23. Entrances and Exits
"Strike Flame."
Raising Heart's oversized, spear-like head slid apart, a stiletto-like magical bayonet protruding from its tip. Nanoha rammed it into the last of the daemons and straightened up, brushing spattered ichor off her Barrier Jacket.
The central office's communications network had been expanding ever since Sergeant Picanto and the DSS team had re-established it, incorporating more and more Bureau personnel. Observations, combat logs, and other nuggets of information had been traded back and forth with chaotic intensity, the various mages' Devices uploading them to their owners' brains with the speed of thought, and the process had only accelerated once Yuuno and the Infinite Library's staff got in on the action.
The captain now knew, for instance, that the daemons were of a variant of magical construct capable of existing in realspace only by summoning physical bodies. Magic could disrupt magic, and so constructs were one of the few kinds of living beings that it could reliably inflict serious injuries on – except in cases like this. Destroying said bodies would instead break their grip on reality, banishing them back to dimensional space (or the Warp, as their masters called it) until they had sufficient time to recuperate... which all sounded rather neat and tidy, really.
None of Yuuno's texts had mentioned that quite so much gunk was involved. Presumably, it was the remnants of the material forms they'd abandoned. She idly wondered if she should add that to the books in question, perhaps with an enquiry as to how to wash the stuff off white cloth.
"Raising Heart, commence Wide Area Search."
A cluster of pink spheres appeared from around her hand, floating unhurriedly along the corridor before peeling off in a variety of directions once they reached the junction at the end. She waited a while, letting the spell's findings filter back to her gradually, before opening a channel to her commander.
Hayate, I think I'm close to my target.
You're talking about more than just the map co-ordinates, aren't you? Nanoha wasn't surprised at her friend's perceptiveness. They'd been working together for over a decade, after all.
Yep. According to my scan, they're throwing everything they've got at me. Bit of an indicator.
Understood. I'll update my calculations. Really wish I could get you some backup, but we're overstretched as it is here. Good luck, Nanoha.
Don't worry, I understand. You too.
With that, she drew in her will and prepared for battle.
Given the peculiarities of the Bureau's hiring practices, it was not an uncommon assumption that their military branch's celebrated Ace of Aces was the owner of any number of exotic assets. Cybernetics, bio-enhancements, lethal Ancient Belkan artefacts... the list went on. Even those who had actually met her had difficulty believing that an ordinary human had risen to a position of such prominence. Several of her higher-profile victims insisted point-blank that she was some sort of incarnate demon, and she'd never quite had the heart to tell them otherwise.
The truth was, Nanoha had none of these advantages. Her victories were the result of the far less glamorous virtues of hard work, discipline, and iron determination. Also firepower. Lots and lots of firepower.
"Axel Shooter."
A dozen streamers of magic fanned out from her staff's collar and sped down the corridor, followed shortly afterward by another wave of the same. Inhuman voices cried out in pain, shockingly close – clearly, the daemons had finally figured out how to close on their prey silently. Masking themselves from magical surveillance might have been more useful, she noted wryly, but at least they're making progress.
As she continued the bombardment, sending wave after wave of projectiles towards the unseen enemy, Nanoha re-checked the readings from her scan. She was in the expeditionary force's small accounting section, less than a hundred metres from the security centre. There were six Bureau IFF signals emanating from the offices on either side, presumably belonging to administrative staff trapped by the attack. The captain made a mental note to check up on them once the coast was clear – the fact that they weren't responding to telepathy certainly wasn't a good sign – but she rather doubted that she would have the opportunity for a while yet. The approaching daemons were proving rather more durable than past experience had indicated, and she had absolutely no idea why.
A moment later they entered her line of sight, and she received her answer.
Four Hellhounds ran ahead of the swarm, their shields interlocking into a single barrier that deflected her attacks quite ably. That wasn't the bad news, though. The bad news was that none of them registered to any of her supernatural senses. Shadows wrapped around them, the occasional errant rune betraying their magical origin.
Oh, I just had to go ahead and think it, didn't I? Best nip this nonsense in the bud before more of them get the same idea.
"Blaster System Limit One... release!"
"Blaster set," Raising Heart acknowledged, and the streamers of energy brightened and expanded, slamming into the cyborgs' shields with renewed force.
An unpleasant tingling sensation crept up Nanoha's arms and she winced. Her Device's custom Blaster System supercharged her magic, but wreaked havoc on her body's integrity in the process. The trick was to defeat one's enemy before one suffered permanent damage. Fortunately, she seemed to be having some success in that regard. The Hellhounds' defences were crumbling and flaking away and she intensified her assault, investing more and more energy in the spell.
It was then that she noticed the other energy readings in the corridor. Four small electronic devices had been placed on the office doors flanking her, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what they were. Time for a change of tactics.
She loaded another clip of cartridges, cancelling the bombardment as she did so. The projectiles vanished abruptly, and the enemy surged towards her. A sextet of glowing pink wings unfolded from Raising Heart's head, and a massive charging ring appeared around its owner's feet.
"Excelion Buster, A.C.S. Drive!"
Nanoha launched herself forwards, just as the breaching charges detonated behinds her The closest two doors slammed together like a steel trap scant inches from her armour-clad feet, and the cloud of smoke formed streamers around her desperate rush.
The Hellhounds, sensibly, tried to flee, but the press of their inhuman allies behind them meant they had little success. Raising Heart's blade struck the centremost one mid-leap, chewing through its wards with grim inevitability. No sooner had its tip penetrated the cyborg's defences than Nanoha began the second stage of her attack.
"Break... shoot!"
A sphere of energy emerged from her Device's head, growing rapidly and then collapsing into a beam of concentrated magic... right in the unfortunate Hellhound's face. The resultant explosion tore the daemons' formation apart, sending the survivors cartwheeling out of the way and blocking their reinforcements' aim. She launched another Axel Shooter wave, the projectiles whipping around her in a manner that strongly discouraged either daemon or cyborg from getting too close. She turned around, intending to scope out whoever had placed the charges... and received her third nasty surprise of the battle.
Six Hellhounds stood in the corridor, still as statues and swathed in the same darkness as their comrades. Each one held one of the administrative staff, a blade pressed to their throat. Assuming a hostage situation, Nanoha lowered her weapon, realising too late that it was exactly what the creatures had been waiting for.
In unison, they sliced downwards with their blades, opening their prisoners from neck to groin, and stepped backwards, chanting in their harsh, mechanical voices. There was a horrible, organic sound, and the victims split apart, their bodies reshaping into fleshy gateways with portals to the Warp at their centre. Through it all they screamed, their voices barely human and their faces horribly distorted, and Nanoha knew that they understood everything that was happening to them. Daemons climbed out from within, howling their battle-cries, and the Hellhounds' chanting continued, refining their living gates yet further.
Nanoha could only stand there, open-mouthed, her mind simply refusing to accept the nightmare unfolding before her eyes. Then her training kicked in, and she raised her staff once more.
"Excelion Buster!"
The massive beam seared down the corridor, carrying all of her rage and all of her horror with it. The sacrifices fell apart, the loss of the dark magic sustaining them ensuring that they were dead before they hit the ground, and she knew it had been a mercy. Bile rose in the back of her throat, but she sternly kept it down, knowing the fight wasn't over yet.
The horde crowded around her, taking advantage of the distraction. Though she'd taken care of the Hellhound reinforcements, that still left a lot of enemies uncomfortably close. She fell back into her accustomed routine, dispatching foes left and right with staff, bayonet, and spells, but she knew it wasn't enough. Every time she tried to raise a shield, a Hellhound was there to cut through it. Every time she tried to dodge, the mass of daemons hemmed her in.
A phase blade sliced through the back of her skirt, almost hamstringing her, and she leapt forwards, only for one of the incorporeal hawk-daemons to rake her across the face with its claws, causing her to jerk back with a short gasp of pain. It didn't hit anything vital, fortunately, but head wounds were always bleeders, and the last thing she needed right now was for her vision to be obscured.
Besides, I might not be so lucky with the next one.
She lashed out with the Axel Shooter tendrils, buying her enough time to take a deep breath as she prepared to unleash the highest-level magic she could muster at short notice. All her cartridges had been expended, and she didn't have time to reload, which meant that she'd be drawing entirely from her own stores. With Blaster Mode activated, there were even odds of it ending up as a suicide attack – worse, if one considered that she was in an environment as inherently cramped, fragile, and hazardous as a space station. Still, it was the only chance of survival she had.
"Excelion-"
There was a rather anticlimactic pop, and every daemon in the corridor vanished, leaving Nanoha and the three remaining Hellhounds to stare at each other in bewilderment.
Hayate, what on earth just happened? Where did they all go?
The colonel's voice had a note of unmistakeable smugness to it. Fate happened. Incidentally, would you mind closing any summoning gates you come across on your way to your objective? Seems to be rather helpful.
Ugh – I hope I never see another again. I'll send you the combat log once I'm done – it's not pretty, but you need to see it. They're learning, Hayate. They're learning and- whoa!
The Hellhounds had regained their wits, their helmet-guns spitting and their dull grey blades carving the air. She danced away, summoning another wave of streamers to batter her assailants, but the cyborgs were ready this time. Those projectiles that were not deflected by shields or dissipated by phase blades were simply dodged, and soon she was faced yet again with the unenviable prospect of facing weapons that could cut through absolutely anything in close quarters – and the creatures they were attached to weren't too pleasant either.
Well, here goes nothing...
She targeted the central Hellhound once more (that was to say, the central one of the three still conscious – her original target was still slumped in the corner, drooling into his helmet), sweeping her leg out in a low, clumsy kick. It jumped over the attack easily, stabbing its blades downwards, and she summoned a shield to defend herself. It was a futile gesture, and both of them knew it – the swords could penetrate the magical barrier as would the proverbial heated cutlery through agitated bovine emulsion.
It was probably just as well, then, that Nanoha had absolutely no intention of letting the cyborg touch it.
"Barrier Burst!" she gasped, and the shield exploded, lifting her foe off its feet and hurling it back down the corridor. The other two were only hit by the periphery of the explosion, but that was still enough to stagger them for a moment, and that was all she needed.
She climbed awkwardly to her feet, Raising Heart's heads-up display painting her targets with glowing circles, and inserted another clip. Not many left. Best make this one count.
"Blaster Two!"
A shockwave of excess energy pulsed out from her Device, denying the Hellhounds a chance to recover, and a pair of small, triangular drones materialised beside her, hovering just above shoulder-height.
"Divine Buster."
Three lances of pink energy seared across the corridor, one from Nanoha's staff and one from each of the drones. There was a series of thuds as the cyborgs' unconscious forms fell to the floor.
Much better.
She took stock of her situation. Though she was relieved to note that the Blaster System had caused little more than some light-headedness and the odd twinge in her joints, the scratches on her face had performed as expected, sheening her face with blood and dripping down into her eyes. She wiped it off on the back of her sleeve, leaving a long red smear, and picked up the piece of her skirt that the Hellhound had cut off. After trimming it a bit with Raising Heart's bayonet, she tied it around her forehead, unconsciously mimicking her partner a few dozen rooms away, and set off for the security centre, uploading her combat log to the telepathic network as she did so.
The abbreviated skirt felt decidedly odd against her legs, but she decided not to repair it. The blade hadn't done enough damage to compromise the Barrier Jacket's defensive capabilities, and running out of magic halfway through a battle because she'd wasted some on fashion concerns would probably make her die of embarrassment before the enemy had a chance to get a shot in.
As she approached the centre, she thought of many things. She thought of her little family – Erio, Caro, Vivio, Fate – and offered a short prayer to whoever was listening for their safety. She thought of the gate her partner had destroyed. How many daemons had it banished? How easy would it be to replicate the feat with another? Above all, though, she tried not to think of the men and women she had just seen die in front of her eyes. What if she had simply opened fire as soon as she saw them? Could she have saved them? Or would she just have gotten them killed anyway as their captors realised what was about to happen? The Hellhounds had never been slow, after all. No way of knowing, now.
Best ask Shamal for a memory-erasure when I get back. There's nothing about this particular experience that I want to keep, and everyone else will still have the logs.
The objective room's door was sealed, and even Hayate's codes weren't working, which implied a lot of possibilities – none of them good. Not wishing to risk the equipment inside, she employed the bayonet once more, cutting through the thick metal before administering a magic-infused kick to knock the whole affair down. She dived in, snapping her arm out at the centre's sole occupant.
"Chain Bind!"
Pink tendrils shot from the floor, wrapping themselves around him, and he snarled wordlessly, struggling like an animal caught in a trap. The tiny room's lights were out, but the sickly glow from the monitors and instrument panels lining the walls was more than enough to confirm his identity.
She recognised his face as belonging to Sergeant Ibrahim, one of the headquarters security detail she had appointed, but there was nothing of the placid, gentle soldier she had known in his eyes. Siddiq Ibrahim hadn't burned with magical power the way this creature did either, or moved in such a disturbingly boneless, liquid manner.
"Unknown infiltrator," she said calmly, "you are under arrest for assaulting Bureau personnel, sabotaging Bureau equipment, and impersonating a military officer. Please do not attempt to resist, or I will be forced to disable you."
"NO!" the creature shrieked, its facial features stretching grotesquely. "No, you don't understand, I can't let you do this! They're cornered without the gate! They're cornered, they're desperate, and they've got the children! You have to let me go! You have to let me stop them!"
"What children?" Nanoha demanded. "What are you talking about?"
Her captive slumped back in its restraints, shaking its head. "It doesn't matter now. It's too late, yes, far, far too late. All I can do is fulfil my mission. To assume the shape of the accursed and deliver death from the purity within you."
The creature collapsed inwards, its limbs retreating into its body, and slid out of the binds, writhing across the floor before assuming humanoid shape once again. Behind it, Ibrahim's clothes fell to the floor, but it no longer looked anything like him.
In his place was a woman in a skin-tight black bodysuit whose athletic curves and predatory grace Nanoha would have been able to appreciate a whole lot better if the creature hadn't immediately stabbed a horribly familiar-looking grey blade at her face. The fact that she was well over two metres away proved irrelevant, her arm stretching to an impossible length with nightmarish speed.
The TSAB captain dropped to the floor, taking aim with her staff. The phase blade passed overhead, stabbing into one of the monitors, and the Divine Assassin screamed as electricity coursed up her arm. She staggered back, her body twitching, bulging and writhing as if it wasn't entirely sure about the shape it had taken.
"I've heard a lot about you, Nanoha Takamachi." she said quietly, her voice changing pitch and tone with every ripple of motion. "The Bureau's top combat mage, the Ace of Aces, the White Devil. A fitting opponent, I think, for my last battle. Make it a good one, won't you?"
Nanoha's response was short and to the point. "Divine Buster!"
The beam should have hit – Nanoha knew it as surely as she knew Raising Heart's start-up incantation, or the smell of Fate's hair. Instead, the assassin bent around it, her torso stretching and contorting as a third arm shot upwards from her back, supporting her rubbery frame against the ceiling.
She giggled, the weird modulation from her body's shiftings only enhancing the edge of hysteria in the sound. "Please, do keep calling your attacks like that. It makes my job so much easier."
Nanoha thought something extremely impolite. Raising Heart, switch to telepathic activation.
Yes, my master.
Better. Axel Shooter!
The streamers launched once more, her drones imitating her action, and soon the security centre was filled with homing projectiles. The assassin slid through them, tentacle-like limbs erupting from her body and attacking from all directions at once. There was very little way of telling whether one was tipped with a fist, a foot, or the deadly phase blade until it was too late, and after the first one to get through Nanoha's defences almost decapitated her, she had no intention of bothering to figure out which was which.
The fight developed into a maze of feint and counter-feint, attacks flickering back and forth with the speed of thought. The assassin seemed to be everywhere, unleashing a steady stream of punches, kicks, stabs, and the odd spot of magic, and the best Nanoha could do was funnel her in to a few angles of assault. It was only a matter of time before such an inherently unstable situation collapsed, and collapse it did.
With a gesture, Nanoha redirected all of her Axel Shooter tendrils into the security centre's ceiling, creating a forest of explosions around the Divine Assassin's feet. Her opponent elegantly flipped to the floor, but not before the combat mage had kicked the operator's chair in her direction. The assassin's legs wrapped round it like a garden hose encountering an errant lawnmower, and the moment of distracted confusion was all Nanoha needed.
She lunged forward with her bayonet, aiming for the assassin's centre of mass... and stumbled to one side, a wave of dizziness and nausea sweeping over her. The Blaster System's effects, combined with the added strain of using telepathy to trigger her attacks, had left her at the end of her physical tether, and now she was paying for it in full.
Two of the assassin's arms shot out, surrounded by ominous reddish-purple charging rings, and she knew she would not evade in time.
"Doom Bolt!"
It was like being punched by a thousand fists at once, the brevity of the attack in no way diminishing the feeling of utter relentlessness. The wind was knocked from her and she flew backwards, slamming the back of her head against an instrument panel in the process and feeling something give way inside her chest. Lights and colours danced in front of her eyes as she slid down the wall, only barely managing to land on her own two feet.
The assassin was upright again, looping her blade in a figure-eight pattern that sliced through both of Nanoha's summoned drones. Two-thirds of the streamers in the room abruptly disappeared, and the remainder were not nearly enough to restrict her movements.
A slit opened in her bodysuit on her right flank and she reached inside, pulling out an enormous, slime-coated pistol that could only have been concealed in her abdominal cavity. The captain had no idea what it did – the fuel tank suggested a flamethrower, yet the barrel was completely the wrong shape – but she'd seen enough of the invaders' technology to know she really didn't want to find out.
"Is this it?" the creature growled. "My final request, and this is all you can provide? I won't make this quick, Takamachi."
For Nanoha, the experience was surreal, dreamlike. Being lectured nonsensically by a psychotic shapeshifter was not something that she regularly made a habit of (apart from the unfortunate incident with Arf and the bottle of retsina, anyway, but that didn't really count), and her injuries didn't help matters either. Her vision swam, and she shook her head to clear it.
Groggily, she brought her own weapon to bear, mustering all of her speed to do so. Even if she did get a bead on her target first, she knew she wouldn't have time to charge one of her beam attacks before her opponent fired... but then again, she had other options.
Though the featureless mask covering her face betrayed no expression, Nanoha could have sworn that the assassin's eyes widened behind the two small green windows that covered them as she realised what was about to happen – and then Raising Heart spoke.
"Barrel Shot!"
A cylinder of distorted air materialised from the staff's tip, freezing the creature in place. A grim smile split Nanoha's face as she prepared the main attack, drawing on all the magical residue left over from their battle.
"Starlight Breaker!"
In the close confines, the bombardment-level spell never had a chance to develop into a beam, instead skipping straight to the 'massive explosion' stage. The world vanished in a haze of pink light, and Nanoha blacked out.
When she came to, the Divine Assassin was a crumpled, comatose heap on the floor. Her pistol had apparently gone off when she was caught in the blast, which would certainly explain the gigantic hole in the wall, its edges still glowing bright orange. The rest of the room was a burnt-out shell, every screen smashed, every instrument broken.
Sorry, Hayate.
Despite the destruction of the gate reinforcing the attack on their headquarters, Hayate was still extremely busy. Other gates still existed, and though the readings from DSS were a great help in finding them, getting rid of them was another matter entirely. Shamal had confided to her that Fate had been lucky not to lose her arm, and she was an S+-ranked veteran. For ordinary troops, clearing out one of the daemons' nests was a nigh-impossible task. Hayate had had to organise ad-hoc squads of particularly powerful mages to seek and destroy the gates, taking turns to ease the effects of attrition, which, while effective, naturally drew them away from other problems that had arisen – problems such as the ones Fate's team were currently facing in the spirewards quarters.
Without daemonic support, the Hellhounds had gone to ground, mining the block's corridors with their grenades and launching punishing hit-and-run attacks on the relief force. Their advance had slowed to a crawl, and she shuddered to think what would have happened if Nanoha's data-package hadn't informed them about the cyborgs' concealment trick. Not that that had been the most disturbing revelation the chief combat instructor had provided.
Hayate sighed and massaged her temples – a gesture that had become something of a habit of late. At least their network was beginning to link up with others spreading across the station, and she would soon be relieved of her command by someone with shinier epaulettes. She wasn't sure how much more she could take.
A comm-window appeared above her desk. It was Nanoha, looking rather the worse for wear and standing in a room that was mostly comprised of charred wreckage. Hayate felt a horrible sinking feeling, and covered her face with her hands.
"Nanoha, please tell me that's not our brand-new, squeaky-clean security centre you're in..."
The combat mage winced. "I'm afraid so, but we've got bigger problems. I just had a run-in with one of their elites, and she was babbling something about 'children'. Have you had any word from Erio and Caro yet?"
"No, nothing. Fate's in the right area; I'll see if she-"
Another window popped up, the symbols indicating a general-broadcast message. Erio's face dominated the screen – pale, frightened, and yet set into a carefully-composed expression of stoic nonchalance. A long, dull grey blade was held against his throat, beads of sweat dripping down onto it as the young mage spoke.
"Colonel Yagami," he said, his voice strained and almost robotic, "this is Private Mondial reporting in. I apologise, but Private La Rushe and I have been captured by the enemy, who wish to negotiate terms with you in exchange for our safe return. If you are interested, please head to our room in the spirewards quarters."
Hayate nodded, feeling nausea bubble up inside her. "Acknowledged, Private. I'll be on my way. Stay calm – we'll get you out of there safely. I promise."
The mask shattered, leaving a hurt, terrified boy where the professional soldier had been a moment before. "Thank you, Colonel. Please come soon. They-"
The link cut off, and Hayate was left staring at the wall. She opened a conference channel to Fate and Nanoha, both of whom looked like they'd just been punched repeatedly in the intestines.
"You heard that, I take it?"
"Loud and clear." Nanoha's voice was cold with rage. "What are your orders, Hayate?"
"Fate, you'll be clearing us a path. Here are the co-ordinates. Once you're there, adopt standard hostage protocols."
The blonde captain saluted, flinty-eyed. "Aye, ma'am. Let them try and stop me. I welcome it."
"Nanoha, get yourself patched up with Shamal. You're on fire support."
"Not a problem. What about you?"
"Me?" Hayate stood up, grabbing her pendant from the desk. "I'll be finding out what exactly it is that these vermin want."
Ten minutes later, she stood outside the blasted-in doorway of her two youngest privates' quarters, Barrier Jacket activated and staff in hand. She saw no signs of life in the room, but the wreckage inside provided any number of hiding places, and Shamal's preliminary scan had confirmed that both children were still alive.
Fate was patrolling the perimeter, checking for any alternate escape routes the Hellhounds might have up their armoured sleeves, whilst Nanoha was getting into position further down the corridor, sufficiently far away that the glow of her weapon's charging would not alert her targets. An impromptu strike team waited in the wings, ready to move in as soon as they received her signal.
"All right," Hayate said to the silent chamber. "I'm here. What are your terms?"
The voice that replied was a stilted, tinny whisper that could only be considered human by distant relation. "Want escape. Give transport. Safe passage. We give children. Deal?"
"I want to know your prisoners are safe first," she replied, trying to buy Nanoha some preparation time. "Let me talk to them."
Silence.
"Did you hear me?"
More silence. Then the screaming began.
It was the sound of children in the purest agony – primal, wordless, and utterly harrowing. Accompanying it was the chanting, the low, slick chanting that bored into the brains of everyone present.
"EXCELION BUSTER!"
A comet of pink light streaked from Nanoha's position, detonating inside the room with a titanic explosion. Fate tried to approach, grey-faced, but her partner was already there, holding her tight and pleading with her incoherently, tears streaming from her eyes.
"Turn away Fate please please turn away you can't look I won't let you look..."
Hayate had already opened a comm-channel to the infirmary, screaming down the link.
"Shamal! Shamal, get over here NOW!"
Even as she spoke the words, though, she knew it was far, far too late.
Author's Notes: ...And with that, we come to the end of the battle for the central office. The war, on the other hand? Not so much.
See you next week!
