Disclaimer: I only own a laptop and a crappy net connection. Nothing else.

Cards And Devices

Chapter 6 - Travel

By Sniperk

"And this is the current situation." The General was talking with the three people on the monitors and the one on the other side of the table. "Any questions?"

After a moment of silence, she started again. "I know that this goes without saying, but the situation might lead to a big incident if not handled correctly, so I'll ask for everyone to not let yours subordinates know the whole thruth, even those that are chosen to take care of the mission itself. Relay only the utmost necessary information. Officially, this is a simple kidnap case, but our main objective is to get hold of this energy source, and analize it."

"They'll find weird that such a small task is being investigated by TSAB itself," Fate pointed out. "Even if they don't ask the questions outright, some of them are smart enough to connect the dots by themselves."

"For now let's wait for the girl that's coming with the expedition team. As I said before, apparently, she was the one that created it in the first place. Until we have more information about this, don't touch the subject with anyone else."

"Agreed," they said in unison, except for the woman that was at the table, but she didn't make mention to say anything too.

"I'll contact you again tomorrow, and Yuuno?"

"Yes?" the bespectacled man asked.

"I would like if you could came here personally." Hayate rested her hands in her lap. "I think it would be better if you can analyze this girl's magical powers personally."

"I'll try. As you know, right now I'm a little busy here."

"Very well. Anything else?" Hayate asked again. When no one made notion to say anything she completed. "Then see you all tomorrow."

The various windows of communication were closed and the Belkan mage closed her eyes, thinking about what to do next when a voice snapped her back from them. "Hayate-chan."

"Oh, crap," she thought. She had forgotten that Nanoha was in the room too. "Yes?" she answered, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

"I know that right now we are in the middle of something that can very well turn into a big crisis, and I know that you're doing your job." The lopsided ponytailed woman was smiling, or better saying, forcing a smile. "And I won't say anything right now, but after this thing is over, I think you'll need to come by the training center, to have a recycling lesson." Her left eye was twitching.

"I don't think I need one right now, but thanks for the offer, Nanoha-chan." Hayate was wondering if Shamal wasn't too busy in that moment to teleport her out of that room.

"Oh, don't be like that, Hayate-chan." Nanoha had rounded the table and was in the back of the chair where her childhood friend was sitting. "You know that if we don't exercise every now and then we can get rusty. And when we get rusty, we start to forget some little things, like warning your friend that their home could be destroyed at any minute." Her hands were now on the General's shoulders.

Hayate wasn't scared of the tough training that Nanoha was undoubtably planning for her. The General was scared of actually being forced to admit by her that she was wrong in not telling Nanoha about these events earlier. She knew that the Ace of Aces was a good person, but that sometimes wasn't a good thing in the overall picture. So she didn't wince when the power of the grip on her shoulders got a little too tight for comfort. The Belkan mage knew what was best in the situation, and her friend wasn't exactly a part of it. Even so, she felt that Nanoha needed to know about it, and that's why she'd asked her to take part in the meeting in the first place, but her resolution about it didn't waver. "When this is over, I'll send a requirement for it, don't worry." But she didn't have the will to confront the White Devil at the moment.

"I'll be waiting." Nanoha let go of Hayate's shoulders and smiled, but her aura didn't have anything remotely friendly about it. The Ace of Aces turned on her heels and walked out of the room.

After the other left, Hayate sighed. "Poor Fate-chan," she mused as she realized that her friends would have a long night ahead of them.

"Where are we?" Tomoyo, sitting in the floor, asked the fairies, hoping that they would be able to answer her more than the redhaired man had when he was with her. Sadly the Card didn't knew too. "Don't worry, I'm okay." The Card then disappeared from her vision, but she felt it hiding underneath her clothes, on her back. "Does this mean someone is coming?" she asked, but before receiving a reply the door of the container opened. The redhaired man was there accompanied by another one, a small one. Despite his height his face showed that he was around the same age as the other man. Both of them seemed like polar oposites, one very elegantly cladded in a suit, and the other seemed like a construction worker, wearing old jeans and a blue tanktop.

"We're almost there, sweetcheeks," the small one said, looking at her. She got scared. He noticed and, after crouching to be at her height, said, "We're gentlemans here. You don't have to worry, kid."

She looked away from him. His breath was sickening with the smell of tabacco.

"What you think?" Turning to the other man and turning his head to look her.

"About what?"

"About this source. Do you think the boss will find a way to use it?" he asked, looking at Tomoyo's frame, as if she wasn't really a person.

"I have my doubts. That card doesn't leave her side, so how can it be of any use?" He sighed. "Though we aren't the ones to decide this things. Our job now is just to deliver it."

"Yeah, you're right." He got to his feet. "Get up, sweetcheeks. We're getting off here in a few moments."

Tomoyo was almost spewing what little food she had in her stomach, because of the smell. She couldn't help but think about the irony of the situation. Her mother had always taken care to not let these type of things happen to her. She had bodyguards all her life that would make the Prime Minister seem an easy target in comparison. And now she was a hostage, kidnapped by people that would make her bodyguards seem like babies in comparison. She almost smiled at the thought. "Where are we?" she asked, so faintly that the men almost didn't hear.

"Yes?" The taller one asked, getting closer to her. He, too, stank, but at least was more tolerable, being the odor of too much cologne used to cover the smell of the sweaty suit. She wondered how much time had passed since he'd cleaned that suit.

"Where are we?" she asked, a little louder.

"Well, we are..." He trailed off, going to the door again, then continued. "We are near the port of Dim Barah. But of course, you wouldn't know where this is. As I said, think of it as a excursion to the center of the worlds."

Tomoyo looked at the open door, and saw a beatiful azure sky, that coneccted at the horizon with the sea. If she wasn't in this situation, and had a camera at hand, that was an image that she would love to capture.

"Sorry we don't have time for sightseeing," the small one said, entering her line of vision. "It's time to get off this ship," he said, reaching for his back pocket, taking a piece of cloth, and tieing it around her head, blocking her vision.

She heard the other one get closer and felt her wrists being handcuffed before he unchained her leg. In the midst all this, Tomoyo felt the card in her back, and thought about Sakura.

"So this place where we are going is like a magical land?" the green eyed girl asked the other two that were sitting in front of her. Currently she was in one of the rooms of the Duna, a interdimensional battleship, heading to what they said to be middle of the dimensional sea. The Central of the TSAB, or something like that.

"More or less. Although I don't know what is you're definition for 'magical land'?" The pinkhaired taller one asked, Signum.

"Does it have dragons?"

"When summoned, yes, otherwise they are confined to other planets."

"Fairies?"

"Well, we don't have fairies in your concept, although some unison devices can be seen as fairies too."

"Witches?"

"Witches are what you could be called, in our definition."

"I'm a witch?" Sakura was surprised.

"We are mages. We use our inner magical energy to perform our spells. Witches use outside power, and not their own. Although I do feel a very large amount of magical energy from you, according to your descriptions, you use outside power to create your spells."

Sakura was baffled. She never though of herself in that way. After thinking a little about it she explained, "I meant bad witches, those that use their magic to hurt and curse the others." She wanted to think that they weren't accusing her of being na evil being.

Signum understood the worry in the girl eyes. "Don't worry. I'm not saying that you are a 'bad witch.' Just that your type of spells would be classified as those of a witch. What defines a person as good or bad is what she does with this power."

"If you were a bad witch, I don't think that you would be traveling with us right now to save your friend," the small Belkan knight added, and soon after regretted, when she saw the pain on the girl's face.

Sakura didn't want to think about Tomoyo right now. It was too painful for her. She had created the Card thinking that it would bring her Tomoyo-chan back to the way she was so long ago, when she was hunting down cards all over the place. Bring back the Tomoyo-chan that always smiled for her even when drilling her with math exercises. Bring back the Tomoyo-chan that encouraged her every athletic festival they had at school. The Tomoyo-chan that would always be there for her every time Syaoran would go back to Hong Kong so she didn't have to feel lonely.

Sakura's eyes widened at that fact.

She hadn't thought about the Chinese martial artist at all in those three days. Ever since she'd left him at the airport and encountered Tomoyo that afternoon, her mind was filled with thoughts about her best friend the whole time. She regretted even more now. Even when she was thinking so much about her best friend, she didn't manage to protect her. She didn't manage to make her smile like she wanted when she created the Card. She curled into a ball, hugging her knees, lifting her feet off the floor. The cardmistress was even more lonely now. She didn't have Syaoran or Tomoyo anymore.

As she started to sob, Vita switched places and sat on her side, caressing her head. "Calm down, kid. We'll find your friend. She'll be with you again before you know it." Signum at that moment stepped out of the room.

But Sakura kept crying, she let go of her knees and put her palms on her face, supporting her elbows on her knees. "Tomoyo-chan..." She was crying out loud now.

The red haired knight pulled the girl, and hugged her, whispering soothing words to calm the girl down. She remembered the scene were she was hugging Fate almost the same way, in the rarest moments the then Enforcer had broken down, after Nanoha was attacked all those years ago. She hated to see someone suffer so much because of a dear friend.

Signum comes back with a cup and a bottle of water.

A call flashed in front of the General, as she was reading a few reports done by her subordinates. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the daily reports. She answered.

"It's about the teleportation route used by the unknown individuals," Chrono started before even greeting. "I looked into it a little. One of my operatives used it once, during an undercover mission."

"So, we can assume that whoever took the source, and the girl, isn't someone exactly trustworthy," Hayate guessed.

"Yes. This route was closed several times already, but we turn our backs and they reopen it again." He sighed and looked around his room. "Is this channel secure?"

Hayate pressed a few buttons on her translucent keyboard. "Now it is."

"Ok. My second unit worked three years ago on a case about one of the most proeminent Mafia familys at the time, the Bergaminis." Hayate frowned at the mention of Chrono's 'Second Unit'. Officially they were all normal operatives, that received normal missions from time to time. But their main job was another. Espionage, murder, sabotage, among other things. They were people whose names were known by few, but feared by all that ever heard their codename. They were known as the 'Shadows'.

"And?" She brushed her thoughs aside. Even though she never would approve of its methods, she knew that the unit was necessary in order to maintain peace, and was the most reliable source of information about the underground world that they had.

"Turns out that this route was used by the Bergaminis to send people to planets outside the TSAB's jurisdiction. There were thoughts about smuggling goods being transported over this route, but after beeing monitored for a few months, nothing was found over it. Aside from some individuals that had warrants, no contraband was ever found with the people that used it."

"And what does this mean?"

"My assumption is that this route is used to send only the negotiators, and not the goods themselves. So it could be used to bring back a person too, without much of a problem. The Monitors in the stations are all corrupt, and we didn't take them down yet just because we still need them to be there."

"I see. We already know the route, but didn't the Bergaminis vanish last year?"

"They didn't vanish. They were overtaken. Another unindentified group destroyed them and took over their bussiness." Chrono frowned. "I lost three operatives trying to uncover information about them. So far we only know that they have a few mages with them, at least three of them being AA ranked, and that they are into non-magical drug deals."

Hayate leaned back, absorbing the information. After a few moments she asked, "Anything else?"

"Not right now."

"Thanks Chrono. We can't do very much right now, aside from waiting."

"I agree." He sighed "Until tomorrow then."

"Until then." After finishing the call, she turned to the window and looked at the horizon line. "All I can do now is wait." She sighed.

"Home, sweet home." Reeve said as soon as he got off of the boat.

"Don't go kneeling down and kissing the ground on me, man."

"As if I would."

"Did you contact the boss?"

"Yeah. He said there would be a transportation waiting for us at the exit."

"Well, let's go then. I can barely wait to hang around Sadi's tonight."

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Chris stopped in his tracks and took back the three steps that he had made. "Yeah. Let's go get the girl."

After they entered Dim Barah's docks, a car was waiting for them. They put the girl in the middle of the backseat of the limo.

"Sorry for this, kid." Reeve got a bottle and dampened a piece of cloth with the liquid inside. The girl, after breathing through the cloth, seemingly passed out after a few moments of struggling.

Half an hour later they were in front of the gates of what seemed to be a large particular park, but they knew that it was actually the entrance to the driveway of the mansion of their boss.

"So, who will tell the news to the boss?" Reeve asked, as the car started to move through the gates.

"Which news?" Chris didn't understand the question his companion was asking.

"That the source is attached to the girl and all."

"You didn't already told him when you contacted?" Chris frowned.

"You know how the boss is. I didn't wanted to go on foot all the way from the port to his house."

"Oh, man. And here I though that everything was already resolved and we would only deliver the girl." The small man facepalmed. "Alright. Let's get all the information we can and jot it down quickly. If we explain the situation to him before he can speak I know that he won't be so mad."

"Good idea. Kron, gather all the data about last night's battle, categorize it, and list it for me."

"Alright, Chief."

"Ana, you too."

"Alright, Honey."

Chris took his watch off and glared at it. "Look here, stop calling me Honey now. I'm not in the mood."

"Understood, Pumpkin."

"Stop with that too." He was almost ready to throw Ana out the window.

"Okay, Sweetie Pie." This time Chris really threw Ana out the window, snorting with anger.

"Are you sure you want to throw Ana away?" Reeve snickered. "Wasn't the boss the one that gave it to you?"

"Oh crap." And Chris flew out the window of the car, going back to where his device had fallen.

The purple haired girl was at the doorstep of the house with her blonde friend. She reached for the door knob when she heard the noises coming from inside the house. Well, noises were an understatement. It sounded more like a brawl was taking place between a horse and a marching band on top of a cupboard full of crystals, and somewhere in the middle she heard the voices of the mothers of her heterochromatic eyed friend. She looked at the Belkan sumonner, frowning. This wasn't exactly new. The two Aces would argue and fight from time to time. Thankfully, they never relied on magic for this. She looked at the door again, then at her hand closed on the doorknob, then at her friend one more time. "What do you think of going to go have dinner with Erio and Caro tonight, Vi?"

The younger sighed, put a hand on her temple, and turned back to the street. "Yeah, I think that would be good."

Both of them started to walk away from the house, wincing at another loud noise that came from it. "Do you think they'll be ok?"

"If there's one person that can calm Nanoha-mama down, that person is Fate-mama."

Lutecia looked back at the house for a second before leaning down and asking again, worriedly, "But what if the person she's angry with is Fate-san?"

"Then I'll have to sleep at Caro-nee's house today." Actually, Vivio wasn't all that bothered about the little skirmish happening at her house. That meant that she could spend a little more time with the Belkan summoner, which she was more than grateful for.

"Well, let's get going then," Lutecia said, hoping that she was doing the right thing in not warning someone about what was happening back there.

Vivio then grabbed the older one's arm and snuggled against it. "Cia?"

"Yeah?" Lutecia was still fighting with her inner self if she should really leave things that way.

"I like you a lot, you know that?" Vivio beamed.

"Yeah, I like you too," The Belkan summoner answered instantly, as if it was a mechanical response, and didn't notice when the younger girl pouted.

A/N: If you guys want to get a better idea of what this last part means, I recommend that you read the ViCia series by RadiantBeam, as I said in chapter one, this story takes place in the setting of that series. Anyway, R&R.