Well, crap it has been a long time since the last chapter, but as usual life and a lot of things happened at once. Regardless, the chapter is out now and I hope you guys will enjoy it.

Same disclaimer as before

Within the moon base, three fights were underway, each section housing a battle. Those of the Bureau wanting to reach the final floor with Ixia while the other three were stopping the intruders in their path. Currently, in one such floor, Anna was dodging some faraway shots from Hayate with Hitoshi closing in with a right hook. However, she blocks the punch using her dagger. Taking advantage of the clash, the fist user grins at the woman and said. " You know, for a crazy person, you are pretty good at defense."

Anna returned the grin with one of her own, almost like with a sense of deja vu and replied back, "Why thank you newbie. But I would not get myself too conformable if I were you." Then she kicks Hitoshi and rushes at the man, still with that same look in her eyes, "Especially when I beat you both!" as the two broke the clash allowing Hayate to ready one more shot with Hitoshi continues his onslaught. As the mistress readied her new shot, she thinks. 'I hope Nanoha and Fate are doing fine.'

Meanwhile, with the two aces, Saika is controlling his machines while also paying close attention to the battle in front of him. Unfortunate for him, some of the machines were being either slashed to shreds by Fate or shot to hell thanks to Nanoha. He knew this would happen, which was why he continued to bring out more and more of his machines to stop the two women. Nanoha blasts a handful of her share as her best friend finished her part by slashing them to pieces.

Nanoha spoke to Fate with telepathy, 'He doesn't seem to want to give up does he?'

'No, he is very serious about helping Ixia with his plan.' replied Fate with a shake of her head. 'But we have to go through him in order to get to the main room.'

The white devil responded with a nod as the two continued with their fight against the new readied machines. While this was happening, Saika started to reminisce back to a point in time.

"Ixia, can I ask you something?"

Ixia turned to his friend after going to the main branch of the bureau to get started on their research. "What is it, Saika?"

The man rubs the back of his head and bit the bullet."Why would you need my help for this project of yours? You know I can't use magic either so it would be a waste of time."

Then Ixia looks at the clouds overhead for a brief moment and looks at Saika with a smile. "That is simple: It is because we are friends. And that I trust that you will have my back come what may in the future. Just because you can't use magic and don't possess a linker core, doesn't mean your other talents can't be useful. That is what I am hoping to achieve." He moves his hand in front of the man who looks at it. Then the man moved his hand and shook it back.

Then back to the current time, Saika grips his left hand, stares at the two and continues to summon more machines, all while saying to himself, "This is the right thing to do."

As for Shiro and Drav's fight, the two were still locked in combat, albeit for different reasons. Shiro just wanted to get Drav out of the way so he could get to Ixia to end this whole thing while his opponent, on the other hand, was waiting for this rematch. Shiro broke the clash and fired a shot barret at his opponent, hoping that it would be enough to blind him. Just then Drav slashed the shot, creating a small explosion, which made it difficult for the sword mage to counterattack. "Crap just where did he go!?" muttered Shiro, onyx eyes scurrying over the area he was in.

"Up here you dog!" a voice shouted, caused Shiro to look up and see Drav about to slash him up with one of his claws. In defense, he summoned his Tri Shield to protect himself and for a time it worked. Drav could look at the man's eyes and saw something that only he knew:a frighten animal trapped.

Drav was chasing after an animal from his home village, only now with just a basic knife, running through the trees. They have been running for what seemed like hours when in reality it was only a few minutes. Sadly the poor animal had reached a dead end and this was when Drav came out of one of the trees and strikes upon the beast who at the time, had the look of fear. After slaying the beast, Drav carried it on his back and bought it to the village chief, where the other villagers await the final verdict.

"It is done. Drav has slain the creature and it is my right to give him the title of Master hunter in our tribe! For now, he is the strongest!"

At the sight, all of the villagers cheered for the young boy in respect of what he has done. However, Drav just looked to the stars and asked himself:

'Something feels...off. Damn it what is it?'

Shiro still had on the defense as Drav tries to break the shield. Both not wanting to let go until the sword mage brought down the shield and tries to attack Drav. But the claw user followed up on it and said to the man. "You will not get a win that easily this time!" as the two continued with round two.

Hitoshi yelled in a response to Anna's rapid fire knifes zooming at him. He started to punch and kick away as much as he could but any time he got close to the woman, she would either backflip away from some attacks or more recently, fly away from him. Each time she would laugh at the young man's inability to fly and since he just started out, he is still green. However, she spots a Hayate in the air, about to fire a spell. Only this one came with something different, "Approach from beyond, mistletoe branches, become spears of the silver moon, shoot and pierce! Petrifying spears, Mistilteinn!" Then Anna felt magical energy from above and as she looked up, seven light spears proceeded to land in her direction. The drill haired woman flew away from them in an attempt to dodge and starts to counter them.

"Shooting Stars!" yelled Anna as from within her magic circle out came a dozen knives and their target was the spears. Spears ended up clashing with knives and Anna noticed something about the current situation. "You will have to try something better then that Mistress! Petrifying me will not be easy, especially since all you have are seven spears." Anna taunted at the woman who grimaced at the remark. Then after a while, all six of the spears was able to freeze most of the knives with the last one coming in hot. Just as Anna was able to dodge away from it...

"Now EIGHTH SPEAR! PUNCH HER HARD!"

Anna could only think, 'Wait, what does she mean by eighth spear? Hold on she also said pun...' Then from out of nowhere, Hitoshi roared as he punched the ground so hard that he was able to 'fly' to where Anna was, and punched her across the face sending her to the seventh spear and yelled back, "Take that you crazy bitch! This is our win!" Hayate smiled as she said to her partner, "Plan worked Hitoshi!" The long haired man gave a thumbs up to which Hayate responded in kind with Rein smiling. As this was going on, Anna was zooming at the spear and it made a direct hit, causing her to turn to stone slowly but surely. After which she fell to the ground with the spell working it's magic and effecting he legs. She slowly closes her eyes, believing that it was the end of her fun times. Then a distant thought kicked her in the brain.

It was raining and in a back alleyway, a couple of men were fighting a woman, however she was different. That was Anna at a point when she left her family and did what she wanted, when she wanted and apart from shopping, there was something that she loved doing: fighting people, whether they be regular people or mages. Once she found out that she was a mage, Anna had enjoyed using her power to get her way. During the fight, a couple of men were losing and the last one was only with a knife and with a yell, tries to attack the woman.

However, with a cold smirk and a giggle, Anna summoned a low tier shield to block the attack and with her own knife, stabbed the poor man, who had become unconscious at the loss of blood. Anna then went to pick up her bag of clothes she dropped and was about to leave until a voice spoke to her.

"Your talents are being wasted."

She turns and spots a man by the end of the road and scoffs at him. She replies back to him, "And how would you know? Are you a mage from the Bureau or something?"

"No, I am not, but I am working on a project that will help others involved in this line of work. And if you help me, this dream will be a reality." Then Anna thought about it for a few minutes and then spoke to the man again. "What's in it for me?"

The man smiled. "For one thing you can stop being bored and use your magic more effectively as well as being help with my research. Also," He lifts his hand out in front of Anna and continues, "You will be a part of something good in this world. A world where even normal people could use magic. What you do say?" Anna just looks at the hand and thought that it would be fun and took the hand. She smiles at the man and said, "You got a deal. Name's Anna. And you are..."

"Ixia."

Just as Hayate and Hitoshi were about to go to the next room above, they heard someone slowly getting up and Hitoshi turned to something that made him utter, "Uhh Hayate? I don't think she is done yet." allowing the woman to turn around and look in shock. On the opposite side stood Anna who was moving her right arm in a way to generate whatever mana was left in her body and with a twisted grin on her face told the two of them. "Where are you two going? The fun's just getting started."

Hayate replied back. "What fun are you talking about!? You are turned to stone, meaning you won't be able to move. You have lost Anna."

"As long as I have a moving arm, I can still take you both with me. With this one spell, none of you are leaving here! Falling Stars-Final Verse!"

Then from that staying, Hitoshi looked up and saw what appeared to be many knives in front of them and with a weak wave, Anna sends them after the two mages. Hayate started to fly off leaving Hitoshi to punch them away. However, while one was dodging them from the air fine, the other was stick on the ground, having to punch at them and dodging all without the ability to fly. He growls at fighting the onslaught of knives as he yells at the brunette, "Hayate, fire your best spell at her! I will handle the rest of these stupid knives."

"But Hitoshi, that's a lot of knives! You won't be able to stop them. Just get away from them!" yelled a worried Hayate but the long haired man just shouted at her while the blades start to stab at him,

"JUST DO IT DAMN IT!"

That gave Hayate the chance to charge a spell at Anna to stop the knives as Hitoshi charged his right fist with as much mana as he could muster and then preceded to run directly at Anna, who with a smirk of her own, continued her attack. Each of the knives focused after Hitoshi, who with will power, jumped and punched more of the blades as possible and with each one he was getting closer and closer until finally he reached the crazy woman. Anna tried to stab Hitoshi once he got close but with a quick jump and another punch to the face only now with the mana charged one and was able to push her in Hayate's direction of shot and heard something from the brunette,

"Ragnarok!" and from that, a huge white stream of energy that combined with the petrifying power of the spears in effect fully, Anna got blasted. The woman then flew in the air and crashed landed into the ground. As the dust cleared, not only was Anna completely knocked out for real this time, her device was also destroyed meaning she had been defeated finally. Hayate landed on the ground and ran to Hitoshi's side and shocking the young man, hugged him while laughing and Rein split from her body.

"All right, we did it we beat her!" spoke a very happy Hayate while Hitoshi grinned "Hell yeah we did. Hopefully this time she will stay down. Now, Hayate are you going to let go or do you like having blood on you?" This made the young woman jump off, bonked her head playfully with her tongue out and Rein snickered a bit while doing a light heal for Hitoshi's wounds. Within seconds, his wounds were healed to a degree and told the young man. "Now don't push it too hard. We will be fighting ixia after this."

"Yeah, yeah I know." spoke Hitoshi with a smile allowing the three to leave. Before that, a chunk of the stone spell broke around the face, now revealing a very tired Anna. She weakly asks the two mages, "So why do you two fight? Just humor a loser."

The two mages looked at each other and immediately gave their response with Hayate starting off. "Because what Ixia was doing was wrong. Even if what he did was in the right from the beginning, the methods in how he did them later on just felt horrible. So because of that, we have to stop him. To protect everyone and to prevent this from happening to anyone else."

"And you newbie? Did you have a heartfelt goal?" asked a weary Anna in which all Hitoshi did was state, "Simple, I was sick of being left out by my best friend. Being left out of the loop is something I don't like at all." And to that, Rein, Hayate and even Anna laughed. The drill haired woman felt weaker as she slowly closed her eyes. "It was fun fighting you two. Never thought that it would feel good to fight for something. But this...was good."

And with that, Anna was beaten leaving Hitoshi to scratch his head in confusion and Rein to cross her arms. "I do wonder why would she fight for Ixia."

The man looks at the drill haired mage and shrugs "Who knows? Maybe someone as crazy as her agreed with what Ixia wanted. Though you never know with these types of people."

"You may have a point Hitoshi." Hayate replied with a sadden look on her face and from there, the three continued on their way to the next room in an attempt to get to where Nanoha and Fate were.

"Thunder Blade!" yelled Fate as mana blades rain down on the machines in front and immediately follows up with "Break!" to destroy them. From there, more machines start to appear and fire at her, forcing the lighting mage to summon a round shield to protect herself from the shots. Once they stopped, Fate used her speed to cut them down to size while moving to the next ones on the horizon. While this was happening, Nanoha was busy firing at the new numbers that Saika brought out a while ago and when she thought that she was done with her work, two or three more began to fly at her point blank. To retaliate, she used a round shield to protect herself from the attacking machines and then followed by another shooting spell. With this, she was able to get rid of them and decided to help her best friend clean up.

Fate was panting a bit upon slicing the machines only to find more getting closer. Nanoha flew near her and spoke with the lighting mage. "This is getting us nowhere. We have to stop Saika from making more of these."

"I agree but he just won't listen. He will keep making more until he may burn out." Fate narrowed her eyes at the machines and slashed the one that was at her general direction while Nanoha shot down the next. So far, while the machines were coming en mase, the women were doing just fine. Sadly the same could not be said for Saika, who was getting more and more fatigued. It seemed that what Fate mentioned was correct as with each machine bought out, Saika would immediately bring out the next in production, hoping they will stop the two mages. But the same thing would happen over and over, a neverending dance of a pink shot there and a yellow blur there, crushing his work and it started to make him feel weak. He pants more and more as the fight goes on, almost closing his eyes but waking himself up to keep fighting. But then a voice rang out,

"Saika, what is the point of struggling!?"

He looks up and sees that it was Nanoha who pointed it out to him while shooting the last machine and Fate destroyed the next one. Nanoha with a pained expression on her face continued, "Please you have to stop this. There is no reason for you to continue on. You are getting weaker."

Fate readies herself as she said her piece with a calm look on her face, "We are just going to keep destroying more and more of your work. Then you will be left with nothing to defend yourself with. But it is not too late. Just let us pass and surrender."

Saika had his head down as he heard the two women speak to him with a tone of kindness. In truth, he would want to stop which was why he kept wanting Ixia to not take so many risks, including certain aspects of their research. However, he starts to grip his hands and glares at the two and told them with an even tone. "I won't stop helping Ixia reach his goal. And you two as well as your friends won't get in our way." Before Nanoha and Fate could retaliate, Saika went to press a lot of buttons on his control panel and from there, a whole battalion of machines, ranging from level 1 to level 4 were all gathered. And while this would mean that Nanoha and Fate would have to fight them all, Saika had a different plan in mind for them. With one final push of a button, Saika smiles as he shouted with pride, "Ultimate Wall!" as the machines all began to form a wall with each one locking in as if it were a puzzle piece. One was locked to the left, the other to the right and in no time at all, the wall was formed and Saika was protected from the other side.

Nanoha and Fate flew up into the air, leading the white devil to say "Fate, you know we have no choice in the matter right?"

Fate stares at the wall and said, "I know. We have to go all out in order to destroy the wall. Let's give it our all."

Nanoha smiles at her friend as the two began to charge their spells side by side with Nanoha charging Raising Heart and Fate readying Bardiche, both with their magic circles ready. Saika saw this on screen and laughed. "You really think those spells will do anything to my wall!? There is no way the two aces can break this. You will lose here, regardless of how good you are!"

Then he heard the two say the following, "Load Cartridge!" as the devices then each loaded two cartridges and the spells were at their peak from charging. The two women pointed their devices directly in front of their target: the wall. With the energy charged by both Nanoha, Fate and the cartridges installed, everything was ready, so it was time to end this.

"Blast Calamity!" yelled the two women and in its place were a barrage of pink and yellow beams. Saika watched in horror as the wall began to break bit by bit with each beam destroying it, causing him to frantically summon some of the machines in a vain attempt to stop the spells. Sadly, this proved to be hopeless as no matter how many tried to defend their master, the machines kept getting destroyed again and again with each passing second, making him say this in his mind.

'No, not like this. Not like this! I refuse to lose here! I...'

Then the beams got closer and with the last two machines in front, he yelled, "I WON'T LOSE!" allowing the two machines in his control to try and breakthrough. But like the rest, they were turned to scrap and Saika took the full hit of the attacks which caused his faux device to be destroyed and him screaming while pushed to a wall, creating an explosion. As soon as Nanoha and Fate landed back to the ground, they see Saika start to fall to the ground, defeated. The only thing they hear from him was just, "I have failed you, my friend." as he closed his eyes. Nanoha and Fate each felt bad to the poor man as he was just doing what he believed was right and on his own merits.

"Just like us." Nanoha spoke as Fate nodded in response. From there, the two looked at the door and were about to go in, before Nanoha looked at Raising Heart, "How is everyone else?"

The jewel glowed. "Everyone is fine currently, my Master. Only Reginleif and its master are still in combat."

Fate sighed in relief, "That is good news. With Hayate and Hitoshi done, they should meet us in a while."

"Yeah, and hopefully Shiro will be able to beat Drav and catch up with the rest of us. In the minute, we should go on ahead and get to the main room." replied Nanoha leaving the two to run to the door ahead, hoping that the others will meet up.

Shiro was using Exceed Boots to run and dodge from Drav's claw attacks, although in some cases, he would destroy part of the battlefield just to get the man to stop running. He was just getting very annoyed by this running around. When was he going to fight again!? He got his wish at Shiro ran to a pillar and used a Shot Barret to blast the lower part of the structure, making it fall at top of Drav. However, the feral man instead slashed at the pillar and looked at Shiro, who was already on the defense and was about to fire another Shot Barret.

To stop him, Drav readied his Grand Arc spell and the red ball was flying at him, but Shiro smirked and raised his arm, "Grand Tri Shield!" making the empowered version of his shield appeared, blocking the attack. Knowing what he do after this, Drav ran to his opponent and charged mana into his claw, ready to end the hunt. Shiro saw this at the corner of his eye and briefly dropped the shield and before the attack could connect to him, he used his sheath as a makeshift shield and a mini explosion happened. The blade mage jumped away, panting and was waiting for Drav to come out of the dust cloud. He feels something like magic gathering in an area and saw that it was Drav, who had not one but two of his claws charging with his magic circle already behind him.

"Man, he must really want to end this if he is that desperate. Should end this quick." spoke Shiro as he charged up his mana in his sword readying his final attack. Drav was smiling with a happy look on his face and spoke to the man. "Say, isn't this fun? Two mages from opposite sides fighting each other?"

Shiro took his head and replied, "It is only fun for you since you like doing this."

"And you don't?" said the claw mage making his opponent to chose his words carefully. While he won't deny that it has been fun, there was an underlying thing that made him feel so right to be here. "You have a point there Drav, I am happy and it has been fun..." Drav grins as his spell reached the peak.

"I am glad to see that even a puppy like you has some bite! But how about we finish this? Once and for all?"

Shiro grips his blade and said with a determined stare, "Yes let's but you did not let me finish. While I do agree that it is fun...it is sure as hell NOT for the same reason you are having 'fun!' Which is why I will beat your ass!"

"Great news but now time to say good bye!" yelled Drav and with a dash, he ran to the man, claws in hand and as he got close, the spells crossed,

"Cross Cutter!/Primal Instincts!"

From then, one slash from Shiro's strikes on one of Drav's claws causing it to break and with that they each had one strike left and they both were thinking the same: just one strike to end it and with that, they clashed again only this time with whatever power have left. The two kept pushing each other to the point of exhaustion but Drav's last claw was breaking, meaning he will lose. But he did not care as he wanted not more then to beat this pup that was right in front of him and he yelled, trying to get rid of the mage. That proved to be his own downfall as his device Wild Tiger, broke leaving the claw mage shocked and was about to get a taste of Shiro's Cross Cutter.

Drav was a forest after he left the village. When asked why would he leave when he became the strongest in his village, all he said was "Just need some time for myself." and he left soon after, just hunting some random beasts. For the past few weeks, he was just doing this routine until he heard a noise. In response, he attacked a nearby bush which had a man hiding from it.

"What do you want?" he spoke with a not caring tone. The man looked at Drav and then began to speak. "I was looking for a mage on this planet who could help protect my other backers. If you wish to see something and fight stronger mages, I can give you that."

Drav scoffed at this and said, "And what makes you think I am a mage? Mages are sticks in the mud and as you can see, I am not not one of them."

"True, but you are the only person on this planet who can fight. With magic. So the offer still stands:you can see my plan bare fruit and fight strong mages thus feeling more fulfilled? Or you can stay here and feel empty."

At that point, Drav thought for about three seconds until he made his decision. He walks pass the man and spoke, "Shoot I am in, just don't make me regret this or I am leaving."

Ixia smiled and followed Drav to show him to his ship and the two then left Drav's homeworld behind.

After that walk to memory line, Drav got attacked at full force by Shiro's attack and with a yell, he pushed him away and he smacked dab into a pillar, however, he stayed in the pillar and was slowly losing focus. He stared at the young man who was about to fall himself and smirked while closing his eyes.

'Damn doc was right: I DO feel more fulfilled.'

After a while, onyx eyes opened and Shiro, with whatever energy he had left, got up and looked at the battlefield to see Drav not moving. He moved his arm a couple of times and sighed. "At least it is over now. I hope some Bureau agents or the guys outside will get him. Otherwise..." Shiro shuddered at the thought of fighting Drav again. But he smiled and was about to start moving to meet with his friends...right until he fell to the ground, facefirst.

Shiro sighed in annoyance, "I would go to the others now, ready to fight Ixia. But I just want to rest for a bit. I do not want Nanoha to glare at me, Hayate and Hitoshi to joke, Rein to snicker and Fate to have that glare that says, 'You are resting.' I am sure they will understand. Reginleif, give me a few minutes."

'Yes my lord.' replied the green gem allowing the man to rest after his battle with Drav finally over.

Within the main room, Ixia saw everything, all of the fights that went down and all three of his supporters failed. He closed his eyes in disappointment and upon taking a box off of a station by the monitors, he looked to the moon and then to the door. He opens the box and inside was a gem, the same one as the one he used on Earth only this was more complete and he holds the gem while saying.

"Even they have failed to stop the bureau. Those fools were a waste to gather if they were not able to do this much. But now I will finally end their meddling Bureau involvement, starting with the ones in my base!" And with that, he readies himself to fight against the invaders, but this time alone.

And now Saika, Anna, and Drav have all been defeated and learned things about them to round them up. All that is left is the big man himself, Ixia meaning we are now in the big final battle. I apologize if this chapter may not have been up to snuff, but I have tried my best since it has been so long. I did some edits as well as some rewrites just to make sure everything lined up. Hopefully, this chapter was good and I am happy to report that we have two chapters to go, the final chapter and the epilogue, meaning this story will soon be over. I am making it a part of my new years resolution of getting this story done, so I hope I have done an all right job. As usual, any suggestions, touch ups or some things that may need fixing, let me know and I will make those adjustments as best I can. Until then, be seeing you guys next time!