Dance in Space

[Nanya]

Not ready to fully kick-start this arc yet. I thought I'd write a prologue at least.

Dance in Space

Prologue

Yawning as she woke up, Xenovia rolled over, the covers sliding off of her nude body as she ended up, face first, on Irina's chest. "Morning." She smiled at her nude friend, who blinked and smiled at Xenovia. The blue-haired woman leaned in and kissed Irina on the lips.

It wasn't a long kiss and Irina returned the kiss before the two broke off and sat up, stretching and enjoying the sensations of stretching. "So today's the day we're heading to the other side of the universe?" Irina asked and Xenovia nodded as the two got out of the large bed. "We're the last ones awake?"

"The two of us were riding our husband last night until four this morning." Xenovia grinned at Irina, who blushed. "Come on, let's get ready. We're leaving to head to that other planet today." Irina nodded and the two went to the baths to get cleaned up.

After getting to the baths, they were greeted by Akeno, who was relaxing in the large bath. "Hello." The raven-haired beauty smiled as she rubbed her swollen stomach. "Have fun last night?" She giggled as Irina blushed while she and Xenovia cleaned themselves off. "But," her giggling tapered off as she looked at them. "You two are heading off to that world, Mid-childa... Or is it Crannigan, today, right?" They both nodded as they finished cleaning up and got into the bath as Akeno slid over to them, hugging both of them. "I'll miss both of you."

"We'll miss you too." Xenovia told her co-wife and friend as she hugged Akeno. "It's too bad that we won't be here for your birth."

"It's alright." Akeno said softly as she closed her eyes and enjoyed the hug while Irina and Xenovia felt her belly, all three women smiled as they felt Akeno's baby kicking around inside of her. After a moment, they released the hug and Akeno smiled softly, a seemingly warm glow covering her body. "Though I love the feeling of having Issei's baby in me, I can't wait to pop this one out so that I don't feel like a beach ball."

"Preaching to the choir!" Xenovia said, remembering her own pregnancy. "I need to see Zen before we leave today."

"I know it's only going to be for a few months, but it's such a bummer that we have to leave for so long." Irina said softly as she smiled at Akeno. "I'm going to miss all of you."

Akeno laughed and poked Irina in the forehead. "Oh please, you'll be so busy helping those mages deal with those Super Devils that you won't have time to miss us." Irina stuck her tongue out at Akeno. "Don't worry, I'll make sure to record lots of videos and send them to you every night so you can at least see Kurenai every day."

"Already picked out your child's name?" Xenovia asked and Akeno nodded.

"I want to be surprised if I have a boy or a girl, but Kurenai works for both boys and girls." Akeno rubbed her belly. "Don't hate your name." She giggled as she felt her child give her a really strong kick. "Ah, you kicked my bladder again." She blushed and got out of the tub while Xenovia gave her an understanding smile.

Irina smiled as Akeno walked off to the toilet and let out a rueful sigh. "I'm so happy for all of you, I hope to feel the same love that you felt with Xen growing in you." She smiled at Xenovia.

Xenovia lightly punched Irina in the arm. "What are you talking about? You know that we all love you."

Irina smiled and hugged Xenovia, their naked and wet bodies pressing against each other. "I love you too."

After Akeno came back to the bath, the three young women relaxed for a few more minutes before getting out of the baths to get breakfast.

(---)

"Xen!" Xenovia, now dressed in jeans and a black shirt, smiled as she took her son from Asia, who was wearing a skirt and white shirt. "Who's a good boy?" She cooed at her son and tickled his belly, who smiled and laughed at mis mother while swinging his chubby arms and legs around.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Asia asked and Xenovia nodded.

"Yes, Xen's been weaned so there's no reason to worry about him missing his favorite pair of boobs." Xenovia laughed. "Then again, even if he hadn't been weaned yet, there's another pair for him." She gave Akeno, who was wearing maternity clothing, a leer.

Akeno scoffed and gave Xenovia a mock glare. "My milk bar is for my kid! Not yours!"

Asia tapped her chin in thought. "But, Kurenai's not here yet, right?"

"It's the principle of the matter." Akeno huffed as Ikusu, dressed in shorts and a tank top, ran into the dining room with all the energy of a three year old. "Morning!"

"MORNING!" Ikusu yelled loudly, grinning as he still didn't understand the concept of an indoor voice yet. "Daddy! Mommy!"

"Coming!" Rias said as she and Issei walked into the dining room. Rias was dressed in a red shirt and jeans while Issei was wearing a tank-top and jeans. "Where's Irina?"

"Right here!" The Angel said as she walked into the room, wearing a light blue sweater and skirt. "Sorry, I was packing the last of the things I needed."

The Hyuudou family settled down and ate in relative peace.

Relative, because Xen and Ikusu sure weren't quiet and Xen, like most toddlers, liked to slap his hands on his dining tray and make a mess.

It was just another day in paradise for the Hyuudou clan.

End Prologue

 

[Nanya]

Chapter 1

It was the middle of the morning on Mid-Childa. The sun was shining, people were getting out of bed and getting ready for school and work.

In a military building known as Riot Force 6, things were a bit more tense than usual.

Sitting in the cafeteria of the Riot Force, Teana Lanster, a sixteen year old teenage girl with red-orange hair done up in twin pigtails, with blue eyes, and a short, but decently curvy body, had a contemplative look on her face. She was sitting at the table in cargo pants and a white shirt as she poked at her breakfast while the hum of the cafeteria's breakfast crowd died out in her mind.

Next to her, Subaru Nakajima, a girl wearing similar clothes to Teana, with short, blue hair and green eyes and a more toned body than Teana, due to being more physically active, smiled at her friend. "Tea... Are you still upset?"

Teana sighed softly and nodded. "Yeah. I know that we won't succeed in every mission, but it still hurts." Failing the mission wasn't the big problem for her.

It was the fact that it was the first mission since joining Riot Force 6 is what really hurt Teana.

‘What am I doing here? If I had been better…’

Her mind traveled back a few days when the group had their first mission.

*Flash*

Standing on top of the moving train, Teana looked around as Erio, a young boy with red hair and blue eyes, finished off the last of the robots that were attacking. This particular robot was a large, fat robot. ‘They were called Gadget Drones, right?’ She mentally shook her head and looked back as she heard explosions in the distance and saw how easily both Nanoha and Fate were wiping out hundreds of gadget drones before she turned back to look at her teammates. “Alright, let's get the Lost Logia and wrap this mission up!”

“Right!” Erio, Subaru and Caro, a young girl with pink hair and blue eyes nodded.

Caro had to grab her hat as a gust of wind almost blew it off of her head. She giggled and stuck her tongue out, causing the other three to smile as they felt tension leaving their bodies at that moment. The four jumped into the hole of the train and found the object they were supposed to secure, a briefcase-like object that was open, showing a red quartz-like crystal floating inside.

“Good, we have the object.” Teana said.

“You have what object?” A voice that sounded similar to Nanoha's voice spoke up and she turned, only to see a large, red wave of energy rush at her, splashing over her and sending her, Subaru, Caro and Erio crashing through the train walls and into the next car.

Grimacing in pain as the attack ended, Teana, who was laying on top of Caro, slowly pushed herself to a sitting position. “Wh-what just…” She opened her eyes and gasped at what she saw.

Three girls that had to the same age as Caro were standing around the box. All three were wearing body suits that covered them from head to toe with the one with short, dark brown hair, holding the red crystal in her hands. She looked at the other two and then looked at Teana with cool eyes. "My name is Stern," she said with a small bow.

"I am Dearche! You shall call me Lord Dearche though!" The gray haired girl who looked something like Hayate, just shorter, said proudly, "remember it! Hohohohoho!"

For some reason, Teana felt like cringing and she didn't know why.

"I'm Levi!" The girl with blue hair and dark blue tips said with a grin. What was unsettling was how much she sounded like Fate Testarossa. "We're all Super Devils! And unlike most!" A motorcycle appeared beside her as she got on it. "I have a motorcycle! Hahahahaha!" Dearche jumped on behind her while Stern bowed again and got on behind Dearche while Levi revved the engine before taking off through the air.

"...What does a motorcycle have to do with anything?" Teana asked as she got off of Caro. After shaking the cobwebs out of her head, she immediately went to ensure that Caro, Subaru and Erio were all okay and she sighed in relief as they were mostly okay, just looking a bit extra crispy.

Teana could only look at the empty case in dismay, knowing that she had failed her first mission.

*End flashback*

Teana privately wondered why no one at HQ had warned them about such powerful mages being there. 'Surely they could have detected what was going on and warned us.'

(---)

Teana wasn't the only one who was thinking that as Nanoha Takamachi, one of the captains of Riot Force 6, looked at the tech guys shook his head. "No good?"

"It's not that." The technician shook his head and looked up from his computer screen at Nanoha. "I can't say for sure, but this doesn't look like a case of our systems randomly crashing. All indications show that this was sabotage." The look on his face was similar to the one on Nanoha's face. "I can't tell if it internal or external, it'll take some more time to figure out where this attack came from, but we'll get to the bottom of it, I hope."

Nanoha nodded and excused herself as she left to go meet with the commander of Riot Force 6.

(---)

Hayate Yagami sat behind her desk as Nanoha walked in. In the room with Hayate was Fate Testarossa, Signum, Vita, Reinforce Zwei and Zafira. As much as she wanted Shamal there too, she knew the blonde was busy with other duties on shift at that moment. "What was the prognosis?"

"It's as we suspected." Nanoha reported to her. "It seems like there was sabotage." There was a mix of grimacing and nodding in agreement among the others. Nanoha smoothed out her uniform. "As of right now, there's no confirmation on whether or not someone from inside or outside our organization did the attack."

"That's troubling." Signum muttered as she cupped her chin in thought. "This means that we can't trust anyone."

"There's nothing concrete just yet." Fate pointed out. "It may not even be anyone here specifically. And even if there was someone from here who did it, they may not have done it intentionally. There's lots of people who work on the day to day stuff here. Back on Earth, one way scammers and hackers could get access to company and government files was to leave flash drives out in the open and hope someone was careless enough to pick it up and plug it into a computer to see what was on it."

"True, that is a thing." Hayate said with a nod. "Let's avoid casting suspicion until we know for sure it was an inside job. Even though it's probably the most likely. To make things move smoother, I'll make sure that all data gets sent back to me immediately."

The others nodded, with the attack coming right as Nanoha, Fate and the Forwards were on that mission to secure the Lost Logia on the train, it certainly seemed like it had to be an inside job.

"At least Cross Mirage and Mach Calibur got good data on the attackers." Vita said as a screen turned on to show Stern, Levi and Dearche. "They look so much like you three. Just..."

"Off, I know." Nanoha said with a nod. Mentally she smiled as she looked at the three of them. While they were off-color compared to her, Fate and Hayate, they were too similar to what the three of them looked like as kids that she felt a little nostalgic for that simpler time. "The bigger issue is what that girl, Levi, called herself and the other two."

"Which is why I already asked for some help." Hayate smiled as the screen shut off. "While I couldn't get big brother to spare anyone, his best friend, Hyuudou Issei was able to send a couple of people here." A new screen popped up, showing the faces of Irina and Xenovia. "I don't doubt anyone's ability to fight them, even if they have power that's greater than mine, but I don't want us to have to worry about being sniped from behind while we're focusing on other duties."

"Do you think they can handle it?" Zafira asked and Hayate nodded.

"They have more experience with dealing with Devils and other non-humans than we do. Plus they worked for the Catholic Church when they were human and have been a team for a long time." The others nodded as the screens changed to show the Relic in the hands of Stern and then another screen showing the Gadget Drones. "Fate, you think that this was the work of Jail?"

"Has to be." Fate said while rubbing her left arm. "He's a person who's neck deep in illegal cloning and research."

"He's not the only one though." Hayate pointed out but sighed as Fate obviously wouldn't budge on how she felt. "I don't disagree with you, but I want you to realize there are others out there doing this kind of stuff as well."

Fate nodded, but didn't argue one way or the other.

"I wonder where those three are." Signum muttered as she thought about the three clones of Nanoha, Fate and Hayate.

It was a question that the others all wondered as well

(---)

Meanwhile...

Standing in a clearing, Levi was laughing as she dismissed her motorcycle. "Hahahahahaha! That was too easy!" She grinned and ran over to Stern, hugging the short-haired girl. "You're so smart! Hiding out on that train when it left and waiting for someone else to open the container!"

"It's just a matter of simplicity." Stern told her as she gently pushed Levi away. "Watch and wait for others to do the work for you, you then take them out and take what you want."

Dearche crossed her arms and smirked. "Indeed, it was a great plan." She held up a single finger while looking through one open eye. "As a result, I have decided to allow you to make all our plans."

"...Thanks?" Stern said with confusion in her voice. "I might as well, since none of us really know anything about each other or why that man wanted this." She held up the relic with her left hand. "I don't have any memories before I woke up in that tube."

"Hmm, I have the same issue." Dearche muttered with closing her eyes. "Yet for some reason, I feel like I've always known you two."

"Well, I remember something!" Levi said as she hopped on her left foot while holding her right foot up in the air and spinning around in place. "Every time I think about it, my left arm hurts. So maybe we were all in an accident and got badly hurt!"

Both Stern and Dearche looked at her before looking at each other and nodding. It was as good an explanation as they had at that moment. "Well, regardless," Dearche looked at Stern. "We need to make plans."

"Who likes waffles?!" Levi suddenly yelled as she fell on her butt and both Dearche and Stern jerked in surprise. "Do you like pancakes! French toast!"

"...What the hell is your malfunction?" Dearche asked and Levi just laughed while rubbing the back of her head. "...Though I am rather hungry, I admit."

"I don't know." Levi admitted as she looked at Dearche in confusion. "I was thinking I wanted yummy food and those foods popped into my head."

"Hmm, perhaps we should go get food." Stern said and looked at the other two and then at herself before tugging on her outfit. "I would like to get new clothes."

"Yes, these clothes are far too tight." Dearche said with a grimace. "I mean, it might cover everything, but I can see your butts on full display!"

"So is yours." Stern pointed out and Dearche slapped her hands over her butt while blushing. "But I agree, I would like to have different clothes, plus underwear."

"It feels like I'm wearing nothing at all! Nothing at all! Nothing at all!" Levi cheered while wiggling her hips from side to side with her arms in the air.

"...Your mother must have dropped you on your head as a baby." Dearche said while Levi laughed at her. "Whatever, I'm also kind of smelly. We should find some water to take a bath in." She blinked as Stern pointed behind her. Turning, Dearche saw a nearby river. "...Are you kidding me?"

"Yay! Outdoor baths!" Levi cheered as she started to pull at her outfit and frowned in confusion. "How do I take this off?"

Stern looked Levi up and down and walked around her before finding how. "There's a button on the back of your neck." She pushed it and there was a slurping sound as the outfit was sucked into a choker around Levi's neck. "Oh, I see." Stern reached behind her and found the button and pressed it, leaving her just as naked as Levi, while Dearche did the same. "Okay, let's go clean up."

"Right!" The other two girls said with a nod as they went to the river to do just that.

After rinsing the sweat and grime off of their bodies, Stern used a low-level heat spell to dry them all off before pushing the button on the back of the choker again, which caused the outfit she was wearing before to reappear over her body. "Well, time for new clothes and food. Just... One problem."

"I have no money!" Levi had a look of shock on her face. "Oh no! What should we do? Rob a bank?"

"Hmm..." Dearche tapped her left arm. "It might not be a bad idea."

"No, it would." Stern shook her head. "Those four that we saw on the train, they were weak. Others might not be so weak." She cupped her chin and started walking in circles as she thought about it. "Money machine maybe?"

Dearche shrugged, it wasn't like she had a better idea.

"Or!" Levi grinned, her teeth seemingly sharp as she had an idea pop into her head. "We take the food and blow them up!"

"That would be bad." Stern said. "We wouldn't get food from them again."

"Oh!" Levi had a look of awe on her face as she hadn't even thought of that. "Good point!"

"Find a money machine and steal from it then." Dearche said with a nod. "Then we buy food and clothes, right?" Stern nodded and the three walked off, heading to the city.

End Chapter 1

 

[Nanya]

I REALLY apologize for how long this took, my muse was NOT cooperating with me!

Chapter 2

Standing in the training field, Nanoha smiled as she looked at her four students. It was nearly noon and all four were standing and panting and covered in dirt and grime. "Excellent morning training everyone." Privately, she was impressed. While none of them had shown anything special for their ranks, all four were progressing far faster than she had anticipated. 'At this rate, they might all be at least AA rank when we're done.' She wouldn't be surprised if Teana or Subaru, or even both, managed to get to AAA rank mages when she was done with them. "Let's go get cleaned up and get lunch."

The four younger mages nodded and staggered towards the showers.

As Nanoha walked behind them, she tilted her head as a thought came to her. "I have a question for all of you." Erio, Caro, Subaru and Teana paused as they turned to look at Nanoha. "I want you to realize that you won't be training with me forever, nor will you be part of the Riot Force forever. So, while you don't need to have an answer right away for me, I have to ask, what is it that you want to do when you graduate from my training?"

"Nanoha-san?" Subaru asked, confusion in her voice while Nanoha just smiled at her.

"Well, I think it's important to have a goal. Even if you don't know what you want right now, having a goal and a means to work for it is important." She said with a nod. "But, more importantly," a curious look came to Nanoha, "even if you know what you want to do, do you know why you want to do it?" Seeing the confused looks on the four younger mages, Nanoha fought the urge to giggle. It wouldn't do for them to think she was teasing them. She saved that for her best friends after all. "It's important, I think, to be true to yourself. If you know why you're doing something, then you can have no problem forging your own path." Her smile slowly slid off her face as memories of Arisa, laying on the street, broken and bloodied, came to her mind. "Just remember why you're doing something. It's far too easy to lose sight of yourself or get taken advantage of by unsavory people if you don't know why you're doing something." Nanoha gave them a gentle smile as they nodded. "I just don't want you four, or any of my students, to lose themselves and get taken advantage of. But if you don't have an answer right now, that's fine. Just keep it in mind when you leave here."

The four younger mages all nodded and the five walked into the barracks to get changed and cleaned up before going to lunch.

It wouldn't do to be sweaty and smelly after all.

(---)

It was nearly twenty minutes later that the forwards, as Erio, Caro, Subaru and Teana were called, were sitting at a round table at lunch and eating a relatively light lunch.

Relatively, because Subaru was eating more than the other three put together, though Erio wasn't too far behind while Teana and Caro both sweat-dropped at their more normal-sized meals. On the ground, the small, white dragon of Caro's was eating his meal, occasionally letting out a chirp of happiness as he shifted on his two feet.

Not that either of them said anything, since they both had started to eat a lot as well since joining the Riot Force.

Privately, Teana was a little concerned, she was burning through a ton of calories with the training, but it felt like her butt and boobs were getting slightly bigger since joining. Her eyes widened as a horrible thought came to her. 'Oh no, what if I keep eating like this when I'm done with training?' She wanted to be an Enforcer when she got done with the training here and knew that a lot of that was paperwork and sitting behind a desk. She blinked as she realized there was a bit of a hush that came over the cafeteria. "What's going on?" She stared as both Caro and Subaru, who were sitting on the other side of the table, stared in surprise. "...What?"

"Tea, I have a question..." Subaru began. "Do you have an older sister?"

Teana had a bewildered look on her face. "Older sister? No. I don't have any living family, why?" Her only sibling had been her older brother after all.

Subaru just held up her right hand and quietly pointed behind Teana. Turning, Teana wondered just what was going on. Next to her, Caro did the same thing, only to openly gawk in shock.

Not that Teana could blame Caro as she, too, could only stare in shock and surprise as she saw someone who looked almost exactly like her, just with longer hair. What was even more shocking was that there was a woman next to her that looked almost exactly like Subaru, other than an obviously green stripe in her hair. "What the heck? That woman looks like you, Subaru!" She managed to keep herself from yelling too loudly, but she couldn't hide her surprise.

"...They have huge boobs." It wasn't a shock that Subaru would comment on it.

What was the real shock was that Caro said the same thing.

Erio just blushed and tried not to look anywhere inappropriate.

Meanwhile, the two look-a-likes were smiling as they looked at each other.

"Oh my gosh! Xenovia! That girl over there looks just like you!" Irina gushed telepathically while Xenovia fought the urge to laugh.

"Maybe when I was fourteen. That other girl looks like you, Irina, though her eyes aren't the same color as yours are."

"They're so cute! I want to take them home with me to show Issei and the others!" Irina put her hands on her cheeks as she blushed and squealed in delight mentally.

"Oh, remember that information we looked over on the way here?"

Irina's eyes widened in surprise and she nodded. "Oh right! They're the trainees. Look, that boy with the red hair and the girl with the pink hair. We should introduce ourselves."

"Agreed, but remember, let's use our maiden names when we introduce ourselves. Most people don't understand the idea of harems without getting offended." Xenovia said telepathically with a nod and both she and Irina made their way over to where Erio, Caro, Subaru and Teana were sitting. "Hello." She smiled as she got closer and when Teana stood up, Xenovia was a little surprised that the girl was at least a head shorter than she was.

"Ah," Subaru found herself blushing and Irina couldn't blame her. Subaru's look-a-like was not only tall and beautiful, she seemingly had an aura that just oozed sensuality. "H-hello."

Xenovia smiled at her. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Xenovia Quarta and this is Irina Shidou." Irina smiled and waggled her fingers as she gave a small wave.

"Oh!" Teana said as she stood up. "I apologize. My name is Teana Lanster."

"Subaru Nakajima." Subaru said as she followed up.

"E-Erio Mondial." Erio managed to swallow his nervousness.

"Caro ru Lushe." The pink haired girl smiled at Xenovia and Irina. "And this is my Dragon, Fried."

"Ku ku!"

"Oh wow!" Irina had a look of surprise on her face. "I've never seen such a small Dragon before. At least one that looks like a Dragon." She corrected while Xenovia sweat-dropped. "The only Dragons I know look like humans." For all intents and purposes, Vali and Issei were both Dragons and Ophis and Lillie liked to live as young girls, though neither of them liked to wear clothes, even after all this time.

Though at least they kept their nudist tendencies to either the Hyuudou estate or the Aensland Castle in Makai these days.

Caro's eyes sparkled as she heard that. "Dragons can look like people?" She looked at Fried, who gave her a confused chirp. "Turn into a person! Then I can dress you in all sorts of fun clothes!"

"The first thing she wants to do is turn a Dragon into a dress-up doll?" Teana asked, sweat-dropping heavily at the thought of Fried as a human being forced to try on different clothes.

Fried let out a small chirp and flew over to Erio and rested on his head. "Kurrr! Kurr!"

Caro pouted while Irina and Subaru laughed at the situation.

It was that moment that saw Vita come upon the group. "Oi!" She caught their attention. "I don't mean to be rude, but... I'm sorry, I forgot your names." She gestured at Xenovia and Irina. "I think I saw you two at that baseball game that Hayate was in not long ago."

"Oh right!" Irina gasped in surprise. "You were miss Hayate's bodyguard, right?" Vita nodded at her, glad she could remember. "My name's Shidou Irina."

"Xenovia Quarta."

"I'm Vita." The redhead responded in kind. "Shall we go meet Hayate?" She looked at Teana, Subaru, Erio and Caro. "Also, Teana, can you and the other rookies follow your big sister?"

"Hey!" Teana called out before blushing. "I, uh, sorry." She hadn't meant to yell at her superior officer like that, it had just come up out of nowhere.

Vita held up a hand. "I apologize, but I couldn't help myself with that joke, you two look too much alike." She turned and paused. "You best get used to it, you too, Subaru."

"Oh, it's fine," Subaru grinned as an idea came to her, "we could play a prank on Gin-nee when I see her next."

"Your sister?" Teana asked and Subaru nodded and Teana sighed and shook her head. "I don't think I want to know what you have planned."

Subaru just grinned like a smug cat while giggling as the group followed Vita to Hayate's office.

(---)

Sitting behind her desk, Hayate smiled as Vita led the four rookies and two consultants into her office. "Welcome everyone. I'm sorry for dragging you away from lunch, but I thought you'd want to sit in on this meeting." She pulled out a remote and pressed a button, causing the lights to dim as a screen appeared in front of her. "It was an hour ago that we got a report of these three."

Teana gasped as she saw them. "Those are the three that attacked us on the train." She instantly identified the three small clones of Nanoha, Fate and Hayate.

Hayate gave her a nod. "Yes, apparently they smashed a few ATMs in town, took all the money inside and then went to a clothing store."

The screen changed showing them going in and grabbing clothes of all sorts and running to the changing rooms.

"For privacy reasons, there's no cameras in those rooms." Hayate said as though it was the most normal thing in the world. Eventually the girls came out, dressed in their normal clothes with a bunch of different clothes and they went to the counter to pay.

"They had no problem smashing ATMs to get money but they paid the store with that same stolen money?" Nanoha asked, incredulously.

"Indeed," Signum nodded as the girls went back to the changing rooms and changed into different clothes. The Nanoha clone came out dressed in a loose summer dress with a light jacket over the top, sandals that wrapped up around her ankle a bit and a barrette on her head with sunglasses on her face.

The Fate clone was wearing shorts, sneakers and a tank top. Signum raised an eyebrow. While Fate was a rough and tumble girl when she was that age, she was a lot more feminine than her clone appeared to be. 'I wonder if these girls aren't clones but rather random coincidences.'

There was the possibility that these girls were clones that were created to be the opposite of Nanoha, Fate and Hayate as well.

Finally the Hayate clone came out, wearing slip-on shoes, jeans along with a white fitted blouse with a dark vest while wearing a necklace around her neck.

The scene cut away and showed the girls on the street with bags in their arms before they stopped at an outdoor diner and ate like they were starving, ravenous dogs, before leaving without a single scrap of food left on the table.

What was the most shocking was that none of them had any food spill onto their clothes.

"Did they even taste what they were eating?" Irina asked, staring in surprise. "So, I guess those are the three we're supposed to track down and deal with?" Hayate nodded, glad she didn't have to explain further.

"The question is, do you want them dead, alive or do you not care?" Xenovia asked, getting a sharp look from everyone. "What? It wouldn't be the first time we were asked to hunt down and kill a target."

Fate shook her head. "No, while that would be easier, we'd rather you capture them and bring them in."

Irina smiled while Xenovia let out a small breath of relief. "That's good, I don't like killing people just because it's easier."

Subaru looked confused as she looked around, which was caught by Nanoha, who smiled. "Did you have a question, Subaru?"

"Um, I don't understand." She poked her fingers together as the others all looked at her. "I know that those three hurt us when they dropped in on us, but..."

"Oh!" Hayate realized what was going on. "Did you really think we'd make you try to stand against three girls that look like myself, Captain Takamachi or Enforcer Harlaown?" Subaru blushed as she realized what that sounded like. "No, I decided to hire some outside consultants to deal with them so that we could focus on dealing with the current mission and not have to worry about an outside force attacking us when we aren't paying attention."

Teana was massively relieved. She really didn't want to go against girls that were likely capable of destroying the city or more with relative ease. Heck, if those girls were even close to the stories that Subaru liked to tell her about what Nanoha was capable of, well, Teana would likely be meeting her brother sooner rather than later in that instance.

Part of her did feel insulted by the fact that they were using outside trouble shooters to deal with something that should have been dealt with by the Bureau.

“I do have one question.” Signum looked at Xenovia, “I have never seen you fight, I don't feel comfortable sending someone in to deal with a problem if they are just going to die.”

“That's fair, would you care for a demonstration or perhaps you would like to spar?”

Nanoha tapped her chin at Xenovia's question. “Perhaps a demonstration would be best? We can use the training fields.”

Xenovia and Irina nodded.

(---)

At the training grounds…

“It's weird not being over there.” Erio muttered as he, Caro, Fried, Teana and Subaru all looked at the artificial cityscape from the observation deck.

“Yes, but it's a good thing to get to know different magic styles and fighting, even if you aren't the ones fighting.” Fate said with a smile. “Oh, it's beginning.”

The group watched as Irina and Xenovia ran through the obstacle course with ease. The two had changed into a black body suit that hugged their bodies tightly, though it didn't seem to restrict movement.

Fate tilted her head as she compared what she was seeing to her Sonic Form. ‘About the same amount of material as Shin Sonic Form.’ She hoped that those outfits could at least take a hit or two.

Teana was less concerned about what her doppelganger was wearing and more focused on how fast Irina and Xenovia were moving. “So fast.” The two didn't waste movements, even though Xenoiva had a large sword, she moved with a fluid grace that was mesmerizing to watch.

(---)

‘That's all the dummies we're supposed to destroy.’ Irina mentally said to Xenovia.

Xenovia nodded and smirked as she saw a large, rolling ball heading their way. “I'm almost insulted.”

Irina rolled her eyes and fired off a light arrow. While she didn't put any real power into it, she was startled as it fizzled out against a barrier. “Oh my, anti-magic barriers?”

Xenovia chuckled as she swung Ex-Durandall. “Well then…” She rushed forward, hopping from side to side as laser blasts were fired at her. When she got close, she thrust her sword forward, piercing the round ball and pulled her weapon to the side, slicing it in half as it fell down, broken.

(---)

“That was too easy.” Nanoha said and typed in some keys. A screen popped up next to her. “Is it alright if I increase the difficulty?” She asked as Irina and Xenovia appeared on screen.

“Nah, go ahead.” Xenovia waved her off and Nanoha just chuckled with a grin.

“Those are…” Fate began as she saw new drones appear on the viewing screen.

“Those flying models that attacked us on the train.” Nanoha said with a nod.

Hayate, who had come out to watch, narrowed her eyes slightly. “Maybe I should try against this too?” She giggled at the looks she got. “It never hurts to practice to keep your skills sharp, right?”

(---)

Irina shot a few weak arrows and found that these Drones would either dodge or have those barriers up to dispel the arrows. “Well, I guess I should stop messing around, huh?” Holding up her right hand, she snapped her fingers as more than a dozen, bus sized arrows formed in the air and she then snapped her fingers again as they launched themselves forward.

(---)

"That won't hit anything." Vita couldn't help but comment. "Are we sure.." She trailed off as each arrow suddenly split into hundreds of smaller ones that lanced out, slamming into the drones. Unlike the ones she fired before, these weren't slowed down in the slightest as they slammed into the drones from all angles, destroying all the flying ones. "...I'm impressed." Sure, she had seen Nanoha do something similar with her Axel Shooter before, but never turning her Divine Buster into an Axel Shooter.

"Raising Heart, did you record that?" Nanoha asked.

"Yes, my master."

Nanoha just smiled and nodded. Even if she couldn't copy the attack directly, something similar to this with her Divine Buster could be very useful in the future. 'Maybe if I work hard enough, I could use this with my Blaster mode?'

It was a good thing that Nanoha wasn't prone to laughing or even giggling diabolically, because if she was, the others would have ran away. Even if she kept her somewhat-sadistic nature in check most of the time, it still leaked out from time to time.

(---)

Xenovia looked around as the drones fell out of the sky. "Think that's..." She paused as more than two dozen large, round drones appeared in front of her. "Well..." She grinned as she swung Ex-Durandall to the side before holding it straight up. "I don't mind if I do. I hope they don't mind the collateral damage."

"Just hold back enough that you don't blow everything up." Irina pointed out. "You wiped out fifteen islands back in Hell with this move."

"They were uninhabited and I wanted to see how strong I had gotten." Xenovia said with a shrug as power built up around her while the air itself started to get charged up. "Granted, that was before I got pregnant with Xan, so, let's see how my power compares now to then."

The air seemingly started to crackle with power as sparks formed around the sword.

Xenovia had a wild grin on her face as the power exploded upwards before she swung down hard, sending a golden wave of destructive energy out that destroyed the drones, the training area, the water around the training area and left a gorge of destruction that carved up the grounds of Riot Force 6. "Phew! That felt good!"

Seeing the red, molten and super heated rock, Irina sweat-dropped heavily. "I hope this isn't coming out of your pay." She smiled as Xenovia look a second look at the destruction and her eyes went white and blank out of shock. "We should apologize."

"Y-yes." Xenovia said with a nod.

(---)

"Well, I say that should satisfy any worries." Hayate said with a smile.

Teana could only gawk and stare in complete disbelief. 'Monsters, they're monsters!' She knew that there were really powerful magic users out there, but she had never seen such power before.

Nanoha was rather impressed and while she did check the scans to confirm what she felt in her heart, she knew without looking.

Both Irina and Xenovia were at least upper S rank.

End Chapter 2