The Scramble [Complete]

[Nanoha Takamachi]

It was painfully obvious that there were limitations to Raising Heart's current Axel Mode. There was, for one thing, a complete lack of cartridge system, and the ACS system's rocket booster hadn't formed over the end of the handle. The interference with regular operating parameters was greater than expected, and Nanoha was now very concerned that her friend was limited to just bare-bones Axel Mode. Perhaps this 'Omnillium' could be used to re-activate the missing functions? It certainly had proved useful as an energy source just now, allowing Raising Heart to full activate Axel Mode without draining any of Nanoha's own mana to do so.

Unknown substance optimised, Axel Mode restored to regular activation capabilities. Substance data stored under 'Omnillium'.

"That'll do nicely, Raising Heart, please continue to run background diagnostics and identify all inaccessible systems."

Understood, master. Background diagnostic initiated.

Until they would have an opportunity to run a full system scan and do some further testing with the Omnillium, this would have to suffice. For now, Nanoha turned her attention back to her fellows. Her transformation seemed to have drawn attention from some, and very little from others. The wild-looking, green skinned, female, the steel-blue eyed blond woman and the two women with darker hair and troubling appearances had continued to talk amongst themselves. As Nanoha looked past them, she watched the giant man with dark skin approach and introduce himself as Ganondorf. After a few more moments, the green creature strode off towards one of the set of figures watching them in the distance.

Having heard very little of the exchange, Nanoha decided to focus on what she could work with here. To her right, away from the gaggle of chatting women, was a boyish looking humanoid. Boyish was a stretch, though, since he appeared to be wearing some sort of metal clothing and helmet, with a large pair of black glasses flush over his eyes. Nanoha hated not being able to see people's eyes, it was often such a ruined opportunity to catch glimpses of their individual beauty through the murky depths hidden within them. They could be quite beautiful, too.

He heart caught in her throat a little at that, thinking of a pair of eyes she most likely wouldn't be seeing tonight as planned. Fate was still back home with Vivio, and the three of them had planned to celebrate Nanoha's return from this training expedition with a dinner down by the coast. The chances of that still happening were getting slimmer every minute she was stuck in this desolate place, and the thought renewed her determination. She would find this Lost Logia, and seal it, and then get the hell out of here and back home. For that, she needed information, Raising Heart at full power, and some allies.

She approached the metal boy, drinking in the subtle red hues of his armour. Or skin. It seemed odd to make a cyborg in the form of something so young and have such a simple design, but the proportions all seemed wrong for it to be a suit of some sort. Only one way to find out, really. Either way, he seemed deep in thought, and she bent down to draw his attention. Since he probably wasn't very old, Nanoha felt comfortable approaching him like this. She was, after all, very used to interacting with children.

"What are you thinking?"

He turned and looked up towards her, face unmoving, and seemed to give her a good look over. She inquired at him again after a few moments, in case he was still too distracted by his inner thoughts to respond. His respond indicated that he, too, had been focused on the activities of the women just a handful of paces away. She introduced herself, of course, and he followed suit. Proto Man, an unusual name, but as he continued it became apparent it was a designated title, rather than his actual name.

"Blues, you say? That's a nice name. I do like that colour." She smiled gentle, and gestured at the blue patterns across her Barrier Jacket. It was true, she did love the colour. "But you say your original name was... DLN Zero? Are you, perhaps, a combat cyborg?"

Blues' face twitched again, like he was trying to form some sort of facial expression with a visage that was mostly just rigid steel. His voice seemed exasperated as he responded, "No. I'm an android; entirely robotic. Nothing even remotely biologically human in here."

A robot with a soul, like a cyborg! Unheard of, as far as Nanoha could remember. While she had met plenty of artificial humans or cybernetic bio-robots in her life, she had never met a pure robot with anything close to a fully realised artificial intelligence like this. Raising Heart, while fully sentient and self-thinking, lacked a more human sort of individuality. Not that it seemed to bother the device at all.

"Well, that's fine. I've met plenty of artificial beings before, so don't worry about shocking me or anything like that. You are, in some ways, much like my daughter Vivio. It's very nice to meet you, Blues, would you like to see if we can get some of the others and actually do more than just stand around here talking? I'm only good at the whole standing-and-talking thing when I'm addressing my recruits, and this place really wouldn't work as a training ground."

Blues made a vague shrug, at least this was a woman of action rather than just someone else trying to rely on him. He pointed at the other figure in the group with a similar appearance to him. "That one seemed awful interested in you just earlier, maybe we can ask her?"

Following the android's gesture, Nanoha strode with purpose towards the tall, yellow and red robot-like figure. The person in question appeared to be testing some sort of equipment- a grapple of some kind- it had likely just created using Omnillium. Nanoha was glad it wasn't only her that was aware of the substance's capabilities. Closing the distance between them, it wasn't difficult to see it was likely another woman. Indeed, by the time Nanoha was close enough to greet her properly she could see the woman's eyes through her helmet's visor. Pretty ones, in fact, and it confirmed Nanoha's first thoughts that this one was most certainly some kind of powered suit. She waited for a moment, as the one who called himself Ganondorf seemed just as interested in the grapple system as the boy with the blond curls of hair beneath a very cute little green cap next to the lady in the suit.

'Hello there! I am Nanoha Takamachi, Major in the Time/Space Administration Bureau, and this is..."

She turned to make sure Blues had followed her, as he introduced himself; "Proto Man."

"Blues." Nanoha corrected. It really was a much nicer name. "Anyway, may I ask who you two are?"

The boy in green gave a very short reply, "Link."

The suited woman seemed on guard, but replied with a noticeable amount of relief in her voice, and was at least more verbose. "Samus Aran. It's nice to meet a fellow solider here. Is your bureau part of the federation? I've never heard of it."

Nanoha flashed her best military smile. She was proud of that one; it avoided being too girly and was genuine as her more cheerful smiles. "It's nice to meet you, Samus. I'm not sure which federation you speak of, as the TSAB is an independent authority. I am starting to believe that we have all been brought him from places very far from each other."

No sooner had she finished speaking, a loud cry was heard from behind her. Samus' face had turned sharply to look at whoever had cried out but a fraction of a second before it was heard.

“I AM THE GREATEST LANTERN!”

Turning quickly, Nanoha saw a naked red-skinned male on the ground, clearly in some measure of distress. On impulse, she went to approach, but felt a tap on her leg before she went to move. Looking back, she saw that Blues had held out a hand to stop her. He shook his head, and pointed at something back in the direction of the newcomer.

"I want to see what he does."

All this sudden turning was going to give her neck pain, and Fate wasn't around to give it a rub. What a bother. Nanoha watched as Ganondorf approached the naked man and threw his cloak over him. The red-skinned man seemed displeased, but after a short while he seemed to have calmed down and accepted a set of clothes from Ganondorf. Nanoha wasn't exactly bothered by the man's nakedness; she'd seen plenty of naked males before and honestly found them rather uninteresting.

Background diagnostic complete. List of online systems transferring...

"Oh! Raising Heart, don't startle me like that." It seemed Nanoha wasn't the only one to jump a tiny bit at the sudden voice emitting from her staff; Blues and Link both stared at the device with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Samus, on the other hand, seemed fascinated.

"Is that an AI?" She inquired, pointing at Raising Heart's core.

"Indeed she is. Please, excuse my manners, I never introduced you. This is Raising Heart, my Intelligent Device, friend and companion."

Nanoha had forgotten she had left Raising Heart activated, being so used to her barrier jacket and the familiar weight in her left hand. With a brief wave of her hand, she dispelled the barrier jacket and set Raising Heart to return to Standby Mode. Her protective gear vanished, leaving her TSAB uniform in view again, and Raising Heart shrunk back down to her usual small gem while sprouting her flyer fin wings. She closed the display that Raising Heart had opened, the list could wait til later.

I am pleased to meet you, Samus, Blues, Link. I hope we can be friends. Please take care of my master, it would be unfortunate if any incidents were to occur.

Raising Heart always had a peculiar brand of humour, "Don't worry about her, she's just being silly. We're not running at full power right now, so she's making up for it with this foolery."

Nanoha sighed a little. Time was marching on, and they were still here. Too many distractions, as much as the pleasantries were nice enough. She looked off into the distance and noted that the small group of figures were still there, watching.

"I have a proposal for you three. I don't know where we are, or what is going on, but I am certain I know the device that is the root cause of all of it. But finding it wont be easy, and sealing it even harder. The first step, though, is to getting away from this... Fountain thing". She gestured at the every-changing structure nearby. "And getting some more information. I'm sure we're all aware we're being watched, so I propose we go and have a talk to these people and see what they have to say. Strength in numbers, even if we don't really know who each other are."

The other three seemed hesitant for a moment, but Nanoha continued, "Look, we're all in the same boat here, even if I don't know you all, and none of you know me, we can at least trust that we all want to find out what is going on, and to try and get back home. A common goal can at least keep us together for a while, right?"

She smiled again, hoping that her gamble wouldn't backfire. She'd really hate to have to make friends in the other, more messy, way.