StrikerS: Pursuit of Perfection

by redemption2

Her mistake. His rage. Now her pupils are being picked off one by one, all for one purpose. The second half of the StrikerS saga starts now. Author Announcement: A new story has begun! Leyline Expedition Force, based on ViVid and Force!

12. Chapter 12

Nanoha StrikerS: Pursuit of Perfection 12

A young boy stood next to his father, dirty from gardening long and hard. Now they just stood there, looking at the three cylindrical benches in the garden, their stone pure and white. The man knelt down in the grass and mulch, and said a silent prayer. He looked up into the sky as a tear rolled down his cheek. "Dad…."

"It was today that I lost everything, except your mother. My friends, my comrades, none of them survived. Jim… Aisha… Suzuka… they're all up there somewhere, drifting through the stars on the wind." He sat down on the new stone. "Every year, I replace this old memorial, and put in a new one. I can never really choose something that I think they would all enjoy. Really, the Star was the only place where we all could agree to be, but that ship is lost forever, along with them."

"Dad…."

"Soran, don't treat your friends like they don't matter. Even if they piss you off and annoy you, always treat them as friends. Never throw them away like I did."

The giant black asteroid loomed over everything: the Aeris-class, the rescue vessel, and the S+ rank party. Soran's eyes trembled as he looked up. "Another piece…. I can't believe it's another piece…."

The Aeris-class captain rushed onto Chrono's bridge and gasped. "That's it! Commander Harlown, that's the celestial body we were trying to tell you about!"

"Then just what the hell is it?!"

"I'm sorry sir, I don't know. However the readings we took indicate that the entire asteroid is emitting dimensional distortions. We found it trying to cut through a single dimension, and then tracked it going through another. It shouldn't have been able to enter slipstream."

"If it stays like that, there won't be a slipstream for it to enter, sir!" Chrono's science officer yelled from below. "The dimensional distortion is causing the different universes to backflow into the tunnel. At this rate the entire tube will collapse in on itself!"

"We need to get into normal space!" Chrono hissed. "Lanster, how much time do you need to get the ship evacuated?"

"At least 20 more minutes, sir!" Tea answered quickly as she sent another person sliding down the tube.

The science officer shook her head. "Egh!" Chrono growled. "And we still have that waveform approaching to deal with. I can't believe this is happening."

"Hayate-chan, what should we do?" Nanoha spoke without ever taking her eyes off the mass.

"I… I don't know… I've never seen anything like this."

"Millions of Caster shells… this must have been what the Perseans saw before it impacted their planet." Fate quivered. "But what can be created by Casters can be solved by them as well. Soran!"

He didn't hear them. "There was another piece, a piece of that universe…."

"Soran-kun!" Nanoha yelled at him.

"It's no use. He can't hear us. His eardrums must have split." Hayate shook her head.

"Tch AUGH!" Soran covered his ears. "That really fucking hurt!"

"Eardrums repaired desu. You're lucky I can mend such minor injuries desu."

"Soran, you can hear us?" Nanoha gasped hopefully.

"I've got a bit of a loud ring, but yeah. Damn that stung!"

Fate grabbed his shoulders and pulled him up to nose level. "Soran, is the feature of discharged cartridges to be attracted to one another?"

"I suppose so. I've never tried it other than individually."

"When you started chanting, this thing dropped on our heads! You know about Casters more than the rest of us. You have to find a way!"

Soran bit his lip. "Rein, conference." They had an internal discussion. The others waited. "Will it work?" He said aloud.

"You'll have to take me with you, it requires precise timing and course desu."

Soran sighed with a smile and shook his head. "Once again, I'll have to be the sacrificial lamb." He turned towards the dimensional wave. "Let's go, Rein!" He tore off for it.

"Soran-kun!" Nanoha gasped.

Soran's face appeared in front of Chrono's screen, and his voice echoed in his, Tea's, and the commanders' heads. 'I'm going to decoy the rock to destroy the wave, drawing it fully into slipstream as well. It should give you enough time to get everyone aboard and make the jump.'

'But what about you? You won't be able to get around that thing to make it back in time.' Chrono was starting to understand.

'That doesn't matter, because I'm not going to even try.' Tea and the commanders' eyes went wide. 'Once you're clear, send someone to jump ahead and pick me up.'

"Soran…." Teana looked down at a young redheaded girl in a stretcher with a blue cuff with yellow stripes on her left wrist. "Pick him up?! NO!" 'Soran, you can't do that! You don't have your tracer! We'll never be able to find you!'

'Goodbye, everyone.' Soran whispered before it cut out.

"He's too far away for telepathic contact." The communications officer looked away.

"No…." Nanoha trembled. "He's sacrificing himself again. He's… he's… Soran-kun!" She started forward, but Fate and Hayate held her fast. "Let go! We can't let him do this!"

"We can't let his gift go to waste, Nanoha-chan!" Hayate fought against her. "We have to go back and finish the rescue operation!"

"Soran-kun! SORAN-KUN!"

"NANOHA-CHAN, HE'S THE ONLY ONE!" Fate yelled at her at point blank range. The brunette turned to the blonde, and observed the tear running down her cheek. "He's the only one who can do this. The only one with a Caster…. Soran-kun… is going to save us all!"

Nanoha gave up fighting, but she still stretched her arm out towards the rock as they dragged her back. "Soran-kun, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Hayate looked back as a tear flew from her eye. "Rein, take care of him."

Soran and Rein coasted low in the tunnel, paralleling the waves. "Okay, we're far enough away, desu."

"I'll leave the flying up to you then, Rein! Pagua sunfa, pagua sunfa, pagua sunfa, pagua sunfa." The cartridge glowed in his staff, and in reciprocation, so did points on the dark asteroid. It slowly began to move forward.

"Acceleration at 2.2 and climbing. Waveform approaching in 30 seconds desu. Standard deviation reduced to .0001." Rein halted the both of them as Soran continued chanting. The wave and the asteroid came closer and closer. "Flight unit power increase to 175 percent of normal desu."

"Pagua sunfa, pagua sunfa, pagua sunfa." 'It's not too late to bail out, Rein-san.'

'I'm not leaving you here alone desu.' "Prepare for acceleration in three… two… one…." The two of them throttled up at a diagonal just squeezing between the dimensional wave and the dark asteroid. Inches behind the boy, they slammed into each other, its energy breaking across the surface of the rock. "That did it!"

At the top of the Slipstream tube, the asteroid finished emerging, and the wall mended itself in a snap that sent a waveform across the tunnel. Alarms went off on the bridge. "Captain, another waveform approaching from 90 degrees!"

'We're almost done!' Tea yelled. 'We're just waiting on Subaru. She's got two more survivors!' "Caro, get across the bridge, hurry!"

She shook her head. "Tea-san, you go! I'll keep the bridge stable until Subaru-san arrives!"

"Make sure you get across, or I'm coming back for you!" She dove into the tube, and it ejected her into the arms of her comrades. She looked across at the girl just as the shockwave crept under the smaller ship. The invisible capsule surrounding the ship exploded into little shards of mirrors. "The shield!" Both ships rocked and pitched as they were raised high up onto the walls of Slipstream, pieces of the hull ripping apart from the lower decks. The bridge began to flit in and out. "Caro! Subaru!"

"Kerkcleon." Caro whispered calmly as she boosted the generator's power.

"I got them!" Subaru rounded the corner on Wing Road, the ship's orientation starting to become a problem. Caro jumped up, and she landed between Subaru's legs, as they dove head first into the Evac Slider.

They were instantly on the other side, toppling ten of their comrades with their momentum. "Bridge, we got them!" Zaphila yelled. The slider burst apart as the smaller ship was lifted directly over their heads. "Oh shit!"

"All hands prepare for emergency jump! Do it now!" Chrono yelled. He was thrown out of his seat by a jarring hit, and the world stretched out like a newspaper imprint on silly putty. The world snapped back together and Chrono was flung back to his seat. His ship was now in normal space.

Subaru grunted and rubbed her head. "Ow ow ow." She sat up and looked around. "Uh? Hey, where's Soran?"

The boy struggled against his staff. "Hey, Rein…"

"Mmm?"

"Where should I fire this thing? Pagua sunfa, pagua sunfa, pagua sunfa."

"Um… umm…" She scanned around in a panic. "There!" A target on the asteroid appeared. "Shoot there, Soran!"

He swung the staff around and pulled the trigger. "Bite shot!" He fired, and that jut in the rock was completely eliminated, save the Caster shells within, which were pulled to the mass by the gravity well. "Uh?" They both blinked, seeing a large bump of red metal sitting there, once hidden from view by the cliff.

Tea clenched her fist tight. "I'm sorry, Subaru. He went off on his own to divert the asteroid and the wave. He couldn't make it back in time."

"So… he's still in Slipstream?" Subaru's eyes went wide.

"Unh. We were planning on putting together a rescue team to get him, but…." A tear ran down her cheek.

"But…." Subaru's voice trembled.

Teana lifted Soran's cuff and put it into her hand. Caro gasped, whipping her hands up to her mouth as she watched. "He had put his tracer on a little girl that needed rescue." She balled her fists at her sides and lowered her head. "There's no way to find him anymore!"

"No…." Caro slumped to the floor shaking her head.

"It's not true." Subaru took a step back. "It's a lie! Tea, this is the cruelest prank ever!"

"Subaru… It's not…."

"Shut up! I can't trust a word that comes out of your mouth anymore!"

"Subaru…." A suffering female voice came from behind her.

The bluenette turned around and smiled beyond her tears. "Nanoha-san! It's a lie right? That Soran is…."

Nanoha knelt down and placed a hand on each of her shoulders. She tried to smile as she looked into the girl's eyes. Subaru could only grit her teeth as she tried to shake her head. The Commander pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm sorry." She whispered, burying her head in the younger girl's shoulder.

Subaru's eyes shot open wide. Her entire body began to tremble, and her eyes switched back and forth between yellow and blue. "Iyya… no… iyya." She raised her head up high. "SORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

"Uh?" Rein opened her eyes as lights turned on above her. She sat up, looking around at the gray and white metal. "Where am I?"

"On that ship we saw stuck in the asteroid." Soran said from underneath her. He rolled out from underneath the terminal she was lying on. "You passed out after we split our unison. I was pretty exhausted too."

"Oh. How long have I been out desu?"

"About 18 hours. I got 8 hours myself, and then I started on getting some environmentals going on this boat. Our barrier jackets were running low on life support." Soran's canceled out, returning him to his brown uniform. "I need to let it recharge, or else we're never getting out of here."

Rein's armor canceled too, and she shook her long hair out, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'm still exhausted. It felt like my very life force was being drained."

"That's what a Caster does. It takes a bit of your life force as a catalyst to the reaction. Usually it replenishes itself though. We were just wiped out from all those attacks we used before." Soran sat down and pulled a bar from his pocket. "I haven't looked through the ship yet, so all we have for right now is my rations." He broke off a piece and handed it to her. "It's not four star, but it's something."

"Thank you desu." She bit down and made a face. "Ugh."

"Hold your nose and you won't taste it." Soran said as he demonstrated, shoving down the bar quickly. He stood up and stretched. "You feel up to moving around, Rein-san?"

"Unh." She got up and fluttered around in the air for a second before dropping.

"Whoops!" He caught her quickly. "Guess you still can't fly yet." He opened his breast pocket and she climbed inside. After she was comfortable, they began to explore.

"What is this ship? I've never seen anything designed like this before desu."

"It's probably from the destroyed universe." Soran muttered as he turned down a hall, Garyu in his right hand, ready to fight if necessary.

"Eh?"

"Well I'm not surprised you never heard of it. Most of the records were lost in the Persean War." Soran slid open a door. "Ugh, it smells like kitty litter in here. About 20 years ago, a chunk of rock struck Perseus, where the shell I used came from. It was filled with them. The greatest Persean scientist theorized that a universe collapsed in on itself and created dimensional fissures in which pieces of that universe tore through the barriers until they hit something. Considering how many Casters are in this rock, this is probably a piece of that universe."

"Wow. That sounds amazing desu. Hey, what's that?" She pointed to a pink cylinder with eyes painted on it that was on the ground.

Soran picked it up. "A pet robot maybe?"

"Or a terminal system. Let me try to access it." Rein pressed her hand against it and her eyes flashed. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "It's a dependent. Probably like a maintenance bot controlled by a bigger system. However I did find the ship schematic."

Soran's visor flashed over his eyes, and the blueprint popped up. "From what I saw outside, that means this thing is half buried, nose first."

"The kitchen is to the left, and the bridge is above us and back. Which do you want to hit desu?"

"Let's check the bridge. I want to see if we can fly this thing out. If not, it will give us an idea of how we're doing on energy supply and life support." He found the stairs that lead up to the bridge.

The doors slid open, and a rancid odor wafted into their noses. They took a step in, and the lights went on. "GYAAAAAAHHH!" Rein screamed as she hid in his pocket. In three of the seats sat skeletons, hunched over their controls like they were waiting to take off.

Soran swallowed and took a look around. The bridge wasn't normal by any standards. The captain also seemed to be the pilot, sitting in the center of a raised portion. In front of him was one of the corpses, probably the co-pilot. To the left and right were most likely the gunners, which were also occupied by bones. Then there was a strange round metal hatch on the floor to the back left of the system. "They must have been skilled." He commented. "Nothing in this cockpit goes to waste." He looked up at a strange round readout that didn't seem to be doing anything. "Except that thing."

"These poor people desu…." Soran leapt up to the main seat. "S-Soran, what are you doing?!"

"I have to check the ship's status, don't I?" He sat down and pressed a switch. Nothing happened. "I hope this thing isn't broken." He hopped out of the seat and went to the copilot's chair. He saw a name scribbled into the plating underneath the skeleton. "Pardon me, but I need to check your readouts." He gently leaned it backwards and pressed one of the buttons. Again, nothing happened. "Don't tell me this one is dead too. No offense there um…." He looked at the name plate. "Jim."

"We're going to have to check the others too, aren't we desu?" Rein hiccupped. "Rein doesn't like skeletons."

"Well, I think we have to, since Jim here isn't giving us any…." He stopped in mid step. "Jim?" He rushed over to the right gunner and pushed its head back. "Aisha?" The left gunner. "Suzuka?" Soran wobbled, backing up and hitting the wall, his hand to his mouth. "This is impossible."

"Soran? Soran-kun, what is it desu? Your heart rate just doubled!"

Soran closed his eyes and saw the three stone stools of his past. "Jim Hawkins. Aisha Clan-Clan. Twilight Suzuka." Soran shook his head. "I can't believe what's going on right in front of my eyes! This… this is the Star!"

"The Outlaw Star to be exact." A mechanical voice spoke as the cockpit systems powered up. "And to know those names means you are not an ordinary human."

They both looked around for the source of the voice. "Soran, up there!" Rein pointed to the panel that he called useless before.

"I am Gillium Three, sentient computer to the Outlaw Star." The gauges tweaked as it spoke.

"Gillium…." Soran spoke in a whisper.

"FORM!" His devices mistakenly took it as an order and they formed in front of him.

"The Caster system as well." The computer spoke. "I must say I am impressed. Never did I think that those two would ever create a child."

Soran's head snapped up. "You know?!"

"Indeed. I know both of your parents, the captain and the interface. Though you seem to have inherited more of your mother than your father, of which I am grateful."

"What are you two talking about desu?! Stop leaving Rein out of the loop desu!" Rein leapt from Soran's pocket and started to float between them. "Oh, Rein guesses she can fly now, desu."

"Hmm? Fascinating. Is this your interface? I must say, they have made them much smaller… in multiple areas."

"In multiple…" A vein appeared on the little girl's forehead. "If you had a head, Rein would smack you upside it!"

"However they are not as emotionally restrained."

"Why you?!"

"Enough, Rein. I'm thinking this is just the way he's programmed." He put his palm in front of her and gently pushed her back. "Gillium…."

"FORM!"

"Oh, not again! Barrage, disengage shortcut word. Designate the standard as the only active keyphrase."

"Acknowledged."

"Now return to standby mode. Sorry about that, Gillium. It looks as though my father made a namesake for you."

"I suppose I should be flattered, but coming from him…."

"Will you please fill me in desu?"

"There's so much going on I need to sit down."

"The galley would be the best choice for that. Though the fresh foods have most likely rotted away, the dehydrated foods still are edible." The door opened and admitted a small gray cylinder running on an overhead track. "Follow me, please."

Rein bit into something that resembled a Twinkie. "So basically your biological parents were commanders aboard this ship desu?"

"For all intensive purposes, yes. But what it's doing stuck in this asteroid is beyond me. Gillium?"

"Yes, Soran? I found my main unit." The pink cylinder with eyes dropped down from the central track.

"What records do you have about winding up in this asteroid?"

"Checking." He beeped. "There are none. There is no record of an asteroid collision of any kind. And I never went offline either."

"Then bring up the last image of the cockpit you have before we boarded." Gillium opened its mouth and spread a viewscreen. The cockpit was lit red with warning lights, a young boy, a feline familiar, and what looked to be a Terran miko were hunched over their consoles. Soran blinked. "Rein."

"Hai desu!" She was next to him in a flash.

"On estimation, how long would it take for a person to decay into a skeleton like those on the bridge from the moment of death?"

"Rein doesn't want to think about it desu." Soran gave her a glare. "At least 200 years, if the conditions on the bridge were the same throughout."

"Gillium, it seems as though you have a memory gap of 200 years."

"But that's impossible. You yourself are proof of that."

"I know… I know…." Soran scratched his head. "This isn't making any sense. The ship my father said was floating out in space winds up being stuck in a piece of a dead universe in the middle of Interdimensional Slipstream, and is at least 200 years old. And I'm only 16."

"I'm sorry, but what is this Slipstream?"

"Use your aft sensors and look outside. We're in the middle of a naturally occurring high-speed interdimensional transit system that loops through the different known dimensions. The asteroid we're buried in is currently stuck inside of it, and unless we find a way, so are we."

"Unless we're rescued desu."

"We're not going to be rescued, Rein. I left my tracker with a little injured girl so Shamal would find her. Besides, with this thing in the tubes, it's too dangerous for any crew to enter Slipstream. I wouldn't be surprised if they ban slipstream travel until this rock is removed or destroyed. We're going to have to get out of this ourselves."

"Desu…." Rein sighed.

"Gillium, how are we on power and supplies?"

"Power we have virtually limitless. The nuclear-deuterion generator is virtually perpetual, and only needs a simple maintenance check every 40,000 light years. As for the supplies, I estimate two weeks worth of food left, as most of it has expired."

Soran sighed and scratched his head. "What about ship functions? Propulsion, navigation, etc."

"Propulsion is currently undergoing maintenance. I re-inspected all systems once you mentioned the time gap. It should be operational in a week. As for navigation, there are no stars to chart in this place. We have burn thrusters, but those have not been resupplied in a while."

"So basically, anywhere we go, it will be in a straight line."

"I thought that is what I said."

Soran put his keys on the table and raised his hands above it. A terminal appeared and he began typing on it. "What are you doing desu?"

"Adding a new function to Kiryu and Garyu. I'm just glad Shari left them opensourced." Soran kept typing. "I have a week to dig the Star out enough so we can push off. Then the next week, I'll have to mine."

"Mine?"

Soran nodded. "This asteroid is chock full of Casters. There's got to be a type 0 in there somewhere that hasn't been fired."

"A type 0? Even the captain couldn't get a hold of one of those. It was very rare and expensive."

"Yeah? Well my father wasn't sitting on a chunk of rock in the middle of nowhere, filled with Casters."

"Touche."

Soran put away the program. "Barrage, charge on the Barrier Jacket."

"80 percent. Damage to the jacket prevents any further charge."

"Tch. The cuff. I'll have to mine a few times a day then. Alert me when it gets to 30 percent. Set up."

"Acknowledged."

The boy's clothes morphed. "Stonesser!" Kiryu and Garyu spoke as they combined into a large, stone-eating drill.

"I'll be back."

Rein was bored, kicking her legs back and forth as she sat on the captain's seat. "Gillium, why does Soran need a type 0 shell?"

"The Type 0 Caster shell is a tesseract generator, enabler of transferring matter from place to place with a reliable hit ratio."

"What?"

"He means that it can generate a portal to outside the Slipstream." Soran came in with a towel over his shoulders. "Though I'm not skilled enough to get a pinpointed location since they're so rare, I can at least get us into open space."

"So that's why you wanted to save the ship desu."

"Ah. Our barrier jackets wouldn't last long enough for us to be rescued. We'd be dead in space."

"How goes the digging?"

"Slow. That stuff is harder than I thought, plus I have to make sure I go slow, or I run out of power too quickly." Soran sighed. "Gillium, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, Soran."

"Mom and Dad's room, could you show it to me?"

The room was silent for a while. "Follow me."

Gillium opened the door to a bedroom, and the lights went on. The condition was pristine, except a pile of laundry on the side. "Mom always liked things clean, and my dad the exact opposite."

"Indeed. How they ever managed to co-inhabit is beyond my computation."

Soran sat on the double bed. "They slept here, huh?"

"I believe they more entertained each other than slept on that piece of furniture. Only once did they have a night when they just slept in it. That was my last recorded day."

He fell onto it and curled up. "Mom… Dad…."

"Soran, what happened to your parents?"

"They were swept away during an interdimensional war. I'm the only one that survived." A tear rolled onto the bed.

"I see."

"Tomorrow, I'm going to move Jim, Aisha, and Suzuka, so we can bury them properly when we get home."

"That is very thoughtful of you. I am sure all three of them would appreciate…"

"Zzzzzz…"

"Soran?"

"Zzzzz… Dad… Mo… Zzzzz."