[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Spoiler for Chapter 9 (part two):

Signum was getting tired.

She had never fought a foe like this before. Nothing she had ever encountered—not the Book of Darkness's berserk defense program, not the knight Zest in unison with Agito, not Enforcer-Commandant Harlaown herself—could even approach what she fought now.

Stele was no longer human. His body was nothing but a shell, a husk surrounding a core of incredible magical potential. He cast spells almost instantaneously, and his physical strength, reaction time and speed had been amplified to superhuman levels.

But he was her foe, and she would defeat him. Or she would die trying.

“Laevateinn!” Signum roared, snapping her blade back and low, preparing for a lightning-fast strike.

“Explosion!”

The Armed Device's action cycled multiple times as it loaded several cartridges, temporarily boosting Signum's Linker Core charge beyond its normal capacity limits. Wreathed in purple fire, she flashed forward with blinding speed, striking several blows that would have felled a lesser opponent.

Stele simply laughed, an unearthly sound that seemed to echo and resonate—of course, the man's lungs and vocal cords had completely burned away. He was a magical force-made-flesh, and the deadly strikes merely scored bright lines across his form.

“Fool!” Stele mocked, whipping Ridill around to strike Signum with terrific force. She brought her blade around to deflect the impact, but was a moment too slow. Ridill's blade tore through her kinetic barrier, slashing against the side of her torso, searing a gash through the flesh.

Signum hissed aloud in pain, but set her teeth and charged in for a renewed, furious assault. Stele easily picked off the first attack, but failed to react fast enough for the second one. Signum's sword scabbard caught the flat of his blade with enough force to knock Ridill out of his grip and skittering across the deck.

And the third attack, from an unanticipated source, hit him full-force.

“[Discharge],” Stella declared. Victor aimed the palm of his red-glowing gauntlet at Stele's body and fired, releasing the stored elemental charge. A basketball-sized burst of magical heat and flame exploded with a great roar, the impact of detonation sending Stele staggering back.

“Burning Glory, Revolver Form!” Vivio shouted, flipping her staff-cross Device around as the weapon began to collapse in upon itself, forming a heavy-barreled revolver with no bore.

She darted forward, heedless of her own safety, and raised the strange weapon to strike, pulling the trigger twice in rapid succession. The loaded cartridges emptied, causing the heavy barrel to flare with multicolored light.

“[Burning Cross],” the Device said as Vivio charged forward, striking two heavy blows against Stele just as Signum regained her balance.

The behemoth, staggered by the sudden, unexpected attacks, was temporarily off-balance. Lutecia stepped forward and cast a spell; the black-violet magical circle blazing beneath her feet.

“[Shadow Shield],” Asclepius declared, and a translucent purple dome of force materialized above both herself and Teana, protecting the marksmanship expert as she prepared to unleash a devastating attack.

“You are no match for me,” Stele rumbled, his hands clenching into massive fists, blazing with barely-contained power. He spun around and threw a vicious punch at Signum, who brought her Device up to block at the last moment. The impact detonated the power charged in Stele's hand, sending the woman staggering back, off-balance.

Stele pressed his advantage, but it was soon apparent that the coordinated attacks of his opponents could seriously threaten him. He could no longer feel pain, but he could still detect the damage dealt as the genetic descendant of the Sankt Kaiser struck a flurry of heavy blows.

“We are a match for you!” Victor cried, leaping forward. Stele backpedaled and attempted to deflect the blow, but Victor and Stella were too fast. The heavy plated gauntlet connected with a solid crack and exploded outward on impact, tearing Stele's jaw off and sending it flying across the room.

Stele roared wordlessly, brilliant wisps of orange-glowing magical energy leaking from the wound. He brought a mailed foot up and around, catching Victor in the stomach with such force his kinetic barrier shattered. Victor made a hoarse retching sound and doubled over, coughing wetly.

“Shiden Issen!” Signum cried, surging forward, ignoring the pain of her injuries, Laevateinn slicing forth, the blade scoring a deep gash.

“Burning Claw!” Vivio shouted wrathfully, coordinating her attack with Signum's. The two struck simultaenously, focusing on a single part—Stele's right arm. The hammer blows, detonating with magically-enhanced force, blasted the limb already weakened by Signum's slash.

In a burst of brilliant molten orange, the arm fragmented and was blasted off, sending pieces of charred flesh and blackened armor plating skittering across the deck. Pulses of bright energy flowed from the terrible wound, dripping molten blobs of raw magic.

“Any time now, Teana!” Lutecia shouted, sighting down Asclepius as the three close-combat fighters moved in a coordinated withdrawal.

Yellow-orange lightning crackled down Teana's body as a Midchildan magical circle materialized beneath her feet. She held both instances of Cross Mirage close, preparing her most powerful bombardment spell.

“Ready!” Signum shouted. Victor and Vivio immediately shot off in the direction of the main corridor, both having no desire at all to be in the same room when the inevitable devastation was loosed.

“Now!” Lutecia cried, loosing a withering barrage of magical projectiles that hemmed Stele in, not truly hurting him, but draining his kinetic barrier of energy with every impact.

Stele roared deafeningly, his voice lost after Victor's shattering blow ruined his jaw, and he turned, cat-quick, his remaining hand glowing with the light of a miniature sun. A searing beam of orange-red energy flared from the glowing point of magical energy, melting huge troughs into the silvery metal of the atrium's walls.

“Phantom Blazer!” Teana roared. Cross Mirage's dual barrels glowed with brilliant intensity as a wide beam of orange-yellow magical destruction lanced out.

“Karyuu Issen!” Signum cried, sending a massive blade of pure magical flame out in a swing that slashed through the air, directly aimed at Stele's body.

Simultaneously, with near-perfect coordination, the magical abomination that was once Abraham Stele was hit from two directions with a pair of incredibly potent bombardment attacks.

The abomination's kinetic barrier was torn apart, shattering as if it were made of glass. Armor plating and ruined, cracked flesh blew outward, leaving tremendous gaping holes in Stele's body. Liquid streams of condensed magic poured from the “wounds.”

Roaring in agony and rage, Stele shifted his beam of intense destructive energy and caught Signum across her legs, sending her careening backwards. The impact and the intense heat dropped the female knight instantly, bright blood spurting from the wound.

“Signum!” Teana screamed, but she had her own problems to deal with. Stele, though severely weakened, managed to shift the beam, slicing through Lutecia's shadow shield. The magical discharge would kill her if it connected, Teana knew—her armor and kinetic barrier were nowhere near as strong as Signum's, and the attack had sliced through her defenses as if they were tissue paper.

“[Flash Move].”

Teana felt a bright flash of pain on the back of her head and opened her eyes. Vivio had tackled her to the ground, the beam of disintegration arcing overhead, missing by half a meter.

“Thanks, Vivio. You saved my ass,” Teana breathed, wincing painfully. The high-speed collision may have saved her from certain death, but Vivio had tackled her with enough force to break a rib or two.

“Cia, finish this now!” Vivio cried, not bothering to respond to Teana. Lutecia nodded softly and fixed the coldest red-eyed glare on Stele. The black-violet Belkan magic circle materialized beneath her feet, blazing with barely-contained power.

“You're dead,” Lutecia promised grimly.

Asclepius's emitter jewels began to pulse with crackling black-violet lightning. Lutecia closed her eyes and poured all of her power—the tremendous capacity of a summoner's Linker Core—into a single, incredibly powerful spell, one that caused a tiny, localized dimensional dislocation.

“[Shadow Warp],” Asclepius said ominously.

The air around Stele began to warp and distort, bending weirdly. Arcs of black-violet lightning erupted from the center of the dimensional distortion as the very fabric of reality was torn asunder. Space and time shattered and broke apart around Stele's body.

The magical abomination's kinetic barrier, already severely weakened by the dual strike from Signum and Teana, could not hold up under the terrific forces it was being exposed to. The hole in space-time collapsed upon itself, squeezing Stele's body with crushing pressure. The monster Stele roared ineffectually, the sound barely audible from within the field of warped reality.

“Die, you son of a bitch,” Lutecia said wrathfully, clenching her right hand tightly, completing the spell.

The distortion field collapsed and exploded with tremendous force. Lutecia shielded her face and immediately erected a kinetic barrier around her and Signum's unconscious form, protecting them both from the blast.

The force of the explosion rocked the entire craft, kicking up enormous clouds of vaporized metal and equipment. Secondary and tertiary blast waves rolled outward as the fractured reality began to reorganize itself, staggering the exhausted combatants.

Lutecia lowered her arm, her heart thudding at a thousand kilometers per hour, quickly scanning the atrium for any sign that Stele had somehow survived the blast...

But there was nothing left of the magical abomination that had once been Abraham Stele. Lutecia's most powerful offensive spell had blasted a gaping, four-meter-wide hole in the deck clear to the level below, the melted edges of the metal glowing red-orange.

“Ugh... Vi... I...” Lutecia gasped as she collapsed to the deck, the adrenaline rush fading, leaving behind a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her Linker Core had been overloaded by the devastating attack and was drawing on her own life energy to prevent a collapse.

“Cia!” Vivio cried, her eyes widening in shock, rushing over to the fallen young summoner.

“Don't worry about her,” Signum said weakly, struggling to stand up. Her legs were badly burned and bloodied, but thanks to the strength of her defensive barriers, they hadn't been severed from her body. Teana limped over to the Belkan swordswoman's position and helped her stand, ignoring the searing pain in her own broken ribs.

“Alphine's okay,” Victor said, leaning over the fallen woman and examining her critically. “She's alive, just unconscious. Overloaded her Linker Core with that spell, and her body just didn't have enough energy to keep her moving.”

“Is he really dead?” Vivio asked, almost fearing what the answer might be.

“If the explosion didn't kill him,” Victor explained, “whatever's left of his body—or whatever he has that keeps him moving—has been pulled into the null space between dimensions.”

“Even if he survived somehow,” Teana said, “he'd never be able to escape. Magic stops functioning in null space.”

“Let's get out of here,” Vivio said emphatically.

“Not yet,” Teana countered. “We still have a job to do. The Factory is far too dangerous to leave alone; it must be destroyed. Vivio, can you help me set the demo charges? Signum isn't in any condition to walk and Lutecia's out cold.”

“Okay,” Vivio said, eager to help in order to expedite their departure. “What about Celica?”

“She should be done with her mission very soon,” Teana replied with a slight smile. “Let's get to work.”

---

Ten minutes earlier:

Celica didn't really expect Hayes to be where she had left him, but it wasn't too hard to find out where the man had gone. He was a smart man, and he knew when to cut his losses and run.

He would try to escape, of course. Celica intended to stop him.

“How's the link?”

“New core logic downloaded and integrated into primary systems,” Tizona reported after a moment. “Secondary and specialized combat systems will not be available without a complete system update.”

“Good enough for now. Can you patch into this thing's system?” Celica asked, tapping the augmented-reality helmet she still wore. Tizona complied wordlessly and established a connection, downloading the detailed map of the facility into his memory.

Celica took the helmet off and tossed it to the deck plating, sighing in relief. The helmet was quite heavy—she never really understood how soldiers managed to wear them all the time!

“Can you find the transfer port they used to get here?” Celica asked her Device.

“I have already located it,” Tizona replied. A holographic display materialized before her eyes, containing a ghostly wireframe map of the entire Al'hazred vessel. A bright red indicator flashed, two levels below.

“That's where we need to be,” Celica said grimly. The display vanished as she tightened her grip around the dagger-form Device, picking up speed despite her injuries. Fortunately, Stele didn't have a chance to hurt her very badly—the mage smiled slightly as she considered her friends.

She knew they would succeed. And in order for the mission to succeed, she needed to get Hayes—and she needed him alive.

That part rankled her, but she knew it was necessary. The planning and organization needed to subvert nearly one-sixth of NSIS's resources and personnel must have been staggering. The information that Chrono could pull from his former second-in-command's mind would be absolutely necessary to clean up the remaining renegade elements—and secure against such a thing ever happening again in the future.

Celica dropped down through a maintenance access hatch. There was no ladder—she had to remind herself that the Al'hazred were not human, and they had different ideas of design.

“The transfer port is in the next room over,” Tizona reported after a moment. “I am detecting a spike in the ambient magical energy. The transfer port is being activated using mana cells.”

“Shit, no time for subtlety. Let's go!”

Tizona agreed wholeheartedly as Celica broke into a run, turning the corner and nearly slamming into the sealed metal door. Even without the augmented-reality helmet, Celica knew where the activation button was located.

“Tizona, is the door sealed?”

“Simple electronic lock only. No magical seal detected,” Tizona reported. Of course not, Celica knew. Hayes was not a mage himself—his Linker Core was measured to be of extremely low capacity. He had entered the Naval Forces anyway—significant magical aptitude was by no means a requirement for enlisting.

“Is it just me, or do all the high-ranking Bureau officers with no magical talent eventually end up betraying us?”

“It's just you,” Tizona said snidely.

“Oh, who asked you, anyway?” Celica muttered. “Can you get this door open or not? If that bastard gets away, we're still done for. The Admins will hang me out to dry and nothing Chrono or General Yagami can do will stop them.”

“Electronic lock bypassed,” Tizona said helpfully, ignoring the rest of his owner's statement. Celica sighed and flipped him over in a back-handed grip. The sight of a knife held in such a manner was often considered intimidating. Amusingly enough, Celica had learned in her close-combat training that a reverse grip was much more useful for defense than attack.

Still, the media-created image was what she wanted to capitalize on. It would not be very difficult to terrify Hayes, not after his entire operation—years of planning and intense organization—started to crumble down around him.

The door slid open.

The transfer port was an industrial transportable model, one designed to be dropped on prospective colony worlds by advance scouts. Likely the rogues had needed such a large transfer port in order to send materials back and forth quickly without having to use cargo vessels.

Hayes was bent over the device, his back turned toward Celica, fully engrossed in the task of connecting the transfer port to the backup mana cells. Celica noted the number of mana cells—with as many as they had, the charge produced could send him literally anywhere within administrated space.

Celica crept up behind him silently and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hi there,” she said sweetly.

The much older man recoiled in shock, but wasn't fast enough. The red-haired mage clenched her empty left hand into a fist and slammed it into Hayes's protruding gut. With a sickly wheeze, Hayes doubled over and stepped back, stumbling and nearly falling.

“Tizona, lock the transfer port,” Celica ordered.

“Yes, mistress. Transfer port sealed.”

“You! You... you rotten bitch!” Hayes shouted hoarsely, glaring hatefully up at the woman, clutching at his midsection in agony. “I should have killed you when I had the chance!”

“Quite right,” Celica said matter-of-factly. “You fucked up big-time when you left me alive after what you put me through. Unfortunately, I don't get to kill you—I need you alive to make sure the Council doesn't lock me up and throw away the key—but nobody ever said I couldn't hurt you first.”

Hayes howled in agony as Celica flipped Tizona around and slammed the dagger-form Device's pommel into his right kidney. She followed the painful strike with a heavy kick aimed directly at the man's groin, sending him crashing to the deck. Moaning from the excruciating pain, he glared at her with unbridled hatred.

“You... fucking whore... you ruined everything! You—”

“Oh, shut up,” Celica snarled viciously, her booted foot stomping down with crushing force on his ankle. There was a loud crack as the bone snapped in two. Hayes bit his lip to keep from crying out in pain—hard enough to draw blood. Sweat beaded on the man's forehead.

“You shouldn't make me enjoy this,” Celica pointed out. “I just might keep beating you until you pass out.” She kicked him again in the stomach, hard enough to overbalance herself slightly. Hayes retched and vomited, choking as the bile filled his mouth and nostrils.

“All right! All right... stop it! I surrender myself into your custody,” Hayes wheezed, his voice cracking from the pain.

“Good,” Celica said coldly. “Tizona, secure the prisoner.”

“Yes, mistress. [Stasis Bind].”

Hayes gasped in pain as the binding energy tightened around his ankles and wrists—a bit tighter than was necessary, Celica knew. Tizona had obviously picked up on his mistress's feelings—and of course, the AI knew well what this bastard had done to her.

There was only one thing left to do. Celica opened a communications link on an encrypted Bureau channel—the one most commonly used by Enforcers.

“Lanster, this is Iris-Lynnfield,” Celica announced. “I have the prisoner in custody. Go ahead and complete the operation.”

“Understood, Iris-Lynnfield,” Teana's voice came back, slightly distorted from the interference. “I'm uploading the pickup point to Tizona for you. Meet us there within ten minutes.”

“I have my own way out,” Celica explained. “Don't bother waiting up for me.”

“Acknowledged,” Teana said immediately, not bothering to question the woman. Celica closed the communications link and turned back toward the transfer port. A blue-white hexagonal magical circle glowed softly above the device—Tizona's seal.

“Unseal the transfer port and prime the mana cells,” Celica said. Her Device complied immediately—the lock disappeared, and the status indicators on the mana cells instantly turned green.

“Transfer port active,” Tizona reported. “Dimensional coordinates entered.”

“Let's go home,” Celica said wearily.

---

NSIS Headquarters
Cranagan, Midchilda
09.04.0088

Admiral Chrono Harlaown pressed a button on his desk, unsealing the door leading into his office. His secretary had already alerted him to the presence of one of his agents. A young woman with dark hair and bright blue eyes walked into the room, dressed smartly in the royal-blue uniform of the Naval Forces.

“Admiral, the prisoner has been secured in interrogation room #3,” Accela said calmly. “I'll prepare the appropriate paperwork for processing.”

“Good. I'll take it from here. You're dismissed,” Chrono said softly, not bothering to look up from his desk. The multitude of holographic displays suspended above his desk scrolled reams of information concerning the incident. Since he had forcibly sent Cinque home on a week's vacation, a lot of extra work his secretary wasn't cleared for fell to him.

Chrono sighed heavily. It had been concluded, at least in action, but there would be a veritable mountain of paperwork to follow. Hayes could cool his heels in the interrogation room for now. He was likely still in a great deal of pain after the beating Celica had given him, Chrono figured.

Not that he didn't deserve every bit of it and then some, the former Enforcer thought bitterly. By all rights, Hayes should have been executed, right then and there, by the hand of the woman he nearly destroyed.

But there were concerns that went above his personal desires. The Council's attention may have been temporarily deflected by Administrator Lindy Harlaown's plan to induct Earth as an administrated world, but they wouldn't let sleeping dogs lie for long. They would eventually come back to NSIS, and Chrono wanted to get to them first.

With Hayes alive and in custody, he would be able to hand them a scapegoat. By offering the traitorous flag officer up as a blood sacrifice to the altar of Justice, Chrono prayed that the Shadows would be left alone.

“Without the autonomy we have now,” Chrono said aloud, “we'd never be able to avoid political corruption as a puppet of the Administrative Council.”

“I agree completely,” a very familiar female voice said from behind him.

Chrono stifled a groan of frustration and turned around slowly, coming face-to-face with General Hayate Yagami—one of the famous “Aces,” SS-rank aerial mage, comrade-in-arms and Supreme Commander of the City Defense Forces.

She was also the only mage in the entire Bureau who could teleport inside his office unnoticed, unannounced and unauthorized—a little fact that irritated him to no end.

Which, of course, was precisely why she did it.

“I had Celica strengthen and redesign the wards around my office to keep the likes of you out,” Chrono said sourly. “How did you manage to bypass them this time? Never mind, I'm not sure I even want to know.”

“It's good to see you, too, Chrono,” Hayate said warmly. “I came to discuss something important. It really couldn't wait.”

“I have to pick apart Hayes's brain before I can hand him over to the Enforcers,” said Chrono defensively. “Just give me two days and then Fate can have him, with a grand trial and everything. Of course, with NSIS being what it is, the whole thing will be bullshit—I'm sure my sister won't like that very much, either.”

“I'm not here about your prisoner,” Hayate said innocently. “For the next few days, as far as the Bureau is concerned, he doesn't exist.”

Chrono sighed. At least he got the answer he was hoping for. “So, what are you here for, if not that?”

“Your mother dropped an enormous bomb on the Bureau when she pressed for an effort to extend Earth an invitation as an administrated world. The upper echelons of the Bureau are in complete chaos over the announcement—something you wouldn't have heard about, cloistered here in the shadows as you are.”

“Of course I heard,” Chrono snorted. “Information is my weapon, Hayate. I already know as much, if not more, than you do.”

“Then you also must have heard that the Bureau wants to create a special task force to deal with the inevitable problems this transition will cause. You know as well as I do that Unit Epsilon's activity was not generally known to the populace of Earth. Many will see our invitation as an invasion.”

“Terrorism is inevitable,” Chrono agreed. “Yes, I've heard the mutterings about a task force. I assume they'll reconstruct Special Riot Force 6?”

“That's what many of the flag officers suggested, yes,” Hayate said, “but you and I both know that mages like Subaru, Caro, Nanoha and Fate aren't suited for this kind of work. The Bureau takes prospective mages and builds them up into heroes of justice. They emphasize strong morals, great kindness and gentle warmth. The heroes of justice the Bureau creates just aren't very good at working in the shadows.”

Chrono did not miss the emphasis on the last word. He knew what Hayate was asking, but he ran his organization somewhat differently than the rest of the Bureau. The command structure within NSIS was much more rigid, but at the same time, the individual agents under his command had much more freedom. Under special circumstances, they had the option to turn down a given assignment, and this was definitely one of those circumstances.

Of course, Chrono knew damn well exactly who Hayate had in mind for the special force—and he knew what their answers would be, should he give them the assignment.

“I'll talk with the three of them,” Chrono said after a long moment. “I suspect that the individuals you want will all agree to the mission—they're all bright enough to understand the ramifications if everything goes sour.”

“Thank you, Chrono,” said Hayate with some degree of relief. The admiral allowed himself a small smile—for once, General Yagami hadn't been two steps ahead of him when something she wanted was on the line.

“You really thought I might not agree?”

“I actually wasn't sure,” she admitted, biting her lower lip. “Lutecia, Victor, Celica... the three of them have been through hell with this incident. I wouldn't be surprised if you sent all three of them on a two-month administrative leave.”

“I tried,” Chrono said lamely, “but all three of them unanimously told me to shove it and that they'd all be back to work by Monday. I had to threaten to put Celica on deep-space sensor duty for a month if she didn't go to the hospital to get the burns on her neck repaired.”

“You've got a lot to be proud of with subordinates like that,” Hayate pointed out, smiling slightly.

“Oh, I am. Agents like Alphine, Stormhawk and Iris-Lynnfield... they're the future of this organization. Without people like them, NSIS really would be what the Council believes us to be.”

“Thank you, Chrono, for hearing me out,” Hayate said gratefully, dipping her head slightly in a military bow. “It's going to be ugly no matter how we go about it, but I feel a little more optimistic about things knowing we'll have solid, reliable people on the ground out there.”

“Don't mention it. Don't ever mention it,” Chrono said with a chuckle. “I need to get back to work, Hayate. It's good to see you, under any circumstances.”

“I'll find my own way out—”

“Oh, no you don't,” Chrono interrupted, holding a hand up. “You'll leave my office like everyone else—through the door, and have my secretary clear you to leave back to the Spire.”

“But it's a lot faster if I—”

Chrono just laughed.

Spoiler for author's notes:

Holy crap the finale!

Also the longest chapter! I was afraid I'd have to break it up into two chapters, but I figure, you guys have been waiting long enough for the final battle.

This is effectively the end of false light, though there's actually one more (pretty short) chapter remaining.

It's an epilogue for some more Lutecia/Celica/Victor/Cinque character interaction that also leads into the sequel to false light, which is called the truth.

Bonus: If anyone guesses where the idea for Stele's “ascendant” form came from, they win e-cookies. Hint: the inspiration came from the reason why this chapter was so slow coming out.

*mind broken due to sheer awesome and funny ending*