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Shining Force II - fanfic - Mirror Box

Dec. 2nd, 2017 at 5:06 PM

tehexile

Title: Mirror Box

Author:

tehexile

Fandom: Shining Force II

Characters: Sarah, Bowie, Astral

Rating: G/Gen

Length: 522 words.

Prompt: Drive

tags: spoilers (mostly for the first Shining Force and Final Conflict), humour

Summary: Sarah walks in one Bowie and Astral arguing over the use of a strange magitechnological device.

Author's notes: It's canon that they have a Game Gear. It's in one of the skits that happens if a party member gets hit by a Confusion spell. It's not too much of a stretch for them to have a Mega Drive. After all, they have a robot.

Sarah walked into Shining Force Headquarters to find their illustrious leader and their venerable tactician squabbling over a small black shiny box on the floor in the middle of the commons room. The lights next to the large buttons on the strange contraption were glowing red and it seemed to be projecting magical illusions onto the mirror next to it. While the argument still seemed to be non-violent, there was a lot of telekinetically propelled gauntlets chasing a rapidly short-range teleporting figure around the room. Sarah darted to pick up a candle that had been knocked over before it could set a pile of books on fire.

"You know, sometimes we almost resemble a real, organised, disciplined military unit," the healer sighed.

"Hey, this is important!" yelled Bowie, "The old coot is trying to confiscate our vital morale-raising device and lock it in his office!"

"It is not for entertainment, it is a vital piece of tactical planning apparatus," Astral snapped.

"It plays jolly music."

"For keeping time. Which real co-ordinated military forces know how to do, unlike you children!"

"It keeps making brightly coloured pictures like children's drawings show up in the mirror."

"Those are abstract figures designed to be easily identified for the ease of tactical simulation," argued Astral, "You don't even how this device works, do you?"

"Yes I do. You cast Bolt on it and then press the buttons until the illusions show up in the mirror. It doesn't take a genius to figure out."

"Do you know what the images are supposed to represent?"

"Lord Max's famous triumph over the Dark Dragon, before his mysterious disappearance," said Bowie, "You get to re-enact all the battles as if you were Lord Max. And the small one you can carry around with you covers his family's search for him."

"At least you didn't fall asleep through every history lesson," Astral muttered, "Well, it seems like you're capable of learning from it, so I'll leave it where it is - on the caveat that I am not obstructed when I wish to come in and use it, and that you will join me for regular tactics lessons, Bowie!"

Sarah sighed, "Of course you can have your turn, and I'm sure there'll be people around to play with you. It'll be nice to actually see you rather than you being locked in your office day and night, anyway."

"Maybe if you actually learned to do the slightest bit of planning for yourselves..." he grumbled, then sighed, "Okay, from the beginning! You play, I'll instruct!"

As they continued to argue over the best way to play the game, Sarah sat down with her tea and watched the events unfold in the mirror, quietly wondering to herself if their own great victories would one day be recorded in the annals of world history, not just the occasional records of the local Church, and whether society would advance to the level where it could produce such wonders of combined magic and technology again.

It then occurred to her that the game looked quite fun, and that she knew where Bowie kept his portable version.