Chapter 16
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Repentant_Dragos
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Chapter Sixteen: Against the Incubators
Disclaimer: I don't own Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Puella Magi Madoka Magica (or its spinoffs, including Magia Record), nor the face of one character from Ensemble Stars (that I am using for my OC). Solomon (yes, that Solomon) is a Historical Domain Character, but this take on him and the other Historical Characters who appear in this story other than Jeanne D'Arc (who has a canon appearance in a PMMM spinoff), is mine. Also, I have not watched Walpurgisnacht Rising yet, so I apologize for any deviations from any new canon it set.
Hirose Ren
Hangar Bay, The Illumina, Earth Orbit
27 Days after Walpurgisnacht
After that was a week of action after action, to the point where even I, who was used to an ungodly speedy pace, felt like I had whiplash.
The TSAB, after several days of surprise and confusion, rallied to terminate or liberate the Sun-Snuffers even from Midchilda itself now that it was known that Snuffers could be freed from the Incubators' technological shackles. Even then, a few of the Snuffers had to die; not every TSAB member shared the Aces' idealistic morality or sympathy for the mind-shackled creatures used as weapons of mass destruction.
Now, the Illumina, accompanied by a small flotilla of ships led by the newly-promoted in wartime Fleet Admiral Chrono Harlown's flagship vessel, was back to the Solar System, ready to make the final move against the Incubators with a herd of the latter's own Sun-Snuffers in tow, released from the torture the Incubators put them through.
Fleet Admiral Chrono's words echoed through the intercom clearly: The remaining Jewel Seeds have been picked up from Midchilda along with a few more Lost Logia that may be of use against the Incubators in their home dimension, which the Time-Space Administration Bureau will attempt to invade to force the Incubators to cease operations or face consequences.
Left unsaid was what consequences can cow Kyubey and his 'collective'. But if there was a way to avoid committing genocide even against… people like them, the Aces would find it. Or Lucas, who should be returning from his trip to return Jail to Gruen Orbital Prison at any time now, with Rika in tow.
Oh, right, I was waiting for those two in The Illumina's hangar bay, pacing the recently-cleaned floor while Kyosuke was taking a call from his parents and Hitomi while Sayaka and Kyoko bragged to each other about how many of the Incubators' Dark Matter constructs each of them had destroyed during the battle for Midchilda just three days ago.
Two magic circles and a flash of light later, Lucas and Rika teleported into the hangar bay, with Rika waving her hand in greeting before saying, "We're back! Blondie insisted on scanning my code for anything that the Doctor guy put in at the last minute, so we ended up being late. Long story short, Little Brother… I'm clean."
Lucas cleared his throat, his gold eyes glinting as he asked matter-of-factly, "The Aces are on Fleet Admiral Harlown's ship? They didn't emotionally hurt you back on Vaizen, right?"
Ouch. Why was he bringing that up now? Was I really too obvious with my fears?
"It was fine," I replied. "There was a close call, but Homura apparently got debriefed first; she probably said to them that I did well and saved her girlfriend Madoka and a lot of people, so I was only told that next time, I am going to get the right tools to do it the right way, meaning no mass healings and rushing to start wars without proper authorization."
Lucas looked relieved; Rika patted his blond head for a second. Honestly, Lucas looked a lot like Mami with his hair and eyes -
A flashback to when I was first warped into Midchilda. Lucas was starry-eyed when I landed, but his eyes were darker than the gold I now remembered.
I looked at my adoptive brother again and decided that my memory must have mistaken his eyes for anything other than amber, yellow, or gold. After all, I just fell out of the sky; I was in shock!
"So," Rika interrupted, patting my hair unprompted with her cybernetic hand, "I and your brother agree on exactly one thing: We should not let the Aces have all the action… Especially as with all due respect, little bro, we can't just make friends with the Incubators after blasting them with a Starlight Breaker or ten."
Oh, right; the TSAB are against genocide, and as someone raised by them for the last four years, I knew that life was valuable… even those damn - I mean danged - weasels' own.
I instinctively looked at Lucas, knowing he had a solution.
"Solomon," Lucas spoke solemnly as his golden eyes glinted in the hangar's light.
Yeah, they were natural gold; I must have mistaken them for something closer to -
"See?" Rika said as she lightly slapped my back, "That Bible Story King can probably pull a solution out of his… pockets. No need to worry, Little Brother."
I couldn't help but notice a sharp glance she directed towards Lucas, the same sort of glance she gave me when she was covering something I said or did back in… those days.
It was probably nothing. I'm glad they're getting along well.
Then we received a transmission; it was time.
In any other circumstance, letting Precia Testarossa have access to most of the Jewel Seeds held by the TSAB was a failure of judgement and a gateway to calamities beyond normal understanding. Same for letting her board the same ship as the Aces and Fleet Admiral Chrono Harlown.
But, as the ship shook, and a holographic screen projected by our Devices showed space and time ripping itself apart to show the Incubators' home dimension, a surreal realm of colors, random shapes, and strings of living mathematical symbols, I realized that this was both necessary… and regrettable.
With only a little more tact and subtlety, if I had just done a little less and been a lot more quiet, I could have made it so that less people died.
"People are dying now because of me," I whispered to myself. "I haven't seen them, but people die in wars and I started one."
Rika and Lucas didn't answer, even as Kyosuke and Sayaka ran up from where they had been talking with Mami and Kyoko.
Sayaka then reminded me about why I and Kyosuke liked her, "It's time - Let's give the Incubators a beatdown they won't forget!"
I smiled. Today was an hour of justice, despite my doubts.
The Illumina flew into the rift, and we were in for the fight of our lives.
Not everyone was Nanoha, Fate or Hayate.
Not everyone was on the level of their students.
Not everyone was like me, either.
And the Incubators knew it when they took advantage of their home terrain, where literal cosmic strings sliced apart the ships at our flanks, scattering the pieces across multiple dimensions and forcing the bulk of our armada to draw closer together and overlap their magical shields even as they pressed on to find the center of the Incubator infrastructure that maintained this dimension and the rest of their technology.
Many were evacuated, but others died, and I felt each new death as I fought beside my team outside the ships, my Barrier Jacket spending overtime to ward off the hostile effects of the foes' dimension.
And the worst part was that the Incubators did not just content themselves with giant cosmic cables; they hurled an army of glowing constructs of hard light that took on the form of girls from a wide array of historical periods.
Jeanne D'Arc, Cleopatra, Queen Himiko and Helen of Troy, all who had been Magical Girls contracted by Kyubey in the past, replicas of them and other tragic women of History all were sent in waves against our ships and the Mages who fought outside.
A long-haired girl who was much like Homura, yet fought with twin daggers and chose an outfit of black leather fought beside the Data-Clone of Jeanne as the latter tore a gash on the hull of the Illumina with a beam from her sword.
This long-haired girl, whom Lucas identified as 'Riz Hawkwood' over comms, was able to keep up with Kyoko and Mami combined, preventing them from helping Homura, whose Shield had blocked Data-Jeanne's Blade as it came down.
As for me, Sayaka, and Kyosuke, we three charged towards Data-Himiko, who was firing shards of glass at us, while perfectly predicting the counterattacks of Kyosuke's Violin Laser Drones and creating large mirror panes that reflected the beams back at us.
"Step aside; let someone who can tell the future fight someone else who can tell the future…" Oriko Mikuni interrupted haughtily, breaking her absence of several weeks as she teleported right behind us, her girlfriend Kirika at her side."You three join the Aces and Solomon; help them so that we can end this."
I nodded in acknowledgement, then gestured for my teammates to follow me towards the 'center' of the Incubator's dimension, as much as concepts of normal space held in it. We soared towards what seemed to be a giant, glowing, blue-white knot, made up of glowing threads, numbers and symbols, whose light was like a Sun, and thus drew the attention - and multiple attacks - from the Sun-Snuffers we had liberated.
A sudden lurch as space warped at our approach, and the globe of cosmic threads turned into a blue-white floor of woven fractals of space-time and energy, such were the bizarre changes possible in this World.
Lances of bloody light soared towards us, hurled by a Data version of a Tudor Queen in a long, flowing, black-and-red gown that marked her as the one whose story did not end in triumph (the one who was known for winning never chose to be a Magical Girl and so had a better reputation). Her weapon was a sceptre with a giant ruby at its head that was flanged like a mace, and it was that which launched glowing shards of crimson light at us.
"Stand aside!" I shouted as I swung Basileus in Glaive Form to parry each beam, even as Sayaka closed in to engage our opponent in melee range and Kyosuke's violin summoned a swarm of Laser Drones to circle her, shooting smaller beams that eventually overwhelmed the holographic body, causing it to disintegrate into motes of light.
"One can almost believe that every important woman who failed to win their battles was a Puella Magi," I said ruefully as we pressed on, chasing the pink light of Nanoha's Magic.
Eventually, we joined up with the Aces and Solomon, who was standing still on the glowing floor, facing a Replica of a Puella Magi who wore a headdress of gold and long, flowing robes of dyed linen. Her hair underneath the headdress was jet-black that contrasted with light brown, coppery skin that was almost fair.
"Mother," Solomon said. "The Incubators had enough cunning to use your likeness."
Bathsheba, mother of Solomon, wife of King David of Israel, who had deliberately gotten her first husband killed to get her, and was punished by God. I had looked up the story.
"When I accepted the sacred charge of the Puella Magi," she spoke. "I gave you the Incubators' Wisdom as part of my wish, knowing that as a man, that power won't lead you to Witchcraft. You were a great King, one who even then, had a wider vision than all of us. A vision you can only say is God's -"
Solomon sighed and said, "I've doubted multiple times, but right now, I don't see why I should not believe in a God, not in my moment of triumph. I lived through millenia of war and suffering, guided multiple peoples and nations to law, order, and civilization. The toll in blood is an entire sea, my mistakes, a weight that even now is hard to understand even with my Wisdom. If there is a God, he must have had a very roundabout way of leading me to this moment where you give me the Incubators' final offer."
His eyes glinted as he said, "Give it, so I may refuse."
Data-Bathsheba spoke, "Universes die. Existence fades back to nothingness. We are all bubbles of space-time in the void. The Incubators have made themselves more than that, by choosing the life of this Universe above all other commitments. It is not too late to resume holding back the end of all things."
Solomon responded as I looked at him, "Millenia ago, I would have believed that. But now I realize that not only is the desire to survive an emotion felt by a species that despises the concept of emotion… but so is the desire for meaning."
The Ancient Levantine King turned towards me and said, "Hirose Ren, the young Sergeant Major of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. Everyone wants meaning in life. Where do you draw meaning from?"
I gave it a moment's thought, then I said, "The people who love me and whom I love. I don't get why people need more. Like, people are precious. Life is precious, even when it has to be shed. So… why not just be kind to each other? And if you can't do that because there's not enough time or space or food or needs, well, why not find a way? I know it sounds naive, but I'm a Magical Boy among Magical Girls, and we're supposed to get things done, including the impossible."
The hologram of Bathsheba in her golden headdress flickered, as she said in a voice whose tone was slipping from a normal human's to something resembling Kyubey's, "So… an equilibrium where the necessity of competition is negated? I do not understand where you can get meaning from that; that sounds like a negation of -"
"Maybe you should," Solomon said plainly as he shouted in a commanding tone, a tone that echoed in the minds of all in the dimension, including the TSAB fleet still engaging the Incubators' infrastructure, "Incubators! Hear the word of the one who has your knowledge, your power, and yet whose Wisdom has the same gaps as yours'!"
The liberated Sun-Snuffers glowed, then they projected a clear note of song into everyone's heads, the very start of a song - No, a psalm!
Nanoha projected a dome of pink light over all of us, then said, "Solomon's trying to connect with the Sun-Snuffers we freed - It's going to take some time and the Incubators will hurl everything they have left at us - Everything!"
Data-Bathsheba lashed out, conjuring golden chariot wheels with iron scythes to hurl at us, while Kyubey bodies began swarming out of holes in space-time that had only just opened up, their red eyes glancing at Solomon, first in condescending curiosity, then bewilderment, then fear.
Shards of concentrated space-time containing entire Supernovas' worth of energy hurled themselves at us, forcing Nanoha to teleport us out of the area and into Fleet Admiral Chrono Harlown's warship, which was coordinating the TSAB fleet's combined magical shielding.
More cosmic strings accompanied by holographic Puella Magi lashed out at the ships, straining the overlapping forcefields as Fate and Hayate turned off the limiters preventing full access to their Mana just in case the shields needed a boost of strength.
"The Sun-Snuffers, then Hirose Rika's cybernetic parts, then the processing power the TSAB's warships can spare…" Solomon spoke again, listing every asset he was linking to before adding, "Lucas' device, Homura's Soul Gem now that it's linked to me by her second wish to me to refill her Shield…"
"Stop your yapping - yer wasting time!" Hayate slipped back to her Kansai accent as Holographic Puella Magi began to slip through the ship's barriers, accompanied by more Kyubey bodies/terminals, only to be casually slapped aside by Precia and Fate, who were grudgingly working together.
Solomon shut up and closed his eyes to concentrate.
The ship shook, the joint armada's barriers flickered one more time as the Mages outside either teleported back to their ships or were torn apart by a thousand hazards -
And a bright light shone, one that was barely muted by the pink barrier. Flashes of information, then emotion, glimpses of everything the Incubators had inflicted on Humanity and other species.
What is this? No - It cannot be!
This is an anomaly!
No, we refuse!
Everything we did, it could not have meant nothing!
We can't be infected; we must purge this infohazard - AHHHH!
"He's giving the Incubators emotions with the Sun-Snuffers' help," Fate explained as she stood beside Nanoha, her wife. "And the Snuffers are making sure their former captors can keep feeling them, that they won't go back to old habits."
Hayate's eyes glinted as she added, "A fate worse than death from their perspective, yet at the same time one that keeps us from murdering an entire species. Best option for them, I'd say."
"Sergeant Major Ren," Nanoha spoke to me. "We won. In the first war the Time-Space Administration Bureau waged against a peer, and we won."
She then followed up, "I have a daughter, a clone of the Belkan Saint King that I and Fate took in as our own. She is in the age range targeted by the Incubators. If you hadn't started that war, they might have gone after her. So thank you."
I still started that war. Several TSAB ships were still wreckage along with many of their crew. The TSAB itself had its largest loss of life since the collapse of Ancient Belka 75 years ago.
So my response was, "It doesn't feel like I won."
Nanoha smiled at me and said, "Victory does not always have to feel like Victory; sometimes, what's important is that you saved those you care about…"
Disclaimer: I don't own Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Puella Magi Madoka Magica (or its spinoffs, including Magia Record), nor the face of one character from Ensemble Stars (that I am using for my OC). Solomon (yes, that Solomon) is a Historical Domain Character, but this take on him and the other Historical Characters who appear in this story other than Jeanne D'Arc (who has a canon appearance in a PMMM spinoff), is mine. Also, I have not watched Walpurgisnacht Rising yet, so I apologize for any deviations from any new canon it set.
Hirose Ren
Hangar Bay, The Illumina, Earth Orbit
27 Days after Walpurgisnacht
After that was a week of action after action, to the point where even I, who was used to an ungodly speedy pace, felt like I had whiplash.
The TSAB, after several days of surprise and confusion, rallied to terminate or liberate the Sun-Snuffers even from Midchilda itself now that it was known that Snuffers could be freed from the Incubators' technological shackles. Even then, a few of the Snuffers had to die; not every TSAB member shared the Aces' idealistic morality or sympathy for the mind-shackled creatures used as weapons of mass destruction.
Now, the Illumina, accompanied by a small flotilla of ships led by the newly-promoted in wartime Fleet Admiral Chrono Harlown's flagship vessel, was back to the Solar System, ready to make the final move against the Incubators with a herd of the latter's own Sun-Snuffers in tow, released from the torture the Incubators put them through.
Fleet Admiral Chrono's words echoed through the intercom clearly: The remaining Jewel Seeds have been picked up from Midchilda along with a few more Lost Logia that may be of use against the Incubators in their home dimension, which the Time-Space Administration Bureau will attempt to invade to force the Incubators to cease operations or face consequences.
Left unsaid was what consequences can cow Kyubey and his 'collective'. But if there was a way to avoid committing genocide even against… people like them, the Aces would find it. Or Lucas, who should be returning from his trip to return Jail to Gruen Orbital Prison at any time now, with Rika in tow.
Oh, right, I was waiting for those two in The Illumina's hangar bay, pacing the recently-cleaned floor while Kyosuke was taking a call from his parents and Hitomi while Sayaka and Kyoko bragged to each other about how many of the Incubators' Dark Matter constructs each of them had destroyed during the battle for Midchilda just three days ago.
Two magic circles and a flash of light later, Lucas and Rika teleported into the hangar bay, with Rika waving her hand in greeting before saying, "We're back! Blondie insisted on scanning my code for anything that the Doctor guy put in at the last minute, so we ended up being late. Long story short, Little Brother… I'm clean."
Lucas cleared his throat, his gold eyes glinting as he asked matter-of-factly, "The Aces are on Fleet Admiral Harlown's ship? They didn't emotionally hurt you back on Vaizen, right?"
Ouch. Why was he bringing that up now? Was I really too obvious with my fears?
"It was fine," I replied. "There was a close call, but Homura apparently got debriefed first; she probably said to them that I did well and saved her girlfriend Madoka and a lot of people, so I was only told that next time, I am going to get the right tools to do it the right way, meaning no mass healings and rushing to start wars without proper authorization."
Lucas looked relieved; Rika patted his blond head for a second. Honestly, Lucas looked a lot like Mami with his hair and eyes -
A flashback to when I was first warped into Midchilda. Lucas was starry-eyed when I landed, but his eyes were darker than the gold I now remembered.
I looked at my adoptive brother again and decided that my memory must have mistaken his eyes for anything other than amber, yellow, or gold. After all, I just fell out of the sky; I was in shock!
"So," Rika interrupted, patting my hair unprompted with her cybernetic hand, "I and your brother agree on exactly one thing: We should not let the Aces have all the action… Especially as with all due respect, little bro, we can't just make friends with the Incubators after blasting them with a Starlight Breaker or ten."
Oh, right; the TSAB are against genocide, and as someone raised by them for the last four years, I knew that life was valuable… even those damn - I mean danged - weasels' own.
I instinctively looked at Lucas, knowing he had a solution.
"Solomon," Lucas spoke solemnly as his golden eyes glinted in the hangar's light.
Yeah, they were natural gold; I must have mistaken them for something closer to -
"See?" Rika said as she lightly slapped my back, "That Bible Story King can probably pull a solution out of his… pockets. No need to worry, Little Brother."
I couldn't help but notice a sharp glance she directed towards Lucas, the same sort of glance she gave me when she was covering something I said or did back in… those days.
It was probably nothing. I'm glad they're getting along well.
Then we received a transmission; it was time.
In any other circumstance, letting Precia Testarossa have access to most of the Jewel Seeds held by the TSAB was a failure of judgement and a gateway to calamities beyond normal understanding. Same for letting her board the same ship as the Aces and Fleet Admiral Chrono Harlown.
But, as the ship shook, and a holographic screen projected by our Devices showed space and time ripping itself apart to show the Incubators' home dimension, a surreal realm of colors, random shapes, and strings of living mathematical symbols, I realized that this was both necessary… and regrettable.
With only a little more tact and subtlety, if I had just done a little less and been a lot more quiet, I could have made it so that less people died.
"People are dying now because of me," I whispered to myself. "I haven't seen them, but people die in wars and I started one."
Rika and Lucas didn't answer, even as Kyosuke and Sayaka ran up from where they had been talking with Mami and Kyoko.
Sayaka then reminded me about why I and Kyosuke liked her, "It's time - Let's give the Incubators a beatdown they won't forget!"
I smiled. Today was an hour of justice, despite my doubts.
The Illumina flew into the rift, and we were in for the fight of our lives.
Not everyone was Nanoha, Fate or Hayate.
Not everyone was on the level of their students.
Not everyone was like me, either.
And the Incubators knew it when they took advantage of their home terrain, where literal cosmic strings sliced apart the ships at our flanks, scattering the pieces across multiple dimensions and forcing the bulk of our armada to draw closer together and overlap their magical shields even as they pressed on to find the center of the Incubator infrastructure that maintained this dimension and the rest of their technology.
Many were evacuated, but others died, and I felt each new death as I fought beside my team outside the ships, my Barrier Jacket spending overtime to ward off the hostile effects of the foes' dimension.
And the worst part was that the Incubators did not just content themselves with giant cosmic cables; they hurled an army of glowing constructs of hard light that took on the form of girls from a wide array of historical periods.
Jeanne D'Arc, Cleopatra, Queen Himiko and Helen of Troy, all who had been Magical Girls contracted by Kyubey in the past, replicas of them and other tragic women of History all were sent in waves against our ships and the Mages who fought outside.
A long-haired girl who was much like Homura, yet fought with twin daggers and chose an outfit of black leather fought beside the Data-Clone of Jeanne as the latter tore a gash on the hull of the Illumina with a beam from her sword.
This long-haired girl, whom Lucas identified as 'Riz Hawkwood' over comms, was able to keep up with Kyoko and Mami combined, preventing them from helping Homura, whose Shield had blocked Data-Jeanne's Blade as it came down.
As for me, Sayaka, and Kyosuke, we three charged towards Data-Himiko, who was firing shards of glass at us, while perfectly predicting the counterattacks of Kyosuke's Violin Laser Drones and creating large mirror panes that reflected the beams back at us.
"Step aside; let someone who can tell the future fight someone else who can tell the future…" Oriko Mikuni interrupted haughtily, breaking her absence of several weeks as she teleported right behind us, her girlfriend Kirika at her side."You three join the Aces and Solomon; help them so that we can end this."
I nodded in acknowledgement, then gestured for my teammates to follow me towards the 'center' of the Incubator's dimension, as much as concepts of normal space held in it. We soared towards what seemed to be a giant, glowing, blue-white knot, made up of glowing threads, numbers and symbols, whose light was like a Sun, and thus drew the attention - and multiple attacks - from the Sun-Snuffers we had liberated.
A sudden lurch as space warped at our approach, and the globe of cosmic threads turned into a blue-white floor of woven fractals of space-time and energy, such were the bizarre changes possible in this World.
Lances of bloody light soared towards us, hurled by a Data version of a Tudor Queen in a long, flowing, black-and-red gown that marked her as the one whose story did not end in triumph (the one who was known for winning never chose to be a Magical Girl and so had a better reputation). Her weapon was a sceptre with a giant ruby at its head that was flanged like a mace, and it was that which launched glowing shards of crimson light at us.
"Stand aside!" I shouted as I swung Basileus in Glaive Form to parry each beam, even as Sayaka closed in to engage our opponent in melee range and Kyosuke's violin summoned a swarm of Laser Drones to circle her, shooting smaller beams that eventually overwhelmed the holographic body, causing it to disintegrate into motes of light.
"One can almost believe that every important woman who failed to win their battles was a Puella Magi," I said ruefully as we pressed on, chasing the pink light of Nanoha's Magic.
Eventually, we joined up with the Aces and Solomon, who was standing still on the glowing floor, facing a Replica of a Puella Magi who wore a headdress of gold and long, flowing robes of dyed linen. Her hair underneath the headdress was jet-black that contrasted with light brown, coppery skin that was almost fair.
"Mother," Solomon said. "The Incubators had enough cunning to use your likeness."
Bathsheba, mother of Solomon, wife of King David of Israel, who had deliberately gotten her first husband killed to get her, and was punished by God. I had looked up the story.
"When I accepted the sacred charge of the Puella Magi," she spoke. "I gave you the Incubators' Wisdom as part of my wish, knowing that as a man, that power won't lead you to Witchcraft. You were a great King, one who even then, had a wider vision than all of us. A vision you can only say is God's -"
Solomon sighed and said, "I've doubted multiple times, but right now, I don't see why I should not believe in a God, not in my moment of triumph. I lived through millenia of war and suffering, guided multiple peoples and nations to law, order, and civilization. The toll in blood is an entire sea, my mistakes, a weight that even now is hard to understand even with my Wisdom. If there is a God, he must have had a very roundabout way of leading me to this moment where you give me the Incubators' final offer."
His eyes glinted as he said, "Give it, so I may refuse."
Data-Bathsheba spoke, "Universes die. Existence fades back to nothingness. We are all bubbles of space-time in the void. The Incubators have made themselves more than that, by choosing the life of this Universe above all other commitments. It is not too late to resume holding back the end of all things."
Solomon responded as I looked at him, "Millenia ago, I would have believed that. But now I realize that not only is the desire to survive an emotion felt by a species that despises the concept of emotion… but so is the desire for meaning."
The Ancient Levantine King turned towards me and said, "Hirose Ren, the young Sergeant Major of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. Everyone wants meaning in life. Where do you draw meaning from?"
I gave it a moment's thought, then I said, "The people who love me and whom I love. I don't get why people need more. Like, people are precious. Life is precious, even when it has to be shed. So… why not just be kind to each other? And if you can't do that because there's not enough time or space or food or needs, well, why not find a way? I know it sounds naive, but I'm a Magical Boy among Magical Girls, and we're supposed to get things done, including the impossible."
The hologram of Bathsheba in her golden headdress flickered, as she said in a voice whose tone was slipping from a normal human's to something resembling Kyubey's, "So… an equilibrium where the necessity of competition is negated? I do not understand where you can get meaning from that; that sounds like a negation of -"
"Maybe you should," Solomon said plainly as he shouted in a commanding tone, a tone that echoed in the minds of all in the dimension, including the TSAB fleet still engaging the Incubators' infrastructure, "Incubators! Hear the word of the one who has your knowledge, your power, and yet whose Wisdom has the same gaps as yours'!"
The liberated Sun-Snuffers glowed, then they projected a clear note of song into everyone's heads, the very start of a song - No, a psalm!
Nanoha projected a dome of pink light over all of us, then said, "Solomon's trying to connect with the Sun-Snuffers we freed - It's going to take some time and the Incubators will hurl everything they have left at us - Everything!"
Data-Bathsheba lashed out, conjuring golden chariot wheels with iron scythes to hurl at us, while Kyubey bodies began swarming out of holes in space-time that had only just opened up, their red eyes glancing at Solomon, first in condescending curiosity, then bewilderment, then fear.
Shards of concentrated space-time containing entire Supernovas' worth of energy hurled themselves at us, forcing Nanoha to teleport us out of the area and into Fleet Admiral Chrono Harlown's warship, which was coordinating the TSAB fleet's combined magical shielding.
More cosmic strings accompanied by holographic Puella Magi lashed out at the ships, straining the overlapping forcefields as Fate and Hayate turned off the limiters preventing full access to their Mana just in case the shields needed a boost of strength.
"The Sun-Snuffers, then Hirose Rika's cybernetic parts, then the processing power the TSAB's warships can spare…" Solomon spoke again, listing every asset he was linking to before adding, "Lucas' device, Homura's Soul Gem now that it's linked to me by her second wish to me to refill her Shield…"
"Stop your yapping - yer wasting time!" Hayate slipped back to her Kansai accent as Holographic Puella Magi began to slip through the ship's barriers, accompanied by more Kyubey bodies/terminals, only to be casually slapped aside by Precia and Fate, who were grudgingly working together.
Solomon shut up and closed his eyes to concentrate.
The ship shook, the joint armada's barriers flickered one more time as the Mages outside either teleported back to their ships or were torn apart by a thousand hazards -
And a bright light shone, one that was barely muted by the pink barrier. Flashes of information, then emotion, glimpses of everything the Incubators had inflicted on Humanity and other species.
What is this? No - It cannot be!
This is an anomaly!
No, we refuse!
Everything we did, it could not have meant nothing!
We can't be infected; we must purge this infohazard - AHHHH!
"He's giving the Incubators emotions with the Sun-Snuffers' help," Fate explained as she stood beside Nanoha, her wife. "And the Snuffers are making sure their former captors can keep feeling them, that they won't go back to old habits."
Hayate's eyes glinted as she added, "A fate worse than death from their perspective, yet at the same time one that keeps us from murdering an entire species. Best option for them, I'd say."
"Sergeant Major Ren," Nanoha spoke to me. "We won. In the first war the Time-Space Administration Bureau waged against a peer, and we won."
She then followed up, "I have a daughter, a clone of the Belkan Saint King that I and Fate took in as our own. She is in the age range targeted by the Incubators. If you hadn't started that war, they might have gone after her. So thank you."
I still started that war. Several TSAB ships were still wreckage along with many of their crew. The TSAB itself had its largest loss of life since the collapse of Ancient Belka 75 years ago.
So my response was, "It doesn't feel like I won."
Nanoha smiled at me and said, "Victory does not always have to feel like Victory; sometimes, what's important is that you saved those you care about…"