A/N: AU. This is a work of fanfiction. Businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. I do not own any of the characters from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.

PS: Mehere was not free to help me proof read my story hence please excuse my grammar mistakes etc. Hope you will still enjoy the story tho.


Prologue

"Are you really sure about this?" Fate asked her good friend.

"Of course! Come on, it will be fun!" Hayate encouraged.

"What if someone weird picks it up?" Fate asked once again.

"Tell you what, let's set up a dummy email account and then you can write the address on it." Hayate suggested and pulled out her smartphone.

"I don't even have a clue of what email address to create when you put me on the spot like this..." Fate grumbled.

"I'll handle that aspect then." Hayate replied with a bright smile.

"It's so you to do spontaneous stuff but this is a different level. I really don't know how you talk me into this..." Fate complained.

Once Hayate created a dummy email account, she showed Fate the email address with a cheesy smile and all Fate could do was to shake her head in response.

"I'm just helping my best friend fulfil her Birthday wish!" Hayate replied as she half hugged her best friend by putting her arm across Fate's shoulder for encouragement.

"Sigh. Well, I just hope we are not courting trouble with this!" Fate replied as she sealed the message in the bottle.

"I'll race you to the deck!" Hayate said excitedly as she jumped off the bed and headed for the door.

Once they are on the deck, Fate tried talking her friend out of this idea again. "I still think it's a bad idea. Who knows where it will end up and if it would actually get picked up. We don't even know where we are." Fate cautioned.

"That's the fun part! It's the last night of the cruise trip so we should be near Japan water." Hayate replied cheerfully.

"Worse! Who knows who will actually pick it up?" Fate replied.

"Well, if anything goes wrong, we'll just let Signum take heat." Hayate replied after giving a second of thought.

"With all the trouble you mischievous takuni creates, it's a miracle that your cousins still loves you." Fate resigns as she shook her head.

"It's because I'm irresistible." Hayate laughed.

"Here goes nothing!" Fate whispered as she chucks the message in a bottle into the open sea.

"Happy 15th Birthday, Fate-chan. May your wish come true." Hayate wished as she gave Fate a Birthday hug.

Chapter 1

During their high school school trip to Okinawa, Nanoha was playing ball with her friends by the water.

While playing, something in the water caught her attention as the sun reflected off it. Nanoha got distracted and missed the pass, and the ball flew into the water. She apologised and went into the water to retrieve the ball.

On her way back to shore, something floated near her. Curious of the culprit that caused her to miss the pass, she swam closer to the object. After retrieving both, she headed back to her friends.

"Nanoha-chan, what did you picked up from the sea?" Suzuka asked.

Suzuka is one of Nanoha's best friends. Suzuka Tsukimura and Alisa Bannings are multimillionaire. Nanoha met both of them from Seishou Elementary School that she attended.

It all started with a fight. Arisa was bullying Suzuka for unknown reasons. Nanoha couldn't over look this and stepped in. She slapped Alisa hard across the cheek. Suzuka stepped in and mitigated the quarrel. They managed to talk it out in the end and they became best friends.

Later in life, Alisa became Suzuka's girlfriend. Alisa must have been attracted to her in a way and acted out as she was too young to understand her feelings. They managed to ironed it out in the end and unsurprisingly, Suzuka was the one who took the first step. They have been together since second year of middle school.

"Must be trash. You should just chuck it into the bin." Alisa brushed off.

-0-

"It seems like there's a message in a bottle." Nanoha replied.

After using the sand and sea water to wash the bottle, Nanoha confirmed, "It is a message in the bottle. Don't you think it's romantic?"

"It sure is." Suzuka agreed.

"I reckon you should just leave it or chuck it. You'll never know, it might be cursed." Alisa warned.

"I didn't know that my baby believe in such things." Suzuka teased.

"What should I do? Should I open it or not?" Nanoha asked.

"I vote to open it." Suzuka supported.

"I vote to chuck it" Alisa voiced.

"Ah dear... where's the romance? I know you can do better than that... Remember that time for our anniversary last year..." Suzuka teased.

Blush flooded Alisa's face while she was waving her hands around to stop her lover, saying in a panic, "Ahh... Stop stop stop stop! Please don't finish that sentence. I change my vote. I change my vote. Let's open it!"

Both Suzuka and Nanoha just laughed at the blond.

"That's my girl." Suzuka said softly as she gave her blond a kiss on the cheek.

They gathered around on the sand as Nanoha uncorked the bottle. "Let's see what it says..." Nanoha said.

"Hi. Thank you for picking up this bottle and reading this message.
My name is Fate. I don't know how my friend managed to talk me into this, but I am looking for a pen pal, a friend.
And ironically, I am leaving it up to fate's hand. (Pun intended)
Please write back if possible. Looking forward to hear from you, whoever you may be, unless you are a creepy internet guy or a killer.
My email address is fatedmessages "

"So? Are you going to contact this Fate of yours?" Suzuka asked.

"I don't know. What if that person is a psychopath? Who sends out a message in a bottle to find a pen pal? It's romantic yet scary." Nanoha replied.

"Even if you are, at least use a dummy email account. I still reckon it's a scam of some sort." Alisa warned.

"Perhaps you just need to take a leap of faith. Sometimes, that's all it takes…" Suzuka added as she looked dearly at Alisa.

"I'll think about it..." Nanoha replied.

"When you do, please let us know the results. You will tell us, right?" Suzuka smiled with a hidden warning.

"Of... of course I will." Nanoha stammered.

In the end, Nanoha kept the bottle and the message but she did not reach out to the writer.

-0-

Months later, due to family obligations, Alisa had to move overseas and Suzuka followed. They were worried about her but Nanoha assured her that she will be fine.

Nanoha was really sad and kept to herself after that. She kept in video contact with them.

Nanoha is a loner in school, an outcast due to her past, and seeing that her protectors aka Alisa and Suzuka are no longer around, the vultures homed in. Nanoha was receiving threats and name calling every other week.

By the end of the year, she really didn't know who she could talk to. She didn't tell any of her family or friends on what she was facing in school as she didn't want them to worry even more.

Staring at the glass bottle on her desk, she thought to herself, 'why not!'

Nanoha switched on her computer to set up a dummy email account first. Alisa would kill her if she had used her personal account. She then took the leap of faith and contacted this Fate. She wasn't expecting a reply. She hoped she would get one but she didn't believe she would anyway.

'It's just like chatting with a random person on the net, right?' Nanoha thought to reassure herself.

-0-

On the other end, a buzz from her phone alerted Fate of an incoming message.

Fate was thinking that it has to be from Hayate and cursed silently. 'What does she wants now? Have she finished packing her stuff already?' Both families are busy packing as they are scheduled to move to Uminari City the day after.

To her surprise, the email message is from her dummy account, the one that she has given up hope on!

"What should I do? What should I do?" Fate mumbled as she panicked.

She was pacing around the room for a good few minutes before she decided to check the message.

"Hi Fate, I am writing in response to your message.
I've picked up your bottle from Okinawa water Japan.
I wondered how far did the bottle travelled to reach there? What year was the message written? Keen to find out more.
PS: I am no creepy internet guy nor a killer. Regards, Machi."

"Hi Machi, thank you for replying to my message.
I never thought that the message would actually make it somewhere. I really had my doubts.
It is a very pleasant surprise compared to what I'm doing right this moment.
Don't worry, I'm not killing someone and cutting them into pieces to fit them into a bag. Just kidding.
Really hope you are not some creepy internet guy or a killer too. I didn't know how my friend got me to do this. I am just purely reaching out to someone to chat with.
The message was written in April 2016. It's December 2017 now so it took well over a year to be found.
Glad that you've picked it up. Hope to hear back from you soon. Regards, Fate."

-0-

Nanoha was shocked when she saw a reply this quickly. She wondered if she should carry on with it or not. Switching over to her phone, she brought it to bed with her.

"Hi Fate, that was some dark humour there.
Should I be worried? Are you like in a bunker down in some basement? Haha.
I wasn't expecting a reply so soon. I seriously thought it was a prank or scam. One of my best friend believes it is. Still can't rule that out, can I?
What are you doing at the moment that is way more boring than chatting with a super random stranger through email? ~Machi"

"Hi Machi, I'm packing the house as we are scheduled to move the day after. Crazy times.
And my best friend's family is moving too.
She's my best friend but gosh she's a slippery one.
Somehow she managed to rope me into doing her packing and now I am stuck with mine alone. Best *friend indeed. ~Fate"

And this chat went on as the days passes by. They became online pen pals quickly.

Both were there to support and encourage each other. Both understood that they had to be cautious about what they reveal but somehow they believe that they could trust each other.

They began to share a bit more about their life and situations without going into details such as real names and locations etc.