Spoilers: none yet. PoA, shortly. Warnings: shoujoai, character death, mention of rape and abuse. Disclaimers: J.K. Rowling might recognize some of these characters, even after I've mauled them. Takeuchi Naoko might recognize others. Miyuu's mine. Blanca Marina is nickamano's. -<{ An End to Deviltry }>- Chapter Three Tests By St. Suika Roberts In Response To nickamano@btinternet.com's "Draco Devilism" Stories Natsuko stares at the place Miyuu had been sitting a moment before, hand at her lips, eyes shimmering. She looks up at a knock on the door, `Yes?' The door opens, and Hotaru steps in. Natsuko glimpses Miyuu sitting outside, her eyes red, face blotchy, and tears start to leak down her face as Hotaru hangs her cape by the door. `I didn't mean to make her cry,' she starts. `I know,' Hotaru says, settling awkwardly to the floor, her legs stiff, `But you're scaring her.' `Scaring her? How?' Natsuko waves at the door, `She's so strong --' `She's an adult, and very young,' Hotaru smiles, `That isn't the best combination. I was fourteen when I met Usagi-chan,' her smile broadens, just a little, and she relaxes a tiny bit, `Untested, but almost a Sailor. Usagi looked like she was ten, but I could tell she wasn't, even though I never saw her out of civilian's until the end, it was obvious, in the way she moved, in the look in her eyes, her protectiveness.' After a moment Natsuko speaks up, `How old is she?' `She went away after Mistress Nine and Pharoh Ninety were stopped, and showed up the next morning looking twelve. She's something more than three hundred years old, she's not exactly sure how much,' Hotaru spreads her hands, `But her military records cover three hundred and seventy years so far. She's retired three times, and left the army for short periods at least five more.' `Wow.' Hotaru smiles, `She wouldn't let me kiss her.' `What?' Natsuko asks, confused by the apparent subject change. `Usagi, when we first met, even after she agreed to be my girlfriend. No kissing, and limits on touching.' `Why?' `I wasn't an adult.' `Neither is she!' Natsuko says, firmly, not quite sure which she she means. `Usagi is very much an adult, and so is Miyuu. One is an adult if one reaches the age of twenty-one, or one passes one's tests.' `But she's a first year. That means she's eleven.' `Yes, but it's still molestation or statutory rape if you or your parents decide to complain. `Usagi said that she'd seen too many good soldiers get fucked by getting too involved with a child. The child often was perfectly willing, and sometimes older than the soldier, but . . .' `That doesn't stop someone from getting angry, or their parents,' Natsuko nods, `But she's so cute, and strong, and brave, and wonderful,' Natsuko sighs. `She likes you too, or she wouldn't be hurting so over this. Keep to the limits she sets, and take your tests.' `What do they involve?' `General soldier skills, and ethics. Nothing very hard, or we wouldn't have even the few younglings we do have pass.' `She said she passed at seven.' `That's about the youngest people do. There've been four people who passed their tests at six, and eighty at seven.' `So what do I do?' `Let her set the limits, and study what she teaches.' `And what will that be?,' Natsuko waves at Hotaru's legs, out straight with her boots still on the bare floor of the genkan, `Are all of you in the Army?' `That was a car wreck, when I was much younger. No, we're not all active-duty. Most of us stay home, train, and go about our normal lives. A full quarter of us are farmers, another quarter are industrial, ten or eleven percent construction, and twelve or so in various service jobs.' `That still leaves twenty-seven percent.' `Yep, we've a really high tooth-to-tail ratio, but we've set ourselves in a hard place.' `Why?' `Because Queen Serenity refuses to sugar-coat or spin-doctor things, and refuses to compromise her ideals. So we're a little stretched, and need every new citizen we can get. If you want in, we'll train you in whatever field you wish, pay your way through school, and be happy for it. If you don't right now, the offer will be open in the future.' `Thank you,' Natsuko smiles awkwardly. `A book will arrive in the mail in a little while. Please read it,' Hotaru levers herself stiffly to her feet, and bows. `I will,' Natsuko rises more gracefully, and bows back. Outside the door, Hotaru talks quietly with Miyuu for a moment, then walks up the stairs. `So,' Miyuu bounces in, `She talked to you, right?' `Keep to your limits, and let you teach me.' `Good,' Miyuu looks down, then steps over to the ugly pink trunk. It opens at her touch, and Natsuko crowds close to see what it inside. `Um,' Natsuko says as Miyuu lifts the top drawer out, and sets it aside. `Um,' she repeats, as Miyuu sets the second drawer out. `There it is,' Miyuu smiles, then pulls a shiny, black plastic and stainless steel, rifle out. `What are these?' Natsuko asks, keeping Miyuu between her and the guns. `What?' Miyuu draws the bolt, checking the chamber and magazine well, then holds the rifle out to Natsuko. Natsuko just looks at it. Miyuu closes her eyes, then sets the rifle down, and pulls the third and fourth drawers out, laying them next to the other two. `Top drawer,' she says, `We have an M3A2 submachine gun, also known as a subgun or machine pistol, spare parts, and ammunition. It is an old, heavy, cheap design, and is quite reliable. I have twelve clips, each holding thirty rounds,' she pulls it from its slot, cut into the foam lining the drawer. `Whenever one recieves a weapon, one should check if it is loaded. Assumptions, either that the weapon is loaded or not, will get people killed. To check this one, all one has to do is make sure that there isn't a magazine in it.' [this isn't safe, but if the weapon is in good shape and you keep it well, and no one has had a chance to fuck with it, it won't bite you, maybe -- it fires from the open bolt, so if the bolt is back and no one has managed to stuff a round in the chamber, it should be safe. If the bolt is forward, it should have fired the round in the chamber. Miyuu eventually gets around to all of this, but I'm cutting it short --S] `Magazine?' `Detachable box magazine,' She hands over one of the long grey steel boxes, `Also, improperly, called a clip.' `What's it full of?' Miyuu pops the ejection port cover on the M3, draws the bolt a little, peeks into the chamber, and lets the bolt drop back before setting it in her lap. She holds out her hand, and Natsuko sets the magazine in it. Miyuu strips a round out, `This is a round, sometimes called a bullet, but that properly refers to only the front part,' and proceeds through the whole lecture, and a quick introduction of the rest of the guns, the 1911A1s in the second drawer, the Bushmaster and the B.A.R. in the third, the shotguns in the fourth. By the end, Natsuko's eyes are glazed, and she's having a little trouble tracking. `And now for something completely different,' Miyuu says, firmly, packing the guns back into her atrocious pink trunk. `Why do you have that?' Natsuko asks. `It's a perfectly servicable Dark Kingdom combat trunk.' `It's very pink, and doesn't match anything else you have.' `Mama gave it to me when I was a lot younger.' `Oh. What's a combat trunk, and are they all this color?' `They're an issue item. Virtually impregnable.' `Virtually?' `Yeah, one can concentrate enough energy on them to destroy them, but not, so far, without destroying their contents, too.' `Can't one just magic them?' `Can't, or no one has reported a successful breach yet.' `And all of them are this color?' `No, the issue ones are more subdued. I painted it for a while, when I first came in. I stopped bothering a couple years ago.' `So you stripped the paint off?' `Nah, it just doesn't stick very well,' Miyuu sets the top drawer in, and closes the lid, `Most of it would peel off in a month, and then I'd have to paint it again.' `So what's this completely different thing?' `Potions!' Miyuu chirps, `I've not done next week's yet, so.' Natsuko smiles, and settles back to watch. `Potions is a practical class, so why are you doing it now?' `Because,' Miyuu says, laying the parchment out, `If I wait, I won't be sure of the substitutions,' `Substitutions?' Natsuko asks. `Substitutions. I refuse to use ingredients which cause unnecessary sufffering,' Miyuu says, scribbling on the blank sheet, `Which is a damned pain.' `Why?' `Because there are six different things to substitute for eye of newt, and none of them will work in every potion, and some of them sometimes make things quite explosive.' `No, why do you refuse?' `There's quite enough suffering already, and we don't have to contribute to it,' Miyuu says, staring at her parchment, then scribbling for a moment, then staring again, `No, capers and psylicybin mushrooms, when combined with saltpeter and cycloborine root give a nice substitute for nitroglycerin,' Miyuu shakes her head, dips her quill, and begins to write again. `What's nitroglycerin?' Miyuu gives Natsuko a look that makes her feel like she's dumber than dirt, softens it almost instantly, `A muggle potion. It blows up. It's rather unstable, and thus very dangerous.' `Blows up,' Natsuko makes a small gesture with her hands, `boom?' `A cauldron full,' Miyuu pauses, `would blow down those three walls,' she indicates the one with the door, and the ones to either side, `and likely the walls on the other side, and crack that wall,' she points at the back, `if it went off in the middle of the room. With just a little care, that would be more than enough to bring down half this building, and a skilled demolition tech could probably bring down the whole building.' `Wow. And you made a substitute?' `Unfortunately. It blew up my old cauldron, a couple weeks ago.' `How?' `It didn't look right when I finished it, so I dropped it in my spare trunk, and shut it in. It about burned my eyebrows off when I opened my trunk again.' `How do you know it blew up? Maybe it just got really hot?' Miyuu sets her quill on a rest, gathers her parchment, and stands. At the door she slips her feet into her slippers, and leads Natsuko out into the hall, into the next room. It has a table with a slate top, a mud green trunk with black lace patterning at one end, plain dark wood cabinets along the walls. `How much stuff do you have?' Natsuko asks, looking around. `Too much,' Miyuu says, sets her parchment on the table, then opens the green trunk, `Look,' she indicates a tiny dent in the lid, `That's where one of the shards hit. The whole thing jumped when it went off.' `That's a tiny dent,' Natsuko says, `Why do you think that what you made was so powerful?' `Because these things can take a hit from an A.P.F.S.D.S. round, and' `A pi ef es what?' `Armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot,' Miyuu elaborates, `An anti-tank round --' `Anti-tank?' `A tank is a muggle self-propelled war chariot, generally between thirty and seventy tons, heavily armed an armored --' `How do you balance seventy tons on two wheels?' Natsumi interupts again. `No, they look like this,' Miyuu cups her hands, concentrating, and a picture flickers between them, an M1 Abrams main battle tank rolling along a road for a few seconds, then vanishing. `How?' Natsuko asks. Miyuu folds her hands, breathing hard, `Practice. Most Dark Kingdom soldiers know that much by the time they reach sergeant.' `Even the muggles?' `Even the muggles. They seem to have an easier time than the magical people, actually. I think their chi-flows are less,' she pauses, `diverted? tapped? Less of their energy goes to magic, anyway, so they have more to put towards their skills.' `So that wasn't magic?' `No, it wasn't,' Miyuu pauses, chasing her thoughts, `Right, an A.P.F.S.D.S. round will go right through a tank, but will only leave a quarter-inch deep dent in the side of one of these,' she pats the green trunk. `Then why don't they make tanks out of the same stuff?' `All Dark Kingdom tanks are armored in it.' `So if another tank shoots them,' she smiles, `No one gets hurt.' `It doesn't always work like that, but that is the idea.' `Wow,' and Natsuko smiles at Miyuu like she's responsible for this. Miyuu flushes under the rush of affectionate energy, and opens one of the cupboards, pulling out a cauldron, which she sets on the table, then gathers several ingredient jars, setting them on the table, then pestal and mortar, cutting board, and a glass knife. Natsuko picks up that last, `That's pretty.' `Yes,' Miyuu says, `Some potions are very iron sensitive, particularly when one is substituting like I do,' she holds out her hand, and Natsuko hands her the knife back, hilt first. About an hour later, as Miyuu stirs her potion slowly, simmering it, Natsuko asks, `How do you know it's those four ingredients that blow up?' `Because I spent three days easter-egging small quantities of ingredients until I found exactly what was needed,' Miyuu is frowning at her potion, `It was supposed to come out purple,' she glances at her original directions, `I think that was the Murtlap tentacle,' she takes her cauldron from the flame, and sets it into the bowl of cold water, still stirring. Once it is cool, she takes a bit of it, and places it on the back of her hand. It sits there, a solid, green-brown lump, until she licks it off. Natsuko gasps as the whole world swirls with light and sound and strange feelings, as she watches herself from across the table, a slight golden glow surrounding herself, tinted with a green of wonder, delicious and sweet, soft pretty face just barely flushed, soft curve of breast rising and falling with her every breath. And then she was back in her own skin, blinking and smiling at Miyuu, the woman's eyes wide and slightly scared, `That was wonderful! Was that supposed to happen?' `It was supposed to be a strengthening charm,' Miyuu shakes her head, `I think it strengthened something, but . . . ' `Let me try,' Natsuko touches a fingertip to the potion. `Don't,' Miyuu says, `We don't know how it will affect a human.' `No, we don't,' Natsuko agrees. Miyuu relaxes a little. Natsuko licks her finger. She stands, and lifts the table carefully, picking all six legs off the ground, then settling it down, without spilling everything everywhere. Miyuu shakes off the vague disappointment, `I guess it works as expected on humans.' `It's very strong,' Natsuko tells her. --- log: 3169/Aftermath/33: Started. 3169/Aftermath/34: Continued. 3169/Aftermath/35: Continued. 3169/Aftermath/39: Continued. 3169/Aftermath/44: Tiny edit. 3169/Aftermath/66: Continued. 3170/Chaos/16: Tiny edit.