Lieutenant Colonel Takamachi Nanoha was going to die alone.
"Zhan!" A cry escaped her mouth as her desperate wingman concentrated his entire power and created a devastating blast of flames and lightning, annihilating dozens of the surrounding Raven Drones along with himself.
It was saddening, to see a man so young die so early. The recon trooper was only supposed to guide her hastily formed unit into their destination and not join the fight, especially after they had found out the true magnitude of the threat. But when she had ordered him back he had refused, correctly assessing that they were already lacking in manpower as it is while there had been little moment left before the enemy would mobilize, too few time to go and call for reinforcement. With his wife and children in the targeted region, he had proclaimed how he would die before letting the enemy harm his family.
An alert from Raging Heart refocused her attention. More Drones were coming, and she was now their sole target in the sky.
She never expected for it to be like this. No, not the "dying" part. She had accepted the fact that she would most likely die in duty before she entered the force. Her father and brother had warned her of the risks, even going as far as unearthing their own horrifying experiences, but even then she had not faltered.
No, it was the "alone" part that caught her by surprise.
She remembered a day of her youth, the closest time she had skirted with death. Even though cries of pain had flooded her mind back then she had been smiling because there had been Vita with her, cradling her with a worried face while desperately calling for medic. She had smiled because she had not want Vita to worry. She had also smiled because she had been genuinely happy with the thought of dying besides a dear friend.
Was she smiling now? She could not tell.
The huge flying monstrosity that was the Vulture Drone charged at her, all its guns and missile launchers preparing to fire. The fearsome combination of its heavy plating and AMF generator would easily shrug of the attacks of a normal mage, but she was not a normal mage. After many bloody conflicts involving similar constructs the Bureau had eventually learned. Old ideas had been revisited and new ones explored, and now they had their own book of tricks against such foes.
She would know. She had written the book.
Sufficient power had gathered on the tip of Raging Heart. Now she focused on adjusting the fine details, preparing the reactions to trigger at the correct sequence. With a "ready to fire" announcement from her Device, the spell was activated.
The shot immediately intercepted her target. Magic was only involved in powering and triggering the attack, so the AMF stopped nothing. The stream of plasma slammed into the armor and after encountering resistance for less than two seconds melted it, freeing it to invade the less protected insides of the Drone and obliterate it inside out.
Her target exploded inside a ball of fire, but there was no chance to congratulate herself. More were coming.
She had almost hallucinated yesterday. The memories of her having been chastised by Shamal and Chrono for being reckless, while Fate and Yuuno looked worriedly and Vita huffed how she didn't particularly care while actually blushing in the background, had felt so real.
Cold wind blew - a stark contrast to the hellfire of day. It was night again. Had she been better she would have attempted to look for shelter disregarding the low chances, but she simply couldn't. Though her bones were only slightly fractured instead of shattered the wound she had suffered sapped her strength. She could barely move her head and right hand while the rest of her body had gone numb.
The stars were blinking. It was odd, considering her penchant for using the word "Star" when naming things, but she had never been interested in them before. Every world has different skies and with them different view of the heavens. Attempting to familiarize herself with every constellation from the viewpoints of various planets had bore her – it was simply not her area of interest.
The way they shine together reminded her of her last act of defiance.
Raven Drones surrounded her from all sides. Each positioned themselves within acceptable distance to each other, close enough to not be picked by her one-by one and far enough to not fall victim to her trademark linear bombardments.
She was merely taking relatively minor injury yet, but that was going to change real fast. Her shields had just been downed and would take time to auto-regenerate while her Barrier Jacket was tattered. Her impressive supply of raw power was almost depleted, and Raging Heart was starting to crack.
Considering the enemy formation, there was a small chance for her to evade by diving and then hide among the ravines. Perhaps whoever commanded the Drones did it intentionally, whether out of mercy or simply because they had already prepared ambushes below. But even she could run, she wouldn't.
Her mission was not yet completed.
The Enforcers that was part of her unit had yet to signal their success in sabotaging the enemy's massive teleportation relay and production facility. If she withdrew now, then the Enforcers will be swarmed by her current opponents, and all will be lost.
Her sense of duty overrode her self-preservation instinct and she took her course of action almost without thinking, moving mostly by reflex. The five remaining cartridges were pumped into her battered weapon while she gathered the ambient magic flowing near her using the same principles she had used for Starlight Breaker. Then she surrounded herself with the highest amount of magical orbs she had ever simultaneously created, two-hundred of them to be fired against fifty armored targets.
While she was feeding targeting data to all two-hundred, the Drones started firing their missiles and half closed in to also make use of their railguns. There was no way her Barrier Jacket would held against them. Hastily, she launched her own attack and dived like mad.
Like the predatory heads of the Hydra the orbs streaked from her position and into their prey. Distracted by their impending doom the Drones stopped firing their missiles and redirected all power to their defenses and engines. For a few seconds their battlefield turned chaotic as the war machines maneuvered without regard of formation, so focused on evading the attack that some almost collided with other. But then the orbs finally came sufficiently close to their targets and reacted like her previous spell, turning into balls of plasma just before within reach of the enemy AMF, rendering it primary function unused. Fifty Raven Drones exploded brightly, decorating the night sky like the stars.
But there was still more than a hundred missiles heading her way. Some have already exploded around her, whittling her already paltry defenses. In desperation she entered the ravines and flew dangerously close to its walls, and to her credit managed to shake many of them there. But then explosions surrounded her from all sides, and the world went dark.
Perhaps she was not smiling. She was God knows how far away from the nearest sign of civilization. She would have praised whoever had managed to create such a facility complex so hidden away from the vigilant eyes of the TSAB had not for the atrocities they had intended to commit with it.
Her dear partner, Raging Heart. Without any trace of magic to use, she could not activate its auto-repair function. There was no way to contact help. Oh sure, eventually someone would find the traces of her unit and do something, but it would be too late for her by then. They had moved so quickly and to too many places, and pulling together so many small puzzles would take time.
"This is it, isn't it?"
Strange. While she didn't feel like smiling, she also didn't felt any sadness. Here she was, dying in a godforsaken land far away from those she held dear. By any right she should probably cry, cursing at how not how only she would not see them again, but how her passing would sadden all of them: father, mother, brother, sister, Vivio, Fate, Yuuno, Hayate…everyone.
Instead of absolute despair, what she felt was merely a small disappointment.
"This is Strax. Lea's KIA, but her team managed to place and detonated the charges."
The sound of railguns echoed on the background.
"My whole squad is down; I'm the only one left." More shots were heard, before a blast silenced them momentarily. "I'm surrounded, but my bomb is already in place and will detonate shortly. You no longer need to hold their reinforcements."
"A bit too late for that, agent." She bitterly laughed. Takamachi Nanoha was a person of incredible determination, but she knew that her body had been pushed far beyond its limits. "Can you run away in time?"
"Negative, Ma'am. Absolutely no way out." Railgun fire thundered too close for comfort. "Looks like none of us is going out of this alive…"
"Ma'am," Strax paused, unclear whether because he was unable to think up the words or simply because he was under fire. "I…I want to say how sorry I am to ask for your help in this in such short notice, and at how bloody it end. And I want you to know how grateful I am that you had helped us in this. We wouldn't have done it without you."
"It's been an hon-"
Was that the reason? A sense of accomplishment?
Despite her occupation she had never fancied herself a soldier, preferring to see herself as a social worker who just happened to be good at blowing things up. She had never cared about all the medals and uniforms, all the salutes from her subordinates and the praises she had received from the media. She just wanted to save people.
Ah, that was it.
She remembered how Zhan parted with his family before going. He had a daughter, probably ten years old, asking him where he was going. It had been a painful scene to recall considering that he would not return to them, but now she remembered his answer.
"I'm making the world safe for you and your mama!"
My, my, when had she become so self-centered?
The girl was not Vivio. It was neither Vivio nor the rest of her family and friends that she had been protecting. She knew nothing about the people she had just saved with her sacrifice and held no special bond with them. But they were someone else's loved ones. Somewhere out there, someone cared about them just like she cared about her family and friends.
Takamachi Nanoha had not faltered when her family had warned her about the risks of her job because she had believed that it was the right thing to do. And now, more experienced in life than her younger, more impulsive self, she realized that she still did.
To die not beside your loved ones was disappointing. To die helping others was not. All things considered, she could live, and die, with that.
Her vision was getting blurry, her strength practically nil. Soon even her right arm, which had somehow remained moveable when her other limbs had refused to do so, will finally expire. With her last ounce of strength she positioned Raging Heart's spearhead so it would touch her face and gripped what was left of the staff tightly.
It was with it had her adventure begun. It was with it how her tale shall end.
"Thank you for everything, partner."