Kindred Spirits Pt 2

Now Rimuru was sure his expression mirrored hers.

He turned to face his subordinates, who were beginning to look like they'd rather be anywhere else at the moment. That was all the confirmation Rimuru needed.

Oops.

"Maybe I should start with an apology, then?" The slime spun around again so he was facing the now remarkably less hostile-looking woman… actually, she was really a teenager, now that Rimuru thought about it.

Double oops.

"That would be an appropriate response." The teen eyed them curiously, still aiming her spell at them. "So, you're the Head Brass around here? 'Lord Rimuru' of the Jura Forest Alliance, I presume."

"That's right. You've heard of me before?"

The teen, rather than answering outright, glanced pointedly at Benimaru and Souei.

"No, I haven't." She responded a few seconds later.

"Right…" Rimuru sweatdropped. He definitely needed to have a talk with his subordinates later. Using words and phrases like 'patience', 'jumping the gun', and 'think before acting'.

"So, you're a slime." It wasn't a question.

"Yep."

The teen's gaze was cutting. It was like Rimuru was being dissected on a fundamental level.

Admittedly, it wasn't an altogether unfamiliar feeling, given that Great Sage knew everything about him and made use of this fact when they conversed. But it was still uncomfortable, nonetheless. Especially from a stranger.

"And who might you be?"

"I am Tanya von Degurechaff." The teen, Tanya, answered after moment of contemplation. "And you're Rimuru the slime. In other words, a monster. A monster leading other monsters."

"I mean, that's true, but…" Rimuru was slightly taken back by her blunt assessment and the manner in which it was delivered. On the bright side, it wasn't unfriendly, merely a cool statement of fact. "Well, I'm not a bad slime, you know!"

Tanya blinked. "...Dragon Quest?"

She finally dropped her arm, her hand closing around the ball of magical energy and crushing it. Rimuru watched with more than a bit of interest as the shattered remnants of magic seemed to absorb back into Tanya's hand, rather than dissipate in the air.

Intriguing.

"I get it now. You're like me. Okay, Rimuru. Let's talk."

Very intriguing.

And talk they did.

Tanya explained what she knew. How she'd presumably died and been carted off in a great ball of light alongside a voice she initially thought was the beginnings of schizophrenia. That she'd then lost consciousness, and woken up in a crater in this clearing, where she'd been almost immediately accosted by "Purple", "Red", and "Blue".

"Where is Shion, anyway?"

"Shion? That must be Purple. I tossed her sword as hard as I could somewhere in that direction."

The conversation wrapped up shortly after that, with Tanya describing the double attack from Souei and Benimaru along with an offhanded remark about "Magic feeling different in this world". Rimuru made a mental note to ask about that later. That implied that Tanya's previous world had magic, yet she somehow still understood Rimuru's Dragon Quest reference.

That had more than a few interesting implications.

It would have to wait though.

The three monsters and one human snapped their heads to the side in unison, as a powerful magical aura appeared – or rather, reappeared – then disappeared in nearly the same moment.

Rimuru glanced around, noting their similar reactions with an ever-increasing interest regarding one Tanya von Degurechaff.

"You can sense that as well?" He asked.

"I learned a 'Skill' called Magic Sense recently." Tanya replied. "By the way, you and your subordinates mentioned another magical aura appearing around the same time as mine. Unfortunately, I might know their identity."

"'Their, huh?" Rimuru echoed.

"Yes. Sorry about this, but we should go clean up the mess first." Tanya started strolling in that direction, her feet slowly leaving the ground until she was floating slightly above them. She looked back with a raised eyebrow, "Well? Shall we be off?"

-=-=-=-

A Few Minutes Later

Incomplete Road North of Tempest

Jura Tempest Alliance

Geld eyed the unconscious teen warily.

"She's a fighter." He said simply. His companion nodded.

"She has spirit, I'll give her that." Hakurou agreed, stroking his beard idly. "But her skill is abysmal."

"True. No technique behind this one." Geld responded. "Just emotion."

Hakurou hummed, acknowledging his comrade's point whilst keeping an eye on the teen girl.

He'd left Tempest shortly after detecting the magical aura, trusting Benimaru, Souei, Shion to deal with the other. And by the time he had arrived, the fight was already over.

Geld had been standing near the girl's unconscious body with a confused look on his face upon Hakurou's arrival. Apparently, the teen had appeared in a flash of light, and upon waking had attacked Geld on sight.

Luckily for her, the Orc King had noted the wild yet glazed look in her eyes the moment they'd locked gazes. She clearly wasn't in her right mind.

Also, she appeared to be human. That was important. Lord Rimuru liked humans.

As such, he'd limited himself to knocking her across the head, causing her to collapse like a sack of potatoes. Whoever this girl was, she'd chosen a rather unfortunate – or fortunate, some might say – spot to appear in, whether intentionally or not.

This only became more obvious when she woke up and attacked again, only for the recently arrived Hakurou to knock her out again with the handle of his sword.

It was the result of this scene that Rimuru and Tanya arrived too, with an unconscious teen face first on the ground while Hakurou and Geld chatted and watched over her.

-=-

Tanya resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. It most likely wouldn't help her burgeoning headache anyway.

"Headache" is one way of putting it. I suppose showing up alone would have been too easy... I should know better.

The slime and, seemingly, a fellow reincarnate, shoots her an amused look.

And isn't that just a kicker? Meeting another reincarnate less than an hour into her new world, when her previous one had none other than herself.

"I'm guessing you know her?"

"Unfortunately." Tanya walked forward, Rimuru at her side, before stopping next to two other monsters she didn't know.

"Lord Rimuru, I'm glad to see you well."

"It's always great to see you too, Geld. How's the road coming along?"

"Work is steady and on schedule." Geld glanced to the side as the unconscious teen stirred somewhat. "It is lucky this girl appeared ahead of our current construction. Otherwise, there might have been a setback."

Rimuru nodded. "That's good to hear. Nice work!"

"Lord Rimuru, who is your companion, may I ask?" Hakurou said, eyeing Tanya curiously.

Tanya did a double take at his voice. For some reason, the old monster sounded exactly like General Zettour. Like, it was uncanny how similar it was.

"The source of the other magical aura, perhaps?" He continued.

"That's right. Turns out she's an Otherworlder, not an enemy. It's a good thing too; she's pretty strong!"

"I can tell."

"You all might want to step back." Tanya warned, as the unconscious teen on the ground slowly regained consciousness. "Mary Sue and I have a bad history, and as such she tends to get violent around me. I wouldn't want to burden you with my problems, so just let me deal with her."

"Sure thing." Rimuru agreed easily, stepping back and gesturing for Geld and Hakurou to do the same.

The now identified Mary pushed herself up with her arms, glancing around blearily.

"Also, you said her name is Mary Sue?" Rimuru raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You're kidding, right?"

"There's no reason to." Tanya watched as her 'mortal enemy' – according to Mary, not her – slowly became more aware of her surroundings. "Though I wish I was."

Mary seemed to have arrived here the same way she did, and her state reflected that. She had her usual outfit: her white button up shirt with a dark blue tie, overlayed by a dark blue overshirt and sitting untucked from her matching dark blue pants and grey boots.

There were also no weapons or computation orbs in sight.

Did she get any Skills when she crossed over? It'd be foolish to assume otherwise. But even still, she's been knocked out most of her time here. Meanwhile, I've had time to adjust the slightest bit to my own Skills, though not by too much.

Mary brought a gloved hand up and rubbed at her eyes, before looking up once more. Tanya didn't see it, being deep in thought and all, but it was exactly then that Mary noticed her for the first time.

I'm not quite sure what some of them even are. Unique Skill: Tetrabattery Limit Enhancement is a good example. What even is that? Like, just a battery or something? And "tetra" means four, so there's four of them? Ah, wait. "Four", "Battery", "Enhancement". That's familiar.

"Rusted Silver!!!"

Now, Tanya may not have seen when Mary noticed her, but she definitely heard it.

Mary burst to her feet. Tanya braced herself, ready to use as much power as necessary to put her foe down…

Only to blink, as she realized Mary was moving towards her a bit slower than expected.

Don't get her wrong, it wasn't slow, per se. In fact, it was incredibly fast by normal human standards.

But Tanya had been expecting, like, flight, or an optical spell, or something else magic related.

The surprise at her opponent's lack of expected speed, ironically enough, almost led to Tanya getting hit anyways. She managed to snap out of it though, sidestepping Mary's wild right hook at the last second.

She can't use magic.

Tanya turned around, and easily dodged another wild swing.

Probably. Unless she's phenomenal actress.

Mary stumbled past her, Tanya shifting around to keep her foe in her line of sight.

"You damn Devil!" Mary spat.

"Ironic, with who you worship."

Tanya stepped back, avoiding a turning kick.

"But your God... he's not here right now, huh?"

"Shut up!"

Mary charged once more, throwing out unrefined punch after punch. Tanya dodged them with ease, swaying and backing away as necessary.

All power and no precision. Boring.

It looked practically effortless on the Argent's part, though to be fair she did have an enhancement spell active.

That flash of aura we felt from her must have been an involuntary reaction. A spark of rage expelled via her magical aura, perhaps. That's not a problem I have, but she clearly doesn't understand what's happening. I almost feel bad.

Mary switched it up, bursting forward with a left side kick.

Almost. But not quite.

Tanya stepped inside the kick, then again behind Mary. Quickly, she swept her right leg back, knocking her foe's supporting leg out from underneath her.

Mary fell like rock, busting her tailbone on the unforgiving ground below.

"You want to fight me, to kill me. But you don't even know what's happening." Tanya shook her head, "You can't win this. Surrender."

"I don't know the meaning of the word surrender!" Mary snarled, readying herself for another assault.

Tanya didn't give her the chance.

"You should consider learning."

In an instant, she was behind Mary.

Tanya's eyes shone a vibrant blue, a similar glow surrounding her hand as she chopped the back of Mary's neck.

Mary collapsed, her face going blank as she fell to unconsciousness yet again.

It was quiet for a moment.

"Right, that went better than expected." Tanya dusted herself off, some dirt having gotten kicked up from the brief scuffle.

"That was better than expected?" Rimuru said, moving to stand next to her.

"Well, apparently we killed each other the last time we fought." Tanya remarked, "So, yes. I'd say this was a reasonable, win-win outcome compared to that."

They stood in silence for a moment.

"You should restrain her before she wakes up again." Tanya pointed out. "Then, we need to talk."

"Good point." Rimuru nodded. "I want to hear more about your reincarnation. We can talk back at Tempest."

"Tempest?"

"The city of monsters." The slime in human form smiled, pride evident in his voice. "In other words: home."

-=-=-=-=-=-

Known Skills List

Tanya:

Extra Skill: Magic Sense

Extra Skill: Magic Aura

Extra Skill: Voice of the World Communication

Unique Skill: Formulaic Casting

Unique Skill: Tetrabattery Limit Enhancement

Mary:

Skills Unknown