Prologue
Dawn was dying. Oh, she wasn’t dying dying. Not yet at least. She was... slowly and painfully losing the ability to keep her physical form intact. Yeah, definitely not dying yet. “Athena, how badly are we holding up?” she asked, brushing her golden hair away from her eyes.
Your use of Solar Flare has reduced your natural mana regeneration to 5.54 percent, leaving the AutoRegenerative enchantments on your armor reduced in effectiveness by ninety-seven percent, her familiar said in her mind. Currently, the only positive is the reduction in speed at which you are approaching your Healing Limit. You are barely holding together, Dawn.
She knew this job would eventually be the death of her. Oh, Guardians were loved throughout the world, as the invincible heroes of everyone. They had to be. If anyone heard about actual superheroes dying then it would be much harder to inspire everyone to happiness.
And keeping everyone calm and happy is half the job. Not that I’ll be doing it much longer.
“Can we get a report back to HQ? Make... make sure they know that Antithesis out here are getting some serious abilities. I’d rather everyone knew about the Disintegration Breath and how long it sticks around before another of those Drakes gets here,” Dawn coughed. “Honestly taking out a World-Tier’s not a bad way to go out. Please, tell me that Drake was World-Tier. ‘Cuz if it was, that’s not a half bad achievement for me.”
I can get a mana-pulsed signal through to Yzeron. And yes, it was a World-Tier threat, Athena said, appearing in front of Dawn.
The small wolf, which helped her with her duties as a Guardian, was her Familiar. If she had never been approached by Athena, she never would have had access to the Arcane System or the Consortium. Those are basically a prerequisite.
Athena was the size and fluffiness of a stuffed animal, with short, pointed ears and seven golden tails, tipped in amethyst. It was a point of consternation to Athena and her companion that many called her a kitsune, and they were always quickly corrected. Athena was a wolf, not a fox.
“Are you sure you’ve tried everything? If we swapped around mana consumption a bit we might get your Barrier up long enough to fly out of this mess.” she said, staring analytically at Dawn with her violet eyes. “You did survive the fight and complete the quest, after all. Your new Title might help with that.”
Dawn had to agree. Flight was impossible right now; her wings had disintegrated. If I could just survive long enough to cast |Wings|, I might be able to move out of the Disintegration. I don't have the mana to keep myself healed and activate my Barrier, though.
With that thought, Dawn called upon the Arcane System, willing it to show the completed Quest, alongside the accompanying Title. Dawn smiled, and as the familiar blue window appeared in front of her eyes, she read:
World’s Dusk - Valkyrie’s Dawn (Completed)
An Anomalous Antithesis is approaching Terra. No other Valkyrie or Guardian
is able to assist in intercepting this threat before it reaches the atmosphere.
Kill the Antithesis with extreme prejudice, or hold it off until help arrives.
Difficulty: Death Wish
Rewards: Title - |The Stellar Valkyrie|
Compendium - |Tome of Dawning Stars|
|The Stellar Valkyrie|
-Reduce the duration of Self-Applied Debuffs by 50%
-Increase the potency of Enemy-Targeted Debuffs by 25%
-Increase the potency of Banner Buffs by 10%
Dawn smiled as she looked at the new title. Valkyries were the best of the best, but you weren’t considered a ‘True Valkyrie’ until you earned your Title. They were Unique, and hers was no different.
Dawn had qualified to be a Valkyrie when she first formed her Unique Class-Archetype, Affliction Paladin. Her Signature, which gave her tons of mana regeneration, gave her the idea to be a Regeneration-Tank, always having enough mana to fuel her Barrier. Of course, never losing fights wasn’t enough to win them, so she had started using debuffs to whittle down her enemies while surviving everything they threw at her.
These factors meant that Dawn punched well above her weight class, despite what her level would suggest. There were some cases where she could fight an entire Tier above herself. Of course, being able to punch up a tier didn’t matter when the only way to get Titled was to fight an enemy that was too difficult for you by yourself. Well, I still took out a World-Tier on my own. Of course that should count.
Checking the most crucial debuffs, Dawn swore.
Mana Overload
You have channeled more mana than your body can withstand.
Mana Regeneration rate has been reduced to 5.54%
Barrier Regeneration Efficiency has been reduced to 3.13%
Time Remaining 24:51:33
Solar Eclipse
You have overloaded your Solar Core, disabling your Signature temporarily.
Solar Core mana flow reduced to 0
Solar Core mana storage reduced to 0
Time Remaining 1:36:18
“Well that’s annoying,” Dawn growled. “I finally get my title, and it can’t save me. Yeah, the title is great to have, but it’s all passives! Those don’t help me here!”
“To be fair, a Solar Flare on that scale always knocks you out for quite a while.” Athena stated flatly. “We always keep that skill in reserve, or use it at a low power for precisely this reason. With your Mana Regeneration cut, we are unable to activate |Wings|”
“Yeah, we’re not flying out of this death trap without |Wings|,” she grumbled.
Space was not an easy place to move around, especially when you weren’t in an EVA, and didn’t have magical means of flight. The Valkyrie’s trademark skill, |Wings of the Valkyrie|, one such method, made space battles much easier for them. Being able to go to space was always a pretty good motivator to get |Wings|. As if I needed another reason to learn to fly.
Floating through space with barely enough mana to stay alive gave Dawn a bit of time to reflect. It had been 15 years since the most impactful event of her life. Her first 22 years weren’t awesome, but they weren’t awful either. There is no changing the past, only the future.
Friends and family helped her through the rough times, and the good times were common enough that she was generally happy. There were only a few things wrong with her existence back then. She tried not to think about that time, embarrassed about her cluelessness.
Dawn only began figuring out who she was and what she was missing when everything changed. One night, she found herself waking up on a new world. Oh, there was a lot of worrying to start. And then a little bit of figuring things out. When she saw this world had magic...
The easy part of being isekai’d had been finding out she was indeed on a different world. The hard part was finding a way to fit in. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken too long for somebody to take note of the new Guardian and point her in the right direction. I still can’t believe getting a job was so simple.
The annoying part of waking up on a new world, of course, had been obtaining identification. She wasn’t born in Yzeron. She wasn’t born anywhere on Terra, in fact. It looked similar enough to her home, but there were some major differences between Earth and Terra. Magic being real, for starters..
As she felt for the magic that was healing her, Dawn felt her efficiency dropping. There wasn’t a hard limit for how much healing you could receive before your body couldn’t heal anymore, but there was a limit on the amount of healing your body could take before more mana was required to achieve a similar result. Athena had worked with her years ago to help her learn the feeling of overhealing. Dawn could feel that soon she wouldn’t be able to outpace the lingering damage the World-Drake’s Disintegration Breath was causing. If I hadn’t been forced to use Solar Flare at full strength, maybe I would have been able to survive this.
“If only everyone back home knew,” she murmured deliriously, as the enchantments fueling her recovery faltered, her body limiting the effectiveness of the mana channeling through her. “If everyone knew, they wouldn’t have to worry about what happened to me. I bet they’re all worried sick.”
“You still have your Origin bonus.” Athena spoke, resting on her shoulder. “You haven’t used your Wish after all.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“My what?” she drawled, not fully comprehending her companion’s words. “I thought we finished the quest. The drake is dead.”
“No, not the quest, your Wish.” The little ball of fluff stared at her. “Did you forget? When you became a Guardian, that was half of your Origin bonus. Please tell me you didn’t scatterbrain away your wish.”
It was getting hard to think. The Disintegration Breath was slowly killing her, and it was not kind about it. Slowly melting, helpless to change your fate, was damaging to a mind in a way that didn’t make it easy to think. I had a wish? Maybe? I think... right. I get to wish for something. That’s what Athena said. Why did I never...
“I think I want... everyone at home to not have to worry. Like Mom and Dad and Sean and Tay. They’ve got to be... worried I’m gone,” Dawn rambled out, the words coming slower as she spoke. “Yeah. I wish... they could learn what happened to me. That should... fix that. Then they won’t... be... worried.” Her Eyes were non-functional at this point, so she could not watch as her companion’s eyes flashed in brilliant Gold.
SO IT SHALL BE
----------------------------------------
Donovan Hansch had never felt more alive. Oh, for all he was aware, everyone he knew and loved thought he was dead, which was not the case. He sat in a lonely booth in an empty restaurant in a world very different from his own. Looking out the diner’s window in an alien city, he thought about the last few hours.
Donovan had just gone to bed (or maybe he had been sleeping for a while) when a sudden chill woke him. Waking up cold wasn’t uncommon for him, but when he reached for his blankets and found only pavement, it didn’t take long for him to wake up. As he scanned his surroundings, he didn’t recognize anything.
The street Donovan laid next to was not grey or black, but white. The city's architecture looked familiar enough, but the letters on the street’s signs were not. Standing up and walking throughout the nighttime city, he tried to make out even a single word on the signs. The more he walked, the more lost he felt.
Nothing made sense in this city. The layout didn’t feel like anywhere on Earth. There were no power lines or telephone booths, not a bus stop to be found. What shocked Donovan even more was the lack of any electrical outlets, even the storefronts he peered into had strange goods for sale. Why would bracelets so plain be sold in the same store as phones? Why does this place feel more comfortable than anywhere I’ve been? I’ve never seen anything this… different.
It was a stroke of luck that Donovan found money on the ground outside a restaurant, his stomach growling as he smelled the savory aroma of fresh baked goods. He went inside, lucky that the ordering kiosk was automated, the display showing foods unfamiliar to him. The convenience of fast food never fails. Thank goodness that kiosk offered some kind of burger.
Looking at one of the TVs that were around the store, he’d jumped when he could suddenly hear it. He looked away, the noise stopped, looked back, noise again. That’s very strange and interesting. Whatever language these people speak sure doesn’t sound like any language I’ve heard.
As Donovan watched the programs, he noticed they all had similarities. Every single screen showed young women in colorful clothing fighting... monsters. They fought with flung spells and swung blades, tightly strung bows and... is that a giant lollipop?... Are monsters real here? I didn’t see anything like that on the street.
Donovan jumped again when his burger meal appeared in the middle of his table. After spending a few minutes staring at the meal, he found it was the best burger ever. There was surprisingly little grease for fast food, and it tasted like heaven.
There’s no way fast food on Earth would ever make a burger this good. It’s not the magic flatscreen so flat it’s probably a projection or illusion, or something. It’s not that... probably a news channel with a Magical Girl fight in what looks like this city. It’s this food that has to confirm it. I’m in another world.
Thinking about this new experience, Donovan decided there was no reason to worry about all the bad things first. There was no changing the past, only the future. List the things that are good. The food here is way better. Magic exists. Fighting monsters and saving the day is a valid profession. Probably. I can probably learn magic. There’s the strange, comforting warm feeling.
Unable to help himself, Donovan started to think about the bad parts of suddenly being in a different world. His friends and family, everyone he knew really, weren’t here. He didn’t even exist here. Proving I exist to whatever government is here is going to be the worst. There’s no way they have a form for this. Nobody just hops between worlds. Actually, maybe Magical Girls do, if they’re exceptionally powerful.
As Donovan thought, he caught his reflection in the window. His short, brown hair fell to just above brown eyes that looked to hold far more weight in them than the last time he saw them. Freckles dotted across a pale nose a bit too large for a boyish face, set in a frown. A loose t-shirt sat on a thin, angular frame. It looked all wrong. “I just want to be a girl too,” she mumbled, taking another sip of soda. “Magic is cool and all. Fighting monsters would probably be a fun job, I think. I only wish I was a girl.”
You can be, if you want, a light voice sounded in her head. In some ways, you already are.
“Whattheheckwho” she hissed, looking around and finding a little stuffed fox sitting beside her in the booth. The fox had short pointy ears, a brown tail that swished back and forth, and stared at her with black eyes.
I said you can be, if you want, the tiny fox bowed, then jumped up gracefully onto the table. Its eyes twinkled with golden flecks as it spoke. Magic is a useful tool, and can do much. I could grant it to you, if you sign a Contract with me.
She considered, taking another bite of her meal. This fox is speaking in English. How? It says I’m already a girl, when I can’t be.
“I can get magic?” She asked “Wait no. That’s less important. How are you speaking English? And how am I already a girl? I don't feel like a girl.”
To answer, I am not speaking, you are simply understanding me in your native language, the fox smirked. Second, although it is commonly understood that a soul and vessel are the same, your true self within your soul is female, while your vessel is not. Third, yes you are qualified to form a Contract with myself.
“You’re implying that this contract can give me magic? And magic can fix me?” she questioned, eyes wide with excitement. “What’s in the contract? Is it fighting monsters? Is that how the Magical Girls get their magic?”
She was starting to get very excited. There were two major things that had always felt wrong with her life on Earth. She’d figured out that her gender felt broken before coming here. There’s also that warmth in my heart where before there was cold nothingness. It’s been getting more and more comfy since I got here.
Yes, the Guardian Contract grants you magical power, and you are required to fight Antithesis with that power. Lips curling up, the fox’s tail swished once. You said it would be a fun job. You would also be able to... fix the dissonance between your body and soul.
Thinking about it, she had just said that fighting monsters looked like fun. After a moment she realized the words weren’t just an idle thought. It felt... right. She could picture herself fighting off evil monsters with a smile, protecting everyone and chasing off the darkness. And wings. She thought, glancing back at one of the screens. That one has wings. Maybe I could fly eventually?
“What’s in the contract,” she asked, popping a fry into her mouth. “I’m leaning towards yes, but it’s always smart to know what the terms are before you sign anything.”
Prudent. There are three parts to the Guardian Contract, the fox intoned. First, the Zenith shall grant you, a being with little inherent magic, a Familiar, myself. I shall reside within your body as a crystalized mana construct, connected to your soul. You will gain my aid in the gathering and storage of mana from your surroundings.
That was interesting, but maybe a little expected. Magical Girls always have a little companion in the stories I’ve read. Cute fox friend get~! Wait… “What’s a Zenith, cute fox friend?” she asked.
Tail freezing for a moment, the fox stared at her. The Zenith are my people. We who ensure the Antithesis are resisted wherever they may be. Also, the ball of fluff swiped a tail full of fries, devouring them as it continued, I am a wolf, not a fox.
“Hey, those were my fries!” she protested, a pout forming on her face. “I didn’t know, sorry”
Ignorance does not grant you immunity to retaliatory pranking, though I thank you for your apology. Regardless, I will continue.
Second, you will gain access to the Arcane System, granting you power. Granted alongside the Arcane System is access to the Arcane Consortium, and with it, the ability to purchase weapons, armor, and tools beyond what you could obtain otherwise.
“So, magic is like a video game. That’s both unexpected and understandable at the same time,” she said, getting more excited by the moment. “What’s third?”
The first two conditions are what you will gain, the Zenith slowly stated. The third condition of the Contract is how you will be restricted. You will be a Guardian. Even if not directly, you agree to use your power to fight Antithesis and protect humanity. You must never use your power to needlessly harm others. A Guardian is an icon of good, never evil.
That made sense. Unless the monsters went away eventually ,this job was an endless battle. If she agreed, she would be signing up to be a beacon of hope. Probably a celebrity of some kind. That meant being a good person. I’ll also get magic. “That’s all?” She frowned, staring at the creature. “You help me fight monsters, I get power, and get to be a hero?”
There are additional minutia and cultural bits that do hold consequence, but that is the agreement, yes, the voice stated.
“Then I would like to sign your contract.” She held her hand out. “How does this work? Also, what should I call you? If we’re going to be spending some time together I should know, right?”
First, the creature said, its lips curling up. You and I both need names, as I do not have one until you grant it to me, and you will need an alias. When you are ready, simply place your hand upon it and say first my name, then ‘I, your alias, do accept this contract’.
The little wolf lifted her paw, a glowing paper floating above it. Pondering what might fit the little wolf,, she read the contract to make sure the terms were as stated. After a moment, she grinned. Placing a hand on the paper, she stated, “Athena, I, Dawn, do accept this contract”
----------------------------------------
“Hey, we’re almost back, you should wake up, dude.”
Waking up from a dream of her first day on Terra, Dawn looked around, trying to figure out where she was. Clearly she couldn’t be dead, or she wouldn’t be awake. The first thing she noticed was she was on a bus. The second thing she noticed was one of her oldest friends sitting next to her, a look of concern on his face. The third thing was... She was back in her old body.
“Hey, man, you alright?” Sean asked, with a curious look on his face. “I know you’re sulking that we didn’t win, but marching band isn’t about winning, it’s about cheering on our team to do their best. Besides it’s only the first game of our last year here, we still have plenty more marching band this year.”
Oh. Her mind raced. Oh. When is now? Start of football season. August. Senior year. 2015. Birthday’s in January. I’m 17. Why am I here? Why am I now? Wait. Her breath caught, memories catching up to her speed of thought. “I wish they could learn what happened to me,” She murmured.
Of course, now they could. She could tell them herself.