Harry’s world was inundated by
white, but darkness claimed his sight soon after. His senses were overwhelmed and he knew the cause. The thing that looked like and thought she was a simple little girl.
“
My instrumentalist,” she boomed, “will not by threatened by anyone!”
Afterwards, when Harry opened his eyes again, his vision was blurred. A blonde woman was standing over him, saying something he only heard as muffled cries. As his vision cleared, he thought he recognized her.
“Murphy?” he groaned.
“No,” The woman answered, the first clear word Harry heard, possibly due to the overabundance of cheer in it, “Right now I’m a nurse.”
Harry’s vision cleared and he did not recognize the woman who he saw now was far taller than Murphy as she helped him to his feet.
Harry felt a leather duster and a staff in his hand. He distinctly remembered coming to the event in a tux, but didn’t feel like arguing with his brain. He needed to know what was going on.
“What happened?” He said, “Where’s Murphy?”
By then the sounds of roars, explosions and guns began to register with him. They were oddly muffled, like listening to them through a pillow. He remembered the world going white and then an explosion. This snapped Harry to his senses, but he still didn’t know what happened.
“I’m over here, Harry” a more familiar voice greeted him.
Harry leaned up in the bed he found himself in to get a better look at the surroundings—and to see where Murphy was. He lay on a cot inside a large tent that, from appearances, was made of several thousand sheets of ordinary paper. He could feel powerful energies flowing through it, keeping it solid and rigid against his weight.
That’s when he realized the Murphy was in more combat-oriented clothing—casual but functional, and armed with a P-90 and other weapons.
“Glad to see you pulled through,” Murphy smiled, “Can you stand?”
Harry nodded as he moved his feet.
“Murphy?” Harry asked, “When did we change?”
“Gift from the TSAB,” she answered, “Remember the forms we filled out?”
Harry did remember--and thought it was very weird at the time. It asked about their standard combat gear to be supplied to them upon the event of a confrontation at the meeting. Harry mentioned his blasting rod, staff and duster.
Seems they could only do so much. They at least gave him something-similar to his duster. The rest of his new ensemble was extremely casual by the standards of the party not minutes before: a T-shirt and jeans.
“Unlike me,” The strange woman interrupted; as her attire changed from a stereotypical (and almost fetishistically short) Nurses’ outfit into a leather motorcycle racer’s attire—complete with helmet, “You can’t change your clothes on a whim.”
Ignoring the frivolous use of powers, Murphy continued, “It sort of makes up for being left behind.”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“Building was hit pretty hard,” She continued, “Most of the VIPs--”
“And our biggest guns,” The strange woman added.
“--have been evacuated to before they cut off our transportation and pinned us down. You took a hit early on and had to be rushed to the back,” Murphy continued.
“Raven hasn’t woken up since they shut down the transportation,” The strange woman said, motioning to Raven’s still form lying in the cot next to his. Rose, now in the combat armor Harry had grown accustomed to seeing—a scale-like armor bits composed most of the dark blue ensemble, a large rifle and a sword strapped to her back.
Behind her was the mage responsible for the armored paper tent. She sat in a paper-chair and was plainly-dressed with pale skin and thick glasses. It consumed the entirety of her concentration.
Nearer to harry, the strange woman’s attire again partly dissolved and shifted in a flash of pink to a red halter top with a heart shaped opening near the center and tight black pants that might as well have been painted on. On her arms were long white gloves and matching long boots.
Harry blinked twice before she added, “Also, I helped fix you all up!”
Harry decided it was best not to argue about that as she cheerily continued, “So we got to fight our way out—isn’t it neat!”
“Just who the hell are you?”
She smirked, “Well, at times I’m a waitress. At other times I’m a battlefield nurse or a Bike Racer. But on assignment, my true identity is: Warrior of Love, Cutie Honey!”
Harry decided, as she said this with a twirl and (physical) sparkle, it was best not to let her elaborate on that fact and turned his attention to his staff—or, rather, the staff he had in hand. It was not his staff. It also helped solidify that he wasn’t wearing his own duster either. He still felt the magic about it, but it was quite different.
The staff was identical to the ones the mage guards had.
“Did she just sparkle?” Murphy said, breaking Harry’s train of thought.
Harry replied: “You saw it too?” and attempted to refocus on the strange staff.
Harry willed some power through it as a test and felt no resistance. The crystal light in the center of the metallic boxy, diamond-like structure at the staff’s top blinked a few times and an electronic voice answered him: “Ready to go.”
Perturbed slightly, Harry nonetheless gave it a mild test. It could channel his power almost as well as his own staff to his surprise. With the firefight all around him, he had bigger things to worry about beyond ‘What the hell is this staff and how did I get a duster on?’
Harry wished he had his proper gear: his own staff, his rings, his revolver; but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“What can I expect to see out there?” Harry asked.
“There’s these black-leather guys with animal motifs,” Murphy answered, “They’re strong, fast and occasionally do weird things at short range, but are otherwise a little melee restricted.”
“They’re Kaijin,” Honey said, “Cyborg foot soldiers. There’s a lot of them.”
“There’s also these big robots,” Murphy said, “All armed to the teeth, but pretty fragile.”
“Sentinels,” Honey named them.
Harry was starting to like the odds. He and computers never really went together.
“There's some zombies—“
“Solamnun Infected--”
“Which have been outfitted with body armor and automatic weapons,” Murphy continued with a small growl, “Some low level black court vampires, flying robot drone things—”
“Gadget Drones.”
“—Are gonna let me talk?”
“Maybe,” Honey smiled coyly.
“So,” Harry chimed in, “What’s the guy’s name on first base?”
A short moment of silence filtered in before he got an answer.
“No, What’s on second,” Murphy supplied.
“I’m asking you who’s on second,” Harry smirked.
“No, Who’s on first,” Murphy continued.
“I dunno—”
“THIRD BASE!” Honey shouted--her arms immediately raised, fists clenched in excitement.
“Would you mind!” the woman holding the tent together hollered, “I’m trying to concentrate here!”
“Sorry,” Honey said, placing her hand in front of her face in an apologetic completely foreign to Harry.
Harry attempted to get the conversation back on track by asking; “So is that everything?”
“So far,” Murphy said, “Though something new may have appeared.”
“No new enemies within scanning range,” the electronic voice of Harry’s lent staff chirped.
Harry waited a moment before saying “It’s supposed to do that, right?”
“Well, Nanoha’s talks quite a bit from what I’ve heard,” Hone answered, “So I guess so.”
Harry wished he had his own staff—and his revolver, and his force rings, and his blasting rod too.
But he could not afford to be picky currently, “Who else is with us?” he asked.
“There’s about a dozen others currently with us,” Murphy answered.
“Okay, that’s something,” Harry began, but Murphy continued.
“And you won’t like it,” Murphy continued, “I think half of them are under 18 or younger.”
Harry frowned a bit at that news.
“It’s not that bad,” Honey smiled, “There was a 14 year old girl here earlier who healed this guy who had a softball sized hole in his torso! It was amazing!”
A scowl crossed Harry’s face, “Healed how?”
“Like it was never even there.”
Healing magic was not something that could be tossed around lightly. Too much energy into cell regenerative processes and a healing could create horrible cancerous growths or even thaumagenetic tumor monsters. It took power and fines, as well as the proper mindset. To have the amount of skill to heal a lethal injury quickly and with no apparent side effects at the age of 14—that would be a prodigy along the lines of the Thousand Master or even the original Merlin if half the stories about him were true (and they probably weren’t, in Harry’s opinion).
“Alright,” Harry said, “Let’s make sure she gets out of this alive,” and began to walk to the entrance of the tent.
“Um, she’s right over here,” Murphy said, pointing behind Rose and Raven to a very familiar slumbering form on a cot: Konoka Konemon. Resting soundly, showing telltale signs of magical overexertion: pale skin being the most obvious.
“Oh,” was all Harry could manage afterward.
“So get out there and help already,” Rose snarled, “I’ve got the interior covered.”
Harry and the others turned to the exit—which formed from the paper walls in front of them. Stepping out into the battlefield, Harry was reminded of old photographs of war-torn Europe from the forties. The buildings immediately in front of him had been hollowed out at worst, or had pot marks from explosives at the very least.
As he exited, he found himself surrounded by those that were left behind. Out in front were some of the people he had been sitting with—Jack O’Neill’s allies. Surrounding them seemed to be and endless horde of oncoming enemies-mostly the Solanum ghouls.
Solanum ghouls were not true ghouls—Harry had fought enough of those to know. Nor were they true zombies—again, from experience.
They were more of the pop cultural understanding of the zombie. Not controlled by magic, but controlled by a bacteria that infested the brain.
These things were everywhere, lumbering towards the crouching survivors, occasionally firing the odd burst of automatic fire. No rhyme or reason to it. They marched closer and closer to get their teeth into new victims—and thus, slowly, make more of their kind.
Firing back at them were a few of the survivors: The blonde woman and the large black man Harry had seen earlier—he did not catch their names unfortunately—were among them. They were wearing military combat uniforms with black, pouch-laden vests over the jumpsuits. The blond woman wielded a P-90 similar to the one Murphy held. The man had a strange staff—darker, clunkier, and without the crystal that Harry’s had. This one spat yellow bolts of—Harry did not know what—which left football sized burn marks in the armored figures’ chests.
They stood behind a row of overturned cars as the hordes swept down upon them. They had apparently been learned of the Solanum Ghoul’s weak point: The head; the only way to guarantee that they were taken down. That or burn them up—they hated fire.
Before he could view the scene further, a woman’s voice echoed in his head: “Get up here, we need fire support.”
“Flight mode activated,” Harry’s staff announced—which was quickly followed by Harry’s protestation of “Wait, what?”
Harry felt the oddest sensation as he rose in the air. It was like he was floating in water, but less thick.
From his elevating position, he gained a far wider view of the battlefield, and got an idea of how things were set up.
In the center was the triage tent he exited, back to the wall of a building that survived the blast fairly well. At the front of the box-like formation were Murphy and the two soldiers, laying down a layer of surprising fire against the oncoming horde.
On the sides were melee fighters—many of which Harry recognized, out in front, pushing the ghouls back.
Specifically, he recognized Cutie Honey, the Hellboy, his blue Elfin companion, Buffy Summers and the girl Konoka was nuzzling back at the party among them—as well as a green-armored figure with a thick helmet adorned with large, segmented eyes and small antennae (making it look like the head of a grasshopper) and a red scarf that Harry had never seen before.
Solanum ghouls were many things. Tenacious, tough—but they were slow as hell. And those engaging them in melee combat were moving at speeds that would put most of the vampires he’d seen to shame.
In the air above the ghouls, raking through their heads with aplomb, were the large lavender Gargoyle and a blonde girl in black with a cape and a skirt far too short for someone that age (about 10) to ever be wearing at all—let alone into battle. She held a black staff which formed a scythe of yellow lighting at its top with a yellow crystal at its center which slashed the heads of the Solanum ghouls at lightning speeds.
Which left Harry in the air with a young woman and a girl: On one side was the infamous Willower Rosenberg, on the other, that little girl Nanoha. Both had changed their attires—Willow to a green dress, Nanoha to a white one—Nanoha also clutched a white and pink staff with a large round ruby-like crystal at its crown. The two of them rained down bolts of magic of a nature Harry had only rarely seen—or never seen at all in Nanoha’s case. She alternated between pink bullets of energy to wide beams, each with their own name that her staff called out.
Willow silently sent down spell after spell at the incoming horrors. Sometimes a bolt of lightning, other times a ball of fire exploded like a grenade upon contact with the ground—scattering ghouls and setting them on fire—and still others just vanished—forced into the never-never or some other outer dimension.
“Think you can incinerate some zombies?” Willow smiled, “I hear you really good at burning things down.
“I burn down one nightclub,” Harry laughingly grumbled.
“Just be careful for Alucard,” Willow added, “He doesn’t like being burned up.”
“Who?”
“Look for the shadowy amorphous shape eating everything in sight,” She said, “Though don’t look to long—and definitely don’t use your sight.”
She shuddered before sending another team of Solanum ghouls into nothingness, “I don’t even want to imagine what he’s like underneath it all.”
Harry nodded—whoever this Alucard was (probably Dracula—or some iteration their off. Word was there were about 12 different Draculas at one point or another) he really did not want to meet him.
Harry pointed his staff and shouted “Fuego!”
A gout of fire launched from the staff’s tip and billowed over another squad of ghouls, incinerating some instantaneously, and sending others scurrying in fear as the flames spread from the blast point.
At the rate the three areal bombardiers were working, the streets would be clear of Solanum ghouls in mere moments.
Was this all that was left? Where were the robots and cyborgs Honey mentioned?
At that point, Harry inwardly cursed. He knew he just jinxed it.
A glint of blue light caught Harry’s eye, one which grew brighter. It quickly shot into the sky and did not seem to end--then it began to fall.
“Protection” his staff barked and he felt power flow through the staff into a protective barrier—which Harry instinctively bolstered.
A pillar of blue light smashed against the shield—as well as the shield of Willow Rosenberg and the shield of Nanoha, sending sparks and jagged bolts out from the contact point. Pink, Green and translucent silver mixed together against the blue pillar.
A fourth party had also interceded between the three mages, one Harry had clashed with repeatedly over the last three week—and she was using her sword to bolster the defense against the pillar of light. Harry never thought the color pink could be made intimidating, but this “woman” managed to do it.
“Signum?” Harry gasped just before the shields began to crack with the sound of brittle eggshell crumbling away.
They soon shattered and the pillar of light barely passed between them as Harry’s brain was filled with a tingly-spiders-crawling-everywhere sensation from the backlash of his shattered will—along with a splash across his face of warm liquid.
The pillar of light hit the ground first; cutting through the barrier the gunmen had been using and shattering the triage tent in a single blow. Sending everything in its path away from their formerly secure position.
Harry crashed to the ground, though the landing was far more comfortable than he was expecting.
He reached a hand to his face to wipe the offending liquid from his face as it started to creep down is face. He stood back up and look at it—confirming his fears.
Blood.
Looking to his left at the women who were next to him, he saw Signum bleeding from a cut on the arm, Willow with a cut over her head which bleed over an eye—forcing it shut.
But in her arms was that little girl in the white dress, Nanoha, splattered with blood and far more pale than she was before. A large gash traced down on her right side, between her neck and the edge of her shoulder, down to just below her elbow.
Her eyes moved frantically--but slowly, the only sign Harry could see that she was still alive—somehow. She was already deep in shock.
He looked to the pillar of light, which he could now see was connected to a mountain of a man in mechanical armor. The pillar itself was directly connected to a sword hilt the man carried.
“There is nothing,” The man boomed as the pillar of light shrank and condensed itself into a blade at least 7 or 8ft in length, “that my blade cannot cut!”