trans_9 | At the end of the day there's another day dawning

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At the end of the day there's another day dawning

In a side area of the hangar decks, in one of the spaces with the artificial gravity engaged for maintenance purposes, a set of huge parchments have been rolled out, scrawled across them with obtuse, arcane glyphs in languages thousands of years dead. At the center of the designs is scribed a complex pentacle pattern. Hundreds of candles have been laid out in intricate patterns at the edges of the designs.

And Roxie is there, waiting for her companions for the time being. Also, for some reason, she's using a permanent marker to draw more of those strange, complex glyphs onto her exposed skin, particularly focusing to a 'third eye' design on her forehead. Her glasses are off, vanished into a pocket or somewhere else; without them, there's something almost owlishly squinting to her eyes. A pile of supplies wait for Nanoha and Daimon—in particular, a pressure suit for each (also covered in strange glyphs) and lines to secure themselves to the deck, stand out.

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The artificial gravity didn't mean much to Nanoha, who flew in through the area as she did everywhere else (it was nice to not have to worry about TSAB authorization). She touched down just in time to hear Daimon's question, looking at the pressure suits. "...what're they for, anyway? We seem just fine without them."

Roxie points at a control box at a nearby panel. There's a safety lock, but it indeed does have a set of atmospheric controls. "If I bring something back with me that I can't handle, the most effective way to dispose of it may well be to violently vent the atmosphere from this section of the hangar to remove it from the ship. If that's necessary, I don't want either of you to get hurt."

She adjusts a few more of the candles.

"In that case, I believe it would be best if I left my trident inside the halls." As loathe as he was to be separated from it, he was confident that no one would steal it. Or to be more precise, he was confident that if it was stolen he could easily recover it.

"And what about your body?" Nanoha frowns. "We aren't going to sacrifice it just if something goes wrong, right?"

She starts suiting up anyway.

"If necessary, yes, though that should only be a last resort." Roxie gingerly steps her way to the middle of the laid-out parchments, very careful to tiptoe only in-between the complex patterns, and settles into the empty space there. "If I am in my right mind at that moment, however, I should be fine." She glances over in Daimon's direction, and then away, carefully pulling herself into an uncomfortable-looking lotus position. One hand slides into a pocket; it retrieves a little iron sphere, the size of a tennis ball, covered in odd symbols. She holds it out—slowly, it begins to float, as the symbols ignite into an odd blue glow. Sparks of static electricity crackle harmlessly between it and her outstretched hand...

Having safely deposited his trident, Daimon donned his pressure suit- or at least he attempted to. He had never handled this kind of suit before and he fumbled more than once, much to his irritation. Eventually, though, he managed to get it on.

Just not the right way.

"Well, if it happens... I should be able to put a Bind down to hold you in place, and the Barrier will hold enough air for us to last a few minutes. So that shouldn't be too much of an issue." Her attention turns over to Daimon, and she looks a bit sheepish. "Er, I think you... have it on backwards."

Roxie looks over to Daimon and Nanoha; strangely, those little electrical sparks are touching through her eyes now, harmlessly touching against her pupils and cheek. Slowly, very slowly, she's started to levitate off the laid-out parchment. Stray strands of her hair are sticking out a bit on end.

"Whatever you do, be careful. The dangers that return may not be entirely external."

"I am prepared for any danger... or at least I will be." It took some undignified squirming before Daimon was able to fix his suit. "By the Hadean Chimes." He muttered.

She nods. "I will too. Don't worry, Roxie, we won't let anyone get to you. You can count on us."

And then, that smile's fixed on Daimon again. "Daimon, right? I don't think we've met in person before. It's good to be working with you."

Slowly, the little sphere hovers to under Roxie, now that she's far enough above the floor to give it clearance, and she hovers up further. Slowly, still arcing those little harmless sparks across her, it starts to visibly enlarge, sections unlocking in chunks and rotating in impossible configurations to expand the internal volume before sealing back into a seamless sphere.

Before too long, she's almost 'sitting' on a sphere that would be big enough to support her if she weren't simply floating in the air a few inches above it. There's a weird, slight buzz, and a pair of 'wings' vibrate into place, curled around the sides of the sphere like ram horns, almost suspiciously similar in all but their shape to the ones manifested at Nanoha's ankles.

"Yes, I am Daimon Hellstrom and-" Daimon stopped talking and he stopped to watch Roxie. His mouth opened slightly. "I hope that my suit is on correctly now as I believe we have passed the point of no return."

Nanoha glanced over at him quickly and then nodded to reassure him. "It looks fine to me. I'm Nanoha, by the way! Anyway, let's get this started. Raising Heart?"

The jewel on her neck spoke in its familiar synthetic voice. "Yes, my master. Set Up: Barrier Jacket, Aggressor Mode. Raising Heart: Excelion Mode." In a flash of magenta light, Nanoha's plantsuit was replaced by the blue-and-white of her Barrier Jacket, the jewel now a golden spear in her hands. And the device spoke again: "Casting Barrier Field."

The three of them would find themselves at the center of a dome that rapidly swelled to thirty or so feet wide, tinging the entire world with a muted green otherworldly tint. Nanoha opened her eyes, looking at Daimon to explain. "We're now inside a Barrier spell - shifted a half-dimension over from the current one. It's not very much protection against anything with magic powers, but it means that we're shielded from anything nonmagical - and if we fight, we won't cause any collateral damage to the actual ship."

Slowly, Roxie pulls a brass ring from her pocket and slides it into her finger, and then an ivory-and-silver circlet out and pulls it into place on her head. Under her jacket, something shifts and bulges like a living thing moving, but nothing reveals itself. She settles her arms out onto her legs with her palms up. Slowly, her eyes close.

The glyphs on the sphere she's floating just above flare gold instead of electric-blue, and the sparks follow suit, suddenly flickering out to ground against the inner edge of the drawn pentacle without as much as damaging the parchment.

"I'm going in," Roxie says, very softly.

Now, for Nanoha and Daimon, it's time to... wait and see.

And time passes...

Roxie smiles, small, in her sleep. Slowly, slowly, her expression twists into something almost sadistic.

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At the end of the day there's another day dawning

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