Day in the Life
Chapter 36
Escape
Part Two
Disclaimer: If I owned anything, I'd be rich instead of barely scraping by day in and day out.
"Nnngh..." A groan escaped her lips as she shivered. "Hungry." She cracked an eye open to see her darkened room, before shivering as she moved the blanket off of her slightly. Whimpering, she she flopped down and covered herself up again. She couldn't stand the chill she was getting from taking off her blanket.
"Hayate." A familiar male voice spoke up to her softly. "Feeling any better?"
"Zafira..." She groaned, shaking her head. "I'm hungry though..." There was movement as her bed seemed to slump down before bouncing up. "Zafira?" She looked at the door was opened up, letting in light. "Don't go..." She groaned, causing him to turn back and look at her.
"I wasn't going anywhere." He commented as Rein and Agito, both in their larger forms, walked into the room, their arms full of various foods. "But they couldn't open the door with their arms full."
Hayate smiled as she sat up. "Sorry." She mumbled as trays of food was set over her lap.
"Oh, don't be like that, Meister." Agito shook her head, frowning slightly. "You won't get better without food and Rein and I spent all day making sure that the soup was done just right and kept hot for you."
Hayate giggled softly, before coughing for a few seconds. "Thank you, Agito, Rein, Zafira. Where's Signum, Vita and Shamal?"
"Work, training and running her clinic." Zafira answered her, getting a nod from Hayate. "They said that they'd be here as often as they could."
"It's okay, they have responsibilities they need to attend to."
"Oi! Enough of that!" Agito frowned and put her hands on her hips. "You need to eat, otherwise it's going to get cold and you won't get better."
Nodding, Hayate laughed softly and started in on the food. "Of course." She still wasn't feeling that well, but seeing Rein, Agito and Zafira there for her made her feel better. She knew that Signum, Shamal and Vita would have preferred to have been there, but she would have been more disappointed in them if they had decided to blow off work just to make sure that she was okay. Overall, Hayate had to admit that she was pretty happy, despite feeling horrible.
It didn't hurt that the soup was extremely delicious. The way that Agito and Rein's faces would light up as she complimented them on the food made her even happier. She just wished that she wasn't sick at the moment.
(-)
There was a lot of noise, people moving and saying stuff, but that wasn't important. Nope, the important thing was that he could move around freely. Smiling and laughing, he rushed between the legs as fast as he could. There was nothing that could stop his freedom. Yep, complete and total freedom and he was going to do what he wanted with it.
Which was taken from him as two hands grabbed his sides and lifted him up. "Isamu, you shouldn't be worrying me like this." His blond mother smiled at him, her eyes sparkling in amusement as she held him aloft.
"Naa!" Isamu practically pouted, kicking his small legs and arms in the air and getting a laugh from Fate in response.
"Silly boy, you can't just crawl around with everyone here." She spoke softly as she walked around, smiling as Yuuno's cousins and aunts commented on her and Isamu and how they were happy for him. Fate couldn't help but feel her face heat up at the comments and praise she was getting, it wasn't too often she found herself at the center of attention for something other than military matters. Well, at least not from complete strangers, and the amount she was getting was rather humbling and amusing at the same time.
"Fate." Nanoha spoke up as she slipped in, speaking politely and simply, managing to get to her and Isamu while giggling softly. "Excuse me, but can I please steal Fate and Isamu from all of you for a little while?"
Laughing, Fate was relieved as the group let out some mock-groans and allowed Nanoha to pull her away from them. "Thank you, I was starting to feel a little smothered in there." While the blond had wanted a large family, she really didn't think Yuuno had this many relatives. It was crazy, weird and at the same time very heartwarming. "Ack!" Her eyes widened as Isamu grabbed her hair and pulled down. "No, Isamu, I need my hair." She laughed softly as he seemed to pout when she worked her hair from his little fingers.
"Come here, Isamu." Nanoha smiled softly as she took him from Fate. "It hurts to pull people's hair, Isamu, you can't do that."
"Where's the rest of our family, Nanoha?" Fate smiled as she smoothed her hair down.
Nanoha giggled at the other woman. "Vivio and Yuuno-kun are watching Sora and Alicia right now." The amused smile on Nanoha's face made Fate laugh softly. "They're..."
"Excuse me..." A smallish woman with long black hair, wearing a black shirt with a red skirt that reached to her knees, interrupted the two. When they turned to look at her, she bowed apologetically. "Miss Fate, you have a phone call from one Admiral Chrono Harlaown."
Fate nodded to her, smiling softly. "Thank you, is there a room where I can take the call?"
"Of course." The woman nodded and motioned for Fate to follow her. After a quick goodbye to Nanoha and Isamu, the blond did just that. "Right this way."
"Thank you." Fate smiled as she followed her.
"It's not my place to say anything, but I'm glad that Yuuno found two lovely ladies." The woman said as she opened the door. "Just press the flashing button."
Fate nodded to her as she left before pressing the button. She was happy to see her brother on the screen, but blinked at the rather serious look on his face. "What's wrong?" There was something in his eyes that she didn't like; not to mention that he seemed rather worn out and tired at that moment.
"I'm sorry to hassle you on your vacation, Fate, but there was information that I felt you needed to know."
"What is it?" Granted it wasn't really too much of a vacation as much as it was supporting Yuuno, but she wasn't going to argue any semantics when her brother looked worried enough to try and send a bunch of Enforcers out to make sure that she and her family was safe.
"Roughly a day ago, four criminals managed to escape from several high-security prisons." Fate went silent as she listened, a picture of a man with slightly dark skin and black hair that was unkempt appeared on the screen. "You may or may not remember this man, Kagal, but he managed to escape at that time. Years ago, you managed to bust his smuggling ring."
"That was one of my earliest cases." Fate looked thoughtful for a moment. "If I recall..." She trailed off as she took on a thoughtful look. "He was a fairly dangerous opponent, but nothing about him really stuck out in my mind." At least as far as she could remember, since all the details turned a bit gray and fuzzy in her memory in regards to this particular person.
Chrono nodded at that as he turned the picture off of the screen. "I just thought that you needed to know about it, in case he remembers you and comes for revenge." There was a beeping sound from Fate's pocket as she took out Bardiche. "I sent you information on the four that escaped."
"Thank you." Fate nodded to him as he told her to give Yuuno a punch in the arm for him.
(-)
"This little girl's so cute." Yuuno shook his head at his aunt as she gushed over Alicia. He, Vivio, Alicia and Sora were outside in the yard. He smiled as he watched Vivio carry her younger brother around, stopping at times to put him on the ground as they looked at various bugs and flowers. It was rather nice being outside and with his children. He felt strangely warm at that thought. He had once over-heard Momoko and Lindy mention that men got silly when they thought about the children they helped bring into the world and could only chuckle, maybe it was true, he certainly felt like he got silly looks on his face when he thought about the children.
Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He looked around, felt for something dangerous, something powerful, something that shouldn't have been there.
"Got'cha!" A female suddenly glomped his back, giggling. "Been a long time, cousin."
"R...Reiko?" Yuuno blinked, surprised he remembered her name, he hadn't seen her since he was nine years old. Though, all things considered, she was the only one of his cousins that was like this.
Giggling, the woman nodded and got off of his back. "Wow, look at you! All grown up, and what's this I hear about you getting married?" She seemed to pout as he turned to look at her. She was a little shorter than him, with black hair, that extended just past her shoulders while she wore gray shoes, blue pants and a white short-sleeved shirt as she smiled at him.
Chuckling, the blond man nodded at her. "Yeah, I'm going to get married to two lovely women soon."
"Well, you better make them happy, or I'll have to stop by and make you pay for it." She winked and punched him the arm playfully. "Seriously though, I'm glad to see you doing well." She laughed softly, getting a chuckle from Yuuno, who rubbed his left arm and idly wondered just how many more of his cousins he barely recalled or remembered were going to punch his arms to congratulate him.
"Yuuno-papa..." Vivio held Sora with one hand while tugging on Yuuno's pant-leg. "Who's she?"
"Papa?" The woman blinked a few times before Yuuno could answer and got right up in Yuuno's face. "She's what? Ten years old?"
"I'm eight." Vivio raised her hand at Yuuno's cousin.
"Okay, eight years old, you're twenty-one so that means..."
"I'm going to be twenty-two soon." Yuuno muttered and sweat-dropped as his cousin seemed to have the wrong ideas about his situation.
"You had her when you were only thirteen?" Reiko's eyes widened and she seemed to gasp while pointing at him. "My, my! You sure did grow up fast!"
Behind Yuuno, his aunt Rika giggled as she and Alicia watched the confrontation. This was more amusing than some of the soap operas she watched.
Yuuno's face turned slightly red at the insinuation. "Huh?" Vivio blinked at what Reiko had said, getting the adult's attention. "Nanoha-mama adopted me and Fate-mama helps Nanoha-mama and then Yuuno-papa moved in and then we all became a family."
Reiko blinked a few times, before breaking out in laughter. "Ha ha ha! I kind of thought that was the case. I just wanted to tease my cousin." She winked at Vivio and Yuuno. "When you have a lot of family members, you find that most of us take our time to tease each other."
"Or get the runt of the group stuck up in trees." Yuuno muttered, but his voice had no malice in it. Nothing bad had happened because of it, and he had gotten down, plus the cousins that had done that to him had gotten punished by the adults, so it all worked out in the end.
"I remember the time when my cousins got me stuck in a mud hole and left me there for nearly a half an hour." Rika shook her head at the memories. "Good times." Oh sure, at the time, it wasn't that fun, but it was very amusing when she thought back on it.
Vivio looked confused, that didn't sound fun to her, but then again, she didn't have a lot of cousins. Maybe she'd find out what was so interesting about teasing younger cousins if she had any.
"Yuuno! Vivio!" Everyone turned to the house as Nanoha was walking towards them with Isamu in her arms. She smiled at them as she got close. "Hello, Alicia, hello, Sora."
Sora looked up at her and let out a happy squeal as she giggled and gave Yuuno a quick kiss on the lips, before kneeling down and putting Isamu on the ground and picking up her other son, hugging him softly. "And how are you? You've been good?"
Vivio nodded at Nanoha. "Uh huh! Sora's been a good boy and looked at lots of bugs with me."
"Sounds like fun." Nanoha smiled at her eldest daughter. "You'll have to show me before we leave."
"Okay!" Vivio grinned and yelped as she saw Isamu crawling away from her. "Hey! Get back here!" She ran after him, much to the amusement of the adults.
"So this is one of the women you're marrying?" Reiko raised an eyebrow and looked at Nanoha. "Wow, you got lucky, Yuuno. Gotten any death threats from her jealous ex-boyfriends?" Nanoha laughed at that, but blushed when she admitted that she had never had any boyfriends before she had Yuuno move in with her and Fate. "Oh, I see how it is now!" Reiko had a positively amused look on her face as she pointed dramatically at Nanoha. "My cousin charmed the socks right off of you and your friend Fate and managed to get both of you to fall for him!"
Yuuno chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. He was about to say something when Nanoha hugged his arm and smiled while holding Sora with her other arm. "Something like that. He was always a precious friend to me, who showed me the world of magic and let me spread my wings and find my own path in life."
Yuuno blushed more as both Rika and Reiko practically gushed over that. "You saved my life when I needed help, Nanoha."
She shook her head. "I would save anyone's life if I could, Yuuno. You and Fate, you two are special to me, and I love you both."
"Nnnngh!" Alicia started squirming and grunting, getting a chuckle out of Rika as she brought the little girl over and gave her to Yuuno.
"I think she wants to get in on this moment... Or break it up." Rika laughed at them as Yuuno took Alicia from her. "You're very lucky, all of you." She smiled before heading back into the house.
Reiko chuckled softly and walked up to Nanoha, giving her a hug. "Welcome to the clan... Cousin." She got a smile from Nanoha, even though she couldn't see it, and a light hug in response. "Now, Yuuno!" She exclaimed as she stepped away from Nanoha. "You need to take good care of your future wives."
"I know, I know... Or you'll come after me." Yuuno said with a chuckle, before blinking as Reiko shook her head.
"Nope! All of their ex-boyfriends will be after you for making them cry."
"Actually, Fate didn't have any boyfriends either." Nanoha pointed out, causing Reiko to groan in dismay.
"Ruin a good joke, why don't you?" She said, while getting a laugh from the two of them.
Walking up to them while keeping Isamu in front of her, Vivio just shook her head. Adults were weird, that was all there was to it.
(-)
The next thing Ginga knew she was hearing voices, they were a bit distant to her, but she was hearing them. "...out of it soon." One of them, the ship's doctor if she recalled correctly, was saying to someone else.
"Most likely." Someone else, the captain now that her mind was starting to reboot, spoke up. "It seems she woke up just as you thought she would, doc."
There was a chuckling sound as Ginga opened her eyes, then groaned, the light was way too bright and she was in too much pain right now to function properly. "Just don't have her stay up too long, she's pretty beaten up."
"Of course." The captain nodded to the doctor as he left. The man was pretty tall and had a fairly solid build on him, but Ginga didn't care for much of that at the moment. She was just surprised she was alive. The sheer pain she was feeling was pretty much a testament to that, at least the throbbing pain in her head was telling her that she was alive. "Glad to see you alive." The captain said softly, getting a wince from her, since it sounded like he was yelling to her. "Just so you know, Ginga, we're heading back to Mid-Childa."
"But.." She gasped, wincing as the evil little gremlins and their evil Armed Devices went back to trying to use buster beams in her skull and make it explode from the inside out.
"The ship's engines are practically scrap, thanks to sabotage; we have a spy and assassin on board and one of my crew members nearly died. I think that it would be better to head back and file a report for our superiors to deal with than stay out here." The captain shook his head at her look. "Just recover for now."
"What about..."
"The assassin?" The captain frowned darkly. "We discovered him in several layered binds in the engine room trying to escape. He claimed that you went crazy and tried to kill him."
"I..."
"Don't worry, considering that he was alive and you were more busted up than him, I didn't care to take him at his word." The captain shook his head. "Just rest for now. He's being held up in the brig for now, we'll get back and deal with him properly."
Ginga nodded and closed her eyes. She just hoped that this wasn't a delusion and that she was really going to live and not dying in the engine room.
(-)
Again wondering why their benefactor was helping them, Pyro, now dressed in black pants and red shirt, looked at the white gloves on his hands, each had an weird symbol on the back of his hands and his right gloved hand had a red ball seemingly sewn into the fabric. "Interesting, I don't feel any stronger."
"You're not." The man at the desk said, shaking his head as his assistant sighed softly. "As I explained before, these devices don't make you any stronger, but what you can do with them gets better and more powerful as more magic starts to saturate the area around you."
"And being unable to turn it off is just a side-effect, huh?" Kagal, now dressed in green cargo pants, black boots, a green shirt with a black vest and a green and black bandanna on his head, spoke up as he looked at the pendant around his neck, the gem there was blue in color.
"Of course." The woman smiled at him.
"Uh, could you explain it to me again?" Weasel asked as he sat on some boxes, he was dressed in a blue shirt and long shorts with tennis shoes on his feet. "How can these things work if they need to gather magic from around them to make them stronger?"
The man sighed softly and nodded to his assistant, who pulled up a board with some stick figures on it. "As you can see, everyone has a magic aura around them." The assistant drew some lines around the stick figure, a small bubble followed by some squiggly lines that arched off into various directions. "Even so, magic tends to bleed out of a person at times, which is what those little lines represent, it's how magic can be sensed by people around them, as well as being able to be measured. Generally it's not enough to interfere with a spell or make it harder to cast any magic, it just happens" He shrugged as the assistant then erased the figures on the board before redrawing the stick figure, this time with the bubble, but with noticeable breaks. "Unfortunately, in order to use your magic aura, you can't really have it being disrupted by too much."
"Which is what seals do." Rudal, dressed in light blue pants, a sleeveless blue shirt, showing off his muscular arms and chest as he walked up to them from a closed off area. "I'm surprised you managed to get so much in such a short amount of time."
"It wasn't too hard." The man smirked at Rudal before looking at Weasel, the escaped criminal squirmed slightly under the intense stare he was being given. "As for how these devices work, well..." His assistant drew the same squiggly lines away from the stick figure, but this time, she had them bend in mid air and go to a single point, which she then circled for emphasis. "Your magic is still there, it's not bleeding because the seals are stopping you from using your magical aura, these... "Compression Devices" take the aura you already have and force it out of you so that it can be used."
"Be that as it may..." Rudal interrupted, frowning at the exchange. "How is it that you were able to get everything here. Considering who you are, I doubt that you could have gotten all this freely."
The woman laughed softly, getting Rudal's attention. "I'm sorry, but this stuff here is just a small amount of what we have, sadly the making of most of this is very difficult and time consuming."
"Indeed." The man smirked at Rudal. "The four of you wouldn't know, but while you were in prison, there was a crime wave in TSAB space, lots of different things were stolen, seemingly at random, we were almost discovered when a member of the military stumbled across a crime scene."
"Lucky you weren't discovered then." Rudal intoned, getting a chuckle from the man.
"Oh yes, it was lucky, otherwise this would have taken longer. Speaking of lucky, I hear that you..."
"Whatever." Rudal interrupted and turned away from the man as he started to walk away. "I've got what I want, I've got some stuff to do." He stopped at the door and turned to the man. "You said you don't care what we do, as long as we use these devices and get information for you, correct?"
"That's all I want from you." The man chuckled as Kagal, Pyro and Weasel followed Rudal out of the room.
"Sir..." His assistant spoke up softly. "I don't really care about them, but shouldn't we have told them that those devices are likely to kill them?"
He chuckled and stood up, shaking his head, honestly, it didn't matter. "Come on, we need to get out of here and meet up with her." He was curious to see just how long those four lasted with those devices in use, especially Rudal, considering who the man was.
"Of course." The woman smiled as several small hovering robotic devices floated into the room and started packing away the various merchandise. "Do you think she'll be mad?"
"A little." The man shrugged, not really caring. "We did leave her alone to do this."
(-)
Rubbing her head as she looked over the reports, Carim sighed in exasperation. "How does this happen?"
Signum shook her head, she wasn't sure either. The reports they were getting seemed odd, weird and contradictory at times. "It's almost like someone put an illusion up on the security cameras and then created false illusions to cover their tracks."
Carim was about to say something when a knock was heard on the door. "Yes?" She looked up as Schach came into the room, Verossa following right behind her. "Verossa, what news do you have?"
Rubbing his eyes, he took a seat across from his adopted sister. "Let's just say that someone's good at illusion magic, people thought those four were still in prison just after the riots had ended."
Carim didn't like the look in his eyes. "I'm not going to like what I'm going to hear next, am I?"
Verossa shook his head and sighed in exasperation. "No, you aren't. I don't know who was able to do such a complex illusion, but from what I saw..." He sighed, shaking his head. "Whoever it was, well, they could have kept it up as long as they wanted..."
"And we'd never know that anyone escaped." Carim finished, feeling a major headache on the way. "Did you double-check to make sure that everyone that should be there is there?"
"I looked, from what I can tell, they're all there, but..."
'But..?" Carim, Signum and Schach asked at the same time, getting the green-haired man to shake his head in dismay.
"I don't know how real the illusions were, but I couldn't tell any difference between the illusions on the tapes and the real deal until the illusions were canceled."
"Great..." Signum muttered. They'd need to find out who was capable of doing this, stop them and find out just how many more people could have escaped when no one was looking.
"This means..." Schach's eyes slowly widened as she realized the implications of what Verossa was saying.
"Yeah..." Verossa slumped, feeling like a failure at that moment. Seriously anyone that could make illusions that convincing would be trouble.
Signum suddenly went stiff and pale. "...I need to get home. I'm sorry." She didn't care if Hayate was being watched by several people, she wanted to make sure that her family was okay for herself. She sent a message to Zafira to make sure to double check on Hayate for her.
"Of course." Carim nodded, worried for Hayate as well. "Schach, will you see Signum out?"
"Of course." The nun bowed to Carim and led Signum out of the room.
(-)
"Signum," Zafira blinked as he looked at the pink haired woman as she walked through the door, "I didn't expect to see you back so soon."
"I was worried about Master Hayate." She said as she walked into the house and looked around for a few moments.
"She's fine." Zafira said as he and Signum went towards the kitchen and looked out the glass doors towards the ocean. Zafira couldn't help but enjoy the view of the ocean from the house, but still, he looked at Signum for a moment, before shaking his head.
"That's good, but I need to make sure." Signum said as she turned to move towards Hayate, but stopped as Zafira stood in front of her. "Zafira?"
"Yes, I'm sure that she'd love to see you, but there's just one problem."
Signum raised an eyebrow. "And what's that?"
"You're not Signum." Zafira narrowed his eyes and growled before lunging at the faker.
To be continued...
Man, this took awhile to write, huh? Big thanks to Rising Dragon for all his help pre-reading this chapter. Sorry it's so short though, man I hate set-up chapters. Oh well, at least I can do some action in the next chapter.