The Astromancer of Disaster

"You have a lot of games featuring this red helmed woman." Tyrlars said as he flicked through her library of games, noting she had boxed sets of every single game in the Metrozoid series, from the original Kankuto Entertainment System game to Dread. 

"Oh, now you've done it." Yuriko sighed while Akane's expression shifted to one of a fangirl given a chance to exposit at length about her passions.  

"Sabha Aaron-Sama is the best! She was the first video game character to be a woman who wasn't a damsel in distress but a hero! And she has the coolest armour that can adapt or add any equipment or powers she encounters in her fight to avenge her parents after being raised and educated by the wise Cho-" Akane started, Tyrlars blinking a few times before Aratani flicked at Akane's head, a grunt of protest coming from her.  

"You have this strange boy in your room in his own power armour who can do magic tricks and you want to talk about video games? Idiot, he goes on real adventures. What about games could interest him?" She said, exhaling her pronounced disappointment as if she were scolding a child.  

"I actually play a lot of games when I'm travelling myself." He said, smiling as he reached into his hat and pulled out a pair of what seemed like Joi Nunchuks attached to a fairly baroque looking rectangular screen...she supposed that made sense, only so many ways you could design a game console and still be ergonomic. 

"I don't think my device would be compatible with your view-crystal though." He said, gesturing to her television, where her own Switch was docked and currently turned off.  

"You mean a television?" She asked.  

"Bless you." He replied.  

"Eh...but you're an Arcanist! A mage! How can you have technology like this? It doesn't fit with the aesthetic at all." Aratani replied before noting that he had a pistol on his belt and let out a croak. 

"A gun mage?!" She shouted,  gesturing to his stylishly baroque constellation patterned pistol that looked...she knew how big guns generally were and that was bigger than even the 50 calibre compensation pistols she saw on youtube. No it looked more like the size of a bolt pistol in Warhammer cosplays, which meant what...autocannon scale rounds? 

That was absurd, a pretty boy like this would break his wrist firing that hand-held semi-autocannon. Must be some kind of prop. 

Then he flipped the gun out and detached the magazine to examine the rounds he had placed inside...smaller than expected. 

"Shrinking and holding spells...can't leave home without them." He said, seeming to guess her thoughts based on her expressions.

"But yes, do you think I'd just fling spells at literally everything? Besides, you can put all sorts of enchantments on guns." He said before re-holstering it after getting the magazine back inside.  

"You can't bring a loaded gun into this apartment are you insane?!" Yuriko shouted, about to launch into a rant before Akane covered her mouth with a hand. 

"Shhhhh, do you want everyone in the world to hear?!" She hissed, clearly not in the mood to deal with neighbour complaints. 

"I could put a spell of silence, probably would be for the best honestly. Never know who's eavesdropping." Tyrlars chuckled as if he just rattled off a joke. 

But something didn't quite sit right as she formulated her response. The corner of her eye-catching the unexpected movement of a plate she had laid on the table from her breakfast and the brief rustling of nearby curtains in response to something displacing the air. 

Akane saw a brief flicker of a silhouette shrouded by odd colours, humanoid, cloaked, probably armoured.  A quick hand gesture and she felt...something...hairs on the back of the neck standing. Her green irises flickered with an internal fire, and she grabbed and forced her friends down, including Tyrlars whom she pushed into as hard as she could to get him to buckle before he could straighten himself, pushing him onto the floor with her on top of him.  

Something rushed over her head, and the coils of magic began to unwind as she could hear something sharp sinking into something else. 

She hazarded a moment to open her eyes, and saw a figure in agile and graceful looking green and earthy toned armour with a decorated but simple tunic and field green cloak, blue wings emerging from the top of the helm, and a pair of broadswords thrust into a shape that revealed itself with a fade-in.

An eyeless monster with lanky limbs and too many teeth, including oversized fangs and mottled, elephant-like skin visible through openings in carapace like armour.  

"You need to watch your surroundings Tyrlars." The other said, a voice melodic like wind blowing through chimes while he pulled both blades out of the figure after twisting them to trisect them; already cauterised wounds failing to bleed as the corpse burned inside out from the friction of winds sawed through it.  

"I had it under control, Velodus." Tyrlars said, barely seeming to mind Akane being on top of him at all...or flanked by Yuriko and Aratani...or proximate to Shiki.   

"And you were taking chances while fooling around with uninvolved parties. This shouldn't have to be a second job." He said, his armour graceful and trimmed with yellows, It seemed more knightly than Tyrlars' more...scientistish suit, but a bit more gracile...ranger perhaps? He did dual wield shortswords after all.  

"Aww, why do you have to be mean! They weren't in any danger!" He protested while the other let his helmet fade into a fizzle of light, revealing teal hair, and the sort of sweet, gentle, ethereal face you'd expect on someone that even angels would call a bishonen. Boyish, somewhat messy hair and feathered decorations attached to his ears by magic.  

More pointed than Tyrlars' ears, sharper, his blue-green coloured irises having swirling patterns like wind currents blowing within around his pupils. Still flat against his head, once again like western rather than eastern elves. But most importantly...Akane felt a flush to her cheeks from just being in the same room as this man and his look of fraternal disappointment.  

"I had contingent spells cast, they would be fine." Tyrlars insisted, this time more lamely while Velodus rolled his eyes, clearly disbelieving while he got closer and loomed over the two. 

"Seems to me you're in the sort of place I'd expect of you...though the boy shouldn't be here." He said, gesturing to Shiki while Tyrlars scoffed.  

"If I was looking for a date it'd have already happened." He said.  

"Do you expect me to believe that an architect of fate can't engineer some situations?" Velodus riposted before offering a hand. 

Akane's mind briefly rushed to indecent places at the thought of being between the two of these pointed eared boys, a flush appearing on her cheeks before she shook her head and stood back up. This isn't like her H-Games...it wouldn't just happen. 

She harrumphed and dusted off her legs, looking at her other friends, Shiki seeming to be hyperventilating while Yuriko was briefly just...processing things and Aratani couldn't take her eyes off of the remains of the creature slain before her.  

Someone died in her room...right...crap. 

Something? 

What was that? What was this? The shock of everything was wearing off, she needed answers. 

"Hey, you two!" Akane shouted, snapping her fingers to get their attention.  

"Hrm?" Tyrlars asked before looking at the corpse.  

"Oh, that." He said, pushing himself up and raising a finger as he prepared to launch into a lengthy professor's rant before Velodus cut him off.  

"Skyrvok Assassin. Must have been riding on Tyrlars' teleport signal because he was careless." Velodus said while he examined some of the remains, holding a crown-like helm somewhat gingerly while he studied it.  

"I had it under control! Come on." Tyrlars sighed before Akane flicked his forehead the second he turned towards her. 

"So, you knew you had a monster on your tail and you still chose to come into my home you idiot?!" She said, grabbing at his collar and pulling him towards her to let her know she was displeased. 

She found the fact that he was one of the few boys clearly taller than she was to be annoying, standing on her tiptoes to make herself a bit more level to his eye level.  
 
"You know that you can't intimidate me right? I've stared down a Kroatanga warfiend before." He said with the utmost confidence even though Akane quite frankly had no idea what that was or why it was supposed to be impressive.  

"Well, I for one, am tired of strangers dropping into my apartment, babbling nonsense, and causing problems so you better explain things fast before I show you the door!" She said, growling at the end of her sentence to let him know the full extent of her displeasure.  

"She is right...you did just drop in without warning." Velodus said before Akane grabbed at his collar and tried to tug him towards her as well. 

"AND YOU! Pretty boy! Don't think you can just drop a dead body into my apartment and expect me to keep calm. What the hell are you doing and why can't you go find some NEET to beat your devil king menacing the sundered lands or whatever it is?" She said, the term she used referring to the sort of villain one would find at the end of a JRPG, though eliciting a much more confused reaction from the two boys. 

"...A Diabolarch in the Mundosphere? Are you crazy?" Tyrlars said, clearly confused at her choice in words.  

"...You're not under threat from a Demon Empire in the South?" She asked.  

"Demons don't form Empires, they just pour out of the abysses in the theospheres onto the material realm." He replied.  

"...Human supremacist Theocracy guided by a corrupt church to the One God of Light to oppress Demihumans?" Yuriko asked, rattling off another trope that came to her head.  

Velodus and Tyrlars took a moment to look at each other before Tyrlars started to laugh out loud, doubling over while Velodus simply shook his head. 

"I don't know of many monotheistic religions popular among humans...and with how small a portion of the sophont population humans are I can't imagine human supremacists being a threat..." Velodus said, rubbing at his chin.  

"What even is a demihuman anyway?" Tyrlars asked, a shrug coming from Velodus in response. 

"People like...well...you. Humanoid but not." Aratani said, gesturing to the elf and half-elf's ears. 

"The term for that is Faekith. The Fae made the Kemendi to serve their interests in the material world, the Kemendi ended up being the ancestors to Elves, Humans, Dwarfs, Giants, gnomes and so on." Tyrlars lectured before Velodus gave him a "please don't keep going" look that got him to cough and stop his rambling.  

"Okay so why is there an assassin here?!" She asked, gesturing to the remains, feeling that the conversation has been allowed to drift from this point for far too long. 

"Oooh that. Sometimes people who want to harvest my powers or get ransom from the league try to kidnap me so every now and then I get an assassin to clear out the people I'm near." He said with an awkward laugh, scratching at the back of his head. 

"Unbelievable! You know you're a threat to people around you and you come barging into MY life?! Get out of my apartment! Now! NOW NOW NOW!" She shrieked, bewildered that this boy would endanger her by willingly bringing her into his presence. Did he have anything between his ears that wasn't magical theory and historical trivia?  

He shrugged and clicked his fingers, bending the energy around them to drag them through space and time. When she could open her eyes again and look around, the apartment was still there, but outside the balcony window was...

"WHY IS YOUR OBSERVATORY OUTSIDE MY APARTMENT?!" She shouted when her mind connected the dots and she briefly thought about the now missing chunk of the apartment building she lived in. The others soon joined in screaming, though Aratani was busy just taking pictures with her phone with periodic still shots. 

"I brought it with us. Your equipment should all still be connected. It's just electromagnetic waves right? I still need to talk to you and I figure that my observatory would be much safer than your building." Tyrlars boasted, making an accomplished gesture towards himself and a smug smile. He was clearly satisfied with how he addressed every possible critique, but as tempting as it was to yell at him, hit him or scold him, all she could muster was a sigh.  She worked as a tutor and babysitter enough to know when someone wasn't going to respond such remarks with improvement.  

"Opyrheimr-san. What do you think is going to happen when the people in my apartment notice that an entire suite is missing?" She asked, calmly. folding her arms while she went to go get her socks and shoes.  

"Oh. That is a fair point." He mumbled, the gears turning in his vast but scattered mind while Velodus glared at him with the rawest form of disappointment imaginable.  

"Oh well, easy enough fix." He said, casting another spell to reverse the teleportation, everything once again being fine...except for a strange building being directly outside her window, an arcane, mechanised tower where some trees in the park behind the apartment used to be. 

"There, this should put your apartment in range of my abjurations. So everything should be fine." He smirked while Akane went through too many emotions at once to settle on any of them. Shock, anger, bewilderment, astonishment, genuinely being impressed, interest, curiosity, a bit of fear, and stress, lots and lots of stress. 

"Tyrlars, have you considered perhaps that this country has not yet had its proper first contact with the people of Xarazanth?" Velodus asked.  

"Well the Horoscopes didn't say anything particularly disastrous would happen today so I'm sure it'll work out. And if it doesn't, I'll take responsibility and handle it." Tyrlars said, his tone surprisingly calm and levelheaded now.  This boy was a difficult read to be sure and she was starting to wonder if he really was just a scatterbrained nitwit with no social skills.  

"So what's in these sundered lands that you wanted me to see, and why pick me?" Akane asked, deciding to get to the chase. Sure he might have a lot of power, but she could sense that he wasn't really a threat...foolish, but not a threat, so she let her guard down just a bit.  

"Oh you know, subcontinent where nobody's been able to form a country to last despite its riches and interplanar travel nexuses. Though honestly those are part of the issue. As for you well, as I said, I charted the stars and they pointed to you. Of course, you have to choose to be a hero, so...do you choose to b-" He said before the wail of police sirens and the buzzing of helicopter rotors interrupted his train of thought.

"+All civilians are required to clear the area immediately! This first contact situation is now a matter of national security. Please evacuate to a safe distance in the unfortunate case of violence. Repeat, all civilians are required to clear the area immediately.+" The megaphone's words were enough to break Opyrheimr out of his highly confident expression and to make sweat roll down his face.  

"Did they point to me because you need a functional adult in your life?" Akane asked with a smirk.