There was a woman - a woman's body - lying in the middle of the street with one arm stretched out and the other lying along the side of her body, as though she had fallen asleep in the middle of trying to claw her way out from under the massive block of fallen structural concrete that had crushed her entire lower body.
She had been anything but alone.
"Raging Heart," said Takamachi Nanoha. She looked across what should have been a busy street, and resisted the urge to grind her teeth.
The spherical crimson gem at the head of the slender white metal staff in her hands flashed once. "Yes, my Master?"
"Barrier," she ordered, and could barely even recognize her own voice.
"Cannot establish," was the answer, and while someone who didn't know either of them wouldn't have recognized it, there was a distinct undercurrent of apology beneath the normally dispassionate voice. "External disruption prevents stablization of pha-Protection!"
Years of experience at guaging the amount of drain Raging Heart placed on her own reserves of power told Nanoha that the levinbolt splashing off of her shield didn't have nearly enough power to be a threat, and it was her father's advice that made her turn to face the attacker with a graceful twist of her head that tossed her single asymmetric ponytail back over her shoulder - a showy display of assurance (not to say arrogance) that would provoke her attacker to either dismiss her as overconfident, and hence vulnerable, or make them wonder if the opinion it showed might be justified...
There were several of them, and through the corner of her eye she saw more filtering out of shadowed alleys and ominously dark storefronts. Their clothing - battle armor - was as uniform as the Time and Space Administration Bureau line personel she often worked with, but very differently styled - armored high-topped boots and elbow-length gloves and an armored breastplate over an almost knee-length tunic of interlocking metal rings and a short cape that came forward over their shoulders and fell a few inches short of their waists, and all of it battleship gray with slashes of vivid red trim. Their faces were hidden by their helmets, which were single units that covered the entire head save for a narrow T-shaped slit over the eyes and down the center of the lower face.
They moved like she had been told trained soldiers would - like her father still did, even years after his injuries had ended his career - and carried Expert Devices built to a pattern her memory immediately dubbed a nagamaki, a longsword's blade and guard fitted onto a short pole of about the same length. The crystal-clear lenses just beneath their guards wouldn't be full Connection Cores, but rather of the simpler, mass-produced Amplification type, but in these kinds of numbers, with her alone and more than a dozen of them surrounding her, she was probably in more trouble than she had been since that first battle with Vita.
"You did this," she said, very softly.
The one she was looking at flinched, slightly, then shook himself and brought his Device up to bear on her. So did all of his cohorts.
"I don't care why."
Intelligent Devices were alive, were people in their own right, and chose their own masters. Their function made it essential that they interact, connect with their users in far more ways than just the obvious, and, having been designed to do so, were driven to it at a level with much in common with a human's biological needs. Nanoha had once asked Raging Heart if that was why she had refused to go back to Yuuno after Precia Testarossa's death, but it had taken years to understand why even asking the question was an example of the real reason.
To Yuuno, then, as to almost all individuals priviledged to be granted the chance to direct such a powerful artifact, Raging Heart had been - not a tool, that was unfair to him, but a co-worker - deserving of respect, certainly, but subject to no real attachment. And both of them had been satisfied with that... until an all-too-innocent Terran schoolgirl had begun treating the Device like a makeshift member of her own family.
Raging Heart had been forged by the Scrya clan nearly a thousand years ago, but in all that time no one had known the person behind the featureless core and monotone voice as well as Nanoha had come to know her most constant companion.
The reverse, of course, was also true, and so it had been a long time since either of them had needed to bother exchanging advice or commands in battle. "Starlight Wave."
An expanding dome of light swallowed almost the entire width of the street, and the shockwave it threw off knocked the armored soldiers flying in disarray.
I had actually planned to go a bit farther into this scene and cover most of the fight and the introduction of the figure who, if my muse stays latched on to this, would be the plotline's Dragon, but frankly, I'm a bit fried right now, so this is all there is at the moment.
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
She had been anything but alone.
"Raging Heart," said Takamachi Nanoha. She looked across what should have been a busy street, and resisted the urge to grind her teeth.
The spherical crimson gem at the head of the slender white metal staff in her hands flashed once. "Yes, my Master?"
"Barrier," she ordered, and could barely even recognize her own voice.
"Cannot establish," was the answer, and while someone who didn't know either of them wouldn't have recognized it, there was a distinct undercurrent of apology beneath the normally dispassionate voice. "External disruption prevents stablization of pha-Protection!"
Years of experience at guaging the amount of drain Raging Heart placed on her own reserves of power told Nanoha that the levinbolt splashing off of her shield didn't have nearly enough power to be a threat, and it was her father's advice that made her turn to face the attacker with a graceful twist of her head that tossed her single asymmetric ponytail back over her shoulder - a showy display of assurance (not to say arrogance) that would provoke her attacker to either dismiss her as overconfident, and hence vulnerable, or make them wonder if the opinion it showed might be justified...
There were several of them, and through the corner of her eye she saw more filtering out of shadowed alleys and ominously dark storefronts. Their clothing - battle armor - was as uniform as the Time and Space Administration Bureau line personel she often worked with, but very differently styled - armored high-topped boots and elbow-length gloves and an armored breastplate over an almost knee-length tunic of interlocking metal rings and a short cape that came forward over their shoulders and fell a few inches short of their waists, and all of it battleship gray with slashes of vivid red trim. Their faces were hidden by their helmets, which were single units that covered the entire head save for a narrow T-shaped slit over the eyes and down the center of the lower face.
They moved like she had been told trained soldiers would - like her father still did, even years after his injuries had ended his career - and carried Expert Devices built to a pattern her memory immediately dubbed a nagamaki, a longsword's blade and guard fitted onto a short pole of about the same length. The crystal-clear lenses just beneath their guards wouldn't be full Connection Cores, but rather of the simpler, mass-produced Amplification type, but in these kinds of numbers, with her alone and more than a dozen of them surrounding her, she was probably in more trouble than she had been since that first battle with Vita.
"You did this," she said, very softly.
The one she was looking at flinched, slightly, then shook himself and brought his Device up to bear on her. So did all of his cohorts.
"I don't care why."
Intelligent Devices were alive, were people in their own right, and chose their own masters. Their function made it essential that they interact, connect with their users in far more ways than just the obvious, and, having been designed to do so, were driven to it at a level with much in common with a human's biological needs. Nanoha had once asked Raging Heart if that was why she had refused to go back to Yuuno after Precia Testarossa's death, but it had taken years to understand why even asking the question was an example of the real reason.
To Yuuno, then, as to almost all individuals priviledged to be granted the chance to direct such a powerful artifact, Raging Heart had been - not a tool, that was unfair to him, but a co-worker - deserving of respect, certainly, but subject to no real attachment. And both of them had been satisfied with that... until an all-too-innocent Terran schoolgirl had begun treating the Device like a makeshift member of her own family.
Raging Heart had been forged by the Scrya clan nearly a thousand years ago, but in all that time no one had known the person behind the featureless core and monotone voice as well as Nanoha had come to know her most constant companion.
The reverse, of course, was also true, and so it had been a long time since either of them had needed to bother exchanging advice or commands in battle. "Starlight Wave."
An expanding dome of light swallowed almost the entire width of the street, and the shockwave it threw off knocked the armored soldiers flying in disarray.
I had actually planned to go a bit farther into this scene and cover most of the fight and the introduction of the figure who, if my muse stays latched on to this, would be the plotline's Dragon, but frankly, I'm a bit fried right now, so this is all there is at the moment.
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."