Awesome / Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

• Episode 5 is the first time we get to see Nanoha and Fate in actual combat. Both of them looking like a pair or mobile suits--complete with launching dialogue--as they turn several Gadget Drones to scrap.
• Episode 8: The "White Devil" training incident, where Nanoha is disappointed with Teana after she and her partner tried to use a reckless strategy against her in a mock battle. After Teana loses it and attacks Nanoha, Nanoha just calmly stands there and catches a magical blade with one bare hand, stopping the wielder in mid-air. And with the other, she catches the fist of the team's Hollywood Cyborg without so much as flinching. And then proceeds to produce Beam Spam from her fingertips without any assistance from her staff.
• Subaru's scene of Unstoppable Rage from Episode 17. "Give her back!"
  • From the same episode, Caro finally has her Berserk Button pushed and summons Voltaire to utterly destroy an army of drones.
• Nanoha's dialogue when Subaru mentions being worried about Nanoha's state of mind after Vivio has been kidnapped.
  Nanoha: "Don't worry. The Nanoha you've always admired is an invincible ace who won't lose to anybody."
• Episode 12: The first time we ever see Hayate in combat in StrikerS. Right after Fate offers to release her limiter to take on all the flyers, Hayate comes in and tells Fate that SHE will release her limiter taking her from an A class mage to an S class. She does this, then unleashes the mother of all laser attacks in Hræsvelgr, which is essentially a huge 5-barrel cannon that fires magical ICBMs. It doesn't get much more badass than that. And she's still not at full SS class power.
• Nanoha and Fate have the Numbers essentially stuck between a rock and a hard place as their two giant lasers are coming at them from both sides. Then they notice Fate ceasing her pursuit and wonder what's going on. And then it cuts to Hayate in the sky, casting a very ugly spell that nearly everyone forgot that she still had: Diabolic Emission. Even though the Numbers escape, their reaction makes it priceless.
  • During the same scene, we have Nanoha and Fate's combination attack from both sides: A simultaneous Exelion Buster and Trident Smasher. What a wonderful teamwork from the three Aces. Diabolic Emission to cover the area, then Trident Smasher and Exelion Buster to knock them out (even though, it doesn't work).
• Credit where credit is due to Vice when Section Six is under attack by Scalietti's forces, and the Aces and Forwards are at Ground HQ, leaving behind mostly support personal, Vice picks up a gun and starts blasting the various Gadgets that break into the base. It's not Storm Raider either, it's just a normal blaster that regular soldiers use in this setting, and he manages to hold the base down by himself verily well until he sees Lutceia and his Trauma Button is pressed.
• During the final battles, Shamal and Zafira effortlessly locate the strategist Otto, annihilate her entire security detail in seconds, and trap her. Especially satisfying considering that Otto, with help from Deed and a small army of Gadget Drones, had blasted them into oblivion the last time they fought. Revenge is ever so sweet.
• Subaru's fight with her brainwashed sister Ginga at the end of StrikerS was extremely badass, if for no other reason than having two Wing Road spells criss-crossing while the riders took turns punching at each other. Even Subaru's Device Mach Caliber has a Crowning Moment of Awesome when Subaru was knocked unconscious, and Mach Caliber yanked her body around so it could keep fighting until she came around. Complete with nonchalant: "Just as rehearsed" when Subaru wakes up. The coup de grâce that seals the awesomeness is how Subaru finishes it, by going head to head with the person she's lost to every time so far. In the final exchange, Subaru's defenses give out, and Ginga's strike destroys her headband and leaves a nasty gash on her forehead... just before her defenses give out as well, and Subaru's Divine Buster proves the truth of her words:
  Subaru: "One hit... is all it takes!"
• Teana gets isolated by three members of the Quirky Miniboss Squad. After getting crippled and using shoot and run tactics against them for most of the fight, she baits all three of them to her last stand and proceeds to counter all of their attacks, smoothly taking them out one by one. When after dropping two of the Combat Cyborgs with ease she raises one of her guns and points it at the only remaining Combat Cyborg to quite calmly state "You're under arrest."
  • What makes this all the more awesome is how she pulled this off. The Combat Cyborgs were averting Mook Chivalry by making highly-coordinated attacks rather than attacking one-at-a-time. Teana realizes that that their attacks are actually choreographed so that they don't interfere with each other, which makes the attacks predictable. When the Combat Cyborgs attack the final time, Teana has a split second to recognize the pattern, then she launches a pair of counter-attacks to disrupt the first two attacks against her. This leaves her with an opening to get a stunning shot on Wendi. She then blocks the attack that she knows is coming from Deed, and finally the distraction shots that she fired loop around and knock Wendi and Deed out. It's all over in seconds.
  • Then, just as Deed is getting back up and ready to kill Teana, a single shot, fired from a helicopter a tremendous distance away, streaks right by Teana's head and nails Deed right in the face to put her right back down. Ladies and gentlemen, Vice and Stormraider have returned. Not only did he finish that battle and not only did he save someone who looked up to him, but it completed his personal My Greatest Second Chance.
• Sister Schach's victory over Sein. Sein phases through the ground under Schach and grabs her ankle in an attempt to immobile her so that she'd get crushed by a falling Type III Gadget Drone. Schach, without skipping a beat, immediately uses her Device to blow up the very ground she's standing on to escape, sending them both crashing several floors down. The best part is Sein's expression of pure shock and fear afterwards, as she realizes that she's now alone with a Belkan Knight who's battle-crazy to do that just to get at her opponent.
• The righteous asskicking that Fate gives Jail Scaglietti and two of the remaining Numbers with her new and improved Sonic Drive. It also qualifies as a CMOA for Erio and Caro, as their You Are Not Alone speech about how they were the ones who chose their path, and that all Fate did was raise them to be strong-willed enough to do so, was instrumental in breaking Fate out of the Heroic BSoD induced by Scaglietti's Breaking Speech. After smacking Scaglietti to the wall she calmly walks up to him and tells him that he is under arrest.
  • Afterwards Fate stays behind in the collapsing lair, which Quattro has set to self destruct, in order to save the people that are still trapped in Scaglietti's base. With Shari's help Fate manages to figure out the code necessary to abort the self destruct sequence and save the life's of those in Jail's People Jars as well as the numbers she defeated and Scalietti himself.
• Despite being a Mad Scientist and Big Bad, Jail Scaglietti still deserves credit for being able to pull off an All Your Base Are Belong to Us, then telling everyone how they suck because they couldn't stop his creations, proving once again that You Can't Thwart Stage One. Also for displaying his brilliant Slasher Smile even after Fate pulled herself together, beat his bodyguards down and attack him with her BFS. You can say what you want about the man, but he kept his style until the end!
• Everything Vita does in the last part of the series is badass to the nth degree. However, two moments in particular stand out:
  • The Saint Cradle's engine room. Imminent Beam Spam from an utterly insane security system. Gushing blood from a back-to-front chest wound. Vita's response?: "Bring it on."
  • "If I fail here... everything will have been pointless! I will have failed... to protect Hayate and Nanoha! So, Graf Eisen... BREAK. THROUGH. IT!" *SMASH* Hayate's line when she catches Vita afterwards seals the deal (especially since it's a Meaningful Echo to Vita's earlier Badass Boast): "Iron Hammer Knight Vita and Graf Eisen the Iron Count fought so valiantly until they became damaged to this point. (She looks at the engine, which has Graf Eisen's drill bit stuck in it and is starting to crack) There is nothing in this world (the cracks spread over the entire engine) that they cannot destroy!" (the entire engine explodes)
  • It becomes even more awesome when you factor in just how long she was fighting. Judging by the Exact Time to Failure counter at the end of each episode, there were at least 41 minutes between when she was Impaled with Extreme Prejudice and when she arrived at the engine room, and it's possible that she spent up to the next hour and a half smashing the damn thing (with every attack being Cast from Hit Points). Calling her a Determinator would be a massive understatement.
• Nanoha's Crowning Moment of Awesome for the season comes in Episode 25. She's in the middle of a fight that she's losing while her opponent is being held in a rapidly failing hold spell. She is also standing in a powerful anti-magic field. She receives confirmation from Raising Heart that Quattro's location has been found on the other side of the ship. So she stomps the floor underneath her, (cracking it in the DVD version), loads 5 cartridges into Raising Heart just to boost it up, before shunting in another full clip, complete with satisfyingly chunky "kerthunk". Only then does she deliver the resulting payload in its entirety, blasting through the walls separating the throne room and the villain's control station, wiping out everything in the path, including Quattro. The Smug Snake's look of absolute horror when she realizes just how absolutely screwed she is? Priceless.
  • What makes this an even more awesome moment is that Nanoha isn't so much as losing as she was stalling for time. She was repeatedly shielding herself and keeping Vivio, who at that time was both overwhelmingly powerful and had been brainwashed to fight her, at bay with binds and barriers, while Raising Heart was searching for Quattro using Wide Area Search. When she finds Quattro, she only had three words for her...
    Nanoha: I found you...
• Signum and Agito in the final episode. Two words: "Karyuu Issen". She casts a very long ass Flaming Sword and in one swing, she destroys tons and tons of drones.
• The "After Days" special manga chapter. Signum vs. Nanoha, no holds barred. In its final moments, Signum takes the full force from a new attack from Nanoha in Blaster Mode 1 then, one-upping the famous Out of the Inferno moment of Nanoha, remains in the ensuing flames like the total badass that she is and uses it as a cover so she can set up Sturm Falken and shoot an unprepared Nanoha out of Starlight Breaker. Good God, Signum! Nanoha still managed to get a draw somehow although she was dizzy and on the ground after the last exchange of blows, while Signum was not.
  • This was the second fight between Nanoha and Signum. The first mock battle between the two of them was interrupted, most likely because both of them were a little too much into it.
• Vivio is currently the holder of the title of "Most Befriended" by taking not one, not two... but FIVE Starlight Breakers and being able to stand up afterwards. Her awesomeness and Moe factor were so off the charts that Nanoha decides to adopt her afterwards.
• The final episode is a giant one for the Forwards who, in a great Book Ends moment, are all instrumental in saving their mentors from their respective perils. Nanoha, Vivio, Hayate and Rein are stuck on the Cradle that is emitting AMF preventing them from escaping, and the Cradle is self repairing all of the damage done during Nanoha and Vivio's fight leaving them trapped. Meanwhile Fate is still in Scalietti's base and the wall she is directly under is slowly collapsing above her. That's where the Forwards come in:
  • On the Star's side, thanks to Vice giving them an opening, Teana and Subara drive into the Cradle using Teana's motorcycle. The AMF prevents the girls from using their magic but not Subaru's Cyborg implants and Subaru uses them to smash through the throne rooms doors thus giving Nanoha and co the chance to escape.
  • Meanwhile on the Lightning Side Caro flies her and Erio to Scalietti's base and uses Voltaire to stomp on the remaining Gadget drones while sending Erio out to help Fate. Immediately after Fate shuts down the bases self destruct system a piece of the celling she was under collapses and is about to crush her. Fortunately Erio arrives and saves Fate using his own Sonic Move and the group escapes.
  • Suffice it to say that, after all of that, Nanoha and the others officially give the Forwards the title of Strikers.
• Credit where it is due, even though they can't do anything until the very end, the Cavalry does finally arrive with Chrono and his fleet. Once he confirms that everyone has been safely evacuated from the Cradle he sees that it is "their turn now" and his fleet of about half a dozen ships activate Arc-en-ciel's and blast the Cradle all at once, blowing it away and officially ending the JS Incident.
• Nanoha's ordeal after she suffered horrendous injuries during a mission deserves mention here despite not being elaborated upon in the main story. As was stated by Shamal, the injuries Nanoha suffered that time were horrible enough that Mid-childan doctors claimed her military career as finished and being crippled for life also being a strong possibility. This is because Mid-childan medical science, though vastly more advanced than Earth's, also works by augmenting the body's capability to heal itself. Nanoha completely recovering from said injuries strongly implies that she did so through sheer force of will.

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