Meanwhile Back At The...
Books. Millions upon millions, with more stretching on beyond the limits of sight. Just another day on the job for Yuuno Scrya and his team of Infinite Librarians.
One of his team, a quiet girl named Blake, flew up to him and summoned a screen. "Yuuno, we've located the new hypersector."
The Infinite Library was a world-sized lost logia from the distant past. It contained a copy of every physical book that existed in the entire galaxy, sorted by date of creation, and shelved in an impossibly vast expanse that existed in more dimensions than just the usual three. Going in a straight line from anywhere always led back to the exit, and finding a specific shelf was only slightly less complicated than plotting a course through the dimensional sea.
So, when an entirely new collection of three dimensional sectors appeared almost overnight, it took some work to figure out how to get there.
"Excellent job, Blake," Yuuno praised with a smile. "Let's get everyone together and go find out just what made tens of millions of new books show up all at once."
"Let's," Blake agreed.
The pale reddish flower-like pods from the aliens were everywhere. Middle of the streets. parks, backyards, even on particularly sturdy rooftops. Miyuki had even seen one planted sideways on the side of a bridge. Public Works were out in force to clear the streets, but it was a slow and expensive process, and people had mostly given up on getting anywhere by car or bus.
Which was why the trains were even more packed than usual.
"Pardon, sir! Yes, push in just a bit more," the station attendant called to his coworker.
"We need ten more centimeters to get the door closed," said coworker replied.
The bodies shifted and Miyuki winced as Saito stumbled, squishing his younger cousin Satsu facefirst into Miyuki's sweater-clad chest.
"Mmphph," Satsu opined as the doors shut and the train lurched into motion.
"Eh, sorry, Satsu-chan," Saito offered.
Satsu managed to turn her head to the side, only to discover that she still didn't have enough room to escape marshmallow hell. "So, er, what was it your sister does, again?"
"I don't think you ever said where your sister's job is, either," Saito added.
Politely ignoring Satsu's faint blush, Miyuki hesitated. "Ah... well, I was supposed to keep it a secret, but that was before." Miyuki hesitated again, before smiling brightly. "Nanoha-chan is a professional Magical Girl on another planet!"
Yuuno looked over the vast expanse of new books that simply hadn't existed a few days ago. Blake flew up to a shelf and pulled a book out at random.
"What do you make of the language?" Yuuno asked.
"It's not translating," Blake observed. "Whatever it is, it's completely new."
Yuuno smiled. "Well, I suppose we have our work cut out for us, then."
Blake grasped her Device. "Take a look, Gambol Shroud."
A bing of acknowledgement, and a screen popped up with readouts on it. Arf floated down and looked over Blake's shoulder.
"Synthetic paper?" Arf asked.
Blake nodded. "Actual paper, but the molecular structure is perfectly regular. This wasn't printed. There's no ink, just variations in the optical properties of the paper."
"Were the original books conjured?" Yuuno considered. "Note, compile a list of manufacturing methods that don't leave traces."
"Most of these covers are really plain," Arf complained as she skimmed along one shelf.
Yunno flew over and pulled out a few books at random. "You're right, Arf. The titles and text are clearly different, yet these volumes are all formatted the same way. This might be a contextual clue."
"Uh," Blake said, over by another shelf. "I found some with illustrated covers..."
Yuuno flew over to take a look, and froze, blinking rapidly at the colorful unclad figures decorating the book Blake was holding. "Well, er, they appear to be humanoid." Yuuno suddenly brightened. "Everybody! Please search for books with illustrations, and for graphic novels! With enough visual context, we can assemble a keystone for the translators to work from."
The space station gleamed darkly in the light of the nebula, a tower of black metal with five radial spars connecting to the five-sided gold pyramid at the top. It glimmered like a city at night, countless windows speckling the sides with points of light.
She flew the tel'kak to an open dock, and waited for a jaffa patrol to confront her. When they cornered her, she surrendered at once.
After all, the System Lords would want to know what the infamous Major Samantha Carter was doing in their citadel. There was no need to fight her way to the council chambers and give away her true identity, when the System Lords, in their arrogance, would have her brought right into their midst.
She allowed herself a small smirk. The original Samantha Carter could never have pulled this off. But she wasn't Samantha Carter. She was better.
"...is the meaning of this?" came the demand from Lord Yu as Replicarter was manhandled into the council chambers.
One goa'uld with a female host was addressing the rest of the council, and it was her kull that were restraining Replicarter. "I should ask you the same thing."
Another of the System Lords stood and stepped down. "Major Samantha Carter."
The kull shoved her to her knees.
"Her tel'tak was intercepted by my sentries when it violated the proximity zone around this station. I am well aware of your past relationship with SG-1 and the Tau'ri. Would you have me believe that her sudden appearance here is nothing more than mere coincidence?"
Yu didn't respond, standing and looming over the kneeling woman. "What are you doing here?"
Replicarter idly lifted her hands as though to shrug. "Proving a point."
"And what point is - "
Her forearms and hands melted into silvery metal, before spearing out as slender spars. One impaled Yu through the spine before he could react, while the other skewered the female host through the head.
The spars retracted, forming into short blades as more silvery spikes and blades erupted from her joints. She lunged forwards, cutting down Yu's first prime, then spinning and plunging one hand into a control conduit. In seconds she overrode the doors and locked the other System Lords in with her.
The kull and the jaffa were hesitating, wary of hitting their masters with a stray shot. Replicarter stalked after the remaining goa'uld and cut them down one by one. The jaffa were helpless, and the kull too stupid to beat her.
Soon it was over, and the council chamber was painted in blood.
"You are really bad at this," Replicarter told the corpses. "This galaxy is wasted on you."
Passing through the council chamber, she found the control room and jacked in. In a matter of moments, she'd opened all the airlocks on the station. Tens of thousands of jaffa and human slaves were sucked out into space to die.
Replicarter opened a com channel. "It's done. It wasn't even hard."
"Excellent," Fifth replied from the repliblock ship. "You are magnificent, my love."
"More than you know," she told him as she rerouted power to the stations weapon emplacements. "More than you'll ever know."
"My love?" Fifth asked uncertainly. "Wait, they're powering up their defensive batteries!"
Replicarter allowed herself a satisfied sigh. "No, they're all dead."
Over the subspace link that all Replicators shared, she disseminated a program she'd been preparing ever since Fifth created her. It locked Fifth out of the repliblock ship and lowered its shields.
"My love?" Fifth repeated in a panicked squeak.
"Goodbye, Fifth," Replicarter told him.
Plasma rained.
Miyuki slipped off her shoes and gave her mother a hug. "Hi, Mom. You know Saito-kun. This is his cousin, Satsu Hiraga."
Momoko smiled at the young teenager. "Very pleased to meet you."
"Ah, yes," Satsu replied, bowing. "You as well, Takamachi-san."
"I told them the truth about Nanoha's job," Miyuki revealed. "I know we're supposed to keep that a secret, but the whole 'we know about aliens' thing is kind of moot now."
They glanced out the bay window where one of the Fae's space elevators was visible, like a thin line bisecting the sky.
"I suppose you have a point," Momoko agreed. "Come on. Nanoha's letter is set up in the den."
Once everyone was seated, Momoko hit play and Nanoha's face appeared on the screen.
"Eh, hello everyone!" Nanoha's message began. "Is everyone alright? We've just heard about Earth being invaded! It didn't sound like bad things are happening, but I would very much like to know what is going on there! I'm sorry I can't come home myself just now. We're busy facing something that could be a danger to the whole galaxy, but afterwards I'm sure Hayate and I can convince Lindy-san to send a ship or two to Earth if we had the details. Please tell me everything you can. I miss you all, and I hope you're all okay!"
"She sounded rushed," Miyuki noted.
"So she's really on another planet," Saito said. "Um, how did she send you this? And how are we supposed to reply?"
Miyuki smiled. "Oh, well that's actually simple, see..."
Sayaka was feeling distinctly left out. Madoka hadn't been to school in days, because she was apparently off saving the galaxy with three living legends and that weird Akemi girl. Hitomi listened patiently as Sayaka ranted on the subject.
"...and they didn't even ask me!" Sayaka groused. "Oh sure! I'm just the best friend, top of the class in Strike Arts, and actually a member of the TSAB. It's not like I'm important or anything. Not like the love interest! That Akemi couldn't fight a bowl of grapes!"
Sayaka slumped, chin on her hands, and Hitomi patted her on the shoulder.
"Madoka doesn't need me anymore," Sayaka mumbled despondently.