Dance in Time

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own thoughts.

Chapter 18

Ranma shook his head as he stepped out of the shower after the Rating Game match and dried his hair with a towel before stripping his towel off and getting his pants on. The only reason that he wasn't with the rest of his peerage was because he figured that Chloe would be rather uncomfortable with the thought of seeing him naked or him seeing her naked.

Just after he got a tank top on, there was a knocking at the door, which slowly opened and Chloe poked her head in. "Are you decent, master?"

Ranma smirked at her and nodded as he tied his hair back into its usual braided pigtail. "Yeah, though if you came in a few minutes earlier, you would have gotten a free show." He laughed as her face darkened and she fidgeted while the door opened up and she walked in, revealing that she was wearing her hair in pigtails and some casual clothes. "So, what's up?"

"Well..." Chloe looked to the side and fidgeted. "About the game, I..."

"Don't apologize." Ranma told her, causing her to look at him. "Hey, we lost, big deal. It's not like this hurts our standing in the games much."

"But..." Chloe protested, "I wanted to win."

"Yeah," Ranma nodded at her. "So did I, but it's just baseball. If it had been combat and we lost, I'd be a lot more upset."

Chloe sweat-dropped but nodded. "At least it was pretty close, huh?"

"Moral victories are just ways to make yourself feel better after losing." Ranma chided her and Chloe puffed her cheeks out and looked away. "But, yeah, it could have been much worse than it was. Good job with pitching today."

Chloe just smiled.

"Hey!" A new voice spoke up and Ranma looked as Issei walked into the locker room. "Nice job out there. I'm surprised that you didn't win."

"Sona and her peerage trained with my dad." Ranma told him with a helpless shrug. "The old man is a lot of things, and competitive is one of them. Plus, despite a power difference between my peerage and Sona's, her group has skills specifically designed for games like this." Ranma grumbled something about Azazel's Artificial Sacred Gears being too good for sporting type Rating Games.

"Yeah, who would have thought Ruruko Nimura's Procellarum Phantom made her so fast?" Chloe said with her eyes white and blank as she remembered how that girl, who looked so unassuming, had managed to turn a bunt into a triple.

"Yeah, even I couldn't keep up with her." Ranma shook his head. "That girl will be trouble going forward if you have to face her, Issei."

"Yeah, and I don't have access to my Rook, Knight, Bishop or Queen forms anymore." Issei muttered, "then again, I've almost mastered my Balance Break, so I can't complain. I just need to work some stuff out with Yukiko and Gasper and I should be good to go."

Ranma grimaced at the thought of facing Issei's Mastered Balance Break again. "Well, make sure you work on your energy regulation with the other forms, huh? Also, have you talked to Yuuno Scrya yet?"

"Oh yeah," Issei nodded, "myself, Yukiko and Asia all showed him our Sacred Gears and he did some scanning. He said something about some Lost Logia being wrong and..." He trailed off as there was a knock at the door.

"Big brother, are you in... Oh!" Hayate's eyes widened in surprise. "You're here, same with you, Mr. Hyuudou?"

"You can call me Issei." Issei smiled at her.

"Okay then, Issei-san." Hayate smiled and bowed to him. "But," she looked at Ranma seriously. "Since you're both here, you two can help me with something."

"Should I leave?" Chloe asked and Hayate shook her head. "Huh?" She blinked as a short redhead came in after Hayate. "You are..?"

"My name's Vita." Vita said with a small smile to Chloe. "Anyway..."

"Right." Hayate nodded and pulled out a small device. "So, recently, there was a train that was carrying a Lost Logia," she paused at the looks of confusion she was getting, "ancient technology that we don't fully understand. Sometimes it turns out to be a high powered flashlight and sometimes it's like those Jewel Seeds that I was told about, big brother."

"Oh!" Ranma's eyes widened. "That's right, those things that made Lilith turn into a monster."

"Ah, yes," Hayate nodded, "well, usually they're powerful magical artifacts that need to be properly sealed, stored and diagnosed so that we can tell if we have either a flashlight, a magical washing machine, a machine gun or a tactical nuke."

Chloe sweat-dropped heavily upon hearing that. "...That escalated quickly."

"Eh," Vita scratched the side of her head with her eyes closed, "it happens a lot with us."

"Anyway," Hayate continued on, "while we were trying to get on the train to secure the Lost Logia, there was an attack on the train. Thankfully no one got hurt, but..." She trailed off and pushed the button and an image appeared in front of them, showing three people wearing blue body suits. That wouldn't have been surprising, if not for two factors. The first was that all three were young-looking, looking like they were barely nine or ten years old. The second thing that was surprising, to Ranma at least, was how the three girls, and he could tell that they were girls, looked so much like Nanoha, Fate and Hayate...

...Except their hair and eye colors were off. The Nanoha clone had brown hair and bright blue eyes, the Fate clone had purple eyes and blue hair with dark tips and the Hayate clone had green eyes and gray hair with black tips.

Well, the Nanoha look-a-like had short hair, but that wasn't important.

"Hayate..." Ranma gave her a curious look. "Why is there a miniature clone of you, Nanoha and Fate?"

"That's what we'd like to know." Hayate said with a sigh as she pushed another button and audio was heard.

"My name is Stern," the Nanoha clone said with a small bow.

"I am Dearche! You shall call me Lord Dearche though!" The Hayate clone said proudly, "remember it! Hohohohoho!"

Upon hearing that, Chloe grimaced and wondered if she was about to be sunk into mud.

"I'm Levi!" The Fate clone said with a grin. "We're all Super Devils! And unlike most!" A motorcycle appeared beside her as she got on it. "I have a motorcycle! Hahahahaha!"

The scene ended with Stern and Dearche jumping on the back of the bike and driving off, going through the train wall and driving off on the sky.

Hayate sighed as she turned off the device. "So, we have a problem."

"I'll say," Ranma muttered softly, "that girl just killed that joke we've been doing for years."

"That's what you took from that?!" Hayate, Vita, Issei and, shockingly, Chloe all yelled at Ranma at the same time.

Ranma gave them a confused look. "They called themselves Super Devils, which, I assume isn't known by most people, because you would have told me before the Rating Game otherwise." He shrugged at their looks of bewilderment. "Hey, despite my bad joke, I do know what this means. There aren't a lot of Super Devils and Kuroka killed her original master because he was researching Super Devils and was going to use Shirone in his experiments after all."

"Good, then you aren't completely crazy," Vita grumbled while Hayate sighed in relief.

"Big Brother, Issei-san, I hate to ask, but I need help." Hayate bowed to them. "While Nanoha-chan, Fate-chan and the rest of my Riot Force can handle finding the Lost Logia and dealing with Jail Scagiletti, a rogue scientist who has created combat cyborgs."

"Cyborgs?" Ranma asked and Hayate shook her head.

"Not like Nuku-chan." Hayate told him. "The Combat Cyborgs can only become cyborgs when they're given cybernetics as babies. And it's got a high failure rate."

Ranma and Issei both visibly flinched while Chloe looked only slightly disturbed by it.

"I'm guessing that if the death rate was around ten percent or less than it would see a lot more use?" Chloe asked and the others looked at her in shock. "...You all know that I come from another world, right? Magi in that world would gladly sacrifice a bunch of newborns if it meant they could advance magic. My parents did that to me when I was born. It caused a bit of a split in my personality and memories. It's why my Illya was able to have such a normal life. But all the stuff that they sealed away in her was thrust onto me."

"Well, that sounds familiar." Vita grumbled as she thought about her fragmented memories from before Hayate became her family.

"So, anyway," Hayate shook her head, "the problem I have is that only a few people who know about Devils. Even if there's a treaty in place between the supernatural of Earth and Mid-childa, there's still a lot that most of the higher ups don't know."

"And you turning Hayate into a Devil," Vita glared at Ranma, "is a massive political headache waiting to happen as soon as it's known."

"So," Hayate smiled at Ranma, "could you please come to Crannigan? Or maybe your friend?" She looked at Issei, "could come and deal with those three?"

"Might be hard for me." Ranma admitted. "Maybe Atsuko could, but she patrols the planet looking for things that aren't right."

"Xenovia could do it." Issei said. "She's no longer breast feeding and our son's old enough to be away from her now."

"Zan, right?" Ranma asked.

"Zen." Issei corrected him.

"Oh, right!" Ranma slapped his forehead. "Sorry man, got a lot of kids of my own."

"I know." Issei smirked at Ranma. "Anyway, Xenovia might do it. She needs to get more members for her peerage. But I don't want her to go alone..." He trailed off and thought about it.

"What about Irina?" Ranma asked and Issei gave him a sharp look. "She's a high ranking Angel now and was recently made the King of Spades of her own deck, right?"

"Oh yeah," Issei nodded, "and Heaven knows they can have people who aren't followers of Christianity follow the tenants if Akane Tendo is anything to go by."

Ranma nodded, knowing what he meant. "Well, it did help unite the various sects of Christianity at least." The Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses that were in the know were especially interested in the idea of a non-believer becoming an Angel and follower of God. It only strengthened their belief in converting people to their sect. "Anyway," Ranma looked at Hayate, who looked hopeful, "there's no problem if people choose to become Devils or Angels, is there?"

Hayate shook her head. "There shouldn't be. So long as they're given the option and choose so willingly." Hayate cupped her chin and looked at Vita, who shrugged. "Alright, so long no one is tricked into anything, it should be okay."

"You won't have to worry about that with Xenovia or Irina." Issei answered her. "Those two were willing to work with me when we were enemies. And Rias and Michael were really good influences on them. But I'll let them know anyway." He waved goodbye as he walked to the door. "Irina will have to clear it with Michael, but I'm sure that he won't mind."

After Issei left, Chloe looked at Hayate and frowned. "I didn't want to say it before, but..." Hayate and Vita both looked at her curiously. "You and that Dearche girl sound like the rotten mage from my world that trapped me in mud, tied me up and put a tattoo on my tummy."

"...That sounds a lot more dirty than it probably was." Ranma muttered while Chloe looked at him, winked and stuck her tongue out.

"Either way," Vita said with a relieved expression on her face, "this will help out a lot. No offense, but those three are each stronger than Hayate is. And they know how to use their powers too."

"Seriously?" Ranma asked and Vita nodded. "...Do you need more help?"

"Maybe," Hayate nodded, "but I have to hope that it won't come to that. Plus I have complete faith in Nanoha-chan, Fate-chan, Signum and Vita-chan to face them and either survive or win. But if they have to face those three clones and Jail Sagiletti's cyborgs, plus whatever else at the same time, it wouldn't go well."

Ranma rotated his wrist and a paper flyer appeared in it. "If you need my help, Hayate, use this and I'll show up, even across the universe, okay?"

"Thanks, big brother." Hayate said with a smile as she took the paper and looked at it before grinning and sliding it down her shirt, between her breasts and Vita just facepalmed while Chloe had a grin on her face.

Ranma chuckled softly. "Anyway, we need to head back to Makai, Chloe has school tomorrow and Asmodeus wanted to talk to Nabiki and myself about something."

"Big brother," Hayate had a small frown on her face, "I'm worried. How is there clones of myself, Fate-chan and Nanoha-chan running around? And how are they so strong that they all rated above SS from our scans?"

"...I have no clue." Ranma admitted to her. "If you need help, call me, I'll come, okay?" Hayate nodded and Ranma leaned in, kissing her on the lips this time, though Vita growled as he broke the kiss shortly after. "Vita, I'm not doing anything."

"Yes you are." The redhead pointed a finger at him in anger. "Hayate might be old enough to make her own decisions, but I still don't like you."

"Fair." Ranma said with a nod. "But that's how I know that I can trust you." He said with a small smile as Vita looked at him in confusion. "If something happens to me and Lilith, I know that I can trust you to take care of Hayate or my kids."

"Hmph!" Vita puffed her cheeks out and turned away as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not a babysitter, you jerk."

Ranma nodded and walked over to Chloe and waved goodbye as the two disappeared in a flash of magical teleportation.

"You didn't have to be like that." Hayate gave Vita a slightly annoyed look. "You don't hate big brother, Vita-chan."

"Even if I don't hate him, I still dislike him." Vita answered and walked out of the locker room, causing Hayate to sigh and rub the bridge of her nose.

"Sometimes, I hate how annoying this all is." Hayate's voice said in a soft and slightly deeper tone before she followed after Vita.

(-)

The next morning...

Chloe looked at Leonardo as the two walked into the school. "Miss Asmodeus seemed kind of depressed this morning." She had only met the former Devil King a couple of times, but she was usually chipper and in a teasing mood.

"I'm not sure." Leonardo replied back to Chloe. "Something about not being able to keep enough mana in her body for something."

Chloe nodded and ran off after getting to the school. "Thanks, big brother!" She waved at him and smiled as she saw Tatsun running up to her.

Leonardo waved goodbye to her and nodded to Alicia and Precia as he saw them walking to the school. "Good morning." Both smiled and answered him back.

(-)

Later...

Listening to the teacher drone on about math was rather dull and Chloe was struggling to keep her attention from drifting away from the board.

Idly, she turned her head and looked out the window, just for a moment when something magenta-colored caught her attention. Blinking a few times, she sat up more straight and looked more intently at what she had seen.

Standing there, several blocks away, was a mature woman in a black business suit, magenta-colored hair and a serious expression on her face. She looked directly at Chloe before two trucks passed in front of her, causing her to seemingly disappear.

"Ber...Serk... Woman." Chloe whispered, her eyes shrunk to pinpricks and her skin went from tan to white as a ghost before she suddenly slumped over and fell out of her desk, passing out from the shock.

End Chapter 18

Only a few chapters to go.