Title: Oncoming storm
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 1200ish words
Content notes:None
Author notes: Post-canon, Ascot (& LaFarga & Caldina & Zazu)
Summary: LaFarga had added Ascot to the party. ‘To tell me what this all feels like to someone with magic’, he’d said in public, but Ascot was pretty certain it was just so there would be someone to try and talk Caldina out of getting up to too much mischief while LaFarga was in all those meetings.


oOo

The trip to Autozam had been arranged in order for LaFarga to inspect the arrangements which had been made for the Cephirans who were meant to be coming out here to help with ‘Project Stop Autozam Disintegrating’.

Caldina had started calling it that about a month into the preliminary work, instead of ‘Cooperative efforts working towards the stabilisation and improvement of the non-artificial environment of Autozam’, which was what appeared on all the paperwork – and there was a lot of paperwork. It wasn’t just Autozam and Cephiro working on this, though it had been decided that the first research efforts would be in how they might utilise Cephiran methods of power to help Autozam stop dying. Which meant that a number of Cephiran people, including quite a few mages, were going to be coming to Autozam and living here.

It was… a slightly contentious issue, on Autozam, apparently. Especially as the land was so volatile. So there were security precautions being put in place to keep the Cephiran contingent safe, and the Autozamnian scientists working with them, and hopefully the link that they were hoping to establish between the two actual lands – given that everyone on Autozam seemed certain it would have to be anchored into some specific piece of technology on this end.

Which meant a trip for LaFarga to finish agreeing and sign off on the measures being suggested – at which point Caldina had instantly invited herself along, and LaFarga had added Ascot to the party. ‘To tell me what this all feels like to someone with magic’, he’d said in public, but Ascot was pretty certain it was just so there would be someone to try and talk Caldina out of getting up to too much mischief while LaFarga was in all those meetings.

Ascot hadn’t minded. The trip seemed interesting, and…

He was trying to get better at talking to people, living around them. But it was easier to do that, he’d found, when they didn’t have the same kinds of expectations as people back on Cephiro.

(…And when he could go into a conversation safe in the knowledge they were only here for a month and then he would never have to see these people again. The population of Cephiro was far too small and too concentrated in just a few places to reasonably avoid anyone else, though if they kept rebuilding at the same rate as had been happening in the three-and-a-half years since the Knights had made Cephiro over, then it might be possible soon.)

So far they’d been here three days, of which the first one had been taken up by settling into their new quarters, which were almost smaller than they’d had on the NSX, but they did have a little shared lounge here with its own kitchenette. LaFarga and Caldina were sharing one slightly larger room, and Ascot had his own, the size of a reasonable cupboard, with a bed that doubled as a chair for the desk which folded down out of the other wall.

So much for summoning any of his friends while he was here. None of them were going to fit in any of these spaces; at least they were still able to communicate with him, though he wasn’t always sure he needed their commentary on everything that was happening around him.

The air still felt… flat, too. All the buildings and anywhere in between were encased in artificial domes that kept out the angry natural atmosphere, and they seemed to use the same technologies here as they did on the spaceships to keep people alive. Most of them were up on the artificial plate which had been built out in jagged sections higher into the atmosphere, but there were some areas below which weren’t entirely overshadowed where military or scientific groups had their own domes, and they were in one of them.

The food was the same, the water just as stale, and he hadn’t seen a single plant or any animals at all. There was just metal, and glass, and the sickly yellow fog pressing up against the windows.

Today they were being taken to see the new areas being built for the research team, at some distance from the normal quarters – partly so they would have easier access to the environment they were trying to effect, partly for security, from what Ascot had overheard as they were shuttled down a very long, very narrow tunnel that arced out around a sharp-sided rocky mountain that vanished into the clouds above.

Their guide was one of the scientists, but Geo Metro had come along with them – Eagle was still on Cephiro, just barely awake from his long coma, and Lantis was being kept out of this whole thing so that no one could say his biases had led Cephiro into this arrangement, so Geo was the one who had been negotiating for this. He’d brought a couple of people Ascot knew from the NSX along, one of whom – Zazu – had grinned and waved enthusiastically at Ascot and sat next to him on the strange long vehicle that was shuttling them along.

“I’m here in case anyone wants a technical explanation of the engineering choices in the new Dome,” he said, happily. “But mostly because Geo couldn’t bribe any of the other engineers to come down when they’ve got so much work they’re trying to finish.”

“They’re still working on the structure?” Ascot asked, a flicker of nervousness running down the back of his spine. Overhead the clouds were turning coppery, almost green, as they went. Ascot looked up at them warily, but Zazu was shaking his head, apparently unconcerned.

“The main structure is built – it’s sound, or Geo wouldn’t let me inside, or any of you. It’s all the interior bits they’re fussing over – how to set the inner buildings, wire the doors, things like that. No one wants to build something that will catch fire the first time one of your lightning mages touches it.”

There was a distant flash overhead, a high-up crack of sheet-lightning, as if to underscore the words, and several long moments later a drumming started further up the tunnel, coming closer and closer until it was possible to see the wall of rain moving towards them, the liquid running down the windows just a little too thickly to be water.

It was loud enough that Ascot didn’t bother trying to say that lightning mages were pretty rare, actually, and after the Guru’s ability to frazzle any bit of tech he got too near while not paying attention came clear, they’d reworked the people coming until none of them really had that power.

In fact, he was probably the only mage who could handle lightning who was going to visit (Lantis notwithstanding) – unless they did end up needing the Guru here to establish the connection, which was going to be… interesting, if they had to.

But lightning wasn’t Ascot's first power.

The storm raged down around them, the noise overwhelming, vibrating through the air; he held on to the seat in front of him, looked up, and watched the sky flash, the pressure of his friends' presences silent and still about his shoulders.