Touch The Earth

First Sentence from a book - this one my sister pulled up on my iPhone when she was being nosey...

Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. From: The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura.

Let me mention that this book does not fit my criteria of being a book I own that is FICTION! My sister is so sneaky. That said it is not the first non-fiction I have gotten a first sentence from while writing each chapter of this story, so for that reason, I accepted the challenge.

{MGLN~MGLN~MGLN}

Chapter 17: Decent

The Present:

Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. Possibly there was no one being who more appreciated this fact then Dr. Jail Scaglietti, mad scientist, mass murder, terrorist, alien invader, PHD. Even he found it ironic that for someone bent on destroying all life throughout the inter-dimensional multi-verse, he could still find pleasure in simple things. For him it was good manners, (even when you are in the midst of stabbing your enemy in the eye you should still smile politely and thank them for succumbing to your torture) and tea.

It still amazed him, (as he looked at his reflection in the monitoring screen where he could watch his latest victim mechanically follow his commands entering a series of complicated course headings and trajectories into the control panel of the time machine), that such a backwater planet could create such a wonderful delicacy to delight his palette.

Jail had made sure that early on his colony of alien parasites took over the humans who were the finest tea growers, brewers and servers he could find in his current location - Japan. It didn't exactly advance his agenda of world domination - but he felt he could afford a small luxury. He smiled fondly as a geisha-clone performed the tea ceremony for him in a special alcove he had created in his command center just for this purpose. Watching her movements as she handled the tea he thought for just a moment that it was a shame to lose this when the end finally came, but then his smile turned into a sneer and a cold chuckle escaped his lips, he turned back to the screen and watched his victim, Nanoha move the world one step closer to destruction. He felt a stirring in his body that he recognized. Tea may be a delight, but the end of the universe was pure bliss.

At the same time... in another part of the underground installation

"They're making their way through the ice," Arf had her ear pressed to the door that leads to the hallway, listening for enemy movement.

"Fine," said Chrono as he turned to the darkened window making up almost the entire rear wall of the room; his face an eery blue from the faint glow of the monitors in the room, the only light source. "Let's see if we can turn on some lights and see what is on the other side of this glass."

"Bardiche, can you give us a hand?" Fate asked her device.

Bardiche began to glow casting a light across the room they had sought safety in. Now that they could see each other more clearly, each took in the others' state of torn and bloodied clothes, the field bandages and haggard faces. Their reprieve from battle had been too short, but that could not be helped. Time was running out on them.

"Here I think I found something," Arf spoke as she pushed on a lever.

A faint illumination began to appear on the other side of the window at the same time that monitors began to power on around them. Fate walked up to the edge of the glass to peer into the depth of a cavernous space. She could see that the area was at least several stories deep, and how far back it stretched she had no way to tell. Catwalks crisscrossed the area leading in and out of the space and to a central column that by squinting her eyes she could just make out the faint reddish glow coming from it in short pulses. Pipes, wires, conduits and tubing ran in every direction creating a maze as far as she could see, connecting the central column to pods distributed in stacked rows by the hundreds. For all she could tell, the rows of pods could be limitless and reaching into the thousands.

A shocked look of surprise covered Chrono's face when he turned from his position near the hallway door to look out the window.

"What the hell?... Those are," his voice caught as his throat tightened, "they're status chambers!"

Chrono and Arf looked at each other, unsure what this meant. All of their intelligence on their enemy had never revealed such a thing. What could a parasitic symbiant need with status chambers? Is this what Lanster tried to get out to them when he made that fateful phone call to the wrong number? What does any of this have to do with The A.I. device Bardiche that they retrieved from locker N6203 at the train station.

A loud bang from the hallway caught all of their attention.

"It won't be long now before they get in. We need to find a way out of here fast!" Arf bites out her words.

Looking around quickly Fate notices a vent in the wall just left of the hall door. She points it out to the others.

"Is that air vent accessible?"

"Let me check it out," Chrono moved quickly over, pulling a nearby table under the vent for him to stand on. The vent was just large enough to fit each of them one at a time.

"Durandal - flash freeze." He commanded as he pointed his device at the grate covering the vent. The device fired freezing the metal to a degree where it became brittle enough for Chrono to slam his gloved fist into it causing it to shatter.

He turned to the others to beckon them over, "OK, lets move people-"

A thundering explosion flung the hallway door into the room, and as the debris settled the horde of alien combatants swarmed in piling up on top of Arf who had been nearest the entrance and knocked down in the explosion.

Chrono swung his device around and once again fired a wall of ice to seal the doorway in order to prevent any more aliens from entering. He knew it would not hold them back for long. They had to quickly overcome the ones who now faced them and escape, or it would be all over for them. He turned to give Fate an order to help clear the lot on top of Arf when his eyes opened wide in shock. Fate was no longer in the room. Where she had once been standing was the crumpled remains of the blown in hallway door, the glass window beyond shattered and a female figure, grenade launcher in hand, bathed in an iridescent blue light, stood staring down into the vast chamber beyond. Before he could register fully what was happening, the figure leapt out the window and was gone. Chrono took one more moment to try to reconcile what he had just seen - he recognized the figure as wearing an armored suit similar to the deadly cyborgs he and Arf had fought the other day in the alley. He thought he had spied the roman number X on the woman's uniform.

"How... ?"

"Ugh - grrrrrr..." Chrono quickly turned back to help Arf in her struggle using his device to slice off individuals, taking them down quickly till she was able to slug her way back onto her feet.

As they finished off the last of the enemy Chrono called for Arf to join him quickly over at the vent so they could make their escape. Once again he laid down ice against the opening to the hall to stall the remaining fighters from getting into the room with them.

Arf looked around, confusion on her face.

"Wait, Chrono... where's Fate?"

"She's gone. The blast must have knocked her through the broken window."

"We have to go after her. She might be hurt!" Arf turned to head for the window.

"Arf! We will find Fate, but we must first make our escape and focus on our objective. We will use this vent to help hide our whereabouts. If we can get the enemy to lose our trail, we will be able to move through the facility more quickly."

While Arf was reluctant because it was in her nature to fight straight on, she knew she had to follow Chrono's orders which did make sense. She quickly joined him and climbed into the vent first shimmying away from the room. Chrono followed, using Durandal to make a fake ice grate to go over the opening, hiding their escape route. He turned to shimmy away after Arf, with a prayer for Fate's safe keeping in his heart. 'Hold on Fate - we will find you.'

At the same time... in the same room of the underground installation

Fate's ears were ringing from the sound of the explosion and the room was filled with smoke. She only had a fraction of a second to act - but her instinct was on overdrive.

"Bardiche, shield!" A transparent yellow wall appeared in front of her just as a large metal slab, that had once been a door, slammed into it. Its force was enough to knock her back into the glass window. She heard the glass groan and begin to crack but the door lost it's forward momentum against her shield and fell to the floor. She let out a small sigh, as she took one step away from the window, happy that somehow it had managed to hold.

The blond began to drop her shield as she readied herself to attack when out of the clearing smoke stepped a short haired brunette with empty eyes and sporting the biggest fucking gun Fate had ever seen up close and pointed directly at her. The weapon fired at point blank range. Fate barely had time to bring Bardiche up across her torso, desperately trying to maintain the shield that had not quite terminated when she was hit.

The blast was powerful, stronger then the door slamming into her moments before. And this time it hurt like hell. Bardiche's shield barely held but it was just enough to prevent the projectile from piercing her body, but the shield couldn't stand up to the force of the hit, and she felt her back once again impacting on the window behind her.

Hard.

This time the cracking noise behind her didn't stop. She felt the glass splinter and give way, a few shards scraping and cutting her back and shoulders. Fate tried to grab on to the sill, to anything, to prevent her from tumbling out, but there was nothing to grab. She was falling straight into the abyss.

Fate windmilled her arms and legs about as she fell backwards into the dimly lit space. Anxiety gripped her face. Goosebumps covered her skin, and her breath misted in puffs from sudden cold. She thought she might fall forever till she met a jarring impact, knocking the wind out of her. She had fallen about twelve meters before landing on a narrow catwalk on her back. The sound of glass crunching beneath her, increasing the bloody injuries already on her back and arms. Somehow she hangs on tight to Bardiche as she finds herself bouncing up and over the edge. She tumbles down another twenty feet, snagging a few cables that slow her decent before she hits the next catwalk, rolling off the side, but at the last moment she manages to grab a railing leaving her dangling form the walk with the black pit below her.

The catwalk vibrated from a loud thud. She could feel the impact of approaching footsteps on the catwalk. Fate looks up to see the girl with the X on her clothing towering over her. Without warning, she stomped viscously on Fate's hand that is holding onto the railing, causing her to loose her grip.

"Ahhhhhhhhh -" Fate moans as she falls again, her arms flailing about.

As Fate tumbles into what seems a bottomless pit she closes her eyes in panic, 'Someone please help me!' she shouts out desperately in her mind.

A yellow glow surrounds her and Bardiche activates. Fate feels the power surging through her device and opens her eyes in shock. She is hovering.

"What the fuck!" The blonde's voice has a quiver to it, part fear, part awe. "I - I'm flying? Bardiche, is this one of your powers?"

"Sir, yes sir" the device answers, his yellow glow intensifying.

"Why didn't you tell me about this before?" Her voice terse.

"You didn't ask, sir." The device is matter of fact, if nothing else.

Fate moans at his answer and was about to say something else to him when she heard a shot ring out. "Round shield!" she commanded Bardiche.

A yellow glow encompassed the hovering blonde just as a missile careened into it's surface. The shield held easily but Fate's lack of flying skill caused her to be flung back tumbling through space until she hit a hard solid surface about twenty five meters below her previous position and out of view of the sniper.

"Ugh" Fate struggled to catch her breath that had been knocked out of her. She placed her hands upon the smooth surface that her face was pressed against. and pushed up off of it. As her burgundy eyes came into focus she saw that the surface was transparent, and as she wiped her hand across the surface to wipe at the frost on it's surface a face came into view, one she knew.

"What the hell?" Fate knew she should be worried about her attacker, but her eyes were transfixed upon the woman in the... capsule? Her thoughts rushed through her mind as she tried to understand and make sense of what was right in front of her.

'I know her... she's the waitress that spilled coffee on me at the cafe where Nanoha works. Why is she here? Is she alive or dead?

Fate turns her head to look beyond the capsule to the wide space she she was in - as far as she could see there were capsules just like this one.

'Are all these capsules filled with people?' Fate felt a horror welling up and she placed her hand over her mouth to keep from puking her guts out.

A metallic noise rung out catching Fate's attention. She quickly looked up in time to see her attacker had approached closer along the upper catwalk and was now swinging herself down to the catwalk below for a better angle to snipe at Fate from. She was a sitting duck with her lack of flying skills if she didn't get her head back into the game fast.

"Bardiche, how do I control my movement in your flying mode?"

"SIr, for now just look in the direction you wish to go and simply say a command such as forward, up, fast, slow, stop and I will propel you in that direction."

Fate looked at the large central chamber that seemed to be the hub of the network of capsules that filled the vast space she was in.

"Bardiche, to the central chamber fast! Find me an entrance."

"Sir, yes sir!"

Bardiche took off so fast, Fate's head snapped back and her arms whirled around before she pulled them in close to her sides and tucked her chin down to her chest. Behind Fate an explosion occurred and the status chamber with the waitress inside was a smoldering wreck, destroyed by a missile.

Bardiche takes her quickly down deep into the large space as they zoom around the central chamber looking for a way in. Finally finding one he slows to enter dropping Fate down upon her feet just inside the entrance. His yellow glow dissipates and he goes back to his regular mode.

"Thank you Bardiche" Fate hugs her device, feeling somewhat foolish, but so very grateful. Bardiche pulses a yellow glow once to acknowledge her. Safe for now from the sniper, Fate looks around the area they have landed in. Machinery was humming, fluids and gases moved along pipes or vented out. There were a lot of signal lights on various panels that dimly lit the space. Ahead she could see a spiral staircase leading up. She headed over to it and discovered there was an opening to another staircase leading down. With a killer after her from above, Fate quickly decided to descend.

At the Precise Moment Fate-chan Landed in the Central Chamber Structure...

A red blinking light accompanied by a quiet warning buzzer, went off on the left hand panel next to the monitor Scaglietti had been watching.

"Hmmmm?" He put down his cup of Earl Gray and reached over to flip down a toggle switch and the sound ended although the single warning light continued to blink. He pressed another button and up came a GPS location. Spinning around in his chair he looked at a bank of monitors till he finally located the right one. Watching it for a moment, a wide mouthy grin made its way across his face.

"Well, well well. Isn't this a nice turn of affairs." He swiveled back to his original viewing monitor where he watched Nanoha Takamachi input her final round of equations into the panel in front of her.

"Oh goody! I can't wait to see what happens next, hehehehe, he laughed. The Doctor picked up his cup of tea and took a sip - only to spit it out.

His tea had gone cold.

_A/N: I really did try to get Nanoha and Fate-chan back together in this chapter, but I just could not figure a way to shorten the scene so I could keep within the 3000 word range and get Fate all the way there. But, I think you can easily figure out that it will happen finally! next chapter. Hope nothing goes wrong for them.

There are some awkward sentences I think in this chapter but I am posting with no real editing to get it up. If you can note any mistakes i promise to fix them. I am always excited to get reviews - so if any of you are still reading this story, I would love to get your opinions. Thanks again! SS.