Turning Points

by Silveus

In the future, Nanoha and Company lead the TSAB as they track down the most Powerful Lost Logia in existence, but how did things end up this way, story examines the turning points they lead to the largest Inter-dimensional conflict ever.

6. Chapter 6

Notes.

Couple of things here again.

1st You'll notice that for the last chapter and this one, the glossary has not been updated. This is because I am currently restructuring it, or possibly just dropping it. Time will tell. Its been pointed out that I do infact explain most things in the story, so I figure things will be ok without it.

2nd This is another large chapter, weighing in at 21,000 words. A few people have mentioned that the chapters are overly large, and that that also slows down the updating process.

Starting next chapter, the new chapters will be roughly half this ones size, and instead of one giant plotline moving, I will split things up. There will be natural points where a reader could stop reading and then come back later without being forced to just quit in the middle.

3rd There is a minor change to last chapter in regards to the TSAB admirals position. She used to be comander of 6th fleet's 2nd division. She is now Sub-Commander of 6th fleet.

4th Timeline. My glossary has a timeline, but I want to put a quicker version here, it might help with some confusion.

2000- Jewel Seed Incident. Season 1

2001-Book of Darkness Incident. Season 2

2003-The Mobile Section 2 Incident. Part one of my story.

2007-The norse Cluster Incident. Part two of my Story

2010- The Jail Scaglietti incident. Season 3

2012-The Ares Incident. Part three of my story.

2024- the overthrowing and collapse of the Old TSAB. Part four of my Story

2045- the TSAB universal War

So, in 2024, 21 years after where my story currently is, or 14 years after season three, something happens to the TSAB that overthrows their government, and then they get locked in within the Blackout Field. They stay hidden for 21 years, long enough that the rest of the inter-dimensional soiceties have assumed that they were destroyed.

5th Reviews. I would like to thank NoblessOblige and drinker for the reviews. I've send messages to NoblessOblige so I don't need to respond here, but I would like to respond real quick to Drinker.

As the time line above shows, the point where the TSAB turns evil, happens in the future, 14 years after season three. Then TSAB isn't doing evil for the save of evil, they actually have a real reason, and they also have a very shaky justification for doing so.

Rest Assured, the reasons for the TSAB's trasnformation will be explained, just not for a while.

Chapter 6

January 19th, Uminari City, Earth, 17:05 UDT

It had been a long day, full of ups and downs. The mission to recover the Lost Logia had gone well enough, with the exception being at the end when it exploded into filth. From there it had gone to the first, mostly disastrous attempt at a birthday party, to a second, and this time much better attempt.

And now, Fate Testarossa-Harlaown, found herself sitting in her kitchen, remnants of her birthday party still visible, while Admiral Markly explained how a transport ship had crashed into the earth, and almost destroyed half of the planet.

"The outpost's sensors saw it strike the satellite and change course. Right as it was about to impact the planet, it activated a large Sealed Space Barrier. The barrier prevented damage and then the Ovila broke apart."

Admiral Winston Markly leaned back into the wooden chair and sipped at his freshly served tea. He seemed to ponder something for a minute before looking up with a curious expression on his face.

"Chamomile tea, with a hint of orange, no its more like, tangerine, and then about a spoonful of honey? Interesting, this is quite good."

Admiral Lindy…Mother, looked please that he enjoyed her…unique taste in teas. While serving everyone else there mugs, she responded to the aging Admiral.

"I am glad you like it. For some reason, my crew seems to think I have bad taste."

"I am sure it is nothing to be worried about. But, moving back to the matter at hand…"

He trailed off as he took another sip of the tea, and Fate took this time to try to analyze him again. Something about him was…she wasn't sure. She wanted to say wrong, but that was the right word. Nothing in particular seemed off, and he had done nothing to arouse any kind of suspicions, but still, she felt…something.

Fate had dealt with people who were like coiled springs, a threat of violence always there ready to burst into actions, she had met people who she was certain had never spoken a word of truth in front of her, but this Admiral was none of those things. She sensed no deception, no malice, no anger, no danger, but despite all of that, his aura seemed unnatural.

She would need to talk to Nanoha and Hayate about this; perhaps they could lay her fears to rest, or at the very least, confirm them.

"We contacted the ship's owners, Verzi-Tech Industries to learn about the cargo contents, and they were not very forth coming with details. I even mentioned a potential criminal investigation to get them to share details, but they were still very quiet about the contents, claiming it was a corporate confidentiality issue. It wasn't until I threatened to send a team of enforcers to go through their data that the finally caved in and sent me a cargo manifest. They also asked me to hold off on investigating the crash site until a representative of theirs arrives."

"Oh? And do you plan to do so?"

The two admirals shared a look at that, and then both chuckled to themselves.

"Of course not. I would have ignored them regardless of any other factors; however, the shipping invoice they sent me was cause for concern."

"How so?"

Admiral Lindy and Admiral Markly had gotten along just fine since they had been introduced. They seemed to share a lot in common, had the same views on many topics, and both were very dedicated to their jobs. They were like two old friends who hadn't seen each other for years. Unfortunately, that left very little for anyone else to add into the conversation. Fate had asked questions here and there, as had Nanoha and Hayate, but for the most part it was the two admirals who had done all of the talking.

"It seems that the transport was carrying some prototype mech infantry that were equipped with-"

"Excuse me, what are "Mech Infantry?" I am not familiar with that term."

Hayate had politely asked her questions, but like every time one of the girls had spoke, the two Admirals seemed surprised, as if they had forgot there were others in the room.

"Oh my, I should have explained that in more detail. You are a practitioner of Ancient Belkan magic right? And not many people have access to the technology to create them, but simply put, Mech infantry are mechanized constructs. There was a young Mage, about thirty years back; she made great strides in mass production of their control systems and power cores. I believe her name was… ah yes, Precia Testarossa. She was quite gifted."

Fate flinched at the mention of her biological mother's name. No one had brought her up since her trial had ended, and she had attempted to put that part of her life behind her. But those scars were still there, and the mere mention of her name when she was off guard was enough to cause a mild panic in Fate.

But she didn't want to worry her new mother or her friends, especially Nanoha, who was discreetly observing her out of the corner of her eyes.

Fate-Chan…

It's OK, I'm fine.

Fate refused to allow Nanoha to know just how shaken she had become and instead focused on the Admiral, and looked straight into his eyes. The gazes locked for a second, his deep blue orbs seemed to bore right into her, and then just like that, it was over and he looked away, continuing his explanation of mech infantry.

"But I digress, the transport was carrying some prototypes that were designed to have better AI and more battlefield options. Supposedly the transport was caring four different models, the only ones that were functional. Unfortunately, my people couldn't find any trace of them at the crash site. They were likely ejected from the transport, and were probably destroyed, but we can't allow them to fall into the hands of the natives, even if they are in pieces. And, although the odds are slim we also can't ignore the possibility that one or more of them might be partialy operational."

"So then, you would like to borrow our assets to search for the missing Mech Infantry?"

"Yes, exactly. The Terra landed about thirty local miles off of the coast and is assisting in the salvage operation, and all of my crew is tied up there. I can't spare a recon team to search for the Mechs considering time is an issue; we need to clean up the crash before the natives find it. Also, you are all familiar with the area; your expertise will come in handy."

"Very well, Admiral Markly, it would be our pleasure to help you in this endeavor."

The two Admirals stood and shook hands to seal their deal.

"I am glad to have your assistance."

"Umm, excuse me."

Again, and like every other time, the two Admirals seemed surprised to hear someone else speak. Both of them were already out of the chairs and in the middle of leaving the kitchen when Nanoha spoke up.

"If the ship crashed into a satellite, wouldn't Earth already know about it?"

Admiral Markly gave a hearty chuckle at that.

"Off course they do, that is why time is an issue. In regards to the satellite, I believe another nation, the Americans, released a statement saying it was a meteorite."

"Oh…"

Nanoha seemed deep in thought for a second.

"So then the U.S. knows what it was?"

"Hmm, probably to a certain extent, not that it was a space faring transport running out of control, but atleast that it wasn't a natural occurrence. However, a few of my people are taking care of that. They wiped the computer databases and destroyed any other records."

"What about the people who were working when it happened? Couldn't they spread rumors?"

"That wont happened, another team is convincing them that it is in the best interests to be quiet."

-Page-

January 19th, San Diego Suburbs, 17:04 UDT

He was falling, falling through a black inky expanse at speeds he couldn't even comprehend. But there was nothing to mark his progress, just that cold and sticky blackness that wrapped around him. So he continued to fall, tumbling out of control as he endlessly plummeted to the ground.

Then the blackness was abruptly replaced with blinding light and he clamped his eyes shut.

When he finally peeled back one eye, he found himself in a classroom, it at first seemed to be a college lecture hall, but he realized he was sitting in a desks, an elementary school's desk, a little folded piece of paper with his name written in blue crayon marked it as his.

He was alone in the classroom, the other desks, and there were thousands of them, were all empty. He attempted to stand and look around, but he was belted into the chair and couldn't move.

"THE TEACHER IS HERE, ALL RISE."

A booming voice shot out all across the room, originating from no single point. When it spoke, he had felt compelled to listen and tired to stand, but again, the belt prevented him.

Then, of all people, his mother walked into the class room, went right up to the podium and began shuffling papers. She stopped and looked straight at him, a look of disdain on her face.

"Why are you still sitting?"

The belts obviously, but for some reason he couldn't voice his thoughts and instead he just shrunk into his seat.

"I SAID, Why are you still sitting?"

"Aw come on you old bag, give it a rest, he's just a kid."

A new voice, this time from his side, and when he turned to look, he saw his father, sitting at another desk, drinking a bottle of whiskey.

"You stupid drunk, get out of my classroom."

And just like that, his father was gone, the bottle left to clatter on the floor.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

A banging, as if someone was hammering into wood echoed throughout the classroom. His mother ignored it, but when he looked for the source he noticed that he was no longer in the same classroom, now he was in a hallway. Lockers lined the walls, but there were no doors that led to rooms, and the hallway seemed to go on forever.

Then the lockers started to rattle, a great banging, all of them shaking at once, and over the racket another-

Knock, Knock, Knock.

-rang out.

In an effort to silence the lockers, which he was now convinced were crying, he attempted to open one, but they all were locked. Combination after combination were tried, all in vain. He spent an eternity trying the lockers, attempting any combination of numbers that he could think before finally, defeated, he gave up and punched the nearest locker.

Which promptly popped open. He explored the locker and found an old beat up math text book, and the crying temporarily stopped, temporarily. Once he had finished looking through the book, and finding nothing interesting, the crying resumed.

He punched another locker, and another, each time finding single things, a pair of gym shorts, an English essay, math homework, science work books, a pencil case; each time the crying would pause but then renew itself.

Knock, Knock, Knock

Finally, in frustration, he kicked one, as hard as he could. As pain blossomed through his foot, the locker popped open revealing a bunch of paper towels and something that was crying. He eagerly rummaged through the paper towels, anxious to find the source of the crying, hundreds of dirty pieces of recycled paper were pulled out, and then he found the source.

A singled severed head, which he recognized as his old 7th grade social studies teacher.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

His teacher looked up at him, wordlessly mouthing the words that he couldn't understand as a debilitating terror ran through him.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

The head strained its mouth, trying harder and harder to get through to him, and he now knew that the head was in fact talking, it was just a slight whisper that he couldn't hear over that infernal racket, the non-stop knocking.

Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock.

It was never ending.

Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock.

And increasing in intensity, encompassing the entire world. Everything he heard was that sound, everything he saw, tasted, smelt, and even felt, was all that knocking sound.

And with one finally knock, a loud bang, much louder than the rest, he jolted upward.

JJ Murphy shot forward, and tumbled out of bed, the memories of his dream fading into obscurity as his mind fully awoke. He was covered in sweat and gasping for breath, his two loose sheets were tangled across his legs.

Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock.

Just moments ago he had had no idea what the sound could possibly have been; now, he was completely sure that it was someone knocking on his door. A quick glance at his clock revealed that it was about 3:30, am. He had only gotten home about twenty minutes ago before he immediately passed out, the day's events had drained him dry.

Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock.

"Good God, I'll be there in a sec."

Someone was apparently about to break in his door, and since there was really only one possible explanation as to why, he wasn't really in all that much of a hurry. Twenty minutes of sleep was definitely not enough to refresh him, but due to the adrenalin from his nightmare, he was alert and aware, mostly.

JJ untangled himself from his sheets, decided that an undershirt and ruffled work pants were good enough, and then shuffled over to the door.

Knock, Knock, Knock, Kno-

"Dammit, I am at the door, stop hammering on it already."

The knocker got the message and stopped bashing at the door. With the racket they were making, the landlady would be having a cow, not that JJ really cared, the woman was way off her rocker.

JJ began the process of unlocking the door, which involved two chains, two dead bolts, one peg lock, and one more standard lock on the knob. This place was the only apartment that JJ had felt comfortable living in, it reminded him of his home when he was a kid, the poor little one to two room apartments that they had lived in. Sure, he hated that time from his life, and didn't really like his parents much either, but his cheap little houses had been his only refuge from harsh reality that had been his life.

So he was comfortable here, and genuinely liked the place, but it was still in a very bad neighborhood, and while crime was much higher than average, break-ins at this particular apartment building were rare. Despite that, JJ had a lot of expensive computer equipment in his room, his living room was dominated by a 52in plasma TV. Not being cautious in this situation was just inviting trouble, hence, the locks.

And the last lock was disengaged and JJ swung the door open, and came face to face with the expected man in a black Suit.

He was tall, taller than JJ at least, blond hair in a crew cut, sun glasses on even though dawn was still three or so hours away, and a newly pressed black suit. He was just about to start knocking on the door again.

"I said I was on my way, Christ. Wadda ya want?"

A typical government Suit, and there was absolutely no reason to be polite. He would dutifully do whatever his job was, and whether or not JJ acted like his best friend, or the biggest jerk ever, nothing would change. And really, this was all sorts of inconvenient.

"JJ Murphy?"

"Yup."

"Come with me."

"The hell? I just got to sleep. Its three am."

Instead of answering, he just stepped back and motioned for JJ to come through the door.

"Dammit, let me get changed first.

"There is no time. We need to move. Now."

"Fine, whatever."

This was ridiculous, some big wig had probably forgotten to ask some mundane and pointless question and was summoning him just to ask, "How confident are you in your poker skills?" But you can be rude to them, argue with them, but you cannot disobey the men in black Suits. So he put on a pair of beat up running shoes, grabbed his worn wind breaker, and followed the man out onto the 3rd floor deck.

JJ had been pretty sure that this was just going to lead to another round of questioning, they would cart him off somewhere and he would retell his story and that would be it.

His assessment changed when he walked out and saw the four soldiers, all in full combat gear, flak jackets, helmets, and big mean looking guns. They were all positioned around his door, or more likely, around the man in the Suit, and they all had their backs to him, as if they weren't focused on him at all.

"Cargo secured. Heading south to delta for extraction."

The Suit relayed that into his headset and then the soldiers closed in around and started moving down the deck towards the front of the complex. JJ was forced to move, otherwise they would have just trampled over him.

As they went down the deck, more and more of his neighbors started poking their heads out doors and windows, only to have rifles stuck in their faces until they back off. And the closer they got to the staircase at the end, the louder this weird rumbling sound got. JJ wasn't sure when he first noticed it, but at some point it had been there, a low rumbling, like a diesel truck makes when it's idling.

They turned around the bend and came to the little patio area that had a nice view of the courtyard, it was then that JJ realized he would have to move after this.

His land lady, the crazy old coot that she was, had redone part of the courtyard into a flower/vegetable garden, it was her pride and joy. Tomatoes, peppers, spices, sunflowers, roses, lilies, and so on. She had it all sectioned off; and she went crazy when ever any one so much as trespassed on it, let alone took a flower.

Currently, there was a Bradley armored fighting vehical parked there. Literally, right in the middle of the garden. Smashed vegetables and fruits were smeared across it's treads, and the source of that rumbling, was now apparently the tank's engine.

JJ also noticed a second tank out of the court yard, blocking one side of the road while the other was blocked by two humvees. Two more are the armored jeeps were positioned around another tank like vehicle, however, this one was lacking the turret.

And there were soldiers with guns everywhere. They were in the courtyard, in the road, across the street keeping bystanders back, on the decks and patios of the other buildings.

JJ numbly allowed his escort to lead him down the stairs and across the courtyard, he was dimly aware that his land lady was shrieking something about a security deposit, but he couldn't focus on it.

And then he was in front of the turret-less tank, or as he now realized, an armored personal carrier. A door on the side was opened and another man in the black Suit, this one with slightly gray hair stepped out.

"JJ Murphy?"

"Yeah…"

"Great. Get in. We need to get to Helix High for extraction."

The Suit stepped to the side and with one arm, motioned JJ to enter the APC, which he did with only the slightest hesitation.

He had been in a numb stupor before, but once inside, he finally grasped how large these things were. One would assume a tank is just slightly larger than a car, and if you were to assume that, you would be wrong. The APC was large enough to comfortably hold several people, which it was currently doing. As the Suit stepped in behind him and shut the door, JJ surveyed the room.

He countered two more Suits, both generic looking, and then in the front and back of the APC, stood two guards. The four soldiers were all armed to the teeth, and instead of the standard rifles that the other soldiers he had seen had been carrying, they were holding much bigger guns.

But he only noticed the suits and guards as an afterthought, he was more focused on the two other passengers. Off to the side, huddled in a corner sat Vinnie Decarlo, lightly crying, and sitting in the middle of the one row of chairs, was Harold Klein.

Harold, was like always, unmoved by events around him, but as for Vinnie, once he saw JJ enter, he shot up and ran over to him.

"JJ, thank God. No, no, no! They got you too! I bet they think we sold them out, they think we work for the Chinese. They think we instigated this whole thing somehow. JJ…they are going to make us Disappear, and I don't want to. What about my mother? If I Disappear who will take care of her? She can't take care of herself anymore. My God…JJ what should we do?"

Vinnie was shooting his mouth off a mile a minute, panic rising within him more and more as he went on. JJ knew from experience that to try to reason with him in a logical manner would get them nowhere; and that was durring normal circumstances, this was way out of the ordinary. Instead of trying to calm him down, the best way was to offer one irrefutable point and let him dwell on that.

"Don't worry man, if they were going to make us disappear, they would have done it more subtly. They just rolled up to my apartment building with tanks. If we stop showing up, do you really think nobody will connect being taken away in tanks with our disappearance?"

"But, but, but, what if they aren't thinking straight right now and don't realize it until after we Disappear? Then it will be too late."

The next thing to know about dealing with Vinnie when he is like this is to work within his delusions. JJ knew, again from prior experience, that you can't just tell him the whole idea is ridiculous, you need to focus on one specific point.

"The government makes people Disappear all the time, they got this down to a science, and with the work we do, they probably have more than one scenario already prepared to get rid of us."

"Five actually."

Both JJ and Vinnie quickly shot looks at the Suit who had just spoken; JJ's more confused and surprised while Vinnie's was more horrified.

"Just joking, trying to lighten the mood and all."

He did seem to be joking, but not in an effort to lighten the mood, both of the Suits and even the guards were looking at Vinnie with annoyance, apparently he had been getting on their nerves.

"See? I don't want to Disappear."

"You won't, he was just joking, and even if he wasn't, I bet none of their plans involve making a spectacle like this."

Vinnie was about to respond immediately, but paused for a second. He seemed deep in thought, then he shook his head and was walking back to his chair when he suddenly spun back around.

"I got it! They are gonna put us on trial! We were just arrested! Oh my God, they are going to legally execute us, just like the Rosenbergs. Are we going to get the Chair? Or will it be a firing squad?"

Before JJ could come up with a rebuttal, which was looking unlikely, this last delusion was looking like it had the potential to become reality, he was distracted by someone clearing his throat off to the side.

JJ, Vinnie, and even Harold all turned to look at the Suit with the gray hair.

"Special Agent Nelson, CIA. That Joker is Special Agent Harris and the other is Special Agent Rowan. Please sit."

JJ and Vinnie both obediently sat, the Suit spoke in such a way that the thought of arguing didn't even cross their minds.

"OK, we will be reaching the La Mesa Springs Shopping Center for extraction in about five minutes, but before that, I want to talk."

"Excuse me. I am positive that I heard you saying the extraction point was Helix High when I was getting in."

JJ tried to think back, it was literally only a minute and a half ago, but he had been so flustered that he couldn't remember exactly, but, that schools name was ringing a bell..

"You are correct Mr/ Klien. I did say we would be using the schools stadium as an extraction point. That was a decoy. In the event that anyone planed to intercept us, we have laid a small ambush at the stadium. Instead we will be taking a more roundabout route and then will stop at the shopping center where another decoy convoy will continue on, we will then be extracted via helicopter in the parking lot."

"Don't you think this is a bit much? If you were concerned we were going to run, a single car and two to four people would have been enough. Harold's the only one close to being fit enough to make a run for it. And if you really thought we were going to make a break for it, and prepared something in advance, were the tanks really necessary?"

"Let me ask you a question in return. And it is absolutely imperative that you answer truthfully, but just in case…"

The suit stood up, reached into his jacket, and then withdrew his side arm, which he then aimed straight at JJ's face.

"If the incident from earlier had been something you set up, it would have required one of two things, either the cooperation of all of you, or, someone would need the expertise to alter the programming of all of the computers in your office. The only people out of your group with that level of knowledge, is you, JJ Murphy, and also Doug Emmett. Now, I can offer complete amnesty in the event that any you either altered programs, leaked information, or even noticed anything remotely suspicious. However, if anything had happened, then that would have almost certainly made Mr. Murphy here the ring leader, and I cannot offer the same pardon to him. If anything, and I mean anything, had happened, all blame will be placed on him, and I will shoot him right this second."

The interior of the APC was dark, only lit by red lights placed every foot or so along the walls. It was also warm and humid, and a low rumbled, obviously the engine, vibrated throughout every surface.

JJ was thankful for all of that; it helped hid the signs of his raising panic.

He knew without and doubt that he himself had not done anything wrong, knew that he was in no way responsible for the events of a few hours ago, but, he couldn't be sure of the others. Doug, he certainly had the capacity to pull it off; he was second only to JJ himself when it came to expertise. And it was also possible that the others could have been feeding his terminal incorrect information.

It was possible, but he had worked with these people long enough, known them long enough that he was confident, that he trusted them to not do that.

However, with a gun in his face, he was discovering that while he did trust them, he did not trust them quite this much. He was not willing to bet his life on that trust, but unfortunately, he seemed to have little choice in the matter.

"I… we didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything."

"I concur, we did our job as we should, nothing more and nothing less."

The Suit just swept his gaze between the three of them, stopping at each person in turn to stare at them. JJ really hoped that he would trust what they were saying, really, Really hoped.

Instead, he pulled the hammer back on his gun, cocking it and getting ready to fire.

"I don't know…"

"No, No, No, please don't shoot JJ, he is my only friend. Please no…"

"There will be innocent blood if you shoot that man."

Vinnie began to break down sobbing and Harold looked away, as if he couldn't bear to see JJ getting shot.

JJ agreed, he also couldn't bear the sight of himself getting shot; he wished he had the luxury of looking away too.

"Hmm… alright, you seem sincere enough. And honestly, we didn't think that that was the case."

The Suit gently released the gun's hammer and returned it back to the interior of his suit. Harold just looked back to where he had been focusing before, and Vinnie became a giddy mess.

And JJ just stumbled back into a chair and collapsed.

"Now. In your expert opinions, could this have been some kind of hoax, or computer attack meant to disguise something's true motives? We know that something was up there, whatever it was did in fact collide with and destroy Bsat-2a. But other than that, we know very little."

JJ had opinions on that matter, good ones, ones that he thought were well thought out, and he did want to share them. But when he tried, all he could get out was a gargled cough.

Surprisingly, while he was chocking back nervousness and trying his best to not do things that would require a new pair of pants, Harold just sat there silently while Vinnie spoke up.

"I…I don't know. I… don't remember it all that well… Maybe Laura or Doug did something, but I don't think JJ would have missed it."

"Then what do you think it could have been? A space shuttled? A missile? A meteor? An out of control derelict satellite?"

"I… Maybe one of those? I am not sure… ICBMS don't reach an orbit of anything near that, and if it came from earth, then there should be other ways to check for it."

"It is possible that it was an asteroid. Our receiving station doesn't monitor things out that far under normal circumstance, but a meteor of that size should have been picked up by a SST or GEODDS. It should have never gotten that close undetected."

"Yes… Harold is right, it should have been picked up some other way before that. But… if it was skipped over, it might have been a meteor."

The Suit ran his hand through his hair, seemingly lost in thought.

"OK, so maybe on the asteroid. What about an old abandoned satellite?"

"Umm… it's unlikely. We track those too, and even though we weren't exactly looking, we should be able to tell if a large enough one was missing for some reason… I think."

"Also, it would have to be a very large satellite. The object stayed intact after colliding with Bsat-2a. it would need to be very solid to not break apart also."

"So then, if, hypothetically speaking, if that section of space had been searched previously, and no approaching asteroids were found. And it had been searched afterward, and none of the old satellites were missing, and we have nothing to indicate anything was launched from the surface, then what would your opinions be?

JJ still wasn't sure if he could manage words at this point, but even if he could, he wouldn't have anything to say. Those hypothetical assumptions had shot down all of his ideas. Vinnie seemed to be in the same situation, but Harold was looking kind of… JJ wasn't sure. Harold was hard to read at the best of times, and at this point in time, he could have been on fire and JJ would have had a hard time figuring out what he was thinking. Stress piled on top of no sleep and then potential death would do that to you.

"Anything?"

The Suit looked almost desperate, and then finally, Harold decided to speak up.

"Assuming what you said is true, then any possible, reasonable explanations are not valid. If so, we must then consider the unreasonable. In which case, I must suggest, that the unidentified, was in fact, an alien space craft."

It was amazing how Harold could suggest that with such a straight face. He seemed to honestly believe what he was saying, and that was only making it worse, if he had said it in any other way, they could have played it as a joke. If nothing else, JJ really hoped that Harold would leave it there, but of course, he didn't.

"If the object was not spotted beforehand, then it must not have come from that trajectory, in which case we have to assume that it was able to change its course. This coincides with its disappearance. The only possible explanations for that are that our monitoring system was compromised, or that the object itself did something. Even if we had just lost sight of it, there still should have been seismic activity from when it landed. Thus, we can conclude that the object did not crash, but instead landed, and that removes any possibility of it being a natural source, or an earth bound one."

It sounded so reasonable when said like that, it honest to god did, but it was still ridiculous. It just couldn't possibly be aliens. And even if it were, which there was no chance of it being, but even if, if it were, they still should have picked up an alien space ship, the Space Surveillance Telescopes were just too good to miss that.

Plus, an alien space ship isn't the same as an asteroid, there would be heat signatures and such. An asteroid might be able to fly in, assuming it had an impossibly erratic pattern without being noticed. But a ship, with engines, could not.

Unless of course it had a cloaking field or warp engines or something like that. And that would change this from being almost reasonable to completely unreasonable. Unfortunately, JJ suspected that that would be exactly what Harold suggested once the Suit offered any kind of contradictory point.

"So then, based off of what you just said, you believe it to be an alien space craft?"

"I do."

"What about you two? What do you think?"

"I, Uhhh, don't know… assuming what you said is true… then I guess what Harold said is possible. I, Uhhh, never liked science fiction."

Interesting, JJ would have pegged Vinnie as someone who watched nothing but science fiction and fantasy.

"Then what about you, Mr. Murphy?"

Truthfully, it did sound possible, in theory, but the idea of aliens was just too much.

"There has to be a more scientific explanation, that, or you're not giving us all of the important information."

JJ let that line fade away, and the Suit seemed to consider it for a second, and then he was about to speak up, but JJ, with more bite than even he thought he could muster, cut him off.

And you know what? I don't care if you are holding out information. Did you pull me out of my house just for this? You rolled up into my house in tanks to ask me hypothetical questions?"

"…Well, I guess I do owe you the truth… but, hold on, we are at the Shopping Center."

With perfect timing, right as he finished speaking, the APC rolled to a halt. JJ was mildly surprised, he hadn't even noticed that they had been moving, they must have started while the whole "Gun in Face" thing was happening.

"OK, the decoy team is moving out, we have about a five minute wait until the helicopters get here, and before they do, I need to run through what to expect and how we are handling this. But before that, I will answer your question."

"Sir, are you sure about this?"

The other Suit, the one who hadn't made a sound so far, spoke up, JJ had even forgotten they were there, both the Suits and the soldiers.

"It's fine. No harm in telling them."

"A'ght it's your call."

The Suit went back to doing nothing, for which JJ was semi grateful, his accent was sort of annoying.

"We didn't pick you up for another round of questioning. Well, that will happen, but it's not the main reason. Our main mission is to move you to a secure location, since you three are the only remaining records of the incident that happened."

JJ had no idea what he meant by that. There were protocols that prevented making hundreds of copies of classified things like this, but there should be some, they had been questioned for close to three hours before they had been allowed to go home.

"What exactly does that mean? There should be transcripts of our debriefing, and likely an audio recording."

"I didn't mean just the questioning, I meant all records of the event."

"What?"

"About thirty minutes ago, a major cyber attack was launched against the SCC's computer networks. We initially believed it was a DDoS attack attempting to prevent use of the server's, as such, we attempted to disconnect them from the network. However, that was only the beginning. The DDoS attack prevented us from accessing the data, and then before we knew it, the servers were infiltrated by hostile hackers. All data, everything, was wiped from all of the SCC's servers, and also hundreds of personal work station computers. And not content to stop there, before we could figure out what was happening, the cyber attackers reconfigured the servers to disable their fans and cooling systems, and to greatly increase their energy consumption, we lost more than half of our computer hardware."

"Sir, ETA on the birds is four minutes."

"Great. While we were still reeling from the cyber attack and the collapse of the networks, unknown forces infiltrated SCC main command in Colorado and physically destroyed the backups. And at the same time, in the San Diego branch receiving station, an unexplained fire erupted, trapping several officials in one of the basement sub levels. In other words, every physical record of the events was destroyed in the fire, every electronic record was deleted in the cyber attack, and every witness was killed. That leaves only the five of you with your firsthand accounts."

It was like getting sucker punched in the jaw; JJ reeled from the shock. He couldn't grasp the situation, an unprecedented attack on an American military instillation, how could that be? And now, it was possible that he would be the next target? A possibility with a high enough probability that it warranted tanks as an escort, he couldn't believe that, he couldn't even accept it as a possible scenario.

And Harold and Vinnie weren't doing much better. Vinnie was alternating between hysterical sobbing, panicked hyperventilation, and that robotic lack of emotions that he showcased earlier during the incident. Harold, who always, always had that stoic look, now had his face scrunched up in concern.

"Oh, God, I don't want to die… please, I don't want to die. What about my mother? Is she OK? What if they go after her to get me! You need to save her, we need to go back and pick up Mother."

"Don't worry, another team is picking up your family members. Mr. Murphy, our records show you have no living relatives, and Mr. Klein, your only brother still lives in rural British Colombia, Canada, correct?"

"Yes, that is correct."

"Hmm, yeah, mom died about…eight years ago, and dad got shot during a robbery two years ago."

"JJ, I didn't know about your dad dying, how come you never said anything about it?"

"We, uhhh, don't… didn't talk to each other since I moved out, a year before mom died. There wasn't even a funeral. He got shot by a Wawa clerk while he was trying rob the register with a broken beer bottle; its sorta not the thing you tell your co-workers about."

"Oh…"

"Anyway… What about Doug and Laura, your picking them up too?"

JJ had dealt with Suits in the past, several times in fact, and he was always impressed with how emotionless they were. He liked trying to get a rise from them, he would always act rude, be disrespectful, and general just be a pain. He had never gotten a rise out of one, not once. Something about the black Suit and the sunglasses just seemed to "Turn" emotions off. It was amazing.

"We are currently unable to locate Ms. Laura Goodman, when our team reached her house on the Otay Ranch, they found that it had burnt down. They discovered a body in the wreckage, but we have not yet confirmed its identity."

"Sir, ETA is now three minutes."

"Alright. As for Mr. Emmett, we sent a convoy out to his condo, but right before we picked you up, we lost contact with that team."

Really, it was amazing how he could just say that, say that their coworkers, that their friends, had almost certainly been killed, and to say it in such a way as one would comment of the weather, was just amazing.

"So…Laura and Doug are… dead? How?"

"We didn't start moving until after the full scope of the cyber attack was known. By that point, we suspect that they stole your address information from your data files on one of the servers. It was just their misfortune, or your good fortune, that they went after Ms. Goodman and Mr. Emmett first. Also, they both could still be alive; we haven't confirmed the body and we did discover that Ms. Goodman had a fairly well stocked hunting closet, and we found several rifles spread throughout her house. And we don't know what exactly happened to the team that went to pick up Mr. Emmett. They radioed in that they had picked him up, but then we never heard from them again, it's possible that something is just jamming communications."

"Sir, ETA is ninety seconds."

"OK, deploy a perimeter guard."

"A'ight."

"OK now, I need to go over this, so no more questions until we get in the Bird's. Now, we are taking you out in a Chinook, they are big and sturdy and the fastest things we have. And we are going to have an escort of four Cobras, they fast and mean too. Now we have this parking lot down tight, and we sent the decoy out, so we don't think anything is going to happen, but it pays to be prepared. The cobras are going to stand guard while we transfer over, and then will take flanking positions as we leave."

"Sixty seconds."

"The Chinook is going to land as close as possible to this APC with its door facing us. Once that hatch opens, the soldiers go out and cover us, then, the rest of us go straight out and up the ramp, into the bird. Once there, strap yourselves in and then we are going to bail. The whole process should be less than fifteen seconds."

"Thirty Seconds!"

"Once on board, we are going to go straight to Munn Field at Camp Pendleton. From there we are going to transfer over to a C-10, and we will also drop the cobras and instead pick up some F-15s as an escort. Then we head straight to Pearl Harbor. It's a secure location and we can more easily monitor who is coming and going on an island versus a big city like this."

"Fifteen Seconds!"

"Alright, everyone got this? I want this to go quickly."

"Ten Seconds!"

"I, uhhh, I am sorta afraid of flying…"

"Five Seconds!"

"Well then, you are going to need to decide what your more afraid of, flight, or dying. If you choose flight, you can stay behind."

"Birds here. Opening hatch."

JJ hadn't noticed it before, since tank interiors was not one of his strong points, but the back wall of the APC was actually a giant door that could be lowered to make a ramp. As the door finally opened fully, JJ was treated to a view of some parking lot. Their APC seemed to be parked diagonally in the middle of a road, according to the Street sign, it was Acacia Ave. Out and to the left stood La Mesa Billiards, and a little to the right, across a small driveway, was Diamond Nails. There were other shops, small stores, a pizza place and a Chinese food joint, but JJ was too busy focused on the less mundane activity currently underway.

Activity such as soldiers running around with guns, that was distracting, or like the Humvee parked in the pizza place's outdoor patio area. Oh, and there was that Bradley parked next to the Billiards place, and on the topic of La Mesa Billiards, there was also a helicopter hovering over it, presumably a cobra. JJ wasn't sure what that type of helicopter was, his military vehicle knowledge coming from the games he played as a kid, but apparently Cobras were large flying boxes of guns and rockets, because every inch of that thing looked like it could kill him.

And there was also that other helicopter, this one obviously being the Chinook floating a foot or so off of the blacktop. It had two sets of rotating blades, and it was also the size of a small city bus. The gray behemoth had a back door open, just like the APC's, and the second it touched the ground, a group of soldiers all swarmed out.

"GO! GO! GO!"

From his APC, someone yelled, and then the four soldiers inside ran out and joined with the friends from the helicopter.

"Alright. Move. Get in the bird and sit down. Fast."

The Suit bellowed in an effort to be heard over the roaring of the spinning blades, but his words seemed to have no effect, JJ, and he assumed Vinnie and Harold too, all just stood transfixed for a second. It wasn't until Special Agent Rowan grabbed his arm and started pulling him out of the opening that his body started to move.

Outside of the APC, the world was a whirlwind. The roaring from the blades was so much louder, and the wind was blowing all over the place. People moved around, but he couldn't hear anything. It was a vortex of action, and he was at the center of it.

Special Agent Rowan was dragging him forward while mouthing something that JJ couldn't hear. Behind him, Special Agent Nelson was gently leading Harold while Special Agent Harris was physically pulling Vinnie out of the APC.

It was all happening in slow motion, the sound, the wind, everything, JJ was moving though tar, everything pulling him back, preventing him from moving.

Then it all abruptly stopped.

A shiver ran through his body, a shiver that had nothing to do with the cool temperature. Then the wind stopped, completely, nothing moved at all, and there was no sound. The entire world just froze.

And then it was over, the world re-accelerated back to normal and JJ stumbled forward, pulling Special Agent Rowan backwards. The Suit quickly grabbed hold of him and prevented him from falling, but they both stumbled into each other.

And then there was the Crack. Like a giant balloon popping, or maybe a gunshot, but deafeningly loud. It pierced through his ears and his hands reflexively went to cover them, which only served to pull Special Agent Rowan more off balance, and this time the two of them tumbled down into a heap.

JJ landed on the Suit and then rolled to his side. He was hurt, he bit his lip, his palms were torn up, and his knee was throbbing. But despite all of that, he noticed things. Things like the fact that all of the lights in all of the nearby buildings were off, or that despite that, everything seemed to be glowing a dull light grayish color that let him see fine, or that sky was a different color, instead of the inky black lit by the glow of hundreds of street lamps and other lights, now it was a lighter gray, and it appeared to be covered in some kind of film. He could almost tell that it had dimensions now.

In fact, as he looked out over the tops of the buildings, he noticed that at some point he was just unable to see further. He should have been able to spot some of the larger buildings, or the at least the glow of their lights, but he saw nothing; just that grayish membrane.

Then things exploded.

Literally.

One of the Cobras was off to the side, on the other side of the little shopping center. JJ only saw it as it careened into his vision; spinning wildly out of control. The entire tail part was missing, it was just not there anymore. Logically, that loud Crack must have had something to do with it, but JJ couldn't see anything that would have led to that.

And then the rotor blades caught onto the top of Diamond Nail's roof. The Cobra flipped over once in the air before smashing into the corner of the nail salon. Somewhere between flipping, crashing, and then sliding down the wall, the helicopter started exploding. Part of the building seemed to collapses as the burning husk of the attack helicopter smashed into the pizza place's patio, launching burning debris towards the assembled soldiers and their Humvee.

To JJ, the world seemed to be jumping forward through time, almost skipping like a scratched movie. He was viewing the world through a series of still screens. First the helicopter appeared, then it flipped, and then it hit the ground. The soldiers all stared, then they burst into action, running every which way, some jumping behind things and pointing their guns around, other trying to pull their injured colleagues away from the burning helicopter.

Another Crack shattered the air, followed closely by another explosion. JJ turned and saw another piece of burning wreckage partially on the sidewalk.

"COME ON. MOVE!"

While JJ had been distracted, Special Agent Rowan had managed to get back on his feet and was now trying to pull JJ back up. The Suit's Lip was split from the fall, and his black suit was roughed up and a little dirty, but otherwise he was fine. Behind him, JJ could see that Harold and Special Agent Nelson had gotten ahead of him, Harold was already going up the ramp to the helicopter while Nelson had his pistol out and was covering the entrance along with some soldiers. But Vinnie was nowhere to be seen, and Special Agent Harris was missing too.

But JJ didn't have time to wonder about the missing Suit and communications specialist, because his own escort Suit was now dragging him towards the helicopter. JJ tried to turn to him and tell him he could walk, but he was immediately covered in some kind of warm liquid that splashed across his face.

Whatever it was, it tasted like metal and was making JJ sick, he frantically spit it out of his mouth and tried to wipe it from his face. Once he could see he looked down and discovered that his arms and hands were covered in blood. The thick liquid was dripping off of him and soaking into his clothes.

JJ gasped and almost threw up before stumbling back, he looked over to where he thought the Suit was, only to find Special Agent Rowan laying face first on the ground, three baseball sized holes going through his chest and a pool of red expanding out from him.

JJ screamed, a high pitched shriek of terror.

But he went unnoticed over the chaos. A man wearing what looked like a black trench coat was standing on top of the Billiards place. He was huge, clearly over six feet, and in each of his arms, he held a machine gun. But they weren't normal guns, they looked more like the guns that were on the underside of the helicopters, or built into the tanks. The base of the guns extended well past the man's arms and were big and bulky, then the barrels extended almost three of four feet. The guns fired with a deep thumping sound that was more felt than heard, and they released ugly brownish gold shells that were currently ripping apart the pavement, and any unfortunate soldiers who happened to be standing there.

The barrage of dark gold drew everyone's attention, they now had an actual target to focus on. A group of nearby soldiers opened fire upon the man, and nothing happened. They kept firing, unloading their magazines, but the man was unphased by their attack. Nothing even indicated he had been hit, it was as if all of their shots were missing, or being blocked.

Then one of the soldiers sent an explosive towards him, through JJ's panic, he couldn't tell if it was a thrown grenade, or some kind of rocket launcher, but it didn't really matter, it hit him and then exploded, engulfing the roof in smoke as all of the nearby windows exploded outward.

But the smoke cleared, and the man was still there, still releasing a steady stream of golden fire. He mowed down the soldiers who had been firing at him, swept his gun across the parking lot once for good measure, and then turned his attention towards the APC, his guns ripping through its armor for a second before something important inside was hit and then the engine exploded. A great burst of fire shot out of the open hatch and engulfed the two soldiers who had been using it for cover, one second they were both their shooting towards the man, and the next they were both charred and on the ground. The APC's front then exploded outward, and part of the side collapsed inward, but the man kept firing into the ruined transport.

Until his foundation was destroyed. The other Bradley came around from somewhere behind the APC and opened fire with its cannon and some kind of machine gun mounted on the turret too. The machine gun couldn't be differentiated from the other gun fire, but the cannon let loose with a loud booming; its shots shattering the building, each one ripping chunks out of the masonry until the building finally couldn't handle it and collapsed. The man was caught up in the ruble and disappeared in the dust.

But the light tank kept firing, hammering round after round into the broken La Mesa Billiards, that was looking less and less like anything resembling a building.

JJ just sat there on the ground, covered in Special Agent Rowan's blood, and watched the tank. Each shot, and it was firing a lot of them, maybe one every second or so, but each shot released a little plume of smoke or dust, JJ wasn't sure. Then these shell casings would pop out from somewhere, they were like the size of his hand, and they would just pop out and bounce of the front and then just fall to the ground. There was a pile forming, scattered shells were all over the place, but most of them ended up near the left tread, perhaps because of how the turret was facing, but a lot of them bounced off and landed there, right next to that man who was standing there.

JJ did a double take, just a second ago no one was anywhere near the tank, he had been watching it intently, and now all of a sudden, someone was right next to it.

And the guy was way too weird looking. For one, he was wearing a skirt, or perhaps it was a kilt, but regardless, it was black, cut open in the front and back, and went down to his knees, below that, he was barefoot. Instead of a shirt, he wore some form of shoulder padding, straps wrapped around his chest and then connected to pieces of gray metal on his shoulders and right under his neck. But he had sleeves, no shirt of any form, but sleeves, long black sleeves that lead into the gloves he was wearing, metallic gloves that wrapped around his hands but left his fingers free. And on each of his knuckles, he had a two inch metal cylinder protruding out.

The weirdo had to have been from some kind of costume party, and although JJ was confused as to how he had gotten there in the first place, he expected him to turn and run, since that is what most people would do when confronted with a tank that was firing live ammunition.

Instead, the oddly dressed man spread his legs and crouched low, as if he was preparing to receive a tackle. Then he lightly reached his left arm out, keeping it about an inch away from the side of the tank while he pulled his other back until his hand was even with his hip. Then he snapped his left arm back while spinning his hip and brought his right out straight into a punch.

For the second that JJ saw the motion and realized that the man intended to punch a tank, he was bewildered. That was just no possible explanation for that. Then, as the man's fist made contact with the tank, JJ bewilderment persisted, just for a different reason.

The entire punch was incredibly compact and tight, even to JJ who knew next to nothing about fighting, he could tell that the man had been skilled, still, he was punching a tank, no amount of skill would help. But instead of watching him breaking his own wrist on solid steel, JJ was treated to seeing a perfectly circular shock wave of air shoot out from the impact point. And then the side of the tank just crumpled.

A foot deep crater about four feet across just erupted onto the side of the tank. The tank itself was lifted off of the ground and thrown sideways for a second, until a second shock wave shot out and pierced the center of the indention, and then blew out the other side. Machinery, ammo, armor, and what JJ really hoped wasn't a helmet, shot out of the newly formed opening. And then, still in the air, the tank rocked to the side, its gun still firing wildly, and then began to fall. Right as the tank fell, its right tread just lightly touching the ground, the entire thing tore itself apart as its internal parts exploded into a giant fireball.

The man stood there, unharmed by the inferno he had created. He seemed uninterested in the burning tank, and instead just turned away, right towards JJ. Once he caught sight of him, the two locked eyes for the briefest second, and in response, a predatory grin spread across the man's face. Before JJ could see anything more, his vision was blocked by a wall of black.

Special Agent Nelson skidded to a stop right beside him, his gun spewing bullets towards the man. They were only twenty feet away, at this range one of the bullets had to have hit, and JJ expected to see the man fall to the ground bleeding.

Instead, the man's hands became a blur, disappearing only to stop in place for a second as sparks shot out from his metal gloves as the bullets bounced harmlessly off of it.

"Dammit!"

Special Agent Nelson reached into his jacket to pull out another clip for his gun, but the man was faster. He pointed both of his hands, fists tightly clenched, towards the Suit. The metal cylinder's tips began to glow brown, and then JJ saw the man's mouth move. There was too much noise to hear what he was saying, but it definitely did something. From each of the four cylinders on each hand, eight lances of brown light shot out.

Agent Nelson, maybe due to some sixth sense, abandoned his attempt at reloading just as the glow had reached its peak. When the brown light shot out, he was midway into a dive across the ground.

The shots flew all over the place, and despite his dodge, some of them cut close, too close. One slashed through his right sleeve while another cut through his left leg, and while still another left a trail of blood across his cheek.

He was alive, but on the ground, and now unarmed. And the man was now approaching again, he still had one of his arms out, that brownish glow was back on his knuckles.

And then he was falling back. A low humming, or more like a buzzing had started up, and a line of ruby red bullets were flying out from the big transport helicopter. JJ turned to see Harold of all people behind this big rotating gun, a steady stream of bright red metal flying out. But the man wasn't dead, a sphere of light brown was around him, flashing darker and then lighter as the red bullets bounced off and tore apart the surrounding ground. Whatever the sphere around him was, it was blocking the bullets and keeping him alive, but he was also being pushed back, losing ground as the ground itself was destroyed under the attack.

"Come on! We need to move."

Special Agent Nelson was back up, and despite a small limp, was now trying to pull JJ towards the helicopter; and this time he didn't resist.

They had both moved a foot towards the helicopter when they stopped short, three bright neon green orbs of light, about the size of beach balls, lazily flew overhead. The floated over JJ and Special Agent Nelson, then looped around past the APC and then went right past the surprised soldiers and up the transport helicopter's ramp.

There was a moment's pause, and then the massive helicopter erupted into a giant neon green blast, and then was gone. Just gone, nothing at all remained, there was a perfectly smooth craters and the helicopter and soldiers were just not there anymore.

With a start, JJ realized that Harold had been there a second ago, and now he was gone too.

"Dammit! Harris, where are you? Harris?... Alright, Good Luck."

"Harold…where's Harold?"

"Come on, we can't stay here."

"Harold died. Where's Vinnie?"

"Mr. Decarlo is with Agent Harris, over by the cars. Now we need to move."

JJ looked out across the parking lot, across the crater that used to be a helicopter, used to be Harold, on the other side was a line of a few cars, normal ones. Behind one of them, a red SUV, JJ could just about make out a black humanoid shape, likely the Suit, and next to that, was a small person, who had to be Vinnie.

JJ breathed a sigh of relief as Agent Nelson started dragging him towards the burning piazza shop. All of the soldiers in this area were killed, either by the crashed helicopter, the man with the two guns, or the weird man that punched through a tank, who JJ noticed, was also missing.

They were navigating around the wrecked Cobra when the Billiards place seemed to explode. There was no actually explosion, no fire, no loud boom, but pieces of it violently erupted out and into the sky. And as the dust cleared and the debris still fell, the man in the black trench coat with the two guns stepped out, looking completely unharmed.

He didn't even wait for the building pieces to settle back down, he just immediately opened fire across the parking lot, towards the line of cars that was currently protecting Vinnie and his Suit. The hail of dirty gold shots practically went through the cars, sheering pieces off of them until something flammable was hit and then they would burst into flames.

The first car struck by the attack had just barely finished falling apart when Vinnie ran for it. He took off in dead sprint across Acacia avenue and towards the church on the other side. Special Agent Harris hesitated for a second, or perhaps he was just giving orders to the few soldiers around him, but then he shot of after Vinnie.

The soldier who remained all turned and fired upon the man at once, which only served to make him target them first, and after only a few shots, the soldiers were all dead.

But they bought time, Vine was already in the road and Special Agent Harris was close behind. The two dodge pieces of burning wreckage from another one of the helicopters and chunks of debris from the destroyed Pool Hall. To continue firing at them, the man with the guns would need to loop around the building, or climb over it, but by the time he did, they would have made their escape.

Special Agent Nelson pulled JJ into a corner by the cobra and motioned for five soldiers to come and join them, once they got there they began discussing something that JJ ignored, he was too focused on Vinnie's escape.

In a second or two they would reach the church and would be safe, well at least safer than they currently were, and there was nothing the man could do.

Or apparently there was. Instead of climbing through the ruble or going around it, he levitated straight up into the air. JJ felt his mouth fall open, and beside him, Special Agent Nelson stopped mid sentence and watched the sight silently.

Across the ruined parking lot, others who were dealing with their own issues were all able to spot the man too, but at least one entity managed to keep their wits about them and did something about it. The sole remaining Cobra, which had been staying on the outskirts of the lot, banked around and flew strait towards the man, its main gun pounding round after round into the man.

The man himself had just released the first of his shots towards Vinnie and the Suit when the metal shells would have slammed into him, but instead, a brownish gold sphere of light formed around him and blocked the bullets. They hit him hard enough, or they hit the barrier hard enough, that despite the fact he was floating in mid-air, he was pushed off balance and his own shots went wide, blasting holes across the road, blowing two palm trees apart before shattering one of the church's walls and then doing the same to the roof.

The pilot of the Cobra, who was showing way more adaptability to this situation that JJ thought was ordinary, quickly realized that the machine gun he was using was not going to cut it, the man was already righting himself and bringing one of his guns around and towards the helicopter. Instead of continuing on towards the man while firing the gun, the Cobra instead pulled up, bringing its nose towards the man, and then released every single remaining rocket or missile it had left.

Over twenty pieces of explosive streaked out towards the man, closed in on him, and then exploded.

JJ was knocked off of his feet and into Special Agent Nelson by the force of the explosions. All around him, any intact windows shattered and some lighter pieces of debris were thrown from the shock wave. Even over the existing inferno of the nearby fire, JJ could still feel a wall of heat from the explosions.

Just as Special Agent Harris was picking himself up off the of the road, and Vinnie had just made it into the church, the last remnants of fire and smoke receded from the air, revealing the original man and two others, all floating, and all unharmed.

One of them was short and stocky, but all muscle, he had a tight fitting gray jumpsuit pulled across his body, but the center of his chest and back was open. He had bulky black metal armor over his shoulders, elbows, knees, and feet, and was currently holding a huge ornate sledge hammer that was about the same length as his body, with the business end being the size of his chest, the top of which was currently glowing a light purple.

The second newcomer was also small, but he lacked the other's impressive physique. He was thin and lanky, but most of his body was hidden by a brown baggy robe that wrapped around his shoulders and from underneath he wore equally brown and baggy pants. This one, instead of a hammer or gun, seemed to be holding a completely ordinary staff, just a wooden stick.

Despite his normal looking appearance and the fact that he looked a lot like a mid-evil era monk, the was clearly the least ordinary out of all of them. Originating at the tips of his outstretched fingers, was a giant complex series of neon blue lights. The lights all formed a giant circle with squares in it, and the entire thing was moving. It had to be some kind of light projections, but it must have also had physical mass, because it seemed to have blocked all of the missiles that the Cobra had fired.

The Cobra, again showing remarkable adaptability, immediately gave up its attack and banked sharply to the side. Which turned out to be an excellent decision, right as it made its turn, the man in the robe made the weird floating design go away, but in its place, four large blue orbs appeared. The first streaked out and just barely missed the tail of the helicopter, while the second missed by a wide margin. Then, instead of releasing the next one right away, the monk seemed to be lining up his next shot.

Unfortunately, it made no difference, his last shots came closer, but still missed, instead slamming into what appeared to be an apartment building as the helicopter flew behind it and used it for cover.

The Cobra zipped out from behind the building, its machine gun firing wildly, and then it fired off two missiles that it had apparently kept in reserve. The monk chose to not rely on the light symbol for protection, instead he shot out more of the neon blue light and used them to intercept the missiles.

The helicopter, having realized that it was outclassed, banked again and attempted to run. It shot out over the road where Special Agent Harris was still taking cover, and then went to go over the church, but instead it stopped abruptly. Neon blue chains had appeared out of nowhere and lashed out towards the retreating aircraft, they wrapped around its tail and body, pulling it back and holding it in place.

Sadly, helicopters are not the kind of thing that can just be held in place like that. A loud shrieking sound, the sound of metal being torn apart, echoed across the lot, and then the helicopter's tail came loose. The Cobra spun madly out of control for a second, before it abruptly changed course and plummeted straight towards the ground, and straight towards Special Agent Harris.

The Suit saw the approaching helicopter, and tried to run, but he was nowhere near fast enough, and he was caught up in the explosions from the downed Cobra as it finally hit the ground.

And above the crash, the man with the hammer created one of those light symbols underneath himself while he floated in mid air. The glow on his hammer intensified until it was almost blinding. And then with a mighty swing, he hurled his hammer with all of his might, straight into the church.

For a second, JJ was able to see the hammer smashing through the roof, but then his sight was obscured when the entire building erupted into a massive pillar of purple light.

Before he could even shield himself from the blinding light, it had already faded, leaving behind nothing but a crater, every trace of the church was gone, only the sign outside reading "First Baptist Church La Mesa" remained.

Laura, and Doug, even Harold, and now Vinnie, it was too much for him to handle. But maybe, maybe they weren't all dead. Special Agent Nelson had said it back in the APC, they hadn't confirmed either of their deaths, so there was still hope. Harold, well, there wasn't much to say, maybe… JJ didn't fully understand how the green orbs had destroyed the transport helicopter, so perhaps it hadn't? But that didn't make sense, and JJ couldn't rely on that.

And then maybe Vinnie was alright too. How long had it been since he had gone into the church? Was it long enough for him to have run through it? Maybe he made it to a basement, that was a mostly reasonable choice, either hide in a safe spot or keep running, Vinnie should have done one of them. But what if he hadn't made it that far? What if there was no basement? What about a locked door? What if he tripped? No, he had to have made it. JJ had been distracted watching the helicopter, but enough time should have passed for him to have found a way out of the church. Plus, from his current vantage point, JJ couldn't really see the extent of the damage to the church, maybe the blast just looked larger than it was, also, it wasn't a traditional explosion at all, perhaps it was really weak.

Yeah, they were all alright, Vinnie was OK, Laura was OK, Doug was OK, and that guy on the transport probably only looked like Harold, it wasn't really him, so Harold was OK too. None of his coworkers, none his friends, were dead or hurt, they were all OK, Doug, Laura, Harold, Vinnie, they were all fine.

He had to believe that, because if they were dead, what would he do? So he just repeated that mantra over and over to himself.

"Laura is fine, Doug is Fine, Vinnie is fine, Harold is fine. They are all OK, they are all fine, they are all safe, it's OK, no one died, Laura is fine, Doug is fine-"

"SNAP OUT OF IT!"

The sound of flesh hitting flesh rang through JJ's ears, and he suddenly found himself sitting down, a stinging sensation going through his face. In front of him stood Special Agent Nelson, his hand raised and ready to deliver another blow, but when he saw that JJ was looking at him, he paused.

JJ slowly raised his hand and cupped the side of his mouth where he had apparently been hit and tried to figure out why he had been hit in the first place. He had been outside just a moment ago, but now he found himself in what appeared to be a Laundromat. Special Agent Harris was there, his trademark suit torn in several place, a trickle of blood coming out of his cheek, and a much larger splotch of blood was visible inside of his jacket. Behind him were three of the soldiers, all were focused less on him and more on the door that was in the corner. The door itself was barricaded, what looked like a washing machine was overturned in front of it.

"What…What happened?"

"Lots of things. You were out of it for a bit there. Are you good to move?"

"I…I don't know…maybe?"

JJ tried to stand, but found his legs were too shaky to fully support him, he started to fall but the Suit grabbed his arm and steadied him.

"Might have hit you too hard there. You OK?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

"Good, now there is a trap door over there that leads into the backup generator room under this shopping center. The basement should be safer, any second they are just going to start blowing things up again. All the buildings are connected, so we will sneak out and try to hide. They are jamming our radio somehow, but if we can get far away we should be able to call for support. And if nothing else there is a police station nearby, I don't know why they haven't done anything, but if we can get there we can use a police car to get out. But first we got to get out of here alive."

To punctuate that statement, a line of brownish gold shots broke through the wall, catching one of the soldiers in the shoulder and blowing his arm off. He gave a scream and started to fall backwards, but another shot hit him in the chin and then he went silent.

The other soldiers all turned and fired their weapons into the wall that had been breached, even Special Agent Nelson squeezed of a few shots as he drug JJ over to the trap door.

The door itself was just a metal latch that lead to a ladder that extended down into a nearly pitch black room. JJ couldn't see anything down there, and it was very creepy, so he hesitated. The Suit, not having time to spare, just shoved him down the ladder. JJ stumbled and fell, rolling across the hard and damp floor before hitting something that seemed to be metallic. Special Agent Nelson then slid down the sides much more gracefully. Once down he pulled out a flashlight and illuminated the room, revealing the metallic object to be a water heater. Behind the Suit, one of the soldiers climbed down, and before shutting the hatch, he threw a grenade out and then firmly locked it.

As the blast form the grenade died down, JJ realized that the other soldier had been left upstairs, now there were only three of them, but he had no time to worry about it, Special Agent Nelson pulled him off of the floor and started dragging him towards another door.

They all entered the room, this one seemed like a simple storage room, boxes and crates were all over the place. The soldier closed and locked the door before pushing one of the crates in front of the door.

He was just dusting off his hands after moving the box into position when a thin piece of metal pierced through the door and into his shoulder. He stumbled back a step as the metal spike receded from his body and then opened fire with his gun, the large machine gun tracing a line of bullet holes through the door and wall. Even as he fell backwards onto the floor, he never stopped firing.

Special Agent Nelson ran up and fiddled with something on his back, then yanked a box off of his hip before turning back and running towards the next door, pulling JJ with him.

With the machine gun still going off in the next room, JJ couldn't hear what the Suit was saying, but it didn't matter. In front of them were two doors, one of which was locked. Special Agent Nelson shot at the knob, blowing the thing off, but the door must have been barred from the other side and still wouldn't open.

Instead they went towards the other door, another bullet to the knob and the door popped open, revealing a staircase going up. Special Agent Nelson growled out something that JJ couldn't here, but he didn't sound happy, and then they went up the stairs, JJ stumbling in the darkness.

They were half way up the stairs when the machine gun fire stopped and was replaced a moment later with quieter single shots.

"Good, that's his side arm, so that room hasn't been breached yet."

But by the time they reached the top of stairs, the gun fire had stopped. JJ really hoped that it was just the man reloading. Oddly enough, Special Agent Nelson pulled some kind of switch out of his pocket and hit a button, and then immediately after, a loud booming explosion rocked the building.

As the explosion died down and dust stopped falling from the cracks in the brick walls, the Suit dropped the trigger on to the ground and then shot open another door without even trying to unlock it.

They came out in a small storage closest, which they immediately left through another door, now they were in what looked like a large kitchen.

"Where are we?"

"Chinese food place, I think it was called China Wok Buffet."

"Oh…"

JJ watched as the Suit placed the box that he had taken from the soldier and set it down in front of the door, which he had already shut and locked.

"What's that?"

"Claymore, it's a mine. I doubt it will stop them, but it might slow them down."

With the claymore now propped up against a stack of bowls, Special Agent Nelson did something that JJ assumed turned it on, and then walked back over and started pulling JJ towards a door to the main dining area.

Once through the door, the Suit came to a dead stop.

"Damn"

"What?"

He didn't even need to ask, the problem was obvious. The Chinese food place had pulled down large metal grates over the windows and doors, they were all secured with very large padlocks that looked unbreakable.

Special Agent Nelson went over to one and pulled on it to no avail, he was about to shoot at it, but thought twice about it, and then stopped to survey the room.

"I can't break that with this gun, I'd need a rifle, so we can't go that way."

"Then…what do we do?"

Instead of answering, the Suit walked over to one of the tables and pulled the chair off of it. As he was making his way over to one of the buffet tables JJ noticed he was limping, and that the red spot on his shirt seemed larger. He set the chair up behind the buffet table and sat down on it, using the table to rest his arm on as he kept the gun trained on the door.

Another booming explosion rang out, this time the sound wasn't blocked by the sturdier basement walls, and JJ clapped his hands over his ears.

"Get over in that corner, stay away from me. Maybe if you're lucky, they will somehow break down one of the walls."

JJ did what he was told, running straight over to the corner, knocking chairs and tables over in his haste. He huddled up in a ball next to a fake potted plant and a small table, and then he just waited.

For a while, nothing seemed to happen, after the explosion nothing came running through the door, bullets didn't fly through the wall, nothing. He was starting to hope, ever so slightly, that maybe, the claymore had killed the pursuer.

Then he jumped, the floor was wobbling, like waves on the ocean, the entire floor was rocking back and forth. As he watched he noticed that it wasn't only the floor, but the tables, walls, and even ceiling were too.

JJ almost thought he was hallucinating, but Special Agent Nelson was looking around confused too.

Then the floor went even more crazy, tendrils of the building reached out, taking shape and moving throughout the air.

Then the tendrils, along with the changed buffet, all wrapped around Special Agent Nelson. He was bound in liquefied floor, pulled out of his chair and lifted off the ground.

And then the door was kicked open, and a newcomer walked through. He was deeply tanned and wore cargo shorts, bright red with a camouflage pattern on them. He wore a white tank top and had a shoulder high brown leather glove on his right arm. He also was holding a fencing saber.

"Nasty, sacrificing that soldier with a bomb like that. Shame too, cause it didn't really do much. It did make me think tho, so I caught that other mine you had behind that door. Real shame too, cause that one woulda caught me off guard too, and had some decent stopping power."

The man walked slowly walked up the Suit, every once in a while he would lightly slap chairs or tables out of the way with his sword. The sword was in all respects an average looking fencing sword, it would bend when he swung and everything, but when it hit the furniture, the chairs would be flung across the room, sliced into pieces.

"What, nothing to say?"

Special Agent Nelson struggled against his bonds, but made no progress.

"Ah that's right, what appears to be carpet is wrapped around your head right now, let's pull that back a bit."

The liquid building retracted from the Suit's face, allowing him to speak.

"Go to Hell."

"Great, good words. Shame, from where I come from we don't have a concept of afterlife. Some more superstitious people still believe in that, but in my opinion, they are all fools."

As he was talking, the building wrapped back around Special Agent Nelson, and seemed to constrict. The Suit struggled again, but to no avail. Then there was a sickening, crunching sound as his body was being crushed. Loud snaps echoed through the room as his arms and leg gave way under the pressure. A dripping sound started and then rapidly increased in intensity until I was a constant stream. With a final wet and soggy crunch followed by a loud splatter, the man stopped talking.

"Oh, you're dead, how sad. I did want to talk to you some more, and now I can't. This is why I hate dealing with non-Mages. With all your toys you are dangerous, but take them away and then you are all so frail."

The floor opened up, releasing the broken body of Special Agent Nelson, he hit the ground in the center of his own blood with a disgusting plop, and then was still. JJ couldn't bring himself to look, it was just too much, all of it was just too much.

"Well then, moving on. I guess I gotta deal with you."

He just couldn't deal with this anymore. Doug was missing, probably dead, Laura was just waiting on confirmation, Vinnie was most likely still in the church, and Harold disappeared right in front of him. They all died, all his friends, even his superiors in the station, and who knew how many others? All of those soldiers, the helicopters, tanks, the Suits, all dead.

"You OK man? I know I am here to kill you and all, but you're all shaky."

Then the SCC was infiltrated, their computers and servers were all destroyed. None of this should have been possible, none of it. How could they have been attack, how had every one died? It wasn't possible.

"You're crying man. You gotta pull it together, I don't like killing pathetic things like you. I mean, at least try to make a run for it."

Then he had a epiphany. It wasn't possible that the SCC was attacked like that, it was impossible for his friends to be dead. It couldn't have happened.

"Aw crap, now you've gone crazy, that giggling is creepy dude."

Logically, none of that could have happened. And logically, the events of the past… however long it's been, couldn't have happened either. People cannot punch holes though tanks, cannot fly, cannot create weird lights that block missiles, cannot block machine gun bullets, cannot survive collapsing buildings, cannot destroy entire churches. Yes, it all made sense, none of that was even remotely possible.

"Man, killing crazies is just as bad, but it's whatever."

And when he thought back, this all started in a dream anyway, he had just assumed that he had woken up when the banging on his door had started, but now, it was obvious, he never had woken up.

"Well I would ask for last words, it's an honor I reserve for targets, but well, I don't think you're going to say anything meaningful now."

"It's all a dream…"

"Yeah… sure, whatever. It's a dream man."

Logically, it had to be a dream, that was the only possible solution. In a few hours he would wake up, probably covered in sweat, and be done with this. He'd take a long hot shower, water bill be damned, and then he would forget about it by noon. Or maybe he would tell it to someone else, it had all been a very interesting dream. And I he was really lucky, perhaps he would wake to fine that the entire thing with the unidentified was also part of it, yeah, that would be best.

"Heh, it all just a dream, none of this is real."

JJ Murphy kept repeating that to himself over and over again, even as the thin sword pierced through his ribs and punctured his heart. He gargled a bit as the blood spilled from his mouth, and then he was dead.

-Page-

In the center of the ruined parking lot, four figures stood unconcerned about the surrounding carnage, another was off to the side, digging through the rubble.

"You gotta work on that, its powerful, but if you need to spend half an hour sorting through rubble looking for your device, it's sort of not worth it at that point."

The short and stocky one in the black jump suit answered without pausing his search.

"Yeah, this sucks. One of you could help me tho. Would finish up faster. And there isn't much else I can do with that spell. It's too unstable to use as a ranged spell, and if I use it up close, I get caught up in it."

"Once Poaroxis gets back, he'll dig it up in no time, just wait for him."

The man stopped his search and sat down on one of the larger chunks of rubble.

"We really did a number here. When's the clean up team coming along?"

"Not until we get back to the Terra, they can't spare any people. So don't get comfortable, once we get back we are working on the recovery effort too."

"That's just fantastic. That's exactly what I want to do now; recover a downed transport from who knows how many feet under the ocean."

"Stop complaining about it."

"Anyway, what about the support team? Are we just leaving them alone?"

"The clean up team will be here within minutes after our extractions, and they are bringing some of those new defense turrets. They'll be fine."

Silence resumed between the assembled mages. They all patiently waited, slowly walking around, kicking rubble out of their paths.

"Ok, Where is Poaroxis? This is taking him to long."

"Maybe he got killed?"

"That's not even funny.:

"Sure it was, Poaroxis is an idiot."

"Not what I meant. The part about him being dead was funny, the part where you implied that the locals could kill him, that wasn't"

"You don't think they could?"

"Course not. Science tech is no match for magic in the first place, and these guys were low end units from a low end dimension."

The big man in the trench coat hadn't spoken up, instead he had been focus on removing debris and dust from his device., but now he let loose with a loud hearty laugh.

"Haha, that was good. You spent the entire fight behind buildings on the outskirts sniping. Why don't you try blocking some of those tank shots? Even through the rubble, the ones that hit my barrier hurt."

"Yes, I have to agree, that rapid fire cannon was firing a remarkable amount of shots, in fact, if you hadn't taken out that…thing…helicopter, that's what they are called, if you hadn't taken that out, I might have died. Of course, if I hadn't been caught off guard, I would have used a shield instead of a barrier and would have been fine."

"Isn't that your fault for getting blindsided?"

"Hah, not at all. That tank surprised me, and so did the helicopter there at the end. There is no magical reaction to sense, so you don't know what's coming. And those shots all travel almost faster than the eye can see, I know the tank rounds did."

"I think you two were just taking this too lightly."

"I disagree."

The only other one who had remained silent, was the Monk, but he know broke his silence.

"The helicopter's sub weapon was decently powerful and could have easily pierced through a barrier. The missiles it fired do not compare to magic based weaponry, but they were still destructive. Also, you shouldn't forget, despite the fact we were ourselves rushing around and strapped for time, we did ambush them. And while we had knowledge of their systems, they knew nothing of what we could do. In a traditional fight, even against these units, they would have been a much more dangerous foe."

"I don't know, even if their weapons packed a punch, they were still way too frail. It's like they didn't even consider defense when they build these things. If their weapons really were that strong, then if they had fought themselves it would have been a slaughter."

"I think that's common on this planet. Defenses are too weak, so they rely on first hit kill weapons. There actually have a lot in common with our navy, big guns and weak shields."

The assembled mages all chucked at that.

"Yo guys, what's so funny?"

A new mage slipped out of the ground near the group, he just popped up through the broken pavement. He still had his barrier jacket up, but had since recalled his device back into storage form, the fencing saber now just a metal rod attached to his belt.

"Poaroxis, thank the stars, help me get Steel Smasher out from under here."

"You gotta work on that spell, or at least install some kinda recall function. "

"I've been trying to install more stabilizers on him, if I can make it into a short range attack it'll be fine."

"Yeah, but until then I gotta keep digging it out of the ground, now where is he?"

"He is three meters over from where I am standing and six more down."

With out responding, the mage summoned a light pink Mid-Childan array beneath his feet. Moments later, the ground three meters away turned to jelly. It pulsated for a second before a massive sledge hammer floated to the top and bounced out with a small "Pop" then the ground went back to normal as the weapon clattered to the ground.

"Steel Smasher! I missed you."

The short and stocky man ran forward, scooping his device up into his arms and giving the menacing looking hammer a big hug.

-As did I, your majesty.-

"You and your device are weird."

"Poaroxis, what are you eating?"

The monk's question diverted focus from the short man and onto to the new arrival, who was currently holding a bag and munching on its contents.

"Not too sure myself. The label said "Fortune Cookies" but they don't taste like normal ones. They are pretty good tho. Oh, and they have little papers in them that give advice I guess. See, this one says to embrace personal changes."

"What does that mean?"

"… I have no idea. I guess I should… I don't know, change my hair or something. Come to think of it, all of the other ones were kinda vague too."

"Not to interrupt, but the Admiral wants us back ASAP. He needs to get the cleaning team out, and we need to relieve them from the recovery site. The Terra is just waiting on our OK to teleport us back."

"Well then, let's get going."

"Alright, every one good?"

"Ready."

"Go."

"I'm good."

"Same here."

"I am prepared."

"Ok, teleporting in three, two, and one."

They all stood around not moving for a second, and then in a bright gray flash, the six of them disappeared.

-Page-

January 19th, Uminari City, Earth, 17:08 UDT

"We have a powerful hypnosis specialist for times like this, she is very good at her job; they won't remember anything. It won't be perfectly clean, people will know that something happened, and will know someone hid the truth, but it's the best we can do for now. We have civilian contractors who can hide the information and smooth things over later, this is just a short term solution."

"Oh, Ok."

"Actually, Admiral, how do you want to go about searching for the Mechanized infantry?"

"My people are scanning the water around the crash site, but as I said, we lack the manpower to perform an effective search on land. If the targets crashed into populated areas, we would have heard something by now. Therefore, we should assume that they are in wilderness areas, and as such, we will need to comb through them."

"So then, lets break into groups and search. Fate-Chan, you just got back from a mission, so for now you should rest, Hayate-Chan, you will also need to be on standby. I'll leave the Wolkenritter's deployment to you, you're more knowledgeable in their personal skills. Nanoha-Chan, you will need to be on your own for now, is that OK?"

"If I may Admiral?"

"Go ahead Admiral Markly."

"I may not look it, but I was actually an accomplished mage in my youth. Since we don't want to send this young lady out by herself, perhaps I should accompany her? If nothing else, I do have several effective search magics at my disposal."

"Well we would be happy to have you along Admiral. Then Hayate-Chan, do you think you should keep some of your knights back so we can cycle them out? Or will they be fine staying active all night?"

"Um, how much land do we need to cover?"

Instead of answering immediately, Admiral Markly created a holographic display back across the table. The display changed to show a map of the Japanese coastline, lines crisscrossed showing roads, the towns and cities were sectioned off, the map even showed elevations. In the center was a large white glowing circle with a blip in the center. The blip was in the middle of the ocean, but the circle crossed over into land and overlapped several cities, including Uminari City,

"We estimate that the prototypes may have made it as far as this line here. We are going to check coastal areas first. My people already did a quick scan on the beaches, since they would have been discovered quickly there, however, the rocky sections or cliff sides could hide a damaged prototype and would need to be searched more thoroughly. There are also these two forested areas, here and here, that need to be searched. And then all of the flat open area between these cities needs to be looked over. And finally, there is a possibility that they landed in some of the more deserted areas inside of the cities; we don't know how large the Sealed Space Barrier was, or for that matter, why it was cast, but it could have been large enough to allow them to land unnoticed in the city outskirts."

"There is a big break between the two sections of coast, and it's a large bit of land too. Hmm…"

Hayate seemed as if she was lost in thought, but to those who knew her, she was clearly conversing with her knights.

"Shamal will search this rural area here. She is better with search magic than the rest and will have an easier time searching through the woods and small town than the others. Zafira and Vita-Chan are the fastest and can cover the most ground, so I'll have each one covering half of the open space in the middle. And then Signum will take to northern coast line and then, depending on how that goes, will take the southern one."

"Hmm, that's satisfactory then. Me and Miss Takamachi will search through this city first, and then move onto the next. Although I am surprised, I expected you to keep your knights together, but instead you have them spread out over the entire area."

"My children and I are always connected, if something were to happen they would be able to act faster than anyone else. If I spread them out, then at least one of them will be able to quickly get there if something goes wrong."

"Good, good, you're quite good at this. It's a shame that you are planning to go into the ground forces. I would think that the Air Force would be a better fit, even the Navy would be better ."

Hayate paused before answering, her eyes sweeping across the table and linger on Fate and Nanoha before refocusing on the admiral.

"Thank you Admiral, but I think you think too highly of me. The Army suits my purposes better."

Fate thought back to that day when they had first began to chart out a course for themselves.

Hayate's trial was almost over; they had been waiting on the verdict, but there was no suspense, they already knew how it would play out. Just like when it had been her trial, Hayate would be acquitted of all charges, and the circumstances around her and her knights would be sealed tight.

When Fate had been there, she had been too confused at the time to really pay attention. Her future was in jeopardy, she had been confused about Nanoha, and the truth about her mother and her origins was still too fresh. But afterward, looking back on it, the "Trial" wasn't a civil trial, but a military one. Once it was apparent that she was not the instigator of the Jewel Seed Incident, and that she had been manipulated by her mother, who herself was a criminal, it was no longer a matter of right or wrong. Instead the biggest issue had become how much of an asset Fate could become. Would she be valuable enough to pardon her crimes?

And after several tests, the answer came out to be a resounding, Yes. One on one combat drills, mock battles, numerous physical and magical tests all came out showing that she was clearly an Ace class mage, and she was ranked as AAA+ right away. With a promise to work with the TSAB in the future, her trial ended and she was temporarily placed on probation, while at the same time Nanoha went through the same tests and scored an equal rank.

Things then became hectic with the Book of Darkness's revival, at some point when she wasn't paying attention her probation had been lifted, she had become a civilian contractor with the TSAB, and she had been re-evaluated as an S-.

And that lead to waiting with Nanoha and Hayate in a detention center's conference room, waiting for an obvious verdict.

The law considered the Wolkenritter to be of the same status as a familiar, a law that needed to be changed, but for the time being that was how it went. As such, their actions were not their own, but where the responsibility of their master's. Their past crimes, of which there were many, would not be held against them, however, the current crimes would. Not that it would matter, they had gone out of their way to prevent any fatalities, and there was the issue of Admiral Gil Graham's interference. Plus, the Wolkenritter's power was well documented, being able to bring the Book of Darkness, its master, and its defense programs under the TSAB's wing was just too much of an opportunity to allow to pass by.

Not at all concerned with the outcome, they had all intended to wait patiently. Instead, a bunch of high ranking officials had come to either recruit Hayate, or at least have a final few words with the Master of the Book of Darkness. That was an occurrence that happened all throughout the proceedings, many of the TSAB's leadership had personally fought against a previous version of the Book, and many had lost friends or family, it would be impossible for them to let that go. But the three Ace's stood firm, Hayate would apologize, and a few would accept that, but most would not, and would instead make threats and then leave.

And on that last day, it had only intensified, win or lose, not that there was a question of the outcome, but win or lose, all of the circumstances surrounding Hayate would become classified, this would be their last chance. But with the verdict already a foregone conclusion, the angry and vengeful were outnumbered by the well wishers and those who had interests to serve. And once it was discovered that not only was Hayate not already signed up in a particular branch, but that Fate and Nanoha were too, the recruitment expanded to include them.

Mercifully, during the final deliberation, they were sectioned off, and that was when they first laid down the plan. It had since changed, and the beginning one was at best a rough sketch, but many things first thought of on that day remained.

They had been unsure at the time, only having vague ideas. Nanoha's lack of formal training created a drive to experiment, to try new things, to test theory and technique, to refine the pr-established, to challenge it too, and to spread what she had learned. Fate had been taught a specific skill set by her mother to better search out the Jewel Seeds; her investigative skills and personal combat were highly appraised. And Hayate had her own unique skill set, she excelled at command and control, logistics and communications.

For Fate, the Navy's enforce program had been an obvious first choice, it fit her perfectly. But Nanoha and Hayate, both being new to Magic, had had a harder time. Hayate had nothing to work off of, she could have effectively worked in any branch. It was eventually Nanoha who decided on the Air Force, her love of flying being the main reason.

It was then that Hayate decided to join the Ground Forces. They had all decided to avoid each other's fields, so as to not directly compete. With Fate in the Navy, and Nanoha joining the Air force, the Ground Forces were all that was left.

Over time they had refined their plan, adding more and more details until they had a finished product.

One of their defining moments that day, was when the realized that they couldn't trust the TSAB. The Time-Space Administration Bureau was certainly a great force of good; under the TSAB's protection the Mid-Childan government and civilization had flourished, the period of war following the collapse of Ancient Belkan had basically stopped once the TSAB stepped onto the inter-dimensional stage. The Belkan Hegemony, the sole remaining members of Ancient Belka, had been defeated and pushed back to their borders, the constant border skirmishes between that Allied States and Irlian Empire had also ceased. A period of universal piece had taken the Dimensional Seas, and while the TSAB wasn't the sole cause of it, they did play a large part.

And while the Seas were far from perfect, the TSAB tried it's hardest to bring peace and stability to its protected territories, and the results showed. All in all, the TSAB had made the various dimensions a better place in uncountable ways.

But, for all the good it did, the TSAB operated under a policy that allowed just about anything as long as it was for the greater good. Gil Graham had been a good example, the construction of Durandal had taken over two years, the device was specifically made to combat the Book of Darkness, and its specifications had to be exact. In the two years it had been under construction, Admiral Graham had funneled money from other endeavors to fund its development; and no one noticed or cared. Then, hundreds of different people, technicians, engineers, researchers, test personnel; all of them had had a hand in its construction. While most didn't know exactly what the device was for, or how he intended to use it, many of them had to have some idea of its purpose, and yet, they all remained silent.

Because, for those that knew and understood, the ultimate outcome, the long term sealing of the Book of Darkness, was worth breaking those laws. The damage that the Book caused, and the fact that there was no reliable way to permanently destroy it, had allowed the TSAB to considered alternative ideas, and the laws wouldn't stop them.

To the TSAB, the ends justified the means, and all three of them, perhaps with a little reluctance on Nanoha's part, had come to agree with that. The idea that there was a perfect solution to every problem; one in which no one is harmed and everyone gets what they want is the stuff of fairy-tails; Reality demands sacrifice. As long as a greater good is served, as long as the big picture is kept in sight, then conflicts of right and wrong are acceptable, at least in the short term. If the TSAB had never compromised it's laws and principals, then it would have quickly ceased to exist, and no one would have been served by that.

The three of them understood that, understood all too well how cruel reality could be; each in their own way had come to see it for what it was.

But just because the TSAB did work for the greater good; and they all wanted to use their strength to help, didn't mean that they could trust the TSAB. They knew that if the greater good could be served with their sacrifice, then the TSAB would not hesitate to do so.

And that was how they came to their current plan. They would play the TSAB's game, they would make contacts, develop their skills, gain experiences; they would make themselves invaluable to the TSAB. And then, once they had an opportunity, they would create their own unit within the TSAB. Then they wouldn't have to worry about becoming vulnerable within the system; because they would pull themselves out of the system.

To do that, they would each need to work separately and build their own positions within the TSAB; and that was why Hayate, despite being better with smaller elite units, is instead going to enter the Ground Forces.

"A real shame. Well, if you're positive, then, there is nothing I can do about that. Now, Since I can see nothing wrong with the search plan that was proposed, we will follow that for now. We will be using Miss Testarossa's home as a starting point and base of operations. I hope you are alright with that? I will be bringing in whoever I can spare to run communications and such."

"That's fine Admiral."

"Good, then if no one has any questions?"

The Admiral looked around once, and then started towards the door.

"Umm... Actually, I have a question. What do the prototypes look like?"

The Admiral stopped in his tracks, again surprised that someone had spoken

"I am loosing it in my old age. Verzi-Tech wasn't that forthcoming with information, so spec wise, we don't know what the prototypes are actually capable of, but we do have pictures and some very incomplete schematics. Lets see here..."

The Admiral turned back to the forgotten holographic map that was still floating above the kitchen table. A few hand motions later, the map had faded away into nothingness, and in it's place floated four different humanoid looking constructs.

The one closest to Fate was labeled as Lima V4, Supply and Support Unit. Fate remembered the mechanized infantry that had guarded the Garden of Time, they were big and bulky, even comically so, and they were modeled after Balkan Era heavy knights. While they did in fact look sort of silly, they were also imposing, they gave off an impression of durability and power.

Lima here, was at the opposite end of the spectrum, still imposing, but more lean and quick looking. Her mother's guardians were big and brutal, like a hammer, this one was slick and sharp, like a blade. Lima had only one weapon that Fate could see; built into his left shoulder was a large cannon, from the turret it extended out almost a foot and a half before tapering off into a sealed barrel of some form.

Other than the single cannon, Lima was at first unimpressive. But Fate's keen eye spotted things that not even Hayate or Nanoha had. At first glance Lima looked as if it was made out of standard Neo-steel, but that wasn't the case. The metallic surface was too shiny and polished, even in a hologram, to be Neo-steel; instead, Fate suspected it was the same material that the TSAB used as armor on its ships.

Lima was modeled after a human, just a slightly taller and larger one, but he had hands and a face, the joints and limbs were all the same. The only difference was a large pack built into his back. Since he was a support unit, Fate suspected that it contained extra parts or the like.

However, the similarities to a human ended at Lima, his brothers all kept the basic shape, but they were significantly different. The next one over was labeled as, Echo V1, Long Range Artillery Unit. Echo was massive, almost a two feet larger than Lima, and much thicker, his legs were larger than Fate's entire body. Echo's chest was dominated by a single large cannon that protruded out; both arms had smaller cannons strapped on, three to each arm, his shoulders had some form of hatches that likely contained missiles or rockets; the same hatches were also built into what would have been he knee's. His back housed three cannons like the one in his chest, but slightly thinner and longer. And as an afterthought, where his mouth would have been, was a rotating bolt cannon.

Next to Echo was Tango, his full name being, Tango V5 Light Scout Unit. Tango was small, even smaller than Fate herself. Unlike the others, Tango had four arms, and each one was doubled jointed. Besides the arms, Fate couldn't spot any abnormalities on Tango, he didn't even seem to have weapons.

And then finally there was Zulu All Purpose Unit, V9. Zulu looked a lot like Lima, except that he lacked the large back piece, instead there was a smaller pack that contained what Fate assumed were thrusters. The same thrusters were built into the backs of his legs. And unlike the others, the Zulu in the image was carrying a weapon, some kind of staff; his brothers all had them built in, only Zulu's was detachable.

"Well that's the four that the invoice mentioned. As you can see, all of the specs besides their model and version numbers are blacked out, Verzi-Tech didn't give us anything else. They said it was too sensitive to discuss via a transmission. They did assure me that there are no toxic or radioactive components, so no dangerous clean up."

Around the table, everyone was intently looking at the images, even her mother seemed to be focusing solely on Tango. Admiral Markly gave everyone a minute to finish looking through them, and there really wasn't a lot of information, besides the visuals, there was zero data available.

"If that is all..."

Since Hayate was the one to bring it up, the Admiral directed his question towards her, but it was also a broad attempt to get everyone moving.

"This one, the Lima Unit."

Hayate had given each of the units a quick glance over, and then had focused on Lima, much like Fate had at first.

"Yes?"

"Signum and Shamal said that they have found it."

That caught the Admiral off guard, and for that matter, everyone else too.

"Really, where are they?"

"They went for a walk downtown when you came in."

"So it made it to the downtown area then? That's bigger than what we thought the Sealed Space Barrier was capable off. Where exactly is it? I'll send a recover team out for the wreckage."

Hayate spent a moment silently conversing with her knights, during which her expressive steadily became more concerned.

"Um, it's not wreckage. It's intact, fully. And operational."

"What? Where?"

"Signum says it's walking along the street in the middle of downtown. She says a lot of people are following it and using their phones to take pictures."

The Admiral quickly got over his surprise, but for a quick moment his face flashed with a dark emotion that Fate didn't quite catch.

"This is bad. Tell your knights to lock down the area. My people will track down the cellphones and corrupt the data. But we need to take care of it now."

-Page-

January 19th, Uminari City, Downtown, Earth, 17:15 UDT

When the party had ended with the arrival of Admiral Markly, and it had become apparent that the house was too crowded to hold all of them, Vita had been the first to find an excuses to leave. She had claimed that she wanted to check on the old mens home that she played Croquet with, but Signum had suspected it had less to do with a lack of room, and more to do with the visiting Admiral.

Decades, even centuries of fighting, had given her amazing insight into the psyche of others. Even while she herself had become less human, her ability to read others had increased. And all of her finely tuned senses, made of from all of those years; had immediately reacted to the Admiral.

She had sensed deceit, but as to what it actually was, she drew a blank. Something about him was wrong, dangerously so, but he wasn't an active and immediate threat. Vita, Zafira, and Shamal had all felt the same, and when her Mistress had asked them to leave and make room, Signum as the leader of the Wolkenritter had voiced her concerns, possibly overstepping her boundaries to do so.

But her Mistress wasn't upset by Signum's breach of conduct, in fact the opposite was true, she had thanked her for her concern.

The three years they had spent together had given Signum a lifetime's worth of happy memories, but despite that, it couldn't erase the old memories, couldn't alter the reality of what she was.

Duty to their mistress still ruled the Wolkenritter, despite everything else, and despite what their mistress may want, they were still servants to the master the Tome of the Night Sky. Signum had been, and still was, duty bound to protect her Mistress; and that duty overrode all other desires.

It was a small miracle, that for the first time, in all the many years she had existed, that her duty as leader of the Wolkenritter coincided with her own personal wishes.

So she had warned her Mistress to not trust the Admiral, had voiced her own personal concerns without being prompted, and instead of a reprimand, had instead been thanked, and assured that her Mistress had already been wary of the Admiral.

Her Mistress had assured her that she would be safe, a fact that Signum wasn't exactly happy about, but that she had to grudgingly agree with. If there was anyone who was strong enough, and as dedicated to her Mistress as she herself was, then it would be Testarossa and Takamachi.

The two of them had fought the Wolkenritter to a standstill three years ago, and while she and the other knights had been holding back in an effort to not kill, the strength of those young girls had left an impression. Not only that, but they had shown their worth has friends, and they had earned the trust of the Wolkenritter, which was no small feat itself.

Yes, her Mistress would be safe with them around, and while she and the other knights were not there, they were close enough. Her Mistress was secure, but still, Signum did not like leaving her alone, a feeling that seemed to transcend mere duty.

But her Mistress had ordered them out, and Duty forced her to obey, so Signum grudgingly paired up with Shamal for a small walk around the downtown area.

Signum didn't particularly like the city, she preferred quiet places of solitude over the hustle and bustle of cities. And being surrounded by so many people like this, along with the knowledge of non-magic weapons, set her warrior instincts on edge.

But Shamal, she loved being in the thick of things, surrounded by people all going about their lives. The sights and sounds, the flashing lights, the cars, the stores, all of it was a delight to Shamal, and if the Knight of the Lake took pleasure from it, then Signum, the Sword Knight could endure it, if for no other reason then to allow her comrade this small joy.

And as fate would have it, while they were looping around another block, and while Shamal was busy spending the rest of her weekly allowance, they had stumbled upon what Shamal had initially thought was something called a "Cosplayer."

Shamal had tried to explain the concept, but the idea of dressing up as fictional characters, animated ones, ones without real people to base it off of, was just incomprehensible. Shamal enjoyed it though, so Signum had made a small effort to learn about it, and she had picked up somethings, not much, but some, and the idea of seeing an actual cosplayer, was if nothing else, somewhat intriguing.

They had made their way though the crowd of people, Signum's height and build, along with her intimidating presence easily caused the assembled crowd to part. There stood the cosplayer, surrounded by the group of people, all using their cellphones to snap pictures, except it wasn't a cosplayer at all. Signum and Shamal sensed no life from the metallic creature that was idly walking down the sidewalk surrounded by onlookers. Oh, but they did sense magic, lots and lots of magic.

A quick series of telepathic communications with their Mistress had allowed them to learn that what stood in front of them was in fact, not a cosplayer, and was instead something called, "Lima V4, Supply and Support Unit."

Along with it's name, their Mistress had also asked, not ordered, but asked, them to "Bring it into custody, and to prevent anyone from seeing you." Three years ago, the concept of "Bringing something into Custody," would have been an unknown concept for the Wolkenritter, but recent events had given them a fair amount of practice in that category.

So without any need to communicate between themselves, Signum the Sword knight, and Shamal the Knight of the Lake, effortlessly coordinated their approach. On second the sky was lit just by the remains of the sun and the thousands of city lights, while the roads themselves were filled with thousands of people and hundred of cars. And the next, the sky glowed a dull gray, the unmistakable sight of a sealed space barrier, and the roads were completely devoid of life.

Where once a crowd of people had gathered to watch Lima V4, now only stood Signum, her Knight's armor surrounding her body and Laevatein in her hand. Besides her Shamal, equally outfitted, stepped back and then launched herself into the air.

Lima stopped its idle walk and turned it's head to face her. It's emotionless and inhuman face seemed to observe her silently. Signum returned it glare with one of her own, but the machine payed her no heed, it was physically incapable of fear, or any other emotion for that matter.

With Laevatein raised, pointing strait towards the machine, Signum momentary debated how to handle this. She wasn't certain whether or not the machine in front of her had any cognitive functions, or was it just a mindless automaton. With not data to help her decided, and having learning nothing from her staring match, Signum decided to go with the standard approach, one that she had gotten a lot of practice with in the last couple of years.

"I am Contracted Mage Senior Grade, Signum Yagami, TSAB Special Investigations Assistance Department. You are in violation of article 7, Sub-section 55 of the TSAB's Inter-dimensional law pertaining to magic based artifacts on Non-administered planets. You will stand down and be taken into custody."

Never once, in the three years she had worked for the TSAB, had anyone ever responded favorably to that line, or any variation of it. At best there would be attempts at pleading for mercy, which Signum considered unfitting of a warrior. But usually, they would attempt to flee, or to fight. It would have been so much easier to just attack without giving the opponent an opportunity to strike first.

But being on the side of the law required certain sacrifices, one of which was to give criminals the chance to surrender peacefully. And when they didn't, well, what happened after that was all shades of gray. The TSAB frowned upon any fatalities during missions, but they weren't expressively forbidden, and in many cases, it was called for. Signum, and the rest of the Wolkenritter, had yet to kill some one in the course of a mission, a fact that their Mistress was very proud of.

But destroying a machine, was not the same as killing a human, and although the Admiral would probably want this "Lima" machine intact, in this case that just meant that he wanted it as something other than ruble, if maybe, it's limbs were all severed, that should be fine.

So when the machine inevitably turned down her request, and some form of combat broke out, she actually was looking forward to it. Hopefully it would be strong enough to at least entertain her, after all, opportunities where she didn't need to hold back were rare.

Signum, the Knight of the Sword showed the tinniest hint of a smile as the machine finally responded, turning it's body to fully face her. The cannon built into its shoulder remained inactive for the moment, but the machine released some form of scan, magical power bursting forth from its' metallic body and washing over her. If nothing else, it at least had some raw power.

Her smile grew just a small fraction.