Mayumi studied the collection of small earrings currently nestled in her hand. Oh, she'd had many of them for a while now, but she'd never used them before. For her requip magic, she collected equipment belonging to fallen warriors, ones with parts of their spirit, their magic as it were, still attached to them. Several of her pieces came in sets, multiple pieces that had all belonged to the same warrior, which were stronger when used together. And with several of those pieces, she'd found these earrings. She could sense the magic still attached to them, knew they were attached somehow to her armors, but as of yet she hadn't discovered any special abilities that they had. Nor, oddly, was she able to use them with her requip magic. They stubbornly refused to bend to her magic, as though they still had some shred of personality clinging to them. Assuming that personality was a rather contrary one.
But she'd just gotten a breakthrough as to their purpose. She'd met a Celestial Spirit mage and had been talking with them when she'd had a chance to handle their keys, and the magic energy attached to them had seemed familiar. She'd shown the earrings to the mage, and they had agreed with her. The earrings seemed to have enough of the spirits attached to them that she ought to be able to use them to summon the spirits themselves to aid her.
Knowing how useful her armors were, she imagined the warriors themselves would be just as useful. Assuming, of course, that she could figure out how to summon them to aid her. The mage she'd been speaking to had given her a few pointers on how summoning magic worked, but the rest was for her to learn on her own.
She took a moment to ponder which spirit she ought to try to work with first. After some thought, she selected the ruby earring, carefully putting it on. It matched with her power set, which was one of her weaker sets. As such, logic told her the spirit would probably also be a bit on the weaker side, and thus easier to summon.
Alright, here goes. She closed her eyes, trying to focus her magic power on the energy she could feel emanating from the piece of jewelry. After a moment of brief concentration, she felt a sudden drop in her magical energy, signaling to her that her spell had been successful! She opened her eyes, gazing in shock at the sight before her. It was a knight, dressed in ornate armor and wielding a sword. Oh, and did she mention he was charging straight for her?!?
Startled, she had just enough time to call her own sword from her requip magic, blocking his blow with it. However, if anything, the warrior seemed to get even stronger when she called forth the sword. Then she remembered that the sword was part of her equipment set from the warrior who was now before her. Wow, she was using his own weapon against him. She was sure that had to just thrill him.
"What the hell are you doing? Stop! I'm the one who summoned you!"
She shouted in frustration, blind rage starting to build. How dare he! She should cut him to pieces for this insult. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to understand her. His eyes were clouded with a blood lust of sorts, and he seemed very intent on separating her from her head. With a large amount of mental effort, she was able to seize control of him in a way, forcing him to back off, although she could sense that if her mental hold on him failed for even a moment he would attack her again. This one, she could tell, would be trouble, and she'd had enough for the moment. She used her willpower to end the summons, causing him to finally disappear, and she slumped back, exhausted. At least her head was starting to clear as that rage started seeping from her, allowing her to calm slightly. Well, that first attempt had gone well. She had a feeling it would be a while before she tried him again.
She quickly removed the earring, setting it back with the others. So that had been a bad choice to start out with, but perhaps a different spirit would work better? Hmm... Well, her fortitude set wasn't much stronger than her power set, so perhaps she might be able to handle that. And that set was all about defense, so perhaps that spirit wouldn't be so... Aggressive...
She selected the obsidian earring from the pile, hesitating for a long moment before finally putting it on. Did she really want to do this again right now? Not really, but she did want to learn. If she stopped now, what was to say that she would ever make herself start again? She needed to get this done now, so she would know if they were all like that first spirit. At least this time she already had a sword handy, just in case. So she repeated the same process as before, focusing on the magic until she felt that energy fluctuation that told her the summons had worked. This time she snapped her eyes open quickly, just in case she was about to get charged again.
Thankfully, that did not happen, although this spirit was yet another armored knight. He had green hair, extremely bulky armor, and was armed with a spear. She supposed she ought to have expected the bulky armor, given what his set of armor did. She was suddenly nervous, not quite sure how exactly to deal with him. She didn't exactly want him to turn into a homicidal maniac.
"Um... Hello? What's your name?"
The knight seemed surprised that she was addressing him.
"Huh? Oh... Me? I'm Jarn. Elias Jarn."
"So... Do you want me to call you Elias, or Jarn?"
"What? Oh, just... Whatever. Whatever you feel like."
This was shaping up to be an awkward conversation. They both seemed to be rather nervous about each other, which was odd, because Mayumi wasn't really a nervous person. So, what should she say do a nervous warrior that's she'd just summoned back from the dead?
"Well, I'm Mayumi. I'm glad you're, well, friendly. The last spirit I tried to summon was rather intent on killing me."
"Oh? And who was he?"
"Well, actually, I don't know. He was a little bit... Nuts. Not a very chatty guy. Blonde, blue eyes, and oddly enough, armor decorated with roses. Doesn't really look like a homicidal maniac, but apparently he is."
"That... That sounds kind of like Bjorn. He was a bit of a whack-job. Matter of fact, that sword your holding looks a lot like his."
She blinked, realizing that she was still holding the sword. Of course, that thought came just in time for the weapon to disappear. Oh well, her time was up. Still, if he recognized the description of the knight and the sword, he was probably thinking of the right person.
"You know him?"
"Well, know is a strong word. I didn't exactly hand out with him. Don't even know his last name. But he... Well, he might have killed me."
Well, that was definitely an awkward situation. Out of the first two spirits she summoned, one was crazy and the other one had been killed by the crazy one. Oh boy.
"So then... If I summoned you two at the same time, would you cooperate with him? Or fight with him?"
The knight looked terrified at that prospect, and she couldn't say she blamed him. "Well, he isn't exactly the type to cooperate, but I guess I could try, if you asked me to..."
At least that was a start. She had a feeling that her summons time was running out, though. "Well then... I guess I'll call on you later?"
The knight shrugged, then disappeared. With him gone Mayumi was feeling a lot calmer, more like herself. Was she starting to sense a trend here? Well, there was one way to find out. Time for spirit number three. She selected the third earring, made out of howlite, a fairly common stone, although most had never heard of it. It looked rather like white marble, with gray veining. This one went with her control set. A fun one, that one. It let her immobilize people, always very useful. She liked it so much that the whip from that set was her signature spell. Hopefully the spirit who matched the set would be just as fun. Again, she followed the same summoning procedure, and again, it worked. She supposed there wasn't that much to it after all.
The woman in front of her certainly looked like she could match the equipment. Tall and blonde, she wore some chest armor, had a long red skirt and cloak, and of course carried a whip. There was something about the black and white on her outfit, though, that was very distracting. Almost disorienting, in fact.
"Hello. What's your name?"
The blonde warrior stared at Mayumi for a long moment. "I can't remember."
Mayumi blinked. "You don't remember your own name?"
"No. No, I don't remember."
Well, that was odd. "Well, do you know where you are? Do you... Do you remember dying?"
"Dying? Am I dead? No, I don't remember that. Or know where I am. I don't remember much of anything really."
"So... What should I call you then?"
The woman shrugged. "How should I know? You can call me whatever you want. Give me a name, I guess."
Mayumi thought about that for a moment. "Well, how about Misa, then?"
She shrugged again, so Mayumi decided to take that as agreement. "Alright Misa. I guess I'll call you again later." She felt a little bad about asking her to leave again so quickly, but something about her presence was rather disorienting. And besides all this summoning was starting to tire her out, and she had one more spirit she wanted to test out before she stopped for the day.
Misa stared at her for another moment, then shrugged again. "If you wish." And with that, she disappeared again.
Mayumi sighed. Now that her head was clearing again, she was sure of one thing- these spirits were really messing with her head, making her feel things she normally wouldn't. And it seemed to reflect their own emotional state. With the first spirit, she'd been very angry. The second, she'd been almost as nervous as the spirit himself. And Misa had been confused, which had in turn disoriented her. She just hoped for her own sanity that the other spirits were in a better state of mind.
There were only four earrings left to try, but three of them were a lot stronger than she wanted to tackle at the moment, which left her one more. The malachite earring corresponded to her guidance set, which was focused entirely on helping her allies. Hopefully, then, he or she would be a bit more... Stable.
When the spirit appeared, Mayumi quickly realized it was a woman, and she was a lot younger than she'd expected, considering that she was supposed to be some sort of leader. She had short blue hair, light armor, and appeared to be wielding a staff of sorts.
"Hello."
Before Mayumi could get any farther than that, the spirit spoke up. "Who are you. You're not Angoran, are you? You look like could could be..."
The girl didn't sound very happy about that, and something told Mayumi that being Angoran would be a very bad thing. Good thing Mayumi wasn't, at least as far as she knew. She had no idea what an Angoran was.
"I... I don't think so. What is an Angoran?"
The girl looked at her like she was a bit dumb. "Someone from Angora. Obviously."
That wasn't very helpful. "And... Where exactly is Angora?"
The spirit looked disconcerted at that. "Where are we, exactly, that you don't know where Angora is."
"We're in Fiore."
The spirit definitely seemed upset at that news. "I've never even heard of Fiore."
Mayumi decided to push the issue a little farther. "What problem do you have with Angorans, then?"
"We were at war with them, and we lost. They killed so many of my friends. I want them to pay for it."
Yikes. On one hand, that level of a grudge was kind of frightening. On the other hand, right now she really wanted to go hunt down some Angorans for her and cause heads to roll.
"Well... I don't know any Angorans, but maybe I could help you find some some more friends? Speaking of, what is your name?"
The spirit nodded. "Well, friends would be nice. I'll make sure to take better care of them this time. And if we run into any Angorans, I will kill them. I'm Saeko Rikiya."
Mayumi nodded. "Well, it was very nice to meet you, Saeko. I'd like to talk longer, but I don't think my magic will hold out much longer."
Saeko smiled at her. "That's fine. We can talk again soon. You can be the first of my new friends." And with that, the spirit disappeared, leaving Mayumi alone again.
Well, it had been one hell of a day. She'd rather expected all the spirits to be noble and powerful warriors. She seemed to have overestimated them. Still, most of them seemed agreeable enough, and the magic had worked splendidly. It seemed that she had found her new magic.
Word Count: 2,271
But she'd just gotten a breakthrough as to their purpose. She'd met a Celestial Spirit mage and had been talking with them when she'd had a chance to handle their keys, and the magic energy attached to them had seemed familiar. She'd shown the earrings to the mage, and they had agreed with her. The earrings seemed to have enough of the spirits attached to them that she ought to be able to use them to summon the spirits themselves to aid her.
Knowing how useful her armors were, she imagined the warriors themselves would be just as useful. Assuming, of course, that she could figure out how to summon them to aid her. The mage she'd been speaking to had given her a few pointers on how summoning magic worked, but the rest was for her to learn on her own.
She took a moment to ponder which spirit she ought to try to work with first. After some thought, she selected the ruby earring, carefully putting it on. It matched with her power set, which was one of her weaker sets. As such, logic told her the spirit would probably also be a bit on the weaker side, and thus easier to summon.
Alright, here goes. She closed her eyes, trying to focus her magic power on the energy she could feel emanating from the piece of jewelry. After a moment of brief concentration, she felt a sudden drop in her magical energy, signaling to her that her spell had been successful! She opened her eyes, gazing in shock at the sight before her. It was a knight, dressed in ornate armor and wielding a sword. Oh, and did she mention he was charging straight for her?!?
Startled, she had just enough time to call her own sword from her requip magic, blocking his blow with it. However, if anything, the warrior seemed to get even stronger when she called forth the sword. Then she remembered that the sword was part of her equipment set from the warrior who was now before her. Wow, she was using his own weapon against him. She was sure that had to just thrill him.
"What the hell are you doing? Stop! I'm the one who summoned you!"
She shouted in frustration, blind rage starting to build. How dare he! She should cut him to pieces for this insult. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to understand her. His eyes were clouded with a blood lust of sorts, and he seemed very intent on separating her from her head. With a large amount of mental effort, she was able to seize control of him in a way, forcing him to back off, although she could sense that if her mental hold on him failed for even a moment he would attack her again. This one, she could tell, would be trouble, and she'd had enough for the moment. She used her willpower to end the summons, causing him to finally disappear, and she slumped back, exhausted. At least her head was starting to clear as that rage started seeping from her, allowing her to calm slightly. Well, that first attempt had gone well. She had a feeling it would be a while before she tried him again.
She quickly removed the earring, setting it back with the others. So that had been a bad choice to start out with, but perhaps a different spirit would work better? Hmm... Well, her fortitude set wasn't much stronger than her power set, so perhaps she might be able to handle that. And that set was all about defense, so perhaps that spirit wouldn't be so... Aggressive...
She selected the obsidian earring from the pile, hesitating for a long moment before finally putting it on. Did she really want to do this again right now? Not really, but she did want to learn. If she stopped now, what was to say that she would ever make herself start again? She needed to get this done now, so she would know if they were all like that first spirit. At least this time she already had a sword handy, just in case. So she repeated the same process as before, focusing on the magic until she felt that energy fluctuation that told her the summons had worked. This time she snapped her eyes open quickly, just in case she was about to get charged again.
Thankfully, that did not happen, although this spirit was yet another armored knight. He had green hair, extremely bulky armor, and was armed with a spear. She supposed she ought to have expected the bulky armor, given what his set of armor did. She was suddenly nervous, not quite sure how exactly to deal with him. She didn't exactly want him to turn into a homicidal maniac.
"Um... Hello? What's your name?"
The knight seemed surprised that she was addressing him.
"Huh? Oh... Me? I'm Jarn. Elias Jarn."
"So... Do you want me to call you Elias, or Jarn?"
"What? Oh, just... Whatever. Whatever you feel like."
This was shaping up to be an awkward conversation. They both seemed to be rather nervous about each other, which was odd, because Mayumi wasn't really a nervous person. So, what should she say do a nervous warrior that's she'd just summoned back from the dead?
"Well, I'm Mayumi. I'm glad you're, well, friendly. The last spirit I tried to summon was rather intent on killing me."
"Oh? And who was he?"
"Well, actually, I don't know. He was a little bit... Nuts. Not a very chatty guy. Blonde, blue eyes, and oddly enough, armor decorated with roses. Doesn't really look like a homicidal maniac, but apparently he is."
"That... That sounds kind of like Bjorn. He was a bit of a whack-job. Matter of fact, that sword your holding looks a lot like his."
She blinked, realizing that she was still holding the sword. Of course, that thought came just in time for the weapon to disappear. Oh well, her time was up. Still, if he recognized the description of the knight and the sword, he was probably thinking of the right person.
"You know him?"
"Well, know is a strong word. I didn't exactly hand out with him. Don't even know his last name. But he... Well, he might have killed me."
Well, that was definitely an awkward situation. Out of the first two spirits she summoned, one was crazy and the other one had been killed by the crazy one. Oh boy.
"So then... If I summoned you two at the same time, would you cooperate with him? Or fight with him?"
The knight looked terrified at that prospect, and she couldn't say she blamed him. "Well, he isn't exactly the type to cooperate, but I guess I could try, if you asked me to..."
At least that was a start. She had a feeling that her summons time was running out, though. "Well then... I guess I'll call on you later?"
The knight shrugged, then disappeared. With him gone Mayumi was feeling a lot calmer, more like herself. Was she starting to sense a trend here? Well, there was one way to find out. Time for spirit number three. She selected the third earring, made out of howlite, a fairly common stone, although most had never heard of it. It looked rather like white marble, with gray veining. This one went with her control set. A fun one, that one. It let her immobilize people, always very useful. She liked it so much that the whip from that set was her signature spell. Hopefully the spirit who matched the set would be just as fun. Again, she followed the same summoning procedure, and again, it worked. She supposed there wasn't that much to it after all.
The woman in front of her certainly looked like she could match the equipment. Tall and blonde, she wore some chest armor, had a long red skirt and cloak, and of course carried a whip. There was something about the black and white on her outfit, though, that was very distracting. Almost disorienting, in fact.
"Hello. What's your name?"
The blonde warrior stared at Mayumi for a long moment. "I can't remember."
Mayumi blinked. "You don't remember your own name?"
"No. No, I don't remember."
Well, that was odd. "Well, do you know where you are? Do you... Do you remember dying?"
"Dying? Am I dead? No, I don't remember that. Or know where I am. I don't remember much of anything really."
"So... What should I call you then?"
The woman shrugged. "How should I know? You can call me whatever you want. Give me a name, I guess."
Mayumi thought about that for a moment. "Well, how about Misa, then?"
She shrugged again, so Mayumi decided to take that as agreement. "Alright Misa. I guess I'll call you again later." She felt a little bad about asking her to leave again so quickly, but something about her presence was rather disorienting. And besides all this summoning was starting to tire her out, and she had one more spirit she wanted to test out before she stopped for the day.
Misa stared at her for another moment, then shrugged again. "If you wish." And with that, she disappeared again.
Mayumi sighed. Now that her head was clearing again, she was sure of one thing- these spirits were really messing with her head, making her feel things she normally wouldn't. And it seemed to reflect their own emotional state. With the first spirit, she'd been very angry. The second, she'd been almost as nervous as the spirit himself. And Misa had been confused, which had in turn disoriented her. She just hoped for her own sanity that the other spirits were in a better state of mind.
There were only four earrings left to try, but three of them were a lot stronger than she wanted to tackle at the moment, which left her one more. The malachite earring corresponded to her guidance set, which was focused entirely on helping her allies. Hopefully, then, he or she would be a bit more... Stable.
When the spirit appeared, Mayumi quickly realized it was a woman, and she was a lot younger than she'd expected, considering that she was supposed to be some sort of leader. She had short blue hair, light armor, and appeared to be wielding a staff of sorts.
"Hello."
Before Mayumi could get any farther than that, the spirit spoke up. "Who are you. You're not Angoran, are you? You look like could could be..."
The girl didn't sound very happy about that, and something told Mayumi that being Angoran would be a very bad thing. Good thing Mayumi wasn't, at least as far as she knew. She had no idea what an Angoran was.
"I... I don't think so. What is an Angoran?"
The girl looked at her like she was a bit dumb. "Someone from Angora. Obviously."
That wasn't very helpful. "And... Where exactly is Angora?"
The spirit looked disconcerted at that. "Where are we, exactly, that you don't know where Angora is."
"We're in Fiore."
The spirit definitely seemed upset at that news. "I've never even heard of Fiore."
Mayumi decided to push the issue a little farther. "What problem do you have with Angorans, then?"
"We were at war with them, and we lost. They killed so many of my friends. I want them to pay for it."
Yikes. On one hand, that level of a grudge was kind of frightening. On the other hand, right now she really wanted to go hunt down some Angorans for her and cause heads to roll.
"Well... I don't know any Angorans, but maybe I could help you find some some more friends? Speaking of, what is your name?"
The spirit nodded. "Well, friends would be nice. I'll make sure to take better care of them this time. And if we run into any Angorans, I will kill them. I'm Saeko Rikiya."
Mayumi nodded. "Well, it was very nice to meet you, Saeko. I'd like to talk longer, but I don't think my magic will hold out much longer."
Saeko smiled at her. "That's fine. We can talk again soon. You can be the first of my new friends." And with that, the spirit disappeared, leaving Mayumi alone again.
Well, it had been one hell of a day. She'd rather expected all the spirits to be noble and powerful warriors. She seemed to have overestimated them. Still, most of them seemed agreeable enough, and the magic had worked splendidly. It seemed that she had found her new magic.
Word Count: 2,271
