Chapter 26 – Free At Last

When they woke up next, Lance, Sakura, Nanoha, Sarah, and Chrono were on beds in the medical bay. They had fainted from exhaustion as soon as they had gotten onto the ship. Lee, "Hey there." They all slowly began to sit up, feeling surprisingly good. John, "This is what I would call a clean battle." They looked at him and he continued, "None of you got any major injuries. There was a bruise here, scratch there, some amputated legs, that sort of stuff, nothing serious." They all laughed a bit, then John turned to one of them in particular with a slightly more serious expression, "Except for you, Nanoha, you suffered from a good bit of magic overload, nothing that could harm you but if it had gone further, there may have been something to show for it." Nanoha, "Yeah, I already know. I was expecting that to happen when I activated the Blaster System after holding back my power for so long." Lee and company were about to start asking Nanoha about that particular elephant in the room. They had finally seen what she had been hiding, but now their curiosity was too much, and they now wanted to know why. That said, John waved them off quickly, "We'll get to that in a bit, but for now, let's just go over the fight real fast."

John then took out a tablet with the data, "And now for your Battle analysis. I just love reading these things in front of people, especially when their results surprise those that they are about. The expressions are always amusing, especially today, where I am proud to say that, against all expectations, all of you have just exceeded the 500 million mage level and 1.5 billion mark for your spell power, at least at your very peaks. Thus while normally you may only exhibit SS levels of power, you have all shown that officially, you are now fully fledged SSS mages, an immense accomplishment." Sakura, "Wait, are we really that strong?" Chrono, "Yeah, I thought you said that almost no one ever becomes a SSS mage" Sarah, "You even said once that there was like only a 1 in 50 chance of one appearing on a single world. Are you sure you can call us something that overly rare so easily?" John, "Honest, I wouldn't make this up, but it's true. You kids have, time and again, taken it upon yourselves to destroy common logic. Yes, that figure I once told you is accurate, but you all have just shattered it. It's no wonder why rumors of you are flying around the TSAB, you guys are all quite unprecedented." Sarah, "Rumors?" John, "Nothing to worry about, but a group of teenagers and even younger suddenly popping up as SS and soon to be SSS class mages is juicy news. Some people honestly are a bit skeptical actually, so I wouldn't be surprised if you are asked to demonstrate your amazing abilities at some point in the near future, but that's a discussion for later. In any case, it all just shows that you are all just brimming at the seams with potential, and so for those of you who thought that you were going to be left behind by Lee, and now Nanoha I guess, I just want you to know that you all clearly have just as much potential and ability as them." Lance, "And let me tell you, I myself am technically a SSS+ level mage, though mostly only in terms of magical reserves, but because of that I can tell you through the many attacks I had to withstand with the barrier earlier, John isn't exaggerating. Honestly, it used to be trivial for me to contain the effects of your fights, but its been getting progressively more difficult lately. Honestly even I'm going to have to step up my game now if I want to keep pace."

John, "Yes, its all very impressive. But for now don't let yourself got bogged down by those numbers. Instead, let yourself be distracted with these numbers as we go through the stats that I so love to read out to promising mages when they've shown such insane progress. For my only daughter, we have a 1.5 even Breaker rating; not bad for a just barely 12-year-old. Now for Mr. Chrono, for him, we got a reading of a whole 1.65 billion with a personal bonus to badassery for bone shattering and creating shockwaves with his fists. And for Sakura, we have a nice 1.75, due to her new cannon's super compression ability and an ace's distance headshot. Then finally, we get to Nanoha, who was honestly the biggest surprise of all, having well exceeded Lee's strongest combination attack with your Breaker at 2.69 billion, just below the legendary level of Z. I have to admit, that even impresses me. After this, I would like to hear it in detail."

Nanoha, "Well, in truth, some of that power wasn't mine, since Starlight Breaker absorbs residual magic from the area to power itself up even farther, but thanks." John, "Well still, what you did falls squarely in the category of badass insane. Also, I would like to give Lance the anywhere ever best defense person award. I know even I couldn't have made a double barrier able to withstand these numbers for as long as you did, not even mentioning the barriers you made for Nanoha's true fight along with defending the whole group from the aftermath of Nanoha's final attack along with setting up even more defenses against it, even if you did faint afterwards. And that all is before you consider the insane area of coverage you had given that your effective battlefield spanned several kilometers, so a sold congrats to Lance as well. Now for the after-action, luckily yours truly had the foresight to see that just Lance might not be enough, so I had previously dispatched a concealment squad to the greater area, and I've been told that they are just wrapping up the memory modifications and repairs resulting from your battle, so no one will be any the wiser. The dimensional space is also fine thanks to a team reinforcing against that damage as well, though it helped that Nanoha aimed downwards instead of up out of the planet, where we might not have been so fortunate. Thus, with Lance preventing Nanoha's attack from directly hitting the ground, everything turned out fine this time."

Nanoha suddenly looked sullen, "This time at least…" Suddenly, the whole group could feel Nanoha's general cheer evaporate. That said, John wasn't going to have any of that, "Okay, I thought letting this sort itself out would be best for everyone, but I think we've reached the limit of that strategy. Nanoha, I've seen the files, all of them now that I have full access as a General, so I know what happened last year. I read the detailed accident report, and I can say with confidence that what happened was in no way your fault." The group was now confused, but they were starting to pick up on more of what Nanoha had been hiding from them. That said, Nanoha herself knew now that it was out in the open, there was no use hiding anything anymore. It was time to come clean, and let the pieces fall where they may.

Nanoha, "It was around a year ago. On Maral, where I'm from, most the time I'm considered one of, if not the strongest mage on the planet. Thus, even though there is a reasonable TSAB presence on the planet, given my family's strong ties to the TSAB, of which my father is still an active member, they sometimes call me for help with problems that generally need my special brand of, as many people call it, 'Extreme Destructive Capabilities', which is a fair assessment I guess. I've always had more power than I've known what to do with, and my particular brand of magic has always seemed to cause excessive property damage. In any case, I have so much power that by the time I was 9, except for my own father there was no one who could hope to challenge me head on, and he was always away on missions." Lance, "Frankly, as good as I am with magic, and as large as my reserves have become, truthfully a lot of it was only because I wanted to keep up with Nanoha, to let her have an outlet and know she was not alone. But I can only win by defending against and then outsmarting her, I can't match her power directly." Nanoha smiled over at her oldest best friend, "You're downplaying your own talents, especially since I could basically never beat you. But it was thanks to you that I could always be cheerful, even when some people looked at me like a monster for having so much power despite being so young. It bothered me originally, but with Lance's and my hometowns help, it stopped after a bit, and after the whole Beatha Reactor incident, for a while we were treated like heroes. But then a bit over a year ago the TSAB calls me up with an urgent problem. Two asteroids had collided not far from the planet due to the effects of another TSAB operation, sending part of one on a collision course with Maral. If it had hit, the devastation that it would have caused would have been cataclysmic. Worse yet, its predicted strike zone was very close to Galia, the capital of the entire planet. By the time they could get the word out, and there were only minutes, and as the strongest mage on planet by far, they asked if I could destroy it."

Lance, "It was an impossible task. Asteroids are large, even if this was only a portion of one, it was very large, and the speed they move at is extreme when entering a planet." Nanoha, "Even so, there was nothing else for me to do but try and destroy it. There was no one else, and no time to get a ship in place that could do the job. Thus, I teleported straight to the capital with Lance, and not thinking where I was, started charging up as much magic as I can, my absolute maximum power, going so far as to activate my full blaster system, and fire the strongest breaker I could." Nanoha looked down, as if ashamed of this next part. Sakura, "What happened?" Lance, "Nanoha did the impossible, she successfully obliterated the asteroid, saving the city, and frankly most the planet in the process."

Nanoha, "But still, I failed. Sure, I destroyed the asteroid, but my power was too destructive, too powerful. The mere backlash of my own spell all but destroyed the city behind me. Buildings were collapsing, windows shattered, roads torn up, people…" Nanoha trailed off. Lance, "At least no one died, since a larger part of the city had already been evacuated, but there hadn't been enough time. There were those that couldn't escape in time. The injuries were severe, and that was just the first travesty that everyone saw. Later when the dust settled, a city's worth of people returned to find their lives all but destroyed. They saw their homes lost, everything they owned under a pile of rubble, utter devastation, and people then saw the source of the damage and pain, and put the blame on Nanoha."

Everyone was silent, not sure how to react. Nanoha, "I was treated like a monster. By the time the TSAB got there, they were calling for my head, and why shouldn't they have, I caused it, I caused all that damage, all that pain." Lance, "The TSAB of course did their investigation and cleared Nanoha of any wrongdoing, going a step farther and raising her up as a hero who saved the planet, which when explained by the TSAB did change the minds of a lot of people, which was good. In truth, if Nanoha hadn't destroyed the asteroid, not just the city, but all those people who blamed her along with most the people on the planet would have been killed, and Nanoha successfully stopped all of that. If every life was saved, what's damage to one city compared to that. Thus, to most the planet, Nanoha is the hero that saved it twice over. But even then, there are still those who blame her for their destroyed livelihoods, who call her a monster. It was honestly very bad for the first few months. They learned where Nanoha lived and even started harassing her. Luckily, we live in a small close-knit town and the whole town came to her defense and chased them off, but ever since then, Nanoha has been afraid to use her full powers." Nanoha, "Because they can cause so much pain, they're too strong. I don't want to hurt people. Even today, just trying to prevent my powers from hurting people and I hurt my best friend." Lance, "But I'm okay, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

John let them finish, and then turned to the group, "And there you have it. That's the whole story, at least that I know of. But this is good, now everything's out in the open." Nanoha, who had been staring down the entire time, decided to chance a glance up, to see what she feared the most, the terrified look of her now former friends. That said, she never even got the chance. Before she could fully pull her head up, both Sakura and Sarah, much to her shock, pulled her into a massive hug. Sakura, "I can't imagine what it felt like, to have all those idiots treat you like that." Sarah, "But you don't have to worry about that anymore. I'll beat up anyone that tries." Sora, "Seriously, I've only ever been to one other planet, but are people from other planets really that dumb?" Chrono, "Really, maybe I should go and blow up the city again. At least then they would have an actual person to blame for it." Lee, "I don't get how you could be blamed for that Nanoha. I'd have given you a medal." John, "Don't worry, she was awarded several, even if she didn't show up to collect them at the time…"

Nanoha was stunned speechless, not sure how to react. Her power was destructive, too much so, and they had seen it first-hand. They even heard her whole story, of the damage she had caused, the pain she had inflicted, and they didn't care. More than that, they told her it wasn't her fault, the words she had been told many times, but couldn't comprehend, couldn't accept. John walked over to her, "I don't see why you're so surprised. Sure, your power is great, and sure it caused such damage. You destroyed a city even. I won't call it not a big deal, because it is, but the circumstances were loaded against you, and you still saved everyone, that has to count for something. Besides, no one in this group has any right to criticize about collateral damage. Last I checked, Chrono destroyed a forest, Sakura a city block, Sora a block sized park and Sarah most of the street outside my house. Then don't even get me started on Lee, who broke my old ship and destroyed most anything electronic on a whole planet just to test his own power."

Lee, "Hey, I thought you said you wouldn't hold those against me…" John, "That was before it was my job to deal with the paperwork my young son. As the General in charge of the section responsible for dealing with both of those events, they've suddenly become enormous headaches. I can't even get Rodger his new ship before I sort out the accident report for the Asura." Lee looked incredulously at his father, before the rest of them minus Nanoha burst out laughing, followed by John, and Lee realized that his father was joking with him, "Ha ha, very funny." John, "Though it is true that I have to deal with the reports for those, but that's just my job now." He turned back to Nanoha, "Truthfully, anyone in this room could cause that kind of damage now, even on accident. You've honestly all grown to be that kind of uncommonly strong, so you're in good company. It's time to leave it in the past, learn from it sure, but move on." Nanoha didn't know what to do. She almost broke down crying in happiness, but even then she felt too happy to cry, and so with the brightest smile they had ever seen from the auburn haired girl, "Okay."

Now that everything was out in the open, and Nanoha realized that her fears were unfounded, she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and she felt truly happy. She was always a cheery person, but after that one incident, it had become more of a shield than anything, masking the hurt and the pain, only letting her mother or Lance see through it, but that was gone, and her cheer was real. Everyone could feel it, that warm bubbly feeling that they had come to associate only with Nanoha, it was back in full, stronger than ever, and they couldn't be happier. They now understood why she had hidden this from them along with her full powers, and they couldn't blame her one bit for it, but with that gone, it felt like they had become that much closer as friends.

They stayed and chatted for a bit, mostly talking about the battle that had just occurred. Each of the combatants said it was sort of fun and agitating to face themselves and each other when they could regenerate and stuff. Lee and Sora had already planned a line for this, "Well, at least we now know that you can beat each other up if need be." This earned him a playful punch from Chrono, which he blocked, followed by a round of laughter. That said, all good things had to come to an end. Sora had to pack his stuff, as well as the rest of them. Sora was going to be leaving the ship tomorrow and due to other circumstances, they would all be going back home as well. Unfortunately, the area where John had told Sakura and Chono's parents they would be camping was going to have a large thunderstorm tomorrow and he didn't want to worry them, and so he had called them in advance about an hour ago saying they would be home a bit earlier than planned due to the bad weather. It might have actually been better this way in John's head because if nothing else, they could get set for the new school year easier.

They used the last hours of their final day to play a few games and to use the training room a last time. It wasn't going to be the last time they were on the ship though as they would be parking it in a TSAB outpost station John had been having built on Earth. It had apparently been in the works for quite a bit, as while the Earth previously hadn't been a focal point of enough magic related incidents to warrant such a diversion of resources on it given that it was both not aware of the greater universe and magic in general, the situation had changed quite a bit recently between the start of the Saren Stone incident and John's promotion. Even before those though, the TSAB had been taking a greater interest in the Earth given that it was already the home of two of the most important and highest ranking members of the TSAB since it was always the home world of both John and General Grayson. That said, it had originally only been in the planning phases. Especially since neither John nor Grayson had decided to base themselves on Earth, with Grayson preferring to station himself on Mid-Childa in his proper headquarters while John took a more active approach and stationed his base of operations aboard his ship, the Asura, and then also used his Mid-Childa headquarters when he needed to.

That said, starting around when John first realized that this Saren Stone incident might be a longer mission then he originally thought, the first real Earth TSAB outpost which had previously been only in the planning stages had jumped to the top of the priority list. On top of that, while it should have taken months to set up, after becoming a General and after what happened at the party that affirmed his need as such, he was able to get the TSAB to divert the resources and manpower needed to rush it. Thus, while there were still parts of it that needed to be built, but it was set up enough for immediate use as a docking station. It was made easier due to the fact that it could be entirely underground due to the unique capabilities of his new ship. The ship would go under-ground using the ships proto-type SDP or Short Distance Portal, which according to the new General allowed the ship to make a portal large enough for it to use to move short distances within a single dimension, a first of its kind system at the scale it was being employed at. They would use it to enter the underground hanger from outer space.

They ate a lot that night as this was going to be the last dinner they would have on the ARTEMIS for a while, a dinner that they quickly worked off when they went to use the training room for some last-minute practice, though most of them were too tired to continue after the first half an hour. It really turned into an exhibition sword match between Lee and Sora who were the only ones with any energy to spare given that they hadn't fought a tiresome battle earlier that day. John even found time to be the referee. They all went to bed early except for Lee and Sora who stayed up till 11 sparring. They had a single match that went on for quite a bit longer than expected, and which resulted in a draw when Sora pointed out that they really should go to sleep, though he admitted that Lee was improving at a ridiculous rate and that if they continued it could have been anyone's match. His Ki abilities especially were becoming harder for Sora to contend with, and unlike Lee, Sora had already been able to use manifested Ki for a good amount of time now, even if he was still training to master it. That said, they really did have to call it a night since they had to get up at 7 tomorrow, an hour before what they had been getting up at because they needed to get home by three so that he had enough time to get ready for his drive tomorrow. Though they would be landing 2 minutes away from their house in the ARTEMIS as it docked, they still needed to arrive by car, which their mother would drive to a parking lot to meet them in, in order to avoid any suspicion. After all, as John put it, there was no real good way to fake what he called 'driving fatigue', and it would be quite noticeable if they weren't suffering from it after what should have been a several hour drive for them.

They woke up the next day at seven exactly due to some annoying alarm clocks that wouldn't turn off until you got out of the beds. John had probably had them hidden there before they went to sleep the previous night. In any case, they were treated to a new surprise when they all went down stairs to find that Amy, of all people, was in their kitchen. She had got in the mood to cook and asked John if she could cook their breakfast as a sort of sendoff for the last two weeks, and it turned out that she had quite a variety. She made almost every kind breakfast imaginable, and given that she wasn't from their home planet of Earth, some that most decisively weren't. That said, it all looked appetizing all the same, and so they ate the huge breakfast thankfully before heading back up to pack their stuff and give the place a quick cleaning. By the time they were done, it was already half past ten when they got a message delivered from John saying that they could come to the ship's bridge to witness the first real-time use of the ships prototype Short Distance Portal tech, which they all though could be interesting. When they arrived, it was to see every bridge station filled. John himself was in the captain's chair, and the group arrived just in time to see them put the ship's newest feature into action as John had just received confirmation that they were ready below at the newly constructed hanger that the Earth TSAB members were operating it until they got there.

John, "Power up the SDP!" "SDP, powering up," one of the mages at a station controlling the portal, "SPD, ready for use." John, "Fire portal beam." In front of the ship, a white beam of energy fired out of some device mounted on top of the ship and a giant white magic circle, much bigger than the ship appeared in front of them, but it wasn't an ordinary glyph. It felt like looking through a window, like Sakura's portals. On the other side, they saw a hanger that looked to Lee to be similar to the one at TSAB Headquarters that he had seen with his father. "We have confirmation from the hanger that the portal has connected and positioned itself properly. We can now proce-" Suddenly, the bridge went dark. John, "What's happening?" It took a few moments, wherein the bridge suddenly got quite hectic with people making calls to other parts of the ship and people looking over many things before one of the mages at the station closest to John finally said something, "Sir, I have confirmation that there is a short in the automatic trajectory system for the SDP. We can repair it but it will take too long. The ship is currently drifting towards the portal at an incorrect angle. At this rate, we will destroy the hanger on entry." John's eyes widened, for he knew exactly where the base was located. Unfortunately, the only area near his desired target for the base had placed it below a city park, and though they had put up many reinforcements to protect the land above, it wasn't foolproof yet. If an object as large as the ARTEMIS entered at such an angle while the base was still under construction with this little warning, the ground under the park could very well collapse and given that it was a holiday week, it was no doubt crowded with many innocent civilians.

He wasn't sure what to do, especially since while most the systems on the ship were perfectly fine, all the critical navigation from the bridge was completely down. That said, when Lee heard that, he suddenly had an stroke of inspiration, and given the critical nature of the problem, he simply decided to act upon it. He ran out of the door, soon followed Lance and the others who had no idea what was happened. Lance, "Where are you going? We need to help with this." Lee, "I am helping, no time to talk." He suddenly made the portal door appear before them, walking through it right back into his father's private quarters, followed by the rest, but he immediately beelined for his father's private office. Sora was confused as Lee was trying to remember exactly where the switch was, "How can you help from here?" Lee though wasn't listening as he had finally remembered. He walked over to the desk and lifted up the nameplate, pressing the hidden button below it which revealed a hidden door on the back wall, much to everyone's surprise. Wasting no time, Lee simply placed his hand on the panel that appeared and the door opened.

They all went inside and saw with surprise the secret control room. Before they could even begin to ask what it was all about though, Lee immediately threw himself down in front of the main looking computer setup and logged himself in with the same credentials that his father had set him up the first time he came aboard the ARTEMIS when his father went to pick it up the first time, which also included piloting permissions. The system accepted the log in and Lee activated the highest control and automation level like he had been shown by the ship mechanic Allen the first time, which basically rerouted al the ships navigation controls to him. In response, a steering wheel and all the controls like the one near the captain chair appeared around him, though while solid they were clearly some kind of magic construct instead of physical controls, but he doubted that would matter right now. In any case, the large screen in front of him now was showing the same view as the window on the bridge.

Lee suddenly grabbed Haruno from around his neck, "Can you contact my father and make it urgent? " Haruno, "One Moment.". Back on the Bridge, a pale looking John got a high level notification from his device and so took out Mystic Fury, where he was surprised to find Lee on the other end of the line, "Lee, don't really have the time, wha-." Lee didn't even let him finish, "I remembered what Allen told you when we first got the ship, and since the stuff not on the Bridge is still functional I assumed this would be as well. I know I'm not really a pilot, but I think I can land it from here if it's as simple as it was the first time. Just need to get it through the portal correctly, right?" John needed a second to figure out what Lee was doing before he mentally slapped himself for not thinking it up himself, and so simply smiled back at his son, "That's right, nice and steady through the portal and we're home free. Don't worry about any minor details, just focus on that. Good luck, for all our sakes." He closed the line and turned to the bridge, admittedly nervous, but somehow knowing that everything was going to turn out okay "Don't worry, we have a plan…"

Lee's controls had finally been connected. He took the wheel and turned it a bit to bring the ship back on course as best he did. As he did, everyone in the control room felt the ship turn, as well as the people at the bridge. He then signaled to the hanger, "Hello, this is Lee Cross, son of John Cross. Not really sure how you handle this kind of thing, but we're going to have an Emergency Landing or whatever you call it. Brace yourselves." He got an immediate response from the hanger, "We have confirmation from the base system Mr. Cross. General Cross has confirmed the situation, so we're prepared." Lee, "Okay, in that case we're coming in hard so look out!" "Acknowledged." Lee turned all his focus to the controls. He was admittedly sweating buckets, understanding that this was honestly much different than what his father had him do the first time, but there was nothing left to be done except to do it, lest they all suffer the consequences.

First thing he did was power down the main thrusters all the way and activated the hover engines and primary thrusters, well the ship did the second part automatically but it was the same thing, and frankly better since Lee didn't really know how to do so, banking mostly on the automation controls to pull off the difficult stuff. The controls around him changed immediately, with the throttle and the stuff around it disappearing to be replaced by a series of switches and something labeled as an altitude lever for the hover engines. It seemed pretty straight forward, so Lee with a very sweaty hand pushed up on the lever for the secondary reverse thrusters that appeared below the two large spokes at the front of the ship. Lee remembered how Allen showed him during the test flight before and tried to replicate wheat he did back then. He gave the thrusters a bit of juice to slow the ship down some more, knowing that he had to go in as slowly as possible so he had at least some time to react when they did enter.

They were now entering the portal. It was weird, even inside the ship, for one could sort of feel oneself in the middle when passing through the portal slowly. When the ship was fully through though, the portal disappeared automatically, leaving them in a sort of short tunnel barely the length of the ship. Lee, for his part kept on gently moving the reverse thruster handle to try and slow the ship down even more as they approached what looked like the docking area, where there were many people standing on some sort of deck with all sorts of equipment that Lee didn't recognize, though the fact that some of it looked like fire extinguishers didn't instill him with much confidence. In any case, he pushed on the reverse thrusters harder to make the ship come to a complete stop above the docking area, though he wasn't exactly skilled at it and the very sudden complete stop caused everyone on the ship to lurch quite a bit, and he heard the ship creek a bit as if in protest to the sudden movement, but Lee was going to take what he could. In any case, all that was left was to actually land the ship. Thus he looked quickly until he found the power control for the hover engines that were currently keeping the ship suspended in the air, and did his best to slowly lower them. That said, clearly it wasn't quite as smooth as it could be, for there was a very noticeable thump and a bit of shaking when they touched down, but it seemed to do the trick. That said, at this point, Lee had absolutely no idea what to do next, and so simply had Haruno contact his father and revert the controls to the bridge, for anything else was well beyond his purview. In any case, it was at this point that his friends noticed that Lee's hands were almost stark white from how hard they were clutching the instrumentation around him and his face was pale and he was sweating bullets along with breathing quite heavily, clearly the entirety of the even suddenly hitting him all at once.

That said, after a small smack on the back of his head courtesy of his older brother, he seemed to snap out of it, and so finally stood up, though he was clearly exhausted from the ordeal. That said his friends and siblings could only gather around him, cheering in admiration. Sora even made a joke of it, "Since when does my kid brother get the license to pilot an inter-dimensional battle cruiser before me." Chrono even added on, "And here I thought I would be the first between us to drive." Sakura herself was crying a bit from fright and hitting Lee lightly, her own nerves suddenly expressing themselves. Of course, Lee and Chrono already knew that Sakura hated rollercoasters and other thrill rides from the times they had gone to amusement parks, and even objectively was like a million times as extreme as anything there. Nanoha to her credit was surprisingly cool, but to their understanding, she had been on spaceships many times before, with same for Lance as well. Still, both of them told him how impressively he handled the ship. Sarah for her part simply went and hugged her brother.

By the time the groups collective heart stopped racing and their nerves had run their course, they finally exited the secret control room, only John was waiting for them in his office, "Lee, everyone on this ship, in the hanger and most likely the park that's placed above it owes you big time." After the very serious commentary though, John beamed at his middle son, walking over to Lee and patting him on the head. "MAN, are you a life-saver. Do you know how much grief I would get from Allen if I brought this thing in all scratched and banged up? Though I think you gave it a nice shiner or two on the bottom with that landing, but still. He would have my hide before the treasury department could even get to me. But seriously, that was some smooth thinking, using this room to land the ship. We really would have crashed if you hadn't moved when you did. But more than I am proud of you, I am ashamed of myself for not getting here first."

They walked out of the office and towards the exit dock. The hanger staff had started going to work the moment the ship had touched down, so by the time they arrived to the portside dock exit, they had already hooked some sort of emergency staircase to the ARTEMIS's side door, allowing them to exit and follow the stairs down to the floor of the hanger. Unfortunately, Lee was not apparently skilled enough a pilot to place the ship in quite the proper location, so it hadn't lined up with the larger docking bridge that would have simply been able to be extended to be connected to the main part of the underground base, but beggars couldn't be choosers. In any case, upon exiting the ship and making their way to the hanger floor, there was a team of about ten bureau mages waiting for them at ridged attention. In the front though, most of them were surprised to see someone that was close to most the group's age, appearing like they were just about to enter high school themselves with Lee estimating they had to be near the same age.

The entire group suddenly moved to stand at attention when John and the rest of them, greeting John in unison, "Good afternoon, General Cross." Before anyone could ask any questions though, the younger boy at the front walked foward, "Special Cases Officer, Andy Santo, second division Captain, category: Unlimited. Lee and the rest all looked confused so John explained mentally, "The long title basically means that he has the same authority as a Captain, but he has been granted special jurisdiction that allows his authority to reign over all of the 13 sections, unlike Amy was previously who was limited to section 5, though he is technically part of Section 2. That said, it is a very prestigious and hard to earn position to be sure." This gave them a clearer picture of the younger boy's authority. Lee though decided to go with his normal friendly approach, "Hello Andy, its nice to meet you." The boy named Andy though did not seem to reciprocate Lee's openness, and simply gave him a menacing glare instead, "And who are you? You shall address me as Officer Santo. And what is with the attire, you should be in uniform at all times while with your General. You clearly need to be whipped into shape." Without missing a beat, Andy simply turned to look at John, "Sir, if you please, I can whip him into shape for you, as previous head of the code authority in my pre-TSAB academy, I am quite well versed in discipline." He took out a wooden cane out of thin air and pointed it at Lee.

It happened before Andy even realized that he was gone. Lee was now right next to Andy with a wooden katana at his throat. At the same time, the wooden cane broke into a dozen pieces and fell to the ground. Andy for his part needed a moment to even register what had happened, but upon doing so he jumped back quite a bit, "What the devil. How the hell did you do that, and without an active device? I am a AA ranked Mage and I don't even know that one." John though decided to intervene at this point, "Okay, enough with the school yard fight." Then he looked at Andy, "And more for your safety than anything, I am going to tell you that apart from him having the most authority of anyone here as being the most powerful residential mage of this planet and NOT part of the TSAB, he happens to be my son and is a SSS+ ranked mage, and on top of that he's also a master of one of this planets most accomplished martial arts. I do not recommend getting on his bad side, as I can't guarantee your safety if he is in the picture." He said the last part with such a serious, movie guy like tone that, except for Andy who was scared shitless everyone knew he was joking.

After a moment of silence, everyone burst out laughing his or her gut out, Lee putting his wooden training sword back in his bag. Andy figured out that John had meant the last part in jest, even if it did take him a solid few seconds to do so and suddenly chuckled weakly, "Ah, a joke. Good one General, got me there for a second. A SSS+ mage, that's a good one." John, "No, that part, along with anything apart from your safety is all true. Lee, along with his group of underage-," Sora, "AHEM!" John, "Ah yes, my mistake. Lee, along with the group of underage AND ONE of age friends and or siblings is, as of our readings a few days ago, a mage of SSS level or higher, and three, including Lee could probably kill you before you saw the blade. Heck, I could kill you before you realized that I moved." He started laughing hard again along with everyone else in the vicinity.

Andy, not really finding the situation humorous decided to simply cut his losses there, "Okay, now that I have been publicly humiliated, can we proceed? I am to understand it that you have requested the services of all mages currently stationed on Earth, specifically those in the island nation of Japan and have personally requested my presence for this case." John, "Yes, that is correct. I requested a specialist in magical field search analysis for the current mission we're undertaking, and you came quite highly recommended for the job by your General, as have the other mages behind you. This new base we're in right now is to act as, for the duration of this mission, our base of operations. I am to take it you got the mission briefing in the packet along with everyone here." They all nodded. John, "In the packet, it said that any and all direct confrontation with the class two lost logia would be done by a select group of trusted mages appointed by the General that reside on this planet." John confirmed that he was correct. Andy, "Then I would like to talk with these specialists personally to ascertain their skills and see if they are really trustworthy post haste." John smiled, "The 'specialists' as you call them," He pointed a thumb behind him at Lee and company, "are those 7 over there. But it unfortunately will only be six after tomorrow, as one has to go back to college far to the north of here, and while he could probably teleport back when we need him, I'm assuming that going to one of the most prestigious universities in Japan and maintaining both his top ten grades and his near undefeated Kendo record will consume most of his time. But these six will be plenty, though we lost one of the good Innate Sealing mages on the team. But we still got Lee and Nanoha for that, and Lance if it really comes to it as well, so we shouldn't have any real problems there."

Andy for his part continued to look at the rest of the group quite skeptically, clearly not at all convinced but continued on nonetheless, "Moving on now, along the list of names, there was a Nanoha Takamachi and Lance Scrya. I am to take it these are the same mages as from the Beatha Reactor incident five years ago." Nanoha and Lance nodded in confirmation. "Well," he looked at Lee, "At least there are two good mages on the team. Their reputations precede them. But unfortunately, by my current information, I can tell that the rest of them clearly need a good deal of work, at the very least on their manners. As far as ability, it will do, I guess. That said, I hope they can at least keep up with a super elite such as myself and don't hold me back." Lee had already grabbed ahold of the wooden Katana from his bag again. As this type of Katana couldn't kill a person, he was about to give the guy a full-on beating, especially since he still had quite a bit of pent up frustrated energy from the whole ordeal of landing the ship still fresh within him, but frankly his plans changed as he noticed the other's start moving as well. In the next second, four things happened once again before Andy could even react. First, simultaneously, without communication, all three Cross children charged at Andy with wooden swords, holding them to his throat. The second was Sakura and Chrono, each doing a half release and Chrono employing the FLASH MOVE spell both had their weapons, Sakura's staff in shooting mode and charged with Chrono's VWD in handgun mode pointed directly at Andy from behind him, opposite the Cross children. The third thing though was John who had his Katana out, apparently blocking all three of his children's from moving and he had an orb of magic near each of Sakura's and Chrono's heads, ready to clearly knock them out and the fourth and final thing that happened last was four slash marks across Andy's uniform, each creating a cut in his uniform.

Andy was in a deadlock position, but it didn't stay that way for long. John was the first to break the current situation by doing two things. The first was he made his orbs disappear, freeing Sakura and Chrono. The next was that he tapped each of the wooden training katanas with his finger. He then pushed a weird pulse of his own Ki into them, which somehow made their hands go a bit limp causing them to almost forcibly lower their swords, which John himself did with his sword as well to try and diffuse the situation, "Okay, really. The second I get home and we're already fighting. I think this is a little childish," he was looking at Lee, Sarah, Sora, Sakura and Chrono. Then he looked at Andy, "And as for you. First of all, I expected better from a Bureau officer, especially one of such a high rank and who has the highest recommendation of a fellow general, no matter your age. And secondly, I want you to know that I will do anything for my family, so know that I will not let you off so lightly next time if you insult my children or their friends again." Suddenly, Andy's clothes fell into pieces, much to his embarrassment, and what was more, he clearly had a few bruises developing on him from what were no doubt swords, and with that Andy was forced to his knees from the pain that the new bruises caused. John, "Your lucky that Lee got there. If he hadn't been in the way, it may have ended up much worse." Andy at this point simply got up, and deciding that retreat was the better option, started to walk, or at least limp away, repeatedly apologizing to John on his way out.

Andy walked into the main office and sat down, flustered by what had happened, and especially on what John had said at the end, and so decided to look at the event again, knowing that he was missing something important. He brought up the security footage of the last hour, and then narrowed it down to the incident so as to watch it again. At normal speed, it was too fast for Andy to get any kind of clear visual. "OKUNINUSHI," he took out a metal card that looked like the Ace of Spades, "Slow this visual down by sixteen times." "YES SIR," the card replied, the spade in the middle glowing as it answered. Another screen appeared in front of Andy. The same video segment showed, but much slower. Now, he could see Chrono and Sakura point out their weapons, but he still only saw blurs for the Cross's. If nothing else, Andy would grant that they were all quite fast, faster than he could imagine himself ever being even if he would never admit it to them. In any case, he had his device slow it down again, this time to one one-hundredth of normal speed. Another screen replaced the current screen and the video played. He could now see the Cross's movements, though it was sort of surreal to Andy that they only looked like they were walking, unlike everyone else who appeared to be almost completely motionless at this speed. That said, he didn't have much time to dwell on it as what he was able to see demanded all his attention, as he was quite surprised with what he saw.

There were two things he didn't notice when the event actually happened. The first was the girl he recognized as the famous Nanoha Takamachi. She looked like she was doing nothing from the angle Andy saw it from, but a camera view from behind showed her gathering up quite a bit of magic for one of her spells, some kind of minor blast or bombardment attack. The second though was Lee's position. At first glance, it looked like Lee was about to cut Andy's throat off, but looking closer, Andy saw that Lee's blade was pointed the wrong way and his arm was positioned in the wrong direction. Upon even closer inspection of the freeze frame though, Andy could see that Lee's sword was actually holding his dad's sword, and indirectly Sora, and Sarah's swords, from moving. Andy didn't have the faintest clue why, but as he saw it, it looked like Lee was protecting him, not trying to attack him. Upon slowing it down to his device's maximum, a whopping two-hundred times slower, Andy also saw that unlike he initially assumed, it was in fact John who had been the first to move and Lee had been the last. Before Lee had moved in the way though, Sora had slashed him twice, Sarah had slashed him twice and John slashed him three times, though for John it was clearly directed at his clothing. In any case, he told OKUNINUSHI to save the file and made a mental note to apologize to Lee when he saw him again.

John had teleported them to the car in the lot and they were currently on there way home. During the ride, Chrono turned to John, "So why did you stop us? To me, it looked like you were about to pounce as well." John, "Actually I did pounce, and I only got three hits in before Lee stopped us, though it was enough to ruin his oh-so-nice uniform. I only stopped you because it would be less trouble if I did something then if you did it. At least for me I could probably get away with it under the TSAB Military's penal punishment code." Chrono looked at Lee, "You stopped them? Why? That guy had to be one of the biggest assholes I've ever even heard of, forget met." Lee looked at him, "Because I didn't learn how to use a sword as a means to take out my anger, even if the guy's a complete tool." John looked at his son, having mixed feeling between pride of Lee and shame for his own actions "I should feel ashamed of my actions, even if they were probably a result of all my pent up stress from that crazy landing. Out-virtued by my own son, I shouldn't call myself a father, or a General." Lee looked at his father and smiled, "Don't worry, if that was really true, we would all be discredited. It wasn't like I did nothing either. It's more just that I didn't want you fighting my battles." John then got a visual mentally of what Lee did from Lee by magic, which upon seeing started to make him laugh almost hysterically, "That is rich Lee. I wish I could see it."

Back at the Hanger, Andy was going to the bathroom. He took a shower, washed off and dried. When he was done drying himself off though, he went to the mirror to comb his hair before heading out for the rest of the day for he still had quite a bit to do today. That said, when he lifted his hair, he saw that he had a rather intricate bruise on his forehead, one he hadn't even noticed earlier, let alone when it was actually being inflicted upon him. That said, the wound was weird, for it was clearly made up of purposeful lines. Upon closer inspection though, his face went almost cherry red when he saw that it said "BAKA" in kanji. Andy suddenly broke the comb in his hand almost entirely from pure frustration. "Forget the apology. I am going to kill that son of a-."

Authors Note:

So this chapter is half cleanup, half setup. We finally learn what's going on with Nanoha, and everyone else from the main cast does as well. Now as to why I did this, and added this to Nanoha's back story, now that its been revealed, is two reason. The first, I needed an initial reason to nerf Nanoha. Even in the OG series, she was overly strong, maybe not quite as much as in my story, but over powered none the less. Thus, when I decided on her strength compared to the main cast, which in truth was supposed to be "at least on par with Lee", I needed a way to keep her power in check for the sake of the plot. Now as to why I went the "trauma held her back" route, the answer is quite simple. I HATE other forms of nerfing, and nerfing in general. Give a character a random disease or ailment, or some arbitrary limit for the sake of the plot with no other relevance to the story, and I may give up on a story entirely. If I'm going to nerf a character, it damn well better be in a way that both aids the plot, as well as works naturally into character design and flow. In this case, I felt that the trauma route was appropriate given how powerful I set up Nanoha to be, as such power would very likely be ostracizing. One can't simply be able to blow up cities and asteroids and not be looked at as a kind of monster in a universe where even if magic exists, that such power is rare to the nth degree. It also adds extra depth to Nanoha's character, something that while I love the original series, it does lack quite a bit. The manga does a slightly better job at fleshing her out, but not by much, so this helps to fill in some of that as well.

Also, because many people ask about it, I'll specify right now that Raging Heart, which generally is called Raising Heart (for the reason I have the name of Nanoha's device changed like this, look back at my Author's Note for chapter 3, its on purpose), it is a hybrid version between her staff from A's and Strikers, containing elements of both such as the revamped Excellion mode as well as the Blaster System. This made sense to me as Nanoha in this story enters at 14 years old, which places her a few years after the story of A's, so I imagine that between the two series she had all sorts of upgrades, including the ones that made it into her device during Strikers.

Beyond that, as for the other characters that had the spotlight this time, yes, they got another powerup, this time to a level that I have already expressly stated is beyond the purview of virtually any mage, making them all teenage super weapons. That said, my explanation as to why this is acceptable is the same as before. Its not so much that they gained more power, but simply have learned to use the power they had properly, and thus can call upon its full potential. That's the reason that I gave for Lee's sudden increases as well. As to why though I didn't do this for the rest of the main cast earlier, the reason is simple. Lee is the exception to the exception to the rule. He is supposed to be so extraordinary as to make the extraordinary seem average. Thus, he gains experience and growth much faster than the rest, so it took extra time for the other's to start to catch up, but they have now started to. In order to keep the story balanced and all character's relevant, they do have to be somewhere in the ballpark after all.

And finally, for those who think the accident with the ship was contrived as all hell, then I have news for you. IT WAS! I totally added it for no other reason than to create a small adventure story for Lee focused on him saving a space ship from crash landing. Why did I do this? For no other reason than space ships are cool, and I wanted Lee to pilot one again.

Also, for the new character added at the end, Andy, I won't spoil anything, but all I'll state is that he is as advertised.