When Admiral Chrono Harlaown stepped into the darkly lit meeting room aboard the TSAB cruiser Teifeng Nanoha couldn't help smirking at him. Next to her, Fate wasn't hiding her amusement at all and grinned openly. When he stepped in far enough for the hatch to close, he stopped and frowned disapprovingly at them both.

"I don't really see what you two are so amused by." He said grumpily.

That statement alone was almost enough to send Nanoha into a paroxysm of laughter. Combined with his angry, frustrated face and his annoyed stance, it was clear to both her and Fate that things had not gone as well as Chrono had boasted before he went down to meet with the newly and hastily reformed UN council.

"You didn't enjoy being the diplomat to Earth Chrono?" She teased.

"It's quite obvious that I didn't," he countered as he walked over and sat at the table with them. That stern yet ambiguous answer made Nanoha laugh again. Chrono was still just as stiff as ever. The only time he ever let go was around his kids and Amy and sometimes Fate when she caught him off guard. "They should have made you do it Nanoha, you were born here."

"Yes, but I'm not an admiral. I turned all those promotions down, remember?"

"Well, the next time the TSAB has to deal with the absolutely chaotic mess of dealing with a multi-government world, I'm still recommending you for the job."

"That's not very nice of you," Fate said, smiling at her brother. "You did volunteer for this."

"I know, and I regret it."

"Why was it so bad?" Nanoha asked.

"It was bad because all the other diplomats wanted to do was squabble with each other while only occasionally talking to me. The comments some of them made were filled with barbs meant for one of the other nations. It was covered over with flowery talk of course, but the stingers were there. They all want to save the earth while somehow coming out ahead of the others. It was disgusting. They should all have been more concerned about the fact that their countries have been thrown into political and economic chaos."

"Well, how many other government representatives have you known that weren't full of self serving intentions?" Nanoha pointed out. "Earth is just bad because there are so many of them. A lot of countries here have bad blood with the others."

"I noticed," Chrono said dryly. "I had the representative from Iran try and bribe me to ignore the country of Israel when we save everyone else. What would I do with money from earth? And then there were a whole crowd of them whining about equality while spouting a bunch of nonsense about the East and the West that I could care less about."

"So how did you get them to listen to you?"

"I told them that if they if they didn't settle down and be quiet I'd pick one country and force everyone else to work through that intermediary to talk to me and the TSAB. I also threatened to make citizens of that one country the only ones who could be representatives to the TSAB if Earth ever became a signatory world."

"Which country did you pick?"

"Japan," Chrono shrugged. "I like Japan, my mother lives there and she hasn't complained about it very much. And Amy hasn't said too many bad things about living there either. Their diplomat was also one of the calmest in the room and he complained the least."

"Did they settle down after that?"

"For the most part, though they did grumble a lot for a while. After that I was finally able get some work done."

"And?" Fate prompted

"They eventually agreed to the proposal we drew up. They will allow TSA enforcers to operate across all countries if any more incidents occur. They have also agreed to let us set up basic shielding on their primary government buildings. And lastly, they agreed after much argument, to tell the general population the truth about what is happening and about us. A few countries with a lot of religious citizens weren't too happy about that."

"Well a lot of the religions on Earth list magic as an evil," Nanoha pointed out.

"Yes, I know that," Chrono said, "I just don't like the difficulties it causes in a situation like this. We still don't know who the attacking group is and what they intend. The analysts back home have too many possible motives for us to pin anything down."

Nanoha looked at him in concerned surprise. "Nothing? Nothing at all has been discovered?"

"Not enough to be useful," Chrono sighed. "We've gone over all the available data we have and nothing has come of it. There are similarities in the abduction cases, but that doesn't tell us who they are."

"What similarities?" Fate asked out of curiosity.

"Well, after talking to and examining all of the families who've had children taken we discovered that every single one of them was in the upper or upper-middle class. Most of the families were also older ones that have always married carefully throughout their histories. Also, all the family members tested highly for strong linker cores."

"So?" Nanoha asked.

"Like the daughter of that soldier you met, these kids are all likely to have the potential for strong magical abilities," Chrono answered. "It's been known for a long time that magical ability is something that can be bred into a population and carried through family lines. Also, the longer a group of people eat well and stay generally healthy, magical potential can grow over a period of generations. All these families are from good breading; therefore they probably haven't had much hardship over the centuries. Magical potential tends to degrade in families that end up in poverty and live in bad conditions for a long time."

"There are perfectly strong and healthy people without magic," Nanoha felt the need to point out.

"Yes, the science isn't perfect," Chrono said. "I was speaking in generalities. Often nature doesn't care for the pet theories of humans and throws in things to mess them up. But magical potential is still usually found in families like these, especially on worlds like this one that haven't developed magical abilities at all. Mid-Childa is a little different since we've been exploiting magic for a long time now. We've had centuries for those with magic in their bloodline to intermingle with those that don't and spread it around.

"So these people just grabbed a bunch of kids with a high likelihood for magic? That doesn't sound very good at all."

"No, it doesn't" Chrono agreed. "There have been enough atrocities with experiments on kids on our world. We don't need to let sins like that spread to others."

Nanoha and Fate both smiled at the angry conviction in Chrono's voice. "Chrono—"

Nanoha cut of as harsh red light suddenly bathed the chamber from the large number of awakening alert screens around them. As a loud horn sounded throughout the cruiser, Nanoha felt a shiver run through her body. It got worse as she felt the ship's engines crank up and deliver their tremendous power to the shields.

A comm. screen snapped open next to her with a grey haired man in it. "Captain?" she asked apprehensively.

"Yes," he rumbled ominously. "Something is happening."

*****

When Alice awoke on her fourth day of being a test subject of the still unexplained and mysterious Empire, she felt remarkably well rested. It was the first time she had gotten up before the heavy set soldier slammed their door open as a wake up call. The last few days had settled quickly into a routine and it seemed that her body was already getting used to it much faster than her mind was.

Sitting up in her bed using her remaining hand, she looked down and smirked at her cellmate sleeping blissfully next to her. Azusa was taking the experimenting a lot harder than she was. Alice still didn't know the girl's background, but it seemed that physical exertion had never been a part of her daily routine and the constant demands by Juden for them to use their magic really took a toll on her. Azusa never ever complained about it, but Alice had begun noticing the exhaustion in her facial features at night. Last night she had wanted to go to sleep almost as soon as they had eaten.

"Hey Azusa," Alice said quietly, placing her hands on her cellmate's shoulder.

"Hmmm, what?" Azusa mumbled as she opened her eyes and stared blearily upward.

"Sorry Azu'," Alice smiled. "I just thought I'd give you a gentler way to wake up than the guard."

Azusa smiled back, "Thanks I think." Then she frowned and blinked once, "did you just call me Azu?"

"Uh-huh. Do you not like me using a short form of your name?"

"No I don't mind, not at all," Azusa replied. "It's just funny because my father would be quite angry with me for allowing some random stranger to be so familiar with me."

Alice regarded the other girl with a raised eyebrow. "Stranger? We've shared the same bed for three nights now and endured annoying experiments together. How much closer do we need to get?"

"He wouldn't think that any of that counts," Azusa said wryly. "He's always been strict about the company I keep."

"Sounds tedious."

"Sometimes," Azusa admitted.

There was a familiar click-thunk from the door and as they both looked toward it expectantly, they were both surprised to see it was Juden and not the guard. Even more out of place, Juden wasn't wearing his white coat today. Instead he was in formal military dress. This consisted of loose black pants, a dark green shirt, and a black, wide shouldered coat closed with gold claps instead of buttons. The coat bore decorations that meant nothing to Alice.

"Morning ladies!" Juden declared in his usual good humor. "I have a surprise for you today."

"Is it a day off?" Alice guessed off-handedly.

"Ah…well, yes actually," Juden frowned, momentarily nonplussed by Alice's random but correct guess. "Today is going to be a busy and important day so there won't be any tests."

"Awesome," Alice replied and grinned. "Does that mean we can go back to bed?"

"Of course not!" Juden sounded extraordinarily offended by the notion of lazing about. "I'm here to retrieve you two personally to witness something. It's not optional."

"So much for a possible easy day," she sighed and then nudged Azusa gently. "Well, let's go Azu." Azusa nodded and slid out of the bed. After giving them a moment of privacy to use the facilities, Juden hastened them out into the main hallway.

Today Juden lead them past the labs and then down a weird connecting stairway/hallway to a neighboring building. This one was even more modern and well maintained. The hall now in front of them was all gleaming white tile and the walls were a more normal brick. It was also well lit and each room was very clearly numbered or named. When they passed doors with windows she saw that everyone in the rooms was in uniform.

"Are these the military offices?" Alice asked in curiosity.

"We're all military," Juden corrected. "But yes, this is where the Admiral has his office and where command and control operations take place."

After a rather lengthy walk they descended down a short ramp hallway and then Juden unlocked a set of doors and led them into what looked like some sort of empty lecture hall or theatre. It was a large open space that was dimly lit by a few light fixtures in the ceiling. At the front of the room ten large, flat screen displays were mounted to the wall. The thinly carpeted floor contained a group of at least 50 plus girls ranging from around 6 years old to ten. All of them looked in their direction.

"What's going on?" Alice asked.

"Everyone is here to witness the Empire's efforts," Juden answered proudly. "Go on in and have a seat on the floor with the rest of the girls."

Alice glared at him. "Juden, I know you told us before what you want, but can't you tell why you're doing this? All of this I mean," Alice said, gesturing at the building in general.

"Because we have no choice," Juden answered with surprising seriousness. "Do you really want to know?"

Alice shared a look with Azusa. "Yeah."

"Alright then," Juden said and leaned back against the door frame. "Accept for a moment, that other worlds other than this one exist. Not just across the void of space, but also across dimensions."

"Okay," Alice nodded, not getting where this was going.

"My people are from such a world." Juden gave a laugh at her look of disbelief. "It's true. We come from a place much different from here. In our homeland there exists a great imbalance in power between the Emperor that the people in this town serve and the Vicars of the Faithful. Think of them as a parallel Theocratic ruling class. The Emperor has always controlled the masses and the military and the Faithful have controlled almost everything else, including the magic that keeps everyone alive."

Alice frowned seriously at the Director and she saw that Azusa looked equally dubious of the explanation thus far.

"If this is all true somehow," Alice said slowly. "Why do you need magic to live?"

"Because it controls all of the support systems on our world, that's why. It supplied much of the power to the cities as well as sewage management and other such things. We relied on it to transport food, to build structures and even to distribute water. But since the Fall of the Kings it's use has vanished from the general populous. Now only the Faithful in their Temple have access to it. They parcel it out to the Emperor when they feel like it, but never in large amounts. What they give out now are small amounts of goods produced in the manufacturing facilities of the Walled City within which the Temple resides. Now the general population is starving and dying off by the thousands because everything that supported our civilization went away."

"Why didn't you just use something else to generate power and the other stuff?" Alice asked

"Because we don't know how!" Juden exclaimed. "Until we came here we had no knowledge of how to make anything like that. And we don't have the technology or resources to emulate what you have here. Fossil fuels don't exist on our world."

"That's impossible!" Azusa said, joining the argument. "I've seen the equipment you use and the weapons the soldiers carry. None of it is at all primitive."

"We know how to use everything," Juden retorted. "Everything we use was manufactured by the Faithful. Most of it in fact was stolen. We have no idea how to maintain or build more of what we have. None of the general population was ever educated and given the knowledge base to build and maintain an advanced civilization, it was all given to us and then taken away. Now we are trying to scramble forward in an attempt to keep from losing everything."

"But you yourself seem to be fairly educated," Alice pointed out.

"That's because I and most of my researches are traitors from the Temple," Juden answered. "There they retain some of the knowledge from the past and I learned what I could before leaving with my people; those that couldn't watch our world crumble and die. The Emperor took us in and decided to use our knowledge to create a new, desperate plan to claw our way back before it's too late. To do this we need the Earth."

"Even if all of this is true," Alice argued. "Why didn't you just approach one of the governments of Earth and ask for help?"

Juden looked at her strangely. "One does not trade with the people of the Apostate; even the soldiers would never violate that tenet of the God-Kings. We will take what we need for ourselves. The people of this world have no right to object to this."

"Apostate?" Alice asked in confusion.

Juden opened his mouth to answer, but he closed it again when opposite the room from them, another set of double doors opened. From this walked an older man with salt-and-pepper hair, a military uniform with many more decorations than Juden, and an air of authority about him. He saw them and began walking over immediately and ignored the room full if little girls. Behind him walked an intimidating pair of armed guards in the same armor Alice had seen when she was captured.

"Admiral," Juden said in acknowledgement when the man was close enough.

"Director," the Admiral returned. "Who are these two?"

"Alice and Azusa," Juden made a shooing gesture. "Go have a seat with the others, it will be starting soon."

Alice scowled at being dismissed so suddenly and made to ask for more information on what the hell was going on. A soft tug at the empty sleeve on her right side mad her turn to look at Azusa who shook her head and gestured toward the room. Still frowning she let herself be led away.

As they walked deeper into the room Alice noticed that the other girls were all watching them as they sat in clumps. From the way they whispered to each other Alice figured that they must have been allowed to talk to each other before now. Alice could also feel their curiosity radiating from their staring eyes. Azusa brought them to the back wall of the room and took a seat against it. Alice plopped herself down next to her on the right side.

"This whole place makes me angry," Alice said, leaning into Azusa to speak quietly.

"There's not much we can do about it though." Azu whispered back.

"But look at these girls!" Alice exclaimed softly. "It's wrong for kids like these to be taken away from their families. And you heard Juden; he doesn't care what happens to people from Earth."

"You believed all that stuff about being from another world?" Azusa asked.

"Well….mostly," Alice shrugged. "It would explain a lot of the weirdness from these guys."

"Hey! What's wrong with your arm?"

Alice was so intent on her conversation with Azusa that she hadn't noticed the approach of one of the girls. She was a short, curly blonde haired girl with a face full of freckles. Alice wasn't a very good judge at guessing exact ages, but she would have put this girl around 8 or 9. What surprised her so much though was that the girl asked the question in English. She could speak both English and Japanese, but at home and on the island in general she had always spoken the latter. It felt weird to speak English outside of school.

"What's wrong with your arm?" the girl repeated.

"I lost it," Alice told the girl with a friendly smile. "I had a bit of an accident."

"Does it hurt?"

As Alice opened her mouth to answer that, she noticed that more of the girls had gathered around them. She saw that some obviously understood the conversation because they seemed to be very intent on her words.

"Not really," Alice answered. "It felt funny the first couple of days, but now it's not too bad."

The girl looked at her for a second with a thoughtful frown, and then she walked up and sat down on her other side and snuggled into her. Not really knowing what else to do, Alice put the stump of her right arm over the girl's shoulder. This seemed to trigger something in the other girls because a number of them all moved to sit right next to her and Azusa.

"Ah, Azu? What do I do? I've never been around kids very much," Alice asked in Japanese.

Azu just smiled at her as she hugged a waif thin brunette girl that had climbed into her lap. "Alice, they probably haven't seen their mothers or families for a while. So we probably look like the closest thing to an adult to them. They just want to be comforted and we look a lot nicer to them then the soldiers do. Just let them do what they want."

Feeling awkward, Alice let the kids climb onto her lap as well. Soon enough she and Azusa had a whole crowd on and around them. Alice didn't think she could move there were so many. They didn't really say anything, but they all seem more at ease.

"Okay everyone!" Juden said, crossing to the front of the room, apparently finished with the conversation he'd been having with the admiral. "It's about to start so I would like you to pay attention to the screens."

What's about to start? Alice thought to herself. Juden didn't provide that answer but he did turn around and pull out a remote control. With it he powered on the televisions and slowly pictures took form on them. After a moment Alice saw that each contained a view of a city. From the languages she saw on signs they were each located in a different country. She saw a Japanese city in the bottom left screen but it didn't contain any landmarks or signs that said which one it was.

"Is something supposed to be happening?" Alice asked quietly.

"Dunno," Azusa answered.

"Hey, what are you saying to the lady?" asked the blond haired child. "You're talking funny."

"I am, am I?" Alice grinned.

"Uh-huh,"

"I'm speaking Japanese, that's why you didn't understand us. I was just asking if something was supposed to be going on."

"Oh," the girl said, musing that over with a frown. "What's your names? The bad guys won't tell who you two are."

"The bad guys?" Azusa said, joining the conversation in English. "You mean the soldiers?" The girl nodded. "Well, I'm Azusa and the girl next to you is Alice."

"How about you?" Alice asked.

"Ashley."

Though most of the kids didn't speak English, a large number of them seemed to understand that names had just been exchanged. This caused a rather noisy explosion from the crowd of girls within which Alice assumed they too were trying to introduce themselves.

"Hey! Settle down back there!" Juden yelled from his place at the front. He had rejoined the Admiral by the door. Alice saw the older man just seemed amused by the antics of the kids. "Is that you stirring them up back there Alice?"

"Me?" Alice muttered. "Why do I get blamed all the time?"

"Maybe because you are the one that causes trouble," Azusa laughed. "I don't recall doing anything like setting fires all over the place or attacking soldiers myself."

"You get in trouble?" Ashley asked with wide eyes. "Don't they do horrible things when you do that?"

"Hmmm, kind of," Alice shrugged. "They put a thing on me that hurts a lot when I use magic."

Ashley looked at her funny. "Magic doesn't exist," she said in a serious and knowing manner. "These guys are crazy because they think it does. My mom would call the police if she knew they tried to make me do stuff like that."

Alice wanted to laugh but she didn't think the kid would take it the right way. Here they all were, specimens in an experiment for some mysterious Empire to produce magic users, and one of their test subjects adamantly refused that such a thing existed to begin with. Alice wondered how frustrating the researches found Ashley to be. She hoped the kid gave them ulcers from a lack of results.

"How long have you been here Ashley?" Alice asked out of curiosity.

"A year I think," Ashley answered with a thoughtful frown. "They grabbed me when I was playing with my friends last summer."

"God!" Alice swore, "How many others have been here that long?"

Ashley looked at the other girls for a second. "Maybe half," she guessed. "Then a whole bunch more showed up the other day with you two."

"Ah, it's finally starting!" Juden announced.

Again Alice looked to the screens with the rest of the kids. At first she didn't see what Juden was talking about. Then she noticed a tall and thin thread of blackness spearing up into the sky in four of the TV's. She focused on the one appearing in the unknown Japanese city. Slowly that thread widened until there was a roughly triangular void sitting in the middle of the street. She watched as a car skidded to a halt in front of it and created a traffic jam with those behind it. Suddenly the surface of that void rippled like it would if it was the surface of a pound that a stone tossed into it.

"Here they come," Juden said excitedly. Alice looked over for a second and saw that both he and the Admiral both wore looks of expectation on their faces. What was coming through that was so exciting?

A change in the rippling brought her attention back to the screen. With the roar of a turbine engines, the sleek black shapes of warplanes shot out at a startling velocity and immediately pulled up and out of view. Below them came a running hoard of men. They were all dressed like the soldiers and armed the same way. Then something seemed odd.

All the men running out of the weird hole ignored the Japanese people. The person holding the camera zoomed in for a clearer look and she saw that all the soldiers coming out looked like they were running for their lives. They all wore expressions of terror and many of them were already wounded. She saw one man with blood pouring down his face running at a dead sprint. Alice looked at the other three gates and the scene was the same. This wasn't the impressive arrival of an invading army. It was the flight of one.

"Oh by the Gods!"

Alice turned her head and saw Juden was kneeling on the floor and looking like the world was coming to an end. The Admiral wore an expression of resigned sadness. He said something to soft for her to hear, but whatever it was made Juden go white as their bed sheet.

"Alice, what's going on?" Azusa asked worriedly.

"I think their plan just went badly awry," Alice answered. "If their response is any indicator," Alice nodded her head toward Juden," then I think they might have just lost whatever it was they wanted to do."

"No!"

Juden's cry snapped her attention back to him and then when she saw he was looking at the screens still, she looked too. What she saw there didn't make sense at first. The stream of fleeing men had stopped, but now a single man in extremely anachronistic, shinning green, plated armor with a weird double spiked helmet walked out. Then seven more followed out behind him in a single file. Once they were all out they broke ranks and stood in a roughly equidistant circle. Each man held out his right hand and a tall metal staff appeared there as if it had snaked down their arms.

There was no sound anymore, but Alice saw the movement of the men's lips. As they spoke she saw an odd magical diagram appear on the ground. Instead of being a circle like hers, this one seemed to be made of multiple overlapping triangles. A thread of red light ran out from the diagram to each man's staff. As soon as that was done, a crimson light the color of wet blood began to grow in the middle of the formation. Once it was almost big enough to envelope the people casting the spell, the men knelt to the ground and as one they bowed their heads. There was a flash of red light and then the screen went blank and a 'no signal' message scrolled across.

"Did they all just die?" Ashley asked in a dead, sad whisper into the absolute quiet of the room. Her face was so upset looking that Alice wished she had her whole arm back so she could hug the girl to her properly. All of the girls seemed to squeeze in tighter to her and Azusa for some kind of physical reassurance that what they had just witnessed had not happened. Alice looked at the other three screens in which a doorway had appeared, but they too were now blank and uninformative.

"I…I'm afraid that's probably so," Alice said when the silence dragged out.

This drew Juden's attention back to them. He pulled something from his pocket and after pressing a button on it he shouted, "Alright, all of you, back to your rooms!"

When the grim faced soldier arrived a minute later to escort them, no one dared to say anything. Alice, Azusa and the girls went to their rooms with fear I their hearts. Before they exited the room however, Alice heard the admiral say on last thing to the director.

"It's over Juden. We all took a gamble on this plan, but our dice roll has come up at a loss."

*****

Nanoha stared down into the gleaming surface of the meeting room table. It wasn't providing any of the answers she wished it would, but she did it nonetheless. Next to her Fate sat silent as well.

The two of them had raced to the bridge of the cruiser as soon as the announcement had been made that something was happening again. When they got there it was just in time to see three gateways opening in three different cities; the one in Kyushu, Japan, one in Germany, and one in Turkey. The gateways had been very strange in that they were incredibly different compared to those made with Mid-style magic. So much so that they had allowed for people to simply run through from their world to Earth.

When she had seen the soldiers running through she had been one breath away from calling for the containment barrier team to go down with her to create a perimeter to trap the invaders within a close limit of their gateways, when something else happened.

Those strange men in armor that had come out behind the fleeing soldiers had baffled them all at first. Their armor registered on the ships sensors as bearing a very close resemblance to Mid-Childen barrier jackets and Belkan knight armor. When the staves appeared she thought that they must be devices of some kind, except they didn't react that way. Instead they seemed to only interact with the one specific spell they moved to cast.

Even if Nanoha had given the order for the enforcers to go it wouldn't have been on time to stop what happened. At all three sites SS range magical explosions tore apart the cities they were in. They killed the fleeing men as well as the residents of the city. Not only that, when everything cleared, the mages who had caused those terrible searing events all laid dead on the ground. Their bodies appeared untouched by the violence they had unleashed, but they were indeed dead. And behind them all but one of the gateways were gone, specifically the one on the island of Kyushu.

As soon as she saw that there was nothing that she could do, she called her parents and arranged for her family to be transported up to the Heibao. Chrono had done the same for his mother, Lindy, and his family. Now the transport had moved even further away from Earth with orders to observe from a distance. She knew it was selfish of her to save only her family when so many others on Earth were still in probable danger, but she couldn't help it. She had to protect them. There was absolutely no way she could have left Vivio down in harm's way. Fate had tried to convince Arisa and Suzuka to come up too, but they had stubbornly refused. Now she and all the others in the TSAB ships in orbit were going to be moving against the remaining gateway if any—

"They're coming out again!"

Nanoha's head snapped up as the cry came out of the display that appeared next to her without any warning. As she rose out of the seat and half ran to the transport room, she called back to Fate who was right behind her. "You ready?"

"Yes,"

It was a short, terse answer but Nanoha smiled slightly at the anger in it. With the events that had happened before in Fate's life, Nanoha never blamed her when she got angry in situations like this where the people they were going to fight against committed such horrible acts. Nanoha didn't feel happy about it of course, but this was the kind of thing Fate tried to prevent in her job as an enforcer agent.

When they got to the transport room Chrono was already waiting there with a team of six enforcers already in their barrier jackets. The all nodded to them as they prepped themselves.

"Nanoha! Fate!" Chrono said as she approached. "They're using that weird gate as a booster for teleport magic and a small group just jumped into a city nearby. They appear to be shooting at buildings and killing people almost at random. Other groups have also appeared but those seem to be trying to pick fights or something."

"Just send us down Chrono," Fate said with a grim look. "We'll take care of the group you assigned us. The other teams can worry about the other groups."

She and Nanoha both stood with the rest of the strike team on the gate platform and awoke their devices and barrier jackets. Chrono gave them a last smile and then Nanoha triggered the gate.

**

When Nanoha, Fate and their team appeared in the air above a smallish city on the southern coast of the island of Kyushu, it was readily apparent where their targets were. There were three of them, no, there were four. Three of those strange men in armor and another who wore what looked like blue robes with a tabard the same color green as the men's armor. Through Raising Heart she could feel that he too was wearing a barrier jacket. All four men were walking down a wide six lane street in what looked like an important district of some kind since all the buildings were at minimum, four stories tall and extremely modern in architecture. As they walked they were firing off blasts of magical energy into random buildings, cars, fleeing people or whatever.

"Let's go!"

Like glowing magical stones, they plummeted straight toward their assigned adversaries.

"Set up the barrier," Fate ordered as the wind rushed by. At once four of their enforcers shot away in different directions. A second later she felt power flow between the men. There was an odd discoloring of the world as a sphere of magic enveloped them on inside a displacement and containment barrier. This time they would capture someone alive. As soon as the barrier passed over them, the enemy all looked up at them in surprise. They stopped their random violence to consider Nanoha and the others.

Separating to surround them, Nanoha, Fate and the two remaining enforcers landed lightly on the ground, each about 50 feet away from the strangers. "I am Fate Testarossa," Fate spoke. Since she was an enforcer agent, she had the authority to make arrests, so Nanoha was here to provide her support. "I represent the Time-Space Administration Bureau. For the crimes you have committed against this world, you will be arrested. Release your barriers and any other active magic."

At first the man in robes stared at them in surprise. He looked to be somewhere in his upper forties, and he wore a short, carefully trimmed beard of brown hair on a thin, tanned face. He had the weathered look of someone who spent a great deal of time outdoors. After the surprise bled away, the man settled into a thoughtful frown for just a second before finally transitioning into a look of disdain. "I am a sub-priest of the Temple, woman. I will not debase myself in such a way as you have commanded me to. You do not have the power to force me. Swords! Remove these obstacles."

"Aye my Lord," the three men spoke in unison. Instead of the staves they had seen the last time, these men carried strange double tined swords that had had an edge on the outside if each tine and a one inch gape between them. Now they pointed those swords out at them, each picking a separate target. She saw magic gather in those sword gaps and energy crackled in front of each armored man. Nanoha raised an eyebrow at the one aiming at her. His power wasn't actually that impressive. With a yell, the man shot his red, angry bolt of magic at her. Without even moving a muscle or saying a word, she created a light shield over her chest and let the bolt spend itself there. The other men had also fired with equally lackluster results at Fate and the enforcer to Nanoha's left.

"Tshc," the self-declared priest cursed. "Get out of my way heretics, or I will have to do something myself."

"These guys are no where near as strong as the ones that came through the gate the first time," Fate sent telepathically.

"No, they can't be more than a C rank at best. And the priest guy doesn't feel that much stronger. Scouts or flunkies maybe?" Nanoha sent back.

"Nanoha, Fate," Chrono's face appeared next to each of them. "More teams like the one in front of you have appeared. There are almost 50 of them spread around the south pacific, China, and southern Japan. Their doing the same thing as this one was, committing random and indiscriminate acts of violence."

"Can you tell me where the strongest of them is?" Nanoha asked.

"Hey! Stop ignoring me!" the priest shouted indignantly.

"Somewhere familiar, or at least for you two; there's a guy leading a group that's picking a fight with that military base you went to before. In fact, we got a call asking for our help from a General down there. How'd he manage that?"

Nanoha grinned at the dryness in Chrono's voice, "Because I gave him the ability to. And don't complain about me giving the guy access to magic, it's just a single comm. screen."

"Will you go there?"

"Yeah, just let us take care of these guys first." Chrono nodded and the screen disappeared.

"Shall I?" asked Fate.

"Hey!" the priest said, becoming irate.

"Go ahead," Nanoha replied.

Fate raised Bardiche out in front of her body. "Plasma Lancer," four glowing and crackling bolts of power formed around Bardiche's head. With the crackle of lightning they snapped out and struck the hastily defending enemies. Each gave a sharp cry of surprise as they slammed to the ground, now without their barriers. The three soldiers wore simple green uniforms with a pin of a sword on one collar and the priest still wore the same blue robes, but the tabard disappeared. Knowing exactly what to do, the two enforces extended their staves and strong bindings coiled around their prisoners.

"Take these four and put them in cells on the transport ship," Fate ordered.

"Aye ma'am," the two walked forward and after a quick call to the ship in question they were surrounded by a magic circle and then they vanished with the prisoners.

"Are we splitting up for now?" Fate asked then.

"It's probably the best we can do at the moment," Nanoha affirmed. "The other teams need to stay intact just in case, but each of us can take two of the remaining enforcers and start hitting the other groups."

"Alright," Fate agreed with a concerned frown, "just be careful."

Nanoha smiled widely, "You too!"

*****

Howard cursed as another of those damn bolts of red light slammed into a truck parked a short distance away from the sandbagged cover he hid behind. The truck exploded with a loud crack and then the remainder burst into flames as the fuel caught. Howard grimaced as he heard the flames crackling away behind the chatter of small arms fire.

All military vehicles were going to be in short supply for a while and any one they lost was going to hurt them. The economies of the world, including the US, were tanking and he'd been told that military supplies were going to be cut to the bone. He's seen on TV that a great deal of public anger was already arising at the gasoline rationing that had been implemented when it had been made clear that the most of the worlds oil production was destroyed. And with the loss of the Panama and Suez canals, shipping costs to the ports that could still operate were growing rapidly. The military was supposed to be getting priority for some supplies like aviation fuel, but it was still going to be hard for a while. This was why he resented the group of four men standing just over a hundred feet away on the base's runway.

They had just appeared there twenty minutes ago and started destroying things at random. A C-130 that had been trying to take off had been blasted into pieces by the strange man in blue robes that seemed to lead the attackers. The weird thing was that he had done that with a strange sword that they all carried. Howard had ordered these sandbag walls made shortly after the attack on Okinawa, just as a precaution, and he blessed his forethought because these were the only things that had kept a lot of men alive. Now the attackers were walking around slowly as they continued their killing and general vandalism.

"Where's the AP gun I called for?!" Howard shouted into his radio.

"Coming now!"

Howard looked down the length of wall his bunker sat against and saw the group of men who had answered. They sprinted, while staying as low as possible, across a small gap of grass to the overturned form of a humvee that had already taken a hit. Once there he watched as they set up a large, long barreled gun on the vehicles bottom with a bipod. As the wielder of the weapon pointed his weapon across the wide open space of the tarmac, a second man handed him a large sized ammo clip.

The weapon was designed to punch through walls and lightly armored vehicles as well as Kevlar vests. So far no one had managed to get anything of smaller caliber past the absurd, glowing red shields the attackers had raised around them. The shields looked like a glowing sphere made of translucent but glowing red smoke, but they had so far resisted all antipersonnel weapons. Now, people were responding as they should to his orders. He would see if these idiots could take a little heavier punishment.

He heard the metallic click as the gunner chambered his first round. Howard looked across to the attackers who were walking casually by a small dorm building as two of the members shot more bolts of light through windows to cause whatever destruction they could. He heard the loud report of the gun. The first round, a tracer, ripped through the air filled with its smaller caliber brethren that were coming in from all over the place and popped against the shield of one of the green armored guys. It didn't penetrate but he saw the man look at the gunner with a frown. That meant he had felt that at least. The many other soldiers that were dug in all around the area gave an excited shout.

"Keep firing," Howard ordered. "Try the rpg next."

Way off to his left he saw a man rise up part way from another bunker against the cafeteria building. When he had heard that he was going to be short on supplies he had ordered a pallet of seized weapons from the Middle East conflicts broken open and inspected for useful things, and RPG's are very useful indeed. They could take out most lightly armored vehicles and could damage some tanks enough to cause problems. Now he saw and heard the hissing rocket motor of his soldier's weapon as it cast itself against the shield of the man standing next to the one taking the AP fire. The weapon detonated harshly and when the kicked up dirt cleared he saw with triumph that the enemy's shield was gone and the man was lookin at least a little injured.

He was about to order for another RPG, but he stopped with his mouth hanging open when he felt a telltale shiver through the ground beneath him. A second later the sound of a powerful diesel engine came to his ears as it approached. Grinning he turned his head to the right and watched a Bradley fighting vehicle come tearing around the side of the building he was against. Without even stopping it trained its main gun at the enemy and fired. 25mm chain gun rounds spat out and demanded death.

Howard's grin vanished as she watched the robed, bearded man raise his sword up. A stronger and thicker looking shield snapped around both him and his subordinates. The shield seemed to shatter the bullets slamming into it. Not willing to be outdone, the crew of the infantry fighting vehicle fired a TOW as well which exploded with an asphalt cracking roar. Then they stopped firing but kept circling to see if they'd made a successful kill.

Despite himself, Howard gasped as an angry, red shaft of light flicked out of the smoke from the missile and punched a hole clean through the Bradley. Then something crackled down that red light and the vehicle exploded and tore apart.

"Damn," Howard swore softly. "What does it take to—?"

He cut off as sky seemed to suddenly darken. In one moment it was all bright sun, and the next it was as if he was looking up through a murky pond. A glance at the base's attackers showed that it couldn't be them causing it; they were all staring upwards with expressions of consternation. The robed man said something to his two remaining soldiers and then he began to float upwards into the air.

Howard was about to curse again, thinking the man was trying to escape using flying magic or something, when yet another thing stopped him. This was a blast of pink light that ripped through the air and sent Howard reeling back from the concussive force of its passing. The light swallowed the flying enemy for a solid three seconds before dwindling away. Like a half full burlap sack, he watched the robed man fall limply and senselessly into the ground. Howard followed back the path the beam had taken and saw a familiar figure standing in midair. That figure raised a very distinctive staff and rings of that same pink light formed and constricted onto the stunned and now outgunned enemy soldiers. Unable to move, they too fell to the ground.

Howard watched in amazement as Commander Takamatchi flew straight to the now downed foes. She pointed her staff at them. "Sealing," it was the same feminine voice the staff had spoken before. Another magic circle formed and the armor the soldiers wore seemed to dissolve way. The commander did the same to the unconscious robed man.

"All men stand down," Howard said disbelievingly into his radio as he got to his feet. He crossed over to the woman. "Commander, was that blast from you? The pink one?"

"Hehe, sorry about that," Nanoha laughed. "Maybe I should have given you a warning of some kind."

"Humph," Howard grunted amusedly. "I don't mind. You took the guy out when we couldn't."

"Actually, you could have," Nanoha smiled. "You came close to cracking his shield with that last missile. That's probably why he tried to take to the air. He decided he didn't want to be your target anymore. Unfortunately the sky is my territory."

At that last Howard saw something almost predatory in the woman's good natured smile. He remembered the respect that ship captain had given this woman and he now understood a little as to why he had. This woman was a lot more formidable than her appearance suggested.

"What did you do to them?" he asked.

"Oh, I placed a powerful seal on their magical abilities," this time the woman's smile was clearly of satisfaction. "Unless another mage with my power or higher removes it for them, they won't be able to use magic for a very long time."

"And how powerful are you?" Howard asked out of curiosity.

"On the TSA's scale, I'm currently an S+ aerial mage. I could possibly test for SS class, but I haven't felt the need to yet. Fate is about the same."

Howard had to think for a second to work out the letter ranking scale, but when he did he was impressed again. It meant he was talking to someone very powerful indeed.

"Sorry Major," Nanoha said, interrupting his musings. "But this isn't the only group like this and I need to get going to help take care of them. Can you hold these guy for now, our ship will grab them when they can, but they should probably be locked up till then."

"Certainly," Howard confirmed. "Will you let us know what they tell you?"

"Yes, Admiral Harlaown has taken up the task of doing the interrogations. I'll make sure he sends you and the General whatever information he gets."

With that Commander Takamatchi looked up at the sky again. On her ankles wings sprang into existence that was again made of that pink light that seemed to signify her magic. She leapt into the air and like before she shot off quickly into the distance. As soon as she was gone, the sky returned to its normal colors.

******

Fate slumped tiredly into a chair that sat inside the cabin she was sharing with Nanoha. She and all the other enforcers had spent the entire rest of the day chasing down and then apprehending the rampaging mages that had come through the gate. The mages hadn't been all that powerful on an individual basis, but there had been so many of them.

In the end Chrono had authorized her use of a large-scale ritual weather control spell. She didn't use magic like that often anymore, but it had been useful. Her lightning had managed to take out three groups that had been in close proximity in one go.

"Fate?"

She looked up and smiled as Nanoha walked in with two steaming cups of tea. After handing her one, Nanoha sat down next to her on the nearby bed.

"Has Chrono got anything from them yet?" Fate asked.

"Yes," Nanoha answered with a small frown. "They all say the same thing. They were ordered to come here and search for signs of someone they call the Apostate. But that's it. They won't tell us anything else of this Temple they claim to serve or its intentions."

Fate sighed. They didn't seem to be making much progress at all, she thought. She felt warm arms slip around her from behind the chair and she looked up at her shoulder to into Nanoha's gentle and smiling face.

"We've done enough for today, Fate." she said. "Now we need to rest for tomorrow."

Fate nodded her agreement, "yes."

******

"Alice….Alice…Alice!"

"Huwaaa," Alice moaned sleepily.

"Alice, you need to wake up!" She felt small hands grip her shoulders and shake her body slightly.

"What's going on Azu?" Alice said in half-awareness. She and Azusa, after returning to their room had decided to take a nice little nap to rest up while they could. "Something going on?"

"Yes!"

This time Alice heard the panic in Azusa's voice and her eyes shot open as a sudden flush of adrenalin pumped into her body. Thinking there was some danger to Azusa; she shot up and looked around protectively. When she locked her eyes on her cellmate and friend, she saw surprise instead of fear there. "What's going on?"

Azusa pointed toward the foot railing of the cot bed. "There's…well…a person. Sort of."

"What do you mean 'sort of'?"

Feeling like she almost gave herself whiplash, Alice's snapped in the direction of the high, indignant, female voice. There, right where Azu was pointing was a person. She was impossibly tiny. She could be no taller than Alice's hand was long and she wore baggy pants and a loose shirt. Her long, strange, blue hair cascaded down her back as she sat on the rail of the bed with her legs crossed casually at the ankle. She looked like a literal, living doll.

When Alice locked her baffled eyes on those of he tiny woman's, the woman grinned and gave her a jaunty wave. "Hi!"