[hr][/hr]
Taylor awoke to the strange sounds of a small dragon being assaulted by an affectionate tentacle monster. It did take her a few moments to realize what the sounds were, as she wasn't used to having her animal companion around quite yet. She looked over and saw her mini-dragon attempting to ward off the tentacle monster with small puffs of pink flame. It wasn't very effective.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Taylor grumbled as she rolled out of bed, nearly stumbling when she didn't account for the low cot holding what was apparently a humanized biological supercomputer, and made her way to the desk where the two animals were wrestling. "Leave her alone," she demanded as she reached down to forcibly separate the tentacle monster from her dragon.
This proved to be a mistake, even as the maneuver accomplished its goal, as the little monster allowed itself to be removed from the pink dragon only to wrap its limbs around Taylor's arm. For her part, Taylor could only look on nonplussed as the tentacled menace began rubbing against her arm affectionately. Giving her arm a few experimental shakes, Taylor sighed and asked, "You're not going to let go, are you?"
"I don't think so," the magical girl on the cot replied. "She's lonely and likes hugs."
"Well, so long as that's all she wants," Taylor decided, "I guess she can stay there for now." Turning around, she looked over the purple clad girl. "So you're my power, right?"
The girl held up a hand and tilted it side to side. "Kind of," she replied. "There's a lot more to me than just that." She pouted and added, "I just have a lot of me locked down right now."
Taylor thought about that for a moment before commenting, "I think the scientists are going to want to talk to you about that. They might even be able to help you with that, right?"
The source of her powers smiled at that and cheered, "Yeah! That sounds like fun!" There was a soft grumbling noise and the girl flushed. "I think my stomach wants me to fill it. How weird is that? Ingesting material for caloric value rather than for base materials… kind of wasteful, isn't it?"
Taylor shrugged helplessly. "It's what we've got, though." Opening one of the desk drawers, she pulled out a pamphlet and asked, "Want to get room service?" The little girl rushed over to look over the menu. After a minor argument where Taylor had to convince the younger girl that they didn't need to order everything, they settled on getting a few sampler plates so that she could figure out what she liked without wasting as much food.
[hr][/hr]
"I see you enjoyed breakfast," Cindy commented as she looked over the several empty trays arrayed around the room.
"We wanted to see…" Taylor trailed off before looking over to the other magical girl. "We really need come up with a name for you."
The girl pouted and huffed. "But I have a name. I just can't get it to translate into something you can understand."
"We still need something we can call you," Taylor insisted. "It's rude to talk about you like you're not there, and we'll need a way to address you."
"Preferably in a way that won't need either a recording or altered vocal chords," Cindy added dryly. "Is there anything you'd like to be called?"
The girl grumbled and stamped her foot. "I want to be called by my name, but it's not translating right."
Cindy pondered for a moment before suggesting, "Why don't we try to come up with a name to use now, and we can change it later once you figure out how to get the translation to work properly."
"I'm going to have a hard enough time figuring out a magical girl name for myself," Taylor noted. "I've got nothing for you."
"I'm admittedly not the most creative person with names, either," Cindy agreed. "Though I might know some people we could ask for suggestions."
Taylor grimaced. "We won't end up with with something like McSquirrelFace or something, right?"
"Ha, no," Cindy laughed. "They wouldn't do something stupid like that." She paused for a moment before adding, "Probably."
Taylor looked over the younger girl for a moment before saying, "There's no harm in asking, right? You might find a name you like. Worst case, we ignore their ideas and keep looking."
"I guess that's fine," the younger girl replied sullenly.
"Great," Cindy began, flexing her hand and bringing up her phone. "Now that that's settled, we've got a few things to take care today, and it'll take them a while to come up with some ideas."
"What's first?" Taylor asked.
"Well, you had mentioned wanting to test out your magic gun, so I've set up some time on the range for you," Cindy said.
Taylor perked up. "That sounds like it could be fun."
"Though you might have something of an audience," Cindy admitted ruefully. "A lot of people seem interested in seeing what you can do."
Taylor sighed. "I guess I'd better get used to people watching me, right?" she asked rhetorically. "Well, we might as well get going."
[hr][/hr]
"I'm coming," Velma Platt called as she made her way out of the kitchen towards the front door. She had just been finishing breakfast when the doorbell rang, so she had left her dishes in the sink to take care of later. It wasn't like anyone else was around to complain about it if they sat there for a few minutes, after all.
Once she reached the door, she paused for a moment to take a calming breath before opening the door. "Um, hi," the girl on the other side said. Velma blinked as she quickly took in a few key details. The girl had green hair and square rimmed glasses. Horns rose from her temples and wings spread out behind her, along with a swishing tail. Watching the tail led her to a more important detail. There was a medium sized rolling suitcase sitting next to her on the porch.
"Oh, hello there," Velma greeted the girl standing on the doorstep. "Are you going to be living here as well?"
"Ah, yes, I am," the green haired girl said, fidgeting a little. "I'm She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday, and I'm going to be one of Miss Hebert's owners."
Velma smiled. "It's good to meet you," she said. "I'm Velma Platt. I'm going to be another of Taylor's owners. If you don't mind me asking, which owner will you be? I'm a Cutie."
She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday blushed slightly and hesitantly said, "I'm a Succubus."
Velma blinked. Some of the girl's features could be considered demonic, such as the wings, horns, and tail, but she had thought those were a stylistic choice. She'd seen weirder online, after all, and had even briefly considered getting a set of wings of her own. She still needed to do more research on which insect wings would be the most practical on a human frame before she made any decisions on that front. "Well, come on in," she finally said, gesturing into the house. "We've got a bunch of empty rooms, so I guess you can pick whichever one you want. We might have to change them later, but that's no reason to be uncomfortable in the meantime, right?"
"I guess," She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday said as she stepped into the house, dragging the suitcase behind her. Looking around, she commented, "It's bigger than I was expecting."
"I know, right?" Velma agreed. "They told me we'd be in an apartment, so I was trying to psych myself up for sharing a room. That won't be an issue now, though." If she was being honest with herself, Velma had to admit she wasn't sure if she was happy about the change or not. On the one hand, she would now probably have a room to herself. On the other hand, she really had been looking forward to all of the sleepovers. Shaking herself, she asked, "So, succubuses eat lust, right?" Without giving She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday time to answer, she followed up with another question, "You can eat normal food, too, right?"
It took She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday a moment before she answered. "It's succubi, actually. And I can eat human food, too. It's not enough to sustain me, but it still tastes good." She paused for a moment before adding, "Er, why do you ask?"
"Well, I made some cookies last night," Velma replied, "and you're the first person to arrive after I did, so I wanted to see if you wanted any."
"Cookies?" She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday exclaimed. "Sure, I'd love to try some!" With that said, the two girls made their way into the kitchen to enjoy a quick snack.
[hr][/hr]
It had taken a while to get everything set up at the range. Apparently, one of the scientists had guessed their plans for the day and had insisted on having sensors hooked up to record everything from Taylor's accuracy to any exotic particles her magic might produce. All told, had been a full hour since the time they had arrived and she still hadn't been deemed ready to shoot. "Is this all really necessary?" she griped as a few last sensors were placed around her booth.
Professor Daniel Akkeman nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes, definitely," he said. "We had Doctor Zecora take readings while you were being modified, so we have a baseline for your original and new normal state, but we still need to gather information on you as a magical girl. We'd like to get a baseline of your new abilities before you have too much practice with them. That way, we'll be able to track your growth. The scientific study of magic is still a nascent field, after all."
Taylor sighed in defeat. "Fine, set up all the sensors you need."
"Oh, don't worry, we only have a few more to calibrate and you'll be ready to go," Akkeman said reassuringly. "Unless there's a computer glitch or something, we should be ready in fifteen minutes or so." He paused for a moment before adding, "And look at the bright side, you weren't here setting up for half the night."
Taylor winced. "What time did you start?" she asked out of morbid curiosity.
"Oh, around the time you were waking up, I believe," Akkeman replied. "It brought back memories of all nighters during college, it did. Oh how I don't miss those days."
"Well, in that case, I think I'll head over to the shop and have another cup of tea," Taylor decided. "Hopefully you'll be done when I get back."
"Go ahead," Akkeman replied, waving Taylor off. "We won't need you until the last calibration run, so you have some time."
"Thanks," Taylor called as she made her way over to the concession stand. "Can I get a tea and a small thing of fries?" she asked once she reached the counter.
"Sure, no problem," the clerk replied. "Just make sure you wash your hands before heading back to the range." He shuddered. "You do not want to see what Mr. LeGume will do if you try to shoot with greasy hands."
"I do take range safety and gun maintenance very seriously," Gaston agreed from behind Taylor. "It's bad enough that I have to allow those scientists to cover my beautiful range in their equipment." He sighed. "Still, it is good to know what you can do with your equipment before you try using it off of the range. And at least you're doing things correctly, unlike that other one."
"What do you mean?" Taylor asked, accepting her basket of fries and her drink from the counter clerk.
"Hi, Taylor!" an excited voice singsonged.
"Damn it, she's here..." Gaston groaned. He and Taylor turned to see Obsessive Rose making her way toward them, dragging a large case behind her. "Hello, again, Rose," Gaston said with obviously forced cordiality. "I take it you want to practice as well?"
"Of course!" Rose shouted enthusiastically. "I heard Taylor was going to be here, and I wanted to see how I'd do compared to her."
"So I'm not the first magical girl using a real gun?" Taylor asked, looking over the girl's gun case, which looked identical to the one Johnson kept his AWSM in.
"That depends on how you want to look at it," Rose said cheerfully. "The person who helped me with determining what kind of magical girl I wanted to be mentioned you. It sounded really neat, so I decided to try as well." Ruefully, she admitted, "I didn't have as much time to learn how it works, though, so she got me a real gun, so I wouldn't need to form all of the mechanical parts from memory."
"She also refuses to practice in her normal form," Gaston griped.
"I told you, it's contractually obligated," Rose said defensively. She poked her forefingers together and added, "And I don't actually know how to shoot properly without the magic helping."
"Which is why I want you to practice more without it," Gaston insisted.
Rose waved him off. "I will, I will," she said placatingly. "After my contract is up."
"I'll hold you to that, brat," Gaston stated. "Now, Taylor needs to finish her snack and wash her hands. I'll be getting the rifle for her to use before she transforms. If they're going to use my range to test her abilities, they're going to do it properly."
Taylor blinked and took a sip of her tea before placing the drink down on Rose's case, where it would be steady and not cause a mess. "Do I really need to use one of your rifles, though?" she asked Gaston. "I've got mine right here, right?" She held out a hand and concentrated.
Her audience of two watched as motes of lights formed in the air and coalesced in her hand, forming the long shape of a sniper rifle. "That's awesome!" the clerk from the concession stand exclaimed, startling the three in the group. Their attention had been riveted on the display of magical might.
Shaking himself, Gaston noted, "I'm sure the scientists will agree, but I want you to use that alongside a mundane rifle. It'll be interesting to see how a magically constructed weapon compares to a real one."
Taylor sighed. "Yeah, I'm not sure why I thought that wouldn't happen." Perking herself up, she added, "Well, they should be done setting up, so we might as well head over and ruin the scientists' day, right?"
"Might as well," Gaston agreed heartily. He paused for a moment before muttering, "I may need to speak to my therapist about lingering issues with intellectuals." Speaking louder, over Taylor's questions, he finished, "I'll go grab the rifle and meet you over there, alright?"
He quickly left, leaving Taylor staring after him. Rose, on the other hand was still staring at the gun in the older girl's hands. "Liana is going to flip when she hears about this. Or be unbearably smug." She tilted her head in thought. "Probably both."
"What was that?" Taylor asked.
"Oh, nothing much," Rose said quickly. "Don't worry about it."
[hr][/hr]
"Cindy," the humanoid supercomputer whined, "why can't we watch Taylor?"
Cindy sighed. She was beginning to see the downsides of being around Obsessive magical girls. This was already the third time the girl had tried to convince her to let her watch Taylor's testing. "I already told you," she began, forcing herself to remain calm. "We wouldn't be able to see anything, since the range doesn't have a spectator section, and they like to keep the number of people around not firing down as much as possible."
"But I want to watch!" the purple clad girl griped.
"Again, they won't let us," Cindy repeated. "Besides, the people I have brainstorming names for you didn't take as long as I thought to come up with some names. Don't you want to pick one out? You can surprise Taylor with it," she weedled. Hopefully mentioning Taylor would be enough to sway the girl. If not, she wasn't sure what she'd do with her until Taylor finished at the range.
"I was hoping she'd help with it," the magical girl admitted.
Cindy sighed. She honestly hadn't expected that plan to work right away, but it had been worth a shot. "Why don't we go and listen to their ideas anyway?" she suggested. "That way you can think about them for a while. See if any of them feel better than the others. Then you can tell Taylor the ones you liked and she can help you determine which one is best."
The girl perked up, much to Cindy's relief. "I guess that could work," she said.
The redhead smiled. At least she wouldn't be trying to keep the girl out of the gun range for the next hour or so. "Come with me, we'll need a nice, private room for the discussion," she said, taking the magical girl's hand. Hopefully none of the suggestions would be too dumb, and hopefully one of them would be to the girl's liking. After all, she was getting tired of referring to the girl as 'the supercomputer,' 'the girl,' or other descriptive names. It was almost as bad as referring to her as 'hey you.'
[hr][/hr]
"So, who's going to say it?" Lucy Lewd asked as she looked over the ritual room with Joy Cassidy and Hope Celandine.
Celandine looked over the ritual circle, now burned an inch into the floor. "I'll say it. What the hell did we just add to our team?"
Cassidy looked at the mana crystals still arrayed around the circle, two of which were completely drained while the rest were heavily depleted. "Whatever she is, I'm just glad she's on our side," she admitted. "Of course, the other question is how much of this is due to her being weird and how much is because we had a proper ritual circle with far more mana available than was even remotely reasonable?"
Lucy shrugged helplessly. "I don't think we're likely to find out until the next time we use the circle. And I don't think they'll let us try it again anytime soon."
"True enough," Celandine agreed. "That was a bit more… energetic… than I'd been expecting. I'm pretty sure they felt the mana wave it put off on Earth… or will in a few years. How fast do mana waves propagate again?" The others shrugged. "Well, I'm sure we'll find out eventually." She looked down at the circle again. "So, think we're going to be making this thing permanent?"
"I don't see why we shouldn't," Cassidy replied. "Taylor already did the hard part, carving out the symbols for us. We'll just need to fill them in with something permanent."
Celandine nodded. "And Taylor and I should probably supply some blood for it, using the Blood Rite. It'll make the whole thing more efficient and robust."
"Well," Cassidy said decisively, "it doesn't really change anything right now. Let's head back and get ready to answer any other questions Taylor has before the show starts. We'll also need a good way to keep any of the cameras out when we show her our civilian identities."
"True," Lucy agreed. "Even if people can probably figure mine out if they try." She looked at a clock on the wall. "And it's time for me to head out. I need to pick up the kids. I'll meet you at headquarters later, alright?"
"Sure, we'll see you there."
[hr][/hr]
"Ah, good, you're back," Professor Akkeman said as Taylor approached. "Er," he began, pausing for a moment as he looked between the gun Taylor was holding and the case Gaston was carrying. Despite the large range instructor's strength, the scientist could still see the obvious heft of the case, which brought up an interesting question. "Where did you get that gun from?" he finally asked.
"It's my rifle," Taylor replied succinctly.
"When did you get a rifle of your own?" Akkeman asked in confusion. "And why don't you have a carrying case for it?"
"It's my magical rifle," Taylor said slowly, as though the answer should be obvious. "Should I have a case for it?"
"No, no, that's fine," Akkeman said hurriedly, waving the concern off. "I just wasn't expecting you to use it until after you transformed." He looked down at the spreadsheet he'd set up on his computer to record the test results and sighed. "I guess we can add a few more tests. We're going to want to see how your shooting compares with your gun and with a mundane weapon."
His subject shrugged. "We figured as much," she said. "Which did you want me to start with?"
Looking up from the new columns he was making, Akkeman made his decision, "We may as well start with the control, that is to say, the mundane rifle. It'll give us a better baseline for your abilities."
"Alright," Taylor replied before her weapon dissipated into a shower of multicolored sparks. "Looks like I'll need to borrow your gun again first, Gaston."
The man was already kneeling next to his open case, fitting his rifle together. Akkeman took a moment to savor working with competent assistants, rather than the useless undergrads he usually had to deal with. Once the rifle was assembled, he handed it off to Taylor, who took a moment to check it over before lying down in her stall. "Good," Gaston grunted approvingly.
Akkeman switched to another application on his laptop for a moment, looking over the data coming from the sensors. "Taylor, would you be able to scooch over two inches to your right?" he asked. "You're not quite in line with the sensors." Taylor scooted over. "That's perfect. We're ready for your first shot."
"Right," Taylor said. "Firing." A moment later there was a crack as she fired.
Akkeman nodded in satisfaction. "All of the sensors are reading well. Continue as you will and we'll establish a baseline."
"No problem," Taylor replied, lining up another shot. Four cracks later, she ejected the magazine, slotted another into place, and continued shooting. Once the second magazine was depleted, she asked, "Is that that enough to set up a base line, or do you want me to keep going?"
"Why not try a set while you use your insects for aiming?" Gaston suggested.
Akkeman looked up from his computer incredulously. "She can do that?" he demanded in surprise.
"It helps a little," Taylor admitted. "I still need to know what I'm doing, though." Akkeman noticed two gnats fly down and land on the rifle as Taylor switched out to a fresh magazine.
[hr][/hr]
Florian Zilberschlag looked over his partner's shoulder. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"A few minutes ago, Professor Akkeman added some columns to that spreadsheet he's using to keep track of Miss Hebert's results," Vanna Zabala replied as she continued typing.
"That's not an answer," Florian complained.
"Fine," Vanna said, turning away from her console for a moment. "They're going to be doing a lot more tests than we're prepared for."
"So?" Florian asked. "Adding extra columns for the data should take care of that, right?"
Vanna shook her head sadly. "It might, depending on what they're testing and how much detail they want, but Miss Hebert is already up to fifteen shots, and hasn't even switched to her magical girl form." She turned back to the computer and resumed typing. "There's going to be a lot more data than we originally planned on, especially judging by the titles of those columns. And it's going to be us at fault when he doesn't have the data he wants."
"But shouldn't adding the extra columns fix the issue?" Florian asked.
Vanna growled in irritation. "Sure, if we only wanted to keep some simple data. Hell, he might even be able to handle it all if he adds enough columns to handle each, individual shot. He still oversimplified it to hell and made a mess out of the back end. Rather than deal with the mess he's bound to dump on us, I'm going to get this thing set up correctly now."
"Teacher's pet," Florian scoffed.
"Look, just because I actually care about my work," Vanna shouted, spinning in her chair. She took a deep breath to calm herself before saying, "No, arguing with you isn't worth it. Leave me alone and let me do my work in peace." She turned back to her computer and continued her coding.
[hr][/hr]
Taylor was laying on the ground with her rifle snug against her shoulder. Considering she was currently in her magical girl form, and wearing a skirt, she was rather glad her outfit also contained a pair of shorts. Her younger age and loss of height made the weapon appear even longer, but that didn't seem to be causing her any difficulties.
They had just finished with her shooting mana bullets at the target, and it had taken her a few extra shots to get them back on target. Evidently, she was going to need to train with regular bullets and with mana bullets, as the mana bullets had significantly less drop than her Lupua rounds. It wasn't a significant difference, at least at the distances they were using for the test, but in the field it would definitely be something to keep note of.
"So, did you want me to try out some of my Rites, or are we done?" Taylor asked as she shifted to a kneeling position.
"What do you mean?" Akkeman asked. He was jostling his computer frantically. Based on comments he had made previously, Taylor suspected he had needed to modify his record keeping to keep track of all her shots. Apparently he wasn't expecting Gaston to insist on such thorough testing? It wasn't like he was going to allow the scientists to keep their gear set up on his range indefinitely, after all.
"Well, I've just been using mana bullets," the magical girl explained. "They're easy enough to produce and seem to be better than regular bullets, but it's just mana. I should be able to infuse them with actual Rites as well."
Akkeman stood silently for a moment, considering things. Finally he said, "That could prove valuable. Did you have anything particular in mind?"
"Before you get started," Gaston cut in, "I would like to request that you don't do anything too excessive. The range's backstop can only handle so much."
"Well," Taylor began, considering what she knew about her magical abilities. "I think Frost should be safe enough." Lying back down and taking careful aim, she said, "I'm preparing the shot."
Akkeman nodded. "We're ready to record the shot." A moment later there was a crack as Taylor fired, a bright blue light flashing from the muzzle of her rifle. Down range, the target grew an obvious coating of ice.
"Good to know that works," Taylor noted. "I think I may be able to make the mana bullets faster with Motion or hit harder with Blood. And, if things go the way I want, I should be able to shoot healing bullets with Life."
"Here, try this," Rose suggested, handing over a single cartridge.
"What should it do?" Taylor asked. She wasn't really concerned that the other girl would give her something dangerous, or at least more dangerous than she expected, but it'd be best to make sure before firing a magic bullet she didn't make.
"It should fix things up a bit," Rose replied. "If I did it right, at least." She paused for a moment and added, "At least, it shouldn't cause any more damage than a regular mana bullet would if I messed up."
"Gaston?" Taylor asked.
The man sighed. "You might as well go ahead."
"Professor?" Taylor asked again.
"Hm, yes," Akkeman replied. "It should be interesting to see how your magics interact."
"Right," Taylor said, slotting the cartridge into place. A moment later, there was a crack, followed by the target no longer being covered in ice. Taylor studied it for a moment and stated, "It looks like it did when we got here. I think it worked."
"Well, that certainly opens up some interesting possibilities," Akkeman noted.
"Yes!" Rose cheered. "Sniper buddies for the win! I can't wait to see what we can do with some time to prepare properly!"
"Not in my range, you won't!" Gaston snapped fearfully.
"We're gonna need a bigger range," Taylor noted, amused at being able to use a variant of the old movie line.
[hr][/hr]
Author's note: This may be the last update for a while. Unfortunately, real life has been sapping my writing time for the last several months, and I've run out of buffer. The next chapter has been started, but it is not even remotely ready to post.