Sorry if it's taking me longer to update...I have work and stuff D: anyone out there still reading this?
The sky was bright overhead as metal hissed on human flesh, carving out a path through the air as the arm of a cyborg re-positioned itself, revolving steadily in the narrow light. Artificial skin rapidly sealed up over the machinery, concealing the creature's true nature, yet no move was meant to move out from beyond the shadows. Cautiousness and stealth were key to survival.
The Legion remained solitary and alone, watching the red sky patiently. Its AI module commanded it to remain invisible from mankind for as long as was possible. Blending in into society was not impossible for the Legion, but the flurry of multiple minds did not make for good social contact. The deceit would last not much further than physical appearance.
It seemed like an age before the familiar crackle sounded in the creature's ear canal. Its artificial ear detected the transmission a split second before the human ear did. Tiny signals were sent to the positronic brain to immediately analyse the message.
"My Legion," a woman's voice sounded in its ear, cool and in control. "Good work. Your efforts are particularly commendable."
The Legion gave no answer, given over to its artificial side, which lacked reason. Commands were what it listened to.
"You have successfully delivered the brain of Jail Scaglietti to us," the woman's voice continued on, "and the rewards are already showing fruit. The mind of a madman. Our client promised to put in a good word for you when she heard the nature of your operation." The voice paused as if to savour the image in her head. "Making it seem like Scaglietti committed suicide in his own cell, with his own bindings, and erasing all trace...quite remarkable."
The human side of the Legion, the reasoning, decided to put a word in at this point. "The TSA will not be fooled for long," it said.
"True, my Legion. But time is something that we find ourselves very plentiful in lately." A wry chuckle issued from the end of the line. "Legion, do you know why I have brought you here today?"
The Legion cast its gaze up towards the horizon, staring right into the full glare of the sun without flinching. "My program has possibilities."
"You may recognise this place," the female voice said without emotion. "It was once called Earth, but now the TSA refers to it only as a number, like so many other worlds out there. But it is important to us because of what your next operation entails." A sigh, full of longing, longing and regret. "I must apologise, my Legion. This mission will be quite easy for you. A child could do it. But the timing is crucial."
The Legion waited and said nothing, awaiting the orders that would come.
"Listen closely, my Legion: I have had Exoria bring you here, to this time era in particular, because there is a girl. A girl in a hospital. A girl who will someday prove to be one of the most powerful ages in existence." Systems worked in silence, the crackling over the line increasing by a notch and then fading away again. "I have sent you all the information you need directly to your by-program unit."
It took the work of a moment for the Legion to process all of the data injected into its memory banks. "Takamachi Nanoha," it stated.
"Correct. She has met with an unfortunate accident, not long after joining up with the TSA itself, and is currently hospitalised in the location you stand now." The woman paused for a moment of contemplation. "She recovers, of course, in the future. However, I want you to make sure that such recovery does not happen at all."
The Legion nodded, in deep thought despite its lack of emotions in its better half. In retrospect, such a gesture would not have been detected by its superior.
The woman spoke one more time to the creature. "I'm afraid I must stress once more how important the timing of the assassination is," she said. "Exoria has already taken care of Yagami Hayate and removed her, with the imposter in position. But I am quite sure that that will not delay the planning for too long. Speed is of the essence, my Legion."
"I understand," the Legion said, but the crackling had already disappeared. The connection had been terminated, away with the end of the line. The Legion was alone in the shadows once more.
Terminate Takamachi Nanoha. Whilst she cannot fight back.
It seemed all too simple. The Legion drew up a list of possible scenarios in its main android cortex, looking through possible outcomes and how the mission might be aborted for any possible reason. Nanoha would be closely watched and well guarded, but guards had never been a major obstruction for the Legion. Powerful mages. Fate Testarossa. The Asura and the company aboard. The Wolkenritter. Yagami Hayate, in this time too.
Timing is essential.
Silently, the Legion moved out of the shadows and towards the sun, drifting north towards its destination.
The streets were virtually silent, with barely a soul to be seen. As the wind picked up steadily, whipping against her hair and the hem of her uniform, Hayate felt the sense of isolation she had been feeling for the past few days to increase harshly. She saw a few kids playing across the road in the park, kindly faces drawing near on the path to the shops, but she didn't recognise any of them. The younger Hayate would rarely leave the house back then, except when she really had to.
I'm home.
Yet it didn't feel like home. Hayate felt like she was in some kind of a ghost town. No, that wasn't quite right. She felt like the ghost herself, unseen and unheard in a perfectly ordinary place to live. She didn't want anyone to see her or know she was there; it felt somewhat wrong to do so. She wasn't supposed to be here, was she? She didn't belong here...she belonged in the future...
The park had been filled with the sound of birdsong and laughter. Hayate didn't hear any of it. She found a discarded newspaper lying abandoned amidst the junk and the litter on the park benches, with one small but very important detail: today's date.
The date on the newspaper was ten years ago. It was proof that, somehow, impossibly, she had travelled backwards in time.
Impossible was right. No mage, no matter how powerful, could travel through time. No one. Even the Lost Logia did not grant anyone that power. It was like trying to make the rain flow upwards, or hold a comet in the palm of your hand. Power wasn't the issue: it just wasn't how time worked.
And yet, here she was now...in an impossible reality. Alone and helpless, stranded by herself and cut off from all possible -
"Hayate! Hayate!"
Startled, the short-haired mage turned to see a familiar figure scoot towards her. Her first reaction was to hide away from them, away from whoever had mistaken her for the other Hayate in the past, away from whatever complications would arise -
"Hayate, what are you doing?" Rein cried, hovering in front of her face. The unison device was eye-to-eye with her, small enough to be mistaken for some kind of pet. That is, until you saw that she was a person just like everyone else. "What happened? Where are we? I can't contact the TSA! I can't - "
Hayate stared at her second-in-command for a few seconds, open-mouthed. How was this possible?
"Rein, you got sent back too?" she said in astonishment.
"Sent back? What are you talking about, Hayate? The last thing I remember was being fished out of the toilet!" Rein irritably brushed herself off, but it seemed that her transition her had brought her back to her senses from the earlier incident. "Sent back where?"
"Back in time," Hayate said with growing anxiety, the words sounding alien in her throat.
Rein started to protest, "But that's impossi - "
The former commander of Riot Force 6 handed her the newspaper without a word. She still hadn't come to terms with being torn away from her own time, even if she was now in somewhere even more familiar. The nostalgia of sweet home and the quaking fear of being trapped here forever threatened to tear her apart.
"Somebody sent us here," Hayate said in a low voice as Rein's disbelieving eyes shot from the date on the newspaper to the low-cut buildings and the simpler culture of the world around them. A world before Riot Force 6 had ever existed. "Somebody sent us back here in time. We've got to get back!"
"Hayate, this is crazy!" Rein protested. The unison device didn't want to believe it. As far as she was concerned, this was just another uncharted world, far from the control of the TSA. She hadn't lived on Earth like Hayate had. She didn't know that she hadn't been born yet. "No one can travel back in time or space! We can't possibly have travelled back to - "
"What about the date on the newspaper then?"
Rein threw it down on the ground, but the panic was rising. "It's faked! It's just a fake to fool us into thinking - "
Hayate shook her head sadly. "There's another younger Hayate living in the house down the road from here. She's me. Just like I lived before. We're in the past, Rein, and we have to get back."
"No!" Rein cried, wide-eyed, in full panic mode now. "It's not true! I won't believe it - !"
Before Hayate could stop her, the unison device had shot off down the road at full speed, disappearing in a flash. No! Hayate screamed in her mind. We're the only two here in the past! We can't be separated!
She dashed after Rein, her mind going into overdrive. She didn't blame Rein for running off, although she hoped it was temporary. There had to be a way to get back to the present. There had to be. Whoever had zapped her back ten years had done so for a very good reason, and that made it all the more important that she and Rein had to get back as soon as possible...
Hayate tried to think back to what the TSA had been like ten years ago. No Riot Force 6. Who had been in command? Chrono-kun had been younger back then, with his mother, Lindy Harlaown, and...and...
The Asura.
That was it. It had to be – she had to contact the Asura as fast as possible and relay her situation to them. Yet how could they possibly help her? The Asura wouldn't know anything different about time travel. And she would have to get Lindy to believe their story.
I've got to try. It's the only thing I can do right now. Fate, Nanoha...wait for me. I still want to meet up with the two of you like we promised.
Her heart in her mouth, she dashed down the street after Rein to put her plan into action.
Vita lay woozily in the grand hospital bed of the main ward. Her stomach hurt from throwing up, and her eyes were red and puffy from the constant sneezing. She had recovered from worse than this, much worse. It was an insult to her pride that she had to be kept here at all, but when one of the Wolkenritter was in charge of caring for you, and Shamal of all people...
Strange shapes moved in front of her face. Vita focused on the blond one. The eyedrops weren't always working for some reason.
"Shamal, can I go yet?" she mumbled. "I'm all better."
The blonde mage pushed her back down crossly. "You are not all better, Vita. You have to stay here at least another day until you at least recover your muscle co-ordination."
The fiery Velka Knight rubbed her eyes into her pillow and blinked a few more times, seeing more faces pop up around her. She ignored them on account of her half-blindness. "I'm not even supposed to be here! I'm not hurt, I'm not wounded, I don't have a single broken bone. I'm wasting away in here and I could be doing much more with the new trainees - "
"Vita-san," said a familiar hushed voice next to Shamal, "are you all right?"
Alarmed, the red-haired mage sat up in bed. The dizziness swam over her head for an instant, and then dissipated for the time being. Ignoring it, Vita stared astounded at the crowd of people around her bed. Subaru, Tiana, Erio, Caro and Signum all stood around her, looking concerned. Vita felt a red flush rise in her cheeks: what in the world were they all doing here? She didn't any more humiliation.
"There are far too many of you here," she muttered, but her heart wasn't really in the words. "I guess Signum dragged all of you along to see me, then."
"We wanted to see you, Vita," Caro said with shining eyes. "I made a card for you."
"That was very nice of you," said the redhead without much enthusiasm, but touched at the sentiment nonetheless. "Where is it?"
"It melted on the way here."
Vita wasn't sure she heard right. "Say again?"
"It was made out of ice-cream. I didn't have much to work with." Caro looked like she was going to cry. "But I put my entire heart into making it, Vita-san. And the sun came down, and it...it..."
Awkwardly, Vita reached over and put her arm around the girl's neck affectionately. She winced in pain as she moved over but the pain hadn't worried her for a long time. "Don't worry about the card, Caro," she said warmly, although her voice sounded hoarse in her throat from the past few days. "It's probably in a better place right now."
"Or a better puddle," Signum murmured under her breath. Vita heard her and shot a fierce glare at the tall woman over Caro's shoulder.
Tiana pushed her way towards Vita, her face pained. "But Vita, what's going on?" she pleaded. "You usually recover from any life-threatening injuries in less than twenty four hours. What's wrong? Signum said you didn't want to tell us, but..."
Vita sighed and let go of Caro resignedly. "No, I didn't," she said flatly. "You'll just laugh at me if I tell you."
"Now, Vita," Shamal said gently, "you are not fit for combat or any kind of mission. That is no laughing matter. No one's going to laugh at you."
"That's right," Subaru piped up hopefully. "You can tell us. We won't laugh."
"You will," Vita snapped.
Tiana clasped her hands together in front of her body. "We promise we won't laugh," she said earnestly. "Isn't that right, Erio, Caro?"
"Signum laughed when I told her," Vita argued, shooting another unfriendly glance at the imposing Velka Knight standing in the corner of the room.
Signum shrugged. "I laugh at many things."
"I've never seen you laugh at anything, and you chose to laugh at me."
"Yes, and then you laughed at me having to teach your trainees how to use a sword," Signum replied sourly. "I can see why you did."
Shamal sighed. She'd had to put up with this for the past few days already. "Why are you two always arguing with each other whenever Signum comes to visit?" she asked. "I thought you were such good friends!"
"That was before she laughed at me," Vita muttered. "Just because I've got food poisoning."
There was an extended silence as all of the forwards stared at the hospitalised Velka Knight in complete astonishment.
It was Tiana who recovered first. "You've got food poisoning?" she repeated.
Vita turned her face away. "You promised not to laugh."
"But...but...I don't understand..." The sharpshooter's gaze travelled from Vita's blotchy eyes and discoloured skin to the agony that crossed her face everytime she tried to move an inch. "But you look like you've got bubonic plague or something."
Vita snorted. "Thanks, Tia. I guess that's better than having you laugh at me."
"As a member of the Wolkenritter, Vita is an artificial intelligence," Shamal intervened, before another argument could start up. "Since she's not human – none of us are – she should not be able to contract human illnesses and diseases. However, in the rare occasion that she does...then it affects her on a much deeper level. My healing magic helps, but only so far." Shamal took a deep breath, her tired eyes mirroring deep concern. "My theory is that she's contracted some kind of virus from the food which infiltrated her main core. As a result, she's been vomiting, feverish, sneezing constantly, contracted violent coughing - "
"I think you can stop now," said Vita faintly. "I only feel better for a short time after I wake up, and that time ended just now."
Erio came over from the other side of the bed. "Food poisoning doesn't make you sneeze or give you any of those symptoms at all," he protested. "This isn't fair on Vita at all."
"Vita, don't worry!" Caro said with deep emotion, taking the redhead's hands in her own. "Erio and me will come to visit you every day until you get better again."
Vita managed a small smile at these words. "Thanks, Caro."
"I'll bring more Get Well cards made out of ice-cream and I'll make sure they don't melt this time."
"You don't have t- " Vita began to say.
"Maybe we can even eat the remains together."
Signum stepped away from the wall she was leaning against and stepped over to the foot of the bed. "You need to get better, Vita," she said seriously. "I mean it."
"Really?" said the red-haired Velka Knight, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, because if I have to teach your trainees once more about how you shouldn't wave a sword then I'm going to go crazy. Do you know just many times I have had to - "
"ALERT!"
They all jumped as red lights flashed throughout the entire hospital. Not only throughout the hospital, but everywhere that the TSA was based on in Mid-Childa. An uneasy mood settled amongst the mages in the room.
"ALERT! ALERT!" Shari's voice echoed through the intercom throughout the entire base. "All qualified mages are ordered to their stations immediately! Emergency in Quadron B! I repeat, all qualified mages must regroup at their assigned stations! This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill! Trainee mages are to report to their team leaders and await further orders there! ALERT!"
It had been a long time since an emergency of this nature had happened in Mid-Childa. The forwards all knew it. Not since the JS Incident. For a full emergency to be called up upon the entire base...
"This isn't good," Signum said quietly to the others, as Shari repeated the announcement again and again. "Let's get to our stations right now."
Vita laughed bitterly. "Well, look at that," she said, delving back into the bedcovers. "First time Shari calls an emergency in over a year. And where am I? Sick in hospital from food poisoning." Looking disgusted, she rolled over onto her side. "You four, tell me all about it after it's over."
Subaru started to move towards Vita, recognising all too well the anguish on her face. The Velka Knight wanted so badly to fight, and her body wasn't permitting her to. Or her mind. It was difficult to tell with artificial intelligence.
"Vita..." Her voice caught in her throat. "We'll be back for you, okay?"
"Whatever," a croaked whisper retorted in reply.
Swiftly, the four forwards along with Sigmund rushed from the ward towards battle stations for the first time in a long time.
And then Shari's voice sounded again, more urgently. "ALERT! Repeat, ALERT! The TSA is under attack!"