Chapter 6 – Stronger Together
"Okay you three," said Sakura, "I want an explanation for all of this and I want it NOW!" "We have a right to know," said Chrono in mutual agreement. They had just been teleported to the campsite along with Nanoha and Lance by Lee and they wanted answers. "Okay, sit down, said Lance, "I will tell you everything that I haven't already told you. We owe you that much." Lance told them everything in much more detail than his brief explanation he had told them before the battle, all the way back from his and his father's accidental unsealing of the magical Saren stones to the battle they just had. They listened open-mouthed as Lance unraveled his tale. "And now Lee has decided to help us so we started trying to train him to use magic which is why he knows how to use it, though honestly the speed he picked it up at was beyond ridiculous. That's about it," concluded Lance. Both Sakura and Chrono were speechless for a moment but then they spoke up. Chrono, "So are we also allowed to help you guys." Sakura, "I don't want you guy's to be doing this by yourselves. The more of us there are, the better chance you guys have of success."
Nanoha and Lance were both surprised, at being offered help with something so dangerous so willingly, but Lee wasn't. He knew his two best friends better than anyone, and knew that this was just like them, which made him smile. Nanoha and Lance didn't know what to say. On the one hand, it would be great to have the help of more mages who like their friend Lee seem to have extraordinary talent for using magic as they clearly did. On the other hand, Nanoha, and Lance especially, were hesitant to ask for their help further, including Lee's. What they were doing was highly dangerous, and it didn't seem right to ask what amounted to complete strangers to help them with something like this, especially when they were all so new to magic, despite their obvious talent. That said, Lee turned to them, "To put it another way, we're helping whether you like it or not. These Saren Stones seem too dangerous to leave alone, and by the sounds of it on Earth only us here are equipped to deal with it." Nanoha, "I mean you're not wrong. On this planet, there are probably only a select few that have the potential to even use magic, and almost all of them probably don't even know that they can, and even for those that are, I doubt that they would be stronger than you guys, who we admit are well above average in the magic power department, so I guess we'll accept your help." Lance, "Nanoha's right, but for our new friends here, I would feel better if you would both agree to try and learn what we taught Lee on how to use magic, at least as good as we can teach you. Is that ok?" Sakura and Chrono agreed immediately, more because now that they were getting over the initial shock of everything they were told, they were most curious with this new power that they had discovered and what it could do.
They started training the day after the next. They originally wanted to start immediately, but both of them the next day woke up immensely sore, something Lance said was a side effect of how their powers awakened, and that they were honestly lucky soreness was all it was. When they did start, the training was also different from what Lee had done as Sakura and Chrono didn't know how to control their transformations, or their magic in general for that matter since what they had done had mostly been instinct after someone else had jumpstarted their magic for them. It took them the better part of a day to figure out how to do it. Lance surmised that this was probably due to the way he had awakened their latent magic abilities that it was harder for them to learn to draw upon them than it was for Lee who had figured it out on his own after awakening his magic by himself which most likely gave him a good reference point, but Sakura and Chrono were able to do so eventually with some coaching and practice. After they learned to harness their powers and thus access their devices, they learned that theirs were also different from Lee's small Marble. For Chrono, his item, Black Falcon, was originally a black marble (which Lance said was one of the more common forms that a manifested device took) but when he got used to the transformation, it turned into a black and grey watch and magically attached to his wrist in a way so only Chrono could take it off. Chrono liked the watch a lot better than the necklace. He didn't like things around his neck much ever since he was a child and almost strangled himself to death on a phone cord. Lance thought that Black Falcon probably sensed this and turned into the watch on its own accord.
Sakura's item was also originally a pink marble but like Chrono, after she got used to transforming too, her pink marble, Cerenity, changed into a bracelet with a smaller marble containing CERENITY connected like a little charm. Sakura didn't like to wear anything on her neck except a small gold and sapphire pendent left to her by her real mother before she died. Sakura was only five years old when her biological mother died and that pendent was the only thing she could remember her mother by. Due to this, she always wore that pendent around her neck and refused to wear anything else around her neck. She also refused to remove it under any circumstance, even in elementary school where they'd forbid jewelry in gym class and in the classroom. After a while, her dad had to come in and explain the circumstance under which she refused to remove the necklace. He had to come in because Sakura had bit a teacher's hand when they tried to remove it against her will and she had to be sent to the principles office. Cerenity obviously had sensed this strong connection between the pendent and her master so it decided to change into a bracelet instead to accommodate.
Training started by testing what types of magic they were naturally good at just like they had done for Lee. Chrono was a completely combative type with close and middle range fighting specialties and was a natural in the air but his shield abilities weren't that good, so he could only make round shields or Aura's and he had absolutely ZERO aptitude for transformation, long range attack, binding, search type, and healing magic. He was also okay at teleportation. Sakura ended up being a sniper type attacker with middle-range to long-range attack power and was extremely accurate, but not quite as strong overall as Chrono. She could also use healing magic, binding magic, shielding magic, Barrier magic, transformation magic and was able to teleport anywhere flawlessly on her first try. That said her talent in teleportation most likely came from her biggest surprise, her immensely rare ability in Portal Magic, also meaning that she wasn't bound by the same limitations for long distance teleportation to other dimensions. Lance though did elaborate a bit in stating that it was possible for almost any mage to make a portal form of short-teleportation magic and that it shouldn't be confused with true cross-dimensional portal creation since it had the same limits as a normal teleport spell. This power was apparently on the extremely rare side even in other magical worlds. Though she had basically zero natural close-combat potential and was less agile in the air then Chrono. She was also a natural at multi-shot attacks. She was the type that could concentrate on many shots at a time and could control it flawlessly. That all said, both of them also had absolutely Zero talent for wide area attacks unlike Lee, whose newest spell proved he had above average ability in that field as well. Nanoha and Lance didn't say it outright, but they were both once again impressed with the natural aptitude that these random people from earth who had never used magic before seemed to have for it.
Next Lee took over and showed them that they could do magic while they were not transformed too. Lee was instructing them in this because Lance and Nanoha both grew up in a world where magic was a part of normal life so doing most of what Lee had figured out in this department was second nature to them. Nanoha also usually didn't need to use an incantation to do attacks while not transformed. This was something that Lee could not figure out. Lance, who was a something called a direct magic type never transformed and so he could use magic regularly as if he had a staff without an incantation but the magic would be more powerful if he used the incantation. Lee tested them on what he could do. Chrono could teleport while not transformed, but not to different worlds. Sakura lost her ability to do long range (portal) teleportation while normal but still had perfect short-range teleportation ability.
Lee tried them out on some other abilities as well. Both could fly at about the same level while normal. Chrono was able to make a slightly smaller ball of magic than Lee's but it also didn't make a magic circle. He could also make someone immobile for a bit longer than Lee could. His immobilization technique lasted about 10 minutes but still required a magic circle to use. Sakura was able to make a ball of magical power slightly bigger than Lee's and it didn't create a magic circle. She could also read non-mages minds without a time limit on how long she could do it for, though like Lee could only see what was on the surface. To both of their frustration, neither Sakura nor Chrono could move objects at will from afar like Lee could. They couldn't even make an object hover. Though Lance did come over and say that these small powers were just what they were naturally attuned too, and that with some training, such menial tricks would become child's play, as Lance nonchalantly demonstrated all of them with complete ease, calling all but the mindreading completely mundane.
That said, unlike Lee, they didn't get it all down after one day, and so they spent every day after school that week continuously trying to learn their new powers. After a good week, they had gotten a pretty good handle of their respective skill sets and even learned that they didn't need incantations for their attacks while normal but apart from it being not as powerful as any of Lee's attacks, it required a lot of magic and that created a big magic circle. Lee needed incantations for most of his attacks but they seemed to be much more powerful for it and didn't take as much energy. It took Chrono and Sakura 5 times as much time to learn everything. So after almost a week they finished their basic mage training, at least what Lance and Nanoha who despite being considered prodigy mages could do given that they weren't used to teaching others.
During the training, Lance had put up a space-time barrier so what seemed to be 12 hours passed in less than half that each day for that week so they could fit it in after school. Lance explained to them though that this method wasn't perfect though. His barrier wasn't actually able to manipulate actual time, as he went off on a tangent about the theoretical parts of magical theory, including one of it's basic laws that said it could not interfere with constants such as true absolute space and time. According to Nanoha, Lance was considered a once in a generation super genius when it came to book smarts, so they didn't understand everything Lance said when he started talking about the impossibilities of time manipulation. That said, it could replicate the effects of doing so by doing things that in effect had the same effect. For space, it was possible to increase the area between two molecules or shrink it to increase or decrease the appearance of mass. Then for time, he could universally speed up molecules in a given space to give the illusion that time had slowed down outside that space, though it was really them that had become faster, but this meant that there was some stress on those inside, which was why it couldn't be used to speed things up much faster than what Lance had demonstrated, at least to normal individuals. Thus Chrono and Sakura had not gone to cram school for the week though because this coupled with the training made them extraordinarily tired. Sakura's dad and stepmother and Chrono's parents both saw how tired they were and put it down to them being sick so they allowed them to skip it until they became lively again, thinking it might have been stress from upcoming high school entrance exams. Both Chrono and Sakura's families were rich so staying home in their large houses was not boring for them at all, and besides being rich, their parents made sure that they didn't miss their studying by bringing them private tutors.
After they finished training, it was a weekend and since their parents saw that they "had gotten better" (stopped training), they allowed them to go out with Lee to go do stuff for the day. Lance and Nanoha though declined the invitation saying that they had something they needed to take care of, which was a shame since they had wanted to get to know them better, though they had already learned a lot about them over the last week and were becoming fast friends. In any case, Sakura loved shopping and usually dragged Lee and Chrono along with her whenever she went to the mall. She had once gone by herself and got into a bad situation with some less-than-friendly people at the mall and ended up getting robbed of all her money and shopping and got her arm sprained when she was trying to get away. Ever since then her parents never let her go shopping alone and only let her go to the mall without them if she was with Chrono and Lee. Both Chrono and Lee looked weak but were both pretty strong muscled and Chrono had a reputation at school for being a top athlete so after saying that they wouldn't do anything stupid, her parents said she could go to the mall with them. Since then, there was only one incident and after Chrono knocked the first guy out cold, the rest of them ran away and they hadn't been bothered since.
After they went shopping (well, Sakura went shopping and Lee and Chrono carrying the bags), they ate lunch at the food court and then went to see a movie. Afterwards, Sakura wanted to do more shopping and so it was back to Sakura shopping and Chrono and Lee carrying bags when they saw some people behind them. They were looking at them from behind and had a weird look on their faces so Lee decided to take a quick peek into their minds with his magic and as they thought, these people, as Lee suspected, they weren't nice people, and two of them armed with switch-blades. They were probably being targeted because despite Sakura's best attempts, between the shopping they were carrying and her general demeanor, it was obvious that Sakura was a rich-girl. Lee then told Chrono to see if he could find a place where he could go where his magic wouldn't be seen. He gave the bags he was carrying to Lee and headed to the emergency staircase and after making sure there was no security cameras looking at him (there wasn't, what lousy mall security) he focused his mind on the two crooks and a magic circle appeared under him, he then released a small freezing spell and the two crooks stopped exactly where they were. Chrono, not wanting to make a scene only used enough magic for 3 minutes so that not too many people would see and those who did see would just think these people were weird. He ran back to Lee and said that they should leave quickly. They went into the jewelry store that Sakura was in and told her that they were leaving now. She didn't understand and they told her that they would tell her once they had left.
When they left, Lee told Sakura about the two thieves following them and Sakura thanked them. That said, it was at this moment that Sakura got a call from her parents that they had an important surprise to show her and that she should get home, and so back they went. Sakura's parents said welcome back and that they had some important news they needed to tell her. They said the others could stay as well for dinner as it was getting late. They would drive them back later and had already called their parents. They all went into the sitting room (since they had one in their massive mansion) and Sakura's dad started to explain the situation, "We know this is sudden but there is a foreign exchange student that is going to start attending your school on Monday, but the original family that was going to take them in unfortunately is unable to due to that house fire a few blocks over, since that was theirs, and so the school had reached out to the parents to see if anyone could put her up, at least temporarily, so we have decided to let them stay here. It's a girl so we don't think you will have any problem with her, and she's by all accounts a very nice person. We wanted to keep it a surprise. We have known about it for about 2 weeks and she has just arrived today while you were at the mall. I'll invite her in now" and he left the room. He came back a minute later, "Everyone, this is Nanoha Takamachi." They all looked and sure enough it was Nanoha, the one that had helped them so much. They all kept their surprise to themselves, as they didn't want Sakura's parents to become suspicious. Later, after dinner, they all went into Sakura's (very pink) room and Sakura attacked the elephant in the room, "How did you manage to get yourself to seem like a foreign exchange student to everyone." Nanoha, "Magic's useful like that, at least when Lance uses it, though its mostly true, I am going to attend school with you all. I hope this is alright though, I don't want to be a bother." Sakura though clearly felt quite the opposite, and in fact excited about, "Sure, I think it's actually going to be more fun like this, I've always wanted another girl in the house, and I want to get to know you better anyway. Besides I already felt bad seeing you guys have to camp out in the woods like you have, especially since we aren't even into spring yet." Nanoha, "Yeah, it wasn't the greatest, even with Lance's spell keeping the cold at bay, but you do what you've got to." And with that, Sakura's parents called them down for dinner and so off they went.
