Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Character Creation and Discussion

[Fuyu no Sora]

Originally Posted by humbug23

Regarding that Enforcer thing, I had always been inclined to believe that it's more of a 'solo officer in the field sent to take care of things within a defined region for a particular incident.' He would have powers that allow him to not be required to report up the chain of command, and execute acts by his own judgment, both, of course, up to a certain reasonable extent. In a way, I can call it a one-man Rapid Deployment Force, so that would minimise time wastage in handling issues. And as is the nature of such forces, there is the possibility that he might not be able to handle it alone, but at least he can stave off some of the urgency before all the red tape which binds proper mobilisation can be cut.

In this respect, Keroko's inquiry can be answered. As there are a wide variety of jobs that need to be accomplished due to the vast number of worlds, there would also be a need for various types of proficiencies that are required to be an Enforcer (singly, who would usually be equipped to deal with a certain type of crisis). As such, the job can therefore be open to members of all three services, in case they miss out on potential talent or something.

Going back to the Chrono example, he's probably like a jack of many trades, and probably a near-master of some. So it makes sense for him to be attached to a dimensional-ocean-faring fleet where all sorts of nonsense can happen. Since he is equipped to deal with most types of nonsense.

And sorry for the naziness, ark and thread: but it's actually shitsumukan「しつむかん」.

Basically, Enforcers are officers that have high skill and abilities to operate solo as a one-man force which can be called from all three corps?

'Cause if that's the case you just handed me a big problem concerning my character

Will tackle backlog later. I'm in the end of my lunch hour and have to run...

[XenahortCharybdis]

Originally Posted by Fuyu no Sora

Basically, Enforcers are officers that have high skill and abilities to operate solo as a one-man force which can be called from all three corps?

'Cause if that's the case you just handed me a big problem concerning my character

[I]Will tackle backlog later. I'm in the end of my lunch hour and have to run...

Lucky you, I ain't even got time to try breaking yet.

Anyway, this current Enforcer whatever doesn't seem to have hurt my idea of them as the secret polizei anyway...

----------------------------------------------------
- Chapter 00 is ALMOST down.
- OC...1.7/3

The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak...gotta sleep now. Damn.

[ghazghkull]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

SANJOU!!!!!!!!

Who'd have thought that the very first appearance of the Belkas in a scenario would be in your story?

I'd pay to see that scene of Farukon's look of horror on his face as Hayate helps herself laughing

LOL :3 Well I'll try to write a picture of it in the next chapter :3

Originally Posted by Keroko

Well, that's the thing with Syn. Like Vivio, her profile is still up in the air, because we know nothing of what Vivio's school years are like. This means that as long as there is development in the chapters leading up to them, a lot is possible for Syn.

Indeed...Indeed :3 Well so far, so good, wouldn't you agree? :3

Heeeh? The Yellow Belka gets a daughter? Do write that scenario.

I too am looking forward to this :3

... The Belkarangers... Hoooh boy, I sense many facepalms and snarky return comments aproaching from Syn's side.

Originally Posted by tshouryuu

She and me both, sister. She and me both....

LOL well look forward to a lot of cheesy scenarios, and a whole load of Farukon wanting to crawl up into a corner and die, while Syn runs her mouth off at their...hotcheesim! XD

Originally Posted by Liingo

Going through as I read it. This might sting a little.

*Comments snipped*

Thanks for the look over :3 I didn't proofread it, so I'm not surprised that there were glaring errors, although...I'll fix up on the comment about Tiana's CC-skills later :3 I haven't seen StrikerS for a while, so I might be utterly wrong with that comment :3

Hahahaha, lol at the entrance of the BakaBelkarangers.

What do you expect? The Belkrangers were probably originally made for fun :3 Now they actually get included in a continuity! XD Even if it is only mine so far :3

Sorry about that.. But other than those I couldn't see anything utterly disturbing with your piece.

Hey, no worries. You're just trying to help, and I appreciate it a lot :3

Originally Posted by Evangelion Xgouki

Very nicely written chapter as usual . The guest instructors sure opens up a lot of possibilities of other OCs making cameos (or causing a lot of facepalming amongst Hammer members ). And BelkaRangers FTW!!!

LOL Yes indeed, Belkas for the win! XD

Oh man...Syn's gonna be having some FUN on this mission

Oh boy is she ever

@Thread: To those who are actively reading my Riot Force 6, BELKARANGERS ARE HERE TO STAY!!! XD

[LimitedEternal]

Originally Posted by Fuyu no Sora

Basically, Enforcers are officers that have high skill and abilities to operate solo as a one-man force which can be called from all three corps?

'Cause if that's the case you just handed me a big problem concerning my character

Will tackle backlog later. I'm in the end of my lunch hour and have to run...

Wait, IS that what an Enforcer actually means?

Heh, Fuyu gets handed a big problem, but I get a big solution for mine. :3

Also, I got a real quick question. What does a "synthetic" mage rank mean, as opposed to a normal one?

[Evangelion Xgouki]

Originally Posted by LimitedEternal

Also, I got a real quick question. What does a "synthetic" mage rank mean, as opposed to a normal one?

I believe it's given to Rein because she's not, well, human. Synthetic rank, as the name says, is given to those artificially created beings that are able to use magic. I'd assume Familiars and Unison Devices fall into this category. They probably gave them a separate ranking as they either rely on another to influence their magic potential (like Familiars) or are static (Unison Devices) unlike humans who can strive to grow and increase their magic potential, and thus rank.

[Tk3997]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Oh, you didn't know? Yes I did, her ship was supposed to become the Normandy.

... Which probably explains why I came to the idea in the first place. Mass Effect crack was high back then.

I was ready for it and so managed to resist the impluse when I played it.

'must only show up at the fringes of continuity'

....

*glances at their profiles*

Yeah... safe to say I've already gone and blew that rule since, uhm, forever. Why do you think the OC timeline is called kerokanon?

Yeah I'm not sure he's sure which OCs he's talking about here...

All Lindy ever did was hop in and and throw down a Barrier. Hardly encouraging.

Pretty much.

Wait, what? Why? We've got data-based lifeforms in canon, why are fungal based lifeforms banned?

Well those Data beings don't self replicate and become impossible to remove without bruning a planet down to the bed rock for one...

No kidding, the novel blatantly changes events as they occured in the anime. Talk about a controdictionary source.

Well the Halo Novel added an entire sub-plot and juggled some aspects of the game and included stuff that's downright impossible in game and sometimes contradicted by later sources. (Master Chief carried three guns at one point for instance and flood infection is slow and one guy at least partially resists it.) It still had it's uses though and we didn't just toss the entire thing. It was the weakest of all the novels though admittedly... mostly because it tried to stay roughly to the coruse of the game.

Ever since the introduction of Archerko, I've been expecting this one to come eventually.

Didn't expect you to genderbend the rest of the cast too, though.

yeah we have late night IRC chat to thank for that once it came up everyone started talking about how to gender bend the rest of the cast...

*scractches head* Okay, maybe I was a bit unclear on my point.

Do I expect Hayate to defeat oponents in melee? No. Do I expect her to be able to handle herself in melee (which is pretty much inevitable in the Nanohaverse, as 80% of Nanohaverse combat is close-range)? Yes.

I don't feel it's at all inevitable if you fight smart and have Hayate monstrous power reveres to draw on. This could be our fundamental difference you feel it's inevitable it'll happen I disagree it's inevitable with the proper tactics and skills.

Now, I agree that movement spells can be used to escape melee, and they should! Hayate should not stay in melee longer then absolutely neccissary. However, if someone gets the jump on Hayate, I do expect Hayate to be able to block the attack and create an opening to gain that distance.

The problem with this is that Hayate ought to be fighting at very long range so "getting the jump on her" is going to be tricky at best. Beyond that her skill set isn't suited to close fighting period so she has no sane reason to enter a confined area were ambush is possible without massive support anyway. (Just like you don't drive a tank into a city without infantry all around it).

If Hayate lacks the skills to do even that, then specialization becomes a liabillity, as anyone can just take her out in a single strike. Without close-range training, Hayate will lack the experience and knowledge to react to them, leaving her extremely vulnerable.

Again you just assume that with proper skills and tactics someone is still bound to get close to her without her having a clue and bushwhack her. Again I disagree and beyond this if someone DID get close and ambush her these newly acquired lack luster melee skills are unlikely to help anyway if she's taken flat footed, and if she sees them coming she should just disengage rather then try and fight them anyway.

Basiclly if she sees them coming she just evades and if she doesn’t see them coming a pittance of close quarters spells is unlikely to save her from the ambush.

Once again: I don't expect Hayate to wtfpwn everyone in melee (even though she has tasty melee spells such as Schwarze Wirkung, which I still find a shame to see put on the shelf) I expect her to be able to survive in melee.

The issue is that you seem to think that just a pittance of training is going to really help. I doubt it will myself if anything it could engender dangerous overconfidence. The skills needed for effective close range fighting and for long range boom and zoom nuking are entirely diffrent from those needed for close range fighting. Plus having almost no base to draw on for them it would be like trying to train a total noob it could take months years for her to grasp even enough to spar at a vuagely decent level and she'd still be pretty much helpless against a trained sowrdsmen.
(Put a guy that's been doing Jujitsu for 6 months into the ring with Royce Gracie and see how that goes maybe he last 30 seconds instead of 10...)

Learning a martial art is hard it takes allot of time and effort and having huge magic potential is only minimally helpful in this as weapons fighting is about skill, experience, and finesse more then brute power. Her huge magical potential could easily be plowed into learning new defensive powers like movement aids, trips, etc but that same huge magic potential is of little use in learning to fight at close range with a weapon. This is a important factor to consider Hayate has other things to be doing and could be forced to enter battle at any time so even if learning melee was “best” (debatable IMO) in theory in practice it might not be.

As noted Hayate has huge magical power she can spam massive spells for longer then pretty much anyone and she could easily plow that ability into becoming an extremely hard target to even vaguely pin down. Or she could try and learn melee fighting a difficult skill that requires huge outlays of time and that will for quite a while provide very mediocre returns and probably never get her to a level she can even vaguely fight melee specialists. All the while this intense training distracts her from practicing the above skills that could probably be learned and used quicker in actual combat.

Perhaps Hayate shouldn’t have focused so hard on nuking, but now that she HAS trying to reverse a decade of momentum isn’t going to happen overnight if it’s even really possible. Instead of trying to fight against the tide and teach her an entirely new and alien skill set time would be better used teaching her new skills that are more in her area of expertise (spell casting) to cover most of her weakness, provide her new options, and be available more quickly.

To be able to block a blow and create an opening to escape. To be able to react to melee attacks. To be able to use her weapon, which is blatantly called 'sword cross' with at least some efficiency.

I'd point out that defensive fighting with weapons is acutally often harder then offense. First off it requires a healthy knowledge of what the enemy is likely to do in any given situation (which varies massively depending on weapon, his style, and other factors), intense drilling (this stuff happens so fast you can't really think about it you need muscle memory), and even still it's often hit or miss. (Nearly all styles emphasis aggression to keep the enemy off balance over defensive fighting which is often seen as a MISTAKE and a good way to lose). That said there is one thing that all such fighters agree can be used to counter superior skill in your opponent and is a highly effective defense: run away. Just giving ground and fleeing is a very common tactics in any serious fighting art.

Jokes aside basiclly melee fighting with weapons isn’t something you can half ass if you’re not fighting to attack and kill the enemy you really shouldn’t be doing it. It’s also often a game of mutual suicide as the fact is that two skill fighters can often kill each other despite said skill due to the close range, the lethality of the weapons, and the difficulty in blocking and parrying inherent in real world situations. The saying and its variations are so old it’s almost cliché, but it’s still true.

”If you’re going to get in a knife fight expect to get cut.”

The fact is that if you fight at close range with edge weapons even if you “win” you can expect to sustain injuries often fairly serious or even fatal. This is just an accepted fact even among experts never mind amateurs. This is why I want to avoid this all together given the skill level she could reasonably achieve even if she somehow “won” she’d probably end up injured and forced to withdraw to get medical aid.

All of this is why I’ve never favored melee or close range combat all that much it exposes you, almost always results in trading damage with the enemy, and since distance basically equals time everything happens faster and can go wrong much faster with little time to adapt. Range and speed can and normally do trump power and resilience. Even more so in the often idealized venue of air combat.

I'd also mention as an aside that sword cross is a terrible weapon to try and fight with anyway; it's probably only marignally better then a club. If she was serious about this she needs to ditch it for a specalist weapon.

Even Nanoha, who specializes in range, and Yuuno, who specializes in support, are able to handle themselves in melee. Why is Hayate the only not allowed to do so?

The only way Nanoha or Yunno ever "handled" melee was rasing big ass force fields there enmies couldn't break easily. Nanoha didn't encouter Vita and turn RH into a spear and start trying to stab her or something. She used shields to tank hits and then blast her.

That I could see Hayate doing, but that's not "melee" IMO that's defensive magic and given you're take about "blocks" and "openings" and using her staff as a weapon that dosen't seem to be what you where thinking of either.

Okay, I'll take your word for that. My army knowledge isn't exactly that high.

As I said it's vaguely taught, but I can only sort of recall a single instance during the war in Iraq. I seem to remember a story where a guy used a knife on the enemy, but in that case the target was already down and with multiple machine gun induced gunshot wounds, but was screaming for his friends in the house to come kill the American. (Whose gun was empty) so he wasn't exactly fighting back when the guy stabbed him like 10 times in the throat to finish him off.

Though bombardement spells tend to have conciderable charge timers, to use them in melee is like asking to get killed. Hardly a propper comparison.

Depends on the situation if the guy is charging you but you have a few seconds he’s got limited options break off, try to tank it, try to dodge it. Any of them ruin the attack and if he blunders could end up with him dead. It’s not something you can spam at close range, but a few seconds still isn’t that long and it’s not impossible you could find an opening. More so if you refuse to give battle and just keep dancing away from him.

That may be one of the reasons. Another could be that she is a tad too... perfect. It's much more fun to write with characters who have visible flaws.

She has flaws you could exploit she seems to have at least a bit of insecurity for example and I've always contended the mother to Vivio angle could be exploited for DRAMA(!) (though I'm not much of a fan of Kags take on it). That said yeah she's not a walking illustration of half the pathos in the DSM unlike some protagonists but as I've said that's one of the things I like about her.

14k words? Nice, can we expect to see it soon?

Sometime today hopefully after I get home from class around 9PM and give it a final once over to make sure I didn't leave any sections out (or in I added adn deleted scenes a number of times).

Which makes no sense to me.

As noted the main thing was that there reproduction methods mean that once introduced there basiclly impossible to stop and will just keep expanding. They aren't quite "Flood" bad, but they're close.

I'd like to believe we are all a bit more mature then that.

Some of us probably are others... *eyes some people but names no names* maybe not so much.

Actually, its the reverse. That's one of the things that pissed of Regius, remember? 'The Navy steals all the high-ranked mages' and all that. It's the main reason for the bad blood between the Ground Forces and the Navy.

I’ve addressed this before the Navy probably dose take high ranking mages… but not to put them in chairs on warships. They most likely do it for something like a TSAB NAVSPEC Warfare unit; the air force also probably takes most of what’s left and often works with the navy. The GFs probably see them as largely being in cohorts to screw them. Plus the navy is always out and about doing stuff while most GF units probably just sit in garrison doing little but routine order maintenance there entire careers.

I never really bought this was the only or even main reason for the fued as it's so damn weak, Budget battles, jeaouly over the presitage the navy and Air Force got from high profile operations, and often being pushed around somewhat by these perhaps more senior services have always been what I felt were the true reasons behind the fued with the mage issue being merely one aspect of it.

... The Belkarangers... Hoooh boy, I sense many facepalms and snarky return comments aproaching from Syn's side.

I'm not sure how any other reaction is possible from a rational thinking person.


[quote=arkhangelsk;1484596]Yes and no. A difference here is reaction time and initiative.[quote]
Nonsense reaction time is a massive factor in both but on the hole humans all tend to be similar in it so it balances out, initiative is important too but speed is what allows you GAIN initiative to start with so this hardly an effective counter argument.

A fighter jet tends to allow seconds for reaction and both sides are usually not highly different in energy.

This depends entirely on the aircraft involed, but acutally it's almost never the ase that the aircraft DON'T have signifcant and exploit diffrences.
Even with a fighter, there will be geometries (especially in close, and Nanoha combat is basically in close by modern fighter standards) where all an extend would do is allow the enemy to get unanswered shots on your tail.

A fight, however, may not have that luxury, especially since Hayate starts from a standing start in her bombardment position.

Only if she so choses and we assume that the target has somehow just randomly appears at point blank range with no warning or chance for her to better her starting postion to call this stupid and unlikely would be putting it kindly.

And while speed might somehow be produced, if Hayate had agility, she might not have sucked so much in melee (and note that the manga actually refers to individual fighting, which includes but is not restricted to melee).

Speed would be produced by the fact that mages all have the ability to produce thrust on demand in almost any direction. Agility isn't even that vital if she can just be faster then the enemy or even close it's would be extremely hard for anyone to force her into a battle she didn't want again just like a fighter. An F-15 could turn rings around a Foxbat, but if said Foxbat decides he doesn’t feel like playing, points his exhausts at his enemy, and lights his burner the fights over and the F-15 can't do shit about it superior agility or not.

You're own insistence on short combat ranges helps this as by your estimates she'd only need to gain a very short amount of distance to be almost totally safe from the vast majority of attacks.

Overall, it is almost unimaginable what Hayate's problems must be to get her to lose to Caro. It must be a huge part of the scope...

I tend to think the Caro bit might be an outlier or that people are jumping to some unwarrented consulsion. I myself doubt it's that Caro is going to beat her in a fist fight (though she's clearly weak in melee to be sure) or something so much as the fact that Caro can summon a huge ass Dragon to beat her in a fist fight for her.

We won't know. Lindy went out the first time, and not the second time (but she had to fire Arcenciel that time, too). It seems like Commanders are indeed not supposed to go out for small things, but it seems akin to a Captain not bothering his OOD in simple sailing conditions.

Hayate wasn't exactly rushing off to combat either I'd say it's pretty fucking clear that the TSAB considers the job of a commander to be to command not to run out and bust heads. Which is how it SHOULD be, but it makes placing high level mages in thsoe billets stupid to say the least.

Technical crew? Sure (and why would they when the TSAB is going to let them become an officer anyway). Captains or any other command position (since the "chair" on a cruiser can just as easily be the chair in some land HQ)? Do that and you are putting a glass ceiling against elite mages (it is highly doubtful they can make the higher ranks without serving a term as Vessel Commander).

Only if we asume that the TSAB promotion system must work like a modern miltary one hardly a given. It could be as simple as creating a another pipeline for mages that gives them increasing pay and benifts without putting them in postions where there skills are utterly wasted.

Call it the "good of the Sailing Force" or "efficiency" or whatever, but most people like to think their organization treats them fairly.

Diffrecnes in skills and talents are a fact of life and the fact that most orgnazation can even vaugely treat people "fairly" is divreived from the fact that most people are frankly pretty smlair in cacpablites to start with.

That said when diffrecnes due exist they must to be considered. You might be able to hire a mentally ill or retarded person to work the counter at a fast food place, but he couldn't be the manager for instacne. Maybe you could work as a assitent in a laboratoy, but you'll never run it if you don't have a degree. At the same time no on in there right mind would hire a guy with a BA in bussiness and 10 years experience and have him wait tables!

Do something like this and you are asking them to transfer to civilian employment, where they are in great demand.

Are they really? How many civilian jobs can you think of where someone that can shot fireballs would be advantgous? Seriously IMO in the case of allot of mages the TSAB is one of the few places there skills can really get them ahead about the only other area is maybe private secuitry, but I'm sure there are WAY more applicants then jobs in that area.

Even if they stay, they will quit putting their best once the ceiling comes into sight - they know you are not gonna fire them because half their best is still worth more than ten other's "best". Some "effective utilization!"

It really is since they'll still do more good giving 50% on the field then 100% behind a desk. And if it's just about money or the like then pay them more is that so complex? Prestige they already have anyway everyone in the TSAB clearly gives high level mages respect beyond what there rank would dictate.

It's not like I'm advocating working them twice as hard for half the pay or something. I'm saying use them where the help most and compensate them accordingly.

Skills have nothing to do with running a battleship? What about the fact that an elite mage is likely to be, on average:
1) More experienced - since they'll take a disproportionate amount of tough jobs.

None of that experience is really useful in running a ship a army General couldn't just transfer over and run a carrier battle group. Hell they wouldn't even have a clue about the culture since this varies greatly between services.

2) More intelligent + better knowledge - an AAA mage is supposed to have a "Master's knowledge" of magic.

Again a knowledge that's useless to running a ship.

3) Better character - from the Experience and also from day to day self-control of their own immense power.

About the only real upside that said you also run across plenty of guys that get power and then act like douches with it so this is hardly a given.

4) Be more respected: Comes from 1-3, especially from accomplishments which make up 1.

Debatable even if they respect what they've done in other areas trusting someone with little practical experience to run a warship effectively and fairly is something else all together. It goes back the general example if he's a decorated war hero the crew might respect him as a person, but that won't automatically transfer to respecting his orders or authority if he has no experience in this area and it will result in much harsher and quicker backlash if he makes any mistakes.

What they will lack is a shipboard specialization. But a Captain is by nature a generalist - any specialist past he has is long behind him and he could at most have been a specialist in one field anyway. Given this, the lack of a specialization is unlikely to offset all the trait advantages above.

This horseshit a captains specialization is being a generalist with a huge body of knowledge about the working of a naval vessel gained over decades of experience aboard them. Something no ammount of flying around blasting bad guys will provide a mage. Again by this moronic logic we could pluck a decorated Infnatry Colonel out Iraq give him command of a Guided Missile Destoryer and it would work great.

In disallowing elite mages, you are also stripping your Vessel Commander cadres of some of the brightest, most experienced (what passes for them in the TSAB anyway) officers. Is that what the Sailing Force wants?

What the sailing force wants isn't guys that can spam beams at criminals. It's guys that have lived on ships all there adult lives how know they work, know the culture, and knows what expected of them. What it doesn’t want or need are hot shot high powered assholes whose only qualifications is being able to fly fast and shot stuff good.

Disallowing almost assuredly unqualified mages from taking positions that should by all sane reasoning take decades of experience in a set pipeline to gain is hardly getting rid of the best and brightest. It's probably mostly keeping out career orientated glory hounds with a tenuous knowledge of the job.


You can also flip all this nonsense on it's head with the simple question of what is this ludicrously preferential treatment of high level mages telling the NORMAL troops (that still make up the vast majority of the force)? Work hard, stay on the straight and narrow, and someday you can be passed over a position you richly deserve so we can place a powerful novice in your place?

The three hours is from Chrono's fleet time from sortie to Earth. The ~1 hour timeframe for 97-HQ travel is based on events in A's. See how fast they evaced Nanoha to TSAB HQ's hospitals, or how Chrono can arrest our familiars on Earth, bring them to TSAB HQ for interrogation and run back. Even an hour is probably pessimistic.

As someone mentioned... Chrono can also teleport.

They might not always go back, but it seems like all of known TSAB space is compressed to such an extent that it is never hard to find a place where you can just skip back to HQ (or Mid) for a bit.

Given that your one example was a guy that can teleport moving around fast and one planet whose relative proximity to one other point in space we have no clue about I think that's a bit of a leap.

Obviously, the ship is highly automated, so it can run by itself for routine ops

Or as in many other things the producers where clueless as to what it takes to run a warship. At the very least you need three full bridge crews unless you expect the ship to totally run itself 16 hours a day which then calls into question what the crew is for at all.

Besides, a small crew actually does give support to the theory that the ships have limited autonomies and often go back.

As Jimmy_C as already noted I’d argue the reverse with a small crew and given that these vessel seem AT LEAST aircraft carrier size the crew probably get individual cabins, good recreation facilities, and stores are much less of a problem. They’d have LESS reason to return port on a regular basis then if they had a large crew as the trips would be more comfortable and the ship more sustainable… they’d still be boring as fuck though.

It was, on the other hand, the most important thing, and something that her son and Nanoha could not do.

Which is probably the only way she was able to justfiy it notice that despite what she might want in A's lacking such an excuse she hung back.

3 hours = draw from StrikerS deployment to Mid.
1 hour = draw from events in Nanoha A.

You still haven't shown me where this evidecne those ships came straight from HQ is coming from and we've arleady blasted a gaint hole in the entire A example.

I think Tk wants his elite mages to be Executive Officers (not Enforcers, we've made a mistake in creating a whole culture based on an incorrect Triad translation). The problem is that this causes a rank/capability inversion, which is generally not a good idea in command and control.

What I want is my elite mages to do stuff that only elite mages can do like fight cosmic terrors and such; not warm the chair on a warship or in an office.

Give them a high rank if you want, but don’t use them for shit that a normal human could easily do just as well. (Like commanding or crewing a warship) Given that S ranks are at least somewhat rare having one sitting around on the bridge of a warship during huge world threatening crisis due to regulations hardly seems like an effective use of resources… Maybe based solely on Nanoha and A's you could have defended it based on lack of info and just assumed that Lindy wasn’t that special, but given what we know now it makes no damn sense.

Anyway to avoid a bunch of quotes about the Enforcer issue my thoughts are as follows.

First off these guy aren’t really doing things you normally associate with just a 2IC or something Fate was running around chasing criminals and appeared mainly to be doing high profile investigative work; often alone. This makes little sense if an “enforcer” is just some kind of glorified second in command. Translation goof or not IMO the show itself still supports Fate belonging to some sort of group that’s at least somewhat outside the normal TSAB military Triad.

Further still if that’s the case, and it is IMO, then these guys are still going to have to be organized and controlled which implies a controlling agency and thus a culture of some sort. Besides as I recall some sort of “Intelligence Branch” is canon and they aren’t seen on the Triad at all. In any case too many people in WAY to many fics and characters have referenced “Enforcers” to retcon it IMO (never mind that the “real” translation sucks).

While I myself might incorporate some of this “new” information I’m not going to bust my ass to adhere to a tiny aspect of canon bureaucracy in a story that’s already non-canon and mildly AU. Like Humbug for me Enforcers are “solo” operators, but only in the same sense as there be only being one “Sheriff” in a county. An Enforcer is appointed and is the only one to hold that title in a group, but he can have a staff (possibly a rather large one) that aids him. (Fate only seemed to have one glorified secretary, but Fate was also freakishly strong most probably have at least a small team to aid them). As Humbug said they do allot of stuff, but since there ability to cut red tape and deploy quickly is most important in combat and law enforcement tasks most of them tend to be focused on that.

Another note/question I always got the impression that individual planets ground forces where pretty independent of each other so Regis was in charge of Mid’s GF, obviously a prestigious position, but not every GF in the TSAB. That is correct yes?

[PhoenixG]

Originally Posted by Evangelion Xgouki

I believe it's given to Rein because she's not, well, human. Synthetic rank, as the name says, is given to those artificially created beings that are able to use magic. I'd assume Familiars and Unison Devices fall into this category. They probably gave them a separate ranking as they either rely on another to influence their magic potential (like Familiars) or are static (Unison Devices) unlike humans who can strive to grow and increase their magic potential, and thus rank.

Nope. Synthetic means she is an all-rounder. Hayate is also Synthetic.

[Kha]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

SURPRISE PROFILE POSTO!!!!!!!!!

Now for something the IRC guys know, and now posting the first part now:

Spoiler for The Shattered Girl:

*snip*

SOMA!!!

Though her current state is rather ing. Not to mention mindboggling.

Hooray for Mayura. :3

Originally Posted by ghazghkull

And now presenting, CHAPTER 5!

Spoiler for MGLN Riot Force 6:

*snip*

...more training.

Everyone's growing well, at least we know we're gonna have a mission scenario next. Rue has turned out completely different from my expectations, but no matter. At least we won't be confusing Sophia and Rue. :3

And SUPAA SENTAI TAMASHII debut FTW.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Up till they are fifteen? Ouch, that means Madness is quite a bit harder to achieve (Madness raises all stats at the cost of sanity, it's normally the Berserker class skill. It'd be quite hard for Kha to 'score points' when Keroko is hell bent on killing him methinks. ) But Knowledge of Foremost Harmony would offset the disadvantage of losing Madness as an easy-access skill.

Far worse is that it makes the 'tick of Keroko and survive beatings' a whole lot more improbable, as Keroko has spend a good 8 years with Nanoha and is pretty much calm now, Neltharion's essence sealed away further reducing her outbursts of anger.

...er... No Sousuke/Chidori mechanic?

And that timeline is where the Tentacle joke supposed to reside!!! Uuuh... How now...

*thinks hard*

Originally Posted by Keroko

Wait, what? Why? We've got data-based lifeforms in canon, why are fungal based lifeforms banned?

I'm not quite sure why either, but it stems from me not understanding a bit of the WAAAAAGH to even bring them logically into the Nanohaverse.

But the Orcs of Durotar, now those make sense and epic badass. :3

Originally Posted by Keroko

Ever since the introduction of Archerko, I've been expecting this one to come eventually.

Didn't expect you to genderbend the rest of the cast too, though.

It's like in the GB Haruhi thread; bend one, bend all. =3

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Kha ~It which won't die even if after it is killed~

......

Originally Posted by Nightengale

-_-...

I wonder who'll you pull into your epic Khrack next.

...Keroko.

*runs*

Originally Posted by Nightengale

-_-; ....

DOES. NOT. COMPUTE.

Something feels off in that, really.

Same here.

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Graham?

But Graham wasn't really... must've misread something here.

I remember that line from Triad's translation of A's.

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Kha without KHRACK? Does not compute, but a Rebuilt doesn't need Khrack after all.

Though I cringe at the thousands of words lost in translation...

...huh? Is it because I'm depending on the subs? I'm using Yesy DVD rips as a basis for Rebuilt, I wonder if that's trouble?

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Bang.

Goodbye, Space Khaboy.

"How do you like living in that world? I know I don't."

Originally Posted by Nightengale

And Kha shows us why his Khrack is unbeatable.

...

Originally Posted by LoweGear

YOSH!!!! SURPRISE POSTO PART TWO!!!!

For the second part of Epsila Synaisthima's profile:

Spoiler for The Once Shattered Girl:

snipe

Yeap mindboggling as always. Poor Eppy.

Originally Posted by Liingo

Meh, I'm unphased by the gender bend. In fact, go with the Gender bend of Nanoha and Fate, get someone to draw it up and present it to the Image thread.
XD XD XD

We've got Nanoha-kun and Kha-chan up and running (), all we need are the others...

...Subaru genderbent wouldn't be an original chara anymore...

...And now remember that scene of Nanoha on the bed and Fate undressing...?

...now imagine Nanoha-kun and Feito-kun...

*RUNS FROM EXPLODING BRAINS*

Originally Posted by Liingo

Pic Looks like Gimmy.. With different Hair colour.. Maybe it's just me (Wait, Gimmy was the girl right? right?)

Gimmy: AHOU!!!

*slaps Liingo with a trout*

Gimmy is the guy, Darry was the girl! :/

Originally Posted by Keroko

In all honesty, StrikerS partially fueled the thought by giving Fate a black uniform, which is different from the others and is, if I recall, unique. The only other jitsumukan we could compare with was Chrono, but by the time we saw him in something different then his Barrier Jacket or casual clothing, he was a Navy Admiral.

Which raises another question:



The TSAB crest has three collors, black, blue and brown. According to the emblems they should represent Navy, Ground and Air forces. Navy and Ground have their uniforms according to the emblem, yet Air Force mages wear white uniforms (judging by Nanoha and Tiida Lanster)

What do the black uniforms belong to?

To be honest, by comparing the individual insignias to the GAS and Air Force Agressors, the botton third represents Ground Force, the Upper Right Third represents Navy, and Upper Left Third is the Air Force...

...and that is black.

Originally Posted by Evangelion Xgouki

Thrall: Lok'tar!

Still need to get the backstory correct, but it'll be a technologically backward race that uses steampunk and magic in the traditional sense and not the Nanohaverse magiengineering we see.

Originally Posted by Evangelion Xgouki

Welcome back, Erio!!

You like us! You really still like (and can stand) us!!

LOL He's been here since forever. =3

And I hope your not too attached to many of your OCs and Erio, Caro and Lutecia... Kagerou and I have... [Plans]...

[ghazghkull]

Originally Posted by Kha

...more training.

Everyone's growing well, at least we know we're gonna have a mission scenario next. Rue has turned out completely different from my expectations, but no matter. At least we won't be confusing Sophia and Rue. :3

And SUPAA SENTAI TAMASHII debut FTW.

LOL of course she's different. Rue's a leader :3

And yes, the Belkarangers have come, and they are here to stay :3

[Wild Goose]

On the subject of patrols:

I would like to point out that the Royal Malaysian Navy, a brown-water navy consisting almost entirely of patrol boats, fast-attack gunboats and missile boats, 2 British-designed-and-built modern frigates, and 6 UNARMED patrol boats (the first of which costs AS MUCH AS A FULL-SPEC FLIGHT IIA ARLEIGH-BURKE Aegis guided missile destroyer) maintains SEVERAL WEEK PATROLS. All our ships can be back at their homeports in a few hours, but they all spend several weeks a month on patrol. Brown water navy.

TSAB is the intergalactic equivalent of a Blue Water Navy.

Regarding the Enforcers: I don't buy the whole XO part. Yes, Chrono was essentially Lindy's XO on the Athra - but consider the uniform and such. IT's like, say, a Navy officer who's specialty/MOS is engineering but who is the XO.

As for ships, in all cases ship captains are expected to work their way up through the surface warfare community. The only cross-MOS assignments to ship captain are carrier captains in the US Navy, who by law and navy regulations, MUST be former naval aviators (pilots), as the carrier's function is deployment of the air wing. Even then, carrier captains will go through a long cram school before getting their command, and they'll still have an experienced XO to assist and guide them.

Someone also mentioned the Enforcers running around like judges in western movies - I was thinking more like US Marshalls or Texas Rangers.

Also, ark, you must have missed the footnotes: the bulk of the Erusia invasion force were GF, not Enforcers. Joint GF/Enforcer/Gardai units did exist during the war, with GF providing magical muscle, Enforcers teaching & enhancing investigation skills, and the Gardai being cannon fodder - aka teh MITTs in Iraq.

[Tk3997]

Okay this is like Xbox HUGE (Ended up at 15,800 words) and though I've read it over a few times, I still might be missing stuff so feel free to point out anything that seems weird. I'm pretty happy with it overall though I think the fight scene might be a tad dry, but I wasn't getting much mojo going for it and basiclly just had to force it out to finish the piece so yeah I won't take any offense if you find it lacking.

I haven't used this in a while but I think it's called for...

Anyway without Further adieu my latest fic! Which still has no name... We've been over this I suck at names lets move on...

Spoiler for SIZE:

Air Force Hospital January 1st 77 MC:
“Hiya!” O’Neil announced merrily as he burst through the door in an exaggerated manner calculated to annoy the rooms occupant. He was quite successful as Felix’s only response to the intrusion was an annoyed grunt before he turned back to watching the TV embedded in the wall across from his bed. “What’s ya watching?” He queried casually as he pulled up a chair and plopped down beside the bed.

“Nothing good damn place only has basic cable; about the only thing worse is that animal feed they’re trying to pass off as fit for human consumption.” He grumbled irritably.

“Ahh the dread hospital food me and it have crossed paths a number of times I figured you might be feeling it’s insidious effects so…” He quickly produced a fairly nondescript bag from his coat and plopped it down on the table beside the bed. The aroma wafting from it left little doubt what was in it, but a quick check confirmed it was stuffed with several kinds of ludicrously unhealthy, and of coruse ridiculously delicious, fast food.

Defying his bodies command to commence gorging Felix instead donned his trade mark frown and fixed the senior officer with a suspicious glare. ”Alright what do you want?”

“Why I am offended that you would construe my humanitarian gesture as some kind of bri---“ The glare intensified further. “Not buying it?”

“Spill it, now.”

“Alright fine, we need to discuss what we’re going to do with you once you get out since the docs assure me your legs goanna be pretty much bum for at least a few months.”

“I don’t suppose I could get vacation for the next few months.”

“Eh… no. But fear not I have a pretty nice gig all lined up where you can take it easy for a few months!”

“Catch?” Felix came back flatly quickly deflating O’Neil once more.

“Well it involves taking a commission…” He began offhandedly.

“This again.” Felix grumbled slightly irritated although it seemed more half hearted then usual.

“Hey can’t blame me for trying you know? This messed up military needs as many competent officers as it can get after all.” He replied with a helpless shrug.

“Assuming I don’t take it what do I get?” Felix inquired casually.

“Office work; assuming you wanna keep your medical insurance and pay check...” Jack replied bluntly.

“And this will be better then said office work?” Felix asked slightly weary.

“Very much so I think.” Was the confident answer.

“But you aren’t going to tell me what exactly it is if I ask for fear I might reject it if I learned some of the finer details you’ll undoubtedly hide concerning it.”

“Err….” O’Neil mumbled uncomfortably at the rather accurate rebuke which left him at a bit of a loss to reply.

“You can be such a ballbuster when you want to be.” Felix sighed seemingly totally unconcerned about the fact he was addressing a general. “What’s the rank?” he continued more seriously.

The seemingly serious reply acutally slightly surprised O’Neil but he replied smoothly all the same. “2nd Lieutenant.”

“Not a fucking chance.” Felix answered simply.

O’Neil grimaced slightly seemingly weighing the options for several seconds before replying. “I can probably make it First, but Captain isn’t happening and you’d owe me.”

“Make it First with no favors involved and I might sign, but no less, and I want to see a proper contract with time to review it, AND you tell me at least vaguely where the hell you intend to send me.” Felix haggled firmly.

Once more O’Neil grimaced and reviewed his options he hadn’t really expected him to even vaguely consider the offer and truly did think the service could use more guys like him, even more so where he intended to send him. Still he would have to pull a number of strings to get him what he wanted, but then again he supposed that thrashed leg had earned him that much... Besides he needed to strike before what ever fevered delirium was warping his mind faded! “Alright fine I’ll have an outline sent up today, but I want an answer by the weekend and if you make me do all this and then say no I’m gonna be pissed.” He relented and agreed to the rough terms.

“Well then you better make sure what you send up isn’t full of loopholes aimed at screwing me over.” Felix shot back seemingly unafraid.

“Well you seem to be mostly your old self so you can’t be too bad off; anyway I have still other things to do so I’ll be heading out now.” Jack announced rising from his seat and straightening his coat.

”Yeah well thanks for coming to check up on me I suppose…” Felix mumbled weakly. “Now get out of here already so I can eat in peace. Oh and tell everyone else I’m fine too so they can bugger off and leave me alone while I enjoy a little peace and quiet for once.”


Jack couldn’t help but smirk at the rather lame attempt at disguising his “mushy” feelings. “Your welcome and I’ll be sure to tell the rest of the guys you’re doing fine and pass on your greetings.” He replied cheerfully before slipping out and shutting the door before any retort could be mounted.

Midchilda, Crows Nest Air Force Base, January 20th
================================================== ===
Vita walked the corridors of the base toward her office with a bit more spring in her step then usual, and why the hell not it wasn’t every day you got promoted after all. It also went without saying she had puffed herself up as much as her meager height would allow in order to show off her new set of bars to anyone that happened past. She wasn’t quite sure why that crazy old man… Well the other crazy old man. Come to think of it she really needed to think of someway to differentiate them better.

Regardless he couldn’t be all bad if he worked to system to get her a promotion, even if had been awfully cryptic about why he’d done it “Gotta maintain the balance.” was about all she’d gotten out of him, and yeah maybe getting favors from highly placed acquaintances was technically wrong... but screw that she was way overdue for a promotion given her skill level and time in service!Now she could just make captain first she could totally throw the fact she outranked Signum in her face and in any case she couldn’t officially be ordered around anymore. Today was a good day indeed…

At least it was until she opened the door to office she shared with the various other training officers… She stared at him, he started back, and she blinked several times to confirm the scene before her wasn’t some horrible hallucination, and indeed the scene was still present and uncharged when she was finished. Said scene consisted of the following Felix was in the office, he was wearing a uniform, said uniform sported first lieutenant insignia, and lastly he was unpacking things into one of the desks… and the cryptic remarks suddenly made a sickening amount of sense. I take back everything nice I’ve ever said about him, that old man is just as bad as the other one… maybe worse.

Felix didn’t seem all that pleased either though he chose to verbalize his discontent. “And thusly the trap is sprung… that jackass really can be a magnificent bastard when he wants to be.”

The next half and hour or so was uncomfortable, but not a total disaster as the pair both quickly decided to employ a time honored and highly effective solution to this possible problem: completely ignore each other. Thusly it was that neither really even acknowledged the others existence for the entire time they where forced to occupy the same room. Once he finished unpacking Felix quietly left the room, though not before Vita noted he seemed to be dragging his left leg a bit and walking with a slight limp as a result she was mildly curious why, but mostly just relieved to be free of his presence for the day assuming what she’d read from the duty rooster was, god willing, accurate. Then again it hadn’t shown him on it at all to begin with…

================================================== ===

Felix had a rather good idea who he’d be working under now, and he supposed it could be worse. He was still a bit suspicious of what exactly the old man was scheming here as he highly doubted this was simply a post to stick him in for a few weeks while he bounced back. That would be far too simple and painless after all… He had a feeling he’d find out most of the picture soon, and a further feeling he wouldn’t be all that trilled with it. His destination was thankfully right across the hall from the larger common office the lower ranking officers shared so he didn’t have to drag his half dead leg far at least.

The name on the door pretty much cinched it: N. Takamachi. With a resigned shrug he knocked and was cheerfully beaconed inside “First Lieutenant Munro reporting for duty Ma’am.” He announced rather blandly managing to bring himself to some semblance of attention and salute as he did so.

“I’d really rather not talk about it.” He replied uncomfortably.

“Was it bad?” She asked gravely all manner of grim scenarios swirling about in her mind.

“No but it was terribly embarrassing.” Felix answered flatly.

“Oh…” She replied after a somewhat awkward pause at the sudden shift in the atmosphere. “Let’s just get to your assignment.” She cleared her throat and quickly left the awkwardness behind.

“I’m listening.”

“The General sent these over this morning.” A holo-screen popped up about a foot from him and he began skimming the contents. “Apparently he wants you to make some rounds to assess a few people.” Felix scanned list pointedly and threw a bit of a look. “Well more then a few I suppose…” She conceded sheepishly. “This is more then usual and on somewhat short notice, but these kinds of tours and inspections are part of our duty so it should be good experience and since you’re new you’ll be assigned someone more experienced to show you the ropes.”

He pretty much just shrugged in response he figured he do worse then what amounted to a tour of the TSAB on the states dime. Besides this is busy work while he recovered so he shouldn’t be getting his expectations too high. “Anything else?”

“The details have been forward to your works station you’ll leave tonight so I’m afraid you won’t have much time to get read, but orders are orders. Once you review the details you’re free to head home for the day and get ready.”

“I guess I’ll be on my way then?” He responded requesting permission to leave in a roundabout manner.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks I’m looking forward to working with you when you get back.” She replied cheerfully granting the requested permission at which point he briskly exited the room and headed back toward his office. He passed Vita in the hall and a quick set of glares was exchanged as they passed as far to left and right as the hall allowed. He didn’t really think anything of the “meeting” at the time; which in hindsight was rather stupid…

================================================== ===

“You’ve got a phone call!” His computer chipped merrily.

“Lucky me.” He mumbled blandly at the reminder that he really needed to change this work stations settings too as it had perhaps the girlist desktop theme he’d ever seen, and of coruse it’s former owner hadn’t bother to clean it even slightly. He went to answer and was greeted by a prompt for a password by the caller “Homer”. “Real cute jack ass.” He muttered as he quickly typed “D’oh” in the provide box and the link was established.

“Hiya buddy, having fun at your new gig?”

“Oodles.” He deadpanned to O’Neil.

“Good, good anyway now that you’ve belted out your witty retort let’s talk business.”

“I can’t wait!” He replied faux enthusiasm.

“So you should have your orders by now and those are real by the way… but I might have left out a few minor details.”

“No shit?”

“You could sound a little surprised I’d do such a thing…”

“I could but I’d be lying.”

“Well it’s not really a big deal any this really is an inspection tour in your capacity as a newly appointed temporary combat instructor, but I want you to do a few things while you’re out inspecting.” A prompt appeared on his screen asking if he would accept an incoming file which he quickly dead, it opened and executed automatically displaying a fairly lengthy text file which Felix skimmed for several minutes.

“When did I become your personal headhunter?”

“No head hunting going on yet your more like a talent scout at this point; basiclly I just want a short list of candidates for some future projects.”

“And you want this done quietly I assume.”

“That would be preferable yes.”

“Why me though?”

“Because you’re brutally and unapologetically honest and you know what it takes from first hand experience, and you’re pretty much an unknown so no one will think much of you. Plus I got lucky and you ended up injuring yourself so this is nearly all you should be doing at the moment that made talking you into it so much easier… I didn’t expect you to acutally take the commission though, but that made it easier still to arrange.”

“… I’m not sure how exactly to take that statement so I’m pretty much going to ignore it.” Felix finally remarked after a few seconds of consideration before continuing. “I’m assuming the good captain is in the dark on this?”

“I feel a bit bad about it, but she’s just so damn high profile it’s just simpler if she’s not involved at the moment, but fear not I have plans for her yet…!”

“Yeah you might not want to say it like that in public…”

“Well you’ve got you’re full orders now so good luck.”

“What is luck going to have to do with this? I’m just going to be watching people and taking notes for Christ sake”

“Hmm it wasn’t for the mission…” He replied cryptically.

“What are you...” The link went dead. “Stupid old man he totally gets off and jerking us all around.” His thoughts where interrupted by yelling from across the hall and muffled though it was he had a fair idea who it was doing it. “What’s that idiotic shrimp squalling about now?” He wondered idly.

================================================== ===

“You can’t be serious!” Vita nearly roared as Nanoha broke the news.

Since that was about the expected reaction Nanoha wasn’t really fazed by it.
“The orders came down from above and I am serious, and besides that I think you’ll make a good team!”

“We almost kill each other when we first meet!”

“So?” Nanoha replied a bit confused almost seeming to question why that should matter.

“What do you mean so?!” Vita boggled.

“Well I mean you tried to kill me too when we first meet…” Nanoha supplied a tad sheepishly.

Vita suddenly realized she’d talked herself into a bit of corner here and a bigger woman might have just admitted this line of reasoning was untenable and tried a new one… but Vita you must remember is a pretty small woman. ”That was different!” she whined.

Nanoha didn’t even reply and merely gave her a look that basiclly challenged her to try and defend that rather childish retort. “Well fine, but I don’t have to like his dumbass.” She huffed finally realizing no amount of fighting was going to change this.

“I think you just got off on the wrong foot, and this the perfect chance to start over! I bet once you get know him a bit better you’ll see he’s a good person.” Like another grumpy someone I happen to know. She added to herself mentally.

Vita found herself nearly nauseated by this but powerless to fight back in the face of Nanoha’s overwhelming and nearly irrational optimism about people in general which totally smothered any retort she had and forced her into a begrudging submission. She was sure she was wrong this time though this guy was a total ass through and through she was sure. On the still rather dim bright side though at least as long as he was around her he was away from Nanoha and she could control him more effectively…

================================================== ===

Vita returned to the office a few minutes after he heard the shouting took a seat at her desk and began just staring at Felix menacingly… and he was staring right back. This nonsense persisted for the better part of five minutes.

“So what was with the shouting the cafeteria run out of strawberry short cake or something?” Felix finally broke the silence.

Vita had one up on him this time though and had a rather effective come back which she deliverer flatly. “You know your partner for your little trip?”

“What about it-“ He suddenly stopped cold as realization donned and his demeanor shifted from snide to seething. “Oh that son of a bitch.”

“I don’t suppose you could somehow talk him out of this crap.” She asked resignedly.

“He called me like five minutes ago with what is, in hindsight, cryptic taunting and once he gets his mind set on something…”

“I figured as much.”

More very awkward silence followed as their situation thoroughly sunk in.

“Well I suppose we should go and get ready to leave.” Felix finally announced blandly after several minutes he was past the anger phase and into resigned acceptance.

“I suppose.” She replied in a similar mood.

“I’ll pick you up about an hour before we ship out?”

“Whatever.” She responded as she rose and trudged out of the room.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He muttered to himself a moment after she’d departed and then rose to leave himself. This new gig really was just getting better and better by the minute he couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next…

================================================== ===

“How was work?”

“Sucked.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“No.”

“Want to discuss where you’re going?” She asked eyeing the filled and sealed suitcase on the bed.

“Not really.”

“Feel like telling us how long you’ll be gone?”

“Don’t know exactly at least a week or two my flights leaving soon so I’m going to have to miss dinner tonight tell Hayate I’m sorry.” She replied grumpily yanking the suit case off the bed and onto its inbuilt wheels so she could roll it out the door while basiclly ignoring both women and heading straight for the front door.

“She’s in a very fine mood today isn’t she?” Signum remarked as she watched her exit.

“Quite.” Tesla answered as she moved to a front window and casually slid it open a bit so she could hear as well as see what was going on outside, and she had to admit she witnessed was rather surprising.

“Hurry it up! If we miss the boat I’m gonna be pissed!” A distinctly male voice shouted from inside a car parked across the street from the house.

“Then shut up and pop the trunk dumbass!” Vita replied acidly as she headed round to the back of the car to stash her luggage before quickly doubling back to get in the passenger seat at which point the driver took off nearly before she’d even shut door.

“Is that…?” Signum began.

“Yes, it was.” Tesla affirmed.

“Well that explains her foul mood.”

“But raises so many other questions...” The blue haired girl replied with a slightly whimsical tone, but it seemed answers would have to wait for her return.

================================================== ===

Mercifully the first leg out of the trip wasn’t that long the trip out aboard the liner took a bit less then a day and since it was under booked the two of them were given separate cabins and having little reason to interact they mostly avoided each other thus eliminating most frictions; albeit via a rather dysfunctional method. All too soon though that approach was simply no longer going to be an option at least while on duty they’d have to make some pretense of working together which meant they’d have little choice but to spend time around each other…

================================================== ===

“Lovely weather.” Vita remarked blandly as she and her erstwhile partner sheltered under an awning outside at the local space port waiting for there ride; which was already 20 minutes late.

“It’s the monsoon season it’ll be like this every day for months.” Felix remarked casually.

“You’ve been here before?” She replied mildly surprised.

“A few times this planets capital is a bit of a hub for mercs and the like most guys in the profession will have passed through at one time or another.” He informed.

“I’ve never heard anything about that that?” She replied curious small talk wasn’t normally her thing, but there wasn’t a hell of allot else to do at the moment.

“Well being a great place to hire or find out about all manner of quasi legal “professionals” isn’t something they tend to plaster on the travel brochures. It goes way back though the planet has a long tradition of swords and more recently guns for hire and inclusion in the TSAB mostly just made the practice a bit more discreet. As for the second bit it’s not really seedy or anything most of the guys here are well behaved and its pretty high class all around… the guys in charge make sure of that.”

She gave him a bit of a sideways glance. “And how exactly do they do that?” She asked rather pointedly.

“Hmm the locals methods can be… morally ambiguous, but they usually leave the offender alive if a bit worse for wear and normally on his way off the planet.” He responded casually

She continued staring at him. “And what exactly were you doing while you were here to learn all this?”

“It wasn’tillegal, but it ended up being a bit loud.” He let out a sign. “The idiots always have to do things the hard way. Anyway I didn’t get much flak though I was politely asked to move along once I’d completed my business.” He ‘answered’ dismissively.

And it really wasn’t much of answer but before she could inquire further their driver finally arrived sliding to a stop in front of them and rolling down the window. “Sorry for the waits, sir stupid car wouldn’t start when I tried to leave had to grab another one.” The driver in his full uniform at marked as a Sergeant announced apologetically. “Names Miller by the way so anyway where’s the other guy so we can get rolling?” He asked glancing around the area the only other person present was some little kid who was glaring at him for some reason, and it suddenly clicked. “Oh… well I certainly stepped in it here didn’t I?”

“Quite.” Felix stated flatly stowing his luggage in the trunk before taking the front seat the car was a compact and being about two feet higher this his partner there was no way in hell he was going to sit in the back.

After that blunder Miller quieted down… for awhile, but he got back into his stride rather quickly. He certainly had the “gift” of gab as it were as he regaled them about the weather, the city, the planet all the while tossing out the occasional question only a few of which he bothered to wait for and see if they’d answer to before plowing ahead. It was getting old pretty quickly and no end was in sight.

“So combat instructors? Bet that’s tough work huh? You must have to travel all the time and stuff, but then again I bet you get to see lots of different places so that’s probably…”

“Sergeant you wanna do me a favor.” Felix wearily interrupted his latest spiel.

“Just name it sir!” He replied gamely.

“Shut up.”

Miller looked mildly offended with a face that screamed “how rude!” and he huffed a bit, but he did quiet down so Felix scarcely cared.

Well maybe he isn’t all bad. Vita mused to herself as she enjoyed the sweet, sweet silence he’d saved her the trouble of restoring to the car.

================================================== ===

Arriving at there destination a short time later the tersely excused themselves from the Sergeants presence and made there way to see the Unit commander’s office.

“Enter.” He announced in response to a knock on the door and they both stepped inside shutting the door behind them before saluting Felix rather more lazily then his companion the commander returned the salute and gestured for both of them to sit. “So too what do we owe the pleasure of your presence.” To say he sounded less then enthusiastic would be a bit of an understatement, but that it wasn’t very surprising either some hid it more then this guy, but most still thought it. Training officers normally tended to show up either to critically evaluate a units performance or because something was suspected to be going wrong. In either case a bad review or reports could sink promotions or even careers and none of this made them very welcomed by most officers.

“Just a standard inspection tour we’ll take a look around, interview some troops, review your training logs and should be gone in two or three days.” Vita responded indifferently to him this was a serious matter; to her it was a chore she’d like over with as quickly as possible.

“I see; well I trust you’ll find everything in order I’ve assigned Sergeant Miller as your aid while you’re on site you can speak to him if you need anything.” Both of them winced slightly at this. “Anyway I’m needed elsewhere we’re planning an operation soon; perhaps you’ll be around to observe it.” He added casually though he’d clearly prefer they weren’t a few seconds later he rose from his chair promoting them to do the same and they all exited the office. They were meet outside by Miller before the commander quickly heading off with nary a wave leaving them alone with the NCO.

“Such a warm and forthright greeting.” Felix deadpanned watching the officer round the corner and head out of sight.

“Welcome to our world get used to it.”

“It’s not like I care he’s only going to make sure I nitpick and snipe more then I would have otherwise.” He replied unperturbed.

Figures he would be well versed in proper methods for pissing people off… She mused to herself as that was indeed what most of them did when confronted by uncooperative hosts.

“So anyway what now oh wised veteran?” He questioned semi-rhetorically.

This drew a slight glare from Vita, but it just wasn’t worth the effort at the moment. “I suppose we should go have a chat with some of motor mouth esteemed colleges.” She announced gesturing dismissively toward there appointed aid.

“Sounds good; lead the way motor mouth.” Felix replied with a slight snicker stepping aside and ushering the newly named Sergeant into the lead. Miller scowled a bit at both of them but going at it with officers that had even more ways to screw then most wasn’t exactly wise so he held his piece and lead on toward the barracks.

[Tk3997]

Part 2:

Spoiler for EVEN MORE SIZE:

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Downtown, Residential Area:

It was a quiet evening in the medium density residential area comprised of a number of smaller apartment blocks and the occasional split level house. It was often quiet in this area which had a reputation as one of the more boring and ordered areas of the city or indeed the continent given its crime rate. A good place to raise a family… or lay low for awhile and suspicion of a group doing the later was what brought intelligence agents Kou Kusanagi and Shin Arakawa to be sequestered in a sparsely furnished sixth floor apartment conducting careful diligent surveillance of a split level house across the street…

“I spy…” Shin began idly leaning back in a wooden chair with his feet perched on a windowsill.

“Shut up or so help me I will hit you this time.” Kou cut him off his back to him as he observed a bank of floating holographic monitors projecting images and audio from the bugs he’d planted inside the house the day prior.

“Well what do you expect? Given how they somehow failed to mention this operation would involve sitting around for hours on end without so much as a TV...” Shin responded grumpily.

“We have a TV; five of them acutally so quit whining.” Kou shot back; the man had the attention span and patience of a small rodent at times despite his, admittedly often useful, skills Kou still sometimes wonder just how suited for a job as often boring as Intelligence work he really was.

“Yeah speaking of that what’s on now empty room, guys sitting in room, or empty room with the lights out?” His partner replied caustically.

“You’d know yourself if you were taking your damn turn instead of slacking off.” Kou growled back. It had been Shin’s turn almost an hour ago, but having no were else to go and recalling the rather lackadaisical manner Shin tended to “monitor” these sorts if situation he normally delayed his take over as long as possible. Shin for his part being aware of his partners preference for doing things like this himself was rather unlikely to offer or insist he take over; despite his whining about boredom.

“But you’re doing such a good job of it I didn’t want to interrupt!” The remark was heavily laced with false modesty, but before Kou could fire back some noise drew his attention to one of the monitors which he quickly enlarged and focused on.

“Ah hell.” He muttered.

“Problem?” Shin queried dropping his feet from the windowsill allowing his chair to sit back on all fours as he craned his neck slightly to look at his partner.

“Yeah you could say that.” Kou responded focusing on the monitor before him or more precisely the image of a guy staring right at the hidden camera in the room and then moving off rummage through a nearby draw before returning with a knife and a chair which he pushed against the wall and began to climb onto.

“Eh this ain’t good. I think we’re going to have to step up our time table slightly…” Shin mused flatly as he watched the scene unfold as well.

“Ya think?” Kou responded already dialing his cell phone.

================================================== ===

Vita and Felix spent the new few hours wandering about checking various aspects of the bases operation, interviewing personal, and generally conducting there assigned task of inspection. As predicted it was boring to a nearly mind numbing degree Thankfully the day was winding down now and both of them where just sitting around finishing up there reports before hopefully finding something vaguely more interesting to do before turning in for the night and then doing it all again tomorrow.

Felix had paid particular attention to and talked too one of his assigned subject one Makoto Ayoma; she’d seemed polite enough if a tad terse and in a hurry to be rid of his presence. He was now casually reviewing her service record as he filled out a few forms. Maybe she was just worried about why he’d taken an interest in her she might have good reason given her disciplinary record. It was littered with reprimands for fighting and insubordination probably the only thing saving her from a discharge were the equally glowing reviews of her skills and performance in combat. Yeah looks about like the sort of person that coot would be interested in… He mused to himself before sparing a glance for his companions.

Miller was still hanging around them mercifully quiet for the moment; apparently he had no better way to spend his time then sitting watching them type and read. Somehow that failed to really surprise him… He did seem to be staring kind of hard at Vita though and her occasion glance back indicated she’d probably noticed. Finally after a bit longer she’d had enough of it. “Alright what the hell are you looking at?”

“I just thought I recognized you from somewhere.” He responded attempting to appease her.

“Wow you are a sharp one only took you about half a day to vaguely recognize one of the Wolkenritter.” Felix put in snidely.

“What?!” He snapped back to Vita from Felix and stared again. “Huh.” He added in a way that was to read.

“You got something to say about it?” Vita challenged she’d run into plenty of people over the years that still held some negative opinions about her.

“Well I just thought you’d be you know...” He answered a tad unsure which only made her even more suspicious.

“Be what? Blood thirsty, vicious, sadistic?” She confronted him pointedly.

“Well no, just I thought you’d be well… taller.”

“You really want to die don’t you?” Felix remarked stunned he’d acutally said that.

Before the situation could deteriorate any further an alarm began blaring and the the PA system ordered all alter personal to assembled for immoderate deployment.

“Saved by the Klaxon.” He quipped as Miller nearly sprinted from the room escaping the unpleasant situation in a hurry.

================================================== ===
Downtown, 15 minutes later:

“We’ve had this group under observation for several days on a tip someone intended to buy large quantities of explosives illegally.” Kou informed those assembled.

“Why weren’t we informed of this?” Captain Ulmen, the local commander, demanded irritably.

“Because the same sources indicated the buyer wasn’t a local; interstellar criminal activity is an Intelligence and Enforcer matter. We’d have warned you before we had an arrest but we had no reason to inform you of our surveillance mission.” Kou responded dismissively.

“Then why bother informing us now?” Ulmen asked irritably.

“Because they’ve discovered the surveillance and they’re scrambling to abandon the place while our arrest team isn’t due until the end of this week.” Kou answered matter of factly.

“Alright, how many inside?”

“About a dozen at last check, but they’ve disabled all our gear inside so we can’t be sure what exactly they’re doing or how many are still inside.” Kou answered.

“Why the hell is it taking them so long to just ditch the house?” Felix wondered aloud.

“Because they’re putting greed before sense they’re trying to load up as much of a small mountain of illegal goods in the places basement as they can before they run.” Shin piped in here. “From what I saw while planting the bugs the stuff is probably worth hundreds of thousands maybe even millions.”

“Even so we don’t have much time left we need to move now.” Kou put in forcefully.

“Alright fine I want two teams of six men one of us will hit the back and the other the front I’d prefer more time to plan, but it seems we’ll have to wing it.” Ulmen grumbled annoyed at the entire situation.

“You want us to go with you?” Felix questioned indifferently.

“No we’ll be fine thank you very much.” Ulmen replied condescendingly it was bad enough all these damn federal agents were showing up to screw with his work to start with he wasn’t going to have them stealing anymore of his thunder. “That goes for you too.” He added to the Intelligence agents before ordering his troops to follow him out of the room.

“I told you he was gonna be pissed.” Shin chuckled as the man left.

“Attempting to care... failure to care imminent.” Kou replied unfazed.

“You know the Boss doesn’t really like it when we step on other services toes.”

“The Boss also doesn’t like pompous windbags; I think we’re safe.”

“You know I’m starting to like this kid already.” Felix mused quietly to himself rubbing his chin as he observed and appraised this exchange from the other side of the room.

Vita rolled her eyes.

================================================== ===
Inside the House:

Things were as busy inside the structure as they where across the street as all present scrambled to load up and save as much of there stock as possible. Torn up and half empty boxes and containers littered the halls as the gang took only the most valuable parts of various packages as they raced to abandoned the house. One of the occupants though seem unperturbed by the emergency and more concerned with other matters.

“I want what I came for!”

“Did you not see the fucking cameras buried in the walls or what!? We need to get out of here!” He really had just about enough of this jackass, Zubov if he was pronouncing his stupid name right, showing up and acting like he owned the place just because he happened to be buying something somewhat expensive.

“I don’t give a crap about the cameras it’ll probably take the local pigs the better part of a day to do anything about it.” Zubov replied irritably.

“You even got the money for it?”

“What do you care you’re leaving it behind anyway.” He responded.

“Piss off, you think you can just barge in here and tell us what to do on our turf?”

“This is your last chance; I want what I came for.” Zubov hissed menacingly.

“Maybe I wasn’t clear enough; Fuck yo— Hurk“ Zubov surged forward, grabbed him by the throat, and slammed him into the wall about a foot behind him before jamming a gun under his chin in one violent blur of motion.

“No maybe I wasn’t clear I feel I’ve been quite patent in dealing with your loathsome little band of thugs, but that time is over. What’s going to happen now is that I’m going to walk out of her with what I came for and if you try to stop me I’ll kill the lot of you. Nod if you understand.” The choking man nodded furiously in response. “I’m glad we understand each other.” Zubov released his vice grip on his victims neck letting him collapse to the floor and begin gulping in air. Of coruse he planned to kill them anyway since witness simply wouldn’t do, but the bomb he intended to leave in the basement next to the mountain of illegal explosives would take care of that shortly after he left.

As he trudged off and began his descent into the basement though he paused as he felt something nearby. “What a nuisance.” He muttered “It’s just one thing after another today.” He added as he drew his device and headed back up stairs. Though honestly he didn’t mind too much as he could really use something to take his pent up irritation out on.

================================================== ===
The group of Intelligence and Training officers had by now wandered down the street to watch the assault on the building from ground level one team lead by the captain was setting up at the front of the house preparing to breech the door while another team was moving around the left side to hit the men loading a truck at the back and then sweep into he rear of the building. A pretty standard plan all around, but then they had no real reason to be fancy so that was hardly a bad thing. The occupants showed no signs of knowing the assault was about to take place probably because the troops had arrived so quickly Felix had to admit the response time by the unit had been exemplary.

As he watched the point man moved forward and delivered a low powered shot into the doors lock before rearing back and smashing it aside with a swift kick. The team then began storming inside yelling it was a raid and for everyone inside to surrender, but a scant second after the entry and the yelling started and before the entire team could even pile inside everything was drowned out by an explosion as a fireball tore out the front door throwing both the point man and Ulmen who’d followed directly behind back out the door and onto the lawn of the house. The Ulmen rolled onto his front began dragging himself toward cover, but the first man wasn’t moving.

Simultaneously with the blast fire began to rain out of the front windows of the house and the assault team suddenly found themselves under siege and began pulling back. Though not before a pair of them grabbed the wounded man and dragged him with them while the other two laid down cover fire as they all scrambled for cover behind a line of cars near the Felix and the others. More fighting could be heard from the rear where it seemed likely the second team had also been ambushed.

A moment later a section of the roof blew out and a red streak shot clear of the smoke and off into the distance.

“I’ll get the runner.” Vita announced moments after seeing the streak burst from the house and shot off into the distance, already having donned her jacket she herself was also airborne and in pursuit of the fleeing suspect in a matter of seconds and before any debate could be mounted. She seemed awfully eager and Felix almost felt a bit sorry for the guy if she caught him.

It was about then that another bolt fired form inside the house smashed into the car he and several others were was hiding behind taking a nice sized chunk out of the front end and reminding him he had his own problem.

“Alright we need to storm that place! I’ll take Private Aoyama, and Agent Arakawa head around the back while you all provide—“ Miller began to lay out his plan.

“You wouldn’t happen to know who owns this place would you?” Felix suddenly interrupted to ask a seemingly asinine question as he drew his device from his holster and then deployed it into its assault form.

“One of the suspects as best we can tell why the hell do you care?” Kou shot back peeking up slightly to try and get a view of the house before ducking back down as a shot zipped just over his head.

“Well I might have felt a little bad about this otherwise… “He responded offhandedly as he reared up from their cover and shouldered his device which promptly cycled two cartridges though it’s action.

“Assault Blast.” The weapon intoned in a rather thick and odd accent Kou couldn’t recognize a moment before it discharged an elongated green bolt the size of a large aircraft bomb. The shot crossed the meager distance to its target in a matter of moments and slammed home into the front of the house with a blast that was deafening to all nearby and obscured most of the front of the building in the resulting massive green conflagration. As the smoke cleared things were suddenly very quite with the return fire the building somewhat unsurprisingly ceased; well what was left of the building at least pretty much the entire front of it was in ruins with heavy damage seeming to extend roughly a third of the way to the back wall.

“Way to take all the fun out of it.” Shin grumbled as he observed the damage. He’d been looking forward to finally getting some action after sitting in that stupid room for the better part of three days but so much for that.

“Seriously.” Miller agreed grumpily.

“Secure the house.” Felix ordered ignoring the remarks and blasting off too follow Vita and the other suspect. All present exchanged glances, shrugged, and decided after that display it would probably be best to do what he said.
================================================== ===

Zubov glanced back over his shoulder and found the nuisance on his tail still close in tow he mildly wonder what such an able aerial mage was doing handing around such a backwater, but such thoughts would do little to help him in this situation. He turned hard left swing around a street corner about twenty feet up his banking turn cleared the façade of the building across way by a matter of feet, but any hope of “wrecking out” his pursuer was fruitless she acutally finished the turn several feet shorter then he had.

It only made sense he supposed she probably weighed about half as much as him makig her rather more agile in a turning fight. He wasn’t pulling ahead or opening the distance very well either having to dodge all these obstacles was playing into her superior agility at the expense of what he felt might be his better line speed. Of coruse being down here had other benefits mainly that she basiclly couldn’t try and shot at him to slow him down with ranged spells for fear of hitting civilians scattered all over the area.

He still felt he had the edge though all he needed to do was lose her for maybe 30 seconds so he could land, ditch his jacket, and fade into a crowd; meanwhile she needed to catch him, beat him into submission (if she could), and watch out for collateral damage all the way a much trickier set of mandates all around. Of coruse he still had to figure out someway to get those 30 seconds to begin with… Oh well honestly this was much more fun then dealing with that pack of bottom feeders it really was a shame his order where so specific to avoid battle but it really wouldn’t due to lose such a lucrative contract for a bit more fun.

[Try and get up underneath him force him higher; I’m coming in from the east.]

[That was quick.]

[It was nothing, but rabble in the house this is the big fish; now force him up so I can get a shooting angle that’s clear of civilians]

[It’s easier to say then do this guy’s no slouch

[Well if it’s too hard…]

[I’ll get you a clean shot you better it count.] The or else part of that statement wasn’t required.

Vita pushed herself to the limit struggling for ever ounce of speed she could manage and fighting the mounting wind resistance battering her face and attempting to block her upward acceleration. He was still sticking low to the ground effectively flying loops around and door various city streets he clearly didn’t want to leave the city least she get a chance to take a shot at him or have no place to hide if he managed to break away. In these close confines though her smaller size was giving her and edge she was closing the gap skimming just feet above the tops of cars and dodging the occasional truck in an attempt to get underneath him and force him up clear of the roof line in the area so Felix could get a good shot at him.

She was getting close now and he was going to have to do something soon or she’d be close enough to acutally start taking swings at him. Indeed he was already being forced to reluctantly climb to keep out of reach and in a few seconds he’d be clear of the roof line and much more open to an attack. Noting this she began to reconsider her earlier agreement after all she was just about close enough to attack and finish this herself so why to bother screwing with this ambush nonsense? After a few more seconds consideration she decided that indeed she didn’t need that buffoons help to take this guy down.

“Eisen!” She barked.

“Jawohl!” Responded to her mental orders the device slammed home a cartridge and shifted into Raketenform with the newly added thrust and intern speed Vita surged forward toward her target.

Felix zeroed in on his target from his position largely concealed behind a pigeon cope atop an apartment building. He peeked out from the behind the scope one last time confirming that the area beyond his target was clear. Finding it to be so he made his final slight adjustments, forced the weapon fully into his shoulder to steady his aim, and fired only for a streak of red to shot into his line of fire a moment later as Vita barreled into the scene bent on smashing the guy herself. Spewing a string of obscenities so virulent it can’t be repeated here Felix hastily diverted the shot sending it zipping past above the pair and into the open sky beyond. Even so the damage was done his presence was now thoroughly announced and they’d gained nothing from the fouled sneak attack.

Another one?! Dammit I’ve got to get out of here! Zubovcursed mentally as he saw the bolt race past over his head. He was ruthless not stupid after all and trying to go two on one with a ranged/melee team like this was a losing proposition. It was really only there own ineptitude that had saved him from that sneak attack to begin with, but he could hardly relay on that to work again. He raised another barrier as the Belkan charged him again and slammed into it full force he shifted it’s angle slightly and her weapon skittered off it’s face and away from him allowing him to drop the shield and zip back a short distance. The move was clearly something she’d seen before though and she recovered very quickly to continue pressing her attack.

[What the hell I fucking had him!] Felix broadcast angrily. [Get out of the damn way!] He added as he observed the ensuing clash looking for an opening or a clear angle and finding nothing.

[Piss off I’ll handle it!] She reared back and took another swing at his target he faked a block that spun out around her firing a snap shot at her back she barely managed to deflect with a quickly erected barrier. As that was occurring he made to dive back into the city and out of contact only to have a stream of bolts rip across his flight path forcing him to abort his dive as Felix finally got his opening and fired to block his retreat, several more followed and Zubov was forced to halt and raise a shield to deflect the rounds. Recovering quickly Vita whirled around and now charged again Felix continued unloading a stream of lower powered rounds that where forcing Zubov to maintain a shield and thus weaken his maneuverability. Vita bore in to try and exploit his pinned state. Felix just kept shooting and Vita assumed he’d stop as she closed in allowing her an opening to attack; Felix assumed she’d see his fire and avoid it by the time the pair realized that both assumptions where false it was almost to late and Vita barely avoided being the victim of a bout of friendly fire as she twisted rather acrobatically around several bolts as she stumbled through the stream despite dodging the hits she’d totally missed her chance to attack and Zubov had been freed of suppression and slipped away again.

They’re not working together very well… Zubov noted to himselfas he accelerated and he tried to open the range again. He quickly found more shots blocking his path though and he was forced to evade and thus slow himself again which allowed Vita to once more close and attack Zubov snapped his staff up and blocked the hammer blow directed at this face careful to do so shaft to shaft just below the head rather then taking the full brunt of the strike. He quickly pushed off her and again tried to get distance only to again be forced to quickly zip upward again to dodge another shot from the shooter. Unfortunately they probably don’t really need to work together very well to win … He added humorously to himself. More fire zipped past him as the shooter continued his barrage forcing Zubov to maneuver wildly to evade, but he quickly realized he wasn’t going to be able to dodge all of them and he was going to have to use a barrier to stop them despite the loss of speed and potential of being pinned down again.

Seeing another opening Vita charged once more aiming for his back as he defended against the fire coming from his front. Felix summoned and fired off another burst of shots staggering them to impact of several seconds while he prepared a larger harder hitting spell to hopefully smash through the barrier. So occupied with this was he that he totally failed to notice Vita approaching from behind his target; Zubov did not make the same mistake.

Zubov glanced forward then back and quickly formatted his plan It was risky, but it just might work, but he’d have to time it too perfection and if he screwed it up he was boned, but he was rapidly running out of options. He was clearly overmatched and though there cooperation was poor they where at least managing to keep him engaged and unable to flee to cover and human shields and they’d come close to taking him down for good several times already: he had to end this soon.

Thus decided he put his plan into action maintaining his barrier against the first several smaller impacts just as Felix expected; however just as Felix charged up and fired his coup de grâce, a high powered Buster spell, Zubov suddenly dropped it and hurled himself down and to left with as much force as he could. The range was very close and the maneuver bordered on suicidal if his enemy could swing the beam round onto him quicker then he could get out of the way he’d get clobbered, but as he’d hoped the move surprised him and he lagged a split second him and he got clear of the beams path further the second attacker that had been coming up behind him was now directly in the line of fire. She also managed to just barely avoid the blast though it was even closer then his own evasion as the edge of the beam acutally tore through the bottom of the dress that made up her barrier jacket.

[Are you trying to fucking kill me?!] Vita screamed mentally.

[Stay out of the way and you won’t get hit!] Felix fired back.

This exchange even further distracted them though and it was a further few seconds before both of them suddenly realized that this debacle had left them out of position and given there target a clear path to the ground. Zubov having seized his chance had already he flipped over to face the ground and was diving like a bullet for the deck. Felix snapped his weapon up and drew a beat on him as he dove, but couldn’t do a thing as there where civilians all over the place directly below him, and one errant shot would likely end his very short military career. With no other choice the pair had no option but to once more chase him back into the city at low altitude effectively starting back a square one.

Then again it wasn’t exactly a huge victory for Zubov either he was back to square one as well only now he had TWO high level mages on his tail instead of one thus greatly reducing his odds of finding and opening and breaking contact. He needed something that could distract the both of them completely for even just a few seconds as he zipped by just over a crowd of pedestrians he decided there was really only one good way to do that left… cliché as it was.

Swooping in lower at the next intersection and dropping his speed slightly he slammed into a kid maybe twelve years old like a freight train knocking the wind and thus the fight out of him as he scooped him up under his arm before zooming back up into the air. Pausing and whirling to face his pursers when he reached about a thousand feet.

Both of them screamed to halt in mid air about 50 feet shy of him when they realized he had a hostage. “Come any closer and…” He began.

“Yeah, yeah the kid gets it we know.” Felix answered back unimpressed. “You’re seriously only making this worse for yourself.”

“Hey I’m already in for assault, probably attempted murder, attempting to purchase illegal weapons and so on so really what’s a little kidnapping added to the list?” He shot back lazily keeping the kid hanging in a choke hold; the kid for his part at least seemed smart enough not to struggle with a guy holding him a thousand feet above the ground. “Anyway this is how it’s gonna work you’re going to go land nearby drop your jackets and I’m going to fly away with junior here.”

“No way the minute we let you our of our sight who knows what the hell you’ll do to the kid.” Felix replied icily totally unwilling to even consider his demands.

“That is a good point hmm this is a bit of a quandary isn’t it?” Zubov pondered tapping his chin idly. “Ah I know!” He suddenly shifted his grip dropping the choke hold and grabbing the boy by the scruff of his shirt executing a half spin in place and hurling him straight at the ground, then firing off a slow moving energy blast from his device toward a crowd of onlookers below, and diving away himself all in one smooth motion.

There was no time to debate or plan the shot was closer to Vita, the kid closer to him without a word both of them took off like bats out of hell toward the ground. Speed boosts were applied and pushed to the limit by both as they raced to get in front of the pair of projectiles.

Vita caught up with and managed to get Eisen onto the bolt to smash it aside and into the thankfully empty street just before it impacted the front of a crowed coffee shop. The blast that resulted from it wasn’t large but it could still have killed anyone close to impact. The shot had also clearly been slow moving by design and specifically meant to be possible to catch in order to divert her for as long as possible, and it had worked to perfection as by the time she shot back skyward she couldn’t see hide nor hare of the suspect anywhere.

Felix target was moving slightly slower, but he couldn’t just bash or shot it down he had to literally catch it and then decelerate both of them in a manner that didn’t end with them as pancakes. In this case that basiclly boiled down to him having to grab the kid then plow into the ground with his own body first since he could already tell he wasn’t going to have time to grab him and land. Zooming in and matching speed he managed to grab the kid, but by that point they were already rather close to the ground and heading straight down head first at highway speeds, not a readily survivable impact.

He needed to get into a more survivable approach and quickly. He yanked the kid in tight to his chest hurriedly shifted his orientation to alter his coruse and hit back instead of head first and at a more reasonable angle, and finally he also managed to get a field in place a fraction of a second left before he slammed into the ground… It still stung like a mother fucker when he plowed into and skidded along his impromptu sidewalk landing strip almost fifty meters from his initial impact point which he marked with a small crater. Finally as quickly as the violent ride had began it ended as he slid to a stop just shy of a busy intersection. The people that had scattered when they’d seen him coming in fast or jumped out of the way as he plowed along now hurried back and gathered around to gawk though at the moment they where too stunned by the event to really say much.

“You alright?” Felix asked wearily of the kid sitting on his stomach as he reached up and rubbed his head shield and barrier jacket or not that had been a pretty hard impact.

“That was awesome!!” His passenger announced in a manner so cheerful it couldn’t help but annoy Felix, but at least he also took this chance to hope off his chest and allow him to sit up and breath more easily.

“Shouldn’t you be I don’t know… terrified?” He asked bluntly as he finally rose to his feet and tried to brush some of the dust off his back and butt.

“I knew you’d catch me!” The boy beamed. “Hey, hey can I take a picture with you?!” He asked suddenly producing a cell phone out of no where.

Man I hate kids…Felix mentally grumbled before switching gears. [You lose him?]

[Yeah...] Vita growled back mentally having quickly bounced back up several feet after she blocked the bolt, but he was long gone all the same.

[We should get back to the scene the two of us alone won’t have much chance of finding him if he’s gone to ground.] He suggested heading back up into the air after grudgingly granting the brat a picture.

[I suppose.] She conceded grumpily and the pair of them headed back toward where it all started at best speed. The flight back was quiet and gloomy neither would say it but both knew it; they’d screwed up. They’d had the enemy two to one with superior power and a better mix of skills and he’d gotten away clean. Saying that no one would have been able to chase him to begin with if they hadn’t been on scene was a weak excuse that neither was willing to delude themselves into indulging in. As noted they’d fucked it up possibly badly the best they could hope for was that one of the prisoners they did have might know who that was and where to find him… but even if they did and they caught him later anything he did in the interim was on there heads and that did not sit well with either of them.
================================================== ===

Arriving back at the scene they found it considerably more chaotic then they’d left it more ground units had arrived, along with medics, investigator, etc all crowding around and securing the area in a bustle of activity. As he came in for a landing something caught his eye and he altered his trajectory slightly landing a short distance away from Vita before she’d even realized he’ broken off. She was then promptly ambushed by several officers as she landed with a barrage of questions which prevented her immediately pursing him. “Pixy what the hell are you doing here?!” Felix commented surprised as he landed behind to see said man who was standing around surveying the scene. His presence wasn’t at all unwelcome though as it distracted him from his recent failing.

“Oi, Felix? Well fancy meeting you here! I take it we have you to thank for that wagon fill of bruised and battered suspects and the demolished house.” Pixy shot back jovially as he moved over to meet him as he landed.

“I had a bit of help, nice suit by the way.” Felix replied flatly.

“You like it? Had it custom tailored I think black definitely suits me if you know what I mean.” Pixy shot back merrily doing a little twist to show off the indeed fairly snappy black uniform.

“That pun was terrible, but I’ll let it go since it’s been a while and I know you can’t help yourself. You seem to be doing alright though.”

“Yeah the whole assistant Enforcer gig isn’t bad my boss does most of the investigations and such and I just bust heads as needed.” He replied cheerfully.

“You basiclly just described yourself as some kind of glorified attack dog you know.” Felix sighed and shook his head slightly.

”Eh I am’s what I am’s.” He shrugged unashamed to speak of his somewhat limited areas of interest. “You don’t seem to thrilled though?”

“Well I just started so I can’t comment much; well aside from the coworkers…”

“I’m surprised you’d even care that much as long as you’re getting paid.”

“Well normally I wouldn’t really but—“ He began.

“Hey jackass where are you if we don’t get back and get to work we’re going to be writing reports about this until midnight!” Only to be interrupted by a huffy shout over the crowd, she seemed in an even ‘better’ mode then usual.

Pixy’s eyebrow rose, a trick he’d basiclly stolen basiclly whole cloth from Teal’c, when he heard that voice filtering out of the crowd and moving toward them. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Three guesses who set it up and the first two don’t count.” He replied sourly.

“You know he only does it because you bitch so damn much and it acutally does annoy him at times.” Pixy commented sagely. It’s probably for your own good anyway you’re already way more tolerable then you where five years ago… He didn’t add that last bit aloud since he was fearless, not stupid.

“I bitch because he does crap like this!” Felix huffed irritably.

“And thus the cycle continues as surely as the seasons…” Pixy sighed.

It was about then that Vita barged her way past some of the assembling rubber neckers and spotted the two of them at which time she quickly gained a scowl. “Oh goody more stooges.”

“Nice to see you again too lieutenant; congrats on the promotion by the way.” Pixy replied with an amused smirk though Vita continued scowling. “Anyway I should go check on the boss last I heard she was taking charge of the scene and planning to drag the suspects back to the local base so I’ll probably see you there.” Pixy turned back and addressed Felix.

“Any chance I can come with you?” Felix asked wearily.

“No, there isn’t.” Vita answered for Pixy before turning to Felix. “I meant what I said about the reports now come on.” She ordered before quickly turning to leave.

I bet this is what having a wife is like only with all the bitching and none of the mediocre sex… He mused to himself.

“I said come on!” She shouted back even more annoyed at his momentary delay.

”Yeah, yeah I’m coming… you red headed little shrew” He grumbled.

“Did you say something?” She suddenly stopped and glared at him.

“Nope.” He replied smoothly and after fixing him with a suspicious gaze for a few more moment she relented and headed out with him in tow.

================================================== ===

“Where are you going?” Vita questioned as Felix diverted from his assigned course.

The pair were driving back after ‘burrowing’ a local patrol car obstinately because Felix didn’t feel like flying and wasting energy he found himself using quite a bit of to compensate for his still slightly bum leg. That was the cover anyway the real reason was simpler. “I’m hungry.” It was really hard to eat while flying.

“I already told you we need to get back to the---“ Vita began impatiently when a low rubble emanated from her stomach. “Something fast and you’re paying.”

He grimaced at that but after a moment of debate deiced to concede he was the one that wanted to stop after all and after getting to blow the shit out of something he was feeling a bit more amendable to compromise. “Alright fine, but if you try any crap with buying like 50 bucks of food or something the deal is off.” As he spoke he spotted a fast food place just up the road it was a chain and the food was mediocre, but at least you knew what you were getting; he pulled off and headed for the drive through.

“I don’t eat like that!”

“Yeah so you say, but I’m no fool the little ones are always pigs… more so when they can’t grow or get fat.”

Before the conversation could proceed, more like degenerate, further a third voice butted in. “Umm sir?”

“What?!” Felix barked unthinkingly at the interruption from outside the car.

“Well I kind of need your order.” The girl manning the mic shot back venomously just barely managing to ‘asshole’ from appearing at the end of that sentence

”Oh yeah… Eh just give me a number five with a coke.” He announced not missing a beat and blithely ignoring her irritation before turning to Vita. “You want the kiddy meal right?”

“Kiss my ass ; I want the same thing you got.”

Felix went so say something, mostly likely very snide, but she cut him off before he could even begin. “Stuff it it’s just the best thing on the menu hands down.”

“Yeah I suppose I do have to give you that one.” He grudgingly agreed laying off for the moment.

“At least we can agree on one thing.” Vita deadpanned.

“That’s not true I think we can also at least agree that Miller is mildly irritating.” Felix responded as he pulled around to retrieve there food.

“Okay two things.” She conceded.

The food was quickly paid for and secured and they were back on the road having lost only about five minutes. They’d hit the place at an off hour so there hadn’t been much wait. Things quieted down a bit as both of them ate the food able to buy at least a temporary truce if for no other reason there jamming up there noise holes. Even as they finished it off though silenced reigned for a bit longer as both where a bit worn out and not in the mood for further sparing, but after a bit Vita finally become too bored to stay quiet.

“So what you think of all that nonsense?” She questioned reclining the passenger’s seat slightly and folding her arms up behind her head. Eliciting his opinion wasn’t really that high on her to do list in most cases, but she really was bored.

“From an execution stand point, why it happened, or just in what I though of it generally?” Felix shrugged as he focused on the road ahead also seemingly a bit more mellow then earlier in the day.

“All three.” She answered idly.

“Well let’s start with the first I didn’t see anything inherently wrong with the plan or the attack itself they got a raw deal really they had no warning about a guy like that runner being inside. You can argue he should have let us help since we where around, but that’s not really our job and it seemed routine so just having us observe how they worked was an acceptable decision. ”

“It pains me slightly, but I’d have to agree they didn’t do bad when things went wrong either.” Vita agreed. “The guy was a bit of an ass, but from what I can tell he ran a good tight ship. Ah well medics think he’ll be fine in a few weeks anyway.”

“Yeah he didn’t really deserve to be extra crispy or anything.”

“Kinda makes you wonder what a hard case like that was doing hanging around the rest of that rabble though.” She pondered as she watched the scenery zip by outside the passenger side window.

“That is the million dollar question isn’t it.” Truth be told Felix had some slight hunches here but he’d keep it too himself unless and until he got some kind of evidence; which might be quite soon if he could get a look at the surveillance tapes. “Anyway as of now it’s hard to say anything that’s not baseless speculation we might learn more once we talk the prisoners.”

“Yeah I suppose it is a bit early to be theorizing, anyway that leaves us with question three.”

“Frankly I’m kinda glad something happened I thought this trip was going to be mind numbing and the chance to blast stuff really helped relieve a bit of pent up stress…” He responded unapologetically. “And wrong or not I kinda hope we get an excuse to chase after these guys acutally.”

“Heh guess that makes three things we can agree on.” Vita agreed with a derisive snort.

“If that’s the case though…” Felix remarked uncomfortably.

“We’re going to need to get out acts together when it.” Vita supplied equally uncomfortably recalling there earlier, and less then stellar, performance.

“So I guess we should declare a truce at least while we’re fighting and until we kick this guy’s ass for making us look like fools then?” Felix ventured unceremoniously

“Yeah alright for as long as we’re stuck chasing this guy I guess we ought to at least try to cooperate in combat.” She affirmed the agreement with a sharp nod.

Nothing much else was said for the rest of the trip, but the atmosphere seemed significantly lighter and more amiable all around. It probably wouldn’t last, but at least they’d managed to discuss and agree to something without it ending in insults and taunting. Neither would go so far as to class it as “bonding”, but maybe it at least hinted that mutual tolerance and cooperation in the interest of the public good, and kicking this guys ass, was vaguely possible.

[Tk3997]

Spoiler for Part 3 YES THREE:

They arrived back the base after most of the rest of there impromptu band and where quickly summoned to a meeting by Pixy boss Enforcer Irene Vincent. Apparently she’d been working in tandem with the Intelligence branch on the case and had overall control she’d been out following up other leads when things had gone downhill. Now she was back though and in full control having basiclly bullied the locals out of the way and taken control of the case. She was now leading the less then trilled group of various officers in a review of the case to date including the video footage taken from the house.

Felix was only vaguely paying attention until something on the video brought him to full attention. “Pause that.” It wasn’t really a request so much as commandment and the video was quickly frozen. He leaned forward and squinted at the video from several seconds that seemed like minutes as the air in the room suddenly seemed heavy. As he stared at the man in the tap his doubts waned and his suspicions grew more solid.


“You know this guy or something.” Shin questioned curious.

“Maybe.”

“What’d you mean maybe?” Vita put in though it lacked much of the force it probably wouldn’t have packed earlier in the day.

“He looks similar to and has similar spells to a guy I sorta knew; over fifteen years ago normal people tend to change a little over more then a decade of life.” He shot back though his own reply was equally without force. “And it’s not like we were close or anything quite the opposite really.”

Pixy now took another hard look at him and a hint of recognition dawned. “I thought you killed him?” Commented rubbing his chin in thought as he leaned back in his chair.

“So did I.” Felix responded sourly.

“You two feel like filling the rest of us in on what the hell you’re talking about?” Vita interrupted impatiently.

“Every business has its assholes and sharks and the mercenary game is no different expect that our sharks tend to be bigger and meaner then most. If it’s him his name was Dominic “Vulture” Zubov he was an enforcer for the NBF in the ‘break your legs if you run from the enemy’ sense. We clashed with his squadron several times during a rim world planetary war on the last occasion I was pretty damn sure I’d had killed him.”

“Apparently you didn’t go a very good job of it.” Vita deadpanned.

“Well sorry normally when I blow a guys leg off at the calf I kind of expect them to you know die.” Felix shot back. “Not like I had time to check anyway he might have been out of it, but it happened in the middle of one of the biggest fur balls of the war there were plenty of targets left.”

“Now that you mention it he did walk with a limp.” Kou observed thoughtfully.

“If it is him he’s dangerous as hell, he was around at least AA+ rank even back during the war over fifteen years ago. That said I’m afraid he’ll be of little use in figuring out whose behind all this; he was absolutely true to the mercenary creed if nothing else he’d work for anyone that could pay good, bad, or ugly. That said a rather severe lack of morals-” That remark drew a look from Vita. “Even by mercenary standards.” Felix amended before continuing. “Tended to mean he got tapped for jobs that were less then savory he also wasn’t cheap I doubt the guys we have in the cells could have afforded him.”

“I ran the guys we have in custody through our records and most of them are small time brokers for various things drugs, weapons, etc nothing serious though and since the locals use them as informants at times they tend to get some passes.” Shin remarked tossing a set of folders down on the conference table.

“Wouldn’t fit his profile at all… He liked the violence and the thrill he wouldn’t work for some small time hoods where at best he might get to rough up a debtor now and again.” Pixy commented.

“Definitely not his style.” Felix agreed.

“Then what was he doing here?” Vita asked rubbing her temples at all the random theories being batted around; this sort of thing had never appealed to her very much.

“My guess? Middleman for his real employer and by extension the buyer.” Felix postulated.

“Why send him on something so pedestrian though; what they had planned didn’t even vaguely require his kind of muscle.” Irene wondered aloud.

“Again if I had to guess I’d say we probably saved those poor bastards lives I bet that once they arranged for what he wanted he was going to kill them and maybe the guys selling it then take both it and the money back to his real employer. He wouldn’t have baited and eyelash about doing it.” Felix reasoned.

“That’s pretty extreme and a half dozens bodies turning up in one place would have drawn allot of attention.” Irene responded somewhat skeptical.

“If you found the bodies; he was a fire user he could drag them out into the marshes around this city and turn the lot of them into dust in the wind within half and hour.” Felix responded dismissively. ”At best you’d have a couple mid level thugs going missing and that wouldn’t raise many eyebrows at least not for sometime and even if someone noticed let’s face it the cops probably aren’t going to be that driven to find out what happened to this set of fine upstanding citizens.”

“Alright let’s assume he was buying this stuff for someone else what could they have used it for?” Irene queried, the middleman theory at least had merit the double cross portion was speculation best ignored for now.

“It’s a long list.” Miller, the only explosive expert at hand took that as his queue to but in. “They where trying to buy high grade plastic explosives very nasty stuff and enough of it to make a bomb that could take out a small sky scraper if well placed or make enough suit case bombs to kill hundreds. The seized explosives we captured where traced a licensed manufacturer, wasn’t exactly hard the twits still have the stuff in the factory boxes. They didn’t report any thefts though so someone inside probably skimmed a batch, fudged the records, and sold it on the black market. Investigations is looking into it now.”

“This stuff is legal?!” Vita remarked incredulously.

“Despite the propaganda central likes to toss out the fact is that explosives were too useful to ban completely. Good thing too its how my families made it’s living for the last couple centuries, but I digress. This sort of stuff is mostly used in building implosions as shaped charges nowadays since other bulk explosives are preferred for mining and construction since they’re cheaper. It’s acutally a little odd they’d want this stuff specifically since plastic explosives are more heavily controlled then other sorts because they have fewer legitimate uses.” Miller informed those assembled smoothly off.

“Though Really if you just wanted to park a truck bomb somewhere and cause allot of deaths ANFO or the like would just as well most of the time and would be easier to covertly attain; hell they could manufacture it themselves if they had any technical skill. If they wanted this stuff and assuming they aren’t idiots they must have had something specific in mind for it.” He continued speculating thoughtfully.

“Educated guess?” Irene pressed.

“As noted it would make good shape charges or explosively formed penetrator for taking out armored targets or cutting through thick metal obstructions. If you were really good you could use it take down a building surgically; though you’d need to get inside to set the charges in that case.” He replied with a shrug. “Doesn’t narrow it down much, but like I said if they just wanted to blow people up there are easier ways to do it. So given the choice of explosive I’d lay money they intend to target some sort of hardened structure or target.“

“It doesn’t narrow it down much does it.” Irene mused. “Well it seems we’ve got lots of questions and few answers. I think it’s time we had a chat with our criminal friends and see if they might be willing to shed some light on things. Lieutenant Munro, Pixy says you have experience with interrogations?”

“I’ve done a few.” Felix shrugged.

“I want you to talk with to the 2IC I’ll take the ring leader.” She ordered simply.


“As you command.” He replied with a weary mock salute.

================================================== ===

Felix waltzed into the interview room a short while later his subject already seated inside he set a small folder of papers down on the table that would be between them and set down a small cup of coffee. The suspect eyed the beverage as he deposited it and the look wasn’t lost on Felix. “You want a cup?” He asked casually.

“Yeah I could use some been kind of a long day I didn’t my cup this morning.” He responded dryly running a hand through his hair anxiously.

Felix leaned out the door for a moment and sent a lower ranking staff member to go fetch another cup of coffer before retuning to the table and taking his seat. He leaned back slightly and began leafing through the folder he’d brought in him with he continued this for several minutes until the runner returned with the coffee. Once the suspect drank a bit and seemed relax slightly. “So what’s with all the heat anyway? I mean All this over a little illegal arms dealing?”

Felix continued to look at the file impassively for a few more moments before closing it and setting it down on the table. A golden rule of interrogations was never to answer questions unless you had a good reason and he didn’t have anything like a good reason to answer the question. “Well why don’t you tell me Mr. Bowder why you think there so much heat?” He shot back casually instead he had to get the guys story before he could start poking holes in and hopefully get some useful information.

“Man I don’t know this shit is fucking crazy I’ve been arrested a few times you as I’m sure you know, but it’s not like guys kicking in the doors or something they come by your house with a warrant and you got for a ride. Shit like this… shooting it out with the cops it’s just bad for business.”

”Then why’d you do it?” Felix asked curious.

“Well you know I wasn’t shooting...” he hurriedly clarified.

Yeah of coruse not. Felix mentally rolled his eyes. It made sense he’d be eager to deny it though as having it proven he had could be the difference between a charge of possession of illegal goods and assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer, and intern a slap on the wrist or hard prison time.

“Anyway it all started when that guy we were dealing with opened fire and I’m sure all of this has got to do with him too; I knew his ass was trouble… Anyway once that jackass opened up a bunch of the other guys heard the blast panicked and opened fire themselves and then everyone was shooting and it was a huge cluster fuck.”

Felix acutally largely believed that; course he also believed this guy had been shooting as well, but that was neither here or there at the moment. “Trouble how?” He questioned more interested in “the guy” whom he had a fair idea as to identity already but more information could scarily hurt.

“I don’t know the guy gave me the creeps from the start… it’s just one of those things you know?” The suspect fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Enlighten me.” Felix replied bluntly.

“Like I said it’s just like how you know some guys are trouble right away he just seemed like bad news to me. He didn’t say much, but he always seemed to be lurking around when anything was going on he basiclly ignored anyone that tried to talk to him and…” He paused again to consider his words. “I don’t know he almost had this aura about him… just seemed like bad news and I couldn’t wait for him to leave.” The suspect finally just shrugged and decided that was about as close as he was gonna get to describing the filling.

“This guy have a name?” Felix queried lazily carefully hiding his interest in the subject.

“Never gave a first only ever gave us Zubov.”

Felix worked hard to maintain a neutral expression and effectively succeeded. “You said he was quiet still he ever mention anything about himself what he wanted this stuff for?”

“Well it doesn’t pay to pry in this line of work and he wasn’t really forthcoming with any details of his own initiative…”

Felix caught a slight twitch as he said that though it was close to, but no the whole truth. “But you know something.” He pressed him.

“You want something you gotta give me something.”

“This isn’t a negotiation.” Felix answered sternly.

“All I’m asking is you put in a good word for me when it comes into court.”

“Give me a reason to and maybe we’ll talk. I’ll tell you this though that guy is trouble the kind of trouble that can end in messy death so you ought to want him locked up as much as we do.” Felix responded agreeing to perhaps consider it while dropping some hints to reinforce his own suspicions and hopefully reinforce his motivation to spill what he knew.

================================================== ===

Just outside in the observation watching the proceeding questioning Vita found it rather odd to see Felix being if not touchy feely at least civil with a criminal suspect and apparently making progress as well. “Where the hell did he learn to do interrogations anyway?” He asked aloud; rhetorically.

“He’s done lots of stuff acutally he’s easily the most versatile of our little group in terms of skill set, he was a private detective of sorts for the better part of a decade after our war; cooks a mean steak too.” Pixy answered anyway having wandered in from observing Irene to check up on Felix’s progress.

“He cooks?” Vita asked disbelievingly.

“Well he’s been largely single for over fifteen years and he basiclly raised a kid too boot. A man cannot live on take out alone even if only due to cash flow issues.”

“And it’s edible?” She continued skeptically.

“Hell it’s not just edible it’s down right good! Just wish his lazy ass could have been bothered to do it more often back when we basiclly lived together…” Pixy responded earnestly.

She still didn’t quite buy it; at least partly because she didn’t quite trust the source that had just given it to her. This was something she was going to have to confirm for herself before she’d really believe it, but if it was true it could be good ammo though…

================================================== ===

“Alright; I overheard him on the phone once almost barged on in on him, but I heard him through the door before I did… good thing I’m not sure he’d have done if he knew I heard him. I was curious though so I hung around outside the door against my better judgment.”

“Well what’d you hear?”

“Nothing that seemed overly interesting or concerning mostly he seemed to be discussing price and transfer of funds with his employer pretty standard stuff given what we were doing.” Felix listened intently as he continued. “But toward the end though they began discussing transporting the stuff once they had it again it was pretty generic, but I caught a name in the conversation from what I can tell they intended to transport the stuff to some base they had on A-234.”

Felix leaned back in his chair and tried to recall much of anything about administered world 234, but came up pretty much blank still this could indeed be a break and important, he’d best report it quickly and opted to end the interview at that time. He stood to leave. “A officer will be along shortly to escort you back to your cell.”

“So what’s the deal you gonna put in a word for me or what?”

“If this pans out I’ll make it know you aided our investigation with minimal prodding.” Felix responded amiably and departed the room closing the door behind him heading off the observation area.

“Fuckin death dealing scumbag.” He muttered half to himself loosening his collar as he entered the room.

“If you think that why’d you basiclly agree to help him?” Vita questioned pointedly.

“You catch more rats with honey, then vinegar. Going into an interview yelling and making baseless threat is just going to piss him off and get him to shut up at worst or give you misleading information at worse. Pretend you care, pretend it’s not that big a deal, and stay cool that’s how you get information not yelling and blustering.”

“So you can act subtle and civil when you want too how come you’re so much of an ass all the time?” Vita queried bitingly eliciting a wince and a scowl from her target indicating a good hit.

“I don’t know how can you be friendly and caring around your little group and such a bratty bitch around almost everyone else?” He fired back quickly getting in a good shot of his own which was answered by a death glare.

But just as it looked like another fight was imminent both of them noticed and decided they’d gotten there shots and opted not to escalate it further and ruin what little progress had been made in coexisting over the last day. Besides they needed to get this information to the Enforcer post haste.

================================================== ===

“Administered world 234; that’s close.” Irene commented thoughtfully on the information she’d just been given.

“Never heard of it myself.” Felix shrugged in response.

“It’s a bit of a backwater only things on the planet are some long running archeological excavations and a very small local population that supports the digs less then five thousand thousands people planet wide. Policing is handled by less then twenty officers the highest of which is -AAA rank and he’s way above pretty much everyone else in the force.” She informed him matter of factly.

“You’ve been there.” Felix surmised.

“Smuggling in this sector has been picking up recently and due to the low population and rather lax security combined with the presence of a transporter relay node 234 is becoming a popular jumping off point to more populated worlds in this sector. Half of those officers I mentioned are acutally part of a recently installed customs office to try and catch said smugglers.”

“Sure sounds like a rather ideal spot for a terrorist hideout… few people, and even fewer cops, but still reasonably close to potential targets.” Kou mused.

“The locals won’t be able to handle this at all, even if Zubov is the only mage present he could still probably take on half the ground force present by himself. Plus if these guys have even an inkling they’ve been compromised they could already be clearing out, and by the time we get together a response unit they’ll probably be as good as gone or the trail will be ice cold.” She mused. “The stupid thing is we have a half dozen capable mages right here, but from nearly at many agencies on technically different assignments…” She grumbled irritably at the sometimes irrational segregation the TSAB maintained.

“I doubt our boss would mind us tagging along with you. He’s rather… flexible about stuff like this and besides with our targets having flown the coup our assignment is over anyway.” Shin suddenly piped up.

“I doubt ours would mind us taking a bit of a detour either.” Felix added.

“Hell she’d probably ask us why if we didn’t.” Vita put in.

“And seeing as everyone above me in rank at this station is in the hospital and I’m acting commander until the new one arrives in several days…” Miller chimed in smirking.

“Heh looks like we’ve got ourselves a response team on hand after all.” Irene smirked.

[Kha]

Big, fat and greasy. Just the way I like it. Awesome work, TK, looking forward to make more of this mess.

...and you might want to call it Call of Duty.

[Tormenk]

Yup, big, fat, long and greasy makes for good reading. Felix and Vita had me smiling and laughing throughout with their antics. Good choice of select scenes to show their relationship. Wondering how this will go, smells big enough for a small story on the side. Call of Duty is seconded, might as well name it after something you like.

Got couple questions after reading but mostly for interest's sake so I'll leave it until the subject is brought up in the future, if ever. For confirmation's sake, was the chase scene on Mid itself or some other planet? Didn't quite get it in the story, with the reference that it happened at a 'backwater' area.

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Kha

Kha-chan does not reply. She is dreamily watching F4 performing Meteor Shower on stage.

(So did I... )

So.. Genderbent Aces gonna be performing pop songs now?

*runs faster*

Originally Posted by Keroko

Heeeh? The Yellow Belka gets a daughter? Do write that scenario.

Will do

Originally Posted by Keroko

... The Belkarangers... Hoooh boy, I sense many facepalms and snarky return comments aproaching from Syn's side.

Much expected too

Originally Posted by tshouryuu

She and me both, sister. She and me both....

Originally Posted by Liingo

Pic Looks like Gimmy.. With different Hair colour.. Maybe it's just me (Wait, Gimmy was the girl right? right?)

Her background looks good though

Darry is the girl

Though no, I already have another character using Darry's template remember? I'm using Soma Peries from Gundam 00 as her appearance template here

Originally Posted by Erio

Well, that was a nice 2-week break.

Knowing myself, I usually get burned out after doing anything for too long. Be it playing a game, reading, or even watching anime. So I usually have to change hobbies every once in a while. Lately, I've been doing a lot of gaming - I dont think I've watched any anime after rewatching Gurren Lagann with a few friends a few weeks ago.

Maybe I was getting burned out of the OC too... losing interest in discussing stuff over the internet was perhaps the leading factor, since at the same time I lost interest in reading what was being said... but the fact that I have not stopped dreaming about new additions to this world, and more importantly, the fact that I'm here again proves that I am still not burned out. Perhaps I just needed a small break.

Anyway, that was just a bit about the reason why I've been very inactive lately, not to mention that I went to the beach again for easter weekend.

So, what's new people?

Guess who's back Thought you were dead

Asides from completing the Belkaranger's profiles and another new OC, nothing on my side. You should probably join us in the OuterCadia IRC channel, link on the first page. Everyone misses you

Originally Posted by Evangelion Xgouki

Yay! New character!

Man, Lowe. You and your characters with multiple forms

It's strange, but ever since Julie I found out I like making characters with strange conditions

Originally Posted by Kyral

>.>
<.<

*sneaks in*

*starts scribbling*

Spoiler:

- Anger (aka Erste, with red eyes)
- Fear (aka Zweite, with green eyes)
- Sadness (aka Dritte, with blue eyes)
- Interest (aka Vierte, with yellow eyes)
- Happiness (aka Fünfte, with pink eyes)

*sneaks out*

I had a feeling you were gonna appear, and glad you did. Adding fixes

Originally Posted by ghazghkull

What do you expect? The Belkrangers were probably originally made for fun :3 Now they actually get included in a continuity! XD Even if it is only mine so far :3

Actually, I had planned on including them on the NBC continuity ever since I first envisioned them. Though having them crossover into your continuity was WIN

Originally Posted by Kha

SOMA!!!

Though her current state is rather ing. Not to mention mindboggling.

It's supposed to be

Originally Posted by Tk3997

Okay this is like Xbox HUGE (Ended up at 15,800 words) and though I've read it over a few times, I still might be missing stuff so feel free to point out anything that seems weird. I'm pretty happy with it overall though I think the fight scene might be a tad dry, but I wasn't getting much mojo going for it and basiclly just had to force it out to finish the piece so yeah I won't take any offense if you find it lacking.

Anyway without Further adieu my latest fic! Which still has no name... We've been over this I suck at names lets move on...

Despite the most kickass pursuit action (fanboy kid included ), I gotta say the most awesome part of this story has to be Vita x Felix. I cannot for the life of me understand how you can pack so many and so memorable Vita and Felix moments in this single chapter and make them all AWESOME, but that's right, I'm officially supporting this most snarky, witty and dysfunctional of pairings

*runs*

Originally Posted by Kha

Big, fat and greasy. Just the way I like it. Awesome work, TK, looking forward to make more of this mess.

...and you might want to call it Call of Duty.

Sounds like a Hamburger

And nice title suggestion

[Kha]

WHat's this? 3 votes for Call of Duty?




And...

...

Liingo ordered this second strike...

<.<

*drops the bomb and runs like Hell*

STARS-01
Genderbent of Nanoha


White Devil Never Looked This Cool.

Spoiler for Captain Nanoha Takamachi:

Nanoha Takamachi

Ever since he received Raising Heart from Yuuna, Nanoha has been in a dramatic ride of his life, far wilder than he has ever imagined. With the staff of destruction in one hand, and his unyielding courage in the other, he welcomed Keroro from the cold, woke Feito from his misguided quest, helped Hayate find his his way... Nothing touched by his pink beams of friendship ever came away the same.

When Kha-chan was first introduced to the group as Hayate's guard from the Church, she sparked Nanoha's interest as she was the first girl who wasn't lavishing him with gifts and love notes. However, the F4 soon discovered the reason behind Kha's permanent coldness, and in their own way, each Ace helped her find her heart once more.

An unfortunate accident that resulted in him being put out of action for almost a year mellowed his hot-blooded nature a little. After that, Nanoha took his lesson to his work and strives to spread the word of "doing your best while watching yourself" to all of his cadets. And his warmth and approachability won him many fans among cadets and colleagues alike.

In the year MC 0075, Nanoha is 19 years old and the primary Combat Instructor for the Lost Property Riot Force 6, a subsidarial experimental unit under Time-Space Administration Bureau's Special Management. The White Devil is also the commander of record for the "Stars" squad in the field. And Nanoha is a mild Psion, although a product of accident than evolution.

...

[Jimmy C]

Regarding the "shitsumukan「しつむかん」" thing. There is evidence that, even though the term "Executive Officer" is used in english, it doesn't mean 2IC like we think it does.
In StrikerS ep14, when Hayate asks Tiana if she would like to go to HQ with her, she says Chrono is an Admiral with shitsumukan qualifications. Why would that be of any significance if the term merely meant being a 2IC?
Therefore, the term has to mean more than just being the second-in-command of a vessel. Even if the shitsumukan in question happens to be the No. 2 of the ship at the time.

[Kagerou]

A preview of Scene 3. Posted because of implications...

Spoiler for Yuunoko in the making?:

"I'm from Earth, Yuuno-kun," Keroko said as she stared at the weapons. "I don't have any stigmas against guns." She reached for a Battle Rifle and lifted it up to her uninjured shoulder, peering through the ACOG scope and focusing on Yuuno's head. "But then, I don't know how to use one."

"First off, don't point it at your allies," Yuuno laughed, gently lifting the gun upward and away from his head. "Here, you need to be in the proper stance. Spread your feet apart a little and get a firm base." Yuuno put his hands on Keroko's waist and pushed her feet slightly with his, widening her stance and lowering her center of gravity.

Keroko began to blush. Wh-when did he get s-so forward?

Reaching behind him, Yuuno opened his palm and sent forth a chain bind that stretched out and wrapped around an ammo magazine, pulling it back toward him. Grabbing the magazine, Yuuno reached around and placed it in Keroko's hand. "When you load a gun, make sure you have it pointed away from you," He instructed. With his hand guiding Keroko's, they pushed the magazine into the empty slot for it. "As soon as you turn off the safety, the gun puts a cartridge into the barrel. Now, unlike Devices, guns don't have IFF, so you can easily shoot an ally as an enemy... or yourself."

Keroko nodded, unconsciously leaning back into Yuuno. His grip on my hands is so tight... she mused, trying to force down her blush. And look at those muscles! When did he get so strong? My god, is this what it takes to get to me?

"Put on hand here, and another one on the pistol grip," Yuuno said, still guiding Keroko's hands. He paused briefly to push up his glasses. Narrowing his eyes, he stared at the target dummy that dropped down. "Turn the safety off here. Now take aim, use the scope if you need to." Keroko nodded and peered through the scope at the target, her breathing somewhat heavier from earlier. "Now squeeze - don't pull! - the trigger." Together, the two mages fired the Battle Rifle, sending a three round burst square into the target's "chest". "Good! Again."

Together, the two fired 12 3-round bursts at target dummies. Occasionally, they would swivel a bit to focus on another target, but their stance didn't change. Oddly, Keroko's shoulder didn't bother her during this practice, and only an odd warm feeling seemed to touch her heart. As the magazine emptied and dropped to the floor, Yuuno reloaded the rifle and the two resumed firing. Slowly, Keroko got used to the repetition of firing the gun, feeling comfortable in Yuuno's imporomptu embrace as they expended several clips of ammo firing at targets.

This is... odd. Keroko decided. I mean, there are weirder things to do with a friend, but firing a gun? And why am I blushing so much?!

I wonder if it's because sometimes, you feel lonely. A voice seemed to tell her.
...maybe. Keroko thought to herself.

Keroko blocked out the thoughts, continuing to fire the Battle Rifle. The truth was, she didn't need Yuuno's help with aiming down the sights at the now-moving targets... but she wasn't about to tell him. He was...

...warm.

[Ottocycle]

Originally Posted by Fuyu no Sora

Basically, Enforcers are officers that have high skill and abilities to operate solo as a one-man force which can be called from all three corps?

'Cause if that's the case you just handed me a big problem concerning my character

Will tackle backlog later. I'm in the end of my lunch hour and have to run...

Well, I'm not saying that it's canon, but that's how I see it.

Acquired the view via the StardustMemory serious!trailer done by the nano author.

And @Jimmy C: I don't know how it led to people thinking it as the common notion of XO in today's maritime world. How it reads (in Mandarin as well) shaped how I see it, and that has no way in terms of relation to that XO thing too.

I presume that far back, in the days of when the first three series were running, the person who actually coined the term probably had a far more literal interpretation of 'Executive' IMHO, i.e. in the word 'Executory'.

@Kagerou: You win for that scenario.