I couldn't help myself

I had to sneer.

It was incredibly outrageous.

And bright…

Too damn bright…

What was the Princess thinking? A crystal tower? A crystal spire? Why not a tower of expensive glass? At least that wouldn't give itself away with a rainbow cascading in every direction.

Seriously, who builds a tower out of crystal?

Maybe our intel was wrong and some Dicians had survived all this time. They were toga wearing freaks with an unhealthy obsession with crystal. Crystal towers and togas…I quietly snickered at the idea. Some older and dead civilizations had been that way until my Lady showed them the error of their ways in blood and steel. Both were incredibly impractical if the old records were to be believed. I never fought in the Dicion War or the Yang-Tigrus Crusade. They were long over by the time I was born.

We, the Daemonguard and my entourage, kept to the trees. We moved with great care towards the crystal tower. I could make out the Guardsmen milling about as their bare headed officers attempted to regain control. They had seen the Iron Warriors fall and the destruction of the artillery. Some commander gave the order to fall back and the Guardsmen that had entrenched themselves and kept us back began to fall back.

The Princess had some decent commanders among her Guardsmen; I had to give them that much credit. The fall back maneuver hadn't turned into panicked retreat. They had fall back to these crystal towers that lay a short distance beyond the now useless artillery.

I knew my armies were moving in. I could hear them; the dull roar of a million marching feet, the great thuds of war walkers, and bee like hum of heavy tanks. All over the planet dozens of such armies were deploying to swiftly capture their objectives. Billions of my men swarmed to meet the Princess's armies in the grand song of war and death.

These crystal towers had to be outpost of some kind. I'd witnessed the Guardsmen's sergeant vanish into the tower and come back out early. It probably had its own defenses hidden behind the colorful and dancing lights. Maybe the building would unfold and they would slaughter us all with a killer concert.

As great an honor as it is to have some my Lady's memories, it really messed my head sometimes. Sorting out what was hers and what was mind was painful and more often than not I forgot both. I had lived a long time and seen many things; perhaps my mind was protecting me in its own fashion. If I remember half of what I've done then I'm sure I would be an emotional wreck that my Lady would cast aside.

I set my eyes on the bald sergeant. He wore the green and black uniform of a Guardsman with a trefoil hat in the same color scheme. At his waist I saw what had to be a Centurion Blade and an over sized pistol. His men, who were slowly forming a defensive line as he roared at them, mostly carried old style MK-4 UNO rifles, relics of the Returner War that had heralded the return of kinetic warfare in interplanetary conflicts.

"My Lady!" the Daemonguard Captain hissed in my ear. "The main force will be here in roughly twenty minutes. Do we wait?"

I was lying behind a fallen tree as I issued my orders. "We'll take the tower before then. Send half your men to the right. Tell them to strike when the fighting begins. The rest of us will stay here and distract them. Long range magic and charge while they're down." The Captain slid away as best his armor allowed and began to signal the other Daemongaurds with rapid sign language. "Rufus!" I called softy.

A wiry man with dark hair in a pony tail stealthy moved up to join me. On his back was small generator that powered an oversized chaingun. The generator was hidden, and silenced, by his backpack and supported by his mostly cybernetic body. He'd lost most of his human body in my service, yet every time he replaced the lost body parts with cybernetic ones. His right eye was a now a scope and range finder, the real eye had been lost to traitor in the Legion some two years ago.

"When I signal, suppress the enemy," I ordered. He nodded his head once and that was all I would get out of him. His vocal chords had been ripped out many yeas ago and despite medical advances they still couldn't heal his vocal chords fully.

I gripped my sword and gathered my magic. I felt new energy surge in me as I prepared to cast the spells. I was an elemental mage, my power differed from the mages of old like those of the TSAB and Belka. We needed chants to cast our spells. For me casting two or three spells without the chants was of little concern, but no mere mortal mage could hope to replicate such a feat. They would be turned into mush before they could cast a single spell.

Half the Daemonguard were gone. I slid my body against an upright tree, careful to stay out of sight. Not doubt there were snipers in those squads of Guardsmen. All I had to do was watch and wait. The slaughter would come soon enough. I chanted praises to my Lady under my breath. She would be pleased when I brought her the Princess's head.

A shield with crossed wands, cast in solid gold decorated the wall above the hearth. Yet was not the symbol that the man at his desk studied. It was the meaning he had come to associate with it. Even the rich mahogany walls, hand crafted furniture and other awards couldn't keep his eye for long.

He hated the room.

It wasn't his. It was never meant to be his, yet it was his. It was might for his best friend, not him. Everything was unfamiliar even with his personal touches. The photos of his family and friends, his trophies and awards for valor did nothing to make him feel at home.

"Damnit! You better get your lazy arse back here Harry!" the man said bitterly. The office was silent except for the cackle in the hearth. "I'm not cut out this! You're the leader type, not me." He adjusted the eye patch that covered his left eye and winced as phantom pain raced through him.

He'd lost his left eye during the war. A Death Eater had taken a small drake into a small hamlet, intending to turn the drake into a blood dragon through a dark ritual. Once the spies reported the location of the hamlet, he and Harry had rushed to the scene. They had been too late. They had underestimated the time needed for the ritual and the Death Eater was successful. The newly born blood dragon was rampaging over what was left of the hamlet.

Harry slaughtered the Death Eater, while he dealt with the dragon. He had taken the beast's left rear leg, when the tail had slashed him across the eye. With one eye he had fought on, through the blood and the pain he fought the dragon. Finally he delivered the killing blow and the dragon's head exploded over an over powered Blasting curse, but the cursed dragon fire and claws had left his chest a bloody mess.

He remembered collapsing as the headless dragon fell to the earth. He remembered Harry running towards him. He remembered the darkness and the sounds. The Healer's gasp of horror and sharp intact of breath were ever fresh on his mind. He couldn't see, his eyes refused to open. He remembered them talking about cursed fire that would never heal and blood dragon venom that would never allow him to regrow his left eye. Every time he shut his eyes he could hear them talking about his life, telling him he would never walk as a normal wizard again. He would be a disfigured freak for the rest of his days, but it never came to that.

He recovered and the bandages were removed. He rebuilt the lost muscle and strength. The war needed him, Harry needed his best friend at his side, and the world they fought to defend needed him. So he rebuilt himself. He rebuilt the old him into the one eyed wizard warrior and rose to the heavens as a legend not to be forgotten. Soon he rejoined the fight, against all odds. He had the scars and lost body parts to prove he was a survivor.

He was well on his way to being a legend with the magical world. Every time he heard the tale of his deeds in the pubs and bars, he winced. Glorified tales of his valor were far from the truth. The true heroes were dead already, his friends and classmates who lay slain beneath altars of white marble, while he and the rest who lived suffered tales that were nto their own. Expect Hary…he always seemed to be the expectation.

His best friend had been near suicidal and seemingly mad at times. The missions he undertook were insane stunts that should have killed him a thousand times over, yet not once did Harry bat an eye at his luck. He just rushed onwards as if he was trying to die. It had gotten progressively worse as the war marched on. Harry confided in him one night while they kept watch over a small village that he wished to die, he had to die, if the war was to end. What Harry meant by the statement he never learned nor did he die.

Leaning back in the leather office chair he looked to the ceiling and the mirror. Why Harry had installed a mirror on his ceiling was beyond him. Sometimes the things his friend did made no sense what so ever. He was left thinking that Harry had never deposed of the Hollows as he had claimed and it was slowly driving his mad.

He had let his red hair grow out and pulled into an off center ponytail, much his older brother, but his was an excuse to hide the worst of the scars on the left side of his face. The cursed dragon fire had seared his skin. Even magic couldn't undo the dark magic that powered the dragon's fire and now seared in his flesh. Every now and then his injuries from the fire would grow hot and burn him. Anytime of the day, no matter what he was do-

"Ron! We have a problem! Big problem! Massive! World ending! Apocalyptic!"

"Who died and when's the funeral?" he offered dryly as Gwen Ravenflight's head appeared in the fire. She was technically Harry's assistant, but her position had been edited by the Minster to be assistant to title Harry held.

"Worse! I don't know how it could get any worse than this!"

She was an excitable thing, prone to overreacting and flights of fancy at the worst possible time. He rolled his eyes and calmly addressed her. "What is the problem?"

"Oh, right!" She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Yesterday morning, really early, the Ministry of Magic's Sealing and Summon Department, which is also responsible for observation of sealed sites, objects and persons, reported that one of their seal had been broken by the Kabal of the Silver Twilight."

Ron frowned as he sat up and looked at her fire face. Many of those seals were old and complex. They were not the kind to be broken by any simple Kabal or Cult. The things sealed by that department were too dangerous, too powerful, or just too weird to let loose in the muggle or magical world. "Which one?" he asked, his voice betrayed his worry.

"The Japanese seal on something called the Witches Coven. It says here that everything sealed there was SSS rank in danger and not to be touched or communicated with at any time They are extremely powerful reality warpers and true immortals that have been convicted of many crimes including genocide, murder, genocide, rape, arson, theft, lying under oath, practicing necromancy, partaking of demon summoning, genocide, murder and jaywalking. Huh? That's a crime? Really?" Her head tilted down as if she rereading something in front of her.

He slowly rubbed his forehead. Crises like this were why Harry was supposed have this job, not him. Harry was the one who could understand dark magic and the things that go bump in the night better than him. "Get me all the files on this Witches Coven from the SSD. Call Hermione and tell her to get up here too. Then get in contact with the Chinese Ministry and tell our Minister to alert Kingsley and his men."

"At once Wizard General! Should this be from the General or the Warsmith?"

"General." Gwen nodded and her face vanished from the fire as soon as he spoke.

He hated the title Warsmith. It had been a creation of the Ministry's during the war against Voldemort. Harry was the first Warsmith and still was, until he officially retried from the post. Until then Ron was stuck with both titles and having to play the political game with overweight Purebloods and slimy bastards. "Bloody hell! You better your sorry arse back here quickly Harry! I don't know how much more I can take before I snap and kill some of these bloody bastards!"

The Asura's bridge was quiet. Only irregular breaths broke the silence. Something beeped and it seemed infinitely louder. Lindy took a deep breath and dared to break the silence. They were alive, unless death looked exactly like life.

"Status," Lindy called out softly.

"…Engines are offline, shields and Arc-en-ciel system is offline too. Ship wide power is at twenty percent and falling," Lyon answered, his kept his voice down as if loud noise might shatter the Asura like fragile porcelain perched on the edge of a cliff.

Lindy let out a long breath and slouched in her chair. They were safe. They had escaped the worst ending to their journey. She sighed in relief as the adrenaline began to fade away, leaving her tried, but she couldn't rest. "Beacons. Where's the nearest beacon? Try to open a line to HQ too." She called up another window for the engine room. Grif was berating some poor mechanics when she interrupted. "Status?"

"Fried," he snapped angrily. When he got angry his accent had the habit of vanishing, something she and Clyde had found out when they first took him drinking many years ago. "Deader than dead. Zip power. We're stuck and these imbeciles," he gestured towards the mechanics cowering in the background, "tried to jump start it with some magic, but only managed to blow the damned capacitors to hell along with the cooling system and the primary reactor outflow valves."

"We're not going anywhere are we?" Lindy asked rhetorically.

"Nope! This old girl isn't moving under her own power for a hell of a long time! You lot!" he roared as he turned his anger on the mechanics. "Get sorry asses out of this room before I carve you up for spare parts!"

She closed the window and gave a small, reminiscent smile. He hadn't changed much beyond his age and bulk. The years were catching up on them both. The TSAB would be sending them both off within the next few years to the main branch on Mid or HQ to become management types. The action and captaincy would be left to younger hands and she and Grif would be left to rot under paperwork until they retried. Perhaps the TSAB believed that the younger ones were more powerful thus more suited for combat mission and dealing with Lost Logia. She didn't know, but her magic was no less potent than it was ten years ago. If anything it had grow in the strength like fine wines.

"Captain!"

"Ah! Head Enforcer did you do as I asked? Regarding the wizard." She hid her smirk when Chrono ground his teeth at the mere mention of Harry Potter. Harry must have given him nothing but righteous, indignant grief when she forced her son to move him.

"It… was…done," Chrono slowly spat out with venom in his voice. "He's secured and-"

"I'm locked up tighter than the day I tried to rob my own government of priceless magical artifacts!" Harry shoved Chrono away and began to rant. She heard Chrono's indignant and angry cries and could only shake her head sadly. "Two Enforcers in the room, six outside the door and a few more patrolling the hallway in case I kill the first eight! So yeah I'd say he's got me secured nice and tight. Hell, I can't even go to the bathroom without having on these Enforcers follow me! Can you believe this blue haired brat? Paranoid? Ha! We'll have to redefine the word just for this pup!"

"All right you bastard! I've had enough of your lip!" Chrono growled as he tried to tackle the wizard.

Lindy hid a small smile as the wizard sent her bull rushing son to the floor with a simple move. The TSAB didn't see the point in training their agents in martial arts or hand to hand combat. The official doctrine was if you're in melee range your too close so make like a leaf and blow away. "Don't hurt him too much," she warned.

"Aye, my captain!" Harry offered a mock salute with his free hand, the other going to grab Chrono's wrist. 'And for the record my lip is your gain. It's not my fault you can't take criticism well or see how intrinsically flawed your TSAB is. This is why kids and pups should never be given authority Captain. They end up like this brat and it goes to their head!"

"That does it! And I'm fourteen you bastard! Not a kid! I'll have you locked up for life you damned wizard! I'll see you rot in a cold cell for attacking me! You'll-"

Harry delivered a solid punch to Chrono's face. Lindy swore she heard her son's nose crack as it absorbed the brunt of the wizard's fist. "Brat, you're decades too early to lecture me on the TSAB. Come back once you've seen a third of the shit I have then I MIGHT take you serious. Until shut up and stay out of my way."

She knew there was a kernel of truth to his words. The TSAB had issues, but it was the last best hope for the multiverse. Belka was down, but not out. They still harbored the hunger to rebuild their empire. Mid-Childa had its own factions that didn't like the TSAB and would gladly return to the days of monarchy. Other planets that had been seeded or colonized by Ancient Belka still held their ancestor's weapons and technologies. They had never forgotten the glory of those who came before them. Planets that had been colonized by Mid during her imperial days routinely attacked the TSAB in the court of public opinion. One of those subjects that was so popular was the use of ex-criminals as members of a law enforcement bureau. Several planets had filed intergalactic lawsuits against the TSAB over that issue alone, not to mention the lawsuits against the TSAB on the use of child soldiers.

"All right Chrono! That's enough fighting." Her tone allowed for no debated from the Head Enforcer that clutched his bleeding nose. "Report to medical and then to my quarters son. We're going to have a long talk about your language! Am I understood?"

A sullen Head Enforcer nodded and hastily left the room. Lindy left the screen up and waited until her son was gone. "Enforcers," she commanded, "leave us. I wish to speak with the wizard."

The two men gave her a sharp salute then left. She sighed; the Enforcers of her day hadn't been so mindless. The newest generations that the TSAB produced from their academies were the same as her son. Mindless obedience and dogmatic loyalty to the rules the TSAB put in place seemed to be the new creed.

"Ya know Captain," Harry mused "If I had soldiers like that during the battle against Voldy then it would have been a slaughterfest. Never thought I'd be glad that wizards are cowards at heart. So anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

"I'll be straight with you on this matter."

"Fine by me." Harry quickly interrupted her and gave her an amused smirk. "An alien who talks straight…imagine that!"

Lindy huffed playfully. "By the standards of Earth you're equally alien as me or this ship, Mr. Wizard."

"Toché. The matter of aliens aside, what's up?"

She gave the wizard a thin smile. He had confidence that few others possessed as his age, not the commonplace overwhelming, headstrong confidence, but confidence in his skills and actions. He had seen the worst humans could do and then some, yet still kept his sense of humor, even if it was warped and dark by nature. "..You've walked through hell and remained unbroken," she said softly.

"What was that? I didn't catch that,"

"Sorry, I was thinking aloud," she tried to wave it off and was relived when he made an amused sound.

"It's all right. I have this friend who does the same thing all the time. I mean it when I say all the time."

"Is that so… Anyway, as I was saying, the Asura is in trouble. Our engines are down and have no control of this ship. I need your power." She knew the correct course was to be blunt here. Another captain might have minced words, but she needed the variety of magic wizards could use.

Harry wore a guarded look, all trances of the earlier joking gone. "Explain, what part of my power do you need?"

"Charms, hexes, curses, those types of magic. I've seen the versatility of your spells. Featherlight, levitation, binding, expanding, if you use them on the engines we might be able to jury rig a temporary system to reroute the power then-"

"Stop! I..." Harry began then looked away. "What you…"

"Harry?" Lindy asked out of concern. She saw mask he wore slip for an instant. She saw the overwhelming pain his war had brought him and the pain he bottled up. "You can talk to me,' she added softly. She was well aware that Lyon and Cassandra were paying more attention to her than their stations.

"I can'- I won't do it." The mask that hid the pain returned to its position and he looked her in the eyes. "Everything has a price. To become Death's Master I paid my price. I won't help here," he said enigmatically.

Lindy was confused, his words implied enough to tell her the price. Magic was an integral part of mages and wizards. It was a familiar friend and reliable ally throughout their lives. For that reason suicide rates among the mages were always low and nearly unheard for wizards. Years spent with that familiar power, only to have it stripped away… Most mages lived their entire lives without losing their power, yet in the few cases that did depression and suicide were the common outcomes. "Was it worth it?" she asked softly. "Was the price worth the power?"

"Yes," he answered firmly, but she saw a flash of pain in his eyes.

"Very well. I will not bother you anymore. Feel free to keep the Enforcers out with threats of my continued presence," she said with a warm smile.

"I'll take you up on that. You have no idea long I've waited to pee without another guy watching me for 'tricks'."

She minimized the window as the wizard wandered away from the screen. She knew she was setting herself up against the Enforcers when they returned to HQ or Mid, which ever came first, but she didn't care. The TSAB had to change, even if it was one ship at a time. She would show them that a Captain's authority overruled all while they were away from the shipyards.

"Give me some options, Lyon," she commanded.

"Ma'am! Presently we're a good ways away from the relay beacon. The out wards jump through the window displaced us further than the logic drives originally suggested. Probably due to the particles from the supernova. Our emergency beacon is broadcasting, but thus far we've had no response. The primary planet of this system, Riv Prime, is close enough that we'll drift past it, but if we fire the sublight engines for a few moments we might be able to hit the planet. That is if the sublight engines will work at all," Lyon finished and took a deep breath having delivered his entire report in a single breath.

Grif's screen popped up. "I can give you a short burst with the sublight, but not long. Maybe a minute if I reroute all the power here."

Lindy hummed thoughtfully. If the shields could be maintained then they could aim for the planet and not be ripped apart by the entry. "Grif! Get me shields ASAP!" She heard him give her an 'aye' and turned to speak with Cassandra. "Get me a flight path towards Riv Prime and the needed burn time to hit the planet. Lyon, launch a deep scan of the planet. I want to now what's going on down there and where the people are." It was a ridiculous plan that every apart her mind screamed for her to stop. They would crash the Asura and hope she held together long enough. "All right boys and girls! Let's go crash us a ship!"

She didn't miss the open fear in Lyon and Cassandra's faces as she said that. The plan was insane, but ever so simple. Simplicity was best, Clyde had always preached that. In the end it had led to his death, but she had more confidence in her Asura. Her girl would take it. She hoped…

Jail smirked at the screen as he watched the TSAB ship drift towards him. It was a stroke of good fortune they had dropped out so close to Riv Prime. The insertion would be much easier. He shut down the screen and stalked out of the room that served as his central command. The heavy door was opened by the specters and shut by them once he passed through.

His base was a rather expansive facility. The first level lay right below the original fortress and was crawling with his spectral slaves. The second level contained little of importance. Some old labs and half finished projects he had abandoned made up the rooms on that level. The third was covered in traps and guarded by the few gadget drones he had managed to reactivate. The last level was his command center, cloning takes, stasis pods and all his current projects.

It was his newest project that had his attention. The Artificial Mage Program, the Fate Project, the Valkyrie operation were nothing compared to what he now built in secret. His contacts with the TSAB wanted mages and cybrogs weapons, but he saw beyond them to a time when the TSAB no longer ruled. They would fall, their foolish ban of mass based weapon would be their undoing. That which they feared would be the thing that would destroy them.

"I will have cybrogs and artificial mages, clones, but I need more! I'll need more powerful weapons and troops!" He opened a simple door and the lights turned on as he entered.

The room was a mess. Wires and cords all ran to his current project. It was a massive suit of armor akin to the knights of Earth had once worn. The suit stood nearly twice as tall as him and three times as wide. Each limb was grossly larger than it should have been and the somewhat hunched chest unit was needed to power the bulky thing. The left shoulder was a mess of wires, cords and capacitors while the right shoulder was covered by unadorned metal plates fused together. It no elegant piece of work, it was a weapon built for a purpose plain and simple.

Against the wall laid the weapon to be carried by his giant of war. An oversized gun based upon the models he had acquired from Earth was still awaiting his final tests. It was mainly painted black with dark purple trim. He had attached a large slab of metal to the front of the barrel as a bayonet after a fashion. He had seen the video from Earth's wars. He knew the value of having a bladed weapon. His bayonet might be crude for the time, but it would be made better in time.

Originally he had planed to give the armor to his cybrogs, but they were simply too frail to control the giants as his calculations had proven. Regular humans would have the same issue and he was left without anyone to control his giant. "Perhaps a clone modified to have the strength and nothing else. That would leave it without situational awareness or the ability to discern friend from foe. A berserker? That's always an idea, but I need a solider to support my cyborgs…hmmm…"

He hadn't even deiced upon a name for his newest project. Officially he called it the Titan Project, but was far less grand of a name to give his magnificent weapon. When it came to the battlefield it would need a suitably impressive name; a name that his enemies would quiver in fear at the mere mention of it.

Idly he picked up on of the prototype bullets and began to roll between his fingers. It was big, nearly as long as his hand when outstretched. The casing was plastic reinforced by an inscribed barrier. A single bullet could fire many smaller shots before the shell had to be replaced. The tip was a solid silvery colored crystal that he had designed to fall off when the bullet was ejected from the gun so it might be reused. The Lafur Crystals were noted for their explosive properties when they impact an object and the TSAB hadn't overlooked them. Within a month of their discovery by an exploration team from the Infinite Library, the planet of Lafur was sealed and locked down. Within six months the TSAB had stripped all the crystal from the surface. By the end of the year they had removed all the crystal from the near surface and the few ancient mine shafts.

Then came the Fate Project and he once more saw the Lafur Cyrstals. He saw the potential in them. Naturally grown crystals that were near perfect for bullets would mean an endless supply to keep the peace or, as he wished, to take power. The TSAB had left the planet of Lafur ungraded, foolishly thinking that they had taken all the 'dangerous' crystal, but in the deep mines he had found it. Far beyond the surface, far below the ancient mine shafts and tunnels he had wandered. He mapped and plotted as he had sought out the source of the crystals in the depths were no mortal man had tread.

In the depth of that planet he saw sights that defied explanation. Creatures that should not live, lived in the twisting corridors and stone cathedrals. Begins that shouldn't move, moved in the darkness. In that primordial land he had sought the Crystal though the path was guarded by horrors that time itself had forgotten, beast that long since abandoned the light and death passed them by.

With the ample funds he diverted from the Fate Project, he had continued his expeditions. Four times he slipped away from his partners on the Fate Project and used their funds to buy men and equipment, though it would eventually break the Fate Project team apart. Each expedition brought him closer to his goal and final on the fourth expedition he found it. In the utmost depths, after facing countless horrors that lurked in the dark, he claimed the Lafur Root as his. It was a small thing, no longer than his arm and little more than a twig, yet the crystals that grew from it were invaluable. He had taken it and Lafur died.

Those ancient horrors raged against him in the depths of the earth as he plucked the Root from its home. Horrors indescribable had slaughtered his men at every turn. Every rest, every moment, waking or sleeping, was filled with echoing cries and roars. Attacks were constant till he was the last on left standing. The other artifacts he had recovered form the depths were gone along with the corpse of his men, now food for the faceless men who roamed the dark places. He lived and the Root was his as he saw the light.

He still recalled the moment he stepped out of the darkness. Stumbling towards his ship, he recalled turning around as the familiar creepy feeling descend over him. At the mouth of the mine he saw the faceless gather. Their sinuous, whip like arms lashed out from the shadows of the mine, for they could not walk in the light. The appointed day of their return had not yet come and so the light bound them to stay in the darkness beyond the ken of humanity. As one they roared as him, he knew they shouldn't for they had no face, nor mouth, or any other opening from which sound could come, yet they roared in anger and pain. They hated him. They wanted to rip his organs as they had his men, then impale him only to never let him die until their lust for his agony was stated, something he felt would never happen.

That day he had won, but he had lost. Those days in the darkness had eaten away at his mind. He knew he was insane and he didn't care. It no longer mattered, a thing like sanity. As he had learned in the depths were men should have never trodden, there was only power and nothing else. All that matter was power. With enough he might surpass death itself. Perhaps even that which some called god would bow before his power. Humanity was weak when he saw the monsters that roamed the darkness. He would never be weak, such a concept was distasteful thus he embraced power. All that mattered in the end was power.

"Yes! That's it!" The name had come to him. The proper name for his Titian was more than enough reason to laugh. The multiverse would fear his Titian as was right and proper. He gave a little dance before his Titan then hopped up on an overturned case. He raised one hand towards his Titian and the other he placed over his heart. "I who have walked the dark places and seen the greatest horrors of all creation dub thee Diablous Dreadnaught! May you carry MY name into the darkness were devils fear to tread! By MY hand you shall rise! By MY name you shall be the shield of the new ERA! MY ERA! No longer shall we be bound by pesky codes and rule for MY rule shall undo the HERETICS work! I, who have seen the darkness, will fight it! MY power! MY rule! MY time is now! That which lurks in the dark shall die by sword and fire for that is MY will!"

As he had fled Lafur with his prize, he saw a rare sight. The death of a planet. He watched the vast seas, teeming with life, boil and evaporate both water and animal away. He saw the land itself rage as great cracks split the surface. Lava flowed from the depths and all that was green and good turned to ash. Life died as the planet died. Finally he saw the silent bang, the quiet whimper of death, and Lafur was no more. All that remained were chucks of rock. Yet he took no chances. He blasted every chunk of rock he could find. The monsters that lurked in the deep would never return. Of this he had to be sure of. In his world they had no place, why not start with ending their story he had asked himself.

"Heed my words all you who lurk in the darkness and the depths! No longer shall you rule the night! Your time has passed! This is MY ERA! You who feed on despair shall suffer the light as I DRAG you into the light! MY WILL shall break the backs of the leviathan that lurk in the dark pools! MY LIGHT will crush the head of the behemoth who hunts below! MY FIRE will PRUGE the ancient horrors who DARE to DEFY ME! By MY WILL, MY LIGHT, MY FIRE I name thee Diablous Dreadnought! This is your creed by which you shall wage MY war! From here to eternity you shall slaughter in MY name and carry MY message to those who have no place in MY NEW WORLD! RISE DIABLOUS! RISE AND SCREAM ALOUD THE SONG OF MY ASCENSION! SING MY SONG TO THE FOOLS AND THE LIARS! TO THE HONEST AND THE HERETICS! THE SAINTS AND THE SINNERS! A NEW POWER HAS BEEN BORN THIS DAY! A NEW GOD RISES TO TAKE HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE! THUS DO I DECLARE WAR ON ALL WHO DARE TO OPPOSE ME! IN MY NAME LET IT BE SO!

FOR I AM FUTURE! THERE IS NEITHER PAST NOR PRESENT WITHOUT ME! I AM POWER! I WILL BE-" A beep interrupted his speech. A screen popped up and he quickly dismissed it. "Oh, its dinner time already. Were does the time fly? Note to self: Find out if this Father Time person is real and if so kill him. I can spin it as doing every human a favor!"

"Ouch!" Lindy moaned as she pulled her self upright. "And that is way they don't publicize this technique. Not that it's a technique, any idiot can crash a ship, but crash land a ship safely…relatively speaking."

The Asura had made planetfall.

A part of her felt bad for crashing her girl into this ice world, but she knew her priorities. The crew and her passengers came first. The Asura could be recovered and fixed. Her crew wasn't the same way. The bridge was dark, the lights had been cut to power the shield during their descent, and the blast shield covered the outer windows. A quick glance down told her that her console was dead. She tried to call up a holoscreen, but got nothing.

"Lyon! Cassandra!" she called into the darkness. She heard a small moan and then a grunt.

"I- hmpf-I've got Cass. She's out cold though!" Lyon answered with concern laced in his voice. "She bleeding too!"

"What? Why now?" Lindy really couldn't think of a worse time for her bridge crew to be one down. "Where's she bleeding from?"

"Head or shoulders, I can't tell in the darkness!"

"Don't move her! I'll have some light in moment, until then don't let her move too much." Lindy reached into her pocket and pulled out her Device. She traced the flower shape of the necklace before she clasped it around her neck. "I'm sorry to use you like this Faye."

"It's all right master. I understand." Her Device had a feminine sounding electronic voice. "Setup ready."

She took a deep breath. It was a rare event when she used Faye. Even during her days before she was an officer she had preferred to use other means beside force to settle issues. That wasn't to say she couldn't fight like a wild animal, but she preferred not to deal with the paperwork deaths brought. She and Faye had been wild ones during her youngest days, fighting was their life and then Clyde came along. He brought the Fay Queen to heel and taught her more than she ever told him. "Four seasons drive the wheel. Four seasons judge without remorse! In the court of the fair folk let the four stand witness to the birth of the queen! Faye Queen!"

Her aria was long, but she didn't want to maintain the constant output of power to keep the link up. Age had its issues, but also its benefits. Like a fine wine, her magic was ripe and potent. It was headier and lethal, yet controlled. A gentle, green glow expanded from the four wings that manifested on her back. She let the glow grow brighter until she could see Lyon with Cassandra in his arms.

The wings weren't her Barrier Jacket though. Her Jacket, she was embarrassed to think of it at times, was a memorial to a misspent youth. It was a memorial to her wild days when she had run fast, drank hard, rocked loud, and lived as the rebel without a cause. It was the sort of thing she knew Chrono would never want to see his mother wear and she had little wish to once more wear it unless her life was in danger.

"Captain, I was able to access some secondary systems before we crashed. The damage was far greater than we thought," Lyon informed her as she leapt off the captain bridge and gently dropped to his bridge crew's side. "All the primary systems were lost in entry. Engines, scanning, shields, everything. The secondary systems began to shut down just before we crashed and the secondary power went offline. Captain, the environmental control was fried."

Lindy cursed her luck. It seemed as if fate was not in her favor on this day. "Secondary power? Don't tell me the backup generators are fried too?" Without the envirmnetal controls her plan to stya in the Asura until help came was shot. Riv Priem was an ice world and without the warmth heating the outer hull the bulkheads would freeze and seal them in. Speed was key now; if they moved too slowly then they would face a slow and icy death.

Lyon gave her a forlorn look. "We lost them shortly after we hit the inner atmosphere. I blacked out after that, but I'd assume they were broken off."

"And that is why I told those HQ that putting them on very rear of the Asura was a bad idea. It's not like we lack room, but no! Those damned regulations from the AriaCorp and CentTech lobbyists are to blame! I'm going to tear them a new one when we get back!" Lindy vented then took a deep breath. "That wouldn't do us any good. We need to gather the rest of the crew before the Asura freezes over. With luck we can reach one of those settlements and get in contact with the TSAB."

"Cass needs medical too," Lyon reminded his Captain.

"Yeah, we'll head to medical first. Can you manage with her?"

"Yeah, just light the way," Lyon grunted as they started to move towards the door. "Ah! I just thought of something. If secondary power is off then the doors will be shut."

"No problem," Lindy assured him. "Technology may have failed us, but magic hasn't." She saw the door and sure enough it was shut fast. Slowly she gathered her magic and began to shape it in her hand. Younger mages found such control nearly impossible. They might the energy for large spells, but most were masters of blasting magic and little else. Only with age came the ability to truly master magic. The energy required and formation of spells was something only the cooler heads could control. Magic was alive after a fashion. It grew and changed as the mage did.

She placed her hand, now covered in a dim green light, on the door. "Stand back Lyon," she warned. When she heard him shuffle back she began to count. "Three…two...one!"

There was brief roar like a dam suddenly breaking and the door disintegrated in an equally short flash of dim green light. Nothing remained of the one time door. No ash or scraps of metal indicated a door had ever existed. The edges of the wall were the door had been welded to the frame were smooth.

Lindy looked over her shoulder and smiled. Lyon wore the shocked face as she had expected. "Tada! And that is how we officers make doors."

"W…w…woah! I-I-I'd thought you were going to blast it or something! Not that! That was…incredible! How did you do that without calling the spell or chanting?" Lyon asked in amazement.

She stepped into the hallway before she answered him. "Youth blast doors. Older folks prefer to make doors. After all haste makes waste, they say. It a matter of control though, but that comes in time. So enjoy the boundless energy of your youth Lyon before you have to converse it like me."

Lindy began to walk away as the astounded bridge hand followed moments afterwards. She heard him muttering about how cool her spell had been. Blasting things might be nice to look at and an effective tool of destruction, but perfect control like hers was like impaling a knife between two ribs and still hitting the heart thought blindfolded. Both were equally dangerous and deadly when called on, yet perfect control was in a class of its own.

I smelled hell once more and welcomed it. The burning of flesh and wood were all I had ever known, the screams of pain were the music that I never tried of. I am the Wolf Knight, Wolf Sister, Fang of Justice, Wildborn and now I knew I faced the hour of my death. I saw the Blighter's scythe drawing every closer. With every step I saw it come near as the our skirmishers fell back in a panic. The banners of the White Devil herald his arrival. Her demonic legions carried his throne towards me. There was no need to talk to my brothers, who stood beside me. They knew the outcome of this battle.

For many long years we hated the White Devil and her armies. For every one of them would slay in this battle another skull would added to the throne our great Lord would bestow to us. They had killed our great Lord, mightiest of the Wolf Kin and that last true Wofl Lord, while they raped our homeworld of Takisi. No longer would be run under the bright moons or feel the wind whip through the great forests or the thrill of the hunt for the illusive Ci'ni Stags.

Homeless we wandered the universe, fighting the Devil and her hordes. We sold our services to any who would have us. There was no other way to live. Our bands scattered as some served various Warlords who stood close to the Dark Angel. Those who stood with the Devil, Reaper, Lady and Goddess were our true enemies. Each of them had a hand in the death of our home and the slow road to extinction we were know on. We were the last generation, no pups had been born in many years and soon my life would come to an end.

Extinction was inevitable.

Here, on the walls of this port city, my pack would meet its end. The Princess had asked us to hold as long as we could so that her forces might try to evacuate the civilians, but we knew better. The city defenses were meager and the Devil's Hordes were vast. Death was the only outcome and we welcomed it.

"Lucia!" the leader of the pack, Marcus, barked.

I spun around and looked him. He was short and stocky, just like the rest of his. He wore little armor, on his head laid the wolf war mask that would protect our heads and the oddly shaped cuirass marked with the snarling wolf hung from his shoulders, though it was ill fitting. Men were never meant to wear that cuirass, wolves were. Both pieces of armor would fall into place once we transformed, we fought not as men, but as animals.

"Send a message to the Guard Command. We have twenty units of rifles, eleven armored divisions, and three heavy divisions on the south side. We're going to need aerial and artillery," he instructed calmly. He examined his left hand, it was permanently stuck in his wolf state, and wiped a bit of mud away from the burnished steel and crystal that covered the paw.

We would not panic when Blighter came for us. We would be steady as the Accursed Light came to us. I calmly relayed his message to the Guard Command over the node relay I carried on my back. The General in charge made some vague assurances of support, but I didn't care.

It didn't matter. The port of city of El'Cinero was doomed. Soon this would be a city of death. All my instincts told me to leave this place before that happened, but we had a job to do. Out honor demanded we fight for our employer to the death or victory. The Guardsmen in the trenches before the wall and those on the wall had no such obligation. Only fear of their Princess held them to their post or perhaps it was love? Respect? In the end none of that mattered. They would die in this place just as we would. Marcus knew that, I knew that, our pack knew it, the General knew it, those poor wretches didn't know it. They would cling to their hope till the last breath. I wished them the best of like with that, but I would not delude myself.

In this age, under the Warlords who waged eternal war, there was no hope for a better day. The lucky would die swiftly and their souls unscathed. The cursed, like my kin and I, would suffer the slow agony of death across a thousand battles. Even in death we would have no luck. The idea we would follow our Wolf Lord and would set us upon a throne of our enemy's skulls was nothing more than a fairy tale. At best our souls would be used to craft new Daemon weapons, or at worst be used to feed the dark creatures the Warlords kept as pets.

We were no Iron Warrior and their unshakable faith, nor an idealist Avenging Angel, or a twisted Hell Knight, or a pessimistic Infernal Rider. We were the pragmatic Wolf Knights, we clung to no false god or goddess. Pure practically was our creed. Life was, but the moment of time in which you existed was our motto. There is no past or future in life, only a series of interwoven tales that we called memories.

I looked to the oncoming army and saw Blighter coming. Then I looked down towards my weapon of choice today. Anti-armor duty was our call on this cloudy day, I could smell the ozone build up and prayed for rain. Anything that might slow their tanks and walkers would be welcome.

Losing El'Cinero would be no great blow to the Princess. It was but one of many port cities. In planetary wide wars such loses were to be expected. When billions were involved war became a matter of which side held the longest, unless a Warlord came to fight. Then it would be over in days. Their power was beyond anything I had ever seen. Nothing should be that powerful, yet they defied that law every moment of their immortal lives.

It would be a shame to die though. I still wanted to get a shot at the Reaper, but Blighter seemed to have another idea. I growled at the approaching army in defiance and anger. For their sins they would pay thrice fold. Wolves may flee, but we never forgot and never forgive…

A/N: Blighter is NOT a Warlord.

Something has been bugging me about all the Nanoha franchise. Those damn holoscreens and controls. They pop up everywhere even the dashboard of Fate's car and in the air. How? How do these things work anyway? The Cradle had Quattro and Fate using them in a strong AMF which could be seen as them being non magical in origin. That rules out the idea that they run on manifesting of ambient magic.

All I can think of is that there are nodes of some kind that broadcast on a certain frequency. The TSAB taps into that frequency to communicate and control things like the seals placed on Hayate/Fate/Nanoha. If that's true then why didn't Jail and his cyborg's (in Strikers) hack this frequency and taking it over or gain intel?

Anyway, nodes make the most sense and you can bet that they'll be in the plot point in the future. If somebody has a better idea how they work in cannon please let me know.

Lastly, I rarely do this as it feels cheap, but REVIEW! Even if its a line or two words your opinion matters. 40+ readers have this marked as a favorite and alerted so show it!

To the regular reviewers, thank you for your support!