Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Crisis

Chapter 20: Calm Before the Storm

Xx~~*~~xX

Hayate walked down the hall, alone for once, finding it eerily quiet. Most were asleep or resting for the night, trying to catch up on sleep from the day's hectic activities. They had bought themselves a reprieve, so despite the still-looming threat of Alhazard, morale was upbeat.

Although, without Rein, or any of her knights around, Hayate felt strangely lonely. She had become accustomed to their sometimes-overprotective presence.

She realized she should probably get some sleep as well, but command was weighing heavily on her. She had spent many hours over the past few days, analyzing all her decisions, wondering if she made the right calls. This is where she wanted to be, in a leadership position. But she was learning the hard way that not all decisions were easy ones. As she gazed out at the night sky, she wondered if she was cut out for command.

"You're wondering if you're cut out for command," came a young, but familiar voice that startled Hayate with it's accuracy.

"Vita!" she exclaimed, turning and smiling. "You startled me."

The hammer knight shrugged, then leaned on the railing, looking out the window as well. "I may have started out a program of a book, fully loyal and obedient to you. But all of us have changed over the years. I'm more than willing to call you out on something if it warrants."

Hayate gazed back out the window. "I guess you can read me that well by now, huh?"

"I've been watching you the past few days," she replied. "You have been looking stressed and worried, as if you're trying to carry the whole world on your shoulders." She turned to give Hayate a dirty look. "You need to stop that. You're doing fine. If you want to aim for the higher spots, you have to learn to accept that you don't know everything, and that you have friends who can help you carry things."

The other girl smiled wryly. "And you know just what to say."

The hammer knight began to walk away. "That's part of what I do. Good night, Hayate. Get some sleep." She paused, looking over her shoulder threateningly. "And I mean it. We expect you back at the house." She resumed walking, turning a corner.

Hayate laughed, and was about to follow, when another female voice called her name from the shadows.

She turned to see who it was, surprised. "Auris?"

x~~*~~x

Caro watched Erio practice in the yard, jumping and swinging Strada around. The device was technically still off, so it was just a standard spear. Still, he felt he needed to keep in practice. He also wanted to work on some more moves that he had picked up from Fate and Signum, his two primary sparring partners. There were things he still wanted to be able to do, even without magic.

He paused, panting, in the cool night air, only to find a towel held out in front of him. "Oh, thanks."

Caro smiled at him as he dabbed his face. "I'm impressed that you work so hard, even without magic."

"Sorry, Caro," he replied. "It's just that I failed to protect you before. I don't want to make that mistake again." He was surprised when she started giggling. "Caro?"

She wiped her eyes, which had started to leak due to the laughter. "I'm sorry, Erio. But I had been thinking the same thing lately. I was a burden to you, and wanted to get stronger to protect you."

Erio put one hand behind his head, chuckling. "So I guess we both needed to work on getting stronger."

"So we can protect each other?" Caro asked. "And Fate and our friends?"

He nodded, handing the towel back to her. "I just wish we could use magic, as there are more techniques I need to perfect."

Caro looked down, saddened. "Yeah, I can't do much without it, as I'm not a physical fighter like you are. And Fried is tired most of the time, unable to fly."

Erio grew angry, turning to punch the nearby tree. "If only there was something we could do about all this!" He sighed and turned back to Caro, only to see her staring at him wide-eyed. "Caro? What is it?"

"Erio...." she said in astonishment. "The tree...."

He turned to look at the impact in the bark, realized the implications, and ran into the house, Caro following right behind.

x~~*~~x

"Any word on the rest of the fleet?" Fate inquired.

After a good night of rest, the old members of Section Six, plus a few others were all gathered together for a meeting the next day. Chrono had already given his report to the ground TSAB provisional council, and was taking the time to talk to Hayate's group. There had been no more missiles fired, and no more communication from the city. However, Alhazard was still on approach, would would make orbit in 7 hours.

Chrono shook his head from the view screen. "Not much, I'm afraid. The Claudia did detect several jumps before we had to abandon ship, so I'm hoping the rest are conducting repairs, too. The standing orders were to return to Naval headquarters if too badly damaged, otherwise attempt to return for survivors."

"And the TSAB naval station?" Hayate questioned.

"They are hesitant about sending more ships for now," Chrono admitted. "Protection of trading routes is already strained, and they aren't convinced it's worth leaving them vulnerable to pirates if the city can easily stand up to twenty ships. I might be able to swing a couple more of the ones that were already in dry dock, but that would just be for evacuations. After the confrontation debacle, I'll be lucky to keep my command when this is over.

His gaze changed, becoming more serious. "But I'm ordered to withdraw a few hours before the city gets here. At this point, there's little one ship can do without a plan. They don't believe Mid-Childa can be saved."

Hayate sighed while Fate said angrily, "Surely they must know that once Mid-Childa is taken care of, Precia will go for the rest of the TSAB!?"

"They are hoping to buy time," Chrono replied. "And I've been ordered to land soon and pick up the provisional council and some other VIPs."

"Of course, the bigwigs are the first to run!" Subaru complained.

"I can probably take the rest of you, as well," he offered.

Hayate smiled. "No, we're staying right here. We have people to protect."

Chrono chuckled. "I thought you'd say that, which means you have a plan. What is it?"

Shari stood at Hayate's nod towards her. "We went over your data, and we found some interesting things. At one point, you managed to shoot through the shield."

"Yeah, we noticed that, but we aren't sure how that happened," Chrono replied.

"That's because there isn't just one shield," she explained, smiling. "There's two. One seems geared to block magical and thermal energy based attacks, while the second guards against kinetic energy, ie, physical impacts. That's why they are so effective, as each shield specializes in what it does. But that also introduces a weakness, because both shields can't seem to be up at the same time in the exact same spot. A missile struck the shield a split second before an magical energy blast went through the exact same spot."

"That's a hell of a weakness," Teana noted. "Can we use that to destroy it now?"

Shari shook her head sadly. "The timing has to be incredibly precise as the switch from physical to energy shields is incredibly fast, and it's only localized to a small area. The whole shield isn't required to change; it appears very small sections of the bubble can make the switch at will, independent of the rest of the bubble. Also, the city is big. We'd need a lot of ships to do enough damage, and it sounds like we won't get that before the city gets here."

"So we're back at square one," Chrono concluded as Shari sat down.

"Not entirely," Hayate informed him, nodding towards a darkened corner.

"You may not know me, but I'm Auris Gaiz," an older woman informed them, stepping from the shadow. "I used to be an assistant to General Regius." She continued when Chrono nodded his acknowledgment. "I inherited the responsibility of a few projects of his, most notably, the Einherjar project. It was to be a series of ground-based magical cannons designed to intercept orbital craft."

"The cyborgs destroyed those, did they not?" Signum asked.

She nodded. "They destroyed the three we had built, but a fourth had been started. I've been seeing it slowly built in secret over these past few months. When we got word of Alhazard and the missiles coming, I had my engineers double-team it. Sadly, it was still offline when the missiles hit. But we may be able to get it operationally by the time Alhazard gets here."

Vita shook her head. "No good. You'll only get one shot before Precia destroys it."

"Then we have to make that one shot count!" came a new female voice from the doorway.

"Mariel, you made it!" Hayate exclaimed.

"Mariel Atenza, head of the TSAB Engineering Division, at your service," she announced. "I hear you've been taking good care of my things for awhile. I would have spoken up sooner, but military secrecy and all."

At the confused looks, Hayate explained, "Mariel was the head of the team that developed the golem. I've been in secret communication with her for awhile now, feeding her the golem's combat data."

"A member of my team was apparently on Jail's payroll, and arranged to have one of our prototypes stolen," Mariel added. "We caught him, but you recovered it. The higher ups were embarrassed, and I must admit I was, too. So they forbade us from talking about it. But with the situation the way it is, that's been lifted. And I have something for you that might help: a shuttle."

"How is a shuttle supposed to help?" Nanoha asked.

"It's one we've been modifying over the past few months," she explained. "It's equipped with AMF armor, and was designed as a hover transport to rapidly ferry troops and golems around. It's a big improvement over helicopters."

Hayate took over. "Allow me to explain what we've come up with. We are going to load a strike team onto that shuttle. When Alhazard is close enough, we're going to fire the Einherjar cannon at it. The shuttle will ride the beam all the way to the city. Orders will be to seize control of the city if possible, or find a way to destroy it from the inside."

Yuuno began to see it. "With the magical energy beam striking it, the shield will be in energy defense mode. The shuttle can pass right through it! But will the AMF armor hold out while in the midst of the beam?"

Mariel shook her head. "No, it won't last more than 5-6 seconds or so against the kind of energy the cannon will be putting out. We'll need very strong magic barriers protecting the ship through most of it's journey. The barriers will be turned off right before shield impact, so it passes through instead of bouncing off. The AMF Armor will protect the ship until it's inside."

"Wait a minute, magic is gone, so where are you going to get magical barriers?" Subaru wondered aloud.

Hayate smiled. "Erio, if you would. I promised him he could be the one."

As the rest of the group looked on, Erio stood up and moved a bit away from the table, then concentrated hard. His yellow Belkan triangle flared into existence under his feet, and his body began to crackle with visible electric arcs. After a few seconds, he cut it off, panting hard.

"Caro and I... discovered it last night," he explained between breaths.

"Magic is back!?" Teana wondered in astonishment.

"Yes and no," Suzuka answered. "It's coming back, slowly but surely. It turns out my ocean analogy was more apt than I thought. The relic bombs essentially tried to use magic to blow up magic. If you drop a large water bomb into an ocean, it may blow a nice hole. However..."

"The water will eventually flow back!" Arisa finished for her. "So how long until it's back at normal strength?"

"By our rough calculations, it might be 75% back shortly after Alhazard gets here," Shari replied. "But that's only a guess; it's very hard to measure."

"Which leaves us looking for one barrier expert to protect the shuttle on it's flight," Hayate concluded.

Yuuno suddenly noticed all eyes on him. "What are you all... oh, yeah, eheh. Well, um, I guess as an archeologist, it would be a dream to see the city...."

"I'm going on that shuttle, too," Nanoha stated, standing.

"As am I," Fate added, also standing.

"If Fate's going, then I am, too!" Arf announced suddenly, stepping forward from behind Fate's chair. One by one, everyone stood and volunteered.

"We'll figure out who is going later," Hayate said, then turned to Chrono. "How is that for a plan?"

The admiral's eyes were wide, but then he shook his head and chuckled. "I should know better than to doubt you. I still have my orders to evacuate the higher-ups, but I'll be betting on you and everyone else to keep Mid-Childa in one piece." He saluted. "Good luck, everyone! You're going to need it."

"Alright, everyone go make any preparations you need to," Hayate told them. "I'll be issuing more specific orders later. And as Chrono said, good luck to us all."

x~~*~~x

"So, you've been taking good care of it, I see," Mariel noted as she examined the golem. "We've been getting good data on its actual performance in combat."

"Arisa has been a good pilot," Shari told her, indicating the girl with the short, blonde hair. "And we were impressed by how well it's designed."

Mariel climbed the gantry, the three other girls following. "Well, I've got a couple of surprises for you, that should help." She slid into the pilot's seat, plugging in a small magic battery. "Terra, code 4-5-Alpha-Tango-9-Charlie. Release Limiter."

"Code acknowledged," Terra replied, coming online. "Welcome Dr. Atenza. Limiter has been released. Accessing new subsystems."

"Limiter?" Suzuka questioned.

"There's a few more bells and whistles we added to this, but hid them in case of theft," the golem creator explained. "Good thing we did, too, considering. We had three layers of security: Normal mode just gives mobility and the main gun at a lesser power level. If Terra determines that there is a proper person for registration, there is level two. That's the full power of the main gun, AMF armor, flight systems, and artillery batteries.

She reached down to adjust a few switches, as new screens popped up. "Level three is the final one, with Limiter released. Stuff like an actual magic barrier, and a couple extra offensive and defensive subsystems. I'll brief you about it later, but first things first. Hand me my case."

"This one that you've been having me carry?" Arisa asked, passing it over.

"You're the pilot, so it's your responsibility!" she said, smiling, and opening the case. "And it's thanks to Shari and Suzuka's research on this, that I'm able to do what I'm about to do."

"A relic!" Shari exclaimed.

Mariel nodded. "Scavenged from one of the relic bombs, actually. Since it functions like an artificial linker core, if I install this in here, you should be able to draw on an almost unlimited source of magic. At least according to our research. However, it won't come in very fast. If you use too much power and drain the battery, you'll have lay low somewhere and wait for it to naturally recharge. At least, if we're right about all this. It could just all flow in really fast and blow up the unit!"

Arisa sweat-dropped. "So I'm a guinea pig."

Suzuka elbowed her. "Well, you were the one who wanted to fly this thing!"

x~~*~~x

"We could be going soon," Fate said, speaking what was on both their minds.

Nanoha hugged the other girl closer as hey gazed out their bedroom window, each having an arm around the other. "I know. And you're going to want to face your mother." She felt Fate tighten.

"Yes," Fate replied softly. "She may have been my mother once, but that was in a different set of memories. I have to stop her now. Perhaps even more so because I am her daughter." She changed the subject. "And you should talk to Yuuno before we go."

The pony-tailed girl sighed. "I'd like to... but I'm not sure if I can. I care about him a lot, and I'm worried he won't accept this. And things have been so busy lately."

"Make time," Fate told her. "And I think you underestimate the strength of his feelings."

Nanoha nodded, turning to meet Fate's lips for a soft kiss. "I will."

"Good," the other girl replied, smiling. "Then we need to finish getting dressed and head out."

x~~*~~x

"We're almost there," Vice called from the front of the helicopter to the group he was ferrying, several hours later. Alto was next to him in the co-pilot's seat. "I'm getting landing clearance now."

Nanoha looked at the team that had been assembled, after Hayate had learned how many the shuttle could hold. Her eyes met Fate's at first, then went to Arf. She had wondered a bit about the inclusion of familiar-turned-guardian-beast. But Hayate had confided in Nanoha that with Fate going up against her mother, she wanted another person who would stick to Fate and help keep her emotions in check. Nanoha knew they'd both have to help in that role.

Teana, Subaru, Erio, and Caro were next; the old Section Six Forwards. Although they seemed to prefer the "Strikers" name for their little group now. Each had grown much since the old days. They were stronger, wiser, and more reliable. She had kept tabs on them in the months since, and re-acquainted herself with their profiles recently. Their progress had been nothing short of amazing.

Finally, she settled on the one she had been avoiding: Yuuno. There was much she wanted to say, and much she was afraid of. She had wanted a chance to talk with him before all this, but there had either been interruptions, or she had lost her nerve. He seemed to sense she was looking at him, and he met her gaze to give her a nervous smile and a thumbs up. She smiled back, then leaned her head back.

Hayate and the Wolkenritter were staying behind this time. The master of the Tome of the Night Sky felt certain that Precia would attack somehow, and she needed every able-bodied mage to defend Clanagan. They all had assumed that was her main target. Arisa and Suzuka were also remaining behind on the ground, to support the troops.

The small strike team would have to be enough.

Mariel was also riding along, as it was her secret research facility they were flying to. Once the helicopter had landed in a mountain range outside Clanagan, they had disembarked and she motioned for all of them to follow her, including the two pilots. A large elevator waited for them, which took them down several levels and opened into a fairly large hanger. A few other golems lined the walls, in various states of construction and makeup, but the main attraction was the ship in the center of the room.

It was over twice the size of the helicopters Vice and Alto flew, and roughly rectangular-shaped. It had a rear hatch similar to the helicopter, which was now open. Downward-sloping "wings" were attached to the top of the craft. Cradled under those, and to either side of the rear hatch, two large circular engines rested. The belly curved upwards to meet the rounded cockpit at the front.

"It's not pretty, but we scientists tend to favor function over form," Mariel told them. "It'll fly."

"So you want us to pilot that?" Alto asked as the group spread out a bit around he hanger.

"Only to the Einherjar cannon," Mariel answered. "While in the beam, you'll be virtually blind, so we'll rely on a pre-programmed flight pattern that will be uploaded shortly before launch."

A long whistle of admiration drew their attention to where Vice was admiring something on the side. "Now that's what I call a rifle."

Mariel smiled, coming up beside him as he admired one of the more complete-looking golems, holding a large rifle gun not unlike his own. "We have been experimenting with different golem types, ever since we began receiving combat data from Hayate. Terra is an all-around model, but this is a long ranged version. It's not complete; we still need to program an AI into it."

Vice turned to her, grinning, holding up a gray card with a green jewel in it. "I have your AI right here. Storm Raider can interface with anything, and I can fly anything."

Mariel seemed to actually consider it. "It's possible, and we do have orders to make every resource available. We'll look into it." She walked away to talk to a pair of engineers about it.

"I'll be leaving the shuttle to you," Vice informed the girl next to him, his gaze not leaving the silvery golem.

"I would have thought you would have wanted to fly the ship," Alto told him. "You seem to want to fly everything these days."

He finally turned to her and grinned. "I want to fly and shoot. And I'll probably get a chance to fly the ship another time." He turned back to the golem, his eyes twinkling. "But this... this is what I dreamed of, ever since I found out about that other girl flying that other tin can around."

Further words were put on hold as the alarm flashed red in the hanger. The cause was soon clear; they were under attack.

x~~*~~x

"We're picking up elevated energy readings from the hostile!" Alex called out. "Confirmed, it's firing!"

Hayate glanced at the timer, reading 3 hours and 15 minutes. "Already? What's the target?" She cursed; it figured Precia would wait until the Ventek was in the process of landing to attack.

"Initial tracking puts it somewhere in Clanagan," came Alex's reply. "Impact in one minute!"

"Status of defensive systems?" Hayate called.

"Report from the engineering team says it's not quite ready yet," Randy informed them. "Magic hasn't fully returned, so there isn't enough power to initialize the system, also."

"If she can fire energy weapons from that range, she can pick us off without having entering orbit!" Hayate said in frustration. "Our plan needs her to come closer. Brace for impact!"

x~~*~~x

The crimson beam cut through the atmosphere, striking the top of the TSAB spire in the center of the city. After traversing down it's length, the beam cut off upon reaching the bottom. For several long minutes, the spire burned.

x~~*~~x

"Oho, did you see that, ladies?" Quattro inquired, watching the reddish-glow on the horizon in the distance. "Our dear TSAB seems to be having something of a problem."

"And that concerns us, why?" Tre asked, laying in the grass and staring at the ceiling. "We're still stuck out here with our IS's locked. Sometimes I curse that damn bastard doctor for creating us."

Quattro turned to look at her two companions. "Just thinking out loud, mainly. It is a bit boring in here. Some... excitement might be nice."

Sette lifted her head. "Such as?"

"I'm not entirely sure," she admitted, putting a finger to her lips. "But I'm sure some opportunity will present itself."

Tre sighed and Quattro smiled.

x~~*~~x

"Any sign of a follow up attack?" Hayate asked, unable to suppress the thoughts that came up at the sight.

"Negative, the hostile is silent and continuing it's approach," Alex confirmed.

The SS rank mage sat back in her seat, thinking. "So, it either needs time to charge such a long-range attack, or she wants to tell us something."

Nanoha appeared on one of the screens. "Hayate-chan, the prophecy...."

"I know," the other girl replied softly, then quoted. "The dead shall dance and the tower of law in the central lands shall burn to the ground." They both watched as the inflamed tower began to collapse, and Hayate was glad that people had mostly been evacuated to the shelters. "We all thought Precia was dead, and she's been doing a whole lot of dancing. Now the tower is burning."

Fate appeared next to Nanoha on the screen. "It's also a message. I know my mother, and can guess what she is trying to say. She took out the biggest symbol of the TSAB's presence on Mid-Childa. She wants to cause fear and despair before she arrives."

All three had the same thoughts: The real storm was set to begin, and Precia had just made the first strike.

x~~*~~x

Alhazard will reach orbit in 2 hours and 58 minutes.

x~~*~~x

Author's notes:

Hey, Kaijo just shamelessly ripped off more of Gundam! But hey, why write a Nanoha/Gundam fusion, when mecha can be worked in wonderfully to the regular Nanoha-verse? =)

And as you may suspect, the city arrives next chapter, and the main, and final, confrontation will begin. For those wondering about Precia's actions and motivations, and how they might not make much sense at times... I'll just tell you to keep reading. As a reminder, I like reason behind my antagonists.^^