Chương 69: 045 – Interlude: Rain Eternal

"That was so embarrassing…!" Rain sighed as the decontamination finished and the helmet of her new mecha suit flipped open, baring her face to the fast courier's atmostphere. Mitsuki and Tomoko had done good work building it, but then, they'd been building mecha suits together for years.

"Even with Princess helping, I made so many vocabulary mistakes!"

"There, there," Yuki said, even as she double-checked that the stealth field spell was properly up.

"You did great anyway. And hey, you sounded exactly like their TV shows and they were answering you, so you can't have been too unintelligible."

"I guess," Rain said as Princess opened up the rest of the suit and she could finally scratch that itch on her back!

"Ahhhh, that feels so good…" Why is it that the itch always started after you'd put on the suit? Just… why? -! Itch relieved, she stepped out of the suit, and carefully took Princess from where she'd been cradled on the suit's chestplate. With both pilots now vacated, the suit began to fold up, compacting itself to the size of a large bag. Giving her buddy a kiss to let her know how much she'd been missed, Rain slotted Princess back into the her usual place.

Picking up the now suitcase-shaped suit, Rain put it on one of the extra weapons racks so it was out of the way before she settled onto the copilot seat with a sigh.

"Ugh, I'm so tired." While she'd been prepared for today to be full, it had gotten longer than she'd planned for.

"Take a nap," Yuki advised.

"Things are probably going to get busy once we meet up with the others again. We need our champion at her best. Or, well, as good as you can get by then." Rain groaned.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Uh… take the long way back?"

"Don't worry, we have to anyway," Yuki reassured her.

"Have to break line of sight in case they can still track us somehow. Sleep. Let us handle this." Giving a thankful smile, Rain reclined her chair just enough to be comfortable, and closed her eyes. So much to do…

A memory arose, one of Kaede's: their creator, awake into the night as she wrote out a press release to explain the latest world threatening incident that the Outguard had narrowly stopped—the memories all blurred together, and Rain didn't feel like trying to recall any of the particular times—and try to put together a coherent piece of Japanese literature homework after an early night of patrolling her around her city for gravehearts, yokai, vampires, ayakashi, keres, yurei, infant kaiju crawling out of the sea, demons, supervillains, nuisance streamers, and occasionally even perfectly ordinary criminals.

Because it was somehow always Japanese literature. It made her own troubles seem so small. Rain laced her fingers over her stomach, closing her eyes even as her brain considered her position. As First Contact Champion, she'd been perfectly capable of navigating a first contact against one group of surprisingly friendly aliens. However, she doubted she'd be able to handle two.

The Hegemony seemed to be following the predicted First Contact approach of going to Nightmare, unlike the Confederacy who'd gone straight to Surcease. However, that meant that if she kept this up she'd need to keep traveling between two planets at once. That wasn't practical in the long run.

And if how things were going with the Confederacy was any indicator, once they'd gotten going and started working on trying to coordinate for better communications, the other members of the First Contact Team would also find themselves occupied… She drifted off, and dreamed of doing Japanese literature homework.

"I think the First Contact Team needs more permanent members," Rain declared. It was hours later, and she'd had a refreshing nap, some merienda to top off her stomach, and fixed her helmet hair by getting her hair wet and running her fingers through it to fluff it up.

"With the arrival of the Hegemony, we'll need to do at least double of what we've already been doing, and we're already pretty tired from doing that."

"Seconded," several voices called out, girl and buddy alike. Margaret looked down at the top sheet of paper on her clipboard, then picked up her fountain pen and drew a line on something near the top.

"All right, that part of the agenda is out of the way. Agreed! I'll inform Paladin Captain Nicola and pin a personnel request on the bulletin board. I don't foresee any problems with getting approval. Do any of you have any suggestions for possible candidates? Rain?" Rain lowered her arm.

"I was thinking of asking the other prior champions? They seemed glad to help today, and the rest of the team already have some degree of experience working with them." Everyone else hummed thoughtfully, tapping their chins and tilting their heads to the left.

"Well, if there's anyone who'd be motivated to work on dealing with aliens, it would be them," Cloud said.

"Although the same could be said for everyone else who's joined the First Contact Tournament."

"No, it's a good idea," Hale said.

"Former champions clearly have luck on their side, since they won at janken so many times in a row."

"Why do they need luck?" Namine asked.

"No idea, but it's never a bad thing to be lucky." Margaret coughed to derail the derail.

"All right. Rain, I'll leave sending the invitations to you and Princess. And make sure you get their after-action reports on what our guests were doing earlier, so we can check the right areas for bombs, nanobots, monster-making possessed items, nanobots, hacking gadgets, nanobots, spy equipment, nanobots, chemicals, nanobots, biohazards, or nanobots." This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it"Yes, boss!" Rain said.

None of the buddies connected to the station's scanner network had picked up anything, but that didn't mean much. Everyone knew sneaky spy stuff was supposed to be undetectable, though they still weren't sure what a martini was.

"Although something the Hegemony told me makes me think they probably won't have anything possessed to make monsters with."

"Hmm… should it wait until your debrief on the Hegemony?" Margaret asked. Rain shook her head.

"No… I think it's best I bring this up now. It helps explain some of the things the… the humans in the Confederacy have been saying and doing." Cloud perked up, leaning forward eagerly.

"All right, then," Margaret said with the patience of a big sister hoping little sister wasn't being silly.

"Tell us." She took a deep breath.

"According to the Hegemony science officer I spoke to, humans deny that magic exists." Everyone stared at her.

"But… they use venecite in their FTL!"

"That's what I said!"

"Their artificial gravity is magic-based! We could see the components on the scans, none of that could mechanically cause gravity alteration!"

"I know!"

"Wait, wait," Margaret said, raising a hand to get everyone to quiet down.

"Do we have any evidence of this beyond the Hegemony's word?"

"There's what Princess said about the captain not knowing how venecite grows," Namine said thoughtfully.

"We thought it might have just been because those who know how venecite grows decided to keep the information to themselves to make more money, but… well, if they're in denial about magic, then they probably don't think venecite is crystalized magic…"

"Apparently 'QEC' stands for 'Quantum Energy Crystal'," Rain said helpfully. Everyone paused to consider that. They sighed as one.

"Yeah, 'quantum' is the word people like to use when they basically mean 'magic, but we want to pretend it's not'," Cloud sighed.

"It helps most people don't actually know what it means."

"It's… not that outrageous…" Cloud said slowly, and everyone turned to look towards her, hoping for some kind of explanation.

"Even in the old universe, wizards spent the late 17 th century up 'til most of the 20 th hiding from everyone and letting most of humanity relegate them to being fantastical. They were only starting to make themselves publicly known after the formation of the Outguard and Bloody Mary publicly identifying as a Pyroturgist and the various threats to the world that caused local wizards to act in defense of their areas. Since this Earth doesn't… get attacked by evil forces as regularly…"

Despite the empirical evidence presented, Cloud's voice still turned bewildered and doubtful at the words, "… there probably isn't anything to make those wizards step out of hiding."

"I don't really think it's hiding when they're clearly making leyline-teleport magitech engines for all human-made ships," Yuki said.

"Wizards making stuff for money isn't unknown," Margaret pointed out.

"Admittedly, Kaede doesn't remember them doing anything on this scale, but it's been centuries from this Earth's equivalent of Kaede's time. Maybe they sell stuff online now? The Court of the Twilight Cosmos used to sell venecite to wizards and other Magical Girls to make money." Rain paused to try to remember how that had turned o—ah. It had ended with Twilight Cosmos needing to pay income tax so their civilian identities wouldn't get investigated because the four of them technically didn't exist.

At least, that's what Kaede had heard. She hadn't really understood what 'income tax' was supposed to be except that it was something criminals paid to the government to not get arrested, so it was probably some kind of bribe and thus something that in a just world shouldn't be paid.

"It's something to look into," Namine said.

"Maybe we can make contact with these wizards somehow? Though there's no way to be sure if there are any on the ship, so…" On Rain's wrist, Princess spoke up." When we spoke and I suggested he inquire of those who maintained their FTL drive, he mentioned'quantum engineers'."

"Yeah, those would definitely be wizards," Hale said.

"It fits the blatant naming scheme, unless their actual job is to optimize the electron flow of the FTL drive's microcircuits."

"Will this affect interactions with the Venture?" Margaret asked, looking at Rain and Princess.

"I'll have to see," Rain said.

"Nothing immediately comes to mind, though. We'd already decided to hold off on any exchange of spells until we'd gotten to know them better, so this doesn't really change that. Although whoever takes over speaking to the Venture will need to aware, so they can understand what they'll be getting into." The room seemed to pause, and everyone focused on her intently.

"Take over?" Margaret said.

"Well, yeah. We already have an established relationship with the people on the Venture, so I think it's safe to let someone else handle it while I meet with the Dhekhajhyde. I was thinking of asking Princess to use the mech suit as a chassis so she could handle it herself—" Everyone twitched.

"—but she said she didn't want me going off alone. So, does anyone want to do it? Otherwise I'll just ask one of the previous First Contact Champions—""NO!" Rain jumped in surprise as every other member of the First Contact Team cried out, and then abruptly fell silent, looking at each other warily.

"Tournament?" Margaret said immediately.

"There are five of us," Yuki immediately countered.

"Rain can be a ringer," Namine said.

"What if she wins?" Cloud asked.

"Then it means Margaret loses again, continuing her streak," Hale said.

"Hey!" Margaret protested.

"Why are you all assuming I'd lose? -!" Everyone gave her a skeptical look, even Rain.

"Big sis, you've been losing at this for twenty years," Rain pointed out.

"So? It just means I'd due for a win!" She pointed at Rain dramatically.

"Come on! I'll show you! Let's have a mini tournament! That way no one can say we didn't do this right!" She held up a fist.

"So come on!" Rain felt mildly bemused as everyone else looked at each other and nodded, raising their fists as well. Five pairs of eyes looked towards her.

"All right, all right…" She walked towards the team's Red as everyone else paired off, making a fist herself and holding it out to Margaret.

"On my signal?" Everyone nodded. Margaret looked extra determined." Jak-en—" Five minutes later, Rain held up Namine's hand.

"The winners," she said blandly.

"We will do our best to be worthy of this high honor," the doctor said, a tranquil not-at-all-smug smile on her face. It was just like the tranquil not-at-all-smug smile Rain had also made when she'd won earlier this year. On the floor, Margaret, Hale, Yuki and Cloud were on their hands and knees, one hand still shaped into the last treacherous, losing shapes they had made. Rain, as the currently sanest person in the room, decided it was time to break for food. She'd bring up how they'd need a second pilot later.

Surely one of the previous First Contact Champions had been a pilot, right?