[Rising Dragon]

Well then, here goes. Crosspost from the FFT--I'll post the intro to the chapter with it as well (it's the same as the teaser I posted some time back). I'll get the character profiles for the OCs up eventually, when I have a scanner that I can actually work with.

Spoiler for Chapter 1 Intro:

It had already been over a day since the fateful and brutal attack on Ailotana, and yet the sun still seemed to struggle to pierce through the ominous, black clouds that drifted overhead. And with evening fast approaching, it was like the sun had given up on this futile battle against the bleak weather, and as it set, the destroyed settlement was painted in orange that glowed against the black. Nearly all of the structures in the settlement were charred and blown apart in the attack, leaving them gutted and broken, with the streets full of debris—clean-up efforts had been hazardous so far. A wind cut through the site, but it offered no coolness or comfort to the beleaguered survivors or the relief crew from the Time-Space Administration Bureau. It was uncomfortably warm and humid, adding to the miserable atmosphere and the terrible conditions the survivors were facing.

Junior Enforcer Teana Lanster sighed and brushed a strand of reddish-orange hair from her face, doing her best to ignore the wind that was blowing through the ruins of Ailotana. Behind her, in the nearby valley, several tents had been erected to help care for the injured survivors that the rescue squad had been able to recover from the destroyed buildings. But for every survivor they had managed to find, there seemed to be three more body bags, which were all laid out a short distance from the tents.

But it was what lay before her that had caught her interest, in the plain that lay just before the entrance to Ailotana. Off in its center, surrounded by mages in protective clothing, stood a massive construct, nearly twice the size of a full-grown man. The sleek armor plating was easily seen from the distance, perhaps because of the eerie, foul glow of magical energy that, even now, still seemed to burn off of it like a funeral pyre. The amount of magic was so dense, and so dangerous, that nearing it without the protection of a barrier jacket and proper shielding spells would grant the unlucky ones something akin to radiation poisoning.

The same radiation poisoning that now afflicted nearly all of the survivors of Ailotana.

“Teana.”

The girl turned to see her superior officer walking up the hill to her. She nodded to Fate briefly as she crested the hill and stopped beside her, then turned her gaze back to the armor below.

“Have they discovered anything new?” the older woman asked, also looking down to where the mages worked on purging the harmful magic from the area.

“We’ve managed to identify the armor’s wearer,” Teana replied slowly, bringing up the file in a holographic window. “It’s him, Fate. I’m sorry.”

Fate’s expression seemed to fall slightly, disappointed at the knowledge. “I see. Any idea why he’d attack this place? I thought the two of them were friends, of a sort.”

“We’re still not sure,” Teana replied. “His Device wasn’t on his person, even though the armor seems to require one to operate. We think it was taken after his death.”

The other Enforcer nodded briefly. “Let me know if you discover anything else. Especially anything pertaining to—”

She was quickly interrupted by the yell of another one of the officers on site. “Ma’am, you’d better come and see this!”

Both women turned at the sound of the voice, which came from the direction of the medical campsite. “Stay here and keep an eye on the investigation, Teana,” Fate ordered softly.

The younger woman quickly nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

Fate proceeded back down the hill and joined the other TSAB official before they made their way towards the camp at a brisk pace. “We’ve managed to identify one of the survivors, ma’am,” the officer informed her as they approached. “He’s in recovery right now, but the medics say he’s able to talk now.”

“Understood,” Fate replied, nodding once. “Maybe now we can find out what happened here. Show me where he is.”

“Right away, ma’am.”

He took her to one of the smaller tents used for patients with more serious injuries, and reported to the guard stationed at its entrance, while Fate proceeded inside. Two medics were watching over a single elderly man resting in the wheeled bed in the center. I.V. lines had been administered to the back of his hands, and the skin around his balding head looked slightly mottled and unnaturally pale. His breath was coming in long rasps, though he didn’t seem to look like he was suffering from a breathing problem. His eyes, thankfully, were alert, and despite his fragile condition, he shifted to rise as he spotted Fate enter the tent.

“Please, rest,” she said to the man, one Emil Valare, motioning for him to lie back down. Valare considered it for a brief moment and acquiesced.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you were the one who investigated this catastrophe, Ms. Harlaown,” he said amiably, settling back down. “Not with everything that’s happened lately.”

Fate nodded. “You witnessed the fight, didn’t you?” She asked, sitting at the corner of the bed. Valare nodded. “You know who’s responsible for this tragedy.”

“I do. It’s a shame, really,” Valare said wistfully, looking off to the side. “He showed such promise, only to come to an end like this. At the very least, those two managed to stop him.”

“We never really knew everything that happened since we met him,” Fate said quietly—they both knew it wasn’t the one in the armor that she spoke of. A nurse approached and began writing off a reading on the machine Valare was hooked up to. “He never told us, and she never broke his confidence, even during their time with us.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. He never was much for other people.”

“Perhaps you can tell us, then,” suggested the Enforcer. “We need to know, so we can figure out where to go from here. Everything, from the beginning.”

Emil glanced at the woman, only to see her patient face. Slowly, he nodded. “I suppose we owe you that much.

“Some time ago, Ailotana lost its greatest scientific mind. It was the death of a legend, and with it, a mass pilfering of his technology,” he started, clasping spindly fingers together as he recollected. “The man she saved was an unrivaled mercenary, and we paired him with an Intelligent Device that Research and Development had been using in their experiments. Our settlement fell into a sharp financial crisis after we lost our edge in the technology market. Relying on a mercenary was the inevitable resolution to keep food on the table.”

The man suddenly began coughing, and he brought a hand up to cover his mouth while the fit subsided. Fate looked concerned and made to rise, but he quickly waved at her to stay seated. After a moment, he was able to continue. “I used that man… and through him, her. I make no claim of righteousness. He was simply the only one who could have made it happen."

MAGICAL GIRL LYRICAL NANOHA:
THE COLLARED

CHAPTER ONE:
A Nonexistent Choice

Spoiler for Chapter 1 Scene 1:

It had been several months—close to half a year, really—since the death of Professor Avon Leganza, but Ailotana was still feeling the sting of his passing. The man, a scientist known for his prowess at developing and refining cutting-edge Device technology, was the greatest, but unfortunately the only asset the settlement had since the civil war had begun to die down and the Time-Space Administration Bureau reasserted itself on the newly-Administered world of Exavil. Since then, various companies and corporations had begun to move into the resource-rich planet, despite warnings and from the Bureau that hostilities on the planet had yet to come to a complete end.

The various towns and cities that had come out of the battles had to rely on these companies to rebuild their failing economies, but as such, there were still tensions in the air as those who were against the support of the TSAB waited to prey upon those that had. And Ailotana had just become one such viable target—with Leganza’s passing, a nightmare of paperwork and procedure had left most of his research and discoveries taken by the corporations that had once worked alongside the man, leaving the settlement with little else. Now, without the help of Leganza’s achievements in Device development, Ailotana looked to be on the verge of bankruptcy.

So what to do? That was the question that Emil Valare currently faced.

Valare had worked as both an assistant and an advisor to Avon Leganza, having extensive knowledge on Device creation and repair, but his true talents lay in politics, and he had aided Leganza in making the most favorable contracts with the growing corporations inhabiting Exavil, seeing what schemes might be in the making and guiding him and Ailotana out of harm’s way. Now, with Leganza dead, he was the most qualified person to get the settlement out of the mess it was in.

But how? he wondered. Due to the loophole in those first contracts, the corporations have left us with practically nothing to work with!

He shook his head in disgust for the way the companies worked. Before he and Avon had met and begun working together, it seemed Avon had unwittingly made several foolish deals that resulted in certain companies receiving the rights to his advancements due to his untimely demise. Were it not for the thorough investigation into the cause of his death, Valare could almost believe the man had been assassinated by one of the more greedy corporations.

Sighing, Emil returned to his work, soon taking up documents of recent events on Exavil. As he pondered the options he had before him, he thought back to the times of the civil war, when numerous indigenous people suddenly and violently protested the introduction of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. Caught off-guard during the conflict, the Bureau was not able to always extend its protection to far-out allies, and as the war raged on, many were forced to make due by hiring protection elsewhere, in the form of mercenary mages armed with advanced Devices and a plethora of combat spells. The corporations also used such mercenaries in their own private battles.

And as luck would have it, Emil noted as he flipped the stack to one of the more recent reports, We currently have one mercenary staying here right now…

In the past couple of weeks, Ailotana had become the impromptu home of a mercenary that had been fighting on Exavil since the beginning of the civil war. Caught up in the vicious battles that had occurred in growing frequency, his Storage Device had been damaged beyond all repair, and he had been forced to retire. But without the battlefield, he had nowhere else to go, and no way of life, and many would be terrified of such a person roaming about the countryside.

It was much to everyone’s surprise that Leganza’s only daughter had taken him in and offered him a home in the settlement.

Perhaps there was still a way to keep Ailotana on the map. Emil knew that for all of the things that had been taken after Avon’s death, they still had one item of importance, and now with this man, there may be hope for them all.

Emil sat back in his chair, the beginnings of a plan forming in his mind. Yes, perhaps it will work. Mercenaries are hard to come by these days, and the Kaiser knows there’s much need for them here.

A single sent message later, Valare looked up from his work when someone briefly knocked at the door. “Come in,” he invited, knowing who it was. The door opened to allow a young woman dressed in the same technician uniform worn by most Leganza Tech employees in the facility. The light blue fabric of the uniform contrasted nicely with the woman’s short auburn hair, and gray eyes looked at Emil with an expectant expression. “You called for me, Emil?” she asked, cocking her head to the side a bit.

“Ah, Mesia,” Valare greeted, smiling at the woman. He motioned for her to take a seat. “How are you doing, my dear?”

“I’m doing fine, Emil, you know that,” she returned as she took a seat on the opposite side of his desk. “It’s… been a while since my father died. I’m learning to move on.”

Leganza’s death had hit everyone hard, but Mesia the hardest of all. He had been the only remaining member of her family, and upon his passing, the corporations practically stripped the poor woman of her father’s legacy and any inheritance that might’ve made her life more bearable. Now, she was stuck working as an operator and technician in her father’s laboratory facility.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Emil said sincerely. “It’s been a hard time for us all.”

Mesia simply nodded, appreciating Emil’s concern but not requiring it—many people in Ailotana had given her their condolences, but now it was time to move on from that chapter in her life. Instead, it was time to focus on what the man before her wanted.

“Was there something you needed, Emil?” she asked, clasping her hands together in her lap.

“Yes. It’s about the man you brought to the settlement a few weeks ago,” Valare answered, nodding once. “I haven’t had much time to really sit down and speak with him at length, and I was curious as to how he was acclimating to Ailotana.”

“Roas? Well… he seems to be getting along well enough,” Mesia replied, sounding the tiniest bit confused. He’d never hinted that he wasn’t satisfied about his new circumstances. “He’s a bit quiet, but I haven’t heard any complaint from him.”

“Well now, that is comforting to know,” Valare said, nodding. “I have been speaking to some of the townsfolk about them, and they have been concerned. Understandable, considering who and what he is.”

“He’s not a bad person, Emil,” Mesia countered in defense. “I can tell he’s not—“

“Dangerous? Mesia, dear, I know you’re vouching for him, but the man is a mercenary, and one who’s been fighting on Exavil for a long time now. He’s as dangerous as they come, and you mustn’t forget that.”

The girl’s eyes hardened a bit, a sure sign she was going to be stubborn about something. She opened her mouth, meaning to argue back, but Valare lifted up a hand to forestall her. “Now, now, Mesia. For the record, I believe he means us no harm just as much as you do. The people are just concerned, that’s all—he’s been seen wandering around the settlement, looking restless. He’s been rather antisocial about it, rarely responding to any greeting beyond a simple nod.”

Mesia’s expression softened somewhat, a bit affirmed by what her father’s partner said concerning Roas’ character. “I try to keep him company when I’m not working,” she said. “Whenever I asked him how he’s doing, he’s always said he’s been doing fine. I get the feeling he likes it here, so I don’t see why he’d make everyone else think he’s a problem.”

Valare nodded understandingly, having a theory as to why the man would be acting how he was. And if that theory was correct, then he could use it to his advantage. “Perhaps he needs something to do, Mesia,” he volunteered. “Without his Storage Device, he has no means of seriously continuing his former occupation, and I haven’t heard of him applying for a job anywhere else.”

“You think that might be it?” she asked of him. He could almost see the gears turning in her head—he had no idea what it was that made the girl so interested in Roas, she was far beyond the age where her hormones would influence her every interaction with men and she had a good head on her shoulders—but if it’d help Ailotana, then his partner’s offspring and her fascination with Roas will have to be as much of a pawn in this as the man she’d welcomed into it.

“Why don’t you go talk to him about finding a job here, in the lab?” Valare suggested. “If he’s interested, have him join me, and we’ll have a talk about it. I’m certain that everyone will warm up to him while he’s under our care.”

After a moment, Mesia nodded. “All right, Emil. He might like that. Are you interested in him as a Device tester?”

“Something like that, yes,” he replied, nodding. There was one Device that he was certain Roas could make use of…