Mahou Sensei Negima! Fan Fiction ❯ Negi: What could have been ❯ Fateful meeting ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Finally, I have some decent writing program back. As such, I felt like tinkering around with a challenge I wrote but no one ever picked up (to my knowledge) Read and review, your feedback helps me a lot!

Disclaimer: Wish it or not, I do not own Negima. You don't either, so stop making fun of me!

-o-

Negi Springfield was often called a genius by his peers. At ten years old he had graduated the magic academy and became the youngest teacher at Mahora Gakuen. He had college level English linguistic skills, which the child mage often attempted to impart upon his students, all of which were four to five years his senior.

Intelligent though he was, every now and again he did something stupid. In fact, he was doing something remarkably stupid at this very moment!

"Why won't it work?" Negi asked aloud, although nobody was around to hear him. It was the day after the annual school festival, and Chao had finally been stopped. Because of her mischief, the teachers had agreed to erase her memory of magic forever, and in response she had used a magical device to return to her time.

This leads us to Negi's current plight. At school, the class had been extremely subdued, as everyone mourned the absence of the missing student. Those of the class not familiar with the Chao situation had been told that she had died, leading to a blanket depression of the entire class. Unable to bear the absence of his student, the child professor had thought of a way to bring her back.

He was going to use the Cassiopeia, and return to the first day of the festival to stop Chao from enacting her scheme, erasing the need for her memory to be erased and convince her to stay. The problem was the world tree, it had stopped glowing and was no longer permeating the air with its magical energies. Obviously the device needed magic to run, but did he have enough to make it work by himself?

'Well, no point thinking to hard about it,' Negi reasoned. 'What's the worst that could happen?'

Pointedly ignoring the label on the side of the pocketwatch-like time machine, Negi began pouring his own magical energy into the watch. Immediately, the Cassiopeia began to smoke, and the scent of melting metal permeated the air. Just before the device activated, Negi finally read the tiny label.

Not to be used without the presence of a class S catalyst.

"Oh shi-" he had already disappeared.

One of the best questions for any author to ask themselves when writing an AU has always been “What if?” This is one such fic. What would Negi have done if certain things in his life never happened, or if something new did?

~1~

Negi awoke in a vaguely familiar area, standing up he surveyed his surroundings. There were some tall redwoods around, the sunlight filtering in through the leaves. The sound of a brook could be heard in the distance.

‘My head hurts.’ Negi jumped, he had been unaware anyone was in the immediate area. Gripping the wrapped staff his father had left him, he turned to face the voice that had sounded like it was right behind him.

Only to find nothing.

“Geez, I must be going crazy.” Negi thought, and started following the stream.

‘This is boring.’ that voice rang out again. It sounded very upbeat, which was strange considering it was complaining.

“Who’s there?” What if it was a ghost? Oh please don’t let it be a ghost!

‘I am a big scary ghost! Booooooooooooo!’ The child teacher hugged himself, he hated scary things!

‘Stop messing with him, you know he isn’t going to understand.’ a second voice said, joining the first. This voice sounded more mellow, as if it didn’t care about anything that was happening.

“Am I just supposed to accept that I am going crazy, or is somebody going to explain this to me?” Negi asked, obviously there weren’t any ghosts around. He knew that right from the start. Really, he did!

‘It’d probably be easier to show him than tell.’ A new voice said, and Negi fell unconscious.

-o-

This time around it only took Negi a few seconds to awaken, and it was in a much stranger place. The room was completely white, and inhabited by four more people. That was strange enough, but who they all were surprised him even more!

“You….You’re me!” Negi stuttered.

“Very perceptive.” Negi identified this one as the second voice that had spoken earlier. Indeed, he looked just like Negi almost to the last detail. He had chocolate brown hair, done back in a ponytail, and the same eyes. The only real difference was the muscle structure. This look-alike had very well-toned arms, especially considering his age. He was attired in dark grey cargo pants and a black vest with a spiral insignia on the right breast with what appeared to be a fishnet undershirt.

“Welcome to our humble abode, Negi-kun. Don‘t worry, this place is ghost-free.” The owner of the first voice had said with a mischievous grin. He was dressed in the typical mage-type outfit, colored sky-blue. His arms didn’t have the tone of the other, but he did keep in shape. Negi had him beat, though.

“Sorry for pulling you in like that so rudely.” The last voice Negi had heard before he passed out chimed in. “It was the only real way to make you aware of our…situation.” This one was wearing an open white trench coat, with black pants with no undershirt. He had decent stomach muscle, but all of his strength seemed to be in his legs. Maybe he ran a lot? He was also holding a carbon copy of the staff that Negi himself was carrying, meaning he was most likely an arch-mage (traditional). The mage also seemed to have two magic guns tucked into the inside of the trench coat.

“Who are you guys? Where am I?” The ten year old was starting to get a headache. What was going on?

The last of them stepped up, this one just seemed to be wearing a normal school uniform. “I believe I would be the one most suited to answer that question. The first thing you should know, is that we are inside your head. This is where we reside now, as we don’t know how to get back to our realities, or even if we can. While we are here, we may talk to you, but we cannot control you. We spent the first five minutes or so of our being here pinching ourselves to see if this was a dream. When we found out it wasn’t, we then began talking about ourselves.”

“That’s great and all, but it doesn’t really answer my other question.” Negi replied, feeling his headache growing by the second.

“Then allow me to finish uninterrupted. As I was saying, we compared lives to each other only to find that all of our stories turned out to be the same, at least until a certain point. Upon arrival, we found that we could touch your memories at any time, and we compared ours to yours. It seems that which separates us all from being the same entity is the question: What if?”

Negi was now listening in rapt attention. “What do you mean?”

“The fellow in blue, his life was the same as ours until the day the demons attacked the village in the snow. For him, that never happened and he grew up in the village. Without the motivation of the attack, he got much lower grades than we did, although he shares our magical energy. Also, he learned healing magic because there was no specific enemy he wanted to defeat, and he felt that helping people was more important. He still was assigned to our class, and because he does not share our zeal in looking for our father he went to Hawaii with the class on the trip, and none of his students knew of his magical potential.”

The boy in the sky-blue mage outfit nodded, as if confirming the story.

“The one in the white trench coat, his story is a bit shorter. Actually, it is quite similar to your own. Everything goes the same until Wilhelm attacks. Kotaro is killed in the assault, with that persona nowhere near enough to help. As his slimes round everyone up, all of his companions are killed, sans Asuna. He needed her for the magic canceller. As he was losing that fight, Mana showed up on the scene and shot him, distracting Wilhelm enough for him to leap back and hit him with his most powerful spells, defeating and killing him in the process. He started training with Mana, and became an arch-mage to learn how to fight at a distance. I presume he believes that if he can kill enemies before they get close enough to do harm, he can protect people easier.”

The boy in the trench coat nodded his acceptance of that rendition, and left it at that.

“Him in the cargo pants was a bit less complicated. When you fled from Evangeline, fearing the confrontation, you came across Kaede in the mountains, correct?”

Negi just nodded, his head still spinning.

“He had a weak moment, and spilled out the truth of magic to Kaede, and asked her to be his partner. She turned him down, saying that magical enhancement wasn’t her cup of tea. She did agree to train him, and he should be between high Genin (low level) to low Chuunin (mid level). He is a combat-mage, combining ninjutsu with magic.”

The ninja nodded his acceptance of his tale, as well.

“Those were all good stories. I feel bad for arch-mage-san, though. What happened to you, bookie-san?” Negi asked.

“Well, I graduated from magic academy at the top of my class. After that, I decided to give up on being an active mage and decided just to be a strategist for the world of magic. I enjoy reading far too much to want to spend any time on the battlefield. Besides, do you know how badly coordinated most mages are?”

Negi shook his head.

“Didn’t think so.”

“Just one more question.” Negi suddenly asked.

“Yes?”

“What are your names?”

They all looked at each other in unison. “Negi” they all said at once.

Negi (the original) face-vaulted. “Can’t you just use nicknames?”

Once again, they all looked at each other. Finally, the ninja stepped up and stated “Just call me Shadow.”

“Arigatou, Shadow-san. Any others?” Negi asked.

The Negi in sky-blue stepped up. “Call me Ghost! Boooo! I shall use my magic to spread love the world over!” He hopped a little as he proclaimed this, and it was hard to tell if he was serious or not.

“The Judge.” Was all the trench-coated boy would say, before flipping the back of his coat to catch it in the non-existent breeze. Just because it looked cool.

“Since we all seem to just be using titles based on our abilities, except for Ghost (idiot), call me the Pilot. That shall be my role, as all I do is direct. When it actually comes to battle, I tend to use puppets if I have to. We are ever-present in this landscape of your mind, and we should tell you. When the watch malfunctioned, it still deposited you back in time, but further than you wished. Not by too much, though. Also, the discharge of the energy as it self-destructed while still in between times seemed to create a vortex, and time is supposed to be inflexible. It immediately repaired itself, with things being drawn back to where they were intended. I hypothesize that we who are essentially you were drawn into your being as a mistake.”

“That’s all well and good, but how the hell do I get out of here?” Negi asked, his headache worsening. The last thing he needed to think about was why time-travel did what it did.

-o-

Blinking his eyes open, Negi found himself back in the clearing he had collapsed in. ‘Was that all a dream?’

‘Boooooo. You just wish we would quit haunting you.’ rang out Ghost’s voice.

‘Guess that’s a no.’ Negi thought, once again following the stream, leading him directly to Eva’s house.

As soon as it loomed in to view, he could feel Ghost tensing up in his mind. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Her and I had…unfinished business.’

‘Aka, he ran away from her and hid, because he can’t fight.’ Judge called out, clearly amused.

‘Did not! We were just playing hide and seek! Honest!’ Ghost replied hastily, giving Negi the mental image of his arms flailing in the air in frustration.

The merrymaking was cut short, however, as the door swung open.

“Negi? What are you doing on my front porch?” The diminutive vampire demanded.


-o-

So, whaddya think? Love it, hate it? I will only know if you review! I finally got a decent writing program back, but all of my energy will be in this fic, my other two will remain on hiatus for a bit.