Retrograde Motion [closed]

[herblessedwind]

Deep in the ship, a winged shape moved. 'Reinforce' she was called by the rest of the ship, but she no longer knew that name as anything but an anomalous detail of her incomplete recollections of her time on the ship, too inconsequential - or too confusing - to dwell on. She was of the time, not very long ago at all, before she had been given that

Comments

[starlight_ace]

Nanoha's nerves had already been on edge from everything - Fate was acting differently, and Rein had been acting terrifyingly like her old self over the journals. But it was when the pulse of light passed over - no, through - the temple and set the world off-color, making her teeth tingle the way a Barrier spell always did...

...well, the aerial mage knew that something bad had happened. She tapped the jeweled pendant she wore around her neck. "Raising Heart, set up."

In a flash of magenta, she was clad in her Barrier Jacket, the familiar staff in her hand - and she wasted no time exiting her office, flying out of the Temple into the city. If something had happened to Rein, then she needed space to maneuver... just in case.

Nanoha floated in midair, eyes closed, trying to sense that immense magical power that there was no way to misidentify.

[herblessedwind]

It was still a long ways off... but that was no guarantee of safety. There was a spike of magic and a golden glare as far across the cityscape, the Tome spoke a single word.

"Draupnir"

A great yellow lance of magic stabbed out, too slow to hit at this long a range, but when it had closed within a kilometer or so of Nanoha it split into a septet of lesser beams... and then those split, and their progeny as well, showering the mage with a storm of golden bolts.

[starlight_ace]

--there. Nanoha caught the surge of magic a moment before that golden light pierced the horizon, and she was pretty sure she recognized that spell - in Hayate's repertoire, if not Reinforce's. It split, forming an impenetrable barrage of magic; Nanoha knew she couldn't just take the blow with a shield.

So she wouldn't let it hit her.

She dropped out of the sky in freefall, then letting her magic catch her and jet her towards Rein, twisting and weaving through golden rain, and detonating little spheres of her own magic in midair if any got too close. It was exhilarating in a way, dodging aerially like this - a part of her had missed it.

The last time they'd fought, Reinforce had been almost unbeatable. But Nanoha was far more than the little girl she'd been then.

Rein--! The telepathic voice echoed through the City. I don't know why you've become like this, but do you think this is what Hayate wants?

Whatever Hayate wanted, however, it wouldn't stop her from returning fire. "Axel Shooter." A barrage of magenta orbs sparked into

[herblessedwind]

You deceived her. Do not think to trick your way out of your punishment as well. More than her voice the telepathy itself carried the dark fury that had taken her, surging with an angrily-buzzing excess of energy. No one knows better what she wants than I. I have nothing else to consider.

Nanoha's bolts were familiar to her, only a variation on a magic she'd absorbed from her, and they spattered harmlessly of the the trigrammic shield that sprang into existence before her.

"Divine Buster." Intoned the Tome, and Rein threw an enlarged version of one of Nanoha's own spells back at her in a great rushing column of pink.