Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.

Devil Arms: ReturnerS

Amidst the eternal waves of time
From a ripple of change shall the storm rise
Out of the Abyss peer the eyes of a shadow
Behold the Devil, it's wings a black sheath

Chapter 5: Rapid Encounters

"Otou-san!"

"There's my little girl!"

Sakura ran up to her father and hugged him tightly after he had exited the shuttle terminal.

"It's been a while, Shichiro," Subaru said as she helped take his bags.

"Did you enjoy the flight?" Aoi asked as the couple hugged.

"It was fairly...normal?" Shichiro said, looking for the right word. "I thought it would be a little bit more science fiction but it wasn't all that different from a plane."

"Look, Otou-san!" Sakura said as she pulled on her father's sleeve and did a little twirl in front of him, showing off her custom made 501st uniform. "I'm working with Okaa-san and Onee-chan now!"

"Is that right?" He asked as he patted her on the head. "Well work hard okay?"

As they stepped out out of the port Shichiro shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked around.

"So this is what it's like on a mage's planet," he said. "Doesn't seem all that different."

"You'd be surprised," Aoi replied with a smile. "The car's just a bit this way."

Sakura watched Subaru load the bags in the car and then turned to her father.

"How long are you going to stay?" she asked, noticing that he only had two duffel bags.

"Only for two weeks," he answered softly as he knelt down so that he was eye level with his daughter.. "The restoration project has only just recently made a breakthrough. As it's foreman, I can't afford to take too long of a vacation, understand?"

"But...it's been two years..."

Was what Sakura wanted to say, but she knew her father was too important for her home country to keep away and that she shouldn't be selfish so all she could do was refrain from clenching her fists with all her might and nod.

Satisfied, Shichiro headed to the front passenger seat of the car as Aoi got behind the wheel. Just before she got in, Subaru could hear the young girl say, "I hate this..." under her breath.

"Did you say something?" Subau asked as she poked her head back out of the car.

"No, not really," Sakura said as she walked passed Subaru and entered the car without another word.

The car ride back to the base was silent except for Shichiro's snores.

"Sorry," Aoi said to Subaru as she looked at her rear-view mirror. "It seems that he's been working twenty hour days. Coupled with time differences..."

"No, I understand," Subaru said as she raised her hands up. "I'm not bothered by it at all."

As she said this her eyes moved toward Sakura, who had been watching the passing scenery without saying a word.

She slid over to the center seat and wrapped her arm around the little girl as she began talking to her via telepathy.

"Come now, stop making that face," she said softly. "It's the first time you've seen your father in almost three years and it's almost your birthday after all."

"But..." Sakura replied, not looking at her sister figure. "He's only going to be here for a week..."

"That's why you have to enjoy it as much as possible! You can't let the thought of him leaving loom over your head like this."

"But...it feels like...everyone is so far away...like we're not even a family anymore..."

"Come now, you know that's not true."

But Subaru wasn't sure she was really able to convince her.

Even though Aoi was finally out of prison and the two of them were living on the same base, the two rarely saw each other, let alone speak to each other as the creation of a new task force was a big hassle. Between the training of new personnel, the allocation and acquisition of supplies and materials, the daily reports to the sponsoring admirals, Aoi had no free time for anything other than sleep.

The few times they did have some form of conversation was when Sakura passed by Aoi when the latter was in the middle of her rounds. Even then the conversations would only last a few minutes before Nathan would drag Aoi away.

Sakura would even spend all of her breaks sitting in the cafeteria, hoping that she would be lucky and catch her mother while she was getting a meal, but she stopped when she learned that Nathan had the staff send food up to Aoi's office instead.

"If...if Onii-chan were here...things wouldn't be like this..."

It was not a statement blaming her missing brother, but a wish that he was here to help her through this. Subaru didn't say anything but pulled Sakura closer to her so that Sakura was resting her head on her chest.

"Don't worry, he'll definitely come ba-"

A sharp pain in her right amber eye cut her off as she placed her hand over it.

"Onee-chan?" Sakura said out loud looking up at her with worry.

"What happened?" Aoi asked as she stopped the car in front of a red light and turned around.

"No, I'm fine," Subaru said looking back up, still holding her right eye. "It happens sometimes ever since that day."

A side effect from turning a Type-Zero cyborg into a makeshift Titan, a cyborg with even more enhanced physical and mental prowess. The person that had done the operation did her best to restore her back to normal but somethings just can't be undone.

"I never knew this," Sakura said, feeling hurt that Subaru had kept something from her.

"Sorry," Subaru apologized as she removed her hand from her face. "But you had your own worries. And see? It's all bet-"

Her voice cut off as a voice rang inside her head.

The Neo-Belkan War Memorial. 2400 hours. Be prepared.

And then she saw it again, the familiar white haired man standing within the crowd at the crosswalk. But before she could the car started moving again and when she looked out the back window, the figure was gone.

"Was it just my imagination?" Subaru thought to herself.

"Are you okay?" Sakura asked as she tugged on Subaru's sleeve.

"Y-yeah..."

"You are most certainly NOT fine," a gruff voice said.

Subaru turned back towards the front and saw that Shichiro was awake and looking at her.

"Your face is pale and you are sweating profusely. If I were to describe it in layman's terms...I'd say you saw a ghost."

Subaru blinked at the direct and accurate diagnostic and lowered her eyes to the ground.

"Subaru," Aoi began softly. "We're almost to the base. Take this time to think and then we'll head to my office. Tells us everything there."

Subaru nodded in compliance as the car pulled up toward the base.

In Aoi's office, Subaru told the Kimura family everything. How she saw the white-haired man, how she followed him to the alley where the beast had appeared and attacked her, and how she had just saw him again as he had left her a message.

When she had finished, the Kimura family just looked at her in silence before Aoi spoke up.

"That's it?" she asked. "He didn't give you any more information?"

"No, that's all I heard," Subaru replied shaking her head.

"Are you sure that it's actually him?" Shichiro asked.

"Yes. He looked exactly as I saw him when we were in the sphere."

Shichiro nodded, accepting the answer before he squeezed the area between his eyes.

"If it is him then why doesn't he come home?" Sakura asked.

"Perhaps..." Aoi began as she leaned back on her chair. "There is something he needs to do first? From the sound of your story, it seems like he purposely led you to the place where the black wolf would appear so you could either stop it or slow it down."

"You don't think..." Subaru began as Aoi nodded.

"Perhaps another one might appear in front of the memorial...it's a wide open place and if one were to appear there it would be hard to contain and might be able to escape. Though we don't exactly have much proof that one would appear there so getting a blockade set up would be impossible."

"So we can't do anything?" Sakura asked her mother.

"No, I didn't say that..." Aoi replied, a small smile forming on her face.

It was close to midnight when Amia Lee had finished work. She had wanted to get off earlier but her superior had dumped his reports that he was too lazy to do on her so she was forced to work overtime, unpaid. She was frustrated and annoyed that she couldn't keep her promise to Marika to go visit the memorial together, but she still wanted to go to the memorial even though it was already so late.

She entered the Memorial Park and saw that there were already others who had set down flowers and other mementos down by the monument. She walked over to it and clasped her hands together.

"I'm sorry Mom, I didn't bring anything," she said as she lowered her head. "I'm sorry that I'm visiting you so late but my boss was being a jerk and I couldn't leave at my normal time...and...I'm sorry that I couldn't help Dad...I'm sorry I didn't notice anything...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

She clutched her eyes as she fell to her knees sobbing uncontrollably.

"Amia?" a soft voice spoke up behind her.

Amia quickly wiped her eyes as she stood up and turned around and saw a man standing under the street light, his face one of concern.

"Nathan?" she said, realizing that her voice was cracking. "What are you doing here?"

"I got a call from Marika saying that you hadn't returned home yet," Nathan said as he walked towards her. "So I called your office and they told me you were going to get out late. So I guessed that you would come here. Are you okay?"

"I'm...fine..." she replied taking a step away from him. She didn't want him to see that she had been crying.

Nathan stopped at a respectable distance away from her and checked his old watch, specifically the date.

"It's almost the three year anniversary," he noted apathetically as Amia flinched slightly. "I understand that you want to come here and pay your respects, but couldn't you do it tomorrow with Marika? You were planning on doing it today anyway weren't you?"

"I...I just..."

"Did you not want her to see you cry?"

"Shut up!" She screamed at him. "Don't talk like you know how I'm feeling! You don't know anything about how I feel! I lost my mother and my father had drove himself insane! How can you ever know how that feels?"

Nathan remained motionless as he watched Amia's tears rolled down her face for a bit before her eyes opened in shock as she realized what she had just said.

"I'm...I'm sorry...I didn't mean it like that..."

"I know," Nathan said as he walked towards her and held out a pack of tissues. "But I did wish that if I did have parents, they would have been like yours or Marika's..."

"Since when were you...so open about your feelings?" Amia asked as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

"If it'll help you calm down, I'll say whatever you want," Nathan said as he offered her another tissue.

Amia's ears perked up as she heard him say that and she felt her heart beat rapidly. There was no better chance for her than right now.

"T-then...can I hear you say..." she began but a loud chime from the clock tower at near the monument drowned out her next few words.

"It's midnight," Nathan said looking at the clock. "Cinderella's magic has worn off. I guess it's time to...what's wrong?"

He looked back at Amia to see the girl looking embarrassed and frustrated at the same time.

"Nothing!" she said with a huff as she walked past him but stopped when Nathan suddenly grabbed her shoulders and pulled her toward him. "W-what are you doing?"

"Quiet!" he hissed as he slowly moved backwards, pulling her with him.

Amia followed his gaze and saw a large black shadow rise out of the ground and opened into a circle. Then three large wolf-like creatures walked out of the rift.

"W-w-w-what the heck is that?" Amia asked, close to screaming in fear as the beasts looked around, as if breathing in the air of the planet.

"Shh...let's try to get some distance," Nathan whispered as they slowly tried to make their way to the exit. Unfortunately, Amia's foot accidentally knocked over a vase of flowers that had been put as an offering in front of a picture of a small girl.

Immediately the wolves turned their head toward the direction of the sound and rushed over.

"Kyaaaaaaaah!" Amia screamed as Nathan pushed her out of the way as the foremost wolf lunged at him and at the same time activating his device, causing two black gauntlets with blades extending from the knuckle area to appear. "Nathan!"

"Run! Get help!" the man yelled as the wolf attempted to bite him but he managed to force its head a bit to the right and it only managed to snap at the air instead. "Get off you damned monster!"

He managed to fling it off to the side by stabbing it in the neck with his claws, but didn't see a second one get behind him and sink its jaws into his left shoulder

He let out a cry of pain as Amia looked fearfully at the scene before she started running, hoping to meet with a mage before Nathan was killed.

Luckily, Amia didn't have to go anywhere as small purple bolts flew through the air and impacted against the wolf, causing it to leap back in irritation.

"Amia! Nathan!" came the voice of a small girl as she ran past the bushes and continued firing at the wolves.

"Marika?" Amia asked as she helped Nathan to his feet.

A wolf tried to run past Marika's barrage but a small pink chain appeared in front of its feet, causing it to trip and fall to the ground.

"I don't think they're being hurt," Sakura said as she hopped out of the tree she was waiting in. "Maybe they're immune to magic?"

"If that's the case then we just need to do it like this!" Subaru said as appeared from the sky and smashed the fallen wolf's head with her Revolver Knuckle.

The wolf let out a cry of pain before throwing her off and standing back up, it's armored helmet cracking and crumbling slightly as the other two wolves walked up to the lead's side, growling fiercely at the girls.

"This is bad," Alex said as he hurried over to the rest of his team. "We didn't plan for three."

"Wait what? What's going on?" Amia asked as she lugged the injured man away from the battle. "You knew these things were coming?"

"We'll tell you later, Amia," Marika said, waiting for her device to cool down and recharge. "Just get Nathan out of here!"

Amia looked down at the groaning and injured man she was carrying and nodded as she ran the opposite direction from the wolves and the battle mages.

"So...any ideas?" Alex asked as he prepared both of his daggers as both sides simply stared each other down. "If we're unlucky one of them might break off, leaving us to deal with the other two, while it causes trouble."

But the wolves showed no sign of running, and instead lunged at the four mages in front of them.

"Be careful," Subaru said as they separated. "Their claws may be blocked by barriers but their fangs can break through them."

"Darn it!" Alex grumbled as he blocked one of the wolves' claws with his dagger and tried to slash back at it but it jumped out of his reach. "The two of us could barely handle one of them, how the heck are we going to handle three?"

"Can we try to get them away from the monument?" Marika asked. "I don't want it to get damaged during the battle."

"Good idea, let's back off and see if they follow us," Subaru ordered as the mages pulled away from the monument. Luckily they took the bait and chased after them, one went after Alex who had went a direction a little further off from the others.

"Damn it!" he cursed as he slid to a stop and dodged a swipe from the wolf as he countered but thrusting his blade into its neck. It roared in pain like the first one he had fought but it did not stop and continued to try and attack him with its claws, leaving small craters in the walkway.

"Alex-kun!" Sakura shouted as she tried to get to him to assist.

"Wait! Sakura-chan don't just run off!" Subaru tried to stop her but she had already left and was quickly tailed by the lead wolf leaving Subaru and Marika to fight the last one.

"This is not good," Marika muttered and Subaru agreed.

"Get out of the way!" Sakura shouted as she fired an anchor at the wolf but it merely dodged by jumping toward the side. She fired it at the wolf's foot as it landed and the second anchor managed to embed itself deep into the beast's foot.

"Gotcha!" the mage shouted in triumph. The wolf tried to pull its foot free from the chain but the anchor was not coming out. The beast let out a loud growl as it brought its jaws down onto the magic chain, and with one fierce bite, destroyed it. After it freed itself its body began glowing in a pitch black aura as its eyes shined a deep blood red.

The young mage could only let out two words that accurately reflected her feelings at that moment, "Uh oh."

"Frost Nova," the monotone male voice of Alex's device, Algidus Vesica, sounded as he slashed the wolf across its side and a large red ice crystal sprouted from its wound. But the wolf merely shook its body as the ice shattered and the wound closed up instantly.

"So magic really doesn't work on them," Alex said as he held both of his knives in a reverse grip, his fingers brushing against the hand guards. "I should have practiced reinforcement magic a bit more."

"Frozen Soul," the device said as its wielder's body glowed in a red aura.

"Oh right," Alex said as he bounced on his feet. "Let's see if I can't live up to that man's expectations as well as my own."

He ran towards the wolf who had charged at him as well, but Alex was much faster than he was moments ago. When they were about to crash he dived toward the ground and slashed at the wolf's leg, slicing clean through its armor, causing the black particle to seep out from its wound. He then spun his body up toward the wolf slashing it up its side before hitting the ground hands first and flipping himself back on his feet.

Turning back toward the beast he saw that it was in visible pain and that its wounds were regenerating, but not at the same speed as when he attacked with magic.

"This is not enough," Alex said bouncing on his feet again. "He was much faster, much stronger, and much more lethal. There is no reason I can't become like him, even if he was a cyborg...our purpose and will are the same!"

"Verlängform!"

The red daggers' blades extended to almost double their length and Alex was holding them in a way that their dull edges were resting against his forearms so that they were more like tonfas rather than knives.

He struck at the wolf again with much more strength and precision, dealing even more damage to the wolf's body and even managing to slice off its injure leg.

"I can do this!" Alex roared triumphantly as the wolf struggled to remain standing with only three legs. "You monsters aren't so tough after all!"

Subaru and Marika were still fighting the second wolf but they were doing much better than they thought they would be doing. While Marika's Pulsfalken did little to no damage to the beast, it was enough for it to turn its attention toward her, out of annoyance or it pain and with that opening, Subaru was able to smash her Revolver Knuckle into it.

"It looks like these things aren't very bright," Marika noted as she sprayed at the beast again and it lunged at her and she easily dodged it by leaping into the air as Subaru came down on top of it, slamming its head into the ground.

"Now!" Subaru said as she moved out of the way for Marika to drop back down on the beast's head and then use her jumping ability again to force its head into the pavement even more.

Thankfully, the beast was more than a little disorientated as it struggled to remove its head from the ground and was unable to keep its body from swaying, more of the black particles were spilling out of the wound in its neck.

"I suppose we should thank Nathan for this advantage," Subaru said as she circled around the beast. "Go help Sakura-chan, I think I can hold this guy here."

But before either of them could do anything, a loud howl rang through the air and the wolf suddenly stopped swaying as it rushed toward the source.

"Wait! Get back here!" Subaru cried as the two mages chased after it.

Unlike her squad mates, Sakura was not having an easy time with the wolf. The wolf that seemed to have been leading the other two had been able to dodge nearly all of her attacks and counterattacked so swiftly that she had only been able to minimize damage rather than avoid it, and the damage was causing her to slow down and receive even more injuries.

She had a cut on her forehead, and while the wound was not deep, blood was still flowing freely from it and it was getting into her eyes. Her left arm was also injured having used it to block a slash from the wolf's claws when she had missed her kick. Her barrier jacket was also torn in multiple different places as well.

And as if her current troubles weren't bad enough, the other two wolves ran back to their leader's side, one more gracefully than the other, as it still had all its limbs.

"No way..." Sakura muttered as she took a step back. "I was the only one who couldn't fight against them? Am I still just a useless kid?"

Her eyes darted back at towards the wolves as they began doing something strange. The two injured wolves began to disintegrate as the black particles were absorbed by the lead wolf and the wolf's black aura seemed to engulf it even more.

"It is dangerous," Sound Harken said as the device forced Sakura to move away from the wolf. "We should regroup."

Sakura didn't need telling twice. She may have wanted to prove herself, but she was not stupid enough to die trying.

"Good idea," she said. "Who's closer?"

"It seems Sargent Darlton is the closest."

No sooner had the device said that Alex was already calling out to her.

"Sakura-chan!"

The red clothed boy ran up to her, stopping for a fraction of a second when he saw her covered in blood, but still ran up to her side.

"Are you okay? Can you still move? Can you see? Shit, your mom is gonna murder me!"

"Alex-kun! Behind you!"

He quickly turned around, holding his blades in a defensive position as a something with a sharp point crashed into them. He forced the thing back and soon the black aura vanished revealing the wolf, in a much different form.

It was now in a humanoid shape, waling upright on two legs. It's armored areas were more prominent in the form of plated leggings and a breastplate. Its jet black mane flowing out the back of its head like hair and its skull-like face had shrunk along with the rest of its head and now had five eyes on it. Two blood red ones over two bright golden ones with another red one at the center of its forehead. It no longer had paws but instead now had a prehensile on its left arm while its right had turned into a long gray lance from the elbow down.

"Wha...what the heck is this thing?" Alex asked as he placed himself firmly between the new creature and Sakura. The creature chose to attack in response, letting out a huge roar as it lunged at him, attempting to skewer him with its lance. He responded by parrying the blow to the left, throwing it off balance and swinging his other arm to try and stab it. However the wolf regained its balance and spun around, its lance smashing into the red dagger's side, similar to what Alex had done to the other wolf before.

The two of them attacked and parried repeatedly, causing sparks to fly through the air whenever their weapons made contact along with the clanging of two metallic objects. Their movements were so fast that Sakura could only see black and red blurs.

"This is...how an experienced combat mage fights?" Sakura asked out loud. Despite being neck first in the incident three years ago, she had never actually seen anyone fight. The closest she's gotten was when she and Subaru were fleeing from a Neo-Belkan automaton and Subaru was too focused on protecting her at that time to really fight back.

Someone else had managed to destroy the machines but she had been pressed against the ground by Subaru so she wasn't able to see anything then either.

Watching Alex fight the creature in front of her now, was awe inspiring.

"Sakura!"

"Sakura-chan!"

The rest of her squad mates came running up to her.

"Here let me get that," Marika said as she pulled out her medical kit.

"Alex-san!" Subaru called out to the dueling mage but he either ignored her or could not hear her over the tension of his duel. "What is that thing?"

"The three wolves turned into that thing," Sakura explained as Marika carefully disinfected the wound over her eye.

"How...?" Subaru began but cut herself off as she shook her head. "Nothing is making sense anymore...and since when could Alex-san fight like that? We can't even help him or else we might throw off his rhythm."

Calling the clashing of the duelist's weapons a rhythm was not an exaggeration. At times the rhythm of steel against steel sounded as if it had been composed by a musician. The two of them would collide, throw each other off and clash again.

By the fifteenth clash, one of the duelists was losing speed. Although neither of them had managed to inflict any wounds on the other, Alex was clutching his chest, gasping for air, the strain of using his reinforcement magic was starting to affect him. The creature decided to take advantage of his moment of weakness and attacked with a thrust of its spear.

"Shit!" Alex cursed, unable to react in time as the spear went straight for his chest. But before it could pierce him, he was suddenly knocked over by three purple spheres that hit him in his leg, causing him to fall over and the spear merely grazed his left arm instead.

At this point, Subaru jumped in and threw a punch at the creature, which blocked it with it lance but slid across the path due to the sheer force of her attack.

"Ouch," Subaru groaned as she shook her hand slightly. "It's like punching solid steel."

"Don't you do that every day?" Marika asked as she hand Sakura helped Alex up.

"I mean without my Revolver and Typhoon Knuckle!"

A roar from the creature brought Subaru's attention back to the fight as she quickly jerked her head to the left to avoid the incoming lance and then ducked as the creature swept the lance over her head. The gears on her knuckles began to spin as she threw a one-two punch at the creature but it skillfully dodged by jumping to the side and then somersaulting away from her.

"How is this thing so agile?" Subaru asked. "It's nothing like the one we fought earlier!"

"I...I think...I can...breathe again..." Alex panted, a little annoyed that he was sounding too much like one of the people he knew. He had aspired to be everything like the man except for his speech pattern caused by failing lungs, he enjoyed breathing and speaking in unbroken sentences.

"Any ideas?" Marika asked as the rest of the squad moved to assist Subaru who was unused to fighting against enemies that fought with precision rather than brute strength, not that it didn't have brute strength as well as the craters it was leaving on the ground indicated.

One mistake and she may just be split in half. She had always relied on her barriers for defense but they simply shattered like glass when struck by the creature's lance. Between the Neo-Belkan weaponry and these monsters, she was starting to feel that they were slowly becoming useless.

"Onee-chan!" Sakura called out as she fired an anchor at the at the creature with her index finger from her uninjured arm. Again, the creature dodged by jumping to the side. She then fired one from her middle finger and the creature batted it away with its lance. Or it would have, had it not been embedded into the lance instead.

"Gotcha!" the young girl cried in triumph, firing the anchor's second point upward into the creature's hand when it tried to remove it, causing it to be stuck in an awkward position of having its arm crossed over its body and unable to really do anything.

Then multiple pink chains started appearing seemingly from out of nowhere. The anchors that Sakura had been firing since her battle with the lead wolf activated keeping the wolf from moving.

Taking this chance, Alex rushed forward with his knives and slashed at the creature's legs causing it to keel over as Marika rushed forward jumping up on top of the creature and when her foot touched its back...

"Propelsion!" her device called out as she activated her jumping spell. The sheer force of the device using the creature's body as a stepping stone caused the wolf to slam into the ground as Marika was sent harmlessly into the air, landing a short distance away. But before she even touched the ground, another mage was barreling down on the creature from above.

"Double..."

A streak of blue magic and hair fell from the sky like a falling star.

"Revolver..."

Subaru pressed her two Knuckles together, sparks flying out from both of their gears.

"Cannon!"

She slammed both of her Knuckles into the creature, forming a large crater with the creature's body at its center, its armor cracked and its body broken as black particles started floating up from nearly every part of the creature's body.

"Did...did that do it?" Marika asked, turning around as soon as she landed.

"That attack is enough to crack through a cruiser's hull," Alex said as he examined the creature. "I doubt this thing's armor is anywhere as thick as that, not with its speed."

Suddenly, to their horror, the creature's hand twitched before it dragged its claws into the dirt and pushed itself slowly to its feet.

"How?" Alex asked as he tried to stab the creature but it avoided him and rushed toward his comrade instead. "Shit! Marika!"

"Wait a min-aahhh!" She let out a cry of pain as the creature grabbed her by the neck, roaring loudly in her face as its armor was falling off its body.

"Marika-chan!" Sakura said, watching in horror as the creature raise its lance, intending on skewering the gunner mage.

"Now!Graf Eisen!"

"Gigantform! Giganthammer!"

The creature looked to the right just in time to see a large iron hammer smash into its face, causing to to release Marika and send it flying. The mage squad looked as the red knight landed in front of Marika watching the creature soar through the air,

"Now, Captain!" Vita called out.

"Blue Rose..."

"Thorns of Death!"

As the wolf tried to get its feet back on the ground, a large spike erupted from the ground piercing its body through its chest.

"Skewer," Aoi said as she twisted the end of the cloth she was holding. The cloth had dug itself through the ground and took the shape of a lance as it pierced the wolf and at Aoi's command several smaller lances extended from the main body causing the creature to roar out in pain before finally falling limp. Apparently for real this time as it dissipated in a cloud of black particles.

"Well," Aoi said as she removed her cloth-like device from the hole in the ground and returning it to standby mode. "That certainly could have gone better couldn't it?"

"Okaa-san," Sakura said as Vita helped Marika to her feet.

"Is your neck okay?" the small knight asked but Marika could only nod in reply. Either because her neck was too sore to talk or she was still frightened having stared death in the face.

"Don't take this the wrong way but what are you doing here, Lieutenant Vita?" Subaru asked.

"She got a whiff of the operation," Aoi said as she drew closer to the other mages. "I'm not sure if we should call it a success or not..."

She added as she looked around at the destruction caused by the battle.

"I'm sorry...we failed..." Sakura said as she hung her head. But her mother simply placed her hands on her shoulders and lowered herself to her eye level.

"It's not your fault," she said softly. "We had no idea how many would come out and what they were capable off. You're not weak, my daughter. You just happened to be fighting an enigma that was much stronger than the other two that came with it. Thanks to your efforts, and a large amount of luck, its armor was weak enough for Vita-san and I to finish it off. You did very well for your first battle. You too, Marika."

"T-thank you..." Marika croaked sheepishly, lowering her head, still rubbing her neck in pain.

"And as for you two," Aoi said, turning to the older squad members who quickly straightened their backs in fear and attention. "Front and center!"

"Y-yes ma'am!" the two stuttered in unison.

"Care to explain why you left my daughter, a rookie mage, to fight an unknown enemy by herself?" she asked with the tone of an annoyed mother and commander.

Subaru wasn't sure how to say that she was busy fighting the other wolf with Marika without making it sound like an excuse. Alex, however did.

"Sakura-chan is a mage with the TSAB," the young man said, his nervousness all but obvious. "What's more she is part of the 501st Task Force. She should have been able to handle herself."

"I see," Aoi said glaring at the man. "As your commander I can accept that."

She then raised her fist and socked Alex right in the gut as he let out a loud grunt of pain.

"But not as her mother. I hope you will be more careful in the future, understand?"

"Aye...ma'am..." Alex groaned as he stood back up in time to see Aoi "punish" Subaru as well.

Author's Note:

Hmmm...first real encounter and Sakura gets a huge blow to her self-esteem. But you gotta understand, they are fighting against something that they have no experience with whatsoever. And unlike some people, she doesn't have a godly amount of magic that she can just nuke them with limited training. Her style is based on precise and powerful attacks, not giant blasts of evil pink friendship making.

Anyway, now we are getting into the nitty gritty of things so I hope you're all excited. If so, tell me! Don't be stingy.