Big Sister (40k/???)

[Academia Nut]

Here is a stupid idea that has been rattling around in my head for a couple of days. This should be over with quickly enough, but I just have to get it out!

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Bit by bit, their world was dying, the sort of geological inevitability that most people learn to ignore because it happens far too slowly to notice or draw concern over, but here the violent shearing of the earth to reveal the boiling, fiery heart of the planet forced all who dwelt upon the shaking ground to confront the truth of the destruction head on. For those who lived through such things, the response to this condition was to endure; to square their shoulders and continue on with their lives as best they could. It was a hard existence and all walked on a razor’s edge of survival, especially during the Time of Trials, and sometimes that meant making the tough decisions, the hard decisions that kept one up at night. No matter how hard one prepared, life was often up to chance and you had to weigh the odds as best you could.

For the people of the village, the arrival of a pair of outlanders during the height of the Time of Trials, when the sun was blotted out by the toxic smoke from the fires at the planet’s core and ash mixed with snow to fall in great acidic blizzards, killing almost anything forced out into the open by a structure collapsing in an earthquake. Of course, the strangers proved the ‘almost’ point, although only one of them could walk and even then was in a rather rough state. The question of course was whether or not the village should take them in or set them back out into the storm. Their food supplies were stretched tight as it was, and two more mouths to feed was a lot to ask. On the other hand, everyone knew what it was like to suffer, and often survival depended on having another there to help you up when you fell.

The decision balanced on a knife point. They were strangers and peculiar ones at that, perhaps of twisted blood and thus should be cast back out into the wastes. Yet they were also young, painfully young to be outside during the Time of Trials. One, a girl who had perhaps been born during the Time of Renewal after the last Trial, had borne the brunt of the wastes for the other, a babe of maybe a year or two in age. Her whole body seemed to be one great wound, her skin pale and bloodless from exertion, her clothing in tatters, and her hair a matted, acid bleached, blood clotted mess. The child she carried, had evidently been spared the worst of the effects through her care, but he stared out at the world with red eyes from a face black as volcanic glass.

It was the eyes that tipped the village. The girl looked like she would not just keel over if rejected, but would kick in the first door she could find and beat the inhabitants to a pulp until they granted shelter, if not for her than for the babe. The boy eyes also held a hint of that raw determination, a look that said that he was far more aware than his age suggested and he would kick in the first door he could find and beat the inhabitants to a pulp until they granted shelter, if not for him than for the girl. The age and condition of the two of them did not detract from this impression, and in fact increased the impression to a certain degree.

N’bel, the village smith, was the first to open his doors to the strangers, calling out to them. It was both a pragmatic and emotional decision, one that was both heart-warming and heart-wrenching for the other villagers to see. N’bel’s family had perished during a particularly brutal earthquake, the shelter they were in unable to survive the shaking of the earth despite being the sturdiest structure the smith could build. Only luck had spared him, for he had been in the forge fixing something when the quake struck and the savagery of the shaking had been just fractionally less. He continued on with his life stoic as ever, knowing that the village needed him and his skills, but everyone could see in his eyes that he still bore guilt for something he was blameless of.

Once inside, the girl seemed to collapse in on herself, the raw willpower holding everything together for the child’s sake finally letting go in the face of her injuries. Even then, the smith knew that she was relatively unscathed in comparison to what the wastes could do to a person. She was made of hard stuff. Lifting her relatively tiny body in his sinewy arms, he brought her to the bed his son had once slept in and laid her out gently. Moving to get the boy, he found the younger child had followed him and stared at the scene with bright, alert eyes. For a moment he frowned before his face lit up in a sun bright smile at something behind N’bel. Turning, N’bel found the girl, half awake, smiling every so slightly to tell the boy that she still lived.

N’bel’s face cracked like tectonic plates, slowly and subtly to those not accustomed to seeing things as they were, but with great power. The Trial had taken his family, but perhaps it had also given him a new one, a daughter and son with greatness in them. They were not replacements or substitutes for the dead, but new lives in need of cherishing with the same strength.

The toddler went over to his sister, for that was surely what they were even if they had no blood in common. She put a weak hand on his head and messed with his hair playfully before gesturing for N’bel to move in closer, to be part of this peculiar family. Leaning in, she said something in a language he could not understand, but he gathered quickly enough that it was her name, and he quickly shared his with her and the boy. He asked for the boy’s name, but she had no answer for that.

N’bel looked down at the boy, at how he looked to have sprung from the heart of the world itself, the lava having taken the shape of a child, cooled enough for his skin to take solid shape but the interior still red hot and molten, spilling out into his eyes and soul. He was a child of fire. N’bel gave him the only name that fit, one passed down from times primordial amongst the smiths, of an ancient deity of fire.

“Vulkan.”

The girl smiled before she passed out. She liked it.

[Manthor]

40K Prequel.Sounds very workable.Am willing to beta for you if you turn this into a full fledged story mate.Obviously set on the world of Nocturne and the girl is either a psyker serving the Emperor who is a guard/warden of sorts or one who managed to pick him up. Could easily be integrated into your Open Door megacrossover if you ever decided to restart it.

Obviously from the title the main character will be the "Big Sister" and I can see you getting inspiration for this from Bioshock in part.On the whole very promising and look forward to reading more.

[Korgeta]

40K Prequel.Sounds very workable.Am willing to beta for you if you turn this into a full fledged story mate.Obviously set on the world of Nocturne and the girl is either a psyker serving the Emperor who is a guard/warden of sorts or one who managed to pick him up. Could easily be integrated into your Open Door megacrossover if you ever decided to restart it.

Obviously from the title the main character will be the "Big Sister" and I can see you getting inspiration for this from Bioshock in part.On the whole very promising and look forward to reading more.

I agree, i think you wrote up a very good introduction Academia, I hope you carry on writing it.

[Academia Nut]

A year passed, and with it the Time of Trials, leaving the ruin and aftershocks that would last until the next Trial, a relentless cycle of destruction that would only end with the death of the world. For now though, the relative peace between Trials was taken well advantage of by those living on the doomed plan. Global temperatures were still rising and local temperatures still falling, but already life was starting to crawl out from the snow and ash. Ultra aggressive chemotropic microbes were already eating into the ash with gusto, tearing holes in the cloud cover, letting light down to where algae in the seas and lichens on land greedily consumed the stellar energy. The sunlight that escaped the autotrophs had very little chance of escaping the world though, for the gases spewed by the volcanoes were very efficient at trapping heat. For those with understanding, it was a bitter irony that the suffocating, freezing ash that nearly wiped out all life was the only thing keeping the world from cooking in its own juices.

It would be another few years before the more complex life started poking its nose above ground, but the world was already taking on hints of blue and green instead of relentless grey and red. Of course, humans, being the indomitable maniacs that they were, had already started going outside. This was the Time of Riches, when the gems and metals from the planet’s core that had been vomited to the surface lay naked on the ground without plant cover and the great predators of the world still slumbered in their dens. Until there were things to hunt and farm, this was the best time to collect the things that would strengthen their shelters and make their dreary lives more beautiful.

N’bel was one of the few people who did not go out in the gathering expeditions as he had his hands full with processing the raw materials brought back, hands that were thankfully assisted by Vulkan, who grew and learned at a phenomenal rate. Already he came up to his sister’s chin, and could work the bellows and lift the tongs and hammer, eagerly consuming everything N’bel could teach him. N’bel knew that many were frightened by the boy’s unnatural growth, but none could work up the will to say it to that bright, eager face when he smiled. He had charisma to go with his intellect and physique.

Of course, Vulkan did not owe the entirety of his education to N’bel, for the boy had such a boundless thirst for knowledge that he could not go to a single spring for quenching. His sister played as much a role, if not a bigger one, than N’bel. She had suffered greatly on his behalf, the wounds sustained in taking him across the wastes having become infected and robbing her of the strength to stand, let alone walk. Others might have been cast out for such infirmity, but the girl seemed to be devoting everything in her depleted spirit and body into regaining what was lost. She had already beat the infection with a thoroughness that put N’bel’s hammering technique to shame, and now she was working on getting her legs to carry her weight again. Vulkan helped her when she fell, but she refused to stand on anything but her own two legs. Yet in the sessions where she strengthened her body, she also taught Vulkan. Despite the massive difference in age, Vulkan already had the strength to best his sister when they wrestled, yet the girl refused to let him slack off even when if she did not have use of her legs. When they were not tussling, they were playing games of dazzling complexity, each sharpening their intellect on the other.

The downside to this effort to regain what was lost while imparting skill to Vulkan was that the girl’s ability to speak the language of the village had progressed with extraordinary slowness, not aided by the fact that her tongue had several sounds they could not pronounce and visa versa. Vulkan could speak both with equal fluency, and in fact claimed that she spoke three different languages, although not with equal proficiency, not that N’bel could tell the difference. The divide was so bad that she had asked everyone to stop attempting to pronounce her actual name because it annoyed her the way they mispronounced it. Instead, she had taken up the nickname Ga’ri with some pride, despite the mildly offensive overtones ‘ash maiden’ could carry. When Vulkan had translated it out, including the fact that it referred to a sort of wicked spirit of the wastes, she had laughed and said it fit. Apparently she had a nickname like that already. Or at least that was the closest translation Vulkan could work out.

For all of the girl’s pride, that did not stop N’bel from bodily picking her up in spite of her protests when the alarm horn rang out, the sound carrying across the wastes from a distant outpost, the watchmen likely giving their lives by revealing their position so that those in the villages and the gathering fields could have a few extra minutes to run. With Ga’ri thrown over a shoulder and Vulkan’s hand in his other hand, N’bel ran with all the speed of a man who had hell snapping at his heels, moving for the hills that ringed the village. Panic reigned over the normally unflappable people, and the sound of many horns crying out and people screaming in terror filled the air. Some of the horns stopped sounding because the hands that held them decided it was safer to start running, while others ceased more abruptly.

Reaching a particular crag in the stones that N’bel had surveyed for just this purpose once the quakes from the Time of Trials subsided sufficiently, he motioned for Vulkan to go in first, and the boy dutifully dove in. Once Vulkan was inside, he handed off Ga’ri to him and then slipped in himself, urging them on past a bend in the rock. The crag ran deep if narrow and there was a breeze from somewhere else in the hillside, so once they were in as deep as they could get N’bel levered a large stone into the way, blocking off the entrance almost entirely and plunging them into near total darkness.

Crouching in the cramped conditions, N’bel whispered to Vulkan, “Tell your sister what I tell you. I need you both to be extremely quiet, and extremely still. All our lives depend on it. Got that?”

Vulkan nodded in the darkness and then quietly whispered the translation to his sister. All of them huddled together in the chill air, ears straining to catch any snatch of sound that was not their own breathing, while hoping that their own heartbeats could not be heard outside the little hiding place. For a very long time, they heard nothing from outside the little fissure, but then something did reach their ears, a noise like a great hive of gigantic wasps armed with buzz saws moving in rapidly from the distance. There were a few distant, muffled screams, but the whole thing did not last long.

Even after the sounds faded, they remained in the hole for what felt like an eternity of an hour or two trapped underground, praying that whatever was out there did not find them and that the ground did not decided to tremble as it was wont to do. Finally, when remaining any longer beneath the earth grew unbearable N’bel shifted the rock that barred the way and said, “I will check that it is safe first, then come back and get you two.”

Vulkan turned to his sister in the gloom, although it was far less dark to his eyes than to either of them, and whispered, “This is wrong; we should not be hiding.”

“I agree, but whatever was out there the adults obviously did not think they could handle,” she replied.

“Does that mean that we should just run and hide? What if you had not been so close that father could not have grabbed you as quickly as he did?” Vulkan asked, clearly upset at the prospect.

“Then I would have fought when they came, and likely failed in my condition. Or maybe we would have all been caught out in the open,” she whispered back.

“So, what, we just accept that?” Vulkan asked, furious at her response.

Shaking her head, she replied, “No.”

Their conversation was cut short by N’bel returning and urging them to come with him. Trudging back down the hill, they find the village in a sorry state, partly from people just dropping whatever they were doing and running, partly from whatever force had torn through the area, causing random, indiscriminate damage. There was the occasional splash of brown, congealed blood from those who were too slow, but in general there were no bodies. From the look on N’bel’s face, that was probably not because others had taken them away for cremation.

While the adults went about the task of organizing the clean up, the two peculiars youths sat and watched, stewing in their rage. Vulkan could not precisely place where his feelings came from, other than a deep seated, instinctive need to have stopped this, to have protected the people of this place from this unnatural disaster. For his sister however, this was different. She had known these people, even those that did not like her or her brother, and to have their faces go missing when she knew she could have stopped this…

“Brother, don’t help me, I need to do this,” she said while pushing herself out of her seated position and on to her legs. She tottered unsteadily for a few moments before collapsing. Vulkan moved to help her, but she held up a hand to keep him back. Pushing herself off the ground, she levered her legs under her body and shakily began to stand, but before she even got her legs fully extended her knees gave out on her again. Tears of pain and frustration poured freely from her face, but that was an autonomic response, and one that she ignored, forcing her legs back under her again even as her whole body quaked with the exertion.

Vulkan watched, burning the image into his skull. Everything was easy for him, and anything that did not come to him instantly arrived with only a little effort on his part. What he saw before him was Effort given form, and he could only strive to live up to the example set by his sister. If things naturally came easier for him, then his only option was to find harder things to do.

Finally she stood up completely, her knees shaking and threatening to give out but she forced her body to support her. Looking up at hazy light of the sun that managed to break out through the cloudy cover, she said, “We have a long way to go.”

“Now what?” Vulkan asked, seeking to know what his sister had in mind.

“Now I teach you what I know about fighting, and I seek to regain what I lost,” she replied, a sad look washing over her face while she clutched at something beneath hidden beneath her dress, resting just above her heart.

[LadyTevar]

intriguing. Tell me more

[bobnik]

I have a guess as to the identity of Ga'ri. It knida surprised me when it jumped into my head - but it would be very interesting if I'm right. Hope I am.

[Manthor]

At first I thought she was a Sister of Silence but then it struck me that she cannot as she would then be repellent to people and for the simple fact that she speaks.She could easily be a psyker from Earth that was trained from birth to look after the Primarchs and was one of their minders in the lab when the Chaos Gods reached out to steal them away. Alternatively she could be a Sensei but there is no proof supporting this. However she would need to be trusted by the Emperor intensely to allow her access to the Primarchs in the first place. She could also be their genetic mother whose genes were used in constructing them.

[bobnik]

She doesn't have to have anything to do with the Emperor or Earth. Remember that the Primarchs were scattered into the Warp - they could have met anyone from anywhere from anywhen.

[S J C]

She is Nanoha.

[Aceraptor]

At first I thought she was a Sister of Silence but then it struck me that she cannot as she would then be repellent to people and for the simple fact that she speaks.She could easily be a psyker from Earth that was trained from birth to look after the Primarchs and was one of their minders in the lab when the Chaos Gods reached out to steal them away. Alternatively she could be a Sensei but there is no proof supporting this. However she would need to be trusted by the Emperor intensely to allow her access to the Primarchs in the first place. She could also be their genetic mother whose genes were used in constructing them.

Its a crossover, the sister is not anyone from WH40k. The big hints are the last part of the 2nd part

“Now I teach you what I know about fighting, and I seek to regain what I lost,” she replied, a sad look washing over her face while she clutched at something beneath hidden beneath her dress, resting just above her heart.

And the name that she is given by the locals. Ga'ri, Spoiler

shes Takamachi Nanoha from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series, nicknamed the White Devil

[al103]

And the name that she is given by the locals. Ga'ri, Spoiler

shes Takamachi Nanoha from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series, nicknamed the White Devil

Spoiler

It's funny how cool fanon nickname get into the all fic and canon do not... when it's arguable even scarier one. Ace of aces, nice nickname isn't it? After all White Devil is just another title in line of Red Comets, Hawks of Endymion, Destroyers of Aghara, etc, etc... aka Aces. Then you up level and see person people on that level consider real Ace and things start to get really scary.

[Aceraptor]

And the name that she is given by the locals. Ga'ri, Spoiler

shes Takamachi Nanoha from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series, nicknamed the White Devil

Spoiler

It's funny how cool fanon nickname get into the all fic and canon do not... when it's arguable even scarier one. Ace of aces, nice nickname isn't it? After all White Devil is just another title in line of Red Comets, Hawks of Endymion, Destroyers of Aghara, etc, etc... aka Aces. Then you up level and see person people on that level consider real Ace and things start to get really scary.

Spoiler

actually she has been called the devil... by Vita, its a logical progression of that, she wears white and so the White Devil to her opponents

[al103]

Spoiler

actually she has been called the devil... by Vita, its a logical progression of that, she wears white and so the White Devil to her opponents

Spoiler

It's fitting description, but not canon nickname.

[Academia Nut]

Six months passed, the clouds thinning into a general haze and the snows melting into compact piles of toxic, corrosive sludge that ate away at the sharp edges left by the upheaval of the earth. Great blooms of lichen and lithophagic fungus covered the open terrain, and more advanced life forms were already starting to move in, pushing out their lesser competitors. Juvenile sauropods were already starting to emerge from their hidden hatcheries to begin their relentless march across the volcanic plains, devouring everything in their path, and the next generation of predators were slinking out of their holes to prey upon the young herbivores.

Of the few creatures that could ride out the Time of Troubles, the great fire drakes still slumbered while humanity had been active for many months, thus while the emerging animals increased the danger of being out in the open humans remained the apex predator on the world. In another few months the devils would return for their raids and bump humanity down the list for a few weeks, and within a year the salamanders would reawaken in force to take their dominant position over the world, but for now the greatest killer of man was still famine and seismic activity.

It was a curious time, the twilight between the Time of Troubles and the Time of Renewal, the tipping point just before the spring of this world. Soon the farmers would begin planting and the herders take their flocks out into the waste, to defend what was theirs with steel and fire. The young men born during the last Time of Renewal found themselves growing restless, compelled by primordial instincts re-sculpted by this harsh world to prove themselves while their elders watched on with knowing smiles. The next generation was stretching its muscles, getting ready to tackle the challenges of the world and of living in a society with others.

For Vulkan, despite the fact that his preternatural growth brought him into the same general size and shape where one might mistake him for a teenager of later years, he felt no such urges, even though he could see them in others. He could see the way the boys were all jostling for position and starting to let their eyes wander over the girls. He could feel the grind and pressure of social and biological expectations clashing with the demands of reality. He might have felt concern for his sister and how he occasionally caught glimpses of the older boys considering her in ways he did not like if not for the fact that she was teaching him how to shamelessly exploit such things.

As an example of such manipulation, Vulkan sparred casually, almost lazily with two other boys. They had been pushed by their peers into trying to fight with the village freaks only to discover that Ga’ri hit harder than Vulkan because she knew she would not kill them if she failed to hold back. After she had thoroughly humiliated them, she then cheerfully handed them dummy rifles for bayonet training and proceeded to show them how to handle the basics. Vulkan had taken over the training for the rest of the day while she recovered her strength in meditative repose. Despite her efforts, she still had a lot of recovery to go.

Of course, while Vulkan’s movements seemed lazy, he did not have the word in his vocabulary except for use as a descriptive antonym for his sister. Once she had regained the use of her legs and had a goal, the protection of the village, she refused to let up. In one of the rather more existentially terrifying moments, she had even taught Vulkan how to lucid dream, a skill she had cultivated just so that she could keep thinking even in her sleep. Vulkan had actually discovered that he did not need full sleep after that session, unlocking a hidden bit of his brain that let him stay awake for days at a without getting tired, not that he had needed much sleep even before he had learned that little trick.

With the full day open to him, he threw himself into his studies with the vigour of the same magnitude displayed by his sister. He was smarter, stronger, and tougher than her and they both knew it, but she still had a spark of something inside her that drove her in ways Vulkan was still trying to wrap his head around. Of course, he was still trying to figure her out at times, because he had seen a look that almost looked like disappointment the one time he had tried to go off and train on his own in her drills.

He had asked her what was wrong, and her answer had puzzled him. She had replied, “Brother, I am happy you are taking your training seriously, but you are not doing it right.”

Vulkan had frowned at that and asked, “What of my form is incorrect?”

Shaking her head, she replied, “It is not your form that is incorrect, it is in fact perfect. But that is the problem: you are trying to perfect the form.”

“Is that not the point of the drills?” Vulkan asked.

Picking up one of the dummy rifles he had made for them and any who would train with them, and as she squared off before him she said, “Go through the drill you just did, and no cheating with your faster reflexes.”

Vulkan nodded, not quite understanding until he had his sister’s bayonet resting on his throat, or rather at the point where he realized that she had managed to throw him off balance and thrust through his defences. Frowning at her move, he was about to ask something when she said, “I know how quick you pick up on these things, so repeat what I just did to me. Again, no cheating with superior reflexes or strength, just do the movements.”

Vulkan complied, copying her motions and instead of breaking through her defences he found himself over-extended and with the butt of her rifle gently resting against his chin. A faint sheen of sweat had appeared on her brow from the exertion, but Vulkan knew that when it came to the forms he still did not have the knowledge to beat his sister.

“You were attempting to perfect the drills, not master them. Perfection is hollow; you are only training the body and even then towards the goal of perfecting the motions in a narrowly defined set of conditions. My training is meant to lead you along the path to mastery, to know and understand everything about what you are doing to such a level that both mind and body are in unison, that there is no difference between instinct and intellect; no difference between thought and action. You will not know what to do in a dozen situations or in a hundred, but in any situation. I was disappointed in you because I could see from the way you were training that you were trying to perfect a series of limited motions without absorbing the underlying lesson of what I was trying to teach,” she explained.

Vulkan nodded as the ideas quickly absorbed into him. He considered for a moment before he asked, “Was this lesson a part of your training regime?”

His sister had only smiled enigmatically before she said, “I need to go sit down for a few minutes.”

Having learned his lesson well, Vulkan went back and reconsidered all of his training, be it with his sister in combat or tactics or with his father over the forge. Seeing the boys train with him, he could also see the subtleties his sister had been warning him about. He could see how they tried to get certain motions just right because he had emphasized them, but failed to understand why he had emphasized them. Perhaps another object lesson, although he was not sure if it would be better if it came from him or his sister. He mused that perhaps he would not have completely learned her lesson until he could teach it to someone else.

Before he could put ideas into action, he heard a grunt from behind him and turned to find his sister rising, dusting off her skirt and pants with a peculiar look on her face. Vulkan could not quite place it, for it was an expression that combined pain, despair, concern and yet a hope for near unlimited joy hidden beneath the surface. Whatever emotions swirled behind her eyes, Ga’ri still wore the mask of steely resolve that she always did in these circumstances.

“You two can go for the day, but don’t think I won’t hunt you down tomorrow if you don’t show up again,” she said to the two new disciples, who nodded fearfully at facing her wrath again, especially now that they had really seen what she could do with just a pointy stick in her hands. As they ran off, she turned to Vulkan and said, “Come with me brother, I need your help with something. And bring the actual rifle.”

Nodding sagely, Vulkan set down his dummy weapon and picked up the actual rifle he had built. A single shot breechloader chambered for the heavy but crude rounds the village could produce on its own when out of supply of the other settlements, it was topped with a bayonet that Vulkan knew from experience he could punch through solid rock without breaking or dulling the blade. If his sister wanted him to bring the rifle, it meant that she intended to leave the village.

She had done this a few times before, bringing him out a ways away from everyone else, to find a secluded place and sit. He was never quite sure what she was doing here that she could not do elsewhere, but he always watched guard over her. A few juvenile scree prowlers had come sniffing around in the past, but were reluctant to approach humans. The life of Nocturne learned quickly to avoid humans if they did not have size or overwhelming numbers on their side.

Finding their hidden spot, well away from the village, Ga’ri sat down on a flat rock and faced out into the wastes, towards the distant red blot that was Mount Doomfire, the great volcano that dominated this continent. She smiled into the warming wind that carried the tang of strange gases released from the earth below and then asked, “Brother, do you trust me?”

Vulkan considered the question for a long time, the interminable period stretching out as the only sound between them was the wind. Despite the delay, she showed no signs of impatience, and when he asked, “Why do you seek to test the limits of my trust?” she showed no sign of offence.

“Because I have a secret,” she answered. A sad look crossed over her face and she said, “Despite how we look, and how fast you grow, I suspect I am more different from you than you are from the rest of the people in the village. You are different in body, but that is not such a truly great thing, because I am different in soul.”

“In soul?” Vulkan asked, now extremely worried and wary.

“In soul,” she nodded. “You and the villagers and kindred in that you grew up on this world, used to its harshness, while I have just adapted despite it not being who I am. Brother, it has been too long since I could feel the wind whipping through my hair and not wondered if it will poison me, too long since I let out a carefree laugh. I was born of steel, but surrounded by softness and light and love. I have tried to give us much of that as I could, but it has all been tempered by the needs of this place. Brother, if not for you, if not for father, I would find the grimness of this world too heavy.”

Vulkan considered this for another long time, Ga’ri content to let him think while his frown deepened. Finally he asked, “That cannot be all of it. You are not one to care if others think you soft, because I know that you would still know in your heart of hearts that whatever softness is in you is mixed with stronger stuff than anyone can know.”

She nodded and then said, “Yes. But still I am different in soul than the rest of you, not just in content but in structure. I have done things that few can understand, experienced the world in ways only a gifted few can, and I know that if I were to show others my gifts they would be afraid.”

Vulkan felt anger rising up in his throat, unimaginable, undirected anger. He remembered when he was still but waist high to her and other children had tried to mock him for the strangeness of his appearance, and his sister had driven them off while telling him to never be afraid of who he was, to never be afraid of the gifts fate had given him. And now she was the one afraid to show the world her own gifts? He wasn’t sure if he was angry with her for being a hypocrite, everyone else for placing this pressure on her, him for not being able to help her sooner, or some weird combination of all three.

“I am not afraid. I am your brother, I trust you,” he told her.

She smiled happily at him before she said, “I am glad to hear that brother, but I will be gladder to hear it again in a minute after I show you what I mean.”

She reached into her dress and pulled something out from where it rested upon her chest, beneath the folds of her clothing. It was a small ruby sphere set on a chain, badly cracked but still in one piece. His memory recalled a few brief glimpses of it in the past, and in comparison he could say that the crack looked worse the further back he thought, but it might have just been from his shorter perspective.

“It took a lot out of me to get you to safety… and a lot out of my friend to get me to safety. I thought I had lost her forever a few times, but I think I have done enough that she had handle the rest. Vulkan… I was hurt inside, in places you can’t see with eyes, just before I found you in the pod that was your cradle, out there in the wastes,” she said while faintly smiling down at the ruby. For a moment nothing happened, and then there was a tiny flicker of light from within the sphere.

Nanoha turned up her palm, and the ruby remained where it was, floating in mid-air. Lines of dim, pink light began to form in the air, creating an intricate pattern within a circle, alien script creating words he could not read. It only lasted for a few seconds before she grabbed the ruby once more and looked up at her brother, still smiling sadly. She asked, “So, do you still trust me little brother?”

Vulkan felt like he had been punched in the gut. Everyone was warned of witches, of the ruin they could bring, and how they had to be driven out or killed lest they destroy the entire village with their presence… and here his big sister, the one person he trusted and cared about more than any was revealed to be one. Yet… yet his soul did not rebel at her presence like it was said it should. He felt no foulness to what she did, just the same focus and detail that always seemed to follow her around.

He exhaled long and hard and then said, “I trust you sister… I trust you Nanoha.”

Her smile went from one of sadness to incredible joy, and she said, “Thank you brother. I need your help. I’m still weak; I’m still so far from what I used to be able to do, but with you watching out I know I can get back what was lost. I know I can… I can…” She trailed off, before waving the thought away.

“Can what?” Vulkan asked insistently.

“No… it’s too faint a hope. I took too much damage and I’ve been away from the help I would need to do the repairs for too long…” Nanoha said.

“Tell me sister. Tell me and I will help you make it come true again,” Vulkan insisted.

“Brother… brother, I could fly. Nothing but me and my magic and the sky. You… you can’t know how beautiful it is until you’re up there, the world passing by below you…” Nanoha trailed off, her heart breaking under the strain of memories of things lost.

Vulkan’s own expression hardened and he said, “Nanoha, you will fly again. I know that once you set your mind on a goal, nothing stands in your way. So go out there and do it, and if you promise me something, I will kick your ass as hard as you kick mine to make sure you do it.”

Her eyes having gone watery, she asked, “What is it?”

“Take me with you when you can,” Vulkan asked.

Nanoha burst out into tears, leaving Vulkan rather confused as to what he should do next.

[LadyTevar]

And that, is Family. Bravo

[Academia Nut]

Six more months and the snows had all vanished like ghosts before the morning light, replaced by the ever present heat haze that would hold Nocturne in its grip until the next Time of Trials. While forests like other worlds knew them never had time to take hold on the unstable planet, vast savannahs of fast growing scrub blanketed the rubble strewn plains wherever volcanic activity did not scour life clean. Like a mixture of bamboo, switchgrass, and razor wire, the grasses beginning to fill wide open spaces of the world were making the terrain hazardous to trek across. There were three ways to get through without being tangled and shredded by the grasses: be big enough and have thick enough skin to just shove your way through, be small enough to dart through the gaps in the grass without being snared, or burn down everything in your way. While an adult human in heavy leather could still plough through in some places, for the most part people were starting to either ride on sauropods or fire bomb fast sections of the plains.

The village, being a sedentary settlement, chose to primarily rely on the flame option to keep the local fauna in check, and as such no one thought it odd that Vulkan was mass producing flamethrowers and teaching the other children to use them. His working to refine the fuel mixture just right was also not considered odd, seeing as how humans were not the biggest evolutionary pressure on the tall grasses being fire resistant so one had to make sure that any incendiary used burned hot and stuck fast.

His mass production of rifles and bayonets and his sister training anyone willing to learn, or anyone who got to close during a training session and could not come with a legitimate reason not to join in, was a bit more of a concern for the elders, but Nocturne was a dangerous place and being prepared was not something they could really object to. A few muttered darkly about the possibility of a coup, but N’bel refused to put up with such talk against his adoptive children, and as the smith his words carried a great deal of weight. Vulkan and Ga’ri were just passionate; although he was worried they were going overboard.

Of course, if he could see their current training session then even he would have to stop protecting them because there was clearly something wrong, at least from the worldview of the villagers, with them. About a kilometre from the village there was a coulee that was mostly ignored because it was easier to just ignore it rather than struggle with getting up and down the scree covered slopes. As such the grass there was allowed to grow more or less naturally, and even most wild herbivores preferred to avoid it, meaning that the quick growing vegetation was already waist height on a grown man or about thigh height on Vulkan as he went through it like an icebreaker… although only one person had the knowledge of what such a thing was, and she as busy going around the coulee, racing her brother to the other side.

What was remarkable about the race was that Vulkan was essentially naked, his skin turning aside the razor sharp blades of grass better than the thick hides of most predators, and he was carrying his latest creation, an oversized rifle that only he could actually handle. Of course, despite his full adult size, his features still bore the lankiness of a youth in his mid teens with more growing still left to do, so he could probably increase the size of his munitions again in a few months. The mass of the weapon was considerable but even that did not slow him down in his effort to get to the other side, because even though Nanoha had nearly four times the distance to go along the twisting ridgeline, she was moving so bloody fast that it was an actual competition.

Despite his belief in his sister, Vulkan had not really understood just how serious she was when she said she could fly. She had recovered enough that she could make ‘short’ hops of about four or five metres, and chain them together into a long bounding run that devoured distance in ways that should have been impossible. Truth be told, the race was unfair to Vulkan as having to push through the grass slowed him considerably, and the blood already on his bayonet indicated that it was not just the flora that was an impediment, but he relished the challenge and there was nowhere else where they could train in peace like this.

The two were about half way through their run when the distant sound of horns began to pick up, causing them both to pause and wonder if it was fear or anticipation that gripped at their chests. The predators of men had arrived early this year, but that meant nothing. Everyone would run and hide, and not even their father would, could, wait for them. They either had to find a place to hide in a hurry or face the raiders out in the open. Vulkan was stuck out in the middle of the coulee, and there was no way he could make it out before he was discovered, if he had the distance of the horns right. Plus, he left a rather obvious trail in the grass so wherever he hid he could be easily tracked there. He had no decision then. He would make his stand here. He glanced over his shoulder and was completely unsurprised to see Nanoha standing still and firm on the ridge where he had last seen her. It concerned him that she did not run, since he was worried at what might happen to her, but he knew that she would never abandon him.

So he would just have to make sure that anything that tried to touch her had to pay an ocean of blood first. Setting himself firmly as he brought his rifle up to his shoulders, he felt his own blood sing in response to the prospect of battle. Time seemed to thicken into a soup while his senses went up to maximum yet his body seemed to respond just as quickly as it ever did. This feeling… this was what Vulkan was meant for. He was meant for the thick of battle, not for running and hiding. He grinned. He was going to make an interest payment on the pay back owed generations of predation today.

He heard them before he saw them, the weird buzz saw whining that heralded what had until now been unseen horrors. Turning to the south, he saw them for the first time, and felt hatred bubble up from within him. Pale things like worms that squirmed in the dirt, they had none of the robustness and nobility of humans despite getting the shape nearly right. They wore little, their armour more for show than protection to Vulkan’s eyes, clearly from some place far from the harshness of Nocturne where one could get away with such stupidity, but rode on flat boards that carried them above the surface of the ground, long blades sweeping out like wings while they carried enormous glaives in their arms. There were only three of them, but upon seeing two humans out in the open they immediately let out loud, keening cries and began to accelerate towards what they thought were helpless victims.

They were fast and agile; Vulkan had to give them that as he lined up his shot, having a bit of difficulty getting one in his sights. But just a bit. Squeezing the trigger, he felt the tremendous kick of his rifle firing, throwing a 1.0 calibre steel jacketed lead slug into the centre of mass of the middle raider. Armour exploded under the impact and the foul creature was hurled off its board by the impact, its limp body doing a full back flip before landing in the grass where any exposed flesh was immediately slashed to ribbons. Something was warmed by the thought of the planet killing these things, of these fragile intruders coming to see what it meant to tangle with a world of fire and iron.

The other two seemed to laugh at their comrade’s death, one accelerating toward Vulkan while the other broke off to go attack Nanoha. Time crawled as Vulkan swung his rifle about, knowing that he would not be able to reload in time, but trusting in the strength of his arms and steel. He could see the pale, twisted features of the thing screaming down on him, its glaive raised high for a massive swinging strike that would strike with tremendous speed considering how fast it was going.

That of course, was a mistake. Against a normal human, it might have been able to take advantage of its superior speed, but Vulkan knew he was just as fast, if not faster, and the extra time taken for a swing meant that he had all the time in the world to strike out snake quick with his bayonet, the steel stabbing upward, punching through the armour around the thighs, the blade sliding through flesh to lodge with a wet crunch in the hip bones of the creature. With his feet planted, Vulkan took the collision like a rock, several hundred pounds of flesh and exotic metal connecting with him along the axis of his rifle. His gun buckled, but he kept his ground.

This still however left the blade of the glaive travelling towards him in a long arc, although now instead of neatly slicing his carotid like the raider had intended it was set to crudely lop the top of his head up. In the slow motion of the collision, Vulkan could only lift up his right arm and hope that the loss of the limb would keep him alive. Monomolecular alien steel met flesh and bit deep, but instead of slicing through it struck his bones and stopped, the blade shattering on impact with the dense material.

And then the collision was over, the strange artefact the raider flew around on going in one direction while a combination of dead meat and crumpled steel went in a second and a shattered polearm went in a third, all while Vulkan remained standing, his eyes burning with all the fury of this world. Steel was his body, and fire his blood, and he would neither be denied nor stopped.

He could however be slowed, and he already would have been unable to catch the last of the raiders on its board as it swooped off for easier prey in the form of his sister. A cry escaped Vulkan’s lips as he tore through the foliage, blood and slaughter upon his mind as he chased futilely after the cowardly, honourless creature. He would not reach in time, he…

She said it barely above a whisper, yet Vulkan could still make out the words that she said just as the creature swooped in at terminal velocity. In an instant she had her hand out and said, “Round shield.” One moment she was just standing there, waiting, and the next a circle of pink light was interposed between her and the monster. A circle of pink light stronger than a foot of solid iron. At those speeds, only one result could occur, and the sound of every bone in the alien’s body turning to liquid from the suddenness of the stop.

Vulkan made record time in getting to Nanoha, the grass practically parting in terror before his progress, and he nearly made the ascent to the top of the slope in a half dozen bounding leaps. He found his sister unharmed, crouching over the alien with a hurt look in her eyes but the firmness of resolving having not left them. It took Vulkan a moment to realize that despite all her knowledge of battle and war this was her first kill, and not something she had been looking forward too. He supposed it was fortunate that the creature was so loathsome and alien that it softened the blow to her spirit.

Turning to her brother, she said to him, “They won’t accept this, you know. They get their own way because everyone is too scared to stand up to them because they hold the threat of total annihilation over everyone’s heads. When they find out that we’ve killed some, they will come in force and not stop until everyone hiding place is found.”

“Evil spirits cannot be made to bleed, since if it bleeds we can kill it. There is only one option then: we fight,” Vulkan agreed.

“Yes, but we’re not ready. Maybe another year… no, it will have to do. We stand and fight as one, or we run and die as one. There is no alternative,” Nanoha said, regret heavy in her voice.

Vulkan scratched idly at his forearm, the wound having already scarred over and the underlying musculature sealed up while shoving out the bits of shattered metal still in his flesh, each flex of his arm squeezing out another corroded fleck. He glanced down at the body and then back up at Nanoha. He considered all of the games they had played together where she had been honing his mind in strategy and tactics. This was an enemy that relied upon speed, on being the first and only ones to land a blow. The trick then was...

Vulkan looked at his sister. She was definitely thinking the same thing that he was.

Dawn of the next day saw them running to the south, towards the distant and much larger settlement, Vulkan pulling a small hand cart loaded up with the corpses of the dead and their equipment piled next to them. They were moving painfully slowly across the broken ground in a large, jagged canyon that had formed during the Trial when a fault-line had simply pulled the earth in two here. Their labours however were interrupted when a dark shadow crossed over them.

Looking up, they found a massive war band of cruel raiders floating above them, daemon faced masks leering down at them from the more heavily armoured warriors while the pale, angular faces of those without full helms grinned wickedly. Standing on one of the transports like a boat that floated on air rather than water, a rather ornately armoured figure wearing a flayed human face over his own stared down at them and asked in a weirdly accented voice, “And where do you two larvae think you are going?”

“To tell the rest of the world that you are mortal, that you can and will be slain,” Vulkan replied earnestly. “Our own village would not let us stay, fearing that you would kill them all if they harboured us.”

The leader of the band chuckled darkly, his followers following suit with a variety of tones, from psychotic cackles to banshee shrieks to broken coughing laughter. “Mortal? Boy, you are mortal, a thing to be played with by your betters, and if you think that you will rally the pathetic rabble of this world against the likes of us, you are as mistaken as those that thought that kicking you out would save you from the crime of being related to those with aspirations above their station. And what do you bring? Weapons that will not work for you?”

Pulling out a pair of hammers, Vulkan said, “Actually, they let me keep my smithing tools, since I am rather fond of them. Plus, we’re adopted, so no one is actually related to us.”

The leader laughed again, his followers darkly amused by the entire affair. “I am amazed that you actually think we care.”

“I’m amused by the irony of the situation, personally,” Vulkan retorted.

“Irony? Do amuse us further with this verbal overture by explaining your tenuous grasp of what that word even means before the real show starts and we leave your flayed hides in one corner of this world and your crucified bodies in another as a warning to anyone else stupid enough to raise a hand against us,” the leader demanded, his smile beneath his gruesome mask twisting the stretched, tortured skin weirdly.

“For generations you taught us how to hide, so welcome to the crossfire,” Vulkan said with a smile as three dozen rifles opened fire at once from hidden positions along the sides of the canyon walls. Some bullets bounced harmlessly off the raiders armour, some struck redundantly, but in that first opening volley all of the marauders on their flying boards and half on the ones on their jet bikes were cut down without mercy. A dozen flamers then started spitting gouts of flame down into the open topped canopies of the alien craft, engulfing the crews and passengers, slaying wholesale.

The motion was almost casual, so small the change in position, yet in one moment Vulkan had a hammer in his hand and in the next it was in the air, tumbling along to strike the enemy leader, still stunned by the realization that he had lead his forces into an ambush. There was a sickening crack, and then the body sans head tumbled to the ground below amidst a fine spray of shattered bone and brains turned to mist.

Nanoha looked upon the carnage like she was going to be sick, but she swallowed her disgust and said, “There will be more, and we’ll never get an opportunity like this again.”

“Yes, but even if more of them come, more people will flock to our banner,” Vulkan said as the burning bodies and out of control machines fell from the sky, the few survivors fleeing as quickly as they could from the massacre. Vulkan was just about to frown when Nanoha simply pointed at the receding jet bikes, pink spheres of light forming next to her. They remained there for a second, growing in intensity until she said, “Shoot,” and they took off like meteors across the sky to intercept the retreating raiders, the impacts tearing the control surfaces of their craft apart and sending them spinning in out of control dives.

Vulkan gaped at his sister. Everyone had to have seen that, and she had worked so hard to keep things secret...

“We’re going to need all the help we can get, might as well reveal all our cards know while everyone is still celebrating,” Nanoha said with a smile before throwing up a barrier to catch the few bullets she knew were coming.

[Simon_Jester]

“I’m amused by the irony of the situation, personally,” Vulkan retorted.

“Irony? Do amuse us further with this verbal overture by explaining your tenuous grasp of what that word even means before the real show starts and we leave your flayed hides in one corner of this world and your crucified bodies in another as a warning to anyone else stupid enough to raise a hand against us,” the leader demanded, his smile beneath his gruesome mask twisting the stretched, tortured skin weirdly.

“For generations you taught us how to hide, so welcome to the crossfire,” Vulkan said with a smile as three dozen rifles opened fire at once from hidden positions along the sides of the canyon walls.

Badass.

I'm not at all familiar with Nanoha, but I do like this.

[al103]

I like this change of tactics from canon. What is worse then "sudden powerclaws from stealth"? Sudden flamers from stealth! Now Salamanders would not only stay steady, but infiltrate enemy to death too!

[LadyTevar]

Not bad, not bad at all.

Dark Eldar Raiders, I take it?

[Xon]

Dark Eldar Raiders, I take it?

A Dark Eldar raider who went splat like a bug on Nanoha's shield. Not a nice way to be introduced to gory death.

[darthdavid]

This fic is made of win. Can't wait to see the reaction the first time Nanoha goes Starlight Breaker on their asses...

[LT.Hit-Man303]

" Impressive, most impressives, well done AN. "

[Academia Nut]

The stench of battle was overwhelming, the stink of gunpowder and flamer fuel attempting and ultimately failing to completely overpower the lesser smells of shed viscera and charred flesh. The armies of men marched across Nocturne, hunting their hunters. It was a brutal back and forth campaign, the alien raiders preferring to strike from the shadows or target civilian populations rather than engage the armies directly. It was a war of massive psychological strain, for everyone had to remain on alert at all times lest the foe take advantage of a single moment of laxness to devastating effect. With their speed advantage, they could be everywhere and nowhere at once, while the human armies trudged along.

It was a credit to Vulkan’s massive tactical, strategic, and logistic brilliance that his forces had not already been scattered to the night by the predations of their enemies. He spent hours planning out every step his men would take, moving with the natural features of the planet to maximize their cover and minimize the mobility of their foes. He and Nanoha, and those who had absorbed their ethos, trained their recruits relentlessly, making each man an army in their own right. Garrisons left behind the main force to protect the civilian populations turned their towns and villages into deathtraps against the raiders, making them suffer for their predations. The loss of an entire village of humans was an acceptable price to pay for the death of even a single raider, although it stung every time they found a settlement depopulated of human life.

Surveying the current carnage, Vulkan felt grim, bittersweet satisfaction at the results of the battle. This had been the most costly fight yet, but it was also the greatest victory since the first ambush, a greater one in fact. They were still tallying the dead on both sides, but at least a half dozen of the enemy’s flying craft had been taken down, and the number of their dead was probably over a hundred. The final count would probably never be final though, since Nocturne was already moving to wipe away evidence of this battle, a great storm of choking ash and sulphurous gases.

It was in moments like this that Vulkan could almost believe the whispered rumours that he was an avatar of the planet itself, manifesting for the task of wiping out the alien raiders that plagued humanity, the only species the world deemed worthy of living on its surface. This battle had been won because he could feel the pulse of the world and knew that today the winds would change, literally. He had taken his army out into the open, making them a huge tempting target so that the source of the resistance could be wiped out in a single battle at range, and the enemy had fallen for it. While Vulkan had marched his forces out in the open, he had also marched them along a ridgeline such that when the first shots were fired his men could drop down into a defensive position and force the enemy to close. He had also marched them along with a great pyroclastic cloud to the north-east, meaning that the foe could not come from that direction. Under normal circumstances, they still probably would have been slaughtered in their trenches, but Vulkan had known in his bones that Mount Deathfire was going to erupt and change the winds so that instead of blowing the ash cloud away from them like it had before, it would blow right over their position.

The look on the faces of the foul creatures when they realized that their skimmers were jamming as the ash winds began to blow, that moment when they realized their mobility had been taken and they would be forced to fight against an enemy in an entrenched position… Vulkan knew that he would use that memory to warm his heart in the darkness for a long time to come.

Turning away from the harsh winds and moving to join his troops in their shelters, he noticed Nanoha staring out over the battlefield with a lost look in her eyes. She stood unbowed by the wind, her clothing immaculate against the dust and ash, and her breathing clear. Vulkan knew that with her magic she could stand out here through the night, and he also knew that despite the fact that she was a fighter, she was not a killer. She had no room in her heart for pity against their foes, but neither did she enjoy the bloodshed, especially not the casualties on their own side. Some thought it weakness, but Vulkan knew that it took more strength to care and still fight than to abandon all cares and kill without mercy or compassion.

“Nanoha, come inside or the legend of Ga’ri will grow even more absurd,” Vulkan called out to his sister, and she turned to him, her face more worried than sad. Frowning, he asked, “What is it?”

“I received a letter during the battle, the messenger having caught up with us just as the winds changed. The Order of Pure Flame wants to see us,” Nanoha stated grimly.

“Oh,” Vulkan stated, mirroring her worry. The Order of Pure Flame was probably the biggest problem they would face in the entire war. While the troops under their direct command had accepted her ‘witchery’, there was a lot of anxiety floating around the rest of the settlements about her, and a lot of nasty rumours. The Order of Pure Flame was a group dedicated to hunting down rogue psychics and either inducting them into their ranks or exterminating them. If the Order decided to pick a fight with Nanoha, then it would present an enemy they did not need while fighting the aliens and severely hamper their ability to resupply and recruit. This was a problem they simply could not bludgeon into submission.

“Well come on then, its not like waiting for them outside in the storm will get this over with any faster,” Vulkan prompted, and Nanoha nodded in agreement, turning with him towards the shelters set up in the canyon against the storm.

Midway through the night with the winds still howling above but the majority of the storm having already died away, a sentry arrived at Vulkan’s tent, clearly rather exasperated but being trailed by several cloaked figures. Raising his head from the maps spread out before him, Vulkan quirked an eyebrow and then asked, “What’s going on here M’cha?”

“Members of the Order of Pure Flame to see you and Lady Ga’ri, sir,” the sentry replied.

Shoving aside the flabbergasted M’cha, three robed figures moved into the tent, to which Vulkan said sarcastically, “Do come in.” He then ordered, “M’cha, please return to your post. I’ll be sure to send a relief for you early though.”

Unwinding scarves from about their faces, the representatives from the Order of Pure Flame would have cut imposing figures to anyone but Vulkan. Tall, thin, shorn of all hair, and deathly pale, their cloaks and robes were adorned with a variety of talismans and wards to shield against the depredations of witches and evil spirits while long staves were carried in all their hands. Of the three men who entered, two had dark, beady eyes while the third had no eyes at all, the scars around the empty sockets showing where the organs were crudely hacked out. Despite the disfigurement, the man seemed completely unimpaired, his head tracking Vulkan just fine. Some might have been unnerved by the blind man alone, to say nothing of the other two, but for Vulkan who had been fighting with the alien raiders for the past two months and had the scars to show their attempts to kill him, they were nothing to trembled before.

Instead of showing any sort of weakness before them, Vulkan instead asked, “I take it from the eyeless man in your group, the rumours that the Order makes use of witches itself is true?”

One of the sighted men, the younger if Vulkan was to judge, hissed in indignation, but the blind man just chuckled darkly while the man he immediately pegged as the leader just smirked coldly. Gesturing with false magnanimity to his companion, the leader said, “Those who harness unnatural power are frequently very skilled at hiding it, often even from themselves, but not from those with similar abilities. Those who are strong enough of body and spirit can find use in our Order.”

The eyeless man tilted his head to the side and said, “You are a strange one, young one. You are hard to read, very hard. A mighty flame in the darkness between, you radiate power but do not shine like a witch. From the taste of your soul, I would say that you wish to know how willing I was in the loss of my sight, and I answer you with another question: if the eyes are the windows to the soul, do you want another path for the daemons to enter through?” He then chuckled again, a sick noise that grated on Vulkan’s nerves. The leader did not even twitch a muscle but the blind man clearly picked up on some hidden message and his laughter died away.

“Quite,” Vulkan deadpanned before he said, “You know of my name by reputation, but you currently have me at a disadvantage here.”

“Their names are To’Van the Hunter, Wanshan the Seer, and Helbit the Journeyman,” Nanoha said in her peculiarly accented version of the native tongue of this world, exiting out of her chamber of the tent, her auburn hair tussled from the bit of sleep she had tried to get before their arrival so much earlier than expected.

“Showing off your witch skills early, are you?” The youngest member, probably Helbit, accused, to which the leader, To’Van no doubt, just rolled his eyes.

“Or she read the damn letter we sent earlier,” To’Van pointed out, which made Helbit wear a rather sheepish expression.

Vulkan’s attention however was focused on Wanshan, who had gone very quiet and wore a strained expression on his face. Once he caught sight of this change to the seer’s demeanour, To’Van let a grave expression settle over his face, his hand edging down to his belt where the pommel of a blade was now visible beneath his cloak. All stilled, everyone waiting in anticipation for what was to happen next, before Wanshan asked weakly, “Young girl… please speak again.”

“What for?” Nanoha asked.

Fear was written all over Wanshan’s face, and now Helbit was edging for his own sword, when the seer whispered, “I can’t see her.”

A touch of confusion entered into the blank hostility on To’Van’s face and he asked, “What do you mean you ‘can’t see her’?”

“I… she…” Wanshan then scrunched up his face in concentration, only for a tiny flare of light pink light to burst forth from Nanoha’s body and Wanshan to stumble back with a cry of fear. Several things happened at once. To’Van and Helbit both went to draw their swords, although Vulkan immediately realized that they had very different targets, but before they could finish their draws both found their arms locked firmly at their sides by bands of pink energy, Nanoha’s hand raised in the air, a circle of light and strange runes orbit about her forearm just above the wrist.

Scrambling back in fear across the rough ground the tent was set on, Wanshan whimpered for a moment before he asked fearfully, “What is she doing?”

“That is what we are here to determine,” To’Van replied angrily, although the response seemed directed more toward Vulkan and Nanoha than Wanshan.

“Nanoha, let To’Van go, he wasn’t drawing against you. Helbit can cool off for a little while long since he was,” Vulkan stated, and the bands of light restricting the leader of the trio dissolved in an instant. To’Van cuffed his apprentice upside the head before he went down to Wanshan, the blade of his scimitar now resting on the blind man’s throat while the two began to speak in hushed voices.

“What happened?” Vulkan asked his sister, switching into her native tongue, mostly because she was better at explaining complex concepts in that language.

“He attempted to… I don’t know. It was like half a crude attack on my telepathic communication channels and half an attack on my linker core. He ran right into my core barriers, but really just rebounded off them instead of triggering any of the active responses,” Nanoha explained, which really did not enlighten Vulkan much more on the situation.

“I’ll get the full explanation later, but basically you’re saying that he hurt himself trying to do whatever he did?” Vulkan asked.

“I think he was more startled than hurt,” Nanoha replied.

Their whispered conversation over, although Vulkan’s sharp ears had caught all of it although he had understood none, To’Van stood aside while Wanshan picked himself up off the ground. Vulkan stated, “My sister meant no harm, she just responded to your unwanted intrusion.”

“I know that,” Wanshan spat angrily, although he was clearly also badly shaken by whatever his senses told him. “That girl… that girl is no witch.”

“I doubt that,” Helbit replied dryly, pointing out the fact that he was still bound. To’Van jerked his head to the side, and Nanoha released the magic with a flick of her finger.

“Her presence… her soul… all things leave an impression upon the Other Side, with living things having a greater impact for the most part than non-living ones, and the souls of intelligent beings are like stars in the darkness, with witches and the like glowing like lanterns, drawing forth the predators that lurk beyond the void. She… she is like a furnace, black iron against inky shadows, right up until you lay a hand upon her and promptly burn the flesh off your bones,” Wanshan explained, clearly uncomfortable with both the crudeness of his metaphors and remaining in Nanoha’s presence.

“What of her magic?” To’Van demanded to know.

“I… I would need to experience more to know for sure, but I barely felt the presence of her spell on the Other Side, and it was more akin to… to… to blood seeping through a dressing than to what normal sorcery is,” Wanshan explained, clearly grasping for some way to explain the experience to those who had no similar frame of reference.

Nanoha let a funny expression pass over her face, and she asked, “You can feel mana degradation?”

“What?” Wanshan asked in confusion, as Nanoha had slipped in a few foreign words to her question.

Nanoha grasped about for the words for a second before she demanded, “Brother, translate for me. Ask him if he could feel the energy of my spell breaking down.”

Vulkan dutifully passed on the message, to which Wanshan looked even more confused before he answered, “Of course, I mean… oh… oh my. It’s still there.”

“Well of course its still there,” Nanoha said, almost like she was talking to a child. Vulkan winced, as he had the feeling he was about to get caught translating for a conversation that would go right over his head. He was not disappointed, as what followed was two hours of discussion where phrases like ‘dark energy’, ‘inertial frame of reference’, ‘five-dimensional space-time tensor matrices’ were freely thrown about by Nanoha and Vulkan had to try and find translations for what she was saying, even though she was clearly struggling to use simpler terminology but failing. Vulkan got the feeling that it was like trying to talk about metallurgy to someone who did not know what fire was or how it worked.

Finally, after a mind boggling conversation that left Vulkan feeling a little cross eyed, Wanshan turned to To’Van and said, “Okay, if I’ve got her right, she has a metaphysical organ called a ‘linker core’ that serves to draw, filter, and store energy from the Other Side in truly absurd quantities, and then she shapes and projects the energy into real space without letting it interact with the Other Side until it returns to where it came from over a period of several minutes to several days, depending on how much was used.”

“The implications of this being?” To’Van asked.

Wanshan jerked a thumb at where he thought Nanoha was, but she had moved since last speaking so his aim was off by several feet, and said, “It means that if I am hearing her right she has more firepower than every witch working for the Order and you are more likely to be possessed by an evil spirit than she is. The only downside is that she has no capacity for mind reading or divination.”

“So basically you’re telling me she can bring down anything we might come across while being totally incorruptible?” To’Van asked with a sparkle of something greedy in his eyes.

“Not totally…” Wanshan began.

“My sister was injured in body and spirit during the Time of Trials,” Vulkan warned.

Wanshan whimpered and asked, “How much?”

“I’m about a third of the strength I was two and a half years ago, and my control is not even a hundredth of what it was,” Nanoha stated, and Wanshan promptly fainted from shock.

To’Van turned to Vulkan and said, “I want your sister.”

Vulkan did not twitch a muscle at that, causing To’Van to rephrase his statement as, “Correction, the Order needs your sister on its side. Far too often has a witch on the run summoned forth dark magic and caused devastation, but with her on our side…”

“Maybe if you did not have such a well earned reputation for being murderous thugs,” Nanoha snapped.

Glancing down at Helbit administering to the still unconscious Wanshan, To’Van replied, “Well from the sound of things not everyone can be as incorruptible as you, little girl. So if our methods are harsh that is only because our task is also a harsh one.”

Nanoha and To’Van then got into a glaring contest that Vulkan already knew the outcome of, seeing as how he had yet to stare down his big sister when she put her foot down. Clearing his throat, he interrupted the quiet battle of wills and said, “If I may suggest an arrangement?”

It was incredibly subtle, but Vulkan was sure that To’Van was grateful for an honourable escape from a fight he had realized he could not win. Switching his gaze, he said, “Do explain.”

“While she is still recovering her strength, my sister’s magical powers are of considerable use in our current campaign against the alien raiders, so I would not particularly want to part with her and I do not believe she would want to part with our forces either, as she is a lynchpin in our training regimes. However, it occurs to me that the esoteric powers the Order can bring to bear would greatly benefit our campaign while the popular support by army is building by driving off the raiders would greatly benefit getting those with unnatural power to join our side before corruption of the soul sets in,” Vulkan explained.

“You suggest an alliance,” To’Van summarized.

“Yes. The Order sends a detachment of its witches and their handlers and we shall gather up the uninitiated, with my sister serving as both sweet-root and stick. She will be the incorruptible wielder of magical power to look up to, admire, and emulate while also being the ultimate way to come down on those who abuse their gifts or are not strong enough to wield them properly,” Vulkan stated.

“I… I will have to speak with the Masters of the Order, but such an arrangement, or one like it, could be of immense value to our mission,” To’Van said, a musing look on his face.

“Well, my tent is too small for everyone, but do stay the rest of the night within the camp to stay safe from the storm and think about our meeting. Tomorrow we move again, moving south-west along this canyon. If we do this right, the raiders may lose track of us for a day or two,” Vulkan said, moving to his collection of maps and scouting reports to show that he had much work to catch up on after the long conversation.

“Yes… yes we have much to think on. Come you two, we will find a place to rest for the night,” To’Van stated, throwing his scarf back over his face while gesturing for his companions to move with him out of the tent.

Sitting back down, Vulkan was about to get back to his work when he saw Nanoha hesitating at the divider for her part of the tent. She clutched at the ruby sphere she always had with her, the cracks now almost completely vanished from its surface. Turning to Vulkan, she said, “Brother… brother tomorrow I think I will live up to my promise.”

“Which one?” Vulkan inquired gently, seeing that this moment was important to her.

“Tomorrow I will fly again,” Nanoha stated with a smile.

[darthdavid]

[LadyTevar]

Take me with you