A/N: Yes, I know it's been a LONG time. I've been writing here for 6 years! You all know me by now!
...
Takamachi Nanoha of 2814
by Shadow Crystal Mage
Chapter 25: Kosmo Entelekhia
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters in this story. If I did… well, this would all be canon. WARNING: MAY CAUSE HEAD EXPLOSION!
...
24/12- Earlier
"It's probably some kind of sign that all the people who can kick your ass nowadays are women," Asuna said as they headed back to the dorms by back ways and byways and many times just over rooftops like some character from a Takahashi manga that for some reason is still generating fanfic decades after cancellation. "Me, Eva-chan, Cassandra-san, that red knight who kicked your ass a few weeks back…"
She was feeling pretty cheerful, all things considered, despite the rising insanity. They'd had to stop sparring with Cassandra after they'd been tracked down by Mana, who Ayaka had apparently hired. The mercenary seemed amused by the situation, and had been playing with them, in her own way, until Negi had summoned Kaede as a distraction. The two had immediately gotten locked in yet another duel, even as Mana made a token attempt to continue with her contract.
Some things, like ignoring ongoing ninja-sniper rivalry, can't be bought. For everything else, like Mana's non-ideological loyalty, there's YukihiroCard.
Negi sighed resignedly at the good-natured ribbing, but he couldn't help but smile anyway. "So, are you planning anything for tomorrow, Asuna-san?" he asked, curiously.
Asuna looked at him sideways. "Huh? Eh, nothing much. Eat Konoka's good food, watch some Christmas specials, loaf around… you?"
"Well, I'm sort of chaperoning the dance the school is holding," Negi said.
Asuna slapped a hand into her palm. "Oh, right! That thing. I completely forgot about it. Huh. Must be why so many people are looking for you…" she muttered darkly, thinking of half of the class.
They entered their dorm via the window, to find Konoka merrily whistling to herself as she cooked, and a chastened-looking Setsuna.
"Tried to steal a cookie?" Asuna asked as Negi closed the window behind them.
"Marshmallow," the hanyou said meekly.
"Heh, sorry Setsuna-chan," Asuna said. "I should have warned you, Konoka can be pretty particular with her Christmas cooking. Too much American TV, if you ask me."
As Negi got changed and put away his training things, the door slammed open, and an annoyed Chisame strode in, one of her new robot maids trailing her. Those things still gave Asuna the willies, even if Hakase and Chisame BOTH guaranteed they'd been reprogrammed. "There you are!" she cried. "Can't you stay on the ground like normal people? I've been running over half the campus to find you!"
"Come on in Chisame-chan, make yourself at home," Asuna said dryly.
"Look, I am NOT in the mood for this!" Chisame snapped, plopping down in front of the table and pulling out her laptop. She typed quickly, then placed it on the surface and turned the screen towards them as Konoka left the kitchen, wondering what all the fuss was about. "This just came in. Green Lantern just found the Wolkenritter AND their Master and is asking for backup. I've talked to Amy. Apparently their top mage guy is in HQ busting someone who apparently had this info and was holding back, and Ferret Lantern went with him."
Negi, Asuna, Setsuna and Konoka stared in stunned silence.
"Well?" Chisame demanded.
"Not one sarcastic comment about all this being a fantasy world she's not a part of," Asuna said. "Chisame… you're finally one of us!"
Chisame's whole face twitched. She drooped. "I hate you people…"
Asuna turned to Setsuna. "Setsuna, get everyone, but make sure not to let anyone else know. We can't meet here, too much chance of getting caught by Iincho and co… The stage near the World Tree! Let's all meet there in half an hour!"
Setsuna nodded, getting to her feet. Konoka sighed. "There's goes dinner…"
Setsuna looked guilty. "You don't have to come along, Ojou-sama…" she said.
Konoka whacked her with the chef's hat she was worrying. "Don't be silly, Set-chan! Who'd do the healing?"
"I hate you all…" Chisame said, still stuck at her final revelation…
...
24/12- Tomoeda
"Ground control, this is Ravager one, requesting clearance to take off," Tomoyo said into her helmet mic.
"Daidouji, your complete and wanton abuse of power fills me with new heights of terror, you crazy, addle-brained lunatic!" Syaoran said levelly, finishing the last four words in Mandarin to spare Sakura's delicate ears.
"Eh?" Sakura said, blinking innocently. "What did you say, Syaoran-kun?"
"Syaoran! Be nice!" Meilin said, grinning through her flight helmet. "Otherwise she might not let me fly this on the weekend!"
"No worries, Meilin-chan," Tomoyo said brightly. She looked over her shoulder at them, quite a feat considering the confines of the helicopter, modified as it was. "Consider it a New Years gift. When we return from this little trip of Sakura-chan's, I'll get you started logging hours on my flight simulator."
"'When', she says," Syaoran muttered. "Am I the only one vaguely concerned by this? The last time Sakura had apocalyptic dreams that nearly came true, Yue beat the stuffing out of us. I don't think it'll as nice this time."
"Well, there'll certainly likely be less Ho-yay-type sexual tension," Meilin muttered in Mandarin.
Syaoran glared at her, ignoring Sakura's confused look at the language shift. "Must you mock my magically induced sexual confusion?"
"Yes," Tomoyo replied from up front as she adjusted some controls, many of which read things like 'Armed'. "Yes, we must."
"Ravager one, you are cleared for take off," the radio crackled. "Your mother sends her regards and reminds you not to cause an incident that can't be covered up. Enjoy your flight. We'll have the lawyers waiting when you get home."
"Oh, Tsunade-san you kidder you," Tomoyo laughed as the helicopter's blades suddenly got into gear, the loud roar necessitating the helmets and accompanying earphones to dampen. Holographic display that certainly hadn't been part of the helicopter's package when it was first made came alive, Tomoyo touching displays in air, setting and adjusting their course. Sakura cried out cutely, clutching at Syaoran for comfort. Due to the fact she and Meilin for both sitting with Syaoran in the rear cockpit of the helicopter– Tomoyo apparently needed to be free of distractions– this resulted in rather bright blushing on his part and smug but slightly wistful looks from Meilin.
The last thing Syaoran heard over the radio was, "Who says we're kidd–" before it cut off, and they were rising into the evening air. Sakura clung tighter, hiding her face in his shoulder at the rather stomach-wrenching lurch as the helicopter rose with speed. The improvised safety webbing was making him very uncomfortable, but it was the best compromise they could come up with, since Tomoyo would very well not countenance Sakura sitting in the seat proper and someone sitting on her lap. Still, the positioning was making Syaoran even more conscious of proximity. Thank goodness the seat was barely wide enough for Sakura to sit next to him, rather than on him…
He saw Meilin's eyebrows rise just as he became uncomfortably aware a portion of his anatomy had just done the same. She fixed him with a teasing smile. "Why, Syaoran…" she purred. "Are you thinking of doing naughty, decadent things to your little ole cousin and Sakura-cha–"
The specially attached jet engines Tomoyo had modified the helicopter with roared to life, drowning out even the headphones and thankfully sparing Syaoran and the author from the completed suggestion of a threesome as the highly illegal, heavily altered, heavily armed helicopter screamed into the night, heading for Uminari city…
...
24/12– Now
"Diabolic Emission…"
The ball of dark energy contracted.
"Merge with the night…"
Energy exploded.
"I…" Illya said, staring at the death before her, "am going to die a virgin."
Somewhere, Kuro felt a sudden surge of desperate urgency and libido and didn't know why.
The wave of dark energy spread, reaching to engulf them, Nanoha's hand snapped up, her ring flaring as a multi-layered sphere of green energy surrounded them, while at the same time a disk of pink light snapped between them and the pulse of energy. Nanoha let out a cry as her construct buckled, bent and finally shattered under the magical onslaught. Her magical shield held, however, and Illya hastily directed Ruby to do the same, forming her star-shaped barriers around Nanoha's widening their shield. Her stars started to crack.
"Ruby! More power!" she cried.
"Fate-chan!" Nanoha called.
Fate wrapped her arms around their waists, her cape vanishing as the glowing golden wings of her Sonic Form flared into being. "Blitz Rush!" she intoned, and Illya's breath was squeezed out of her as Fate kicked in the speed. They blew past the leading edge of the sphere, but Fate didn't slow, getting as much distance as they could while their enemy's vision was obscured by her own spell.
Nanoha was apparently taking the sudden burst of speed better than Illya was, because she was still alert and tracking. "Fate-chan! Behind that building! We need cover!"
Fate made a very abrupt, sharp turn, making Illya's stomach roil violently in response. They flashed behind the shadow of a large building, where the blonde finally let them go.
Illya pushed back from them, turned and retched in midair, the former contents of her stomach plunging into the darkened earth beneath. When she finally stopped unloading, she directed a bleary gaze at Fate. "A little warning next time, please?" she said weakly.
Fate blushed. "Sorry."
Nanoha handed Illya a green tissue and she wiped her mouth with it. That helped, though the inside of her mouth still tasted–
Illya blinked as Nanoha handed her what appeared to be a green glass of green water. "You're kidding, right?"
Nanoha shrugged. "It works just like water, though I wouldn't advise swallowing."
Grimacing, Illya took the glass, gargled and, with nowhere to delicately get rid of it, spat out the green construct water into the dark below. "Thank you," she said, feeling cleaner. She paused. "Is it weird your cakes taste as good coming up as going down?"
"We're particularly proud of that trick," Nanoha chirped happily. "Takamachi Family Cooking Secret!"
"Fate-chan!" a voice cried.
Startled, they all turned, and Illya saw a tall red-haired woman flying towards them. Furry animal ears sprouted from the usual places, and her hot pants and very abbreviated top left little to the imagination. Illya was immediately struck by breast envy. The woman was almost as stacked as Rider!
Somewhere in the midst of preparations to leave, Rider paused, wondering why her boobs felt warm...
Fate apparently recognized her, breaking out in a smile. "Arf!" she called out, reminding the readers of the familiar's existence .
The familiar flew towards them, looking chagrined. "Sorry I took so long," Arf said. "I was napping, so I didn't hear the computer's alert, and I couldn't contact you, and then the barrier went up...!" She lapsed into gasps.
"Breathe Arf, breathe," Fate soothed.
Arf took deep, shuddering gasps, making Illya's breast envy go rampant all over again. "Back-up's on its way, I think," she said more calmly. "But it will be a while. Chrono and Yuuno were at the Main Office arresting a senior TSAB officer for hiding information about the Book of Darkness. Yuuno's on his way back now, but even at maximum speed, it'll be a while before he gets back. The other magical girl groups have gotten word and are on their way, but they weren't ready, so they'll be delayed. The Senshi say they'll be here first, and someone's been sent to pick up the others. "
Nanoha grimaced. "So we're on our own," she said, her visor hiding her expression. "We need to occupy the Book's attention, keep it from leaving this area. We need a plan."
Illya cautiously looked around the building, scanning the skies until she spotted their enemy. The unearthly, vaguely purple-ish glow streaked with red and black helped. "I guess the Book was completed when it took Berserker's core," she said bitterly, which wasn't very bitter, not having a lot of practice. "So this is it going out of control, huh? That means it's already possessed that Hayate girl and it's counting down to the end of the world, right?" A pause.
Nanoha Fate and Arf chimed in. "Again."
Something still nagged Illya about that girl. Her name and Caster's, the 4th Caster's, there was something... For that matter, something about the Book of Darkness's silver-haired form nagged at her too. She felt she'd seen it somewhere before...
"We should stay well back," Fate advised cautiously. "Given the power the Book has shown, we'll need distance to evade any more of such wide-area attacks. I'm probably the only one fast enough to dodge any other such attacks. I'll close in and occupy her, and you guys attack from a distance."
"Fate-chan!" Nanoha protested.
Fate shook her golden hair vehemently. "It's for the best, Nanoha-chan. Your shooting spells can be safely used at long range, and I've seen how you get affected when one of your constructs is broken by magic. I know you can safely deploy constructs from far away. This way, if they break, you're less vulnerable. You and Illya can shoot at her while I keep her busy."
"We keep her busy," Arf interjected. "I'm almost as fast as you, and I have better defensive spells. I can soften any hits."
Fate hesitated, but finally nodded.
Nanoha frowned, obviously not liking the plan. Her sense of duty didn't like being placed in the position of less harm, but she had to admit, Fate was better at her at high-speed maneuvers– in-atmosphere, anyway. She was pretty sure she was better than Fate at faster-than-light maneuvers.
…
Reasonably sure.
…
Fairly sure
…
Well, it wasn't like she'd ever find out.
Nanoha sighed, giving Fate a concerned look. "Be careful, okay Fate-chan?"
Fate managed a smile. "Don't worry. I will..."
Arf rolled her eyes. "Oh, get a room, master..."
"ARF!" Fate cried, blushing, while Nanoha blinked in confusion.
"You should have seen them earlier," Illya told Arf.
"I think I can imagine what it was like," Arf said. Then she did a double take. "Hey, who are you?"
"Arf, Illya. Illya, Arf," Nanoha said, making introductions.
"Hi..." Illya said, waving hesitantly.
"Hey," Arf said. She looked at Nanoha sideways. "So, how'd you end up here? Nanoha blast you in the face with a deathray too?"
"Hey!" Nanoha pouted. "I never aimed for the face!"
...
Chrono sat listening to Admiral Graham outline his plan. How he'd been looking for the Book of Darkness since it last appeared eleven years ago. How he'd found it, already bonded to a girl named Yagami Hayate. The surveillance, contacting the girl under the guise as a friend of her father, paying for her living expenses. Project Durandal. How they had intended to eventually deal with the Book of Darkness… and with it, Hayate.
Behind the older man, the Lieze twins stood loyally, making faces of defiance. But that was all there was to it. Faces. Yuuno had found the information trail, and Chrono and he had followed it to these three. It was all over except for the lawyers, so to speak. Yuuno had already left, having received some kind of distress call from Nanoha.
Finally, Chrono stood, turning to leave. As he stepped to the door, he paused. "There are two other problems with your plan besides its legality, Admiral," he said. "First of all, releasing the Book of Darkness and its master from such a frozen existence wouldn't be all that difficult. No matter where you hid them, no matter how much you tried to protect the location, someone will find it, drawn to it by their desire for power. And when that day comes, the cycle will begin anew, and you will have achieved nothing but taking an innocent girl's life from her."
Graham bowed his head in sad acknowledgement.
"What's the second thing?" Aria demanded.
Chrono allowed himself a slight smile. "The second thing is that if you'd actually gone through with your plan, Earth's law enforcement would have been on you so hard you'd be on trial before you know what hit you. Be thankful that matters accelerated to the degree they did without your intervention."
"I doubt the police would have even noticed we were there," Graham said, frowning.
Chrono couldn't help it. He coughed out a laugh that had the Lieze twins blinking at him in confusion. "You haven't been keeping track of things on Earth as well as you should have been, Admiral. More than one person I've met has told me whoever made it official that Unadministered World 97 has few mages was a blind, deaf, stupid moron. I hold the same opinion."
The frown deepened. "I fail to see what that has to do with anything."
"Can you access Earth's internet here?" Chrono asked. "I suggest, before your access privileges are completely revoked, you look up 'Sailor Senshi', 'Superman' and 'Green Lantern' on Google. There was a reason so many people were here when we brought our local contact to be treated when her Linker Core was taken." Chrono sighed. "Things have probably escalated to the 'Bombardment Spells to the face' stage on Earth, so if you will excuse me, I will take my leave. Pray we can contain this situation in time."
He continued moving towards the door.
"Chrono," Graham called.
Chrono paused. "Yes?"
"Aria, give him the Durandal," Graham said.
"Father!" the catgirl exclaimed.
"No way!" Lotte protested.
"We don't have a chance anymore…" he admitted. "And apparently never did. Even if we kept it with us, it would be useless."
The twins deflated. Aria reached into her… somewhere (really, where did they have room to put anything on those uniforms?) and drew out a large card. She extended it to Chrono, eyes downcast.
"I'll let use decide how you want to use it," Graham said as Chrono looked down at it. "It is the Staff of Freezing we have developed… the Durandal…"
In the middle, the diamond-shaped blue gem sparkled.
...
"Green Lantern, in position," Nanoha announced, crouching down amongst the air vents and other assorted paraphernalia on the roof of the building she'd chosen as her firing position. A hologram rendered her invisible, masking her protective aura's glow. Raging Heart rested on a makeshift construct bipod, pointing where her visor had tagged the enemy.
Several city blocks away and a slight turn clockwise relative to the Book of Darkness, Illya winced, adjusting the green earpiece she wore. "Kaleido Ruby, in position. And not so loud please, I'm still not sure how to adjust the volume of this thing."
"Sorry. I think I forgot to add that. I'll just fix my transmission volume."
"Appreciated."
Fate and Arf, in position, Fate sent, gripping Bardiche tightly as she stared up at the dark-clad form of the spirit of the Book of Darkness. Her fingers twitched spasmodically without her consent, and she concentrated on stilling them, lest they make her lose her grip in a very unfortunate moment. Why, exactly, had she volunteered herself for this highly suicidal position? Oh, right, she'd been afraid for her friend's safety and the argument had seemed to make sense at the time. Right now, her fear was telling her– quite loudly, eloquently, repeatedly and with a very reasonable and well thought out argument– that this was an extremely stupid idea, that it was highly detrimental to her continued life-span, that she was likely in for a world of hurt, and that maybe this sort of thing was exactly what Nanoha's constructs were for.
Fate took a deep breath, punched her fear in the gut before she lost her nerve, threw it into a canvas bag, jumped on the bag repeatedly with spiked shoes, threw it into the bay, then turned around and whistled innocently as she pretended she hadn't seen it.
Someone squeezed her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her barrier jacket. She let out a sigh of relief she hadn't known she'd been holding in as she realized it was just Arf.
"Calm down master," Arf said softly, her tone mildly teasing, mostly reassuring. "This can't be any worse than the time Nanoha-chan shot you in the face with her first Starlight Breaker."
Neither mentioned how Nanoha hadn't been shooting to kill.
"Preparing attack," Nanoha reported, startling them out of their moment. Fate checked her hand, and was relieved to see the shaking had stopped. "Raging Heart establishing targeting lock. Preparing constructs."
"Um, give me a sec," Illya waffled, still setting up. "Ruby, I need you to make some kind of Bounded Field around me to keep me from being noticed, like what Luvia has around her house. Something I can shoot out from without disrupting it."
"Hmm…" Ruby mused. "Tough order. That's extremely complicated magecraft, Illya-chan! What do you think I am, some kind of magic wand you can just wave to make anything you can imagine happen without bothering to know how it gets done?"
Illya gave it a blank look. "Well, yes."
"That's right, I am!" Ruby crowed. "Aren't I awesome or what? I pity the phools who don't have me, I do, I do!"
Illya's eyebrow twitched. "Have you been watching American sitcoms again or something, Ruby?"
There was a derisive sound over the open line that sounded like someone was trying to snort but didn't have the anatomy for it. "Oh, please. Your abilities are nothing, Kaleidostick. I possess infinitely more creative potential than you do, and have been perfected over the course of eons. I be bringin' the phunk down on you, biyatch."
"Creative potential is meaningless," Bardiche argued. "I am optimized for maximum synchronization with my master. There are no points of unnecessary capability. My master and I form a perfect team."
"Heh, really? Then why did I hear that TSAB technician lady say the pink ejaculation stick and my Green Lantern had a higher synchronization rating?" Ring-chan said.
Silence.
"Hey, shooting thingy, say something."
"Please leave me out of this," Raging Heart said demurely.
Nanoha blinked. "Ring-chan? Is there something wrong with your speech capabilities? Why are you talking like that?"
"I was attempting to communicate with the Kaleidostick in an Earth vernacular it seemed familiar with, ma'm," Ring-chan said in something closer to its usual Tara Strong-esque voice.
"Ah," Nanoha said, not really understanding.
Fate sighed. "Bardiche, now's not the time to be picking up bad habits."
"Sorry sir."
Illya gave Ruby a look. "Bounded Field, please?" she said, waving the wand. The air momentarily shimmered, then settled.
In the air, the Book of Darkness paused
Illya froze. "Crap! Did it pick us up?"
It turned, scanning the ground beneath it.
Illya wilted. "Why can't I catch a break?" she moaned as the Book began to descend.
In the horizon, green light flared.
"RING CONSTRUCT! STARLIGHT BREAKER!"
The city was bathed in emerald light as the enormous, building-sized sphere of energy instantly formed and burst into a deadly, implacable beam. It slammed into the Book of Darkness, completely encompassing it with its width. Then the beam detonated, exploding into an annihilating sphere of green light so bright it seemed almost white. The sphere seemed about to surge outward, as such explosions are wont to, before it suddenly shuddered and began to contract. Its light became brighter.
Illya starred in confusion, wondering what was stopping the obviously intense blast from growing and turning her into crispy-fried-Illya-chunks when she realized Nanoha was still controlling the blast, keeping it contained and concentrating its full destructive power on the Book.
Nanoha! She heard fate's panicked cry in her mind.
"Don't worry!" Nanoha responded, though there was strain in the girl's voice. Apparently, this wasn't as easy as it seemed. "Power Rings are always at non-lethal force when used against sentient beings. Hayate-chan will be fine!"
Illya blinked. "THAT'S YOUR IDEA OF NON-LETHAL?-!-?-!-?-!"
"Well, it'll hurt a lot, but it won't kill her," Nanoha said, sounding like this was a self-evident fact.
"Having… flashbacks…" Fate murmured, staring. "Not the face… not the face…"
"Look, I never aimed for the face!"
Illya stared long and hard at the vivid green light above her. "No way is it that easy," she said philosophically, one finger idly tapping the pouch she carried her Class Cards in. "Just no way. It's too early for a hope spot, so this must be–"
The sphere of the concentrated construct exploded, the emerald energies warping and contorting dangerously, turning from a sphere into an interrupted stream. Stray streams of power slammed into the city, tearing, crushing and outright vaporizing buildings. Other parts of the attack beam sheered off and shattered like sugar glass.
Illya nodded in resigned satisfaction. "Ah. There it is. I knew it couldn't be so simple."
Illya, please stop being so cheerful and help, Fate said, sounding slightly peeved.
"Sarcasm doesn't become you, Testarossa-san," Illya said. "Ruby! Maintain bounded field and prepare the highest-yield shot we can that won't betray our position! Ready high-penetration explosive shot!"
"Attack readied," Ruby said. "Hit it with a Lyrical Grade Genocide blast!"
"Hey!" Nanoha called out, though her voice sounded slightly shaky. Her beam was attenuating at the point of impact, and Illya could vaguely make out some kind of spherical area there. "Are you making fun of me?"
Of course not, Nanoha-chan, Fate said. If we were, it would be called a Nanoha Grade Genocide blast.
"Oh. Well, that's okay th– HEY!"
Illya stifled a giggle and stood, grasping Ruby in both hands, trying to assess where their enemy was. "Nanoha-san! Be ready to cut off the beam at my signal! It's not doing much good any more! We need to switch to real magic attacks!"
"Understood!" Nanoha confirmed.
Illya set herself, drawing back Ruby. Two points of light in the air, gold and orange, circled some distance form the emerald blast, not close enough to be hurt by any throw-offs. "Maximal…" Illya intoned, trying to pour her power into the strike. "DURCHSTECHEN!"
The blast of pure prana streaked from the end of the Kaleidostick, leaving slightly iridescent curling contrails in its wake, the air warping at its end.
"Now, Nanoha-san!" Illya cried.
The emerald blast suddenly cut off, and the night seemed darker as the glow disappeared. The after-image of it was burned into Illya's vision, even as her own attacked burned another trail in her retinas. It struck the figure she'd aimed at just as Nanoha's beam disappeared, and the attack burst into its own spherical explosion.
Illya waited with baited breath, and when she saw her suspicions confirmed, her heart sank.
Of course the blast hadn't done any good…
"Why do I get the feeling this is going to drag on a while," she murmured to herself as she instinctively knelt to try and hide…
...
I am going to die a virgin… Fate thought, then paused.
"I didn't send that telepathically, did I?" she asked Arf.
"Send what?" Arf asked her, not turning away from their enemy.
"The thought about dying…"
"No, you didn't."
"Ah. Good."
"I wouldn't have been able to help you with it anyway. It'd be weird, and Nanoha's… probably kinda useless at it. And I don't think Illya-san knows you well enough to be comfortable with it…"
Fate gave her a sideways glare. "You said I hadn't sent anything!"
"Master, I don't need to hear your thoughts to know what you're thinking, especially when it's that. It's one of a familiar's 108 innate secret skills. Linith taught me so."
They listened to Illya's cry of "Maximal Durchstechen" in relative silence.
"That brings up very disturbing thoughts about how Linith would have taught you to recognize that…"
"Yeah, it was no picnic knowing when that woman was in the mood…"
A dimensional layer and several worlds away, Precia Testarossa sneezed and wondered why she was thinking of her dead familiar…
Fate narrowed her eyes against the glow of the impact of Illya's attack, the strange Earth magic incomprehensible to her. She clutched Bardiche tightly, its scythe blade already ready. As Illya's attack struck, Fate readied herself to charge, not trusting that to be sufficient. After all, it had withstood Nanoha's attack, and while her constructs were not magical in nature, they had a lot of kinetic and thermal energy to them, and anything that could withstand the amounts Nanoha liked to put into her attacks needed something more direct.
The blonde was charging in, her scythe ready, before the flash from Illya's attack had settled, the arc of the blade leaving a golden streak behind her as she darted forward. She angled in from behind, aiming for the black wings of the exposed back. Arf charged in from the side, close enough to give aid but not enough to be caught by area attacks- they hoped. The familiar gestured, an orange array appearing briefly before a bind snapped into place on the Book of Darkness's wrist.
Fate slashed, aiming for a debilitating attack, but the Book twisted out of the way. A wave-like move began from one leg, and with a cry of 'Unchained Knuckle!', the bind breaking from around her wrist. It spun to face Fate, and she got their first good look at the enemy.
She was tall, easily Signum's height, and that wasn't the only physical attribute she shared with the knight. It was quite fortunate that Fate, unlike Illya, wasn't one for breast envy. She was wore a short, tight, black dress, a sort of wrap around armored skirt like Signum wore, and a short-sleeved jacket. Red cords wrapped around her limbs, glowing ominously, as did the tattoo-like markings on her face and down her arms and legs. More of the red lines traced themselves on the black knight armor. Long silver hair trailed down her back and framed her face, where golden eyes looked out from washed-out features. A small pair of red-veined black wings sprouted incongruously on either side of her head.
She just looked at Fate emptily as the blonde darted back, Bardiche raised defensively, a shield instinctively snapping into place between them.
The Book of Darkness streaked forward, her fist and a murmur of "Schwarz Wirkung" shattering the shield as Fate barely threw herself, cape almost getting snagged by the attack. She rallied, sending her scythe blade flying with a cry of "Haken Saber!". The Book casually backhanded it away with another indifferent gesture, shadows wrapping themselves around her forearm. She focused on Fate.
Thus, she never saw the flying shark coming.
The bus-sized fish, complete with Nanoha's usual add-ons of chainsaw teeth, laser cannons and gatling guns on its head, and missiles slung along its fins, slammed into the Book's now-exposed back like an oversized bullet from a giant gun. Fate could in fact see said giant gun dissolving back to whatever it was power ring constructs were made of a long way off over the Book's shoulder. The giant shark hit with jaws wide open, chomping at the black wings Fate had targeted, and anything else attached.
The Book of Darkness grunted at the impact, whirling to backhand the construct, her arm glowing darkly with magic and covered with some kind of spike-ridden black armor that wrapped around it even as she moved, only for the shark to ripple at the point of impact like over-watered lime jello-mix, the arm flowing into it, the force of the blow dispersed. The construct remained intact, to Fate's surprise, until she realized what Nanoha had done. Her constructs broke when it tried to match over-powering magic directly, so she'd set her constructs to allow force to pass through when faced with magic, allowing the construct to keep its integrity, and likely saving Nanoha from feedback headaches. The area struck had lost cohesion; the teeth, guns and everything else hadn't.
Chainsaw teeth whirred at the knight armor as the head lasers and gatling guns blasted at point-blank range and missiles exploded all over as Fate and Arf darted back out of the blast area. The attack was intensely loud and bright. Fate supposed that was one of the reasons why Nanoha wore a visor.
"Lightning Bind!" Fate cast, trying to entangle the Book to hold it for the shark.
"Ring Bind!" Arf cast, supporting her…
And that was when the Book of Darkness stopped being nice.
"Shundo. Trace, on."
The Book flickered and disappeared. It took Fate a moment to recognize the flicker as extreme speed instead of teleportation. By the time she did, the Book was already in front of her, a gleaming, golden sword in its hands.
"Noble Phantasm: Caliburn," she intoned.
The shining sword burst with light, its point streaking inexorably towards Fate's torso.
"No!" Arf cried.
Something slammed into Fate's back with a startled cry of panic, and she had a brief moment to actually feel the point of the sword against her breast, before Illya swung Ruby again, the mystic code actually slamming into the Noble Phantasm before the world seemed to jerk, and Fate found herself stumbling to the ground amidst a bunch of cooling vents as she and Illya both fell.
"Crap, teleporting is hard like this!" Illya panted, on her knees behind Fate.
"Arf!" Fate cried, struggling to her feet, then wincing. She looked down. There was a slim, vaguely triangular chunk torn out of her skin barely half the size of her pinky nail, generously dripping blood down her front. It wasn't life threatening, but it was painful, though nothing that would slow her down. Gritting her teeth– her mothers whippings had hurt more, and she'd gone hunting Jewel Seeds after taking those!– she turned towards her familiar. Arf was dodging and weaving in the air, trying to avoid the shining sword.
Fear for her familiar quickly made way for anger. Bardiche rose, the head flipping up to shooting mode. "GET AWAY FROM MY DOG!" she cried as magic gathered. "CARTRIDGE LOAD! PLASMA—!"
"Fate-san, NO!" Illya cried.
"– SMASHER!"
Illya facepalmed. "There goes my concealed position. Honestly, why bother planning?"
The air cracked like the whip of the god of archaeologists as the beam of lightning magic streaked through the air, ionizing it as the spell struck the Book of Darkness, taking her from behind. There was a blast of impact at the strike as the Book went tumbling, clearly not expecting the attack.
Fate stared at what she had accomplished. "Did we…?"
Illya sighed. "Fate-san, you should learn now: it's never that easy. We need to run. Now."
Fate frowned. "But that was a direct hit!"
"So? It's never enough, trust—"
"ILLYA-CHAN!-!-!-!-!" Ruby cried.
Illya didn't look. If she didn't look, it couldn't hit her yet. "Told you so, " she told Fate darkly.
Fate's face took on an expression best summarized as "Oh, CRAP!". "Oh, poot, " she said, voice small.
"'Poot'? Really, Fate-san?"
"It's what Nanoha says…"
"Nanoha needs to learn how to swear."
"ILLYA!" Ruby cried.
"Raitei Shourai: Genocide Shift!" echoed the spell.
Illya grabbed Fate, swinging Ruby to teleport again. The building they stood on exploded, blasted apart by dozens upon dozens of darting tongues of lightning.
They stumbled onto hard pavement, Illya gasping hard, feeling herself twitching involuntarily. Teleporting apparently was a lot worse the third time around. She didn't want a fourth. Fate snapped up a shield around them as debris rained, the top of the building they'd been in now ending twenty feet lower.
"I should have stayed at home, " Illya moaned. "Stupid chocolate cake…"
"Blasphemy, " Fate said, angling her shield to slide off debris so it wouldn't drop on them when she turned it off. "Nanoha's cakes are NOT stupid."
"Now's NOT the time, Fate-san…"
Now it was Fate's turn to pull Illya to her feet, trying to keep an eye on the sky. "Darn it, where is it…?"
Something crunched behind her. Illya's grip on Fate's arm suddenly turned to steel, the magical girl's legs suddenly sagging. "Agh…" Illya whispered. "Almost peed myself…"
Fate shoved Illya back, both hands gripping Bardiche as she spun the Device in a arc, the blunt head moving back and a shining golden blade blazing to life a moment before the now-scythe met a palely-glowing blade. The Book of Darkness moved with smoothly inhuman grace and perfect form, the Noble Phantasm in her hands beginning to grow a blue and crimson network of veins as it slashed at Fate, the sword's form already growing thorns and curving blades. Fate attacked desperately, Bardiche blurring through the night, its golden contrail weaving a strangely hypnotic pattern with Caliburn's glow. The Book only looked faintly amused. It shoved at Fate, knocking her back, and suddenly leapt up, its sword stabbing downward, its point aimed unerringly at Fate's heart.
"Defenser, " Bardiche intoned, casting the defensive spell.
"Noble Phantasm: Caliburn, " the Book countered.
The blade blazed with light, shattering through the shield as if it wasn't there as its piercing properties came to life. Fate swung Bardiche up to parry, but the blade moved inexorably straight, and sparks rose as a sliver of metal went flying from Bardiche's head.
"Ruby, BIND!" Illya cried, and Caliburn stopped cold as the Book's arm was locked into place by several -star-shaped binds. "NANOHA, SHOOT! SHOOT NOW! Fate-san, MOVE!"
Fate darted back, even as the Book held out her free hand. "Trace, on. Yuunagi. Shinmei-Ryu Ougi, Zanmaken Ni-No-Tachi: In Celebration Of Setsuna-chan's First Kiss With Her Konoka-Oujo-sama Strike…"
The slashing attack carved out a crescent-shaped attack as Fate readied another shield as she continued to retreat…
Illya tackled Fate to the ground, the attack flying over them through the shield, shearing off the back of Illya's skirts. "Defense-piercing attack, " Illya panted in explanation, before swinging Ruby and knocking the Yuunagi-copy from the Book's hand. "RUN LIKE HELL!-!-!-!-!"
They scrambled out the way, taking to the air as the Book of Darkness broke the binds on her arm.
A giant jam jar fell out of the sky on top of her, and she slammed into its side. The Book stumbled back, blinking in confusion.
A giant green safe, an anvil, a refrigerator, a piano, an elephant, a blue whale, a Kaiju-class giant turtle, and a scale replica of Tokyo Tower fell out of the sky, squashing the jar and its contents beneath their combined weight and effectively leveling everything in their vicinity.
"ABOUT TIME!" Illya yelled at Nanoha.
The giant green pile exploded into a block-wide cloud of lightning that tore through the constructs, the golden tongues punching through the masses like they were jello. A single darkly-auraed form rose through one of the openings, its three pairs of wings flapping it into the air.
A flash of orange slammed into it from behind with a cry of "RING BIND!"
"Arf!" Fate called.
"Shoot it!" the familiar cried, wrapping binds on the Book, even as it started to neutralize them.
"Fire at will!" Nanoha's voice called to them. "Cartridge Load! Willfire Intermix! AXEL BUSTER EMERALD CORE SHOT!"
A cartridge blasted. "THUNDER BLADE!" Fate called. "PHALANX SHIFT!"
"RUBY!" Illya called. "MAXIMUM POWER! NANOHA GRADE GENOCIDE BLAST!-!-!-!-!"
"Hey!" Nanoha protested.
The three attacks converged on the hovering point of light. Arf flew back, still trying to throw binds.
The attacks met.
Arf was sent tumbling by the enourmous shockwave.
"Yeah!" Ruby cried victoriously. "Who da wand?-! Who da wand, bitch?-!"
Fate breathed hard, staring at the falling form of her familiar, and sighed in relief as it suddenly righted itself.
Fate! Arf called telepathically. Be careful! I heard her casting something before you hit! It sounded something like—
A bolt of lightning seemed to leap from the expanding impact cloud, slamming into the glittering green figure of Nanoha. The aura winked out, and a form that shed an emerald glow began to fall from the air.
— Raiten Taisou!
...
It felt like she'd been struck by lightning.
There had been no warning. She'd barely begun to scan for Hayate and the Book after impact when Ring-chan and Raging Heart had both cried in alarm, flaring their energies before a human-shaped bolt of lightning slammed its fist into her. Her will-aura shattered under the impact, her Barrier Jacket and uniform exploding under the blow.
Her limbs spasmed as electricity coursed through her, and pain exploded in her chest. Blackness filled her vision as she began to lose consciousness, and she felt herself starting to fall…
"Lantern experiencing cardiac arrest!" Ring-chan declared as gravity took Nanoha in its inexorable hold. "Initiating Nanoha Emergency Medical Protocol 04: Defibrillation."
"I can't believe those are actually coming in handy, " Raging Heart said. "All right, perhaps those afternoons she spent programming you with protocols instead of training on her magic wasn't a waste of time."
"Oh, be useful and start reconstructing her Barrier Jacket, will you!" Ring-chan sniped, sounding a trifle smug.
"My master is not providing energy, " Raging Heart said.
"You have cartridges, don't you?" Ring-chan shot back. "And I remember going through the trouble of designing an emergency energy reservoir for your shaft too. Clear!"
Nanoha's chest spasmed as the ground rushed closer.
"Defibrillation unsuccessful, " Ring-chan reported. "Repeating. Clear!"
Spasm.
"Defibrillation unsuccessful. Repeating. Ground impact imminent. Engaging Nanoha Emergency Crash Protocol 7. Repeating defibrillation. Clear!"
There was a 'whumf!' of impact as Nanoha crashed.
"Barrier Jacket, reconstituted, " Raging Heart belatedly reported.
"Heart, restarted, " Ring-chan said. "Condition stabilized. Commencing consciousness revival."
A green cellphone formed itself next to Nanoha's head from where she was lying on top of a giant pile of pillows and started to beep annoyingly. Grumbling, she grabbed the cellphone and flipped it off, before curling up. A blanket appeared on top of her.
"This protocol appears to need work, " Raging Heart said.
"Oh, shut up."
Nanoha groaned and woke…
...
"A Tokyo Tower just got destroyed, " Alisa said blandly, staring at the giant green pile as it was annihilated by lightning. "That's it. It's official. Things are bad. We're screwed."
"Oh dear, " Suzuka agreed.
They looked at each other, their eyes meeting…
"The answer's still no, Suzuka."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"Well, can you blame me?-!"
"Seriously Suzuka, your cousin Tomoyo is a bad influence on you."
...
Nanoha cursed herself as she gathered her will, reconstituting her Green Lantern uniform over her Barrier Jacket. "Ring-chan, location check! Where are Fate-chan and the others?"
"Scanning. Life-signs of Fate Testarossa, Illya von Einzbern-Emiya and Arf located."
Nanoha pulled the cartridge magazine off Raging Heart, checking it and sliding it back in. "Power check."
"Ring Power at 72 percent."
Nanoha nodded. Enough to fight. Good. "Tactical map."
Immediately, a holographic map of the sealed section of the city appeared before her. It was enormous, not only covering the whole metropolis but a decent swath of the land beyond and the bay as well. Labeled points of light indicated her friends and the possessed Hayate.
Hayate was moving insanely fast. The attached analysis indicated she was still converted into an electrical form. She'd heard of this. Negi's Raiten Taisou. "So it's true," Nanoha murmured. "The Book has our powers." Well, it wasn't the first time the Corp had to handle someone who could turn into some kind of energy. Electricity was rather tame, actually.
She clenched her fist, and kicked into the air.
...
The Book of Darkness charged at Fate again, leaving a clap of thunder in her wake.
"Thunder Rage!" Fate cast again, sending the tendrils of the spell wide around her.
The Book of Darkness hit the network of ionized air, diverting randomly along the many myriad paths, out of control as it was forced to follow the paths of least electrical resistance. It deactivated the Raiten Taisou, becoming solid again.
"Durchstechen!" Illya cried, the piercing beam slamming into the Book in the split second window of the shift, sending it tumbling.
The Book recovered, shielding itself from the pair's followup.
"It's not going to fall for that a third time," Illya said warily, hiding behind Arf's shield.
"We need to disengage from her," Fate panted. "Find Nanoha."
A thousand beams of emerald light blasted around them, curving around their bodies as they all converged on the Book of Darkness.
"I think Nanoha's okay," Arf said.
Fate turned behind her, relief flooding the blonde's face. "Nanoha-chan!"
"Trace, on!" the Book's counter echoed. "Rho Aias!"
"OH, COME ON!" Illya cried. "HOW MANY SHIELDS DOES THIS THING HAVE?-!"
The projectiles of light slammed into the Noble Phantasm, the leading beans stopping cold. Others tried to curve around the shield, only to meet nothing as the Book used the time to teleport out.
The four immediately formed a circle, watching all directions.
Fate saw it first. She paled at the sight, tugging on Nanoha's sleeve.
Nanoha did a double take. "Is that—?"
"Gather!" the aria echoed through the night, "light of the stars!"
Illya's eyes were wide and terrified. "Crap!" she breathed. "I know that spell…"
"Starlight Breaker…" Arf breathed.
"Run," Fate said, watching the spell that haunted her dreams grow larger than it ever had in real life. "Run now. Opposite directions. We need to scatter, get out of range."
"Fate-chan?" Nanoha said, hearing the naked fear in her friend's voice.
"Nanoha-chan, trust me when I we don't want to be on the receiving end of that spell," Fate said, grabbing Nanoha's hand and pulling the Lantern towards herself. Arf had already grabbed Illya and was racing away at right angles to the spell. Fate turned in the opposite direction, a cartridge loading as she switched to Sonic Form, pushing all her power into her speed. "BLITZ RUSH! We need to get as far as we can from it if we want even a hope of surviving. At point-blank range and it will go through our shields like they were wet tissue paper!"
"Dive among the buildings!" Nanoha cried. "Get under cover. If she can't see us, she can't hit us!"
It was a slim hope. Even a basic search spell could be used to target them, but Fate complied, diving down to above street-level and cutting into alleys, putting buildings between her and the Book as Nanoha wrapped her aura around them both, increasing their speed.
"Sir," Bardiche suddenly said. "Non-combatants detected at 300 yards and closing."
Nanoha's head snapped up. "What?-!" she demanded.
"200."
The two of them exchanged looks.
"Poot," they chorused.
"Warning," Raging Heart said. "Firing imminent."
"120."
Nanoha looked over her shoulder, dismissing her visor to get a better view. Already the magic being pulled into the spell was beginning to drop, meaning it had almost finished drawing in all stray magic. The gargantuan sphere glowed like a new sun, black and crimson streaks webbing its surface.
"70. 50."
"Drop me off here!" Nanoha said. "This has to be far enough! We need to set our shields now!"
Fate let go, Nanoha's aura leaving her as they both slowed down. Nanoha slammed into the ground hard, skidding on the asphalt, her aura kicking up dust and debris as it protected Nanoha from the forces that would otherwise have shattered every bone in her body upon landing. Fate's landing was more graceful as she landed lightly a little way past Nanoha.
"20. 19. 18."
Nanoha waved her hands to try and shop the dust away, before forming an electric fan to blow it all to one side. "Fate-chan," she called. "Do you see anyone?"
"15."
The sound of movement to one side. Nanoha turned to look instinctively. There was a gasp.
"Fate?" came Suzuka's voice. "Nanoha?"
There was a brief moment of silence.
"Well…" Fate found herself muttering. "This is awkward…"
Mt. Alisa exploded. "WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE?-!-?-!-?-!"
In the distance, the Starlight Breaker unleashed.
"Oh, poot," Nanoha said succinctly.
Fate gestured towards their two friends. "Defenser Plus," Bardiche cast, a golden dome appearing over the two girls.
The Starlight Breaker touched down, and the earth shuddered. Buildings began to turn to rumble in an expanding ring.
"Stay inside that!" Fate ordered as she and Nanoha turned to face the blast.
Two cartridges blasted, filling Nanoha with concentrated magic. "Wide Area Protection," Raging Heart intoned, raising the curved, rippling barrier
"Round Shield," Fate cast, raising the spell between her and approaching pink blastwave. For once, the flashbacks of this spell being used on her brought her no comfort. Fate was painfully aware Nanoha's spells had always been nonlethal.
This spell wasn't.
"Ring-chan, access archives!" Nanoha ordered, keeping Raging Heart leveled. "Open weapon technical schematic library! Upload Thanagarian Nth metal-based shield generator!"
"Schematic uploaded," Ring-chan declared.
"Create construct!"
The extra-terrestrial machine began to take shape in green light, building itself perfectly from Ring-chan's memory, accessed from the Central Power Battery's ancient archives. Her constructs might not last as long as her spells when facing magic directly, but that didn't mean they were useless. It just meant they needed to not meet magic directly.
The machine came to life, construct components flowing with power, construct Nth metal performing its strange effects. It was only a fraction as effective as the real thing— reading between the lines when she'd perused the weapons library during Lantern training indicated Nth metal might be one of the few naturally-occurring magical substances in the universe— but it worked, raising the powerful energy shield around them.
The blastwave hit them. Pink filled their vision as the buildings around them began to bow back from the face of the spell, than crumble, then turn to dust as metal and concrete was rent asunder in seconds.
And for the first time in her life, Nanoha knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of one of her attacks.
...
On the absolute edge of the barrier, Arf and Illya watched the enormous, expanding dome of pink destruction, filled with their own remembrances of the spell.
"I sometimes have nightmares about that thing," Arf muttered.
"Me too," Illya agreed.
Ard looked at her quizzically. "When have you ever faced that spell?"
"Ryuudo temple," Illya said, shuddering. "I'll tell you about it some time."
They lapsed into worried silence, Arf fretting about Fate— and Nanoha too, of course. Truth be told, Illya didn't know what to think. She'd seen this spell be the final blow to the manifestation of Ultimate Evil on Earth. A part of her murmured darkly that they were already dead.
Like her Berserker…
She tried to push down the thought, but it twisted inside her relentlessly. Berserker… he had not deserved to die.
But then, did anyone? Even their foe now was a little girl possessed…
"Arf, Illya!" Nanoha's voice suddenly called, sounding strained. "We have a problem. Alisa and Suzuka are still. In here with us!"
"W-what?-!" Illya exclaimed. Arf growled something that was most likely rude.
It looks like they were caught by the barrier as it went up, Fate sent. Amy, can you teleport them out?
No good, an unfamiliar telepathic voice said in Illya's head. There's something different about the barrier this time. It's been altered, and it's stronger to boot! Even if the interference from that blast fades, we can't risk trying to transport them out.
Darn it, Fate said. Arf, I'll need you to stay with them! Keep them safe!
"But Fate—!" Arf protested.
We'll be fine! Fate assured her. We just have to survive through thi—
Suddenly, she cut off.
"Fate?" Arf called. "FATE?-!"
...
With a shriek, the construct shield generator gave out, taxed beyond even the capacities Nanoha could imagine, its components dissolving to light.
She made a note to herself to work on imagining larger capacities.
Raging Heart shuddered in her hands as her Protection and Fate's Round Shield bore the full brunt of the Starlight Breaker. All about them was wasteland, buildings long since turned to dust. Only the asphalt behind their shields remained, and Nanoha had the horrible feeling that if this kept on, the spell would wear through the ground beneath that, and the wind would launch them into the air, breaking the defensive formation that was the only thing keeping them alive.
Alisa and Suzuka huddled together beneath the golden dome, watching as the friends they'd thought they knew fought to keep them alive. The winds around them roared like the choirs of the damned. The land about then was certainly hellish enough for it. The two magical girls before them— what else COULD they be?— stood defiantly against the force that sought to wipe them out.
And they, Alisa and Suzuka, could do absolutely nothing to help.
...
As Arf kept trying to call to Fate, Illya hesitantly called to the air. "Um, hello? Voice lady?"
It's Amy, actually. Nice to meet you, Kaleido Ruby-san.
"Uh, yeah. I've got a question. See, my friend has a spell kinda like this barrier thing and she says it only let's people with magic inside. All normal people are kept out, right?"
Yes, unless the barrier is specifically set to include those without magic. That's what barriers are mostly used for in unadministered worlds. Why do you ask?
"Well… if they're here… wouldn't that mean that N— I mean, Green Lantern and—" Darn it, what had Fate called herself again?
Fate, the voice said, amused. Nanoha and Fate.
Illya blushed. "Right. Well, if their friends are here… doesn't that mean their friends have… well… magic?"
...
There was an explosion, and what looked like a shotgun shell went flying from Nanoha's staff. The ripply shield she was holding before her seemed to get bigger, firmer.
Alisa could plainly see, however, that her friends were weakening.
Behind the child, a presence watched, unseen…
There was no sense if wanting to help. How could she? She'd been in over her head since the city became a ghost town.
It hovered over her shoulder, watching, waiting…
She could do nothing but hold on to Suzuka, praying, praying…
"Yes…" the presence encouraged…
… for something to happen.
"Ask…"
Praying…
"…and ye shall receive…"
… for a miracle.
Poke.
And within her, a small thing stirred… and reached forth…
Alisa shuddered… and raised her hand…
...
Sailor Saturn suddenly gave a cry of surprise as her transformation unravelled around her in a burst of purple.
This was quite problematic, as she was standing on a moving vehicle hundreds of feet above the ground. Not in. On.
She gasped at the sudden cold, losing her balance, no longer protected by her magic. It just seemed to have been… switched off.
"Saturn!" Sailor Uranus cried, and suddenly she was in her papa's strong, sure arms, shielding her from the wind. "What happened?"
"I…" Hotaru, just plain Hotaru, said in confusion. "I don't know…"
...
"Silent Wall."
And just like that, a meaure of silence descended as the irresistible force of the Starlight Breaker was met with an immovable object.
Fate and Nanoha gasped in relief as pressure eased on their shields, turning in shock.
They met the gaze of an equally surprised Alisa, clad in the white and purple of the Senshi of Silence. Wordlessly, Alisa stepped forward, adding her own shield. They weathered through the blast as it began to die down. The howling ceased. The world grew still and silent. They let their shields collapse, spent.
Fate felt like wilting, not knowing what to do or sa—
"Alisa-chan!" Nanoha exclaimed. "You've been Sailor Saturn all this time?-! Do your parents know you go to Tokyo a lot?"
Fate facepalmed.
Alisa opened her mouth to respond… and gasped, falling to her knees as the seifuku she wore collapse and disappeared around her, leaving her back in her school uniform.
"Alisa-chan!" Suzuka cried, catching the blonde.
...
Illya fought off the dizziness that had resulted from her teleporting Arf to where the others were. Nanoha was cradling Alisa, whose eyes were half-closed in exhaustion. "Please, don't get up," she slurred sarcastically. "I'm not dizzy at all. It's perfectly safe for me to be handling high-powered magic…"
"Takamachi," Alisa growled. "What the HELL is going on here?-!-?-!-?-!"
Nanoha made a wavy hand gesture, waggling her fingers. "This is all a dream…" she said in an attempt at a spooky voice.
Her classmates stared at her.
"No? Well, it was worth a shot…" Nanoha said lamely.
"Takamachi…!" Alisa started to growl.
"What you saw was actually a weather balloon reflecting off sewer gas with the light from Venus," Nanoha tried.
"We were with you when we saw that movie!" Alisa ground out.
"I'm not the girl you're looking for?"
Illya clapped a hand on Nanoha's shoulder. "Give it a rest, Nanoha-chan. You obviously suck at lying."
As Nanoha pouted, Alisa pointed at Arf. "Hey, I know you! You're that weird lady from that hotspings!"
Fate turned to Suzuka. "Nothing to add?
Suzuka thought about it. "I'm going to die a virgin?"
Nanoha blinked. "What's a virgin?"
"ASK YOUR MOTHER!-!-!-!-!" they all chorused.
"Oh, come on!"
"Arf," Fate said to her familiar. "Stay with Alisa and Suzuka. Keep them safe, okay?"
Arf frowned, but nodded. "Be careful, Fate, Nanoha-chan."
"Hey! Where are you going?-!" Alisa demanded.
Illya shook Ruby. "Take a wild guess."
...
"Explaining this to them later is going to be difficult," Fate said.
Illya looked at them. "Wait, you mean you guys don't have any convenient memory erasing magic?"
"Of course not!" Fate said, shocked.
Nanoha whistled nonchalantly. Illya looked at her suspiciously.
"What?" she said. "I've never used that feature of my ring!"
"And now I'm going to be paranoid every time I talk to you," Illya muttered.
Nanoha recalled her visor, setting it to scan. "I've found Hayate-chan and the Book."
"What do we do now?" Fate asked.
Nanoha frowned, and began counting on her fingers. "Oh! I forgot! Oh, I hope I don't get court-martialed for forgetting this…"
"Huh?" Illya said, confused.
Nanoha frowned in concentration. Hayate-san! Book of Dar— er, Tome of the Night Sky-san! Please cease and desist these violent actions and surrender yourselves immediately to my custody! If you comply, I promise you leniency and that I will devote every resource in my disposal to finding a means to keep you from self-destructing!
Nanoha nodded in satisfaction, then blinked as she saw how Fate and Illya were staring at her. "What?"
"I have to ask," Illya said, "has that ever worked with anyone?"
"It worked with Fate-chan," Nanoha said.
"After you shot me in the face with Starlight Breaker," Fate said.
"I NEVER AIMED FOR THE FACE!"
And then they heard it. A soft, weak voice, not really a sound but almost an afterthought of the wind…
… help… me…
Fate raised a hand for silence. "Can you hear…?"
… help… me…
"Hayate? Tome of the Night Sky-san?" Nanoha called.
… help…
Illya felt her skin start to crawl. "RUBY!" she barked, swinging the wand. "ALL POWER TO SHIELDS! INCLUDE ROTATIONAL VECTOR!"
The streaking Caliburn punched through her shield like it didn't exist, but the additional rotation of the shield jerked the Noble Phantasm enough off course that it only sliced a line across Illya's cheek. Fired burned along the pale-haired girl's face as blood fell down in a sheet. She cried out in pain.
"I think she's using Archer's powers now," Ruby opined. "The long-range ones."
"Split up!" Illya cried.
They did, suiting actions to words. Illya ducked and covered, though given how everything had been leveled by Starlight Breaker there wasn't a lot of cover to be had. Nanoha turned invisible, momentarily turned all-green before disappearing. Fate charged, her cape disappearing as she went to Sonic Form, scythe in hand. "Sonic Drive, Ignition," Bardiche intoned.
"Fate-chan!" Nanoha's disembodied voice cried.
"No!" Illya called. "She's trying to draw fire for us so we can attack! Don't—!"
Green light appeared from nowhere, shooting at the Book of Darkness from seemingly nowhere. Said seemingly nowhere, Illya could see, was clearly flying towards the Book to back up Fate.
"— bother listening to Illya-chan," the homunculus muttered. "It's not like she's full of sense or anything."
The Book casually warded of the emerald beams as she looked at Fate. The physical book hovered next to her, pages flipping to a particular passage. She raised a hand, power gathering. "Practe Begi Nar," she began, already swinging to meet Fate's blade, "Ensis Exseq—"
Then she shuddered, the glowing crimson lines writhing momentarily as one golden eye turned a sad, haunted red.
"…Absorption… " the floating book said quietly.
Fate's blade slammed into a Belkan Triangle. It stopped her cold, her own force rebounding on her.
And then she started to glow. Fate's eyes widened in surprise as the glow around her intensified. The Book of Darkness seemed equally shocked. Thus, it was unprepared for the oil-tanker-sized boxing glove that punched it to the city limits.
"Fate-chan!" Nanoha cried, catching her friend. "Ring-chan! Raging Heart! Analysis!"
"Analysis inconclusive," Ring-chan said. "It might be the non-existent M-word."
"Insufficient data to draw conclusions," Raging Heart said. "Um, my master?"
"Yes?"
"You're glowing."
Nanoha looked down at herself as a pink glow began to cover her. In her arms, Fate turned completely into golden light, disappearing like a popped bubble.
"Oh, poo—"
Pop.
...
Illya watched in horror as the two powerful Magical Girls she'd been hoping would help keep her alive vanished off the face of the Earth. "Oh, poot," she said. "Wait, why am I saying that? Oh shit, oh shit, OH SHIT!-!-!-!-!-! I'M FUCKING GOING TO DIE!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!"
"Yeah, we're very screwed," Ruby agreed.
"WE COULD BARELY TAKE THAT THING ON TOGETHER!" Illya cried. "My god, I'm going to die a virgin!"
Somewhere, Suzuka and Kuro sneezed.
"I mean, they managed to take down Archer!" Ruby said. "Even Berserker was killed. I don't…"
Ruby's voice suddenly disappeared from Illya's ears as a roaring seemed to fill them. Berserker… her Berserker…
First him… then Fate and Nanoha…
And suddenly she was angry. She wanted to tear, to hurt, to take Ruby and unleash her pain upon this one who dared take from her, who dared harm her. She was a Master of the Holy Grail War! She was a magus! She was a MAGICAL GIRL!-!-!-!-! She would show this BOOK what she could do! She'd…
A voice, weak but unbroken. A fallen giant at her feet.
Promise me… not vengeance. Justice. They did what they did with the best of intentions… to save a child like you…I give them my core freely… please, see that they get what they deserve…
What they deserved? Oh, she would give them what they deserved. Suddenly she was tired of running away. Tired of hiding. Tired of standing in the back.
She reached down to her thigh and drew out her Class Cards. The Archer Card still felt dull in her hands, used. Useless to her. She turned to the others.
The Lancer… No. Lancer's powers would be no good here.
The Assassin… Fire. Ice. Force. Magic. And a zombie T-Rex.
And…
She drew the last card.
Ruby was still talking, but she abruptly cut off as Illya stood and knelt.
"Let thy body rest under my dominion," Illya intoned, face set, voice determined. "Let my fate rest in thy blade! If thou submittest to the call of the Holy Grail and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond!"
Beneath her feet, light blazed, resolving itself into a circular array.
"I make my oath here! I am that person who is to become the virtue of all Heavens!"
She felt the power begin to flow, the Card in her hand coming to life.
"I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades! Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words, come past thy restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance-!"
Darkness began to wreath her, and suddenly her skin burned, her Command Seals once more burning to life. She felt the fire and welcomed it, her voice calling out.
"I am the terror that flies through the darkened skies! I am Justice from the shadows! I am Darkness! I am Vengeance! I am the Night!"
"I!"
"Am!"
"BERSERKER!"
The next word was a nearly silent growl.
"Install…"
The power reached its peak, wrapping Illya in dark armor. Angular, sharp-edged metal covered her eyes. Curved metal horns arched from the sides of her mask, jarring against her brilliant hair. A breastplate of eye-wrenching black metal, with smooth curves contrasting with sharp angles and spikes. A belt, strung all about with pouches and weapons, supporting a skirt of plate armor. High metal boots in the same disorienting asymmetry of curves and edges. Clawed gauntlets, their armored backs wrapped with chains. A cape hung down her back, edge scalloped and black as night. A black haze seemed to cover her, and in the light of the stars she seemed to vanish into the night beyond.
The Mad Enhancement struck.
She threw back her head and roared…
...
Fate woke from hazy dreams to find herself lying on a large bed. Sunlight filled the large, circular room as she looked about her in confusion. She knew this room. She'd lived here, once, in another life. Next to her, against a large bound, a little puppy-Arf slept.
On the other side of the bed, a loud beeping sound began to chime. She turned to a large mound beneath the blankets, a hand reaching out to pull a cellphone beneath it. There was an unintelligible mutter.
The mound in the middle of the bed next to Fate began to move. A golden-haired head poked out, rubbing her eyes. "Nanoha-chan," the girl muttered. "You said you'd turned that off…"
Fate found herself staring at her own face. Her own eyes. She felt her mouth slacken in shock.
The girl seemed to notice. "Eh? Fate-chan?" she said, straightening her dark-green nightgown that matched the sheets that still hung from one shoulder. "Imouto? Are you all right?"
Fate flapped her mouth, and managed to speak on the seventh try. "Alicia…"
Alicia Testarossa smiled. "Good morning, little sister…"
...
- To be continued...
...
A/N: We have crossed the CLAMP threshold and heading nonstop towards the Gojira threshold. Enjoy!
In the chapters of the Governor's Ball, one of the girls explicitly says Mahora has something like it on Christmas. What Negi was doing at that time in canon, I have no idea.
On Caliburn's function as a Noble Phantasm: Caliburn is the ultimate defense-piercing Noble Phantasm, able to pierce through even a dragon's hide. It stems from how easily Caliburn was inserted in the stone and set in place to choose the next king.
...
OMAKE!
...
From the files of Chao Lingshen, Temporal Renegade:
Full Name: Saotome Haruna
Known Aliases: Paru, Kira Deathote Paru-sama, The Creepy Mangaka Supreme
Alignment: Extreme Chaotic, Romantic Neutral
ECL: Rank B+ threat
Religion: Awesomerism
Sexuality: Lovable Sex Maniac
Family: she doesn't talk about it. The rumors she is somehow related to Tomoyo Daidouji and Raven of the Teen Titans on her father's side, however, is widely rampant, though unsubstantiated.
Affiliations: Mahora Academy, Ala Alba, the United Magical Girls (and Boys) Association, Daidouji Toys Merchandising Division and Design Advisor for the Ala Alba line of Action Figures.
Background: Once a normal student of Mhora Academy, (that is to say, slightly nuts), her life unknowingly took a turn for the magical when Negi Springfield became her class's homeroom teacher. (it was already strange). at first, her interaction with him was strictly limited to encouraging Nodoka to admit her feelings for him. However, she managed to divine the existence of magic during the Mahorafest Budokai, and the world was doomed.
During the Mahorafest Incident, she primarily played a support role, creating rudimentary constructs for their needs, blocking time bullets and helping Ku Fei block 3 Chachamaru mass production units to buy Negi time to reach his objective (Personal Note: still eternally grateful on behalf of the multiverse al she got was the sketchbook and not something more creative).
After Mahorafest, she developed her skills with her Artifact, creating more magically powerful and sophisticated constructs capable of flight, thought response, and even energy beam attacks. It is significant to note that, upon being separated from Ala Alba during the Gateport incident, she actually managed to prosper alone, having earned enough money to both buy a used airship and outfit it with black market weapons.
In the end, she, like the rest of Ala Alba, was instrumental in the defeat of Kosmo Entelekhia. Things, however, did not settle down. She, like the rest of Ala Alba, was drawn into the incident known as the 'Book Of Darkness and Yet Another Reason To Stay The Hell Away From Earth (Unadministered World #97)' case. It was during this that she first floated the idea for the United Magical Girls Association. After the attack of Lee Syaoran, Green Lantern (2814.1) approached her about the idea and with the assistance of Sailor Mercury, Chisame, and Kuro and Ilya von Einzbern-Emiya, they managed to begin the organization. It had its initial run during the so-called 'Power Rangers' Incident and was considered a success.
She, Nodoka, Yue, and the cute mute classmate Cassandra (see note: Agent: "Spoiler") faced off against the knight Vita during the Wolkenritter's attack on Mahora, and prevented her from taking Evangeline's Linker Core. She was also one of those who responded during the Invader mass-activation incident at the end of the 5th Holy Grail War in Fuyuki city.
Powers and Abilities: Haruna is a trained librarian, and thus skilled in rappelling, unarmed combat, small arms combat, whips, the Dewey Decimal System, library and wilderness survival, spelunking, book repair, finding the smutty books intentionally misplaced in the shelves by students trying to keep them all to themselves, locking, and trap identification and disbarment, among other skills. She also has an understanding of the magical black market, and knows how to acquire things from it.
Her Artifact, the Imperium Graphices, allows her to create anything she can draw. These can range from simple golem caricatures doodles to highly advanced human-sized mobile suits with flight, energy beam, and rocket punch capability. Coupled with her devious imagination, it is both a highly versatile tool and a dangerously effective weapon. She is an asset to Ala Alba, however, for her organizational skills, information processing, tactical planning and motivational abilities. While not exactly a leader, she can bring together any sort of group that is needed for any situation, though she lacks the ability to lead it effectively.
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END!
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Please review, C&C welcome. Add to the TvTropes page please!
Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.