Three days later...
It was a fairly cool day as the wind blew through her short hair and caused her headband to flick around behind her. Pounding her right fist into her left palm, she bounced on her roller blades as she did some quick punches into the air in front of her.
"Subaru." Her partner said from behind her as she finished checking on her gun-like device. "If you don't calm down, you'll break your skates."
"Nah uh!" Subaru turned to face Teana, who was wearing a brown one-piece dress-like outfit. Subaru, herself, was in a halter top that was covered by a white jacket, short shorts that covered her hips and nothing else, and had knee pads on to protect her knees from what she was going to put them through. "You know that mom made sure that my roller blades are better than what we had in training."
"That's fine, but why did she give you one of her gauntlets anyway?" Teana asked as she looked the glove over. "I know it was a graduation present, but..."
"Mom's getting different ones for herself and gave Gin-nee one and me the other one, said that it would help us more."
Teana rolled her eyes and blinked as a large screen appeared in front of them.
"Oh!" A silver-haired, blue-eyed girl appeared on screen and smiled at them. "Are you two here to take the B-Rank test?"
"Yes, sir!" Both of them stood to attention.
"Good." She smiled at them. "Just to make sure, it's one Private Subaru Nakajima?"
"Yes!" Subaru nodded at the screen.
"And Private Teana Lanster?"
"Yes, sir!"
"I am Sergeant Major Reinforce Zwei Yagami." She saluted the two of them. "And I will be your supervising officer for today." She held up a finger while smiling. "Your mission is to go through the obstacle course," a small map appeared on screen, showing the area and a line giving the general path, "if you follow this path, you'll eventually end up where I am. You have to not only get to me before time is up, you'll have thirty minutes, but you also must take out all security drones and marked targets."
An image of small spheres appeared on the screen, as did some glass, full-body figures appeared on screen, some had red circles, others had blue triangles. "You are to only destroy the red circles, any others will count against you."
"Yes!"
Rein smiled at them. "Well, good luck and don't get hurt."
High above them, in a helicopter, Vita, in a brown suit jacket and miniskirt, yawned softly while cracking an eye open. Her long braided hair was over her shoulder as she held her arms behind her head. "So, how long is this?"
"About thirty minutes." Hayate, in a similar outfit, everyone who was sitting in the helicopter had on a similar outfit, signifying that they were from the same military branch, replied and looked at her. "And you shouldn't be so casual."
"Sorry, just a touch bored, I'd rather be back at base..." Vita trailed off at the look Hayate gave her. "I swear, I would have been good, I just wanted to get to know the place better."
"You would probably spend your time looking for the best make-out places when you weren't on duty."
"Signum!" Vita sat up, twitching and looking at the seat next to hers. "You'd be a lot more fun if you pulled Laevantein out of your butt more often and went on some dates or something."
Signum rolled her eyes at Vita. "I'm more comfortable not indulging your bad habits, thank you very much."
"That's not what you said a couple weeks ago." Vita shot to Signum telepathically and smirked as the pinkette blushed hard.
"Vita, stop teasing Signum, Signum, stop baiting Vita, or I'll make the two of you suffer through Shamal's newest attempt at fancy cooking." Hayate had a tight grin on her face as the two turned away from each other, settling down. Some days, Hayate wondered how the heck Lina was able to deal with five kids, two grandchildren and the various guests that lived at her house for so long.
"Hmm, looks like they've split up." The last person in the helicopter said. "It'll be interesting to see what they can do alone."
"That girl needs a better gun." Vita commented as she looked at Teana while leaning to the side in her chair. "She reloads it too often and it's barely a storage device."
"Not everyone can afford a good quality device, Vita." Hayate replied, getting a nod from Vita.
"Oh, I know, I'm just saying that she won't last long in a real fight with a device like that." Vita didn't know why graduates weren't given upgraded devices at the very least. Even if it was a custom job, Teana's device was barely adequate for someone of C rank, much less the B rank she was aiming to get in this test.
"It's too bad that she's not a B rank mage." Signum commented softly. "She would have gotten a back-up weapon in case something happened to her device."
"Oh yeah, those Shine Swords." Hayate nodded at that. "Why haven't they only been given out to B rank mages anyway?"
"Mostly politics," Fate shook her head and sighed, "understandable concerns, however, about the chance of low-ranking, and thus not loyal, mages and knights leaving the Bureau for mercenary work would be a bad thing, plus it's not an emergency situation."
Vita watched, slightly bored, as Teana and Subaru met up again and started to take off towards the next set of obstacles. "I say we just fire whoever thought up that obstacles was a good way to test the level of someone and just get someone who's A rank to fight against these rookies." It made much more sense to her. "What? I wasn't allowed to be a knight until I beat my master in the past, Fate needed to fight against Chrono to get her AAA license, it makes a lot more sense than just doing something stupid like this."
"I never made the rules, and I guess people thought it was becoming too easy to get higher ranked." Hayate shrugged at Vita and watched as Teana and Subaru disappeared into the second part of the course. "Hmm, I wonder what they'll do here."
Vita shrugged at that. "Hmm, I wonder how much they know of magic other than Mid and Belkan?"
She got her answer a moment later when the area was quickly frozen due to Freezing Bullets from Teana, only to shatter when Subaru punched it with all her might. "Not bad." Vita could appreciate something like that, if only because she had been frozen more than once by her friends.
A moment later, the camera broke and Vita sighed heavily. "Dammit, that was the only thing entertaining."
Minutes later...
Subaru stood on the top of a building that was several hundred yards in front of her. "I can't fly, and I can't fight at long range, all I really have are my fists and my mother's fighting style." She closed her eyes before snapping them open, a determined look crossing her features. "But!" A Belkan triangle appeared under her feet and for some reason, she thought she was hearing dramatic music being played. "I can't let that stop me. I will be strong, stronger than even mama is. Wing... ROAAAAD!"
A blue strip of magic shot out in front of Subaru that didn't stop until it slammed into the building that was her target. "Let's GO!" The gears on her gauntlet started to spin as she rushed forward as fast as possible. Reaching the wall where her Wing Road was stopped, she punched forward, shattering through the stone wall and saw multiple copies of Teana, due to the latter's skill in illusion magic, standing around a large, ball-like machine thing.
Punching forward, she let out a yell as the shield was holding strong against her attack. "NNNGGGGGAAAAAHHH!" She let out a scream as she was able to open her gauntlet-covered fingers and push through the barrier, before grabbing it and pulling back, shattering it into pieces. When the thing fired at her, she was forced to do some back flips to get away from it. "Now, to keep you from moving!"
A blue triangle appeared under her and Subaru grinned as she called up her secret weapon. The only downside to the spell was that she wasn't sure if she could pull it off correctly or not. Especially since the last time that she did it, it exploded in her face. That had been one long and painful trip to the emergency room for that. "Strike... CHAIN!"
Two blue chains with sharp tips shot up through the ground around the fat ball, floating upwards until they were above it before slamming down, through it, at an angle and crossing past each other on the inside, forming an 'X' pattern and anchoring itself to the floor.
"With a single blow... DESTROY!" Subaru let out a screech as a ball of flame formed in her left hand and a blue magic sphere appeared in her right. "Flame..." She tossed the fireball upwards gently before rolling back a few centimeters back and lobbing the blue sphere forward. "Sphere..." Subaru quickly spun around in a complete circle and rushed forward, her right hand covered in energy before she lashed out with her fist, connecting with the ball of energy as it and the fireball connected at that moment. "BREAKER!"
As the energy built up, Subaru's only hope was that this wouldn't explode in her face like it did last time.
Her worries were unfounded as a jet of pure flame shot out, hitting the large drone and expanded, instantly incinerating it and engulfing the Teana images.
"Alright!" Subaru grinned at her work. "That worked and..." Her eyes widened as the wave of fire came right at her. "EEEK! Running, running!" Turning around, she shot for the hole that she created on her way there. "Wing Road!" She wasn't as good as her mother or Ginga at creating this move on the fly, but at the moment, she didn't have a choice.
When the road appeared under her feet, she was thankful that she didn't screw it up.
When the building exploded moments later, Subaru wondered if maybe that spell wasn't meant for close quarters.
Minutes later...
Reinforce Zwei looked at the time and nodded. "Still thirty seconds, they still have time." Granted, not a lot and if they didn't hurry...
Her thoughts trailed off as she looked down the highway. "Ah! I see them!" She smiled as the last target between them and the end was destroyed. "Good, now they just have to..." She sweat-dropped as they started to pick up speed. "Get across the finish line. I just hope they have good brakes."
She sighed as she heard them screaming loudly. "Guess they don't." Well, it was going to suck, having to fail them just because they were too reckless, though, at their current pace, they might make it across the finish line before time was up. "Mouuu... They did good too." She pouted, before blinking as several blue chains appeared between her and the two girls as they zoomed past the finish line. "Huh?"
Rein Zwei blinked several times as the chains managed to slow the girls down enough to keep them from crashing into the wall behind her.
"See? Told you I could make brakes!" Subaru said, giggling softly. "And they didn't hurt either." She yelped as Teana cracked her on the head with her gun. "Oww! Tea! What was that for?!"
"Scaring me half to death!" Teana said as she gingerly hobbled away from Subaru. "Dang twisted ankle." Why did that have to happen while she was doing the test? Why couldn't it happen some other time? Like, never.
Subaru just rubbed the spot where Teana hit her and giggled nervously.
"Well, I have to admit," a male voice spoke up, causing Subaru and Teana to turn to face the newcomer, "that was quite the interesting use of a chain bind."
"Yuuno-san." Subaru said, her face flushing, before she shook her head and saluted the man who saved her life.
Teana mentally groaned, if Subaru started to act like a fan girl now, they might be failed just for that.
She just hoped not.
"As for your test," Reinforce Zwei looked at the two of them, before smiling, "you did pass, but I'd like it if you two would be more careful out there, okay?" She smiled as their eyes lit up in joy. "Yuuno, you want to tell them the other news?"
Subaru and Teana both blinked as Yuuno smiled at them. "Well, Rein is right, there is one other piece of news... Teana Lanster," he frowned as he saw her favoring her right ankle, "Rein, can you heal her ankle for her?"
"Sure!" The small device zipped over to Teana and had her sit down so she could heal the damages properly.
"And you, Subaru Nakajima, are both invited to join the new Riot Force that myself and several others are making up." Both girls blinked in surprise and Yuuno smiled at them. "How about it? Care to join an elite group of the military? It's a one-year gig, and when you're done, you'll be almost assured to get a high ranking position in any division after you're done."
"SURE!" Subaru was overjoyed and her eyes sparkling in happiness. "Tea!"
Teana smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'd like that."
Yuuno smiled and looked up as a helicopter came down towards them. "Well then," the door opened up, revealing Hayate, Vita, Signum and Fate, "welcome to the Riot Force."
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See other episodes by Philip Weigel
(Posted Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:37)
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