breaker, without any side effects thanks to quite a bit of forbidden practice. That and a good few practices while in a Unison with Vajramon (okay, so technically it was Bio-merging, but I called it being in a Unison because in the show I got the idea to practice magic from, Unison Devices/Familiars could merge with their masters to enhance their abilities).

As for how Vajramon and I became partners, well, a couple of years ago, I found this weird blue card and when I swiped it to see what it was, my scanner turned into a silver Digivice. After that, I went to the Digital World with Takato, Rika, Henry, Kazu, Kenta, and Suzie and Ryo who later showed up, kicked the other Devas' butts, beat some sense into their leader whose name I could never quite pronounce much less spell, and then beat the D-Reaper and kicked its sadly non-existent ass from here to the moon. During that time, I learned to Unison with Oxmon.

She was as Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha obsessed as I was, and that was saying something. Together, we managed to recreate a few attacks, such as the Divine Shooter, the Ragnarok Breaker, and Thunder Rage. My personal favorite happened to be the Ragnarok Breaker. Although, the Divine Shooter was pretty handy for situations where the overwhelming destructive power of the Ragnarok Breaker was a too much, because the 'Breaker was great for leveling a city but small things like hitting the center of a specific target? Well . . . not so much.

If only because of my magic and my ability to Unison with Oxmon, I'd be able to get into the Hero tract at Sky High. My oldest brother Will?

Well, I wasn't too sure about him.

He hadn't discovered his powers yet.

Granted, neither had I, but I had destructive skills that would get me into the Hero tract.

So anyway, Vajramon and I were locked in a battle, one which would probably only end when one of us decided that it was getting too late for practice and gave up. I had a feeling it would be me, because as good as I was with swords, Vajramon was way better.

She'd been training for years longer with her swords than I had mine. Like her, I used a pair of longswords kept in sheaths, but unlike Oxmon and her evolutions, I preferred to keep them over my back instead of at my sides because it made it easier for me to draw them in a pinch. However, for the purpose of this battle, we were just using wooden swords the exact same size shape length and weight as our real swords— there was a much, much smaller chance of us getting hurt beyond a few bruises and the occasional splinter with the wooden swords.

If it were just one sword each and I had a bit more training, we might use live ones, but as there were four swords to keep track of, using live swords was not a good idea. Once I got a little farther in my training, Vajramon would show me a spell to magically dull the edges.

I heard either Mom or Dad coming and hastily unsheathed my wooden swords, making it look like I was just sparring with Vajramon, something Mom didn't mind too much.

"Everything okay in here? Nobody's died yet?" Mom asked, amused, taking in the numerous bruises on my arms and my slightly shaky hold on my swords.

I sighed. "Mom!" I protested. "We're not that bad!"

She gave me a look. "If you're sure."

Once her back was turned, I gave her the one fingered salute, which made Vajramon laugh before she de-Digivolved, her one hour a day as an Ultimate without using a Blue Card up, as I heard Layla-nee-chan, Will's not-so-secret crush, enter like she did every morning.

As I changed out of my sweaty practice clothes and into some fresh clothes that were better suited to being worn on my first day of high school, I heard the alarm that signified hero requiring trouble go off. Mom and Dad were about to head out on another rescue mission.

I headed into the kitchen as Layla-nee-chan turned on the news, which of course showed Mom and Dad defeating the huge robot-thing with no issues.

Man I wished I could do that.

It wasn't like I needed any sort of training.

Oxmon and I could already fight just fine together, especially when we were in a Unison.

I didn't see why I needed to go to Sky High, but Mom and Dad insisted— it was a time-honored family tradition, they said. It would be good for me, they said. Despite knowing how to fight already, I still needed training, they said. There were new things there I could learn, they said. The law stated that as I was under age I still had to be in school, they said.

Well I wasn't buying it, or at least all the reasons but the first. I personally thought that it was just because it was a family tradition and they wanted the prestige of having two Sky High graduates in the family. Oh I knew they loved me, but sometimes, I thought that family honor was way too big of a deal in the hero world. Parents and bloodlines and powers meant everything, as well as being able to graduate from Sky High as a hero. To have three Sky High hero tract graduates in the same house, and for them to be the children of two other Sky High hero tract graduates would be a huge honor. The family name would be remembered for years.

Hell, the Stronghold name would probably be remembered for years to come, especially if mine, Dragon, or Will's children graduated from the hero tract.

Mom and Dad saved the day as usual, Dad grabbed a souvenir in the form of the robot thing's left eye, and life continued as usual. The bus for Sky High arrived right before they got back.

Will wanted to know if it was the bus to Sky High and I clamped a hand over his mouth, Dragon doing the same (because neither of us had any wish to get caught by villains).

"Quiet." I hissed.

"Do you want to alert every single supervillain in the whole damn area that this is the bus to a certain special high school?" Dragon added.

Will sighed. "You're right. Sorry imouto, otouto."

I glared at him and (re)introduced my fist to the top of his head. "Don't call me little!" I snapped. "I'm almost as tall as you are! Don't make me use a 'Breaker on you."

"And don't call me little either!" Dragon growled. "Don't make me using a Pale Fire on you!"

Will shuddered. "No Breakers or Pale Fires necessary." He promised. "I'll stop calling you little."

I beamed, clutching the pendant that was an exact replica of the one that one of my favorite characters from the show, Hayate, had. "Thank you."

I took a seat in the back of the bus and waited for it to move.

Since Will, Layla, Dragon and I were the last ones, the bus went over an unfinished bridge.

Most people screamed in fear. I wasn't one of them.

Instead, I bit my lip and flat out refused to say anything.

Dragon screamed, but not in fear. No, my twin was screaming in excitement.

This was nothing like flying with magic. I supposed that I would just have to get used to it, the way I got used to holding my swords in a reverse grip.

When I first started learning, I wanted to hold them in a regular grip, but that didn't work because they kept getting in the way of eachother. So I had to learn to hold them in a reverse grip, like Vajramon did. It was a real pain in my rear, sometimes literally when I dropped the things and then sat on them because I was so tired that I couldn't even stand up and just dropped where I stood, but it was well worth it. I finally learned to hold the things right.

As soon as we got there, we were 'greeted' by a pair of thugs, one who could stretch himself and one who was a speedster.

Like all speedsters, his feet ran almost as fast as his mouth did.

The stretcher claimed he was there to collect our fifteen dollar "new student fee" which was bullshit. Mom and Dad told us all about Sky High, and neither of them ever mentioned a new student fee, or other such nonsense.

I merely sighed and charged a 'Shooter. "Divine Shooter." I muttered and let loose a bolt of blue energy which first hit the stretcher before looping around to hit the speedster. I noticed that a pink and a yellow bolt had joined my own blue bolt.

"She shoots," I heard a girl mutter. The pink bolt hit the speedster before it hit the stretcher.

"She scores." Another girl muttered as the yellow bolt did the same.

I grinned and looked around. "Well, well," I said as I put up a sound shield. "It looks like the three Aces have come to grace the high school in the sky."