"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" She screamed, feeling pain such as she had never known. To her misfortune, her companions were already many Kilometers away so no one heard her except for the blue haired mage.

Absolute and primal rage was in Nymph's eyes when she stood up and, for the first time after so long, Tabitha feared for her live.

"Paradise Song!" Nymph screamed out with her mouth opened, turning everything in front of her into fine dust.

Only years of peril managed to save Tabitha from being obliterated. She needed to move fast, this thing was very likely beyond anything that she has ever faced. She didn't even dare to call her girl, right now she was looking at a very angry celestial creature.

Tabitha was suddenly regretting her decision very deeply, as the feeling of dread manifested. She slapped herself on the face to get back to focus, she noticed the path of absolute destruction and fire that was left by the angeloid's attack.

Now that she thought about it, why wasn't there another attack following?

"...my beautiful wing, how am I supposed to get back to synapse now? It take so much work to repair that kind of damage!" The answer was currently holding her ripped-out appendage, and was half raging-half crying about it. What was truly frightening about it was that the ice that had encased the wing was being effortlessly ripped apart and had finger marks on it.

Tabitha couldn't allow herself to waste any more time, any advantage she could get was one that she had to use no matter the cost. It was good that Sylphid was off with Kirche, she thought before she started her incantation. She did it as quietly as possible, to not make her enemy remember her presence.

After she finished, a great Ice-lance formed in the air and rushed towards the unsuspecting angeloid.

Tabitha never in her life expect her attack to actually connect. It seemed that the Angeloid truly did forget about her.

Nymph, who truly didn't see that attack coming, would have been impaled if she hadn't been an angeloid. While she was the absolute weakest in terms of direct combat, she was still sturdier than any mortal. As such, the lance impacted her side and dragged her along, ripping her off her feet before she hit the ground.

Tabitha's brief moment of hope was shattered along with her ice attack.

Again, she was reminded that she was not facing anything a human has ever fought before. This was represented by the fact that Nymph was not reacting like someone that was attacked, she just got up and then actual confusion was visible on her face for a moment she didn't actually know what happened and stared around the clearing in confusion then her eyes fell on Tabitha as if a switch just clicked she realized that the attack came from the girl.

Nymph for her part was in the strangest sea of emotions she has even been in, first she got her wing ripped of by what she thought was a trap of the renegade angeloid, and in rage blasted the closest thing that was next to her. Then when she went and started to work on ways to get her wing back on, she was attacked. The attack seemed weird, with that solid water that was condensed with energy being launched at her, it had no real effect besides denting her. When she got up and started to scan for the attacker and had all her systems running she was confused again, because her scans, that were the best ever created by Synapse, showed no hostile lock on. Then she went and started calculating the path of the projectile and to her surprise, it actually came from one of the bugs that was with them.

Nymph was angry, this, rotten, dirty, ugly, flawed, thing that was so insignificant actually managed to dent her, rip out her wing and make a mockery of a angeloid out of her. It would be hilarious how this ant managed to do so despite its own worthlessness.

Tabitha for her part was rushing the completion of multiple spells, this one is the backbone of her plan, it will make her plan succeed or end her. Upon finishing a great Ice wind picked up. Nymph while extremely prideful was not stupid. Realizing the temperature drop she started calculation of possible scenarios, she didn't like to admit it but currently she had no idea what to expect from this human, as she was build to combat electrical systems and angeloids. She didn't have time for many guesses as the answer hit her in the face in front of a great water stream. She tried to move but to her annoyance she found that as soon as the water hit her it was frozen solid.

The blue haired mage was exhausted, three high level spells in rapid succession while not being close to a elemental source was very draining. But she did it, the angeloid was frozen solid in multiple tons of ice with her mouth open and surprise written on her face.

A Tabitha took a breath of relief realizing that it actually worked. Only in the last moment she saw the glow from within the frozen structure and threw herself to the side.

"You are annoying me you insect!" Nymph screamed out. Tabitha got up again, or at least she tried when she attempted to use her left hand as support she found that strangely enough it was not following her command. She looked to the left and her breathing stopped.

She had no longer had a arm that could follow her command, there was only a stump left right above the elbow. She screamed.

Nymph at first was surprised at the reaction, then she remembered that humans couldn't block out the signals reaching their brain, she found that hilarious and burst out laughing. "Hahaha, serves you right." she said as she calmly walked towards the downed Tabitha who had tears streaming down her face and pain and panic written on her face. "Dumb little bug, though that you could take on a Angeloid, you know what, this gives me a idea, as punishment. I will rip out all of your limbs, and because I am so kind I will let you try escaping after that." Nymph said with a grin on her face and a sadistic glint in her eyes.

Just as she was about to reach Tabitha, the mage shouted out the last part of a spell that formed another ice lance that rushed forward this one enhanced with nearly all the willpower she had left, Nymph calculated the path with extreme precision and to her satisfaction she didn't even need to move as the projectile rushed past her. "Look at you, so weak and useless you can't even aim." She was about to taunt her more when all of her sensor screamed at her that something was wrong.

Just as she turned around to look at the spear Tabitha finished her last spell, it was nothing more than a simple levitation on herself. Nymph had a fast mind but when she realized Tabitha's plan it was already too late. The ice lance impacted her chain.

When she was frozen in the block of ice her chain was frozen to and through that was visible, the piece that was on her neck extended but a part of it was still frozen in the ice was fixed. The lance hit the target spot on and the cain was ripped in half.

At the same moment Tabitha shot forward, she let go of her staff mid flight and grabbed the piece of chain that was still connected to Nymph, the chain trying to establish the connection again did the only thing that it could and connected with the first suitable thing it could find, this being Tabitha.

-Imprinting-

Tabitha not having her staff anymore impacted the ground after her short flight and rolled a few meters before coming to full stop breathing heavily with pain over her lost arm sill written on her face. Besides herself there was no sound heared, it was silent, the animals fled away at the first sign of the fight and Nymph who was just moment ago gloating about the sadistic things she would do to this insect, had her world crumbling into dust as she came to the realization that the bug was now no one else than her master, bound by the cain and that she had to obey her every command.

She collapsed on her knees. If Angeloids could sleep she would think this is a really bad dream but with every second that passed the link became more and more obvious as she now could feel every emotion that her master was feeling, could see the exact damage that she had dealt to her over the scans that the cain was sending to her, and with a heavy heart she realized that she now had to heal her master, heal the very wounds that she dealt to her.

Tabitha, despite her missing arm, despite pain unimaginable and the ods being so heavily against her succeeded. She had the chain tight around her hand, the very chain that bound the angeloid to her will if Ikaros words were to be believed. Well time to test that out. Before she could utter a word she found the Nymph was already standing above her, a mixture of emotions written on her face that Tabitha couldn't recognize.

At first she feared that maybe the chain was not working for her but then. She spoke in a soft voice. "Please lay on your back master, I need to treat your wounds." Tabitha was never that relived in her life and with exhaustion and the last of her strength she turned from her side to her back.

Nymph immediately went to work she tapped her finger on Tabitha's head to prevent pain from reaching her brain, the ripped out arm was no problem for now as the heat instantly cauterized the wound, a broken rib and several brushings were healed with a touch and several nano machines, after that she could focus on the severed limb. Nymph was nowhere close to the skill that Oregano Angeloids had but she had other tricks. She started to command her nanobots to drain the ground around her for materials and started constructing a robotic limb after her own blueprint, with alterations to match the human physique.

Tabitha flinched when the previously hostile Nymph touched her head, but no matter what she had already resigned to her faith, either it worked and the Angeloid would heal her and be under her command or killer her and that would be the end of it. Her internal musing was disrupted when she felt a very strange sensation in her body, the pain that she previously had was gone and was replaced by a strange slimy feeling all over her body and even inside of it. She looked up wondering what was going on and to her shock saw how the angeloid held something that looked exactly like a arm, it floated in a glowing field and twisted and turned while it seems to grow and take more and more shape, the strange glow around it seemed to stretch out far away and Tabitha could only watch in morbid fascination as the metallic copy of a limb started to twitch and move.

Nymph's mind was in a strange mix of confusion while she was working on the limb, on one end she was now bound to a new master, enslaved beyond her control, but on the other hand every instinct was screaming at her to obey her new masters every wish. It was way beyond strange as a few minutes ago all she wanted was to eradicate this bu-her master. After being happy with the limb Nymph put a few finishing touches to it like applying synthetic skin to make it look exactly like a real limb. Now to attaching it, considering human tolerance for pain and that every emotion was reflected on her to some extent, she was not looking forward to it to say the least."Master, I will now attach this new arm to you." Her master simply stared at her in what she interpreted as fear and a great amount of uncertainty.

Would telling her that it will hurt make it better? "The process will hurt immensely master, please prepare for the pain." Nymph had to suppress a flinch at the immense amount of fear that suddenly rushed to her, additionally she made a quick note that informing her new master of coming pain was a bad idea. Well no reason to waste time, and the longer she waited the more complications can occur, having nearly all databases saved was practical, and the other mocked her for it, Ha! Now look who is laughing. Wait wasn't she supposed to serve someone else? Yes, she was a angeloid that was in the service of the Synapse under the master of the Synapse Minos!

Why did that seem so unimportant? Yes that was right it was not important now right now she had to attach the arm that her master lost in the previous fight.

Nymph removed the pain blockers as all influence on the nerves could lead to more harm, that said the reattaching is going to be complicated as the pain was already pulsating into the link and by extension into her was extremely distracting. She pulled all available subsystems into her own pain suppression and started by fixating the arm under her knee to prevent further movement and activated the limb as several needles and tubes shot from the arm, the view of them created a whole nother level of panic in her master. Strange, wasn't pain a reward? Where humans so emotionally different?

Regardless, the procedure had to be done. Nymph positioned the arm and the mechanisms started to attach itself first creating a firm hold on the stump and then started removing the burned flesh, that was when her master started to scream and despite having nearly 30% of her system to pain repression she still felt it. Ironically she was holding her promise of dealing pain to her master by reattaching limbs instead of ripping them ooooouuuuuuu…$ghj&/(UIK. Her systems started to glitch when the limbs started to insert the mechanical nerves into the biological ones. Nymph took a deep breath and focused 56% of all her power on the pain repression, that forced her to switch of several of her other functions, she had no problem with the loss of her sound receptors, the screaming was getting annoying.

Despite over half of her power and processing units being focused on the pain, she easily held her thrashing and screaming master in place as the attachment continued for a few minutes, when it finished her master lost consciousness, but not before a strange sense of satisfaction rushed over the link

So there was joy from the pain after all? So confusing.

Nymph tucked it away for another time. Now it was time to sort her thoughts out of this confusion. Just a few minutes ago she wanted to destroy the unconscious human in front of her and now this human has somehow managed to rip of her chain and re-attach it to herself, with that she was now Nymph's new master. The chain determines who the angeloid is serving, this was a absolute truth that no angeloid was able to resist, no matter what her opinion of the human was previously, it didn't matter anymore.

That said, what was about her previous orders? Find type Alpha angeloid that has escaped confinement, and bringer her back to the Synapse, if that fails destroy her. Now that she thought about it, how come the Alpha type could fall in the first place? And why was she kept prisoner instead of being destroyed? How did she disobey a order in the first place? So many questions that Nymph never even thought about. Regardless, right now she was serving her new master and she needed orders, time to wake master up.

With a simple tap on the head the deed was done and Tabitha was fully awake. The things that happened after the fight where blurry she had a hard time recalling them, she remembered being so afraid, and that she lost a arm… Her arm! With that thought she quickly spun around and grabbed her left arm with her hand, she breathed in relief when she found out that the arm was still exactly where it should be.

"Is the replacement limb not to your satisfaction master?" Her poor heart nearly jumped out of her chest when she turned towards the voice and found the source of her pain speaking to her. She crawled away in panic trying to find her staff with her hands. Nymph during that got an uncomfortable shiver up her spine.

For Tabitha, who already accomplished wonders by even understanding what Nymph just said, when she finally was at enough distance away and had her staff in her grasp she actually reacted to it. She looked at her hand again and looked at it from every possible angle, she found nothing out of the ordinary until she decided to look further up and to her ever growing horror she found a line where her skin went a bit brighter then on the rest of her body, she paled and in a instand everything rushed back at her. She barely held her food back from coming back up.

She breathed heavily for a few more minutes before finally coming to the conclusion that yes she was a wake and yes her plan worked.

At the last one she broke out into laughter. It worked, despite all odds and her gambling everything on one tiny piece of information that she got from Ikaros it worked! Granted she paid with her arm, but right now she was closer than ever to beating Joseph and healing her mother! She turned back to the, no, to HER Angeloid, and for the first time in may years she smiled. Nymph didn't know why but she suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

With newfound strength Tabitha stood up, she had her calculating gaze back on her face and started asking question. "I am your master and you will follow every order I give you." This was a statement, not a question.

"Yes that is correct master whatever order you will give me I will follow." Nymph said while going into her kneeling position.

"Question. What exactly are you?" Tabitha wanted to find out as much as possible about her new asset, information was power after all.

"I am Electronic Warfare Angeloid Type β(Beta), designation Nymph." she said from her kneeling position with a mechanical voice."I am under the command of Charlotte Hélène d'Orléans who is currently under the designation 'Tabitha'."

Tabitha twitched a bit at the mention of her birth name."How did you get this information about me?" She asked cautiously.

"The imprinting allows me to access information about you." Nymph returned.

"How much information?" She asked back sharply.

"I can only access the information you allow me access."

"You are forbidden to access information about me until further notice." Tabitha ordered briefly.

Nymph in return looked up with confusion and a bit of fear in her eyes."But, master you are constantly sending me information." she said in a unsure voice.

Tabitha narrowed her eyes at that opon witch Nymph flinched and bowed her head back down. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"The imprinting is currently sending me information about your body, your thoughts and emotions." She answered briefly.

Tabitha thought about the implications of that. After that she thought 'Does that mean that you can read my thoughts?'

"Yes master." Nymph answered.

Tabatha tucked that information away for later before thinking about more things she could ask.

"My main functions are infiltration, electronic warfare and entertainment." Nymph started to explain the moment Tabitha formed the thought. "Centered on those functions I have several abilities. My paradise song being my main offensive option. The main ones are being able to completely hide my presence, active and passive radars that can reach up to 754 kilometers before losing accuracy depending on the scan objektiv. I can access and manipulate any known technology, within a two second time limit. I can access and manipulate memories to a certain extent and can alter how people perceive things by touching them."

Tabithas emotions spiked at the mentioned memory alteration, which didn't go unnoticed by Nymph, the angeloid had a hard time dealing with the emotions and thoughts that she was being bombarded with, normally she would only receive direct orders and and plans from her master but what she was receiving from her new master was in two words, utter chaos, while she had no problem filtering through the information she couldn't make rime or reason out of many of them. She could filter out concern and something about her master's mother but the rest she couldn't identify at all, even when her master could form sentences and direct them at Nymph then they didn't come without a gigantic load of trash data. And without any filter, not that she could apply any as the cain input was absolute, she had to work through every single bit of them, it was annoying and used up nearly 16% of all her cpu capabilities. She didn't dare to inform her new master of it.

"For now answer only to the questions I ask you per voice." Tabitha said. "What do you mean by hide your presence?"

Nymph chose to show her new master instead of going into a long winded explanation. She stood up from her kneeling position and said. "P-Stealth System activate." the instant Nymph said those words her body began to dissolve in front of Tabitha, after here was absolutely nothing left of Nymph for a few second she faded back into existence. "I have absolute control who can see and hear me in those mode and who doesn't. It costs energy to hold it active and I can only use it for about 32 hours before I need to recharge for 4 hours, after that recharge I can use it for another 32 hours. I can use this on me and others but for a heightened energy cost."

Now THAT was very useful."I order you to stay visible to only me as long there is someone observing us in any way."

"Yes master. But may I repair my wing before that as the loss of one hinders my systems"

And with that Tabitha and her angeloid mader their way back to the academy.


They arrived at the academy, with Nymph being invisible they reached Tabitha's room and Tabitha's just started to think about how to tell Louise that she just literally enslaved the enemy that just tried to kill them.

She did get much time to think as the door was ripped open and she was enveloped into a bear hug with was quite the accomplishment considering that Louise was barely the second tallest person in this academy. "Tabitha! Are you ok, they didn't hurt you, did they?"

"I am uninjured. And you?" Tabitha asked back. Telling that she is missing an arm but it was replaced by something she wasn't quite sure what it was yet, she made a mental not to ask about her new limb in detail.

"A bit shaken but, otherwise, ok" Louise threw a worried look back. "Ikaros still has a hole in her wing, but she said that it will be fine." Considering that Nymph mentioned that she could somehow replace her still missing wing that was hardly surprising.

"Is no one concerned about me?" Kirche threw in. Tabitha felt a bit guilty at leaving them with the two others way more dangerous looking angeloids but if she were to face one of the she would have probably died a painfull death.

"When you can complain, then that means you are fine." Rude. "How did you escape? Those two hunted us to the bottom of Albion before we lost them." Now that sounded like a story she wanted to hear but besides that Tabitha realy didn't want to talk about it right now.

"It is a bit of a long story." Tabitha said dodging the question. "I will tell you tomorrow. I am really tired, do you mind if I have the room for myself tonight?" She felt a bit guilty, she quite like Louise company.

"Of course not." Louise said. "But tomorrow we need to talk about what in the founder's name happened today." We will when I found a way to explain, Tabitha thought.

"I second that." Kirche said. "I mean, they made pretty clear what they wanted, but, why and who were they?" She said as she started to leave the room. "Good night Tabitha."

"Good night." Louise said leaving the room.

Although Tabitha really wanted her to stay. The only response she got out of her lips was. "Good night."

After Kirche and Louise left, the room felt in silence. A strange thing considering how loud her life had been lately. She walked to her bed and let herself drop onto it, her staff still in an iron grip. Considering who her invisible company was she doubted she would ever let it go again.

"My, my." The air around Tabitha began to bend in a strange way. "How naughty!" A shape that was slightly larger than Tabitha began to appear around her. "Lying to your friends like that." A fully visible Nymph had her arms and legs gripping Tabitha as she whispered into her ear. "My Master."

Tabithas every hair stood straight. And she really was confused as to what the sudden change in behaviour was about. "Nymph." she said in a strained voice. "Why are you hugging me."

"Because your mind ordered it." The terrifying angel whispered into her ear with the sweetest of voices. "That you wanted close company like that."

Tabitha slowly turned her head and was face to face with the angeloid that just hours ago blasted of her arm and who currently was looking at her with half lidded eyes and wore a horrifyingly effective smile only a breath away from Tabitha.

She took took a deep breath and beat away the emotional tornado that was swirling in her mind."Nymph, I order you to get of the bed."

She quickly did as ordered and looked as if nothing of any relevance happend at all. Tabitha remember that one of her main functions was entertainment, a cold shiver ran down her spine at the implications.

Tabitha doubted that she would get much sleep in the coming nights.


Kirche after the tiring day was on the way to her room, with Louise next to her and Ikaros right behind her, the trio walked in silence and while it hurt Kirche to admit it they still weren't exactly friend's, it was more like they both were friends with Tabitha and were willing to put up with each other but beyond that no much else.

That Louise disliked her was no secret. Although, well, she did poke fun at her quite a bit.

Kirche reached her room door and she turned to the waking Louise and in a single moment decided that she would try to befriend her. "Good night Louise."

Louise turned with surprise written on her face. "Good... night."

Kirche was happy that she at least got this one small non hostile conversation.

The moment she entered she was attacked by her own familiar.

"Flame!" She said while shielding herself from the gigantic lizards tongue that was bombarding her. "I will have to thank Tabitha latter."


Julio was tired, he just reached the pope's quarters to give his report on this confusing mission.

He knocked and a the pope asked him in. When Julio entered he was greeted kindly. "Ah, Julio how was the mission?"

"It was... strange... to say the least." He explained. "We reached the academy in acceptable time and I got a good look at the mentioned familiar. The headmaster Immediately knew who was ment in this letter and also explained the situation with a great deal of humor." Julio was grinning at the mentioned meeting. "One of the students, the youngest daugher of the de La Vallière matriarch to be exact, summoned a creature that reminded me of the harpies of the west. Only with less claws and more human-like. Some student thought that it was an angel, if I understood the situation correctly."

Julio was expecting a smile on the popes face at the ridiculous notion, but instead what he found was a great amount of concern. "Julio, describe this familiar in the greatest amount of detail possible."

In the future Julio would remember how with every detail the pope's face lost just a little bit of hope until only void was readable on his face.


Gomo and Kuru where screwed in nearly every way that they could think, first the failed to actually destroy the Alpha angeloid, then they lost one of the main cannons to means that they didn't understand yet, and now after they finally got out from under that rock the had to come to terms with the fact that had no idea where she was of to, to make matters even worse they lost all contact to Nymph and while they found her to be annoying, the loss of a fellow angeloid, the last of her kind at that, was catastrophic.

"We have to inform master of this." Kuru said with a heavy heart.

"He will probably have us molten to slab for this failure." Her sister said fearfully, she always was the more emotional one of the two, even before they got upgraded to anti-angeloid-warfare class, now that she thought about it of the few angeloids that survived the destruction only Nymph was the only true warfare angeloids left.

"Maybe, but it's not like we can do anything about it." she said while opening a channel.

They waited a few seconds and soon the words of a administrative angeloid opened. "This is Gamma squad designation Kuru and Gomo." she said and after another long and painful second she added."We have a report to master Minos."

"Patching through." Came the short reply.

"Gamma, I wasn't expecting this quick of a report, I hope you bring good news." Minos voice was sounding hopeful over the coms.

"Master, we managed to locate the missing Alpha and confront her away from civilization, but… there have been complications." she added heavily at the end.

"What kind of complications, and why do we have signal of you two again but not of Beta?"

"We, have lost contact to Beta when we pursued Alpha who was fleeing with her new master."

Minos was silent for a few moments."So just that I get all of this right you located the rough Angeloid, who has a new master attacked her and not only failed but somehow in all of this you lost one of the only remaining true warfare class angeloids, the only one who had the sensors necessary to track the rough Alpha!?" at the end he was trembling with rage as was evident in his voice.

"Master can't you connect to her with your imprinting?" Gomo added desperately.

"IT HAS BEEN SEVERED!" The angry man screamed out and the two angeloids flinched badly. Something like calming breaths could be heard for a short while. "You mentioned something of a new master she had."

"Yes, the human girl, has taken ownership of Alpha, her name is Vallière and she seems to be part of the human nobility." Kuru quickly explained.

"Well that is at least something." He said with tiredness clear in his voice."Do you have any idea how Beta was taken out?"

"No master, we lost connection to her when Alpha started to flee. There was something else master, the Alpha was behaving, strange to say the least, nothing like expected she didn't seem to even recognize us as fellow angeloids."

There was a few seconds of silence before Minos spoke again. "You two are to return to synapse immediately and report to the angeloid smith, she will give you repairs and you will standby for orders, for now we have to assume that there is something on earth, maybe even in human possession, that can take out angeloids."

"Yes master!" the two of them said simultaneously. The call ended and one of the most terrifying moments in the two Gammas life's passed.