Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Episode 14
魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerS（ストライカーズ）Ep. 14

SPOILER Summary:

Nanoha wakes up in her and Fate’s giant bed and is a little surprised to find something in the bed between them. Its Vivio, causing Nanoha to carefully detach herself from the sleeping Vivio’s grip so she can get dressed. Vivio starts showing signs of distress at not having Nanoha to snuggle with, so Nanoha puts her close to fate so the two can snuggle together while they sleep. Nanoha heads to the training grounds to put the rookies through another training session with their Devices’ secondary modes. She’s pleased with their progress and releases them to return to the barracks, where they discuss working with their Device’s secondary mode. Nanoha then sees Fate and Vivio and the trio go to breakfast.

Tia and Subaru are working in their cubicals when Tia is summoned to Hayate’s office. Hayate is going to have Tia accompany her on her trip to meet with Admiral Chrono Harlaown, Hayate feeling this will be good for Tia’s career. At the Dimensional Space TSA HQ, Chrono and Inspector Acous discuss the situation with General Geis and his apparent agenda. Hayate and Tia arrive with Acous taking care of serving cake and tea while Hayate telepathically reports to Chrono that Tia doesn’t know of the prophecy, only that the ground HQ is under a terrorist plot to attack it. After their meeting, Acous takes Tia off where they discuss Hayate and the division. Once Hayate and Tia leave for a restaurant that Acous suggested, Acous reports to Chrono his belief that Hayate is going to try to overdo it. Since Chrono can’t be directly involved for political reasons, Acous will be, using his Inspector job as cover.

Fate takes the Stars Squadron members Caro and Elio to accompany her on an investigation. While in flight, she takes them through a history lesson where they prove they are gifted in knowledge (and giving the audience some back story). She explains that there’s a terrorist threat against the ground HQ (not mentioning the prophecy) . She then thinks back to the meeting she had with Chrono, Knight Carim, Hayate, and Nanoha where she learned not only of the prophecy, but also of how General Geis refused to believe the prophecy. As such, he will not do what is believed to be necessary to improve the ground defenses. As such, the 6th Mobile Division’s true mission (with the Relic stuff also being important) is to fill the gap that General Geis has left in the event the HQ is attacked as predicted.

Subaru and Nanoha are left in the office to do office work. Vivio has been left at the apartment with Aina, the “housemother” and guarded by Zafila. Subaru finishes her work and comes to report to Nanoha, who’s researching Vivio. The two go to lunch, where they talk about what will become of Vivio. Nanoha says she’s considering becoming Vivio’s guardian as Fate had done for Caro and Elio. They head to Nanoha’s and Fate’s place where Vivio doesn’t really understand the guardian concept. However, when Subaru explains it as Nanoha being like Vivio’s mama, Vivio understands this and begins addressing Nanoha as “Mama.”

Elsewhere, Ginga reports on her investigation (which appears to be were Fate, Caro, and Elio went) to Major Nakajima. It appears that the girls involved in the recent battle against the 6th Mobile Division are cyborgs. Mariel Atenza, a chief engineer, confirms this. For Ginga and her father, this means that the Combat Cyborg Incident which killed Ginga and Subaru’s mother is not over. Major Nakajima leaves to meet with Hayate to correlate more data for the continued investigation.

Fate comes home and tells Vivio that Fate’s job will be to watch over Vivio and Nanoha. As such, Fate will be a mama of sorts to Vivio. Now that she has two mamas, Vivio addresses Fate as “Fate-mama” and Nanoha as “Nanoha-mama.” Meanwhile down in the cafeteria, Subaru is eating dinner with Caro and Elio and inquires about how they view Fate — as an older sister or as a mother. Caro sees Fate as an older sister but Elio isn’t sure. They aren’t sure how Fate views them and Elio doesn’t want to ask Fate about this.

Outside the city, Zest, Lutecia, and Agito observe the ground HQ facility.

Thoughts/Review:

No action this episode as we have some advancement on Vivio’s story with a Mother-children theme as well as the bigger story arc which will apparently have an attack on the TSA ground HQ. Based on the final scene, I guess that would be lead by Zest, Lutecia, and Agito as well as the “numbers” crew. If that happens, there could be some interesting battles.

I like Vivio, which is understandable and obviously to be expected. As such, I don’t trust her, especially since no one seems to be asking the questions, at least on camera. Nanoha was seen doing some research on Vivio, which was a nice way for the writers to show that something is being done on that front, even if they don’t make a big deal out of it. Still, now Vivio has to “mama’s” and that’s kind of cute. She is a sweetheart and I hope in the end, she doesn’t prove to be a Trojan horse.

It was interesting seeing how Caro and Elio view Fate, who’d taken them under her wing.

Overall, I enjoyed the episode, both for its table setting and the mother-child themes.