"Where?" She blinked as everything around her was swirling black and gold.
"You're awake." Lina turned to see a beautiful woman with long golden hair and her bangs over her eyes. "I hope that it wasn't too abrupt."
"Lady." Lina's tone was respectful as she looked at the manifestation of the Lord of Nightmares. One thing Lina found odd was other than the bangs to hide her eyes, the Lady had a body and figure very similar to Lina's.
Lina found it odd, and at the same time, very comforting.
L-Sama smiled as she floated over to Lina and ruffled the sorceresses' hair. "I'm glad to see you again. Even if it isn't for long."
Lina blinked as L-Sama disappeared from in front of her. "Tell me, Lady, why didn't your power kill that woman?"
"Life, death, creation, destruction, both exist as two sides to the same coin."
Lina bit her lower lip. "Then tell me, I never used a Chaos attack on her, and Nanoha and Hayate's use of the power doesn't lend to someone getting filled with your power. How was she submerged with it?"
"If I told you, that would ruin any fun." L-Sama's voice was full of amusement. "You, my child, are the only one who is directly touched by myself, there are others, however, with this power."
"I know that. I know that Nanoha is, maybe Arashi is, and Hayate, for some reason is..."
"Not all who are touched by my power gain access to it." Lina felt L-Sama press against her from behind and gently rub her cheek. "Those four knights, for example, touched by my power, allowing them to become what they wanted most. That woman, she too, is touched by my power, but she, like them, has no access to it."
"Why is that?" Lina asked as L-Sama hugged her from behind.
"There are other things Chaos can do besides being used to fight, little one."
That was the last thing Lina heard as everything went black on her.
(---)
Groaning as her eyes cracked open, Lina blinked at the worried looks around her. "...So, how long was I out?"
"Less than five minutes." Reinforce said as she looked at Lina. "You still did scare us."
Lina sat up and rubbed her forehead. "Well, when the Lady wants to talk, you can't say no." She chuckled softly and shook her head. "I'm fine. Really. The Lady wanted to see me, we had a quick chat about some stuff..." Lina trailed off and looked at Quint. "Well, at least now I know why you aren't dead, apparently that power was doing something to your body. Now, if it's good or bad, I can't tell you that." She shrugged at Quint.
"Mom..." Nanoha spoke up and frowned. "How can you be so calm about this?"
Lina smiled and tapped Nanoha on the forehead. "Because it could have been a lot worse. Besides, I'm bonded to the Lady forever, whenever she wants to talk, I have to listen." She patted Nanoha on the head and turned to look at Yuuno. "Can you heal her body?"
"Already did." Yuuno rubbed the back of his neck. "When she said what happened, I figured it was the same thing that happened to Nanoha and Hayate and healed her."
Lina nodded and looked at Quint. "I'd say, get a doctor to give you a once over completely when you get home, but for now..." She stood up and looked at the kids, grinning. "Nanoha, Hayate, get back to walking, Fate, why don't you and Yuuno spar for awhile? I can help Nanoha in case she falls again."
"Thank you." Quint nodded to Lina, who shrugged it off.
"Don't worry about it, just take care of yourselves." Lina smiled at her as she walked over to Nanoha, who was taking several wobbling steps forward at a time. "Keep going, Nanoha." At least the muscle and nerve deterioration wasn't as bad as Lina had thought it would be. Then it hit her, neither Nanoha nor Hayate had been out for too long and all they really needed to do was get their balance back and some muscle mass in their legs built up again and they'd be back to normal.
How long that would take was another story all together.
(---)
Days later on Mid-Childa...
The doctor looked at the paper work, then back at Quint, his expression puzzled. "Mrs. Nakajima, well, the good news is, your legs seem to be responding and that weird energy is no longer hampering any healing magic. Now, I have a question, and this seems weird, but, you have two daughters, correct?" Quint blinked, but nodded at the question. "And our medical records don't show you having kids before. Have you tried to have kids in the past?"
Quint blinked, but nodded slowly. "Yeah. Genya and I... We've tried many times in the past, but..." She shook her head. "I could never conceive." She sighed softly. "I always felt bad about that. Why?"
The doctor nodded and smiled at her. "Well, I don't think that's going to be too much of a problem anymore." Quint just stared at the doctor. "Seems that this ordeal left you a little gift."
Quint blinked several times. "Gift... Little..." Her eyes went white and blank as she slowly moved her hands to her stomach. "Doctor, do you..." The doctor nodded and she got a little dizzy. "I... Uh... need to call my husband."
(---)
"Are you sure?" Regius asked, his eyes narrowed as he, Zest, Auris and Genya sat in his new office.
Genya nodded. "She called it "Chaos" energy. Apparently that's what was keeping Quint from being healed by anything."
"I've seen what Chaos can do to those Mazoku things." Zest spoke up, his eyes narrowed as memories against Shabranigdo and all those Mazoku came flooding back to him. "I can only imagine how lucky Quint and I got when we were attacked by this power."
"There's more." Regius spoke up, catching their attention. "Remember the sudden planetary shift of Non-Administered World #54?"
"It was all over the news." Genya nodded. "I take it that it wasn't some sort of planetary shift that caused that gigantic crack on that planet?"
Regius nodded and looked at Auris.
"Sometime before it was announced to the media and after we got the go ahead to go to the planet and help move people off world before the planet became unstable, there was a gigantic spike of power from that world." She flipped over some pages on the report that hadn't been officially released. "Turns out that the massive spike of energy was very similar to the energy that was inhabiting your wife's body."
Regius frowned. "I am going to meet with officers of the other branches of the Bureau. I think it's time to deal with stuff like this more effectively." The other three blinked at him. "I don't know what will come of it, but the way we're doing things right now is too ineffective. I don't want Mid-Childa to suffer an attack of that magnitude ever."
The other three nodded, they knew what he meant. Non-Administered World #54 was suffering badly since that attack and it was estimated that in less than a year, two at most, the planet would be completely uninhabitable by anyone.
There was a knock on the door and Auris went to the door to see who was bothering them. When she got the message, she nodded and turned back to the three. "Genya, it seems your wife is on the vid phone and she wishes to speak with you."
Nodding, Genya got up and left the room. Walking to the vid screen, he smiled at his wife's face. ""What's the verdict?"
"Well, other than needing to go through some therapy to get my legs back to normal, everything checked out okay... Well..." Quint was blushing, smiling and her eyes shining. "I'm going to be a mother!"
Genya stared at the screen. "But, you were..."
Quint nodded, tears falling down her face as she smiled. "The doctor doesn't know how, but apparently... Well, congrats, you're a daddy now!"
Genya felt like he was going to faint. "...Well, at least Subaru won't be the youngest in the family anymore."
Still, he felt like fainting at the sheer implication of it. "It could be worse..." He chuckled softly. "You could be having twins." Quint and Genya shared a laugh at that.
Watching them, Auris smiled and went to tell Regius and Zest the good news. At least something good came from this whole debacle from years ago.