A Saga of Tanya the Evil/The Irregular at Magic High School crossover.
I do not in any way, shape, or form lay claim to either of these works.
This is just a work of admiration from one fan, to those others that share the same interest.
The only characters or places I lay claim to are those solely of my own creation.
Chapter 12: The more things change….
Friday June 20th, 4:00PM, 2094
The two temporal refugees find themselves outside the entrance to the theatre club, having received a message from Willa that she needed to see Tanya for the final fittings for her outfit. Visha, of course, could not miss the chance to see her companion in her new outfit. The fact that she didn't exactly trust the mousy little girl with the Argent could not have anything to do with it, of course. That would just be silly.
The fact that Willa was a stammering, nervous mess around Tanya surely didn't make her more sure of her thoughts.
"I..I hope that you like it? I..tried to express the intent of the picture in cloth the best I could. I mean, of course I tried to make it just like you wanted, after all. I mean, how could I not? You were...Very kind in letting me do this…." Willa says as she looks anywhere but at the person she was currently talking to, or at least at.
"No, I'm the one that should be grateful. I would have died of embarrassment if I had been forced to wear that frilly thing in front of my peers, much less the many people that tune in to watch it." She walks forward, resting her hand gently on the neatly folded outfit, fingering the brim of the cap in an almost fond manner. "Should I go change into this, then, and we can see about the final fittings?" She asked the blushing mess that was fidgeting with her notebook once more.
"Y..Yes, please. If you want, there are some changing rooms right over there." Willa points as she fidgets some more. "I..I can get all of us something to drink...If you'd like?"
Tanya smiles and nods, her gaze flitting to Visha for a moment who straightens her back and smiles back at her. "Why don't you show me where everything is, and I will make tea for us, and coffee for Tanya? I do know exactly how she likes it, after all." Visha offers as she looks into the green eyes of her former superior, leaving Willa feeling very much like the third wheel.
Willa blushes and nods, tugging gently on Visha's sleeve to lead her towards the little kitchenette. "T..Thank you...It's right over here, Miss Serebryakov." Willa says as she leads the way.
Visha watches her, then sighs as she makes a decision regarding the mousy little mage. "Visha. Please, just call me Visha. It's what all my friends call me." She says as she smiles down at the short mage. She feels a weight lift off her shoulders at how Willa smiles back at her.
"T..Thank you Visha…" She swallows and starts to help get the stuff out to prepare the drinks. "Your girlfriend is something else." She says quietly, not looking directly at Visha.
Visha laughs softly, a pleasant sound like always. "She isn't my girlfriend, and yes, she is. She is demanding, pushy, can be oddly clingy at times, coldly logical one moment and wildly passionate the next but I would be lost without her." Visha says in a soft, almost wistful manner much to the bewildered look that Willa is giving her.
"She...isn't? But...You two are so close, I just assumed…" She blushes and casts a sidelong look, squeaking a bit as she catches Visha regarding her with those intense blue eyes of hers. "N..Not that I would be interested in her! I honestly don't like anyone...Like that. I'm too shy…"
Willa jumps as she feels a hand laid softly on her shoulder, looking up to peer into the eyes of the taller girl standing next to her as the water boils for their drinks. "You're fine, Willa. And, honestly, you're not the first one to say that…" She trailed off, looking out towards the room where Tanya is changing. Then, Visha takes a deep breath and the kind of lost look on her face fades, replaced with her usual smile. "I guess we are friends, right? And thank you, for doing this for her. It really does mean a lot to her." Visha says as she reaches past the shorter girl to start preparing the drinks while she hums softly.
Willa nods, chewing on her lip as she steps back and flips open her ever present sketch book, quickly sketching as Visha goes about her task unaware of the attention she is getting. "Yes….And I hope we can be very good friends..Visha."
Visha finishes her preparations and turns back, smiling at the shy girl as she hefts the tray. "Shall we see how she looks, hrm?" She practically skips with glee as she leads the way, a shyly bemused Willa following behind her, her notebook closed and tucked in tight to her chest.
The two come to a halt in the doorway, with Willa peeking shyly around the stunned Visha who is just standing there wide eyed as she takes in Tanya in her outfit for the first time. After a long moment, Visha quickly shuffles into the room and places her tray on the table as they both take in the slowly turning and stretching blonde mage before them.
The outfit is made of a soft, matte dark green material, for the most part. A snugly fitting top made of a white material is covered by a 'jacket' that is more a vest with a long, elaborate back that is more like a trench coat than a skirt. Her petite legs are clad in a dark pair of slightly poofy pants, while her feet are adorned with long, lace up footwear that is clearly feminine, but still reminiscent of a military boot. Tanya turns to face them, donning her cap and settling it on her head. "Well, do I pass muster?" She asks, looking towards the starry-eyed Visha.
Visha wriggles for a bit, her hands clasped before her before she lets out a muffled little squeal, then coughs softly into her hands and blushes brightly, a look that Willa doesn't fail to notice, but Tanya seems to be oddly oblivious to the obvious glee of her former adjutant. WIth another cough Visha smiles and straightens up to address Tanya. "It looks amazing on you, Tanya. I never would have imagined something that was so obviously military looking could look so...so...Feminine and adorable." She says as she continues to wriggle a bit.
Tanya blushes a bit as she walks over and takes the cup of coffee, cradling it lovingly between her hands and taking a slow, careful sip before she sighs happily. "I still don't know how you can take almost any bean and make it into such an amazing beverage, Visha." She says as she locks eyes with Visha for a moment, then blushes as she looks down to regard Willa. "I am quite impressed, Willa. While not exactly what you drew, you did seem to find a good mesh between what is expected of me, and something that I can at least preserve my dignity in. Thank you."
Willa blushes and nods, looking back and forth between them and feeling that familiar itch to start to draw the cute not-couple before her. Honestly, her parent's are less lovey-dovey with each other than these two manage doing casual things. She gets the odd feeling that she is in the presence of two people who are firmly in the closet on how they feel towards each other.
Well, perhaps she could get the other girls to help her with a bit of an intervention.
Everyone always told her she needed to be more social….
June 21st, 8:00 am, 2094. Present
Isolation and containment room, Facility 1, formerly Bunker 208
Tanya eyes the contraption before her with some degree of trepidation. "What exactly am I looking at, Doctor Schugel?"
Dr. Adeline Schugel smiles proudly as she stands next to the platform. "It's the next iteration of the Synchronised Independent Drop Experiment! The idea came to me after our last series of trials, and I thought we could improve on the design immensely. As you can see, the floor consists of a series of independent panels that are triggered off of a common release actuator, and the adjustable braces will ensure that the event horizon of the field remains exactly where we want it to be. We should be able to achieve nearly pinpoint accuracy on a drop with this! Much more consistent than that blaise little trapdoor. And it's portable by design, so we can have you activate the field on the ground, here, and then drop you from any height we need, without having to worry about any external effects that might be present at a higher altitude when the field activates."
Tanya feels a sudden odd sense of deja-vu. "And you thought that this was necessary?" She says as she slowly circles the device, noticing it has slots for a forklift or something of the like.
"Oh yes! You see, we are staging a demonstration for some of the military sponsors of our project, so we thought it would be best to show a practical result of our experiments and research." Doctor Schugel says with a nod as she rests her hand fondly on the contraption.
"And we need these sponsors to continue our research, am I correct, Doctor?" Tanya asks with a resigned sigh.
"Yes, actually. We are coming up on our yearly funding reviews, and showing them some….Tangible results...would be highly beneficial." The good Doctor confirms.
"Well, I guess then, it would be in the best interest of all involved if we made this a good demonstration, then. What will you need of me?" Tanya asks, glad once again that THIS Schugel is not a divinely inspired religious nutjob.
Dr. Schugel grins and pulls out her clipboard. "We will have you dress out in full kit and do a little drop and simulated landing. We will probably have you maintain the field for a bit longer than normal, like 30 minutes to one hour effective. Probably at a 60/1 ratio again, but we might have you go higher if we think that the duration of dilation would start to be a strain."
Tanya nods, then smiles softly at Visha. "Will Visha be able to observe the simulation?"
Doctor Schugel smiles and nods. "Of course she will, we would all be honored to have her present."
"Then, I guess whenever you need me, Doctor, I am all yours." Tanya concedes, feeling much more relaxed now for some reason.
Doctor Schugel claps her hands "Good! Good! Then I will let the rest know we are good to go!"
Tanya gives her a slow look. "Doctor, you make it almost sound like you had this planned for today, regardless of what I was going to say."
Doctor Schugel gives a little laugh as she turns to her support staff, ignoring Tanya's statement for the moment as Visha comes over and rests a hand gently on her friend's shoulder. "I'm sure it's going to be fine, Tanya. I guess we can find out from the staff when we need to get you ready, right?"
Tanya nods and smiles, following along behind Visha as she feels oddly content even with how odd the good doctor is behaving. She feels a bit less content when she finds out the timetable for the demonstration.
"What do you mean, it's at ten A.M.?" Tanya asks for the second time.
"Well, yes. You will land at precisely ten on the dot, so we really should be getting you ready. If you and the little lady will step in here, we have your kit for the demonstration all ready for you." the engineer in charge of her preparations states.
"Will I be using the CAD or the…." Tanya looks towards where the Type 95 is stored.
"Oh, the CAD will handle this just fine. Plus, the timing is much more precise, and precision is one of the things we are demonstrating, after all." The engineer ensures her.
Tanya sighs and nods as she lets Visha lead her into the ready room, and promptly starts to change. She notices a blushing Visha look away and finds herself oddly heating up as well. She takes a deep breath, calming herself as she calls to Visha. "Can you hand me that jacket, Visha?" She quickly pulls the pants up as she tucks in her shirt before letting Visha help her into her jacket and zipping it up. All in all, it's not a bad uniform even if it seems a bit odd to her. It's warm, at least. She shrugs as she slides into the combat backpack and rig with a stowed combat rifle at the ready clipped to the side of the pack. "So, how do I look?" She asks her faithful companion.
Visha eyes her over critically, slowly walking around her and causing Tanya to blush for some reason. After a long, awkward moment Visha claps her hands together. "It looks good on you, Tanya. I kind of wish we had an outfit like this back when we flew into Moskovy."
Tanya laughs as she straps on her CAD and calibrates it, knowing all of it will be checked and double checked by the engineers, but nothing beats a habit built from survival. "Very true. At least it won't be cold this time."
Half an hour later, the two girls are standing at the SIDE unit, Visha giving Tanya one last look over before stepping back to let the Doctor stand there. "Now, when the field drops, just salute with the rifle at combat ready. I think that should have the proper effect. We will be timing the drop pretty exactly, so we will give you a moving mark on how long the dilation will be once we have everything in place and ready." She leans over and looks at a figure one of the technicians has for her and nods.
"Ok, from the figures we think a 90/1 ratio over one minute of subjective time will be well within your current limits. Go ahead and stand on the red dot and then we will give you a go mark, ok?" Doctor Schugel motions for Tanya to take her place. Once she is in place, the good Doctor starts to consult a few numbers. "Ok, 90/1 compression, 50 seconds subjective. Set and mark. Implement on the count of three. Three. Two. One. Mark!"
Tanya vanishes into the familiar black sphere as the technicians and engineers start to hurry, leaving a perplexed Visha wondering why a forklift is pulling out, and why they are opening the large side doors.
Her eyes slowly get wider as she sees the plane sitting at the ready outside. Things don't start to click into place until they slide the forks of the lift under the SIDE unit and start to load it into the large plane.
She turns to look at the beaming doctor who just takes her by the shoulder. "Don't worry, my dear. The amount of impact when she lands won't be a problem for the field, and as long as she collapses the field after her landing, she will never even know that we dropped her out of a plane."
A very confused and worried Visha is guided by the doctor out of the building and towards another, where she is seated behind a transparent blast screen, still trying to puzzle out just what is going on.
Perhaps they shouldn't have agreed so readily, after all.
*A/N*
Sorry about the delay! I've been busy with stuff, and things!
Thank you all for reading!
Sooo, I've set myself a challenge. I have four days off (lost most of today, depression is a sucky thing) and I'm going to try to hit 20K before that time is over! (12k is acceptable)
This is 2600 down, either 17-9k left to go!
See you again (very) soon!