EDIT AS OF 4/17/2016 - I made several minor edits throughout the story. I improved any conversations or scenes that still kind of bugged me, but all the main plot is still the same. It's not a huge revamp, but I touched some spots up.
Author's Notes:
Warning: this story will be about 95% Original characters and locations. Enforcer Fate T Harlaown is a big part of the story, but there will be many people that I have invented. She converges more and more into the main plot as it goes along, if you're worried about that.
A little explanation: I love the ideas behind the world of the Nanoha series. The TSAB, barrier jackets, talking weapons with multiple forms, etc. That magic is just a regular part of everyone's daily lives, and that there are hundreds of planets out there where pretty much anything could happen. So, what started as a standard "Nanoha and the gang encounter BLANK" story slowly became more and more original as I thought it through, but it never broke away from the workings of this universe. Everything (hopefully) plays by the MGLN rules, with hopefully like a maximum 10% margin of error on my part, but most of this will be taking place far from Midchilda. Also, this story won't have any ancient inter-dimensional evils threatening to destroy everything that's held dear, or anything super huge like that. There are a lot of things regarding this universe that I felt like bringing up or expanding on, such as how the citizens and officers of a planet that wasn't Midchilda would act and see things.
Also, despite this being mostly OCs, I hate overpowered 'perfect' OCs just as much as the rest of you. I will tell you right now (and going by the reviews, I did a good job) that my main guy IS NOT one of those. There is no OCxCC romance, don't worry, and I would not at all want to be him at any point in this story. Because he's kind of in a bad place. A really bad place. There's a countdown timer on his head.
Anyways, I know what it's like to just start glossing over a 10,000 word chapter, so I made sure none of my chapters passed that (without becoming a two-parter). Sometimes, when I find a long, in progress story, I skip to a random chapter to see what it ends up like once it gets going. If you do something similar, and you caught this story as it's nearing the end or as it's done, I'd recommend going to chapter 7, "The Long Procession" and trying that. It's much more self-contained than the other chapters, and I feel like my writing had gotten "all-in" by that point. As someone who gets daunted at the sheer amount of WORDS I sometimes find in an ongoing story, anything to help interested readers pick this story up is good.
Oh, one final final thing:
"Dialogue like this" - normal spoken
"Italicized like this"- telepathic communication
[WORDS LIKE THIS] - A device is saying that
Hide the petals underneath the bedroom floorboard
and they will wither without fail or success
Put the people in the hollow box they crafted
bolt the doors and watch them perish
Its a cautious descent, so polite and pensive at first
But the only truth is change, have patience
every hundredth year, a single breath and then its over
So brave in the face of all these roots that ruin
to stand so tall when in fact in ruins
Circle Takes the Square - Interview at the Ruins
Chapter 1: Day 483
Planet: Administrated World #84: Siba
City: Victamius
Date: May 24th, 0076
Time: 10:00 PM Siban Time
On the outskirts of the large city, a young man walked alongside a compound of buildings, checking to make sure he was alone. Along with watching the roads for any late-night drivers, he looked around cautiously, expecting an ambush. In his left hand was a bag with a strange military device inside, and in his right was a dark green sun-shaped gem that rested in his palm. Attached to it was a string that the young man had wrapped up around his right arm, making sure the gem would stay close to him. It was his protector - his device, his weapon, his main defense, and the only thing he could always rely on.
Bathory Kardenis kept a firm grip on the gem as he continued walking.
He knew that anyone driving by would think he looked suspicious. Everything about him at the moment just screamed 'trespasser'. It didn't help that he really was trading stolen goods for money, but he hoped that he could just get this done without anyone else noticing and interfering.
He looked up at the buildings as he walked by them. On the front, above the large hangar door that was on the front of each one was the letter "B" and then a number in increasing order. The mage set his sights on the one marked B9 and headed towards it. Taking one last look at the road behind him, he climbed the fence surrounding the properties and crossed the parking lot.
Walking over to the right side of the building, he found the door that had been left unlocked for him, just as the buyer - some first-time client - had said he would do. Bathory opened the door, looked in at the dark hallways, and took a deep breath. If he was going to be ambushed, it would be in here, in the nearly pitch-black tunnels leading to the main room. He looked back where he had been walking from and telepathically contacted his partner.
"Yautja, I made it to the building. I don't think I was followed."
"I didn't see anything either. Go ahead with the deal." Sitting in the driver's seat of a car parked far down the street from where Bathory was, Yautja Crawmer waited and watched for anyone coming to interrupt the trade.
Bathory turned back to the open door and stepped through it. He made sure the door shut quietly, and then walked cautiously through the halls. In the darkness, his senses were on full alert. He raised his right hand up and spoke to the green gem.
"Aphelion, light mode please."
[UNDERSTOOD, MY MASTER]
The gem glowed brightly and lit up the area around Bathory. He continued walking, grateful that now he could at least see in front of him. He turned back to the device.
"Also, be ready for immediate activation. You know that these things rarely go as they should."
He peeked around every corner before turning it, and held his right arm out towards every door he passed, but he ultimately made it without incident to the large storage room of the warehouse. Around the sides were various doors, including the main loading door on the left wall from where Bathory stepped out from. Back to the right were the storage shelves, stocked with large packages of all sorts of things. Right in front of him was open floor, and standing there was a single man around Bathory's age, packet of money in hand, staring him down. Bathory, still cautious, approached him.
"Orthrus?" Bathory asked as he walked forward.
"Yeah, that's me," the guy responded. "And you're, uh, you're Jet, right?"
"Yup," Bathory responded. He gave one last look in the bag he was carrying before handing it to Orthrus. "So here you go. Portable magic barrier, as you asked."
Orthrus took the bag and, reaching in it, pulled out the barrier generator. It had a flat white base on the bottom which reached up and shrunk in to a tip about ten inches from the base. Around the thinner neck, folded upwards, were three rods that would unfold and rotate around the device when it was activated. Orthrus held it in his right hand, taking a good close look at it.
Bathory waited a few seconds before asking "Are you going to pay for it?"
Orthrus quickly turned back. "Oh yeah, uh, sorry, it's all here" he said as he handed the packet over. Bathory, somewhat relieved by the success of the deal, opened the packet and turned to count the money. He reached in the packet, pulled the stack out, and paused as he realized it was all counterfeit. Right after that, he heard a whirring sound, and watched as a cube of light blue energy raced past him and stopped around the building, enclosing the two of them in. He turned around slowly, and looked at the now-activated barrier generator lying on the ground, the three arms spinning about. A small round barrier shot out from the top of the device and enclosed it in its own shield.
"Are you kidding me?" asked Bathory, looking up at Orthrus. Staring back at him, held in the aggressor's hands, was an activated TSAB gauss staff that Orthrus no doubt stole for himself.
Bathory paused as he looked at the weapon. The gauss staff, in all its menacing glory, was definitely not for civilian use. Even if the user had low magic output, a single hit from the device on an unprotected mage would be damaging. While still a step down from a personalized intelligent device like Aphelion, it was still better than cheap, mass-market devices that most civilians could get.
So, of course, when Orthrus fired at Bathory, the defender wasted no time bringing his right arm up and holding Aphelion in front of him.
[PROTECTION] it said as a triangular shield with circles around the three tips, the same color as Aphelion, appeared in front of Bathory to catch the blast. It slammed against the shield and caused an explosion, sending out a cloud of smoke that obscured the two mages from seeing each other. As the smoke cleared, Bathory stood there, undamaged.
"What the hell do you want," he asked Orthrus, raising his voice. "To just walk out with the generator without paying? Well, good job there," he remarked sarcastically. "Someone probably saw this thing go up, and the bureau is probably on their way."
Orthrus didn't seem to mind what Bathory said. "I'll get out of here long before they arrive."
"Really?" asked Bathory, angered that he couldn't get a single deal to go as planned. He lowered his voice. "You're already sure about that?"
"A generator for free? That doesn't sound too bad, does it?"
Bathory sighed. "You really have no idea what you just did" he remarked, before gripping Aphelion tightly and pulling his arm back down to his side. "Aphelion!" he shouted quickly. "Barrier Jacket combat form, device standard form. Go!"
He brought his right arm back up in front of him as he was engulfed in white light that completely covered him. A half-second later, Bathory reappeared in his barrier jacket. Above a basic black undershirt was a dark green shirt, and above that was a grey long-sleeved jacket with dark green highlights running from his chest diagonally downwards, ending on his sides.
Aphelion had transformed around Bathory's right hand. The bottom of his arm, from his wrist almost up to his elbow was encased in a steel-colored mechanical weapon. Around his wrist, multiple firing chambers protruded outwards. On top of his left wrist, there was a steel-colored guard as well, though no part of the actual weapon was out there at the moment. The green gem in the shape of the sun was displayed prominently on the weapon as well.
Bathory raised Aphelion to again point at Orthrus, who smirked again.
"Ooh, that would be a much better deal than the generator" said Orthrus, looking down at the weapon and then back up to Bathory.
"You're not the first to try to take it," said Bathory back. "And look, it's still with me."
"Yeah, that'll sell nicely" muttered Orthrus. He fired the gauss staff at Bathory again, and another green triangle appeared to block the shot, kicking up another cloud of smoke. Orthrus fired multiple times into the smoke, hearing the blasts detonating on his opponent's shield again and again. As he fired another one, Bathory ran out of the smoke, returning fire. Bathory's device, built for close encounters, fired short and fast bursts of energy like a shotgun. Orthrus held the gauss staff out horizontally in front of him and generated his own shield to protect himself before firing back as quickly as he could.
Bathory ran to the side, dodging the shots instead. He knew Orthrus would just attack as often as possible, since they were effectively on a time limit now until the TSAB was notified. The assault from the gauss staff kept coming, and Bathory decided he'd rather avoid the shots than try to block all of them. Just because Bathory was a ground mage didn't mean he had to use his two feet to get around...
Bahtory yelled "Aphelion, activate Flight Driver!" as he dodged several rounds. A thin blade of energy stuck out from the right side of Aphelion, and another stuck out of the left side of the component on his left wrist. Bathory ducked and dragged the blade of energy connected to Aphelion against the ground, letting it cut into the floor. As it did, its master began to rocket off horizontally along the ground, leaving behind a radiant glowing line where Flight Driver had connected. Surprised, Orthrus quit firing for a bit, but resumed as he tried to predict where his target would go next.
As Bathory approached a wall, he kicked off the floor up at the wall, holding Aphelion vertically so its blade dug into the wall now. Just as before, he flew up the wall. He made a sharp turn to the left and rode sideways, dodging above and below his enemy's shots. Keeping both eyes on Orthrus, Bathory contacted his partner again.
"Yautja, the deal went bad. The guy activated the barrier and boxed us in."
"I can see that," replied Yautja as he looked at the glowing barrier from down the street. "And let me guess," he said, "He's attacking you. What weapon is he using?"
Bathory didn't exactly know why Yautja asked that, but he responded anyways. "He has a gauss staff."
As Bathory rocketed across the ceiling, he dug the energy blade on his left wrist into it and he pulled Aphelion out to fire down at Orthrus. Orthrus kept his shield up constantly, continuing to block the shots. Though Bathory could tell his opponent's shield was becoming frailer, he worried he wouldn't have the time to subdue the other mage and get out of there before officers from the TSAB would arrive.
"Wait, what was that?" Yautja asked. "What did you say he had?"
"A gauss staff, Yautja," Bathory continued, gliding back along the floor, back by the rows of packed and stacked shelves. "It's military equipment, something this guy really shouldn't- Aah!"
Bathory watched as a shot came straight towards him. He had to block it. Though he raised his shield in time, the force knocked him out of Flight Driver, causing him to crash hard into one of the shelves. His vision blurred and his head screaming, he jumped up almost as if on autopilot and took off again. He could hear a voice over the rest of the noise, and as he recovered, Bathory realized that Yautja was frantically talking to him.
"Bathory, are you alright? Come on; please respond if you can hear me."
"I'm okay," Bathory responded. "I'm fine, I'm fine, it's nothing too bad."
Yautja was about to speak but froze as he heard sirens off in the distance. He paused, and in those seconds, he could tell the sirens were definitely sounding closer and closer.
"Bathory, the bureau's coming. You need to get out of there." Worried, he looked back and forth between the building, still encased in bright blue, and the horizon where the sirens filled the air.
"Alright," said Bathory. "I'll get to it." He paused for a moment and looked towards Orthrus. His attacks had weakened the shield even more, to where one concentrated attack could probably break it. Before he charged at Orthrus, one more thought crossed his mind.
"Hey Yautja," Bathory asked. "Do you want me to recover the generator?"
Yautja sat in his car with the engine turned on, ready to drive away from the warehouse. He paused a moment. "No, destroy it" he responded. "Oh, actually," he continued, "steal this 'gauss staff' thing as well, if you can. Might as well recover something."
"Alright, understood" said Bathory. Outside, Yautja turned out onto the main road, just seconds before several TSAB police cars, lights flashing, turned down the side road and headed for the building. Inside, Bathory flew across the walls over to the other side of the room, directly facing Orthrus. He stopped for a brief moment.
"Aphelion, set up a charged multi shot. Fire on my command."
[UNDERSTOOD - BEGINNING TO CHARGE]
As Aphelion readied the shots, Bathory pulled it off the ground and began to run at the other mage. Orthrus continued to fire, but panicked as Bathory raised his left arm up and the triangular shield blocked the attacks once again. Bathory knew he could block enough shots to get to his opponent, but every shot that exploded against his shield felt like a kick to his stomach. Still, he rushed forwards, and as Aphelion said it was done charging, Bathory swung his left arm to the side, lowering his shield and parting the smoke that had formed. In front of him was Orthrus, both hands holding the gauss staff tightly in front of him behind the weakened shield.
Bathory brought Aphelion up to face Orthrus. On the front end, all of the firing points were glowing brightly. As his left hand supported Aphelion, and as Orthrus shut his eyes tightly, Bathory yelled "Multi-Shot, FIRE!" and the heavy blast of energy tore through Orthrus's shield, causing him to lose his balance. He stumbled backwards, trying to regain his footing. As he did, Bathory dove back towards the floor, putting the energy blade back into the ground and shooting off towards the off-balance mage.
Orthrus finally gained his footing right before Bathory lunged into him, knocking him off his feet again. Bathory held on, and the momentum shot both of them back so they crashed into the main loading door of the warehouse. Bathory grabbed the staff with his left hand and tried to take it for himself. He tried pulling it out of the other mage's grasp, but Orthrus held on tight. As they struggled, the two could hear sirens right outside, TSAB mages beating at the barricade with all they had. Bathory knew he had to end this now. In one quick move, he pushed Aphelion into Orthrus's stomach and fired, causing his victim to double over in pain.
Bathory grabbed the staff for himself as Orthrus fell to his knees. The downed mage looked up at Bathory, who held the gauss staff in his left hand and Aphelion in his right. Orthrus tried to speak, to plead with Bathory not to kill him, but he could only gasp for air from the hit to the stomach.
However, Bathory had no intention of killing anyone. He aimed the gauss staff at the barrier generator and fired at it. Three shots later, the shield on the device broke, and with a final shot, the device itself was destroyed. As the blue barrier dissipated, Bathory eyed a sewer grate on the floor a few feet from him, and ran towards it. He deactivated everything as he did - the gauss staff, his barrier jacket, and Aphelion. He lifted the grate, stepped in, and closed it behind him as Orthrus struggled to his feet.
Above, he could hear officers thrust open the main door and swarm the warehouse, no doubt delivering swift and immediate justice onto the one mage who was left up there. Bathory paused for a moment to catch his own breath and look at the deactivated gauss staff; its standby form was a long, thin cylinder about an inch wide and several inches tall. The mage just put it in his pocket as he walked through the sewer duct.
He walked away from the building and out towards the main roads. Just outside the building was another grate. Up above, he could hear Orthrus being dragged out towards the police cars, trying to talk his way out of a jail sentence.
"Please," he shouted, hoping the mages pushing him along would listen. "I... How about I tell you about the other guy! You know, give some details about him! Then you'd let me go, right?"
"Probably not," said a male mage that was forcing Orthrus into the back of a police car. "But go ahead and try. Maybe you might help yourself some after all."
"O...okay" said Orthrus. "He...his codename is Jet. It's Jet! Go look for someone around here with that. And he, uh, he's, like, my age. Is that enough?"
Bathory sighed. That wasn't much detail to go off of, but he kind of liked that nickname.
"So, please, can you look out for someone like that?" Orthrus asked. The mage by the car sighed and activated his radio. Bathory started walking down the sewer duct again.
"This is First Lieutenant Satel Moraine. Everyone be on the lookout for a young man aged twenty or so. He is also responsible for the incident just now, and should be apprehended if seen..."
Bathory traveled a good mile or so underground before deciding that he was far enough away to climb back to the surface. He located another grate, and used it to get out of the sewer. Looking around, he was again by the main roads, but no one was nearby from what he could see. He shivered, now back in the night chill, and he contacted Yautja again.
"Hey Yautja, I'm out and I got the staff. Can we meet up?"
"Sure," said Yautja, driving up and down the nearby roads. He looked around him. "Uhh, where exactly are you?"
Bathory looked around him as well, trying to find any landmarks. "I'm, uhh, I'm around... Here, hang on, I'll be right with you" he said, bring his right arm up to talk to Aphelion, which was once again resting in his hand, the cord wrapped around his arm.
"Aphelion," he said as he stood there. "Tell me my current location."
"Oh wait wait, hold on," remarked Yautja."I think I see you."
Bathory saw a car driving up the road at him and he watched it slow down, eventually stopping in front of him. He walked towards the car, and opened the passenger door to see Yautja Crawmer looking up at Bathory. He knew it was Yautja instantly from the bushy beard looking back that reached all the way up to his sideburns.
Despite his almost comical look, Yautja was a very serious man. As Bathory sat down and shut the passenger door, Yautja said "so let me see it."
"See wha- oh right." Bathory reached in his pocket for the staff. He pulled the cylinder out and placed it in the other man's waiting hand.
Yautja eyed it over, turning it to look at every part. "Doesn't look like much," he said, placing it in his own coat pocket.
"Yeah, well, people are going to want that," replied Bathory as Yautja looked forward and began driving. "I guarantee it. Probably for more that the barrier would go for, if you're worried about that."
"I don't mind," said Yautja. "To be honest, I knew the guy would do something stupid."
"What? How did you know?"
"That guy had been making a name for himself, doing things like that." Yautja didn't even break his view of the road ahead as he spoke. "And he made sure everyone knew it. So, when he wanted something I had, I sent you in to hopefully wipe him out."
Bathory turned towards Yautja. "So you're saying that you knew he'd attack me."
Yautja shrugged. "Pretty much."
Bathory closed his eyes and laughed. "So you sent me in knowing that all was going to happen."
Yautja finally looked over at Bathory. "Well, I didn't know he had the gauss staff, but there had to be a reason he kept getting away with that kind of thing. Taking it from him was a nice addition."
Even though he turned out to be a pawn again, Bathory couldn't help but respect Yautja for his plan. Yautja did interesting work, to say the least. In a city where no one could really trust anyone else, he offered his services as a sort of middleman to any 'underground' transactions. He and his support would be an unbiased meeting point in the middle of the road, affiliated with no one and enemies of nobody. If there was something he thought would sell, like the portable barrier, he would buy it, but overall he did very little on his own as a supplier. He was a networker, basically, building himself up through pleasing both parties of a trade and making sure those trades go interrupted. Tonight, he had lost a portable barrier but got an unpleasant thorn out of the picture and gained a military weapon. It was considered a success.
"So," asked Bathory as the car turned onto the highway, "are we going back to your apartment?"
"Sure, why not?" remarked Yautja. Again, he looked straight forward as he spoke. "We'll see if anything else is available to do."
Bathory said that sounded good, and they continued in silence. After a while, Bathory looked at Yautja and spoke again.
"Is Efra going to be there?"
"Maybe. She has training tonight but it's really late night hours. She might still be home when we get there, though."
Bathory closed his eyes and groaned. If that was the case, he thought, he should start coming up with all the lies he'd have to tell now. Of course, only then did his head start pounding from the crash back in the warehouse. He groaned harder and Yautja looked over at him.
"What are you on about? This isn't nearly the worst thing you've had to explain."
"No, no, my head hurts" said Bathory, resting his forehead on the cold passenger window of the car.
Yautja looked back at the road. "Just get Efra to fix it up."
"I'm planning on it."
Bathory continued rubbing his forehead on the window, trying to relieve the pain as well as coming up with the web of lies he was going to tell. As he did that, Yautja continued driving. They sat in silence as the car went on.
Planet: Administrated World #1: Midchilda
City: Cranagan
Date: May 24th, 0076
Time: 8:45 PM Midchildan Time
Far away from Siba, across galaxies and light-years, a woman sat in a large reception room, reading through her case briefing. Her black Enforcer uniform was spotless, her device was at one hundred percent, and her stylist sitting in the next chair over was making sure that everything looked well for whatever planetary government she would be meeting. Nanoha fixed one last strand of hair that kept trying to branch off on its own and then scooted back to admire her craftsmanship.
"Perfect!"
Still looking down at the screen projected from her device, Fate T. Harlaown smiled widely at the instructor's enthusiasm. "Thank you, Nanoha" she said.
Once again curious as to what Fate was reading, Nanoha scooted back in and leaned over, intruding on the Enforcer's space. "Fate?" she asked, "what will you be doing?"
"Locating and tracking down a wanted criminal" Fate responded. As Nanoha kept leaning further over, Fate tilted the screen so the brown-haired woman couldn't see it. "And anything past that is classified." As Nanoha righted herself, Fate looked over at her like this was a familiar behavior from the brunette. "For my eyes only."
"Aww, Fate?" asked Nanoha, giving her housemate the puppy-dog-eyes look. "But you won't be back tonight. Or tomorrow night!"
"Or the next week or two" corrected Fate.
"You know I want to know what you're doing" said Nanoha. "I don't want you to start disappearing."
"Then call me tonight if you need to. Or if it seems like Vivio needs to." Fate chuckled again, thinking that of the two of them, it probably would be Nanoha who'd need her. After Fate finished her sentence, Bardiche glowed and began to speak.
[INCOMING MESSAGE RECEIVED, SIR - YOU MAY NOW PROCEED WITH THE MISSION]
Fate stood up, and Nanoha was quick to follow as the two of them headed over to the transport room. They walked side by side, and the Enforcer looked over at the instructor. "Nanoha," she consoled, "it won't be a long one. Just enough for you and Vivio to work out any final parts of being a family."
The two stopped in front of the doors to the teleportation chambers, and Fate now leaned in towards Nanoha, meeting the wide blue eyes with her own. "I promise that it won't feel as long as you think it will. And," she continued, anticipating the question, "I will be back safe and sound."
Nanoha just nodded her head, though she seemed a bit sad still. "Well..." she said, then suddenly bounced back with enthusiasm as she pumper her arm into the air. "Good luck, Fate! Go get 'em!"
Fate smiled widely and laughed again, but as she turned back around and headed into the Dimensional Transfer Room, she performed her own sudden change of emotions and her face became dead serious. Her mind was focused on the job ahead now.
Inside the room was a team of operators monitoring several consoles in front of the three empty transfer pods. The head operator turned to greet her.
"Enforcer Harlaown, could you step into the middle pod, please?"
Fate followed the directions, stepping up into the transfer pod. Each pod was big enough to hold a team of people, but this time, only one person would be transported. Fate looked past the workers on the consoles and back to the door to see Nanoha looking through a clear window in the door and waving at Fate. Fate let her visage change again smiled back at the instructor.
"Alright," said the head operator, reading over the summary console. "Enforcer Harlaown is to be sent to Administrated World Number 84, Planet Siba, into the Siba Capital TSAB transport station. Enforcer, please confirm."
Fate again returned to her serious mode. "Confirmed," she replied sharply, "that is correct."
"Okay," said the head operator, "begin the transport process now."
Fate watched as a solid grey wall closed down, blocking the opening that she stepped through and sealing the space shut. As soon as everything was sealed, a countdown appeared on a screen in front of Fate. It began at 5, and as it counted down to 1, Fate felt magic filling the pod and assisting in making the jump. As the countdown hit zero, Fate closed her eyes and felt a surge of energy as she was transferred across space to the planet Siba. When she opened them, she was inside an enclosed pod that looked the same as the one in Midchilda, but the grey wall opened up to reveal a new set of faces in front of her.