WARNING: Self-inserts detected. Proceed at your own risk.
Yes, there are self-insert characters in here. Fifteen of them to be precise. Each one a member of the fanfiction writing group known as Ala Iridia.
This story came about as a result of a discussion on the TvTropes forums. It started as a joke, but when I volunteered to write the story, most everyone else thought it was a good idea. Even after they read all the stuff I've written, they thought it was a good idea.
Ok, I'm kidding. Two people encouraged me. The rest were indifferent. Until I actually started posting snippets for them to read.
Obviously, putting self-insert characters into a story is a Bad Idea, but it was decided that since I was already on double-secret probation, that this would be a fitting punishment for me. If the story sucks, then it becomes my fault. Real simple really.
Each self-insert is a highly trained professional. Do not attempt this at home. Do not attempt this at someone else's home either. The lawyers are beginning to complain, and we are really tired of hearing about it, so please don't try it.
By the way, I don't own Negima, or any of its characters. Neither do any of the members of Ala Iridia. But the members of Ala Iridia do own their self-inserts. So there.
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Chapter 2 Introductions are in Order
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Offscreen Moment of Awesome
By EvaUnit01 AKA Gundam Kaiser
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Fuck.
Brilliant, man, just brilliant. Screams and a burning town over the hill, so naturally I'm heading right for the place that screams ENTER AND DIE. Why am I doing that again?
Oh yeah, I remember now. I don't know how to turn down someone in need of help. Damn you, conscience.
There was a dozen or so other fellas at the hill who came down with me, but somehow we've all managed to separate ourselves.
After catching sight of some kind of monster, I somehow managed to keep my shit together and hide around the corner of a building. I mutter to myself, "The hell kind of mutt was that?"
Stupid monster dogs.
Looking about, the fire's actually relatively tame as far as scope goes - yeah there's a whole section of the place in flames, but maybe half or so of the rest of the village is mostly intact.
Suddenly, I hear a scream. Peeking around my cover, I see some people cornered by the aforementioned monster. They looked decidedly different from any of the guys I remembered on the hill.
What would Kira do? Actually, scratch that, getting into the mindset of a dude with a God complex never ends well. In that case, what would Lelouch do?
Quickly remembering a few scenes from Code Geass, I look around and observe a warehouse that, according to the sign, stores a bunch of alcoholic crap.
And, if I run my ass off in a straight line, I'll pass by a burning shed with a very attractive-looking half-burnt stick I can use for a torch.
Presuming luck is on my side... I can do this.
Taking a deep breath, I duck out and make a run for the winehouse, slowing down only a little to get the makeshift torch in one hand, and to pick up a good-sized piece of rubble in the other.
I then stopped just short of my goal and then yelled, "OI, YOU SHITTY MUTT!" and then threw a rock at it.
Normally, my aim kinda sucks, but I got lucky and beaned it in the head.
It suddenly occurred to me that the success of my plan hinged on getting a demonic mutt hellbent on killing me.
While it was bleeding where I got it, it sure as hell wasn't dead; soon as I saw it come turn and glare at me, I paused, wondering how it would react.
When it howled, probably to summon reinforcements, I bolted into the building and up the staircase. Gonna need gravity on my side for this.
I was fortunate that it seemed to prefer stalking behavior as opposed to a berserk rush, because otherwise I would've probably been dead meat.
Once I got to the second floor, I found a crapton of barrels marked 'RUM'. I had just enough time to rearrange a few and roll them to the top of the stairs when the hounds started running up.
The adrenaline from ohmigodgottatryandstayalive must've been making me giddy, because despite myself I grinned and in deliberate Engrish yelled "BARRERUUUU..."
"PHANTOOOOOOOOOOM!" Then I shoved the barrels down the stairs, watching as they collided with the hounds, causing several yelps of pain as the barrels burst, drenching the ground floor with rum.
Seeing that they were still pissed and intent on coming after me, though, I panicked - actually, I'd been counting on the fact I'd panic, because if I were thinking rationally there's no way in hell I'd have done this - and threw down the torch, before breaking open a window and leaping out just in time to avoid the
FWOOOOOOSH
Yeah, that. Thank God my sense of smell doesn't work, or I'd be probably puking my stomach out in the next few minutes.
Then I crashed into a huge pile of straw. Damn, I've had better luck in the past five minutes than I've had in the past five weeks.
At that time, one of the people I saved from that first mutt came around and offered me a hand up. "You okay, stranger?"
Gratefully, I accepted it. "Shaken halfway out of my skin, but yeah."
Shaking his head, the guy asked, "I appreciate your help. Man, you must have a lot of guts, to set a winery on fire while you're still inside it."
Pausing for a second, I muttered, "Um, yeah, guts, it that's what you want to believe, then who am I to dissuade you?"
"What's your name, stranger?"
Now, I hadn't yet put my finger on it, but something had been not quite right with me for some time. And now that I had a moment to cool my head and think rationally, I did. I was in a strange place in an unknown time, and I'd just incinerated a monstrous breed of dog that I was positive simply did not exist.
So since I'm probably either hallucinating/dreaming, or some mysterious force has put me in an alternate reality - yeah right - something tells me that divulging my real name would be unwise.
"My real name is a secret, but you can call me... Unit." As I gave him a thumbs-up, I explained, "It's 'cause I'm a one-man rescue unit!"
Mage and Magic
By UberNimrod and SCM of 2814
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He didn't know where he was. He had no clue how he had even gotten there. All he was certain of was that he didn't want to be where he was. And if that didn't sound like the start of a bad self-insert, then he was a Twilight Fan.
Not a minute previous, he'd packed the cord to his iPad in his vest next to his engraving drill before grabbing the iPad itself. Then he had appeared here, falling on his back (luckily the pillow in his back pocket cushioned the fall) and holding the iPad for dear life.
He had been rubbing his sore back when he had followed everyone else to the top of the hill. He saw the devastation below as well as saw the monsters that were present. He made the decision right then to not be anywhere near any of it. He wasn't crazy, after all. He knew this bit. He was an ethnic, non-Caucasian character with an abrasive personality and, most importantly, wasn't a hot girl with huge cans. Smart thing to do was cut and run, and hope Death by Pragmatism wasn't on, because if he was the first to die just to prove how serious the situation as... well, wouldn't that be ironic?
So he ran. Or tried to anyway.
Fortunately, he noticed the monster eating one of the sheep moments before it noticed him. He turned and ran towards the burning village, confident in both his speed and ability to at least find someplace to hide until things settled down.
Clearly, in retrospect this meant he'd already gone delusional from stress...
Be that as it may, the plan did hold long enough for him to get to the village and find a hiding place. It was a fairly well-decorated hiding place, with three statues just in front of the door. He moved around them and started to enter the building when he paused, then proceeded to take another look at the 'statues.' "Oh, THAT can't be good."
They were too lifelike to suit him, but he reasoned that if someone had turned people into statues, then they would not be back by anytime soon, on account of already having searched the area for people. Still, pragmatic paranoia made him reach into one of his vests many pockets, then, not finding what he was looking for there, search several more until he found the credit card-sized rectangle of shiny metal he used as a mirror, in case the gorgon who'd done this (of COURSE it was a gorgon, what else did this?) was still around.
Someone once defined Logic as a way of going wrong with confidence. That confidence lasted just long enough for him to be shocked by the appearance of a monster a moment after he had entered the house. Apparently, it hadn't gotten the memo that the building was already searched.
He tried to calculate his odds, mentally kicked himself for trying that because real-life math did NOT work that way and gave up when the monster roared its disapproval and charged. That's when he noticed the long knife that it carried. He noticed it was rather sharp after he jumped over a couch the instant before the knife came down and chopped it almost in half.
It did not, in any way, look gorgon-ish.
Of course, if he had to pick the monster out of a police lineup he would be in trouble since it had little in the way of memorable features except for a strange Nike Swoosh shape on its forehead, but when your life is in danger, you don't turn around to see what it is that's trying to kill you. It is a survival instinct based on Common Sense. Horror movies commonly show people who die from turning and looking at the monster trying to kill them.
He turned and ran back the way he came, turning every first corner he came to and trying everything he could to get out of the thing's sight. He could hear it coming up behind him, steps light but footfalls oddly heavy, and that didn't really make sense, but—
As he passed a burning house, something grabbed the collar of his vest and pulled, hard. He stumbled, the vest half-slipping off his shoulders. Possessive instincts that in hindsight he would realize were quite frankly suicidal made him try to shrug it back on, only to be jerked back by a more deliberate pull.
He tried to go with the motion, trying to use it to tackle the thing and get away as it fell. He was about half-successful.
As he fell on top of the larger creature, who from what he could see had only been knocked down by surprise at the unexpected maneuver, an idle part of his mind wondered suddenly why he hadn't run into a pleasantly feminine-looking creature. There were always things like those in mythology, surely it wasn't too much to ask for one, was it?
Self-preservation and fear finally double-teamed avarice, and he struggled to shrug out of his vest, even as he cried for the stuff in it. He swung wildly, managing to slam a fist into the things eye, and it flinched, grip loosening as it instinctively raised hands to its eyes. "Oh, you bastard!" it cried in a surprisingly effeminate voice that for some reason reminded him of John Cleese. "You fucking bastard!"
Not even hearing that was enough to slow him as he awkwardly tried to run, to take advantage if this opportunity… and felt something hit his leg below the knee when he was trying to stand up. He felt strange line of heat as he suddenly collapsed, wincing as he caught himself on his hands. That stung!
He tried to keep moving, to push himself up and get his legs back under him, something, anything!
"And to think I was gonna bring you home to my little Cynthia, " it said behind him. "You little bugger! You know how hard it's gonna be gettin' my little girl a souvenir now that we've burned down the gift shop?!"
He felt one of its oddly heavy, oddly light steps and started to search his vest quickly. There was another step, then a pause.
He prayed, and spun, rolling over.
The things heavy knife cracked the reddened stones he'd been on, and he jerked, grabbing the thing's forearm— it felt like furry rubber, a more tactile part of him noted— pulled, using it as leverage to pull himself toward its face, stabbing with his other hand.
When telling others about it later, after his first educational experience with REAL painkillers and being drugged against pain, he admitted that he had gotten lucky. Very lucky. His engraving drill managed to go right into its eye.
The monster hit the floor, dead as Eugenics as a serious science. Poor Cynthia, he thought. No souvenirs. He tried to stand, then discovered why he his thighs felt so wet.
My leg's off. That's not good at all. His brain wanted to make the Monty Python quote, but he was failing as to which line came first. That was a bad sign.
He felt heat at his back. The burning house, he realized. Random thought came together even as he realized he was losing lucidity, and possibly life. Huh… so this is what it feels like…
One chance. Hope. Fire… find. Find. Burn. Pain…
Dark… Darker…
Huh… I'll take the lack of robed skeletons or hot goth girls with top hats a good sign…
As he passed out from the pain and blood loss, he saw one last thing, and had one last thought.
The hem of a robe.
Crap.
Entrance
by Sinclair
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The village was burning. This much was glaringly obvious by the screams and light show. Clouds of billowing smoke rose above, stinging in the eyes. Every once in a while indistinct shapes seemed to be moving through them, but that must have been a trick of the mind.
For the n-th time in the past few minutes, the man wondered what he was doing. It was hard to breathe from ash and heat, doing their best to roast him alive. In hindsight, running toward a village ablaze instead of away from it certainly wasn't the smartest idea.
And why was it so dark? Even with the thick smoke covering the sky, he had run at least half a mile before reaching the village. All the while under a starlit sky. He could have sworn it was midday a few moments ago.
Pausing to collect his breath from a coughing fit, the man fumbled in his pocket, finally retrieving a mobile. No time to ponder that now. Need to call the fire department. How was that again? 9...
Nope. Not that one either. He tried them all, but none came with a signal. This was frustrating! Glaring at the phone, the man almost didn't notice someone turning a corner, followed by... What the hell?!
The man could do nothing but gape, as what could only be described as a Cyclops came barreling down the street, thick legs pumping furiously. Whether by fate or fixation it didn't notice him leaning against a wall as it run past, bellowing a battle cry.
He wasn't sure how long he had been standing there, his brain trying to reboot. That was a cyclops! There was no doubt about it, even if a large portion of his brain screamed of impossibility. Now he knew what he had seen in the smoke. There were demons around, even if he refused to believe it. Demons burning down every house and hunting down every human they could find. And he's been standing around in the street for how long? Oh CRAP!
That single thought finally managed to kick the stalled brain into working order enough to at least not stand in the open like a target. Feeling like he was moving in molasses, the man dragged his body to a nearby door. First priority: Find shelter.
The hut was relatively untouched by flames, which was curious considering how spacious it was. Nobody was inside. Thankfully, there were no signs of blood either, so the occupants had probably fled to safety. At least he hoped that was the case.
Second priority: Find a weapon.
The man made his way to the living room. There, by the fireplace, he spotted what he was looking for. If these really were demons, or fey, or whatever, and if the legends were true, then they had a crippling weakness to cold iron. And failing that, a good smack with the poker would work on most other things. Of course a +5 Blade of Demon Bane would have been preferable, but beggars can't be choosers. If only he could find a radio.
Moving slowly, almost hugging the walls, the man made his way from house to house. There was precious little cover other than the occasional overturned cart, and the constant shouting, screams, and... other sounds, filled him with undiluted terror. Sure, he had thought many times about living in a fantasy world, but he never imagined it would be so absolutely terrifying.
He jumped behind a dustbin just in time for a huge demon to barrel down the street. This was becoming a much too common an occurrence in the past hour. Or was it just a few minutes? When you go on adrenaline and fear, trying desperately to think of anything that would reduce the chance of the day (or night as it were) ending in horrible painful death), you kinda lose track of time. If anyone claims not to be scared in a situation like this, he's either lying or insane. Possibly both.
It was when he was sneaking around in the general direction of where he figured should be the town square; looking for a post office, town hall, or anything that could allow him to determine where he was beyond the immediate 'in a village', that he heard it. A clearly female voice shouting one word that hit him like a sledgehammer. "NEGI!"
Omake:
By SCM of 2814
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Somewhere on Venus, a little loli with cute little wings, enormous but purely decorative fangs and absolutely no clothes on went over to her mother, a rather pretty, albeit flat-chested woman with light-purple skin and with a snake's tail instead of legs from the crotch down. "Mommy, was that daddy? Is he finally coming home?" Daddy had been busy looking for work for the past several months. After all those budget cuts the government had needed to make to deal with the energy crisis, he'd had to be let got from his already-low-paying job as a cook in one of the Rainyday House's local call centers. But he'd FINALLY called to say he'd had a job, outsourced from Mars, and what's more, he was even going to be allowed to come home the next day! He'd promised Cynthia he'd bring her back a nice souvenir from his job, something cute she could play with.
Cynthia's mother turned to her daughter, and Cynthia felt a feeling of dread. "Cynthia... that was the job agency..." she said. "Your father... your father won't be coming back. They said... they said there'd been an accident on the job, something about an engraving drill..." Cynthia's mother collapsed, her tail folding up beneath her as she burst into tears.
The little 70-year-old stared blankly, still too young to understand the concept of mortality, even as a part of her instinctively knew what it all meant. "But... what about my souvenir?" she asked hollowly. She'd been so looking forward to keeping it in her room, and playing with it, and teaching it magic, and maybe trying out those things from those magazines her friend HaROOnah had shown her, the one where the boy and the girl had been joined at the waist...
Somewhere in Wales, a body with one leg cut off twitched, somehow feeling he might have missed out on a good thing...
Nimrod Notes:
For the record, the quote is, "Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence" by Joseph Wood Krutch. If I had been him, I would have shot my parents for giving me a joke name.
But here is where I will be putting random notes about the story. Anything from how I was inspired to quotes, to whatever strikes my fancy.