Gathering 1.4

Yayaka's world was a confused jumble of blurred images, hazy memories of getting stuck in a tumble-dryer as a young child rising unbidden in her mind. The whole experience was just beginning to become nauseating when she crashed back-first onto the ground, grunting at the none-too-gentle impact.

"Owowowowow…" Yayaka groaned, hauling herself into a sitting position and eyeing her new captor. "Well, geez, Cocona, if y'wanted to see me this badly you could've just called."

Cocona's glare didn't let up an iota. "I did," she icily replied. "You didn't answer."

Yayaka shivered. 'Okay, yeah, I probably should've seen this coming,' she thought, wincing.

As she thought that, Cocona continued to talk, voice steadily rising. "You… You just disappear for- for weeks, without saying a word, and then the next thing I know, Papika nearly breaks my window to tell me you're on the news in Akihabara stealing electronics!" Her voice continually wavered between fiercely angry and brittle and ready to crack nearly at random. Her expression followed, at points angry and distressed. "What's going on, Yayaka? Is this about your Soul Gem? We could've fixed that! Dr. Salt-"

"Was taking too long," Yayaka blandly cut in. "Only one person has been able to clean my gem without a Grief Seed, and it ain't Dr. Salt. Also, there been any witches around lately?"

Cocona's expression veered hard towards 'distressed', which was more than enough. "Yeah, thought so," Yayaka sighed.

Stricken, Cocona took a step forward, one hand clenched to her breast. "Yayaka, please. W-We can- you don't-"

"Lock."

Pink rings made out of energy abruptly blinked into existence around Cocona's wrists and ankles, and the girl that Yayaka had surrendered to - Nanoha, wasn't it? - floated down on wings of pink energy, her expression open and almost pleading.

Before she or Yayaka could say anything, Cocona turned her head in Nanoha's direction. "Stay out of this," she veritably snarled. Yayaka shuddered; it just sounded wrong, coming from her friend.

"I'm sorry, I can't," Nanoha said, sounding apologetic. "We need her to tell us where the Staff of Solomon is. It's very dangerous! Maybe afterward-"

"I don't care," Cocona shot back. "I'm taking Yayaka back, I'm not waiting, and nothing you say is going to change that." Her butterfly-wing sword flashed into her hand, and with a flare of her power, the rings holding her collapsed into pink shards.

"Wait-!" Nanoha cried out, throwing her free hand out, and then Cocona was on her, sword buried into a wall of runes, her friend's momentum carrying both combatants away from the ridge Yayaka was still sitting on.

Shifting her position again, Yayaka shuffled herself around to watch where the two had gone. As much as she didn't want anyone to get hurt in this whole plan, this fight was just too juicy to resist. And, well, Nanoha had shot her and Cocona was being a stubborn idiot again. There was perhaps a little vindictive pleasure motivating her.

~o~

Gritting her teeth, Cocona pushed harder on her sword, trying to break through the barrier that had blocked her initial strike. Sadly, it stubbornly refused to go any deeper. Switching tactics, she tried to pull back, only to find her sword outright stuck in the barrier. Oh, and the other girl's staff was now glowing with the same pink energy all her techniques seemed to have.

"Oh dear," Cocona breathed, right before Nanoha shouted "Smash!" and swung the energy blast right into Cocona's face.

It was like getting hit with one of Mimi's old constructs. Cocona went flying into the canopy below, crashing through trees and then hitting the ground and skidding. Planting a hand, she flipped back onto her feet, head on a swivel looking for the other girl.

"Barrel Shot."

Once again, her whole body froze up. It was becoming very annoying. Slowly, she turned her head around; naturally, the pigtailed girl had her staff aimed at Cocona and was charging up another pink attack. It was actually rather distressingly large.

"My name is Nanoha Takamachi!" she called out. "Please, just tell me what's going on!"

"I told you!" Cocona shouted back, straining at her bonds. No dice. "I'm taking back Yayaka, no matter what you say!"

The girl's - Nanoha's - expression turned stricken, and she closed her eyes. "Then I'm sorry," she said. "But I can't let you do that. DIVINE! BUSTER!"

Faced with a tree-sized beam of pink energy bearing down at her, Cocona flared her power in a desperate attempt to break the invisible bind holding her, much like the first. It worked, but she didn't have time to do anything other than catch the beam on the flat of her blade. The force of the impact rocked her back on her heels, and she was unable to re-anchor enough to stop the continued pressure from sending her skidding back. Gritting her teeth, she flooded the sword with power and swung.

"Grah!"

The swing scattered the beam to the winds. It did nothing for the five energy balls that swooped in after and smacked into her, one on the cheek and the other four to the torso. But her Henshin shrugged it off, and, already off her feet, she shot into the air, unwilling to just stand there and be shot at.

As expected, Nanoha shot up after her, and with surprising speed, too. But that speed actually worked against her; almost before her opponent had even cleared the canopy, Cocona flipped in mid-air and soared down at her, sword held back.

Eyes wide, Nanoha yelped "Protection!", also frantically hitting the brakes.

Cocona's sword slammed into the barrier and, in a burst of blue energy, shattered it. Unfortunately, it also bounced Cocona and her sword back, the latter leaving the blade temporarily out of position. In a sudden burst of speed Nanoha opened the distance again and fired off another salvo of those pink balls. These, at least, were quickly chopped up and dispersed.

There was a pause in the battle as the two combatants floated in the air and stared at each other, each assessing their next move. Cocona, for her part, was growing increasingly frustrated with the whole affair. Oh, if only Papika were here; she was the long-range combatant, not her, and even if she couldn't match Nanoha in an artillery duel she would at least create an opening for Cocona to get in close.

'Though, who says I can't borrow a page from her playbook?' she mused, clenching her free hand into a fist.

Well, that answered the question of what to do when she closed in, but not the how of closing in. Then again, she only needed one opening and had created several herself already...

~o~

Nanoha, too, was considering her next move. The blue-haired girl fought similarly to Fate and Vita, in that all three were melee-oriented aerial fighters, but her opponent had neither Fate's speed and ranged ability nor Vita's skill and tendencies for sharp bursts of destruction. No, she was straightforward, direct, and had enough baseline brute force to make it work.

'Well, I'm just going to have to try harder, won't I?'

The blue-haired girl seemed to make a decision and charged straight at her, and Nanoha settled on a plan. If Divine Buster wasn't enough, she had stronger attacks, but with how easily the girl had broken her Shoot Barrel, she needed to make her not expect that. And the best way to do that… well, much melee action was involved.

'Oh, I'm probably going to regret this…'

It took some fighting, but Nanoha shoved down her first instinct to scoot and shoot away from her opponent's charge. Instead, she hovered in the air, letting a bit of mana leak out of Raising Heart in a display of pink light. Closer… closer… closer…

The blue-haired girl was close and rearing back her sword when Nanoha blurred into another Flash Move, one that took her right behind her opponent.

'Yes!'

Swinging Raising Heart like a club, Nanoha slammed the Device square between the blue-haired girl's shoulder blades. At which point it exploded. In pink, of course.

As expected, that did little other than annoy her opponent, who swung around and tried to chop her head off. Nanoha threw out her hand, conjuring up another Holding Shield, a stronger Cross Smasher than her first charging up. The sword stuck fast in the barrier, as expected.

What was not expected was the girl's free hand suddenly glowing blue and then smashing into the shield, shattering it. Stunned, Nanoha was wide open for the sword strike that slammed into her barrier jacket, cleaving right through the protections. It would have gone further if not for a quick Reactor Purge and an immediate dive for the deck.

"Okay, definitely stay out of melee range," Nanoha muttered, her barrier jacket re-forming. Glancing up, she yelped and banked hard left as a blue meteor slammed into the dirt. A panicked Divine Shooter splashed harmlessly off the blue aura, Nanoha clawing for more distance. But that willful disregard for any form of dodging, combined with the rest of their fight, was exactly what she had been aiming for.

Spinning around, she shouted "Wide Area Protection!" and came to a halt. The butterfly girl, once again charging straight in, slammed into the barrier and bounced clean off. Nanoha took advantage of the brief moment of disorientation to quickly fire off another Restrict Lock.

"Load cartridge!" she barked, two ramming home. A distinctive Mid-Style circle sprang to life in front of Raising Heart, one that would've sent most of her comrades diving for cover had they been there. Outside, the blue-haired girl once again shattered the binds holding her and held her sword in front of her, looking grimly determined to meet her attack head on.

Good.

"EXELION!" Nanoha declared. She never got to finish the attack. Hibiki suddenly jumped in front of it, arms flung wide, prompting her to hastily abort the spell, and through the mana haze she could see someone restraining the blue-haired girl from behind.

"Hibiki, what's going on!" she asked, bewildered, also dismissing her Wide Area Protection.

"Cocona, stop!" came a new voice from where the blue-haired - no, Cocona - was. "Stop fighting! It's not going to bring Yayaka back!"

"Papika, let go of me!"

"Uh, so, Cocona - that's the one you were fighting - had a friend," Hibiki explained, jabbing a thumb at the struggling girl. Nanoha looked over the newcomer, noting the long red hair and similar outfit. "And, well, she was supposed to stop me and Chris, but she just wanted to talk! So we were gonna talk, and then we saw your fight."

"Yeah!" piped up a smiling Papika, probably the new friend Hibiki was referring to. "We're all good guys here, aren't we?"

"They want to take Yayaka away!" Cocona insisted, and it was at this that Nanoha finally lowered Raising Heart. There was just a bit too much of Precia in those desperate eyes.

"Only for a little bit," she explained. "We just need her to tell us where the Staff is, and we can…" She paused, frowning in thought. "Well, I'm sure Mr. Genjuro could figure out something."

"Heheheh," Hibiki chuckled. "Yeah, probably. He did it for Chris, didn't he?"

Nanoha frowned. "Speaking of which, where is Chris?"

~o~

"You can put the gun away," Yayaka sighed, still sitting on the patch of rough ground Cocona had so rudely dumped her on. "I'm not going to try and escape."

"Yeah, I'm not taking that chance," Chris replied, pressing her pistol a little closer to Yayaka's scalp.

Another sigh escaped her lips. And then an idea came to her…

"Look, I wasn't gonna say anything, but the touchy-feely routine is getting a bit old," Yayaka casually stated. "I don't swing that way, y'know?"

When instead of a sputtered denial a predatory smirk spread across Chris' face, like a fox in a henhouse, Yayaka came to the conclusion that she might have made a tactical error. That 'might' was upgraded to a 'HELL YES!' when Chris leaned in, ran a finger down Yayaka's neck, and blew away.

"Noodles are straight, too, before you get them wet," she purred sultrily.

'Bad touch, bad touch!'

Yayaka was beaten to scrambling away by Chris pulling away herself, still grinning but now in victory. "Sorry, kid, but you're a thousand years too early to try and compete with me in this arena."

Shuddering, Yayaka favored her captor with an annoyed glare. 'You win this round…'

~o~

"Oh, good," Nanoha sighed, reaching up and rubbing the back of her head. "To be honest, I'd kinda forgotten about her… Nyahahaha…"

"Anyway…" Hibiki turned back to Cocona and Papika, expression hopeful. "Is that okay? We really do need to talk to her."

Cocona's defiant expression remained a moment longer, then she sighed and relaxed. "Papika, you can let go of me now," she said.

Papika shook her head, shifting from holding Cocona under her arms to around her chest. "Don't wanna!"

Another sigh was accompanied by an eye-roll, albeit a fond one. "Fine. Anyway, if you're bringing Yayaka to your headquarters, I'm coming too." Her expression hardened. "If you mistreat her in any way, or that commander of yours isn't as nice as he says he is…"

"Aww, you're cute when you're trying to be threatening, Cocona," Papika cooed. Cocona promptly went beet red and cradled her head in her hands. "But anyway, takoyaki! Ta-ko-ya-ki, ta-ko-ya-ki, ta-ko-ya-ki!"

"Um…" Nanoha raised a questioning finger.

"Oh, Papika offered to talk it out over takoyaki," Hibiki explained, shrugging. "I think we should do it! It's going to take a while for headquarters to send another helicopter out, and Chris is the one in communication, so that's going to take even longer-."

"That sounds great!"

"Takoyaki does sound good," Cocona admitted.

"Yay, takoyaki!"

"Um, excuse me?"

While Papika continued celebrating, everyone else turned to the pilots, who had apparently just been sitting there, watching.

"Can we come with you?" the pilot said.

The girls shared a look, and then said "Sure!", all in unison.

AN: Man, I'm cranking these out, aren't I? Probably because they're fairly short. Next one will be longer, if my current draft is any indication. That chapter will be an interlude chapter, where I share backstory stuff that I'm not able to fit into the narrative. This one should be... informative.