Thanks for the follow Taeniaea

Disclaimer: there might be elements from other stories be seen in this story. That will be because I have most likely read those stories at one time and they have stuck into my head and come forward while writing this. I do not own these or the characters of Lord of the rings or Magical girl lyrical nanoha.

For talking:

"Normal": elvish

"Italic": Japanese

'Normal': thinking

[Telepathy]

{Spell}

In this chapter there will be mentioning of orc cruelty, be warned!

With the scouting group:

The scouting group stood ready in the transportation room, also there was Chrono when the door suddenly opened and Agito walked in with a bag.

"Don't think you would get to leave on a scouting mission without me" she said.

"I want you to stay here, you can't help with the mission" Chrono told Agito.

"Can't help, can't help. Of course I can help, I can find Signum easily as I recognize her by feeling and can't be fooled by appearance" Agito told him with irritation in her voice. When she looked towards the group she saw that many were smiling but because of their training weren't laughing out loud.

With a sight Chrono said "Alright, you can go along but will tell Fate and Nanoha what you have found. You won't do anything without the permission from at least one of them, understood! "

"Yes, I understand and thank you Admiral" Agito responded and saluted. She then went to the group and seconds later they were transported towards the designated coordinates.

It took a short while before they could see their environment and what they saw was a wood behind them and an open landscape before them.

"Fate-chan, I will do an area scan and see what I can find in the area and also will I see if I can find the route we should take to the civilization that was found during the scan of the planet" Nanoha said and got a nod in acknowledgment from Fate.

{Wide area search} Raising heart said after which two pink balls appeared. Each one of the balls went in a different direction and searched the area systematically. Everyone else started to search the nearby area for signs of travel or civilization.

In the woods:

The traveling party was taking a break when one of the wardens came running towards Haldir

"Marchwarden, you have to come. When we were watching the area we saw a pink ball flying around. It would stop from time to time and hang in one place before going to another area" the warden said.

Haldir was about to walk with the warden when lady Galadriel appeared beside him. The look in her eyes told him that she wanted to come along. Ke knew she wouldn't take a no for an answer so he sighted and let her come along, but not before signing for two additional wardens to follow them. It didn't take long before the five of them arrived at the place where one warden was waiting for them.

"Where is this ball you saw flying?" Haldir asked the wardens and the one who had waited pointed towards an area at his left side. They could see that a pink ball was flying there.

"Shall we destroy it, my lady" Haldir asked but if it was him who would make the decision then he would have destroyed it. He knew that now the lady was present he couldn't give the command so he waits until she had made her decision.

It took a few minutes before she answered "No, I want to know the person behind it. When I touched it I felt something blocking me. That makes me believe that there is someone who is controlling the ball. I want that two wardens follow it and see if it returns to its master" It was then that Haldir picked to wardens out to follow it, while the rest went back to the camp.

The two wardens who followed the ball stayed two hundred meters behind it and made sure to follow it from two sides, while making sure that they could see each other. The reason that they followed from two sides was that they were able to keep an eye on the ball and also could see if someone was coming towards them on a bigger field than when they stayed together. It was after ten minutes that they noticed that the ball was flying around slower as if it knew someone was following it and then suddenly it disappeared.

The wardens decided to carefully search the area for signs of the controller. They searched for half an hour before they were sure that the controller of the ball was not in the area they were in. Both believed that if someone could do this without being in the area then that means that this was something they have never seen before and could get quite dangerous. They hastened carefully back towards their camp to tell their lady and marchwarden about what had happened. With the speed with which they went they were back at the camp within ten minutes.

Haldir was checking how the camp cleanup went, as his lady had told him to break camp and be ready to leave when the wardens returned, when he saw the two wardens running towards the camp with haste. When they were before him he could hear them panting "What is wrong?" he asked and saw that his lady was moving towards the three of them.

"We were following the ball at two hundred meters distance and moving from the sides. After following it for ten minutes it was moving slower as if it knew someone was there watching it. Shortly afterwards it disappeared right from before our eyes. We carefully searched the area but couldn't find a trace of the ball's controller. It would appear as if this person was not in the area and controlling it from a distance" One of the wardens explained.

"We have to be cautious until we reach Imladris" Haldir said and decided to keep an eye on his lady to make sure she would be alright and on their surroundings to be able to see if someone would come up to them. Afterwards hr went back to what he was doing before and within minutes the group was ready to leave.

At Imladris in the afternoon:

During lunch the twins entertained their sister while Glorfindel, Elrond and Erestor were discussing the matter of armor with Signum which concluded with Glorfindel saying

"I will show you the armor the guards use here once lunch is over, so that you can create your own armor"

"That is alright" Signum answered after consulting the rest of the knights. So after lunch Glorfindel went to get the armor designs.

When Glorfindel arrived at the smids workplace he could hear the sounds of hammer hitting steel. He could feel the heat from the fire and wondered how any elf could work under that heat, he knew he couldn't do that. He waited for a short time before clearing his throat to make the smid turn his attention on him.

"Yes, my lord, what can I do for you?" the smid asked with a smile on his face, but his expression showed exhaustion.

"You still have the designs for armor, don't you?" Glorfindel asked him and heard the smid sight.

"Yes I do, how many do you need and when can I make the measurements for the armor?" the smid asked in the believe he had to craft new armor. Because of the workload he had, he didn't like it one bit to have more work. The crafting of the armor would probably take priority over repairs of non-combat material.

"I only need the designs. The persons for whom it is told us they would craft it themselves and so you don't have to craft anything" Glorfindel explained and saw the smid turning around towards his bookshelf where he kept designs of stuff that couldn't be in any other form. It took a few minutes for him to get the needed papers and giving them to Glorfindel. He did all that while muttering about how impossible it was and if they could make it then why couldn't they come to the forge to get the papers and work done while he was there to help them out. Before Glorfindel left he told the smid

"If you want come later this afternoon before dinner to the private gardens of Lord Elrond, I'll make sure you can get there, and you can see also how this will go" To this the smid frowned but nodded soon after. He was entirely interested how someone would create armor in a garden and couldn't wait to see it.

When Glorfindel left he headed towards the private sitting room of Lord Elrond as he suspected that Thanguriel would be there. When he arrived there and was bidden to enter after knocking on the door he saw that she was sitting with her 'family' and her brothers. He suspected that Elrond was working on some papers, but would be here as soon as he could. Knowing his lord and what had happened he knew that Elrond wanted to make sure that his daughter was alright and nothing was hidden.

"Ah, Glorfindel did you find the papers you had promised" Thanguriel asked.

"Yes, I do have them" Glorfindel answered and gave the papers to Signum who looked at them together with Vita, Zafira and Shamal. Signum, Shamal and Vita pulled out their necklaces and held them over the paper after which three voices said

{Panzerung Schaffung initiieren}

This shocked Glorfindel, Elladan and Elrohir but then Elrohir remembered Signum explaining them that their weapons could think for themselves. At the time it was explained no one could believe it, but now with seeing proof of it, although it was very small the believe in it was becoming a bit easier.

Back to the scouting group:

"What has everyone found out?" Vivio asked curiously as they were back at the place they were transported to.

"We haven't found any trace of a civilization that is still standing. We only found the remains of a raided farm, there we found bones which we determined to be of people. We couldn't find any real evidence as to how they died, but on what we saw I personally believe they were killed and then eaten. The most disturbing fact was that there were bones of a small child and a baby" Fate said as she saw the shocked expressions on the faces of the group members.

"We should mention this to Chrono as there might be extremely dangerous individuals present here" Nanoha said and Fate could tell with the expression of her eyes that if Nanoha found them, they would be really sorry they ever killed those children.

"Well Nanoha, what have you found?" Fate asked to which Nanoha responded

"In the woods are no settlements, but I believe there are travelers. We might intercept them. Oh, they followed my search spell which I also used to see how armed they are and they only carry swords and bows, from good quality I believe. Also for the open landscape, when we cross it we will come upon a civilization as I found traces of commonly used dirt roads"

"You can find this road I believe" Fate said and got a nod from Nanoha saying that she could "If they use such ancient weapons then we need to be careful with what we show them and let us hope that Hayate is in this settlement we are going to or else we will have our work cut out for us"

Afterwards Nanoha had Reinforce put up the search data and highlight the route to the place where they expected a settlement to be. They had to walk for half an hour when they noticed that there were sounds of hooves in the area. Everyone looked at each other with shock as they didn't think that there were this close to a settlement or that the killers were this close by. Before anyone could say anything Vivio had sprinted away.

[Vivio, come back here immediately. You should go to this group, they could be dangerous] Nanoha called telepathically just to be sure no one would know that they were there.

[Ah, Nanoha-mama, I will look from a distance. I remember the lessons they thought at the academy and won't let myself be seen] Vivio answered to which Nanoha had to sigh and told Vivio

[Alright, but be careful. We don't know if this are just civilians or if this are the killers and in the meantime the rest of us will give our report to Chrono, which I suggest you do also]

So everyone gave Chrono a report of what they had found in turns and after Fate told them about the murder Chrono said

[Tell the local authorities about it as we can't go after them, but be careful with how you say you found out about it]

Everyone agreed to this and then it was Vivio's turn to give a report on what she saw. She described seeing men and one woman with long hair and glowing skin riding on horses when suddenly the head of the woman turned and went in the direction of where Vivio was hiding. Because of this everyone kept their communication down so as not to attract attention. It seemed to work as the group traveled further, the only concern Vivio had was that the lady hadn't said anything and one of the men had suddenly said to travel further. Observing the group further she noticed that after a few hundred meters two of the men had disappeared. No more than five minutes later she felt a sharp object pointed at her back and heard someone say

"Don't move and turn around"

Vivo didn't understand what was being said so she stayed put and didn't move a muscle, but after a sometime the person behind her repeated the sentence so Vivio decides to say

"I am sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying" and she also told the rest of her scouting group.

[It seems that some of the local found me and have something sharp pointed at my back, possibly a sword or arrow. What should I do, Nanoha-mama]

[Stay put and don't move, we'll see what we can do without endangering you. Do you understand?] Nanoha told her.

[Yes, I understand] Vivio answered and so Nanoha, Fate and Teana discussed the next steps with Chrono. At the end it was decided that Subaru, Ginga and Lutecia would join them as backup.

Notes:

Panzerung Schaffung initiieren means initiate armor creation. This is something I came up with for how armor is created as it wasn't shown in any of the series.