Author's Note: The next chapter is actually complete… this chapter, as it was originally, turned out to be roughly twice the usual length, so I decided to just go the distance and break it up into two chapters. I'll post the next one by this weekend, probably. More likely when I think up a chapter title that doesn't suck.
It was also a royal pain to write, unfortunately (to give you a hint? I actually went ahead, wrote most of the next next chapter, then came back to these two/big one. That's how much writer's block hit me). Even now, I'm not 100% sure I like how it turned out. But hey sometimes you just have to sit back, grit your teeth, and drive the plot. And just because I don't like it doesn't mean you won't, right? You seem like nice people. And well-groomed! Did I mention good-looking? Hmmm? What was that? Buttering you up to get more reviews? I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm probably just not smart enough to comprehend your genius-level thought processes, you magnificent creatures.
Chapter 7: Black Cats
Each of them was exactly the same size and shape, down to the millimeter. Each was also dressed head to toe in black… literally. From the crowns of their heads to the soles of their boots, not a single inch of exposed tissue could be seen on any one of them, and their outfits were armored and bulky to the point they couldn't even be reliably described as 'male' or 'female'. The outfits had no markings or distinguishing characteristics; there weren't even any eyeholes in their helmets. They only way they could be told to be 'people' and not simply empty suits of armor was the fact that they moved. And even then, they might have been mistaken for machines if they hadn't been moving just a bit too organically to be robotic.
They floated serenely for a few moments, each one briefly gazing about to take in their surroundings. Then, without a word, they split into two groups of six, each of which began to fly towards one of the two battlefields.
When it began, it moved quickly.
Susanoo held his glowing blade above him, gathering power into the weapon. The smile on his face suggested that he was, once again, planning to just blast the entire battlefield into small pieces and that he would not be falling for any clever tricks with Sonic Form this time around, so Fate had better think of something new. Fate, for her part, had reasoned that she could probably launch a big attack faster than he could, and a sphere of golden light gathered in her palm, ready to be fired in just a few seconds.
Nanoha drew her head back quickly as Tsukuyomi's saber slashed lightly through the space where it had been a second ago, watching in dismay as a few of her hairs began the long, slow fall to the ground. 'Dance of Illusions' had turned out to be a rather annoying spell, but at least she knew that one of the several Tsukuyomis running around the battlefield was actually the real one, so as long as she could defend against all of them at once, she wouldn't need to blindfold herself this time (thank heavens for small favors. That had not been anything she cared to repeat). Nanoha was thinking of ways she might gain some distance, and at the moment she was beginning to think that if she went straight down and fired a Divine Buster directly into the ocean, the resulting explosion might make a good visual shield.
Then all four of them stopped.
Susanoo stopped smiling and lowered his weapon. This alone was enough to clue Fate into the fact that something had clearly gone horribly wrong. "Fate… Raijin sort of sucks at the sensitive stuff, so I'm not even going to bother with a search spell…"
"Hey!"
"… but did you just feel something weird?"
Since she had, in fact, felt something weird, Fate stepped back and lowered Bardiche. She closed her eyes and extended her senses. It was difficult… this world was more dead than alive, which meant it's natural magic was somewhat hard to sort through. "It's hard to be sure. It appeared and then disappeared very quickly, but I agree that there was some kind of reaction."
"Yeah, I thought…" Susanoo began. Then he noticed something he hadn't before.
Namely, that a large blade had stabbed deep into his left shoulder from behind.
It was a triangular blade of black metal, like the tip of a spear, and it was attached to a chain. The chain was, in turn, connected to the wrist of a figure in black that was floating behind him and which he would swear had not been there just a second ago.
"Huh." He said, not quite certain just yet what had happened. He was looking over his shoulder, right at the piece of black metal that had pierced his barrier jacket and the blood running down his back, but he didn't seem to be taking it as badly as he probably should have been. "So… you clearly have some kind of stealth shielding? I'm sorry if I seem a little off, it's just that, well, this looks like it should hurt but it doesn't really, so I don't think my mind is quite processing it correctly…"
"Tear it out! Before…" Fate screamed.
Two more blades struck him from other angles, one in the center of the chest (from directly behind Fate, much to her surprise) and one in the top of his other shoulder.
Target immobilized. A voice said. It didn't seem to be coming from any of the three black-clad figures that had set their hooks into Susanoo… more like it was coming from the air between them.
Three? Make that six.
Containment Skill: Chains of Prometheus. The three new figures, floating in previously empty spaces, extended their hands toward Susanoo. Black mist began to rise around the speared mage, quickly obscuring him from view completely in a black sphere.
The entire process had taken a little less than a minute. Without a word, the assailants who had speared Susanoo withdrew the chains, minus the blades still trapped within the containment barrier.
And then all six of them turned to face her. And each of them raised one hand in her direction. And from each of six wrists, a small barrel that was clearly some sort of weapon emerged from their armor. Assault Skill: Perfect Assassin.
Fate, recognizing that standing still was probably not the best idea right at that moment, moved.
The six weapons leveled in her direction filled the sky with streaks of purple light. The problem was not that they were terribly powerful, but that every possible avenue of escape was covered… it was as if her unknown attackers had each chosen a possible route for her to evade and somehow silently let the others know which path they were going to cover. No matter which way she chose, at least one hit was a guarantee, and if she stayed still to put up a barrier, they would just batter her down with rapid fire. She broke left, moving with as much speed as she could pull off without thinning her armor, and as predicted, winced in pain as a neat circular burn emblazoned itself on her left leg. Still, her Barrier Jacket's personal shields took most of the impact, and only the one shot seemed to have hit.
"Bardiche, counter-attack!"
"Assault Form, get set. Photon Lancer, scatter shot!" The glowing golden missiles fired with impressive speed, utilizing the stored energy she'd been planning to fire at Susanoo a few moments ago. She'd chosen a wide-range attack, reasoning that with such a tight formation, not all of them would be able to get clear; basically an inverse of the same tactic that had just worked fairly well on her. To her surprise, however, only three of them even tried, flying out to take up flanking positions around her. The other three actually closed ranks, not moving from the space where her fire would hit hardest.
Defensive Skill: Unity Wall.
The three targets each held up one palm, and a translucent veil of dark… something… appeared between them and her attack. The bolts struck with just as much force as she had planned, but still reflected harmlessly from the barrier they raised. And now she was surrounded, and the others were preparing to open fire again…
"Any luck, Amy?"
Amy cast him a glare that could have melted granite. She didn't say it out loud, of course, but it basically screamed 'If I had good news, don't you think I would have said something?'.
"Okay, we need to try this from a new perspective. If the Asura's teleport system is non-functioning, maybe a personalized feed would work."
"Personalized teleportation to somewhere you've never been and that you aren't attuned to in the slightest, while a confrontation between AAA class mages is occurring on-site? Even if you made it through all right, you'd be useless once you arrived." Amy said, and realistically, she wasn't wrong. The reason most people used machines to get around was that personal teleportation wasn't terribly energy efficient, and it got worse if the caster had never been where they were trying to go. The strain could be minimized if the mage was somehow attuned to the location in question, like Fate with the Garden of Time. Or if the mage had several qualified companions to help them handle the strain, like the Wolkenritter had commonly done.
Of course, Chrono actually had neither of these things. What he had was a planet he'd never even heard of and a team of mages that were already half-exhausted from trying to contain an opponent who was considerably out of their weight class. And the ambient magic from the battle on-site just made things even worse.
Of course again, Amy delicately refrained from bringing up the fact that the Captain was supposed to stay with the ship.
Chrono nodded once. "That's why I'm not going myself. Bring Arf and Yuuno here with the ship's systems. Then I'll send them to Nanoha and Fate personally. It'll be hard to be accurate, but at least they'll be on the right world. It's a step in the right direction."
"That's even worse! Do you really have enough energy to manage two people?"
"I can tap the Asura's reactors for a boost. That should give me the raw muscle I need."
"But…"
"If we shut down most of our systems, it should make the reactor stable enough to safely siphon power from." Chrono said, shooting down her next protest before she could pull it off. "It's not as though we're using the thing for anything else, at the moment."
Amy sighed. "Okay, okay. If you're dead set on this, I'll get Yuuno and Arf back to the ship." She turned back to her panel, hit a few buttons… and froze.
"… Amy?" Chrono asked hesitantly. "What's wrong?"
"GAAAAAAAAAAH!" Amy shrieked.
"Not working, huh?"
"How the… what the… when the…" Amy sputtered. "How the Hell did they do this to my Asura?!"
"… 'Your' Asura?"
"It's not working Chrono! Again, it's not working! It's like someone is watching each and every individual thing I try and only letting me do the things they want me to do! This is so much more annoying than just normal jamming I can't stand it!"
Chrono's eyes narrowed. "… Huh." He said.
"What? What's wrong?"
"I… I hope I'm wrong, but I think I know what the problem is. Or at least, I have a fairly good idea. Oooooh, someone's going to pay for this…"
"What? What do you mean, Chrono?"
"I don't have time to explain it right this second, unfortunately. For now, just shut down everything but life support, all other systems totally dark. We can't trust anything the main computer says. I'm going to go interface with the power core."
Amy's eyes widened. "Chrono, this plan was dangerous enough when you were just handling half the trip. You're really going to try the whole thing? What are we gonna do if you blow your head up by accident?!"
Chrono smiled. "We don't have many options right now, Amy. My people are in danger. I wouldn't be much of a captain if I didn't do everything in my power to help them, right?" He said, and began the trek down the Asura's engineering bay.
Amy, for her part, did not blush. Not even a little, no matter what anyone said. He was just a kid, after all, even when he did say cool things like that.
Yuuno yawned.
Arf scratched behind her ear.
Warden Milione said, "So… um… you kids want a mint or something? I think I got some mints."
"Um… sure." Yuuno said.
"I guess so." Arf said.
The warden looked through his desk. "Huh. I must be out."
"Oh."
"Sorry."
"No, it's all right. Not your fault."
"I just feel bad for offering you a mint when I didn't have any."
"No problem." Arf said.
Silence fell.
Silence landed.
Silence lay there on the ground like a dead fish.
"You know, we're missing the fight, Yuuno. The two of us, we're missing the fight, right now."
"I know, Arf."
"I'm just hoping this isn't going to become a common thing, you know? I mean, let's face it; we don't get to do as much as we used to. Fate doesn't need me to help her that much anymore, and Nanoha is like a tiny engine of destruction, so she really doesn't need you shielding her too badly. I hope we don't get kind of… you know, phased out."
"Well, my new job is pretty time-consuming, and as Fate gets more powerful it's only natural she'd rely on you less for combat and more for other things. But I'm sure they wouldn't phase us out entirely, right? We'll be right there at their sides every time a big crisis pops up, you just watch." Yuuno said confidently.
"Yeah, you're probably right."
"I mean, when lives are in danger, they certainly wouldn't just leave me in the library without telling me anything, or just… I don't know, leave you at home to clean or watch the house. They'd call us."
"Yeah, they would." Arf agreed. "But… well, what if they replace us? What if they find some new guys, and they just replace us? Fate's always wanted kids when she grows up. What if she grows up, becomes a mom, and her kids replace me? And Nanoha, she's always saving people and making new friends. What if she finds some new people and they replace you?"
"Oh, that would never happen. I mean, I'm the one who taught Nanoha magic in the first place. And you're Fate's only family. They wouldn't just replace us. We're much too important."
"… I'm sure you're right." Arf said.
Silence fell again.
Silence fell, and fell, and fell.
Conveniently enough,a brilliant blue light chose that moment to flood the office, disrupting the very awkward silence. With identical squawks of surprise, Yuuno and Arf vanished.
The warden smiled. "I wasn't out of mints at all. I just didn't want to give you any." He said smugly, popping a mint into his mouth.
Three black blades shot through the sky at the little girl in the blue dress… and a silver saber intercepted each and every one. In a shower of sparks, all three were harmlessly knocked aside.
"Your stealth technology is quite impressive." Tsukuyomi asked mildly. "Not impressive enough to fool my senses, but I imagine a less sensitive mage would have been quite fooled. Very nice."
The figures in black did not answer, merely drew back and regrouped, withdrawing their weapons as they did. They did not seem terribly distraught that their initial assault had failed… merely as though they now had to reconsider their initial strategy, and were choosing to evaluate their options.
Tsukuyomi supposed that was a wise decision to make, but she had no intention of allowing them to do it. But first, she should make certain of…
A distortion in her sensory field caught her attention. More of them? My, that stealth shielding is good.
She spun to answer the new threat, but she needn't have bothered. The target for the incoming assault was not herself, but the bureau mage. Luckily, Nanoha's senses seemed to be rather sharp as well, and she managed to raise a barrier sufficient to deflect the energy volleyed against her. Her return fire was equally smooth and sharp… and totally ineffective, as the three figures that had attacked her came together to generate a single shield that repelled the pink blast. They were, apparently, sufficiently impressed that they chose to regroup with their comrades, however.
The two girls floated, measuring up the six hostile figures sharing the sky with them. "They are not your allies, I take it?" Tsukuyomi asked.
"I don't have any allies that attack me." Nanoha said tersely. Her tone then became thoughtful. "… Well, except Vita, sometimes. But that's mostly just in fun."
Tsukuyomi nodded once. "Very well. In that case, take my wing while I test their defenses."
"Wait, wh-"
Without another word, Tsukuyomi lunged. She struck only once, a light blow with her sword, but the figure she had targeted was quickly joined by another, and together they projected a barrier to repel her. She instantly zipped backwards and brought her sword into a vertical slash, saying as she did, "Cut through it."
"Crescent Moon Dance." Suijin said. The blade developed a silvery-turquoise aura that extended several feet from the actual sword, allowing her to take another slash from a greater distance… which was repelled when a third intervened to strengthen the existing black barrier. The three not engaged in defense attempted to snare her again with their chains, but she nimbly skipped back to take up position next to Nanoha.
"… … … I thought I told you to take my wing. Why did you not defend me?" Tsukuyomi asked with just the slightest hint of annoyance.
"Well, you should have given me more warning! I didn't think you were going to rush right at them! And when did we join forces?!" Nanoha asked.
"We have a mutual enemy, so we are allies for now. That's only natural." Tsukuyomi said simply. "Although, I suppose I could kill you now and then deal with them… or kill them now and then deal with you… or perhaps I could let you kill each other and deal with the winner. Yes, actually, I think that last one will work rather well, so let's do that."
"No, no, I don't mind working together," Nanoha said quickly.
Without the slightest change of expression, Tsukuyomi said. "Oh, then you do wish for a truce? That's good. Since we are allies now, you should return my Drive unit…"
"No."
"… ah."
They were far from the most powerful opponents Fate had ever faced, but they might just have been the most annoying.
She'd managed, with a little effort, to get around their shields and break their formation, only to find that the results were less than stellar. They simply shrugged off maneuvers that should have rendered a person of the power they'd shown unconscious, and stopping to focus an attack on one left her open to the others. And of course, they typically managed to get back into formation within seconds of being knocked out.
They were wearing her down. Slowly, tediously, but relentlessly.
She sighed sadly. The sad fact of the matter was, she knew what needed to be done right now. It was sort of a risk, but she didn't think it would backfire on her. Probably.
"Bardiche? We're going back to close combat. Their reflexes seem to be better at distance."
"Haken Form!" Bardiche obliged, once again sprouting its scythe blade.
This, of course, was a lie, and Bardiche knew that. She knew full well that at close combat, one of them would attempt to hold her still while the other five surrounded her; she'd already tried that. But she was savvy enough to realize that blurting out her actual plan in front of them was probably a bad idea.
She rushed the enemy, and as expected they broke ranks to leave her just one target who was, in turn, rushing to meet her. Rather than actually engage him in melee, she came to a sudden stop and hurled the Haken blade directly at his head. Of course, the attack was blatantly obvious, and the figure in black dodged it with relative ease.
Exactly as planned.
Fate raised Bardiche, catching her attacker's wrist-mounted blade on her device, and gritted her teeth as the others took up firing positions. Two long, long seconds passed. Come on, come on! She couldn't afford to look, but the Arc Saber had to have hit its real target by now…
A gigantic silver blade swung through the air between her and her attacker, lopping off its left arm at the elbow. The sudden absence of pressure on her weapon allowed her to shove the man away with ease and get out of the fire zone, the barrage the other assassins launched passing harmlessly through empty air.
The attacker who had just lost a limb drew back, sparks flying from the stray wires that dangled from his severed arm, revealing the circuitry inside. Fate sighed in relief. They were automatons, then… that helped. They'd moved so organically that they thought they'd been people in bodysuits for awhile, but their precision had just screamed 'combat computer'. Even now that she could see the circuitry, she still couldn't shake the feeling that something was very off about them, though…
Susanoo floated next to her, weapon at the ready. The blades that had been used to immobilize him were still sticking into his body, although he didn't really seem to mind. "Thanks, Fatie! It would have taken me a long time to get out of there if you hadn't lent me a hand."
"That was the general idea. Although you might have made sure that was a machine before you cut its arm off." Fate said.
Susanoo put on an expression that could best be described as 'recently kicked puppy'. "But… but I was helping! That guy, he was really trying to kill you, Fate! Besides, he doesn't really seem to mind! He didn't scream or anything!"
"Yes. I know. That's because he's a robot." Fate said patiently.
"Um… you sure about that, Fate?" Susanoo said, holding up Raijin for her inspection.
There was blood on it.
Fate's eyes widened, and she turned her gaze to look at the recently de-limbed assassin. No, there was definitely circuitry in the wound… but now that she looked, blood was slowly dripping from it as well, albeit not nearly as much as such an enormous wound should have produced. There was… there was living tissue worked into the machinery? Her eyes wide with some combination of shock and horror, Fate managed to stutter, "W-what the… what is that?!"
"You mean besides 'creepy'? My first thought was some kind of cyborg, but I hit some organic components, so a true cyborg would be, y'know, screaming in agony right now. Maybe they're…" Susanoo began. Then, in a sudden blur of motion, he raised his weapon and used it to bat away three incoming blades. "HEY! I was talking over here! Geez, how annoying…"
The three assassins that had once again attempted to immobilize him withdrew their weapons back into their armor, exchanging them for the energy cannons they'd been using on Fate.
"I don't think they're trying to take you alive anymore." Fate warned him, dropping into a battle stance.
"Hmmmm… that's okay." Susanoo said, his smile going distinctly evil. "I was thinking of killing them too. They're pretty disgusting creatures, and they've really managed to annoy me, so I think that ripping them to pieces until they regret having such durable bodies sounds fun. You agree, Raijin?"
"Very much!" Raijin agreed.
Fate just stared at him, her jaw hanging slightly open.
"Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm not doing it to you." He said, rolling his eyes.
"We're not?" Raijin asked in a very disappointed tone.
"GAAAAAAH! OUCH! Oh, OW!" Arf said. "That… was… the… worst… teleport… ever!"
"Did someone drop a refrigerator on my brain…?" Yuuno muttered, face-down on the floor.
"Don't complain yet, it's only half done." Chrono said through gritted teeth. His face was covered in sweat, and he was floating above the Asura's central power source, shrouded in so many mystic circles and glowing so brightly it was hard to look directly at him.
"Chrono? You brought us here yourself? I thought we were too far away for that…" Yuuno said dully, managing to raise his head briefly. "OW! Oh, that's too bright…"
"Sorry about the bumpy ride. I've never been to where you were, I've never been to where you're going, it was too far for me to send you in one jump, and I'm kind of cheating on the magical power supply. It's working so far, but it's also really sort of painful for everyone involved."
"Chrono, are you okay?" Arf asked in a concerned tone, noting something she hadn't before… namely, the thin trail of blood flowing out of Chrono's ear.
Man, I hope so. Chrono thought. "I'm fine," He said.
"Maybe you should take a break. You're clearly handling way too much magic there. Let Yuuno take a look at you…"
"No time. Power accumulation complete, commencing dimensional transfer. Coordinates are as follows: 1174382001-222304-335564974-0199038…"
Arf continued to watch with concern in her eyes. Dimensional coordinates first, then planetary, then latitude and longitude. Once again, Arf was struck with the thought that Chrono shouldn't be doing this by himself. Fate had been able to pull off an accurate personal transport for two to the Garden of Time, but she had also spent most of her life there and her magic couldn't have been more attuned to it. When going from the Garden to Earth, they had always used the Garden's built-in transportation systems. The last time Arf had tried teleporting under only her own power, she'd just aimed for anywhere she'd been before and prayed, and it had still left her a wreck afterward. Granted, she'd been wounded, but it had also been a rather modest spell in comparison to what Chrono was trying to pull.
Still, despite the obvious pain, he clearly managed something, because light rose up around the two people on the floor once again, and they vanished the same way they'd appeared. This was good, because it meant they weren't subject to the sight of Chrono unceremoniously falling out of the air to crumple on the floor.
Amy? He thought. He really, really hoped he'd actually sent that thought, because he frankly couldn't be sure.
Yes, Chrono? Did everything go all right?! Do you need help?! Amy responded in something approaching panic.
Reinforcements successfully sent. But I'm trying to move right now, and not having much success. If you could please have someone from Medical come down here? I think I'm just exhausted, but I should probably get checked out anyway.
Yes, of course, right away! Amy replied. Oh, and… um… good job, Captain.
Thanks, Amy. Now if you'll excuse me, I could probably use some rest. Chrono thought contentedly. Heh. She called me 'Captain'. That was nice.
He really hoped he hadn't sent that last thought…
