Warm afternoon sunlight, speckled lightly with random bits of dust floating in the air, streamed in through twenty arched windows. Each of those windows was at least thirty feet in height and framed in white stone. The panes themselves were absolutely clear and let the light bathe the large and airy chamber those windows watched over. Inside that stone walled room was a group of seven men and one woman, each wearing red cassocks and around each of their necks hung a jeweled pendant, each of a different color. Those people, each clearly old in years, sat around a highly polished, round table set in the middle of a tiled floor which gleamed in the sunlight. The mood in the room however was much darker than the scene implied.
"What do you mean they've scattered!" High Vicar Stonetree growled irritably at the other assembled personages of the Council.
"It's exactly like I just told you," another man responded with the barest minimum of the courtesy required for Stonetree's position. He was Vicar Thornhollow, the current head of the Inquisition and unofficially second in political power. He sat ninety degrees to Stonetree's right. "We hit the island as hard as we could, but they must have had an ear somewhere here in the Walled City. They knew we were coming so they fled. Many ran through the open Doors, but most managed to disperse here in this world. Those that fled through the Dimension Doors were successfully executed by the deployed extermination teams. All of the relics and stolen Kafig Soldaten were successfully recovered. Finding the ones that fled here isn't all that important anyways. They will just be taken care of in the Cleansing."
"That's true," Stonetree acknowledged, now much calmer. "But having a few ten thousand men or so less to deal with would make that task slightly easier. What about the search?"
"The fodder has been getting chopped up almost as fast as we send them through," Said another man sitting directly across from Stonetree. His withered, white haired visage belied the steel within him. Vicar Mountainrun was the current head of the Temple intelligence network. He was in charge of the probing attempts they had been making against the Apostate's world. "No sign of Him has appeared yet. The teams are all getting picked off by groups of other magic users. Some of those are quite powerful in their own right, but they are nothing compared to what records say the Apostate could wield. We have generated an enormous number of provocations and slaughters against the lost population, but he hasn't shown up to defend them."
"Perhaps he is no longer there," Stated the lone woman on the council. Tradition and scripture demanded that there always be one woman the council, Vicar Bloodreed made that edict difficult to follow most of the time, but her blunt personality hid her inner intelligence beneath it. She was a distinctly older woman in her later years with straw colored hair that looked bleached from age. She headed the ministry in charge of researching and developing magic. "He is known, at least in the records we have, of being unpredictable. Maybe he no longer cares about that world."
"It would be a happier thing to find him already dead and in the ground," Thornhollow groused. "If he is not there any longer, than we can wipe the unclean from that world and take it for ourselves to do with as wish. The Emperor obviously wanted something from it so there is something of value to be had."
"Tsch, how likely is that?" scoffed the Vicar of Finance. "According to all reports, that world is already heavily exploited. We would simply be picking through the scraps of the lost."
"They didn't send Admiral Ravant and our traitors there for no reason at all," Stonetree pointed out.
"I may have an idea," Mountainrun answered with a raised finger to get the others attention. "From the answers we have garnered through interrogations of captured Imperial soldiers, I have a rough outline of their objectives. I believe their goal was the lost themselves."
"What?" Thornhollow demanded. "What would they want with them?"
"They seek to break our hold on magic," Mountainrun responded ominously. "They pointed the destination for the Doors at places were they found that a large concentration of magically strong individuals lived. They were going to take an enormous number of them and bring them here to be interbred among those under the Emperor's control. They wanted to breed magic users that they could use against us."
"Wouldn't that take generations to exploit?" Stonetree argued. "They would have to somehow raise and train those eventual offspring when they have no magic users to do so."
"They probably planned to steal some of our instructors and force them to do it," Bloodreed interjected. "They have become remarkably free with that tactic of late."
"There were other benefits to the plan as well," Mountainrun added. "All the locations were in areas containing people with high levels of education and technology. I believe one location contained a research center for developing better crops. Even without gaining magic, they would have gained much to help retain the Emperor's power.
"Well, that doesn't matter too much now," Stonetree said, getting back on track. "If the Apostate is not there or no longer cares about what happens to that world, then we are free to move forward unhindered. Are the Swords ready to begin?"
"They can move at a moments notice," Thornhollow responded proudly. "I have two companies ready to move on the Imperial city along with almost all four thousand of our remaining Kafig Soldaten. I'll only be keeping back the ones being used in the Temple defense squads. We've also managed to get a couple of the stronger Relics moving again. The God-Kings have truly shown their favor for this endeavor."
"That's good news," Stonetree smiled as he touched his hand to his pendant out of reflex at the mention of their Holy Lords. "What about the force to attack and cleanse the other world?"
"Still forming for now, but I will be sending one of my bishops through early with a few of the stronger priests and their men to guard the gateway until we are ready. While we are on this topic however, I would like to ask permission for another, related task I would like to undertake."
"Oh?" All the other Council members sat a little more attentively at hearing that there might be something new up for discussion.
"Holiness, my men have found the Admiral and the traitors he has enlisted for their profane efforts," Thornhollow gave a confident grin. "I ask for permission from the council to send the appropriate execution force for their sins."
This caused a general susurration of lowly spoken comments to ripple across the table. The traitors were a sore subject with all of them. None wanted to let those that had turned their backs on the Temple to escape its justice. Those men had injured the pride of powerful people when they escaped to the Emperor with their knowledge and training.
"Council, do you approve of this motion?" Stonetree asked. "Shall we allow the Inquisition to punish these men?"
As powerful edicts commanded for council votes, each man and woman placed their palms flat onto the table and sent into it a flow of magic containing their answer. Once all eight Vicars had done this, the table's surface rippled once before a large black sigil arose as if floating up from the bottom of a lake to the surface of the table. It was one of only four possible responses the table was capable of producing.
"It has been approved," Stonetree said with a small smile. "Vicar Thornhollow, you may deliver the Temple's punishment as you have requested. Do not fail in this task." It was a ritual ending to any vote made by a member of the Council who had requested something, but all knew it could be strictly enforced at times.
"Now then," Stonetree said. "Let's move onto some of the more normal business.
******
Stonetree watched the beautifully polished bronze door shut behind the last departing Vicar and he let out a great sigh. He had been feeling his years more often of late, and the session had gone on longer than usual thanks to the added topic of the coming wars. It was something that absolutely had to be done, but it was no less tiring because it was so.
He would not let age and fatigue to cause him to fail. Hirtolia was a withering and dying civilization and he intended to cut off the infected and useless parts that were dragging down the healthy portion. Like the draining of a cyst, it was a painful, disgusting and often messy task, but not doing so would only aggravate the problem further.
The Emperor's mad plan to bring the lost here so he could make his own magic users would have been like deliberately giving an obese man a serious disease in order to help him lose weight. Either way you would lose. And the idea of letting the Emperor and his followers anywhere near magic always stuck in his craw. It was bad enough the Temple still sent out goods to the other cities and that they had been letting the stolen armor and weapons slide for over a decade. Now they had the justification to eliminate the entire Imperial government and to bring the entire world under the Temple's rightful control.
He heard the door click open again and when he looked over a plainly dressed man in a gardener's smock and trousers walked in. He was the exact same man who had reported to him the doings of the Emperor on his island property. He had been dressed as an inquisitor then, but it was the man's task to switch roles as needed. He was in reality, Stonetree's personal spymaster.
"Well Gardener," Stonetree said with amusement. "What is our favorite crackpot potentate up to now?"
"Quite predictably, he is shoring up the defenses around the Imperial city and the Palace. It appears he has gotten his greedy hands on a warding generator or two to assist in this task. The Palace is now shut tighter than it has ever been. There are layers of barriers and shields in place now that will be tough, but not at all impossible to crack."
"Odious man!" Stonetree complained aloud. "I wouldn't be surprised to find he's been stealing our underwear next. This is annoying news, but it's not outside of our planned possibilities. What about the general populous?"
"Conditions continue to worsen," the man said quietly. "Food production has gone up slightly, but there is just no way to move it into the cities fast enough. People also refuse to move out into the rural areas to take up farming. Neither we nor the Emperor has had any more success in that area. Disease has also increased along with general lawlessness. Many of the relatively rich have been gathering their families into closed and walled compounds to protect themselves from everyone else."
"A bunch of idiot they are," he sighed. "This is why they must all disperse or die. They are just sitting there, rotting in the cities, unwilling to help themselves. They will soon find themselves dead or thoroughly disabused of their current plans. Is there anything else I didn't ask about?"
"No, Holiness."
"Then go ahead and be about your work."
******
Grand Bishop Harian, leader of an inquisitorial punishment force, breathed deep as soon as he stepped through the portal to the apostate world. Beneath his feet crunched the gravel and stone that had once been part of a road and the buildings nearby before the explosion caused by the extermination squad had reduced it to this state. As he looked about, everything was destroyed. In the evening light, buildings that hadn't fallen in the initial blast sagged and gaped, their horrible wounds almost too much to bear. In all, he felt a sense of satisfaction.
Long ago this world had caused his plenty of trouble, so now the Temple would return that and then some. As he walked into the ruined remnants of a city, his men scurried about, preparing for their given task. Some continued to come running through the portal. They had to hurry to secure the area before those strange magic users showed up to hinder them.
He felt a deep tremor in the ground through his thick protective boots and he turned back to regard the portal. Through it came four enormous, wheeled vehicles. They stood much taller than his above average height and bore the strange markings that all Relics possessed. As soon as the massive machines were clear, they drove outwards a short ways and came to a stop. Four needle-like tines, each almost 2 feet long, extended upwards from each of their roofs. Deep within his chest he felt a shivering as powerful magic was awoken and within those spikes light coalesced. When it had grown to an almost inconceivable level, to the point where he was sure the vehicles would have to explode, the energy lashed out in bubbles of tenuous light strands. After another moment, those faded away as the barriers settled into place.
Those things would certainly keep anyone from interfering he thought as he turned back to watching his men. In total there were just over four thousand of them. Each had proven his loyalty to the Temple and to the Bishop himself. Now they were here for the important task of punishing those traitors who had turned away from the correct path.
Moving among them, he chivied them into order. He checked and doubled checked everything and when he was done, row after row of proud, disciplined men stood before him. Bowing his head before the assembled men, he touched his hand to the Sword attached to the neck of his armor. As one, the men did the same.
"Punishment Force Seven," he intoned in his rich, deep, tenor. "The council has given us the will of the God-Kings. Under my command we shall carry out our given task. We dare not fail in this task. Will you attend to this duty with pride in your hearts and anger in your sword?"
"Yes, Holy Bishop, this task is ours. By the command of the God-Kings, so shall it be," came the rumble of four thousand voices.
Raising his helmeted head, Harian surveyed his men just once more. Then he nodded in satisfaction. All was in readiness. "Teleport teams, man your places," he commanded. As soon as his command had left his mouth, ten teams of four men each gathered around their team leaders. The leaders all raised into the air, a ten foot long staff with golden metal at one end. They grounded the plain end to the gravel and their teams cast their power to them. The golden end split into two parts and rings of magical power pulsed around them. After a minute of this an enormous magic circle glowed into existence beneath the feet of the entire force of men.
"We are ready, Bishop," called one team leader.
"Then take us to the enemy. We have the work of the Gods to do today."
Light enveloped them all and when it cleared, only the shield trucks and their guards remained behind.
******
Nanoha knew she couldn't have been asleep for very long when the she and Fate were awoken by the blare of an alarm. It's unwelcome noise intruded upon the darkness of the cabin they had been given, but a wave of hand and a mental command silenced it.
"What's going on now?" she asked as she sat up. Next to her Fate was already standing to get back into uniform.
"Another transference through the gate ma'am," came the response from the comm. officer she knew had been waiting for her and Fate. She appreciated his tactfulness of not opening a communication window. "It's a big one this time. Before a wide area barrier was put into place we detected the arrival of a large number of men. A few even appear to have considerable personal power this time."
Nanoha sighed and looked over to Fate with a small smile. "I guess it was a little to much to hope that the enemy would be willing to give us a night's rest."
"How do you know it's even night on the other side of that gate?" Fate countered with a smile to match hers. "Now hurry up and get dressed. You can't go out half dressed."
"Hai hai," Nanoha yawned as she stood to obey.
Once they were back in uniform, the exited the cabin together to gather some enforcers to go investigate the newest incursion.
******
"Hi!"
Alice blinked once, and then a second time. It didn't make what sat on the rusty foot railing of their bed disappear as it should. There, only a few inches from her and Azusa's feet was a tiny woman. The girl's flowing, baggy tan pants and loose white shirt shifted as she absently kicked her sandal clad feet and her long, dark blue hair hung down loosely like an ocean wave caught in time. She had naturally tanned skin and a very pretty, if very tiny, face with very expression filled eyes. She had one arm raised in a cheerful wave to accompany her greeting. When she dropped it she cast an amused, mock glare at Azusa.
"What do you mean I'm 'sort of' a person?"
"I…uhm," Azusa stammered a flustered reply. "Well, you're just so…very small. I didn't think you were real until Alice saw you too."
"Heh, of course I'm real!" the small woman laughed. "I'm talking to you aren't I?"
Ignoring the few remaining aches from her still healing wounds, Alice rolled forward onto her knees and then leaned forward again so that her face was a foot away from the little person. Raising a curious hand she reached to touch her with a finger.
"Hey! Stop that!"
Alice jerked her hand back in surprise and sat on her bottom again. Her finger had passed right through the tiny woman and a sharp tingle had traveled up her arm. Somehow she knew she had been feeling magic, and not her own.
"Alice!" Azu said in a reprimanding tone. "That was rude. What if you had hurt her? She's too small to just poke your finger at."
"Uh, sorry," Alice said with a chagrined nod to both her friend and their odd visitor. "I just wanted to make sure I was really seeing this."
"I don't see what there is to be so skeptical about," the girl huffed. "You two can both use magic, so why is it hard to believe I'm real?"
"We've just never seen a girl that was only six inches tall before," Azu smiled gently. "So who are you?"
At this question the girl grinned openly. "My name is Lushia, and I am the contingency plan that will deal with this little problem Earth is having at the moment. I am here to carry out the last commands of my late Master to that effect."
"Contingency plan? Do the problems you're referring to mean these invaders from the other world?" Azusa asked.
"Yes, a contingency plan," Lushia said proudly. "And they are from just one of literally countless worlds; there isn't just one of them out there."
"What else have they been doing?" Alice said. "We saw their failed invasion."
Lushia shook her head, "That was just the small force under the Emperor's command. Now it will be the more powerful Temple running things and they are a far more unpleasant group." She flipped a hand up and both Alice and Azusa blinked as several screens appeared in mid air supported by nothing. In each they saw craters and other assorted damaged from powerful explosions. Every second or so the images would change to show another devastated location. "This was what the Emperor's men did here on earth. The same day you were captured the Admiral ordered this attack to destabilize the earth and all the governments on it so that they wouldn't be able to interfere with any kind of cohesion when their forces came through. As you can see, losses are already extremely high."
Alice felt the blood drain from her face and a chill went through her as a low roll of ominous thunder sounded from outside the building. She hoped and prayed her father was alright, a lot of the images were of military installations. "How do you know that? Were you watching us?"
"In a way, yes," Lushia replied. "I'm definitely not here by coincidence. I was awoken from stasis for stopping this very occurrence and I need help to do so. So I came here."
"Does that mean someone foresaw this happening and left you in place to deal with it?" Azusa asked.
"Yes," Lushia nodded, pleased that they understood. "My late Master did indeed foresee a need for a day like today."
Alice frowned at that. "Can you tell us why this is happening at all? And who is this Master anyways?"
"Those questions are closely intertwined," Lushia answered. "But I don't mind telling you.
Lushia hopped off the rail and instead of going through the bed like Alice expected since her finger had earlier, Lushia landed lightly on the sheet and it depressed beneath her small weight. Then she sat down and leaned back comfortably.
"I'll just start at the beginning," Lushia smiled.
After clearing her throat unnecessarily, Lushia started her tale at the same time as rain began to pour down outside.
*
"I'm not sure about the exact date, but well over a thousand years ago my master lived on another world. This world, whose name he never told me, was extraordinarily advanced in terms of both technology and magic. They could perform miraculous and horrifying feats in their daily lives that most people today would shudder to see.
"My master however was a terminal paranoiac. I don't know his exact status, but he was high up in that world's society. For some reason he never explained in detail to me he decided that his world was going to destroy itself. Without explaining anything to his peers, he built a powerful and well equipped ship and used it to flee into the inter-dimensional sea. "
"At first he traveled most at random, never settling down anywhere in particular. But then something terrible happened. His paranoia about the death of his home world proved true. This tragedy shook him greatly. Its one thing to predict the end of the world because of vices you alone see before you, but to actually see it happen as you predicted was a terrifying thing for him. The destruction of his world occurred on such a massive scale that even now you can't find it. My master believed that it tore itself out of the fabric of reality and ceased to exist, leaving only pieces behind."
"After his world's death, my master made his way into this part of the multi-verse. He enjoyed it because it was sparsely populated and none of those worlds within it were home to magic users. Eventually he made his way here to Earth and found that he liked the place. Hiding his true nature, he walked among the people here and decided to make it his new home. In particular he liked the people in what is still called the East. He spent most of his time among the peoples of China, South-East Asia and Japan.
"The only problem he saw was that there were people here attempting to use magic. Their attempts were fumble footed, crude and backwards by his standards, but it unnerved his paranoia nonetheless. So he decided to do something to prevent magic from growing on this world."
"You'll have to believe me when I say this, but my Master was a horrendously powerful man magically speaking. Like a lot of his people, my late Master could do things with magic that is now only dreamed of. With this power and the minor assistance of the powerful generators and computers he had aboard his ship, he spent a long two years crafting an enormous seal onto this world and hid it on the moon. He also spent a few years adding other supporting magics that were not explained to me, but the main one was that seal. It prevented anyone on Earth from triggering their inborn magical abilities on their own."
"Unfortunately for my Master however, his paranoia never really calmed down despite these efforts. So he decided that he would only stay awake for a couple years at a time and that he would sleep in a magical stasis between those periods. This he thought, would keep anyone from learning who he was and trying to get at his magic."
"During one of these periods of wakefulness, several centuries after he started skipping through time, my Master, as he was wont to do when his curiosity grabbed him, visited some of the other worlds in the general vicinity of this one. On one of those, in a place name Belka, he found me. At the time he visited Belka, they were in the middle of a rather vicious and bloody war of unification. To my Master's disgust he found that the Belkans were using remnants of his dead home world in their efforts to slaughter and destroy each other. When he found such things he ruthlessly destroyed them. The exception was when he found me."
"I am what is usually called an intelligent device. A construct and artificial intelligence designed to aid and improve upon the natural abilities of a knight, what you would call a mage. Devices are powerful computers given a type of sentience. I was an experiment to create a whole new kind of device called Unison devices which were supposed to be an even closer joining of master and device. I was deemed a failure."
"As you saw, I only have an odd kind of physical form like this. The later designs were supposed to get real, semi-biological bodies, but I was made like this. I was given master after master, but they didn't care for the results they got from those experiments, so they planned to have me broken down and destroyed."
"But then, happily, my Master showed up at the lab because he detected the technology it held, some of which had apparently come from his world. As he laid about destroying the place, he found and then chose to rescue me. A choice as you can understand, I am extremely grateful for this."
"When the two of us left Belka and returned to Earth, my Master failed to notice that he had been tailed by a group of powerful Belkan nobles who had become outcasts after their bid for power had been repulsed. They followed on their ship and found this sector of the multi-verse and decided that they liked that there was no one here that had the strength to oppose them. They picked the lightly populated world of Hirtolia as their target."
"At the time, Hirtolia was barely inhabited at all and its resident population was barely above the hunter-gatherer level in any place you looked. Seeing such primitive and also extremely superstitious people with no way to defend themselves, those Belkan nobles moved in. Once there, they arrived in such an awesome display of power that the people of the time thought they must be gods. The Belkans liked that notion so they ran with it all they way. Within a couple of years that entire planet was convinced that they were gods given mortal shells and that those gods had arrived to improve their lives."
"Those conquering nobles completely warped the natural growth of civilization on that world. They quickly set about creating cities and the like and building temples to themselves along with all the modern conveniences they wanted. When the formerly high mortality rate of infants dropped massively under their rule, the population of Hirtolia exploded. Before they had been used to having only one or two of eight or more births surviving past the age of three, but then suddenly they had modern medicine given to them by the auto-medic machines aboard the Gods' ship. This caused a desire by the Belkans to expand their rule, so they created even more cities and created a puppet Emperor to rule the people so they didn't have to do it on a day-to-day basis themselves."
"But then, after almost a century of exploitation, they remembered my Master. They came here and their arrival triggered the wards my Master had in place which woke him from his sleep. They entreated upon him to do the same here that they were doing on Hirtolia and join them in their delusions of godhood. Master was disgusted by the notion and told them to leave and not to pester him about it. So they left."
"But they didn't stay gone. They were not content with ruling one world. They convinced their world's inhabitants that the ones living here on Earth were devils and heretics serving an evil lord. They raised armies and tried to invade this world. Unfortunately for them, my master was still a paranoiac. He had created hair trigger wards and displacement barriers that quickly shoved the invaders into a safe and empty pocket space. The rank and file soldiers thought that space really was this world so they tried to set about destroying it. Instead, my master collapsed the pocket space with them inside, shoving them all into the harsh and immediately deadly realm on dimensional space. Tens of thousands died in an instant."
"Angered by this failure and afraid of the display of power my Master had shown them, the pretending Gods riled up their people even further and created a Holy Temple for the purpose of 'cleansing' this world and theirs of those that didn't believe in the God-Kings. Thousands of eager priests and what have you, tried to cross over to Earth and be the ones to accomplish this task. Some came when my master was in a sleep cycle and tried to set up families here to oppose him. They caused a lot of ruckus and even managed to steal a portion of my Master's ship that he had detached and landed on earth for his own use. The descendants of these are the ones that caused all the damage a few days ago. "
"My master was so angered by what he considered to be an intrusion upon his peaceful life here that he finally decided to do something about it. He brought the war to the Belkans and showed them the true extent of his terrible power. His wrath was terrible because he was forced to go through all the Belkan's followers to get to them. In the end they did something both insidious and genius."
"Seeing their own defeat coming, the Belkan's took their own devices and wiped the intelligences from them. After this act they created new ones with their own voices and personalities embedded in them and created a Council of Vicars who would be their chosen 'vessels' when their mortal bodies died. These Vicars, who all now take the names of the original eight when they take office, believe that the voice coming from their devices really is that of one of the Gods."
"My master didn't know of this at them time, so he simply went about slaying them. One by one they fell in terrible battle. There are scars all over Hirtolia that still display the strength of the forces that were unleashed. The final battle however took place almost ten years after the first since the Belkan's spent a great deal of effort in running away. Then, with the nuisances gone, my Master returned to earth again."
"He continued to monitor Hirtolia after that and conditions became terrible almost immediately. Since most of the population had simply lived on the Belkan's handouts, they had little idea how to operate most of the technology and they had no idea at all of how to make more. The only real technology they managed to retain was mining since they had been forced to do that the hard way with manual labor. Most of the population was also still completely illiterate so those that did have knowledge had a terrible time trying to teach it. In the end the world split between those that wanted to follow the Emperors who claimed that they would find a new path for Hirtolia and the Temple which said that they would listen to the voices of the Gods that they'd been bequeathed and lead Hirtolia to a better future."
"My master didn't really care either way, so he made an effort to remove any memory of earth from the minds of Hirtolia's citizens. As you can see, he obviously failed to do so entirely. But that's why he left me. He knew he was a paranoiac with a bad habit of being right, so he left me behind to keep watch just in case, along with a few surprises if things get rough."
*
When Lushia finally finished her story, Alice just stared at the minuscule woman and the storm outside was in full swing and its sounds were for a moment, the only thing filling the room. It was as fanciful and bizarre a tale as she had ever heard. "You're saying that these people really think that the people of the earth are all followers of the enemy of their Gods?"
"For the most part, yes," Lushia nodded. "Especially the Temple, some of those folks are pretty zealous about it. The Emperor is more pragmatic about using this world, but he doesn't especially care what happens to its people because of this history."
"But what happened to this master of yours," Azu asked. "Is he asleep again or something?"
"Nope!" this time Lushia laughed. "Something happened that I had warned him about for years. He fell in love with some high born girl in China and decided to marry her. To prevent himself from fleeing back into stasis and running away from the girl, he smashed the tank and sealed the room against himself. That was when he put me in charge of the contingency plans. After that he just lived out the rest of his years with that woman and ignored almost everything else."
"So…what now?" Alice asked. "Why are you here with us in this room?"
"Because of what started to happen fifty years ago," Lushia answered promptly. "That was when the seal on the earth started to unravel. That unraveling triggered my awakening early and I watched as it continued to deteriorate. A decade or so ago there were a number of powerful mages who awoke to their powers here and their battles did even more damage to the seal as well as the actions of another group of mages I've been watching who have been visiting Earth and its environs quite often of late. Just over a month ago however, the seal and its protective fields finally collapsed."
"That was when my magic suddenly became easier to use," Alice noted. "Is that why?"
"Yes, before then the seal, weak as it was, tried to do its job and hindered you. I felt you and this girl here, whose magic had also grown then, as well as many of the children they've gathered here. And then to my horror I found that I had somehow missed the arrival of the Emperor's men. But now I'm going to execute the task I was commanded to do."
"And you can do that here?" Azu asked.
"Yes!" Lushia said, clapping her hands once delightedly. "The requirements I was given was to find and choose as my new master, the strongest Earth-born mage I could find who wasn't already aligned with another power. There are several mages who are a great deal stronger than you two on the earth, but those are already fighting against the Temple alongside that organization I mentioned before and they already have devices, so that leaves you two as my candidates."
Alice felt her eyebrows try to climb into her hair and Azu looked equally dumbfounded. "You want one of us to become you new master?"
"Yep," Lushia nodded energetically. "I can't use any of my higher functions without being bonded to a master. So I need one of you to fulfill that role. But the choice is quite obvious now that I've met you both in person and felt your powers," she paused to point at Alice. "It has to be you."
"Wait! Why me?" Alice asked, jerking backwards.
"Because," Lushia said, as if she were talking to a slow child. "Your magic is much more compatible with me then hers," she jerked a thumb at Azusa. "In overall strength, she beats you hands down, but her magic isn't oriented in the right manner to suit my nature. And she hasn't even developed her magic to even the very limited ability that you have."
"I don't think I mind not being chosen," Azusa laughed. "You can go ahead if you want to Alice."
"What?! Why do you think I want to?" Alice asked in puzzlement. "I don't even know what volunteering to this would entail. For all I know she needs my soul or something."
"Soul?" Lushia said. "Why would I need something like that? I just need someone to be my master, or mistress in this case, so that I can fight off the Hirtolians and if necessary, activate a number of contingency programs my late master left in place for me to use. As just a device I am unable to do so under my own authority."
Azusa raised one amused eyebrow at Alice, "I know you're thinking about doing it Alice. You're always talking about wanting to do something about this situation, and now you can. And you already know how to fight a little bit, so it wouldn't be too strange really. I think the role suits you."
"You really want me to do it Azu?" Alice asked.
"Uh-huh," Azusa nodded happily. "I've really been worried that you'd do something reckless and get hurt again, but now you can do it this way, it's safer. And besides, it sounds kind of cool doesn't it?"
Alice snorted a laugh at her friend. "I don't know how much rational thought there is in looking cool, but I admit that this sounds interesting. And I don't know what Juden plans on doing with us now that they're going to be on the losing side of a civil war. He could just decide to dispose of all of us girls to remove a hindrance for if they have to flee this place."
Azusa suddenly looked alarmed. "I forgot all about him! You don't think he'd just kill us all?"
Alice nodded grimly. "That's exactly what I think he'd do if it becomes necessary. Remember, he talked about doing dissections of other kids without any kind of remorse." Her mind suddenly filled with a vision of Ashley, the cute kid that had clung to her earlier, dead by Juden's hands. The idea of such a thing filled her with a protective anger like never before. There was no way she could let Ashley and the others meet such an end.
"I can agree to be your mistress under one condition," Alice said, looking to Lushia who'd been following their conversation from her place on the bed.
"Let me guess," Lushia said with a pleased smile. "You want to get the other kids to safety. Right?"
"Exactly."
"Then there's no problem at all," Lushia answered, standing back up on the bed. As she grinned, a particularly bright bolt of lightning crackled outside and bathed the room in harsh light. "I happen to dislike, from personal experience, the excesses done to subjects in experiments performed upon living things. I would be happy to help in this task."
"Great!" Alice said. "Then you've got yourself a mistress."
Azusa snorted and suddenly burst into giggling laughter.
"What?" Alice and Lushia asked almost as one.
"Nothing," Azu laughed. "It's just that you sounded kind of dirty when you said it that way, Alice."
Alice rolled her eyes in amusement. "The things I'm discovering about you Azu." She turned to Lushia. "So what do I do?"
"Not much really," Lushia grinned. She held out her tiny right arm and snapped her finger. The screens from before disappeared and two objects faded into view. One was an exquisitely faceted gem of the same dark blue as Lushia's hair. The other was a long ouroboros made of carved, jointed links of onyx. The serpent had a spherical jewel the same color as the other one attached to its tail and its tiny pointed jaws were clamped firmly onto it.
"What are these?" Azusa asked. "They're kinda pretty."
"That," Lushia pointed to the lone gem, "Is my primary intelligence core. The other one contains my secondary back-up as well as the rest of the device components. Now, Alice, I need you to lay flat on the bed."
Careful not to move her leg onto Lushia, Alice complied with the instruction.
"Now you, Azusa, I need you to stand behind her and hold her arms… well, her one arm down."
"What?" Azusa asked as she stood up. "Why?"
Lushia sighed dramatically. "As I told you, I was considered a failed prototype. One of the reasons was because the bonding process can be somewhat unpleasant. The other is because the bonding is permanent and can't be broken while the master is still alive. My last master wasn't a true one because he refused to bond to me because of that last reason. Most devices are not like this at all so my developers thought me to be a failure. I was too odd for them to accept."
"Eh, how unpleasant is it going to be?" Alice asked.
"Enough that you might try and tear me off," Lushia answered. "That's why your friend needs to keep your hand away until we're all done."
"Ok, so now what?"
"Unbutton the top part of your shirt; I need to be able to see the top part of your chest." Alice complied and when the metal of the punishment plate appeared Lushia glared at it. "What is that thing doing there?"
"Juden put it on me," Alice shrugged. "It's supposed to make me behave."
"Well, it's in my way," Lushia waved her hand at it and with the sound of a releasing suction cup, the plate pulled off her chest and was then flung aside where it tinged against the hard floor. "Now, Azusa, hold her down."
Alice looked up into Azusa's reassuring face as her friend placed her hands on her arms. After sharing a brief smile Alice looked back down herself to Lushia. The woman smiled and then floated casually into the air with her attendant objects in tow. She stopped directly above Alice's chest and looked down. She raised a questioning eyebrow and Alice nodded her readiness.
With a loud cry, Lushia raised one arm and then flung it downwards in a throwing gesture. The lone jewel flashed brightly and then shot into Alice's chest like a hurtling blue meteor. The impact shoved all the breath out of her lungs and a jolt like what Alice was sure a defibrillator felt like rippled through her body. She looked down as much as she could at her chest as a feeling like she was literally on fire began to spread. The feeling spread beyond her physical body and it felt like her very being was burning. She felt a lance of that heat travel to the place where her magic dwelt and the heat everywhere seemed to jump many times to the point that she was sure she'd turn to ash.
Instead, silvery metal grew out of the jewel imbedded in her chest until there were two tiny rays sticking out along her skin; one going up toward her throat and the other going down. They had a texture pattern reminiscent of feathers. The burning continued on and a fist of it slammed into her mind and seemed to scour her brain. It was as if every tiny shred of her existence was being gone over, cleansed, and then renewed. After that renewal there came a sense of no longer being alone in her body and mind.
"That's because you're not!" Spoke a voice that seemed to echo within her skull. "The bonding is complete. Now say the words."
Alice recognized Lushia's voice and she understood on a weird new level what her…partner…was requesting. Opening eyes she didn't remember closing, she stared into Lushia's small eyes. "Witch of the Infinite Chains, I am your Mistress and partner; awaken and join with me!"
Lushia's eyes flashed almost blindingly with the same light as Alice's magic and she spread her arms wide. An invisible vertical wind seemed to rip across the small woman's clothes and hair. "Mistress of the Sturm-Ketten, I am yours as partner and device. My power is yours." The jaws of the ouroboros opened and let go of the other jewel. Then it too shot downwards and Alice felt it slither quickly up the left arm under her shirt and coil around her forearm. It felt oddly natural and comforting to have it there. Then exactly as one, she and Lushia both took and released a breath.
Lushia grinned. "It's over," she spoke inside Alice's mind. "That wasn't really so bad was it?"
"No, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," Alice answered aloud and then grinned at Lushia's suddenly pouting face and a feeling of disappointment she felt radiating from the hot coal inside her mind that she knew represented Lushia. "Sorry, but talking to you inside my head would be rude to Azu." Thinking of her friend, Alice looked up and found the girl looking at her worriedly. "Something wrong?"
"Not any more," Azusa answered with small, relieved, smile. "You were screaming and squirming for so long that I was really worried about you. But Lushia kept saying that you were alright."
"Screaming?" Alice didn't remember doing that. "How long did it take?"
Azusa pointed at the window. Except for the flashes of lightning from the storm, it was almost completely dark already. That meant it had gone on for at least an hour for the sun to set below the mountains. She hadn't been aware of any of that passage of time. To her it seemed to have passed quickly.
"Well, I feel perfectly fine now," Alice said, sitting slowly uptight. "Thanks for looking out for me again. Do I look any different?"
"Hmmm, not really, except for that thing mounted in your chest of course, and that actually looks kinda cool," Azusa answered musingly. "Was she really talking to you in your head?"
"Telepathic communication is a basic skill of almost all mages," Lushia answered for her. "For Alice and I it takes even less effort to do so since there is literally no distance at all between us anymore. We are almost one being now. "
"Sounds nice," Azusa smiled pleasantly. "I think it would be interesting to try it, talking in my head I mean."
"Can I communicate with her like that?" Alice asked, pointing at Azusa.
"Probably," Lushia answered telepathically. "She is a mage too after all. You do it like this." Alice felt a flood of information flow into her mind. It was the exact method for communicating mentally with another mage. It contained all the instructions and math to make it work.
Following the given instructions from Lushia, she sent a tiny flow of her power to touch her mind. "Azu?" She asked hesitantly.
"Ahh! Alice? Was that you?" Azusa laughed, looking positively delighted. "You really did sound like you were inside my head!" She looked at Lushia. "Can I do it too?"
"If you managed to receive Alice's sending, than I don't see why not," Lushia shrugged amusedly, still floating in mid air. "I can teach you through Alice later after things are taken care of." She stopped and frowned over at Alice. "That's with your permission of course, since you now control me and the magic we wield."
"Why would I say no?" Alice laughed. "But later sounds good. What's next on the agenda?"
This brought the widest grin yet to Lushia's tiny face. She pointed to the Alice's arm and the thing coiled under her shirt. "We activate my device components properly. Then we can get you into the proper armor for a knight. You're not complete without it and I'd absolutely die of embarrassment if the first Belkan we met saw us so deprived. Right now you're practically naked!"
Alice smiled at the excitement she both saw and felt from the tiny girl. "Lushia, how probable is it that we'd run into anyone from your world here on Earth? And what do you mean by armor?"
"Hey, you never know who we might meet!" Lushia huffed disapprovingly. "And your armor is the basic and most important protection for any knight. Being a mage can be dangerous, so having your armor up is crucial in protecting yourself. Our auto-barriers can only do so much."
"Auto-barriers?"
"I'll explain later, but for now we need to get a move on and wake me up fully."
"And how do I do that?"
Lushia grinned again. "Simple, you're the Mistress of the Storm Chains now, so just command the device portion of me that's attached to your arm to awaken and I will do so. I would advise that you stand first though."
Nodding, Alice dismounted the bed and stood across the room from Azusa with the window behind her. Lushia moved to place herself in the air between them. Alice lifted her arm before her and when her sleeve dropped she could see the jeweled tail of the serpent sitting just behind her wrist. Feeling a little embarrassed at doing this in front of Azusa, she cleared throat and spoke clearly, "Storm Chain, awaken!"
The jewel immediately burst into light as well as the one in her chest. That light rushed out in a flash and seemed to blind her to anything else. She felt an inexplicable something extended toward that place where her power resided and for the first time, she was fully aware of it. She could feel now, exactly how much power she held within and it felt like an ocean containing the sun in its depths. More extensions felt down into her power and she felt it flow into Lushia and the thing on her wrist.
"Good!" Lushia spoke into her mind. "Your weapon is already done, so now we must build your armor. Give it form."
Still enveloped in the bright blue light that bathed and covered her, she did as Lushia asked within her mind's eye. The first thing that came to mind was the combat armor she had seen soldiers wear during exercises when she had visited her father on the base. She thought of the tough dark pants, loose to allow movement, the black Kevlar vests.
"Interesting," Lushia commented. "But do you mind if I make a few adjustments to make you more like a proper knight?"
"Go ahead," Alice responded.
The vision changed. First, a tight black material clung to her torso and extended down to her mid thighs. Then something like the Kevlar she had originally imagined formed but it was more like a jacket instead of a vest. It was still black but it was edged in silver and with silvery metal embedded in various locations. A black glove formed next and then from silver rings at the base of each finger, a covering of fine chain mail extended back over her hand and forearm. Her stump was also capped in black material. At her waist formed a long skirt made of black, silver edged panels set wide apart. Then another offset layer of these panels formed that covered the gaps but didn't seem to be attached to anything. Dark, well fitting boots formed on her legs and feet. A silver ribbon snared her black hair and tied it back. Finally, from each shoulder, a cape of extremely fine and tiny chain mail rolled down to her waist and moved as it was made of cloth instead of metal.
"Why the skirt and cape?" Alice asked.
"It's called a battledress," Lushia huffed. "And I like the cape; it gives you a more impressive image without sacrificing mobility. And I think it looks very distinguished."
"If you say so," Alice chortled. "I guess I can live with this for now, even if it looks a little anachronistic."
"Good, now give that image to the device part of me and it will take form on your body."
Alice found her new links with the device with hardly a thought and as she had been instructed she sent the image. Immediately the light suffusing her changed and flowed over her body like a liquid. Closing her eyes, she felt the prisoner garb dissolve to nothing while being replaced with something else. It only took an instant, but it seemed to go on forever. Then she felt the new material against her skin and she heard Azusa gasp. As the light faded away, she looked down and saw she was wearing exactly what had been in her mind.
"Well, how do I look?" she asked both of her audience members. She turned to give them a good look and the supple material felt like second skin while the coat looked protective and tough. The cape moved as if it weighed hardly anything at all. The only difference was that Lushia's gem pushed through the black material on her chest and glowed softly at the moment.
"I like it!" Azusa said excitedly and stepped forward quickly to touch her. Alice felt her hands feeling the material in various places in an extremely curious manner. When she touched the cape it caught the light and looked like Alice was wearing a cape made of mercury, the links were so small. "I think you look impressive and attractive at the same time. It's incredible!"
"That's exactly the response what I was going for!" Lushia enthused, happy that Azusa approved of the design. "And it's functional too. Alice could be fired out of a cannon right now without suffering undo harm I think."
"Whoa!" Alice took a step back. "Hold off on the cannons please. And speaking of weapons didn't you say I have one?"
"Of course! Every knight has a weapon! Just think about it and I will give it to you."
Alice tried sending a mental request, and demanded her weapon. Four glowing triangles instead of magic circles snapped open in the air near her feet, and then with a sharp, distinct rattle of metal on metal, four silvery lengths of chain as thick as her arm shot up in a blink, about four feet into the air and stopped. Defying gravity, they sat like posts of mirror shiny metal links, each was topped by a large, and sharp looking spike. The spikes were vaguely diamond shaped, but near their connection to the chain, the bottom two edges looked to have hollow slits. The chains didn't have a base; they just extended down into that spell form and disappeared.
"So my weapons are literally chains?" Alice mused aloud. "I thought I would get a spear or a sword or something."
"Yes, as our name implies, we are wielders of chains," Lushia said proudly. "And don't knock it yet, try asking me for a hand held weapon."
Frowning, Alice extended her hand out palm up, and sent that request to the device. Words floated up into her mind. "Trident Form!" she said, surprising herself with the firmness of the command. One of the chains snapped back instantly into the spell form. Right away another one formed near her hand as the first disappeared. A length metal shot out and she caught it instinctually. As soon as her hand closed on it, chains shot out from both ends. They stopped when the whole thing was about five feet long and each end had a pointed spike. She rotated the staff of frozen chains vertically and the top spike somehow split impossibly into the three wicked tines of a trident. Feeling that it was done, she tried to move it.
"It's a little too heavy to use with one hand," She commented absently as she tried to move the weapon through the spear and staff forms she had learned. She felt an acknowledgment from the device in her mind and the chains retracted until she held something more like a short, trident headed mace. It felt much better. "Thanks," she said and felt a happy reply from Lushia.
Lushia few an inspection-like circle around her while Azusa poked curiously at one of the still upright chains. The chain she touched didn't even budge an inch.
"Hmmm, not too bad," Lushia said when she was done. "You managed to manifest four of them. The loser guys they bonded to me in the lab when they made me could only produce one. And that staff is actually an important form since most Belkan magic, including my own, focuses on close combat for the most part."
"How do I control them?" Alice asked.
"With your mind, they are literal extensions of you and me. They will move as we will them to."
Alice focused on two of the chains and thought of them retracting back into whatever space they were coming out of. There was a moment of hesitation, but then after she firmed the thought, they snapped like the first had, back into their spell form almost too quick to even follow. Now she only had the one in her hand and the one Azusa was currently looking at.
"Azu, can you step back for a moment?" Azusa took her hand back off the chain and walked over till she was standing next to Alice.
"I think I'll be safer standing next to you while you experiment," Azusa laughed. "I don't want to be part of your learning experience, that spike is really sharp."
"Don't think too much Alice," Lushia instructed, flitting up to float next to Alice's head. "Soon you'll be able to move these without thinking about it all. Same as you would an arm or a leg. It will be come instinctual. Eventually you will react with them the same way you would move an arm to catch a ball that is thrown at you; with pure reflex."
Looking at the remaining upright chain, she thought about it moving around the room. It followed her mental commands as she thought them and soon she had the thing curling and snaking around the room. For some odd reason she found that it was impossible for the chain to get tangled. No matter how convoluted she made it move and intertwine, she could always make it straighten out again.
She tried using it like an animal's tentacle and slowly made it wrap around the legs of the bed they weren't using and then she lifted it into the air with no effort at all. She played with the chain for a long while as both Azusa and Lushia called out suggestions for her to try, some of Azusa's were clearly for her own enjoyment but Alice tried them anyway. She even had a bit of fun with it herself by using the chain to form into the cursive script of their names. No matter what she did there seemed to be an infinite number of the metal links to draw out from that new spell form in the air. She suspected that that had to have a limited range, but she just didn't know what it was yet.
"Hey Alice, what are those?" Distracted, Alice followed her friend's pointed finger to her thighs and frowned at what she saw. When the panels of her odd skirt moved she caught glimpses of something boxy attached to the outside of each thigh. They were long, rectangular, just about six inches in length and mounted vertically along her leg.
"Lushia, what are those?" Alice seconded. "Those aren't part of the design you made."
"What? Oh!" Lushia smiled and nodded in understanding. "That's an integral part of a Belkan device. Those are the loading chambers for the cartridge system. They temporarily give you a tremendous boost in power when you discharge them. We don't have any at the moment so they aren't of much use right now. When we do get our hands on some, then we can use our most powerful spells to their fullest."
"Hmmm," Alice hummed, thinking that over.
Yep!" Lushia said proudly. "But for now, can you let me have control over our magic? From what I saw when we bonded, your grasp of magic is extremely basic and full of holes. This way you can watch what I do and learn from it so that you can do it yourself."
"I guess that's alright," Alice agreed. "You probably know more about these things than I do."
"Good! Than let's get out of here! Now pay close attention to all the magic I use and how they are done."
Azusa frowned at the heavy door to their room. "Are you going to use magic to unlock the door?"
"I could," Lushia nodded. "But that's not how a proper Belkan Knight does things! Subtlety is unnecessary! Watch."
They did watch and Alice did pay close attention as Lushia brought the remaining chain around until it was pointing straight at the door. Alice marveled at the casualness of the movement until she remembered that the chain was quite literally, a part of Luhsia's body. She did gape however when a flood of information and equations filled her mind along with the form for a spell. A glowing blue triangular magic form appeared, centered on the point of the chain's spike and then a glowing band containing more sigils appeared around it and spun at a fairly high rate. From that circular band, a translucent blue sphere formed to encase the spike head inside. Alice could feel her magic drawing off to power the spell.
"That," Lushia said in an instruction-like manner, "Is a very basic barrier. They are essential to learn for both offense and defense. Observe."
Lushia nodded her head once. From the hollow slits at the base of the chain spike, flame shot out like a rocket motor and the chain shot with an absurd amount of velocity at the door. When the barrier, almost as wide as the door itself, hit the steel portal, it tore from the wall as if it was made of paper. Alice cringed slightly at the loud crunching noise that came when the door was slammed into the wall opposite their room.
Lushia grinned again. "Now that, is how you break out of a prison!" The chain retracted until it floated attendance as just the spike at Alice's right shoulder. "Now let's see to those kids so we can get to the main event!"
Alice walked to the doorway and peaked around outside in the hall. She was sure the noise Lushia had just made would have drawn someone, but maybe it had been covered up by the booming thunder coming from outside the building. Stepping out, with Lushia floating opposite the chain at her left shoulder and Azusa behind, she tried to walk quietly down the hall toward where she thought the rooms they'd seen the other girls coming out of were.
When they got there the halls were still eerily empty and quiet. She knew there were supposed to be guards about the place, but they saw none. They approached the first door and she noticed that someone had written names on a card attached to the room number plaque. This room, if it was right, contained four girls.
"You're up," Alice smiled at Lushia.
"Another door opener coming up!" This time Lushia just fired the spike without the barrier at the lock and it punched straight through. Alice noted that Luhsia had been careful to make sure the depth of penetration was just barely through the door. That was a good thing since they didn't want to accidentally spear any of the girls they were trying to rescue.
With Azusa's help she yanked the door open to find four young girls, cowering for their lives in the corner of the room. They looked at Alice and her friends with terror on their faces. Then one girl, maybe six years old or so frowned and pointed. "You Awice?!" She said with an extremely heavy accent. Alice guessed that the girl must not speak very much English. The other girls, after this exclamation frowned at them more calmly.
"Yes, I'm Alice," she said. "Azusa is here too." Azusa stepped into room and tried to smile reassuringly. It seemed to work because the girls stepped away from the corner and approached cautiously. When they spoke, none appeared to know English at all so she looked to the girl that had spoken. "We are here to free you." She motioned toward the door. "To leave here."
The girl frowned hard, apparently trying to understand her words. Then after a moment she seemed to get it because she grinned and jabbered something to the other girls. One of those obviously understood because she nodded excitedly and then threw herself at Azusa and hugged her.
"You're so popular!" Alice laughed.
"I like kids and they seem to like me too," Azu responded. "So what now?"
"I have a suggestion," Lushia said raising a tiny arm. Her voice drew the attention of the girls and they all pointed and exclaimed about the tiny woman. Alice could well guess what they were asking, but she had no way of answering them except through the one girl with a little English.
"What's your idea?" Alice asked.
"This!" Lushia waved a hand and Alice blinked at what she saw in another display screen that appeared. Floating in a black void was what looked like a spaceship from a sci-fi movie. "Remember what I said about an organization that's been getting involved in this recent business?" She and Azu both nodded. "They have multiple ships in orbit and they almost certainly have the capacity and capability to find the parents of the children and return them."
"So this group is benevolent?" Alice asked.
"So far," Lushia nodded. "From what I have observed, they appear to be some kind of inter-dimensional police or something. I haven't spoken with them directly to see what they are exactly. But so far they have only done good things here. They have intervened during a number of dangerous magical incidents that have occurred. They have also been the ones keeping the Hirtolians at bay up till now. Sending the children into their safekeeping would be for the best."
"If you really think so then lets do it," Alice agreed.
Under Lushia's instructions they cleared the beds in the room to one side and had the girls stand together in the center of the room. Azusa stood in the doorway and Alice took her place with Lushia in front of the kids.
"Alrighty," Lushia said, rubbing her hands together. "I haven't done this in a very long while, but it shouldn't be a problem. Alice, you're going to feel a much greater drain on your magic this time. You haven't channeled anything of this magnitude before so you may feel dizzy or weak for a short time afterward. This is to be expected when you force yourself to work greater magics than is the norm."
"I'm ready," Alice answered.
"Good, now make sure to stay still." Lushia cast out her hand toward the girls and beneath their feet, a very large triangular spell form appeared and flared brightly. From each of the circles at the corners, one of her chains shot up like a spike into the air. Alice felt Lushia reach deeply into her magic and the amount she channeled out was staggering in comparison to any of the spells Alice had ever worked before. Lushia slowly raised her arm above her head. Alice could feel the complexity of the spell and she observed it with fascination. "Dimensional transfer set up," Lushia intoned ominously and then when the power reached a quivering crescendo she snapped her fingers. "Go!"
Dark blue light rose in a blinding triangular shaft and when it vanished, the girls were gone as if they'd never been. As Lushia had warned, her vision blurred for a second and her balance felt awkward. She felt Azu's hands on her shoulders and she let her friend hold her still until her brain caught back up and she was alright to stand.
"Thanks," Alice smiled to Azusa and then to Lushia. "Now we just need to do the same with the rest of them."
Lushia nodded. "But I think we should do it in larger groups from now on. If we teleport fifty separate groups this way you'll end up unconscious. Did you catch how that spell worked?"
"Yeah, it looked complicated, but I think I understood it. A couple more repetitions and I should be able remember it."
"Good! Now let's get a move on!"
******
Captain Enshiro was quite tired when he entered the bridge and sat into his chair. The past week had given him more work and longer hours than he had been used to dealing with. Survey work was supposed to be easy, but lately things were far from that ideal. So many things kept happening these days that he'd put off sleep for almost two days now and after this shift he would finally be getting some shut eye.
He looked over the rest of the bridge crew and he saw equal wear on their features. The whole crew had been working hard. They were maintaining the whole searcher and sensor net for all the TSA forces in the area because of their ship's enhanced capability for such things and no one wanted to flub things when there were some very important people down on the planet.
That brought him to the other reason he was tired. He'd accepted Commander Takamatchi's request to give temporary protective shelter to her family and to Admiral Chrono's, but he'd had no idea what he was getting into. He didn't have any family of his own so the arrival of some extremely energetic people onto his vessel had been a shock.
He saw the resemblance to the commander immediately and their excited curiosity at being aboard his ship had been visible. But the worst was the little girl, Vivio. The commander's spirited daughter seemed to be everywhere, asking curious questions and looking at things. Keeping tabs on the child was turning into a full time job.
"Captain!"
He heard the alarm in his tactical officer's voice and snapped out of his mental review. Almost as soon as his head rose, Tawno had flipped open a screen in front of him.
"Sir, we have an incoming teleport from the planet's surface. The location is far eastern Russian, Kamchatka peninsula. It's definitely not TSA in origin. In fact, CIC just came back and identified the magic type as being very old Belkan."
"Seal the teleporting room hard, but allow the transfer," he ordered quickly.
"Aye, raising the barriers and shields now. " Tawno responded.
All teleports to the ship were grabbed by the ship's systems and were then forced to exit in the teleport room. That room could be sealed shut with many layers of shields and barriers. It was rated to contain even the most powerful spells that could be unleashed by a SSS mage.
"Sir, travelers arriving." Enshiro opened a searcher window to view the arrival. He saw the characteristic triangle of a Belkan spell form appear on the floor and then after flash, four people appeared and stumbled to the ground. Then they started jabbering and yelling at each other excitedly. Enshiro was baffled by what he saw. Why had children teleported onto his ship?
"Sir! I'm picking up another one! And it's a much bigger group this time!"
Again he watched as a group of almost twenty little girls appeared in the teleporting room. He snapped his head toward his communications officer. "Get me the Admiral, now!"
******
Alice felt sweat rolling down her face. The second, much larger group, made up of girls from five rooms had been much more draining than the first one. It had also taken longer to do, so she'd had a much better look at the spell. Then another group of twenty had tired her out even more. Now they were down to the last two rooms.
The four girls from the first room were now following her to the door of the second one. Now Alice was the one opening the doors. She had requested to do so in order to get some practice at manipulating her device. They really did feel like extensions of her body and she found the chains to be easy to use. She punched out the last lock to the room with two names next to it and yanked it open with a flick of the chain.
When they walked inside, it contained only one frightened little girl. She was wrapped in the sheets of her bed and starring at them as if she'd expected some kind of monster to be entering the room. No matter what they did the girls initially reacted this way in every room. She didn't really blame them though; it had to be shocking to watch your door being ripped open.
"Where's the other girl?" Alice asked.
The girl definitely recognized her because she smiled immediately. "You here, save us?" She asked brokenly. "Juden take Ashley away. He look scary face."
Alice felt a chill run through her. Juden had Ashley? That couldn't be good at all. She beckoned to the girl and when she came out of the room she receive a joyful group hug from the others that had already been freed and were being watched and chivied along by Azusa who looked like her old kindergarten teacher with all the younger girls gathered around her like they were.
"Azusa, can you stay here with the girls? I need to go down to the labs. Apparently Juden took Ashley and that's the only place he would take her."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Azu asked worriedly.
"It'll be fine," Lushia assured her. "Even if the guy is armed, I doubt he has anything that could harm us. Normal small arms are almost useless against a knight with her armor up."
"Well…alright, but please hurry back."
Alice nodded and then she was on her way. When they reached the research area of the building they went from room to room, looking inside to see if anyone was there. All were completely empty of people. Finally they came to a room that Alice had never been inside of. The door wasn't locked so she just opened it and went inside only to stop dead two steps in.
Ashley and Juden were indeed in the room. And the former was strapped to a hospital bed while Juden looked up in surprise from where he was drawing a liquid from a vial into a syringe. He took one look at her and his face went white.
"A-Alice, w-why are you wearing that? And that thing at your shoulder!"
"Alice!" Ashley screamed happily.
"Hey Ashley," Alice couldn't help but smile at the girl. "I came here to get you because you weren't in your room. We're getting you out of here." She stopped and grinned at Juden. "Sorry, but we are leaving now. You can go play psycho doctor on someone else."
"You can't leave!" Juden roared. "I ha-"
Alice didn't feel like listening to Juden rant, so she made one of her chains appear behind the man and brought its tip to the back of Juden's neck. There, after a mental instruction from Lushia, she used one of the reasons her device was called the storm chains. A jolt of electricity sizzled down the metal and made a popping sound as it discharged into Juden and knocked him out flat.
Before he'd even hit the ground Alice was already using the sharp bladed edge of her chain spike to cut Ashley loose. The girl just watched in amused amazement.
"What is that Alice?! And that little person too!"
"Heh, you remember how you said you didn't believe that magic was real?" Ashley nodded emphatically. "Well, you are a bit wrong. These are magic. And this woman with me is why I can do it. Think of her as a sort of magic computer."
"AI, thank you very much," Lushia huffed. "Can we go now?"
"Haha! She's so cute!" Ashley enthused as she climbed off the bed.
Alice was kind of pleasantly surprised when the girl immediately hugged her. Ashley chattered excitedly the whole way back to Azusa and the others. Once there Alice once again grouped the girls together to be transported out. Ashley pouted and complained when she realized Alice wouldn't be going with them but Lushia completed the spell before the girl could get out of the area of effect.
When the light of the teleport spell faded for the last time, Alice leaned against a wall to rest herself. A smiling Azusa sidled up next to her and Lushia somehow sat on Alice's shoulder without sinking through it. For a short while they just stood there and let Alice rest for a bit. When Alice felt a little less drained, she turned her head to look at her tiny partner. "So what's next?"
"We get out of here and kick the Hirtolians off this planet!" Lushia answered. "Those are the last standing orders I was given by my last master."
"Ok, where—" Alice was cut off as the whole building shook and a roar greater than any thunder came from outside somewhere. Almost stumbling, Alice braced herself with the wall. "What on earth was that?"
"That," Lushia answered. "Is the enemy."
Review Response:
Sorry it was not Rein. She and Hayate may make an appearance later.
Tombadgerlock: sorry about that, I forgot all about Shamal's ability. I was thinking it was part of the BoD at the time when I was writing that chapter.
Next Chapter: First Battle.