The Dark Lord Amandiltar inducts more into his cult in the following months. Soon, his followers number in the tens of thousands across the world, mostly in Japan. He seeps his power into their minds, ensuring his control over them just as he had done to his armies long ago.
It is September 11th in the year 2005 of the sixth age (which he believes enough time has passed for it to be) when the election for the House of Representatives occurs. He has spread his influence far, and his agents run under the party name of Durbatulûk.
The current Prime Minister has called for a dissolution of the lower house after failing to get a bill passed in the upper house. He has refused to endorse the representatives who voted against his bill in this election, which makes them an easy draw to the Durbatulûk, eager for vengeance against their own party.
The main competing party, the Democratic People's Party, is where most of the rest of his followers come from. Already wanting change in government to become less inefficient, his promises of absolute efficiency draw them in like flies to a web.
"Preliminary election results are in!" a newscaster says. "Out of the 480 seats available, the Liberal Democratic Party got a large lead of 290 seats. Their rivals the Democratic Party only got 90 seats. The new party Dobatluk-"
"Durbatulûk," someone whispers.
"Durbatulûk earned 35 seats and ten percent of the popular vote. 'Where did this new party come from?' people are wondering. It seems to have appeared just a few months ago, and quickly racqueted up to become the third most popular party in the country. It seems people from various parties are leaving to join them.
"Their ideology so far seems to be a promise to make the government more efficient and make the nation prosperous. While it has yet to be seen, this group may be the next leaders of our country."
Ah, democracy, so easy to corrupt. His plans are going so well.
"Master Amandiltar, your acolyte has been attacked!"
The smith smiles. It has been a few months since the election, and his witches in training have been repeatedly attacked by unknowns. All he has of them are video: two adults of man, a werewolf, and another warrior disguised as a child. All using that strange form of magic.
Now, they have run into his trap. "Thank you. You may leave now." The shivering man exits and runs away from the building.
The Dark Lord strides to the bait, waiting in a safe house with hired mercenaries outside. He arrives just as the werewolf takes the magic of his acolyte with his magic book.
"Werewolf! What is your name. I would know the one who has been attacking my servants."
"I am not a werewolf. I am a Guardian Beast! My name is Zafira. We need to do this, but we do not kill."
"Oh, I am aware. Crippling the opposition so they have to take care of the casualties rather than killing is a standard tactic in war. But it won't work on me."
The werewolf seems taken aback. Amandiltar signals, and the bomb he placed right under the werewolf explodes, one body splattering everywhere. His men run into the room and point their machine guns at the spot where the werewolf was standing. They fire, and bullets spray everywhere.
Indigo white chains burst out of the smoke and wrap around several soldiers. They cry out and drop their guns as the chains tighten around them. A few others run–Sauron takes note of these, to punish later–most keep firing into the smoke. Those chains disappear, leaving the disabled soldiers on the ground, and more strike out at the mercenaries. Amandiltar draws his broadsword and breaks several chains.
"Schwalbefliegen!" Several metal balls hit into him from behind. He turns, and flying there is the warrior not-child in red. Not wasting words, he leaps forward and sliced his sword at her. She blocks with the end of her hammer, runic red symbols appearing around it.
He falls back to the earth. She scowls at him. Her device ejects some sort of metal canister, creating several more metal balls and she hits them with her hammer directed at him.
He deflects them with his sword, reflecting them back at her. She dodges.
He leaps into the air,
his sword sweeps to tear
her dress which armors her.
She flies up, much warier.
He turns and slams on her succour
which came from the third warrior.
On and on the three fought.
The second swings her sword
while the first her hammer.
He defends with a ward
made from his best glamour.
On and on the three fought,
blocking, striking, ducking.
All until his reinforcements arrived. Unable to wait near in case of being caught, his acolytes had to take a van to come. Indeed, they have arrived at the perfect moment, for the werewolf has just finished disposing the mercenaries.
Two score men in all, they each carry enchanted swords, shields, and machine guns. They use the former two in this battle, leaving the latter strapped on their back. A dozen go to fight the wolf while the rest aid him.
Four of his acolytes command the winds, and a heavy gust throws the warriors down to the ground, keeping them from flight. The battle shall now stay in reach.
His forces push them back, and away from each other. While his enemies may be trying to fight non-lethally, he and his aren't under any such compulsion. Alas, it is not enough. It is a stalemate, neither side able to destroy the other. However, his acolytes tire, being merely man. One falls to the ground, no longer using her black magic. The winds begin to fade.
Sauron prepares to use his power to strike the adult down, once and forever. He lifts his hand into the air and–
"Eeeoooeeeoooeeeooo!" The police have arrived. Someone must have noticed the fight and called them. He stops. The world is not yet to know of his true nature.
"We have to go," the adult says. She holds up a magic shield, blocking his followers from the attack, and the other teleports them out. The werewolf does the same after flying in the air. His acolytes turn to him, and his signals them to stand down. He deftly weaves an illusion to hide their guns, and the mercenaries have long since run off. Cowardly, but useful now.
The police exit their cars and walk to him. "What happened here? Some sort of fight? Why are you all carrying swords?"
"I believe I can explain," Amandiltar begins, "we were attacked. We are a group of magic practitioners, which uses these ancient tools, when a man attacked our meeting. This man was a user of a different type of magic, though why he tried to kill us I do not know."
The officer is visibly dubious.
"I believe the end of the fight was caught on camera, if you need proof."
"Right."
"He started by exploding the floor with some sort of bomb, resulting in one death. Tetsu was a good man." Amandiltar pauses for effect. "Then we fought back, and were beating him when two other fanatics arrived. An adult and a child girl came to reinforce him and fought us like fanatics. It is truly sad that they would force a little girl into whatever sick cult they have and make her fight."
If she is going to pretend to be a child for whatever reason, he can easily turn that around. She's obviously not a real child though; she moves like elves experienced of hundreds of years of battle.
"Well, I'll need each of you to come in later to get your testimonies. There was a death, so this is serious. And I promise you, the perpetrators will be brought to justice." Amandiltar thanks the policeman as he goes to some of his acolytes for preliminary interviews, all having heard his cover story.
Within a week, those strange warriors' faces are plastered everywhere and known as terrorists.
"You!" A little girl stops Amandiltar on his way to a black magic teaching session. She wears school clothes, but couldn't be more than nine. "You were the one who attacked me! I saw you in the news, you blamed someone for a fight."
Oh. The first fake-child warrior. Amandiltar looks around: no one here. Good, she must have waited for this. He prepares to strike. "Attack you? All I ever did was try to talk to you. You attacked me."
"I–what? No. You're–that thing on your chest. You have to take it off."
A base trick, trying to make him lose his powerful broach.
"I don't think so. I'm not so foolish as to deprive myself of a weapon."
"It's dangerous!"
"So am I. And so are you. Do you wish to fight again?"
"No! I just want to talk."
"Then talk. If it will take a while, we can meet in private at the building I was already going to. My students will not mind the wait."
She seems shocked for some reason. "You're really willing to just talk?"
"Yes, of course. That's what I wanted in the first place."
"Why did you frame those mages as terrorists?"
"I didn't frame them. They attacked me. Are they your friends?"
"Well, no, I don't know them." Interesting, either she is an expert lier or there are multiple groups of men pretending to be children.
"Why did you attack me?"
"I didn't. You attacked me."
"That's not what I remember," Nanoha protests.
"The memory of man is fallible and easily fooled."
"Raising Heart?"
"Yes, my master?" The red gem in her necklace glows. Either a trapped spirit forced to serve or an AI, he muses. He did some of the former in his time in Dol Guldur.
"Who attacked first, me or him?"
"He tried punched you. You dodged and transformed, my master."
"Aha!" She points at him triumphantly. Her acting is good. He could almost believe she is actually nine years old.
"I deeply apologize for that. Could you forgive me?"
"Sure! Why did you attack me? Why did you lie about it?"
"As you know, I train my own students in my own magic. Your magic is strange, and it reacted badly with mine, causing me to lash out." Anyone who knows anything about magic would know that doesn't make sense. Thus, if she believes it, she is either trying to become a spy or is a nine year old prodigy, learned in the hows but not whys.
"I guess that makes sense."
"To prevent that from happening, could you teach me your kind of magic? That will avoid this from happening again. And perhaps you can help me track down those terrorists–they brainwashed a girl your age to fight for them."
She nods in… familiarity? She has experience in nine year old girls being trained to fight against her?
"Yes! But I'll warn you, it requires lots of equations and heavy math. Without a device to do the calculations it's pretty hard."
"I think you'll be surprised."
"Acolytes. An unexpected development has occurred, so I will not be personally teaching you today. Shinobu Kokei will continue your training today." He was one of the witches who fought against the strange magic users, and is good enough at magic to teach. Several of the acolytes look curiously at Nanoha, but know better than to say anything.
He takes Nanoha to the other training room. He had bought this building from a dojo, so it has sufficiently large rooms, though he did have to reinforce the walls with magic.
"So, how do you begin?" the smith asks. Whether she is a spy or a naive girl, he'll get something useful out of it.
"The simplest spell to learn is called Shoot Barret, my own version is called Divine Shooter." She rattled off some equations and that strange glowing pink ball hovers in the air around her.
Sauron holds his hand up and concentrated his magic there. This magic system, while lacking in elegance compared to Elven magic, is more efficient than even the black magic he invented. It seems to be less varied, but more concentrated effects. A sphere of dark blue forms above his hand.
She seems surprised. "You memorized it all that quickly?" Before he can respond, she gets an annoyed look on her face and looks off to the side. Amandiltar looks but only the blank wall is there. How interesting.
"I have a better memory than most, however constrained I sometimes am."
"Well, can you control it? Dodge!" Several Divine Shooters shoot out at his Barret, destroying both on contact. "I said to make it dodge!"
"You had not properly started the exercise." Amandiltar creates another sphere, putting it behind him.
He creates several more and has them intercept her Shooters as they try to hit his target. However, hers are simply too strong, and he has to create several times the amount just to maintain parity. She manages to destroy the target a scant few more times before she suddenly starts walking out.
"I got to go! School and stuff! Bye!"
That's blatantly a lie. School would have started hours ago. In any case, he still needs her to come back, and detainment won't work while she can teleport.
"Very well. Do come back, will you? I am most interested in that spell of flight of yours. And perhaps I can teach you some of my kind of magic."
"Okay!" He wills the door to open as she runs out. 'Tis best to make her curious by doing something her magic can't.
One of his acolytes walks into the room. "Milord, I have a representative who wants to speak to you. It's about your use of magic."
Ah, yes. Just as expected.