Elsewhere...
Teana groaned as she tried to pick herself off of the ground. Looking around, she noticed that none of the others were better off than she was, in fact, Caro and Fried were out cold, Erio was just climbing out of a lake, Subaru had her butt literally stuck into a tree and was trying to get out, while she was just lucky enough to be covered in dirt and flowers. Looking at their opponent, Teana had the strangest sensation that she barely even tried against them.
"Have to admit, Yuuno, your standards are slipping," Riksfalto turned to look at Yuuno, irritation lacing her voice, "I mean it, these four would have been dead in two seconds back when we first met. Even that man who married Lina Inverse put up a better fight than they did!"
"YOU!" Riksfalto suddenly grinned as she turned and caught a punch in the jaw, sending her spiraling across the field through mid-air and into the parking lot, smashing into a random parked car.
Suzuka growled and cracked her knuckles while Arisa, who was behind her, sweat-dropped heavily. "Suzuka, do you like breaking cars or something? Because every time you hit her, a car tends to get broken. This isn't Street Fighter after all."
There was a laughter in the air as Riksfalto reappeared on the training ground, though it looked like her jaw was out of place. Putting a hand on it, she adjusted it back into position. "Now THAT is what I was looking for!" She pulled her sword out and grinned at Suzuka, who glared at her. "Come on! Let's have some FUN!"
The next thing that Suzuka and Riksfalto knew, they were chained up and forced to their knees. "Not right now, you two." Yuuno said as he and Vita walked forward. He canceled the binds on the two of them to let them up. "If you to tear into each other, those four won't have learned anything."
"Besides how outclassed we are?" Teana said as she finally was able to get to her feet. Chancing a glance at Subaru, the cyborg had managed to pull herself out of the tree and was rubbing her butt while making her way over to Caro and Fried, while Erio did the same. "Look at you four, she beat us so easily and yet you, Yuuno, were able to pin her down like it was nothing. Even when Subaru punched her, nothing happened, yet Suzuka could hit her to the parking lot. This was all just a matter of making fun of us, wasn't it?"
"Tea..." Subaru said softly as she watched what had to be a massive car accident happening in front of her.
"No! I'm saying it now!" Teana yelled as she looked at her instructors, Arisa, Suzuka and Riksfalto. "What's the point of taking us on, other than to humiliate us at every chance you can? Why do you need to prove that you're so superior to us all the time?!"
Vita growled and was about to step in and say something but Yuuno waved her down.
"I get it, you could totally kick our butts if you wanted to, our training is just because of some sort of agreement." Teana closed her eyes, tears leaking out of them as she continued to speak, "you guys are so much more powerful than any of us could be it's just stupid and..."
"Alright, I'm tired of this." Riksfalto walked up to Teana and punched the girl so hard that she flew back several feet before sliding onto the ground. "You're a complete moron, aren't you?"
"Riksfalto!" Yuuno yelled at her and got in front of the Mazoku General. "That's enough."
Riksfalto snorted and took off her glasses to glare at him. "You're honestly okay with her yelling at you like that?" Yuuno shook his head and she growled. "Then why let her?!"
"Because I can see where she's coming from!" He yelled back, much to her surprise, not to mention Teana, Subaru, Erio and Caro. "Ten years ago, I found a little girl who had a ton of magical potential, she quickly learned everything I had to teach her and went on to develop her own spells. Her mother was so powerful that she could destroy a city-sized object with ease and was able to teach both myself and her daughter spells that we never thought possible. One day, I looked at them in practice and asked myself why I was there, I felt like I was completely worthless and weak compared to them." Yuuno turned away from her and walked over to Teana, who was still on her back, stunned. "Which is why, Teana, I'm not mad at you for being frustrated." He held his hand out to her, smiling. "Teaching you, yes, is part of a political deal to be here." Helping her to her feet, he looked at Subaru, Erio and Caro, the latter having only woken up to hear his last bit. "The reason we're training you is to be able to fight against beings like Riksfalto."
"But every time we attacked her, it was like our spells failed to go off!" Subaru yelled and glared at Riksfalto, who turned and smirked at her.
"Magic cancellation, kiddy. If you can't handle it, you can always fight against a bunch of weak thugs." Riksfalto moved her neck back and forth. "Well then, I'll see you around." She grinned and put her sunglasses back on before disappearing completely.
"Hard to imagine that she's actually not very good at it." Vita muttered as she looked at the others. "Come inside, we need to have a meeting."
The kids all looked at each other in confusion.
A little later, in the large conference room...
Vita nodded to Hayate as she, Reinforce, Quint, Ginga and Zest had joined them. "Thanks for joining us. They met Riksfalto."
Hayate narrowed her eyes at that name. "I am NOT having that woman as our gym coach." Reinforce just laughed at her. "She's pure evil! She worked us to the bone day in and day out, just so that we would all be upset, and tossed out things that annoyed all of us! Arrgh!"
"I'm sure she is, after all, she did bring those paintball guns to school that one day and made it so that the paintballs exploded..." Reinforce smiled as she remembered Vita and Hayate coming home covered in red, green, blue, brown and white colors. It was actually quite hilarious and she still had the pictures of that event. Not to mention that Lina had sent her pictures of Fate, Nanoha and Yuuno in all sorts of paint as well. After all, one had to make sure that embarrassing moments were shared among parents. "Anyway, I think we're here for something else?"
"Yeah." Vita nodded and closed her eyes. "The Garoth Incident."
Subaru looked around as all the adults got rather silent at that. "Um... What's wrong?"
"Ten years ago," Reinforce began, "Hayate and Nanoha were kidnapped by a powerful Mazoku known as Death Bringer Garoth." A holo screen appeared on the table facing everyone as a man with shoulder length black hair in a tuxedo appeared on the screen, holding what looked to be a much younger, unconscious Nanoha in his arms. He had a Priestess as his servant," a woman with blue hair with dark tips and purple eyes grinned at the screen, she was in a standard Bureau outfit. What shocked everyone at the table was when her hair and eyes changed color.
"Fate-san?!" Erio gasped and looked at the woman. "But..."
"She's not Fate-chan..." Hayate closed her eyes for a moment before opening them, sadness on her face. "She was Fate-chan's sister, Alicia Testarossa. Shortly after Garoth and Alicia kidnapped Nanoha-chan and myself, he took over the Ground Forces Headquarters and tried to use Nanoha-chan, or her mother to destroy a black crystal pillar. You may have noticed the thing in the city."
Subaru blinked and looked at her mother, who had a grim look on her face. "...But, I thought it was an ancient monument that no one knew what it was for?"
"Cover story," Quint sighed heavily. "When this... Garoth person took over the Ground Forces Headquarters, he managed to keep all of the Bureau from doing anything, it wasn't until Miss Lina, Hayate's family, Fate and Yuuno showed up that we were able to do anything." Quint frowned and blinked. "...There was someone else there, but I don't remember who exactly..."
"Chrono," Yuuno smirked and couldn't wait to let Chrono know that people had forgotten him already, "but, yeah, we went up against someone who made Riksfalto look like a wet paper rag. The only reason we survived is because he didn't want to kill us, not yet, he wanted us for something else. None of us outside of Reinforce, Hayate, Lina or Nanoha had a chance to even hurt him." The children stared in shock as Lina, in the image, created a black blade that cut the Mazoku Lord in half, only to see him reform completely fine a few moments later. "Even that was no guarantee."
"Chrono got a crazy plan to use some Lost Logia, known as the Jewel Seeds," Vita continued as the images on the screen changed to Chrono, Yuuno, Shamal and Zafira standing close to the pillar but far away from Garoth as he toyed with Lina, "to break the dimensional fabric and seal Garoth into the space between dimensions."
"But that's completely against everything that the Bureau wants!" Teana stood up, protesting. "We don't want stuff like that to happen."
"We know," Yuuno said as the screen revealed what Chrono had done. "We didn't have a choice in the matter at all."
Those who had never seen what went on paled as they saw Garoth get sucked into a black and gold pit of nothingness. Even Zest felt the urge to shiver as Garoth was sent into the hole before Chrono, Yuuno and Shamal sealed the hole away.
"We weren't created to deal with normal threats," Vita looked at Teana, "we were gathered to deal with threats that the rest of the Bureau would get crushed against. And beings like Riksfalto are what we're teaching you to fight against."
"But, they're gone, right?" Teana chuckled nervously and Hayate shook her head.
"Even if those two are gone, there are other Mazoku Lords out there. One of which introduced himself to Admiral Lindy Harloawn a few years ago." Hayate bit her lip lightly. "Even if he does not become a threat, there may be others out there that could become a threat."
"We're trying to help you so that you can fight against such beings and have a hope to live," Yuuno looked at the four younger recruits, all of which were looking rather overwhelmed by this information, "against beings like Riksfalto, you might get lucky with a well-timed blast, but against beings like Garoth... You'll need a team," he looked at Arisa and Suzuka, before looking at Quint, Zest, Reinforce and then Hayate, "as for this, well..." He looked at Hayate, who smiled at them.
"I dunno if Yuuno was going to let you have today off or not, but I figure that letting everyone have a day off to go have some fun isn't a bad idea."
Subaru looked at Hayate, and then at Yuuno, before looking at Vita, who just rubbed the back of her head and grumbled softly. "You, you mean it?"
"Eh, you guys haven't done too bad, besides, doing nothing but training is hard on the body, so, take some time off and relax." She grinned at them savagely. "Today and tomorrow, but when your days off are over, don't expect me to take it easy on you."
Seeing Vita cackle to herself caused Teana to gulp nervously.
Oh well, they had a day and a half off. Maybe that would be enough to help her relax completely?
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See other episodes by Philip Weigel
(Posted Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:22)
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