Nouveau Terra

by Wolfeknight

Trouble arises on Earth as mages begin to awaken there naturally, trouble from a past most know nothing about.

1. Movements

This story is very AU in nature. Some info from the Sound Stages and ViVid manga may be included but it also may not. This story will also be OC heavy.

Prologue

078 Mid-Childa Calender

(two years after the JS incident)

It was very quiet. There was almost nothing to disturb the still night air aboard the ship. It was exactly the way Captain Enshiro Tadeyo liked it. During the third shift aboard the Heibao, a patrol and exploration vessel of the Time-Space Administration Bureau, there was always peace.

Most Captains stuck the night shift on their lower officers; often just out of the necessity of the job, but Enshiro did things a bit differently when he could. He very much preferred to be up and about when the majority of the crew was asleep. If there was a crisis he would revert to standard watch rotations, but until then she would have his peace. To be truthful though, there wasn't much that ever made a survey ship non-peaceful. They didn't engage in combat of any kind and they only had a compliment of five enforcers. Not like the new Utu-class transports cruisers, those things carried a full platoon. The only thing the Heibao could boast about was its powerful shields and those for if it went somewhere dangerous, but not necessarily hostile, something Enshiro had no orders to do at the moment.

Right now it was just him on the bridge with the basic skeleton watch. A navigator, a tactical officer, and a comm. officer, that was it. Since his ship was one of the very newest to come out of the HQ construction yard, it had the latest in AI as well. That AI would give assistance if anything dire occurred so that there would be ample time for the crew to get to their posts. All this gave him plenty of time to sit back in his chair and contemplate his newest assignment.

Since the captain's chair on this class of ship was elevated above the bridge crew on a separate platform, his gaze cast directly over their heads in an unfocused stare. The only thing his eyes really saw was the image on the main view screen. It was a simple image really. Similar to dozens like it that he'd seen in the past, this pretty blue ball with its white-grey attendant floated silently in the dark void of normal space. This was what he was here for

He raised a hand and flicked a finger to bring a display into being in front of him. Enshiro sighed. He'd read the report a dozen times already, but he couldn't help reading it again.

This planet, non-administrated world 97, named Earth by its inhabitants, was part of great curiosity by the TSA higher-ups. This entire sector had drawn their attention. While this sector was a good distance from HQ, it had been discovered and explored little more five hundred years ago towards the end of the Belkan wars. And in that entire time it had remained unremarkable and drew very little notice. There were few other human inhabited worlds in the sector and most were even less developed than this one, so there had been little to cause anything of note. Yet now, things seemed to be changing.

Over the last decade or so there had been a rash of incidents. Many of them had involved this very world. And not only that; this world which had previously produced very few mages of any kind of power had given birth to several in a very short period of time. The outbreak was so remarkable that a number of research vessels had been dispatched to explore the region again. Enshiro's own ship was a part of this search.

What they'd found so far had been both very intriguing and also very confusing. After going back over genealogy and TSAB records, a strange pattern emerged. Every single mage that earth produced had had his or her power awoken by external means. Whether it was from a bureau mage or from an artifact of some kind, that trend was true in every single case. And also in every case, those mages proved to be of substantial power or skill. Even now the descendants of those from earth were all very capable people even when they weren't mages. And that didn't fit well with what the rest of their records said of earth and the other worlds in this region of the multiverse.

So now they were here to take a look first hand again to see why there were such inconsistencies and oddities. Unfortunately, the Heibao had drawn a rather dull duty as their part of the project. They were to create new, accurate stellar cartography charts of the Sol system. This was a tedious process that took a great deal of time. A planetary system was by its very nature, an enormous volume. This meant that Enshiro and his crew had spent a great deal of time traveling in a tight spiral from the outer planets to the inner ones.

The work wasn't unnecessary though. Just preliminary comparisons to older charts showed a number of errors and inconsistencies. For instance, the average magical background energy, or MBE, was disproportionately high in this system compared to what the old charts said it should be. Magical energy existed everywhere, this is what made collection type spells possible, but in space it was usually thin and tenuous, like a thin fog. But here it was unusually thick, especially around Earth's moon and the asteroid belt.

Enshiro let out a long calming sigh. There was no point in trying to grapple with the problem right now. All the data was being fed to a research team on Mid-Childa who no doubt had a much greater understanding of things than he did.

"Captain."

Enshiro turned his head down and to the left at the soft female voice and dismissed his screen to look at his Tac officer. She was a very young woman who had joined the crew right before this assignment. Looking at her always made Enshiro feel like an old man.

"Yes Tawno?" He said calmly.

"There's an abnormality with the Moon sir." This time her voice carried a tinge of excitement.

"With the moon?" Tawno nodded. He waved his hand and through his device and connection to the ship, he brought up the information.

What he saw was indeed strange, or at least it was for this system. Earth's moon had the largest concentration of magic after the Earth itself. The asteroid belt was almost as high, but it was stretched out over a vast volume of space. But now though, the moon seemed to be almost pulsing. Like a child playing with a dimmer light switch, the background magic seethed and withdrew in waves that always differed in size. He'd never seen anything quite like it.

"Make sure this data is being sent to the research group and backed up to the Infinite Library," He commanded to the Comm officer.

"Yes sir, already checking the links." Ensign Polvin was an earnest young man. Enshiro always liked having him on watch. "Sir, links verified. All information is being transmitted cleanly and the Infinite Library confirms accurate receipt."

"Thank you Polvin," Enshiro acknowledged with a smile. "Quick work as always."

He watched the wildly fluctuating energy signature with avid interest. This was the kind of thing they were all here to look for, strange and unusual occurrences. Tawno scattered additional searchers until there were close to a hundred scattered around Earth, the moon, and their immediate environs.

Suddenly the seething seemed to jerk to a halt

"Sir! Energy spike!"

Tawno flipped another screen open in front of him and Enshiro stared in consternation. There, on the dark side of the moon and away from the eyes of Earth's inhabitants, was an enormous ring of millions of magical sigils, all of them an ominous red.

"Detir, emergency transit, take us a quarter light minute away in any direction." He ordered swiftly and clearly to the navigator. "Tawno, bring up Iron Fortress and keep an eye on your searchers."

"Aye!" the both responded, fingers flying as they obeyed.

Enshiro felt the magic surge through the ship as its engines were awoken more fully for this task. There was a wave of light that swept over his body and made his skin tingle, and then it was done. Only a soft sighing sound from the engines as they cycled back down from the quick dimensional transport permeated the air for a couple minutest.

Then Enshiro's visual display showed him the results off Tawno's work. A number of glowing blue rings encircled the ship down its entire length. Power rippled and quivered between those rings, ready to snap into form and protect the ship from harm.

Dismissing the shield from is thoughts, Enshiro turned back to the display of the moon. The sigils were still there. The AI told him that they were rotating at a very slow rate of one revolution per single Earth day. That couldn't be coincidence.

Behind him the bridge hatch snapped open and light bathed the dim bridge for a brief instant. Then it was gone again as the confident footfalls of boots strode toward him.

"Captain, I felt the dimensional transfer," His Executive Officer said as she stopped in her customary place next to his chair. Enshiro glanced at her with an amused air. Lieutenant Yarnow was a very effective officer and XO, but she was a stickler for rules and regs. Even now her uniform was immaculate even though she had to have been awoken just a moment before now. Enshiro had been trying for the last month to get her to relax a little before she gave herself health problems. "Are we in any danger sir?"

"Unknown Exec." He said, again in his usual calm. "Some kind of magic just woke up on Earth's moon; I was just taking precautionary measures. Would you please assist Tawno? I need to know how this might affect us."

"Of course sir," Yarnow descended to the lower level and sat at an empty console.

Yarnow and Tawno worked furiously for a few moments and information flowed over their screens. If he wished, Enshiro could view what they were seeing for himself, but that wasn't necessary. A moment later Yarnow's station gave a soft chime.

"Captain, I do not think the ship is in any danger," Yarnow said smoothly. "It appears the magic was some sort of field-type spell. It also appears to be broken or corrupted. It's not functioning smoothly and its form seems to be collapsing.

"Sir, crew reports all hands at their posts." Polvin announced.

Enshiro nodded. The AI had made sure to wake and get everyone moving as soon as the orders for a transit had left his mouth. That was its job; to make sure things ran smoothly so the ship's human crew could function at their best.

"Thank you Yarnow, Polvin," he said in acknowledgement.

As more crew began their assigned tasks, more and more information flowed onto bridge displays. That meant that the special scanner team was bending their tools to the task of figuring out what was going on. As he watched, another screen formed and on it was another image of the Earth and its moon. The only difference was that on this image both were incased in a polyhedral structure.

"Is this the field structure?"

"Yes sir," Tawno answered. "We can't get a good read on what magic system created it, but that's what it looks like."

"There it goes." Yarnow said softly.

As they all watched, the circle of sigils seemed to shatter and fall apart. Individual parts remained for a few moments, but not for long. After about five minutes it was entirely gone. All his other displays confirmed the disappearance of the field as well. The background energy of the entire volume also dropped well below the pre-incident levels.

"Well, that was exciting," Enshiro sighed. "Did you manage to figure out a purpose to that thing?"

"No," Yarnow said as she stood up. "I suspect though that it was already in operation long before we got here. Our actions in this system are probably the reason it destabilized and collapsed."

"That's about that I was thinking as well," Enshiro agreed. "I hope we didn't break something the locals have been relying on."

Yarnow brought up a searcher image from the Earth's surface; it was a display of a major city.

"It doesn't appear that they noticed anything at all of what just happened." She said calmly. "I think it was hiding there for a very long time."

Hmmm, well, it seems to be over now." Enshiro said as he thought things over. "Send the crew back to their sleep and get us back on our scanning route. The big thinkers back home can figure what that was while we do our job."

There was a chorus of affirmations and soon enough they were back where they had been, charting the system. All the while after that though, Enshiro wondered what that magic had been for and he wasn't alone. Magic was almost never seen or worked on a planetary or greater scale. There were too many things that could go wrong with that kind of power flowing around. It was enough to give any educated man the shivers, especially when it occurred in a strange sector of the multiverse as this one. Enshiro prayed silently that nothing else like this or worse happened while his ship was in-system.

*****

Cranagan, Mid-Childa |

Uminari City, Japan

"Oooph!"

Fate instinctively wrapped her arms around the small blonde haired missile that had nearly knocked the wind out of as she had walked in through the front door of her home. Once she had the door shut and was standing stable again, she placed her right hand on top of that blonde head.

"Are you ready to go now, Fate-mama?" Vivio asked with youthful exuberance.

"I would like to know too, Fate."

Fate looked back up and smiled as Nanoha approached them. She then blushed slightly when Nanoha gave her a small greeting kiss. They'd only recently become more open about their relationship to others, especially Vivio, and it still embarrassed her a little. She knew for the most part, that everyone knew about them being together, but she had never really gotten past her shyness. Hayate liked to tease her about it when she could, but Fate knew she'd likely be this way her whole life. She cared dearly for Nanoha, but public displays of it would never be comfortable to her.

"Yes, all the preparation is done," Fate said, answering them both. "Chrono gave me clearance to take us to the first relay and from there the TSAB will handle everything."

"Alright!" Vivio yelled happily. "When can we go?"

"As soon I pack my bags," Fate smiled at Nanoha's adoptive daughter and her godchild.

"Then we can leave right now," Nanoha grinned at her. Fate thought she looked to be almost as excited as Vivio was. "I got your stuff packed while you were at headquarters. Then I did mine and Vivio's"

Fate laughed lightly at the clear excitement from both Vivio and her mother. The two of them had turned out to be almost ideally paired as mother and child. Sure there were arguments and tantrums on Vivio's part sometimes, but they were a genuinely happy family that deeply loved each other.

That was why they would be traveling today. Two days ago the paperwork and other bureaucratic red-tape had finally been completed. It had already been accepted fact, but now they had the official documents stating that Nanoha was Vivio's mother. That meant that Nanoha was finally free to take Vivio to Earth and to introduce her daughter to her parents. It had taken a lot of convincing on Fate's part to keep her own adoptive mother, Lindy, from spilling the news early. And thus, this trip was born.

"I don't suppose there's in point in waiting then," Fate answered in agreement. "Did you arrange everything with Vivio's school?"

"Yes, Vivo's already fairly far ahead of most of her class, so she won't be missing much that will harm her studies." Nanoha said in assurance. "And I promised to work with her on a few things myself."

"Then let's go!" Fate said, finally allowing some of the excitement to bleed into her as well. "Bring the bags out into the yard and I'll set up the teleport to the first relay station.

"Can I do it?" Vivio asked excitedly. "Can I Nahoha-mama? I've been practicing this one, and Raising Heart says I've got it!"

Nanoha pulled the pink gem in question out from the slightly exposed cleavage of her light blue button-up shirt.

"What do you think?" She asked.

"It is alright. The magic has been learned." The device said, flashing as it spoke.

"Then go ahead Vivio."

Vivio ran deeper into the house and a moment later Fate felt magic being worked nearby. Almost as soon as that feeling abated Vivio walked into the living room with three sizable luggage bags floating in the air behind her. Telekinesis wasn't an especially difficult magic to learn but Fate knew it was ahead of the curriculum Vivio had been working on. That meant Nanoha had been teaching her as well.

"Nanoha," Fate said in a chiding tone.

"I know, I know." Nanoha laughed. "I just can't help it though. I like teaching her too."

Fate sighed. There really was no helping it. Nanoha was a little obsessed where Vivio was concerned. Not smothering or controlling though, Nanoha just wanted to be involved wherever she could. Her goal now was to be a good mother to Vivio.

"Well let's get moving," Fate pointed out the door. "Vivio's going to get impatient again."

After locking up the house Fate walked with Nanoha out to the yard where Vivio was waiting with the bags. The girl was sitting on one of them as she enjoyed the warm afternoon sun. Fate noted that Nanoha must have dressed her because Vivio was wearing a nice skirt and sweater, not something the girl chose to wear when she wasn't gong to school. Vivio didn't dislike wearing such clothing, but she usually just wore a t-shirt and shorts when she could.

"Everyone ready?"

Nanoha and Vivio both nodded that they were.

"Then let's get our vacation started. Bardiche."

"Yes Sir."

Fate felt the familiar sensation of her device fully interfacing with her linker core and to her mind as her barrier jacket formed around her. A second later she held the comfortable weight of the device in her right hand and extended it out in front of her.

"Dimensional Transfer, TSAB relay station # 45."

As Fate gave the dimensional coordinates she felt the magic forming and solidifying around them. Below their feet a bright yellow circle formed and slowly rotated on its center. When she came to the end of the aria, Fate slashed Bardiche through the air in front of her to activate the magic. Immediately they were engulfed by a light many times brighter than the soothing sunlight around them.

**

When the light cleared from her eyes for the final time, Nanoha breathed in air that filled her with memories and took in the sight in front of her as she stood in the yard of her childhood home. It had been a very long time since she had last been here and just looking at the front door filled her with emotion. Behind that door was her family.

Nanoha glanced and smiled over at Vivio and Fate. It would be more precise to say that her other family was on the other side of the door. Vivio was staring at that door with almost trembling nervousness, her earlier enthusiasm gone. Nanoha didn't blame her daughter for being nervous, she was about to meet her grandparents and her aunt and uncle all at once. Fate was more composed, but only a little. Fate still wasn't comfortable with Nanoha's parents knowing that they were much more than just friends, even though they had known for long time now.

Nanoha approached the door and knocked. It felt a little strange to knock on a door that had once been hers, but she didn't want to just barge into the house. After a minute or so she heard the scuffing sound of lock being undone and then the door opened. And there stood her mother.

"Nanoha?!" Mom said in clear surprise. "What are you…?" She turned and shouted. "Shiro! It's Nanoha and Fate." Smiling happily mother gestured for them all to come inside.

As they all entered the house her father and siblings all came into the family room as a group, all talking excitedly.

"Nanoha, why didn't you say you were coming?" her father asked as he and the others came to a stop. "

"Yes, I would've made a much bigger and better dinner if I'd known you were going to visit." Mom smiled. "But it's nice to see you in person again regardless and you too Fate."

"Sorry mom, but I wanted it to be a surprise," Nanoha laughed.

"It's good to see you all again," Fate said in the shy tone she always slipped into around her parents.

"Who's that?" Kyouya said curiously, pointing toward her legs. Nanoha had timed her visit to coincide with his own visit home from Germany where he was living with Shinobu.

Knowing exactly who her brother was pointing at, Nanoha turned, put her hands on Vivio's small shoulders, and drew her out in front where the girl smiled nervously and held her hands clasped behind her back.

Nanoha couldn't help grinning at the confusion on everyone's face.

"Nanoha, who is this cute thing!" Mother enthused with her usual reaction to anything at all cute. The question at least made Vivio looked a little less nervous.

"Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to my daughter, Vivio Takamatchi. And Vivo, this is your grandmother Momoko, your Grandfather Shiro, your aunt Miyuki and your Uncle Kyouya."

"Um…It's nice to meet you all." Vivo said in a nervous voice as she leaned back into Nanoha's legs.

For a long moment everyone just stared in disbelief and Nanoha didn't blame them. It wasn't everyday that you found out that you were a grandmother or an aunt and uncle.

Mom looked from her, to Fate and then to Vivio. "Nanoha, I know you've told us a lot about what magic can do where you live, but is she…yours and Fate's?"

Nanoha had expected this question so she smiled in amusement. "No, it would be possible for Fate and I to have a child with technology on Mid-Childa, but Vivio is adopted. She's been living with Fate and I for the last year or so. She officially became my daughter on paper yesterday."

"Wow…" Dad blinked a few times and then smiled hugely. "I wasn't expecting to find out I'm a grandfather today, but this is certainly something to be happy about. It's wonderful to meet you Vivio!"

Encouraged by her father's response, Vivio stepped away again from Nanoha and was almost immediately engulfed in a hug by Miyuki. "Mom's right. You're so cute Vivio!"

Vivio giggled and tried to break free but mom took Miyuki's hug as tacit permission to do so as well. Then Vivio was trapped in the middle of a familial sandwich as her grandmother and aunt both hugged her together.

"Are you just here to introduce her to us, Nanoha?" Kyouya asked, letting their sister and mother get to Vivio first.

Nanoha shared a smile with Fate. "Actually, we're both taking a month's vacation. So we'll be here for a little while."

"Good," dad nodded approval. "I want to hear all about my new granddaughter before you two leave again. Come into the kitchen and I'll make us all some coffee."

Leaving the still laughing Vivio to the mercies of her mother and sister, Nanoha and Fate followed Shiro into the kitchen with Kyouya taking up the rear. Once there she was more than happy to tell her family all about how she'd met Vivio.

******

Iheya-Shima, an island NE of Okinawa, Japan

Grunting with exhaustion and with sweat dripping down her darkly tanned skin, Alice Rhoads spun in a fast about face, her wooden staff whipping through the air with a sibilant hiss. Not pausing to rest for even a moment she glided into the next of her training kata. Again and again she flowed and spun, never letting her body sit still for long.

She ignored the noonday sun beating down on her long black hair and paid no heed to the sweat stinging at her eyes from the soaked bangs that curled down over her forehead. In her mind there was nothing by the staff in her hands and the imaginary foes she was creating in her head. Every strike or thrust was as precise as she could make it even though her arms were beginning to tremble from fatigue when they sat still.

Normally she was content with one run through of her training exercises, but today was different. She had a need for her exhaustion today. When she trained hard she was often able to slip into an almost trance-like calm and it was that which she sought today.

She soon cast aside her imaginary enemies and focused on the feel of the wood beneath her fingers. The grain of the oak teased her fingertips as the staff spun and moved. Eventually, after almost another hour she reached the end of her training regimen and the staff clattered down in front of her feet.

Alice wasn't far behind the staff. She collapsed down to her bottom and sat on the tar and gravel rooftop of her apartment building. The roof felt warm from the baking sun even through her jeans. Technically she wasn't supposed to be up here, but she knew few other places where she could practice in peace without people bothering her. No one came up to this place, not even the landlord. She had even rigged the lock on the door so that only she knew how to get up here. This was her place in the world and no one else's.

It wasn't that she necessarily disliked people, far from it actually, but she often just liked to get away and escape for a little while. Her training was a part of that escape too. Her father, a colonel in the US Marine Corps, had introduced her to an instructor after her tenth birthday. He had wanted her to have a way to defend herself. Some of the people that lived on this small island weren't the most…honorable of people and he wanted her to have a way to stay safe. But to her it was more than that, it made her feel both apart from the world and joined with it at the same time. Alice loved her martial arts training. She loved pushing and stretching her mind and body to their limits and feeling the endorphins running through her. She also knew it was extremely useful in many ways.

A few years after she had started her training she had noticed what her father had much earlier; that she was fast becoming a woman, and if it wasn't too conceited to acknowledge herself, a fairly good looking one. Attractive, athletic, 16-year-old girls were targets in this area by some of the less reputable sorts, especially the soldiers from the nearby bases, and they needed to know how to take care of themselves. She was also somewhat vulnerable to bullying from some of the more disagreeable locals because of her half-Japanese parentage. The majority of the islanders didn't care, but it was those few exceptions she had to watch out for.

Her father often regretted getting this apartment in town instead of living on base, but Alice never did. There many good things about her home. It wasn't one of the tourist swamped areas so she never had to worry about it being crowded and the weather was fantastic. There was also a really nice park down the road that she liked to read at. There was a tiny shaded grove of trees she hid in that let her read for hours sometime without being disturbed. If she read on a bench she was always bugged by groups of local boys. She also liked to read up here on the roof when it wasn't too hot out.

Her current book sat on a stool a few feet away from her. This one was a college level physics textbook. All her books were usually textbooks. She was always in a constant search for new and challenging things to learn and her school just didn't cut it anymore, it was way behind her. She never said that out loud of course, because no one liked some know–it-all shoving the fact that they were smart in their faces. Instead she studied on her own. Downstairs in her room she had stacks of notebooks filled with equations and notes from just the last couple of years.

She had plenty of time for her self studies. Her father had so far forbidden her from having a part-time job and she didn't have much in the way of friends. The latter was entirely her fault. She got easily absorbed in whatever she was working on and ended up ignoring what was going on around her. Before she knew it, she had become known as the "moody nerd girl," at school and no one had really wanted to seek her out. Everyone already had their formed groups of friends and none felt a need to include her. It was depressing sometimes, she really wanted friends, or at least one good one, but she was realistic enough to realize it wouldn't happen while she still lived in this small community of just over forty-thousand people.

Having finally caught her breath, Alice crawled over, grabbed a spiral bound notebook from under her book and then sat so that she could rest her back against the knee high, brick wall that ran around the rooftop as its border. This moment was what she had been working toward. The time after her workouts where her mind felt clear and her body felt loose. She had difficulty making it work at any other time.

Reaching down she picked up a short, two inch length of electrical wire she'd left here. With her left hand she held it up lengthwise in front of her face. She stared at it for a long moment before setting her notebook down and then raising her other hand up so that her thumb and middle finger where at either end of the wire. Breathing evenly, she reached for that place inside herself that she had found a few months ago.

With a swiftness that surprised her, she found that center. Her body filled with a rushing, tingling sensation that had never happened before. Wanting to test this new feeling, Alice drew the power she felt to her finger. Once there it immediately formed into what she wanted and a dark blue bolt of electricity leapt from her thumb to the wire and then back across the air again to her middle finger. Alice had expected it to only spark once and then die away like every other attempt, but the bolt kept on flowing and crackling in the air. So much so that that she felt the wire heating up in her fingers.

Absolutely shocked at her sudden success, she cut off the flow of power and felt it settle back down within her. The reservoir inside her felt a lot greater than it ever had before. Had something happened to her? She didn't think so. Picking up her notebook, she unclipped her pen from the front cover and opened it up to the next blank page. With a careful and clear hand she recorded the results from her first attempt.

Then, feeling excited, she got back up and retrieved her school bag from by the door to the stairwell. From her bag she withdrew a voltmeter and an ammeter and then resumed her seat. After touching both fingers to the voltmeter's terminals, she again brought that power up. The needled snapped across to the opposing side in an instant, her power exceeded it capacity to measure. The same thing occurred with the ammeter. Again she recorded the results.

"I did it!" she breathed out in a whisper. "I can control it!"

Alice felt her heart begin to race in her excitement. She'd never had this much success before. She had always had to struggle to bring her power out of herself. It had been like trying to swim to the surface of a pool while carrying a heavy rock. But today had been different, nothing had resisted at all. It had flowed out naturally at her command.

Hastily setting the ammeter down, she again raised her hands. Licking her lips nervously, she decided to try something new. She wanted to get her power to form something that she wanted it to and not just electricity. She imagined it in her head, forming a little ball in between her hands. She held that image so hard that her head began to hurt a little. When she knew she had it firmly in mind she again drew on that power and it sapped to obey her. With a slight flickering, a dark blue sphere took form in the exact size she had imagined it. She took away one hand and then moved the other. The ball followed that hand as she wanted it to so that it floated above her palm.

"So cool." Alice couldn't take her eyes of the glowing ball. She could feel her power flowing through her mind to it. It flowed in a in such on odd pattern. With her free hand she sketched the pattern into the notebook. When it was done she started to withdraw her power again.

"Alice!"

Jolting in surprise at someone yelling her name, she let an uncontrolled burst of power flow into the light ball. With a crackled-pop sound, it vanished.

"Ouch!" Looking at her palm she saw that there was a bright red burn on it. That would hurt on the staff later. Standing up, she looked over the side of the roof and downward. On the ground four stories below stood her father in full uniform.

"What?" She called back, cupping her hand to project her voice a little.

Her father raised his right arm and she saw a plastic bag with a restaurant logo on it. "Dinner's what!" He chuckled in amusement and started walking toward the door.

Turning back to her stuff, Alice shoved everything back into her bag, everything except for the wooden staff. As she went to put her notebook inside the bag she couldn't help but smile at the words written across its front as a title. Most people would probably think she was a bit crazy if they read it. She however saw it as the key to her future. It read simply: Alice's Magic Experiments Vol. 1.

Right now it contained only forty-five pages of notes, but today was proof of her diligence. She could control it. Soon she hoped to do amazing things with it. She didn't know what kind of things exactly, but she knew that they would be amazing. They had to be. Why else would she be able to use magic?

Zipping up her bag, she hefted her training staff in her non-burned hand and went to eat dinner, whistling a totally off key pop song along the way.

Chapter 1: Movements

Alice strode purposefully but smoothly down the heavily cracked sidewalk. It was a bit busy and crowded this afternoon but she maneuvered through the other people around her with the casual grace of long habit, only occasionally brushing her loose, black t-shirt against someone. She had walked down this particular stretch of road almost every single day she'd lived on the island as it ran from her apartment to her school which sat on the side of a fairly large hill. After school, like now, she walked back down this road and then down a shorter, much less traveled one.

A quarter of a mile down that smaller road she came to the rear entrance of the island's park. As she walked through the pillared opening in the stone wall she sipped absently on the bottle of cherry soda held in her left hand. The park was mostly a large open area of grass, picnic areas, with the occasional tree or playground. On the west end however laid her destination.

Following a thin, mulch covered path, Alice entered the small copse of trees. It didn't cover too wide an area, but it was always shaded and cool. And this time of year it smelled soothingly of growing things. After entering the trees she left the path and crossed through the heavy underbrush to small clearing. She had made the clearing herself when she was just eight years old and she had maintained it to create a place that was just for her; even more so than the rooftop was hers. It was only two strides across in any direction, but on one side she had shoved a large, flat sided piece of reddish sandstone into the ground that leaned back at a slight angle. She made her way to that rock and dropped her stuff next to it. After that she dropped herself to the soft dirt so that she leaned back against the shade cooled stone and set her drink aside.

"God, that feels so good!" she said aloud to no one in particular.

Stretching her arms around behind the stone, she clasped them together and then leaned forward for a second to stretch her sore back muscles. The relief was wonderful.

"Sensei is an absolute sadist!"

After her classes were over for the day, she had her training with an Okinawan martial arts instructor for two hours. Today had been especially grueling as she had still been tired from the night before. Thinking of the previous night, she took a notebook out of her bag. It was identical to its predecessor, but this one read: Alice's Magic Experiments Vol. 2. In just over four weeks time she had made quite a few advances. Whatever had happened on that afternoon on the roof, her power and control had grown in great leaps since. So much so that she was only beginning to come to any kid of understanding of what it could really do.

Flipping to the work she had written the previous night, she studied the image she had drawn on one page in very great detail.

"There's still something off about it." She mused thoughtfully.

There on the lined page was set of geometric shapes, lines and sigils. All of the sigils she had created herself as she tried various things out. All of what was on the page was a representation of the magic she had been working on. She had created it as a means to express on paper what she did with her magic. The sigils and shapes showed and described how shape her power to create a desired result.

After that first attempt at creating that ball of light, she had remembered how the power had wanted to flow and form into a specific pattern to create the effect she wanted. This image was a trial and error creation of her experiments with those magic forms to see what form yielded what result. A novel on magic and myths would probably call it a magical circle. So far she had figured out that most magic responded with the use of the circle with slight variations done to it for the specific spell she wanted to use. It only did simple things so far, but there was progress being made. This one part though was giving her difficulties. She had exhausted herself the previous night working on it

There was an outer double-ring that had three inner circles contained within it. From the smallest, central circle radiated four cardinal rays that pierced all the circles and even the outer ring. Other arcs and shapes crossed or sat within each ring as well. Within much of the remaining empty space she written in her newly created sigils. So far she had made 34 of them to represent specific nuances of power that she had figured out. She had a whole chart in her notebook to describe each one to the point that it was almost becoming a new language of her own devising.

She had focused so much on her experiments lately that her sensei had noticed her fatigue and he exploited it relentlessly today in their sparing matches. Last night had been the worst; she had played around with her magic until almost 3am.

"Ohh!" Alice twitched as a careless movement touched a bruise on her calf on something in the grass. That bruise only was one of many.

Trying to ignore her bodily discomforts, she took out a pencil and concentrated on the circle. It wasn't quite doing exactly what she wanted it to do yet. "Maybe…" She trailed off as she erased two sigils and replaced them with others. Looking at her changes, she frowned at the page. "Maybe I have to make another new one?" she asked the empty air. It was bugging the hell out of her that this form was taking so long.

For some reason she could do some minor things with her magic with barely a thought to how she was doing it. Like creating little blue sparks of electricity, those she seemed to be able to make on an instinctual level. The light ball wasn't much harder to make. Then there were the things she was making these circles for. Some magic seemed to need a much higher level of control and constraint to make it function properly. The more complicated the magic, the more control it needed. That was easy to understand and very logical, but it was frustrating to figure out the specifics from scratch.

Deciding she really did need to make a new sigil to represent what she needed to make this spell work, she sketched her idea for one below the circle drawing and labeled its purpose so that she could add it to the chart later. After that she added the new sigil to the circle in the necessary places and grinned in satisfaction.

"It needs a name now," Alice mumbled. "How about…Stun shot? ....That'll have to do for now I guess, even if it sounds a bit boring. I'll think of something better later."

Now the only thing to do was to test it again with her actual magic. The roof of her apartment now sported several small scorch marks from her previous experiments with this spell that had so far been of dubious success. She had started working on it as a compliment to her martial arts training when she wondered if she could use magic to defend herself. There had been several oddities in the area over the last week that had made her nervous. She couldn't put her finger on the specifics for her nervousness, but it was still there. That had been enough of an impetus for her to create this spell.

She was about to put her notebook away and pull out her reading for today, this one was a really interesting book she'd found in the school library called: Qquantum Mechanics-the Basics, when she heard heavy, deliberate footsteps on the path nearby. Something about the person she couldn't even see made the hairs on her arm want to stand on end and sent an odd tingling through her.

"Where did that damn girl go?!"

Alice flinched at the loud, gruff complaint. The bearer of that deep voice had to be only a short distance away through the trees and brush. Maybe only a few feet even. Glancing at her notebook, she decided to try out one of the first things she had created with magic after the light ball.

"Looking Glass," She whispered in a barely audible hiss. As she said the invocation she formed her magic in the manner necessary to form the spell in her mind. Like in her previous uses of the spell, an identical spell circle formed on the ground beneath her body made of dark blue light. When the spell solidified and took hold, she had to brace herself with her arms as many strange, new sensations assaulted her mind. The spell amplified her senses manifold and also cast out a short ranged magical sensory blanket. She had made it originally as an experiment to see what she could do with magic and her own body. It had been an encouraging success, even if it was somewhat limited.

After a moment to get a handle on what the magic was telling her, she was able to get a picture of what was happening through the trees and around her in general. There were actually two men. One of them was heavy-set and wore the boots that had made the scuffing sounds in the path's mulch. The other was much lighter and probably shorter. The magic didn't tell her specific attributes yet, she was still working on that, but it did giver her a basic sense of things. The men were standing close together so they were speaking quieter. Her spell caught the words anyway.

"…can't end good for us if we screw up." Said Thin Man.

"Of course it won't be good for us if we fail this," answered Fat Man. "The Admiral will be royally pissed if we lose the girl. She's supposed to be an important subject for the research weenies."

Admiral? Alice thought too herself. Where these people military?

"Well she's in this park, we know that much." Thin Man muttered sourly.

"True," agreed Fat Man. "The rest of the men have the place surrounded and under surveillance. She came straight here after school and never left, at least according to 2nd squad."

Alice felt another shiver run up her back. Where they looking for her? She didn't think she'd done anything to draw attention from any military people. Sure they were all over the island when they were on leave, but she hadn't pissed any of them off. And what did they mean about a research subject?

With a sudden flash of understanding, her eyes shot open. Her magic, that had to be it. There was no other reason someone would be interested in her. Sure she had a nice athletic figure and decent curves for her age and an attractive half-Japanese face, but these weren't pervert soldiers trying to rape her, they were military men looking for a test subject. That brought to mind all sorts of bad sci-fi movie plots to mind.

"When are the other guys supposed to get here and help us?" asked Thin Man.

"Soon I hope," Fat Man groused roughly. "If this takes too long or gets really messy, the locals will get involved. The worst thing would be if we caught any attention from those American bastards on the base, they're actually well trained soldiers so they could really give us trouble; especially since the girl's the daughter of one of 'em"

'These aren't US soldiers?' Alice thought wonderingly. Then who the hell were they with? They were speaking in English. Then another thought occurred to her. They knew exactly who her dad was. That meant they'd been watching her for a while.

Alice felt something new intrude on her new senses. She heard the crackled of a speaker and she grinned. She could feel radio waves!

"Squad 1, this is Overwatch, be advised, magical signature detected within close range. Target is within sight distance," came the radio call in a calm female voice. Someone on their side could pick her up somehow.

"We're in the fucking trees!" complained Fat Man. "Sight distance is about 2 meters." She heard the slight click of a mike pick-up being depressed. "Acknowledged Overwatch, can you be more specific, we're in a wooded area so sight lines are non-existent."

"Noted squad 1, target is within a fifteen meter radius of your current location. Scanners have shown no movement since they picked up her magic. A cautionary note is being advised by CIC, her currently registered power output is enough to pierce individual defensive measures if the magic is hostile in nature."

"Caution noted," Fat Man acknowledged and then put his radio away again. "Well isn't that nice," he complained again. "They send us to pick up their lab rate and now they tell us she might be a little dangerous. I love the quality of Imperial intelligence these days. At least she's close by."

Imperial Intelligence? What Empire?

"Think she's listening to us right now, Lieutenant?" asked Thin Man.

"Heh," Fat Man harrumphed. "I hadn't thought of that. I wouldn't doubt it though; she's certainly close enough to eavesdrop if Overwatch is right about the distance." Alice heard him clear his throat. "You listening to us out there little missy?" He called out loudly. "I think that you are. You just come right on out here and give yourself up. I don't feel like tromping through these trees to root you out. I'll even treat you really gentle."

Alice snorted in derision. She wasn't stupid enough to give herself over to people who obviously didn't mean her well. And who called people 'little missy' these days? Fat Man could talk all he wanted about being gentle too; she doubted those research people he'd talked about would be inclined to follow that promise. She intended to stay as discreet as possible until she could figure out a way to get the attention of some kind of authorities. The MP's on the base would be the best, they were usually armed even when other soldiers weren't and they were more aggressive than the local police.

As slowly as she could, Alice shifted into a kneeling crouch and dug the toes of her shoes firmly into the rich black soil. She also slipped her notebook back into her bag before quietly slinging up her stuff so that it rested on her back. Once she was sure were she knew where she wanted to go, she raised up a little. Taking calming breathes; she ever so slowly began walking deeper into the trees and away from the two men. After only a few steps her concentration on her spell wavered enough for it to collapse completely, cutting of her eavesdropping. She didn't worry too much about that; she needed to concentrate more on sneaking now.

It was a bit agonizing how little ground she was covering per step, but she dared not try to run or do anything which might generate a lot of sound. She hoped that now that she wasn't using her magic, that the 'Overwatch' people, whoever they were, would not be able to pick her up anymore. After at least ten torturous minutes, she came to a largish structure covered in lichen, moss and other vegetation. Its shattered concrete shell was almost completely green from its long exposure to nature's expansion in this part of the park. During the Second World War it had been a fortified bunker. Unfortunately the local veterans thought badly of the Battle of Okinawa because this tiny island of the chain had been largely ignored by the American forces since it had been sparsely populated and defended. The old men thought they'd been cheated out of the 'honorable battle' the main island's defenders had engaged in. This bunker showed the only attention they had actually drawn; a single navel bombardment from a battleship. The unlucky occupants of this bunker had been the islands only casualties during the entire battle.

The structure was just over seven meters tall in its intact portions, and Alice used the broken parts to climb up and onto the roof. Once on top she almost fell right back off when her right foot slid on a loose portion of dead lichen. She only saved herself by dropping to all fours. Once she got back up to her feet, sporting a brown stain on her knees for the trouble, she crossed to the far side of the bunker where the west side park wall ran. The wall here was in terrible repair since it was probably older than she was and all the trees growing around it hadn't helped it any. After slipping to the top of the stone wall from the bunker she dropped lithely to the ground.

After listening quietly for a full minute to see if her noise had drawn any attention from her aggressors, Alice continued heading south-west. The island was a long thin shape with the mountain/hill in the middle of the land which was just over ten miles long and ran in a SW to NE direction. The far south-western third of the Island belonged to the joint forces, American military base. The base was basically just a huge logistics depot for all the braches of the American military in the area. What was stored there was classified of course, but her father had hinted that the base was used to transship munitions and repair parts and to provide a back-up refueling anchorage for naval ships. It had a smallish overall population of personnel for the land it covered but it had fairly tight security. Alice hoped she could get to the base and rouse its guards against her pursuers. That meant she had to cross over about eight miles of the island and town to get there.

After about five minutes of walking, she stopped at the shaded edge of the trees to crouch again. The trees cut off at the main street of a commercial district. There was an unusual amount of traffic today, both pedestrian and vehicular, so she had no idea if anyone she was looking at was part of the group looking for her. She didn't see anyone standing around in a manner that would suggest that they were searching for something, but she was far from an expert at noticing such things. She did see two American soldiers in PT gear eating at the café down a ways to her left, but they were very obviously engaged in conversation with each other.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to step out casually into the afternoon sun and into the general throng of islanders going about their business. A couple people, especially one older woman, gave her disapproving and suspicious looks, but they went back to their indifference immediately when she did nothing more that seemed odd to them. That was good; if she was unnoticeable and didn't draw attention then she would be able to make it. The street she was one ran the short North-South direction, so at the first intersection she came to she crossed the street and got herself back on track toward the base.

As she walked calmly, Alice almost laughed. Inside she felt tense and paranoid, but the world around her didn't fit that image at all right then. The clear, cloudless and sunny sky bathed the modern structures around her in cheery sunlight and a cooling breeze brought to her the usual scent of the sea. The businesses she walked by, some of them two or three stories tall and most made of a tannish-colored brick and fronted by straight, well maintained sidewalks, all seemed innocent and normal. Well, they would have been normal to her had she been walking like this on any other day. Now though she couldn't help but wonder when the hammer was going to fall.

She was so distracted by her growing paranoia that she almost missed them. Luckily their behavior had been out of place enough that she snapped back to attention right away. A dark black pick-up truck bearing a distinguishing rust stain on its left side drove by her once, then after another few minutes it drove by again; and then a third time. It was the third pass that awoke her to the odd behavior. Sure someone who wasn't a local might drive back and forth if they didn't know where something was, but three times meant people really searching for something. Once the truck turned around a corner behind her, Alice ducked down a slim break between two buildings.

The break ran into a very tight alleyway between the buildings of one street and another. The space was fairly dirty looking, like most such places, but it looked like someone occasionally came back here because all the trash looked recent and light in quantity. She traveled down the alley, paralleling the road, until she caught something interesting out of the corner of her eye. Behind an optometrist shop she saw a slightly rusted length of steel pipe leaning against the wall. It was about a meter and a half long and a look up showed a new pipe of the same length attached to a piping system running along the wall. Blessing the laziness of the plumber, Alice picked up the pipe and hefted it in her hands. It felt comforting there.

That pipe proved it's worth almost immediately. Just as she was passing another break in between two buildings when an arm lunged out toward her followed by the brawny blonde man in dirty work clothes it was attached to. With a grunt of effort the man lurched to grab her arm. Reacting out of instincts her training had ingrained into her, Alice slipped into the same mode of concentration she used with sensei when he worked with her. Without conscious thought her arm whipped the pipe through the air. The opening at the end created a whistling sound until the steel cracked into bone with a sickening crunch.

"Aaaaah!" The man howled and clutched at his badly broken wrist. He glared at her and broke into a stream in unintelligible expletives.

Snapping back to normal for a second Alice stared in surprise at the damage she had caused. She didn't feel any real remorse for the man's injury, he had been trying to kidnap her after all, but she did feel surprise at how easy it had been to do it. She had half expected him to give some kind of counter or block like sensei would have, but instead she had hit him exactly where she'd wanted too. Sensei always tried to tell his students how deadly or dangerous martial arts could actually be to other human beings outside of restrained sparring matches, but this was the first time she had seen the actual real world results it could cause.

When the man made to came after her again despite his injuries, Alice broke into a run and tore down the rest of the alleyway. When she came to a street again she ran back over to the westbound street she'd been on before and continued down it. Since she'd been found now Alice hoped that the other people on the street would provide enough of a reason for her attackers to stay away. Her hopes drained away quickly when she got to the next cross street.

There she watched as the black truck she had seen rolled to a stop about thirty feet in front of her, forcing Alice to slow to a halt. The door opened and a well muscled man with a dark tan and mature, older facial features stepped out onto the sidewalk. He had a day old growth of facial hair and what looked to be a permanent frown. Right away people started moving away from him with loud exclamations. They did so because he was carrying what was obviously an assault rifle of some kind. He was also wearing what looked to be black and grey body armor covered in a great many small, black tiles. Alice could see what looked like wiring or tubes running to all the plates. His expression was stormy and locked onto her face.

Without even bothering to look where he was aiming, the man pointed the rifle off to his left and fired of a long, and extremely loud burst. The screaming of the suddenly panicked pedestrians almost covered up the sound of the bullets tearing deep holes in the front wall of a business across the street from Alice. Those holes where barely above the heads of the people on that side. As everyone tried to run away from what to them was an obviously crazy gunman running amuck, Alice stood rooted in fear. Not just fear for herself though, she was equally worried now that this guy would start shooting at people to get to her and she didn't want their blood on her conscience.

"Now, that's much better," the man said in a slow, deliberate rumble. "We now have permission to do whatever we need to, to take you in, girl. You don't want us doing anything unnecessary now do you?"

"No," Alice responded through angry, clenched teeth. She hated that these people would be so willing to just casually harm other random people.

"Good," the man nodded in satisfaction.

Alice heard another vehicle come up and stop behind her and a quick glance showed four more guys dressed like this one getting out of a large, run down sedan.

"See?" the man said with a gesture toward the newcomers. "There's no way you're getting out of here. Just kneel where you are and after you are secured we'll be on our way with no more fuss. You understand me, Alice?"

Alice flinched at the use of her name. She didn't like such familiarity, even as little as this was, coming from these wackos. Her mind also raced madly to come up with something, anything really, to get out of this. She didn't want to be poked at and possibly tortured by these people, but she couldn't think of anything—

Alice's eye flared open as she suddenly remembered what she had been working on before all this began. Her new spell, the one she'd made as a possible self defense measure, it might do the trick if worked correctly.

Licking her lips nervously, Alice slowly raised her right hand. Since she was still turned so that she could see both groups of enemies, this meant that she aimed at the group of four enemy soldiers. Her motion stopped their cautious approached toward her and they eyed her warily with guns still pointed at the ground, fingers also still along the gun for safety. That meant they probably weren't allowed to shoot her. She hoped that was the case anyway.

Bringing her new spell into her mind, Alice drew deeply on her power. She would rather she used too much magic than to little and end up captured, so she went for overkill. Beneath her feet and also in front of her hand appeared her magic circle in the usual dark blue light, the very one she had worked on in the park. She felt the new additions she'd made and felt a remote satisfaction that they'd improved things so far.

She heard, "Warning: dangerous energy spike detected," come from all the radios the men carried. She smiled at the apprehensive looks they now gave her.

"Stun Shot!" Like in her practices on the roof, an ovoid shape of dark blue coalesced in front of her extended hand. She felt her power rush into that ovoid thing and it throbbed dangerously. When she felt she'd added enough she released it. Like a ball hit by a bat, the dark blue light blob rocketed away from her with a loud whoomf of displaced air caused by inefficiencies in her spell. The soldier she'd aimed at tried to do something defensive with his hand but he was far too slow, the blue light slammed into his chest. There was a tremendous crack-snap sound as her spell released it's energies into her target's body. Like a rag doll, the man was thrown backwards where he landed with a dull thud. The cloth front of his armor smoldered into flames between the weird tiles.

'Damn!' Alice thought, just as stunned as the soldiers seemed to be. The spell was supposed to forcefully stun and to overwhelm an opponent's senses through their nervous system. Her overloaded shot had done much more than that.

One of the soldiers rushed to the fallen man and hurriedly patted out the small fire on the downed man's armor, and then he checked for vitals.

"He's barely alive," the soldier said in an angry snap, glaring past her toward the more senior, lone soldier to Alice's left. "He'll die soon if he's not treated."

Alice felt her mouth go absolutely dry. She'd almost killed a man! And he might well die if the soldier was speaking the truth. Again she didn't feel much remorse for the specific individual involved, but it made her blood run cold to think she's almost become a killer, even if it was in self-defense. That was a line she didn't know if she could consciously cross.

"They did say she might be dangerous," the older soldier said slowly, apparently unimpressed. "He should have had his armor activated."

Alice watched as the remaining soldiers all hurriedly touched something on their belts. When they did so, the tiles on their combat armor shimmered once and then went back to being black, plastic looking things.

"That was rather foolish of you," the soldier continued on. "There's no point in resisting. That was just a lucky shot due to lax behavior on that man's part. You can't do it again."

Despite knowing that the speech was intended to intimidate her, Alice felt a knife of fear slip into her. She needed to get past the lone man, but for some reason she knew he would be more dangerous than the three. She was also alone since anyone with a thinking brain was probably getting as far away from the fight as possible. She hoped someone had at least called the police.

Raising her left hand now with the pipe still in it, Alice brought the spell up again, this time she intended to try and take out the more dangerous leader that was blocking her escape route.

"That's not going to—"

The man cutoff as another loud whoomf sounded out from Alice's second shot. Alice's eye's flared in incredulity as the man whacked her projectile with a backhanded slap of his free hand. It shot off at a wild angle and then slammed into a brick wall to some business. The spell detonated there and tore a respectable sized hole. Alice saw the flickering remnant of some kind of barrier on the man's hand.

He has a shield! Alice thought furiously. Why hadn't she thought of that too?

"I told you that this is futile," The man told her in clear exasperation. "You have no idea how overpowered you are right now."

He took several steps forward until he stood between the glass front of a patisserie and a parked car. He stood there a moment and stared hard into Alice's eyes.

"This is what you are trying to fight against girl," he growled in a chastising tone. The soldier shouldered his weapon and then raised both arms straight out to his sides. Alice watched as a weird foggy light rippled over the man's body and collected into the palms of his hands. There the light collapsed into bright pinpricks that were almost too bright to look at.

Alice stared in stunned horror as those two lights exploded violently outward in tremendous cone-like blasts that gave out a near-deafening roar. The car was ripped of the road and flung hard into the building across the street with a disturbing crunch where it then fell as burning, shattered wreck. On his other side, the shop front was also blasted in by an identical explosion that gutted and ignited the place instantaneously; glass and other material flew in every direction. When the man took two more steps forward as he calmly dropped his arms, devastation lay behind him. He then casually pulled something slim from his armor's backpack, stuck it his belt, pulled out another from the opposite side of the belt and then slid that into the back pack. In all it had taken no more than a minute.

"I think you understand what I can do," The man, still in that casual tone. It was beginning to aggravate Alice a little that he could be so calm after doing that. "Kneel and surrender to me and you won't get hurt."

Alice felt her panic returning. She was far outclassed with magic it seemed and she doubted they'd let her get in range to hit them with the pipe. With the panic there was also anger. So much that it would have startled her at any other moment. Normally she thought of herself as a calm and collected girl, but right now she felt nothing but rage and fear boiling her veins.

She had to do something they wouldn't expect; something that would give her even a slight chance at escape. She couldn't rely on her magic, she only really knew five spells so far; her electric shock, her sensory enhancer, her stun shot, a really wonky telekinesis spell that barely worked, and one utilitarian spell that wouldn't do anything helpful at the moment. She could perhaps, Alice thought, her mind racing quickly. Combine her magic and her martial arts training together.

Alice calmed herself and slowed her breathing back to even measure breathes. Shifting her feet, she placed herself into a ready stance she had learned. The leader guy cocked an eyebrow at her, but Alice ignored it and focused her mind on the three remaining cronies. She took in everything about them down to the smallest detail. Then when her mind entered back into the dead calm she held onto during sparing matches, she snapped into violence.

She went from a human statue to a striking snake in the span of a heartbeat. Three strides took her into range and without hesitation she woke her shock spell to the hand holding the pipe. Using her forward moment to add to her natural strength, Alice swung that pipe in a powerful but controlled swing toward the closest man's stomach. Alice felt the impact through the rough steel and smelled the rank ozone of her spell's discharge, but she continued on. It was in the opposite direction she had needed to go before so her run caught her opponents as off guard as she had hoped. Alice knew she had no chance against the leader, so the small fry had been her only chance.

"Do it."

Alice heard those two calm words from the leader and they were immediately followed by another terrible roar. Alice was flung off of her feet and thrown through the air with horrible velocity. Before her mind could even comprehend what was happening Alice slammed back first into the front of another parked vehicle.

Alice's vision blanked for a moment as she fought to stay conscious through the pain radiating from every part of her body. She could only breathe in a ragged hiss and every time she did so a lance of fire shot through her chest. She was sure she must have broken a rib or two. She also couldn't feel her right arm any more and that lack of feeling frightened her so much more than the pain. She knew from basic first aid that that was never a good sign. When she could finally see again and her eyes resumed communicating with her brain, Alice lifted her head from the crumpled hood of the car where she lay and stared upside down at the approaching soldiers. All four of them stared at her without any hint of emotion on their faces.

"Once more, but with very low power," The leader commanded.

Alice watched in mounting horror as one of the soldiers raised his arm toward her. She watched the light coalesce in his palm.

"Please…don't…k—"

Alice's words were cut of as a yet another blast sent her into un-sensing oblivion.

*****

Nanoha flew through the sky at the fastest speed she could. Below her the ocean waves sped by in a blur. Flying well over her own altitude Nanoha could feel Fate flying at an even greater speed than she.

There was need for their haste. Not ten minutes ago while she was playing a game with her daughter, Vivio and her mother, the TSA ship Heibao had opened an emergency communication channel to her. Despite being on vacation she had taken the call immediately. The humor she'd felt at her mother's surprise from seeing a comm.. screen appear in mid air had fled as soon as the ship's captain had told her what was going on.

Multiple strike parties using magic had attacked and then abducted a large number of young people all over the globe in an almost simultaneous strike. Even more disturbing than that was the abduction that was occurring nearer to her home city. On an island near Okinawa a small scale magical battle had broken out between the attackers and their victim. Both parties had used magic that could be strong enough to kill in their opening salvos. That had tripped the alarms aboard the scout ship.

Unfortunately they didn't have nearly enough enforcers to deal with all the incidents that were occurring. Then they'd caught a break. When the two abductions occurring in Japan, including the one that had fought back with magic near Okinawa, had subdued their targets they had been teleported to the same location. The Heibao searchers had traced those with ease.

Now she was racing to that location to rescue those victims while Fate watched and guarded her from above. They also needed to talk to the local girl who'd used magic to defend herself afterwards. Such power was dangerous without training.

*****

Howard Rhoads was not a happy man. His thin eyebrows were set into their usual displeased V as his eyes glared out at the road in front of him. He wasn't supposed to be on duty at the moment and he was far from pleased at the vague information he'd been given prior to leaving the base. He was supposed to be meeting up with his daughter Alice in an hour for dinner. It wasn't often that they got to sit down and eat together and he resented something intruding on that.

The drive through the island roads weren't helping his mood either. It seemed as if every car on the island was conspiring to slow him down. Almost as soon as he'd left the base in the Marine Humvee he'd hit an absurd amount of traffic. Most people on the island never used the vehicles they owned except in the case of work related tasks since distances were always short. But today it seemed as if every single car and truck on the island was out in force. Not only that, there were people walking around everywhere too. They seemed to be in a state of almost panic and fear. That boded badly for what he was being called out for. As Howard drove down the main thoroughfare toward his destination, he recalled again what he'd been told.

A half hour ago while he was finishing up the inspection and lockdown detail for the newly arrived Patriot missile systems that had shown up that morning, he'd gotten a very terse and strict order from the base commander to move his ass out to the city. All he had been told was that there had been some sort of outbreak in violence involving military weaponry. It was only his problem if the violence was caused by foreign parties and not Americans so he had to assume that it was something along these lines.

When he turned the last corner he had to almost slam on the breaks to keep from running into a wooden barricade set across the road in front of him. But that was not the most important thing in his mind right then. He forgot all about his anger as he took in the sight sitting in front of him. A small, usually clean and friendly looking commercial district he'd driven through almost every day he'd been stationed on this island lay in shambles between this cross street and the next. There were also Marines and Army MP's all over the place along with a few local police officers. A team of army firemen were spraying water into the broken hole of a shop front.

Howard turned off the engine of his vehicle and almost numbly stepped out into the street. After giving his ID to the guards stationed at the barricade, he walked into the chaos of shouting men and destroyed civilian property.

"Howard!"

He turned slightly at the call and saw his superior walking towards him along with his personal aide who was carrying a cardboard box. That was another shock. Brigadier General Alistair Tiven, the base's commander, was not supposed to be at the site of an incident like this. In fact the tall, rough hewn man with the slight flecking of gray in his brown hair should be back in on base coordinating things. It was Howard's job to ascertain the threat and relay the information back to command so that the proper response could be given or, given an immediate attack, it was his job to respond to it. Seeing the man here now meant that things were very bad or very unusual.

"General," Howard saluted his commander with the casualness of their long association together. "I came out as quick as I could. I didn't expect to see you on site like this."

"You mean 'why did I call you here if you're already here?' don't you?" Tiven said with a small chuckle. "I know this is your place and not mine Howard, but I felt a sense of duty for both personal and professional reasons to meet you here."

That's certainly ominous Howard thought. Out loud he said,"I suppose that's fine general, this seems to be a major incident."

"You have no idea how major, Howard," Tiven said, suddenly sobering. "What you see around you was caused by only five men, and one teenage girl."

Howard twitched at the last. "A teenage girl? How?"

"That doesn't have an easy explanation I'm afraid," Tiven sighed, "especially for you."

"For me?" Howard asked, feeling a chill brush over him.

"Jason, show him." Tiven said to his aide while never taking his eyes off of Howard.

"Yes sir," Jason answered emotionlessly. The young lieutenant reached into the box with one hand while balancing it on the other and drew out a smallish black and gray book-bag. For a moment it didn't penetrate Howard's brain, what exactly he was looking at. At first it just appeared to be a bag like any teenager on the island might carry, if somewhat torn and charred now. Then he felt his breathe catch.

"Alice?" he said, needing confirmation.

"I'm sorry Howard, but it seems like your daughter was involved with what happened here today," Tiven said with genuine remorse heavy in his voice. "An eyewitness has told us that she was carried off by the men who did this."

"W-what happened? Who did this?" Howard asked, feeling more unstable than he'd ever felt in his life. Who would take Alice from him?

"We don't know who did this at all, but as for what happened," Tiven shook his head. "It's going to sound absolutely insane." He pointed down the road toward an apartment above a realtor's office. "The owner of that business watched the entire thing unfold from his apartment. He says two groups showed up here, one man by himself and then four others shortly after the initial guy fired of a burst of rounds into the wall over there to scare away the civilians." Howard only took a short glance at the chipped and holed brick.

"Then after the others got here, the first guy, who seemed to be the leader, told Alice to surrender and give herself up to him. Alice naturally refused to do any such thing."

Howard wasn't surprised by that. Alice always thought and claimed that she was a calm and logical person, but she was as stubborn and independent as they came. He'd always seen how Alice got her back up anytime someone tried to force her to do anything.

"Then," Tiven continued. "According to our witness, Alice shot something that glowed with a dark blue light at the group of four that made a substantial amount of noise. It struck one man with apparently considerable force. So much so that one of his fellows had to check if he was even alive. From what the witness overheard it was a bare thing that the man did so."

Howard felt confused. "You said Alice attacked them? With what?"

"I'll get to that in a moment," Tiven answered. "After that success, the leader called Alice a fool or something along those lines. She attacked him next. Apparently he had some defense against Alice's attack because our witness says the leader simply slapped it aside so that it hit that wall over yonder and punched that pretty hole you can see there."

Howard looked over at the indicated wall and stared at the hole. It was raged and at least three feet across. Fiberglass insulation could be se through it and that looked distinctly singed. How had Alice done it?

"The leader apparently hadn't been very amused by Alice's continued defiance. He was the one who destroyed that shop and shot that car across the street in one single attack to show his power. The witness says that an explosion of some kind erupted from both his hands, doing everything you see there. There was enough force behind that to crack the asphalt in the road and enough heat to ignite the shop. After which he again called for her surrender. Alice instead tried to make a run for it."

"And it went badly?" Howard asked with a slight cringe, hearing the change in his superior's tone.

"Yes, it seems that they anticipated that she might try and slip past them. Alice tried to attack one of the soldiers with a length of pipe she'd been holding on to as a distraction, but it didn't work. Out witness says that she made it only a couple strides before the leader ordered his men to take her down. One of the soldiers uses a lower powered version of the leader's attack on her and blasted her into that car over there. That's her blood on the hood.

"Oh god," Howard said softly, his anger rising against the bastard that had done such a thing to his daughter. "What happened? Is she...dead?"

"It doesn't seem so," Tiven said slowly. "But it's not much better. Alice was still conscious after that attack, so they did it again. Our witness said the sight of her after that made him vomit. The soldiers then picked up her limp body and threw it into the back of the leader's truck and they all drove off."

"There's no clue at all who did this?" Howard asked. He knew his voice carried a dangerous hint of his inner parental rage, but he had to ask the questions the right way.

"No!" Howard twitched at the angry vehemence in his commander's voice. "None at all. We've got an excellent description of all the individuals and their gear, but none of it matches anything we know of. If I knew I'd already be calling for the SEALS stationed over on Okinawa."

"Does that mean you've already reported everything?"

"Yes, and we have approval from the Pentagon to get assistance from the Navy to turn these people into fish food if we find them. They were pretty quick about that once they saw that this incident has already leaked out to the international press. Out witness talked to a few others before he talked to me."

Howard winced mentally. The public eye could make this much more difficult.

"The worst thing is," Tiven went on, "is that even the more fantastical parts have gotten out. Well, that and the fact that according to command, this was one of many such abductions that took place today."

"Fantastical? You mean that part about Alice attacking the soldiers with something?"

"Yes, I didn't use the word earlier, but the witness called what both Alice and the soldier did, magic. He was very emphatic about it too."

"Magic?!" Howard asked incredulously. "That's obviously impossible. They just had weapons of some kind that the witness didn't understand, though I don't know why Alice would—"

"Howard!" Tiven growled cutting him off.

"Yes sir?"

"Normally I would agree with you and I'd call such nonsense what it was, but it looks like this is something much different."

Something in Alistair's voice made Howard nervous. "How so sir?"

"Because of this," Tiven reached for Alice's bag, took it from his aide's hands and opened it. From within he withdrew a well used looking notebook. He extended it toward Howard, so he took it. "Read the title."

"Alice's Magic Experiments: Vol. 2," Howard read as instructed, though in a stunned tone. Unable to help himself Howard opened the notebook to see what it contained. His eyebrows tried to rise into his receding hairline more and more with every page he skimmed over.

"As you can see, that notebook contains an extremely exhaustive and detailed record of something your daughter was working on, Howard." Tiven said thoughtfully. "I'm not the greatest mind at math, but it is clear to me that all those equations Alice recorded there do mean something. There is also an entire table containing a unique, private symbol set that Alice devised solely for this experiment of hers. The most interesting thing in there is the two very detailed records she wrote about two different 'spells'. One of them, the 'Stun Shot,' sounds very much like what the witness said she used against the soldiers and that very minutely detailed circle of symbols and shapes is very like the one our witness described appearing beneath Alice's feet during the fight."

Howard's hands shook as he flipped through page after impossible page of notes in his daughter's clean handwriting. He couldn't make any sense of the equations either, but the words seem to bore into his skull. If what he was reading was true, than his daughter really had done something truly unique and unreal. "You're sure the witness described it exactly like this?" He asked, pointing at the page containing the self-defense spell.

"Yes, almost exactly," Tiven nodded. "The reality seemed to have packed a bit more of a punch that described there, but it did function as written. Does this mean you never noticed anything like this before now?"

"No," Howard answered promptly. "Alice has always been an independent kind of girl. She has had almost perfect grades and never gets in trouble so I've never intruded on her privacy. The experimenting part isn't exactly a surprise since it fits her personality, but I've never seen anything that looked like magic. There are scorch marks on the roof of our building, but I thought those were from her messing around with firecrackers or something."

"Well, even if you didn't notice, it seems that someone certainly did," Tiven said slowly. "It can't be a coincidence that a military unit would attack a teenage girl at random. Those guys targeted her specifically. It's only a guess, but I'd say this magic of hers was the reason."

"I can't argue with that logic sir," Howard said in agreement. "But when she is returned, what will you do to her?" He couldn't help but slip a hint of a threat into his voice.

"Nothing like your thinking Howard," Tiven laughed hoarsely. "I'd protect her and then write her a letter of recommendation to whatever University she wants. That daughter of yours has stumbled onto something that could be huge. I wouldn't doubt that there would be plenty of people who would be willing to fund these experiments of hers. You've watched one to many military conspiracy movies if you're thinking that I'd condone turning a girl into an unwilling lab rat."

"Sorry about that sir," Howard sighed. "I'm just worried about her. Do we at least know where they went from here?"

"Partly," Tiven acknowledged. "But that's just as confusing as the rest of this. We found the truck they used near the East marina, but when our people asked those in the area if they'd seen anything they just said a group of men carried something into a warehouse nearby. Then after they entered there was a flash of light in the windows, and then that's it."

"You're saying they vanished?" Howard asked his anger rising back up. "Then how the hell am I supposed to get her back?!"

"I don't know that yet, Howard," Tiven said gravely and looked him in the eye. "But I can promise you that when we do find them. We'll hit them with the very best hammer the Marine Corp. can give us. You may be my subordinate, but I consider you a friend as well after all the years we've worked together. You'll get her back. And if the time comes, you'll have command of the troops that take these people out; that I can promise you."

Thank you, Sir."

End 1

Chapter 2: Revelations and Power

For Alice, awareness was a painful and slow return to consciousness. It was pain that first told her that she was indeed still alive. At first she wasn't aware of much more than her body. She felt like she'd been cooked in an oven and then beaten with mallets. Her whole body felt prickly as if every inch if her skin had been burned. Her right arm throbbed up until her elbow; past that she could feel nothing still. There was also still the sharp stabs that came with every breathe she took.

Other than that she didn't know what was going on. Her body seemed to refuse to let her awaken fully, as if it knew that she wasn't ready to face her injuries. The world around during her brief partial resurfacings was just a fog of sounds. She heard the sounds of men, lots of men, around her and near her. There was also the sound and deep vibration of machinery of some kind, powerful machines that made whatever surface she laid on quiver slightly.

The last hint of what was around her confused her at first. First she felt warmth, as if she had been covered by a thick blanket. Then there was this soothing touch. It felt like a hand resting on her head that occasionally moved to stroke through her hair with gentle strokes. That touch comforted Alice in a way she didn't understand in her partial consciousness. She wanted so badly for that hand to wipe away her pain, but she was content with what it offered already. The touch was accompanied by a voice. Alice wasn't aware enough to understand any words, but the tone and tenor made her feel a little peaceful inside. Occasionally that voice shifted into a mumbled singing or humming and that always seemed to loosen her pain's grip and send her back to her unfeeling sleep.

Now though it was different. She didn't want to go back to sleep again. She had to know what was happening to her. She couldn't just lie around forever. When she again felt those soothing hands upon her, she fought against her body's desire to go back to sleep. Disobeying that impulse, she tried to make her eyes open.

"No…no…you mustn't wake up!" Alice paused in her struggles. It was the first time she'd been able to understand the voice that had been speaking to her. It was a high, female voice and it sounded very worried. So much so that Alice almost gave into it. But she decided she had to ignore it.

With an effort of will she finally cracked her eyes open. Then as she came fully to consciousness, all her pains and aches came crashing home again. "Ahhh!" She couldn't help crying out. It was horrible how much she hurt. It took a very long time for Alice to stop screaming. When she did she found that her face was being hugged into someone's stomach. Even her face hurt as it pressed against soft flesh.

When she finally calmed herself back down Alice realized that she was lying on her back with her head resting in someone's lap. She pulled her head out of that same someone's stomach and looked up into two very concerned looking brown eyes. Those eyes shimmered with unborn tears and slight streaks showed the trails of those that had escaped. They were set into the very young face of a girl who looked somewhere around her own age. She had a pretty round-cheeked face framed by long, curly and chestnut brown hair that looked like it would be silky to the touch. She looked to wearing a blue on white school uniform. The girl also looked to be incredibly sad.

Alice felt something and realized that the girl had put one hand on her stomach and the other rested lightly on her forehead, the feeling had been a finger of the latter hand absently curling her own black hair from her face.

"You really shouldn't haven woken up yet." The girl said, shaking her head sadly. "There's nothing good for you to be awake for."

"W…," Alice licked her dry, cracked lips and swallowed before she tried to speak again. "Who are you?"

"I'm Azusa Higa," Azusa answered with a small smile. "I'd say that it's nice to meet you, but this is not a very nice place."

"Nice to meet you anyways," Alice smiled back up at her. "I'm Alice Rhoads."

"An English name? You're American? But you've been speaking Japanese now and in your sleep?"

Alice understood the confusion; she definitely favored her Japanese mother in her appearance. "I'm half-Japanese, and I'm an American, but I've been living on Okinawa. Ach!" Alice felt sharps stabs of pain throughout her body as she tried to rise up; she also felt things restricting her movement.

"No!" Azusa's admonishment was followed by a firm hand pushing Alice back down onto the girl's lap. "You shouldn't move, you got hurt really badly and those people just threw you in here without treating you. They gave me some bandages, but I don't know if what I did for you will be enough."

So that's what restricted my movement, Alice thought, she had bandages all over her body. That didn't speak well for her condition. She tried to turn her head to the right to see what was wrong with her arm.

"Don't Look!" Before Alice had turned her head even a couple of degrees, Azusa's hand on her forehead moved in front of her eyes. "You don't want to see that yet, it's…really bad."

Alice shivered at Azusa's tone. It had to be pretty horrible if the girl didn't want her to even look. Instead she turned her head the other way to look out at her surroundings. She saw she was in a metal, military-style bunk in a very empty room. The walls seemed to be made of metal and were painted a drab green color. The floor, also metal, had that diamond texturing to it. Otherwise there was nothing else in here with them except a jail type toilet in the far corner without a sink to wash their hands.

"So…we're both prisoners," Alice said softly. "This really sucks."

"That's more than a bit of understatement," Azusa replied with a small laugh. "I at least came here in one piece…well sort of."

Alice looked back up at the dwindling tone in Azusa's voice as she ended her statement. "What do you mean 'sort of'?"

"They took me when I was leaving my school in Kyoto," Azusa began quietly. "I had just got into the car for the drive home and we'd just started to pull away from the curb. A bunch of them, I don't know how many, came bursting out the back of a box truck next to us and shot at the hood of our car. My driver, a servant of my family, tried to make a run for it by punching the gas, but it didn't do anything. The engine just sputtered and died. When they came to the car to take me my driver tried to protect me, but they didn't even hesitate to shoot him in the leg. I heard him screaming when they dragged me into the truck but there was nothing I could do. I don't know how to fight."

"Well, I do know how to fight and look how I turned out," Alice said to her. "There was probably nothing you could have done that wouldn't have just made it worse. If you had gotten hurt, than who would have helped me?" Alice tried to lighten her voice to distract Azusa.

"I didn't do very much," Azusa argued. "I just wrapped the bandages to where you were bleeding."

"That's not the only thing you did, I heard your singing and felt your hands. That was a lot of help too." Alice smiled at the slight blush that tinged Azusa's cheeks. "You said the guy was your driver, are you from a rich family or something?"

"Mmmm…something like that. Azusa said guardedly

Alice made a mental note that Azusa didn't want to talk about her family. She didn't know why of course, but that didn't matter, there just wasn't any point in trying to forcefully interrogate her cell-mate.

"So what did they grab you for?" Alice asked, changing the subject slightly.

Azusa frowned and looked a little uncomfortable. "I…They said I could do things. The man that was in charge of grabbing me said I was important for something."

"Can you do things?" Alice asked with interest. "It's why they grabbed me too."

"I don't really know about doing things, but I've always had a weird ability to know about things."

"Know about things? Like what?"

"Well, for example I could always tell you exactly how many people where in the house, or how many planes were in the area at the time. And I've never needed a watch. I can always tell what time it is without one."

"They want you because you can use magic, just like me," Alice informed her. "I wonder if anyone else got taken."

"Magic?!" Alice heard the incredulousness in that exclamation.

"Yeah magic," Alice gave a small laugh. "Let me show you."

Alice raised her left arm up. She frowned at the bright orange shirt she saw she was wearing. Couldn't her jailers have found less cliché prisoner clothes? Ignoring that for now, she focused her mind on her light-ball spell. As soon as she felt the magic flow from her center something seemed to slam into her chest. It took her a second to even realize that the screaming she was hearing was coming from her own throat.

"Alice? What's wrong?!"

Azusa's panicky voice gave Alice something else to focus on. After a few moments the pain seemed to dissolve away.

"Are you ok?"

"I think so," Alice replied. "That really hurt though."

"What did you try to do?"

"I was going to show you a light ball spell that I made, but as soon as the power flowed, wham, tazer to the heart."

"Oh! I forgot about that."

Alice frowned at the sheepish tone. "Forgot what?"

"Uh, our captors said that if we tried anything funny we'd regret it immediately. One old guy said to tell you as soon as you woke because he said you were probably a trouble maker. I think they were talking about that thing they put in your chest."

"My chest?" Alice placed her hand just above her breasts where the pain had originated. Under the stiff fabric of her shirt was something hard and metallic feeling in the shape of a disk. The disk had some sort of raised edge to it. She pulled experimentally on it, but it didn't budge at all. It was as if it was attached to her bones. "Do you have one too Azusa?"

"No, they said I didn't need one yet."

Alice sighed. "Great, they stuck a fancy shock collar on me to make sure I can't fight back anymore."

"You really fought them?" Alice asked excitedly. "One of the guards seemed to be a little frightened of you."

"Maybe he was on the team that grabbed me," Alice mused aloud. "Yeah, I kinda fought a little, but it didn't really do anything except get me pounded into a pulp like this." She stopped and frowned at Azusa. "Are you sure I shouldn't look at my right arm?"

Azusa nodded with a frown again. "I think it would be best that you didn't. It…it almost made me a little sick when I had to look at it to wrap it up. You're…probably going to lose it if we get out of this alive."

Alice felt a little chill pass through her at the confirmation of her fears. She knew before that it couldn't be good that she couldn't feel it at all. It was a bit horrifying to know that she was going to be an amputee soon. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the possible repercussions of that.

Azusa started stroking her hair again. "You should go back to sleep, Alice. They have been waiting for you to wake for some reason so it wouldn't be good if they saw you up now. I can wake you when they bring food again."

Alice heard Azusa start humming a song again. It was a soothing and peaceful song. Against her will, darkness closed in on her until only that song remained.

******

"Target approaching."

Right on the heals of Raising Heart's announcement, Nanoha saw the shapes of several large ships break over the horizon in front of her. As she rocketed toward them she was able to take a quick count. There were a total of nine ships. Each was identical to the others for the most part. They looked like enormous and slightly rusted cargo ships. Each of the behemoths had to be over 300 meters in length. The simple fact that nine such ships were sailing in formation was an indicator for suspicion.

"Setting up the containment barrier," came the telepathic call from Fate. A moment later Nanoha saw the barrier bloom into existence and expand outward from Fate's location. This barrier had a slight modification to it that keeps it permanently centered on Fate. This way they could still use the containment on a moving ship weighing thousands of tons. If it had been a static barrier, that much mass would have simply torn its way out by brute force.

Just as the barrier was about to envelope the ships below, it shattered and vanished. A slight wavering in the air told the tale of what happened to the barrier.

"They have a strong protective field set up over each ship," Nanoha sent up to Fate. "How about a shot over their bow instead?"

In reply Nanoha saw bright points of light take form around Fate. Then the multitude of Phalanx Shift bolts rained down onto the formation of ships. They punched through the enemy fields and slammed into the ocean a short distance behind the crew cab of each vessel. The enormous plumes of water thrown up by the warning shot showered the ships.

Nanoha worked a minor spell known to almost every TSAB mage. It was a spell to amplify her voice. It also made a huge screen with her image appear over the cargo hatches of each ship. "This is Time-Space Administration Bureau mage, Nanoha Takamatchi. You are to surrender immediately and turn over all kidnapped victims to our care. Your actions have violated many laws within our jurisdiction so you must face penal action. This is your only warning before we use force."

*****

"…your only warning before we use force."

Admiral Zander Ravant stared out of the bridge windows at the image floating above his ships cargo hatches. It was such a young face to match the power his sensors were registering. And there was a second one flying well above his makeshift fleet too.

"So that's a Bureau mage huh?" he said aloud. "Not so impressive to look at really."

"They did punch through our shields without any trouble, sir."

Zander turned and raised a blonde eyebrow at Major Ramorta who stood next to his chair. The man was a depressingly unflappable fellow, though he supposed the guy had to be when he was in charge of the capture teams. He'd heard Ramorta had almost lost a man taking the today's targets but the Major hadn't even twitched when he gave the report.

"You're right about that," he said. "So we can't really ignore them."

"We can launch the Shiv's at any time."

"I know that Major, I can read the status bars too." He replied lightly. "I was just wondering what kind of power these people actually have at their disposal. They haven't poked their noses into our neck of the Multiverse yet so information on them is minimal."

"They have enough resources to have multiple ships in the system at the same time when this world is clearly not very important to them," Ramorta replied. "We've also picked up a number of their operatives moving around as well and all of them have been well above acolyte levels in terms of power. That kind of casual use speaks volumes for what we haven't seen."

"Are you saying the Emperor was wrong to try and invade this world again?" Zander smirked.

"No sir," Ramorta answered calmly. "The Emperor's choices are his own and not for me to judge but to execute. However, it may be more difficult to accomplish than the original estimates projected. In fact, the locals have, at least partially, become aware of our existence far earlier than planned thanks to the latest round of abductions."

"Annoying but true," Zander sighed. "That's why I ordered the early execution of next phase. Those messes in Japan were the worst, but the teams are getting too violent for us to stay underground anymore. The research group is going to have to be content with what we've got so far. Go ahead and launch the fighters."

"Yes sir."

"How much of a charge remains for the shift engines?"

"There's only four percent left before we can leave sir. The only ship left is the one carrying the prisoners."

"Good, just tell the fighter crews to hold those two off for five minutes and we'll be good."

"Yes, sir."

"Good, dismissed."

******

Same Time, Washington D.C.

Senator Jason Alverez couldn't stop his left leg from twitching nervously. He'd never actually expected this day to come. He'd thought his grandfather's old stories about their family belonging to the remnants of a great empire had been the ramblings of demented old man.

When his father had introduced him to the other families he'd thought it was just a gimmick put on for a club of rich people. Back then it had been all drinking and carousing while the older generations told them stories of people that couldn't possibly have existed. But then, after his father died, things changed.

The heads of all the families came to his house and they told him everything and showed him everything. He'd been forced to see the truth of their stories. They also told him that he had the responsibility to carry on their work. They forced him into government work where he was supposed to try and guide things to their liking.

It hadn't been a bad life really, but it had always grated to be under the heel of the others. He knew for a long while that they'd one day tell him to do something that he wouldn't understand. If he refused he'd simply disappear one day, the victim of an assignation by some crazed lunatic who'd actually be a member of the organization.

Now he sat in an office of the Capital building with a briefcase handed to him an hour before by a man who'd made it entirely clear that Jason would be killed on the spot if he didn't take it, so he did. He had no idea what it was for. He'd tried opening it but it seemed to be fused shut. It hadn't set of the metal, explosive or chemical sensors on his way in either.

Just as he was about to stand an make his way to today's session he heard a sharp click from the direction of his hand. He looked down just an impossibly bright light cut off his fears forever.

*****