19/8/124 PI, 01:30:30

BARRACKS A-24, DEUTSCHES REICHSHEER ROMMEL BASE

CLANAGAN, ADMINISTRATED WORLD #1, MIDCHILDA

It wasn't the blare of the evacuation alarm that woke Nanoha up. Rather, it was the shaking of the barracks that brought her to full attention out of her sleep. She woke up confused, wondering what was going on. All around her, the cadets were murmuring. Some were huddled up next to each other.

Over the din, she could pick out individual voices.

"What's going on?"

"Adelaide, I'm scared…"

"Is it a gas leak?"

"Why aren't the soldiers coming to get us?"

Nanoha was so confused. It was their last day, and tomorrow they were set to transfer to different branches, and her heart had been racing so fast with nervousness that she could barely get to sleep the night before. But now, she had no idea what was happening.

It's just something minor, she told herself. But it sure sounded like a bomb had gone off to her.

Then the next explosion hit. There was a flash, so bright that Nanoha's vision went black, and she could hear what sounded like the roof being ripped off the building. Glass was shattering, trainees were screaming, and...was that gunfire? She huddled in a ball, too scared to even move an inch.

Then she felt a firm hand on her shoulder, and a reassuring voice. "Nanoha, we're getting out of here. Don't let go of my hand."

As her vision came back to her, what had once been a state of the art dorm had been reduced to a pile of rubble. The roof had come off, as she had guessed, and a hole was punched in the wall almost as large as the entire wall itself. Girders and beams had fallen all around, beds were upturned, personal belongings scattered, and…

Underneath some of the metal what looked like deathly pale limbs peeked out, with puddles of dark red fanning them. It couldn't be. Nanoha immediately felt her stomach welling up.

Suzuka was staring straight ahead, not bothering to look at the floor. "Now."

"Wait!" Nanoha managed to blurt out. "Where's Alice?"

"No time!" Suzuka yelled. The din had grown louder, and what sounded like marching feet were approaching. All around them, cadets activated their Barrier Jackets and scrambled out of the building.

As the first of the cadets crossed the field that would lead to the officer's barracks and their safety, a flash and a rattatat came from the edges of the field and he dropped where he stood. Nanoha had to stifle crying. This could be the end for her. What would her family think? She imagined her father, somber, standing by a tombstone, her mother crying her eyes out, her older siblings ashen-faced with grief…if she didn't do something, that would happen.

Suzuka hissed. "Dammit, we can't go that way. Follow me!" She grabbed Nanoha's hand and ran, basically pulling her along. Nanoha was too shocked to even be in conscious control of her legs. It was like her body was moving on her own again, just like the day before.

At the end of the stainless silver corridor, something moved around the corner, and Suzuka stopped them, pulling out her device. It's an enemy, Nanoha thought in terror. It's an enemy.

Instead, what greeted them was the sight of a familiar blonde girl crossing around the corner. Nanoha's eyes grew wide. "Alice!" she yelled. "Are you okay?"

"Yes…I'm fine…" she panted, out of breath. Then her eyes glazed over, and as she dropped to the ground, Nanoha saw the steel bar embedded in her back.

Her eyes were still wide, but not with joy or hope anymore. The terror had overcome her. It had seeped into her bones, her very being. Nanoha Takamachi had the eyes of a fish about to be slaughtered. She couldn't scream in grief, she couldn't cry…she could do nothing but wait for her inevitable demise and be pulled along by Suzuka, who was screaming: "Run! NOW!"

Ahead of them, the night sky and the moon shone through another hole in the wall, and magic flashed and gunfire sounded. Nanoha just wanted to curl back up into a ball and just stay there.

As the two Japanese girls got closer to the exit, two shadowy figures stepped around to fill the space. The light lit them up to reveal two men, spattered and cloaked in grime, wearing the dress of farm laborers or slaves. One had a bandana tied around his head, while the other wore a wifebeater with something spattered on it. As the light caught their faces, Nanoha noticed that they were like no other person she had seen before. Their skin was dark. She had no idea people could be that color. Then she noticed the assault rifles in their hands, pointing straight at the two cadets.

"Inhumans…" Suzuka breathed out in shock. "Is this a rebellion?"

They were trapped. Nanoha was going to die here…

One of them moved his finger toward the trigger of his firearm, yelling, "This is for Daniel, you sons of-"

Nanoha closed her eyes, and heard the trill of the gunfire. When she opened them, she was still alive, standing where she had been.

A silvery-blue wall of energy waves surrounded them, and standing in front of them, still dressed in his infirmary clothes, was Dien Bliekhart. The usual smug sneer was gone. Rather, he looked as focused as he could possibly be.

"I'll hold them off!" he yelled. "You two run!"

It seemed like Nanoha had been brought back to life by seemingly facing death. She knew where she was now. She was running down the hallway in the opposite direction, but she was sure out of the corner of her eye she saw Bliekhart's body slump to the floor. That was another one. Dead, because of her. Dead, because they had defended her.

The tears were streaming from her eyes as she ran, and she couldn't stop them. Alice…I'm so sorry…Why did it have to be you? Why couldn't it have been someone else? Why you? I'm sorry…I'm sorry…

There was a small opening in the corner of what looked to be their ruined dining hall. Slowing down, Suzuka motioned the still-sobbing Nanoha to stop, and peered out the hole. After a few seconds, she crouched and scuttled through it, and motioned for Nanoha to follow.

When Nanoha emerged, her hands and knees touching the mud of the building's foundation, she found herself in the middle of a war zone.

Guns banged out their horrific rhythm, and bolts of energy flew all about the grass parade grounds, or what had once been parade grounds. Heaps of twisted metal surrounded the combatants, and where the barracks had once stood fires burned. In the distance, the city was alight, as Nanoha could see twisting tongues of fire leap above the skyline for seconds before settling down again. A skyscraper collapsed where a missile struck it. Bodies littered the area, both where cadet and Inhuman had fallen, their faces both twisted in the agony of their exact moment of death. Farther off, she saw flashes of golden light. The instructors were bunched up, their shields flared, fighting off a troop of the enemy. All around her were screams, cries of agony, and the dead. The dead, the dead everywhere. She must have stepped into hell, Nanoha thought. Someone must be punishing her. For what, she didn't know.

She must have been standing there shocked, because Suzuka grabbed her arm and ran with her. "Come on!" she hissed, and the two stayed low around the side of a building.

Then Nanoha saw it. From one side of the building, a cadet fell, and the farm laborer holding his still-smoking Jakobsson T5 looked her dead in the eye. Her blood ran cold.

"Pedro!" he screamed. He was going to kill her. He was lowering his gun, and she needed to fight back, she needed to raise her Barrier Jacket and defend, but she couldn't. For the second time in the day, she closed her eyes.

The report sounded, but when she opened her eyes she saw Suzuka, her arms outspread, standing in front of her. Almost immediately, she collapsed and fell into Nanoha, and her momentum took them both into a pile of debris. For now, they were safe. But Nanoha saw two red splotches begin to well up from underneath Suzuka's uniform, and almost immediately the tears started again.

Suzuka was laid across her best friend's lap, and Nanoha could hear every breath: ragged, uncertain. With her eyes wide, she felt for her best friend's pulse. It was growing fainter and fainter.

"Suzu-chan!" she cried. "Don't close your eyes! All we need to do is to get you to where the teachers are. You're going to be okay! Just keep your eyes open! Please!"

The voice came out of her friend's mouth, sounding twenty years older than it was. "Nanoha. I'm not going to make it. Leave me here and go."

"There's no way I can do that!"

With shaky hands, Suzuka reached into her bloodstained breast pocket and drew out a photograph. "Do you remember this? I was trying to keep it hidden all this time."

Nanoha stared at it. "That's the first year of grade school when we met…we were so young…" Instantly she felt the tears coming back. No, Suzu-chan. Don't leave me. Don't leave me here…all alone…

"Do you want to know something?" Suzuka coughed, her breathing harsher. "When I was a child I was homeless." She breathed in slowly. "I was a street urchin, and I didn't know my parents. I had no reason that I needed to live. On the day I considered throwing myself off a building, I saw this little girl, and she was so bright and happy. I wanted to be like that little girl. I had found a reason, it seemed like. So I eventually got adopted, but I resigned to myself that I would never meet her. That was until the first day of grade school came, and who to my surprise should be there but the girl I saw shining so brightly that day."

She coughed and turned her head. "Honestly, thank you. We've been through so much together. Thank you…for letting me…be your friend…"

"Suzuka!" Nanoha screamed. "Stay with me! Stay with me!"

A faint smile played across Suzuka Tsukimura's face. "Live, Nanoha." She reached out with a bloodstained hand and touched it to her best friend's face. "Live on. Even if…I couldn't…you must…" And then her eyes closed, and her hand dropped back to her side.

The sound that emerged from Nanoha Takamachi's mouth at that moment was nothing that could be described as human. It was a cry of grief, but so furious, so intense, that it seemed to shake the entire battlefield. From her form, seals broke the sky. Mana flowed like electricity, brilliant pink, lighting up the night until it was almost as bright as day. It was as if the whole battlefield had stopped to watch, in awe.

The display of lights disappeared with a whoosh. A shining crystal barrier was hanging over the entire area.

On the far edges of the battlefield, a rebel, unnerved by the sight, immediately signaled to his companions to run. They did so, and as they did they ran smack into the pink light. It was a shield of enormous size.

"Goddammit!" one cried, pounding on the barrier. "Let us out!"

"What a shame," a low female voice came from behind them. The rebels looked to see a tall figure emerging from a cloud of dust and smoke, and then their blood ran cold as they recognized the golden Barrier Jacket of an Elite.

"It looks like you're trapped in here with us," the tall, tomboyish cyborg grinned. "Sette, finish them off."

The first of the Inhumans prepared to fire, but he couldn't even get his gun lifted before a pair of boomerangs decapitated each one of the rebel soldiers in turn.

It was the most fearsome assault Alicia Testarossa had faced. Around her were what appeared to be nearly sixty Inhumans, all peppering her with gunfire. She gritted her teeth. It was easy enough to deflect and dodge bullets, but such a high-speed projectile required a large amount of mana and energy to stop, and she didn't know for how much longer she could hold on.

Nimbly deflecting a bullet hail with Bardiche, she fired three shards of mana out. Immediately, they hit the necks of some of the enemy, and they fell. Next, dodging close she ducked the weapon of one of the Inhumans and fired a magical pulse into his head from point-blank range. A shower of gore erupted, and she quickly commanded, "Bardiche, ESS to maximum."

"Roger," Bardiche replied, and the Device changed into a scythe-like form with green energy running about the shaft and side, four immensely sharp projections at the other side. Alicia made another move, drawing close and slicing across the chest with the magical blade.

She was fighting back, but it seemed like she was the only one. All around her, she could see the candidates' forms dropping to the ground. They hadn't been trained to defend against bullets yet. Shit! If only I had a bit more time…

She removed two of the blades and threw them, scoring two more direct hits on heads. Beside her, she heard a gasp and saw a blonde figure fall to the ground. Another was dead, beside her. "Wolfenburg! Roth!" she yelled. She had gotten so caught up in battle she didn't even notice the end of her two subordinates, and it was getting worse. She was panting now, running out of breath, and the Inhumans kept coming. What is this all about? she wondered. How did so many Inhumans sneak by security? Why do they have weapons? Why…Why is the city being bombed? Who did this?

As if to answer her, another automated fighter roared over, and the city erupted in a plume of fire again.

As she surged ahead to the next target, she felt a sharp pain above her knee, and she dropped to the ground. Her barrier had broken and a bullet had shot her in the leg. She raised all the shields that she had in her defense, attempting to hold off the next series of shots…

But what came next stunned her. A scream, a wail of anger, rose from above the battlefield, and a stream of brilliant pink mana burned in the faint corners of her eyes. There were no more gunshots. The Inhumans had turned and were running in terror.

She turned to see one of her students cradling a body from far off, her head to the sky in anguish. "Takamachi!" she screamed. Then the sound stopped, and hanging in the air was a brilliant dome of crystal. It was a Concentric Projection, surrounding the entire battlefield. Alicia gasped, but then turned to see her student collapsed. She wanted to run, wanted to go to her trainee's side. But her leg didn't work anymore. She couldn't do anything but crawl. A trickle of blood was coming from the bullet hole, and the pain was unimaginable, but she gritted her teeth and pushed herself forward.

Around her were bodies. Her precious students lay dead, one by one as she passed them. She stifled sobs, and a deep female voice came into her head. You're not my offspring. I never want to see you again, you worthless piece of trash.

She was worthless. She couldn't even protect a single one of her students.

As she crawled, there was a figure ahead of her. Shit. A rebel was still there, holding out his gun at her. She attempted to raise a barrier, but it was weak.

"You want to enslave us?" the rebel, a woman, screamed. "You want to treat us like animals? Go to hell!"

Before she could even get a burst of gunfire off, it was like the ground opened, and behind her a turquoise-haired figure popped up from the ground and snapped her neck.

In relief, Alicia recognized the golden armor the figure wore, and couldn't help but almost cry in happiness. It's an Elite…Oh, thank the Saint, we're all saved… Then she remembered that she was the only one there was to be saved, and the happiness dissipated. All around the battlefield, she was the only one from the barracks moving, even as she saw an Elite explode the Inhumans in the distance, and another throw boomerangs at necks.

"Hi hi!" the Elite exclaimed. "Super-talented, attractive, and all-around great Combat Cyborg number six, Sein, at your service!"

Is she…striking a pose?

"Oh, are you the Golden Flash?" she grinned, "I think I saw someone with some vital signs back there. You might want to hurry." She pointed in the direction where Nanoha Takamachi's body was slumped over, cradling a corpse.

"I can't reach her," Alicia growled, pointing at her leg.

For a second the cyborg looked puzzled, then she seemed to understand. "Don't worry. I can get you there. I'm only here to get my sisters off the battlefield if things get rough, and to evacuate anyone who needs it. Although she's the first I've found that I can evacuate…"

Alicia blinked, and when she finished she was next to the body of her trainee. She was breathing hard, her small frame wracked with convulsions. The captain put her hands on Takamachi's body, and the amount of mana ebbing out with each breath stunned her. She's going to die…

Alicia closed her eyes, attempting to find the fracture in the Linker Core. She swam through Takamachi's insides, her essence flowing with the mana. There it was; it was a huge crack. It was going to take all of her strength to fix it. Come on! Come on, stay with me!

The patching wasn't working. She didn't have the strength…

All of the sudden, she felt a new wave of magic flow in, and with her body shuddering she felt the mana flow stop and Nanoha Takamachi begin to breathe normally. She looked up. The Combat Cyborg had her hands on the girl as well.

Quickly flicking her eyes to Takamachi's body, she began, "Um, thank you…" But when she looked next to her, Sein was gone.

Immediately, another plume of fire erupted from the city, and Alicia was left there, cradling the unconscious form of her student, in the midst of a scene of calamity. Then everything became dizzy, and she, too, slumped over, passed out.

01:58:00

ABOARD CAPITAL SHIP SANKTKRADEL

COMMAND ROOM

Beneath him, the city of Clanagan spread out in a blaze. Jail Scaglietti stood shocked as yet another bomb exploded, and more fire spread throughout the buildings.

High Council had been called to an emergency meeting. He had been woken from bed, hurried into the control room, and from there he beheld destruction. He wasn't the only one on edge. The Führer…no…Vivio…wasn't on her throne anymore. She was pacing throughout the room, biting at her nails. It would have been cute if it wasn't so urgent.

A technician burst through the door, flanked by several of the Heer. "Sirs!" he called out. "Your orders!"

"The Elites have already been called in," Scaglietti replied. "Sound the evacuation alarm. Every single one of our resources is to go to evacuating our citizens."

Beside him, a voice growled, "No."

"No?"

It was General Gaiz. "No. Every single one of our troops are to hunt down those damn subhumans. Let the people figure out how to get out by themselves. They're smart. And if they can't figure it out…oh well."

The Hegemon grit his teeth. "Are you saying you're just going to let people die?!"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Gaiz growled. "You got a problem, Doctor Demento?"

"You-" Scaglietti began.

"ENOUGH!" A stern yell arose from behind them. Vivio had stood, and was using a tone of her voice that she had never used with him before.

"Stop your bickering. Sound the evacuation alarm. Our citizens are our first priority."

Gaiz's face twisted in anger. "I've had enough of this shit show!" He stormed off, the automatic door closing as he went behind him.

Gaiz and Scaglietti had never gotten along. That was for certain. But today…it seemed to Scaglietti that the general had crossed a line that wasn't supposed to be crossed.

Almost immediately, the glass table which they sat around flickered, and revealed a transmission message. That was odd. There wasn't supposed to be any communication in or out…

It didn't matter whether he clicked the play transmission button or not, because an image of a shadowy figure appeared on the screen.

"Sirs!" a transmission coming in from Radio Communications announced. "The transmission is malicious! Do not listen to it, it's been hacked!"

The figure was cloaked in darkness. It was clearly human, but only the basic shape, and no facial features, could be made out. It sat at a desk. But something was off about this individual. With a start, Scaglietti realized that he could literally feel malice seeping through the communication.

"Hello," it began in a deep, authoritative female voice. "My name is Artemis, and I command the Legions of the Moon. As far as you know, we have only made our first appearance today. Yes, I was the one who ordered the destruction of your city. No, it will not be the last destruction."

Scaglietti gritted his teeth. So this was the face of their enemy.

"You see, we-not just I-hold a grudge. For far too long we, the ones you call the Inhumans, the ones you do not even place on the same level as animals, have been oppressed, trampled upon, driven into the ground. We have been made to be slaves on the frontier. We have been killed for questioning, for not working. We have been abused, mistreated. That will continue no longer. We seek vengeance against you; we despise everything you stand for. We will not be satisfied until you are made to feel the same pain we have felt for all these centuries. This is a declaration of war, war upon the Grossdeutsches Galaxienreich. War upon the Nazi party. We will not accept negotiation. We will not surrender.

"This will continue until one, or both of us, is completely wiped out."

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

With this, the training arc of the Belka trilogy is finished! Whew! Sorry for the pacing issues. It's just been a long time since I bothered to pick this up. The length may be shorter than you're used to as well, sorry about that. I did this in the middle of writing college essays so it's a bit short.

The enemy reveals itself! It's kind of hard to take sides when one of them is the nazis, lol. Hopefully this pushes it into further morally ambiguous territory. I hope the violence wasn't too much for those who wanted a lighter story. If it was, I apologize and I'll try to tone it down.

More coming, see you soon!
-mrcmc888

MAHOU SHOUJO LYRICAL NANOHA IS THE PROPERTY OF MASAKI TSUZUKI, SEVEN ARCS, KING RECORDS, NBCUNIVERSAL ENTERTAINMENT JAPAN, ANIPLEX, AND A-1 PICTURES. I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING RELATED TO THE SERIES. PLEASE SUPPORT THE OFFICIAL RELEASE WHENEVER POSSIBLE.